SHE MADE A FACE

Gerald and Hannah were late newlyweds, they liked to say, five years in and feeling it. They had a house with a pool, where Hannah liked to sit and “receive the sun’s rays.” She said it ironically because the truth was that she was the only one doing steady work, firing off emails to keep her various lieutenants focused on the company’s mission, which was inventing and promoting forward-thinking eco-friendly beauty products. That she didn’t say ironically because she was dead serious about it. Gerald was at loose ends. He had worked for a network affiliate as an on-air sports reporter. Digital media had come for him. Now he mostly moped around in sweats questioning whether he should have bought the place or allowed the pool to be dug when he had so poorly grasped his own prospects. Most days around lunch he would emerge from the house and try to convince Hannah to come inside for sex. “Or we can do it out here,” he said. She made a face indicating that he was gross. One day a new couple moved into the house across the back fence. They spoke loudly and often, to the point that they were knowable inside of a week: she, a buxom woman in her fifties who had risen to the top of a dog-grooming empire and her husband; he, a retired something named Carlo (the woman elongated the final “o” when she called for him) who looked like nothing so much as an egg with sunglasses. They were, Hannah said, “future us.” Gerald took it hard. “Future us?” he echoed, wounded. Hannah saw what she had done and agreed to sex, though she stipulated that they take it inside and moaned “Carloooooooo” into his ear as the blessed moment approached.

©2020 Ben Greenman/Stupid Ideas