The Roxy Letters

by Mary Pauline Lowry

  “Roxy!” my dad said. “His name is Franklin.”

  “How’s it going with him?” I asked.

  “I’m almost done with his teeth,” my dad said. “He looks like a new man. It was such a challenge. I haven’t had one of those in so long.” So my father has been cheered up by doing a good turn for Captain Tweaker! Venus truly does work in mysterious ways.

  “I’m worried as soon as your father’s done working on Franklin, he’ll go right back to dragging around here like a biscuit that’s been under the gravy too long,” my mother said. I hope he doesn’t. It perks me up to see my dad so happy again.

  On Wednesday, my first day of work, I didn’t have an electronic card for the elevator to the fifth floor yet, so Annie came down to ride up with me. “Thank you so much,” I said for about the millionth time.

  “Fugedabout it,” she said. “It was all you. Guess what?”

  “What?”

  “Lululemon accepted Topher Doyle’s very persuasive offer and has agreed to move the Lululemon to Ninth and Lamar!”

  “Oh my Goddess! Oh my Goddess! Oh my Goddess!” I felt my eyes well up. I couldn’t help it. I had never really thought I could accomplish my Great Work, had never truly believed the Waterloo Video location could be wrested back from the forces of corporate greed.

  Teal showed me to my studio—a big open office with windows overlooking the intersection of Sixth and Lamar Boulevard. The Lululemon sign still hangs over the store like a dark cloud shading the intersection. But not for long. I know I haven’t stopped national stores like Lululemon from taking over downtown. And I certainly can’t keep Austin from growing and changing and becoming a city I hardly recognize. But all my obsessing and hard work has helped to bring a worthy venture to the former location of Waterloo Video (RIP), a store I loved so well. In its place will be a Puppy Adoption Center backed by Whole Foods, which may have transformed from a single little hippy grocery store to a global titan, but at least it’s a global titan from Austin, Texas, and will never be the pawn of some evil corporate giant like Amazon or Google.

  On my worktable, Teal pointed to a large blackboard easel and my job for the day, which she’d printed up for me as if I was in “The Great British Baking Show.”

  “Someone could just email it to me,” I said.

  “I’m a receptionist. Let me have some fun.”

  “Fair enough,” I said.

  At the doorway she paused and turned. “You have three hours for this challenge. Ready, set, draw.”

  She disappeared and I got to work on my assignment. But two hours in I heard a knock on the doorframe of my studio/office. I looked up to see Topher Doyle standing there. He came over to examine the drawing I was doing of a leg of lamb—which felt a little antithetical to my moral code, but I was giving it my best.

  “I heard the good news,” I said.

  “Initially the execs at Lululemon were reluctant to move the store on such short notice, but when I pointed out the benefit for them of being on the right side of saving puppies’ lives, they buckled quickly.” Topher Doyle paused to stare out the window, as if he was remembering days long gone, when he was not the CEO Lite of a massive corporation, but a founding member of a scrappy little local health-food store. “I want the grand opening of the Puppy Adoption Center to coincide with Whole Foods’ thirty-two-year anniversary,” he said.

  “Great,” I said. “When is that?”

  “In just over two months.”

  “Two months? That seems really fast.”

  “I’ve found if you pay a premium, you can get a construction crew to do in two months what would normally take six. And Annie of course has spoken with the people running the current emergency puppy mill rescue shelter they’ve thrown together for the dachshunds in a warehouse on the south side. They are all in. The adoption center will need a manager.”

  I swear I could hear a Zen gong ringing in my ears. “I know someone who would be perfect for the job,” I said. “He’s incredible with animals and would be totally dedicated.”

  Topher Doyle certainly seemed open to hearing about my candidate for the position.

  I felt a little bad about having to leave work early on my first day for my meeting with my probation officer, but Annie whispered to me not to worry about it. “Are you kidding?” she said. “Topher Doyle loves that you are in trouble with the law. It makes him feel like he’s in touch with the vegan gangster movement.”

  “Is there a vegan gangster movement?”

  “I think we should just let him have his fantasies. Especially since they benefit you.”

  As I got off the elevator and was walking to my car, I saw Dirty Steve get out of his Mustang. He pointed at me with his first two fingers, then back at his own eyes and back at me again, as if to indicate he was watching me. It was really creepy. Clearly my ascendancy to the fifth floor has messed with his sense of a just world order. I’ve always thought of Dirty Steve as a very annoying, pigheaded, but ultimately harmless blowhard clown. But suddenly I sort of wished he didn’t know where I work.

  The waiting room at the probation center made me a little sad. No one looked like they had extra money to spend on court fees, except for one woman who rolled up into the parking lot in a Mercedes. She entered the waiting room carrying a Louis Vuitton handbag big enough to hide a body, and swinging a waist-length blonde weave. She winked at me in a way that could have been anything from lascivious to friendly to threatening. I was glad Artemis wasn’t there, because she would surely adopt this woman as a role model or alter ego.

  The meeting with my probation officer was surprisingly great. She’s actually not a brooding middle-aged man drinking rot-gut coffee out of a Styrofoam cup, but rather a relatable woman named Teresa who sips green tea sagely out of a hand-thrown mug. She asked me lots of questions about myself and listened attentively in the manner of a well-paid therapist. It was really quite enjoyable and gratifying. As I left she congratulated me on all my hard work and progress, but I really felt like I should be slipping her a three-figure check for her time and attention.

  “Next week, same time?” I asked. She looked at me a little strangely and said I didn’t need to come back for a month, which was disappointing.

  Then I had to go to the bathroom, where a mean-looking woman in a shiny cheap suit watched me as I peed into a cup, which I didn’t love, but I’ll take peeing in a cup in front of a stranger over eating a high-fat breakfast sandwich any day.

  If there’s anything all the craziness of the last few weeks has given me, it’s perspective.

  #blessed,

  Roxy

  October 31, 2012

  Dear Everett,

  Oh strange world! I just came home from Halloween at my parents’ house. (At a supple twenty-eight years old, shouldn’t I be out at the club shaking it in a sexy she-devil costume, you ask? My answer is no. I will not give in to the holiday as an opportunity to objectify women—I mean, if MEN were to dress up as scantily clad warlocks and warriors I’d be ALL IN. But I’m not participating in the sexualization of women on what was meant to be a children’s holiday. And I know Halloween at a senior living community sounds lame, but it was actually really fun. Lots of people’s grandkids came to trick or treat, and so my mom and dad and I gave out tons of candy. I was pleased to see about a hundred little girls all dressed up like Merida from the Pixar movie “Brave.” I exhorted each of them to maintain their dedication to empowering, feminist Halloween costumes even when they reach adolescence and beyond!) My dad was more chipper than I have seen him in years! Even in his best humor he is quiet and stoic, so it took a while to get the reason for his good mood out of him. It turns out his spirits were so buoyed by fixing Captain Tweaker’s meth mouth that he has decided to start a nonprofit dental clinic where he will fix the teeth of former meth addicts who have over a year of sobriety. This news makes me feel extremely mature—the old me hit my mom and dad up for money more often than I’d like to admit, but now I am a grown, independ
ent woman who has helped my father find his path out of the dark aimlessness of Sun City to the light of productive community service.

  I will likely be mush this entire weekend. Having a full-time, nine-to-five job is exhausting. I seriously do not know how people do it. At the deli I told myself I worked full-time, but it was really more like four shifts a week and at random times. At my new job, I do about four hours or so of work a day for the store—in that amount of time I can draw a sign start-to-finish if I’m cranking. The rest of the time I spend on an invigorating and surreal acrylic series of wiener dogs painted on flattened cardboard boxes leftover from shipments to the store. I have to say I’m really happy with how they are coming along, AND they will show at the Puppy Adoption Center for the grand opening!!!

  After making all that art, I’m so tired by the time I leave in the afternoons that I can hardly see straight. I’ve been getting an IT guy named Lorne to walk me to my car. I keep thinking about Dirty Steve and his “I’m watching you” hand gesture. And once or twice I could have sworn I saw him kind of skulking around the parking lot. I’ve thought about reporting him to HR but worry about coming across as (a) paranoid or (b) vindictive. Also, in our own way, Dirty Steve and I walked a lot of miles together as dickhead boss/underappreciated employee.

  I don’t miss my deli days, I promise, especially not since my first paycheck will hit my bank account in another week. Despite this daily grind, I wake up early enough to walk Roscoe before work AND make a small offering to Venus. That powerful (and sometimes fickle) goddess seems to be getting me through my days. Making signs for the Lululemon protest really primed the pump—I haven’t been “blocked” for a moment since I started this job. It’s funny to think back to all the teeth gnashing I did when I wasn’t making art about how badly I wanted to make art. It feels like I was swimming upstream with all my might and now I’m just floating along on my back, letting the creative energy of the Universe carry me.

  Last week when I first started my job, I thought for a moment about trying to get Topher Doyle to chuck Duckie & Lambie out of Whole Foods, but then realized I have no reason to do harm to Brant Bitterbrush. Being over someone means really letting them go, not trying to stay emotionally snarled up with them by seeking revenge. I’m so glad Venus has helped me get clarity on that situation!

  With days of vacation stretching ahead of me, I have to admit I am lonely. Annie is mostly too busy to hang out outside of work. She is still dating Jeff Castro. (Though their relationship has been made rocky by the fact that Annie kept hugging his identical twin Joe and claiming to have mistaken him for Jeff. But last week Jeff got a small neck tattoo of an empty birdcage with its door open. While he claims he’s always wanted a neck tattoo and that it has no relation to Annie, she now worries she has no excuse for not being able to tell him and Joe apart. When I asked Jeff about the meaning and significance of the open-door birdcage, he said, “Don’t cage the bird, man.”) Anyway, he and Annie—despite or because of their ups and downs—are hot and heavy, and so her free time is limited.

  Artemis is unemployed, so ostensibly should be available to hang, but she’s still mostly MIA. Ever since she got sober, she’s been going to AA meetings every night. Apparently, she has a different alter ego for every meeting she goes to, which is keeping her spirits up. When I complain about how she’s never around, she says I should come to a meeting with her. HA!

  And you, dear Everett, are busy with Nadia and whatever goes on at the OM house (which I can’t even make fun of anymore since all the inhabitants pulled together to help me make bail!). I understand that you have moved on, and I am happy for you, but more than I’d like to admit, I miss the days when you were constantly available to watch movies and eat vegan junk food with me.

  I’ve given up on thinking Texas will ever call. But I have an idea for how I could see him one more time—I’m going to insist we hire FAIL BETTER! to play the grand opening of the Puppy Adoption Center. If nothing jumps off from that, I’ll swear off him forever. I’m going to make Annie do all the arrangements, though, so it doesn’t seem like it was my idea.

  Matchmaking (for myself),

  Roxy

  November 6, 2012

  Dear Everett,

  Last night was bizarre and ultimately deeply disheartening.

  So here goes: Artemis has been bugging me and bugging me to go to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting with her. “I like to drink, but I don’t think it’s come to that,” I said.

  “No, I just want you to come so you can see what I’m up to. That way when I tell you about it, you can picture it, right?”

  “I’ve seen AA meetings in about a million movies,” I said.

  Artemis rolled her eyes. “Movies. Phff! How about we live real life? The stories are incredible. Heart wrenching. Hilarious. Last night a guy with fifteen years sober said back in his drinking days he woke up one time in a morgue—with a tag on his toe! People laughed so hard they cried.”

  “I guess you had to be there?” I said.

  “Exactly. Please come with me. Puh-lease?”

  Just then my phone dinged. It was Captain Tweaker, who was sending me photos of the new dental implants my dad put in. It was crazy how different he looked with his rotten meth teeth replaced with pearly whites. I showed the photo to Artemis.

  “That guy goes to my favorite meeting!” she yelled.

  “Shut the fuck up.”

  “He does. Text him. Tell him.”

  I texted Captain Tweaker, asking him if he goes to the 6 p.m. meeting at Our Lady of Sorrows off South Congress. He texted back that he goes every Monday through Friday!

  “That is crazy synchronicity,” Artemis said. “You have to come.”

  “It’s not synchronicity. It’s just a central Austin special. This town is a hotbed of run-ins and coincidence.”

  “It’s not coincidence! It’s a sign from a Higher Power.”

  “I can’t believe you are using your newfound spirituality to manipulate me, but fine,” I said. “I’ll go.”

  Artemis cheered.

  “But at the meeting, what do I say instead of ‘I’m an alcoholic’?”

  “Just say, ‘I’m Roxy. I’m an Al-Anon.’ ”

  “What’s that mean exactly?”

  “To alcoholics it means you’re a worried, neurotic lame-o.”

  “Thanks!”

  “No. Seriously, it just means you are friends or family of an alcoholic. Which you are!”

  “Okay, fine,” I said, just to get her to stop bugging me.

  “Be sure and dress cute. There’s alcoholic man candy galore.”

  So I dug around in my closet and for once found a sundress that isn’t the flowered one I usually wear. This one is a maxi dress with a low back that’s sexy in an I-just-threw-this-on-and-am-not-really-trying way. I should do a deep dive in my closet more often. Goddess only knows what other forgotten treasures it might hold.

  Artemis drove. There was plenty of parking at Our Lady of Sorrows—we were walking distance to all the food trucks and fancy new South Congress restaurants, but didn’t have to circle around forever looking for a parking spot. Who knew being a drunk would come with such perks? We went down the stairs to the basement. Someone was making a bad pot of coffee. Artemis started kissing everyone on the cheek and giving hugs. There were tons of hot musician-looking guys standing around, and everyone had tattoos and was uber hip. I could totally see why Artemis likes it. She was right—I hadn’t been imagining it right. In my mind all the people were grim and sad, but really it was like all the cool people in town had found this secret haven together that happened to be in a church basement. I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned around to see Captain Tweaker giving me a huge smile to show off his new pearly whites. “I’m three months sober and I have new teeth!” he said. “All thanks to a Higher Power I never believed in and a cunt neighbor I never liked!”

  I laughed. “Did you just call me a ‘cunt’?”

  “In the old days, that
’s what I thought,” he said. “But I was as wrong about you as I was about God!”

  Luckily, right then people started heading toward the folding chairs. Artemis and I settled in as the meeting started. The leader of the meeting—a man with sleeve tattoos of rain forests—read for a long time from a laminated sheet. “No cross talk during the meeting please. Cross talk consists of interrupting a fellow member or commenting on his or her share. We are self-supporting through our own contributions.” Blah blah blah.

  As he blathered on, I looked around the room, checking out all the people. Then the basement door swung open and in walked Texas! My eyes nearly bugged out of my head. He slid into an open chair. A fierce blush slid right up my neck and took over my entire face just as his eyes met mine. He looked surprised, and then gave me a big, glowing, happy smile. I smiled back and then looked away, embarrassed. I elbowed Artemis and she gave me a wicked grin—so she knew! She knew Texas went to that meeting, damnit, and she hadn’t said anything to me about it. Just dragged me there with no warning. At least she’d encouraged me not to come looking like a ragamuffin. I tried to distract myself by listening to what the meeting leader was going on about. “The great thing about AA,” he said, “is that we can come up with our own idea of a Higher Power. Your Higher Power could be Mickey Rourke, or the ceiling over your bed. Hell, your Higher Power could even be a stuffed raccoon, right, Sam?”

  Everyone laughed and Texas groaned.

  “One of the joys of having a sponsee,” the meeting leader said, and everyone laughed again at this incomprehensible inside joke. They were speaking Greek to me, but I liked the easy sense of camaraderie between the people and the fact that no one was pretending like they had everything together.

  After the leader was done rambling on about how learning to “surrender to win” had saved him from a life of vodka-seeking hell, he said, “So I guess the topic of the meeting is surrender.” Then he opened the meeting for sharing.

  Artemis jumped in first. “I’m Cupid Vanuncio and I’m an alcoholic,” she said. It seems like even sobriety and regular meds consumption haven’t dampened Artemis’s enthusiasm for a great handle. “I’ve been having a hard time staying sober this week,” she continued, “but my dear and loyal friend Roxy agreed to come with me tonight—even though she’s mostly a normie.” For some reason this elicited chuckles all around. “She’s here to offer me support on my sobriety journey. I’m so grateful for her.”