What Doesn't Kill You

by Virginia DeBerry

In a way, moving was like going on a diet—and succeeding. All those excess pounds you’d been packing on little by little—the ones you chose not to notice—have vanished and you feel lighter, freer. So when I looked around my newly svelte surroundings, I liked the trimmed-down me. Two bedrooms—I made one a guest room/office—living room, dining area, kitchen, bath and a half. I even still had a fireplace and a little patio—just right and all on one floor.

  Once Amber was gone, even before my world shriveled to two rooms after I’d hurt my foot, the house was well on its way to outsizing me. I hadn’t realized that just one other person makes such a difference. At first her absence was an opportunity for me to spread out, fill up some of the emptiness—which I don’t mean to sound like I was lonely, because I wasn’t. But so much of the place was unlived in. I had a dining room I used twice a year max and a basement warehouse where I stored enough napkins and pickles to last into the next millennium among other stock-up sale items. You know me—everything had a place, and I knew where and what it all was. The problem was I ended up with too much of all of it.

  And I’ll tell you one thing: toe trouble or not, I did not miss the stairs.

  16

  …the only thing standing in my way is me…

  If you really want to do it, you’ll find a way.” It was like one of those songs you can’t get out of your head. It’s fine at first, but at some point you just want it to leave you alone—but it won’t. I kept hearing Julie say it, and quiet as kept, the thought of starting a business hung around in my head more than I let on. NAB was a dead end—they might as well have posted the big yellow sign on the door, maybe next to a U-turn. And even though I kept my résumé in cyber circulation, since Derma-Teq I hadn’t gotten any nibbles that led to a full-course meal, and you know who ended up hungry behind that fiasco.

  Since I had peewee-sized my life, my money worries weren’t erased, but they weren’t eating me up all the time either. So after work and on weekends, while normal people were having a life, I consumed the “stash or trash” shows like popcorn, looking for proof I couldn’t do the same thing as much as confirmation that I could. I was well aware that in untelevised “reality,” it took longer than a day or two and cost more than whatever they tell you to turn a dump into a showcase. But I would look at my notes—yes, I took notes—and try to figure out how much time and money an actual makeover would take. I surfed online and found companies that did shelving units, file drawers, attractive boxes, bins, desks and file folders, ordered some catalogs, even found an organization for organizing professionals—with a code of ethics, a local chapter, a certification process. I could even qualify to join as a provisional member. How did I get anything done before the internet? I went to stores that sell nothing but storage to contain all the other stuff you bought. It was a constructive outlet for my shopping expertise. I was observing, not purchasing.

  Those design shows always have a Mess Master who gets credit for the transformation, but I knew there were a pack of Mess Minions behind the scenes, sorting, stacking and arranging ’til the break of dawn. I did not have minion one. What was the timetable to do a project solo? Granted, I wasn’t looking to reconstruct your playroom or design that north wing you’ve been thinking about adding to Southfork. My specialty—if you can call it that—is organization. But should I focus on decluttering offices, since I had done that, homes—actually I’d done that too, at least mine—or try to do both? What would I call myself, my company? It wasn’t exactly the most important piece of the puzzle, but I had come up with a name. Hadn’t tried it on anybody. Hell, I couldn’t say “my company” out loud because it sounded, well, crazy.

  Which brings me to the biggest question I kept asking myself: Who was I kidding?

  It’s so much easier to talk game than to shut up and play. But what did I know about starting a business? Zip. Nada. It’s not what my associate’s degree was about. They taught me how to work for somebody else, not for myself. And yes, I had been there with Olivia from almost the beginning—but not quite. I wasn’t around when she hatched Markson & Daughter. Did it pop into her head one day, while she was folding laundry or taking Hillary to preschool or examining cucumbers in the market? It’s a big leap from a hobby she started to keep from upchucking when she was pregnant to offering a product for sale. How did she arrive at the notion that she could turn her homemade potions and lotions into a bona fide, moneymaking enterprise? It never occurred to me to ask. Besides, her ex was rich, so what did she have to lose? Except she still had to muster the confidence to take herself seriously, research ingredients, standardize formulas, find jars and labels—which is where I came into the picture. So even though she was still concocting her brew at the kitchen table when I met her, Markson & Daughter was already an entity, at least to her. Where do you go for that?

  Besides, what was I supposed to do for money? You need capital to start a business, and I didn’t know anybody who had enough money to be called capital. Not that I needed a lot. I wouldn’t have inventory or require a warehouse. Each job would be custom. I’d order supplies and furnishing to suit the client’s needs. And when I realized I was thinking about clients, I had to take two giant steps back, because I had not said “May I.”

  And with Olivia gone, I didn’t have famous or important friends who would talk up my new venture—give me an edge to quote Phill, two lls. I mean, even the village idiot knows it’s all about whose ear you’ve got and who takes your calls, right? Just because I was sure I could organize with the best of them didn’t mean anybody would actually let me try it in their house. I mean, would you? Well, maybe, but you already know a lot more about me than most folks. Anyway, I didn’t have time; I had a full-time job—taking me exactly nowhere. Isn’t that where this started?

  Trust me, I had plenty of arguments for why I shouldn’t chase this crazy idea, but I couldn’t let it go. And Julie wasn’t giving me any slack or letting me feel defeated before I could start. I mean, she herself was exhibit A. Two years ago she was answering phones, greeting visitors and making sure we didn’t run out of coffee and bottled water. A year after that she was happy just to get a gig as Christmas help at the Markson counter—which, you will remember, appalled me. Now she was a department manager, about to be in charge of the brand for all the stores in New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania—truly a caterpillar-to-butterfly transformation.

  On an afternoon when I was being a truly doubting Thomasina, she said, “We start where we start, and some people get a head start, but it doesn’t mean they always finish first.” When did she get so wise? Right under my nose.

  But I still wasn’t convinced or willing to admit I had never contemplated a move that scared me so much. So even though we had both gotten our sack of lemons at the same time, Julie was now sipping cool, sweet lemonade and munching on luscious lemon bars, while I was still chomping on rind and seeds and complaining about the nasty taste. So I chewed—always mindful of my home-filled tooth—and I stewed.

  I guess she’d had enough of my naysaying the day she told me if I was so smart, why didn’t I quit coming up with questions and try some answers for a change. Alrighty then. Julie knew me well enough to be sure I’d take the dare. So I opened my mouth before I could reason myself out of answering and said, “I do have a name.” We were on the phone, but I could just see her head cock to the side, waiting to hear it. There was no backing out, so I told her “To a Tee.” It came to me during one of my daily traffic crawls, which had become my daydreaming time. I had even played with the fonts on the computer to come up with just the right look—creative, modern, sleek. I hoped I sounded confident when I said it, because it was the first time anybody—including me—was hearing it aloud.

  Apparently Julie said, “It’s perfect,” but I never heard it because I was so busy defending my choice—it’s easy to remember, it speaks to the service, it uses my name, it’s part of my mission to create an environment for each customer that fits their needs to a tee. I had even gone bac
k to my very outdated marketing and business-administration textbooks to jog my memory. When Julie could finally shut me up, she told me she agreed 100 percent, then leapfrogged to business cards and brochures, which she was already planning to distribute in the employee cafeterias and locker rooms of the stores in her territory and on the bulletin board at her church. Then I had to stop her because she was getting carried way, and it gave me a headache. I had a name for my make-believe business, and she was already advertising it. Before we hung up, she said she’d told her Markson rep I was starting my own company. Which I know was meant to really light a fire under my pot—and it did.

  I was 97 percent sure Julie’s sales rep wouldn’t know me, and even more certain he couldn’t find Didier’s office without GPS, but gossip spread in that company like the flu. So the idea that word about my venture might find its way to the big corner office made the stakes instantly higher. Funny how motivating that was—the opportunity to prove, if only to myself, that I could do just fine without Markson.

  And that night I dreamed about Olivia for the first time since she died. She was in her pajamas, sitting on the porch in her rocker, like she had been that last day. But I was sitting with her and we were having our very first conversation—from the afternoon I showed up at her loft looking for a job with the listing I’d swiped from the placement-office bulletin board in my purse so no one else could apply. I was writing on a notepad and Olivia looked over my shoulder, admiring my penmanship and saying, more to herself than to me, “Definitely destiny.”

  Hmmm—maybe it was.

  The next day at work, in between fender-bender follow-ups, I played with slogans for To a Tee, doodled logos, made notes on my blotter about what to include in the flyer. When I got home I turned on the computer, and instead of checking the sites where I’d posted my résumé, I started a To a Tee file; now that I’d said it, I couldn’t stop. I transferred my notes from the office and swore off design shows until I had put some part of my so-called business plan in action. Daydreams feel good, but I had to make a move toward something real or let them go.

  I knew that from my very own laptop I could create flyers, business cards, brochures and postcards—I just didn’t know how. Lucky for me, my globetrotting child had it covered. Amber came by long enough to give me a crash course. When I first mentioned my plan, she teased me about becoming an entrepreNegro, but she and J.J. were all for me exploring my free-enterprise zone. He offered to do my accounting, when I had some. My graphic-design lesson lasted about an hour. No argument from me. I know where Amber inherited her recessive patience gene. But she made it look so easy. And maybe because it just feels wrong being instructed by the person you taught how to eat with a fork and to always wipe from front to back, I didn’t let on that I only understood about half of what she said.

  Despite numerous accidental deletions, files I forgot to save, and the cuss words that went with them, nine nights later I had printed business cards and prototypes of flyers. I played up my experience at organizing Olivia’s business, which sounded a whole lot more impressive than keeping my kitchen tidy. I tacked them to my bulletin board, taped them to the kitchen cabinets, the bathroom door, left them on the coffee table. I admired them, compared them. From day to day a different one became my favorite. When I started working for her, Olivia didn’t have all this.

  Now what was I supposed to do?

  How many did I need? Where would I distribute them? And what the hell would I do if I got any response? I don’t want to say I was paralyzed—that sounds so dramatic. But forward progress screeched to a halt.

  I don’t know if I was waiting for Olivia to reappear in my dreams, or a genie to pop out of my computer and show me “the way” Julie kept telling me I’d find if I wanted to, but since she was in training for her new position, and Amber was in Mexico City, nobody was bugging me about my progress. So I wasn’t making any.

  I was catching up on the papers one Sunday afternoon and relaxing after a Satruday at the dentist, finally, when Ron called, asked if it was a good time for him to come over and take care of the scratch on my car door. What scratch? Then I remembered J.J. pointing it out to me during the move. The mark was so small, I had missed and dismissed it. And as for Ron, I hadn’t seen him since he got back from Florida, not that he hadn’t left messages. I wasn’t exactly avoiding him, but with selling the house, packing, moving, working, inventing a business and the graphics that went with it, I hadn’t fit Ron into the schedule. Guess I could have called the man back, huh?

  Now, I was busy, not dead. I’d definitely thought about him from time to time—our diner dinner, the postcookie lip lock and the merry mistletoe encounter had kept me entertained when I needed a break from my fun-challenged life. And obviously Baby Son-in-Law had taken it upon himself to update good old cousin Ron—at least about the condition of my car.

  Ron’s call ended my lazy Sunday daze, but one of the nice things about my smaller digs was that all I had to do was tidy the newspapers, ditch the tea mug, swipe away the toast crumbs and I was ready for company.

  I did put on my brand-new jeans. I had pretty much retired from denim when Amber was little. At the time I was interested in looking grown and responsible. Well, one day I was over at their house, helping Amber measure for drapes; she was going to get custom but decided they were too expensive—for now. She said she’d splurge when they moved to the next house. OK, she got at least some of my money sermon. Anyway, she pulls out some magazine—the spring fashion issue—and flips to the spread showing the dos and don’ts of denim for all ages. She points to a diva with a slick gray chin-length bob and says, “See, Ma, she’s seventy-three and she looks hot. You’d look great in these. You’re not that old.” Not that old? Thank you very much, daughter dear.

  We were going to the mall anyway, so she dragged me from store to store—exhausting, I was definitely out of practice—and made me try on about 602 pairs. Straight leg, boot cut, flairs, classics, plain, embroidered, sparkled. I had two rules. No low rise—I was not interested in spillage. And no cargo style, because there is nothing I want to put in the pockets around my knees. Finally she pronounced the winner. I thought my butt looked too big, and when did jeans get to be $100? She said they looked just right, and they were 30 percent off—an early Mother’s Day present. Wonders will never cease. She said I needed a fresh look to go with my new bachelorette pad. Is that where I was living?

  Anyway, I had on a cute white shirt and my big hips in my hip pants when I buzzed Ron in. Now, it’s no secret that I found the man appealing. Except nothing about our association had seemed exactly kosher to me from the giddyup. I still hadn’t wrapped my brain around whatever it was we were doing—how-some-ever, cute counts. So I fluffed my hair and let him in. He gave me that killer smile, a peck on the lips—said he was just letting me know he was outside working on the car, then he went back out. Was I a teensy bit disappointed the kiss wasn’t more, well, you know, more. You betcha, but what did I expect? The man kept tossing the ball in my court, and I wouldn’t play catch. But it did seem kinda rude to have him out there all by himself taking care of my bodywork. So I grabbed a jacket—red suede, not new, but it was cute—and joined him.

  Ron had on jeans too, so I was happy with my wardrobe selection, not that it meant anything special or that he even noticed. He was busy examining the ding on the rear passenger-side door like a surgeon—ran his hand over the nick, looked at it from different angles, and finally pulled a couple of mysterious-looking tools from his bag. He assured me it would look like new when he was done and went to work. Hell, as far as I was concerned, thanks to his surprise paint job, it already did. He was bent over, with his machine whizzing and whirring, which gave me a perfect opportunity to check out some things from different angles too. I must say, looking at him definitely rekindled my fondness for denim.

  Half an hour later he was packing his equipment and telling me it shouldn’t get wet for a few hours. I assured him I wasn’t planning to head
to the car wash. He laughed, then he asked how my plans were going for the new business. One of the two informants must have snitched. He said being on his own was more than a notion, but so was a job if you’re doing it right. “At least I don’t have to wonder what the boss is thinking.” I ’fessed up—told him I’d hit an impasse after completing my research and stationery-design phases, but I couldn’t figure out what to do next, so I hadn’t done anything. Then he asked if I wanted to go for coffee. I said I’d make some.

  As usual, Ron’s presence had me somewhere slightly left of myself. He looked around while I rummaged in the freezer for the bag of Blue Mountain I had been saving for a special occasion. When he came into the kitchen he said he liked my new place—that it suited me. My sample flyer was in his hand and he said, “This looks ready to go.” And I said, “Go where?” I didn’t have an ad budget or a listing in the phone book. I wasn’t ready for a website yet. I kept circling the same problem. I had to have clients to get clients, but where was I supposed to find them?

  “Paper cars.”

  What was he talking about? So he explained, without making me feel like a total airhead, that I should go to the parking lots of the places where people who might be interested in organizing spend time and money—office and home superstores for a start—and put my brochure on their cars. Oh. How many times had I come out to my car and found some flyer stuck under my windshield wiper? I said, mostly they end up in the backseat. And he said most of them will, “but you only need the right few people to answer.”

  He said he used to do it when he first got started, and that weekends would probably be the place to begin, but it wouldn’t hurt to hit the stores midweek too. Uh-huh. Can’t you picture me running from car to car with my stack of yellow and blue flyers? No? Me either. Then I heard Julie’s voice in my head—about making it happen.