Dorothy gave herself an hour to doll up before the show, but an hour was too much. She knew women who set aside three to four to get ready for a date or a party. She’d once witnessed her own mother starting preparations at eight in the morning for an appearance at a fundraiser in the evening. What could she possibly have been doing for ten hours? What was there to do that Dorothy didn’t know about? So far, she’d showered, washed and dried her hair, applied body lotion where her skin was dry, put on a nice dress, a bit of lipstick, and mascara. It had all taken her under twenty minutes. What did other women do after that? Dorothy remembered that her mother played records, back in the day, when she was getting ready for a night out. Perhaps she actually spent more time dancing and singing in front of the mirror than she did working on her appearance. Or perhaps that was the work, Dorothy thought: looking at yourself so much in the mirror that it didn’t feel so odd anymore that other people should see you, too. Perhaps that was the real prep. Getting used to your face, your body, the way it all came together and looked to everyone else. Dorothy had never quite gotten used to any of it. At her agent’s request, she’d had to look at herself on camera before her first TV appearance, twenty-some years earlier, so that she could “correct course” on certain physical tics she wasn’t aware she’d had. She was touching the microphone stand a lot, for example, in the beginning. Sliding her hands up and down it, petting it like a security blanket. That was weird, her agent had said. Dorothy had been mortified—by the comment and the images. “Like I’m jerking off the mic stand,” she’d said, to brush her shame under her agent’s laughter. She still touched the mic stand on occasion, but there was a sort of electrical shock now when she did, immediate retraction. And she judged comedians with stage tics, of course, now that she’d gotten rid of hers. Comedians who started laughing at their own jokes before they told them. Or that one who always put her hand on her chest, like she was giving a toast at a wedding.
She had forty minutes to kill before the official start of her students’ show. She could have cleaned the apartment, set up the guest room for Manny, but her apartment was pretty clean, the guest room always ready. Maybe the apartment was too clean, in fact, Dorothy thought. It almost looked like no one lived there, like the place had simply been propped with enough books and furniture to give the impression that someone did. All set up for a photo shoot before the place went on the market, the owners already long gone. Dorothy sat on her couch and tried to instill some life in the living room. She emptied her purse like a bucket of water. She’d been meaning to organize this mess for months. Now it was all on the coffee table. She threw away most of the bag’s contents, receipts and tissues, half-used Carmex covered in lint where the glued-on label had peeled off, a CVS hairbrush her mother had given her the last time she’d visited, saying that every woman should have one in her purse. Dorothy had never used it. She never used most of what was in her purse, she realized. She did use the iPad, but why? She didn’t need to. She had a phone. She had a computer in her bedroom. Why did she need an in-between? Would someone manage to convince the world in a few months that they also needed a screen that would be halfway between the iPhone and the iPad, and then another one after that, slightly bigger than one and smaller than the other? Maybe she didn’t need a purse, either, now that she thought about it. A purse was only trouble, an invitation for other people to ask you to carry their stuff. When her cousin and his boyfriend had visited from Italy the previous summer, she’d not only had to show them around the city but also had to hold on to their city guide and sunscreen while she did. She “had the room for it,” after all. If she hadn’t had a purse, it wouldn’t have fallen on her to hold on to Kruger’s phone, either. Although maybe it would’ve—they were neighbors, sort of. Kruger lived a few blocks away. Dorothy had stopped by his place on her way back from school to give him back his phone, but he hadn’t been home. She’d heard his parrot through the door, though, eagerly saying, “Who’s there? Who’s there?” after each knock. Kruger had mentioned the parrot once or twice. He’d talked about the pain in the ass it had been to move an African gray from L.A. to Chicago, but she hadn’t paid a lot of attention. She remembered now that he’d said the bird was ten years old, and could go on to live forty or even fifty years more, if Kruger took good care of him. There was something sad about an adult who took on a pet that could live so long, Dorothy had thought then, and was thinking again now. It was opening the door wide to the possibility that your relationship to them might be the defining relationship of your life. You’re one to talk, Dorothy thought now, staring at her coffee table, even though she hadn’t said anything out loud.
A phone lit up on the table. Kruger’s phone. It was his agent calling, the best in the business. Manny’s agent, too. Michelle Welles. Dorothy let it go to voicemail.
She wondered when she’d heard from her agent last. Her agent was still the one who’d told her about her touching-the-mic-stand tic twenty years earlier. Still Kiki. She’d been so happy to have Kiki believe in her back then. Kiki would go to every one of her shows in the beginning. Now Kiki was seventy-two and knew Dorothy so well that they barely needed to talk. She knew which days Dorothy taught, she knew to book small venues, request mineral water in the greenroom, a bottle of red wine, a pack of gum. In a few weeks, Dorothy would receive an email with her tour dates, and all would be in order. Kiki never fucked up. Her friends and colleagues admired Dorothy for sticking with Kiki, they praised her kindness and loyalty, but the truth was, no other agent had ever tried to poach her.
Michelle Welles called Kruger’s phone again. Maybe it was urgent, Dorothy thought, maybe Michelle knew something she didn’t about Kruger and she had to answer. She answered.
“You’re not Ben,” Michelle Welles said. “May I talk to Ben?”
“Ben left his phone at work,” Dorothy said. “This is Dorothy. Dorothy Michaels.”
“Dorothy! Oh my God! Is this the first time we’ve talked in person?”
Dorothy didn’t understand what people meant by “in person” anymore.
“Hold on,” Michelle said. “Are you and Ben dating? He didn’t tell me you were dating!”
“We’re not dating,” Dorothy said. “We’re just colleagues. He forgot his phone in the classroom.”
“Right.”
Dorothy heard Michelle type something on her keyboard back in L.A. A lot of keys being hit. Two medium-length sentences at least. Was she taking notes on their phone call, or multitasking, answering another client’s email while on the phone with her? Kiki would never do that, Dorothy thought. Kiki used pens and paper pads, for starters. Kiki always made Dorothy feel like the only worthy comedian in the world.
“Well, I’ll tell Ben you called,” Dorothy said, remembering that Michelle wasn’t her agent, that perhaps she didn’t type while on the phone with actual clients. “I might see him tonight.”
“Are you sure you’re not dating?” Michelle said. “I won’t tell a soul.”
“Pretty sure I’m single, yes.”
The suggestion reminded Dorothy of being younger, of a time when people were always trying to place her with someone. It seemed they’d needed to know what man she was dating before they could make up their mind about what kind of girl she was. It had been a while since anyone had made assumptions in that area, though, and Dorothy found it didn’t annoy her as much as it used to.
“Now that you mention it, I think Ben is single too,” she joked to Michelle. “Maybe we can work something out.”
“That would be pretty great,” Michelle said. It was unclear if she’d picked up on Dorothy’s tone. “In this context, I mean. If Ben started dating an older female comedian. Less successful, by Hollywood standards, but edgier, you know? With more cred.”
“I’ll present him with your arguments when next I see him,” Dorothy said.
“And it would be good for you, too,” Michelle added.
Was she riffing with her?
“What would be in it for me?” Dorothy asked.
“A lot of new fans,” Michelle said. “In a heartbeat. Crazy visibility. You’re planning a new tour, right? Bigger venues, extra dates. And also, you know, it’s nice to have a boyfriend. Ben is a great guy.”
“And what if I start dating another client of yours?” Dorothy asked. “What if I start dating Manny Reinhardt? What does my career look like if I do that?”
“I wouldn’t recommend it,” Michelle said. “Manny’s going to be a bit toxic for a while. Let’s stick to Ben. Kruger and Michaels: comedy power couple. If you start dating him, I’ll take you on as a client. Not even joking.”
“Not even joking” meant that Michelle had been joking before, Dorothy thought. Except the thing she was now not joking about (taking Dorothy on as a client) depended on everything she’d said before to have been said in earnest.
“That’s fucked up,” Dorothy said.
“Ah, come on, sweetheart. It’s a business. Don’t be like the new girls.”
Michelle started typing again, perhaps a new email, or perhaps gibberish, a random assortment of letters, just because she’d heard another successful agent once say that you had to let prospective clients believe they needed you more than you needed them, or some such idiocy. Dorothy started feeling sad for Michelle. That’s what usually happened when someone irritated her—quickly, she pictured them alone at home on a winter night, heating up instant ramen. It was always the same kind of people who annoyed her: people who seemed comfortable, people who seemed to have found their spot in the world and to think that they deserved a medal for it, people who thought themselves better than those who were still looking, or had given up on ever finding. Dorothy liked to imagine the moment in their future when their confidence would shatter for the first time.
“Plus,” Michelle added, “Kiki’s bound to retire at some point. You’ll need representation.”
Kiki would be thrilled to know that Michelle Welles even knew her name, Dorothy thought.
“I’m not clear on the rules now,” she said. “Should I give you a call when my agent retires, or when I start dating Ben Kruger?”
“When you start dating Ben,” Michelle said. “That’s the deal.”
“If he gets rid of the parrot, I’ll consider it,” Dorothy said.
“He’ll never get rid of the parrot, honey. We have to be realistic about this.”
When she hung up, Dorothy faced the parrot’s photo on Kruger’s lock screen. The parrot eating corn off the cob. She remembered the way he’d asked, “Who’s there?” when she’d knocked on Kruger’s door earlier, the level of alarm.
She went to her bedroom to change. What was she thinking, wearing a dress? She put her jeans back on, two thermal shirts, her favorite sweater. She kept the makeup—it was light enough that no one would notice. “Don’t be like the new girls.” Was that what Michelle had said? Yes. Don’t be like the new girls. What the fuck did that mean? Don’t break everyone’s balls? Don’t pretend to believe your work is what really matters? What people are truly interested in? Don’t look desperate to be young again? Dorothy didn’t want to be young again, she didn’t think—if anything, being a teacher had cured her of the fantasy. She wasn’t jealous of her students. She didn’t envy them what lay ahead. She felt sorry for them, in fact, that they had to contend with social media, with the internet, everything archived and available for easy perusal. How could one write anything decent in these conditions? She put her coat on, her hat, her boots (it had started to snow). And there was no such thing as “new girls,” she thought. The only ones who believed there were new girls were those who didn’t hang out with young people and relied on the media to tell them what the next generations were like. It was always the same girls. Different vocabulary, different clothes, different set of pretensions, but still the same girls in the end: those who didn’t mind being girls and those who did. Those who wanted to play with it and those who didn’t, those who got along with their mothers and those who didn’t, and so on and so forth. All the types repeating themselves, generation after generation, nothing new under the sun. That’s how Dorothy was able to recognize herself in someone like Olivia, for example. Though Olivia’s reaction when Dorothy had said that Manny might come to the Empty Bottle had annoyed her. She’d seen calculation in Olivia’s eyes, an immediate shift from I can’t believe I’m going to meet this guy! to How should I play my hand for maximum returns? That had been disappointing. How silly, though, Dorothy thought, to be disappointed. Olivia didn’t owe her anything. It wasn’t Olivia’s fault that Dorothy saw herself in her. Was that what happened when you didn’t have children of your own, by the way? You picked a random young person to place all your hopes in? A substitute child? Except not at all like a child, Dorothy thought, since Olivia (or whomever else she might pick in the future) would never worry about her the way she, Dorothy, worried about her mother, or the way her mother had worried about her own mother, who’d worried about her own mother, etc. It was a cycle of worry that Dorothy was breaking, not having children. No one would ever think about her as much as she’d thought about her mother, or in that way. This idea was a comfort, at times. It was comforting to know that she’d never have that kind of importance in anyone’s life. Refusing to have power over someone else’s life was still an exertion of power, she believed, a dizzying one. She was exerting power by doing nothing, by not creating more life.
In all honesty, thinking about this could make her a little sad, too, but what didn’t.
And speaking of power and mothers, Dorothy thought, she had done it! She’d gone out without a purse. She’d fit everything that needed fitting in her coat pockets, zipped Kruger’s phone in an inner one she’d never used. Her satisfaction at leaving the purse behind was similar to the elation she felt whenever she revised a bit and identified a perfect cut, the cut that suddenly made the bit two-legged and life worth living. She never felt better than when she managed to make things take less room. And she still had a whole extra pocket! She could even have taken a book. Maybe she should have. She was going to be a little early to the Empty Bottle, it was right around the corner. Whatever, she’d talk to the bartender. Sitting at the bar was her favorite, but she’d stopped doing it as much the last few years, assuming that bartenders wanted younger women there, or people like Sword, perhaps, men who were comfortable in their own skin and could talk about sports.
Sword. He had to be home now, with his depressive wife, going over his planned last words with her, perhaps wondering if he should tweak them, perhaps reasserting his belief that they were the right ones and encompassed everything he had to say. What sad sacks people were, Dorothy thought. She didn’t believe in famous last words. She didn’t believe they were ever the ones that the wife, the sister, or the deathbed friend reported at funerals. She didn’t believe in all the I love yous. She’d never been near dying herself, granted, but she’d been sick as hell a few times—painful ovarian cysts, couple of bad flus, a severe kidney infection once—and she hadn’t felt like telling anyone that she loved them. Even less like making pronouncements on life and its meaning, which was another option you could go with on your deathbed, according to witnesses—the third option being to tell a joke, or at least go lightly, if you couldn’t talk very much (a lot of people died calling “Dibs!” apparently, or whispering “You’re it!” to a sibling). All awful possibilities. The worst part about last words was, of course, that you couldn’t revise them. Dorothy’s father had done the right thing, she thought, not uttering any. He’d died long ago after a week of silence and without leaving a note, either, even though he’d been told by his doctors that it was time to put his affairs in order. It had hurt at first, to get no wisdom from her father, or a single “I love you” (he’d never said it), but now she admired him for it. He’d shown his daughter respect by not forcing her to obsess over a last line, a last piece of advice. Though silence was something to parse, too. Oh well. She realized it hadn’t occurred to her all afternoon to call her mother.
She made her right turn on Western Avenue and saw Artie looking lost on the sidewalk, searching left and right for a meter.
“It’s free parking on Western,” Dorothy told him when she got closer.
“Really?”
Artie couldn’t believe his luck. A block away from the venue, free parking. Maybe the gods had had a quick meeting over his case and decided to throw him a little something after the ride he’d just had.
“Where’s Olivia?” Dorothy asked. “Did you get her sister?”
“We got her, all right,” Artie said. “I dropped them off at the door. I thought I’d be looking for parking for a while.”
“What a gentleman.”
“I was mostly trying to save myself, to be honest.”
“Is the sister very boring?”
Artie explained. “Boring” was definitely not the word. The sister was angry.
“Angry is fun,” Dorothy said.
Artie explained some more. There had been traumas, he said, in childhood. The sister had been repeatedly abused by a stepfather, while Olivia barely even remembered the guy’s face.
“Okay,” Dorothy said. “Not fun angry.”
And now the sister, Sally, who was Olivia’s twin, by the way, had done some thinking, and also mushrooms (in a very controlled mushroom-taking environment), and she’d decided it was time to sue the guy.
“Good for her,” Dorothy said. “Sue him for everything he’s got.”
Except Olivia freaked out when Sally told her, Artie said. Big fight in the car. Olivia up front, Sally in the back seat, all the tension bouncing off the rearview mirror. Artie longing for the time (just a half hour earlier) when he hadn’t known anything about Olivia’s family.
“What do you think?” he asked Dorothy. “Do you think Olivia is a terrible person for not supporting her sister? Or do you think maybe she was molested by the guy too and she’s just trying not to think about it anymore?”
Dorothy was usually happy when people told her things they shouldn’t have. The reason she had a career, she sometimes thought, was that so many strangers had done that when she was a kid. Back then—often at bus stops, sometimes on the bus itself—a handful of adults had looked at her and confessed to various disappointments, adultery, suicidal ideation. Dorothy had thought this to be a normal thing for strangers to do, because you couldn’t really tell your family anything (she knew that), and so you had to find someone who had no stake in the game. She’d thought that was why people went places at night, to find the nobodies they could talk to. When she’d finally understood that most kids her age had never been used as spillways for bitter rants, she’d already accumulated a vast catalog of possible setbacks and ways people had to talk about them, she had a good grasp on facial expressions, accents, faraway looks. Later on, in her professional life, she’d met a lot of actors and comedians who’d had the same experience, in their youth, of being talked to, picked as sounding boards for no reason. For seemingly no reason, though, since years after the fact, they all explained it one way or another—actors by saying that they must have exuded a superior capacity for empathy, comedians by suggesting it was because they were stoned and looked like they wouldn’t judge anyone that they attracted so many intimate disclosures. In any case, while many of her colleagues had shut themselves away from chatty strangers with time, Dorothy still welcomed unrequested confessions, from fans, from the lady who sold pierogi at Kasia’s. Students, however, were not strangers. Students, you almost had to treat like family. You had to be careful what you said around them.
“I think maybe we shouldn’t be talking about this,” she said to Artie, regarding Olivia’s possible childhood trauma. “These are private matters.”
“They didn’t have a problem sharing all this in front of me,” Artie said.
“You’re their friend,” Dorothy said. “Olivia feels comfortable around you.”
“Maybe,” Artie said. He didn’t believe it for a second. “I just met the sister, though. She didn’t seem to care that I was hearing all about it.”
He realized as he said this that the reason the girls hadn’t cared was probably the opposite of what Dorothy was suggesting, that he was such a nobody in their lives, and would so obviously remain one, that it didn’t matter what he knew. It reminded him of being around Mickey’s friends as a kid. Them talking about sex and drugs and wanting to kill someone. They were always wanting to kill someone. “I want to kill this fucking guy!”—how many times had Artie heard these words? It was a different guy every time. More often than not, a guy Artie had never heard of, and he would make a note of the name, in case he saw it on the news the next day, the man behind the name found murdered in a ditch, Artie having to keep quiet about what he’d heard the night before. He’d almost hoped for his loyalty to be tested in this way, but he’d never had to cover for any of Mickey’s friends. No one ever died. None of the men Mickey and his friends had wanted dead, anyway.
“Forget I said anything,” Artie told Dorothy. “You’re right. It’s none of our business.”
Dorothy hated to be the cause of Artie’s present face. She’d been teaching a few years now, she’d made peace with the idea that students might be disappointed when they got to know her, because she wasn’t funny all the time, but still. She didn’t want to be a bummer.
“Let’s see if Olivia brings it up onstage,” she said. “If she brings it up onstage, then it’s open season.”