Authors: Darri Stephens
I had my doubts on Thanksgiving morning as I passed through our building's double door. I was forever wishing that we had a revolving door at the entrance to our building. On a
good NY day, I could have breezed through it like Marlo Thomas in
That Girl
. (Remember her, the modern girl, so entranced with the New York skyscrapers that she was looking up at them during the opening credits?) On a not good NY day, I could have taken out my bad mood by slamming against the doors and going round and round. Somehow I knew that this childish move would put a smile on my face; kind of like when you hear the theme to
Sesame Street
, and you can't help but grin and hum. Unfortunately, our building sported run of the mill double doors with rusty locks and chipped paint. Even my grandmother could break those puppies down. In my opinion, safety wasn't the issue; it was more of a psychological necessity to have a revolving door.
As I strolled up the block, my gut was telling me that my very first Thanksgiving in NYC was doomed. The sky was overcast, the gray clouds spitting gray raindrops onto the gray skyscrapers standing tall next to the gray bare trees shadowing the gray concrete sidewalks. So what do I do when I'm having a depressing day like this? I head straight for the nearest food vendor of course.
My “happy” place was Moe's Deli. The location? A mere two hundred paces from my decrepit double door. The food culprit? Double-Stuffed Oreos and a bag of Jet-Puffed Marshmallows. I know, it's an odd match, but oh what a perfect recipe to clear those gray skies. And as my mouth began to salivate thinking about the marshmallows, I bit the side of my mouth. Nards! The acidic taste of blood filled my mouth. And, as if things couldn't get any worse, down I went. Literally. My heel caught and I pitched forward, landing splayed out on the filthy sidewalk. I was practically making an upside-down angel with the concrete.
“Jesus Christ!” I shouted. First, my Stila shimmer eye shadow fell out of my purse and went straight for the dog pee south of my right foot. Next a couple of my super-plus-sized tampons rolled down the sidewalk and straight into the sewer- age drain. Not good because A, it was that time of the month and B, those cotton puppies that cost probably a penny to make are so expensive in the city. A box of ten costs like fifteen bucks and God knows, we all need more than ten to get through the five-day cycle. And as if it couldn't get any worse, my absolutely favorite to-die-for, must-have, and don't-kiss- without-it twenty-five dollar, juicy peach lip gloss spun out of control right under the homeless man who happened to be taking a catnap next to me. Could I get a little help here folks? I began to giggle like a crazy person. So ladies and gentleman, there you have it. A classic example of a not good NY day.
I stood up and quickly brushed off my soiled and possibly ruined pair of black pants, hoping that my quick reflexes would help me regain some sort of dignity. As I ducked under the awning of the building next door, I even managed to miraculously swipe my juicy gloss from underneath the homeless man. Call it divine intervention, or the almighty gloss gods, but the dear man happened to shift his entire body to the left mid-snore. Once he was belly up, there was my lip gloss, exposed and ready for rescue. I took a deep breath and reached out, somehow managing to find the tube within two stabs. Okay, things were improving slightly. I plunked myself down on the building's stoop to try to pull myself together. Smoothing out my hair and applying a quick coat of peachy nectar on my lips, I noticed in my now-cracked compact mirror (Note to self: Don't believe the seven years of bad luck hype.) that I looked utterly horrible. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I
happened to notice a pair of more than five hundred dollar fuck-me Jimmy Choo stiletto shoes tapping right underneath my nose. I glanced up cautiously.
“Honey, can you tell your boyfriend that I have a package coming this afternoon, and that it is very important for him to keep it upright?” she said.
“Who? What?” I noticed that I sounded very much like the ditsy teenager I never was. My cheek throbbed and I felt like I probably had blood dripping out of my mouth like Countess Drac-u-dork.
“Yes dear. Juan, your boyfriend? Will you give him my message, sweetness? I figure you'll see him when he gets in.” She nodded as if that was going to convince me.
Juan? Juan who? No, she couldn't be talking about doorman next-door Juan? I quickly realized that this high-flouting, sexed-out and sassed-up woman thought that I was the girlfriend of the doorman in her building! We girls liked to refer to Doorman Juan as our free apartment therapist. He would listen and nod so sincerely when went on drunken tirades at 2:00A.M. in front of his building. From sex to work to parents, Juan knew all our torrid tales. And who cared if he hardly spoke any English? We knew he could feel our pain.
“No!” I screamed. “My boyfriend's name is J. P. Morgan.”
“Yes, well whatever you call him. This is America and we all can have lofty dreams, my dear. I bet he will get there someday. Ciao daaarling!” And with that final condescending “I'm better than you are so piss off” good-bye, the fuck-me stilettos were off down the block. I bet she was having a marvelous god- damned good NY day.
“She doesn't know what the hell she's talking about,” I grumbled. I had a fantastic boyfriend. I had a J. P. Morgan. Not
a Juan Morgan. But wait! I'd finally uttered that sacred word “boyfriend”! I, Charlotte Brown, had a boyfriend. Or did I? My mind began spinning out of control. Was he or wasn't he? I mean, we had never actually defined what we were. It wasn't like at bars or at parties he introduced me by saying, “This is my girlfriend, Charlie.” So far, when we hung out with his friends at Top Shelf, he had only managed to say, “This is Charlie.” It was always short and simple, but nevertheless, an introduction. Not too many details and so much left hanging. To think of it, J. P. Morgan and I really hadn't ever had the whole “me like you, you like me, so let's be boyfriend and girlfriend” convo. But, on the other hand, if an outsider looked at our relationship they would definitely say that we were “hanging out” with each other. That was good, right? I mean, when he's not canceling on me, or passing out on me, he and I do have a pretty darn good time together. Heck, his mother even knew who I was. That had to count for something. And since our shopping excursion for a tie, he and I had hooked up a couple of times here and there. But, come to think of it, the last time I actually saw J. P. was last weekend at my place and that didn't really go over too well. (I'll explain later!) So in reality, he and I haven't spoken in about four or five days. Heeelllloo Charlie, reality check! If J. P. were really my “boyfriend,” then he would be calling me every day. Heck, he'd be calling me multiple times a day. (I have Swingers on DVD and therefore I know that a week is way too many days past the two-day phone call etiquette dictated by the rules of the dating game.) I sighed. Definitely not a good NY day. It wasn't even 10:00 A.M. and I was already banged, bruised, and tamponless. And to top it off, I was alone, bleeding, poor, dizzy, dating a doorman, and hadn't even had a single cup of coffee yet.
As I sat on the stoop licking my wounds, I could feel my heart getting heavier and heavier. I started to do some deeper analysis on my relationship with Mr. J. P. Morgan. To date, he and I have met up a bunch of times, hooked-up a bunch of different ways, and sort of come within millimeters of having sex, yet we still hadn't consummated nor defined our sort of relationship. Was it just physical or was there a commitment? Does one plus one equal one, or does one plus one equal two? My dad would have a field day with the math.
Why do females always have to overanalyze relationships? Why can't we just be like boys—sleep around and not give a damn? You know what it is? It is straight-up confidence. That's what it is. As I rounded the corner kiosk, the plethora of tabloids caught my eye. Smiling from beneath a headline of lies, J. Lo radiated. No matter what her straits, that girl exudes the confidence of a shark in a pool of guppies. She goes around and swings her thing and doesn't give a shit about what anyone thinks. She is always looking out for the numero-uno player, herself. Now, would she play the male game? I think not. And with each J. Lo thought I began to get a little bit stronger and a hell of a lot tougher. My walk down the block even got a little sassier. I began to sing “I'm just Jenny from the block. I used to have a little and now I've got a lot!” Damn, that Puerto Rican princess was a genius. “Jenny from the Block” puts on her short shorts, gets out on the field, and just swings away. J. Lo would definitely tell me to get in the game.
Humming J. Lo tunes, I decided that I'd have to play by the boys' rules from now on. But even if I played the “man game,” in order to actually win I needed a new strategy. I decided that a new system of bases was in order. You know the base system—the one you first learned about at summer camp that
rates how far you have gone sexually or presexually. First base: kissing (whether just the simple kiss or whether tongue is involved is always a topic of debate). Second base: steps it up a notch with up and under the shirt action (or, for the chaste, French kissing comes in here). Third base: going down; yes, as in oral sex. Home base: the end-all, or at least the end of all virginity. However, while that rating system worked in high school, it no longer reflected my playing field. In real life the stakes were higher and the countdown to old maid status more imminent. Therefore, and since most of us skip ahead to sex pretty quickly these days, the base system should reflect more accurate relationship milestones. First base: dating, casual, yet full good behavior—flowers and all that. Second base: girlfriend and boyfriend status; the label is adopted by mutual consensus at this point and readily volunteered to others. Third base: the honeymoon is over and the pressure is on. Wedding invites include you as “and guest” or by actual name. As one of my good guy friends had recently admitted, “A wedding date? It's as good as being engaged!” And home base: “Da-da-da-da” (think wedding theme—or in the males' harmonic version, “Dum-dum-dumb-
dumb
!”).
With my new system in place (but no resolution to the boyfriend thing) I steeled my resolve and made my way to Moe's Deli. Once there, Moe, who always knew what I wanted, handed me my much-needed cup of vanilla nonfat café au lait (aka flavored Folgers with a splash of skim milk and a scoop of calorie-laden vanilla powder). Nodding and smiling with my best look of gratitude, I took a huge gulp, skipped the marshmallows and Oreos combo, and went out to try to seize the day once more. There's nothing like a stiff cup of coffee to get my head screwed on straight in horrible situations.
I was fully awake now, but still not at optimal cheer level. Needless to say, the whole “work” thing was throwing me for a loop this time of year—another reality check of real life. Unfortunately, since Syd, Macie, Wade, and I were at the absolute bottom of the pecking order at our jobs, we had to work a full day the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and a full day the Friday after. We only got measly Thanksgiving Thursday off. How generous of our employers! Growing up, we had become accustomed to so many winter, summer, spring, religious, Independence, Memorial, and Labor days off, that working around holidays came as a shock to the system. You'd think that my boss, the Diva, would want her employees to embrace and celebrate this all-American holiday, but nope. Thanksgiving was one of the bread-and-butter money makers for
Sunshine & Sensibility
and we had to work round the clock to keep the juggernaut moving, though rumor had it that we would be treated to a spectacular lunch the day after good ole Turkey Day. Having said that, I'd also heard that the Diva served up a triple oyster stuffing in lieu of a Jell-O cranberry mold in order to make her female employees fat. Apparently, she didn't like pretty, slim women in her presence. First, she worked us like dogs, then she stuffed us like turkeys. So we became not only disgruntled employees, but employees who were depressed and obsessed over their waistlines. I knew that come Friday, while the Diva was relishing in her turkey-induced lethargy at her farm in Connecticut, I would be sitting in my cubicle waiting for the phone to ring while shoveling her famous blueberry cobbler pie in my mouth. I also knew that despite my vigilance, the phone wouldn't ring and I wouldn't stop at one scoop of cobbler.
Thanksgiving happened to be one of my favorite holidays,
which made me even more melancholy. I knew that my mom had been up since the crack of dawn, stuffing the turkey; the smell was probably wafting through the house right now. Growing up, we'd all come out in our pj's and would gather round the stove begging Mom for a little taste of her famous chestnut stuffing. Just thinking about it made my stomach rumble.
Not to be defeated, Syd, Macie, Wade, and I had decided that we would finally christen our oven and make a grand, albeit cheap, Thanksgiving dinner at the apartment. When Tara learned that we were staying in the city, she didn't want to miss out on the “party.” So she called her always-pregnant sister, who was hosting their family dinner, and lied, saying that she had to work too. “You know how it is, sis. They just work us to the bones! I just have to put in the face time if I want to move up. My boss was saying that she wanted a meeting soon, so I have to make an extra big effort in the next week or so.”
I arrived home clutching my vanilla café au lait and surveyed the scene. Even as the “uninvited” guest, Tara had taken complete control. It was clear that she had hip-checked Wade right out of the head position in the kitchen and was now standing over the sink, preparing the turkey.
“Finally, I'm getting some!” she gloated as she stuck her hands up the turkey's butt and into the gooey depths of the innards. At the kitchen table, Syd was concentrating on making beer bread. I already had been banned from the cooking festivities after I'd bought cranberry juice instead of cranberry sauce for Wade's grandmother's recipe, but I figured at least the juice would come in handy for those dreaded UTIs. I'd tried to make good by piping up about my mom's stuffing recipe, but I
couldn't remember if the stuffing had apples or sliced water chestnuts or both. Macie had put on the Macy's Day Parade in the other room, and I wandered in there like a rejected dog. No wonder Macie and my mother got along so well—every year my mother made a big deal about the parade. Just what is so entrancing about overblown balloons of old cartoon characters (sorry, Woody Woodpecker) floating in the chilly November air accompanied by piss-poor commentary from high-ranked correspondents? Tara, the talented imitator, was doing her best sing-song remarks from the kitchen.