The Big "O": A Romantic Comedy (2 page)

M
AX ROMAN, all-American guy, blond and blue-eyed faced his wife Emily.

They were so alike physically that they could pass for siblings. With her long blond hair and bright blue eyes, that matched his, they'd once gone to a Halloween party dressed as Barbie and Ken dolls and had been a huge success.

They both loved sports, especially tennis, and cared about the same kinds of things. They'd gotten their graduate degrees in business at the same institution, competing for the top grades, always trying to outdo each other, although they hadn't been dating then.

They were in their bedroom. It was after midnight.

Max was irritated because Emily looked too tired, the room was strewn with baby stuff and other junk, and nothing seemed as organized or clean as it used to, and his wife did not appear to be listening to him.

He hated it when Emily acted like her thoughts were more important than what he was saying out loud. If he were to look closely at the emotion, he would notice that he feared being unimportant to others, especially to his beautiful wife, the mother of his child.

Normally Emily was the picture of the all-American girl-next-door natural beauty. But just now, as she had been for the last couple of years, she was a terribly super-tired, albeit still sexy, mommy. Their baby was finally asleep and Emily desperately wanted to sleep. Sleep. She craved it in the way that she imagined drug addicts craved a hit or a high. Just give me the damned sleep and nobody gets hurt, she thought to herself.

She knew that her husband was saying something. She could see his lips moving.

But the buzz of her intense fatigue made it hard for her to focus on anything but the fact that she could be sleeping, right now, except that her man was droning on about something that they could discuss in the morning. For the love of all that was holy, didn’t Max know that she had to get some sleep while she could? Apparently not.

“Did they say exactly why they bumped us?” Max asked.

Emily felt terrible that her husband was so upset about losing the late-night talk show spot but frankly she was so dead on her butt that she was too numb to feel too upset about getting kicked off of the show herself.

In fact, she’d been almost happy not to have to get herself ready for the late night television show interview for which they had managed to score a guest spot. It had been a friend of a friend, who knew someone in production, who thought their book and business would be a fit.

“It was a non-specific brush off,” Emily replied and tilted her head and listened.

She'd heard a sound. Was that the baby? Thankfully, it was not.

It was funny how her hearing had improved since having a child, or maybe it was her focus; the cry of a neighborhood cat or children playing outside in the distance always got her attention, too.

Prior to having a child she was oblivious to the distant high-pitched cries of the world. Now, she sometimes heard what she thought was little Max crying, even when he wasn't.

Max got up and paced in the small space of their bedroom. He rubbed his head and ran his fingers through his hair, and looked wildly around. He stopped suddenly, as if thunderstruck, and stared at the ceiling.

“We fell down the list,” he said and snapped his fingers as if he had figured things out, that he was correct. Emily shrugged. Her blonde hair was shaggy and a bit grown out. She knew that she needed to get her hair trimmed but she barely had time to go to the bathroom by herself when the baby was home. During the brief hours he was at his preschool playgroup she was focused on work.

She and Max had their own consulting business and were working on their second book. The financial stresses of modern life meant that, being self-employed, they either produced or went under. So, some of her self-care had fallen by the wayside.

She looked at her stomach and frowned. What would it take to get her to stick with her diet and exercise plan? she silently asked herself. Then she fretted about what she would wear on TV if they got called in to do the late-night talk show later.

All of her clothes, almost everything she owned, was too tight, too old and worn out, or out of date. Some of her clothes were baby-stained. Maybe she should donate or toss a lot of those things, she thought.

She decided to ask Isis to help her with her wardrobe. Fashion was that fabulous chick's thing. She could clean and organize the house, maybe just for ten minutes each day, to try and make some progress, she thought, as she looked around her less than perfectly neat bedroom.

Her days were spent in feeding the baby and herself and sometimes her husband, cleaning and organizing things, trying to find time to write their new book and market their business, and consult with current clients, either by herself or with Max.

Max looked at her as if he had just asked her some vital and essential question, something mathematical or statistical, a question to which he still awaited the answer. Well? his barely raised eyebrows seem to ask. Emily struggled to replay his last words in his mind. Honestly, she had no clue what he'd been saying.

“We'll slowly but steadily move back up…” Emily replied, “Yeah, book sales dropped. It's the nature of the beast. Ongoing marketing is required. Slow but steady wins the race.” What she didn’t go into in great detail, was that she was sick of it. As she insisted at every meeting that the two of them had, as she had repeatedly told him over and over again, ad nauseam, the two of them had to do something to get some positive press. And they needed to finish their second book and market and on and on and on.

Tonight, if they had been able to pull it off, an appearance on
The Late, Late Show
would have been a huge boost for them and their business.

She knew that Max was panicking and caught up in a fear spiral about what would happen if their book sales continued to drop and they couldn’t get any new consulting clients.

Their current clients were happy but every gig comes to an end and most of their gigs were three months to two years in length. Being in business for oneself seemed to involve near-constant marketing.

They needed book sales from their existing book, or to finish their new book and see some kind of amazing out-of-the-gate sales; or get some kind of angel investor or a new project going. Something had to happen and fast, or they could lose it all. Emily knew that the stress of the mortgage and panic about too much month at the end of the money, a regular concern for them, made Max freak out almost constantly.

“I hope so, otherwise they may not publish our second book,” Max said.

Max glared at her as she snapped just a little. Emily was so exhausted.

Not for the first time in the last two years had she felt a little delirious with fatigue. She almost laughed at Max’s words and the way he looked just then. His hair was all wild.

He was strutting around their semi-dark bedroom like a tall blonde American Napoleon. It seemed really comical at first. But then when he frowned and grunted at her, as if she were the entire problem, as if it were all her responsibility and fault, as if it made sense for him to hold her hostage, in their bedroom, talking to her for hours and hours after midnight, when she desperately needed to sleep, for her health and peace of mind.

It was as if a switch had flipped inside of her in an instant. She felt a burst of rage.

“I said I'm working on it!” Emily almost yelled, “and there's nothing I can do tonight... I've got to get some sleep right now.”

She stared at the bedside lamp and thought about switching it off and letting Max prance around their bedroom in the dark.

She almost groaned when she remembered that they were having guests the following night. Being self-employed, it was like they didn't have weekends. One day slid into the next, they were really financially stable enough to take days off.

“We've got a mortgage now, and preschool deposits and payments to think of soon… it better happen sooner rather than later,” he finally added defensively, as if she didn’t already know all of that, as if his nagging and finger-pointing were somehow justified.

Then the baby really did begin to cry and as Max got into bed, obviously without even considering going to get their son himself, Emily felt just the tiniest bit of hatred for her insensitive and selfish husband.

She then sighed, got up, and hurried out of the room.

V
ICTOR, MAX AND EDWIN manned the Bar-B-Q in Max and Emily’s green backyard. It was early evening, still light outside but no longer hot.

Victor, seriously depressed, wore a Green Star Maddox hoodie, flip flops and shorts. He and Edwin watched Max man the grill. Victor shook the ice cubes in his drink and fretted and gazed over at the small patio and back door which led into the house.

“What happened? I looked for you two on the Scottish Conan Guy's show,” Edwin said to Max. Max felt his cheeks go warm, like he was embarrassed.

It was as if he'd been asked about something shameful that he was somehow guilty of or responsible for. He disliked the hot flush of shame intensely.

“Bumped for a better-selling author,” Max said and shrugged as if he weren't bothered, when it was obvious that he was quite fazed.

He stared at the hot coals on the grill. Opportunities fluctuated, came and went, all of the time in life. It was nothing to get all worked up about, he told himself.

“I saw that bee-yatch,” said Victor and found himself thinking about Juliette. Why wasn't she here yet? Was she really okay with their sex issues?

She'd said that she'd always known that it was an issue but a temporary one, something that they would work on it when she'd completed her PhD. Victor had been stunned by that revelation. No dude would ever say, "I'm not having orgasms with you, not sure why, but we can work on it once I've finished up this several year project."

Max nodded distractedly at Victor's comment.

But Victor, still thinking about the sex thing, didn't see. Instead Victor grabbed and sucked down another beer as Edwin watched Isis and Emily through the kitchen window. The women appeared to be discussing something important.

Inside the kitchen, Emily prepped food. Bowls of salad, vegetable kabobs, and side dishes covered the kitchen table. Isis held Baby Max.

“Are you hungry?” Emily asked Isis.

“I'm hungry for some Oreos,” Isis replied and nuzzled the baby's neck. Ooh, he smelled so good, Isis though to herself. Emily immediately caught her friend's drift and at first groaned but finally began to laugh. Isis grinned.

“So not PC, Isis. Don't you think you should wait for the main course? Thinking about dessert when you haven't had a meal doesn't make sense to me,” Emily said when she managed to stop laughing.

“My clock's got a ferocious ticker, it's makin' me crazy,” Isis admitted, “I want to be patient but I'm feeling out of control.

“Psycho hose beast?” Emily asked.

“Exactement!” Isis replied, with a perfect French accent.

“I bet that really turns Edwin on,” Emily said sarcastically. Isis frowned for a moment and then she moved over to the window and waved repeatedly at Edwin. He didn’t see her. Isis continued to wave in an attempt to get her man's attention.

Outside, in the backyard, Max was suddenly anxious. He fumbled with veggie and meat burgers on the Bar-B-Q. Edwin and Victor, drinks in hand, watched.

Victor swilled more beer down.

Max nodded to the window.

“What's up with Isis?” he asked Edwin.

“Do you mean
the
goddess or my goddess?” Edwin asked and grinned and turned to look at the house. Edwin finally noticed Isis's antics just as she gave up and turned away.

“Very funny,” Max said, though his serious tone seemed to indicate that he didn’t find Edwin’s joke remotely funny. There was something a little cavalier in Edwin's recent attitude toward Isis. She, unlike Edwin, didn't play her cards close to her chest. Anyone and everyone, strangers included, could see that Isis was gaga for Edwin.

“She's angling for a ring,” Edwin said and his voice deepened. Max and Victor exchanged a glance that said, what is Edwin waiting for?

“Do it, man. It'll be the best thing you ever do… except for maybe making a kid. Am I right, or am I right, Max?” Victor finally asked.

For a moment Victor wished that Juliette would just get off of the damn pill already. She could finish school and be pregnant at the same time, couldn't she? The thought of getting Juliette knocked up really turned Victor on. He decided to ask her later about how much longer they had to wait to get pregnant.

Max nodded then said "Yes,” as his cell phone rang. He checked the caller ID, and then motioned Edwin over to the grill. Victor frowned. Why the fuck was Max putting Edwin in charge? Edwin couldn't cook.

Victor stared glumly at the grill and then realized that none of it, the stuff cooking there, was real meat. It was all of the veggie fake meat food: veggie burgers, tofu hot dogs, and grilled Portabello mushrooms.

Okay, that explained it, he decided, if it was the real meat then obviously Max would have asked him to handle it. Victor smiled in relief. It all made sense.

It wasn't that Victor didn't like the guy; Edwin was pretty cool, but he definitely needed his best friend not to have a man crush on some rich white-bread newish friend, not after all that he and Max had been through together.

“It's our editor. Take over?” Max asked. Edwin nodded and thought about how he really intended to propose to Isis, maybe even soon, but not when he felt like he was subtly being pressured to do so. He'd ask his girl to marry him when the timing felt right for them both.

Kathryn Daniels, an exceedingly thin, well-groomed, yet tired-looking, woman in her fifties sat before a desk in her elegant high rise New York office. She tapped her red nails on her desk. She tapped them the entire time that she talked on the phone.

“Max, it's Kathryn,” she said into her chic mobile phone.

Max sighed and surveyed the backyard. He had a sinking feeling in his gut that their editor, his and Emily's, wasn't calling for a random chat. It was humiliating: to lose Ferguson and then to get taken to task for it the next day.

“Hey, Kath,” he finally said.

“I'll give it to you straight, 'cause I know lack of bull-shit is part of my immense and unwavering charm as an agent,” Kathryn said in her breathless, I'm an exceedingly busy New Yorker, barely had time to make this call, kind of way.

“Getting bumped from Ferguson was—” he interrupted but barely got a few words out when Kathryn interrupted him back.

“Not good. But let's forget that and let's focus on the real issue,” she said.

“Which is?” Max said, suddenly uncertain about the direction that the conversation might go in. The real issue... what was the real issue? He tried to remember what he'd written on the whiteboard in their home office: marketing, social media, finish book two, increase book one sales.

He felt dread in his heart over the idea that Kathryn might say that the real issue was that the book was no good, that the publisher had made a mistake, and that he and Emily had no business trying to write and sell books.

He noticed that he was holding his breath.

“
K
a-Ching
! is a damn good book…” Kathryn said.

“Yeah?” said Max and he wondered what was up and knew that he wouldn't have long to wait. Their book editor always cut right to the chase.

“
Ka-Ching
!
Manage your Money and go Toe to Toe with Modern Day Loan Sharks (to Prevent Credit Card Companies from Sucking your $ and your Soul!)
” was his first book on finance, co-written with his wife Emily, right after they left their post-MBA corporate jobs to strike out on their own and get married and work together as financial consultants.

Their entire company vision had been based around helping regular people figure out and get on top of their personal finances, with an emphasis on eliminating debt as rapidly as possible, and planning for and creating a secure future.

Their message had been well-received and now they were looking to get out a second book and branch into working with small businesses and solopreneurs.

Max groaned inaudibly. He really didn’t want to have that conversation right that second. He hadn’t slept well. Emily had gotten in and out of bed several times in the middle of the night in response to their crying child.

In an effort to be even more conservative with cash, he’d experimented with setting the A/C on an ever-so-slightly higher setting, so that it wouldn’t kick on as frequently which meant that he'd ended up being too hot, and so had had a harder time sleeping.

He stared at their green backyard, just barely mown in time for the get-together with their best friends. The golden California sunshine, and generally warm temperatures, made nearly every day throughout the year seem like summer. He sighed.

They had company over for a summer potluck and, instead of being a complete blast, relaxing and entirely fun, the way that it normally was, he found himself noticing who brought what and guesstimating about whether or not everyone had contributed equally to the gathering. He tried to force himself to listen to Kathryn but her voice was like the drone of a bee and he merely felt terribly sleepy and distracted by her words.

Max glanced over at Edwin manning the grill and prayed the guy, who’d probably never cooked anything before in his life, wouldn’t burn the meat. Meat, which he and Emily had provided for tonight, was damned expensive.

He hated himself as he had the thought. I sound just like my father, he realized. But it was true. Some cheap dessert or a bag of premade salad wasn’t the same contribution to the get-together. He’d have to pay more attention to maintaining fairness and balance with their friends. Money was tight, maybe getting tighter; he couldn’t afford to be cavalier with his family’s funds.

It took effort for him to return his focus to the conversation at hand. What had Kathryn just said? He asked her if she could repeat that last bit. She paused.

“I said that your book is at least as good as
The Multiple Orgasmic Married Woman, Oh Wow
… you know the MOM WOW book,” Kathryn said. Max flushed.

He didn't feel angry yet, but he could feel the possibility of fury worse than anything that he'd ever experienced. Sure, the anger wasn't at, and wouldn't be directed at, Kathryn, but the conversation was triggering it.

“Yeah?” he finally replied.

“I know it's apples to oranges, Max, but there’s no reason why your book shouldn’t be at the top of the non-fiction best-seller list right beside that flavor-of-the-day orgasm book,” Kathryn added. The anger left his mid-section and spread out toward his heart, stomach and brain. His head thudded and it was as if his heart beat pulsed rage instead of blood. Couldn't a guy get a break? Shouldn't life be easier than this?

“Yeah?” he repeated. He turned and faced the fence and struggled to contain the simmering vat of wrath welling up from within himself. He didn't want his friends to see or maybe even read the expression of ire upon his face.

“…but she's got the sales, because sex is a very sexy topic, and so you two got bumped and she got Ferguson. Still, an essential financial book should sell over a sex how-to because money is or should be the number one priority for most people. Your book is losing sales… you've got to figure out why. Maybe you're losing your platform. So my question for you, Max, is when are you gonna get on top of that bitch?”

Max stared at his mobile phone and flushed. His stress went through the roof.

He wasn’t a big reader, anymore, but he was a pretty savvy guy linguistically and he totally got Kathryn’s double entendre.

He even knew the phrase although he didn’t speak French. Before he could answer her question, which he knew, not only had double meaning, but was also entirely rhetorical, Kathryn said good-bye. He mumbled something appropriate and the call was over. It was humiliating, as he looked over at Edwin and Victor, his carefree buddies, and his anxiety only increased as his rage subsided a bit.