On the Verge (14 page)

“I see.” He nods, starts talking to the old guys, who keep looking at me. Tabitha pulls me off the elevator when we reach my floor. As she is swiping her card, I turn to meet Robert King’s eyes. What a cutie.

“What was that all about?” I don’t want to get into it, so I shrug.

“Hey, I got connections.”

Wednesday’s Feed Meet gives new meaning to the words “waste of time.” We spend the first hour discussing the potential harm in letting your children of the opposite sex bathe together and the weather in San Francisco in November. This was the top secret meeting? Maybe I wasn’t supposed to come because Herb feared I would tell someone what a waste of time and lunch this is.

Finally, we get down to the writing. Let me say that I have never, not even in stupid college writing courses, experienced a group of more sensitive people. When Gary, one of the senior writers, finishes his piece on a trail in Montana, Lacey argues the use of several words. She wrote them all on a piece of paper while Gary was reading.

“Lacey, you haven’t been there. I spent months out there last year. I reached a clarity that you have to experience, which I was hoping true riders would through this article.” Oh, veiled references at Lacey’s being neither a cyclist nor a boy. I love a good fight and certainly an opportunity to diss Lacey.

“Well, I may not be an experienced cyclist, but I am an experienced writer, and those phrases don’t work.” Wow! “Go back to the top and read those sentences again.”

As Gary is reading, Lorraine is writing notes to me on her stack of schedules and assignments. I have been trying to distance myself from her, to sit among the writers, but they scowled at me when I walked in. I am an infiltrator. I only got halfhearted applause when Herb said I would be attending the meetings occasionally. He stressed occasionally. Lacey smirked. Whatever. Lorraine thinks this meeting is absolutely ridiculous, but she has to attend. She does busy work throughout the meeting and half listens to make sure everyone is meeting their assignment requirements.

Herb intercedes the battle between Lacey and Gary and everyone nods at his words. He smiles at them, like a dad, like a wise parent. He makes a stupid joke about Gary’s two months in Montana and what exactly he found. Everyone laughs. I wonder how I would feel if everyone laughed at every single stupid thing I said. The debate is resolved and the group claps for Gary’s piece.

I should probably comment, too, but I don’t think anyone would take too kindly to anything I said. I don’t ride, I haven’t written and I’m far from being a boy. After a while I start to feel like I’m at a very boring college lecture. I tune out and just clap at the
appropriate moments. After two and a half long hours, the meeting is over.

I promise I’ll find a new job.

“I can’t believe I ever wanted to go to this meeting. In a word, it sucks. How big should I cut these?” I am cutting up potatoes for Roseanne, who is making fresh gnocchi.

“That’s fine, we’re not reinventing the wheel here.” I grab the cup off the fridge and hold it out to her. “I don’t have a dollar. I promise, I’ll put it in tonight.”

We made an agreement that every time she says something stupid that she gleaned from work she’ll put a dollar in a jar. From the moment she starting working, she came home using expressions like “marry them together,” “take it to bed,” and “give me the heads up.” She is trying to avoid turning into a corporate slug. She claims her job is awful. She gets in at eight and leaves at seven. They buy her breakfast and lunch, so she will be most productive. If Roseanne has kids, she will be supermom, because every night she comes home and makes an awesome meal. Then she waits an hour and heads to the gym. I hope all this energy doesn’t last, because I can’t handle all the guilt I feel about never going to the gym.

“They will applaud anything. Someone reads two sentences about a bike chain, everyone applauds.”

Roseanne chimes in, “All the people I work with curse and complain about carpal tunnel syndrome. I found out I have to work the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. How much does that suck?”

My mother calls while we are eating. She sounds upset. My mother calls every other day and she always suspects I’m home when the machine picks up (sometimes, I am). It’s like she has a camera in my room, which wouldn’t be too bad because of the lack of booty I’m getting.

“What’s wrong, Mom?”

“Are you coming home for Thanksgiving?”

“Mom, didn’t we talk about this already? Of course, I am.”

“Monica isn’t coming home. She is feeding the hungry with what’s his name.”

“Oh, God! She is such a volunteer. Actually, what
is
his name?”

“Chuck. What kind of name is that for a thirty-eight-year-old?” Monica has deliberately misinformed my mom. She should really let me know these things before I slip up. “Eve, can you talk some sense into her?”

“Mom, I can’t make Monica do anything. She’ll get even more stubborn if I try. Just act like you don’t care and she’ll come home.”

“How can I not care? When you have kids, let’s see how you don’t care?”

“Okay, Mom, I’m not saying don’t care. I’m saying
act
like you don’t care.”

“Is Roseanne going home? She can come over, too.”

“I’ll ask her.”

“Is she there now?”

“No, Ma, I’ll call you and let you know.” I hold my finger to my lips so Roseanne won’t make a sound.

“Okay, honey, let me know as soon as you can, because I have to cook, love you, honey.”

“Yes, Mom, love you, too.” Roseanne is waiting for me to ask her about Thanksgiving. I was certain she wouldn’t want to come over. I mean it’s one thing to live at someone’s house for a month and another to celebrate the holidays with their extended family.

“Do you want to spend Thanksgiving with us?” I am hoping she’ll realize that it’s not such a good idea, that she ought to go see her family.

“Is it okay?” No!

“Yes.”

“Well—” she is acting like she is thinking about it, but I know her answer already “—I guess I’ll go.” Great. Suddenly a calm Wednesday night is thrown into commotion by an event two weeks away. Roseanne leaves her gnocchi and runs to the kitchen to look through her books (I take a few extra gnocchi—I cut the potatoes after all). She starts calling recipe ideas to me from the kitchen.

“I’ll make sweet potato and pumpkin pies. Someone else will probably make pumpkin. Pecan, yes pecan. I hope no one is allergic to nuts. I’ll make some potato gratin and bruschetta. That’ll go over well with the Italians, right? Oh, and here—caramelized root vegetables. That’ll be great. Okay, I’ll write this down so you can tell your mom.” She winds up skipping the gym to go through some more recipe books. I eat the rest of her gnocchi and watch Fox.

“So what are you doing for Thanksgiving?” Tabitha asks the Sunday before.

“Not too much, going home. Roseanne is making a feast.”

“Roseanne is going home with you?” She is annoyed.

“Yeah, why?”

“Nothing.”

“When is your flight?” She says nothing. “Tabitha. You are going back to Texas for the holidays, right?” More silence. “Do you want to come home with us? I’m not sure you’ll have fun with my family.”

“Oh, but Roseanne will because she is making the turkey?”

“She isn’t making the turkey. Please come, I mean, you’re always invited. My mom would really love it.”

“No thanks.”

“Well, why? What are you going to do? You can’t be alone on the holidays.”

“I’ll find something to do, believe me. Have a great Thanksgiving.”

She hangs up before I can say anything else. Bring on the holidays.

I try calling Tabitha again Thanksgiving Day, before we leave to head to the ’burbs. We are sitting on the couch watching the Macy’s parade, although Macy’s is only about ten blocks away. It’s kind of cold and Roseanne is exhausted from all the cooking she did last night. We just can’t exert any energy—other than painting our nails, fielding the calls from Roseanne’s family, and watching the awful parade announcers. I get Tabitha’s machine when I call. I leave her a long message, begging her to come.

Roseanne holds out her hand to inspect the frosty purple polish she used. “Any minute I thought you were going to offer to digest her turkey for her.”

“Ro, the holidays are a very tough time for everyone. Don’t you ever watch those news shows. Suicide rises.”

“I doubt we have to worry about Tabitha. Really.”

I’ll spare you most of the details of my Thanksgiving. Everyone loves everything Roseanne made, my aunt actually passes my uncle the potato gratin when he asks for it, and in the middle of the quietest most reflective moments of our feast, my grandmother, who’s going totally senile, leans over to my mother and says, “Do you hear them, too?” My mom shakes her head and my grandmother goes back to chewing loudly.

Roseanne and I spend two days on the couch in my living room, literally. We sleep there because my bed is in the city. We don’t even bother to get the bed out of the sofa; I sleep on the sofa and Roseanne sleeps on the recliner. Roseanne doesn’t even go for a
run, which I was certain she’d try to drag me to within moments of eating. On Friday night, we go to a local bar.

“These look like the people who work at my firm,” Roseanne says, repulsed. There is an awful lot of cheesy, high hair around. I realize how far Roseanne has come. We have a drink and walk home (yes, I had my dad drop us off, thinking we would have to take a cab home).

I call Tabitha from the couch on Saturday. She picks up during my message. “How’s the Shore?”

“I don’t know, I’m nowhere near it. Not all of Jersey is the shore. How’s your weekend going?”

“Boring. Jaques hasn’t called at all. When are you and Roseanne coming back?” Because she includes Roseanne, I tell her I’ll call her back.

“Hey, Ro.” Roseanne is working on her toenails now, a very respectable red. “Wanna go home early?”

Tabitha has an urge to go dancing Saturday night. She is happy we came back early. She calls up the club and uses the old MTV thing. She temped there for about three weeks and held onto her ID. Now whenever she wants to go somewhere it’s either the standard
NY By Night
line or she pretends to be a producer from MTV scouting locations. Occasionally, they have asked for credentials and the ID does it, but usually if you’re dressed well enough, they’ll believe anything.

We get our own special reserved section. Someone obviously wants an MTV segment shot here, because we get drinks on the house. Roseanne is particularly impressed.

“Do you come here a lot? It’s so cool.”

“I need to be in the right mood,” says Tabitha, reminding me that it’s all about her whims. She is still a little bitter about Thanksgiving. I am not in the mood for the abuse.

“Should we dance?” I ask, wondering if Tabitha would prefer to sit and sulk.

“I’ll dance,” says Roseanne. I raise one of my nice eyebrows at Tabitha, who glares at me. She just should have come home with me. Then we could still be on the couch, instead of sucking our guts into impractical dresses.

“I am not nearly drunk enough to start dancing.”

“Well, Tabitha, it’s totally dead and no one is talking to us. I don’t want to sit here all night, hoping they’ll buy us drinks so we won’t have to spend eighty million dollars.”

“Fine. Let’s go dance. I’m loving it now.” She gets up and hurries out to the dance floor, where she starts to dance near a guy whose girlfriend jumps out immediately, and all but pees around him to mark her territory.

“Eve, I can’t deal with her anymore. Why is she such a witch?” Roseanne grabs me before we get onto the floor. I, myself, am not nearly drunk enough to dance.

“Okay, c’mon, she’s just pissy. She’s warming up to you. Really. Remember how she tried to help you get a job?”

“What an honor.” I lead her onto the dance floor. We dance next to Tabitha, who ignores us. We’re all pretty uninspired. The dance floor is not nearly full, so our silly shuffles seem even more ridiculous. Finally, Roseanne and I shrug at each other and decide to head back up to our couch. Tabitha is so annoyed, she follows us. Unfortunately, two Amazon über women take it up. They’re spread all over what is rightfully ours; the couch and Tabitha’s jacket. We hover nearby, glaring at them. Tabitha is clearly livid.

“Well, eventually, they have to get up and get more drinks,” I say, trying to be positive. They certainly are managing to suck down their drinks and avoid us. When they start slurping on their straws, I think we are pretty much all set to pounce. But then, in an unbelievably sneaky move, the bustier one pulls out her cell phone and calls the bar (which is twenty feet away) to bring them drinks. Oh you have got to be kidding me! Of all the low down moves!

“This is ridiculous,” says Tabitha, loud enough for them to hear. “I am not going to be ignored by some catalog models who are barely this side of over the hill. Look at those awful heels.” The heels don’t look that bad to me, but I can tell the models are a tad self-conscious. Tabitha has hit a nerve. Shit! The last thing I need is a confrontation.

“Bitch!” sneers one of the models at Tabitha.

“Get off my jacket!” Tabitha yells.

“Whatever!” The other model yells, not moving.

“Did you get those shoes at Sears, you whore?” Oh, my God! The blonder model’s eyes narrow.

“Why don’t you lose some weight?” Curses! I should probably be right up there to get Tabitha’s back, but I move a little slow (okay, so I’m chicken).

Roseanne gets right up in their faces and says, “Hey fuckface! Why don’t you get some dick?”

Then, drinks go flying, words get hurled and then the bouncer is escorting the women out and apologizing to us for the trouble.

We settle back into the couches and sympathize with Tabitha about the damage she claims has been done to her jacket. The waiter comes over with the drinks that the models ordered via cell phone. He tells us they’re on the house. I defer them to Tabitha and Roseanne. They truly deserve them for all their hard work. I have to admit that in the thick of things, I remained untouched. (I’m a lover not a fighter!) Hopefully, this battle will solidify Tabitha and Roseanne’s friendship.