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admin — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 00:56:48 +0000

Somehow they have ended up in this disaster of a house. The man says it was bad luck, the woman says it was the beady-eyed realtor. They have bats in the attic and the raccoons in the basement. They have confined themselves to the middle floors, where it’s just the faulty plumbing that they have to contend with, though the kitchen had a mouse problem until the exterminator came, and now it has an exterminator problem, because it seems like every time either of them sits down to eat the exterminator shows up to fumigate or put in glue traps. The sight of the glue traps in their kitchen sends the woman into a desperate state of panic. For weeks they eat in the hallway standing up until the man calls the exterminator and cancels their appointments. They will live with the mice.

The man and the woman have wound up in each other’s lives by accident. They aren’t married; they aren’t even dating. The question of sex is one that they avoid, because they were each having it with someone else when this all started, and now they don’t have it at all. They are both in their middle years – a no man’s land of jobs and real estate and thinning hair. They show up to dinner parties together and don’t explain anything to anyone – it’s their own damned business how they live. They are not in love with each other, the woman knows. But they make sushi together on Saturday nights. They agree about the government and about money. They go to Europe together. What more could she want?

Besides, she’s always been someone who could handle things. She’s handled worse – her brother back from the war, her sister’s breast cancer, her own flailing career choices – what’s a little racoon infestation? She pulls out the yellow pages and flips to R for “racoons” – a comforting, alphabetical decision. In the corner of the page is a listing for Davie Crockett’s Racoon Removal. She dials their number with the eraser end of her pencil and waits for an answer.

athingwithfeathers

5 mc

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