Who You Know

by Theresa Alan

  “That sounds like punishment, but whatever,” I said. “Okay, here are the rules: Everyone has to start the evening doing two shots of tequila. It’s my party and you’ll get wasted if I want you to.” I gave slices of lime and a saltshaker to Avery.

  Avery did a shot and her face contorted like she’d just eaten a roach. “Gaa! Oh my, I’m way too old to do shots.”

  “There is nothing more juvenile than drinking to excess. I’m just trying to get you in touch with your inner youth. Now drink up,” I said, pouring her next shot.

  “Yes, these are Jen’s rules. We always had to do two or three shots before going to the bars when we were in college,” Rette said.

  “And we always had fun, didn’t we?” I said. “And, I might add, saved having to pay those inflated club prices for drinks.”

  “You’re so right,” Rette admitted with a smile.

  “Do you know how bad alcohol is for you? It’s like voluntarily going to the desert and baking in the sun until you’re delirious with dehydration. That’s why you feel buzzed: The alcohol zaps all the nutrients in your blood and dehydrates you. That’s why your pee is bright yellow the morning after you drink. Your pee should never be bright yellow.”

  “Yeah, that’s very interesting. Thanks for sharing.” I handed the lime and salt to Rette. “Drink.”

  “Did Jen tell you about the assassin who bought us free beer?” Rette asked.

  “Yikes, he was scary,” I said. “But cute. Very cute.”

  “True. But you’re used to cute men surrounding you in droves. How is it that your men would give you a night off to spend with the girls?” Rette asked.

  “I just told them I was busy.”

  “Jen saying ‘no’ to a guy? That’s unprecedented,” Rette teased.

  “Ha ha. Seriously, you guys have to help me decide which guy to date. Dating two guys is exhausting and I can’t choose, so I need you to choose for me.”

  “Maybe you can’t choose because neither guy is really right for you. Maybe you shouldn’t be dating either of them,” Avery said.

  “I’ve thought of that, but that means I’ll have to find someone else, and I don’t really have that kind of energy.”

  “Dating is exhausting,” Avery said. “I couldn’t sleep at all last night. I kept thinking about meeting Art. I try to remind myself that it probably won’t work out, but I don’t know, I just have a really good feeling about this. I’ve planned all these trips we’re going to take together, all these candlelit dinners we’re going to have, weekend getaways with champagne and a Jacuzzi in a cabin in the mountains.”

  “That sounds so awesome,” Rette said. “I miss dating.”

  “Oh my god, I don’t even want to hear it,” I said. “You’ve got it made. You’ll never have to diet again and you’ll always be sure of getting laid.”

  “Are you kidding? Trying to make a relationship work is hard work,” Rette said.

  “She’s right. The trouble just starts when you say ‘I do,’” Avery said.

  “Even before sometimes. I don’t know, I don’t like what’s happening between me and Greg. When we were first dating he was always doing nice stuff for me, and now he doesn’t ever even cook a meal or do his own dishes. We’re not even married yet. I need to whip him into shape. Any suggestions?”

  “Rette, I’m not the one to be asking for marital advice,” Avery said.

  “Dave only did nice stuff for me after he did terrible stuff, like when the stripper he hired for his friend’s bachelor party broke my coffee table. He didn’t buy me a new one, but he went down on me for like half an hour, and I never really liked that coffee table anyway, so I forgave him.”

  “Once, I guess we’d been dating maybe three months at the time,” Rette said, “I’d been grumbling about how my favorite author had just published a new book, and it would be a year until the paperback version I could afford came out, and I was sick of making the slave wages of a teacher. At school the next day the book was on my desk with a ribbon on it and a card that said ‘To the most beautiful woman in the world from the luckiest man in the world.’ A gift just because. I just couldn’t believe I could find such a wonderful guy. But he hasn’t done anything like that for a while.”

  “He’s busy with school, you’re busy with work,” Avery said.

  “Oh my god, no kidding, it’s ridiculous. I thought I put in long hours when I was teaching. I had no idea that corporate America was a sweatshop filled with people in suits. And the worst thing is that I wouldn’t have to put in these obscene hours if it weren’t for the grotesque incompetence of management. It reminds me of this thing that happened over Thanksgiving. We were at Greg’s parents’ place, and Greg’s two little cousins, they were three and four and cute as can be, they were bopping each other on the head, saying, ‘You! Are! Stupid!’ It was adorable. They could say exactly what was on their mind. You can’t do that at the workplace. You can’t just bop stupid people over the head and declare them stupid. But let me tell you, in my head, I’m giving a whole parade of stupid people a good thwap on the noggin every day. There’s Eleanore, and Glenn, and all of the project managers who think I have nothing else to do but edit their reports as though they are the only people whose material I clean up. It just seems like everyone is out to irritate me. All day long I think, ‘You are stupid! You are stupid!’ I know, very mature. I’m not proud. The worst thing is that I really need this stupid job.”

  “Why don’t you look for another job?” Avery said.

  “I am looking, but do you remember how long it took me to get this crappy job? I’m not sure I’ll even be able to get another job because Eleanore will give me a terrible reference. For the rest of my life, this bad experience is going to haunt me. Every time I look for a new job, I’ll worry the HR person will call McKenna Marketing and find out that my boss and I hated each other. I feel ill just thinking about it.”

  “You’re not the first person not to get along with your boss,” Avery said.

  “I know. I just feel like such a failure. I wasn’t on very good terms with the head of the English department at my last job, and now there’s Eleanore. I’m the common denominator here. I just don’t get along with stupid people very well.”

  “There are personalities like that at every job,” Avery said. “There are always these egos you have to deal with no matter where you work. It’s like a family. Your parents can drive you crazy and your siblings know exactly how to push your buttons, but you don’t have to spend eight plus hours a day five days a week with your family. You don’t want to stay in a job that makes you miserable, but you have to know that wherever you go there are going to be personalities like Eleanore and Sharon and Glenn.”

  “I used to think I would have an interesting life,” Rette said. “I was just going to be a humble schoolteacher, but I would have summers off to travel to exotic places and have affairs with good-looking men with accents. So how does my life turn out? I got myself the dullest job on earth, and even if I could save up enough money to travel, I’d never get more than two weeks of vacation at a time.”

  “Why not? Why can’t you? Why don’t you just save your money and go?” Avery asked.

  “I just told you. I mean I can take little trips here and there, but I’d always thought it would be fun to just backpack across Europe for a few months. Or take a road trip across the United States for a couple months.”

  “What’s stopping you?” Avery asked.

  “Well, let’s see. For one thing, I can’t even pay off the debt I already have, let alone save up enough money to travel for six months, and for another thing, oh yeah, I have a job. I can’t just call in sick for six months. Anyway, Greg wouldn’t want to backpack through Europe, and it wouldn’t be fun to travel alone.”

  “Why do you put up so many barriers to your happiness, Rette? You make it sound as though unless all these many things go just like you want them to, you can’t possibly be happy,” Avery said.

  “I’m j
ust saying I wish I’d made different choices in my life.”

  “You’re twenty-seven. You make it sound like you have no control over what your future brings, and you know what, Rette? It ain’t so.”

  They blathered on and on about boring, abstract stuff like happiness, totally ignoring the very real problem of me dating two men.

  We finally fell asleep around two or three in the morning. At six, we were jarred awake by a sound I couldn’t immediately identify. It took me a minute to figure out that it was a combination of creaky bedsprings, moans, and a headboard crashing against a wall.

  “Aah,” Avery said groggily, “There’s nothing like the sound of neighbors having sex to drive home the point that you ain’t getting any. Thank you! I know! I’m a loser! Nobody wants to have sex with me! It’s been eight million years since I’ve had sex. Thank you so much for the reminder!”

  “She must be a prostitute. Real women don’t sound like that, do they? I don’t sound like that,” Rette said.

  “I think their bed is going to break,” I said, listening to the bed creak rhythmically. “God, I’m jealous. I can’t remember the last time I had wake-the-neighbors sex.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever had sex like that,” Rette said.

  “Thank goodness!” Avery laughed.

  The racket went on for a million years, and even after it ended it took me forever to fall asleep. Something about the whole thing struck me as oddly sad, and, for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why.

  RETTE

  Lessons in Doing Absolutely Everything Wrong

  I woke up with a start early Saturday morning. Disoriented, it took me a minute to figure out where I was—I opened my eyes and saw Jen and Avery in their sleeping bags, and remembered we’d stayed up till three in the morning. I was exhausted and sick to my stomach—my liver had spent the night marinating in tequila and my stomach was gorged with brownies and guacamole.

  The noise that had woken me at that ungodly hour, I eventually figured out, was Jen’s neighbors romping. The caterwaul woke Avery and Jen, too, but they were able to fall back to sleep. I couldn’t, so I got dressed and drove home, my eyes stinging from lack of sleep.

  That night, I went to the grocery store and when I stopped in the meat section, looking at all the meat sliced and wrapped in plastic, I began to cry, right there in the store. Not quiet, small tears, but huge, embarrassing blubbering sobs. I didn’t even particularly like meat, but I bought it to make Greg happy. I cooked it to make Greg happy, and this was what I was going to have to do for the rest of my life to keep our relationship running smoothly. For the rest of my life I’d have to go to the grocery store once or twice a week; I’d have to cook and do dishes and mop and sweep and clean the muck out of the bathtub.

  I dried my tears and continued my shopping, reminding myself that I wasn’t a victim of war or famine or a brutal car accident that left me crippled and my flesh mottled and scarred. I wasn’t living in a cardboard box.

  I was, however, decidedly a failure. My career was a joke. I’d already blown my first attempt at a career, and now I was failing again. The only thing I was good at was doing absolutely everything wrong.

  Why had I ever thought I could enjoy a career? I’d believed the myth that if I went to college and studied hard I would get a challenging, enjoyable, well-paying, fulfilling career. I had no reason to believe this was a reasonable expectation. It’s not like Mom, Dad, Greg, Avery, or Jen had ever come home exclaiming about what a wonderful, fulfilling day they’d had. Instead, they came home exhausted, griping about the bullshit they put up with, about their incompetent bosses, about the injustice of their coworkers being promoted above them. We all go through life praying for the weekend and our two weeks off a year.

  AVERY

  Behind the Digital Armor

  Monday morning I was so nervous, it took me an extra-long time to get ready for work. I seemed to move in slow motion, forgetting what I was doing, distracted and jittery. When I finally got to the office just after eight, Jen was already there.

  “What are you doing here so early?” I asked.

  “Are you kidding? I’m dying to see Art and your expression when you finally get to see him.”

  I’d wanted to have the big moment to myself, but Jen rolled her chair across the floor so she could get a good look, and I knew it was a losing battle. I took a deep breath and logged into my account.

  To: Dancinfool@yahoo.com

  From: ArtLover@yahoo.com

  My picture is attached. How will I recognize you? I’m really looking forward to meeting you. See you Wednesday.

  I stared at the icon at the bottom of the e-mail that indicated he’d attached a graphic.

  “Finally, we get to see what this guy looks like!” Jen said.

  I clicked on the attachment. We waited for an interminable length of time as the picture downloaded. When it finally did, Jen and I stared at it in silence.

  “Holy shit,” Jen said at last.

  I couldn’t say a word.

  “I don’t believe it. What a creep. What a cheating sleazebag creep,” Jen said.

  Lydia’s husband, Dan, smiled out at us from the computer screen.

  JEN

  The Plan

  It was a slimy, conniving, cruel coincidence worthy of one of the soap operas I’d once been so addicted to: Avery’s digital paramour was married to a coworker.

  “What are you going to do?” I asked.

  “I think I’m not going to think about it for a while. I think I’d like to forget this ever happened.”

  “You’re going to tell Lydia, aren’t you?”

  “No, I’m not going to tell a six-month pregnant woman that her husband is getting his kicks with women he meets through the Internet. I don’t believe this.”

  “If your husband was cheating on you, wouldn’t you want to know?”

  “He hasn’t cheated that we know of. Maybe he just wanted some attention, a little harmless flirtation.”

  “We have to find out so we know for sure.”

  Avery said quietly, “You know what? Except for one glaring thing, I don’t think he lied about anything. He is a painter. He did live back East somewhere before moving here. He and Lydia do have dogs. I can’t remember if their names are Holden and Phoebe, but I’m sure they are. He probably has been fixing the house up for a certain ‘relative’ who will be ‘visiting.’ With his talent, it’s probably a beautiful nursery. You’ve seen his paintings. Remember? We saw them when they had that dinner party for Dan’s birthday? There were two watercolors and that oil painting. They were really good.”

  I didn’t know what to say. Then an idea occurred to me. “Have you ever told him what you look like?” I asked.

  She thought a moment. “No.”

  “Not even how tall you are or that you have blond hair?”

  “No.”

  “I have an idea. Dan has never met Rette. We could send Rette in your place. If he puts the moves on her, we’ll have to tell Lydia she’s married to a sleazebag. If he’s just looking for some attention, we don’t have to tell Lydia a thing, and our consciences will be clear.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Why not? Come on, my plan is brilliant. We just have to convince Rette.” I picked up my phone and dialed Rette’s extension.

  “Are you busy?” I asked.

  “Extremely.”

  “This is an emergency. Avery and I need you in our office right away.”

  “What is it?”

  “Just get down to our office.”

  When she got to our office, I closed the door behind her and told her the whole sordid story.

  “I don’t believe it,” she said. “What a creep. And when she’s pregnant. Avery, I’m so sorry, you must be so disappointed.”

  “Dan’s always seemed like such a nice guy,” Avery said.

  “So you see our dilemma. We have to figure out if he really intended to cheat on Lydia, or if h
e was kind of bored and this was just a relatively harmless cyberfling,” I said.

  “How are you going to do that?” Rette asked.

  “Well, he’s never met you. Avery’s never told him what she looks like. We can send you in her place. If he puts the moves on you, we’ll tell Lydia what kind of guy she’s married to.”

  “And break up a marriage? That’s a great plan,” Rette said. “I can’t believe you want me to seduce another woman’s husband. That’s ridiculous. It’ll never work. Anyway, did you forget I’m engaged?”

  “Like I could forget. No! It’s not like you have to sleep with him or anything. A few kisses. Maybe let him get in a grope or two,” I said.

  “No way, absolutely not.”

  “But Rette,” I began.

  “No, no, no. I’m going back to work.”

  “It’s for the best,” Avery said after Rette left. “I’ll tell him I’ve met someone else and stop e-mailing him, and we can forget this ever happened.”

  “Just hold off on writing him back. We’ll talk her into it, you’ll see. We’ll scan in a picture of her, and if he still wants to meet her, believe me, she’ll change her mind.”

  “I don’t know . . .”

  I didn’t let her think about it. I grabbed the picture I kept of me and Rette from my desk and ran down the hall where the graphic designers, and thus the scanners, were. I smiled sweetly at Joseph.

  “Could I use your scanner for just a teeny little second?”

  He grinned and looked at me stupidly, which I took as a yes.

  “Thank you so much. Actually, I don’t know how to use the scanner. Could you help me?”

  The picture was from my freshman year in college, just before we were going to hit the clubs together. Rette and I had done a few shots, and Rette looked relaxed and really happy. The picture captured her long hair and stopped just below her ample cleavage, mercifully leaving her thighs well out of sight.

  Joseph e-mailed me the picture, and I cropped myself out of the photo (finally, a reason to use the Photoshop poor Tom had reinstalled four times!) and convinced a reluctant Avery to e-mail Dan asking if he was still interested in meeting her. A few hours later, he wrote back that he was “very interested” in meeting “such a beauty.”