Life After Coffee

by Virginia Franken

  Wait—what? My waterworks quickly dry up as a clipboard with some kind of legal-looking form is handed to me.

  “What’s this?” I ask.

  “It’s your new beginning. It’s your new you. It’s your time to shine, Amy, and your time to sign.”

  “My time to what?”

  “Sign! Sign! Sign! Sign!” Sylvia starts up a chant and beckons for the audience to join her. They do, and in a matter of seconds I’ve got an auditorium full of Walmart shoppers screeching at me to sign a document that I’m suddenly certain is going to commit me to investing irreclaimable dollars and days to the benefit of this cosmetic behemoth.

  I find a cold silver-plated pen placed in my hand. I notice it’s embellished with a pink bejeweled crucifix. The crowd has reached a frenzy point. If I don’t sign now, there’s every chance the chant might change to “Crucify her.” I am the woman who went head-to-head with SEED’s entire board to get them to raise their social premium from ten cents per pound of coffee to fifteen and won! And here I am, cowed into signing my life away by a crowd of women in shiny panty hose.

  And do I sign? Well, as they say, there’s no pressure like peer pressure. And with a few strokes of a mascara brush, it seems that Sylvia’s Angels have just become my peers.

  And so I do. I sign. And the crowd roars.

  CHAPTER 14

  “Not to worry, my snippet, because I have a magnificent announcement,” says my husband.

  Snippet is what Peter used to call me, back before life got twisted up into a paper ball of complexities. He must be feeling happy. Maybe taking a break from writing and spending the morning with Violet did the trick. Or maybe the smear of makeup over my face has induced these fond feelings toward me. His ancient great-grandmother had once called me a “snip of a girl.” We think she meant a “slip of a girl,” but “snip” seemed much more accurate and I became Peter’s snippet. That was almost a decade ago. Somehow seems longer. Actually, it counts as about half a century when you factor in parenting years. Parenting years, of course, being like dog years: you just age faster.

  “Well, what is it?”

  I’ve just given Peter the bare-bones outline of this morning’s Sylvia’s Angels debacle. Turns out what I signed up for was the purchase of six hundred dollars’ worth of inventory, with just under two months to shift it. Any stock not sold after the two-month deadline is, of course, unreturnable. I already tried to return it, of course, but it also turns out I’ll only get fifty percent of my money back if I return it within the first eight weeks. So I’ve got to try and sell at least some of this stuff. A couple of months ago, six hundred dollars down the drain would have been a mere annoyance. Right now, it’s a major catastrophe. It’s my old party trick: by trying to incrementally improve the situation, I’ve actually managed to make it much worse. I’m really hoping that Peter’s magnificent announcement is that he’s found a fabulous job doing something that’s going to pay the bills—even a job at Trader Joe’s at this point would be wonderful.

  “I have an idea for another screenplay.” He pauses, waiting for my jubilant reaction. It’s not forthcoming. “And I’ve already started it! It’s just pouring forth, Amy! I’m just so excited about this chance with Colburn Entertainment that everything’s flooding out like someone turned on the faucet.” Husband, darling, I’m about to turn the water off at the source. The truth is, Peter’s never going to get another screenplay out to the wider world. His old contacts are blown, and I doubt Matt’s going to do a thing for him. I’m sure he only met up with me the other day out of curiosity. Peter’s got no way back in. If he’s ever going to sell a screenplay, he’s going to have to start all over again at the very bottom, alongside all the twenty-two-year-olds who just moved here from Denver. But he doesn’t know that yet, because he doesn’t know the Matt thing is going nowhere.

  “Amy, what’s wrong?” asks Peter.

  Do I tell him? How much do I tell him?

  “What’s wrong is that we need money now.”

  “What about the makeup?”

  “Not going to work.”

  “Why not? You seemed so sure after you talked to Annie about it.”

  “I buy coffee. I don’t sell stuff. Especially not makeup to middle-aged women. Why do I always have to be the one doing ridiculous things in order for us to survive?”

  “No one asked you to.”

  “No one formally asked me to pay the electric bill this month either, but it was kind of expected that it would happen.” And we’re back to this old argument again. The one where I want him to be the man in the relationship so I don’t have to be. Because I will tell you this: being the man sucks. Perhaps it’s more fun if you have an actual penis.

  “Peter, we’re broke. We can’t pay the mortgage. We’re living off credit cards. One of us needs to get a job. I’m trying. But you have to try too.”

  “The money’s coming. I can feel it. Just hang on for a few more weeks.”

  When is this man going to wake up? What will it take for him to realize how screwed we are? He’s got the financial astuteness of a nineteen-fifties housewife. Is he expecting me to pat his hand and say, “Now you run along, dear, and don’t you fret that fine-lookin’ head about this whole money thing. I’ve got it all figured out,” before retreating into my study to sip whiskey and pore over our bond investments? Not happening.

  “Peter.” I pause. How do I convince him that it’s time to put this dream away and get a job? I’m going to have to go in for the hard hit and take him out at his ultimate weak spot: his ego. “Listen. I read the screenplay.” I did read it secretly a few days ago. I wanted to see if it’s really as wonderful as he thought it was. Admittedly, it’s pretty good. By the end of it I was crying my heart out. Peter caught me sobbing over his laptop, and I had to say it was because my favorite character had just been killed off in the season-three finale of Downton Abbey . . . And he believed me. Does this man even know me?

  “Oh. I see.” He’s annoyed. As I’ve mentioned, Peter doesn’t like people reading his work in case they tell him it’s a lump of twat, which I’m about to do.

  “Peter. It wasn’t very good.” Damn it. That didn’t sound convincing at all.

  “You’re lying to me.”

  “Sorry to say it, Peter, but I’m not.”

  “You are. I can always tell when you’re lying.”

  “Peter, honestly, I’m not lying. It’s just not very good.”

  “I know you weren’t crying the other night because some dude got cut from a show you don’t even like. You were crying because the Loyalists shot Ronan for trying to save Cara’s father, and now they’ll never get to elope and start up their Castlegregory bed-and-breakfast paradise. You were crying because you knew he was screwed either way. If he hadn’t saved her father, she’d never have forgiven him. So he saved him, even knowing they’d kill him too for being a traitor, because he’d rather die than lose her love. Oh, why can’t people just get along? you thought to yourself as you wiped your eyes with my last desk Kleenex. It’s Ireland’s answer to Romeo and Juliet and you know it.” Damn it. “The money’s coming. And when it comes, there’s going to be tons of it. Hollywood money.”

  “Okay, so I lied. I was crying because Ronan would rather die than lose Cara’s love, but Peter, no matter how heartrending its plot twists are, Draker’s Dark isn’t going to pay for us to eat this month. You have to get a job.”

  “Doing what? I’m not qualified to do anything else. What would you have me do, flip burgers?”

  “Yes!”

  “I don’t flip burgers. I write.”

  “You don’t have to do one or the other completely exclusively.”

  “Amy. It’s never going to happen.” I suddenly realize that even if I threw myself down at his feet at this point and screamed, “We are all going to be living in the gutter!” he’d just step over me so he could get to his laptop and keep on typing. I suddenly know that Peter’s never going to make so much as a gesture tow
ard trying to be gainfully employed. That’s it. It’s all on me. I may as well have married a painter for all the financial contribution I’m going to get out of this man. At least we’d have had something pretty to hang on the walls all these years.

  “So it’s just my responsibility, is it? I’m the one who’s always got to keep us from starving, ’cause you’re just too magnificent a scribe to care about crap like that?” At this stage of the argument Peter would normally be gearing up. He hates being accused of not pulling his financial weight. Probably because it’s so thoroughly true. But today he’s oddly mellow. I can’t imagine the level of mental implosion that’s going to happen when he gets the word that Matt isn’t going to buy his screenplay.

  “Of course I care about things like that. But we’ve got money for another few weeks, right?”

  “It’s not our money. It belongs to JPMorgan Chase’s credit card services. And they are charging us plenty for the privilege of borrowing it.” The doorbell rings. Maybe that’s Mr. J. P. Morgan himself, risen from the grave purely to tell us he’s seen the lay of the land and he’s changed his mind.

  “Let them charge away. I have a good feeling about our situation, Amy. It’s all changing for us. I don’t want you to worry a minute more about it. I have it handled.” Great. I wanted him to be the man and here he is, acting all manly and telling me not to worry my pretty little head about our dire circumstances, but somehow my head is not reassured. He turns to leave.

  “Where are you going?” I ask.

  “The garage.”

  “How long?” Now that we can no longer afford even HushMush, Peter has placed a chair and desk in the garage and spends as much as twenty-four hours at a time pecking away on his keyboard out there. I’m not even sure when he uses the bathroom. Maybe he saves it all up for when he knows the rest of us are sleeping. Maybe he’s got some kind of bucket system in there. I’m too scared to go in and look.

  “Don’t know,” he replies and wanders out the back door.

  My skin is starting to feel a bit tight underneath this makeup. It feels oddly heated, like it’s got a smoldering energy force layered on top of it. I haven’t got any prior experience to compare it to, but I have a feeling that this is not normal. I hear Violet open the front door.

  “Have you come to kiss my mommy again?” she asks.

  “Certainly! If she’s available,” says Matt.

  “My mommy’s too old to be kissing boys like you.” Old? She thinks I’m old and that Matt’s a boy in comparison?

  “Mommy’s not old; she’s middle-aged,” says Billy, who’s come to join his sister at the door. Somehow “middle-aged” hits even harder than “old.” Probably because it’s closer to the truth. After briefly wondering if I’m small enough to hide inside the fridge (probably—but how would I close the door once I got in there?), I take a large breath and walk out onto the front porch behind the kids.

  “Hello,” I say. “It’s me. The middle-aged crone.”

  “Ah, yes. Just the crone I was looking for,” says Matt.

  “Actually, this isn’t a great time, Matt.” I improvise. I’m using my most formal tone yet. I sound weird even to myself.

  “It won’t take a minute.”

  “Okay. Two minutes. But I’m late. For something very important. So you’ll have to be quick.”

  “You don’t have anything important to do today, Mommy. You don’t even have a job anymore,” says Billy.

  “Why don’t you take your sister and go and play on the iPad for ten minutes?”

  “But I’ve already used two hours today. What about my brain getting eaten?”

  “I’ll set the force field for another ten minutes.” I take my phone out and pretend to tap on it. “You’d better go quick. The timer’s ticking.” He doesn’t need to be told twice. Billy runs inside with Violet thudding after him. I turn back to Matt.

  “Force field?” he asks.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I came by to say hi,” he says.

  “Okay. Perhaps in the future you might call first. We live in LA. Not Kentucky.”

  “And to offer Peter a job,” he says.

  “Really?”

  “Your face looks different.”

  “I’ve got makeup on,” I say.

  “I like it. You look pretty.” Merely pretty today, huh? What happened to beautiful from the last time we met? Not that I’ve been replaying the entire scene in my mind again and again and again, or anything.

  “Were you saying something about a job?”

  “Yeah. I’m starting a new project.”

  “Another reality show?”

  “No. Reality TV’s almost over. This one’s scripted. It’s not that good, but that doesn’t seem to matter to anyone these days. As long as it’s got ‘Colburn Entertainment’ stamped on it, they’ll all tune in.”

  “Er. Okay.” I recognize this sideways attempt to evoke my reassurance from our dating days; however, I haven’t got time to indulge a “pity me and my underserved success” party today. I have to get this man off my porch before he starts whisper-kissing me again and someone sees him. My lips start buzzing at the thought of it.

  “I want Peter to come and work on the new show. I read his script. It’s really good. He’s really good. Probably even good enough to look past the drama that goes with him.”

  “You mean with us?” Matt looks up and we lock our startled eyes for a full moment. I can tell he’s shocked that I’ve broached the subject. I’m a little shocked myself. I’ve actually implied out loud that there is an “us.” And now we’re both wondering if I mean past “us” or if I’ve taken the whisper-kiss to mean there’s a current “us.” I’m about to clarify that I mean past “us,” but then I don’t. He’s the one who started the whole thing with his demands to see me and his whisper-kisses. He should be the one to clarify what’s going on.

  “I mean the drama with Peter’s litigious tendencies.”

  A real writing job for Peter. This would solve all the problems. Long-term. Short-term. Mr. J. P. Morgan’s overpriced assistance would no longer be needed. This needs to happen.

  “Why don’t you come in and talk to Peter about it?”

  “He’s here now?” Matt looks surprised and weirdly disappointed. Where did Matt think he’d be? A teahouse in Japan? “It’s okay, I can’t stop now. Just tell him to come by my office when he can. If he’s interested.”

  “He’ll be interested.” He’d goddamn better be.

  “It’s good to see you again, Amy.”

  “You too.” I say it with an “I’m finishing the conversation” tone and then step back a little from the door, taking an “I’m about to close the door” position.

  But he just stands there.

  Would it be weird/rude just to continue with closing the door? I suppose I should keep things polite, seeing as he’s going to be my husband’s new boss. Trouble is, I really, really don’t want him to start up another attempt at a deep dive into why our relationship should never have ended. I actually haven’t given much thought to Matt over the past few years. I was a little rankled at the breakup, I’ll admit, but it’s not as if our reuniting has ever been some kind of secret fantasy of mine. However, since our car encounter I have let my mind wander there, just a couple of times. Okay, seven, tops. I think me being so reluctantly unemployed and Peter being so enthusiastically unemployed has created the perfect storm in my brain, and the upshot is that I’ve actually started to daydream about what could have been. I’m worried that if Matt doesn’t get off my porch pretty soon, he’ll be able to see what’s been going on in my head for the last few days. And that would be just plain embarrassing.

  “Why don’t we go out sometime? Just the two of us?” Horror and scandal and shock must be emanating from my facial expression as he quickly adds, “No, no, no. Nothing weird!”

  “Matt. Honestly? I think it would be a bit weird.”

  “I completely get it. I don’t know, it’s j
ust now that Peter and I are going to be possibly working together, I want to make things normal again between you and me. I still feel like there’s a bit of tension here.”

  He’s pulling the “new boss” card.

  “It’s Peter you’ll be seeing every day. Not me.”

  “I know. But it can really throw the creative flow off if someone on the team has an issue with someone else. Peter might feel that you weren’t comfortable with the situation. And then he’d bring that to work. And then the whole team would feel it.”

  What are they, a bunch of empaths?

  “Matt, I’m completely comfortable.” My tone at this point does not sound very comfortable.

  “I just want us to be friends again, Amy. You used to be my best friend.”

  “Okay, sure, let’s be friends.” What the hell. We need the money. I’m sure if I do some advanced Googling, I’ll eventually find a message board where everyone agrees that it’s totally possible for men and women to be just friends.

  “Friends,” Matt says very grandly, and extends his hand. We shake on it. I hope he doesn’t notice that my palm is a little more moist than his.

  “So I’ll see ya soon? We’ll hang out!” he says, and starts back toward his car.

  Now that he’s got what he wants, he’s all business again. He’s so immersed in his phone, he doesn’t even wave good-bye as he gets in the driver’s seat. I’m left standing on the porch, feeling like a clueless seventeen-year-old. Are we going to hang out? When? What will we do? If I say no, will he fire Peter?