Apron Anxiety (9 page)

The same day I return to New York, I tell everyone that it’s official. I am leaving town and moving to Washington, D.C., to be Chef’s writerly girlfriend, who wears off-the-shoulder T-shirts and says provocative things. Yes, me, in the nation’s capital, where I have no roots, no friends, no facialist, no freelance work, no favorite homeless guy, no transgendered Starbucks girl, no go-to spin instructor—nothing other than my unbelievable new boyfriend and his uncontaminated, hippie-like heart. We’ll light up the city, grow Chef’s business, make babies, and map out a beach house halfway between his restaurant and my family. Or something like that.

I give
People
as much notice as they need, which most of my colleagues use as precious time to dissuade me from “throwing away my career.” They’re not trying to be negative. It’s just not the kind of culture at the magazine where women leave their promising jobs with full benefits and car service just because they’ve met scruffy guys with great hair who whoosh them away to the Greek Islands. I can barely look at Liz, who’s been like a big sister to me since the day she brought me in for a formal interview, when I couldn’t help but blow off all the super-corporate questions and fixate on her translucent skin and uncanny resemblance to Julianne Moore. A seasoned editor with supreme grace, Liz has done her best to keep me on track ever since, and because I respect her so, it’s my great pleasure to deliver her good work. But like my mother, my sister, and the other good women in my life, Liz also knows that my mind is made up on moving to D.C. She accepts that I’m three parts love, one part logic.

I have a good-bye lunch with J.D. Heyman, another top
editor at the magazine and a smart, funny, straight-shooting guy that everyone at
People
really respects. Unlike Liz, he’s openly apprehensive. “I know you really like this person, Alyssa, but are you sure you want to do this?” he says, looking me directly in the eye. It’s not like J.D. to get so personal. “I’m asking you to wait it out. Give it a little more time, will ya?” J.D. recently guided me through my first cover story, a huge profile on the actresses from
Sex & the City
, an enviable assignment that brought me so much joy. He worries I’ll feel depleted without New York’s incomparable energy and the camaraderie of being around other people like me. While too gentlemanly to say so, I’m sure, J.D. has also noticed my habit of rushing dangerously into romance, further validating his concern. “New York will always be here,” I ultimately tell him, with a trusting smile. “And the bus is only twenty bucks.”

The few people who are excited for me are mostly friends who are
Top Chef
fans. They think I’ll get invited to the best dinner parties, have barbecues with Bobby Flay, fly to France with
Food & Wine
. But I tell them that even though it’s what intially drew me to him, the “celebrity-chef shitshow” is the last reason I’m uprooting my life. Turns out, Chef’s career is my least favorite thing about him. Owning a restaurant is a grueling, self-vandalizing profession—I can see that already—and his place has been open only a few months. And being on TV, in my very jaded opinion, is overrated. It can be lucrative if you’re prepared to play the game, but show-business whoredom is not for the fainthearted. It can make you, and it can break you.

Nonetheless, Chef likes the taste of celebrity; the validation fulfills something inside him. And so, I feed the beast. I help him hire a publicist and an agent, both with major reputations for making chefs super famous. I buy him a BlackBerry for his birthday, and we create a Facebook and Twitter account for
him. I even pull a favor with a producer friend to get him on
Good Morning America
. I am totally committed to his burgeoning career, even if mine is on hold. We’ll take turns kicking ass.

As my days at
People
wind down, I take the train to D.C. every few days to look at apartments for us. It’s fall and Congress is back in session, which means that work is booming for Chef. I worry about adding any stress to his workdays, so I leave him alone at the restaurant and stroll the streets of Capitol Hill solo, checking out the one-bedrooms and bumping into portly politicians who smell like shaving cream and never say “Excuse me.” As I explore the neighborhoods, I try to mesh with my new stomping ground. I stop into coffee shops, read the
Washington Post
in the park, browse the stores in Dupont Circle, and do all the things that bring me simple pleasures in New York. I try to stay lighthearted with all the unfamiliar people in their unattractive outfits; I smile but no one smiles back. It’s not like we’re all so copacetic in New York City either, yet I totally
get
, and appreciate,
those
fuck-my-life dirty looks and broke-and-exhausted blank stares. In Washington, no matter what I do, or where I go, I can’t catch a vibe anywhere. But that’s okay. Nothing is going to bring me down now.

On my last day at the magazine, I attend a morning staff meeting with more than fifty people, where the editor-in-chief asks everyone to raise their venti skim lattes in honor of my scandalous stories, great sources, and something about an inner sparkle.… Truthfully, I have to tune out the words. Otherwise I’ll start to cry.
People
was a really nice place to work.

Luckily, the buzz of my BlackBerry distracts me as soon as the meeting shifts back to business. I look down to read that Chef has found us an apartment in Capitol Hill and rented it on the spot! “OMG, LYS. It has a writer’s den overlooking a
cherry blossom tree, and a big, open kitchen … it’s soooo us!” he texts. That I trust his taste to sign a lease without me shows just how much I like his style. And it’s such a relief.

In our own version of “the trick,” Liz and I have decided not to drag out our farewells. She’s not the type to get theatrical in the office, and I’m almost embarrassed by my affection for her. So she’s purposely going home early today to make things easier on both of us. When I hear a soft knock on my door in the late afternoon, I know it’s time. “You take care, chérie,” she says kindly and gently, and as our glossy eyes lock, she exits my boxed-up empty office and shuts the door.

I stare at the blank wall, where I once hung a framed copy of a John Updike quote, “The true New Yorker secretly believes that people living anywhere else have to be, in some sense, kidding.” And I weep.

I don’t know why the experience of parting ways with my boss hits me harder than separating from any of my girlfriends or even my family, but I suspect a small part of me knows that in saying good-bye to Liz, I am leaving behind so much more.