Thinking of (Doing) You

Retirement Is the Time for New Adventures! Let’s Open Up Our Marriage

Beware, the Veil Is Thin Tonight. Xoxo Slugs and Hisses

Your Aunt’s Been Talking About You Behind Your Back. I Don’t Want to Get Involved, Just Wanted to Let You Know

The part that amuses me most is imagining the expressions on people’s faces if I inflicted these jokes from me to myself onto them, with no further explanation.

“And here’s another present, from you to me,” I tell him, handing him a different piece of paper.

He’s all anticipation, but as he scans the first few lines, I watch his excitement melt away.

“It’s a list of names,” he remarks uncertainly. “Who are these people?”

“They’re gossip writers. I want you to wish them ill. Not physically ill, but, you know . . .” I gesture to the second column, labeled Ideas.

“ ‘Melt their shoes with liquid nitrogen,’ ” Hall reads. “ ‘Remove their door handles. Make their hands smell like creamed corn no matter how often they wash them. When they pass a window, have them see a giant sloth staring back.’ ” His stare flickers back up to mine, no longer amused. “Bettie, I thought you’d gotten revenge out of your system.”

“What gave you that impression?”

Hall lowers the list, a muscle ticking in his jaw. “This is what you’ve been working on for the past two hours? You said you were planning a fun Christmas surprise.”

“I did! Fun for me, surprise for everyone else. And that’s not all I was doing. I was also making your card. Remember how much you like your fun card?” I flash a winsome grin.

Hall rakes a hand through his hair and turns away, deliberating for a moment. Then I hear a click of the kitchen doorknob as it locks, and he picks me up by the waist without warning. I emit an “Ahh!” that is a cross between gasp and squeak as he deposits me onto the counter next to rolled pie crust and a sack of flour.

“Bettie,” he says, stepping directly between my knees. He plants his fists on the countertop on either side of me. Tilts his head in faint exasperation. “What. Are. You. Doing.”

Truthfully, I don’t remember what I was doing. All I can concentrate on is Hall’s intense eye contact. “Uhh.”

“The water buffalo you had me put in that woman’s apartment,” he goes on when I remain too thunderstruck to speak. “Did it make you feel better?”

I swallow, then force out a “Yes.”

When he merely keeps staring at me, I cross my arms over my chest. “It did! A little.”

“In the moment, it made you feel better. But then later on? How did you feel the next day?”

I bite my lip. “I don’t feel sorry for Kelly Frederick.”

To my disappointment, he slips away, returning to his baking. He pats down flour, flattens his crust with a pin, going through each step manually rather than snapping his fingers to get the job done. The only light in the kitchen is the yellow bulb in the range hood over the stove, which splashes against his profile and flares it over the wall in shadow.