by Phil Stern
Boom! A stick of dynamite was now exploding in my face, wisps of smoke and soot drifting into the bright southwestern sky. “But what does this have to do with me and Justin?”
“Just this. Like I said, Sophia, Justin and I got married too young. We were both pushed into it by our parents. I suppose we were one another’s idealized versions of a spouse. The right look, the right faith. The right families and all that…oh, you know what I’m saying.” Stephanie looked down into her own lap, sighing. “So in a way it all fit. But in other ways…in more intimate ways…we weren’t a good fit. Does that make any sense?”
It was very quiet in my small apartment, the faint murmurs of cars and laughing children drifting up from the street below. “I’m not sure I understand.”
“All right, let me speak plainly.” As she talked, Stephanie relaxed more and more. “I’ve never been comfortable with sex, Sophia. Justin and I have three wonderful children, and I’ve tried very hard to please him, but in some ways my husband and I aren’t good for one another. Do you know what I mean?”
Crash! This is what it must be like to lay flattened at the bottom of a ravine,
the object of your desire laughing high up on the cliff above.
“No, don’t answer that,” Stephanie continued, smiling kindly. “How could you? With all your freedom and passion for life, how could you understand what it was like to never escape from home? To trade one repressive situation for another? To never really live as yourself?”
“Stephanie, please. You don’t need to explain anything…”
“Yes, I do. It’s important that you understand. I was a virgin when we married, and I’ve always been faithful to my husband. That’s something I wouldn’t change for anything.”
Desperately, I half-closed my eyes. Part of me wanted to bodily shove this woman out of my apartment, while another part wanted to hear what she had to say more than anything in the world.
“But I don’t satisfy him the way you do.” Grimacing, she clasped her hands together. “Look, I’m not making excuses. And I should be able to provide what Justin needs. But I’ve always been Catholic, first and foremost. First as a girl, and then as a wife and mother. It’s always been that way. It’s something I can never escape.”
“Yes you can,” I breathed, resisting the urge to take her hand. “Stephanie, you’re so lucky! You have a wonderful family. And you’re strong and true! But, my God! Don’t blame yourself because Justin is an asshole!”
“He’s not an asshole,” she quietly replied. “Justin is my husband.”
“He’s a cheating, lying prick who doesn’t know how good he has it!” Jumping up, I found myself pacing around the room. “And, as to sex, why…”
“I was told,” Stephanie firmly interjected, “from early girlhood, that sex was a dirty thing women had to do with their husbands. An activity to be performed under duress, if you will, for the good of my family.” Now she laughed, bitterly, deep lines suddenly forming around her eyes. “But why would God create something so essential for life that He then disapproves of? Have you ever wondered that?”
Sinking back down again on my hard, wooden chair, I felt my heart breaking for this older woman. “Oh, no. Stephanie…”
“I mean, in a way, doesn’t that make God a sadist?” Stephanie now nodded slowly in self-affirmation. Clearly this was an idea she’d harbored for a long time, yet had never before uttered to another soul.
“God isn’t a sadist,” I declared, with all the bravado of a young woman advising her lover’s wife on the state of her marriage. “Look, Justin is an immature man who doesn’t deserve you! There’s no reason why you can’t free yourself from all…”
“So anyway,” Stephanie firmly interjected. “My husband has been an absolute wreck for the past several weeks. He’s screwing up at work, crying at home. He finally told me why, though it wasn’t really a surprise. I’ve suspected for some time he’s been fulfilling his needs with other women. Girls such as yourself, Sophia. The kind of girl I never was, and never will be.”
Girls? Was the pluralization just an expression of speech, or was Stephanie finally trying to hurt me? Sitting back, I began feeling numb.
“So this is what I propose.” Sighing, Stephanie gathered herself. “Feel free to continue seeing my husband socially. I think you two have been very discreet so far, which I very much appreciate.”
I thought only cartoon characters were nuked. “No, Stephanie. I can’t do that…”
“Please understand, though, that I love my husband very much, and it would destroy me to lose him entirely.” Like a doctor advising a patient they have cancer, Justin’s wife was now brisk and businesslike. “It would also devastate my children. I’m sure you understand.”
“No, no! Stephanie, I never wanted any of this! He’s your husband. You’re married!” Feeling almost nauseous, I now had to look away. “What must you think of me to even say such things?”
“What must I think of you?” Drawing back, the hard glint of a politely furious woman now came fully into Stephanie’s eye. “Sophia, I think you’re the young tramp that’s been fucking my husband’s brains out. Quite literally, in fact. You should have seen him last night, wailing in the bathroom after the children went to sleep. He’s making an utter spectacle of himself.”
Lulled into a false sense of sisterhood, her sudden attack cut to the quick. “No,” I mumbled, clasping my hands together like a little girl. “No, Stephanie, I never wanted any of this…”
“But like I said, I admire you, Sophia. Obviously your…your bedroom skills, shall we say? They’re clearly first-class.” Gathering her purse, Stephanie stood once more. “My compliments. Men such as my husband appreciate girls like you.”
I’ll never forget, for the rest of my life, the cold fury burning in that woman’s eyes as she stared down at me. Suffused in shame, arms folded, I tried not to cry. “Perhaps it’s time for you to go now.”
“Perhaps it is.” Crossing over to the door, Stephanie hesitated. “You know, Sophia, I just have one question.”
Taking a deep breath, I prepared myself. “What is it?”
“How can you willingly take a man’s thing into your mouth?” My lover’s wife laughed, bitter and harsh. “I mean, isn’t that a dirty thing to do?”
“Please leave.”
“You do know he pees with that, don’t you?”
“Get out!” I screamed, leaping up to face her. “My God, Stephanie, what do you want me to say?”
“Nothing, dear. Nothing at all.” Deliberately looking me up and down, Stephanie shrugged. “Say hi to Justin for me.” And with that she left, the door closing firmly behind her.
I never saw Justin again. An hour later he called, but I told him we couldn’t ever see one another, not now, or anytime in the future. He started to object, saying his wife now approved, but I just hung up the phone. Somehow he was smart enough not to contact me again.
You know what the really strange thing is? The only person I wanted to call that night, the only person I ever told this to at all, was Steve Levine. Don’t ask me why. I disgorged the whole rambling story onto his answering machine, then went to sleep. For some reason, at one of the lowest points in my existence, he was the one I turned to.
But Steve never called me back. It was probably just as well.
STEVE LEVINE
Years ago, in college, Sophia came up with a plan. After graduation we’d move out to Los Angeles and become Hollywood writers. I’m sure that’s where the fantasy I mentioned earlier came from.
Of course, after what happened we never went. But it makes you wonder. What would our lives have been like? Would Sophia and I have made it together?
This is the curse of almost-forty. The past twenty years get played over and over again in your head, with some hypercritical alter ego providing the color commentary. I’m sure it’s a big part of the classic mid-life crisis.
Actually, I sometimes take it a step farther. What if there are mult
iple universes, as some scientists claim is possible? What if another Steve Levine did go to Hollywood with Sophia early on? Did things work out well, or has alternate-Steve been in and out of rehab while his house falls into foreclosure and his third trophy wife cleans out the bank accounts? Of course I’ll never know.
And even if I avoided the obvious pitfalls of being rich and famous, would I have been happier than I am now? As a salesman I’ve seen plenty of successful people in big houses, with expensive stuff, who are clearly miserable. Rich celebrities do unhappy-people things all the time.
I just read through Sophia’s first few Life Project entries, and of course she wants me to think she has it all figured out. Men, jobs, money, fame…no one can hold back Sophia Danton! Mere mortals should gladly surrender an appendage or two for the honor of just ten minutes in her orbit.
But I wonder. Does the great Sophia Danton ever think back on our Hollywood idea, or any of our other dreams, and contemplate what might have been? Perhaps in the dead of night, on those rare occasions when she’s actually sleeping alone? Is there even a modicum of doubt, of the dreaded regrets she’s so determined to avoid? I wonder. I really do.
So listen, Soph, I get it. You’re the sun, and we’re mere bits of interstellar flotsam lucky enough to have been caught, however briefly, in your gravitational pull. The modern chick with the grand plan. One day you’re off fucking a king, and the next it’s time to cure cancer. I’m merely a hunk of rock harmlessly whizzing by, scarred irrevocably by your intense heat before helplessly shooting off into deep space.
But I knew you back when. I saw past the tough girl exterior, gazed first-hand at the roiling, boiling chain reaction deep within your soul. I held you as you cried bitterly over your parents lack of even a phone call on your birthday. You came running to me in a panic after your father threatened to cancel your tuition. I was even the one you called…me, Sophia…after you found out the guy you were fucking was married.
You would have been 22, I guess? That was after the wacky trip to Las Vegas and your return to Buffalo, before you wound up in Hartford, where we lost touch completely. At that point we hadn’t spoken for a while. But yes, I heard the message about seeing this wonderful guy for two months, and thinking he was the one, and then following him back home to discover his real wife and family. Don’t worry, I heard it.
But after listening to the message a few times I thought long and hard…and then I just erased it, never even writing down your number. After hearing your voice, the anguish over this married guy, I never, ever wanted to even think about you again.
But I was wrong. After all the bitterness, and all the pain, I should have called. But damn it, Soph, I was a wreck! The very thought of you with someone else…some married guy, just fucking you for fun…it was more than I could handle.
And I was afraid. What if I called, and we talked, and then you just never spoke to me again? You’d done it before, letting me prop you up and then running for the hills. And I couldn’t handle it right then. It would have destroyed me.
So thinking about it now, I don’t want to know any more. I don’t want to hear about your no-doubt perfect life. I sure as hell don’t want to read about your most memorable sexual experience. What was I even thinking in asking about that? In retrospect, I don’t want any of it.
This whole thing was a mistake. A Life Project…what a bunch of shit. It’s more like some cosmic jerk off session, but without any release.
So there, Soph. I screwed up my courage, read through your first few pieces, and got burned. Happy now? Sophia Danton is still the brightest, most stupendous object in the heavens, cheerfully illuminating our world when it suits her, yet abandoning us to cold, bitter darkness while she caresses the other side of the planet. What a fucking joke, huh? I bet you’re having a good laugh right now.
But that other world where we’re together? It exists, Sophia. That alternate universe is real. I know it is. And if I’m the only one who knows it, then so much the worse for both of us.
DAVE MILLER
There’s one day, early on in our married life, I remember as if it were yesterday. Unfortunately, it was merely one in a series of similar days.
Mandy had just turned two months old. I was still working six and even seven day weeks, doing construction by day and classes by night. Around four o’clock I ran home to water a particularly troublesome patch of lawn.
Jen was fixated on this patch of grass. Stalking around the house all day, lonely and bored, with a newborn child waking her from whatever snatches of sleep she tried to get, this three-by-three square foot portion of the yard became an obsession. Why was it slightly thinner, and a tad shade off, from the rest of the property? Amid much discussion and two separate shit fits, I was given to understand I needed to fix the yard, pronto.
So I’d spread fertilizer and weed killer to little effect. That particular day I’d driven an extra twenty minutes home just to water it again, intending to head back the way I’d come to make my six o’clock class.
As I gushed away my beloved wife came stalking out of the house, still in her pajamas from the night before. “What the fuck are you doing!” she shrieked.
Stunned, I turned to her. “I’m watering the lawn, honey. You said…”
“You’re doing it wrong!” Now Jen’s forefinger flashed out, pointing angrily at my hand on the hose. “Why is there no spray thing on there?”
I’d simply turned on the water, using my thumb on the naked head to spray the water about. “I don’t know.” Smiling, I demonstrated how I could unerringly shoot beautiful canopies of water about without the aid of a plastic head. “What difference does it make?”
“You asshole!” she screamed. “You’re not doing it right!”
“But honey…”
“THAT’S WHY THE YARD LOOKS SO SHITTY!” This was Airport Jen on crack, a persona I’d become all too familiar with of late. “Here Daddy buys us this beautiful house, and you’re fucking it up!”
And you know what the funny thing was? I’d actually attempt to discuss these things with her. She’d finally calm down, allowing me to take her hand and try to get to the bottom of it. I’d show her the hose, and demonstrate how my watering technique wasn’t faulty in any way. Oh, I tried so hard, I really did.
Of course, these explanatory sessions only resulted in more yelling and crying, along with the constant refrain that I just “didn’t understand” her. On that score, at least, we were in agreement. I didn’t understand her at all.
I tried to appreciate the pressure my wife was under. Mrs. Canton would bustle over every day, criticizing Jen, the care of the baby, the state of the house, me…just about everything. Oh, it was all very subtle. A comment here, a disapproving look there. I advised her to ignore it, but Jen was still very young and unable to get her mom out of her head.
In retrospect, Mrs. Canton was already trying to break us up. Jen’s older sister had just become engaged to some up-and-coming Wall Street money guy. Obviously the Canton matriarch had decided, once all the drama of Jen’s pregnancy was past, that I wasn’t a particularly suitable son-in-law.
Look, it’s really very simple. The Canton’s were the kind of people for whom money and social position are everything. Priority number one had been to legitimize their daughter’s pregnancy through marriage to the father, which also juxtaposed nicely with the fantasy that Jen had been non-sexual before meeting her philistine college boyfriend.
But now, in the glaring light of post-birth life? To Mrs. Canton it was as if her daughter had gone crazy and married a hired hand. Clearly she’d already decided a nice, quite divorce a few years down the road, allowing her still youthful daughter to remarry, was preferable to codifying a teenage mistake for all time.
And you know what? Maybe they were right. I just wish someone had let me in on the game plan. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have tried so hard to make it work.
Mandy, our lovely daughter, was used as a cudgel against me time and time again
. I needed to make more money for Mandy. We needed an expensive vacuum cleaner for Mandy. The new, “safer” car was necessary for Mandy. (Actually, not driving with her mother would have been the safest thing of all, Jen getting into a series of minor accidents.) I finally put my foot down when Jen insisted I paint the kitchen a different shade of green, as Mandy would prefer Spring Gleam over Leafy Delight. Three-month-old babies, I yelled, don’t give two shits about the paint job. Years later, in court papers, Jen actually tried to use that as an example of my unfitness as a father.
But you know what? It’s weird. At times, late in the evening after I’d come from a crushing day of work and class, the baby sound asleep, we’d actually settle into a better mood watching television on the couch. She was even good to go afterwards. It seemed peaceful, like the way life should be. Perhaps I’m being unfair to our married life by remembering only the anger and desolation.
But that’s what comes most easily to mind. The idyllic moments were mere interludes, interspersed among a series of explosions.
You know how crazy it got sometimes? About six months into our marriage, Jen issued written instructions for the household appliances.
“Okay, Dave,” she declared, handing me a sheet of paper. “We have new rules around here. Please read this.”
In Jen’s flowery handwriting I was informed the dryer was never to be left on if the house was empty. Same thing for the dishwasher.
“So I can’t just throw in a load of laundry to dry and run out of the house?” I asked.
“No!” she replied. “That’s dangerous! What if it caught on fire and nobody was here to stop it?”
I was tempted to point out that the refrigerator, boiler, and any number of other things could also catch on fire while we weren’t home, but decided to let it go. “All right, fine.”
“Good.” Momentarily mollified, Jen strode off.