Chapter 1 : Part 3

It's About Your Husband
by Lauren Lipton

(Page 3 of 7)

"I'm waiting for a train. And I do not live in Yorkville. Third and Eighty-fifth is Yorkville. Lexington and Eighty-fifth is the Upper East Side." "Whatever you say."

"I know what I'm talking about, Val. My husband works in real estate. . . ." Vickie starts crying again. I look to Val for a cue, but she only rolls her eyes. Vickie sniffles loudly. "I can't believe he's cheating on me!"

Val doesn't react. She rakes her hand through her hair, which was black the last time I saw her, Monday afternoon. "Like it?" she asks me. "I got it done last night. I was considering something really light, maybe pink, maybe platinum, but then I thought-"

"Excuse me!" Vickie shouts. Val sighs. "All right, Iris, here's the story. My sister suffers from seasonal suspicion disorder. Every six months, usually spring and fall, she decides hubby Steve is cheating on her, then retaliates by spending his money on new clothes."

"That's just mean!" Vickie swipes at her tears again with her tissue.

"It's true," says Val. "Remember the time you found the lipstick on his shirt, flipped out, and then realized it was your own lipstick?"

"It was Bobbi Brown Number Four! That could have been anybody's lipstick! Every woman in America has a tube!" Val stops tapping her right index finger softly but insistently on the top of our table long enough to wave over a waitress and order drinks for herself and me. Then she gestures at Vickie. "And another-what is that, strawberry daiquiri?" "Virgin," Vickie says.

Val rolls her eyes again. The waitress goes off to the bar. Val pulls out a cigarette and holds it in her mouth, unlit. "No smoking," hisses Vickie. "No shit," hisses Val.

This day keeps getting stranger and stranger. There are still hours to go before it's over, and I'm stuck with the only twins in history who lack that supernatural love bond everyone always goes on about.

Vickie does have a point, though. At my former marketing company in Brentwood, I once had to round up women for a focus group on makeup. A few days later, I watched from the observation room as one participant waxed rhapsodic about the MAC lip pencil in "Spice," and the universally flattering lipstick Bobbi Brown Number Four. "I have that, too!" said another, producing a tube from her Coach bag. The rest nodded knowingly and dug around in their purses until there were half a dozen Number Fours on the conference table. Afterward, I stopped in Sherman Oaks and picked up a tube. It was right on the way home, since Teddy and I had just bought our house in Studio City.

At least I still have that lipstick. "This time there's no question," Vickie continues. "He's taken up jogging. At the crack of dawn." She gives us a look like, "See?"

"Pandora's Box." From above my head, the waitress places a drink in front of Val, who lunges at it. "Virgin." The waitress sets down Vickie's daiquiri. "Draft." She hands me a beer. I guzzle the remains of my first and give her the empty glass.

Vickie takes a dainty sip of her daiquiri. "My husband has gone on a fitness kick. At least, that's what he would have me believe. Men are such dogs."

"You're making absolutely no sense." Val seems to be speaking directly to her cocktail.

"This is a person who hasn't done any sport sweatier than golf since his squash days at Yale. Then three weeks ago, out of nowhere, he decides it's time to get in shape." "He was looking a little soft around the middle," Val interjects. Vickie responds with one of what I have already come to recognize as her patented I'm-going-to-shove-my-shoe-down-your- throat-if-you-don't-shut-up looks. Val shuts up.

"And since then he's been getting up every weekday at six forty-five, dragging the poor dog out of his little bed, supposedly to go jogging in the park. Except that can't be where he's going. When he gets home, he's never even sweaty, and neither is the dog."

"I didn't think dogs got sweaty. Don't they, like . . ." What a lightweight. I'm four sips into my second Rolling Rock and already starting to slur my speech. "Like, drool or whatever it's called?" Forgotten the word. Better stop drinking now or I'm going to do something stupid. Such as, I don't know, relocate three thousand miles from home, to a noisy, grimy, indifferent city, in order to be laid off.

"Pant!" Val starts to giggle. "That's it, pant." I can't help laughing myself. It's all too absurd.

"Hey," says Val, "maybe the dog's the one straying." I should keep out of it. I should. I can't. "Dogs are such dogs."

"No!" Val howls. "Dogs are such men!"

Copyright © 2006 by Lauren Lipton

About the Author

Lauren Lipton is a deputy editor at Cosmopolitan. Previously she was a senior editor at In Style and a staff writer at The Wall Street Journal, where for the popular Weekend Journal section she reported on supersize engagement rings, copycat brides who steal their friends' wedding ideas, and luxury homes with his-and-hers garages. Her work has also appeared in publications including Glamour and Marie Claire and on National Public Radio's All Things Considered. She began her career as a staff writer at the Los Angeles Times, covering television and lifestyle trends.