A Brief Look at Life With Clams
/It was a cool summer’s night when Donatella came back from a rather vigorous game of backgammon.
“Darling” she said as she poured herself a glass of white wine. “Is it possible we have run out of clams?”
“Don’t be silly” her husband John P. Thumb exclaimed. “We have a reserve of clams in cold storage for just such an occasion.”
Donatella immediately searched the cold storage room and found the clams. It was a relief because nothing goes down smoother on a Friday night than a clam. With her meal in tow, she made her way to the kitchen. In her part of the world, there are two ways one can make a clam: with sauce or microwaved. Naturally, she chose the sauce. But on every occasion that calls for a clam, Donatella finds herself wondering if the convenience of the microwave is somehow being missed. One day (soon, in fact) she would know the sweet pleasures of a microwaved clam.
You see, Donatella has been carrying on with the groundskeeper’s step-son from a previous marriage for some time. He was young, attractive, and knew his way around a hedge. The sex was good enough, but that wasn’t what drew her to him. It was about upsetting her husband. It has been years since they could honestly say on a game show that they loved each other. But Blatterstown, Long Island was not that sort of place where one divorced.
Was John so different? Of course not. He was a powerful investor in string and lived a life of excess as was expected of a powerful string magnate in 1988, the year string was king. He could have any woman he wanted. But none could match the allure of a librarian. Something about their vast knowledge and expertise with a whisper was intoxicating to him.
So, here they were: Donatella and John P. Thumb: two middle-aged adults who were lost in a maze of their own making. And who knew how to get out of the maze? Some questions simply have no answer.
“I’ve prepared the clams,” Donatella said ruefully.
“I’ll take my clams in the study,” responded John, looking at the Dewey decimal system in a way that was both erotic and confused.
Donatella pretended not to hear him. She had little interest in being his personal servant even though she stupidly promised to do as much in her wedding vows, which in Blatterstown are legally binding.
She arranged the clams in a semicircle on a plate that said, “Clams are for eating!”. The plate seemed playful, but in fact the potter who made it grew up in a time and place where clams were seen as a toy.
As she walked into his study, which was exactly 15 steps from the washroom, a distance she memorized when she used to drink lots of water, she paused for a brief moment to let the clams cool down exactly one degree. Thus, robbing John of the pleasure of a clam served at precisely the right temperature.
These were the little games they played.
“Darling, shall I rest the clams down on the side table here? Or near the inkjet printer?” Donatella said, strongly implying that it was time to upgrade to a LaserJet.
He didn’t even answer. He simply gestured over to the side table. She put them down with a thud that rattled a jar containing a tiny salamander in formaldehyde. One day, some time from now, that jar would fall down and shatter. And with the sorrow of a war-torn mother grieving a child, John would shout, “Fuck! My salamander!”.
“Enjoy...the clams,” she said as she exited the study eyeing the oak shelves that, during their divorce proceedings, would become the first shelves to be involved in a custody battle.
John woke up the next day in a sweat. He had fallen asleep—again—in his bowling trousers. He toweled himself off and sat up. Today was a big day. He had a meeting with the number two string magnate in the country. They were going to discuss a merger. The string business had been hard on John, what with the constant knots in the factory, and taking a step back from day-to-day operations could be good for him. Little did he know that in exactly 2 years string would be almost completely replaced by yarn.
He looked around for Donatella, yet she was nowhere to be found. He rolled over in a silly way to her side of the bed and checked to see if her glass of water was spilled over. Donatella almost always knocks over her water in the middle of the night in a fit of rage. Doctors are unsure of the cause, yet most hypothesize that she’s developed a neurological disorder from consuming so many clams. Her glass was full on her night stand. He furrowed his brow and immediately got a headache. Where could she be?
There are approximately 26 rooms in their house where one could hide. Well, 27 if you count the crawlspace that John tried to turn into a cheese cave, only to give up after realizing they sold cheese basically everywhere. John looked in a few rooms: the electrical closet, the washroom #4, and the sunroom but decided there was a far easier way to find her.
“Donatella, where the fuck are you?” he shouted. He waited for a response, none came.
So, where was Donatella? Of course, this wasn’t the first time she went missing. Back during the bacchanal that was last year’s clam harvest, Donatella went missing for exactly ten hours, 32 minutes, and 15 seconds. The police found her inside the shucking tent covered by no fewer than 700 clams. She had no memory of how she ended up there and walked with a slight limp for the next week.
Just as John was searching in their home gym, which was of course just three bowflex machines and one gazelle, Donatella emerged from the side yard.
“Good morning,” she said in a way that indicated she was not having a good morning and hoped he was not either.
“I was looking all over for you—even in the gross places,” John responded, while brushing some dust off of his pants.
Donatella just stared at him. She was known to do this when her mind was working far quicker than she could speak.
“Sorry. I wanted to make an omelette so I tried to coax our hens into action. But, they were unhelpful.”
“We have egg beaters in the fridge. It’s better for your cholesterol, anyway.”
“Mmm,'' she retorted. As if she knew that in only a few decades, public opinion on eggs would change and people would eat yolks with reckless abandon.
They were in a standoff. This was known to happen to them from time to time when neither felt comfortable truly speaking their mind. Once, John went into the kitchen with all the required ingredients to make clams casino and, at the very same time, Donatella entered with all the ingredients to make pasta with clams. They didn’t eat for 2 weeks.
“Well, let’s go inside and eat breakfast together,” John propositioned. “I left the milk out overnight, but I think we can still use it for cereal.”
John started walking inside and Donatella followed. After he was out of site she dropped the pool noodle that she was hiding behind her back (they were smaller back then) and went inside. From the back gate, someone could be heard leaving.
