Chronicles of a Midlife Crisis (17 page)

“I can’t relax for like, ten seconds after I’ve been at school all day? It’ll get done, okay? God!”

“I just—” But there’s no point explaining. “I’ve got to run to the office for half an hour. Will you be okay?”

“I’ll be fine,” she snaps. “It’s not like I haven’t spent the last two years sitting alone in this house till seven o’clock at night.”

“Those days are over,” I say forcefully. “I just need to sort some stuff out with Bruce and then I’ll be home to make dinner. How about spaghetti?”

Sam snorts. “I don’t eat pasta.” She says the word
pasta
like she’s saying
human eyeballs
.

“Fine. I’ll make something else.” I try to kiss her cheek but she pulls away. “See you soon,” I say, keeping my voice steady, though my emotions threaten to overtake me. My husband may be gone, but I can’t lose my daughter. I won’t.

Trent

THERE
’
S A REASON WHY
companies have policies against office romances. And as I watch Annika stride, make that stomp, past my office, I wish mine did. If Shandling & Wilcox had had such a policy in place, this mess could have been avoided. On the other hand, it’s possible, even likely, that I would have ignored the rule and still gone to bed with her. My dick definitely had control over my brain for a while there. But now it seems my brain has overthrown my dick in a military coup, restoring order and reason. Unfortunately, this allows me to see all too clearly what a bad fucking idea it was getting involved with a woman I work with.

So I would have nailed Annika even if there was an office policy, but at least we would have had to keep it a secret. Annika always acted as though it was common knowledge we were together. She almost seemed proud of it. But now that things have gone sour she’s huffing around like this is ninth grade and her boyfriend forgot her birthday. Obviously, the whole goddamn office knows we were together in the first place, and that we’ve now broken up.

I hear Annika’s laughter from down the hall, devoid of mirth and entirely self-conscious. It’s obvious she’s laughing at me. She’s probably telling Karen from accounting that my daughter’s a teenage drug addict or that my wife has an eating disorder. I hear a return titter from Karen, and a heartier laugh—Dave maybe? Oh god, what if Annika’s so mad she’s telling the staff I’m bad in bed? I mean, I totally redeemed myself after that first fiasco, but hell hath no fury. I can only hope all my co-workers get so pissed on green beer tonight that they’ll have forgotten about it by tomorrow.

I try to focus on paperwork, but it’s hard. For the sixtyeighth time today I check my cell phone for messages. None. I vowed not to harass Lucy or Sam, but they seem hell-bent on torturing me by exclusion. They act as if I gave up all rights to the family when I left—or more accurately, when I started dating Annika. And that thought just hammers the point home: Annika was a huge mistake.

For just a moment, I allow myself to reflect. Why did I feel the need to leave Lucy and Sam? Were things really that bad? I was bored, there’s no denying that. Lucy worked too much and our sex life had become rote. But was walking out the right answer? Couldn’t I have asked her to cut back on her hours? Brought home a French maid’s costume for her to wear or something? Sure, Lucy might have been pissed off. We probably would have fought about it and there would have been tension and harsh words. But is what I have now really better?

And I realize that what I have now is exactly nothing. Oh, I’ve got a one-bedroom-and-den apartment full of practically fluorescent Ikea furniture. I’ve still got my job—although my co-workers think I’m a laughingstock. I’ve got my car, and I do love my car. But what do I have that really matters? Fuck all. No wife, no girlfriend, no daughter. I need to take a piss.

I’ve just stood up when she appears in my doorway. “Hello,” she says coolly. “Going somewhere?”

“To the bathroom,” I say lamely.

She steps into my office. “Were you ever going to come and talk to me, or did you think our problems would just miraculously solve themselves?”

I sigh heavily. “Look, Annika, I’d rather keep our problems out of the workplace, if you don’t mind.”

“It’s a little late for that. Everyone knows we’re going through a rough patch, but they totally support us.”

“Oh.”

“Karen was just saying that she thinks we make a great couple and that what we have is worth working on. What do you think?”

What the hell am I supposed to say? “Look, there’s a lot going on in my life right now and … I really have to pee.”

“It’s a simple yes or no answer, Trent.” Her hands are on her hips and her voluptuous size suddenly seems downright menacing.

“I don’t know,” I say, shifting my position to try to staunch the urgent need to take a whiz. “I guess so.”

“Good. Because I think what we have is too precious to throw away. If I’m willing to do the work and you are too, then we’ll be fine.”

“Fine,” I say, attempting to push past her. She stops me with a hand to the chest.

“Take this.” She passes me a piece of paper. I look at it. It reads:

Yasmine Wheeler

Relationship Coach

10:00 a.m., March 24th

2300 West Georgia

“This was not an easy appointment to get,” Annika continues. “But a friend of my cousin’s knows Coach Wheeler. We’re lucky she could squeeze us in.”

A relationship coach? Why the hell do we need to see a relationship coach?

“If we’re going to have a future together, we obviously need professional help,” Annika explains.

“Professional help?” I’m about to say that Lucy and I were together for eighteen years without professional help, but then I realize that might just prove Annika’s point.

“I’m not going to harass you about this, Trent. If you show up at the appointment on the twenty-fourth, I’ll know you’re serious about us. If you don’t, then I’ll consider it over.”

“Okay.”

“In which case, you’ll have to find a new job.”

“What?”

“It would be too awkward for us both to be working here, and I’ve already talked to Don about it. He agreed that I have more clients and am better for the corporate culture and staff spirit even though you have more seniority.”

Oh my god. Is this fucking happening? I think the urgent need to urinate has caused renal failure leading to hallucinations. “Whatever,” I grumble, forcing my way past her.

I charge down the hall, avoiding the sympathetic eyes of my female co-workers and the repressed smirks of the males. Bursting into the bathroom, I rush to the urinal. Ahhh … relief: physical relief at least. Mentally and emotionally, I’m still tortured. How the hell did this all happen to me? My wife hates me, my daughter has shut me out, and now Annika’s threatening my job if I don’t go to relationship counseling with her. We’ve been dating for a fucking month!

I zip up my pants and turn to the sink. As I wash my hands I stare at my reflection. That eye cream I bought was a complete waste of money. I look older and more haggard than ever. It’s the stress—that and the physical toll of having marathon sex with a nymphomaniac four nights a week. I can’t keep this up. But what are my options? Unemployment? Welfare? Angrily, I rip a piece of paper towel from the dispenser, wipe my hands, and toss it in the garbage can. I miss, but I don’t pick it up.

As I charge out into the hallway and back to my office, I resolve to put all this shit out of my mind. At least I can focus on work for another seven or eight hours. Returning my attention to a mutual fund spreadsheet, it seems to be working—except for one lingering, disturbing thought: the mess I’m in is all my own fucking fault.

Lucy

“
YOU NEED TO UNDERSTAND MY POSITION
,” I said, as I faced Bruce across his cluttered desk. “I’m a single parent now, and I need to be there for my daughter.”

“You need to understand
my
position,” Bruce countered. “I’ve got a show to do, and that requires a full-time props buyer. And I hired a full-time props buyer two years ago when I hired you.”

“What about bringing on a junior buyer?” I suggested. “I could train him in the mornings, and then he could take over in the afternoons?”

“Good idea.” Bruce’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “So you’ll be half as productive in the mornings, and then you’ll swan off at three o’clock and leave some kid to do your job.”

I struggled with an overwhelming desire to tell him to fuck off, but then remembered something about burning bridges and how it’s a small industry. Still, it seemed a better option than bursting into tears, which was also a tempting possibility. “It wouldn’t be like that,” I managed to mumble.

“It’s not going to work,” Bruce said, taking a sip from his coffee cup. “I’m not going to pay two salaries so you can have your afternoons free. You work here a full day or you don’t work here at all. I’m sorry.”

“Fine,” I said, hanging onto my righteous anger. If I let it go for even a second, I’d dissolve into a puddle of emotion. “If you can’t respect my family, then I guess this isn’t the right place for me.”

“I guess it isn’t.”

I stood up. “All right then.”

“All right.”

Change your mind
, I willed him.
I’ll stand here for ten more seconds.
But Bruce turned to his computer and I was effectively dismissed.

That was forty-two hours ago. Now I find myself, once again, curled up on my sofa weeping for all that I have lost. You’d think there’d be a limit to the amount of saline the body can produce, but apparently not. I’ve easily cried seventeen times my body weight in tears over the past month. All this grief is probably aging me, the water loss turning me into a wrinkled prune. No amount of Botox can help me now! I have no husband, no job, and I look like I’m seventy years old. This must be what’s known as “rock bottom.”

I’m on the verge of a fresh emotional breakdown when the phone rings. I’d leave it, but the way my life is going lately, it’s probably Crofton House calling to tell me Sam’s been caught having lesbian sex in the music room.

“Hello?”

“Lucy, it’s Hope.” It’s like she has some kind of homing device for misery. “What are you doing home?”

I can’t tell her. Based on my run-in with Ava Watkins, Hope can’t be trusted not to blab my misfortune to the entire neighborhood. “Sore throat,” I say coldly.

“Oh dear,” she says. “Do you want some soup? I’ve got homemade chicken stock in the freezer. I can whip up a soup and run it over to you for dinner?”

“No thanks.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” I snap. I’m really angry with her, but I don’t have the emotional energy for a confrontation. “I’m going to have a nap now.”

“Okay, I just wanted to find out how things went with Sam. I’ve been so worried.”

“She’ll be okay.”

“It’s so sad to see her crying out for help like that. I mean, divorce is devastating to kids. If there’s any way you and Trent can hold onto your marriage, at least for Samantha’s sake …”

I jump in. “There’s not.”

“I know it’s hard to forgive; I’ve been there, remember? But Mike and I have made a commitment to stay together to give our kids a stable, loving home. It’s really allowed them to blossom these past few years—especially Sarah-Louise. She was always shy and awkward, and now she’s in the national spelling bee and the junior band. They’ve just been invited to play at the pregame warm-up show for a professional soccer game in May. I don’t know if all that would have happened if she’d come from a broken home.”

“Maybe,” I grumble.

“All I know is that dating is not the answer, Lucy. As much as you feel the need for attention and affection, you can’t give up on the years you and Trent spent together.”

“What are you talking about?” But I already know.

“Ava said she saw you with Wynn Felker.”

“That was a meeting!” I say shrilly. “And why do you and Ava Watkins feel compelled to discuss every detail of my personal life, even when I specifically asked you to keep it quiet?”

“It’s not like that,” Hope pleads. “Ava came to pick up Jessica at our house shortly after I left you and Trent. I was upset and she was concerned. We weren’t gossiping. We were talking about you as caring friends.”

“Right, okay. So if I called Ava and told her I was concerned because I saw Mike out at a bar with some hot blond—that would be okay?”

“What?” Her voice tells me I’ve hit a nerve.

I shouldn’t do this now. I’m angry and overwrought and could say something cruel and hurtful. On the other hand, I’ve lost my husband and my job, and my relationship with my daughter is hanging by a thread. I may as well lose my best friend, too.

“I saw Mike at the bar a couple of weeks ago. He was there with Trent and that chunky tart of his. And there was a blond woman with them too. Mike seemed to be enjoying her company quite a lot.”

Hope’s voice is weak. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that you shouldn’t go around spouting off about your great marriage! It’s not great. Mike’s a selfish asshole and he totally takes you for granted. You stay at home cooking and cleaning and sewing while he’s off gallivanting around the world with other women!”

“That’s in the past.”

“Right. You go on believing that so you can keep up the facade of your perfect little life. Well, it’s not perfect. Before you start judging me, you should take a long look in the mirror.”

“I never said my marriage was perfect,” Hope says, her voice shaking with repressed emotion. “But I’ve made a choice to do what’s best for my family.”

“Really? So I’m a selfish bitch because I don’t want to be treated like a doormat? So, it would be better for Sam if I let Trent walk all over me and have affairs while I wait patiently for him with a big stupid smile on my face?”

There is a long pause. A line has been crossed, and neither of us knows what to say next.

“I’m sorry you feel that way,” she finally says.

“Well, I’m sorry you feel the need to judge the way I’m living my life.”

“I was trying to be supportive.”

“By telling Ava Watkins that Sam’s been drinking? By whispering about my so-called date with Wynn Felker? By giving me a stupid book that tells me to let my husband treat me like shit because it’s better than being alone?”