Free Magnolia Wednesdays by Wendy Wax Page B

on unsteady legs and hated that she had to wait several moments for her body to finish straightening. Ira might want to believe he was middle-aged, but she knew just how old they were.
    She looked down at Ira, who was still sitting on the sofa looking like someone had just landed an unexpected punch.
    “I’ve never been more serious in my life,” she said. “We take some dance classes together or I file for divorce. Betty Weinman’s son is a big-time divorce lawyer. I’m sure I won’t have any trouble getting an appointment with him.”
    “Ruth, come on,” Ira said. “You’ve had your little joke. Sit down, let’s talk about this.”
    “No,” she snapped. “I’m finished talking. And this is no joke.” She walked toward the door.
    “Mrs. Melnick,” Dr. Guttman said. “This is no way to settle things. Come back and sit down. We still have ten minutes left.”
    But Ruth wasn’t interested in settling. She was going to have a real marriage again. Or she was going to have a divorce.
    “Ira can stay and make sure he gets every penny out of the session,” she said as she swept herself up to her full five feet two. “I’m not wasting any more of my time on a husband who doesn’t appreciate my worth.”

7
    T HE DRIVE FROM inside the perimeter of Highway 285 to the suburbs that sprawled around it like the spokes of a wheel took about twenty-five minutes at this time of day. By three thirty P.M. when rush hour began in earnest, the drive to the northern suburbs could stretch into what might pass for eternity.
    The drive up Interstate 75 passed largely in silence. Melanie concentrated on the zooming cars and trucks that wove around them. Vivien watched exit signs flash by and studied the occupants of the cars as they passed. Almost everyone drove with a cell phone pressed to one ear. In some frightening cases they also texted or checked email while piloting their multiton vehicles.
    When they reached her exit, Melanie slowed. A series of turns took them onto the four-laned Marietta Highway, which was also called Upper Roswell Road or simply 120. In the Atlanta area and its environs, it had apparently been decided that there was no reason to settle for one street name when you could use two or three. If the name had the word “Peachtree” in it, so much the better.
    Here, despite a recent gas crisis and an alleged fear of dependency on foreign oil, vans and SUVs of all shapes and sizes dominated. A large percentage had at least one car seat in the back, most of them occupied. Those who’d already been there and done that displayed college bumper stickers on their rear windows; in many cases more than one. And almost every vehicle bore multiple decorative magnets that proclaimed the occupants’ activities, possessions, and affiliations.
    Reading them as they flew by, Vivien knew what schools their children attended, how many sports they played, where they vacationed, what diseases they wanted to wipe out, and who they’d voted for as well as where they worshipped and exactly how proud they were to be an American.
    “Why does everybody have so much personal information plastered all over their SUVS?” she asked.
    “Hmmm?” Melanie asked, her gaze following Vivi’s finger to the Ford Expedition in front of them. It sported a cutout family that included a mother, a father, two children, and a dog. Beneath these figures were spheres for an elementary and middle school, the logo for a youth baseball team and a cheerleading megaphone as well as an “I’d rather be playing golf ” bumper sticker, a Girl Scout trefoil, and an Atlanta Lawn Tennis Association magnet.
    Melanie shrugged, seeing nothing out of the ordinary. But Vivien was already playing with the opening hook of a possible column. In the suburbs people don’t wear their hearts on their sleeves; they put them on the backs of their minivans. She smiled as she fiddled with the wording, relieved. She’d thought it might take a couple of days to