When August first arrived, Karen dressed in the light gray business suit her parents had given her for graduation (along with the wedding, her father had joked) and drove the seven-minute route she had mapped out to Clear Communication, a small public relations firm in town. Thirty-five-year-old Jennifer Clear had started the company after working for a decade in the regional medical center’s communications department, the last three years without raises and with nothing more than promises about promotions. At first, Jennifer had run the business out of her apartment. And because she was as adept at pleasing clients as she was at writing, she had been successful from the start, earning enough in the first year to move into an outside office space and, in the second year, to hire two associates. Karen was the third full-time hire and the reason Jennifer had recently signed a lease for a larger space across the hall from her current office.
Karen had her own office, a small room with a window that had no view, but brought in natural daylight. Her metal desk had an oak writing surface, which held her new desktop computer monitor and keyboard, a phone with her own extension number, and an earthenware lamp as supplement to the fluorescent lights on the ceiling. Her desk drawers had been stocked with legal pads, pens, pencils, highlighters, a stapler, a calculator, a pair of scissors, even her own mug sporting the company logo, and a box of assorted tea bags. The other Clear employees were Mary Bates, who was twenty-four, a Canton native, and Patty Klein, twenty-six, who had returned to town after a relationship breakup had driven her from a job up north. The day Karen moved in, they helped her choose which three of Jennifer’s small stock of framed prints to hang on her walls (to tone down the starkness until she found her own art). As they measured and hammered, they told Karen inspiring stories about their boss, whom they described as fair, generous, and a good teacher. Their reservations about working for an independent boss had been eradicated within the first few months of their employment. And there was plenty of work. A number of small businesses in town were happy to use Jennifer’s services rather than support their own communications/marketing departments. Dazzled by their stories, Karen couldn’t wait to feel like a member of this all-woman, professional team. Until now, men had always served as Karen’s role models, from her father to her favorite communications professor.
Jennifer’s professionalism was evident to Karen from her very first staff meeting, when Jennifer talked about business strategy and laid out six-month goals. She was looking to secure ten new clients by Christmas and needed Mary, Patty, and Karen to help ferret them out, beat the bushes, she said. As an incentive, she offered them ten percent of the amount of the new contract. “You bring in five thousand dollars’ worth of business,” Jennifer explained, “I’ll cut you a check for five hundred dollars.” After work, Karen rushed home to tell Bob about her day, about her work assignments, and to ask him who Forester used for communications. He didn’t know, but promised he would find out after Karen told him about Jennifer’s offer. He was pleased Karen was working. She had completed a number of household projects and was making incredible meals she found the recipes for in various women’s magazines, but Bob could tell she was restless. She needed something other than sewing projects and dinner preparation to fill her days.
And while her days were full, Karen still found time to cook dinner three or four times a week, and to clean the apartment and shop for groceries on Saturday, her wifely duties, according to her mom. Bob made enough money for their everyday needs, so they banked Karen’s salary. Socking money away had always been a priority for Bob, who helped his parents with his state university tuition and board expenses, and bought his own car. Karen was interested in purchasing new living room furniture for the apartment and buying nice work clothes, and Bob indulged those desires, as looking good was increasingly important for him at work. But there were a number of ancillary things—like Karen’s idea to buy two kayaks so they could paddle along the river on weekends—Bob refused to buy. They had to save, he continually reminded Karen, for their children, so they would not have to juggle jobs during high school or pay for their college education as Bob had done.
Bob’s refusal to budge on certain items, extravagances he called them, sometimes annoyed Karen. Of course she and Bob would have children one day (they had agreed upon two before they got married), and of course they would need hundreds of thousands of dollars to raise them and send them to good colleges. Yes, yes, yes. But that was in the future. Karen, on birth control pills, was resolved to remain childless for at least two to three years. There was no pressure from her mother, whose child-rearing stories replete with words like sacrifice, exhaustion, and worthlessness resounded in Karen’s head. And Bob was willing to wait for a while, although he was more anxious than she was to start a family.
So, they occasionally bickered about money, but Karen was quick to discover an effective way to avoid confrontation. If she thought she had crossed Bob’s tolerance line with one of her purchases, she simply hid it. She couldn’t hide large items, of course, but she could certain easily conceal expensive clothing in her closet. Since Bob had a longer commute and left the apartment before Karen in the morning, he had no idea what she wore to work. And by the time he got home, she had changed into more casual clothing. If they met at a restaurant instead, Karen was careful not to wear something she had recently purchased in secret. She justified this covert activity with the desire and need to keep up with her coworkers, all of whom were nattily attired. Jennifer set the tone with tailored, natural-fiber business suits and imported shoes. Karen had embraced her boss as her new role model and would rather quit than disappoint her. It wasn’t a big deal, Karen told herself, when she hung new clothing in the back of her closet. She and Bob did not have to know every single thing about one another. Plus, with only minor exceptions, she and Bob were still putting her salary in the bank.
A new restaurant called Rascals opened on Main Street the following summer, housed in a long, skinny, clapboard-sided building that had formerly hosted a hardware store. Inside, on the street level, where customers used to find hammers, nails, measuring tapes, brooms, and other workroom staples were high-top tables and stools crafted out of recycled metal. Down a few steps and into the main area that once featured small power tools and other electronic devices was a shiny parquet wood floor big enough for a dozen slow-dancing couples and the bar, the main event. It was a mammoth U-shaped wooden structure, solid on the outside with a brass foot railing, and hollow on the inside to store glassware. Behind the bar, at the rear of the building, was the main eating area with square-topped dining tables and six booths lining the back wall. Those who remembered the building as it had been before claimed that, smoking section aside, it still had that musty, mulchy, slightly sour hardware store smell.
Karen and Bob met there after work one Friday night. Sidestepping through the overcrowded front section of people sitting on every stool and others standing behind them, they made their way across the dance floor and into the bar area. Billy Joel was singing through the oversized speakers, but Karen didn’t hear him as clearly as the dissonant sound of a hundred simultaneous conversations. They found Jennifer, Mary, and Patty, who had come at Karen’s insistence, and a salesman Bob worked with named Billy Townsend, the Forester party boy. After they shouted their greetings, Billy took their drink orders to the bar. When he returned to the group, who had been briefly engaged in loud small talk but were now content to smile at one another, he beckoned for them to follow him. He led them to the back section, which, with the speakers directed at the front, was quieter. Five minutes after that, a booth cleared, so they all clambered in, feeling grateful and lucky. Perhaps it was this feeling or another euphoric sensation often associated with Friday nights that led them to drink the shots of Southern Comfort Billy ordered. After another round of shots, they all joined Billy on the back deck, took puffs of his cigar, and sang Bruce Springsteen songs in honor of The Boss’s world tour and Billy’s plans to travel to New Jersey to see him live. When th
ey went back inside, they ate fried calamari, danced, drank another round of shots, and then went home, where all, with the exception of Billy, vomited. Jennifer couldn’t stop talking about it Monday. She hadn’t lost control like that since she was eighteen years old and, frankly, hadn’t thought she was still capable of it. “I’m still recovering today,” she told Karen, who nodded in agreement.
And so the following Friday night was more reserved. No one drank shots. No one smoked, except Billy, who joined his friends in the smoking section a half dozen times over the course of the evening. And no one danced. Billy was their entertainment. He seemed to know everyone in the bar and kept calling people over to their table. Some brought chairs with them; others stood and listened to one or two of Billy’s work stories, and then blended back into the crowd. At Billy’s urging, they drank draft beer and ate club sandwiches, which Jennifer announced was decadently incongruous with her linen suit and pearls, and they laughed about how stuffy and responsible they had all become since graduating from college. Everyone chatted easily, but Billy dominated the discussion. He appeared to listen when others talked, but was quick to interrupt, to steer the conversation back to where he wanted it.
By the third consecutive Friday at Rascals, Jennifer had bowed out, and Karen decided she’d had enough of Billy. They were all sitting at a round table on the outside deck, sipping pink lemonade and vodka drinks and watching the sunset. Billy had already been regaling them with what he called Tattle Tales for half an hour, but he gave the impression he was just getting started. As usual people came and went from the table. Karen pulled on Bob’s sleeve to get his attention. When he inclined his head toward hers, she told him it was time to go. Within five minutes, they had said their goodbyes and were on the front sidewalk. “What was that all about?”
Karen looped her arm through his. “I don’t know. I just felt like getting out of there.”
“Weren’t you having fun?”
“Sort of. Were you?”
“Yeah,” said Bob, smiling. “Billy’s a riot.”
“A self-serving riot.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s all about him, Bob. For the third week in a row, it’s all about Billy.”
“You must admit there’s a lot of Billy to be shared.”
“I do,” said Karen, as they crossed the street. “I just don’t need it every Friday.”
Bob shrugged. “I can understand that. I don’t see him every day at work, and that’s probably a good thing. I wouldn’t get any work done.”
“I like him. I’d just prefer to have him in smaller doses.”
“He’s a salesman. That goes without saying.”
The next Friday, Karen and Bob stayed home. Bob cooked rib-eye steaks on their new Weber grill, and Karen made rice pilaf, Caesar salad, and brownies for dessert. They drank a reasonable amount of wine and went to bed early. So Karen did not expect to feel sick the next morning. She didn’t eat breakfast and she lay in bed until almost noon, when the nausea subsided. Bob heated a can of chicken broth and encouraged her to rest. She was overtired, he said.
When her sickness continued, Karen, thinking she had a stomach virus, went to the doctor, who told Karen she was not overtired, although she undoubtedly would be in the future, because she was pregnant. Karen’s shocked look prompted the doctor to ask if she was happy about the news, and Karen told her she was, but was too sick to feel truly excited about her condition. The doctor reassured her that morning sickness was temporary, lasting three to four months at the most, and that the rest of the pregnancy would be much more pleasant. Karen walked out of the office feeling worse than ever, but knowing that Bob would be pleased with the news. He had talked her into going off the pill earlier than she would have chosen; he wanted a baby.
Bob cried when she told him. (The only other time Karen had seen tears in his eyes was on their wedding day.) He wrapped his arms around her and then gently touched her stomach. He kissed her face again and again and then led her to the living room couch, sat her down, and made her some tea, the only liquid other than water that she had been able to keep down in the last week. He sat down next to her and began to talk—about the nursery, about baby names, about being a parent and all the things he wanted for this child. And Karen was caught up in his enthusiasm. It was evening and she was tired, but she had stopped getting sick in the early afternoon and was receptive to baby talk. For the first time in the several hours she had known she was going to have a baby, Karen was content.
That sense of well-being disappeared the following morning with the reappearance of her nausea. By nine o’clock, Karen had made four trips to the bathroom. Bob decided to stay home with his wife for the morning and work in the afternoon. Karen, who had been out of the office all week with what everyone thought was a bug, decided it was time to call her boss and break the news. After a three-second pause, Jennifer told Karen she was thrilled. She then called Mary and Patty into her office, where they all offered their congratulatory remarks via speaker phone. They told Karen she could count on them for an over-the-top baby shower. When Mary and Patty had returned to their offices, Karen asked Jennifer about work. Jennifer told her to take the following week off, that Mary and Patty could cover for her. After that, after Karen got used to the idea of being pregnant, they would talk about a potential schedule shift.
The hardest part was being in the apartment alone. Even though Karen was glad when Bob stopped fussing over her and left for work, the ensuing silence proved more challenging than Bob’s doting presence. There were things to do, like tidying the apartment, reading the newspaper and books, and watching daytime television. (Her mother, Shelley, was addicted to General Hospital.) Karen was happy with any distraction from running to the bathroom and growing a baby. She had the time, at least temporarily, to cook and bake, but she could bring herself to do neither very often; just looking at food made her sick. Plus, she missed work.
The next Friday, she called Bob at work and asked him to pick up more Jell-O, tea, and chicken broth at the grocery store. She also asked him to eat something on the way home. Bob hung up the phone and called Billy. He left a message that he had changed his mind and would meet him at Rascals at five o’clock. It would give Bob a chance to tell his friend about Karen, and it would also give him a chance to eat a decent meal. He had eaten Stouffer’s frozen entrées for dinner several days in a row.
Rascals was pulsing with activity. Bob worked his way through the crowded bar area to the deck, where he found Billy sitting at a round table with two pitchers of beer in front of him and a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. Three guys in suits Bob didn’t recognize were listening to Billy talk, and Bob, ready for some conversation that had nothing to do with puking, eagerly sat down. Billy poured Bob a beer, which he drank down quickly. Billy refilled Bob’s glass while Bob ordered a cheeseburger and fries from a waitress shouldering a large tray holding empty bar glasses. When Bob’s food arrived, their AT&T salesmen companions said their farewells. “You’re not eating, Billy?” asked Bob, biting into his burger.
“And kill this buzz? I’ll eat something at home later. Where’s Karen?”
“At home,” said Bob, chewing.
Billy raised his eyebrows. “You in trouble with the Mrs.?”
“No.” Bob wiped his mouth with his napkin. “Quite the opposite.”
“That’s why you’re eating here with me?”
“Yes. She’s pregnant.”
Billy whooped and shook Bob’s hand. “Good job, buddy. That’s great news.”
“Thanks. We’re pretty excited.”
“That still doesn’t explain why you’re here and she’s not.” Billy poured himself another beer.
“She’s sick. She can’t keep anything down.”
“Morning sickness.”
“More like all-day sickness. She’s got it bad.”
“Doesn’t cook anymore?”
“Exactly,” said Bob, shoving two fries into his mouth.
“Probably doesn’t let you near her, either.”
“It will pass.”
Billy sipped his beer. “But will it pass before your withered Willy falls clean off?”
Bob laughed. “God, I hope so.”
But it didn’t pass, at least not as quickly as Karen hoped or Bob calculated. And when Karen reached the end of her first trimester and was still getting sick, her fears about the baby turned into panic. What if something was wrong? Healthy babies wouldn’t start out like this. Karen’s doctor had reassured her in person and over the phone several times. And Shelley reminded Karen how ill she had been with the twins, but Karen didn’t think they realized how sick she was. She was fourteen weeks pregnant and had gained only three pounds. At this point, according to the articles Karen had read, many women had gained close to ten pounds. Something wasn’t right.
Nothing Bob did was right, either. The soup he brought her nightly was too creamy, or too watery, or too hot, or too cold. Sometimes he accidentally rolled into her at night when they were sleeping, which Karen found inexcusable. She despised having the baby’s sleep disturbed. It was only in the middle of the night, when Karen was completely at rest, that she thought the baby had a chance for survival, that it was growing after all, if only infinitesimally.
It was Karen’s boss who came up with the Save Your Sanity work plan. Instead of accepting Karen’s reluctant resignation—she was exhausted from trying to rally herself every morning just to meet with failure—Jennifer told her she could work from home. Mary and Patty could do the legwork, if required, for Karen’s stories, and Karen could simply write them. The few phone calls Karen would have to make from home could be done in a quiet house. The client would never know Karen wasn’t sitting in an office. Even if the client found out, Karen could simply say she was working from home that day. No big deal. And it was a good plan. Bob was happy to buy his wife a home computer, which he set up in the corner of their living room, so Karen could feel productive again. She went into the office every Monday afternoon, when the nausea had passed and she had the energy to shower and dress, for a meeting with Jennifer about the week’s assignments, and sent her work to Jennifer via e-mail attachments on Friday afternoons. They then discussed, by phone, the details: what Karen had been able to accomplish, what to do about any unfinished work, and tentative plans for the following week.
A Changing Marriage Page 6