Wife 22

to find a place to live, a roommate sort of situation, and, of course, a job, but it would be so nice to know she’s not completely on her own out there. Besides, you two would hit it off. So how are you otherwise? Still teaching drama? Dare I ask if you ever write plays anymore? I know The Barmaid of Great Cranberry Island really took the wind out of your sails, but- I’m on the phone. Jack, I’m ON THE PHONE! Sorry, Alice, have to run, let me know if-

Mailbox Full

Now there’s a voice from my past. Bunny Kilborn: the renowned founder and artistic director of the Blue Hill Theater in Maine; winner of three Obies, two Guggenheims, and a Bessie Award. She’s directed everything from Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire to Harold Pinter’s The Homecoming, and in the late nineties, Alice Buckle’s The Barmaid of Great Cranberry Island. No, I’m not saying I was in the same league as Williams and Pinter. I entered a contest for emerging playwrights and ending up winning first prize, which was the mounting of my play at the Blue Hill Theater. Everything I had been working for had led to that moment and that win. It felt- well, it felt like destiny.

I had always been a theater rat. I started acting in middle school and then in high school attempted writing my first play. It was horrible, of course (heavily influenced by David Mamet, who to this day is still my favorite playwright, although I can’t abide his politics), but I wrote another play and then another and another, and with each play I found my voice a little more.

In college, three of my plays were produced. I became one of the theater department’s stars. When I graduated, I took a day job in advertising, which left my nights free to write. When I was twenty-nine I finally got my big break-and I flopped. It’s an understatement when Bunny says the play took the wind out of my sails. The reviews were so bad I never wrote another play again.

There was one good review from the Portland Press Herald. I can still recite passages by heart: “emotionally generous,” “a thought-provoking coming-of-age story, the effect of which is like mainlining Springsteen’s ‘Jungleland.’ ” But I can also recite passages from all the other reviews, which were consistently negative: “fails miserably,” “cliched and contrived,” “amateurish,” and “Act 3? Put us out of our misery already!” The play closed within two weeks.

Bunny made an effort to keep in touch with me all these years, but I didn’t reciprocate much. I was too ashamed. I had embarrassed Bunny and her company, as well as blown my one big chance.

Bunny’s call has to be more than serendipity. I want to be connected to her; to have her in my life again in some way.

I pick up the phone and nervously dial her number. It rings twice.

“Hello?”

“Bunny-Bunny is that you?”

There’s a pause, then…

“Oh, Alice, love. I hoped you would call.”

17

It’s taken me a few days to work up the nerve to look at the KKM video. It occurs to me as I sit in front of my laptop, finger about to click the Play arrow, that I am crossing a line. My heart is thrumming in the same way it did when I called Kelly, which, come to think of it, was the real moment I crossed the line-when I started acting like William’s mother instead of his wife. If my heart knew Morse code and could tap out a message, it would be saying Alice, you spying nosy parker, delete this file right now!, but I don’t know Morse code, so I just tuck those thoughts away and click Play.

The camera pans in on a table at which two men and two women are seated.

“One sec,” says Kelly Cho. The table becomes blurry, then snaps into focus again. “Ready.”

“Cialis,” says William. “Elliot Ritter, fifty-six; Avi Schine, twenty-four; Melinda Carver, twenty-three; Sonja Popovich, forty-seven. Thank you all for coming. So you screened the commercial, right? What did you think?”

“I don’t get it. Why are they sitting in separate bathtubs if the dude has a four-hour erection?” asks Avi.

“He doesn’t have a four-hour erection. If he had a four-hour erection he’d be in an ambulance on the way to the hospital. The precautions have to be clearly stated in the commercial,” says William.

Melinda and Avi exchange a lusty look. Under the table, her hand seeks out his thigh and squeezes it.

“Are you a couple?” asks William. “Are they a couple?” he whispers under his breath.

“They didn’t say they were a couple,” says Kelly.

William must be wearing an earpiece and Kelly must be in the room with the one-way mirror, watching and listening.

“Yeah, well, how did the tubs get on the mountain?” asks Avi. “And who carried them up there? That’s what I want to know.”

“It’s called willing suspension of disbelief. I like the tubs,” says Elliot. “My wife likes the tubs.”

“Can you tell me why, Elliot?” asks William.

“Some of those other ads are so crude,” says Elliot.

“It’s better than the one of the man throwing the football or the one with the train. Please. It’s insulting. A vagina is not a tire swing. Or a tunnel. Well, maybe a tunnel,” says Melinda.

“So your wife prefers the Cialis commercials, Elliot?” asks William.

“She would prefer I didn’t have ED,” says Elliot, “but since I’m challenged in that department, yes, she finds the bathtub commercials more palatable than the others.”

“Sonja, we haven’t heard from you yet. What do you think about the commercial?” asks William.

Sonja shrugs.

“Okay, that’s all right. I’ll circle back to you,” says William. “So, Cialis, Avi. You’re twenty-four and you’re a user. Why?”

“May I suggest you don’t refer to him as a ‘user’?” says Kelly.

Avi looks at Melinda and she smiles shyly. “Why not?” he says.

“Do you have problems with ED?”

“You mean down there.” Avi points at his crotch.

“Yes,” sighs William.

“Dude. Do I look like I have problems? It just makes it better.”

“Dude. Care to elaborate?” says William.

Avi shrugs, clearly unwilling to share the details.

“Okay, well, how many times a week do you have sex?”

“How many times a day,” corrects Melinda. “Two. Sometimes three if it’s the weekend. But definitely two.”

William can’t keep the skepticism out of his voice. “Really,” he says. “Three times a day?”

Elliot looks flabbergasted. Sonja looks dead. I feel slightly nauseous.

“Draw him out, don’t challenge him,” suggests Kelly. “We need details.”

This doesn’t sound crazy to me. When we were in our twenties, William and I sometimes had sex three times a day. On President’s Day. And Yom Kippur.

“Yeah, man, three times a day,” says Avi, looking irritated. “Why would we lie? You’re paying us to tell you the truth.”

“Fine. So how many times a week do you take Cialis?”

“Once a week. Usually on Friday afternoons.”

“Why Cialis and not Viagra?”

“Four hours. Thirty-six hours. You do the math.”

“How did you get the prescription?” asks William.

“Told my doctor I was having problems. Down there.”

“And he believed you?”