by Jane Porter
“Never mind.” And I set off again, and I’m walking fast, but my step is longer, lighter, and I feel as if an enormous weight had toppled from my head.
I don’t need to kiss any more frogs. I’m done With hunting for Prince Charming. Because I don’t need a man, or a relationship, to fix me. I may not be perfect, but I’m me, and I like myself just fine.
Two weeks pass, and it’s Palm Sunday, and Katie, ever my good Catholic friend, goes to mass and then meets me for brunch after.
I get to the restaurant first and watch Katie enter, carrying her little bit of palm that’s been folded into a cross. We like having breakfast together because we both indulge—waffles, pancakes, eggs, whatever we want—and there’s no one here to remind us to watch our weight or waists.
“Are you going home to Visalia for Easter?” Katie asks, diving into her beautifully pan-fried country-style potatoes.
“No. I’m staying in town. What about you?”
“In town, too.”
“Then let’s do something,” I suggest. ‘Like Easter brunch at my place. I’ll make something, and we can dye our own Easter eggs. What do you think?”
Katie spears a golden-brown potato. “You want to dye eggs?”
“Yeah. I love decorating Easter eggs. Don’t you?”
“Haven’t done it in years.”
“Exactly why we should do it, then. We’ll make it a party. You and me.” I grin. “Girl power.”
Katie’s forehead wrinkles. “Do you think you might be taking this single-girl thing too far? Perhaps it’s time you started dating again.”
“I’ve thought about it.”
“And...?”
“I might if Gorgeous Guy asked me out. Or Brian Fadden. I like them both.”
“So?”
“They haven’t asked me out.”
“Why don’t you ask them?”
“Nah. Don’t need the hassle.”
“Holly, there are girls in this world, and there are guys.”
“I know, but guys are seriously overrated.”
Katie is still giving me a sharp look. “You’re not... going to start liking girls now, are you?”
“Be a lesbian, you mean?”
“This is San Francisco.”
I just crack up. “You wouldn’t want to have sex with me?”
“No.”
“Why not? I’m cute, I’m smart, I’m funny—”
“Yeah, and you have breasts.”
“Thank you.”
Katie just rolls her eyes. “And hips and a big butt...”
I frown at her. “Now, that’s kind of harsh.”
“Perhaps. But you have girl parts,” she concludes, waving her fork around, “and girl parts don’t do it for me.”
“So that’s why we have men.”
Katie grins, leans forward on the table. “What else did you think they were for?”
“I don’t know.”
“They were never meant to be nurturers, Hol. They’re cavemen. They live for food, sleep, and sex, not necessarily in that order. But face it, men are driven to procreate. That’s what they do.”
“And what do we do?” I ask, knowing I’ve gone years without sex, years without love.
Katie pops a grape from her little fruit plate into her mouth. “That’s a very good question. That’s the part I haven’t figured out. What do we do?”
I don’t know, and as I leave brunch to walk back to my’ apartment, I still haven’t a clue.
We’re raised on fairy tales and baby dolls, Barbie dolls and Modem Bride. We read Oprah books and cozy mysteries, romances, Cosmo, and People magazine. We watch soaps and dramas, romantic comedies and action thrillers with our guys. And what’s the one thing all these have in common?
Others.
We read, dream, watch, and fantasize about others. Loving others. Giving to others. Helping others. And one day being loved by others.
But do we ever learn to love ourselves?
Do we ever get to the point where we’re fine on our own? Happy, without others?
I can only hope so.
Katie and I do our own little Easter thing, and it’s not quite the celebration I’d planned, but it suffices. Next year I’ll do better, invite more people over, but it was a start.
Monday I’m back at work, and Kid Fest is coming up. Just six days away. It’s my project, and I’m beginning to feel the heat. It’s a high-profile event—lots of media folks cosponsor this one—and Olivia keeps asking if I’m sure I have everything handled. And I think I’m sure, until she asks yet again, implying failure. But I don’t fail; I’m not a failure. And as I leaf through my paperwork again, make last-minute calls, I know I couldn’t be any more organized than I am.
Sunday, Birch Museum at the Presidio, ten A.M. to two P.M.
Carnival theme replete with clowns, face painters, balloon artists, magicians, a game alley, and fun food (corn dogs, hot dogs, cheeseburgers, popcorn, cotton candy, snow cones, and more).
There’ll be music. Free T-shirts and treat bags for all the kids to take home, plus the requisite photographers and minor San Francisco celebrities. It’s an event. A proper event, and I’m a little stressed but mostly satisfied.
I’m still tidying up my desk when Josh stops by and invites me to join him and Tessa and a couple other people from the office for happy hour. I’m definitely in, and quickly finish putting away the Kid Fest files and shutting down my computer.
Tessa has a craving for sushi, so we head to her favorite place in the Marina called Mas Sake. Mas Sake is on Fillmore and Lombard Streets, Lombard dividing Cow Hollow from the Marina. Tonight Josh drives, and we circle the block several times with everyone shouting in his ear, giving parking pointers, before he secures a spot several blocks over.
We’re all in a good mood. It’s late April, and spring has definitely sprung; it’s staying light later, and the sky has that lovely hazy violet-blue color with tinges of pink on the horizon.
Mas Sake on weekends is a zoo, and when Josh pushes open the glass door, revealing the yellow interior with dark red beams, it’s loud. Very loud. All music, clinking glasses, and shouting voices.
The bar is packed for Mas Sake’s famous happy hour, featuring dollar wine, beer, and sake, and all-you-can-eat sushi for twenty dollars, which is what brought Tessa here tonight.
I’d like to wait for one of the booths lining the side of the narrow restaurant, but Tessa, the intrepid New Yorker, elbows through the crowd and plunks herself down at the long table running the length of the middle of the restaurant and starts commandeering spare chairs, squeezing them in next to her to create room for the rest of us.
“There,” she says, “sit.” And we do.
We order drinks next: wine, beer, and Mas Sake’s own cocktail, the sake-rita. Tessa wants sushi, but I study the appetizer menu, skirting the traditional and nontraditional sushi choices, for chicken satay. What can I say? I’m a Valley girl, landlocked, aggie based. I like meat: steak, chicken—absurdly nonthreatening, but that’s me.
We’re on our second round of drinks when my cell phone rings. I peek into my purse, look at the number. It’s Olivia. I frown, wondering if I have to answer it. It’s Friday, after six o’clock, and the workweek has officially ended. She may be my immediate supervisor, but she doesn’t own me. I snap my purse shut without answering. Olivia can leave a message. I’ll call her back later.
We hang out at Mas Sake for another hour, and then, when the other girls go and Josh and Tessa talk about heading next door to La Barca because Josh is now hungry and craving Mexican food, it’s my cue to leave. I say good night and go home and spend the rest of the evening quite comfortable in front of my TV.
But as I climb into bed, I remember that Olivia phoned, and I retrieve my cell phone from my purse, but there’s no message. Good. I didn’t want to talk to her anyway. Yawning, I stretch, snuggle contentedly into my covers, and drift off to sleep.
I’m up early on Sunday for Kid Fest, go fo
r a quick run and an even quicker shower before changing into dark charcoal slacks, a tailored periwinkle blue blouse, and low-heeled but still stylish shoes. I’m going to be on my feet all day, and I’m going to need to be comfortable.
That’s when the good day ends and the bad day begins.
To put it bluntly, Kid Fest is a disaster.
Sunday, 10:45 A.M., the sun’s up, the morning fog has burned off, and I stand in the Birch Museum’s parking lot, watching hostile social workers and foster parents reloading even more hostile kids into cars.
I arrived at the Birch at nine, an hour before the event was to start, only to discover the science and technology museum dark and locked up tight, the parking lot empty except for my lone car. I couldn’t even find a security guard around.
I immediately got on the phone, but who would I even call regarding the museum? And never mind the dark museum—where was everyone else?
My caterers? My balloon artists? My clowns and magicians?
Where was my party?
And even as I was struggling to get answers, the first bus pulled up, jam-packed with kids and staff from the South San Francisco Boys and Girls Club. The guests had begun to arrive, and soon vans and cars were, filling the parking lot, emptying out parents, sponsors, and kids, and there we gathered in the parking lot in the April morning sunshine.
Before I knew it, I was under siege. A crowd gathered around me. Children started crying. Adult voices were raised.
“What the hell is going on?”
“How did this happen?”
“Where is your boss?”
“I demand an explanation.”
“I want to speak with the person in charge immediately...”
It only got worse from there. I was alone with the parents, social workers, and angry at-risk children, without even one face painter or popcorn maker to back me up, lend support, or offer assistance.
It was truly as if the event, Kid Fest, never existed. No clowns, no caterers, no carnival booths, no inflatable bounce house.
No anything.
Just the kids. Crying.
I hired a dozen different companies to be here today, and there’s no one at the Birch. No one I’ve worked with in the past. No one I paid money to, signed contracts with. Nothing.
I’m beyond baffled. I’m freaked. Panicked. Sweating away in my periwinkle blouse.
I do fruitless, desperate mental calculations. This is the 26th of April. Sunday. Kid Fest Day. This is what I’ve been working so hard on for the past few weeks. Nailing down the details, double-and triple-checking the entertainment for the kids, making sure they had more than enough to do. Arts, crafts, games, sweets, treats, goodie bags. But the phone calls, the packet of confirmations, the letters and contracts in my briefcase, might as well be nonexistent. The entire event is gone. Vanished.
Now I’m on my cell phone, running from one cluster of adults to another, pleading with them to wait a minute, let me just get someone on the phone, that there’s been a mistake and I can get this fixed, even as I begin dialing my contact list all over again, calling one vendor and then another. No one answers, but then, this is Sunday. The Lord’s day. The day of rest.
Hell and damnation.
Maybe I should have gone to church more after all.
White noise fills my head. My heart’s pounding so hard, I think it’s going to jump through my chest. I suppress the panic with everything I can.
Please, someone, have a cell phone, or call-forwarding, or something.
Something.
Cars are pulling away; one fifteen-passenger van leaves fast, the driver leaning heavily on the horn, and the bus packed with kids from South San Francisco Boys and Girls Club is now exiting from the parking lot.
Sick, I watch the departing stream of buses and cars, all the while my fingers punching in phone number after phone number. Someone has to know something. Someone has to know—
“Hello?”
Thank God! It’s Barb from Balloon Wizardry. She works from home, and she picks up the phone. “Barb, it’s Holly from City Events.”
“Hi, Holly—”
“Barb, where are you?”
There’s the faintest pause. “What do you mean?”
“Kid Fest. Today. Where are you?”
“Kid Fest was canceled.”
I go cold all over. “No.”
“Yes.”
“Barb, it can’t be canceled, because the kids are all here with me, and we’re standing outside the Birch Museum, wondering where everyone else is.”
“But you called—”
“I didn’t call.”
“Your assistant called.”
“I don’t have an assistant.”
“Maybe she wasn’t your assistant. I actually don’t remember her name, just that she said due to a low turnout the event had been canceled.”
“When was this?”
“Friday.”
“Friday?”
“Day before yesterday, late afternoon, early evening, something like that.” Barb cleared her throat. “And I reminded her about our cancellation policy. There’s no refund within forty-eight hours.”
And it was obviously within forty-eight hours.
Barb adds apologetically, “Most of the balloon statues were already made. They hold air for weeks, and the storybook figurines were completed.”
I do not know what to say.
Barb doesn’t either. She hesitates. Silence stretches, and I watch another car leave the parking lot, and children pile into a minivan. Soon everyone will be gone.
This has to stop. This is wrong. Kid Fest was never canceled. Kid Fest was for kids in need, and it’s a big deal to the kids, and it’s supposed to happen today.
Right now.
“I better go,” I say.
“Okay,” Barb answers uncertainly. “But call me if there’s anything I can do.”
I hang up and race toward the vans and the adults trying to corral kids who’ve begun to go berserk. Some of the adults are ballistic.
Do I have any idea what this has done to the kids? Do I know how this looks? How it feels? These are children already unloved, unwanted... these are children isolated, alienated—and to treat them this way, it’s just a slap. A slap, and I should be ashamed...
I am ashamed. I’ve no idea what happened, although there’s a sick knot in my stomach that says I kind of do know, but there’s got to be a way to salvage something today.
I stare at my phone, wanting it to speak to me, to give advice, to tell me who to call.
I punch in Olivia’s number. She’s on speed dial, number 1—ironic, isn’t it?—and get her voice mail. I try again three more times and finally leave a slightly hysterical message, begging her to call me.
I try Josh. Nothing, just voice mail, and I leave another, more hysterical message.
Tessa next. Her phone is off.
My God. I’m alone in this, completely, horribly alone, and the disaster is complete when I see a reporter and a photographer from the Chronicle step out of a car across the street and head toward me.
The event’s canceled, but the press still comes? Irony number 2.
Chapter Eighteen
I get home. Let the door swing shut. Allow my coat and keys to fall onto the couch while I slide down in my dark charcoal pants, onto the carpet next to the couch, until my head leans against the cushions.
I’m boneless, nerveless, gone.
How did this happen? Correction: I know how this happened; I feel it in my gut, hard and heavy as a rock—but how? How, as in, how can anyone be so malicious? So selfish? So frightened? So insecure? So cruel?
I want to cry; it’d be such a relief, but I can’t. The sick feeling in me is so strong, too strong, and it threatens to swallow me whole.
How could I have screwed up anything this bad? How could something good—an event for kids, troubled kids—be the right vehicle for getting back at me?
Why should the kids be hurt in all this?
How could whoever did this—Olivia, or Sara, or both of them—think anything has been achieved?
And will David believe me when I tell him this fiasco isn’t my fault? Will he listen when I point a finger in someone else’s direction?
I doubt it. I’m low man on the totem pole. Olivia represents power, success, clout. I’m... nothing.
I roll off the couch, grab my cell phone from my purse, and call Josh again. He answers this time.
“I was just about to call you,” he says. “What happened?”
I tell him in as few words as possible, and he’s silent a moment before exhaling in a low whoosh, “This is bad.”
“I know.”
“This is Kid Fest.”
“I know.”
“Let’s go to the office,” he says. “Check out your computer and files—”
“I don’t have access.”
“I do. I’ll come by and pick you up in thirty minutes.”
Inside the dark, cavernous loft of City Events, my cubicle looks very small, and Josh and I stand over my desk with just its individual desk light on, poring over my file fat with notes, contracts, and event details.
I rummage through the papers, and everything in the first contract looks fine—right date, right numbers, right event description—until I check the location for delivery. It’s been changed.
I look up at Josh, hand the paper to him. He takes it, scans it, hands it back to me, but I’m already on to another contract, and this one is altered, too, but the event date is different, postponed to June.
Another contract reads. “Canceled.”
Another one, for the caterer, is simply missing.
“Josh...” I open my mouth, close it. I don’t know what to say, and I glance down at the contract in my hand, read through the changes again. “I’m screwed.”
He’s silent a moment before he clicks off the light on my desk. “Just hope those photos the Chronicle took this morning don’t land on the front page.”
I don’t sleep at all that night, tossing and turning, praying and then fearing my cell phone will ring. If Olivia should call me back...
But she doesn’t call, even though I leave both phones on the nightstand next to my bed, and finally at four thirty I give up on sleep and climb out of bed, go for a very early morning run, and on the way back to my apartment I buy the Monday San Francisco Chronicle, leafing through the pages as I enter my front door.