The Morning After

Brenda woke with a smile on her face. She could feel it. How unusual. Where was the tense nervous energy that usually drove her to sit up, throw off the covers, and jump out of bed before she even achieved full consciousness?

Then she remembered last night. Not the hands on her back, though they were nice enough, and tremendously relaxed her, but the face she saw when she closed her eyes. The insulting smirk, the little hitch in the corner of the lip, the beady eyes undressing her from the other side of the desk.

He didn’t just look like Bill Clinton, he exuded that thing nobody could name, no matter how much they talked about it, and talk they did. Every woman who walked out of his office was convinced he had the hots for her.

She closed her eyes and let herself sink back against the pillow. Ohmigod, she was seeing him today! In his office. Probably alone. What in the world did he want? She wouldn’t give it to him. But she’d always felt he had a special feeling for her.

What to wear? She went to the closet that held her collection of pants suits – the whole line of Early Hillarys. She wondered if Mitchell Wagman noticed, whether he even identified. Maybe not. But she had supported Hillary on behalf of all women, and had not succumbed even to the allure of working for the nomination of the first Black… the first African-American president.

The long-jacketed suits... she wished she had something… something sexier. She’d wear the signature yellow one, with a cami underneath, and open the jacket just before she entered the office. Yes, that would do.

It wasn’t until she was fifty seconds into the recommended two-minute brushing of her teeth that she began to worry. He said not to, but maybe that was because there was something to worry about. He said it was good. But maybe he’s going to compliment her, then assign her to Special Ed because she’s so good at what she does. The school year is almost over. This would be the time to spring it. Ohmigod!

She did not wear the yellow suit. She wore a simpering light blue, and added a lace dickey up to the chin. She sat primly, with her knees together, and a handkerchief between her hands like a Victorian servant called on the carpet.

She was afraid. Not of the boss. Not even of the man. Just afraid of what could happen. Of what happened in her mind when she thought about him. Which she shouldn’t, of course, but he was her boss. He came up every day. Ohmigod! How could she think such things?

He was behind the desk now, with his back toward her, having just completed a jovial phone call. He swiveled around, his arms locked behind his head, his mouth open in a big grin.

“Well, little lady, how are ya?” he asked, looking deep into her face to find the answer.

“Good. I’m good.” Stupid thing to say. Ungrammatical. She’s a teacher!

“You certainly are,” he says. His jaw drops just a tad, so he looks, for a second, lustful. Somewhere in her belly, there’s a quivering response. It subsides.

“Thank you.” What is this? She’s no little lamb to be petted. She’s had more education than he’s had, taught longer and harder, she can do math, and she knows for a fact, he can’t. Why should she be deferential? Because he’s the boss? That’s out the window because he’s also a man, and it is against her creed to play up to a man. “You wanted to see me?”

“I certainly did.” The leer has turned into frank, confidential admiration. He keeps it on his face forever, leaving her to break the spell. But she can’t think of what to say, and continues looking at it. Finally exasperation takes hold. “About what?”

He comes around the outside of the desk. “Excuse me, excuse me. I’ve just been picturing you in your new role. It’s marvelous. You’re marvelous.”

He looks way down at her and takes her hand. Uh-oh. It is
Special Ed. Goddamit!

She’s not going to be pushed around by this brute! The big creep!

“I’m not doing it,” she says firmly. Or is she shouting?

“I’m not going to do it. I’m an excellent math teacher, and you are NOT, do you hear me? You are NOT going to send me somewhere I don’t want to go, even if I should want it, no matter what you think!

He looked shocked. And hurt. Then his expression turned mean. His eyes became narrow slits. “Who told you? Did Samuels tell you? I told him to keep his big mouth shut, that I’d take care of it.”

Samuels was the head of the teacher’s union. She had nothing to do with him; he hadn’t said a thing to her.

“No. I figured it out for myself.”

“You what? You listen to me, Ms. Independent, this isn’t an offer you turn down just like that. This is an opportunity. And not only for you. For all of us. For the school. The town. It’s incredibly selfish of you.”

Normally it might have made her cry to have her dedication called into question. But she’d seen too many teachers go down the tubes teaching what they weren’t meant to teach.

“I can not spend my day with people who don’t know which end is up. I’m a math teacher.”

Now he looked shocked. He pulled up an extra chair that sat alongside the desk. Her head was down. He dipped his to peer up at her. His big face was right in hers.

“Now Brenda. I know you don’t mean that. You’re a very dedicated person. You love your fellow man. You would not reject a call to serve. Of course, you’re superior. That’s why we want you.”

Just as she thought. He knew he was exploiting her.

Her sense of self-preservation flew to the fore. “For once, I’m going to look out for myself. Because you know what? If you ruin me, if you drive me insane, if you stick me with an impossible task, I won’t be good for anything, ever again.”

“Please, Brenda. Mrs. Shapiro. Please. I told them I was sure you would want to give whatever you’ve got. I thought I knew you.” He looked at her quizzically, as if for the first time.

“I know people,” he said. “I still think I was right.”

So. She’d surprised him. It felt good. Everybody took her good nature for granted. They used her. Tired her out. Wasted her. Everybody thought they could walk all over her. Brenda, the good girl. Brenda, the girl who wipes up the messes, the girl who volunteers, the girl who holds your head when you have to vomit. Well, it wasn’t going to happen this time.

She summoned all her will and stood up, right past the bushy eyebrows. He leaned back to give her room.

“I suppose I’ll be looking for another job now,” she said.

Once more he looked shocked.

“Why?” he asked. “Aren’t you happy here?”

“I’m happy teaching math.”

“Then continue to do so,” he said. “Just because you don’t want to play ball with me doesn’t mean you’re out of the game. I thought it would be good for you. Good for all of us.”

“It would be good for everybody but me,” she said.

“I’m very sorry to hear you say that. I thought you’d enjoy the campaign.”

“Campaign? What are you talking about?”

This time his look told her she sounded deranged.

“I’m talking about running for public office. What are you talking about?”

“Teaching Special Ed.”

Silence while both sides replayed the conversation. He was the first to burst out laughing. She followed, and sank back down in her chair. As they sat there convulsed, because the tension had built to quite an intolerable level, the door opened and Madge, his secretary, came in.

Madge was tall and skinny, wore big butterfly glasses, and her hair pinned back over her ears and piled elaborately on top of her head. She looked suspiciously and disapprovingly at the flushed duo.

The laughter stopped. Brenda backed away from her boss, still squatting on the chair he’d taken, the better to see her with. She stood, drew herself up and resumed a refined demeanor. Taking her cue, Wagman also stood, and held out his hand.

She took it. Instantly, she realized she had never touched him before. His hand was warm, powerful, and very large. Full of life, and strength. She held on to it, then felt compromised, and quickly dropped it.

But it was too late. He’d already felt whatever was coursing through her. The smirk was back.

“Then you’ll consider it?”

Consider what? Had he propositioned her? Then the reality hit. Yes, he had. Mightily. What should she say?

“Yes, of course,” good girl Brenda answered for her. Always mind your manners.

Before returning to her classroom, she ducked into the Ladies’ and took out her phone. She called Jason. “He wants me to run for public office.”

“What public office? You’re not going to, are you?”

Up until that moment, she hadn’t thought so. But there were no congratulations, there was no pride, there was only selfish in his voice. She was sick of selfish. Everyone was selfish. Nobody else matters. Only me, me, me. Maybe she would give herself after all. A feeling of great abandon came over her. Yes, she would give herself to Mitch Wagman. Not to him exactly, but to his fine idea. To his idealism. To his vision of her. She much preferred it to Jason’s.

Table Manners

That night at dinner, Jason is fairly closed-mouthed. It’s not like him. Usually he’s part jester, part preacher, for the kids’ entertainment and edification. Wouldn’t want them to think their father was a dead-head.

Tonight he keeps looking at Brenda. Sizing her up, so to speak. Seeing her with new eyes. Turquoise eyes. He is a man seeking his standing. How would his wife stack up, as a woman, from the point of view of the specimen he’d met today? If Brenda falls short, so will he.

She would not like her, he decides. In spite of all the feminist causes, the sticking-up for women, she refused to enhance what she called her human form. No make-up, no sexy clothes. He remembered the time he’d bought her that pretty little make-up kit. Stupid thing to do, probably, with any woman.

She threw it at him. Right in his face. The corner of it nicked his lip. “You know what that stuff says?” she yelled. “You know what I’m saying if I put that gunk on my face and go into town? “Fuck me!” it says. Fuck me! Is that the message you want your wife to send?”

He wouldn’t at all have minded that message. But he didn’t say so. He backed off and waited till night. Then he proved to her she didn’t need the make-up to send the message.

In the looks department, she was definitely okay. Just not in the same league as the bombshell. He could drown in those pools of aqua. Sink to the bottom and never come up.

Not that he had a chance, and he knew it, otherwise he wouldn’t be indulging himself like this. He ought to tell the whole family about the conversation, then about her. It will fit right in, and her mystique will disappear.

But then, he didn’t. He did something very peculiar instead. He wiped the woman off the map and gave only her intellectual co-ordinates.

The topic was on the Dinner Table News again. “Ms. Marshall told us all about her abortion,” Sheba said, picking the bones out of her salmon. “Except she wouldn’t show us any pictures. She said there weren’t any, that there was nothing to see.”

“Just because she couldn’t see it, doesn’t mean there wasn’t a baby in there.”

“Jason!” Uh-oh. Wrong thing, wrong thing, wrong thing, what made you say such a thing to the children? Don’t you realize how sensitive they are to everything they hear? Do you want them to grow up to favor a fetus over their own happiness? Slaves to a moment of natural passion? Poor? Uneducated? Held back, held down, by people who simply shouldn’t have been born?

Backtrack. Backtrack. What I meant to say was… what? Was exactly what I said. “Maybe you can’t see the baby, but he was there. Which doesn’t mean abortion is wrong, but you ought to know what you’re doing.”

“And what are you doing?” Brenda’s voice drips like an icicle.

“Taking a life,” he says. Why not say it? It’s true. Someone was going to have a life, and now that someone isn’t.

“It’s not a life,” comes the defender of the faith. “It can’t live on its own.”

“Neither can Grandma,” he says, referring to her mother. “But we don’t pull her plug, because that would be called murder.”

Sheba drags herself into the fray with, “Ms. Marshall says it’s a woman’s right.”

“It certainly is,” the parents both say at once. No one denies that.

“Still, let’s call a spade a spade.”

“Ms. Marshall says ‘spade’ is a bad word. It means African-American.”

He can’t believe this. “A spade is a shovel,” he says.

“Then,” says Brenda, “why don’t you call a shovel a shovel?”

The discussion has taken a turn. Zeke offers, “Monty Flagler called me a Jew-bastard today.”

Jason laughs – loudly and harshly – relieved to be off the hook. “Monty himself is a Jew bastard. And unlike you, not only is he a full Jew, he is also a real bastard. No one knows who his father is.”

“Jason!”

“Just calling a shovel a shovel,” he says.

“How can a shovel be an African-American?” Zeke asks thoughtfully, running his fingers through his whiz cut. That’s how Jason thinks of it. One whiz with some kind of electric scissors, twelve-fifty to the barber, and his son looks like a cartoon drawing, his head a sharp, flat plane. Just the opposite of his daughter’s dark mass of curls.

He looked at Sheba. She was sultry. So unlike her mother. So much like his aunts. His father’s sisters. Even her body was different from Brenda’s. It was filling out, he noted. She had curves. Boobs. His daughter had boobs. Not small ones either. Bigger than Brenda’s. He wondered how his wife was taking that. Was she jealous?

“It’s not the word,” Brenda is saying. “It’s what you mean by it. You can hurt people’s feelings with words, and that’s a bad thing to do.”

He can’t stop himself. “Sticks and stones can break my bones, but names can never harm me. Didn’t you learn that when you were a kid?”

“That’s different.”

“Why is that different?”

“Because they weren’t talking about a whole group of people being called nasty names.”

“What’s nasty about the word ‘spade’? It’s a perfectly good word. Has a nice sound. It could just as easily have been chosen as Black. Don’t you remember how wicked it was to say Black before it was adopted by the previously named Negroes?”

Zeke giggles. “Daddy said the N-word!”

“I did not.” “He did not!” the parents say in tandem.

“There is nothing wrong with the word Negro,” Jason states.

But Zeke is having none of it. “He said it again!” He screams with glee.

Jason can not think of a way to win the argument without actually using the N-word, and he is not about to do that.

“Your father would never say the N-word,” Brenda says sternly. “Would you!” she snaps at Jason.

“No, no, never. Never, never, never,” he says, trying to get some satisfaction out of the N’s, because though he thinks he has probably never said the N-word in his life, suddenly he feels a tremendous urge to see what it would feel like.

Brenda’s phone goes off – a no-no at the dinner table. Her rule. Everybody looks up and freezes while she answers, cutting off her ringtone’s wish for “the world to sing in perfect harmony.” Her eyes are defensive and pleading. Mommy has done a baddy, and now there’s no time to squirm out of it, or even apologize. She does mouth the word “sorry”.

Phone has the same urgency it ever had. The voice from the outside calls, everybody jumps. The peasants at the night-time meal. A knock on the door. It’s the King’s men. Now whoever it is, it’s the King’s man. He gets to talk, you don’t.

Brenda sits up straighter in her chair. She turns slightly to look out between husband and daughter, into emptiness, her eyes glazed. She isn’t with them anymore. She’s with whoever is on the other end of the phone.

She listens for only a moment. “Yes, Mr. Wagman. No, Mr. Wagman. Of course, Mr. Wagman.” Or so it sounds. Then she’s back.

“Calling at dinner-time? I thought that was forboten by the school.”

“It’s forboten by me, and I forgot to turn off my phone. I’m sorry.”

“What does the big creep want?” He’d been calling her principal the big creep ever since Monica Lewinsky called Clinton one. He was a dead ringer for the past president. Probably many men were. People with his genes have a lot of relatives.

Not that he didn’t like Clinton. Especially that aspect of him. Clinton let the truth reign, while every other man, including Jason, was lying through his teeth every time he saw a woman and didn‘t jump her. Clinton had a higher jumping ratio and was therefore a more honest man.

“Don’t call him that,” Brenda says. “He is not a creep. He’s a very nice man.” Her eyes are on the children as she says this. She’s speaking to them. He knows her real feelings are complex. The man does look like Clinton, after all.

But children, it seems, are exempt from the necessity of having to hear the truth, and Brenda is quite adept at telling them anything that will sooth their souls, rather than enlighten them.

“So what did he want?” Jason says, not enjoying this other man horning in on his territory, during his hours. Wagman had his wife in thrall from nine to three, then remotely, reading homework and quizzes, from seven to ten. Couldn’t he leave them one fucking hour?

That was pretty good. It could be known as the fucking hour – no, that’s later. The fucking hour was actually from 10 to 11. After that there was the latest in a long line of Johnnys. Leno, Letterman, and now the incorrigible Jon Stewart, né Leibowitz. His lansman. His half lansman.

“He wouldn’t say. He sounded very excited. Asked would I please come to his office as soon as I get to school, he’ll have an aide cover my class, there’s something very important he wants to talk to me about, and I shouldn’t worry, it’s good.”

“Don’t let him lock the door,” Jason says.

“Jason!”

Giggles from both Shapiro children, who had been very quiet during this conversation so as not to call attention to themselves. Children do get it, you know. The kid-kit includes a sensor of adult emotions, even though they may not know what it’s all about. Content aside, this information goes right to the core, their psyches absorb it, their physiques change, and you have contributed, unintentionally, to their socio-sexual mindset.

There’s nothing to do about it; that’s what it means to be a parent. You may not teach, but they will learn.

These two felt, though they did not exactly know, where that caress on the back of their mother’s neck was going. They heard the difference in the quality of silence coming from the master bedroom. Deep in the libido, it all registered.

And deep in his libido, as he held his smooth, efficient wife in his arms, pressed himself against her and ran his hands up and down her back from top to bottom, a woman kicked off her stiletto heels and slinked across the floor to his desk, removing the top of that little black suit, revealing two perfectly symmetrical mounds, each with an enormous, erect nipple in the center.

Okay, folks, I tried to tell you this was an adult novel. Get those kids off the computer, and I’ll see you next time.

The Historic Meeting

No, you won’t have to wait to read it in a flashback.

Here she comes!

bumpittabumpittabump

Get a load-a those knockers! (’scuse me, friends, I can be a bit coarse. My old man, y’ know.)

The hips roll, even though they’re so goddam high. A stripper once told me it’s all in the shoulders. And there under the black cloth, they move forward like long-muscled dogs pacing the raceway.

She’s coming down the hall right toward the office he‘s working in. Who the hell is she? Nine feet tall, wearing heels. He knows enough about women - more than enough - to know this could be a ball-buster. But ball-busters are his speciality. They exist everywhere, and they aren’t all women. They are persons in positions of power. You can find them in bed or in the board room. They have to put you down so they can stand on you and take a step up.

Jason’s talent was to lie down before the stomping began, make it perfectly clear he was dead meat, then when the right moment came, spring partway up, quick grab an ankle, take down the opponent, and roll over so he’s on top. It worked in bed and it worked in the boardroom.

But suddenly he feels trapped.

One of the perks of his job is that his worksite varies. His company addresses two kinds of problems. Inventory and money. He’s on the inventory team. He is the inventory team. He visits clients and writes programs that keep track of their stock. Then he comes back again when they fuck up the program, and fixes it.

That’s what he’s doing now. Straightening out a twisted mess - putting everything back where it belongs.

This is a big account for a fairly large drug company, and he’s on the third floor of a white office building smack in the middle of an suburban park. He’s a big deal, so he’s working in the ante-room of the chief honcho, Clyde Waters. Normally, there would be a receptionist in here, but he’s got it for the day.

She barely looks at him as she breezes by on her stilettos, her hair bouncing all the hell over the shoulders of her black suit, curls slipping in and out of the naked slit that goes almost to her waist. The word “bombshell” comes into his mind, and he has an acute recognition of why that word would be applied to a woman. He’s shattered. Blown away. His brain is smithereens.

He pretends not to notice as she notices him, decides he is of no consequence, and continues on her way to the boss. There is no knock. A door opens and closes. The walls are made of paper, and he hears every word.

“Mr. Waters. There’s been a mistake. You’ve included the next-morning abortion pill in my sample case.” The voice is lilting, lovely. Very clear, girlish without being giggly. The voice does not go with the visual package.

And what are the chances of abortion coming up twice in twenty-four hours, in two completely unrelated instances? Pretty good, actually, given the world today. Abortions are about as popular as tonsillectomies once were. .

But the coincidence sets him further on edge.

He can almost see Clyde, looking up from his work to find this Amazon standing in front of his desk, trying to focus on whatever problem she’s bringing.

He answers, “Yes, Ms. DuBois. That’s going to be our top seller. Of course, we want you to promote it. It’s in all the sample cases.” Jason imagines the hopeful, wan smile. Clyde is an easy-going guy with thinning hair and sad beagle eyes in a sorry face.

“No, Mr. Waters, it is not going to be in mine. I was hired to sell drugs, not murder weapons. If I wanted to sell murder weapons, I’ve got an uncle in the arms business. I would have gone to work for him. I wanted to help people live better lives.”

Silence. He can feel Clyde’s sinking sensation. Then the effort of drawing himself up to say, “You are helping people live better lives. You’re helping them to not have children they can’t take care of.

“That’s very nice, but the same could be said of offing those children when they’re twelve years old and too much of a burden.”

“But you’re talking about children they already have. I’m talking about children they don’t have yet.”

A short, melodious chuckle. “Ah, but you’re not. They have those children, Mr. Waters. They just can’t see them.”

A loud sigh. The walls are very thin. “All right, Ms. DuBois. You may ignore the Tomorrow pill. We’ll send someone else to follow in your footsteps. Ordinarily I wouldn’t do this, but you’ve outperformed our other three sales reps combined.”

“I know, or I simply would have found another job when I saw that abomination in my sample case. I know you need me. And I like you, Mr. Waters. You know not what you do.”

“Uhhhh…”

Interview over. Here she comes, back out the door. But she’s finished with her business now, and there’s a devilish little smile on her red lips. The head of wheaten curls bobs in his direction.

“Get an earful?” The turquoise eyes shoot his way, and he falls.

He can feel his face turning red. But he’s a trooper. He refuses to lose.

“And an eyeful,” he says, taking her in again, letting one corner of his mouth smirk in a dirty way, then turning back to his work. “But it’s not for me. I’ve got responsibilities. Kids to take care of. I made em, I feed em. It takes all my time.

She smiles. “Daddy,” she breathes in the sweetest voice he’s ever heard.

Then she hugs herself and makes a kissing sound with her lips. Jason feels like he’s been slugged.

“Give my regards to Mommy,” she says, and sashays out the door. The back view is as good as the front.

Father’s Day

I don’t mean to intrude on family time, but I’ve got an Old Man too, and I couldn’t let him go without a chapter on his special day.

I know it’s a special day for half of you, and you want to spend it with your loved ones, and I’ll frankly admit that I’m trying to cash in on those good feelings to gain some sympathy for my hero, who isn’t all that different, statistically, from a lot of you dads.

Perhaps this is not an appropriate time to talk about a guy with two girls. But the Mormons have no trouble with Father’s Day, or Mother’s, for that matter, and that has to make you wonder.

Our men don’t have second wives. They have mistresses. If you’re the not-good-enough wife, the thought of a sleek, sensuous mistress with no stretch marks irks you like crazy. It’s not fair. What does the mistress know about him? All she knows is little notes, flowers, clandestine dinners in tiny country inns far from the eyes of inhibiting neighbors, co-workers, friends, relatives… all those people who put us in our place and tell us who we are. She’s got the freedom to be alluring, while you’re a slave with a tight budget of time and emotional energy.

Turn that mistress into a second wife; let her do the laundry and vacuum up after hubby and the kids, while you go off to your glamorous job. Come home to a home-made meal you didn’t make. Maybe she’ll do your nails after supper. After all, you have to look good. She might even sleep with him tonight, so you can curl up with a good movie.

Instead, in your role as “only wife”, you feel humiliated, then enraged, if a second appears on the scene. While you’ve been going on with your lovey-dovey, sweetie-weetie ways, all the world’s been laughing behind their hands at the good little wife who’s the last to know.

Or so they think. Back to you, Dads – usually the wife has known from day one; that’s what it means to be a wife, and that includes yours, in case you think you’re putting one over.

If you’re not even trying, your face burns when I mention two girls for one guy. It’s jealousy that burns like that. Why the hell should he have two and you have only one? Or maybe none. I’ll tell you why. Because he took the time, he took the effort, he took the thought, to please not only one, but two, because you can’t have the second unless you’ve secured the first. If you try, life will be pure hell. So count yourself lucky if you’re not indulging in more than your societal allotment. You’ve got peace of mind

But enough about you. Let’s talk about… I’ll call him the protagonist instead of the hero. There is no one hero in this story. Or, to put it another way, everyone in it is a hero for appearing here.

His name is Jason. This tells us a lot about him. Most men named Jason were almost named Justin, but at the last minute, the name giver had a change of mind. Why would this happen? Why would a woman, or a man, or a person who didn’t know which one to be, decide that Justin was not a fit name?

Guilt. No one’s particular guilt, the whole concept. Would you want to be responsible for bringing up the notion of “just” in a world where “unjust” is so much more often the case, and indeed, at times, so much more practical, convenient, efficient… all those workplace values we’re supposed to embrace?

More, would you want to lay on your child the inevitable having to live his life under the pressure of the entire English-speaking world’s expectation that he will play fair? Some people come to the conclusion that it would be good for the kid. They’re the ones who name their sons Justin. The more thoughtful, more fearful, or more guilty ones, name theirs Jason.

Jason grew up with everybody who’d been aware of the choice watching out to see if the rejection of the name Justin was not perhaps warranted. But if they hoped, they were disappointed. Jason had a lovely mother who made him happy and petted his ego, so the boy felt sympathetic toward most creatures, including women, because his mother was one, and he’d learned from love, to be kind to them.

As a child, he was always giving away his things, going home with other people, bringing them to his house… not necessarily other children, it could be the pigeon lady or the man who sold pencils in front of the bank. Theirs was a friendly town, but there was no one in it more friendly than Jason.

And so it continues to this day, although he is a grown man and ought to know better. When Jason spots someone he likes, he wades in. Were he to keep his mind and emotions in his own back yard, play with his own toys, everything would run smoothly. He does not.

Though he isn’t obvious heart-throb material, he’s an engaging, ageless boy, with somewhat wiry hair, a wiry body he keeps in decent shape, and a willingness to befriend. He is no more a sex maniac than any other man, but let’s not forget, when God gave man the primary instruction to go forth and multiply, he was not telling him to learn his times tables.

Jason is no slacker. He has two offspring. A girl and a boy. And here, as you might suspect, the Shapiros went biblical. Jason’s family, each side, had no choice but to embrace the Old Testament monikers. Brenda’s took them as a sign that their daughter had not forsaken religion, which, along with most of her generation, she had.

Bathsheba Shapiro may strike you as a laughable, linguistic mismatch, but Sheba Shapiro has a hushed charm about it. Ezekiel is cumbersome, but Zeke Shapiro sounds like no one to mess with, and Zeke is a short, whizzy syllable people love to pronounce. Hey Zeke, Hi Zeke could be heard all over town from the day he was first strolled in his pram.

Sheba is twelve years old. She would qualify as a nymphet but, many years more modern than Lolita, she already wears a 34B and has been enjoying her period since she was ten, no doubt due to hormone traces in the water and food supply. She’s a savvy little lady who brooks no nonsense. Not from her friends or her relatives. She gets this from Dad. Mom endorses the policy but will take guff from anybody if it’s for a good cause.

Little bro is nine. In spite of the fact that he’s all over the place mentally and physically, attracting other students with his antics, his teachers love him. He brings up the class average on the all-important Standardizeds.

These kids watch television, they take part in the dinner conversation, they hear Mom and Dad expressing their views and they form some of their own, though as usual with kids, they are not exactly the views their parents thought they were absorbing. More like a riff on those views, and sometimes even a counter-melody.

You’ve got things to do with your own family, so we’ll leave the Shapiros at their back-yard barbeque, moved inside because of rain. There are soy-burgers for Mom and the children (Dad will have a regular old hamburger on his special day, thank you), French fries done in Canola oil, and a spinach salad only Mom likes, but it’s good for you, and they all know Pop-eye.

Around a green mouthful, Sheba is saying, “Ms. Marshall isn’t coming to school tomorrow. She’s going for an abortion.”

Come Together Now

Hello, friends of Father’s!

Don’t mind Dad. (He hates it when I call him that.) I’m not at all like him, really. We fight all the time.

Did you know Dad went to Cornell? Did you know he knew Nabokov? Well, you’re his friends. Does he ever let you forget it? Did he tell you Janet Reno waited on his table when he had dinner in Sage with one of his bimbos? Dad was in the Ag school, and to him, college was one long roll in the hay.

Dad pretends to be a pig. He thinks it’s funny. He has no respect for people’s sensibilities. I do, and this is my novel. I don’t intend to let him stick his nose in it.

Still, I don’t like to do things the way other people do. Instead of whizzing in with a Whoosh Bang event to get you going, how about you just sit back and let me introduce you to the people who are going to absorb your blows, accept your kisses, and otherwise stand in for those you love, and those you hate. Malice before thought: I aim to make you squirm, so hold on to your whoopee cushions, and let’s go.

I’m going to rat out a group of my friends.

Danielle (not her real name). The mistress. Brought up on a farm out west. The mid-west, where everything is square. The streets are grids, if there are enough of them, but often it’s just one road cutting through the corn fields, or the wheat fields, with houses on either side, a cluster of stores halfway through called “town” and back out the other end and on to the next collection of human beings who share a school, a drugstore, a grocery, a post office, a bank, and a hardware establishment. But Danielle, born Edna, was destined for a more exotic version of life. She worked hard in high school. After hours, as a secretary. Learned all the skills, including the management of bosses. Changed her name before she moved to the big city, joined a gym so she could keep up the body she’d developed on the farm.

And what a body it is. Ever hear of Swedes? I see you have. You’ve already got the picture in your head. And you’re right. Our girl is tall and lanky, but thin and curvaceous. What God didn’t give her she got from a doctor her second week in New York. I’ll give you a moment or two to solidly implant her in your head. Long blonde hair, the trite color of wheat. But no, no, not like that. Not straight. Danielle’s hair falls down past her shoulders in golden waves of grain. I knew you’d like that. Makes you want to reach out and touch it, twine your fingers in the silken sheen of it.

Danielle’s eyes are blue, of course. A beautiful sky blue. Naturally. She does not need the turquoise contact lenses to make them other-worldly, but she needed glasses, so why not give herself an edge? That’s the kind of girl Danielle is. Always looking for that little something extra to put her over the top. Willing to be playful if it helps. Able to turn hard as nails in an instant if the game goes sour.

With a presentation like hers, a woman must develop a devastating personality – to keep the bums away. The difference between the royal consort and the whore is the company she keeps. Dirty hands must be kept at bay. Four-inch heels help. The little suits with plunging necklines and the nipped-in waists are unaccountably formidable. Danielle has not succumbed to rope-and-pulley cleavage. Her big round breasts are separate and distinct rather than pressed together like a tiny ass. Neckline plunges down to waist on a clear, clean run. Cool as can be.

More about her later. Here comes the wife. Or, I should say, wife, mother, teacher. Brenda. Mommy. Mrs. Shapiro. Married to a Jew. No, not quite. Half a Jew. But the father’s half, and it’s all in the name. Oddly, according to the Jews, a Jewish father means nothing. It’s the Jewish mother that counts. If your mother is a Jew, you are. If your father is a Jew, and your mother isn’t, God help you. And he probably won’t, because he’s pissed. God does not like miscegenation. God doesn’t even want you to mix cotton and linen. God is a purist. And a bigot, of course. He’s got those chosen people.
.
But despite the Hebraic surname, these younger Shapiros are not practicing Jews: they don’t go to temple, they don’t observe the sabbath, they are not kosher. Each spring, they go to Aunt Audrey’s to celebrate the passover. They eat matzoh, drink sweet wine, sing silly songs, and pack it up for another year. They have a Christmas tree, for which Mr. Shapiro is grateful, having had a deprived childhood due to his parents’ familial accommodations. They ignore Easter. It’s too complicated. Half of Jason’s ancestors refused to stand up for one of their precocious progeny, who after his execution was adopted by Brenda’s progenitors as the son of God. Go tell that to the judge.

Brenda teaches math. Lucky for us. We won’t be hearing too much about it. If Brenda were an English teacher, or a history teacher, she’d be bringing her classroom into conversations, and taking bon mots back to her students, because Brenda’s religion is Humanism. Brenda greatly admires the French, and would go there to live, if only she could get a job, and if only she wasn’t all bound up with a husband and family she dearly loved. But it’s mostly a matter of mind. Mind over matter. Brenda looks out at her world from under a figurative beret. She finds much to fault.

To begin with, her image in the mirror, which is not at all French. Short brown hair, a turned up nose, a straight, athletic body, hard and trim … but what was it? Her sincerity, her earnestness, her strictness, perhaps, that made her look so opposite of what she imagined she’d be if she lived in Paris, where she’d let her hair grow and wear it in a long braid down one side, under a real beret that matched her black leotard and her slinky, sexy, artist’s body that would ride around town on a bicycle with a long loaf of bread in its basket.

Yes, she’s was stifled. By her school, her husband, her children, her country. But she was a hell of a good math teacher, and therefore a valuable asset. Her principal treasured her. As did her husband and children, because she was also a good wife and mother. This did not diminish her need to give expression to the vision she had in her head. And that is why she accepted an offer to run for political office. But more about that later.

Now, the hero of the story. Hero, you say? What makes him a hero? He’s got a wife and a mistress. Exactly. There’s an old tale that a Chinese character for trouble is a picture of two women under one roof. I submit that the roof can be virtual, and that a man with two women may have double the pleasure, but he’s also got double trouble. One hero and two heroines. Affirmative action. Give the ladies two to one.

Okay, I see you don’t want to hear about him now. You’re suspicious. You don’t think you’re going to like a philanderer. Well, he doesn’t need you to like him. His wife and his mistress like him well enough. And you haven’t even met the kiddies.

Next time.

Henrietta Haribush

Ladies and gentlemen, my dear friends (and enemies - though there are fewer of you than before), I promised you a novel. I said I might disguise myself as a woman. However, you know me as a man, and I’m afraid you may be unable to switch your image to a woman, because Henrietta is, after all, the invention of a man, namely me. If she sometimes speaks with my voice, forgive her. It’s in her genes. Should she appear to have somewhat masculine attitudes, remember, she was raised by a single male parent.

I have endowed her with life and a mind of her own. But you know how kids are, unbeknownst to them, and quite out of their control, no matter how hard Mom and/or Dad has tried to prevent it, they take on the protective coloration of their parents, even the combinations that they don’t themselves care for. Pity us poor human animals. We grow first by imitation. Any rococo trim we thenceforth apply is flimsy, transparent, and capable of being shattered in a Nanosecond.

All right, all right. I’m standing here like Daddy, in the wings, waiting for his darling little daughter to trip out onto the dancing school stage.

Let the curtain rise. I give you Henrietta Haribush and Come Together Now, her adult (and very present) novel.