Spin Doctor (14 page)

“That's probably 'cause their students don't know enough English to write them.” Molly sighed. “Okay, this may boil down to the toads after all. Where do they come off with such dumb topics? What kind of essays did you have when you were applying?”

“We only had one choice. ‘In John Donne's Meditation XVII, he claimed that “No man is an island.” Discuss.'”

“I don't even know what the fuck that means.”

I laughed. “I've got a confession. Neither did I.”

“So what did you do?”

“Supplemental materials. Lots of 'em! Actually, I wrote an essay on Hemingway.” Molly gave me a blank look. “I'm surprised you don't recognize the connection, Ms.-Hemingway-star-writer-for-Mrs.-Noguchi. ‘Never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.'”

“Huh?”

“It's the end of the ‘no man is an island' meditation. Basically I wormed my way around the essay. I think it was the interpretive dance I performed at my interview that nailed it though. I called it ‘Loneliness.'”

“Are you kidding?”

“Alas, no.”

“Was it as angsty as your crappy poetry?”

I nodded. “Although I think you should be kinder toward my creative efforts. They did get me into college.”

“I am so not doing an interpretive dance.”

“Then we're back to the toads.” I turned the page. “Let's read on.”

As we perused the application, I shuddered to think of the
crates of materials that must get scrutinized annually by admissions committees all over the country. In addition to the usual test scores and transcripts, the required essays and teacher recommendations, the pages of short-answer questions, and the supplemental materials that we hoped would be that make-or-break silver bullet, Molly would have to provide Bennington with a graded analytic essay and a performance report from her college guidance counselor—and I didn't get the vibe from Mr. Bernstein that he was too crazy about us. From our brief meeting in his office that afternoon, I sensed that he wished it wouldn't require so much effort to report enthusiastically about my daughter to the college of her choice—or even to the college of
hi
s choice.

After spending an hour and a half reviewing the application, Molly leaned over the dinette table, folded her arms in front of her and buried her face. “My favorite question is the one where they ask if you have any relatives or close friends who attended Bennington. Are you
sure
I can't just backpack around Europe for a year? You're always telling your clients to take risks—like that's the most important thing in the world. So why can't you do in your personal life what you do in your professional life and let your own daughter take one?”

“For one thing, my clients aren't minors who happen to be related to me. And for the time being, given everything Mr. Bernstein said this afternoon, don't you think it's risky enough to try to get accepted to Bennington?” I flipped through the application's numerous pages. “At least you don't have to sign an affidavit swearing that you're heterosexual,” I muttered grimly.

“What?”

I'd been thinking about Claude and Naomi's international adoption procedure, and their request for my assistance in completing the sheafs of complex paperwork. For all their left
brain/right brain teasers and myriad questions designed to probe a person's psyche as much as ascertain their bank balance, do these voluminous applications really measure the sum of a person? Their values, their strengths, their potential to improve mankind? “Nothing,” I mumbled to Molly. “Never mind.”

ALICE

“If Mala Sonia ever gives you a prediction, you should take it seriously. And it doesn't give me any satisfaction to say so.” Alice threw up her hands. “I was this close,” she said, “
finally
with a steady acting job. Okay, Off-Broadway wasn't making me rich, but I suppose that falls into the ‘be careful what you wish for' category. I wanted to be a full-time, working actress, instead of an abused office temp. I got my wish. I just didn't know how short-lived it would be.”

“Is
Grandma Finnegan's Wake
closing?” I asked her.

“Not exactly. Listen to me; I sound like one of those old Hertz commercials. I play Fionulla Finnegan, a former
Star Search
winner. She's totally outrageous. I get to sing too. It's a wonderful part. A lot of the show is improv, which leaves lots of room for spontaneous reactions and interactions between the characters and with the audience. I went into the show as a replacement for the original actress, a bitch named Bitsy Burton who left to join the Chicago company, which apparently died a premature death, so she's back in the Off-Broadway production again. They couldn't give her her old role because
I
was in it, but
one of the other actresses in the New York company got a better job somewhere. So they ended up putting Bitsy—who had originated my part—into the vacated role of Megan, Fionulla's very unsexy cousin—who's a therapist—sorry—and who has to dress like the stereotype of an Upper West Side shrink in thick glasses, Birkenstocks, and unflattering dirndl skirts.”

I glanced down at my own attire. “Dirndls camouflage wide hips. Don't knock them.”

Alice blushed. “I am
so so
sorry. Open mouth, insert foot, swallow whole.”

“It's okay,” I ribbed her. “I wear soft lenses and my Birkenstocks are at the cobblers. Anyway, I'd rather hear about what's going on with the show than a dissertation on the inherent lack of fashion sense of Upper West Side psychotherapists.”

“It's a nightmare. Remember how Mala Sonia had told me about all this job strife and internal jealousies of coworkers and all that crap I had coming to me in the near future? Well, Bitsy had it in for me from our very first performance together. About a third of the show is actually scripted, but like I said, the rest of
Grandma Finnegan's Wake
is improvisational. So from the get-go, Bitsy started accusing me of improv-ing during her scripted speeches and dialogue—which I wasn't doing, beyond what was required of Fionulla's character in the show. I was just doing my job. As the days went on, I discovered that
nobody
likes this actress. Back when she was playing Fionulla, she used to make life hell for any new person who came into the show. I get along great with everyone—the actors, running crew, et cetera—and that pisses off Bitsy as well.”

“Well, can't you just do your role and go home? I know that actors like to socialize with each other after the show, unwind, and all that, but can you just try to keep this to the most professional level? Think of it as one of your former day jobs? Just
do your work and go home and get on with the rest of your life until it's time to go to work again?”

Alice sighed. “I wish it were that easy. I hate feeling like Bitsy's rude and unprofessional behavior is rebounding on me, punishing me for getting along well with my colleagues. But it's bigger than that. Mala Sonia spoke to me of false accusations leveled against me, remember? Well, Bitsy took it upon herself to maintain a journal of my ‘improvisational transgressions' during performances and took it to Actors' Equity, where she's preferring charges against me. So now I'm in deep shit with my union just for doing my job. And because the
Grandma Finnegan
writers don't have every single moment of the show parceled into ‘improvised' and ‘scripted' sections—I mean, there's a lot of gray area that can be open to interpretation—I don't have much to hang my hat on when it comes to mounting my defense. What this is really all about is that Bitsy is angling to get her original role back, and, face it, I'm prettier, more talented, and everybody likes me—which gets her goat even more.”

“So, where do you currently stand?”

A huge tear traveled down Alice's right cheek. “The union hearing is next week. And I haven't been able to get anything resembling a good night's sleep since this
literal
character assassination thing began. A couple of years ago I went through something like this after I got canned from a lawyer's office and filed for unemployment benefits. I'd rather slit my wrists than go through that again. But this is much worse than the day job hearing because this is my real career. If I get a blemish on my record as an actress and Equity agrees with Bitsy that I behaved unprofessionally in a show…that's it. My acting career is dead. No one wants to hire a problem—at least not if they're an unknown. If you're a
famous
pain in the ass, that's another story.
But in my position…? If the ruling doesn't go in my favor, there are too many other good actresses out there for a producer or director to bother to go out on a limb for me.” I took a packet of tissues from my pocket and handed them to her. “You do that a lot,” Alice said, trying to chuckle between sniffles.

I went over to sit beside her, something I never do, even with my laundry room clients. But poor Alice had suffered a Job-like existence these past few months: losing her closest relative, and, finally transcending years of temp hell to reach her goal of being a working actress—only to find the triumph short-lived and slipping through her fingers like grains of sand.

“Remember when Mala Sonia told me that everything would finally turn out all right during a time of feasting? Well, I thought my first date with Dan Carpenter—remember him—would do the trick.”

“That's right!” I exclaimed. “You had that date with Dan. Your love life kind of got buried under all the job stuff. So?”

“He's wonderful,” Alice sighed. “I could really like this guy. You know, when we first became acquainted there was this current between us, but he never made a move. It was like he sensed I wasn't ready. He gets lots of points for that. Anyway, we had a wonderful dinner at Il Pomodoro—except that most of the time all I talked about was the shit that's going on with me and
Grandma Finnegan's Wake.
The poor man was bleary-eyed by the time we got to the tiramisu.”

“In my experience, if Dan's a sensitive guy, he'll cut you some slack. You're going through a rough spot and needed to talk about it. Don't beat yourself up over it. Of course,” I chuckled, “that said, there is a line in the sand between
sharing
your tribulations and dumping-and-venting mode.”

“Oops,” said Alice. “I have a strong feeling I crossed it. Big-time.”

“Share with Dan; dump-and-vent with me. That's what I'm
here for. Has Dan called you since this ill-fated Il Pomodoro dinner?”

Alice shook her head. “He gave me a very nice good-night kiss out on the sidewalk in front of our building, so I certainly had my hopes up.”

“I'd agree that all signs would be encouraging.”
God, I sound like the Magic 8-Ball.

“But of course, Il Pomodoro happens to be the famous
Seinfeld
‘break up' restaurant, so we may have started out on the wrong foot; begun at the end. And now there's a new little wrinkle that may put a major crimp in my love life, or sex life, assuming I ever get to have one again.”

“Which is?”

We both nearly jumped out of our skins when we heard the frantic knock on the laundry room door.

“Probably that,” Alice said, gesturing toward the sound.

“I guess I should unlock it.”

“You know, all my life I've felt like I was one of those circus performers, trying to keep a dozen plates spinning in the air at once without letting any of them drop or lose momentum. And I thought I'd gotten pretty good at handling it. I was kind of proud of my multitasking abilities, in fact. Well, now I feel like someone tossed in a thirteenth plate, and my whole act is going to shit.”

“One thing that I've found very useful is to try to tackle one hurdle at a time, rather than trying to take on everything at once,” I said, heading for the door. “You're dealing with a budding romance—”

“Well, what I
hope
is a budding romance. I really like Dan. Spending time with him is like wearing a favorite old sweater. Well, a six-foot-tall, hazel-eyed, muscular-yet-sensitive favorite old sweater.”

I laughed. “Remember when we first officially met, I congratulated you on retaining your sense of humor. This is good. You've done that. Keep it up. So you've got Dan, and then you've got the
mishegas
with
Grandma Finnegan's Wake,
Bitsy, and the ogres at Actors' Equity on your front burner—” I opened the door to find Alice's now rather pregnant friend Isabel sobbing into a shredded Kleenex.

“And Izzy,” Alice added. “Susan, meet my new roommate.”

“Yeah, meet the bull in the china shop,” Izzy said, kicking the doorsill angrily and stubbing her toe in the process. “Fuck a duck! Ouch! Can I come in?” she asked tentatively. I looked to Alice for the answer, since we were in the middle of her session.

“Might as well, since you've become one of my ‘issues,'” Alice said.

“Oh, lovely,” Izzy groaned. “I'm cutting to the chase. I figured I'd tell you sooner rather than later, because I'll be halfway out the door on the way to medical mal hell at Steinbeck and Strindberg by the time you get upstairs and see the pieces all over the floor.”

“Pieces?” Alice looked both puzzled and horrified.

“Your grandmother's Balloon Seller. The Royal Doulton figurine she loved so much.” Izzy shook her head woefully. “Dust. I knocked into it by mistake when I was reaching for the teapot. Which isn't in great shape either.”

“Oh, no!” Alice's horror morphed into new tears.

For the next fifteen minutes she vacillated between saying she didn't know whether to hate Izzy forever for breaking a cherished heirloom (or two) or forgiving her for being in such a bad state herself. Izzy and her husband Dominick had quarreled frequently since “they” had become pregnant. Dominick couldn't handle the emotional roller coaster of Izzy's newly rampaging hormones; he felt she'd become another person entirely.

“He says it's like my body is possessed by some demon from a sci-fi movie,” she raged. “Can I help it? This is what happens to pregnant women. You've got kids. Were you like this?” she asked me.

I admitted that Eli had threatened to move back in with his mother during each of my pregnancies. And had really resented trekking all the way out to Coney Island to satisfy my occasional cravings for those Nathan's hot dogs—which had to come
only
from the original Nathan's location—
only
an hour or more away by subway—in each direction. And naturally, they'd no longer be steaming hot when they arrived on the Upper West Side, and I couldn't stand to have them reheated—particularly once I'd drizzled chocolate sauce on them. The memories made me wonder if Eli's increasingly frequent absences from the dinner table were an extremely belated form of payback, an “acting out” for all the estrogen and progesterone-related acting out I'd done so many years ago.

So Alice, who now had a spare bedroom, had graciously taken Izzy in until she and Dominick could cool down. Unfortunately for both women, Izzy confessed that she couldn't foresee any specific time frame for this temporary sojourn. “Right now we never want to see each other's ugly mugs again.”

Alice, who hadn't yet adjusted to living without her grandmother, or to living alone, which she had never done before in her entire life, admitted that she loved Izzy like the sister she wished she'd had, but that she hadn't yet figured out how these new living arrangements would work out to her satisfaction. She couldn't give Izzy her recently departed Gram's bedroom because it still held shrinelike connotations for her and it felt too much like moving on too fast. On the other hand, she couldn't give Izzy her own bedroom because she'd been comfortably ensconced there for years and everything had been dec
orated and set up to her liking and she wasn't inclined to dis-mantle the room, because it was (a) inconvenient, and (b) where would she put everything? Gram's room, which still had Gram's furnishings in it? And if she did move all her stuff out of the room, what would Izzy do? Buying new furniture made no sense.

“I have to say that on one hand I couldn't refuse Izzy. Your sobbing, pregnant best friend shows up on your doorstep like an orphan in the storm? It was a no-brainer. Of course I took her in. On the other hand, yeah, it is an inconvenience. I guess a part of me secretly wished that she'd spend the night on the couch and in the morning her fight with Dominick would have all blown over and they'd kiss and make up over the phone and she'd go home.”

“When did you move in?” I asked Izzy.

“Last week.”

“The night after my last session with you,” Alice told me. “So this is the first chance I've had to talk about it in therapy.”

“Excuse me,” Izzy said, and bolted toward the bathroom.

“Her morning sickness is pretty horrible,” Alice whispered. “She's one of those women who still have it after the first trimester.”

A minute later Izzy staggered out of the bathroom, her complexion pale. “Maybe I should call Schmuck and Schmuck and tell them I'm too sick to come in. I can't read hospital charts and doctors' reports about their clients' gastrointestinal problems today.” She turned to Alice. “You know,
I
really wish I were back home too. I hate barfing in other people's bathrooms. But I think it's gotta be bad for the baby if every minute of my life is all about Dom and me yelling and screaming at each other. Pick a topic: we fight about it. The other day he dragged me into an argument about the fact that we both wanted steak for din
ner. I ask you, how does a man get away with picking a fight when you're both on the same side?! Oops. Sorry.” She dashed back into the bathroom.