The Late, Lamented Molly Marx by Sally Koslow Read Free Book Online Page A

drill—his hand on top of mine, the new gold band gleaming against his tan—as the knife sliced through the layers and the shock sliced through my heart. We smiled for the camera.
    “Is Mrs. Marx ready for her life to begin?” Barry whispered as he drew me toward him. His breath was minty, his smile confident, his teeth unnaturally white.
    Mrs. Marx has another idea about where to stick this knife
, I thought as he kissed me and the photographer snapped.

Eight

OLD SOULS
    f anyone imagines that during shiva a moratorium is declared on discussing the widower’s social life, they would be dead wrong.
    “Whenever you’re ready let me know, because my wife’s sister—you remember Stacey?”
    “Stacey with the chest?” Barry asks.
    “Precisely. Stacey and her husband?
Finito.”
    I overhear at least six proposed hook-ups, including one from our accountant, who wants Barry to meet his daughter. She’s a senior at Stanford but, he promises, “an old soul.”
    “I thought you could use some dinner,” a divorced mom from Annabel’s school class says as she presents an armful of vegetarian lasagna. “For you and Andrea.”
    I hear Barry think,
Not my type
, as he sizes up her double-wide hips, but the only words out of his mouth are “Thanks. Annabel and I appreciate it.” He hands off the Pyrex to Delfina, who crams it into the freezer next to a pot roast, turkey chili, and a tragic casserole of Velveeta and canned pinto beans that’s made from a recipe I passed by last month on the AOL home page.
    “Should have gone for the bigger Sub-Zero,” he says to Delfina as he returns to the living room.
    “A lot of things you shoulda done,” she says to herself after he leaves the room.
    While many Reform Jews do a token shiva for a day or two, my family goes the whole nine yards: seven days, with time off for good behavior on the Sabbath, when Barry shows up at temple, both Friday night and Saturday morning. Throughout the week, I carefully monitor my husband. Has Model Mourner researched funeral customs? Although he dresses carefully, in a black cashmere turtleneck and gray flannel pants, he doesn’t shave, which leaves him looking just this side of seedy. On at least a dozen occasions he gets teary when someone mentions my name.
    It took me two days to notice, however, that Dr. Barry Marx has varied his meticulous routine. Before dinner, were it not for shiva, he’d have gone for his usual after-work run followed by a shower that would last five to fifteen minutes, depending on whether or not he jerks off. After dinner, he’d log time at his laptop to look at e-mail (he has three accounts: [email protected] and [email protected] , plus the one he doesn’t know I know about, [email protected] ). He’d then check out the
Wall Street Journal
’s take on medical developments, followed by a spot of porn while he’d blare the TV—always a marital sore point. Because of shiva, he’s taken a break from these pursuits, but the rest of his evening remains intact. At eleven-ten, Barry does two hundred sit-ups and fifty push-ups, kisses Annabel’s forehead, and spends eight minutes on WaterPik maneuvers. Letterman’s opening monologue follows, then exactly one chapter of a book—mystery, history, or athlete’s biography—before his midnight curfew.
    But he’s added an intriguing detail. Barry has taken to wearing his wedding ring, which every night he now deposits in the Cartier box in which it arrived, the one he keeps in his second-from-the-top drawer. The box is in pristine condition, since the ring has seen little action. This never bothered me—my father doesn’t wear a wedding band and plenty of cheaters I know do. Nonetheless, the ring—engraved with our wedding date and the word
forever
—has started appearing on his finger.Tonight he looks at the shiny band as if he’d never seen it before, turning it over in his hand as the phone rings.
    “Hideous,” he says after picking it up. “I’ll be