by Sara James
My parents let me wallow in self-pity for a few weeks before Mom gave me a verbal slap in the face. “Gin, this has got to stop. You must get out, get on with your life. Here’s Carolyn’s phone number. She’s Bessie Mae’s niece and she works in placement at a temporary agency. Call her. She’ll help.”
Two days later I was standing shivering in the frozen-food aisle of the local grocery store handing out samples of the latest concentrated fruit juice. The next day on a crowded street corner in downtown Richmond’s historic Shockoe Slip where young, ambitious people gathered, I approached busy executives with free cigarettes. Rushing to the office, rushing to lunch, most of them looked right through me. That was fine. It was the others, the ones who looked at me with pity in their eyes, that hurt.
Then Carolyn called. “Ginger, I have a job for you. It’s still just minimum wage, but it’s a weeklong job, so that’s good?” In true southern fashion, her voice lilted upward with this rhetorical question. I remained silent, forgetting my manners. “Well, okay,” she persisted, “you need to be on the 1400 block of the Boulevard on Monday morning at eight. Now don’t be late.”
Early Monday morning, I opened the door and stepped inside a dark warehouse. A few bare lightbulbs hung from the ceiling. It reeked of mildew and stale cigarette smoke. I tentatively let go of the door and it slowly closed behind me, shutting out all the natural light, all the fresh air, all life. I held my breath. Someone guided me to a clock on the wall and showed me how to punch in. Someone else must have guided me to a table, because I found myself sitting down in front of a large stack of paper with ten gray-haired, stern-faced men and women staring at me. The buzzer sounded and they began. I watched their nicotine-stained fingers shuffling paper like cards, folding flaps, inserting papers, and tossing them aside so quickly that their fingers became a blur.
I turned an envelope over in my hand, examining it as if it were the first time I’d seen one, and then I started, one by one, bending the flap, stuffing the paper inside. Bend and stuff, bend and stuff. I concentrated on the action, afraid that if I allowed any other thoughts in, I might lose my mind. A buzzer sounded and the table was deserted. Cigarette smoke and snide remarks struck me from the corner of the warehouse where the others had gathered. I just sat there thinking of the neat rows of tobacco on my grandfather’s farm stretching as far as the horizon, and twisting the gold Krugerrand coin on the bracelet Kevin had given me round and round. Ten minutes later another buzzer sounded. The routine started all over again. Paper cuts, bent envelopes, and another cigarette break. More and more until finally the buzzer rang at 4:30 P.M.., the doors opened, and the last light of day crept across the floor.
“LISTEN, HONEY, YOU don’t have to go back.”
“But I do, Mom. I said I would. I have to.”
I crawled out of bed on Tuesday morning to face more of the same. On Wednesday, my dad drove me to work. “Gin, you don’t have to do this. I’ll give you some money.”
“It’s okay, Dad, don’t worry.”
Somehow it didn’t seem quite so bad, and I knew why. In just two days the sliver of spirit I had left had been broken. This was it. This was my life now. Dark warehouses and time clocks, humble and humbling. At twenty-five years old, I believed that the best of my life was behind me. I would never love anyone else, and I was unworthy of being loved. For so long I had allowed Kevin’s feelings for me to define me, and now I needed to hear him say that this hell was a temporary state. Alone in my bedroom, I picked up the phone and punched in his home phone number, followed by his calling card number. “We’re sorry. The card number you have dialed is no longer valid.” The last line I had to him had been canceled. I had nothing left.
Back at the warehouse before lunch on Thursday, as I pushed myself away from the table, the foreman stopped me. He had a bitter, twisted mouth. A cruel glint in his eye put me in my place. I stumbled back while he looked down my shirt and the others stared. They knew what was coming next. “Sorry, miss, but you just ain’t fast enough. We gonna have to let you go. Go on, get your things and get goin’ now.”
I don’t know how I made it home. There were two tollbooths. I couldn’t count my change, couldn’t see from the tears that were running down my cheeks in silent torrents. Behind me someone leaned on a car horn. I jerked the steering wheel back, realizing only then that I’d swerved into another lane. I was losing control, of the car and of myself. I’d hated that stupid job, but I hadn’t quit. I’d been fired, rejected once again.
I disappeared back into my bed, emerging on Monday morning to read the paper. As if life couldn’t get any worse, that Sunday Kevin had won a tennis tournament. The article was brief, little more than the score, but to me it read volumes—the adoring new girlfriend, cheering fans, trophy held high over his head, and, for one week’s work, a check for $100,000.
THEN I GOT A call to come back to tennis—a job offer from a sports marketing company in New York City. A call that took me back to my past. Every summer during my college break, I had worked for promoters of a women’s tennis tournament held at the University of Richmond. I’d sold tickets, hung banners around the court, stuffed a few envelopes, and made friends with some of the players like Stacy and the women who ran the women’s tennis circuit. One summer before my senior year in college, I was asked to organize a series of matches for a new team tennis franchise in Dallas. At twenty years old I suddenly had my own apartment in a massive complex of single, single-minded men and women, a borrowed car, and four professional players on my tennis team. One of them was Kevin. When our professional relationship became personal, I went from working in tennis to living it. Now, at twenty-five, I had an offer to go back in the other direction. In many ways, I just wanted to forget the tennis world. But I needed a job, and to my surprise some old friends were offering me one.
In sweltering July heat, my parents and I loaded a U-Haul and drove to Manhattan to my new apartment four flights up from the Come Again Erotic Emporium. My mom’s startled face reminded me that I’d forgotten to mention this little bit of information. Oh—and the huge, bald-headed manager blocking the door. Kristy Kemm, an old college friend and my new roommate in New York, helped us carry my camelback sofa, brass and iron bed, and wicker table up the steps. Later Kristy offered me her clothes, her friends, a way to find myself in her life. But I didn’t want to find “myself”; I wanted to replace Kevin. And since New York was a playground for predatory men, lithe young models, and lost souls like me, there were several contenders, each one worse than the next.
There was the trust-fund-spoiled Ivy League graduate, the self-obsessed Tom Cruise look-alike, and the Latin lover who warned me, before taking me to bed, that I wasn’t tough enough to survive in New York. There was the Australian friend of a friend who’d seen me on television during the Australian Open. He was tall, dark, handsome, and totally bored. It was an early night. Twenty pounds heavier and now twenty-six, I must not have lived up to the image he remembered on the tiny television screen. There were others. The cocaine-snorting stockbrokers and hard-drinking lawyers wrapped up in their cases and Hermès ties, the hick baseball player making it big in the Big Apple, and on and on. My list of dates covered every stereotype, including the sugar daddies. With every drink too many, every stupid affair, and every night I crept back into my apartment as the sun rose, I lost more and more self-respect until my bearings were completely gone.
I could never figure out uptown from downtown. I was forever getting on the wrong subway, pointing cabdrivers in the wrong direction. At work, though I’d moved from a tiny cubicle into an office with a real door and a big window overlooking Third Avenue, I didn’t hang anything on the walls, had no plants around that needing nurturing, placed no homey pictures on my desk. It was as if my subconscious knew I couldn’t make this life permanently mine.
On the twentieth floor of the Philip Morris Building at a meeting of tennis tournament directors from around America, I realized I couldn’t navigate here any longer. I had
no secure lines, no anchor, nothing stable to cling to. I listened while the chairman followed her agenda, raising points on scheduling, player commitments, and sponsor deals. The other tournament directors spoke with passion about their events, their needs, their sponsors, and I realized I was starting to drift away. None of it was important, not to me, not now. Their voices sounded like Charlie Brown’s teacher, all wa-wa-wa, and then I heard nothing. The window opened and I was out in the cold, floating down Park Avenue, getting further and further away until I swore I would never come back.
“Ginger, Ginger, are you with us? It’s your turn to vote.” The others stared at me and I realized with a jolt that I wasn’t with them at all. My life had to be about more than whether or not Steffi Graf played in a tennis tournament. For the second time, I knew that to save myself I had to escape. I had to get out of here.
Eventually I started to turn down invitations, testing the unfamiliar ground where a night in didn’t feel like a social rejection. I knew I wouldn’t find the answer to my life’s questions behind the velvet ropes at Nell’s. I needed time, space, and a clear head. Kristy came home from work to share cold sesame noodles, Yang-Zi beer, and very bad jokes, new lifelines from an old friend. On Sundays we did the New York Times crossword puzzle and lugged our unfit bodies along paths in Central Park. Then I heard from another old friend.
“Gin, hey. It’s me, Sara. I got your number from your mom. I know it’s been so long, too long.”
We hadn’t spoken in two years, but once we started talking, it was like turning back time. She still had that infectious laugh and her voice was light and full of fun, describing the net she’d cast in search of a new job, a man who sounded amazing, not some stereotypical cad, plus the most audacious plan to cover a story she hoped might help propel her to the network.
“I’ll be in New York soon. Any chance we can get together?”
“Of course, that would be great,” I said, feeling a barrage of conflicting emotions. Though I was eager to see her, thrilled that we were in touch again after too long, when I hung up the phone I started to worry about how she would judge my life. In describing my work and friends in New York, I’d skimmed the surface, leaving out the cracks, the heartaches, even the four flights of stairs up to my apartment. I was a far cry from the innocent young girl she’d crowned Miss Tucker. That girl had direction and wasn’t afraid to dream big dreams. She was the best part of me for so long, how could I have lost her? I needed to find her, and maybe, just maybe, Sara could help.
4
SARA (1986–1987)
YOU’LL BE IN town, Gin?”
“Absolutely, Sara, and I’d love to see you. You can meet my roommate Kristy, too. She’s a tough-as-nails southern deb. You’ll love her.”
“And I can’t wait for you to meet my friend Judith Fox. I worked for her temporary agency during college. Now she’s a friend. We’re planning lots of shopping, although she’ll case Bergdorf’s and I’m just hoping they don’t charge if you window-shop. Is there a Hit or Miss in New York? Where can I find stylish clothes on a budget?”
“Not exactly. Try Saks—they have great sales. I’ll be your personal shopper.”
“Even better! As you know, I could use the help.” And then, just when we were about to hang up, I blurted out the other reason I’d called. “And, Gin—I’m sorry about Kevin. Most of all that I didn’t know for so long. I feel like an idiot.”
“It’s okay. I’m glad we’re back in touch.”
And so was I. If only the next conversation went as well. I took a deep breath and knocked on the door labeled “News Director.”
“Harvey?”
He barely glanced up from reading the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
“Mmm-hmm?”
“I have a great idea for a story.”
“The drug killings? Already got a series on it for sweeps.”
“Not exactly.” I could scarcely contain my excitement. He would just love this story, I knew it. He just had to say yes. “Actually, this story is in Nicaragua.”
To my consternation, his expression darkened. I cut to the chase. “I want to cover the war between the Sandinistas and the contras.”
“Exactly how does that fit into your beat as Chesterfield County reporter?”
“I know it seems a stretch but there’s a great local angle.”
“A stretch?!”
“Some Richmonders are going down to build houses in the countryside and—”
“No.”
“—I’ve been taking Spanish lessons and—”
“No!”
I backed out, deflated, to find Mary Katherine waiting nearby. MK was a station photographer and yet another new pal.
“Didn’t go so great, huh?”
I shook my head, quiet for a moment, thinking. “I don’t think we’re dead yet,” I offered cautiously before outlining a last-ditch course of action. MK listened. “Think of it as an opportunity,” I pressed.
After a short pause she nodded. “All right, I’m in.”
I charged back into Harvey’s office before MK could change her mind.
“What now, Sara?”
“What if MK and I pay our own way?”
Harvey pushed back his chair, fingertips on the desk, eyeing me. He knew better than anyone that I only earned $17,000 a year. But there was always plastic. “And we’ll even take vacation time to do it.”
At last he nodded. “Just don’t lose the camera.”
I CELEBRATED THAT night with an interesting new man in my life, a documentary filmmaker who worked for a foreign charity organization. Gin’s ex had fame and fortune and traveled to London, Tokyo, Melbourne. The man I fancied was just back from Calcutta. He sported a khaki vest on location, carried a pocket fix-anything tool called a Leatherman, and told me his motto was “Carpe diem.”
“So what do you think?”
“I think it sounds like a great story, Sara.”
“Thank God you understand. My parents aren’t exactly enthusiastic.”
“Do you have everything you need?”
“Got any recommendations?”
“You’ll need good boots, tropical weather gear, a real first-aid kit. But maybe the most important thing you’ll need is permission.”
“Excuse me?” I was headed to a land bristling with guns and it sounded like he was suggesting I get a hall pass.
“Every Third World country is a bureaucracy. Especially when the government is Communist, like the Sandinistas. You’ll need some paperwork covered in official stamps. In case you get—into trouble.”
I shivered in spite of myself. Soldiers in Central America weren’t famous for being great humanitarians.
“And if we do get ‘into trouble’?”
“Just don’t panic. And you’ll have those stamps.” When he smiled, one side of his face creased, and I wondered if he’d gotten the scar fending off bandits in some exotic hellhole.
I couldn’t believe I’d met this guy. It seemed all my high school and college friends were settling down, marrying intelligent, appealing lawyers and doctors and stockbrokers. But I couldn’t imagine setting up house, producing an heir or two. Mr. Carpe Diem—CD—seemed like someone I had invented.
Later that night, I found myself daydreaming as I packed, imagining exploring the world with CD. Then I heard my roommate Lisa coming up the stairs. The weekday coanchor and the best reporter at the CBS station, Lisa was beautiful and fun—up for mountain climbing or a scuba trip or hosting a crab-picking party in our backyard. As my friend LP had predicted before moving to Miami, her former roommate had become my friend, too.
“Hey, Boo-boo! How was the new guy?” she asked, handing me a pair of boots for my backpack.
“Too interesting. What’s wrong with me, Lis? I have no interest in meeting Mr. Right at the moment. I’m only twenty-five!”
Lisa looked alarmed. My only previous obsession had been getting to the network, just like most other young local reporters we knew. We watched
Today every morning and the evening news every night, and gabbed endlessly about whether we preferred Tom, Peter, or Dan, Diane or Barbara, Joan or Jane. I worked at an NBC affiliate and had set my sights on the Today show.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, Sara, but you’ve been on one date with this man, right? Who said anything about getting married?”
“It’s just that—”
“Just nothing! You barely know him!”
“But, Lisa, he’s perfect! He reads good books, he’s smart, and he travels the world carrying his home with him like—like a turtle!”
“You have a crush on a turtle.”
“Don’t mock me. And did I mention? He’s cute.”
She looked relieved. “Well, now we’re getting somewhere. Look, Sara, you’re about to do something crazy and go to a war zone. Could you at least concentrate on that?” She gave me a squeeze. “You find it hard to focus sometimes, Boo-boo. I found two more science experiments in the fridge, and have you checked the fern in your room?”
“I know. It’s dead. I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay, but you’re going in a lot of different directions. Maybe it’s time to slow down a bit.” She grinned. “Not to mention perhaps waiting to see if he asks you out again.”
I realized I’d better get to Nicaragua quickly before I did or said something ridiculous.
MK AND I checked into the InterContinental Hotel in Managua. Once the people here had been ruled by a U.S.-backed dictator who’d followed the standard banana republic strategy of intimidation, torture, and looting the treasury. After a massive earthquake and subsequent revolution, the Communist-leaning Sandinistas had taken power. Now, in 1986, Nicaragua was very much in the news. President Reagan had thrown U.S. support behind the rival Contras, warning that the Sandinistas—with their Russian and Cuban advisers—could pose a new domino threat and spread Communism north, perhaps all the way to Texas. Surveying the rubble known as downtown, it seemed hard to believe the raggle-taggle regime could carry a canteen as far as the Guatemalan border. But those were Cold War days and regional skirmishes carried international implications. Before heading to a government office to get our passes to the war zone, we met the local NBC crew at the network bureau.