Note to Self: A Novel

by Alina Simone

  Anna did her best to project enthusiasm through a forkful of arugula, but in truth, all she felt was the dull throb of annoyance. Brandon, clearly, was trying to save himself from utter soul annihilation at Pinter, Chinski and Harms by clinging to the life raft of her newfound purpose. Not to mention her AVCCAM, her lavalier, and her Sennheiser mic! Anna suddenly felt oddly territorial. Didn’t she have her own footage and her own plans? And what about her work with Taj? With a happy little shock, Anna realized she was busy. She didn’t really have time for Brandon and his crazy schemes.

  “Wouldn’t it be amazing to work together again?” Brandon was saying. Anna noticed his plate was looking more and more like a painter’s palette as dollops of aioli and organic mustard merged with islands of homemade ketchup.

  “It would,” Anna said, choosing her words carefully, “but you’re light-years ahead of me. You studied film in college. I can barely turn on a camera. I don’t know what half the buttons mean—”

  “It doesn’t matter. It’s all about your sensibility.”

  “You’d get frustrated working with me. I’m slow.”

  “Remember how fast you learned how to draft statutory liens at Pinter when you first started?”

  “That’s different—” Anna began, and just at that moment she felt the miraculous vibration of her cell phone against her ass. With a glance at the screen, she murmured her insincere apologies and stepped outside to take the call.

  “Anna, Anna, Anna, Anna,” said Taj.

  “Taj!” Anna said. “Taj!”

  “I have a brilliant idea for you—”

  “Oh.”

  “What?”

  “What?”

  “Why do you sound so defensive?”

  “S-sorry. I didn’t mean to. What’s your idea?”

  “I’m going to make your dream come true.”

  “My dream?” Anna didn’t know she had a dream. If she did, it probably involved Taj in a way that wasn’t shareable.

  “We’re going to Silver Lake.”

  Quickly, Anna ran through the possibilities in her head. Was Silver Lake a bar? A lake? A jewelry store? A band? A website?

  “Where?”

  “Silver Lake, California. It’s a neighborhood. In LA.”

  That was the one Silver Lake Anna hadn’t even considered.

  “LA?”

  “To break your addiction.”

  For another disquieting moment, Anna had no idea what Taj was talking about. Then she remembered: their conversation on the roof. In truth, her condition had metastasized into “addiction” only that night, when she found herself forming the word in response to Taj’s question.

  “But they have Internet there—”

  “Roight,” Taj said, affecting a cockney accent for no reason. “Well, you won’t be using it. No smartphones. No computers. Cold turkey.”

  “Wouldn’t it be better to go to some desert or a mountain or something?”

  “Except for that it would be superboring? Yeah. But in Silver Lake you’ll actually be testing your resistance. A mountaintop is too easy.”

  “I can’t just go to LA just because you say so.”

  “Why not?”

  Anna had to admit there was no particular reason.

  “How long would we be gone?”

  “Five days.”

  “When would we leave?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “You’re crazy!”

  “Maybe.” A smile had crept into his voice.

  Anna turned back to the window, where she could see Brandon cutting his veggie-burger patty into what were probably equilateral pieces. Is that the kind of person she wanted to be? Someone who minced and quibbled all the joy out of life?

  “Yes!” Anna said. “I mean, I’ll go, but I have to go. I’m having lunch with someone.”

  “Call me after.”

  “OK.” Taj hung up and Anna turned back to join Brandon, feeling her pulse quicken. She took her seat and happily stabbed at her salad while Brandon prattled on and on about his god-awful Conrad adaptation, leaving Anna free to contemplate Taj, their trip together, what it all meant. When the dessert menu came, Anna snatched it up.

  “Jesus, I’m so excited,” Brandon said, sucking the noncaloric soda that had appeared by his elbow. “But wasn’t I just about to say something? What was I going to say?”

  “You were about to tell me about LA,” Anna said. Her inclination toward the white chocolate mousse was tempered by her strongly held belief that white chocolate was never chocolatey enough. “Hey, did you ever hang out much in Silver Lake?”

  18

  She didn’t tweet right away. She waited until after she’d talked to Taj again after lunch and he’d reaffirmed his plan to take her to LA. Anna wasn’t much of a tweeter. As in life, she was more a follower. But such was her feeling of uplift at the thought of leaving Sunset Park that she decided to go for it, demonstrating an admirable economy of characters: Off to LA with Taj!

  Her followers were a questionable lot of authors promoting their self-help books, the largest U-Haul dealer in Canada, a German woman whose name was also Anna Krestler, and seven people she didn’t know who described themselves, variously, as “an airborne pathogen,” “a purveyor of hipster bullshit,” and “a breeder of cartoon dogs.” But among all these fake followers was one real one, which is why her phone rang immediately post-tweet.

  “Why would some man you just met on the Internet want to take you to LA?” her mother demanded, sans hello.

  “It’s not like he’s paying for my ticket,” Anna said, but it was too late: her mother was already googling “craigslist murders.”

  “Donna Jou disappeared in 2007 with a guy pretending he needed math tutoring. That same year, Katherine Olson—didn’t you go to sleepaway camp with an Olson?—was murdered after answering an ad for a nanny. A nanny, for God’s sake—”

  “Mom, I’m hanging up now.”

  “Then in 2009 a guy was trying to buy a car and—”

  “Mom—”

  “—not even a good car, Anna. A Chevy! And the guy selling it shot him. Are you listening to this?”

  Of course she was listening, she could never hang up on her mother. She put the phone on mute, popped some frozen Morningstar veggie patties in the oven, and waited. In the end, her mother’s grisly list did nothing to dissuade her from going to LA with Taj, but it did make her think twice about contacting Perry in Manhattan about the Fiesta ware mug in Shamrock (a much-coveted color, retired after 2003) she’d been ogling on craigslist.

  If her mother was someone she could be honest with, Anna would have admitted that she herself had wondered about Taj’s motives, and it had been something of a relief to pry the confession from him—after he’d gone on for a bit about the dangers of her “Netaddiction” and quoted the part about “being open to anything,” from his ad—that he had other business to take care of in LA. She’d felt uncomfortable with the idea that this trip was all about her, but now that it was clear Taj had his own reasons to go to LA, Anna could relax. She was incidental to the trip and being incidental had the paradoxical effect of making her feel more secure. So secure, she didn’t even bother to press him about the nature of this “business” he was being purposely slippery about.

  Of course, there had never been a real possibility of saying no. What would she do home alone all week without Taj? It was a little disturbing to think how thoroughly he’d supplanted her entire routine, or lack of one. How it was only the promise of the next shoot or lunch or phone call that sculpted the hours in between into some semblance of a life. But it wasn’t just being left alone that scared her, was it? It was being left alone with her footage, which had remained firmly glued to something called “Timeline: Sequence 1 in Untitled Project 1” in one long unadulterated strip within Final Cut Pro. All the “viewers” and “browsers” and “canvases” had proved too confusing; she’d confessed to Brandon that she needed something easier. Final Cut Amateur. Of course, Brandon
had bristled, told her to “show some sac” and stick with it, which had the exact opposite effect.

  She busied herself with the logistics. Anna had exactly $4,409 left in her bank account. Her share of the rent was $950. Taj still owed her fifty dollars, but that was beside the point. Living frugally, her savings might last another three months in Brooklyn. With the trip, she’d be out of cash by the end of next month, if not sooner. She spent the rest of the afternoon lost in the Bermuda Triangle of Orbitz, Travelocity, and Expedia. The irony of it all was that she had barely spent any time online since unpacking the AVCCAM, but now that she’d been tasked with airfare comparison for their trip, had slumped right back into the virtual miasma. After the fare comparison would come the hotel research and the itinerary planning, not to mention the required background reading on underground lucha libre venues, the latest trends in molecular gastronomy, and any number of other tangential topics that would keep her tethered to this chair, this table, this apartment until it was time to board the A train to JFK. Moreover, because the fare comparisons always took at least thirty seconds to load, staying on task proved impossible. A tub of avocado dip and a bag of vegetable chips soon materialized at her elbow as she found herself opening a new tab and typing “Nicole Kidman plastic surgery” into Google Images. But why, why? she wondered, compulsively clicking through JPEG after JPEG of Nicole’s endless butte of a forehead. For no apparent reason! Perhaps she was suffering from some kind of Internet Tourette’s syndrome that caused her to vomit noxious search terms into the ether with complete lack of impulse control? “Obama love child!” “Bedbug movie theater seats!” “Phentemine sex drive side effects!” As if to shake off this compulsion, she did three quick Gmail/Facebook/Twitter laps, hardly breaking a sweat. Maybe this was a better way to look at it—she was an Internet athlete, a Gmail jockey, a NASCAR driver hugging the bends of the information highway.

  “Hi.”

  Anna jumped. There was Brie, and she looked different. Not pregnant—just drawn and worn out. She reflexively hid her browser, momentarily forgetting she had nothing to hide.

  “Brie!”

  “I’m going to put this stuff away,” she said, dragging her duffel bag down the hall into her room.

  Brie shut the door and Anna thought, That’s it? With full and total respect for whatever Brie was going through, Anna felt that as the roommate of a pregnant person, she deserved some answers. This wasn’t just another Friday night after kickball practice when Brie could breeze by, jab her finger into Anna’s crab dip on the way to the shower, and dismiss her with a flip remark. She’d announced she was pregnant, then gone and disappeared for three weeks with barely a text or tweet. Now Anna wanted to know: Was Brie still pregnant? If so, would she remain pregnant? Was she moving out? If so, when? And what about the Con Ed and Time Warner accounts that were in Brie’s name? Had she quit her internships? Was it Rishi’s child? Did Rishi even know? In sum: What the flying fuck was going on? Partially just relieved to have some reason to step away from the computer, Anna rose and followed Brie down the hall. She knocked tentatively on the door.

  “Come in.”

  Brie was sitting on her bed, contemplating her foot, one shoe on, the other off. Anna noticed that Brie’s room was almost eerily clean. For once the shoe was the only thing on the floor.

  “So…,” Anna began, settling awkwardly into Brie’s faux-fur butterfly chair, “what’s up?”

  “I’m pregnant.”

  “Is that,” Anna began, searching for the right words, “how it’s going to be?”

  “I think so.”

  “You don’t look pregnant at all.”

  “It’s early.”

  “So you’re … staying?”

  “What do you mean?” Brie asked, suddenly suspicious.

  “I just thought maybe you’d want to move in, you know, with Rishi. Or something.”

  “It’s not Rishi’s.”

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  “It’s OK. He wasn’t anything.”

  Well, whose is it, then? Anna wanted to ask. Then again, even if Brie gave her a name, described some guy from the kickball team, would it mean anything to Anna? Probably not.

  “Want to Netflix tonight?” Anna said. “My instant queue is pretty awesome.”

  To Anna’s surprise, Brie nodded yes.

  “I just need a nap first,” she murmured, slipping off her other shoe. “So tired…”

  * * *

  On the way to the bodega to pick up a box of microwave popcorn, Anna called Leslie.

  “She’s back,” Anna said as soon as Leslie picked up the phone.

  “Did she say anything?” Leslie’s habitually reserved tone vanished as she snapped into gossip mode.

  “She’s still pregnant.”

  “Well, I just hope this Rishi has a good job.”

  “It’s not Rishi’s,” Anna said, suddenly distracted by a flyer taped to the bodega window. “LEARN HOW TO BLOG!” Next to the flyer, another sign read: “We now sell Boeef Soup and Ice Cream.”

  “So now you’re going to, like, help her raise this baby?”

  “What?” Anna said, tuning back in. “No!”

  “You can’t live with a baby, Anna. It’s impossible. You don’t know what a baby is.”

  “I do need to find a new job,” Anna conceded.

  “We should have another session. Next week.”

  “I can’t, I’m going to LA.” The Korean man behind the counter knew her. He winked as she set her popcorn down by the register.

  “What? With what money?”

  “I have some money,” Anna said, defensive.

  “Why now? Why LA?” Anna mashed the phone between ear and shoulder, scavenging for change in her wallet. “Where are you?” Leslie continued. “What’s that stupid music in the background?”

  A wiry Hispanic guy holding a Stouffer’s frozen dinner exhaled loudly behind her.

  “I’m going with Taj,” Anna said, sliding her change across the counter.

  “Hello? You’re breaking up.”

  “I’m going with Taj!” Anna yelled.

  “You’re totally fucking him, aren’t you?” Leslie yelled back so loudly that Anna was sure both the Korean man and Mr. Stouffer’s had heard. She looked around, embarrassed.

  “No bag,” she said to the Korean man, grabbing her popcorn.

  “What?” Leslie yelled.

  “I said no.” Anna pushed the door open with her shoulder. “I’m not.”

  “Well, Jesus, you should be,” Leslie said, with a sharp laugh, “if you’re going to LA together.”

  And this, Anna had to admit, was probably true.

  * * *

  It was three-quarters of the way into Ramin Bahrani’s moving, yet stultifyingly slow and ultimately sort of boring, immigrant swan song Man Push Cart, that Brie told Anna she was going to have the baby. This was after Anna burned the second bag of popcorn and the fire alarm went off. Brie had opened all the windows then plopped down next to Anna, who was sorting the still-edible kernels into a plastic bowl at the kitchen table.

  “Are you sure?” Anna asked, totally bewildered as to why any woman would choose to have a baby before the mandatory threshold of thirty-five, let alone an intern without any visible means of support and/or interest in children.

  “Yeah,” Brie said. “I think it will help. I was just starting to feel really … blurry.”

  This new Brie seemed so quiet and serious that Anna had no idea how to reply. She wasn’t used to Serious Brie. When someone suddenly replaces your roommate with Diane Sawyer, it takes some getting used to. She had even filled the refrigerator with serious foods; there was a brick of tempeh in the refrigerator that looked like it could power her laptop.

  “What are you going to do?” Anna said.

  “I don’t know. My parents are cutting me off. I guess I could go live with my sister, but I really don’t want to.”

  Anna tensed, sensing that she ought to say something to Brie about not w
orrying about the rent. But that would mean giving up her trip to LA, wouldn’t it?

  “It’s good to have options, though,” Anna offered.

  “It’s all trees and meth addicts out there. I’d go nuts. I’ll figure something out,” Brie said, pulling herself to her feet. “Sorry to bail, I’m really tired. Tell me what happens in the morning.”

  “It’s OK. I think that guy’s just going to push his cart some more,” Anna said, to which Brie responded with a wan smile.

  But after Brie padded off to her room, Anna didn’t go back to the movie. Instead she flipped up her laptop to check her e-mail. A Groupon. A Twitter notification. An online bill from Verizon. A message from Leslie. Wait: three messages from Leslie. She felt highly unmotivated to open Leslie’s e-mails, certain they’d contain something healthful and guilt inducing—New Study Reveals No One Should Ever Eat Cheese, or Laptop Screens Linked to Eye Cancer—but clicked on the first one anyway. Subject line: FYIski. There was just a single line, written in a faux-casual style that did nothing to hide the desperation underlying it:

  btw, wud Brie consider adoption?

  The second message cascaded directly from the first: Re: FYIski.

  I mean, how is she going to support this child? It’s ridiculous.

  The last message had the subject line: Contact?

  Can you forward me her number? Maybe I should just talk to her directly?

  Anna didn’t know whether Brie had considered adoption, but she resented Leslie putting her in this position. Brie’s baby? This went well beyond the bailiwick of craigslist. A baby wasn’t a Pokémon beanie or even Fiesta ware of some breathtakingly rare shade and vintage, and she felt uncomfortable serving even as the most tangential broker in this exchange. Not knowing what else to do, she starred Leslie’s e-mails and shifted them to the folder labeled “Important.” Then she reloaded her e-mail seven times in the space of thirty seconds, only to get dick-smacked each time by the brutal reality that no entity, either corporate or human, was striving to contact her at that particular point in time. Suddenly, on the eighth reload, a new message did appear in her box. From Brandon.