Life After Coffee

by Virginia Franken

  “No, don’t worry. I’ve got nowhere to be. So how have you been? Did things ever work out with that guy you were seeing?”

  “Which one?”

  “The photographer from Match?”

  It seems that things did not work out with the photographer from Match, and the wife stays rapt for Kendra’s whole monologue. As I look at her, I wonder what she does for a living. PR maybe? I don’t think she’s an actress. She’s pretty, but average. She only looks good because of the manufactured polish; she’s got no natural sparkle. Her hair is styled in big bouncy waves, and every time she shakes her head in disbelief at Kendra’s story, the entire structure shakes as one. The hair is quite mesmerizing, but eventually as the story unfolds, and it turns out the photographer still wouldn’t agree to be exclusive, it’s not enough to hold my interest. I try to stand up and make an exit as discreetly as I can. It’s not discreet enough. The wife turns around when I’m just three paces from the door.

  “Oh my gosh, I didn’t see you! Have you been there all that time?” she gasps. It’s my biggest conversational peeve—people asking questions they already know the answer to. I know, I know, that’s just how nice people make nice conversation, but to me it just seems to advertise dumbness. I hold back on replying that in fact I just arrived in the room four seconds ago via an intergalactic wormhole and give her a lukewarm nod.

  “Are you coming out tonight?” she asks.

  Not if I can help it. “I was thinking of skipping it, actually. They seem like they’re taking a long time and—”

  “No, don’t do that! I don’t want to be the only girl at this thing! So embarrassing! Let me just text Matt and see what’s going on. I’m Kimberly, by the way.”

  Wait! This nothing-really-special woman is Kimberly? The woman Matt opted to marry in my place? Hoping I’m not looking too stunned, I extend my hand to shake, like a robot.

  “I’m Am . . .” I say, my name dying on my lips as I wonder what Matt’s told her about me. Which would be worse—that she’s never heard of me or that she has a meltdown at the surprise visit from the Ghost of Girlfriends Past?

  “I give hugs, girl!” she says, and pulls me into a firm one. I’m not ready for it. I don’t move my head in time and my face is suddenly awkwardly slammed up super close to hers. At least, I find it awkward. I don’t think she minds at all. Just as she’s releasing me from our face bump, the door behind us opens and a creature who looks half man, half hobbit announces himself with something of a cough/grunt.

  “Matt says: Do you want to come in? We’re almost done.”

  “Into the writing room?” Kimberly asks. She seems disturbed. This offer has clearly never been extended before.

  “It’s okay,” I say. “We’ll stay out here and wait for the others.”

  “There are no others,” says hobbit man, addressing the comment to Kimberly’s cleavage. If the rest of the writers are as charming as he is, I can see why.

  Matt sticks his head around the door.

  “Come on in!” he says, beckoning. “We’re nearly done. Just a few more minutes.”

  Kimberly and I cautiously step into the room. If I were a writer, I’d definitely have a hard time being creative in here. Everything is white, it’s freezing cold, the shutters are closed, and the lighting is borderline neon. Eight men who look like they’ve had their souls recently sucked out of them sit around the table. In the center of the table lies a mound of pizza like a holy shrine. I see Peter at the back. He sees me come in and gives me a quick wink. He’s the only one not wearing a baseball cap. Maybe they all wear those to protect themselves from the glare of the overhead lighting. I think I’d last about twenty minutes in here without getting a serious headache.

  “This is perfect,” says Matt. “We were just discussing a scene that could definitely use some female perspective. Please, come on in. Sit down.”

  “You could always hire some female writers,” I say. It’s as if no one heard me. “You know, maybe just a token one,” I say a little louder. One writer awkwardly adjusts the screen on his laptop. That’s the extent of the room’s reaction. Fine.

  “They don’t normally hire women on the show,” Kimberly whispers into my ear. “Not unless it’s a must-hire.”

  “What’s a must-hire?”

  “Somebody that they must hire,” she says, looking at me like I’m the dumb one. “You know, like someone’s niece or something. I wonder if that’s why they got us down here today, for the ‘female perspective.’ He never normally does anything social. I’ve never even met these writers before. The whole thing is totally weird.”

  As Kimberly and I uneasily sit down at the table, I wonder if it’s possible Matt set all this up in order to see me. Is he so desperate to be in my presence that he’ll even arrange a meeting in front of our respective spouses and his entire writing team? I realize that Kimberly is still whispering in my ear. She never stopped. I tune back in and find she’s midway through a lament about how she had to have one of the guesthouse bathrooms taken out and put back in a total of three times this year. It seems that the problem lies in the planning permit. From the way she’s talking about it, it’s obvious that this is the biggest challenge she’s had to overcome this decade. This woman is totally average in every way possible. She’s vaguely nice and seems to know the right people to call to get a bathroom ripped out and reinstalled again, but apart from that . . . there’s nothing much else there. How could this woman have bridged the gap that I left behind? How could she? All she’s done to earn this fabulous life that she’s living is just turn up at the right time, be available, and be more or less pleasant. How does that happen?

  I’m distracted from Kimberly’s bathroom diatribe by the change in Peter’s voice. It’s growing louder, harder; his sentences are getting shorter.

  “It just doesn’t ring true of the character. At all.” This is Peter. “Delores is passionate, but she’s also smart. She’s a lawyer, not a superhero. She knows she can’t get in there on her own. She’d try to find help.”

  “So, ladies.” Matt turns to us. Conversational pet peeve No. 2: being referred to as a lady. “Ladies,” for whatever reason, is even worse. “This is where we need your help. We’ve got a woman outside a burning building; she knows her kids are inside. As Peter mentioned, she’s a smart, logic-based attorney. However, not so smart that she managed to install a phone charger in her car; her phone is dead. Does she run and find someone to call the fire department to help her extract her children? Or would she run straight in and try to save them herself?” He pauses for our response. There isn’t one. “I’m pretty sure she’d run in. What mother wouldn’t, right? It’s the feminine instinct. But Peter here vehemently disagrees.”

  The other writers look toward Kimberly and me, dead-eyed. I’ve a feeling this dueling has been going on all day.

  “Kimberly?” he asks. It’s obvious he expects her to sum up, in a few quick sentences, what every person in possession of a vagina would do in this particular instance. Right now. In front of this room full of people. To her credit, she doesn’t seem unnerved at all.

  “Um. Well. How many children does she have?”

  “Three,” says Matt, containing his exasperation admirably. It’s pretty clear that Kimberly’s not going to offer an illuminating perspective on the feminine psyche when cast in the role of heroine.

  “And they’re all in the building?”

  “They are all in the building,” says Matt.

  Kimberly pauses. The room waits. After a few seconds it becomes apparent that the pause is actually a stop. We’ve reached the extent of Kimberly’s natural response on the topic.

  “Kimberly—would you try to save our children from a burning building?” Matt rephrases for her. Another pause from Kimberly. I can tell that this is not what he was hoping for.

  “I mean, I think I’d run in. But then I don’t know. It might be pretty hot. So then maybe I wouldn’t run in. But then my kids would be in there, so I can’t
say for sure.” She sees Matt’s frustration starting to seep through his expression and switches into trying-to-please mode. “I guess, yes, I would probably go in. I’d do my best, anyway.” She seems reluctant to make any firmer commitment on the topic in case, perhaps, she’s going to be asked to prove what she’s just said. And thus Kimberly’s theorem comes to its stunning close.

  “Amy?” he asks me next.

  Of course I’d run straight in and drag my kids out. I’ve done it before from a farmhouse in Colombia and that wasn’t even for my kids. It’s just the way mothers are wired. And Kimberly doesn’t know it, but God forbid it actually happened, she’d do the same thing too. When you’re with your kids, logic rarely comes into anything, least of all a situation like that. However . . . my husband is saying the opposite. And the last thing I want to do right now is provoke him any further. Especially if it’s going to come back at me in the form of accusations of my taking Matt’s side over his.

  “I think most women would probably stay outside,” I say, avoiding eye contact with everyone and squinting up into the harsh lighting. This situation is extremely uncomfortable. “Even the most desperate person would know that they wouldn’t be able to walk into a fire without some kind of equipment. I’ve been near a structure fire before and that heat will have you backing right off, no matter what your heart is telling you to do. She’d go for help. For sure.”

  Peter looks up at me. I expect him to be pleased. He’s not. My mention of once being near a structure fire has reminded him that in fact I did once run into a burning building to try and save some children. And that’s what mothers do. And he knows I’m lying to agree with him, and he also now knows that he’s wrong. He hates being wrong and he hates people lying. I’ve succeeded in doing the opposite of appeasing him.

  “But you’re not one of those girly girls anyway, Amy,” says Matt. “I still think that most normal women would run in. Let’s just go with that.”

  Really? Because I’ve never owned a set of false eyelashes, I’m not interested in protecting my children from death? I’m about as offended as I’ve ever been. But I sit on it. This will all be done soon. I just have to get through this, drink a couple of martinis, keep Peter calm, and get home.

  Peter suddenly stands up. It’s instantly clear that he’s not going to sit on it. In any sense.

  “You know what?” he says. I mentally cower under the chair. “You’re a complete asshole.” Matt turns to face Peter. I can tell he’s shocked. Peter has obviously not hit this level of insubordination before. Peter’s face is pale. “You won’t listen to anyone else’s ideas. This isn’t a writing room, it’s a dictatorship. I don’t know why you even employ us. Why do you need us at all? Just write the whole thing yourself—that’s what you obviously want to do.” He throws his writing pad across the table toward Matt. Perhaps that was supposed to accentuate his point. “You ask my wife’s opinion and then call her abnormal because she doesn’t agree with you and your ideals of what a woman should be.” He picks up one of the pens and scribbles “ASSHOLE” on the board and underlines it three times. “That’s you. There.” He bangs the pen on the board. “An asshole.”

  “We’re done here. Get out.”

  “I am out.” Peter gives the whiteboard a shove, and it skids across the room and bashes into the wall. If that didn’t leave a divot, I know it at least left a massive mark. Peter barrels out of the room like he can’t leave fast enough. I mouth, “Nice to meet you,” to Kimberly so she doesn’t think that I’m as insane as my spouse and then follow him out the door.

  I can’t help but glance at Matt as I leave, but he’s not looking at me, he’s looking at Kimberly. Maybe I’m reading way too much into the look a man is giving his wife, but I think seeing Kimberly and me in side-by-side action just then sort of sped up the inevitable. He just realized he married the wrong one.

  CHAPTER 17

  And so Peter blew it for us again. He managed to rack up a grand total of one paycheck. One. The first since our children have been born, and now he is unemployed once more. Just sitting at home all day in the garage, cranking more unsellable screenplays out of his laptop. We are doomed.

  Now that we are back in the poorhouse, in a valiant attempt to recoup my wasted six hundred Sylvia’s Angels dollars, I decided to visit my “territory” today and try to sell something. And did I manage to sell one lousy lipstick? Nothing. Not. One. Sale. And, of course, I had to take Violet with me.

  Violet’s pretty quiet on the drive home and as soon as I pull up to the front door, switch off the engine, and turn around to see if she’s asleep, I see why. She’s covered in makeup. My makeup kit is lying open next to her, and she seems to have daubed on every available color to every single part of her face. She looks like she’s been dunked in a murky rainbow.

  “Violet!” I have to get this stuff off her skin before anyone sees her. I open the glove compartment and pull out a pack of baby wipes. They’re completely dried out. If Miss Havisham had owned a packet of baby wipes, these would have been them. If I crunched the top one, I’m sure it would crumble in my palm and blow away in the wind like apocalyptic wipe dust.

  “Hey, Amy!” comes a muffled voice through the window. Oh, of course. It’s Lizzie. It’s like she’s got some kind of “crappy mommy” radar. The second I approach any kind of parental fail, her sensor starts a-beepin’ and she’s over here as fast as her Bikram-toned legs can transport her. She looks super annoyed. I wonder what the drama is this time. I fleetingly remember that I haven’t cleaned off the boogers I caught Billy wiping on her mailbox last week. But still—she couldn’t know those were his? She hasn’t got a booger DNA lab in her basement. And then I remember her video surveillance app . . . I lower the window.

  “Hey, Lizzie.”

  “They’re waiting!”

  “Who?”

  “All my friends. In my living room. Right now. They’ve already gone through all the Chardonnay and now they’ve started on the Pinot!”

  I stare at her. She stares back. It seems like she really wants me to do something.

  “You’re extremely late!” She more or less squeals, going pinker by the nanosecond.

  “For what?”

  “Your party!”

  Oh no. Now I remember. Earlier this week I practically forced my way through Lizzie’s front door under the guise of “catching up.” Nine minutes in, I changed tack and somehow talked her into hosting a Sylvia’s Angels party. I played the “hoping to be able to make this a success so I can stay at home with my kids” card, so how could she refuse? And now there’s a horde of Pasadena princesses in her living room, their children deposited with their nannies, waiting to be sold a bunch of toxin-laden makeup from a fifty-year-old brand that has never been popular. Not even in the eighties, when everything was popular. I wonder how on earth Lizzie got them to come.

  “I’m so sorry, Lizzie. I’ve had a bit of a weird morning and I totally forgot. I’ll just take Violet inside and wash her face, and we’ll be by in a minute.”

  “Just come now. Everyone’s waiting,” she says, already helping Violet out of her car seat. “Good Lord. You look like a psychedelic Oompa-Loompa.” She grimaces and puts Violet on her hip, starting out for her house, knowing that I’ll have to follow along. I’ve always been extremely jealous of women who can carry kids on their hip and walk at the same time. I’m so lacking in hip that whenever I try it, the poor child has to cling to the side of my body like an abandoned monkey and eventually ends up just falling to the floor. There’s a ding from my phone. It’s a text from Matt. Call me. Not going to happen. If he’s so desperate to chat, he can make the call, not text me a directive to do it.

  As soon as we walk into Lizzie’s living room, I realize this is a mistake. A big mistake. The room is filled with some of the most beautifully and artfully manicured women I’ve ever seen. There’s not a thing I could say about makeup or the application of it that they don’t already know. There’s not a single item in my
fourth-rate makeup inventory that they would want to buy. These women probably pay at least seventy-five dollars for a lipstick. And buy four at a time.

  “Oh, look. You put the makeup on your baby,” says one particularly perfect blonde. Three instant reasons to dislike this woman: she’s practically perfect in every way possible, she thinks I’d purposefully splodge makeup on my child, and she’s calling my three-year-old a baby. Last week, in another failed attempt to be a normal mother, I took Billy and Violet to the park. While they were off scampering around, some woman on the bench started desperately searching through her bag.

  “Damn it! I’ve forgotten the milk for the baby,” she said.

  “Oh no,” said I, wondering how she bore the pressure of being the only nonbreastfeeder at the park. And then I noticed her “baby” was absent. “Wait! Where is your baby?” Had the baby been snatched while she was searching for milk?

  “There,” she said. “On the swings. And she is going to be pissed.” And stomach-down on the swing was one long-legged four-year-old wearing knee-high boots and spinning with her legs stuck out as far as possible in an attempt to hit the kid standing behind her waiting for a turn. Baby? Babies stop being babies the minute they can walk and talk, let alone don heeled boots and try to dominate the swing set. Violet hasn’t been a baby for a long time. In fact, I don’t think I have any actual memories of her being a baby. There was just the birth, and then now. The in-between is kind of just not there. It’s documented by a series of photos taken by the snap-happy Peter. But that’s the only real evidence it ever happened. For me, anyway.

  “Actually, she put it on when I wasn’t looking,” I say to Perfect. “If you all can bear to wait just a couple more minutes, I’m going to quickly wash it off.”

  “It’s hard to watch them every moment,” says Perfect with a smile. She’s looking at us like she’s the Duchess of Cambridge and Violet and I don’t own any shoes. And what does she know about “watching them every moment”? I expect she’s got two nannies on alternating twelve-hour shifts for every perfect child she’s ever popped out of her perfect vagina.