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I loved listening to the ping of the bubbles, flowing around me.
When I couldn’t stand the sadness, when I felt utterly overwhelmed, I would sink to the sandy bottom, feet of water above me and open my mouth and scream. I would scream and scream and scream, until I felt empty and calm.
I’m going to need to find a place to swim in this city.
I keep walking. Next to the soaring buildings I’m a speck of dust on a crowded Monopoly board. One of these buildings is my dad’s. I know his office is near Grand Central (not that he’d ever go slumming in the subway). With each step the corrosion of the soles of my brown Mary Janes intensifies. These pumps are made for walking, as the song kind of goes, except walking ONLY to and from boardrooms, in and out of elevators, not journeying along miles of jagged concrete. My feet have swollen to bee-sting proportions and each step pinches. Where are my sneakers when I need them?
Finally, at exactly five past four I arrive on the sixth floor of Soda Star.
“Hi, Heidi,” I say to the receptionist, feeling remarkably clever for remembering her name. “I’m here to see Ronald Newman.”
“You’re late.” A balding man wearing a lime-green golf shirt, beige shorts and golf shoes stomps across the waiting room.
How come he gets to wear sneakers and I don’t?
“Excuse me?” I say.
“I’m Ronald.” He sticks out a pudgy hand. “Sunny, right? Listen, Sunny,” he says before I finish nodding. “I have to get to a golf game. I’m running a little late, so let’s walk and talk?”
I nod and follow him back into the elevator. Fabulous. More walking.
“I’m hungry,” he says. “And you could probably use some coffee. Let’s do this down the road at my favorite diner. The cafeteria in this building is appalling.”
Fabulous. More coffee. I’ve already had two cups trying to wake up for my 9:00 a.m. interview. My 9:00 a.m. useless interview that began with my pal Jen at Fruitsy telling me, “It’s unfortunate we have no positions open. Your stuff is very impressive. Let me see it again.”
I can’t believe she duped me into waking up at seven—at seven—just so she could drool all over my portfolio. She knew she wasn’t hiring, but vulturelike, wanted to see what ideas and clients she could embezzle from me.
Then I had another two cups trying to stay conscious all day after waking up so early.
I hope there’s a bathroom at this diner.
Ten minutes later we’re in a seedy diner down the street, and I’m wondering exactly what his idea of appalling is. “They make the best sweet potato fries,” he promised as I sat on something sticky in a booth near the back.
My feet feel like they’ve been driven over by a bus. How unprofessional would it be if I took off my shoes? I accidentally on purpose drop my spoon and lean down. I can’t take them off, obviously, but what harm could there be if I unbutton the strap the tiniest bit?
Yes. Oh, yes. Much better.
“So if you worked for me, that’s what you’d learn,” Ronald says and takes another bite of his cheeseburger. After thirty-five minutes of lengthy descriptions of his swot analysis, his hatred of bottled water and his theories of advertising, all of which I couldn’t care less about, I congratulate myself on my skilled ability to stare someone in the eye, appear as though I’m hanging on his every word, while ignoring him completely. It’s all about the nod. “Between digital TV and integrated marketing services—we’re about to experience the modernization of the marketing of the soda industry as we know it—” Nod, nod. Between nods, I treat myself to sips of my coffee, while still maintaining eye contact.
I wonder if he conducts an interview a day just to hear himself talk.
“I can tell you’re highly intelligent,” he tells me.
And he can tell this by my continual nodding? He’s good.
“Thank you, Ronald. I think you’re very intelligent, too, and I am quite confident I would learn an immeasurable amount from you.”
He nods. Not quite my nod, but not bad, I grudgingly admit. “That you could.” His gaze drifts to the ceiling. Probably thanking the heavens for his virtuosity. “When we did the launch for our mandarin-and-vanilla-flavored caffeine-free soda…”
I have to use the bathroom.
Now.
“…you should have seen their faces when we won the ADDY award for the…”
Can I interrupt him to use the bathroom? People don’t like being interrupted. I have to wait for a natural pause in the conversation.
How is he not taking a breath? How has he not toppled over for lack of oxygen?
When he takes another bite of his burger, I make a jump for it. “Excuse me, I have to use the rest room. I’ll be right back.” I slide away from the table while he’s still chewing.
Ronald is staring at me strangely. Once I’m standing, I realize that a) the stall is only a foot away from the table, and b) he is staring at my unstrapped Mary Janes. Can’t do anything about the shoes, so I just smile as if nothing’s wrong.
If I ever design a restaurant, I’m putting the bathrooms all the way in the back.
The door handle rattles in my hand.
“I’m in here!” Someone screams from the other side.
Now what? Do I sit back down? Can I just stand here ignoring him? What’s she doing in there? Washing her hair? Why do women take so long in the bathroom? Don’t they consider that other people need to use it? She has rudely barricaded herself in there for over five minutes. I slink back into our booth and cross my legs. No more coffee.
Ronald is perusing my resume with one of his short stocky fingers. “What are your salary requirements?”
I hate that question. Do I say more than I want so he can offer me less, or less than I want to undercut the competition? “What range are you offering?”
“Forty to fifty.” Fifty’s not bad. I’ll take fifty. “Depending on experience.”
“I’m looking for fifty. I have the experience.”
“You don’t have Manhattan experience, but I think you’ll work out fine. Forty-five.” He smiles, showcasing gold fillings. “When can you start?”
Is that a job offer? Or a casual question? I take another sip of coffee to try to appear calm and normal and not as though his every word has the power to alter the course of my life. “I…um…I’d have to give two weeks notice. And then I’d like a week to move and organize myself. So if I give notice immediately I could start in three weeks.”
“Good. Then I’ll see you in three weeks.”
That was an offer. I just got an offer. I squeeze the metal rim of the ketchup-stained table in excitement. “Really?”
“Really. I’ll have all the paperwork drawn up and at your office by Wednesday morning.”
“Thank you,” I say, overwhelmed with gratitude. Ronald pays the bill, shakes my hand and then makes a run for his golf game. “We’ll be in touch,” he says, and disappears outside.
The bathroom door flies open and the toilet hog sashays through the restaurant. I notice that a woman in a beige suit is slowly rising from her seat, eyeing the open door, about to make a run for it.
I hurl myself to the empty stall before the suit-clad woman beats me to it. Since I’m far closer, I get there first and lock the door behind me. In my hurry, I almost trip on my de-strapped shoes, but in midfall I catch myself on the sink.
I might be a direct offspring of the goddess of agility.
Two minutes later, while still cramped in the stall, I decide that I’m going to surprise Steve and drop by Manna to say goodbye. I still have some time before I have to catch my flight. I undo the bun in my hair—wet and scrunch it because Steve likes it down and sexy, and then rummage in my purse for my lipstick to smooth out my lips.
There’s a knock on the bathroom door.
“I’m in here!” I scream while doing up my shoes.
Funny, there’s never a rush when you’re on the inside, is there?
“I did it,” I tell Steve.
“That was quick. It’s only nine-ten.” His morning voice is raspy and sexy and I wish I were lying next to him instead of back in my office with the door closed.
“I wanted to give Liza the full two weeks notice.”
“How’d she take it?”
“She was pissed. Told me I screwed her or something. But she would have said that no matter how much notice I gave. I want some time off to move. I don’t want my last day here to be a Tuesday, the trucks come Tuesday night, and I start at Soda Star 9:00 a.m. Wednesday.” I kick my feet up on the desk and swivel in my chair, executive style. I love my chair. I hope Soda Star has good chairs. Really, a proper, comfortable turbo chair makes all the difference in one’s performance.
“Congrats on your unemployment. I still can’t believe you got a job on your first try. Have you heard anything more from Ronald McDonald?”
After Ronald Newman’s cheeseburger appreciation, Steve has named my future boss after his favorite so-not-kosher hamburger joint. “Not yet. He said tomorrow, I think. Okay, gotta go. I have to give my thirty days notice at my apartment.” I estimate the discussion with Jocelyn, the superintendent, will take at least a half hour. She’s a talker.
By later Tuesday morning I’ve given Jocelyn notice (“New York! How exciting! Good for you! Can we show your place tonight? The rental market is fantastic these days. Do you know—”), e-mailed all my friends and acquaintances about the furniture I’m trying to sell, with digital pictures included, and placed an ad for my car in the weekend classifieds.
I am a goddess of efficiency.
“But you didn’t hear from Ronald McDonald?” Steve asks me on the phone that night as I turn my lights out, crawl into bed, and recount my excellent organizational skills, the portable phone balanced on my shoulder.
“I’m sure he’ll send me something tomorrow.”
By Wednesday at five-thirty, I’m starting to get a wee bit edgy. After biting my nails until my fingers are raw and red, something I haven’t done since I was twelve, I call Soda Star.
“Thank you for calling Soda Star. Our office hours are nine to five, Monday through Friday. If you know your party’s extension, please dial now. Otherwise, press one to leave a message for marketing, two for operations, three for sales…”
Ten minutes later: “If you do not know the department you wish to speak to, please dial the first four letters of the person’s last name you wish to reach. Have a nice day.”
“N” is six. “E” is three. “W” is…where’s “W”?
“I’m sorry, you lazy moron, you’ve run out of time.” The phone disconnects.
Bitch. I hang up and plan my attack. First, I write the numbers on a Post-it note, and then I redial.
“Thank you for calling Soda Star. Our office hours are nine to five, Monday through—”
Why does she tell me every possible number combination except for the one that means fast forward? Do all Soda Star employees get off on hearing themselves talk?
Finally I reach Ronald Newman’s voice mail.
In my frantic attempt to come across as utterly cheerful and imperturbable, I end up sounding pathetically desperate. “This is Sunny Langstein calling? I just wanted to catch up and make sure all the papers are in order? I gave notice here so I’m all set to start in two and a half weeks? Looking forward to hearing from you?” And then I repeat my home number, office number and cell number. Twice.
When I arrive at my office on Thursday morning, Liza is sitting cross-legged on my desk. “Guess what!” she says, patting her stomach. I’m not sure if she’s talking to me or to the baby.
“What?”
“I found your replacement. She’s fabulous. She has no work experience, but just finished her MBA. An MBA! I’ve always wanted someone with an MBA to work for me. Isn’t that exciting?”
“Exciting,” I say, and flip the power button on my computer.
“And she can start on Monday, giving you five days overlap to train her. Isn’t that fabulous?”
“Fabulous,” I say somewhat warily. A small pang tweaks through my body, like I swallowed water too fast and it went down the wrong pipe. How did she find someone so quickly?
Am I that replaceable?
I call in for my home messages. The message on my machine from Jocelyn tells me that she has great news:
“My niece just got evicted from her apartment last week—well, that’s not the great part of course, no one likes getting evicted—but she wants to move in by October fifteenth! So you’re off the hook for half of October’s rent, which I know will please you. But you have to move out by the fourteenth, okay? Isn’t that perfect timing!”
I call Ronald again. I don’t want to leave a message, again, so I hang up on his voice mail. And then I call my home answering service, again, and my cell answering service, in case Ronald is too dim-witted to realize that during working hours I am at the office.
“You have no new messages you big, fat, pathetic, jobless loser.”
I repeat this process at eleven. And at two. And at 2:30. At 3:30. At 4:00. At 4:15. At 4:21 my heart is beating louder than call waiting and I can’t take it anymore. I leave another message.
What’s his problem? I’ve always gotten anything I applied for. I had a full scholarship to the University of Florida. I was assistant head of swimming at camp. The youngest assistant manager at Panda. I was voted treasurer of my high school student body. My boyfriend wants me to move in with him, dammit.
“Sunny,” Liza points her pointy, pregnant head into my office. “Tomorrow, can you start writing up descriptions for everything you do?”
“What?”
“For the new MBA. It would help if she had To-Do lists. If you could write out everything you do and how you do it, that would be fabulous. Thanks.”
Great. Like I have nothing else to worry about. I’m going home.
That night I dream about sitting at the diner and Ronald picking hamburger meat with fat fingers out of the space between his two front teeth. He’s telling me that he’s decided to hire Liza’s unborn child instead of me.
I wake up hot and cold and sweaty, tangled in my clean cotton sheets. It’s 4:00 a.m. I can’t fall back asleep, so instead I shower and go to work.
I compose the list of things the MBA should do, and then at eight close my door and begin my morning ritual of calling Ronald.
“Ronald Newman speaking.”
My mouth is immediately zapped of all moisture. He’s alive! He’s alive!
Why didn’t he call me if he wasn’t dead?
“Hi, Ronald,” I say, wishing I had a glass of water nearby. What’s wrong with my mouth? “Sorry to bother you? It’s Sunny Langstein calling? How are you?” Must stop talking in question format.
Silence. Why is there silence?
“Sunny,” he says slowly. “I’ve been meaning to (ahem) call you—” Why the ahem? No one likes an ahem. “I have some bad news I’m afraid.”
Bad news? No one likes bad news.
“It’s very unfortunate, but we found a candidate with more New York experience.”
“More what?”
“More New York experience. Someone more familiar with the bars, the concert venues, the retail stores, the arenas. Television contacts. You don’t have any contacts here, Sunny. We need someone with a higher profile. What would you be bringing to the table?”
My new business experience in the soda industry? “I…um…didn’t you already offer me the job?”
“Like I said, the news is unfortunate. My secretary was supposed to call you and send you a fruit basket. Should I assume you never received it?”
What stupid fruit basket? “Why were you interviewing other candidates after you offered me the job?”
“You can never give up on finding the perfect candidate,” he says. I wish I’d received the fruit basket. I wish he was in the same room as me. Then I’d hurl an apple at him.
“I hope this hasn’t caused any inconveniences,” he says.
I have no job and no place to live, but what inconvenience? “Oh, oh, none at all,” I say in a singsong tone.
He doesn’t sense my sarcasm. “You never know, we could have another opening any day. Why don’t you give me a call once you’ve settled in the city?”
I am not going to cry. “Uh-huh,” I say, then add “’Bye.” I hang up. Rage and frustration and disappointment and what-a-fucking-asshole overwhelm me, and I sink into my fabulous swivel chair that now belongs to the fabulous MBA. I stand up and stand directly behind the closed door because it’s the blind spot, the one corner of personal space in the entire office where no one can see in. No job. No apartment. What am I going to do? I lean against my in-case umbrella and tears spill down my cheeks like rain.
5
The Wonder Years
This is the history of my parents: Father is in business school. Mother is a nurse. Father is Jewish. Mother is Catholic. Father meets Mother in Brooklyn. Father and Mother fall in love. Mother gets pregnant. Father proposes marriage but insists Mother convert, otherwise Father’s children will not be Jewish. Being Jewish is very important to Father because it’s important to Father’s parents. Father’s father, Daniel, died five years ago and Father promised he would marry Jewish woman. Mother cares more about Father than she does about religion so she agrees. Mother’s parents do not agree. Mother’s parents are horrified that daughter is pregnant and converting and tells Mother to never return home again. Mother converts. Process is far more strenuous than Mother imagined. Mother marries Father anyway. Father gets offered high-paying consultant job in Fort Lauderdale. Mother and Father move to Florida. Mother has baby girl, names her Dana, after Father’s father. Mother wants to return to work but has difficulty finding new nursing job with baby at home. Father becomes increasingly distant. Father’s job requires much traveling. Mother tries to have another child. Gets pregnant. Miscarries. Gets pregnant again. Miscarries again. Gets depressed. Gets pregnant again. Carries to term. Mother sees baby as shining light in marriage and names baby Sunny. Sings “You Light Up My Life” to rock baby to sleep. Father leaves Mother for secretary. Mother’s older daughter doesn’t understand where Daddy is and sits on the porch stairs waiting for him to come home. Mother puts three-year-old back to bed and explains to ten-year-old again. Mother gets sick. Mother doesn’t tell children that she is sick, but instead calls her own parents who she hasn’t spoken to in ten years and begs them to come take care of them. Parents come. Grandmother and Grandfather move into Mother’s house until summer when Mother dies and children move into Father’s new house in Palm Beach.
“It’s not the end of the world,” Steve tells me.
My office door is still closed. “Whatever you say, Judy Blume.”
“What?”
“Nothing.” One at a time, I pull unused thumbtacks out of the corkboard walls, and then group them on my desk by color. Red, yellow, green, white.
“So you’ll look for a job here. It’ll be easy to find something once you’re in the city.”
I attempt to keep my voice at a consistent pitch, above the sinking level. “Everything is all screwed up. I didn’t want to move until I had a job. I don’t want to be the jobless girlfriend who has no life and sponges off her boyfriend, all right? How do you know I’m ever going to find a job?” I turn the thumbtacks around and stab them into the wooden desk.
“First of all, you’ll find a job. Second of all, you’re not sponging off me. I’m happy to cover the full rent until you find something. And second of all—”
“You already said second of all. You’re on third of all.”
“Third of all, you never thought you’d get the first job you applied for, anyway. And you only applied to jobs in the beverage industry. Can’t you apply for any new business job? And can’t you apply for manager positions, too? Not just assistant managers?”
“I wanted a job in an industry I’m familiar with. I don’t like not knowing what I’m doing. And I’m not ready to be a manager yet.”
“If you need to make some money, you can wait tables at the restaurant.”
I can’t get sucked up by his world. I need to have my own job, my own life. I can’t depend on him for everything. Is he not listening? “But I wasn’t planning on quitting until I had a job. You don’t understand.”
“What don’t I understand?” He sighs into the phone. “Sunny, I know you’re afraid you’ll end up like your mother. But you’re not her, okay?”
My head hurts. I close my eyes. “How did you know that was bugging me?”
“What do you mean how do I know? I know.”
“Carrie? Hi, it’s Sunny.”
“Sunny?”
“Sunny, Adam’s daughter?”
“Sunny! Hey! How are you? I am so busy here today. We’re having a major crisis. Major. Can I call you back? Why are you calling?”
Why am I calling? I rub the palms of my hands against my temples. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to bother you. The job that I thought I had fell through and I was wondering if you still had some temp work for me? You seem like you’re in a rush, though, so call me whenever you have a second.”
“Sure, Sunny, no problem. Let me ask around and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can, okay? Gotta run! Crisis! ’Bye!” She hangs up.
She’s not calling back. Maybe my father has already dumped her and she’s going to make me wait by the phone as payback.
The bulletin board walls in the room start to contract, like the trash compactor scene in Star Wars. My breathing feels shallower, faster, harder.
When we moved in with my father, this happened to me whenever my dad tried to take us on vacation. On a flight to the Florida Keys, I pretended to be asleep on Dana’s lap, imagining air leaking from my mouth as if from the rim of a balloon. Leaving me shriveled and empty.
When I was seven, on a trip to Epcot Center, on the Spaceship Earth ride, as Dana, my dad, his new girlfriend and her twelve-year-old son journeyed “to the dawn of recorded time…” I began to slowly hyperventilate. When our seats rotated to reveal a vast star-filled night sky, I felt as if I was being buried alive. Rambling, I told my father I had to find a bathroom, now, and Dana took my hand and led me through the blackness, toward the red exit sign. As soon as we entered the lit corridor, I started crying. She pulled me into her and smoothed my hair until I felt calm.
When Dana was seventeen, on the morning of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, she knocked on my father’s door, still in her pajamas, and told my father she was not going to synagogue. She’d had enough. She didn’t believe in God, and what was the point in pretending she did? Moronic, she said. Religion was moronic, so why should she be a hypocrite?
Sitting in the kitchen, eating my cereal and milk, dressed in my new striped gray Rosh Hashanah suit and black pumps, I thought about how after my mother died, Dana used to tell me that she was watching us from above, making sure we were all right. But as I heard Dana stomp toward her room and slam her door, I realized that it had been something she had to say, because what else do you tell a six-year-old girl?
Headhunter. Why don’t I e-mail a headhunter? I’ll write up a polite cover letter, using Steve’s New York address.
By noon Liza has passed by my closed door, scowling, at least twenty times. I’m about to send off my cover letter to Great Jobs NY when my phone rings, annoying me.
“What?” Did I just say that?
“Sunny. It’s me. Omigod.”
Will Omigod one day make it into the Oxford English Dictionary as an expression of disbelief or amazement among generation Y women?
“Oh, hi, Carrie.” Maybe she found something? Be calm.
“Omigod. Guess what? You’re not going to believe this. Are you ready? Are you ready for this? Are you sitting down?”
No, I’m lined up vertically against the wall in a headstand. “Yes, I’m sitting.”
“Okay. Okay. One of the girls—not one of the two girls I found, but one of the girls my assistant Lauren discovered, my ex-assistant I should add—was arrested last night. Arrested! By the cops! I fired Lauren, of course. A bad judge of character has no future at Character. No future in this business at all. I can’t believe I hired her in the first place.”