Husband and Wife by Leah Stewart Page B

for greasy, salty biscuits and fries. They’d both come over strange when I’d been made the business manager, but they were over it now, or at least I thought so. Kristy liked to call me “Boss” when I asked her to do things, to remind me that even if I was in charge she retained the right to tease me.
    She wasn’t at her desk when I went out at 12:28 to meet Smith. I assumed she was on her lunch break, but she wasn’t. She was outside smoking a cigarette, something she persisted in doing even though she was six months pregnant. If I’d smoked while pregnant, I would have done it in secret, ashamed—I didn’t even drink wine in public in my third trimester, though I had an occasional glass at home—but Kristy just stood there, three feet from the entrance to the building, puffing away, apparently oblivious to the looks she got. Was she making a statement? Did she just not care? It was hard to say, but I thought it was the latter. I disapproved of her smoking, but admired her “I am what I am” attitude.
    “Where are you off to?” she said when she saw me. Iusually packed a lunch and ate it in the tiny break room, next to the tiny fish tank Tanya maintained.
    “I’m going to lunch.”
    “With Nathan?”
    “No, he’s home with Binx.” I was reluctant to tell her who I was going with, and reluctance like that was the sort of thing she was hardwired to notice.
    “Who is it, then? Your boyfriend?”
    Smith’s car turned into the drive, and he waved as he went past us, turning around in the circle to return facing out.
    “Cute,” Kristy said. “Does Nathan know?”
    “Ha ha, Kristy,” I said. I couldn’t look at her. “Shouldn’t you be working?”
    “Nothing going on in there,” she said. “I’ve been reading People all morning.”
    “Shh,” I said. “Don’t tell your boss.” I headed for the car, tossing a “See you later” over my shoulder.
    “See you,” she called.
    When I opened the car door, Smith was leaning toward me, but looking at Kristy. I could tell from his face he could hardly believe what he saw. I got in the car and shut the door hard, as though sufficient force could make Kristy and her stomach and her cigarette disappear, and forestall the conversation I knew Smith and I were about to have.
    “Should she be smoking?” he asked.
    “Of course not.” I put on my seat belt with unnecessary care, strangely reluctant to look at him. “She says it will keep the birth weight down.”
    He reacted with such horror his body jerked backward. “That’s why she’s doing it?”
    “She’s doing it because she’s addicted. That’s a joke she makes.”
    “You think it’s funny?”
    “No, Smith, Jesus. I don’t think it’s funny. I think she should quit smoking. What would you like me to do, call Social Services?”
    Smith jerked up the parking brake and got out of the car. It was a mark of his agitation that he didn’t turn the car off, seriously as he took the environmental strictures of Al Gore. It was a mark of my shock that I did nothing, just sat there and watched through the window with my mouth hanging open as he crossed behind the car and up the sidewalk to Kristy. She looked at him with a curiosity that hardened into anger as he said whatever he said, and I watched as he gesticulated and she moved her head from side to side in that “Oh no you didn’t” way—a pantomime of middle-class liberal righteous ness colliding with working-class conservative righteous ness. She inhaled elaborately and blew the smoke out in his face, and then he snatched the cigarette and dropped it on the ground. She was yelling, her mouth open, her arms flapping out at the sides, a giant pregnant bird. I reached for the door handle, steeling myself to enter the fray. I had no idea what I was going to say. Did I think she should be smoking? No. Did I think he was right to tell her so? No. The only statement that came to mind was, “I can’t handle this right now,” which I