Page 3 of The Wife

Jason let it slip like it was nothing: “Oh, something a little odd happened to me today at work.”

“In class?” Jason still taught at NYU during the spring semester, but also had his own corporate consulting company and was a frequent talking head on cable television. In addition, he hosted a popular podcast. My husband had a lot of jobs.

“No, at the office. I told you about the interns?” With the university increasingly upset (jealous, Jason thought) about his outside activities, Jason had agreed to start an internship program, where he and his consulting firm would oversee a handful of students each semester. “One of them apparently thinks I’m a sexist pig.”

He was grinning as if it were funny, but we were different that way. Jason found conflict amusing, or at least curious. I avoided it at all costs. I immediately rested my fork against the edge of my bowl.

“Please,” he said, waving a flippant hand. “It’s ridiculous, proof that interns create more work than they’re worth.”

He smiled the entire time he described the incident. Rachel was in either the first or second year of her master’s study. He wasn’t sure. She was one of the weaker students. He suspected, but wasn’t certain, that Zack—the associate he’d tapped with the job of selecting candidates—had included her for purposes of gender diversity. She entered Jason’s office to deliver a memo she had written about a chain of grocery stores. She blurted out that her boyfriend had proposed over the weekend, and held up her left hand to show off a giant diamond.

“What am I,” Jason asked, “her sorority sister?”

“Please tell me you didn’t say that.”

Another eye roll, this time slightly less exaggerated. “Of course not. I honestly don’t remember what I said.”

“And yet... ?”

“She says I was sexist.”

“She said this to whom?” I was pretty sure the correct usage waswhom.“Why would she say that?”

“She went to Zack. These are the kinds of students we’re accepting these days—a graduate student who doesn’t understand the hierarchy at the firm where she works. She assumes Zack has some kind of power, because he was the one who hired her.”

“But why was she complaining?” I noticed a woman at the next table looking in our direction and lowered my voice. “What is she saying happened?”

“I don’t know. She started running on about getting engaged. She told Zack I said she was too young to get married. That she needed to live a little first.”

Was there something wrong with that? I’d never had a job in a formal office setting. It sounded rude, but notoffensive. I told Jason that there had to be more to it if she was complaining.

Another dismissive wave. “That’s how ridiculous these millennials are. It’s considered sexual harassment even to ask someone about their personal life. But if she barges in my office and starts telling me about her engagement, I can’t say anything without melting the special snowflake.”

“So is that what you said? That she was too young and should live a little, or did you call her a special snowflake?” I knew Jason’s harshest opinions about his students.

“Of course not. I don’t know. Honestly, I was annoyed by the whole conversation. I think I said something as a joke. Like, ‘Are you sure you’re ready to get locked down?’ Probably that.”

It was a phrase I’d heard him use before, about not only marriage but anything that was so good that you wanted to hold on to it forever. “Lock that down.”

We put in an early offer on our house. “It’s priced to sell. We need to lock that down.”

A waiter telling us that there were only two more orders of branzino in the kitchen. “We’re good for one. Lock that down.”

I could picture him in his office, interrupted by an intern he’d prefer not to supervise. She’s babbling about her engagement. He couldn’t care less.You’re still in school. You sure you’re ready to lock that down?Jason had a habit of making teasing comments.

I asked him again if that was all that happened, if he was sure there wasn’t something else that could have been misconstrued.

“You don’t know how sensitive these college students are.” The words burned, even though he didn’t mean them to. I had never attended college. “If Spencer turns out like these micro-aggression asshole whiners, I’ll ground him until he’s forty.”

Seeing the expression on my face, he reached for my hand. Spencer actually is special, not a special snowflake. He’s not like these kids who were raised to think they’re extraordinary even though they’re extra-ordinary. Jason said he was kidding, and I knew he was. And I felt guilty because I realized I—like Rachel the girl intern—was being too sensitive, was feeling too special.

“So now what happens?” I asked.

Jason shrugged, as if I’d asked what he’d like to donate to the auction. “Zack will deal with it. Thank god the semester’s almost over. But screw her if she thinks she’s getting a recommendation.”

As I poured a little more wine into my glass, I really thought that was the only thing at stake in Jason’s interaction with Rachel—whether a graduate student would get a recommendation.

It would be four days until I realized how naive I had been.

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