How Should a Person Be? (17 page)

•
chapter
20
•

SHEILA'S FEAR

I
had missed so many shifts at the salon without even calling in, and I felt too ashamed to tell them why. I ­couldn't think of a good excuse. Uri had admired me as an employee;
now his image of me would be shot. The only way to
keep
my dignity, it seemed, and my good name, was to quit.
I came up with an explanation of how I needed to focus on finishing my play, that I had no extra time, that seeing Uri's professionalism had taught me the most valuable lesson: I must be as professional as him, but in
my
realm, not his. I went to the salon with my resignation letter in hand. When
I arrived, I noticed a strange hush over the place; no one was
standing around gossiping, and the stylists avoided my eyes. Even the receptionist, who always smiled and stopped what she was doing to say hello, barely glanced up as I came in. In the back room, I found one of the stylists, Amy, and asked her the reason for the mood. She darted her eyes about, then spoke into the mirror that lined the pink walls. The stylists never looked each other in the eye; they only looked at each other in mirrors.

She said, “Uri announced that he's retiring and they're selling the salon. He'll still be working ­here part-­time,
but it seems Anthony believed that one day Uri would sell
the salon to him. But of course Uri's not going to! When we found out this morning that he's selling it to Paul and Raoul, Anthony screamed before everyone and even the clients,
You're full of shit, Uri!
Then he punched his hand into the mirror and it shattered, and there was blood everywhere. Then Anthony packed up his scissors and left.”

“Wow!”

“But we all know Anthony will be back tomorrow as though nothing ever happened.”

I noticed Uri walking through the back room. Knowing I had few chances to approach him during the day, I went up quickly and handed him my resignation letter, which I had written the night before, so full of politeness and gratitude.

“Should I read this now?” he asked me. I nodded. I followed him into his office and stood there as he read one page, then flipped it and read the second one, then flipped it and read the third.

He said, “Well, we'll be sorry not to have you. You're an asset around ­here. But—­if that's what you want to do
.
.
.”

Then he grew distracted. “Did you hear what Anthony
did?”

I nodded.

“He wanted me to sell him the salon—­he said he always thought I would. But I never would! He has no consistency of character, no self-­control. How could I trust him with the salon? He's not a loyal member of the team. He thinks only of himself. And you know he will never apologize for his outburst. What sort of man cannot apologize? But I have never heard Anthony admit that he's wrong.”
He shrugged. “I told Paul and Raoul to keep him on because
I want to see how long a man can go without ever saying sorry.”

Then Uri said, “Come, let me do your hair today. It is your last day, and I will put some highlights in.”

“Thank you,” I said, though I did not really want highlights. But I was moved by what a professional he was, to do me this final kindness, making himself, once again, into a man you could not criticize.

As I sat at his station, Uri worked on my hair, saying nothing. My letter was making me uneasy, and I began to wish I hadn't given it to him. I was starting to feel like I
had made a mistake; it was incredibly stupid to leave the 
salon. I loved it there! And how would I make money now? It was so clear to me: the happiness I felt at the salon had been
real
, and I was giving it up out of some ill-­considered vanity; the need to protect my image in Uri's eyes. As the moments passed, my decision became more irrevocable, and my life at the salon slipped farther away; I would soon have no place there at all. My panic increased as I tried to think of ways I could take my resignation back, meanwhile trying to remind myself that the point
of life was not to avoid suffering—­that every choice
involved suffering—­and that in choosing to leave the salon,
I was choosing one kind of suffering, while choosing to
stay would involve another, whereas going back and forth as I was doing now was the worst suffering of all, as it was an attempt to avoid life, which would leave me finally with nothing!

I sat like this, my brain going wild beneath Uri's hands, the cap bound tightly around my head, Uri plucking out
strands of my hair. I suddenly saw: it was so ridiculously
easy to end things! I had given him the letter, and before I
could speak, my time there was over! My hair was being
colored—­then out the door for good. I had made a huge
mistake!

I followed one of the girls to the bowl, and as she held my head and rinsed me off, the tension began rising in my neck. When she returned me to the chair to towel dry my head, I saw in the mirror what Uri had done: he had completely bleached out my hair! These ­were not highlights. The toner had turned my hair dry and gray—­not a pretty soft white like Marilyn Monroe's or an Andy Warhol silver. It was an old woman's head. I looked like I was at the end of my life, and, worse, like the person who had lived
this
life. Uri returned and spread his hands wide, smiled at me, and said, “Well?”

I could not smile back. I felt like I had been erased, like no one would ever look at me again. But at least I had no inclination to glance into the mirror and tilt my head just so.

•
chapter
2
1
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HOW GREAT IT IS TO BE AN ADULT

W
hen I was little, and I thought that children grew up
and their parents grew down, so that one day the child
became
the parent and the parent became the child, I had in
my head such an impressive idea of what an adult was. My father seemed to me to know everything. My mother had such assurance and command. Inside my head was a little square of awe, compact and complete.

They seemed as far away from me as a spaceship from
the earth, orbiting in some darkness I could not comprehend.
But now that I am an adult among adults, I am there. I am now ­here—­in what once seemed like a stratosphere, another stratosphere entirely—­but is this. This is the absolute outer limit of the human universe.

•
chapter
22
•

A STRANGER IS A FRIEND OF ANOTHER STRANGER ON ACCOUNT OF THEIR STRANGENESS ON EARTH

M
y mother had been calling for weeks, leaving messages on my phone, sending long and desperate emails, so that I
finally felt:
Today is the day.
I would go and do what she needed
me to do—­clean up the trash in her basement, which was my
entire life, and throw it all out, so she could proceed in her life with a clear mind.

I took the bus fifteen minutes north. When I arrived at her ­house she was not home, as I knew and expected she would not be. She was at work. I went down into the base
ment by myself. She had left garbage bags on the landing
for me to clear everything away. The basement was different than in my memory—­less a place filled with special meaning than just a place. But the air was reassuringly familiar: mildewy and warm.

I looked about to see where my mess was, but I ­couldn't
find the mess. All the papers and books I had imagined
clut
tering everything up—­there was nothing like that there.
The hard brown carpet had recently been vacuumed,
and there ­were two small hatboxes against the wall,
one on top of the other.

I went up to the boxes and knelt and opened them, and in them was my stuff.
This
was the mess I had left behind? This was what had been cluttering my mother's mind for so long?

I glanced through the boxes, threw out some essays I
knew I'd never want to read, and was left with
a small stack of papers and pictures, plus a letter addressed to me, which
had never been opened, and which I put in my
pocket. I
ascended from the basement with both boxes and went from
her ­house. One box I put by the garbage bin
outside. The other I carried home with me.

It was nine ­o'clock at night. I got on the southbound bus, passed beneath the bright fluorescents, and sat in the back. The air was humid. There ­were only three other people on the bus.

When the bus began to move, I pulled the envelope out of my pocket and turned it around. I didn't recognize the
handwriting, and yet I did, a bit. Why hadn't I opened it
before? I opened it now.

1. Dear Sheila,

2. On Sunday eve­ning my son told me that you and he are separated. I was stunned by that news and am still having trouble believing it's true.

3. I thought you ­were soul mates, with so much in common and so able to help each other through life.

4. I think back to the spring when you told me that you ­were madly in love with him and that no one ­else made you feel that way.

5. I know he adores you as well and wants to take care of you. That kind of love is a rare gift.

1. It has been a very difficult year for both of you, with many unexpected stresses which have made life so hard.

2. But that is when we need each other most—­just to know someone cares about you is so important.

3. There are few answers, I think, to many of our problems.

4. We just have to live through things.

1. That is how I am feeling with my husband now passed, and I have to believe and act as though it will get better.

2. Frustrating as life with him could be, my life is now quite empty without him.

3. He and I shared so many things, both good and bad, and had come to a place where we ­were able to appreciate what we had as being very special.

1. You have been such a part of my life and my family for the past few years, that it is hard to think of it without you.

2. I truly don't know what to say except that I am feeling very sad, as I think you are, too.

3. All my love, Odile.

I held the letter close, like a warm animal against my chest.

•
chapter
23
•

BACK IN FRONT OF THE BIKINI STORE

B
y the time I arrived home, I was thinking about Margaux.
I just wanted to make her feel safe and good. If only I could
figure out what would make her trust me, I would do it. So
I really tried to think. There ­were two things I knew
for sure about Margaux: she had never quit anything, and she felt she had too much empathy. So I hoped things could be saved. I hoped we could live through this.

But she had made a sacrifice for me, in letting herself be
taped, while I had made no sacrifice for her. I had done nothing
scary or of risk to myself for Margaux's sake. There was a real imbalance. But what could fix it? What did she need me to do? It would have to be something that would prove to her that I was
not
using her, that I would not leave her once I had taken from her what I thought she was useful for. But what could the sacrifice be? I considered it as I lay in my bed that night, and my dreams seemed to swirl in that direction. But when I woke the next morning, I had no idea what the gesture should be.

Only one person could help me.

Margaux and I sat on the stoop in front of the bikini store, and she looked down at her hands while I watched the people walk along Queen Street. She was breathing quietly and sitting very still. Then finally she looked at me and said, “I want you to finish your play.”

“What! My embarrassing, impossible play!”

“Yes! And I want it to answer your question—­about how
a person should be—­so that you never have to think about
it anymore. So that what­ever you do from that point on isn't
about that question, and so our friendship won't be either.
And you can use anything you need from me to answer that
question—­my words, what­ever, just answer it.”

It was the worst, most difficult thing she could have
asked of me. And certainly she would be the only person
left who could love me—I would have no new friends once my ugliness was out there in the world for everyone to see. I sat for a moment, sunk into my glumness. Her eyes drifted to my gray hair.

“And do it quickly,” she said. “You're going to have to work harder than you've ever worked in your life.”

I sat in silence, then turned to her.

“Does it have to be a play?”

She thought for a moment, then grinned. “No.”

•
chapter
24
•

THE CASTLE

I
followed Margaux up the stairs to her apartment and into her studio. I was relieved to find a few paintings on the walls, freshly painted, just beginning. A computer had been
moved into the space, and there ­were two old monitors on a desk, plus some pieces of paper taped to the walls—­
charts. She began telling me about a conversation she'd had a few weeks ago with her new gallerist in New York, who
was putting her in a group show. I didn't know she was
going to be showing in New York!

MARGAUX

(
excited
) I told him why I'm doing all the things I'm doing, and I talked a lot about my paintings, and I said that the less
the work's about me, the more I get to use my life. It just
felt like the healthiest conversation in the world!

SHEILA

What did he say?

MARGAUX

That I'm doing everything wrong! He asked if in Canada people liked paintings small, and I said yes, and he said well ­here in America we like our paintings big, and we don't like them painted on wood, or when the paint is thin—

SHEILA

(
delighted
) He must have been so happy with you!

MARGAUX

Um, it's hard for me to say.

Margaux turns to one of the charts on the wall and touches it gently. Her voice gets quieter.

You know, after you left my ­house that night, I kept quilting and thinking. I was up until dawn almost, and then I knew it—­what I needed to do to get rid of my bad feelings. (
turning
) You know I never needed you to get rid of them for me.

Sheila looks down.

The solution was not to speak
less
but to speak
more
, and not through you, but through
myself
. That felt really right. But what did I have to say? So I sat at my desk and began thinking of all the things I
have
, right? Like, I wanted to see what meaning there was between all the things around me. So I wrote down all my resources—­all the things I have. For instance, I have Julia's mother's cottage, I have the Hamlet story, I have Sholem, I have four thousand dollars. I figured, you work from what you
have
. I wondered,
What would be the best outcome, taking everything I have?
So it really was about using variables and using the—­what do you call them?—­the invariables.

SHEILA

What do you mean,
invariables
?

MARGAUX

Well, it's like in life—­you have the variables and you have the invariables, and you want to use them all, but you work around the invariables.

Margaux becomes quiet.

I thought
you
­were an invariable—­and then you left without saying a word.

SHEILA

You think of
me
as an invariable?

MARGAUX

Yes.

Then, very deep inside, something began to vibrate. I was an invariable. An
invariable
. No word had ever sounded to me more like love.

MARGAUX

So these past few weeks, I've been looking at everything I have—­just sitting ­here looking, and it slowly became clear: it's a movie! I'm going to make a movie using everything I have! I'll sort of construct these scenes from everything I have, then when I'm done shooting, I'll put the scenes in some sort of instinctual order. I don't know what it's going to look like in the end, but I have faith that at the center of
the film there'll be, like, this invisible castle, and each of
the scenes will be like throwing sand on the castle. Wherever the sand touches, those different parts of the castle light up. At the end you'll have a sense of the entire castle. But you never actually
see
the entire castle.

SHEILA

Right.

MARGAUX

(smiles, relieved)
You know, all week I was sitting at my computer, thinking,
Am I retarded? Am I retarded? Am I retarded?

SHEILA

I understand the part where you say, “Am I retarded?”

•••

Had anyone suggested at the time that it would not be the Egypt of the pharaohs that would survive and change the
moral landscape of the world, but instead a group of
Hebrew slaves, it would have seemed the ultimate absurdity.