two sisters, a dream I had, about how it’s never ‘enough’
Two sisters, both alike in dignity. Well, okay, not so alike. Angie’s always been the smart one. Good grades. Good hair. Good decisions. Well, okay. Not in college. She got pregnant. Dropped out and married Jake “The Snake” Tucker, former high school wrestler, lately truck driver, by all accounts a good guy, a decent guy. Loves his kids and works his ass off to support them. Always brings Angie flowers after a long drive. And he’s the real deal. Even his hotel receipts would tell you that.
But Angie can’t stand him anymore. He can’t keep up with her conversations. He gives in as soon as she challenges in, even a little. “You’re too much for me, Angie Tucker. Aren’t I lucky I married such a brilliant woman?”
Lisa’s a little different. She’s always been the sexy one, even in high school. Had her pick of the boys even if most of the colleges turned her down. So Lisa turned the talents she did have to good use and married the cleverest boy that would have her. Alexander Butterfield IV. Butterfield loves his wife, too, ardently. Pridefully. Vociferously. He brings home the bacon and all its trimmings. Its trimmings include the latest iPhones, flowers for the garden, good clothes for the kids, and whatever jewelry Lis winks at throughout the year. Alex even takes notes and he never gets it wrong. Lisa lives in a five bedroom house on the good end of town. She manages it well with the help of a gardener and a sexy pool boy and a party planner who comes in three times a year to plan the children’s extravagant birthdays.
And the sex! The sex is… tepid. Alex loves Lisa with all of his brainpower. They’ve taken classes. Read books on tantric shit. Alex is delighted with all of it and recites poetry after the fact. He knows how to get Lisa there, but something is missing. Lisa sighs quietly to herself.
“You understand. That’s why I took up with the pool boy,” she confides to her sister over scones and tea. Lisa’s paying as usual. It’s understood between the two of them that Lisa delights in spending her husband’s money and Angie enjoys being a step up in life for once.
“I don’t understand,” Angie admits. “No judging between sisters, of course.” She sips her tea.
“Alex is all brain and no animal. He loves me, of course, but a girl needs to be ravished. John is completely discreet. I tip him well.” They both giggle. “Alex is happy. I love him and hold nothing back. He talks to me, I am his apt listener. We make love and I play the game. John gives me what I need and takes a little money back to his family. And your sister gets to be satisfied. He’s not like Jake, he doesn’t have that animalistic nature, you know? Rawr. I bet your husband is amazing in bed.”
Lisa mrrs quiet agreement but she is displaced and nothing will set it right for weeks. Oh, yes, Jake is all animal. But when they lay in bed with her head on his burly chest, she thinks how she’d like to be an apt listener for once. She’d like it if Jake would recite a little Neruda, lecture her about the evils of socialism and then name her the goddess he aspires to worship. Instead he kisses her head and names her the smartest, prettiest girl he knows, and isn’t he lucky to have her?
So Lisa goes on the prowl.
She slips out of her wedding ring and goes to a debate club. It’s almost all men and they do indeed treat her like a goddess, even if they talk down to her a bit. It’s nice to be the Delphic Oracle in a room full of scholars. She catches herself locking eyes with a gentlemen a little younger than Jake; nice suit, nice bow tie. Soon they’re texting back and forth, bits of poetry and sultry selfies. Ralph is a chef. He plates brownies and sends a picture with a naughty word scrawled in chocolate. Says he’d like to feed it to her by hand and drink champagne out of her navel.
Oh, Lisa’s all aflutter. It feels good to have someone amazed at her again. They meet in a hotel room above the kitchen he manages and make out like teenagers. He hitches up her second-hand polyester skirt and whispers poetry against her thighs. This is what it’s like to be loved by a brilliant man, she thinks. This is all I needed.
Before they can finish she gets a text. The sound is muffled under her cardigan halfway across the room, but she knows the sound. A custom ringtone, a song, something funny and disrespectful, something he set without her knowing, just to make her laugh. Her heart clutches and she remembers the man that loves her, the man who thinks that she is the brilliant one. She thinks of poorly-arranged sunflower blossoms after a trip to the pumpkin patch, Jake carrying their daughter on his broad shoulders. That wink in his eye.
“I have to go.”
“But-”
“Don’t call me again.”
She takes a long shower and cries. Cancels the next tea with her sister. Jakes gets home early from a long haul and finds her in bed, mascara smeared, grey sweats. “There’s my beautiful wife.”
She leaps out of bed and wraps her arms around him. “I love you, Jake Tucker.”
He kisses the top of her head. “I love you, too, beautiful.” He grins and reaches into his back pocket. “I brought you something. I didn’t forget your birthday. Sorry, it’s a bit bent.”
A book of poetry, Pablo Neruda. Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair. It is indeed creased in the middle. But still good. Second hand copy, because Jake knows she loves old books. An old inscription marks the inside cover, spiky script in fading red ink: To my goddess.
“Isn’t that sweet?” Jake asks. “Just like you.” He whispers it against her ear. “My goddess.” She shivers.
She smiles, and she can hardly see his face through her tears. “It’s perfect.”