“Sciatica,” Malvina pronounced, her voice rising from alto on the first syllable into soprano on the second and back to mezzo-soprano on the third. “It sounds like the name of a village on the Amalfi coast. ‘I had a sensational season in Sciatica, you really must summer there one year.’”
Maximilian sniffed and pushed his glasses back up his nose. They’d fallen down while he was reading an article in the day’s Wall Street Journal. Some article by George Will about the calamity that would unfold if the Clinton tax plan took effect.
“What was that you were saying, darlingest,” he said, his own voice falling from its usual high-pitched tenor on the first syllable of darlingest all the way into the basement of the bassest bass he could muster. “I was reading the newspaper.”
“Maxim, you haven’t been listening to a word I said. I was telling you about Hilda Soldemaier’s bout with sciatica. She has to go into surgery for it.”
“Of course, I was listening to you. The old girl’s got to go under the knife because she’s been walking around in pain for years.”
“There’s no need to get snippy, Mr. Marlow. I’ve only been your wife forty-three years. And you don’t need to repeat what I said.”
“I thought I did,” Maximilian answered, and then went back to his paper. “But it’s of no moment to me what Hilda Soldemaier does. We all know how she got sciatica, and that’s by working on her back all these years. I mean, really – six husbands, after all.”
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