Читать книгу The Tiny Wife - Andrew Kaufman, Serafima Gettys - Страница 9

Chapter 4

hat night I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth when Stacey called for me, and her voice held such urgency that I carried my toothbrush into the bedroom. She stood in front of the mirror, staring at the neckline of the T-shirt she most often wore to bed. She pointed out how baggy it was, which I hadn’t noticed – the neckline plunged, and now cleavage was showing.

‘Nothing wrong with that,’ I said. I held her from behind. I tried to kiss her neck. She twisted away from me.

‘I’m shrinking.’

‘You’re not shrinking.’

‘You need to listen to me.’

‘Couldn’t it just be the laundry?’

‘Even inside, I can feel it. I’m shrinking.’

‘That guy’s just put this into your head and you’ve run with it. You know how you’re prone to run with things.’

‘For once can you not question everything I say?’ Stacey asked.

I sat down on the bed. There was a tape measure on the bedside table, unmoved from some renovations we’d been contemplating. I picked it up with my free hand.

‘Why don’t we measure you?’

‘I don’t know how tall I was before.’

‘It’ll be on your driver’s license.’

‘Right,’ Stacey said. She ran downstairs and returned with her driver’s license and a pencil. I put my toothbrush down where the tape measure had been sitting. Making sure her knees were straight against the doorframe, I patted her hair down and stroked a black line on the white paint of the wall. We opened the tape measure.

‘One hundred and fifty-nine centimeters.’ ‘Oh my God.’

Stacey handed me her license. Her height was listed as one hundred and sixty centimeters.

‘They could have made a mistake,’ I said. ‘Or maybe we should measure again?’

I stood by the door. I measured again. Her exact height was one hundred and fifty-nine centimeters and one millimeter. I read the license again. It still said that she should be one hundred and sixty centimeters tall. Stacey continued to sit on the bed, staring at the wall.