Save Karyn

by Karyn Bosnak

  “I like him,” he said, “I don’t think he’s gay.”

  “Really?!” I asked, drunk and excited.

  “Really,” answered Mark, “he’s cute too.”

  “I know!” I said with my voice shrilling in excitement. Several people turned around to look.

  “Honey, you need to fix that voice.”

  Fixing my voice was something that Mark and I had been working on for a good year now. We saw on Oprah once where this lady had a “voice makeover” and learned how to speak lower and more slowly. L-o-w-e-r and more s-l-o-w-l-y. She said it made people take her more seriously.

  I needed a voice makeover. And a vocabulary makeover too. When I was a younger girl I saw the movie Valley Girl and started talking really singsongy and saying the words “like” and “for sure” all the time. I’m older now, but I still can’t seem to get rid of the shrill and shake the words from my vocabulary. In fact, “grody” is still one of my favorite words ever. So is “dude.” And since I’m from the Midwest, most of my favorite adjectives are “nice,” “pretty” and “cool.”

  So about a year ago, Mark and I decided that it was time for me to change my voice. I bought a “vocabulary builder” book from the bookstore and learned one new word a day. And I’d practice and practice at lowering the pitch in my voice. Mark would call me on the phone for my test, and I’d answer in my new voice.

  “H-e-l-l-o-w-w…,” I’d say, l-o-w-e-r and more s-l-o-w-l-y while trying to think of a sentence to use my new word in.

  “Honey, good!” Mark would say. But that was usually the end of my serious voice because I’d burst into laughter. It’s very hard for me to keep a straight face when I talk in my l-o-w-e-r and more s-l-o-w-l-y voice, because it’s just not me.

  Anywho, I promised him that I would work on it.

  “Honey, your boobs look big,” Mark said to give me that extra boost of confidence right before Brad walked up.

  “Thanks,” I whispered.

  The two of them split the bill. That was nice. My two boyfriends bought me dinner. We left the restaurant and walked toward my apartment. Mark bid us farewell and hopped in a cab to his hotel, and Brad decided to come up to see my apartment.

  As we walked toward the elevator, I got that nervous feeling again. I could feel the chemistry between us, the same chemistry I felt the first night we went out. Or maybe it was just the margarita. Whatever caused it, it was there.

  We arrived at my door and I unlocked the lock and showed him in. It still didn’t have any furniture, except curtains, a rug, a feather bed, and now a cat.

  “It’s nice,” Brad said as he walked toward the windows and pulled back the curtains, “it’s great.”

  “Do you like it?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” he said, walking back toward me.

  “I don’t really have anywhere for us to sit,” I said, leaning against a wall.

  “That’s okay,” he said.

  With that said, Brad walked up to me and kissed me. Standing up. Slowly and softly. It was a real kiss this time. Not one of those cheek ones. He had nice soft lips. We stood there and kissed for a while, and it was kind of awkward, but what was I to do? Tell him he’d have to go because it was awkward to kiss while standing up? I don’t think so. He was hot! And I had too many margaritas in me to care. I was quite happy just standing up and kissing. And happier that he just slid his hands down to my round Jennifer Lopez–sized booty. Ooh…what was he trying to do down there?

  Brad had one hand on my booty, and the other on the bottom of my thigh, and I think he was trying to…lift me up? Maybe? Was he going to try to carry me or something? I was embarrassed that I was too heavy for him to lift, so I pressed my shoulders against the wall behind me and tried to push up to help him out. But nothing! This poor guy was trying to get it on with me and my big fat booty just wouldn’t lift into the air. Damn! I had to go on a diet! But what kind of diet should I do? Should I do the Zone? The Atkins Diet? Ooh, no. I tried that one before and I got all light-headed. No, what kind should I do? Damn! I was being felt up by Brad and all I could think about was what kind of diet I was going to go on. Focus, Karyn, focus…hands are on your booty. Okay, there we go. Back to Brad, and his lips, and his hands on my booty that will not budge. I’ll just pretend that I don’t want to be lifted up. Because that’s what you always do when you think that you are too fat to be lifted. You just pretend that you don’t want to. Resist it. Then he won’t think he wasn’t able to lift me because I was too fat, he’ll just think that I didn’t want to be lifted.

  After a few more minutes of kissing, I told Brad that I had to work early and it was best if we said good-bye. I could have stayed there for a good long while just doing what we were doing, but I wanted another date, so I decided that I needed to call it quits at this. Can’t give it all away on the second date. And besides, any minute now his hands would have wandered upward and he would have felt the double whammy going on in my bra.

  With that I walked Brad to the door and he kissed me again good-bye. He really was a good kisser. I sort of giggled a nervous little giggle and said good-bye.

  “Bye,” he said, “I love you.” No, I’m just kidding. He didn’t say that last part.

  I closed the door and locked it behind him. I then walked to the window and peered out the corner onto the street. A few seconds later I saw Brad cross the street and hop into a cab. He was so cute. And he just felt my butt. I’d have to do something about my butt. And my v-o-i-c-e.

  I walked back and laid on my feather bed. I looked in the closet and saw Elvis peering out at me.

  “Elvis, come here, baby,” I said. He crawled out and into my arms. “You’re still the number-one man in my life.” With Elvis perched on my shoulder, I pulled out my Zagat guide. I found Rosa Mexicana, circled it and wrote, “My two boyfriends, some Curves and my booty.”

  PAYDAY

  The next day I woke up with a smile on my face. I got dressed for work and hopped on the bus. I was getting used to this commute. It wasn’t so bad.

  I didn’t have any cases today, so I got off a block early and went to Starbucks. But this time I passed up the latte and opted for an Iced Grande Café Americano. That’s three shots of espresso and some water over ice. Nice. Refreshing. Nonfat. I eyed all the muffins and passed on them too. I was going to get skinny!

  I got to work and started calling on prospective cases. This job wasn’t too bad so far. I was getting the hang of it. And it paid better than my last job. Oh, come to think of it, today was payday! I’d finally be receiving my first paycheck for my first two weeks of work. I needed it so badly!

  My salary was about $1,500 a week, which is kind of low for a court show producer. Normal court show producers made about $1,700 a week or higher. But I wasn’t “normal,” considering that I’d never produced a day of television in my life. When they were staffing the show, the company was looking to hire six producers, but they also needed to adhere to a tight budget. By the time I was interviewed, they had already hired five of them, and were looking for just one more to hire for cheap. So I agreed to take a smaller salary just for the opportunity. No one else would have hired me as a producer, but my boss saw something in me that she liked. And she was friends with my former bosses, who were confident that I could do the job. So it worked out for both of us.

  So, $1,500 x 2 weeks = $3,000. So after taxes I expected my first paycheck to be about $2,100 or so. I looked at the clock. It was 10:00 A.M. Time to get to work. Someone told me that the paycheck lady came around at lunchtime, so I set an alarm on my computer at noon to remind me to keep my eye out for her.

  I worked for the next two hours, and right at the same time that my alarm went off, I saw her. The paycheck lady! She was going desk to desk and dropping off people’s paychecks. She was moving really slowly. People never move fast enough when you need them to and you’re staring at them, you know?

  A few moments later, my time had come. She arrived at my desk and gave me my first p
aycheck.

  “Thank you,” I said cheerfully. I opened my check and looked at the amount: $1766.66? That can’t be right. Did I get paid for all the days that I worked? I looked more closely at my check and realized that it was correct. State tax and city tax were so high! All in all, the government took 41 percent of my paycheck. That’s a crock.

  I left for lunch and went to the bank to deposit my check. I figured that I could send my next two checks to American Express to be caught up, and then use the one after that to pay my rent. So that was my plan. But I’d have to have some spending money, so I kept $266, and decided to just send them $1,500.

  Later that afternoon, as I was calling on court cases, the little envelope at the bottom of my computer started flashing. I went to my inbox and saw an e-mail from Brad.

  To: Karyn

  From: Brad

  Re: Last night

  Hey there smiley girl, how are you feeling today? I am exhausted. I had a great time though. I am leaving tomorrow to go to the Hamptons. I have a share in a summer house there. What are you doing?

  Let’s make a plan for next week when I get back. Are you free?

  Brad

  Hmm. Mark was leaving tonight, and wouldn’t be here for the weekend, Ann Marie and her husband were going out of town, and Brad and the Swingers were really the only people I knew in the city. And I was afraid to be alone with the Swingers. So, I didn’t have any plans for the weekend. But I wasn’t going to tell him that. I decided to just be vague. When all else fails, be vague.

  To: Brad

  From: Karyn

  Re: Re: Last night

  Hi! Yes, last night was very fun. Thank you very much for dinner. I actually have a very busy weekend ahead of me…:)

  E-mail me when you get back next week. I’d love to get together, but probably can’t until at least Wednesday.

  Have fun this weekend!

  Karyn

  There. That was good. I hit the Send button and my e-mail was off. I was kind of disappointed that I wouldn’t see him this weekend, but I’d get over it.

  THAT WEEKEND ALL I DID was walk around the city. And that kept me busy, so see? My feet were actually getting a bit used to my new sandals, so I wore those. The city was so big—everything about it! The streets were wide. The sidewalks were wide. The buildings were tall. The blocks were long. Manhattan isn’t that big, or at least it didn’t look like it on a map, but every inch of it was jam-packed with stuff.

  I discovered a street fair and saw a couple of people wearing cute backpacks that had a strap that went across their chests diagonally. I liked the way they looked. I tried a cheap one on at the street fair, but instead opted to get a Diesel one I found at a store nearby. It was cooler. Hipper. I noticed that Mark was correct in his assessment that all New Yorkers wore tight clothes. I saw plenty of this at the street fair.

  It was kind of fun to roam around the street fair by myself. You know how on Cheers they say “Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name”? Well, sometimes you don’t. Sometimes you want to go where no one knows you. At least I did. What I really hated about living in Chicago was that every time I went anywhere, I always would run into someone I knew. I was sick of going to the store and seeing someone from college, or going to the park and seeing someone from high school. Some people find comfort in things like this. But I found it annoying. I wanted to be alone and anonymous. That is why I came to New York. To figure out who I was.

  On my way home I bought a fitness book that told me that in order to lose fat, I needed to exercise and keep my heart rate between 134 and 154. Any lower and I wouldn’t burn fat, and any higher I would stop burning the fat. So I bought a heart monitor at a fitness store to help me keep track. This was an investment in my health, and something that would last a long, long time. I planned to go running when I got home.

  I have always liked to go running at night because it’s when everyone has their lights on and you can look inside the windows and see what people’s homes look like. I used to do this in Chicago all the time. I’m not a pervert or anything. I’m just fascinated with how people live.

  So that night, I put on my heart rate monitor, got out my Walkman, and headed toward the Upper East Side. I was going to burn all the excess fat away on my butt and get skinny! Soon, Brad would be able to lift me into the air and throw me on my bed, once it arrived.

  I ran all the way up Park Avenue and passed doorman after doorman and looked into lobbies that were utterly amazing. Since most apartments were stories up, I couldn’t see a lot and decided to turn down a side street to check out some brownstones. There were so many beautiful brownstones in New York, and I couldn’t wait to look inside.

  For the next few blocks, I stared at fancy paintings and chandeliers. I saw a family eating at a long dining room table, with candles burning and everything. I thought people only ate like that in the movies. I stopped and watched them for a while. I wished I lived like that. I think a lot of people wish they lived like that. It looked comfortable. It looked like they had no worries.

  I continued on my way and saw brownstone after brownstone. There were hundreds, maybe thousands in this neighborhood. How could that many people be that wealthy? I was going to be that wealthy someday.

  A few blocks up I cut over to Fifth Avenue and ran past the Metropolitan Museum of Art, past the Guggenheim, and past where I heard that Jackie O. had lived. The Upper East Side had a crisp clean feeling to it. I decided right then and there that I was going to concentrate on my job more so that one day I could buy myself one of these houses. There was a lot of money to be made in television. And I was going to make it.

  That Sunday, I went into the office to get ahead with some work. I decided that I was going to be a very successful television producer. I was going to focus more on my work and move up quickly. This was the career that I chose, and I was going to be good at it.

  THREE

  GRAND DEBT TALLY $4,391.00

  A TRULY UNIQUE PLACE

  The next week at work was great. I booked some great cases and made my boss proud. I’ve always gotten along very well with my bosses. It’s very important to me not to let them down. I have a very good work ethic and always have since I was younger. I started working when I was fifteen years old at a local family-owned drugstore/gift shop. My mom would never let me call in sick or show up late. And those habits stuck with me as I got older and moved on to more jobs. In my four years at Jenny Jones, I never called in sick once.

  Brad called and we went to a movie. He then went away for the weekend again, and then called me again the next Monday. It was very difficult to form a relationship with someone who kept jetting off to the Hamptons every weekend. But I suppose I only did just meet him and there was no sense in rushing it.

  My furniture also finally arrived. And of course, the only day they could deliver it was a day that I had two cases taping in the studio. So I couldn’t be home to meet the movers, or more importantly, to tip them so they would be gentle with my furniture. I planned on sending the tip in an envelope though the next day, as soon as I got home and made sure my furniture was all okay. It wasn’t their fault that their moving company sucked.

  However, since the movers didn’t know that I planned on sending the tip, they decided to stack all my furniture sideways in my apartment. It was a huge disheveled mess when I got home. And I stayed up half the night trying to arrange it just so I could sleep. I didn’t send the tip.

  At the end of the week, my next paycheck arrived and I went to the bank to deposit it. Just like I had planned, I sent the whole thing to American Express again. While this made me catch up and kept me current, I didn’t have any spending money left over for things like transportation to work, phone bills, cell phone bills and food. So I charged everything until my next paycheck. I charged my Metrocard for the bus. I charged my groceries. I charged the cute top that I got to go to the movies with Brad. And I got some more Amex Gift Cheques and cashed them for those places that d
idn’t accept American Express.

  I kept running every night and felt good. I lost five pounds. Basically my life was working, working out, and occasionally going out with Brad. On a weekday, when he wasn’t in the Hamptons, of course. Before I knew it, it was July.

  Brad of course went to the Hamptons for the Fourth. So did the Swingers. I hadn’t really met anyone else yet in the city, so I didn’t have big plans for the holiday, which happened to fall on a Tuesday. We had the day off of work, but had to be back at work on the fifth.

  I hate when holidays fall in the middle of the week. And I hate it more when employers give you the holiday off, but not the day after, especially a holiday like the Fourth of July, because everything happens at night on the Fourth of July. So I’d rather work on the Fourth in the daytime and have the fifth off to recuperate.

  So on the Fourth, I set out for my daily jog, having decided to go when it was light out instead. I headed in my usual direction, toward the Upper East Side. Two blocks away, I noticed a gym, Crunch. I didn’t have any intentions of joining, but I went inside to check it out. I walked in the door and headed down a long spiral staircase to where the gym was. I walked up to the front desk and asked the very fit chick behind the counter if I could have a tour. She picked up the phone and called someone. A few seconds later, a short buff guy came over to me.

  “You Karyn?” he asked.

  “Yes, I am,” I replied.

  “Hi, I’m Robert. I’ll give you a tour.”

  Robert and I walked all over the gym and he showed me all it had to offer. Holy shikeys, this gym was huge! They had a big climbing wall that looked like a mountain. They had a boxing ring. Not that I’d use either of those things, but they were cool.

  They also had all sorts of cool aerobic classes. One of them was called Ab, Thighs & Gossip, where your teacher was a drag queen who read all the latest Hollywood gossip to you from the weekly tabloids. Another was called Boadway Dance Series, where people from actual Broadway plays would teach an aerobics class based on the dance moves in the play.