Front Desk Woman; Volume 9
“Are you an alcoholic?” Helen asked Pansy before biting an overloaded peanut butter sandwich.
“Helen!” Gertha spat. “You can’t just go and ask someone if they’re an alcoholic or not.”
“And just why the hell not?” Helen replied. “No such thing as a dumb question, Gertha.”
Pansy held her hung over hand in the air to stop their tiff. “She can ask.”
Helen stuck her peanut butter stained tongue out at Gertha.
“But how am I supposed to know if I’m an alcoholic or not?” Pansy asked them, leaning in concerned. “I mean, what are the actual signs of an addict?”
“Well,” Gertha started. “Are you hiding bottles?”
“Shit yeah, I’m hiding bottles! What do I look like to you? An idiot.”
“Okay,” Gertha continued. “Are you drinking in the morning?”
Pansy nodded.
“How about in the afternoon?”
Again, Pansy nodded.
“Hmm,” Gertha said, holding her chin between her index finger and thumb. “You’re no alcoholic.”
“What?” Helen interjected, obviously shocked. “She answered yes to every single question though. She clearly failed your test.”
Gertha waved to the waiter, summoning him to their table. “Could I get another order of tater tots for the table, please?”
“Yes, Ma’am,” he replied straight faced before walking away.
“Damnit, I got ma’amed again. That’s the seventh time today,” Gertha said, pushing her breasts up as high as possible. “I don’t get ma’amed nearly as much with cleavage. And she’s no alcoholic, she’s a new mom. Helen, I think you may have blocked that shit out. That dip in post-partum hormones, lack of sleep, and the pain? Of course she’s drinking all day and all night. Didn’t you? Hell, you had twins!”
Helen thought about this for a moment. “Mary and Meredith just got to middle school but you’re right. When they were babies, I bordered on A.A. I think it’s a right of passage for new moms. The drunken fifth trimester. You’re right.”
“Plus,” Gertha added. “A nightmare for a husband. There’s no escape.”
“How’s that going by the way?” Helen asked.
Pansy told them about the evening after they’d gone to Edith’s house. How he’d threatened her and made her clean into the night with baby girl on her hip, while he snored and drooled into his sour pillow. She told them how the spotless house was now her prison, and more than anything, she just wanted out of it.
“But everyone tells me how lucky I am,” Pansy told them, staring off. “How grateful I should be to stay home and shop for groceries and drive a BMW. I can’t make sense of it at all. The world stands envious of my personal hell. It’s a mind fuck.”
“Hell looks like a sexy sauna when you’re barefoot and naked in Antartica,” Helen said, stuffing one final mouthful of her peanut butter sandwich.
“What does that mean?”
“It means,” she continued. “Your grass must be greener than theirs, Pansy. It’s a trick of the human psychy, especially in the carpool line. But in the end, it’s bullshit. Bluster. A waste of precious time. Tell me this,” Helen leaned across the table to close the space between her and Pansy. “If you could ditch the BMW and the fancy house, and leave him right now without having to tell anyone. No opinions to contend with. No side eyes to worry about, would you?”
“I would.”
They sat in silence for a short while, scanning each other. Pansy thinking hard and carefully about the scenario Helen had just posed. Hadn’t she dreamed of driving a BMW her whole life? And passed by the enormous house she currently lived in thousands of times before when she was in her twenties, wishing, hoping for the chance to live in it. Hadn’t she posted hundreds of smiling photographs on social media, boasting the perfection of her life and marriage only now to fantisize about life alone, just her and her baby.
“Here you are, Ladies,” the waiter returned with the appetizer. “Can I get you anything else?” He asked Gertha’s newly perked boobs.
“Gertha’s right. You’re no alcoholic,” Helen said finally, before grabbing a handful of tater tots. “You’re just married to a man unworthy.”