by Jill Kargman
“I do? Well, I am happy.”
The next day I was swamped again and the morning flew. I hadn’t even thought of lunch the day before, and I couldn’t believe a chowhound like moi had become one of those losers who claimed they “forgot to eat,” but I did. But the first-day nerves had subsided by the second day, and by 2:00 p.m. I was starving. I walked by Randy’s office; she was eating a cheese danish (I rarely saw her without one), sitting with Tristin reviewing album cover photography for Rotting Corpses, a Brazilian death-metal act whose single was called “Dig Up (My Grave).” I nervously crept in the doorway and they both looked up as if to say What?
“Um, Randy, could I ever, do you mind if I um, just . . . dash across the street and grab a sandwich?” Their brows furrowed as if I were speaking Farsi. I felt stupid or, as Kiki used to write, stoopid.
“Uh, why don’t you just take your lunch hour?” said Randy.
I’d been out of the workforce for so long, that I only remembered my assistant days when I’d been forced to eat at my keyboard or starve. But even though I’d been doing nothing but mommying for six years, my position was high level enough to merit a real lunch. I grabbed a falafel and walked the streets, wandering into cool little shops I’d never seen before. Thinking of Elliot and his cute note, the harsh pavement beneath my boots might as well have been clouds.
At work the next day Noah Greene came in and put his hand on my shoulder.
“Hey you—come in my office.”
I nervously followed him up to the third floor to the brothers’ lair, which I hadn’t seen yet.
“Wow, this is amazing,” I said, scanning the Warhols and Lichtensteins on the wall. “Your art is fantastic.”
“Thanks. We hired a top consultant. She gets us the best shit,” he bragged, gesturing to an amazing Motherwell behind his couch. Then he walked to his bathroom door and opened it. “Check it out, I got a Jasper Johns over the pot.” Nice.
Back in his office, he flopped onto a big Eames lounge chair, his crocodile boots up on the matching ottoman.
“I know this great art adviser, Elliot Smith. Do you know him?” I asked.
“Like the singer? No. And I know everyone in the biz.”
“Really? I know he works with Lyle Spence a lot.”
“I’ve bought tons and tons of shit from Lyle. But never heard of Smith.”
Oh, well. I thought I could score Elliot a new fat-cat client. But before I could butter him up further, Noah changed the subject.
“So, good job with this Spin piece. How’d you pull that off? I had some broad here two years who barely got what you got in three days.”
“I know this guy Matt Sevin and suspected he’d like the album, and he did.” While there clearly weren’t fireworks love-wise with the golden sneaker-clad hipster, I had definitely still felt comfortable sending him the tunes. “It’s a small world, you know.”
“I like you. You can write, too—the press release is terrific. The chick in the marketing department copied parts of it verbatim for the sales force.”
“I saw. I’m flattered.”
“They like you, these people. Editors, people around here. I want you to take on another act. We’re signing this young broad, she’ll be our Britney, but not a fucking thing like her—she’s like an anti-Britney. Thinking chick. Like you. She’s called Casey Sinclair, and she’s a beauty. Hot little body on her. You’re gonna help us make her a star.”
“Wow, that is great, thank you so much.”
“You better kick ass for me.”
“I will, Noah, I swear. I will kick ass.”
The following day Noah gave me the still-unfinished demo; he was grasping it in his little pig-in-a-blanket-sized fingers and slid it conspicuously across my desk and walked off.
42
Q. Why do married people gain weight? A. Because single people go to the fridge, don’t see anything they want, and go to bed. Married people go to bed, don’t see anything they want, and then go to the fridge.
I celebrated New Year’s Eve solo, as Elliot was seeing his family upstate, but truth be told, I never liked it anyway; all the forced merriment and drunkenness always felt like too much pressure. It was kind of like Saturday nights; I always had more fun on an unexpected Tuesday than when everyone else was geared up for paaartay!
Miles came home the next day, and I was so excited to see him, I was pacing by the window.
“Mom!” He ran to me and we stayed up way past his bedtime, talking about ski school and looking at all the Christmas gifts his dad and grandma had gotten him, a sea of Spider-Man everything. We popped popcorn and played the match game with his new special set printed with pairs of Marvel comics characters. I always played to win and yet he beat me three games in a row. Either my brain was going to mush or my kiddo was darn smart.
“How is your new job?” he asked.
“I love it,” I responded truthfully. Being at Celestial really gave me a sense of purpose, and I had fun being down there. I paused for a second, wondering whether or not to share the news of Elliot with him. On the one hand I wanted to protect him, but on the flipside as an only child, and a mature one at that, I wanted to share with him my excitement.
“There is something else new, honey,” I ventured slowly. “Someone new, actually: my new friend, Elliot.”
“Can I meet him?” he asked without missing a beat. Phew. I figured Avery was on frigging family vacation with him so I could at least have him meet Elliot.
“Sure. I’d love that! I have our Nutcracker tickets for January fourth. Would you want him to join us?”
“Yeah! I want Elliot to come, too.”
Elliot called me when he got back and I downloaded all the work news, including Miles’s request.
“I’m honored,” said Elliot. “And excited—I haven’t been since I was a kid.”
“See? Tim said he never went and that it’s very ‘fanook’ to take my son to the ballet. He doesn’t want him pirouetting down the soccer field. Please.”
“Fanook?”
“It’s what they called that dead gay guy on The Sopranos.”
“Oh, come on.”
“I know! He’s living in the Triassic Period like Sherry Von.”
Elliot came across the park to pick us up and then go back to Lincoln Center. He wanted time to chat with Miles before the curtain, so we gabbed in the car (Elliot was surprisingly well versed in the various Power Rangers) and shared a quick mozzarella and tomato sandwich from the designer concession stand before taking our seats. We whispered as the lights dimmed and I almost melted when Miles wanted Elliot to sit in the middle. The vast room was dark, except for a spotlight on the orchestra conductor on the stand. Elliot and I held hands as Tchaikovsky’s overture began against a curtain of a snowy landscape shining with glittery whiteness. I leaned down to look at Miles’s face, which was transfixed.
The little girls and boys danced the party scene with the parents. The creepy cloaked uncle came in with the Nutcracker, and the scene with the rats had all the well-dressed children in the audience giggling with joy. Next was my favorite part, the snowflakes. The delicate pointed toes lightly leaped and patted the floor silently as the almost-real snow fell from the staged sky, making a sparkly blanket of shimmering white across the New York State Theater stage. The precision and synchronicity of Balanchine’s steps never ceased to give me chills, and when I looked at both Elliot and Miles, they had matched rapt eyes focused on the leaps and twirls before them. Next to them, taking in the glistening blue-white glow and fairy-light prances, I was in heaven.
At intermission, we walked out onto the promenade to score some M&M’S for Miles, who spied a classmate from St. Sebastian’s.
“Wylie!” he yelled, and sprinted to his pal. They talked about their vacations (Wylie was on safari, La Singhita) as Elliot and I held our place in line for snacks nearby. I had been bursting because we hadn’t had the chance to maul each other in a week but obviously had to restrain myself affectio
n-wise in front of my son.
“He’s a special kid,” Elliot said of Miles. “Amazing.”
“He likes you, too.”
“Amazing mom, as well,” he added.
“I missed you,” I said, and he stroked my arm the way he had the weekend before.
“I missed you, too.”
We both sighed simultaneously, in echoed desire to beam, Star Trek-style, into the same bed.
“Holly . . .” The way he said my name, in an almost whisper, made me feel so emotional about the excited newness of this, of how this man walked into my life and helped me rebuild myself, that I got caught up in a tidal wave of the moment.
“Elliot, I love you.”
Shhhhit.
So awash with blinding adoration was I that I fumbled big-time. I made the worst mistake possible. I committed the dater’s cardinal sin: I blurted out the words that send men running and screaming. It hung in the air, and as soon as it was out I wanted it to be carried away by the spinning whoosh of a gliding tutu, but it wasn’t. And the worst part was the reaction: Elliot leaned in and kissed my cheek. I felt a sinking pit of utter humiliation and embarrassment, suddenly wondering if this whole thing may have all been a fantasia construction in my head. Maybe we were just having sex like regular grown-ups. Maybe I was living this whole overactive imagination-spun lie. I pretended to be totally fine and blasé about my verbal diarrhea. We were next in line, and with a smile on my face, I ordered our candy and sodas. I was nonchalant and normal, but it was all a total Meryl Streep blocking the pounding fear that shook my whole body.
We said good night by the fountain outside, where throngs of people were rushing for cabs. I spied one and we split pronto. As soon as we got home and I finished Miles’s bedtime stories, I dialed Kiki, fingers shaking.
“Hi, it’s Holly. I know you just got back from France tonight and you’re totally jet-lagged ’cause it’s 3:00 a.m. Paris time, but I am freaking out.”
I relayed, in a state of panic, the details of my royal screwup.
“No! You didn’t.”
“Yes, Kiki, I did. Please don’t freak me out even more. Jesus.”
“I told you never to do that!” she admonished.
“KIKI! I know, okay? I effed up hugely, I’m aware. I’m just asking what the hell do I do now?”
“Okay okay okay. Damage control. Let’s think. . . . Okay, I’ve got it: Maybe, you can show him you say that to a lot of people all the time, like how British people say ‘darling’ and stuff like that. Why don’t you say ‘I love you’ to, like, the cab driver.”
“Great, thanks,” I muttered, rolling my eyes, with even deeper alarm at my goof.
“Or—to me, you know, when you talk to us, just always say ‘I love you’ or ‘loveya.’ Throw it around and stuff so he knows it doesn’t really pack that big a punch for you.”
“Do I have Tourette’s? What was I THINKING? I am losing my mind. It was like I was out of it for a second. On drugs. I can’t believe this. See? He is drugs to me! My mind is MUSH.”
“Honestly, it’s not that bad.”
I was mute.
“You know what? It’s not, Holly, think about it: You were just honest, and frankly, if he can’t take that or wigs about it, then he’s not the one. He’s not. If he can’t deal with a little Hallmark-style confessional, then fuck him.”
“But I really like him,” I said, starting to cry. “I think I do love him.”
“Honey, he’s so fucking into you,” Kiki assured me. “I saw him looking at you at that Seaport party when you said that you hate mimes—his face was lit up like a Christmas tree, he was so enraptured.”
“I don’t know. . . .”
“The guy is enamored.”
“I’m enamored. I can’t think about anything else. I’m writing my work stuff and I drift off.”
“That’s normal—”
“People always say the beginning is so amazing and exciting, but I feel ill. Not when I’m with him, but all the time we’re apart I’m spazzing about will this last? Does he miss me? Does he love me? Will he be my husband?”
“He’ll say it. Soon. Trust me, his ‘I love you’ is in the mail. It’s on its way.”
“You think so?”
“Oh, yeah. For sure.”
“Why is ‘I’m crazy about you’ just not the same? He said that in bed the other night.”
“Because it’s not. Be patient. It’s in the mail.”
43
“Men marry women with the hope they’ll never change. Women marry men with the hope they will change. Invariably they are both disappointed.”
—Albert Einstein
The postman was delayed. After a day of agonizing pacing, Elliot left a voice mail.
“Hi, sweetie, it’s me. I just found out I have to go to Geneva for a few days. But when I come back I really want to go out together. Maybe that new Broadway show they gushed about in the Times. Okay, I miss you a lot already and also I . . . have something I want to tell you. Have a good night—”
Though sweetie sounded promising, I was still a wreck. Kiki came over for Chinese order-in and to play with Miles. She had brought back a bag of French loot for us from Bonpoint and Collette. After ripping open our presents, we sat around a big puzzle of the United States and attempted to forge sections of our great nation but only managed to piece together chunks of each time zone, floating in an ocean of carpet beneath.
“So what do you think it means?” I asked Kiki, who had just listened to my saved voice mail. “I need analysis.”
“Oh, look, Miles, this one goes with Kentucky,” said Kiki, expertly snapping the jigsaw pieces together, Rain Man-style. “Okay, so cute he’s into Broadway like you. You practically had to drag Tim. And helloooo, I think we both know what he’s going to ‘tell you.’ You have nothing to worry about!”
“Really?” I wasn’t so sure. “I think the axe is going to fall. I totally flipped him out.”
“Nah. Clearly he wants to confess his undying amore.”
The phone rang. Maybe it was him?
I went to screen but the caller ID was blocked.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Holland Talbott, please?” a man’s voice asked.
“This is she,” I responded, wanting to shoot all telemarketers.
“Hi, this Dan Allen from Law & Order. You bid on a cameo a while ago from Lancelot?”
“Oh! Yes!” I looked at Kiki with a huge smile. I had totally forgotten.
“Is that Elliot?” she asked.
I shook my head as I fumbled for a pencil to scribble down the details of my call time. It was a night shoot right by the Staten Island Ferry, one of the ripped-from-the-headlines episodes based on the ferry crashing and killing all those people ’cause the captain guy was on crack and heroin. I would be one of the said victims. And, he added, while gushing blood and screaming in horror, I would even get a line: “Where is my husband! I can’t find my husband!” Gee, how fitting.
I hung up the phone, floored. “Remember the lot Tim bid on for the Lancelot event ages ago? That was the Law & Order people! I’m shooting this the day after tomorrow! I can go after work, so can you hang here with Miles?”
“What do you say, kiddo? How bout a pizza party with Aunt Kiki? We can watch Spider-Man.”
“Yaaaaay!”
Flushing nervous thoughts about Elliot from my head, I plunged into work, which ended up being a great equalizer in terms of putting myself together about my blunder. If a gal’s not working, she could be subsumed by second thoughts on every date comment or gesture, a slave to the mental rewind button, ending up a Monday morning quarterback replaying every move, wondering where she’d fumbled. But Celestial was so crazed all day, I didn’t have the luxury of worrying about my love life.
I was jamming away at my computer with my headphones on, listening to Casey Sinclair, who may have had the bod of Britney, but she taught me something about first impressions, as her throaty wail was more Fiona Apple th
an bubble-gum pop. I positioned her more as a clever songwriter, playing down her looks, and put the finishing touches on her bio and press release while carefully studying the clock. It was well after 5:00 and I was the last breathing soul in the building. Or so I thought.
“Hey you, Dartmouth,” I faintly heard over the track I suggested to be the single. I took off my earphones and looked up to find Noah standing there. “What’re you doing still working? Everyone else here is out the door at 4:59.”
“Oh, I just had some stuff I wanted to wrap up for Miss Casey. She’s really good. I’m sending all this to her manager tonight.”
“Randy cc’d me on the new stuff on the Saints CD,” he said slyly. “Not bad. Not bad at all.” He winked. I gave him a tight smile and turned back to my keyboard. I felt a strong satsisfaction that I was getting positive feedback and knew deep down I was back in my groove with writing about music and that my absence hadn’t made me even remotely out of the loop. For this professional go-round, motherhood offered me perspective; I never stressed like a crazy person the way I had in my early twenties. Miles centered me far more than anything else could, and now with work on top of that and possibly a boyfriend I was nuts about, finally the dots of my life seemed to start to fall back in a line that made sense again.
After finishing, I reported to my location farther downtown. It all seemed very glamorous—there were trailers lined up, huge floodlights, people with headsets everywhere, and a craft services catering tent with a smorgasbord of my kind of food.
I called Kiki to check in on her and Miles; they were in the kitchen waiting for the microwave to finish popping the popcorn.
“Have fun!” Kiki wished me. “Be a good dead body! I guess that means: don’t move.”
“Okay, I won’t. But I’m not dead; I have a line, remember? I’m in the big time.”
“Don’t start scripting your Emmy speech just yet.”