Melanie Gideon: Wife 22

Kelly is silent.

I count to twenty and say, “Still thinking?”

“Fine, Alice,” says Kelly. “But you have to swear not to tell anybody I sent it to you. Look, I’m really sorry. I respect William. He’s been a mentor to me. I wasn’t campaigning for his job. I feel horrible about this. Do you believe me? Please believe me.”

“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.”

From: Wife 22 ‹Wife22@netherfieldcenter.org›

Subject: New Questions?

Date: May 15, 6:30 AM

To: researcher101 ‹researcher101@netherfieldcenter.org›

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 ‹researcher101@netherfieldcenter.org›

Subject: Re: New Questions?

Date: May 15, 7:31 AM

To: Wife 22 ‹Wife22@netherfieldcenter.org›

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 ‹Wife22@netherfieldcenter.org›

Subject: Re: New Questions?

Date: May 15, 7:35 AM

To: researcher101 ‹researcher101@netherfieldcenter.org›

I think you’re right. Who knew anonymity could be so liberating?

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.”

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.