My Beautiful Failure (13 page)

They were like drowning people who said to the lifeguard, You can put me down now, here’s five dollars
for your trouble, and once we’re back on shore, we don’t know each other.

And that tall chair you sit in, doesn’t it lift you a bit too much above the others?

I
was alone in the teen room, sitting in Margaret’s spot. Margaret and Richie had stepped out to record voice-overs for a fund-raiser. A lot of rich people, including friends of Pep’s dad, would be coming to the Hawthorne Plaza Hotel to eat tiny quiches and drink mojitos. Once they were slightly buzzed and settled at their tables, the lights would go out, and they would hear two voices, a Listener and an Incoming, talking to each other in the dark. The recordings would be really dramatic, Pep had said. A wallet opener. She needed Margaret and Richie for about twenty minutes of script reading.

Line 1 rang.

“Listeners. Can I help you?”

It’s me.

Oh, man, it was her. She was okay, and she sounded happy.

“Jenney! Where’ve you been? I got worried when I didn’t hear from you.”

I’m sorry. I called a bunch of times, but I always got someone else, so I hung up. I wish there was some way I could get you directly.

“Me too.” I shouldn’t have said that.

I have great news!

“What is it?”

I got a job. My friend Stacey is working part time for a catering company. They do clambakes and corporate parties. The woman who owns it used to run that breakfast place The Incredible Egg. They’re really busy right now and needed someone who
isn’t
in school, so they hired me.

“That’s incredible. Stacey sounds like a good friend.”

Yeah. We hadn’t been hanging out that much lately. She says she still wants to be friends but she can’t deal with me on the really down days. She says I sometimes seem like another person. I told her things would be getting better soon, that I would be more myself.

“Seems like things
are
getting better for you. You found a job. You’re amazing.”

Ta-da. But wait! There’s more.

“Tell me.”

Next step is to enroll at the community college. I’m going over there on my lunch break tomorrow to see how many credits I can earn that I could carry to a four-year school. Just to get the ball rolling.

“I’m in awe.”

It’s not St. Angus’s. It’s not even Hawthorne State. But they have open enrollment, so if I can work around the hours of the new job, I could start in January. I guess that was all I wanted to say. I should go to bed now. I have to get up early to
work a breakfast meeting. I’m feeling a little wired. I’m going to take a couple of Ambien.

“Don’t go yet. Let’s talk for a few more minutes.”

Okay. But just a few.

“Do you know you’re my favorite caller?”

I think that’s really nice. So you don’t mind the fact that I’m so messed up?

“I don’t look at it that way. I think people who’ve been through weird stuff are actually stronger than people who haven’t been through weird stuff.”

Good. Because I think my weird stuff makes me strong too.

I picked up Margaret’s pen and added a heart to her doodle pad. Drawing on her paper felt weird, like wearing someone else’s underwear or using their deodorant.

Hey, you sound kind of subdued or something. Not my usual Hallmark. Is something bugging you?

“Me? No. Well, kind of, but I’m not here to burden you with my problems.”

Go ahead.

“No, really. I should only be listening to you.”

You disrespect me by saying that.

“How?”

You’re telling me I can only accept help and never give it.

She was right. I was disrespecting her. She was one of the strongest people I knew, and I was treating her like she was weak.

“That wasn’t meant to be personal. I . . . okay.” I flipped over Margaret’s doodle pad to the blank cardboard. “I’m really worried about my dad.”

What’s going on with him?

“I think he suffers from . . . Excessive Joy Syndrome.”

Be serious, Billy. I can handle it.

I whipped around to see if Margaret and Richie had returned from the taping yet. The coast was clear.

“I’ll keep it short. He’s taken on a huge, impossible project, and I’m worried that he might be getting manic.”

What is the project?

“An art show. He’s doing all these paintings
plus
investing his entire self-worth in it
plus
spending tons of money on art supplies, and doing it all too fast.”

I can see why you’d be upset. Poor Hallmark. You’re such a caring person.

“Do you know what I mean by manic?”

Yep. Like bipolar. Not just good days/bad days like I have. More like ecstatic days and end-it-all days.

“My dad was seriously depressed last year and it got really scary. He’s my reason for working at Listeners.”

Margaret and Richie came back, each holding a flash drive, their faces red from laughing. Margaret told Richie he could get an Oscar for his performance as an Incoming. Richie said it was a hoot to wear the shoe on the other foot. Richie sat down at 2, and Margaret at 3. When I was finished with Jenney, we would reshuffle.

“Jenney, are you feeling suicidal?”

No, Hallmark. Do you believe in soul mates?

“That’s a good question. Do you?”

I do. Like kindred spirits. People who have the same outlooks and values.

“What does that mean to you, Jenney?”

Now that you told me about your dad, I like you more than ever.

The line disconnected.

C
all 36 was a girl whose boyfriend kept trying to break up with her.

I told him I didn’t accept it.

She had a snooty, entitled voice.

“You can do that?” I asked her.

Sure. I told him, “Try again next week.”

I wanted to say I admired her gumption or chutzpah, but since I had never used either before, the word came out “gumpchah.”

My what?

Call 39 was someone who had a virus that threw off his sleep cycle so that he slept all day and was awake at night.

My whole life is upside down. What do you think I’m eating right now, at nearly nine o’clock at night?

“I have no idea.”

Guess.

“I’d like to, but I can’t.”

I am eating Raisin Bran.

By 8:58 I had taken forty calls in a single shift, and Margaret placed a paper crown with the number 40 on my head.

Richie said the occasion called for a snack. We had Mallomars and white grape juice, with seconds and thirds, in perpetuity.

A
t the end of the shift Richie and I learned that Vince, a college student who’d covered the nine-to-midnight singlehanded several nights a week, flunked out and moved back home to Rhode Island. His parents went ballistic, and Vince was so distraught, he had started calling Listeners from his childhood bedroom in his parents’ house, using our 800 number. Vince called Margaret tonight, in fact. He said he didn’t understand what happened, that it was unfair, and that he was thinking of suing the college. She felt sorry for Vince and didn’t want to question his reality, but I couldn’t help wondering about his judgment and how good a Listener he had been over the past year.

Margaret and Richie left, and I put my phone on hold. Already a light flashed on line 1, meaning a new Incoming wanted to get through. I went to the front room.

I told Pep the lines were still hopping.

Trouble takes no holidays, Pep said. She was getting
ready to leave too, grabbing her peacoat, her book bag, and her squash racket.

It was a shame about Vince, I said.

Pep told me she had gotten Vince a few times. The first time he caught her by surprise, so she was a little ragged, but she managed to say that she admired him for suing Hawthorne State and that it showed a real commitment to getting an education.

That was a reach, I told her, but a good save. I added that if she was struggling with the schedule, I would be glad to pick up some of Vince’s hours until she trained more volunteers.

Pep hesitated. She said she was worried about me burning out.

I still felt fresh, I assured her. In fact, I felt like the more I worked, the faster I would develop my skills.

She asked how late I could stay.

Eleven or midnight, I suggested. However late she needed me.

Pep paused, and I knew what she would say: I needed my parents’ permission.

I played the age card. Did Pep ask all the Listeners that, or just the younger teens?

Just the younger teens, she admitted.

My parents would be all right, I said. They had their own stuff going on and probably wanted me out of their hair.

She asked if I would be okay working alone, and I said yes.

I would have to tell her if my hours became too much, she insisted, and I agreed.

All right, I said. I would be back in tomorrow.

I
brought Triumph inside and switched on the living room light.

“Oh!” Mom said, blinking. She got up from the couch with her hair sticking up like feathers. “Billy. What time is it?”

“Around ten,” I told her. “Mom, I got promoted.”

“Oh!” Mom’s hand flew up and touched her neck, her wooden bead necklace. “Billy!” She did a wriggly dance like the one Linda did when Dad announced his reinvestment in painting. “That’s fantastic!”

Mom hugged me. She smelled sweaty from sleeping in her clothes.

“I took your advice. About working twice as hard.”

I carried my bike to my room and came back.

“So what does this promotion entail?”

“Working some extra hours. I’ll be on by myself some nights. I’ll be running the whole place.”

Mom put her arm around me and pointed to the
coffee table. It was littered with correspondence, newsletters, and directories. “I’m starting an e-mail discussion list with other directors of small museums,” she said. “It was a good idea, but it’s taking longer than I thought.”

“Is Dad still working?” I asked.

She moved a teacup and put her feet up. “Yes. Go in and tell him. He’ll be so proud.”

I
pushed open the door of Dad’s studio. A new lamp as bright as a klieg light blazed in the midst of the solvent smells, and the air in the room felt like a sauna.

“Little buddy,” Dad said. He hadn’t called me that since I was four or five. He rested his brush on the easel tray and massaged a sore spot on his shoulder. His current painting was of three white rowboats docked side by side. The third one was barely present, suggested with a scraping of white.

“You’re home late. How were the phones tonight?” he asked. I noticed creases around his eyes.

“Busy. I’m going to be spending more time at Listeners, okay? They’re shorthanded.”

“That’s fine. Another hour or two and I can hit the hay, Billaby.”

“What boats are those?”

With a clean brush tipped with green paint, he wrote part of an
N
on the middle boat. Then he scraped a
P
onto
the nearest one. “Three boats embarking on a dangerous journey. No one knows what’s on the other side.”

“I get it. The
Niña—
”

“The
Santa María.
The
Pinta.
And the
Niña
in between-ya. One intrepid soul masterminds the journey. He has some idea what’s ahead. . . . Almost done, Billaby, almost done. Then one more and we’ll say good night.”

“Maybe you should sleep in tomorrow and take a sick day. You look wiped out.”

“I won’t go to bed until I finish one more.”

“A small one like this?”

“Maybe I’ll make a painting of you. Call it
Issue of My Tissue
. Or I’ll paint you in a fruit bowl and call it
Fruit of My Loins.
Get it?”

Dad finished the lettering—just two letters on each stern did the job. “It’s important not to make details too complete,” he said. “That’s the mark of an amateur. I’ll do another very small one. If Linda of Finland prices by the minute, it won’t be worth more than twenty-five smackeroos. But by other standards it will be worth two hundred. She wants to be fair, does Linda of Finland, Queen of Linland. Linda-Finda of the Fair Hair.” He removed the canvas from his easel and set it on the table to dry.

“You didn’t know what your old man had in him.”

“It—”

“So instead of being fer him, you chose to be agin him.”

“Not against you, Dad.”

“Agin the show?”

“Against you wearing yourself out.”

“You should be fer me, Billymelad. I was always fer you, right, Billaby? Linda’s fer me, but not you. You decided to cut the umbillycal cord. Where is your filament, son?”

We were alone on a nighttime island, in a quiet broken by the lamp’s
tink
and the rivery rush of traffic. I had nowhere to look but at him and his paintings, and despite what the rest of the family said I knew something was very wrong. I didn’t want to stick around and watch this whole thing fall apart. I was glad I had somewhere else to go.

A
fter Dad wakes up screaming, Mom stops Dad’s antidepressants. She even stops his therapy appointments, although Dr. Fritz seems to be a pretty good guy and harmless. When I see Mom cancel the appointments and ignore the ringing phone, I know she is thinking about Grandma Pearl, her own mother, who had died of cancer, and who was sliced and burned and filled with poisons by doctors long after she should have been left alone.

“No more doctors,” Mom tells Linda and me. “We’re going to take care of Dad ourselves. Billy, I want you to come home directly after school every day and keep your dad company. No friends, no meetings, no movies. Play cards or board games with him or whatever you think will pass the time.”