“I told you, it’s not going to happen.”
“Okay. Sure. Take care.” He hangs up.
The next morning the phone wakes us up. By “us,” I mean me and Iris’s sprawled-across-both-sides-of-the-bed body. How can such a little person take up so much space?
“Hello?” Maybe it’s Andrew. Maybe he’s realized that his unfair accusations were cruel and unjust.
“Jacquelyn, is that you?” It’s Janie. A hysterical-sounding Janie.
I contemplate telling her she has the wrong number, but mumble yes by mistake.
“Iris is missing!” she exclaims. “I just got home and yesterday’s paper is still sitting outside the door and the place is a mess. I think she’s been kidnapped.”
I’m awake. “Relax, she’s here.”
“She’s in Boston? Why is she in Boston?”
“She wasn’t too impressed with your emigration plan.”
“Why didn’t you call us so we wouldn’t worry?”
I’m not quite sure why I didn’t call. I didn’t even think about it. I guess that was pretty irresponsible. If Iris were a plant she’d probably be all shriveled up by now for lack of being watered. “I didn’t think. I’m sorry.”
“You have to send her back to us right now.”
“She’s not a package I can send by Federal Express. Hold on a sec. When’s your return flight?” I ask Iris.
“My ticket is one way. Don’t you pay attention? I’m not leaving.”
“Apparently she’s not leaving,” I say to Janie.
“Let me speak to her.”
“She wants to talk to you.” I hold out the phone.
“I’m not talking to her.”
“Take it.”
“No.”
“Pick up the phone, Iris!” Janie screams through the receiver.
Iris shakes her head.
I pick up the phone again. “She’s in the shower.”
“Don’t lie.”
“She’s mad at you. She doesn’t want to move to Arizona.”
“Why not? It’s a beautiful state.”
“Because she’s sixteen. And right now her friends are very important to her. She’s moved a million times in the past ten years, and I think she’s getting a little tired of it.”
“Unfortunately, she’s not the one who gets to make the decisions.”
“Don’t you think you’re being unfair? To make her move in middle of the year?”
“What do you mean in the middle of the year? We still have to sell the house. That will take a couple of months at least, and then I’ll stay with her until she finishes her junior year.”
“I’m going to be a loser in my senior year!” Iris sobs.
“I hear her! She’s not in the shower!”
I shoot Iris a look and continue negotiating with Janie. “So you’re willing to wait until summer?”
“Yes, of course!”
I turn to my sobbing sister. “Why are you being such a baby?”
She grabs the phone. “I hate you! I won’t have anyone to talk to all summer! And all senior year! I don’t want to move again! I’d rather live with Jackie. She, at least, loves me. She, at least, cares about my happiness.” She slams down the phone.
Her therapy bills are going to cost a fortune.
“Please can I live with you? Please?” she begs.
I do feel for her. Really. But what can I do? “I can’t take care of you.”
“I’m sixteen. I don’t need to be taken care of. And what else are you going to do? Sam’s moving out soon, and you hate to be alone.”
“What do you think, the apartment is free? I already told you, I can’t cover both rents.”
“What if I drop out of school to work?”
“Yeah, that’s what I want you to do, drop out of school. Are you crazy? It’s only one year, Iris. Then you’re off to college. Can’t you tough it out?”
She turns around and starts to cry into the pillow. I remember her first day of school in Boston. I was still on summer break from college, but junior high had already started. I was sitting in Janie’s car, waiting to hear all the events of the day. She had been so excited, so nervous, that morning when she’d chosen just the right outfit: her Calvin Kleins and a midriff-peeking tank top.
“So how was it?” Janie asked tentatively.
Iris burst into tears and said, “No one talked to me the whole day. I had to eat lunch in the bathroom so I wouldn’t have to sit by myself in the cafeteria.”
It kills me when she cries. I look at her sobbing head and sigh. “What if you stay with me for the summer? Will you agree to move with Janie later?” I can’t believe I said that. My sister stay with me the whole summer? Have I lost my mind? Why don’t I just swallow a bottle of pills? The result will be the same. Janie once said that if Iris had been the firstborn, she would have remained an only child. By the end of the summer, I suspect she will be an only child.
She stops crying. “You’d let me stay with you for the summer?”
“Maybe. But you’d have to cover your own rent. And pay for your own food. So you’d have to get a job. And you’d have a curfew.”
“I don’t have a curfew at home.”
“You should. I had a curfew. You have to follow my rules, and if you don’t, you’ll be on the first plane to Phoenix.”
“Are you being serious? You’d let me live here?”
“For the summer. Only.”
I call Janie back and fill her in on the new plan.
“You can’t even take care of a turtle. How can you take care of a teenager?”
“I was ten, and the turtle escaped. It wasn’t my fault.”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“Why not? It’ll give us a chance to bond. We hardly ever get to spend time together. Pleasepleaseplease?”
“Well…I’ll have to discuss it with her father. But maybe it’s not such a terrible idea after all. It’ll give me the chance to move in peace.”
We were as good as in. At least I won’t have to live by myself. Iris will move in from July until the end of August, and by then I should have a real roommate lined up. I might even have a serious boyfriend. Maybe even Andrew. He could move in at the beginning of September…
Two days later I drop Iris off at the airport and head straight to Andrew’s. He refuses to talk to me on the phone, fine, but he can’t just throw me out of his house, can he? I hope he’s home. What a pain in the ass to go all the way to Cambridge and find he’s not even there.
I park the car and ring his doorbell. He opens the door, wearing sweatpants, a white T-shirt, a baseball hat, and a look that says he’s not happy to see me.
“Hi,” I say.
“What are you doing here?”
“I want to talk to you.”
He sighs. “Come in.”
I follow him down the hall. I keep my coat on because he hasn’t told me to take it off.
“Sit down.” He motions to the couch.
Is it and decide to launch right in to it. “I’m sorry. You were right.”
“About what?”
“I’ve been pathetic. I thought I wanted Jeremy, but I don’t. I figured it all out. I know what I want.” And here it goes. “I want you.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Yes, I do.”
“No. You don’t. You think you do, but you don’t.”
Is he trying to annoy me? “Okay, Freud, you tell me. What do I want?”
“You want a boyfriend.”
“So?”
“So I don’t want to be with someone who wants a boyfriend. I want to be with someone who wants to be with me.”
This makes no sense. “But I want you to be my boyfriend.”
“Look, I don’t want to be with you just because you want to have a boyfriend. What part of that sentence don’t you understand?” He pulls off his cap, runs his fingers through his hair, and places the it back on his head. “I like you. I like you a lot. You’re
smart, you’re beautiful, you’re funny. I like who you are. I like me with you.”
“And I like me with you.” So where’s the problem here? Seems like a match, no?
“But I know that if we start dating, we’ll screw it up. You’re not over Jeremy yet. You can’t be.”
“I know I don’t want to be with him. Isn’t that enough?”
“No. I don’t want to be the rebound guy.”
“But you’re not!”
“You need to be on your own for a while. If we’re ever going to have a relationship, I need to know it’s you I’m relating to. How can I know you if you don’t really know yourself? And how can you know yourself if you’ve never really been alone with yourself?”
I think he’s been watching too much Oprah. Is he suggesting I go off to Thailand to find myself? Look what happened to Jer: he came back an asshole. Actually, he was always an asshole. I know, I know, Andrew is right. A person can’t hop from one serious relationship right into another. But be on my own? I hate being on my own. The whole point is to not be on my own. “For how long?”
“That’s something you have to figure out for yourself.”
“A month?” I can do a month.
“I don’t know, Jack.”
“Two months?” I can do two months.
“Maybe a year.”
A year? Is he on crack? A year on my own? My face must turn white at the suggestion, because he laughs and puts his hand on my shoulder. “It’s not that long.”
I brush him away. “What are you going to do, get back together with Jess?”
“No, I broke up with Jess because we didn’t click. I don’t know why we didn’t, but we didn’t. You and I click. But now isn’t the right time.”
“I liked you better when you were a nihilist.”
He shrugs.
“I think I’m going to go,” I say and walk to the door. “I guess I’ll be speaking to you in about a year, then.” I hate this. I hate him. Now I have to look for a roommate. Now I have to look for a boyfriend.
“Jackie, wait. I don’t want you to leave angry. For now, we can at least be friends.”
“More friends I don’t need.” This has been the worst week ever. But I’m not going to cry. I haven’t cried since NewYork. “Goodbye.” I leave the apartment, slamming the door behind me.
I don’t feel like talking much when I get home. I sit on the couch and turn on the TV. Maybe I’ll never talk again. Maybe I’ll become some sort of huge freak, and news stations will camp outside the apartment. The entire country will wonder what’s wrong with me. Andrew will see me on TV and feel terrible for making me be by myself, and Sam will feel too bad to move out.
“Are you okay?” Sam asks.
I nod.
“Are you sure?”
I nod again.
I hate my life. I really do. And I have to go back to work tomorrow, where once again the focal point of my existence lies in the placement of semicolons. What’s the point of them, anyway? Why can’t sentences blend together into one long, convoluted unpunctuated idea, just like my pathetic life?
“I’m going to Marc’s,” Sam tells me. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”
I nod. What does it matter anyway?
Twenty minutes later I hear her key on the lock again. She’s back. What did she forget? The handcuffs?
“I changed my mind. I went to the store and bought cookie dough ice cream, facial masks, and a pedicure set. Wanna have a makeover?”
I burst into tears.
“I think he’s full of shit,” she says fifteen minutes later from under a mud-drenched face. “What guy tells a girl she needs time to be alone? It’s too bad—I thought he might take over my lease.”
“What kind of person has a crazy idea like that?”
“One with an overzealous imagination. So what do you want to do about the apartment?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe Natalie will want to move in.”
Could I live with Nat? She’s been dropping hints lately. I think she’s getting tired of living at home. “I guess. Maybe.” As long as she leaves her calorie-counter in Beacon Hill.
After Law and Order (Sam’s no longer addicted to Beautiful Bride), I call Wendy from bed.
“So come with me.”
“I can’t just come.”
“Why not?”
Good question. “Well first of all, I can’t afford it.”
“You have no money put away?”
Hmm. “I have my therapy money. But it’s supposed to go toward a CD player for my car.”
“You don’t have any CDs!”
“Yes I do! I’ve bought a couple since the robbery.”
“How many?”
“Two. But I was planning to buy more with whatever I have left after I buy the player.”
“You can buy a first-class ticket with the money you’ve been swindling! I’ll talk you through buying it over the Net.”
“There’s more to buy than just the ticket. I have to eat in Europe. Baguettes don’t grow on trees. And what about hotels?”
“We’ll stay in youth hostels. We’ll camp out on the highways. We’ll wait tables. We’ll sell costume jewelry in Hyde Park.”
“You’re an investment banker! What investment banker quits her job to sell costume jewelry?”
“I’ll lend you the money. I made an absurd bonus last year.”
“I can’t borrow money from you.” My mind is whirling. I also got a small bonus for Christmas. Small but not entirely insignificant.
“So you won’t borrow money from me. But you’ll come? Say you’ll come.”
Can I really do this? Just take off? “You’re leaving February first. That’s too early for me. Sam won’t mind—she can move into Marc’s place, but we have to give the landlord two months’ notice.”
“So meet me in March. I’ll tour a bit alone first. Where do you want to go?”
“Paris. And then the south of France. And then Italy. I want to take one of those leaning pictures in Pisa.”
“So you’re in?”
“Maybe. Yes. I think. Okay.”
Why should I hang around here? I don’t have a boyfriend, I soon won’t have a roommate, and I’m stuck in a dead-end job.
Iris is going to kill me.
When I walk into work the next morning, I notice red balloons tied all around Helen’s cubicle along with a big red banner that says, “Congratulations!”
What’s going on? Did her dissertation get nominated for a Pulitzer? I will not gratify her by asking what has occurred.
I hate this office. I hate this grammar-obsessed world. I am going to resign immediately. I head toward Shauna’s desk. “I need to talk to you about something.”
“Sure,” she says. “What’s up?”
“I…” Suddenly a chorus of “For she’s a jolly good fellow” interrupts my announcement. I can’t take not knowing anymore. “What’s going on?”
“Oh, didn’t you hear?” Obviously not or I wouldn’t be asking.
“We’re publishing Helen’s book!”
“What book?”
“Helen wrote a romance novel for Love and Lust and we’re going to publish it!”
Helen wrote a novel? “When did Helen write a novel?”
“A couple of months ago.”
“What’s it called?”
“The Millionaire Takes a Bride. I guess it’s about a millionaire who gets married.”
Brilliant deduction, Shauna.
Wait a second. I edited The Millionaire Takes a Bride. There were sex scenes in it. Helen wrote sex scenes? Helen’s had sex?
I storm over to Helen’s desk.
“You wrote The Millionaire Takes a Bride?”
“Oh, good, Jackie, I’m glad you’re here because—”
“Why didn’t you tell me? I edited it for you!”
“I didn’t want you to know it was mine. I wanted you to remain objective.”
“But why did you ask for
my help, since this was a personal project? Julie has a lot more experience.” And you know I can’t stand you, you comma-crazy coworker.
Helen thinks about this for a second. “I wanted it to be polished, but not too polished.”
“Gee, thanks.” Bitch.
“Your editorial comments have been far more valuable to me than your copyediting.”
I soften a bit. “Really?”
“I’m serious. I could never have published the book without your help. Thank you.”
How was I tricked into involuntarily helping Helen fulfill her dreams? “You’re welcome. And congratulations.”
“Actually, there’s more. I’m quitting my job to pursue writing full-time.”
What? No more Helen? Yay! I’d be dancing for joy if I wasn’t off to Europe anyway.
“And I’m going to recommend you for my position. I know how much you appreciate commas and punctuation, but you have an excellent eye for substantive editing. And my recommendation carries a lot of weight.”
I stare at her openmouthed. Has the world gone mad? Helen is a romance writer? Helen is recommending me for her job? What do I do? What about Europe? If I take this job, I may never again have the opportunity to find myself. I could remain lost forever. People will stop me in the street and ask, “How are you?” and I’ll answer, “How should I know how I am when I don’t even know where I am? Can’t you see I’m lost?”
I thank her and bury myself in my cubicle. I desperately need to speak to someone about this, and while Wendy normally receives all my crisis-related phone calls, I have a feeling her opinion might be slightly biased.
I call Janie. Thank God she’s home.
“What do I do?” I ask her.
“When I was about to graduate, my philosophy professor asked me what I was planning to do with my life. I told him I was getting married. He said I was too young, that I should go to Europe instead and find a lover.”
“So…you’re saying I should go?”
“I’m saying you’re only young once. How often can you just pick up and take off?”
Hmm. According to you, all the time. “But what about Iris? She’s supposed to stay with me this summer.”
“You let me worry about Iris. Right now, you have to do what’s best for you. Europe! How exciting!”
Something tells me that once I leave Boston, I’m never coming back. Not to live, anyway. Am I ready to leave Boston for good? I’ll probably end up in New York. On the other hand, if I stay here, I will be in constant fear of running into Jeremy or Andrew. And what about a roommate? Do I want to spend the next year counting calories in a flowery spiraled notebook?
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