Dr. Rosenbaum’s practice was located in the converted home office of her three-bedroom apartment on Central Park West. A family member had recommended the psychoanalyst when I expressed interest in “talking to someone,” although I didn’t mention what it was that I was struggling with or why I felt that talking to someone was necessary. Mark and Darian stood next to me outside the brownstone as I rang the buzzer. My heart was racing. I felt scared, as this appointment was the first step towards admitting that there was a problem in the first place, a problem I had recently recognized would not resolving on its own. But alas, there the three of us stood like a small tribe waiting to be teased apart. I said my name into the intercom and waited for the door to unlock. The therapist’s apartment was on the third and top floor. I hit the brass knocker against her painted, black, shiny door and was slightly surprised when a woman well into her seventies opened it from the other side.
“Dottie, please come in. It’s very nice to meet you. I’m Dr. Rosenbaum. My office is right down this way if you’ll follow me.”
Mark, Darian and I followed the old lady as she shuffled in slow motion towards a dim room tucked away on the opposite end of the apartment. The whole ordeal took several minutes. The curtains were drawn, and apple cinnamon potpourri burned in the ceramic burner on her fireplace mantle, which resided on the far wall of her office. Dr. Rosenbaum invited me to take the seat across from her. Mark stood next to the fireplace fidgeting with the objects displayed across the mantle, while Darian sat on the floor behind me with her back against the wall.
“It smells nice in here,” I said, awkwardly.
The old lady immediately began to scribble notes into a notebook as I sat there waiting for my cue to begin speaking. She wrote for the next 15 minutes or so while I took in the room, the wall color – a pleasant shade of nutmeg. I wondered if she had painted it especially for the fall season or if the wall remained that shade during the summer months as well. The paint color seemed like the right choice now that it was fall, of course, but would it seem as pleasant during the spring and summer months, I wondered. Perhaps a lighter shade of peach would do the trick if one didn’t want to paint their walls again in the spring. My eyes wandered back to the old lady when I realized that she had long finished her writing and had been waiting for me to begin speaking. She still hadn’t said anything, so we sat there for another minute looking into each other’s eyes, when I finally decided to ask for some clarification.
“Am I supposed to be talking right now?” I asked.
“If you’d like,” Dr. Rosenbaum replied.
“Well, I don’t really know how this is supposed to work. I’ve never been in therapy before. Are you going to say anything first?” I asked hoping for some guidance.
“Well in psychotherapy, the therapist usually just listens. It could be months before I actually say anything. Years even. This is really a place for you to share your thoughts and feelings.”
My eyebrows furrowed in dismay.
“My thoughts about what?” I practically whispered.
“Your thoughts about your feelings, dear.”
“Well that’s gonna be pointless,” I thought to myself. I barely had any feelings at all. My emotions were so far away. I was empty, not inside myself, simply going through the motions of living. I looked behind me to see if Darian had anything to say, but her eyes were closed as she rested her head against the wall and napped. I turned to Mark and he smiled, giving me a quick raise of the eyebrows, indicating that I was likely permanently fucked. So I just sat there in silence for the rest of the session, staring at the clock on the mantle, praying for our session to finish.
“Well, dear, our time is up,” Dr. Rosenbaum finally said 30 minutes later. “That will be fifty dollars please.”
I nodded yes and reluctantly handed over fifty dollars, apparently a hell of a deal for psychoanalysis in NYC. I stood up, abruptly showing myself out so that I wouldn’t get stuck behind her slow motion shuffle again on the way to her front door.
I was scheduled to go to therapy each Wednesday after classes. The next two sessions were pretty much the same except that I engaged her in some small talk at the beginning of the session, but the chatter was minimal. Most of the session involved the four of us sitting there together in silence. It always surprised me when the old lady accepted my money at the end of the session. Did she feel at all guilty taking it, I wondered? The fact that she seemed so comfortable taking my money each week without doing or saying anything made me feel all the more distrustful towards her. Who does that? “What an asshole,” I thought. I could burn apple cinnamon potpourri at my place and stare at the wall for free. That’s when I decided that our fourth session would be our final session. I wouldn’t tell her this in person, of course. I would just call and leave a message being that she was unlikely to be able to walk over to her phone fast enough before her voicemail picked up. And if she did answer it in time, I could always hang up. It’s not like I owed her anything. I walked into my final therapy session feeling relieved that it would be our last one.
It was when I sat down across from her on that final Wednesday, that I remembered I still hadn’t prepared my life study for acting class the following day. The assignment required students to go beyond the simple, amateur impersonation and take our acting to the “next level” by actually becoming the embodiment of another human being. Each student had five minutes to bring his or her character to life. I had been vaguely considering using my therapist for the project. Perhaps it would help me feel less taken advantage of when handing over the $50 this time. The problem was, she rarely spoke. Ella had been preparing her life study for the past few weeks and had written several minutes-worth of monologue, all of which she had already memorized. The project was due the following day and I had no monologue yet and still wasn’t even sure the therapist was the right choice for the assignment.
As Dr. Rosenbaum scratched endless notes into her notebook (probably her grocery list or perhaps even her own memoir), I took in her physical form and the way she sat in her chair, occasionally looking up at me, waiting for me to say what I would not say to anyone for the next thirty years. I studied her facial expressions as she studied mine. Her lips and eyes. The way her silver hair sat in a loose bun at the top of her head. I noticed how her blouse was tucked into her A-line skirt, exposing the bottom of her legs, which didn’t seem too bad for a woman nearing the end of her life. You could still see the shape of her ankles. Perhaps her ankles would never take on that cylinder appearance that happened to some women as they age. My mother had beautiful ankles when she was younger and would always shiver and shriek when noticing an elderly woman’s “non-existent ankles,” as she called them. “That will never happen to me!” she would say as her face morphed into a repulsed expression. “I’d die before I let that happen to me!” she’d say.
My eyes moved along the therapist’s body one last time as I let her image burn itself into my memory. Once I felt I had her form down it occurred to me that I should hear her speak one more time, even for just a minute or two so that I could master her cadence.
“So, um…I know we never talk, but I was wondering if we could analyze the dream I had last night?” I asked. “Don’t people sometimes try to interpret their dreams in psychoanalysis?”
The therapist put down her pencil.
“Well sometimes, I suppose,” she responded. “I actually don’t spend much of my practice interpreting dreams, but you could certainly tell me about your dream if you’d like,” she replied.
“Okay. Well, I dreamt that I was coming off a subway train,” I started. “I was walking along the path to the stairwell, running my fingers along the green subway tiles that made up the wall. When I got to the stairs, they were blocked off and I couldn’t figure out how to get back outside,” I said.
“How did you feel when you got the stairs and saw that they were blocked off?” she asked.
“I didn’t feel anything. I just recognized that I was trapped,” I said.
“Interesting…” she said, her voice trailing off until I could no longer hear her words. There was just cadence and tempo. Meaningless sounds strung together by a thought put to rhythm. Her voice was airy and light, thoughtful and slow like a lullaby. “Sometimes the things we are feeling in everyday life show up in our dreams like a metaphor. Perhaps you are feeling trapped in your life,” she said as the sounds began to string back together, shaping themselves into words once again. I felt a pang of disappointment. She had missed it. She had missed the main point I tried to express. She hadn’t noticed that I couldn’t feel anything. Mark, sitting on the floor next to me, hid his face in his hand as he laughed loudly, waking Darian up. “Well I was right, psychoanalysis is a useless waste of time,” I thought to myself as I handed her my final, clean, crisp $50 bill.
The next day I sat in my acting class as I watched all of classmates perform their life studies. The performances seemed mostly overacted and pedantic to me. As usual, I watched them all before taking the stage. I have to admit, I was a bit worried that my teacher would be able to tell that I hadn’t prepared all that much by my lack of dialogue. But I made the quick decision to own my performance regardless of the outcome. I moved two folding chairs across from each other in center stage, placed a notebook and pencil on one of the chairs, then walked over to stage left and waited for my cue to begin. I allowed my breathing to change and hunched my shoulders forward. Slowly, I shuffled onto stage and took my seat, staring at the empty seat across from me. I relived the past four Wednesday sessions from the therapist’s perspective during the condensed five minutes for my audience. I was now in my late 70’s, bored, writing my grocery list while looking engaged in a non-verbal conversation, just as she had. I occasionally dropped in the well placed, “m hmm” just to show how intently I was listening to my client. Audience members were laughing. Then I heard my teacher give me the 10-second marker and that’s when I gave my one and only line, “I’m afraid our time is up Dottie. That will be $50 please.” My teacher, a woman in her thirties, gave out a hearty laugh. “5 seconds,” she called out. I filled the final moments with a nod of the head as my hand reached out for my payment. “And…scene,” my teacher said.
“Oh, Dottie,” my teacher began. “You crack me up! That’s exactly what I was looking for with this assignment!” My teacher exclaimed, going on to praise my acting and how acting without dialogue requires a whole other level of skill, which she announced to the class that I possessed. The fact that I had made the non-existent person in the chair opposite me visible to the audience with such minimal dialogue had apparently showed I was not only capable of embodying another human being, but that I was apparently capable of much more than my peers. My teacher indicated that she wanted me to stay after class to talk to me about something as my classmates headed out. “She can’t possibly be falling for this shit,” I thought to myself. “She’s gotta be fucking with me.”
“Dottie, that was really well done!” my teacher continued. “It made my job very easy today, so thank you! I was pretty much expecting the life studies to look how the others did. That’s what you always get with new actors. But the whole point of this lesson is to demonstrate overacting and what that looks like, how it lacks so much. And you just showed everybody that an audience can become even more engaged and lost with less because less is oftentimes more.”
“Thanks,” I replied, somewhat baffled.
“You strike me as someone who was fairly popular in high school, am I right?” my teacher asked out of nowhere.
“Um, I guess so,” I lied. The truth was I had always been rather quiet. As much as I enjoyed performing, I tended to sit and listen when in the company of others.
“I can tell. You have so much confidence for someone your age. And it’s not just in my class, Dottie. Us teachers talk, you know. You’ve created a great reputation for yourself here and I want to keep you challenged and provide you with as many opportunities as I can. And, as it turns out, I’m directing a play off campus and there’s a role I’d like you to audition for if you’re interested. Are you up for a little challenge?”
“Off campus?” I asked. “I thought I wasn’t allowed to participate in anything off campus.”
“Well, that’s true, but I’m directing this show. Actually, it won’t be a full-on production. It’s in a small theater in the village. We’re doing a reading. I’ll tell you now that the character is going to be a stretch for you so if you’re not comfortable with the role, that’s completely fine. I don’t want you to take it unless you’re okay with it, all right?”
I nodded my head yes.
“The character I have in mind for you is a young lesbian. She’s an outsider, struggles with fitting in. She falls in love with an older woman. Still interested?”
I nodded my head yes again. Six weeks later I performed the role in the village. We gave two readings. Then we brought back one of the scenes to AMDA to perform it for both cohorts. The scene we brought back was fully choreographed with costumes and props. The woman playing opposite me was heterosexual in real life. She was an attractive woman in her late 20s and was not affiliated with our school. There was no kissing in the scene, but there was a moment when she and I confessed our feelings to each other and I had to put my hand on her face and press my forehead against hers, needing to express how badly I wanted to kiss her. That’s when the rumors about me started at school, the moment my peers had to watch and provide feedback for that performance. The scene closed, and there was a dead, awkward silence in the room that lasted for a few moments, followed by a flurry of whispering. I could feel both Ella and Leo’s eyes on me as I stood there waiting to hear everyone’s feedback.
The rumors hadn’t bothered me at first. Ella was the first one to directly confront me about them a couple of weeks later.
“I’m having a party tonight, just so you know,” Ella said as she threw a dirty, plastic bowl into the sink after walking past me early one evening.
“You might want to wash the dishes then,” I said back sarcastically.
“Why the fuck don’t you wash them if they’re bothering you so much?” Ella snapped back.
“Because none of them are mine,” I calmly said. And I thought we agreed to no more parties. The last time you had a party, half of my stuff went missing,” I reminded her.
“So, are you gonna file another fucking report with the cops?” Ella asked, getting fired up.
“Yes, I fully intend on doing that if more of my shit gets stolen!” I retorted aggressively.
“Why don’t you just go move in with your fucking girlfriend, Dottie?”
“My what? What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” I asked.
“I should have known not to move in with a fucking towel head. My parents warned me. And now it turns out you’re a fucking lesbian too!”
“Why is it that when people start doing coke, they think it’s okay to call me a fucking towel head? I’m not even Muslim! I was raised Catholic just like you, asshole.”
“That’s why you’re treating Leo like a piece of shit, isn’t it?” Ella said, ignoring my statement. “That woman you did the scene with. It looked pretty real to me.”
“Ella, we’re in acting school…so we act! Get a fucking grip! She’s not even gay,” I said.
“But you are?”
“No,” I said.
“Leo thinks you are,” she said, raising her eyebrows.
“Go fuck yourself! You’re the one with the fucking dyke haircut!” I said, grabbing my army jacket off the chair.
That’s when Ella stormed towards me, grabbing my shoulders and shoving me into the wall.
“Oh, who’s the dyke now?” I said with a pretend scared look on my face and my hands in the air as Ella backed away with a disgusted look on her face. She grabbed her bag and stormed out the door to buy drugs for the party. I proceeded to stash anything of value away in the trunk my father had built for me. I locked the latch that my dad had screwed on in response to the last party after several of my personal belongings had gotten stolen. Living with Ella had become unbearable. Classmates had even speculated that she and I were lovers, which had never been the case. Still, Ella hated me for “tarnishing” her identity in that way. The following month I moved out and into my own place. I shared the “towel head” comment with my parents and that was what finally tipped them in my favor. My parents agreed to help me move into a small studio further uptown. By Christmas break I was living alone and finishing up my last semester at school.
My friendships in NYC by this point had mostly dissolved. Even Leo had stopped talking to me. I was withdrawing further and further into myself. But soon after moving, an acquaintance from the other cohort at school asked me if I wanted to hang out one night. It took me by surprise, as we hadn’t interacted much up to that point. Her name was Shannon. She was pretty and edgy at the same time. Her hair was bleached blonde and her skin was porcelain white. She didn’t seem very affiliated with our peers in school, yet she was still living on campus at the Beacon in a single room with no roommates. I walked into her tiny studio, my mouth slightly ajar, as I took in her space. Everything was pink and black. She had dozens of tubes and jars on every surface. Face creams and lipsticks were scattered across a vanity that she had brought with her to school. There were posters of Marilyn Monroe everywhere, tacked over every square inch of her walls. She was dressed all in black with black lipstick on and was listening to the Cure.
“What is all this stuff?” I asked as I picked up and studied the multiple bottles and tubes on her counter.
“Face masks,” she replied. “Want to try one?”
“What’s it all for?” I asked, reading the label on the back of one of the jars.
“They clean your pores,” she said. “Let’s put one on you.”
“Wow, I don’t know. How do you decide which one you want to use?” I asked, still trying to size her up.
“She walked up beside me and stuck a lit joint in my mouth, then reached over and grabbed a tube off the vanity as I pulled the joint back out of my mouth.
“No, you gotta smoke,” she said. “Masks are more fun when you’re stoned, trust me.” She pulled the joint out of my hand and stuck it back in my mouth as her eyes burned through me. “Here, this one is my favorite. It’s peppermint. Smell it,” she said.
I smelled the tube and then took a hit off the joint as I watched her wash her hands. She seemed to be taking the whole thing very seriously, like she was some kind of skin care professional or something. But the smell of the peppermint was heavenly. I couldn’t deny it.
“Close your eyes,” she said.
I decided to obey and flinched as I felt water getting sprayed on my face. Her gooey fingers began moving in circular motions across my cheeks as she continued to spread the peppermint gel. Then she stopped.
“Now what?” I asked, opening my eyes.
“Now it’s your turn to do me,” she said with a flirty smile.
“Okay.”
We both took another hit and then I applied the same mask to Shannon’s face. But it made her look like a scary clown with the black lipstick on.
“You look fucking weird right now,” I said with the slow depth that comes with being high. We both began laughing.
We took turns washing our faces and then she invited me to sit with her on her bed. Her face looked much prettier without the black lipstick. We talked about school, where we were from, our future plans. Then at some point, I noticed her hand gently massaging my leg.
“What are you doing?” I asked feeling stunned and confused.
“Doesn’t that feel good?” she asked as she continued to caress the inside of my leg with her hand.
“It doesn’t feel like anything,” I said, as I lifted her hand off me, placing it back on the bed. “Are you gay or something?” I asked.
“Aren’t you?” she replied.
“No,” I said, lowering my eyebrows wanting to make myself perfectly clear.
“That’s not what I heard,” she replied.
“Well, what exactly did you hear?” I asked.
“AMDA’s a small place. People talk, that’s all.”
“What exactly are people saying about me?” I asked.
“That you were leading Leo on all last year. That he broke up with his fiancé over you, but you were gay and never told him.”
“Well,” I said while standing up from her bed. “You can just tell everybody that they’ve got it all wrong. I’m not gay. I am attracted to men and only men. I’m just not interested in being in a relationship right now, that’s all. Jesus, why do people always assume that single people are gay?” I asked, frustrated.
I grabbed my army jacket and walked out on Shannon without saying anything else. I never talked to her again. It was a shitty thing to do, but I felt tricked and trapped and I was in complete denial about my own sexuality. I just wanted to be alone, perhaps forever. I walked back to my studio trying to identify what it was that I was feeling or if I was even feeling anything at all. There was this strange sensation inside of me but I wasn’t sure what it was, especially given that there was no emotion attached to it. I got home and Mark and Darian were sleeping on the cold floor. Mark was spooning her as the gun lay beside him. They always slept on the ground next to my futon like that, without any pillows or blankets. I took off my army jacket and draped it across Darian. Then I stuck a Billie Holiday tape into the player and played it softly as I watched them. “I’m not fucking gay,” I thought to myself. “You don’t just become gay out of nowhere. I’ve always liked boys. I have long hair and I have feminine mannerisms. And I’m totally in the mood to bake sugar cookies right now for Christ sake! You don’t get straighter than that!” I thought, as I stood up and opened my fridge. I pulled out the butter. I turned on the oven and began to bake lots of cookies because, motherfucker, there was no way that I was going to turn into a goddamn dyke just because some asshole held me hostage for a night and tried to rape me. I mean, shit, he didn’t even rape me. I got away. Nothing happened. I was totally fine. I was almost totally fine. I was physically fine at the very least.
The enticing smell of cookies baking caused Mark and Darian to flinch and change positions. I froze, not wanting to wake them. I looked down at Darian, at the perpetual bruise under her right eye, which never seemed to get any better. I watched her lying there stuck in that moment from over a year ago. How could she choose Mark over me? Why wouldn’t she come back to me? What if she never did? How could I ever return to normal without her? Would I ever be normal again? Then twenty minutes was up. I pulled the cookies out of the oven and turned it off. The sweet, freshly baked odor filled the room with normalcy. I turned off the lights and crawled into my futon, delving into the batch of freshly baked cookies. Then I turned on the TV and surfed the lonely, late-night entertainment on the small, square box that sat across from my futon on top of an egg crate. Women. They were literally on every station except for the news channels. Women were kissing men everywhere. Lips, breasts, legs. The men were mostly in the shadows of the scenes, as women’s bodies were highlighted, front and center. Men’s fantasies were playing out again and again on every station. I flipped through them curiously as I imagined men taking their pleasure as they watched the same thing. I switched the channel one last time and that’s when I found them. I could hardly believe my eyes. Two women. Two naked women with no men in sight, lost in one another. Lips, breasts, legs. And I was with them, enjoying them as they enjoyed each other. I felt my skin heat up and this strange, unfamiliar sensation building between my legs that wouldn’t go away. I reached down to make it stop. And with that, came my first orgasm. Mother…fucker.
The following Monday after classes, I waked to midtown where Frank Lamari’s commercial photography studio was. Uncle Frank was in the dark room preparing to pour fresh chemicals into small tubs.
“Hey honey, shut the door behind you. I was just about to develop some pictures here. How was your weekend?” he asked.
“Pretty good.”
“Classes were okay today?”
“Yeah,” I replied.
“Just five more months to ago, then you graduate, right?” he asked.
“Yup.”
“Well I’ve got about 50 headshots that need to be developed today. You wanna take over from here?” he asked.
“Yeah. I’ve been looking forward to this all day,” I replied.
“Great. Listen, I’m shooting a commercial here on Thursday. Are you able to assist me with this one? You really helped out at the last shoot.”
“No, I can’t. I have classes on Thursdays.”
“All right, honey. Well, next time. So, listen,” Uncle Frank said, his voice rising with excitement. “Your agent called your mom and dad. Do you know anything about this?” he asked.
“Yeah, Alan said he wanted to talk to them, so I gave him their number, but he won’t tell me what’s going on,” I responded.
“Well, I don’t know for sure, but I think it’s probably something good because he’s invited them to come down to the city for the weekend so that he can take them out to dinner and talk to them. He invited Aunt Tina and me as well, so I’m thinking this is something big.”
“Oh my god, really?” I asked, getting excited.
“Yeah, really!” Uncle Frank replied.
“What could he possibly want to talk to all of you about?”
“I have no idea, but we’ll know soon enough ‘cause it’s coming up in two weeks. Your parents and I spoke last night. They’re gonna stay with us in New Jersey.”
“Can I come to dinner with you guys when you meet with Alan?” I asked
“No, honey. Alan just wants to talk to the four of us about your career. Don’t worry, we’ll tell you everything afterwards. If you want, you can come over for the weekend though and hang out with the girls while we go to dinner. Sound good?”
“Yeah! I’m definitely coming,” I said, shaking my head eagerly.
“Okay, I thought so,” Uncle Frank said, laughing. “So, I gotta run out for a bit. Are you good in here?”
“Yup. My favorite four hours of the week,” I said, smiling at him. I loved him and his family so much. And I loved working in the dark room alone with my thoughts. It truly was my favorite time of the week. It was such a nice break from all the drama in my life.
Two weeks later, my parents came up from Potsdam and picked me up in the city. Then we drove out to the Lamari’s place in New Jersey for the big dinner. Uncle Frank and Aunt Tina drove my parents back into the city while I stayed behind with their two daughters, Tia and Maria. It was an excruciatingly long six hours. It was impossible to think about anything else. What could they possibly be talking about? Why wasn’t I allowed to be there? It was my career after all. When the four of them returned late that evening, I walked up to the front door to greet them. I was dying to find out what Alan wanted to meet with them about. Everyone was beaming except for my mother, who walked past me without even making eye contact. Her hand was covering her mouth and she was holding back tears. But my mother had always been moody, so I didn’t question her reaction at first. Uncle Frank was laughing and Aunt Tina told me how proud she was of me.
“Let’s sit down,” my dad said. “Pat, you need to be here for this,” he called out to her as she walked into the guest room, away from us. “Pat!” he yelled out again.
My mother returned a few moments later and chose to sit on the outskirts of the family room while everyone else huddled around me on the sofa.
“C’mon! Stop making me wait! What’s going on?” I asked.
The girls ran in and sat on the floor in front of us to hear the news as well.
“Did you girls feed Muffin while we were gone?” Uncle Frank asked.
“Just let Rooz talk!” Aunt Tina said as she jabbed Uncle Frank in his side. “Did you feed her though?” she asked the girls.
“Yes!” Tia yelled back. “Oh my God, just tell Darian what happened before we all have a stroke!”
Everyone was laughing except for my mother, who sat there at the edge of the room in her own private hell, a hell that I was still not aware of at the time.
“Frank, do you want to tell her?” my father asked.
“No, you tell her Rooz,” Uncle Frank replied. I took a deep breath and leaned in to hear my dad speak.
“All right. I will tell you then. Your agent,” my dad said as his eyes beamed with pride, “is planning to expand his business and wants to open a place in Los Angeles and he wants to take what he believes are his three actors with the most potential from New York City to live there so that he can represent them and help them break into the movie industry. He will just focus on those three actors beginning this August while his partner runs the agency here in NY.” My father’s voice slowed down as he shared the last bit of news. “You are one of the three actors he wants to take to L.A.” A slow smile spread across his face.
Tia and Maria started screaming as I sat there in shock staring at my dad.
“Aren’t you excited, honey?” Aunt Tina yelled out at me.
I looked at my mom who was still holding back tears. She was doing that thing where she’d shake her head no repeatedly.
“Why aren’t you excited, Mom?” I asked, still unable to react to the news myself.
My mom wouldn’t answer, so Aunt Tina chimed in to fill the awkward silence.
“L.A. is far away, honey. Your mom’s just worried. She doesn’t want you that far. She’s a mother! Whadya expect?” Aunt Tina yelled, her New Jersey accent growing thicker and louder when she got to the mother part.
“Okay, everybody. Let’s let Uncle Rooz and Aunt Pat have some time alone with Darian to talk this out,” Uncle Frank said, as he slapped his lap and stood up. “Girls, bedtime. Let’s give these people some privacy. They’ve got a lot to talk about!”
Uncle Frank patted me on the head before corralling his family out of the room.
“Pat, please come sit here with us,” my dad beckoned.
My mom stood up reluctantly and walked to us.
“Mom, this is really good news for my career. I want to do film and L.A. is where I need to be for that,” I said.
“Darian, there’s so much going on at home right now that you don’t even know about…”my mom started saying but my father cut her off.
“Pat, enough! We are not talking about Potsdam. This is Darian’s night,” he said.
“Well, maybe we should talk about Potsdam!” my mom yelled back at him.
“What are you guys talking about?” I asked.
“Nothing,” my father said. “There is nothing for you to worry about. I want…”
“Is Parisa okay?” I asked, interrupting him.
“No, she’s not!” my mom snapped.
“What happened to her?” I asked, getting worried.
“Pat, there is nothing wrong with Parisa. Why are you making things up now?”
My mom stood up, raising her hand in front of my father’s face.
“I’m going to bed!” she said, refusing to participate in the conversation any longer. She stood up and briskly walked away.
“What’s going on? What’s she so upset about?” I asked my father after she left.
“She doesn’t want you to be that far away from home. This news just put her into one of her moods, that’s all. She’ll be fine. I want you to know that I am very proud of you. Sitting there and listening to Alan talk about you filled me with so much pride that I can’t even…I can’t even explain it. Alan believes you are very talented.”
“What were his exact words?” I asked.
“His exact words were that he has seen your work and he is very impressed! He sees something in you, Darian. He believes in you and seems very confident that you have a strong shot at this. He said that. I want you to know that I will support you no matter what if you decide to go.”
“Of course I’m gonna go!” I replied.
“Then it’s decided! You are moving to LA this August,” my dad said as he stood up. Vedy good. Vedy good! I’ll work on your mother and we’ll let Alan know next week what the plan is. Goodnight sweetheart,” he said as I stood up to hug him.
“Goodnight. Thank you for everything, Dad. I love you,” I said, kissing him on his cheek.
“I love you too, vedy, vedy much.”
Then my father left and headed towards the guest room. I stood up and walked into the kitchen for a glass of water. As I put the empty glass up against the fridge’s water dispenser, Mark surprised me from out of nowhere, shaking my shoulders as he congratulated me.
“Looks like we’re going to L.A. gang! Nicely done!” Mark exclaimed. Darian remained on the other side of the kitchen island from us.
“We aren’t going anywhere!” I replied, correcting him. “You’re staying in New York,” I said, pointing directly at him.
“No me, no Darian,” Mark said, raising his hands and shrugging his shoulders. “C’mon! You should know the drill by now. Darian’s with me,” Mark added, popping his gum as he spoke.
I turned to Darian and said, “That’s her choice. If she wants to stay here with you, she stays. It’s not like I really need her anymore anyway. I’m doing fine on my own.” Then I lifted my glass of water at them and added, “I’ve got everybody fooled now. I apparently don’t even need to be a total human capable of experiencing authentic emotions to be able to make it in this business. Cheers!”
Darian had tears in her eyes but I didn’t really care all that much in the moment. I mean, why the hell would I allow her to keep haunting me if I didn’t even really need her? Psychoanalysis hadn’t worked, so what was the use of continuing to try to get better? Everyone seemed to think I was this incredibly talented actress who was so completely in touch with her emotions. Why even try to get better? Why bother trying to convince Darian to return to me if I didn’t need her for anything? I could just cut her loose permanently. If she wanted to come to L.A. with me, she’d have to get her shit together and sever her ties with Mark. In the meantime, I was finished with their drama.
October was finally coming to an end. I had been crossing the days off my calendar since going to the Museum of Natural Art and History back in June and the day had finally arrived! Jane Goodall’s book signing was at 4pm later that day. I woke up that morning feeling refreshed, looking forward to spending the entire day by myself. I had it all planned out. I would take a walk to the West Village, as I typically did on my days off, to hang out at my favorite coffee spot. Afterwards, I’d walk around and hit some good bookstores until early afternoon, maybe buy another book about Jane Goodall, and then head back uptown to get to the museum a little early so that I’d have time to walk through before finally meeting her. I had been so intrigued by her work since learning about her earlier that year. I was reading anything about her that I could get my hands on. I was fascinated by her rise to fame and how different she looked from other well-known women, how different she looked from women in the entertainment industry. Yet, I still found her beautiful, more beautiful even. Her type of beauty mystified me. It was a beauty that began in her eyes and seemed to resonate throughout her entire being. It had a depth to it that so clearly surpassed the feminine beauty that surrounded me each day splattered on billboards and storefronts as I walked through the city.
I popped my Joni Mitchell “Clouds” tape into my Walkman, threw on my Chucks and army jacket, and headed out into the cool, crisp fall day somehow knowing that it would leave an everlasting impression on me. I walked in time to the song “Chelsea Morning” down Broadway all the way to the village. By 3pm I was already back on Broadway and 81st street, thinking I would have plenty of time to get to the museum by 4:00. I stopped home quickly to freshen up and then ran the few blocks over to the museum. However, when I turned the corner, I saw that there was already a line of people wrapped around the entire block waiting to meet Jane, most of them with her most recent book in hand. My heart sank when it occurred to me that I had forgotten to bring her book with me to the signing. I suppose I’ve never really been a fan of autographs. I always found them to be a silly way to fill a potentially awkward silence. Why ask for an autograph when you could, instead, look directly into another person’s eyes, learn about their life, and make an actual connection with them? Still, I felt badly for not having her book with me to prove how much I adored her.
People seemed to stop adding themselves to the long line shortly after I took my place in it. I suppose all the die-hard fans had gotten there much earlier than me. There were only two or so couples after me committed to waiting the long hour and a half that it would take to finally meet her. I decided as I stood waiting, that I’d ask her about college and about what I could potentially major in. The sky was darkening and the temperature continued to drop by the time I found myself approaching Jane and the man who was seated next to her at the table outside the museum. Jane and the man sat in folding chairs. They both seemed to be engaging in the conversations with fans, although I had no idea who the man was, her agent, her friend, a representative from the museum. I decided to mostly ignore him as soon as I approached their table. Jane’s eyes were so kind. It nearly takes my breath away to recall them now. I walked to her with a smile swept across my face and found it funny that she had decided to introduce herself to me, as if I didn’t already know who she was.
“Well hello there, I’m Jane. It’s a pleasure to meet you. What is your name, dear?”
“Hi, I’m Dottie. It’s nice to meet you,” I replied.
I tried to get a better look at her entire form as I stood across from her, to take her all in, but she had already put on a cardigan over her plaid, button down shirt that was nearly buttoned to the top. “All these people in line to talk to a woman who isn’t even showing us her breasts,” I thought to myself. What a wonder she was.
“Dear, do you have a parent with you? You look much too young to be out here all by yourself this late,” Jane practically sang to me in that sweet way that she talks. It’s an all-encompassing maternal sound, like she is mother to the entire planet.
“Oh, no I’m fine. I’m older than I look. I actually live by myself,” I replied with a small chuckle.
“Well you don’t look a day older than twelve. I suppose that will be nice for you once you get to my age,” she said laughing. “Do you go to school?”
I felt too embarrassed to admit that I was a model and going to school for acting.
“Well, I’m thinking about going to college,” I offered. “I’d really like to go at some point.”
“What are you interested in studying?” she asked.
“I’d like to study people actually, not that I don’t find animals interesting but I’m just more interested in people,” I said, terrified that I had offended both her and her research all in one shot.
“Well, animals and humans have much more in common than most people even realize,” she replied warmly, giving a quick smile to the man seated next to her.
“You might want to major in Psychology. Psychoanalysts make a good living,” the man said directly to me, almost cheerily, just as Jane was about to say something. He continued talking over Jane as he made his point. When I think back on this conversation, on how this particular part unfolded, it slows down for me, like I’m remembering it in slow motion. A common dynamic had presented itself to me for the first time, and I have always thought back on this moment when the dynamic has re-emerged around me in subsequent years. Jane’s eyes descended as her eyelids shut and her chin dropped while a small, fragile smile grew on her mouth. Jane’s smile, however, was not communicating joy, but rather sorrow, embarrassment, and lifelong frustration simultaneously. The unfamiliar expression only lasted a second or two, but I had caught it, nonetheless. She had communicated so much to me in those two seconds. “Men have interrupted her so many times before,” I thought to myself.
To be honest, I had never seen that type of interaction unfold between a man and woman yet. If anything, it had been the complete opposite in my household. My mother was typically the one butting into a conversation, throwing out loud, uninvited opinions, talking over my father any chance she could. Whenever I would ask her why she always felt the need to do this she would blame it on being the only daughter. “You try growing up in a house with three brothers,” she’d say.
But I didn’t break eye contact with Jane as the man continued to talk over her. I could tell that she had noticed I was not interested in hearing him. The the man caught himself and stopped, allowing Jane to finally continue her thought, “I actually prefer anthropology, cultural anthropology,” she continued, “over psychology or psychoanalysis. I just somehow find it more interesting. You see, with anthropology you still get to study people, but it’s inclusive and it’s looking at group behavior rather than at just the individual,” she said. “It’s less about diagnosing and more about understanding and respecting all of humanity.” Then the man cleared his throat and quietly added, “we still have a few more people waiting, Jane.”
“Yes, I’d take a look at that if I were you,” Jane continued, nodding her head at me with reassurance. “It was so nice to meet you, Dottie. And thank you so much for being so patient and waiting such a long time in line today just to meet me,” she said with a little laugh, extending her hand toward me to shake mine.
“Thank you! I’m so glad I did,” I said with emphasis, in disbelief that she would even think to thank me at all.
“But that must just be who she is as a person,” I thought to myself later that evening. “Inclusive, grateful, maternal, brilliant and majestic all at once.” And in being all of those things, she had somehow managed to make me feel like the special one that night. Cultural anthropology. I had only seen that phrase in the museum, typed up on an informational pamphlet, but was unaware that you could actually major in that in college. What fantastic news that was! I could major in my “favorite place in the city,” which is exactly what I would eventually go on to do. What I hadn’t realized that evening, however, was that I would actually be choosing to do that instead of moving to Los Angeles.