The Nobodies

by Liza Palmer

  “No.”

  “Right,” the hostess said, replacing the menus. “You’re lunch—”

  “—drinks. Just drinks.” She nodded. We stood in awkward silence.

  “Joan!” Tavia said, swanning in. A pair of oversized sunglasses took up her entire face. Her white-gray hair extended past her shoulders in a long, thick mane. She wore a men’s oxford-cloth shirt, but it was buttoned asymmetrically so it showed off her taut stomach. Wide-legged tweed pants and oxford shoes finished off the outfit that was the alpha to my outfit omega. She came in for a hug, which was more of a side-body pressing than anything else. My cheek got most of the action.

  “It’s so great to see you,” I said. The hostess turned to grab two menus when Tavia tugged on my arm and pulled me over to the bar.

  “You simply must try their iced tea,” she said, raising two delicate fingers to the bartender. She glided onto one of the stools, took off her sunglasses and set them on the bar. She scanned my outfit. “So, tell me, are you still looking for work?”

  “Aren’t journalists always looking for work?” Tavia smiled as the bartender set down two iced teas in front of us.

  “Then please, tell me, what is going on with you?” Tavia asked, setting her phone on the bar between us. Given this opening, I launched into The Dry Cleaning pitch, my voice easy and practiced. I hit my stride, built anticipation, and pulled Tavia in, but just as I was getting to the climactic reveal—Tavia pulled her phone closer and absently spun it around in the space between us. Fine. I shifted gears and switched over to another angle, grounding it in something that she could relate to and built out the first moment of the story. Sights and smells. The quiet around the pivotal moment and how, on the surface, this juicy story lurked behind just another small town façade and—Tavia cut me off midsentence, my mouth hanging open as the words “city council” were cruelly bisected, transforming my searing think piece into a zany exposé on a corrupt city cow.

  “You know, I always liked that about you.”

  I jerked my pitch to a halt. “What’s that?”

  Tavia picked up her phone and swiped it open. She took a long, luxurious drink of her iced tea, her phone still balanced in her hand. I waited.

  “You’re such a workhorse.” Tavia scanned the legion of texts that flooded her phone.

  “A workhorse,” I repeated. Tavia focused in on one of the texts and read it more carefully. She replied to the text.

  “Hm.” She looked up at me, awaiting another tidal wave of gratitude. Finding myself utterly speechless, all I could do was smile in reply. We sat in silence. Tavia tapped away on her phone while I indulged myself in quite the existential crisis.

  “What do you think of the story? Do you think you can find a home for it?” I asked, my voice forced and choked.

  “Which story?”

  “The … the one I pitched you.”

  “Oh … that’s—” She tapped out another text. “A no.” She poked and swiped at her phone. “Do you have anything else?” I leaned in, bending lower so she had to look at me—if only just in the background of her phone.

  “I really think The Dry Cleaning Story has everything. It’s small-town intrigue and—”

  “There’s no payoff. No third act.”

  “The store closed down and the family hasn’t spoken since, I don’t—”

  “It’s soft, Joan.”

  “It’s a small story that has big emotional stakes and I think if you could—”

  “It’s boring.” Tavia looks up from her phone and locks eyes with me. “It’s boring.”

  “I think it’s quiet and elegant, but not—”

  “That story reminds me of this house we renovated up in this little beach town in Central California. We funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars into this thing thinking the neighborhood would someday get—you know—better. We’d seen it in Sunset magazine, after all. But the neighborhood never got better and our multimillion-dollar mansion is still sticking out like a sore thumb. Such an embarrassment.” Tavia waits. “You renovated this story beyond its neighborhood.”

  “But—”

  “The story isn’t compelling enough to even run on someone’s online blog, Joan.” I remember marveling at how utterly serene she looked as she spoke. As if she were sitting on a bench in an art museum admiring a lush oil painting of frolicking children.

  “Then … what if we use the story as a writing sample and maybe you could find someone who’s looking—”

  “But it’s the writing that’s sloppy.” Tavia sighed. “You know, I hadn’t really thought about this until right this very moment. How old are you now?”

  “Thirty-six.”

  “Thirty-six.” We waited while my age stunned Tavia into open-mouthed silence.

  “Refill?” The bartender asked. Tavia checked her phone, read a text, and began to gather her belongings.

  “My lunch date is here, so I’ll be taking mine with me, but maybe you can make hers to go?” Tavia slid down off her stool.

  “Why did you ask how old I am?” My voice crumbled under its strained civility.

  “Because, even with that homespun work ethic, you’re still writing like you did when you were nineteen. There’s no”—Tavia melodramatically arced her arm in front of her—“there there.”

  “No there there?”

  “Yes.” The bartender placed a plastic to-go cup in front of me.

  “Thank you,” I said in a haze.

  “Oh, you’re so welcome,” Tavia answered, thinking my thanks was for her.

  “I can revise the story and send you the next version. We can chat later,” I said.

  “I’m not interested.”

  “If you could—”

  “Don’t let this story become your white whale, Joan. I’ve seen it happen and it’s—” Tavia feigned a kind of performative empathy for these poor journalistic Ahabs as she smoothed her long hair to one side, twisting it so it fell in a perfect thick ringlet.

  “It’s a good story,” I said. Tavia didn’t pull out her phone. She didn’t break eye contact with me. She gave me her full attention.

  “No, it’s not.”

  “I’m a good writer,” I said.

  Just as Tavia was about to answer, the elevator dinged open and Matt Abbott stepped out. My ex-boyfriend. It took a second for it to even register, like when you see your elementary school teacher in the supermarket. No. You don’t belong in this place. But then the understanding washed over me, and all at once it felt right that he, of all people, should bear witness to this moment. Tavia turned to greet him with an exuberance I didn’t know she had.

  I watched as Matt fumbled with his sunglasses, switching them out for his regular black-rimmed glasses. His brown hair stuck up in cowlicks just as it always had. His hooded brown eyes told the tale of no sleep, deadlines, and the blistering schedule I yearned for. The uniform of a wrinkled oxford-cloth shirt with rolled-up sleeves and dark jeans appeared to still be his standard.

  I just stood there. I remember smiling, which worries me because I’d never felt less like smiling in my entire life.

  “Joan, you remember Matt,” Tavia said, bringing him over.

  Matt and I seemed to get the same unspoken memo of how to handle that moment: we didn’t. Instead, we were polite and acted as though we never loved or broke each other. It’s what people do.

  “Yeah, sure. Hi,” I said.

  “Hey,” he said. That same raspy voice, like he’s been screaming at the top of his lungs for hours. But I know that it’s permanent. A bout with colic as a baby left his vocal chords permanently strained. The sadness of knowing that fact, and no longer knowing him, settled in around me.

  “Two for lunch,” Tavia said to the hostess. My stomach dropped. Matt got lunch.

  As the hostess checked Tavia in, they rambled on about some impossible-to-get-into spin class where there’s apparently a world-class DJ and it’s all the rage and Tavia never misses it and it took all I have not to yel
l, “Don’t let that spin class become your white whale!”

  “It’s good to see you,” Matt said.

  “Yeah. You, too.” I’d long dreaded bumping into Matt again. Journalism is a small world and he always seemed to do and be better in that world than me. Maybe it was perfect, then, that our reunion would happen the same day that all my hopes over the last eight months were dashed, the anxiety of seeing him eclipsed by my own blinding rage.

  “You got lunch?” I couldn’t help the grunting simplicity of my words.

  “Holy shit, right?”

  “This is big,” I said. How did I miss whatever story it was that landed Matt this lunch invitation? Had I been that far off my game? “Congratulations.” The word broke my heart.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “They’re ready for us, Matt,” Tavia said, resting a friendly hand on his upper arm. She flicked her gaze to me. “Oh, Joan—” I perked up. “Did you valet? I’ll give the girl your ticket and she’ll get you validated.” Tavia peeled her hand from Matt’s broad shoulder and extended it to me, awaiting a parking ticket I didn’t have.

  “I took the bus,” I said. Tavia’s hand recoiled. She wordlessly turned back toward the hostess.

  That was my chance.

  The hostess told Tavia and Matt to follow her.

  That was my chance.

  Matt looked back and waved as Tavia dropped her phone into her purse. They began to walk through the restaurant.

  That was my chance.

  I watched as they were handed menus and set upon by deferential waiters. I turned and walked toward the elevator before they caught me gazing longingly at them. I pressed the button for the bottom floor.

  As I hurtled away from the Soho House and lunch drinks and grateful workhorses and white whales, I could hardly keep one thought in my head. I contemplated throwing away the Soho House iced tea, as if to say, I may have needed you, Tavia Keppel, but I certainly did not need your handout iced tea. But I did need it. It was hot and the walk to the bus stop was steep. I tugged my phone from my pocket and pulled up my group text thread. My hands were shaking.

  I didn’t know where to begin to tell my friends about what happened that day. I had big plans to surprise them all with it after Tavia went nuts for the story, a wonderful—long-overdue—celebration marking the end of my drought. What could I say to them now? I set up a meeting with Tavia Keppel and it took her mere moments to pass on that amazing story I was working on just before Matt Abbott walked in and had the career-making meeting I thought I’d be having? And they’d all respond with the obligatory “we hate that guy!” and “she sucks!” texts, but I had no inspiring follow-up tale about how I told them both off and rode off in a blaze of glory.

  No, I got rejected and then saw my ex, who’s doing better than ever, and all I felt was lonely, left behind, and filled with regret. And a pep talk, however well meaning, would only amplify those feelings.

  God, I’m so tired of pep talks.

  3

  There’s Always Nudity

  Eight hours after my “interview” with Bloom, Lynn pulls up our driveway and slows to a stop in front of me. I push myself to standing, wipe any front stoop detritus off my butt, and pull the passenger’s side door open.

  She is wearing her usual uniform of a black shirt, black moto jacket, black pencil pants, and a layer of white fur from her newly acquired, spoiled-rotten longhaired kitten named Phyllis. She loves the kitten, she loves wearing black—we’re all waiting to see how this plays out. Our money is on Phyllis.

  Lynn and I met when I asked if I could camp out in her little vintage clothing shop across from what I was sure was a gambling den behind the oh-so-modern storefront of a TV repair shop just off Magnolia Boulevard in Burbank. I was right, of course. There’s no way they could afford that rent. Lynn’s little vintage shop is now an online marketplace creating original pieces and employing twenty people. Not so little anymore.

  “Hey, sorry I’m late. I was at the fertility place,” she says, backing down my driveway. I look over and wait for her to continue. I’ve learned, over the three—soon to be four—rounds of fertility treatments that Lynn has endured, to wait for her to elaborate rather than ask a question that may have a heartbreaking answer. “It’s nothing bad … it’s just doing all my blood work for the next round and to see how much weight I’ve officially gained. Which is always fun.”

  “How are you feeling?” I ask, wading in.

  “Fine. It’s fine.” We are quiet. I wait. “Please tell me about your day before I get sad about maybe never getting a chance to be someone’s mom,” Lynn says, her face coloring.

  “Okay.” My mind reels. Where do I even start telling someone about my day? I don’t want to rehash today’s disastrous interview at Bloom, nor can I bring myself to tell anyone—not even Lynn—about my truly soul-crushing encounter with Tavia two weeks ago. I’m about to say something dramatic about how lately I’ve been feeling like I’m at a shitty summer camp and begging my parents to let me come home. Come home to my life, my routines, my people, and my language. I just want to come home. Instead—

  “Can I read you that story I’ve been working on?” I ask, tugging my phone from my pants pocket.

  “The Dry Cleaning one?” I nod. “Yeah, sure.” Lynn turns down the radio. I poke and swipe at my phone, finally pulling up the now ill-fated email I sent myself attaching a PDF of The Dry Cleaning Story just in case Tavia wanted a copy. “Thank you, this … well, I’ll just read.”

  The city muffles around us as I read, stopping and starting as we make our way to Echo Park. I usually get a wonderful sensation when I choose to read my own work aloud, but today a sort of disoriented hysteria settles deep in my bones. I can’t bring myself to look over at Lynn. Is she bored? Was Tavia right? I can hear my pace getting faster and faster as I bring this little intimate experience to its merciful end.

  I read the last line. Shut down my phone and let it fall to my lap.

  “Do you remember when you came to me with that design for a neon jumpsuit and—”

  “You want the truth,” Lynn says.

  “Best Friend Truth,” I say, flipping my phone over and over in my sweaty hands.

  “I liked the part about the neighbor. I thought that was really great how you threaded in her story—especially considering how it ended for them.” Lynn looks over at me. I nod. “I can hear you working, if that makes sense. Like I can feel you tugging story lines over to meet other story lines that don’t necessarily—” Lynn pulls on an invisible story line. “Don’t necessarily connect organically.”

  “It’s writerly,” I say.

  “I don’t know what that means.” Lynn pulls into the Guisado’s parking lot, and I can see that she’s immediately regretting her assumption that she’d find an open space.

  “Right there,” I say, pointing to a tiny spot in the corner of the lot. Lynn inches her car into the spot that we’ll probably never be able to get out of and we unlatch our seatbelts.

  “Writerly just means that the story doesn’t move itself forward, the writer does.”

  “Good word,” Lynn says.

  “So, is it?” Lynn beeps her car locked and we get into the growing line outside Guisado’s.

  “I don’t think you knew what the story was about, if that makes sense. I have that happen when I’m designing sometimes. Where I don’t have a clear vision, I tend to overdesign.”

  “Someone said that it was kind of like when you renovate a house beyond its neighborhood,” I say.

  “Who said that?”

  Before I can answer, Hugo weaves through the line and tells us that he’s already found a table inside. Lynn and I met Hugo and his boyfriend, Reuben, at a John Williams concert at the Hollywood Bowl a few summers back. Lynn bought tickets for my birthday, and splurged on two of four seats in a Garden Box. As we popped open a nice bottle of red, Hugo and Reuben sat down in the other two seats each dressed as Jedi—complete with lightsabers. By the end of
the night we’d exchanged information, followed each other on social media, and slurred that we loved one another and were probably soul mates.

  We tell Hugo we’ll be in as soon as all these selfish assholes get out of our way and let us get to these tacos already. Hugo apologizes for our language and slides back inside with a wave.

  “Who said that?” Lynn asks again. Lynn waits. Ugh.

  “Tavia Keppel. She read the story and basically told me—and I’m paraphrasing—that I should quit writing.”

  “She did not say that.”

  “She didn’t need to.” I scan the line, trying to act as casually as I can.

  “We’ve known each other for how long now?”

  “About…”

  “Ten years.”

  “Ten years? Jesus.”

  “Started out as work friends. You squatting in my store, staking out the TV repair shop,” she says, using giant air quotes around the words “TV repair shop.”

  “You’re doing that building-a-case thing,” I say.

  “I am merely trying to nail down a set of facts upon which we can agree,” she says.

  “Your use of perfect grammar terrifies me.”

  “I know you…” Lynn trails off and my entire being goes from super-faux-casual to IF YOU DON’T FINISH YOUR SENTENCE, I MAY DIE.

  “Are you kidding me right now?” I ask, my voice jerking and gasping with “super-laid-back” and “breezy” laughter.

  “I know you are happiest when you’re writing,” Lynn finally says.

  “That’s definitely true,” I say, leery of confirming or denying anything.

  “We know this last year has been hard,” Lynn says as we shuffle forward in line.

  “You went from I to We,” I say.

  “Well, we love you, so…” Lynn says, her voice as inconveniently steady and nonjudgmental as ever.

  “I know that,” I say.

  “Do you?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “Then you’ve got to talk to us.”

  “About what—” The words choke in my throat while attempting to, once again, exude an air of detached fine-ness.

  “How about we start with what you read on the drive over. It’s clearly important to you. Are you working on more than just that one story or—” We finally get to the front of the line. Scattered and unable to choose, I end up getting the taco sampler and a large horchata. Lynn orders some quesadillas “for the table” along with an agua fresca and her own taco sampler.