chapter 1
fiction
HUFFINGTON
09.23.12
plaints. The truth was she just didn’t want to do anything
at all. She did not want to have a job or have children or
clean the bathroom or say hello. She only did a dish with
happiness just after Daniel had done a dish. She only
bought Daniel a present after he’d just bought a present
for her, and even then, she made sure her present wasn’t
quite as good as his.
It disgusted her as she did it, but it was the truth. She certainly liked the image of herself as the benevolent wife with
arms full of flowers but if she bought the flowers she would
spend part of the ride home feeling so righteous and pleased
that she had bought flowers; what a good wife she was; wasn’t
he a lucky man; until by the time she arrived home with the
flowers, she’d be angry he hadn’t bought her flowers.
She reached out a hand to touch the cool sweep of the wall.
“It seems,” she said to it, “that I have lost my generosity.”
Her whole body filled with a sparkling panic, painful
and visceral as poison champagne, as she did not know
how to get it back.
T
HE GRAND TOTAL on November 8 was
$1,245. Daniel paid her the money and
gave her a fake sad look that could not
disguise his relief, and then trundled off
to the bathroom to get ready for work.
She ironed the new bills, and packed the grand total into
her tiny pocketbook of black velvet with the glittery clasp.
The cash poked out its green fingers and her heels made
pointed bites in the cement as she walked down the street,
past the stores. She kept opening up the clasp of her purse
and sticking her hand in there and stroking the money like
it was a fur glove or a child’s hair. What with the angle
she held her bag and that look on her face, to passersby it
seemed vaguely like she was masturbating.