The End of Men

by Karen Rinaldi

  “You, um, you haven’t said a word to me all day,” John said more matter-of-factly than she thought he felt. She did feel badly for him. It was true: she was shutting him out.

  “No, everything is fine,” she lied. “Hey, maybe you can help Justine with her homework tonight. I know she’s been struggling with science class.”

  “She didn’t tell me that.” John was hurt.

  “You should try talking to her more. You might learn some things.”

  John got up from the couch and left the room.

  They never again discussed the prospect of another child, as if the issue had just vaporized when, in fact, the opposite was happening. Maggie was already six weeks along. She didn’t want to share the news with John and refused to think about the ethical consequences of not doing so. She did want to extricate herself from her marriage, but time was running short—she would need to address the fact that this child was coming. She needed a plan.

  “LET’S FACE IT,” Maggie said to Beth the next day as they headed up to the office after the roundtable taping, “men are a luxury, one I can live without.”

  “You have one major problem, Maggs. You’re married to one.”

  “Maybe I can just send him back,” Maggie answered blithely. The women laughed hard as they walked into the building.

  But the idea, said in jest, started to take hold in her mind.

  Why not send him back to Georgette? she thought later that night. What if she’s my salvation, not my nemesis? When it comes down to it, Georgette isn’t the problem, John is.

  And on an impulse she decided to test-drive the idea.

  After Maggie put Lily to sleep, and Jules and Justine sat at the dining room table doing their homework, she plopped herself down on the couch next to John.

  “I saw Georgette today. She looked great.”

  “What do you mean, you saw Georgette?”

  “She was at the taping today. Surprise guest. She was actually terrific for the roundtable. I have to say I saw a side to her I liked very much . . . Anyway, didn’t she call the kids?”

  “Uh, yeah, she did, but they didn’t tell me that she was back from Paris.”

  “She’s only in town for two days. She’s going to see them tomorrow. We talked for a bit after the taping and made plans.”

  Her calm clearly unnerved John. “Maggie, what are you talking about? You meet Georgette in person for the first time and now you two are making plans?”

  “You know, John,” Maggie said, bolder by the second. “I’m not quite sure why your marriage didn’t make it. From what I can tell, you two are very well suited to each other.”

  “Have you gone mad?”

  “No, just making an observation.” She patted John on the knee and stood up from the couch and stretched her arms above her head. “I’m beat and going to bed. Good night.”

  Maggie could tell by John’s stunned silence that she had hit some kind of nerve. This might actually work, she told herself optimistically as she prepared for bed.

  As she brushed her teeth, she recalled reading a book years before by Susan Maushart called Wifework, in which the author said she’d had more time for herself as the single mother of three children under five than she’d had when she was married to their father. Maggie was feeling more resolved by the hour.

  When she arrived at Georgette’s the following evening to take Jules and Justine back to Jersey City, the family was just finishing up dinner. Georgette told the kids to gather their things.

  “Would you like some coffee? It’s decaf,” Georgette offered Maggie. John’s ex was guarded but friendly, which calmed Maggie’s nerves a bit. “I put butter in mine. Would you like the same?”

  “Yeah, sure, why not?” Maggie said with a smile.

  Buttered coffee seemed a bit weird, but whatever works, Maggie told herself.

  Now that Maggie was resolved to orchestrate the reconciliation of John and Georgette, she wanted to get them back together before she had to deal with the recognizable fact of her second child.

  John’s two wives sat down together at the family table. Maggie’s eyes settled on Georgette’s. She blinked hard and said, “Something you said yesterday at the roundtable made me think that you would, or could, forgive John for what he did. Is that really true, or am I reading you all wrong?”

  Georgette stared intently at Maggie, who fought hard not to look away.

  “No, you’re not wrong. I would forgive John if he had the guts to ask for my forgiveness . . . and then begged me to take him back.” Georgette flashed a take that smile at Maggie.

  “Well, now that you mentioned it . . . I did want to talk with you about something.”

  Georgette raised her eyebrows and nodded.

  “What if I offered to help you get him back?” Maggie said, surprising herself at how this came with no preamble. “I know this sounds crazy, but I mean it.”

  “You’ve grown tired of your lover, Maggie?” Georgette’s stare bore right through Maggie, making her shift back in her seat.

  “That’s not it at all,” Maggie scrambled. But what was “it”?

  “Then what could ‘it’ possibly be?” Georgette uncannily echoed Maggie’s thoughts, seeming as puzzled as she was annoyed.

  “Georgette, listen, it occurred to me yesterday during the roundtable that you and John were together for such a long time for a reason. What you write about is true, and we—John and I—should have been over just as quickly as we started. I don’t quite know how to explain it . . . He seems lost being married to me. Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t need him and I think maybe . . . you do.” Maggie swallowed those last words, aware she was treading on insult.

  “I mean, ‘need’ sounds all wrong . . . but you make John shine and I think I dull him . . . Oh, for God’s sake, am I making any sense?”

  “No. Not really.” Georgette’s face was tight now.

  “Listen, Georgette. I’m sorry to have caused you so much heartbreak, but if you want John back, I think he feels the same way.” Maggie was on shaky ground again; she had no idea what John wanted. “And maybe I can help you get him back.” Maggie cringed even hearing her words as Georgette might have heard them, but she meant them with all her heart.

  Georgette’s eyes softened for a moment, then narrowed again. “Why would I trust you of all people, Maggie?”

  “You shouldn’t, not after what happened. Still, you have to ask what motives I would have under these circumstances to hurt you further.” Maggie took a deep breath. She was light-headed with emotion and the stakes of the conversation, but also with excitement at the prospect of her absurd plan actually working.

  “Maybe you’re a sociopath—how would I know?” Georgette’s sparring sounded almost flirtatious to Maggie, but also angry. Still, underneath it something glacial was melting.

  “If you thought that, you wouldn’t have trusted me with your children,” Maggie challenged.

  “Ha!” Georgette said without mirth. “Yes, you have a point there. It’s true, I don’t imagine you are a sociopath . . . but you are selfish and perhaps a little bit cruel.”

  Maggie cringed, then straightened her shoulders. She had to acknowledge truth where it was due. “Okay, I’ll take that. But I also thought I was saving John from an unhappy marriage.”

  “How could you know anything about my marriage to John?” Georgette pressed. “All marriages are unhappy at times—of course they are. But that seems like quite the neat little excuse to justify your affair with my husband.”

  “Maybe you’re right, Georgette. I don’t really know myself anymore.” Maggie grew quiet for a minute before carefully proceeding. “Listen,” Maggie let out a tension-filled breath. “I won’t insult you with a litany of mea culpas. Just please believe that I am truly sorry for the inexcusable disregard I had for you and your feelings in my affair with John. Oh, God, that sounds lame . . . Please just think about it, and call me from Paris if you want to continue the conversation.”


  Maggie called out to the kids and bustled them out the door before Georgette could say another word.

  GEORGETTE CALLED A week after she flew back to Paris. “What makes you think this is possible?” Georgette demanded without preamble.

  As far as Maggie knew, this kind of reversal was unprecedented. She played out the details of the scenario in her head, and it all seemed to make so much practical sense to her, she couldn’t believe she hadn’t heard about more people doing this. Or maybe there were husbands and wives everywhere negotiating reconciliation after a played-out affair behind closed doors. Of course there were.

  “Because I have completely checked out and John knows it. I can’t make him feel the way you can. We bring out the worst in each other. Frankly, Georgette, I can’t imagine why he wouldn’t want to be with you. He seems lost to me.”

  “And what about you, Maggie? What’s in this for you?”

  “I’m not sure how I feel about having a man—any man—in my life right now. I just don’t know that I want that.”

  “Tant pis pour toi.” Georgette’s sarcasm skewered Maggie, who knew she deserved Georgette’s rancor and was more than willing to suffer it, especially if it meant she could push her plan into action.

  “What about Lily?”

  “Lily will be fine.”

  Maggie didn’t want to be disparaging about John, especially as she was trying to get him back with Georgette, but he took so little interest in his daughter that she wasn’t so sure Lily would even notice he was gone. As for the new baby, Maggie wanted to get things under way before anyone knew about it. Maybe John didn’t ever need to know. After all, only Maggie could be certain who the father was. Wasn’t that the one card women always held? The one thing men had been fighting to take away from women since the beginning of time? Moral ramifications be damned, Maggie was keeping her little secret to herself. At least for the time being.

  BUZZING WITH CONFIDENCE that her plan would work, she was momentarily thrown off by Beth’s disturbing news about Special OPS. It wasn’t until Beth had received the third letter that she confided in Maggie about the lunatic sending threatening messages to RHM.

  “I don’t get it. Why do you call him Special OPS?”

  “Here, look at this,” Beth said as she thrust into Maggie’s hand the picture he had made of her, scrawled with the incriminating orange pen. “I call him the Orange Pen Stalker, Special OPS for short.”

  “Geez, this is wacko . . .” Maggie suddenly turned white and her hand holding the letter began to shake.

  “What, Maggie? You look like you just saw a ghost.” Beth grabbed her elbow.

  “Remember Blue Eyes? That day I spilled the ice cream on my new blouse? I pointed him out to you later that day . . . ? Well, he had an orange-capped pen in his pocket. Don’t ask me why I noticed it, but I did. Could it be the same guy?”

  “Fuck! No, it’s got to be a coincidence, don’t you think?” Beth asked.

  “Oh, God! Have I been masturbating to a sociopath?!”

  “Oh, Maggie, you haven’t . . .” Beth roared with laughter for a moment before cutting herself short and catching her breath. “This isn’t really funny at all, is it? Anyway, I hired a private detective to help us catch the bastard. It’s getting a little scary. I’ll let you know what we find out.”

  “Why do we automatically assume that the sender is male?” Maggie asked.

  Beth just raised her eyebrows at Maggie with a can you really be serious? look.

  “Of course it’s a man . . .” Maggie knew it to be true. She also knew in her heart that it was Blue Eyes. He happened to be around a bit too much for comfort.

  MAGGIE KNEW HER plan was off to a good start when she saw a brochure announcing a Paris conference on Italian films in December on the dining room table. Was John hoping she’d see it? Unlike her, he wasn’t that calculating. No matter, Georgette was in France until the end of the year. It would be a perfect way for the Hartings to spend Christmas.

  Maggie couldn’t have dreamed up a better opportunity. She called Georgette.

  “There’s a conference in December at the International Film School of Paris focusing on Italian films of the mid-twentieth century. I’ll buy John tickets as an early Christmas present . . . What do you think?”

  “How do you know he’ll want to come?” Georgette asked.

  “He will. And he can take Jules and Justine with him so you guys can have a family holiday. I’ll tell him that I’m going to take Lily to Disney World in December, or somewhere else equally awful that he would rather die than go to. This will be the perfect out for him,” Maggie said.

  “Maggie, you are truly evil.” Georgette laughed as she said it. “Yes, it would be perfect for our family to spend the holidays together. Let’s do it.”

  Maggie turned her attention to John next. “You should go. It sounds like a perfect opportunity for you. You could even take Jules and Justine with you to spend the holiday in Paris. I’m sure they would love to see their mother. Lily and I will be fine.” Maggie tried not to sound overly enthusiastic.

  AS JOHN’S TWO wives conspired to get him to Paris, Maggie did everything she could to conceal the fact of her pregnancy, wearing loose-fitting dresses that covered her swollen breasts and bloated belly. It wouldn’t be long before she popped, though she was lucky that she hadn’t gained much weight yet. It was Lily who first commented on her mother’s bulge.

  “Mommy, what’s that?” she asked as she pointed her tiny forefinger into her mother’s abdomen.

  “What, Lil?”

  “That, big belly.”

  Maggie was astonished that Lily could see the barely perceptible change in her size. It had gone unnoticed by John.

  “Oh, Mommy’s just been eating too much ice cream.”

  “Too much ice cream?” asked Lily, and she laughed, too young to make the connection between ice cream and its potential side effect.

  When John came back from Paris, she’d have to tell him something. With any luck, he’d have already fallen for Georgette all over again.

  She honestly couldn’t see how John wouldn’t fall back in love with her. Over the course of her conversations with Georgette, Maggie had been completely seduced by John’s ex. Most surprising was Georgette’s openness about the book she was writing, since it essentially attacked John and Maggie’s lustful disregard for the sanctity of marriage.

  She’d read somewhere that Georgette had said, “Men and women can never be friends, only lovers,” which struck Maggie as absurd. As they organized John’s trip to Paris, Maggie asked Georgette about it.

  “So, do you really think men and women can’t be friends? I read that once and I’m not sure I buy it.”

  “I would say that, like the animals we are, we always regard each other as potential mates whether we are aware of it or not.” Georgette paused. “I don’t mean that all women and men will jump in the sack together, but the possibility and the imperative is always there.”

  Maggie breathed out hard. “God, that sounds so exhausting!”

  Maggie wanted to offer Georgette something, a way to help her know that she understood. “Listen, I know I am the ‘other woman’ to you, but there have been ‘other women’ in my life as well.” Maggie shook her head as if to shake off the awkwardness of what she was trying to say. “What I mean to say is that I never felt anger toward the other woman, only toward the man who betrayed us both. Really, I guess I wound up feeling betrayed by the situation. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t blame John—”

  “I hope you wouldn’t be that stupid considering you’re trying to get us back together . . .” Georgette interrupted.

  “Ha! Oh, I’m just bumbling here . . .” Maggie continued. “What I really want to say is that I hope you can eventually come to see me as a woman who loved the same man you did. I don’t expect you to, but I can hope for it. If you said I didn’t deserve your respect, I would accept that.”

  “Okay if I get back to you on that one?
” Georgette replied. From her tone, Maggie could tell she was only half teasing.

  MAGGIE BEGAN TO imagine life with just her and Lily and the new baby. She could sell the loft in Jersey City and scale back to a small two-bedroom apartment in Manhattan. She imagined a simpler existence and felt she was on the verge of owning her life again.

  By the end of November, two things were certain: John was going to Paris in December, where Georgette would welcome him with open arms. And Blue Eyes was indeed the feared serial pen pal. She felt purged and ready for a white Christmas.

  The capture of Hollander Frye, the birth name of Blue Eyes, aka Special OPS, was a relief to all. Maggie had received a frantic call from Beth just moments after his arrest.

  “We got him, Maggie, and he’s your guy.”

  “Dark hair, husky-dog blue eyes, enormous nose? . . . Hey, wait, he was never my guy!”

  “He was here, Maggie, in our offices. I wonder if he knew you worked here. This is all too weird . . .”

  “That’s it, Beth. I’m retiring from the life. I’m going to go and have this baby and live happily and manless ever after.”

  A week earlier Beth had asked Maggie, “Are you pregnant again? Your collarbones have disappeared.” A clue only a woman would pick up on.

  Now Beth said, “And what do you plan to do with your husband?”

  “Oh, him.” Maggie shrugged. “He’s going to Paris for the holidays.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Isabel

  LEAVING CHRISTOPHER THE morning after the fashion party, Isabel didn’t see him for a few weeks. She knew that she’d exorcised some right of passage at Sam’s expense, and she now realized that it had been at Christopher’s expense as well. As Isabel began to shift away from him that night, she gave way to a different kind of need, one that relied heavily on the trust she put in Sam.

  Isabel and Christopher spoke without subtext for the first time when they finally met up for dinner three weeks after their last entanglement. Isabel moved gingerly now; the horizontal growth of her belly made it look like another limb. She sat uncomfortably in the bent hardwood chair in the restaurant.