And then we went on another date, and another, and my stomach rolled itself into tight knots. The situation was entirely out of control because I couldn't say no to one more dinner and one more conversation. I planned and rehearsed an exit. I would carefully cross my legs, clasp my hands and address William with the sophistication of royalty. I practiced a speech.
Look, this has been delightful and you know I think you're a great guy, but there's no future here. I see these dates as a way to maybe get myself off ice and maybe as a way for you to venture into a greater romantic life — with someone else — but there's no future, not for us. We really should end this now and please know that I've had a wonderful time....
I tested out the chat on my bedroom ceiling. I sounded pompous and ridiculous. I tossed, I turned, and the words screeched around in my skull. And, one evening, during an autumn sunset, William stood in my apartment while I launched into the speech. Through the living room blinds, red and orange stripes flared across the walls, and he listened for a little while, until he put his finger on my lips.
Okay, he said, how old are you?
I told him, whispering to the floor.
Really? I thought you were way younger than that.
And I loved him even more.
Come on, I said. This is nuts, not possible...fun, but not realistic—
Don’t you sabotage this….Don't do that. I don't care about the age thing. I really don't.
But I do.
You'll have to get over that.
William placed his hands on my shoulders. His dark brown eyes stared hard into my tear-filled pair and I couldn't hold his look. His face was so kind and so filled with goodness and belief that I didn't have the guts to finish my speech. I dropped my face and shook my head. William didn't buy my excuses any more than I did.
Let's get some dinner, he said. I sniffed, blew my nose, and off we went on another chipper outing.
The next day my fears crashed down upon me as I sat cross-legged on the floor of my bedroom, trying to meditate. I wanted strength and clarity. I wanted to settle my heart, but started crying instead. Overcome with gulping sobs, I tipped sideways and lay my cheek on golden hardwood. My cat, Spencer, circled around and around my prone body. I cried like a lost child. I pressed my forehead to the floor and begged for an answer.
And it came. Don't ask me from where, but with the purity of an excellent radio signal these words ran through my head:
It doesn't matter. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter.
I sniffed, I slurped, and I stopped crying. I pushed myself up straight, picked Spencer up and assured him I was going to be okay because I believed those words. I couldn't predict where William and I would end up but It doesn't matter rang true and I decided to try to erase the age thing from my worries.
I closed my eyes, breathed calmly and made the choice to rid myself of the anxiety. The resolution was born of these overriding thoughts: I do not want to lose him. I want to love him. Nothing else matters because there is no room for those concerns. I have no space for those thoughts.
Spencer purred in my lap. If cats could talk. The poor fellow had adapted to his share of homes, boyfriends and husbands. Now he was going to hang in for one more chancy maneuver by his owner.
So is the way of the world, the heart, kismet, and the wisdom of a hardwood floor.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Thursday, April 21, 2011
LOS ANGELES: October, 1998 (Part 6)
Inside the apartment I foolishly grabbed the candle holders in an attempt to carry them to the kitchen sink, royally burning both hands and an arm with boiling wax. Could there have been a clearer signal that I was messing around with a bad idea?
After he left that night, I swallowed a double dose of Advil and smeared burn cream on my hands and arm. The next day I bought proper supplies at a pharmacy and gave my injuries proper treatment.
A week later, William asked me out on a real date. I decided to go for the "fun" of it, to step into a night out as I might try on a new pair of shoes. Just this one time we'll go to a nice restaurant, eat well, drink wine, and then I'll be clear to him about our lack of a future together. William's wit may have been as dry as James Bond's martinis, but this was not going any further.
Why? The slick escarpment blocking my way was the age thing. William was younger than me. And not just a little younger, but a lot younger, and that could not be changed or reasonably joked about. I was in big trouble. I knew his age because I'd asked him. He didn't know mine because he had the good grace not to ask. This age difference carried more weight than any issues of commitment or my adaptation to life alone or the quivers I felt when he brushed against me or the way he made me laugh or those kisses or anything I could come up with.
This was serious business. This was a first for me and I didn't like it one bit. Society had come up with a feline epithet for women like me. Years later, television producers would develop a high-larious sitcom named for women like me. The age difference thing gave rise to a sour taste in my mouth and I couldn't speak of it.
Except to my hairdresser.
As Peter snipped my hair, I sighed. When he asked about the film and my life, I sighed and then had an outburst. Peter was being polite, not avid, in his queries, and didn't expect the sudden outpouring of angst I spilled all over my salon robe. He stopped clipping, held his scissors aloft, looked at me in the mirror and listened. At the end of my gushing, Peter tilted his head, our eyes met, and he said, I think this is the last social taboo.
He might have been right about that, but I didn't want to be on the edge of new frontiers. I didn't want to be another Oprah subject or some crappy movie of the week. It didn't matter to me that Jack or Warren or Hugh or any other older guys didn't get called a disparaging name for their love affairs. Of course, it's unfair and even misogynistic, but I wasn't the least bit interested in the politics of the situation. It made me feel crappy and sad. I didn't want to be a social taboo. It had to end and that was all there was to it.
After he left that night, I swallowed a double dose of Advil and smeared burn cream on my hands and arm. The next day I bought proper supplies at a pharmacy and gave my injuries proper treatment.
A week later, William asked me out on a real date. I decided to go for the "fun" of it, to step into a night out as I might try on a new pair of shoes. Just this one time we'll go to a nice restaurant, eat well, drink wine, and then I'll be clear to him about our lack of a future together. William's wit may have been as dry as James Bond's martinis, but this was not going any further.
Why? The slick escarpment blocking my way was the age thing. William was younger than me. And not just a little younger, but a lot younger, and that could not be changed or reasonably joked about. I was in big trouble. I knew his age because I'd asked him. He didn't know mine because he had the good grace not to ask. This age difference carried more weight than any issues of commitment or my adaptation to life alone or the quivers I felt when he brushed against me or the way he made me laugh or those kisses or anything I could come up with.
This was serious business. This was a first for me and I didn't like it one bit. Society had come up with a feline epithet for women like me. Years later, television producers would develop a high-larious sitcom named for women like me. The age difference thing gave rise to a sour taste in my mouth and I couldn't speak of it.
Except to my hairdresser.
As Peter snipped my hair, I sighed. When he asked about the film and my life, I sighed and then had an outburst. Peter was being polite, not avid, in his queries, and didn't expect the sudden outpouring of angst I spilled all over my salon robe. He stopped clipping, held his scissors aloft, looked at me in the mirror and listened. At the end of my gushing, Peter tilted his head, our eyes met, and he said, I think this is the last social taboo.
He might have been right about that, but I didn't want to be on the edge of new frontiers. I didn't want to be another Oprah subject or some crappy movie of the week. It didn't matter to me that Jack or Warren or Hugh or any other older guys didn't get called a disparaging name for their love affairs. Of course, it's unfair and even misogynistic, but I wasn't the least bit interested in the politics of the situation. It made me feel crappy and sad. I didn't want to be a social taboo. It had to end and that was all there was to it.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
LOS ANGELES: October, 1998 (Part 5)
One Monday morning we met back at work. I'd spent Sunday at the beach and arrived with a slight sunburn. William touched my peeling shoulder with his fingertips.
Does that hurt?
No, I wanted to scream. It feels really, really good when you do that.
Gone, I was a goner, gone, gone. I fell tippy-top down a steep incline, laughing all the way….
Until an impediment opened up like a steep black chasm in front of me, and I balked.
I had a dinner to thank both the producer and William for their hard work. We sat at my long pine table in candlelight, laughing about the ups and downs of production. Then the producer said she had to leave. William stayed. I showed him my clunker of a computer. I put a Carlos Jobim CD on the player. We chatted about…nothing. Time stood still, time ticked by, until he said it was time for him to leave. I busied myself packing up leftover roast lamb and chocolate mousse for him to take home. We stepped outside into the dark, cool summer night. I walked with him to his car across the street.
You know, Mel, I almost made a really clumsy pass at you back there.
Really?
Yeah.
Oh, William…I've had a terrible crush on you for a long time.
And we stopped in the middle of the street, right by his 1993 Nissan Altima.
What? You have?
Yeah.
I have to kiss you. Right now. I do.
And he did. I leaned back against the car, he took my face in his hands and our lips sank into each other like marshmallows dipped in the juice of ripe raspberries. He pulled away, looked into my eyes and we both smiled.
Then I glanced over his shoulder and screamed FIRE!
I could see through my living-room windows that my apartment was aflame. The candles on the dining table had burned down into their holders, which were decorated with flammable fabric flowers — and good God they were blazing.
William, thinking I was attempting to extricate myself from our make-out session, looked at me skeptically. I screamed, No really, FIRE! And ran.
Does that hurt?
No, I wanted to scream. It feels really, really good when you do that.
Gone, I was a goner, gone, gone. I fell tippy-top down a steep incline, laughing all the way….
Until an impediment opened up like a steep black chasm in front of me, and I balked.
I had a dinner to thank both the producer and William for their hard work. We sat at my long pine table in candlelight, laughing about the ups and downs of production. Then the producer said she had to leave. William stayed. I showed him my clunker of a computer. I put a Carlos Jobim CD on the player. We chatted about…nothing. Time stood still, time ticked by, until he said it was time for him to leave. I busied myself packing up leftover roast lamb and chocolate mousse for him to take home. We stepped outside into the dark, cool summer night. I walked with him to his car across the street.
You know, Mel, I almost made a really clumsy pass at you back there.
Really?
Yeah.
Oh, William…I've had a terrible crush on you for a long time.
And we stopped in the middle of the street, right by his 1993 Nissan Altima.
What? You have?
Yeah.
I have to kiss you. Right now. I do.
And he did. I leaned back against the car, he took my face in his hands and our lips sank into each other like marshmallows dipped in the juice of ripe raspberries. He pulled away, looked into my eyes and we both smiled.
Then I glanced over his shoulder and screamed FIRE!
I could see through my living-room windows that my apartment was aflame. The candles on the dining table had burned down into their holders, which were decorated with flammable fabric flowers — and good God they were blazing.
William, thinking I was attempting to extricate myself from our make-out session, looked at me skeptically. I screamed, No really, FIRE! And ran.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
LOS ANGELES: October, 1998 (Part 4)
Okay, so the AFI gives us three weeks to cut this. Is that reasonable? I asked William. All business.
It'll have to be if that's what we get, he answered. Matching my professionalism.
How old is this guy? He has the weight of wisdom and the earned confidence of someone in their fifties. I wanted that, and if I couldn't find it on my own, I wanted to hang around it and feel the protection of such certainty.
By the end of August, the film had been shot and William and I started our work in a tiny editing suite. I had earned my own spunk simply by getting up every day and doing the job. I was on a high and riding the thrill of having directed a film, having answered a million questions from cast and crew, having made decisions, and having had control of a project in a way an actor never experiences. I was feeling pretty damn hot and on top of the world, but there was still much I didn't know. I learned about film editing from William. He led me through the process of finishing sound and music. We sat on a mixing stage with our sound crew. I was way out of my element and looked across the table as William spoke.
What the director would like....
What she's trying achieve here....
I don't think that's the direction she's looking for....
He gave words to our work. He spoke with authority and respect for my ideas to his fellow crew members responsible for putting the finishing aspects on our movie. He spoke as if he were representing a hundred-million dollar studio picture. This short film was William's first solo job as an editor but no one in the room knew that. I relaxed into my chair and watched his confidence infuse the room. I was hard-pressed to remember creatively trusting anyone like this. I barely had to speak in our sound meetings. I was much too busy falling in love.
It's a pain to rise above when a fella's smart and funny. This delectable combo platter is difficult to ignore. One afternoon in our tiny, dark editing room, the telephone rang. I picked up the receiver but heard only dial tone. Hmmm. I replaced the receiver. William was busy at his editing console, fixing some thingamajiggy. Again the phone rang and again I answered, with the same result. It took three times before I caught sight of William's shoulders shaking in silent laughter.
What are you doing?
What are you doing? William broke out laughing as he played his telephone ring sound effect over and over.
Okay, enough hilarity, he said. We have to edit sound.
Sure, I answered, ripping open a package of crackers. I munched and he did something technical. Then his fingers ceased tapping. He waited for something, I munched another handful of crackers. He pressed a few more buttons, listened, then stopped again.
I'm trying to edit sound, he said.
Yeah, I see that. Crunch.
So, I'm trying to hear it.
Got it. Crunch.
Are you going to eat all of those?
I'm so sorry, did you want some? How rude. Here.
No, I want to get this sound done.
Of course. Crunch.
And with the speed of an attacking rattler, he grabbed the crackers out of my hands and set them down on the other side of the desk. This man: dry as the Sahara, dry as stale crackers.
It'll have to be if that's what we get, he answered. Matching my professionalism.
How old is this guy? He has the weight of wisdom and the earned confidence of someone in their fifties. I wanted that, and if I couldn't find it on my own, I wanted to hang around it and feel the protection of such certainty.
By the end of August, the film had been shot and William and I started our work in a tiny editing suite. I had earned my own spunk simply by getting up every day and doing the job. I was on a high and riding the thrill of having directed a film, having answered a million questions from cast and crew, having made decisions, and having had control of a project in a way an actor never experiences. I was feeling pretty damn hot and on top of the world, but there was still much I didn't know. I learned about film editing from William. He led me through the process of finishing sound and music. We sat on a mixing stage with our sound crew. I was way out of my element and looked across the table as William spoke.
What the director would like....
What she's trying achieve here....
I don't think that's the direction she's looking for....
He gave words to our work. He spoke with authority and respect for my ideas to his fellow crew members responsible for putting the finishing aspects on our movie. He spoke as if he were representing a hundred-million dollar studio picture. This short film was William's first solo job as an editor but no one in the room knew that. I relaxed into my chair and watched his confidence infuse the room. I was hard-pressed to remember creatively trusting anyone like this. I barely had to speak in our sound meetings. I was much too busy falling in love.
It's a pain to rise above when a fella's smart and funny. This delectable combo platter is difficult to ignore. One afternoon in our tiny, dark editing room, the telephone rang. I picked up the receiver but heard only dial tone. Hmmm. I replaced the receiver. William was busy at his editing console, fixing some thingamajiggy. Again the phone rang and again I answered, with the same result. It took three times before I caught sight of William's shoulders shaking in silent laughter.
What are you doing?
What are you doing? William broke out laughing as he played his telephone ring sound effect over and over.
Okay, enough hilarity, he said. We have to edit sound.
Sure, I answered, ripping open a package of crackers. I munched and he did something technical. Then his fingers ceased tapping. He waited for something, I munched another handful of crackers. He pressed a few more buttons, listened, then stopped again.
I'm trying to edit sound, he said.
Yeah, I see that. Crunch.
So, I'm trying to hear it.
Got it. Crunch.
Are you going to eat all of those?
I'm so sorry, did you want some? How rude. Here.
No, I want to get this sound done.
Of course. Crunch.
And with the speed of an attacking rattler, he grabbed the crackers out of my hands and set them down on the other side of the desk. This man: dry as the Sahara, dry as stale crackers.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
LOS ANGELES: October, 1998 (Part 3)
While we chatted about the movie, William glanced past me and noticed a framed photograph hanging on the kitchen wall. The picture is of me standing by a handsome, fit, mustachioed guy who has his arm around my shoulders. The guy is my firefighter brother, Marty, but William didn't know this. Much later, I found out William's thoughts: Ahhh, there's the boyfriend. And he looks like the Brawny paper towel guy.
Will you be able to come to the set? I asked. I suddenly wanted him around all the time. I was scared and he wasn't.
Do you mean I have the job?
Have the job? Of course you have the job. You're perfect and you get what I'm trying to do, you get it. Yes, yes, yes.
Great, but I have one weekend when I'll be away.
Oh?
Yeah, a college friend's wedding. He said this with a slightly disgusted sigh.
Sounds fun.
They're dropping like flies.
You're not into marriage?
Nope.
Now, on the page, this should have flagged: perfect for you. Instead, even me? fluttered through my brain like a trapped butterfly. I'd already handily slithered my way through two disastrous marriages and more boyfriends than anyone should be forced to add up to their therapist. My issues of commitment were not garden-variety. I could commit to living with a fellow and marrying him. My inability rested in a lack of commitment to the person. I liked the institution. Loved the concept. The homey, secure-ness of it, but I wanted the "husband" in the equation to stay in another room. This was my fifty of the fifty-fifty responsibility of failure in those relationships. After much angst, I needed exile to figure this out and went for it. I had to learn to drop my romance with marriage. Thus, no dating. My dating drought would be a self-imposed time-out. Certainly that's how I liked to think of it. I'd taken a necessary sabbatical and I learned this fact: I was better off single.
However, nobody asked. No one asked.
Dinner? Lunch? Coffee? Movie?
No. One. Asked.
This was a bruising truth. So much for self-discipline. But I could stomach the truth of this after steadfastly weeping through years of therapy and, once on the other side, I appreciated single life. A lot. William's dark view of marriage shouldn't have mattered to me one bit. But then why did I perk up in interest? Why did my gaze leave the papers on that dining table and rise to meet his? Why did I feel instantly threatened? I shouldn't have been bugged in the least at his opinions on marriage. I should have stuck to the tasks at hand, namely making the movie.
Never? I pursued.
Can't see that happening.
Even me? I thought again.
He disengaged our eye-lock and returned to the pages on the table. He doesn’t seem gay, I puzzled. I forced myself back to the work. The film. The fears.
Will you be able to come to the set? I asked. I suddenly wanted him around all the time. I was scared and he wasn't.
Do you mean I have the job?
Have the job? Of course you have the job. You're perfect and you get what I'm trying to do, you get it. Yes, yes, yes.
Great, but I have one weekend when I'll be away.
Oh?
Yeah, a college friend's wedding. He said this with a slightly disgusted sigh.
Sounds fun.
They're dropping like flies.
You're not into marriage?
Nope.
Now, on the page, this should have flagged: perfect for you. Instead, even me? fluttered through my brain like a trapped butterfly. I'd already handily slithered my way through two disastrous marriages and more boyfriends than anyone should be forced to add up to their therapist. My issues of commitment were not garden-variety. I could commit to living with a fellow and marrying him. My inability rested in a lack of commitment to the person. I liked the institution. Loved the concept. The homey, secure-ness of it, but I wanted the "husband" in the equation to stay in another room. This was my fifty of the fifty-fifty responsibility of failure in those relationships. After much angst, I needed exile to figure this out and went for it. I had to learn to drop my romance with marriage. Thus, no dating. My dating drought would be a self-imposed time-out. Certainly that's how I liked to think of it. I'd taken a necessary sabbatical and I learned this fact: I was better off single.
However, nobody asked. No one asked.
Dinner? Lunch? Coffee? Movie?
No. One. Asked.
This was a bruising truth. So much for self-discipline. But I could stomach the truth of this after steadfastly weeping through years of therapy and, once on the other side, I appreciated single life. A lot. William's dark view of marriage shouldn't have mattered to me one bit. But then why did I perk up in interest? Why did my gaze leave the papers on that dining table and rise to meet his? Why did I feel instantly threatened? I shouldn't have been bugged in the least at his opinions on marriage. I should have stuck to the tasks at hand, namely making the movie.
Never? I pursued.
Can't see that happening.
Even me? I thought again.
He disengaged our eye-lock and returned to the pages on the table. He doesn’t seem gay, I puzzled. I forced myself back to the work. The film. The fears.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
LOS ANGELES: October, 1998 (Part 2)
William and I were two months into our romance when I started eyeing my Nikes in the corner. Confidence bubbled up when I remembered there was always the possibility of a run for the hills. I was good at this. I was fast and never regretted a single exit because what I was really good at was a life alone. I was better single than not. More productive, more at peace, and quite possibly saner.
We met when I was in the midst of a busy no-dating period of four years. He arrived on my doorstep to discuss his possible involvement as an editor on a short film I was directing and producing. After years of an acting career, I'd set my sights on a new goal: making movies. I was accepted into a women's directing program at the American Film Institute and faced the daunting tasks of raising cash and putting together a cast and crew willing to work for free.
When I opened my apartment door that July morning in 1998, I knew two things about William. One, that he'd worked on huge studio movies as an assistant editor, and two, that he loved my script and wanted to cut my movie. There is nothing a director wants to hear more than I love your script and I want to work on your movie. As far as I was concerned, he was the guy, he had the job, and we would work together.
I opened my apartment door to this male, Chinese-American version of myself. We both wore blue jeans and T-shirts. We were both small of stature and sporting very short dark hair. At five-foot-four inches, I was about an inch taller than him. We shook hands. He later told me his thoughts consisted of: She's pretty. She's a director. She should grow her hair.
I thought he was nice-looking but didn't pay a lot of attention to that because my focus was to seal the deal and get him onboard to cut my movie. He was the third editor I'd tried to rope in and I was getting desperate. I lost the previous candidates to paying jobs and was nervous about the entire enterprise of making a movie, even a short one.
I hustled William over to my dining table to show him shot lists. I had ideas I wanted to share with him. I wanted to talk about camera angles and insert shots. He leaned in close to read my scribbles and study my camera set-ups.
Mel, I've worked on a lot of movies, and only the best directors are prepared like this.
For a nervous, freshman filmmaker, these words were gold. I felt calm drape over me like a sheet of satin.
I think I could love this guy.
We met when I was in the midst of a busy no-dating period of four years. He arrived on my doorstep to discuss his possible involvement as an editor on a short film I was directing and producing. After years of an acting career, I'd set my sights on a new goal: making movies. I was accepted into a women's directing program at the American Film Institute and faced the daunting tasks of raising cash and putting together a cast and crew willing to work for free.
When I opened my apartment door that July morning in 1998, I knew two things about William. One, that he'd worked on huge studio movies as an assistant editor, and two, that he loved my script and wanted to cut my movie. There is nothing a director wants to hear more than I love your script and I want to work on your movie. As far as I was concerned, he was the guy, he had the job, and we would work together.
I opened my apartment door to this male, Chinese-American version of myself. We both wore blue jeans and T-shirts. We were both small of stature and sporting very short dark hair. At five-foot-four inches, I was about an inch taller than him. We shook hands. He later told me his thoughts consisted of: She's pretty. She's a director. She should grow her hair.
I thought he was nice-looking but didn't pay a lot of attention to that because my focus was to seal the deal and get him onboard to cut my movie. He was the third editor I'd tried to rope in and I was getting desperate. I lost the previous candidates to paying jobs and was nervous about the entire enterprise of making a movie, even a short one.
I hustled William over to my dining table to show him shot lists. I had ideas I wanted to share with him. I wanted to talk about camera angles and insert shots. He leaned in close to read my scribbles and study my camera set-ups.
Mel, I've worked on a lot of movies, and only the best directors are prepared like this.
For a nervous, freshman filmmaker, these words were gold. I felt calm drape over me like a sheet of satin.
I think I could love this guy.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
LOS ANGELES: October, 1998 (Part 1)
Don’t you sabotage this....Don't do that.
William rested his hands on my shoulders. His dark brown eyes stared hard into my tear-filled ones.
The mind can wander off so quickly. I considered that word, sabotage, and my brain took a stroll to another time.
I once had a boss, a wicked young woman who took pleasure in humiliating her staff in front of clients. Specifically, she enjoyed singling me out. I was a struggling actress in New York City, teaching four aerobic classes a day in her exercise studio. One afternoon, I crawled out from under her microscopic glare at the end of a class and entered her tiny office for another ream-out scream-out for — I suppose — not teaching to her specifics or using music she didn't care for or — God knows what —
Are you trying to savotage me?
Savotage? Did she really say that?
I couldn't resist and whispered, I don't know what you mean.
Really?
She widened her baby blues and tossed her highlighted blond tresses with such an abrupt jerk I feared for her neck.
You're supposed to be some kind of great, educated actress and you don't know what savotage means?
For months I'd allowed myself to be terrorized publicly and privately by...an idiot. As I taught a room of jumping students, my boss cruised the outer edges, shouting out criticisms. And why do we keep our heels pressed down, Mel? Explain why, please!
This please was never used how please is supposed to be used.
Are you trying to savotage me? How was I to answer a superior who was so clearly stupid, but owned me because I needed the job?
The irony of her ignorance landed on me like a gift from heaven. I didn't run out the door that particular day because there were bills to pay, but I was no longer in her grip. Freed by the knowledge that she had so little of it, a few months later when I did quit, I bit my tongue, hard. I wanted to scream savotage, savotage into her pale, pinched face but held myself back.
Lo, many years later, I lifted my wet eyes to William's serene surety. Would I really savotage this gift? Would I be that stupid?
William rested his hands on my shoulders. His dark brown eyes stared hard into my tear-filled ones.
The mind can wander off so quickly. I considered that word, sabotage, and my brain took a stroll to another time.
I once had a boss, a wicked young woman who took pleasure in humiliating her staff in front of clients. Specifically, she enjoyed singling me out. I was a struggling actress in New York City, teaching four aerobic classes a day in her exercise studio. One afternoon, I crawled out from under her microscopic glare at the end of a class and entered her tiny office for another ream-out scream-out for — I suppose — not teaching to her specifics or using music she didn't care for or — God knows what —
Are you trying to savotage me?
Savotage? Did she really say that?
I couldn't resist and whispered, I don't know what you mean.
Really?
She widened her baby blues and tossed her highlighted blond tresses with such an abrupt jerk I feared for her neck.
You're supposed to be some kind of great, educated actress and you don't know what savotage means?
For months I'd allowed myself to be terrorized publicly and privately by...an idiot. As I taught a room of jumping students, my boss cruised the outer edges, shouting out criticisms. And why do we keep our heels pressed down, Mel? Explain why, please!
This please was never used how please is supposed to be used.
Are you trying to savotage me? How was I to answer a superior who was so clearly stupid, but owned me because I needed the job?
The irony of her ignorance landed on me like a gift from heaven. I didn't run out the door that particular day because there were bills to pay, but I was no longer in her grip. Freed by the knowledge that she had so little of it, a few months later when I did quit, I bit my tongue, hard. I wanted to scream savotage, savotage into her pale, pinched face but held myself back.
Lo, many years later, I lifted my wet eyes to William's serene surety. Would I really savotage this gift? Would I be that stupid?
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