Read Online A Marriage Made at Woodstock by Cathie Pelletier - Free Book Online

could think of doing. He had, at the tender age of forty-four, become The Establishment? He leaned against the foyer wall, beside the massive indoor tree which had been a birthday gift from Joyce—who had not received so much as a phone call on her own birthday—and watched helplessly as Chandra crammed candles, books, and clothing into boxes.
    â€œI’m not helping you carry those out to the car,” Frederick said. At least he had some dignity left. Through a branch of the potted tree, he stared at her face, a mottled visage that had launched a thousand protests. Surely this was another one and she was merely testing him.
    â€œLurk in the foliage all you wish,” she said. He knew Chandra’s opinion of folks who lurked in foliage: warmongers and the manufacturers of Agent Orange. “I’ll see that movers pick up the larger stuff.”
    â€œChandra,” Frederick said, and wished he had a glass of mineral water, Perrier maybe, because it didn’t have a mineral taste and was lower in sodium than other brands. Of course, he hadn’t tried the other brands. There was no need to, with Consumer Reports at his fingertips. He’d settle now for tap water. His throat seemed to be stuck together when he swallowed. “Chandra, this is insane.”
    â€œYou’re a blind man, Freddy,” she said. “Blind.” She covered both her eyes for emphasis.
    She struck him suddenly as the monkey that saw no evil, and he was alarmed to hear him himself laugh.
    â€œYou think it’s funny?” she asked. He shook his head. He wanted to tell her that it was only because she reminded him of the See No Evil monkey. But he couldn’t tell a woman who was about to leave him that she looked like a monkey. Monkey is the general name for any member of the primate order with the exception of the tree shrews , said a voice from within his head. Frederick recognized it immediately as belonging to his high school biology teacher, Mr. Bator, who had taught evolution with a great panache. Mr. Bator had dressed as a gorilla all during finals. Most monkeys are active during the day and many live in groups , Mr. Bator added. Frederick looked closely at Chandra. Had she heard this too? But she continued duct-taping the flap of a cardboard box. Surely he had imagined the voice. It had been many years since high school. He tried to think rationally.
    â€œDo you want to go to a movie or something?” he asked. It would be an opportunity for them to talk. Chandra always chatted through movies. She ignored him and rifled instead through their mutual stack of record albums, pulling out the occasional Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, leaving the ones that belonged to Frederick. All the CDs were his, post-sixties things that they were. Frederick leaned down and picked up an album which Chandra had shuffled aside, Greatest Hits of Gary Puckett & the Union Gap , not exactly activists, these guys. He had bought the album at a used-record shop in 1984, the same year his father died, the same year his sister, Polly, died. He remembered it had been a little shop piled high with used records. He had already been married to Chandra for so many years that the purchase made him uneasy. This was not Music for the Revolution. Would Chandra think him helplessly Establishment? Now, as he stared down at the youthful faces looking up, a realization struck him. The Union Gap would all be in their forties by now.
    â€œI’ll take the stray cat,” was her only reply. He wished that he could share the fleeting wave that was coursing through him. He was feeling the passage of time , he was privy to seconds disappearing, minutes, years. The Union Gap as middle-aged men. He and Chandra halfway through their lives. The years were, indeed, swift bastards. He felt Chandra press something into his hand. It was a green Post-it with a scrawled phone number.
    â€œFor emergencies,” she said. “And that