The Big "O": A Romantic Comedy (14 page)

She hadn't actually lied. She didn't say that she would be going to bed.

Well, anyway, it felt wonderful to no longer be at his beck and call.

She laughed to herself. Edwin was always trying to reach her lately. It used to be that she was the one confirming their dinner or checking in with him to see how he was. In fact, she couldn't remember the last time that she'd called or texted Edwin first. She was, for the first time in life, easily able to wait to respond rather than the one initiating contact.

It was weird, she realized happily, that she was really and truly content. She felt full and rich, golden and warm inside, almost as if she'd had a wonderful meal followed by great sex. Creative flow is really pleasurable, she decided. She focused on the tiniest of punching noises, that her shiny silver needle, and thread, made as she pushed it into the gray serge cloth.

She was hemming a gorgeous fitted skirt which was almost done. Her mother had given her an old sewing machine. Her sister had done some research for her, some of her friends were in fashion, and were making progress on sourcing clothing manufacturers who would do small lots on demand. Isis felt giddy all over again as her mind whirled with happy thoughts.

It was incredible, she decided: her old dreams might come true, after all.

Maybe she should forget about marriage altogether.

Edwin stared at his mobile phone. It was weird. Isis hadn't answered.

He scrolled back through their earlier texts and figured it out. Oh, she'd said she was having an early night. He breathed a sigh of relief. After a long day of meetings, he hadn't really felt up for anything else. An early night was actually a brilliant idea. I'll catch up with her soon, he thought. The thought flickered through his mind that something was different. He really couldn't put his finger on what it was exactly, that was different, and then the idea was gone. It would be some time before he realized that something was very, very different in his relationship with Isis.

A
FTER MAX LEFT, Emily felt entirely hardhearted and went straight to bed. A couple of hours later, alone in bed in the master bedroom, still tossing and turning and unable to sleep, she finally gave up. Deciding that she was absolutely not going to be able to sleep, she got out of bed.

She stood in their darkened bedroom and wondered where her husband was. Was he really doing “research” at 11 PM at night at some cafe? Was he meeting someone else? Was he sick of her? She felt exhausted just thinking about adding “save my marriage” to her 'to do' list.

Immediately, she felt guilty for that. She truly loved Max and wanted to have a good marriage but why did it have to be so hard to have that? They had a nice home, they both worked hard, though lately she felt like she was the only one focused upon getting essential business tasks done, like getting their new manuscript completed, and conceiving of and executing a marketing plan.

It was all so tiring. Maybe she should just get a day job and let Max stay home and deal with getting results in their business. She could still write at night and on the weekends, and consult and speak, but she would have a real salary and have the money to get the self-care that she desperately needed. What she wouldn't give for a manicure or a haircut.

Isis had put her on a stricter budget and insisted that she cut some household fluff, not that there had been much to cut, so that she could come up with a hundred bucks or so a month to save for her style makeover and the bits of her new wardrobe that Isis would have to pay for.

Emily slid onto the floor beside the bed and did exercises while she thought. She lay on her side and did leg lifts, the way that she used to in high school and college and, when she got to a hundred on one side, flipped over and did the other.

When she had finished her series of leg lifts, she did a couple different kinds of crunches. It was had but good hard. She remembered how good the burn used to feel.

She realized that, after having the baby, she'd fallen into an uncharacteristic pattern of having treats, usually wine and chocolates, late at night in bed, which had only worsened her energy situation. Sure, she fell asleep faster and, while consuming the stuff, sort of felt a reprieve from the stress of balancing life, new motherhood, the transition from grad student to employer to self-employment, but the long term effect upon her body and being had been terrible.

Plus, rather than working out regularly she had stopped moving her body regularly almost entirely, other than parenting and normal household tasks like cleaning, shopping, taking out the trash and what not. Serves me right if Max's banging some hot chick, she thought.

In the darkness, finishing her crunches, acknowledging the possibility that her husband could actually be involved with someone else, perhaps both emotionally and sexually, horrified her and made her feel deeply sad. However, ultimately, recognizing the possibility of a worst-case marital infidelity scenario, and the possible subsequent divorce and fall-out damage to their child, as well as the effect that would have placed upon their meager savings, her health, and life, elicited a frenzy of rage which propelled her into positive action.

The first thing that she did, after a quick set of push ups, was to get up off of the master bedroom floor. She entered the master bathroom. There she lit a candle, which had never been lit, even though she didn't feel like taking a bath.

“I love you,” she said to herself, in the mirror, and immediately began to cry.

She looked at her lank blonde ponytail hair, and the light brown sprinkling of freckles across her pale skin, and the shadows that almost appeared violet underneath her eyes.

“Why, hello, beautiful,” she said to herself softly and wept that much harder.

She stripped, took a quick shower, wrapped in a towel, brushed her teeth, blow dried her hair, and put on makeup. She then put on a flowered sundress that she hadn't worn in a couple of years.

The sundress was only a little tight; she had begun to drop weight fast. She figured that she was depressed since her appetite was mostly gone. It was remarkable, she thought, looking at herself in the mirror. Cleaned and made up, wearing a pretty floral peachy dress, she felt a million times better.

Fuck Max. If he was stupid enough to risk their beautiful family, then he was too stupid to be her husband. She'd figure out what was up and then decide what course of action to take. Counseling was out, if he'd already cheated, she decided. No second chances for assholes.

Cool and refreshed from her shower, Emily made a cup of tea to soothe herself a bit more, then went back to the master bedroom. She looked in the master bedroom closet and tried to psych herself up to snoop through Max's stuff. Would he be stupid enough to leave a trail?

Emily sipped her tea, holding the warm mug tightly in both hands.

The walk-in closet looked ominous.

She found that she didn't feel ready to look for evidence of infidelity. Heck, she didn't even know what she was supposed to look for any way. She went to the home office and turned on her laptop. She sat at the desk and typed "catch cheating spouse" into a search engine.

What came up were thousands upon thousands of articles, web-sites, videos, pictures and more. She sat at the computer for two hours reading the tell-tale signs of infidelity and tried to think about whether or not Max was exhibiting those signs.

Oh my, god, she thought.

He had definitely displayed certain of the signature symptoms of a cheating spouse: he was coming home late, obviously lying about appointments or otherwise changing his normal schedule, making excuses about where he had been, had unusual phone activities or messages, was keeping the cell phone away from her, dismissing her questions with weird excuses, being disengaged and emotionally unavailable, having mood swings, picking more fights than normal, being really disinterested in her, less understanding of the things which she was dealing with, alternating between sexual interest and lack of interest, taking better care of his appearance, sleeping on the couch some of the time, and, yes, definitely more argumentative about money and finances, forgetting their special occasions, and the list went on and on.

Even though she thought that she was prepared to do the research, and really look at what might be happening, Emily found herself positively ill when it came down to reading the signs written down in black and white.

One of the worst parts of the research was that immediately after her first searches her web-browser began showing her ads for related content and web-sites.

Bile rose in her throat as she faced an onslaught of pop-up video and other ads, blinking, flashing, and otherwise desperately seeking her attention, advertising books and courses, guaranteed to recapture your wandering lover's attention, sharing horrifying facts such as: 70% of adultery victims are women and that all men are prone to cheat because their DNA, the genetic human desire to propagate the human race, drives men to want to spill their seed in as many fertile women as possible.

With further research, she was sickened by information that she hadn't even considered. She could get a flipping disease if Max was cheating with someone who had an STD. The thought made her sicker. The idea that men and women were out there, screwing around, bringing home crud on their privates and/or underpants made her feel as if she might throw up.

Though she had begun to find info about technology, tools, and techniques to get evidence to confirm whether or not a spouse or partner was actually cheating, including the use of cameras, tape recorders, secret apps loaded onto their computer, smart phone, or other device, and more, she had zero actual interest in using any of that to “catch” Max in the act.

Instead, she began a new internet search and input the phrase "cheat proof relationship." It returned results like: have lots of sex, hang out with other couples, having stimulating conversations, compliment your man, really stroke his ego so that he won't look for attention outside of the relationship, to make time for the partnership, such as having a weekly date, and even watching porn together if the man was already watching it alone. The last tip really pissed her off.

Yeah, right, encouraging a man's idiotic fixation on women as sex objects, and looking at random naked women, viewing the physical form as sex object, while reinforcing an inability to relate to a human female as a whole, rewiring his neurology to think of a woman as a talking pleasure toy, was really going to make a relationship cheat proof. All of the websites that she found were crass, commercial, cheesy, and, really, pathetic.

At 2 AM Emily went back to bed and, in the darkness of the master bedroom, feeling entirely-out-of-control, she cried into her pillow. When Max got home and came to bed a half hour later, Emily was entirely silent and pretended to be asleep. Max ignored her completely.

The next morning Isis got up and sewed until noon.

She called her sister to see if she had gotten any information. Unfortunately, not yet, her sis said. Isis wasn't at all phased. She was no trust-fund baby but things were definitely flowing. She would figure it out. Do or die, Isis, she told herself.

She called her mom who, after updating Isis about her visit to the doctor, was pleased to report that she had solicited a bunch of fabric and authentic vintage items from some ladies at church. They all wanted their beloved antique clothes to be reborn.

At half past twelve, Isis felt purely like a grownup and decided to take herself out for a cup of coffee. It felt weird to have been home, working alone, in near total silence, these last few weeks.

Sure, she'd checked in with her coworkers from the hospital a couple of times but it had felt strange. They were clannish. Now that she wasn't a coworker, she was an outsider. They didn't call her.

She almost felt like they had nothing in common any more. Maybe they didn't.

Isis took a quick shower and on impulse put on one of her new designs. It was probably the most edgy of the classic vintage professional office wear for women and the only one that was finished. It was a gray frock coat dress with a deep V-neck. She put on sheer black stockings, with seams up the back, black spool heel pumps, and tied a tiny little scarf around her neck and smiled.

The scarf gave her a bit of savoir faire, she decided. It was perfectly appropriate to the line, and decidedly feminine, being made of the pale, silky, sheer gray and delicate shell-pink fabric, that she had used to create a top for Emily.

She didn't know why she put on the outfit. She normally wore clothing that was decidedly more interesting. Often ethnic, a reference to an ancient era, she favored unique patterns and layering textures, colors, and materials, in a sophisticated way.

“C'est magnifique,” she said to her reflection. She smiled at herself and added a pale pink lipstick which contrasted beautifully with her dark skin.

Then Isis picked up a former sewing bag, made of black straw and painted a shiny black, which she had re-purposed into a chic little handbag, stuffed her wallet inside and left her apartment.

Strolling down the street in the late summer sunshine, Isis could imagine how beautiful the autumn would be that year. She felt energized, alive and inspired, almost sexual.

She noticed a boutique, next to a swanky jewelry store, her favorite place to privately window shop for engagement rings previously, in the block adjacent to the closest decent coffee shop, which was Astro Cafe.

Pausing to look in the window at the summer's fashions, she noticed that they really didn't intrigue her, now that she was designing herself.

It was curious. Humanity was essentially taught to be consumers, to be perpetually unsatisfied, to buy more. I have to have it right now, give it to me bigger, better, faster, new and improved, as fast as possible, was the unconscious human mantra.

Yet she was never so satisfied consuming as she was when she was creating. Humanity were born creators, in the image of God. Designing was her soul song, now if she could only find the courage to sing her song for herself and others.

She started toward the coffee shop. Her intention was to get a delicious specialty coffee at Astro Cafe. The coffee was her big girl self-confidence boosting treat of the day.

She was entirely surprised when she found herself whirling around, taking two steps back, to enter the mirrored boutique door which she had just passed.

She went straight to the counter. An incredibly handsome older man, possibly Latino or Italian, with thick, glossy, dark hair, just starting to silver at the temples, faced Isis.

“Hello,” the man said. He had too much self-confidence to be the clerk, she realized.

He must be the sexy boutique owner. She smiled and blushed.

Even though she hadn't spoken, he seemed captivated. Isis took a deep breath. Before she could ask herself what she was doing there, make up some crazy story, or run away, she took a deep breath and spoke.

“I love your style,” she said and indicated the boutique.

“I love your style,” he said, “I am Roberto.” He definitely had an accent, though Isis couldn't place it. Maybe he's Brazilian she thought. Her next thought was, qui ne risque rien n’a rien (who risks nothing has nothing) and, indicating her dress, she blurted out:

“My name is Isis. Would you have any interest in something like this?” Then she held her breath and waited for his response. The worst that he could say was no, right?

The handsome man, his dark eyes glittering with appreciation, came around the counter and looked at her and her outfit more closely.

“Is that your own design, Isis?” Roberto asked softly and she felt a little thrill at the question and the way that he said her name.

“It is. I'm working on a line,” she said coolly.

“Well then, I would love to see a book and samples,” he said and smiled. Isis smiled back. He pushed his card across the counter toward her.

“Will you call me?” he asked and his words were as seductive as a proposition.