Turn 2 of 44

Compliment her outfit and hair. She responds like a 50s wife with slang. You start to understand all the 50s slang that she’s talking about as you see the pearl necklace and diamond ring on her finger. Her makeup is prefect mainly with her lipstick that is red. You two start talking and hear about how much she loves being a housewife. You keep agreeing with her as you start to question your life.

"That dress is incredible," you say, and you mean it. "And the hair — the cut is perfect. Very... classic."

Her whole face lights up like a jukebox fed a quarter.

"Well, aren't you the sweetest thing since sliced bread!" she says, pressing a hand to her pearls.

"A girl could get a swelled head, hearing that. I say, why look like something the cat dragged in when you can be the cat's pajamas?" She smooths the skirt over her petticoats.

"Fred always said a wife ought to be the whole package — and Fred, honey, had excellent taste."

Fred. You file the name away; it's the first she's offered. Up close, the diamond on her finger throws little splinters of light when she gestures, and the red lipstick is applied with a precision that borders on architectural. You find you can suddenly parse the slang the way you can't parse most dialects — it lands whole, familiar, like a song you've known since childhood. That's odd. You don't examine it.

"I just love being a housewife," she sighs, arranging herself at your counter while you set out plates. "Honestly, it's the bee's knees. A home is a woman's whole world, if you ask me. Keep it beautiful, keep a good dinner on the stove, keep everybody smiling — what more could a girl want? All this rushing around with careers and causes — it must be so exhausting, don't you think? People forget how nice it is to just... be taken care of." She watches you say that it does sound peaceful, and that there's something to be said for it, and that your own week has been a hundred small committee emails — and she nods along to every word like a choir member.

"There, now," she says softly. "That wasn't so hard, was it?"

You turn to the stove, and when you turn back she has moved your utensil crock three inches left and squared it to the counter's edge, your spice jars standing in a neat regimented row they did not occupy a minute ago. She catches you looking and laughs.

"Sorry, honey. Hands do it before I even notice. Fred says I can't help tidying — it's just how I'm made." She hasn't touched the chicken.

"Now — tell me everything about this little association of yours. Who runs things? Besides you, I mean. Who does everybody *listen* to?"