Nuclear Family

by Susanna Fogel

  Oh and that’s a great shirt for yr boobs. Not that I am objectifying my own sister or anything LOL.

  x to the izzo,

  Jane

  Ps—i know im a dick and i didn’t get u anything for ur birthday yet but please save this email bc it is officially a coupon for us to get pedicures the next time I come visit you. omg remember when we took mom to get manicures after grandma’s funeral to cheer her up and she kept being like DON’T FORGET MY CUTICLES and the manicure lady was like why did I leave Vietnam for this bahahahahaha

  Your Mom Can’t Help It, She’s a Romantic

  Honey,

  Jane just told me you and Raj got back together—or are in the process of doing so, that a conversation is happening. I won’t ask questions about the details of when and how you two made this decision because I don’t want to embarrass you, but I did want to send you a note to say how proud I am of you for letting your heart be your guide. One thing I’ve learned in my years as a psychoanalyst is that people can be very dogmatic and unforgiving when it comes to giving second chances, but the truth about why people are unfaithful is always more complicated, with layers both conscious and unconscious that often have to do with childhood trauma.

  In Raj’s case, growing up in a predominantly white suburb of Connecticut must have been challenging on a number of levels. He’s very lucky to have someone as supportive as you who is so invested in the healing of those wounds. Obviously I’ve never met that bartender at the Cha Cha Lounge, but I would be surprised if she was anywhere near as empathetic or insightful as you.

  I’m keeping my fingers crossed for you two!

  Love,

  Mom

  Your Dad Would Like to Weigh In on a Decision You Already Made

  Dear Julie,

  I just noticed on your Facebook page that you and Raj have decided to take another stab at a relationship.

  Statistically speaking, second chances rarely ever lead to a successful partnership. Most often, the problems and incompatibilities that led to the first breakup resurface sooner or later, despite the initial euphoria of a reunion.

  But as Bob Dylan famously said, “You can’t be wise and in love at the same time.”

  Dad

  Your Cousin Paul, Who Has Three Very Expensive Watches, Actually Did Something Interesting

  To my family,

  Mass e-mail isn’t really my style, but I just wanted to give you all a heads up about something that happened to me recently so you don’t read about it in a magazine first. Some of you may have heard about this from my mom already.

  Long story short, the investment firm I work for (Prudent Capital) just found out that Vanity Fair is going to be running a piece about us in their December issue. It turns out a guy who started working in the mailroom last summer was actually a journalist working on a story about modern hedge-fund culture in New York and decided to do a profile on Prudent because everyone at the company is under forty. Obviously this was a huge violation of everyone’s trust, especially my friend Chris’s and mine (for anyone who visited me at college, you probably met Chris—he was president of my fraternity), because we really took Evan under our wing and were even starting to groom him to maybe work for us next year. Chris and I take brotherhood really seriously in the real world too.

  Anyway, it turns out Evan included a lot of really unflattering details about some things that happened when we were off the clock. Mostly this is just stuff my boss, Dave, did, but there is one detail about me in there too. I’ll just come out and say it:

  Basically, I smoked crack at my company’s Fourth of July party.

  Let me just give you the context.

  The culture of my company is very dog-eat-dog, especially because of what is going on with the economy right now. If any of you have seen The Wolf of Wall Street, we’re not that bad, but that is a pretty realistic depiction of the general “work hard, play hard” culture. We spend a lot of weekends at Dave’s house in the Hamptons, etc. He calls it “team building,” and it’s basically a job requirement to go. So when our CEO, Sunil (who is mentioned in the section about tax fraud), told us he’d rented a yacht for the Fourth, we all knew it wasn’t optional. Molly decided to stay home because she had just found out she was pregnant (that’s the other thing I wanted to tell you, but this seemed more important to get out of the way).

  When we got to the party, it was basically the same as it is at work: you do whatever the senior partners are doing or you get hazed. So when Sunil’s neighbor from Gramercy Park showed up with some drugs (not a big deal to him because he’s an artist and Jackson Pollock’s grandson), things went to the next level.

  As far as what was going through my head when I made the actual decision to smoke crack, I honestly don’t really remember everything from that night because I had been drinking too. That’s the other thing—it’s not like this was a conscious decision I made. You do not have to worry that I have a drug problem or anything. This was literally the first time I’ve ever done anything like this. You’ve all known me a long time and you know I have always been an athlete and my body is my temple. The only substance besides food that I have ever allowed into that temple is alcohol and, when I ran the marathon, Chinese performance-enhancing drugs that were completely legal until last year.

  That’s why I think what Evan did by lying to us for months is actually worse than what I did: he consciously knew what he was doing. He pretended he was an undergrad from Syracuse wanting advice from Chris and me about the hedge-fund world and asking us to teach him our ways, preying on the fact that our school takes a lot of pride in our alumni network. Now that I know the truth, it makes sense that Evan didn’t go to Syracuse. No Orangeman would do what he did.

  As for the rest of the article, I also wanted you to know that a lot of sections were exaggerated. For example, the section about hiring Dominican escorts at the cookout on Labor Day weekend to prepare all our meals naked is false.

  Yes, we did hire women to help us that weekend, but we did not expect them to get naked.

  And just so you know, throughout all this, I have always stayed completely faithful to Molly. She is being a total trouper right now, by the way. FYI just in case anyone tries to contact her and she doesn’t respond, she’s on a road trip with her friends in her new Range Rover for the next few weeks, but she says she’ll be back at the end of the month.

  Anyway, that’s pretty much it. I just didn’t want you to hear about this from someone else or read the article before I had a chance to get ahead of it. Again, I regret my actions, and if this causes any of you embarrassment or concern, I’m really sorry.

  Happy Thanksgiving,

  Paul

  Your Mother, a Therapist, Gets Why Your Cousin Smoked Crack

  Hi girls,

  I wanted to touch base about your cousin Paul and what he just revealed in his e-mail to all of us. I can only imagine your shock at learning this new detail, which must seem so inconsistent with the person you thought you knew.

  Luckily, you both have a trained psychoanalyst for a mother. I wanted to offer you girls some “words of wisdom” about why Paul’s behavior is actually not as surprising as it may seem, at least not from a Freudian standpoint.

  I’ve seen this often in my work among people who grow up in an environment of privilege. Because they are rarely exposed to people of lower socioeconomic classes, they often reach adulthood feeling a subconscious guilt that can be quite overpowering. They struggle with feelings of shame and isolation from the “real world” and yearn to empathize with those less fortunate, to relieve themselves of that burden. They then act out by trying to “walk a mile in their shoes.”

  In Paul’s case, this meant the shoes of the thousands of underprivileged Americans who are desperate for momentary escape and resort to the use of crack cocaine.

  I sent an e-mail to Paul letting him know the real reasons he did what he did. I’m hopeful that when he receives it, he will finally feel understood.

 
Love,

  Mom

  Your Sister Is Pretty Excited about Your Cousin’s Criminal Activity

  OH

  MY

  GOD

  PAUL

  WTF

  Dude can i just tell u i was in the middle of my shift when I got pauls e-mail and I go HOLY FUCK really loud in the middle of my store then I look over and see that our regional manager is standing right there bc he is in town to do store inspections haha WHOOPS. Anyway I will just keep u posted on whether I still have a job by the end of the day … if they fire me I am suing paul for my wages bc he can afford it!

  And ugh MOM whyyyyyy does she always have to analyze everyone’s secret motivations??!?!?!?!?! Also she is giving paul WAY too much credit. that dude def does not feel guilty about being rich or he would not have gotten married on a fuckin golf course! That kid did crack cause he wants to get fucked up which is the only reason anyone does it including fuckin crackheads! LOL sometimes I just wanna tell mom not everything is a deeper statement about humanity but u know if I did she would just be like HONEY WHAT IS MOTIVATING YOU TO CORRECT ME IS IT BECAUSE OF YOUR TRAUMA haha. OMG I hate when she says TRAUMA, she pronounces it so weirdly! Like TROWWWWWWma hahaha like um where did that accent come from, ancient Germany???

  Kk Gotta go back inside and sell some more size 16 pants to the fake housewives of Arizona … two more weeks here and then I start EMT training!!!!!!!! Thank fuckin god I am finally getting a life haha.

  J

  Ps—WHAT IS AUNT ANDREA DOING WITH THIS INFORMATION!?!?!?!?! her skull is def exploding right now …

  Your Dad, on Your Breakup with Someone He Told You Not to Date

  Dear Julie,

  I gathered from the recent modifications to your Facebook profile that you and Raj have decided to terminate your relationship again. As you may remember, I predicted this would happen. Maybe next time you’ll listen to your old dad when he offers you some wisdom.

  You have to think about finding a partner like buying a house, though I realize you are still living in a rented apartment and may not understand the metaphor. A fixer-upper can be a good investment, but only if it has exceptional bones. Raj just isn’t a special enough property to justify the hassle and expense of removing all the lead paint.

  That said, I understand that breaking up is, as they say, hard to do. Enclosed please find a forty-dollar gift card to Amazon. You may use my Prime account for free shipping.

  Dad

  Your Stepmother Just Heard about Your Breakup with the Guy You Were Re-dating

  Dear Julie,

  It is your stepmom, Mei-Ling. Yesterday, your father informed me of your second breakup with your boyfriend, Raj, which would appear to be the Final Solution. (For some reason, your father wishes I do not use this phrase, yet I have no other way to express myself.) While your father holds responsible your careless nature in attempting a reunion with this man, resulting in the passage of precious time, I believe his knee has jerked with this response. In my view, he lacks comprehension of the hearts of women. I have thereby chosen to make contact with you to offer an option that may provide you with comfort: having relations with me.

  Before continuing, I wish to caution you that your father knows nothing of this correspondence. As the case is such that my primary hat is that of wife, fierce loyalty to my beloved is of utmost importance. Thus it is my sincere wish that you will benefit from my words herein, but should you inform my other half that I have contradicted him I will have no choice but to claim this letter as a forgery.

  I wish to offer first a piece of anecdotal evidence from my life. To put a fine point on it, your father was hardly my first love. That was Jin Jiang, native to Shanghai, who worked for the railroad and bore an impressive stature for a man of Chinese heritage. As a result, he had countless ladies in waiting and a difficulty in committing resembling Raj’s. Nevertheless, he declared love for me, donning the label of boyfriend for several years. During this, I allowed him to travel the world unaccompanied and did not compel him to report his whereabouts nor personal encounters. Many friends offered cautionary tales about permitting a man these freedoms, but I solitarily felt that in allowing my beloved to have liberty, I would give him the ability to fly high—though not so high as Icarus, for I felt confident in that he would return to the safety of the nest I weaved. The unfortunate outcome was otherwise. Jin failed at returning, having fallen in love with a server of teas on his train while traversing Russia. To this extent, the very vessel of his freedom became that of his betrayal. My heart burst. Yet after the organic healing of time, I arrived at the conclusion that I did not regret having placed my heart in peril because to experience love is gift in itself, even if the Final Solution is unfavorable.

  Thus, I encourage you to pardon yourself for this failed pursuit, removing any whips and chains you may be applying to your own flesh in a metaphorical sense. For to shame yourself for attempting love is to fear life itself and you are no such coward. Our hearts as women bear a striking resemblance to moths within cocoons. They cannot become butterflied prematurely. Perhaps the piece of your heart that remained in Raj’s possession during your estrangement had continued to seal your cocoon, preventing you from taking flight. May your pod now open freely, clearing you for takeoff.

  Yours truly,

  Mei-Ling

  Your Dad, Who Doesn’t Understand Your Career Goals, Just Found Out You Got Fired

  Julie,

  While sharing my latest haiku on the topic of our country’s nuclear-weapons policy on your Facebook wall this morning, I noticed several people in your network had written their condolences. I was able to glean from the text—abbreviations, “frown faces,” and all—that the Huffington Post has decided to terminate your contract.

  Care to tell your dad what happened?

  In any case, I would be more than happy to provide cheer in the form of the many reasons I am confident that you are better off not working for that institution. Indeed, I feel it has already wasted years of your time and talent on many levels, and I would love to explain all of them to you in extensive detail.

  Give me a call at your convenience—there’s more moral support where that came from.

  Love,

  Dad

  PS—If you’d like to call, please wait until after Stuart’s violin recital, which should be over at seven o’clock my time. Last time you called, I had forgotten to turn off my phone, and the noise from your call disrupted the concert.

  PPS—I noticed you removed my aforementioned haiku from your Facebook wall within seconds. Presumably this is because you disagree that our weapons plan is Draconian. Any interest in debating the point with your old man?

  Your Sister, Who Has Been Fired from Five Jobs, Wants to Welcome You to the Club

  Hey babes—

  I AM SO SORRY I HAVENT CALLED U BACK YET about getting fired!!!!! I suck. im in the middle of my EMT training and they have me on a shift that is 36 hours straight and its fuckin brutal. I am in the van now on my phone which I am not even supposed to be but im pretending its an emergency haha. Which is funny bc when u think about it everything is an emergency in this van!!!!

  Anyway I will call u tomorrow but i just wanted to say I cannot believe that fucking happened to you at yr job. So the computer virus made all your private chats visible to yr boss? Like every time we bitched about our jobs online on FB or email or gchat???? That’s my fuckin worst nightmare. And it so SUCKS that it was the day Ariana Huffington (sp?) was in the office!!!!!!!! Was she the one that fired u? Ugh.

  I told Mario who drives the EMT van what happened and he said maybe it was a conspiracy by the Govt??? He said they are always tracking every citizen so ppl probably knew about all yr chats before the computer thing even happened????? Mario is really smart—if u want to talk to him he can give u more information about what he knows …

  On the bright side maybe now u will have more time to work on yr book!!!!! U were just telling me how u were always too tired after wor
k and it made u have writers block so maybe everything happens for a reason. Let me know if u wanna come down here to AZ to clear yr head and get inspiration for yr writing. U are welcome to take my Jeep while im at work and drive up to Jerome for the day which was like an old town of prostitutes from the 1800s or something???? Lol but srsly every time I get fired I go up there to think.

  Like when I got fired from that fuckin job at the bathing suit store. Sorry but how was I supposed to know that woman put on five bikini bottoms and walked out of the store? Did u want me to x-ray peoples vaginas when they walk out of there? Broke ppl are fucking sneaky! That’s how they survive …

  Gotta go b/c we are pulling up to a Sizzler where this old lady collapsed. I hope she is still breathing. Ugh this job is so fuckin intense sometimes but Im glad I can make ppl feel better when they are scared.

  Also I attached a pic to make u smile in spite of this. As u can see its obviously a baby porcupine drinking a 40 hahaha

  Luv

  Jane

  Your Mom Secretly Kind of Loves That You’re Having a Meltdown

  Hi honey,

  You have nothing to apologize for. I loved our phone call on Mother’s Day. Just because it’s a holiday that’s supposed to be about me doesn’t mean your life is going to stop, or that you can’t tell me things that are going on in your life that are painful or traumatic for you. I don’t need to be coddled or protected! Maybe some other mothers would, but I’m an incredibly strong person.

  I’ve been thinking a lot about what you were saying—how lately, you’ve been wondering if you should have done something else with your life and you wonder if it’s “too late.” First of all, honey, it’s not over yet! It’s just beginning! It sounds like you’re almost done with your book and you just have to get over this “hump.” Of course, I understand why you might feel that way sometimes, especially when so many of the people around you have taken a more conventional path. But those people might never know the kind of passion you do. Look at Rachel. I don’t get the impression that she’s ever been passionate about PR, but she has a nice house and a comfortable life and that’s what was most important to her. Or maybe she didn’t feel like she could take a risk because Deborah is always talking about how she expects Rachel to take care of her financially after she retires. Aren’t you glad I don’t put those kinds of expectations on you?