For the first minute, I peeped around the office, calling out “Hello? Hello? Anyone here?” as if I were in a marooned-on-a-desert-island movie.
It didn't take long to conduct my search. The small room was divided up into eight tangerine plastic cubicles. Like dorm rooms (except those inhabited by Math majors because, as a rule, Math majors do not decorate), the cubes were outfitted with objects reflecting the cheesy interests of their occupants: Charles in Charge bobblehead dolls, Tiger Beat pinups of the cast of The Outsiders, a limited-edition Handi-Capable Cabbage Patch Kid with leg braces, and so on. Though the kitsch dated mostly from the eighties, the overall aesthetics of the True office harkened back a few years earlier. Think a suburban basement circa 1976, with faux-wood paneling on the walls, shag rugs and beanbag chairs in the color fondly known as vomit green and, appropriately, the orange hue of that sawdusty stuff used by elementary school janitors to soak up puke puddles.
I sat myself down on one of the suede dish chairs and waited.
At 10:03, I stayed cool, figuring that there was a reasonable explanation. The trains must be running slow.
At 10:10, I read the e-mail I'd been sent, confirming that it did indeed instruct me to arrive at 10 A.M. on July 1.
At 10:13, I reread it.
At 10:15, I started to think that maybe everyone had taken an early Fourth of July holiday.
At 10:23, I convinced myself that I'd somehow wandered onto the wrong floor. So I went to each lower floor and asked the first person I saw where True magazine was located. They all said the fourth floor, which is where I came from, and where I returned to find that no one had arrived in my absence.
At 10:28, I re-reread my e-mail.
At 10:37, I contemplated my options. I could try to call the phone numbers I'd used to call True in the past, but that didn't make any sense because I was the only one in the office who could pick up the phone when it rang. I could salvage my dignity and leave. Or I could stay put.
At 10:46, I was thoroughly convinced I was being Punk'd.
At 10:59, I decided that if no one showed up by 11:02, I would leave.
At 11:02, I stayed put, vowing to give them just ten more minutes.
At 11:14, I heard raucous conversation bouncing off the walls in the stairwell, punctuated by explosive bursts of laughter. Ten seconds later, the door burst open and Tyra Braun, True's editrix, instantly recognizable from her editor's letter photo, swished through the door. She was accompanied by a pack of disheveled twentysomethings who wore the smoky-boozy-greasy perfume of those making the transition from the night before to the morning after with nary a break in between.
I tried very hard not to look like a tool who had been waiting more than an hour for their arrival.
“Holy guacamole!” she gasped. “You're the new intern!”
Tyra had such a winning way about her that I instantly wondered how I had gotten by in this world without ever using the phrase “Holy guacamole!” Her lexicon matched her outfit, which was prim and very 1950s: aqua silk ribbon-tie sleeveless blouse, black-and-white knee-length circle skirt, round-toe spectator pumps. Tyra's corny throwback expressions and love of all things ladylike somehow manages to make her even edgier than others of her ilk. With a jet-black pixie cut that very few people can pull off, surprise-wide eyes, and pink cheeks brightening up an otherwise alabaster complexion, Tyra is someone who my mother would say is “a striking girl, if she hadn't done that to her hair.”
“How long have you been waiting for us?”
“Not long,” I lied.
“Jeez Louise,” she said, dramatically wiping her brow. “That's a relief!”
Tyra went on to explain that the True staff had all been out late the night before celebrating her thirtieth birthday at an unnamed Bulgarian disco (“And I do mean disco,” Tyra said, and everyone cracked up, including me, for reasons I didn't understand) known for it's apple-flavored hooch served out of wooden barrels with a ladle. From there, they went to an after-hours lounge known for its “Monday Morning Metal” karaoke contest. (Some guy named Smitty won with his stirring rendition of “Can You Take Me High Enough?” by Damn Yankees.) They had just returned from a dive diner in Greenpoint where they'd consumed enough French toast, pancakes, and hash browns to set the Atkins revolution back about a thousand years.
It was not exaggerating to say that they'd had more fun last night than I've had in my entire life.
Tyra quickly introduced me to the rest of the True staff. I would recap here except it happened so fast and I was so busy thinking about what I would say next that I can't remember any of their names, except for Hannah, but that's because she was the editorial assistant/intern coordinator who interviewed me over the phone. Hannah and the other five female staffers were dressed in various shades of totally cool. The one male was resplendent in flaming homosexual. They all went to their respective cubes to nurse their hangovers and pretend to work.
Tyra alone seemed unfazed by the lack of sleep.
“What's your name again?” she asked.
I told her.
“Hannah told me all about you! You're the one who worked on the boardwalk!” She clapped her hands. “Everyone! This is the one who worked on the boardwalk.” The way she said it implied that she had discussed at length my credentials as Frozen Confection Technician at Wally D's Sweet Treat Shoppe the summer before my junior year of high school. And their oohs and ahhs implied that they were duly impressed. I must have looked confused because Tyra quickly informed me why this expertise was so highly valued.
“Good golly!” she exclaimed. “Didn't Hannah tell you what this issue is all about? It's True on New Jersey!”
Apparently, the whole staff is filled with yorkles, people who never venture beyond Manhattan or the acceptably hip outerborough neighborhoods. They need me, according to Tyra, because I can share an authentic New Jersey point of view. And authenticity is what True is all about, albeit in a snarky, po-mo kind of way.
“Listen up, my chickadee,” she said as she showed me to my cubicle. “I want your ideas. I want to hear from you what it means to be from the state that is the proverbial armpit of the nation. Brainstorm a bit and come back to my office after lunch.”
So for the next two hours, I sat in my empty cube thinking about New Jersey.
Like how in kindergarten I was proud that our state was number one in population density until I found out what population density meant. Or how Kevin Smith is a brilliant ideas man but absolutely sucks at execution because all his movies look like they were filmed on a PlaySkool View-Master. Or how we host the Miss America pageant every year but our state's delegate hasn't worn the crown since 1984, and only then because the real winner, Vanessa Williams, Miss New York, had creepy lesbo photos come out in Penthouse and was stripped of her title, so the first runner-up, Miss New Jersey, Suzette Charles (who was also black, which was weird because Miss America never had a black first runner-up before, let alone a black winner) was required to take over for the disgraced Miss America and (according to my mom, who is an amateur Miss America historian) had only two weeks to prep for her appearance in the pageant and had really let herself go because it's not like she'd been making a lot of personal appearances as Miss New Jersey/First Runner-Up or anything so she had chunked up and looked not at all like a Miss America should when she crowned the winner for 1985 (who, incidentally, was a Mormon from Utah chosen by the judges to avoid another creepy lesbo photo scandal) and it was very embarrassing for her and now hardly anyone remembers Suzette Charles, but Vanessa Williams is probably the most famous Miss America ever, which, to me, seemed like an apt metaphor of our state's inferior-to-New-York complex, but I hadn't really worked out all the allegorical details when Tyra emerged from her office with a bullhorn.
“Go home, chickadees!” she said, her voice painfully amplified, even for me, and I wasn't hungover. “I'm too tuckered out to work. I declare the day after my birthday an official holiday from now on.”
Cheers er
upted from around the room.
“Do you want my ideas?” I asked Tyra.
“Save them for tomorrow,” she said as she skipped out the door.
That was good news. It gave me all night to come up with pitches worthy of the magazine I loved. I was almost kind of relieved that Marcus was gone, because I could just hole myself up in the bedroom and work. Imagine my shock when I returned to the brownstone to find him sitting on the Oriental rug in the living room building a LEGO castle with Marin.
“Marcus! What are you still doing here?”
Marin crawled into Marcus's lap. “Bethany asked me to stay.”
“You hung out with my sister all day?” I don't think I've ever hung out with my sister all day.
“Well, Marin was here, too.”
“PEE! POO!” Marin yelled with delight before burying her face in Marcus's shoulder.
Bethany entered the room with the phone to her ear, finishing up what was probably her tenth phone call of the day to G-Money. “Okay . . . okay . . . sure . . . ,” she said. “Okay . . . Will do! Sure . . . Okay . . . I love you!”
All of her phone conversations with her husband sound like this, and there were a lot of them. Since he was the co-owner of the Papa D's/Wally D's franchise, I didn't quite understand why he had to personally oversee the operations of each and every new location. Couldn't he hire some underling to do it for him? I said as much to him in our first and only conversation we've had since I've been here.
“Jessie,” he responded with stoic condescension, “this isn't about opening up another store. It's about my commitment to brand penetration.”
Then his Town Car honked outside and he was out the door, a blur of earth-toned khaki and Egyptian cotton. No good-bye. Not for me, not for Marin or Bethany. Not for anyone. I rolled my eyes then, much like I rolled my eyes when Bethany hung up the phone. Marcus shrugged. Marin demolished the castle with a karate chop.
“Hi-YA!”
“Jessie! Your boyfriend here is a natural with kids!”
I glanced at Marin, who was reaffirming this statement by gleefully wrapping Pinky the Poodle's feather boa around Marcus's neck.
“He should be a manny! I'd hire him in a second!”
Marin danced in circles around him, screeching with approval. “Pretty!”
“Tell me,” Marcus said, sensing my need for attention. “How was your day?”
I omitted the part about waiting around by myself for an hour and just cut straight to how cool and nice everyone was and how my opinion is highly valued because the next issue is True on New Jersey.
“So the whole time you're in New York, you have to think about home,” he said.
“Yes,” I said. “The irony does not escape me.”
“It never does,” he said.
“PEE! POO!” added Marin, still spinning around Marcus.
“Sooooo . . . Jessie,” Bethany cooed. “I told Marcus that he is welcome to stay as long as he wants.”
Marcus gave me an Isn't-that-great? grin.
I should have grinned back. Not only should I have been happy that at least one person supports our relationship, I should have been thrilled to spend more time with him. But I'd been looking forward to brainstorming ideas for Tyra. Plus, it was kind of disturbing to see him and Bethany so chummy. I don't get along with my sister, so Marcus certainly shouldn't be expected to.
I didn't notice that they were waiting for me to say something until I felt the weight of their eyes on me.
“Awesome,” I said, finally. “Awesome.”
the fourth
Tyra thanked me for my ideas, but didn't say anything else about them, which, I assume, means that she wasn't blown away by my insights as I had wished. I had particularly high hopes about a piece I'd pitched about the reclamation of the pejorative “guido.” I supplemented my story idea with a “poem” (quotations necessary because it has no discernible rhyme or meter) written by the webmaster of jerseyguido.com:
FRIDAY NIGHT RALLY
BY JOEY “THE SAINT” SANTERELLO
You sit at your desk
Where you feel like a loser five days a week
It's 4:30
Living for Friday night
Living for the shore
Where you're always young and crazy
Even if you're old and lazy
Go out, go wild, just go!
Just a half hour of hell left
Until you can head for heaven
You wipe away a tear
Thinking about that first beer
PARTY LIKE A ROCK STAR!!!
Yesterday I was summoned to Tyra's office.
“What are you doing this weekend?” she asked.
“I'm spending it with my boyfriend,” I said vaguely.
The ambiguity was twofold. First, the only real plans I had for the Fourth involved having lots of loud, uninhibited sex with my boyfriend. My period had ended, but I couldn't get freaky-deaky with Marin sleeping all goo-goo and innocent in the nursery next door. I didn't want to be responsible for scarring her subconscious. I planned on taking full advantage of the fact that BG&M were headed for the Hamptons for the holiday.
And second, I hoped that this answer was sufficiently specific that I didn't sound like a loser, yet noncommittal enough that maybe Tyra would give me an assignment for the magazine.
“You have a boyfriend?” She slapped her hands to her cheeks Home Alone style. “You don't strike me as the type to have a boyfriend.”
“Uh.” Did I strike her as the type more likely to have a girlfriend? DAMN THIS HAIR.
“You seem too independent to have a boyfriend,” she said.
Oh.
“Well, Marcus isn't your typical boyfriend,” I said.
“Well, have fun with him,” she said.
Good advice. Since we've been in the city we haven't had much fun. Together, that is. While I've been answering phones, opening mail, and fetching lattes, Marcus has been having a blast as Marin's unofficial manny. Every day I come home to hear about how they've had a grand old time with Bethany, skipping along the promenade, sharing sticky-sweet Popsicles and hours and hours of laughs. I shouldn't be surprised that Marcus has had such an effect on my sister and niece. He's charmed Bethany and Marin just like he won over my grandmother Gladdie. His charisma spans the generations.
But I was tired of vying for his attention. I wanted to be alone with him. So you can imagine how crushed I was last night by the familiar sight of Marin and Marcus on the living room rug and Bethany pacing the hardwood floors with the phone pressed to her ear.
“Okay . . . love you!” she chirped before hanging up.
“Bethany,” I said. “Shouldn't you be on the road already? What about all that Hamptons traffic?”
“Grant has to launch a new store this weekend,” Bethany said, “so we decided to stay here instead.”
Right, I thought. More brand penetration, less Jessica penetration.
I know this is her house and she can come and go as she pleases. I know that I am the visitor here and that I should be grateful for her hospitality. But my turf was being violated. Or rather, not violated. And so, I asked Marcus to join me for a private tête-à-tête in the guest room.
“We'll have a barbecue on the roof,” Marcus said. “It'll be cool. We can see the fireworks from there.”
I made a face like I'd just taken a swig from a cesspool-flavored soda.
Marcus touched the space between my eyes. “You're getting a furrow right here from all your face-making.”
“King Kong Kitchee Kitchee Ki Me Oh!” Marin shouted from the living room.
Marcus saw my bewildered look. “It's a song.” He hummed a few bars of the simple ditty.
“How do you do it?”
“Do what?” he asked.
“How do you get down on her level?” I asked.
“Marin's a cool little kid . . .”
“I meant Bethany,” I replied.
“Oh.”
“But Marin, too. How is it that you got along so well with my grandmother, and now Marin and Bethany?”
“It's not hard, Jessica.” He shrugged.
It reminded me of when people used to ask me how I rocked the SAT. “It's not hard,” I'd say. And they'd stare at me the way I was staring at Marcus at that moment, with slack-jawed incredulity.
“We're all people,” he said simply. “It doesn't matter if you're two, thirty-two, or ninety-two. Everyone wants to be treated with respect. Everyone wants to feel like they matter in this world.”
I sank onto the bed. His sincerity made me feel so soulless and mean.
“Your sister is not the banshee you make her out to be,” he continued. “I think motherhood has mellowed her out.”
There was evidence that this was true. For the first time in recent memory, my sister was talking like a normal person, no put-on faux-Euro accents or clipped, upper-class affectations.
“But is it so wrong for me to want to spend some time alone with you? I don't get how you and my sister are suddenly bestest buds.”
“To tell you the truth, Jessica,” he said, “I feel sorry for her.”
“You feel sorry for her,” I said in a mechanized, emotionless monotone. “You feel sorry for my gorgeous, rich sister with the adorable baby and a multimillion-dollar brownstone.”
“Well, except for Marin, you should know that none of that stuff matters,” he said. “Have you also noticed that she doesn't really have any friends? Or that her husband is on the phone more often than he is on the premises?”
“Well, sure . . .”
“Did you know that the reason Bethany doesn't have any help with Marin is because her husband refuses to pay for a nanny?”
“G-Money won't let her have a nanny?” I asked. “Bethany said she couldn't find reliable child care.”
“She's saving face,” he said, lowering his voice. “Grant says that being a mom should be Bethany's full-time job.”
“Why doesn't she just ignore him and hire a part-time babysitter to help her out?”
“Because he doesn't want her to,” he whispered. “And Bethany doesn't do what Grant doesn't want her to do.”