Lucid (7 page)

For all of his air of superiority, and the fact that he just schooled me, he engaged me as an equal. Maybe we will strike up a prickly but mutually respectful relationship. As Ms. Lambert spends the rest of the class calling on other kids, I spend the rest of the class planning several alternative conversations to chat him up with as soon as class is over. How convenient that this is sixth period. Maybe we will wind up at the Marble, sipping vanilla lattes dissecting the brilliance of
The Trial
. Actually, he probably drinks espresso. Or just black coffee. Nothing sweet and foamy.

The bell rings.

He stands up without ever looking at me. Stops at Ms. Lambert’s desk. Says something that makes her laugh and her eyes involuntarily dart to me.

And then he just walks out. Of the room. Of my good graces. Of our prickly, mutually respectful future together. Of any universe I may ever inhabit.

T
he phone is ringing when I return home from a cattle call audition for a nationwide TV commercial. While it’s not high art, scoring the role of Woman with Headache or Girl Drinking Coke pays great money. And I’m a working actress. And smart enough to know that having some savings in case I ever want to go to college is a good idea.

When I quit school so that I’d be able to audition and work, my father devoted himself to my homeschooling. He created a library of lesson plans for me, bringing me through my “graduation.” They are personal and fun and tailored specifically for me by someone who really gets how my brain works. I whizzed through them all, binders and binders of every subject, by the time I turned sixteen. I’ve been dragging my feet for the past year on taking the GED and just being done with it. For the second time, I have an actual test date, so I try to force myself to peck away at the preparation material
each day. It’s easy to find distractions from sitting down and doing the actual work. Like this damn ringing phone.

“No, she’s not home. This is her daughter.”

The voice on the other end of the phone asks incredulously, “Jade?”

“I’m Maggie, Jade’s older sister. What’s wrong?”

“We have to reschedule your sister’s MRI…”

My sister’s what??

“…because Dr. Strong has a surgery in the afternoon and so needs to see her in the morning.”

I silently choke down my terror, my fury at that idiot Nicole, while composing my thoughts.

“Um, my mother hasn’t mentioned this; can you tell me what the MRI is for?”

“I’m sorry, I wish I could. Is there another number where I can reach your mother?”

When I arrive at
Elle
to have it out with her, Nicole is at her desk obsessing over an article titled “Electric Facials, Botox’s New Best Friend,” because facials and Botox are much more important than being available for your children. The open layout of the office lends a great stage for our smackdown. Jerome actually makes a bag of popcorn in the kitchenette and puts his feet up to watch.

Nicole takes and holds the position that she kept this a secret from me so that I “wouldn’t be worried.” Or respond in an inappropriately dramatic way, as, she points out, I am now. I ask how that’s working out for her. I also ask if she will advance me enough money for a bus ticket so that I can take Jade somewhere far away from her
and neither of us will ever see her again. I hear a chuckle from the beauty editor sitting ten feet away.

I suppose a good part of my outrage is fueled by the fact that I am basically Jade’s functioning mother more than half the time. I have enormous responsibility and now am being left out of crucial information and decisions affecting Jade’s very life.

Nicole informs me in that patronizing tone she calls “patient” that this is completely routine. The medical protocol requires a scan to rule out “anything structural” before committing completely to the Snickers regime.

The clincher is that when I ask Nicole how we should tell Jade about it, she informs me she told Jade about the appointment a few days ago and said, “Don’t tell your sister. You know how she worries.”

I lose it. Whereupon Nicole has the gall to remind me that she is my mother (considering the way she behaves, I suppose a reminder is in order), as well as being Jade’s mother (right), and that she doesn’t appreciate my choice of language or tone of voice.

Thus unappreciated, I take my words and my voice and Jerome’s popcorn and storm out the door. Unwilling to be under the same roof with that woman, I call a few friends from class and wind up crashing at Jason’s because he sleeps at his boyfriend’s most nights and needs someone to feed his kitten anyway. Dorothy (named after Bea Arthur’s character on
The Golden Girls
, Jason’s favorite TV show, which he only started watching when the reruns became cool) listens intently as I explain the situation. She responds with purring and cuddling. I could easily start coming to talk to Dorothy instead of Emma.

I ignore my mother’s calls. Dorothy and I do, however, listen to her voicemails. My favorite, the one I actually saved instead of angrily deleting in case I ever need to petition for full custody, wonders if I could bring Jade to the hospital at the appointed time so that she can meet us there and not miss a staff meeting. This from the woman who wasn’t going to tell me about it at all. For anyone seeking an example of cognitive dissonance, I’d like to present my mother.

She can miss her damn meeting.

Suddenly, I glance at Jason’s bedside table and notice the second book of the Innuendo series sitting there, like a sign from heaven. With a nudge from my fuzzy new friend, drunk with the anger I feel toward Nicole, I dial Thomas. Relieved when he doesn’t answer, I leave a message telling him I’d love to get together to discuss the opportunities he was mentioning. I fumble the end of the message, saying, “This is Maggie Jameson, we met at the Mona Kuhn opening,” realizing too late that’s what I said as my opener. I press 3, expecting the AT&T lady to interrupt and ask me if I want to delete and rerecord my message, but he apparently uses a different carrier. So now he has a bunch of beeps and a soft “shit” from me to wrap up the voicemail. Won’t hold my breath to hear from Hair Guy.

I show up at the hospital an hour before they are supposed to arrive. When they do, I scoop up Jade and take her off for a chat without acknowledging Nicole’s existence. She tells me she’s frightened of being stuck in the tunnel but hasn’t mentioned this to Nicole because you know how she worries. This is what happens when parents ask seven-year-olds to keep secrets from adults. I tell her that we will solve it by my going in with her and holding on to her foot while
she is in the tube so that we can be secretly talking to each other between her toes and my fingers. She likes this idea, though preferring I could actually be in the tunnel with her.

She does great. Her sweet toes and my fingers have a Morse code conversation and listen to the pounding of the machine, just barely louder than the pounding of my worried heart.

Jade is, of course, fine. The test was just protocol but gives me peace of mind to know that there isn’t any reason for concern. We put the MRI image of her brain on the refrigerator and I scrawl on it with a Sharpie:
Nothing going on in here
. Jade thinks it’s funny. I forgive Nicole. Snickers become my sister’s fifth food group. And everything returns to normal. Except that I now think about the mortality of all of us a lot more than I ever did.

“What do you mean by that?” Emma asks at our next session.

“Well, it isn’t just a question of whether Sloane or I will disappear one day. Jade is at risk too.”

“If you give Sloane up, let her go, then you won’t have to worry about Jade anymore.” She sits back in her chair and tells me, “This is a pricey fantasy you’re indulging in. You’re starting to learn the true costs, and there will be more to come.”

Which just sounds cryptic and foreboding. But what if she’s right?

I take my petulance and depression to the Washington Square dog park with Jade’s Yorkie, Boris. She is sleeping over at her best friend Tomiko’s, so I am Boris’s bitch for the duration. I don’t like Boris. And I probably never will. He’s only a little dog, and never did anything bad to me at all. I don’t like his attitude, which is big enough to barely squeeze into an airplane hangar, but I also think he’s
ugly, which is exacerbated by the fact that every young female I meet (and guys who have so little game they address their pickup lines to a girl’s dog) is constantly adoring how adorable Boris is. He’s not.

I like big dogs. Big, shaggy ones who love you to pound them with your fists because they can barely feel it. And they slobber all over you and are completely disgusting and are completely comfortable letting assholes like Boris pretend to push them around. Because they have the thing I admire most in dogs and men. Confidence.

So when I see some perfectly pleasant-looking guy being pushed around by some strutting, entitled bitch, I want to look the other way. I’m not sure why I don’t. There’s a couple across the grassy run, with no discernible dog, setting up some kind of home video something. They have claimed a prime bench under one of the leafy oaks. He is setting up lights and screens to replace the natural sunlight with the specific lighting angles he wants. And she is bitching at him nonstop, like she knows what the hell she’s talking about. I’ve been on enough sets to know that he does and she doesn’t. However, she’s totally gorgeous, which makes me tense up. Whenever I see an actress with a stronger look than mine, I try to resist the urge to go all alpha dog, but I never succeed. Thus assured that she could have no talent, I wander over, hoping to lose Boris in the process, figuring this is none of my business. I’m sure the guy is getting something out of it for the aggravation.

I sit on a bench, absurdly close. Obviously within earshot. Her complaints are all about the lighting. She has very specific ideas about what his setup should do to her bone structure. The guy pays no attention to her whatsoever. So now I like him. She is, however, incredibly hot.

Through masterful eavesdropping, I’m able to figure out that Andrew is in film school at NYU, which is pretty prestigious. Carmen, astonishingly enough, is his classmate. He’s making a student film and is confident in his abilities, obviously having made several before, and I realize that they must not be a couple at all. I hate to admit that it actually makes me feel a little satisfied. He’s too good for her.

Once he starts directing her scene, their dynamic changes completely. He is in total command. She eagerly follows his every suggestion, all of which are made respectfully, in low tones. She even lets him give her line readings, which always drives me crazy. She is actually good. Not just good for a film student, but good for an actress. When the scene is over, they do a second take, and he says it’s a wrap. She looks at him like a puppy waiting to be praised. He says, “Nice.” And she jumps into his arms like a trained chimp, jams her tongue down his throat, and I realize they must be a couple after all. I’m not even trying to pretend I’m not watching at this point.

Then she says she was channeling Audrey Hepburn from
Philadelphia Story
. I can see in his eyes that he knows. If he says the word
Katharine
, he’s in the doghouse.

“Katharine,” he says softly.

“Katharine who?”

“Katharine Hepburn was in
Philadelphia Story
. You’re thinking of channeling Audrey Hepburn in
The Nun’s Story
.”

“Excuse me?”

“Well, I’m thinking the purity, the spirituality, the grace…”

“So this is you being an asshole, yes?” She puts a hand on her hip.

He grins. “This is me making a little fun of you for being pretentious.”

“Except you’re the one being pretentious,” I say out loud. They both turn to me.

“Thanks,” says the actress.

“Fair enough,” says the director, and they proceed to politely ignore me as he shapes her performance for their next scene. So Boris and I sit and watch. We don’t discuss our reactions, but I sense that despite our differences, he agrees with my approval of their individual techniques. For some reason I can’t quite put my finger on, I begin to really like them as a couple. Even when they argue. It makes me wish I could find a guy to argue with. It’s not as easy as you’d think.

When they finish, he begins to strike the set, and she walks straight over to me and sits beside me on the bench.

“I have a dog at home in Barcelona. But he’s a big dog. I prefer bigger dogs.”

“This is Boris. You hate him, admit it.”

“Well,
hate
is such a strong word. Let’s just say that he repels me on every level. At heart, he’s probably a loving and gentle creature, but I somehow doubt it.”

“Wow, you’re a shrewd judge of dogs.”

“Men too,” she says, glancing at Andrew.

It’s clear that he was listening to everything we were saying because he turns and nods his appreciation for the compliment. Boris merely yaps. The actress holds out her hand, tells me her name is Carmen (which I already knew from my eavesdropping) and that her boyfriend (which is exactly how she introduces him) is Andrew, don’t call him Andy.

“What will happen if I do?” I ask, just to see how she’ll respond.

“Tell her, Andy,” she commands without a hint of a smile.

Without missing a beat, he says, “I’ll feel marginalized, diminished, and be reminded of my inferiority in every way to Andy Bachman, who was my nemesis in first grade.”

Carmen studies me. “You’re an actress.”

“Why would you say that?”

“Because I told her I thought you were an actress,” Andrew pipes in without looking up.

Carmen nods. “You were mouthing my lines, after the first take. Would you like to try the scene?”

I laugh. Actors are such a competitive species.

“This is his short film for workshop; I’m just helping him out while I’m working a shoot on the Upper East Side. Believe me, you’d be doing me a favor if he cast you instead.”

He reminds Carmen that her call is in an hour, offers her cab money, and to my surprise she grabs my shoulders and kisses my cheek as she leaves.