The other night the husband (let's call him Mr. Sax) and I were taking an early evening stroll up the street when we were nearly run over by a neighbor's child who is newly licensed. The kid, who was driving a brand new Audi, was going about 50 miles an hour up our narrow, blind-cornered, winding country road. Mr. Sax and I leaped out of the way to avoid being slaughtered and yelled "Slow down!" Instead the kid pressed the metal to the pedal and shot up the road. At the long drive that leads to the street's newest, biggest and most ostentatious house, he hung a left and continued to barrel up the driveway.
"I think we should go ring their doorbell," Mr. Sax said. Our two dogs in tow, we walked up the steep, quarter mile. Up close the house didn't look so hot. The paint was peeling and the front steps were so bare you could see the wood. The front door could have used a wash. Through the glass panes that surrounded the entry, I could see members of the family at the table. They were having their dinner and for a moment I felt badly about standing on there, ringing their bell.
The bell it turned out didn't work. I could see them and they just kept on eating.
"Knock," Mr. Sax said. So I did.
A moment later the lady of the house, a woman draped in diamonds and popularly known on the street as the Red Menace, so-named for the way she drives a huge red four wheel drive utility vehicle she needs to ferry around her four kids, came to the door. In addition to the 3 carat studs in her ears and the diamonds on both hands, she was wearing a cashmere cardigan and pearls.
"Yes?" she asked.
Mr. Sax said something in calm and level voice about her son driving like hell for leather and how we had to jump in the ditch. Her response was to look slightly pained and dismayed.
Then her husband came to join her.
"What is this about?" he said, belligerently. Mr. Sax repeated his information.
"Fifty miles an hour?" Mr. Menace (he drives way too fast too) said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "I don't see how that could be possible. No way."
"Are you calling us liars?" I said. I was thinking who in their right mind would trudge up this endless driveway if they didn't have something important and real to relay.
At the word "liar" Mr. Menace lost it. He pointed his finger in my face and loudly said, "I won't have any of your lip. How dare you stand on my porch and accuse me?" Then he turned to Mr. Sax and said. "Control your wife."
Mr. Sax was so shocked at this remark I thought he might laugh. Mr. Menace, I knew he was thinking, certainly had no idea who he was dealing with. Nobody "controls" Eve.
"Just talk to your kid," he said instead to Mrs. Menace.
"If my son was driving like that, I'd want to know," I told her. She shut the door and we walked home.
A little while later while we were drinking coffee, the phone rang. "That's probably her," I said.
"I'll get it," Mr. Sax said.
While he was talking, I thought about how I never much liked the Red Menace and how I mostly thought she was a jerk the way she never made eye contact with anyone on the street and how they never attend the annual block party and that she had too many children and a high pitched voice and an uppity attitude and seemed unnecessarily pious about her membership in the Junior League. Now I simply felt sorry for her. Married to a blow hard who pokes his finger in a person's face and denies that his son could use direction and who says things like "Control your wife"? I realized that instead of my scorn, she deserves only my pity. Poor thing. That big house. Her jewelry. Those cars. I wouldn't trade my life for hers, not ever, not at all.
