Spooning (33 page)

“Honey?” I had asked. That truly was Jane's assistant's name. And, Jane's assistant was male. “Um, I think I may be in trouble here.”

“What's up,” he had murmured, not looking up from the careful eraser marks he was making in the Diva's daily agenda. He brushed away the eraser's pink dust with his one painted fingernail.

“I, um, opened a personal letter that was meant for Jane,” I squeaked.

“What! Who was it from? The Donald? She'll flip if you tore into his one-of-a-kind envelope.” I held out the shredded paper-thin one.

“No, this isn't from Donald. It's from inmate 457–9989.”

“Ugh,” Honey sighed, finally looking up. “Not another.”

“What? She gets these often? Shouldn't we notify the police?”

“Number 457–9989 is at Rikers Island. He's there for life and then some for a string of rash serial killings. Actually, he spends part of his time at Bellevue too since apparently the murders made him go mad.” Honey spun his finger near his temple for the full effect should I not understand the idea of a crazy man. My mouth dropped open. The Diva was in danger.

“There's no way he's eligible for parole,” he assured me.

“How do you know?”

“I've worked for Jane for eight years, and I have connections,” he said with the conviction of a CSI officer. Yeah right, I thought, eight years with connections and still a servant to the Diva's every mood.

“Plus, all of his victims had blond hair.”

“But so does Jane,” I reminded him, picturing her perfect coif.

“No,” Honey said lowering his voice to a whisper. “She's really a red head. But she thought the hair would objectify her too much as a sexpot.”

“Sexpot? Jane?”

“She really does have good legs you know. Better than mine,” he continued, stretching out his waxed legs from under his capri pants. “Have you seen any of her early pictures? She could have modeled. But she wanted to be taken seriously as a television personality and bona fide cook. So she went the Betty Crocker route, hence the blond locks.” Honey waved his hand dismissively as if let down by yet another blond wannabe. Honey had given up his golden-tinted locks in exchange for the new “in” color—copper. I nodded, my head busily trying to absorb all of this personal information. Jane was becoming more human to me. Honey took the letter, opened a low desk drawer, and threw it on top of a mounting pile of similar chicken-scrawled envelopes.

“Are those all from him?” I asked.

“Yep.” Honey slammed the drawer shut as Jane came whisking around the corner.

“Honey! Now!” the Diva had bellowed. My two-second humanized vision of Jane was replaced by that of a cartoon giant whose head spun around in time with her pansy-smooshing sneakers.

W
hat blew about getting the note on Thursday was that Friday was a workday, meaning that I had to leave my building. Had it been Saturday or Sunday, I could have curled up in the safety of my couch and lost myself in a Lifetime made-for-TV movie. I might have been able to get a few clues about how to protect myself, how to put my soon-to-be-attacker away for life, how to argue against his/her parole, and how to get on with my now scarred existence.

Instead, I donned my faux Burberry hat and pulled it low as I exited the apartment the next morning. I made sure to wave to Doorman Juan on my way out so that he could be a witness for the prosecution at my murderer's trial. I walked with my head down (nothing new as a New Yorker) and felt paranoia swirling all around me. It snuck through the protective barrier in the cab, and it squeezed through the closing elevator doors at work. Smiles became sneers. I had never noticed how the magazine guy in the lobby smiled with only one side of his mouth, how the security guard's whole face squinched up when he said hello (suspiciously happy), and how the Diva's total lack of smile could be construed as criminal.

“You look horrible,” Julie commented as I walked in, my head whipping left and right in true surveillance form.

“Not feeling so hot,” I responded. No need to connect her in any way to my impending murder.

“You!” Jane hollered at me in the hallway. “Let's gooooo!” Julie rolled her eyes. The Diva was pissed.

“Wooden bowl!” she bellowed. “Is it so hard to find me a wooden bowl?” I had been tagged to put the apples in a
wooden bowl—repeat, wooden bowl—on the set's kitchen counter.

“Why would anyone put them in a crystal bowl?” she snapped. “Just what I need—the set lights reflecting off the bowl and blinding my viewers! Plus, think of the image of my hips as I pass behind this bowl. Let's make Jane's hips appear even wider! Do I have to think of everything?” Wow. I rushed forward with the wooden bowl, reminding myself that one didn't get to this level of success without being detail oriented.

“And you,” she continued as the finger swung toward me, “Never use yellow apples again. Actually, go to the test kitchen and get some Granny Smith green apples. Yellow doesn't look good near my skin.” I nodded and ran off. It wasn't that Jane was simply shallow; she just knew that a bad image would turn people away from buying into her cult. And we wouldn't want that! Shit, now I couldn't remember what type of green apples she wanted. Were there many types of green apples? Thankfully the kitchen chef knew what I meant when I smiled and asked for the “green apples.”

I finally lost it before lunch and burst into hysterical hic- cups when Margaret tapped me from behind, causing me to jump a mile high and slam my big toe into the copying machine while doing my rendition of a karate kick.

“Gosh, aren't we jumpy today,” she snickered. I tasted blood from my tongue, which I had just bitten. “You should know better, you know.” No, I didn't know.

“What's that, Margaret?”

“No copying between 10:45 and 12:30,” she informed me. “Everyone knows not to use the copier then.”

“Why would that be?” I asked.

“Jane doesn't like to be bothered with the noise during her lunch break,” she spat as if I were some first grader. Luckily, Margaret began to back away as my hiccupping grew worse. I gathered my stack of papers and ran to the HR woman's office. Feigning food poisoning (an absolute sin to the staff at
S&S
), I took the rest of the day off. Hat lowered to my chin, I hobbled home as quickly as possible.

A
s I entered my apartment building around noon, I began to assess my neighbors. One never feels alone in New York, but on the flip side, you rarely ever feel part of a close-knit community. I knew some other young girls lived in our building because they had winked at Macie one night while she was making out in the lobby area.

“Great, now I'll be seen as the slut of the apartment building,” she moaned.

“Don't worry, darling. I will do my best to dethrone you. I've been thinking that the couch in the lobby looks comfy, but the plastic would probably stick to my ass,” Tara grinned. Macie didn't seem amused.

We also had a couple who lived next door to us. We weren't sure of their ages since Manhattan practically had Botox in the air. We did know that they didn't approve of our late-night antics. We'd received a note under our door back in November that read:

“I can't put my bed anywhere else in my room—there's no space!” Tara, the guilty party, had objected. Syd was doubled over in a fit of giggles.

“Maybe we should pad your headboard like on Trading Spaces!” she had suggested.

“Whatever. I've heard her high-pitched groaning before! They're just morning people,” observed Tara. “It's a nice way to start the day, but in my experience the guy usually already has his mind on impending work issues, preventing him from focusing completely on me.” The problem however was soon forgotten after Tara ditched her flavor of the month later that week.

We did have one spooky guy in our building and I still hadn't figured out if he was always drunk or just slow. He also lived on our floor. One afternoon, he had passed by me and I'd given him the obligatory, neighborly “How are you?”

Rather than playing the polite game, he'd turned around and said, “Not so good. I was beaten up last night.” His face was indeed bruised and banged up. I had tried not to wince. He didn't elaborate as to whether he'd been beaten up in a bar brawl, beaten up because he'd fallen down some stairs, or beaten up by some crazed girlfriend.

“I'm so sorry!” I squeaked. What else do you say? He stood there staring at me with his two enormous dogs who could have easily eaten me. Did management really allow such dangerous-looking pets in the building?

“Feel better!” I'd exclaimed as if he had a runny nose and hurried on my way. Thinking back, this encounter had taken place outside of our apartment door and he knew where I lived. Maybe my sympathy hadn't been enough, or maybe he was now in love with my kind ways and wanted more!

T
his, I reflected as I lay huddled on the couch, was the longest Friday of my life. I couldn't risk going out tonight; my assailant might be hiding among the throngs in a stale beer shroud. I couldn't even think about all the days that lay ahead. What to do?

Suddenly it hit me. Why, redecorate! Our apartment deserved a snappy spring makeover, just like a Cinderella in waiting. Jane had been espousing the wonders of spring cleaning and reorganization all week. I turned to the piles of catalogs in our basket for inspiration. (I wasn't about to touch today's mail!) Sadly, the Pottery Barn catalog was usually too steep in price and lacking in originality, so I set it aside. I wavered over the dream catalogs: Neiman's, Saks, and Hammacher Schlemmer. Who wouldn't want an electric hot air balloon to get to work? Putting down the catalogs, I took a deep breath and dug down deep into my inner core of creativity. I stood back and assessed the layout of our humble abode. It was a square, no actually, more rectangular space. One wall was unusable because our front door was smack dab in the middle, another wall contained the one outlet into which the TV was plugged. Well, I could use an extension cord and wind the cord along the baseboards and put the TV in the corner. Much better!

“Noooo!” a scream came flying through the front door. “What do you think you are doing?” Sydney was standing in
the doorway with a panicked look on her face, as if she had walked in on the worst scenario imaginable. Her wide eyes mimicked my sixth-grade teacher's when she'd discovered me reading test answers off of my elbow. Did you know that it is physically impossible to kiss your elbow? Well, it is just as difficult to read notes from your elbow—hence my thwarted efforts.

“What?!” I screamed back. Hysteria has a way of spreading. “What the hell is the matter, Syd?”

“You cannot,
cannot
use an extension cord in our apartment!”

“Why the hell not?” I demanded. Why was I still screeching?

“Because they cause so many fires!”

“Stop yelling! They're perfectly safe—you just can't plug like eighteen million cords into one!”