MEL SPED HER MINI COOPER AROUND THE CURVES OF HER THERAPIST Janet’s neighborhood, squinting into the air turned hazy and thick from the Woolsey Fire, blazing just fifteen miles away. She knew Adam was already waiting for her at their couples’ session, which he’d had “no choice” but to push from their usual evening slot to one P.M., due to a “dinner thing” with some studio exec. An excuse Mel now assumed was code for a date with his sexting slut. But Mel hadn’t batted an eye when he’d requested the time change and apologized for having to miss their usual after-therapy dinner. Let him cancel their date night to meet up with whoever-the-fuck-she-was. Let him complain about Mel being five minutes late for therapy, in his signature passive-aggressive style. I know Mel doesn’t think her time is more valuable than everyone else’s. But then why is she always holding us hostage with her lateness?
Today, Adam could be as holier-than-thou as he liked. Because today, in Janet’s back house, which doubled as an office, Mel was going to incinerate his claim to the title of As Good as a Man Gets. In less than an hour, Adam’s reputation, and their marriage, Mel thought with stomach-flipping finality, would be as burnt as the Malibu mansions that had been swallowed by flames.
The Woolsey Fire had sparked in the Simi Valley, Mel had read, then jumped the Ventura Freeway to devour the chaparral-covered canyons of the Santa Monica Mountains. The fire was uncontained, and now devouring countless estates belonging to the richest and most famous. As Mel stepped on the gas, the local radio station was going on and on about the Kardashians having to flee their compound. As if, Mel thought, those were the victims they should be most concerned about. God, sometimes she truly hated LA. She considered texting Zack—knowing he’d agree with her—and nearly reached for her phone before commanding herself, No. Focus. She could not allow herself to think of anything but the task ahead, on Janet’s cat-hair-covered sofa. The task she’d been waiting for what felt like forever to complete.
It had been surprisingly easy to avoid Adam as she waited for their couples’ therapy session to arrive. Adam was a morning person; Mel a night owl. Adam was working long hours on a new project—an adaptation of some YA novel about blah blah blah, which was all she heard when his mouth opened these days. She was at the gym nearly every day now, taking classes, the majority taught by Zack. Her new life, that of Mel 2.0, had been largely Adam-free, and she’d felt better than ever. Ready for the next step. The purge of Adam. The punishment of Adam. Justice for Mel, all versions. It had been exhausting to hold all that rage inside, wait for the right moment to unleash it all. She’d spent the last few weeks fantasizing about revenge. She’d considered printing out the texts and tucking them like cue cards inside Adam’s wallet, so it was the first thing he saw when he paid for his espresso in the morning. Surprise! Or sending Sloane on a sleepover, and papering Adam’s home office with a thousand copies of the texts, so many that it would take him hours to tear them down. Ha! She’d even contemplated the very worst thing, a marriage-breaker for sure—calling Adam’s mother and revealing to Marti Goldberg just how repulsive her baby boy truly was.
Her phone pinged with a text, and although she’d sworn to stop looking at her phone while driving, she couldn’t help herself.
Adam, of course. Right on cue.
Not okay that you are late. Again.
She stopped herself from sending the middle finger emoji.
She was still wearing her sweaty gym clothes, her thighs beginning to chafe in the leggings Regina had given her, though they actually fit pretty well now. She’d bought a couple other new pairs, too, and tossed the ones she’d torn in the van with Zack into a dumpster in the alley behind her house. The memory of that night—Zack’s hands all over her, then his tongue between her legs—made her shift in her seat, narrowly missing a landscaper lugging a bag of soil across the road. The worker was wearing a white mask and Mel felt a jab of guilt that he had to labor in the smoky air, flakes of ash falling like black snow, while she was sealed in the clean air of her A/C-chilled car, racing to therapy, where she was prepared to accuse her husband of the very sin she too had committed.
Hypocrite was one of precocious Sloane’s new favorite words and, those past few weeks, each time Mel heard her daughter use it, Mel’s dedication to her cause—Mel 2.0—wavered. Then, all she had to do was think of the texts she’d found on Adam’s phone. She had a printout of the texts now, carefully folded in her purse, ready to show to both Adam and Janet. Proof.
And anyway, she told herself, the thing in the van had been a one-time dalliance. A redemptive whirl to reestablish balance in her and Adam’s marriage. Tit for tat, Even Steven, an eye for an eye, and all that. She’d felt righteous emerging from the Color Theory van into the cool night air. Mortified that Regina had caught them, sure. But also a little triumphant. She, the fat girl, desired by the drop-dead-gorgeous younger man both she and Regina, and every other woman who’d ever lain eyes on him, had pined for. Talk about fairness, why don’t you, dear Adam? Fair was an aesthetically forgettable woman like herself being treated like she was a bona fide Victoria’s Secret angel.
While she knew she’d never do it again, each time Mel had taken one of Zack’s classes those past few weeks, the way he looked at her reminded her she could have him again, if she wanted. Not that she did, but the option made her feel a kind of justice was being served. For all the girls hiding flab under layers of control-top tanks, compression leggings, Spanx. All the invisible middle-aged women not willing to torture themselves in gyms every single day, not willing to spend $1,000 a month on creams and injections and laser treatments to look a few years younger. Mel 2.0 was the heroine in a rom-com Hollywood would never make, because, apparently, she thought, parking in front of Janet’s sprawling but unkempt Craftsman, fat women weren’t allowed to fall in love, or feel desire, or have a big fat orgasm (or two) in the back of a van.
Still, Mel had a conscience (unlike Adam, she thought) and she’d been worried luring Adam into what Sloane would call a sneak attack via confrontation on the therapy couch was unethical. But confronting Adam in front of Janet felt like the safest choice. It was hard for a woman to feel safe these days. Of course, Mel knew she didn’t have the kind of problems poor Lettie had to deal with but, still, her radar was on red alert, especially now that she was reading a dozen op-eds a week decrying the pernicious harassment of women in every industry, specifically Adam’s starlet-stuffed Hollywood. Could good-as-a-man-gets Adam be one of those very same predators?
She smoothed her frizzed bangs in the rearview mirror. She was ready to rumble.
The smoke-filled air from the distant fire clawed at Mel’s throat as soon as she stepped out of the car. The clouds above matched the moment: apocalyptic. Thick and heavy with deep purple and ochre and burnt orange, colors she might have once used for a dramatic wedding invitation printed on her letterpress but that now only made her think of bruises on a battered body. She marched up the cracked driveway, the thin layer of ash whispering like East Coast autumn leaves under her sneakers. She was a crusader charging into battle, ready to confront that cheating bastard on her own turf. Last week, during her individual session with Janet, Mel had briefed her on the situation (minus the Zack part), and they’d agreed Mel would confront Adam today, with Janet there to mediate.
Mel hurried through the overgrown backyard, stopping outside the half-open door of the carriage house Janet used as an office, catching the smell of potpourri incense. Mel gulped a breath and stepped inside.
Adam, as she’d correctly guessed, sat upright, perched on the edge of the sofa. Mel avoided his eyes and focused instead on the familiar objects around the room that had become a comfort. Heavy symbols that Brooklyn Mel would have disdained—long-necked African fertility statues made of smooth black stone, and bowls of crystals that Janet had once, to Mel’s horror, suggested Mel hold and rub during their session.
“Melissa,” Janet said cheerily from a wicker armchair in the center of the cluttered and dim-lit room, her feathered blond hair tied up in a poufy, girlish ponytail, though she was well over sixty.
“Sorry I’m late,” Mel said.
“Well,” Adam said dryly, “we certainly weren’t expecting you any earlier.”
So that’s how this was going to go, Mel thought. Oh, just you wait, Mr. Punctuality.
She took her place next to Adam on the sofa, making sure to leave as much distance as possible, a tasseled pillow behind her so her feet reached the ground.
“Adam and I were just discussing the fires,” Janet said, turning to Mel. “Devastating. Some of my former clients have had to evacuate.”
“The LA Times videos are heartbreaking.” Mel nodded.
“I’m sure you ran into traffic on the way here. It’s been awful.”
“Yeah. Sorry again for being late.”
“That’s funny,” Adam said, “I didn’t hit any traffic. And I came all the way from Burbank.”
The fight switch in Mel flicked on.
“Seriously, Adam? You’re going to criticize me—here?”
“Oh-kay,” Janet said. “Shall we have a do-over?” She laughed quietly and patted the wisps of blond hair around her narrow face. “That’s what I used to say when my kids were young. We all deserve a do-over now and then.”
Mel tried not show her annoyance, knowing Adam felt the same, reminding herself how wonderful Janet was, once you got past the New Agey tchotchkes all over the room, the You Control Your Destiny plaque on the wall (in a machine-printed cursive that offended Mel’s typography-trained eyes), and Janet’s tendency to speak like a kindergarten teacher. Many of Mel’s individual sessions with Janet over the past year had ended with Mel in tears over a new revelation or insight. She’d been making good progress as a human. Then Adam had (literally) fucked it all up.
“So, here we are,” Janet said with a shake of her ponytail.
“Oh-kay,” Mel mumbled. “Guess we’re honing right in.”
“Homing,” Adam said. “I think you mean ‘homing right in.’”
“See?” Mel looked to Janet. “Why do I bother? I can’t say a sentence without him criticizing me.”
Adam looked down at his hands, tucked between his knees. “Sorry.”
“We’ve talked about criticism quite a bit in previous sessions,” said Janet gently. “And we can continue talking about it now, if that’s what you think is helpful, Mel. But just make sure you’re not avoiding your real intention here today.”
Mel felt Adam stiffen next to her—the sofa cushion slid back as he leaned forward.
“Intention?” he said. “What’s going on? You two are scaring me.”
The room fell silent. Just say it, Mel commanded herself. But she was unable to speak. Instead, she stared pleadingly at Janet.
Janet took the cue. “Why don’t I help us get started? Melissa, has, unwittingly, discovered something she’d like to address with you, Adam. A very hurtful and disorienting revelation. Melissa?” She looked at Mel expectantly.
“Discovered something.” Adam nodded slowly. “You mean, as in, realized something here, during one of your solo sessions?”
Mel’s eyes found the once-loathsome plaque hanging on the wall behind Janet’s head. You Control Your Own Destiny.
Now, it felt like a sign. She remembered what Bri had said in that transformative Color Theory class. No one’s going to give you what you need. You’ve got to take it.
Mel sat up straight, feeling the new muscles in her arms, the strength in her core. She took the deepest breath she could manage, and then she spoke.
“I found the texts, Adam. The texts.”
He stared at Mel dumbly, as if he hadn’t heard her. Was he going to make her say it again?
“You’d think”—she looked to Janet—“a famous filmmaker would be smarter. Better at covering his tracks.”
Adam cut in. “Covering tracks? What?” He was rubbing his palms up and down the thighs of his designer skinny jeans—something Mel knew he did when nervous.
“I have a story for you, Adam,” Mel said, feeling bolder. “You might find it a little clichéd, but here goes.” She rummaged inside her purse as she spoke. “Man marries woman. Woman gets fat. Man gets rich and successful and famous. Man cheats on woman with hot young slut. The end.”
“What?” Adam shook his head rapidly, looking, Mel thought, guilty as hell. Boo-ya! she heard Bri yell in her mind.
“I know you cheated on me, Adam.”
“This is a joke, right?” Adam looked to Janet.
“No, Adam, this is quite serious,” Janet said.
Mel located the printout of the texts in her purse and thrust the folded paper at Adam.
“What . . . is this?” Gingerly, he took the paper from her and unfolded it.
“Just read it.”
Adam stared at the page, his lips moving ever so slightly, glasses slipping down his nose. Mel had the passing reflex to push them up for him, and then remembered she wouldn’t be touching him ever again.
Adam looked up.
“This isn’t me,” he said, his voice cool and tight. “I don’t know what this is.” He extended the printout back to Mel.
She swatted it to the floor. “Bullshit,” she hissed.
“Melissa,” Janet warned.
Mel ignored her. “This, Adam, is the story you’ve, clearly, been living behind my back. Behind Sloanie’s sweet little back!”
Her eyes burned with tears but she refused to blink. She would not let him see her as anything but strong. Self-reliant. IN CONTROL.
But then she saw the look of terrified confusion on his face. Watched as he picked the paper up from the floor, almost pathetically, and scanned it again, his eyes flicking left and right across the page. She hadn’t seen him scared like this, so utterly lost-looking, since his father’s funeral.
“Let’s all take a breath,” said Janet. “Adam, take a few minutes to process.”
Adam did not answer. Mel watched him press his hands to his head, elbows resting on his knees. Panic shot through her: What if she was wrong? She wanted to grab Adam by the arm and drag him out of the room, lock the two of them in her car until he finally explained. Maybe, somehow, they could fix this. Hadn’t Adam always been a fixer, able to find a solution, no matter how impossible it seemed? Like when Sloane had inhaled a piece of carrot at two and Adam had picked her up, run the two blocks to the hospital, and stood in the middle of the ER waiting room, a wheezing Sloane in his arms, shouting until they let him in. As the doctors intubated Sloane, their baby’s delicate eyelids fluttering, Adam had looked Mel straight in the eyes and promised everything would be okay, and it had been. Until now.
It was too late for any of that. Mel understood that the life she’d had before the texts, before the thing in the van, was irrecoverable. Their beautiful life, as they’d known it, was over. And she’d played a role in the destruction.
A mewling came from behind the closed door. Janet stood, smoothed out her long, tie-dyed skirt, and opened it. Adam sat up as Janet’s smoky-gray cat slid into the room.
“Tabitha’s a people-cat,” said Janet, settling back into her seat.
“Do you mind?” Adam asked, with false politeness, nodding toward Tabitha. “I’m allergic.”
“This isn’t your space, Adam,” Mel snapped, feeling her anger resurface. “It’s Janet’s. You don’t control the world. And”—she turned to Janet—“he’s not allergic. He just dislikes cats.”
“Melissa,” Janet said, shooing the cat back outside and shutting the door. “Adam deserves more information.”
“I just delivered printed evidence. What more does he need?”
“No,” said Janet. “I mean information about how you feel. And then Adam gets to talk.”
“I think he prefers to text,” Mel said, unable to help herself.
“Those are not my fucking texts,” Adam said, through clenched teeth.
“Getting back to my question, Mel,” said Janet. “About how you’re feeling?”
“I feel,” Mel said, “like there is no moving on. As for healing . . . give me a break. I’ll never trust you again.”
“But I haven’t done anything!” Adam shouted.
Thar she blows, Mel thought. He’d finally lost his cool-as-a-cucumber attitude. Here was the Adam who choked out two-hundred-pound men on the jiu-jitsu mat. Adam—no worries, it’s all good, West Coast Adam—had vanished.
“You’re cheating. I found proof on your phone. Proof that you erased. The texts were there. And then, a few hours later, while I was sleeping, they disappeared. Explain that, Adam.”
“I can’t explain it,” said Adam, “because I had nothing to do with it.” He looked to Janet and spoke quietly, as if Mel were invisible. “This might be another of Mel’s episodes. She’s struggled with, uh, interpreting reality in the past . . .”
Mel barked a laugh. “Oh, so this is my fault? I should’ve known you’d try to blame it on me. It’s always Mel’s fault. Crazy Mel. Sensitive Mel. I won’t let you gaslight me, Adam.”
“Lay off the hashtag-Me-Too op-eds,” muttered Adam.
“Time to de-escalate, guys!” Janet cut in firmly. “This conversation can’t be productive if—”
But Mel couldn’t stop herself now. “You should’ve just killed me, Adam.” She punched herself in the chest and the hollow thud startled Janet, who began to rise from her chair. “Sit, Janet!” Mel snapped, smacking the air down with her palm. Then she added, “Please.”
The therapist obeyed.
“Because,” Mel continued. “I’m dead now. Do you know how many times I’ve died?” Now her fist was clenched and pressing into her gut. “Every. Single. Time. I read those disgusting texts between you and your . . . whore!”
“I swear to God, Melissa,” Adam said, his hands clasped as if in prayer, “I would never do that. I never did!”
Mel laughed. “I want to believe you, Adam. I want to believe you are good. Good-as-a-man-gets Goldberg!”
Adam spoke directly to Janet. “I’m deeply concerned about Mel’s stability. It’s ludicrous to even think I’d do that to her.”
“Or Sloane?” Mel asked, wiping away her tears with the back of her hand. “We’ll have to tell Sloanie, of course. Maybe”—she looked to Janet—“we can do that here? Yes, I think that’s the best choice. Don’t you, Janet?”
“Now wait a minute,” Adam said, straightening, looking from Mel to Janet and back. “Please tell me this isn’t some kind of delusional self-sabotage. Did you, Mel, type those texts yourself?”
“Don’t you vomit that psychobabble nonsense all over me, Adam!”
Janet tried to break in. “Mel, Adam. I think we need to slow down a little here.”
“Well, I think we need to speed things up,” Mel said, searching her purse for her car keys. “Perhaps by getting a good divorce lawyer. Or maybe we could tell Sloane that her father penetrated another woman’s vagina.”
“Mel, stop it.” Adam stood, his bulk suddenly filling the room. “That’s sick.”
Mel slung her purse over her shoulder. “No, you are the one that’s sick.”
“Janice,” Adam began, looking at the therapist.
“It’s Janet!” Mel said. “Is every woman just an object to you? I can’t believe I actually used to tell Sloane that Daddy is the best guy in the world!”
“This is what I’m talking about,” Adam said, pointing at Mel but looking at Janet. “She’s unhinged. She’d rather ruin our daughter’s life. She’s determined to make Sloane hate men.”
He was speaking to Janet now as if Mel were invisible. Something about her needing meds and calling her old psychiatrist back in Brooklyn.
“It’s no wonder Sloane refuses to wear anything but boys’ clothes,” Adam went on to Janet. “When her mother is telling her how horrible men are day after day.”
Mel knew she had to butt in, reclaim control. Janet was listening, nodding, her fingers tented in an upside-down V. Mel knew that gesture. She was believing him. Him.
“Don’t trust anything he says!” Mel stood between Adam and Janet. “He’s said terrible things. Once he told me to move to a lesbian commune. Can you believe that? It’s like a line in a bad sitcom.”
“Look, Mel.” Adam’s voice softened. “Can we just take a step back?”
“Oh, now you’re nice,” Mel said. “Now that you’ve got our therapist on your side.” She narrowed her eyes at Janet, hearing the manic desperation in her own voice. Not caring.
“I hear that you are hurting, Melissa,” said Janet.
“Mel, sweetheart,” chimed in Adam.
“Don’t ever, ever,” Mel said, jabbing her finger at his chest, “call me sweetheart again.”
She charged through the door of the office and out into the afternoon, ignoring Tabitha’s piercing mewl from somewhere close by, and ran down Janet’s driveway toward her car. The smoky air mingled with her tears, stinging her eyes and throat. As she yanked open the door of her Mini Cooper and wedged herself inside, she swore to herself she’d go to the gym every single day until she was strong enough to fight Adam, right on his goddamn jiu-jitsu mat.
Choke him unconscious.
She’d make herself hot. Starting now. She wouldn’t stop until she was as supremely fuckable as every single woman who’d sweated at the party in her backyard. And then, she’d have her revenge. By the time she was done, Adam would be an emotional castrato. No way was he going to ruin her life after he’d convinced her to move across the country, her sacrificing everything—her business, her friends, her all-black wardrobe, her Brooklyn—so he could follow his dreams and cheat on her with trashy, illiterate women.
She was going to Manifest Destiny his ass.
Mel drove a few blocks, but her hands wouldn’t stop shaking on the wheel. She pulled over and opened the Tiny Sheep virtual farm app on her phone. Sometimes, it was the only thing that calmed her down. She sheared a few tiny pink sheep, then dragged a male and female sheep into a “mating shack.”
Her phone pinged with a text.
Adam, she thought, demanding she return to Janet’s. As if.
But it was a group text. From Zack.
Winter’s coming, y’all! I love the gym as much as you do, but there’s nothing like sweating it out under the sun. Let’s get it while we still can! I’ll be in Beast Mode at Muscle Beach just south of the Pier on Thursday at 4 if anyone wants to join. Pro bono, no exchange of dinero, purely for fun! Hit me up if you wanna join.
In the seconds it took to digest his message, Mel almost believed in fate with a capital F. She thought of Lettie’s advice to her, on that mortifying day in Mel’s bedroom, when she’d suggested Zack’s training program.
I see it like a fortune-teller. All the good things coming to you.
Mel took a breath and closed Tiny Sheep. Then she responded to Zack alone: Thursday doesn’t work—are there other times this exhibitionist misery is happening? She added an emoji, the ponytailed woman grimacing under the weight of barbells, counted to ten, and hit Send.