CHRISTIAN It started with the laundry—now how ironic is that? It obviously was a kind of blind spot for Al. Ask him to take out the garbage, drive five hundred miles to help out a friend, weed the backyard, vacuum, even cook (he made a mean-ass clam chowder he was particularly proud of) and it would get done—so quick and so neat, in fact, that half the time jaws would drop and eyes would pop at how well done it was. No muss, no fuss: just a well-executed chore or perfectly performed task. Just don’t ask him to do the laundry. Domesticity might not be pretty, but the way Al faced stripping the bed, picking up crumpled clothing, hauling baskets downstairs, stuffing the washer, adding soap—the whole laundry procedure in fact—you’d think he’d been asked to give a sponge bath to Karl Malden. Jeannine hadn’t been bothered by it at first. “Your usual breaking-in stuff,” she thought to herself, said to some of her friends when they asked how their experiment in living together was progressing.
