“At the same time he’s constantly pulling these chauvinist tricks, he’s talking a great game of what a terrific IQ I must have, so much quicker to spot redundancy and garbage than he is, I actually should have his job—can you imagine, he had the crust to admit it, I ought to have his job?—if there was any kind of a level playing field. He’s one of these guys who thinks being a great women’s libber is an easy way into your pants. What a prick, truly. What a conceited, smarmy, phony prick.”

“My wife is brainy,” Owen shyly told her. “Or used to be.”

Antoinette didn’t hear him. She told him more about Eric, how he dressed for work oh-so-casual and boyish and yet pulled out his comb twice every hour, he had this wavy reddish hair he was really vain of, and wore these broad belts and cowboy buckles to show what a flat stomach he had—he ran five miles a day and only drank soda water and white wine to keep his figure, just like a woman. She suspected he was gay, in fact. “When he walks, he seems conscious of his ass, the way a woman is—this skinny little ass of his, and his long lanky legs. Why would any guy but a queer wear such tight jeans, he must use a shoehorn to get them on? And not blue jeans, either, they would be too common, he wears black jeans, with the white stitching on the hip pockets. God, what a pompous turd.”