At some point it grew light, and the sun could be seen on one side of the sky, though the moon was still visible off in the distance, a beautiful balance, silver and gold. And then the bride’s arms were around him. She’d waded into the water, and her dress made a wetness against Broder’s back.
And she whispered “I love you,” and he felt her breath move inside his ear, and he smelled on her breath a sour hint of the cake’s lemon filling, and when he looked in her eyes he could see she was high.
32.
Michael and Rachel are in Wendy’s email. He guessed her password: Nina310. The date she was supposed to have been born. Was born. Wasn’t born. They’re not sure what they’re looking for. A chat box is open.
Greg types: sup
Rachel suggests that Michael pretend to be Wendy and feel things out. What Would Wendy Do? is something Michael’s asked thousands of times—picking out flatware, planning secret Valentine’s trips—and rarely, if ever, has he answered exactly correctly, always some forgotten factor or missed calculation or ignorance of a privately harbored opinion, like Wendy’s inexplicable distastes for three-pronged forks and coastal Maine. This might seem like a failure of intimacy, proof that all those years of joint tax returns and trading sections of the Times, plus their shared triumphs and traumas, do not compute to a comprehensive audit of the other person’s brain. But it’s no failure, Michael thinks. It means they’re not boring or stagnant, not robotic dullards governed by something so prosaic as rational thought. He’s always felt superior to those couples whose worldviews neatly align and whose shared closet looks like the his-and-hers sections of a J. Crew catalog. Love isn’t finding an extension of yourself, but a person so nuanced in her difference that everything she says feels thrillingly fresh. Relationships should be like modern democracies, two-party systems in which the parties agree on rules of conduct and basic tenets of society, but whose fundamental dissents on particular issues keep checks and balances in place. And yet down in the engine room of his anxiety, he worries that he and Wendy may have failed to grasp something other couples innately understand, which is that, for all the pushing against it, all the not going quiet into domesticity’s fleece-lined honey trap, perhaps the secret to a successful marriage is to become boring and predictable, to make each day a calming replica of the last. Perhaps the secret is finding someone who thinks so much like you do that all decisions are easy, no necessary guesswork, a smooth drive across life’s temporal landscape without fighting over the relative merits of Hot 97 versus NPR.
“Dude,” Rachel says, “you gonna just sit there or are you planning to respond?”
“I’m trying to channel Wendy,” Michael says, fixing his posture, as if sitting like his wife, with engaged glutes and a rigid spine, might provide insight. Rachel suggests saying sup.
Michael types What’s up? instead, which causes Rachel to snort.
Greg replies cold chizzlin.
“Now what?” says Michael.
Upstairs, Stuart’s toe taps to the rhythm of the SD’s rise. Downstairs, Lydia marks a student essay in red ink that smudges as her left hand drags across the page. Ricky’s casket slides around the trunk of a hearse that’s changing lanes on 95. Eminem rocks his granddaughter to sleep, humming James Taylor’s “Fire and Rain” while Hailie Jade rants from the next room about the continuing impact of cancel culture on the arts. Detective Quinn licks the crumbs off an everything bagel. Devor unrolls a ribbed condom. Donnell places a protective layer of toilet paper over the seatless rim of a rusted throne while his cellmate looks on. Wendy’s on the subway, not coming to Pittsfield.
The chat box tells them Greg’s typing. That he’s no longer typing. That he’s typing again.
big plans 2nite?
Michael wonders why Greg thinks Wendy might have plans. Doesn’t he know that when someone gets murdered, life stops until a period for mourning has passed? That even if the circumstances were different, Wendy isn’t the type for big plans?
Michael: In for the night.
“Add haha,” says Rachel. “Or LOL.”
“Wendy would never use LOL.”
“Trust me.”
He does.
Greg: wendy using lol????? omg haha.
“Sorry,” says Rachel.
dude, i had craziest meeting w/ lil
u know how she wants 2 bone me?
Rachel leans over Michael and types k.
Greg: she txted me earlier and was like come over and bone me
Rachel moves the computer to her own lap and types omg.
Greg: i know right
i went and stripped but she was totally fucking w me
doesn’t want to bone me at all J
Rachel: k
Greg: ;) ;) ;)
turns out im getting promoted
i guess she really did like the striptease!
Rachel: ?
Greg: lucas didn’t tell u during 1 of yr “special” “private meetings?”
I get to give the keynote at the disruptny where we’re launching the “product”
Rachel: ?
Greg: u know, #workwillsetufree
i thought u guys were like butt buddies now. haha. late nights in the office and whatnot doing
“yoga” ;) “dinner” ?
“What’s he talking about?” says Michael. “I don’t understand his use of quotation marks.”
“Relax,” says Rachel. “The worst thing Wendy’s ever done is double-dip a French fry.”
“You don’t know her,” says Michael. “She’d never double-dip.”
Rachel writes haha product? dinner and yoga?
Greg: dude, the “suit”
Rachel: ?
Greg: he didn’t tell u about the suit?
i heard u 2 were in the office late
Rachel: what suit?
Greg: u have to ask locas
locas
locusts
*lucas
maybe at your next “yoga”
