Pretty Little Wife(10)

“Well, it happened with Jim and . . .” Aaron flipped his fork around in the air. “I can’t remember her name.”

Of course he didn’t. Aaron sucked at names. Not guy names. No, he knew the mailman’s name and the guy who worked at the coffee place he stopped at after his Saturday-morning run. Even the guy who’d sold them that overly bright blue paint for the bathroom last year. But someone’s wife or girlfriend, or a female colleague? He stumbled every single time. It was as if all women registered in his mind only in connection to some guy he knew.

“Let’s make this easier. Call her Anne.” Lila reached for a roll. “Go on with the story.”

“Right.” Aaron pushed the butter closer to her before talking again. “Anne . . . you know, that might actually be her name.”

“I doubt it.” Her knife scraped across the plate as she scooped the butter up.

“What?”

She preferred the uncomfortable silence of the last few weeks to actual conversation. “You were saying?”

At least once a week during their marriage he accused her of not listening or showing any signs of caring about his work, so she pretended. So much pretending.

“Anne is a vet. She works at that animal hospital around the corner from that taqueria we like near Ithaca Commons.” Aaron stared at her for a few beats of silence before continuing. “She makes something like three times what he takes home as a high school teacher, and it’s killing him.”

Aaron had her attention now. The way he sat forward in his seat with his elbows balanced on the edge of the table. The excitement in his eyes and that insipid smile. It was as if he were internally cheering at the idea of a guy’s marriage crumbling thanks to a dented ego.

“He tried to tell her that she made him feel inferior, and she told him he was.”

Lila felt a sudden kinship with the nameless woman. “Maybe he is.”

“Yeah, right.” Aaron laughed as he reached over and tore off a piece from one of the rolls in the basket. Didn’t grab the whole thing because he tried to limit his carb intake. He insisted only a bite was enough to satisfy him. “Then she kicked him out.”

“Sounds fair.”

He had the nerve to frown at her. “You’re not serious.”

“I actually am.”

“You take her side even though you don’t know her?” He popped the piece of bread in his mouth.

“Neither do you, apparently.”

He shook his head. “I can’t talk to you when you’re like this.”

“Let’s examine the fact scenario you laid out. Why does he care how much she earns? I assume they both benefit from her paycheck. The money goes into an account, or they’re like us, multiple accounts, and then the bills get paid.” She shrugged. “He should thank her for doing more than her share and be grateful. Then shut up.”

“Look at you sticking up for Jim’s wife.” Aaron sat back in his chair, causing the wood to groan under the strain of his weight.

“Sounds like someone should.”

“At least you’re finally talking to me.” He sounded unhappy about that. “Aren’t I lucky?”

Yeah, she’d screwed up and let her indifference slip, but what the hell. Defending the woman they’d renamed Anne made her happier than anything else in the house had for months. “I can stop.”

“You’re too busy judging Jim and Anne to be quiet.”

She snorted and liked the sound so much she did it again. “Don’t pretend you know her name.”

“What the fuck is wrong with you? I’m trying to have a normal conversation.”

Her fault. He always made everything her fault. Shifted the burden and played the victim. “You get ticked off when we don’t talk about your work. Now that we are, you’re ticked off about that, too. It’s hard to make you happy.”

He let his hand fall against the tabletop with a hard slap. “Married couples talk, Lila.”

She could barely tolerate being in the same room with him. Not after those videos. “Did you read that somewhere?”

“This shit is you, not me.” He stood up and thudded across the kitchen to the refrigerator to grab another lite beer. His second. “It’s not normal. You’re closed off. Go stone-cold. You don’t care about anyone.” His words tripped over one another as he rushed to list her flaws. “We barely talk. You don’t even go outside all that much.”

“I show houses.”

He held up both hands as if he’d stepped into an im promptu religious revival meeting. “Ah yes. Your precious fucking job.”

She shoved her plate toward the middle of the table. “Is this still about Jim and whatever-her-name-is or are you really upset about my career choice?”

He snorted. “The one you barely do?”

“At your insistence!”

“Don’t blame me for your choices.”

“So now I don’t work enough? Your usual argument is that you prefer for me not to work because you don’t want all your little school and coaching friends to think you can’t support us.” She forced her fingers to unclench around the knife and set it down when she really wanted to throw it. “Make up your mind, Aaron.”