Berenice’s solution (which involved some sort of birth reenactment), so I decided to throw caution to the wind and give the obituary thing a shot. There was just too much junk swirling around in my mind, and it seemed like a decent way to start clearing it out.
As I reread the news of my passing, one possible path laid out before me, I have to wonder: What would it take to rewrite this life? Defined by one horrible crime and faced with years of boredom and loneliness and regret on death row, John Michael Whitney clung hopefully to his pine cones and glitter glue. I’m sure, in his own mind, he saw himself not only as a murderer, but as an artist, with something positive to offer the world. But what about me? Is there anything out there to redeem my existence, before it’s too late?
The prospect of emerging from Berenice’s giant plastic womb a brand-new person suddenly sounds a whole lot easier than figuring that out.
chapter 2
Writer’s Block
Even though I knew George was probably busy—Fridays being the day she rips the covers off mercifully unsold fantasy novels at the Book Cauldron and sends them back to the publishers—I called and asked her to meet me for an emergency lunch. I calmly explained that if she didn’t come and rescue me from myself, I was bound to dash immediately across the street and buy seventeen cartons of cigarettes, after which I would be only too happy to ditch work and spend the rest of the afternoon in the park, smoking one after the other until there was nothing left of me but a bit of charred lung and one diamond earring. (I’d lost the other last week, and was hoping that the remaining stud, in its loneliness, might magnetically guide me to its partner’s hiding place.)
“Why all the doom and gloom?” George asks as she plops down into the booth.
“Look, you know me,” I say. “I’m an optimist.”
“Mmm, I wouldn’t say that. You’re too superstitious.”
“Fine. Then I’m a guarded optimist….”
“More of a fatalist, I’d say. But a cheery fatalist.”
“George! Just listen. The point is, I think I’m losing my grip on happy thoughts. Something’s got to be done.” I pull the tattered obituary out of my purse and slide it across the table.
“What’s this?”
“Just read it,” I tell her, exhaling dramatically.
As she does, I signal the waitress. “I’ll have a bacon cheeseburger, a double order of fries, and a Jack and Coke.”
She looks up from her pad and pushes her sliding glasses back up her nose with her pencil. “We don’t have a liquor license here, ma’am.”
Nice. The one day when I could really use a bit of liquid lunch.
“Fine. Make it a milkshake, then. Chocolate.”
“I’ll have the Nicoise salad,” George says. “With the dressing on the side, and no potatoes. Oh, and are there anchovies on the salad?”
The waitress nods.
“Were they packed in oil?”
“I would say so, miss.”
“Hey!” I interrupt. “Why is she a miss and I’m a ma’am?” The nerve.
They stare at me blankly, then return to the business at hand. “Well, then forget the anchovies,” George tells her. “No, wait. Keep them. No wait! It depends on the tuna. Was that packed in oil?”
“I don’t know, miss.”
George is utterly confounded. “What should I do?” she asks me.
I shrug.
“How about I just bring you a nice green salad?” The waitress suggests.
“Okay,” George smiles, relieved. “Oh, and a Diet Coke. With a wedge of lime.”
The waitress shakes her head and shuffles off in her sensible orthopedic shoes.
“Dressing on the side!” George calls after her. “God. That was close. Which do you think are worse—carbs or saturated fats?”
“Are you kidding? I have no idea,” I say impatiently, motioning for her to keep on reading. In the meantime, I snack on my fingernails.
As soon as she finishes, she reads it again, then ponders for a minute or two. “I think you’re nuts. Why did you write this? Didn’t you say you’d never do your own?”
“Yeah, but Doctor M. said it would help me see where my life is going, give a voice to my hidden fears and then identify new goals for myself.”
“And the problem is…what exactly? You’re afraid you’ll never have a cat? ’Cause if that’s it, we can get you a cat. I think there might even be a sign up at the store. Black kittens or something…”
“Ha, ha,” I manage weakly.
“Look, Holly. If you’re for real about this…”
“I am. I so am. Help me.”
George nods seriously. “Okay. Where to begin? Well, I guess everyone’s afraid of dying…”
“I’m not afraid of dying,” I tell her. “I’m afraid of dying alone. I’m afraid my life will have meant nothing to anybody.”
“I get it, I get it.” She thinks about it for a second, then adds, “Look. It’s okay to want to change your life, to write a book or whatever. It’s okay to want a better job. Work on that. Fine. But you’re afraid of being single? Come on. That’s so…mundane.”
“I know. But all of a sudden I can’t help it. I just never thought my life would turn out like that. And looking back over my eighty-five years—what did I really contribute? Nothing! God, what a waste! And I had so much love to give…so much love to give…!”
My throat tightens and my ears begin to ache. I flash back to Dr. Pink, a self-styled “lacrimal therapist” from a few years back whose clinical methodology involved systematically reducing her patients to tears. She believed that public crying was not a sign of weakness and emotional instability, but rather a healthy purging of inner turmoil and a sacred statement of communal trust to be celebrated by anyone fortunate enough to witness it. But I hated crying—here, there, anywhere. No wonder Pink only lasted three sessions.
I gulp back the tears, but George is unimpressed. “Okay, first of all, Holly, you’re still alive. All right? You didn’t die single. You didn’t even die. For God’s sake, you’re only twenty-eight. So it’s not like you can say your life ‘turned out’ like anything, because you haven’t even lived it yet.”
“Exactly,” I whimper.
“Huh?”
“I’ve got to do something, G. Before it’s too late.”
“So do something. Take action, girl!”
“But
