Other People's Houses(70)

Michael was still nursing his. “Well then good luck to both of them.”

Charlie looked incredulous. “You wouldn’t care?”

“Of course I would care, but it clearly isn’t substantially affecting the quality of my marriage, right? If she’s managing to get a little on the side while still making everyone else happy, then congratulations. She’s even more competent than I thought. If she’s worked another guy into the mix, maybe she should be running a company, not me.”

“And you?” Charlie stepped out onto the deck a little, frowning. The boys were swinging properly now, and he could see the swing set flexing to a nerve-wracking degree.

“Do I cheat?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t even have sex with my wife, why on earth would I have sex with anyone else?”

Charlie turned to him and grinned. “Because you don’t have sex with your wife? You are a human being, after all.”

“Yeah, I guess. I just don’t get that horny anymore. I find women attractive, I watch porn, I whack off, but that driving, confusing level of desire that filled my twenties just went away. Maybe I’m happy, maybe I’m just too fucking tired. I’d rather lie in bed next to my comfortable, gentle wife and watch Netflix than go to a bar and hunt for fresh flesh. No contest.” He laughed. “I think I’d rather do that than almost anything, especially if in the distance I could hear my kids being thoroughly entertained and taken care of by someone else. But hey,” he took a final swig of his beer, “maybe I just haven’t met the right woman.”

“Or maybe you already have. And married her.”

Michael raised his bottle. “To my wife.”

“To Frances,” replied Charlie, “a faithful friend.”

Michael raised his eyebrows. “She’s not a dog.”

Charlie smiled. “What was she like when you first met her?”

“She was just the same. She’s nice, you know, a warm, loving woman who cares about other people. Maybe a bit too much, but that’s not the worst thing in the world. I was kind of an asshole, and she sorted me out.” He put down his beer bottle, wishing he’d had more coffee instead.

Charlie hesitated. “Was she always . . . you know . . . curvy?”

Michael laughed. “She’s overweight, Charlie, I can handle the truth. No, she was skinny. She always had big tits, but she was skinny everywhere else. Then she had three kids and filled the fuck out.” He indicated himself. “As did I, without the excuse of three pregnancies.”

“Does it bother you?”

“What?”

“That she let herself go?”

Michael looked at him curiously. “I don’t think she let herself go, Charlie. I think she just lets herself be.” He shrugged. “Do you know my friend Jason?”

Charlie nodded. “The one with red hair who bikes everywhere?”

“Yeah, the bike guy. Well, I met him around the same time I met Frances. He’s lost most of his hair and his ass kind of dropped, despite the cycling. Does anyone expect me to give a shit about that? Does anyone wonder if it affects our friendship?” He waited, but Charlie didn’t say anything. “It’s the same thing. I can’t expect Frances to do all that she’s done in the last twenty years, including simply aging twenty years, and not look different from the twenty-five-year-old I fell in love with. If she’s comfortable carrying extra weight, fair enough. If it bothers her enough, she’ll change it.” He drank some beer, and waved the bottle at Charlie. “I don’t get it when guys are like, ‘Oh, my wife isn’t like she used to be.’ Why would she be? Don’t you expect to change as you get older? I mean, I’ll look at a twenty-three-year-old as happily as the next guy—they’re pretty and their bodies are gorgeous—but what the fuck would we talk about? Juice cleanses and YouTube?” He made a face. “Besides, having daughters has ruined young women for me. All I can see is someone else’s daughter.”

Charlie thought about it. “Yeah, but what if they start out nice, like Anne, and then turn into selfish cheating cows?”

Michael shrugged. “No clue. But was everything else about her still good? Did she love your kids, take care of you, make you laugh, turn up when she said she would . . . ? If it was only sex then, you know, was that the only thing you loved about her? Is that the one thing that makes all the rest worthless?”

Kate came in, still carrying her Barbie, who’d given up the fight with the tape. “Dad, will you take me to the store? Barbie needs a hat.”



* * *



? ? ?

Out in the garden, Theo and Milo were swinging on the swings. They would try and stay in phase, but then one would pump harder and pull ahead.

“You have to stop pumping, idiot,” Milo said. “If you pump harder the swing goes higher.”

“I know how it works, buttface,” replied his friend. “But I’m bigger than you, so even if I only pump half the time I’m still going to go higher.”

“I don’t think that’s how it works, dorkasaurus. I might be smaller, but I’m stronger. I do Tae Kwon Do.”

Theo made a snorting noise. “Huh. I play soccer.”

“So do I.”