Charmed Thirds (11 page)

“Well, happy birthday then.”

“We’ll celebrate the next time we see each other. Okay, Jessica?”

“Sure.”

About a half hour later, I received an e-mail that reminded me that we still have August. In August, we will be face-to-face, flesh-to-flesh. In August, it will be easier.

It has to be.

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Date: July 19th, 2003

Subject: Poetry Spam #22

chromosomal dance 
 oh, heavenly happenstance 
 rare creation, you

—Original Message— 
 From: Ruth Spotnik [[email protected]] 
 Sent: July 18th, 2003 
 To: [email protected] 
 Subject: you degeneracy fleeing amperage oh

cranny tissue flintlock forum antacid thoroughgoing equal creation salesian annuity buena rare rote gourd mba cocktail bluebush cashier principle heavenly dean murder abovementioned manhole deft impoverish chronicle divorce plausible functional demo cove blessing discriminate meantime contradistinction winch cholesterol familiarly dance sawdust dungeon contrition obliterate gauge olfactory mona homebuild arcing acclimate coulomb cranberry droplet film deportee happenstance synod conjecture ambidextrous aviatrix polity neuralgia chromosomal

the twenty-first

This morning, Tyra threw another salon. Unlike the Shanny salon, which was rather unceremoniously held around the conference table in the very gray, very dingy, very unfabulous newsroom, today’s took place in the dining room, located on another floor of the building and often used for wooing advertisers and other potential money donors. I assumed that the move meant that we were going to be treated to the insights of a legitimate dignitary.

And indeed, the smiling fifty-something woman who greeted us certainly looked the part with her poufy, perfectly groomed hair, shiny lacquered nails, and Chanel suit. The guest of honor was Ms. Toni Sheridan, frequently quoted sexpert and author of
Land Any Man in Minutes (and Keep Him Forever!),
among others. Ms. Sheridan had arrived at
True
to conduct one of her popular sex seminars, the likes of which she routinely gives for margarita-swilling Jersey Shore bachelorettes.

Ms. Sheridan began her presentation by asking us to select from a Birkin bag full of dildos.

Yes, dildos. As in mock cocks.

They came in myriad shapes (Huge Nads?), sizes (Six-inch “Executive”?), and ethnicities (Mulatto?). After much lose-lose-situation deliberation, I settled on a ten-inch Caucasian model with unobtrusive testes. Everyone else picked their penises with relish. (Meaning enthusiasm, not the condiment. Though I am sure that if given the opportunity to have their penises with relish, they would have—gamely—done so.) Then we gave them perma-hard-ons by attaching them to our plates via a suction cup base, located under the balls. On my plate, mere moments before, I had put a fat-free muffin from the breakfast buffet, having incorrectly assumed that the place setting was for my dining pleasure.

“Now stroke and pull,” Ms. Sheridan commanded. “Stroke and pull!”

“Hella, hella big fella!”

Tyra yanked on her twelve-inch Black Stallion with enthusiasm, her dainty pearl necklace thumping her chest with every thrust of her fist. Taking her lead, the rest of the
True
staffers stroked and pulled and stroked and pulled and stroked and pulled. Dressed almost identically in their own twinsets and pearls, silks and pastels, as ladylike as the editrix herself, they resembled an assembly line of horny Stepford automatons. The only one abstaining was Smitty, who instead waved his King Commando model in the air, admonishing Ms. Sheridan for thinking that she could teach him something about male pleasure that he didn’t already know.

I was
so not cool
with performing a sex act in front of my peers. I go to college, an Ivy League institution of higher learning that prints its diplomas in Latin, for Christ’s sake. There is only one thing more mortifying than practicing hand-job techniques in front of your boss. And that is
watching
your boss lube up and jerk off. All in the name of what? Of journalism? Of science? Of saving face in front of a guest lecturer who charges $250 an hour?

Of being game?

I half-heartedly gave the dildo a quickie
one jerk, two jerks, three jerks,
to show I was a team player, but I wouldn’t degrade myself by participating 100 percent. As I uncomfortably watched my coworkers rubbing their rubber phalluses, I started to worry: What if they mistook my inept manhandling as the technique I used behind closed doors? The scenario wasn’t that far-fetched. I could just imagine them gossiping about how I clearly had no clue how to please my man. . . .

My man.

My man, whom I hadn’t seen all month because I was working here. But why? Why was I working here? Why was I doing this?

I was doing this because it was funny. I was doing this because I could handle it. I was doing this because it was
game.

Right?

Recently there was a newspaper article about New Jersey high school football players accused of sodomizing freshmen with Popsicles until they melted. Within jock circles at this school, it was a fairly well-known hazing ritual. To be chosen as a Popsicle Player was a bizarre honor. It meant the upperclassmen saw you as one of the most promising athletes, who therefore needed to be put in his place. As I read the story, I found it unbelievable that someone would subject himself to such humiliation just for the sake of belonging.

But as I sat there, gripping my dildo, it didn’t seem all that strange anymore. I had tried all month to be
True.
But it turns out that I don’t have it in me. And never will.

“And now,” Ms. Sheridan announced. “Oral techniques!”

Before I got up, before I grabbed my backpack and walked out the door, before I headed to the train station to get on the bus that is bringing me back to the place that I should have never left to begin with, I said, “I’m not giving head to get ahead.”

I think it’s the first truth I’ve told all month long.

Of course, no one responded. Their mouths were full.

I can’t wait to tell Marcus this story in person. He’ll be proud.

At least I hope he will be.

July 31st

Dear Hope,

Who knew that snarking could weigh so heavily on my psyche? And here I was, all this time, living with the grand illusion that
you
were the nice one.

Thank you for trying to make me feel better about my short and undistinguished journalism career. I see your point about how all experiences are learning experiences, therefore nothing is a total waste of time, etc. But the thing is, I doubt the staff has even noticed my departure, if they were aware of my presence at all.

I didn’t do anything cool in the city because I was too poor. And I didn’t bond with my sister and niece because I was too preoccupied by their fucked-up family dynamic. (Let’s just say that after seeing the state of Bethany and G-Money’s nonunion, it makes me wonder why gays are lobbying so hard for the right to marry.) So in spite of your wise assurances, I can’t shake the feeling that this month could have been better spent.

Yes, this has much to do with Marcus. If I’d come away with a byline, or a recommendation, or a paid internship in the fall, I’d feel better. But it upsets me to think I willingly chose to spend time away from him and now have nothing to show for it but a fake ID. It’s strange how a three-week separation from Marcus was somehow harder than not seeing him at all last semester. Maybe it’s easier when he’s in California and there’s no chance of us getting together. When he’s in New Jersey, being with him is always within the realm of possibility, so it’s like,
Why aren’t we?

I miss you, too.

Tragically, hiply yours,
 J.

the fifth

I haven’t written for one reason: Reunion sex rocks.

Today was the first brilliantly sunny day since I’ve been home, so Marcus and I left his bedroom and took the ten-minute drive—past the sketchy motels and junky souvenir shops, the greasy fast-food drive-throughs and run-down bait and tackle shacks—to the beach. Tuesdays are generally good beach days because the weekend bennies are back in the boroughs and the cleanup crews have had a day to rid the sand of their cigarette butts, bottlecaps, and used condoms.

It’s been more than a week, but I’m still reeling from my
True
fiasco. For the first time in my life, I’m grateful that Pineville is so hicks-in-the-sticks. When the new issue of
True
comes out with Hy’s-but-should-rightfully-be-my essay, I won’t be confronted by my failure on the checkout line at the SuperFoodtown.

“I really thought that
True
would be cool,” I said this afternoon. “I really thought I’d be happy there.”

“That was your first mistake,” Marcus replied as he drew circles around my belly button with his fingertip. I shivered with the recent memory of his tongue making the same round-and-round-and-round.

“How so?” I asked.

Then Marcus went into what he had learned in a seminar called “Miswanting: Unhappy with Having It All.” Most people have no idea what will make us happy. So we go after something we
think
will make us happy and might be temporarily elated when we get it. Ultimately, we end up disappointed because the thing—whether it’s, say, getting into Columbia or snagging a cool job at
True—
doesn’t have the enduring, euphoric emotional payoff that we thought it would. So we set our sights on something else that we think will make us happy, only to repeat the cycle indefinitely until we die. The upside to this is that the same holds true for negative experiences. Something we think will kill us—say, a best friend moving a thousand miles away or a boyfriend choosing a college across the country—won’t have the long-term devastation on our psyches that we think it will.

And by “we” I really mean “me,” since this sums up my whole life.

“So how do we stop the cycle? How do we learn to accurately predict what will really make us happy?”

“Well, if I could answer that,” Marcus said, “people would be praying to me.”

He squinted because he faced the sun, but also because he was smiling. And right then, sitting cross-legged in the sand, with the sea and the sky serving as a backdrop, Marcus did look like a golden god. One this atheist would gladly bow down and worship. Which made me think.

“So everything we believe about happiness is wrong,” I said.

He nodded.

“Everything?” I asked, when what I meant was,
Everything? Including you? Including me?

And Marcus, being Marcus, knew what I really wanted to know, and answered my silent, more significant question. He held up his hand to shield the rays and looked me in the eyes.

“Almost.”

the eighth

Jane is here for the weekend!

She called me yesterday, said she was arriving by bus today, and now she’s here. I can finally prove to my parents that, yes, I do have friends at Columbia.

Despite (or perhaps because of) the diversity of our campus, students of the same race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, and gender (and so on) tend to stick together, often through campus organizations designed to define us through similarities with one another and differences with everyone else. Jane and I didn’t form an official club, but as White, Anglo-Saxon, lapsed-Catholic heterosexual females, we made a perfect pair.

The similarities run even deeper. She, too, was a distance runner in high school who had no desire to run in college. She also came from a suburban wasteland close to (yet so far away from) a major city (Boston). She was an only child, and I felt like one because my sister was out of the house for most of my formative years. We had both been brutalized by the high school rumor mill, though her reputation (“Ride the Jane train!”) had been more damaged than my own.

In fact, Jane and I are so tight that one of the F-Unit nerds who dabbled in music snobbery gave us the nickname 2 Skinny J’s, inspired by an underground rap/rock group Jane and I had never heard of. Yet it was an appropriate nickname because of our similarly prepubescent builds. We often shared each other’s jeans, cords, and T-shirts, and until I chopped off my hair, we both wore our brown hair in careless ponytails. No wonder we were constantly mistaken for each other. Hope and I were tight, of course, but we never inspired nicknames.

When I picked Jane up at the bus station, she clamped her hands above my ears and shook my head from side to side. “Your hair is growing wide before it grows long!”

I swung my leg around and kicked her in the butt.

“Hey! If I can’t tell you the truth, who will?”

It’s so ironic that someone so ruthlessly honest spent her whole summer lying for a living as an “undercover spokeswoman” for ALPHApups, a guerilla marketing firm. She was paid $8 an hour to loudly extol the virtues of new liquors in trendy bars. (“This Yellow Jacket cosmopolitan makes me want to dance all night!!!”) Or she’d spritz on an experimental fragrance before flirting with weary but horny nine-to-fivers. (“This mesmerizing perfume makes me feel
sooooo
sexy.”) She has no qualms about being so manipulative and mercenary, which is one significant difference between the two of us.

“Speaking of all things true, you
must
tell me about the internship!” she gushed as she stepped into the Volvo. “If you didn’t have the best time ever, I will kill you.”

“Uh, it was a job, J. Like any other job . . . ,” I said, keeping my eyes on the rearview mirror to avoid her scrutiny.

“Oh sure, just like any other job at the coolest, funniest magazine in the universe! Like any other job that a bizillion girls are dying to put on their résumé!”

When she put it like that, it almost made me jealous for the person lucky enough to snag that job, until I remembered that the person was me and that the job sucked.

“Well, it really wasn’t that fun.”

And then I explained how I was ignored all summer, and the only way to get attention from anyone was to be catty and snarky and, of course, game for anything and everything that Tyra deemed cool, which was a complicated classification, one that included giving a blow job to a suction-cupped dildo in front of a dozen people in the middle of the afternoon.