Pounding the Pavement (26 page)

“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.

T
here 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.

W
hen 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.”

E
ven 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 noon, 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.

When I’ve completed the form to satisfaction, I’m given a gold star. Only it’s not a star. It’s a sticker that says “Visitor.” The woman in uniform narrows her eyes and watches me closely to make sure I wear it correctly.

And even that is not enough. The elevator opens up on the twenty-third floor and puts me squarely in front of a shielded door. I flag down the attention of
another
woman behind
another
desk and eventually she buzzes me in.

“Can I help you?” she asks.

“I’m actually here to return a phone.”

“Oh?” The receptionist cocks an eyebrow. “Whose phone?”

“It belonged to Laurie—”

“Oh, there you are!” cries a voice from down the hall. Caught off guard, I wheel around to find a woman in perilously high-heeled Mary Janes prancing toward me, a heavy stack of papers clutched to her chest. I don’t recognize her immediately. But only because I wasn’t expecting her.

“Thank you soooo much for bringing that back!” Laurie gushes, her wide eyes pleading with me to remain silent. “I don’t know how I would have gotten through the rest of the day without it.” She motions to the reception desk with her elbow. “Just leave it there. I’ll walk you to the elevator.” She takes two steps toward the security door and stops.

“Hey, Sonya?” she calls over her shoulder. “You mind?” The receptionist obliges by pressing the buzzer. The security door swings open. I follow Laurie out into the lobby. Behind us, the door vaults closed again.

“What are you doing here?” I ask through clenched teeth.

“You don’t have to whisper. They can’t hear us through that door.”

“Well?”

She sighs. “Sarah, I can’t be unemployed. It’s just not in me. I’m not strong like you.”

“You don’t have to be strong to be unemployed. You just have to be out of work.”

“You know what I mean.” She hits the elevator button. “But listen, I found out about a job lead yesterday that I think might be good for you.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah. There’s an opening at the WCA talent agency. Marianne Langold is looking for an assistant.”

“Who’s Marianne Langold?”

“Don’t you know? She’s only one of the top talent agents in New York. You wouldn’t
believe
who she reps.” Laurie ticks off a list of actors I haven’t even dared to fantasize about.

“And? What’s she like?”

“Oh, she’s a raging bitch.”

Figures. “Okay. And what about the job?”

“I’m not going to lie to you. There’s a high volume of calls.”