Charmed Thirds

  If I had the power to appreciate humor at the time, I would have laughed. Because my cries sounded just like I was having an orgasm, which, not so incidentally, can also make my toes curl. There is a fine line between pleasure and pain. This is the best explanation I can come up with to explain why Kieran and I stayed together as long as we did.

  “You're not taking good care of yourself,” Kayan said before leaving the treatment room. “You should schedule monthly appointments.”

  “Sure,” I said, wincing as I put my foot on the floor. “Do you take food stamps?”

  After fifty-five minutes, I limped out of the treatment room physically and emotionally exhausted.

  My sister was already stretched out on a chaise lounge in her plush robe, holding a glass of cucumber water.

  “So,” she said, in between sips. “What are you going to do about your living situation next semester?”

  I flopped down in the chair next to her and closed my eyes.

  “Well, I applied for campus housing, but I'm so late that I'm not very optimistic,” I said. “I've got a plan, though. The dorm policies at NYU and Columbia are pretty much the same. I can be an overnight guest for five days every thirty days. So I just need to migrate from room to room, friend to friend, six times a month.”

  “That's no way to live!”

  “It will be fine. Percy and Bridget have already agreed to let me crash with them if I have to. And these girls Tanu and Kazuko will take me in, too. I'll be better off than that guy who slept in the NYU library all semester.”

  “Why don't you stay with us?”

  “Maybe Lifetime will make a movie about me,” I continued, intentionally dodging her question.

  “Jessie, stay with us,” she said, staying the course.

  I inhaled deeply. “The commute from Brooklyn to 116th Street every day would kill me,” I said. “It's bad enough from Washington Square.”

  “Then let me give you some money,” she said.

  Flashback: Kieran making the same offer. I felt like someone had dropped a bowling ball off the top of the Empire State Building and it landed right in the pit of my gut.

  “I feel weird taking your money because . . .” My voice trailed off.

  “Why?”

  I yanked at the tie to my robe.

  “Why, Jessie?”

  I breathed in deeply from my diaphragm, like I used to during my brief experimentation with yoga.

  “Because it's not really your money.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, it's really Grant's money . . .”

  Bethany slammed the glass down on the table with a clang.

  “If that's how you really see me,” she hissed. “Then you shouldn't take it!”

  “Bethany . . . ,” I began.

  Then my sister put a lavender-scented mask over her eyes and stopped talking to me for the rest of the afternoon. This went totally unnoticed by my mother, who had put her treatment time to good use by compiling a list of “eligible bachelors” she could set me up with.

  Only I would end a Darling Day of Pampering more wound up than when I started.

  the twenty-eighth

  The last time I spoke to someone in university housing about my plight, I was advised to call back at the end of the month. So I did. And it turns out that I am totally and completely screwed.

  “Well, I can't promise you anything,” the anonymous woman said, “but we might be able to offer you a walk-through double in Wein. With a first-year student as a roommate.”

  I laughed heartily at her joke. I stopped when I realized that I was the only one cracking up.

  “Wait,” I said in between chuckles. “You weren't serious, were you?”

  “I've got no time for jokes.”

  “Wein? WEIN? Wein is—pardon my language, but it's the only appropriate description—the shittiest shithole on campus. And I didn't live with a first year even when I was a first year! What makes you think I'd want to live with one now?”

  “You should have participated in the lottery with the rest of the rising seniors,” she said curtly. “If this becomes available, you should take it because it might be the only vacancy.”

  I don't think it's possible for them to have come up with a less desirable living arrangement. A sleeping bag under the scaffolding on Broadway and 125th is looking better and better.

  “So?” she asked.

  “I'll be in touch,” I said noncommittally before hanging up.

  So let's just say that I was in a pretty foul mood when I showed up for work. Today's topic: WORK HARD! PLAY HARD! LIVE EASY! The idea was that if you struck the right balance between academics and social activities, you'll be carefree. I wasn't up to the task and it showed.

  Oh, did it show.

  “You need to take this job more seriously,” warned Geoff.

  “Our future is in your hands,” Will said.

  “Now I know why you didn't get into Harvard,” said Maddie. “No work ethic.”

  And that's when I kind of lost it.

  “I was like you once,” I said. “And you know what?”

  “What?” they all asked.

  “I wish that someone had told me what I'm about to tell you.”

  They all inched forward until they were literally on the edges of their seats.

  “None of this matters.”

  “What?!”

  “NONE OF THIS MATTERS.” I pounded my fist on Geoff's desk for emphasis, making him yelp in surprise. “You can get into an Ivy League school and earn a 4.0 GPA while you're there and get all the right jobs and internships and résumé builders and still be a complete and total fuckup.”

  My three charges gasped, which should have stopped me. But it didn't.

  “You can still do everything right, and yet have no clue what you want to do with your life because none of the jobs your major has prepared you for seem at all appealing. And so your only logical choice is graduate school, which means you're faced with four or six or eight more years of education that you're not financially prepared to pay for because you can't even afford to pay rent and will have to live in a cardboard box because your ex-boyfriend started fucking his ex-girlfriend while you were out working two jobs to pay for the education that you severely doubt will ever pay you back because you picked a major that is largely useless unless you attend four or six or eight more years of school.”

  Their faces had all turned whiter than the dry-erase board. I had a feeling it wasn't because I was now repeating myself, which I had taught them was a major no-no in personal statements. Taking my own advice, I returned to my original point.

  “Your parents and teachers and authority figures all tell you that if you follow the rules, if you work hard, if you behave, you will be rewarded. Maybe with fame. Maybe with fortune. And if you really, really want it bad enough and work hard enough, maybe both. This is the Holy Grail of American mythology. But the real world doesn't work that way, kiddies. Because there are chronic fuckups who are still wildly successful at whatever they do. And there are smart, hardworking people who just can't get a break or, worse, who squander their gifts and never, ever amount to anything special. And even worse than that, there are people who work their asses off throughout their young lives, achieve their goals by getting into a top-notch Ivy League school, and then drop dead at twenty years old from an undiagnosed heart condition!!!”

  And just like that, it shattered: the defensive infrastructure holding up the stony façade I'd put up after William's death. After nearly a year without tears, I was keening more wildly than Dexy ever had, and right in front of the kiddies.

  “There are no guarantees of success in this world, not even for those whose lives are as charmed as yours. So have fun now! Do it! Put down the books! Have sex! Drink too much beer! Do something stupid while you're still young enough to chalk it up to blissful ignorance!”

  I got right in their young, fresh, horrified faces.

  “Go out and live! Live! Live
before it's too late!”

  I got fired, of course.

  * * *

  June 30th

  Dear Mom and Dad,

  First, I want to thank you again for your willingness to “waive” rent this summer. That's big of you, considering none of us expected me to be here. I hope you understand that I'm trying to do the best that I can under these difficult circumstances. Mom, as you know, a heartbreak is not so easily mended. And this unexpected parting of ways, coupled with my recent employment problems, has made 2005 a summer to forget.

  That said, I would greatly appreciate it if you would please refrain from nagging me about losing my job with ACCEPT! I'm even less thrilled with the prospect of working at Wally D's than you are, but everyone else has already made their hires for the summer season. Time is money and I don't have enough of either to waste in a fruitless search for more “meaningful” employment as Mom puts it.

  I will be the perfect guest. Quiet, neat, and easily missed. In return, I hope that you will extend me the courtesy of honoring my request.

  Your daughter,

  Jessie

  * * *

  the fourth

  “Isn't that where all the good blow comes from?”

  This inquiry was directed to the lower right of my crotch, via my coworker Sully.

  “What?” I asked, tearing open a carton of wafer cones.

  “Columbia,” he said again, gesturing to the crest on my gym shorts. “That's where coke comes from, right?”

  This was strange enough to make me stop dead in my tracks, a dangerous move on a night where even a momentary pause could incite corpulent civil disobedience.

  “STOP BLABBING, GIRLIE GIRL, AND MAKE MY CONE!”

  “GIMME MY CONE!”

  “CONE! CONE! CONE!”

  The Fourth of July is always one of the most insane nights of the year on the boardwalk. So I hadn't stopped running from customer to customer and cone to cone since I put on my Wally D's T-shirt. I'm on the 6 P.M. to 3 A.M. shift, which means I deal with every conceivable type of bennie, from the cranky families who've got sand stuck in the crotch pockets of their swimsuits, to my carefree peers perpetually transitioning from hungover to drunk again, to the pervy lurkers who wait until five minutes before closing to satisfy their hankering for something cool and sweet and mortally high in calories. For the privilege of working this most dangerous of shifts, G-Money pays me an extra buck an hour, bringing my hourly wage to a whopping $6.15 plus whatever tips people stick in the jar by the register. (COLLEGE FUND, it says, which is so close to the truth that it almost makes me weep.) I'm a bizillionaire in cigarette butts, fossilized gum, and tokens for Winning Wally's arcade. If I save up on the last, I might accrue enough points for the fake vomit I've been eyeing in the display case. Sweet.

  Sully's face is as flat and ugly as a bug on a windshield. He's paid for all the grunt work, like fixing the busted custard machines or lugging stuff up from basement storage. He's not supposed to linger too long behind the counter where he can frighten the customers. Sully is lucky he's got a job at all. A bunch of studies just proved that being beautiful literally pays off: There's a direct correlation between how attractive people are and their hireability. Did somebody cure cancer and AIDS when I wasn't looking? I mean, how much money was spent on that research? Duh. Duh. Duh.

  “That's Co-lom-bi-a the country,” I corrected, using an annoyingly precise Spanish pronunciation that put heavy emphasis on the o's. “This is Columbia the school.”

  His face got even squashier, as it always does when he doesn't understand something, which is often. He's a few rows short of the long bus.

  “Hunnuh? Columbia? Never heard of it.”

  This is what an Ivy League education means on the boardwalk. Absolutely nothing.

  Fortunately, I didn't have any more time to mull over the significance of this or anything else for that matter, which is one of the greatest advantages of my current employment situation.

  Other Advantages of My Current Employment Situation

  1. . . .

  Okay. Make that the only advantage of my current employment situation. But the fact that I was even capable of finding one thing is a great leap for me, as my current employment situation is one that is fraught with great psychological peril. I mean, this is the same exact job I was working five summers ago, and I hated it then. Of course, the only difference is that now I'm the old-timer the snide high school girls mock for having nowhere else to go.

  See? If I had time to think about this, I'd probably get depressed.

  the eleventh

  I covered a day shift when someone called in sick today, a reward for being so dang good with the clientele. Perhaps my Psychology degree is coming in handy after all. If I keep it up, I will be the most overeducated custard-slinger in the history of hydrogenated fats.

  It was a perfect ten tanning day and the water was calm and clear, so the beach was packed. I knew the boardwalk would be relatively dead until the sun went down and had brought along some reading material to kill time. It was a truly stellar issue of Star magazine, too, devoting no less than eight pages to celebrities with cellulite. This is all part of my master plan of not thinking all summer.

  I was studying the nooks and crannies of Donatella Versace's thighs when I heard a familiar voice.

  “Um. Hey. Jess.”

  I looked up to see Len standing before me. He had the decrepit appearance of someone who had died and was buried without a coffin, then dug up again. Unlike Kieran, who exaggerated his postbreakup devastation to better advance his rebound relationship (i.e., me), Len was clearly in very sorry shape indeed.

  “Oh, hey,” I replied. Then with more compassionate emphasis. “Hey.”

  “I know. Um. That you know. You don't have to pretend you don't. Um. Know.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Okay. So.” I wasn't sure what to say. “What are you doing this summer?”

  “EMT,” he said. “Saving people's. Um. Lives.”

  He laughed quickly, maniacally. Then silenced himself.

  “I was sorry to hear about what happened,” I said.

  “Were you?” he asked, drifting past the colorful tubs of custard in the case.

  “Of course I was,” I said. “Why wouldn't I be?”

  “I just. Um. Thought that you might be. Um. Happy.” He paused in front of vanilla bean.

  “Happy?” I asked. “Why?” I knew what he was getting at, but I wanted to hear him say it.

  “Because of. Um. How we broke up.”

  I opened the freezer and dug into the tub. “Len, it was ages ago,” I said. “Besides, two more guys dumped me after you. I've gotten used to it.”

  He silently watched as I worked the scoop through the custard.

  “I'll never get used to this,” he said morosely.

  “Sprinkles?”

  “Do? I? Want sprinkles?” As if this were a question he were incapable of answering, along the lines of, “What happens to us after we die?” or “What is the meaning of life?”

  “Live a little, Len,” I said, expertly rolling the cone through the chocolate sprinkles before handing it over.

  Len inspected it as if he were an African bushman who had never encountered something so puzzling. So cold. He took an apprehensive lick, and sprinkles tumbled to the floor. The chilly sweetness spread over his tongue. He grinned like a kid.

  “It's good,” he said.

  “I know,” I replied.

  “Thanks, Jess,” he replied, before turning around and walking away. I couldn't see his face but I just knew that he was still smiling, even after he was out of sight.

  the fifteenth

  One of my high school coworkers (Clueless Crew version 2.0) who can't be trusted to work at night told me that some “totally sketchy dude” keeps coming around looking for me. I needed more specifics.

  “Sketchy how?”

  “He looked like he hadn't taken a shower for, like, ever,” she said in between the pops and c
racks of her gum. “Cute, though, if you like the dirty type.”

  “Plain white T-shirt?” I asked. A feeble question, that. Marcus could have given them up long, long ago.

  “Cornell T-shirt,” she replied.

  Len.

  Apparently, he came back to the stand the day after his first appearance, and the days after that. But I was always working the night shift so I kept missing him. Finally, last night, he figured out that he should come after dark.

  “Hey!” he yelled over the roar of the crowd.

  “Hey!” I yelled back. “Too busy to talk. Call me!”

  Ever the reliable one, he called me at home the next morning.

  “I. Um. Forgot to pay.”

  “Pay for what?”

  “The. Um. Cone.”

  I laughed. “It was a freebie, Len. No need.”

  “Oh. Thanks,” he said. “It was. Um. Really good.”

  “We take deep pride in our products and customer service at Wally D's Sweet Treat Shoppe.”

  “It's a very. Um. Smart business model,” he replied.

  “Right,” I said, sensing he had more to say. “Is that the only reason you called?”

  “No,” he said.

  And then he took the next half hour to ask me if I felt like joining him for coffee or engaging in some other outing, which would be completely platonic because he is still wounded and is in no shape to enter into an emotional relationship with anyone right now. I tried very hard not to laugh at his earnestness.

  “Sure, Len,” I said.

  And so, that's how I ended up going out with Len tonight.

  My mom caught me getting ready to go out, a primping ritual that consists of taking my hair out of its topknot and shaking it out until my scalp doesn't hurt anymore.

  “Do you have a date tonight? It's about time you got back out there.”

  “Actually no,” I said. “I'm going out with Len Levy. Remember him?”

  “Len Levy? The Len Levy who broke up with you to date a lesbian?”

  “He didn't know she was a lesbian at the time, Mom, but yes. The same.”

  She pondered this for a moment. “You know,” she said, tapping her fingernail on the Restoration Hardware catalog. “I always liked Len.”