It was a fine Saturday morning and I was looking forward to the day--great expectations, as my husband, X, was taking me to an exhibition of Impressionist works at the deYoung, a show I had been dying to see because of the Cezannes, one of my favorite artists.
X, an excellent draughtsman, says he is not all that enamored of M. Cezanne and I find this to be less than apt--how is it possible to not appreciate someone who revolutionized perception while firmly grasping the rudiments of the third dimension--his logic of perspective topped with a pleasingly naturalistic way with color, mere icing on the cake in this case, but who would want to do without it?
We were looking forward to the exhibit and in high spirits on the bus ride to the museum, normal for me but any little thing could set X off; a rude passenger, a snarling bus driver, someone talking too loud on the cell phone, so I kept up a stream of positive chatter to keep his sights set on the loveliness of the day, our exalted mission and especially, for his benefit, the lunch we would have after visiting the museum at a new restaurant/brewpub that promised, according to a review in Thursday’s paper, the finest micro-brewed ale in all of San Francisco. It was my bribe to get him to stay in a good mood throughout the museum crawl when his legs and/or feet would be killing him after the first hour, though he’d never admit to it.
When we arrived at the museum, we had not been anticipating, or I had not been, the line of people waiting to get in. I purposely put off seeing this exhibit to the near end of its run just to avoid this crowd we were now amongst, and a chance to view the works with some degree of autonomy, privacy that was no longer an option we both mentally deduced. I prayed he would not freak out but I did not want to use up all my holy capital on this so only made a mild plea for his restraint, just enough to get us inside where I felt sure the artworks would calm him down somewhat.
Naturally, he began the dreaded rant I was only too familiar with: “Now look what we’ve gotten ourselves into, what we’ll have to endure! I knew we were coming on the wrong day, look at these people, never come to a museum on the weekends, always go on a weekday, I told you that but you never listen to me, now we’ll wait forever in line and once inside will only be able to glance at the paintings, maybe three seconds, before someone will elbow us out of the way; we won’t be able to really look at anything, we’ll have to listen to kids crying, the elevators will be jam-packed, we won’t get a table in the café even if we want one, we’ll waste time waiting in line for the restrooms, it’ll just be a madhouse not at all conducive to looking at the paintings, we’re screwed, I knew this was going to happen, didn’t I tell you?” He stopped for air.
“Yes, dear, you were right, I thought the crowds would have thinned out by now, I’m sorry but let’s just make the best of it, we can still enjoy the paintings, not as much as if we had the place to ourselves like the last time we were here, but let’s just go with it, we’re here and Cezanne is still Cezanne and I’m perfectly willing to beat off the crowds and look to my heart’s content, and you know painting is such a lift to the spirit, we may be able to transcend the hoi polloi, let’s try to rise above the fray, couldn’t we? I mean, we’re stoned enough, aren't we, to take things in stride?”
“You’re an optimist and I’m a pessimist but you’ll find out I’m right on this but that’s okay, we’ll get our three seconds to look at each painting, I just hope you’ll be content with that.” He strode with purpose into the first room where we were greeted by an immense Monet garden scene that jolted all the finer senses and renewed our faith.
The crowding was intense, he was right, I felt defeated after the first room and M. Cezanne did not get his due diligence but enough for me to want to leave this stuffy museum and fly off to France with my easel; to feel the warm sun, smell the pine trees, waver in the fractal light, walk dusty aromatic paths, dive into glistening waters…all of this I was murmuring in adulation to my husband before I was jostled out of the way by an over-sized backpack…my meandering indulgences trodden upon.
“I’m glad you’re so thrilled, it’s enough to send me to the nearest bar which by the way, it’s time for us to start making our way there if we’re going to keep our reservation, your Impressionist rapture will have to be curtailed. If we are lucky we won’t have to wait in line but I wouldn’t count on it. Don’t I always say Saturday is not the day to try to do anything in San Francisco? I trust you’ve finally figured that out. I just hope we can get a cab over there, the bus is not a straight shot.”
The brewpub was absolutely besieged, we waited to be seated an inordinate amount of time considering we had a reservation and then sat in the center of the room at a table too miniscule to accommodate people of our stature, we could not move our arms, there was no place for my handbag and we could not hear the waiter tell us the specials which we would have liked to hear about, or the various brews on tap that day. Nor could we expect to talk further of our outing. I could not tell him how the absolute was revealed in Manet’s gray or how the pink tone of Berthe Morisot’s summer afternoon summed up the essence of Paris in one stroke.
He could not tell me how Van Gogh’s exaggerated lines depict a crazed mania and are not at all elegant or artistic, how Gauguin left him cold or how he thought there was a little too much revealed about M. Degas in the splayed legs of those incessant dancers--what was it he found so enthralling, heh, heh, heh? Perhaps we would discuss this on the bus on the ride home but he never liked talking on the bus with so many listening, he preferred to remain anonymous in the presence of “assholes,” his term, not mine.
“I think this is the best beer I’ve ever had in my life,” I shouted. He looked at me without comprehension but guzzled three mugs of it before we even looked at the menu. We had another brew and decided to skip the lunch menu after the woman crammed in next to him toppled her glass of water and it landed on his leg. We were starting to become unbalanced from the packed assemblage.
It was a relief to be back outside and to see a bus approaching. “You know we will probably not even get on this bus. We’ll have to wait for the next one. I can see it is jammed to the rafters. It’s always like this on the weekend. I’d get us a cab but I’m out of cash.”
“The bus will be fine. I don’t know why you are so bothered by crowded buses. It’s better than looking for parking spots and worrying about tickets all the time. Besides, it's beautiful out. I don’t mind if we sit at this bus stop indefinitely…I smell the ocean and eucalyptus...” He gave me that bemused look that said, you’re just high.
The bus, as he rightly surmised, was completely packed with all the flotsam of humanity pressed against each other but he didn’t say a word; he gave up his seat to a Chinese woman carrying bags of groceries and conversation between us was nil as we grappled with the logistics of standing-room-only and the multitude of backpacks. I am never bothered by this--at these times I am at one with my fellow humans.
Halfway home, as a group of rambunctious teens piled in among us, pushing, shoving, ear-piercing laughter and mayhem, I looked over at my husband and there was a beatific look of acceptance on his face and I smiled--I knew he’d had a wonderful time too and we would have something to talk about all weekend.
“Let’s go somewhere and get an Irish coffee, you want to?” he asked. “Of course the Buena Vista will be mobbed. We’ll never get a seat at the bar but if you want to…we might as well, we haven’t had anything to eat…though I doubt we’ll get a table…”
Monday, February 21, 2011
Monday, February 14, 2011
#67 BE MY VALENTINE?
Valentine's Day, an annual commemoration on February 14 celebrating love and affection between intimate companions; traditionally a day on which lovers express their love for each other by presenting flowers, offering confectionery, and sending greeting cards (known as "valentines"). Wikipedia
The precise definition of Valentine’s Day, in case there is any confusion, spells out the expectations of February 14 and how one winter day can make or break friendships, rekindle romance or if ignored, leave a bruise on the psyche. Various courtly scenarios play out the world over exposing a plethora of trouble-spots, a day that, as our heroine in this story says, could be ominous with pitfalls.
Kevin Swanson awoke on February 13 with aching muscles, a throbbing head, dry mouth and a tired mind and body. The previous night he played basketball as he always did on Tuesday night but what was unusual was that he agreed to go to a bar with his teammates to celebrate nothing in particular as they had not won the game. Kevin was not a drinker and usually passed on the bar crawl in favor of an early night, a walk with his dog and best friend, Earl, and Chinese take-out.
As a newspaper reporter on the morning beat, Kevin’s workday began at an earlier hour than that of his friends; he couldn’t afford to oversleep, be hungover, or too blighted to think straight. Not thinking straight before deadline put not only his job on the line, but his credibility. If you bungled in any way, you clogged the works and the snarling would be heard from the publisher’s office on down the line to the pressroom. No slackers need apply at a daily paper. Kevin was proud of this. He felt most professions and businesses were riddled with incompetence and unaccountability making the world not only a more dangerous place, but a more confusing one.
In the newsroom of a daily, you had about a week’s grace period before your professional flaws were unmasked. Kevin got tired of explaining why he couldn’t stay out late and drink with the guys and was glad when he found a girlfriend and could use her as an excuse. They snickered and warned him about having his balls busted but for Kevin, that was the least of his worries. His boss could bust his balls at any given moment and had done so a few times when he had been new on the job, but not lately. Kevin fell in with the modus operandi of the newsroom fast, thrived on the pace and once his co-workers were certain he could pull his weight, he had been left alone to do his job.
The two other reporters who had been hired with him were already history: one, who shall remain nameless, for screwing up a city councilman’s official statement, causing all manner of mayhem when the reporter not only quoted him incorrectly but had the name of the business in question misspelled. How this got by the eagle eye of the city editor, “Bulldog” Clay Morrison, who must have been asleep at the wheel just that once--no one could quite figure. Kevin never got the slightest detail past him without rigorous interrogation.
Managing editor, Tom O’Reilly, was foaming at the mouth that day and his bellowing could be heard over the emergency press-run to get a later corrected edition out while there was still time. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t help much; half the papers had left the building before it was caught by a sports editor who happened to be in the pressroom at the end of the first run. This little double-duo of error cost not only time, but quite a chunk of change and the fledgling reporter his job. “Bulldog” was silent for the rest of the afternoon and left early. The following day, with renewed vigor, eyes blazing, he busted apart every sentence he edited; headlines were scrapped, cut lines massacred, leads rewritten and then rewritten again. No one got out of jail free that day.
The third reporter, a single mother of about thirty with a pronounced feminism, lasted about a month. She had too many “issue,” she said and anyway, found the boss and the paper too patriarchal for her taste. Mostly she had trouble with the early morning start but wouldn’t admit it. O‘Reilly, having hired and fired many a reporter in his day knew this would be the case when he took her on, per request from her uncle who owned the biggest furniture store in the area and was a major advertiser. She was hired in conjunction with Kevin and the nameless reporter, O’Reilly knowing from past experience that only one out of three, if that, would be able to do the job, show up on time and would never lower him/herself with excuses. O’Reilly did not do excuses.
That is why Kevin took no chances. There weren’t a surplus of professional jobs in a small town where you could work your way into prominence. He was only twenty-three and on his own for just six months with an apartment, student loans and a car payment. He regretted staying out late last night but would inject himself with a double espresso and carry on.
Kevin’s new girlfriend, Monica Dunleavy, was twenty-four, a legal secretary training to be a paralegal. He met her at a bar that hosted a Trivial Pursuit night. She and Kevin were on the same team and she surprised him by not knowing the answer to a single question and then being the only one able to answer a rather arcane question involving an Oscar Wilde quotation sending the team’s score into the winning slot earning them three pitchers of beer and nachos for the table.
Monica was a lively girl with an entourage of girlfriends, liked to shop, seemed to have a different outfit on every time Kevin saw her and was on a woman’s bowling team. She was competitive, Kevin noted, and was often overzealous in her opinions with a need to be both right and first. She was much more aggressive than Kevin but not necessarily smarter. She liked having a boyfriend whose name was in the paper every day and she could point out his byline to her co-workers giving her some importance, something she needed in an office of professional achievers and a well-to-do clientele. Monica wanted to impress and Kevin’s name gave her a platform. No one had to know he lived in a gnarly studio apartment with hardly a kitchen, earned a paltry salary, in her opinion and drove a six-year-old car he was making payments on. She had a new car her father bought her, a spacious townhouse apartment, albeit shared with two others, and made a higher hourly wage than Kevin.
Her biggest complaint about Kevin was that he never wanted to join her and her friends after work for drinks or try some of the new restaurants and wine bars that were popping up all over town. He dressed indifferently too. Sometimes she wondered if he wasn’t a bit anti-social but what worried her more was that he might possibly be cheap. That attribute she could not accept. What good was a boyfriend if he didn’t take you out? But he was sort of handsome and had a job. She would get him on a social track eventually, shop with him for a better wardrobe. He was a fixer-upper but only just so. “He has potential,” she would say to her roommates. They would roll their eyes having learned attempts to fix up boyfriends an effort in futility.
These things were going around in Monica’s mind on February 13 while at lunch in the cafeteria with four other administrative assistants, two paralegals, one receptionist and two women from the insurance office down the hall. There had been only one topic of conversation all week: What their boyfriend/fiancé/husband would be giving them for Valentine’s Day tomorrow and what they would give in return. Their expectations corresponded to the number of years together, relationship status and income. There was a tipping point: Wives expected less than girlfriends but fiancées expected more than both girlfriends and wives. Live-in girlfriends expected more than non live-in girlfriends and those at the beginning of a relationship or those just dating were apprehensive not knowing quite what to expect but feeling certain requirements should be met in order to define the future of said relationship. Higher incomes begot higher expectations generally.
Gayle, from the insurance office, married to a doctor, said she would no doubt receive roses, be taken to dinner at a French restaurant with champagne. “This is what we do every year. Bernie has a limited imagination but it’s not a bad way to celebrate. I love the flourless chocolate cake with raspberry sauce.”
The receptionist for the law firm, an intern named Kellie, said she got a puppy wearing a red jacket with a and heart-shaped dog tag with all three of their names. Her boyfriend gave it to her yesterday because he had to go out of town for work. A wife of a roofer said she’d probably get candy to share with the kids. A paralegal said she would get a gift certificate to a masseuse, something she and her dentist husband had been giving each other for several years now after growing bored with the flowers/candy/candlelight dinner routine. “They all seem like a cliché after a while, don’t they? Next year we’re going to a spa in Napa if we can get away.”
Monica could see the other women chewing on this for a moment but if you were pining for just those things as an indication of some feeling or regard the women couldn’t quite agree with her statement. “So what if it's a cliché?” muttered the roofer’s wife finally. “I hope I see the day when those things became a “cliché” in my life. She pronounced “cliché” with pursed lips, thinking French terms in everyday usage pretentious.
Another secretary said, “In the past, I hoped my husband would acknowledge the day but never has. One year I bought him a heart-shaped box of chocolates from the grocery store just for a laugh and to open up the subject but he just looked at me without comprehension and muttered, ‘you’re silly.’ I ate all the chocolates myself that night, watching “Gone with the Wind” on TV while he slept in the recliner. I never brought it up again and that was more than ten years ago. Such is life with the romantically challenged,” she sighed.
The youngest woman said she would not be getting anything as her finance was in Afghanistan. “I will be happy with a phone call from Kyle saying he is alright. I can’t hope for anything more at this time,” she said with the solemnity she was becoming known for.
One woman said she was expecting an engagement ring. “He’d better get me that damn ring. I’ve been waiting for a year now. He asked me to marry him last year before he went back to school, he’s getting his master’s, and I’m still waiting for the ring. We’ve already picked it out; it’s on layaway. He’d better be holding a nice little box from the jeweler when I see him tonight. He‘s driving down especially for the day so I have high hopes.”
A few women said they would like to get jewelry; that was the best present from a man. Most said they would drink some wine with dinner and be groggy or headachy the next day at work. Some admitted they didn’t really like wine and wished the money could be spent on other things. All seemed satisfied with what they were expecting, many agreed that they would have sex that night--”de rigueur,” said the one fond of French phrases. A couple of women planned erotic escapades complete with red lingerie that could involve; essential oils, whipped cream, chocolate or strawberries but left the details to the collective imagination.
After listening to this all week, Lenora, the eldest of the women from a Slavic country snorted and could barely hide her contempt. “In forty-plus years of marriage my husband and I have never exchanged gifts or bodily fluids on February 14. Nor have we had dessert in the bed. It‘s stuff and nonsense. To see hard-earned money spent so foolishly. It’s not what marriage is about. I’d be embarrassed if my Harold did any of those things.” All the women secretly looked on her with pity so they laughed to conceal it. They did not realize that she pitied them for their unrealistic expectations and childish fantasies. They will all end up with only their disillusions, she thought but did not say.
With this information floating around all week, Monica could not quite fathom what she should expect from Kevin. One the one hand, they had been dating exclusively for four months and referred to each other as boyfriend and girlfriend. She had heard him tell his friend that he had to take his “girlfriend” to dinner and couldn’t go to a game. As a girlfriend, she certainly could expect some acknowledgment of the day. She reckoned dinner with wine and maybe a small present of jewelry or perfume should be forthcoming. Nothing over-the-top or too expensive but heartfelt. She didn’t think a box of candy sufficient, and was watching her weight, didn’t think flowers were anything to get excited about except for a death in the family and hoped he was more romantically inclined than to give her a card with a Starbucks gift certificate or something equally impersonal like her roommate Dora got last year. A card on its own would be unforgivable, an e-mail card, unacceptable. All of the women were in agreement on this except Lenora who just shook her head.
As Monica mulled the meaning and manifestations of February 14 she gave some thought as to what she should give. Monica loved gift exchanges but liked to know the rules, the parameters. She didn’t want to give an extravagant gift like new ski poles only to receive a box of Russell Stover chocolates and a card. She did not want to appear loopy by giving a card with a sexy greeting as her other roommate, Jen, did last year and then never heard from the guy again. The pitfalls for this one day are ominous, Monica thought and went back to the law firm’s business.
What was really bothering her was that Kevin had thus far not mentioned a word regarding the day and Monica waited too long to bring it up and now she didn’t know what to do. Kevin was a serious type, quiet and sort of aloof, at times almost other-worldly. Monica found she could not maneuver him into a position as well as she had previous boyfriends. The guys she knew would capitulate at the slightest hint. Her parents were that way: Her mother spoke, he father obeyed. That was how it was supposed to be, wasn’t it? Somehow Kevin defied her on small matters and she was worried he might on larger matters as well. She had not quite brought him around yet, she admitted to Dora. Kevin intimidated her though she couldn’t precisely say how. He was affectionate, sensual even but still kept a polite distance between them.
On February 14 Kevin arrived at work at 5:45 a.m. because an interview he’d conducted a few days earlier was set to run on that day’s front page. He had laboriously gone over it before submitting it to Morrison but there is a newspaper adage that says, There’s always a mistake: You just can’t see it. Morrison had it taped to the side of his computer. Kevin thought it amusing but like all humor, there was a truth in it and he was wary.
He was assigned the interview with the spokesperson for the environmental organization because the more seasoned reporter was on vacation and the others were tied up with their own developing stories. Kevin was nervous about the interview. He’d gone in with a set of hard questions the boss wanted put forth. The mayor was backtracking on a proposed condominium site, the developer was playing media games, an environmental agency was spinning like mad to get the most mileage out of the situation and the public was up in arms over an alleged shady deal between the developer and the city. Kevin had to keep the all the stories straight and not let the spin obscure the information is boss requested. It was an important assignment and if he did well, could expect to be assigned to investigate further. If he blew it, he’d be back on the cop beat or the schools. For real punishment, he could be assigned to the Catholic Diocese, interviewing a doddering old bishop who could barely stay awake.
Kevin trembled at the thought of a major error discovered after press time. When he admitted to his boss that he was nervous about this assignment, his boss said, Got to play in the muck sometime, kid. Might as well be now. We don’t have the time or the manpower to let you ‘grow.’ He used the word “grow” like it was new-age jargon, a movement he regularly disparaged. One of his favorite lines was, Don’t go Oprah on me--my stomach can’t take it. O’Reilly played the role of newsman to perfection--hard-boiled, insensitive, unrelenting. It may have been a pose, Kevin couldn’t say but he admired him and if he screwed up the story wouldn’t be looking forward to what would follow.
By 6:30 a.m. the newsroom was humming. Kevin read and re-read his story and was then assigned to the weather desk--mundane mechanical information gathering. “Bulldog,” he could see, was busy reading his story, asking only a few nominal questions for clarity. At 8 a.m. the boss arrived and sat down to read it before it went on the page and to write the headline. The piece was gone over with a comb so fine of tooth that if there was so much as an unnecessary comma, a quiver could be noticed in O’ Reilly’s entire demeanor.
At 10 a.m. as the paper was finally being put to bed, someone from classifieds breezed through with a plate of heart-shaped cookies and left them on an empty desk. They were quickly scarfed up--everyone hungry by ten a.m. with so much adrenalin spent. Kevin was still apprehensive. “Relax, kid,” said Morrison. “It’s fine. Have a cookie, call your girlfriend and wish her a happy Valentine’s Day. Then get back to work. This is just the beginning on this one. There’s more shit and a bigger fan out there. The public is ready for carnage.” He chortled, shoved another cookie in his mouth and gulped the cold coffee that had been sitting since the early a.m.
Formerly distracted, now munching a pink frosted cookie, Kevin began to subliminally notice things; a dish of those heart-shaped pastel candies with the incongruous sayings on them, red roses on the secretary’s desk but none of it really registered. He was busy imagining all the different ways his questioning might have taken him into treacherous territory. But the boss read it. He must have approved of his approach. He hadn’t said anything in particular but got a call and dashed out of the newsroom before the printing was complete. That was odd, thought Kevin. Did it have any significance?
By 11:30 a.m. with the paper already hitting the street, Kevin relaxed and thought about lunch. Then he remembered what Morrison said: Call your girlfriend and wish her a happy Valentine’s Day. It was only a chance remark--Morrison had no idea if Kevin had a girlfriend or not. Not much personal information was bandied about in the newsroom or the lunch room. He had not been asked a single personal question in the year he’d been there. Monica knew the details of everyone’s life she worked for and with, she even knew about the people in other offices in the building. Not for the first time did Kevin wonder if he had enough innate curiosity to be a reporter. Compared to Monica, whose inquisitiveness was unlimited, he felt like a dead circuit. His interest was more in the guise of outcomes. He had no idle curiosity about his fellow-citizens unless there was a reason to connect the dots, imagine an outcome or seek a result. Otherwise he could be oblivious to others and had been told so.
Kevin had also been oblivious to St. Valentine’s Day. So absorbed in his first big story, the decorations, the advertising, hints other men distinguish--a survival mechanism--did not click in Kevin’s brain. He went to Target on the weekend, the store was rife with red hearts on every type of merchandise. Nothing. They danced about in every department. No notice. He bought his dog a few grooming products and some chew toys, toilet paper and a quart of oil for his car and never made any connection to the screaming red hearts laced about to remind errant men everywhere just exactly what day was approaching. Ignore us at your peril, they seemed to say.
Kevin was new to the romance game. He’d had a girl in high school who was more of a pal and that is who he took to the prom. In college he tried with several girls but nothing ever worked out. He had little in the way of a charm offensive; he couldn’t flirt if his life depended on it and in truth, girls made him nervous. If he thought of them, it was as a future wife who would resemble his mother if not in looks, at least in deed. Kevin thought his mother perfect and when a boy or a man has a perfect mother, they expect her to be replicated in other girls. When she is not, when those other girls are a little confounding maybe, not as soothing, the man/boy gets nervous. He doesn’t know where he stands. If he has had no sisters, his dismay is doubled, as is the case with Kevin, an only child with a perfect mother and a contented father.
While eating his lunch of chips and an apple brought from home, afraid to leave his desk in case his boss wanted to see him, Kevin decided to call Monica at work and if it seemed fitting, wish her a happy Valentine’s Day. He wasn’t sure if Monica was his “valentine.” Maybe she would mock him and say he was being presumptuous to suppose they were valentine material whatever that was. He read a few of the aphorisms on the candy hearts and was still confused. How long were you a couple before these goofy sentiments kicked into place? Did they pertain to all couples or just those who’ve made a commitment? No, he thought, kids in grade school sent them to classmates. Kevin thought then that he’d better make the call just to be safe. He should take her to lunch but he couldn’t leave today. Maybe she would like to go tomorrow. He dialed her number and then her extension.
“This is Monica Dunleavy. How can I help you?”
“Monica, it’s Kevin. How’s things?”
“If you mean me, I'm fine, Kevin, how are you?” She was grateful for his call. A tension in her solar plexus released itself but she maintained a cool professional tone that made Kevin feel useless and tongue-tied.
“I’m good. I finished that article I was writing and it’s on today’s front page. It was a biggie---I am glad it’s done. Now I’m just waiting for the fallout-- you know, some mistake, some dim-witted error that will piss everyone off…something implied or unintended. Anyway, I was just calling to wish you a happy Valentine’s Day. Not sure what it entails but since I didn’t send you a card I thought I’d call to see if you want to get together after work or if you’re busy, maybe have lunch tomorrow. My treat.”
Monica thought she entered a parallel universe, in a state of disbelief. “What it entails, Kevin? Not sure what it entails? What planet are you from?” She tried for a jocular effect but her voice was reaching an upper octave she didn't care to have her co-workers hear. They were all so smug, so assured of their flowers, their champagne suppers…they didn’t have to spend last night wondering if they were doing anything on Valentine’s Day. They HAD plans in place, weeks in advance. Even Jo whose husband was in a war zone e-mailed with the time set for his call to her. They didn’t have to sit around wondering if they actually had some type of relationship or listen to their innuendos: What are you and Kevin doing tonight? Did Kevin send you flowers? Did you get your lace bra out from the back of the drawer? Ha, ha, ha.
Monica said little and hoped they’d let it go. “I bet there will be flowers when you get home, said the roofer's wife. He seems so sensitive by his writing. So intelligent. I bet he has a big night planned for you.”
Now here he was on the phone--hemming and hawing. “No Kevin, as it happens, I’m not doing anything later. Do you want to meet somewhere or should I come over to your place?”
“Yeah, why don’t you come over? I’ve got to walk Earl before I do anything but he‘s dying to see you. He has a crush on you, you know. We can order pizza or something.”
“I’ll see you later then. I’ve got to go,” said Monica, mortified and afraid someone would have overheard the conversation, so lame, so dopey.
“Boyfriend ready for the big night?” said the receptionist.
“Boyfriend an idiot.”
“Ah, don’t worry. He’s just planning to surprise you. You’ll see. Last year Eddie did that to me. Pretended he didn’t know what day it was all the while picking out a gold bracelet for me right next door at Jewels Galore. I pouted all day but he sure redeemed himself. They always do that unaware shit and then pony up in the end. He’ll come through. Don’t look so glum, Mon.”
Monica spent the afternoon studying the garish bouquet of roses commingled with glittering plastic hearts on the desk opposite. When Gina, a paralegal, noticed her staring she smirked and said they were just from her husband. Her real gift would be something extra special from her lover--jewelry probably. Monica thought about having not one but two men sending valentine gifts. And then wondered if the word “lover” could ever comfortably pass her lips?
She had bought Kevin a red cashmere/wool blend sweater from the most expensive store in town. It would look great on him with his dark eyes and hair. She wasn’t sure what women gave to men on Valentine’s Day beside sex. It was an overtly feminine holiday but she wanted to have something to give him in case he gave her something. She also got a red collar for Earl and some heart-shaped treats. She bought a small box of Godiva truffles to share. She was prepared for whatever though her own heart possessed a disconcerting negative vibration.
Kevin spent all afternoon in his boss’s office going over plans for the next segment of the investigation. He was being given an another important assignment and it would be a great byline. “We‘ll chew them up and spit them out, said a gleeful O’Reilly. “This might earn you an AP award, kid. Who knows? I was fifty before I got one but you could nail one at…how old are you? Twenty-two, twenty three? Great on the old resume.”
His enthusiasm was contagious and Kevin was feeling a flood of warm liquid expanding in his chest cavity. Back at his desk, his heart was thumping. Turns out the boss ran out earlier to take his wife to lunch. Kevin had nothing to worry about. He complimented Kevin on the story and told him to keep up the good work. Kevin had a fulfilling day and restored ambition. An AP award, he thought. Wow!
For the record, Kevin’s story, the investigation into a dicey matter of city business and politics is not the story we are concerned with. It is only background material; these type of stories fill the newspapers in every town and city repeatedly. No, this is the story of expectation and mixed-signals. It’s a story of men and women and how things are often more and then less than they seem. It is also a story that plays out in towns and cities all over the world but its appeal is psychological and will continue to be relevant long after all the mayors, governors, developers and citizens settle their disputes.
Monica arrived at Kevin’s place at 6 p.m. just as he was returning from walking Earl. “Hey girl. Glad you could make it. Did you see today’s paper? Big story with yours truly credited. And this is just the beginning. We’re going to hammer both the mayor and the developer. I could even win an AP award. That’s Associated Press. Big deal for journalists. I had a great day, it started out really nerve-wracking but it shaped up nicely. How about you, did you have a good day?”
“No Kevin, I was very busy today. Everyone had lunch dates and I had to cover. I haven’t seen the paper. I’m happy for you.”
“You sound kind of down. Got a headache?”
“No. I’m fine. I was wondering what we are going to do tonight.” She slumped into the ratty couch with a sigh.
“Up to you. I’m a little short of cash until tomorrow when I get paid but I could manage a pizza for dinner if you’re hungry. I’m starving. I didn’t eat lunch. My boss and I were holed up all afternoon plotting our strategy. I’ve been living on cookies that someone brought into the newsroom for Valentine’s Day. I must have eaten twenty of them, plus candy. I’m on a real sugar buzz, I tell you. I need something substantial like a pepperoni and sausage pizza and a gallon of milk. Unless you want beer? There’s some beer in the fridge, help yourself. I’ve got to feed Earl and clean up a bit. Make yourself at home. Watch whatever you want on TV. I’ll let you control the remote tonight,” he said with an affectionate laugh. “You can watch all the chick stuff seeing how it’s Valentine’s Day. My gift to you.”
He went into the kitchen and Monica could hear him filling the dog dish with kibbles. Then she heard water running in the shower. She sat on the couch without moving a so much as a hair. Stupefied. His gift to her? His fucking gift to her? How totally insensitive! She was speechless but her mind was ratcheting about like the stock market in free-fall. She could hear Kevin singing in the shower. She wished she could shut him up--with some dramatic impact. She had no impact, obviously. She was without weight and as such not worth a whole lot, apparently. She began to brood. Earl seemed to sense her sadness and put his head on her lap. His eyes seemed to cry for her. She got up off the couch, dropped Earl’s gift on the table and left the apartment. She turned her phone off, drove home and having the place to herself--Dora and Jen with their current boyfriends possibly doing something fun--she opened the Godiva chocolates and turned on the TV. It was romance heaven; her favorite romantic comedies playing on every channel. She did not need Kevin’s “gift.” She had her own flipping remote, thank you very much. She wasn’t exactly in the mood for vicarious romance but what else was there?
She settled on “Moonstruck” but during the commercials surfed between reruns of “Sex and the City” and “French Kiss.” By the time Nicholas Cage proposed to Cher at the family breakfast table she was fuming. She didn’t have Ronny, she had the clueless brother, Johnny, the mama’s boy. She fluffed up a pillow waiting for the next movie, “Pride and Prejudice,” and popped another truffle in her mouth fully aware that it was only an antidote to the shriveling her heart was undergoing.
Kevin, fresh from his shower called out for Monica but received no answer. Toweling himself off, he went into the living room, the only room, to find it, as we already know, vacated except for Earl. “What the hell…?” Kevin looked for a note but only found a package addressed to Earl. He opened it and read the valentine message that said, To Earl, man’s best friend and a girl’s best protection. Earl had once growled at a guy who yelled at Monica in the parking lot over her car being in his spot. He backed off quickly and she thereafter referred to him as her bodyguard. “Where did she go, Earl, huh? She was here. Where’d she go?” Earl had no reply but was bright enough to glance at the door before grabbing the offered treat.
Kevin called her cell phone but got no connection. Now he was really confused but just then the pizza arrived. He rushed to the door thinking it was Monica. He had to scrounge around for change to tip the guy. He and Earl ate the pizza while trying to reach Monica. Finally he gave up, pissed at her for leaving without so much as a goodbye. Several hours later just before he fell asleep he got her on the line. “Monica, it’s Kevin. Where the hell did you go? Where are you? Are you all right?”
“I’m at home,” she said diffidently. She had gorged herself on chocolate and romance and was feeling a little dissolute. Mr. Darcy’s grandeur made her own romance seem even more deficient.
“Why did you leave without saying anything? That’s really rude, Monica.”
“Really, Kevin? I could tell you a thing or two about rude but I’m sleepy and have lost the urge.”
“Did I do something wrong?”
“No Kevin. Nothing wrong, nothing right.”
“Explain, please.”
“Have you ever heard anything about the romantic significance of Valentine’s Day, Kevin?”
“So that’s it. You’re mad about Valentine’s Day. I’m sorry I didn’t send a card or take you to lunch. I wasn’t sure you’d think it was any big deal. You seemed cold when I called to say happy Valentine’s Day. I thought maybe I was being presumptuous calling you my valentine. I didn’t want to overstep my bounds. I’m sorry. I didn’t know, you should have said something.”
“Forget it, Kevin. I’m going to sleep. We can talk about it next year if there is a next year, goodnight.”
“Just tell me what you were expecting. I’ll try to make it up to you. Don‘t just bust my chops. Talk to me.”
“Goodnight, Kevin.”
“By the way, Earl says thanks. He loved the treats and the collar. He’ll be sending you a thank-you note personally. I’ll have to write it for him; he’s smart but his penmanship isn’t the most legible.” He hoped she would lighten up with some dog humor; it usually worked.
She hung up, her head starting to ache from the sugar deluge and crawled to bed eager to avoid Jen and Dora’s return.
Kevin went to bed more mystified than ever but wrote it off as female drama, something he had hoped to avoid with Monica. “Dogs are so much easier,” said Kevin to no one in particular. Tomorrow he would ask her to lunch. If he could get away from the news desk.
Valentine’s Day came and went, mostly forgotten by February 15. The women in Monica’s office were subdued for a variety of reasons, except Lenora who had no expectations and was not disappointed. The newsroom had not the slightest residue of the previous day. Kevin began work on his next story but forgot about lunch when his boss called him in the office to discuss tactics. Monica noted his failure to call but was not unduly bothered by it: Valentine’s Day was over, he blew that. She no longer cared if her fixer-upper would ever meet her standards. Neither one ever mentioned the missed opportunity again but Monica kept it in reserve. She returned the sweater for a full refund.
The precise definition of Valentine’s Day, in case there is any confusion, spells out the expectations of February 14 and how one winter day can make or break friendships, rekindle romance or if ignored, leave a bruise on the psyche. Various courtly scenarios play out the world over exposing a plethora of trouble-spots, a day that, as our heroine in this story says, could be ominous with pitfalls.
Kevin Swanson awoke on February 13 with aching muscles, a throbbing head, dry mouth and a tired mind and body. The previous night he played basketball as he always did on Tuesday night but what was unusual was that he agreed to go to a bar with his teammates to celebrate nothing in particular as they had not won the game. Kevin was not a drinker and usually passed on the bar crawl in favor of an early night, a walk with his dog and best friend, Earl, and Chinese take-out.
As a newspaper reporter on the morning beat, Kevin’s workday began at an earlier hour than that of his friends; he couldn’t afford to oversleep, be hungover, or too blighted to think straight. Not thinking straight before deadline put not only his job on the line, but his credibility. If you bungled in any way, you clogged the works and the snarling would be heard from the publisher’s office on down the line to the pressroom. No slackers need apply at a daily paper. Kevin was proud of this. He felt most professions and businesses were riddled with incompetence and unaccountability making the world not only a more dangerous place, but a more confusing one.
In the newsroom of a daily, you had about a week’s grace period before your professional flaws were unmasked. Kevin got tired of explaining why he couldn’t stay out late and drink with the guys and was glad when he found a girlfriend and could use her as an excuse. They snickered and warned him about having his balls busted but for Kevin, that was the least of his worries. His boss could bust his balls at any given moment and had done so a few times when he had been new on the job, but not lately. Kevin fell in with the modus operandi of the newsroom fast, thrived on the pace and once his co-workers were certain he could pull his weight, he had been left alone to do his job.
The two other reporters who had been hired with him were already history: one, who shall remain nameless, for screwing up a city councilman’s official statement, causing all manner of mayhem when the reporter not only quoted him incorrectly but had the name of the business in question misspelled. How this got by the eagle eye of the city editor, “Bulldog” Clay Morrison, who must have been asleep at the wheel just that once--no one could quite figure. Kevin never got the slightest detail past him without rigorous interrogation.
Managing editor, Tom O’Reilly, was foaming at the mouth that day and his bellowing could be heard over the emergency press-run to get a later corrected edition out while there was still time. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t help much; half the papers had left the building before it was caught by a sports editor who happened to be in the pressroom at the end of the first run. This little double-duo of error cost not only time, but quite a chunk of change and the fledgling reporter his job. “Bulldog” was silent for the rest of the afternoon and left early. The following day, with renewed vigor, eyes blazing, he busted apart every sentence he edited; headlines were scrapped, cut lines massacred, leads rewritten and then rewritten again. No one got out of jail free that day.
The third reporter, a single mother of about thirty with a pronounced feminism, lasted about a month. She had too many “issue,” she said and anyway, found the boss and the paper too patriarchal for her taste. Mostly she had trouble with the early morning start but wouldn’t admit it. O‘Reilly, having hired and fired many a reporter in his day knew this would be the case when he took her on, per request from her uncle who owned the biggest furniture store in the area and was a major advertiser. She was hired in conjunction with Kevin and the nameless reporter, O’Reilly knowing from past experience that only one out of three, if that, would be able to do the job, show up on time and would never lower him/herself with excuses. O’Reilly did not do excuses.
That is why Kevin took no chances. There weren’t a surplus of professional jobs in a small town where you could work your way into prominence. He was only twenty-three and on his own for just six months with an apartment, student loans and a car payment. He regretted staying out late last night but would inject himself with a double espresso and carry on.
Kevin’s new girlfriend, Monica Dunleavy, was twenty-four, a legal secretary training to be a paralegal. He met her at a bar that hosted a Trivial Pursuit night. She and Kevin were on the same team and she surprised him by not knowing the answer to a single question and then being the only one able to answer a rather arcane question involving an Oscar Wilde quotation sending the team’s score into the winning slot earning them three pitchers of beer and nachos for the table.
Monica was a lively girl with an entourage of girlfriends, liked to shop, seemed to have a different outfit on every time Kevin saw her and was on a woman’s bowling team. She was competitive, Kevin noted, and was often overzealous in her opinions with a need to be both right and first. She was much more aggressive than Kevin but not necessarily smarter. She liked having a boyfriend whose name was in the paper every day and she could point out his byline to her co-workers giving her some importance, something she needed in an office of professional achievers and a well-to-do clientele. Monica wanted to impress and Kevin’s name gave her a platform. No one had to know he lived in a gnarly studio apartment with hardly a kitchen, earned a paltry salary, in her opinion and drove a six-year-old car he was making payments on. She had a new car her father bought her, a spacious townhouse apartment, albeit shared with two others, and made a higher hourly wage than Kevin.
Her biggest complaint about Kevin was that he never wanted to join her and her friends after work for drinks or try some of the new restaurants and wine bars that were popping up all over town. He dressed indifferently too. Sometimes she wondered if he wasn’t a bit anti-social but what worried her more was that he might possibly be cheap. That attribute she could not accept. What good was a boyfriend if he didn’t take you out? But he was sort of handsome and had a job. She would get him on a social track eventually, shop with him for a better wardrobe. He was a fixer-upper but only just so. “He has potential,” she would say to her roommates. They would roll their eyes having learned attempts to fix up boyfriends an effort in futility.
These things were going around in Monica’s mind on February 13 while at lunch in the cafeteria with four other administrative assistants, two paralegals, one receptionist and two women from the insurance office down the hall. There had been only one topic of conversation all week: What their boyfriend/fiancé/husband would be giving them for Valentine’s Day tomorrow and what they would give in return. Their expectations corresponded to the number of years together, relationship status and income. There was a tipping point: Wives expected less than girlfriends but fiancées expected more than both girlfriends and wives. Live-in girlfriends expected more than non live-in girlfriends and those at the beginning of a relationship or those just dating were apprehensive not knowing quite what to expect but feeling certain requirements should be met in order to define the future of said relationship. Higher incomes begot higher expectations generally.
Gayle, from the insurance office, married to a doctor, said she would no doubt receive roses, be taken to dinner at a French restaurant with champagne. “This is what we do every year. Bernie has a limited imagination but it’s not a bad way to celebrate. I love the flourless chocolate cake with raspberry sauce.”
The receptionist for the law firm, an intern named Kellie, said she got a puppy wearing a red jacket with a and heart-shaped dog tag with all three of their names. Her boyfriend gave it to her yesterday because he had to go out of town for work. A wife of a roofer said she’d probably get candy to share with the kids. A paralegal said she would get a gift certificate to a masseuse, something she and her dentist husband had been giving each other for several years now after growing bored with the flowers/candy/candlelight dinner routine. “They all seem like a cliché after a while, don’t they? Next year we’re going to a spa in Napa if we can get away.”
Monica could see the other women chewing on this for a moment but if you were pining for just those things as an indication of some feeling or regard the women couldn’t quite agree with her statement. “So what if it's a cliché?” muttered the roofer’s wife finally. “I hope I see the day when those things became a “cliché” in my life. She pronounced “cliché” with pursed lips, thinking French terms in everyday usage pretentious.
Another secretary said, “In the past, I hoped my husband would acknowledge the day but never has. One year I bought him a heart-shaped box of chocolates from the grocery store just for a laugh and to open up the subject but he just looked at me without comprehension and muttered, ‘you’re silly.’ I ate all the chocolates myself that night, watching “Gone with the Wind” on TV while he slept in the recliner. I never brought it up again and that was more than ten years ago. Such is life with the romantically challenged,” she sighed.
The youngest woman said she would not be getting anything as her finance was in Afghanistan. “I will be happy with a phone call from Kyle saying he is alright. I can’t hope for anything more at this time,” she said with the solemnity she was becoming known for.
One woman said she was expecting an engagement ring. “He’d better get me that damn ring. I’ve been waiting for a year now. He asked me to marry him last year before he went back to school, he’s getting his master’s, and I’m still waiting for the ring. We’ve already picked it out; it’s on layaway. He’d better be holding a nice little box from the jeweler when I see him tonight. He‘s driving down especially for the day so I have high hopes.”
A few women said they would like to get jewelry; that was the best present from a man. Most said they would drink some wine with dinner and be groggy or headachy the next day at work. Some admitted they didn’t really like wine and wished the money could be spent on other things. All seemed satisfied with what they were expecting, many agreed that they would have sex that night--”de rigueur,” said the one fond of French phrases. A couple of women planned erotic escapades complete with red lingerie that could involve; essential oils, whipped cream, chocolate or strawberries but left the details to the collective imagination.
After listening to this all week, Lenora, the eldest of the women from a Slavic country snorted and could barely hide her contempt. “In forty-plus years of marriage my husband and I have never exchanged gifts or bodily fluids on February 14. Nor have we had dessert in the bed. It‘s stuff and nonsense. To see hard-earned money spent so foolishly. It’s not what marriage is about. I’d be embarrassed if my Harold did any of those things.” All the women secretly looked on her with pity so they laughed to conceal it. They did not realize that she pitied them for their unrealistic expectations and childish fantasies. They will all end up with only their disillusions, she thought but did not say.
With this information floating around all week, Monica could not quite fathom what she should expect from Kevin. One the one hand, they had been dating exclusively for four months and referred to each other as boyfriend and girlfriend. She had heard him tell his friend that he had to take his “girlfriend” to dinner and couldn’t go to a game. As a girlfriend, she certainly could expect some acknowledgment of the day. She reckoned dinner with wine and maybe a small present of jewelry or perfume should be forthcoming. Nothing over-the-top or too expensive but heartfelt. She didn’t think a box of candy sufficient, and was watching her weight, didn’t think flowers were anything to get excited about except for a death in the family and hoped he was more romantically inclined than to give her a card with a Starbucks gift certificate or something equally impersonal like her roommate Dora got last year. A card on its own would be unforgivable, an e-mail card, unacceptable. All of the women were in agreement on this except Lenora who just shook her head.
As Monica mulled the meaning and manifestations of February 14 she gave some thought as to what she should give. Monica loved gift exchanges but liked to know the rules, the parameters. She didn’t want to give an extravagant gift like new ski poles only to receive a box of Russell Stover chocolates and a card. She did not want to appear loopy by giving a card with a sexy greeting as her other roommate, Jen, did last year and then never heard from the guy again. The pitfalls for this one day are ominous, Monica thought and went back to the law firm’s business.
What was really bothering her was that Kevin had thus far not mentioned a word regarding the day and Monica waited too long to bring it up and now she didn’t know what to do. Kevin was a serious type, quiet and sort of aloof, at times almost other-worldly. Monica found she could not maneuver him into a position as well as she had previous boyfriends. The guys she knew would capitulate at the slightest hint. Her parents were that way: Her mother spoke, he father obeyed. That was how it was supposed to be, wasn’t it? Somehow Kevin defied her on small matters and she was worried he might on larger matters as well. She had not quite brought him around yet, she admitted to Dora. Kevin intimidated her though she couldn’t precisely say how. He was affectionate, sensual even but still kept a polite distance between them.
On February 14 Kevin arrived at work at 5:45 a.m. because an interview he’d conducted a few days earlier was set to run on that day’s front page. He had laboriously gone over it before submitting it to Morrison but there is a newspaper adage that says, There’s always a mistake: You just can’t see it. Morrison had it taped to the side of his computer. Kevin thought it amusing but like all humor, there was a truth in it and he was wary.
He was assigned the interview with the spokesperson for the environmental organization because the more seasoned reporter was on vacation and the others were tied up with their own developing stories. Kevin was nervous about the interview. He’d gone in with a set of hard questions the boss wanted put forth. The mayor was backtracking on a proposed condominium site, the developer was playing media games, an environmental agency was spinning like mad to get the most mileage out of the situation and the public was up in arms over an alleged shady deal between the developer and the city. Kevin had to keep the all the stories straight and not let the spin obscure the information is boss requested. It was an important assignment and if he did well, could expect to be assigned to investigate further. If he blew it, he’d be back on the cop beat or the schools. For real punishment, he could be assigned to the Catholic Diocese, interviewing a doddering old bishop who could barely stay awake.
Kevin trembled at the thought of a major error discovered after press time. When he admitted to his boss that he was nervous about this assignment, his boss said, Got to play in the muck sometime, kid. Might as well be now. We don’t have the time or the manpower to let you ‘grow.’ He used the word “grow” like it was new-age jargon, a movement he regularly disparaged. One of his favorite lines was, Don’t go Oprah on me--my stomach can’t take it. O’Reilly played the role of newsman to perfection--hard-boiled, insensitive, unrelenting. It may have been a pose, Kevin couldn’t say but he admired him and if he screwed up the story wouldn’t be looking forward to what would follow.
By 6:30 a.m. the newsroom was humming. Kevin read and re-read his story and was then assigned to the weather desk--mundane mechanical information gathering. “Bulldog,” he could see, was busy reading his story, asking only a few nominal questions for clarity. At 8 a.m. the boss arrived and sat down to read it before it went on the page and to write the headline. The piece was gone over with a comb so fine of tooth that if there was so much as an unnecessary comma, a quiver could be noticed in O’ Reilly’s entire demeanor.
At 10 a.m. as the paper was finally being put to bed, someone from classifieds breezed through with a plate of heart-shaped cookies and left them on an empty desk. They were quickly scarfed up--everyone hungry by ten a.m. with so much adrenalin spent. Kevin was still apprehensive. “Relax, kid,” said Morrison. “It’s fine. Have a cookie, call your girlfriend and wish her a happy Valentine’s Day. Then get back to work. This is just the beginning on this one. There’s more shit and a bigger fan out there. The public is ready for carnage.” He chortled, shoved another cookie in his mouth and gulped the cold coffee that had been sitting since the early a.m.
Formerly distracted, now munching a pink frosted cookie, Kevin began to subliminally notice things; a dish of those heart-shaped pastel candies with the incongruous sayings on them, red roses on the secretary’s desk but none of it really registered. He was busy imagining all the different ways his questioning might have taken him into treacherous territory. But the boss read it. He must have approved of his approach. He hadn’t said anything in particular but got a call and dashed out of the newsroom before the printing was complete. That was odd, thought Kevin. Did it have any significance?
By 11:30 a.m. with the paper already hitting the street, Kevin relaxed and thought about lunch. Then he remembered what Morrison said: Call your girlfriend and wish her a happy Valentine’s Day. It was only a chance remark--Morrison had no idea if Kevin had a girlfriend or not. Not much personal information was bandied about in the newsroom or the lunch room. He had not been asked a single personal question in the year he’d been there. Monica knew the details of everyone’s life she worked for and with, she even knew about the people in other offices in the building. Not for the first time did Kevin wonder if he had enough innate curiosity to be a reporter. Compared to Monica, whose inquisitiveness was unlimited, he felt like a dead circuit. His interest was more in the guise of outcomes. He had no idle curiosity about his fellow-citizens unless there was a reason to connect the dots, imagine an outcome or seek a result. Otherwise he could be oblivious to others and had been told so.
Kevin had also been oblivious to St. Valentine’s Day. So absorbed in his first big story, the decorations, the advertising, hints other men distinguish--a survival mechanism--did not click in Kevin’s brain. He went to Target on the weekend, the store was rife with red hearts on every type of merchandise. Nothing. They danced about in every department. No notice. He bought his dog a few grooming products and some chew toys, toilet paper and a quart of oil for his car and never made any connection to the screaming red hearts laced about to remind errant men everywhere just exactly what day was approaching. Ignore us at your peril, they seemed to say.
Kevin was new to the romance game. He’d had a girl in high school who was more of a pal and that is who he took to the prom. In college he tried with several girls but nothing ever worked out. He had little in the way of a charm offensive; he couldn’t flirt if his life depended on it and in truth, girls made him nervous. If he thought of them, it was as a future wife who would resemble his mother if not in looks, at least in deed. Kevin thought his mother perfect and when a boy or a man has a perfect mother, they expect her to be replicated in other girls. When she is not, when those other girls are a little confounding maybe, not as soothing, the man/boy gets nervous. He doesn’t know where he stands. If he has had no sisters, his dismay is doubled, as is the case with Kevin, an only child with a perfect mother and a contented father.
While eating his lunch of chips and an apple brought from home, afraid to leave his desk in case his boss wanted to see him, Kevin decided to call Monica at work and if it seemed fitting, wish her a happy Valentine’s Day. He wasn’t sure if Monica was his “valentine.” Maybe she would mock him and say he was being presumptuous to suppose they were valentine material whatever that was. He read a few of the aphorisms on the candy hearts and was still confused. How long were you a couple before these goofy sentiments kicked into place? Did they pertain to all couples or just those who’ve made a commitment? No, he thought, kids in grade school sent them to classmates. Kevin thought then that he’d better make the call just to be safe. He should take her to lunch but he couldn’t leave today. Maybe she would like to go tomorrow. He dialed her number and then her extension.
“This is Monica Dunleavy. How can I help you?”
“Monica, it’s Kevin. How’s things?”
“If you mean me, I'm fine, Kevin, how are you?” She was grateful for his call. A tension in her solar plexus released itself but she maintained a cool professional tone that made Kevin feel useless and tongue-tied.
“I’m good. I finished that article I was writing and it’s on today’s front page. It was a biggie---I am glad it’s done. Now I’m just waiting for the fallout-- you know, some mistake, some dim-witted error that will piss everyone off…something implied or unintended. Anyway, I was just calling to wish you a happy Valentine’s Day. Not sure what it entails but since I didn’t send you a card I thought I’d call to see if you want to get together after work or if you’re busy, maybe have lunch tomorrow. My treat.”
Monica thought she entered a parallel universe, in a state of disbelief. “What it entails, Kevin? Not sure what it entails? What planet are you from?” She tried for a jocular effect but her voice was reaching an upper octave she didn't care to have her co-workers hear. They were all so smug, so assured of their flowers, their champagne suppers…they didn’t have to spend last night wondering if they were doing anything on Valentine’s Day. They HAD plans in place, weeks in advance. Even Jo whose husband was in a war zone e-mailed with the time set for his call to her. They didn’t have to sit around wondering if they actually had some type of relationship or listen to their innuendos: What are you and Kevin doing tonight? Did Kevin send you flowers? Did you get your lace bra out from the back of the drawer? Ha, ha, ha.
Monica said little and hoped they’d let it go. “I bet there will be flowers when you get home, said the roofer's wife. He seems so sensitive by his writing. So intelligent. I bet he has a big night planned for you.”
Now here he was on the phone--hemming and hawing. “No Kevin, as it happens, I’m not doing anything later. Do you want to meet somewhere or should I come over to your place?”
“Yeah, why don’t you come over? I’ve got to walk Earl before I do anything but he‘s dying to see you. He has a crush on you, you know. We can order pizza or something.”
“I’ll see you later then. I’ve got to go,” said Monica, mortified and afraid someone would have overheard the conversation, so lame, so dopey.
“Boyfriend ready for the big night?” said the receptionist.
“Boyfriend an idiot.”
“Ah, don’t worry. He’s just planning to surprise you. You’ll see. Last year Eddie did that to me. Pretended he didn’t know what day it was all the while picking out a gold bracelet for me right next door at Jewels Galore. I pouted all day but he sure redeemed himself. They always do that unaware shit and then pony up in the end. He’ll come through. Don’t look so glum, Mon.”
Monica spent the afternoon studying the garish bouquet of roses commingled with glittering plastic hearts on the desk opposite. When Gina, a paralegal, noticed her staring she smirked and said they were just from her husband. Her real gift would be something extra special from her lover--jewelry probably. Monica thought about having not one but two men sending valentine gifts. And then wondered if the word “lover” could ever comfortably pass her lips?
She had bought Kevin a red cashmere/wool blend sweater from the most expensive store in town. It would look great on him with his dark eyes and hair. She wasn’t sure what women gave to men on Valentine’s Day beside sex. It was an overtly feminine holiday but she wanted to have something to give him in case he gave her something. She also got a red collar for Earl and some heart-shaped treats. She bought a small box of Godiva truffles to share. She was prepared for whatever though her own heart possessed a disconcerting negative vibration.
Kevin spent all afternoon in his boss’s office going over plans for the next segment of the investigation. He was being given an another important assignment and it would be a great byline. “We‘ll chew them up and spit them out, said a gleeful O’Reilly. “This might earn you an AP award, kid. Who knows? I was fifty before I got one but you could nail one at…how old are you? Twenty-two, twenty three? Great on the old resume.”
His enthusiasm was contagious and Kevin was feeling a flood of warm liquid expanding in his chest cavity. Back at his desk, his heart was thumping. Turns out the boss ran out earlier to take his wife to lunch. Kevin had nothing to worry about. He complimented Kevin on the story and told him to keep up the good work. Kevin had a fulfilling day and restored ambition. An AP award, he thought. Wow!
For the record, Kevin’s story, the investigation into a dicey matter of city business and politics is not the story we are concerned with. It is only background material; these type of stories fill the newspapers in every town and city repeatedly. No, this is the story of expectation and mixed-signals. It’s a story of men and women and how things are often more and then less than they seem. It is also a story that plays out in towns and cities all over the world but its appeal is psychological and will continue to be relevant long after all the mayors, governors, developers and citizens settle their disputes.
Monica arrived at Kevin’s place at 6 p.m. just as he was returning from walking Earl. “Hey girl. Glad you could make it. Did you see today’s paper? Big story with yours truly credited. And this is just the beginning. We’re going to hammer both the mayor and the developer. I could even win an AP award. That’s Associated Press. Big deal for journalists. I had a great day, it started out really nerve-wracking but it shaped up nicely. How about you, did you have a good day?”
“No Kevin, I was very busy today. Everyone had lunch dates and I had to cover. I haven’t seen the paper. I’m happy for you.”
“You sound kind of down. Got a headache?”
“No. I’m fine. I was wondering what we are going to do tonight.” She slumped into the ratty couch with a sigh.
“Up to you. I’m a little short of cash until tomorrow when I get paid but I could manage a pizza for dinner if you’re hungry. I’m starving. I didn’t eat lunch. My boss and I were holed up all afternoon plotting our strategy. I’ve been living on cookies that someone brought into the newsroom for Valentine’s Day. I must have eaten twenty of them, plus candy. I’m on a real sugar buzz, I tell you. I need something substantial like a pepperoni and sausage pizza and a gallon of milk. Unless you want beer? There’s some beer in the fridge, help yourself. I’ve got to feed Earl and clean up a bit. Make yourself at home. Watch whatever you want on TV. I’ll let you control the remote tonight,” he said with an affectionate laugh. “You can watch all the chick stuff seeing how it’s Valentine’s Day. My gift to you.”
He went into the kitchen and Monica could hear him filling the dog dish with kibbles. Then she heard water running in the shower. She sat on the couch without moving a so much as a hair. Stupefied. His gift to her? His fucking gift to her? How totally insensitive! She was speechless but her mind was ratcheting about like the stock market in free-fall. She could hear Kevin singing in the shower. She wished she could shut him up--with some dramatic impact. She had no impact, obviously. She was without weight and as such not worth a whole lot, apparently. She began to brood. Earl seemed to sense her sadness and put his head on her lap. His eyes seemed to cry for her. She got up off the couch, dropped Earl’s gift on the table and left the apartment. She turned her phone off, drove home and having the place to herself--Dora and Jen with their current boyfriends possibly doing something fun--she opened the Godiva chocolates and turned on the TV. It was romance heaven; her favorite romantic comedies playing on every channel. She did not need Kevin’s “gift.” She had her own flipping remote, thank you very much. She wasn’t exactly in the mood for vicarious romance but what else was there?
She settled on “Moonstruck” but during the commercials surfed between reruns of “Sex and the City” and “French Kiss.” By the time Nicholas Cage proposed to Cher at the family breakfast table she was fuming. She didn’t have Ronny, she had the clueless brother, Johnny, the mama’s boy. She fluffed up a pillow waiting for the next movie, “Pride and Prejudice,” and popped another truffle in her mouth fully aware that it was only an antidote to the shriveling her heart was undergoing.
Kevin, fresh from his shower called out for Monica but received no answer. Toweling himself off, he went into the living room, the only room, to find it, as we already know, vacated except for Earl. “What the hell…?” Kevin looked for a note but only found a package addressed to Earl. He opened it and read the valentine message that said, To Earl, man’s best friend and a girl’s best protection. Earl had once growled at a guy who yelled at Monica in the parking lot over her car being in his spot. He backed off quickly and she thereafter referred to him as her bodyguard. “Where did she go, Earl, huh? She was here. Where’d she go?” Earl had no reply but was bright enough to glance at the door before grabbing the offered treat.
Kevin called her cell phone but got no connection. Now he was really confused but just then the pizza arrived. He rushed to the door thinking it was Monica. He had to scrounge around for change to tip the guy. He and Earl ate the pizza while trying to reach Monica. Finally he gave up, pissed at her for leaving without so much as a goodbye. Several hours later just before he fell asleep he got her on the line. “Monica, it’s Kevin. Where the hell did you go? Where are you? Are you all right?”
“I’m at home,” she said diffidently. She had gorged herself on chocolate and romance and was feeling a little dissolute. Mr. Darcy’s grandeur made her own romance seem even more deficient.
“Why did you leave without saying anything? That’s really rude, Monica.”
“Really, Kevin? I could tell you a thing or two about rude but I’m sleepy and have lost the urge.”
“Did I do something wrong?”
“No Kevin. Nothing wrong, nothing right.”
“Explain, please.”
“Have you ever heard anything about the romantic significance of Valentine’s Day, Kevin?”
“So that’s it. You’re mad about Valentine’s Day. I’m sorry I didn’t send a card or take you to lunch. I wasn’t sure you’d think it was any big deal. You seemed cold when I called to say happy Valentine’s Day. I thought maybe I was being presumptuous calling you my valentine. I didn’t want to overstep my bounds. I’m sorry. I didn’t know, you should have said something.”
“Forget it, Kevin. I’m going to sleep. We can talk about it next year if there is a next year, goodnight.”
“Just tell me what you were expecting. I’ll try to make it up to you. Don‘t just bust my chops. Talk to me.”
“Goodnight, Kevin.”
“By the way, Earl says thanks. He loved the treats and the collar. He’ll be sending you a thank-you note personally. I’ll have to write it for him; he’s smart but his penmanship isn’t the most legible.” He hoped she would lighten up with some dog humor; it usually worked.
She hung up, her head starting to ache from the sugar deluge and crawled to bed eager to avoid Jen and Dora’s return.
Kevin went to bed more mystified than ever but wrote it off as female drama, something he had hoped to avoid with Monica. “Dogs are so much easier,” said Kevin to no one in particular. Tomorrow he would ask her to lunch. If he could get away from the news desk.
Valentine’s Day came and went, mostly forgotten by February 15. The women in Monica’s office were subdued for a variety of reasons, except Lenora who had no expectations and was not disappointed. The newsroom had not the slightest residue of the previous day. Kevin began work on his next story but forgot about lunch when his boss called him in the office to discuss tactics. Monica noted his failure to call but was not unduly bothered by it: Valentine’s Day was over, he blew that. She no longer cared if her fixer-upper would ever meet her standards. Neither one ever mentioned the missed opportunity again but Monica kept it in reserve. She returned the sweater for a full refund.
Saturday, February 5, 2011
#66 BOHEMIAN BLUES: REELING, RIDICULOUS
Bo·he·mi·an n. somebody with an unconventional lifestyle: somebody, often a writer or an artist, who does not live according to the conventions of society.
Dear C.,
It’s so great to hear from you after all this time. Yes, I am in San Francisco. I can’t believe you are in London. You must tell me more about life in a foreign country in such an exciting city aside from what you say about being unemployed and destitute. I guess that takes up all of your energy and thought so maybe you’re not feeling so great about London at the moment. I’m not feeling so great about San Francisco in my present state either. It seems we both hit the wall, so to speak, at the same time. You and I have had our share of bohemian living, that’s for sure, but we were younger then, riddled with hope and spunk.
Your letter reminded me of so many things from the past. Yes, I too think fondly of the week we spent in New York going to CBGBs every night. And yes I remember trying to pick up Joey Ramone though it was only to be his friend. I thought he’d be a nice addition to my collection of rock and roll guys I hang out with. He was fun, bless his soul.
So yeah, I’ll tell you a little bit about myself these days. I too am unemployed and living in a really expensive town. I feel your pain, believe me. I just got back from another job interview that has left me rattled and disheartened. I know I am ridiculous trying to find a job at age 60, even if I don't look 60 or feel 60 whatever that is supposed to look and feel like. All I know is I am too young for Social Security and too old to work and that is a built-in conflict for my story--no need to contrive one at all.
I think you knew I had been a newspaper editor before relocating here but that job is all but finished. Possibly if I had connections in San Francisco I could get something but coming from another state, I doubt I would be considered. Or so I was told. I worked in a popular book store for the past year and it was agreeable--I couldn’t complain (I got roundly criticized by D. when I did) but thought it was something of a comedown. Little did I know how bad things would get.
It's not that I want to work; I realize my skills are dubious, my hearing is bad from all those rock concerts, I have hot flashes when stressed or in a stuffy environment. It is not going to be breezy like my previous work-life that was all set up for fun; record stores, book stores, newspapers. The book stores have diminished considerably with the downturn, record stores hardly exist and newspapers are shedding editors like old skin cells in a mud bath. I bet there’s still a lot of great book stores in London. Even the big corporate ones are hurting here. Pretty soon it will be all Amazon, all the time. I love Amazon but I do feel something is missing in a town when there are more T-mobile stores than anything else.
No, I am in a pickle; my plans have not worked out. My plan, not my most astute, had been to live my later years in San Francisco, a town, as you know, I love, as many do, and was arrogant enough to think I would have a place here. To have a place here would be to have been stubbornly clinging to a job and a rent-controlled apartment for the past 20-30 years. We really went astray on that one, C. I think of our $300-apartment in North Beach? Then there are the freshly retired, moving here after selling the big-ass suburban house and buying a sparkling new condo in SOMA. An empty-nester with a nest egg. We missed that boat too. Then there are the dot-commers who, being creative types, do have a genuine propensity for the Barbary Coast’s famous bohemianism but technology is corporate/government by nature and there’s no getting around it.
Alas, I am none of those things. I am and was a bohemian and that species does not find the later years to be easy if you really were a true bohemian and spent your life in the margins of the system, on the outskirts of the economy with no pension or savings or established business or career. I thought I might like to write a book in the true bohemian spirit for future generations to find a way to live alternatively but I have to admit I am not a success on any level and would be embarrassed to put it all down. I can barely have a conversation with family members without feeling ridiculous. They try to ignore me but once a year they all get together and have a hand-wringing session on my behalf. Then my mother calls with the results. I am in no mood for any of it having a blithe spirit that is so out of fashion that no one even remembers that it was a fashion. This is not the way it was supposed to be. (It’s hard to change a radical approach at the eleventh hour but I do try.)
So here I am looking for work in a young person's town, competing with kids who were more skilled in high school than I am after a life of working and when I go for interviews, I am ridiculous to the young people interviewing me. They are so startled at my age when I walk in they forget themselves and cannot think of the preordained questions they are supposed to ask, and only go through the motions. You know, those hypothetical explorations they have been trained to solicit, to find out if you can be useful to the company and/or not a flake? We both ended up looking at our watches and wondering how to end this charade making us both irritable. Perhaps they see their mother and are; a) wracked with guilt, b) irritated beyond words, c) clueless, d) thankful their own mother is safely at home in the suburbs planting the petunias. It truly is disheartening, C. Are you experiencing any of this?
I try to laugh at myself, find the humor, and this is certainly a absurd episode in my life, so ludicrous it almost shames me and I feel it is not funny at all but something pitiful though I'm not inclined to thinking of myself as pitiful, (You know how arrogant I can be) and refuse to accept my pitiable condition. That I need a job, any job at this time is too preposterous although I do see older women working in stores and there's no reason I shouldn't but somehow working and/or not working for meager wages are both ridiculous at this age.
Yes, I could write that book on the essence of bohemian living but if you end up in a homeless shelter what would be the purpose? No one wants to end up homeless at 60 especially a woman but that is how I have played my life, or should I say my cards and I could mope and say I have been unlucky but mostly I've had decent luck: I've just come to a fork in the road and whenever that happens, I tend to choose unwisely though I've had my fun. Now my fun is my discredit. I could laugh, say at least I didn't sit for thirty or forty years in a cubicle or in any of the other dreary occupations that lead to a respectable retirement, a place in the sun but instead I have to say I was probably not correct in my thinking and should not pass this information on.
Some of our old crowd, C., died of drink and/or drugs early on. Maybe that is the respectable way a bohemian lives and dies: Young. It does seem like a better idea than hanging on when there is no place to call home and are a burden to family and an embarrassment to yourself but I’m being overly dramatic. You always said I had a flair for theatrics when pressed.
I could have done things differently. I've had many opportunities for a prosperous working life but I chose painting even though I knew I could never make a living at it and was only moderately good at it. Hardly anyone can. It is hard to be a painter when you move so often as most bohemians do although there are exceptions such as my friend Richard who hasn’t moved in thirty years and still has his vinyl collection completely intact. I envy him that. I have paintings scattered about and it grieves me that they are in boxes and not on my wall; at the moment I have no walls unless you count this hotel room I'm residing it as I write this. It is a nice room and at one time I did have paintings on the wall, D. insisted, but I decided to pack them up and store them so I can travel light if I have to. More ridiculousness, is there no end?
I should have gotten serious about writing sooner, I knew I had a bent for it, I was told that in college by my beloved W., but never felt I had a great deal to say. That is before I discovered a penchant for fiction where you don't have to have anything to say, you just make it up as I am possibly doing now. I did write a short novel in my 30s but when it was rejected I put it away and have no idea now where it ended up having moved so many times. Yes, I did write some very respectable poetry in my 30s and 40s, thanks for mentioning it, but what can you do with poetry except go to readings with other poor souls? The book that was to be published never even made it to the printer before the publisher went bankrupt. Ah, the bohemian life.
What do I look like these days? I forget we haven’t seen each other since our 30s. I was really clothes conscious then and you were the opposite. I have hardly any clothes now. Most women my age have entire rooms of clothes. They buy a lot and a wardrobe builds up if you don't declutter regularly. I don't even have a closet. I have a dresser with three drawers and they are only half full. I only have enough for a suitcase which is limiting. I'm looking for a job in a clothing store and do not have the outfits to wear if I were hired. I guess I would buy new and that is always fun. I could use some new clothes although I must say, what I have is not bad. Just not much of it. I do have some nice jewelry; I had more but sold half of it when gold prices went sky-high. I still have a nice strand of pearls given to me by D., two gold rings, one yellow gold, one white gold, and a couple of necklaces. It's easy to move around with jewelry so it has been a better investment. Books and CDs are a bitch if you're trying to travel light. Add art supplies, paintings and you might as well hire a truck.
I hate to whine about my situation: it's of my own making. I was warned: Remember how petulant I got that time T. said to me, as we sat in our favorite diner drinking coffee (What was the name of that place?) that, You won't always have your good looks, Jill, so you had better be thinking of what you are going to do for yourself. You won't be as easily hired and you won't always find men to take care of you. I was in my late 20s at the time and it seemed too far off and fussy to think about. Also a little catty as she married for security and wasn't exactly joyous. I lived by the seat of my pants, we all did, and she thought this not the best way to go about having a life and she was probably right. It worked for me for so many years; partly because I did have good looks and an easy personality that was attractive to some. Even God smiled on me more often than not.
Now I’m 60, and while I wouldn't say I was ugly, I do not have those good looks anymore and my free spirit is suspect at this age. Face it, bohemianism is dead. I am completely outdated, I know that. D. is a total boho, a musician who didn't happen to die of drugs or drink--he can drink like an elephant and survived a harrowing addiction to the brown menace--I don’t think you ever knew him. He is also in a plight but is a little older and collecting Social Security though not enough to live on. Together we can whine in unison but that is not particularly helpful and brings us down so that we want to escape each other.
This is turning into a real treatise on aging bohemianism; wry, noble and confessional. I want to make light of a situation in order not to feel too bad but I'm wandering in the desert which of course, is nothing new. I often think of friends I've had in the past--wonder what they're doing, how they survived the tech revolution and in the case of artists, how they ended up. I think of the musicians I knew and wonder where they are today. Sometimes I try to find them online and when there is no mention of them, I worry and wonder: Did they get a job, find a spouse to support them, die young? I have a painter friend who makes his living at it and I know he can't be doing well with that in this economy but his web site is shut down. I think of them all. I also had friends who worked in record stores and like me, gaily thought this was the only job they ever wanted: what are they doing now? Did they grow up or just old? I would often think of you, my dear--where you ended up after leaving Wall Street? It’s funny you ended up in a book store too.
About five years ago I had the brilliant idea to resurrect certain elements of my bohemian past, our good old days, and return to San Francisco. I can't say I regret it, I am not yet in a homeless shelter though it is not far-fetched which brings me back to my job search at 60 and my ridiculous embarrassment. Yesterday I had an interview in a very chic clothing store on Fillmore. I am a good writer so I often get called based on my spontaneous, high-spirited cover letter. It's all bullshit but not hard to do. When I walked in the door it took the young woman who was so eager to interview me--called twice, e-mailed twice--a full minute and a half to register that I was the person she was expecting and then she glazed over and tried to end the entire episode before she too felt ridiculous. “Just leave your resume, okay? I’ll get back to you to set up the interview,” she mumbled. A startling departure from her telephone directive--You can start this weekend, can't you?
In my defense, I would look good in the shop's clothing line: it was just my style but it would be hard to get that across to someone who could be my daughter and found me seasoned with age. The reason I applied at that particular store is because I could wear those clothes if I could afford $300 dresses. My old friend P., counterculture with a job, laughed at the very idea of $300 dresses, too ludicrous to be taken seriously. But he spends $300 easily on booze each month so why is a dress so absurd? I told him I don't drink much or eat in restaurants so I should be able to spend $300 for a dress or $200 for a blouse but that is not in the least bohemian. But given the choice, I would pay $300 for a dress before I would spend it in a restaurant. Neither are bohemian but markedly bourgeois. The thing is, $300 for a dress is not considered at all extravagant these days in this city. This is not the San Francisco of old, C. You will find many changes if you come back.
That slim, blond, generic store manager might not think a stylish wardrobe is important at 60 but then again, that is when maintenance is paramount. I may not have my youthful good looks but if I have on a $1,000 suit, I am not so pitiful, right? It's all a matter of perspective. Clothes are extremely important to some and not at all to others. I've always liked them but as I said, have to travel light. I went through a period when I bought expensive handbags: Now I use a five-dollar backpack to carry my stuff around the streets of the city, every day is a hike--a lot of walking up a lot of hills, you need your hands free for getting on and off buses and making quick transactions. I look at handbags now and would love to own some of them I see but know it is not happening in this chapter of my life. The one I have left after selling the others may end up in a homeless shelter and feel ridiculous right along with me.
After that disastrous non-interview, I went into the nearest bookstore knowing full well that was hopeless but at least the owner was pleasant and happily took my resume even though he told me what I already know: the retail book business is almost finished. At least he took me seriously and said he would surely call if he had an opening. There, I did not feel ridiculous but at home. I should have started my own bookstore years ago but then today I would have even bigger troubles. Or not. I wish I had my own book store but that is not traveling lightly though it is bohemian. Think Ferlinghetti and City Lights. (Remember the night he asked you to leave because you were too drunk and fell down the stairs to the basement? We were with that guy from the Dead Kennedys who was a friend of yours. I keep remembering our silly days and nights living on upper Grant.)
I am happy to report that since I have been ceaselessly unemployed, I have been writing fiction and essays and have been pleased with my progress. But how do you get published with any speed when time is of the essence, as they say? I'm not even sure what that phrase means and it sounds like a cliché, I suppose. I have to weed out clichés if I want to be published I am told.
I think this is where I should end this letter. I've been typing like mad, I‘m really up to speed with my typing, I should try for an office job but I never pass the tests at the agencies. You were always better at getting office jobs than I was. I don't know why I have gone on so long: it has turned out not to be humorous in the least but rather sad though I'm not looking for pity; just the opposite. What I need is money to live my life out the way I have always lived it but at 60, I may not be able to get the jobs the way I did in my youthful attractive days but I was warned, wasn't I? Even if I get a job, it will probably be menial which will hurt my self-esteem and I'll get prickly. But you never know, sometimes menial labor can be a solace if you are able to forget you are 60 and pretend you are still a youthful attractive girl who could do anything but just as a lark, wants to work in this grocery store stocking shelves. That is the true bohemian spirit I suppose; transcendence. I pray that as life gets more futile and gnarly I can transcend.
That would be the endgame of a life of frivolity, but you would have to be enlightened in a way I suspect I am not at this time. Perhaps I should take a trip to the Himalayas and improve my life skills in the margins of society. But then that ridiculous thinking is what got me into this mess of looking for a job at age 60 in a recession. Don't you just love it? I could go on and on but will stop here: I don't have the courage for suicide and I do not drink enough or do serious drugs to expect an early demise. I never smoked, what was a thinking? I should go for longevity? What is a poor bohemian to do? My phone just rang and it's someone wanting another interview. I'm tempted to tell them my age to save us both agony but they would not be allowed to discriminate and would be worried about getting sued so we will have to go through with it. I'll just take my chances and try not to feel too past-date. This chapter will end as all others have; that is the subtext of the bohemian life--to take things in stride, to be conscious of impermanence.
I should find consolation in the fact that my youth was lived in a more optimistic time with a cultural insouciance that has been shed like last year’s dress in a fashionista's closet. That's D.'s philosophy. At least we had good music, he often says. I used to love this line of thinking but it does nothing for me now. As you said, money has become the litmus test of coolness. It’s the same here. There’s no escape, my friend.
I’m sorry I can’t offer you a place to stay if you return to the states. I live in a hotel room and quite often D. is here with me adding to the claustrophobia. I love him but he takes up a lot of oxygen and space. What I can do is reserve a room here for you if and when you do return. It is not cheap--but cheaper than an apartment. Yes, there are probably a lot of your old friends around. All living in cramped rooms with their artworks, records and memorabilia. Our old friend, L., was smart and left the music business early and took a course in computer programming without even knowing what it was at the time. Now he is the only one with a high-paying job, a snazzy apartment and goes to all the good restaurants and shows. He’s a little bristly so I wouldn’t count on staying with him for long if you're considering it. Just a warning. He’s generous but expects a return. I don’t mind that but could never figure out what he expected, leaving us both with hard feelings.
So yes, I have yet another job interview--a clothing store. I haven’t a hope in hell but I’ll go anyway. Good luck finding a job in London, but if you do come back, expect hard times. As someone said to me recently, This ain’t the summer of love, babe.
Dear C.,
It’s so great to hear from you after all this time. Yes, I am in San Francisco. I can’t believe you are in London. You must tell me more about life in a foreign country in such an exciting city aside from what you say about being unemployed and destitute. I guess that takes up all of your energy and thought so maybe you’re not feeling so great about London at the moment. I’m not feeling so great about San Francisco in my present state either. It seems we both hit the wall, so to speak, at the same time. You and I have had our share of bohemian living, that’s for sure, but we were younger then, riddled with hope and spunk.
Your letter reminded me of so many things from the past. Yes, I too think fondly of the week we spent in New York going to CBGBs every night. And yes I remember trying to pick up Joey Ramone though it was only to be his friend. I thought he’d be a nice addition to my collection of rock and roll guys I hang out with. He was fun, bless his soul.
So yeah, I’ll tell you a little bit about myself these days. I too am unemployed and living in a really expensive town. I feel your pain, believe me. I just got back from another job interview that has left me rattled and disheartened. I know I am ridiculous trying to find a job at age 60, even if I don't look 60 or feel 60 whatever that is supposed to look and feel like. All I know is I am too young for Social Security and too old to work and that is a built-in conflict for my story--no need to contrive one at all.
I think you knew I had been a newspaper editor before relocating here but that job is all but finished. Possibly if I had connections in San Francisco I could get something but coming from another state, I doubt I would be considered. Or so I was told. I worked in a popular book store for the past year and it was agreeable--I couldn’t complain (I got roundly criticized by D. when I did) but thought it was something of a comedown. Little did I know how bad things would get.
It's not that I want to work; I realize my skills are dubious, my hearing is bad from all those rock concerts, I have hot flashes when stressed or in a stuffy environment. It is not going to be breezy like my previous work-life that was all set up for fun; record stores, book stores, newspapers. The book stores have diminished considerably with the downturn, record stores hardly exist and newspapers are shedding editors like old skin cells in a mud bath. I bet there’s still a lot of great book stores in London. Even the big corporate ones are hurting here. Pretty soon it will be all Amazon, all the time. I love Amazon but I do feel something is missing in a town when there are more T-mobile stores than anything else.
No, I am in a pickle; my plans have not worked out. My plan, not my most astute, had been to live my later years in San Francisco, a town, as you know, I love, as many do, and was arrogant enough to think I would have a place here. To have a place here would be to have been stubbornly clinging to a job and a rent-controlled apartment for the past 20-30 years. We really went astray on that one, C. I think of our $300-apartment in North Beach? Then there are the freshly retired, moving here after selling the big-ass suburban house and buying a sparkling new condo in SOMA. An empty-nester with a nest egg. We missed that boat too. Then there are the dot-commers who, being creative types, do have a genuine propensity for the Barbary Coast’s famous bohemianism but technology is corporate/government by nature and there’s no getting around it.
Alas, I am none of those things. I am and was a bohemian and that species does not find the later years to be easy if you really were a true bohemian and spent your life in the margins of the system, on the outskirts of the economy with no pension or savings or established business or career. I thought I might like to write a book in the true bohemian spirit for future generations to find a way to live alternatively but I have to admit I am not a success on any level and would be embarrassed to put it all down. I can barely have a conversation with family members without feeling ridiculous. They try to ignore me but once a year they all get together and have a hand-wringing session on my behalf. Then my mother calls with the results. I am in no mood for any of it having a blithe spirit that is so out of fashion that no one even remembers that it was a fashion. This is not the way it was supposed to be. (It’s hard to change a radical approach at the eleventh hour but I do try.)
So here I am looking for work in a young person's town, competing with kids who were more skilled in high school than I am after a life of working and when I go for interviews, I am ridiculous to the young people interviewing me. They are so startled at my age when I walk in they forget themselves and cannot think of the preordained questions they are supposed to ask, and only go through the motions. You know, those hypothetical explorations they have been trained to solicit, to find out if you can be useful to the company and/or not a flake? We both ended up looking at our watches and wondering how to end this charade making us both irritable. Perhaps they see their mother and are; a) wracked with guilt, b) irritated beyond words, c) clueless, d) thankful their own mother is safely at home in the suburbs planting the petunias. It truly is disheartening, C. Are you experiencing any of this?
I try to laugh at myself, find the humor, and this is certainly a absurd episode in my life, so ludicrous it almost shames me and I feel it is not funny at all but something pitiful though I'm not inclined to thinking of myself as pitiful, (You know how arrogant I can be) and refuse to accept my pitiable condition. That I need a job, any job at this time is too preposterous although I do see older women working in stores and there's no reason I shouldn't but somehow working and/or not working for meager wages are both ridiculous at this age.
Yes, I could write that book on the essence of bohemian living but if you end up in a homeless shelter what would be the purpose? No one wants to end up homeless at 60 especially a woman but that is how I have played my life, or should I say my cards and I could mope and say I have been unlucky but mostly I've had decent luck: I've just come to a fork in the road and whenever that happens, I tend to choose unwisely though I've had my fun. Now my fun is my discredit. I could laugh, say at least I didn't sit for thirty or forty years in a cubicle or in any of the other dreary occupations that lead to a respectable retirement, a place in the sun but instead I have to say I was probably not correct in my thinking and should not pass this information on.
Some of our old crowd, C., died of drink and/or drugs early on. Maybe that is the respectable way a bohemian lives and dies: Young. It does seem like a better idea than hanging on when there is no place to call home and are a burden to family and an embarrassment to yourself but I’m being overly dramatic. You always said I had a flair for theatrics when pressed.
I could have done things differently. I've had many opportunities for a prosperous working life but I chose painting even though I knew I could never make a living at it and was only moderately good at it. Hardly anyone can. It is hard to be a painter when you move so often as most bohemians do although there are exceptions such as my friend Richard who hasn’t moved in thirty years and still has his vinyl collection completely intact. I envy him that. I have paintings scattered about and it grieves me that they are in boxes and not on my wall; at the moment I have no walls unless you count this hotel room I'm residing it as I write this. It is a nice room and at one time I did have paintings on the wall, D. insisted, but I decided to pack them up and store them so I can travel light if I have to. More ridiculousness, is there no end?
I should have gotten serious about writing sooner, I knew I had a bent for it, I was told that in college by my beloved W., but never felt I had a great deal to say. That is before I discovered a penchant for fiction where you don't have to have anything to say, you just make it up as I am possibly doing now. I did write a short novel in my 30s but when it was rejected I put it away and have no idea now where it ended up having moved so many times. Yes, I did write some very respectable poetry in my 30s and 40s, thanks for mentioning it, but what can you do with poetry except go to readings with other poor souls? The book that was to be published never even made it to the printer before the publisher went bankrupt. Ah, the bohemian life.
What do I look like these days? I forget we haven’t seen each other since our 30s. I was really clothes conscious then and you were the opposite. I have hardly any clothes now. Most women my age have entire rooms of clothes. They buy a lot and a wardrobe builds up if you don't declutter regularly. I don't even have a closet. I have a dresser with three drawers and they are only half full. I only have enough for a suitcase which is limiting. I'm looking for a job in a clothing store and do not have the outfits to wear if I were hired. I guess I would buy new and that is always fun. I could use some new clothes although I must say, what I have is not bad. Just not much of it. I do have some nice jewelry; I had more but sold half of it when gold prices went sky-high. I still have a nice strand of pearls given to me by D., two gold rings, one yellow gold, one white gold, and a couple of necklaces. It's easy to move around with jewelry so it has been a better investment. Books and CDs are a bitch if you're trying to travel light. Add art supplies, paintings and you might as well hire a truck.
I hate to whine about my situation: it's of my own making. I was warned: Remember how petulant I got that time T. said to me, as we sat in our favorite diner drinking coffee (What was the name of that place?) that, You won't always have your good looks, Jill, so you had better be thinking of what you are going to do for yourself. You won't be as easily hired and you won't always find men to take care of you. I was in my late 20s at the time and it seemed too far off and fussy to think about. Also a little catty as she married for security and wasn't exactly joyous. I lived by the seat of my pants, we all did, and she thought this not the best way to go about having a life and she was probably right. It worked for me for so many years; partly because I did have good looks and an easy personality that was attractive to some. Even God smiled on me more often than not.
Now I’m 60, and while I wouldn't say I was ugly, I do not have those good looks anymore and my free spirit is suspect at this age. Face it, bohemianism is dead. I am completely outdated, I know that. D. is a total boho, a musician who didn't happen to die of drugs or drink--he can drink like an elephant and survived a harrowing addiction to the brown menace--I don’t think you ever knew him. He is also in a plight but is a little older and collecting Social Security though not enough to live on. Together we can whine in unison but that is not particularly helpful and brings us down so that we want to escape each other.
This is turning into a real treatise on aging bohemianism; wry, noble and confessional. I want to make light of a situation in order not to feel too bad but I'm wandering in the desert which of course, is nothing new. I often think of friends I've had in the past--wonder what they're doing, how they survived the tech revolution and in the case of artists, how they ended up. I think of the musicians I knew and wonder where they are today. Sometimes I try to find them online and when there is no mention of them, I worry and wonder: Did they get a job, find a spouse to support them, die young? I have a painter friend who makes his living at it and I know he can't be doing well with that in this economy but his web site is shut down. I think of them all. I also had friends who worked in record stores and like me, gaily thought this was the only job they ever wanted: what are they doing now? Did they grow up or just old? I would often think of you, my dear--where you ended up after leaving Wall Street? It’s funny you ended up in a book store too.
About five years ago I had the brilliant idea to resurrect certain elements of my bohemian past, our good old days, and return to San Francisco. I can't say I regret it, I am not yet in a homeless shelter though it is not far-fetched which brings me back to my job search at 60 and my ridiculous embarrassment. Yesterday I had an interview in a very chic clothing store on Fillmore. I am a good writer so I often get called based on my spontaneous, high-spirited cover letter. It's all bullshit but not hard to do. When I walked in the door it took the young woman who was so eager to interview me--called twice, e-mailed twice--a full minute and a half to register that I was the person she was expecting and then she glazed over and tried to end the entire episode before she too felt ridiculous. “Just leave your resume, okay? I’ll get back to you to set up the interview,” she mumbled. A startling departure from her telephone directive--You can start this weekend, can't you?
In my defense, I would look good in the shop's clothing line: it was just my style but it would be hard to get that across to someone who could be my daughter and found me seasoned with age. The reason I applied at that particular store is because I could wear those clothes if I could afford $300 dresses. My old friend P., counterculture with a job, laughed at the very idea of $300 dresses, too ludicrous to be taken seriously. But he spends $300 easily on booze each month so why is a dress so absurd? I told him I don't drink much or eat in restaurants so I should be able to spend $300 for a dress or $200 for a blouse but that is not in the least bohemian. But given the choice, I would pay $300 for a dress before I would spend it in a restaurant. Neither are bohemian but markedly bourgeois. The thing is, $300 for a dress is not considered at all extravagant these days in this city. This is not the San Francisco of old, C. You will find many changes if you come back.
That slim, blond, generic store manager might not think a stylish wardrobe is important at 60 but then again, that is when maintenance is paramount. I may not have my youthful good looks but if I have on a $1,000 suit, I am not so pitiful, right? It's all a matter of perspective. Clothes are extremely important to some and not at all to others. I've always liked them but as I said, have to travel light. I went through a period when I bought expensive handbags: Now I use a five-dollar backpack to carry my stuff around the streets of the city, every day is a hike--a lot of walking up a lot of hills, you need your hands free for getting on and off buses and making quick transactions. I look at handbags now and would love to own some of them I see but know it is not happening in this chapter of my life. The one I have left after selling the others may end up in a homeless shelter and feel ridiculous right along with me.
After that disastrous non-interview, I went into the nearest bookstore knowing full well that was hopeless but at least the owner was pleasant and happily took my resume even though he told me what I already know: the retail book business is almost finished. At least he took me seriously and said he would surely call if he had an opening. There, I did not feel ridiculous but at home. I should have started my own bookstore years ago but then today I would have even bigger troubles. Or not. I wish I had my own book store but that is not traveling lightly though it is bohemian. Think Ferlinghetti and City Lights. (Remember the night he asked you to leave because you were too drunk and fell down the stairs to the basement? We were with that guy from the Dead Kennedys who was a friend of yours. I keep remembering our silly days and nights living on upper Grant.)
I am happy to report that since I have been ceaselessly unemployed, I have been writing fiction and essays and have been pleased with my progress. But how do you get published with any speed when time is of the essence, as they say? I'm not even sure what that phrase means and it sounds like a cliché, I suppose. I have to weed out clichés if I want to be published I am told.
I think this is where I should end this letter. I've been typing like mad, I‘m really up to speed with my typing, I should try for an office job but I never pass the tests at the agencies. You were always better at getting office jobs than I was. I don't know why I have gone on so long: it has turned out not to be humorous in the least but rather sad though I'm not looking for pity; just the opposite. What I need is money to live my life out the way I have always lived it but at 60, I may not be able to get the jobs the way I did in my youthful attractive days but I was warned, wasn't I? Even if I get a job, it will probably be menial which will hurt my self-esteem and I'll get prickly. But you never know, sometimes menial labor can be a solace if you are able to forget you are 60 and pretend you are still a youthful attractive girl who could do anything but just as a lark, wants to work in this grocery store stocking shelves. That is the true bohemian spirit I suppose; transcendence. I pray that as life gets more futile and gnarly I can transcend.
That would be the endgame of a life of frivolity, but you would have to be enlightened in a way I suspect I am not at this time. Perhaps I should take a trip to the Himalayas and improve my life skills in the margins of society. But then that ridiculous thinking is what got me into this mess of looking for a job at age 60 in a recession. Don't you just love it? I could go on and on but will stop here: I don't have the courage for suicide and I do not drink enough or do serious drugs to expect an early demise. I never smoked, what was a thinking? I should go for longevity? What is a poor bohemian to do? My phone just rang and it's someone wanting another interview. I'm tempted to tell them my age to save us both agony but they would not be allowed to discriminate and would be worried about getting sued so we will have to go through with it. I'll just take my chances and try not to feel too past-date. This chapter will end as all others have; that is the subtext of the bohemian life--to take things in stride, to be conscious of impermanence.
I should find consolation in the fact that my youth was lived in a more optimistic time with a cultural insouciance that has been shed like last year’s dress in a fashionista's closet. That's D.'s philosophy. At least we had good music, he often says. I used to love this line of thinking but it does nothing for me now. As you said, money has become the litmus test of coolness. It’s the same here. There’s no escape, my friend.
I’m sorry I can’t offer you a place to stay if you return to the states. I live in a hotel room and quite often D. is here with me adding to the claustrophobia. I love him but he takes up a lot of oxygen and space. What I can do is reserve a room here for you if and when you do return. It is not cheap--but cheaper than an apartment. Yes, there are probably a lot of your old friends around. All living in cramped rooms with their artworks, records and memorabilia. Our old friend, L., was smart and left the music business early and took a course in computer programming without even knowing what it was at the time. Now he is the only one with a high-paying job, a snazzy apartment and goes to all the good restaurants and shows. He’s a little bristly so I wouldn’t count on staying with him for long if you're considering it. Just a warning. He’s generous but expects a return. I don’t mind that but could never figure out what he expected, leaving us both with hard feelings.
So yes, I have yet another job interview--a clothing store. I haven’t a hope in hell but I’ll go anyway. Good luck finding a job in London, but if you do come back, expect hard times. As someone said to me recently, This ain’t the summer of love, babe.
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