Chapter 7 – Dee's Diary – Her Best Friend's Husband
MONDAY, MAY 6th
Dear Diary,
What an absolutely WONDERFUL day yesterday was. And now, here I am writing about it (I was certainly in no shape to do so last night!), strangely at peace, knowing that today is my last full day on this earth. My last night may be a little uncertain, however. I've agreed to do something that has me VERY nervous. But I'll get to that.
I drove out to the lake house about nine o'clock and stopped at the farmer's market and butcher shop on the way. I'd decided on Greek Souvlaki for dinner, and I chose the ingredients with care. I think I'm more at peace in the kitchen than anywhere else in the world. This was going to be fun.
Once at the house, I opened every window to air it out. It was a beautiful early spring day, cool and crisp and sunny. I cut the lamb into cubes and began the day-long marinating process, then rolled up my sleeves and cleaned the place for three solid hours. After a light lunch (I think I've finally lost that five pounds), I went down to the porch swing that Ben hung from the limb of the big oak and finished the Mary Roberts Rinehart book. What a marvelous mystery! You don't find out "who-done-it" until the very last paragraph! I wish I had time to read another. Oh well.
I showered and put on a nice outfit, not too informal, just right for receiving guests in the country. I'd never prepared an evening for friends before (I've never HAD friends before), and I was especially nervous about meeting the mysterious Professor "Freddy." I figured he must be some sort of hunk to have a beauty like Brenda look all starry-eyed every time she mentioned his name. I imagined all sorts of types. But whatever I expected, it wasn't the Fred I finally met.
He's so ... so AVERAGE, that he's sort of hard to describe. I immediately wondered how he ever attracted a girl like Brenda. His hair is sort of brown, but sort of red, too, and it's receding quite a bit. I think he's going to be classified as bald in another ten years. Early thirties, I'd guess, and about fifteen pounds overweight. Taller than I am, but not by much, and for some reason, I thought of him as clumsy, but I don't know why. It took me the better part of an hour to realize that looks are deceiving. I know now that he's remarkably bright, but his whole demeanor seems to hide the fact. The one feature that couldn't be hidden was a certain nameless quality that lay just behind his eyes.
From the moment he got out of the car, he was absolutely enthralled by the lake. He only stopped staring at it for a few moments to meet me, and his eyes suddenly seemed to take in my every detail me. I felt, for a moment, like covering myself with my hands. It's as if, in that brief instant, he'd photographed me with those eyes and stored the picture in his mind to retrieve and study at a later time. In another minute, he was looking longingly at the lake again, and I thought guiltily that I'd imagined the whole thing.
He began asking questions, good intelligent questions, I'm sure, but I didn't have a clue to the answers for any of them. Which "arm" of the lake was this? What was the underwater slope? What was the water temperature? What was its depth at "pool?" After my fourth "I don't know," he suddenly smiled, looked around a moment, and somehow seamlessly switched the topic to the dahlias in the east flower bed. That I DID know about, and we were soon immersed in a detailed conversation about spring flowers.
I showed them around: the Grand Tour, both outside and inside, then I enlisted Fred's help opening a large bottle of Chardonnay I'd found in the basement (he seemed very impressed by the vintage, but I didn't know anything about that, either). Brenda I put to work cutting vegetables, but I was soon very amused to learn that she was an absolute disaster in the kitchen. In the end, she sat on a bar stool at the counter while I worked happily away, and we talked and talked and talked. Fred took his glass and drifted back outside to stare at the lake some more.
I drank a glass of wine, then another while Brenda sipped hers and became more and more animated. I just couldn't believe how she could get drunk on one glass! I called to Fred to fire up the gas grill, and though he'd never used one, he figured it out quickly. Brenda was at least slightly adept at putting the lamb and veggies on the skewers, and we all stood around the grill while they popped and sizzled over the flames. The meal was pretty good, if I do say so myself. Fred seemed to love it, and ate with absolute gusto. They both told me that meals around their house weren't that "elaborate," meaning, I guess, that Brenda isn't much of a cook.
The conversation at the dinner table was what convinced me that Fred was an intellectual wolf in sheep's clothing. Twice, he so cleverly shifted the topic from the house, to its background, and finally to my association to it, that I very nearly slipped up and told him who I was. The third glass of wine didn't help, but I thought I did a rather masterful job of knocking the discussion right back to his side of the court. This meant, of course, that Brenda had kept her word and not revealed my identity. As soon as he figured out what I was doing, I got the impression that he thought "conversational ping pong" was a great game, and I could see the amusement in his eyes.
Brenda sort of embarrassed me by actually BEGGING Fred for another glass of wine. Even after I'd poured her one, she still wouldn't touch it until he had given his consent. She told me, confidentially after we'd finished the dishes and had plopped ourselves in the middle of the couch, chattering away like a couple of hens, that she let Fred make almost ALL of her important decisions. That's just the way their relationship is. I tried to show as much feminist indignation as my four previous glasses of wine would allow at: 1) the concept that she should HAVE to seek his approval for ANYTHING, and 2) that having a second glass of wine wasn't that big a "decision" at all.
But maybe it was, for she was now very, very drunk, and she slurred many of her words and laughed almost continuously. In defense, I poured myself a fifth glass. My words weren't coming out the way I wanted them to, either.
"Just what do you see in Fred, anyway?" I implored, at last. (He, of course, was taking a moonlight stroll alone down by the lake.)
"He's a great guy!" Brenda said defensively, if unclearly. "He's everything I every wanted! And anyway, he's got a really, really, really big cock."
"Cock?" I shrieked, and dissolved into a fit of giggles.
"Cock. You know. Dork. Shlong. Porker." She was trying hard to look serious, though she was shaking with laughter.
"You mean his prick?" I asked, gasping for air.
"Oh no, it's much, much bigger than a prick." She was laughing almost uncontrollably now. "It's almost too big to call a cock! You can't possibly call it a prick!"
"I happen to know a thing or two about pricks," I howled, "and it looks sort of like a prick to me. I mean, if I saw it, I think it would. I mean ...." I was really losing it.
And just then, Fred walked back in. Brenda and I were laughing so hard, and we were so drunk, that we just couldn't help staring openly at his crotch. He actually looked down, to see if he'd spilled something on his lap. This, of course, had the immediate effect of making both of us women double the decibel level, and Fred, feeling self conscious, shook his head sadly and walked back outside. I howled. I held my aching sides and shed tears. I've never, ever laughed so hard.
When the giggles finally subsided, Brenda leaned heavily against me and rested her head on my shoulder, and I rested my cheek on the top of her head, and we were comfortably silent for a long, long time. I didn't want this special moment of friendship to ever end.
"Dee?"
"Um?" I answered groggily.
"Dee, have you ever been hypnotized?"
"No."
We were quiet for another long minute. "Would you like to be?"
This startled me, but I didn't alter my voice at all. "I don't think so."
Pause. "It's really wonderful. It's the best feeling in the whole world." A much longer pause. "I'm a Natural."
