“I believe you, Kelly, but now that you’re creative director you should probably stop pleading with people to believe you.”
“You’re right. I’ve got to work on that. I’ll email you the video.”
“Thank you.”
“And Alice?”
“Uh-huh?”
“Please don’t hate me.”
“Kelly.”
“What?”
“You’re doing it again.”
“Right, right! I’m sorry. I wasn’t prepared for this promotion. It’s what I always dreamed about but I didn’t think it would happen so abruptly. Between you and me, I feel like such a fake. I don’t know what to say. I should go now. I’m really not a bad person. I like you so much, Alice. Please don’t hate me. Oh-Christ, goodbye.”
15
From: Wife 22 ‹[email protected]›
Subject: New Questions?
Date: May 15, 6:30 AM
To: researcher101 ‹[email protected]›
Researcher 101,
Is the new set of questions coming soon? I don’t want to rush you or anything, and you probably have some timetable of when you send the questions out, but I seem to have a lot of anxiety these days and answering the questions calms me down. There’s almost a meditative aspect to it. Like confession. Have any other subjects reported feeling this way?
All the best,
Wife 22
From: researcher101 ‹[email protected]›
Subject: Re: New Questions?
Date: May 15, 7:31 AM
To: Wife 22 ‹[email protected]›
Wife 22,
That’s very interesting. I haven’t heard quite that response before, but we have heard similar sentiments along the same line. Once a subject described answering the questions as “an unburdening.” I believe the anonymity has a lot to do with it. You can expect the next set of questions by the end of the week.
Best,
Researcher 101
From: Wife 22 ‹[email protected]›
Subject: Re: New Questions?
Date: May 15, 7:35 AM
To: researcher101 ‹[email protected]›
I think you’re right. Who knew anonymity could be so liberating?
16
Voicemail: You Have One New Message
Alice! Alice, my dear. It’s Bunny Kilborn from Blue Hill. It’s been a very long time. I hope you’ve been getting my Christmas cards. I think of you so often. How are you and William? The children? Is Zoe off to college yet? She must be close. Maybe you’ll send her back east. Look. I’ll get straight to it. I have a favor to ask. Remember our youngest, Caroline? Well, she’s moving to the Bay Area and I’m wondering if you’d be willing to help her out a bit? Show her around? She’s looking for a job in IT. Maybe you even have some contacts in the tech world? She’ll need to find a place to live, a roommate sort of situation, and, of course, a job, but it would be so nice to know she’s not completely on her own out there. Besides, you two would hit it off. So how are you otherwise? Still teaching drama? Dare I ask if you ever write plays anymore? I know The Barmaid of Great Cranberry Island really took the wind out of your sails, but- I’m on the phone. Jack, I’m ON THE PHONE! Sorry, Alice, have to run, let me know if-
Mailbox Full
Now there’s a voice from my past. Bunny Kilborn: the renowned founder and artistic director of the Blue Hill Theater in Maine; winner of three Obies, two Guggenheims, and a Bessie Award. She’s directed everything from Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire to Harold Pinter’s The Homecoming, and in the late nineties, Alice Buckle’s The Barmaid of Great Cranberry Island. No, I’m not saying I was in the same league as Williams and Pinter. I entered a contest for emerging playwrights and ending up winning first prize, which was the mounting of my play at the Blue Hill Theater. Everything I had been working for had led to that moment and that win. It felt-well, it felt like destiny.
I had always been a theater rat. I started acting in middle school and then in high school attempted writing my first play. It was horrible, of course (heavily influenced by David Mamet, who to this day is still my favorite playwright, although I can’t abide his politics), but I wrote another play and then another and another, and with each play I found my voice a little more.
In college, three of my plays were produced. I became one of the theater department’s stars. When I graduated, I took a day job in advertising, which left my nights free to write. When I was twenty-nine I finally got my big break-and I flopped. It’s an understatement when Bunny says the play took the wind out of my sails. The reviews were so bad I never wrote another play again.
There was one good review from the Portland Press Herald. I can still recite passages by heart: “emotionally generous,” “a thought-provoking coming-of-age story, the effect of which is like mainlining Springsteen’s ‘Jungleland.’ ” But I can also recite passages from all the other reviews, which were consistently negative: “fails miserably,” “clichéd and contrived,” “amateurish,” and “Act 3? Put us out of our misery already!” The play closed within two weeks.
Bunny made an effort to keep in touch with me all these years, but I didn’t reciprocate much. I was too ashamed. I had embarrassed Bunny and her company, as well as blown my one big chance.
Bunny’s call has to be more than serendipity. I want to be connected to her; to have her in my life again in some way.
I pick up the phone and nervously dial her number. It rings twice.
“Hello?”
“Bunny-Bunny is that you?”
There’s a pause, then…
“Oh, Alice, love. I hoped you would call.”
17
It’s taken me a few days to work up the nerve to look at the KKM video. It occurs to me as I sit in front of my laptop, finger about to click the Play arrow, that I am crossing a line. My heart is thrumming in the same way it did when I called Kelly, which, come to think of it, was the real moment I crossed the line-when I started acting like William’s mother instead of his wife. If my heart knew Morse code and could tap out a message, it would be saying Alice, you spying nosy parker, delete this file right now!, but I don’t know Morse code, so I just tuck those thoughts away and click Play.
The camera pans in on a table at which two men and two women are seated.
“One sec,” says Kelly Cho. The table becomes blurry, then snaps into focus again. “Ready.”
“Cialis,” says William. “Elliot Ritter, fifty-six; Avi Schine, twenty-four; Melinda Carver, twenty-three; Sonja Popovich, forty-seven. Thank you all for coming. So you screened the commercial, right? What did you think?”
“I don’t get it. Why are they sitting in separate bathtubs if the dude has a four-hour erection?” asks Avi.
“He doesn’t have a four-hour erection. If he had a four-hour erection he’d be in an ambulance on the way to the hospital. The precautions have to be clearly stated in the commercial,” says William.
Melinda and Avi exchange a lusty look. Under the table, her hand seeks out his thigh and squeezes it.
“Are you a couple?” asks William. “Are they a couple?” he whispers under his breath.
“They didn’t say they were a couple,” says Kelly.
William must be wearing an earpiece and Kelly must be in the room with the one-way mirror, watching and listening.
“Yeah, well, how did the tubs get on the mountain?” asks Avi. “And who carried them up there? That’s what I want to know.”
“It’s called willing suspension of disbelief. I like the tubs,” says Elliot. “My wife likes the tubs.”
“Can you tell me why, Elliot?” asks William.
“Some of those other ads are so crude,” says Elliot.
“It’s better than the one of the man throwing the football or the one with the train. Please. It’s insulting. A vagina is not a tire swing. Or a tunnel. Well, maybe a tunnel,” says Melinda.
“She would prefer I didn’t have ED,” says Elliot, “but since I’m challenged in that department, yes, she finds the bathtub commercials more palatable than the others.”
“Sonja, we haven’t heard from you yet. What do you think about the commercial?” asks William.
Sonja shrugs.
“Okay, that’s all right. I’ll circle back to you,” says William. “So, Cialis, Avi. You’re twenty-four and you’re a user. Why?”
“May I suggest you don’t refer to him as a ‘user’?” says Kelly.
Avi looks at Melinda and she smiles shyly. “Why not?” he says.
“Do you have problems with ED?”
“You mean down there.” Avi points at his crotch.
“Yes,” sighs William.
“Dude. Do I look like I have problems? It just makes it better.”
“Dude. Care to elaborate?” says William.
Avi shrugs, clearly unwilling to share the details.
“Okay, well, how many times a week do you have sex?”
“How many times a day,” corrects Melinda. “Two. Sometimes three if it’s the weekend. But definitely two.”
William can’t keep the skepticism out of his voice. “Really,” he says. “Three times a day?”
Elliot looks flabbergasted. Sonja looks dead. I feel slightly nauseous.
“Draw him out, don’t challenge him,” suggests Kelly. “We need details.”
This doesn’t sound crazy to me. When we were in our twenties, William and I sometimes had sex three times a day. On President’s Day. And Yom Kippur.
“Yeah, man, three times a day,” says Avi, looking irritated. “Why would we lie? You’re paying us to tell you the truth.”
“Fine. So how many times a week do you take Cialis?”
“Once a week. Usually on Friday afternoons.”
“Why Cialis and not Viagra?”
“Four hours. Thirty-six hours. You do the math.”
“How did you get the prescription?” asks William.
“Told my doctor I was having problems. Down there.”
“And he believed you?”
Avi rocks back in his chair. “Dude, what is wrong with you?”
William pauses and falls back on a stock question. “If Melinda were a car, what kind of a car would she be?”
Something is really off with William. His voice doesn’t even sound like him.
Avi says nothing, just stares at the camera confrontationally.
“Back off,” says Kelly. “You’re losing him.”
“Come on. Let me guess,” says William. “A Prius. But a fully loaded Prius. Fifty-one miles to the gallon. A smart key system. Bluetooth and seats that fold flat.”
“William,” warns Kelly.
“So you can fuck Melinda three times a day.”
Everybody is shocked into silence. Kelly bursts into the room.
“O-kay. Let’s take a break!” she shouts. “Complimentary sodas and cookies out in the hallway.” The camera abruptly shuts off, and then a second later pans in on the now empty table.
“I can’t believe you said ‘fuck,’ ” says Kelly.
“He’s a fuck,” says William.
“It doesn’t matter. He’s the customer.”
“Yes, and we’re paying him to be the customer. Besides, twenty-something males are not our target demographic.”
“Wrong. Males twenty to thirty-five account for thirty-six percent of all new users. Maybe I should moderate.”
“No, I’ll do it. Bring them back in.”
The men and women file back into the room, Cokes and Diet Cokes in hand.
“Elliot, how many times a month do you have sex?” asks William.
“With or without Cialis?”
“Take your pick.”
“Without, none. With, once a week.”
“So would it be fair to say Cialis has improved your sex life?”
“Yes.”
“And would you have tried it if you didn’t have ED?”
Elliot looks bewildered. “Why would I do that?”
“Well, like Avi here. Would you use it recreationally?”
“Croquet is recreation. Mini-golf is recreation. Making love is not recreation. Love isn’t some bottomless Slurpee that magically fills itself up. You have to do the filling up yourself. That’s the secret to marriage.”
“Yeah man, drive through your wife’s 7-Eleven. Get your Slurpee on,” says Avi.
Elliot shoots Avi a dirty look. “It’s called making love for a reason.”
Avi rolls his eyes.
“I think that’s cute,” says Melinda. “Why don’t we make love?”
“Get back to Sonja,” says Kelly.
Sonja Popovich looks deflated, like she forgot to take her meds. Forty-seven. She’s three years older than me. She definitely looks older. No, she looks younger. No, I look younger. I play this game all the time. Honestly, I’m incapable of judging anyone’s age anymore.
“Can I smoke in here?” asks Sonja.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. Some sort of an alarm would probably go off,” says William.
Sonja smiles. “I’m not really a smoker. Only occasionally.”
“Me, too,” says William.
Since when did William become an occasional smoker?
“So are you here because of your husband’s ED?”
“No, I’m here because of my ED.”
“Nod,” says Kelly.
“I hate those Cialis commercials. And Viagra. And Levitra.”
“Why?”
“When your husband comes home and says, ‘Hey, honey, great news, we can have sex for thirty-six hours straight,’ believe me, it is not cause for celebration.”
“Well, Cialis is not about having sex for thirty-six hours, it’s about enhanced blood flow to-” says William.
“Thirty-six seconds, now then you’d have a winner.”
“Seriously?” says Avi.
“Yes, seriously,” says Sonja. Her face crumples. A big, fat tear rolls down her cheek.
“That’s sad,” says William.
“Don’t say that,” hisses Kelly.
“Thirty-six seconds. I’m sorry, but that’s very sad,” says William. “For your husband, I mean. Sounds like it’s good for you.”
“Oh, Christ,” says Kelly.
Sonja is weeping now.
“Can someone get her some Kleenex? Take your time,” William says. “I wasn’t trying to make you feel bad. Your answer just surprised me.”
“It surprises me, too. Don’t you think I’m surprised? I don’t know what happened,” she says, dabbing her eyes. “I used to love sex. I mean really, really love it. But now the whole thing seems, well, it just seems so silly. Whenever we have sex I feel like an alien watching us having sex thinking, ‘Ah, so this is how lower life-forms that only use ten percent of their brain matter procreate. How strange! How messy! How brutish! Look at the ugly faces they make. And all the sounds-the slapping, the flapping, the suction.’ ”
“We can’t use this. Wrap it up,” says Kelly. “Change the subject. Ask her what she thinks about the tubs.”
“How often do you have sex?” William asks.
Sonja looks up at him with a tear-stained face and says nothing.
“How often would you like to have sex?”
“Never.”
“This is not a therapy session,” says Kelly. “It’s a focus group for the client. This woman is not our target market. Cut her loose.”
“Do you wish you felt differently?”
Sonja nods.
“If you felt differently, how often would you like to have sex? How many times a year?” asks William.
“Twenty-four?” she says.
“Twenty-four. Twice a month?”
“Yeah, twice a month sounds good. That sounds normal to me. Do you think so? Do you think that’s normal?”
> “Normal? Well, that’s one more time a month than I’m having it,” says William.
“That’s it. Shut it down,” says Kelly.
I gasp. Did my husband just announce to the entire focus group and his team the frequency with which we have sex?
“My wife and I pretend we have sex every week, just like most other married couples we know who are really only having sex once a month,” says William.
“I’m shutting the camera off,” warns Kelly.
“I wouldn’t call our marriage sexless,” William continues. “Sexless would mean sex once every six months, or once a year. It’s just the moment used to be right more often than not,” says William.
“I’m very sorry to hear that,” says Elliot.
“Tell me that’s not going to be us in twenty years!” says Melinda.
“Never,” says Avi. “That will never happen to us, babe.”
“Anytime the moment is right. It’s the anytime that really gets me. That’s not freedom. Not for the woman, anyway. It’s a threat,” says Sonja. “It’s an erection Code Orange.”
“Can I ask you one more question?” asks William.
“Go ahead,” says Sonja.
“Do you think most women your age feel this way?”
Sonja sniffs. “Yes.”
I press Pause on the video and rest my head on my desk, wishing I could rewind the last ten minutes of my life. Why, oh why, oh why did I watch that? I feel ashamed for going behind William’s back, angry at the brash and unprofessional way he conducted himself (the cardinal rule of conducting focus groups: never, never share personal information), humiliated that he publicly outed us as having a sexless marriage (not true, we have sex once a week-okay, once every two or three weeks-okay, maybe sometimes it stretches to once a month), worried that he is on some sort of new medication that he hasn’t told me about, afraid that medication is Cialis and soon he’ll be telling me that thanks to modern medicine we now have a thirty-six-hour window in which I will be expected to have sex at least three times a day, but the strongest feeling is grief, because I saw parts of myself in both women. The desire-to-inhale-the-very-air-her-boyfriend-breathes Melinda. And the moment-is-rarely-right Sonja. They were-are-both me.
Wife 22 Page 5
