My Ex-Life

by Stephen McCauley

He was married to a pretty woman who used the expression “the Lord” in a disturbing number of sentences, and was homeschooling their three kids, always a red flag.

It loomed above the houses around it with turrets and porches and ornamentation that bridged the architectural gap between Queen Anne and Carpenter Gothic. It was a hodgepodge on which nothing looked precisely right, but which, taken as a whole, exuded the chaotic appeal of a cheerful drunk welcoming you, martini in hand. Come on in! Have a cocktail. Don’t mind the mess.

She’d never thought about a physical type she was attracted to. It had always seemed irrelevant since she imagined it would be more practical to wait until someone was attracted to her and then invest her energy in convincing herself she liked his looks and personality. That appeared to be the definition of “happy marriage.”

Over the years, he’d noticed that while alcoholics were, on the whole, a lot less appealing than potheads, they rarely made claims that drinking gave them special powers; regular marijuana users alleged that everything from their lovemaking to their deductive reasoning was improved by being stoned.

Animals are generally assumed to be blameless and thus forgivable, while humans are assumed to be complicit in their own tragedies. How else could you explain the right-wing attitude toward health care, poverty, and prison?

Most of the other shop windows were stuffed with oddball trinkets and gift items—one definition of “gift” apparently being “useless, unattractive article made by child labor”—

Accuracy was beside the point lately anyway. Among a certain segment of the population, acknowledging the existence of scientific data was considered unpatriotic, akin to acknowledging the existence of gun violence unless perpetrated by Muslims or racism that didn’t involve a white person losing a job to a person of color.

“I hate to cut you off,” David said, “but I have to go to a cocktail party.” “How 1950s. I suppose there’s a lot of alcoholism in that town.” “It’s a small town on the ocean with a commuter train to the city and a lot of tennis courts and churches. You do the math.

When, after a year and a half of dating, they broke up and Julie got enough distance to look at the realities of the relationship, she was struck primarily by how little fun they’d had. Everything had been a battle of wills, an opportunity for him to lecture her, another reason for him to correct her faulty logic or lack of information. Ah yes, reenacting the family dynamics. No wonder her mother had approved.

And the truth was, since they’d taken sex off the table altogether, they were becoming mildly affectionate with each other. She could snuggle into his warm, pudgy body without having to worry that anyone was going to remove clothing.

We didn’t have vegans when I was your age, dear. We had macrobiotics. I don’t know where they all went. We didn’t have gluten intolerance, either. We had hypoglycemia. I’ll bet you’ve never heard of that.” She didn’t care what she sounded like. They still had a long way to go, and she was enjoying herself. “We had aerobics, not Pilates. We didn’t have different layers of gender. We had Martina Navratilova and no one thought anything of it.” “You didn’t have Uber.” “No, of course not. We had jobs.”