Free Wife 22 by Melanie Gideon

were in Au Bon Pain and here he was looking like Sylvester Stallone, and I was mortified.
    “Aren’t you hot?” I said, staring blatantly at his forehead, trying to silently telegraph
you’re in Cambridge, not the North End, take that ridiculous thing off.
    “It
is
kind of hot in here,” he said, slipping out of his jeans jacket, stripping down to a wife-beater. He leaned forward, his deltoids flexing, andput a twenty on the counter. “Make it two chicken salads,” he said, then turned to me. “I thought I’d surprise you.”
    “Well, you did! Surprise me, I mean. Um—I think they have a no-tank-top rule in here.”
    “I was hoping after lunch you might give me a tour of your office. Introduce me. Show me around.”
    I knew what Eddie was thinking. That I would waltz him through the door and my colleagues at Peavey Patterson would see him and be flabbergasted and ask who is that gorgeous guy with the incredible body (which is exactly what I did when I first saw him at the gym) and whisk him away to be in some major ad campaign. He wasn’t completely off about his potential—he was charismatic and could probably have sold anything—paper towels, wet wipes, or dog food. But not in a wife-beater and bandana.
    “Wow, that’s a great idea. I just wish you had given me some notice. Today’s probably not a good day. We have a big client in town. In fact I shouldn’t even be out getting my lunch. I should have eaten in. Everybody else in my office is eating in.”
    “Alice! Alice, I’m so sorry we’re late,” a woman shouted.
    Now Helen pushed her way to the front of the line, dragging an uncomfortable-looking William behind her. He and I were running just thirty minutes before. I’m pretty sure Helen was unaware of the fact that we’d been working out together. Or that I used his sunscreen. Or that even after showering I still smelled of it.
    “There’s no saving places!” somebody yelled.
    “Those people cut to the front of the line!” somebody else yelled.
    “We’re with her,” said Helen. “Sorry about that,” she whispered to me. “It was such a huge line. You don’t mind, do you? Well, hello!” She broke into a huge smile at the sight of Eddie. Her eyes lingered on his bandana. “Who’s your friend, Alice?”
    “This is Eddie,” I said, suddenly feeling protective, hearing the cat-and-mouse tone in her voice. “Eddie, this is Helen and William.”
    “Boyfriend,” Eddie corrected Helen, leaning in to shake her hand. “I’m her boyfriend.”
    “Really,” said Helen.
    “Really?” said William.
    “Really,” I said, getting irritated now. Did he just assume I was single? Why shouldn’t I have a boyfriend, and why shouldn’t he look like Mr. Olympia?
    “Hey, doll?” said Eddie. He kissed me on the neck.
    William raised his eyebrows. His mouth dropped open the tiniest little bit. Was he
jealous
?
    “Your sunscreen smells like coconut. Yum,” said Eddie.
    Helen turned to William. “I thought that was
you
.”

25
    From: Wife 22
    Subject: Maritalscope?
    Date: May 25, 7:21 AM
    To: researcher101
    Researcher 101,
    I’m curious. How do you go about interpreting my answers? Is there some sort of a computer program that you feed data into that compiles a profile? A type? Kind of like a horoscope? A maritalscope?
    And why don’t you just send me all the questions at once? Wouldn’t that be easier?
    Wife 22
    From: researcher101
    Subject: Re: Maritalscope?
    Date: May 25, 7:45 AM
    To: Wife 22
    Wife 22,
    It’s much more complicated than a horoscope, actually. Are you familiar with music streaming services? Where you enter in a song that you like and then a radio station is created just for you based on the song’s attributes? Well, how we interpret, code, and assign value to your answers is very similar to that. We strip your answers down to