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  After about two hours of this fun, the beer ran out. I was already bored so I halfheartedly offered to go to the store and pick some up.

  “Thanks, sweetie,” he said, and kind of ruffled my hair. I know you shouldn’t offer to do anything you don’t really want to do, so I sort of got myself into that, but right then I heard a thunderclap and looked expectantly at Dirk, waiting for him to change the plan. “Uh-oh . . . don’t forget an umbrella,” he said with an almost innocent smile. I was constantly shocked by how low he’d go, and this night was no exception.

  “Don’t make her go in the rain, man. Jordan, I’ll go,” said the always-chivalrous Tony.

  “No, no. I offered,” I said, sort of baiting him, hoping Dirk would realize the offer was pre-weather situation and grow a conscience.

  “You sure you don’t mind?” Tony asked, looking back and forth between Dirk and me.

  “Not at all. I love going out in the pouring rain,” I said, oozing with sarcasm. The only problem was, sarcasm is generally lost on those who partake in the non-ironic high five.

  “Cool, thanks,” one of them said. The deafening sound of thunder that erupted simultaneously made it difficult to identify who was talking.

  And there I was, off on a beer run at 10 P.M. in the pouring rain. I actually heard Dirk joking to his friends about how well trained I was as I was walking out the door. I was tempted to lay into him for basically calling me a poodle, but I hated confrontation and I didn’t want to prove him right by being a bitch; so I just went out to get the beer.

  I got completely soaked on my way to the deli. It was one of those Manhattan rainstorms that pounds down diagonally so no matter how you hold your umbrella, you’re gonna get soaked. I was so cold, sopping wet, and frustrated that I was near tears by the time I got to the store. I surveyed the different beer brands, and when I finally decided on Pete’s Wicked Ale, I realized that Dirk had conveniently forgotten to give me money. Even more conveniently I didn’t have enough cash on me, and the nearest ATM was three blocks away, so out I went again into the storm. This time I was in tears. Just for a minute. It was one of those non-cry cries. Like when you get choked up at an AT&T commercial but the next second you’re on to a Tide commercial, and just like that, you couldn’t care less about the girl calling her dad on a Sunday, because it is all about that grass stain and whether or not it’s gonna come out.

  When I got back to Dirk’s, I tried to join the conversation or at least start one, but they kept shushing me, so I fell asleep on what Dirk referred to as his “Man Chair.” When I woke up a half hour later, the guys were gone and Dirk was passed out on the couch. I got up and smelled the flowers that I’d brought over, thinking of that saying about stopping to smell the roses once in a while. They didn’t smell very sweet; in fact, they turned my stomach, so I hurled them in the garbage can. I tried to say good night to Dirk, but he wouldn’t wake up. Considering that evening a train wreck, I saw myself out.

  4.

  he peed in my closet

  As soon as I got home I called Todd. Trusty Todd. My best male friend and former husband from age seven. I threw down my bag and took off my still-damp sweatshirt, waving my arms over my head in self-directed disgust, while I recapped the unfortunate evening I’d just suffered through. My frantic motion and bra-clad figure was no doubt creating a spectacle for anyone who should happen to be peering in through my tiny window. A horrible thought crossed my mind: What if Spandex Man could see in my window from his and saw my distress as an invitation to come save me with his ka-ra-tay? Suddenly, desperate to leave the building, I asked Todd to meet me for late night coffee.

  My relationship to coffee was like no other. Much like my relationship to Todd. Both perked me up when I was down, helped keep me going when I was low on energy, and made me have to urinate constantly. There is a downside to having a friend who’s a laugh a minute. Todd had grown up well. He was skinny but not in a nerdy way. He was more of that hipster skinny. He lived in T-shirts of bands a normal person would never have heard of, jeans, and Pumas. He worked as a graphic designer at another ad agency, and although his was a real agency peopled by something other than misfits, he got it when I complained about the bullshit I dealt with and, in our own private game of My Job Sucks Worse poker, he would see my ad woes and raise them with his own.

  As we were picking where to meet, I noticed a large cockroach unapologetically crawling up my wall. I recognized him. I’d seen him before and named him Major Deegan after an expressway here in New York. Major Deegan briefly stopped when he saw me, and we had a bit of a stare-down. A Mexican standoff with la cucaracha. Me and the roach. Each claiming our rightful territory. This was New York, after all, and anyone knows that a New York apartment for under $1,200 a month comes with roaches. In any other part of the country $1,200 would rent you a pretty decent place. In New York, it will get you a shoebox-sized apartment with dozens of six-legged roommates who won’t contribute to the rent yet still feel free to leave their shit all over the place.

  I was so focused on the roach that I couldn’t even hear Todd speaking into my ear anymore. Finally the roach got bored and continued up the wall and I returned to the conversation, during which we’d apparently agreed to meet at Cozy’s Soup ’n Burger.

  “See you in fifteen,” he said. I put a dry sweatshirt on and headed out the door, knowing full well that I’d feel infinitely better once I’d bitched and moaned to Todd, and Major Deegan would be happy to have the place to himself.

  On my way to meet Todd, I walked past my lyrical drifter, and she stopped to look me up and down. Then she said, “‘Now there’s trouble bussin’ in from outta state . . .’” and she whipped her head up, one eye on me, waiting.

  “‘And the D.A. can’t get no relief,’” I replied, both eyes on hers, head bowed a little. She accepted my reply with what looked like it was going to be a sly wink, but was actually the beginnings of a sneeze. Springsteen. I wasn’t going to miss that one. As we both continued in our different directions, I wondered if she ever thought about me when I wasn’t around and tried to come up with a lyric that would stump me. Or maybe if that would make me like every other person she accosted, so my actually knowing the proper response was a welcome relief.

  When I got to Cozy’s, which was our favorite twenty-four-hour diner, Todd was already seated at our booth and had us each a coffee and slice of cake. One cheesecake and one chocolate blackout cake. Todd was the perfect gay male best friend except he wasn’t gay. He actually got more chicks than any guy I knew—including all of Dirk’s lothario law buddies. There was something slightly Woody Allen–ish about Todd but only in his neurosis and brilliance, not in the looks department. The hipster-cool thing that women in New York seem to flock to was working for him big-time. Yet as much play as he got, none of the girls stuck—and not for a lack of their trying. There was always something he’d find wrong with them—some ridiculous thing, like finding a copy of Jewel’s poetry book on her bookshelf or a Phish bootleg in her CD collection or a pair of Uggs—and that would kill it.

  Todd hated Dirk.

  “You must, must stop seeing him,” he urged.

  “He’s not that bad.”

  “No, you’re right.” He shifted in the booth and looked alarmed. “In fact, Jesus, I think he’s right here—I’m sitting on him! Oh, no, wait—it’s just a festering boil on my ass. You can understand the mix-up.”

  We sat there quiet for a moment. I knew he wasn’t finished. He was planning his strategy. He’d remind me of some of the unspeakable things that Dirk had done and I would defend him until I couldn’t anymore and we’d both know that he was right and I should break up with Dirk but that I didn’t have the balls to do it.

  “He forgot your birthday,” he began.

  “I hate birthdays anyway.”

  “Nobody hates birthdays,” he said dismissively. “People hate getting older, but everybody loves a birthday.”

  “No, I actually hate birthdays,” I countered
, standing.

  It was true. It had started on my sixth birthday, when I thought for sure my dad would be there, because even though he said he might not see me for a long time, I really didn’t think he meant that long and he’d surely be back for my birthday. He, of course, was a no-show. And then there was my ninth birthday, the year we had boys and girls. Walter had planned a hip-hop dance party because hip-hop was taking off and he thought the kids would love to dance. Boys stayed on one side of our house, girls on the other, and the only mingling was a softball that got hurled by Billy Engbert, which was meant to just show off his throwing arm, but landed square in my face. And who could forget my fourteenth birthday, which got completely overlooked, in what I thought was an homage to Sixteen Candles and surely a practical joke to be revealed at my surprise party—a party that never took place. For these and several other unfortunate birthday debacles, I genuinely didn’t like birthdays. Todd was going to lose this one. So he tried another route.

  “He hit on your sister.”

  “He was just trying to get to know my family.”

  “In your family do you greet new people by sticking your tongue down somebody’s throat?” he goaded in a decibel way too high for a place called Cozy’s.

  “There was no tongue,” I defended. “And Sam is a slut.”

  “Fine, so they’re both assholes. That doesn’t make him any less of an asshole!”

  “I know . . . I know.”

  “Do you need me to go on?”

  “I think so.” I shrugged.

  “Fine. He peed in your closet. I mean . . . there are no words.”

  “I already told you! He was sleepwalking after having many, many beers that night. He thought it was the bathroom.” Todd’s look said, Come on—who are you trying to kid? “He did!” I squealed.

  “He didn’t go to your grandmother’s funeral.”

  “Funerals weird him out. He doesn’t like dead people . . .”

  “And the rest of us just love ’em. C’mon, Jordy! He’s a total asshole. As your husband, I demand that you break up with your boyfriend. Don’t you have to listen to me or obey me or something?”

  “Fine. I’ve heard enough for tonight,” I said. “I’ll think about it.” Dirk was a jerk and I knew it. If I could only hold on to the feeling I had right that minute, then I’d have the courage to break up with him. But I’d head home, go to bed, wake up, and it would be a new day. I would be filled with the same naive hope that maybe this day would be different. I’d think that maybe he’d do a turnaround and be nicer, treat me better, remember how things used to be, and try to recapture what we had, making it all worth it. Maybe. Yeah, sure, and maybe they’d also invent that pill where you could eat whatever you wanted and never get fat.

  The rehabilitated Dirk was an illusion, but a necessary one. I held onto the fantasy that things would be like they were in the beginning because, besides my issues with confrontation, I just didn’t like to give up. You may think that’s a weakness, but you can also look at it as a strength. A strength of hope and a resolve to continue to work at something because I didn’t want to accept failure. Even though sometimes the strength it takes to admit failure is probably worth as much as the determination not to quit. So there you have it. I was stuck fighting for a relationship with a boyfriend who, truth be told, I’d much rather forget ever existed.

  5.

  will copywrite for food

  I came home and checked my answering machine. Another message from Citibank. Delete. I rifled through my drawer to find the actual bill and marveled at how much I owed, considering I had so little to show for it. That seems to be the universal thing with credit card debt. Yeah, here’s $11,000 spent, but where’s the car? Where’s the stereo system and sixty-inch plasma TV? What did I spend that money on? Did I eat it? All I ever really paid for was food—but could I possibly have eaten $11,000 worth of food? I may have a hearty appetite but, Christ—not that hearty.

  I rushed to my full-length mirror in sudden certainty that I must weigh a minimum of six hundred pounds. And . . . nope. Yet I found myself torn between relief and feeling somewhat let down that I wasn’t worth my weight in credit card debt.

  My financial squeeze was just that—too little room between income and expenses, like an impatient cabbie trying to create a third lane on a two-lane side street. Scrape. Fast fact: $30,000 in school loans, plus eleven grand in credit card debt, plus monthly rent, utilities, health insurance co-pay, and all the niceties (such as food) don’t exactly fit into a $34,000 annual salary after taxes. Shocker, right? The school loans might have been avoided, but I’d made a valiant, half-serious offer to cover a portion of my costs, and my mother had never been so proud—or so careful with money. Needless to say, a portion is more than you might suspect. I wasn’t ever extravagant. I believe the appropriate term is stupid.

  I tucked the bill back into my desk, ironically in between two pages of my Zagat guide, and started to write in my journal. I decided to make a list of Dirk pros and cons. Sometimes when you lay it all out in black and white it can help you see things more clearly. It started out as a list and morphed into a pie chart. That was scary. Knowing how much I got charged for food, I realized I’d best keep pie out of this. I quickly shut the journal and moved to the computer—resulting in an entire PowerPoint presentation. This was a little too clear, so I just closed the document and didn’t bother hitting Save.

  Feeling crummy sometimes has its advantages. Creative genius often stems from complete misery. I was feeling sufficiently bad about myself and had nothing better to do, so I tidied up my apartment and started thinking about work stuff. Specifically, I was thinking about this KidCo campaign that Lydia was working on. KidCo was a regional kid’s activity center, much like Gymboree, with play classes for all ages and a wide variety of art, music, and fitness events. If I were a kid, I would honestly have a hard time choosing among them. And suddenly the ideas started flowing. I rushed to the computer and stayed up half the night writing them out, ready to be presented in the morning.

  * * * * *

  When I raced into Lydia’s office she looked less than pleased to see me. If I hadn’t been there for a couple years, I’d have worried that I’d done something wrong. But, knowing Lydia as I did, I could tell that this was just her usual look of disapproval. She often looked as if she were smelling something rancid. I made the mistake once of asking her about it, because she genuinely looked like she was in discomfort.

  “Do you smell something bad?” I had asked.

  “No,” she’d said, looking side to side, suggesting I was out of my mind. “Do you?”

  “No.”

  And then we stood there looking at each other for an awkward moment. She stared at me, seeming mildly horrified yet interested, like I was Tara Reid on the red carpet, nipple exposed to the world, smiling for the camera—and then raised her eyebrows as if to ask me, Is there anything else?

  “Okay, then. Great. I was just taking a poll,” I said. “That will be three ‘No, I do not smell anything bad’ and one ‘Yes, I do, but it’s probably just my flatulent cubical mate.’” This was my attempt at humor. One of several daily failed attempts that I’d learned to accept as more nuggets for the old humility treasure trove. She looked at me blankly and then gave me about seventy-five hours of busywork to ensure I didn’t go around the office taking any more polls.

  So that morning when I ran in there all gung ho to tell her my ideas, her look was much the same. She was on the phone. She pulled the phone away from her angry, angular jaw.

  “What is it?”

  “So I think I’ve got some great ideas for the KidCo TV campaign.” I beamed.

  She acted perturbed by the interruption, but I could see that she was excited underneath her winter-like exterior. This was validated by the fact that she told whoever she was on the phone with that she’d have to call them back. She never got off the phone for me. She acted distressed and exasperated, but I knew she was eager as a virgin on
prom night to hear the concepts.

  “What do you have?”

  This was my chance. I was going to wow her with my ideas and finally get to start writing copy around here. My only involvement with traffic would be avoiding it on my daily commute. I’d be a brilliant copywriter. I took a deep breath.

  “Okay. I have a couple of ideas . . . a few on the same variation. Picture a boardroom with a bunch of kids in grown-up suits talking marketing strategies—IPOs, etc. It’s a cute visual even by itself. Then the V-O comes. ‘At KidCo, our boss is your five-year-old.’”

  Lydia just sat there looking at me. She cocked her head. I wondered what was going on in her brain. She wasn’t giving me much to go on, so I told her my next idea.

  “Okay, visual effect: First kid draws another kid tumbling that morphs into a live kid tumbling into a sea of balls that splash up into the hands of a juggler, whose feet become the feet of a new kid dancing with a teacher, whose hand points to a background that becomes a chalkboard with lessons that a kid studies while clapping in a circle with other kids singing and then falling down laughing. And this V-O: ‘KidCo. Come to learn. Come to play. Come today.’”

  She still didn’t react, but she did write something down on her notepad.

  “Go on,” she said.

  “Okay, this is a tryout for a Broadway show. From the dark of the theater seats we look up at the hopefuls on the stage—KidCo instructors and teachers and helpers. We hear a child’s voice: ‘Okay. I love what I’m seeing from Art; and Dance Class, outstanding; Gymnastics, beautiful work; Field Trips, Music, Languages, Reading, Snack Time—you’re all definitely in.’ Then at the end of the chorus line, we see a nebbishy guy in a suit with slumped shoulders. The voice pipes up again: ‘Uh, Boredom? Thanks for coming. We’ll call you.’” Then the voice-over tag—‘KidCo. Matinees daily. Enjoy the show.’”