The World from this Window

At Starbucks, I grab a seat at the window, and while writing the epilogue to my novel, I also make the following observations:

A woman comes through the drive-thru at Starbucks with pink curlers in her hair. She looks young (younger than me, anyway), and I puzzle over this for far too long. I thought curlers went the way of bobby socks and poodle skirts. I thought going out in public with curlers was the domain of elderly women in housedresses, support hose and lipstick-stained teeth. I thought What Not to Wear, after years of noble fashion warfare, had put a stop to this sort of public behavior altogether.

Two women come in wearing long, floaty skirts and elaborate hair arrangements that involve numerous clips, claws and bobby pins. I imagine they are part of a religious group where long hair and skirts are mandatory. Either this or a traveling theater troop, and they have raided the costume trailer. Although they order at the same time, one woman’s order comes up quickly and the other is lost in a line of white cups (made with 10% post-consumer recycled fiber). “Bless you, dear,” says the older woman when the barista finally hands over her mocha. I place them back in the religious group. This makes me wonder if I wonder if anyone looking at me would place me into a religious cult. I belong to that strange sect that worships caffeine, values silence or mind-numbing noise, types fast and loud, and doesn’t feel embarrassed to be caught staring.

It’s been raining on and off for days, so business is slow at the carwash across the street. A few cars do come through – drivers without access to weather reports? I’m tempted myself – my car was dusty before the rain, and rivulets of water have created muddy streaks down the hood. I wonder if car washes are half-price on rainy days, or if this is proof that I have no future in marketing. And then I wonder if the Pacific Northwest – where the Beths live, unaware of each other – has any sort of thriving car wash industry at all.

Earlier today, over breakfast, I browsed for editing jobs on monster.com, and noted one promising lead for which I met many of the “required” qualifications (B.A. in English, experience in editing), but when I got to the “recommended” qualifications, I noted that ideal applicant should also be fluent in Portuguese, Arabic and French. The world is a big place, so I’m sure that ideal applicant exists, though whether s/he is willing to work for what amounts to slave labor seems less certain. But you never know – I make assumptions about people all the time and am constantly proven wrong. Perhaps the woman with her hair in curlers was on her way to translate at a multi-lingual conference on bioethics; she would rather be following her passion – ballroom dancing – but takes the occasional translation gig to pay the bills. Fiction is fun.

After all this musing about others, it suddenly occurs to me that the man at the next table is wearing a sweater that my husband owns. I haven’t seen Will wear this sweater in a year, but maybe he should. It looks nice on this man, even paired with light-washed jeans and ratty loafers. I’ll have to remember to tell Will. When the side-effects of a venti skinny vanilla latte kick in, I ask this man if he would mind watching my things. I have to ask him three times, because the first time he apparently doesn’t register the question, the second time he’s completely puzzled, looking me up and down as if we are former colleagues and he should remember my name, and finally on the third plea he says, “Um, sure.” Only in the bathroom does it occur to me that there is no other copy of this novel, at least not the last twenty pages or so. I do the quickest hand-washing job ever and rush back to my seat.

My neighbor Rob is in this Starbucks, in the corner table without a view – the place for serious work. He’s writing too, a project for which he will presumably get paid and for which he has great enthusiasm. All I can see from this angle are his shoes – black Converse – and a stack of napkins, slightly wadded. I am tempted a dozen times to interrupt his concentration with a stupid joke or a witty observation, which is proof that I have the potential to be a horrible person, but since I ultimately resist, I am happy to observe that I do have at least one redeeming quality.

The Great Flood of 2010

Will and I don’t clean out our garage like normal people.

In fact, I have to draw on my fiction-writing sensibilities to imagine how other people accomplish this task. They clear their schedules maybe, setting aside a few hours on a sunny Saturday morning in which to move, sort and reorder their belongings. While they move objects onto the driveway, neighbors pass by with children in strollers and dogs on leashes. Pleasantries are exchanged. Afterwards these normal, happy people collapse onto the couch with a sense of accomplishment, a cold beer in their hands and a baseball game on TV.

Will and I prefer a different approach: We wait until the washer malfunctions, then wade through ankle-deep water to salvage what’s left.

The washer malfunction is a strange fact of our lives. It is a rather-new, deceptively competent-looking machine. It works like a charm 99% of the time and then every few hundred cycles – once a year or so – something backfires. Since the prime laundry-washing hours for a night owl are between ten p.m. and midnight, we usually discover the flood while we’re winding down for the day. We drop everything else, curse the faulty washer, and begin the task of moving everything to dry ground.

In the seven years we’ve lived in our house, we’ve performed this task six times and therefore have it down to a sort of science. Our garage is too small for either of our vehicles, even Will’s Civic – which is strange, since homes in the ‘40s presumably had larger cars. So instead of accommodating a car, the garage is a repository for our stuff – notes from Will’s seventeen years as a journalist, texts from my eight years of teaching, cleaning and paper supplies, half-empty gallons of paint, random garden tools. The garage is also functions as a limbo for the things we don’t really want anymore, but haven’t absolutely destined for Goodwill – wedding gifts we’ve never actually used, clothes we haven’t worn in a while.

It’s a mostly silent task. Will opens the garage door (a feat I’ve never mastered), most of the water spills out onto the driveway, and we start dumping things on the lawn. By this point our neighbors – sane people, all of them – are asleep, their homes dark. Each time I’ve expected a police cruiser to drive by and idle at the curb, but this has never happened. (There's no trouble, Officer!) Spread out on the lawn, our belongings are a sorry lot. If I had to imagine the people who owned these random things, I would never picture the two of us.

Some things are lost for good, like the bag of cat food and a twelve-pack of toilet paper – things that actually belong on shelves, but through laziness and general apathy end up on the floor of the garage, now weighted with water and rendered completely useless. The real joy is the cat litter, which takes on the mass and consistency of a load of cement. It has to be scraped off the floor, then wrapped in layers of plastic bags. I try not to think about the bodily functions of my cats as the litter oozes between my toes.

The first time it happened, we were emotional wrecks – Will angry at the disruption, me weepy over what we’d lost. By now we take it in stride, which in a way is even worse. We’ve resigned ourselves to the situation; we’ve accepted the possibility that our benign-looking washing machine will one day turn on us. (Annie Dillard, if I recall, had a similar experience with a typewriter that one day exploded, showering her writing table with sparks. After this single incident, it worked fine.) And so, an hour-and-a-half later, the garage is drying, our belongings are reorganized and a shopping list of toiletries is affixed to the refrigerator. Will and I call dibs on the first shower; in what has become our pattern, he lets me take it.

For a week or two afterwards, we’ll watch the machine carefully, opening the garage door for a quick peek to catch it in the act, like a disobedient child. And then, inevitably, we’ll forget. Nah, we think, listening to the whoosh of the rinse and the rumble of the spin cycle. It’ll never happen again.

The Back-Up Dog

Baxter is sick.

It is probably not his intention to cause me worry and heartache, but I’m worried. I’m heart-ached.

Last week we spent three days in Santa Rosa with my sis, her husband, and the lovely Sabine. Baxter survived the drive – he was eerily quiet in the car, actually; so much so that occasionally Will and I muted the radio to listen for his breathing. He even survived our ill-planned stop in Richmond for sustenance, although he was plainly eager to be on the road again.

While Will and I chatted up my sister and cooed over Sabine, Baxter inspected every inch of their backyard. He burrowed under hedges, rooted through ivy, stared curiously at the goldfish, and then proceeded to drag all of Sabine’s belongings from the deck to the yard. In short, he made a happy fool of himself. It wasn’t until late that night, the adults in bed after laughing ourselves into exhaustion with the New Yorker caption contest game, that he finally relaxed.

Day two included long walks through a hilly Santa Rosa neighborhood, a few sunny hours at Doran Beach and then a lazy afternoon nap. That night I pronounced that Baxter was finally acting like a “real” dog – he wasn’t frantically sniffing or insisting on our attention. He even ignored the allure of Sabine’s diaper and cuddled up, real-dog like, at our feet.

On day three, he wouldn’t eat. This was unusual for Baxter because he’s a beagle, and beagles will eat anything and everything, whenever the opportunity presents itself. Occasionally this means non-edible things like food packaging, but it absolutely means his dog food, served in his doggy dish, at six a.m. sharp. When he finally ate later that day, I chalked it up to the general excitement of new people, the break in routine…

And then on Sunday, back home, he ignored his healthy serving of Beneful. He ate grass instead and threw up, before finally turning to his food. He slept as if were catching up for a lifetime of lost hours. On Monday he seemed fine, if lethargic. On Tuesday, he wouldn’t eat again. “No walk until you eat,” I told him, exhibiting my fine parenting skills. He ate, and once on a leash he went right for the grass again, so he could vomit the food his cruel mother had force fed him.

It was time to call the professionals.

I dropped off Baxter at the vet at nine o’clock, which gave me about forty minutes to make a fifty minute drive in another direction for class. I couldn’t linger for anything more than a “Bye, buddy” – and I was off. I mourned him the whole way. Later that day I was back home with no one to greet me (we have two cats, yes, but for the purpose of this blog there was no one to greet me). I called the vet for a check-up – probably your basic gastroenteritis, but they wanted to keep him over night. I did a load of laundry without worrying that Baxter would snag a sock and run under the bed. There were no toenails clicking on the hardwood, following me from room to room. It was empty-nest syndrome.

“I miss Baxter,” I said, getting in to bed next to Will. I hated to think of him in a cage, too keyed up by the presence of other dogs to get any sleep. I could picture him doped up on anti-nausea medication, pumped full of fluids for his dehydration, letting out the occasional whimper. The evening had assumed a surreal quality – there was no hike through backyard darkness while Baxter gave his last pee of the night. It was too quiet in our room without Baxter settling onto the old quilt and performing his ritual of grunts, moans and snorts. This, then, was what it was like to be dog-less.

Earlier in the week I had been joking about the “heir and a spare” concept – it generally worked for the royals, as it does for most parents today. And apparently it worked for pet-owners – just think of all the happy people who walk more than one dog each night. That’s what I needed just then, a back-up dog.

“You’re not crying, are you?” Will laughed.

“Nnnnhommm,” I mumbled.

“You know he’ll be back tomorrow, right?”

I sighed. It would be a long night until then. “I know.”

Reasons to Dislike the Woman Sitting Across from Me

1. Poor cell phone etiquette. Perhaps she has not noticed that the room is otherwise quiet, that the rest of us are typing madly and importantly on our keyboards, and she is the lone nattering voice, drowning out even The Bangles’ “Manic Monday”. Because I can’t help but overhear, I must also report that her conversations are not even interesting. As a connoisseur of eavesdropping, I know when something is worth recording (i.e. jotting down in my omnipresent notebook or laptop), and her loud, monotonous conversation bores me.

2. Failure to act in the best interest of others. This woman has no sense of community. For proof I offer the following scenario: It was a mild-weathered Saturday afternoon and those of us who appreciate power sources for our laptops over hiking or cycling were indoors, typing away. Logging on, I found that I couldn’t connect to the Internet. Not a big deal – I should be deeply ensconced in the 27th version of my novel anyway, not checking to see if one of my lit sisters has sent me a witty piece of correspondence. I have also come to the point in my life when a few minutes away from the Equifax alert system doesn’t send me into a cold panic. And yet, perversely, I kept trying to connect. Then a fellow caffeine addict leaned over and said, “Are you connected?” “Nope,” I reported, trying for cheerful. A third patron professed unconnectivity, and voila! We had a problem on our hands. The manager, once alerted, looked doubtfully at the WiFi thingamajig and said, “Is anyone connected?” And SHE, the woman sighing importantly across from me at this very moment, said, “I’m online.” Liar! It was impossible. We – the disenfranchised three – pressed her: “Really? You can refresh your page? You can send and receive email?” She gave us this very annoyed glance and said, “I’m sorry. I’m very busy. I don’t have time to talk right now.” Talk? We didn’t want to talk. We wanted validation that the Internet was down. “Well, as long as one person is online…” the manager said, trailing away to other responsibilities. I wanted to wrestle away the woman’s iMac, forcing her to acknowledge that she was looking at an Excel file and NOT the Internet, but I took a deep breath and let it go. Breathe in: citizen of the world. Breathe out.

3. General selfishness and display of coffeehouse bullying. So this morning, inexplicably, all the tables were taken. I shuffled in with my laptop case and noticed that one table was littered with food wrappers and an untidy stack of newspapers. “Excuse me – do you know if anyone is sitting here?” I ask the man next to me. “There was someone there, but I guess he left. That was maybe ten minutes ago.” Aha. I stacked up the papers, brushed the crumbs onto the plate, and prepared to set myself up, when SHE appeared, swooping out of nowhere. “I’m sorry, I’ve been waiting for that table,” she announced. Waiting where? In the bathroom? At another table on the other side of the house? It’s not like we’re in a gym, signing up for time on a treadmill. It’s every woman for herself here. It’s catch as catch can. It’s snooze or loose. So back off, lady. While you were staring at this empty table for ten minutes, I made my move. I will now proceed to type beautiful prose and get on with my life, thank you very much. Except – I didn’t do that. It was like being in grade school all over again. I caved to the bully. Here’s my lunch money – er, coveted seat near the window. While I was standing there not sure how to respond (be gracious, be eloquent, Paula), a man at the facing table announced, “Hey, I’m leaving now. You can have my spot.” Now we face each other over our laptop screens and she jots important notes on a napkin and I type this, my small form of revenge.

I Don’t Understand How Time Passes

Will tells me it’s been a month since I’ve updated this blog. A month? That can’t be. I mean, I know I’ve been busy… but a whole month? So I took a break from my other writing life to figure out where I’ve been. And here’s what I found:

-- I’ve been working on my thesis. Slow, painful work that I haven’t even invited others to read. This involves quick spurts of activity – days where I write ten or more pages – and then a sluggish half-week of revision where I realize that at least half of the “spurt” has got to go. It’s fun.

-- I’ve been blogging elsewhere – at Her Plot Thickens, a group blog with two of my whip-smart writer friends. I insist you check it out!

-- I started a sort of internship/unpaid teaching assistant position at California State University, Stanislaus, and suddenly I’ve found myself immersed in American Modernism. I’m teaching on Wallace Stevens, H.D., William Carlos Williams and T.S. Eliot (insert gulp here).

-- I’ve subbed for 5th through 12th grade – Special Ed, 7th and 8th grade Language Arts, Reading Lab, 6th grade Math/Algebra/Geometry/Algebra II/Finite Math (don’t even ask what they were supposed to be doing… I have no idea), American Government, World History… Most of it is a blur, which is a good thing.

-- I’ve walked Baxter a few dozen times, at least. Once he got out and led me on a wild-beagle chase through our neighborhood and beyond. That was ten days ago and I’m still catching my breath.

-- I’ve collected manuscripts from my compatriots in the graduating class of July 2010 for Stonecoast Lines. Now I’m editing, formatting, stressing when the publisher doesn’t call me back…

-- I’ve cleaned (not enough), cooked (probably too much) and generally neglected the laundry.

-- I’ve worked out at four to five days a week, visited the post office a half-dozen times, and stopped by the library once a week at minimum to recharge my mind.

- I’ve read: not just the stuff I’m teaching, but also A Thousand Acres, A Short History of Women, Olive Kitteridge, Motherless Brooklyn, Americans in Space, When Will There be Good News?, and I’m nearly finished with Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris. This book is seriously hilarious, and I often have to put it away at night so I don’t laugh myself into a state of permanent awake-ness. Right now I’m at the part where a fired employee dressed as a clown returns to the office with a paintball gun.

-- I tried (and failed) to keep up with LOST. I discovered a few weeks into the season that Project Runway had started without me. I learned the “essential seeds” for any diet on Dr. Oz.

--I’ve been accepted as an ETS rater (rating college entrance exam essays, etc.) and start soon. It remains to be seen if I will like grading essays – that task used to be the bane of my teaching existence. Now, apparently, all anyone has to do is dangle a money-shaped carrot in front of my eyes and I’m in. I’ve also started to apply for post-graduate fellowships, teaching positions, etc. It’s tiring. I can only write so many cover letters and statements of purpose before I degenerate into silliness.

-- I celebrated Grandpa’s 101st birthday in February. A week or so later, I was on hand to bring him to the ER when he fell and hit his head. I spent a full day with him when my dad was out of town, alternating between FOX News and Animal Planet. I left with a huge headache.

-- I’ve emailed Paige and Beth recklessly, helplessly, laughingly, knowingly. I’ve told Will long, detailed stories that he politely pretends to listen to. I’ve forgotten birthdays, forgotten to comb my hair, forgotten to pay the pest control service. I took a cold shower when the “stem” in our hot water faucet broke. I’ve daydreamed about the shoes I might wear when I cross the stage to get my diploma.

-- I took a two-day, 720-mile trip to Oregon and back with my dear friend Alisha, and loved every minute of it… even the minute when we realized the alarm didn’t go off and we would have to rush to breakfast as we were.

-- I’ve sipped chai lattes at The Queen Bean, like I’m doing at this very moment. Sometimes – like right now – I’ve eavesdropped on conversations. I’ve chuckled to myself. I’ve passed judgment. I’ve stored up tales to repeat to Will over dinner, to Alisha over Guinness, to the dear faithful readers of my sadly not-up-to-date blog.

A Trip to the Discount Store

This girl isn’t afraid of discounts.

I grew up in hand-me-downs, spent my college work-study checks at thrift stores and still make a monthly trip to Wal-Mart for “the necessities.” (I go before six a.m. – there’s less chance of being accosted by toothless panhandlers my own age in the parking lot or by the swarms of unattended, sticky-faced children who roam the aisles.)

On Saturday, I went to another discount store, one I’d only been to once before, a few years ago. I remembered the experience wasn’t exactly pleasant, but I was fuzzy on the particulars. In any case, I was now in search of the same item I’d bought then – a new pillow. The store was basically the same as I remembered – racks upon racks of flimsy clothes made from stretchy synthetic fabric, rows of shoes that looked cute but wouldn’t survive more than a single wear. I made a beeline for the back of the store – home décor.

I’m sort of particular about pillows. My neck needs support – not too firm, not too soft. I love a down pillow, although not necessarily the accompanying sneezes. It’s an awkward thing to try out a pillow in a store – especially when there’s no bed, and thus no way to exactly replicate the experience. I was left to lean my head into the shelves – which was not, I reflected, entirely unlike sticking one’s head in an oven.

Well. I found a pillow I liked, and so immediately grabbed a second one, entirely voiding the purpose of seeking a discount. But Will would like this, too, and even if Baxter had only thrown up on one of our pillows, at some point we would need another.

On the way up to the register – the line, I recognized with a sick feeling, had wound its way halfway through the store – I passed a display of area rugs. Hmm. We do need a new rug at our entryway. The braided rattan rug I loved at the time has sadly proved impossible to clean. This rug, a plush shag that the cats would love to dig their claws into, was only $14.99 and the sort of beige that would hide human and dog footprints. Why not?

And then, I faced the line. Clutching two pillows under one arm and sort of inching the rug forward with my free hand, I waited with a few dozen other Modestans who love a good bargain. Each transaction at the register (only two were open… why? WHY??) took a mini-eternity. I realized that half the population of my line was already clutching a bag; apparently, they were previous dissatisfied customers. I eyed the pillows carefully, considering. But they had felt so good on my neck, at least for the twenty seconds I stood with my head angled into the shelf.

At this point the women in front of me caught my attention. They were a family of four very large people, and they were arguing volubly about the cost of their potential purchases.

“I need these pants,” one of the women said, and – I couldn’t make this up if I tried – held up a stretchy pair of navy blue leggings printed with pink heart-shaped peace signs. There were approximately 600 peace signs on this pair of pants. If she had scratched at one of them with her two-inch acrylic fingernail, I bet the decal would have flaked right off. We’re talking quality product here.

“You’re already getting the balloon pants,” another woman pointed out. Balloon pants? I leaned forward, curious. There was indeed a pair of leggings emblazoned with rainbow-colored balloons nesting in the shopping cart.

“I need those, too!”

I was trying to figure out why in the world anyone would need either the peace-sign or the balloon leggings, let alone both (Tryouts for the circus?), when suddenly the experience I’d been blocking out for the last twenty minutes came rushing back into my head.

I remembered my previous trip to this discount store.

It was three years ago, summer,one of those hellishly hot days when you escape the heat of the parking lot for the chill of air conditioning and feel momentarily sick and disoriented. The store had just opened; curious, I decided to give it a walk-through. I was wearing a pair of flip-flops, my warm-weather uniform, and I had only taken a step inside the store when I slipped. Talk about a slip. It was kind of like being on a Slip-and-Slide (that dangerous, lawn-killing piece of plastic that rarely made an appearance in my childhood), only I was sliding past a row of shopping carts, a laughing security guard and a dozen people waiting in line for the register, all while toting a massive shoulder bag. I eventually caught myself on a display case, which because this is real life and not a movie, did not topple dramatically. It seemed like the whole store was holding its breath during my performance, and when I finally righted myself, straightening my shoulders, they let out a collective sigh. A long, wet, flip-flop shaped streak stretched across the floor behind me.

“Are you hurt?” the security guard said. He tried to cover his smile with a look of concern.

“Only my pride,” I said, laughing it off. I’m sure I was all shades of red, and would have loved to turn and walk right back out (this time avoiding the puddle of mystery moisture), but that felt like admitting defeat. Instead, I wandered the store, and found in the back a very lovely pillow for only $5.99.

On Saturday, I lugged my purchases inside and displayed them for Will.

He admired the pillows, but looked curiously at the rug. “Uh-oh.”

“Oh. Whoops,” I said. The dimensions were entirely wrong. Somehow I had vastly underestimated the size of my own entryway.

So, I guess I’ll have to return it.

Humiliations Galore

Will and I like to play a certain game when we’re out in public – restaurants, bookstores, theatres. It has no official title, but here’s the gist of it: we get points whenever someone recognizes us. At the end of the night, the person with the fewest points wins.

This game was my brainchild, forged during an anniversary dinner where no less than four people (coaches, parents, athletes) stood at the side of our table and chatted up Will, for an average of five minutes each. At the end of the night, I commented bitterly, “Will: 4, Paula: 0.” Then I put in a formal request for eating meals out of his jurisdiction.

My husband, for seventeen years, was a journalist at a daily paper with a circulation of around 90,000, give or take. For the last dozen years or so, he was on the high school sports beat, which put him in regular contact with the coaches, parents and athletes at about fifty-five high schools, not to mention potentially thousands of other readers who read his daily articles and weekly columns. In 2000, we decided to escape California for a European vacation. With Dad D. and Heather as my witnesses, we were in a hotel lobby in San Francisco when I said, “The best thing about this vacation is that for a month we’re not going to see anyone we know.” And then the elevator door opened and a husky guy (wrestling coach, I later learned) stepped out and said, “Will!”

Fast forward a decade.

Will and I were at P. Wexford’s Tuesday night, well into our second pints of Guinness and a punishing trivia loss, when I leaned across the booth. “Do those people at the next table look familiar?” I’d been watching them out of the corner of my eye for a half pint now; I was sure I knew the man from somewhere, and the woman had a friendly, could-be-familiar face.

Will squinted in their direction. “Yeah, but I don’t know from where.”

We continued to answer trivia questions wrong. Apparently we should have brushed up on our Puxatony Phil knowledge, and one of these days I need to memorize birthstones by month.

And then suddenly, the man leaned over. “Will! I don’t know if you remember me… Steve Garfield*.” (*Name has been changed to protect my fragile ego.)

Ahhh, shit. Suddenly, it all came back to me.

A while back, I interviewed for a part-time English teaching job at a local high school. This man was the vice principal; he led the interview. To tell the truth, it was the salary I craved, not the job. Right now I’m substitute teaching and finishing my thesis… I can’t imagine what life would be like were I to bring home a few hundred essays a week to boot. But at the time, I was completely committed. I wore a suit, sharp heels, carried my most expensive purse. I fielded questions like a pro. I rattled off my accomplishments as if they were nothing – six years of yearbook, four years as department chair. I have a cleared credential. I am CLAD certified. And then… I didn’t get the job. Actually, I didn’t even get a phone call saying I didn’t get the job, I had to call them.

“Look, I probably didn’t get the job,” I said by phone after four days. Steve had mentioned that a decision would be made within two or three days. “And that’s fine. I just figured if I did get the job, I needed to start planning right away. That’s just how I work.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “We can’t divulge the status of employment applications. That’s an issue for the HR department.”

“I’m not going to come down there with a gun or anything,” I said. “I just want to know.” After all, I’d waited for an hour for my appointment (English teachers do love the sounds of their own voices), then interviewed for another forty-five minutes. An hour and forty-five minutes of my life, and I wasn’t entitled to a quick “yes” or “no” by phone?

Tonight, at Wexford’s, I suddenly prayed hard for invisibility. I was wearing jeans, flats, sparkly lip gloss. Maybe I wouldn’t be recognized?

“Oh, and I remember you,” Steve Garfield said, nodding at me. “Paula interviewed for an English position,” he announced to his companion, to Will, to the world at large.

I smiled back, took a drink. “Yes – hello.”

He made small talk with Will. I checked my cell phone, pretending I had a busy social life.

And then, inexplicably, the conversation came back to me. “You were really good in that interview,” Steve Garfield said. “You know, I think we interviewed” – don’t say it, please – “about a dozen people that day. Very competitive.”

I smiled. Will paid the bill.

“Nice to see you again,” Will and I said in chorus, standing. We shook hands all around.

“Keep us in mind, Paula, if you’re ever looking for a job,” he said.

I smiled again, held in my words until we were outside, out of earshot. And then I let them fly. Keep us in mind???

But on the way home, we laughed. Will pointed out that there could be one person on earth that you just don’t want to see, and sure enough, when you turn a corner, there he is. Why is that, exactly? Why doesn’t the universe serve up a dose of a long-lost childhood friend or a college roommate now living half a country away, someone who could cheer me up or remind me that I’m not such a bad person after all?

We left with a tied score tonight. The me from a few months back would still be burning with humiliation as I type these words. But the me from today shucks it off her back. I’m a writer now, after all.