Angry Conversations with God (20 page)

“Come visit me in New York!” Mark e-mailed me. “Lots of cool Christians. Lots of cute guys. For you, I mean!” I took him up
on the offer. I also visited my friend Diane, who’d moved east for a development job at a cable network. Diane had always
found me funny so of course I liked her. Over lunch, she told me they were developing new shows for New York—based talent.
“Ever thought about writing for TV, Susan? In New York?”

I went back to Mark’s apartment and wrote up a series idea. Diane loved it and so did her boss. “Here’s the deal, Susan: We’re
only hiring local talent. You have to live here. It’s cable: they didn’t even pay for me to relocate.”

The moment I got back to LA, I started thinking about moving to New York. What did I have in LA besides a rent-controlled
apartment and a part-time job? I had friends. But friends move. Mark moved to New York. Cheryl was moving to Hawaii. At least
I’d be moving somewhere I had a close friend.

Mark called. His friend Dave from church was renting a house in Queens. “The small room is available for only $325 a month!”

“What is it, a crack house?”

“No, Susan. You’re thinking of Brooklyn.”

Les insisted I go. “It’s the best city in the world.”

Only Gwen peed on my parade. “You can’t move until they offer you a job.”

“They won’t offer me a job unless I’ve moved. If it sucks I can move back.”

“Not to your rent-controlled apartment, you can’t.”

“But I can get a room in a house in Queens for $325 a month.”

“What is it, a crack house?”

“No, you’re thinking of Brooklyn. Can you think of one positive thing to say?”

Gwen sighed. “I’m jealous. If it weren’t for Danny, I’d move with you in a heartbeat.”

I’d wasted three years ignoring God’s opinions about my life. Now that I was sober, I dared to hope that God might still have
a purpose for me, and he might have an opinion about me going to New York. Despite the Oakies and the Slackers and the Roidheads,
I still believed God could give me a sign. Maybe I was being superstitious. Maybe I wanted God to be my personal tarot card
reader. Or maybe, just maybe, God had my best interests at heart, and maybe he would tell me. (Hopefully not with a nightmare
about moving to New York and getting decapitated.)

The following Sunday, I gritted my teeth and joined Gwen at the Baywatch church. “Be ready to go where God calls you,” the
pastor bellowed. “Some of you are not meant to stay here. Some of you are meant to move out of state.…” Arrogant or not, that
was my sign.

I gave notice, cleaned out my apartment, and took a few boxes to my parents’ house for storage. My father’s childhood polio
was taking its toll. His muscles had been deteriorating, which meant he moved even less and watched even more TV, if that
were possible. At least he was watching more movies, Mom said. Laurel and Hardy, the Marx Brothers. “And there’s one he watches
over and over,” she puzzled.
“Sleepless in Seattle
?”

At the dinner table my father went off on Hillary Clinton and Travelgate. “It’s just a bunch of GHADDAMNED crooks. GhadDAMN…”
I could still feel the electric shock, so I excused myself and went back to packing. I had forgiven him. But I couldn’t help
mourning the relationship we’d lost, the relationship that could have been.

Later that night, I walked past Dad sitting in his Barcalounger. “Let me show you something, Susie.” He demonstrated the headphones
that allowed him to watch TV all night without disturbing anyone. “One night I got up from the TV and went to the bathroom
down the hall. Sitting there in the john, I thought,
Man, that TV is loud! Susie was right. It’s louder in here than it is in the TV room.
I never realized how the sound traveled down the hallway and echoed. You were right…about how loud it was.”

“It’s funny the things we used to fight about. Actually, it’s not funny. It was your house and I didn’t respect you. I’m sorry
I hurt you, Dad. I hope you will forgive me.”

Dad looked down. “Well, the sound just echoes and gets louder down there. Right near your door.”

“What do you like about
Sleepless in Seattle
?”

“That Meg Ryan. I look at her and think,
Susie could have played her role really well.
“

I wondered if Dad liked the movie itself or if he just liked playing it over and over the way he relived his memories: trying
to rewrite our lives to have a better ending. I kissed him on the forehead. He grabbed my forearm. His hand was shaking. I
hadn’t realized until that moment how frail he’d become.

Two weeks before Thanksgiving I left Los Angeles with four suitcases and my cat. Mark picked me up and took me to Long Island
for the weekend. New York had been good to Mark. He’d opened an acting studio and was making a great living as an actor’s
coach—enough to rent a cottage in the Hamptons in the winter. The beach was nothing like Southern California. The sand was
riddled with high grass; the water was gray and wild. But I loved the wildness of it all; I loved the adventure. That night
the sky was dark and the wind turned bitter, but the stars were out.

“It’s beautiful,” I marveled to Mark.

“I thought you should see the beauty before you experience the horror that is Queens. Dave’s house is big, but it is Queens,
honey.”

“Oh, stop it. You’re pissing on my adventure.” Yes, this was an adventure. God hadn’t forgotten me. He had called me to live
a big life. I was glad to be alive and sober for it.

That Sunday I met my new roommates, Wendy and Dave, at the house. “Your room is smaller than I thought,” Dave apologized.
“It’s eight feet by eight feet. But the ceilings are high. You could do a loft bed.” The room was so small that by the time
I put my bags down I had to sleep in the fetal position.

I decided to do something nice for myself and get a great New York haircut. That was a horrible idea. Haircuts are rarely
great the first week. I’d just upended everything else in my life—why crop my hair? Oh, did I say “crop”? No, I did not. I
said, “A trim with some layers.” However, the stylist—as he loosely referred to himself—interpreted that as Ellen DeGeneres
on a bad hair day.

I called Mark in tears. He laughed. “I always thought Ellen would look cute with mascara and bigger earrings.” Mark bought
me some massive earrings. I bought a bottle of hair-growth serum.

The Tuesday before Thanksgiving, Diane called me from the cable network.

“Susan, I just got fired.”

“What?!”

“My boss jumped ship for ESPN. They fired everyone in her regime. Including me.”

“What are you going to do?” I wondered.

“I’m moving back to LA. I hate it here. It’s too cold.”

“What about my treatment?”

“Basically, you’ve got a Democratic bill in a Republican Congress. I’m so sorry, Susan. Don’t stay in New York. It’s too cold.”

It was bitterly cold. It was also two days before Thanksgiving and I was stuck in an eight-foot cubicle with a bad haircut
and no job.

Mark’s friend Bill from church invited us to a Thanksgiving dinner up in Washington Heights. The hostess handed out Bible
verse cards to everyone. She didn’t know me from Adam. The verse she gave me read, “I will watch over you wherever you go.…I
will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you” (Gen. 28:15).

“Perhaps God tricked me into moving here,” I told Mark on the subway ride home. “Maybe he lured me out here with a shiny object
and then pulled a bait and switch. But maybe I needed a shiny object to get here, because the real gift might not be so shiny.
And maybe I need to be patient and discover what the real gift is. Besides, Jesus has never ever let me down.…
Well
…”

Mark laughed. “You are
so
going to be okay.”

That Sunday I went to Mark’s church in the Village. The air was crisp, the sky was a severe blue, the wind was scattering
the last autumn leaves, and it took my breath away. I thought to myself,
It’s okay, Lord. I’ll stay until you tell me it’s time to go. And after all, this is lovely. It really is lovely.
And then God smiled. At least that’s what it felt like when the wind whipped the leaves around my feet.

I decided to wait it out and discover what God meant for me to find in New York. I got a temp job working for a law firm.
I got a theatrical and commercial agent and started doing the thing I knew how to do: schlep around the city for auditions.
Mark was right: I was going to be okay.

The first big surprise God had for me was a solid, healthy church. I never thought I’d find that again. The pastor was intelligent;
his sermons were like meaty college lectures that fed my brain. The worship music was sophisticated: classical in the morning,
jazz at night. Mark hated jazz. “It’s like ‘Kenny G Does the Hymns.’ Who can worship to a jazz scat?”

“Well it beats rock ’n’ roll power ballads.” I laughed. “Jesus, Luvvah of my soul-ahh, let me to thy bosom FLY-YAHH!”

There was no emotional excess whatsoever at this church. No crying in the Spirit or reaching hungry hands up to God. Given
my past, that was a good thing.

My second surprise was the friends I made at that church: artists like Mark who loved God and were making a living at their
art or working survival jobs to support it. They didn’t just “wait on God.” They took action.

“New York does that to you, Susan. It kicks you in the ass.”

Want to be an artist? Then go make art and stop talking about it. So I went.

My new friend Bill introduced me to Paula, a film producer who liked my treatment. I developed the story into a feature script
and we shopped it around. I entered the script into a competition and won a $10,000 prize. So I kept temping, kept auditioning,
and kept writing.

Then Bill introduced me to Todd and Jeannie, sketch comedians, and Cade, a filmmaker. We started
King Baby,
a comedy show with sketches and short films. We got a producer, Chris, and booked gigs all over town. It was a blast. While
we were all Christians, we didn’t do “Bible skits.” Some sketches had a spiritual element; others didn’t. The first priority
was to be good. These guys were the most talented people I’d ever worked with. I was having more fun than I had at the Groundlings.
I began to book paying acting work again: commercials mostly. I still did some temp work, but it didn’t matter. I was playing
my note. Maybe God couldn’t turn back the clock, but in one short year he accomplished amazing things with the time I’d given
him.

Rudy: At last, a happy moment in your life!

Susan: This too shall pass.

Rudy: Well, let’s enjoy it while it’s here. If you want good times to return, you’ve got to remember what made the good times
good.
Why don’t you tell each other something you appreciated about this time in your relationship?

Susan: Okay. I’m very grateful for what God did. He turned my life around.

God: I turned her life around.

Susan: God blessed me.

God: I blessed her.

Susan: I think you’re supposed to respond by saying something you appreciate about me.

God: What do you want me to say?

Susan: I don’t want to put words in your mouth.

God: But you’re the one who’s imagining me.

Susan: Rudy, help. Sarcastic God is back.

Rudy: This was a good time for you. Yes?

I imagined us nodding politely.

Rudy: Is there anything else you’d like to mention?

Susan: I just want to remind God that I didn’t freak out when everything fell apart within the first month of my being there.

God: You did freak out. At first.

Susan: For about five minutes. But then I went back to trusting you, like in Psalm 13: “O
LORD
, how long will you forget me?…But I trust in your unfailing love.”

God: And I just want to remind Susan that when things are crappy temporarily, it doesn’t mean they’re going to be crappy forever.

Susan: Except for the people for whom it
is
crappy forever.

God: But other times it’s only temporary and it’s for a good reason.

Susan: I know. I learned that during the time we just talked about.