A Marriage Made at Woodstock by Cathie Pelletier Page B

working on a cash-flow analysis for Dee Dee’s Flower Emporium. Dee Dee was seeking a ten-thousand-dollar bank loan that would enable her to expand the flower shop. After running amortizations on loans of varying lengths of time, Frederick decided he would suggest she go with a two-year loan. Her payment would be steep, but according to her cash flow, she could handle it. And she would pay far less interest than if she settled for a longer-term loan. When he stopped to eat a sandwich, he was surprised to see that it was almost eleven p.m. No wonder he was exhausted. So he’d gone up to their king-size bed, the Cadillac of marriage vehicles. Why Chandra had insisted on buying such a yacht of a bed had always intrigued him. But somewhere around three o’clock in the morning, his eyes still on the green puddle of light thrown off by the alarm clock, it had come to him: She could keep herself at bay in such an ocean of bed. She could set up housekeeping on one corner of the Posturepedic abyss and he would never even know it. That’s when he had panicked and dialed the number on the green Post-it, only to be told by a voice so impersonal it would make the Stone family aunts all sound like Mary Poppins, that Chandra was no longer living at the Lentz residence.
    â€œI’m sorry I woke you, Amy,” Frederick said. He hung up and considered waiting for her to fall back asleep, then phoning again. Sorry, Amy, but did you say Chandra moved out?
    Weary of staring at the clock, he went downstairs with a pillow and blanket to his tiny office. If this schedule kept up, he would be dysfunctional in a month. That was the catchword of the decade, wasn’t it? Dysfunctional mothers, fathers, husbands, wives, sisters, brothers, no one above suspicion. There were even dysfunctional pets who paid weekly visits to psychiatrists. What chance did Frederick Stone have in such a maniacal world? After all, he was only suffering from a case of hubris.
    Back on the settee, he fluffed his pillow and arranged his blanket about his feet. He waited for that wash of drowsiness that would indicate sleep was finally on its way, but it never came. Here, then, was the synopsis of his life, the battered CliffNotes of his existence: a middle-aged man with hair threatening to recede at any moment, sitting wide-eyed and cramped on a narrow settee at four o’clock in the morning. So what do proud men do at times like this? He considered suicide in the Japanese sense, as a means of saving face. After all, he now felt embarrassed that he had admitted his marital troubles to the likes of Joyce, Lillian, and Herbert. Even the mailman was asking intrusive questions, not to mention the incorrigible Walter Muller from next door. Perhaps his only recourse was to do himself in. He could slice his wrists with Chandra’s pruning shears, still hanging in the garage. Let her wade about in the ocean of guilt that would surely create. But then, the shears were so rusty and corroded he’d probably have to endure not only a tetanus shot, but Herbert shuttling him down to the emergency clinic in the monstrous Chrysler. The ax? He did own an ax, one he had bought to render firewood into kindling during the cold ocean winters. The mattock was a primary agricultural tool for Neolithic and ancient peoples around the world , he heard Mr. Bator whisper. Frederick suddenly remembered that he had gotten that answer wrong, one day in class. When called upon, he had blurted, “A mattock is hair hanging from the back legs of a horse.” Ever appreciative of foibles, the class had erupted into laughter. Remembering, Frederick felt his face redden, as it had that day so many years ago. But Mr. Bator had come to his rescue. “You’re thinking of a fetlock, Mr. Stone.” Bless him. He’d been a compassionate man. What had ever happened to Mr. Bator? And where could Frederick find a mattock in order to at least maim himself? Probably at Home