“Let’s get cracking!”
Molly can be a particularly maddening young woman when it comes to the typical teen surliness, and in not making any effort or attempt to attain her potential—as anything—but I must admit that I am so glad I’m not a high school student, especially a graduating senior. Those are years I would never want to revisit. The Bennington application, which is pretty much on a par with other colleges of its ilk, was truly daunting. And in order to keep Molly’s spirits up, I tried to pretend it wasn’t, which wasn’t working as well as I had hoped.
“I am so totally fucked,” she said, on reading a preamble to the application that set forth its goal of encouraging individual expression within the application format, urging the student to provide the school with a sense not only of what they’ve accomplished thus far, but who they hope to become. “Which is worse,” she moaned, “not having accomplished anything these ivory tower people want to read about, or not knowing who I want to become? Please don’t tell me I’m the only high school senior in America who feels this way.”
“I’d venture a guess that you’re in the majority,” I told her, “but don’t defeat yourself before you even start the process. That kind of attitude has a way of becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.” I tell the same thing to my clients.
“Don’t get all shrinky on me, Ma.” Molly turned the page. The three essay options sent her into a tizzy. The only saving grace was the ability to supplement them with other media, such as photos, poetry, artwork, or anything else a clever student might devise. One essay quoted Aristotle on the use of metaphor and requested the applicant to prove themselves a “master of metaphor.”
“That is, like, so stupid,” Molly commented.
“And that is, like, so like a simile. They want metaphor, kiddo.”
“You’re not funny, Mom. You’re just not a funny person, okay?”
Essay option two asked the prospective Bennington freshman to design an experiment that would prove that toads could hear.
“You could play Bach for them and see how they react, and then make them deaf with hip-hop,” I suggested. “Hip-hop? Toads? Get it?”
“I hate to say it, Mom, but that’s probably not such a stupid idea. It’s better than essay option three. ‘Select an issue about which you have strong convictions that extends beyond your family, yourself, and your friends.’ This is like dork debate class. Pick something important and get the rest of the world to see your point.”
I tried to convince my daughter that not everything is “dorky.” “Molly, each one of these essay choices gives you the opportunity to think in a different way, to use the best part of your brain to its strengths, whether it’s scientific, rational, or creative. Left and right brainiacs get an equal shot here. And look at it this way,” I said, giving the community college brochure a quick scan. “If all else fails, you can study creative writing here and take advantage of the free theatre tickets they set aside for their students. Not only that, their women’s volleyball team took the City University championship. And, from looking at their application, the clincher is that they don’t seem to require any essays.”
“That’s probably ’cause their students don’t know enough English to write them.” Molly sighed. “Okay, this may boil down to the toads after all. Where do they come off with such dumb topics? What kind of essays did you have when you were applying?”
“We only had one choice. ‘In John Donne’s Meditation XVII, he claimed that “No man is an island.” Discuss.’”
“I don’t even know what the fuck that means.”
I laughed. “I’ve got a confession. Neither did I.”
“So what did you do?”
“Supplemental materials. Lots of ’em! Actually, I wrote an essay on Hemingway.” Molly gave me a blank look. “I’m surprised you don’t recognize the connection, Ms.-Hemingway-star-writer-for-Mrs.-Noguchi. ‘Never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.’”
“Huh?”
“It’s the end of the ‘no man is an island’ meditation. Basically I wormed my way around the essay. I think it was the interpretive dance I performed at my interview that nailed it though. I called it ‘Loneliness.’”
“Are you kidding?”
“Alas, no.”
“Was it as angsty as your crappy poetry?”
I nodded. “Although I think you should be kinder toward my creative efforts. They did get me into college.”
“I am so not doing an interpretive dance.”
“Then we’re back to the toads.” I turned the page. “Let’s read on.”
As we perused the application, I shuddered to think of the crates of materials that must get scrutinized annually by admissions committees all over the country. In addition to the usual test scores and transcripts, the required essays and teacher recommendations, the pages of short-answer questions, and the supplemental materials that we hoped would be that make-or-break silver bullet, Molly would have to provide Bennington with a graded analytic essay and a performance report from her college guidance counselor—and I didn’t get the vibe from Mr. Bernstein that he was too crazy about us. From our brief meeting in his office that afternoon, I sensed that he wished it wouldn’t require so much effort to report enthusiastically about my daughter to the college of her choice—or even to the college of his choice.
After spending an hour and a half reviewing the application, Molly leaned over the dinette table, folded her arms in front of her and buried her face. “My favorite question is the one where they ask if you have any relatives or close friends who attended Bennington. Are you sure I can’t just backpack around Europe for a year? You’re always telling your clients to take risks—like that’s the most important thing in the world. So why can’t you do in your personal life what you do in your professional life and let your own daughter take one?”
“For one thing, my clients aren’t minors who happen to be related to me. And for the time being, given everything Mr. Bernstein said this afternoon, don’t you think it’s risky enough to try to get accepted to Bennington?” I flipped through the application’s numerous pages. “At least you don’t have to sign an affidavit swearing that you’re heterosexual,” I muttered grimly.
“What?”
I’d been thinking about Claude and Naomi’s international adoption procedure, and their request for my assistance in completing the sheafs of complex paperwork. For all their left brain/right brain teasers and myriad questions designed to probe a person’s psyche as much as ascertain their bank balance, do these voluminous applications really measure the sum of a person? Their values, their strengths, their potential to improve mankind? “Nothing,” I mumbled to Molly. “Never mind.”
9
ALICE
“If Mala Sonia ever gives you a prediction, you should take it seriously. And it doesn’t give me any satisfaction to say so.” Alice threw up her hands. “I was this close,” she said, “finally with a steady acting job. Okay, Off-Broadway wasn’t making me rich, but I suppose that falls into the ‘be careful what you wish for’ category. I wanted to be a full-time, working actress, instead of an abused office temp. I got my wish. I just didn’t know how short-lived it would be.”
“Is Grandma Finnegan’s Wake closing?” I asked her.
“Not exactly. Listen to me; I sound like one of those old Hertz commercials. I play Fionulla Finnegan, a former Star Search winner. She’s totally outrageous. I get to sing too. It’s a wonderful part. A lot of the show is improv, which leaves lots of room for spontaneous reactions and interactions between the characters and with the audience. I went into the show as a replacement for the original actress, a bitch named Bitsy Burton who left to join the Chicago company, which apparently died a premature death, so she’s back in the Off-Broadway production again. They couldn’t give her her old role because I was in it, but one of the other actresses in the New York company got a better job somewhere. So they ended up putting Bitsy—who had originated my part—into
the vacated role of Megan, Fionulla’s very unsexy cousin—who’s a therapist—sorry—and who has to dress like the stereotype of an Upper West Side shrink in thick glasses, Birkenstocks, and unflattering dirndl skirts.”
I glanced down at my own attire. “Dirndls camouflage wide hips. Don’t knock them.”
Alice blushed. “I am so so sorry. Open mouth, insert foot, swallow whole.”
“It’s okay,” I ribbed her. “I wear soft lenses and my Birkenstocks are at the cobblers. Anyway, I’d rather hear about what’s going on with the show than a dissertation on the inherent lack of fashion sense of Upper West Side psychotherapists.”
“It’s a nightmare. Remember how Mala Sonia had told me about all this job strife and internal jealousies of coworkers and all that crap I had coming to me in the near future? Well, Bitsy had it in for me from our very first performance together. About a third of the show is actually scripted, but like I said, the rest of Grandma Finnegan’s Wake is improvisational. So from the get-go, Bitsy started accusing me of improv-ing during her scripted speeches and dialogue—which I wasn’t doing, beyond what was required of Fionulla’s character in the show. I was just doing my job. As the days went on, I discovered that nobody likes this actress. Back when she was playing Fionulla, she used to make life hell for any new person who came into the show. I get along great with everyone—the actors, running crew, et cetera—and that pisses off Bitsy as well.”
“Well, can’t you just do your role and go home? I know that actors like to socialize with each other after the show, unwind, and all that, but can you just try to keep this to the most professional level? Think of it as one of your former day jobs? Just do your work and go home and get on with the rest of your life until it’s time to go to work again?”
Alice sighed. “I wish it were that easy. I hate feeling like Bitsy’s rude and unprofessional behavior is rebounding on me, punishing me for getting along well with my colleagues. But it’s bigger than that. Mala Sonia spoke to me of false accusations leveled against me, remember? Well, Bitsy took it upon herself to maintain a journal of my ‘improvisational transgressions’ during performances and took it to Actors’ Equity, where she’s preferring charges against me. So now I’m in deep shit with my union just for doing my job. And because the Grandma Finnegan writers don’t have every single moment of the show parceled into ‘improvised’ and ‘scripted’ sections—I mean, there’s a lot of gray area that can be open to interpretation—I don’t have much to hang my hat on when it comes to mounting my defense. What this is really all about is that Bitsy is angling to get her original role back, and, face it, I’m prettier, more talented, and everybody likes me—which gets her goat even more.”
“So, where do you currently stand?”
A huge tear traveled down Alice’s right cheek. “The union hearing is next week. And I haven’t been able to get anything resembling a good night’s sleep since this literal character assassination thing began. A couple of years ago I went through something like this after I got canned from a lawyer’s office and filed for unemployment benefits. I’d rather slit my wrists than go through that again. But this is much worse than the day job hearing because this is my real career. If I get a blemish on my record as an actress and Equity agrees with Bitsy that I behaved unprofessionally in a show…that’s it. My acting career is dead. No one wants to hire a problem—at least not if they’re an unknown. If you’re a famous pain in the ass, that’s another story. But in my position…? If the ruling doesn’t go in my favor, there are too many other good actresses out there for a producer or director to bother to go out on a limb for me.” I took a packet of tissues from my pocket and handed them to her. “You do that a lot,” Alice said, trying to chuckle between sniffles.
I went over to sit beside her, something I never do, even with my laundry room clients. But poor Alice had suffered a Job-like existence these past few months: losing her closest relative, and, finally transcending years of temp hell to reach her goal of being a working actress—only to find the triumph short-lived and slipping through her fingers like grains of sand.
“Remember when Mala Sonia told me that everything would finally turn out all right during a time of feasting? Well, I thought my first date with Dan Carpenter—remember him—would do the trick.”
“That’s right!” I exclaimed. “You had that date with Dan. Your love life kind of got buried under all the job stuff. So?”
“He’s wonderful,” Alice sighed. “I could really like this guy. You know, when we first became acquainted there was this current between us, but he never made a move. It was like he sensed I wasn’t ready. He gets lots of points for that. Anyway, we had a wonderful dinner at Il Pomodoro—except that most of the time all I talked about was the shit that’s going on with me and Grandma Finnegan’s Wake. The poor man was bleary-eyed by the time we got to the tiramisu.”
“In my experience, if Dan’s a sensitive guy, he’ll cut you some slack. You’re going through a rough spot and needed to talk about it. Don’t beat yourself up over it. Of course,” I chuckled, “that said, there is a line in the sand between sharing your tribulations and dumping-and-venting mode.”
“Oops,” said Alice. “I have a strong feeling I crossed it. Big-time.”
“Share with Dan; dump-and-vent with me. That’s what I’m here for. Has Dan called you since this ill-fated Il Pomodoro dinner?”
Alice shook her head. “He gave me a very nice good-night kiss out on the sidewalk in front of our building, so I certainly had my hopes up.”
“I’d agree that all signs would be encouraging.” God, I sound like the Magic 8-Ball.
“But of course, Il Pomodoro happens to be the famous Seinfeld ‘break up’ restaurant, so we may have started out on the wrong foot; begun at the end. And now there’s a new little wrinkle that may put a major crimp in my love life, or sex life, assuming I ever get to have one again.”
“Which is?”
We both nearly jumped out of our skins when we heard the frantic knock on the laundry room door.
“Probably that,” Alice said, gesturing toward the sound.
“I guess I should unlock it.”
“You know, all my life I’ve felt like I was one of those circus performers, trying to keep a dozen plates spinning in the air at once without letting any of them drop or lose momentum. And I thought I’d gotten pretty good at handling it. I was kind of proud of my multitasking abilities, in fact. Well, now I feel like someone tossed in a thirteenth plate, and my whole act is going to shit.”
“One thing that I’ve found very useful is to try to tackle one hurdle at a time, rather than trying to take on everything at once,” I said, heading for the door. “You’re dealing with a budding romance—”
“Well, what I hope is a budding romance. I really like Dan. Spending time with him is like wearing a favorite old sweater. Well, a six-foot-tall, hazel-eyed, muscular-yet-sensitive favorite old sweater.”
I laughed. “Remember when we first officially met, I congratulated you on retaining your sense of humor. This is good. You’ve done that. Keep it up. So you’ve got Dan, and then you’ve got the mishegas with Grandma Finnegan’s Wake, Bitsy, and the ogres at Actors’ Equity on your front burner—” I opened the door to find Alice’s now rather pregnant friend Isabel sobbing into a shredded Kleenex.
“And Izzy,” Alice added. “Susan, meet my new roommate.”
“Yeah, meet the bull in the china shop,” Izzy said, kicking the doorsill angrily and stubbing her toe in the process. “Fuck a duck! Ouch! Can I come in?” she asked tentatively. I looked to Alice for the answer, since we were in the middle of her session.
“Might as well, since you’ve become one of my ‘issues,’” Alice said.
“Oh, lovely,” Izzy groaned. “I’m cutting to the chase. I figured I’d tell you sooner rather than later, because I’ll be halfway out the door on the way to medical mal hell at Steinbeck and Strindberg by the time you get upstairs and see the pieces all over the f
loor.”
“Pieces?” Alice looked both puzzled and horrified.
“Your grandmother’s Balloon Seller. The Royal Doulton figurine she loved so much.” Izzy shook her head woefully. “Dust. I knocked into it by mistake when I was reaching for the teapot. Which isn’t in great shape either.”
“Oh, no!” Alice’s horror morphed into new tears.
For the next fifteen minutes she vacillated between saying she didn’t know whether to hate Izzy forever for breaking a cherished heirloom (or two) or forgiving her for being in such a bad state herself. Izzy and her husband Dominick had quarreled frequently since “they” had become pregnant. Dominick couldn’t handle the emotional roller coaster of Izzy’s newly rampaging hormones; he felt she’d become another person entirely.
“He says it’s like my body is possessed by some demon from a sci-fi movie,” she raged. “Can I help it? This is what happens to pregnant women. You’ve got kids. Were you like this?” she asked me.
I admitted that Eli had threatened to move back in with his mother during each of my pregnancies. And had really resented trekking all the way out to Coney Island to satisfy my occasional cravings for those Nathan’s hot dogs—which had to come only from the original Nathan’s location—only an hour or more away by subway—in each direction. And naturally, they’d no longer be steaming hot when they arrived on the Upper West Side, and I couldn’t stand to have them reheated—particularly once I’d drizzled chocolate sauce on them. The memories made me wonder if Eli’s increasingly frequent absences from the dinner table were an extremely belated form of payback, an “acting out” for all the estrogen and progesterone-related acting out I’d done so many years ago.
So Alice, who now had a spare bedroom, had graciously taken Izzy in until she and Dominick could cool down. Unfortunately for both women, Izzy confessed that she couldn’t foresee any specific time frame for this temporary sojourn. “Right now we never want to see each other’s ugly mugs again.”
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