Good Time(32)

“Sure, sure.” He nods. “Do you have time to create a room block for the Swanson event before lunch?”

I stop typing and pull the decoy rings from my finger, the ones I have stacked next to my wedding band so that it’s not obvious I’m wearing a wedding band. Then I lift my hand up to Mark’s face and wiggle my fingers.

“You did not!” Mark’s eyes widen, then narrow as if he can’t quite determine if I’m serious or playing an elaborate joke on him.

“I did. Don’t tell Lydia, she doesn’t know.”

“Huh,” Mark replies. His mouth opens then closes without any words coming forth.

I nod.

“So”—he draws the word out slowly—“married?”

“Married.”

“Isn’t that something.”

“It’s something all right.”

“So what are you gonna do?”

“What do you mean?” I bristle, turning away to stick my decoy rings back on. “Fifty percent of marriages end in divorce, it’s not like people who get married on purpose know what they’re doing either.”

“That is one way of looking at it.”

“Right?” I tap my pen against my desk, excited about this loophole. “Statistically I’m in good shape, don’t you think?”

“Sure, sure.” Mark nods along in the way one does when they’re humoring a crazy person.

“I’ve totally got my shit together, Mark. In fact, I created a room block for the Swanson event an hour ago and emailed it to you. So there.” I think marriage really suits me. For example, this morning I had a banana for breakfast instead of Cheez-Its and just now I sent that thing to Mark because I knew he needed it before he even asked. I think I’ve matured this weekend. It feels quite satisfying.

“Thank you for the email. I enjoyed the link to the new eyeshadow palette from Urban Decay.”

“Oh, crap. I included the wrong link?” Why am I such a disaster?

“Yup.”

I turn back to my keyboard and open a new email to Mark, attaching the correct link this time. Copy-pasting links can be the devil itself but at least I didn’t send him a link to porn. That would never happen, but only because I don’t use my work computer to look at porn.

“What in the hell are these?” Mark is holding one of the badges I made for Lydia last night, a look of confusion on his face. I can’t blame him because the badges are fairly ridiculous, if I’m using ‘ridiculous’ as a word that means ‘made of awesome.’

“Life achievement badges for Lydia,” I reply with a glance at the clock. I’m meeting her for lunch in ten minutes so I need to get moving. The employee cafeteria is a six-minute walk from my desk, because this place is huge. “It helps motivate her to complete adult tasks if she earns a badge,” I explain even though it’s obvious.

“Uh-huh.” Mark squints.

“Gimme.” I hold out my hand palm up. “I’ve got to meet her for lunch. I’m going to try the salad bar today because I’m married now and that’s the kind of bar married people hang out in.”

“That sounds right.” He slaps the badges into my palm. “Have fun.”





*



Fuck my life, salad bars are depressing. I stare at the pile of lettuce, cucumbers and green pepper on my plate and wonder if this step of adulthood is really necessary. The only thing that can salvage this is cheese. And ranch dressing. I slide my tray down the line and examine the rest of my options. I wonder if I like chickpeas? I wonder if Vince likes chickpeas? I wonder what the hell he does all day at the strip club?

Seriously though.

Is he reviewing invoices for toilet paper and replacing burnt-out neon light bulbs?

Doubtful.

I should probably learn how to pole-dance, take an interest in his interests. That would be a super wifely thing to do, wouldn’t it? I drop four servings’ worth of croutons onto my salad, then go off in search of Lydia. She’s already got a table so I plop down across from her with a huge grin. I cannot wait to hear about her weekend.

“So”—I dive straight in—“how was it?”

By “it,” I mean sex.

Lydia blushes, fidgets and bites her lip.

“Good,” she says, looking anywhere but at me.

“Good? That’s it?” Lydia’s inability to gossip is even more disappointing than this salad I’m eating. I’ve been looking forward to hearing the dirty details all weekend. Being nosey is such a burden at times, but I sigh and press on. “We’re both talking about sex, right? The sex was good?”

“So good.” Lydia’s fighting back a smile, her lips twisting.

“On a scale of one to hung, what are we talking about size-wise?” I hold up my hands, palms facing each other, and draw them apart, then closer, then apart again, waiting for her to tell me when to stop. “Was it smaller or larger than average?” I suspect Rhys is packing. I don’t want to brag but I’m a pretty good dickstimater. A dickstimater is a word for someone who is good at guessing dick size.

“I can’t tell you that!”

“Right. Because you’ve only seen the one dick and you don’t have anything to compare it to. Just tell me if it was longer or shorter than a stick of butter.”