The New Me Read online

  “Yeah, I’m not really sure what she’s up to, but . . .”

  The guy is not handsome, but I still want his attention. I want someone’s attention. No one is looking at me. I rock on my heels. I almost whistle. To pass the time, I critique the decor. I think they have too many DVDs.

  The guy looks over Sarah’s shoulder and says “Uh-huh” while Sarah lists facts about their mutual friend who now lives in LA. He’s bored. She’s boring. I feel bored, and then I feel annoyed, and I wonder why no one ever wants to talk to me, because I’m a great conversationalist, it just takes me a minute to get into it. But once I get into it, I really roll, and things are really great. I remember a lot of times that I’ve been downright charming. I also remember a few times I’ve been abruptly aggressive, sure, but it’s unhealthy to dwell on the past.

  He’s shifting on his feet. We’re losing him. Someone has to intervene, and it has to be me. If nobody puts a stop to this, Sarah could keep going for hours, telling us, in different ways, over and over, that Kelly (whoever that is) has a job now in California.

  Sarah pauses to breathe, and I take my opportunity. I hold out my hand.

  “Hey, I’m Millie.”

  “Oh, hey, I’m [whatever].”

  “How’s it going?”

  I’m starting from scratch, and I can tell Sarah is a little taken aback, but I truly doubt, in all honesty, that she can really be that taken aback because it’s not like this was some kind of deep, interesting conversation I’ve just interrupted, and it was rude of her not to introduce me in the first place.

  Sarah gives me a dirty look, too dirty for the offense.

  There always seems to be this unspoken idea that if I start talking, something bad is going to happen. Like I’m going to take something too far or say something mean or weird. But the things I say are completely normal for the most part, and I think everyone is blowing everything out of proportion, like when my parents, on silent drives home from family functions, would critique my innocuous nine-year-old barbs, or when my dorm roommate took me aside and told me I needed to apologize for embarrassing our friend with some blithe comment, or when people’s faces go cold when I talk when I’m in a good mood, or when James said “Wow, you really go for the jugular” just because I maybe got a little fed up with his friend Emily, the grad student, who always treated me like I was stupid, and one night, yes, a few drinks in, I laughed when she said “utilize” and she said “what?” and I said “just utilize, it’s a meaningless word” and then she tried to tell me that it “communicated” something different from the word “use” and the way she looked at me, chuckling, glancing over at James like “oh, how sweet, it tried to talk,” made me so mad that I might have said, maybe, something along the lines of “yeah, it communicates something, it’s a real first-gen-college-grad kind of word, like your parents are small-town conservative Christians who didn’t have any books in the house, and you’re self-conscious about your upbringing so you want to stand out by using elitist intellectual language, but you don’t actually know any long words, so you just truss up the word ‘use’ for no fucking reason other than to try to make people feel like you’re the one with the big mental dick, even though ‘utilize’ is basically just administrative jargon and completely déclassé to them that knows.”

  All the heel nipping, all the corrections, all the hand-wringing when I open my mouth like something bad is going to happen, but honestly I can be very charming when the situation is right. I’ve only acted out a few times, and everyone makes mistakes.

  On the walk home from that party, James told me that Emily’s family was poor—hesitated to say “uneducated,” but got it out eventually. “It was kind of fucked up what you said.” “Well, I wasn’t wrong, then,” I said, humiliated by my impulse to humiliate. “No, you were really wrong. That was really wrong.”

  But I’m not at that party, I’m at this party, so I look up and say, “How was your day?” You see, it’s charming, because it’s something you would ask a boyfriend or close friend or a roommate or your child, but he and I don’t know each other, so the contrast points to the general situation of us being strangers.

  “I’m gonna get a beer,” says Sarah, and fine, she should, she looks like she needs one. I try the thing that the hostess did and I smile, making sure my teeth are showing, and laugh a little bit and say, “Oh, could you get me one too?” because that would be what I would say if I were comfortable in the situation and comfortable with our friendship, which of course, haha, I am.

  “Oh, uhh, my day was pretty good,” he says. “Pretty normal.”

  “What does that look like for you?” I ask, as if wearing a ball gown, host of the party myself. “A normal day?”

  “Went to work, got home, ate, came here.”

  “Pretty normal,” I say, because sometimes it’s correct to repeat what you’ve heard. “Same here, I guess,” I say, really making an effort but wondering how soon Sarah will be back. “Where do you work?” I ask, putting my money where my mouth is.

  “Downtown,” he says, which I find surprising because he’s dressed like a complete slob and has stray blond neck hairs jutting out in all directions, in small tufts, like he dry shaved five days ago with a single-blade disposable razor, eyes closed, distracted by how much he must love himself.

  “Oh, cool, me too,” I say, which is followed by a frightful pause, so I parry. “Or maybe it’s not cool. I don’t like my downtown job very much.” I smile again. Maybe this is something we have in common.

  “No, it’s fine,” he says.

  I can feel Sarah approach me from behind and I almost shout, “Well, so do you like movies?” wondering what his fucking problem is.

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “You like James Dean movies?” I say.

  “I don’t know,” he says.

  “On the Waterfront,” I say.

  “Sure,” he says.

  “What’s the last movie you saw?” It’s like sucking on a rock and pretending it’s candy, talking to this guy.

  “I don’t actually watch movies that much,” he says, nodding at Sarah.

  “Oh, okay, cool,” I say. “That’s fine. That’s your right.”

  Feigning enthusiasm about something and getting shot down. Looping memories keeping me out of the moment. He walks away.

  Sarah slaps herself on the face to mean let’s have a cigarette. I nod and follow her to the enclosed porch off the kitchen where people are smoking in their coats.

  * * *

  • • •

  If people would just give an inch, I think they would realize that there’s conversation to be had here. If there was just some general good cheer directed my way, I could do very well, but maybe everyone was right and I am unfit to go out in public. I cringe when I think about Emily, even though it was so long ago.

  Wow, looks like it’s time for someone to go home. Fuck you in the end.

  All of my memories like salt on a slug.

  Sarah and I stay on the enclosed porch with the other people who are too uncomfortable to be inside the party. A small, outside party for the smokers.

  After a few more drinks I try to talk to some bored-looking girl about cults, and how the impulses of the cult members might be relatable, if we adjust our perspective. I try to make it an abstract conversation so she can participate. All she wants to do is list the names of different cults she’s heard of. She doesn’t agree with what I’m saying and leaves after not too long.

  I end up sitting on the ground, alone, with my legs out so that people have to step over me. I can hear Sarah talking to someone else. They seem to be arguing. I can’t tell about what. She’s explaining some article, but she sounds mad. I can hear her voice going on and on and on.

  I close my eyes and say, “Oh blah blah blah blah blah.”

  I can hear Sarah say, “Just ignore her, she’s fi
ne.”

  Time, I guess, passes.

  * * *

  • • •

  I don’t remember getting home. I don’t remember taking my clothes off. When I wake up I don’t remember much at all at first. Just that it feels so fucking familiar. I feel completely dry and cracked, my lips standing off my face, rough. Inside of my mouth stuck together, throat swollen, eyes dry, face crunchy, hair crunchy, muscles dry, skin dry, brain dry, and I can’t move. I lie in bed awake, unable to move, for an amount of time I can’t even really understand. The silence in my apartment is deafening, and my reasons for getting out of bed are absent.

  If I hadn’t gone out last night, I could have woken up this morning and gone to the museum, the movies, the store, looked at job postings, found a yoga class, called my mother, adopted a cat, looked at my old yearbooks, put on a record, cleaned my apartment.

  But what would have been the point, I would be alone no matter what. The volume of last night, the volume of people, the beer, the volume of the sound of my own voice spilling out of me, the feeling of my own voice in my throat, nothing accomplished, the sheer volume of everything I was unable to accomplish last night covering me, a dome, a crate, a cloud, a blanket.

  Better to be inside, better to be sick like I am now than to be out not accomplishing what I thought I might accomplish.

  Bitter, my whole body, my whole insides, everything about me that my body makes but that isn’t of my body—thoughts feelings personality—bitter for having to live in my shitty body, and my body dittoing the sentiment back to its master.

  Better to be inside forever.

  Each breath is a punishment. I want to stand, walk smoothly to my window, open it wide, feel the chill, feel the winter, feel the wind, and then the sidewalk.

  What’s inside me struggles for a minute, some kind of tension pushing at the walls of my body, and then it recedes. I lift up, flop back down. My headache comes back quickly, the dry feeling of my body comes back quickly. Good to be sick, good to be alone, good that it’s cold, good to stay inside, good that no one needs anything from me. Good to be me, good to be me!

  Eventually, I stand and make it to the kitchen. I can’t drink water because the water isn’t sweet enough. Imagining the taste of the water like imagining a mouthful of mercury. I look for something in the fridge and find a six-month-old bottle of tonic water that Sarah brought over and that I put back, drunk, without the cap on. I take it out of the fridge and drink it. It’s cold, it’s sweet, it washes my mouth and throat, and it’s not until I’ve finished the bottle that I realize how horrible it tastes, my tongue seizing vomit-like, candy coated.

  This is, in some ways, the most normal I ever feel. I’m nude and I’m freezing. I turn up the heat, tiny trash sticking to the bottoms of my feet. I go to the shower, almost crawling, willing myself not to throw up. I get in the shower and feel my body getting wet. I imagine my skin as a sponge. I spend time ripping the tangled knots out of my hair, hands covered in conditioner, knees weak, unwilling to reflect on last night and on the sum of my inadequacies. I wash my body three times and brush my teeth in the shower. I try to floss but I can’t open my mouth wide enough. The muscles in my jaw are dry, inflexible.

  In the bedroom, I put on a sweat suit I’ve had since high school, take the sheets off my bed, pick clothes up from the floor, dirty or clean doesn’t matter, put them all in the hamper, put clean sheets on the bed, pause to retch and weep, gather all of the pillows and blankets from the rest of my apartment, get my computer, cocoon myself, watch TV. I order a pizza. I drift in and out of consciousness, letting their reality be my reality, eat the pizza, fall asleep with the TV on, wake up with the TV on, in and out, in and out, alone and lonely like I like it.

  Doing all of this intentionally, of course.

  Intentionally grafting the imaginary lives of imaginary prime-time soap opera characters, hard workers in their jobs at the FBI or in a hospital, working half in the office half in the field, getting it done, wide webs of people, personal and professional overlapping seamlessly.

  They never watch TV, they never check their email without event, they always worry about something real, always have a problem that needs to be, and can be, solved. I steep myself in it. They are me, I am them. Their faces crinkle and weep and so does mine.

  I remember having dark, hungover days like this when I was living with James. I remember I would sit next to him on the couch, too close, and ask him to tell me everything would be okay. It was something he couldn’t or wouldn’t do, and I would end up begging him to tell me things would be okay, repeating myself over and over.

  “Is everything going to be okay?”

  “I just don’t know what you mean.”

  “Yeah, but is it going to be okay?”

  “Is what going to be okay?”

  I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know. And I would repeat myself until he’d cave, and for days I’d hear the echo of his mocking cartoonish sympathy (“Everything’s fine”) and feel him patting me on the head, reluctantly, like I was a crusty dog.

  Sometimes, I would walk up to him and squeeze his arm, angry that he wasn’t making me feel loved. I would feed him lines. “Tell me you love me.” “Why do you like me?” etc. Neither of us liked it. He probably liked it less than I did.

  I was embarrassed to be me and needed someone to reassure me that I had good qualities, to reassure me that I was just overreacting or having a bad day.

  Or, at least, that’s my take on things now.

  It wasn’t anything like what I see here on the screen, in these shows about jobs, where when someone breaks down enough to ask for sympathy, all the cast gathers ’round—afraid to insult the hero’s pride by giving help, but giving it nonetheless.

  You can’t ask someone to help you without letting them know you’re different than advertised, that you’ve been thinking and feeling strange things this whole time. That you’re uglier, weaker, more annoying, more basic, less interesting than promised. Without letting on that your feelings are easily hurt, and that you are boring, just like everyone else. Once you expose yourself as insecure, it’s easy to feel resentment if you’re not immediately put back at ease. If there’s even a flicker, a tiny recognition of your bad qualities, the resentment kicks in, the deal is broken, and suddenly you’re both angry strangers, spending hours alone in a room together and completely unsure of why.

  But who cares anymore anyway, it’s always better to be alone, better this way, better to be able to be yourself with yourself, openly awful. Who cares? Nobody.

  chapter 12

  The next morning, a Sunday, Monday on the horizon, I soothe myself by cleaning my apartment. All the dust gone, all the trash out and forgotten, all the clothes folded or hidden, ready for company, even if it’s just me, even if I’m the only company.

  Two days completely inside, swallowed up, the idea of days being wasted laughable, but still the feeling of being pulled navel-first through an atmosphere, each point more frightening because of its similarity to the last point, yet getting harder, grimmer, darker, stiffer, traces of the last bad day, the last bad experience, clinging to me, stuck to me, all my past experiences a collected grime I look through.

  Even though my apartment is clean, something isn’t right. I still have all of this stupid shit.

  I go to my closet, pick a few sweaters, and throw them in the trash. I turn on Forensic Files, look around for some food, and try to feel a sense of accomplishment.

  The sky gets dark early, and I welcome the coming days. Welcome the curling of my spine.

  * * *

  • • •

  Karen has a brief thought about timing, the hot iron and the rolling ball. The fortunes given to the bold. She decides to send a cursory email to the temp agency regarding Millie’s performance. Partly to test the waters, and partly to start what might be a longer conversation. She has a
few, vague plans.

  chapter 13

  Back in the office again. I shred the last of the documents and feel completely unaware of what to do next.

  Karen approaches my desk, gives me another stack of papers, and says, “Don’t let these sit too long, they’re sensitive.”

  “Sure,” I say. “I’ll do them right now.”

  I look down, and there are some financials. Karen smiles at me, tight, and leaves quickly. I shred a few of the papers, and out of the corner of my eye, I see my email change.

  A bold line appears at the top of the list.

  I get the lizard thrill, some part of me that still lives, hoping it’s good news, news from home, a kind note, a joke, a message of love, an olive branch, some excitement, some change.

  The feeling is brief and mixed with another expectation—junk mail, bills due, newsletter, something from my landlord, the state of my apartment, credit score, debtors prison, scolding, neighbor complaints, someone from my past reminding me that I did something wrong.

  I shred a few more papers, hoping to draw out my confusion, my excitement, the possibilities and the mystery, knowing deep inside that it will be something about Thank You Points, shelving units from the Container Store, Mint letting me know I’ve spent money.

  I turn back to my computer and see that the email is from the temp agency, my representative, Julia. The subject line is “update,” no question mark, like she has an update for me. I clam up, I almost seize. Should I open it now, or should I excuse myself to open it in the hall on my phone? Should I wait until lunch? Is it weird to open it now, sitting here, to get a live update on what is happening to me right now?

  No one is looking, and I open it. I wonder what Karen already knows, what the other women in the office already know, about me and my position. I try to be in the moment, but I’m racking my brain for signs (Karen seemed mad, Karen just gave me more work, I am horrible, I am competent).