Chapter 4
Chapter Four
SCOTTIE
This was a terrible idea.
Probably one of the worst I’ve ever had.
I should have just told Ellison the truth yesterday, that I spoke out of turn, forgot that I got divorced, and that I won’t make that mistake again. Instead, here I am riding up an elevator with a man I don’t even know to share a marriage counseling session.
And what the hell is wrong with Mika?
Why didn’t he ever tell me that his brother is a hipster version of Prince Eric? I wasn’t expecting such a…such an attractive man to show up. The gene pool in that family is incredibly impressive. Black hair peeks out from his knitted beanie, a square jawline dusted in black scruff, and the lightest gray eyes I’ve ever seen. I had to look away a few times because they were so unique. Mika’s are gray, but they’re not this light.
When Mika offered up his brother as Tribute, I was thinking that a squid of a man who sells apps with gelled-back hair was going to show up in a suit, ready to play pretend, but this…this I was not expecting.
He’s tall, probably six feet, maybe six two. His shoulders and biceps pull against the threadbare cotton of his about-to-fall-apart shirt that probably costs three hundred dollars. His waist is narrow, causing his pants to sag ever so slightly off his hips, and his black Converse have seen better days. And then there’s his tattoo. Inked on his right forearm just below his elbow are three solid black rings that wrap around his arm like bracelets.
But that’s not the worst of it.
Nope, it’s the lip ring.
On the right corner of his mouth is a small black ring that wraps around his lip. I zeroed in on it the moment he started tugging on it with his teeth. The movement made me feel embarrassingly weak in the knees. It’s a lip ring, yet here I am, panting and bouncing my leg up and down.
These are all things Mika should have conveyed when suggesting his brother.
I could have handled the bored, uninterested brother.
I could have worked with the hipster vibe.
But the lip ring? What the hell am I supposed to do with that?
The elevator dings as the doors part, opening up to a serene office space: white walls, white furniture, calming music, and plants everywhere. It feels like we’re walking into a couples massage rather than couples counseling.
“You must be Scottie,” the receptionist says as she stands from her desk. “We’re ready for you.”
“Oh, uh, great,” I say as I move forward.
“Can I get you anything to drink before you enter your session?”
“Water would be great,” I say.
“Do you have any Coke Zero?” Wilder asks.
“We do.”
“I would love one. Thank you.”
“Of course. Let me show you into Sanders’s office, and then I’ll bring you your drinks.”
“Thank you,” I say as we follow her down to the end of a hallway.
She knocks on the door three times and then pushes it open, revealing…
What the hell is this?
“Please take a seat on the leather couch. Sanders will be right in.”
We both shuffle past stacks and stacks of boxes, across a brown rug, right to a brown leather couch that is worn and torn in every manner. Tears in the seat. Tears in the couch arms. Even in the back cushions. Above the couch is a framed Knicks jersey, signed by who knows, as well as a Mets pin-striped jersey.
Mets, really?
You live in New York City, and you’re going to be a Mets fan when the Yankees are the clear option? Not sure Sanders can be trusted.
The rest of the office is filled with boxes, some opened, some sealed shut. Some are in pristine condition; some have seen the inner depths of postal hell. There is a desk tucked back in the corner that is covered in files and a computer and keyboard that has not been stroked since at least 1995. Chipped and stained floating shelves hang unevenly around the room and are decked out in sports memorabilia ranging from signed and encased basketballs to what I can only assume is a size twenty-two basketball shoe to a few hockey sticks and even some Jets footballs.
Okay, now I really know he can’t be trusted.
“Jets,” I mumble to Wilder. “Out of all the football teams to choose from, and he chooses the Jets?”
“Shows resilience,” Wilder says. “Because who would really be able to survive that kind of suffering without a heavy dose of enduring tenacity?”
I mean, he has a point. No one can be tortured for that long without building at least an ounce of resilience.
“This, um, arsenal of athletic archives was not what I was expecting when I was told Sanders is the cream of the crop of marriage counselors. Especially given the design aesthetic of the front of the office.”
Wilder scratches his jaw. “Think he’s going to pass around a hockey stick that must be held in order to talk? Because I’d be down with that.”
Seems like Wilder would be down for anything.
Before I can answer him, a door off to the left opens, and an average-size man in navy blue basketball shorts and a hot pink Hawaiian shirt walks into the office. His beard is peppered with gray, laugh lines define his face, and the sideways baseball hat he’s wearing is giving more Fresh Prince of Bel Air rather than esteemed marriage counselor of the Northeast.
This is Ellison’s husband?
Not to be rude, but he’s giving Adam Sandler impersonator taking a walk on the streets of New York City.
In a run-down pair of Birkenstocks, he struts toward us with a smile plastered across his face and a football spinning in the palm of his hand.
“Hey, man,” he says as he reaches his arm out to Wilder. “Nice to meet you.” Sanders then turns to me and shakes my hand as well. “And you must be Scottie.” He chuckles lightly. “Never met a female Scottie before.”
“Neither did I,” Wilder says, surprising me. “Fell for her name though, because of—” and to my despair, they both say, “Scottie Pippen” at the same time.
“Yes,” Sanders says as he lets go of my hand and then takes a seat. “Back in the nineties, I was obsessed with the Bulls, despite being a Knicks fan. It was hard not to follow the phenomenon.”
“My dad was obsessed with the Bulls as well,” Wilder says, jumping right into conversation. “He had memorabilia and newspaper clippings hung all around his office. After school, I’d go into his office, and he’d put in a VCR tape of a game he recorded, and I’d watch while doing my homework. Scottie was my man.”
“Did you watch the documentary, The Last Dance ?” Sanders asks with a wince.
“I did.” Wilder sighs heavily as I sit back, watching a bromance unfold. What…what is happening right now? “I try to block out the fact that he ended up being a prick.”
Sanders tosses his football in the air and catches it. “Made your taint shrivel up, didn’t it?”
Uh, did my marriage counselor just say “taint” and allude to it shriveling up? What the hell kind of professional setting is this?
“To fucking dust,” Wilder says and then leans back on the couch and drapes his arm over it.
Sanders chuckles. “A man after my own heart. What’s your name by the way?”
“Wilder. And you met my wife, Scottie, or Pips as I call her.”
Pips? Where the hell did that come from?
“For Scottie Pippen, obviously,” Sanders says.
Wilder raises his hand in a charming yet annoying way. “Guilty.”
“Well, it’s nice to meet you two. Ellison was telling me that you work for her, but she didn’t say much other than that.” Sanders directs his attention to me.
“Um, yes. I work as her copy editor.”
He nods. “You play golf?”
“Not exactly,” I drag out.
“She’s good though.” Wilder whistles, stepping in. “Girl has game when she wants to. Beats me every time we hit up the turf, although I don’t excel at handling a club, so maybe I’m not that great of a judge.”
Okay, what is he doing?
What kind of angle is he pulling?
He’s not supposed to come in here and be all buddy-buddy with the therapist. Because now, when we talk about our problems, who do we think Sanders is going to empathize with more?
The copy editor with moist palms? Yeah, they’re moist. I’m nervous.
Or the gray-eyed comrade with loose lips and an impressionable smile?
I’ll give you one guess.
“Ellison and I like to play mini golf. We have an ongoing score, and right now, she’s leading me by a few points, but with the new Butter Putter line coming out, I think I have a solid chance at gaining on her.”
Is this how all marriage counselor sessions go? Because if so, how are more people not divorced? This feels like a chat over a coffee, not a “help me, my marriage is falling apart” situation.
“Do you two ever play games together?”
“We used to,” Wilder answers. “Not so much anymore.”
“What did you used to play?” Sanders asks as he spins the football in his hand. That’s not distracting at all.
“Everything,” Wilder says. “Isn’t that right, Pips?”
It takes everything within me not to flare my nostrils as I turn toward him and say, “Yup.”
“Like what?” Sanders asks.
“Go on, tell him,” Wilder encourages me, but for the life of me, nothing is coming to mind.
Absolutely nothing.
I’m drawing a blank.
All my mind can focus on is the stacks and stacks of boxes crowding the space of this office and the way Sanders keeps fidgeting with the football.
“No, you can tell him,” I finally say. Wilder likes improv; he can figure it out.
Smiling, Wilder turns toward Sanders and says, “Lots of games in the bedroom, if you know what I mean?”
No.
No, no, no, no.
I take it back. Ask me.
Now multiple games are flooding my brain.
Monopoly. Yahtzee. Kings in the corner. Bowling. Freaking slapjack!
Choose any one of those.
Not bedroom games.
“Interesting,” Sanders says. “I’m glad you’re comfortable talking about that.”
Uh, we’re not actually.
We are not comfortable at all.
I would like to have him ask the question again. I’m prepared with answers. Thanks.
“Would you say you’re adventurous in bed?”
That would be a no.
“Very,” Wilder answers. “We’ve done it all. Name the position, check. Name the angle, done it. Name the body part, licked it.”
Dear God in heaven.
I can feel my cheeks flame with embarrassment as a smidge of sweat starts to drip down my back.
“And would you say those games have died down?”
Wilder hangs his head and gently nods it. “Yes, they have.” He looks over at me. “Right, Pips?”
Can we just pause for a moment and take a step back, because this therapy session went from zero to sixty in what feels like five seconds. We’re discussing our sex life already? Whatever happened to gentle pleasantries?
I guess there are none when you’re paying by the hour.
I clear my throat and try to put on a neutral expression. “Yes, the passion has died.”
“Do you know why?” Sanders asks.
Wilder looks at me, waiting for me to answer as I nervously wet my lips and try to think of an answer. “Um…”
“She doesn’t want kids,” Wilder says.
What?
No!
You were the one who was supposed to not want kids, not me.
“I think she’s afraid that we might get pregnant.”
“That’s, uh, that’s not true,” I say.
“Babe.” Wilder levels with me, turning in my direction. “A few months ago, when you wanted me to pull out—that was you telling me you didn’t want kids.”
Christ.
What happened to sticking to the plan?
“Was that the case?” Sanders asks as he tosses the football in the air now. Someone needs to revoke his credentials, because this is…this is childish behavior. No wonder all the Brads and Chad like him, because he’s just like them. Makes me sick!
“No, I…I want kids.”
“You do?” Sanders asks. “Then why does Wilder think otherwise?”
Both sets of eyes are on me, waiting for an answer. One that I don’t have, because this is not how this session was supposed to go.
“Pips, you told me that you weren’t ready.”
Attempting to keep a smile on my face despite the raging inferno building inside me, I say, “Uh, that’s because we’re still young and trying to work on our careers. Just because I said I wasn’t ready doesn’t mean I don’t want them.”
“She has a point,” Sanders says, finally joining my side. “But did you communicate that specifically with him?”
Oh, never mind.
“Not to throw her under the bus, but she didn’t,” Wilder says, rubbing his palms on the tops of his thighs.
“Is this when the passion started to fizzle?” Sanders asks.
“Yeah, that and after the trip to Montauk,” Wilder says.
What on God’s green earth is he doing?
Montauk?
I’ve never been there in my life.
Pretty sure if you handed me a map and told me to point to Montauk, I would have no idea where to begin.
“What happened in Montauk?” Sanders asks.
Wilder gestures to me. “Do you want to tell him, or do you want me to?”
I think he knows the freaking answer to that question.
Through clenched teeth, I say, “By all means, you lead the way.”
He pats my leg and then says, “It was my twenty-seventh birthday trip.”
God, I forgot he was two years younger. Shouldn’t really be that big of a difference, but I’m starting to see the contrast between the two of us.
“She surprised me with a trip because she knows how much I like lighthouses.”
Oddly, I could see him liking lighthouses in real life.
“Very thoughtful,” Sanders says.
Finally, some praise. I nod in agreement. See, I’m not the bad guy in this situation.
I take my husband to see the lighthouses he loves so dearly.
“Everything started off fine. We were holding hands. We were joking around. There were smiles for days.” Wow, quite the cheesy picture he paints. “She booked us a room in a beautiful yet quaint bed-and-breakfast near the coast. One of those places you see in a Hallmark film. White picket fence. Flowers decorating window boxes. The older couple at registration, willing and ready to welcome you in.”
“I know just the kind of place you speak of,” Sanders says, leaning into the storytelling.
“We were set up for a successful weekend of lovemaking and lighthouse watching until we tried to check in. To our dismay, they didn’t have us on the reservation list. Naturally, Scottie showed them the confirmation number, only for the couple to point out that she booked the stay for a different date.” He pauses for dramatic effect and then says on a whisper, “She booked it under her ex’s birthday.”
Oh no. He. Did. Not.
Nope.
Not happening.
“Ex-friend,” I say, jumping in quickly. “Just want to clarify, ex-friend. We used to, uh, we used to go to Montauk, and I think I just had her on the brain.” I glance at Wilder to try to telepathically blow his head up into a million little pieces.
Wilder pats my leg and then turns to Sanders. “They had a really strong bond,” Wilder continues. “Met when they were in elementary school, but then Petunia, that’s her name, started dating a man Pips didn’t approve of, and well, their relationship soured from there.”
“He was a rampant cheater,” I say, wanting to get in on a little of this action so Wilder doesn’t think he can run away with the story.
“Rampant cheater at games.” Wilder nods. “Scottie couldn’t take it. Pictionary, charades, even Wordle, you name it, he cheated.”
Oh, so now he can remember games. Where were these a few moments ago when he was talking about our bedroom antics?
“Yeah.” I clear my throat. “Only appreciate people with integrity.”
How ironic. I say that as I’m pretending to be married to the man next to me who I only met about fifteen minutes ago.
“A great value to have,” Sanders says.
“One of the reasons I love her,” Wilder says as he reaches over and picks up a piece of my hair, twirling it around his finger. He stares at me for a couple of seconds, and I want to reach out and pop both of his eyes with my fingers, because those eyes, they’re too much. “Anyway, they didn’t have a room for us at the bed-and-breakfast, they were all booked, but they did have a cabin out back that didn’t have electricity or any running water. It was just a cabin. Since it was late and we spent all day under the shadow of the Montauk Point Lighthouse, we were tired and just needed a place to sleep. So we took it. But it was a mistake,” Wilder says. “Because the moment we got in there, we noticed that there wasn’t a bed, just sleeping bags. Right, Pips?”
“Uh, yeah. And you hate sleeping on the ground.”
“Only because I sleep naked, and I’m pretty wild when I sleep. Can’t seem to stay still.”
“Same,” Sanders says. “Sometimes I end up on the bottom of the bed, teetering, only for Ellison to save me from plummeting to the ground.”
“Same with Pips. She’s good at saving me, but not this time.”
Oh Jesus, what now?
“Weren’t you on the ground though?” Sanders asks, seemingly invested but also confused.
“We were. But it wasn’t the height of the bed that she needed to save me from,” he says. He sighs and then presses his hand to his chest. “Sorry, this is tough to talk about. Pips, do you want to take it?”
Uh…no.
Because I have no idea what you would need to be saved from while sleeping in a sleeping bag.
“You know, it’s all still fuzzy to me,” I say, circling my hand over my head.
“Not me.” Wilder shakes his head. “I remember it like it was yesterday.” He stares off into the distance as he lies out of his ass, telling a story that I’m sure will end up incriminating me. “I was naked, ready to have some birthday fun with my wife, who had just given me the best day frolicking under my favorite lighthouse. She was naked as well and looking so fucking fine.”
I mean, thank you, but please stop talking about me naked.
“Can I be explicit when talking to you?” Wilder asks.
Please, God, no.
“No judgment here,” Sanders says, setting the football down and instead picking up a baseball that he starts tossing in the air.
“Thank you. Well, I was hard as a fucking rock, we’re talking full mast, ready to go. Pips had me turn away from her because she wanted to try something new. All for it, I turned, and she wrapped her arm around me to start stroking me. It was heaven. Then she saw that I didn’t zip the sleeping bag all the way up, so she leaned forward, pulled it toward her, and, in one tug, zipped up the sleeping bag and my frenulum along with it.”
Oh my GOD!
Also, who says frenulum ?
“Shit,” Sanders says in a whisper and a wince while he slowly closes his legs together. “We’re talking your penis skin, right?”
“Sadly, we are.”
Horrified, because how loose is the skin down there if a “full mast” penis can be zipped up, and needing to desperately defend myself, I say, “I…I didn’t know his penis was there.”
“She always underestimates the size of my dick. The only time she remembers is when I bottom out inside her and she can practically taste me in her throat.”
I seriously think I might faint, because the wheels have fallen off.
“Anyway, that night, she became the Serial Zipper.”
Serial Zipper? How on earth did he come up with that nickname that quickly?
“A name that I don’t like,” I say. “Because it was an accident.”
“We had to get the zipper surgically removed,” Wilder says. “I was wheeled into the emergency room, wrapped up in the sleeping bag, praying to the penis gods that everything would stay intact. The surgery took two hours and a heavy dose of anesthesia, but I left with light scarring and some pride still intact.”
“Wow.” Sanders shakes his head. “And I’m assuming there was animosity from her zipping up your penis.”
“No.” Wilder shakes his head. “None.”
“Then how did your Montauk trip kick off your problems?” Sanders’s brows pull together in confusion.
Funny.
I have the same question.
“I’m glad you asked,” Wilder says. “Pips, tell him.” Wilder gestures toward Sanders.
I hate him.
I truly do.
I’ve never in my life hated a person this fast in my entire life, not Finky, Brad, Chad, or even Duncan. Took them at least a whole day. Wilder is setting an all-time record.
Wanting to settle the score, I say, “He gave me a present the day after. It was a shirt made for me that said Serial Zipper. I didn’t think it was funny. He did.” Then I shrug. “He can be an ass like that.”
There, threw the first punch. Maybe we can stop all this lovey-dovey bullshit and start actually fighting in front of this man so he believes there’s absolutely no hope for us.
“I was trying to make light of a tough situation.” Wilder thumbs toward me. “She’s always been uptight, can’t take a joke.”
“I can take a joke when it’s funny,” I say. “You think I wanted to zip my husband’s penis inside a sleeping bag?”
“You once wished I zipped my dick in my pants when I forgot to unload the dishwasher.”
Ohhh no, you don’t. You’re not throwing me under the bus.
Gearing up for a battle of wits, I turn toward him, gloves on, ready to fight.
“That’s because you never unload it. You think I like coming home after working a hard day to find that you didn’t do the one thing I asked you to do?”
“Says the girl who never cleans up her hair off the shower wall.”
“Or the guy who doesn’t know what it means to shave his face over the sink.”
He laughs. “Real rich, coming from the girl who doesn’t understand what a recycling bin is. If it’s paper, it gets recycled.”
“Don’t play the saint. You miss recycling things all the time.”
He gasps in shock and then narrows his eyes. “I never do, and you fucking know that. But speaking of missing things, how about all the times I’ve asked you to wait to watch our shows together, but instead you just watch them yourself while I’m at the gym?”
Motioning to him, I shout back, “You spend hours at the gym, and your muscles aren’t ever bigger.”
His face falls in shock. “Yeah, well, all those food blogs you read are useless, because your chicken tastes like cardboard.”
“That’s a family recipe!” I yell, unsure of where that came from.
“Okay, okay,” Sanders says as he lifts a hockey stick and puts it between us, backing us up against either side of the couch. “This was exactly what I was waiting for. I could see it in your body language, I could see you wanting to get it out, and now that you have, we can really start working.”
“There’s no use,” I say, waving off Sanders. “This is a joke. I think we both know where this is going. No point in continuing.”
“You see. This is what I’m dealing with,” Wilder says, gesturing toward me. “She doesn’t want to try. She doesn’t want to give me the benefit of the doubt. She’s ready to walk away.” He shakes his head and are those…oh my God, are those actual tears forming in his eyes? “I’m not ready to let go.”
Sanders nods slowly. “Yes, I see that.” He stands from his chair and then moves to the coffee table, where he takes a seat right in front of us. “I’ve seen many couples with this same sort of attitude. Some pettiness and built-up animosity cloud their vision on how to work on their marriage. I’m here to tell you, this is never over. Ever. Even if you think it is, you’re not even close to being over.”
Not the thing I want to hear.
But then there’s Wilder, nodding and taking my hand in his as if to say, “Yes, Sanders, we might still have a chance to repair this.”
No, you moron, we’re supposed to be mad at each other.
Hating each other.
Not holding hands in hope.
“Now that we’ve gotten here and found the point of contention, here is what I suggest?—”
“Can we just pause for a second?” I say, not wanting there to be a solution but really wanting to end this farce once we leave this office. “I’ll be honest, walking in here, I told Wilder to make it seem like we’re okay, because I wanted to save face. You’re my boss’s husband after all, but to be truthful, we’re both unhappy. And we’ve been unhappy for a while. And I don’t want to fool you into thinking that there is a chance we can change things.”
“She’s right.” Wilder nods, surprising me. “We can’t seem to get past the bitterness we hold in our hearts.”
Oh, give me a break.
“So I appreciate this session,” I say with finality, “but I think it’s best if we just move on.”
Sanders’s eyes go wide, and he sits back, looking between the two of us. His dark, beady eyes study our faces, our body language, and as he sizes us up, he must see something that I don’t see, because he slowly starts shaking his head. “No, this is not over. I can feel your energy.”
Feel our energy? Coming from the guy tossing a football around during our session?
“It’s charged. There’s still a spark, and if you’ll allow me, I’ll help you turn that spark into a full-blown inferno.”
Yeah, not interested. Thanks though.
I’m about to tell him that we’ll discuss this when Wilder and I get home, but before I can even put on an expression of gratefulness, Wilder jumps in and ruins everything. “How?”
Nooooo.
Visions of shoving my shoe into his mouth cloud my brain as I hold back the feral cry of anger bubbling up inside me.
Dude, we were good.
We were on our way out.
Stop making bad choices.
“I’m glad you asked,” Sanders says with a touch of perkiness in his voice as he stands from the coffee table and moves over to his desk. He sifts through a mound of papers and then pulls out a brochure.
What the hell is that?
“Starting Monday, I’m putting on an eight-day marriage camp up in the Catskills. I only invite a select few couples. We spend eight days talking over our feelings and rediscovering the original spark of connection. I have couples on the verge of divorce like yourselves and couples who come to rejuvenate their marriage.”
A marriage camp?
He’s got to be joking.
“Like a summer camp for adults?” Wilder asks, looking far too interested for my liking.
He reaches for the brochure, but I snag it from Sanders before Wilder can even lay a finger on it.
Oh no, you don’t, mister. Don’t even freaking think about it.
“Precisely. Like a summer camp for adults,” Sanders answers. “We focus on bonding techniques, open conversations, and finding the true reason why we fell in love in the first place. It’s activity focused, so if you think we’re going to be sitting on a couch all day, that’s not the case at all.”
“Oh good, because I’m not good at sitting still,” Wilder says.
What do you mean, oh good? No, we don’t show interest in adult marriage camps. We don’t show interest in any sort of resolution.
I need to nip this before it gets out of control, before I end up spending eight days up in the Catskills with a man I don’t know, trying to work out our nonexistent marriage. But I need to tread carefully, because I don’t want to look like the bitch who doesn’t want to work on her relationship.
Clearing my throat, I peruse the brochure and nod slightly. “This all looks so nice, but I don’t have enough vacation days to make this work?—”
“Oh, that’s nothing you need to worry about. Ellison always gives time off to attend my camps.”
Of course she does.
Sanders looks between us, a smile stretching across his face. “So what do you think? Want to give it a shot?”
“This is so nice,” I say again, “but?—”
“We’d love to,” Wilder says, taking my hand in his as he lovingly looks in my direction. “I’m self-employed, so I don’t need to worry about vacation time from work.”
Did he just say what I thought he said?
Did he just agree to a marriage camp for eight days?
“Fantastic,” Sanders says and then picks up his football and tosses it over to Wilder. To my horror, Wilder catches it, gets off the couch, and starts charging toward Sanders, jukes him out, and then spikes the ball to the office floor before raising his hands in the air.
“Touchdown.”
Yup, he’s getting my shoe. The heel right to the esophagus.