A Fortunate Age

by Joanna Rakoff

  Dr. Gitter ran his hands through his hair, so that it stuck up in peaked tufts, and nodded.

  In silence, they turned down Bedford, where the sidewalks were suddenly full of people talking and laughing, pleasantly lit from brunchtime Bloody Marys, the girls of Williamsburg in their scuffed boots and jeans and beaded cardigans beneath vintage coats with Bakelite buttons, their arms twined round the narrow waists of shaggy-haired boys, who moved along the avenue as if they owned it, boys like Curtis.

  “Listen, think about all this and we’ll talk on Monday. But seriously, this is serious. You don’t want to play around, okay?”

  “Okay.” And then he was gone, trotting down the grayish steps that led to the train. Emily leaned against the chipped iron fence that encased the entrance, staring down into the dark maw of the station, the muted roar of an arriving train just audible from below. This had not gone quite as she’d expected, though she wasn’t sure now what she’d expected, but certainly not bring your sister in tomorrow. Like, seriously, she thought, watching the crowd emerge from underground, a surge of volatile, chattering bodies. This is serious. Okay, dude.

  She returned to an empty apartment. Clara had retired to Sweetwater, no doubt, with her friends, to play pool and sip a postbrunch beer (though, should she be drinking? Why had Emily not asked this before? Why had her mother—or Clara’s doctor—given her no instruction? She should have asked Dr. Gitter). Relieved, Emily collapsed in a heap on her bed, as she tended to on Sundays lately, now that Clara’s weeknight gatherings were bleeding over into the weekends. The crowd, the food, the smoke all conspired to exhaust her, though, in truth, she didn’t mind so much, losing her one day of solitude—the less time to reflect on things the better. What troubled her was the expense of all the nice food Clara insisted on serving. Braised lamb shanks over couscous. Chili with three different kinds of sausages and sirloin that she ground herself in the Cuisinart. Lox and sable on Sunday mornings. Every night she cooked enough for a dozen, saying, “We’ll put the leftovers in the freezer.” But there were never any leftovers. The constant stream of visitors—each offered a bowl of whatever was on the stove—made sure of that.

  Meanwhile, the SSI money had still not arrived, and Emily was beginning to think it never would. She’d read up on the subject—online, at work, as usual—and discovered that it could take years to kick in. The previous week, she’d taken out a cash advance on her credit card, which she’d used only three or four times in eight years, as she knew she couldn’t afford to keep a balance, not with her student loans, her newly doubled rent, and so on. Still, when the crisp twenty-dollar bills shot out of the cash machine—just as they did when she withdrew money, her own money, from her account—she felt a keen icy relief, that dissolved an hour later when she got home and looked up the interest rate. Twenty-five percent. Plus a four percent fee.

  What she needed, she knew, was to find a way to make Clara spend less money, without causing her to panic. Every Monday, she gave Clara cash for groceries—seventy-five dollars, which seemed enough for two smallish women—and every Wednesday Clara asked for more: for cigarettes, for coffee, for this great painting she’d seen at the Salvy, which she was sure was valuable. And so Emily handed over a twenty or two, so as not to seem stingy. But by Friday Clara was asking for more again, for supplies for her Sunday brunch, which always ran at least sixty bucks in and of itself. That seemed the obvious place to economize. She couldn’t ask Clara to stop inviting her friends over, so she instead suggested serving eggs and potatoes instead of lox and bagels. For two weeks, Clara obliged. The third week, Emily looked in the fridge and saw the familiar Russ & Daughters carrier bags, but opted to say nothing. Clara hadn’t asked her for money, and Emily presumed she must have saved grocery money from the past few weeks to pay for the nice fish and cream cheese, which was good. She couldn’t, no, couldn’t even consider the possibility of Clara taking cash from her though she had been feeling that her wallet seemed to empty more rapidly lately. And even if this was the case, was it really so bad, stealing a ten every now and then? In a way, the trouble, really, wasn’t that they were overspending but that they needed more income—just a little more, another thousand a month, and they’d be fine. Not rich, but fine.

  Since Clara could not, reliably, be taught to economize, Emily tried to cut corners for the both of them. She drank two cups of coffee at home before leaving for work, rather than buying her second at the L before she got on the subway. She skipped breakfast and brought her lunch—salad, in a square Tupperware container—instead of buying it. She let her gym membership lapse and began running, though she hated it, and using the vouchers given to her by the yoga instructor. But these small economies made little difference and all day, as Emily sat at her dreary desk, she devised moneymaking schemes. They could knit hats and scarves and mittens and sell them to one of the overpriced gift shops on Bedford. She could write a story for a women’s magazine about taking care of her mentally ill sister, or proofread for Sadie’s company.

  But nothing panned out: the gift shops all had suppliers of fancy hand knits; she’d need “clips,” according to Will, to write for magazines; and Sadie’s company kept proofreaders on staff. And so she sank lower: she began buying a lottery ticket once a week, though she knew this was a waste of a precious dollar. She carefully, painfully, withdrew her most pristine vintage—the sixties cocktail dress of deep turquoise satin that she’d worn to Lil and Tuck’s wedding; a crocheted halter dress, very Charlie’s Angels; a car coat of emerald and gold brocade—and sold them to a shop on West Broadway, but she got so little money that, on the train home, she trembled with regret. She answered a posting on the bulletin board at the L for an art model, but when the artist called her back—his voice thick and phlegmy on her machine—she didn’t pick up the phone, in fear that it was some sort of scam and the guy was really a pornographer, which led her to think about stripping. Between their sophomore and junior years of college, her friend Tova had worked at a club downtown called Goldstring. Just one night a week, all summer, and she’d earned more than enough to pay her room and board for the year. But Emily had neither Tova’s body—lush, brown, firm—nor her larky brain (“It’s funny,” she’d told Emily, “the guys are so excited; it’s hilarious, and empowering, too—you feel really hot”), and she just couldn’t bring herself even to investigate. She thought more seriously about phone sex, which you could do from your home, or at least Jennifer Jason Leigh had in Short Cuts. But that was impossible, too, since Clara would surely hear her holed up in her room moaning, “Oh, you’re making me hot. Oh, you’re such a bad boy. Fuck me, fuck me.”

  On and on she went: She thought she could teach yoga classes, but it took time and money to get certified. Or she could teach after-school acting classes for kids, but where? In what space? When she passed a wig shop, she realized she might sell her crowning glory—her hair—but even that avenue proved closed. Her hair was too short now. “Grow it out and come back in a year,” the owner told her. You don’t understand. I need money now, she wanted to say, but she nodded mutely and left, without even a thank-you. Finally, she called her pseudo-agent and told him she was interested now in doing voice-over work and she was sorry she’d been out of touch. But he didn’t call back. And so she began going on auditions again, on the off chance that she’d be cast in something with night rehearsals, as even the measly income for a show would help. But nothing, nothing was offered to her; all the parts seemed to be for actors older or younger, or other types: perky blondes, or wispy blondes, or statuesque blondes, or angry Latinas, or angry black women.

  Then one night, she was sitting at Von with Lil and Sadie—Sadie’s first outing after having Jack—trying to make her nine-dollar glass of wine last as long as possible, when she saw the bartender—tall, black-haired, beautiful, in clothing far more fashionable than anything she or her friends owned—pocket a tip. Sadie and Dave and Tal had all worked as bartenders in college, not just because it was a cool job in te
rms of the campus hierarchy, but because it paid more than working in the dining hall or the student union or the library, because of tips. A cute girl could, she knew, clean up. Three days later, she had a job at a simple, pub-style place on First Avenue, all the way up at Seventy-second Street, safely north of her friends’ orbit. Not that her friends would ever go into this sort of bar, with its brass rails and banker clientele, its televisions tuned to football. She told Clara she’d been cast in a play that rehearsed nights and she’d be out late Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays for the next few weeks. Clara, as expected, didn’t ask for any details. “Congratulations,” she cried, and flung her arms around Emily. “That’s so great! You’re gonna be a star. I always said it.”

  Her first night, a Wednesday, Emily arrived at the pub in what she thought was ideal bartender attire: black leather pants, a low-cut black T-shirt emblazoned with the word “Angel” in red rhinestones, and her green cowboy boots. The manager, a portly guy named Declan, looked her over approvingly. “You’re an actress, right,” he said, lighting up a Winston. Emily had forgotten about the smoke. She hated smoke, but perhaps she would get used to it. And her own apartment wasn’t all that much better than a bar.

  “It’s true,” she said, grinning. “I am.”

  “Well, you’re gonna be a star, I can tell you that.”

  Emily laughed to slake off the smarminess of this exchange. “That’s what my sister says.”

  “Yep. All our girls are actresses. They leave when they get a break. Go to L.A. for pilot season. The last one, Kirsty, she’s on this new sitcom about lawyers.”

  Emily learned how to work the taps, how to change a keg, how to pour a drink, and how to work the dishwasher. At eight, the bar began to fill with short-haired men in suits, their ties loosened or stuffed in pockets. Business, Declan told her, had been “booming” since September eleventh. The men drank beer after beer after beer, and the occasional shot of whiskey or bourbon or scotch on ice, and began leaving fives and tens for her instead of singles, smiling slyly as they slid the bills across the bar.

  By midnight, her feet were aching and she hopped miserably from foot to foot. By two o’clock, closing time, they’d gone numb and her exhaustion had given way to exhilaration; she wiped down the bar and glanced around to see what else she might do. Declan was seated at a small table, settling the till. “Go home,” he told her, waving a meaty hand in her direction. “You’re done. Good work.” Outside, she closed her coat against the chill air and walked up and over a block to wait for the Second Avenue bus. She could take it to Fourteenth Street and transfer to the L train. The bus, usually so unreliable, came right away and zoomed off down the deserted avenue. She was the only passenger. At this time of night, she thought, rich people took taxis and poor people were asleep or at work. Furtively, she unzipped her backpack and leafed through the bills she’d collected, which amounted—she was shocked to see—to almost two hundred dollars! And this was a Wednesday!

  On Friday, she made even more, and the following Monday somewhat less, but still enough to make it worth the effort. That Tuesday, at work, she was tired, but not all that much more than usual, and her job—her day job—definitely didn’t require any particular level of alertness. At this rate, she could work for a few more weeks—say, until after New Year’s—and make enough to catch up and get them through the holidays.

  After Thanksgiving, business at the bar picked up and Emily’s tip take-home increased, but it still wasn’t enough. She’d managed to cover the holiday meal—Clara had, typically, invited the whole neighborhood—and the various expenses of the weekend, and pay back a bit of her accruing debt, but then December rent came due, and with it the bills. And the holidays were rapidly approaching. She’d told Clara, firmly, that things were a bit tight and they should skip gifts this year. “Okay,” Clara said, but the look on her face suggested that she would not obey this edict and Emily, in a state of panic, asked Declan if she could take on another shift or two. As it turned out, the other “girl” was going home early for Christmas. Emily could work Tuesdays and Thursdays, if she wanted. “You can have Saturdays, too,” he said, keeping his gaze on the till. “We can always use an extra hand. But I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it. These guys can get pretty rowdy on Saturday night. And five nights a week is enough, anyway. You don’t want to exhaust yourself.” Emily nodded. Those rowdy men would tip well, she thought, especially near Christmas.

  “Maybe I’ll try it this Saturday and see how it goes?”

  “Okay. We’ll see how it goes. If you’re wiped out by Friday, let’s forget about it.”

  “Okay,” Emily said, but she knew she would come in.

  Come Friday, she understood his reservations. Working every night until two—getting home close to three—was pretty different than working every other night. Saturday morning she slept very late. In the bathroom, she had to turn away from her reflection in the mirror. The thin skin under her eyes had swelled in the night and turned a dull shade of gray. Her eyes themselves were red and itchy from the smoke and lack of sleep. Faint creases ran from the sides of her nose to the corners of her mouth. Had they always been there? All day her bed seemed, quite audibly, to be calling to her, asking her to please, please come back and lie down, just for a minute; but she did her laundry and straightened her room and read a novel until it was time to go uptown to work. Walking to the train, she could barely lift her feet, and kept tripping on jutting bits of sidewalk and stumbling into people. But once she arrived at the pub, she felt better; for a few hours, she needn’t think of anything but beer. For a few hours, others would tell her exactly what they needed from her: pint of Guinness, bottle of Sam Smith, vodka tonic.

  At seven—when her shift started—the bar was already half full. Short-haired men in sweaters sat at the small tables and laughed loudly, far more loudly than usual. In fact, all the sounds in the bar—the music of the jukebox, the clink of glasses, the crunching of pretzels—were decidedly amplified today. She stashed her stuff in the back room, applied some fresh lip gloss, and took her place behind the bar. Men—and even a few women, in low-rise jeans and little sweaters and high-heeled boots—poured in, all of them wanting Sam Adams special Christmas ale, which was good, because they had too much of it—the distributor had made a mistake—and, Declan said, come December twenty-sixth no one would touch the stuff. “It’s really good,” she told the endless stream of men, though she hadn’t tried it herself. “It’s brewed with nutmeg.”

  Around ten, as her eyes began to droop with exhaustion, she heard, among the clamoring voices, one that sounded discomfortingly familiar. Scanning the room, she was confronted with the sloping profile of Dr. Gitter—truly the last person she wanted to see. In the three-odd weeks since his visit he’d left six, maybe seven—more, actually, but Emily didn’t like to think about it—messages on Emily’s cell phone, first simply asking her to give him a call, then informing her, in brisk, efficient tones, that he’d arranged for Clara to be admitted to the clinic, gratis, but that Emily needed to call him immediately so they could “get things going”; then imploring her to call him, as he was “seriously concerned about the Clara situation”; and finally chastising her for ignoring his previous messages and warning her that if she didn’t call back soon, he and Dr. Lang might not be able to help her (“I don’t understand this, Emily. Dr. Lang is very concerned. Please just give us a call back.”).

  Each day at work, Emily added “Call Dr. Gitter” to her list of things to do. Each day, however, six o’clock rolled around and she hadn’t made the call. By now she’d waited so long that she was embarrassed—by her own rudeness, her ingratitude, and by the knowledge that this man thought her dilemma so dire. That he viewed Clara with the cold eye of a clinician made sense to her. That he viewed Emily herself in a similar way made her furious. Her face flamed just thinking about it, and she slunk to the corner nearest the storage closet and farthest from where he stood, near the bar’s front window, drinking what appeared
to be some sort of scotch, in the company of three similarly dressed (faded jeans, sweaters) and bespectacled (small, wire-framed) men who she presumed to be other members of the Lang team. He won’t recognize me, she thought, sloshing gin over ice for a stocky guy in a football jersey.

  But a sort of panic—exacerbated, she knew, by her exhaustion—had set in: her heart thumped wildly, so wildly that her eyeballs seemed to rattle in their orbs. She knew what Sadie would say—that she couldn’t face Dr. Gitter because she knew he was right—even though she’d not given her the opportunity to say it. She’d been so wrapped up in Clara, and now work, that she’d barely seen her friends all fall. Maybe I should tell Declan that I’m too tired and need to go home, she thought, whipping her head toward the back wall just as Dr. Gitter turned slightly toward her, futilely scanning for an empty table. What is he doing here, she screamed inwardly. The answer came to her a moment later, so obvious that she started to laugh at her own stupidity: the hospital. The hospital was down the street. It seemed a private enclave—removed from the towers and brownstones of the Upper East Side—but it was, in reality, a relatively short walk away. Chances were, Dr. Gitter—and all his cronies—lived nearby. Once they coupled, they’d move to Scarsdale or Greenwich or Tenafly, like the Drs. Lang and their cronies. She pulled three more pints for a trio of sniggering guys with gelled hair. “Here you go,” she said, pushing the glasses of beer toward the rim of the bar with a satisfying clink. “Um, miss . . .” said the fat one, pointing toward his glass. And Emily saw her escape: the glass was filled with foam, which meant the keg was killed and needed to be changed.

  “Declan,” she called, “cover for me. I need to change the keg.” Declan grimaced. She suspected he didn’t think “the girls” should be doing man’s work like lifting the heavy kegs.