Wife

Completely sober, running on four cups of coffee and several spoonloads of sugar, Laura paced her kitchen floor, waiting for her husband to come home from the office.

He was often late, having one of those 9 to 5 jobs that never ended at 5. He was usually home around 6:30, if he didn't go out for a drink with some of the other guys who worked in the same office building. It was really convenient that there was a bar in the lobby of the building, Dave always said. Laura never really understood why this would be a convenience, but she learned about two years ago not to get into any conversations that could lead to more of what she's been avoiding.

He still touched her, but not in the same way. Now it was a mixture of chore and possession. It was more of what he wanted, and less of what she needed. They didn't have any children. Wasn't it time? Weren't they at the age when couples start having kids, start planning for the future, Laura often thought.

Dave came home around 7, and put his briefcase on the small table in the hallway, like he did every single night. Laura knew not to touch the briefcase or even put anything of hers on that table. It was my table, Dave would often remind her, even if she never needed to be reminded. Then, like almost every night, Dave would drink an entire bottle of wine. He would even pour her a drink, but it would often just sit near her plate, half-full. She never knew if he even wanted her to drink it, so she would take a few sips and then clear the table. She always remembered to smile.

Dave went into the living room. ESPN Classic was showing that game again. He knew the outcome, but found comfort in watching it over and over. He kept the remote close to him on the sofa.

Laura stood at the sink and wondered if her friends who had kids were doing the dishes at that moment. Were the kids running around the kitchen, getting under her feet, maybe tickling each other? She thought of a life like that. How she would stand at the sink and sigh that her kids were acting up, but she'd secretly love it.

She noticed that it had begun to rain, the water hitting the roof in a pattern and rhythm that reminded her of a favorite song from her teen years. But she couldn't remember the name of it, or who sang it. She just knew that it was something that she once liked.

- Bob Sassone

Friday Quick Links

• The Webby Awards have been announced, and the winners have to limit their speeches to five words. Here they are.
• The woman who invented Cap 'n Crunch has died.
• Running for President? Joel Stein wants to be your MySpace friend.
• Difficult woman seeks stable man. [via Marty]
• Some people in Greenland actually love global warming. [via Kottke]

First Things/Last Things

Emily says, “I can’t remember any of these last things.” She is making a list of every adult friend of her adult life and the last thing she’d heard of or from each of them. She says, “It was hard enough remembering who my friends were, or who I’d considered to be a friend as an adult. Maybe I should’ve started with the childhood ones. They’re always the most lasting and memorable. I mean, I could tell you what Jackie Stevenson traded me for my Fruit Roll-Up in the lunchroom on the first day of fourth grade, but I don’t know if any of the women on this here list are even wondering what the last they’d heard of or from me was. It was a sweet potato. A baked sweet potato that Jackie Stevenson’s mom packed in her lunchbox. It was a room temperature sweet potato wrapped in tin foil that Jackie left a mystery until after the trade was finalized. I don’t know what I thought it was, just that it was big and wrapped in tin foil. Then it turned out to be a sweet potato. I put it in my backpack. Then I stepped and stamped on it on the sidewalk on the walk home from school. I jumped on that sweet potato and Jackie Stevenson was then the best friend I’d ever known. She’d gotten me good. Before the trade, she’d even promised that the mystery lump of tin foil was some kind of dessert. I made the sidewalk orange and silver and I respected Jackie Stevenson so much. But that was something for a childhood friend first thing list, not this adult friend last thing list. The sweet potato. We became such great friends after that, but I don’t know who all of these adult friends on this list were or are anymore, so I’m just going to put that they didn’t fuck me into a sweet potato. Isn’t that all that matters? That the best friend I ever had left me standing in a pile of her glittery, unwanted orange potato?”

And I say, “Well, what about me?”

“You don’t like sweet potatoes either.”

- Christian Stella