Outtakes from a Marriage by Ann Leary

Scottish guy named Frank. I recognized his voice. He had worked with Jonathan for years.
    “I know. Everybody tells me I’m insane with three kids and all that white. But everybody takes their shoes off when they come into my apartment now. Everybody. My mother-in-law told me I was rude and I told her, rude or not, I spent fourteen thousand dollars on those floors.”
    There was a pause, then: “She has bunions. I guess she doesn’t want anyone to see them.”
    Another pause. “So now I’m all done! We’re all moved in!”
    “Sounds nice,” said Frank. “I was thinking of doing the same thing to my floors. But we’re just renting. Did you have to remodel the kitchen?”
    “No! I loved what the people before us had done.” A pause. “Of course, we had to have the whole place de-vibed.”
    “You did? I think my friend did that….”
    “Yeah, well, the people we bought the place from, they were going through the messiest divorce. It’s one of the reasons it took so long for us to close. And they were in a nasty custody dispute—allegations of adultery and child molestation. It was just so…toxic! So we got this priest to come in and sprinkle holy water all over the place.”
    “I thought you were Jewish.”
    “Yeah, I am.”
    “Is your husband Catholic?”
    “No. Jewish. My friend suggested we do it and we thought, Why not. Actually, I don’t even think the priest was Catholic. Maybe…Episcopalian?”
    “Cool!”
    I thought about the vibes in our apartment. We had bad ones now. A strong and dark undercurrent pulled treacherously at our household, at all its members. My heart began racing and I felt it coming on, the waves of adrenaline, the fear surges—anxiety attacks that I had been experiencing on and off ever since becoming a mother—and as I reached into my purse for my phone, I thought of Catalina reaching for her rosary beads.
    “Why didn’t you tell me you’re such good friends with Cillian Murphy?” Jonathan shrilled, planting himself between the mirror and me.
    “I’m not friends with Cillian Murphy,” I said. I dropped the phone back into the murky depths of my bag.
    “How come I saw a picture of you sitting next to him at a restaurant? I think it was in
Vanity Fair
?”
    “Oh. That wasn’t a restaurant. It was a fund-raiser. Big Brothers or something. Joe and I were just seated at his table. It was months ago—last spring.”
    “I just saw the issue the other day! C’mon, what was he like?”
    “He seemed nice.”
    “I
love
him. He’s got my abs. The abs I want.”
    “On yourself or somebody else? Listen, I think I should try blonder….”
    “Myself
and
somebody else. Why can’t
I
meet Cillian Murphy? All you have to do is introduce him to me. He’s gay, right?”
    “How should I know?”
    Jonathan turned now to admire the profile of his abs in the mirror.
    “You sat next to him at dinner, didn’t you? Did he flirt with you?”
    “Well, no, but he’s probably ten years younger than me, so I don’t think that’s a very good indication.”
    “Did he flirt with Joe?”
    “He didn’t flirt with anyone. He was very nice.”
    Jonathan had to go mix the hair color and when he returned he had a small plastic bowl that he held just above my head. He frowned into the bowl, stirring its contents in a sweeping, scraping motion with a small brush, glancing up now and then to view the busy activity in the salon. A tall young woman walked quickly past, her head sprouting foil, and Jonathan nudged my knee with his.
    “That’s so sad,” Jonathan whispered, glancing up at the woman. Then he resumed his stirring.
    “What?”
    “That’s my poor client who just finished sitting for her color. She’s had it really bad.”
    I didn’t want to hear about somebody else’s problems, especially now, but before I could interject, he continued, his voice low, his highlight brush dipping in and out of the pungent gold cream. “She was engaged. To a rich investment banker. Really