by Alida Nugent
So yes, I have a tummy. I don’t always love it. Sometimes I really hate it. But I am going to acknowledge it, and I’m going to deal with it. I’m going to admire it some days and I’m going to yell at it in others, but it’s not going to fuck up my day.
It’s not that this realization changed my life in an instant. I didn’t automatically love my body, and I may never fully love it. And I promise you I will one day try to lose weight—maybe five pounds to fit into my wedding dress, maybe thirty pounds after I have my first kid, maybe three pounds after I find myself eating too unhealthily for a while. But I now understood that I was pretty stupid to try to hate my body, to avoid looking in mirrors. If you don’t fight your body and you simply enjoy your food, you’re going to be a lot better off—and I realized, finally, that that was possible for me.
And there, eating my grilled cheese sandwich with Danielle, I was much more content than if I were flirting with a dude in a synth band. We toasted to a failed girls’ night and went home tired, our tummies full. The feeling of contentedness didn’t last forever—these things don’t change overnight. But at the moment, it was a peaceful happiness I had wanted to feel since I was twelve. No pinching. No pulling. Just happy. This feeling was better than scoring some dude’s number in the back of a bar. This kind of happiness was way more filling than that.
I walk by that bar all the time now, by the way. I’ve never gone back in. The grilled cheese wasn’t actually that good, in retrospect.
But hell, I sure enjoyed eating it.
Adventures in Retail
I have been waiting for the subway for so long that I am mentally detached from the situation. I’m there, but I’m not present. I am only my body—my back facing the tunnel where the two dotted headlights will appear, the horn will honk, people will move back from the yellow line. Logically, I know that my commute is four minutes away from another transfer, but I feel as far away from my apartment as the two dogs and cat in Homeward Bound. I’m standing by a movie poster featuring Meryl Streep that somebody has ripped the eyes off of. Meryl can’t see it, but my body is breaking its own personal record for how bedraggled it can look. My skin is covered in a thin sheen of dust, of people’s complaints, of Windex, of credit card transactions, of “how can I help you”s and thirty-minute clocked-out breaks. Underneath that is a heart, one that’s on guard for whole afternoons at a time, trying very hard not to lose faith in people’s intelligence.
I am one of the few, the thankless, the retail workers. The one you buy your shit from, the one who has the patience of a saint, the one who sees firsthand just how little common sense the general public has. You might not see us, but boy, do we see you.
When the train finally pulls up, I grab a seat, avoiding the fleshy arms of the woman next to me. I smile at her, though I am annoyed at the intrusion of my personal space. Two men signal at me, and I think maybe I look pretty or nice or something. It is when I flit my hand to my neck do I notice that I am still wearing my name tag. I take it off, and like it has possessed me, immediately stop smiling at strangers.
I lean my head back against the edge of the seat, craving the moment I can take off my shoes and wondering how, how, I have done this for as long as I have.
* * *
The longest relationship I’ve ever had started at age sixteen, and it was at a coffee shop. You know the one: seven-dollar “do-it-yourself-but-somebody-else-actually-does-it” lattes and the mermaid and come on, it’s on every corner! I won’t name it because they can buy everybody I love and grind them up into 100 percent coffee smoothies. Working at this lil’ company for six years has been the one thing I have done with the most consistency in my tiny life. Excusing my decade-long stint with playing classical piano, there has been no hobby, no boyfriend, no activity that has lasted as long as this one. You’d think that after working in the service industry for so long, it’s something I would get used to—after all, besides sleeping and eating, working is certainly the thing you do the most in life.
When I started working retail in high school, I loved it. I felt important getting my own paycheck—one that I didn’t need to spend on anything but movies out with girlfriends and boots I would immediately wear the heel off of. I went to school and did my homework and then I put on my uniform, pressed by my mother and brought to you by Gap work-appropriate pants, and texted all my friends “Oh, I can’t go out…gotta work.” It made me feel responsible, independent, cool. I got to yell to my parents “I go to school AND work!” My body was resilient, like all sixteen-year-old hormonal demons are, and staying on my feet for hours at a time didn’t bother me at all. I flirted with all my coworkers, got them to buy me beer, drank after work in the parking lot, kissed them at parties. It felt carefree, the kind of thing that didn’t have consequences—just cash and the small responsibility of showing up on time somewhere.
In college, the novelty wore off quickly. Having a full-time job while trying to figure out the pieces of your future adult life was tiring but necessary. Working at 5 A.M. and going to class just so I could live in an apartment outside of a dorm, just so I could stay afloat and go out with friends, just so I could prove to myself that I could do everything, was a badge of honor for me. The strong studied and got those Benjamins. The weak used “studying” as a shield for their parents’ monthly bank installments. I started drinking more shots of espresso than I did rum. Sometimes I called out of work to write papers. Sometimes I skipped classes just to get some needed rest. I constantly was walking a tightrope of failing or of getting fired.
On the bad days, I would dream of giving my two weeks, but I never got around to it. Instead, I ran to the subway at 4:30 A.M. every day, propelled forward by the fear of being attacked by homeless men. I went to class wearing black button-downs. People thought I was dressed very well for a Goth, like I hated my parents but not the machine. I once had chocolate sauce on my shoes and my lit professor asked me if it was blood. I plugged on because I had grown addicted to the outside-schooling bubble. The real world was fascinating—I hated it, but I wanted to see how one survived out there. I also assumed I would get out of it after I graduated.
I’ve made it all sound terrible, but it wasn’t. My boss was a wonderful man who was apt to cut me breaks when I showed up hungover, or who started vigorously dancing to “Take on Me” when it was slow. My best coworkers were cynical, hardworking, ball-busting godsends. I got so much free coffee I can now drink twelve shots of espresso and not even shake, so when I moved to New York I felt pretty legit. And, of course, I made some decent money.
The first time I went to a shift with my graduation ceremony behind me, the smiles of my coworkers were also accompanied by warnings to “go get a job, don’t stay here forever.” Climbing up one of the shelves to get a roll of paper towels, I was approached by a coworker. He looked me straight in the eye and said, “Kid, you really got to get yourself out of here.”
This isn’t the “duh” advice you might think it is. If you work retail or service, you know how easy it is to get stuck there forever, no matter how many times you promise yourself that you will not do that. You are aware of the cycle—if you do not hate your job, you are probably just annoyed at it, and this is the first step to spending another five years there. The annoyance becomes numbness, the numbness eventually morphs into “This isn’t too bad,” and before you know it, you’re getting your five-year anniversary salary bump. The feeling of “This isn’t too bad, I could keep doing this” is also owed to the terrible condition of the job market and how our degrees can feel like they mean so little. A lot of retail jobs offer at least some form of benefits package, and if you show up and shut up, you get a relative feeling of security. At this point in my life, coffee paid my bills. Coffee allowed me to live in a nice apartment, go out on the weekends and weekdays, and go out to eat every once in a while. I was able to save money for future loans.
But eventually, the future called to me. I hung up my apron after more than half a decade of coffee.
Moved home. Moved to New York. Retail a distant memory, the promise of a career laying out before me like a yellow brick road made of urgent e-mails and morning meetings. On to other things, or so I thought.
* * *
Fast-forward to me, a year and a half later. After scrimping and saving on various freelance jobs, of the months of dating my rent check a week later than when I sent it in, it became clear that I needed more money. Taxes loomed. I needed new glasses.
I knew an easy solution, a solution that pained me and took knife swipes at my pride. Finding a full-time job was ideal, but I was gaining momentum writing and needed money more than I needed to apply to publishing jobs for months.
Not coffee, I said to myself, trying to push back the inevitable. I grew fearful of my bank account. Getting money from the ATM felt like playing Russian roulette. Freelance paychecks came weeks late. I knew how easy it would be for me to get hired at another espresso joint, how easy it would be for me to get into the routine of wearing my hair in a ponytail again.
Then, a very dull silver lining in a cloud appeared: a sign in a hip, trendy, consignment clothing store that said three bittersweet, impossible words to find. No experience necessary. This was my shot. I applied, cheerfully talking about my love for ’90s clothing, hinting that I had no problem if they contacted my old bosses. I sent my résumé in and realized how “perfect” of a candidate I was, how qualified I was for retail.
Going in for my interview, I realized this was the first time I needed a job. Really, really needed it in the way that if I didn’t make money soon I would have literally no more money. I found myself talking about my love for customer service with the kind of fervor that had never existed in the Alida of Retail Years Past. I almost convinced myself that I had forgotten how much I had loved working in retail. I ignored that this was probably creeping desperation and put all my efforts into getting this job. When you realize other people want what you are going after, you fight harder for it. And these three interviews for a barely-over-minimum-wage job told me people wanted to work. I was one of them. It took me two more visits with the boss, a thorough background check, a call to my references (unheard of!), and a whole lot of me actually wanting to snag the position to land it. I was relieved, celebratory. It didn’t matter if this wasn’t what I wanted to do in the long term, I thought, as I watched the big picture scooch over, just a bit, to make room for present desperations. I greeted it uncomfortably, a new friend in an old friend’s sweatshirt. It was all I could do.
Two months in, and I was back in the swing of the retail game. I compared coffee to clothes like apples and other apples. The long hours and the light pay, the ridiculous uppity attitudes some people had, the funny light conversations with customers, being told to smile—those parts were the same in both realms. However, working retail this time took a different mental commitment—a gnawing voice in the back of my brain kept telling me, This is not forever, this is only temporary, but, hooker, listen—you need this NOW. You cannot survive without this.
Hello. I am Alida. I work for the man for money. And now I get why those hippie beards call these kinds of places “the Man,” because nothing defines my idea of the man more: I was doing something I wouldn’t be doing otherwise just to make money. The man could give you sweet kisses on the neck in the form of required raises every six months and vacation time and some holidays off. Then the man could abuse you a bit because they knew you needed the cash.
So I rebelled in the only way I knew how. I embraced it. Twenty-year-old me griped and frowned her way through shifts, went to the back room and made fun of specific customers, slacked off on the occasions I knew I could. Now, I would smile so the job wouldn’t know how much I needed it. I pretended to enjoy it. I chatted with customers, got told my service was stellar. I came in early and left late. I tried to be quick, started tasks on my own, mopped enthusiastically, expressed my desire for learning more. I pretended that this was what I wanted more than anything else in the world.
If there’s something that retail teaches you, it’s to push through the bullshit. You have bad hours? So does everybody else. People treat you badly? Yeah, that happens. You have cramps and you have to put away heavy things and it hurts your back? I’m sorry, but that’s what you’re paid to do. It’s also a job where the bulk of the people you talk to don’t care about you. I’ve gone to work the day after a big breakup, and if you screw up, you have to make up for it. You don’t get a free pass for your own stuff. When it boils down to it, it teaches you who you are, and either that person scares you or it doesn’t.
After six years, I was okay with being the kind of person who did something she didn’t want to do, to be the type of person who did whatever it took to get to the end of something greater. This was the transition time that built character. I wasn’t working a dead-end job, I was learning to be more resilient, how to stay on my own two feet. To be something like an adult.
* * *
As the train pulled into the station, I felt that familiar sense of relief. The workday is over. I meet a friend at a neighborhood whiskey joint, ordering my drink in the typical “I realllly need this” fashion.
“How’s work?” my friend asks, because she assumes I want to talk about it.
“Not permanent,” I say. “That’s what.” I change the subject, tell her about something I’m trying to write. I tell her how I haven’t missed a loan payment in a while as the bartender comes back with the drink. I take out my wallet, not feeing a pang as I hand over my cash.
This time, I tip her extra, just for the relief of the beverage and the little luxury of feeling generous. I give her a smile that she doesn’t return as she goes off to make a Manhattan for an impatient man in a tie, who is thrusting a sweaty ten-dollar bill in her general direction.
I feel you, girl, I think, as I take another gulp, stretch my legs, and watch a barful of people making ends meet.
On Panic, or Conquering Fear Like a Child
When I was a kid, I was very afraid of sharks.
Correction: When I was a kid, I was afraid of everything because I didn’t have cable. My mother thought that any show that wasn’t on syndicated television would rot my mind and make me slothful and ungrateful and bratty. As a result, I watched two television shows on Friday nights—Christian game shows on PAX network, followed by 20/20. Only one of those put the fear of god in me.
You’ve all seen 20/20, right? Various professional mustaches and shoulder pads spend Friday evenings explaining how everything in your fridge causes cancer and how everybody wants to kill your sweet grandkids. That was my mother’s idea of great-quality television time. Every summer, without fail, 20/20 would have a “very special episode” about shark attacks. “Little Girl lost half her body BECAUSE SHE SWAM.” The next year it was “Do sharks follow little girls around?” and then probably “Will the government start feeding little girls to sharks if they don’t obey?” Understandably, I became terrified of these godless killing machines, thinking they would eat me, or at least maim my arms, which was just as alarming, because even from childhood, it was clear that I didn’t have the vigor or the spunk to overcome disabilities. Deep down in my heart, though, I knew a day would come when I would have to meet a shark. Why would I be so scared of them if I would never have to confront said fear? Hasn’t anybody seen Ralph Macchio in The Karate Kid?
Because my parents were nice people who wanted me to grow up to be the kind of girl who wasn’t deprived of jovial family bonding, they planned a trip to Universal Studios when I was eight years old. I know some of you are squirming in your seats because you know where this story is going, and this story is going straight to the ride “Jaws.” The Goliath to my David, if David wore Daisy Duck T-shirts and wasn’t quite sure how to tie her shoes.
At the front entrance of the ride, a huge shark was hanging upside down. I nodded to my mother, the same way an action hero does when they are about to blow up a warehouse. I stuck my head straight inside the shark’s gaping
mouth, which was my version of “Fuck you,” or intentionally dropping the microphone at the end of a rap battle verse. I was ready to face the black-eyed sea witch. I climbed into the tiny motorboat and sat at the best spot, closest to the water’s edge, right with the selfish parents and the twelve-year-old boys.
If I were to tell you that I spent the entire ride crying, it wouldn’t be entirely accurate. My sobs and wails probably sounded closer to the bloodcurdling wails of a thousand Civil War ghost soldiers. I looked into the eyes of the mechanical beast and tried to control my bladder, shoving myself so hard into my mom’s arms that there is probably still bruising there to this day. But as quick as it started, it was over. I stepped off the ride and told my brother to Shut uuuuup! when he made fun of me for being such a baby.
“You don’t GET IT,” I told my parents. “I’m not scared anymore!”
I had seen one. I had looked my fear in the eye and now it was over.
I wasn’t afraid of sharks anymore, I told everyone as I sipped an orange soda and watched the ominous rain clouds gather above my head. I had survived, I told everyone.
A lightning bolt flashed in the sky.
“Tornado!” I screamed as I buried myself in my mother’s chest.
My parents shook their heads and silently watched their brave little daughter cry her way through another battle.
* * *
I have been fighting fears like these for much of my life. As I got older, I became intensely scared of killer bees, plane rides, and the ever-popular and absolutely warranted: clowns. I had never experienced fear of the unknown. That is because I can always pinpoint what I am scared of. Always.