Turn 13 of 44

Ask Vivian to teach you how to talk, walk and act like a proper 50s housewife while the set bakes. She agrees to for 40 minutes. Thats all a housewife needs to learn. Soon, Vivian is teaching you how to talk, walk and act. Your mind starts becoming more like a 50’s housewives. After only 30 minutes, she says that you are now just like her and the other housewives. You giggle knowing that’s good.

"Teach me," you say, standing, petticoats swishing. "While the set bakes. How to walk, how to talk — how to *be* a proper housewife. Like you."

Vivian checks a little wristwatch you'd swear she wasn't wearing a moment ago.

"Forty minutes," she says. "That's all a gal needs. I learned it in forty, you'll learn it in forty."

She starts with the walk. "Hips, honey, not knees. Small steps, like you're carrying something precious on your head." You go up and down the hallway, heels clicking a new rhythm — shorter, lighter, a metronome beat — and by the fifth pass you don't have to think about it. The petticoats do half the work, swinging you side to side, and your hands have learned to rest lightly, one on the banister, one gathering skirt.

Then the voice. "Sweet, never sharp. A question is a compliment, an answer is a gift." You repeat after her — *well, I never; isn't that something; let me get you a little something* — and each phrase settles in like it was always yours, your old reporter's cadence folding away into the lilt like a letter into an envelope.

And the acting. She sets you little tests. How to greet Fred at the door. How to take a casserole to a sick neighbor. How to laugh at a man's joke even when it isn't funny — *especially* when it isn't funny — and how to say "let me ask my husband about that" as a full sentence, a complete philosophy. You answer every one right, first try, and something in your mind is smoothing out as you do, hills flattening to lawn. Worrying is for gals with nothing in the oven. Opinions are kept in a little box with the good stationery. Fred is coming home eventually, and that thought comforts you like a porch light left on.

"Time?" you ask, and Vivian looks at her watch.

"Thirty minutes," she says, and takes your small hands in hers. "Honey, you're done. You're just like me now. Just like all of us."

You giggle, high and warm, pearls against your collarbone. That's good. That's the best news all day.