It was Michael who solved it. He held up a finger (not from the hand that was holding the tape down) and suggested they make a sandwich of tape, putting the hair in between, and then use additional tape to reattach it. The team voted, this approach was adopted, and it worked ever so slightly better. It still wasn’t winning any awards, and in the distance you could hear the whirring sound of Vidal Sassoon spinning in his grave.
Finally, after winding the “hair tape” around Barbie’s head, and then applying a metric ton of additional tape to hold it on, which ended up making Barbie look like she’d lost a fight with an industrial thresher, Kate held her up and evaluated.
“She’s perfect!” She ran off, calling back to Charlie. “Thanks, Dad!”
Charlie got up to get more coffee. “Want some more?”
“Sure, because it’s too early for beer, right?”
Charlie looked at the clock, hanging over the doorway to the garden. It was 3:00 p.m.
“Do the normal rules apply on the weekend?” He put down his coffee cup and opened the fridge instead, grabbing two bottles of Anchor Steam. “Anne wouldn’t approve, which makes it even better.” Sitting down, he popped the caps with a bottle opener that was already lying on the table, and held up a bottle. “Cheers.”
They drank, and Michael idly pushed the remaining Barbie hair into a pile. He looked out at the garden. Theo and Milo were now both out there, sitting on the swings and shooting the shit.
“Do you think Frances would cheat?” Charlie wasn’t looking at him as he asked, but gazing out at the kids.
Michael shrugged. “Probably not. When would she have time, for fuck’s sake?”
Charlie made a face. “Anne found time.”
“Anne worked. She wasn’t trailing kids around all the time. She had agency. Frances has about two hours of empty space in the morning and that’s usually filled with trips to the vet.”
“You do have a lot of pets.”
“She likes animals, what can I say? I tried protesting, early on, but there was no point. She likes taking care of things.”
“But what if some other guy is taking care of her, right? I mean, clearly Anne wasn’t getting what she wanted from me.” He finished his beer, rose to fetch another.
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
