XO,
J.A.C.I.
You finish writing the blog, and then you read it through.
You think you’re pretty funny.
You locate the Publish button.
If you save it to your draft folder and then wait until morning to decide whether you want to publish.
If you delete it.
If you publish it.
You publish the blog before you chicken out. You refresh the browser several times to check and see if there are comments. There aren’t. You brush and floss your teeth, and when you come back, there is one comment—a spam that reads “Ginuine $$$Louise Vuittone$$$ purses—What All the Super Classy Women Want—Just Click Here.” You erase the comment and strengthen your spam filter settings. You laugh. Who did you think was going to comment on your blog? No one knows about your blog. You consider deleting the blog, but you leave it there. You can use it the next time you have something to complain about.
In the morning, you drive up to Boca to see your mother.
When you think of your mother, the word that occurs to you is too. She hugs you too hard, kisses you too long, asks you too many questions, worries too much about your weight/your love life/your friendships/your future/your water consumption. She loves you with an almost religious fervor. She loves you too much. The love makes you feel embarrassed for her and almost guilty—other than be born, what have you done to deserve such love?
She is happy to buy you new work outfits. Of course she is. What is within her power to provide, she always happily provides. She doesn’t explicitly mention your weight. She says things like, “The next size up might look more fashion forward” or “You don’t want the skirt to ride up in the back” or “That jacket is cute, but it pulls a teeny bit across your boobs” or “Maybe we should go up to lingerie to look at bodysuits?” You feel too defeated to argue. The purpose of these clothes is to avoid a future confrontation with the supervisor.
You wonder how much of your mother’s disapproval of your body is in your head and not based on anything she actually says. It cannot be denied that your mother is very slender. She has long dancer legs, perky boobs, and even at forty-eight years old a waist nearly as trim as Audrey Hepburn’s. She works out religiously. The only thing she loves more than her job as a vice principal is the gym.
In return for the shopping, your mother grills you about your new job.
“So you like working with the congressman?” she says.
You laugh. “I don’t work with him directly, not really.”
“What do you do, then?”
“It’s boring,” you say.
“Not to me! Your first real job!”
“I don’t get paid,” you say. “So it’s not a real job.”
“Still, this is exciting stuff,” she says. “Tell me, my daughter. What do you do?”
“I answer phones,” you say. “I get coffee.”
“Aviva, come on, give me one good story to take back to Roz.”
“I didn’t take this job so you’d have stories for Roz Horowitz.”
“Something about the congressman.”
“Mom,” you say impatiently. “Thank you for the clothes, but honestly, there’s nothing to tell. I should get back to Miami.”
When you return to work, you are more acceptable to your hypocrite supervisor. “Looking good,” she says.
You thank her and you hate yourself for thanking her. You want to say something sharp like, “I’m glad you no longer have to be repulsed by the sight of my flesh straining cheap fabric,” but you don’t. You want to do well at this job. You don’t want to screw this up. You want to have a good story for your mother to tell Roz Horowitz. You cross your arms in front of your chest, and the suit jacket doesn’t pull at all, and it feels like your mother is hugging you, and you could almost cry for gratitude. You wonder what girl interns who don’t have doting, wealthy mothers do when they are caught in such a situation.
You settle into life as an intern. Sometimes, you read the mail from the public. Sometimes, you get coffee for the office. Sometimes, you fact-check and research the congressman’s speeches. The year is 1999, and you seem to be the only one in the office who knows how to perform an Internet search properly. “You’re a wizard, Aviva,” says the supervisor.
You become known as the “Fact-Check Girl.” You become the official Young Person in the Office, expert on youth-related matters. You become invaluable. You have heard the congressman himself say, “Put Aviva on it.” You suggest that the congressman start a blog to talk to the younger voters, and your suggestion is adopted. You love being important. You love your work.
Charlie Greene asks you to come to his grandparents’ house for his birthday. You agree because, despite your relatively meteoric rise, Charlie is still your only friend in the office.
On the night of Charlie’s dinner, your supervisor asks if you could do some research for the congressman.
“What kind of research?” you say.
“Something for his speech on the environment this weekend,” the supervisor says. “It’s super important that this speech go well as I’m sure you know.”
“No problem,” you say, “I’ll get to it first thing tomorrow.” You explain about Charlie’s birthday.
“Could you stay just a little longer? I know the congressman wanted it tonight. He’ll tell you exactly what he needs when he gets here.”
“I can come back as soon as the dinner is over,” you say. You don’t even want to go to Charlie’s house, but you said you would.
“The congressman specifically asked for you. You’ve made a real impression on him,” the supervisor says.
“That’s nice to hear,” you say. You look at your watch. If you don’t leave in five minutes, you’ll never make it to Century Village on time. You look at Charlie’s present, which is sitting on your desk: a collection of Letterman top ten lists.
“Charlie’s a great kid. He’ll understand. And we’re all in this together, aren’t we?”
If you tell the supervisor to screw himself, you’re going to dinner and you’ll be back at ten.
If you call Charlie and tell him you’re going to be late.
If you don’t call Charlie (you don’t want him to talk you out of staying) and you stay at work (you’ll get there when you can).
You fall asleep in your cubicle. You miss Charlie’s dinner, and the supervisor must have gone home, and the congressman hasn’t even asked you for whatever it is he wants.
You feel a hand on your shoulder.
It’s the congressman.
“Hey, sleepyhead,” the congressman says, “what are you still doing here?”
You take a moment to orient yourself and then you say, “They told me you needed me so I stayed!”
“No, they shouldn’t have done that. I’m not anywhere near done,” he says. “I’ll be able to tell you what I need tomorrow.”
You shake your head, and you take a deep breath, and you say more harshly than you mean to, “Well, I guess I’m going home then.”
“Wait,” he says. “Aviva, what is it?”
“It won’t matter to you, but I missed my friend’s birthday to stay here. My only friend, and he probably hates me.”
“I’m sorry about that,” the congressman says.
“No,” you say. “It’s not your fault. I should have left. I’m an adult. I should have read the situation better.”
The congressman nods. “That’s an admirable attitude,” he says.
“I stayed because I wanted to stay. I really like working here,” you say.
“Everyone thinks you’re doing a great job,” the congressman says. “We’ve had excellent feedback on the blog. Very forward thinking. Embeth and I were both impressed with the response.”
For a second, you forget what blog he is talking about. You are drowsy, and you wonder if he’s read your blog and how he knew it was yours, and then you remember that he’s talking about his blog, the official blog of the cong
ressman. “Great,” you say. “I’m glad.”
He watches you gather your things—your floral JanSport backpack, your cloisonné keychain, your pen that looks like a flamingo—and you wonder why he hasn’t left yet.
“Cute keychain,” he says.
You wonder if he remembers he said that to you before.
What a lousy night.
You can’t stop thinking about Charlie.
You don’t like Charlie that way even though you know he likes you that way. Nonetheless, he has been a good friend to you. You are amused by the same things and you enjoy his company and you have a lot in common. You have spent hours talking about the campaigns you would run for yourselves, and whether you should get master’s in public policy degrees or go to law school, and whether it was better to do higher-level internships or try to get promoted within a lower-level internship (like you consider the one you are currently in), and which cities would be the best ones to establish yourselves in, and what your campaign slogans would be. You particularly love coming up with good, bad campaign slogans with him, like Politics Is a Dirty Business. Sometimes You Need a Grossman to Do the Job.
The fact is, you have spent more time talking about the future with him than with anyone else in the world.
When you were twelve, you threw a birthday party, and you invited everyone in your class, and only three people came because another girl in your class had a party the same day. Granted, Charlie is turning twenty-one, but still. You can imagine Charlie and his grandparents, sitting around the table. Should we eat without her? Charlie says, No, let’s wait. He keeps saying it, until finally, he gives up on you. You feel like a heel.
You need to do something to blast the guilt out of your brain.
If you call your roommate to see if she wants to go clubbing.
If you call Charlie to apologize profusely and to ask him if he wants to watch Letterman/Conan.
If you eat your feelings.
If you kiss a handsome congressman.
You don’t think about his unpleasant wife—you have heard the marriage is a political one, whatever that means. You don’t think about his sons. You don’t think about your mother the vice principal or your father the cardiac surgeon and how hard they both work so that you can work at an internship for no money. You don’t think about your grandmother Esther and your great-aunt Mimmy, who both survived the Holocaust. You don’t think about the only time you had sex, with a boy who was your boyfriend but who definitely did not ask permission. You don’t think about the summer you spent at fat camp when you were fourteen. You don’t think about how much you hate your body, which has never done a thing to you really. You don’t think about your body at all. You certainly don’t think about sweet, funny Charlie Greene. You don’t ask yourself whether you would even want a man like the congressman.
The point is, you don’t think. You didn’t want to think, and you don’t think. You wanted to feel something other than guilt.
You walk over to him, and you press your lips up against his lips, and you push your tongue into his mouth. You are bold and fearless and reckless. You like being this kind of girl.
His tongue meets your tongue for a second, and then his tongue propels your tongue out of his mouth with a muscular force. He pushes you away from him and then he holds you at arm’s length. He looks around to make sure you’re alone.
“I understand your impulse,” he says. “But this is inappropriate. This can’t happen again.”
You nod and you grab your backpack and you run out to your car.
That night, you consider the phrase, “I understand your impulse.”
Does he mean:
A. I, too, had an impulse to kiss you.
B. I understand why someone like you would want to kiss someone like me, though I do not, in fact, share your impulse.
C. In general, I understand that people have impulses to kiss other people.
You decide that it is impossible to know what he means. Still, you pose the choices to your roommate, who is having a fight with her girlfriend. The roommate thinks the answer is A.
The next day, Saturday, Charlie Greene calls you on the phone.
“What happened to you?” he says.
“They held me at the office.”
“I thought it was something like that. Next time, like, call or something. Anyhow, my grandmother still wants to meet you,” he says.
“Okay,” you say.
“She thinks she knows your grandmother,” Charlie says.
You get a call on the other line. You don’t recognize the number, but you flip over anyway.
“Aviva,” the congressman says. “I’d like you to come into the office today.”
Usually, the supervisor calls with the schedules for the week. Part of you wonders if the congressman is going to fire you, and part of you wonders if the congressman is going to kiss you again.
You don’t take a shower. You slept in track pants and a T-shirt and you don’t bother changing. You don’t want to look special. You don’t want to look like you care.
You drive to the office, and your hands are freezing, which is what happens when you are nervous.
You take the elevator up, and when you arrive, Aaron Levin calls you into his office. “Leave the door open,” he says.
He says, “I want you to find out everything you can about the government’s involvement in the redigging of the Kissimmee River.”
“Yes, sir,” you say.
The Internet search takes twenty minutes. The Kissimmee is the longest river in Florida, and like any river, the Kissimmee started its career as a series of irregular, undulating curves. In the middle of the twentieth century, a time of optimism and foolhardiness, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers decided that the Kissimmee could help with flood control and be a useful navigational tool for planes if it were straight. Win-win! They dug out the sides of the river, killing innumerable species of flora and fauna and damaging the river practically beyond repair. From an environmental standpoint, the Kissimmee River is a disaster.
You go into the congressman’s office and you describe this for him and you add some facts about what the continued costs of restoration will be.
“Tragic,” he says.
“Tragic,” you agree.
“Close the door,” he says.
You close the door. “I can’t stop thinking about you, but I’m married and I have children and I’m an elected government official, and so this cannot be,” he says.
“I understand,” you say.
“But I’d still like us to be friends,” he says.
“Yes,” you say, though you don’t have any friends his age, except for your mom.
He offers you his hand to shake.
If you shake his hand and then you try kissing him again.
If you shake his hand and then leave the office.
If you don’t shake his hand and offer your resignation.
You shake his hand.
You shake it, and you don’t let go. You pull him toward you, and then you kiss him again.
If you think you’re having fun.
If you think you’re in love.
You have never been in love before and so you don’t know for certain if you are.
He is not like anyone you’ve ever known.
He’s not like the boys your age, like Charlie Greene.
He’s smart and he’s powerful and he’s sexy as fuck.
It’s easy for you to find reasons to stay late.
No, you’re remembering that wrong.
It’s easy for him to find reasons to have you stay late. “I need Aviva,” he’ll say. “Put Aviva on it.”
Sometimes, that means he wants actual work from you. Sometimes, that means he wants you.
You never know what he’ll want until he says, “Close the door.” There’s an excitement to this arrangement. It’s like you’re a contestant on a game show. What can possibly be behind door number one?
You wonder if an
yone suspects.
You progress to saying, “I love you.”
And he says, “I love you, too.”
No, you’re remembering that wrong. He never says those words. He says, “Me, too.”
You say, “I love you.”
He says, “Me, too.”
But maybe he isn’t demonstrative.
You look for evidence of love.
Exhibit 1: If he didn’t love you, why would he be spending all this time with you? Why would he be risking so many things—his marriage, his family, his work? You conclude that he must love you.
Exhibit 2: Once, without any prompting from you, he says, “As soon as I’m reelected, I’m going to leave Embeth. We haven’t been happy for some time.”
Upon further consideration, maybe that isn’t actual evidence. All he said was he was unhappy with his wife. Maybe that has nothing to do with you? How can you know if you caused the unhappiness or if you are a symptom of it?
You can’t even come up with a decent third piece of evidence. The first time he saw you without a bra, he said you had “the sexiest tits [he’d] ever seen.” You’re not so dumb that you think evidence of lust is the same as evidence of love. Still, the lust is intoxicating and appreciated. You have always felt lumbering, misshapen, and bulky. He looks at you like you’re butter and he’s a hot knife.
You decide it doesn’t matter if he loves you. You love him. You know what you feel.
You know what you feel, but there are still a few things that bother you.
He doesn’t want to have vaginal intercourse with you. You have every other kind of sex that a man and a woman can have, but not that kind. You want to have it with the congressman, but you don’t press him. You are still a virgin, in a way, and you’re slightly scared of what will happen. It hurt so much when you did it with that boy who didn’t ask permission. You haven’t done it since.
Young Jane Young Page 19