M
y first day in the office since returning from my emotional sabbatical, and HR had yet to decide what to do with me. Apparently, someone had managed to give the company the impression that I had spent the last month wearing a Superman suit and scribbling scripture all over my face with magic markers.
“Oh, hello! Welcome back, Ms. Chopra,” the receptionist greeted me enthusiastically. Then she contorted her face and continued in a nodding whisper, “How are you?”
“I’m fine, Jen. Doing great. Never better. I’ve got a nine a.m. with someone in Human Resources.”
“Yes, your appointment’s with Gabe. Suite 306. Elevators on your left.” She smiled, and cocked her head to the right.
“And good luck with everything.”
It was odd enough to be in the building without being treated as if I would forget my own head if it weren’t attached. Then again, this wasn’t the South Pacific, I reminded myself. It was New York, a place where it was best to blend in. A place where complaints over the stench from a solitary container of rotting mooshu pork, which forced the building super to let himself into my apartment, were the only interest any of my neighbors had shown in my absence. A place where nobody pays any attention to their neighbors’ business, absence or history of domestic violence until some unsavory scent creeps its way into the hallway, or some unsavory character creeps its way up a fire escape. A place where I could take comfort in the fact that nobody at work would badger me for details about my time off, since that kind of inquiry might be mistaken for a sign of concern. I decided to take advantage of the indifference I expected, and to coast by on a minimal amount of work, trusting that my new coworkers would pick up the slack so long as I twitched or feigned the imminence of tears in the middle of a routine meeting from time to time.
Probably in an attempt to gauge potential hires at their most vulnerable, the Human Resources department of any major corporation is deliberately designed to avoid offering physical or emotional comfort. Small, stiff sofas face the door. Intimidating company logos hang on the walls where soothing artwork ought to be. It’s always ten degrees colder there than in any other part of the building. And the staff-bots never stop smiling. I was searching for the telltale microphones and floodlights that completed any soundstage, and was speculating where the perfectly postured receptionist’s “off-button” might be hidden, when someone startled me with a hello.
“Please, follow me to our conference room.”
Gabe Schmidt was taupe. I was certain I had forgotten what he looked like before I stopped looking at him. He asked me to take a seat while he extended his very moist hand along with the company’s sincerest apologies for the
difficulties
I had encountered as a result of the
unfortunate choices
of my managers.
“I want to assure you that the company appreciates your hard work and loyalty,” he said.
I blinked. The clock ticked. Somewhere, a pudgy pop star who believed way too much of her own hype asked someone
If this dress made her look too skinny.
“And we look forward to continuing to count you as a member of our team for years to come.”
I lowered my head and raised an eyebrow at him. He smoothed his comb-over before continuing.
“There are a few options for you within the firm, Ms. Chopra. We’d like to start by finding out what
you
want.”
“You mean you’re not just gonna plug me into some empty spot in the company?”
“We don’t see it that way. Frankly, we assumed that you would have some ideas on where you would best fit in, and on what you could bring to the table. We expected finding a place for you to be more of a collaborative effort. What do you want? Where do you think you belong within the firm? What are the unique qualities you possess that will make you a good fit for a certain team or group? What are you excited about?”
I really had no idea what I wanted or was excited about, what I brought to the table or where I belonged. But it occurred to me that this was one of my opportunities to face a demon, to speak up and question authority. Suddenly my perspective shifted. So I made a choice.
“I want a clean slate and a second chance. In a new team. I want the chance to find out if I’m excited about the work.”
“All right.” He smiled unblinkingly. “I’m sure that can be arranged.”
By the end of the day I was seated at my new desk in my new office on my new floor, surrounded by cardboard boxes containing everything that had been stored from my old office. No confetti and no fanfare. Corporate America was as homogenously impersonal as it was reassuringly predictable. Perhaps it had always been that way. Apparently the dust of my former career had settled while I wasn’t looking, along with the stacks of documents on this new desk thoughtfully provided by my new secretary. With the documents at my fingertips, I decided to throw myself into it. I kicked off my shoes and planned to read all night long in order to get up to speed on the company my new team would be discussing the following morning. I thought of Salt-and-Pepper, and I was grateful for that chance.
Normally, to be in the position I was in on Tuesday morning would have implied a more promising sequence of events. However, it was just the fault of my clumsy new secretary bumping into my desk a few moments earlier, initiating the avalanche of previously collated files, which she used to break her fall. I knew she was too good to be true. Fearing that she might accidentally set me on fire if I allowed her to help, I sent her on a Starbucks run and insisted on cleaning up by myself. This was why I found myself down on all fours, with my rear end sticking out from underneath the desk, and my cheek pressed up against the cold, hard wood, trying to reach the last few pieces of paper, when my phone rang. The embarrassing default country-music ring tone on my new cell still startled me every time. In this instance, it caused me to bump the top of my head into the desk. In doing so, I also managed to bite right into my tongue.
“
Th
it!” I barked at no one in particular, after scrambling to my feet and flipping open the handset. The blood in my mouth was little inconvenience compared to the resulting lisp. All this, combined with the aggressive wedgie from my thong, put me in a less than welcoming spirit when I answered the phone.
“What?” I asked flatly.
A loud guffaw was followed by an amused and husky male voice which said, “For someone who’s supposedly learned all about meditation, you don’t sound very Zen.”
“What?” I barked, annoyed. “I bit my tongue. Who i
th
thi
th
?”
“I’m sorry. This is Nick. From the gym? And my apartment? And the airport? And the wedding?”
Apparently, men can sense vulnerability the way that hyenas smell blood.
“Ooooooh. Hi,” I offered, climbing to my seat and examining myself in my handheld compact mirror. I searched for early signs of an oversize bump being circled by cartoon stars and chirping birds. “This is a surprise.”
“I wasn’t planning on calling you, but I was concerned that I might have come on a little strong at the wedding, and considering that you only recently got back from your trip and everything…I wanted to apologize in case I made you feel uncomfortable.”
“How did you get my number?” I asked, rubbing my head.
“From Cristina. I hope you don’t mind. I think you and I keep starting off on the wrong foot, and…”
I was in no mood for more emotional Monopoly. “Don’t you think we should conferenth in your girlfriend, jutht to make sure we all get
thtarted on the right foot?
Nick, why are you calling me?”
“What girlfriend?”
“Kat.”
“You talked to Kat? Is that why you left? What did she tell you? She is not my girlfriend.”
“Oh, okay. Let me gueth. She wath one of your thithters?”
Sure. And I rushed out for new batteries in the middle of that rainy night last fall because my
remote control
went dead.
“No, she’s not my sister.”
Well, this was odd. Dishonesty I knew how to deal with. But
honesty?
It had to be some twisted game, and at that point it was getting to be laughable.
“Okay, then. I don’t know what kind of kinky crap you and your girlfriend are into, but I’m not interethted in being the meat in your Vina thandwich, okay? Tho whatever you want, go look for it thomewhere elth.”
“Vina, please stop for a minute. For the record, Kat is an ex-girlfriend, from law school. She was also a friend of Prakash’s, which is why she was at the wedding. She’s crazy, a real maniac. She kept throwing herself at me because she hadn’t seen me in over a year. I told her I wasn’t interested, and I guess no one else would touch her with a ten-foot pole. She probably got pissed off when she saw us talking. I swear I’m telling you the truth, but if you want we can get Prakash on the line to corroborate my story. I understand that the burden of proof is on me, and…did you just say
‘Vina Sandwich’?
”
“Thorry.” I lowered my head as if he could see me. “Maybe I’ve been thpending too much time around butch lethbianth and drag queenth who are more feminine than I am. I’m probably being defenthive.”
“It’s no big deal. I don’t normally blurt out something like this, but given our track record, I think the less time I spend beating around the bush the better, before we get our signals crossed again. Do you think you could let your
defentheth
down for long enough to have dinner with me some time?”
Well hello
…I paused for a moment to recall the mental snapshots I had taken of him in his kitchen. Within the millisecond it took for me to consider his offer I had weighed everything from the convenience of his having been prescreened by Prakash to the fragility of my current emotional state. I concluded that getting involved with any man right now would be a mistake. A very tempting mistake that came with the virtual guarantee of fresh-squeezed orange juice in the morning. Orange juice that might trickle down those tight, veiny forearms, onto that six-pack of a stomach, which I could then lick off….
To hell with it. I was ready to face another demon. Maybe he would hurt me, or leave me, or lie to me, or whatever. Maybe I would fail to protect myself, or maybe I would see right through it this time. Or maybe there would be nothing for me to see through. So I was still standing and life was calling. It was a chance I had to take. Besides, it was only dinner.
“That
th
ound
th
like fun!” I gushed like a schoolgirl trying to sound casual through a mouthful of food, while batting my eyelashes so hard that I could have taken f light.
W
ith Christopher and Prakash on their cruise to Belize, I had agreed to cat-sit again. I was watching Booboo nose around happily inside of a Bebe bag I had left out on the floor the next evening when the phone rang.
“Hello, darling. Is this a good time?” asked the body snatcher who had swallowed my mother while I was away. I was still having trouble getting used to the idea that my parents had started to respect my time. It was one of the many things that had changed since they watched helplessly as I boarded a plane headed for the South Pacific.
“Sure, Mom. Yes. Of course it’s a good time. What’s going on?”
I sank into the couch and began nudging the bag away from Booboo with a toe at different speeds. Convinced that it was alive, he readied himself for the attack.
“I was talking with your Auntie Neela, and she was telling me that her brother Amit used to have severe, severe anxiety when he was in college.”
“Really?” I perked up. “How surprising.”
Booboo leaped on the bag, which I yanked away, making his eyes light up more.
“Yes, yes. And it’s not so surprising, but we never talked about these things before. Now I have decided that it’s a part of life, and so what? We have good things and we have challenges just like everybody else,
na?
So what if our daughter went through a difficult time? Everybody does, and the only difference is that nobody says anything about these things in our circles. So I’ve told your father that we’re not going to hide from anyone. Our daughter is a wonderful girl, and we have no use for anyone who will judge us.”
“Okay…”
“So anyway, Neela was telling me that her brother used breathing exercises he learned from some special type of yoga to calm his nerves. Would you like to try that? Maybe we could try it together, if I could find a class in Manhattan? It could help me, too.”
I had to smile. Never had I heard anyone trying so hard to speak my language.
“That sounds great, Mom. Will Dad be joining us?” I already knew the answer.
“
Beti
…he will try.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
“Nothing to thank me for. Don’t be silly. I want to spend time with my child.”
“I know, Mom. I know.”
“And that’s why I told your father that he better not dare ask you about business school or marriage anytime soon.”
“Really? And how did he take that?”
“He huffed and puffed, but he’ll get over it. He’s frustrated because there’s this surgeon from Cold Spring Harbor who finished up his residency at Stony Brook University, and last week when we met them at the Kapoors’ dinner party, his parents asked about you.”
“Mom,”
I said, lowering my voice, “you’re doing it again. What did I tell you about my personal life?”
Booboo climbed on top of the bag, resettled himself and listened in.
“I’m not invited.” She sounded like a child who had been chastised for playing in the formal dining room.
“That’s not how I put it, exactly, but yes. Besides, I’m not sure this is a good time for me to be dating at all.”
“Fine, fine. We’re not pushing. So what? I’ve been thinking lately that I am getting sick of always worrying about my daughter’s marriage this, my daughter’s marriage that. It’s all the ladies talk about when we meet for lunch these days. Why aren’t the kids getting married? When will they get married? Who will they marry? I told the girls last week at lunch—I’m finished. Let my daughter marry whoever she chooses. I’ve raised her. I’ve educated her. She can marry who she marries. All I know is…
I’m married.
And you know what? They all agreed that I had made a very good point.”
“No offense, Mom, but I’ll believe it when I see it. Besides, does Dad agree with any of this?”
“I didn’t ask his opinion. Okay, you must have things to do,
na?
I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Good night.”
Booboo slammed his eyes shut and turned his head away, no longer able to look at me.
“Don’t you judge me,” I said to him, after hanging up the phone. “This one date with Nick barely counts, because it’s not going to lead to anything. Besides, I’m just not ready to tell her yet.”
“It’s over.” Pamela was standing in my doorway and telling me less than ten minutes later. “I just ended it.”
“Come in and tell me what happened,” I said, nudging Booboo back into my apartment with an ankle to the face. He wasn’t making a jail-break on my watch.
“Just what I said. I did it. Just like that.”
“What do you mean, you did it? How?”
“Why does it matter?” she asked, eerily calm in her tracksuit and no makeup. “I gave him his keys. His
keys,
Vina. Do you remember how many hints I had to drop before he even gave me those stupid keys?”
“Yes, and I remember the hints were more like skywritten announcements.”
“See? That’s just it.” She plopped down into a chair. “It’s the most amazing thing. I feel like I’m thinking clearly for the first time in
years!
All this time I thought I would collapse if I had to give him back his keys. But then I was standing outside his apartment, taking them off my key chain, and they’re just keys! They’re not a promise of anything, since I had to manipulate him to get them. And he’s only one guy. It’s all so stupid. It’s as big a deal as I make it. I decided that I…I didn’t want to let it be such a big deal anymore. So I broke up with him.”
“What did he say?” I picked Booboo up onto my lap and switched off the TV, so I could give her my full attention.
“Who cares! I didn’t stick around to listen. It felt so great.”
Even Booboo had trouble believing it.
“Honestly,” she assured us.
“Wow.” I ran my fingers over my face. “I’m proud of you. What do you want to do now?”
She shrugged her shoulders and stuck out her lower lip. “I’m not sure. I still want to get married someday, just not to him. Maybe I should be alone for a while. You know I’ve never really been single. Then again, I might call you crying tomorrow morning when it hits me that I’m actually single. Right now, that doesn’t seem likely. And, I’ve been thinking about grad school. God, there are so many possibilities now that I think about life outside the context of
William.
If it’s me alone, then I can kind of do whatever I want, right? Maybe even get an MBA? That way I could become the director of a gallery. I mean, I don’t know if it’s a real possibility. But I know I don’t have anything to lose. Why? Do you think me getting an MBA is a crazy idea?”
“Pam—” I pondered “—I think that putting the rest of it on hold to be happier with yourself and inside yourself is a fantastic idea.”
“Thanks, but I think I could say the same thing to you.”
“Maybe we’re both growing up.”
“Cristy wouldn’t approve,” Pam joked.
“Yes, but my parents would be very proud of you.”
She laughed.
“And so am I.”