My Big Fat Fake Marriage by Charlotte Stein (Excerpt)

One I try to be okay with living across the hall from the seemingly nicest man to ever live. But the problem is, the nicest man to ever live makes being okay with that very, very hard. And not just because he accosts me every morning in the elevator with a well, hey there, neighbor. Or keeps trying to give me really elaborate pies, for some unfathomable reason. Or constantly wears bow ties so big and bright I half expect them to suddenly squirt water in my face. No, mostly it’s this one simple fact: Niceness this intense is always a scam. Or at least, it’s always been a scam in my experience. I mean, take the last decent-seeming guy I went on a date with. He did nothing but talk about himself, then insist I have a salad instead of the steak I ordered, before finally trying to strong-arm me into accepting that he pay for dinner. Then when I didn’t invite him in, he brought out an itemized list of all the great things he’d done and furiously read it aloud to me at the door. As if he’d paid for sex in advance with an offer to settle the bill. Or the kind advice he’d given me on losing weight. Or the fact that he’d let me choose the restaurant. So now I had to pay up. And he’s not the only one I remember suffering through a date with, or having to work alongside, or accidentally ending up stuck with at a party. One “nice guy” brought me a can of Pringles at my sister’s birthday, and then tried to lock me in a random bedroom. Another felt that praising me in a meeting meant I should return the favor with a blow job in the supply cupboard. And it made zero difference that this man had told me he was married. A lot of the time, married Nice Guys are even worse than single ones. They harbor secret seething hatred for their wives under a veneer of jovial sweetness and hollow laughter. Like the laughter he aimed at me the other day, when we passed each other in the hall and I asked how his wife was doing without him, over there in America, and he did this big ha, ha, ha. Like I’d told a joke. Instead of asking a question he clearly didn’t know how to answer. I swear, it felt like he was three seconds away from telling me he had abandoned her so he could be free to screw me. Even though I never said I wanted to screw him. So I think it’s understandable that I’m nervous. And that goes double when I step into the elevator like always, ready for another day of creating terrible marketing copy for companies that feel like they’ve been made up to fill in gaps on dying social media sites, and the nicest man alive seems just a little bit different from normal. He says, “Hey there, neighbor,” as the elevator doors seal us in, just like usual. But neighbor sounds different somehow. Like it’s been hollowed out, and all that’s left is the shell of supposed cheeriness. So I glance at him. You know, just to see if I imagined it. And there are other signs of a shift in him. Tiny details, like that enormously thick black mustache of his not being quite as neatly groomed as usual. Or that tidy hair of his kind of seeming a little bit more sideways than it typically does. Plus I don’t think he has ironed that line down the front of his trousers like always. And when I say always, I mean always. In fact, once I saw him with the same thing down both legs of a pair of jeans. But not today. Today, for some reason, he’s missed it out. And missed-out things are always something you should be on your guard for with suspiciously nice men. Most often it means they’ve moved from the pretending-to-be-decent-so-you’ll-have-an-affair-with-them stage to their resentful-that-you’re-not-immediately-falling-in-love-with-them era. With a side order of being absolutely horrible to their poor wives. And anything can happen once that’s the case. Doubly so, I think, when I realize something else about him. Something that wasn’t clear before, when he was all bow ties and goofy catchphrases and creases pressed into his jeans, but is very clear now that I’m trapped in an elevator with him, just as he potentially may become belligerent. Because I swear to god, the man is enormous. I’m five-five and wearing heeled boots, and the top of my head still barely reaches past his shoulders. And of course those shoulders are also completely massive. They look like boulders in my peripheral vision, leading down to this burly chest and great slab of a stomach. It’s unsettling. I find myself anxiously watching the electronic numbers on the elevator crawl from five to four. Then four to three. And three to two. And finally, finally we’re on the ground floor, and the doors slide open, and I swear I come this close to dashing out. Just in case he’s about to viciously demand to know why I haven’t done anything more than send him a thank-you note for the pies. Or maybe confess to me that he’s abandoned his wife on an oil rig. In fact, the only reason I don’t is because of my bestie, Mabel. Mabel, who is the reason he even lives across the hall from me. Mabel, who heard the place was available and knew he needed somewhere more permanent after his temporary position at her publisher became a long-term thing, and so suggested it. None of which she would have done if he were truly that awful. Though that does not let him entirely off the hook, in my book. I mean, true, he might not be the kind of Nice Guy who traps you in an elevator with him so he can deliver his twelve-part lecture: why women are ungrateful bitches and wives are even worse. But he could be a lesser tier of the same sort of thing, in a way sweet, trusting Mabel is simply not primed to spot. She thinks real nice guys are actually out there. That I’ve just been very unlucky, and if I hold out I’ll find one. You just haven’t found a truly decent man, she said to me once. All you’ve encountered are Nice Guys—the fakers who use the idea of being nice as some kind of currency. All of which is probably true, I assume. But I can’t afford to completely believe her right now. Not even when it comes to this buddy of hers. Because she doesn’t know the signs like I do. She’s never seen that darting, furtive, harried look in their eyes that always tells me things are about to go disastrously wrong. Or that smile—the one that seems just a little bit frozen and fixed, on a face three degrees too small for it. And even if she has, she’s likely never noticed it on this man’s face. I bet she isn’t even looking. But I am. I see it as he glances over his shoulder at me one last time. Then he hurries out of the elevator in a way that tells me something worse than maybe he isn’t actually nice. He is nervous, very nervous. And what else could he be nervous about but this one simple fact: I’m on to him. And he knows it. Two I want to tell myself that I’m letting my justified but ultimately still unhinged paranoia get the better of me. But it’s a little easier said than done when I come home from a hard day of drafting catchy slogans for elbow warmers, and there it is outside my door. A large pink box. Like all the pink boxes he delivers his pies in. Only this one? It has a bow. And a little fancy card that says just for you on it. And I can’t shake the feeling that this is his way of covering up that glimpse of something in the elevator. That he’s being extra super nice in order to make sure any of my suspicions die. Especially when I get inside and open it up, and see it isn’t a pie. It’s a cake. And on top of the cake, in the most perfect swirly iced lettering, he’s written the words: Mighty Sorry If I Scared You This Morning. All of which only tells me one thing. He’s overcompensating. Sweating, over me discovering whatever terrible thing he’s up to. Like plotting my demise. Or plotting his wife’s demise. Or plotting both our demises at the same time. So before I can guess which one of those things it might be, or imagine the even wilder things that he might do to conceal his crimes—like stuffing poison into what looks like the most gorgeous fruit-laden confection—I decide the best thing to do is call Mabel. Right now, while still in my on-trend but entirely uncomfortable work clothes. And bless her, she answers on the second ring. Because she’s a good, good friend. “Sweet pea,” she says. At which point I realize I have absolutely no idea how to word this. “Hey, Mabey, just got a quick question for you, no big deal really,” I start, and of course I know I’ve fucked up already. I almost hear her sit bolt upright, and that’s definitely a little gasp she lets out. Because she knows me too well. I may have to stop telling her anything about myself. Go back to being the mysterious cool girl she first thought I was. Instead of a complete disaster fart who always gets into terrible scrapes. “Oh gosh, so it definitely is a massive deal. Are you in jail? Is your plane crashing? Did someone kidnap you? Just tell me where you are, I’m on my way right now. And if you can’t say where you are I will find you anyway. Or Alfie will find you, because apparently he’s already on the phone to some bloke he knows who may or may not be part of some kind of crime ring,” she babbles away, and oh god, what have I done, what have I done. “Holy shit, what, no, tell him to stop immediately, I am not kidnapped.” “He says you could be just saying that, so tell us your code word.” “But I don’t have a code word.” “Now he’s furious about that.” He is, too. I can hear him in the background, saying, “For fuck’s sake.” Followed by a lot of growling about “What if there’s a crisis” and “That friend of yours is always getting almost murdered” and “How does she not have one” and “This is a travesty, I’m getting my crowbar.” So naturally my response is: “Mabel, what on earth does he think he’s going to do with a crowbar?” And Mabel doesn’t even pause to think. She knows her husband even better than she knows me. “My best guess would be prizing you out of the trunk of your kidnapper’s car, but honestly he could have just about anything in mind. He was furious the other week when I questioned why he sleeps with such a thing under the bed, and spent four hours telling me all the ways it can save your life.” “That sounds completely unhinged.” “It was. But luckily it was also really hot.” “Yeah, I want to say no way to that, but you know me.” “I do. I have heard many times about the terrible things that make you horny.” “Just can’t help it. I think it’s the reason any nice men I date turn out to be incredible assholes. Secretly my vagina is hoping that’s what they are. She acts without my permission or any regard for good sense, and next thing you know I’m in a well in someone’s basement,” I say, then, like always, I laugh. But weirdly, my laugh doesn’t seem as bright as usual. Something about it is off, something about my words sounds dull. And I can tell Mabel picks up on it. “Please tell me that’s not what is actually happening now,” she says. “Of course not. I just need to know something. About that editor of yours.” “If the something is could he possibly be a secret maniac, my answer has to be: Do you honestly think I would give you a secret maniac for a neighbor? Come on, at least give me a little credit.” I give her another laugh. But it still sounds weird. Bitter, almost, I think. “It isn’t you I’m not giving credit to,” I say. “So it’s all for him and his possible status as a genius supervillain.” “Exactly. I mean, what better way to take over the earth than by convincing everyone you’re some kind of hairy, mustachioed Clark Kent? Absolutely no one would see this dude coming. The mayor will hand him the keys to the city, and that’s when he’ll launch his death ray,” I tell her. Then I think about the first time I ever watched something with Superman in it. One of the old movies, I think it was, that Mabel and Berinder had seen before but I’d always told myself I didn’t care about. Bet he’s somehow evil, I had said about halfway through. And they had laughed, like I was joking. But I hadn’t been. Even though I’d behaved as if I was, I hadn’t been. I still remember being surprised when he was the best sort of man all the way through. Because they almost never are in real life. No matter what Mabel has to say about it. “Even you cannot possibly believe a man who wears suspenders has a death ray.” “If anything, the fact that he does only makes it seem more likely to me.” “I better not tell you that he also prefers long johns to underpants then.” I snort at her. “Now you’re just making things up.” “I swear to god I’m not. They’re the kind that connect with a top, too.” “So you’re telling me he wears a onesie under his clothes. And I’m supposed to believe he isn’t a psychopath? That’s it, I’m getting myself a crowbar,” I say, and hear the faint sound of Alfie saying, “Attagirl, you know it makes sense,” in response. Then Mabel, much clearer, at Alfie: “The more you enable this crowbar stuff, the less sex we’re going to have.” Even though I can already hear that she’s struggling with this ultimatum. And she definitely struggles harder when he growls what may well be “Okay, I’ll just start without you.” I have to cut her off. “Babe, you need to go. I don’t even know how you’re managing to stay when he’s doing whatever I think he’s doing.” “I’m managing because I don’t want anything to happen to you.” “So you do think Beck might be a surreptitious serial killer.” “Of course not. But I worry what you’ll do if you believe he is.” Move to France, I think. Mostly because that’s what I almost did when one of the Nice Guys started cyberstalking me. Though, I swear, I have no actual intention of doing that here. “Look, I promise. No matter how suspicious I am, I will not hurl a cake I only suspect is poisoned into your editor’s face. The very most I will do is put it in the bin, and even that is only out of an abundance of caution.” “But even then you’re only hurting yourself.” “I know,” I sigh. “Honestly this thing looks so good that even when I did briefly and truly think it might be laced with arsenic, I almost took a bite anyway. And not even with a fork. I was just going to scoop a big chunk out with my hand while crouched on the floor, like an animal.” “To be honest I get it. Last one he gave me actually made me cry tears of joy.” “See, so that answers my question. You ate his food and didn’t immediately die, case closed. Now go and have hot sex with your crowbar-wielding man. I’m going to cut myself some cake and rethink all my life choices.” “And by cut yourself some cake you mean just plunge your face into it, right.” “Absolutely I do. Love you, babe. See you after you’ve recovered from all the hot fucking,” I say, then before she can protest, which I absolutely know she’s about to, I end the call. Because she has things to do, and by things I mean her man. And even if she didn’t, it’s clear to me now. I was being ridiculous. Nervous about nothing. Everything is fine, just fine. Copyright © 2025 by Charlotte Stein