Meet Me at Emotional Baggage Claim

by Lisa Scottoline

  They don’t shave in fall or winter, either.

  They’re called hairy because their abdomens are furry, unlike normal ants, and they’re called crazy because they run superfast, in random directions. They swarm into homes and factories, trying to find warm places to live.

  Eew.

  And if a hairy crazy ant gets killed, it releases a chemical that cues the rest of the hairy crazy colony to attack. According to one entomology professor, “The other ants rush in. Before long, you have a ball of ants.”

  So I’m feeling lucky. My spiders run in a straight line, and I’m hairier and crazier than they are.

  But I swear, the day I open my front door and a ball of spiders rolls toward me, I’m going out drinking.

  With my UPS guy.

  Very Personal Shopper

  By Lisa

  It’s the time of year when a girl’s thoughts turn to fleece, and I buy a new pair of sweatpants.

  Turned on yet?

  You will be, at least if you’re like me, a sweatpants fetishist.

  Because these are great sweatpants.

  I’m picky about sweatpants because I work at home, and so I live in them, especially when it gets cold outside. And after much trial and error, I’ve found the perfect pair, and I get new ones every few years, from the same website.

  I went online just now to order a pair, but the website had changed, and I couldn’t find my go-to sweatpants.

  I didn’t know where to go to.

  The website takes literally the sports part of sportswear, categorizing its women’s clothes by sport, such as Alpine Climbing, Skiing, Snowboarding, Biking, Rock Climbing, and Casual.

  Of course I clicked Casual. It defines me to a T, and I already have all the Alpine Climbing and Snowboarding clothes I need.

  Which is none.

  So I was lost in the website, until Patrick found me.

  Who’s Patrick? I don’t know, but all of a sudden, while I was clicking around, onto my laptop screen popped a little window, with a message:

  Hi, this is Patrick. How can I help you?

  I didn’t understand. I never had this happen. I knew generally that you could chat online with a salesperson, but I didn’t know they could appear out of nowhere, unbidden.

  And I wasn’t sure I liked the idea.

  I thought what I was doing online was private.

  But it isn’t.

  By the way, just to clarify, I’m never doing anything embarrassing online, except buying clothes with an elastic waistband.

  But that’s embarrassing enough.

  Actually, I’ve been known to search Google for Elastic Waistband, and if you’re doing that, you know you’re single forever.

  I don’t understand how Patrick knew I was on the site. I’ve heard of a personal shopper, but this would be an example of a too-personal shopper.

  Still I figured I’d answer Patrick, since I didn’t want to waste more time, so I typed in the little window: I’m looking for black sweatpants.

  Then I hit SEND, and a nanosecond later, Patrick wrote:

  Hey there! Let me get you some ideas!

  I didn’t need any ideas, I needed my go-to sweatpants. Still I liked his can-do attitude and his exclamation points, so I waited.

  Patrick wrote: Click here for our tights for women!

  I groaned. I wasn’t looking for tights. Guaranteed that someone whose sport is Casual doesn’t need tights.

  Plus, tights are not sweatpants. They’re tight, which is why they call them tights, and that disqualifies them altogether, as far as I’m concerned. I never want to wear something Tight. The only thing worse would be something On Fire.

  Yet I refrained from telling this to Patrick, and instead I wrote: I don’t really want tights. I want stretch sweatpants with an elastic waistband.

  He didn’t write back for a moment, and I imagined that he stepped away to vomit, or to tell the gang that Scottoline was online.

  Then he wrote back: You are probably looking for the Serenity Tights! Click here!

  I clicked away, and of course they weren’t what I wanted. They were stretch tights for a yoga-thin twenty-five-year old, and I’m a middle-aged woman with high cholesterol.

  In other words, I’m not serene.

  I’m casual, but that’s not the same thing.

  I typed: Thx, but what I’m looking for aren’t tights. They’re pants but not for outdoors.

  Patrick wrote back: Yep, if you check the link, you will see that many of our tights are not formfitting and look like pants.

  So there I was, having a fight with a man I don’t know and have never met. This would be a first. Usually men have to marry me before the fighting starts, or at least meet me.

  But maybe I’m improving.

  Then I remembered something, so I wrote: I think they’re called R5 sweatpants.

  And Patrick wrote back: Thanks for that! Click here for the R1 pants!

  Aha!

  I clicked, and they were the right ones, so our story has a happy ending.

  Except that I’d remembered it wrong. R5 is my train, not my sweatpants.

  But Patrick knew all that, I’m sure.

  9/11, Ten Years Later

  By Francesca

  I find myself standing within a tower of light. I am in the center of a square of forty-four giant searchlights, each one wide as a timpani drum, beaming heavenward. Across from me is a second, identical tower. A soft rain sparkles in the upper heights of the light shaft, but as the raindrops near the enormous lamps, the water evaporates, and clouds of steam billow back up into the sky like ghosts.

  It’s the tenth anniversary of September Eleventh, and this is the Tribute in Light.

  Three years ago, when I first moved to New York City, I’d never have gotten this close to a 9/11 memorial. I wouldn’t have felt right. I lived around the corner from a makeshift shrine called “Tiles for America,” which covers a chain-link fence with commemorative tiles painted by children from around the world. Tourists come by and take pictures of it. I have never taken a picture of it. I sneak glances when I’m walking by with my dog, but it’s not on our usual route.

  Sometimes tourists asked me for directions to Ground Zero, I could tell them only that it’s downtown. I had never been myself.

  Although avoiding the site wasn’t a deliberate decision, I can’t say it was entirely an accident. I love this city, but I never feel like a “New Yorker” until I’m outside of it. In Philly, I’m a New Yorker, but in New York, I’m a Philadelphian. My experience of 9/11 is a part of that barrier. I watched the attacks from afar, safe in my suburban cocoon, where such horror seemed so unreal we first thought it was a hoax. Real New Yorkers witnessed the terror and the tragedy firsthand; their loss was personal and profound. I didn’t feel entitled to their grief.

  And so I didn’t feel entitled to go to that hallowed ground as an outsider. I was afraid of seeming like an emotional tourist, marveling at a tragedy the same way one would marvel at any landmark. I didn’t know how to express my grief without cheapening theirs.

  On the tenth anniversary, however, things felt different. This year, I wanted to pay my respects. I just wasn’t sure how.

  A college friend of mine moved here from San Francisco, and now she’s a member of a city choir. Her group was singing in a 9/11 memorial concert in a church uptown the day before the anniversary. I’d been meaning to see her perform for a while, and this seemed like a good time to start. I felt a little anxious when I couldn’t get someone to go with me, but I had made up my mind.

  I hailed a cab and gave the address of the church. The driver responded with the typical wordless nod and I climbed in. But once we were driving, he asked me why I was going to church on a Saturday afternoon. I told him.

  “Very sad weekend,” he said, making eye contact in the rearview mirror.

  “It is,” I said, shifting my gaze to the window. Then I started talking about choirs instead.

  I arrived at the church ear
ly, but I like to be early when I’m nervous. The few people who were there were couples and families, and I felt conspicuously alone. I chose a spot halfway back at the far edge of the pew, which would be good in case I had to leave early. Not that I had plans afterwards.

  Another person entered alone, an older woman dressed all in black, black sweater, black skirt, even black gloves.

  She must have lost someone in the attacks, I thought. I wondered if it was her son or daughter, or maybe her husband. This is probably her regular church. She belonged here.

  I questioned if I had the same right to this grief as she does. Is grief a right? A burden? A privilege? What do I owe this woman and these victims, if I can do anything at all?

  The concert began. They sang a beautiful program of many different types of songs. One of the most moving pieces based its lyrics on a real soldier’s last letter home before he was killed in Iraq. Listening to the music, I relaxed and felt my eyes wet.

  I looked back at the woman in black. I saw she held a white tissue in her hand.

  I stopped crying.

  By the end, I was glad I had gone to the concert. But I went straight home afterwards.

  The next day was Sunday, September 11. Like many, I watched the official World Trade Center site memorial service, where members of the victims’ families read each name. I sat glued to the television. If I so much as stepped away to get a glass of water, I rewound the coverage to see those I had missed. Toward the end, I started to cry.

  In the privacy of my apartment, I let myself feel that sorrow. I didn’t know anyone who died in the attacks, but I know people like them. I have a friend who is twenty-five and working his first big job in finance, I have a father who goes to a tall, shiny office building every morning, and I have a mother who means the world to me.

  I know the pain these victims’ families feel, because I know the love they have for those who passed. And although I cannot claim to know their personal loss, I can share in their grief.

  Tribute in Light, September 11, 2011

  Loss cannot be shared, but grief can.

  So when my friend Courtney invited me to see the Tribute in Light with her later that evening, I wanted to go.

  Courtney is one of my dearest friends from home, we’ve known each other since sixth grade. Today, she works for the architectural lighting firm that designed and constructed this memorial light installation. Its twin pillars of light echo the footprint of the Twin Towers, they reach four miles into the sky and are visible from sixty miles away. Courtney had spent every night last week standing at different points in Manhattan and New Jersey with a walkie-talkie, helping to make sure each of the eighty-eight 7,000-watt lightbulbs was perfectly aligned for the tenth anniversary of September Eleventh.

  In fact, I was with Courtney ten years ago, when the attacks first happened. I was sitting behind her in our tenth-grade chemistry class when a teacher rushed in and turned on the TV above the blackboard. I remember Courtney’s head tilted back and her shiny black ponytail touched my desk. Her pretty hair on my notepad was the last ordinary thing I saw that day. By the time my eyes followed hers to the television, the world had changed.

  Now ten years later, I stand beside her at the foot of a memorial she helped create. I knew then that I could write about it. Even two kids from Pennsylvania, like my friend from San Francisco in the choir, could participate in this memory. We are a part of this now. We are a part of its light, and its voice, and its song.

  That’s the thing about grief; it makes room—the room to be close to someone you’ve never met, and to mourn someone you never knew. Grief is a conduit—for love, for compassion, for healing, and for grace.

  Time has not diminished the loss. We will never forget. But more will come to remember. Our collective memory burns brighter than ever before, and so united, we can send the rain back up in light.

  Gateway Paint

  By Lisa

  I’ve become a pot addict.

  No, not that kind of pot. I’ve never even tried that kind of pot. I stay away from all drugs except Crestor, which shows you the kind of party I am.

  But now, I’m addicted to sample pots of paint.

  No joke. I can’t quit, and it all started so innocently.

  With gateway enamel.

  Here’s what happened. I had just finished writing my next book, and if you’re a loyal reader, you know that as soon as I type The End, I have to begin something. And not something that’s work, but something that’s fun, like painting the family room.

  A freshly painted family room is fun for middle-aged women. In fact, a freshly painted family room is orgasmic for middle-aged women.

  At my age, sex involves latex. And not that kind of latex.

  Anyway, after my last book, I painted the family room and I did it myself. But this time, I had started thinking that my office needed to be repainted, but I wanted it done right this time, which meant by somebody who paints underneath the pictures on the wall.

  In other words, not me.

  I also wanted to pick the right color, and I’ve learned from my painting mistakes. If you recall, the shutters on the house were painted yellow, which I hoped would be sunshiny, but turned out bright enough to be a source of solar energy. And it was too expensive a mistake to correct, so I had to live with it.

  I’ve made other expensive mistakes, notably Thing Two, but luckily, I didn’t have to live with that one. Divorce is like remodeling your life. It’s not a failure, it’s a home improvement.

  If you can change your family room, you can change your family.

  I saw an ad for some high-end paint, and I liked the colors, but since it was expensive, I went online and ordered three sample pots, which is very unusual for me. I think the world divides into test-patch people and the rest of us. By this I mean, do you know those laundry bleaches, skin creams, hair dyes, and other scary things that tell you to test it on a patch of shirt, arm, or hair first?

  Well, I never listen.

  I go whole hog, right from the outset. I’m all in, from the jump. I say go for it and let the chips fall, which may be related to the divorce part, but let’s not tarry, I’m trying to change my ways. So I got the sample pots and started sampling.

  I was pretty sure one of the blue shades should work, but when I got them on my office wall, they were too restful. If I rest in my office, I can’t afford to buy pretentious paint.

  So the sample pots did their job, but I had three blue stripes on my office wall, which committed me to painting it, for sure. And by the way, I got a little crazy and painted some sample stripes on the second-floor hallway, so now I was committed to that, too. I went back online and ordered four more sample pots of a tasteful tan, then painted four more stripes, but again no dice. They were all too flesh-colored, and they looked like skin walls, which would be fine in Stephen King’s office, but not mine.

  Still, I was having a blast. It was a rush to paint outside the lines, and the stripes morphed into blocks, blotches, then swirls. I understood the rush that an artist might get, even though I was just a lady in the suburbs, vandalizing my own hallway.

  I went back online again and ordered three pots of reddish shades, but they were too bright, then I ordered two more greenish shades, but they clashed with the rug, then I went for two more pinkish pots, and before I knew it, I had become a sample-pot addict.

  Now, my second floor looks like a demented rainbow, I’ve spent too much money, and am no closer to choosing an office color. In fact, I forget the name of the color I almost like, because I didn’t write down its name next to the sample blotch.

  And I keep dreaming of ordering another few sample pots, of the lavender colors.

  One is too many, and a thousand not enough.

  Gateway Brownie

  By Francesca

  Drug memoir is popular these days, and I’m hopping on the bandwagon. James Frey may lie about his experiences to sound more extreme, but not me. My drug experience was so disproporti
onately horrible, it needs no embellishment.

  I hit rock bottom with a brownie.

  Like any good episode of Intervention, let me begin at the beginning.

  I have never smoked anything in my life. Tobacco products hold zero appeal. I’ve seen cigarettes’ effects on my grandmother’s health, and I’ll never forgive them.

  In high school, I was kept happily busy with schoolwork, sports, and singing, and drugs scared the hell out of me. In tenth grade, I sucked helium at a girl’s birthday party, and I was so paranoid about losing brain cells before the PSAT, I spilled a tearful confession to my mom the very next day.

  Yes, I was a nerd.

  In college, I was no longer afraid, but I remained uninterested. The potheads were entertaining only to other potheads. And while I had some vague awareness of cocaine use at parties, it was always taking place behind a bathroom door when I really had to pee.

  Really girls, the ladies’-room line is long enough.

  So at twenty-five years old, I had never tried a single puff of weed. I admit, sometimes I felt like I’d missed out on something. There was a whole swath of cannabis-related pop culture that went over my head. “Puff” was just a magical dragon, “Cheech and Chong” just sounds offensive. Blunt means lacking in tact. I love Bob Marley because he was a musical genius.

  At least I’d always have something to lord over my future children.

  Do as I say, and as I do.

  And I could run for president.

  I did not inhale, nor did I have sex with that woman.

  But despite the occasional law abider’s remorse, trying marijuana was not on my agenda. After college, you’re really getting too old for it anyway. Remember that one friend in grade school whose parents were hippies—were they cool? No, they were unwashed and embarrassing. That’s why your friend always wanted to sleep over at your house.

  But all that changed last winter.

  After a month of constant working and living like a hermit, I had just turned in our third book to the publisher. The Eagles were set to play for the NFC Championship, so I had invited my best friend, my guy friend, and his girlfriend over for a playoffs party. Before they came over, I cleaned my entire apartment, ordered two pizzas, and got all the ingredients to make Eagles-green margaritas.