10

      My cell rings. I don’t have to pick it up to know it’s Nedra. We have this weird telepathic telephone thing. I think of Nedra and Nedra calls.

      “I just got my hair cut,” she says. “And Kate told me I look like Florence Henderson. And when I asked her who the bloody hell Florence Henderson was she told me I looked like Shirley Jones. A Pakistani Shirley Jones!”

      “She said that?” I say, trying not to laugh.

      “She certainly did,” huffs Nedra.

      “That’s terrible. You’re Indian, not Pakistani.”

      I adore Kate. Thirteen years ago, when I met her, I knew within five minutes that she was perfect for Nedra. I hate that line you complete me, but in Kate’s case it was true. She was Nedra’s missing half: an earnest, Brooklyn-born, say-it-like-it-is social worker, the person Nedra could count upon not to sugarcoat things. Everybody needs somebody like that in their life. I, unfortunately, have too many people like that in my life.

      “Sweetheart,” I say. “You got a shag?”

      “No, it’s not a shag, it’s layered. My neck looks ever so long now.”

      Nedra pauses for a moment. “Oh, fuck me,” she says. “It’s a shag and I look like a turkey. And now it seems I’ve grown this little Julia Child hump on the back of my neck. What’s next? A wattle? How did this happen? I don’t know why I let that slut Lisa talk me into this.”

      Lisa, our mutual hairdresser, is not a slut, although she has also steered me in the wrong direction several times. There was an unfortunate burgundy henna phase. And bangs—women with thick hair should never have bangs. Now I keep my hair shoulder-length with a few face-framing layers. On a good day people tell me I look like Anne Hathaway’s older sister. On a bad day, like Anne Hathaway’s mother. Just do what you did last time is the instruction I give to Lisa. I find this philosophy works well in many circumstances: sex, ordering a venti soy latte at Starbucks, and helping Peter/Pedro with his algebra homework. However, it’s no way to live.

      “I did something. I’m doing something. Something I shouldn’t be doing,” I confess.

      “Is there a paper trail?” asks Nedra.

      “No. Yes. Maybe. Does email count?”

      “Of course email counts.”

      “I’m taking part in a survey. An anonymous survey. On marriage in the twenty-first century,” I whisper into the phone.

      “There’s no such thing as anonymity. Not in the twenty-first century and certainly not online. Why in God’s name are you doing that?”

      “I don’t know. I thought it would be a lark?”

      “Be serious, Alice.”

      “All right. Okay. Fine. I guess I feel like it’s time to take stock.”

      “Stock of what?”

      “Um—my life. Me and William.”

      “What, are you going through some sort of midlife thing?”

      “Why does everyone keep asking me that?”

      “Answer the question.”

      I sigh. “Maybe.”

      “This can only lead to heartbreak, Alice.”

      “Well, don’t you ever wonder if everything’s okay? I mean not just on the surface, but really, deeply okay?”

      “No.”

      “Really?”

      “Really, Alice. I know everything’s okay. You don’t feel that way about William?”

      “It’s just that we’re so distracted. I feel like each of us is a line item on the other’s list that we’re just hurrying to check off. Is that a horrible thing to say?”

      “Is it true?”

      “Sometimes.”

      “Come on, Alice. There’s something else you’re not telling me. What brought all this on?”

      I think about explaining to Nedra about my tipping-point year, but honestly, as close as we are, she hasn’t lost a parent and she wouldn’t understand. She and I don’t talk much about my mother. I save that for the Mumble Bumbles, a bereavement support group that I’ve been a member of for the past fifteen years. Even though I haven’t seen them recently, I’m Facebook friends with all of them: Shonda, Tita, and Pat. Yes, I know it’s a funny name. We started off being the Mother Bees, then became the Mumble Bees, then somehow it morphed into the Mumble Bumbles.

      “I just wonder sometimes if we can make it through another forty years. Forty years is a long time. Don’t you think that’s worth examining now that we’re nearly twenty years in?” I ask.

      “Olivia Newton-John!” shouts Kate in the background. “That’s who I meant to say you looked like. The Let’s Get Physical album!”

      “In my experience it’s the unexamined life that is worth living,” says Nedra. “If one wants to live happily ever after, that is—with one’s partner. Darling, I’ve got to go and see if I can do something about this hideous shag. Kate’s coming at me with bobby pins.”

      I can hear Kate singing Olivia Newton-John’s “I Honestly Love You” hideously off-key.

      “Do me a favor?” says Nedra. “When you see me, do not tell me I look like Rachel from Friends. And I promise we’ll talk about marriage in the nineteenth century later.”

      “Twenty-first century.”

      “No difference whatsoever. Kisses.”