Pounding the Pavement

by Jennifer van der Kwast

  “Oh, I love him!”

  “Great!” I grab the DVD and make a mad dash across the store toward the Classics section.

  “Okay,” I tell Jake, still panting. “How do you feel about watching Adam Sandler take a stab at serious drama? I heard he was surprisingly good in this.”

  “Oh, yeah!” Jake jabs his finger at the box. “He was awesome! I saw that in the theater. You guys should definitely watch that some time. You’ll love it.”

  “Right.” I lower the DVD. “Thanks.”

  “Hey, what about this?” He hands me the case for How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. “Robert Morse is really funny. He’s like an early Jim Carrey.”

  “I’ll give it a shot.” And I’m off again, hurdling the displays on my way back to the New Releases.

  “Amanda,” I gasp for air. “Remember how much you liked Moulin Rouge?”

  “Oh, yeah. Nicole Kidman was fabulous in that!”

  “Okay, well, then how about we get a musical? And I mean a real musical.” I hand her the box. She studies it, her nose pinched.

  “Sarah, this was made in 1967. We weren’t even born then!” She holds the offensive video case away from her with two fingers. “Tell Jake I’m okay with classics. But they can’t be older than 1980.”

  “Right.” I take the movie from her, tuck it under my arm, and charge.

  Yellow flag! Illegal cell phone on the field. I flip it open.

  “Yeah?”

  “Sarah?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s David Morton.”

  “David …?”

  “David Morton? From Ponderosa High School?”

  I come to a screeching halt. “Oh, David.” My stomach churns the sudden, excruciating recollections. David Morton’s thick tongue plunging down my ear canal, his sweaty fingers painfully pinching and twisting the flesh on my thighs. His rough hands sneaking up under my bra no matter how many times or how hard I try swatting them away.

  “Been a while, huh?”

  I cast a glance at my surroundings. I’m in the Horror section. Safe. I crouch down low and whisper into my mouthpiece.

  “Yeah. Wow. This is really unexpected. How did you get this—”

  “I called your house and talked to your mom for a pretty long time. She gave me your number.”

  “Great.” It doesn’t sound as sarcastic as I mean it.

  “So, I hear you’re in New York.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Yeah? And what have you been up to?”

  “Well, I …” Am seeing someone? Have a boyfriend? Am finally having good sex? “Haven’t really been up to much at all. You?”

  “Well, that’s the funny thing. I’m in New York too tonight.”

  Oh God. “You are?”

  “Last-minute business trip. And, see, I’m just here for the one night and I was wondering if, maybe if you weren’t busy, we could grab a drink?”

  “Oh, gee, David, I’m sorry. I’d love to, but—”

  “No, it’s okay. Don’t apologize. I thought you might already have plans. Just wanted to check.”

  “I appreciate—”

  “Hey, your mom says you’re living with Amanda Reubens. For real?”

  “Actually, I—”

  “Any idea what she’s up to tonight?”

  “No,” I snap. “I haven’t the foggiest.”

  “Yeah. That figures. Tell her I say hi, okay?”

  “Sure, will do.” Fat chance.

  “And if you’re ever in Denver, give me a ring. I’d love to catch up.”

  “Sounds super. I really got to go now, David.”

  “Okay. Talk soon.”

  “Bye.”

  I hang up my phone not a moment too soon.

  “There she is!” I hear Amanda say. I grab a movie from off the shelf and pray it isn’t Caligula. When I turn, I find Amanda hovering directly above me. Jake’s head pops up over her shoulder.

  “What are you doing in the Horror section?” he asks.

  “I don’t know,” I mumble. “I thought it might be fun to watch a scary movie.”

  “But we already made a decision,” Amanda pouts. Jake holds up a DVD case.

  Tootsie. Now why didn’t I think of that before?

  I cock an eyebrow at Amanda. “You sure you’re okay with this?”

  “I’ve never seen it before.” She shrugs. “I heard it was funny.”

  “Great.” I stand up and brush off the knees of my jeans. “Then let’s do it.”

  We leave the rental store just as the sun begins its descent. The windows in the sky draw their pink curtains and the streetlights slip on fuzzy, little orange hats. The air is crisp, crackling with electricity. And I am suddenly overcome with the urge to skip.

  Skipping, I daresay, is a tragically neglected art. It is the perfect combination of both gleeful abandonment and utter lunacy—or are they the same? At any rate, it is just the sort of public display of hedonism people should partake in more often. Think how much happier we’d all be if we decided, Never mind the subway! I think I’ll skip to work this morning instead!

  I cannot convince either Amanda or Jake to join me in this bunny-hop parade. All the same. If you don’t feel the urge to skip, it really can’t be forced upon you. And so I forge ahead, leaving it up to them to keep up the pace.

  “Are you sure you’re all right?” Jake asks warily.

  “Never mind me!” I pant between hops. “Just a little bout of Manny-D.”

  “What’s Manny-D?” Amanda asks.

  “Manic—” Hop. “Depression.”

  “Oh God,” she mutters. “Only you would have a cute little nickname for your psychological disorders.”

  With one resounding last hop, I land squarely in front of our building. Then I straighten and go rigid.

  Huddled in the corner of my front step, and furtively smoking a cigarette, is one of the saddest and most forlorn creatures I’ve ever seen. And when she lifts up her head and peers through her bangs with red-rimmed eyes, I gasp.

  “Laurie?”

  With trembling fingers, she tucks her hair behind her ears.

  “I …” Her voice catches. She starts again. “I need to talk to you.”

  I turn to Amanda. She quickly fishes for her set of keys.

  “We’ll see you upstairs.” She and Jake carefully sidestep the despondent heap on the front step and disappear into the building.

  “What’s the matter?” I ask finally, crouching down beside her.

  Laurie’s lip quivers. “I got fired.”

  “Oh.” I pause. “Is that all?”

  “No, Sarah, I’m serious. I’m not going back.” She blinks furiously, holding back a flood of tears. “He called me fat.”

  “He did not!”

  “Yeah, he did.” Again, her voice cracks. She takes a moment to clear her throat. “This morning he got so angry he threw his cell phone out the window. So I get on the elevator immediately and I run downstairs, and I pick up all the million fucking pieces. And then he’s screaming at me to put it all back together. And by some fucking miracle I get it to work.” She coughs to hide the threat of another sob. “But, by then, he finds out he missed an important phone call from some director in London. So he throws the phone again, this time at me, and he says he never would have missed the call if I had just moved my fat ass faster.”

  “Laurie, that’s unacceptable!”

  “I think it is, too,” she sniffs.

  “Come here.” I wrap my arms around her. “It’ll be okay. You wanna come in?”

  Laurie shakes her head. “I can’t. I have to work on my résumé. Oh God!” Her cigarette slips from her fingers. She buries her head in her hands. “My résumé!”

  “I know, I know,” I say, patting her gently on the back. “Don’t worry. I’ll help you. I’ve gotten really good at résumés lately, you know?” I stand up and fetch my keys.

  “I really can’t stay.” Laurie hoists herself up. Calmly,
she brushes back her bangs and smooths out the wrinkles on her skirt. It amazes me how unflappable she can be. If it were me, I’d be a flailing, sobbing mess. Maybe Laurie’s experience has taught her how to maintain composure. But I think the truth is, it’s a gift. She takes one deep breath, closes her eyes, and shakes her head. Poof! The brief bout with emotion ricochets right off her.

  “I need you to do something for me, though,” she says, slipping her hand into her bag. She pulls out her cell phone and looks at it longingly. “I know I won’t be able to keep it off. I’ll turn it on to check my voice mail, and there will be a message from the office telling me to come back. And I won’t be able to say no.” She hands me the phone. “Take it. I need you to return it to the office for me tomorrow. Please?”

  “So that’s it? You’re not going back at all?”

  “Never. I’m going home now to file for unemployment. Then I’m going to start looking for another job.”

  I hold out the phone to her. “I think you should go back to the office yourself. I think you’re entitled to tell that asshole off. And you should demand a severance.”

  “Uh-uh.” She waves her phone away. “If I go in asking for severance, he’ll just offer me my job back. Then I won’t be able to collect unemployment. And I should be getting at least $400 a week.”

  “Wow.” I raise my eyebrows. “You’ve really thought this out, huh?”

  She straps her bag tightly around her shoulder. “Sarah, I’ve been thinking this out for three years.” She kisses my cheek and strides down the street. She may not be skipping exactly, but there is a definite spring in her step I haven’t seen in a long time.

  There are a few movies—and I mean, really a handful—that if you see at the right time, when you’re in the right place, can say it all. I’m talking about the movies you see when you’re young, when you’re perched at the edge of that awkward transition into adulthood, and you’re just about to discover this crazy, magical thing called irony. And then you hear a witty line of dialogue, or see an unexpected gesture, and it takes you aback because it’s just so clever in a way you never fully understood before.

  Out of all the scenes, in all these movies, the one that has stuck closest to my heart throughout the years is a brief moment in Tootsie. If you’ve already seen the movie, you know exactly what I’m talking about. It comes during the montage, the Depression montage, if you will, when Dustin Hoffman wanders the park ruminating on a life of failure. A job lost, the woman he loves gone. His hands are in his pockets, his chin is tucked to his chest. Then he stops and looks up. A mime is trying to balance on an imaginary tightrope, with one leg aloft on a curb. Dustin watches him struggle for a moment. Then he walks up—and pushes him over.

  Isn’t that just a kicker!

  You know what else I love about rewatching old movies? It’s an experience that provides the all-too-rare opportunity to rediscover a fundamental truth that’s been lodged in your rattled, disorganized mind for years but that you just didn’t have the Dewey Decimal number needed to call up.

  And the truth I’ve uncovered tonight? Well, think about it. Tootsie is the story of a down-on-his-luck actor who can’t get work to save his life. Sound familiar to you? I’ll bet it sounds familiar to a heck of a lot of people. But see, Michael Dorsey (aka Hoffman) is so fed up he does the unthinkable. And we’re not talking about a little padding of the résumé. We’re talking a little padding of the bra. The man actually becomes a woman to get a job!

  I guess sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do.

  When the movie is over, and Amanda’s remaining bottle of wine is sucked dry, we all bid our sleepy good nights. Amanda retreats to her bedroom. Jake and I duck into mine.

  The door closes. Jake slips out of his jeans and into a new pair of boxer briefs. He folds his clothes and places them in a neat little pile on the floor. I pull on a large college T-shirt—Harvard this time, possibly obtained during the Head of the Charles regatta—and climb into bed. He crosses over to the other side and nestles in beside me.

  It strikes me as overwhelmingly tragic that we no longer have to fight to keep our urges in check. Blouses don’t rip at the seams, buttons don’t pop off unexpectedly. Tongues don’t seek each other out with a burning hunger, and hands don’t dart down to secret, dark places. Instead, we let our noses probe gently into the crooks of shoulders and necks. Our fingers are loosely interlaced in nothing more than a prolonged handshake.

  Some people might yearn for exactly this kind of comfortable affection. But snuggling to me is like the swill of a fine vintage wine when all I really want is a tequila shot with a spicy kick.

  Jake flings a lazy leg over my hip and rests his palm on the hollow of my stomach. I wait eagerly for his hand to circle in one of two ways—up or down. Instead it remains put.

  His leg grows heavier, pressing into my thigh like dead weight. His hand goes limp. I am bitterly disappointed to feel him slipping into a peaceful slumber.

  “Hmmmm,” I murmur, turning to brush my lips against his ear. His relaxed body spasms with a sudden shiver.

  “Jake, can I ask you a question?”

  “Uh-huh,” he yawns.

  “How come you never talk about your ex-girlfriend?”

  He groans and rolls over on his side, withdrawing both his leg and his hand from my yearning body. “I really don’t want to talk about this right now.”

  I reach around his waist and try to pull him back to me. He won’t budge.

  “That’s unfair. There’s never a good time. You never want to talk about her.”

  “Of course I don’t want to talk about her. She’s a horrible, horrible human being. I hate her.”

  I freeze. “ ‘Hate’ is a strong word,” I say slowly.

  “So what? It’s true. I despise her.”

  “Well, I don’t think you should hate her. I think she should be a nonissue.”

  Jake flips back toward me, his eyes narrowed. “She is a nonissue.”

  “No, she isn’t,” I insist. “Not if you still have feelings about her, one way or another.”

  “What feelings? You’re the one who brought her up.” He fidgets restlessly under the sheets. “Would you really prefer it if I were still friends with her? I can call her up right now and ask her to coffee tomorrow. Would that make you feel any better?”

  “Of course it wouldn’t!” I snap.

  “Then why are we even discussing her? It seems to me like you’re trying to pick a fight. Is that what you’re doing?”

  “No.”

  “Then what is it?

  “Don’t you see?” I shrug and smile at him innocently. “I’m jealous. Crazy jealous. Aren’t you flattered?”

  “Yeah,” he grumbles. “That’s wonderful.” Still, he wraps his leg around me again forgivingly.

  “And I want—” Okay, now how do I put this? “I want more of you.”

  He puts his hand back on my stomach. My flesh tingles with relief. “Sarah, I’ll give you everything. Anything. You just name it.” He rests his head against my shoulder. “What do you want?”

  “Well,” I toy with the strands of his silky smooth chest hair. “How about sex? For starters?”

  His head jerks up. After his features adjust to the initial shock, his expression softens into the sweetest grin.

  “Sugar Bear,” he cups my chin in his hand. “You never have to ask for that.”

  Even unconsciously, Laurie has always been a master planner. I’ve got to hand it to her—that girl runs a tight ship. And she couldn’t have picked a better day to walk the plank.

  It’s Friday—blessed Friday!—day of the Sabbath, the only day of the week to earn a capital “Good,” and a day of worship for even that secular clan of Hamptonites—the latter of which would include Princess, of course. No, there’s no chance at all of me finding her at corporate headquarters today. For as long as I’ve known her, Princess has never put in a full workweek during the summer. On Fridays, she is out of the office by noo
n, cursing at drivers on the Long Island Expressway by three, and enjoying the sunset from her beachfront patio in Southampton by seven. Big Ben couldn’t keep time more precisely.

  Thus it is with not a shred of doubt, not even a whimsy of fear, that I cruise down to Times Square this afternoon, Laurie’s cell phone jangling in my pocket.

  I always thought it was absurd that Laurie would have an emergency work cell phone. I mean, let’s face it. Her job was to make movies—and a movie won’t exactly have a coronary on the golf course. But Laurie never took her job lightly. She seriously believed that she was the one expected to “rescue” a project whether it threatened to “die” of its own volition or the L.A. office had ruthlessly decided to “kill” it.

  If I have any doubts that filmmaking is a life-or-death profession to rival that of law or medicine, I need only to step into Laurie’s office building to be convinced otherwise. Usually, I make it through the metal detectors without much to-do, but today I create more than a minor stir. Security bells and whistles—and other assorted trimmings—shrilly announce my arrival. Chagrined, I shuffle over to a checkpoint where a guard sorts through the debris in my messenger bag. (Thank goodness I’ve already finished and discarded all of Laurie’s pilfered manuscripts.)

  “Ah,” says the guard, triumphantly holding up the Tootsie DVD I plan to return later. “One of the classics. Bill Murray as the roommate? Cracks me up every single time.”

  “He’s spot-on, isn’t he?”

  “That part when he says he wants to put on shows in theaters that are only open when it rains?”

  “Or how he doesn’t like when people say they liked his play? He likes it better when they come up to him afterward and say, ‘I didn’t get it’?”

  “Exactly.”

  The guard repacks my bag and hands it to me with a smile. “You’re free to go.”

  “Thanks!” I beam, continuing on, only to be impeded a few yards later at the front desk.

  “ID, please!” barks a stern woman in uniform. I sigh and sort through my reshuffled bag to find my purse. I hand over my driver’s license and, in return, I’m given a sign-in sheet to fill out.