My Beautiful Failure

by Janet Ruth Young

  “Which one is that?”

  “With the melting watches.”

  “I call that one Melting Watches.”

  “Your dad might be ahead of his time,” Mom said. She flicked a beetle off one of the flowers. Mom wasn’t really a reliable judge of anything. She was just in love with Dad.

  54.

  dislocation

  So, what would be my role for the show? I would monitor it and make sure Dad didn’t go off the rails. Unless I was at school or Listeners, I made a point of being close by for every major discussion or decision.

  I stopped at the house before my Listeners shift and found Dad designing a poster for the show while his brother Marty looked over his shoulder. Of the two of them, Marty was the sociable schmoozer. Marty owned a bar/restaurant and knew a lot of people in town. He had a full head of blow-dried hair and always ironed his jeans before wearing them.

  “I can’t wait to get the word out,” he told Dad. “I’ll stand on the street corners if I have to.”

  I looked over Dad’s shoulder at his iPad. In white type on red, the poster said

  BILL MORRISON 40/40

  Forty Paintings in Forty Days

  “Where’s the ticket price?” Linda asked. “Real museums charge admission.”

  “But galleries don’t,” Dad replied. “Besides, I’m an unknown.”

  “Don’t put yourself down, Dad,” Linda argued. “You have the same right to be famous as anyone else.”

  “I know. But the word ‘unknown’ isn’t negative. It’s neutral. Let’s say I’m not known yet.”

  “That’s better.”

  Dad popped different images into the poster to see which looked best. He tried Diverted Horizon, in which the horizon line was six inches higher on the right than on the left; Adverted Horizon, which contained an entire sunset inside a hyperrealist beer stein; and Perverted Horizon, one of the paintings in black and gray.

  “It looks like the moon setting,” Linda said. “Except that the moon doesn’t set. Does it?”

  “Do you think it does?”

  “I guess so. But no one ever talks about it.”

  “That’s the whole point of the painting. The major objective in art is to avoid clichés.”

  Linda was writing ideas on a clipboard. “We should serve hot chocolate and offer a gift-wrapping service to put people in a buying mood.”

  “I can make bows,” Jodie said, writing on the clipboard from the other side.

  “Of courth you can,” I said.

  “What do you mean, of course?” she asked.

  “Because it’s just the kind of thing you would do. Something that looks sweet and nice but is actually useless.”

  “Cool it, Billy,” Uncle Marty said. He laid his arm across the top of the couch, behind Dad’s shoulders.

  Dad looked up at me. “I will not allow you to use my show as an opportunity to be cruel.”

  “But don’t you think the commercial stuff will make your show seem tacky?”

  “No, I don’t think. I’m glad for the help. And I’m going to give Linda a percentage on everything she helps me sell. And Jodie a percentage on the gift wrapping.”

  “Are you going to get a credit card reader?” In case anyone thought I was serious, I snorted.

  Dad handed the iPad to Marty, and I knew I was in trouble. “Now listen up, Billy, because I’m only saying this once. You know all about listening, don’t you?”

  Not that again.

  “This show—Billy, look at me—this show is one of the four most exciting events of my life. The other three were my marriage to your mother and the births of my two children. Are you putting that in perspective?”

  I looked down at my feet. If Dad had continued in a teasing vein, I could have gotten more potshots in. But he had me cornered. “Yes, I am,” I said.

  “I’m not fabricating that. It’s the truth. It’s what I’ve told Fritz. So now you know. And no naysayer is going to make it less than it is. You seem pretty risk averse, Billy.”

  “Billy has a lousy attitude,” Jodie said, hitching a free ride on the reprimand.

  “Okay, Jodie,” Dad said. “That’s too personal. I want to design my poster, not referee your arguments.”

  “You’ve surrounded yourself with yes men, Dad,” I said. “If you told these three you were going to make a rink back there, wear a skating costume, and call the show Bill Morrison on Ice, they’d say it was a great idea.”

  “Billy,” Marty said. “Now you’re being offensive.”

  “What if it snows? What if there’s a sleet storm or an ice storm and the art gets ruined? What if there’s a blizzard and no one comes? What happens to your precious art show then?”

  “There’s something you’ll need to learn for your career as a musician, Billy,” Dad said.

  “I’m not a musician. I’m a psychologist. Going to be.”

  “Whatever you become, this skill might come in handy. It’s called improvising. Going with the flow. Deciding in the moment. That’s what I’m doing now. Life is full of the unexpected, and the best thing we can do is embrace it. Success is determined by a combination of planning and improvising. Let this show be an example to you.”

  The four of them went back to fine-tuning the poster and deciding what they could sell.

  It was like they didn’t remember last winter. All of them had been there. We must have had six different plans, each of which we tossed out the window so fast, we didn’t hear the previous one shatter on the pavement. And what did I do as each plan failed? I improvised. I came up with new ideas, and when I had no ideas left I stayed there, sitting with Dad. Listening to Dad.

  They were like drowning people who said to the lifeguard, You can put me down now, here’s five dollars for your trouble, and once we’re back on shore, we don’t know each other.

  And that tall chair you sit in, doesn’t it lift you a bit too much above the others?

  55.

  shift 6, november 22. call 31

  I was alone in the teen room, sitting in Margaret’s spot. Margaret and Richie had stepped out to record voice-overs for a fund-raiser. A lot of rich people, including friends of Pep’s dad, would be coming to the Hawthorne Plaza Hotel to eat tiny quiches and drink mojitos. Once they were slightly buzzed and settled at their tables, the lights would go out, and they would hear two voices, a Listener and an Incoming, talking to each other in the dark. The recordings would be really dramatic, Pep had said. A wallet opener. She needed Margaret and Richie for about twenty minutes of script reading.

  Line 1 rang.

  “Listeners. Can I help you?”

  It’s me.

  Oh, man, it was her. She was okay, and she sounded happy.

  “Jenney! Where’ve you been? I got worried when I didn’t hear from you.”

  I’m sorry. I called a bunch of times, but I always got someone else, so I hung up. I wish there was some way I could get you directly.

  “Me too.” I shouldn’t have said that.

  I have great news!

  “What is it?”

  I got a job. My friend Stacey is working part time for a catering company. They do clambakes and corporate parties. The woman who owns it used to run that breakfast place The Incredible Egg. They’re really busy right now and needed someone who isn’t in school, so they hired me.

  “That’s incredible. Stacey sounds like a good friend.”

  Yeah. We hadn’t been hanging out that much lately. She says she still wants to be friends but she can’t deal with me on the really down days. She says I sometimes seem like another person. I told her things would be getting better soon, that I would be more myself.

  “Seems like things are getting better for you. You found a job. You’re amazing.”

  Ta-da. But wait! There’s more.

  “Tell me.”

  Next step is to enroll at the community college. I’m going over there on my lunch break tomorrow to see how many credits I can earn that I could carry to a four-ye
ar school. Just to get the ball rolling.

  “I’m in awe.”

  It’s not St. Angus’s. It’s not even Hawthorne State. But they have open enrollment, so if I can work around the hours of the new job, I could start in January. I guess that was all I wanted to say. I should go to bed now. I have to get up early to work a breakfast meeting. I’m feeling a little wired. I’m going to take a couple of Ambien.

  “Don’t go yet. Let’s talk for a few more minutes.”

  Okay. But just a few.

  “Do you know you’re my favorite caller?”

  I think that’s really nice. So you don’t mind the fact that I’m so messed up?

  “I don’t look at it that way. I think people who’ve been through weird stuff are actually stronger than people who haven’t been through weird stuff.”

  Good. Because I think my weird stuff makes me strong too.

  I picked up Margaret’s pen and added a heart to her doodle pad. Drawing on her paper felt weird, like wearing someone else’s underwear or using their deodorant.

  Hey, you sound kind of subdued or something. Not my usual Hallmark. Is something bugging you?

  “Me? No. Well, kind of, but I’m not here to burden you with my problems.”

  Go ahead.

  “No, really. I should only be listening to you.”

  You disrespect me by saying that.

  “How?”

  You’re telling me I can only accept help and never give it.

  She was right. I was disrespecting her. She was one of the strongest people I knew, and I was treating her like she was weak.

  “That wasn’t meant to be personal. I . . . okay.” I flipped over Margaret’s doodle pad to the blank cardboard. “I’m really worried about my dad.”

  What’s going on with him?

  “I think he suffers from . . . Excessive Joy Syndrome.”

  Be serious, Billy. I can handle it.

  I whipped around to see if Margaret and Richie had returned from the taping yet. The coast was clear.

  “I’ll keep it short. He’s taken on a huge, impossible project, and I’m worried that he might be getting manic.”

  What is the project?

  “An art show. He’s doing all these paintings plus investing his entire self-worth in it plus spending tons of money on art supplies, and doing it all too fast.”

  I can see why you’d be upset. Poor Hallmark. You’re such a caring person.

  “Do you know what I mean by manic?”

  Yep. Like bipolar. Not just good days/bad days like I have. More like ecstatic days and end-it-all days.

  “My dad was seriously depressed last year and it got really scary. He’s my reason for working at Listeners.”

  Margaret and Richie came back, each holding a flash drive, their faces red from laughing. Margaret told Richie he could get an Oscar for his performance as an Incoming. Richie said it was a hoot to wear the shoe on the other foot. Richie sat down at 2, and Margaret at 3. When I was finished with Jenney, we would reshuffle.

  “Jenney, are you feeling suicidal?”

  No, Hallmark. Do you believe in soul mates?

  “That’s a good question. Do you?”

  I do. Like kindred spirits. People who have the same outlooks and values.

  “What does that mean to you, Jenney?”

  Now that you told me about your dad, I like you more than ever.

  The line disconnected.

  56.

  score

  Call 36 was a girl whose boyfriend kept trying to break up with her.

  I told him I didn’t accept it.

  She had a snooty, entitled voice.

  “You can do that?” I asked her.

  Sure. I told him, “Try again next week.”

  I wanted to say I admired her gumption or chutzpah, but since I had never used either before, the word came out “gumpchah.”

  My what?

  Call 39 was someone who had a virus that threw off his sleep cycle so that he slept all day and was awake at night.

  My whole life is upside down. What do you think I’m eating right now, at nearly nine o’clock at night?

  “I have no idea.”

  Guess.

  “I’d like to, but I can’t.”

  I am eating Raisin Bran.

  By 8:58 I had taken forty calls in a single shift, and Margaret placed a paper crown with the number 40 on my head.

  Richie said the occasion called for a snack. We had Mallomars and white grape juice, with seconds and thirds, in perpetuity.

  57.

  foothold

  At the end of the shift Richie and I learned that Vince, a college student who’d covered the nine-to-midnight singlehanded several nights a week, flunked out and moved back home to Rhode Island. His parents went ballistic, and Vince was so distraught, he had started calling Listeners from his childhood bedroom in his parents’ house, using our 800 number. Vince called Margaret tonight, in fact. He said he didn’t understand what happened, that it was unfair, and that he was thinking of suing the college. She felt sorry for Vince and didn’t want to question his reality, but I couldn’t help wondering about his judgment and how good a Listener he had been over the past year.

  Margaret and Richie left, and I put my phone on hold. Already a light flashed on line 1, meaning a new Incoming wanted to get through. I went to the front room.

  I told Pep the lines were still hopping.

  Trouble takes no holidays, Pep said. She was getting ready to leave too, grabbing her peacoat, her book bag, and her squash racket.

  It was a shame about Vince, I said.

  Pep told me she had gotten Vince a few times. The first time he caught her by surprise, so she was a little ragged, but she managed to say that she admired him for suing Hawthorne State and that it showed a real commitment to getting an education.

  That was a reach, I told her, but a good save. I added that if she was struggling with the schedule, I would be glad to pick up some of Vince’s hours until she trained more volunteers.

  Pep hesitated. She said she was worried about me burning out.

  I still felt fresh, I assured her. In fact, I felt like the more I worked, the faster I would develop my skills.

  She asked how late I could stay.

  Eleven or midnight, I suggested. However late she needed me.

  Pep paused, and I knew what she would say: I needed my parents’ permission.

  I played the age card. Did Pep ask all the Listeners that, or just the younger teens?

  Just the younger teens, she admitted.

  My parents would be all right, I said. They had their own stuff going on and probably wanted me out of their hair.

  She asked if I would be okay working alone, and I said yes.

  I would have to tell her if my hours became too much, she insisted, and I agreed.

  All right, I said. I would be back in tomorrow.

  58.

  mom

  I brought Triumph inside and switched on the living room light.

  “Oh!” Mom said, blinking. She got up from the couch with her hair sticking up like feathers. “Billy. What time is it?”

  “Around ten,” I told her. “Mom, I got promoted.”

  “Oh!” Mom’s hand flew up and touched her neck, her wooden bead necklace. “Billy!” She did a wriggly dance like the one Linda did when Dad announced his reinvestment in painting. “That’s fantastic!”

  Mom hugged me. She smelled sweaty from sleeping in her clothes.

  “I took your advice. About working twice as hard.”

  I carried my bike to my room and came back.

  “So what does this promotion entail?”

  “Working some extra hours. I’ll be on by myself some nights. I’ll be running the whole place.”

  Mom put her arm around me and pointed to the coffee table. It was littered with correspondence, newsletters, and directories. “I’m starting an e-mail discussion list with other directors of small museums,” she said. “
It was a good idea, but it’s taking longer than I thought.”

  “Is Dad still working?” I asked.

  She moved a teacup and put her feet up. “Yes. Go in and tell him. He’ll be so proud.”

  59.

  in other words

  I pushed open the door of Dad’s studio. A new lamp as bright as a klieg light blazed in the midst of the solvent smells, and the air in the room felt like a sauna.

  “Little buddy,” Dad said. He hadn’t called me that since I was four or five. He rested his brush on the easel tray and massaged a sore spot on his shoulder. His current painting was of three white rowboats docked side by side. The third one was barely present, suggested with a scraping of white.

  “You’re home late. How were the phones tonight?” he asked. I noticed creases around his eyes.

  “Busy. I’m going to be spending more time at Listeners, okay? They’re shorthanded.”

  “That’s fine. Another hour or two and I can hit the hay, Billaby.”

  “What boats are those?”

  With a clean brush tipped with green paint, he wrote part of an N on the middle boat. Then he scraped a P onto the nearest one. “Three boats embarking on a dangerous journey. No one knows what’s on the other side.”

  “I get it. The Niña—”

  “The Santa María. The Pinta. And the Niña in between-ya. One intrepid soul masterminds the journey. He has some idea what’s ahead. . . . Almost done, Billaby, almost done. Then one more and we’ll say good night.”

  “Maybe you should sleep in tomorrow and take a sick day. You look wiped out.”

  “I won’t go to bed until I finish one more.”

  “A small one like this?”

  “Maybe I’ll make a painting of you. Call it Issue of My Tissue. Or I’ll paint you in a fruit bowl and call it Fruit of My Loins. Get it?”

  Dad finished the lettering—just two letters on each stern did the job. “It’s important not to make details too complete,” he said. “That’s the mark of an amateur. I’ll do another very small one. If Linda of Finland prices by the minute, it won’t be worth more than twenty-five smackeroos. But by other standards it will be worth two hundred. She wants to be fair, does Linda of Finland, Queen of Linland. Linda-Finda of the Fair Hair.” He removed the canvas from his easel and set it on the table to dry.