The Actor and the Housewife Read Online Free PDF Page A

don’t want to bother you anymore,” she said. “I can just write Annette a note with the ideas you suggested and—”
    “And next thing you know she’ll be standing in your labor and delivery room with a catcher’s mitt. No, strangely, I insist.” He frowned. “I never insist. What’s come over me?”
    “I have magical powers of persuasion.”
    “God’s chosen people and all. By the way, you know that there actually isn’t a god, right?”
    “You don’t say? You mean I’ve been fooling myself all these years?”
    “I’m afraid so.”
    “Golly, thanks for setting me straight.”
    “Think nothing of it.”
    At the elevator door, he held out his arm, gesturing for ladies first. He really was a sweet boy when he didn’t open his mouth.
    He asked her floor, pushed the button, and they rose up in silence, watching the numbers.
    “You’re thinking something absurd, aren’t you?” he asked.
    “Just that you’re a sweet boy when you don’t open your mouth.”
    “Boy? I think I have a few years on you.”
    “I’m thirty-four, but I already feel like everybody’s mother.”
    His eyes were still on the numbers—ten, eleven, twelve . . .
    “Would you like to come up to my room for a bit?” he asked.
    She stared. Up to his room. To Felix Callahan’s room. Whoever this guy had been during dinner, this person who felt like an old friend, he was still Felix Callahan. And she was in her third trimester and wearing maternity pants she’d purchased in 1987. “Come up to your room? You’ve got to be kidding me.”
    “I didn’t mean for . . . I only meant that . . . just to keep—never mind. I don’t know why I wanted to prolong the evening.”
    That was nice, actually. He wanted to prolong the evening! He wanted to keep chatting . . . or something. But though she had gotten into his car, though she had shared dinner and a dance, they’d never been alone. Now the lines became more clear. Becky Jack wouldn’t go into a man’s hotel room alone, no matter if he was a dear friend, the prophet Moses, or Felix Callahan.
    When the elevator doors opened, she shook his hand. “Thanks for the contract advice. And the company. And the dance.”
    “You’re welcome. Good-bye, Becky Jack.”
    He smiled politely as the doors shut. She had no doubt that she’d never see him again.

In which Becky tells all and Edgar Poe falls asleep
    Mike picked up Becky at the airport, coming inside to help her with her bag.
    “It’s just a carry-on,” she scolded him when he met her at the gate. “It’s not going to send me into preterm labor.” But of course she was thrilled and let him buy her an expensive airport frozen yogurt, holding his hand as if they were on a date. Really, any moment together without the three kids was a date, and lately those were as rare as warmed beef.
    So she didn’t tell him about Felix right away. The thought of it was on her tongue, around her shoulders, rubbing against her neck. But her husband—the former varsity high school tight end, big as life—was holding her hand and wearing a smile fit to dazzle. His presence was even more delicious than the nonfat strawberry-cheesecake twist. It would seem like such a slap to bring up the happenstance meeting of her number-one heartthrob right away. Later, then.
    She did describe Annette’s attire with relish, as well as her bus ride to the airport that morning and her in-depth conversation with the driver on the subject of “Which are cuter—animal babies or human babies?” Mike laughed at all the right places and kept bending down to kiss her cheek.
    “You’re in a good mood,” she said.
    “I missed you.”
    “You missed me taking care of the kids and the house.”
    “That too.” He kissed her again.
    She was going to have to remember to go away more often.
    It took half an hour to drive home. They headed east, the Wasatch Mountains growing larger, rust red smudges of autumn gathered on their lower slopes, the craggy peaks of the