Diary of a Working Girl (34 page)

And then, like any good story, the conflict entered my life. Let’s call the conflict Liam. The conflict had strikingly good looks, a winning smile, and above all else, a way with the ladies. And to make the whole scenario even more complicated and star-crossed (oh, the romance of it all), the conflict did not work at my office. I would not, could not be with him!

Oh, but I would and I could and I did. And all the while I was entranced by my forbidden, romantic (and not too bad in the bedroom) conflict, I was ticking off the little boxes on my list of qualifications for The One—at this point, my life’s work. Great in bed—check; aggressive—check; smart—

check; sparkling conversationalist—check; master of anticipation—check. The only problem was, the conflict, despite all of his seeming perfection—his hysterical personality; his insa-tiable desire to perform all manner of wicked deeds with me, on me, above me, below me—turned out, in the end, to be a fraud.

And the fraud, when brought to light, blamed me.

He—the liar, the cheater, the creator of a false identity—

blamed me.

The audacity.

The sheer ridiculousness.

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The truth.

It was true. I’d been caught in a web of my own weaving.

Before we’d kissed, before we’d even had our first date, I’d dreamed him into my own reality. I’d consulted the checklist!

I knew what I wanted, and I knew he was it. Only he wasn’t it. But that’s because nobody in the entire world
could
be it. It only exists in my Barbie doll case, tucked in my mother’s at-tic; it exists in my boxes and boxes of movies and books; It exists in those days and days in Central Park when I’d muse about what each coupled man was to each coupled woman.

The only place it doesn’t exist is in reality.

And this was a place, through my own romantic and igno-rant imaginings, that I’d managed to put off a visit to thus far.

And the landing was a bumpy one. But it had to happen sooner or later. And the only thing my speed dating experiment had done was to purchase me an express ticket there.

But once you’ve mourned the passing of The One, whom you’ve created and kept as a companion since the days when tricycles were your main mode of transportation, through the dateless wedding receptions, beside you on an otherwise lonely Saturday night, you come to realize that his death is really the best thing that could have happened. His death gives you the opportunity to live, to see each man you encounter for his own unique wonders, which needn’t fit into a confin-ing mold. And while I may not have found The One at Mankind, Inc., I have found something far more important. I have found the ability to love. So now, with all those hopeless romantics out there, I remove my mourning veil and look forward to a love far better than any on the silver screen—a love that’s real.

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I’m happy with the piece, but I can’t help but wonder what is missing. That awful word keeps coming back to mind—fate. Perhaps if, after I’d learned the error of my ways, I still managed to meet someone wonderful, who I could fall in love with, I could see that fate plays a role. But as far as I can see at the current time, fate is a whole separate idea, filled with words I used to melt at the sound of, like “predestined” and “meant to be.” And as much as I would like to believe that I could return to that type of sensibility and indulge my yen for such frivolities, I now see the danger involved with that line of thinking. I’m not going back there for anything.

So, I e-mail the story over to Joanne to see what she thinks, and I attach a file I’d typed up of
Diary of a Working Girl
. I wanted her to see where I’m coming from, the daily ins and outs of my debacle with love, even though I imagine it’s too long for her to actually read.

I ask in big bold letters:
Do you believe in fate?

If anyone is rational it’s Joanne. She might as well have invented the word. I am quite sure she’ll keep me free and clear of all sorts of ridiculous thoughts.

I am impatient for her reply. At the ten-minute mark, I resist the urge to ring her. At fifteen minutes, I dial, shaking. I feel as if my entire existence is dependent upon whether or not Joanne agrees with my point of view, and more importantly, whether she believes in fate.

“I am not finished yet. Chill out. I’ll call you back. Breathe.”

And with that she hangs up. It’s harsh, but I realize, necessary.

I attempt to while away the time by checking my horoscope online.

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your special someone to you. You have to trust in that wonder of all wonders—fate.

“Ha!” I say out loud to no one in particular.

I glance at the stuffed bear on my bed.

“Do you believe that crap?” I ask Teddy. I look at his torn ear, into his ready-to-fall-off eye.

“Do you?”

He’s not saying a word. I throw him on my bed, shaking him like someone who’s fainted to get his attention.

I repeat the question, “Do you?”

Defeated, I throw myself onto the bed next to him.

“Oh, Teddy,” I say, “is there such a thing as fate? Can I allow myself a touch of the mystical if I am ever to hope to steer clear of my old, silly ways?”

I am staring at the ceiling, looking for the answers, and seeing only a bunch of hairline cracks in the plaster when my eyelids begin to droop. An exaggerated yawn leaves my mouth, and I decide it’s time for a nap. It’s been a long time since I have napped. Two months, roughly—the time when I’d started working at Smith Barney. (I once measured my overhead storage bin to see if I could fit inside, but alas I was too large.) I always had mixed feelings about them before. On the one hand, you feel guilty for sleeping when you should be working. But on the other hand, when you wake, re-freshed, sometimes the answer to your quandary is right there.

I began this ritual in college when I’d spend hours and hours downing Diet Coke in front of my computer and taking breaks only to scream at the musical theater majors to stop singing those damn operas in the damn hallway while I was trying to write a damn paper. And then I’d just take a nap (the opera singing was actually quite nice as a lullaby) and bam! the answer to why a certain 21430_ch01.qxd 1/26/04 10:06 AM Page 271

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poet chose to use the word
twilight
would be right there. If I’d ever been in need of a miracle like that, I was in need of one right now.

So with that four-letter word,
FATE
, lying heavy on my mind, I bury myself in the mountain of pillows around me, turn down the blankets, and curl into the fetal position. As my breathing starts to slow, I take comfort in the fact that I am falling blissfully into slumber.

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N i n e t e e n

One Fateful Day

Although it is only five o’clock when I lie down in my bed, I sleep the whole night through. When I wake, holding Teddy in a head-lock, looking out the window to my right, I see it is so early that the sun is barely even lighting the sky. It looks like “naps” are not really something I’m capable of handling anymore. This was more of a vacation, only without actually going anywhere, no tan to speak of, and a wicked case of jet lag.

At the mirror, I let out the sort of yawn that only single women can partake in—a screaming one, where you open your mouth so wide you can see every filling. It’s not the feminine covered-mouth sort you attempt in front of a man. And as I’m staring at my mouth in amazement—how many fillings do I have anyway?—I begin recalling my dreams.

In one rapid, nonlogical sequence, I was Sleeping Beauty, my hair not a mass of human hair, made up of separate strands, but instead a 21430_ch01.qxd 1/26/04 10:06 AM Page 273

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lump of one-dimensional orange colored in with a marker and contained by a heavy black line drawn around. I’m lying in a bed, locked up in that infamous dark tower, holding an arrangement of flowers—a few white lilies—when the plump, jocular fairy godmother of Cinderella fame taps me on the shoulder, briefly interrupting my sleeping spell.

I turn to look at her and ask, “Are you Fate?”

She looks at me and smiles, waving a glowing Fourth of July sparkler in the air, tracing loops and spirals with each movement, completely ignoring me, even when I throw the flowers onto the stone floor and begin stomping on them.

Until she finally says, “Aren’t those sparklers so much fun? Here, try one out.”

She hands one to me and I look at it, thinking how fitting it is that when I finally do get a fairy godmother she turns out to be a wacko. She’s trying to write something in the air with her sparklers, but the blaze fades away before I can make the letters out.

Finally, I rip them from her hands and say, “Listen, I haven’t got all the time in the world here. Would you mind answering my question already? Geez.”

The fairy godmother looks like she’s about to sock me one, which isn’t very fair considering it’s my dream, and I don’t think my subconscious is filled with heavyweight aspirations. She composes herself, lights another sparkler, this time holding it still, and takes on a whole new demeanor.

“I am, indeed, Fate, my dearie. And I am here to tell you that you have really been pissing me off. I mean, I have been with you during your entire lifetime, and now you just up and desert me because of one stupid British guy! Whatever happened to devotion? Do you remember that rainy day on your family trip to Massachusetts, summer 1980, under the palace you’d constructed from sheets and two 21430_ch01.qxd 1/26/04 10:06 AM Page 274

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wing chairs? And don’t forget your first kiss with Christopher Tamin; if I hadn’t brought you tumbling off of your bike and onto his driveway, would you have that memory now? It is true that sometimes you do go off the deep end. Believe me, we fairy godmothers have had many a laugh over you, but that doesn’t mean you should shut me out for good. Stay true to yourself, okay? Oh, and here’s another sparkler for the road. Aren’t they just a hoot?”

And she disappears.

“But—”

I need to ask what she means, to find out when I will be ready.

But she is gone. And this stupid sparkler is really hot. Great. Thanks for the help. If that’s my fate, I’m left thinking; then I may be in some serious trouble. You may not take much stock in dreams, but I do.

I dreamed I would be a writer all the time when I was a little girl, and here I am. I even dreamed which college I would attend, and that’s where I wound up. Dreams for me are very, very important—

just as important as my horoscope. Or maybe more. No less. Okay, equal then. Just put it this way, they’re important. So it would have been nice if the one that contained the answer to my question seemed a little bit, what’s the word? Sane.

Is it me, or do you have to figure out every single thing in your life by yourself? What do you have to do to get a little help once in a while? Change your career? Throw yourself into new situations?

Put your life on display for the entire world? Wait. I’ve done all that already and apparently I still don’t know which end is up.

Just as I’m considering pitching a column where I get to complain all the time (now, I’d never run out of material for that one), I remember another dream scene. Those little mice and birds from
Cinderella
are scurrying about a human form—pinning a shoulder here, an inseam there. This form is not me. It is male. It is Tom. He is wearing that Calvin Klein suit and flashing the half-smile.

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When the tiny tailors are through with their alterations, he is giving a tour of his office building to them. Nobody bats an eye at a gaggle of animated characters walking the halls of the Traveler’s Building.

At the elevator, he is pointing to the red and white buttons and saying, “Yes, red is up.”

In the cafeteria, he is scooping up vegetables from silver bins and explaining, “This is the lettuce and this is the carrot, and here are the tomatoes.”

The mice and birds are elbowing each other and belly-laughing.

One little bluebird is attempting to flirt by singing a sweet song and nestling into Tom’s neck. Next Tom is holding a copy of the telephone presentation in one hand and hammering a hook into my wall, where my
Vogue
column would one day be. When he’s fixed the silver piece onto the wall he stands back and says, “Well done, Ab Fab, well done.”

When that flirty bird flies into my window and goes to sing in his ear again I shoo her away thinking that blue is
so
last millennium.

And as quickly as he’d appeared, he is gone.

I look at the wall now, awake, thinking how stupid I have been all of these years to keep pursuing these dreams of being a writer, of meeting my M&M. Is it really worth it if every little success is so hard to come by? The article, I think, is good, but at what price?

And why the hell did I decide to throw both of those challenges into the same boat? If I hadn’t, perhaps I’d still be in possession of one triumph.

But why in my dream was Tom hanging something up in my spot of honor? Is it possible that Tom may have found his way into my heart? Is it possible that he is (dare I use this word) my M&M?

From habit, I consult the old checklist. I know, I know. I’m like a heroin addict—just one more time, I swear!

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I just spent an entire weekend growing up and realizing I am totally irrational and that love is nothing like I thought it was and now I am right back where I started. But old habits are hard to break, and
come on
, you know how melodramatic I am. I was over-reacting. I was upset. Hurt. Angry. But that was with Liam. Surely Tom is nothing like Liam.