NO OTHER GODS

Ringlets of chestnut hair, each lock trimmed to exact length, frame the reflected face of married lady deVine Babcock, primping at her dressing table. At least legally married had been the young woman’s plaintive assessment earlier that day to her housecleaner, Maria, who barely grasped English, much less the complex nuances of legalities. But, dutifully, the domestic aide had listened to her employer’s rambling lamentations about a tempestuous marriage — plus other disjointed narratives no one would make sense of. Obsessed with hair details, deVine continues the rituals of gussying for a dinner party, an evening arranged by husband Martin in recognition of her birthday. Twenty-eighth? Twenty-seventh? She really doesn’t care which number she is turning and refuses to dwell on figuring it out, choosing instead to arrange her fingers into the rings of a solid-gold-handled scissors. Staring pensively, she decides to take one more tiny hair snip. Then, rotating and tipping before the mirror, she scrutinizes the outcome, oblivious to lateness of the hour. “Too long,” she says. A couple of satisfying snips later she returns the scissors to the glass surface of an ornate hand mirror, precisely centering the blades. A blaring car horn from the stately Cambridge, Massachusetts home’s front driveway brings no quickening of pace. Impatient bastard. You WAIT, comes her silent reprimand. She proceeds to locate a favorite lip-gloss, Bobbi Brown “Hot Crimson,” and paints stroke-by-perfect-stroke across the taught skin of her bulbous, surgically-plumped lips. Two longer horn blows prompt further pace slowing as she secures the latch of a pearl necklace, selects a clutch purse with matching shoes, then opts for a favorite cover-up, a black lace evening wrap coordinated with a sable mink jacket, a one of a kind fashion combo she loves to admire herself in. Finally, preparing to make her way outside, she finds the bedroom’s full-length mirror demanding one last tip-to-toe survey. Moments later she walks the driveway’s brick pavers warily, avoiding a single footstep onto the seams, and slips inside the awaiting, rudely opened car door. Greeted by silence — and her husband’s typical, punishing glare — she pulls the door closed, waits, and into the chill says softly, “Happy birthday, deVine.” “Well, certainly,” Martin Babcock responds. “Happy freaking birthday.” Spinning tires screech another scold as he guns the Benz-powered S600 sedan, thrusting its two tons of elegance forward with head snapping acceleration. En route to the appointed five star restaurant, Rialto, an awkward silence is broken only when Martin tunes the XM radio to Boston Celtics basketball: “. . . and scores . . . Oh, no! Pierce blew the slam-dunk. Un-con-tested, and he blew it.” “Now, there’s a thought,” Martin says, his mustachioed grin sinister as he lowers the radio’s volume. “I could use some action.” Wrapping her arms to clutch the mink jacket more securely, she says, “It’s too cold in here.” “Oh, really? And how might it be too cold for Countess of the Icehouse?” “Would you change the station to classical?” “Stop the silly avoidance, deVine. Answer me. Am I getting action tonight?” Flipping her locks, she says, “Toasty warm seats, coming up,” and she activates both console switches controlling the big sedan’s heated seats. Martin, after canceling his switch, fingers the radio’s volume lower and replies, “You know I can force you.” “Doctor Mellencamp said my new lips can’t be tried yet. No pressure on the lips, he warned. So, no sex. Sorry.” “I pay for all of these cosmetic capers, and I’m expected to admire you like a stone sphinx? Is that the way it works?” Ignoring the question, deVine rubs flattened palms against her abdomen, pressing inward. “Did I mention wanting a tummy tuck?” Martin, with his jaw firmly set, changes the radio to a country channel and ups the volume. He will not allow deVine’s unfathomable conduct to rule the evening. For far too long he has witnessed the marriage crumbling as she has transformed, worse with each passing day, into a behavioral enigma: fixation on tiny details about body parts; humming during infrequent sex; peculiar eating habits; pervasive tardiness; an inability to discard anything — even emptied yogurt cups; compulsive rituals while dressing. For the most part a wife in name only, Martin, has grown to accept, and batty as hell. Later, after announcing the time, now late by more than an hour, Martin, an only child and the sole heir to Babcock Shipping Lines, silences the radio and says, “Father will have already eaten, Mother will be sauced, and no one will touch the freaking three-hundred-dollar birthday cake.” Having immunized herself to Martin’s frequent chastisements about a chronic inattention to schedules, deVine lowers the lighted visor mirror. Smoothing her face with exploring fingers, she says, “Do you think my new lips are shaped like a dancer’s? Doctor Mellencamp promised they would be.” Beneath rolling eyes, bewildered, Martin again jaw clenches and declines further comment as he slams closed deVine’s visor. Arriving at the restaurant, having regained his composure, Martin ponders the likelihood of a simple exit from the imprisoning marriage. That she is mentally imbalanced, almost everyone has now acceded. Perhaps the time has come for a push, or as many pushes as necessary, to tip deVine over the edge and force a physician’s decision — institutionalize. He stares beyond the xenon headlights. If she can become this loony of her own accord, he reasons, then small nudges from him, assuredly, will move her beyond the defining limits of sanity. And, yes, he does know quite well the type of fertile messages that will take her lower, one cruel step at a time.