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BROOKLYN’S IN THE HOUSE
The freezer burnt Haagen-Dazs in the only flavor she didn’t want, vanilla, sold to her in a crushed-in pint, was conspicuous in the last year’s festive holiday packaging. It was rung up by a man who didn’t look away from a soccer match on his snowy television, screaming loudly in a Middle-Eastern tongue, while palming to her the improper change and a plastic bag with a hole along one of the seams. And none of it did much to soothe Lorraine’s mood. Neither did a night of snuggling with Pooh-Pooh, nor the three unreturned messages she’d left for Tommy.
But the morning run did. The winter weather was edging in. Despite the depression this time of year normally brought on, Lorraine was able to buy herself some sense of thrill, at least for the time being, at discovering New York City like this for the first time. The birds were getting on their way, but a few lingered loudly—maybe calling for a straggler get-together. The chilly twigs snapped brightly underfoot. The slightly burnt sweetness of roasting chestnuts already joined the scent cloud that hung over Manhattan’s busier districts. At this time between summer and the holiday season, there seemed to be fewer tourists and thus more room to move, which Pooh-Pooh gladly claimed, running on one side of a path and then the other, married to none.
Stores changed their window displays: autumn-toned pottery in pumpkin hues, inviting smatterings of red and deep greens and browns, glittering jewels in ruby and emerald—perfect for a holiday gift if only you started saving now. Police officers wore their jackets zipped halfway, their walkie-talkies echoing louder in the barren trees and sparse grass.
She could almost forget everything in the world running this way, noticing life this way. Feeling part of something new did have its advantages, as did the warmth and blind comfort of the familiar. You could feel more strength coming to the table with more knowledge more that you didn’t have before.
And so it was a little more confusing when she was shaken out of her own thoughts and her own morning journey by a voice that rang both new and comforting at the same time.
“Hey there.”
She realized it was Matt who’d spoken, and she allowed herself to drift from her dreamy state back to the rhythm of human interaction. “How’s it going?”
“Well, you’ve got me out of breath for the moment. I could barely catch up with you.” He heaved the words out, his chest rapidly rising and falling.
“Let’s sit,” Lorraine suggested at a coffee vendor parked next to a bench.
“Deal.”
“Can I buy you a coffee?” Lorraine asked, pulling a couple of folded dollars from a zip pocket in her sweatshirt. Digging her hand in there, the same way she had that morning she’d run into Matt with Tommy brought back the awkwardness she’d felt. She knew she needed to say something about it, but that wasn’t Lorraine’s way. She didn’t need to talk over every detail. You just moved on, right? Then nobody could tell if you were just being insecure—or a little neurotic.
“Definitely. Milk, two sugars, please.”
After the exchange with the wordless coffee vendor, Lorraine and Matt unhooked their animals, which of course started them pawing each other embarrassingly. Their owners looked away at the same time, which brought them face to face with each other.
For a minute they regarded each other the way people are normally too self-conscious to.
“I’m sorry,” they said at the same time.
“For what?” they asked at the same time.
And then the easy laughter comforted them both.
“It was awkward wasn’t it?” His face crinkled up like a ball of Saran wrap.
“But why?” she asked.
Matt looked at her for a second, and then said in his friendliest voice, “Silly, isn’t it?”
Either he’d never really felt the things Lorraine had imagined or he’d just come to terms with the idea that her heart was somewhere else.
She didn’t think she’d ever know which, but for the moment, a swell of regret was washed away up by an even larger tide of relief. Lorraine had too much to think about just then to add another, possibly more confusing element to the mix.
“How’s your work going?” she asked when it seemed time to change the subject.
“Same old. Not too much ever changes. Pay the bills, buy a new shopping center on Rodeo Drive, charter a plane, you know.” He smiled easily. “But as for my real work, you’ve got to see what I built out in Florida. It’s due to arrive tomorrow morning by FedEx.”
“What? What is it?” Lorraine saw the way he became energized at the mention of his furniture—the quickened pace of words, the widened eye, the extra blinks. It was a boyish, unbridled excitement. She could see that. Knowing he could get out to Miami and do what he really wanted a couple times a month made the daily grind endurable.
She found herself trying to settle on an image of his work space there, placing him at a picture window, with the waves gently rushing on the shore beyond, rays of sunlight illuminating his face. Matt was good people. That’s what her father would say. He always said that of people he respected. It was one of the few things he ever said. He said it of a few guys he worked with, and of Tim Specker who patrolled their neighborhood, who had brought her grandmother home (often naked as a babe and screaming, “Prude! Just a little longer!”) more times than Lorraine could remember. She knew he would say the same of Matt.
“You’re good people.” She hadn’t even realized she’d said it aloud.
Matt’s eyes questioned her. His mouth formed a pleased, but confounded smile.
“Oh, no, you’re not going to make me an offer I can’t refuse?” he asked.
Lorraine punched him playfully. “That’s original,” she taunted.
“What’s going on at the swanky salon? Got your hands full with those Princesses?
Given the opportunity, the words just spilled out. Why was it, Lorraine wondered, you could have the best intentions of appearing impenetrable, a Terminator of emotions, and then go on and ruin everything?
“I just hate this anger I feel toward Guido. Why am I so impatient?” She fiddled with the plastic cover on her coffee.
“Well, Lorraine, if you really want to hear my opinion, it sounds like Guido needs you more than you need him. I can’t believe he’s used your nail design without giving you any credit. Believe me, he knows you should have got a cut of those profits.
Lorraine didn’t see herself as a business tycoon. She wanted to rule the nursery, not the boardroom. There were no visions of Armani suits dancing in her head. It had just never seemed important.
“Ah, that’s not really my thing,” she said, instinctively wiping the idea away with a palm.
“I know. I know you’re not the cutthroat type, Lorraine.” As he said this, Lena Horne came galloping up into his lap and he stroked her back.
Lorraine couldn’t help but point out the obvious. “Oh, you mean, as opposed to you?”
He looked down at his lap and shrugged his shoulders in surrender. “I can be in touch with my feminine side without feeling like my masculinity is threatened. I learned it from Oprah.”
Lena snuggled her bow-tied fluff of hair into his sweatshirt, marking her territory.
Lorraine thought she knew just where Lena was coming from.
“Seriously, though, Lorraine. That’s why he’s afraid to let you go so fast with all the clients. He thinks you’ll stage a coup.”
Her head was shaking in disbelieve even before the words were at her lips. “That’s ridiculous! You should see this guy. Couldn’t hurt a fly! He’s just following the rules. He thinks if he lets me break them by moving too quickly up the ranks, then everyone will be bugging him for the same thing.” She didn’t know why she was defending Guido so vehemently, or why her voice had gotten so loud. Wasn’t she feeling suspicious and angry with him herself? Still she didn’t want to get involved in a battle of wills—or any battle at all. Too many other things in her life felt like a war. Hair coloring—that was supposed to be peaceful, enjoyable, the haven she escaped to when other things were pushing down on her too forcefully, not in itself something she had to work so hard at. But hadn’t that been exactly the case since she’d started at Guido’s? Hadn’t she been fighting to get though every day, save for those couple of hours that had seemed so natural and wonderfully fulfilling when she got to do what she did best?
“I totally appreciate the advice, Matt. But the difference is, you’re a businessman, and I’m a hairstylist. You just don’t know the beauty industry,” she said, trying her best to convince him and herself.
The two o’clock slot was the worst lunch you could get. Not only was it the latest, it also meant you’d be stuck with all the clients rushing you through their own lunch hour color appointments, juggling food-delivery orders onto silver trays with one hand, washing hair and holding foils with another, mixing colors, basically running around like Pooh-Pooh when he got to circling.
Her stomach was so empty, she’d just about imagined what every item on the menu would taste like. Don was putting it on his tab. And she was feeling a little embittered after towel-folding, hair-sweeping, and anything and everything but what she wanted to do; all the while glancing out at those billboard size hands of hers, telling her maybe Matt was right. So, Lorraine decided she’d make Guido pay, if only for an overindulgent lunch of four entrées and two appetizers, plus one slice of chocolate blackout cake and a ricotta cheese cannoli for dessert.
“Hungry?” Don asked sarcastically.
“Why do you ask?” She smoothed the linen tablecloth in front of her, then fidgeted with the sugar packets.
“Hey, Lorraine, you just gotta hang in there. You know the way things go. Believe me. It kills me to see you sweeping up like Cinderella. I know you’re worth more. You know you’re worth more. Even Guido does. He told me about class the other night. I swear to God, he’s never done that before with a student. Never.”
She didn’t know if she liked the idea of Guido talking about her with Don, or vice versa—but maybe Don had been trying to get Guido to move things along with her. Who knew how that conversation had come up?
“I don’t know, Don. It’s really hard to be treated like a novice. A lot more difficult than I imagined. I thought the promise of money in the future would help me tough it out, but it just doesn’t seem worth it. I never cared much about being rich. I’m not sure I’d even know what to do with rich. I don’t know how much more of this I’ve got in me.” It was true. Tommy was the one who cared about rich, or thought he did anyway.
She slurped her Diet Coke with abandon, turning over in her mind the fact that she’d just lied. True, work did suck—but she did have it in her. She would tough it out. She always did. That was who Lorraine was. She wasn’t about to go changing that now. Sure, she was exaggerating the truth a little, but she was freakin’ frustrated and couldn’t help it. A little goodwill from Don wouldn’t have hurt; that’s all she was looking for.
“Lorraine, Lorraine, I know. You are...I don’t even know how to say it. You’re one of the greats—a van Gogh, a Renoir. You are. Anyone can see it.”
That helped. She could listen to those kinds of compliments all afternoon. “Go on,” she said, smiling.
“Seriously. You’re fantastic. Guido confirmed that for me, although I didn’t need him to, not by a long shot. And that chance he gave you, to teach last night, that was huge for him. The Guido System was created over fifteen years ago, and it has never been broken—not even for me, his own brother. You, Lorraine, have already done color on two clients—who, by the way, have requested you for a rebooking. And you’ve taught a color class you were meant to be a student in. Just hang in there a little longer. I promise it will be worth it.”
Lorraine let out a breath that could have blown out all the candles on a hundred-year-old’s birthday cake, then sank back in her chair. She couldn’t believe how badly work was getting to her. Never in her life had she experienced this. Things were so bad there she hadn’t even thought about Tommy that day, and she’d not heard from him since Monday.
Their appetizers arrived and Lorraine ordered five dipping sauces, just because she was in that kind of mood. She wanted it all and she didn’t want to be told there were rules—this goes with that. She picked up a tempura zucchini and tossed the whole thing in her mouth, reached for a stuffed mushroom, and simultaneously forked her Waldorf salad.
Don shook his head. “Women.”
“Yeah,” she said with a full mouth, lifting more in its general direction. “You should see me and Chrissy when we tuck in like this. We can really eat, I tell you. We’re the van Goghs of eating, you could say.”
Don smiled. “How is Chrissy?” he asked a few seconds after. “You should have her come down, do her color or something. Then we can all go to lunch or something.”
“Or something, or something, or something. What’s this all about, Don? You sweet on Miss Chrissy?”
Don became fascinated with his own soda, dragging lines around the frosted side of his glass with a finger. “No,” he said, pouty.
Aha, Lorraine thought. Something interesting. “You’d consider falling for a Brooklyn chick?” she asked, swiping the last tempura zucchini and dipping it in the newly arrived horseradish sauce, which she thought with pleasure was truly meant for the onion rings. The taste of the two together—her own deliciously fattening concoction—was nearly too much. She could barely remember what they were talking about, much less notice the way Don’s voice had taken a sort of hostile edge (as close to hostile as Don’s voice could get); or the way he wasn’t eating anything, just sitting with his arms crossed in front of his chest.
“All right, Lorraine, you wanna know the truth? We’re from Brooklyn!” He caught the volume of his own voice and then leaned in and switched over to a thunderous whisper. “Our parents still live there.” Don let out his own enormous breath, threw himself back in his own chair, like he’d just been exorcised—the demonic bridge-and-tunnel part of him somehow lightened by merely admitting to it.
Surely this couldn’t be. Guido was...a guido? Sure, anyone could tell the haughty accent was a fake, but she hadn’t realized how hard it was working to cover up another, stronger accent!
“Let me get this straight. Guido is so ashamed of where you guys came from that he covers up his accent with a fake royal family voice that nobody buys anyway?”
Don was shaking his head. “I know. I know. He takes voice lessons. He makes me take voice lessons. I don’t even know how to sound like myself anymore, I’m so mixed up.”
“But why? I love Brooklyn! You should be proud to be from there!” The whole episode was making her homesick. Or maybe she was just—nauseated; she had eaten quite a bit, and getting upset on top of all that fried food was not ideal. But there was more. This was about Guido, but it wasn’t about Guido. To Lorraine, it seemed like all the problems in her life had to do with people’s opinions of Brooklyn. She was feeling caught in the middle of a major borough war. Couldn’t everyone just unite under the title of “New Yorkers” and leave it at that?
“I am, I know, but Guido, he took this seminar from a ‘life coach,’ back when he wanted to get out of Supercuts and start his own sa—”
“Guido came from SUPERCUTS?????!!!!!!” Lorraine screamed and sent half a mouthful of cheeseburger across the table. “Ew. Sorry.”
“First off,” Don continued in the super-strength whisper, “stop screaming. He’d kill me if he knew I told you—which leads me to the oath you must make never to tell a soul.”
Again with the oaths? What the hell was with these Manhattan guys?
“I solemnly swear on the Verrazano Bridge”—she bopped her head up and down, droned through a formal oath—“never to tell anyone that Guido is a guido.”
Even Don spit out a laugh (and some of his own cheeseburger) at that.
“...Unless, of course, I drink too much and have no control over myself.”
Don rolled his eyes. “Seriously, Lorraine. The reason I told you is because we are the same people. You're good people, Lorraine. So is Guido, although a bit of a mixed-up one at that. But he sees himself in you. He’s so proud of you, feels connected to you. Maybe even—”
“What? What?” Don had gotten her attention, using her father’s words like that, invoking that type of neighborhood jargon that meant so much to so few.
“Maybe even he wishes you were related to him, so I wouldn’t be such a huge disappointment.”
“Oh, Don. C’mon! You’re a success. You went through all the steps of Guido’s Method, you come to work every day. You’re completely reliable, wonderful, compassionate. Have you ever been on a vacation since you started working here?”
“Yeah, Lorraine. I know all that. I have to do all that because I’m a crap colorist and you know it.” His serious gaze forced Lorraine to frown.
Some people got up from a nearby table, with a racket of chairs screeching on the tile floor, jackets zipping and purses readjusting, a rattle of loose change. Lorraine’s cake arrived along with two small dessert forks.
They dug into the fluffy chocolate as Don explained to Lorraine how he wanted to be a business manager, a talent scout for his brother. “I’m the Mark Burnett of beauty. I want to put together the right cast for the ultimate reality experience—a beauty parlor.” His face was forlorn. As absurd as it may have sounded, it was his dream and Lorraine could tell it meant the world to him.
Don said he’d always felt he could recognize greatness. “Look, I found you,” he said to the tablecloth, “and now I...” He swallowed the end of his sentence.
“Don’t cry!” Lorraine soothed.
He didn’t cry, but he didn’t acknowledge her, either. He kept on talking: “But that wasn’t enough! Nooooo. Nothing is ever enough for Guido....Guido doesn’t like change, Guido doesn’t want to mess with the clients he’s always worked with, the methods he’s always used...”
She wondered why all of this was coming to the surface now. And it made her realize something strange about her own predicament—Lorraine and Don, two people on opposite sides of the table, were also on opposite sides of the same problem. She was a talented colorist without the means to do her thing. On the other hand, though he was in an enviable position—coincidentally, exactly the one Lorraine wished for herself—he didn’t really want or have what it takes to run with it. Ironically enough, he wanted something else altogether! Why did it seem that what everyone sought most was the one thing they couldn’t have? And was there a way to ever make peace with the prospect of not having it? And if there was, should you? The predicament didn’t merely plague her own family, as she’d always thought.
She had to fight off the initial frustration this boring old, seemingly answerless predicament ignited in her before answering. “First off, Don, I’m sorry I’ve been so frickin’ self-involved. I hadn’t even thought about your own problems and feelings. I really feel like a dick about that. Second, I want to say that if it hadn’t occurred to me before, boy, you and I, Don—we are so alike it’s not even funny. And third, Mr. Seeker of Talent, Mr. I Know Who’s Got It and Who Hasn’t, I’m sure you know you’ve got what it takes to get all that together for yourself—isn’t that supposed to be your specialty? And besides, you found me, so obviously you’re fantastic.”
Later that night, snuggling in bed with Pooh-Pooh, Lorraine didn’t quite know what to do or how to feel about the information she’d gathered. But she was letting it all soak in, allowing it to course through her veins, make a place for itself within the existing ideas she already held. And for once, she wasn’t in a rush to tell everyone what she thought about it. There were some elements of the Guido Method that had proved useful to Lorraine Machuchi, whether or not they were intentional. Patience was one of them.
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I don’t say “yeah.” I say “yes.”
I don’t say “wouldja.” I say “would you.”
I don’t say “gimmie.” I say “I’ll have.”
I don’t say “hey.” I say “hello.”
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eBay auction block #10
Description: In this, Guido’s voice lesson assignment #1, he practiced the fundamentals of “correcting” his Brooklyn accent.
Opening bid: $150
Winning bid: $1250 by guido@bboy.com
Comments: I think it atrocious that your company would slander my reputation with such nonsense. And besides, everyone has to learn to become comfortable with who they are, and for some people this can take longer than it does with others. And you can see from my new e-mail address, I am now ready to show I am a B Boy. However, you will be hearing from my attorney.