“Well, I think the story was a bit unsuccessful,” she said, and flipped to the next article.
I knew then I had to find a new job. I had assumed that working at a woman’s magazine would be more fun, that the real, live women working there would understand how trivial most of the topics we covered—celebrities, hair, sex, shoes, celebrities with hair having sex with shoes—were in the grand scheme of the Universe. But they didn’t. They took every aspect of the job incredibly seriously, as they should have. The women I worked with were smart. Really smart. I thought the overall vibe would be a little more “Wink-wink, nudge-nudge. We’re all just here to pay our rent, so let’s write silly stories about orgasms and lipstick.” But they were too professional for that.
I learned what I always knew, that entertainment is a big business, the end goal of which is to make money. And when money’s involved, people can be less fun than you’d hope.
On the bus that evening, on my way home from work, I sat a row behind and across from a woman who was flipping through the newest issue of Marie Claire. She was in her midtwenties, black, with natural hair held back from her face with a headband. She opened “What Makes Me Different Makes Me Beautiful,” and stopped. Watching her read every word of that piece, I wanted so much to tap her on the shoulder and say, “I produced that! The story you’re reading—that was my idea!” But I didn’t. When she finished that article, she moved on to the next. I’ll never know if it so much as crossed her mind ever again.
*
Jennifer stopped by my apartment in Tribeca on a recent spring evening to see my new wallpaper: black-and-white flowers the size of dinner plates that serve as a background for huge Technicolor butterflies.
“It looks like something in a magazine,” she said. “A very, very gay magazine.”
“That’s the look I was going for, something ripped from the pages of Fancy Fag, the magazine for the highfalutin homo.”
“I love it.”
“Thanks. Me too.”
Jen lives in a beautiful, tasteful apartment on the Upper West Side now. She’s still beautiful and charming as ever. Sometimes, when our husbands are out of town, we’ll get together and gab about the old days. We’ll also get together with our husbands, but they’ve both heard the stories of our twenties too many times to find them the slightest bit interesting. They never ask us to stop the reminiscing, however. Their eyes just glaze over politely.
I opened a bottle of Sancerre from the refrigerator and poured us two glasses.
Jen had taken a seat in the hot-pink round swivel chair. One foot was tucked under her, the other was rocking her back and forth. “Can you believe it’s nine o’clock and I’m already tired? Remember how we would stay up until three a.m., coming up with ideas for TV shows?”
“I do,” I said, handing her a glass. “The only time I see three a.m. now is when I have to get up to pee for the second time. How ridiculous it all seems now.”
“What do you mean?” she asked. “Ridiculous how?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“I don’t think it was ridiculous at all.” She was very earnest all of a sudden. “We were being creative. We were having fun. Do you really think we were ridiculous?”
I didn’t know how to answer her question. When I look back at my late twenties, my life does seem a little ridiculous. All the time I spent worrying about which designer sweater to wear, who to sleep with because they were more attractive than me, who not to sleep with because they weren’t, which bar to be seen in, which bar was dead, which music to listen to. It seems like a huge waste of mental energy. I could have been doing something important, I tell myself, sometimes. But what difference does it make? The past is . . . dead. Most of those bars no longer exist, the men I slept with are old and gray, the sweaters I wore lie decomposing in a landfill. I am here now, happily in my present, with a foot in the future.
“We weren’t ridiculous at all,” I said.
“Good,” Jen said. “I didn’t think so. Do you mind putting on the AC? It’s a little hot in here.”
“I’ll open a window,” I said and got up from my spot on the sofa. As I lifted the sash I noticed that a recent rainstorm had left streaks on the outside of the glass. I made a mental note to have them cleaned the next day.
AUDITIONS, THE UNIVERSE, AND OTHER WHATNOT
My dearest Fanny,
I’ve been meaning to write you this letter for quite some time. I apologize for the delay, but in my own defense, I didn’t know how to get in touch with you. It’s difficult to determine the address of a person whose name is an utter mystery! I hope you don’t mind I’ve decided to call you Fanny, as you were such a fan of What Not to Wear. The play on words amuses me, but perhaps even more enjoyable are the memories it evokes of Fannie Flagg flaunting her immeasurable wit and charm on Match Game.
I won’t assume you are a fan of mine, mostly because I can’t bear the thought of having “fans.” Seems a tad adolescent, n’est-ce pas? But I do feel comfortable calling you a fan of the show and what it represented. If you happen to like me as a person, or what you may know of me as a television personality, I consider myself honored. I hope that one day we can meet in person so I can look you in the eyes and tell you that I appreciate all you’ve done for me. I will not call you Fanny at that point in time—unless Fanny is your actual name. Wouldn’t that be something special.
So, about What Not To Wear, the show that changed the course of my life and the lives of so many others. My feelings are so . . . complicated, I barely know where to begin, and so I will begin before the beginning. Do you believe in Destiny, Fanny? I’m not sure I do, to be honest. She seems like a concept used to explain the acquisition of power by powerful people. “It was his destiny to become the King.” And what about Fate? How do you feel about her? Is Fate just the sad sister of Destiny? “It was his fate to die alone and penniless.” It seems to me like bad luck and poor choices determine one’s fate, whereas good luck and deliberate choices result in one’s destiny.