How Should a Person Be?

by Sheila Heti

  Then one day, without warning, the air pressure dropped. The feeling was just gone. I had done nothing to make it go. I looked about me, relieved. But it was only a pause, for then began a building-up, a feeling worse than what had come before, like I was about to hurtle through space and time, like I was a rock that had been placed into a slingshot, drawn back to that August and held there. Then the hand let me go.

  I felt the blood inside me gathering fast, the pulse drum up in my ears, my skin grow tense and cold, like I was pushing through the atmosphere too fast. My body was filled to bursting with dread, the anticipation of something I did not know, and an equal re­sis­tance overtook me—­I wanted nothing more than to stave off this terrifying end to which I was hurtling, which I saw in my head as some kind of pain, and which was accompanied by a phrase that went through my head, over and over again: Punch yourself through a brick wall, punch yourself through a brick wall.

  One eve­ning, I saw what the brick wall was: my marriage. A tension came over me, an unbearable feeling of just wanting to get it over with. The wall was there; the pressure could only be released one way. I sat on my hands the entire day, but inside I was hurtling through space and time like a rock, and I told myself not to see anyone—­not to speak to anyone—­but when my husband lay down beside me that night, I turned over and said, as though I had thought it all through, considered his side, and was making a thoughtful decision: “I cannot be with you anymore.”

  He’d had no sense of the storm clouds that had been building within me, and when he slammed out of the room, the storm clouds burst into rain, and all over my face and body was the cool wet of relief.

  The next morning, I woke up in our bed alone. It was almost noon. I turned my head to look out the window. The sun was shining. I sat up and smelled the air, and I could tell I was in a new day. Those six months ­were over. The hurt­ling feeling was gone. That time was permanently behind me now, and I knew it would never visit me again. I felt an unbelievable joy; a freedom such as I could not remember feeling since I was a child. There was a lightness all through me, and I told myself, This is the happiest day of your life.

  I slept on and off all day, exhausted, like someone who has been washed ashore on an island, safe and still and dry. The whipping about in the waves that had propelled me into my husband’s arms, through our marriage, then suddenly away from him, had died down; the sea was calm and rolled back. I stood up on the sand and looked about me. I was alone, and I was free.

  I knew that from then on I would have to make decisions without any footprints in the sand to follow, without any hand guiding my path. There would be no telling what would lead to what. I would have to use my judgment—­not just my intuition. I would have to weigh things, take responsibility. I would have to look out at reality, not only within myself.

  I was finally in the midst of the universe’s indifference. It was like my mom and pop had died. It was up to me to choose. I saw that I could try and return to my husband if I wanted, but that this would not be destined, but my choice, but that this was no more required of me than not returning to my husband, which would also be a choice. The difference in these two paths had no intrinsic value—­just difference. I could finally make up my own mind. I would have to decide how to be.

  Living alone in my new apartment, I spent months staring at the play I had written under the influence of destiny. The first draft had come to me in that other time, and though not great, it seemed like it had been written by someone who had been living in some other world entirely. Finishing it now felt like an impossibility. Any direction I might take with it seemed as likely as any other. I didn’t know what mark on earth I should make.

  Of course, I did not know how to say any of this, or how to tell anyone any of this. I also didn’t know why I would tell it, or what telling it might mean, or who I could tell it to—­not Margaux, not Misha, not anyone I knew—­none of whom had time for words like destiny.

  So I turned to Margaux and said what I always said whenever anyone asked how the play was going. “Fine.”

  Then I stood up from the grass, brushed myself off, and said I had to go to the salon.

  ACT

  2

  • chapter 1 •

  SHEILA GOES TO THE SALON

  Since leaving my marriage, I had been working at a beauty salon.

  When I was in high school, I had done a career test to see what career I was most suited for. There ­were three hundred questions: Would you rather mow the lawn or rock a baby? Would you rather groom a ­horse or make dinner? Would you rather shit in the toilet or on the floor? When I went to the guidance counselor for the results, she handed me some stapled forms that listed six hundred careers. Beside each career was a line, and along each line was a star. The farther to the right of the page the star was, the more suited to that career you ­were.

  Most careers I was not cut out for. With others, like photographer, the star went halfway across. But one star went all the way to the farthest right margin of the page and almost off it: hairdresser. Of all the people in the world, hairdressers ­were the people most like me. And so I always had it in the back of my head that this was the job I was most suited for and which would give me the most plea­sure. When I compared it with finishing my play, it seemed so nice and easy.

  I brought this up with my Jungian analyst, worried about money and frustrated at wasting my time with a play that was going nowhere. She said I should speak to a hairdresser she had seen for many years—­a German man named Uri who ran a salon a bike ­ride from where I lived. He was a very cultured man, she told me, and he liked mentoring young people. I held on to his number for a few months, then lost it, then found it and wrote him a letter, explaining that I had long dreamed of being a hairdresser, and could I meet him to talk about working there?

  The salon was in a high-­end commercial building with a large bookstore, a ritzy shoe store, a perfume shop, and two expensive restaurants. The salon was very spacious, with a pink-­and-­white color scheme. Many stylists ­were at work at their stations on the day that I arrived. Uri came out from his office to meet me. He was a tall and impressive man with lots of white hair and a youthful air, strength and vitality, good posture, and an elegant and engaging manner. His wife, Ruby, who was waiting for us in the office, was dressed all in white and was very feminine with light hair, lovely curves, and an appealing, girlish quality.

  The three of us spoke for fifteen minutes. Uri cautioned me that many people had fantasies of becoming a hairdresser, but that it was a lot of work and not a game. I assured him that there was no one more suited to this job than me, and, nodding his head, he offered me some shifts. “Do you want them?” he asked, and I said, “I do,” welling up with meaning, gratitude, and responsibility, like a real bride.

  Misha and Margaux seemed happy for me. They could tell how much I enjoyed being at the salon. I felt suited to it too. I dressed up nicely every day and made sure to move elegantly while I was there, wanting to express in every pore of my being the beauty that people came to a salon to experience. When my birthday arrived, Misha gave me a book called Hair Heroes, which profiled the most important hairdressers of the twentieth century. In it, one of the hairdressers is quoted as saying, “I know all the secrets of the Western world—­but I’ll never tell!”

  The secrets of the Western world! I had found my kin.

  My tasks ­were varied but limited. I shampooed the clients and cleaned up—­collected dirty towels from the bins by the basins, put them in the wash, then put them in the dryer and folded them perfectly and returned them to the shelves by the bins. It was work I could believe in; making people look and feel their best. I swept up hair and washed the plastic bowls used to mix and apply the color. I moved about the floor as if on a stage, fluidly and with ease. There was a great simplicity to my life when I was there, and I looked forward to going, and I was never bored. I knew what was expected
of me, and I was happy that I could comply. It fulfilled my serving instincts—­my desire to uplift humanity. I knew nothing bad could happen in a hair salon, and nothing out of the ordinary ever did. I felt more comfortable and safe there than I had ever felt anywhere. The days I spent at home, working on my play, ­were miserable days; I longed to be at the salon. When I was at the salon, I wished to be nowhere ­else.

  One day, watching me wipe down the basins, Uri came up beside me, put his heavy hand on my shoulder, and said, “I have decided to teach you everything I know.” I bowed my head in gratitude.

  Uri had been a stylist since he was fifteen years old. His mother had owned a salon, and she had supported herself during the war by cutting hair. He learned from this that a hairstylist could go anywhere in the world, live in any conditions, and always be able to feed his family. All he needed was his talent and the scissors in his hand.

  One afternoon he wanted to show me a cut, and I stood near and observed as he chopped away at the woman’s puffy brown hair in the back. “Most people would rather have more hair,” he said, “but if the hair at the sides is thinner than at the back, you have to cut away some of the hair at the back in order that the head be balanced. Balance masks flaws,” he told me. I wanted to write this on my arm. Beauty is balance—­yes! As much in a haircut, as in a work of art, as in a human being.

  As I was taking a break by reception later that day, my hands in the big pocket of my black rubber apron, the receptionist told me about the few days she had spent with Ruby and Uri when she first moved into the city. When I asked what Uri was like at home, she said, “He’s exactly the same as ­here. You will never meet a more consistent person than Uri.” In that moment, I wanted nothing so much as for someone to say of me: She is the most consistent person you have ever met. Even at home, she never changes!

  I vowed to attend closely to Uri, to learn how he could be this way, so I could become it too.

  • chapter 2 •

  FATE ARRIVES, DESPITE THE MACHINATIONS OF FATE

  If a literary man feels like going to the zoo, he should by all means go to the zoo,” E. B. White once wrote, so after working one day at the salon, I did what I most felt like doing: I took a stroll down the longest street in the world. I walked past stores with slutty dresses out front, past second-­rate jewelers, novelty shops, and arcades, when a silver digital tape recorder in the window of an electronics shop caught my eye.

  It has long been known to me that certain objects want you as much as you want them. These are the ones that become important, the objects you hold dear. The others fade from your life entirely. You wanted them, but they did not want you in return.

  Though I had vowed not to spend more than seven dollars a day, since I was hardly making any money, I went into the store. I actually rushed in, as though everyone ­else in the city was about to have the same idea as me. I asked the old man what the tape recorder cost, knowing full well that I would buy it, no matter what it cost. I gave him my credit card and signed a slip of paper on which I promised to pay one hundred and twenty-­nine dollars and thirty-­two cents. Then I went across the street into the oily, red-­awninged croissant shop, where I ordered an almond croissant and sat on a tall stool by a wall of windows.

  As the beginnings of a shower mottled the street, I whispered low into the tape recorder’s belly. I recorded my voice and played it back. I spoke into it tenderly and heard my tenderness returned.

  I felt like I was with a new lover—­one that would burrow into my deepest recesses, seek out the empty places inside me, and create a warm home for me there. I wanted to touch every part of it, to understand how it worked. I began to learn what turned it on and the things that turned it off.

  • chapter 3 •

  SHEILA WANTS TO QUIT

  Later that same week, after buying the tape recorder, Margaux and Sheila sit in the front window of a neighborhood diner. They order a breakfast to share and two coffees. The midday sunlight filters onto Margaux’s peroxide hair. They both wear dirty sneakers. They both wear dirty underwear.

  SHEILA

  Do you mind if I record?

  Sheila pulls out her tape recorder, puts it on the table, and turns it on.

  MARGAUX

  What?

  SHEILA

  I need some help with the play, and I thought that maybe by talking it over with you—­I thought maybe you could help me figure out why it isn’t working. Then I can listen to what we say, and think it over at home, and figure out where I’m going wrong.

  Margaux shakes her head.

  MARGAUX

  First, I ­haven’t read your play. Secondly, I don’t have any answers.

  SHEILA

  It’s okay that you ­haven’t read the play. I think the problem is with what happens, so I’ll just tell you the plot.

  MARGAUX

  Why are you looking to me for answers? I don’t know anything you don’t know!

  SHEILA

  I’m not looking to you for answers! Why would you say that? I was just hoping that if I—

  MARGAUX

  Don’t you know that what I fear most is my words floating separate from my body? You there with that tape recorder is the scariest thing!

  SHEILA

  But the answer might be in something I say! Besides, who’s going to hear it?

  MARGAUX

  I don’t know! I don’t know where things end up! Then what­ever I happen to say, someone will believe I really said it and meant it? No. No. You there with that tape recorder just looks like my own death.

  Sheila sighs deeply and looks out the window. Margaux looks out the window, too. They do not talk for several minutes. Sheila brushes some sand from the tabletop onto the floor.

  As Margaux and I sat there, I tried to be compassionate. I thought about how difficult it is to live in this world without any clothes on. I know it’s the gods who determine who among us is fated to go through life with her clothes off. When the gods gather around a baby in its cradle and dole out their gifts and curses, this is one aspect of things they consider.

  Most people live their entire lives with their clothes on, and even if they wanted to, ­couldn’t take them off. Then there are those who cannot put them on. They are the ones who live their lives not just as people but as examples of people. They are destined to expose every part of themselves, so the rest of us can know what it means to be a human.

  Most people lead their private lives. They have been given a natural modesty that feels to them like morality, but it’s not—­it’s luck. They shake their heads at the people with their clothes off rather than learning about human life from their example, but they are wrong to act so superior. Some of us have to be naked, so the rest can be exempted by fate.

  MARGAUX

  (sighs) All right. You know I have more respect for your art than I do for my own fears.

  SHEILA

  Thank you! Thank you!

  MARGAUX

  Just promise you won’t betray me.

  SHEILA

  (reassuringly) I don’t even know what that means.

  Sheila beckons to the waitress, who comes over.

  Can we also get some jam?

  The waitress nods and leaves.

  Is it too much that I asked for jam and water?

  MARGAUX

  (suspiciously) No.

  Sheila clears her throat.

  SHEILA

  Okay. So what happens in the play is this: There are these two families, the Oddis and the Sings. And they each have a twelve-­year-­old kid. The Oddis have a twelve-­year-­old girl named Jenny, and the Sings have a twelve-­year-­old boy named Daniel. So both families are vacationing in Paris, and in the first scene of the play, the two families meet at a parade—

  MARGAUX

  Wait! ­Were they always meeting in Pa
ris?

  SHEILA

  By accident. It’s an accident. So they meet in Paris by accident because the kids recognize each other at a parade, and there’s this sort of inexplicable hostility between the two mothers. They hate each other instantly, right?

  MARGAUX

  Right.

  SHEILA

  And at the end of the first scene, Daniel goes missing, ’kay?

  MARGAUX

  Okay.

  Margaux takes some potatoes with a fork. They fall. She eats them with her fingers.

  SHEILA

  Then the next scene’s back at the hotel. Now the problem of the play is: The kid’s gone missing. But nobody reacts in a conventional way to it. Jenny really wants to find Daniel, but she becomes a more minor character in the play, and the real central character of the play becomes Ms. Oddi, Jenny’s mother, who sort of realizes through the course of things, really quickly, that she’s completely dissatisfied in her life and has never reached her full potential, blah blah blah. In the first draft of the play she runs away to the beach—­to Cannes.

  MARGAUX

  Wait! Why does she run away?

  SHEILA

  She feels she’s kind of been oppressed by her family.

  MARGAUX

  I guess she has no feelings for them. Or how ­else could she run away?

  SHEILA

  Huh? I guess she’s distracting herself. Oh, and then she has this affair with the Man in the Bear Suit. At the end of the play, Daniel comes home, and it turns out he actually ran away. He has grown up in this really weird way, and he speaks this weird monologue about how great it is to be a grown-­up. Anyways, now Ms. Oddi ­doesn’t go to Cannes.

  MARGAUX

  (disappointed) Oh, she ­doesn’t?

  SHEILA

  No. ’Cause the director, Ben, thought it would be better to localize the action at the hotel—