My Wife and My Dead Wife Read online

  But you can’t be married to someone who doesn’t even know how to say your name, no matter how provocative it can be. You CAN’T. It just wouldn’t make sense. It wouldn’t make sense to be married to the one person in the world who can’t even pronounce your name.

  Sometimes, when she says it wrong, I’ll try to help her say it right.

  “It’s Ham,” I’ll say. “Like lamb and wham and sham.”

  And she’ll try it, only it’ll still come out, “Hay-yum.”

  And, a little louder and more slowly, I’ll say, “Ham,” the way you talk to a foreigner or a baby to get them to understand what you’re saying. “Ham,” very slowly.

  But she’ll still say, “Hay-yum.”

  And I’ll say, “Ham.”

  Usually she’ll get frustrated and say, “I feel like I’m the girl in My Fair Lady.”

  And I’ll say, “What girl?”

  And she’ll say, “The fair lady. You know, the girl with the accent, and the professor tries to teach her to say things the way he does. I have a southern accent. I don’t see why you want to change me.”

  And I’ll say, “I don’t want to change you, Sweet Potato. The only thing I want to change is the way you say my name. And besides, look what happened to the people in My Fair Lady. They ended up falling in love, right?”

  Only instead of being glad when I say that, she’ll say something like, “Are you telling me you don’t love me already?”

  And I’ll say, “No, that’s not what I’m saying.”

  And she’ll say, “Or are you saying that you’ll only love me if I do things the way you want?”

  I’ll say, “That’s not what I meant at all.”

  And she’ll say, “Well, if you want my candid opinion, Hay-yum is a silly name to give a human being. I mean, what kind of people name their child after luncheon meat? Other than Oscar Mayer, I mean.”

  And I’ll say, “A) Oscar Mayer is the BRAND name, and B) I wasn’t named after luncheon meat.”

  Now she’s even got me doing the A’s and B’s.

  She’ll say, “For your information, A) I was making a joke about Oscar Mayer and B) if you weren’t named after lunchmeat, then where on earth did your parents get that silly name?”

  And I’ll say, “You know very well that Ham is just a nickname and my name is Hamilton. It’s an old family name,” which isn’t true at all. The truth is that I got the name from my mother, but I don’t feel like explaining that to Renée because it’s none of her business.

  And she’ll say, “Well, just because it’s an old family name doesn’t mean it’s not silly. What if you had a grandfather whose name was Birdbrain, so they named you Birdbrain?”

  And I’ll say, “That’s a bad example.”

  And she’ll say, “Why?”

  And I’ll say, “Because I did have a grandfather named Birdbrain.”

  She’ll start to smile, and I’ll start to make up some story about a grandfather named Birdbrain, about how he flew his plane backwards during the war, or something like that.

  And she’ll start laughing.

  And we’ll start kissing.

  And I’ll put my hands inside her shirt and pluck at her bra straps.

  And before you know it, we’re in bed and she’s saying my name just the way I like it.

  x

  When I get up in the morning, Renée is already sitting at the kitchen table. It’s been almost four months since she lost her job at the hospital. She’s wearing only her underwear. A black lace bra, black lace underpants. She wears pretty underwear; some women don’t, but Renée does. She’s drinking a cup of coffee, and she has her guitar balanced on her lap. Every once in a while, she writes some words on a white notepad that she keeps next to her coffee cup. She’ll write, then she’ll close her eyes like she’s trying to work out a math problem in her head, then she’ll start writing again.

  “Morning, Sweet Potato” I say.

  And she looks up and smiles and says, “Morning. There’s coffee on the stove.” She gestures toward the stove with her head.

  I say, “Thanks.”

  And she says, “There’s orange juice in the refrigerator.”

  I say, “Fresh squeezed?”

  And she says, “Not by me. By some nice men in Florida. And they were kind enough to put it in a carton, too.”

  “That was nice of them.”

  “It was, wasn’t it? We should add them to our Christmas card list.”

  “We don’t have a Christmas card list.”

  “Then they’ll be the first ones to be on the list.” She pretends to scribble on her notepad. “Christmas card list. Send card to the fine people at Minute Maid.”

  I pour a cup of coffee and sit down at the table across from her. Her eyes are shut tighter this time like she’s working on another, more difficult math problem, like this one involves calculus or trigonometry. I try to read what she’s already written on her pad, but just when I crane my neck, she opens her eyes and catches me looking.

  “Don’t look,” she says, and she puts her hand over the pad quickly the way people cover themselves with a towel if you walk in on them when they’re naked.

  And I say, “What is it?” even though I know what it is. She’s working on a new song. We’ve been back to Eddie’s Attic three or four times, and each time she plays two songs: one new song, then that “Winona Forever” song about the dog. The new songs get better and better. That “Winona Forever” song stays the same.

  “I’m writing some new lyrics.”

  I say, “What’s this one about?” But I’m thinking, Please, Lord, don’t let it be about a dog.

  And she says, “It’s about life.”

  And I say, “Couldn’t you find a bigger topic?” because I’m trying to be funny.

  Renée doesn’t realize I’m joking, so she says, “No,” then writes something on the big white pad. I could swear she’s writing the word “banana.” How can a song about life have the word “banana” in it, that’s what I want to know. Then I think, Please, Lord, don’t let her be listing all the fruit in her grandma’s kitchen.

  “Can I hear some of it?” I say.

  And she says, “Not until I’m done. It’s a work in progress.”

  So I say, “Okay, whenever you’re ready,” then finish my coffee and get ready to leave for work. I kiss her on the top of the head, and she looks up and smiles. She smells nice. Her shampoo smells like strawberries. Her grandma probably had strawberries in her kitchen, too. Right next to the bananas.

  “Good luck with work,” she says. “Say hi to Palmeyer for me.”

  Palmeyer’s my boss. He owns the tailor shop where I work. Renée’s only met him once or twice, but she always says, “Say hi to Palmeyer for me,” which I never do. What would be the point? Palmeyer would just think I was trying to trick him into giving me a raise.

  “I’ll tell him that,” I say, “and you have a good day with your songs.”

  I start to leave, but before I reach the door, she calls out my name. She pronounces it wrong.

  “Yes?” I say.

  And she says, “Can you think of a word that rhymes with umbrella?”

  I stop and think for a second, then say, “Salmonella?”

  And she says, “What, the bacteria?”

  And I say, “Yes.”

  Renée shakes her head and says, “I don’t think I can use that one.”

  I go to work safe in the knowledge that she is NOT writing a song about all the fruit in her grandma’s kitchen. And she’s not writing a song about spoiled food, either.

  But what IS she writing about?

  What song could be about bananas AND umbrellas?

  I almost drive through a red light just thinking about THAT.

  x

  On the way to work, I stop at the bank machine to get some money because I only have two dollars in my wallet and I need money for lunch. I used to eat lunch most days with a girl at work by the name of Bobby Jean Krueger, but
she quit, so now I usually eat by myself. It’s not bad eating by yourself. It gives you time to think. Only lately I’ve been thinking about Renée and her cowboy outfit, and about how we’re running out of money, which can leave a bad taste in your mouth. A man should have more than two dollars in his wallet. What if something happened? What if there were an emergency? Two dollars won’t get you out of a lot of emergencies.

  I try not to talk to Renée about how we’re running out of money because I don’t want to get her upset. She’s upset enough as it is, so why make it worse? I didn’t even tell her about the money I borrowed from Carl, though I’ll bet she figured it out. Where else did she think the extra five hundred dollars came from? From the Bank Fairy? No, she knows.

  When I get to the bank machine, I push the little buttons on the keypad to withdraw twenty dollars. I wait for the sound the machine makes when it’s sorting the bills, the sound like a card dealer shuffling a deck, only it doesn’t make that sound at all. Instead, it makes a clicking noise—click-click-click—then a message flashes on the screen in fluorescent green letters saying we have insufficient funds. I try it again, and the same thing happens: INSUFFICIENT FUNDS. PLEASE SEE BANK MANAGER.

  I push the buttons to find out what our account balance is. There’s a clicking noise again, then the screen says: $17.73.

  It’s three days to pay day, and we don’t even have twenty dollars between us.

  What has Renée been spending all the money on? What? She doesn’t go anywhere. She just stays at home and practices her songs. Practices her songs and bakes. I guess all the ingredients in the cakes and the pies and the cookies cost something, but not so much that we’d only have $17.73. Beggars on the street have more money than that.

  When I get to work, I say hello to Palmeyer, who just nods, and then I call Renée. The phone rings eight or nine times before she picks it up.

  “Hello, Ashe residence,” she says. “This is Renée Ashe speaking.”

  And I say, “Renée?”

  And she says, “Yes.”

  “Renée,” I say, “Sweet Potato, we’ve got a problem.”

  She says, “What is it?”

  And I say, “Have you been buying anything lately?”

  And she says, “What?”

  And I say, “Have you been going out buying things lately?”

  And she says, “Why would you ask a question like that?”

  And I say, “Because I just went to get some money from the bank machine, and it says we don’t have any money left in the checking account.”

  And she says, “Why do you need money?”

  And I say, “Because I need to buy lunch. I’ve only got two dollars. All I can buy with that is a soda pop.”

  And she says, “Well, maybe that’s good. It’ll be like you’re on a diet. Maybe then I won’t have such a chubby hubby.”

  There she goes again with that “chubby hubby” thing.

  I never know what to say when she says it because Renée is NOT my wife and I am NOT her husband. If I say, “You’re not my wife,” though, I know she’ll start crying and we’ll get into an argument, which I don’t want, especially when I’m at work with Palmeyer sitting five feet away from me, pretending he’s not listening, but he is. I can tell. His machine’s running, but there’s no thread in the bobbin. Which is fine, because there’s no fabric in underneath anyway.

  I say to Renée, “That’s not the point, Sweet Potato. The point is that I’m running around town with two dollars. What if something happened?”

  And she says, “For instance?”

  And I say, “What if I ran out of gas?”

  And she says, “Then I’d come pick you up, and I’d drive you home, and I’d sing you a song, then I’d make love to you.”

  So I say, “Okay, what if I got sick?”

  And she says, “I’d bring you home and undress you and give you a bath, and I’d kiss you everywhere you hurt.”

  And I say, “Renée, stop it please. I’m at work.”

  And she says, “I’m just giving you something to think about while you’re working.”

  I picture her sitting there in her black underwear, which is NOT something I should be thinking about at work. Especially when I’m not going home for another eight or nine hours.

  On a piece of paper I write, STOP LISTENING in big, black letters. I hold it up. Palmeyer reads it. He acts offended until I point to the empty bobbin. Then he pops a spool of green thread into his bobbin and whistles along to a song on the radio.

  I say, “I’ve got enough to think about, Sweet Potato. What I really need to talk with you about is the money. I know I haven’t been spending it. And if YOU haven’t been spending it, then the bank’s made a big mistake, and we need to call them to correct it.” It all sounds very reasonable, I think, especially since it just popped into my head as I was talking.

  Then Renée says, “Well, honey, I did buy a few things.”

  I say, “Can I ask what?”

  She says, “Yes,” but she doesn’t tell me right away.

  I wait a couple seconds, then finally I say, “What?”

  And she says, “Well, I was talking with Walter.”

  And I say, “Who’s Walter?”

  And she says, “You know very well who Walter is.”

  And I say, “No, I don’t,” because I want to hear her say it.

  And she says, “Guitar Walter, the one who’s teaching me to play the guitar. He says if I want to sell my songs, I can’t just go to Eddie’s Attic every week expecting to get discovered. I need to make tapes of my songs and send them out to radio stations and record companies.”

  She pauses, and I say, “Okay, so what does that have to do with us not having any money?”

  That’s when she says, “Well, the other day we went out and bought a tape recorder and some cassette tapes, and we bought some envelopes to put them in.”

  And I say, “We?”

  And she says, “Me and Walter. We went to Phipps Plaza.”

  Phipps Plaza. That’s the EXPENSIVE shopping mall. That’s where the rich people go. That’s the mall my brother Carl and his wife go to. You can’t buy a soda pop there without a credit card.

  And I say, “How much did this little shopping spree cost?”

  And she says, “Not much.”

  And I say, “How much is not much, Renée?”

  And she says, “I don’t know, two hundred dollars.”

  I try to keep from getting angry, but it’s hard. I say, “Goshdarn it, Renée, I’m not goshdarn Ted Turner,” only I don’t say “goshdarn” either time. “I don’t have money coming out of my ears.” I don’t say “ears.”

  And Renée gets mad and says, “Don’t you dare talk to me like that. Don’t you dare talk to me like I’m a dog or something.”

  And I say, “I’ll talk any way I want. I don’t have that kind of money that you can just be going out and buying things like that. You’re buying tape recorders, and I can’t even buy a goshdarn hamburger.”

  And she says, “When you’re married, the money belongs to both people.”

  And I say, “I’m not having this conversation again, Renée.”

  This time when I look over, Palmeyer is giving me a dirty look. He’s shaking his head and clucking his tongue. I look up at the racks. We have a lot of work to do: there are suits everywhere; suits and pants and jackets and dresses. I shouldn’t be on the phone. I write another note: I’LL BE OFF IN A MINUTE. Palmeyer runs his tongue over his front teeth.

  Renée’s talking, only I can’t concentrate on what she’s saying. All I hear is, “Mumbo jumbo mumbo jumbo money mumbo jumbo mumbo jumbo wife mumbo jumbo money mumbo jumbo mumbo jumbo mumbo JUMBO.”

  And I say, “Renée.”

  And she says, “Mumbo jumbo.”

  And I say, “Sweet Potato, slow down.”

  And she says, “Mumbo jumbo money mumbo jumbo money mumbo jumbo mumbo jumbo.”

  “Listen,” I say, “I have to go to work.
I’ll talk to you about this later.”

  And she says, “Fine,” very forcefully like SHE’s the one who’s right.

  And I say, “Don’t go buying any diamond earrings or sports cars until I get home.”

  And she says, “It’s our money, Hay-yum.” It doesn’t sound the least bit provocative.

  “It’s Ham,” I say. “Ham.”

  And she says, “I know. It rhymes with slam,” and then she slams the phone down, which I have to admit was pretty clever of her.

  When I hang up the phone, Palmeyer says, “Problems with the missus?”

  He knows Renée and I aren’t married. He just says it to get my goat, which it does.

  “Very funny, Palmeyer,” I say, “very funny.”

  Then he points to the racks as if to say, Get to work already.

  I get the point.

  I get the point.

  x

  Carl is a very good lawyer. He’s so good, that there have been articles written about him in The Atlanta Journal Constitution, articles with his photograph in them. They’re framed and hanging up in his office behind his desk. One of them has a big picture of Carl standing next to a horse. It’s funny because Carl doesn’t own a horse, Carl has NEVER owned a horse, and Carl has never even been on a horse. Carl is AFRAID of horses.

  When I asked him once why he was posing for a picture next to a horse, he said, “It was because I was working on a big case involving a horse breeder who was trying to defraud an insurance company.”

  I said, “Oh, well, I guess that makes sense.”

  And he said, “God only knows where they’d have wanted to take a picture of me if I was working on a case involving skydivers.”

  And I said, “Were you afraid standing next to the horse?”

  And he said, “Sometimes, Ham, we have to confront our fears,” and he tipped his head back the way he does when he thinks he’s said something meaningful.

  And I said, “Cut it out. You’re still afraid of horses, aren’t you?”

  And he said, “Scared to DEATH.”

  I don’t visit Carl at work very often, but since I’m going to have to ask him for another loan, I’d rather do it there than at his home where his wife and kids might hear, which could be an embarrassing thing for me. So I ask Palmeyer if I can take a long lunch, and he says it’s fine as long as I work late that night to make up the time, which makes sense. I’m not trying to take advantage of Palmeyer, not at all.