Memoirs of a Motel Maid by Lauren Spitzberg

Memoirs of a Motel Maid

Ingrid Bloom’s Found Manuscript

Lauren Spitzberg

Copyright © 2018 Lauren Spitzberg

All rights reserved.

ISBN-13:978-1511996532

ISBN-10:1511996536

CHAPTER ONE

The present

The Brand Motel

Santa Monica, California

One of my job duties at the Motel was “inventory and inspection of vending services.” Meaning: I was responsible for monitoring snacks in the Motel’s lone vending machine.

I was jotting down my findings (Low on Cheetos, Funyuns all gone, Snickers bar drop malfunction,) when I heard the clickety-clack of the newlyweds’ flip flops descending the Motel’s backless steel stairs.

For a little less than a week, I’d witnessed them lying by our liver-shaped pool: doughy physiques slathered with thin strips of Lycra and thick slicks of baby oil. Today, I could see that their skin had suffered the sun, only to reach an alarming shade of fuchsia.

Shouldn't someone offer them some sun-sense? But, no one but me was around. Just as I decided it my duty to offer unsolicited advice, I heard the new wife speak: “The psychotherapist hasn’t been in to clean our room today,” she said, fiddling with the Zirconium stud in her new husband's ear lobe.

“Psychotherapist? What?”

“That's what she told me she was when she was cleaning our room.”

They were talking about me.

“How did that shit pop up?” he snorted.

“She was struggling with the sheets. Fucking them up like crazy. She got all stressed and sad looking, so I asked her if she’d been doing this long. Instead of a yes or no answer, she goes on with how she was some kind of therapist in New York. I ended up making the beds myself.”

“Babe, L.A is famous for people who make shit up.”

“Yeah, but who lies about being a therapist. Not just a therapist. It was psycho—thera…”

“She’s a psycho, babe. Limit all contact unless we need towels.”

How I wanted to leap from behind the confection depository and shoot them into their places. Tell them that I was more than a maid. I wanted to ask them if they'd appreciate being known only as the out of shape newlyweds from Iowa who couldn’t tan. I wanted to say, “Hey, it’s a long story”. And, then I'd tell them how life is long, my friends, unless you get a melanoma, so you better cover up and I'll tell you a tale.

Just as I was about to follow through, the suspended Snickers bar dropped with a thud. They didn't seem to notice.

They rolled in tandem onto their stomachs.

Before I scuttled upstairs to my room, to fashion some fancy answers for these mundane debasements, I waited just long enough to witness sun blisters sprout on the his back.

Some Fancy Answers

Approximately six years ago

I’ll start with College

I wanted to get a brand name higher education, but my grades in high school ghettoized me to an alma mater, I’d have to mutter under my breath, for the rest of my life. I was at a friend’s house. This friend had already received an acceptance to a school she’d be bragging about till the end of her life, or until enough people got up the guts to tell her to put a sock in it. She was going on and on her school's famous alumni, while I leafed through piles of brochures, of her lesser, but still impressive suitors.

The front flap of one caught my attention. It featured two great looking students, studying under a gigantic tree.

Inside, the copywriter wrote: “The Sycamore tree was donated by T.B. Bittles, in 1941; its gnarled and twisting limbs have come to symbolize our multi-branched spirit and diverse direction. Unlike many conventional institutions of higher learning, Sycamore values life experience, an open and eager mind — and most importantly — true passion. These factors are more important to us than grades or standardized tests. Those who seek a conventional education should seek it elsewhere. A personal interview is the most decisive factor in our final determination.”

The last sentence made me smile.

A few weeks later, I got myself scheduled for an interview at Sycamore College. I was going to convince this admissions person that I didn’t seek a conventional education, and that it would be a sin to make me seek it anywhere but Sycamore.

♣♣♣

The admissions person introduced herself as Dee Long. At the sight of her, my brain went blank; my handshake limp, and I saw my way in - on its way out.

Dee Long was a short, slim woman, in her early thirties, with a shiny blonde bob and a tidy body clad in a light gray pantsuit- very conventional.

After we sat down, she gave me a polite smile, and said, “I think a good place for us to start is by you talking about whatever you feel like talking about and we’ll take it from there.” When too much time had passed without me talking about anything at all, her polite smile turned into an expression of impatience.

“Well… It was your tree that attracted me,” sputtered out.

Now her placid face wore a full frown as her French tipped fingernails, brushed the bangs off her forehead. And under the bangs, I saw a small black hole in the center of her forehead. Ms. Long must have seen me staring. She tapped the hole with a finger, and said, “It’s a Bindi. I got it last year while visiting India. It isn’t merely decorative. I’ve found it to be quite centering, as well.”

“Oh good. I thought for a second it was a bullet… There was a guy in my high school who...tried…. suicide…”

Miss Long suddenly looked as if the Buddha Himself, had raised his belly, and shown her his manhood.

“I guess in a way … uh... it was his own centering …. moment...He survived and never tried that again. Last I heard he was doing just fine.”

The frown was gone. We were back in business. I continued with, “I love India. It has such an idiosyncratic nature, such bounteous attributes, and who in their right mind would argue that its liberated structure of Eastern religions is superior to the conventional dogmas found in the West.” I asked her if she could recommend a place, closer to home, where I could acquire my own third eye, as my own two expressed an earnestness that didn't exist.

“Many students at Sycamore can craft a Bindi.”

“Great.”

I was in!

Too easy.

She wasn’t done. “Ingrid, I’m afraid I do have some real concerns about your grades – more specifically- your attendance record. Of course, they aren’t the determining factor in Sycamore’s final decision, but I'll have to be offered some context for such excessive absences and such a questionable GPA.”

“Well. Uh... Long story short, Ms. Long, I got really sick. I started out an excellent student — all A’s. President of my class…Voted most popular. All that conventional stuff, until I got sick in seventh grade. I won’t bore you with all the grisly details, just that… after that… everything kinda … kind of …kind of led me to have those kind of absence and grade… issues.”

“I am so very sorry. It must have been a very serious illness,” Her voice dropped a full octave, and her expression served up such a heaping portion of pity that I nearly gagged. She appeared poised to ladle out more.

“Can you plea...ee… ease be a little more specific about your particular ill-ness.”

As much as I wanted in, I couldn’t give her more than, “Well, it isn’t as if I lost an eye or a leg. It was an Ovary. It got infected. Really infected. No one knows why. I have another one. You don’t need two, you know. In fact, I think in many ways my sickness proved beneficial.”

“How so?” she exhorted.

“After the illness, I was forced to become more a woman of thought versus my… former woman of action self. It gave me a lot of time to think in a less conventional way. Know what I mean?”

“I do. I do. Oh I do. You grew. What passions would you pursue if Sycamore were to grant you admission?”

“I think… No, I know, that I’d like to pursue …writing. You know here and there teachers telling me to do it…That I had talent… You know, that it wouldn’t be a waste of my time.”

“Tell me a bit about what kind of writing you do?”

“Uh… lots of different kinds of writing.”

I felt pre-Bindi. I averted my eyes. I hadn’t really written anything I wanted to discuss in any detail. But, I did plan to. And, when I did get around to it — it wouldn’t be about a lot of different things, but about one thing — one very specific thing. The problem was — I’d hadn’t yet figured out a way to formalize my theme; actualize my vision; find a hook; stumble upon an angle, or whatever had to happen before I could write down a long string of sentences that made some special sense.

Ms. Long mistook my silence for the 'most important requirement'.

“It’s all right,” she said. “When one’s true passion is the written word, speaking is superfluous. I have to tell you that our writing program is currently a bit … limited due to unforeseen budget issues. We do have a famous writer and a renowned writer on staff. By next spring, we expect that our writing program will return to its former state of distinction.”

Now, that she was doing some selling, I could tell, I’d closed the deal.

She stood up. I stood up. She took my hands in hers, and with a beatific smile, she welcomed me to Sycamore.

I left her office, with a splitting headache, and what felt like a second chance.

CHAPTER TWO

I might have reconsidered my second chance had I visited Ms. Long when school was in session. In session, the campus looked like a late sixties theme park thrown into a time capsule: Grow a beard, string a bead, wear batik, and bring your weed. But, as hard as it played at pretend there was something off about the place of my second chance.

Bad vibes hovered over all the tie-dyed Miniver Cheevies: born too late, listening to the Dead, and cursing this postmodern fate.

For those, like me, who weren’t yet hip to code words like “liberal” and “unconventional,” the brochure should have specified that tuition will include tons of kids trying to live out the 60’s Hippie experience, though we were not only in a different decade, but a different century.

Despite this discovery, I’d orientated well during orientation week. That is until the last day, when they assigned me a roommate. Julie was a short, stocky brunette, in a Birkenstock skimming poncho whose first words to me, were “Brrrrr.” This made some sense, since it was cold out. She seemed to burrow deeper into her poncho as I answered with, “Cold outside.”

“Brrrrrrrrr,” she bleated.

“Very cold” I concurred.

Julie flopped on to her bed, curled into a ball, and mewled, “Yaa..ww..wwn.”

                                                                            ♣♣♣

When I went to see, Bill Faber, my assigned adviser, to advise me on what writing course to take, he informed me that the famous author had fallen ill, and the renowned writer had left in a huff. The ponytailed Bill advised to, “Stay cool, don’t get uptight. In the meantime, take whatever turns you on.”

I told him that I didn’t really know what turned me on. He suggested that, “A neat alternative would be to take loads of Psych classes with a little English Lit thrown in.” Since, according to Bill, “What was writing, but psychology, rendered in English… especially in English speaking countries.”

♣♣♣

The dorms were always thick with silly-smoke. At any given moment, someone was sucking on a bong: frantically inhaling, heroically holding, and regretfully releasing mind-bending vapors into the air. All that second hand smoke (and some first-hand too) might have contributed to my complacency.

The first few semesters, I’d rouse myself from my stupor, and make my way to Bill’s office, to tell him, that if I kept going, the way I was going, I would end up majoring in the wrong major. Bill would just giggle, and say, “Don’t be so uptight, Ing, no one is sending you to the Freud Academy in Vienna… yet.”

His assurances weren’t necessarily illogical. The published writers stayed ill, and in a huff.

I signed up for more psychology courses. It turned out that, like the quick-on-the-buzzer game show contestant, I had a knack for it. After acing the first few rounds, I continued bearing down on the buzzer: Personality formation in depressed toddlers…BUZZ, Diagnostic criteria, and treatment styles… BUZZ. Gender psychology in the Victorian age… BUZZ… BUZZ... BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ

In junior year, I got more insistent with Bill. Bill’s mellow mien, trademark sprawl, and use of nickname vanished. He pursed his lips, sat upright, and said crisply, “Ing…rid, you know very well that since you’ve been here, the writing department has gotten back on its feet. No one has kept you from your writing but yourself.” Bill’s tone was hostile, and there is nothing more unsettling than a hostile hippy.

“Listen, Ing…rid. Why don’t you take some time to process your issues, and when you are ready to get past the blame game we touch base? Are we cool?”

I wanted to say, “Not really, Mr. Cliche.” But instead, I said, “Sure.”

“Peace,” said Bill, in a war tone, after I thanked him and wished him luck.

I ran off to sign up for Identifying Problem Behavior 301.

♣♣♣

I was maneuvering through throngs of students, on their way to registration, when I considered turning back to apologize. Bill had kept me up to date on the state of the writing department (The ill novelist had died, but the huffy one had renegotiated his salary and was due to return at any time). Plus, two new (not renowned, but well regarded) authors had recently joined the faculty. There were even rumors that the poet laureate of Wisconsin was set to teach a seminar next semester. In my defense: I tried to register for writing classes with the TA’s, twice, only to find out the classes were way early too early in morning. I’d pretended to be put out, but the truth was — not only was I not put out — I was relieved. The reason for the relief was that I hadn't figured how to write what I wanted to write.

♣♣♣

The line for Identifying Problem Behavior 301 was a city block long. I noticed another psych major, Karen Saunders, cutting into the middle of the line. Last semester, Karen had come knocking on as many dorm rooms as she could to gleefully inform anyone who opened their dorm doors that, “Quock is quacking up on the bathroom floor.” And, indeed, Quock (a Korean flute major) was laying on the floor of one the new-fangled co-ed bathrooms, wailing, “I’m fat, I’m gay, and I can’t play the flute.” As Quock wept, Karen took me aside to say,: “Oh my god, Ing, Listen to this… fallen flautist freaks out, proclaims he’s a fat fruit, who can’t even play the flute.”

A resident assistant finally showed up to drag Quock back to his room.

“Aw Shit, show’s over.” Karen had said with a smirk.

The back of a dirty blonde’s head was now at the front of the line. I recognized the head as belonging to Trevor McCann. Freshman year, we’d dated for a while and had gone to a lecture together. While waiting for the lecturer to show up, Leonard Lit walked in. Leonard Lit was Sycamore’s token child genius: A pale twelve year old who’d crouched around campus under the weight of a massive backpack. With his martyred expression and nylon hump, whenever I passed the college’s chapel, I half expected to see him up in the steeple, clanging the bells.

“Hey look, it's Leonard Lit,” Trevor said too loudly.

“Keep it down,” I whispered. Leonard’s face turned beet red and he started sucking on a Twizzler.

“I just feel so sad for him. He can’t have sex, or smoke weed.”

“Shhh. He can hear you.”

He lowered his voice, but not enough. “He doesn't have any real friends.”

“And, you have real friends?” I’d responded.

That ended our dating relationship, but Trevor called me up many times afterwards, trying to decipher what evidence I had that, “led me to cast aspersions on the validity of his friendships.”

♣♣♣

It is possible that Karen and Trevor were extreme examples. But, I’d sat in classes with most of the people in this line; ate lunch with some; shared notes with a few. And, I couldn’t think of one who’d had enough special insight to figure out that they had no special insight. They were all just waiting around to get a piece of paper, and put it in a frame; That framed piece of paper that would ordain them experts on misery, despair, malaise, and garden-variety worry. That piece of paper that would give them, and those who sought them, the illusion that although we are all equals in this drowning dinghy, they had found a way to row better.

Norma Rostein was now at the front of the line. I mentally projected Norma into her future, into an office, across from a patient, and that patient would be wondering: what’s up with this woman’s distracting twitch and unsettling stutter? And, then I could see that patient looking up at the framed degrees, Norma scored along the way, and deciding that it was better to submit than to wonder.

To my left, a short line was forming for Anita Ranche’s writing workshop, Writing Down and Through Your Past. The line moved and I with it, until I was stating my name to the registrar. And so it went. Buzz. Buzz. Buzz .Buzz. Buzz. Until the day I’d managed to wind up with a bachelor's degree in psychology.

CHAPTER THREE

On Graduation day, the Dean handed me the degree. I’d I raised it up, making the obligatory congratulatory gesture. But, I felt like the game show contestant from Hawaii -who’d just won the grand prize: a trip to Hawaii.

The valedictorian signaled that it was time to partake in the grand tradition of cap throwing. I threw my black cap up with the others, and watched them waft back down. Thousands of tassels fluttered like the wings of … birds. Birds!

And, just like that, I was unblocked. Birds! I had stumbled across my angle; found a way to formalize my theme; actualize my vision; find my hook; share my significance…

I'd tell the story I wanted to tell-through birds. A children’s book, but not just for children — a book that would resonate with every age— using birds as the messengers of my message. I hugged a confused, Julie, a twitching Norma, a baffled Trevor, and made my way through the cheering mob, to my beaming mother’s side. I grabbed her arm, and hurried her out to the car.

♣♣♣

We were heading to Forest Hills, Queens — to the house I’d called home, but now had to leave. The bucolia of Upstate New York dwindled into darkness, as we hit the Midtown Tunnel. When we emerged to the stock shot Archie Bunker houses, my mother, unnerved by my out of character silence, loosened her grip on the wheel, and glanced anxiously in my direction.

“Sweetheart, you sure you’re not upset about your room?”

She’d been taking watercolor classes at the Forest Hills YMHA. My room was now an amateur art studio.

“No, I told you already… it’s fine.”

“You won’t recognize what I’ve done with the basement. It doesn’t even look like a basement.”

“Don’t worry about it. I won’t be down there long.”

“I don’t want you feeling like you’re in too big a rush.”

She opened the door, and said, “Welcome Home. I want you take it easy.”

I switched on the kitchen light, and she warmly held my shoulder as we descended the stairs to my new digs.

♣♣♣

The ambiance was basement. Parent's basement. Mother's basement. The place that you’d better work your way up and out of, real soon.

A TV, a sleeper sofa, and my old desk. The basement seemed rife with hints that my mother had intended it to be a post college post — strictly temporary. I opened my bag, took the degree out, and put it in the desk.

I pulled the mattress from its sofa, and laid down. Before I drifted off, I thought of names for my protagonist.

Early the next morning, I started to write what was incubating all those years at Sycamore, and all those years before.

CHAPTER FOUR

Seven months of that, and Franny and her Fair Feathered Friends was one hundred and seventy pages long.

The synopsis: Franny, a clever, somewhat cocky peacock, rules the roost at the Brassar School for Birds. One night, Franny feels funny, and wakes up to find that her feathers are infected. One by one, they fall out. Franny falls into a funk. She won’t leave the house or see her Brassar friends until her feathers grow back. Eventually, they do grow back, but she is sure they are less vibrant. She refuses to return to Brassar, until they are the same. One day, her best friend Suzy (an ostrich) comes to the door and begs Franny to let her in since Franny had turned her away since the sickness. Franny submits. Suzy tells her that she is sorely missed, and that all the other birds would be so happy to see her. This flattery is very effective, and convinces Franny that it’s time she returned to the flock. The day of the return, she opens the classroom door to see the birds carrying torches. They waddle towards her and before she can try to understand, the birds attack her and nearly peck her to death. Suzy is particularly savage. You see, unbeknownst to our heroine, throughout Franny’s convalescence, Vanessa Freid, an evil power hungry rooster (who Franny had never liked pre-sickness) had methodically, maliciously, and malevolently sought to unseat Franny.

Franny doesn’t die, but her already compromised plumage is severely shredded and her spirit is shattered. The humbled peacock drops out of school — vowing to live for revenge.

♣♣♣

Next step was to buy the newest edition of the Writers Market, and learn how to craft something called a “query.” Soon I understood a query was a fancy letter were the aim was to get an agent to spare a spare a few minutes for something that took you a very long time.

Then, it was a victory if they let you send them a “partial” or “full” manuscript. You could send a whole manuscript unsolicited but those would end up something called a “Slush Pile.” Tales of masterpieces rescued from a “Slush Pile,” gave hope to those who couldn’t score a solicited. Writer’s Market implied that solicitation was the exception not the rule.

The Writer’s Market advised persistence and patience. Keep sending out queries. Don’t succumb to discouragement as you could wait, “an average of two weeks to 6 months. Sometimes sooner or sometimes later. And, sometimes not at all.”

While trying not get discouraged, I contemplated. Mostly, about how I didn’t want to become just another worker bee, squandering her honey in this Sweet and Low world. If everything went according to plan, I would harvest the honeycomb, and trade in my sap for what I really wanted.

With each week’s wait, the vague yearning for what it was that I really wanted, went from a nebulous yen to a more specific scenario – some literary version of L.L. Bean: cozy farm house, handsome Shetland sweatered husband tending to collies, as I scribbled my successful prose by a picture window overlooking... In these scenarios, I often wore a robe as I rocked in a rocking chair that was hand carved by a famed craftsman. Fulfilled, I’d rock To and Fro. Fro and To. And, just as I’m about to again go Fro, the knocking begins. Readers of all ages were knocking at my door. Not just all ages. All races, creeds, orientations, and persuasions had come to tell how my book had influence their lives. How they found my address was beyond me, but I’d never begrudge them my time.

I’d offer the adults — brandy, the high schoolers — Pepsi. As for the children… well, that depended. If they truly digested the message of Franny — hot cocoa with marshmallows. If they didn’t — tap water.

♣♣♣

The SASES (self-addressed stamped envelopes) started returning with form letters: The bum’s rush of rejections. I grimly wondered if Franny was more of a homing pigeon than a clever, slightly cocky, peacock. One form letter had someone’s actual hand writing on the bottom of the typed slip, “You clearly have talent but your protagonist just isn’t hitting my sweet spot. Not sympathetic enough… I regret to say I’ll have to pass.”

Any “personal correspondence should be seen as encouragement,” was what the Writer’s Market had to say about that.

So, I stuck to it, sending it out again and again, and clinging to the Writer’s Market unscientific assertion: “Each rejection brings you closer to success.”

The closer I got to success, the more of a failure I felt. The compromising had to start.

                                                                              ♣♣♣

Five rewrites in all, each aiming to be more sympathetic than the last. The current version, circulating, had Franny coping with a clubfoot, and forgiving Suzy, who now was orphaned, and stricken with Lupus. Now, rather than vowing revenge, our heroine chooses to turn the other beak. When Vanessa Freid, in a case of mistaken identity, is brutally slain, frozen, and stocked in a supermarket’s poultry section, Franny takes it upon herself to hold a candlelight vigil, be a part of a search effort, and ultimately — to contribute to funeral expenses.

I had to believe I was making progress. The form letters started morphing into actual letters. Lots of them. The consensus of the gatekeepers who monitored Kiddie Corn was: I had talent, but my protagonist and premise were just too “unsympathetic.”

I believed my mother was not just supportive, but proud. I’d overhear her on the phone, telling inquiring relatives stuff like: Wasn’t it something that, unlike most kids who gadded about aimlessly after graduating, her daughter had holed up to write a book, and had even insisted on sharing the advance plus royalties with her, although she’d kept telling her she’d be just fine with a dedication…

Any parent with too much faith can be as devout and deadly as a Doberman — let it be neglected; not given the milk bones of pride and reciprocation; denied the accrued dividends due for its unflagging support, and you’ll see its eyes begin to narrow; its stance become increasingly rigid; and the incisors that it bore at your detractor’s jugulars, start jutting towards your own. Let me make it clear, I’d rather not compare my mother to a canine but this analogy seemed apt, as my mother brought me down my newest batch of rejections.

♣♣♣

Things had not been easy for my mother since the eighth year of my life, on the eleventh year of my parent’s marriage. I saw it first, on the first day of Passover. To the horror of all present, my father had replaced the Manischewitz wine, in the four symbolic cups, with Chardonnay. Months later, he’d move to the Napa Valley with a like-minded partner he’d met at a doctor’s office. A few years later, he’d call himself “Wineanddandy” on Myspace before describing himself as a “happily married hobbyist,” on Facebook.

Our Seders limped along for a few more years — crawling on ceremony, eventually becoming one long dinner laden with a tragic sense of history (and not the biblical kind).

It is commonly said that the person who does you wrong will get it in the end. Not in the middle, not right away, but in the end. And, in the interim before the end, they will go about their merry way.

Accordingly, my mother was convinced that my father was going about his merry way in a state of bliss reserved for the lobotomized. She was sure that by day, he frolicked at farmers markets with his naturally blonde and bubbly life partner, Debbie Anne, and their annoyingly named dog, Renegade. And, she had no doubt that by night, he and Debbie Anne had tantric sex under twinkling stars. Or, as my mother put it, “I’m sure that lady knows some fancy tricks.”

In reality, what I saw from my occasional visits west was that my father was fatter, and Debbie Anne’s hair had gone gray. They did take me to lots of farmer’s markets, but they hardly frolicked. In fact, they seemed obsessed with pesticides. As for fancy tricks, the way Debbie Anne would moan when she handled a particularly pleasing piece of organic produce made me think my mother was on point about the sex.

I didn’t tell my mother that last part, but to cheer her I told her everything else with a few embellishments ( Father fifty pounds heavier than he actually was, Renegade run over in a hit and run, and once I even had Debbie Anne losing all her hair.)

“Really. How did that happen” My mother had asked.

“Some follicle disease caused by Renegade’s accident,” I improvised.

So you see, I really wanted to give my mother those milk bones, but I couldn’t figure out how to make my bird fly. The last rejection letter came from Carol Schwartz Bowman, who found Franny “insufficiently sympathetic and too snarky.”

What did they want from me? To turn my peacock into a dove? Have Franny sputter through bloodied beak, “Peace on Earth. God Bless you, each, and everyone. Don’t mind me, just enjoy your little get together.” before she'd fold her wings, and drop dead.

One day in the middle of a rewrite (where I had Franny volunteering at a shelter for disabled eagles) it hit me: birds weren’t kid-friendly. I hadn’t been mistaken about my aspirations, but with my animal choice. Birds were pretty. Birds were delicate, even elegant. But, birds were neither cute, nor cuddly. Come to think of it, they were even a little spooky.

I had to find a way to stuff man’s inhumanity to man into a cuddlier protagonist… pigs, pandas, bears, dogs. I’d have to find just the right animal to express the torment of betrayal and lost trust. The zeitgeist, at the time, pointed towards dolphins.

CHAPTER FIVE

I was plotting Donna the Dolphin’s next move, and making a sandwich, when the phone rang. I picked up the receiver instead of the mayonnaise, and had no alternative but to say “Hello.”

“Ingrid!” The worst-case scenario (Uncle Martin) answered in a victorious voice, “Ingrid, I can’t believe I caught you!”

“Hey… Martin, how are you? Me? I’m fine. Let me go get her. What… Oh no! Not yet. Lots of writers out there. Yeah, it is a tough business. I know. I know I’m lucky to have your sister’s support. She’s in Europe … Again? (my cousin, his daughter, same age as me) Doesn't she like America? Just kidding, she’s a lucky girl having such generous parents. She paid for it herself? … Well, good for her. I really gotta go; I’ll get her, okay …. Bye.”

My mother’s other siblings' called occasionally to check up on her welfare, and what I imagined, was my failure to contribute to it. Martin, though, exhibited a seemingly unremitting interest in me and my literary progress or lack thereof.

I covered the mouthpiece and shouted up the stairs for my mother, “Friggin’ Martin is on the phone. I’ll be listening — so no funny moves.”

It was at that moment (listening to her go through the same old rosy litany, while nervously watching me, watching her with gangster-like menace) that I understood how unattractive the whole situation had become. I made up my own proverb, to suit the crisis: “The romantic black sheep often ends up a burnt lamb chop.”

I was already dangerously well done.

I carried the manila envelopes, containing the finished manuscripts of A Dolphin’s Dilemma, to the mailbox. On my way there, I saw lots of women pushing baby strollers. I clutched my own offspring to my chest: My odd, ever changing offspring — ones that had to be adopted to be claimed as my own.

I lay them gently into the mailbox’s blue maw, and after a few hard jerks they were gone.

CHAPTER SIX

The confidence that followed this new revision felt justified when the Jay Farrow Literary Agency got back to me. Jay had replied to the first fifty pages with “I have found much merit in your partial, and I’d be most willing to take a peek at the rest.”

To kill time, after sending him the rest, I revisited Page by Page—A Zen Primer. I’d bought it at Sycamore, during a fevered attempt to chill out. I flashed back to Julie, sitting crossed legged on the floor, stitching friendship bracelets.

I watched her as she weaved. As she weaved, she began making what sounded like… satisfied sounds. MMMMMMMMM. UMM UMM. It got so disruptive that I had to say, “Julie, can you please tone it down over there, it’s starting to sound obscene.” Julie regarded me with mellow disdain before responding with, “I have a fierce case of the cozies. I peg vibes and from day one I knew you had some serious uptight issues.”

I didn’t (much) mind that she’d never gotten around to making me a friendship bracelet, but I didn’t want to be uptight. In an effort to rid myself of being uptight, I decided that I had to try this Zen thing, I’d heard so much about.

I’d gone to the Sycamore Bookstore and found Page By Page in the well-stocked Spirituality/Self Help section. Back then, I couldn’t get past the first paragraph of the Forward.

Forward

It takes reaching a special place to comprehend the most basic of tenets of the text before you and move past the Forward. You will know when you are ready to tackle Chapter One. And, then every page must be page by page. Only when you reach this state of patience, will you be sufficiently advanced to rise to the challenge. Absent the desired state you will merely be stuck in the state of “manaja.” The moment will forever marred by ghosts of the past and evil fairies that make you fear an uncertain future. The bee can only release the proper pollen when the Lilly spreads its petals. If the petals are only half spread the bee might not bit, but he will ignore you.

I wasn’t up to the challenge back then, but, maybe now my Lily was less uptight, and I could rise above this Manaja business.

The first chapter told the tale of a Norwegian real estate mogul - who wanted to learn to live in the now, rather than constantly trying to make more money. He went to India to find a Zen master who’d been recommended by a Bulgarian CEO friend of his. For six years, the Norwegian billionaire was instructed to clean the Master’s house and to build houses for the Master’s children, parents, grandparents, cousins, and friends. In turn, the Master fed him breadcrumbs, and beat him regularly with a bamboo stick. The better the mogul’s housework became, the worse the beatings. Until one day, when the Norwegian became enraged, grabbed the bamboo stick, and snuck into the Master’s bedroom as the Master slept. The Norwegian raised the stick, and brought it down, only to be met by the Master’s hand—which deflected the blow with a casual swipe. The Norwegian finally understood what he'd misunderstood for long. His fortune had been depleted, but according to Page by Page, he went on to “Navigate the now. To see the present as a present, and not a punishment.”

What he’d come to understand, I still couldn’t understand.

It reminded me of the Writer’s Market’s promise: “Each rejection brings you closer to success.”

The same master of the mind-fuck was at work.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Two Weeks Later

It was Shark Week all week. Tuesday featured the celebrity of sharks—the Great White. The Australian host was slogging through the tired disclaimer about the shark being more afraid of us, than us of it. I was hoping to catch a few attacks, without disruption. Contrary to the announcer’s assertion that the shark had been given a bad rap, menacing music piped up as a fin broke the ocean’s surface. The camera panned down to cage where a little man, in a wetsuit, floated. The camera panned up to the shark on his way down, when I heard, “Ingrid!” I reeled back to see my mother standing by the bottom of the stairs.

“I brought down your mail.” She sighed, before lumbering upstairs.

Onscreen, giant, jagged teeth, nipped at the cage’s steel bars. The little scuba man floated to the other side. I thought: if the scuba man wets his wet suit, the viewer would never know.

There were two pieces: A heavy Manila envelope with Jay Farrow’s return address, and a letter from Karen.

Once again, I engaged in my old practice of postponing the inevitable. I read Karen’s letter first. Karen Sanders, the psych major with a cruel streak, and my most touchingly persistent acquaintance from Sycamore. Although, I wasn’t so sure how touched I should be, since I suspected that she was the type to touch base promiscuously.

Dear Ing,

Six months sober now. I used to think I was just a pot head but I guess I’m an addict. That’s what my sponsor says at least. Whatever. It’s nice to have a sponsor around when you get stressed out. I can call her any time, and she can’t get pissy. She told me if I stay sober she’s going to hook me up with a gig at this sober house that was recommend after my stint in rehab. Staying off pot hasn’t been a struggle so it’s all good. The sober house is in Santa Cruz but she told me if that works out she can get me work at the one in Malibu. Yum. Tons of screwy celebrities. She showed me pictures online. OMG, it’s gorgeous. She’s a Sycamore alum too!! Same time as us but I don’t remember her. Do you remember any Kelly Scalia? Oops she’s supposed to be anonymous. I suck! Ha ha. Did you know that Sycamore churns out more drug counselors, than any College per capita!!?? Write and tell me if you have any juicy stories. Drug stories are pretty much all the same. Sober. Fucked up. Sober. Buuuut, It can pay pretty well if you play it right.

Just say yes,

Karen

I ripped into the inevitable. A letter was stapled to the front page of my manuscript:

Dear Ms. Ingrid Bloom,

I regret to say that I ultimately have decided to pass on this project, however promising. Donna the Dolphin was fun in parts, but she failed to win my heart. Her barely concealed contempt for the Barracuda, and her superior attitude towards the Lox contributed to my final assessment. The chapter where Donna’s blowhole becomes infected disturbed me as did the part where the Barracuda is assaulted by Polly the Piranha. These characters are too dysfunctional for any profitable demographic. I suspect that you are still too close to a personal trauma, and that therapy would be helpful.

Please understand these are my views, and another agent might see it differently.

Best,

Jay Farrow

A surfer with a stump was now hopping over a wave. He’d gone back in the water, a month after the shark bit off his entire left leg. One bad bite didn’t quash his passion.’ I thought. By that logic. I was now — half a torso. ”It’s over,” I said out loud.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The next day, I informed my mother that I had to move out, move on, and get a job. She didn’t say “Hallelujah.” but she didn’t protest, as I’d expected. She dipped her brush into a former pickle jar, and watched the water turn blue, and when the water could turn no bluer, she said:

“I’m so glad you came to the decision on your own. I’ve been reading up on these things and this is a good thing for you. I’ve also been reading up on an artist’s colony called San Miguel Allende.”

“Mexico, mom?”

“Lots of Americans there, and it’s supposed to be the perfect place for creative retirees like me.” She looked wistfully at her painting. For one mean moment, I wanted to tell that it looked like all her other landscapes: watery blues, greens, beiges, grays, all colliding into each other apologetically. And, it dawned on me — she’d been painting San Miguel Allende all along.

My mother handed me a check that would cover living expenses for six months, if I lived inexpensively. “Just enough to get back on your feet..,” she said. I told her I’d pay her back and she said, “That’s a nice sentiment, sweetheart, but if you can’t it’s not like I’ll take it to Judge Judy.”

I had six months to get on my feet, or find my footing, or face defeat by falling on my face, or… Resolutions couldn't conjure up a job, apartment, or suppers the oppressive fact that having had my show canceled, no one was pitching me a new one.

New Show pitch

My degree and me

My degree in psychology lay at the bottom of the desk drawer, five feet from my bed. It had languished there for a year and five months now. I wanted to forsake and forget it, but something snapped, and the degree (I couldn’t see) started doing a telltale heart with my head.

The moment it snapped: I’d been watching a Lifetime movie with the tasty title, Tattered Innocence. It featured the tale of foster child who tracked down her natural parents, when the foster dad started molesting her. The natural parents refused to see her, responding to her 20 page email with only a, “Sorry, we’ve moved on.” The young actress playing the foster child had cackled in that I’m outwardly OK, but I’m inwardly destroyed way upon this development.

The drama was interrupted by a commercial wherein an old actress whizzed through a mall in a motorized chair; her facial expression suggesting that losing the use of one’s legs was a small price to pay for the delights such a scooter supplied. As a toll free number flashed on the screen, I felt the pull, heard the tick, and my still functional legs were off the bed, and moving. Just as the foster child began to bludgeon her natural parents, I found myself standing over the desk.

CHAPTER NINE

The drawer was crammed with a jumble of distractions. The delivery menu from Kung Fun Gardens lay on top. I pored over each dish, stopping at Number 29: Very Special Pepper Prawns, and wondered what was so very special about them. The answer was a phone call away. I steeled myself and kept going. Under the menu: a brochure for a lodge in the Poconos called Mount Airy Lodge; its cover shot featured a tactically sudsed couple toasting each other in an elevated love tub. The Poconos were only hours away. I could hop a bus there, and stay drunk in the love tub, till the skin pruned off my bones, and the staff found my remains under the skim of Mr. Bubble scum.

Below the brochure, I saw the cover sheet of a paper I’d read my junior year at College, titled: “Sleep apnea and REM disruption in accordance to chemically induced somnolence, “ wherein, a scientist had discovered that mice given alcohol before bedtime slept longer, but not necessarily better, than mice given milk. In the course of this study, a few mice were given too much liquor, and had died on the scientist. With the stark imagery of the mouse’s pink, accusing eyes — crossing then closing — I lifted out the last layer.

There lay the degree — jaundiced, its breathing labored. Still alive, and demanding to know why. Why, I, Ingrid Bloom, whose name it bore, had let it be born just so it could be buried in a desk drawer?

♣♣♣

For the last decade or so, I’d succumbed to a long standing vice – annual purchases of a Daily Planner. Every January, their stark white pages solicited me to stimulate them with purposeful prose. When new, entreating the new owner to pollinate empty pages with embryonic seeds of great future deeds. The last few volumes featured illustrations of daisies or Christian hearted affirmations.

I wanted this year’s Planner to be different. No flowers. No puppies. No soft spins on seizing the day. I planned to show this damned Planner - that not only had I humbled myself to trade my sap to become just another worker bee, squandering her honey in this stinking Sweet and Low world, but I’d become a busy busy busy bee. I’d become of those busy busy bees who balanced work and a social life, and all those things I was led to understand constituted a full life. It occurred to me that I’d be expected not just to get a life, but nowadays acquiring a life-style was necessary as well. Preferably, an upscale one.

I found this year’s planner in a bargain bin at Walgreens. “THE DAILY DO OR DIE.” was emblazoned in red on its faux leather cover. It took me more than a minute to unleash it from its plastic wrapper. When I opened it, I saw that there were grounds for such a protective seal:

Monday

Bears hibernate all winter. Humans don’t have that luxury. Besides, have you ever heard of a successful bear? Not just that, they’re all fat, and no one wants their hugs.

For a second I thought of tossing it. I took a deep breath, said “tough love” three times aloud, and “baby steps baby steps” a good ten, before writing this below the quote:

1) Pay back M’s loan ASAP

2) Write up resume

3) Find place

4) Send out resume from place

5) When have job and place get back into social swing thing

My pen had stalled at “place.” With my mother’s loan, if I wanted to secure any kind of stylish address, it would have to involve at least two roommates. I’d had my share at Sycamore:

First, there was Julie the onomotaphiliac. During junior year, I said goodbye to Julie. And, Julie said, “Bah…aaa…a” to me. Then came Courtney: a reticent communications major who lived on my hall.

Courtney’s s family had been a family friend of one of Sycamores board members. She chose Sycamore solely due to getting a full scholarship. She’d often say,” I wanna be in a Sorority, not surrounded by stinky Hippies.” She was even more un-hippy than I. The only thing we had in common was our desire to live off campus.

I knew I was in trouble on the second day, when I approached our refrigerator. Courtney was one of those icebox artists. Our regular old refrigerator was disfigured with Kodak collages. Courtney with her cat. Courtney with her horse. Courtney with her friends — bunched together in a giddy grip. Modern technology making it easy to memorialize Courtney and her high school friends being young, drunk, and best friends 4-ever. The stale existence I witnessed, living with her, was contradicted by this photographic evidence.

“Courtney, who’s that girl with the bra on her head and why does she look so ecstatic?” I’d ask.

“That’s my dear friend, Caitlin. She’s super hi-larious.”

Then, Caitlin came to visit, and appeared much more autistic than ecstatic.

Next up was Kat. Kat was a Women Studies major minoring in multicultural cooking. Kat was an exceedingly earnest individual who sculpted in her spare time, and I remember how her square hands had bulged with blue, ropy veins. Every night she had prepared a dish from a different region. She always prepared just one serving. I flashed back to her hovering over the stove, as her single serving of Peruvian stew…stewed. I stared at those granite hands as she emptied the pan, one wrapped around a hot spatula. Salivating, I wanted to scream. “I always offer you my food. You even finished the last of my mayonnaise. Mi casa es su casa. So how about a bite?”

No, no! No more roommates.

♣♣♣

I closed the planner, lit up a cigarette, and tried to think like a location scout. I couldn’t, so I tried to think like a casting director. There were four auditions: Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island. Brooklyn had been overtaken by upscale interests — hipsters, and well heeled “Moms,” manning ever-present strollers. This state of affairs had hiked the rents so much that is was nearly as off limits as Manhattan. Bronx seemed like a separate universe. It had a colorful past, but in the present… It wasn’t as dangerous anymore is all that came to mind. I’d never even visited .Staten Island’s profile also struck me as too skimpy: Ferry, Mafia here and there, rumors of bad smells, and garbage barges. Queens had to get the call back, because I knew its quirks. I wouldn’t have to cope with too much shock during rehearsals.

                                                                             ♣♣♣

Queen’s biggest quirk is how it tries to disguise itself using euphemism. Name it (or aim it) as you may, a douche is no bidet.

First off, “Queens” was questionable. Then, there were no forests nor hills in Forest Hills. No gardens in Kew Gardens. No meadows, fresh or otherwise, in Fresh Meadows, no elms in Elmhurst, and it’s impossible to see the sunny side in the elevated tracks and factories of Sunnyside. Only Flushing stays true to itself and says, ‘I am what I am.’

Years ago, Mr. Willy, the third divorcee, on our block’s sudden divorce spree, dropped by our house to say goodbye to my mother. They sat in the kitchen as Mr. Willy told my mother, “That good for nothing whore got herself a good for nothing whore lawyer. She got the kids and the house.” My mother gently inquired where he’d go. Shell shocked, he blew on his coffee and kept repeating, “Flushing — why not? Flushing: affordable housing; near transportation, unpretentious. Flushing why not.

CHAPTER TEN

“Flushing… why not?” I heard myself say. Not only was its name forthright, but if Mr. Willy was right, I’d be near transportation, housing was affordable… Who needs pretension? It wasn’t a prison sentence. If things picked up, I could move.

Flushing. I said it out loud. Something was off. F-L-U-S-H-I-N-G. FLUSH-ING It didn’t matter how I said it: if I raised my voice, deepened, or flattened it — the discordance remained.

But, there wasn’t much time to focus on this discordance. Handfuls of prospective homebuyers were starting to trickle through my mother’s house. Time was running out.

Flushing: Affordable housing; close to transportation; unpretentious.

It kept popping into my head like some …enigmatic… incantation. The meaning of the incantation became clear to me in the course of perusing some single ads on Craigslist:

Single white male

59 years young, 5’2 inches of pure heart,

Not materialistic, enjoys intimate talks and long walks.

Prefers a greasy spoon to the latest trendy bistro. Prefers Kraft single slices to trendier cheeses.

The ad’s cadences were eerily similar to those of the Flushing tune: the same fishy pitch of a garage saler, trying to pass off his grandmother’s shawl as a vintage sheath. In a burst of suppressed self-knowledge, I realized there was a dirty stain on a part of my brain. All this conflict about location was really a cover-up for what I was: a big city sycophant — a zip code whore.

I flashed back to a recent Manhattan moment:

I’d finished shopping for work clothes; the throng at the curb had the feel of marathon runners, waiting for an opening in the traffic, as a sign to start sprinting. A Big Apple tour bus towered over all the rude, hot, honking metal. A man on its upper deck took pictures of where I stood. All at once, I experienced a curious sensation: an essential sense of being interesting by just being there, followed by a pleasant sense of superiority for the busload of souls paying to just see us be.

Then, this sense of being in the right place dissipated, as I exited the R train station in Forest Hills. I wanted to punch the smug bastard in mid self-serenade- “King of the Hill/ Top of the Heap.”

Screw all that, Flushing will be perfectly fine.

When, I got back to the basement, I opened the Planner.

Friday

Change always hurts. Time always heals. But, time is short — so change quick or hurt long.

Under it, I wrote:

“Make appointment with real estate agent, Fucking Flushing is fine.

Do some research first.

The internet had more articles about the outer boroughs than any (sane) person could ever want. Google’s first two were Kings and Queens County: The Royalty of the Outer Boroughs and I’ll take Manhattan — The Bronx and Staten Island Too. I’ll Take Manhattan — The Bronx and Staten Island Too turned out to be a lengthy article about composers, Rodgers and Hart — and a very well written one at that.

I was at the part where the 4’9 inch alcoholic, Hart, was working on turning another romantic heartbreak into another musical standard, when I heard my mother humming from the top of the stairs. I’d decided awhile back that comparing my mother to a Doberman was an unfair projection sprouting from my own insecurities. I’d concluded that she was more a long suffering goldfish, patiently waiting for a little sprinkle, subtly threatening to go belly up if still no sprinkle.

Still, I was sure fish fangs would start growing if she didn’t get that sprinkle soon. As I devised ways to never have to see fish fangs, I kept getting distracted by anal-retentive home-buyer, Doug Heiser.

Doug had shown interest in the only home I’d ever known, but he wouldn’t submit an offer until he was sure that he was getting the exact measurements promised. It was hard to concentrate with the almost constant presence of Doug, sliding around the floors, with his tape measure. I felt, that not only had I been banished from my past, but also from the Heiser family’s future.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Handling serious things like living spaces, with faceless Craigslist people, seemed unwise. There’d been a recent story in the New York Post, titled, “Three more slain in rental ruse.” Apparently, a sexual sadist had been using a sham rental ad to lure apartment seekers to his dungeon in Williamsburg.

Century 22 was the first Queens real estate agency that popped up with search terms, “Queens apartments rentals.” Claire Hershey answered so robotically that it took me awhile to realize she wasn’t a machine. I asked her if there was anything available in Flushing that was reasonably priced, furnished, near transportation, and available immediately. Claire sounded less corporate (but still scripted) as she said. “We just got a listing for an awesome sublease. It won’t last. I can show it to you at your convenience.” My convenience was whatever she found convenient. Claire made a show of some inconvenience before saying, “I can make it in an hour.”

We set up a meeting by the building, for 5 PM.

♣♣♣

A terrain of interchangeable red brick apartment buildings appeared as I exited the subway: rows of thigh high garbage bags lined the curbs. The bags disappeared, as I passed through a halfhearted stab at a park (four benches with a view of a CVS, and a Chinese take-out,) and reappeared as I approached my destination.

A tall girl in a Catholic schoolgirl’s uniform waved at me as if I were returning from a war. As I got closer, I saw that the girl was a woman, around my mother’s age; a Century 22 emblem was sewn on the chest of her mustard colored blazer.

Claire Hershey held the key, and after a short walk through a poorly lit hallway, she inserted it into the lock of 1B. She switched on the light. We were greeted with the biggest bed I’d ever seen: A massive mattress was cradled in a massive oak frame. The wrought iron headboard was adorned with swirls and curlicues. Its feet were iron claws.

“Wow,” I said.

“I know, isn’t it something? No one bothers with that kind of detail anymore. It’s yours if you want it…”

She put her hand on my back and moved me two inches to the right of the beautiful Bed. “Kitchenette — fully functional.” Two feet to the left — “Bathroom, shower, toilet, sink — all the essentials. If issues arise this property, there is a handyman on site. He was an engineer in Russia, so he knows what he’s doing.”

She followed seller etiquette and stepped back to give me space to consider. I walked to the window, looked out, and pretended to consider.

The street was teeming with elderly folks. There were a few mixed gender couples (the men regarded by their wives with resigned surprise.) Mostly, though, what I saw was an alternative Noah’s Ark of elderly widows, coupled up, and making slow but steady progress down the street.

“Where are they all going?” I asked Claire.

“Bens Deli… It’s ‘Barley Day’ today — half a pastrami sandwich and a cup of barley soup for $7:99 … amazing bargain.” She mistook my distraction for hesitation and said in a morbid tone, “The place will be getting a younger crowd soon.”

“I’ll take it,” I said.

She let me have it

♣♣♣

Doug Heiser had found a discrepancy with the measurements. My mother lowered the price a little and something called a “Binder,” was signed. I still hadn’t learned to drive, so I just sat with my mother while the cabbie took her to the Airport. I told her I hoped she’d be happy in Mexico, and not to worry about me.

I had mistakenly bought a queen-sized sheet when the bed was king-sized, and I was trying to make it fit, when I heard a weak knock on the door. The door opened, and a tiny women with jet black hair and a red quilted housecoat walked in.

“Are you the granddaughter?” asked the tiny little lady. “I just wanted to offer my condolences. Your grandmother, god rest her soul, was a wonderful woman. She died the way I want to die… in her own bed.”

The ancient geisha waved goodbye and tottered off.

The fact that Mrs. Blumner had died in the bed that I now slept in, would soon be the least of my new place’s problems. Distracted by the bargain seeking senior citizens, and having seen it at 5 o’clock, I’d missed the elementary school directly to the left of my window.

CHAPTER TWELVE

It seemed like the kids were on permanent recess; shrieking, whooping, laughing, whining, shouting. I saw it as sign — get that job. You’re not supposed to be home during the day anyway.

With just a B.A in Psychology, my job search had to be restricted to unspecific job titles like life coach or therapist or... During the first three months, the resumes I sent out to clinics, centers, or hospitals met with silence.

As weeks went by without a single yielded response, I saw before me roommates or worse — homelessness. Sure, there was my mother and Mexico, but I was too young to be an expatriate retiree.

Karen kept touching base, with little to no response on my part. The last time she’d called, she’d sounded high, but it turned out she was just elated by her promotion to senior management at a sober house in Santa Cruz. Maybe, she could hook me up. But, would I have to become a drug addict first? That shouldn’t be too hard to do, or fake.

Of course, there were other jobs—court stenographers, pharmaceutical reps, blood splatter experts, marketing assistants, risk managers, Branding advisers, dental technicians, gun repairers, advertising execs… But, even if I had to fall so low, I’d still have to get the funds to buy the certificate before the fall.

I decided there would be no harm in turning my resume if not into fiction, than literary journalism. When the facts were too dry and you didn’t want to completely lie, you had to add a little spit and spin to make the story sing. How to explain the year and a half lost to Franny? I’d throw in a few hard-to-proves: Instead of explaining away the Franny period, and offering the employer any scent of past failure, I’d say I’d traveled in some educational way. I’d pick someplace that no one seemed to know much about. I settled on Chile.

♣♣♣

This resume worked. One morning a soft-spoken receptionist told me that I was “invited” for an interview 9AM, the following morning.

The Primrose Mental Wholeness Facility. Primrose: Lovely-sounding. Mental: Fine. Wholeness: Brought to mind Page by Page.

I set my alarm for the first time since high school.

It went on and off and on and off, and I put on a blue blazer; white silk blouse, tan skirt, and a pair of clever suede shoes, I’d bought in preparation for the professional life.

I applied my makeup with a light but attentive hand. I spend a good chunk of time making sure my hair had the air of someone who could pass for a professional. Then, more time as I tried to have my hair tell the story of a professional who could also pull off casual if that was called for.

I left the apartment, and walked briskly through my new neighborhood, head and shoulders above the shrinking adults. At 5’5, feeling like a Swede, and as fully integrated into society as a jogger.

Primrose Mental Wholeness Facility was located on Park Avenue between 72nd and 73rd. Lovely location. Entering the center was like floating into a cloud of the carefree: white cushions, white carpeting, white walls and one prim white rose (Prim rose?) placed primly in an ivory vase on a gleaming glass table. An elegant woman in an expensive looking pink jumpsuit, sat on a white leather sofa, flipping through the recent issue of Vogue.

She looked up, acknowledged me with a serene nod, before resuming her reading. I didn’t detect, in the patients, the slight stiffening that usually accompanies the arrival of a witness in such situations. Perhaps, these high status people could afford not to worry about the stigmas associated with mental illness. I’d done a little research and word was that the Primrose Mental Wholeness Facility had a relaxed and relaxing policy re: particular prescriptions.

Just as I realized what music the Muzak was mimicking (Benny and the Jets,) an unobtrusive woman in white, glided over and said, “Follow me, Ms. Bloom.”

♣♣♣

Doctor Limon sat in yet another white room: He too wore white. However, in place of a flower, it was Dr. Limon’s face that provided the spot of color: freshly laser peeled pink. I smiled at his scraped face and tried to focus on the 42K plus medical.

Doctor Limon looked down at my resume, “A whole year traveling in Chile. How interesting. My wife is from Chile. What was your favorite dish?”

“Chilean Sea Bass.”

“A fabulous fish.” He responded, unsuspiciously.

Where did you stay?

“Oh, all over. Santiago.”

“Where in Santiago, if you don’t mind me asking.”

I did mind him asking.

“Santiago City?”

“No such place, Miss.”

All I could think to say before being escorted out, was, “Warm there, and don’t know why they call it chilly. Kidding I know it’s Chillay. Sorry, Sillay. I mean silly…Sorry.”

He was not supposed to have a wife from Chile. I should have, at least read a Wikipedia. I thought it best to rest, recoup, and redo my résumé.

I went through the alphabet, looking for likelier untraceables: A — Antigua? Not obscure enough, B—Bali-Hi — think that might have been made up for the Musical… Belize — People knew of it, but it seemed that no one actually ever met anyone from there. I wrote down, “Field work in Belize,” decided not to risk it, and composed another one. This one was to be completely true, except the last minute I added art therapy at a summer camp, because I once told someone I liked their painting at a camp.

♣♣♣

While I waited for a bite, I decided it was time to get a feel for my new neighborhood. I saw old folks hanging out at the park, on their way to barley day, or trying to pass off expired coupons to the intransigent émigrés at the supermarket. My verbal contact was limited to asking them if I could help them with their bags, with the door, or across the street. And, they answering with a “Thank you, young lady, “Why thank you, what a lovely young lady,” and the occasional, “I can manage just fine by myself, young lady.” It felt as if I were the voice of my generation without having to do anything but say, “You’re welcome.”

I felt in too precarious a state of mind to open the planner and face the snitty quotations. And, I still was unready for Page by Page.

On the fourth month of my unemployment, I found a Village Voice in the building’s communal recycling Bin and decided to lie down with it, old school style.

Dutifully, I turned to the ‘Help Wanteds' — Musicians, actors, models, wait staff were in demand, as were people for Tele-Sales (“Call Yesterday!!”)

I turned the page, and there sandwiched between an ad that offered ample compensation for egg donations, and a picture of a “Hot and Horny Asian Coed” with censored genitals, was:

HELP WANTED

Solve Issues Therapy clinic is hiring.

solveissues@issues.com.

CALL (212) 761-4356

OR APPLY IN PERSON DURING BUSINESS HOURS

New grads welcome

B.A degree in psychology required.

M-F 9-5

10230 44th Street

I made myself open the planner. I planned to write, “Check out this place as soon as you feel better. Only need B.A?”

Wednesday:

Losers are losers because they procrastinate. Catch the fish. Don’t be the bait

I took a long hot shower, reapplied the outfit I’d worn for my interview at Primrose grabbed a resume and went out again. This time, not so brisk, not so excited, and reminding myself that at 5 foot 4 and a half, I wasn’t tall.

Throughout the subway ride I thought of how the ad seemed so unspecific. I pictured myself walking into the listed address and disappearing into some dungeon — only to reappear the coming Wednesday on the back pages of the Village Voice: drugged, bent over — black dots covering my fun spots.

♣♣♣

My destination was on the first floor of a dumpy low rise building. I buzzed a short considerate buzz. A minute passed. I tried again with a more insistent jab. Nothing. Could Dr. Limon have issued an all-points bulletin to all places administering psychological services — to be on the lookout for a 5 ‘ 4 ½ inch female Caucasian with a trumped up resume . I pushed the button one long last “let me in” time. I was about to leave, when I heard one of those “I heard you, keep your pants on,” buzzes. The buzz flat lined and followed me through to Suite 102. I pasted on an apologetic smile, and walked in.

I dumped the apologetic smile, when I saw an empty desk instead of the Buzzer person. I looked around to a long way down from Primrose. This room too was white, but with no expensive toners to soothe away white’s inherent starkness. The waiting room here consisted of an unmanned desk, an off white couch, two curiously small blue plastic chairs, and a stack of worn magazines lying on a curiously low, white plastic table.

I sat down on the couch. As I waited for the person who buzzed me in to appear, I looked around and thought: there must be some method to this mess — An ‘I am what I am’ ambiance that would not comply with the Limon lie? If I had to fake it, I spinned-, better to not compound my sins by practicing them in a plastic place. Even the magazines I saw were less sinful. Who needed Primrose and their Vogues and W’s?

I picked up a short stack. The first three were People magazines. All more than a decade old .The once celebrated people on the Peoples were now only recognizable in that, “Where did they go?” way. Each cover person wore a victorious smile, snapped at the instant it was made official that they were no longer regular people. I wondered how they felt now that they’d made their undocumented return to the herd. Possibly, to this very office, if they hadn’t invested wisely. Was beating obscurity only to be left with the has-been label enough to make you depressed? Whatever the case, it was a therapeutic shot of schadenfreude.

The fourth magazine in the stack was a Highlights for Children. I thought it a strange — almost cruel choice — to remind patients of such carefree times. I never imagined that children would seek their therapy here. Then, I noticed that the name on the mailing labels on the Highlights for Children said Dr. Lisa Sweetzer, and I realized that the curiously low table, and the too small chairs must be castoffs from the pediatrician’s office, I’d seen next door.

I walked over to the desk to look for a bell or anything that could alert someone to my presence. No bell, but I saw a phone, a coffee maker, a computer, an opened can of Pepsi, and what looked to be a big black hairball with a wooden handle sticking out of it. Upon closer inspection, I realized it was a hairbrush.

I suspected that the owner of the hairbrush was balding. Maybe they were so sick that they were losing their hair… Maybe, this sick balding individual had collapsed from the exertion of aggressively buzzing me in, and was now somewhere nearby, curled up in agony. “Is anyone here?” I said loudly.

“Who’s out there?” A shrill woman’s voice answered somewhere left of the desk

“The applicant.” I replied

“Just walk past the desk, make a left, first door to your right.”

♣♣♣

Dorothea Ratness could not have been the owner of the brush. Her few strands of post-menopausal head-hair were store bought Auburn. The room was cozy in comparison to the outside: A blue La-Z-Boy, a large TV with a crystal candy jar on top, and a hardback chair behind a regular sized desk. She sat in the La-Z-Boy, and motioned me to sit in the hard backed chair. Ms. Ratness looked to be in her seventies. Her faded mild face, was framed by a frilly lace collar. My first impression was, “Society matron gone to seed.”

I took a seat. She placed my resume on her lap with one hand, and dipped the other into the candy jar. “Care for a Nip.” She said. Eating a Nip seemed unprofessional, so I declined.

Now, that I’d had more time to get a better look at her, I thought that she not only looked like a fallen society matron but she bore an uncanny resemblance to my childhood piano teacher. Vivid images of my eight-year-old self: trapped, defenseless, and hitting the wrong notes as Ms. Lipp (a rageaholic) screamed, “Ingrid, you didn’t prepare again!” burst into my mind. The sounds of Ms. Ratness unwrapping of the Nip brought me back.

Ms. Ratness popped it into her mouth, before telling me that before starting this clinic, she ran two successful hospices. She told me that she figured if she had success in helping people die, she’d have success in helping them live. Ms. Ratness had described the clinic so far as a child that was swiftly turning into a gangly teenager. She was sure a part of the problem was marketing, and due to location: ‘For even swans would look shabby in seamy surroundings.’ She was sure: ‘That with enough nurture, the gangly teenager, in spite of its noxious environment, could blossom into a graceful and successful adult.’

She lifted the resume from her lap, and looked at it. “Sycamore. Never heard of it.”

“They say it’s one the finest liberal arts college in upstate New York.”

“Never heard of it. Sounds nice enough. Doesn’t matter to me either way. We have Barry, a Yale man, and that isn’t doing the trick. What we need,” she sighed, “is new blood.” She was sucking on the candy. Suck, suck, sigh sigh, long sigh, short suck. “What else do we have here…?” Long suck “... Field work in Belize.” (Shit, I’d taken the wrong resume) “What a coincidence, the three applicants who came before you also did field work in Central America. When I probed further into their so-called fieldwork, I found out they were liars. Before we continue, are you a liar?”

My mouth opened. Someone must have slipped in an invisible tongue depressor. I could hear my, “Uhhhhh,” stretch out and trail off. “Not in general. Sorry for wasting your time. I guess I better go.”

“No. Ms. Bloom, sit. Sit. Sit. I can care less if you spice up some resume. Let me tell you what I’m thinking. I’m thinking that I’m a businesswoman, and you might be good business move. You must be wondering why?”

“Yes.”

The other applicants were rejected because they had lousy eyes. You'd be surprised at the dearth of impressive eyes. You have wonderful eyes. Good hair. Symmetrical features that make you very attractive, but you also have a quality that won’t inspire resentment in our homelier patients. Patients very rarely do background checks, but they certainly take to good looks and understanding eyes. All therapy is how you say… inexact. Just give them the impression that you have expertise and usually they buy it. The salary won’t be much but with this resume, I don’t see you doing much better. If you’re amenable, you can start tomorrow.”

“I’m amenable.”

“A B.A in this line of work isn’t terribly impressive. We can’t call you a Psychologist or of course not a Psychiatrist, but lately many with mere B.A’s are setting up shop as psychotherapists. That’s what we’ll call you if someone gets nitpicky. If things go well, we’ll spruce up this supposed diploma of yours from where did you say it was.”

“Sycamore. And I swear I really have it.”

Well, looks like we’re done here. Your office is the one to the right of Dr. Lavine. If you have any questions just ask our secretary, Sistine.”

I stood up and went in for a handshake. Ms. Ratness handed me her hand — palm down. I shook it. “Thanks so much, you won’t regret your decision.”

“I do hope not. Well, looks like we’re done here. If you have any questions just ask our secretary, Sistine.”

I stood up and went in for a handshake. Ms. Ratness handed me her hand — palm down.

“Ms. Ratness?”

“Yes, dear.”

“Would you mind if I took a look at my office?”

“Go straight down the hall, it’ll be on the right side, right by Dr. Lavine’s office. You can’t miss it.”

She was right; I couldn’t miss it. The gold plated plaque on Dr. Lavine’s door was as big as a microwave. My office to be was a small cheaply carpeted room, a plum colored armchair, a desk, and a swivel chair. The walls were bare except for a poster of an illustrated cigarette with a red slash through it.

I sat in the swivel chair, which did not swivel. I wanted a cigarette. I looked at the sign, and that’s when it really sunk in: I could not jeopardize this job, my job.” I had a job. I swore to myself that I’d only smoke outside.

You can read the rest here  https://www.amazon.com/Memoirs-Motel-Maid-Ingrid-Manuscript-ebook/dp/B00XLUEOQW