After the fourth or fifth time I woke up coughing and gagging last night, still too congested to breathe, I glanced at my watch. It was only 11 pm and Crankenstein hadn’t yet stirred, but I didn’t want to risk disturbing her overnight when she had clinic in the morning. Gathering my pillow, water and tissue box, I intended to glide toward the guest room with ninja stealth, which was a mistake — the quieter I try to be in the dark, the likelier I am to trip across the room like Dick Van Dyke. Fortunately, Crankenstein slept through the ruckus.
Today I was tethered to the house as digging resumed in the basement, so I spent a few minutes investigating something I joked about last week and learned how to post a poll. Here’s my first attempt; it’s about my marriage and I suspect Crankenstein will vote for one of the Martha options. It’s a strange feeling when your thirtysomething spouse would probably use a marital hall pass on an octogenarian, until you realize “Wait! I, too, have one foot in the grave and smell like Bengay.” Then you think “Huh, she really loves me.”
I’m kidding, mostly. Crankenstein had that bikini photo of Helen Mirren on her refrigerator before we started dating, but it wasn’t clear to me whether that was lust or an odd eating disorder thing (on her part, not Helen’s). There’s much more to my theory that Crankenstein longs in her heart to live the life of Sarah Paulson, but I don’t have time for a 10,000-word essay and haven’t sought permission to share the damning first question one of her friends from medical school asked about me.*
It’s safe to say, though, that I think she wanted a significantly older woman while also fearing early widowhood. When I shuffled along decrepitly with a modest gray streak in my hair and a statistical likelihood of living another 40+ years despite belting “Jeepers Creepers, where’d you get those peepers?” to my cat, she probably thought “Hmm, looks promising.” She tested the waters on an early date by mentioning some of her past and current crushes to see if our tastes aligned. Crankenstein was in her late twenties then; I’m not sure anyone on her list was younger than 50.
It didn’t strike me as odd — hadn’t every discerning girl our age had a certain appreciation for Jessica Lange, Catherine Deneuve, Charlotte Rampling, and other women of their stature? They’re elderly now but were middle-aged as we came of age, which is largely how I remember them. Mostly I was relieved Crankenstein wasn’t incited to apoplexy by crushes the way my ex was**. When we moved in together and consolidated libraries, we ended up with a heavy box of duplicate books but only two duplicate DVDs: Lukas Moodysson’s Show Me Love and, naturally, François Ozon’s 8 Women.
A few months ago, one of those shared crushes resurfaced in a funny way. We were watching The Staircase on HBO when Crankenstein exclaimed “It’s that lady!”
I looked at her expectantly, knowing she would not cite Trois couleurs: Bleu or The Unbearable Lightness of Being or Damage.
“From Chocolat!” she prompted.
“Juliette Binoche.”
“Yeah! I love her.”
“She was one of my favorite actresses, but ended up on the infamous ‘banned’ list because [my ex] was convinced I wanted to… do things with her,” I replied.^
“Did you?” Crankenstein asked.
“Didn’t everyone?”
“I did,” she cheerfully confirmed, segueing into a (joking) suggestion that made us both laugh: “Maybe we can fool around later while imagining [Binoche] instead.”
* The memory of the question made her cackle. Then she said “No, you can’t post it!” and continued laughing.
** If you say Nicole Kidman (or Gina Gershon or Rachel Weisz) five times in front of a mirror, legend has it my ex appears and kills me.
^ Those crushes predated that relationship by (many) years and I developed no new ones, and gave old ones no thought, during our time together — not that it should’ve been a crime if I did. I don’t want to minimize the jealousy and control issues that made past crushes unbearable to my ex, especially if they were older or had different body types than hers; the insecurity behind it was corrosive. But it amuses me that her all-time crushes were Greta Garbo (77 years my senior and more beautiful than 99.9% of people who ever existed) and Kate Moss. My wife, the future Mrs. Martha Stewart, is always developing new crushes and it doesn’t bother me. I’ll worry about Catherine Bell once she starts doing Crankenstein’s laundry.