Sitting with the Enemy, A Novel

He wasn’t sure exactly when he’d begun to feel the emptiness that he now could best describe as loneliness. He speculated it probably began after his father’s death. While he and his father had lived half-a-continent away for most of Mark’s adult life, somehow they’d always had a bond Mark found comforting. Although it was only from the other end of a phone, his father had been the voice of wisdom, consolation, humor, understanding and acceptance Mark could always turn to, although he rarely had.

Now, here he was a respected psychiatrist, father, husband and avid golfer. Who would imagine this personally and professionally successful man who was virtually never alone, could be so deeply lonely?

But, surprisingly, Dr. Belcher hadn’t laughed at his revelation. “I hear this often, Mark,” Belcher admitted, looking into the brooding green-gray eyes of the tall, slender man with a shock of boyish sandy hair that belied his thirty-eight years and whose kindly refined features and gentle voice endeared him so to his patients. “What do you think it means for you and your life?”

That was the question that kept troubling Mark. What did it mean? What did it say about his relationship with his wife? His friends? His colleagues? He could find no flaws in these relationships. Rose was everything a husband could expect in a wife. Warm and loving, outgoing, supportive, a great mom, a good lover, an interesting conversationalist, and when she was in town, always there if he should need her, which he rarely did. His friends and colleagues were good people, much like him, successful, affable, bright, intelligent, enjoyable to be with, and busy. Yes, most of all busy. They were all busy, as busy as he and Rose were.

They rushed through their golf games, when they got a chance to play one, rushed to the rare dinner party, rushed through the periodic lunch or dinner meetings, rushed through holiday and birthday celebrations and were generally willing, but usually unable, to spend much time simply relating.

This was true even with Rose. They rushed to get out in the morning, rushed through the workday, rushed the kids here and

there after school, and rushed through whatever evening events or chores there were to do. They even rushed through making love, so they could get to sleep early enough for him to make rounds at UCLA medical center or for her to get through security at LAX to catch yet another 7:00 AM flight.

Still, Mark loved his life. He loved his wife. He loved his work and his friends. But he sighed as he let the truth of the moment sink in, something was missing. What? He sighed again. He was too tired to think about it any longer. It was time to get some sleep. He had early rounds in the morning.

Rose closed her eyes and tried to relax despite the roar of the crowded Boeing 747. The seat was cramped. The cabin was stuffy. It was her second flight in as many days. Why hadn’t her client agreed to a first class ticket? She hated getting tough about negotiating such perks, but now she wished she’d held the line on this little detail. The sales departments who hired her to motivate and train their personnel had ample training budgets, more than any other divisions of the mid-sized to Fortune 1000 companies who comprised the bulk of her clients.

She’d chosen to specialize in sales training because it was the most lucrative and recession-proof niche for professional speakers. But it was also the most competitive. So, she reminded herself, she should be grateful to have steady bookings, but, for heaven’s sake, more than a dozen years later she was still sitting in coach half the time!

Didn’t these guys realize cross-country flights were exhausting? Couldn’t they spare the cost of assuring that she’d arrive fresh and rested! If First Class hadn’t been full, she’d have tried to use her frequent flyer miles for an upgrade.

The pure discomfort of the situation brought to mind her luncheon meeting with Gloria Raynor. But not for any of the reasons one might think. The experience hadn’t been unpleasant, quite the opposite, but somehow it had been disquieting. Although a couple of months had passed since that afternoon, Rose frequently found herself reflecting on their visit and how it hadn’t gone at all like she’d expected.

At first, as Rose had looked around the restaurant that afternoon in search of her friend, she concluded Gloria must not have arrived yet. She glanced briefly at her watch. It wasn’t like Gloria to be late. She scanned the room once more. There weren’t that many tables in the small, quaint café. Then she realized the woman waving from a table over to her left was Gloria.

Gloria always wore her pale-blonde hair in a stylishly trimmed, chin-length bob to blend right in with the corporate environment of her clients. Anyone, who hadn’t known she was a professional speaker, might have guessed she was a television news anchor or maybe a real estate agent. Well put together, would have been a good way to describe how Gloria Raynor always looked. But not that day.

The woman with the vibrant, warm smile waving from across the room had wavy, long blond hair that fell wild and free well past her shoulders. She wore no makeup or jewelry and was dressed in a soft, casual blouse that looked more like something from a Coldwater Creek catalog than the Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus stores where she and Rose usually shopped.

Rose was momentarily taken aback by the contrast, but quickly recovered and rushed over to meet her friend. The warmth and length of Gloria’s hug was equally arresting. After all, this was Beverly Hills. Peck and bob country. But again, Rose adjusted to the change before her and sat down to look into her friend’s smiling deep-set amber eyes. She looked radiant. Truly radiant.

It’s so good to see you,” Rose exclaimed, still somewhat disoriented. “You look fabulous! Your hair’s so long! And curly! Where did all that curl come from?”

“Oh, actually this is how my hair is naturally,” Gloria said, still smiling. “You’ve just never seen me when I get out of the shower! Since we moved I rarely take the time to blow dry it out any more.”
Rose was taken aback once again, but this time it left her speechless. Gloria had moved and Rose hadn’t even known about it? She truly had been remiss in not keeping in touch. Noticing the shock on Rose’s face, Gloria quickly jumped in to fill the void that seemed to be opening between them.

“Yes, we moved in January, right after the New Year, to a little village that’s about two hours from here, up in the mountains. Wait ‘til you see it. It’s like right out of a travel magazine!” Her voice was animated with delight. “I tried to send out change of address cards but, believe it or not, they got lost in the mail and we’ve been so busy getting settled I haven’t gotten around to sending them out again.”

Rose remembered scrambling for a response, trying to imagine Gloria living somewhere in the mountains. There were mountains around the outlying areas of Los Angeles, but off hand Rose couldn’t remember where. “Is it a resort community?” she asked, grasping for some reference for what had happened.

“No, I’m sure you’ve never heard of it. Not many people have. It’s not Aspen or Big Bear. It’s called Katani Falls, named after the waterfalls up above the village where a tribe of Native Americans lived back before the Spaniards arrived in the area. It’s pretty much off the beaten path.”

“So how did you find it and why did you decide to move away?” Rose’s asked, her genuine curiosity finally kicking in.

Gloria paused for a moment. Her energy level seemed to drop. “I had to get away from the city, Rose. The illness. The radiation. The whole trauma of it all.” There was clearly more that went unspoken, but no words seemed to fit the feeling, so, she continued with the facts.

“I became friends with the woman who teaches cancer recovery classes at the hospital where I was having radiation treatments. Her name’s Suzanne Reid. She’s a minister from Lucadia down in the South Bay. You’d really like her, Rose.” Gloria’s face lit up again. “She’s living in Katani Falls while she’s on a year’s sabbatical, so she invited Ned and Carly and I up to her cabin for a weekend … and, well…” Gloria seemed caught up in her thoughts once more, but this time it was delight that spread over her face. “As soon as we got there I just knew that’s where I was supposed to be!”

“What about Ned? Is he still practicing law? “ Rose asked, not wanting to communicate how puzzled and unwittingly disapproving she felt. How could they have made such a radical change? What were they thinking? They were far too young to be retiring and just not the type of people to give up and drop out.

“Yes, he’s still practicing,” Gloria said, taking a deep breath. “That was the biggest challenge, convincing the law firm to let him telecommute. But you know he’s in appellate law so with the Internet, there’s really no need for him to be in the office all the time. He can file pleadings electronically and even make court appearances by phone, so he finally convinced the firm to let him go into the office about once a week and work from home the rest of the time.

“It’s not bad, really,” Gloria smiled lightly, in response to the astonishment that had crept into Rose’s expression despite her best efforts to conceal it. “Suzanne drives in to the hospital twice a week!”

Rose tried to imagine Ned commuting two hours each way into downtown Los Angeles and buried that thought. “So, what about you? I’m so glad you’re well and healthy. What have you been doing?”

“Well, that’s why I wanted to talk to you,” Gloria responded, sitting back and reflecting for a moment on something that seemed to excite her. “I’ve been home schooling Carly since we’ve been in Katani Falls. She’s working at the second-grade level now, but the bus ride to the nearest school is so long that in the Winter the busses can’t get up the mountain. So, several of us parents are home schooling, and now we want to start a charter school! But that takes a lot of fund raising, so, since I’m well now, I’m thinking I might get back into doing a few speeches every now and then to bring in some extra income I could contribute to the school.”

The silence that followed didn’t dim Gloria’s enthusiasm one bit. It leapt right across the table where it hung in the air for what seemed like forever. “Soooo, Rose, what do you think? I want your ideas for how I could get back on the circuit.”

Rose couldn’t recall much more about the rest of conversation that stretched through their visit that day. The details didn’t really matter. They brainstormed some ideas for Gloria and parted expressing the desire to see each other again soon.

“You’ve got to come up and visit us, Rose. You and Mark get away for a weekend together. Or bring the kids. They’d love it! Promise me you’ll come sometime soon,” Gloria urged as they waited for the valet to bring up their cars.

“Of course. That sounds great,” Rose remembered saying as she hugged her friend goodbye, noting as Gloria’s car pulled up that she must have traded in her Lexus for a Land Rover and knowing the chances of their getting up to Katani Falls were slim to none. She and Mark hadn’t been away together for anything other than extended business trips in years. Sometimes they would piggyback a long weekend onto one of Rose’s speaking engagements. In the Summer, sometimes they’d take the kids along. Mark would show them the sites until Rose’s work was done and then they would spend the weekend site seeing as a family.

So, Rose wondered as she squirmed in her seat on the airplane, unable to find a comfortable position, why did she keep thinking about that lunch? Probably because it was just so odd and so unexpected. She and Gloria had been so much alike. They loved the excitement of speaking before a crowd. The applause. The standing ovations. The pride of knowing the ideas and methods they’d honed from years of listening to what their audiences needed were making a difference in people’s success; seeing the positive effects of that difference written on a sea of appreciative faces. And yes, the money too, knowing they were getting paid well to do something they loved.

It was worth all the endless lines at airports, wheeling her carry-on luggage down one more narrow aisle, packing and unpacking, sleeping in yet another hotel room that looked like every other hotel room, even all those rubber chicken meals. And the hours in her home office on the phone, marketing, to be sure that her calendar was filled months in advance as her clients demanded.

But there was something about the look on Gloria’s face that Rose couldn’t get out of her mind. Something about the sound of her voice. Something about the warmth of her hug. A peacefulness. A quiet happiness.

The cabin of the plane was dark now. The light above Rose’s seat cast a small circle around her. There were few other lights on. And there it was again. That little nagging sense of discontent she’d been feeling about her life even before her lunch with Gloria. It seemed this generalized sense of uneasiness had been heightened by their visit. Rose was doing exactly what she wanted to be doing, but something was missing. Something more than not having the comforts of a first class ticket. What was it? She shifted the paper-covered pillow behind her neck. Best get some sleep, she thought, glancing at her silver and gold Movado watch before punching off the light overhead. She would need plenty of energy in the morning for her speech.

But, as usual, she wasn’t able to sleep on the plane. So she punched the light back on, wrenched her laptop from the carry-on bag pressing against her toes under the seat in front of her and opened her PowerPoint presentation on the tray table. Screen by screen, she flipped through the visuals she’d be using tomorrow. Selling to Major Accounts … Discovering Your Sales Style … Collaborative Selling … Technical Selling … Educational Selling…

They were part of her core sales course, tailored this time for a janitorial supply company where she’d conducted training several times before. After a dozen years, she could cover the content while sleepwalking. That wasn’t the challenge. The challenge was that except for the most novice recruits, her audiences, this one included, were convinced they’d heard it all and tended to be a cynical bunch. She shook her head fondly and pursed her lips into a wry smile as she thought of just how cynical they could be.

So, her job – if she chose to accept it – she joked inwardly with a line from popular TV reruns of her childhood – was to stay one step ahead of them. Make the familiar fresh. Show them something they hadn’t seen before about themselves and their work. Convince them that on any given day they could push through self-doubt and burnout and believe what they were doing was worth bounding out of bed for, plugging through lead after lead and calling on yet one more account. And, then, to leave them with the confidence that, regardless of whatever resistances they encountered, they had what it took to persuade those who needed to be persuaded to believe it too.

Quickly she whipped through a chart reviewing recent industry statistics – sales figures for the past year, projections for the next – showing where and why janitorial sales were up across the board. She ran through the stories she planned to tell to illustrate key points – reminding herself of the places where she should pause and where to engage the audience in self-analysis and group feedback.

She did this until her eyes grew bleary and then she switched off the computer once again, closed it and folded up the tray table. Leaving the computer resting on her lap, Rose shut her eyes and let herself sink into a mental fog, neither awake nor asleep.

The house was quiet when Rose returned home late the next evening. Mark had left the hall light on for her after he’d put the kids to bed, but he didn’t come down to greet her at the door. He must be tired, she thought, picking up the carry-on and heading up the stairs to their bedroom.

The light was still on beside the bed and Mark was sitting at one end in his shorts and t-shirt, his elbows resting on his knees and his head cradled in the palms of his hands. He smiled as he glanced up. He loved how the sight of her always made his heart jump, and as a doctor, he’d often wondered if his reaction to her would show up on an EKG. With her long thin legs, shell-white skin, full lips and rich auburn hair, she looked so delicate and soft, yet so strong and exquisitely defined, not unlike the flower after which she was named. A beauty you wanted to possess, but knew you never could.

Tonight, though, he couldn’t help but noticed she also looked a bit wilted, like a rose too long without water. He wanted to take her in his arms and comfort her, but she was already swinging the suitcase onto the bed eager to get unpacked.

“Hi, darling,” she said. “It’s so good to be home. You OK? You look beat.” She was about to open the suitcase, but stopped and came over to sit by him.

“How was the speech?” he asked.

“Actually, it was a training session, six-hours,” she said, as a whisper of satisfaction broke through her fatigue, “and it was good. They loved me!” With that, she reached over to kiss him and they held each other briefly. “How’s everything with the kids?”

“Fine,” Mark answered, enjoying the moment before she pulled away to finish unpacking.

They chatted about this and that as Rose got ready for bed. Chelsea’s rehearsal for the musical at day camp, Jason’s soccer practice. The delay at the airport. The speech someone in the audience had asked Rose if she could do next year. Finally they lay together in the dark, quiet and warm under the comforter.

He thought of telling her about his conversation with Dr. Belcher.

She thought of telling him about her lingering feelings about the conversation with Gloria.

But it was late and they were tired. Who knows where or how long talking about such things would take them?

Anyway, Rose thought, as she lay there with her eyes closed, hoping she wasn’t too tired to fall asleep, she had to be one of the luckiest people in the world. What did she have to complain about? She couldn’t muster much sympathy for her passing spells of ennui. There were far too many people with real problems to deal with, serious problems. Rose thought briefly of Rachael, an artist whose husband was one of Mark’s golf buddies. Rachael’s sculptures had been accepted in a growing number of juried art shows throughout the Southwest until only a few months ago, when her husband left her with three children under ten and no money.

Cocaine had destroyed his career, his health and their lives. No one at the golf club had known there was a problem until the bank foreclosed on the family’s four thousand square foot home in the foothills near Mulholland Drive. Rachael and the kids had moved into a tiny two-bedroom apartment in Studio City. To support them, Rachael had returned to her pre-marriage career of nursing and was working the swing shift at an ER in Glendale while the kids slept over at her mother’s twenty miles away in Canoga Park.

Although Rose didn’t know Rachael very well, she could imagine how stressful her life must be now and how little hope there was that it could improve anytime soon. Her children were still in grade school. Rachael had to take them out of the private school they’d planned so long and hard to get them into, the school they’d been in since kindergarten.

Yes, Rose thought, as she snuggled closer to Mark. I am a lucky person. I have nothing to complain about.

Mark too lay quietly, hoping to drift off to sleep. As he nuzzled next to Rose, he almost had to chuckle. Me lonely? Spoiled, would be a more like it!

But sleep eluded them. Eyes wide open, Mark stared into the darkness, distracted by concerns from the day. Rose, hoping to find a way to relax, shifted positions slightly, but her mind churned with the responsibilities of tomorrow. It would be her day to get the kids to the drop off for the day camp van. She would have piles of mail to sort. Phone calls to return. Shifting again, she turned away from Mark onto her side facing the bedroom wall, lost, as on so many nights, in thoughts of the many things she had to do.

“Rose, are you awake?” Mark whispered faintly as she moved. When she didn’t answer, he turned toward the window and drifted into a fitful sleep.

Sitting with the

Enemy

A Novel

Sarah Anne Edwards

May

Part I