The Suburban You Read Free Page A

methodical in his approach to everything.
    You see him as rather asexual. He talks about his wife, but you have never ever seen her. She works at Kraft, you are told, and is a corporate executive. It all fits, but sometimes you wonder if he really does have a wife or if this is just a fabrication for the benefit of his tax clients. On this topic, you have even gone so far as to think that perhaps all of Brian's talk about his “wife” is a way for him to justify, in case he has to someday, taking a larger tax deduction by filing a joint return. This point about Brian's wife is one that you will never bring clarity to.
    The other interesting thing about Brian is that you have never seen him wear shorts, not even on the hottest summer days. You usually see him in the winter, and his house is as hot as your nana's New York City apartment used to be. You keep your billable discussions with Brian brief, not because you are concerned with getting overbilled but because you are so frigging hot that you can't stand it. Once you asked Brian if he would mind opening a window and you knew by his facial expression that he did not think it was a good idea. You never asked again.
    This year, you pick up your completed tax forms, with all the envelopes addressed and affixed with the proper postage (you love those envelopes and the postage, and that, alone, was enough to keep you coming back to Brian). Your tax forms are thicker than usual, because they include additional schedules for selling your city house and buying your suburban home.
    When you pick up your forms Brian announces that this will be his last year doing your taxes. You wonder if you offended him that time when you asked him to open a window, or maybe he just doesn't like suburban clients, now that you are one. You hesitantly ask why. Brian tells you that he and his “wife” are moving. It is 8 P . M . and his wife is not there.
    â€œWhere are you moving to?” you ask Brian. He tells you he is moving to Southern California. “Southern California, that sounds nice,” you say, as you imagine Brian as the whitest, pastiest, least muscle-defined male in all of Southern California. You have a hard time seeing the connection. You were expecting his response to be something more like “Cleveland.”
    â€œWhere in Southern California?” you ask, to which he responds, “Palm Springs.” You do not know much about Palm Springs, except that every winter your father-in-law and his new wife go to a place called Rancho Mirage, where he plays golf all day, every day. You think of Rancho Mirage in Palm Springs and you imagine a bunch of old people playing golf all the time. You recall your father-in-law telling you that there are more golf courses per capita or per acre or per something in Palm Springs than anywhere else. But you are not so sure that you are really referencing the right place, because you get Palm Springs confused with Palm Something-or-Other in Florida, or maybe it's The Palms in Nevada. Who knows?
    â€œWhy are you moving out there?” you ask, a bit surprised, because it seems to you that Brian has built up a healthy pool of clients over the several years that you have worked with him. You know that you have personally referred several people to him. And you assume that his “wife” has a good thing going at Kraft or Nabisco, wherever it is that she does her corporate-executive thing. He responds, “We bought a hotel.” “No shit,” you say. A hotel, this is serious, you think. He replies, “Well, it is a small boutique hotel; it's not such a big deal.” People always say that when they sense that you sense that they are doing something cooler than you are.
    For the first time, you get interested in this conversation and make the transition from being conversationally polite to really being interested in what your pasty-white, no-muscle-definition accountant is telling you.
    You also