Page 3 At the beginning, Zuleika hadn’t any notion that their new carpet was anything beyond a floor covering that looked hideous next to the battered olive couch, but she had supported its purchase both because she didn’t want to be the sort of wife who never let her husband choose the home decor and also because she secretly hoped it would eventually inspire Aaron to replace the sofa, which predated her by several years, and which she disliked. It was stained in enough places that turning the cushions upside down couldn’t hide them all, and also uncomfortably spongy. She felt it was trying to swallow her when she stretched out on it. But apparently it had sentimental value from some collegiate group house, and she’d lived with worse things in the past. The first sign of the carpet’s abnormality came the Thursday after its installation on the living room floor of their condo in the not-so-trendy part of West L.A. Aaron was at work and Zuleika was home because the temp agency hadn’t called her with a job that morning. Two months after her receipt of a bachelor’s degree in social thought, highly qualified to observe other people and possibly administer surveys to them, Zuleika generally found herself answering phones, filling in spreadsheets, or sitting around in her pajamas watching daytime television, as she was when the new rug drifted up off the floor, taking her with it and causing her to accidentally paint a stripe of Sugar Plum colored nail polish across the base of her big toe. She initially believed a mild earthquake was occurring, but after a moment’s panic this failed to account for the six inches of empty space that remained between the floor and the carpet, which was rippling slightly beneath her as if bobbing on an otherwise imperceptible wind. It took her the better part of the morning to figure out how to fly. Really it was just a matter of sitting at the center and leaning the appropriate direction (forward meant up, as when she’d bent over her toes earlier), but this had been obvious only in retrospect, after all the swearing and prodding and thoughtful hair-tugging had been concluded. If anyone had asked her the day before, Zuleika would have said quite directly that she didn’t believe in flying carpets, or wish-granting djinn, or unicorns, Bigfoot, or the perils of broken mirrors. But she’d been wrong about things before. And after all, cars and stereos would seem magical to someone from a thousand years ago. All “magic” really meant, she figured, was “beyond our foggiest comprehension.” But she didn’t need to know why something happened. She just needed to know how to make it work. This was, in fact, the same principle she applied to her relationship with Aaron. She hadn’t the slightest idea why a nice Jewish boy from Palo Alto with an M.B.A. and a photo of his parents’ new puppy displayed on his fridge would want to stick around with a girl like her, no matter how well they got along. And then she had realized that he didn’t actually know what kind of girl she was, and as long as it stayed that way he would continue to desire her. So she catalogued all the ways that unpleasantness might intrude into their life and assiduously avoided them. Zuleika considered herself a pragmatist. Life had taught her a certain expedience, and she was more than willing to apply it to get what she wanted. A few expedient compromises had to be made, but it didn’t hurt anyone, the worrying, the little evasions and accommodating reticence. Or at least, not much. Not compared with the alternative. |
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