The Seven Year Bitch Read Online Free Page A

Lamorisse made The Red Balloon had there been anything as perfect captured on film. Then there I was guiltily nursing Duncan because when I’d refused him for the first time ever he’d cried and banged on my breast like it was a TV he was trying to get to work, turning my nipple like it was the knob on an old, broken-down black-and-white. Then I appeared with the gigantic cake and everyone sang and then . . .
    Suddenly, the scene cut to a close-up of Russell in our bedroom, drinking from a plastic cup. “Make sure you don’t tape over anything. Izzy will kill me,” he said.
    â€œI won’t,” I heard his friend Ben say. “So how does it feel to be the father of a one-year-old?”
    â€œI actually think having a child was a big mistake,” Russell said. “Irresponsible really. If you want to have a happy marriage, don’t ever have a kid. Actually, don’t ever get married.”
    â€œCome on, man, it’s your kid’s birthday,” Ben said off-camera. The camera was still close in on Russell’s face.
    â€œWell this is what I have to drink to get through the day.” Russell held up his cup and the camera zoomed in on what looked like scotch. I knew it was scotch because Russell’s voice went up several octaves when he drank scotch, so he sounded like a woman. I begged him not to drink it in front of anyone.
    â€œSo this is the day I’m going to kill myself.” The camera zoomed in on Russell’s face. “This is the window I’m going to jump out of.” The camera zoomed in on the window and then out the window and down six floors to the street below. I heard Ben cackle and the sound of clinking ice.
    Then Ben said, “That’s really dark, man,” and suddenly we were back to Duncan with cake all over his face licking frosting from my fingertip, my cheeks lit with pleasure.
    I’d hired two belly dancers for the entertainment because Duncan’s favorite things were long hair and big breasts, and as they shimmied and undulated on the videotape, I shimmied and undulated too, with rage. As one threw her spangled scarf around my totally embarrassed father and the guests cheered and sipped champagne, I wondered how I would possibly avenge Russell’s turning my child’s first birthday video into a live suicide note.
    As the other danced with Duncan in her arms and he tried desperately to free her left breast from her sequined bra, I wondered if my other birthday gift to him might be a broken home. How could a day that was so joyous for me be so traumatic for Russell? He’d been joking, I was almost probably certain. But what if he hadn’t been and I really did find his body splattered on the sidewalk one morning, answer the buzzer to find Rashid, the handyman, complaining that there had been a mess from my apartment? And, even worse, what if I hadn’t watched the video, just set it aside and played it for Duncan one day?
    â€œThat’s dark, man,” I said out loud to myself. “That’s really fucking dark, man.”

3
    T he next night our neighbor Sherry’s daughter came over to babysit, and we went to a benefit gala at Capitale. As soon as we got there I realized that the word gala on the invitation was a bit of an exaggeration, but it still felt good to be out. I had been laid off but life still went on. I perused the silent-auction options. There were theater, sports, and concert tickets, dozens of country houses, Swiss chalets, and Italian villas, every kind of spa treatment, five private yoga classes, five couples therapy sessions, five dog training sessions, your portrait painted, your makeup done, your apartment designed, your event planned, your photograph taken by a million different photographers, LASIK surgery, one round of in vitro fertilization, a vasectomy, dinner with Philip Seymour Hoffman, dinner at Jean-Georges, Gramercy Tavern, and Rao’s, dinner with Gabriel