June, this year #2
After dressing, and throwing yesterday’s clothes into a laundry bin inside the closet — no sign of a washing machine anywhere, though, and please don’t tell me it’s a shared laundry room — I poke around some more.
The nightstand drawers yield no further secrets — no sex toys or lube, no well-thumbed erotic fiction — and the kitchen cabinets are equally anti-climactic.
Very few spices or seasonings — I remember now that Stephen doesn’t like spicy foods — and a fairly dull selection of canned soups, tuna, chickpeas, and lentils.
The fridge bears the rest of last night’s dinner in its oven dish, a lot of salad ingredients, a carton of eggs, margarine, several cans of seltzer, a block of mild cheddar, and a large carton of lactose-free milk.
Pretty pedestrian ingredients, compared with my usual love of spicy and interesting cuisine — instilled in me through the years by both Bonnie and Ben.
I recall one Friday evening, maybe six months after graduation, at the Lake Bluff house when Bonnie was on her way back from her course in the city, the Masons still alive then but away for the weekend, Amber busy doing something else, and Ben and I were cooking dinner for the three of us.
He had taught me that night to be adventurous with the chicken stir-fry we were making, liberally adding chili flakes and cumin without measurement, tasting along the way, him feeding huge spoonfuls of it into my mouth, me laughing through giant, hot mouthfuls.
A pang of nostalgia ripples through me, making my shoulders heave. I miss those nights. The ones with just me, Ben, and Bonnie. My favorite people.
I haven’t Googled them yet in this world. I need to figure out what they’re doing, who they’re with, if we’re still close. I won’t like this Stephen reality as much if I’m not spending quality time with my people.
I make a green tea in the kitchen, given the poor coffee situation, and take my phone over to the couch. Out of the window, the sun is glittering on the river, twelve stories below me. Aurora is spread far and wide — a low-rise, low-density city with some greenery punctuating the buildings.
I turn to LinkedIn on the cellphone, and type in “Bonnie Mason.” Okay, so she has her design store and consultancy in this life — that’s great news.
That should mean that we’re still good friends, given that my encouragement seems to have been a significant factor in her opening the business.
I check Instagram, and her page looks much as it does in my life, including some very similar posts to the ones I have recently helped her with.
Despite the relative shortage of photos of us together, it looks like we’re still friends, at least, and I’m still helping with marketing her business.
I blow out a breath of relief that I hadn’t realized I was holding in.
Now, Ben.
Like Bonnie, Ben’s online presence is largely as I remember.
Playwright-director, living in downtown Chicago.
Successful, celebrated. Seems to be single, although he doesn’t have much of a personal social media presence, so it’s hard to tell.
There’s the same article on him in a local arts magazine that he had in my original life, with the same beautiful black-and-white side-profile shot of his face filling the entire first page of the digital edition.
His blond beard is a little longer than usual in that photo, and he’s wearing a black turtleneck — every inch the hot young theater director.
I’d teased him about it at the time. “You’ll be in one of those Chicago’s Sexiest Bachelors lists next,” I’d said, giving him back the thick print edition they’d sent him.
He had raised an eyebrow at me, saying nothing.
Just looking at me. I had wondered, in that moment, what he was thinking — before Bonnie burst in and started exclaiming about the article.
So, Bonnie and Ben both seem normal in this life, and I’m still hanging out with Bonnie, at least sometimes. That’s good, right?
Why, then, do I feel weirdly disappointed?
Had I been looking for a reason for something to be badly wrong in this world? Am I subconsciously looking for an out?
There’s no doubt I’m rattled over the whole trying-for-a-baby-but-taking-the-pill thing.
And, yes, by the encroaching suspicion that the fantasy of being Stephen’s wife may be more romantic than the reality of being married to a conservative, religious man with digestive problems.
No time to dwell on that right now. He’ll be back in fifteen, and I still haven’t figured out any of the work stuff that I know he wants to catch up on over breakfast. I guess we’re still colleagues at Magnolia?
Maybe we work from home some days, given that the commute would be kinda long each day.
In my reality, Magnolia has been giving us the option of hybrid work since the pandemic, so that’s probably true here, too.
I check my own LinkedIn career profile .
. . and the difference is shocking. No work at Magnolia, at all.
After graduation from Northwestern, there’s a couple of two-year stints at advertising agencies I recognize the names of.
But, for the past four years, my profile reads, “Co-founder and COO, Powell MacKenzie LLC — a digital marketing agency.”
My own agency, with Stephen. We have our own marketing business together.
I click through to the company’s website, which has a slick, professional home page with an interactive grid of images and client logos.
Mostly company names I don’t recognize, lots that look like Aurora-based restaurants or local sports clubs.
A couple of business names that ring a faint bell, like Gellerman’s, a family-run construction company outside Chicago that I’ve seen on housing development signs.
A solid portfolio — definitely enough for a small, successful marketing agency.
I click through to “Our Team” where the page has a grid of four headshots — Stephen’s first, as CEO, then mine, as the slightly inferior COO, which rankles slightly.
Below us are two faces I don’t recognize.
Someone called Emma Robson, digital marketing specialist, and an older guy called Randy Jones, CFO and office manager.
Looks like we’re a small and scrappy team.
The company’s address is listed as in Aurora, although not this home address, so I look it up in Google maps.
It’s in a low-rise business park about three miles away — presumably we rent a workspace there.
Kind of dull looking, but practical, and probably affordable for such a small business.
Okay, then. This is my life. Living here and working with Stephen — probably a lot of driving around to visit with locally based clients, with the Aurora office as a practical base. Occasional visits and girls’ nights with Bonnie; holidays with Stephen’s family.
A solid, well-defined, stable life.
Maybe a little dull?
Aside from the secret contraception, of course. That adds a frisson of excitement. It could be that Stephen’s Millie is feeling a little bored, or trapped, or something, and needs to keep hold of some semblance of freedom in the only way she knows how.
But, let’s not forget, this is the life I was looking for. Right? The one I was dreaming of, where Stephen and I are together, unencumbered? No life could ever be perfect, and this is the life I said I wanted.
All I have to do is . . . live it.
* * *
A week gone.
A week as Stephen’s wife. Living with him in our little apartment.
Going to work with him in our little agency in a mediocre business-park office.
Having to figure out, without being able to ask any questions, what’s going on with our client accounts and marketing campaigns.
Fortunately, I already know very well how Stephen works, and both he and I are meticulous in record keeping and calendar planning, so that adjustment has been easier than expected.
Much less easy, in terms of adjustment, has been living such a quiet life, with pretty much only Stephen for company, in this small city.
Eating simple meals together at the dining table.
No alcohol on weeknights — a rule I unwittingly broke when I poured us both wine on Monday evening after we’d spent the Juneteenth day off with his sister and her family. Nice, wholesome people. Very religious.
And a week — well, three instances — of okay, but kinda disappointing sex.
It’s only been seven days in this life and already, if I’m really honest with myself, I’m kind of bored.
Maybe I can text Bonnie and see if she is free to hang out tonight. Maybe even Ben, too.
Would that be weird?
The click of the front door opening, and Stephen’s light footsteps in the foyer after his Saturday morning run. Like clockwork, every day without fail — leaving at seven fifteen sharp, back on the dot of eight am.
I smile at him from my seat on the small living room loveseat, where I’ve been scrolling through Instagram. “Good run?”
“Great,” he replies, kicking off his shoes. “It’s getting hotter out there. You eaten breakfast yet?”
It’s just turned eight a.m. on a Saturday morning — I’m barely awake, and it’s a miracle that I’m dressed.
“Not yet,” I reply. “I was waiting for you. You want me to scramble some eggs?”
“That’d be great — I’m starving. I’m really sweaty, but do you mind if I don’t shower until after breakfast? I’ll make us some coffee.”
I wince at the thought of Stephen’s terrible coffee. “You go ahead and make some for you. I’m fine. I’ll do the eggs.”
I make us both scrambled eggs and toast some sorry-looking breakfast muffins, thankful there is at least cheese to grate over the top.
Stephen, who is lactose-intolerant, doesn’t take any cheese, and eyes my generous grating with an eyebrow-raise that looks like judgment.
We sit down at the table and I dig in as Stephen clears this throat, somewhat performatively.