The Perfect Wife
It was when she started talking back to Tim, though, that she reached another level in our affections.
It was quite a small thing, the first time. Tim was tearing a strip off one of the new developers. We felt for the guy: We had all been in his position, though we also experienced a secret thrill that it was now someone else’s turn. We called these bawling-outs Tim-lashings or Getting Timmed, just as we called all-nighters Tim Time and predawn was Tim O’clock. And to be fair, his outbursts were rarely unwarranted; merely excruciating. With Tim, the particular failings of the task you had messed up on were never merely errors. They were much worse than that: an indication that you didn’t subscribe to the same perfectionist worldview as him, that your standards or your commitment were somehow eternally compromised. He could move from the particular to the philosophical in a nanosecond.
“We don’t do workarounds,” he was snapping at the hapless developer. “We don’t do betas. And we particularly don’t do failure. If something’s not good enough, don’t fix it—reinvent it. You think Elon Musk set out to build a better car? Wrong. He set out to build the thing that would replace the car. While you, my friend, are still polishing fenders.”
To which Abbie said, “What’s wrong with a bike?”
It was not a particularly smart or witty remark. But the fact she said it at all—that she acknowledged the way Tim was yelling at the poor guy within earshot of everyone—broke the unwritten rule, the fourth wall that separated us from him. And silently, inwardly, we applauded her for it.
He gave her a blank look. “Nothing’s wrong with bikes. Anytime you want to invent a self-driving bike, feel free.”
And so it began.
10
Upstairs you spread out some old sheets and get to work on the bookcase, methodically removing a shelf’s worth of books at a time. The tops are grimy—clearly, no one else has touched them in years. You wipe each one with a cloth before separating out those you intend to read. With the more interesting ones, you flick through in search of notes or annotations, too. For a moment you can’t recall the right word for that kind of thing. Then it comes to you. Marginalia. Of course. You are a person who enjoys such words, you are discovering.
You wonder if you always did, or whether it’s something to do with your new deep-learning brain.
The big shelves at the bottom mostly contain cookbooks. Happy Abbie-versary, Tim’s written inside a book of Venetian recipes, Best trip ever! Inside The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook you find the cryptic inscription, Present number thirty-seven!! A copy of Dishes from India is inscribed To Ms. Abigail Cullen, soon to be Mrs. Cullen-Scott. From the happiest engineer in the world.
Tucked into the flap is a theater program, something experimental at the Cutting Ball. Scribbled on the back, in your handwriting and Tim’s, is an exchange:
Asleep??
Not quite.
I’m thinking about food.
Mmmm…
Italian?
Oysters!
Bail?
I’m right behind you.
And a hand-painted Valentine in the shape of a heart. Dearest Tim, I give you my heart.
Another word comes to you, equally satisfying. Ephemera.
* * *
—
As you pull out Elizabeth David’s French Provincial Cooking, it falls open at a page crusted with pink cooking stains. A sentence has been underlined: It is useless attempting to make a bouillabaisse away from the shores of the Mediterranean. In the margin your earlier self has written YOU’RE ON!!!! Below is what looks like a shopping list.
Rascasse
John Dory
Galinette (substitute Gurnard?)
Saffron
And, in a different pen:
NB: Next time, simmer the tomatoes twice as long as this tyrant says.
Smiling, you put the book to one side. You can’t eat anything yourself, but you like the thought of cooking something nice for Tim that you cooked before.
You’re halfway through the bookcase when your phone pings. For a moment you wonder who it could be. But then you remember: Tim’s the only person who knows your phone’s in use again.
U OK? Hate that I’m not there with you. X
Affectionately, you text back:
Your job needs you! I’m fine. Love U. Xx
You wait, but he doesn’t reply.
Reaching up, you pull another book from one of the upper shelves, almost falling backward as the cover comes away from the pages. A broken binding. It must have been a favorite, you think, for you to have kept it even in this poor condition. Perhaps it can be rebound.
Carefully, you open it. Then you realize something. The book inside is smaller than the cover. In fact, you now see, it’s a different book altogether, a paperback that’s had its own front and back covers ripped off. But you can still read the title, printed at the top of every page. Overcoming Infatuation. Some kind of self-help book.
Flicking through, you see that some passages have squiggles next to them. And at the end of one chapter, a paragraph has been underlined:
Limerence, or infatuated love, is outwardly almost identical to the real thing. But just as a little salt seasons meat while too much poisons it, so love and limerence are actually two sides of a coin.
You put it aside to show Tim. Perhaps he can explain it.
As you turn back to the shelves, your phone pings again. You pick it up eagerly, thinking it’s Tim’s reply. But the sender’s name simply says FRIEND.
Puzzled, you open it. On the screen are just four words.
This phone isn’t safe.
You stare at it. There are no earlier texts above it, nothing to indicate who Friend might be.
As you watch, the message slowly fades from the screen. Some kind of Snapchat-type spam, you decide.
Putting the phone down, you continue with the books. You’re almost at the end of the row when you notice a volume of poetry, Ariel, by Sylvia Plath. A memory leaps in your mind. You read those poems as a teenager and fell in love with them, the way only a teenager can.
You pull the volume out. But this cover, too, simply slides away from what’s inside. Intrigued, you prise the contents from the shelf. This time, though, it isn’t a book that the cover was concealing.