One Fifth Avenue

by Кэндес Бушнелл

  Her agent forced her to lunch one afternoon at the Polo Club. She could barely speak and picked at her food. “What’s wrong with you?” he asked. She shook her head, murmuring, “I don’t know.”

  “I can’t send you out like this. Hollywood is a cruel town. They’ll say you’ll never work again, if they’re not saying it already. Why don’t you go to the desert? Or Mexico. Even Malibu, for Christ’s sake. Take a couple of weeks. Or a month. When you come back, I can probably get you a part playing someone’s mother.”

  When the interminable lunch was over and she was back in her car driving down Sunset, she began to cry uncontrollably and couldn’t stop for several hours. There was the unaccountable despair, but the shame was the worst of it. People like her weren’t supposed to be depressed, but she felt broken and didn’t know how to fix herself. Out of pity, her agent sent her a script for a TV series. She refused to meet the writer for lunch but allowed him to come to the house. His name was Tom, and he was younger than she and eager and sensitive and wasn’t put off by her weakness. He said he wanted to help her, and she let him, and soon they were lovers, and shortly thereafter, he moved in. She didn’t take the part in the series, but it was a hit, and Tom made money and stuck with her, and then they were married. She started working again, too, and made three independent movies, one of which was nominated for an Oscar, putting her back on the map. Things were good with Tom, too. He made another TV show, and it was a hit as well, but then he had to work all the time, and they became irritated with each other. She took nearly every part she was offered in order to get away from him and their marriage. They continued like that for another three years, and then she found out Tom was having an affair, and it was easy. They’d been married six years, and not once in those six years did she stop thinking about Philip or what her life would have been like if she were with him instead.

  5

  Lately, sex was weighing heavily on Mindy’s mind. She and James didn’t do it enough. In fact, they didn’t do it at all. Looking at it optimistically, they did it once or twice a year. It was terrible and wrong and made Mindy feel like she was a bad wife, not doing her duty, but at the same time, it was such a relief not to do it.

  The problem was, it hurt. She knew this could be an issue for women as they got older. But she thought it didn’t happen until well after menopause. She’d never expected it to happen so soon. At the beginning, when she’d first met James, and even into their fourth or fifth year of marriage, she’d prided herself on being good at sex. For years after Sam was born, she and James would do it once a week and really make a night of it. They had things they liked to do. Mindy liked to be tied up, and sometimes she would tie James up (they had special ties they used for this practice — old Brooks Brothers ties James had worn in college), and when James was tied up, she would ride his penis like a banshee. Over time, the sex started to dwindle, which was normal for married couples, but they still did it once or twice a month, and then, two years ago, the pain came. She went to her female gynecologist and tried to talk about it, but the doctor said her vagina wasn’t dried up and she wasn’t going through menopause and she should use lotions. Mindy knew all about sex lotions, but they didn’t work, either. So she bought a vibrator. Nothing fancy, just a plain slim tube of colored light blue plastic. She didn’t know why she picked light blue. It was better than pink or purple, she supposed. On a Saturday afternoon when James was out with Sam, she tried to put the vibrator in her vagina but could get it no farther than an inch before the pain started. She began avoiding sex altogether. James never asked her about it, but the lack of sex in their marriage lay between them like a sack of potatoes. Mindy felt guilty and ashamed, although she told herself it didn’t matter.

  Now it looked like James was going to be successful, and it did matter. She wasn’t stupid. She knew successful men had more choices. If she didn’t give him sex, he might get it somewhere else. Arriving home from work on Tuesday evening, Mindy was determined to do it with James that night no matter how much it hurt. But real life intruded.

  “Are you going to the funeral?” Roberto asked her as she came into the lobby of One Fifth.

  “What funeral?” Mindy asked.

  “Mrs. Houghton. It’s tomorrow at St. Ambrose Church.” Roberto, who was always smiling, laughed. “I hear it’s private.”

  “Funerals aren’t private,” Mindy said.

  “This one is. I hear you need an invitation.”

  “Where did you hear that?” Mindy said.

  “I just heard, is all,” Roberto said and laughed.

  Mindy was furious. Instead of going to her apartment, she went up to Enid Merle’s. “What’s this about Mrs. Houghton’s funeral?” she said.

  “It’s a memorial service, dear. Mrs. Houghton has already been laid to rest.”

  “Are you going?” Mindy asked.

  “Of course.”

  “Why wasn’t I invited? I’m the head of the board.”

  “Mrs. Houghton knew so many people. This is New York. Not everyone is invited to everything.”

  “Can you get me an invitation?” Mindy asked.

  “I can’t imagine why you would want to go,” Enid said, and closed her door. She was still annoyed at Mindy for refusing to embrace her plan to split up Mrs. Houghton’s apartment.

  Downstairs, Mindy found James in his office. “I am so insulted,” she said, plopping herself onto the old leather club chair. “It seems everyone in the building has been invited to Mrs. Houghton’s memorial service. Everyone but me.”

  “Let it go,” James said warningly.

  This was not like James. Mindy asked what was wrong.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were writing a blog?” he said.

  “I did.”

  “You didn’t.”

  “I did and you don’t remember.”

  “Well, it’s all over Snarker,” James said.

  “Is it good or bad?”

  “What do you think?” James said.

  Mindy got up and peered over his shoulder at the computer screen.

  The headline read: INTERNET MOGULETTE (NOT!) AND CORPORATE MEDIA SLUT MINDY GOOCH ASSAULTS WORLD WITH MUSINGS. Underneath was a hideous color photograph of her, taken as she was leaving her office building. She looked ragged and unkempt in an old black trench coat, with her sensible brown saddlebag slung over her shoulder. Her mouth was open; the angle of the photograph made her nose and chin appear especially pointy. Mindy’s first thought was that the photograph was more devastating than the text. For much of her life, Mindy had made a considerable effort to avoid the sin of vanity, as she despised people who cared excessively about their looks; she considered it the height of shallowness.

  But the photograph instantly shattered her interior mirror. There was no way to pretend that you were pretty, that you still looked like a twenty-five-year-old, when the evidence to the contrary was available on any computer screen, accessible twenty-four hours a day, every day of the year, for years and years and years. Maybe even forever. Or at least until the oil ran out, the polar ice caps melted, and/or the world was destroyed by war, a meteorite, or a giant tsunami.

  “Who wrote this?” she demanded. She peered at the name next to the text. “Thayer Core. Who the hell is he?”

  “Let it go,” James said.

  “Why should I? How dare they?”

  “Who cares?” James asked.

  “I do,” Mindy said. “It’s my reputation, my image, at stake here. I’m not like you, James. When someone insults me, I don’t just sit there. I do something.”

  “What?” James said, rolling his eyes.

  “I’m going to have that kid fired.”

  James made a dismissive noise.

  “What you don’t understand is that all those websites are owned by corporations,” Mindy said. “Or they will be soon. And I’ve got connections. In the corporate world. They don’t call me ‘corporate media slut’ for nothing. I must put on Mozart.” Lately, she’d found M
ozart soothing, which could be yet another sign of middle age, she thought.

  To put on the Mozart, she had to get up and go into her office next door. She chose The Magic Flute from a pile of CDs. The overture — the great booming drums and oboes, followed by the delicate string instruments — momentarily distracted her. But then she glanced over at her computer. Her screen saver was up, a photograph of Sam dressed as a dinosaur for Halloween. He’d been three and crazy about dinosaurs. She turned away, but the computer was calling her. Snarker was calling her.

  She pulled up the website and read the item again.

  “Mindy,” James said accusingly, coming into her office. “What are you doing?”

  “Working.”

  “No, you’re not. You’re sitting here, reading about yourself.” And then he went off on a tirade. “It’s the neurosis of the new millennium. It’s not self-absorption. It’s self-addiction.And that’s why” — he began sputtering — “that’s why I wrote about David Bushnell.”

  “Huh?” Mindy said.

  “David Bushnell wasn’t about the self,” James said. He sat down on her couch, leaning back as if preparing to engage in a long discussion about his book. “Unlike the bottom-feeders who now populate the world, the publicists, the stockbrokers, the lawyers, everyone trying to make a buck off someone else ...”

  Mindy stared at him, unable to fathom what the hell he was going on about. She changed the topic back to herself. “I can’t get over it,” she said. “How dare they? Why me? Why are they making fun of me?”

  Once again, James thought, Mindy was refusing to talk about his book. Usually, he let it go. But this time, he wasn’t in a mood to be solicitous to his wife. He stood up and started messing around with her CDs. “Why shouldn’t they make fun of you?” he said, examining a CD

  of the Rolling Stones’ greatest hits. “Mother’s Little Helper” was on it, he noted; perhaps he should have a listen.

  “Excuse me?” she said.

  “Because you’re special and better than everyone else?” James asked casually.

  “I am genuinely hurt,” Mindy countered. “I am humiliated.” She gave James her most withering look.

  “All I’m saying,” James said, “is that in your twenty years as a journalist, you’ve never hurt anyone?”

  “Are you saying this is some kind of retribution?” Mindy asked.

  “It could be. Maybe it’s karma.”

  Mindy snorted in derision.“Maybe it’s just that young people these days are nasty and jealous. And disrespectful. What did I ever do to them?”

  “You’re somewhat successful. Or seen as successful, anyway,” James said. “Don’t you get it? We’re the establishment now.” He paused and, pointing a finger at her, said, “Us. You and me. We’re the so-called adults now. The ones the young people want to knock down. And we were exactly like them when we were in our twenties.”

  “We were not.”

  “Remember the stories you used to write? About that billionaire.

  You made fun of his fingers! Woo-hooo. ‘Short-fingered vulgarian,’ you called him.”

  “That was different.”

  “It was exactly the same. You only think it was different because you wrote it. And every time you ripped someone, you said it was okay because they were successful, ergo, they were an asshole. And everyone thought you were so clever, and you got attention. It’s the easiest way to get attention, Mindy. Always has been. Make fun of your betters. Disrespect the successful, and you put yourself on their radar. It’s so fucking cheap.”

  Any normal person, James thought, would have been slain by this comment. But not Mindy. “And you’re so much better?” she said.

  “I never did that.”

  “No, James,” Mindy said. “You didn’t have to. You were a man. You wrote those long, endless pieces about ... golf. That took a year to write.

  Ten thousand words about golf, and it takes a year? I was working, James.

  Making money. It was my job.”

  “Right,” James said. “And now it’s these kids’ job as well.”

  “That’s great, James,” Mindy said. “I ask for your support. And you turn on me. Your own wife.”

  “I’m trying to put things into perspective,” James said. “Don’t you get it? These kids are just like us. They don’t know it yet, but in twenty years, they’ll wake up and they’ll be us. It will be the last thing they were expecting. Oh, they’ll protest now. Say it will never happen to them. They’ll beat the odds. Won’t change. Won’t end up tired, mediocre, apathetic, and sometimes defeated. But life will take care of them. And then they’ll realize they’ve turned into us. And that will be their punishment.”

  Mindy pulled at a strand of hair and examined it. “What are you really saying?” she asked. “Is there something wrong with us?”

  The fight had gone out of James. “I don’t know,” he said. He slumped.

  “What’s going on?” a voice asked. Mindy and James looked up. Their son, Sam, had come into the apartment and was standing in the door to Mindy’s office.

  “We were just talking,” Mindy said.

  “What about?” Sam asked.

  “Your mother was on Snarker,” James said.

  “I know.” Sam shrugged.

  “Sit down,” James said. “How do you feel about it?”

  “I don’t feel anything at all,” Sam said.

  “You’re not feeling ... traumatized?”

  “No.”

  “Your mother’s feelings are hurt.”

  “That’s your generation. Kids my age don’t get hurt feelings. It’s just drama. Everyone’s on their own reality show. The more drama you have, the more people pay attention to you. That’s all.”

  James and Mindy Gooch looked at each other, thinking the same thing: Their son was a genius! What other thirteen-year-old boy had such insights into the human condition?

  “Enid Merle wants me to help her with her computer,” Sam said.

  “No,” Mindy said.

  “Why?”

  “I’m angry at her.”

  “Leave Sam out of it,” James said.

  “Can I go?” Sam asked.

  “Yes,” James said. When Sam left the room, he continued on his dia-tribe. “Reality TV, blogging, commentators, it’s the culture of the para-site.” Immediately, he wondered why he said these things. Why couldn’t he embrace the new? This new human being who was self-centered and rabidly consumerist?

  Sam Gooch bore the harsh marks of budding adolescence and the scars of being a New York City kid. He wasn’t innocent. He’d stopped being innocent between the ages of two and four, when he was applauded for making adult remarks. Mindy would often repeat his remarks to her coworkers, followed by the tagline (always delivered with appropriate awe): “How could he know such things! He’s only [fill in the blank].”

  Now, at thirteen, Sam also worried that he knew too much. Sometimes he felt world-weary and often wondered what would happen to him; certainly, things would happen to him, things happened to kids in New York City. But he also knew he didn’t have the same advantages as the other children with whom he consorted. He lived in one of the best buildings in the Village but in the worst apartment in that building; he wasn’t taken out of school to go to Kenya for three weeks; he’d never had a birthday party at the Chelsea Piers; he had never gone to see his father play lead guitar in a rock concert at Madison Square Garden.

  When Sam went out of town, it was always to stay at the country houses of kids with wealthier and more accomplished parents than his own. His dad urged him to go for the “experience,” clinging to the quaint notion that part of being a writer was about having all kinds of experiences in life, although his dad didn’t seem to have many experiences of his own.

  Now Sam had had some experiences he wished he hadn’t had, mostly concerning girls. They wanted something he didn’t know how to give.

  What they wanted, Sam suspected, was constant attention. When he went ou
t of town to the country houses, the parents left the kids to their own devices. The boys posed and the girls acted crazy. At some point, there was crying. When he got home, he was exhausted, as if he’d lived two years in two days.

  His mother would be waiting for him. After an hour or two would come the inevitable question: “Sam, did you write a thank-you note?”

  “No, Mom, it’s embarrassing.” “No one was ever embarrassed to get a thank-you note.” “I’m embarrassed to write one.” “Why?” “Because no one else has to write thank-you notes.” “They’re not as well brought up as you are, Sam. Someday you’ll see. Someone will remember that you wrote them a thank-you note and give you a job.” “I’m not going to work for anyone.” And then his mother would hug him. “You’re so smart, Sammy. You’re going to run the world someday.”

  And so Sammy became a computer whiz, which impressed his parents and all other adults born before 1985. “Sam was on the Internet before he could talk!” his mother boasted.

  At six, having been admitted to one of New York City’s most exclusive schools — a bonus secured by the often obnoxious, unwavering determination of his mother to set him on the right track (Mindy was one of those people of whom others eventually said, “It’s easier to give in to her just to get her to go away”) — Sam realized he would have to make his own pocket money in order to survive his artificially heightened status. At ten, he began his own computer business in the building.

  Sam was tough but fair. He charged the residents, the Philip Oaklands, the quiet doctors and lawyers, the woman who managed the rock band, a hundred dollars an hour for his services, but he helped the doormen and porters for free. This was to make up for his mother. The doormen considered the most egregious residents the bad Christmas tippers, and Sam knew his mother was one such Scrooge. When she doled out the twenty- and fifty-dollar bills for Christmas tips, her mouth would turn down in an unhappy line. She would check and recheck her envelopes next to the list of the twenty-five doormen and porters, and if she found she’d made a mistake — and she usually had, in taking an extra fifty or twenty from the cash machine — she would snatch up the bill and carefully lay it in her wallet. But Sam’s efforts paid off. Sam was loved in the building, and Mindy was tolerated, the word being that Mindy wasn’t as bad as she seemed. “She has a nice son, after all, and that says a lot about a woman,” the doormen said.