The F Word

by Liza Palmer

  Here’s where I can start. The way I have been living isn’t going to work anymore. The fantasy that I built—no matter how hard I tried—will never be real. I can start there. What will it look like if I decide that the way I am living won’t work anymore?

  I feel different. Of course I do. I made a chicken mole dish one night for dinner and then went all out the next night: I had a craving for sushi and ordered Sugarfish to be delivered right to my door. That’s two nights without the old chicken salad. I haven’t worked out at the gym all week. I’ve replaced the thankless hours on a treadmill with lovely long walks through my neighborhood at dusk. My tour of renovated houses, I’m calling it. That fence was taken down yesterday. I knew it would be. I’m even starting to say hello to people who take walks at the same time. I now know a few of their names.

  When Mom calls to check in on me, I’ve tried to be as honest with her as I can. I’m being myself, I say. The long walks. Having Sugarfish delivered. That one movie Adam and I went to. I ordered this Advent calendar of tea I’ve always wanted but thought was too expensive. I bought a red sweater. I listened to pop music the entire ride into work. I ate too many grapes and almost shit myself one afternoon, but I’m confident I’ll learn moderation soon enough.

  Mom listens. She says, “That sounds nice, dear,” but I know she’s wondering how things are going with Adam. I told her I got naked that first night after our talk at the pool and how we’ve been affectionate and playful like we were when we first started dating.

  I told her we haven’t talked about the other women, per se, but that he’d spent every night at home this week. When she pressed the issue, I told her I was going to talk to him about it tonight at the event for Jacob Peterman. “Good,” she’d said. I wanted her to say more. Really badger me about it, but she didn’t. We talked about some of the renovated houses I’d been following on my walks and if I’d heard anything more from Ben about the homecoming game. I hadn’t. I didn’t tell her I’d found the emails from Shannon Shimasaki and knew the schedule of all of the homecoming events, just to be on the safe side. Doing the legwork doesn’t mean that I planned on going. It was just in case. Plus? If tonight’s conversation with Adam goes well, I plan to have some “New Olivia sex” with him and the whole Ben thing will be just a memory. A very—I take a long drink of water at my desk—distant memory laced with crackling laughs and whispered “I got you’s.”

  “That husband of yours is here,” Ellen says, coming into my office.

  “Oh, thank you,” I say, shutting down my computer.

  “How weird will I make it if I talk about how hot he is?” Ellen asks.

  “You’ve already made it plenty weird,” I say, closing my laptop.

  “I know. I know,” Ellen says. I see Adam striding through the office just beyond my now-open office door. I watch as the interns stop what they’re doing and just gaze at him. Shared looks of disbelief and hidden smiles of exaltation ripple behind him like an earthquake aftershock.

  “Well, hello there, Ellen,” Adam says.

  “Oh, yeesh. Hi, Dr. uh … Dr. Farrell. Adam. Adam Dr. Farrell.”

  “It’s just Adam, kiddo,” he says.

  “Adam Kiddo.” Ellen blushes. “That was a joke. I need you to know that that was a joke.”

  Adam smiles and Ellen shakes her head as if she wants to crawl under a rock and die.

  “So, you’ll text me,” I say.

  “I will,” she says.

  “Nothing is too small.”

  “I know.” Ellen starts to back out of my office.

  “I’ll check in with you throughout the night,” I say.

  “Okay,” Ellen says, now all the way out of my office.

  “You ready?” Adam asks, leaning in with a kiss. “Oh, shit. Are we … are we kissing yet?”

  “We most certainly are,” I say, diving into him for another kiss. He closes my office door. “We’re going to be late.” He kisses me again.

  “I don’t think I care.” Another kiss. This is my husband. This is my marriage. He sweeps me up in his arms and it’s not until his phone vibrates and rings for a continuous five minutes that we break apart. “That’s the car. To be continued?”

  ON WISCONSIN

  “Will you tell Caroline I think she’s so brave? And can you ask—she did that ‘73 Questions’ for Vogue? Was that in her house?” Nanette has me cornered by the open bar. She’s wearing a black low-cut dress and dripping in diamonds.

  “It was,” I say, comfortable giving out information that is also available on Vogue’s website.

  Tonight’s gala is at the home of one of the hospital’s board members. It’s a giant house just south of Caltech and we’re set up on the back lawn. Heaters have been strategically placed around the property along with strings of Italian café lights—my personal favorite—and baskets filled with cashmere tartan blankets, should we need them during the cocktail hour. Cater waiters and floral centerpieces pepper the landscape with color and texture. There is a string quartet set up in the corner and the lilting sounds of Bach waft throughout the party. I notice right away that there are only approximately thirty or so people here. This is an elite bunch.

  I texted Mom to see if she knew the people who lived here and she texted back, “new money.”

  “Okay. So, Question 23? The one where the guy is asking Caroline where she prefers to stay when she’s in London? Now, Jacob always tells me that we should stay at the Dorchester, but Caroline mentioned a hotel I’d never heard of?” Nanette pulls the phone out of her beaded clutch and has it at the ready.

  “It’s the Number Sixteen. She stayed there on her first trip to London and she’s just kept staying there,” I say.

  “I’ve never even heard of it,” she says, desperately typing it into her phone.

  “It’s down in South Kensington. Really nice place. Cozy.”

  “Cozy? Is that … does that mean … small?”

  “Kind of.”

  “Hm,” Nanette says, replacing her phone back into her purse. “I don’t know if I’m down with small.”

  “Yeah.” I sip my champagne so I don’t crack up at the words “down with small.” And then we stand there. In companionable silence. As Nanette is wont to do. She smoothes her hair down. Poses a little. Looks down at her dress. I watch as Adam makes the rounds with Jacob. Shaking hands, being charming. He’s so good at this. “So, where are you from?”

  “Hm?” she asks.

  “Where are you from?” I ask. Fuck it, right?

  “Sacramento,” she says.

  “Oh?”

  “It’s the worst.”

  “It’s the state capitol, so there’s got to be something to it.”

  Nanette looks over at me and rolls her eyes. Like actually rolls her eyes. It’s a split second, but in that span of time I ask and answer a question inside my head. What would the real Olivia do right now? The real Olivia would ask, “Did you just roll your eyes at me?”

  “No, at Sacramento.” Nanette shifts from one foot to the other, jutting her hip bone out and it’s in that moment that I see her for the mall rat that she must have been back in Sacramento. Shopping for hair things and eating pretzels that smelled way better than they tasted. “I couldn’t wait to get out of there.” Nanette sees someone she knows—or maybe it’s just her own reflection or a shiny light—but, she meanders away, just as dinner is announced, finally leaving me on my own.

  We file into the house and are led into the formal dining room. Once there, I understand Mom’s “new money” comment. There’s a lot of white silk. A large wooden table extends down the center of the room, covered in white china and white roses and crystals, with three large chandeliers hanging just above it. There are also hot pink, oversized wingback chairs at each end of the table. Along with a zebra-print runner that assaults the eye as we walk in. The servers see us to our reserved seats. As it’s customary that husbands and wives do not sit with each other, Adam gives me a look of “holy shit with this r
oom, right?” from across the table. Once the women are seated, the men sit and we all arrange ourselves around the table.

  The people around me know each other and fall quickly into conversation. I don’t mind. I’d rather that than Nanette and her vacant-eyed game of twenty questions about Caroline Lang. As the first course is set before us—some kind of raw salmon atop what looks like grapefruit—I take the opportunity to excuse myself to the ladies’. I don’t have to go, but I want to check my phone for updates from Ellen. I wind through the house and find the powder room right off the foyer. I read through Ellen’s texts. The movie was well received and this Q&A is, according to Ellen, way smarter—or more pretentious maybe—than the others, because it’s an industry panel rather than just a regular Q&A at some theater. The questions are about craft and process. Not about who Caroline’s husband is having sex with. I text back that it sounds like it’s going well. She tells me to enjoy myself. I drop my phone into my purse and walk back through the house and into the dining room.

  I sit back down, return my napkin to my lap, and dig into the first course. The young couple sitting beside me introduce themselves.

  “We sneaked sitting next to each other.” She is rosy cheeked and looks like she should be gracing the outside of a butter package. Wholesome and lovely.

  “There were name cards, but we were a whole three seats apart,” he says. He is nerdy and bespectacled and looks like he weighs seventy … maybe eighty pounds with his shoes on.

  It appears they are newly engaged and are now excitedly talking about their big Santa Barbara wedding plans. I look to the woman just to my right. She’s probably my age and has one of those pixie cuts that many women feel emboldened to give a try, only to regret it immediately as they’re called “sir” until it grows out.

  “Santa Barbara is lovely,” I say, taking a sip of my champagne.

  “We’re from Wisconsin originally, so anything with sun and ocean is…,” the bride-to-be trails off.

  “More than anything we ever could have imagined,” her fiancé finishes. They beam at one another. Oh, good. I’m seated next to the Impossibly-in-Love Couple. This is going to go really well, I can feel it. I slide my champagne glass away from me and when the waiter asks if he can top me off, I say no. The last thing I need is to be tipsy right now.

  “Liv—” A hand gently squeezes my shoulder and I jump. Adam.

  “You startled me,” I say, trying to temper my voice so it goes from slightly alarmed to effortlessly coquettish.

  “A word?” Adam asks, stepping away from the buzzing table.

  “Must be a dinner party emergency,” I say to the people around me. The Super-in-Love Couple laugh, but Ms. Pixie Cut barely cracks a smile. Oh, I’ll win her over by the end of the night. I place my napkin on the table and follow Adam into a quiet corner of the dining room. “Is this about that weird grapefruit thing? I think it was salmon, but—”

  “So, we’re going to keep it together, right? You … you’re going to keep it together?”

  “If this is about the eye-rolling thing I said to Nanette earlier—”

  “I just need to know you’re not going to make a scene.”

  “Of course I’m not going to make a scene. My family has been not making scenes for hundreds of years.”

  “Good.”

  “Maybe a glass of wine? Loosen you up.” I pat Adam’s arm and walk back over to the table.

  “My husband is concerned I’ll make a scene,” I say to Ms. Pixie Cut, smoothing my napkin over my lap.

  “Oh?” she asks.

  “But, there’s a time and a place,” I say with a sly wink. Ms. Pixie Cut says nothing. I shift my focus back to the Super-in-Love Couple.

  “Where in Wisconsin are you from?” I ask.

  “Milwaukee,” they say together. And then crumble into giggles. Ugh. I move my champagne glass back toward me and eye the waiter. He obliges and fills it back up. I see Adam across the table shoot me a look of concern. I just smile. It’s fine. I’m a professional at these events, remember?

  “So, the wedding is going to be in Santa Barbara. Do you know where?” I ask.

  “Wherever they’ll have us!” the bride-to-be says. Okay. That’s not quite how planning a wedding works, Ms. Wisconsin. I still have my binder from mine and it is a thing of organizational beauty.

  “And the honeymoon?” I ask.

  “Somewhere wonderful?” the bride-to-be says, sipping her water. No alcohol and she hasn’t touched the raw fish, either. Is Ms. Wisconsin already pregnant?

  “Big Sur is amazing,” I say. Ms. Pixie Cut nods as she finishes up her first course. A waiter sweeps in and clears her plate. “That’s where I went on mine.”

  “Oh, wow,” the bride-to-be coos. I let the waiter know that I’m done picking at my first course and he takes my plate as well.

  “Isn’t it just camping there?” Mr. Wisconsin asks.

  “You should look into the Post Ranch Inn. It’s kind of expensive, but for one night…,” Ms. Pixie Cut trails off.

  I look from Ms. Pixie Cut to Adam. Time stopping. Urgent whispers of not making a scene burst through my brain like fireworks. Okay. Hold it together. Wait. Is Ms. Pixie Cut, Dr. Pixie Cut? Am I sitting next to Dr. Nicola McKesson? No. No? The Post Ranch Inn is one of the most famous places to stay in Big Sur. You mention Big Sur, someone is inevitably going to bring up the Post Ranch Inn. Adam watches me.

  “You’ve been to the Post Ranch Inn?” I ask, as a waiter sets the second course down in front of me. It’s some kind of white soup with a piece of cracker bread across the top of the bowl. Potato leek maybe?

  “Just went for the first time this past month,” Dr. Pixie Cut says. She’s busy thanking the waiter for her soup and doesn’t notice me narrowing my eyes at her. Adam does, though. I hear him clearing his throat and turn to look at him. I raise my eyebrows and he just stares at me. I pick up my spoon and take a sip of the soup. I want to look mad, but the soup is cauliflower, not potato leek. The bitterness makes me wince, so instead of looking steely, I just look like a baby that’s been fed a lemon.

  I see Adam try to get Nicola’s attention and it enrages me. Oh, are you trying to warn your ladylove that the monster’s at the gates? Just ignore her! Don’t make eye contact with the poor wretch! She’ll shuffle on to the next fair maiden if you throw her a scrap of bread!

  “What brought you to the Post Ranch Inn? Celebrating something?” I ask, my voice measured and careful. Mr. and Ms. Wisconsin are discussing the soup. They’re not fans.

  “No, just a little getaway,” Dr. Pixie Cut says with a slurp of her soup.

  “Uh-huh,” I say. The waiter tops off my champagne and thankfully relieves me of my soup bowl. From the head of the table, Jacob Peterman stands clinking his knife against his Baccarat wineglass. I see Adam let out a sigh as the guests turn to focus on the man of the hour.

  “You all knew I wasn’t going to pass up the chance to hear myself talk, right?” Jacob says. Everyone laughs. I am now openly staring at Dr. Pixie Cut. Is that really Nicola? She’s … oh, god. She’s Pageant Plain. For chrissakes, she’s goddamn Pageant Plain. I knew it! I sit back in my chair and nod my head. Staring at her as Jacob blathers on in the background. “So, thank you to all of you for making this old man’s life something to be proud of.” Jacob raises his glass.

  “To Jacob,” they all say. I don’t. I’m currently having a rage blackout. I down my champagne. The next course is served—another kind of fish? Come on. With the amount of alcohol I’m drinking, I’m going to need a helluva lot more than these eensy-weensy fish courses.

  “Can you pass the bread?” I ask Ms. Wisconsin.

  “Oh, sure. I didn’t know L.A. people would want bread,” she jokes.

  “That’s our secret. We always want bread, we just don’t eat it,” I say, pulling a warm roll from the basket. Ms. Wisconsin nervously titters. “And the butter?” She obliges.

  “Do you know of any—” Ms. Wisconsin starts.

>   “So, was this trip to the Post Ranch Inn with a former flame, or…?” I ask Dr. Pixie Cut. She’s got to know who I am, right? Is she actively fucking with me or is she just as in the dark as I am? Oh, god. What if it isn’t even her?

  “I’m sorry?” she asks.

  “This trip to the Post Ranch Inn. Was it with a former flame or someone you’re still seeing?” I ask. I shove the buttered roll in my mouth. “I mean, assuming you didn’t just go to the world’s most romantic place by yourself, that is.”

  “No, I wasn’t by myself,” she says. I take a bite of my fish. My fork scratches against the china, causing the man across from me to give me a look. I roll my eyes at him. Which is when Adam excuses himself, stands, and walks over to me.

  “If I could borrow my wife,” Adam says. Dr. Pixie Cut doesn’t even look up.

  “You knew,” I say to her. She won’t look at me. Adam places his hand on my shoulder, but this time I lean forward and his hand slips off. “Look at me.” She clears her throat. “You’re having an affair with my husband, the least you can do is look at me.” She finally turns and her eyes meet mine. A rush of cruel insults floods my brain. She could be thinner. She could be prettier. She’s one of many. He’ll cheat on her just as he’s cheated on me. Nicola looks from me to Adam as I struggle to find my words. “Do better.” A scoff. She looks away. “Be better.”

  The conversation at the table has come to a halt. A drunken idiot (me) has just hurled an accusation at a well-respected doctor (Dr. Pixie Cut), like some hysterical little girl at the Salem witch trials.

  I wouldn’t change a fucking thing.

  “Excuse us,” I say with a smooth lilt. The table breaks into conversation as the third course is swept away and the main meat dish is set in front of the guests. Adam gives a final look to Dr. Pixie Cut. A look that says, “Let me handle this.” The “this” being me. The “this” being some small unpleasantness on par with a wild bear who’s approaching the open window of your car. I toss my napkin on my chair, grab my purse, and walk out of the hot pink and zebra-print dining room that’s become the second tackiest thing at dinner tonight.