BIRD FLU Our Brooklyn apartment, which overlooks Olmstead’s Prospect Park, is redolent of roasting Molasses Brined Turkey. The late fall sunlight outside and the warmth emanating from the oven give it a homey, cozy feel, even though the kitchen looks like a chemistry lab in the aftermath of the brining process to which the bird has been subjected. Everything is proceeding according to plan without any major meltdowns. There have been no culinary catastrophes and no conflagrations about the extent to which I am, or am not, helping. Our Thanksgiving dinner guests—including my mother, aunt, mother-in-law, father-in-law and sister-in-law—are due in about three hours. The turkey is on schedule, as is the preparation of the major side dishes, an array of which have been culled from the pages of Gourmet by my wife:

Gingersnap Gravy. Persimmon Cranberry Sauce. Neo-Classical Thanksgiving Dressing with Apricots and Prunes, Stuffed in a Whole Pumpkin Celery and Jicama Sauté. Sautéed Bell Pepper with Golden Raisins and Arugula. Sweet Potato Brulée. Chickpea, Eggplant and Tomato Tarts. Greenleaf Lettuce, Pomegranate and Almond Salad. Chestnut Soup with Sourdough Sage Croutons. and Coconut-Sweet Potato Cheesecake. I sit in the loveseat near the window and look out at the light traffic on Prospect Park West. Thanksgiving Day is one of the rare times when the broad avenue is fairly quiet. I put Broken Love, a tune by Levy, a Williamsburg, Brooklyn-based band, on the Bose Sound Dock for the iPod. My wife, Becki—a 32-year-old redhead who is the photo editor of a magazine based downtown in Manhattan—is in very good spirits, even though I was hit with a $115 ticket earlier for double parking when she sent me on an errand to buy Sugar in the Raw for her Sweet Potato Brulée. I was inside the store for, maybe, two minutes at most. At least, she did not ask why I drove five blocks instead of walking. She asks me to peel and dice three Fuyu persimmons for the Persimmon Cranberry Sauce. I stand at the kitchen counter and dice the persimmons into quarter inch pieces as directed. When I finish, I put the Arctic Monkeys I’ll Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor on the iPod, get my laptop and sit down to check email, both the legitimate accounts and a nefarious one called punkrockwhore@gmail.com that I use for less than honorable purposes. The moment I open the punkrockwhore account and see the email from want2luvyou@gmail.com, I see that my day may turn out badly, independent of overeating or acid indigestion. The subject line reads: I Love *You* and I’m Leaving *Him*. This ominous email is from my mistress. The Other Woman is an auburn haired female, also in her early thirties, who is the mayor of a small town in the Berkshires in Massachusetts. I get together with her in a hotel room when she is in New York City every month or so. Her husband, the cuckold, is a bankruptcy lawyer and breeder of Yorkshire Terriers. She says he is prominent in the Yorki show dog set. We have a monthly, three-hour relationship (three hours being a function of the basic time period for which rooms are rented at the “short stay” hotel with mirrors on the ceiling and walls near the West Side Highway in Chelsea). I Love You and I’m Leaving Him? Holy Mighty Fucking Fuck. What has she done? I inhale sharply and audibly. My wife asks, “Is everything okay, honey?” “Fine,” I say. “I closed the laptop on my thumb.” I click the email open. It says: “I’m leaving Justin. I’m in love with you. I must speak to you. Email me back right away. I love you. Ciao, Maggie.” Maggie is one of the few people I know who writes emails in complete sentences with punctuation and capitalization and who eschews online abbreviations, slang and symbols. The email was sent at 8:37AM, more than three hours ago. “Holy shit,” I mutter. “Why did you say ‘holy shit’?” Becki says. “The BBC says there’s more bird flu in Europe.” “Where did they find the birds?” Who knows? Avian flu is poised to wipe out tens of millions of people globally and the word “pandemic” is now part of the vocabulary of people who normally don’t use words much bigger than “cat” and “dog,” but I’m making up the story. “They found it in geese in Bulgaria,” I say, feeling badly that I’m prevaricating so blatantly and doing so with such ease. “Or, maybe, in Slovenia. I’ve never been able to keep any of those countries straight. It would be easier if the Russians had won the Cold War and it was all called Russia.” I double click on Verdi’s Otello as performed by Pavarotti and the Chicago Symphony; it is a changeup from the Arctic Monkeys, but I’m craving opera. “I didn’t know you downloaded opera,” Becki says. “What is it?” “Otello,” I say. “It’s a Verdi opera. That’s Luciano Pavarotti singing.” “You’re full of surprises.” Indeed. Becki asks me to prepare the celery and jicama for the Celery and Jicama Sauté. I read the relevant part of the instructions, and slice the celery and cut the jicama as directed while Otello plays in the background. My cell phone rings. I go into the living room and answer. “Hi,” says my paramour Maggie. “I’m sorry you have the wrong number,” I say. “Is she there? I know you can’t talk.” I hear a siren through the phone and out on Prospect Park West at the same time.   “Where are you calling from?” I say, quietly.   “Outside.”   Does that mean, “outside,” generally speaking? Or “outside,” as in specifically outside the apartment?   “I’m sorry, you’re breaking up,” I say.   “I’m across the street.”   “You have the wrong number.”   “Come down and talk.”   “Really, I’m sorry, you have the wrong number.”   “Do you want me to come up and talk to you?”   I whisper, “No, I’ll come down,” and say, louder, “Sorry, there’s no George here.”   “What was that all about?” Becki says.   “Usual cell phone crap. Wrong number.”   I wander to the window and look outside. Sure enough, Maggie is standing across Prospect Park West. She is wearing a long black wool coat, a red knit hat and matching red scarf. Maggie thinks my name is Ted Guslavic, the name of a character in some short stories I’ve written, so how does she know where I live? I have known her to be discreet, so how is it that she is standing across the street like an ex-girlfriend in a Lifetime movie?   Becki has gone into the bedroom, which is on the backside of the brownstone in which our one-bedroom apartment is located.   “Becki,” I say. “The trash is full. I’m taking it downstairs.”   “That’s great,” she says. “Thanks.”   I grab the trash bag, put a new one in the can and head downstairs.   Maggie is across the street by the time I stuff the bag inside the trashcan. She throws her arms around me, hugs me hard and says, “I feel so good! This is so good!” I am stiff as a board, terrified that Becki will look out one of the front windows or that someone in the building, especially the brunette gossip monger and film critic who lives in 1-F, will see us.   “Let’s walk,” I say.   I take Maggie’s arm and quickly walk down the block, beyond the point on the sidewalk that it’s possible to see from our apartment.   “What the heck, Maggie?” I say. “What are you doing here?”   “I told you,” she says. “I’m leaving Justin.”   “How did you find me? How do you even know my name?”   She laughs and says, “I’ve known your name isn’t Guslavic since the second time at the hotel.”   “How?”   “I looked in your wallet when you were taking a shower after we had sex.”   “Jesus, that is so lowdown. That’s, like, a violation.”   “Interesting that you used the name of one of your characters.”   “How do you know about the name?”   “Google.”   I’ve been out a long time for someone taking out the trash.   “I’ve got to go,” I say.   “We have to talk,” she says.   “It’s Thanksgiving.”   I turn and walk back down Prospect Park West toward our coop apartment. Maggie walks with me.   “I’ve got to go upstairs,” I say. “Please don’t follow me. Becki might see us.”   “Come back down.”   “I don’t know.”   “Do you want me to buzz the apartment?”   “I’ll try to get out again.”   “I’ll be across the street,” she says, pointing at a green park bench on the other side of Prospect Park West.   I trudge back upstairs.   Becki jokes that she thought I wasn’t coming back. I laugh and say I ran into the elderly and very eccentric man that owns the brownstone next door.   She chuckles and says she’s surprised I made it back at all. She knows the neighbor’s habit of retelling the same stories, in incredible detail, about who occupied which house in the neighborhood 50 years ago.   I sit down in the living room and put on The Pixies’ Debaser and, then, Babyshambles’ Fuck Forever, Pete Doherty’s junkie ode to dope dick.   “What is that?” Becki says, hearing the chorus that goes, “Fuck foreeeeevvvvveeerrrr.”   “It’s called Fuck Forever,” I say.   “It’s not very Thankgivingy.”   “It’s a short song. When it’s done, I’ll put on Arcade Fire, okay?”  I am antsy about Maggie sitting across the street, waiting to speak at greater length and threatening to buzz the door. If the latter occurs, everyone around the Thanksgiving table will have more to talk about than the skyrocketing price of real estate in Park Slope and the detestable nature of the proposed Frank Gehry basketball arena and high rise residential and office complex. Elizabeth (Your Mother-in-Law): “Becki tells me you’re screwing a whore mayor from Massachusetts.” Becki: “Henry’s fucking a slut mayor, mother.”  You: “I’m not sleeping with….” Becki: “Fucking. Say, ‘fucking,’ Henry, not ‘sleeping with.’ Don’t sugarcoat it.”  You: “That woman is crazy. She’s a cyber stalker from an online chat room.” Exposure must be avoided at all costs. The opportunity to act comes when Becki takes a shower. The best way to get out for an extended period is to run an errand, for instance, if Becki needs a dinner ingredient. The quickest and most direct route to being in need of something is to read the recipes and throw away an important ingredient. It is a lowdown thing to do, especially on Thanksgiving, but then, so is having a mistress waiting for me on a bench across the street. I scan the recipes. I consider the Persimmon Cranberry Sauce, which includes Fuyu persimmons, fresh cranberries and anise, but I’ve already diced the persimmons and don’t want to chance looking for fresh cranberries on Thanksgiving. Becki is going to work next on the Chickpea, Eggplant and Tomato Tarts. I don’t want to mess with the eggplant, garlic or chickpeas, but making the paprika and cumin disappear would work. I check the spice shelf and put the containers of paprika and cumin in my pocket.   I’m back in the living room, listening to the new Gang of Four release of re-recordings and remixes of their material, as Becki dries off from her shower, dresses and returns to the kitchen to resume Thanksgiving preparations.   I am jamming to He’d Send the Army when Becki says, “Henry, can you do me a huge favor?”   “Sure.”   “I can’t find the paprika and the cumin for the tarts. Can you pick some up at the store for me?”   “Sure. No problem. I’ll go right now.”   “Thanks. That’s wonderful.”   Maggie is still sitting on the bench. She is looking up at our windows. When she sees me, she waves. I wave to indicate I am coming down.   I put on my coat and walk down the three flights of stairs to the street, motioning to Maggie to meet me on the corner. She runs to the light, scampers across the street and stands on the corner waiting for me.   Again, she greets me by throwing her arms around me and kissing me.   “I don’t have much time,” I say. “I’ve got to go to the store for paprika and cumin. The closest market is only a couple of blocks away.”   “I know,” she says.   “I didn’t know you knew Park Slope.”   “Know it? I live in Prospect Heights.”   Prospect Heights? Prospect Heights is next neighborhood over from Park Slope. It is just across Flatbush Avenue, roughly a dozen blocks from where you’re standing.   “You have relatives in Prospect Heights?” I say.   “No,” she says. “I live in Prospect Heights. We’re almost neighbors.”   “I thought you lived in Cheshire, Mass.”   “No, I live on St. Mark’s Avenue, near Vanderbilt, and I run a textile import-export business on Sixth Avenue in Manhattan.”   “You’re not the Mayor of Cheshire?” I say.   “I have a sister that lives in Shelburne Falls. Does that count?”   “You’re telling me that you live a dozen blocks away and run a textile business in the Garment District? Does your husband breed Yorkis?”   “Chihuahuas.”   “Gross. I don’t even know who you are.”   We are walking down Fifth Street, toward Seventh Avenue, the commercial street where there is a D’Agostino supermarket and other small Korean-run food stores.   “I could say the same, Ted Guslavic,” she says, mispronouncing my beloved character’s name “Guslav-ick,” as in rhymes with dick, rather than “Guslav-each,” as in rhymes with peach. She knows from my writing that my character hates mispronunciation of his name. We have both spun an interesting little web of lies and deceptions to conceal our real identities from each other. We walk into the D’Agostino’s supermarket in silence, and locate containers of paprika and cumin. “What do you want, Maggie?” I say, as we approach the checkout. “I want to be with you,” I say. “Do you have a reward card?” the checkout girl asks. “No, sorry,” I say. “We could have hot sex constantly,” Maggie says, as the checkout girl scans the paprika and cumin and listens to our conversation, which is probably unlike any other she has overheard on this Thanksgiving Day. “I can’t leave my wife.” “We’re meant to be together. It’s karma. Can’t you feel it when we make love?” “That’s $4.58?” the checkout girl says. I hand her a five as Maggie says, “You know we have something special.” “We do, but I’m staying married.” The checkout girl hands me the change and says, “Have a Happy Thanksgiving.” “Happy Thanksgiving,” I say, making a mental note to never set foot again in this supermarket with Becki. Maggie waits until we are outside and standing on Seventh Avenue to say, “You think I’m only good enough for a once-a-month thing?” “No, but, I was clear when I placed my personal ad in the Village Voice that I was looking for a mistress, no-strings situation.” “So, I’m a fucking slut?!?” “Lower your voice. You’re making a scene.” A woman passing the supermarket with her daughter picks up her pace. A nurse walking across Seventh Avenue from Methodist Hospital across the street stares at us and shakes her head. “I’m not making a scene,” Maggie shouts. “Quit treating me like a whore!” The nurse, who is black, mutters, “Mmmm. Mmmm. Mmmm. Thanksgiving,” before she walks into the supermarket. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I don’t know what to say.” “You liked it well enough when it was a fuck fest.” A Hassidic guy walks by as she says this. He looks back over his shoulder at us before continuing his walk on Seventh Avenue toward Ninth Street. “I’ve got to get back,” I say, taking the opened containers of paprika and cumin from the cupboard and tossing them in the trash. “I’ll walk with you.” Is Maggie going to sit on a bench across from the apartment all day? Will she call during dinner and request a brined drumstick, Gingersnap Gravy and Persimmon Cranberry Sauce? We walk silently up Fifth Street to Prospect Park West. At the corner, I say, “I’ve got to get inside, Maggie.” “Can we talk some more?” she says. “I can’t. Am I supposed to stuff a dozen heads of garlic down the toilet so I can come out and go to the store again?” “All right. What are you doing tomorrow? You want to get together at our usual place for, you know, the usual?” “I don’t know, Maggie. Is that what you want to do?” “Maybe.” “You want to email later?” “Okay.” “Will you be all right?” “I’ll be fine. Go do your Thanksgiving thing.” We kiss and I watch her walk back down Fifth Street. As I climb the stairs back to the apartment, I realize that I am sweating profusely. I am, in fact, drenched. “Thanks, honey,” Becki says, as I give her the paprika and cumin. “You’re soaked. You’re not getting sick are you?” “Yeah, it’s Bird Flu.” “That’s not funny.” “Sorry. I’m fine. It’s warm out and I’m overdressed. I slump on the sofa, put on Iggy Pop’s Idiot album for a taste of old school punk-new wave recorded in the shadow of the Berlin Wall, and sigh. Thanksgiving is already half over.