I’m having a good hair day for a change. I brush my teeth. I change my sheets.
Drew is parking, my handsome guy.
Drew is arriving, my pal.
Drew is crying, my pain.
Drew, standing in my apartment, is holding the plant I left on his doorstep, in its cute and perfect little pot. He’s handing it back to me. And I take it.
“It’s not you it’s me and blah blah blah,” Drew says. He actually says the “blah blah blah” part. “I’m just not ready to be in a relationship,” he says. “I’m sorry, pal. I’m sorry.”
I look down at the little tree, my new memento of failure and rejection.
I’m angry but disarmed by his emotion. Am I supposed to plead with him? To negotiate this thing back into being? Sadly, I used up all my tears with Kathi.
“Is my job the problem?” I ask.
“No, no. It’s not something I can explain. I’m sorry.”
I can feel myself closing some doors, shutting down some feelings about relationships and partners and dumb fucking nicknames.
And as Drew leaves, I close the door, lock it, walk to the kitchen, and I throw our little sapling in the trash. I sense the beginning of resentment toward Kathi, a job—a lifestyle—that surely made it harder to maintain my thing with Drew. As the baby tree hits the bottom of the trash can, I hear the vase crack.
I delete my upcoming dates with Drew from my calendar. More blue dots gone.
Therapista says I should stay friends with Drew.
Therapista says I need to have a life outside of Kathi Kannon.
Therapista can go fuck herself.
* * *
Hey, Siri, my friend Jesse is throwing a Christmas party. Behind his back we call him Lenny from Of Mice and Men, because Jesse is very rough and handsy. He loves to get loud and narrate the slightest party happening, introduce this guy to that one, and announce arrivals. “This is Charlie,” Jesse says, grabbing my wrist. I’m arriving single, but I’m not really solo. She is always with me, more or less.
“Charlie works for Kathi Kannon.”
I’ve heard him do this before; I’ve heard others do it. It works. Everyone turns. I feel important. One minute I’m smelling the armpit of Kathi Kannon’s blouse to see if it’s dirty and the next I’m the hottest guy in the room.
The rest of the night, I try to mix and mingle, looking for my next so-called boyfriend. Everyone I meet asks the same question:
“How’s Kathi Kannon?”
“How’s Kathi Kannon?”
“How’s Kathi Kannon?”
I get that question a lot, all the time, everywhere, from everyone. And as I stand there, chatting, sharing my usual stories, I’m thinking: How’s Kathi Kannon? I’m thinking, Interesting that no one asks me, “How are you?” I’m thinking, No one ever asks about me.
But I switch into autopilot, mentally donning the familiar costume of humble assistant, wearing the fabric and illusion of my restless, fabulous life. I stand at the table of Jesse’s homemade Christmas-tree cookies and mistletoe punch and force a smile and share. “Kathi Kannon is great,” I tell this guy and that. “Sure, I work for her, it’s cool.” I tell them that I have Bette Midler’s cell-phone number, that I have a screenshot of a text message from Helena Bonham Carter that says “have her call me pimple. I mean please.” I show my—I mean, our—calendar.
“The blue dots are my appointments,” I say, “and the pink dots are her appointments.” It rolls out of my mouth like an actor with lines. I’ve said it a thousand times to a thousand different people, bragging, preening. I know the desired effect like a stand-up comedian knows which jokes kill. But this time—
“Wait,” Jesse says. “There are no blue dots.”
I grab my phone back and look.
Assistant Bible Verse 138: It takes a special person to be a personal assistant. It takes a person willing to yield. To pause their own life. To make their life secondary. To miss dates and special occasions because your boss at the last minute wants you to pick up dinner, or travel with them to Bhutan.
My phone in hand, I’m looking at the day, the week, the month, the year—and the years—ahead. There are no blue dots. There is no me. There is only her.
So much destruction.
14
Jasmine is hosting a round of work drinks that’s way more drinks than work. Her dad is in town, an oncologist from Minnesota who’s pounding draft beers and leaning forward to show how much he cares, how much he’s really listening to our celebrity stories. Jasmine jumps up and rushes over when she sees me enter.
“Hi, enabler,” Jasmine says jokingly, handing me my drink, Truth, cold and colorful and, tonight, bitter.
“Not funny,” I say.
“Bruce can’t make it,” she says. “He’s working late to get his promotion.”
“Our loss,” I say as I take a big gulp of the booze. Jasmine puts her arm around me and guides me to her father. “Please tell my dad all the best stories.”
As we approach, Titanic is already in the midst of an epic tale. “My boss’s gate wouldn’t open, because he hit it with his Porsche,” he says, detailing his household’s emergency last night. “It was two in the morning and I had to rush over, find an emergency number for the gate repairman, and he couldn’t come until the next day, so I had to then wait outside the house all night to make sure no one snuck onto the unsecured property.”
“You had to wait out there all night? What’s on that property that’s so valuable?” Jasmine’s father asks.
“A big ego,” Titanic says, to great laughter from Jasmine’s father, the innocent Minnesotan, and polite laughter from the rest of us—it’s not funny when you know it could happen to you.
I take another healthy dose of Truth. I’m thinking, sitting here with these guys, at this late hour, our entertaining a man who could—in some flip universe—be my own father leaves me fucking parched. I signal for a second drink.
“The gate repairman didn’t get there until ten A.M.,” Titanic says, “and I’m still in my pajamas and then I had to go do the grocery shopping.”
“Wait,” Jasmine’s father says, “you couldn’t even go home to change?”
“No,” Titanic says. With his back to the sconce, his face is in shadow, hiding his blemishes, and he looks handsome, fragile. “I mean, I could, but here’s the thing: I could have hired a security guard to come stand out there all night instead of me, but how long would that take? An hour to find a security company, a couple hours to connect the company with the business manager to arrange payment, a few hours waiting for the poor security sap to arrive at the house, have him sign an NDA, and on and on. And then I can’t skip the grocery because it’s a Tuesday and the chef comes on Tuesday, and if I don’t go to the grocery, there won’t be any fresh lettuce for him to make salads.”
“He can’t pick up some lettuce on his way?” her father asks, kindly, ignorantly.
“Negative,” Titanic says. “Don’t be silly. My boss only eats the organic living butter lettuce from Lassens, and the chef only shops at Whole Foods.”