The Ten Girls to Watch

by Charity Shumway

  “I imagine you get this question all the time,” I asked, “but how close are your books to your experiences in real life?”

  She smiled, her ample cheeks moving up toward her deep gray eyes. “I’m sure you can imagine that’s a very hard question to answer,” she said. And after lingering with that smile, she winked, brushed her hands across her lap, and said, “I’m getting awfully hungry, aren’t you?”

  Tanisha Whitaker,

  Vanderbilt University, 2003

  _________

  THE COMEDIENNE

  Her goal: to be the head writer for a hit comedy. Her track record: Winning the National College Improv Tournament as part of Vanderbilt’s team inspired Tanisha to found “Schooled,” an improv after-school program for underserved teens. In two years, over eight hundred Nashville-area high school students have participated. This summer, Tanisha interned at the Late Show with David Letterman and performed at the famed comedy club Carolines on Broadway. “Comedy can change your life,” she says. “It stretches your mind in surprising ways.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Weather Delays, See Agent,” read the Departures board at the Atlanta airport. Everything had been so smooth till then. Although the drive from Augusta to the airport in Atlanta featured a long stretch where only talk radio stations came in, that constituted comparatively minor trouble. I was still getting quite a kick out of the whole business-travel thing, and even when the agent told us there were no flights in or out of New York for the foreseeable future due to high winds and rainstorms there, my mood remained relatively buoyant. This just meant Charm would foot the bill for some TCBY and magazines while we waited. Four hours and three TCBYs later, I was scraping bottom and reading the recipes in Silver, that magazine for hip retirees. When it finally became clear we weren’t making it out that night, the airline gave us vouchers for forty-five dollars off a hotel room, and I finally began to see that business travel might have its occasional downsides.

  Before we retired to our rooms, we sat down in the bland bar of the Airport Quality Inn. Danny asked Joel how his wife had taken the news of the delay.

  “She said she didn’t care, as long as I was home tomorrow in time to make flan for our dinner party with the McCallisters,” Joel said. “Come to think of it, she didn’t seem that concerned about me actually attending the dinner party either. Just so long as there was flan.”

  “And how about you, Dawn? Anyone anxiously awaiting your return?” Danny asked.

  “Anyone?” I said. “Why, absolutely everyone!”

  That got the smirk it deserved. Finally, I said, “No one, really. Maybe the guy outside my subway stop who hands me the amNewYork every morning?” And it felt very sad and true. Maybe Ralph, I thought to myself.

  Friday arrived, and the morning flights were canceled just as the previous night’s had been. But finally, after five more hours of semimiserable airport waiting, we brushed the Dunkin’ Donuts crumbs from our laps and boarded our plane home.

  Now that it was December, the dreary sun disappeared in New York at four thirty, and the cab I caught at five o’clock carried me home over dark, wet streets. Outside my building, a branch, apparently cracked by the wind, perched precariously atop a garbage can.

  I lugged my bags up the stairs, expecting to be greeted by Sylvia sprawled on the couch, with or without sad-girl ice cream, I wasn’t sure. But upon opening the door, I found no such greeting. The lights were off, and the apartment was almost silent. Except it wasn’t. It sounded like the faucet was on. Except it wasn’t. I flipped the light switch by the door, but nothing happened—no light. Then I stepped from the front entryway toward the kitchen.

  As my eyes adjusted to the dim light shining in from the streetlamp outside the front windows, I found the source of the sound—a thin stream of water cascaded from the light fixture over the kitchen table, forming a river that careened down the sloped floor toward the couch. At that end of the room, the water was at least half an inch deep, high enough that the reflection of the couch and coffee table shimmered in the pool. I opened my bedroom door and threw my bags on my bed—the apartment’s high ground. Standing at the edge of the water, watching as it visibly crept higher, I dialed my landlord.

  “You’ve reached Carroll Gardens Realty Corp.,” his wife Mary’s voice mail answered. The number was Mary’s cell phone, and Carroll Gardens Realty Corp. didn’t actually exist. It was just Bob and Mary. But Mary liked to sound official. Whenever she picked up the phone, regardless of the music in the background, the sounds of the television, the chatter of the people in line around her in the grocery store, she always said, “Hello, this is Carroll Gardens Realty Corp.” It usually made me laugh—what charming pretense!—but as I stepped up the slope to keep my feet dry, I wasn’t laughing.

  “Hi, Mary and Bob, it’s Dawn in apartment 4,” I said. “Call me as soon as you get this. The roof is leaking and my apartment is flooded.”

  I hung up, grabbed a big soup pot from the cupboard, and started bailing water into the kitchen sink. But the water poured down from the ceiling as fast as I bailed it, quickly making the fruitlessness of my endeavor clear. I hung up and dialed 311, the city’s nonemergency number.

  “My roof is leaking. Not really leaking, pouring,” I told the dispatcher after I made it through the automated navigation system. “Yes, I have notified my landlord. No, he hasn’t yet responded.” The dispatcher informed me he could aid me in filing a complaint and put my building on the list for an inspection. When I said the situation might be more urgent than that, he suggested hanging up and dialing 911.

  Nine-one-one? It wasn’t like I was being murdered by the pouring water, but I did as instructed. And so it was that the fire department knocked on my door at 10:32 p.m. By then the rain outside had stopped, and the cascade was more of a dribble. The good men of the NYFD mostly waved their flashlights, tromped around, walkie-talkied in some codes to whomever they talked to on the other end of their contraptions, and asked whether I had another place to stay while my landlord attended to this situation.

  I said yes, but the actual answer was no. I could have called Elliot—he was back in town by now, wasn’t he? But I wasn’t going to. I could have called Robert, but I wasn’t going to do that either. It wasn’t too hard to fake, though. I told them I’d head to a friend’s, and they gathered up their things and left. But not before Trevor, a particularly pleasant—and muscular—firefighter from the great borough of Staten Island, took my phone number. He would doubtless never use it, but I felt a tiny bit grateful to have received some personal attention.

  Monday afternoon, Mary, the landlord’s wife, left me a message.

  “Hello, this is Mary from Carroll Gardens Realty Corp. calling. I wanted to let you know that we fixed the problem with the roof and that a cleaning service will be taking care of the water in your apartment later today. I also wanted to let you know that, unfortunately, we have yet to receive your check for December’s rent. Please send the check as soon as possible. As you know, we assess late charges of twenty-five dollars a day for any rent paid past the fifth of the month.”

  I’d been too busy bailing water to notice if the please-pay-rent note was still on the fridge. Wherever Sylvia was, she had apparently not paid our rent.

  Before I left work that night, after approximately thirty-one calls from me to Sylvia with no answer and no response to my messages, her Ohio number finally lit up on my screen.

  “Sylvia, are you okay?” I asked.

  She apologized, but after Thanksgiving, she said, she just hadn’t been able to bring herself to leave home again. She was staying in Toledo. Permanently. Would I mind shipping her a few things?

  “I know this has been a really difficult time for you, but . . .” I’d intended this to serve as a segue, just an opener for further, firmer statements along the lines of “It might be hard for me to deal with all your stuff” and “I need your rent check now.” Sylvia, however, jumped in before I could proceed.

/>   “I knew you’d understand,” she said, barging into the middle of my sentence. “I’ll e-mail you with the list of things I need. Everything else you can just throw away or give away or whatever. Maybe the new roommate will want it.” And with that, she abruptly hung up the phone. When I called back, she didn’t answer.

  I returned from work to Brooklyn that night to find a musty yet frigid apartment. Open windows hadn’t quite dried the place out, but they seemed to have allowed several pigeons to peck around and leave “gifts” on the floor. In good news, I could see the “gifts” clearly now that the electricity worked again. In bad news, the Carroll Gardens Realty Corp. cleaning crew obviously left something to be desired.

  I scrubbed the floor, then retired to my room, where the odor of mold held the least sway. I posted a new roommate ad to Craigslist. Inspired by the deeply unfresh scent of my apartment, I wrote my lawn care column for the week: “Say Good-bye to Snow Mold.” I e-mailed Abigail. “If a guy hasn’t e-mailed or called in two weeks, would you say he’s passively broken up with you?” I asked. She’d weigh in eventually.

  Finally, I opened the Sound of Music file. I wanted to work, and I read over the document and tried tweaking a few words here and there, but my eyes kept losing focus. Really, what I wanted to do was cry. I wished there were a storm of tears I could release, and whoosh, once they were gone, I’d feel all better. But I didn’t have a pent-up flood inside. If anything, I just felt foggy, like I’d fallen into some sort of ravine and I knew my prospects were bad, but it was too misty to see just how bad yet. Eventually, the air would clear, and I’d get a perfectly crisp picture and panic. For now, I simply gave up on the story and curled into a ball in front of the laptop’s glowing screen, unable to really fall asleep, but unable to pretend to work anymore either.

  _________

  “I don’t think I’ll be able to make it home for Christmas this year,” I said apologetically into the phone the next day. In many families, this would have been a moment for parental intervention—tickets purchased, holiday happiness ensured—but that’s not how the Wests worked. I was a grown-up. I was supposed to buy my own tickets. Even in college, I’d paid for every flight with work-study earnings. Certainly, graduating was supposed to have made me more able to do that, not less. “We’ll sure miss you,” my dad said. And then he told me all about the tree he’d just finished putting up and how much he was enjoying his new recording of the Messiah and the fine details of Teddy Roosevelt’s near death from blood poisoning while exploring the Amazon. La-di-frickin’-da.

  I next called my mother to break the news and she said, “Oh, honey, are you sure?” Though no offer of help was extended as part of the “are you sure” package with her either. When I said I was sure, she said she understood. Yeah, yeah, great. That’s what I wanted to hear. Except it wasn’t. I wanted weeping. I wanted offers of bake sales to raise funds to bring me home. I wanted moaning that it wouldn’t be Christmas without me. Except that, apparently, it would be. For them.

  In fact, I wanted a great deal more than moaning about Christmas. I wanted someone to rescue me from this mildewy apartment. I wanted someone to find me another roommate. I wanted someone to send a lump of cash to my bank account. I didn’t want to take care of all this on my own. After some unsatisfying wallowing, I picked myself up and took a page out of Elsie’s Sound of Music playbook by slapping on some lipstick and heading to the store. When I got home I attempted to manufacture cheer by baking a bunch of cookies and hanging the cheapest strand of lights they sold at CVS along the wall above the couch.

  My sister sent me a text later that night: “U sure ur not coming home? :(” Had she offered me a ticket, I would have taken it. But she only offered me a frowny face.

  “Sad but true. Miss you tons,” I wrote back. And I did miss her. In fact, I felt like I was pretty much missing everyone in the world right then.

  The next day I returned from work to find a large square box with my name on it next to the mailboxes. No return address, and my name and address appeared on a printed postage sticker, so no handwriting either. Whomever this mystery package was from, it was heavy. It took a couple of tries before I had it successfully hoisted onto my hip. Four flights of stairs later, I set the box on the table and cut through the packing tape.

  Up came the cardboard flaps and out came a few air pillows, and there, under cellophane, was something unexpected: a big basket of fruit. I pulled the basket out of the box and ripped off the rest of the wrapping. Inside the brown wicker were pears, apples, oranges, even a pineapple, and tucked in between a pear and the pineapple was a card. Who would have sent me a fruit basket? XADI? Ralph? The gracious Teresa Anderson?

  I opened the envelope and removed a small white card with a drawing of a bottle of champagne on the front. Inside it read: “Happy Holidays, Love Elliot.”

  What? I stood there staring at the card. A fruit basket? Had Elliot filed me away in his BlackBerry as a Charm staffer? Was I part of his “Work Contacts—send holiday gift” list? But who signs a holiday gift card to work contacts with the word “love”? Did that make this a romantic gift, even after such a prolonged radio silence? And if it was, a fruit basket? And again—love?!

  I’d been trying to pretend that every day that went by without Elliot calling or e-mailing didn’t freeze-dry a new portion of my heart. But a pretense it had surely been. Was this basket of fruit supposed to thaw my feelings? Did he think I’d be all defrosted and ready to go when he returned? Love? He signed it love? Did he mean to do that?

  I had no idea what to do. I ate a pear. I started to write a text message. “Thank you?” I typed. I looked at the basket and looked at the message and then hit send. I waited the rest of the night for a reply, but one never came.

  _________

  Fortunately, during all this, XADI kept me nice and busy. The film production team came back with thirty minutes of what they thought was the best footage. I transcribed it all, and then XADI and I patched together pieces and sent our suggestions back to them for actual editing. Day after day we sent text revisions and were greeted the next morning with a new video to further trim. We started playing with music and fade-ins. I liked the Beach Boys and Van Morrison. XADI favored a Christina Aguilera instrumental remix. Regina’s remarks for the event needed attention, and I contributed by supplying snappy yet inspiring lines on each of the new winners. I somehow became the designated keeper of the RSVP list. With excitement, I added name after name as the invitation reply e-mails and phone calls rolled in. Helen officially RSVPed, and I typed her name into the yes list with a real smile. It’d be good to finally see each other.

  On the home front, I spent the second weekend in December once again interviewing possible roommates, and once again, everyone balked at the pink walls. “You can paint them when you move in,” I said limply to one potential future crazy roommate after another. “I have paint, in the basement.” At last an NYU anthropology grad student and I shook hands. Chelsea would be moving in January 10. Until then, she’d be in Belize, studying something I was embarrassed to realize I already couldn’t remember. Till her January arrival, it was just me, the must, and Sylvia’s piles of junk.

  Finally, that Sunday, my phone buzzed with a message from Elliot. “In NV thru X-mas. xx” No mention of my “Thank you?” text. No mention of his “love” card. No “How are you?” or anything that invited a response. Did he think we’d just resume when he got back? What was this? Just as I had with the card, I cocked my head and stared at the screen. Maybe this was what dating was like when you were out of college, just busy people, fitting romance in where they could. I threw my phone at the bed, as if that would push all Elliot-related thoughts from my head. It didn’t work.

  On the Charm front, we reached our RSVP drop-dead date. XADI signed off on the printed programs for the event, featuring a complete listing of all the winners from the past fifty years, photo highlights, fun facts, profiles of this year’s winners, and, of course, the order of e
vents for the actual celebration. Regina signed off on the photo selection for giant blowup images to be placed around the hall. And then, at last, the video. The film production company went off to make hundreds and hundreds of copies. The president of Clairol, Gerri Vans, Drew Faust, Anitha Ming, and Jessica Winston all reconfirmed their attendance. And then everyone else went home for Christmas.

  While they were away, I went to work every day. Ralph and I passed in the hallway. He was roasting a goose for his mother for Christmas. He’d found a delicious-sounding sour cherry stuffing recipe on SuperRecipeCollection.com. One day he wore a red cardigan. Another day it was mulberry, close to red, but definitely a different sweater. I told him I was spending the holiday with friends. A big fat lie, but better than eliciting a pity invitation to Trenton, New Jersey. I made fudge, using my mother’s fluff and chocolate chip recipe, and brought in a plate for him. He looked stricken with pleasure, and I realized that though our interactions were few, I was really getting to like Ralph.

  Abigail finally made it to San Salvador and an Internet café. She found me on G-chat and the forty minutes we spent felt like a Christmas miracle. Mr. Birdsong had gone home—his three months of grant-supported research had ended—but then he’d flown back, just to see Abigail. I told her a little bit more about Elliot and his disappearing act. “I’m sorry, hon,” she said. To the fruit basket news, she replied, “WTF!!!!!!????” I was tired of thinking about him, so I moved along to regaling her with TGTW stories. After all, there were some good ones. She couldn’t believe I was going to be in the same room with Gerri Vans in real life. “Can you please touch her dimples? I’ve always wanted to put my fingers in them,” she said. “What is wrong with you?!” I wrote back.

  I called my family Christmas Day. I got about ten solid minutes with my sister, in which I briefly mentioned Elliot, but unlike in my chat with Abigail, this time I framed it as if we were still together. After all, maybe we were?