The Balance Thing

W
hen you're looking for parking in North Beach you have plenty of time to examine where you've gone wrong in your life. It sort of forces you to go slowly and consider all your options. I was finding it increasingly annoying becauseâlike finding a place to parkâintrospection is not an activity I generally build into my schedule.

I don't waste mental cycles kicking myself for not cashing in my stock options before the bubble burst. I don't examine my face in the rearview mirror and wonder if at thirty-three I'm starting to look like my mother. And I don't generally obsess about my boyfriendâpossibly because I don't generally have a boyfriend.

However. The question that persisted as I slowed to evaluate a hand-holding, sunlit coupleâwho, it turned out, were not getting into a car and opening up a parking spaceâwas the same question that had been announcing itself with increasing frequency and mounting urgency over the past few weeks:
Greg?

Lately it seemed he was everywhere. It wasn't so much that he'd developed a habit of showing up unexpectedly; it
was more as if he'd come over five weeks ago and never left. His
Office Space
video was on top of my television. His Head & Shoulders was in my shower. He didn't even have to be there to be there.

Even now he was in my passenger seat, nattering on aboutâI tuned in briefly, heard the words “Internet baseball fantasy league,” and tuned out again. He was sucking all the air out of the car.

I admit I had only myself to blame. If I'd noticed that what had, for me, been an I'm-bored-so-I-might-as-well-have-coffee-with-someone situation had, for Greg, been an if-I-just-hang-in-there-she's-got-to-fall-for-me-eventually scenario, this could all have been avoided.

But I hadn't. I'd let all the warning signs slip by and had never seen it until that night he'd come over to help me rearrange my furniture. Then
bam
âjust as soon as he'd positioned the throw rug and the sofa at exactly the thirty-eight-degree angles I'd specified, he'd pounced.

I know I should have pushed him away. Or at least verified that this was just going to be sex between friends, no more meaningful than a game of racquetball, and not the beginning of something (
shudder
) beautiful.

But I hadn't. Because despite my better instinctsâ¦well, one gets swept up in these things. And although I knew it was imperative to set some firm parameters immediately after straightening my clothes, he'd made his post-sex declaration firstâcomplete with puppy-dog eyesâ“What are we doing next weekend?”

We.

One goddamn moment of weakness and by the following weekend his Peanut Butter Cap'n Crunch was in my kitchen.

I changed lanes to avoid getting caught behind a bus and was instead caught behind someone trying to make a left turn. “Whoops.” I could feel Greg's loopy grin without looking over at him. “You're spanked. That's why I always stay in the right-hand lane.”

I forced a smile. He wasn't really a bad guy. Most people seemed to classify him as a sort of likable flake. And professionally he had a reputation as a good-bordering-on-inspired programmer. At least he'd managed to hang on to his high-tech career better than I had. So there was no logical reason why I shouldn't be perfectly happy to spend half my life looking for a parking space just so we could buy the damn cannoli for the stupid party his idiot friend was throwing that night.

Maybe it was my attitude.

“Hon, can we find an ATM before we park?” he asked. I braced for the inevitable. “I think there's a Smells Fargo around the next corner.”

Smells Fargo. Not Wells Fargo, the real name of the bank. Smells Fargo. Every time, every time,
every time
.

I wondered if he even realized he was doing it anymore.

I know we all have these little unconscious things. And the point is, they're little things. You have to look beyond them. You have to remember all the little unconscious things he does that
don't
make you want to hurl the car into oncoming traffic.

“There it is,” he sang out. “Smells Fargo!”

I watched my knuckles turn white on the steering wheel. It was time for Greg to go.

“AW, SWEETIE.”
This was accompanied by a crinkled-brow frowny face from my friend Max. “He broke up with you?”

“Hell no,” I said, “I broke up with him. When are the girls supposed to be here?” I looked across the crowded restaurant toward the door, hoping to catch Connie and Vida as they came in. From the look of things, they'd have to force their way through a gang of suburban moms in the throes of a Union Squareâinduced shopper's high.

I glanced over to find Max biting his lip. Actually biting his lip to keep from saying what I knew he was dying to. I sighed. “Say it.”

“You're insane.”

When it comes to offering opinions, Max never needs to be asked twice.

“He was driving me insane,” I said. “But only in the right-hand lane.”

“He was nuts about you,” Max said. “And he was cute, and let's not forget he was nuts about you.”

“He was nuts all right.”

Max gave me an accusatory look. He was six-foot-four with jet black hair, deep gray eyes, and a body that was as near perfection as his five weekly appointments with a personal trainer could get it. Luckily, he was also just Max, and he didn't intimidate me for a minute.

“Okay,” I allowed, “he wasn't nuts. He was perfectly sane. Annoying, but sane.” I shrugged. “He'll make some dandruff-prone, pun-loving, cereal eater a lovely boyfriend someday. Can we change the subject now?”

Max took my hand in both of his, and I couldn't help noticing how much softer his skin felt than mine. “Becks, I'm
you're oldest friend in this town, and we've seen each other through the good men and the bad, so believe me when I tell you, and I say this with love”âhe took a moment to give me a totally sincere lookâ“you're going to die alone.”

“Very funny.” I withdrew my hand and patted him patronizingly on the arm. “I hope you've got better material in your show.”

Max Trop, which of course was not the name his parents had given him, led two very different lives. By day he was a dermatologist with a thriving practice near enough to Union Square that his clients could schedule their Botox injections or microdermabrasion appointments conveniently between a little shopping spree at Saks and lunch at the Neiman Marcus Rotunda. By nightâat least for the past few monthsâhe was one of four first-time producers attempting to mount a musical-theater-topical-cabaret-snappy-patter-and-sing-along show that would put the classic San Francisco favorite
Beach Blanket Babylon
on notice that a new showbiz kid was in town.

Max's eyes narrowed. “Nice try. You think if you mention the show, you'll distract me. How self-centered do you think I am?”

I held my hands about a foot apart. “This much?”

“More. But I'll spare you because the girls are here, and neither of us will get to talk about anything but the bridal event of the century for the rest of the day.”

Connie and Vida were excusing-me and pardoning-me their way through the crowd, trying to squeeze what looked like a half dozen large shopping bags each between the tables.

“Should we help them?” I asked, although between
Vida's lithe athletic grace and Connie's former-debutant manners, they weren't having much of a problem.

“I was thinking we could pretend not to know them.” Despite this sentiment, Max stood and scooted chairs around to make more room.

Connie reached the table first, flung the packages around her, and collapsed into a chair, somehow managing to avoid compromising her flawless posture. “So here's the latest,” she said. “Vee thinks I shouldn't sleep with Ian until after the wedding.”

“I didn't say that.” Vida deposited herself into the chair next to me and reached for my glass of water. “I just said I read an article about it.” She took several large gulps. “I was dying for that.” She looked around the table at us. “You know, reclaiming the mystery before the wedding night.”

“Mystery is overrated,” Max said. “But if you're looking to inject a little spice, I know this great shop onâ”

“Anyway,” Connie said firmly, “it's a stupid idea. Ian and I have been living together for two years. It's a little late now to play hard to get.” She scooped her long, perfectly highlighted hair away from her face, then dropped it straight down her back. “We both know exactly what we're getting and we're both completely content.”

“How romantic,” Max murmured.

I gave him a warning look, but apparently Connie hadn't heard him. Maybe she was too busy being content. And why not? She was thirty-four years old and had everything the magazines told her she should. Great career as an events plannerâshe basically got to throw fabulous parties using other people's money. Great guyâor at least great for her, if a little bland for my tasteâwho ran his own company and
worshiped the ground she walked on. Her just-slightly-too-intellectual-to-be-a-supermodel looks completed the package. She had that toned sleek look that racehorses and girls who grow up with a good deal of money seem to share. It had taken a tremendous effort of will not to hate her when we'd met.

“What's going on with you two?” Vida asked. She had finished my water and was eyeing Max's when the waiter came with reinforcements. “You looked like something serious was going down when we came in. Thanks!” The last word was addressed to the waiter and accompanied by one of Vida's you-can-take-the-girl-out-of-Southern-Californiabut-you-can't-take-the-sunshine-out-of-the-girl smiles. But she frowned when she turned to me. “Did you get laid off again?”

Oddly enough, I wasn't insulted by the question. Since the high-tech crash I'd been laid offâ
ugh,
it's too depressing to say how often.

I had done well in the boom years, though. I'd planned carefully and worked hard and had graduated from the ranks of computer-show booth bunnies to become an associate product marketing manager right on schedule. And I'd just been promoted to the lofty position of marketing manager for a sizable software company when said company lost 87 percent of its market value in one week.

They “restructured” and suddenly I was out on my ass, which had definitely not been the next planned step on my career trajectory. My only consolation was that I'd managed to pay off most of my credit cards and make a down payment on a loft before everything fell apart.

Since then I'd developed an amazing knack for signing
on with companies that were on the verge of their last corporate gasps. One memorable time I'd actually shown up on my first day to find that the company had declared bankruptcy that morning. More than one person had suggested I was the Typhoid Mary of high tech.

“Becks, you didn't get laid off!” Connie looked momentarily panicked. I didn't think for an instant this was due to any genuine concern about my professional well-being. She just didn't want me to plead financial hardship and back out of being a bridesmaid at the international festival of excess that was to be her wedding.

In all other aspects of her life, Connie was a perfectly reasonable adult. But when it came time to plan the wedding, her insanely wealthy parents had convinced her that the concept of “too much” would not apply. It hadn't taken much convincing.

The extravaganza would include a flight to London and a week at some
chi chi
hotel, followed by transportation (possibly via magic pumpkin coach) to a country manor house where, over the course of another week, the wedding of the century would take place. Leading up to the main event would be more cocktail parties, formal dinners, and tea thingies than I could keep track of without a part-time assistant.

I'd need killer outfits for every gathering, not to mention a bridesmaid dress that looked like something out of a Merchant Ivory film. So Connie was very concerned about my cash flow.

“If you'd been keeping score, you'd know I don't have a real job to get laid off from these days,” I told them. Then I shrugged. “But don't worry. I've still got Vladima.”

Silly, really, but there it was. Despite a business degree
from Stanford and several years of experience working in serious, grown-up marketing departments, I was currently earning a living as the voice of a kick-ass vampire/vixen in the Internet-based animation phenomenon known as
Vladima CrossâDefender of the Night
.

It was a complete fluke. Ages ago I'd briefly been the Product Marketing Associate for a computer animation tool, and I'd had the rather clever idea that we should make little animated movies showing how to use the software. Using animation to teach animation. Brilliant, right? Except that the actress who was supposed to come in and record the voice of the cartoon instructor never showed up. And since it had all been my bright idea, I'd had to fill in for her.

Eventually the animation company tanked, but not before a poorly socialized artist/programmer named Josh Fielding had gotten so used to hearing my voice that he'd wanted nobody else to record the extremely campy dialogue of his cartoon vampire heroine.

It wasn't something I'd want in the alumni newsletter, but, hey, it paid the bills. And it had to because lately I couldn't score a second interview for a marketing job. The vampire business, on the other hand, was booming. We were just getting ready to go live with
Vladima XVIâDaemons of the Night
.

“Sure she has a job,” Max said smoothly. “Three guesses what she doesn't have.”

“Oh.” Connie looked relieved. “Is that all? She just broke up with Greg?” Connie turned to Vida. “How long did he last?”

Vida looked up from the menu and squinted. “She wasn't seeing him on Valentine's Day. I remember because we went
to that âbring a used boyfriend' party at Jennifer's place. Oh, I think that's where she met Greg.” She did a quick calculation. “So if it's April now, and that was mid-February, he probably made it six, maybe seven weeks.”

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