Up & Out (26 page)

Ms. Cole.
I wake up to Ben spooning me. There are tears in my eyes. I think about waking Ben up, but her words stick with me. He sighs in his sleep and squeezes me.

I could be happy writing shows for Don, and I will be. For me, it’s easy money. But my shows will always be changed and twisted. I will never be in control. I can deal with that. But I need something more real. I need a connection with people. I want a connection with kids. I don’t want to see them behind glass at a focus group. I don’t want to only deal with child actors. I’m going to keep writing, but I’m also going to teach.

I am a sucker for those ads on the subway. I’ll apply to be a
teacher starting next year and if it doesn’t work out, I will find something else. I just want to interact with real kids.

Ben moans. I turn around to face him and kiss him on the lips. He smiles and slowly, pleased with my decision, I start to wake him up.

I get my first check from Don and use it to pay off more than the bare minimum of my credit card. I won’t miss the automated voice at Unemployment. I want to go to Nobu Next Door with my jackpot, but instead I take Ben to Other Foods, an amazing organic restaurant where I can get fish and he can get weird grain things that look funny and taste delicious.

I also get a haircut. It’s not as young-urban-professional-looking as the one I got when I was promoted to executive producer, but it’s shorter with a few layers and I had some red highlights put in that complement my glasses.

Kathy calls me in a panic every day for the entire week before the wedding. Each conversation ends with some kind of demand and a reminder that this has to be a special day.

She wants us all to meet in Westchester at 6:00 a.m to get our hair done in her salon. This isn’t a gift, this is another eighty bucks. The majority of my current credit card bill is due to wedding-related costs. I tell her I won’t be able to make it that early. I’ll do my own hair. I’ll be there in time for the pictures at two.

If I hadn’t just spent sixty dollars (which was considered a steal) on dress alterations so that the dress is like a second skin, I would think I was out of the wedding.

“What are you doing about your hair?” I hear Kathy gasping. This stress cannot be good for her.

“Kathy, I just got it cut, it’s too short to put up. It’s going to look really cool.”

“Oh, my God. I think I’m getting an ulcer. Your wedding hair is giving me an ulcer.”

“Okay,” I say. I am trying to adapt a new policy with my friends. “Take a Tums and I’ll see you on Saturday at two.”

“Jesus, what a dress,” Ben says from my bed. I’m actually wearing it. “I’ve seen your breasts and they aren’t that big.”

I look down and hike up the neckline a little. It doesn’t help much. I stare at myself in the full-length mirror. My stomach is definitely flatter than when we first tried the dresses on. Love may make you fat, but Ben being a vegetarian and my constant running has helped make me more toned.

My red glasses sort of match the red dress. The thin red jacket Dina picked out is trimmed in a white cotton faux fur. I can’t believe she would pick this out for a wedding in late September. I think Dina’s pregnancy made her delusional.

“Why are you smirking? You look pretty. Your date is going to be very impressed.” I smile at him. He hasn’t put a shirt on. I wish I wasn’t already dressed. It’s twelve-thirty and I better get going if I don’t want to get chastised.

There is a knock at my door. I open it a crack. It’s Tommy. I still don’t exactly feel comfortable when the two men are in the apartment but Nancy’s here, too, in Tommy’s room. He smiles when he looks my dress up and down.

“Not a word,” I say. “I mean it.”

“This beats Lauryn’s,” he says. I was Lauryn’s maid of honor eons ago.

“It’s also about ten tempuras cheaper.”

“Nice,” he says. “Are you ready to go?”

“I’m just waiting for my date,” I say.

“Well, your date is here.” I open my door a little wider and Lauryn, my date, is standing there with the same dress and the same smirk. Her eyes are sparkling as she rubs the white cotton muff that Kathy paid for. I can’t wait to get mine.

“Did somebody say Santa’s little helper?”

Landslide

W
e’re over at Kathy’s new house in Connecticut watching her wedding video for the third time. The last time I fell asleep. It’s just the four of us—Kathy, Beth, Lauryn and me. Ron is working late. We are all drinking wine except Kathy. Kathy hasn’t said why she isn’t having any, but when she leaves the room Lauryn, Beth and I whisper “pregnant” to one another.

We’ve been talking about alternating these girls’ nights since the wedding, but so far this is the first one. Lauryn is back for winter break, so it all worked.

My big news for the night is that I’ve decided to be a teacher—that I want to make a difference to kids on a more immediate level. As I expected, the girls had mixed responses.

Kathy said, “Oh, boy, we’ve got to get you some new ‘hot for teacher’ glasses.”

Lauryn clapped and asked, “Did somebody say summer vacation—forever?”

Beth smiled and said, “I could see that, but you are going to have to get up really early.”

I find out if I get through the first round of applications next month, then I have to come up with a lesson plan. I think I
will focus on world history through foods of the world. I’m hoping I can bribe the judges with snacks.

I won’t find out if I make the final cut until April and then my whole summer will be spent in teacher training for next September. That’s less than a year away. But I don’t want to get ahead of myself. In the meantime, my cooking show,
Brooke Cooks(!),
got picked up and I decided to executive-produce it with Don. I’ve never done live action before so I’m glad that Don is still around to help. We are casting next week and I’m going to choose the most positive girls out there, no matter what they look like.

I told Don that if I got picked to become a teacher he was on his own for producing season two if it got that far, but I would still write it for as long as he wanted me to. He said as long as I covered for his wedding (in June, to Programming Sarah) he accepted my terms.

I think my ass looks fat in the video, and I keep pointing it out. Beth thinks she looks four months pregnant in her bridesmaid dress and we all kind of glance at Kathy to see how she reacts, but she doesn’t. I suspect she’s waiting until the first trimester is over to tell us.

The cameraman focuses on Nanny Nancy and Tommy ballroom dancing. Since then she’s convinced him to take lessons, but even at the early stage I have to admit they make a nice pair.

“Do you want me to fast-forward?” Kathy asks, like she has the past two times.

“No, I wanna get a look at Fred and Ginger,” Lauryn says.

“You’re so much prettier than she is,” Beth says.

“Yeah, she could do more with her hair,” Kathy says.

“I’m surprised she can even walk in those heels,” Lauryn says.

These girls aren’t catty. And I’m being really adult about the whole Tommy thing—for real this time, no attempt at a ratings-grabbing reunion—but I still like hearing it. I liked hearing it the day of Kathy’s wedding when I was wearing an ugly red dress and the straps broke, after I tossed the Santa jacket. I had to hunt for a safety pin and looked lopsided and Nanny Nancy (okay, just Nancy) looked hot in a tight DKNY dress.

I may be an adult, but I’m not that adult.

Although I think the videographer could learn a thing or two about how to frame a shot, the wedding video isn’t bad. I’ve thought about talking to Kathy about the production quality, but she doesn’t want to hear it, I’m sure. I like watching this video because the day went so fast. In my mind I only have snippets, pictures out in the cold, how bad Kathy’s voice shook when she said her vows, taking my millions of hairpins out at the end of the night and, of course, all of the food.

The video reminds me of everything else. My favorite part is on right now. I look over to see if Lauryn is enjoying it as much as I am. She is. She winks at me and Beth pours us more wine.

All of us together in a circle dancing to a Nina Simone song. There is Beth pinning up Kathy’s bustle when someone steps on it.

“God, we’re white girls,” Lauryn says, and she’s right. We look like assholes, but we didn’t care then and I don’t care now.

“The camera is definitely adding ten pounds to you, Re,” Lauryn says, and I swat her.

“And it’s all in her ass,” Beth hoots.

“Shut up, mommy-to-be,” I say to Beth.

“It was all that fucking pasta at the cocktail hour.”

My cell phone rings. I know it’s Ben calling to tell me what time he’s getting off work. I decide not to answer it. I think they are waiting to see if I will. I’ll check it on the train back to Grand Central. We still don’t live together (I’m still rooming with Tommy), although Ben has the key. I’m looking forward to crawling into bed with him later on tonight, but I’m also looking forward to eating the baked Brie Kathy’s got in the oven and finding out about the new guy that Lauryn is dating.

I keep wondering if Lauryn’s going to make some other amazing career change, like studying monkeys in Costa Rica or something. She’s had coffee with Jordan this morning. She’s happy, so I guess it went well.

Ben got Jordan a job as a bartender at Knuckle Sandwich
after Tommy, and then Lauryn, asked me to put in a good word. It seems to be working out.

“Have you used all your wedding presents yet?” Beth asks when the video is over. Kathy got a ton of shit.

“Everything except the crystal shot glasses you guys got me.”

“Did somebody say shot glasses?” Lauryn asks, tossing her heavy cardigan off her shoulders. We laugh. The shot glasses cost way too much.

“I guess there’s no hope of that, huh?” I ask.

“Why not? I’ll get them.” She gets up and goes into the kitchen. This will be telltale when she doesn’t do the shot. We will be able to confront her about the bun in the oven. There will be no escape from our interrogation. We will know the exact moment the sperm hit the egg.

She comes back with a tray balancing the shot glasses, bread, the Brie and a bottle of Stoli Vanilla. There are four shot glasses. We each grab bread and Kathy pours out four shots. The rest of us are looking at one another, trying to figure it out. Maybe she’s bluffing. We watch her, confused.

“Cheers,” she says, and holds up her glass. Slowly, we clink, and then down our drinks, and so does Kathy.

“Kath,” Beth says, horrified.

“Kathy,” Lauryn squeaks.

“What?” Kathy asks.

“You’re endangering the life of the child,” I say.

“If we’re pro-choice it’s just a fetus,” Beth says, suddenly politically correct. “But really, Kath, what gives?”

“Ever hear of fetal alcohol syndrome?” Lauryn asks.

“What are you guys talking about?”

“Aren’t you preggers?” I ask. I can’t take it.

“No!” She laughs.

“Why no wine?” Beth asks, still trying to trip her up.

“I wasn’t in the mood.”

“You’re not knocked up?”

“No. I wouldn’t be eating Brie, either, if I was.” She shakes her head like it’s the silliest thing she’s ever heard. But I find it
interesting that she knows what she can and can’t eat. “Do you want another shot?”

“Did somebody say more Stoli?”

Sometimes I wonder how I ever became so tied to these people. What was it that we ever had in common? Was it all just coincidence? Was it just that Lauryn’s last name starts with a
D
that made us sit near each other in first grade? What chance put Beth and I together as college roommates? What if Beth hadn’t answered Kathy’s introductory e-mail? What was it that kept us tied together? What still keeps us?

I don’t know all my friends’ secrets and they don’t know mine. Maybe all the weirdness has just been a phase. But who knows? Maybe it’s only just begun. Maybe we’re getting to another phase.

My friends can always surprise me and I may not agree with everything they do. On nights like this, doing shots, eating cheese, I don’t really care. I can just settle in and just enjoy being with all these women. Somewhere I know that if I need something serious like a hug or something shallow like hearing that I’m prettier than my ex’s new girlfriend, I believe they’ll be there. Whatever it is that keeps us together, we’re here. And I think if we need each other, we’ll be there, even if we can’t always hang out like we used to. Our friendship is a constant cycle and it will evolve. If taking the bad means getting the good, I’m down. I’m in.