Part-Time Husband

A coffee commercial runs during the cable news show I turn on first thing in the morning.

The ad never persuades me to buy that brand of coffee, but I watch it every day while I run on the treadmill. An attractive woman in pale cotton pajamas wakes up before dawn to feed her new baby with a bottle. Then her handsome husband gets up a few minutes later to surprise her with a cup of coffee as a sappy symbol of his love.

Each morning, I stare at the woman’s expression on my television screen. Her eyes get big. Her mouth trembles. A single tear rolls down her cheek.

At a cup of coffee.

If a hot guy wants to bring me coffee, I’m not going to turn it down, but I’m also not going to cry about it. I cried at fourteen when my parents died, and I’ve hardly ever cried since.

I’m not that woman—the sweet, sentimental one who tears up over a kind gesture.

I’m the woman who makes an appointment on a Wednesday afternoon to ask a smug asshole to marry her.

That’s me. Melissa Greyson. Twenty-eight years old. Hardworking. Efficient. Good at managing the world around me. Not a crying-over-coffee woman but a proposing-to-the-asshole woman.

I guess it all starts one Monday at lunch with my grandfather, whom the entire world knows as Pop.

Pop has white hair and a long, carefully groomed mustache, and he always wears jeans with a blazer. He’s been among the elite of Charleston, West Virginia for most of his life, after starting a successful restaurant chain called Pop’s Home Cooking that has expanded into twelve surrounding states.

He looks harmless, but he’s not.

When I told him at seventeen that I wanted to work for his company, he laughed and patted me on the head. Literally.

I was a girl, he said. I’d be better off finding myself a good husband.

He didn’t think I was capable of succeeding in the business world, so I did it. I went to UVA as an undergraduate and then to Harvard for an MBA. I interned for Pop seven summers in a row before he would give me a full-time job. He finally did four years ago when I finished the MBA, and ever since, I’ve been working fifty- or sixty-hour weeks just to prove to him that I’m capable.

Six months ago, he finally gave me an executive-level position.

Maybe he concluded that running Pop’s Home Cooking by the good-ole-boy network might have worked forty years ago but would only lead to failure today. Or maybe he’s seen how the work I’ve done and the changes I’ve made to the company have consistently increased our profits.

For whatever reason, he promoted me. Half the staff hates me, of course. They think I’m a heartless bitch—I know they use the word because I’ve heard a few of them saying it under their breath—who will do anything to get ahead, and they also think I’m only in this position because I’m Pop’s granddaughter.

Maybe you wonder why I stay on at Pop’s Home Cooking when I could get a good job somewhere else.

I could. And after a bad day, I’ll even think about it.

But this is my family. This is my heritage. I lost half my family in one blow—a car accident that killed my parents and both my grandmothers. All I have left are my two sisters, Pop, and this company. I’m not giving it up just because working here can be hard.

This is also why I end up proposing to the asshole, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Each Monday, I have lunch with Pop, and he grills me on the work I’ve been doing for the past week.

I also get lectures on my (always lacking) social life. Pop thinks women should be married and have kids, so I hear about it almost every week.

Today he begins this topic in his normal way—asking me about whether there are any men in my life and what steps I’ve taken to meet them.

I give him my normal vague answers, hoping it will be enough.

It’s not.

I know something is different today because his mustache starts to quiver. It always quivers when he’s feeling something intensely. “It’s time, Melissa,” he says. “It’s time.”

I smile patiently, my habitual expression with him. No matter how angry he makes me, I never show it. I learned long ago that losing control with Pop is the way to lose the battle. “I’m only twenty-eight, Pop. I have plenty of time. A lot of women wait to get married these days. They don’t marry as young as women of your generation did.”

“That’s stupid. If you wait any longer, you’ll end up having babies in your forties.”

Babies are very far down on my list of priorities, but I’m not foolish enough to say this to Pop. “I’m not even thirty yet.”

“It’s time. It’s time.” His mustache is quivering even more, and it’s making me decidedly nervous.

This isn’t normal.

“I don’t know what to tell you, Pop, but I’ll ask around and see if any of my friends know a nice guy to set me up with.” This suggestion has worked several times before. I never do it, of course, but it works as a stall.

“Good. Good. You do that. But I think the problem is you work too hard.”

“I don’t—”

“You work too hard. You don’t leave any time in your days for courtship. I’ve thought about it, and I’m going to change your job.”

My hand grows still around the stem of my water glass. “Excuse me?”

“I’m going to change your job. You have too much responsibility, so I’m going to restructure. If you have less to do, you’ll have more time.”

A couple of things to understand about my situation. First, Pop owns the company outright. There is no board. He’s the sole decision-maker, so my job is entirely up to him.

Second, he doesn’t make idle threats. Ever. When my father was twenty-five, he decided he wanted to become a high school math teacher instead of continue working at Pop’s. So Pop wrote him out of his will.

When my sister Chelsea was in high school and dating a guy with a motorcycle and tattoos, Pop stopped her allowance for an entire month until she broke up with him.

If he threatens to do something, he’ll actually do it.

So I know he’ll gut the position I’ve spent a decade working to shape for myself if I don’t fix this immediately.

“Pop,” I begin.

“Don’t Pop me. You’ve wasted too much time already. You and your sisters too. At least you support yourself. They still live on my money, and they’re not making any more progress toward husbands than you are. Something has to be done.”

An icy chill runs down my spine. This is a threat too. A subtler, more malevolent threat. He’s implying my sisters’ financial support is also in jeopardy.

“If one of you doesn’t start moving in the direction of marriage, then I’ll have to do something about all of you.”