The War Council

by Ann Shepphird

  As Laura continued opening her presents under the watchful eye of the six sisters, the women finally started talking about their lives. Okay, I thought, now this would be interesting. As I became more and more enthralled, Maggie, helped along by the champagne they’d so graciously served, really began to lose it.

  The women all seemed to be dressed in Kardashian-inspired attire and had bizarrely plumped-up lips enhanced by lipstick that matched their nails. It was enough that I started to wonder if there was a bridal shower dress code somewhere and when it became fashionable to have lips that looked like they might flop around on their own if deprived of water.

  Anyway, the fish-lip women went on and on about their husbands’ careers, how much they earned, their new homes, their new decorators, their new rings, how many carats were in their new rings, and what schools their children were attending. They then proceeded to complain incessantly about their husbands, who seemed to spend all their time on the golf course.

  Maggie listened intently to all of this and, unfortunately, decided to make a toast. I wasn’t sure how many glasses of champagne she’d downed (the catering staff made sure they were never empty), but it must have been plenty. She looked a little unsteady and wavered a bit as she stood, but she made it. Then she cleared her throat. Laura looked up. The watchful sisters looked up. The fish-lips looked up. Maggie lifted her glass and said, “To love… to the death of love. Love is dead. I knew it all along.”

  There was a stunned silence as Maggie sat back down, looking very satisfied. The women, save Laura, looked shocked. Laura looked over at me and grinned. I smiled back. I knew then I had been right in thinking it was a good idea to attend the shower.

  It took me awhile to figure out how Maggie had taken the events of that shower to come up with “love is dead.” I mean, why did she take those silly women so seriously?

  Then I remembered: Bill. When would she EVER get over him? It had been a year or so since he had left, and Maggie still didn’t understand. She just didn’t understand. Why, in her mind, had Bill not fought for their love? Why was the job in Tokyo more important than she was? We kept trying to tell her to move on, but she couldn’t. Her latest theory (we’d been through more than a dozen) was obviously that love was dead.

  Maggie saw the women at the shower as proof positive that she was right. She saw them as having used love to get their marriages, their houses, their decorators, etc. In a strange way, I think she admired them for using love so pragmatically. She had been willing to give up everything to just be with Bill while these women had used their love for material gain. Sick, I know, but you have to understand how Maggie thinks and also how the breakup with Bill devastated her.

  Maggie is one of those people for whom logic is everything. If it is logical, she can deal with it. If it isn’t logical, she will study it, analyze it and obsess upon it until it fits—until it is logical. She will make it logical. Force it. The best mental image I have is that of Maggie forcing a square peg into a round hole and saying “fit, damn it. Be logical.”

  Silly, isn’t it? But this is the way she deals with life.

  Personally, I think that if we made everything logical, life would be pretty darn dull. All that is magical and wonderful about the world is illogical. People are basically illogical beings. That’s what is so wonderful about them. Machines are logical. People are not. If you want to deal with people and not machines, then you have to accept a little messiness.

  Maggie hates messiness. You should see her apartment. Neat as a pin. A place for everything and everything in its place. My house will never be like that. I grew up in that. My mother’s house was one of those museum-type places where you were not allowed to actually sit anywhere. I always swore I would have a house where people could be comfortable. When I was a kid, I hated that none of my friends wanted to come over and hang out at my house, which is probably why I love having people over to our place now. I love it. Brian and I have created a great house. A great big comfortable messy house.

  Anyway, back to Maggie and the logic thing.

  Bill leaving was not logical to Maggie. Bill telling her that he would be with other women after he left was not logical to Maggie. She saw their love as this pure and wonderful phenomenon. In her mind, it was logical and perfect. They were in love. They were together. It was simple.

  And he fed into that. Bill was always telling her how great she was—how beautiful, intelligent, and special. How perfect they were together. “Totally matched physically, emotionally, and intellectually.” Hard not to roll your eyes at that one. But she bought it. They were perfect.

  You want to know the truth? They weren’t perfect. Maggie has such a tendency to see things in black and white that she sees her time with Bill as being great and her life now as being miserable. Neither is true. Maggie grew up the years she was with Bill. Bill helped her grow into herself—to see herself—but it isn’t like it wouldn’t have happened without him. She was at a point where she was a little scattered (okay, like off the map), and he helped her to believe in herself. And then he left.

  Bill wrote every couple weeks but never gave any clue that he had changed his mind. Maggie held on. She lived for those emails and texts, looked for any sign in them that he thought he had made a mistake. She would analyze them, looking for any suggestion of hidden feeling, any indication that she hadn’t been wrong—that they had been special, that she was special.

  It was so sad to watch. I couldn’t believe that Maggie—brilliant, volatile, independent Maggie—had become so insecure. Anybody who has ever known her knows that Maggie is a truly unique and special person. Bill didn’t make her those things. Why couldn’t she see that?

  The worst thing that Bill did, in my opinion, was tell her he would visit. It gave her hope. Hope that he would return. It cut her off from finding someone else. She had men falling all over her, but she either didn’t give them the time of day or, if she did get involved, she at once decided they weren’t Bill—and Bill was returning. She even kept his shaving cream and toothbrush sitting in her meticulously neat medicine cabinet. I know. I check every time I visit.

  I am not saying that Bill is a bad person. I am not into bashing Bill. Enough of Maggie’s friends bash him that I don’t really need to. I always wondered about that. Why do people feel the need to bash the ex-whatever after a breakup? Again, I don’t really believe there are any black-and-white issues when it comes to people. We’re messy. We do stupid things. That’s life.

  I actually thought Bill was quite a likable fellow. Very intelligent, well read, a great conversationalist. But he wasn’t a god, either. He wasn’t this perfect fantasy creature Maggie made him out to be. I don’t know what it is about him that made him want to leave, but he did. We all assumed Maggie would learn from it and move on. Stretch her wings.

  But she didn’t. Maggie closed up. Her pride took over. I think she was somehow embarrassed that she had offered to go with him, and he had turned her down. It just wasn’t logical. To her, all the things she was feeling were not logical. It hurt too much. That was about where she was when we went to that fateful bridal shower.

  After the shower, Maggie became a woman obsessed. She was still at UC Berkeley teaching business communications part-time as an adjunct professor and began grilling her colleagues on interpersonal communications and relationships. What theories were current. What books she should investigate. She then turned on my colleagues in the psychology department. She read every book on the subject. She started dating again. Unfortunately, her poor dates and short-lived relationships became test cases for her “experiments on love.” My dinner parties became forums for debate on the issues she was exploring. She was essentially turning her pain into an academic research project.

  I didn’t realize how far she’d gone, however, until my last dinner party. I had purposefully asked Brian to bring along his friend Nick. I had met Nick on several occasions and thou
ght he seemed like a good guy. A little unconventional, perhaps, but maybe that was what Maggie needed. I couldn’t help it, couldn’t help setting her up. I wanted her to be happy. I wanted to stop listening to the Bill theories. It can get on your nerves after a while. And I thought she and Nick might really hit it off.

  I guess I was wrong—at least on her end—as she didn’t give him even the slightest glance. I think he kind of liked her, though. He looked at her enough. And he got this quizzical look and little smile on his face as he watched every word that came out of her mouth.

  The words that came out of her mouth were another thing. She started in again on this “War Council” stuff. “Love is dead” had somehow led to this idea of paramilitary relationship counselors. I started visualizing paratroopers swooping down on unsuspecting couples . . .

  “Ma’am. How are you today?”

  “Umm. Fine.”

  “Is this the guy?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Sir. We hear you are having trouble committing.”

  “Who? Me?”

  “Yes. You. The lady here has a problem with that. What are you going to do about it?”

  “I don’t know. I’m, well, I feel I’m too young to settle down and . . .”

  “WRONG ANSWER!”

  “I, uh . . .”

  “Would you like a shot from the taser?”

  “No!”

  “Then we would like you to commit to this lady here.”

  “Um. Okay. Honey, do you want to, um, live together?”

  “NOT GOOD ENOUGH. Try again.”

  “Um. Okay. Honey, do you want to, um, marry me?”

  “Oh yes! Thank you, War Council paratroopers!”

  “Congratulations. We’ll be going now.”

  I tuned back in to find Maggie trying to sell the War Council as a business concept. A council of experts who take your side in the relationship battlefield, she was saying. All this ammunition stuff. “So logical,” she kept saying. “People are starved for something like this. Think of the possibilities.”

  The idea was so incredibly cynical. What was she trying to prove? That she was never in love?

  I looked around the dinner table to see what the response was. Everyone attacked the idea. I’m sure they thought she was joking. It had to be a joke, right? Another one of her little theories being tested. I hoped she was joking. I prayed she was joking. Unfortunately, I knew she wasn’t.

  I looked over at Brian. He was smiling. He loves it when she does this. I tell him he encourages her—like the children—but he just smiles. Sometimes I think he spends too much time with those rats.

  At some point, Mike made a crude remark about casual sex and rugby being the only two things that made life bearable. Monique came at him with her fork, but Hallie managed to stop her before she broke any skin. Randy started humming some song about love and romance from an old Audrey Hepburn movie. Nick picked it up. Some French love song that Edith Piaf sang. They swigged at the wine bottle and grabbed at the baguette. It was pretty silly, but at least they got everybody to laugh. Everyone but Maggie.

  Maggie was annoyed. I could tell. She tried to get them back to talking about this “War Council” stuff, but they were already debating the artistic merits of French music during the occupation. I was glad.

  Then Maggie got this funny look on her face. She started looking around at the people at the table. What was she thinking now? With her mind, it could be anything. I was just hoping she would get over this latest episode quickly. I never wanted to hear about the War Council again.

  Chapter Four

  MAGGIE

  Pow. I was ready. Phase Two of the War Council. I had the idea. I had the strategies. Now I just needed my personnel. Every general needs troops, right? I knew who I wanted. It was just a matter of how to persuade them just how logical it really was.

  I started with Kathy. I read her some ads I had written for the War Council. I knew they were great. She had to see the logic.

  “We’ll do what books and analysis can’t—tackle the problem from all sides—rationally.” I put down my iPad. “So, which do you like better?”

  “Maggie, please don’t do this.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Talk about what?”

  “This War Council stuff. When are you going to drop it?”

  “Why should I drop it? It’s a great idea.”

  “Never mind.”

  “What?”

  “How’s your latte?”

  “Don’t try to change the subject.”

  “I don’t like the subject. I am sick of the subject. I never want to hear about the War Council again.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s ridiculous. It’s cynical, unrealistic, and I just wish you would get over him without taking it out on the world.”

  “Get over who?”

  “Who do you think? Bill.”

  “This has nothing to do with Bill.” (Can you believe she thought this had to do with Bill?)

  “Bullshit.”

  “Kathy!”

  “Well, that’s what it is. This is all about some vendetta you have against Bill.”

  “This has nothing to do with Bill. I’m over him. And don’t give me that look.”

  “What about your other theories?”

  “This is different. This is a logical response to a need. Don’t you see how needed a service like this is? People are crying out for help. We will help them. And we can make some good money doing it.”

  Kathy and I were sitting at Café Strada. We met there once a week. It was the perfect place for my War Council research. I could see all the couples coupling or not coupling, and I knew they needed me. They needed the War Council.

  Kathy was proving harder to convince than I planned. I have to admit it pissed me off. Can you believe that she thought the War Council was because of Bill? Please. It was just so logical. She had to see that. The pure logic of it all.

  I pulled up the list of books I had found on Amazon.

  “Here, look at these. They show the need. And let me tell you, it’s just a fraction of what’s out there. He’s Just Not That into You. How to Spot a Commitment-phobe. Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places. Love Must Be Tough. Barriers to Intimacy. Games People Play. Chasing Loves: 10 Steps to a Happier Relationship. Light His Fire: How to Keep Your Man Passionately and Hopelessly in Love with You. Love and Power in a World Without Limits. The Cinderella Complex. Intimate Connections: The Clinically Proven Program for Making Close Friends and Finding a Loving Partner. Oh, and this is the best—How to Make a Man Fall in Love with You: The Failproof, Foolproof Method. Look what it says on the back. ‘Find the love of your life. Make the chemistry of love happen—at will. Meet your love’s unconscious needs. Establish instant trust and rapport. Get him to say yes—so subtly he won’t even know you’ve done it.’”

  “Maggie. Those are garbage.”

  “Exactly. Because they just treat one person. The person in pain. We also go after the source. The person CAUSING the pain. We become involved.”

  “Maggie Maggie Maggie.”

  Kathy was getting that patronizing look that I hated so much. God, I hated that look. The look that said, “Oh, silly silly Maggie. I’m so perfect, and she’s so silly.” I hated that look. I must admit, though, that it really fueled me to prove her wrong—to prove to her that the War Council could work. That it was needed and could be successful.

  “Kathy. I know you’re a psychologist. And I know that you think you know it all, but just go along with me for a moment.”

  She sighed. “Fine.”

  Oooh. Now, she was getting that “Fine, I’ll listen to you, but I still won’t think it’s a good idea” look. That REALLY steamed me. But this time I didn�
�t let it get to me.

  “Okay, then tell me: Why do you think those books are so popular?”

  She got her know-it-all psychologist look. Like, “look at me, the professional.”

  “Because people are looking for answers from the outside instead of looking at themselves. It’s easier to find excuses and to have rules dictated to you than to examine yourself. The people who buy these books are unhappy with themselves. Until they realize this and look for the reasons behind their unhappiness, they will follow the same patterns and not find the love or happiness they are seeking.”

  “Absolutely perfect,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Perfect. I love it. Don’t you see how much you could help people with that advice? Think of all the poor people going to these awful books for advice that you could help with what you just told me. You could help people learn to like and love themselves. The way you do in therapy. Except now you would be part of a larger unit. Think of it as flipping group therapy around. Instead of one therapist and many patients—it’s one patient and many experts.”

  Kathy sat there for a moment. I’d made her think. Yes! I knew I’d gotten to her. Ha! Logic. And Ego. Works every time. If you appeal to a person’s ego through logic, you’ll always come out on top. Try it sometime.

  “Why are you doing this to me, Maggie?”

  “I want you to be a part of the War Council.”

  “Why me?”

  “Because you are perfect for it. Don’t you see? You’re a really good psychologist and would be a valued member of the team.”

  She was wavering.

  “But…”

  “Look, Kathy, I think this will work. I think people need the service we could provide. When you see a need, you fill it. I see a need.”

  I looked around for something that would help me to make my point. I saw a girl sitting all by herself at Café Strada. Now that was a rare occurrence. Nobody sits alone at Café Strada. Other cafés, yes. Not Strada. It was one of those stupid unwritten norms that everybody followed. She had been stood up. I knew it.