The Hole in the Middle

Chapter 15: THURSDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2011

I show up at Zoe’s house around eight, and book club is in full swing. I’ve come straight from the office, and my prescription is still in my purse. I’d say that I haven’t had time to fill it, but even I know that for once, lack of time isn’t the issue.

I ring the bell. Zoe answers, and steps out onto the porch with me for a moment. “How are you doing?” I ask.

She shrugs. “I think this is one of those situations where it’s going to keep feeling worse until something big changes. I’m just not ready to think about what the something big is.” I give her a hug. “Thanks for lunch today,” she says. “It helped to see you. But I’m not ready to tell anyone else about what’s going on with Richard, OK?” She gestures toward the house, where the rest of the book club is waiting.

“Of course,” I say. And in any event, I feel a little fuzzy on the details of Zoe’s marital crisis. Lunch feels as though it happened a week and not six hours ago.

Zoe opens the door, steps back into the house and pulls me with her. “Look everyone,” she calls. “It’s Sophie!” She drags me into the living room, where the rest of the book club bursts into enthusiastic applause.

“I haven’t read the book,” I say.

“Don’t be silly,” says Laura. “No one ever reads the book.”

“I do,” says Sara pointedly. “And it would be great if we could make a tiny effort to talk about it once in a while, even for five minutes.”

“What was the book again?” asks Laura.

“Are you really interested, or are you just trying to humor me?”

Laura laughs. “Was it good?”

“Not especially,” says Sara. “We can stop talking about it now. What’s Megan going on about?”

Megan is in mid-rant. Nora is leaning back slightly to avoid Meg’s violent gesticulations, which are, as usual, aimed at hapless, absent Bob: “And then he looks into the stroller and says, ‘I’m starting to get to the point where I remember that he’s around. Do you know what I mean?’ And I say ‘What kind of f*cking question is that? It’s kind of hard for me to forget that our baby is around when he’s hanging off my tit 24-7 but I guess you don’t have that problem, do you Bob?’ Honestly! I just looked at him and said ‘I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about’.”

Megan takes a breath, looks around and realizes that she is the main attraction. “Hi, Sophie,” she says. “Good to see you.”

I wave. “Still married?”

Megan snorts. “Barely,” she says, but she smiles a little, before turning back to Nora to continue itemizing Bob’s shortcomings as a husband and father.

“What can I get you to drink?” asks Zoe. “Prosecco?” I nod, and she disappears into the kitchen. I sit down next to Sara.

“How have you been?” she asks.

“Bad day to ask,” I say. “I’d say I’ve been stressed to the point of hysteria, while at the same time struggling to find enough meaning in my work to justify my level of anxiety. I mean, shouldn’t you have to care about a job to get this worked up about it?”

“Of course not!” Zoe reappears with my glass and plops down on the sofa with us. “Do you remember the I Love Lucy episode where Lucy and Ethel are working on an assembly line at a chocolate factory? No? You know the scene in Pretty Woman where Richard Gere takes Julia Roberts up to the penthouse for the first time, and they have a fight and then they make up and then they stay up late watching TV?”

“Oh, yeah,” says Sara. “Right before she gives him the blow job.”

“Exactly. That moment where you think, am I really supposed to be rooting for these two to get together in the end?”

“Totally.” Megan and Nora have finished with Bob and rejoin the group. “But they aren’t watching the chocolate factory episode,” Megan says, “They’re watching the wine-making one, where Lucy runs around in a giant barrel and throws grapes at everyone.”

Zoe rolls her eyes. “The point I’m making,” she says, with the deliberate enunciation of a woman who has had too much Prosecco, “Is that the chocolate factory is a perfect example of a job that is both stressful and meaningless. The chocolate starts coming faster and faster and they can’t wrap it quickly enough and by the end they are stuffing the chocolates down their shirts and in their mouths and looking completely panic-stricken, but to no real end.”

“And this relates to Sophie’s job how?” asks Laura.

Zoe waves her hand vaguely. “Email, voicemail, staff meetings – the whole tedious routine is a modern day, white-collar version of the conveyor belt.”

“Well, that’s a pretty bleak assessment,” I say.

“Only if you plan to be stuck beside the conveyor belt for the rest of your life.” says Zoe. “But since you don’t actually work in a chocolate factory, you have a few options. And if you would admit that you are having a mid-life crisis, you could start looking at ways to change it up.”

“I’m not having a mid-life crisis,” I say.

Laura laughs. “Everyone’s having a mid-life crisis, Sophie,” she says. “You might as well join the club.”

“I’ll humor you,” I say. “Let’s say for the sake of argument that I’m having a mid-life crisis. What would you suggest I do then?”

“Any number of things,” says Zoe. “You could change jobs, obviously to something either less stressful or more meaningful. Or you could find ways to make the rest of your life more fulfilling, by getting a hobby or taking a class with me once in a while. You could train for a marathon, or take up kick-boxing or write mommy porn. You could have an affair with your assistant, but that’s more of a guy thing.”

“You obviously haven’t met my assistant,” I say.

“Or you could figure out a way to be less stressed, which is going to be hard for you given your personality. That route would probably require medication.”

I laugh uncomfortably, and say, “That was my doctor’s view.”

“Nothing to be ashamed of,” says Laura.

Megan snorts. “There’s nothing wrong with any of you,” she says. “Why you are all medicated is beyond me. It’s like the Valley of the Dolls around here.”

“You’re on anti-depressants?” I say.

“All of us except Megan,” says Zoe. “But then, she’s also the only one threatening to do a home vasectomy on her husband, so you do the math.”

“Shut up, Zoe,” says Megan.

“Now, now, girls,” says Sara. “What’s going on at work, Soph? I thought you liked your job.” Sara is an HR manager at a huge telecom company and she has an anthropological zeal for organizational dynamics that I find mystifying.

“I used to,” I say. “But now, unfortunately, it’s draining my will to live.”

“Because?”

“Let me count the ways,” I say. “My boss is a jackass. Every time I step into my office I get a something added to my portfolio. I’m spending fifty percent of my time on event planning, which I hate, and another twenty percent on volunteer and staff management, which I hate even more. The other thirty percent I spend in excruciating meetings where nothing gets decided. I just found out that my favorite employee is in love with me, and my assistant wishes I would drop dead.”

“Book club just got a lot more interesting,” says Sara. “Gather ‘round, ladies.” She settles back on the couch. “Why does your assistant hate you?”

“It’s not personal,” I say. “At least I don’t think it is. She’s been there a long time and has been shuffled around from department to department. She’s the hot potato of the secretarial pool – bad attitude, mediocre skills – your classic admin support horror story.”

“Unionized?” asks Laura.

“You bet,” I say.

“Damn,” says Laura, “They saw you coming a mile away.”

“I know you’re going to tell me I’m naïve,” I say, looking at Zoe, “but part of me thinks, we’re both professional women here – shouldn’t Joy want to help me out? Shouldn’t there be some kind of sisterhood instinct that kicks in?”

Zoe leans over and pats my hand. “You Women’s Studies girls are such babes in the woods,” she says pityingly. “Sisterhood doesn’t exist. It’s a comforting illusion, a rallying cry to keep the foot-soldiers working in solidarity. It’s what you used to call a ‘political construct’.”

“Like gender?” I ask, smiling. Zoe and I have been having this debate for the last twenty years.

“No, baby,” she says. “Not like gender. Gender actually exists.”

“Hang on,” says Megan. “I disagree. Sisterhood exists. Look around you.”

“I’m not talking about female friendship,” says Zoe. “I’m talking about the mystical bond that supposedly links women together and makes them act in each other’s interest. It’s the idea that women’s natural instinct is to act collectively. It’s nonsense. Anyone who’s spent time in a private girls’ school can tell you that.” Zoe logged ten years at a private girls’ school, and for her this is the end of the argument. I think fleetingly of Janelle Moss.

“Are we done with the assistant?” asks Nora. “Because I’m way more interested in the guy who’s in love with Sophie.”

“Patience,” says Sara. “What’s the problem with your boss?”

“He’s a baby boomer,” I say.

“Oh, one of those,” says Laura, with a knowing nod. “They are so never going to retire. Our generation will be prying the corner office out of their cold, dead hands.”

“Statistically true,” agrees Nora. “I read this demographic study that said our generation is basically screwed because by the time the baby boomers agree to step down, we’ll be too old to run anything and the reins of power will get handed over to the generation behind us.”

“I don’t care about the reins of power,” I say, “I just hate working for a condescending know-it-all who treats me like I’m just out of college.”

“Corporate employment is a form of institutionalized humiliation,” says Laura. “Did you hear about the big event last month on the topic of “retention of women”? A bunch of law firms and banks had this brilliant idea to join forces and offer a full-day symposium to inspire women to stay in corporate jobs and halt the so-called brain drain. They spent a fortune bringing in high-powered speakers on work-life balance and they basically forced all of their female employees with children to attend – and they held it on Saturday.”

“This is all very cheery,” says Megan, “Before I go and kill myself, can I hear about the guy who’s in love with Sophie?”

They all look at me expectantly.

“I thought he was gay!” I wail. “I never saw it coming! If I’d thought it was even a remote possibility, I would have been so much more careful!” Even as I say the words, my brain fills with images, hundreds of them, of me touching Geoff’s arm, sharing a private joke, complimenting his new outfits and haircuts, and once, under the mistaken impression that he was on his way out for a date with a man, telling him that he looked sexy. I groan aloud.

Nora puts an arm around my shoulder. “Don’t beat yourself up,” she says. “He knew you were married. He’s the one who forced the issue. If you’re not interested, it’s not your fault. That was the risk he took.” She pauses. “You’re not interested, right?”

“I am so not interested,” I say. “I just liked that Geoff was always on for me. That he put his best foot forward, wanted to impress me. I liked that he tried.” I realize I’m praising Geoff in the past tense, and that I’m undoubtedly right to do so. “I thought it was because I was a good boss, not because he wanted to sleep with me. It’s very disappointing.”

“Why do men feel like they can stop trying once they win you?” asks Megan. “Don’t they realize that if they don’t try with you, they’re going to end up having to try with someone else?”

“Are they?” asks Laura. “How bad would things have to be for you to leave your marriage? Most people will stick it out with a relationship that’s just OK unless a credible alternative presents itself.”

“So you’re saying that there is always a third party involved when someone leaves a marriage,” says Zoe, sounding edgy.

“I’m saying that inertia is a big feature of most marriages. Bodies tend to stay at rest without an external force to knock them into motion. It’s basic physics. The external force doesn’t have to be sex, but it usually is. Men get pretty comfortable in marriage. Sex is one of the few things powerful enough to get them off the couch.”

Zoe drains her glass.

“My marriage is fine,” I say.

“No one is saying otherwise,” says Sara.

“Let’s change the subject,” I say firmly. “How often do you guys have a family dinner with your kids?”

“Aside from Christmas and Easter?” asks Meg.

“Does ordering pizza count?” asks Laura.

“Intermittently,” says Sara, “but not before my youngest turned seven.”

“So if someone told me that she had a family dinner every night of her children’s lives with candles on the table, you would say she was – “

“Lying.”

“Deluded.”

“Desperately insecure.”

“Someone with too much time on her hands.”

“Trying to f*ck with you.”

“OK,” I say, almost weak with love for these fine, fine women.

“Back to the conversation about your job, did I miss something while you were on book club hiatus?” asks Laura. “Why are you spending all your time on events? I thought you were running the Communications Office.”

“I am,” I say, “but my aforementioned boss has a fairly broad definition of Communications. Actually, if you ladies want to help me out, you can come up with a theme for the Gala for me.” I give them the thumbnail sketch of my quest for the Gala theme. “My current working theory is that the answer is buried back in the eighties somewhere. Any bright ideas? Emblematic song titles?”

“I Want Your Sex,” says Zoe. “That was my absolute favorite eighties song.”

“Of course it was,” says Megan. “I was more into the alternative scene. Is it on a Friday night? You could do Friday I’m In Love. The Cure, remember?”

“I’m sure that you were big in the alternative scene at the age of eleven,” says Zoe.

“Shut up, Zoe,” says Megan.

“Tears for Fears,” offers Laura. “Shout.”

“Eurythmics, Sweet Dreams,” says Nora.

“Not bad,” I say. “Food for thought.”

“Oh, I have the best idea!” Zoe leaps up. “Eighties dance party, anyone?”

There is a chorus of cheers and applause, and Sara sighs. “I guess we’re not discussing the book, then?” she asks.

“Maybe next time,” says Zoe, to the opening notes of I Want Your Sex. “Hope springs eternal.” And as I watch my friends shimmying and twirling around each other in circles, I say a silent thank you to Beverley Chen, because in spite of everything, I do feel better.