Best Friend for Hire

by Mary Mary Carlomagno

  “In fact, the entire area is considered Midget Ville,” she tediously went on. “Not many people know about this, and of course the term is way politically incorrect, but Weird New Jersey magazine just did a big article on it. Only a few people have actually seen them.”

  There were so many other weird things about New Jersey for the magazine to write about, I wondered why they had chosen an unknown village of “wee people.” I made a mental note to ask James if he knew about the conspiracy theory surrounding the area. And if tiny residents still lived in the woods and no one saw them, were they really there at all?

  Thoughts of mythical residents pushed aside for the moment, we unloaded from the minivan and retrieved our backpacks and received our assignments. June, in her natural element, had lost the rain stick and was relying solely on her knowledge of rough terrain to maintain the attention of the group. She led us down a rocky path to a small cabin with a sign carved out of a tree bark that said “ain Office.” Most of the group was so tired that they didn’t pick up on the typo. But Molly Jarvis and I shared a glance and a knowing look, giving us a bond that I felt sure I would regret as the retreat progressed.

  Inside the “ain Office” was a table with a series of children’s wooden blocks piled on it. Each one had our name on one side and a corresponding name on the back. We were to find our cabinmate my matching up our blocks. The names on the back of the blocks read Broken Branch, Turning Leaf, and Hidden Path, which represented the names of the corresponding teepees where we would be staying. Simply telling you who your roommate was might have been an easy way to help the group get settled, but June had chosen a more Zen Buddhist approach. I looked around and saw that the other five of our perfect six-pack of dysfunction did not mind these little games. “This is cute,” and “oh, what fun,” and “how clever,” echoed among my new pack. My only thought was, please, God, don’t let Molly be my roomie.

  As the group was settling in to salutary niceties, June snapped back to business.

  “You have eight minutes to get into some roomy clothing and rubber soled shoes and meet back here. Go, go!”

  Before I had the opportunity to decide which roomy outfit to wear, a perky blonde woman clad in black from head to toe stood in front of me.

  “Running Foot? Me, too!” she exclaimed.

  Brynn Matherson shook my hand, introduced herself and mentioned that she was super-excited to be here and just all-around pleased to be out of the city and in the country. Her daddy had run a place just like this near Winston-Salem where she grew up. Before completely discounting Brynn’s credibility, I realized that she was southern, which meant that she probably handled situations with politeness and grace, as opposed to her northern counterpart, who usually approached situations with skepticism and negativity. Regardless of the oddity of bunking with a complete stranger, I was, in Brynn’s words, “super-excited” to have company in the middle of the woods.

  You can’t tell much about a room in eight minutes when you are digging for roomy clothes and need to use the ladies room. Perhaps this was a deliberate scheduling move to avoid the retreaters from taking full note of the Spartan accommodations in broad daylight. Brynn insisted on taking the top bunk and hoisted her knapsack so high that she barely missed hitting the dangling light bulb hanging from the rafters in the center of the cabin. The lighting fixture looked so old that it easily could have been taken from Edison’s laboratory in nearby Menlo Park. When I was growing up, my family had been very big on day trips, and the creepy Edison excursion leaps to mind whenever I see dusty, old electrical items, which until today was, thankfully, rare.

  The cabin did not have its own bathroom, but there was a large outhouse-type structure nearby, where boys went around to one side of the building and girls went the other. We had just enough time to investigate the wet concrete bathroom stalls and coin-operated showers. Brynn explained that you really only need 50 cents to get real clean.

  The group convened back at the “ain Office,” before being escorted down to the dock that faced the lovely lake. A few old kayaks and one canoe remained at the dock, but they were the only evidence of the “fun” that must have been had there back in the day when the grounds were overrun by campers). We were standing at the dock of the bay—literally, waiting for the inevitable icebreaker.

  June went out on the dock and turned to address the group.

  “I just want to congratulate you all on your bravery for standing up for yourself and to thank you in advance for trusting in me. I can promise you that this weekend will inspire you to be even greater than you already are.”

  June’s compassion for us poor ex-corporates was bordering on the tearful, which I could see was having a healthy effect on our six-pack of refugees who, if they were not delicate pre-minivan, were feeling plenty fragile now. However, her tear was not quite out of the duct before she switched back to her other role of stern taskmaster. It was a little like being addressed, by Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde at the same time.

  “Please sit down in a circle. Quickly,” she ordered us.

  As all good business focus groups began, it was now time to get to know your neighbor. With the exception of Molly Jarvis and Brynn, this was the first time I took a good mental inventory of the others in my brave little band.

  George Albertson had just been laid off from MasterCard, where he handled the company’s corporate events. Last year, he had made the fatal mistake of hiring a good friend to help shoulder the heavy workload of the department. Her low-cut blouses and high-cut miniskirts were so appealing to the male management team that she was promoted over George within her first six months on the job. She returned the favor six months later and fired George.

  The other man in the group was Darren Parr, a pharmaceutical sales manager who had hated his job so much that he quit it before he could get fired. His industry friend promised him a new position selling Zantac if he could regain the joie de vivre of his early sales career, when he was named salesman of the year for selling a fat burner pill. That same fat burner ended up being banned from the market by the FDA for wicked side effects, such as prolonged erections in men, hair loss in women, and carpal tunnel syndrome in everyone.

  Cynthia had been a hardworking administrative assistant at a financial firm. At her last review, she was asked to review her boss in a company-wide, completely confidential test. The Human Resources department, in an action that was clearly resourceful, but not very humane, revealed the names of the disgruntled employees to their sub-par bosses. In corporate warfare, there are no coincidences, so Cynthia ended up being fired just days after she pressed the “send” key on the review and was told that she was being downsized. She should have just painted a bull’s-eye on her back.

  “Now that we know our names, ranks, and serial numbers,” June said, “I would like to take you to the first phase of this natural experience. Let me introduce you to Shannon O’Connor Batnegar. She will take you through a series of meditations. Shannon and I have been in some very strange positions together,” June explained as she enveloped the diminutive yogi in her arms, not realizing the double entendre many of us were misconstruing in our minds.

  Shannon could easily have been the poster child for Guinness or sunscreen or both. She was simply the most-fair skinned, freckled person I had ever seen. But her attire looked like it came straight from central casting in Bollywood: Bindi, Henna tattoo, worry bead bracelet, and harem pants, which looked totally impractical given our woodsy surroundings.

  After studying with her master in an ashram in Bangalore, Shannon, we later learned, had married him and brought him back to the States, where they ran a yoga studio right near the Empire State Building.

  “Let’s focus on the breath.” She asked us to collect a blanket from the pile she had amassed under the large elm tree. After a complicated explanation on how to unfold and refold the blanket, we all managed to get it right, with the exception of Moll
y Jarvis, who, now clad in a lavender tracksuit, received help from June.

  After ten rounds of deep breathing, we are given two more blankets, three bolsters, and two blocks. At this point, we were given another series of complicated folding maneuvers; we were encouraged to lie on our backs with our heads flat and our buttocks and legs facing straight up in the air.

  “This should feel yummy,” she giggled.

  As she closed the session, which seemed to be more about geometry and blanket folding than anything else, she asked us to focus our intentions on spitting out the evil of corporate life by literally spitting on the ground. Each participant was to rise when tapped on the shoulder and ceremonially hock a spitball “as close to the river as you can get it.” After completing this disgusting, but somehow therapeutic ritual, we received a hug from both Shannon and June. I was just grateful that the wind hadn’t chosen that moment to blow in our direction.

  This ancient ritual was transforming for some, but we were far from finished. As many of us were still untwining from June’s embrace, she delivered our next instruction to us.

  “Meet back at the large mess hall for dinner and then campfire fun!”

  Seldom had the words “campfire fun” sounded so ominous in my ears.

  The highlanders had vacated the premises and a small catering staff was now in the kitchen unloading supplies. Not exactly room service, but still service. My hopes were dashed when the staff left the hall, leaving us with the ingredients to make our own dinner. Each person was given a role in the pizza-making process, and together, as a team, we prepared and served veggie pizza for the group.

  With dinner made, the kitchen cleaned, and the ingredients for s’mores in hand, June directed our attention to the campfire that she had been building since our arrival. The campfire was the “rest and relaxation” portion of the evening. June opened the session with her small finger bells that she’d used to signal the commencement of all sessions. As soon as those bells had rung, we knew that more discomfort was on its way.

  Each of us was handed a piece of paper with another group member’s name printed on it, and instead of having that awkward moment of self-assessment, we were asked to assess the others. Up until this point, the only things we knew about one another were a bit of work history and how flexible we were with our legs up over several Navajo blankets. June switched back into helpful Sherpa mode. She handed out pieces of paper and markers to each of us, then explained:

  “I want you to write on this piece of paper what kind of entrée you think this person is.”

  Brynn was confused. “Entrée?”

  “Yes, an entrée, a main course, not a side dish, not an appetizer, not an amuse bouche. Something substantial and fulfilling.”

  “Do we come with a drink?” Darren joked, making me wonder if he had a problem.

  June, I could tell, was having a hard time loosening up with this crowd. Her euphoria over the cleverness of the game and the undoubted praise that would follow were being sidetracked by these little questions.

  “There are no wrong answers, just feel it and write it.”

  For the next five minutes, we considered our entrée options, then wrote them down on the piece of paper we had been given. Then, June blew her whistle and it was time to compare notes.

  Darren thought Molly Jarvis was a chicken pot pie, comforting and homey. Molly Jarvis wrote that Brynn was a garden salad with salmon and no dressing, healthy and smart. Cynthia imagined George as a big plate of nachos from Chili’s, an appetizer that, in fairness, could double as an entrée. George said I was lasagna with a glass of red wine, multi-layered (for which I didn’t know whether to be pleased or offended). Brynn envisioned Darren as a T-bone steak with a side of creamed spinach, strong and something a salesman would order. I thought Cynthia was chicken fried steak with waffle fries.

  Each of us added the descriptive words on the end, in an effort to minimize any stigma that calling someone you hardly know a food item might carry. I scanned the faces of my peers, the interplay of the flames against roasting marshmallows and then farther into the distant tree line. And all I could think was that somewhere out there was a small person in a teepee watching us in disbelief. And I was pretty sure that he thinks we are weird.

  Most people dread Monday mornings as it signals the end of all the good times had on the weekend. But the opposite has always been true for me; I rarely had a good time on the weekend, especially after spending the weekend in the woods with a group of strangers. That Monday, I was even more eager to get back to work, even though my career choice left my family wondering what had happened to the straightlaced business woman they were so proud of. And I was starting to see their point. My recent choice was not what they had envisioned for me. I had to agree with them on that, at least, as I walked over to my makeshift office on top of an empty bar at seven in the morning. This was not the glamorous career that I had imagined, either. As I let myself in to the downstairs bar entrance for which I now had my own key, I looked around at the soon-to-be-closed bar. The barstools flipped upside down on top of the bar, the drink glasses neatly hung after last call. The place looked all cleaned up and ready to be turned into something else.

  All I could think of that morning was my family’s silent disapproval at our last Sunday dinner. It might have helped if they’d yelled at me and forbade me to carry on with this unlikely and unseemly job choice, but they hadn’t. They did worse. They said nothing. The only conversation that took place after my mother’s abrupt departure was getting the elderly family members up to speed on what exactly had transpired at the table.

  Nana joined my mother in the speechless category, but managed to utter some indecipherable Italian phrases while she shook her head. My Juicy Couture-wearing grandmother had somehow watched enough of Access Hollywood and MTV to be curious about the tattooed boyfriend she had just heard about.

  “Does he look like Steven Tyler?” she asked.

  The fact that she knew Steven Tyler at all left me to wonder about the effects of excessive television watching on the elderly. Without knowing what to do, I decided to answer the best I could and not keep the little old lady in suspense.

  “Actually, Na, he does look a bit like Steven Tyler. But not as many scarves,” I added.

  “Not that many tattoos!” James added, as if coming to my aid, finally.

  I assured them that my “boss” was not my new boyfriend, an admission not entirely false, but the denial made me feel like a fourth grader, too embarrassed to reveal her true feelings. In their eyes, I might always appear to be a fourth grader struggling with a schoolgirl crush. I wished that my only problem was dealing with unrequited love, but my problems were much worse.

  “I am just using the office space, really. Strictly business until I get my own space to rent. Temporary. No biggie,” I assured them.

  James, on the other hand, turned his unfortunate admission to pure gold, as he was prone to do. He told the grandparents exactly what they wanted to hear. With Tara moving in and sharing the expenses, he was getting one step closer to the perfect engagement ring. The mention of marriage sidetracked all of them for a few moments while I squandered the only opportunity I had to stand up to my family, to explain that I believed in what I was doing. But, my inner-fourth grader won out; I remained mute.

  The meal continued with no further talk, the eggplant and macaroni served, the pastry sampled, and the demitasse cups collected. All in a quiet and polite fashion, completely unlike any of our family meals; it was as though we had assumed the formality of the meals my mother had hoped to host when she first got married. James and I moved on from our altercation with no adverse effects and got back into the car as if nothing had happened. We simply carried on as if the nasty words had never been spoken. Deep down, we knew we didn’t mean them. We ultimately knew that apologizing was unnecessary and made us both feel uncomfortable. My mother had opted t
o show her supreme disapproval with her silence. It was when she was quiet that you truly had to worry. Her words symbolized attention, caring, regardless of how perverse the message. And the silence sent a cavalcade of doubts into my already fragile mind. My family stationed themselves as the executive committee of my new company that was already having trouble getting off the ground. At that point, I felt like I had people to answer to. I had hoped a weekend with like-minded corporate outcasts would add more than just company to my misery, but it only made me more doubtful about what to do next.

  Regaining any career confidence without my former job title and corporation was already precarious; just when I thought I had my footing, another rung was taken out from under me. So when Dave and Bertram arrived in my life with all their hopes and dreams of saving the bar riding on me, I thought this might be what I needed to turn the tables, maybe even set a karmic shift into motion. Besides kindred spirits, they were becoming my friends, which made me even more vested in helping them. All I could think of was my father’s advice as I left the house; he pulled me aside and said, “Just try to wrap this up quickly and don’t tell your mother any more about it. It’s best to leave her out of these kinds of things.”

  And as much as I wanted the approval of my family, my new life promised something different, something heroic. My plan of the moment was to save the bar from early extinction and to do that I would need to muster all of my public relations know-how. The goal was to use the media to create a story about the bar, the bar’s owner, and the community that needed it so badly. At least that’s what I decided to pitch the Daily News metro reporter when I spoke to him that morning.

  “The Garage is more than a bar, it’s a community space, historic really,” I bragged. The reporter on the phone was sympathetic; he had seen REM play there when he was in college at Stevens Technical Institute, which was located just two blocks away. He agreed to write an article and include the list of famous artists who had received their start there.