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"You've got to come back to work, Babette." Jay Adroit looks beseechingly at me. Jay is my boss. At this moment, he's sitting across from me in my sister's living room.
I shake my head. "No, Jay. You're the one who gave me the summer off. Don't forget, I have it in writing." I cross my legs, trying to get comfortable in my sister's oversize hot pink armchair, trying not to reveal the pangs of guilt that Jay's comment evokes in me. "Babette, you're absolutely heartless." Jay looks mortally wounded. His comment convinces me that I've succeeded in not showing guilt. But I don't bother to reply, since it's not true. I've never been heartless: Even back when I was single, and I broke the heart of more than one man, I always felt guilty. I do admit, however, that I can be flip at times. I can't help myself. My therapist says my flippancy is a defense and that I deal with my problems by acting like a stand-up comic. My sister enters from the kitchen and sits next to Jay on the pink sofa. "That's not very nice, Babette," she admonishes in her older-sister tone, as she caresses the ruffle at the neck of her pink silk dress. Pink is her trademark. Everything that belongs to her is pink. She's an interior designer: The name of her firm is "Maya Bliss: Pretty in Pink." Whenever I visit her, I avoid wearing that color. Today I'm in faded blue jeans and a pale blue sweater. "TAG needs you," Jay says to me. "What's TAG?" Maya's six-year-old daughter Alex tiptoes into the room, carrying a drawing pad and a box of crayons. Alex—who's wearing a pink sundress—plops herself down in the center of the rug. Jay looks at Alex as though she's a philistine for not knowing that TAG, a.k.a. the Theater Art Gallery, is a theater for performance artists, playwrights, musicians, and dancers whose work is much too "cutting edge" for Broadway, off Broadway, and, in most cases even off-off-Broadway. Together, without any other staff, Jay and I run TAG. I'm the associate director, and Jay is both director and founder. "TAG is a theater," I tell Alex. "People perform there." "That's true, Alex," Jay says, "but what your heartless Aunt Babette is neglecting to tell you, because she just doesn't care enough, is that a bunch of mean, nasty, terrible men want to destroy TAG." Wide-eyed, Alex looks up at Jay. "These nasty men hate old buildings," Jay continues, ignoring the irritated look I'm giving him, "and they want to murder TAG just because it's located in an old building. They want to tear the building down and replace it with a brand-new condominium monster, which, depending on the economy, they may not even be able to fill!" "A condominium, sweetie," I explain to Alex, in my most reassuring tone, hoping that Jay hasn't frightened her with his wild talk about murder and monsters, "just means an apartment that someone owns, that's all, except it's different from a co-op, which is what you and your mommy live in, like lots of people on the Upper East Side these days..." "I'm going to draw you, Aunt Babette," Alex cuts me off, losing interest in the conversation. She doesn't appear frightened. "Your Aunt Babette and I will both lose our jobs if TAG is torn down," Jay mutters, "and if it weren't for the fact that her husband is a successful corporate lawyer, she'd be as worried as I am, and she'd cut short her absurdly long vacation—which I was much too kind to allow her to take!—in order to help me fight Acme Developers." Again, I rearrange my position in the uncomfortable armchair and try not to evince any emotion at Jay's words, even though I am very, very worried about being permanently unemployed if TAG is torn down. And I'm feeling guiltier than ever. Alex nods, as though Jay's babble has made perfect sense to her. She looks down, chooses a crayon from the box, and begins to draw. (excerpt from the novel, URBAN BLISS) © Janice Eidus |
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