by Lynda Curnyn
Turns out he didn’t even need to do that. I hadn’t been drunk, I’d been lonely. And desperately missing Derrick, though I was loath to admit that, even to myself.
By the time I got to the office, I was too depressed to register the significance of the hum of excited chatter going on behind the cubicle walls. Too numb to see Marcy Keller hovering, hoping to get my attention as I walked into my own cubicle and clicked on my computer. When I turned around and caught her looming in the doorway, I simply brushed past her, muttering something about coffee. I didn’t want to deal with whatever gossip she had to share. And, frankly, I didn’t care, even if the rumor turned out to be that Bridal Best was about to fold and that all our jobs were on the line. I took a dejected kind of satisfaction in picturing myself cleaning out my office drawers and, later, after I’d worked through what little savings I had, being tossed out of my tiny rent-stabilized nightmare. The thought gave me a momentary sense of freedom. Until I realized that unemployment and eviction would only mean one thing: moving home—at the age of thirty-one—to my mother.
Once I returned to my cube, coffee in hand, I discovered an e-mail from Caroline in my in-box, beckoning me to her office, “at your earliest convenience.”
Since anything was better than dealing with the mounds of paper that sat waiting for immediate attention in my in-box, I set my coffee down on the desk and headed down the hall to Caroline’s office.
“Emma! Thanks for coming by,” she said when I knocked softly on her open door. “Come in,” she encouraged. “And close the door behind you.”
Uh-oh. Something was up. And judging by her expression, which seemed poised to send condolences to yours truly, it wasn’t good. Still, I did as I was told, then sat in the seat before her, waiting for the ax to fall.
Caroline smoothed her hands, somewhat anxiously I thought, over her rounded abdomen. “First, I want you to know that at Bridal Best we truly value your contribution as a writer and as an editor.” Then she smiled. “You’ve written some of the strongest articles this magazine has published in the past few years.”
Pretty heavy-duty compliment, I thought, and couldn’t help but feel proud. Then suspicious. God, was I getting fired?
“Second, I want to emphasize how very competitive the choices were for the new senior features editor.”
A sense of foreboding filled me. I knew what was coming now.
“Unfortunately, however, we could only choose one candidate,” she continued, a pained expression filling her features, “and that candidate was Rebecca Sanders.”
It amazed me how hollow I felt, how without feeling I was when she said the words I both expected and feared. And aside from the rush of heat and emotion that filled my head and clogged my ears, I think I was quite poised as I heard myself thank her for the opportunity to apply for the position and express my belief (I did believe it, right?) that Rebecca would do a fine job.
Caroline went on to explain that though we both were strong candidates, Rebecca had had management experience at her last job. “I think that’s what gave her the edge, Emma. After all, the senior features editor is largely a management position,” she said, looking at me carefully as she emphasized the word. Then she smiled as I gazed at her, trying to make out whatever secret message she was trying to send me and coming up empty.
Caroline was still beaming me that sad little smile as I nodded at her, then stood and turned to walk on somewhat stilted legs to her door. She stopped me once I had my hand on the knob, calling out my name in a soft, sympathetic voice that might have induced tears if I hadn’t managed to squash anything resembling emotion down into the pit of my stomach.
“Emma,” she began. “I know that right now this might seem like a terrible blow, but you might consider what other options are available to you. You’re a very strong writer. Not everyone has that gift. Not even the senior features editors.”
I looked at her uncomprehendingly. Was she trying to encourage me to look for another job? Maybe she didn’t even want me on her staff anymore, much less as a peer. Oh God.
She smiled again, this time encouragingly. “Look, you can come and talk to me anytime. About anything. Your writing. Future plans. I’m here for you.”
“Thanks,” I said in a half whisper, then opened the door and stumbled blindly out into the hall.
Reality hit like the blast of cool air I felt once I stood out in the corridor, my wounds bared for all the world at Bridal Best to see. I noted Lucretia peering out over her cube and Nancy making somewhat slow progress to the photocopier, her gaze on me. And of course there was Marcy Keller, hovering by the water cooler, just waiting for me to walk by and break down, telling her everything. I decided right then and there I would not show Marcy—nor anyone else—that I cared. And with this decision, I suddenly wasn’t sure if I did care. After all, did I really want to be senior features editor at a magazine that wouldn’t even acknowledge the existence of women like me—hopelessly single and with no future prospects of registering for more china and cookware than was humanly necessary? Fuck them. They weren’t getting a piece of me.
I brushed by Nancy, nodded curtly at Lucretia as she ducked away once more and smiled bravely at Marcy as I passed her without a word. I even managed to sit looking strong and unruffled less than an hour later at the editorial meeting, when Patricia proudly announced her choice for the new senior features editor. And as Rebecca stood beaming before us, I smiled and applauded just as wildly as the rest of my colleagues. But I didn’t dare lower my gaze to look anyone directly in the eye. I didn’t dare let anyone know what I really felt.
Like I was dying inside.
Confession: There is no cure for the common heartache—at least not without a prescription.
That night I sat on a stool in Alyssa’s kitchen. She had already slid her vegetable lasagna into the oven and sat before me, her expression alternating between outrage and sympathy as I told her all the gory details of my day, then glided into the ugly facts of my date with Max and his ultimate rejection, just to make myself feel especially crummy. A glass of wine sat untouched before me. I was afraid to drink it, for fear I would somehow burst into angry flames or, worse, cry.
“What is so wrong with me?” I asked, my sorrow now sharpened into an anxious pain in my gut.
“There is nothing wrong with you,” Alyssa insisted, grabbing one of my hands as if she were going to use it to knock some sense into me.
“Yeah. There’s nothing wrong with me. That’s why men are moving across the country to escape me. And even the ones that still live in this fine city seem to be avoiding me as if I had some sort of…of plague.” I sighed and felt no relief from it. “Let’s face it, Alyssa. Clearly I’m a mess that no one wants to be a part of. Not even Bridal Best—a fucking magazine that doesn’t even acknowledge life beyond the wedding day—sees me as not qualified to join the glorious ranks of their management team!”
“Emma…”
“There’s nothing you can say or do, Alyssa. I’m just…tired. Tired of being put down, left behind. Tired of…of everything.”
Silence reigned for a few moments. Until Alyssa squeezed my hand in comfort, and I finally ’fessed up to the other thing that had been clawing at my gut. “My father’s in rehab again.”
“Oh, Em.” Alyssa’s eyes filled with fresh sympathy. “When did he go in?”
“Saturday. Deirdre drove him over. He started drinking last week, I guess. I don’t know for sure, because by the time I called back, he’d already sunk to the next level. Not that there was anything I could have done….”
“No, there was nothing you could have done,” Alyssa said firmly.
“I’m going to see him this weekend.”
“Do you want me to come with you?” Lys asked.
I smiled then. Good ol’ Alyssa. If nothing else, I could count on her to be there for me. The thought gave me some comfort. “I’ll be fine. Besides, my mother’s already on the case. I’m going to her house afterward for a
solid dose of psychobabble and comfort food. She’s cooking me dinner.”
Alyssa sat looking at me for a few moments. Then: “I know you don’t necessarily believe in all that self-help stuff, and frankly I’m wary of a lot of it myself. But maybe, just this once, you should consider counseling. Just to sort things out.”
I sighed. “Alyssa—”
“Look, I went myself. After my mother died.”
This bit of information floored me. Alyssa had seen a shrink? She seemed too…too normal for that.
“I know what you’re thinking, Emma,” she said with a small smile. “But everyone needs help at some point in their lives. Some things are not so easy to deal with yourself. And with your father in rehab, well….” She sighed. “You need to absolve yourself from the blame you’re assigning to yourself. You need to break the chain.”
I smiled at her, wishing I could see the events of my life as merely a problem that could be fixed rather than an ultimate disaster in the process of unfolding. It was suddenly very clear to me why some people—my mother included—resorted to prescription drugs. And I wondered if maybe I wasn’t one of those people. After all, I was my parents’ daughter, wasn’t I?
Confession: I realize now that some women are meant to be alone and miserable, while others are effortlessly happy.
I was inconsolable that week. Especially after I told my mother I had lost the promotion and she was strangely silent on the subject. In my paranoia, I imagined she had suddenly realized her daughter was a complete and utter failure at both life and love. I confided this theory to Jade.
“She does not!” Jade insisted as she dragged me through Bloomingdale’s on Wednesday night in a vain attempt to help me through my despair with a shopping spree. I couldn’t bring myself to buy a single thing and instead followed Jade around as she searched for the perfect bikini to take to Fire Island with her for the July Fourth weekend, which, I realized with sudden horror, was the weekend after next.
I sighed as I watched Jade arm herself with hangers that dangled scraps of material, and followed her numbly as she headed for the dressing room. Apparently a photographer friend of hers was throwing some big bash at his beach house and had promised Jade not only a bed to sleep in, but a bevy of beautiful men to help her get over her recent loss of a sexual partner. “Maybe he has room for one more,” she said enticingly. I immediately refused. Though I certainly didn’t see any spectacular plans of my own looming on the horizon, I didn’t think donning a suit and spending a weekend with supermodels and the people who dress them, photograph them and adore them would do anything good for my mental state. Besides that, I had decided to withdraw from the manhunt for a while. I just couldn’t bear any more rejection.
There was one thing good about going to Long Island this weekend—I had the perfect excuse not to attend the little outing the girls in the office had planned on Saturday night, in honor of Rebecca’s promotion. I even managed to look disappointed that I would be forced to miss the festivities, until Rebecca dropped by and gleefully informed me that she suspected Nash had finally gone shopping for a ring and a proposal would be forthcoming. Suddenly I felt drawn once more into that strange karmic loop that said I was to get nothing and Rebecca, everything.
I tried not to be bitter. Tried to hold my chin high as I muddled through the week. By the time I got off the train at Huntington on Saturday afternoon, I had hardened myself against any sort of feeling at all. And when I looked at Deirdre’s somber face as I got into her car, I realized she had, too. As we drove over together, I noticed for the first time how much she looked like my mother. Deirdre had the same oval-shaped face and, except for her blue eyes, similar coloring. It was almost as if she were an older, more exhausted version of my mother—my mother, had she stayed with my father. Even Dee’s hair, which fell in rumpled, faded waves to her shoulders, looked tired.
“How is he?” I asked finally, as we neared Rolling Pines.
“Same as always,” she said. “He’s already handpicked a selection of drug addicts and alcoholics he’s decided are definitely worse off than he is. So he’s feeling pretty good about himself.”
“Have Shaun and Tiffany been by to see him?”
“Shaun came last night. And Thursday. Tiffany’s in the middle of the kitchen renovation and couldn’t get free.”
Nothing like a little drywall and spackle to keep one from witnessing the dirty underbelly of family life. I sighed. I wished I’d had some suitable excuse to avoid this visit, but being the only daughter left me with few outs.
Moments later we pulled into the parking lot, got out and began to cross the carefully tended lawn of Rolling Pines. As we neared the facility, I saw that a number of the residents were seated outside at picnic tables or propped up in lawn chairs, for their official dose of fresh air. I spotted my father right away, seated alone at a table that seemed cut off from the rest, as if it had been tossed beyond the tree line without thought or care to its placement.
“What are you doing sitting way out here?” Deirdre called out to him as we approached.
Dad looked up, as if startled to see us there. “Shade. It’s damn hot out here, and they won’t let us go inside yet.” He glanced at me almost as if he were embarrassed to acknowledge my presence. “Hi, Emma,” he said finally, half standing to kiss my cheek before he plopped himself back down again.
He looked terrible, with his arm bound in a sling and his face pale. I noticed a cut above his brow and wondered if that came from his tumble off the roof or if he’d suffered some other accident. His face was ashen, and his hair seemed dusted with even more gray than before. He looked old. And fragile.
I couldn’t help commenting, “You look awful, Dad.”
“Thanks. You’re not so bad yourself,” he said. Then, turning to Deirdre, “Did you bring me cigarettes?”
She handed over the bag she had under her arm and he took it, sliding the carton of unfiltered Camels into his one free hand. “No lighter?” he complained. “I told you to bring me a lighter.” He sighed. “Someone stole my damn lighter in this godforsaken place. Bunch of thieves around here…”
She fished around in her pocketbook, then dropped three books of matches on the table before him.
“Matches are no good. How am I supposed to light my damn cigarettes with my damn arm like this—”
“I’m going to get a cup of coffee,” Deirdre said, ignoring him. “You want anything, Emma?”
“No, thanks,” I replied.
“I’ll take a cup,” my father said hopefully.
Without a word, Deirdre marched off across the grass, toward the gray building that housed—along with a few hundred substance abusers and the people who tended them—a cafeteria. I turned to my father, who had placed a cigarette between his lips and was struggling to light a match single-handedly.
“Can you give me a hand with this?” he asked when he saw I was staring at him. I took a book of matches off the table, struck one and reached across to light his cigarette.
“Thanks,” he said, inhaling deeply and blowing out smoke as he stared off into the distant trees.
I didn’t say a word, only watched him. What could I say? No lecture would make my father, Burt Carter, sober up for good. No warm, loving speeches would turn him into a Brady Bunch Dad, or My Three Sons kind of dad. He was my flesh and blood. My father, for better or for worse. And there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about him.
Finally he spoke, surprising me. “Ah, Emma, I’m getting too old for this kind of thing.”
“Me, too,” I replied, ducking my head to avoid the stream of smoke that came out of his mouth as he turned to look at me.
“You?” he replied, his eyebrows raised. “You’ve got your whole life ahead of you. You have yet to make your first million!” Then he laughed, enjoying his familiar joke with me. “So how’s it going with the job and all? Get that promotion yet?”
“No,” I replied, resignation filling me. “They gave it to someone else.”
He turned to look at me for a moment. Then with a last tug on his cigarette, he dropped it into the dirt below the table and stepped on it. “Ah, well. That happens sometimes. Too bad, though. The money would have been nice, huh?”
And the self-respect, I thought, but I didn’t say anything, only nodded.
“But you’ll be okay,” he continued. “You don’t need them, right? Once you write that Great American Novel, you’ll show them who’s boss.”
I looked up at him now, trying to see if he actually believed what he said. Believed that his daughter would succeed at the one thing she’d dreamed of ever since she was a young girl. But I only saw a pair of faded, bloodshot eyes that quickly glanced off into the distance the moment I caught his gaze.
Turning my head in the same direction as his, I saw Deirdre heading toward us once more, a cup of coffee in each hand, her head raised as if she was trying to avoid looking at the men and women lazing around on the chairs surrounding the building, their faces pale and their bodies broken and tired.
“How’s your mother?” my father asked, still watching Deirdre’s approach. “Your brother tells me she’s getting married again.” He shook his head with a smile. Apparently he found the thought of my mother’s third attempt at marriage humorous. I guess he figured if she didn’t succeed this time, he could continue to blame her for the demise of their marriage.
“Yes, she is. And I think she found a good guy this time,” I said, surprising myself with my sudden defense of my mother and Clark.
“I hope so,” he said, glancing at me and popping another cigarette into his mouth as if making up for lost time. “The main thing is, you gotta find someone who will stand by you no matter what.”