The Balance Project

by Susie Orman Schnall

  “Shit!” I hear Theo say as I stand there dumbfounded.

  I’m standing there staring at them. Not moving. My brain eventually responds to all the unexpected stimuli and reminds me that now would be a good time to look away.

  “Shit!” I yell as I head back out the bedroom door.

  “Shit!” I yell again as I realize I have to get the black ankle booties from Katherine’s closet. I cannot return to the office sans black ankle booties without a good excuse and, “Well, your husband was fucking a redhead in your bed so I thought better of scrounging around in your closet for black ankle booties and got the hell out of there,” will just not do.

  So, I put my hand up to the side of my left eye, creating a makeshift blinder to shield me from seeing the bed, and I hotfoot it past Theo and Red straight toward Katherine’s closet. “Shit!” I say over and over as I scan her vast collection of shoes until I find the black ankle booties section. Yes, section. I grab a pair without much analysis and head back through the bedroom, my hand to the side, now, of my right eye.

  “Lucy, wait!” Theo says.

  I see him jumping into his pants and hopping pathetically around the bed to where I’m hightailing it out of the room.

  “No, Theo,” I roar. I turn around, can’t resist, and catch a glimpse of Red squirming in the bed looking for something. Her dignity, perhaps?

  “Lucy!”

  “What!?!” I yell stopping in the hallway and turning around to look at Theo. His hair’s all messed up. His belt is unbuckled. His chest is bare. The perfect picture of an adulterous husband. I can barely look at him.

  “What?” I repeat.

  “This isn’t what you think,” he tries.

  “Got it,” I say with a disgusted laugh. “Sorry I didn’t knock. I didn’t think anyone would be home. Neither did Katherine,” I say, and I walk out of the apartment.

  “Shit!” I yell as I walk through the lobby.

  “Everything okay?” Cute Doorman asks with a worried look on his face.

  “Shit!” I yell as I get into the Escalade.

  “You all right, Lucy?” Pancho asks.

  Shit.

  Two seconds later my phone rings. The display says Theo. I silence it and let it go to voice mail. Even if I did want to take the call, which I don’t, I don’t think picking it up and having Pancho hear our conversation would be the wisest of decisions. I’m about to delete the voice mail because I really don’t want to hear Theo’s pathetic excuses, but I change my mind because part of me really wants to hear Theo’s pathetic excuses. I can’t imagine what they would be.

  Pancho drops me off in front of the Green Goddess building. I start to head inside but then I stop, lean against the side of the building, and play the voice mail on my phone.

  “Lucy. It’s Theo. I can’t even imagine what’s going through your mind right now and I’m sorry you had to see that. But please call me back so I can explain. And please don’t tell Katherine until I’ve had a chance to talk to you. Just call me back, slugger, okay? I’ll explain everything.”

  Curiosity takes over and I call him back.

  “It’s Lucy,” I say when he picks up.

  “Yeah, I know. Hey.”

  I wait.

  “Listen, Lucy, I’m so sorry you had to see that,” Theo says.

  “Yeah, you said that.” I stare straight ahead at the people, the never-ending swarms of people, walking past me on the sidewalk.

  “Right. I said that, okay.”

  I wait.

  “I really don’t know what to say. That was a huge mistake. I need you to not tell Katherine. If you let me handle this with her, I will.”

  “Fine,” I say, shifting my weight from one foot to the other.

  “Really, Lucy? Thanks.”

  “I just think— She just doesn’t need this right now, Theo. This would kill her. She’s about to explode as it is.”

  “I know that, Lucy. Trust me, I know that. But please let me handle it with her, okay?”

  “Okay. I gotta go, Theo. Your wife is waiting for me,” I say and hang up.

  Shit.

  I try to shake off any Theo-banging-Red energy before I walk into Katherine’s office, the ankle booties in one hand and a sympathy Glow juice in the other.

  “Thank you so much!” she says.

  “No problem,” I say, trying to keep my expression even. “I have the slip for the shoe repair guy. They’ll be ready on Friday. Do you want me to pick them up for you?”

  “No,” she says, probably trying to figure out why I’m being so nice. “Pancho can get them, but thanks.”

  “Okay,” I say, smiling.

  “Lucy, can you get Peter on the phone for me or actually, can you ask him to come to my office when he gets a chance?”

  “Sure, no problem,” I say as I return to my desk.

  I make the call Katherine asked me to make and then I stare at my computer monitor hoping that a message will reveal itself to me telling me what to do. What do you do in these situations? Do I tell Katherine about Theo? Do I call Theo and tell him I’m going to tell Katherine so he better tell her himself? I can’t believe he is cheating on her. What a douche!

  I check Ava’s Instagram hoping today’s quote post might provide inspiration about what to do. A flower does not think of competing with the next flower. It just blooms. Love the Sensei Ogui quote, Ava, but not helpful. Not helpful at all.

  The rest of the day proceeds like the last few. No time to pee. No time to eat. No time for anything except a quick peek now and then at my phone that confirms by its absolute heartless blankness that either Nick is as busy as I am and hasn’t had a second to text me back. Or that Nick doesn’t want to text me back. Most likely, most definitely, the latter.

  Around seven thirty, I finally leave the office and decide to walk home. The sight of me is pathetic. Tall, brown-haired girl, walking toward her cold and lonely apartment, white plastic bag filled with Chinese takeout in one hand, quiet no-text-from-her-boyfriend phone in the other. Two weights heavy on her shoulders. First weight: does said girl tell her pushed-to-the-edge boss that her husband is cheating on her with a well-endowed redhead? Second weight: does said girl tell her boyfriend that she wants to get married so she doesn’t lose him forever?

  I respect the fact that Nick’s incredibly angry and needs space, but I can’t say that I like it that much. I hate not being in touch with him. I don’t remember going this long without talking to him since we started dating.

  I have been thinking a lot about his list. When he first gave it to me, it felt almost aggressive. Like, you do these things and you get me back. I completely understood his motivation and I know his heart was in the right place, but it seemed, initially, quite one-sided. The more I consider it, though, I realize that Nick did me a huge favor. It’s not only Nick I’ll get back if I’m a good girl and complete my tasks. It’s me I’ll get back. All of those demons Nick wants me to conquer are the very grains of quicksand keeping me stuck, potentially drowning me, in this rut I am in. By addressing each one, I may indeed get my man. But I’ll also make big strides toward much-needed self actualization. Win-win.

  But there’s no time for this pitiful self-reflection. I have some job applying to do. After I’ve finished my lo mein and applied for three different digital-media jobs at Hearst, I realize that I can actually check off something from Nick’s—from our—list. It’s the only bit of happiness I’ve felt in days.

  Chapter Nine

  Katherine and Theo met right out of college. They both took consulting jobs with McKinsey, both thrilled to be based out of the New York office. They had been brought up very differently: Katherine, as you know, in Michigan, only child of a single mom who worked two jobs to keep food on the table. Theo grew up the son of a prominent and very old Charleston family. And he went to the University of Virginia as every good Laurent boy had done since Thomas Jefferson himself doled out the mashed potatoes in the dining hall.

  They didn’t sta
rt dating right away. They occasionally saw each other at company events, but they worked so hard and traveled so much—ah, the glorified life of a McKinsey analyst—that their interactions were sporadic. And strictly platonic. Then Katherine started Green Goddess and Theo went off to get his PhD in economics at Harvard, and they lost touch. (The University of Virginia did not offer a terminal degree in economics, but still, please don’t tell all the dead Laurents.)

  Katherine thrived in her career at Green Goddess and joined the junior boards of several storied Manhattan charities (museum, ballet, charter school). She found small pockets of time to date the accomplished and handsome young masters of the universe her friends and business associates fixed her up with. The young masters all looking to be the lucky suitor that the intelligent, self-made, and quite beautiful Katherine Whitney selected for her very own. It was rumored, though, that Katherine Whitney ended each affair quite quickly; she was easily bored by her suitors’ self-absorption. Rumor also has it Katherine, for her part, was otherwise engaged. To her career, that is, and was disinterested in being distracted by a man who would probably want her to quit her job and breed. Meanwhile, Theo was proving himself at Columbia; being a professor suited him well.

  A few years later, the timing for their impending romance was better. Katherine and Theo ran into each other at a conference on “The Economics of Entrepreneurism,” which was sponsored by McKinsey and held at the Grand Hyatt right next to Grand Central. They kept each other company during all the breaks, drinking coffee (Theo) and green tea (Katherine), trading stories of what had been keeping them occupied over the last many years (work), and thoroughly enjoying each other’s company. Theo, who had always been shy among the ladies, as he would tell me when I met him (long, long before Red), mustered the courage to ask Katherine to accompany him to dinner that night. She was quite impressed with the Southern gentleman’s slow and proper courtship and the fact that he didn’t want to move her into a center-hall colonial in Scarsdale. He respected what she did, what she and Evan had created, were still creating, and he told her that her dedication to her career was part of what he liked most about her. They fell in love, and one year later graced the Vows section of The New York Times. That was exactly ten years ago last weekend, exactly two days before I caught Theo banging Red.

  I’m nervous as hell going into the office this morning, Tuesday, and I walk to work a little more slowly than usual to put off the inevitable. I haven’t decided whether to tell Katherine about Theo or whether to let it go.

  When I arrive at work, Katherine is already in her office. The door is three-quarters closed so I give a little knock and walk in. I’m shocked by what I see.

  Katherine is crying. I’ve never seen Katherine cry. I don’t think it’s because she’s hard-hearted or cold in any way. I just don’t think she gets fazed by much. When Katherine sees me, she tries to cover it up. Does she know about Theo?

  “Oh, hey, Lucy. Ugh, my allergies are so bad,” she says and reaches for a tissue.

  This does not look like allergies, but I let it go.

  “Sorry,” I say.

  She shakes her head and composes herself. “I need you to confirm my lunch with Evan and then can you please call Dr. Browning’s office and tell them that I can’t possibly come back in till next month after London. I also need you to call Brooke, please, and tell her that I can’t go on Judith Regan’s radio show next week because it’s at the same time as the board meeting.” She sighs and looks at her monitor, which I can see and hear from where I’m standing, is rapidly filling up with new e-mails.

  Katherine puts her face in her hands, and I hear her sniffle.

  “Katherine,” I say in a sympathetic voice.

  “I’m fine, Lucy, I’m fine,” she says though it’s unmistakable now that those are tears, not allergies. She looks up at me, grabs a tissue, attempts a smile, and then starts to dry her eyes.

  “Are you sure about that?” I ask as I sit down in the Kelly chair. I wonder if Theo told her.

  And then, seemingly out of nowhere and much to my surprise, it all comes pouring out, tears and words, together in a Niagara Fall.

  “Everything is so insanely out of control right now.”

  I don’t say anything. I get up to close her door. The Green Goddess gossips do not need to get wind of this. And then I let her talk. And cry.

  “I don’t know why I ever wrote a book about balance. I mean, really, am I really the best person to be the authority on balance? I am the worst at balance. The worst. I just can’t handle everything on my plate right now. I feel like I never see the girls and Theo. Forget about taking care of myself. I’m a mess. I don’t know how I possibly thought I could manage all of this. It’s too much.”

  She pauses and then continues.

  “To make matters worse, Dr. Browning didn’t like something he saw on my face at the appointment last Thursday and he wanted to biopsy it but I told him I was too busy and I just bolted out of there but I have to go back and get it looked at. I’m so scared though because the last thing he took off ended up being precancerous. He gave me a really hard time when I was there last week, because I hadn’t been in to see him in years but how could I go? When did I have any time to go to the dermatologist? How can I let him biopsy it? What if it’s cancer? I don’t have time for cancer,” she says, crying harder now. “My kids need a mother. Not like they exactly have one now,” she says sarcastically and returns her face to her hands.

  “You know,” she lifts her face up and looks into my eyes. She’s calmed down a bit. “I’ve always had imposter syndrome, Lucy. Do you know what that is?”

  I shake my head no.

  “It’s when you don’t really believe you are who everyone thinks you are. I get all this praise and everyone thinks I’m so accomplished, but I’m just waiting for them to find out I’m a fraud. Which is ridiculous, I realize, because I’ve been working my ass off since as long as I can remember. I wrote every single page of that book. Nothing in my entire life got handed to me on a silver platter. I put myself through college. I worked every second to get where I am now. But for some hideously stupid reason, I feel like I don’t deserve any of the attention and accolades that I’m getting.”

  “Why do you feel like that,” I ask.

  “I have no clue. But now, I’m realizing I should feel like that. I wrote a fricking book, for God’s sake, on how I have it all and how my life is so balanced. I went on the fricking Today show and told Matt Lauer and the world that I have my shit together. But you know what, Lucy? You know what? My shit is anything but together. It might have been. At some point. But now with this book and London coming up and my nanny sick almost every day and the new one not starting for two more weeks and my husband barely looking at me because he’s so mad at me for I don’t know what, it’s all too much. It’s all too fucking much.”

  I start to say something, but Katherine continues.

  “The worst part of it all is what I’ve apparently done to all those women out there. I just read an article by Dr. Elaine Ireland and she basically ripped me apart. Apparently I’ve done some awful thing by allowing women to think that you can have it all. To think that you can have this perfect fucking life where everyone is happy. Where you work all day at your perfect, everything’s-under-control job and then you come home and make this delicious dinner and your husband is so happy to see you and your kids are so happy to see you and you haven’t missed anything and no one feels neglected. Apparently that’s a load of crap, Lucy. It’s a goddamn load of crap. And, the worst part, the most pathetic part, is that I’m thinking that maybe, possibly, Dr. Elaine Ireland might be right. I had always thought all those unbalanced women were lazy or stuck or just couldn’t get their shit together. But no. They were just too damn busy and they had no chance in hell of balancing it all. And now because they put me on TV and on magazines, me, making it all look so easy and attainable, all these women think they should be able to do all that, too. And I guess they can�
�t. No one can. Well, some people can but either they don’t have that much to do at work. Or their husbands don’t need to get laid. Or their kids are too little to notice. Or they don’t care that their baby is calling their nanny “Mama.”

  “Katherine—” I say.

  “But, here’s the thing, Lucy. I would never have written all that or said all that stuff on TV if it hadn’t been true. It was true. I did feel balanced. I felt amazing. And, you know what, I’m going to get back to amazing. I have to stick it out a bit, and I’ll get back to balance. I absolutely believe that I will get back to balance.”

  Katherine lowers her head onto her desks and cries.

  After a couple minutes of sitting there, letting her cry, watching the e-mails pile up in her inbox, and ignoring the phones, I work up the courage to ask Katherine what I’ve been wondering for a few days.

  “Why don’t you come clean?” I ask.

  “What?” she asks muffled and sniffly.

  “Why don’t you go back on Today and tell them it was all a big mistake. That you realize now you can’t really have it all?” I think about what my mom’s neighbor Grace told me on Sunday night and I’m kind of surprised, though not really, that she was right.

  “Seriously, Lucy? Are you serious?” Katherine asks, appalled.

  “Yeah, why?” I ask.

  “Because you can’t do that. You can’t sell hundreds of thousands of copies of a book and go on the Today show and then tell them it was all a mistake. There are so many people whose jobs are invested in my being this Darling of Balance, or whatever ridiculous thing Matt Lauer called me. Brooke, the publishers, even Green Goddess. They’re all benefiting from this public persona of mine that I’m balanced, that I have it all, that I’m some perfect specimen of a woman.” Katherine grabs a handful of tissues and holds them all up to her face at once. Her eyes are so red, and I feel so badly for her. “I’m way too far down this road to come clean, Lucy. It would be impossible at this point for me to blow the cover off myself.”