Chapter 11
What’s so terrible about being a ‘normal’? I grab the pole on the 2 train as it rumbles toward Wall Street and look around at my people and their khakis – oatmeal, biscotti, cafe con leche. It’s an entire breakfast buffet of tan. At Chambers Street I follow the other working professionals up to street level where we each make our way to our respective offices. Now that I’ve stopped resisting my transformation, I’m learning to accept it. Being a ‘normal’ means not staring at a blank page worrying about coming up with my own ideas and wondering if they’re any good. It means not feeling like a failure every time I get another rejection. At Brands, I just need to finish the assignments I’m given and that’s that. I’m on track for a full-time job by the end of the year and I even have a plan for a full-time boyfriend that my mother will accept. Totally normal.
I told myself that if I didn’t get my break by the time I was thirty I would stop writing and find another job. Then my agent Loretta set me up ghostwriting with Justine and I thought it would be a good stepping stone to my own work but instead I was in a sort of limbo. I wasn’t moving forward but I wasn’t moving backward either. Sometimes Justine came up with very broad outlines and sometimes just a few scenes or a title. It was work for hire. It may have been my words inside the book but it wasn’t my name on the cover. Fans already loved Justine so I just had to keep doing what she was doing. Sometimes I’d go to a signing and overhear a reader gush about her books. Once a woman told her that what she wrote gave her the courage to change her life. I thought, she didn’t change your life. I did. But it also felt safe to be in that position. I didn’t have to perform at a reading with an audience of people judging me. I got to write but I never really had to put myself out there. Maybe taking the full-time job at Brands is a way to finally become an adult or maybe it’s another form of avoidance.
I’m about to walk into the building and up to the office when my mother calls. ‘I’m late,’ I say as I push through the revolving door into the lobby to answer the phone.
‘I’m just calling to make sure you’re getting enough fiber,’ she says.
‘Yes, I am. Thank you for your call. Nice chatting. Goodbye,’ I say, knowing this is not the end of the conversation.
‘What kind? I read an article that you need thirty grams a day of soluble fiber at least, for heart health, and then I heard that it can also help with bottoming.’
‘Mom!’ I shout into the phone, and the guy at the security desk, who usually waves me in, gives me a concerned look.
‘What? I never taught you to be ashamed of your body. Don’t be so uptight. Maybe the fiber will help with that too.’
‘I am not uptight,’ I growl into the phone.
‘Whatever you say. I’ll see you later. I love you.’
‘I love you too,’ I say and hang up. I agreed to meet my mother at Plant Daddy after work. That’s when her ‘legal team’ is available. Anyone else would think their mother is kidding about a ‘legal team’, but my mother says incredibly outrageous things that turn out to be true.
I head up and as soon as I’m out of the elevator at Brands, Robert spots me. He’s wearing his usual blue suit and toothy smile.
‘Sam, loved the ideas you shot over for Finn and the gallery. Excellent.’
‘Thanks,’ I say. Take that Hurlington Press and every mid to large publisher who rejected me this summer. I’m good at this job. It feels nice to get positive feedback for a change.
I reached out to Robert with some ideas and found a way to slip in that I wanted to be considered for the full-time position. I was in the middle of my make-up weekend with my once and future boyfriend and emailed Robert in a moment of haste. ‘Senior Brand Manager is a great title,’ Paul said. ‘And you don’t want to be a struggling writer your whole life.’ He’s not wrong.
I grab a desk in the open workspace ready to begin my shift at the ‘email factory’ as I sometimes call it. Before I do anything else today, I need to reach out to Finn and review the spreadsheet of opportunities I have in the works, but I’m reluctant to pick up the phone and dial. Something about Finn pushes my buttons. The way he flipped the script on me, asking me about myself when I was there to interview him at Plant Daddy. He assumed I was just doing this job until something better came along. Granted, that’s the same assumption I had about this job, but still, the way he zeroed in on it made me feel exposed. I remind myself this is work. I can reset the boundaries and if I want to stay on track for the full-time position, I don’t have a choice.
I call Finn and he picks up on the first ring. ‘Hey, Sam,’ he says. ‘How’s it hanging?’ His voice is casual and friendly. That shadow of a Southern accent makes it sound like he doesn’t have a care in the world.
‘It hangs fine, thank you,’ I say. I never know how to answer that question and this is a business call. ‘I wanted to walk you through the spreadsheet I sent over this morning if now is a good time.’ I’m trying to be hyper-professional.
‘I just finished post-processing some images. Shoot.’ I can almost see him leaning back in his chair and putting his hands behind his head in a stretch.
This is the part of my job I like, finding opportunities and connecting people. For the Surentox campaign I was able to hire a graphic designer who lived down the hall from me in college. It wound up being a great gig for him, the Surentox people loved him and he sent me a lovely box of my favorite brownies. I like being able to help people like that. A rising tide lifts all boats I would like to be one of the boats but I need to find a way to be happy just being the tide. Sadly, this fun part accounts for maybe five per cent of my work. Mostly I write boring press releases, arrange schedules, and follow up on details.
I’ve scheduled Finn on some podcasts that a woman I know from Plant Daddy produces, and a friend of Omar’s who works at the Met suggested some social media accounts that look seriously at queer art, so I was able to make some connections there. I’ve secured interviews with a few established old-guard media outlets as well. A social studies teacher I met at a party in the East Village told me about a school in Coney Island that focuses on social justice. I snagged Finn an invitation to a panel they’re doing next week.
‘And that’s everything I have so far,’ I say when I get to the end of the spreadsheet. Finn is silent. ‘What do you think?’
‘You put this all together really fast?’
‘In full disclosure, most of my contacts are friends or acquaintances from other parts of my life. But they’re all legit, I swear.’
‘I believe you. I’m just shocked you know that many people. It’s impressive.’ Is it? I’ve always been able to meet people and make friends. Romantic partners are in a whole other category. I suck at that.
‘Next week is a magnet school focused on social justice change makers. It’s a big event. They had a cancellation and I was able to get you in. There’ll be some nice press coverage. It’s in Coney Island,’ I say in case that’s a deal breaker. ‘It’s a bit of a trek to the outer edges of Brooklyn, but it’s a great school with a worthwhile mission.’
‘Coney Island? Like with the roller coaster and the hot dogs? That Coney Island?’
‘That’s the one,’ I say. I forgot he’s only been in New York a short time.
‘Hot damn, yeah. I’ve been wanting to go there since I landed but I’ve been too busy to check it out. But it’s gonna cost ya,’ he says and I can hear the playfulness in his voice. ‘Isn’t that where they have the famous hot dogs? I’ll need one, no, better make it two hot dogs.’
‘I think I can swing that,’ I say unable to resist his invitation to play.
‘It’s a deal but honestly as soon as you told me high school students I was in. The whole reason I went into photography is because of a teacher. Mrs Perez.’
‘Was she a photographer?’
‘No, she taught algebra.’
‘How did you go from algebra to photos?’ I should be taking notes because some of this might be useful later for building some press materials, but instead, I just listen.
‘I was going through a pretty rough time and really struggling in her class. I couldn’t tell sine from a cosine.’
‘I think that’s trig, not algebra,’ I say.
‘I told you I wasn’t good at it. But Mrs Perez, she never made me feel stupid or like a bad kid. She would invite me to her classroom after school and make me a snack and go over the homework. But what really helped is that she talked to me and she really listened. About what was going on. I never really had someone do that before. She let me talk about whatever I wanted. I was kind of a loner as a kid. I guess I still am.’
‘But you work with people in your photos. I’ve seen them. You can’t get photos like that without having a connection to the people.’
‘Thanks. I guess it’s easier when I have a camera or a purpose, you know? Like Mrs Perez had with me.’
I can understand. It’s not the way I move in the world but his photos are incredible and he is undoubtedly successful so he’s doing something right.
‘Sounds like she’s amazing.’
‘She is. I mean she was. She died about a year ago,’ he says.
‘Oh, I’m sorry.’
‘Thank you,’ he says softly. ‘Losing someone you’re close to like that, who’s been a mentor, is hard. You know what I mean?’
‘My aunt died last year.’ I wouldn’t usually reveal something so personal to a client but he has this way of getting inside me.
‘I’m sorry. What was her name?’
‘Her name was Gertrude but she hated that. So, everyone called her Sugar or Shug after the Marilyn Monroe character in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. ’ As soon as I mention the movie I hold my breath. Guys his age usually have no idea what I’m talking about when I mention any movie with characters who don’t wear capes or shoot lasers.
‘I love that movie. It really had some complicated gender politics. Way ahead of its time.’
‘I like the way Marilyn plays the ukulele. Shug used to do a great impression of her singing,’ I say and smile to myself. ‘I understand what it means to miss someone who has helped shape who you are, but I’m still not exactly sure how you went from algebra to documentary photography.’
‘Mrs Perez taught me how important it is to listen to people because she listened to me and because of that I started getting really into documentaries and hearing people’s stories. I love the way taking a photo can create an occasion for a connection. It creates a situation for listening and I get to make people feel seen. The way I felt with Mrs Perez. Did someone inspire you to become a writer?’
He just told me this beautiful story about this important teacher but I’m not sure how to answer his question. I want to tell him more about Aunt Shug and my mom taking me to old movies and coming home and putting on plays with the characters we just saw or writing stories about them. But I’ve made such an effort to put that all away and focus on a real future. I don’t want to bring it up now and certainly not at work.
‘Finn, I’ve got a meeting I have to head to.’ It’s a lame excuse but not entirely untrue. I need to keep a boundary with this guy. ‘I’ll email you all the details about Coney Island. Hot dogs are on me.’
I answer some final questions and hang up glad to be off the phone with him. He makes me nervous. There’s something so raw about him and he crashes through my usual defenses. I don’t like it but maybe I’m not giving him a chance.