“Fine. So how many times a week do you take Cialis?”
“Once a week. Usually on Friday afternoons.”
“Why Cialis and not Viagra?”
“Four hours. Thirty-six hours. You do the math.”
“How did you get the prescription?” asks William.
“Told my doctor I was having problems. Down there.”
“And he believed you?”
Avi rocks back in his chair. “Dude, what is wrong with you?”
William pauses and falls back on a stock question. “If Melinda were a car, what kind of a car would she be?”
Something is really off with William. His voice doesn’t even sound like him.
Avi says nothing, just stares at the camera confrontationally.
“Back off,” says Kelly. “You’re losing him.”
“Come on. Let me guess,” says William. “A Prius. But a fully loaded Prius. Fifty-one miles to the gallon. A smart key system. Bluetooth and seats that fold flat.”
“William,” warns Kelly.
“So you can fuck Melinda three times a day.”
Everybody is shocked into silence. Kelly bursts into the room.
“O-kay. Let’s take a break!” she shouts. “Complimentary sodas and cookies out in the hallway.” The camera abruptly shuts off, and then a second later pans in on the now empty table.
“I can’t believe you said ‘fuck,’ ” says Kelly.
“He’s a fuck,” says William.
“It doesn’t matter. He’s the customer.”
“Yes, and we’re paying him to be the customer. Besides, twenty-something males are not our target demographic.”
“Wrong. Males twenty to thirty-five account for thirty-six percent of all new users. Maybe I should moderate.”
“No, I’ll do it. Bring them back in.”
The men and women file back into the room, Cokes and Diet Cokes in hand.
“Elliot, how many times a month do you have sex?” asks William.
“With or without Cialis?”
“Take your pick.”
“Without, none. With, once a week.”
“So would it be fair to say Cialis has improved your sex life?”
“Yes.”
“And would you have tried it if you didn’t have ED?”
Elliot looks bewildered. “Why would I do that?”
“Well, like Avi here. Would you use it recreationally?”
“Croquet is recreation. Mini-golf is recreation. Making love is not recreation. Love isn’t some bottomless Slurpee that magically fills itself up. You have to do the filling up yourself. That’s the secret to marriage.”
“Yeah man, drive through your wife’s 7-Eleven. Get your Slurpee on,” says Avi.
Elliot shoots Avi a dirty look. “It’s called making love for a reason.”
Avi rolls his eyes.
“I think that’s cute,” says Melinda. “Why don’t we make love?”
“Get back to Sonja,” says Kelly.
Sonja Popovich looks deflated, like she forgot to take her meds. Forty-seven. She’s three years older than me. She definitely looks older. No, she looks younger. No, I look younger. I play this game all the time. Honestly, I’m incapable of judging anyone’s age anymore.
“Can I smoke in here?” asks Sonja.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. Some sort of an alarm would probably go off,” says William.
Sonja smiles. “I’m not really a smoker. Only occasionally.”
“Me, too,” says William.
Since when did William become an occasional smoker?
“So are you here because of your husband’s ED?”
“No, I’m here because of my ED.”
“Nod,” says Kelly.
“I hate those Cialis commercials. And Viagra. And Levitra.”
“Why?”
“When your husband comes home and says, ‘Hey, honey, great news, we can have sex for thirty-six hours straight,’ believe me, it is not cause for celebration.”
“Well, Cialis is not about having sex for thirty-six hours, it’s about enhanced blood flow to—” says William.
“Thirty-six seconds, now then you’d have a winner.”
“Seriously?” says Avi.
“Yes, seriously,” says Sonja. Her face crumples. A big, fat tear rolls down her cheek.
“That’s sad,” says William.
“Don’t say that,” hisses Kelly.
“Thirty-six seconds. I’m sorry, but that’s very sad,” says William. “For your husband, I mean. Sounds like it’s good for you.”
“Oh, Christ,” says Kelly.
Sonja is weeping now.
“Can someone get her some Kleenex? Take your time,” William says. “I wasn’t trying to make you feel bad. Your answer just surprised me.”
“It surprises me, too. Don’t you think I’m surprised? I don’t know what happened,” she says, dabbing her eyes. “I used to love sex. I mean really, really love it. But now the whole thing seems, well, it just seems so silly. Whenever we have sex I feel like an alien watching us having sex thinking, ‘Ah, so this is how lower life-forms that only use ten percent of their brain matter procreate. How strange! How messy! How brutish! Look at the ugly faces they make. And all the sounds—the slapping, the flapping, the suction.’ ”
“We can’t use this. Wrap it up,” says Kelly. “Change the subject. Ask her what she thinks about the tubs.”
“How often do you have sex?” William asks.
Sonja looks up at him with a tear-stained face and says nothing.
“How often would you like to have sex?”
“Never.”
“This is not a therapy session,” says Kelly. “It’s a focus group for the client. This woman is not our target market. Cut her loose.”
“Do you wish you felt differently?”
Sonja nods.
“If you felt differently, how often would you like to have sex? How many times a year?” asks William.
“Twenty-four?” she says.
“Twenty-four. Twice a month?”
“Yeah, twice a month sounds good. That sounds normal to me. Do you think so? Do you think that’s normal?”
“Normal? Well, that’s one more time a month than I’m having it,” says William.
“That’s it. Shut it down,” says Kelly.
I gasp. Did my husband just announce to the entire focus group and his team the frequency with which we have sex?
“My wife and I pretend we have sex every week, just like most other married couples we know who are really only having sex once a month,” says William.
“I’m shutting the camera off,” warns Kelly.
“I wouldn’t call our marriage sexless,” William continues. “Sexless would mean sex once every six months, or once a year. It’s just the moment used to be right more often than not,” says William.
“I’m very sorry to hear that,” says Elliot.
“Tell me that’s not going to be us in twenty years!” says Melinda.
“Never,” says Avi. “That will never happen to us, babe.”
“Anytime the moment is right. It’s the anytime that really gets me. That’s not freedom. Not for the woman, anyway. It’s a threat,” says Sonja. “It’s an erection Code Orange.”
“Can I ask you one more question?” asks William.
“Go ahead,” says Sonja.
“Do you think most women your age feel this way?”
Sonja sniffs. “Yes.”
I press Pause on the video and rest my head on my desk, wishing I could rewind the last ten minutes of my life. Why, oh why, oh why did I watch that? I feel ashamed for going behind William’s back, angry at the brash and unprofessional way he conducted himself (the cardinal rule of conducting focus groups: never, never share personal information), humiliated that he publicly outed us as having a sexless marriage (not true, we have sex once a week—okay, once every two or three weeks—okay, maybe sometimes it stretches to once a
month), worried that he is on some sort of new medication that he hasn’t told me about, afraid that medication is Cialis and soon he’ll be telling me that thanks to modern medicine we now have a thirty-six-hour window in which I will be expected to have sex at least three times a day, but the strongest feeling is grief, because I saw parts of myself in both women. The desire-to-inhale-the-very-air-her-boyfriend-breathes Melinda. And the moment-is-rarely-right Sonja. They were—are—both me.
Tell me, Alice Buckle, what car would you be if you were a car right now?
That’s easy: a Ford Escape. A hybrid. Base model. Well-used. A scraped-up front bumper. Pings all over the doors. A mysterious rotten-apple smell rising up from the floorboards, but dependable. A car with all-wheel drive that’s good in the snow but whose potential is totally wasted because its owner lives in a city where the temperature rarely dips below 40.
And that, right there, is the problem.
18
25. William’s girlfriend’s name was Helen Davies and she was the VP of Branding. The rumor floating around the firm was that they would be engaged any day. They came in together in the mornings, sipping their coffees. They’d go to Kendall Square for lunch. She’d retrieve him at the end of the day and off they’d zip down to Newbury Street for cocktails. She was always stunningly dressed. I shopped at Filene’s Basement.
I was put to work on a toilet paper account. It wasn’t as bad as it sounded. I got to go home with rolls of TP samples and think of inventive new ways to say gets your ass really clean with just one sheet.
I put him out of my mind. Until one day he sent me an email.
—Are those running shoes on your desk?
I emailed him back.
—Sorry! I know that’s a filthy habit. Putting my shoes on working surfaces. It won’t happen again.
And then he emailed me again.
—Just went by your cubicle. Where are they now?
—Where are what now?
And then a flurry of emails.
—Your running shoes, Brown.
—They’re on my feet.
—Because you’re going home?
—Because I’m going running.
—When?
—At lunch.
—Where?
—Um—outside.
—Yes, Brown. I assumed outside. Where outside?
—I start at the Charles Hotel. I do a five-mile loop.
—Meet you there in fifteen minutes.
19
From: Wife 22
Subject: Timing
Date: May 18, 12:50 PM
To: researcher101
Researcher 101,
It might take me a little longer than usual to get the answers back to you, as things are a bit crazy here. I should probably let you know that my husband was demoted. I’m sure we’ll figure it out, but it’s been stressful on all of us. I have to say it’s a strange time to be recounting our courtship. It’s hard for me to reconcile the young, vibrant William and Alice with the currently middle-aged us. It makes me kind of sad.
All the best,
Wife 22
From: researcher101
Subject: Re: Timing
Date: May 18, 12:52 PM
To: Wife 22
Wife 22,
I’m very sorry to hear about your husband’s job. Please take all the time you need. Going back to the beginning is often difficult and dredges up all sorts of emotions. But in the long run I think you’ll find it enlightening to return to the past.
Sincerely,
Researcher 101
From: Wife 22
Subject: Re: Gambling
Date: May 18, 1:05 PM
To: researcher101
Researcher 101,
Sometimes when I log on to my computer I feel like I’m in a casino sitting in front of a slot machine. I have the same shivery feeling of anticipation—that anything is possible and anything can happen. All I have to do is pull the lever, i.e. press Send.
The rewards are immediate. I hear the machine churning. I hear all the lovely chimes and whooshes and pings. And when the symbols come up: “Kate O’Halloran likes your comment”; “Kelly Cho wants to be your friend”; “You have been tagged in a photo”—I am a winner.
What I’m trying to say is thanks for such a quick response.
Best,
Wife 22
From: researcher101
Subject: Unreachability
Date: May 18, 1:22 PM
To: Wife 22
Wife 22,
I understand what you’re saying completely, and often feel the same way, although I have to admit it worries me. It seems like we’ve gotten to the point where our experiences, our memories—our entire lives, actually—aren’t real unless we post about them online. I wonder if we might miss the days of being unreachable.
All the best,
Researcher 101
From: Wife 22
Subject: Re: Unreachability
Date: May 18, 1:25 PM
To: researcher101
Researcher 101,
I do not long for the old, unreachable days. When I’m plugged in I can go anywhere, do and learn anything. Today, for instance, I visited a tiny library in Portugal. I learned how the Shakers weave baskets and I discovered my best friend in middle school loves blood-orange sorbet. Okay, I also learned that a certain pop star actually believes she’s a fairy, an honest-to-goodness fairy from the fey people, but my point is access. Access to information. I don’t even have to look out my window to see what the weather is like. I can have the weather delivered every morning to my phone. What could be better?
Sincerely,
Wife 22
From: researcher101
Subject: Weather
Date: May 18, 1:26 PM
To: Wife 22
Wife 22,
Getting caught in the rain?
All the best,
Researcher 101
20
WEEKEND FORECAST
THE BUCKLE HOUSEHOLD
529 IRVING DRIVE
ALERT: Rapidly Developing Class 3 Marital Storm
Saturday AM
Windchill: Cold. Extremely cold. Freezing out husband while trying to pretend nothing is wrong.
Hi: Making it through day without screaming.
Lo: Head in hands. Soft moaning. Constant bouts of shame and mortification imagining KKM employees emailing Cialis video to hundreds of friends and said video then going viral.
Visibility: Limited. Refuse to look above husband’s jaw in order to avoid eye contact.
Share Weather: send to [email protected]
Instant Message from [email protected]
Nedra: Poor William!
Alice: Poor William? Poor me!
Nedra: This is what you get for going behind William’s back.
Alice: Did you even watch the video?
Nedra: Want my advice?
Alice: That depends. What will it cost me?
Nedra: Forget you ever saw it.
Saturday PM
Heat Index: Very High. Boiling hot.
Hi: Sitting on the couch watching Masterpiece Theatre.
Lo: Mentally trying to count the number of times we’ve had sex in the past twenty years while pretending to watch Masterpiece Theatre. Can’t do sums in head. Use fingers to add. Estimate 859. What’s wrong with that?
Visibility: Poor to none. Dense fog while trying to guess the number of times we’ll have sex in the next twenty years.
Share Weather: send to [email protected]
Instant Message from [email protected]
Nedra: Do not withhold
sex.
Alice: Why not?
Nedra: This is not about sex.
Alice: What’s it about?
Nedra: Intimacy. There’s a difference.
Alice: What do you suggest?
Nedra: Reach out to him.
Alice: What kind of a divorce lawyer are you?
Sunday PM
Wind: Calming.
Hi: Horoscope says unexpected romance on its way.
Lo: Viewing Cialis video for the eighth time. In my defense, repeated viewings of video are the best way to desensitize myself to the horrific public humiliation inflicted by my husband. I think I deserve a medal. I tell my family I deserve a medal. For what, they ask.
Wife 22: A Novel Page 6
