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“I wouldn’t have such trouble adjusting to the world,” I say, “if the world made sense. Which it doesn’t. I’ve seen that time and time again. Maybe the world should adjust to me.”
“Just try,” he pleads. “When you meet someone new, for instance, don’t…”
“What?”
“Don’t pontificate.” He scratches his goatee. “Don’t feel the need to show off everything you know at the same time, or make every argument that’s in your head.”
“If I’m not comfortable saying what I’m thinking, then isn’t the person wrong for me? And if they don’t like me, isn’t it better I find out sooner? Besides, if I say what I believe, this way we find out right away if we’re compatible.”
He blinks for a minute. “It’s good to meet compatible people, but you don’t have to hit them with tests all at once.”
I shrug. “I’ll think about it.”
He nods. “Just try.”
When I get outside, I pull my coat over my head to ward off the pouring rain, and I run to the subway. I am dying to get home, slide under the sheets and doze off. But I can’t. I have a job interview.
As I get close to the subway, a guy in a raincoat seethes at me, “Smile!”
This makes me feel worse. I was lost in thought, minding my own business, and someone felt he had the right to disturb me anyway. Doesn’t he realize that by making me feel like I was doing something wrong, he only made me feel less like smiling? It actually had the reverse effect he intended. It’s like striking a bawling kid to stop him from crying, and we’ve all seen that done.
I don’t see what it had to do with him anyway. I never go around demanding that people change their facial expressions. How come everyone tells me what to do, but they would never let me do a tenth of the same back to them?
The café where I am to meet Brad Nickerson is two stops up. When I arrive, he’s already seated at a table. He’s got slicked-back blond hair and a nondescript face. He’s also younger than I expected, and I’m not so sure this isn’t secretly a blind date rather than a business meeting.
He stands and smiles.
“It’s good to meet you,” he says.
“Likewise.”
We both sit down. He lets one of his legs hang over the other—he has long legs—and he briefly asks me how my trip up there went. Then he turns his attention to a clipboard. “I’m just going to ask you a few questions about your qualifications.”
“All right.”
“Your father says you type,” he says.
“I have.”
“Which computers do you use?”
“In school I used Macs, Dells, Gateways, HP’s, most of the off-brand PC’s, and all of the Mac and Windows operating systems. I wish they were more compatible. If Europe accepted the Euro, why can’t our computers be a little more compatible?”
His eyes narrow. “How old did you say you were?” he asks.
“I’m nineteen.”
“You seem awfully serious for a nineteen-year-old.”
I don’t know what to say to that. Now I feel bad, just like I felt when the guy yelled “Smile.” As if I was doing something wrong simply by existing.
Brad doesn’t say anything either, only stares at me and waits. And waits. When they send people to do job interviews, they should at least make sure they’re half as competent as the people they’re interviewing.
“You could tell me what the job’s about,” I say.
“Oh!” he says. “Well, it would be, at first, sort of an administrative assistant to the boss, typing things when need be, helping with office work. But eventually it could lead to greater responsibilities.” He picks up his coffee cup. “How does that sound?”
I don’t suppose he really wants a truthful answer. “Ducky,” I say.
“Mmm-hmm.” He sips his coffee. “Mmm.” He thinks for a second. “Well, why don’t you tell me your strengths and weaknesses?”
A relevant question, at last! I say, “I try to figure out what’s right and wrong, and then I stick by it. I don’t engage in activities that are dangerous to others or myself. I try not to make judgments about people.”
“I wasn’t making a judgment about you,” he says, apropos of nothing.
“I didn’t say you were.”
We’re stuck in a stalemate again. He reverts to common ground.
“How fast do you type?”
“Sixty to sixty-five words a minute,” I say.
He doesn’t add anything.
I ask, “Would you like that in metric?”
He shrugs. “Sure.”
“Sixty to sixty-five words a minute.”
I smile, but apparently, this doesn’t pass muster as a satisfactory attempt to prove I’m not so serious. He finishes his coffee. “Well,” he says, standing and smiling, “it really was nice to meet you. We’ll probably give you a call.”
“Great,” I say, but I’m really complimenting his discretion in bringing the matter to a close.
When I’m finally home, I’m incredibly relieved. Thank God I’m out of there.
I close my bedroom door, drop my purse to the ground and strip off my moist clothes. My pants leave a red elastic mark all the way around my waist. I rub it to obliterate it. Then I drape my clothes over a chair and walk to my bed.
Now I can engage in my favorite activity in the world.
Sleeping.
My bed is a vast ocean with three fat, starchy pillows. Slowly I slide under the covers, naked. I feel the cool sheets around me. The cotton caresses my back. I close my eyes and let each notch of my spine relax.
My mind is blank now. Every part of my body is sinking and empty. I don’t have to think about anything, hear anything, say anything, feel anything, worry about anything. Everything is distilled until it is completely clear.
The roof may rain down and shower me with concrete. The forked crack in my wall may creep all the way to the ceiling. Still, I can lie here forever if I choose. There is no one to stop me.
In my bed, there are no psychologists, no job interviewers, no hypocrites. I do not have to make up lists of ways to socialize. I do not have to smile. I do not have to justify my beliefs. I don’t have to wear dress shoes. I don’t have to pledge allegiance to the flag. I don’t have to use a number two pencil. I don’t have to read the fine print. I don’t have to sell fifty boxes of mint cookies. I don’t have to be over five foot four to ride.
It is true that lying in bed is not an intellectual activity. It is true that it is nonproductive.
But when ninety-five percent of out-of-bed activities hold the possibility of pain, to be pain-free is simply the most delicious feeling in the world.
I lie there for an hour, listening to the rain type a soggy message on my windows. When the storm has subsided a bit, I lift my head.
A hint of a cherry scent curls under my nose. I don’t know where it’s coming from—maybe through the window. The scent reminds me of cherry soda, something I haven’t had in years. I think about its virulent fizz, the way it bubbles deep in one’s gut.
I picture a giant glass, dark plumes of liquid bouncing off the sides. I recall a New Year’s party my father threw when I was young, how black cherry soda was what we kids were allowed to have while the adults downed highballs. There was a kid named Ted there, and he dropped M&M’s and corn chips and peanuts into his cherry soda to make us cringe. He got so much attention from the threat of drinking it that I don’t think he actually had to do the deed.
I grab a notebook from on top of my stereo and start writing my “things I love” list for Dr. Petrov. Soon, I actually have managed to come up with a few.
1 Cherry soda
2 Street sounds
3 My bed
The best bed I ever had was one with a powder-blue canopy when I was eight. My room was great back then. It had a black shag rug, Parcheesi, a giant periodic table of the elements, a diagram of Hegel’s dialectic, a model solar system, a couple of abstract paintings, and a sextant.
4. The green-blue hue of an indoor pool
5. Starfish
6. The Victorians
7. Rainbow sprinkles
8. Rain during the day (makes it easier to sleep)
I think a little more. I’m out of ideas.
If I could write a hate list, I could fill three notebooks.
That would be fun. A list of things I hate.
I could start with the couple across the street.
The couple across the street are in their late twenties or early thirties. They’re tall and fairly professional-looking. I see them in their kitchen window more than I do outside. They always mess around in front of the oven, pinching and poking each other, and before you know it, there’s a little free-love show going on, and finally, they repair to a different room. You’d think they’d have enough respect for their neighbors to keep us out of their delirious debauchery. But that’s not the reason I hate them.
The reason I hate them is that whenever they pass me on the street, they never say hi to me. They must know I’m their neighbor. I’ve lived here for almost a year.
Then again, I never say hi to them.
I try for a little while longer, but I can’t come up with nine and ten for my list. I put the notebook down and lie in bed on my side, my hands crossed over each other like the paws of a Great Dane.
I think about Petrov’s five-point plan. Join an organization. Go on a date. Petrov must think that I’m incapable of these things. It’s not at all that I can’t do them. It’s that I choose not to.
Sure, being alone can get boring, but why should I have to force myself to go out and meet all the people who have lowered their moral, ethical and intellectual standards in order to fit in with all of the other people with low moral, ethical and intellectual standards? That’s all I would find if I went out there.
I could prove to Petrov that he’s wrong. I could show him that the problem is not with me, but with everyone else. I could do it just to prove how ridiculous it is.
Going on a date, or joining a club, will push me right into the thick of the social situations that people get into every day. I’m sure it can’t be that hard. And even if Petrov believes there is the .0001 percent chance that I’ll meet one person who understands me, more likely, I will simply be able to say that I tried.
It will be a pain, but it shouldn’t be that difficult. I will be a spy in the house of socializers. And then I will be able to prove once again to myself, as well as to Petrov, that even when I’m alone, it’s much better than going outside.
That evening the phone rings. It could be bad news. It could be my father calling to say I didn’t get the job. Or worse, it could be my father calling to say I got the job. But it also could be the MacArthur Committee calling to tell me I’ve won the Genius Grant. I jump up and catch it on the third ring.
It’s my father.
“I spoke with Brad,” he says. “He seemed to think you weren’t that interested in the job.”
“Oh, now I remember,” I say. “The vapid, immature guy.”
“I got the feeling you weren’t very nice to him.”
“I didn’t ask for the interview.”
“You have to tell me how, at some point, you are going to support yourself.”
“Right now I’m using a Sealy Posturepedic.”
“Carrie.”
“I saw Dr. Petrov this morning.”
This seems to cheer him up. “Okay. And what did he say?”
“He wants me to do some kind of socialization experiment. Go on a date. Join a club.”
“And what did you say?”
“I said I’ll try.”
“That’s what I like to hear.”
“You know, you owe me,” I say.
“Why?”
“You know why.”
Silence.
He knows I mean the Big Lie.
“I know,” he says.
