Cherries In The Snow (13 page)

He grabs it out of my hand and kisses me and Jake Gyllenhaal and Kirsten Dunst's grainy kiss shot has nothing on us. I am trapped in the inky embrace of a tabloid, out-of-focus kiss. But his daughter doesn't know I exist and I feel like a mistress. Most women spend the courtship waiting to hear ‘I love you.' I got that out of the way so fast that I'm now waiting to hear it from his daughter. If I ever meet her. Which he hasn't decided about yet.

The next morning I intend to go back to Gorky's on my way to work, determined to sketch my heroine, a civil war
(still not sure which) mistress of a missing soldier. You have to get there early because tables go fast and then they're occupied for hours and hours. There's one in the corner and two by the window, and these are the optimum work spots. Depends on the time of day too. The sun gets in your eyes in the left-hand corner if you're facing the wrong way. You could wear sunglasses, but a person writing a novel with sunglasses on is just offensive. The other patrons don't know I'm writing a masterwork that's going to be remembered alongside
Anna Karenina
and
The Brothers Karamazov
. Or, at least, that I plan to. Only problem is, I don't remember
Anna Karenina
or
The Brothers Karamazov
. One has a woman and one has some brothers.

Reading those books in sunglasses may be a greater punishable offense but only just. I want to go up to the other laptop tappers one by one and slam the monitor down on their fingers. Crap crap crap. You'll never publish. You'll never finish. You're playing Tetris. Your sweater is ugly. I am the only real writer here.

What does a real writer look like? I would like to say plainer than me, but I think I'm not quite beautiful enough. I've noticed from all the magazines I have to read each month to see where Grrrl has been featured that real writers nowadays have to be slim enough to model clothes.
Harper's Bazaar, Vogue, Elle, the New York Times Fashion Supplement:
here they are, like goons. I tear them out and keep them in a box under my bed. Thomas Beller in a sweater by DKNY. Lucinda Rosenfeld in Armani. Jhumpa Lahiri in Michael Kors. Flicking through
Elle
, I once found Candace Bushnell in Dolce & Gabbana. I ripped it out. Her teeth were exceptionally white and she looked like she hadn't eaten in several weeks. I put it in my cookie jar with my Kit Kats and Newman-O's to punish her.

Sitting, thighs squished wide on my narrow toilet last night, I flicked through
Vogue
and found an excerpt from a Plum Sykes novel accompanied by photos of the author in Alexander McQueen. I wiped, flushed, washed my hands, all the while keeping one eye on paper Plum in case she should try something, like stepping on Sidney Katz's tail with a stiletto heel. Then I scooped her up, ripped her out, and dropped her in the cookie jar with Candace Bushnell. This weekend I will bury it with cake under the earth in Washington Square Park, coconut and chocolate fudge with pink sprinkles.

That night I dream of Plum and Candace bursting from birthday cakes, but their glam frocks are covered in earth and mold and their skin is green and peeling. I shake myself awake, determined to get up and write. My dad sent me a Hello Kitty alarm clock that meows instead of beeps. Novelty alarm clocks aren't so amusing at 7:00 A.M., and I smack it off with a viciousness I seem only to harness in the space between asleep and awake. Sidney Katz has already woken me up at 5:00 A.M. with kitten paw service. This is when a cat puts his paws on you and flexes his claws in and out, kneading away as though you are raw dough in the shape of his mother. I was a little freaked the first time he did it, pressing at my bosom, maternal loss seeping out of his paws and into my chest. When I got him, he was a street kitten whose mother, a delicate pastelwash tortoiseshell, had been instantly adopted. ‘You want me to be your mother?' I asked incredulously. No one had ever wanted me to be his mother before. It had never crossed my mind. I got used to it pretty quickly. Now I hold his face in my hands as he kneads me and coo, ‘Who's my little baby?'

Even though it's raining, I finally drag myself out of bed and over to Gorky's at eight because it is either that or stare at the ceiling. I also fear I might be close to developing bedsores,
so slothful have I been this weekend. I step into my thermal leggings, which make me feel like I am wearing a diaper, and pull on my gigantic black fur snow boots, which make me feel like I am wearing the results of a bear hunt, slap on some
Dynasty
-red lipstick, and head into the snowstorm: Joan Collins bear hunting in a diaper. It isn't the look I was going for and I hope it won't affect my writing.

Outside the café I see a beagle puppy tied to the railing and immediately inside I spot Philip Seymour Hoffman. Both looked rumpled and needy, only Philip Seymour Hoffman is dry. Remembering that beagles are the breed most commonly used in lab experiments, I keep turning to check on the puppy through the window as I wait in line to order. The puppy is killing me, gazing balefully straight at me, which I know sounds a lot like the time I went to see Bruce play at Wembley and he looked me right in the eyes. Every time someone pushes back from his or her bagel debris and rewinds his or her scarf, I keep hoping it is the owner, but it isn't, and I am left with the same dumb half smile you have when you're waiting for your blind date to walk in.

The three diners with whom Philip is eating focus intently on him. As he eats lustily, they barely graze, so fascinated are they by his every word.

‘The thing about having a baby girl,' he says, dirty blond hair collecting at his shoulders like unpaid bills, ‘is that the first year is just pure unrequited love.'

His companions hold their forks in front of their mouths, unable to manage a bite until he finishes his thought. One girl at his table keeps looking around, deliberately catching people's eyes as though to say, ‘Don't look at him! It's so rude! Why will no one let Philip Seymour Hoffman dine in peace?,' when everyone is actually looking around for the waitress to bring them their French toast. I was going to have a pain au
chocolat, but when I get to the counter I decide I should try to eat healthy, so I order lemon butter crêpes and coffee.

I hover near two potential leavers so they'll leave more quickly and I can plug in to the outlet by their table. As I mentioned previously, a window table is a find at Gorky's, so before they even had their jackets zipped I plug in and put my computer on the table. If anyone else did that it would be extremely impolite, but I figure the cultural importance of my novel excuses bad manners, now and for the rest of my life. Unfortunately, I find myself a little blocked. Leaning back in my chair, I let my fingers hover over the keyboard, moving but not even touching the keys, as though I was a psychic healer. When the waitress brings my breakfast it turns out the crêpes are in fact a crêpe and I inhale it in four bites. Thankfully at Gorky's they let you stick around long after you've finished your meal. Just in case, I move my fork in figure eights through the sugar remnants on my plate, hoping to stave off hoverers and look so deep in thought that I might hopefully find myself lost in thought. It doesn't work. My mind soon wanders to Marley.

I sneeze and a woman across from me says, ‘Bless you.' I love it when people say ‘Bless you.' I feel special. It is very easy to hurt my feelings and very easy to make me feel good about myself. When someone says ‘Bless you,' the room becomes bathed in holy light and it makes me believe in God. It's like when you get a wrong number but the person at the other end is nice about it. It's so discombobulating when you dial a wrong number and the person at the other end says ‘No! Who? What?' and there's a TV turned up way too loud and the people in the background are speaking a language you've never heard before. You feel so alone in the world.

‘I love how they put the little fake stripes in the fake bacon,'
says Philip Seymour Hoffman, poking cheerily at his vegetarian breakfast.

When he leaves, the people at his table talk about what a nice man he is. ‘Can you believe what a nice man he is?,' as if anyone expected him to be a raging asshole. One of his companions, now bereft at his departure, picks up the
New York Times
and begins reading in silence. Turning to the theater pages, he suddenly calls out, ‘Hey! She's my friend too!' I wonder who his friend in the photo is. Someone else with three names. Sarah Michelle Gellar. Or Lee Harvey Oswald.

To my immense displeasure, two guys with computers plunk themselves down opposite me at my table. Both have white laptops, and against my orange iBook it looks like our computers are having a threesome, with mine in the center, and I feel uncomfortable and pack up. Another day with no writing done.

On the way out I pet the shivering puppy for a while, looking from the dog to the remaining diners until, finally, a preppie girl in a polo shirt and Ugg boots comes out and smiles at me nervously. ‘Is this your dog?' I ask, and through pearlescent pink lipstick she utters a defensive ‘Yes.' ‘Did you know that beagles are the dog most commonly used in lab tests?' She looks at me, frightened, and says, ‘Please take your hands off my dog.' She starts to untie him quick. I turn to leave, but as I zip my jacket something makes me look back down at the dog and say, ‘I love you.' It is said with the oddest, most sincere and aching intonation. The girl hurries off in the other direction, the dog turning his head to face me as though he wants desperately to reply but is afraid of inflaming his owner.

When I get to work, I'm ready for Holly to bitch me out for being late. It's 10:00 A.M. and she and Vicki are out at breakfast together. Ivy seems a little put out and not very
inclined to chat. The products are on my desk and they transform before my eyes to shivering puppies tied up and left outside cafés. We have never tested on animals; that is my favorite thing about Grrrl. Not my favorite thing even, but something that helps me sleep at night.

‘We don't test on you,' I tell the lipstick beagles on my desk.

They don't care. ‘Why did you leave us so long?'

‘What do you mean?'

‘Why will you not give us names?'

‘I've been so busy with Marley and then I thought I had inspiration for my novel, but I didn't…'

‘What is a puppy if it doesn't have a name?'

They transform back into lipsticks and I scribble down ‘Sick Puppy.' That'll cut it as a maroony eye shadow, but not as a lipstick. I snap my fingers. ‘C'mon, C'mon'. I write that down as well: ‘C'mon, C'mon'. Good name for a mod lipstick, pale white-pink. It's good. We can use it. But it's not
the
name. Ah, fuck it. It's not going to happen today.

I call Dad and tell him about the puppy at Gorky's and about Philip and he says, ‘Have you ever seen a film that didn't have Philip Seymour Hoffman in it?' I think hard, but I can't remember one.

Dad is in too much of a rush to talk for long because it's tax time, he says, which is weird because it's usually when he needs to do a lot of work that he's on the phone to me the longest.

‘Sadie-Pops?' He'll elongate my name into this nickname and I know he's sitting with his legs stretched out in front of him and his back off the chair, testing to see how far he can go without falling off. He loves to do that. How many glasses he can balance on top of one another without them crashing. How many bags of salt and vinegar crisps he can eat without
feeling sick. How many kisses he can give me before I squeal ‘Gerroff!'

Today Dad and I don't talk very long, and though I understand, I can't help but feel sad. I wish we could share an office, like Carole King and Neil Sedaka, and he could do his tax returns across the desk from me as I come up with names.

As I am trying to wish the ache away, my phone rings.

‘So,' says Marley, ‘baby girl, you want to meet the other baby girl?'

‘What?' I squeal. ‘When?' Ivy's interest is piqued and she sidles over and stares at me, her cow eyes rimmed red from crying.

‘Tonight. Come to my house at seven.'

I mean to sit Ivy down and find out what's going on, why she's been crying, but once I hang up I am in such a tizzy that I never get around to it.

Holly, not aware that I got in late, lets me out of work early so I can go home and pick out what to wear. She understands – of course she understands – that this is of the utmost importance.

I consider going very adult, very kindergarten teacher, in a sweater, khakis, and pearls, but then I opt to go the other way. I lay out jeans, Converse high-tops, a pale blue T-shirt with pink polka dots, and, the final touch, little flannel duck hair clips.

I run a bath, my heart beating into my throat. I turn up David Bowie very loud, then louder and louder, trying to drown out my heartbeat, until I realize that music made on coke probably isn't the best way to slow your heart rate and change it to Joni Mitchell. I bathe, shave, and then I do a strange thing: I shave off my pubic hair. I start out trimming things, neatening them up around the top, and then I just keep going. I want to be like Montana. It's better if she doesn't know I'm an adult. Not that I'm planning to show her what I've done. It just gives me some weird feeling of equality.

I take a cab across the bridge because I am too nervous to remember how to ride the subway. I won't be able to work my MetroCard and I'll accidentally take the train to Queens. We pass the Welcome to Montana sign and I hold my breath. The cabdriver is, of course, fuming with anger about having to go to Brooklyn, especially as I tricked him by getting into his car,
closing the door, and asking to go to the Lower East Side before sneakily changing my mind. His silent anger fans my nerves until they are tickling at my ears, tangling up with the pigtails I put my hair in.

I stand on the doorstep for some time, raising my finger to the buzzer and then putting it back in my pocket. I do this several times and then finally I sit down on the stoop and call Holly. ‘I can't do it.'