She is totally confused. “Well, you had just come out of the ocean, so you were a wee bit wet.” She picks up the medical chart and looks it over. “But other than that, it doesn’t mention anything on the chart. But then again, I wasn’t on shift when you were admitted.”
I stare at her blankly.
“But I’m sure if there were anything out of the ordinary, it would be written on your chart. So whatever it is, dear, don’t worry about it.”
I’m never going to know. Never. This is one of those moments where stress and panic have long been surpassed, and shock and horror don’t even apply. You just feel numb, as if the worst thing in your life has just happened – maybe – but you’ll never really know, and you will carry the uncertainty with you forever.
“I called your friend, and she’s on her way to pick you up,” the nurse mentions as she lays my clothes out on the dresser.
“My friend?” I sit up. “Which one?”
“Let’s see,” she picks up the chart again. “Liz Gordon?”
Oh, God. It wasn’t an illusion. Liz is here. Why? How did she find out? And how did she get here so quickly? And why is Jen with her?
The questions swim through my mind as the nurse pulls me into my clothes and hands me a copy of Cosmo. “Here’s something for you to read while you wait. She said she has a couple stops to make, so she’ll be at least a half hour.” The nurse smiles. “Can I bring you anything? Water? Juice?”
I shake my head.
She came all the way out to Los Angeles to fire me? A quick phone call would’ve done the job. And she brought Jen along to laugh and rub it in my face? Or maybe to scout out my replacement. I can’t believe I’m going to be pink-slipped and shipped back to Chicago before I can see Victor Ragsdale again. I wonder if Victor would come to Chicago to visit. Ha. By the time I make it back to New York again (if ever), I’m sure he won’t even remember me.
I notice a headline on the Cosmo cover that reads: “8 Ways to Salvage a Work Slipup.” I laugh at the irony of it and open the magazine. But of course, the “slipups” described in the article are just a tiny bit smaller than the atrocious mess I’ve managed to make of the last two weeks.
I flip the page to a section on trendy, summer-night hairstyles. “Old Hollywood Glamour,” it says, showing upswept twists and flowing, Veronica Lake waves. “Get the Blues” headlines the makeup section, showing an old photo of a seventies flight attendant, then updated looks using bright blue eye shadow on today’s models. I flip to the fashion section. “Summer Sundresses – Fifties Style!” shouts the headline, showing cute, colorful dresses with cinched waists and flaring skirts.
Wait a minute. Not one of these “trends” is new. Everything in here is a retread of a style from the past. I flip to the shoe section, which tells me that “Pumps Are Back,” then to the cosmetics section, which advises that the best way to moisturize sun-parched skin is good, old-fashioned Vaseline.
You’ve got to be kidding me. Has the whole industry completely run out of new ideas? I think of all the money that is spent on trend-tracking – even by Gordon-Taylor – and I wonder what the point is. Is there any real rhyme or reason to this? Or is the secret to staying trendy just to keep a stockpile of all your old stuff, then wait a few years for it to come back in?
But the magazine is suddenly lifted from my hands, and there she is. Liz Gordon, dressed to the nines, looking at me with a curious smile on her face.
“Let’s go.”
• • •
“How do you feel?” Liz asks in the car. “Let me guess. Your head feels like a frozen bowling ball and you suddenly understand how all these Hollywood twits get addicted to Vicodin in such a short time.”
“Something like that,” I mumble.
“Hungry?”
“Not really.”
“Thirsty?”
“No.”
“Well, I am. For a dirty martini from Elaine’s on Second Avenue. But this is L.A., darling, so why don’t you tell me. What should I be drinking?”
I look at my watch. Eleven forty-five in the morning. “Uh, orange juice?”
“How about a wheatgrass-carrot elixir from the vegan take-out place on Sunset? Rumored to have incredible healing properties.”
I wait in the car for Liz to return with the cocktails. She hasn’t mentioned anything about why she’s here, and her demeanor is strangely pleasant, if a bit stressed-out.
It’s a short ride back to the apartment, and Liz gets me set up on the couch with a blanket, some pillows, and a Baggie filled with ice cubes for my head. Then she hands me my wheatgrass-carrot juice and settles in.
“You must be wondering why I’m here.”
I nod. “I could be crazy, but I thought I woke up and saw Jen with you.”
“You did. Jen called me yesterday in a panic. We had a nice long talk, after which I decided that the three of us should sit down for an even longer one. So we both flew out last night. But I’ve given it a lot of thought, and this morning I decided to send her back to New York.”
“Wait – how did you know I was in the hospital?”
“There was a message on apartment voicemail from the surf place. You’d left the number as your ‘in case of emergency’ on the waiver. Which struck me as a bit insensible.”
“I didn’t think there would actually be an emergency.”
“No one ever does, darling. But it worked out. And now you’re home.” There it is. That word again. “So let’s get to it.”
I close my eyes and thank God that I am partially drugged for this conversation. The pain will be duller, and if all goes well, I’ll probably forget most of it by the time I’m fully coherent.
“Lindsey, I know what’s going on with you and the newsletter. Jen told me everything.”
I take a sip of my juice and try hard not to let Liz see me come close to gagging. Wow, this vegan stuff is nasty. How do people subsist on this?
“The Pulse is supposed to ship in a few days, and I don’t need to tell you that this issue is going to be disastrous.”
Here it comes.
“My first thought, obviously, was to can your ass, put you on a plane, and invoice you for the money that the agency’s wasted on this endeavor.”
I nod. It makes perfect sense. I’d do the same thing.
“But I hired you based on a strong gut feeling that you could do the agency proud, and my instincts have never been wrong before. So I need to ask you, Lindsey. What happened?”
I feel the tears welling up in my eyes, then streaming down my cheeks. At this point, there’s no use in pretending anything.
“I’m so sorry, Liz. I thought I could do it too. But I jumped into it so fast, and I really don’t know what I’m doing at all. I don’t know how to track trends, and I have nowhere to start.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this before it was too late?”
“Because I was so excited about it, and I wanted so badly to do a great job. I kept thinking that I would wake up and suddenly get it, and then I could catch up and everything would fall into place.” I am full-on sobbing now. “I’m so ashamed of everything. I didn’t want to disappoint you.”
She hands me a Kleenex and I honk my nose into it.
“I’m just so embarrassed, and I am so, so sorry for everything.”
Liz finishes her wheatgrass-carrot elixir, slurping the straw at the end. She sighs and takes a long look at what has to be the most pathetic sight she’s ever laid eyes on (that would be a sniveling, puffy-eyed me, with an enormous, swollen gash on my head and snot running out of my nose).
“Well, good. I’m glad you understand my position. Because if I’m going to be here working with you for an entire week, we have to be on the same page about things.”
I look up from my tears. “Huh?”
“I’m going to give this a second chance, Lindsey. I’m staying here in Los Angeles for a week. We’re going to figure out this trend-tracking thing together.”
“Are you ser
ious?”
“Yes, I’m serious.”
“But what about Jen?”
“Jen’s in New York, trying to pull the issue together. Don’t worry about her. This is our thing. We’re going to figure it out. You and me.”
• • •
I spend the rest of the day sleeping away my headache and marveling at the miracle of still having a job. Liz has left me a note saying that a.) she’s staying at the Beverly Hills Hotel, b.) I should come by for breakfast in the morning, and c.) before Jen left, they had picked up my car at the beach and brought it back to the apartment, so I still have wheels.
I’m still groggy into the evening, but Carmen is back from San Francisco, and I can’t wait to fill her in on all the details of the last couple days. When she walks into my apartment with a pizza, a tub of Marshmallow Fudge ice cream, and a six-pack of Pepsi (not even the diet kind!), I feel so happy and relieved that I jump up to hug her.
“My God!” she exclaims. “Look at your forehead!” She touches my head and I wince. “Ouch. I can practically feel it,” she empathizes.
“Do you know how to cut me some bangs?” I ask.
“Don’t worry about how it looks. It’ll be gone in a week.”
“Do you have any hats I can borrow?”
“I’m telling you, don’t worry about it! If you notice someone staring, just smile like you love your imperfections and you know you’re the cutest thing in the world. And the world will follow. Trust me.”
She spreads the food out on the coffee table and we dig in. Mmmmm. They don’t call it comfort food for nothing.
“So tell me about this surfer guy,” she demands.
“Danny? Well, he’s… pretty much your stereotypical surfer dude.”
“Cute?”
“Um… yeah, I guess he’s cute.”
“Lindsey, you’re not betraying Victor by saying that another guy is cute. So lighten up and tell me more. Is he nice? Does he like you?”
“He was really nice, actually. And he seemed to like me well enough. Not in that way, though.”
“How do you know?”
“Well, if he did, he sure doesn’t anymore – after I disobeyed his rules and, as a result, made a complete ass of myself that left him having to drag me out of the water, drive me all the way up to Hollywood and check me into a hospital. So I doubt if I’m the person he’s in the mood to see right now.” I don’t mention my potential “accident.”
“I think you should have a fling with him.”
“Are you crazy? Did I not spend the entire week telling you about Victor?”
“Victor, Schmictor. He may be all that, but he’s in New York, and that’s a long way from here. Do you really think that he’s sitting home alone, watching TV on the nights you’re out of town?”
“Can we please stop talking about this?” Carmen is pissing me off, if you want to know the truth. I have to call Victor and tell him that I won’t be back for another week, and I’m dreading that call. I was so looking forward to seeing him again, and getting back to the rush and clamor of New York. But at the same time I feel a renewed sense of hope in my job – also fear, apprehension, and tremendous curiosity over what Liz and I will come up with this week. I’m so grateful to Liz for giving me a second chance and, even more, for believing in me. I want to make her proud, to reinforce the validity of her trusted instinct. I want to do something right. Something big. Something that I can be proud of myself for.
I feel bad for snapping at Carmen, because when I explain why Liz is here, she totally gets it and morphs right back into her usual understanding self. She is excited for me, and cheers me on like my own personal pom-pom squad. After we finish the ice cream, she leaves to go see her boyfriend, and I crawl into bed.
It’s hard for me to sleep. I’m nervous about tomorrow. And despite what I said to Carmen, my thoughts keep drifting to Danny Wynn. I feel really bad about the whole thing. He deserves an apology from me, not to mention a thank-you the size of a thousand killer waves. And he’s the only one who can tell me what really happened in the water – how I got knocked out, what he did to rescue me and if he was able to recover the surfboards (God, I hope so). I kind of want to know the whole story. I should call him. No, I should go down there. I should go down there with a fruit basket and thank him in person for saving my life.
But I’m too embarrassed. Actually, the more I think about it, I highly doubt if I had any “accidents” (aside from getting my head smashed open like the kids from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre). I would have known. It would’ve been written in the doctors report. I would’ve been able to tell somehow.
But I’m still too embarrassed over the whole incident, and especially that it was caused because I defied his instructions and disrespected his expertise.
As I drift off to sleep, it occurs to me that I have the whole week to decide how to handle this, and whether I can get up the courage to face him again. The whole week – that is, if I can find a spare moment away from Liz.
Chapter 16
When I arrive at the Beverly Hills Hotel, Liz is sitting at a table by the pool, with a stack of magazines next to her lounge chair. She’s talking on her cell phone, and she looks very upset. She motions me over, then says, “We’ll have to talk about this later,” into the phone and hangs up abruptly.
“I hope you’re hungry,” she tells me. “I couldn’t decide, so I ordered three things for breakfast, figuring we could share.” Her eyes shift to my forehead and she tries to hide her dismay. “My God, you poor thing. It looks like you ran head-on into a sledgehammer.”
“It looks worse today because it’s starting to bruise,” I say, flagging over the cabana boy. “I’ll have an iced tea, please.” Then to Liz, “But you know what? So be it. It’s my mangled forehead, and I wear it proudly.”
“That’s my girl. Fuck ’em all. Now let’s talk about trends.” She leans in and suddenly her tone turns serious. All business. “You said yesterday that you feel clueless – but that’s your insecurity talking. I bet you’re not as clueless as you think. Tell me what you do know.”
“Well, I’m starting to wonder if there even is any logic to this. If you look through those magazines, there are no new ideas. Just retreads of ideas and styles from the past, with maybe an updated feel to them. Even activities. Look at yoga – how popular it was in the seventies and early eighties. Then nothing for fifteen years, and look at it now. It’s like the world runs out of ideas and decides to reach back and pull something out of the used-trend bin, and suddenly it’s the big new craze.”
“Do you notice any patterns?”
“Patterns?”
“It’s an interesting theory. But it can’t be random. Nothing is random. There has to be some kind of pattern for how these styles evolve, some kind of time line for rebirth.”
“I guess I could try to put some theories together,” I say hesitantly.
“Do try. But it’s not nearly enough. Part of what you said is wrong. There are plenty of new things, Lindsey. Don’t let your frustration about this close your mind. There’s new everything. This is not just about fashion and beauty. It’s about food and drink, music and entertainment, sports and leisure, vacation destinations, sex and relationships, politics and ethics, ways thinking and communicating… just about anything you can imagine that changes with the times that we can put a pulse on. Just think about it. The possibilities are limitless. Very exciting, don’t you think?”
“It is – but also very intimidating. It seems like too big a world for two people to conquer, going back and forth between two cities.”
“So what do you suggest?” Her eyebrows rise.
“I don’t know.” I am struggling. “Something bigger. Maybe a questionnaire on the Internet or something. Thousands of people could fill it out and we could keep track of all those things without having to spend all our time harassing people on street corners.”
“Excellent idea. How often should we track it?”
Lik
e I know. “Um… every month? That would be enough to notice significant changes, right?”
“Sounds good to me. Write it up. Don’t leave anything out.”
“But how will we be able to tell if the respondents are trendy people?”
Liz laughs. “Don’t think that just because you had a brainstorm, you’re getting out of street-corner duty, young lady. If that were the case, I’d ship you both to Toledo and save the agency some overhead.”
The cabana boy arrives with a massive tray of food, and Liz and I toast to our progress with forkfuls of delicious eggs Benedict and salmon crepes. After we eat, she tells me to go home and work on the questionnaire. “It’s going to take a lot longer than you think,” she postulates. “But I still want it finished by tomorrow morning. We’ve got a ton of work to do.”
“What are you going to do for the rest of the day?” I ask her. I’m disappointed that I have to leave. For the first time since I took this job, I’m starting to feel inspired, like this trend-tracking thing actually may be doable. I don’t want to go home. I want to stay with her.
“Lindsey. I own a major advertising agency. I’ll have plenty to keep me busy. Now shuffle along. Meet me again tomorrow – same time, same place.”
On the way home, I think about Liz and how nice it is of her to stay out here and help me like this. Then I remember how upset she seemed on the phone when I got to the hotel. As nice as it may be, it occurs to me that someone of her stature taking an entire week away from the office to tend to a trend newsletter seems a bit… unusual. But then again, maybe this newsletter is a bigger deal than I thought it was. Which puts me under even more pressure.
Don’t think about the pressure, I tell myself. Just focus on your homework.
I can’t imagine this questionnaire will be all that hard. Carmen said she’d be home tonight, so maybe she can proofread it when I’m finished, just to make sure I didn’t leave anything out. And then maybe we’ll even have time to hit some of the trendy nightclubs I’ve been avoiding all week. Despite that my head looks like a pound of raw hamburger meat, I am totally in the mood to party.
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