Melanie Gideon - Wife 22

Is this your idea of speaking plainly, Researcher 101?

After communicating with you all these weeks I can definitively say you, Wife 22, are in need of some resolution.

I can’t disagree with that.

I can also say (a little less definitively for fear of putting you off) I would like to be the one that resolves you.

64.Three months into my pregnancy with Zoe, I was wretchedly sick but doing a good job of hiding it. I had actually lost five pounds from morning sickness, so nobody at the theater could tell I was pregnant-except of course for laser-eyed Bunny, who guessed my secret the instant she saw me. We had only met once before in Boston after she contacted me with the incredible news that The Barmaid won the contest. She immediately let me know that even though my script had won, it needed work. She asked if I was willing to do some rewriting. I said I was, of course, but assumed the changes would be minor.

I arrived in Blue Hill on a September afternoon. The past few weeks hadn’t been easy. William did not want me to go-certainly not when I was so sick. We had a fight over breakfast and I had stormed out, accusing him of trying to sabotage my career. I felt awful for the entire ride, but now that I stood in the doorway of the theater looking down at the stage I was light-headed with excitement. Here it was, spread out before me; my life as a real playwright was about to begin. The Blue Hill Theater smelled exactly the way a theater should smell, the top notes of dust and paper, the base notes of popcorn and cheap wine. I hugged my script to my chest and walked down the aisle to greet Bunny.

“Alice! You’re pregnant,” she said. “Congratulations! Hungry?” She held out a box of Little Debbie snack cakes.

“How did you know? I’m only twelve weeks along. I’m not even showing.”

“Your nose. It’s swollen.”

“It is?” I said, touching it.

“Not hideously. Just the eensiest bit. Happens to most women, but they don’t notice because the membranes swell over the course of the pregnancy, just not all at once.”

“Look, I’d appreciate if you didn’t tell anybody-”

The cloyingly sweet smell of Bunny’s open snack cake drifted into my nostrils and I clapped my hand over my mouth.

“Lobby, take a right,” Bunny instructed, and I ran back up the aisle and to the bathroom to throw up.

Those weeks of rehearsal were intense. Day after day I sat beside Bunny in the darkened theater, where she tried to mentor me. At first, most of Bunny’s suggestions were along the lines of encouraging me to move beyond cliché. “I just don’t believe it, Alice,” she’d often say of a scene. “People don’t talk this way in real life.” As the rehearsals went on, she got tougher and more insistent, because it was clear to her something was not working. She kept pushing me to find the nuance and shading she believed the characters were missing. But I didn’t agree. I thought the depth was there; she just wasn’t seeing it yet.

One week before opening night, the lead quit. The first dress rehearsal was a disaster; the second just a little bit better, and finally, in the eleventh hour I saw The Barmaid through Bunny’s eyes and was horrified. She was right. The play was a caricature. A bold, shiny surface, but little substance beneath. All curtain but no stage.

At that point it was too late to make any changes. I had to let the play go. It would catch a stiff wind or founder all on its own.

Opening night went well. The theater was packed. I prayed it would all come miraculously together that evening and judging by the enthusiastic crowd, that appeared to be the case. William was by my side the entire night. I had a small baby bump now, which brought out his protective instincts; his hand was a constant presence on the small of my back. The next morning came a rave review from the Portland Press Herald . The entire cast celebrated by taking a cruise on a lobster boat. Some of us got drunk. Others of us (me) threw up. None of us knew this was the single moment in the sun The Barmaid would get, but does anybody ever suspect that the magic is about to end just when the magical thing is unfolding?

I won’t say that William was happy that the play flopped, but I will say he was happy to have me home, getting ready for the baby. He didn’t go so far as to say I told you so, but anytime Bunny emailed me another bad review (she was not one of those directors who believed in ignoring your reviews-quite the opposite, she was in the you-get-enough-bad-reviews-you-become-inoculated camp) he got this grim look on his face that I could only read as embarrassment. Somehow my public failure had become his. He didn’t have to advise me not to write another play; I came to that decision all on my own. I convinced myself there was a three-act structure to pregnancy, a beginning, middle, and end. I was in essence a living play, and for now that would have to be enough.

65.I know “roommate” is a taboo word, but here’s a thought: what if being roommates is the natural stage of the middle part of marriage? What if that’s the way it’s supposed to be? The only way we can be while getting through the long, hard slog of raising kids and trying to save money for retirement and coming to terms with the fact that there is no such thing as retirement anymore and we’ll be working until the day we die?

66.Fifteen minutes ago.

“Yum,” says Caroline.

“That hits the spot,” says William.

“Is it supposed to taste like soil?” I ask, looking down into my smoothie.

“Oh, Alice,” says Caroline. “You’re such a truth-teller.”

“You mean she’s got no filter,” says William.

“You should really run with us,” says Caroline.

“Yes, why don’t you?” asks William, sounding completely disingenuous.

“Because somebody has to work,” I say.

“See, no filter,” says William.

“Okay-well, I’ve got to take a shower and get ready. I’ve got a second interview at Tipi this afternoon. It’s an intern position, but at least it’s a foot in the door,” says Caroline.

“Wait, what’s Tipi?” I ask.

“Microfinance. It’s this amazing company, Alice. They’ve only been around for a year but they’ve already given out over 200 million dollars in loans to women in third-world countries.”

“Have you told your mom you’re going on a second interview? She must be thrilled.”

“I haven’t told her. And believe me, she’ll be far from thrilled,” says Caroline. “She thinks I’m wasting my computer science degree. Now if it were Paypal or Facebook or Google, she’d be doing cartwheels.”

“That doesn’t sound like your mother.”

Caroline shrugs. “That is my mother. Just not a part of my mother most people ever see. I’m off.” She pops a strawberry into her mouth and leaves the kitchen.

“Well, good for her. She’s out there hustling,” I say.

“Meaning I’m not out there hustling?” says William. “I’ve been on ten interviews. I just don’t talk about it.”

“You’ve been on ten interviews?”

“Yes, and not one callback.”

“Oh-William, God, ten interviews? Why haven’t you told me? I could have helped you. This is overwhelming. It’s bad out there. It’s not just you. Let me help. I can help you. Please .”

“There’s nothing to help with.”

“Well, let me support you. Behind the scenes. I’m a good commiserater. Top-notch, in fact-”

He cuts me off. “I don’t need commiseration, Alice. I need a plan. And I need you to leave me alone while I come up with it. I’ll figure it out. I always do.”