Everything was dry in Southern California, dry and burnt. The heat sucked every drop of moisture from anything that lived. Even after the rare sprinkle of rain, the heat sucked it all dry almost as soon as it hit the concrete. Sometimes it didn’t even leave a mark, just evaporated from the heat vapor rising from the ground. Mary Anne the shoulder strap as she stared out the car window at the brown hills. Whoever designed seat restraints had to be a man. A woman would have fixed it so she could wear it without it sliding up and cutting into her neck or messing up her clothes. She looked at Jack driving. Even with the grey, he was good looking. No, he was better looking. For a few years he’d gotten heavy, not a lot, just enough to change a suit size, but a few months ago he cut the sugar out of his tea and started walking, and now he was the slimmest he’d been since high school. He was wearing a dark suit and a Jerry Garcia tie he’d bought in the nineties. It was one of those he kept around for special occasions when he’d gotten tired of wearing his everyday ties. The man must have forty ties. Old ties, new ones. When you wear a suit every day, the only bit of color you have is in your tie, he said. And the women who worked for him gave him ties every birthday and Christmas. He wore them all at least once even if they were polyester and ugly. It was important not to hurt anyone’s feelings, he’d say. Wear the ugly tie, and she’ll work even harder. It was a simple equation. Maybe I should give him an ugly tie, Mary Anne thought. Once she asked why he couldn’t treat his family as well as he did his employees, and he said because his employees did what he told them. They knew he could fire them. He’d said that sometimes he wished he could fire his family. She looked at him again. He always gripped the wheel like it would slip from his fingers while he drove. As much attention as he was paying her, she might as well not been in the car. In this moving bit of luxury, though, he was a captive audience
“Jack, I wish you’d tell me what’s wrong.”
“What do you mean?”
“We never talk anymore.”
“We don’t have anything to talk about.”
“Yes, we do. I miss sitting outside at night with you and listening to you talk about your day. ” She tried not to whine. He hated that. She tried to sound matter of fact, but he still wouldn’t look at her.
“ I miss being with you. You work late every night.”
He didn’t take his eyes off of the road. “You’re with me now.”
Mary Anne turned her head to look out of the window. Patches of black-covered the hills where the fires had run over the scrubland rolled past the windows.
“You know what I mean. I want you to tell me how things are going. I want to sit in the dark by the pool. Tell me what’s wrong. I can’t fix anything if you don’t tell me what’s broken.”
“There’s nothing you can fix.” His voice was low and even.
“Then what’s going on? I don’t understand.”
“Of course not. You’ve never understood.”
“What have I not understood? Tell me.”
His jawline was hard, and his eyes never left the road. “This is not the time to have this conversation.”
“Then when is? When will it be time? You’re never home, and when you are, you might as well not be. You never talk to any of us anymore.” She was so damned angry with him. “You’re not being fair.” That sounded like a child, but she couldn’t help it.
“I’ll tell you what isn’t fair. It isn’t fair that I work twelve hours a day and come home to a house where nothing is ever in the right place. It isn’t fair that you don’t listen when I tell you not to spend any money—
“Groceries? Clothes for the children?”
“—It isn’t fair that you interrupt me every time I try to say anything. Why do you think I don’t talk? Because you never let me! You always interrupt. That’s not fair.” Spit flew from his lips.
“That’s what conversations do. They go back and forth.”
“No. It isn’t a conversation when you interrupt. See what I mean? I started talking about me, and now it’s about you. It’s always about you. Everything. Everything turns into you. When is it my turn?”
Mary Anne shook her head as though it would settle the thoughts flying around inside her head. Even when he talked, she didn’t understand why he said the things he said. “Tell me what you want to change, and I will do my best to make it happen.”
He stared straight ahead at the freeway. “I can’t tell you what I want to change.”
“And here we are again.” Mary Anne clenched her teeth. “I’m sick of this, Jack.”
He muttered, “You’re sick.” as though she were not the one. As though he was.
She worried a sore spot inside of her lip with her tongue and pursed her lips, shaking her head again. Shaking her head helped clear away a little of the tension. “If you won’t tell me how to make things better, then I can’t help. There’s nothing I can do.”
They drove in silence. They were headed to a meet and greet for Jack’s company. It was her job to show up and smile and made pleasant conversation. Her job was to distract the wives and occasional husband, so that the important spouses could network. She was good at it. She’d learned at her mother’s knee how to steer a conversation so that other people were impressed with themselves. Everyone loves to talk about himself, Azalee would say. Ask them questions about themselves, and they’ll think you’re a witty conversationalist. Mary Anne could smile and sparkle with the best of them, and it hardly seemed to matter that she was short and plump. Her smile caught everyone’s attention, and her brown eyes focused with intensity on the person she was listening to. People always told Jack what a wonderful wife he had after an event like this.
Jack understood her worth as a business asset, but he’d look around the room at some of the other wives, and when compared, she didn’t make the cut. Bob James’ tall, blonde trophy wife put all the others’ to shame. Even Ralph Edwards’ little Asian woman who was so petite she looked as though a strong wind would blow her away, even she was a stunning beauty. Bob’s wife never left him. She clung to him, probably to keep from tottering off her six inch stilettos, but all the same, the sight of her slim belly pressed against the back of Bob’s arm gave Jack a hard case of envy.
Mary Anne interrupted Jack’s thoughts.
“There are fires in the national forest. They’ve been burning since yesterday.”
“I know. I can see them from the freeway on the drive home.”
“Oh. You didn’t mention them.”
Of course not, she thought. That would require talking which you don’t do anymore. “I bet they show up at night. The fires do.”
He didn’t take his eyes off the road.
“Yes. Fire shows up in the dark. That’s a pretty stupid thing to say.”
Mary Anne jerked around and stared at him open-mouthed.
“Don’t ever ask me to come to any of these meetings again, Jack. I’m done. I can’t even make conversation without your treating me like an idiot. I don’t know what you want from me.”
She twisted her body to look face the window knowing nothing would ever change.