Mercury in Retrograde (11 page)

“She gets such a bad rap,” Laura said, catching Penelope looking at the photo. “That Beth is just such a sweet, down-to-earth girl—and unlike the others her age, she can actually act. We're very close.” There were also photos of Laura and the thrice-married action star, Snake Marlin (“Just a doll—a
real
gentleman,” Laura cooed. “Is he grabbing your boob and flipping off the camera?” Penelope asked, peering closely at the picture, as David pinched her arm), and Laura and Ryan Jones, the manic-depressive comedic actor who had supposedly overcome a bad methamphetamine problem but nonetheless still tried to commit suicide two years ago (“So funny, not depressing at all!”), among dozens of others.

After fifteen more minutes of show and tell, David was finally able to drag Penelope away. “Be careful of the Lopez,” he warned, “as long as she thinks you're useful and dispensable, she'll be friendly, but if she ever feels threatened, she'll turn on you in a second and eat you for lunch.”

David then introduced her to the station's sportscaster, Mike “Heisman” Cutcher, nicknamed not after the trophy he certainly never won, but because during his sportscasts, he was famous for calling out good plays while pulling a “Heisman Pose”—putting one hand that cupped an invisible football by his ear, while his other arm stretched straight out in front of him—then shouting, “Hey-OH,
there's
the Heisman!” He used this signature move during any good play, even when it involved sports that were not football.

The next stop on David's Meet NY Access tour was near a lone cubicle in the back that was shrouded in darkness as several
lights had blown out. There sat the weatherman, the mono-named “Storm.” Storm usually kept to himself—and his weather charts, maps, and websites—in the far corner of the NY Access offices.

As Penelope and David walked by Storm's desk, David whispered to Penelope, “We don't really talk to Storm unless we actually have to. He listens to a
lot
of late-night talk radio.” Storm's desk had a large picture of his idolized namesake, Strom Thurmond (his mother had been mildly dyslexic, which turned out to be a boon for his climate-centric career), and David warned her, “Stay away from him. He's liberal only with sharing his latest conspiracy theories—which usually have to do with government-controlled weather-bending machines and alien anal probes that most likely do not exist except in the far corners of Storm's mind.”

“Or bedroom?” Penelope mused.

“Touché,” David laughed.

Penelope was then introduced to Eric, the main cameraman, Stew, the sound guy, hordes of other assistant producers, and a particularly cute producer named Thomas, a tall man with sandy brown hair in a dark suit and glasses, who looked like a younger version of William Hurt in
Broadcast News.

“So you're the new inmate,” Thomas said, smiling. “David told me about you. Penelope Mercury, right? You came from the
Telegraph.
”

“Um, yeah,” Penelope said, a little flustered yet flattered.

“You did some really good street reporting over there. We picked up a lot of your stories. My favorite was the one about the guy in Queens who tried to get married to his dog. What was the headline again?”

“Bitchin' Bride,” Penelope said, blushing. Nobody had ever mentioned specific stories she'd done before.

“Yes! Bitchin' Bride—absolutely genius! Whatever happened to him?”

“I think he's in Bellevue and the dog was put up for adoption.”

“Right, well, it was good work. Glad to have you on board. I hope you'll stay longer than your predecessor.” Turning to David, Thomas asked, “David, how long did the last one work here? One, two months?”

“Something like that,” David said.

A voice called from the studio, “Thomas, we need you on set, now! Someone's walked off with the evening news placard.”

“Well, it was nice meeting you,” Penelope said, shaking his hand.

“You too,” Thomas said, smiling again. “Stick around for a while. It's really not so bad.”

“He's yummy,” Penelope whispered to David as Thomas walked off to deal with the crisis on set.

“Don't get a crush just yet,” David warned. “He's a great producer but keeps to himself. Never mixes work with pleasure.”

“What's his story?” Penelope asked, even more interested now that Thomas was unattainable.

“Not sure, really,” David said. “He's been here for like four years. Used to do documentaries in Pakistan or something intellectual like that. Not sure why he came back. Laura's been trying to open that trap door for years with no luck.”

On the completion of David's tour, he whispered, “Trace is fine—just stay away from his hands, they're as bad as his knees. Kandace is a pain, but somewhat harmless. The others are okay. Well, not
okay,
but you know. Just keep your head down, do what they tell you to do, within reason of course, and above all, try and steer clear of Marge. She takes a little…getting used to. She's bipolar, but she's really not that bad. She's been around for years and this place is pretty much her last stop—and she knows it.”

It was sage advice that Penelope took to heart, and that day she managed to stay out of Marge's way, busying herself with Trace's superficial demands and helping Eric set up the shots for
the evening news, until just after the afternoon editorial meeting, in which everyone gathered in Marge's office to talk about stories for the evening news and feature segments.

Penelope, who'd been trying to find Trace another bottle of spray-on hair (he'd used up the last bottle while trying to fluff up a patch on his chest—he was wearing his shirt open by two buttons that day), was fifteen minutes late to the meeting. That was not a good thing.

“Polly,” Marge said, as Penelope tried to sneak into the meeting, “since you obviously don't understand how important these meetings are and
clearly
need to learn this business from the ground up, you will stay after and do the Rolodex.” A shudder ran through the office as Penelope's new coworkers eyed her sympathetically.

Marge's favorite punishment for office infractions was to have the offending party sit across from her at her desk and check every name, number, and address in her Rolodex, under her steely, watchful eye…starting with the Aarons. She would listen to the offender make the call say, “Excuse me, this is (fill in the blank) from Marge Gelb-Green's office at New York Access and I am just confirming your address and telephone number…” Marge would wait until the punishee had hung up (or more likely, been hung up on) and then say, “I didn't hear you get the maid's cell phone number! The maid has a cell phone! Call back!”

To make amends for her tardiness, Penelope had been forced to do the Rolodex for more than five hours and only reached the Davisons in Marge's long list of contacts by the time she was relieved for the day.

 

Back at Lipstick's apartment, Penelope was just finishing up the tale of her peculiar day when her cell phone rang.

“Oy.” Penelope sighed. “My mom, I'll call her later. She probably wants to know if I'm out on the street yet.”

Lipstick nodded. “Yeah. I'm still waiting for my parents to realize I meant it when I said I was living on my own. Although, I have to admit, I'm a little…terrified. This whole being-broke thing is scary.”

“Ha,” Penelope said, waving her hand in the air as if there were a fly. “Please, it's a piece of cake. I've been broke my whole life—and look at me! I'm fiiine,” causing Neal to burst into laughter. Ignoring Neal, Penelope continued. “Just start taking the subway, don't shop, borrow office supplies like pens, and soap, and toilet paper, and get to know Sam the deli man and Maddie at the coffee shop next door, Local. They're both sympathetic food suppliers. Stick with me—you'll be a pro at brokeness by the end of the week!”

“Oh my, ladies,” Neal snickered, “you two are priceless in your cluelessness. Penelope, perhaps you can give Lipstick some lessons on how to be poor, and Lipstick, perhaps you can warm up your sewing techniques by helping alter your old clothes for Penelope. Darling, this beautiful dress is at least two sizes too big.”

“Hey, I think it looks
fabulous,
” Penelope said. “Lipstick, I'd be happy to help more, but can we talk later? I have to wake up early for the morning ‘strategy' meeting, and if I'm late, I have to do the Rolodex. Again.”

“Okay,” Lipstick said, clearing the paper plates and throwing them into the trash. “But do you want to do yoga with me in this girl Dana's apartment on the top floor Wednesday night? My friend Sally Brindle invited me.”

“Sally Brindle?” Penelope asked. “What is that? Some kind of riding gear?”

“No, silly.” Lipstick laughed. “She's my yoga teacher. And she gives private lessons to Dana in the building, like, twice a week.”

“So why does Dana want us there if she pays for private lessons?” Penelope asked, itching to light up a cigarette.

“Weeellll,” Lipstick said, “I don't know if Dana so much wants us there as Sally does. Sally's a little worried about her. She apparently hasn't left the apartment for a year because she's depressed or something, and Sally thinks company would be good for her.”

“Is she that woman with the wiener dog?” Penelope asked.

“I don't know,” Lipstick said. “Sally didn't say anything about a dog, but please come; I don't know her and it could be awkward. And it's free!”

Penelope, concerned about Dana's supposed agoraphobia, said, “Is she some weird reclusive freak who's going to, like, start dressing like me and one day stealth-attack me with a stiletto, single-white-female style? I mean—seriously. From what I can tell, all she does is work fifteen hours a day and walk that crazy dog. I don't think she's ever come home drunk or said more than three words to anyone.”

“Well, maybe?” Lipstick said.

“Okay,” Penelope said, standing up and wiping her hands on her black dress. Lipstick winced. It was her old Dolce, after all. “Why not? I'm about as flexible as Rahm Emanuel but it could be fun—and ‘free' is a broke girl's favorite word. Knock on my door Wednesday. I'll be home around six or seven.”

Penelope kissed Neal and Lipstick good-bye and entered her apartment just as her phone rang. It was her mother. Again.

“Penelope, it's your mother,” Susan Rosenzweig Mercury announced.

“I know, Ma,” Penelope said. “Your name came up on my phone. Like it does
every
time you call.”

“Don't be fresh!” Susan snapped. “So. How was your first day back at work? Did you apologize?”

“Ma.” Penelope sighed. “I told you. I'm not working at the
Telegraph
anymore. I'm at a local cable channel.”

“Oh!” Susan squealed. “TV, how glamorous—Jim! Jim, put that Bible down and get over here—
my
daughter's gonna be on TV!”

“Well, not quite,” Penelope said, “I'm an assistant producer, which is basically a gofer.”

“Penelope Mercury,” Susan said. “Rule number thirty-seven, any job that pays is a good job. Did the check bounce? Do they beat you? What's the problem?”

“No, Ma, no problem…I was just trying to tell you how my first day we—,” Penelope said, before her mother cut her off.

“Jim! Talk to
your
daughter. She's already complaining. This is your doing, you know. If you hadn't been so indecisive with the whole Jesus-versus-Jewish thing she'd be a doctor or a lawyer by now. You said you'd convert to Judaism for me. But did you? No!”

Penelope sat down on her living room sofa and turned her TV on mute, silently watching reruns of
The Dukes of Hazzard
on Country Music Television while her parents bickered. Bo was so much cuter than Luke. She couldn't believe she once thought Luke was the hottie. Maybe it was like
Star Wars.
Everyone always thought Luke Skywalker was the stud until they grew up and realized he was totally gay and that Han Solo was the hunkalicious one.

Penelope's thoughts were interrupted by her father.

“Penelope, it's your dad,” Jim, who had finally succeeded in wresting the phone away from Susan, said. “Just wanna say, I love you, your mother loves you, and Jesus loves you. Now, what channel you on?”

“You can't watch me, Dad,” Penelope said. “I work at a
local
cable access in New York and you live in Cincinnati, Ohio. And besides, I'm not on air, I'm an assistant producer.”

“An assistant producer. Wow, that sounds neat. But be careful, those liberal TV folks will try and warp your mind. I'll pray for you,” Jim said. “Jesus rules, baby!”

“Thanks, Dad—I'll keep that in mind,” Penelope said, “Love you. Tell Ma I said 'bye.”

As Jim and Susan were shouting their good-byes, Penelope hung up the phone and turned the volume on the TV up just as Bo and Luke Duke jumped in the General Lee for the thousandth time and fishtailed out of Uncle Jesse's farm.

Dana was mortified. How could she have gained five pounds? She had been sticking to the Weight Watchers diet, cheating only mildly, and doing her yoga group twice a week with the girls from her building for the last month. But when she stepped on the weigh-in scale before the Weight Watchers meeting in Tribeca, there it was in electronic numbers: 158. It would have been fine had she been five foot eleven inches instead of five foot four—or five foot four and pregnant. Alas, she was neither.

“The scales don't lie,” the weigh-in nurse said when Dana suggested that perhaps she was mistaken.

May you burn in the seventh circle of Dante's hell with my legal brethren
. “Yes, but do they negotiate?” Dana inquired politely.

The nurse gave her a blank stare. “Just kidding!” Dana said, but the nurse didn't laugh. Dana collected her things and went into the meeting and breathed a sigh of relief. They were all there. And
they were all still fatter than she had ever been. In order of fatness: Corynne, the airline check-in desk manager (five foot three, 175 pounds); Annie, the human resources director (five foot seven, 196 pounds); Helen the cashier (five foot five, 228 pounds); and Marjorie, the i-banker (five foot six, 301 pounds).

“Dana,” Marjorie said, looking at her with annoyance, “why are you here?”

“I'm here because I'm fat,” Dana said.

“You are not fat,” Annie said. “I'm fat. Helen is fat; Corynne is fat. Marjorie, you're obese.” Marjorie nodded gravely. “You, Dana,” Annie continued, “are not fat. You are chubby.”

“Well, I used to be fat,” Dana said.

“And now you're not,” Helen countered.

“I don't want to argue the issue,” Dana said, pinching the roll of flesh hanging over her suit pants. “But may I present the evidence?”

“That's flab, but it ain't fat,” Helen grumbled.

“Well, if it makes you feel better, I'm gaining. I'm five pounds more than I was last week. And I'm still thirty pounds over my target weight. And who are you all to be criticizing me? I was fat, then I wasn't, then I was fat again and lost it, and now I'm gaining again. This is supposed to be a support group!”

“Sorry, Dana,” Marjorie said, “it's been a rough week for all of us. I got pushed out of all the photos from the Go Green event at work because the photographer said they didn't have a wide-angle lens.”

“I put out the candy bowl by my desk and this bitch who sits next to me accused me of trying to make everyone in the office as fat I as I am,” Annie said. “She called me the Candy Enabler.”

“Well, my boss told me that if I gain any more weight I won't be able to fit in the uniform and they'll have to suspend me,” Corynne said, nibbling on a low-calorie snack bar.

“I hooked up with a guy and when I took my shirt off he screamed, ‘Flabulanche!' and laughed,” Helen whispered, sitting on her hands and looking at an invisible spot on her lap.

“That's just actionable,” Dana said. “Marjorie and Corynne, you two should file a harassment suit and Helen, you should've punched the guy. Let me know if you need help. But don't get angry with me for wanting to be skinny.”

But the truth was, the girls had a point. As much as Dana hated to admit it, although she
had
gained weight, she knew she didn't need to be going to the meetings anymore. Dana, who'd gained forty pounds during the first year of her marriage, had begun them at Noah's insistence. So she'd gone to the meetings and lost some of the weight over a period of a year.

But then he'd left her for Evya and the weight had come back. Walking home after the meeting, Dana quietly admitted to herself that perhaps she didn't need the meetings—she needed a shrink. The meetings were basically Dana's sole social contact with the rest of the world outside of work. She had become a shut-in who was obsessed with her weight.

The only other people she had semiregular contact with were the (skinny) yoga girls, Penelope and Lipstick and sometimes their friend Neal who, upon setting foot in her loft for the first time, announced, “Oh! So chic! So fabulous! So…Philippe Starck!”

The group was a funny one. At first Dana had resented the intrusion, but after the second week, she looked forward to it.

She loved living vicariously through them.

Lipstick was a glamourous Barbie-like figure—if Barbie were almost six-feet-tall and semicracked out on Klonopins. She'd been cut off by her parents and was living her life like Kabuki theater, but was trying her best to keep up appearances—and always looked good doing it. Dana was also intrigued with Lipstick's
side gig as a seamstress—who knew socialites could sew?—of which Dana was benefiting from as well. If Lipstick screwed up on sizing and constructed something too big, she'd sometimes give it to Dana—like the bias-cut dress she'd created from some cashmere sweaters last week. It didn't fit Lipstick properly so she had donated it to Dana, who loved it, even though she didn't have anywhere to wear it to.

Dana knew it was Lipstick's way of encouraging her to stop being a recluse. Every time she proffered something, Lipstick would say, “So, you know, if you'd like to come to dinner sometime, you can wear this,” or “Hey, there's a big party for this new artist at the Deitch Gallery. You could wear that skirt I made.” If something was too small, she'd give it to Penelope, who was always eager for more clothing—and invitations. “I'll go, sure!” Penelope would squeal eagerly when Lipstick asked her out somewhere. “What else do I have going on? Nothing, that's what! Count me in!”

Lipstick was one of those people who seemed to think more of others—and their opinions of her—than of herself. And it was funny to watch what seemed to be Lipstick's first experience with actually working. And working
hard
. Lipstick had established a routine: she went to her day job at
Y,
covered the events for the magazine in the evenings, and then late at night she came home to whip up another creation, sometimes staying up until the early hours of the morning. But, as Lipstick admitted to the girls, Neal was right: “I do love sewing. And there's something so satisfying about manual labor.”

The only drawback was that it ravaged her hands. Lipstick had had a hard time readjusting to the needles, pins, and sewing machine and had taken to wearing small ladylike kid gloves at all times to cover up her battle-scarred fingers. Even during yoga. Lipstick removed her gloves during the third week at Penelope's insistence, and Dana gasped at Lipstick's once beautifully mani
cured fingers, with raw and angry-looking cuticles, covered in pinpricks and Band-Aids.

“Sewing is hazardous to one's facade,” Lipstick shrugged as she put her gloves back on.

Then there was Penelope, who always looked like she had just escaped a close encounter with a twister. Which, in a way, was appropriate; her life seemed like a tornado. Dana always looked forward to hearing about Penelope's crazy new job at NY Access, which would have crippled lesser people with its daily humiliations. But Penelope had a strange optimism. While events didn't always seem to go her way, at least they were moving forward—or backward or sideways. Either way, they were still
moving
. Dana felt that just by being in her proximity, she too could pick up some momentum.

And things were indeed happening to Penelope.

For starters, she was semipromoted. It wasn't a case of wowing anyone with her work ethic (which was fine), seeing an opening and going for it (she'd had enough of that), or impressing the powers that be with her amazing gofering/bald-spot-covering skills. It was more that she bothered to show up and, by virtue of that, found herself, as they say, “in the right place at the right time,” even if she had to dodge Trace's hands and knees while doing so.

That morning, the entire staff of NY Access was crammed into Marge's office for a particularly hellish story meeting. Nobody dared move. The faces of the producers, crew, and talent wore a uniform look of sheer terror. Even the office cockroaches were in hiding.

Marge was on the warpath. Her fourth face-lift hadn't been as successful as she'd thought it would be, leaving her not “refreshed,” as she had hoped, but instead, a little…tight. Her surgeon, the renowned Dr. Dick Barnes, MD, told her during her post-op checkup the day before, “It's the swelling, Marge. It
will
go down. It's just taking a little longer to heal this time…. Yes, I know Marge, I owe you a lot…. I have thanked you for your pieces on me and my work—which I assure you, is spectacular in this instance—many times…. But you have to understand…even though you tell people you're fifty, you're not. And the body takes more time to heal as it gets older.”

“How dare you!” Marge had screeched as she stormed out of the office. “I'm forty-two!”

In addition to being terrified of looking like Barbara Walters in a wind tunnel (with what David had termed the Iraq look of constant shock and awe) for the rest of her life, Marge's meds weren't working as well. Apparently, if you take the Blues (Percocet), the Pinks (Klonopin), and the Greens (Valium) on a regular basis, their effectiveness wears off—a fact Marge had overlooked for the past nine years as she popped her handful of pills daily, in a combination and amount that would have long since killed individuals of lesser constitutions.

“It's like a big bowl of Good 'n Plentys at her house,” David once mused to Penelope. “It's insane. You walk in her bedroom and there's a glass vase full of the pills, like a party bowl from the seventies. She says she likes the way the colors meld. They match her Beverly Hills Hotel–meets-rabid-birds-of-paradise décor.”

This morning, having run out of all three color pills simultaneously, nothing was mollifying Marge's anger.

And corporate had called. The numbers were down.

“What? Doesn't
anyone
have
any
ideas?” she screeched, pounding her fist onto her desk, spilling her ninth cup of coffee. “What the
hell
do I
pay
you all for? Are you on strike? Did your
paychecks bounce and I wasn't aware of it? Have you all been licking the lead paint off your walls? I want to hear some ideas here, people! Something
new
…something
fresh
! Start talking or someone's getting fired!”

A young, naïve assistant producer who had just been hired a week earlier raised her hand and said, “Um, excuse me, we could do an exposé on the fine dining establishments that have large rodent problems and multiple health violations—the latest restaurant health report just came out and—”

“God, that's so
boring
and
tired
!” Marge roared as the young woman's mouth slammed closed. “Channel Five did that
two years
ago. I mean, it's always okay to revisit, but that's something that should have been done three weeks ago—
before
the damned health report came out! What's your name?”

The woman, who was just out of college and had been hired for her inexperience and willingness to work for next to nothing, froze. “Kelly James, ma'am…”

The room went silent.

“Uh-oh,” David murmured to Penelope, who was clutching a tray of office supplies Marge had asked for at the meeting's outset. “Mount Saint Marge is gonna blow.”

Marge's new face went from red to purple, the vein in her forehead began to throb, and her eyes bulged like a rare Madagascar monkey. For a second it was almost peaceful—the calm before a hurricane.

And then the storm hit.

“Ma'am?!”
Marge said, throwing a magazine that had been in front of her in Kelly's general direction. “Ma'am? Who do you think I am, Kelly James? A
geriatric
? Do you think I've lost my faculties and shit my Depends like someone's grandparents in a nursing home?!”

“I…I didn't mean anything by it—” Kelly said.

“Get…out…of…here,” Marge seethed.

“But—” Kelly protested, her eyes watering.

“Now!”

Kelly (who ended up not being permanently banished due to a Blues-induced change of heart two hours later, but was forced to do the Rolodex for three days straight) burst into tears and fled the room, as Marge roared, “Who's next? Are you people
retarded
? Did a
short bus
drop you all off at work today? Give me ideas
now
…NOW!”

Terrified, the office crowd started shouting out ideas all at once. There was safety in numbers, and if several ideas were thrown at Marge, she would not be able to match an idea to one person, so the chances of another public humiliation were minimum.

“High-wire jobs—New York's most dangerous jobs—send someone up the Empire State Building in a window-washer rig!”

“Billionaire speed dating—why do rich guys need dates and who are the hookers who show up?”

“Heart-healthy meals—be a Calorie Commando!”

“Runway fashion—who really wears that shit?”

“Sexy Easter bunny outfits that will make your man hop into bed!”

“Wait!” Marge roared, slamming down her coffee cup so hard it chipped on the edge. “What was that about bunnies and sex?”

“Ah…” a voice in the back said, “it was, ah, sexy Easter outfits that will make your man hop into bed—you know, kind of like board shorts for guys—you can wear board shorts on land or in the ocean. Dual functions…a sexy bunny outfit that can be worn to hide eggs and host Easter parties but is hot enough to wear in the boudoir.”