Le bonheur est, dans l’amour, un état anormal.
– Marcel Proust

I am not the first Mrs. Howard. The first Mrs. Howard burned down my yoga studio before stealing my Civic and driving it into the Champlain. They pulled her unconscious body from a shallow riverbank and kept her in a pentobarbital coma for two weeks. I learned a lot about myself in those two weeks. I learned I could wish someone dead, and mean it.

She survived.

Two or three times a year Randy Sr. takes Randy Jr. to visit the first Mrs. Howard in prison. It’s a half-day’s drive, so they make a trip of it. I don’t get an invite. Me, I’m left to babysit Randy Jr.’s hamsters, Tyler and Trevor.

“It’s just a few days,” Randy Sr. assures me. “Plus it’s good bonding for me and the boy.”

He says it’s not really about visiting the first Mrs. Howard. That part’s only a couple hours. Sometimes less. The rest is guy-time—joyriding the I-95, devouring junk food, marathoning fishing shows in motel rooms. You know, wholesome fun.

They send me pictures throughout the trip. Badly composed shots, always over- or under-exposed, never just right even on a smartphone. I attended Pratt. Graduated with honors. I try to explain it to them but they don’t get it. They smirk and exchange looks—I can feel it.

They are blind to beautiful things.

Randy Jr. always brings me back some kind of tchotchke. Sometimes it’s one of those complimentary matchbooks from a roadside diner. You know, the ones kept in a clear glass bowl by the register. A trivial memento, to be sure, but alright fine with me. I can actually use matches. To burn incense or spark a joint.

Tourist pins are the worst. I have a collection of them in my jewelry box, seven in all now. One is cut like the state; another is a miniature license plate with Howard embossed on it; still another is a speckled trout with a sad, gaping mouth. Campy stuff like that.

I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing one.

#

Like clockwork, me and Randy Sr. get to fighting. He plans on hauling Randy Jr. on another little roadtrip to see the first Mrs. Howard week after next, just three months since their last pilgrimage.

“But he’s twelve,” I say. “Put him on a bus. He’s a big kid—all the meat and milk and seed oils you feed him. He’ll manage.”

“His diet’s fine, thank you.”

“Fine? Christ, Randy. Kid looks like a retired drill sergeant.”

“Lay off, would ya? Save your almonds and beans and sprouts till we get back.”

He’s checking his email while he speaks to me. It’s just so unbelievably rude. He never takes anything seriously.

“Look at me when I’m talking to you,” I say. “You think vegans are pussies, don’t you? Think animal cruelty is a big hilarious joke, right?”

He rolls his eyes.

I snatch the phone from between his fat paws and chuck it across the room. Now I’ve got his attention.

“Use your brain,” I tell him, jabbing a fingertip into his temple, that gateway to nothing. “All those exogenous hormones circulating in his bloodstream—he’s growing a full-fledged lawn on his back. You realize that, don’t you, you stupid idiot?”

But Randy Sr. is having none of it. He strikes down the idea of eating right. Strikes down the idea of not visiting the first Mrs. Howard. Waves his hands as if to dispel a fart.

“The boy is normal and healthy,” he says. “Healthy and happy.”

He crosses the room and plucks his phone from the ground. He inspects it. Looks at me. Chuckles.

“Wow,” he says. “Case is bombproof,” he says. “Five stars.”

I feel my eyelid start to twitch again. Keep pushing me, Randy Sr. Keep pushing, I dare you. He takes a step towards me, then another. His two clammy paws come down on my shoulders like rusty anchors weighing me down, always weighing me down.

“The kid should know his mother,” he says.

I recognize that tone—trying to make me see reason. Trying to make me compromise. Sure, part of me wants to relent, wants me to fall into his loving arms. Sometimes I wonder if maybe I am being a little too harsh. But the most important thing is standing your ground. Give an inch, take a mile. I learned that the hard way.

“There’s enough distance between them,” he pleads. “I don’t wanna make it worse by not going. You get that, don’t you?”

He moves in for the hug.

“Whatever,” I say, repulsing him. “I’m just the second Mrs. Howard, right? Runner-up?”

“Sweety, don’t be like th—”

“Save it.” I storm downstairs and slam the front door behind me before he can untangle his fat, wet tongue.

“You’re fucked!” I yell up to our bedroom window from the front yard.

I’m literally shaking. Gaslighter always making me out to be the bad guy. So fed up, same shit every few months. Speaking of months, the first Mrs. Howard still has 71 to go. The boy will be old enough to drive himself before her sentence is up. Let’s see what Randy Sr. has to say for himself then. Then we’ll know what’s really going on in that febrile brain of his.

Then we’ll know.

#

Rachida asks why it bothers me so much anyway. We have coffee together whenever our teaching schedules line up. The new studio is the definition of tacky, but my clients are too basic to notice—they’re actually thrilled. They gobble it up.

“Bitch got what she deserved,” Rachida says. “Now live that life she can’t—best revenge, isn’t it?”

I tell her it’s not the first Mrs. Howard I worry about—it’s him. Like, he tells me he no longer thinks about the first Mrs. Howard? Really? I know his password and he still keeps pictures of her. Of them—together. I check his Instagram. Same thing. I go through his FB search history and—surprise-surprise—there she is.

Worst of all I see the way he stares at her paintings, watercolor landscapes in the tradition of waiting room art. They hang mockingly in Randy Jr.’s bedroom, as if they were part of the goddamn house. This man gets distracted whenever he looks at them. He looks too long. He forgets what he’s talking about. He drools. He’s not fooling anybody.

Rachida changed her mind after I spilled the tea. Rachida calls it an, “unhealthy domestic situation.” Thinks I should leave him. Thinks our wavelengths are totally out of sync. “This can happen,” she assures me like a pro.

Rachida actually listens to me.

#

In another week Randy Sr. and Randy Jr. will be strapping into the Subaru Outback and risking a fatal car crash just to go see the first Mrs. Howard. They’ll throw away our hard-earned savings on fuel and poison the atmosphere just to go see the first Mrs. Howard. They’ll kill our planet and maybe themselves just to go see the first Mrs. Howard, that snake.

I am not the crazy one here.

#

The first Mrs. Howard keeps good lawyers. Even behind bars she’s still milking his bank accounts like ripe udders.

Now they’re in the process of appealing. Again. Claim to have new evidence. What evidence, it’s anyone’s guess. They say it proves the first Mrs. Howard innocent—poor, fragile bambi—unwittingly drugged and coerced, dragged kicking and squawking like pork to slaughter. Tricked. Manipulated into doing the things that she did.

Oh yeah? By who?

By the second Mrs. Howard, obviously. Obviously.

Please. I dare you. Come after me and my family, you deranged old hag. Who are they going to believe? I’m young and you’re old. I’m hot and you’re not. I teach Ashtanga and you attempted a murder-suicide because your husband didn’t want to fuck you anymore.

Please. Try me.

Rachida says I shouldn’t worry about it. “She’s lying,” she says. “I mean, she is lying—right?”

“Absolutely,” I tell her. “Biggest liar you ever met.”

Rachida nods her perfect ebony head in solidarity. “Nothing to worry about then, I guess.” Rachida has got my back. Rachida empowers me to stay strong. To stay positive. She reminds me to breathe.

Breathe.

We light sandalwood incense and sit for 15 minutes of Metta. After, I tell Rachida I managed to find a locus of compassion for the first Mrs. Howard. “It was just hiding really, really deep,” I tell her.

Rachida likes that, giggles.

“I’m glad you feel better,” she says. “Namaste.”

Sunlight streams beautifully through the studio’s south-facing bay windows. It almost makes you forget the godawful color palette and rotten pinewood floors and cringy buddhas. Truth is, I spent the whole session fantasizing about strangling the first Mrs. Howard to death.

“I do feel much better,” I tell Rachida. “Namaste.”

#

A few days pass before Randy Sr. gets news of the appeal. I deleted the first email from his inbox after reading it, so they must’ve sent a follow-up.

He doesn’t even wait to get home to bring this up. Typical Randy Sr.—always so impatient, airing his dirty laundry for all those envious pricks at the office to see. I often wonder how anyone considers this man an industry-leader in tech. He can barely hold his personal life together.

Anyway he calls me at work, right in the middle of our monthly social media shoot. He knows this and still he decides to excuse himself from an important meeting with the San Fran branch and call me in the middle of my shoot. I’m holding a very fucking strenuous Hanumanasana pose and my phone is going off and it absolutely decimates my kundalini flow. Humiliating.

Rachida covers for me. On my way out I hear her giving advice to Pasquale, our photographer. Please—as if she understands the first thing about art direction. I attended Parsons. Graduated with honors.

Now I’m in the locker room trying to keep my voice down. Some yappity crones are getting changed, loitering and cooing like dumpster pigeons. God they’re slow and just so chatty—blah, blah, blah. Go home already.

He says he’s thinking of taking a leave of absence. Right now. During the most lucrative quarter of the fiscal year. Like, sure, right, makes perfect sense—what a brilliant way to tank our living standards. Guess my maxed-out AMEX will just for itself at twenty-fucking-nine-percent interest. Now I’m really losing it. I lock myself in the bathroom. I can hardly breathe.

Is there really anyone as stupid and oblivious as this man on the entire planet? The first Mrs. Howard is literally waging a satellite war against my family. Trying to divide and conquer. And the Randys are making it easy for her, like a hot knife slicing through their buttery hearts. Does he really not see that? 

Randy Sr. is blind to truth and justice.

“But they’re your lawyers,” I remind him. “Make them back off.”

“What am I supposed to do? They say they have proof.”

“You really wanna bring that up again? Who do you believe, Randy? Make up your mind—for real this time.”

“You, babe,” he says. “Always you. I’m just talking strategy. How do we handle this?”

“Like we always handle it. Nothing new about her pathetic little fictions.”

“You know, she always had that nervous energy about her,” he mumbles. “Mom warned me… Back when we first started dating junior year. Said, “Don’t trust nervous women.” Said they’re never up to any good.” He sighs. “Then again, mom hated everyone.”

“Randy,” I snap. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“It’s just…” he stammers, impish cortex parched for thought. “I don’t know. Lawyers say they’ve got some guy willing to testify. Should we be worried?”

“Christ’s sakes, Randy. What guy?”

“Easy, easy, I’m just the messenger. I don’t know—some guy. Some dealer. Said you bought his entire lot of LSD and PCP. Said it was enough to keep the entire state of Rhode Island tweaked for a year.”

“Allegedly bought, Randy,” I hiss. “Allegedly.” Suddenly I’m pulling my bare foot from a cantaloupe-sized hole in the drywall. Those nosy crones have better’ve fucked off. People need to learn to mind their business. 

“Right,” he says, “of course—allegedly.”

“Do I look like some kinda mind control expert to you?” I say. “Some random junky walks in off the streets and offers to testify against me—in return for what, a quick fix? Really? That’s their airtight defense?”

“That’s about right, yeah.”

“Listen to me, Randall, they’re desperate. His word against mine. Hearsay, that’s all this is. Like, what, he’s gonna produce fucking receipts? Do dealers even do that?” I ask. “Do they?”

“No, no, you’re right. Just lawyers doing their lawyer thing. Listen, breaks my heart to see you go through this, hun,” he clears his throat. “But…”

“But what?”

“You know…”

“Spit it out, Randy, I don’t got all day. They’re probably doing dhanurasana without me right now. And you know how hard I worked to compress my spine this week.”

“I mean, sure, obviously guy’s nuts. But what’s the angle? Probably had to cut a deal for a dropped charge or something, no?”

“Oh my god. Why are you so obsessed with this loser? He’s a junky, Jesus-fucking-Christ, listen to yourself. You’re gonna believe some crackhead over your own wife? Oh, now that’s classy.”

“It’s not like that, sweetie, I—”

“Real fucking classy,” I say. “Why don’t you go marry him instead?”

I tell him he better think real hard about what comes next out of his mouth, because I’m pretty fucking tired of his second-guessing.

He stammers something pathetic and I hang up on his ass. Feels good to take control. Like, what? I’m supposed to just sit here and let myself fall victim to his verbal abuses? Is that what a good wife is supposed to do? Typical. Elites like him always get away with everything.

Over it.

#

I warned him twice already, so help me god if he makes me warn him again.

Randy Jr. is in the kitchen with us, building a Lego metropolis for his gross lab rats to waddle over and defecate on and smash to bits. He’d be better off reading a textbook or taking apart a lamp or something. But no—it’s this sick fixation with hamsters. Whatever. He’s so mesmerized by the little spectacle he’s oblivious to me and his father yelling.

“You’re not fucking going tomorrow,” I tell him again, eyelid twitching like automatic rifle fire. “And that’s that.”

“Watch your tone with me,” he says, growing a pair for once.

“Yeah? Go to her and you can forget about ever stepping foot in this house.” I get up in his face, grab the starched collar of his Ralph Lauren polo. “Get me?”

He swats my hand aside. Violently. I’ll remember this. Then he says, “You’re forgetting who pays the mortgage, buttercup.” He wags an aggressive finger in my face. It’s all I can do not to cut it off. I’m eyeballing the scissors behind him. They gleam seductively from the open dishwasher rack.

He turns to see what I’m looking at and his moronic eyes grow wide like frightened cattle. Disbelief sets in. Paralysis takes hold.

I move in for it.

I’m calm. I’m steady. I weave past him, scissors within reach. Randy Sr. has an epiphany, grasps the situation, screams like a bitch. His scream spooks Randy Jr. who also screams, spooking Tyler and Trevor, both of whom squeak and flee the kitchen. I nearly trip over the two panicked rodents—the hamsters, not the Randys—but catch myself against the sink with one hand, the other clutching the answer to all of my problems.

I start to turn, but my chest tightens. Constricts. I keel over beneath the brand new Calacatta marble island. I dry heave.

“Help,” I try to say. “Help me.”

My mouth is filled with cotton. He puts a thick, useless paw on my back, forgetting all about his big balls.

“Oh my god, babe! You alright? Babe! What’s going on?” He shakes me like an idiot. “Please, answer me. Babe?”

My eyes are watering. The pressure. The noise. I can’t see, I can’t breathe.

“Shut the fuck up,” I manage to wheeze. “Heart-attack,” I wheeze. “Call 9-1-1, you worthless piece of shit.”

#

In the emergency room the doctor tells me it’s not a heart attack at all, just a panic attack. He actually says it like that: just a panic attack. His actual words. Meanwhile I literally thought I was going to fucking die.

Dumb bastard.

Then he writes me a script for Zoloft. I don’t believe in messing up my neurochemistry, so I crumple it up and tell him to shove it up his ass. Commission-based health care… What a world.

Randy Sr. offers to take me home. Begs me. Smothers me in oafish apologies.

I grab an Uber.

#

I wake up in our matrimonial bed, alone.

For all that happened last night I slept better than I have in months. Maybe because of what happened. Some kind of spiritual release. The afterglow isn’t unlike what I’ve experienced under the spiritual guidance of Her Sacred Majesty, Ayahuasca, during my annual Costa Rican retreats.

I do some stretches in bed. Give thanks to Gaia. Indulge in yummy satori. I think it must be past noon by how quiet the house is, but the clock says it’s only just after eight. Usually Randy Sr. is showering about now. I listen but hear nothing from the en-suite.

All of a sudden I’m gripped by an intuition I can’t ignore. My third-eye is wide-fucking-open. I spring out of bed and sprint down the hall and barge into the little creep’s room: Gone.

School? No. Today is Saturday. I glance around. Tyler and Trevor are still here, munching gluttonously from an opulent mound of pellets, their cage overflowing with fresh hay. Which means…

Shit.

I rush back to the master and raid every inch of our walk-in. Randy Sr.’s Samsonite suitcase: Gone.

I bolt downstairs and draw the living room blinds, my blood boiling like lava pulsing through titanic fissures in the Earth’s crust. I know it before I see it. Outback: Gone.

He did it. That stupid idiot actually did it. He took his chemically corrupt brat and went to visit the first Mrs. Howard on some next-level Stockholm syndrome shit.

#

Last thing I remember is standing outside the house in my Versace bathrobe, clutching a fluorescent yellow matchbook with the words, “Big Al’s Diner on I-95” printed in fat, red cursive. Even from my vantage point on the sidewalk, the powerful flames lapped at me like thirsty beasts, singeing the tips of my fake lashes.

Don’t ask me about Tyler and Trevor.

#

It’s so disgusting here that of course I get a bad UTI. They want me on antibiotics but I refuse. I tell them I handle things naturally. It’s called trusting your own body. I see them roll their ignorant eyes.

Fuck them. Let them work for their paychecks. My taxes pay their fucking salaries. I ask them to fetch me a probiotic and some organic looseleaf sencha and a tea ball and, go figure, they bring me a chewable multivitamin and one teabag. A fucking teabag!

I’m beside myself.

“Look at this,” I shout. “Did you even read the back? How is the only ingredient in green tea, green tea? The fuck is this—a joke?”

“Take it easy,” they say, clutching the butts of their wimpy little batons.

I toss the vitamin and teabag back at their blotchy, blubbery faces—let them read “Made in China” up close. See how they like it. They get all hot and fussy after that. Yell and grab me like grumpy toddlers. Toss me around.

Whatever. This isn’t forever. Five years tops. And even though me and her are in different cell blocks, folks here talk. What else is there to do? Through the grapevine I hear they’re in the final stages of reviewing her appeal. Looks like she’ll be getting out soon…

But soon isn’t yet.

The Randys will still make an appearance. They can’t resist. They’re drawn to her like knights to a damsel in distress; they can’t ignore a long braid let down off a high tower. Men and their savior complexes. Please.

Well, then, what about me? Where’s my savior? All these months and not even Rachida puts in a visit? Shows how flimsy friendships really are. Little veneers of fake-ass meaning—anything to keep the loneliness at bay. She’s a disingenuous poser, anyway. Always thought so.

Face it: Everyone’s a poser. Trust anyone, anyone at all, and you’ll end up in here like me—a scapegoat crammed into a cement cage. You’ll bunk with some square-jawed convict sentenced for grand larceny. She’ll gawk at your perfect body every time you squat to take a piss and won’t even try to hide it.

That’s the reality you can look forward to when you trust people. So don’t even bother. Because just when you think you’ve built yourself a nice little life, Kali comes roaring down the mountainside like the fucking destroyer of worlds to set it all ablaze.

But the next time Randy Sr. and Randy Jr. come to visit the first Mrs. Howard, I’ll be ready. I’ll have eyes in the room. Not mine, obviously. I give free yoga classes and in return I get eyes wherever I want them. I’ll know every last detail about those visits. I’ll know exactly what they said. I’ll know exactly what they did.

I’ll know how they looked at each other across the visiting table. If they touched hands and if they squeezed hands and for how long. I’ll know if they swallowed hard or pursed their lips or wiped a single goddamn crocodile tear from a reptile eye.

And I’ll know if he bends down and if he takes a knee. And if from his pocket he removes a little velvet box. And if he opens the box, delicate and trembling like a little bitch, and asks that conniving old wretch to be the third Mrs. Howard.

Then I’ll know, once and for all, what’s really happening inside the mind of this frivolous man. How those rusty cogs grind away, agonizingly, faithlessly, in that busted brain of his. Then I’ll know.

Then I’ll know it all.

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