The Balance Project

by Susie Orman Schnall

  I’m still not sure what I’m going to say to him tonight. I’m certainly not ready to accept his proposal. Even though part of me finds what I did repugnant and even mean, I can’t blame myself for being true to what I was feeling. The more I think about it, the more I realize I did the right thing. For me. For now. Definitely not for Nick. And quite possibly not for my future. However certain I feel though, part of me is not so sure. I’m decidedly undecided.

  I’m having a difficult time accepting that by rejecting Nick’s proposal, I may have ended our relationship. Part of me can’t believe that could be true. Our relationship is too strong. We’ve overcome blips before. It’s made us stronger. But if, in Nick’s mind, this is less a blip and more an iceberg, our relationship might be the Titanic, and we all know how that turned out.

  What if Nick still feels how he did Thursday morning after I didn’t say yes? He might tell me tonight that we’ve had a good ride, it was a great starter relationship for both of us, but he’s moving on so he can find a good woman with wide hips and a Pinterest page filled with color-coordinated wedding-theme ideas—a woman who isn’t so committed to her career. He might tell me he wants to break up. He might suggest we consciously uncouple.

  The thought of that makes me say really bad and unladylike cuss words under my breath. There are all sorts of new single people things I have no idea how to navigate: swipeable dating apps, STDs, higher expectations for lady waxing. I’m petrified of having to be in the dating world again. I’m more petrified of living my life without Nick in it.

  Maybe it’s okay to not be so sure about what I’ll say tonight. Maybe it would be better to see what Nick has to say and take it from there. I take a few deep breaths, and start to pack up my stuff to head home. Katherine is in her office putting the finishing touches on a report she needs to send to the Green Goddess board of directors. Her line rings.

  I never should have picked it up.

  “Katherine Whitney’s office.”

  “Hello there, Lucy! It’s Brooke! Is she around?”

  “Hi Brooke. Yes, one second please.”

  “Katherine, Brooke’s on line one,” I say through the intercom.

  Three minutes later, Katherine calls me into her office.

  “So, good news or bad news?” Katherine asks me flatly.

  “Good news.”

  “I’m going to be on the cover of People magazine.”

  “That’s great! Bad news.”

  “For reasons unknown to me, but fully comprehensible to Brooke, they need to do the interview and shoot the photos this weekend. Brooke already agreed to it on my behalf.”

  “What about your weekend away?” I ask, feeling badly for her that her anniversary trip will be ruined.

  “I feel really badly about it, but we’ll just have to reschedule. These things happen. And this article is important for the book. Theo will understand.”

  “Sorry to hear that, but congratulations on the cover. That’s amazing, Katherine,” I say as I head back to my desk.

  “Oh, Lucy?”

  “Yes?” I turn back to Katherine.

  “I’m going to need your help this weekend. Brooke and her whole team are in LA for that awards show. The shoot and interview will be at my apartment from eight to five tomorrow, and we might have to do more on Sunday if they don’t get it all during the first go-round. So, bright and early tomorrow?”

  No! But I have no valid excuse, and ’tis my job. So. . . .

  “Okay,” I say quietly as I head back to my desk, thinking about Nick. Thinking about how I won’t be available tomorrow if tonight he does decide to give me another chance.

  Despite the cancellation of her weekend away, Katherine still leaves the office at five and I do the same, taking the subway to my apartment rather than walking so I’ll have more time to organize my pitiful and neglected home affairs before dinner with Nick.

  I crank up Sam Smith and crisscross my apartment gathering pieces of clothing that never quite made it into the laundry basket. My apartment may be tiny, but I love it. It’s furnished in a simple style I call Poor Single Girl Eclectic. The centerpiece of my main room is a yellow floral love seat with a pattern so busy you’d be as likely to find it in a landfill as you would in Anthropologie’s furniture collection. The love seat had been in my mom’s sunroom for twenty-five years before she turned it into a playroom for her grandkids. My coffee table (grey) is an old trunk I salvaged from my mom’s attic. I found my carved wood headboard (white) at the Brooklyn Flea and my ‘50s Formica dinette set (orange) on the curb when one of my elderly neighbors died and her grieving daughter emptied the apartment. Chez Lucy will never appear in the glossy pages of a shelter magazine, but it’s home, made even more homey with lots of candles, plants (dying), and framed photos of my family, friends, and Nick.

  I get to Carlo’s a little early so I can be sure to get “our” booth in the back corner. Carlo’s is our favorite Italian restaurant on the Upper West Side. It’s an old place with wood paneling on the walls, red-and-white checked tablecloths, and those red glass votive candleholders Italian restaurants are so fond of.

  I order two bottles of Peroni and nurse mine while I wait for Nick. He arrives a little after seven, wearing a pair of jeans, a black button-down, and a black leather jacket that he takes off and tosses into the booth. His hair is messy and he has a look on his face that I can’t decipher. I stand up to give him a kiss, but he sits down and slides his bottle of beer toward me.

  “I’m not drinking tonight. I have a lot of work to do tomorrow,” he says, as he places a folded piece of paper on the table in front of him.

  “What’s that?”

  “Before I tell you about that, I have a question,” he says matter-of-factly, looking straight into my eyes and clasping his hands on the table.

  “Okay.”

  “Do you want to be with me or do you think we should call it a day and move on?”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yeah, Coop, seriously.”

  “I want to be with you.” I reach my hands across the table for Nick’s. He pulls his hands away and puts them down by his sides. A busboy drops a basket of sliced bread on our table along with two small glasses of tap water. “I know you’re angry Nick, and I don’t blame you, but I’m not ready to throw away everything we have simply because our plans for marriage are on different timetables.”

  “And I’m not ready to do that either. Which is why I’m sitting here. But I’m going to need you to do some things for me if we’re going to be able to move beyond this with some sort of plan. I can’t keep waiting with no guarantee of any sort of resolution.”

  “What kind of things?” I take a big sip of my beer, willing it to numb my brain. My heart.

  Nick unfolds the paper and turns it to face me. At the top of the sheet, he’s written “Lucy.” Under it is a list.

  “I’ve been thinking a lot about all of this since you left my apartment yesterday. And I realized that, logically, it doesn’t make sense for us to stay together—“

  “Nick!”

  “Let me finish, Coop. Please. It doesn’t make sense for us to stay together because we want two very different things. I want to get married and you don’t. I could compromise and be with you without getting married, but that feels wrong to me. I believe in marriage. I want to be a man who gets married and has kids in a traditional family. That’s just me. So that leaves you to be the one who has to compromise. If you think about it logically, the only way we can stay together is if you get over your fear of marriage.” As Nick presents his case, I’m reminded of the fact that he is a lawyer, after all. The waiter comes over to take our order and Nick asks him for a few minutes.

  “Now, you just said you want to be with me,” Nick continues. “Do you still feel the same way if it means that you have to get comfortable with marriage?”

  “Yeah, I guess. I mean. I don’t really know what you’re saying.” He’s got me all confused. He really is a lawyer.
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  “I came up with a plan of three things for you. I thought this might help clarify it all for us and make it objective rather than being all full of emotion. I know you’re thinking that I’m putting it all on you, but I am 100-percent certain that I want to be married. So if that’s the case, it all does fall on you.”

  “So, what’s in your plan?”

  He turns the paper back toward himself. “Number one, I think you should have a long conversation with your mom and maybe even your dad about marriage so you can address your fears and understand what happened to them from the perspective of an adult rather than as a child. Number two, I think you should start a job search for a position in digital media. Even though that has nothing to do with us getting married, it’s all part of you getting unstuck from where you are right now which is unhealthy for you. And number three is to think seriously about whether you want to have kids. I know I said I want a present mom for our kids, but I’m less concerned with whether you work or not when we have kids and more concerned with knowing if you even want kids. Does that all make sense?”

  We sit there in silence for a second. I look down at the list and try to absorb what he presented. As I start to say something, Nick stands up and puts his jacket on.

  “I’m gonna go, Lucy. I’m not hungry, and I think I should go home. Why don’t you think about the list, decide if you think it’s even fair, and then let me know what you’re going to do. Text me tomorrow morning and let me know if you want to move forward or not. If not, then we’ll break up. If you do want to move forward, we can meet for dinner tomorrow night and start figuring it all out.”

  And then he leaves. He just leaves. I’m sitting there, my mouth wide open, speechless, tears forcing themselves to the surface of my eyes. Our relationship is on life support and Nick left the plug in my hands. “Pull it or don’t pull it, Lucy,” he seemed to say. “The choice is completely yours.”

  The waiter comes by again to take our order. I apologize and tell him I won’t be staying. I pay for the beers and leave the restaurant, folding up the list and stuffing it into the pocket of my coat.

  I call Ava on the walk home and tell her about everything that has been going on. The proposal. What I said. Our talk tonight. The list. She listens to everything I say, inserting calming encouragements in all the empty spaces. She allows me to start processing what’s happened by explaining it out loud, something she knows, after all these years, that I have to do.

  “Did you read the latest quote I posted?” Ava says as we’re about to hang up.

  “I haven’t checked Instagram since this morning,” I say.

  “What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” Ava asks.

  “What?”

  “That’s the quote. It’s by Mary Oliver. ‘What do you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?’”

  A fitting quote, I think, as I walk home and try to decide if I’m willing to do—able to do—the items on Nick’s list. Try to decide what exactly I am going to do with my one wild and precious life.

  Chapter Six

  Lucy: Yes, Nick. I love you. Yes, I want to move forward.

  I send the text to Nick as soon as I wake up on Saturday morning. I stayed up late last night thinking through all my options, making pro and con lists in my head. I kept coming back to the same place. I’m not willing to give up on our relationship. The more I thought about everything Nick said last night, the more I realized that though his delivery was far from sweet, his message was spot on. And I don’t think he’s being unreasonable at all. Sure, all the work falls on me, but it’s work I have to do. I don’t have time for any of it and it won’t be easy, but I have to put in the effort. If I don’t, I’ll not only lose Nick, I’ll also stay stuck in this unhealthy place I’m in.

  Nick: Glad to hear that. Union Square Cafe at 8?

  Lucy: See you then.

  I’ve left extra time this morning so I can walk the twenty-some blocks from my apartment to Katherine’s, figuring the exercise will do me good since I haven’t been exactly physically active lately. I’ve left even a bit of extra time on top of that so I can stop at the Green Goddess Juice Bar to pick up a juice for Katherine and smoothies for the girls and Theo (per her text this morning). I’ll have to stop somewhere else and grab a reinforcement coffee for myself. Green Goddess Juice does not serve coffee.

  I arrive at Katherine’s building energized. The brisk walk cleared my brain and now I can focus on Katherine today. There will be plenty of time to focus on Nick later. And I’m actually feeling somewhat okay because at least we have a plan.

  The cute doorman winks at me (we have a little thing) as I smile and nod and make my way through the sleek lobby of Katherine’s building toward the elevator bank. I see the door to her apartment is open as I head down the hall from the elevator. There are guys with cameras and lights moving equipment in. I slide by them, smoothies in hand, and realize I should have brought more.

  I find Katherine standing in the middle of the apartment, which is not eclectic and has appeared in the glossy pages of a shelter magazine or three. She’s in a robe directing traffic (“If you don’t mind, would you please take off your shoes?”) and making suggestions on what furniture they can move (“If you turn that white love seat the other way, it opens up the whole room,”) and where the best light is in the apartment (“The living room with the view of Central Park really is the optimal spot”).

  “Oh, Lucy, you’re here,” Katherine says, clapping her hands and looking up to where she must think God lives, as she spots me working my way toward the kitchen to put the drinks in the fridge.

  “I’m here,” I trill, and she gives me the lowdown.

  “I can’t believe it’s only eight. I feel like we’ve been at this for hours.”

  “What’s going on?” I ask, leaning against her kitchen island and taking an eye-opening swig of joe.

  “Well,” she begins, speaking quickly and anxiously, “Jordan didn’t sleep last night for some reason, so I was up all night trying to calm her because my nanny is sick, again, with some nasty flu this time. Thank God we finalized things with the new nanny, but I’m not sure we’ll be able to manage these next two weeks with just one the way things are going. Anyway, I finally got Jordan back to sleep at six, but these dodo heads from People showed up an hour early, and the call from the doorman woke everyone up at seven. Abby has decided that the photographers are here for her so she’s been in twelve different outfits and has been in my makeup bag for the last half hour. Theo is sulking and not being helpful at all because he says this is ruining our weekend and because I forgot to wish him a happy anniversary this morning. I look like a disaster because Jacki and Nathaniel are late. And to top it all off, Brooke said People wanted me to wear clothes from Chloé’s new summer collection but the clothes never got delivered last night, so I have no idea what I’m supposed to wear.” Katherine looks panicked as she catches her breath and stares at me. Stares at me in a way that assumes that somehow I’m going to fix everything.

  “Excuse me, ladies,” a camera guy pushes past us into the dining room.

  Katherine looks like she’s on the verge of tears. I’ve never seen Katherine on the verge of anything.

  “Okay,” a voice from inside me, my sergeant voice, says. “You jump in the shower. I’ll get Abby and Jordan and put them in front of Frozen while I make their breakfast. I’ll call Jacki and Nathaniel and see how far away they are and tell them to step on it. And I’ll wake up Brooke in LA and tell her that we have no clothes.”

  “You’re a lifesaver, Lucy. Thank you.”

  Katherine wraps her robe more tightly around her body and rushes toward her bedroom. I call about the hair and makeup, and wardrobe. Jacki and Nathaniel will be pulling up in ten minutes; Brooke was groggy but said she’s on it.

  A half hour later, Katherine is calmly sitting in a white leather chair at her onyx dining room table, sipping on her Glow juice and looking at her mind-blowing and v
ery expensive view of Central Park while Jacki curls her lashes and Nathaniel curls her hair. The three of them are picking at the fruit platter I had Green Goddess send up and gossiping about the latest vegan celebrity to get caught by the paparazzi eating a burger.

  Abby and Jordan sit peacefully on beanbags in the TV room, sipping on their smoothies and spooning in their Cheerios, belting “Let It Go,” in their adorable sing-songy toddler voices. I broke the no-food-anywhere-but-the-kitchen rule. What’s Katherine gonna do? Fire me?

  I’ve firmly communicated the no-shoe rule to the crew and have placated them with smoothies, coffee, muffins, and croissants. Green Goddess Glow juices were not going to cut it with this group.

  Eventually, a leggy blonde who’s way too dressed up for a Saturday morning marches in the front door rolling a wardrobe rack behind her.

  “Is this Katherine Whitney’s apartment?” she asks.

  I grab the rack, hand her a smoothie, and send her on her leggy blonde way.

  And then I head back toward the kitchen to take a breath. And a long sip of now-cold coffee.

  “Hey, slugger,” I hear Theo say behind me. He’s in sweats and a Columbia University T-shirt, face unshaven, face unhappy.

  “Hey, Theo. Happy anniversary.”

  “Thanks for remembering. Nice to know someone around here did.”

  “I got you a smoothie,” I say as I see him locate it in the stocked fridge.

  “Thanks. That was nice.”

  “This wasn’t exactly your idea of happy anniversary, huh?”

  “Nope. Not exactly. But this sort of thing comes with the territory I guess.” He sounds resigned.

  “Theo!”