Still Life with Husband by Lauren Fox Page A

understood why people say that birds sing; to me it always sounds like they’re fighting. Which it turns out, of course, they are.
    Meg slows down as we reach the end of her block, and her speed becomes more companionable. “God, I’ve been so wrapped up in myself…”
    I cut her off. “Of course not.”
    “…I haven’t even asked you about yourself. What’s been going on with you?”
    “Hmm. Not much. A little work, this and that.” A few more steps. Our coats flap behind us. A slow, dulled-by-autumn bee buzzes around us and then careens away; it will be dead in a week, I bet. I make a split-second decision. And then just like that, there it is, my little private gem, the jewel I’ve been hoarding, exposed: “There is something.”
    For the first time, Meg brightens. “What?”
    “Well,” I say slowly. Now that I’m about to tell this story, I don’t know how to arrange the details. Not that I’ve done anything wrong…Still, isn’t a thing like this all in the telling? Especially given Meg’s strange tendency to leap to judgment about this issue. “Um, remember that guy we met at the coffee shop, the editor at The Weekly ?”
    “Yessss.”
    “He e-mailed me. I mean, actually I e-mailed him. Because I decided that I might want to do some work for him. Things have been a little light on that front lately. We met for coffee yesterday.”
    Meg laughs. “You did what?”
    Encouraged by her laughter, I continue, “Yeah, we did. He asked me to meet him. We had a great time together. He wants me to be the paper’s ‘relationship expert.’ I’m going to have a regular gig with the paper. And it turns out he’s very cool; he’s a very interesting person,” I say, a little breathless. “He likes to travel. And he’s smart. He knows a lot about movies. Films. He gave me all these suggestions of old obscure ones, a couple of Hitchcocks I’ve never even heard of, and Bergman, I can’t believe I’m thirty and I’ve never seen a Bergman movie! Have you?” I hear how I must sound to Meg, but I can’t stop myself. “I have to tell you something,” I say, turning to look at her. “I have a little crush on this guy.” And Mount Everest is a little hill. “Not that I would ever do anything about that,” I insist; the strength of my assertion makes me believe it. Of course I wouldn’t.
    “Wow,” Meg says, visibly perked up, a facsimile of her old self for the first time today. “Crazy. What else did you talk about? Was it mostly professional? Did he blush?”
    “Oh, yeah. The whole time.”
    “Emily!” Meg stops, grabs my elbow. “Did you tell him you’re married?”
    I try to keep walking, to pull Meg along, but she’s holding tightly to my arm. “Well, it…well, I was going to, but…no. I didn’t.” Meg is standing stock-still, about to say something, but I’m determined to plow through, to make her understand. “Look, here’s the thing. You know this has never happened to me before. I like him. We could be friends. But I like him. I felt this attraction to him that was…intense. Do you think we could be friends?” I feel a knot inside me coming loose. Meg, my friend, will help me sort this out.
    Meg pauses, considers my question. “Do you remember Peter Johannsen?” She says it with a lilting Norwegian accent, Pay -ter Yo- han -sen? Before Steve, Meg’s last serious boyfriend was Craig, a sweet, curly-haired social worker who played the trumpet and adored her. He used to write songs for her. He’d give her a printout of his poetic lyrics and play the tunes on his trumpet, being obviously unable to sing and blow the horn simultaneously. Although apparently once he did try. After about six months, Meg started complaining to me that she was bored. Craig was sweet and loving, but things had grown predictable. She knew precisely what he’d order at the two restaurants he felt comfortable frequenting, exactly how he’d respond to every movie they saw. All his songs started to