Undiscovered Gyrl: The novel that inspired the movie ASK ME ANYTHING (Vintage Contemporaries) (5 page)

Friday, November 23, 2007

 

The subject of slaughtered turkeys has got me thinking that people have two choices in life: Live with your eyes open or live with them closed. If you live with them open you see reality as it really is. If you live with them closed you only see your fantasies. (The film
Vanilla Sky
, as well as the Spanish film it was based on, deals with this concept.) Well, I hate to admit it but I live in fantasy like most people. I hardly ever seriously think about AIDS or global warming or all the bloody madness happening in the Middle East right now, and until the turkey video I’d never really thought about how animals are slaughtered. If I did keep my eyes open and let in reality, I honestly don’t know how I would ever get out of bed and live my life. How could anybody?

How do you go to work and laugh with your friends if you know that at that exact second your government is dropping a huge bomb on an Arab’s house that turns out not to have any terrorists inside, just families?

When I occasionally do open my eyes and face reality (like when I watched the turkey video) I feel terrible about the world and wish I could make it better, but everything I can think of doing seems pointless. Political stuff seems the most pointless because there’s so much lying and corruption. The only thing that might make a difference would be some gigantic violent act against an evil corporation, but even if I was dying of cancer I don’t think I would have the guts to do it.

These are the kinds of dark thoughts I’ve had since learning how turkeys die. This is why I choose fantasy. Maybe that’s why my dad became a drunk. Because he had the same dark thoughts and drinking made them disappear.

Saturday, November 24, 2007

 

I am sorry. I should have explained. Cankle = calf ankle.

Tharm = thigh arm.

I am too high right now to right about anything other than being high.

Sunday, November 25, 2007

 

Jade is the worst influence. Way too drunk. Just hurdled. Hahah! I mean hurled.

Monday, November 26, 2007

 

You won’t even believe what I’m about to tell you. Sit down and light up a joint or fix yourself a nice double scotch because this is serious. (It’s so sad and awful that I am still in denial about it.) This morning I was in the kitchen eating cereal and reading the newspaper, which I almost never do. Ironically I was reading an article about how less and less people read these days. Like 40% of American adults didn’t read a single book last year! Anyway, I started thinking about Glenn and what he told me about the transcendence of reading, and I decided to write down the name of the article so he could read it online, in case he doesn’t get the paper delivered. As I stood up to get a pen I saw my mom standing in the doorway staring at me like a crazy owl. Something was truly wrong.

“Sweetie, come with me,” she said.

My first thought was that my dad was dead.

I said “What is it? Just tell me!”

Her face stayed serious and she reached out a hand. I let her lead me down the hall to her office. Mark Aubichon was waiting there at her computer, which was weird because he
never sleeps over on a school night, which means he must have come over superearly.

My mom spoke first. “We’re really sorry to have to tell you this but—”

“When did he die?”

“What? Who?”

“Dad isn’t dead?”

“No, no!”

Mark wiggled a finger for me to come closer. On the screen a website showed a big map of our town with about 20 little red triangles all over it. Mark pointed at the triangles and said “Each one of these represents a registered sex offender.” He clicked on a red triangle about two blocks from downtown and up came an old police mug shot of Glenn A. Warburg. That’s right, my boss, but looking much younger and meaner. He was wearing a green and yellow camouflage T-shirt. He had zits and a buzz cut. Underneath the pic it said:

Conviction(s)

CRIMINAL SEXUAL ASSAULT

Source of Information: State Offender Registry

 

I was in shock.

Mark said “I’m sorry, kid. I know you were really excited about this job but that starting salary of yours just didn’t pass
the smell test with me, so I decided to poke around and see if I could learn more about him. Never did I expect to find something like this.”

“Glenn’s a rapist? Is that what it means?”

“Sexual assault is a broader category than rape. The particulars can vary, but yeah, it’s basically sexual contact without consent.”

“Against the woman’s will,” my mom said really slowly like I was a mongoloid.

“Or the man’s will,” Mark said. “We have no way of knowing the victim’s gender. Although it wasn’t a minor or else the charge would indicate that.”

“You have to quit your job right now,” my mom said, walking over with the phone.

“What do I say?” I asked.

Mark laid a hairy-knuckled hand on my shoulder. “Just tell him your mom’s boyfriend got you a job in his law office. Which by the way is the truth. There’s an opening in the copy room. It doesn’t pay twelve bucks an hour but—”

“No, thanks.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m way too original to copy.”

They both laughed which was what I wanted because it gave me a chance to escape.

“I’ll call Glenn from my room,” I said.

Glenn is such an outstanding human being that it took me a half hour of sitting on my bed squirming and biting my
fingernails before I could get myself to pick up the phone and call. When he answered I did the best acting I could, telling him about my wonderful new job in the copy room of Mark’s law firm of high integrity and how impressive this would look on my resume if I decided to become a lawyer. Remember when I said the worst thing in the world would be a boss who can tell when you’re lying? Cancel that. It’s a rapist boss who can tell! I was pretty sure Glenn knew I was bullshitting but what could I do? If I told him what I had found out about him, he might lose his shit, come over and criminally sexually assault me.

I’ll never know whether he knew I was lying or not because all he said was how sorry he was to lose me and what a wonderful, special girl I am and how much he’d miss me. I said I’d miss him too. He made me swear to drop by next time I was in the area. You bet I will, buddy. Cross my heart and hope to get raped. Ha!

I wish I could have an honest conversation with Glenn A. Warburg about his crime. I am dying to know what he did and why he did it and who the victim was. I am positive it was a young girl, I don’t know why. I crave every single detail. I love crime shows. I remember once a long time ago I was driving my mom crazy with questions about something, and she said “Oh god, I’ve given birth to a journalist!” And her boyfriend at the time said “No, a cop.” How funny is that? Me, a cop!

•    •    •

 

Since I no longer have a job, I didn’t know what to do today, so I spent the entire day doing nothing.

Phone ringing. Stand by. Someone loves me.

Jade. She feels so bad about me losing my job she wants to take me out drinking tonight. I said yes. It’s unhealthy to spend an entire day indoors.

Friday, November 30, 2007

 

Many of you wrote to me furious that I didn’t blog once this week. Well, here’s why: I hate blogs about nothing. I don’t care about how messy your sister’s room is or how much you paid for your new figure skates or what that bitch C.C. said to you at the bar mitzvah that hurt your feelings. I assume you feel the same way. Isn’t life boring enough without me adding to it?

What if instead of taking the week off, I had told you the truth about my life? How I was so depressed about losing my job that I slept all day and watched as much bad TV as possible? How I lived on rice cakes, beer and little boxes of raisins, and pretended my pillow was Dan’s chest? How I only went out looking for work once and after an hour I had to pee so I gave up.

Oh, I almost forgot to tell you about my nights! Monday
I drank with Jade, Tuesday I smoked with Rory, Wednesday I drank with Jade again, and last night I drank and smoked with Rory. I have the worst bags under my eyes. Oh, yeah, and Tuesday night I had sex with Rory on the floor of my room. He came even faster than usual because it had been a while. Afterwards we went out to
Beaowolf—
a highly unimpressive film. We shared a large buttered popcorn. Is this really the sort of meaningless crap you want me to blog about? Yeah, I didn’t think so.

I have been chaining all week. So bad that at night when I am trying to fall asleep, I hear a little whistle in my lungs that scares the shit out of me. Women die from lung cancer like ten times more often than men. I would love to quit smoking right now but I know if I even see a beer bottle, I’ll start again. To quit smoking I need to quit drinking, and to quit drinking I would have to stop being depressed, and to stop being depressed I would need something good to happen, or even have the hope of something good happening.

Saturday, December 1, 2007

 

Around 7:00 tonight my landline rang. When I answered it a man said “Katherine?” and my first thought was that I must be in deep shit, because I never use Katherine except on official documents.

“Yes?”

“Paul Spooner. I don’t know if you remember me.”

I said I did not.

“I interviewed you for college.”

“Oh, right!”

It was easy to remember him because I applied to six colleges but only showed up for one interview. I had no choice but to go to that one because my mom’s uncle went there and left them a shitload of money when he died. If I hadn’t shown up, it would have created a family scandal. My mom said I was pretty much guaranteed to get in and she was right. Honestly? With my grades and scores there is no way in hell I would have gotten in without help. I won’t tell you the name of the school but trust me it is excellent.

I took a cab to the interview which was in the fanciest part of town. An area of beautiful homes, tall trees, and boring rich people. If I hadn’t gotten baked the night before the interview, I would probably remember it much better now. I know Mr. Spooner is some sort of stockbroker, with a really sweet, sensitive face, curly black hair and a muscular body. And I remember what I wore. I dressed Hepburn-sexy. Katherine not Audrey. Conservative but cute. Knee-high riding boots from Spain, a tailored shirt, a skirt with just enough leg showing and a long tweed coat. It was perfect. Except for my hat. I wore a purple ski cap because a lying bitch at school told me that purple was the school’s color. It’s not. Not even close.

I remember in Mr. Spooner’s living room there was a framed photo of him and his wife. She and I looked sort of alike. Her skin was better than mine because she’s not a teenager, but I have bigger boobs, a skinnier body and a cuter nose. I liked that there was a resemblance because it meant I was his type and that he would probably like me. I don’t remember exactly what we talked about but I remember we laughed our asses off and he was totally non-judgmental. I didn’t bullshit him at all. I told him about my drunk dad and even about my three days in the psych ward and he was interested and sympathetic.

One thing he said that day stuck in my mind because it was extremely cool. He said when he was a teenager back in the ’70s he and his friends used to smoke a ton of weed. His mother knew about it and she used to laugh at them and say “Marijuana helps adults relax after a long hard day. What the hell do you kids have to be anxious about?” Mr. Spooner said he felt pretty silly when she said that but now that he is an adult he realizes how wrong she was. It’s teenagers who need dope the most because nothing compares to the hell of being a kid. A grown-up who gets how hard it is to be a teenager!

Anyway back to my story. When Mr. Spooner called me tonight he said: “First of all, congratulations. You were one of only three students I interviewed who got in.”

“Wow.”

“Second, I saw your name recently on a list of kids who took deferments. Is that right?”

“Yeah,” I replied. “I felt like I needed a year to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. That way I could get the most of college when I go.”

“Sensible.”

“My mom thinks I’m insane.”

“So what are you doing with yourself? Do you have a job?”

“I did. At a bookstore. But I had to quit. I found out the owner’s a registered sex offender.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope.”

“Jesus, that’s terrible.”

“Even worse for the girl he raped.”

He laughed. It came back to me how much I liked him at the interview. I started getting that fluttery butterflies in the heart feeling you get when a boy in fifth grade calls you at home for the first time. Which, if you think about it for like a second, is a pretty weird way for a girl my age to react to a man old enough to be her father. But, hey, I never claimed to be normal!

“Look, Katherine—”

“Katie.”

“Katie, I don’t know if you’ve ever done any babysitting
but my wife and I just lost our nanny. She moved back to Guatemala to take care of her dying sister and left us high and dry for the holidays.”

“That sucks.”

“It sucks even worse for her dying sister.”

My turn to laugh.

“How would you like to be our full-time nanny for a few weeks? From eight to four every weekday until Christmas. I remember you said how much you love kids.”

This totally confused me because I don’t love kids at all. I panicked and wondered if maybe he was mixing me up with someone else.

“You’d work through Christmas. Then we go on vacation for a week. In the new year, if you like the job and we like the job you’re doing, we could make it a permanent thing. If it’s not working out on either side, we part ways with no hard feelings, and at least you helped us get through the holidays and you picked up some extra cash.”

“You live pretty far away. I don’t have a car. Is that a problem?”

“We’ve got an extra one. A Volvo. But here’s something you should know. Our son Cole’s only fourteen weeks old.”

“Wow. I’ve never really taken care of a tiny baby before.”

“If you’re up for it, my wife Maggie’ll teach you. It’s easier than you think. He sleeps half the day.”

“I’m up for it.”

“Fantastic. It pays thirteen bucks an hour. If we need you to stay late, it goes to fifteen.”

I said very casually that it all sounded fine. Meanwhile I was overjoyed, jumping up and down like a maniac. Right then Rory walked into my room and thought I’d finally lost it. I signaled for him to shut up. As soon as the call ended, I ran right past him down the hall to my mom’s room. She was as happy as I was and really proud of me for making such a good impression that Mr. Spooner would trust me with his baby.

I wanted to go out and celebrate immediately of course, but Rory had to be up with his band at the crack of dawn to travel to a gig 12 hours away. All week he’s been asking me to come with him but no way am I going to be trapped in a farty van with a bunch of guys listening to loud music and playing computer games. Anyway now that I had a new job starting Monday it was a mute point because I needed to be fresh and rested. So instead of celebrating we talked till I yawned my brains out and he got the hint. As soon as he was gone, I called Jade.

“Bitch, get over here right now! ’Cause I gots to celebrate!”

Just my luck she met some cute boy at the Gap this morning and they had plans to smoke hash. I was so desperate I called Merci Gregoris, my smiley, fat, bleached blonde, mole-covered lab partner from high school who goes to the same college as Rory. She answered on the first ring but she
was in a car full of sorority twats. I was the last person she wanted to talk to. Highly ironic when you consider that in high school she would have had a heart attack if I had ever asked her to do something on a Saturday night.

Friendless, I poured some wine, lit a cigarette and called my dad to tell him that my boss turned out to be a rapist but that I already had a wonderful new job. He didn’t give a shit until I mentioned that it came with the use of a car. Boy, did he perk up. He’s off the hook now. Asshole.

I am too excited to sleep. I wish Dan was here. I am going to call him and tell him that I have a car now and that any time he wants I will come over and make love to him. That’s what I want. Sex with him just once. Then I will fall asleep on his safe chest, and in the morning before we part forever I will tell him how I truly feel, even though I know he doesn’t feel the same way about me. I am going to call right now. If Martine answers, so what?