Mean Woman Blues

Terri’s Rent-a-Wife’.”
    “Umm-hmm. I run errands for the people whose jobs are actually respected by society. They work twelve hours a day and can’t do their own grocery shopping. But I don’t have twelve hours a day for my chosen profession, or even six or four, because I’m so busy trying to make ends meet with my day job.” She glanced at him nervously, hoping she wasn’t losing him.
    He clicked his tongue and shook his head in utter sympathy. “Mmm. Mmm. A real vicious cycle you’ve got there.” He smiled, as if to take her mind off her troubles. “Well, I sure hope someone nice takes you out to dinner now and then.”
    “Oh, my boyfriend’s an artist too. We don’t actually go out much, but Isaac’s a great vegetarian cook. You’d be amazed, the things he can do with rice and beans.”
    “Well, I’m so glad you’ve got a boyfriend.” For the first time, Terri detected a false note; the temperature in the room seemed to have dropped. Had Mr. Right been hitting on her, she wondered? Maybe the mention of a boyfriend had turned him off. “What kind of art does your boyfriend do?”
    She laughed. “He’s kind of having an identity crisis. He used to be quite well-known as an outsider artist. Do you know what that is?”
    “I believe I do; my wife Karen’s kind of got a weakness for ’em. They’re those people who paint angels and aliens, aren’t they?”
    Terri had to laugh. “A lot of them do. Isaac never was into close encounters, but he painted nothing but angels for a while.”
    “Was he good? Karen’s kind of a collector.”
    “I don’t know. He never shows me anything from that period. See, the term
outsider
is usually used to describe artists with no formal training. When he decided to go to art school, he even changed his name.”
    “I guess I should have known. Isaac’s kind of an unusual name.”
    “Oh, he was always Isaac. But he used to be— are you ready for this?— the White Monk.”
    She had expected Mr. Right to share a big old laugh with her, but he didn’t even bother to smile. Simply glanced at his watch and said, “Well, we’re running out of time here. Excuse me while I do a few last-minute things.” He called Tracie to take her to the Green Room.
    The producer came in looking disconcerted. “Is— uh— is everything all right?”
    Mr. Right flashed a splashy television smile; he had beautiful teeth, Terri noticed. “Everything’s wonderful. Miss Whittaker’s going to be just spectacular. You mind running down the format for her?”
    On the way to the Green Room, Tracie kept glancing over her shoulder, as if looking for something. She was sneaking peeks at her watch too. She seemed distinctly ill at ease.
    Finally, when they’d arrived at their destination, Tracie said, “Usually he… um— he didn’t tell you how the show’s going to go?”
    “No. We just gabbed. He’s very easy to talk to, isn’t he?”
    “It’s funny he… well, listen, I’ve got to be quick. I guess he really must be pressed for time, or he’d have gone over it with you. Because this is one of our biggest shows ever. Usually we have two guests, one who’s had their wrong righted and the new one— the one with a problem. You follow?”
    Terri nodded, though she was slightly confused. She understood the format, but there was some kind of strange vibe in the air.
    “This time we cancelled the other, because your problem is too important; it affects too many people.”
    “Really?” Terri was starting to get stage fright.
    “You’ll be on for the full hour.” She paused and held up a reassuring hand. “But don’t worry; you won’t have to do anything but describe what happened to you. We’re also going to have an expert on, talking about how banks cheat their depositors— the very people they’re supposed to be serving.”
    “Hey, you sound like you could go on yourself.”
    “Listen, Terri, the same thing that happened to you happened to me. Only I didn’t go to jail for it. You got a real raw deal.” She gave Terri an impulsive hug. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
    When she’d gone, Terri looked around for the first time. The room wasn’t green, despite what they called it. It was a whitish gray— actually more like white with a layer of dirt on it— and the furniture had obviously come from a thrift shop. She remembered that this was a struggling cable station, but it would have been hard to imagine surroundings more drab.
    She had a