I need to be more in the moment, like when I was wet and wild in the waves. Being in the moment—right now!—equals freedom. It can't be scrutinized, analyzed, rhapsodized, mythologized. It can't be desecrated, debated, prognosticated. Right now can only be lived. Isn't this the same message I tried to get across to the kiddies in the lecture that got me fired? Isn't this the same advice Gladdie gave me right before she died?
Why is it that the most fundamental life lesson—LIVE!—is the one I continually forget to put into practice?
the twenty-seventh
Today was G-Money and Bethany's fifth anniversary party. Their actual anniversary was more than two months ago but—to shamelessly borrow from his biggest rival—it was always time to make the donuts. Held at the spectacular beaux arts Palm House at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, the party was replete with white-gloved service, an audiovisual tribute to their love, and a five-tiered cake made exclusively out of crullers and chocolate custard that had Marin zoom, zoom, zooming. It was a gala affair, the kind that used to be thrown for unions lasting ten times as long, back when golden anniversaries weren't as unlikely as they are now.
On a more cynical day, I'd be merciless about this. But not today.
Of course, I wasn't looking forward to this soiree. But the usual antisocial reasons were compounded by the fact that I hadn't spoken to my sister since the Ahhh . . . Spa and that her silence had everything to do with me being so bitchy about the very love for her husband that I was here to so publicly celebrate. To make things even worse, I had also been harangued into being a spotlight participant in one of the evening's cheesier spectacles: The Not-So-Newlywed Game.
“No,” I said, when my mother told me yesterday that I was going to be the emcee. “Let Sara do it instead. She loves the limelight.”
Sara was bound to be at the party. The D'Abruzzi/Darling-Doczylkowski families would be linked for as long as there is a consumer demand for twenty-four-hour access to conveniently packaged fats and sugars.
“You're the only one we call Notso! How will it look if someone else hosts the Not-So-Newlywed Game?”
“It's not named after me, it's just a coincidence,” I said. “Call it the Oldiewed Game instead.”
“Anyone who's ever been on a cruise will know that it's supposed to be called the Not-So-Newlywed Game!” she exclaimed. “You just can't go changing names willy-nilly. It's just not right! Not right at all!”
This is the closest my mother has ever come to civil unrest. If she could carry a picket sign, it would say NOT-SO-NEWLYWED OR NOTHING! But if this game is my mother's Betty Boop decorative license plate cover, so be it. I gave up and gave in, figuring my participation might help smooth things over with my sister. However, until my unwanted moment at the mike, I stayed out of the way, on the fringes of the party, playing babysitter to Marin.
“What's the story, morning glory?” I asked her.
“I hate this stupid dress,” she said, avoiding our usual joke and jutting her lower lip like a diving board over the dimple in her chin.
The dress was a pink flowery confection complete with a flouncy crinoline. It wasn't inherently awful, not like those lacy headbands that new parents put on baby girls until they've grown enough hair not to be mistaken for boys. Indeed, it was a lovely dress, one that surely cost more than the contents of my entire wardrobe. But on Marin, it just looked all wrong. And she felt wrong in it. She usually zipped around the room, from person to person and thing to thing. Marin has a true love for life and people. To see her slumping in her chair was just too depressing. But I didn't want her to feel any worse than she already did.
“It's a pretty dress, Marin.”
She rolled her eyes like a pro. “Did Mommy tell you what to wear today?”
Wow. She's a real smart-ass.
“Not today.” I kneeled down next to her. “But your mommy once made me wear a dress that I didn't want to wear.”
“Really?” she asked, sounding mildly interested. “When?”
“When she and your daddy got married,” I said.
“Five years ago,” she added, proud to know this fact.
“Yes,” I said. “And it was waaaaaaay uglier than this one. It was long and yellow and it made me look like a banana.”
This made her giggle.
“That's right,” I continued. “I'm lucky I didn't get dragged off by a gorilla!”
She thought this was positively hysterical. And when I started making EEE-EEE-OOO-OOO-AHH-AHH-AHH ape noises, she just about bust her little gut. Kids are so damn easy sometimes.
“But you know what, Marin? Even though I was wearing this ugly dress, I didn't let it ruin my day. I danced and had a lot of fun.”
But this last part of my speech was unnecessary. Marin was already out of the chair at this point, bopping up and down to the band's very unhip version of “Hey Ya!”
“Let's go, Auntie J! Let's go!”
Hm. Maybe I'm good with people after all, because the two of us took over the dance floor with sweaty, ass-shaking abandon. I felt pure, unself-conscious joy, just as I had when I was wild and wet in the waves. The moment felt elastic, as if I could stretch my happiness beyond this particular moment in space and time . . .
That is, until I felt someone grab my shoulder.
“Omigod! Jess!”
It was Sara . . . with Scotty and his huge head trailing behind her.
“What are you two doing here together?” I asked, putting my hands in the air, and waving them like I just didn't care, as the band had directed.
“You don't know?” she tugged Scotty's arm. “We've been hanging out for a while now.”
It's ironic that she didn't use her quote-unquote catchphrase around the words hanging out, considering how it's the commitment-phobic euphemism for any vague relationship consisting of drunken, semiregular hookups. Scotty had the confused look of a time traveler who had just beamed five hundred years into the future but couldn't remember how he had gotten there.
“Wow,” I said, rolling my shoulders in time with the music. “You make a perfect couple.” I was telling the ugly truth.
“I know!” she shouted. “Omigod! I heard about you and . . .”
“Not now, Sara!” I said, twirling away from her. “Not ever!”
“You and Len!” she shouted, ignoring my order. “You—”
“No! No! No!” Marin screeched as she stomped on Sara's foot. “Go away!”
“That's my girl!” I shouted as I hoisted Marin up and swung her around.
“Brat!” Sara seethed as she hobbled off the floor. I swear I saw a smile on Scotty's face as he followed her.
I could have danced all day with Marin. But my mother had other ideas.
“It's time for the Not-So-Newlywed Game!” my mother trilled, taking me by the arm.
“Now?” I asked.
“Yes, now,” she replied, handing over the question cards. “Let's get the game show on the road!”
Four sets of chairs were dragged onto the dance floor. Couple #1: The Doczylkowskis (junior). Couple #2: The Doczylkowskis (senior). Couple #3: The Darlings (my parents). Couple #4: The D'Abruzzis (Sara's dad and stepmom).
“Uh, hi everyone,” I murmured into the microphone.
“Speak up!” my mom shouted.
“I'm Bethany's sister, Jessica,” I said, slightly louder, but without much gusto. “Your host for the Not-So-Newlywed Game.”
Okay. You've seen The Newlywed Game—husbands go into seclusion, wives answer questions, answers are revealed, references to whoopee are made, points are earned, hilarity ensues—there's no need to go into elaborate logistical detail.
Questions included:
1. What was the first record/CD your wife ever bought?
2. Who was your husband's first celebrity crush?
And the ever-popular, and in this case, nauseating:
3. Where was the wildest place you ever made whoopee?
To my shock, both my parents and my sister and G-Money
knew everything about each other. G-Money knew that Bethany purchased We Are the World when she was in fifth grade. My mom knew that my dad was hot for Ann-Margret. They all knew their most outlandish whoopee-making locations, but for the sake of my gastrointestinal tract I'd prefer not recounting them here thankyouverymuch.
To end the dubious suspense, they got every question right, and ended up tied for first place with a hundred points. (The Doczylkowskis [senior] scored fifty. And the D'Abruzzis—a third marriage for husband and a first for wife—earned a meager ten points.)
Without a Sudden Death question, I declared them all winners. The contestants and the crowd were delighted. And as they all congratulated one another, I realized that I will never get what keeps couples like my parents and my sister and G-Money together. As an outsider, I can only see the bitterness. The bickering. The boredom. But on the inside, there's obviously an understanding between them, and only them. Which is how it should be. I've judged other couples and thought, God, I'd never, ever want a relationship like that. But that's a good thing, isn't it? I shouldn't want a relationship like anyone else's because it's so uniquely theirs.
Sometimes my revelations are so moronic. Epissanies.
I was thinking about this when I was approached by this attractive, clean-cut guy in a tan, one-button linen jacket, a pink-and-white-striped shirt, and dark jeans. It was a very deliberate outfit, and he looked like the type who is most comfortable on a sailboat or ski slope. Jaunty. He had the innate swagger of someone who's got the world hanging from his scrotum, so I assumed he would walk right past me.
“Jessica Darling!” He hugged me by way of a slap on the back. “How the hell are you?”
I was caught off guard by his enthusiastic greeting. “Uh. Yeah, it's me,” I said. But who are you?
I reeled back from the embrace so I could look into this person's eyes, trying to make a connection. Someone from school? Someone I interviewed during the Storytelling Project? Someone I've served at I SCREAM! or the Sweet Shoppe? I am very bad at putting people in context. Like, if I've only seen you in class, I will totally not recognize you if I see you on the subway. This is why a lot of people might think I'm a bitch. (Uh, besides the fact that I often display some very bitchy tendencies.)
“You don't know who I am, do you?” he asked.
“Uh . . . Sure I do!”
“The best man's little bro . . .”
Once he said it, I felt like a moron for not making an instant connection. He looked exactly the same, only with lines fanning out from his eyes, and more pronounced grooves dug deep into his cheeks.
“Cal!” I gasped. “Wow! I haven't seen you since . . .”
“Since I tried to have sex with you on the golf course during your sister's wedding reception,” he said candidly.
“Right,” I said, not embarrassed by this declaration.
“I imagine you haven't given me much thought over the past five years,” he said.
This was true.
“But I've thought a lot about you,” he continued. “It was a dick move and you called me on it. No girl had ever done that before. I learned a lot from that night, and I never treated a girl like an object again . . .”
After Cal returned to his preppy, peppy girlfriend across the room, I thought of what Paul Parlipiano said to me at that Beautiful People Against Bush party last summer. “We barely know each other, and yet have made a big difference in each other's lives.” With Paul, the feeling was mutual. But I hadn't quite considered that maybe I'd affected someone deeply, but never knew it. It made me wonder if there was anyone else out there who thought of me as a driving force behind their self-actualization.
“You did a genius job with the game,” Bethany said, breaking my thoughts.
Marin agreed. “Genius, Auntie J!”
“Thanks,” I said. “Bethany . . .” I sucked in a lungful of air. “I've been wanting to talk to you all night . . .”
She waved her hands in front of me to stop but I kept going.
“No, please. You were kind enough to offer help and I selfishly . . .”
I hadn't intended for that to be the end of my apology. But Bethany's tackle-hug stopped me.
“I don't need to hear any more!” Tears skimmed her cheeks.
“Are you sure? Because . . .”
“I'm sure!”
When we declinched, I braced myself for the next part of my impromptu speech.
“So . . .” I fiddled with the satin ribbon on my skirt. “I was wondering . . .”
“Yes!”
“Yes!” mimicked Marin.
“Yes . . . what?” I asked.
“Yes, you can live with us!” Bethany wrapped her arms around me again. Only this time Marin joined in, clasping my lower legs.
“How did you know I was going to ask . . . ?”
“I know because sisters know things.”
Even sisters who have as little in common as we do.
“Oh!” I overheard my mom burble. “Look at them!”
“Our girls!” my dad exclaimed.
“Our girls!” she repeated. “I'm so proud of them!”
At first I didn't get what was making my parents so misty. But then I looked down at Marin clinging to my calf and thought about how proud I was of the cool little kid she was becoming. And she's just my niece—I can't even imagine what it would be like if she were my own daughter. Seeing my parents so weepy with love and admiration, it wasn't so hard to believe that, despite it all, they really do have my best interests at heart. Unfortunately, they've never been very good at understanding what those interests are. I can't really blame them for that, though, because I barely understand them myself.
But I'd like to think I'm getting better at it.
the thirty-first
I was shocked to find an e-mail from one Professor Samuel MacDougall in my mailbox. Since becoming a finalist for the National Book Award for Acting Out, he's been highly sought after by universities. And even if I had known he'd been hired by Columbia, I would have never expected him to remember a little high school kiddie he taught four summers ago, let alone go out of his way to contact me. His letter of recommendation was a big reason I got in here, but I was sure that he'd written dozens, if not hundreds, of such letters over the years.
But it's not every day that one gets an invitation from an author the New York Times describes as “a gay Dave Eggers . . . only smarter, funnier . . . and better.” So I took the train from Bethany's place in Brooklyn up to 116th Street, found his office, and knocked cautiously on the door, having no idea what this visionary could possibly want with me.
He enthusiastically swung open the door.
“Hi! It's been a long time!” I said.
“‘I don't think of the past,'” he said. “‘The only thing that matters is the everlasting present.' W. Somerset Maugham.”
“The everlasting present,” I repeated, somewhat freaked out that one of his trademark aphorisms so eerily summarized what I've been thinking lately. Synchronicity? Or bullshit?
“Come in, come in,” he said warmly, before I had a chance to decide.
I edged my way through the tiny, cramped office. On the fourth floor, it had a small muck-covered window that opened up to the brick face of another building.
“You have to win a Pulitzer to get a view around here,” he said.
I laughed, not sure if he was kidding.
“So!” he said, clapping his hands together. “What have you been up to? Writing-wise?”
I decided to confess.
“I didn't major in English or take a single writing class besides L&R freshman year. I didn't join the newspaper because it seemed too intense and competitive and I hated my summer internship at True magazine and I barely had the energy to write the occasional letter to my best friend, though more often I'd write to my boyfriend, which turned out to be a colossal waste of ink since he stopped being my boyfriend long ago . . .”
“What's your major?” he interrupt
ed.
“Psychology.”
“Psychology?!” he blurted in disbelief. “You want to help sort out other people's mental health problems?”
I was not offended by this. “Honestly?” I asked, taking a furtive look around before I whispered the truth. “No! I don't!”
“Then what do you want to do after graduation?”
I shifted uneasily in my seat. “I'm still . . . uh . . . kind of figuring that one out . . .”
He grabbed at his curls. “Then why did you major in Psychology?”
“I didn't really consider a career when picking a major,” I said. “I wanted to learn about what makes people do the crazy things we do.”
He leaned back in his chair and said, “Tch.”
“You can say that again,” I replied. (He didn't.)
I didn't want to waste any more of this important man's time. I was just about to get up to leave when he suddenly snapped to attention.
“What about your journal?”
“My journal?”
“Yes,” he said. “Do you still keep a journal?”
“Uh . . . yeah.” And I pulled this very tattered, black-and-white-speckled composition notebook out of my bag. Until he said it, I'd forgotten all about everything I'd documented in here, because I don't really think of this as serious writing.
“May I take a look?”
Mac had read another journal of mine, the one I was keeping when I was seventeen years old and attending SPECIAL. It was my journal, not anything I'd written for class, that had convinced him I had promise. (A promise I have, heretofore, unfulfilled.) But I didn't want him perusing my private thoughts this time around. These moments are my own. Fortunately, I had a substitute—I handed over a few loose pages that I'd stuffed in the back of the notebook and never bothered to remove.
“Read this instead.”
“Persuasions: A Cheesy Slice of New Jersey in the Heart of Manhattan,” he read. He cocked an eyebrow in bemusement. “I thought you said you hadn't written anything this year.”