Jeneration X: One Reluctant Adult's Attempt to Unarrest Her Arrested Development; Or, Why It's Never Too Late for Her Dumb Ass to Learn Why Froot Loops Are Not for Dinner (35 page)

I thought I looked adorable until I saw my reflection in the shiny law firm windows. Instead of taking in my freshly touched-up roots or deep tan, I thought, “I should hold the door for the lady who came straight from Nana’s mah-jongg game down in Boca.”

Seriously, I’m one pair of Easy Spirits away from booking an Alaskan cruise in this stupid getup. I look exactly like Michael Westen’s mother on
Burn Notice
. I could go dressed like this to the movie theater and demand discounted seats. All I’m missing is a jeweled cigarette case and a crooked wig. I’d say that I’m ready to drive ten miles under the speed limit on the expressway, bitch about Congress, and yell at kids to get off my lawn, but I’ve already been doing that for years.

Anyway, I’m glad my SeniorWear [
Trademark pending.
] distracts everyone from my junior high school manicure, but I’m sitting on my hands nevertheless.

We’re being schooled on the four facets of estate planning and Ben, our lawyer, is asking us hard questions, like who we want to give health care power of attorney should we become incapacitated.
Ben explains if something happens to one of us but not the other, certainly we’ll make that decision for the injured spouse, but what happens if we’re both incapacitated? Normally this task falls to family.

That gives us pause and Fletch and I both gawp at each other. Finally, I tell Ben, “We’ll need some time to discuss this. All I know is I don’t want my brother in charge. He’d be all,
‘Broken leg? One hundred percent chance of recovery? Pull the plug anyway; I’ll do it for you!’
”

Since we’re not opting for family, who will we choose to make medical decisions for us? How do we put that burden on anyone who didn’t share a backseat with us on the kind of interminable family vacations where we tried to catch and eat flies because my dad believed stopping for lunch was for amateurs?

I have great friends—the best, really—but have I been a good enough friend to request such a favor? What am I going to say:
“Hey, remember when I didn’t come to your birthday party because it was rainy and my hair was frizzy? Yeah, sorry about that. Listen, do you mind being the one who decides if I live or die? Thanks!”

We awkwardly stumble through more assignments under the other facets until we get to the actual will.

Ben explains that what we want to do is draft a will where everything’s assigned to a trust. The trust (a private document) is where stuff gets specific, like who gets my porcelain Royal Doulton Union Jack bulldog. Because wills are public, anyone can go to the courthouse and request a copy. The trust portion will protect our privacy while we’re still alive. [
After that, I don’t care.
]

“Someday if you’re bored, Google ‘celebrity wills,’” he tells
us. “You’d be shocked at how much information some of them contain. Probably because instead of using estate planning attorneys, they used attorneys who also planned estates. [
He said this enough times for me to gather that the distinction is important. But what do I know? I have green nails.
] For example, did you know that Michael Jackson assigned Diana Ross as his secondary decision maker on some of the facets?”

“Huh,” I reply. “Hey, Fletch, we ought to ask Diana Ross if she wants to be our second, too. Clearly she’s not afraid of the job.”

After we work through the draft of the will itself, we get to the trust and that’s where it gets interesting. By “interesting” what I mean is where I realize I’m an asshole yet again because in divvying everything up, my first thought is,
“Dance, monkeys, dance!”

I’m all cavalier, determining who I’d like to gift upon my demise and I’m particularly delighted when Ben explains how I can write in terms and conditions. Funny, I thought that kind of stuff only happened in the movies. Clarification: bad movies.

I kind of love the idea of being able to run shit from the grave! Like if I want my alma mater to get money, I can make it so they’re getting paid only if they endow a chair in my name. (Of course, whether it’s a university honor or something with four legs, a back, a couple of arms, and my name on a plaque will depend on my industriousness going forward.) This is like a legal form of extortion!

As I cackle and rub my green-tipped hands together in delight under the table, it occurs to me that I shouldn’t be quite so gleeful.

I mean, this isn’t a hypothetical arrangement and for all my bravado, I actually am planning for my eventual demise. No matter how I spin it, I am going to die. I might not die soon (at least I
hope) but I am going to die. No matter how many books I sell, no matter who loves me, no matter what color my nails are painted, it’s all going to end for me exactly like it has for every other person who walked this earth.

Suddenly everything feels very real.

Although I’ve considered my own mortality many times before, I’ve never contemplated it on this level, except for that hour last year when we talked about life insurance.

Rather, my fear of death has always favored the how-to-prevent-it-from-happenings, and never the what-happens-when-it-happens-because-make-no-mistake-it-will-happens.

But in putting together these documents, I’m forced to come to terms with the fact that I’m no different from a carton of milk. I have an expiration date and there’s no getting around it.

That’s when Fletch and I really begin to talk. Do we want our legacy to be making everyone we know arm wrestle for the spoils? Or do we want to take what we’ve earned to do the kind of good that we—to this point—have not quite accomplished on earth?

We’re opting for the latter.

Ever since I stopped volunteering, I’ve felt this sense of guilt that I wasn’t doing enough. In terms of doing charity work, I learned that I’m better at giving money than myself so I’ve been as generous as I can whenever I can. Yet the guilt remained.

After earmarking the bulk of our net worth to deserving nonprofit organizations, I feel an enormous sense of relief as we leave the law office. There’s an almost indescribable satisfaction that comes from knowing my life will not have been lived in vain.

No matter how silly or vapid or mean I’ve been at times, I’ll go out confident that my life will have made a difference and that fills me with a sense of peace and calm.

Despite my reticence, I’m glad we made these decisions. Although we still need to talk with those we’ve chosen as our second [
Not Diana Ross, FYI.
] I feel like we’ve leapt an enormous hurdle today and we’re coming to the end of our Reluctant Adult Decathlon.

We shake hands on our way out the door and we head to the car having made the decision to begin concentrating on what’s really important in our lives.

But before that happens, I’m probably going to get a fresh manicure.

“W
hat does this mean?”

I read and reread the letter and I still can’t make sense of it, so I have to ask Fletch.

“Is this… something?” I wonder, handing the heavy sheet of paper across the counter to him.

According to what the letter says, I’m receiving a distinguished alumni award from the Liberal Arts department at my alma mater, but I’m not sure it’s legitimate because I… didn’t exactly have a distinguished college career. I mean, why would
I
receive this? What are they going to recognize me for, specifically?

Flunking out after my sophomore year?

Swimming in the fountain after every home football game?

Climbing up the fire escape of the old Education building to
throw rooftop parties with my fraternity friends where the Dutchie may or may not have been passed to the left-hand side? [
If I ever have to testify before Congress about this, I’ll claim the Bill Clinton defense.
]

Spending more nights in a row warming a barstool at Harry’s than any other female student in university history?

Accumulating a record number of campus parking tickets because I refused to walk to class since getting sweaty would mess up my hair?

Taking eleven years to earn a bachelor’s degree and then graduating,
finally
, with a solid C average?

Seriously, if my college career was distinguished, I’d hate to see whose wasn’t distinguished. [
To be fair, I probably dated him.
]

I tell Fletch, “I remember getting one of these letters in high school, too—you know, those
Who’s Who Among American High School Students
awards they gave out for ‘outstanding students’?”

“Not familiar,” he replies, eyes scanning my letter.

I pause, remembering the volume I’d been so proud to receive until I realized that my information filled approximately one square inch in a five-hundred-page tome. I wave my hand dismissively. “Oh, everyone got them. The whole thing was kind of a scam. Some private company recognized students for their ‘outstanding achievements’ but if you ask me, the only thing really ‘outstanding’ about them is that their parents were willing to shell out forty-five dollars for a genuine leatherette-bound yearbook.”

“Yeah, never saw one. But, Jen, this? This is real.” He hands the paper back to me.

I flip the paper over to see if there’s any fine print on the back. “How are you so sure? Seems to be the kind of thing a college would send out to troll for a donation check. Ooh, or like when police departments send people notices saying,
‘Hey, you won a boat! C’mon down and claim it!’
but really, it’s just a way to bring in those with outstanding warrants? And even as those poor saps are slapped into cuffs and loaded into the police bus behind the decorated storefront, they’re all,
‘Do I still get my boat?’
Am I going to be hauled off to campus jail for not listening to Nancy Reagan and Just Saying No a couple of times in 1985? How do we know that this isn’t an elaborate sting operation wherein—”

Fletch sighs deeply. “Joanna nominated you, dumbass. She met some ladies from the Liberal Arts department at your last book event and they suggested she do so. She spent months putting together an essay and going through the application process. I assure you, and I tell you again,
this is legitimate
.”

Joanna and I have been friends ever since the vagaries of the University housing department saw fit to put us together freshman year. I cherish her for a variety of reasons but a big part of that is because we knew each other back before we had any idea of who we might be when we grew up. Author Laura Dave has the most spot-on quote in her book
The First Husband
, where she explains how her old friends
“… knew each other in that honest, unmitigated way that people get to know you who meet you when you’re still young. Before all the rest of it. Before it becomes both easier and harder to know yourself.”

So, yes, we’re Laura Dave–kind of friends.

Joanna’s one of the most honest, straightforward people I’ve ever met, so the idea that she’d pull one over on me is difficult to comprehend. “She never once mentioned this to me!” I exclaim. I
mean, secret things almost never happen around me because I’m so suspicious. I take great pride in that it’s almost impossible to catch me unawares.

Okay, a lot of times I see conspiracy theories in coincidences, and sometimes Fletch isn’t the only one around here requiring a tinfoil hat, but still. I even hate good surprises, and woe to anyone who tries. Like if Fletch actually
had
been able to pull off bringing my New York girlfriends Karyn and Caprice here for my birthday without my first cleaning and shopping and coloring my hair? You’d have seen me on the news.

Fletch nods. “Yeah. She knew you’d be mad but did it anyway because she thought it was important you were recognized. She’s very proud of you, so we kept the nomination under wraps until everything was official.” He points to my letter. “Now it’s official. Congratulations.”

Huh.

“What I fail to understand is why me? I had the least distinguished college career out of anyone I know.” I reflect for a moment, scanning the internal databases for someone who screwed up as much as me. “Oh, wait—I was friends with a guy named Hoff who was in chemical engineering so he could make his own drugs. So my college career was more distinguished than Hoff’s but that’s it.”

Fletch gives me the kind of indulgent smile one usually reserves for LOL Cats or toddlers with upturned bowls of oatmeal on their heads. “Jen, the award’s for what you’ve achieved as
an alumna
. Trust me, no one’s giving you anything for your undergrad career.” And then he snorts, which is kind of unfair. I mean, I didn’t even meet Fletch until well into my ninth year of college,
so he never knew me when I was in my late-eighties
Girls Gone Wild
phase. Without the Kissing of the Other Girls or the Photographing of the Ladyparts, I mean. [
That kind of stuff didn’t go down on campus until I was toiling away in corporate America wearing an ill-fitting business suit. Frankly, I’m relieved.
]

Even so, although Fletch and I generally hit the bars together once we met, there were instances when I’d head out with my girlfriends and I’d turn into what Fletch described as “a handful.”

Fletch still gives me the business about the time his bar manager friend called him to come fetch my friend Sloane and me from the parking lot. Apparently after Sloane and I stole a bunch of steak knives, we attempted to use them like crampons to scale the building. Due to a flaw in the steak knives’ design and an unyielding brick wall (or possibly the three pitchers of Molson we imbibed), we abandoned our task.

Plan B involved going into hyperstealth mode, digging foxholes in the snowbanks outside the bar, obscuring ourselves by draping white cloth napkins over our heads in order to be completely camouflaged while we shouted obscenities at the snotty patrons who’d been shooting us dirty looks inside when they walked to their cars. [
Listen, we can’t not sing along to “Love Is a Battlefield.” It’s, like, against the law or something.
]