The Balance Project

by Susie Orman Schnall

  Nick and I have always had an effortless relationship. We’ve spent years challenging each other, loving each other, supporting each other, and, most importantly, cracking each other up. I once made him a dorky (at the time I thought of it as romantic and sentimental) collage for one of our early anniversaries. I pasted on photos and words from magazines of all the things we both like and the things we’d done together. Nick loved that gift and he still has it hanging up in the back of his closet.

  Sometimes, when we’re in a nostalgic mood, we push all his clothes to the side and look at it. We point out the photo of us skydiving (we did it to celebrate my graduation from college; at that time of my life I wasn’t afraid of jumping), two yellow labs playing (we both grew up with labs and we’ve always said we’ll get one together someday), Sean Connery (we’re both huge James Bond fans and Sean’s our favorite), and Tiger Woods (inside joke, long story). There are so many memories contained in those peeling, pasted pictures. It could probably use an updating.

  Maybe Nick is thinking our relationship could use one, too.

  We walk up the five flights of dingy stairs to his tiny apartment in silence. He unlocks the heavy door and holds it open for me. I flip the light switch next to the door, set down my bag, and take off my shoes, which despite being flats are, at this point, killing me.

  “Want a water?” Nick asks, heading toward the fridge in his small galley kitchen.

  “Yes, please,” I say, sweetly. I sit down on Nick’s brown futon couch—yes, so very stereotypical and trite, but I swear that’s what he has—and curl my legs underneath me.

  Nick sets the waters down on the simple wood coffee table, sits down next to me, and starts.

  “I don’t want to make a big deal about this because I know it’s not a big deal, but I was really bummed that you weren’t there tonight.”

  I stare into his eyes and let him continue.

  “Signing Ty is going to change everything for me. This is huge, Coop.”

  “I know, Nick. And I’m so happy for you. And I was there. It’s been really hard lately. Katherine—”

  “I’m getting tired of Katherine this, Katherine that. Like this book signing tomorrow night. Can’t she have that Brooke lady help her instead of you? Isn’t that her job?” He sounds annoyed.

  “Yes, but Brooke and all the publicists that usually tend to her are in LA for an event, so she needs someone around.”

  “To tend to her?” he asks sarcastically.

  “You know what I mean. Stuff comes up. She needs extra hands. Nick, I know it doesn’t make any sense because we take care of ourselves,” I say motioning to the two of us. “But this is what happens when you get all famous and successful, you need people around to help with stuff. And trust me, there is always stuff that comes up during events like this.”

  “Well, what if I need tending to?” Nick asks as the right side of his mouth turns up in a boyish grin.

  “Well then, I will have to rush home and tend to you,” I say, smiling.

  “I’ve been so understanding lately about your job coming first,” Nick says, suddenly getting very serious, “and tonight was kinda the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask, not sure what the camel is representing here. I can’t imagine the camel is representing our relationship and my choosing Door Number One tonight instead of Door Number Two could have delivered a fatal blow to our relationship.

  “I mean I’ve been holding a lot in for the last few months because I know you’ve been so busy, and I haven’t wanted to add more stress to your plate. I’m starting to see that you being stressed out all the time and us having barely any time together during the week is taking a toll on our relationship.”

  Nick might be one of the most laid-back and even-keeled people I know. It’s part of the reason we have been together for so long. There is usually no drama with Nick. So I know, by how he’s acting right now, that this is serious.

  “I know things aren’t ideal right now, Nick. But what do you want me to do?” I ask, getting flustered. “I don’t know what to do. Tell me what to do. I have this job and it’s a really demanding job, and I can’t just waltz in at nine every morning and leave at five every night. My job doesn’t work like that. And however much it’s stressful and incredibly time-consuming right now, I love that job. I know it sounds insane, but despite this not being the job I thought I would be in at this point in my life, a huge part of me wants to help Katherine be successful. I believe in what she’s doing. It’s important for women, and I want to be a part of it.”

  “How can preaching—”

  “We’re not preaching,” I say. Annoyed.

  “Okay, how can encouraging. . . . Is that better?”

  “Yes, thank you,” I say, not loving Nick’s tone.

  “How can encouraging women to try to have all this stuff going on at the same time be helping them? It sure doesn’t seem like your life is all that balanced, and you’re at ground zero of this balance operation.”

  I take a deep breath and adjust myself on the sofa. Nick takes a sip of water and sets the bottle back down on the table a little harder than necessary.

  “I don’t exactly know, and I’m trying to figure that out. But I don’t want to fight about it, Nick.”

  “We’re not fighting. This isn’t fighting. It’s discussing.”

  “I don’t see why it’s that big of a deal. We’re still together a lot of nights, and we have weekends. Most weekends,” I say weakly.

  “Yes, but you’re always distracted. Always on your phone doing Katherine stuff. Always needing to change plans at the last minute. Always tired and stressed out. I respect what you’re doing, and you know I’ve always been so supportive of your career. But this isn’t, as you just said, the job you even want, and I feel like you’re killing yourself for Katherine. I’m not entirely sure why you’re willing to do that.”

  “I told you. Because I support what she’s trying to do with this book. Are you suggesting I quit so I can spend my days answering your phones and making your dinner because it’s not that easy to get a job these days, if you haven’t noticed. And I’m not sure that you can support us both at this point, Nick. Ty Collins notwithstanding.”

  Didn’t mean for that to come out like that.

  “Oh, Coop. I’m not suggesting that. You know I’m not suggesting that. And I’m doing just fine financially. But I can tell you, since you decided to go below the belt, that this whole full-time, no-time-for-anything-else working woman is not what I’m going for long term.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask. My eyes start to sting.

  “I mean that I’m all for you being a career woman, but when we have kids, I want a mom for my kids. Not a twenty-four-seven career woman who’s only going to swoop into our lives when her e-mails slow down.”

  “Oh, so you want me barefoot and pregnant and Susie Homemaker? Like your mother?” I ask petulantly.

  “No. Well. Maybe. It’s not that I don’t want you to work when we have kids. It’s just that I think I had a great childhood and part of that is because my mom was around, physically and emotionally. That’s what I want for my, for our, kids. Is that such a bad thing to hope for?” Nick is standing now. Pacing.

  “It’s not necessarily a bad thing to hope for. But it might be a bad thing to hope for with me. No one, especially not me, could ever live up to the perfection that is your opinion of your mother.”

  I stand up now, too, and walk toward the window. I look down onto Fourteenth Street as an ambulance tries to go crosstown in the incessant traffic. An ant in honey. The siren’s blare persists, and I feel the loud pitch resonating through my body, through my bones.

  It’s not that Nick and I have never had this working-mom/stay-at-home-mom conversation before. It’s just never seemed so all-or-nothing with him. I know how much he loved his childhood. He still has an extraordinarily close relationship with his parents and his sister. But I guess I never let myself
go so far in the whole “Nick and Lucy have a baby” scenario to picture myself as an actual mother who has to make the choice to work or not. And now that I’m trying to do that, I’m not entirely sure what my choice would be.

  “I don’t know what to do here, Nick,” I say from across the room. The ambulance has made it to the next block. “The facts remain that I have this job, and I’m not going anywhere else careerwise at this point. And I can’t promise what kind of mom, working or otherwise, I’ll want to be. It’s unfair of you to ask me to make that decision now.”

  “It might be unfair, Lucy. But it’s not unrealistic. I’m twenty-seven. You’re almost twenty-six. We’ve been together for a long time. I don’t want to be just your boyfriend forever. You know I want us to get married. To have kids. But we need to make sure we both want the same kind of life. If we’re gonna be together.”

  If? I’m stunned. A little numb. I guess having a boyfriend who is one of the most laid-back and even-keeled people you know could also mean that you think your relationship is cruising along fine but really you just have a boyfriend who’s laid-back and even-keeled enough to just not make a big deal of things. Until they get really bad. And that’s where we find our dear hero and heroine now, dear readers. In the land of really bad.

  Of course, we’ve talked about marriage before. How can you be with someone for eight years and not talk about marriage? But Nick and I come from very different families and, because of that, we have completely different perspectives on marriage. Nick’s parents have been married for twenty-nine years and live in Perfect World. My parents got divorced when I was in high school and weren’t exactly great marital role models. Let me rephrase that. They sucked at marriage.

  My parents’ marriage spiraled out of control when I was in my junior year of high school and all my brothers were already out of the house. My dad verbally abused my mom. He would embarrass her in front of her friends, threaten to leave her, and tell her, among other gems, that she was fat, worthless, and not good enough. There was one especially nasty argument toward the end of the marriage that I overheard, and I’ve had a pretty negative view of marriage ever since. It’s hard to have a healthy view of marriage when the only live specimen you’ve ever seen up close was profoundly infected. There’s a huge part of me that’s petrified of getting married. Of having the same thing happen to me that happened to my mom. It might be an unfounded fear, especially with a guy like Nick, but my mom didn’t think my dad would become like that when she first married him.

  “You know the marriage thing is not so easy for me,” I say. I feel a pit start to grow in my stomach.

  “Oh, Coop, we’re not gonna be like them. I’m not anything like your dad,” he says softly, walking over to where I’m standing by the window. He puts his arms around me and we stay there for a moment. Being in Nick’s arms always has a way of making me feel less shitty than I was feeling before.

  “You do know I really, really want to marry you, don’t you,” Nick says as he pulls away. He lifts my chin, and looks into my eyes, a sly grin on his face.

  “So you’ve told me, what, maybe a trillion times,” I say, laughing. “I’m not so sure you still do, though, after some of the things you just said. And I’m not so sure I’m the wife of your dreams, either.”

  “Sorry, I know I was a little harsh tonight. It’s been an emotional day. But it’s important to talk about these things. We have to talk about these things, Coop,” Nick says.

  He leads me back to the couch and we sit down. He takes my hands in his and looks straight into my eyes. “Lucy Cooper, even though you work too much, and even though you insist on being a loyal and productive employee when so many of our peers are total fuckups, and even though you can’t predict the future and know what kind of mom you want to be, I still want to marry you. And that’s because I love you. I love how you think everything through, I love how you can drink any beer-guzzling college frat boy under the table, I love that you work for a health company and still eat Cheetos for dinner, I love that you’re so gorgeous even when your eyes are all red and puffy, I love that you could care less about shopping, I love that you love Sean Connery, and I love that you’ve never backed down from how you really feel about things. For all those reasons, yes, I want to marry you.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I say, leaning back into the couch. I’m suddenly exhausted, the hectic day finally catching up with me.

  “I’m serious, Coop. Plus, all this stuff with Katherine has to slow down soon, and then you’ll realize that all you want to do is be my wife and have our babies,” he says, teasing. “I know you too well for your own good. Anyway, this Katherine gig is entirely temporary. You’ve got to make your own dreams happen,” he says imitating Ty’s voice.

  “I know, I know. I’ve got to get out of this job. It’s killing me.”

  “Then why aren’t you being more proactive about getting a new job?”

  “Oh, for like a million reasons. Everything’s so busy. I couldn’t leave Katherine right now, and I don’t have any time to look for a job anyway.

  “Well, don’t keep making yourself second fiddle,” Nick says.

  “Second fiddle? Nice expression, dork,” I say, laughing.

  “Takes one to know one, dork,” he says as he wraps me in his arms and starts to kiss me.

  “So what have we accomplished in this little discussion?” I ask, as I pull away from his embrace.

  “Well, I think the bottom line is that we both seem to want different things, short term and long term. Short term, you want to bust your ass working for Katherine while I want you to eliminate some of the stress in your life and go for a job you really want. Long term, I want to marry you, and share a last name with you, and make multiple babies with you, and have us be a happy family while you aren’t so sure about any of those things.” He attempts a smile and shrugs his shoulders.

  “Well, now that you’ve put it like that, it’s pretty clear,” I say.

  “Yeah?” he asks expectantly.

  “Yeah. It’s pretty clear that you are one thoughtful and perfect boyfriend who only wants the best for me.”

  “True dat, Coop. True dat. So,” he says, clearing his throat, “will you marry me?”

  “Ha, ha, Nick.”

  “Someday, Lucy Cooper. Someday, I’m going to ask you for real and you know what you’ll say?”

  “What will I say?”

  “You’ll say yes.”

  “Oh, yeah? And how is it that you’re suddenly planning on changing my mind about marriage?”

  “By making you realize that you have a man who loves you and who would never do anything to hurt you or to make you feel badly about yourself. I promise you that, Lucy Cooper. I know that you believe in marriage deep inside. I’ve seen you cry at those Kate Hudson movies, and don’t think I don’t see you all swoony and teary when you watch those wedding-dress shows,” he says, smiling at me. I throw a pillow at his head. “But seriously, I know that you can’t stay convinced forever that marriage isn’t for you, and I have a feeling you’re going to change your mind very soon.”

  Nick scoops me up and leads me into his bedroom. He slowly undresses me, cracking me up with his jokes, and then he becomes serious as he lays me down.

  “We’re going to be one of those annoyingly adorable married couples, Coop. I know we will make each other extraordinarily happy,” Nick says as we get into bed. As he gently trails his finger from the fingertips of my left hand up my arm, across the strap of my tank top, over my chest and down the other arm.

  “I know,” I say quietly, enjoying this slow lovemaking. Because our time together has been so rushed lately, sex has been, too.

  He continues his gentle and leisurely exploration of my body. His light touch lingers over my lips, my breasts, my belly. I stare into his eyes and he looks at me lovingly as he bends down to kiss me.

  “I love you so much,” Nick says, moving a strand of hair that had settled over my eye.

  “I love you
, too.”

  As he wraps me up in his strong arms and we lie quietly, listening to the hums and humanity of New York City outside his window, I feel happy and relaxed. And mindful of how I need to make more time for this in my life.

  The next morning, Thursday, I wake up to the smell of steaming coffee. I look at the clock: 7:14. I jump up because I want to be in the office by eight to catch up on work I didn’t get to yesterday. As I get out of bed and walk toward the bathroom, which is attached to Nick’s bedroom, I notice a trail of white rose petals on the wood floor leading from my side of the bed into the rest of the apartment under the closed bedroom door. My heart pounds, my stomach drops, my palms start to sweat. A huge smile takes residence on my face, and just as suddenly, I feel panicked. I’m no spring chicken. I have a good idea what this means.

  I quickly go into the bathroom to pee and brush my teeth. Nick, who knows I love a good quote, has taped two to the mirror: “It’s okay to be scared. Being scared means that you’re about to do something really, really brave.” And “You cannot always wait for the perfect time. Sometimes you must dare to jump.” I smile at the thought of this beautiful man who knows my messy brain so well and head out into my future.

  I open the door that leads from Nick’s bedroom to the rest of the apartment, following the rose petals as I go. I see Nick as he sees me enter the living room and he immediately drops onto his knee. A loud gasp escapes my throat. There are candles lit everywhere. Rose petals covering the wood floor. A bouquet of flowers on the coffee table next to Nick. He’s kneeling there with a thousand-watt smile on his handsome face. And there’s something in his hand. I approach. Slowly. Pounding heart. Dropping stomach. Sweating palms.

  “C’mere,” he says quietly with the most adorable smile radiating from his face. He looks so sexy in a white fitted T-shirt and flannel pajama pants.

  When I am directly in front of Nick, he puts what was in his hand—which I see at this point is most definitely a small jewelry box—on the table next to him and grabs both of my hands in his. Now, mind you, though I did enjoy the quick detour to the bathroom, I’m in no condition to be proposed to. My hair is a tousled mess, and I’m wearing a ratty, old tank top that I leave at Nick’s and his boxers rolled up at the waist. My nails? Take a wild guess what they look like. I guess this is what you call love.