“Effortlessly?” I asked her. “Are you kidding me? Everything is an effort. I wake up every single morning with this pain of angst in my heart that I'm not going to succeed in anything. There just aren't enough hours in the day.”
“Well, you hide it really well,” she said. “I mean, you were working in the shoe department at Barneys and you turned that into a business of your own. How does a person begin to do something like that? I can't even begin to think about what I want in a career.”
I had to stop and think about that for a second.
“I don't know, I guess when you're faced with realizing that no one is going to do it for you, you just have to make it work for yourself.”
“So, is it fear that makes you succeed?”
“I think that's part of it,” I told her and then I stopped. “No, it's not fear, I think it's more than that. I think it's really wanting to make yourself a better person. I don't mean to get all philosophical or anything, but now that you're asking me, I think it has more to do with making sure that angst in your heart won't be there another morning.”
“So, it is fear.”
“No, it's not fear, it's more . . . it's knowing that you're being the best you're able to be.”
“So, is there anything missing from your life?”
“Are you kidding?” I asked her. “Everything is missing from my life.”
“So what's everything?” she asked me.
“I don't know,” I told her. “I'll let you know when I find out.”
“You know, I just said to Lloyd the other night, âWhy doesn't Alex have a great guy in her life?' Have you ever had a serious relationship?”
“Well, yes,” I started to say as I began to tell her about my engagement to Charles but then decided against getting into that whole thing. “But, no, I wasn't ready. It just wasn't the right time for me.”
“Are you ready now?”
Again, I had to stop and think about it.
“I don't really know,” I told her. “Yes, I think I'm at a point in my life now where I could be in a relationship with someone, but it would have to be someone who would give me the freedom to think for myself. I just don't think I'm done doing all the things I need to do.”
“I get that,” she said, nudging Lloyd, who had since fallen asleep in her lap. “I just wish I knew someone for you.”
“That will come in time,” I told her.
“And that's what I admire about you,” she told me.
“I don't think I'm one to be admired,” I told her.
“You know what it is, Alex,” she said, putting her hands on my shoulders, “you just don't see it,” she said.
I was too drunk to drive by the time I was ready to leave the party. I knew the first thing I had to do the next morning was return that beach top to Barneys, but I also wanted to pick up Peaches that night.
“Do you have your ticket, ma'am?” the valet asked me.
Just then, a cab pulled up. I remember thinking at the time how crazy that was. I mean, cabs just don't pull up in Los Angeles. You have to call for that kind of thing.
“You need a cab, lady?” the female cab driver with the bad brunette dye job asked me.
“Uh, yeah, but I need to make two stops,” I said, getting into the cab as I told the valet I'd pick my car up the next day.
“Hard day?” the female cab driver asked me.
“I don't even know where the time went,” I told her.
“That's the best kind of day to have,” she said and I agreed.
Peaches was still stoned out of her mind by the time I collected her from the vet. I placed her on one side of my bed as I got into it on the other and left my jeans and sweater on, which, as you know, I'm so happy I did.
As I fell asleep that night, I could only think of one thing: that conversation with Kate. One, Kate was out of her mind. Two, on the other hand, what was it that Kate saw about me that I didn't? What did she mean, “You just don't see it?” Why couldn't I ever just relax? Was my life really that good, the way she looked at itâor was it the way I looked at it, an existence fueled by this insane desire to make things right even though I probably never would have known what “right” even was?
It's funny because now that I think about it, life was good. What the heck was I trying to prove, and what would it have taken in the end for me to feel better about the way I lived my life?
I had gone from being a girl who had no idea what she was doing to someone who actually had a life in this world (or that world).
I guess it's the kind of thing, though, where you don't realize what a good time you had until the party is over. I had great friends. I had a great job. I loved what I was doing with my life. Why didn't I see it?
“I gotta get myself a boyfriend,” I thought to myself as I fell asleep. This was the last thing I remember thinking.
At four o'clock that morning, I was awoken by Peaches whimpering beside my bed. She was whimpering there for a good forty-five minutes before I finally got out to take her for the walk. I still feel bad about that. Peaches is such a good, sweet, wonderful dog. You know that feeling, though, when you're sleeping and nothing else in the world matters, even if your dog is being so generous despite her own painful bowel obstruction as to hold it in until you get up to take her out?
Obviously, I did take her out. I was thrilled that I had on what I was wearing. It felt good to be outside in the middle of the night with the cold air on my face, and maybe I was still a little drunk, though I don't think so, but I felt this great exhilaration to be out there all alone with Peaches. Everyone else in the world was asleep and we had the whole place to ourselves. There were no cars, that I saw, coming down Fairfax when Peaches's obstruction cleared.
“You feel better now, girly girl?” I asked her as we started to head back to my apartment.
And that was that. That was the last thing I remember saying as I bent down to pick up Peaches and give her a hug. That's when I saw the lights of the MINI Cooper come out of nowhere.
If you had told me then that this would be one of the best days of my life, I would have told you that you were crazy. I wouldn't have thought about it that way at all. That day was full of stress. It was full of work and thought and wondering and worrying. When I look at it now, though, it was just the way it should have been.
See, on your birthday you look at the next year and what you're going to do. You look forward. If you knew that this was the last day of your life, you would have no other choice but to look back and reflect. There's something good and clean and final about that. And that puts everything, your whole life, right into perspective.
Do I have any regrets? Yes, I do, and now I know how to change them. I know what's been keeping me from being able to get to my parents. Alice was right. I just needed to find the strength within myself before I would be able to help them. I needed to see what everyone else could see. I know now that it's up to me to make everything okay.
10
I'm not in seventh heaven anymore.
I'm not in fourth heaven or fifth or second or third.
I'm in a place I never want to be in ever again, a place no one else should have to visit.
I'm at the door of my childhood home and about to enter shivah, the Jewish equivalent of a wake, for a twenty-nine-year-old woman who died suddenly.
Outside of the house there's a water basin where mourners dressed in black dresses and suits wash their hands before they enter. If I remember correctly from my grandparents' funerals, the washing of hands before entering the home after coming from the cemetery is supposed to separate the two acts, ending the sadness and beginning the act of comforting those who have lost the person they love: thus the shivah.
As I enter the house, about one hundred pairs of black shoes line the door to my parents' entryway. Usually, shoes were lined up in the foyer of my childhood home so no one would scuff the floors. Tonight, they are lined up in the ritual of Jewish tradition as another act of not bringing in the sadness, and as a way of comforting my parents.
Bedsheets from the house cover the mirrors for the next seven days so no one sitting shivah should have to see their own grief. I see Patsy Kleinman, a friend of my mother's, try to lift up a part of a sheet with a lipstick in her hand. Mr. Kleinman gives her a pinch in the arm followed by this hard, disapproving look. Good one, Mr. Kleinman.
The house is crammed with people. A lot of them are people my dad has worked with, but mostly it's friends of my parents' and mine. Trays of sandwiches and turkeys and briskets cover the dining room table, along with sides of coleslaw, potato salad, pots of soups, and various desserts. As I stand watching people place food on their plates, another tray of sandwiches is set in front of me on the table. I turn around and see that it's Penelope, my best friend, who is making up the table.
“I think we have enough for now,” she says to a server. “And make sure that no one's glass is ever empty,” she adds. “Alex would want everyone sloshed out of their minds.”
This makes me laugh. It's so true. I only wish I could get a drink for myself.
There are people milling all around Pen, serving themselves sandwiches, whispering to each other, “What a shame, only twenty-nine.” My Penelope isn't talking to anyone. After someone takes a sandwich, Pen spreads out the remaining sandwiches so the tray still looks presentable. This is so Pen, to be arranging the sandwiches like she is. Always the one to take charge to make sure everything is just right.
“Pen,” I say, putting my hand on her shoulder, “have a drink or something, you're making me nervous.”
That's when she stops arranging. Does she hear me? I keep my hand on her shoulder as she puts both of her hands on the table like it's the only thing holding her up.
“Are you okay?” Dana Stanbury asks.
“Oh sure,” she answers confidently. “I just need to take a moment.”
I follow Pen as we navigate our way through the mourners and head into my bedroom. Pen shuts the door.
We look up at the shelves in my bedroom, at the collection of the dolls from around the world. Beside the dolls, there is one picture. It's the one we both love, the one taken of us at summer camp when we were kids. I have the same one up in heaven. We both look at the picture: two little girls, one overgrown and scraggly. Her Camp Wonderland T-shirt is too tight, exposing the mounds of fat on her stomach. She's got her circular glasses on and a huge smile exposing her oversize gums and teeth. She has her arm around the other little girl, who is much smaller than her friend, with pigtails and also smiling this huge grin.
“You stupid idiot,” Pen whispers aloud, chuckling through her tears. “How could your fat ass get hit by such a small car?”
“That's what I thought you'd say,” I laugh with her as she sits down on my pink canopy bed, taking the picture with her.
Pen really starts to cry now.
“What the hell am I going to do without you?” she whispers aloud as she slides to the floor and I go along with her.
She's facedown with her head buried in white shag carpet.
“What the hell am I going to do without you?” she asks again as I stroke her back.
“I'm here for you,” I tell her. “I'm right here, you idiot,” I whisper.
She picks up her head and rolls into the fetal position on the floor; her eyes open as she stares beyond the dust ruffle under the bed. I'm sitting up, leaning against the bed, watching over my dearest friend. I hear people outside the doorâglasses clinking and mumblings of talk. It might as well be miles away.
Just then, Pen picks up her head, coming to life as she focuses on something under the bed. She takes her arm and moves it under the bed to grab something. When it comes out, she's got my old Snoopy dog, the one I threw under there the night of my first kiss all those years ago. Pen takes it into her arms and sits up next to me beside the bed, staring at the old stuffed animal and our picture.
“What are you going to do with that thing?” I ask her, though I know she can't hear me.
“I hope you're taking care of yourself, wherever you are,” she whispers as if she were talking to my old, dusty Snoopy. “Who is going to look after you if I can't?”
“I can take care of myself now, Pen. I can, I promise you, I'll be okay.”
“I just worry,” she whispers.
“Don't,” I tell her. “Please don't. I know what I have to do.”
“Okay,” she whispers as she wipes her tears.
We sit there for a few more seconds in silence, my best friend and me. I know she can't hear me, though maybe she can. It's kind of like it was on earth when I'd think of her and suddenly the phone would ring and I would pick it up without saying hello and say, “I was just thinking of you!”
“Okay,” she says, confirming to herself as she gets up and places our picture and the Snoopy doll on the bed. “Okay,” she repeats confidently, grabbing a tissue from the bedside table and wiping her face.
Pen opens the door to my childhood room, and we step out among the crowd of mourners.
“How are you?” Kerry Collins and Dana Stanbury and Olivia Wilson ask as we head toward the living room.
“I'm okay now,” she tells them.
“We're just talking about the time Alex and I went to get those perms. Remember how hers came out?”