The Pretend Wife

The Pretend Wife Read Free Page B

Book: The Pretend Wife Read Free
Author: Bridget Asher
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pleated pants, with a cockapoo in his lap.
    I caught him looking at me and he glanced quickly away. We were the only two in the waiting room—aside from an aquarium and a large cage of four kittens. I looked up at the receptionist’s desk to see if I could catch her eye, get an update, but she was on the phone.
    Then Peter asked, “Can I help you with something? Are you okay?”
    â€œWhat?” I said.
    â€œI don’t mean to pry or anything. You just look like you’ve been through a lot today.”
    I considered for the first time what I must look like—windblown, disheveled, bloody. “Oh, yes, it’s been a strange day.”
    â€œAnd is your pet in surgery?”
    â€œYes, the dog’s in surgery, but he’s not my dog,” I said.
    â€œOh.”
    â€œI hit the dog. I’m just waiting for the owners to show up. Technically, I’m the bad guy, I guess.”
    â€œBut you brought the dog in … that’s noble, and you stayed.” And this struck me as a very noble thing to say. He smiled then and it was this glorious smile that revealed dimples just under the mouth.
    â€œAt least I’ll have something new to talk about in therapy.” I blurted this out. I was still partially in the fog, I think. I already knew that the dog would have to represent my dead mother somehow, and that this would spur a lot of discussion.
    â€œAre you always looking for new material for your therapist?” he asked.
    â€œI try to be entertaining. It’s the least I can do.”
    He said jokingly, “I prefer to bury my problems. Polish the ulcer.”
    â€œThat’s very Hemingway of you,” I said.
    â€œVery big-game hunter,” he said.
    â€œVery running with the bulls in Pamplona.”
    And then the woman behind the desk called out, “Lillipoo Stevens?”
    He looked at the receptionist. “Coming!” he said, and then he turned to me. “It’s my mother’s dog,” he said apologetically.
    â€œSure it is,” I said.
    And then he asked me out for a drink.
    â€œAh, to polish the ulcer?” I asked. “You know, you shouldn’t ask out women who are covered in blood. I might be a murderer, depending how things go …”
    â€œWell, I’ve never gone on a date with a murderer before …”
    And this was old-fashioned. A date being called a date. “I’ll go but only if you bring Lillipoo,” I said.
    I gave him my number, which entailed fumbling through my pocketbook for a pen and a receipt for something other than Rolaids or tampons—a humiliating little ritual. And then he said sincerely, “I hope it all goes okay in there.”
    â€œThanks,” I said.
    He walked away then, Lillipoo tucked under his arm, her swishy tail swishing.
    Peter and I dated for a year before we moved in together—and Ripken joined us. The surgery had been expensive. The owners—whom I never did meet but who still exist in my mind with their matching baseball hats—had inherited the dog from an elderly aunt who’d gone into assisted living, and they’d been letting him roam because he was flatulent. They didn’t want to pay for the surgery and didn’t really want him back. So I inherited Ripken—my very own old flatulent gym teacher, my first dog—minus one leg.
    Peter and I got engaged a year after that, then got married. Everything was so perfectly doled out, like an automated cat-food dispenser. Instead of loving gazes, he glanced at me lovingly. There was a lazy satisfaction to it all—something that we could afford because of Peter’soverriding confidence. He’d been raised by two exceptionally confident people, the kind who are usually brought down a peg or two by statistical probability—you can only live so long without encountering tragedy. And yet his parents avoided tragedy—Gail and Hal Stevens were exempt. They’d

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