single

Dear Marna,

      Here’s how you go crazy and lose it in a city that’s strange. First, you check in and tell the frontdesk clerk your wife will be coming by later that night, or the next morning and, “Can you please just send her up?” Then, the next morning after breakfast ask the clerk if she’s called and left a message, and when he or she the clerk says no, seem agitated, but only slightly. Allow your agitation to increase throughout the afternoon, calling down to the desk every hour. On your way to dinner, however, tell the night clerk — in person, with a whiskeysour whisper — that your lover “might be dropping in, too,” and that he or she shouldn’t tell your wife about her, the lover, if she, your wife, would ever happen to call, or finally arrive. Returned to your room, continue making calls through the evening, asking after both. For your next breakfast, order room service, splurge. Ask for it for six a.m. That’s who’ll find the body — not the morning clerk, but that bellboy with the muscles, knifely lips, bluegreen eyes and dyed blonde hair.
     Before digging up the gun from the duffel, sit down and write two letters. To a lover. To a wife.
     XO XXX,
     J


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