Read The Good Life for Free Online Page B

long phone call from the hotel to the girls, in which she had detailed every stroke of the cosmetician’s brush. He had lain on the bed, cold along the chin, and listened for some reference to his tears, but Pat spent most of the time telling them about her hair stylist, a navy man.
    â€œThey’re very excited,” Pat told Frederick now. She sucked at a white Russian. Laura and Bett had told her to order it. “They wanted to make sure that we’d gotten directions for all of the makeup and hair drying. They’re afraid that we’re going to come home tomorrow just the same, as if none of this ever happened.”
    â€œIt’ll take a while to grow that hair back.”
    â€œThey love that I got to keep your ponytail. They all want some of it to braid and wear as bracelets.”
    â€œI was thinking about giving it a proper burial.”
    â€œWe could burn it, along with my jumper. A purification ritual.”
    â€œNot bad,” he said. “We could smear the ashes on our faces.”
    â€œAnd ruin my makeup? No way.” Her laugh was a trill, and she ducked her head girlishly as she sipped her sweet drink. He had made her happy, as he had meant to do. Surely couples owed each other happiness. He looked at his own drink, a double scotch, more liquor than he usually drank at a sitting. So now did their lives stop, resting on the platform of her happiness?
    He said, “If we’re going to hold a ritual, we’ll have to check the calendar for an opening. It’s already time to start thinking about the recycling initiative. The new waste-removal contract is coming up before city council.” He saw her drop her eyes, and he softened his voice. “In Rock Hill they missed the deadline, remember? They went three months without curbside pickup. I hate to think of the waste.”
    â€œI don’t think that will happen to us,” she said.
    â€œConstant vigilance,” he said, their old battle cry.
    â€œThe girls are keeping up the fight in our absence. I have reason to believe that they are spending tonight putting a faux finish on our recycling bins.”
    â€œYou want me to be charmed by that, don’t you?”
    â€œThat would be nice.”
    The sight of his own groomed hand and buffed nails unnerved him, although at least he’d changed into a shirt with button cuffs. Pat had insisted on visiting the hotel’s boutique, and he had taken the opportunity to buy another shirt. “I don’t want to fight,” he said.
    â€œRemember what Jack Carey said? We’re supposed to have fun.”
    â€œWho’s Jack Carey?”
    The smile died on Pat’s mouth. “He’s the host of
The Jack Carey Show
, Frederick. It’s a television program. You were on it.”
    â€œI’m sorry. I never caught his name.”
    â€œIt was all over the set. And people said it about a hundred times.”
    â€œYou know I’m not good at names.” He nudged his glass, noting the damp impression it left on the thick tablecloth.
    â€œAnd I shouldn’t ask you to change, should I? I shouldn’t ask you to be what you’re not,” she said. He knew this voice. She had used it when Laura, age eight, came home in tears after throwing a rock at her best friend.
    He said, “What do you plan to do now? If we have to picket about waste removal, are you going to walk in high heels?”
    â€œI think so, yes. I like them. If I make the 6:00 news, we can keep the videotape with the one of you talking to city council.”
    No, they couldn’t. One of the girls had taped a cartoon show over the old tape of Frederick’s speech, a fact he had uncovered one afternoon when he was alone in the house. Still, he remembered how he had looked on TV, as if a prophet had come before the clean-shaven council members in their dark suits. He closed his eyes against the sharp tears.
    â€œWhat do you want me to say?” Pat