Spooning (10 page)

“
F
or Pete's sake, who would ever buy this small plastic bottle of laundry detergent?” the Diva screamed from the studio. Day two had begun!

“Everyone knows that I would buy the economy size. You buy the large bottle and then dispense it into smaller, more discreet pour bottles. Who, I mean,
who
did this?” Who, I mean who, cares!? I wondered. Obviously millions of people cared because her show raked in gazillions of dollars. I sidestepped the tantrum and darted back to my cube, escaping back into logging hell.

By the end of the week, I was wondering if I had made a wise decision in taking the position at
S&S
. I thought that the
new girl always got a break or two during her first week, right? Wrong.
S&S
was doing a segment on ice fishing. To begin with, I had a hard time envisioning Jane's padded derrière chilling on a frozen lake. Second, mean Margaret put me in charge of finding “fishing-related gear” for Jane (so much more important than candy stuffing). After about ten minutes of scrambling on the Internet and Googling the words “ice fishing” and “gear,” I finally broke down and asked scary Margaret for some much-needed help.

“Umm, Margaret. Can I, I mean may I ask you a question?”

“What? I'm busy,” she mumbled from her computer.

“Um, it will only take a sec.”

“Fine, what?”

“Well, what exactly do you think I should be looking for?” I asked kindly.

“Are you kidding me?” she yelled. “Are you living in a cave? Do you not know what ice fishing is?” Oh dear Lord, big mistake to ask Margaret. Is ice fishing a recognized Olympic sport? Think, Charlie, think! She's making a scene. What to do? What to do?

“Oh, I just meant, what size clothing do I get for Jane?” I quickly rebounded.

“Do I look like her wardrobe assistant?” she barked.

“No!” I wanted to scream, “but Julie told me you started at
S&S
as Jane's wardrobe assistant five years ago!” I bit my tongue and actually think I tasted blood. I wondered if Margaret had been in this bad of a mood back then too. (Note to self: Don't know? Definitely don't ask!)

“Oh, and get those flowers off of your desk before Jane sees them,” Margaret sneered. Was it another corporate bylaw or would Jane just take offense to my three wilting daisies from
J. P., which I had gently transported via the subway to my new job? As another few petals fell I whispered, “He loves me, he loves me not …”

I
spent the remainder of the afternoon scouring the L.L. Bean and Eddie Bauer Web sites. I was looking for practical yet flattering styles of foul weather gear for incremental to severe cold. Why couldn't they make waders in a nice shade of blue (to match the Diva's eyes, of course). The beaten-down wardrobe assistant (about the twentieth since Margaret's humble days) had finally pointed me in the right direction and had warned me to get multiple sizes of each item.

“She'll flip if they are too small, implying that she has gained weight. Yet she'll flip if they are too big, implying that you couldn't predict the exact size of her ever-fluctuating waist. Just blame ill-fitting items on the cheap manufacturing found these days.” He gave me a feeble smile of encouragement.

I found it strange that the retail companies claimed that they would “loan” the clothes to Jane, in return for proper accolades during the credits at the end of the show, but they still wanted them returned. Why? What were they going to do with them after she had worn them? Disgusting! I figured the heads of merchandising knew that they would make a killing by selling slightly worn fishing gear that had once graced the body of Ms. Jane Dough on eBay someday. I found the cutest knit hats on the
InStyle
Web site that were selling for $129.00 (yes, for a hat). I thought that the color would be perfect with Jane's meticulously highlighted hair (little did I know the wrath that would ensue about a month from now when I learned that Jane had a horrible allergy to wool, and therefore
had to go hatless during the entire segment). I also called Skinny Sage in a panic when I realized how many colors long johns came in. Sage was a fashion guru who knew the latest trends yet somehow found those few precious items that would outlast one season. She was always trying to play up her skinny wrists and hide her emaciated rib cage with the hottest new things out there.

“Black. Black is such a safe bet especially since the tabloids have been covering Jane's weight gain.” You could hear the scorn in Sage's voice. “And black hides a multitude of sins!”

“Black long johns? You're right, you're right.” Black was New York City's official color! “And I guess nobody will really see them under all these other layers.”

“But the key is that she'll know,” Sage theorized. Just when I thought I was done, Margaret leaned over and dropped another bomb.

“Oh, and get gear for the cameraman, Jane's cousin who is also going on the shoot, and the two producers. But make sure to outfit them in colors different than Jane's. Remember that the colors should be complementary and not clash in case any of them end up in a shot. Oh, and make sure none of them will look cuter that Jane—maybe get some unflattering coat styles or something. Jane won't want to be outshone.”

Outshone? On the friggin’ ice? Didn't Margaret know that Jane would be worrying only about keeping her golden ass warm on the ice? I thought of ordering the Diva a bottle of whiskey to hide in one of her new vest's many pockets.

A
fter yet another particularly hellish day of
S&S
, Macie and I met for a few drinks. Taste, talk, sip, share, gulp, gossip, drain,
drunk. Using each other as a crutch we stumbled back to our apartment. Juan was manning the door (well, the door next to our door). Juan was the most amicable of the doormen in the stately prewar high-rise next to our walk-up. He worked the oddest hours, had the brightest smile, listened to our endless babble and all the while minded his p's and q's better than the rest. He bowed as if we were about to enter the Plaza. We, of course, nodded to him grandly and waltzed (while hiccupping) into our building's stairwell. Up we went.

We entered our apartment to soothing darkness. The dim light inside the place was calming compared to the city's night glare. I guess one would say that our apartment had an urban quality to it. You know, a quality like the kind you find in seedy B-movies. Outside the living room (and consequently the dining room/my bedroom view too) was a pulsating red sign declaring “Manhattan Motel.” The vertical sign was larger and higher than the five floors of the motel. But tonight, the red glare was sort of dim.

“Home at last,” Macie collapsed on our too-short couch. “See, that Atkin's diet is working! I fit, I actually fit on our couch,” she mumbled before turning over and curling up for the night. I grabbed a drink of water in some random J. P. Morgan mug (Note to self: What a coincidence!), kicked off my shoes (marring the walls in the process), and headed to the bathroom. I finally realized as I sat on the toilet mid-pee that there was something missing.

My soft butter yellow rug was missing from under my feet. It was probably my favorite item in our household. Lush, plush, and my favorite shade of yellow. Everyone knew not to dare wash the sacred bathroom rug. Did someone spill or drip? Maybe it was in one of the girls' hampers? Despite my dulled
senses and rationalizations, I felt my annoyance start to stir. I finished my business and ran back out into the living room.

“Mace, Macie, the bathroom rug is gone!” I announced.

“What?” she moaned grabbing a shearling pillow. Suddenly she sat upright. Clutched in her hand was the exact ABC Carpet & Home shearling pillow that we had wanted to buy for our apartment but that had been way out of our price range. The shearling pillow that did not belong in our apartment. The shearling pillow that knocked some sense into us—and made us realize that we were
not
in our humble apartment after all! The dimmed red light was not our “Manhattan Motel” sign, but the softly blinking clock light on the VCR. Macie had not shrunken her thighs; the couch was simply wider than ours, which meant that my favorite butter yellow bathroom rug was safely ensconced in our apartment. Where we had come in ready to wake the dead, we now snuck out as silently as 007. The plaque 2C shone on the door; 5C was our apartment number. We were three floors off.

“Go!” We both sprinted up the stairs and collapsed into our apartment. I immediately ran to the bathroom and curled up on my snuggly rug. And it was there that I slept; slept spooning my snagged J. P. Morgan mug (not the man) the entire night.

T
he next morning at S&S, hung over and during a brief reprieve from logging hell, I sat in front of my computer and tried to come up with some marvelous ideas for a Halloween costume. How is it that Halloween can stir such waves of excitement regardless of one's age? The discussions that surrounded what to dress up as carried the same weight as a discourse at an international summit. In New York, the whole
month seemed to revolve around the childhood memories of autumnal Halloweens with wet leaves, chestnuts, mini candy bars, and winter jackets worn over costumes.

It was our first Halloween in the city, and we all wanted it to be memorable.

“We need to go above and beyond mere costumes,” declared Tara.

“How are we going to do that?” I asked. “More memories at Top Shelf?”

“Charlie is right. Location is everything,” Tara added. “I don't want my costume to be groped or spit upon in some packed bar setting. Maybe we should host a party,” she suggested with a grin.

“You know we can't have parties. Not since those darn boys downstairs had the party where someone turned on the fire hose,” Macie reminded us pointing to the water stain above our front door.

“We're not in college anymore,” Tara said. “I'm talking about something different. How about a sophisticated party … a dinner party.”

“And just who is going to cook this dinner?” I asked.

“Us!”

“Us?” I asked.

“We have a Cooking Club now. And Charlie, you can swipe some decorating ideas from
S&S
.”

Suddenly, I liked the idea of being relied upon for styling suggestions. One week on the job, and my beautiful roommates already had confidence in me.

“We could … put candy corn in votives to hold tons of tea lights,” I suggested. The three of them began nodding, so I continued spitting out ideas, “And we could carve those fake
foam pumpkins, and serve ladyfinger munchies but make them look like chopped off digits …” My mind raced to recall each and every detail of the countless Halloween episodes from years past that I'd been forced to watch this past week at work. Macie began making a list of supplies, Tara began taking inventory of boys for invitees, and Syd began making ghost noises.

We ultimately decided on a dinner party of twenty-four, an intimate affair. We decided to send out an Evite that christened our dinner soirée the “Sinful Singles' Holy Halloween.” Each of us six girls could invite four guests. I really only wanted Mr. J. P. Morgan; however, a part of me worried that he might be freaked out by such an intimate gathering. So I decided to alter the Evite a bit and added about fifty fake e-mail addresses such as
[email protected]
,
[email protected]
,
[email protected]
. Then I thought that sounded like there'd be too many men, so I added a few hot-sounding female e-mail addresses:
[email protected]
,
[email protected]
,
[email protected]
… Contrived? A tad. Scheming? Definitely. Desperate? Not yet! Though I did have a temporary moment of insanity when he replied as a maybe. Maybe? And, I noted ruefully, he was the only maybe. Even though we'd now met up at Top Shelf several times since that first fateful night, we had yet to have an official “dinner date.” But that was fine, I reasoned, since I was trying to lose my freshman fifteen (yes, I tended to repeat the weight gain with each new phase of life).