by Liza Palmer
“Yes, all of my hope eggs were in one story basket,” I say, my voice a whisper.
“Were,” Lynn repeats. I am unable to even look at her. The girl behind the counter gives us our total. I pull out my wallet, but—“You’ll get the next one,” Lynn says, offering her card to the girl. My entire body deflates. “When was this meeting with Tavia Keppel?”
“Two weeks ago.” Might as well just unload the rest. “Matt was there too,” I say.
“What? How … it’s unheard of that you’d present me with a perfect example of exactly what I’m talking about,” Lynn says, utterly flummoxed.
“I was going to surprise you guys with it once she took the story out, but instead—” I trail off as the girl hands us our drinks and we continue on into the restaurant. Hugo waves us over to a small table just under one of several Dodger-themed pieces of art.
“Joan saw Matt,” Lynn says. I give Lynn a pointed look. “Look, you can’t be trusted to voluntarily tell people things, so here we are.”
“What? Where?” Hugo asks.
“Two weeks ago at Soho House,” I sigh.
“There’s stuff she’s not saying.” Hugo points across the table at me. “There’s stuff you’re not saying.”
“Jean-Baptiste?” A waiter calls out, holding a tray filled with food. Hugo raises his hand. The waiter brings his food and Hugo nods and smiles, but doesn’t dig in. We sip our drinks.
“And how is Matt?” Hugo asks.
“He’s inconveniently great,” I say, forcing myself to take a deep breath.
“That’s what we want for all of our exes. To thrive and live full lives without us,” Lynn says, her voice flat.
“What was it that he said? Right there at the end?” Hugo is reaching into the depths of his mind to access a string of words that have haunted me for the ten months since they were uttered.
“Shit, Joan, why can’t you just leave it alone. You ruin—”
“… fucking everything.” Both Lynn and Hugo finish the sentence with me.
“Yeah.” I am closing in on myself.
“Araya!” A waiter calls out. Lynn puts up her hand, and he brings over our food. We thank him. And then a silence expands as we each dig in.
“You’re every bit as good as he is, though,” Lynn says.
“See, I don’t think I am. And I’m not saying that to bash myself.” Lynn starts to launch into a rant, but I keep talking. “Tavia told me The Dry Cleaning Story was boring, had no third act, and was soft. That there was no there there.”
“No there there?” Lynn asks, her mouth full of steak picado. Both she and Hugo roll their eyes.
“I thought she was full of shit, but then Lynn—even you said it didn’t sound like I knew what the story was about.”
“In a nice way. I said it in a nice way,” Lynn says, looking over at an appalled Hugo.
“No, you … you were a good friend.” I take a long drink of my horchata. “It’s one thing to think you’re phoning it in or that something isn’t your best work, but I had no idea. I truly thought the story was good.” This is me talking to people. Don’t I look comfortable? I pick up my mole poblano taco. “This whole time I thought I got laid off because of hard times or it was unfair or whatever, but—” Instead of saying such a gut-wrenching truth out loud, I take a huge, wonderful, drippy bite of my taco. The table is quiet. Everyone is staring. I set the taco down, grab the napkin once again, and clean myself up. “Maybe they fired me because I was bad at my job. Maybe Tavia was right.”
“Up to a point,” Lynn says, her face lined with concern.
“People are allowed to have slumps,” Hugo says.
“No, I get that. I get … that. But what if you don’t even know you’re in a slump? Because I certainly didn’t know. That’s the scary part. I’m going over all these stories and it’s not just The Dry Cleaning Story that was boring and soft … This slump could reach back years.” I am detaching. I am shutting down. I am so far away as I repeat, “Years.”
“We’ll figure this out,” Hugo says.
“You’ll find another story,” Lynn says.
“So—” Hugo cuts in before I can launch into my extremely compelling argument against ever finding another story and hope of any kind. That somehow I’m existing in a space with only enough hope to fuel my revenge and prove Tavia wrong. “I have an idea and you guys are going to hate it, but Reuben will love it. Remember that part. That Reuben will love it.”
“I don’t like where this is going,” Lynn says.
“We all know that Reuben’s greatest wish is—”
“To be the lead singer of a boy band,” Lynn and I say together.
“The theme of his birthday party this year is the 1980s—”
“Oh, no,” I say.
“So, what if we learned the dance from New Edition’s ‘If It Isn’t Love’ video. You know how he knows the whole thing by heart.” We nod. Lynn claps her hands and sweeps her arm across the table in one of the video’s signature moves. “And if we start playing the song at the party, he’ll get up to do the dance. We know he will. But what if this time, he had the rest of New Edition behind him—minus Ricky Bell, because he’s on the end and there’s only four of us, not five. Can you imagine a better birthday gift?” Hugo looks each one of us directly in the eye. We all share looks of deep concern.
“No,” Lynn and I say in unison.
“The party is—” Lynn says.
“It’s not enough time,” I say, pulling out my phone and counting it out on my 98-percent-blank calendar.
“Look, we all kind of already know it, so we’ll get together before then to practice and it doesn’t have to be perfect,” Hugo says.
“Yes, it does,” Lynn says. Hugo finishes off one of the “for the table” quesadillas. “No way I’m getting up there and not killing it, although I hate—” Lynn tugs at her black cashmere sweater. “I just wish I were in better shape.” She smooths the sweater down, over her body. “Poor Josh.”
Josh is Lynn’s boyfriend of five years. We all hate Josh.
“Poor Josh?” I ask. Lynn believes asking Josh to “tolerate” her fertility treatment weight gain for their future baby is akin to having him help her bury the body of an enemy she’s just brutally murdered.
“I know you guys don’t like him,” Lynn says, throwing up her hands. Hugo and I are quiet. We don’t argue with her. “This is our last round anyway, so…”
“Why is it your last round?” Hugo asks. His voice is achingly gentle.
“It’s too expensive and—” Lynn’s voice chokes. Hugo and I immediately lean in. We each grab one of her hands. “I just can’t take it anymore.”
Hugo and I don’t ask about adoption. We don’t ask about surrogacy. We don’t tell Lynn that this round could be the one that actually takes. We don’t tell her that maybe in a few years when she’s less stressed, she and Josh will get pregnant when they least expect it. Lynn knows all of that. She doesn’t need us to offer solutions she’s already thought of. What she needs is to ugly cry and eat some tacos with people who love her.
“Plus, can you imagine Phyllis allowing anything into the house that threatens to take any sliver of attention away from her?” Lynn asks, trying to lighten the mood.
“That kitten is ridiculous,” Hugo says, shaking Lynn’s hand a little.
“We should probably head over to the theater,” Lynn says, moving us along.
We clean up our table, throw our trash away, and Lynn and I spend the next twenty-five minutes trying to eke our way out of the Guisado’s parking lot. By the time we’ve arrived at the theater, there are barely any empty seats.
“There,” Lynn says, pointing to Hugo in the front row, his jacket spread over three empty seats.
“I am not sitting in the front row,” I say, scanning the theater for any other four empty seats.
“What? Why not?” Lynn asks, waving to a panicked-looking Hugo.
“There’s always at least one full-blown s
ex scene in Reuben’s plays and I don’t even want to talk about what happened last time. We were too close. The things I saw. The angle—can’t unsee that. Can’t unhear that.”
“There are no other seats. Hugo needs us. Look at him.” Hugo wipes his brow with his silk pocket square as he eyes the unmade bed in the center of the stage. We make our way down to him.
“What took you guys so long?” Hugo asks.
“We parked in the lot,” Lynn says.
“You never park in the lot,” Hugo says, handing us our programs. Wild-haired and utterly captivating, Reuben races down the aisle and sits next to Hugo just as the doors to the theater close. Hugo takes his hand and Reuben pulls him close with a nervous grin. I watch them and melt. And then feel so lonely I can’t bear it.
As the lights dim and a woman in a bra and panties and a completely nude man take the stage, I can only turn to Lynn and shake my head.
In the blackened silence of the theater, I wrestle with why I can’t tell my friends what I’m feeling. Lately, it’s like all my words and emotions are tangled Christmas lights. A seemingly innocuous request to simply talk about what I’m doing pulls with it this snarled mess of shame about not achieving my full potential, or maybe I asked for this or haven’t been working as hard as I should be. Or this is simply what happens to people who aren’t good enough.
They fail.
4
Turns Out, You Can Go Home Again
“It’s a simple question, Mom.”
“Have some tea,” she says.
She takes the kettle off the old stovetop and pours it into two earthenware mugs. Over the past several weeks, I’ve sent Lynn, Hugo, and Reuben a series of confessional texts trying to keep up my end of the “you need to talk to us” bargain. Sure, my texts are mostly just weird observations I’ve made on the bus or repeating whatever prying interview question has flummoxed me that week, such as “Are you well known?” after I told one baby-faced HR person that I used to be a journalist. No, Jason. If I were well known, do you think I’d be applying to work at this insurance company as a file clerk?
“Mom—”
“Coriander, cumin, and fennel. Fresh from the garden. Good for your belly,” Mom says, setting the mug down in front of me. “Blow on it, though. It’s hot.” I thank her and she gives my shoulder a quick squeeze.
My mother can best be described as a “sturdy” woman. It’s an attribute we share. We are the hearty, broad-shouldered pioneer stock born from a long line of women who can harvest a crop, raise wild-haired babies, and protect the land from shifty ramblers. Her graying black hair is cut in a sensible bob and she’s wearing some version of the same button-down shirt, quilted vest, and black work pants she always wears. With her dark brown eyes and sun-kissed olive skin, looking at her is basically looking at my own future. You know, minus the active lifestyle and decades-long loving marriage.
“Are you and Dad growing marijuana, yes or no?”
“We’re farmers, honeybunch. We grow a lot of things,” Mom says, putting a loaf of homemade banana bread on the table. I thank her and cut a slice.
“You’re evading the question,” I say, reaching for the butter as I try to evade the now uncontainable panic as eight months being unemployed slides into nine.
“Honey?” Mom clangs a pot in the sink as she rinses it. “The job interview. How did it go?”
“Mamamamamamamama.” My brother’s two-year-old daughter, Poppy, races into the kitchen naked as the day she was born. Her brown hair everywhere, and is that—
“Please say that’s dirt on your child’s face and not—”
My younger brother Billy rushes into the kitchen, tugging off his worn-in baseball cap and making sure not to track in dirt. Billy is six foot six, barrel-chested, big-bellied, with a laugh that can shake a house.
“We were out by the roses, helping Dad. There may have been a dirt-eating incident. Her, not me. I was trying to get her into the bath and she made a break for it.” Billy sweeps the giggling girl up into his arms. Poppy runs her tiny, mud-caked hands through Billy’s thick beard.
“Momma, you have any of our honey?”
Mom hands him a Mason jar full of fresh honey from our hives.
“What’s it for?” she asks with an arched eyebrow.
“Yes, okay. It’s a bribe,” Billy says. Poppy’s eyes widen as Billy twists open the jar of honey. “And before you say anything, I’m a weak man who just needs this baby clean by the time Anne comes home from her shift at the grocery store.” He gives Poppy a little taste. “I swear I’ll mold her character when she’s not covered in dirt.” Billy gives Poppy another taste of the honey. “So, now you had some honey, you ready to get in that bath now, Pop?” Mom and I share a knowing look. Poppy straightens her body and howls.
“I’m afraid you’ve been had,” Mom says, laughing. Billy sets Poppy down safely and she immediately takes off down the hallway.
“I really thought the honey would work.” Billy sighs, following his flash of a daughter.
“I don’t know whether to make fun of you or feel sorry for you,” I yell at him.
“Revenge is best served cold, Joan,” Billy yells as he disappears down the long hallway, Poppy’s laughter echoing throughout the house. Mom puts the honey back into the cupboard and turns to me.
“So?” Mom asks, not missing a beat. “The job interview. Was this for the—” She sits down with her cup of tea, and breaks off a chunk of the banana bread.
“The coffee shop. It was fine. I’ve got another one tomorrow at that florist down on Washington—right on the corner?” Mom nods. “They need someone to clean up and help around the store,” I say.
“Something will happen.” She brushes a rogue hair behind my ear. “It always does.”
I nod and feel my heart pull through my chest toward her hope. “Yep. I know,” I lie, offering her a smile.
“Maybe later on tonight, you can look into registering for some classes down at the city college. There was one on being a professional organizer that looked fun. And, you know what? Now that you’ve mentioned it, I bet they’ve got some great classes on becoming a florist. Who knows more about plants and flowers than you? Something to think about.”
“I’ll take a look,” I say, my heart breaking as I watch my loved ones ever so slowly lose faith in me. My smile falters.
“Just because you take a few classes doesn’t mean you’re giving up on being a journalist, hon.”
But I’m terrified that’s exactly what it will do. Ever since that fateful lunch* (*lunch drinks) with Tavia, I’ve felt as though I’m dangling off the side of a cliff, gripping journalism’s hand. Each week that passes, each job interview, each community college catalog left on my bed, and each unread article is another sweaty finger lost.
“I know.” I am shutting down.
“Life is long.”
“Yep.”
“Something to think about,” Mom repeats.
“Okay.” Mom looks up from her coffee. “I will think about it.”
She smiles. The look of relief on her face breaks my heart.
“I’m making rosemary bread tonight. It’s growing like crazy over on the back fence by the…” Mom trails off.
“By the marijuana.”
“By the greenhouse.”
“The greenhouse that’s full of marijuana.”
“It’s just a greenhouse full of wholly uninteresting regular plants, sweetheart. No big story there except that your dad could use some help with the roses. It’s almost their second bloom cycle and apparently he’s momentarily lost his assistants to bath time.”
“I do love deadheading.” The small cheesecloth baggie of spices Mom placed in the bottom of my mug floats up and leaks into the hot water. I stand, tucking my wooden chair back under the table.
“Don’t leave your mug in your room,” Mom says as I continue down the rabbit warren of a hallway, past the bathroom filled with squeals of laughter, Billy’s low soothing voice and way
too much splashing.
“I won’t,” I yell, letting out a sharp laugh, thinking how hilarious—is that the right word? Maybe it’s less hilarious and more sad, pathetic, or just plain tragic.
As my scoff hangs in the air, I … I worry about who I’m becoming. This flat, embittered person who’s been emerging over the past eight—no, nine—months feels like one of those store-bought plastic Halloween costumes that slowly smothers you throughout what you thought would be a lovely night of trick-or-treating.
I’m losing myself.
But I don’t know how to stop. Stop the worrying. Stop the monologuing about how unfair it all is. Stop comparing my life to everyone else’s. Stop feeling ashamed that it’s come to this. Stop being endlessly offended and insulted that people haven’t called me up to the big leagues now that journalism is booming on a global scale. I can’t stop being scared. I can’t stop turning into someone I don’t recognize. And I can’t stop running away from the one question I won’t ask: Am I a failure?
“Something will happen,” I say to myself. “It always does.” The second part of that pep talk comes out a bit more like a threat. As if I’m warning myself that something better happen … or else. Or else what? Or else I’ll disappear completely into this person I don’t recognize, and forget I was ever any other way. Waking up one day to find myself an embittered professional organizer who has long forgotten she was once a journalist.
I open up the back door, cross the back deck, and step down into my parents’ fairy tale of a backyard. I pick my way through winding pathways, past hidden gazing balls and burbling water features, carefully dipping under fronds of lush green to finally unlatch the back gate and step into the bustling gardening center and nursery my parents have owned for the last forty years. I make my way back to the roses, where Dad is definitely not also growing weed.
