Following Polly

by Karen Bergreen

  “Your mother is in show business?”

  “Yes she is. That’s how I got your name.”

  “And did you ever think about going into show business?”

  “Sure, when I was small. I wanted to be just like my mother. Show business looked like fun.”

  “But you didn’t have a lifelong dream about being in show business yourself?”

  Wow. I’ve never had a lifelong dream, except, of course, for the one in which my father and brother would show up and say that it wasn’t their plane that had crashed and that Mother was Mother again.

  I tell her about the plane crash and Mother’s subsequent seclusion. Dawn is adept at getting me to open up. I tell her about how the Upton School community had rallied around me during the years Mother was so remote. My friends and their parents provided me with unending hospitality.

  “It sounds like you coped in a very healthy way,” Dawn said. I look around the office. Her shelf is filled with academically oriented mental health books, half of which include the word “disorder” in the title. I’m pretty sure she doesn’t consult Mars and Venus Go to the Shrink.

  “Yeah,” I told her. “I guess that’s why I’ve never been to see a shrink before. Maybe I was too young to feel the weight of my father’s and Paul’s absence.”

  “But you felt your mother’s absence.”

  “I did. But I understood. Even then. That this was more pain than a mother could bear.”

  “But did you feel pain?”

  “I wouldn’t say pain, exactly. I don’t think I knew what that was. I felt numb. I mean, I remember doing stuff, but it was almost as if someone else was doing it and I was watching. I think that’s why it was so easy for me to live my friends’ lives.”

  “Do you still live through others?” Dawn asks.

  My mind flashes to an hour before when I was chasing Polly into the subway.

  “Not really,” I say quickly.

  I elaborate a little, telling her that I may just be a vicarious person. When Jean made partner in her law firm, I was probably as happy and as relieved as she was. When Pauline Johnson opened her own creperie, I gobbled five crepes and told everyone I knew to go there. When my friend Stella won five awards at the Sundance Film Festival after writing, producing, directing, and starring in her very first film, I helped throw her a party. The article listing Daphne Feller as one of the top five doctors practicing sports medicine in California is posted on my bulletin board. I love watching my friends make it. I even like watching my nonfriends make it. I’m happy for Gwyneth Paltrow every time she has a baby or stars in a film or looks fantastic in a photo shoot.

  Dr. Moses doesn’t say anything. So I keep talking.

  “When people ask me what’s new, I tell them Jean broke up with Hugh Price, Sarah’s finally scoring with her take-out crepes, and that I’m hopeful that Lindsay Lohan will pull her life together. So, it’s not just Jean.”

  Dr. Moses still doesn’t say anything.

  “And it’s not as if I’m a gossip or anything. If I can brag about anything, I can tell you that I’m not mean-spirited.”

  As Jean’s gay ex-boyfriend Bram says: I’m schadenfreude-less.

  “Well, I would say that’s a terrific quality,” Dr. Moses says. “But ultimately the question is whether your generous reaction to the lives of others is enough to provide you with a complete and full life?”

  “I don’t know. Sometimes I think it is. That’s why casting was such a perfect gig. I was so happy for the actors when they got their roles and I was happy for the producers when their problem was solved.”

  “But what about doing something you like to do for yourself?” Dawn asks me.

  I’m stuck. “I don’t expect you to come up with a perfect career idea for me. So don’t worry.”

  “Why don’t we see how it goes?” Dr. Moses says.

  “What do you think? Are you going to have me committed?”

  Dawn smiles. “I think we have a goal for you in this office.”

  “What?” Jean will like this. She’s very goal oriented.

  “Our goal is for us to see if you can come up with a lifelong dream.”

  “So I can never fulfill it and be disappointed and miserable for the rest of my life.”

  “That’s how I stay in business,” Dr. Moses says, and winks at me.

  At least she’s funny.

  That was surprisingly fun. No wonder everyone sees a shrink. It’s like writing a memoir without fearing its failure. Jean says that therapy is the best relationship she’s ever been in. Seeing as I’ve been relationshipless for quite a while now, I’m game.

  I leave Dr. Moses’s office energized in part by her ministrations of therapy but more out of anticipation. I’ve decided to follow Polly again.

  First, I get a MetroCard.

  I run over to Polly’s building. The Beresford, 211 Central Park West. Right off Eighty-first Street. I know the address because Mona had me drop off some audition tapes for Humphrey Dawson’s movie about five months ago.

  I wait outside the building. I’ve brought a copy of The New York Times and a coffee with me to pass the time as I lurk on her block.

  Around noon, Polly emerges. Her hair is in a ponytail. It looks thicker than it did in college. She’s wearing enormous dark glasses and an aubergine pleated silk dress. I notice that she’s carrying a large Chloe satchel. I hope she’s not going out of town.

  Polly once again enters a subway station. It’s four yards from her lobby. We’re heading downtown. I sit next to her.

  She doesn’t want to be noticed, and I, for obvious reasons, don’t want her to notice me. But it is irritating that the woman doesn’t recognize me. We went to school together for four years. We lived in the same dorm, for goodness’ sake. Is she that self-absorbed? Am I that unnoticeable?

  Evidently, I am.

  Once on the subway, Polly opens her Chloe and pulls out an enormous gray sweater, which does not in any way befit her dress or the sweltering subway conditions. I figure she’s trying to avoid being recognized so that people won’t harass her. I can understand that, although, if we are going to be honest, I am stalking her.

  We get out of the train at Canal Street. I follow her. Polly, oblivious to me, heads up the stairs. We walk a couple of blocks. She keeps her head down the entire time before ducking into a small, shabby Victorian apartment building on the north side of Chambers between Broadway and Church Street. It will be impossible for me to follow her upstairs. The question is, do I wait here or do I head home? Of course I should go home. The building has no lobby area, and the block is utterly stoopless and stairless. We are near a lot of city and federal buildings, a huge security zone in post-9/11 New York City. I have no choice but to go home.

  And yet I stay.

  I imagine Polly is on the top floor, because shortly after she went into the building, a translucent curtain magically appeared, covering an entire bay window.

  What is she doing?

  When Polly was in college, she always did the unthinkable. When she realized that her freshman roommate, Melinda Jacobs, was on a work-study program, Polly offered a salary twice what Harvard was paying to keep the dorm room clean and do her laundry.

  Our dorm master was skeptical of Polly and Melinda’s employer/employee relationship, but Polly pleaded her case.

  “It makes both of us happy. I don’t want to spend all of my free time sweeping and folding laundry, and Melinda will be able to work fewer hours cleaning toilets in the Radcliffe Quad.”

  “Are you sure you’re comfortable with this?”

  “Yes,” Melinda assured him.

  “Wait till Polly starts making her wear a maid’s uniform,” Jean had said to me when word got around.

  Melinda never wore a uniform, but she did wear Polly’s hand-me-down clothing. Polly also bought her a set of cleaning brushes (ironically the ones developed by my father) for her birthday. They took a lot of the same classes, and Jean was convinced that Polly had
Melinda taking notes for the both of them.

  “They’re not even friends,” Jean shrieked. “This is sooo wrong.”

  At the end of the school year, Polly hosted a soiree in her room. She paid Melinda to help decorate and then encouraged her to “stay out of sight” during the party.

  “Unless you want to work it,” Polly chirped.

  I didn’t see Melinda after freshman year. Rumor had it that she transferred to Brown.

  Six hours later Polly emerges, looking exactly as she did when she went into the building.

  What was going on in there?

  I stay as close as I can to Polly on the rush-hour, packed train. It’s democracy in action underground. Rich people like Polly who prefer the speed or anonymity of New York’s subway, and the rest of us. But of course Polly gets a seat. She reaches into her large bag and pulls out a book—the huge bestseller The Golden Pillow. And even though she keeps her head down, she bites the left corner of her lower lip, an affectation, I had determined in college, she developed in order to appear pensive. We get off the subway at Eighty-first Street, and she heads upstairs.

  I feel as if something really important has happened. I almost skip all the way home.

  When I return to my apartment, I see that there is a message on the answering machine. I press Play. It’s from Mother.

  “Barnes and I are very proud of you, Alice.”

  I’ve developed a routine with Polly. I get up every morning at seven, drink my coffee, and put on my Polly outfit: black pants and turtleneck and a black suede jacket. I have some old Jackie O sunglasses that Mother gave me several years ago. Polly and I get on the subway together and go to our assorted destinations. She, for the most part, heads into an apartment building or an office for a few hours, while I wait patiently outside. I tell myself that these excursions are educational.

  Okay, I’m nosy. There, I said it. More to the point, why doesn’t she recognize me? The combination of my curiosity and my sense of pride leads me to the irrefutable conclusion that I’m justified in spying on her.

  Is she cheating on Humphrey Dawson? Is she on drugs? I’m tempted to call Jean and report what has been going on. She often has insights that I don’t have. She, for example, told me that I haven’t really fallen in love because I’m still not over the death of my father. That makes a lot of sense to me. And is something I will probably bring up with Dr. Moses.

  More significantly, Jean would eat this stuff up. A phone call with some Polly gossip would make her day. But she’d probably tell me that what I’m doing is unethical. Jean just made partner at her firm. I don’t want her tarnishing her reputation by having an unethical best friend.

  In truth, I don’t know if following Polly has given me any insight into my own life, but it certainly is fun. Okay, it’s a little more than fun. I love it. At least I think it’s love. When I wake up in the morning, I’m in a hurry to get out of bed. I rush to Polly’s building, flushed with anticipation of the day. When I’m not following Polly, I spend my time thinking about it. I review the places that I’ve gone with her, and contemplate the places I will go.

  I’m addicted to following Polly.

  Am I ready to stop?

  Not yet.

  I like the person I am when I follow Polly. I’m a superhero with the power of invisibility. What am I fighting against? Polly and people like her. When I follow her, it takes away some of her power. I’ll teach her not to notice me. Ha, I’m conquering her overconfidence by injecting myself into her secret world.

  A world so secret, I have no idea what she is doing.

  I could probably learn much more about my attraction to this behavior if I hunkered down and told Dr. Moses. But, let’s face it, this activity can’t in any way be considered mentally healthy. She would tell me to stop; or worse, she would make it seem so unappealing to me that I would decide on my own to stop. I’m not ready to do that. I’m having way too much fun. I’ll tell her soon. Better still, I’ll stop.

  In a day or so.

  I’m late for my appointment with Dr. Moses. I show up with barely twenty minutes remaining in our session.

  “Is everything okay?” she asks me.

  “Subway stuff,” I answer quickly.

  In truth, I spent most of the day at Silvercup Studios with Polly as she offered her fashion-conscious admirers select treats from her wardrobe menu: a sleek Armani coat dress, an asymmetrical Mizrahi number, and a Luca Luca tangerine-hued, beaded suit. She’s been making the rounds with each of the males from the cast and crew. Today it was Preston Hayes, the handsome male lead. It almost went beyond flirtation; they seemed intimate. Interestingly, she was doing all of the talking—not the usual Polly. She usually speaks only when absolutely necessary. Especially with men.

  “Men love to hear themselves,” Mother has always told me. Yet every guy I’ve ever dated has told me I’m too tight-lipped.

  Tight-lipped works with Polly; she comes off as sylphlike, whereas I seem like I have nothing to say. But today, she’s chatting away. And she has an annoying self-satisfied expression.

  Are they an item? Could be, but only yesterday she was talking to the film’s other hunk, Ian Leighton.

  “If you carried a cell phone”—Dr. Moses brings me back to the present—“you could have called to tell me you were running late.” She’s wearing a berry-colored peasant blouse. Normally I’m not a fan of square-dance attire but this suits her.

  “I assumed that you had figured that out,” I rejoined, trying not to sound too snotty. Dr. Moses has on several occasions pressed me about my lack of a phone.

  “I rarely feel the urgency to speak with anybody,” I continue, “and there are still a fair number of working pay phones in the city if it’s really important to call somebody. I’m okay not being in contact every second of every day. Isn’t that a testament to my mental health?”

  I also saw something on The Today Show about how they cause brain tumors, and it freaked me out.

  “Fair enough,” says Dr. Moses.

  I definitely prefer her response to Jean’s; she repeatedly accuses me of being a Luddite. You may have healthier brain cells but you’re probably missing opportunities, Jean scolds. You are, in effect, removing yourself from the day-to-day.

  In our abbreviated session, Dr. Moses is showing an interest in my romantic history. I don’t say anything about Charlie. She would put me on medication.

  Charlie is the man I have had a crush on since college. He doesn’t know I exist.

  Maybe I should spice up my relationship history. Bob, my last meaningful boyfriend, courted me for months because he liked the fact that I didn’t turn everything into a huge drama. He hooked up his PlayStation to my TV set and came over every day after work with a bag of Cheetos in one hand and a chocolate Yoo-hoo in the other. He broke up with me a year later, informing me that he was “prepared to be in love” and I was apathetic. I don’t know whether I was apathetic or simply apathetic about Bob.

  “Have you ever been in love?” Dr. Moses asks me.

  Maybe I should make something up, but I want to be as truthful with Dr. Moses as I can. I am, after all, seeking a lifelong dream.

  “I said ‘I love you’ to my college boyfriend, Mark. And then I’ve had some stuff after that, but I don’t believe that I’ve ever been in love.”

  Well, that’s not true exactly. I’ve been in unrequited love since college. I only allude to it with Dr. Moses, because I’m afraid that she’ll analyze it and ruin it for me.

  My college boyfriend, Mark, the pre-med, was a comic book fanatic. One evening, he admitted he was initially drawn to me because I bore an uncanny resemblance to Lois Lane. He was cute in a Richie Cunningham way, but it’s difficult for me to conjure up any sexual memory of him. He was a fine diagnostician, though. Jean is a hypochondriac who does in fact get sick from time to time. Mark correctly diagnosed a series of urinary tract infections, strep throat, and tendonitis without conducting any sort of physical examinations. I felt
closest to him at these times.

  After college, I took my first job as a paralegal, where I had a series of what Jean calls para-relationships: little three-month stints with innocuous men. During that time I attended quite a few social gatherings where I would meet guys who would ask for my phone number. They’d call for a date; we would go out once or twice a week for two or three months and then I’d start not answering the phone.

  When I was twenty-five, I quit my job at the law firm so that I could “help people.” Julianne London, an old friend of mine, and her older brother Freddy had founded K.I.N.D., an organization to help start nonprofit groups. I told Julianne that I was impressed, and she offered me a job authoring manuals they could provide to start-up nonprofit organizations. Except for acting as a “big sister” to an inner-city kid during my sophomore and junior years in college, I knew nothing about public service. But they seemed so eager to hire me. I took the job and read every manual of every nonprofit group and virtually plagiarized their policies.

  Did I mention that I didn’t get paid for this position? I realized after six months that Julianne and Freddy wanted me aboard because I wouldn’t have the courage to ask them for a salary.

  Freddy and I became involved a few weeks after I started working. As the weeks went on, he began spending more and more time in the office, hanging out by my desk and asking a lot of questions. There was never much of a through line to his conversation, and I assumed he was a little lazy and trying to avoid his job responsibilities. One night as I was leaving the office, he asked if I wanted to have dinner. We went to a Chinese restaurant, and he paid for me, telling me that it was the least he could do, given my lack of salary. We talked about the office and Julianne. I realized he was kind of cute. He had the body of a dancer, a large head, and pronounced features, which were further intensified by fiercely rectangular sideburns.