Just North of Whoville (12 page)

But I knew I was a goner.

Maybe it was time to give up. Maybe this was a sign. Move back home to Milwaukee. Maybe get a teaching degree. Become one of those bitter drama teaches whose breath smelled suspiciously of Peppermint Schnapps.

The next morning when my alarm went off, I shot out of bed in a panic, fully thinking it was the Illegal Sublease Police knocking down my door. Like a felon on the lam, I jumped out of bed and quickly hopped in the shower, knowing the coppers would be on my tail any second now. As I lathered up, I realized that being in the shower left me at my most vulnerable. That’s when Norman Bates attacked. They’d probably been waiting for me take a shower. Oh no. I had to get out of here.

But as I shut off the hot water, the only sound was the distant scratch of Heidi pushing the litter around her box. Apparently no one had knocked or rang the bell. If they had, the cat would have gone into hiding like Anne Frank.

I tried to relax as I turned on the hair dryer; but it was difficult to relax knowing the sound would deafen me to their approach. Under the white noise of the hair dryer, I tried to think my way out of my predicament. In order to move, I’d need a few thousand dollars to cover a deposit, first (and possibly last) month’s rent and moving fees. With what I was making at ABC, it would take me over a year to save that kind of money. And by that time, they would be throwing smoke bombs in the windows and blaring heavy metal music to get me to disperse.

My own little Waco.

They’d bring in negotiators. Helicopters flying overheard. CNN would show up. Maybe even Jesse Jackson. It would be all over the news. They’d use that horrible picture of me taken at the cast party for
Too Much Salt
, a showcase featuring Jenn Baggs in the works of Chekhov. This last known photo of me with my left eye closed and my bangs plastered to my forehead would be displayed all over the national media. Clips from my previous directorial effort---
Bedazzled: A Night With Porter Wagoner
would be shown on all the networks. Why did I ever agree to direct that? Oh god why?

Eventually, they’d drag out my friends for interviews. Celia would look stunning as she purred into the camera, “Gosh, we tried so hard to help her. We gave her a place to live for almost a year, but she just couldn’t make it in New York. Dorrie, sweetie, if you’re listening, come out of the apartment and nobody will get hurt,” she pleaded as she flashed that convent-winning smile. Reporters would swiftly cut to a live remote from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

“
Honey,” my mother would begin as the tears started to fall down her cheek, “I just want you to know that we love you and if you need a place to live, you can always come home.”

“
Dorrie,” my father would speak up, choking back the emotion, but trying to appeal to my mental state, “maybe we can turn the garage into a little theatre. I’ll put up some lights and some curtains and you can do your playacting with your stuffed animals like you used to. I have Mr. Zippy right here,” he would say as he held up a stuffed monkey. “Mr. Zippy misses doing Shakespeare and…we just want you back home where you’re safe, honey.”

And then the Chief of the Police would call a news conference.

“
We are in touch with the suspect, a thirty-four year-old temp who calls herself Dorrie Krakowski. Our negotiators are working closely with Ms. Krakowski and we ask for your prayers and a few hours of silence so that Ms. Krakowski can get her cat to come out of hiding. We have every hope that if Ms. Krakowski can retrieve her cat, she will come out of the apartment and the situation will end peacefully.”

As I turned off the hair dryer, I heard Heidi circling around the laundry basket, trying to make a comfy spot. There was something peaceful about cats. Even ones you rarely saw.

Suddenly, there was a knock on my door.

I crept slowly to the kitchen and replied to the wooden door.

“
Who is it?”

“
Building manager.”

My brain seemed to actually freeze.

“
Um…I just got out of the shower. Just a minute.”

Why did I say that? I just dried my hair. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I quickly opened the refrigerator, pulled out a bottle of cold water, leaned into the shower and poured it over my head.

Then I raced to the “Alex Box”, pulled out the shaving cream, tie, and the Ted’s Ribs and Chicken shirt, spritzed the men’s cologne around the place, threw a towel over my head and opened the door.

“
Hi. You must be Alex’s girlfriend,” he said as I rubbed my wet hair with the towel. “Sorry I caught you at a bad time.”

“
Oh, that’s okay,” I said peering out from under the towel.

“
I’m Nate, the building manager.”

Oh god. It was him. The cute playwright.

“
Hey---I know you! You’re the ice cream girl. Dorrie, right?”

Wait---was I Dorrie? Or Celia? What did Alex say? What did I say? What was my story? I know Alex had important Wall Street business, but we really should have had a meeting about this.

“
Oh yeah. I remember. Hi,” I simply replied.

I guess I was going with Dorrie.

“
You’re Alex’s girlfriend? Wow. I mean….I’m sorry. I meant that as a compliment. You caught me at my day job,” he said holding his hands in the “Stick ‘em Up” position.

“
Well, we all have to do it. That’s theatre,” I said nervously making conversation.

“
So you have one, too. What do you do?”

“
I work at a modeling agency.”

“
Really?”

There it was again. The incredulous reply that I could somehow be involved in the modeling profession.

“
I’m sorry,” he apologized again. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”

“
It’s okay. Get it all the time. I’m not a model. Just work in the office.”

“
Oh…sure. I mean…” he stumbled. “What I was trying to say…is that you seemed too intelligent to be involved in…the modeling industry.”

“
Well, thank you. It’s a living.”

“
Oh yeah. Me, too. So---Alex said there’s leak?”

“
Oh, it’s way beyond a leak, at this point,” I said as I led him to the main room.

“
Wow. This is bad,” he said as he looked up into the rafters. “Sorry about this. Maybe you guys could go over to your place for a bit. He said your apartment is being painted right now?”

Painted? That only takes a few days. We really should have had a meeting about this.

“
Well…it’s painting….and plumbing…and electrical work…it’s a whole thing they’re doing.” I tried to keep it short and sweet. I’m not good at lies. And the thing is---When you start telling them, you have to make sure you remember them.

“
That sounds like a mess,” he said with such genuine compassion and sympathy that I began to worry if I told one more lie, my nose would start to grow.

“
Oh----I got the script,” I said, trying to change the subject.

“
Well…it’s just an adaptation,” he said self-consciously. “Spoiler Alert: Bell rings…”

“…
angel gets his wings.”

“
Yeah. I really am a writer, though. I swear!” he laughed. “I have actual plays to prove it.”

“
I’d love to read them sometime.”

“
Ah!---now that’s a dangerous thing to say to a writer. Next thing you know you’ll have a stack of manuscripts on your doorstep.”

“
Or maybe just bring them to rehearsal,” I suggested, not sure having the Building Manager hovering around my doorstep would be such a good thing.

And then I had a horrible thought. Steve. He knows Steve.

A few minutes later, I looked out my window and saw Nate drive away.

“
Steve…” I whispered into the phone, “you know about my whole illegal sublease thing, right? Well, it just got a little more complicated…”

The next day, I sat on a futon wearing an ugly Christmas sweater and Timmy’s holiday pin.

“
I think we’re getting somewhere,” Dr. Price said as she surveyed my festive ensemble. “Didn’t I tell you? The Christmas Spirit makes all the difference.”

“
Oh, absolutely!” I beamed as brightly as my cubic zirconia pin. “I think so, too. So I was wondering, maybe you could take a look at my resume,” I said as I reached into my bag.

After all, isn’t that why I started coming here to begin with?

“
Oh yeah, yeah,” she said as she jumped out of her seat. “But let me just show you this. Oh, you’re going to love it!”

She ran across the room to retrieve some sort of mechanism with a reindeer and the flailing arms of a nylon-faced, puppet grandma that moved around wildly as the song, “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer” came gushing out of a mini-speaker.

“
What do you think?”

“
Oh…it’s…cute. It’s really cute,” I did my best to squeeze out.

“
You like it?”

“
Oh yeah. It’s got the song…and the reindeer…and the grandma. Just…ties the whole thing together with a big red bow!”

“
It’s my gift to you.”

“
Oh---I…I couldn’t.”

“
No. You keep it.”

“
Really. I...”

“
You hate it.”

“
No! No. It’s…cute.”

“
Dorrie----it’s irritating. Even I know that.”

“
Then why are you trying to give it to me?”

“
I’ve noticed that week number three is generally when patients lie about their progress.”

“
A patient is in the nuthouse. I’m on a futon. Completely different.”

‘
When you sit your ass down on my futon, you’re my patient. Why is this so hard for you?”

“
I just don’t see it making a difference in my life. I’m sorry. I tried the Christmas Blend. But it just tasted like regular coffee. They just put it in a holiday cup. And everywhere I go they’re playing Christmas music. It’s not even December yet!”

“
Okay. Just take a breath,” she said like yoga instructor in a mental ward. “Let’s start with one thing. Christmas music. Why does it bug the shit out of you?”

“
It’s just the same music. Every year. The same Top 40 I’ve heard for thirty-four years.”

“
I thought you were thirty-five.”

“
Not yet. And why is everyone harping on my age?”

“
Dorrie,” she said clicking her fingers and waving them in front of my face. “Snap out of it. What are you doing for Thanksgiving on Thursday?”

“
Nothing. My family’s back home….”

“
If you’re going to have The Best Christmas Ever, you need to have a good Thanksgiving. Go to a friend’s house. Have a nice dinner.”

“
No one invited me.”

She began mumbling things in Spanish to herself like Ricky Ricardo and ended with, “If you were a dog, they would drag you to a metal table and stick a needle in your ass. Dorrie… Are you a glass half-full person, or a glass half-empty one?”

“
I don’t know. What’s in the glass?”

The next day at work, I got on the phone with Steve. “I was thinking I could make dinner and we could go over the play.”

He seemed a little distracted. Like he was busy on one of his hook-up sites----or worse.

“
Um…well…this uh…. This isn’t like a date or anything?”

“
NO! It’s not. It’s really, really not.”

“
I’m sorry, I just wanted to ask.”
“Good god. What is wrong with you? No. Not a date. I know your type is twenty year-old actresses with low self-esteem.”

“
I wasn’t saying you were old…”

“
Why is everyone fixated on my age? My psychiatrist says I’m supposed to do this and I thought it would be a nice gesture. So do you want to come over for stupid Thanksgiving dinner or not?”

“
Well….okay.”

“
Fine. Was that so hard?”

9

Thanksgiving is my kind of holiday. You cook a big meal and you eat. No gifts to buy, no songs to sing, no irritating decorations everywhere you go. In grammar school, we would simply trace our hand and make a turkey. Here you go, Mom. Happy Thanksgiving. What’s for dinner? Turkey? What a surprise!