Maxed Out (2 page)

“I don’t know,” I say. I don’t know how I ever consider
myself any of the things I listed earlier, considering how close I was to
trying to ruin Jeremy’s career.

“Sure you do,” Jeremy says. “You just don’t want to tell me
for some reason – maybe you don’t want to tell yourself. Can you tell me the
reason?”

“I don’t want to be wrong,” I say.

Jeremy nods. “So you value moderation,” he says.

“What?” I say. I do nothing of that sort. I’m probably the
most impulsive person I know.

“But you don’t want to risk angering me later if I catch you
in a lie. You realize that this is important to me so you’re treating it with
respect, even though you don’t agree. This tells me a lot – you respect
opinions you disagree with, or more importantly other people in general, and
you’re also not interested in taking the easy way out. You’re willing to have a
longer conversation and wait and see where it ends up.”

“I don’t see how you get moderation from all that,” I say. It
sounds nice, though. I’ll have to tell Max when I get home, tell him he doesn’t
give me enough credit.

“Respect, moderation and patience are all the same thing,”
Jeremy says. “If you’re moderate about something, that means that you respect
all parties involved enough to be patient with it. If you’re patient with
something, that means you respect it enough to give it the time it deserves
rather than whatever’s convenient for you.”

“So what about you, then?” I say. “You’ve discovered I’m
Aesop’s tortoise. Who are you?”

I think I know the answer to this. His line of questioning
has clicked with something I saw in his resume. Jeremy thinks he has everything
figured out. Not in your typical know-it-all fashion, where he’s ready to
correct you about something you’ve been doing for years on his first day
(although he just did that) but in a more relaxed, confident manner. He’s
willing to let other people go on being wrong if they want to. Jeremy just ‘knows’
that he’s an expert at everything – journalism, psychology, people, you name
it.

“I’m too self-confident for my own good,” Jeremy says. I
can’t tell whether this is a circular statement or not.

“If you know this why don’t you stop?” I ask.

“It’s hard to back down when you know something is right,”
he says. “I’ve learned that I have to do it strategically sometimes in order to
control what other people think of me but it’s still difficult.”

“Like what?” I say. “Give me an example.” I know what he
means, though: he seems like an asshole already. I still have to learn to work
with him.

He scratches his head for a second before he comes up with
one. “Your boss, for example. Our boss. When he assigned me to work with you
for a week. The Bugle is being rendered more and more obsolete every day. We
can’t afford to have excess staff – in fact, I read that you guys had some
pretty big layoffs last month.  He must have hired me for a specific reason.
Having me just help you with your job for a week is a complete waste, since I’m
just going to be doing that specific thing anyway, unless…”

Unless he’s been hired to replace me.

He stops, smiling. “There, I just did it again,” he says. “I
didn’t tell any of that to Phil because he would’ve assumed I couldn’t know
very much about your needs or finances or motivations since I’ve been here less
than an hour when actually it’s the opposite. I’m a journalist and I’ve been
here almost an hour. It’s my job to know almost everything about this place. I’ve
been looking at everything –
really
looking, not just glancing about but
trying to absorb and understand every detail. In addition, I’ve done my
homework. I read everything I could about this place online when I applied and then
I went back and did it again when I got the job. Most people don’t pay
attention to details. I do. As a result, I probably know more about this place
than Phil.”

“So you’re a regular Sherlock Holmes?” I say.

Jeremy shakes his head. “No. I just know a lot about
newspapers. I couldn’t tell you very much if this was a body shop or a supermarket,
for example. I’d notice a lot of things, sure, but I wouldn’t know which things
mattered or what they meant. I’m also not addicted to narcotics.”

“So what does this bring out in your stories?” I ask. I’m a
bit curious about his methodology in trying to be unbiased, even if I disagree
with the premise. I generally try to do the opposite: I try to make my spin as
obvious and heavy as possible, but I do write an editorial column primarily. No
matter what I like to tell people, it’s possible to be relatively neutral when
discussing things like facts. Math facts. Really basic math facts.

“I tend to make up a story independent of the facts and try
to push it using whatever’s convenient,” Jeremy says. “I’m too confident in my
own ability to guess what’s going on. When I’m wrong, even if there’s
overwhelming evidence countering my story, I’ll try to pick out the bits that
let me stick to it. In order to stop this I just run my notes by a colleague
and get their perspective before I finish my articles. If they disagree with my
views on the big picture, I’ll change things before I submit for publication.”

I do the same thing, I realize. In my head, I’m trying to
take all of these little things and use them to support my theory that Jeremy’s
an asshole, that I hate working with him and that he’s incompetent. If I take a
step back and listen he’s just said that people are irritated by his confidence
(which is true, it’s working on me) and that he enjoys peer review of his
ideas. Not exactly incompetent asshole exclusive stuff. No matter how hard I
try, though, I can’t like the guy, which is weird because he’d totally be my
type if I was still on the market. Probably. He’s the polar opposite of Max:
nerdy instead of athletic, slim instead of muscular, classically beautiful
instead of ruggedly handsome. This isn’t a bad thing -- Max has been the
exception that proves the rule with regards to my taste in men – but I’ve been
with him for a while and I’m starting to see the benefit of some attributes I
usually don’t prefer.

I hate Jeremy because I’m envious. That has to be it. I was envious
of the attention he was getting when he was being hired. I’m envious of how
easily he walks in and gets on Phil’s good side and gets a cushy road to his
job immediately. I had to work in the copy room for months before I got a
writing gig. I’m also jealous of how he makes me feel: a weird bundle of woozy
and weak in the knees blended with primal attraction with a sprinkle of
loathing on top for good measure. As far as I know, I’ve never had that effect
on people. When I look in the mirror, I can appreciate that I’m attractive, but
I don’t go, ‘damn, I’m sexy.’ When I see Jeremy, though…

It’s probably for the better that I hate him. I won’t be
able to change the way I feel about him until he earns my respect. Since there’s
no way that’ll happen until he’s working on his own, there’s no chance of us
making any sort of connection and me cheating on Max during the week I’m
assigned to mentor him. Or of gravity reversing and everything shooting off
into space.

“How was work?” Max asks.

He’s taken me out to a fancy Italian place on the
waterfront, with candles and fancy wines and a dress code that I’m probably
violating in every hole since I’ve come straight from work. Normally I’d be a
bit worried that he was trying to make up for something but Max has always been
spendy when it comes to me and I’m not exactly going to say no while he’s got
loads of money to burn.

“Alright,” I say. “The new guy finally got in and Phil wants
me to show him around, so I’m going to have my hands full for a while. I don’t
like him much. He’s a complete asshole, thinks he knows everything.”

I take a sip of wine. Max has this weird look in his eyes,
like he doesn’t want to make eye contact for some reason.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

“Signed a new contract,” he says.

“Did you get promoted to head coach?”

He nods.

“That’s great!”

“It means I’ll be travelling with the team a lot more,” he
says. He’s still not quite looking at me.

“So?” I say. “You’ve always wanted to get out of the city
more. This is perfect for us.”

He grimaces. “I think we should break up,” he says.

 “I still think it’s great,” I say. “It’s a good
opportunity. Shows they value you.”

He stares at me blankly. Something has been eating at him,
clearly: he’s got big circles under his eyes and he looks worried. Sad, too.
Something clearly has him on edge. At least he’s making eye contact finally. I
wonder what changed.

 He’s expecting something from me now. He thinks his last
statement requires more confirmation from me. I don’t know what more I’m
supposed to say here – I’ve congratulated him like nine times already. What
more could he want?

“I think we should break up,” he says again, like I didn’t
hear him the first time.

Wait. What? Break up? Now? Why? Things are going great. He’s
got to be joking. I laugh a little, to humor him, although truthfully it isn’t
very humorous.

“Very funny, sweetie,” I say. “What’s really eating at you?”

He looks pained, like he’s trying to explain the difference
between dollars and cents to a Verizon rep. “I think we should break up,” he
says, a third time.

“Why?” I ask. He can’t be serious. We’ve had no fights in
like a year. We talk. What could possibly be the problem?

“I’ll be travelling,” he says. “We both don’t think long
distance relationships work. Our relationship would become long distance.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I say.

“I’d be out of the city almost half of football season. When
I’m home, I’d be working full time. You know how crazy my hours get. The only
weekends we have together are during away games. Now those are going to be
gone.”

“You’d still be home way too much to consider it a long
distance—“

“No,” he says, cutting me off. “This would be just like me
going to Iraq for 6 months. I’d be completely inaccessible. Sure, we’d see each
other, occasionally, when I’m cranky and tired after work and I just want to
sleep. Is that an improvement? How would that solve our lack of intimacy or
real conversation for months at a time? We’d both have to turn to other things:
me work, you work too or maybe something else. I don’t know. What if there was
a female that travelled with us? Would you be able to handle that? You’ve never
been jealous of Darla before; if I went on a trip with her without you every
two weeks for three days would you still be okay? There’s just too many holes. I’ve
been looking at this from every angle for a week, ever since I got the news. I
can’t find a solution. “

“What about asking for some time off every once in a while?”
I ask. It’s futile. I can feel the inevitability sink in within me. He’s
completely right. Our relationship is built on honesty and openness and being
together. If you take that away, even for a few months, we’re out of the
running. We might be able to stay friends if we break up now.

“If I took every Wednesday off would that be enough?” Max
says. No. No, it wouldn’t. One night a week wouldn’t do it. Two might. We’re
already strained enough during football season with three, and his workload
isn’t anywhere near what it will be post-promotion. I know exactly how much
harder his job will get; I’ve talked to his boss at parties. He won’t have
any
time. All of his co-workers are either single or married. They just don’t have
time for girlfriends. If we want to stay together, we’ll need our three nights
a week, and there’s no way he’ll be able to hold onto those with the new job.

He sees it too. Obviously. That’s why he’s breaking up with
me. It’s a shame, too, because my relationship with Max has been the one that
I’ll probably look back to most favorably. Not because we’re super compatible
or because we’ve done anything exceptional or because he’s amazing in the sack,
but because we’ve had an adult relationship that’s challenged our boundaries
and caused us to grow together. We’ve had all those other things. We just had
to work together to accomplish them, and, as it tends to happen, the working has
been more fun than the result. I’m going to go back to finding men who I can
just boss around and he’s going to go back to finding women who just accept his
dominance and we’ll both be perfectly happy and we’ll never ever question our
flat, static relationships, never wonder what it would be like if our partners would
be just a little more active or opinionated or pushy, never see what could
happen if their visions were different from ours and if we were forced to
compromise on something that wasn’t what either of us had in mind but was every
bit as fulfilling. All of this discovery and sharing and growth we’ve done is
just going to lay fallow and die, forgotten. And you know what? I’m going to be
comfortable and happy and content and I’m never going to look back. Ever.

 “So what do we do now?” I ask.

“We finish eating,” he says. “We’re here and our basic
biological needs aren’t going to go away. Afterwards, you should probably start
packing your stuff and looking for a new place. There’s not really a rush, but
I think you should be out by the end of the week if you can.”

“And then?”

“Then whatever happens happens. I’d love to stay friends, I
guess, but we’re both going to need some time and distance and honestly I’m not
sure if we’ll stay in contact.”

I can’t be rationally angry at him right now. Doesn’t make
me any less furious. He’s right, though, I can’t stand him at the moment, no
matter how much sense he makes. Going back home to sleep tonight is going to be
hard.

I don’t think I can bear to stick around him a moment
longer. It’s beginning to feel claustrophobic, like my world is collapsing in
on me. Which it is.