The Night I Got Lucky

My mother was another. I loved the woman so much. She had raised three girls on her own, for years taking in stride the ridicule of a small Illinois town that gleefully watched as her rich husband escaped to the glitz of the west coast; a town that somehow enjoyed the carnage my father left in his wake. Much later, she finally moved to another suburb and found some peace with Jan, but he’d suffered a stroke while standing at the barbeque on a warm September day. Now she was alone again. Alone, and way too invested in my life. She needed one of her own.

On the other end of the parental spectrum was my father. I’d never gotten over him leaving. At seven, I was the youngest, and for some reason I’d always assumed it was his disappointment in me that had pushed him to flee. I wanted desperately to get over that notion. To be done with him.

My husband was the remaining piece of the anger puzzle. My clichéd attempts at seduction were too painful to recount—feel free to insert stereotypical woman wearing lingerie waiting with cold dinner image—and so I’d given up trying to entice him, trying to figure out what was wrong with him. With us. With me. We were roommates now. Roommates who occasionally, very occasionally, scratched an itch.

When I was in one of these black moods, there were two things that would help—throwing myself into work or hitting a bar and seeing some good, loud live music. The Hello Dave show was coming up, but Chris didn’t like seeing bands as much as I did, and we’d committed long ago to visiting my mom. I hated to disappoint her. So work would have to be it.

I went and spoke to Roslyn about my press release. When I came back, I opened the computer file that read Odette Lamden. Odette was a local chef who occasionally went on the news shows as their cooking expert. Odette’s restaurant, Comfort Food, was one of my favorites, because it served just that—comfort food, stuff like mac and cheese (with four cheeses), overly buttered mashed potatoes, bread pudding, gooey with caramel, and fudge sundaes as big as your head. I’d met Odette on a TV set one day when I’d gone to visit a publicist who’d enlisted us to handle extra work. Two days later, Odette hired me, or I should say hired Harper Frankwell, to publicize her cookbook, also called Comfort Food. Her own publisher had done little to promote it, and she wanted to get the word out there. It was the type of client I loved—someone who needed help with a product I truly liked.

But Roslyn had been less than thrilled. “It’s not even ten thousand dollars worth of work,” she’d said, scrunching her mouth disapprovingly. This was Roslyn’s main complaint with me, and why she asserted I wasn’t ready for a vice presidency—I wasn’t pulling in any big fish, and I was wasting the firm’s time on the small stuff. “It could turn into something big,” I said.

“Doubtful,” Roslyn answered.

“I think we owe it to the community to help certain people once in a while. People who can’t afford big campaigns.”

“We owe it to this company to make money, don’t we?” Roslyn looked down at her desk, my cue to leave.

I understood her protests, but I believed in the smaller clients I brought in. There was something rewarding about helping shed a little media light on products and people you believed in. And Odette and I had such fun working on her cookbook. I’d stop by the restaurant after she closed early on Sunday nights, and we’d huddle in her colorful office, eating leftovers and brainstorming about how to get her on Oprah. Odette, a forty-five-year-old black woman, whose family originally hailed from New Orleans, had become a friend as well as a client during this process. I wanted to get her book the best possible PR, no matter what Roslyn said.

But I wouldn’t think about Roslyn now. I wanted to work on a press release for Comfort Food, one that would land Odette interviews with newspapers and spots on radio shows. I started writing. Sick of the Atkins Diet? How about the South Beach Diet? Tired of eating boiled chicken breasts and dressing-less salad? Renowned Chicago chef, Odette Lambden, owner of the acclaimed restaurant, Comfort Food, introduces a cookbook to soothe us all.

Once I’d begun, I barely noticed the beige walls of my cubicle that had seemed tighter and more constricting lately. I ignored the ring of my phone, the beep from the bottom of the computer announcing an instant message. Instead, I tapped away at the keyboard, waxing poetic about Odette’s book. I reread sentences, mulled over words and dialed up certain sections. This was what I loved about my job—generating excitement about a product or person, the imaginative use of words to reflect a given tone. The ability to create.

I was just rereading the press release for grammatical errors, feeling pleased with myself, content with my job, when Alexa appeared, leaning on the frame of my cube.

“Hey, Billy,” she said. Alexa always said, “hey,” never “hello” or “hi.” She looked like a prep school princess, but she didn’t always talk like one.

Alexa was one of those timeless women who could have passed for any age between twenty and thirty. Although I assumed she was twenty-seven or so, about five years younger than me, she possessed a haughtiness and a coolness that made her seem older. I supposed it was this confidence that had swept Alexa through the ranks at Harper Frankwell; unfortunately, with her cutthroat attitude and with her nipping on my heels, I couldn’t appreciate it. My fear was that she would make vice president before I did, causing me to die of shame and jealousy.

My contented mood waned. “Hey,” I said back, drawing out the word.

Alexa gave me her patented you-are-such-a-fool smirk. “What are you going to do about the stud finder headlines?”

“What am I going to do?” This was a team project, after all, and she was on the damned team.

“Well, Roslyn seemed to want you to handle it, so I just want to respect that and ask you where you’re going to start.” She smirked again.

“It’s supposed to be a team thing, Alexa. And let’s make sure we take credit for our work, okay?”

I usually got along great with other women, but since the day Alexa had started, wearing her black cashmere twinsets and high, patent leather pumps, she had irked me. Her arrogant condescension got old quick. I’d tried to show her who was boss, so to speak, but I wasn’t really her boss—just ahead of her in the food chain—and Alexa couldn’t be shamed into submission. If anything the pressure made her more confident. If I had liked her even a little, I might have grudgingly approved of her don’t-mess-with-me attitude.

“Oh, I’m not suggesting that you handle this project on your own,” she said, laughing a little. “God, no.”

See what I mean?

“What then?” I said, my voice flattening.

“Well…” She trailed off and crossed her arms. She was wearing the sleeveless part of one of her usual black cashmere twinsets. Since it was May, the cardigan would be thrown over her chair, waiting for the moment when the booming air-conditioning system kicked in, but meanwhile her movements showed off lean, sculpted arms. Alexa and I were around the same height—five-four—and we were both relatively thin, but her body was more toned, her skin more smooth, her black hair as shiny and pencil straight as my sisters’.

“I know this project is important for you, Billy,” she said, the condescension as thick as fog.

I crossed my arms now. “What do you mean?”

She laughed again. I was beginning to think that if she laughed once more, I might launch Odette’s cookbook at her head.

“Well, you know,” she said coyly. “You’re not getting any younger and you’re certainly not getting promoted…” She shrugged.

And you’re not getting any cuter and you’re not getting married, I wanted to say. Instead, I remained silent, fixing her with a steely stare.

“So anyway,” Alexa went on, “I was thinking, why don’t you try rewriting the headlines, then e-mail them to me, and I’ll go over them for you.”

“You’ll ‘go over them’ for me? That’s so nice of you.”

“I thought so.”

The truth was, I’d rather do the headlines on my own—I actually liked that kind of work. It was the meetings and the busy paperwork I disdained. But I wouldn’t let Alexa get away with a monumental buck-passing.

“Fine,” I said, “but I’d like you to make the media list.” In our world, making the media list—the roll call of different targets for a PR blitz—was a bottom-of-the-barrel job, something an intern usually did.

Alexa let out a little puff of exasperated air and seemed to be ready to protest, but I knew she wouldn’t. She was smarter than that. She had passed off work to me, but she’d have to handle something on this project or Roslyn would figure it out eventually.

“Fine,” Alexa said, mimicking me.

I uncrossed my arms and swung back to my desk. I wished desperately I was a vice president right now. Not for the professional splendor of it all, but because if I was a VP, I would have an office and if I had an office, I would have a door. And if I had a door, I would slam it hard in Alexa’s darling little face.

chapter two

Chris was at our condo when I got there, which was surprising. He’d already gotten his big promotion—partnership at one of the city’s top law firms—but he worked harder now than he did before.

As I dumped my bag on the wood floor of our foyer, I saw that he was working, sitting in front of the computer, which we’d set up on the dining room table. (We rarely had people for dinner anyway, and we usually ate on our own or in front of the TV.)

“Hi, Bill,” he said, when he heard me come inside. He didn’t turn his tall frame from the computer. His big hands kept clacking awkwardly at the keyboard.

“Hello, Marlowe.” Marlowe is Chris’s middle name, after the playwright Christopher Marlowe. His parents, a couple of academics from the University of Chicago, are staunch proponents of the theory that Marlowe was the real author of Shakespeare’s plays.

I patted Chris absently on the shoulder, a pat very similar to the one Evan had given me that day. “I got your flaxseed.”

“Thanks.”

“How was work?” I asked. “What’s going on with that health care merger?”

“Nothing much.”

I ruffled his short brown hair.

And that was about it. That was the extent of our marital affection. Not so different than any other day.

I went into the kitchen and put Chris’s flaxseed oil in the stainless steel fridge. When we’d bought this place shortly before our wedding, we’d filled it with top-of-the-line appliances, gleaming granite countertops and shiny hardwood floors. It was as promising as our relationship. Now, God knows why, the only things luminous were our furnishings.

“I’m going to see Blinda,” I called to Chris.

This made him twist around from the computer. “You’re still seeing her?”

“Yes.”

“I thought you said the therapy wasn’t doing much.”

“It’s not.”

“So—”

“So, I’m giving it a shot.”

He nodded. “Well, that’s good.”

“How about coming with me?”

“Billy, you know…” He turned back to the computer, and I couldn’t hear the rest of his words.

Chris didn’t believe in therapists. He believed, like his parents, that William Shakespeare was a myth, but he didn’t believe in therapists.

Blinda’s office was on LaSalle, only a few blocks from our condo. I’d never noticed the place until one day while I was walking back from the gym. The building was a brick three-flat that appeared to house luxury apartments, like so many on the block, but that day I saw a small black sign with gold letters in the window of the basement unit. Blinda Bright, M.S.W. the sign read. For Appointments Call 312.555.9090.

I’m not sure why I stopped and stared at that sign for as long as I did. It was nearly April, a capricious time in Chicago, and although it had been a lovely sixty degrees the day before, it was in the forties. Despite my optimistically light coat and the fact that I’d begun to shiver, I stood in front of that brick building, staring at the gold lettering and the gold light that glowed from behind the curtains. M.S.W. meant masters in social work, right? So this Blinda person must be some kind of therapist. I committed the number to memory.

I had considered therapy for a while. I knew I was messed up about my father, I knew Chris had pulled away from me after we got married and I knew it was wrong that I coveted my coworker. Over the past few months, I’d collected referrals from friends, and I had five therapists I could try. But it was that sign in the basement window that, for some reason, made me realize now was the time and she was the one I should call.

At the initial appointment with Blinda, I decided to attack one issue at a time. I explained that the main reason I’d come to see her was, as I put it, “to get over the abandonment issues I have with my father.” I thought this sounded rather intellectual and valid. Wasn’t there a reverse Oedipus complex or something? But Blinda didn’t approach it quite like that.

“He just took off, huh?” she said, shaking her head like she was pissed off. I told her what I knew about my father and how he’d left our house one morning and never came back.

“At first he told us that he had business in L.A.,” I said. “He was an importer of goods from Germany, and he had a brother who ran things from overseas.”

“What kind of goods?”

“Tiles, pots, earthenware.”

“Ah.” She sounded disappointed.

“Anyway, he said he had to go to Los Angeles for business, only he never came back. My mom spent lots of money looking for him and trying to enforce child support decrees, but he kept disappearing.”

“Bastard,” Blinda said under her voice.

I blinked a few times, studying her. Where were the sage comments about the father/daughter Oedipus complex or whatever it was?

“Right,” I said. “Well, my mother eventually realized she had spent more money trying to find him than she’d likely ever get from alimony, so finally she just had to make do. Before he left, we had a great house with white columns. I always thought it looked like a wedding cake. We lived in this little town about an hour and a half northwest of Chicago.”

Blinda smiled at the image.

“But she couldn’t afford it anymore, so we moved into an apartment behind the old hospital. My mom had one bedroom and my sisters had another, and they put a cot for me in the half room by the washing machine.”

Blinda nodded for me to continue. I hadn’t talked about this for so long—maybe never—and now I felt like I couldn’t stop. I told her about how we went from being one of the richest families in town to one of the poorest. I told her about how Dustin and Hadley were taunted at school about our deadbeat dad and how they became tough little girls, always getting into fights, coming home to proudly display black eyes and bloody noses. I explained that my mom got a job working as a receptionist at an auto plant, and that Dustin and Hadley had to get scholarships and put themselves through college. I told her about Jan and how it was he who put me through school and who took my mom out of that apartment behind the old hospital, out of that town and into the beautiful house in Barrington where she still lived.

Blinda chuckled at that point, although I didn’t think I’d said anything particularly funny. She caught my inquisitive look. “Sorry,” she said. “It’s just ironic that your father considered himself such a man’s man, enough to give you girls male names, and then your mother marries someone named Jan—a rather womanly sounding name—and he makes her happy again.”

I laughed then, too. I think that’s when I knew for certain that Blinda was going to be different from the therapists I’d heard about.

This was our sixth visit, although I felt in some ways as if I’d been seeing Blinda forever. I knew to hang my sweater on the antique brass rack inside the door. I knew to pour myself a cup of the jasmine-scented tea from the cracked Asian pot on her sideboard. I knew that I could just start talking whenever I wanted, that Blinda was always there with a nod of her blond head or an empathetic cluck of her tongue. I knew the routine, but I didn’t necessarily feel any better for it.

“It’s not that much to ask for,” I said now.

“You want your husband to pay attention to you, is that right?” Blinda asked. I had moved from the topic of my father to my other issues—failing marriage, heartbroken mother with no life of her own, inappropriate crush on Evan, inability to get promoted.

“Well, yeah,” I said. I shifted around on her woolly red and orange love seat that looked like it was purchased in a Marrakech marketplace. On either end sat bamboo tables with lit yellow candles and boxes of recycled tissue. Those boxes were always different, replaced, each time I came. It seemed I was Blinda’s only client who didn’t cry constantly. I was the only angry, irritated one. “Yeah, I want Chris to look at me like he used to when we were dating, but I want more than just that,” I said.

“What else?” She leaned forward, her straight, blond hair swinging. I could not figure out Blinda. She looked like an aging beach bum, someone who would smoke a lot of pot and live in her parents’ basement, and yet hanging on her wall were a plethora of framed diplomas, photos of Hindu Temples and two pictures of her with a robed, bespectacled man who looked very much like the Dalai Lama.

I sighed. I’d told her all this already. “I want to get the vice presidency. I want my mom to get her own life. I want to get over my dad. And I want Evan to want me.”

She raised her eyebrows at that last one.

“Not that I’d do anything with Evan,” I said. “It would just be nice if he had a thing for me.”

“I see,” Blinda said. “Billy, what have you actually done to get these things you desire for yourself?”

“Everything!”

She raised her eyebrows again.

“It’s true! I’ve been campaigning for the VP job forever. I’ve asked Chris to go to therapy with me, but he won’t. I’m talking to you about my mom and dad. I mean, I feel like I’ve been trying.”

“At the risk of repeating myself, I’ll tell you to look inside for your happiness.” She put her hands together in a prayer position and put them against her T-shirt clad chest. On it was written something in French.

I stopped short of rolling my eyes. “I have.”

Blinda studied me. “If you get those things you want, would you be happy then?”

“Yes,” I said without hesitation. “Absolutely.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes. As I said, I don’t think I’m asking for that much.”

She crossed her legs and rearranged her colorful, flowy skirt. “Billy, I’m going out of town for a while.”

I opened and closed my mouth, surprised at the shift in topic and the concept of Blinda leaving. “Where are you going?”

“Africa. I’m going to visit the village where I lived when I was in the Peace Corps.” She smiled beatifically, and I got an image of blond Blinda surrounded by native villagers doing tribal dances, praying for water. Immediately, I felt chagrined at my list of “needs.”

“I’d like to give you something,” Blinda continued. She stood up and crossed the room to an old wood hutch with glass doors. Opening one of them, she reached inside. When she turned around, she held a small green object in her hand. “Here you go.”

The object was made of a glittery, jadelike material, and it was shaped like a frog on a lily pad. The frog’s hind legs were rounded little haunches, his eyes tiny jade spheres. His mouth was a long slash that ran under the eyes.

“Well, uh…thank you.” What was I supposed to do with it?

“In ancient Chinese culture, this icon was thought to bring good fortune to the owner.”

“Right. Great.” But what I was thinking was, Of all the New Age crap….

“I’ll let you know when I’m back in the city, but in the meantime, keep this. I hope it brings what you wish for.”

“Thanks, Blinda.” I glanced at the ivory clock on the coffee table. My hour was up. I’d now have to cut her a check for a hundred dollars, and all I had to show for it was a crappy piece of green rock.

“What’s that?” Chris said. He was in bed already with a little light reading—a book called The Second Carthaginian War.

“A frog.” I put in on my nightstand next to my clock and set the clock for seven-fifteen. “Blinda gave it to me.”

“Why?”

“I’m not entirely sure.”

Chris laughed. “Sounds like a top-of-the-line therapist.”

I put a hand on my hip and gave him a look.

“Sorry,” he said, still laughing.

I looked at the frog again. It seemed so little and Asian and out of place on my contemporary maple nightstand, next to my sleek black clock that played ocean and rainforest sounds in addition to the radio. And then I couldn’t help but laugh, too.

“Come to bed,” Chris said with a smile, and I wondered if tonight was going to be one of those few nights we spent in each other’s arms. There used to be many of them.

I remembered the evening I’d met him at a northside pizza place. We’d been set up by Tess, my high school girlfriend, and her husband, Tim, who worked with Chris. Chris was adorable that night in his navy suit and tie, his brown leather loafers shiny and uncreased as if he’d just bought them. He was eager to meet me, unlike Evan, who never seemed to notice me, and unlike the other guys I met, who had to be oh-so-cool all the damn time. We bonded at first over two small, strange things—our birthdays were only one day apart and our parents had given us weird names.

“Billy’s not so bad,” Chris had said. “Think about my middle name. I mean Marlowe, for Christ’s sake. It’s so pompous, but it really means something to them. If you meet my parents, don’t ask them about it. They will never shut up.”

I smiled, wondering if he really thought I’d meet his parents one day. “Well, if you ever meet my sisters, don’t challenge them to anything. They’re fiercely competitive, and they play to win.” I told him about my previous boyfriend, a guy named Walter with the ghastly nickname of Wat, who made the mistake of telling Dustin that he was an ace chess player. The two times they met each other, Dustin and Wat huddled over the chessboard. And both times she won.

Chris and I talked all about our families, barely noticing Tess and Tim, who sat across the table with pleased smiles. When we left the restaurant, he walked me the eight blocks home, even though it was the opposite direction of his place.

It was seamless. It was as if we were dating right from that night. I loved his big hands, his tall lanky body. I loved how he tilted his head a little to the side when I talked, like he was fascinated with my words. We went to Cubs games—Chris’s passion, despite the fact that he’d grown up on the south side. We saw quirky foreign films at the Landmark Theatre, then went to the bookstore across the street. We spent weekends at his apartment on Eugenie Terrace, where the decor had no apparent theme. The place had books all over and a huge comfortable chair under the windows where I sat and read while Chris cooked. I liked how he used odd little vegetables I’d never heard of before. I liked how he went across town to a gourmet delicatessen to buy a cheese his mom recommended. And I liked what happened when we went to bed at night.

But after we were married—or was it during the planning of the wedding?—Chris gradually stopped listening intently the way he always had. When I spoke, he barely looked up from his computer or his book. He agreed with my suggestions without contributing. He stayed on his side of the bed. When I brought it up, he said he didn’t know what I meant. He was busy, I was busy, and that was all there was to it.

But it seemed Chris was in the mood tonight.

“I’ll be right there,” I said, giving him a smile. With a spark in my step, I went into the master bath—white and gray granite in there with maple cabinets—quickly brushed my teeth and gave myself a spritz of perfume. I opened the door and began undoing the buttons of my blouse in what I hoped was a sexy way, but I could tell I’d already lost him. His nose was buried in the Carthaginian War again, the covers pulled up to his chin.