OK, brain, keep it simple. She wanted to drink less wine and more water. Nina wrote that down, then refilled her wineglass. Baby steps.
She wanted to exercise more. This is easy, she thought; it turns out I have lots of goals. She looked up Couch to 5K plans and printed one out, pinning it to her board. She considered buying new running shoes. Then she found an article that said walking was as good as running and felt good about saving $100 by not buying running shoes.
She wanted to eat more vegetables, so she printed out a picture of broccoli and stuck that up. Why was broccoli the poster child for all vegetables? It must have a good agent or something, because she saw it everywhere. Big giant heads. Little bouncy florets. Kale had given it a run for its money for the last couple of years, but broccoli stayed focused and maintained its brand. Good for it. Nina put a prettier push pin on the picture of broccoli and felt supportive.
She wanted to date the guy from Quizzard.
She drank her wine and considered that. She hadn’t realized it was a goal, per se, until that moment, which proved that mood boards were good for something, haters be damned. Then she searched for “good first date restaurants on the East side of Los Angeles” and printed that out. Then she threw it away and printed out a picture of a baby penguin. Then she added a picture of a baby Russian dwarf hamster sitting in someone’s hand, because it made her go “squee.” Then she spent a full, fat twenty minutes looking at photos of small mammals and baby animals in general, then drifted into videos of soldiers returning from war to their dogs, which made her cry. Then she realized she was vampiring other people’s feelings, and that made her feel bad about herself, and suddenly the whole mood board made her cry and so she went to bed.
Why did she want to go out with that guy, anyway, when she could barely make it through an evening alone? A boyfriend was the last thing she needed. Therapy was what she needed. Therapy and maybe a Boston terrier. Or a French bulldog. One of those ugly yet adorable dogs.
Tomorrow would be better. At the very least, tomorrow would be different.
Eight
In which Nina views other people’s inner animals,
then goes on safari.
The next week passed uneventfully, which is not to understate the high level of energy that normally prevails on Larchmont Boulevard. A third juice bar opened. The hat store had a sale on berets. Rite Aid changed their seasonal display to bunnies and chickies. It wasn’t exactly a never-ending cavalcade of light and motion, but it was change.
However, the high spot was definitely the Author’s Evening at Knight’s, on Saturday night. Author’s Evenings meant setting out a load of chairs, which meant moving bookcases and putting out plastic cups of warm white wine or plates of crackers and sweaty cheese, then standing there ready to sell multiple copies of the author’s books so he or she could sign them. It wasn’t hard, and sometimes the authors were fun, but occasionally Nina wasn’t in the mood, and this was one of those evenings.
It didn’t help that the staff weren’t supposed to drink the wine, but that night Nina was so cranky Liz actually urged her to break her own rule. “You’re being a pill, Nina,” she said. “Have a drink and chill out. This book is fun, the author is hopefully fun, and you’re not a child soldier in Rwanda, so get a grip.”
Liz was right, of course. She had a variety of these comparisons: Aside from the child soldier, Nina had also not been a twelfth-century Catholic martyr, a tribute from a forgettable district in The Hunger Games, Scout’s Halloween ham costume, and the first one voted off the island. You had to stay on your toes with Liz; she could throw any number of references at you, and you had to be ready for them.
Nina tried to pull herself together. She’d been irritable all week. Either her period was coming or she had a brain tumor, and at that moment the tumor felt more appealing, which probably meant it was her period. “OK, you’re right. What’s the book again?”
Liz sighed at her. “Unleash Your Inner Animal by Theodore Edwards.”
“Teddy Edwards? His inner animal is presumably a stuffed bear?”
Liz looked at her employee and narrowed her eyes. “One drink, Nina.”
Theodore Edwards turned out to be the least cuddly-looking Teddy that Nina had ever seen: tall and angular, with a tiny goatee and an actual pair of pince-nez on a long handle. Wait, that might make them lorgnettes—hold on, yes, lorgnettes are the ones with handles. Anyway, he had a pair of those, plus the aforementioned tiny beard, and the overall effect was one of a highly affected praying mantis who was going to peer at you closely before biting your head off and dabbing his chin with a handkerchief. You might not have felt this way about him, but Nina had a rich imagination to compensate for her lack of spending money.
As the crowd started to filter in, Nina noticed that they were mostly older women, and by older she meant fifties and up. She was as biased as the next person, unconsciously or not, and made the assumption that this was going to be a quiet evening. She looked around for Liz, saw her engrossed talking to a customer, and slipped a second cup of wine. Shuddering, because it really was piss poor and warm to boot, Nina dropped the cup in the trash and kept herself busy walking around with the rest of the tray. Everyone helped themselves, and the atmosphere warmed up. People seemed to know one another. There was a lot of hugging and eye widening.
Liz checked her watch, then stepped up to the front of the room, where Theodore Edwards was already perched on a stool, cleaning his antennae. Not really, just joking. His antennae were already clean. Nina found herself wanting to giggle and realized she should have stuck with one glass of wine.
Liz said, “It’s my pleasure to present Theodore Edwards, whose book Unleash Your Inner Animal hit the New York Times bestseller list this week.” Everyone applauded, and Nina took a closer look at the book. It seemed to be a nonfiction, self-help kind of thing. She put it down and paid attention, like she was supposed to.
Theodore cleared his throat. His voice was surprisingly deep and attractive, and made him seem less like a praying mantis and more like a bear or something, dressed as a praying mantis.
“Welcome, fellow animals,” he said. “What a pleasure to see so many of you here, ready to look inward and encourage your secret animal to come out and be free.”
Nina wondered idly if she should have put out a litter tray.
Teddy amped up his delivery. “Civilization has crushed so many of us and driven us away from our place in the natural world. It’s hard to even remember we are mammals, just part of life’s great chain of being, fearful of predators, hungry for our prey, lusting for our fellows.”
Nina looked at Liz. Her eyebrows had contracted slightly, and Nina saw her flip over her copy of the book to read the description, as she herself had. Theodore continued.
“As I had hoped, people are embracing both the book and their inner beasts, and around the country, chapters of humanimals, as I call them, have sprung up to reacquaint themselves with their wilder side.”
Oh God. Nina had a bad feeling about this.
“So, let’s take a moment to greet each other properly, shall we?” And with that, but without any further warning, he tipped back his head and roared like a lion. Liz and Nina froze, their jaws dropping open as the entire room erupted into growls, bellows, and, impressively, convincing whale song.