A breeze wafts in through the open windows. It’s softer, warmer than the thin, chill Bay Area air. I inhale its jasmine scent. A nearby neighbor’s fountain is burbling; a bird is warbling in the dark. I’m not in “Oaktown” anymore. I don’t hear couples on the street arguing angrily, police cars in hot pursuit. I don’t hear sirens or gunshots or the roaring engines of muscle cars. The few cars that pass by move slowly, silently. I imagine a parade of Priuses ambling along the crooked streets of Laurel Canyon, mountain lions prowling the urban jungle under the light of the moon.
I wonder what my wife is doing, if she’s moved out of the guest room and into our bed. Her bed now. Not ours. I wonder if I’ll make friends ever again, or knit or write.
Thank you, Ambien: sleep comes fast and hard.
—
I’M AWAKENED BY A RUMBLE. A crash.
“Earthquake,” I try to shout. The sound gets stuck in my throat. I try to run. My legs won’t move.
A man’s worried face appears at the foot of my bed. “Are you okay?” Jules asks.
Oh, right. I’m in his living room.
I don’t live in my house anymore.
I live in L.A.
I can’t move my legs.
Jules turns on a lamp. One of the wooden screens is lying across my legs. My right knee pokes through a splintered hole.
Jules lifts the screen off of me, leans it against the wall. “Can you move your leg?”
I hoist myself up onto my elbows and I see that another screen fell, too, but in the opposite direction. It’s taken out a few posts from the stairway banister, which now tilts drunkenly into the room.
“Oh my God,” I say. “I’m so sorry. I’ll—”
I’ll what? Ask for a layaway plan to pay for all this destruction?
“I’m sorry,” Jules says. “It’s not your fault. You probably kicked them over in your sleep. Those screens were tipsy. I’m just glad you’re okay.”
Those screens, I’m guessing, are—were—worth more than I’ll earn in the next six months. Not to mention how much Clara loved them. She has a lot of things, but she cherishes each one.
“Party’s over. Let’s get some sleep.” Jules turns off the lamp and goes downstairs. I hear him close the door to his room.
A sob, barbed with self-pity, rips through my chest. I stuff my face into the pillow, tell myself not to cry. Swollen red eyes is not the look I’m going for on my first day of work.
“Please, God,” I whisper, “tell me I’ll be okay.”
—
WHEN I WAS A CHILD, bedtime was the worst hour of each day. I was terrified of sleep—of death, really. I didn’t trust that my eyes, once closed, would ever open again.
Each night I delayed the inevitable for hours, reading under the covers, my Ringling Bros. circus flashlight trained on the pages of the books I dog-eared again and again: Little Women, biographies of Helen Keller and Amelia Earhart, Betty and Veronica comics. (Archie and Reggie were idiots, I decided early on.)
One night, at age six or seven, I found a poem called “The Lord’s Prayer” on the back cover of my comic book, where the ads for Sea-Monkeys and X-ray glasses were usually displayed. The child of devoutly atheist Jews, I didn’t know who “the Lord” was, but the poem seemed written for me.
Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray the Lord my soul to keep
And if I die before I wake
I pray the Lord my soul to take.
It wasn’t just me! Whoever wrote the poem was worried about dying before she woke, too. This news was a big step toward my seven-year-old salvation. I wanted more of whatever protection this Lord thing offered. I memorized the poem, and every bedtime from that night on, after my mother had turned out the lights, I stood on my tiptoes in the middle of my bed, reached my arms up toward Heaven (where God lives, after all; why would you get on your knees on the floor?), and recited that prayer out loud.
The sound of my voice talking to God made me feel like I was keeping track of Him and He was keeping track of me. That way He would know when I died before I waked, and He wouldn’t take my soul too early or too late. It was easy to imagine, and I imagined it often. At just the right moment, God would reach down from Heaven and tuck my soul into a plump pink feather bed floating on a fluffy white cloud.
Ending up in a feather bed in Heaven wasn’t as good as not dying at all. But it was a whole lot better than dying without knowing where my soul might end up.
Once I’d put God in charge, I started sleeping better. And so was born my foul-weather faith, which persists to this day. Who calls on God during good times? Not me. We’ve been out of touch for years. But tonight: “Please, God. Tell me this isn’t the end of my story. Tell me this isn’t what I deserve.”
I feel Him lift me up and lay me down on that plump pink feather bed. Relief warms the region of my heart.
“Tell me it’ll be okay, God. Someday. Somehow.”
I wait. I listen. I hear nothing but my own words echoing in my head.
And then it goes quiet inside me. And in that silence I hear something. Sense something. Think something. Whatever it is, it makes me put my arms around my rigid body and tell myself that it’ll be okay. Someday. Somehow.
—
IT’S A LONG FIRST NIGHT for me in the City of Angels. But when my alarm goes off in the morning, I have something I didn’t have the night before. A connection with someone or something I can talk to. Someone or something that gathered me in and held me together when pieces of me started flying around the room. I know there’s more falling apart in my future. When it happens, maybe that someone or something will gather me in again.
“Morning,” Jules calls from the hallway, alerting me that he’s on approach.
“Please, God,” I pray, “be with me today.”
I swear I intuit or hear or feel something. A reassurance. A vow.
I sit up, throw the covers off my scraped-up legs. “Morning, Jules,” I say. “I’ll be out of your way soon.”
THREE
When I emerge from my garage dressing room, Jules is sitting at the dining table as promised, hunched over his cereal bowl, turning the pages of the Los Angeles Times. “I’m off. Have a good day,” I say.
“You too,” Jules says without looking up.
I linger, hoping for a few words of commute-advice—a shortcut, a commendation for leaving so much time to go such a short distance, the best place to stop for coffee. Jules doesn’t offer. I don’t ask.
No problem, I tell myself, climbing into my car. Siri and I will persevere. Google Maps said it would take twenty minutes to drive the 3.7 miles from Laurel Canyon to Hollywood and Vine. I’m allowing an hour and fifteen. I’ll get within a few blocks of the office, stop for a molto-mega-gigundo-grande latte, and arrive at my new job early, confident, and caffeinated.
Sure enough, I’m one of few cars on Lookout Mountain Avenue. Turning onto Wonderland, I hit a snafu. Clearly Google Maps didn’t account for morning drop-off at Wonderland Avenue School, a bumper-to-bumper lineup of BMW and Mercedes SUVs inching forward to park and discharge their nattily attired tots.
I check the dashboard clock. So far it’s taken me fifteen minutes to travel three blocks.
Laurel Canyon Boulevard is congested but moving. Maybe I’ll keep my new job after all. Building on this positive moment, as my ex-therapist encouraged me to do, I inventory the good things that lie ahead.
Bellissima is a $50-million-and-growing fashion company: socially and environmentally responsible, seemingly fun-focused and cool. I’ve been doing some of the company’s copywriting since my magazine work dried up, and I liked the staffers I’ve worked with over the phone. By quitting time today, I will have met at least twenty hip people in Los Angeles, and they’ll have met me. Can after-work drinks, girlie shopping sprees, and weekend pool parties be far behind?
No more laboring in freelance isolation. I’ll be collaborating with stylish, smart colleagues, producing cutting-edge, high-budget marketing campaigns.
I’ve excelled at this work before. I know I can do it again—as long as I can keep my evil twin under wraps and limit my grief attacks to nonworking hours.
In our pre-employment negotiations, my boss-to-be, Heather Leong, agreed to the ten-hour, four-day workweeks I proposed. I’ll have Fridays off and I’ll work at home on Mondays, so I can keep some semblance of a writing life and earn some freelance income to support my personal economic recovery campaign.
When I lost my domestic partner, my monthly health insurance premium went from $600 to nearly $800. From now on that exorbitant necessary expense will be pillaging my employer’s pockets, not mine.
I’ll have cash money. Deposited in my checking account. Every other week. No more hours spent chasing my freelance checks.
And I’ll have perks. Bellissima is the twenty-first-century version of the groovy companies I worked for in the 1980s and early 1990s—Banana Republic, Ben & Jerry’s, Odwalla, Smith & Hawken. I’m predicting fun field trips, brainstorming sessions, employee sample sales, and a steady supply of treats supplied by vendors and/or cookie-baking coworkers. Plus all those benefits that freelancers bust their butts to pay for but employees sit back and enjoy: an ergonomic office; the latest, greatest computer; air conditioning when it’s hot and heat when it’s not; the occasional free lunch, holiday party, weekend retreat.
I still have thirty minutes to get to the office. It couldn’t possibly take thirty minutes to drive two miles, could it?
I’m starting to wonder. I wait in place through one green light, advance one car length through the next. Swallowing dread, I check out the scene around me, soothing myself with a noncatastrophic scenario, another one of my therapist’s tips. Raised by first-generation staticky, black-and-white TV, I’ve always been fascinated by Hollywood lore, and look where I am right now: dead center, iconic Hollywood. Outside the passenger window, the historic Roosevelt Hotel, where Marilyn spent her first two years in Los Angeles and had her first photo shoot. On my left, Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the Dolby Theatre, where the Oscars are held.
The Oscars! People come from all over the world and pay fifty bucks to ride tour buses past these sights, and I’ll be seeing them on my way to work every day, for free. I imagine the Golden Age greats walking the red carpet on this very boulevard, paparazzi lights flashing. A squiggle of excitement worms through my worries. Marilyn left her handprints in that courtyard! Charlton Heston! Lana Turner! Myrna Loy!
Wait. It’s 8:40. If the traffic doesn’t start moving this minute, I’m going to be late to my first day of work.
I call Celia, an L.A. native, hoping she’ll steer me to a shortcut, but her voice mail picks up. I ask Siri for her advice instead, then wonder if they’re strict about hands-free driving in L.A. All I need now is a moving violation. I have a great argument for the cops: I’m not driving, I’m parked on Hollywood Boulevard with my engine running. Siri tells me to stay on Hollywood to Vine. She shows my arrival time as 9:15, fifteen minutes after I’m due.
I cannot lose this job. There’s got to be faster way. At the corner I take a left, then a right. It’s 8:45. It’s less congested on the side streets, but there’s a stop sign on every corner. Suddenly the street I’m on merges into another and I’m driving in the wrong direction—west instead of east, or is it north instead of south?
Why is there no public transportation in this town? I could be on BART right now, whizzing below the bay.
Why didn’t I leave an extra half hour to get to work on my first day?
Is there nothing I can do right?
—
IT’S 9:40 WHEN I PULL into the Bellissima parking lot. All but one of the employee parking spaces is occupied. I guess that would be mine.
I reapply the lipstick I bought yesterday, gather up my brand-new briefcase and the skirt of my brand-new dress. A short, smiling man appears, opens my car door, and holds it for me.
“Buenos días, señora,” he says, extending his hand. “Yo soy Juan.”
“Mucho gusto, Juan. I’m Meredith.” I don’t have time to tell Juan that I’m no one’s señora. I’m focused on getting my ass into the three-story brick building next door, where I was due forty-two minutes ago.
Juan gestures at my road-weary car. “Your car is very dirty. I detail for you?”
“Sure,” I say. “Thanks.”
Wondering what this red-carpet car wash is going to cost me, I sprint toward Bellissima’s frosted-glass doors, punch in the alarm code that came with my offer letter, and burst into the glass-brick-lined entryway. Sweat drips down my back, the backs of my legs, my freshly made-up face.
My face! I race to the women’s bathroom, dab at my raccoon eyes with a paper towel, take another precious moment to summon a calming mantra. As I stare at my smeared face and deer-in-the-headlight eyes, the phrase “Fake it till you make it” springs to mind.
My mother forced that concept on me in junior high. If I’d just act as if I didn’t care about the boy who’d dumped me, she said; if I could just act as if I cared about passing algebra, eventually the pretense would become real. Rolling my eyes at her “hypocrisy,” I’d refuse her, rigid with adolescent self-righteousness.
Now I’m thinking my mother might have been onto something. The stakes are too high to risk being myself. Faking it is the best I can do. Making it is beyond belief.
—
AS INSTRUCTED, I report to Norma, VP of “Talent Development.” If Norma notices the mess of my face or the fact that I’m forty-eight minutes late, she hides it well. She jumps up, grabs me in a hug. “Welcome, Meredith,” she bubbles. “We’re so happy you’re here!”
“Me too.” My voice hangs between us, flat and heavy. “So happy!” I chirp, reminding myself that it’s true, or at least it should be. I am damn lucky to be here.
“Isabel isn’t here this week, but I’ll introduce you to everyone else.”
During our FaceTime interview, Isabella Galliana, the thirty-four-year-old daughter of an Italian model and an American director, had told me that she protects her creativity by staying out of the company’s day-to-day operations. She “divides her time,” as the celebrity bios say, between L.A. and Milan, working on new designs, keeping her finger on the European pulse. The employee handbook describes Isabel’s philosophy as “MBA: Managing by Not Being Around.”
I follow Norma through Bellissima headquarters, a renovated button factory, now a showcase of stylish un-improvements—exposed brick walls, exposed rusty beams, exposed galvanized pipes, exposed stair treads, exposed concrete floors. Skylights, industrial casement windows, and vintage light fixtures make it almost as bright inside as out. Ethnic art hangs on every vertical surface—paintings, textiles, garments, masks of many lands.
“The lunchroom.” Norma waves glossy crimson fingernails at a big open space with a family-sized fridge, two microwaves, a purified-water dispenser, a juicer, and an elaborate gleaming espresso machine.
The dining area is centered around a long pine table containing a still life of contemporary takeout culture and its detritus: wrinkled chopstick wrappers, Trader Joe’s tikka masala boxes, Chipotle bags, little plastic tubs of satay sauce, glistening kale shreds, and bottles of au courant condiments—sriracha, soy sauce, chutney, Tapatío.
“We’re eaters here,” Norma says, sweeping the garbage into a tall willow basket.
“I’m an eater, too.”
“Then you’ll fit right in.” Norma beams.
Norma walks me through the departments: Design, Marketing, Customer Service, Sales, Finance. Actual offices line the perimeter of the building; the worker bees sit at spiffy modern workstations, each with a desk, an Aeron chair, a landline phone, and a big-screen iMac
. Most of the “team members”—Bellas, in the company vernacular—seem to be using their own cell phones.
The Bellas are a good-looking bunch, glossy haired and sparkly eyed, with bright white straight-toothed smiles. Their good looks and confidence conjure happy childhoods in interesting neighborhoods with interesting moms and dads who gave them their interesting names. I figure I’m ten to twenty years older than most of their parents and—gulp—the same age as the younger Bellas’ grandmothers.
“The kids,” as I immediately name them, are relaxed and gracious, greeting me as if Bellissima was their company and hiring me was their decision. For all I know, it was. Isabel calls her company “an employee-centered workplace.” Maybe it’s true.
The whole groovy package would make Bellissima my perfect reentry job, except for one tiny thing (my coworkers) and one medium-sized thing (me). I haven’t worked in a bra or a waistband in twenty-two years, when both bra and waistband were much smaller. Most of the Bellas are so young, so lean, and so drop-dead gorgeous, the place looks more like a modeling agency waiting room than a fashion company’s office. As I’m being introduced to a sweet girl named Marguerite—tall, willowy, with wavy red hair to her wasp waist—I catch a reflection of the two of us in a full-length mirror. Mortified, I resolve to avoid repeating that experience.
With each Bella I meet, my belly looks bigger to me, my wrinkles deeper, my hair, makeup, and first-day-of-work outfit lamer. By the time Norma leaves me with Heather—my thirtysomething, Bellissima-minidress-and-Gucci-bootie-wearing boss—I’m hoping my employee benefit package includes unlimited plastic surgery and a burial plot.
I’m aware that this is a thing, and I’m aware that the thing is bigger than I am. Ten thousand Americans turn sixty-five every day. Thanks to modern medicine, our massive consumption of kale, and the “we’re here to redefine everything” attitude of those of us who came of age in the 1960s, retirement isn’t on our iCals.
While we’re clutching our careers with our cold, dying hands, the kids are gamboling past us. In workplaces everywhere, people my age are getting pats on the (aching) back and performance reviews from people Heather’s age.
The New Old Me Page 3