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“Dana, by the time Mom was twenty-four, she had you.”
“I can’t believe you’re going to quit your job, give up your apartment, sell your car—you can’t bring a car, never mind a convertible to Manhattan, you know—to follow some guy across the country. Are you going to get married next? Take his name? Become a stay-at-home mom? Buy a bread-maker?”
I wish I’d been offered a fabulous job in New York first and then met Steve while buying a hot pretzel from a street vendor. “I’ve always wanted a bread-maker.”
“I worry about you.”
“Don’t.”
“What if you can’t find a job?”
“Then I won’t move.”
Dana snorts. “Don’t think you can bullshit me the way you do everyone else. I know you. Do what you want. But don’t come crying to me when you’re forty, have five kids, no life of your own and need help filling the two-car garage with carbon monoxide. You should live a little. Experience life.”
Instead of finding a job after college, Dana did a one-year women’s studies master’s (that’s why I did the women’s studies minor—she kept bugging me to do it). Then, she decided she needed a master’s degree in journalism. Dana never believed in settling down. Especially for a man. Last year she slept with twelve. A bona fide member of the Man-a-Month Club, she quantifies life experiences as men’s boxers over her bedpost. “You’re too inexperienced to make such an important decision,” she continues. “And you’ve been dating him less than a year. You don’t know him long enough to know he’s not a complete asshole. You haven’t done enough research. You’re making a mistake.”
I hang up the phone and turn back to my e-mails.
Millie has already written me back.
My phone rings. I’m not going to talk to her if she’s going to be annoying.
It rings again.
Still ringing.
I pick up. “Uh-huh.”
“I’m sorry. I’m going to miss you, okay? I like having you an hour drive away. If you’re sure, I mean absolutely one hundred and ten percent sure it’s the right decision, I’ll stop protesting.”
I imagine an army of stoned, ponytailed picketers waving felt-tipped marker-written signs and chanting at the airport, “No, no, don’t let her go!” “She’s too young, have more fun!” “She’s delirious for getting serious!”
“It’s the right decision,” I say.
Of course it’s the right decision. I’m in love. He’s in love. If it’s going to work, we can’t live in different cities forever, and he can’t leave New York. Saturday night was the ten-month anniversary of our first date, and after an hour of wine and sweaty sex he placed a little blue box on top of his pillow and whispered, “Happy anniversary.” My heart stopped, as if its plug had been ripped out of the wall. Holy shit, I thought. Is it a ring? Is he proposing? Am I going to get married? Do I love this man? I’m too young to get married. How can I marry him when we’re never in the same city for more than forty-eight hours? He loves me. I’m going to get married. We’re going to have a home. And then I opened the box. And it was a silver key chain. Smooth and silver, the inscription said, Move in with me? I love you, S. My heart turned over again, and still not sure if I was relieved or disappointed I kissed him, kissed him again.
Yes, yes, yes.
It’ll work. It’ll be perfect. I’m in love. Aren’t you supposed to take risks when you’re in love?
But if—and it’s a big fat unlikely if—I’m wrong about this (and I really doubt that I’m wrong about this) and he turns out to be a complete asshole like Dana warned, it’s not like my life will be over. I can find somewhere to live in New York if I absolutely had to. The Village Voice lists tons of people looking for roommates in Manhattan. Or if I discover I hate New York, I can always move back to Florida. I can stay with Dana until I find a place. Maybe Liza will give me back my job. Or I can teach English in Japan. I know someone who did it and loved it. She claimed it was the most incredible learning experience and that all she needed was a bachelor’s degree and that she made a shitload of cash. I could use the money to travel through Asia and even to Australia or New Zealand and I love miso soup and at least five Japanese schools have positions available immediately.
I checked.
The message from Millie:
Oh my God! You are so lucky! NYC! Very jealous. When am I going to see you? Save Friday—we’re having a major girls night! Lucy, Laura and some of her friends from work. Cocktails here, dinner and clubbing on South Beach. You’d better come. You haven’t been out in years. You missed a crazy night on Saturday! We all ended up skinny-dipping with a bunch of Italians in Lucy’s pool! lol. Want to go for sushi tonight?
Ding! A message from Dana:
Love you. Worried about you that’s all. You don’t use Purity tampons, do you? Do you think I should write a story about this? Of course you do, you crazy hypochondriac. I just sold a feature about American teenage prostitutes. Prada purse here I come!
The dichotomy that is my sister: She refuses to write about fashion, but is secretly obsessed with it. Before she got her news radio gig, she was offered a fashion column and she turned it down. She believes that publicly writing about clothing will brand her a frivolous journalist, a lightweight. I tell her that obsessing about fashion, spending all her money on fashion makes her a frivolous person. But that doesn’t seem to bother her.
Ding! Message from my boss Liza:
In case you’ve forgotten, I’m pregnant. What do I need tampons for? I’d appreciate if you don’t send chain letters during company time. Thanks, L
If I weren’t planning to quit, her e-mail would have annoyed me. Maybe she didn’t have her morning nicotine fix, after all.
I respond to Millie’s many exclamations:
I’m going back to NY this weekend for interviews. I have to keep looking for jobs this week. When I get back?
As soon as the message goes out, I delete it from the Sent folder. Then I delete it from the Deleted folder. I’ve got this Big Brother technology down pat.
I set out down the block in search of a less visited pay phone.
“No pay phone here,” a bald man says. “There’s one up the street.”
Pay phones are like men. Never a decent one around (by decent I mean in good working order) when or where you’re looking.
Take my Europe trip for example. Who doesn’t want a summer fling? I wasn’t still a virgin—it wasn’t as if I had my heart set on losing it in a hostel bunk bed or anything like that—but I believed that having a wild affair was part of the backpack experience. Isn’t that why college students go to Europe? I called dibs on the Scots and Brits, and Millie reserved the Italians, so of course we mostly met frat boys from Miami. I met one overly freckled, broad-shouldered, seemingly interested Scot on the overnight ferry from Brindisi to Corfu, but by the time we got to Greece, he had dropped two tablets of E and found his way into a sleeping bag that boasted a brunette and a foot-long Canadian flag.
Now, as I continue my hike up Flamingo Road, in search of a pay phone, the sun follows me like the evil eyes of a mysterious painting in a Scooby-Doo episode. It’s a good thing I have my sneakers on today. As I do every day. Dana tried to convince me to buy two-inch heeled pumps for the office. “But I’m allowed to wear sneakers,” I said.
“It’s about image,” she said. “Your ten-year-old sneakers don’t scream sophisticated, now do they?”
“At least they don’t scream pain.” I don’t get why anyone would choose to be uncomfortable.
Dana and I have very different understandings of the purpose of clothes. I see it as something you wear so you’re not walking around naked. Dana sees it as something worth going into debt for. Or at least worth borrowing money from my father, the person she can’t stand the most.
The sweater and jeans I’m wearing (which Dana has already vocally disapproved of—“they’re too straight leg and too light. You’ve had those jeans since eighth grade. You’ve got to think darker, boot cut.”), were chosen with an air-conditioned office in mind, not the Florida marathon.
Did I put deodorant on this morning? Last time Steve came to visit me he forgot his deodorant and had to use mine. He smelled like summer tulips all weekend.
Sweet Stevie. How we met is an example of how great men appear when you’re not looking. It was one week after I moved into my new one-bedroom ocean-view Fort Lauderdale apartment, when Steve spilled his mocha latte down my shirt.
I was at Pam’s, one of my favorite coffee shops in Miami, a small, homey, southwestern decorated café on Washington Avenue. I was on my way to meet with a research firm for a new chocolate soda we were developing, when the spilling took place. I wanted to maim the idiot but he kept apologizing and throwing coffee holders at me, thinking they were napkins. I kept telling him to stop, that it was fine even though it was not fine.
“You look like a Gestalt test,” he said staring at my shirt, and I laughed. He wanted to buy me a coffee, but I said no. When he told me he was visiting from New York, and was on his way to spend the afternoon at the retirement community, Century Village, where his Bubbe lived, I almost relented. That was pretty sweet. His parents lived in Miami, too. And he was Jewish. Not that I cared, but I knew it would make my father happy.
“I understand. But if you’re ever in New York, come to my family’s restaurant. I run it now that my dad moved here. It’s kosher but still nice,” he said, and wrote down Manna and an address on a preferred customer card, right above a bunny-shaped hole punch, and told me if I ever came to the restaurant, to ask for him and he would make it up to me. He had a nice smile. I told him my father worked in Manhattan and that I just might.
A month later, I went to visit my dad in NewYork. I hadn’t seen him since the January before, he’d been really busy, but I decided that if he didn’t have time to visit me, then I would make the trip. As usual, Dana wanted nothing to do with him. She prefers his checks as direct deposits, rather than through person-to-person contact. On the second night of my visit, when my dad told me he’d be stuck at the office again and would miss our dinner plans, I thought of the boy with the nice smile.
It wasn’t until I told the cabbie to take me to the restaurant and he said he’d never heard of it, did it occur to me that maybe Steven wasn’t the owner of Manna. Maybe Manna didn’t exist. Maybe Steven wasn’t his name. Maybe he didn’t have a Bubbe. Maybe the guy I met ran around Florida, using his fictitious Jewish grandmother the way a single father uses his kids as bait to attract women who feel the need to be maternal.
“Here it is, West Ninety-first Street,” the cabbie said, pointing ahead of him.
After I was seated in a small table by the window, I asked the waitress if I could speak to Steven.
“I can’t believe you came,” he said, a carafe of wine and two plates of kosher ravioli later.
Like a water cooler in the desert, a pay phone glistens through an upcoming window. There’s even a—gasp!—nearby bench to sit on.
“Florida Telephone Systems.” Brrring.
I dial my calling-card number. “Hi, can I please speak to Jen Tore, please?”
“One moment.”
“Jen speaking.”
“Hi, Ms. Tore? My name is Sunny Langstein. I’m presently the assistant manager for new business development for Panda, but I will be relocating to New York for personal reasons. I’m very impressed with Fruitsy Corporation’s work. I’ll be in New York next week, and I was wondering if you’d consider meeting with me to discuss any potential job openings in your department.”
“You’re the one who e-mailed me her resume last night, right? Panda, huh? I know you guys. You did that strawberry-flavored water I liked. You know, we don’t run a huge operation here at Fruitsy. We’re not as fancy as Panda.”
“I appreciate that, Ms. Tore.”
“Call me Jen.”
“I appreciate that, Jen. I’ve worked at a large operation and am looking forward to exploring my professional growth options in a smaller work environment.” I’m amazed at the crap I come up with.
“Well, I’d love to meet with you. How’s Monday at nine?”
But not as amazed as I am that they buy it. “Perfect. Where are you located again?”
“On the southeast corner of Twenty-first and Ninth.” She coughs. “I’d like to see the stuff you’ve worked on, too, if you could bring a portfolio.” Three-percent chance she’s interested in hiring me, ninety-seven-percent chance she wants to rip off Panda’s ideas. “My office is on the fourth floor.”
Nine o’clock, fourth floor. Nine times four. Two-one-two-five-five-five-nine-four-three-six. Aha.
2
Sex and the City
I spit into the airport sink. Then I reapply the baking soda, super whitening, plaque/cavity/tartar/gingivitis-prevention gel to my toothbrush, repeat, and wonder if all these extra-strength ingredients will give my mouth superpowers.
In the mirror, my hair looks flat from leaning against the airplane pillow.
Dana constantly nags me that I should get some highlights and layers. “You’re naturally pretty, fine, but you’d be gorgeous if you made a tiny effort. A little blond never hurt anyone.”
I’m not really the blond type. I prefer my shoulder-length brown hair, off my face and in a ponytail.
I rummage through my purse for my lipstick, the only makeup I wear regularly. Due to a lifetime of (ew) cold sores, my lip color is a bit irregular. I like to make my lips look smoother, a bit more even.
Is that red mark on my lip the beginning of a cold sore?
I wipe the red blot away.
Phew. Just tomato sauce gone awry.
I hate cold sores.
My father gets them, supposedly my grandmother got them, and way back somewhere in Europe my great-grandmother probably got them. When I was four, I tripped on a pair of Dana’s discarded fluorescent-pink Cindy Lauper-esque leggings and ripped the left side of my top lip on her carpet. Since then, about once a year, I suffer from a cold sore in that exact spot on my lip. It could be worse, though. My father told me my grandmother got them in her nose.
Steve has never seen my reoccurring deformity. One major advantage of living in different cities. Last time I had one, about four months ago, I claimed I had the flu, couldn’t fly and had to postpone my weekend trip. By the next weekend I was able to camouflage the tiny scar with a cover-up stick Dana helped me pick out to match my skin tone and my lipstick.
I wheel my first fits-under-your-seat suitcase, purchased at the beginning of the Steve relationship as a time-saver investment, out of the bathroom and into the miraculously short line of cabs.
“He’s not picking you up at the airport?” Dana asked, which sounded suspiciously similar to her “he’s not taking off work on Saturday night for you?”
“Should he pick me up on his flying carpet?” I said. He couldn’t take off work on Saturday night, anyway. This time of year Saturday is his busiest night. Since Steve’s grandfather opened Manna in 1957, it’s always been closed on Friday evening and Saturday, reopening after the sun goes down on Saturday. According to Jewish law you can’t run a restaurant on Shabbat, because you can’t work. In the spring and summer the restaurant stays closed all day Saturday because the sun sets so late, but in the fall and winter it opens one hour after Shabbat ends.
There’s a calendar of this year’s Shabbat’s starting and ending times taped to his fridge. When I first saw it there, after pouring myself a glass of post-sex water during my first weekend sleepover, I did a little cringing. I had no intention of dating anyone religious, Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, whatever. Any type of complete devotion to any deity was too much commitment for me. And besides, it was eleven-thirty and I wanted to watch Letterman and turning on the TV is somehow considered work to religious Jews. Thank God, I thought when Steve explained that the calendar was for work purposes only. When he took over the restaurant, he decided to keep it kosher. He’s actually quasi-kosher in private—no bacon or shellfish at home but anything is game when we leave the apartment.
I position my luggage in the trunk and slam the door shut. “Sullivan and Houston please,” I tell the cabbie. He grunts his response.
“Hi! I’m Jennifer Aniston,” a recorded voice in the taxicab says. “I tell all my friends to buckle up!”
I fasten my seat belt. As a kid, I used to mentally leapfrog over the streetlamps when we took the highway. As we approach the city, I do my imaginary exercise with the building-size billboards on my left.
I’m not sure if the funny feeling in my stomach is because of excitement, nervousness or because of the meatball sandwich they served me on the plane.
I give the cabbie twenty-six dollars, which covers the fare, the toll, the additional nighttime charge—what’s a nighttime charge?—and exactly a fifteen-percent tip.
“Can I help you?” the doorman asks, his head bobbing up from his small television set.
“Apartment 7D,” I say to the man who works every Friday night and never remembers me.
He dials upstairs, waits a minute, then scratches his goatee. “No one’s there. I think I saw Steve leave about an hour ago.”
I pull my suitcase toward the elevator. “I’m Steve’s girlfriend? Remember me? I have a key.” I have a key. A key. A key, a key. Sounds like yucky if you say it too fast.
“Right. Go ahead,” he says.
In the elevator the poster tacked below the emergency phone advertises, “Dog walker available! I live in the building and am very responsible!” If I can’t find a job, I can always become a dog walker. I’ve always wanted a dog. My father wouldn’t let me have one in the house because he didn’t want anything scratching his wood floors, or discoloring his white furniture. My college dorm didn’t allow pets. When I took the job at Panda and moved to Fort Lauderdale, I felt too bad leaving a poor pet locked in a one-bedroom apartment all day by himself.
When the elevator stops, I wheel the bag toward Steve’s door. Here it is. The momentous occasion. I pull the key, my key, out of my purse and insert it into the lock.
And insert it into the lock. Still trying to insert it into the lock. It’s not inserting. Why isn’t it inserting? What floor am I on? The sticker beside the peephole says 7D. Maybe someone changed the label as a practical joke? Did I press the right floor?
I wheel the luggage toward the apartment beside his. It says 7E.
He gave me the wrong key. I ring the doorbell in case he’s home, after all. No answer.
He’s a riot, I think as I wheel my bag back toward the elevator. This is by far one of the top five Steve-isms, as I’ve coined them, on the Steve-ism list. The Steve-ism list includes his leaving a bag of Gap purchases on the subway after an afternoon of shopping. Then there was the time he forgot his cell phone at my apartment post a weekend visit. When I answered the ringing under my bed he was laughing hysterically from the airport. Silly, Stevie.
