In the weeks that followed Karen’s press conference, she found herself inundated with phone calls and emails offering her public speaking engagements and requesting interviews for various publications, radio programs, and television shows, as well as publicists offering their services, and talent managers and agents promising that they could make her rich and even more famous than she already was. She even received an offer from a TV production company to shoot a talk show pilot, featuring Karen as the host. She declined the offers, but they still kept coming. Her morning routine, which used to involve checking her website to see how much money had been donated, now included emptying her inbox of the requests. At first she had written back to each request, citing her lack of interest in the public spotlight, but eventually she had resigned herself to moving all such email into the trash without even opening it.
Karen sat on the toilet with her phone in her hand, dealing with her latest and worst bout of constipation, and scrolled through her inbox. After deleting dozens of emails, she stopped on one that surprised her. It was from Paul. She hadn’t talked to her ex-boyfriend at all since their last moment together in their old apartment. He’d kept his distance from both Karen and the public attention that came with her project, and she’d respected that by not contacting him, even though she’d wanted to several times.
Karen opened the email, which read, “Hey, I know we haven’t talked in a while. I saw your press conference. I have to say I wasn’t expecting you to do what you did. You’re always full of surprises. Anyway, I don’t know if you’d have any interest in this, but if you want to, I’d really like to see you. Maybe get coffee or lunch or something. Let me know, and I hope you’re doing well. —Paul”
Karen reread the email twice, trying to decipher any hidden meaning, anything Paul might have been trying to imply through his word choice or context, but she could find none. She had wanted to hear from Paul so badly for so long that when she finally did, she found herself wanting more from the message. The email certainly wasn’t negative in any way, but it wasn’t as positive as she would have liked, either. Paul was the one man she had ever really loved, and this email gave her a glimmer of hope that she could save that relationship, but it wasn’t affirmative enough to allay her fears altogether. Perhaps he just wanted to see her one last time before leaving town, she thought, or before moving in with a new girlfriend. So she replied with an email that read:
“It’s really good to hear from you. This email is just as surprising to me as my decision might have been to you. I’d absolutely like to see you for lunch or something. Just let me know what your schedule is like over the next few days.”
She pressed send and hoped to hear back from him soon. And she hoped his next email would contain some language that would give her an idea about what his intentions might be for this request to see her.
It took an hour, but when the response finally came it simply read, “I’m pretty open. I imagine your schedule is the busier of the two, so I leave it up to you. You can pick the place, too. I’ll go anywhere.”
So two days later as Karen sat in the lobby of the Cheesecake Factory in Woodland Hills, doing her best to avoid stares from a few patrons and agreeing to take one picture with a teenage girl who told Karen she was her hero, she still had no real idea why Paul wanted to see her. She was nervous about a great number of things. She hoped that Paul wanted to reconcile, just as she did. Beyond that, she was very visibly pregnant, and she wanted to look as good as she possibly could in a state that she considered to be uncomfortable at best. She noticed that she was starting to sweat and put one hand under her armpit to check just how intensely she was sweating. It was as she was pulling that hand out of her armpit that Paul walked in.
He smiled and said, “Hey, wow! You’re really, really pregnant, aren’t you?”
Karen smiled and said, “No shit.”
They hugged awkwardly and then followed the hostess to their table. Once seated, Paul said, “So, thanks for meeting me and everything.”
Karen said, “Of course. I was looking forward to it.”
Paul said, “Me too.”
Karen said, “Yeah, so why did you want to meet up? You didn’t really give me any idea in the emails.”
Paul said, “I just . . . I mean . . . I guess, first of all, I wanted to thank you for keeping me out of everything. I couldn’t really stop myself from following the story while your site was up, and I know you got asked a lot about who the father was and what happened to our relationship and everything. I know it was tough, and I just wanted to say thanks.”
Karen said, “Of course. You’re welcome. You know, you could have said thanks pretty easily with an email or something.”
Paul said, “I know. I also just wanted to see you, see how you were doing with my own eyes.”
Karen said, “Okay. Really? That was it? You just wanted to thank me and see me in person?”
Paul said, “You always were such an asshole when I was nervous to talk about something.”
Karen said, “I’m being an asshole right now?”
Paul laughed and said, “A little.”
Karen said, “Well, I’m really fucking pregnant, so I get to be an asshole. That’s how that works.”
Paul took a deep breath, and he said, “Okay, look, here’s the deal. Through this whole thing, I’ve always loved you. And there was something about not being a part of any of this decision that just made me worry that I wasn’t that important to you anymore, like you just saw me as a sidekick in the relationship or something.”
Karen said, “I’m sorry, Paul. You know—”
Paul said, “Just let me finish this.”
Karen said, “Okay, sorry.”
Paul said, “I think that was the reason I left you. I just felt like, if you could cut me out of a decision that big, then you could cut me out of anything in your life. I felt pretty disposable, I guess, and I didn’t know how to deal with that. But over the course of this whole thing, I started to get why you did this, and I remembered how much I appreciate the dedication you have to your ideas, and the way you want to change the world. And those are all reasons why I fell in love with you in the first place. And when I really boiled it down, and honestly asked myself, if you had asked me about your plan before you went through with it, would I have been supportive or not? I know I would have been. I would have had to think about it, and I’m sure it would have freaked me the fuck out, but I would have been behind you all the way. You really did affect the world, Karen. That’s just fucking amazing to me. So eventually I realized I had no reason to be mad or hurt by your decision. I only wanted to be with this amazing girl who I love and adore and who is doing things in the world that are fucking incredible. So, to answer your question, I asked you out for lunch because I wanted to tell you that I would love to give us another shot and be in your life and hopefully be in our daughter’s life. And that’s basically it.”
Karen sat across from Paul silently for a few seconds, weighing what he just said to her.
Paul said, “So I guess I thought you might have a kind of immediate response to this, you know, one way or another.”
Karen said, “You’re the only person I’d ever want to be with. And, if you want the real truth, a huge part of the reason I decided to do what I’m doing is that this baby is a part of you, too. I love you, Paul.”
Paul got up from his seat and crossed the table to kiss Karen. She started to cry and said, “I would not be crying normally, but this shit really screws with your hormones.” They both laughed and kissed again. A handful of people nearby were staring and talking, and it occurred to Karen that they were probably speculating about the identity of Karen Holloway’s mystery man.
Paul went back to his seat, sat down, took Karen’s hand, and said, “Why’d you pick the Cheesecake Factory?”
Karen said, “I’ve been craving some dulce de leche cheescake like you wouldn’t fucking believe.”
They ate their meal and talked about the future. Karen told Paul that she’d be happy to have him move back into their apartment, and Paul told Karen that he would be there every step of the way for the rest of her pregnancy. For the first time in a long time, without giving a thought to public opinion or the possible repercussions for her now-completed project, Karen was simply happy.