Free My Only Wife by Jac Jemc Page B

food and cooking. We made too much. We knew it. We made mint and cannelloni bean dip to serve with fresh vegetable crudités.
    My wife made a buttered nut and lentil dip and breadsticks from scratch.
    I prepped smoked fish and potato pate and baked homemade melba toast.
    My wife rolled ricotta cheese balls in paprika and chopped nuts and parsley.
    We tackled a recipe for Onions à la Grecque.
    We baked fennel. We soaked tomatoes in olive oil and garlic and basil. We made crostini alla Fiorentina. We doused mussels in white wine.
    We made a mess of that beautiful kitchen, left no utensil untouched, sampled everything, and then cleaned the room from top to bottom.
    In the midst of this, the phone would occasionally ring and the friends I had left messages for the previous evening called to say they were or weren’t coming. A few were reluctant to give further details of their other plans, when I asked.
    My wife and I collapsed on the couches in the family room, leaking the scent of garlic and brine and ginger from our pores. The house was spotless.
    The next morning, we felt useless. There was nothing left to prepare.
    We pampered ourselves, took a long bath together, sat in the sauna until we were lightheaded and sweaty enough to shower again. We took afternoon naps. We set up the bar. We got out all of the serving plates and spoons and cocktail plates and napkins.
    My wife primped in front of the mirror, arranging long strips of fabric around her torso in unpredictable ways. She had on a pair of brown pants that tied around her waist, the legs flapping open on the sides with the help of a draft or a spin. They were wide and thin and flowing. She tied the fabric around her chest again and again in front of the mirror, while I sat on the edge of the bathtub, silent even when she asked for my opinion. I was in awe.
    Her hair knotted on the top of her head left everything from the nape of her neck to her lower back completely bare in between arrangements. She was magnificent: a grand line of a woman.
    As she spun to express her frustration with how to tie the fabric, the pants billowed out, revealed the length of her legs as well. I swore she was getting longer.
    I could answer no question posed to me. I was entirely occupied with the activity of watching her dress. I wanted this to last forever.
    She would sigh at my not answering and turn back to the mirror to rearrange the stripe of fabric around her neck and those pants would spread again in a luminous breeze.
    Forgive this flowery speech. The words don’t even do justice. There’s a not-even-ness to them in comparison with the sight of her.
    And what I finally said to her were the words that kept sounding delicately awed in my head: “That back!” And I came up behind her and wrapped my arms around her while she was between attempts at wrapping the fabric.
    My wife swatted me away. “How do I tie this?” She was near tears.
    “Here,” I took the fabric in my hands, and she slouched, limp and upset. I felt the weightlessness of the strip in my hand. I looked at her, evaluating the canvas of her body, and wrapped the fabric around her torso, spinning her to face away from me. I wrapped the fabric leaving as much of her back exposed as I could. I tied it around her neck and kissed her shoulder, again spinning her to see herself in the mirror. She calmed down immediately, a decision having been made.
    My wife offered a weak smile as thanks.
    “Anytime,” I said, and leaned in to kiss her cheek from behind
    My wife turned her head just in time and met my kiss.
    We watched ourselves in the mirror, a moving portrait, blinking like shutters flashing, and then the doorbell rang.
    The party began later than we thought it would. It began quietly and continued quietly, grew gradually. A few guests arrived right around the time we had suggested, but it was an hour later when the majority showed up. Everyone seemed to think they would arrive in the thick of things. After this