Paul is squatting next to the tub when Audrey gets home, stacks of damp foam tiles everywhere, stomach okay, but his knees killing him. But hey, his shrug says, we brought this on ourselves. Audrey gets to work rounding up the toys and books and stuffed animals, and she’s ruthless, throwing away junk, including the cigar-shaped magnets, which look, stuck end-to-end, more like sausage links, but she’s left with four full storage tubs. She figures she’ll take care of everything but the stuffed animals, but after hunching over the sink for two hours she’s not close to halfway done and her back can’t take anymore.
In the morning the foam tiles have been reconstructed and Audrey’s first thought is that Paul’s an idiot, but he’s feeding the boys and tells her he washed the floor first. At the doctor’s, the baby thrashes so violently during the blood draw that a second nurse has to hold down his legs while Audrey holds down his shoulders, and then the nurse says Hey, just a heads-up, if the number comes back ten or higher we’re required to contact the Department of Public Health. But Audrey shouldn’t worry yet, the nurse adds, because the toe prick has a decent-sized margin of error. So Audrey leaves thinking the real level might be twenty or more and sits outside her mom’s house for a minute to stop shaking.
By now she’s almost looking forward to the conference, hoping she’ll be too busy to dwell on the baby, but she’s apprehensive about seeing this guy, her boyfriend.
“‘Boyfriend’ doesn’t sound like the right word,” the wife said. “Isn’t he more like her lover?”
“I hate that word,” the husband said.
“Why don’t we use his name?” my wife said.
Until now the look on my wife’s face had remained puzzled—unamused, certainly, but mainly puzzled—because whatever the facts were, I’d never done anything like this, tried to make her jealous of relationships either real or imaginary, so what could I possibly be up to. But I was still within the realm, I thought, where I could apologize afterward, say it was a brainless joke, and be done with it. And this is the place where I had planned to smile sheepishly and say Let me clear this up, I am not the boyfriend, my relationship with Audrey was never romantic.
When I looked at my wife, though, her expression had turned from puzzled to what I could only construe as challenging. As if she was daring me. I had only a second to process this, and what I came up with in that second was that rather than give me the benefit of the doubt, she had decided I was the boyfriend and was telling me you’re in trouble already, let’s see how much more trouble you want.
So now I had been double-dared.
“Actually,” I said. “He has the same name as Audrey’s husband, which might get confusing.”
“The boyfriend’s name is ‘Paul’?” my wife said.
“Right.”
“Call him ‘Paul the Second,’” the husband said.
“How about ‘Paul the Lover’?” the wife said, and three of us laughed.
Okay then, I said, let’s imagine things from Paul the Lover’s point of view. Let’s say he was younger than Audrey, and on different footing professionally, and started out admiring her from a distance, not sure he would ever exchange more than hellos with her. Then they became friends and he flipped for her, but she was married, right, and it was easy to dismiss the thought that she could be interested. Now, though, let’s say work brought them closer together and they really bonded and she started hinting at dissatisfaction with her marriage, and they, on the other hand, they were so comfortable together it was like they thought each other’s thoughts. And now it really hit him, that gut-churning, first-love love, that can’t-even-read-a-menu-he’s-so-distracted love. Then, just when he was sure the marriage was over, Audrey told him she was pregnant.