Slightly Suburban. Wendy Markham

he got home from work. There I was, waiting in our bed with lingerie, candles, champagne, chocolate fondue and Norah Jones (her new CD, I mean, not Norah herself—we’re not into threesomes).

      About five minutes into our romantic evening, our room filled with deafening screams—not mine, and not pleasure. Then came the squealing car-chase tires, cursing and gunfire. Talk about a mood wrecker. Obviously, the kid was tuning in to some cable movie or a PlayStation game that wasn’t rated E for Everyone.

      If you ask me, our upstairs neighbors should be censoring their kid’s audio-video habits.

      That, or we should get the hell out of Dodge.

      You know what? I really think it’s time.

      Because, suddenly, I can’t take it anymore.

      The circus freaks, the cramped quarters, roaches and pesticides, Mitch, the prices, the subway, Gecko, the Mad Crapper, my job, Crosby, the elevators, the lugging and hauling, the bodily contact with strangers.

      When Jack and I first got engaged, I remember, I wanted to move.

      But he said—and I quote: “one major life change per year is my quota.”

      Ever since, there’s been at least one major life change per year. First we were newlyweds, then he got promoted at work, then I got promoted at work…

      Worst of all, in the midst of the job shuffling, my father-in-law died suddenly.

      Jack’s had a somewhat contentious relationship with his father for most of his life, and his parents’ divorce after more than thirty years of marriage didn’t help matters. As the only son, with two older sisters and two younger, Jack has always been his mother’s favorite—and his father’s least favorite.

      Jack Candell Senior was a high-powered ad exec on Madison Avenue for years, and he pretty much pushed his son into the industry when what Jack really wanted to do was go to culinary school.

      I think—no, I know—Jack Senior was hoping his son would become a wealthy, high-profile account-management guy, like he was. Instead, Jack found his way into the Media Department, where he’s great at what he does, but hasn’t become the big shot Jack Senior wanted him to become, and probably never will.

      Over the years, Jack and I maintained regular contact with his father—mostly at my urging. My family is tight-knit and it just doesn’t feel right to me to shut out a parent. I’m the one who made sure we stopped to see Jack’s dad when we were up in Westchester, and I’m the one who invited him—and the woman who was his fiancée at the time, soon to become his wife—to the surprise thirtieth birthday dinner I threw for Jack.

      Did they come?

      No. But his father did write out a big check and stick it into a card with his apologies for being busy elsewhere that night. The card was one of those generic ones you get in a box of cards, not even a “special son” or “thirtieth birthday” one.

      Jack was hurt when he found out I had extended an invite and his father turned it down, and his mother, Wilma, was livid.

      “He’s a bastard,” she told me privately. “I don’t like to badmouth him to my kids. But he always has been a bastard, and he will be to his dying day.”

      Which, sadly, wasn’t all that far off.

      Not long after the party, we got one of those chilling early-morning phone calls: Jack’s sister Jeannie, with the news that their father had suffered a fatal heart attack.

      Jack’s since had a hard time dealing with all that was left unreconciled—or at least, in his perception—between him and his dad.

      He’s thanked me, many times, for trying to bridge the gap, for what it was worth.

      Anyway, time is helping to heal.

      And I think a fresh start is in order.

      We’re a couple of months into this calendar year, and so far, there’s been nary a major life change in the Candell household.

      Yet.

      2

      The next morning:

      “Happy anniversary!”

      That’s me, to Jack, all kiss, kiss.

      “Er…anniversary?”

      That’s Jack, to me, all deer in headlights.

      I know what you’re thinking: typical male, forgot his wedding anniversary already. This honeymoon is more over than cargo capris. From here, it’s all downhill, like that old Carly Simon song where married couples are fated to cling and claw and drown in love’s debris.

      Well, I, Tracey Spadolini Candell, am here to say: Wrong!

      Of course Jack and I are still happily married.

      And it isn’t our wedding anniversary.

      Jack just thinks it is.

      But not for long.

      “Wait…we got married in October, Tracey. This is March…” Jack’s eyes dart to his watch calendar, just to be sure. “Right. March.”

      He looks relieved.

      “I know.” I perch on the arm of his favorite chair, which he sat in, fresh from his morning shower, newspaper poised and stereo playing, right before I kiss-kissed him. “But it’s the eighth. We met on the eighth, remember?”

      “Of December,” he says, after another brief mental calculation. “We met on the eighth of December.”

      “Right. But this is kind of like our diamond anniversary, if you think about it.”

      Apparently, Jack really is thinking about it, wearing the same expression he had the other day when I asked him what inning it was in the Knicks game he was watching.

      Look, I’m no ditz. I’m not a big sports fan either, but I’ve been married to this one long enough to know basketball games have quarters and baseball games have innings. When I said inning it was a slip of the tongue because I was weak from hunger at the time, and we were supposed to be going out to dinner after the game was over.

      He hasn’t let me live it down. “Hey, guess what, Mitch? Guess what, Jimmy the Doorman? My wife thinks basketball has innings. Har dee har har.”

      Good stuff. I’m surprised Conan hasn’t called.

      “Diamond anniversary?” he echoes now, wearing that same my wife is slightly crazy look.

      It doesn’t bother me nearly as much as it did back when we were newlyweds and I was much more emotional and touchy. Probably because I, too, have a look: the one I flash at him whenever he stands cluelessly in front of the open fridge telling me we’re out of butter, or mustard, or milk.

      Um, no, hello, it’s right here in this gi-normous-can’t-miss-it plastic jug, see? All you have to do is look beyond the week-old container of moo goo gai pan you insisted you’d eat for a snack, and the wee jar of quince jam that came in a gift basket from some Client back in December, which you also claimed you’d eat for a snack, and, voila! Milk.

      Like my friend Brenda once told me, love might be blind, but marriage is no eye-opener.

      “I sway-uh, Tracey, no married guy I’ve ever met can find anything around the house,” she said in her thick Jersey accent, “not even when it’s right in front of his face. Scientists should do some kind of study and find out why that is.”

      I figure scientists are still pretty wrapped up in global warming and cancer, but as soon as there’s an opening, I’m sure they’ll get to it. Because it really is strange.

      You know what, though? I don’t really mind Jack’s masculine faults. In fact, I find most of them endearing. Except for the one where he farts under the covers and seals the blankets over my head, laughing hysterically. He calls it the Dutch Oven.