Rating: ★★★★☆ Tags: Mystery Detective, General, Fiction

AMY ELLIOTT DUNNE
APRIL 21, 2009
– Diary entry –
P
oor me. Let me set the scene: Campbell and Insley and I
are all down in Soho, having dinner at Tableau. Lots of
goat-cheese tarts, lamb meatballs and rocket greens, I’m
not sure what all the fuss is about. But we are working
backward: dinner first, then drinks in one of the little nooks
Campbell has reserved, a mini-closet where you can
lounge expensively in a place that’s not too different from,
say, your living room. But fine, it’s fun to do the silly, trendy
things sometimes. We are all overdressed in our little flashy
frocks, our slasher heels, and we all eat small plates of food
bites that are as decorative and unsubstantial as we are.
We’ve discussed having our husbands drop by to join
us for the drinks portion. So there we are, post-dinner,
tucked into our nook, mojitos and martinis and my bourbon
delivered to us by a waitress who could be auditioning for
the small role of Fresh-faced Girl Just Off the Bus.
We are running out of things to say; it is a Tuesday,
and no one is feeling like it is anything but. The drinks are
being carefully drunk: Insley and Campbell both have vague
appointments the next morning, and I have work, so we
aren’t gearing up for a big night, we are winding down, and

---

we are getting dull-witted, bored. We would leave if we
weren’t waiting for the possible appearance of the men.
Campbell keeps peeking at her BlackBerry, Insley studies
her flexed calves from different angles. John arrives first –
huge apologies to Campbell, big smiles and kisses for us
all, a man just thrilled to be here, just delighted to arrive at
the tail-end of a cocktail hour across town so he can guzzle
a drink and head home with his wife. George shows up
about twenty minutes later – sheepish, tense, a terse
excuse about work, Insley snapping at him, ‘You’re 
forty
minutes late,’ him nipping back, ‘Yeah, sorry about making
u s money.’ The two barely talking to each other as they
make conversation with everyone else.
Nick never shows; no call. We wait another forty-five
minutes, Campbell solicitous (‘Probably got hit with some
last-minute deadline,’ she says, and smiles toward good
old John, who never lets last-minute deadlines interfere with
his wife’s plans); Insley’s anger thawing toward her
husband as she realizes he is only the second-biggest
jackass of the group (‘You sure he hasn’t even texted,
sweetie?’).
Me, I just smile: ‘Who knows where he is – I’ll catch him
at home.’ And then it is the men of the group who look
stricken: 
You mean that was an option? Take a pass on
the night with no nasty consequences? No guilt or anger
or sulking?
Well, maybe not for you guys.
Nick and I, we sometimes laugh, laugh out loud, at the
horrible things women make their husbands do to prove
their love. The pointless tasks, the myriad sacrifices, the
endless small surrenders. We call these men the 
dancing

---

monkeys
.
Nick will come home, sweaty and salty and beer-loose
from a day at the ballpark, and I’ll curl up in his lap, ask him
about the game, ask him if his friend Jack had a good time,
and he’ll say, ‘Oh, he came down with a case of the
dancing monkeys – poor Jennifer was having a “real
stressful week” and 
really
needed him at home.’
Or his buddy at work, who can’t go out for drinks
because his girlfriend really needs him to stop by some
bistro where she is having dinner with a friend from out of
town. So they can finally meet. And so she can show how
obedient her monkey is: 
He comes when I call, and look
how well groomed!
Wear this, don’t wear that. Do this chore now and do
this chore when you get a chance and by that I mean now.
And definitely, definitely, give up the things you love for
me, so I will have proof that you love me best
. It’s the
female pissing contest – as we swan around our book
clubs and our cocktail hours, there are few things women
love more than being able to detail the sacrifices our men
make for us. A call-and-response, the response being:
‘Ohhh, that’s so 
sweet
.’
I am happy not to be in that club. I don’t partake, I don’t
get off on emotional coercion, on forcing Nick to play some
happy-hubby role – the shrugging, cheerful, dutiful 
taking
out the trash, honey!
role. Every wife’s dream man, the
counterpoint to every man’s fantasy of the sweet, hot, laid-
back woman who loves sex and a stiff drink.
I like to think I am confident and secure and mature
enough to know Nick loves me without him constantly
proving it. I don’t need pathetic dancing-monkey scenarios

---

to repeat to my friends, I am content with letting him be
himself.
I don’t know why women find that so hard.
When I get home from dinner, my cab pulls up just as
Nick is getting out of his own taxi, and he stands in the
street with his arms out to me and a huge grin on his face –
‘Baby!’ – and I run and I jump up into his arms and he
presses a stubbly cheek against mine.
‘What did you do tonight?’ I ask.
‘Some guys were playing poker after work, so I hung
around for a bit. Hope that was okay.’
‘Of course,’ I say. ‘More fun than my night.’
‘Who all showed up?’
‘Oh, Campbell and Insley and their dancing monkeys.
Boring. You dodged a bullet. A really lame bullet.’
He squeezes me into him – those strong arms – and
hauls me up the stairs. ‘God, I love you,’ he says.
Then comes sex and a stiff drink and a night of sleep
in a sweet, exhausted rats’ tangle in our big, soft bed. Poor
me.

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