Mike, Mike and Me

So do I. I remember when my husband used to stop at the florist in Grand Central on his way home every once in a while. He’d come in the door with a paper-wrapped bouquet of my favorite flowers, heavenly scented stargazer lilies.

He hasn’t done that in months.

I hadn’t even noticed until now.

“Hang on and I’ll go get him for you,” Jan says, and puts me on hold.

It’s not that I’m jealous. If Mike’s secretary were the least bit buxom or beautiful, I might be jealous. But Jan, a married mother of toddler twins, has crow’s-feet, prematurely gray hair, saddlebags and an upper lip that desperately needs electrolysis. She and I are about the same age, but she looks a good decade older. She’s so not a threat to my marriage.

In fact, until recently, I didn’t think anything could be a threat to my marriage.

“Hey, what’s up, Babs?” my husband’s voice asks.

I hate when he calls me Babs. But at least he sounds cheerful, so I say, just as cheerfully, “Hi! I just…I wanted to see how your day was going.”

“Crazy. How about yours?”

Upstairs, I hear the clattering of a million tiny plastic pieces against hardwood. Apparently, the Lego city has met its demise.

“Crazy,” I tell Mike.

Because if an out-of-the-blue e-mail from an old lover isn’t crazy, I don’t know what is.

“Crazy how? Are the boys okay?”

“They’re fine. One is playing, one is watching Dora, one is sleeping. When are you coming home?”

“Late” is his prompt reply. “I have to take some people out for drinks. Don’t wait for me for dinner.”

“I won’t. Will you be home before I put the kids to bed?”

“I’m not sure. I’ll try. Kiss them for me if I’m not, okay?”

“Okay. I wish you were coming home soon.”

“Believe me, so do I. I’d rather be home with you and the boys than drinking Grey Goose and tonic at the Royalton on an empty stomach.”

And I’d rather be drinking Grey Goose and tonic at the Royalton on an empty stomach. Ironic, isn’t it, that we long for what we can’t have?

Like…

No. Stop that.

“Let’s go away,” I tell Mike spontaneously.

“Away? What do you mean?”

“Let’s go on vacation. Instead of staying here and working on the house. Let’s just go somewhere. Please?”

“Beau, I spend every weekday of my life somewhere other than at home,” Mike points out, sounding weary. “I’m tired of going somewhere. I want to go nowhere for a change.”

“But if we went out to the Cape for the week, you could go nowhere once we got there. You could sit in a chair on the beach for six straight days.”

“Do you know what the traffic on 95 is like between here and the Cape in August? It would be a nightmare.”

“But—”

“I want to sit in a chair in my own backyard for six straight days, Beau. And when I’m not sitting in a chair, I’m going to be working on that bathroom under the stairs. Believe me, you’ll thank me when you’re flushing that toilet at the end of the week.”

I don’t think so. Not if it means also flushing any hope of a real vacation this summer.

I sigh. “It’s just hard to be at home with the kids day in and day out, Mike.”

“Maybe you should get a hobby.”

Is it my imagination, or is he being condescending?

“What do you suggest?” I ask in a brittle tone. “Macramé? Model airplanes?”

“You know what I mean. You need something to do, other than taking care of the kids. I don’t blame you for being bored.”

His unexpected sympathy catches me off guard.

Before I can respond, I can hear a phone ringing on the other end of the line.

“We’ll talk about it over the weekend, okay?” he asks, slipping from sympathetic to distracted in a matter of seconds.

“Yeah, okay.”

We hang up.

I don’t want a hobby. I want…

I don’t know what I want, other than for this sudden restlessness to go away.

I stand there in the family room, listening to the overhead hum of childish conversation, Dora’s theme song, the rhythmic, battery-charged rocking of the swing.

I almost wish Tyler would start whimpering, just to give me something specific to do.

When did I get to be this aimless housewife?

Mike and I have three beautiful sons and a house in Westchester.

It sounds so fulfilling when you put it in writing. So much better than the reality.