Will You Won't You Want Me?: A Novel

by Nora Zelevansky

  Meanwhile, Marjorie regaled her parents with descriptions of the worst and best of the films she’d watched at G & G, moving them to tears of laughter with her impression of pretentious Grant Vollbracht, performed during dinner one evening.

  “And he kept his sunglasses on the whole time?” giggled her mother.

  “I can’t blame Gus for walking out.” Chipper shook his head. “Sounds like a man after my own heart. It’s one of the reasons I went into academia instead of to Hollywood.”

  “Yeah. He couldn’t take it.” Marjorie’s smile faded.

  Barbara read her daughter’s look. “Have you thought about getting in touch, either socially or for work opportunities?”

  “It wouldn’t make sense right now.” In truth, she had thought a million times about calling Gus and hearing him out. But he hadn’t contacted her since the incident. He’d probably heard about the tutoring debacle and thought she was nuts.

  “I have a thought,” said her father.

  “Yeah? Just one?”

  “Grow up.” He grinned. “I know you’re applying for writing jobs right now, and I think that’s great. But I have some friends who produce TV shows. Now, I’m not saying they’d hire you right away. But if you were willing to start at the bottom, maybe you could work as a writing assistant, then story editor, and become a full-fledged writer, assuming you liked it. Of course, that might eventually mean moving to LA.”

  “Chipper!” Barbara admonished.

  He shrugged. “Or not. But you’d have to write some spec scripts first, as samples for me to show them.”

  “Dad! Are you kidding me?” That did the trick. Marjorie pushed her seat back, stood and walked around the table, throwing her arms around her father. “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!”

  “Don’t squeeze me too tight, honey. I might drop dead.”

  She planted a kiss on his cheek. “That would be very inconvenient.”

  Chipper said, “You know there are no guarantees, right, honey?”

  “Oh, trust me, Dad. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that.”

  Marjorie worked harder than ever before over the next weeks. Each morning, she brushed her teeth, threw her hair in a bun, checked on her father, and sat down at her computer to write.

  Immediately, she could tell she was cut out for a writer’s life—something she’d begun to suspect while working with Belinda. She felt at ease editing and reediting wrongly worded sentences and tweaking lines of dialogue that rang insincere. She had an outlet for those invented backstories about strangers on trains. And she felt directed in a way she hadn’t since before she became “Madgesty.”

  Once she finished a draft, Marjorie brought the script to her father, ignoring her jitters. She pretended not assess his every head scratch as he read. After turning the last page, he peered up at her as she stopped pacing: “Have you done this before?”

  “What? No! You know that. Is it that bad?”

  “No, Marjorie.” He looked down at the coffee-stained, paper-clipped document on his lap, then back up at his daughter. “It’s that good.”

  “Good? Good, good, good!”

  Chipper had notes, of course: The stakes should be higher, the climax more pronounced, one quirky supporting character less of a caricature. But he marveled at her ability. She wasn’t sure whether to be proud or insulted by his surprise.

  Barbara Plum announced, after Chipper’s glowing report, that she’d always known Marjorie would harness her talents for success—never mind that just months before she had also “known” that Marjorie would wind up an impoverished old maid in an even more remote outer borough than Brooklyn. All was forgotten, history revised. As far as Barbara was concerned, Marjorie had never wavered on the path to greatness.

  Even Mina the Cat seemed pleased by Marjorie’s tenaciousness, perching on her lap as she wrote.

  One evening, Marjorie received an e-mail from Tina, thankfully not about scheduling her reentry meeting with Brianne thanks to Mac. When hell freezes over.

  Girl, it’s been too long. I miss seeing your tall ass around this place. (That said, I heard rumors about you coming back. Don’t do it! Have you lost your mind? I’d be gone in a flash if she didn’t pay me so well.)

  Meanwhile, I do have some amazing gossip to share. Get ready to pick your jaw up off the FLOOR.

  Seems our favorite acne-covered, kiss-ass intern Herb was not who he seemed. That puny dude is actually a writer for the New York Post. He was a Page 6 intern, who pitched the idea of infiltrating a bigwig PR company (that they’d already heard insane rumors about). He’s been collecting the goods on Brianne for months!

  Even more nuts, I’ve heard rumblings that she was having SEX with that hot mess. That kid is barely legal and uglier than a bag of hair! You know I’m right. Hopefully that part isn’t true.

  Anyway, I wanted to let you know because karma’s one awesome bitch, right? The story is running next week. Also, if you called the Post and talked to Herb, maybe he would include your sabotage in the story? Maybe clear your name, make it plain to those folks Brianne e-mailed that you aren’t crazy?

  That’s all for now. Would love to see you and hear what you’ve been doing. You around?

  xoxo Tina

  Marjorie grinned as she read the e-mail, but she also felt a pang. That was a lot of public humiliation, even for a terrible person like Brianne.

  Either way, Marjorie wouldn’t call Herb. At this point, she didn’t care much what those contacts thought of her mental health, since not one had called to verify the tale. Plus, bringing up the story would only keep the narrative in circulation. And, whether Herb had been playing a role or not, it would be a cold day in Death Valley before she asked that whiny Benedict Arnold for a favor.

  Skimming Facebook updates about last gasps of summer, she happened upon an announcement from her high school boyfriend, Bryce. Beneath a lo-fi-filtered image of him and his wife cradling a stuffed toy armadillo, the caption read: “We’re pregnant!” The post already had eighty-six Likes.

  Marjorie got to cyberstalking. As far as she could tell, he and his adorable wife were both graphic artists—a fact that she vaguely recalled—who loved taking international bike trips. Pictures showed them in myriad settings, smiling and flushed, in athletic gear. Marjorie was glad for him. If only she liked riding bikes; maybe she’d be as happy as these two, one day.

  She sent Bryce a private instant message:

  Congratulations! So are you nervous about being a dad?

  He responded right away:

  A little. But Carrie is so good with kids. It’ll be fine.

  It will be more than fine! You’ll be great. No question.

  BTW I heard about your dad’s heart attack. I’m so glad he’s ok.

  Oh! Thank you. I didn’t realize you knew.

  I talk to Mac pretty often.

  Ah. I should have realized.

  She hesitated, then typed:

  So then I guess Mac told you we were dating? But not anymore.

  He did.

  Can I ask you a weird question?

  Anytime.

  Did you ever worry about me and Mac, back when you and I were together?

  Not really. But it makes sense. You guys always sort of had a connection. Don’t get me wrong. Even now, it stings a little. Old habits …

  I hear you.

  But I pictured something different for you than Mac’s life. You’re weirder than that.

  Gee, thanks!

  In a good way. Ha! Remember that story you showed me that you wrote when you were a kid? The one about being stuck inside a book? That was crazy creative.

  I can’t believe you remember that.

  It stayed with me for some reason. You’ve always been different from that group, you know? That’s part of why I liked you.

  I don’t think I knew that.

  Look, I found it hard to be a regular person in NYC after college. It’s hard. That’s why I moved to Austin. It never seemed li
ke enough just to be functioning—like if I wasn’t doing something flashy, I didn’t count. And I didn’t want to be that guy who peaked in high school, you know?

  Yeah. I know something about that.

  The next day was Chipper’s first postheart-attack (PHA or “FA!” as the family had come to call it) stress test, and Marjorie was tagging along, despite her father’s objections to being “babysat.”

  But when they stepped into her parents’ lobby from the elevator, she stopped dead in her tracks. The pixie, in one of her signature get-ups (tassels, high-waisted striped pants, heeled boots), was waiting to ride up.

  “Fred! What are you doing here?”

  “Coming to see you, of course. What else? No one answered the buzzer, but the nice doorman thought you were home. I convinced him to let me go up and ring the doorbell.”

  “Of course you did.”

  Fred glanced at Marjorie’s parents, standing by the exit. Barbara had hustled a clueless Chipper away to give the girls space when she realized that this was the Fred. “Looks like you’re on your way out.”

  “We are, but wait, wait, wait. These are my parents.” Marjorie made the proper introductions. Everyone smiled and nodded, though Chipper—feeling he’d earned the right at his advanced age—shook Fred’s hand, accepted well wishes, then promptly forgot her. She joined the blurred ranks of Marjorie’s other nameless, faceless friends.

  “You girls go talk,” Marjorie’s mother said, opening the door to the outside world.

  “But what about the doctor?”

  Barbara brought a hand to her hip. “Marjorie, we survived before you and we can survive without you now! Go!”

  The duos parted ways outside.

  The former roommates headed down the sloped sidewalk toward Riverside Park, stopping on the outskirts to appreciate the old fountain beside which Marjorie and Mac had kissed so many years before. Marjorie had recently read a New York Times article about the Tennessee pink marble relic she had taken for granted: It was a horse trough designed by Warren & Wetmore (architects integral to Grand Central Terminal), funded posthumously in 1906 by a descendant of Alexander Hamilton’s, whose “adventuress” wife ruined his political career through scandal. The same man was believed to have been murdered by his best friend on a hunting trip in Yellowstone National Park. And Marjorie thought she was a bad judge of character.

  They started down stone steps toward the basketball courts, chatting about summer’s abrupt end, a phenomenon that continues to flabbergast year after year.

  “I can’t take it anymore!” Fred finally exclaimed. “I didn’t just come here to get my Upper West Side on! Let’s talk.”

  Marjorie smiled. “You want to start, or should I?”

  “Me! Because, Morningblatt, I feel terrible. I had no idea about your father’s heart attack. And when I heard … I’m so sorry I wasn’t there for you.”

  “Fred, no! You had every right to be mad.”

  “Maybe.” The pixie scratched her head like a cartoon character. “But I should have been more understanding. We all have our pockets of crazy. Like I once stalked an ex-boyfriend.”

  “Wait, what?”

  “He dumped me. I was brokenhearted, so I started walking past his building every day, hoping to run into him—normal breakup stuff like that. Before long, I was at his coffee shop most mornings, ‘running into him’ near his gym on weekends. It got out of hand.”

  “It happens?”

  “No. It doesn’t. Finally, we ran into each outside his building, by my design, and he asked me to stop. His doorman heard the whole thing. It was the most humiliating moment of my life. The point is, do you know why I stalked him?”

  Marjorie shook her head. “You were in love?”

  “No.” Fred shook her head firmly. “He was a music exec with terrible taste, an affinity for bad funk. He didn’t get my songs; I didn’t even respect him. But he was the kind of guy who never likes me and he thought I was adorable—until he didn’t. I was in a terrible place: I wasn’t writing music, I was still trying to keep a nine-to-five office job. For the three seconds we were together, he made me feel accepted, bourgeois.”

  “Makes sense.”

  “Anyhow, we all act loony sometimes because we aren’t in our right minds or because we have some image of who we’re trying to be. As your friend, I should have given you some insanity leeway, considering everything that was going on.”

  “Fred, that’s super generous. But I got you fired.”

  “Yeah, there’s that.” She kicked at one of the first fallen leaves standing out against the pavement. “But whatever. I got more shifts and a raise at the acupuncture place.”

  “Thank God.”

  “Speaking of tutoring, someone came by the house looking for you.”

  “Who?” Marjorie was disgusted with herself for hoping it was Gus.

  “Belinda.”

  “Belinda! What? How? By herself?”

  “No, she was with some chubby kid—Growl or something?”

  “Snarls!”

  “That sounds right.”

  “Was she mad? Did she look happy?”

  “She didn’t seem angry. She wanted me to give you this.” Fred rifled through her bag and pulled out a thin stack of paper, stapled together. The top sheet read: “A short story by Belinda Porter-Levinson.”

  Marjorie clutched the papers to her chest, welling up. “Oh! Thank you!”

  “She seemed pretty impressed by you, despite her mothers’ threat of a restraining order.” Fred did a little dance, for no reason except she was Fred. “So, what’s up with Mac?” Marjorie mimed an axe across her neck. “Over? For good? Are you sad?”

  “A little.” There was a chill in the air, a whisper of autumn that seemed unimaginable days before. “But we weren’t right.”

  Fred furrowed her brow. “Remember how you once said you and Mac seemed ‘meant to be’ because the universe kept bringing you together in random places?”

  Marjorie nodded.

  “Well, I thought of it differently. Maybe you ran into him because he represented everything you needed to let go? Style over substance and unearned rewards. Looking for reassurance in all the wrong places.”

  “I do think in retrospect that maybe he always hated Vera because he recognized her need for approval as an unattractive quality in himself, though better hidden. I can understand why I got the reactions I did from each of them.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I coasted. I did nothing to deserve the attention. But the joke was on me because it was fleeting, worthless. I kept waiting for something to make me feel special again, but I never did anything but mope. I thought maybe I had become less fabulous, but really people moved on because that’s what they do. I stayed in that horrible job, with a boss who literally threw things at me, because it never occurred to me that satisfaction isn’t about validation. You could wait a lifetime for that. I know. I waited a decade.”

  Fred examined her hands. “I ended things with James too.” And a million single female New Yorkers felt suddenly lighter, like something had righted itself.

  “Again?”

  “For real this time. He showed up for our date all cute and preppy, ready to pick up where we left off. But I wasn’t feeling it. I told him he had to move on. No showing up at my shows or parties. Maybe my ‘focusing on work’ line was an excuse all along.”

  “Or maybe you changed.”

  “It happens.”

  “That’s what I hear.” Marjorie linked her arm through Fred’s.

  Later, as the girls readied to part ways, Fred said, “Your bedroom is waiting for you, if and when you want to come home. You need your stuff!”

  Home. “Thanks, Fred. I’ll get it … at some point. I guess I can’t live out of a suitcase forever.”

  The pixie sighed. “Look, I don’t know what happened in LA, Morningblatt. Gus won’t talk and apparently neither will you. But I refuse to have you annexed from my world because you’re
avoiding him. I can’t have you both moping around!”

  “He’s moping?”

  “Mope City, here we come. Maybe I can at least coerce you into coming to a Stolen Ivory show?” She paused. “Aren’t you going to tell me the name sucks?”

  “It’s actually not that bad.”

  “Really? Maybe your taste is slipping.”

  Upstairs, once Fred left, Marjorie pulled out Belinda’s story and began to read. It was different from what they’d worked on:

  Once upon a time, in a land of Vespas and taxicabs instead of those horse-drawn carriages, there lived a royal princess named Chloe. Her parents, the King and Queen, meant well, but were overprotective pains in the butt by nature, too obsessed with their own arguments and seasonal dinners of mutton chop, kale, and quinoa to notice that their daughter was desperately lonely.

  Eventually, the princess became so despondent that she refused to even dress herself, so they hired a Lady-in-Waiting to help her prep for festivals and events. What they didn’t realize is that this particular maid, named Star because of how brightly she shined, had magical powers. Every time she entered the room, the princess got a little happier and more animated again.

  Princess Chloe began reading books and watching TV shows that weren’t for children, when the King and Queen weren’t looking. She particularly liked Homeland, New Girl, and The Good Wife.

  Meanwhile, the Queen had a suitor in mind for young Chloe, who she assumed would be her future husband (or at least boyfriend): the Duke of Prospect Park. He was nice enough, but Chloe was “just not that into him.”

  One day, Star took Chloe to Bodega Stables to see horses and buy Doritos. There, the princess met a boy named Ruff. At first, Chloe scoffed at his crass comments and stupid jokes, although the attention was nice. He was not polished like the Duke of PP, but he was funny and smart. Star had never intended to pair Chloe with anyone, but she had taught the princess to think for herself and grow into an independent teenager, who didn’t follow a pack or blindly adopt her mother’s values.