The Gods of Greenwich by Norb Vonnegut

developers arrived with legions of carpenters.
    Now a different kind of butcher occupied the building. Lawyers and investment bankers kissed their spouses good-bye each morning. They traded the soaring ceilings, exposed brick, and designer kitchens for cubicle farms, where they spent their days slaughtering opponents from rival firms.
    In the crook of his left shoulder, Jimmy cradled lemon-colored roses. He had chosen the shade in tribute to Madame Olenska, the heroine who receives yellow roses in Edith Wharton’s classic The Age of Innocence. Cusack had always appreciated Olenska’s irreverence, the way she flouted society’s expectations during the 1870s. It made no difference that she was a fictional character.
    The bouquet was huge, petals everywhere, two dozen roses in all. Cusack rapped on the door with his right hand. He had keys but waited for his wife to answer anyway. Surprise, showmanship, a spray of long-stemmed roses—panache was everything in the romance business. Cusack checked the two-star pin on his lapel to ensure it was visible.
    Seconds later the door opened. Emi resembled so many other New England women from the wholesome tribe of L.L. Bean and the great outdoors: slim, athletic, and not much in the way of makeup. Her brown hair gleamed like brushed satin when she pulled it back in a ponytail. Her blue eyes sparkled with the light, perhaps the distortion, of a thousand sapphire prisms. Emi stood two inches shorter than Cusack in her bare feet, nudged him by a hair when wearing clogs, and completely dwarfed him in heels.
    “Hello?” Emi asked, betraying her usual control.
    It was not, “Hello. I love you. How was your day at the office, James?” Most of the time, Emi addressed Cusack as “James.” So did Caleb.
    It was not, “Hello. I’m aching for you. Let’s get naked, Bevis, and go to bed five minutes ago.”
    Cusack was not “James” all the time. When they were holding each other, Emi called him “Boris” or “Bluto” or some other phantom lover just to be provocative. She liked B ’s in bed for some reason. It was her joke, Emi’s buoyant banter with her beau.
    And it was not, “Hello. Who the fuck are you?” Emi was too good-natured, far too kind to bark at anyone. But there was no “dear” included, no hint of Barclay or Blythe or even Brady. No recognition whatsoever.
    Jimmy had seen her blank look before, those confused eyes that struggled with identities. He had heard the same “hello” many times, the unmistakable hint of doubt. And he loved his wife without reservation.
    *   *   *
    Cusack never heard of “prosopagnosia” before Emi. He discovered the word the hard way, early during their relationship in college. They passed on the street, and she did not recognize him. Had no clue who he was. Walked right past without so much as a wink. Left him slack-jawed in the middle of a busy intersection. Made him wonder what he had done wrong. That was after several weeks together and a string of happy B ’s.
    “Prosopagnosia,” Emi later explained, “is sometimes called ‘face blindness.’ We can’t distinguish the features of people we know, even friends and family.”
    “You can’t tell who I am at a dinner party?”
    “Short term, I’m okay. It’s the next day that’s a problem. I forget faces.”
    “You wouldn’t recognize Hugh Jackman?”
    “Probably not.”
    People with prosopagnosia can distinguish among eyes and noses and different kinds of chins. Assembling the pieces, however, is like distinguishing among rocks sanded smooth by weather over long stretches of time. Nearly impossible.
    Emi’s case was not severe in a clinical sense. Her struggles were imperceptible to most everyone other than Cusack. But they were real. She sometimes failed to identify him, especially in crowds.
    Because of these recognition problems, Emi opted for a career with reptiles and worked as a herpetologist at the Bronx Zoo. She loved reptilian colors and textures.