Tricky Business by Dave Barry Page A

husband who enabled her to care full-time for her three perfect children in a perfect modern house with a foyer that could easily swallow Fay’s entire apartment.
    â€œGreat,” said Fay. “How is she?”
    â€œShe’s fine.”
    â€œGreat.”
    â€œShe’s doing very well.”
    Another silence.
    â€œAs opposed to me,” said Fay.
    â€œI didn’t say that,” said her mother.
    â€œNo, you never say it,” said Fay.
    Another silence. Fay broke it:
    â€œMom, listen, I’m sorry. I’m just tired. I really appreciate you looking after Estelle. I promise this job will end soon.”
    â€œI certainly hope so. That boat is no place to meet a nice man.”
    â€œMother, I am not trying to find a man, OK?”
    â€œThat’s for sure.”
    â€œWhat is that supposed to mean?”
    â€œNothing. I have to go. The Young and the Restless is starting. Good-bye.”
    Her mother hung up. Fay pressed the OFF button on her phone and told herself that she was not going to cry for the nineteen-millionth time over the vast unbridgeable chasm between her life and her mother’s expectations.
    â€œSnow White,” said Estelle.
    â€œYes, honey,” said Fay. “That’s Snow White.”
    â€œMan kiss,” said Estelle.
    â€œThat’s right,” said Fay. “The man kisses her.”
    Another silence.
    â€œMommy crying,” said Estelle.

Four

    ARNIE AND PHIL WERE IN THE OLD FARTS SENILE Dying Center recreation room, where no recreation had ever taken place. Slumped randomly in chairs around them were a dozen other residents, a few staring into the distance with unfocused eyes, the rest asleep, or—you never knew here—deceased.
    Arnie and Phil were watching the big-screen TV, which was tuned to NewsPlex Nine, the top-rated local news show, which specialized in terrorizing its viewers. The NewsPlex Nine consumer-affairs reporter once did a week-long series, with dramatic theme music and a flashy logo, on fatal diseases that could, theoretically, be transmitted via salad bars. The reporter did not find any instance of this actually happening, but the series did win two awards for graphics. It was entitled “Death Beneath the Sneeze Shield.”
    NewsPlex Nine loved bad weather. At least ten times per hurricane season, the weather guy—no, make that the StormCenter Nine meteorologist —would point to some radar blob way the hell out in the Atlantic, next to Africa, and inform the viewers that, while it did not pose any immediate threat, he was keeping a close eye on it, because under the right conditions, it could, theoretically, strengthen into a monster hellstorm and attack South Florida with winds that could propel a piece of driveway gravel through your walls, into your eyeball, and out the back of your skull.
    Needless to say, the members of the NewsPlex Nine team were all over Tropical Storm Hector, which as far as they were concerned was the most exciting thing to happen in South Florida since several weeks earlier, when a German tourist opened his hotel mini-bar refrigerator and discovered what turned out to be the left foot of a missing Norwegian tourist. The meteorologist was already hoarse from speculating about the bad things that Tropical Storm Hector could, potentially, do.
    â€œLook at his hair,” said Arnie. “Six hours he’s talking, he’s waving his arms in front of the radar, his hair is perfect. How the hell do you keep hair holding still like that?”
    â€œHow the hell do you keep hair ?” said Phil.
    â€œI hate this channel,” said Arnie. “A little rain, they act like it’s nuclear war.”
    â€œYou wanna change the channel, be my guest,” said Phil, gesturing toward the remote control.
    â€œYou kidding?” said Arnie. “What am I, Einstein?”
    The remote control had 48 buttons. No resident of the Old Farts Senile Dying Center knew how