Fourth Comings (16 page)

thirty-nine

S
he casts a lusty gaze upon Times Square from five stories above Forty-eighth and Broadway. She’s bent over at the waist, and her pendulous breasts peek out from behind her brassy hair extensions. Her mouth is pink, wet, open, and waiting. Her eyes are dead. A French-manicured talon beckons:
Hey there, big man. Buy my latest DVD release from Vivid Entertainment Group.

JESSICA DARLING GOES DOWN…CUMMING SEPTEMBER 2006!

Whenever I pass this billboard, I am reminded that my namesake sucks and fucks for a paycheck. I would not want to be her. But one advantage the Other Jessica Darling has over me is that her skills are always in demand. The job title “Porn Star” contains multitudes. There are as many specialties as there are perversities. (For purely educational purposes—right? right?—I’ll take you on a quick alphabetical tour of contemporary porn categories: Anal Queens, Big Boob Babes, Cat Fighting, Deep Throating, European, Foot Fetish, Gang Bangs, Hairy Humpers, Interracial, Jack Off, Kinky, Lesbians, Midgets, Nasty Girls, Orgies, Playmates vs. Pets, Queer, Rock ’n’ Roll, Satanic, Threesomes, Uglies, Voyeurs, Wet and Messy, X-Tremely Dangerous, Yellow Love, and—ick—Zoological.) When asked what she does for a living, the Other Jessica Darling might try to hide behind the polite euphemisms “actress” or “dancer.” But when it comes down to it, the job description “Porn Star” means that the Other Jessica Darling performs sex acts on camera. Her skills are recession-proof.

Mine, not so much.

I first began my job search late last January, three weeks after graduation, during what should have been my crisscross country road trip if Hope and I hadn’t been jacked by the tweakers. Before I even had a chance to report the loss, Ms. Daisy Schlemmer and Mr. Harlan Oakes had already used my ATM card to buy propane cylinders, hot plates, and battery acid at the local ACE Hardware, which should really consider changing its motto to “The Source for All Your Meth Lab Needs.” Ms. Oakes and Mr. Schlemmer must have been disappointed to discover that a single $153.26 transaction drained me of my life savings, not to mention the negative twenty dollars I then owed for “overdraft protection.”

The crime occurred on Day One of our trip, and it seemed like a baaaaaad omen, payback for my attempt at youthful irresponsibility and frivolity in the face of unemployment. Hope tried to convince me otherwise, and promised that we’d get another chance to travel someday, but those thieves stole all my enthusiasm for adventure on the open road. I felt like I had no choice but to skip the trip, crash with my sister in Brooklyn, and find gainful employment in the city.

So I keystroked my way to Columbia’s Career Education Services website, figuring that one of the advantages of graduating in January was that I’d get a head start on the seniors getting diplomas in May. I soon realized that a head start on nothing is not a head start at all. Psychology didn’t even justify its own job heading. Any career opportunities in my field were relegated to the minimum-wage smorgasbord category of “Other.”

This was not a promising sign.

As I clicked through the listings, several keywords kept coming up over and over again. “Wall Street.” “Financial Services Industry.” “Sales and Trading Division.” “Funds Management.”

To make money, you gotta
make money.
Well, no shit.

My whole idealistic approach to college had been one colossal error in judgment. Learning for the sake of learning? Pursuing my passion for psychology over a more practical, employable major? What was wrong with me? Why didn’t I major in economics? I could have just as easily majored in economics. My brother-in-law majored in economics at Rutgers, and he’s a goddamn troglodyte. A troglodyte pulling down seven, maybe eight figures. I’m certainly smart enough to have majored in economics…only I was
too fucking stupid to major in economics.

I probably would have signed up for a temp agency if Professor Mac hadn’t put me in touch with his former colleague Robert Stevens, editor in chief of
Think.
I got the (quasi) job based on Mac’s recommendation alone, and I remember feeling guilty about it. Not everyone was lucky enough to have taken a summer writing course with a future National Book Award nominee. I felt like I had somehow cheated my way into this position, that there were other unconnected applicants who might have been more qualified. I said as much to Mac, who rebuffed my worries.

“Most people get ahead through the connections they make along the way,” he said. “What’s wrong with that?”

“It doesn’t seem fair,” I said.

“Do I need to quote a better writer than I am on the subject of equanimity?”

I told him he need not bother. And I got over it, mostly because I counted on
Think
as a temporary thing, until I got my “real” job, which I hoped would happen before
Think
’s funding ran out.

Finding more lucrative employment seemed highly unlikely until last week, a day or two before you arrived in Brooklyn, when I received Dr. Katherine Seamon’s divine e-mail in my inbox. And by
divine,
I mean it in the miraculous, near-religious sense, and not in the way insincere fashionistas use to gush over overpriced stilettos.

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: New Media Job for Psychology Majors

Date: 8/28/2006

I almost hit Delete without opening it. First of all, the words “New Media” implied that this e-mail had been bottlenecked on the information superhighway since 1999. Furthermore, the employment promise of that subject heading seemed about as legit as the guaranteed 100 percent herbal way to add six inches to my penis. Finally, the sender’s surname, with its ejaculatory connotations, certainly didn’t help boost credibility. But I’d been looking for a permanent position for eight months, and I was starting to feel desperate. I clicked the message and read on.

I found out about your work with the CU Storytellers Project in the most recent issue of
Columbia College Today.
As you may have heard in recent weeks, I’ve just launched iLoveULab, a new research-based interpersonal networking provider that is the first to blend new media and neuroscience.

I’m hiring graduates who have a background in psychology as well as strong writing and interviewing skills. All positions with iLoveULab provide a competitive starting salary and benefits. I prefer meeting job candidates in person, and will be conducting business in New York City during the first week of September. Please contact me if you’re interested in learning more.

Sincerely, Dr. Katherine Seamon, CC ’95

The doctor’s name sounded vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place it. And I was certain that I had never heard of iLoveULab, a name that connotes heart-shaped boxes of chocolate wrapped in shiny cellophane and tied up with a big red bow. I was in the middle of fact-checking a
Think
piece titled “Mom and Pop Psychology” about the return of Freudian psychoanalysis, so I made a mental note to Google Dr. Katherine Seamon and iLoveULab when I had the chance.

Later that afternoon while Marin and I were drawing pictures of our favorite scenes from
Grease 3,
I overheard Bethany on the phone with one of the MILFs discussing that morning’s episode of
The Dr. Frank Show.

“I’d totally pay to have my brain scanned at iLoveULab,” Bethany was saying. “And Grant’s, too! That Dr. Kate is a genius!”

“What?” I interrupted. “The iLoveULab doctor was on TV?”

“Yes! Dr. Kate!”

Lest this sound too coincidental, it should be noted that Bethany had been chatting for well over an hour already, narrating the moment-by-moment details of an afternoon spent flitting around the brownstone to keep a watchful eye on the housekeeper.

“Dr. Kate?” I asked.

“Dr. Kate! The one who devised the Signs…”

So it’s a fact that Bethany had discussed Dr. Kate’s brilliance in my presence many times before, but my brain had never been trained to pick up on the name Dr. Kate until I got her e-mail.

“Oh Christ, again with the Signs,” I rebuffed. “I don’t want to hear about the Signs….”

But my sister had already moved on. “She doesn’t believe in Dr. Kate,” she said to the MILF on the phone, shaking her head with pity. Then to me: “Dr. Kate just wrote a new book all about brain chemicals and love.”

“Dr. Katherine Seamon?” I asked, still refusing to believe that we could possibly be talking about the same person.

“Yes, that’s her,” Bethany replied. “Dr. Kate is a real scientist, you know. She’s just opened up these labs where couples can get their brains scanned for compatibility, or singles can get scanned to be matched up with their ideal partners….”

“I think she wants to hire me for one of those labs.” Then I explained the e-mail.

Needless to say, Bethany (and the MILF on the line) freaked out. “Dr. Kate is OTB, Jess! OTB!”

“Why would she e-mail me? You think she’d have someone else do the hiring for her.”

“Oh! She’s famous for her micromanagerial skills,” Bethany said, then paused to hear what the phone MILF was saying. “Um-hm. Right! She never delegates what she can do herself.”

Later, I’d find out that Dr. Kate was quite the go-getter. Like me, she was a psychology major at Columbia. Unlike me, she got a doctorate in cognitive neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania. And then also unlike me, she went on to Wharton business school to learn how she could make tons of money off all her neuroscientific knowledge. And somehow, when not stockpiling these impressive credentials, she managed to find time to wed, divorce, and remarry, all before the age of thirty. Of all these experiences, the termination of her starter marriage was the most crucial to the development of iLoveULab.

Three summers ago, I listened to nearly five hundred New Yorkers who were lured by a simple sandwich board urging them to
TELL US A STORY.
Day in and day out I listened. To kinetic, coked-up i-bankers sniffing and riffing on their multiorgasmic sexual conquests. To wrinkly, humpbacked old biddies waxing rhapsodic about VJ Day. To label-obsessed, overdressed foreign tourists complaining about the fat and stupid Americans who had the audacity to crash
their
vacations. To pouty-lipped, liquid-limbed thirteen-year-olds. To aromatic cabbies. To hipsters who looked homeless, and vice versa. To the hundreds of unique but ordinary everyday citizens who believed their stories were stories that needed to be told. And more important, needed to be heard.

I had taken the job because it earned me three credits toward my major, offered free room and board, and provided the scintillating promise of sweating with and for my hot, married Spanish grad student partner for eight hours at a stretch. (A lust that fizzled as soon as I discovered that the hot, married Spanish grad student partner had no problemo engaging in adulterous behavior with yours truly.) I don’t know what historians hope to learn from these tapes about urban life shortly after the turn of the new century, but working for the CU Storytellers Project confirmed my suspicions that narcissism comes in all shapes, sizes, colors, sexual orientations, and footwear. But never,
never
did I believe that this experience would lead to a job as a professional matchmaker with a television love doctor.

Yes, much like the Other Jessica Darling might substitute “actress” for “porn star,” “interpersonal social networking provider” is one of the postmillennial euphemisms for “matchmaking,” which means that I, Jessica Darling, have an interview for a job with a highfalutin Internet dating service.

(I’ll stop now because it’s time for me to meet Dr. Kate. This will also provide a moment for you to process and appreciate the irony.)

forty

T
he interview is over now, and it isn’t giving too much away to say that I totally had this job before I walked in the door.

Dr. Kate had asked me to meet her in her suite at the W Hotel in Times Square. I thought it was an odd choice, but it turns out that she always stays at the W because she has a lucrative deal to develop products exclusively for the chain. The Dr. Kate Rescue Kit, for example, is a discreet black leather case no bigger than a cell phone. This cheeky little item contains a pack of gum, a mini mirror, two condoms, massage oil/lubricant, and a one-day Fun Pass MetroCard for a quick getaway. It sells for forty-five dollars at the hotel store, or online.

Dr. Kate
is
a genius.

Whenever I step through the doors of one of these sleek, ultra-modern boutique hotels, I start to feel a little woozy, if not wobbly-legged drunk. It’s all such a scene, even at two
P.M.
Which I guess is the whole point of the dim lighting, the seductive French electro-pop over the sound system, the scent of lemon sage spa products in the air, the “floating” sinks in the bathroom designed to inspire gravity-defying wonder. By the time I went through the glassed-in urban waterfall, passed by the wall of rainbow lit stalactites, and was whisked up in the elevator to the hotel’s white-on-white lobby, I already felt like I’d had a one-night stand. All I needed was a cigarette and one of the famously soft waffleknit robes.

Even the “welcome attendants” are uniformed in matching black couture, looking less like desk clerks and bellhops than an alien race from the Planet Sexxxy who have party-crashed our puny, prudish planet to conquer human beings through their irresistible, intergalactic powers of multiorgasmic mind-body control. (Or perhaps they’re all members of that UK economist’s supermodel human species from the future….)

One of these Sexxxtraterrestrials directed me to Dr. Kate’s suite on the fifty-sixth floor, where—as she had warned via a follow-up e-mail—there would be a very large, very intimidating sentinel at the entry. The security guard was also dressed in black, but easily weighed as much as three or four of the sylph-like space creatures put together. With his headset, dark FBI sunglasses, and clipboard in hand, he looked just like any velvet rope bouncer, which gave the whole endeavor even more of a clubby feel.

“I have a…uh…two o’clock interview with…uh…Dr. Kate,” I stammered. “Uh, I mean Dr. Katherine Seamon. For iLoveULab…” The guard’s towering presence made me nervous; I felt like I was lying about my interview and would have failed a polygraph.

“Name?” he asked in a bored yet imposing voice. He wore a dagger pendant on a chain around his neck. Though the charm was no more than an inch in length, I did not doubt that he could use it to gut me in an instant, if need be.

“Jessica Darling,” I said, reaching into my bag for my wallet to get my driver’s license, cursing myself for not having it in my front pocket like one of Hope’s MetroCards.

“Like the one on the billboard?” The guard cracked a smile—literally, because his two front teeth were fractured in jagged diagonals, which I imagine came from a punch in the face on one of his less upscale assignments.

“Like the one on the billboard,” I deadpanned. “Only
I
need a job.”

This made the guard laugh, a deep basso laugh. I’d won him over. He checked my license, then spoke into his headset. “A Ms. Jessica Darling to see you?” He looked at me then, smiled, and nodded. “Okay. The doctor can see you now.” He opened the door and ushered me inside.