Queen Of Babble: In The Big City

Chapter 4

Maybe Shari’s right. Maybe I do need to take things with Luke a little slower. There’s no need to start planning our wedding now. After all, I only just got my degree… or not even, actually, since I just turned in my thesis, and my advisor says I won’t technically graduate until January. Not that I’m changing my graduation date on my résumé, because, you know, who even checks that?

Besides, Mom and Dad would FLIP if they found out I took off for Europe—let alone accepted all those book lights as graduation gifts—without actually having finished my degree.

The same way they would FLIP if they found out I was moving in with a guy I met there. In Europe, I mean. I’m going to have to keep my living situation on the DL. Maybe I’ll just tell them Shari and I are sharing a place… except what if they talk to Dr. Dennis? Dang…

Okay, I’ll worry about that later.

Obviously, I need to use this time to concentrate on my career. I mean, how am I ever going to get interviewed by Vogue if I never actually do anything interview-worthy?

Although Shari would look really cute in a cap-sleeved dupioni silk bustier bridesmaid top, with a tea-length skirt in a sort of antique-rose color, like that skirt on the mannequin in the window…

Okay, stop it. Just stop. I’m not going to think about that now. There’ll be plenty of time to design a bridesmaid gown that will look lovely on Shari and hideous on Rose and Sarah. Right now I need to concentrate on getting a job. Because that’s the most important thing at the moment. What am I going to do with my life? I can’t just be someone’s wife. Anybody can do that.

And okay, sure, I bet Vogue would interview me just for being the wife of a prince. Well, a pseudo-prince. They do interviews with wives of pseudo-princes all the time. They call them “hostesses.”

I don’t want to be a “hostess.” I don’t even like parties.

No, I have to figure out a way to leave my mark on the world. Something only I can do. Which appears to be refurbish vintage wedding dresses.

Which you would think there’d be a huge demand for. Doesn’t everyone have an old wedding dress in the attic they’d like to have fixed up? The trick is, how to reach all the women out there who need my services, while at the same time being able to support myself? Of course there’s always the Internet, but—

Ooooh, that is the cutest Jonathan Logan red Spanish lace dress… shame about the rip in the lace. Still, that’s an easy fix. How much—oh my God. Four hundred and fifty dollars? Are they insane? We sold one just like this at Vintage to Vavoom in Ann Arbor for one fifty. And this one is like a size two. Who can even fit into something this small?

“May I help you?”

Oh. Right. I’m not here to shop.

“Hi,” I say, flashing what I hope is a dazzling smile in the direction of the clerk in the plaid pants (she’s being ironic), with the multiple facial piercings. “I was wondering if the manager was around?”

“Why do you want to see the manager?”

Hmmm. Multiple Facial Piercings has a bit of an attitude, I see. Then again, seeing as how her shop is on a busy avenue in the Village, she probably sees all kinds. She probably has to be suspicious. Who knows what kind of crazy creepolas come in here? If they get a lot like that guy I just saw on the corner, with his pants down around his ankles, pawing through the trash can and muttering about Stalin, I can see why she might be a little standoffish with strangers.

“Actually,” I say brightly, “I’m wondering if the store might be hiring. I’ve got years of experience in vintage retail, in addition to—”

“Leave your résumé at the counter,” Multiple Facial Piercings says. “If she’s interested, she’ll call you.”

But something tells me that the manager will never call. Just like the human resources representative from the costume department at the Metropolitan Museum of Art never called. Just like the head of the Museum of the City of New York’s Costume and Textile Collection never called. Just like Vera Wang never called. Just like any of the gazillion places at which I’ve dropped off résumés haven’t called.

Only in this case, I know the manager’s not going to call because she’s seen my résumé and she thinks I’m underqualified for the position, or because there aren’t any openings, or because I don’t have any local references, like all those other places. I know the manager’s not going to call because she’s never even going to see my résumé. Because Multiple Facial Piercings has already decided she doesn’t like me, and is going to throw my résumé into the trash the minute I step out of her store.

“My hours are super-flexible,” I say, in a last-ditch effort. “And I have a lot of seamstressing experience. I’m great at alterations—”

“We don’t do in-store alterations,” Multiple Facial Piercings says with a sneer. “If people want something altered these days, they just take it to their dry cleaner.”

I swallow. “Right. Well, I notice this Jonathan Logan you have here has some damage. I could easily repair this—”

“People who buy our clothes want to make repairs themselves,” Multiple Facial Piercings says. “Leave your résumé at the counter, and we’ll call you… ”

Her heavily made-up eyes flick from the top of my head—my hair is pulled back in a wide, Jackie O—style scarf—to my dress, a rare 1950s Gigi Young blue and white polka dot with an accordion-pleated skirt—to my shoes—white ballet-style flats (because you can’t wear heels when you’re tromping around Manhattan). It is clear from her expression that Multiple Facial Piercings doesn’t like what she’s seeing.

“… or not.” Multiple Facial Piercings tosses her Mohawk, then lifts a hand to wave at me. I see that what I’d taken for festively colored sleeves is actually her bare arm, the skin of which is completely covered in tattoos. “Buh-bye.”

“Um.” I can’t stop staring at the tattoos. “Bye.”

Okay. Okay, so maybe the New York employment scene is a little… different from the one back in Ann Arbor.

Or maybe I just hit the wrong store on the wrong day.

Yeah, that’s it. They can’t all be like that one. Maybe heading to the Village first thing was a mistake.

Or maybe I shouldn’t even be thinking retail. Maybe I should try hitting some bridal shops—not Vera Wang, obviously, since I already crashed and burned there (the woman who answered the phone at Vera Wang corporate, when I called to see if they’d received my résumé, made it more than clear that they would definitely be calling me—in ten years, when they managed to wade through all the other résumés aspiring wedding-gown designers had dropped off)—and leaving my résumé and some photos of some of the gowns I’ve worked on. Maybe that would make more sense. Maybe…

Oh God, what am I going to say to Luke? Shari’s right, moving in with someone is a big deal, and not something you should just do because it’s cheaper than paying a broker’s fee.

Although of course that isn’t why I’m doing it. I love Luke, and I think living with him would be totally dreamy.

So long as, you know, I enter into it without any expectations- like Shari said—of marriage. Just take things one day at a time. Because we’re both in transitional stages of our lives right now, Luke in school, and me… well, doing whatever it is I’m going to do. We can’t be thinking of marriage. That’s years away.

Although not too many years, I hope. Because I’d really like to go sleeveless on my wedding day and God only knows how long it’s going to be before I lose all the elasticity in my arms and get that jiggle thing which can be so unattractive in a bride. Or anyone.

Okay, this isn’t working. This traipsing around, dropping my résumé off at vintage clothing stores. I need to regroup. I need to get out the phone book or go online and really concentrate my efforts on places that fit my style. I need to—

Ooooh, look at those steaks. Maybe that’s what I need to do. Pick up something for dinner. I mean, Luke isn’t going to feel like going out after a long day of orientation.

And okay, I’m not the world’s best cook. But anyone can grill a steak. Well, I guess broil it, since we have no grill.

That’s what I’ll do. I’ll get some steaks, and a bottle of wine, and I’ll make dinner. Then Luke and I can have a discussion about our living together, and what it means. And then I’ll go back to job hunting tomorrow after we’ve got it all straightened out.

Perfect. Okay.

Only maybe I’ll shop in Luke’s neighborhood, instead of down here, since I don’t want to have to carry a lot of stuff uptown on the subway. Whereis the subway, anyway?

“Um, excuse me. Can you tell me how to get to the six train?”

Oh! How rude!

And I’m not an asshole. How can someone be an asshole just for asking where the subway is? God, is it really true what they say about New Yorkers? So far they do seem kind of rude. Is this why Kathy Pennebaker came back home? I mean, besides the whole other-people’s-boyfriend addiction thing?

Or was she driven to steal even more boyfriends by the uncaring attitude of her New York neighbors?

Okay, where am I? Second Avenue and Ninth Street. East Ninth Street, because the east and west sides are divided by Fifth Avenue (where Luke’s mother’s apartment is. Overlooking Central Park… and the Met). Luke told me that to get to Fifth Avenue, if you’re heading west from the East River, you have to cross First, Second, and Third avenues, and then Lexington, Park, and finally Madison (to remember the order in which these non numbered avenues go, Luke told me to “Look Past My Face”—or Lexington, Park, Madison, Fifth).

The streets—East Fifty-ninth Street, home to Bloomingdale’s, and East Fiftieth Street, where Saks is, for instance—run perpendicular to the avenues. So Bloomingdale’s is on Fifty-ninth and Lexington Avenue, Saks on Fiftieth and Fifth Avenue. Luke’s mother’s place is on Eighty-first and Fifth… around the corner from the Betsey Johnson on Madison between Eighty-first and Eighty-second.

Then of course there’s the West Side. But I’ll have to learn that later because right now I’m having a hard enough time figuring out the side I’m actually living on.

Okay, so the subway up and down the East Side runs along Lexington Avenue. So all you have to do when you’re lost, Luke said, is find Lexington, and you’ll eventually find the subway.

Unless of course you’re in the Village, like I am, where Lexington suddenly turns into something called Fourth Avenue, then Lafayette, and finally Centre Street.

Again, not something I’m going to worry about right now. I’m just going to head west from Second Avenue, hoping to find Lexington in one of its many forms, and a subway stop home, somewhere around here…

Home. Wow. I’m already calling it home.

Well, isn’t that what any place is? Any place that you share with someone you love, I mean?

Maybe that’s why Kathy left New York. Not the rude people or the incomprehensible street layout or the whole boyfriend-stealing thing, but because there just wasn’t anybody here that she loved.

Who loved her back, anyway.

Poor Kathy. Chewed up by the big city, then spat out again.

Well, that’s not going to be me. I’m not going to be the next Kathy Pennebaker of Ann Arbor. I am not going back home with my tail between my legs. I am going to make it in New York City if it kills me. Because if I can make it here, I can make it any—

Oooh, a cab! And it’s vacant!

And okay, cabs are expensive. But maybe just this once. Because I’m so tired, and it’s so far to the subway, and I want to get back in time to start making Luke dinner, and—

“Eighty-first and Fifth, please.”

— oh, look, there’s the Astor Place subway stop right there. If I had just walked one more block, I could have saved myself fifteen bucks…

Well, that’s okay. No more cabs this week. And this is so nice, sitting in this clean air-conditioned cab, instead of fighting my way down the stairs to the smelly platform to wait for a super-crowded train where I won’t even be able to get a seat. And then there are the panhandlers in every car, asking for money. I can never seem to say no. I don’t want to turn into one of those hardened, jaded New Yorkers, like Multiple Facial Piercings, who seemed to find my Gigi Young dress so amusing. When you can’t empathize with another’s hardship—or realize how hard it is to even FIND a Gigi Young dress in wearable condition—what’s the point of even being alive?

So I end up getting off the subway five dollars poorer every time I ride it, not even counting the fare. It’s practically cheaper to take a cab. Sort of.

Oh God. Shari’s right. I have to get a job—and a life.

And fast.