30 Before 30

by Marina Shifrin

  12

  GO TO INDIA

  I grew up in Skokie, a small suburb in the Chicagoland area filled with a mélange of immigrants. We were the melting pot. Growing up in a neighborhood that had every culture splayed out like a deck of cards gave me a chance to peek into all of them.

  In elementary school, there was an ethnic hierarchy: The Filipino girls were the first to wear makeup and therefore the most popular. The Chinese girls were focused and athletic. The Japanese girls were the nicest. The Indian girls were graceful and mature, as well as the smartest—this made them accepted by every group. Everyone loved the Indian girls and I so badly wanted to be one of them. They were the largest and most powerful clique. All of the girls wore their dark, black hair in meticulous braids that reached all the way down to their butts. Their skin kept its perfect coloring year-round—unlike my temperamental, pasty nonsense. From October to March, I sported chapped cheeks and cracked, bloody lips, and my hands exploded into red splotches of what turned out to be the beginning stages of eczema. I spent June to August slathered in sunscreen, modeling flaky skin raw from an inevitable burn, and the rest of the year I had scaly rashes crawling across my hands and face. My skin was not made for the outside.

  And their mothers! Oh my god, their mothers. The mothers would glide into the school in packs of three or four, wearing the loveliest clothing I’d ever seen. Magentas, lime greens, teals—all of these striking colors filled the parking lot as they marched toward their perfect little children. They accessorized with bare torsos and jeweled foreheads, while Russian women accessorized with cigarettes and sadness. I was jealous.

  My adoration of Indian culture, specifically the women, followed me into adulthood. I vowed that once I had money and chutzpah, I’d travel to India—but the opportunity came before I had either. My friend Disha was leaving Taiwan, for good, and invited me to come visit her family in Kolkata. I said yes immediately.

  Disha was the same Indian chick I’d seen sitting on the plant-filled patio of Yaboo, the coffee shop I discovered on my period day. A week after spotting her at the coffee shop, I recognized her purple scarf and dark eyeliner at a storytelling event in Taipei. We ended up standing in the same circle of expats. Before I could stop the words from tumbling out of my mouth, I’d introduced myself. “Hi, you were at Yaboo two weeks ago. I’m Marina.”

  “Yeaaahh,” she said, stretching out the word in a manner that proved she wasn’t in a hurry to do anything. “Yaboo is the shit.”

  “Yes, definitely the shit.”

  Like all expat conversations, ours started with “Where are you from?” A complicated question when you’re an immigrant who moved six times before landing in Taiwan. I decided to tell her Brooklyn, my last place of residence.

  “What?! You’re a Brooklyn Babe? Me too.” And such was the spark needed to light our friendship on fire.

  We bonded over female-driven situational comedies, our love of dancing, and the fact that it was nearly impossible for a hairy girl to get a decent wax in Asia. We became each other’s heroes, staving off the inevitable loneliness of living in a foreign country.

  When planning our trip to India, Disha and I agreed to visit Kolkata in July because we wanted to know what it’s like to live on the sun. It was so hot that I had to mentally disconnect from my body. This is just a shell that holds my organs. It’s wet and slippery, but that’s okay, I told myself. My previous intolerance for being hot evaporated. I wore the lightest and flimsiest of clothing. My bare skin turned to flypaper, attracting the sticky stares of men around me.

  We went to India when Disha’s life was in upheaval. She left not only Taiwan, but her boyfriend of a year, which made our trip dramatic and emotional.1

  It was my third time traveling with a friend and I was beginning to pick up on what was needed for an Ideal Travel Buddy. I, myself, am not a good travel buddy. I get irritable quickly and usually just want to sit in a café people-watching for hours. Everything I enjoy while traveling can be done at your run-of-the-mill Starbucks. But despite being the third wheel, I was still able to enjoy the trip.

  Kolkata is a conundrum. It’s simultaneously picturesque and devastating. The decrepit buildings have purposeful hand-crafted architecture that made me want to run my tongue along the details. The faded signs and advertisements added pops of color to the dusty landscape—but they were also depressing reminders that Kolkata used to be brighter and cleaner before power shortages and political unrest left it for dead. “We’re in the armpit of India,” Disha told me as we walked by a man having an intense conversation with a wall. She fanned her arms outward and took a little spin. “It’s kind of gross and magical.” Disha was completely right. It looked like an ornate silk rug with hand stitching and astounding details hidden under a crusty, untouched layer of grime.

  One night, we crammed into a small venue where a family friend was performing with his band, Neel & The Lightbulbs. Everyone had this peaceful air of coolness that I’ve never been able to harness. My high-strung anxious tendencies compounded with my brute Russian judgment make me a tornado of nerves in public settings. But in Kolkata, it was different. The streets were wild, and the night scene was all about slowing down and being calm. Their nightclubs had hookahs set up at every table, seducing you into taking deep breaths, inhaling poison, if only to watch curly plumes of smoke leave your mouth.

  I felt happy for the first time in months, and soon realized it was because I didn’t have a phone or internet. Without a connection to work—which had become increasingly hectic—I was able to truly absorb Kolkata. Disconnecting is the proper way to travel.

  During our last few days in India, Disha and I aimlessly wandered through the city, gravitating toward street vendors, bright signs, and really anything that piqued our curiosity. During one of our walks, an Indian man at a dilapidated stand caught my attention. He was wearing all white and had his legs folded beneath him in a very meditative pose. His eyes interested me most: they were a cloudy blueish gray color, like a newborn baby’s. As we got closer, we realized that he was a fortune teller.

  Beside him sat two tiny cages, the size of lunch boxes, each with a bright green cockatiel inside. Above them were three photos of Hindu gods adorned with orange marigolds. “You have to get your fortune told by a bird,” Disha demanded.

  Snapshot of me dancing to Neel & The Lightbulbs. The next month I make international headlines for dancing again.

  When we walked up, the man said something. I assumed he was asking my name, because Disha told him, “Marina.” He said something else in Hindi and Disha turned to me. “Think of something, a question you have, and he’ll answer it.”

  A rolodex of concerns whirred through my head; millions of questions. Most were vague, like, “How much weight can one lose through sweat?” “Am I barren?” “What’s my perfect job?” Before I could settle on one solid thought, the man nodded his head and opened one of the two cages next to him.

  The old man waved a little bit of seed in front of the cockatiel, which sprang to life. It bounced over to the envelopes fanned out on the table, confidently plunged its beak into the deck, and picked one out to hand to the man. I wondered how difficult it is to train a bird to pick fortunes for aimless American women. I can’t imagine my parents’ Yorkie, Tootsie, being responsible for deciding people’s futures. I once caught her licking up her own puddle of urine.

  The man delicately opened the envelope and dumped out two sheets of paper—one in English and one in Hindi. He handed me the English one. I took a deep breath and read:

  A thoughtful gentleman indeed. I smiled politely and dug around my bag for some money when he started to speak again. Disha, who was recording the whole exchange on my camera, leaned in my ear, “He’s going to tell you the meaning of your fortune now.” She pointed the camera at my face, filled with polite, but not genuine, interest.

  I stopped digging and began to listen. As the man spoke, I studied the red smudge in the middle of his forehead and noti
ced that his earlobes had orange powder on them. “Whatever you were thinking, it will be successful,” he told me in Hindi. I began to think about my job and how much I wanted to leave. “You will go through a bit of a tough period, but after September, everything will be perfect. You will get unexpected money, but do not feel bad about it.” I made a mental note to check my bank account in October. As he spoke, I wondered what he believed more: that his birds predicted people’s fortunes, or that American tourists were stupid enough to fall for them. “There are good times and bad times, they come side by side, but they come and they go so don’t worry about it, don’t stress about it,” he continued. A small crowd began gathering around us.

  Everyone listened without a flicker of cynicism, as if maybe a little bit of my fortune would sprinkle onto them. “They all want to hear Marina’s destiny,” Disha said into the camera. I brought my attention back to the man.

  “Your thoughts are very pure and good, which will show in your actions. When you have time, go find a black dog and give him some food or milk,” he concluded. “Whenever you have time. Don’t stress about it.” Disha and I raised our eyebrows at each other.

  The man then handed me a large coin with an engraving of the Hindu god, Ganesh, the one who looks like a mutant elephant. (According to famed travel site Wikipedia, Ganesh is a sign of new beginnings, amongst other good things.)

  Despite how much I tried to avoid it, I became a walking cliché in India. I was yet another thoughtful gentleman, with an enviably peaceful life, looking for some sort of spiritual sign to grant me change. Something to tell me which direction to face. Whether or not the fortune was real didn’t matter because I began to believe it.

  Disha turned off my camera. “C’mon, let’s go find a dog to feed!” she squealed, looping her arm in mine. I handed the man some money and his eyes locked with mine. For a moment, I thought I saw them flicker with something indiscernible. Intrigue? Recognition? Maybe he saw something in my future that amused him? Or maybe it was concern?

  We walked off, leaving the man with the gray eyes. I put his coin into my back pocket and didn’t think about him again until a few months later when his predictions came true.

  13

  QUIT SHITTY JOB

  Jerry, my boss, and I grew closer as I drifted further into Taiwan. We spent a handful of nights each week sitting in bars, waxing poetic about the declining state of the journalism industry—I could feel myself growing sharper and stronger under his guiding hand. It was game-changing to find a boss who was willing to invest as much time and energy into me as I was investing into my job. Under his direction, my future looked bright and successful. With enough dedication, I could be his protégé.

  I first “met” Jerry over the phone. Together we chose news stories to animate during his nights in Taiwan and my mornings in Manhattan. There was a sheen of charming sarcasm coating his every word. For a moment, it felt like I was developing a crush. But in person, it became clear he wasn’t my type. He was older and shorter than me; a fair-skinned man who accessorized with nice shoes and beautiful suits. His perfectly pressed shirts vacillated between light blue, light pink, and bright white—I never saw a stain on any of them. He was slow to smile, but when he did, it was flirtatious and sinister. His hair was blond, and I wonder now if he dyed it so. My type is hairy man who looks like he might roll over and accidentally suffocate me in bed. So my maybe-crush on Jerry evolved into a creative-crush and I grew a deep affection for his mind.

  Taipei is a small city, everyone kind of knows everyone. One night, about eight months after I moved, an expat comedian (there were about six of us) asked if it was true that I was dating my boss. I lost it. Like a shark to blood, I latched onto the expat. “Who did you hear that from?” “What’s their English name?” “What floor?” When you work in a building with three thousand coworkers, it’s difficult to pinpoint one single rumor.

  There are weird insinuations when a young woman is finding success for the first time (or anytime really). I was devastated to get caught on the wrong side of those insinuations. Later that week, at happy hour, I told Jerry about the rumor, “People think we’re dating. People who don’t even work with us.”

  Jerry did this move that I would grow to know very well: he lifted an eyebrow and rotated his whiskey glass. His piercing blue eyes latched on to mine. It was what he did when he was amused. “That’s funny,” he told me.

  “Funny? No. It’s sexist. It only boosts your status and makes me into some kind of harlot. It’s not funny.” I finished my drink and left. Then came this text message from him:

  The thing that bothers me is it’s a gross simplification of our friendship. I’d like to think our relationship is more nuanced and textured than that. One day you will write a book and if your time with us is featured in any way, I hope that portrayal is richer and more varied than what this gossip has described.

  He knew exactly how to flatter me into submission. I couldn’t be mad—he saw me as a writer. He believed in me. Jerry understood things get complicated, and that’s what makes life more interesting. I delicately transcribed his text into my journal and read it back to myself.

  *   *   *

  There’s a moment before someone kisses you for the first time that you can almost pre-feel the kiss on your lips. The exhilarating energy of anticipation creates a phantom feeling of connectivity before it even happens. In the early hours of a random morning, I had this pre-feeling with Jerry.

  We spent a lot of time together as it was, but when he and his same-age-as-me girlfriend broke up, our hangouts went into overdrive. Working, happy hours, dinners, grocery shopping, commuting, dancing—we did it all side by side. We could talk until the bar shut down without noticing a moment had gone by. His mind made mine do mental aerobics to catch up, but I loved that about our conversations.

  My desperate need to please authority figures combined with his desire to be cherished created a cocktail of codependency; it was like we had a Liz Lemon–Jack Donaghy relationship. Dedicated to the job first, then to each other. It was nice to have Jerry by my side, navigating Taiwan, my weird-ass job, and life in general.

  As I got to know him more intimately, I found a man who thrived on the perception that he was stoic and untouchable, despite his desperation for companionship. He was an oxymoron of needs versus wants and a master at manipulating people into fulfilling those needs and wants for him. He was the most dangerous kind of mess: a secret mess. All of his emotions were shoved deep down in his psyche, which meant he was going to blow one day. “I hope it’s not in my direction,” I told my mom over the phone.

  We usually hung out outside of work, but on a slow news day would catch up over Gchat.

  Jerry: Hello

  Me: Hey.

  How was your night?

  Jerry: Decent.

  Yours?

  Me: Good.

  What did you do?

  Jerry: Went on a date

  Me: Oh?

  Jerry: Felt artificial tenderness with some flickers of sincere desire

  Me: Beautifully depressing

  Jerry: I wish we were hanging instead

  Me: Haha, so you can roll your eyes at my absurdity and watch me be awkward?

  Jerry: Yes, because time spent with you is delightfully unpredictable

  Our conversations flattered me in a way that seemed dangerous. Like they'd cost me my job or something. But I worked so hard and invested 110 percent of myself into that job, I couldn’t imagine a world in which that’d happen. My tongue had yet to taste the unfairness of being a working woman. I hadn’t realized how easy it is for a young, smart, diligent person to fall under the spell of an older, powerful man.

  One night, after a work party at Jerry’s apartment, he walked me to the private elevator on his floor. The elevator sat in a small entryway with a tiny, temperamental light above it. We’d been tangled in an intense conversation all night, but that wasn’t different from any other time. What was differen
t about this specific evening was that the temperamental light above the elevator flickered, and then went out. Everything went dark. Pitch black. Have you ever stood in the darkness with someone you’re not supposed to kiss? It’s electric. At that moment, I wanted Jerry to kiss me more than anything. Mortified by my desires and frozen in the darkness, I searched for something funny to say.

  Suddenly, his hands wrapped around my waist and he gently pulled me in. It was like he was listening to my mind. He leaned in, his chest lightly touching mine, and I could smell the fresh pear finish of the Glenfiddich twelve-year on his breath. I inhaled, parted my lips, praying that we aligned our faces correctly.

  And then the elevator came. The doors opened and the hallway was flooded with light. We simultaneously took a step back. His face had the same surprised look that was on mine, and we began to laugh.

  Our relationship moved away from a quirky 30 Rock dynamic into something cloaked in complexity.

  *   *   *

  After the elevator experience, I promised myself not to get that drunk around Jerry ever again. This job, our friendship, meant too much to me to sully it with drunken kisses. I needed him and had a striking suspicion that he needed me too.

  My new agreement with myself was tested on Jerry’s forty-fifth birthday when he invited the entire staff out to a shots bar. Shots and coworkers are like fireworks and dogs in that they should never mix. I decided to refrain from drinking that night. Before you applaud my incredible self-restraint, also know that I was devastatingly hungover from hanging out with Disha the night before.

  The bar was called AQ, which stands for Alcohol Quotient. The shots cost a little over a dollar and were brought to you on a clear tray, nine at a time, like pigs in a blanket meant to be mindlessly popped into your mouth. It was insane.

  I arrived late because of the slight heel on my new boots, which made them difficult for me to walk in. I’d packed a pair of Chucks for just-in-case (it’s good to always have just-in-case shoes during a night of drinking) but was too proud to change into them. Minutes after I got to the bar, it became clear I’d wobbled into the wrong one. It turns out AQ is a franchise with multiple locations.