by Ariella Papa
“Really,” I say. It’s been a long time since I have been wined and dined by an expense account, but I must be strong. “Actually, I made other plans for dinner. I thought we were just having a drink.”
I haven’t prepared anything, but there is a low-fat burrito and day-old fish in the freezer and it’s worth the missed gourmet meal for the look on his face.
“Okay. I hope you are open to what I have to say.”
“Of course I am, shoot.” I sip my drink through the straw. I used lipliner and I don’t want to ruin it. I accept that I’m trying to make an impression although I’m not exactly sure why.
“You heard what happened to Delores.” I nod. “I have to say people feel very loyal to you still.”
“I wonder if it’s me or just that they hate her.”
“Regardless, we have a vacancy.” He sips his drink and looks at me. “C’mon, Rebecca, you know what I’m suggesting.”
“No, I really don’t.” He cocks his chin. “I cannot believe you are saying you want me to take her job. Remember, I got terminated for performance problems. According to my documents, I couldn’t handle my job. Do you realize how shitty that is?”
“Look, Rebecca, we knew there was a problem and we tried to deal with it. It didn’t help that you antagonized Jack Jones.”
“I didn’t antagonize anyone. I said what I thought. We were supposed to be a kids’ channel, not a bunch of anorexic white supremacists.”
Hackett laughs and shakes his head. “You’re incredible.”
“Thanks, I guess. What, is she fired now?”
“No.”
“Because it wouldn’t be cool to terminate someone in a body cast?”
“She’s not in a body cast, but she is unable to work. Eventually she will be—” he hesitates “—repurposed.”
“Oh, the new buzzword. Isn’t everyone? Doesn’t it ever get tiring to just keep replacing people with whoever puts a bug in your ear?”
“Rebecca, this is the industry.”
“Well…” I don’t know what to say. He is making me feel so naive. “It sucks.”
“You would be doubling your salary. The assignment would be three months. If I’m not mistaken your severance ended last week. Also, when the three months are finished, I am more than sure we will have a place for you.”
“What? Working side by side with the troll?”
“We all have to do things we don’t want to do.”
“You’re right, we do. It’s not that I don’t want to pay off my credit card bills or get my own apartment, but under those circumstances I’d prefer being unemployed.”
“You know the expression cutting off your nose to spite your face? I’m not the enemy.” I shake my head, and he orders another round. “Oh, I guess it doesn’t matter. You’re young.”
“I don’t feel young anymore.”
“I’m sure you don’t, but you are, and that’s why you can be like this. God, I wish I could bottle that. Are you sure you want me to take the offer off the table?” For a minute, he has dropped the businessman and become the sort of paternal character he was when I first started working for him. It’s seductive. I could so easily say yes and get my old office back. I could have a door and a place to go again. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.” I manage a smile. “I don’t need to be tempted anymore.”
“Okay, then can I be frank with you?”
“Does that mean you are going to insult me?”
“No, I’m going to give you a piece of advice and an observation.”
“Okay, shoot.” He takes another rather large sip of his drink.
“You are a likable person, Rebecca, but just remember that can piss some people off.”
“So are you suggesting I be less likable?”
“No, I’m suggesting you don’t take things personally and that you remember that sooner or later it all comes around. You will have to deal with some of the same people again, and in their own way, they will have to deal with their consciences.”
“For as long as I can, I am going to avoid being in a position of managing other people to do things I don’t believe in, or working with people I can’t stand. Even if it means I never have an office or a show or money. Peace of mind is worth more than that.”
“Nice, Rebecca. I would love to hear how that works.”
“And I would love to keep being patronized.” The nice thing about not working for him is that I have the balls to say what I want in whatever way I want. “What’s your observation?”
“Well, why didn’t you fight your termination?”
“What do you mean?”
“You just accepted it in the HR office. You barely batted an eye.”
“What could I do? I was in Human Resources getting a severance package to sign. It seemed like the deal was done.”
“I think you never believed you could do it.”
“Do what?”
“I think all the while you kept expecting it to happen, expecting to get canned. Even before Delores. You felt, I don’t know, unworthy or something. You were always waiting for someone to wake you up from the dream. You thought you were lucky—not talented. That’s one thing, that lack of trust in yourself, maybe the only thing I’ll never regret about not being young. Confidence comes hard.”
I feel like I just got smacked in the head by a bunch of bricks. I can’t believe it. I think Hackett is right.
“One day, I suspect we’ll work together again in some capacity, and I hope, Rebecca, that you only have to grow up just a little.” He hands his credit card to the bartender.
“Thank you,” I say, grateful that I don’t work for him anymore so that he can say whatever he wants to me. “I mean it.”
“I know,” he says, and signs the receipt. He gets off the stool and squeezes my shoulder. “Thank you. Enjoy your dinner plans.”
I know where I can find a better dinner than the one in my freezer. I think it’s time I start ruling my destiny. I can wait for karma, but it might never catch up with me. I consider going jogging, but instead I take a risk and take the subway to Ben’s bar. Will, the bartender, waves to me and says I can go on back to the kitchen. When I push the swinging door open, he is bent over a pot of chili, stirring.
“Hey,” I say. He smiles when he looks up and then when he sees that it’s me, his smile grows wider.
“Hello there.” He looks me up and down and points out my purple toes. “I like your toes.”
“Thanks, I just did them myself. My severance ended. I can’t afford pedicures anymore.”
“What’s up?”
“I was hungry and I thought you could make something to eat when you’re finished working and then maybe if you still wanted to we could go up to your apartment and look for stars.”
“Okay,” he says, nodding and wiping his hands on his apron. “Does that mean you are going to give this a chance?”
“Yes,” I say. “I’m in.”
When it rains it pours. Don calls me after my meeting with Hackett. In his message, he is the usual slick Don that I am starting to like, and he says that he needs to “pick my brain” about some things.
We meet at Molyvos, a Greek restaurant in Midtown. I get there first and wait for him in a booth. He kisses me hello on both cheeks. He looks and smells good.
“How are you?”
“I’m fabulous. I got laid off.”
“Oh, no! Because of Jordan?”
“Partially, they think I could have done a better job casting. Honestly, it was too confusing for kids to get to know Gus and then try to relate to his cousin. Also, it seemed too much like Blues Clues. Meanwhile, that’s what they said they wanted. Anyway, the network’s pretty broken. I’ve already got five offers.”
“That’s great, Don. I wish I had your connections. Where are you going to go?”
“That’s the beauty of it. I’m not going anywhere. I’m taking this opportunity and using it to my advantage. I am following fate. I’m reading t
he signs.” Not the follow-your-bliss crap again. Please.
“What are you doing, joining the seminary?”
“I think Sarah would have a problem with that.” He winks at me, but keeps talking. “I’m starting my own production company.”
“That’s cool,” I say.
“I figure I have worked on and developed enough shows in-house to know what I need to do. I’m not getting any younger. I’m thirty-two. It’s now or never.”
“I guess so,” I say. I have never seen him this excited before. It’s almost contagious.
“Anyway, I want to start pitching shows. It’s us against them now.”
“Us?” What is he trying to tell me?
“Yes, Rebecca. I need your tween-girl connection. You’re like a big self-conscious tween, and I want that. It’s big.”
“Thanks, I guess. But what do you want me to do?”
“I want you to start writing spec characters and scripts. It’s going to be different now. We’re going to get the best deals and beaucoup cash. It will be a while before we see any of it, but I can promise you that even if something happens between us, you’ll never get screwed on your shows again.”
“What if they don’t sell?”
“They’ll sell. One thing I learned is that the networks listen to whoever charges the most. And we are going to be pricey, Rebecca. We are going to pillage them, we are going to bend them over a chair and—”
“I think I get it,” I say. “When do you need these?”
“I just need paragraphs by next month. I brought a contract. It lays out what I will pay you for the ideas and what you’ll get when the show gets picked up. It’s time to start behaving like guerrillas.”
I wonder if this is too good to be true or if Don has started taking drugs or what. When I look at the contract I’m speechless. He is going to pay me a decent sum for the specs and if the shows do get developed I will be getting more depending on whether I help develop and produce them. Either way, I should be able to support myself by just creating these characters. I can’t believe someone is going to give me money to do something I love. With this kind of money I could eat a plate of rock shrimp tempura every night. How could I be so lucky? And like some kind of sick Jiminy Cricket, I remember what Hackett said about not believing in my own talent.
“You’re crazy,” I say. But, I’m worth it, right? I deserve this. “Okay. I’m down.”
23
Strength, Courage & Wisdom
I work nonstop for two weeks on the ideas. Ben’s schedule is such that we can sleep in together and then when he goes to work, I go for a run and spend the rest of the evening coming up with concepts. I get myself on kind of a weird schedule completely opposite from Tommy’s. I leave to meet Ben at the bar before Tommy gets back.
Everything with Ben seems to have happened so easy and naturally. Yes, it happened fast, but sleeping with him was as familiar and natural as everything else about him. In short, really really good. Maybe I shouldn’t be too into this, but when I catch myself holding back with someone like Ben, I wonder why I’m fighting it. So I think I’m just going to go with it and not question what my intuition tells me is right.
I sleep at Ben’s when I can because Nancy stays over a lot. I don’t see her very much, but I know she has dabbled in a few of my bathroom products. I think this is very uncool. But I don’t make an issue of it.
When I first start brainstorming I can’t shake the feeling that I am cheating on Esme. She lived inside me for so long and all of a sudden, there’s a Kim and a Robin and a Kelly. Each girl has her own story and I have to move away from the way Esme spoke and thought. It takes me a while to get used to this, but then I decide I can’t censor myself, and I jot down everything that comes to me—which is a lot. I write up paragraphs on about ten ideas, but full pages on those three.
With her wedding only a month away, Kathy constantly calls with new requests. Because I am not really employed I am the person she asks to do the most favors. I never dreamed I would be picking up her dyed shoes or helping her count invites, but somehow I get roped into it all.
Every time I try to bring up how upset she was the day before we went to the movies in the park, she changes the subject. I have a feeling that she wishes she’d never told me and wants me to forget her moment of weakness. I don’t bother bringing it up anymore. If she chooses to be the bride who doesn’t deal with her issues, who am I to stop her?
“Brides get self-centered as it gets closer to the wedding,” Lauryn says. She has another couple of weeks before she moves to Boston and starts school. She has been having a lot of sex with the coed we met at the bar. It’s more fulfilling now because he’s looking her in the eye, she says.
“I just wish it would be more evenly dispensed,” I say, about my status as a wedding slave.
“Well, Beth is MIA, and would you want to deal with Kathy’s sister?”
“You’ve got a point.”
“I object to having to dye my shoes, I have to admit,” Lauryn says.
“We are never going to wear the dresses again, and now we have to ruin a perfectly good pair of shoes with a color that doesn’t exist in nature.”
“Did somebody say ‘waste of time and money’?”
“I did,” I say, laughing. “I also said nothing on the registry for under sixty bucks.”
“Yeah, I snatched up the last thing under, which was fifty-dollar swizzle sticks. A set of six.”
“You better make damn sure that they feed you mixed drinks when you go over there.”
“I intend to.”
Jordan was not invited to Kathy’s wedding, but Lauryn told me that she agreed to have coffee with him again when she comes down for the wedding.
Tommy eventually asked me if I’d mind if he took Nancy to the wedding. It was one of the rare times we were alone in our apartment together. I was kind of surprised that he was around without Nancy and wondered if the only reason was to ask me this question. I know the answer he wanted to hear was no, but I was so surprised by the question that I just kind of shrugged.
“I won’t if you don’t want me to,” he said. I know I have no legitimate reason to stop him. Why should he have a bad time? On the other hand, why does he have to bring her around our friends? “I just expected you were going to bring that guy.”
“Ben,” I said angrily. “Can you at least remember his name?”
“Yeah, Ben. Aren’t you going to bring him?”
“I don’t know yet.” I really liked Ben and knew I should bring him, but I worried that he was going to be bored with me performing all my bridesmaid duties (and there were already a ton I had to do). I know it was wrong and selfish, but why was Tommy allowed to have fun with Nanny Nancy when I was going to be forced to prance around in uncomfortable dyed shoes catering to Kathy’s weird belle-of-the-ball fantasies?
“Well, let me know when you decide,” he said. He stared at me for a minute and then turned and left the apartment.
I knew I was acting foolish, but I couldn’t help it. Once again, it seemed like I had no idea how to be broken up with Tommy. Even though I was so happy with Ben, I guess I couldn’t help being upset that Tommy didn’t care as much about me. It was scary to think that after all the drama and the back and forth, we were getting to a place where we were finally going to have to let go. This guy shaped so much of my adult life, and now he just wasn’t going to be there. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t want to get back with him, that’s for sure. I just didn’t know if I wanted him not to want to get back with me.
Tonight, after my talk with Tommy, I talked to Ben about it over a beer at the bar. They have finally decided on a name for the pub. It’s to be called Knuckle Sandwich. The bar staff gets a huge kick out of this name and say it whenever possible.
I always hesitate about bringing up Tommy to Ben. I don’t want to make Tommy out to be an asshole and I don’t want to make Ben jealous. As usual, Ben listens to me very carefully before answering me.
<
br /> “The way I see it, Rebecca, you just have to negotiate your new relationship with Tommy. I know that’s not easy, but he’s a big part of your life, it seems.” He takes a sip of his beer and then leans over and kisses me. “I bet he feels the same way you do. Maybe you should address that. I think you want to keep him in your life. I certainly want to meet him.”
“You’re neat,” I say. Every time I see Ben I like him more. “I think it’s terrific that you can talk about this with me without being jealous.”
“How can I be jealous,” he says, leaning over and kissing me again, “when I know you’re crazy about me?”
“Where do you come from?” I still can’t believe it is this easy to be with someone I am so attracted to. I am almost certain that no other shoe is going to drop.
“New Hampshire.”
“Right, so do you even want to come to this wedding?”
“Well, the chance to see you in the dress you describe with such graphic distaste is appealing, but it’s not like I enjoy getting all dressed up in an uncomfortable suit.”
“So, you don’t want to go.” He laughs and shakes his head. Will brings us two more beers.
“I didn’t say that. Of course I want to meet all your friends and be there for you, if that’s what you want. I think you have to make this decision, Rebecca.”
I knew he was right, but I wished he would just tell me what to do.
Don and I meet to go over my concepts at Wild Lily Tea House. It’s a funky little place that Ben took me to for our first official date. I think the tranquility will offset any tension I feel about having a business meeting. I make sure we get the table where we kneel beside the small fish pond at the front of the restaurant.
I busy myself maneuvering the green-tea-marinated slices of chicken with the dainty wooden chopsticks and try not to worry about what Don is thinking of all my ideas. He keeps making little “hmph” noises as he flips through the pages. I don’t know if that means that he likes my ideas or he is wondering if there is any way for me to pay back the money he advanced me. Just when I think he’s done reading, he flips back through the pages and starts making notes with a pen. He is completely neglecting his pretty little salad. I consider reaching over and snagging one of the sugared walnuts on top. He looks up at me and smiles.