A Better Man

by Leah McLaren

  Nick is taken aback. Larry is usually exceptionally tolerant of his moods due to his unassailable status as the “creative” member of the partnership. (He noticed long ago that most people who work in commercials actually prefer a bit of aberrant behaviour from a director—it makes them feel more artistically validated.)

  “Sorry, dude, I’m going through a bit of a rough time at home. You know how it is.”

  This was pretty low, even for Nick—but there it was.

  “Oh, man, I’m sorry to hear that,” Larry says, giving his partner a sympathetic pat on the shoulder.

  Poor Larry. His romantic woes have driven him into the arms of a long succession of shrinks, shamans, therapists, life coaches and lifestyle consultants. As a result, he’s been conditioned to talk about feelings—his own and anyone else’s.

  Larry gets up and shuts the door. Then he sits down opposite Nick and looks at him in a way that says, I am now making eye contact to facilitate honest and open emotional communication between men. It’s all Nick can do to keep himself from laughing or, failing that, throwing up.

  “You know you can always talk to me,” Larry says.

  “Thanks, buddy.”

  “So what’s up on the home front?”

  Nick shrugs. His instinct is to shut down the conversation, but now that he’s started it, he knows he has to feed the beast. He offers Larry a plausible half-truth. “Ah, you know, just the regular family troubles. Maya’s been on my case a lot lately. I guess you could say we’ve been going through a hard time. The twins are a lot to handle, and Maya’s resentful that I don’t spend enough time at home. She complains that I’m always working, and that when I’m not I haven’t been particularly attentive. I don’t think she’s wrong, but I’ve found it hard to snap out of the pattern, you know?”

  Larry nods solemnly. “I feel you, man. Loud and clear.”

  “I’m taking her on holiday next week, after the shoot’s over,” he says. “Beach holiday in Belize. I’m hoping we might be able to, I don’t know, ride the wave into a better marriage. Does that sound totally cheesy?”

  Larry’s buttery expression of empathy has been replaced with a stricken look. “Dude, I am so sorry to put this on you right now, but have you not even been in the room today?”

  Nick feels a jolt of alarm and his eyes drift down to the production schedule in front of him. He notices the shoot dates: November 1 to 5. The numbers have been crossed out and “5 to 9” has been written in their place.

  “What the fuck?” Nick’s hand is trembling as he picks up the paper.

  Larry snatches the paper with a laugh. “The dates have changed. We were just discussing it with the production designer and the wardrobe stylist. Where the fuck were you, man?”

  Nick drops his head into his hands. “I can’t do those dates.”

  Larry sucks on his inhaler, then answers with all the air sucked in like a teenage pothead trying to get the most from a pre-class joint. “Why not?”

  “Because those are the dates I’ve booked to go away with Maya.” For a moment he imagines telling her the trip is cancelled, not even postponed (he can’t get his money back now, and the resort was booked to the rafters for weeks afterward), and he has a clear vision of how it would go down: Maya’s face would fall and harden. She wouldn’t shout and cry or stamp her foot, but would simply finish whatever minor task she was performing—folding the laundry or peeling a tangerine—then remove herself from the room. After that the old marital gloom would descend, and more importantly, some crucial part of her, the part he’d spent these past few weeks coaxing open, would slam shut. All his hard work down the drain. Bailing on the trip was not an option.

  “You’ve got to cancel,” Larry says. He is now chewing his lower lip so hard it looks like he might actually break the skin.

  “You’re right, I do.”

  “She’ll understand. She’s a very understanding woman.”

  Nick shakes his head. “I’m not cancelling on her. I’m cancelling myself as director. I’m pulling out.”

  Larry stares blankly for a minute, as if he’s just woken up from a disorienting nap. Then he springs to his feet and begins waving his hands in the air. “Nick, I know you feel like your marriage is in crisis, and I am really sympathetic to that—you know I am—but there’s a lot riding on this job too. It’s the first time we’ve worked with this client, and they’re a big client. If we bail on them now, not only will they not work with us again but I’m afraid they might sue us.”

  Nick grimaces. “We’re not bailing on them. I’m just pulling out.”

  “Which means they might pull out.” Larry stares at him.

  “Yes, but that’s a risk we’ve got to take. Tell them I’ve contracted a mild case of Ebola. I can’t do it.”

  As Larry rattles through all the pre-production costs—the insurance, the set bookings, the tens of thousands in deposits paid, the actors booked—Nick takes a moment to weigh the personal costs and benefits in his mind. Never before in his working life has he prioritized his family over his work. Not. Once. He’s had good reasons—ones in keeping with his character and love of property and security and pretty things. Why potentially imperil a payout, he’s always reasoned, when your family is going to be around either way? He knows other people think of their families first—or claim to—but Nick simply hasn’t aspired to be one of these men. Whenever he hears of a politician or a CEO resigning in order to “spend more time with his family,” he, like the rest of the world, assumes the man has been fired.

  Despite this—or perhaps because of it—he finds he is keen to choose his family now. True, it’s all about the long game, but Nick is surprised to discover that a part of himself actually welcomes the opportunity to act like the sort of man who cares about his marriage so much that he would risk his career to preserve it. So this, he thinks, is what good guys actually do.

  “Larry, I know it’s bad, but I’m not cancelling the trip. We’re going to have to find another director.”

  Larry has his hands in his hair—his stubby fingers raking through and clenching at greasy brown curls. “But who? DeCarlo and Murphy are both booked for the season, and who else are we going to find on short notice? We need you, man.”

  Nick leans back and looks up at the ceiling. As he stares at the halogen lights, a sense of relief comes over him, as though he’s just stepped out of an unbearable heat wave into a very pleasant icebox. The day drunkenness is suddenly gone. He can’t begin to explain why, but he is back to being his crisp, sober self. He feels—there is really no other way to describe it—refreshed.

  “You can do it,” he tells Larry, who begins to shake his head.

  “No, I can’t.”

  “Yes, you can. And you will. And you want to know why? Because there’s simply no other option.”

  Larry flips through production binders and file folders, pulling out script notes, schedules and budget breakdowns, as if one of them might hold the solution he’s looking for. He riffles papers until he seems to forget what he is riffling for, and then he sets about riffling some more.

  Nick stands and slips on his coat.

  “Where are you going?” Larry, he notices, has a grey-green tinge under his eyes.

  “There’s not much point in me being here if I can’t see the job through,” Nick says.

  “But what the hell am I going to tell the client?”

  Nick considers this. His first impulse, of course, is to lie, claiming illness or a death in the family or both. But then he realizes to his own surprise that for once, he doesn’t want to lie. He wants to tell the truth. And not only that, he can tell the truth. And he does. “Tell them I’m going to spend more time with my family.” And with that said, he heads for the door.

  CHAPTER 12

  Maya loiters in the bedroom, teenage-gawky in her underwear, arms crossed, hip cocked, a heap of rumpled designer office togs at her feet. Looking at the pile, she feels slightly hopeless. All those “classic” suit
s now look off the mark—hems too high, sleeves too long, shoulders too boxy or not boxy enough. It all just reminds her of how much has changed since she actually worked for a living. She shivers and listens to Velma rooting around deep in the closet.

  “I’ve found the perfect thing,” she says, and clambers out clutching a black wool dress with a decorative rhinestone beetle brooch pinned to the chest.

  Maya recognizes it as the dress she wore to Nick’s father’s funeral nearly ten years ago. It was an event that left him an orphan (his mother had had a fatal stroke just months before). Her own parents were there—tanned and lean and full of tales of their latest walking pilgrimage across Spain or riverboat trip through Cambodia. She has sometimes wondered if their peripatetic retirement was some kind of grand avoidance technique—of boredom, of death. And most of all, of each other.

  She makes an uncertain face, but Velma tosses the dress to her anyway.

  Once on, it’s not half bad. Cinched at the waist with elbow-length sleeves, it makes Maya feel like a political wife or the ruthless editor of a 1950s fashion magazine. She takes off the brooch (too fussy), slips on her best red heels and a tailored grey blazer, and lets Velma twist her hair into a topknot. And suddenly there she is: a lawyer.

  Velma stands behind her, arms crossed, nodding, clearly pleased with her efforts. “They’d be crazy not to hire you. Loco,” she says.

  “You think?” Maya brushes a stray hair off her face and plucks some lint from her sleeve.

  “I know,” says Velma, pounding her chest. “I have a feeling for these things.”

  Maya smiles, amazed not for the first time at how comforting it is to hear people say the things you want to hear, even when you know they probably aren’t true.

  Velma sits down on the bed as Maya shimmies back into her jeans. “So have you told Nick you’re going for an interview yet?” she asks with a twinkle.

  “No. Actually, I’m telling him tonight.”

  Velma nods slowly. “Ah, that explains the nice dinner.”

  “And the bottle of Barolo. And the homemade tiramisu for dessert. I’m softening him up with food and dropping the bomb.”

  “Are you sure he won’t be pleased? He should be proud to have a hotshot lawyer-wife,” Velma offers.

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves—it’s just an interview. I’ve been out of the game for three and a half years, which is like a lifetime in law-firm time.” Maya smooths the dress on its hanger, inspecting it for spots or loose threads. “They have no reason to hire me. And as for Nick, I think it makes him more proud to have me at home. He likes, you know, being the one who takes care of things.”

  Velma makes an incredulous face. “He can still take care of things when you’re out working on your cases. That man Gray, he likes you very much. Maybe too much. I have a feeling for these things. I could see it at the twins’ birthday party last year. You have nothing to worry about, dear.”

  Maya shakes her head awkwardly. There was a time in her life, not so very long ago, when people often said men were doing her favours because they were in love with her. She detested the assumption. “Gray’s just an old friend,” she says.

  So much is riding on this job interview. That’s why she’s carefully planned how to tell Nick. She doesn’t just need him to “let” her work—of course she can do what she likes. But the more she thinks about it, the more she deeply needs him to want what she wants.

  Velma smiles knowingly. “Well, if you have trouble convincing him with the food, I guess it’s lucky you have your bed back.”

  Maya covers her face in smiling embarrassment.

  After the twins are asleep, she sends Velma home and goes about setting the table. She thinks about using the wedding silver and bone china but decides it would seem like she’s trying too hard. When she hears Nick come in the front door, she arranges herself at the kitchen counter in a casual yet spritely pose—pretend-reading The New Yorker and sipping on a glass of red wine. Seconds later, Nick glides in the kitchen door, looking a bit harried but glad to see her. He plants a soft, dry kiss on her cheek and then goes straight over to the oven and cracks the door. “Eggplant parm, my favourite,” he says, looking genuinely happy. Maya grins and thinks how easy it is, actually, to please him. She feels a flash of guilt for all the years she didn’t bother trying. Or was it that she did try and he simply wouldn’t let himself be pleased? She tries to work it out, but her thoughts quickly tangle. Instead, she thinks of The Way and the law of Radical Honesty. Ask the universe for what you want, and in turn you will be granted your heart’s desire.

  “How was your day?”

  “Great.” Nick spins his wine in its glass and gives it an appreciative sniff. “Never better, in fact. How are the kids?”

  “Oh, you know, the usual. Isla thinks she’s a flying teapot. Foster bent back his friend Lola’s finger at preschool. Apparently she was trying to steal his bucket at the sand station.”

  Nick sips his wine. For a moment Maya glimpses a flash of the old blankness, but then he seems to return to himself as if being dropped back into his body. He blinks. “Really?” he says. “Is there something I should do?”

  “What do you mean, do?”

  “I mean, do you think he’d benefit from a stern father–son lecture on the subject of sandbox etiquette?”

  She smiles. The wine warmth blooms in her chest. “I think the teachers are pretty on top of it. Besides, Velma had him on the naughty step three times today, so he’s feeling pretty contrite.”

  “Really?” Nick looks surprised.

  “No.”

  They laugh and Nick goes upstairs to change out of his work clothes.

  Alone again, Maya pours herself another glass of wine. She reminds herself that she’s doing the right thing. That they are moving into a new place of safety, and that after all the pain and withdrawal of the past three years, the tension has somehow broken. She doesn’t know how it’s happened, and even though the how’s and why’s of it all still nag at her consciousness, she has decided not to question her luck. Maya pushes this rogue thought from her mind and tastes the sauce. It’s one of her specialties, made with her own stock of preserved plum tomatoes (the canned ones are full of carcinogens), good olive oil, a splash of wine and a cheeky pinch of sugar. The sauce is tangy perfection, but she burns her tongue in the process of tasting it. She is pulling the pan from the oven as Nick returns to the kitchen, sits at the island and watches her work. When she bends over to take the plates from the oven, she feels his eyes move over her in an appraising way that makes her feel oddly self-conscious.

  “You’re a very lovely woman, aren’t you?” he says in a voice that sounds almost on the verge of … what, exactly? Choking up? Breaking down? Hollow laughter? All of the above?

  When she looks at him, his face is opaque. A mask. It’s only when they sit down at the table and begin eating that Nick announces he has something to tell her. At first Maya worries he’s going to steal her moment, but as Nick starts to talk, relief sets in. He is telling her that he’s had to turn down a big job for SoupCan because the dates conflicted with their holiday. It’s his own mistake, but he doesn’t expect her to suffer for it.

  When Maya hears this, she waves her hands and tells Nick that it’s fine. Work is work. They can always have a holiday some other time. But Nick shakes his head firmly.

  “Absolutely not,” he says, in a way that lets her know he will not be moved. “I know I can shift the dates, but the point is something has to give. My whole life I’ve always let work take precedence, and I guess at some point that has to stop. We have to make the twins—and of course each other—the main concern. You’ve been doing that for years and now it’s my turn.” He puts a hand over hers in a way she finds almost unbearably earnest and oddly out of character. “Don’t you think?”

  Maya finds she’s lost her appetite. She stares at her food, moving eggplant around the plate, trying to will it away like a naughty child at suppertime. “Yes, of
course,” she says quietly, giving Nick a sidelong glance. “You’re right.”

  He looks at her carefully. “What’s wrong, babe? You’re not worried about money, are you? Because if that’s the issue, I can assure you we’re fine. I mean, of course it would have been nice to get the director’s fee, but I’ll still be cut in as a producer. And besides, since the Duracell job we don’t really have to worry about …” He tails off as Maya holds up her hand.

  “It’s not that,” she says.

  “So what is it, then?”

  Her chin wobbles then steadies itself. She will not cry. Crying is for the useless. “I’m afraid you’ll think I’m a jerk if I tell you. Especially since your re-evaluation of priorities—which is wonderful, by the way.”

  Nick winces. “What is it?”

  For a second Maya has a vision of them as one of those sickeningly supportive TV-drama couples who are always “checking in” with each other. She used to hate people who talked about how great their marriages were and how supportive their husbands had been through their pregnancy, illness, weight gain or whatever. She didn’t just loathe them—she strongly suspected them of lying. Could anyone really be that happy? For years she doubted it. But now she glimpses that what they spoke of might actually be possible, a shimmering oasis in the desert. She still can’t be sure how Nick is going to take her news, though, especially now that he’s made a sacrifice of his own.

  She forces herself to look at him and sees he is now officially worried, looking concerned not just for her but for himself. Does he think she’s caught him out or something? Then she has a strange thought: Maybe he’s afraid I’m going to leave. But why would he be? It didn’t make any sense. She finds herself seized by the notion, and a part of her is tempted to say the words, just to see what it would feel like.

  “What is it, darling?” he says, brow furrowing. “It’s cruel to hold me in suspense like this.”

  Maya takes a breath. “I have a job interview tomorrow. At Gray’s firm. I have no idea whether they’ll hire me, but I’ve decided that whatever happens with this one, I really do want to go back to work.”