so the "action" of the novel just takes place over a single day, with copious flashbacks to tell us how all these characters met and the dynamics between them, right
well, one day while Husband's away at work, Temi shows up with Wife and the two of them start drinking copiously. Wife tells Temi that she and Husband have been trying to have a baby—which, like, privately outrageous Temi, because it's one thing to marry a dude and take all his money, but have a kid with him? a MAN?? girl didn't we agree men are useless and we're in it for ourselves??
Wife, per usual, is just weirdly... distant... when Temi gets pissed at her. (Wife often thinks of herself as "Switzerland," and honestly seems to kind of get a kick out of how much Temi and Husband hate each other, but will never ever intervene or take a side.) it's hard to tell whether Wife really wants a kid or not—like, it's Husband who brings up the idea, i wanna say this is like five years into their marriage? so they've been together for a long time, she doesn't work or do much of anything, they've talked about kids before since near the start of their relationship and Wife's always given a noncommittal "yes someday," so Husband finally was like, look, when is someday, i don't see what's stopping us from having kids now, and... i mean, Wife doesn't have a counterargument, so she goes along with it.
(see what i mean when i say Wife is weirdly unagenic / hard to read? which i found interesting, right, like she's definitely high-class high-status enough that she doesn't have any classic financial barriers keeping her tied to Husband, but it's also not quite, like, Cultural Pressure or Classic Housewife Anxieties that's keeping her tied to him, it's... something stranger and weirder! girl is just totally checked out of her own life in a hard-to-understand way! i really liked exploring that, wish there had been more of it)
anyway, tl;dr, Temi and Wife get drunk, and Husband is pissed when he gets home because jfc it's Temi again and why is Wife drinking so much, like yes she got her period this morning but this still doesn't seem right if you're actively trying to get pregnant... anyway, Husband decides, fuck it, if they're drunk i'm drinking too, and then over the course of a very catty dinner together, Temi "lets slip" that Wife has been swapping out her prenatal vitamins with birth control pills*
* this plot point was confusing to me. prenatal vitamins and birth controls have a pretty different shape/texture, at least, among the varieties i've seen? and also why would Wife use this layer of indirection, like—Temi claims she just "happened" to notice it because she saw the jar of "prenatal vitamins" in the bathroom—but if i were secretly trying to not get pregnant, wouldn't i just, y'know, have my BC pack stashed somewhere and quietly use that? it's also left ambiguous if this is actually true or not, or if Temi's just stirring up shit, but i'm pretty sure Temi's just stirring up shit?
anyway, you would expect them to then show the blowout—Husband being reasonably pissed that Wife has been deceiving him about wanting to have kids, or maybe Wife finally getting mad at Temi for stirring up shit, and then maybe Husband doing the same, or whatever—but the book just stops after Temi's accusation, lol. super weird
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Date: 2023-08-17 07:31 pm (UTC)***
so the "action" of the novel just takes place over a single day, with copious flashbacks to tell us how all these characters met and the dynamics between them, right
well, one day while Husband's away at work, Temi shows up with Wife and the two of them start drinking copiously. Wife tells Temi that she and Husband have been trying to have a baby—which, like, privately outrageous Temi, because it's one thing to marry a dude and take all his money, but have a kid with him? a MAN?? girl didn't we agree men are useless and we're in it for ourselves??
Wife, per usual, is just weirdly... distant... when Temi gets pissed at her. (Wife often thinks of herself as "Switzerland," and honestly seems to kind of get a kick out of how much Temi and Husband hate each other, but will never ever intervene or take a side.) it's hard to tell whether Wife really wants a kid or not—like, it's Husband who brings up the idea, i wanna say this is like five years into their marriage? so they've been together for a long time, she doesn't work or do much of anything, they've talked about kids before since near the start of their relationship and Wife's always given a noncommittal "yes someday," so Husband finally was like, look, when is someday, i don't see what's stopping us from having kids now, and... i mean, Wife doesn't have a counterargument, so she goes along with it.
(see what i mean when i say Wife is weirdly unagenic / hard to read? which i found interesting, right, like she's definitely high-class high-status enough that she doesn't have any classic financial barriers keeping her tied to Husband, but it's also not quite, like, Cultural Pressure or Classic Housewife Anxieties that's keeping her tied to him, it's... something stranger and weirder! girl is just totally checked out of her own life in a hard-to-understand way! i really liked exploring that, wish there had been more of it)
anyway, tl;dr, Temi and Wife get drunk, and Husband is pissed when he gets home because jfc it's Temi again and why is Wife drinking so much, like yes she got her period this morning but this still doesn't seem right if you're actively trying to get pregnant... anyway, Husband decides, fuck it, if they're drunk i'm drinking too, and then over the course of a very catty dinner together, Temi "lets slip" that Wife has been swapping out her prenatal vitamins with birth control pills*
* this plot point was confusing to me. prenatal vitamins and birth controls have a pretty different shape/texture, at least, among the varieties i've seen? and also why would Wife use this layer of indirection, like—Temi claims she just "happened" to notice it because she saw the jar of "prenatal vitamins" in the bathroom—but if i were secretly trying to not get pregnant, wouldn't i just, y'know, have my BC pack stashed somewhere and quietly use that? it's also left ambiguous if this is actually true or not, or if Temi's just stirring up shit, but i'm pretty sure Temi's just stirring up shit?
anyway, you would expect them to then show the blowout—Husband being reasonably pissed that Wife has been deceiving him about wanting to have kids, or maybe Wife finally getting mad at Temi for stirring up shit, and then maybe Husband doing the same, or whatever—but the book just stops after Temi's accusation, lol. super weird