Chapter Eleven Jo
Chapter Eleven
Jo
F irst order of business: a scheduled FaceTime with my Number One Heavy Hitter.
This is, of course, Serena, who knows that I don’t do unscheduled calls. I’m a serial screener who would rather listen to a million voicemails than pick up a cold call. We used to joke that I would be the worst In Case of Emergency contact because it would take two missed calls and several texts before I responded, but there’s some truth to that.
There’s a reason why Amber is ICE in Serena’s contact list.
The call takes some effort to schedule over text, the time difference making it harder than we anticipated. But now it’s Friday night for me—Saturday morning for her—and since I never do anything other than work, eat, sleep, repeat, I find myself curled up on my couch, waiting for my phone to buzz.
It does, right at eight P.M. sharp. I tap into the call and grin as soon as I see Serena’s blond topknot and makeup-free face come into view. “Hello, my beautiful, punctual friend.”
“Consistency is key to greatness,” she says. “What’s up? How are you?”
“No, no, you first. Tell me all about Japan!”
For twenty minutes, she does just that, launching straight into her amazement over their public transportation system. To this, I gasp—Serena hasn’t taken a train in New York since a rat dropped a wet hash brown on her foot eight years ago—but she only laughs. The sound twists my heart, wringing out all my love for her. I miss her so much I could scream.
She tells me what she can about work, which isn’t much because she always has to sign lengthy NDAs when she starts a new “engagement,” consultant speak for project. Since we didn’t have time before Amber’s dress fitting call, she gives me a tour of her little one-bedroom apartment with skyline views. Eventually she settles in a white couch.
“Okay, enough about me,” she says. “Your turn. What’s up? What’s going on in your life?”
I take a deep breath. “Actually, I need Checklist Serena.”
“Oh?” she asks, sitting up straighter.
While Amber’s patient, loving ethos manifests as the kind of friend who will hold your hand and listen, Serena’s version of love typically translates into actions. Directions. Tangible, real advice. She will tell you what she thinks you need to do, then follow up with a written list in an email—hence the nickname, which we bestowed upon her when Amber broke up with an old boyfriend ages ago.
Serena went so far as to print out that checklist and stick it on the fridge in the apartment we then shared.
I give her the rundown on my current predicament—Silas, the article, my near panic attack when he set the recording device in front of me—omitting all the confidential Haven stuff. When I finish, I slump into my own gray couch and ask, “How do I get over this? How do I sit down with him without clamming up? I felt like a fucking idiot the other day.”
“You’re not an idiot,” she says. “But I have to ask this, babe—why do you want to do this at all?”
I take a deep breath. “I just… want to. It’s time for me to do something different.”
It’s a half version of the truth, but it’ll work for now. Even if I wanted to, I can’t tell Serena how unhappy I’ve been in my job. That ship sailed when I learned about the pending acquisition. I made a promise to Z that I would keep up appearances—and I’m nothing if not a woman of my word.
“I guess this is better than bangs.” I can practically see the gears working as she remembers our conversation from the bar, the last time it was just the three of us together. After a few seconds of Serena’s pursed lips—her thinking face—she snaps back into checklist mode. “Okay, so you want to open up to this guy. You want to put yourself out there. You want your own words in print. You want people to know you.”
I nod. That’s exactly it.
“But the problem is, you panic when you’re being recorded,” she says, more for herself than me. “Understandable, considering what went down before. What helped you last time? Stuff that you could do this time.”
“Slept in your bed and cried?”
She rolls her eyes and repeats, “ Stuff you could do this time. ”
I think back to that breaking point in my life. It’s a place I don’t like to revisit; even the ghost of that memory makes me feel ashamed, embarrassed, anxious, and sad all over again. But Serena does have a point—it took work for me to find my way out of that dark place. There were things that I did then and could do now .
“Journaling,” I reply. “That’s an easy one. I don’t know why I ever stopped.”
“Journaling! Yes, perfect. What else?”
I chew my lip as I think. “Well, I was in therapy multiple times a week back then.”
“It’s always available to you if you want to go back,” she says, encouraging.
“The drugs helped too.”
“We love drugs!” I laugh as she continues, “Wouldn’t be too hard for you to get back on those if you see your therapist again.”
“I still do the breathing techniques she taught me,” I add. When things had leveled out in my life and I made the decision to stop seeing my therapist regularly, she told me her door was always open if I wanted to come back. I tuck that thought away for now. “She also told me to try new things. Low-stakes stuff to get me out of my head. That’s how I got into yoga.”
There were other things that didn’t stick: puzzles I abandoned, coloring books that are still somewhere in a pile on my shelf, a guitar I bought secondhand then sold thirdhand two years later.
I glance down at my pink toenails and smile. A small but mighty victory.
“Okay, so,” Serena says, pulling me back to the call. “We have journaling for sure. Possibly going back to therapy, but that one takes some time. Why don’t you come up with a list of things you want to try in the near future? Stuff that will help build up your confidence and get you outside of your own head?”
“Are you giving me homework ?”
“Hey, you asked for Checklist Me.”
I pretend to sigh. “Fine. I’ll come up with some stuff, I promise.”
“I’m proud of you, babe.”
My heart swells. “I’m proud of you too.”
“And remember,” she says, her brows flattening as she stares directly into my soul, “if you ever feel uncomfortable with this guy, you can pull the plug. You don’t owe him anything. If he ever gives you shit, you tell me, okay?”
There it is—the reason why Serena is my In Case of Emergency person.
After we hang up a few minutes later, I peel myself off the couch and head straight for my bedside table. Buried beneath a sleep mask, an assortment of hair ties, charging cords that may or may not work, is a black leather notebook. There’s still a pen nestled between the pages.
I flop onto my bed and start to write.
I wish that I could say a few days of consistent journaling changed everything, that I no longer feel like I’m just going through the motions, that I’m content in my job again, that I don’t experience a creeping sense of dread whenever I picture Silas’s little recording device. I wish all these things were true.
Unfortunately, they are not.
If nothing else, my restlessness is so much clearer now that it’s written on a page. I’m unhappy in my life. I crave change. I’m just too scared to do anything about it.
This is how I find myself at the Museum of Modern Art on a random weekday afternoon. In my ten years living in this incredible city, I’ve never made the time to come here, not even on the free days back when I was broke as hell. There was always some excuse: it’ll take too long to go uptown, no one is free to come with me, it closes in four hours, so what is the point? But today I woke up, looked at the most recent scribbles in my journal, and thought—why not?
I Googled everything I could before I left my apartment. I bought my ticket online, scoped out the D train route that would get me here, and checked the weather. It’s drizzling out, but I’m prepared, dressed in my Wellington boots, my favorite cotton dress, and a light rain jacket.
I take a deep breath and push my way through the revolving doors.
It takes me no time at all to get lost in the minimalist cavern despite the map I picked up at the entrance. I decide that it doesn’t matter. I’m not teaching today, so I have nowhere to be. Amber is at work, and Serena is on the other side of the world. No one is waiting for me.
So I wander. I let myself take it all in.
I pass interesting little sculptures made of plaster. Big statues made of metal too. There are walls and walls and walls of paintings in styles I don’t have names for. Crowds gather at the most popular exhibits, making it hard to see the Picasso pieces, but I don’t mind. This is summer in New York; I’ve gotten used to the fact that everyone wants to be here.
For a while, I stop and stare at Frida Kahlo’s self-portrait. It makes me think of my parents. I should have brought them here any one of the several times they came to visit.
Somewhere on the fifth floor, emotions start to take over. There’s something moving about seeing hundreds of pieces of art created by humans I’ll never meet. I think about all that time they spent laboring over their work, chipping away at themselves to show the world what they saw, what they felt, who they are inside, only to let everyone else decide what they meant when they shared what they’d done.
A lump forms in my throat, and I struggle to swallow past it.
It’s not that I consider myself an artist; my creativity pretty much extends to different variations on my eyeliner. But the act of putting so much of yourself on display and leaving yourself open to interpretation— that is something I can relate to. My version just happens to be a lot more literal.
Emboldened, I plop down on an empty bench and fish my phone out of my tote. I find my text conversation with Silas and type,
Hey, ready to talk whenever you are
His response comes lightning fast:
Got everything done I take it?
I blink, stunned. I thought my vague comment outside of the studio had been just that—vague. I never expected him to take me literally.
Not exactly. My homework will take a while.
Homework?
I snap a quick picture of my view, now mostly the backs of strangers as they stare at Van Gogh’s The Starry Night , the top edge peeking out above their heads.
MoMA? Do you moonlight as an art student?
I huff out a quiet laugh. Going back to school is definitely not in the cards for me. At least I can rule that option out of my future. I reply:
I’ll explain when we see each other next.
Can’t wait. Literally.
A picture follows his response. It’s of one of those tearaway desk calendars, next to an open laptop—his, I’m assuming. Today’s date shows one of the Andy Warhol paintings I saw downstairs. In the bottom left corner are four familiar letters: MoMA.
I can’t help but smile. Maybe it’s from the lovely afternoon I just had, but suddenly, I’m not dreading seeing him again.
In fact, I’m a little excited.