Wife 22

Girl!

Suddenly the garage door begins to open. William and I stand there, blinking, huddled together, as Zoe materializes in front of us. She holds her phone in one hand, the garage door opener in the other. She’s so furious she can’t speak. She tweets instead.

I can’t believe u guys. This is a total invasion of privacy! I’ll never forgive you. About 1 minute ago

“Zoe, please-” I say.

I’m not talking to you. About 1 minute ago

@nuttyhohos We can see that.

I’m never talking to you again. About 1 minute ago

@nuttyhohos This is not okay, sweetheart. Ho-Girl is really not okay. You could have gotten yourself into serious trouble.

Zoe looks at me and begins to cry. Then she starts tweeting again.

How could you wish I had an eating disorder? About 1 minute ago

“Baby,” I say.

“I am so not your baby. You have absolutely no idea who I am!” she yells.

Zoe holds the garage door opener up over her head and clicks it aggressively like she’s firing a weapon, and the door slowly begins to lower on us.

“William-”

“Just let her be,” he says, as our daughter’s head, then her torso, then her legs disappear.

I give a little cry and he pulls me under his arm, where the scent of detergent is the strongest. It’s nice there, a nest. We stay like that for a few minutes.

“Well,” he finally says. “What now?”

“Lock her in her room for a thousand years?”

“Force her to eat skirt steak?”

“Are we terrible?”

“At what?”

“Being parents?”

“No, but we suck at Twitter.”

“You suck at Twitter,” I say.

“That’s because you made me nervous. I had stage fright.”

“Oh, if I hadn’t been there you would have been much wittier?” I ask.

“@nuttyhohos Apricots are ripe, vegan daughter,” he says.

“@nuttyhohos Saved them all for you, please consider eating instead of Ding Dongs.”

“@nuttyhohos Not that I don’t like Ding Dongs. There is a time and place for Ding Dongs. When you’re thirty and live in your own apartment and can pay your own rent.”

“@nuttyhohos Not kidding. If you don’t eat the apricots today they’ll rot.”

“@nuttyhohos FYI apricots six dollars a pound. EAT THEM OR ELSE.”

“@nuttyhohos and try not to swallow pits.”

“@nuttyhohos swallowing bad idea in general.”

“@nuttyhohos says surgeon general.”

“@nuttyhohos and your father.”

“Well?” says William.

“Not bad.”

“Yes, all my followers think so.”

“All one of them.”

“All you need is one, Alice.”

“I have to go talk to her.”

“No, I think what you need to do is give her a little time.”

“And then what?”

William lifts my chin. “Look at me.”

Jesus, you smell so good, how could I have forgotten you smelled like this?

“Let her come to you,” he says.

Then he abruptly lets go of me and turns back toward the shelves, frowning. “I’m going to have to do it again,” he says. “Now where’s the damn level?”

87

“Mom! Help! I need a bigger Tupperware!” Zoe shrieks from the kitchen.

These are the first words Zoe has uttered to me in two days. Both William and I have been getting the silent treatment since the Twitter incident.

“Could this be interpreted as ‘her coming to me’?” I ask William, who is sitting on the couch.

William sighs. “Damn dog door.”

“Well?”

He puts down the paper. “Beggars can’t be choosers.”

I leap to my feet.

“I’ve been calling you for ages!” Zoe’s crouched by the stove, holding a pint-sized Tupperware container, her eyes darting around wildly.

“That’s not big enough.”

“No shit, Mom. All the Tupperware has disappeared.”

I open the fridge. “Leftovers.”

“There it is!” yells Zoe and I whirl around just in time to see the mouse barreling toward me from across the room.

“Eek!” I shout.

“Do you think you could come up with something more original?” grunts Zoe as she chases after the mouse, who skitters like a drunk, ears flapping, a tiny Dumbo.

“Eek, eek!” I cry again as the mouse runs between my legs and disappears under the fridge.

Zoe stands up. “That’s your fault,” she says.

“What’s my fault?”

“That it went under the fridge.”

“Why is it my fault?”

“You seduced it.”

“How?”

“By opening the door and letting all that nice cool air out.”

“Really, Zoe? Well, let me open it again and maybe the mouse will reappear.”

I take out a large Tupperware container full of lasagna. I empty the lasagna onto a plate, wash the Tupperware, and hand it to her. “Here you go.”

“Thanks.”

“Now what?”

Zoe shrugs, sitting down at the table. “We wait.”

We sit in silence for a few minutes.

“I’m very glad you are not the kind of girl who is scared of mice,” I say.

“No thanks to you.”

We hear the mouse scrabbling around under the fridge.

“Should I get a broom?” I ask.

“No! That will traumatize it. Let it come out on its own.”

We sit in silence for another five minutes. We hear more scratching sounds, louder this time. “The elephant in