The War Council

by Ann Shepphird

  When I wasn’t working odd jobs, I was working on my studies—gotta get good grades to get into the good schools—or playing on the tennis team (which looked good on college applications). Of course, when it came to going to college, I went to the local school: UC Irvine. I mean, why spend money on things such as dorms and food when there was a perfectly good university 15 minutes from home?

  I majored in computer science. Good practical major. The computer business was booming, so why not jump on the bandwagon (my Dad’s thoughts)? It wasn’t even that bad. I enjoyed working with computers. They didn’t talk back or tell me what to do. And it’s not that I want to paint this picture of a deprived youth. To tell the truth, I didn’t really have any ideas of my own, so I just went along with what my folks wanted.

  I met Tina my senior year of college. She was gorgeous. She was in the theater department, and I thought she was so exotic—mostly because she was doing something SO impractical. I mean, what does one DO with a theater major? Tina had started out in acting but was turned off by all the artsy-fartsies (her word) constantly trying to outdo each other. She didn’t have that kind of personality. Tina was more, well, like me. Middle class suburbanite. You know the type—she’s the homecoming queen and everybody tells her she’s gorgeous, so she decides to act. It wasn’t really in her blood, though. By her senior year, she had gotten into doing the costumes. That was something she could relate to as she loved clothes. The funny thing is that she couldn’t draw, so she would use these paper dolls to do the costume renderings. She was clever and she was beautiful.

  I met Tina in the computer lab. That was my part-time job on campus, and Tina had decided she needed to learn more programs on the computer. She was that type. “It seems to me that it will be beneficial to learn how to use these machines.” She was so theatrical. And yet practical. Practically theatric. Everything was an event.

  And yeah, okay, it was her looks that first attracted me. Tina was incredibly petite but well built if you know what I mean. She would wear these very tight low-cut tops and what I learned later was a very advanced-for-its-time push-up bra. I would catch a glimpse of her cleavage as I leaned over to show her something on the keyboard and would get woozy every time. I mean, come on! I was the guy who was always either working or in the computer lab—boobs were a big big deal.

  After a couple sessions in the lab, we began to talk about ourselves. I told her about all my plans—about how I was going to start my own computer business and make a ton of money. My dad and I had already talked about starting a business to provide computer software for dentists’ offices. There’d been some crappy programs, but the dental field was a niche that really hadn’t been well served, and we had high hopes for its success.

  So anyway, I told Tina my plans, and she seemed to get more and more interested in me. Like I said, she was pretty practical for a theater major. So, with my lust for her body and her lust for my perceived future success, we became a couple.

  By the time I was 27, we had been dating for more than five years. We (well, she) began talking marriage. It seemed to be the thing to do. I got the ultimatum and, since I had done everything else that was expected of me, it felt pretty natural to become engaged. So, we did. It was expected. My family loved Tina. We would get married and move into the development where my parents lived. By then, the business was really beginning to take off, so my life would be set. Or so I thought.

  The summer of my 27th year, two major events changed my life. My father died. He was 55. It was one of those stories you always hear about. He was playing squash with his partner when he had a brain aneurysm and just fell dead on the court—55 fucking years old. He had been working since he was 15. His whole life.

  My dad had recently told me that he was going to retire. That he could sell half the dental practice to a young associate and live off what we were making from the software company. He would finally get to enjoy life. He was building a boat—puttered in his garage every weekend on the damn thing. He wanted to sail around the world. My dad read The Sea Wolf when he was a kid and always had this dream of sailing around the world like Jack London. He was finally going to get to live his dream when he dropped dead on a squash court in Irvine, California.

  The second event was the success of my company. It was already turning a profit, and we were getting numerous requests from dentists around the country for our software product. We were growing. Two months after my father’s death, the offer came. A big software conglomerate wanted to buy my company. They offered me $20 million. $20 million. It wasn’t humongous bucks by any means, but it was a nice sum of money. If I gave half to my mother, invested the rest of it carefully and didn’t spend like an idiot, I could live off it for the rest of my life.

  My life. Suddenly I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my life. The man I had tried so desperately hard to please had just died. The money I wanted so desperately to earn had suddenly been offered to me on a silver platter. What were my options? Marry Tina? Buy a big house and live in the suburbs in a lifestyle that would force me to work the rest of my life so I could die at 55? Or maybe, just maybe, I could really live. I had never been out of the United States. I had never been free. Something just clicked inside me. I didn’t want a lifetime of work. I didn’t want the suburbs. And I didn’t want Tina.

  To say she was upset would be an understatement. This was a woman who had been a theater major, you will recall. Her temper tantrum will go down in the history books. Or the Academy Awards. Whatever, it was a doozy. Then, when that didn’t work, she groveled. She begged me to stay and marry her. The more she pushed, the more I couldn’t wait to get away. It was so sad, and I felt so guilty. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be with her, it was that I didn’t want to be with anybody. I wanted to float. I wanted to go and do things. To travel. To learn things that weren’t practical. To meet new people and talk about things other than flash drives and dental charts. I wanted exotic.

  I wished there had been room in my plans for Tina, but there just wasn’t. I needed to do this on my own. To explore. I told her I wasn’t sure if I would be back or not. I wanted to be honest with her. I didn’t want the guilt of her waiting for me. I also didn’t want her to think that I would be faithful—because one of the things I wanted to explore was the world of women.

  Three continents, four colleges, and five girlfriends later, I was at Berkeley majoring in French Literature. Still a rather logical (if not practical) fellow, I had decided to combine the learning of impractical subjects with my desire to travel. I knew myself. After a lifetime of structure, totally unstructured travel would be a jolt to my system. I also felt like I’d missed out on what college really offered—the chance to acquire knowledge you will never use in “real life.” So, I studied Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin, which took me to Egypt; Music History at Indiana, which took me to Austria; Latin American Studies at UCLA, which took me to Uruguay and Brazil; and Art History at NYU, which took me to the wilds of New York City.

  Each of these experiences brought with them an exciting, fascinating woman. New York brought two—I don’t know what it is about New York City, but the relationships seem to have a shorter life span. I’m definitely a sequential monogamist, so they were all steady girlfriends for their time. And, when my program ended at each college, the leaving got easier—and harder. Although I cared for each of these women, I didn’t really want to share the rest of my life with any one of them. That made it easier to do the actual breakup thing. What was harder was the feeling I got after leaving. It was a sad sort of melancholy that came out of the fact that I didn’t want to share the rest of my life with any of these women. Why not? Like I said, they were all fascinating, exciting women, and I wasn’t getting any younger.

  Was it me? Was it timing? Was it them? I remember one of my girlfriends—one of the New York girlfriends—putting a book on my doorstep about something called commitment-phobia. I had never heard
of such a thing. It troubled me. For about two weeks. The feeling then passed as I began tackling the challenges that a new school brought.

  And then there was Maggie. All my explorations of women had not prepared me for how I was feeling about this woman that I barely knew. I had to figure out a way to get to know her better. And then it hit me: The War Council.

  “What?”

  I realized I’d said it out loud. I must admit that, in my reverie, I had forgotten that Kathy was still there—pouting into her latte.

  “The War Council,” I repeated.

  “What about it?”

  “It’s perfect.”

  She groaned. I continued, “No, listen. You want to prove the War Council wrong, right?”

  “Right.”

  “To prove that there are two sides to every relationship.”

  “Right.”

  “And that love isn’t logical.”

  “So…?”

  “So, how about if we turn the War Council around on Maggie—without letting her know, of course.”

  A sly smile crept onto Kathy’s face. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that I would like to hire the War Council to get to know Maggie better.”

  For the first time that day, I saw Kathy really smile. It was one a big, broad “damn, it’s good to be alive” kind of smile. I returned the smile. She nodded. I nodded.

  And thus, the anti-War Council War Council conspiracy was born over two double lattes at the Café Strada.

  Chapter Six

  MAGGIE

  I had a mutiny on my hands. Okay, maybe not a real mutiny but definitely some dissension in the ranks. They were all still eager to be a part of the War Council idea. They just couldn’t agree on what the War Council’s goals or tactics should include. Hey, it was my War Council. I knew what the goals and tactics were. What was wrong with these people?

  I had assembled them all in our new office. It wasn’t really an office as much as one of the rooms reserved for faculty experiments at the university. Right now, we just had four empty walls and some chairs. But there was potential. I had requisitioned the office space for the War Council when I first came up with the idea. I wrote in the required prospectus that I was doing an experiment on group dynamics in the business environment. Okay, so I lied. Not really, though. I mean, we were running the War Council as an experiment, right? And it was potentially lucrative so that filled the business part. Plus, we were a group, am I right?

  In any case, I had my office. I had my troops. I had my troops in my office. And they were arguing. This was not going as expected. After (I will admit) some initial defensiveness, I decided to sit back and see what they had to say. I was going to try not to control where they wanted to take my baby. I mean, I did pick them for their disparate views, right? They could only add to what I had already formulated. So, I sat back and listened.

  Mike was the first to speak. “I think this idea of coercing people into marriage is a bit limited.”

  Kathy agreed. “Yes. We could help people get to know each other. For instance, if someone has, say, seen or met someone briefly that they are interested in, the War Council could help them initiate the relationship.”

  Mike nodded. “Or get them laid.”

  Monique snorted. “Oh, please.”

  “What?”

  “Perpetuating the stereotype a bit, aren’t we?”

  “Hey, I am just giving you my perspective. That’s why I’m here, right? Well, women want commitment. I’m just saying that men don’t want that. We just want to get laid.”

  “That is the biggest load of sexist drivel I have heard.”

  “What?”

  “That women’s sole desire is for marriage while men’s is for sex.”

  “Well…” said Mike.

  “Nonsense,” said Monique.

  “Okay, then what do you think?”

  “I think there are women who just want a piece of ass…”

  Everybody’s eyebrows shot up. The gathering was definitely perking up.

  “…and I think there are men who want to coerce women into marriage.”

  “Why would a man want marriage when he can get it for free?”

  “Oh, please. Men obtain much more from marriage than women do,” said Monique.

  “Like what?”

  “Like free labor. Women work equivalent daily schedules outside the home and yet continue to perform most of the household chores.”

  “As well they should,” said Mike with a smile.

  Before chairs started to fly, I decided to stick my two cents in. “Listen, when I came up with the idea, I decided that it would not be gender specific. A man might want to help his partner commit as much as any woman.”

  Kathy piped in. “Well, then what about helping people—of both sexes—get, for lack of a better word, laid? I don’t think it’s wrong to open it up a bit.”

  “Well, sure,” I said, going with the flow. “Any other suggestions?”

  “I’m kind of curious as to how people will pay for these services,” said Hallie, always practical. “I mean, would helping someone get laid cost the same as helping someone coerce their partner into commitment?”

  “What about trying to do some real good here?” suggested Randy, who had been silent up until this point. “I mean, what about helping a troubled marriage? Or helping people to understand the underlying problems within their relationship? We might actually save some couples from the trauma of breaking up—especially when there are children involved.”

  Sweet Randy. Sweet, idealistic, misinformed Randy. What a sap. He only knew from old movies where everyone was happily ever after at the end.

  Everyone took a moment to give him a look and then started in with their own ideas. We finally decided that everyone could be accommodated, and that Hallie would make up a price chart for the different services we would provide. We did draw the line at helping people cheat, even though there are even apps for that these days. Too cynical—even for me.

  Until we had our first client, that was the best we could do. We adjourned and the next day I placed an ad on the campus website:

  Love life on the skids?

  Trouble meeting the One?

  Problems getting your partner

  to live up to your expectations?

  You want marriage and your partner wants “space”?

  Hire the War Council. In the battle of the sexes, we’re all the artillery you need.

  I only had to adapt the ad a bit from my original concept. The naysayers—well, Kathy—suggested that no one would answer the ad. We had agreed that if that happened (but I knew it wouldn’t), we would do a freebie for publicity. Hallie pointed out that the best marketing would probably come from word of mouth, and we might need to achieve some success with the Council’s tactics before we could count on a continual flow of customers. Whatever. I mean, please, who wouldn’t want to hire the War Council? It was such a great idea. There was such great need. It was just so damn logical.

  I was on such a high after placing the ad in the Daily Cal’s advertising office that I didn’t even notice that Nick guy was standing just outside in the quad. I practically ran right into him. What a coincidence, huh? Well, not such a coincidence, I suppose, as the quad is where everyone congregates between classes, and he was a student, after all.

  He smiled that twinkling smile. I suppose he wasn’t so bad.

  “Well, hi, Maggie,” he said. “I think this is the first time I have seen you on campus.”

  “I guess that’s right.” I did kind of wonder why Nick always seemed like such a knucklehead around me. I mean, here was a guy with five degrees, and he could barely finish a sentence.

  “So, uh, where are you headed?” he asked.

  “Back to my office in Sproul Hall.”


  “How about that? I’m headed in the same direction. Mind if I join you?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Great.”

  “Yeah, great.” Like I said, total knucklehead. And he had that “gosh, gee, golly” kind of look. Uh oh. I knew that look. It’s the same look I used to get when I was first getting to know Bill.

  Like I mentioned, I fell in love late in life. I was 24—almost 25—and going through an identity crisis. Up until that point, everything in my life had been academically oriented. School had always come really easy for me. I mean, it was just so damn logical. Logic and ego. Let’s face it, professors are basically egotistical creatures, so if you appealed to their ego through logic… need I say more?

  I whizzed through undergrad in three years. Piece of cake. By my sophomore year, I had even developed a system for taking exams that was working quite well. I later sold it to the Cal basketball team (before their most successful season, I might add).

  I then finished my master’s in one year. That was an even bigger piece of cake. I had completed the coursework for my doctorate when I burned out. I was almost 25 and hadn’t done anything but deal with this little world my whole life. I began to feel so limited. The “ivory tower,” a colleague of mine used to call it. It was, and I felt trapped inside it. I wasn’t sure I wanted to continue living in that tower and finish my doctorate or what it was I did want to do with my life.

  My doctoral advisor said I should take a year off. Get my academic spirit back. They use corny phrases like that—academic spirit? Please.

  I decided to take a job that was completely mindless, so I worked in a local café-bookstore. For some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to actually leave Berkeley. It had been home for too many years, and besides, this was just a break, right? So, I stayed. But I did stay away from campus and worked and, well, mostly I just kind of loafed.