A Woman Trapped in a Woman's Body Page 3

  “They don’t want to hurt your feelings. I’ll go tell everyone we’re going out to have a ‘Lauren’s been canned’ drink after work. Come on, Fred.”

  It occurs to me that perhaps, as is often the case with Carrie, she’s just doing what they’d taught her in preschool—to share whatever she had a lot of, whether it be Jolly Ranchers or bitterness. Maybe she doesn’t really know whether I’m fired. She just wants to keep me down so she can look cheerful in comparison to someone who may have just been fired.

  I reach down to pet Fred, trying to get a little comfort, but he yanks his head away.

  “He only likes full-time employees,” Carrie says.

  “Me too,” I whine.

  “I’m kidding, geez. Sensitive. Are you going to be a mess at the ‘Lauren’s been canned’ party? Because that’s what everyone is gonna be scared of. So try not to be. We like a cheerful fired girl. Come on, Fred.”

  The next three random people I pass on the way back to my desk tell me the same thing. “That means you’re fired. They just don’t want to be mean.”

  The fourth person I pass is Mitch, a full-time comedy writer whose contract was also up for renewal. I know because he was called in to the office directly after me. He tells me they offered him a freelance contract too. And he’s smiling. So you see, maybe it’s not what Carrie says. And all those other people. Maybe it’s exactly how it sounds.

  “Yeah, freelance. So what do you think?” I ask him.

  “No fucking way,” Mitch says. “That’s a joke. I just quit as soon as she offered it. I’m not stupid. I would never accept a deal like that.”

  After work, the few employees who aren’t whooping it up at Mitch’s “I told them to fuck themselves” party sit at a corner table for my “Sorry you got canned” party. Carrie tactfully asks the four other employees who’ve shown up if I’ll be allowed to go the Emmys now that I’m not a full-time employee.

  “They already invited me! They can’t uninvite me!” I say.

  “Yes they can!” the entire bar answers in unison.

  The next morning I run up to Mary, who is wearing what she claims to be Snoop Dogg’s underwear on her head, and ask her if I am still going to the Emmys. She rolls her eyes. Pats me on the head. Makes the sign for “she’s gone cuckoo!” and says, “You nut! Of course you are! How could you not go—you’re a part of the show! Why would you suddenly not be going?”

  “Well, the freelance contract thing ...”

  “Freelance contract!” she says, pulling the underwear off her head. “You’re on freelance contract? When did this happen? Um, I have to take Jon’s puppy on a walk. We’ll talk about this later.”

  She puts the underwear back on her head and walks straight into the executive producer’s office. Which is not where Jon keeps his puppy.

  Two days later I get a call from my manager, saying, “You’re not going.” Then I am going. Then I’m not going. Then I am. Then I’m tall. Then I’m short. Then I’m black. Then I’m white. Then I am going again. Then I’m not. Again. (As I told a co-worker, I’m just glad this isn’t how the Make-A-Wish Foundation is run.) Finally my manager calls to tell me that the security guy’s second cousin has backed out and I can have his ticket.

  “Will your husband be joining you?” Mary asks, after I give her the news.

  I wish Mathew could hear her say that. He and I have argued many times over the fact that whenever he meets anyone at my job they always give a little shocked jump, clasp their heart, and exclaim, “Husband? Lauren, you’re married?” If he’d heard Mary’s question he’d see that things were really changing in our marriage. Maybe he wouldn’t even notice the way she put air quotes around the word “husband.”

  “Oh no, he’s not going,” I answer. And then I remember that you’re supposed to try in a marriage. I correct myself: “Oops, that sounded bad. What I meant to say is, does he get a free ticket?”

  “We’d pay for his ticket to the ceremony but he’d have to pay for the rest.”

  “Then I don’t think so. It’s not really his thing.”

  That evening when I tell Mathew that I’m going to go to the Emmys and he isn’t, he hangs his head and says, “Man, you are lucky. This may sound dumb, but it’s like a childhood dream of mine.”

  Ow, my heart. Or maybe it’s my irritable bowel syndrome. Whatever it is, it hurts.

  Forever getting it wrong—that’s how our marriage is starting to feel. I’m vaguely aware of how a loving person acts. I’ve seen it in the movies. I should insist that he go—remind him that money is never the issue and that it just won’t be as much fun without him. But I want him to push more, to say, “I’m going, dammit,” then punch me or something. Be forceful. Maybe not the punch (save that for our anniversary). We are constantly testing to see how much the other one really wants to be here. And every time the answer seems to be “not that much.” Then again, how much more clear a message than “it’s a childhood dream of mine” did I want?

  I don’t know what is wrong with us. I don’t know why since 9/11, when everyone else has been growing closer to loved ones, Mathew and I have been freaking out in our own little individual cages. The only time we come together is when I stop by the bar where he works.

  In the past the bar had been an environment that worked well for our relationship. Mathew stood safely behind the bar and I got drunk. Everybody wins! But recently things have become odd. As soon as I walk into the bar he makes these huge efforts to show me special attention. He’ll introduce me to the other drunks in the bar as his beautiful wife (“Has everyone met my beautiful wife?”), which is a kind thing to say, I get that. And I don’t immediately yell, “What the fuck is that about?” But somehow his voice sounds wrong. It sounds like it has been sounding more and more since we watched the buildings come down.

  Right after we witnessed what felt to me like seeing the moon explode, he turned to me and said something like, “This day will go down in history,” in a sort of FDR voice. He’s used that old-fashioned radio announcer voice quite a bit since that day. “Somebody will pay a price for this ...” “Four score and seven years ago ...” He either talks to me in a rapid series of war cliches, or he talks about myriad topics that I judge as far too shallow considering the post-9/11 world we are now living in.

  But just as I decide to make an effort and explain the details of what it would take for him to come with me to the Emmys, Mathew grabs his lighter and his cigarettes, chains his wallet to his belt, and whisks out of our tiny punishment of a New York apartment.

  “I’ll be back around 6:00 a.m.,” he says, as he kisses the air just above my angry, abandoned, Emmys-bound face.

  After weeks of shopping, I grow tired of store owners never believing that I’m going to the Emmys. Not one minor designer or random salesperson offers to donate a dress to the cause, despite my assurances that if we win—and we always do!—I’d be getting major camera time.

  The dress I end up with is one that has been hanging in my closet for years and is appropriate for no occasion except something like the Emmys. I got it from Goodwill—but from their annual Glitter Sale, not the free bin. There wasn’t any dried throw-up and wig hairs stuck to it (at least not before I got it). It was a lovely black Tinkerbell dress from the ’50s that looked a bit like it had been hand-sewn for a high school play. (A private high school.)

  I try the dress on for Mathew. Which I realize after the fact is a little cruel—sort of like the cameraman enjoying a sandwich as he photographs a child dying of starvation. Mathew likes the dress but asks me if it feels a little tight. I would answer but I can’t get enough air into my squashed lungs to say “yes.”

  Undeterred, I figure what post-traumatic stress failed to do for me, Dr. Atkins will. This year, Atkins is the weight loss plan of choice for most city folk. There is this constant parade of people in a state of ketosis, running by with platters stacked with cheeses and ham and steak, and cubes of fat and gristle and oil muffins with hot oil filling. They
breathe their blue-cheese breath on me as they gush, “God, and all this energy! I don’t know what to do with it!” (Maybe have your tongue scraped?)

  Before joining the ketosis brigade, my main concern about Atkins was digestive. “Will I poop?” I asked his constituents. (“Oh yes, this diet is perfect for that! I can’t stop! Look at that—just talking about it, whoops, gotta go!”)

  I haven’t pooped to my satisfaction in twenty years. Maybe thirty. Growing up, my mom made a chart next to the toilet where I was supposed to monitor my poops. Happy faces for good ones, sad faces for painful ones, faces with no features at all—just a round circle—for when I thought I had to go and nothing happened. Over the years people have tried to help me, giving me advice about getting it going. My friend Gay Jay once bought me a very expensive gift of colon cleansers that were supposed to unstick that bean burrito from 1974.

  So I’ve been doing Atkins for three weeks now and I feel sick and shaky all the time. But all the women in Manhattan—who treat any waiter coming toward them with a bread basket like a date rapist: “NO! NO MEANS NO!”—tell me not to give up and to give it at least two months.

  At the end of a very sad, weak workout at the gym I hop on the scale in the dressing room. You’d think after witnessing so much in the past year I would have gained some life perspective, but when I see what that fucking scale is telling me I scream and hit it with both of my hands, which causes my towel to fall off. Then I burst into tears and end my workout on the floor of the shower sobbing like Glenn Close in The Big Chill. The only difference is that she was crying because her friend had died and I am crying because I’ve gained two pounds. Besides that, the similarities are eerie.

  It’s day five of “no movement” when we’re finally boarding our flight for the Emmys. But for once my bowels are not my major issue of the day. Flying has trumped pooping.

  I’ve always been a giddy and petrified flyer. I prefer to sit by someone who is dressed like a pilot or flight attendant so I can keep my eye on them to make sure they don’t suddenly make the sign of the cross.

  Nuns, newborns, newlyweds clutching each other during takeoff, youth groups returning from or en route to building libraries in South America—anything reeking of “when bad things happen to good people” really frightens me.

  Comedy Central people dominate our JetBlue flight from JFK to Long Beach. If we do go down, the entire staff—except Jon (hmmm)—will be wiped out.

  The plane ride is much like the bus trip in the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Everyone’s medication is a little off today.

  We’re taxiing for takeoff and one of the writers has actually gotten out of his seat and is walking toward the front of the plane. I should have known he was a terrorist, he’s always been so withdrawn and overly polite. The flight attendant yells at him over the intercom, “Sir! Sit down! You can’t—”

  He yells back, “You told me I could sit by my wife during takeoff! To wait until everyone was seated and then I could—”

  She hangs up and comes storming toward him. “You can’t stand up during taxi! Sit down!”

  He doesn’t seem to give a shit. He’s just gotten married and is worried about his wife, who is nervous about takeoff. I’ve been married for three years and didn’t even bring my husband with me ... having decided that “it’s my childhood dream” was a passive-aggressive statement.

  I’ve ridden in a lot of planes but I’ve never seen someone get up during taxi and fight about it. And here I am, seeing it happen, and it’s someone I know. The flight attendant gives him the “we’re going to have to turn this plane around” spiel, but he keeps fighting.

  “But you told me you’d come and get me after everyone was seated and I could—”

  “I’m going to have to call the pilot and tell him—”

  “But you said—”

  I’m seated very close to all of this and it’s freaking me out. The insanity does not die down once we reach our cruising altitude. We’re a group of scared, alcoholic, post-9/11 New York comedy people, so as soon as turbulence starts the flight attendant bell is going off every three minutes.

  Ding! “Is this normal? This amount of turbulence?”

  “Oh yes. This is actually light chop. Pilots are trained to handle much heavier—”

  Ding! “Is everything okay?”

  “Yes, this is perfectly normal light chop.”

  Ding! “Does this mole look irregular to you?”

  After a while everyone is making their way to the bathroom, weaving their way past me, clutching the seatbacks or the sweaty bald foreheads of their co-workers to make it to the lavatories.

  It’s a plane full of Woody Allens, without their foster wives to calm them down.

  Maybe it’s the LA heat, but that night in the hotel room, I try on my dress and it’s still a little tight. In fact it’s more than a little tight. There are areas of friction under my arms and slicing pain around my waist. Once the dress is fully zipped up, I’m running around the hotel room, screaming, “Get it off me! Get it off! I can’t breathe! It’s cutting me! It burns!”

  Thanks to Dr. Atkins, my insides are packed full of salami and cheese. Very uncomfortable. In fact, upon landing in LA, I called Gay Jay (who lives in the area) and told him that I needed some sort of emergency evacuation.

  He told me that I needed to talk to his yoga-Scientology friend, Saranella, who was really into this kind of thing. Jay reported that she recently did a coffee enema and has been glowing ever since.

  Saranella is driving forty minutes to meet me in a Rite Aid parking lot to help me with my Emmys prep. It is instantly apparent that LA folks are much more on board with the Emmys thing than New Yorkers. They get it. It’s nothing to be ashamed of here. It’s like this city’s prom. They don’t roll their eyes or try to act unimpressed—they’ll leave their children unattended in the bathtub if you call with an Emmys-related emergency. I imagined Saranella running out of her house, her husband holding a crying baby, saying, “Saranella, but it’s our anniversary! The reservation is in thirty minutes!” And Saranella responding, “Can’t talk. Gotta go! Emmys! Enema! Atkins! Filled with cheese—I’ll explain later!”

  Once we gather at Rite Aid, Saranella says, “So here’s what you need, an enema bag, a hot water bottle with a rubber hose attached, and some good magazines.” She’s so excited for me. “You’re gonna have the movement of your life!” she says. “I’m telling you, Lauren, you’re gonna be a convert. You will never even think of taking coffee orally anymore!”

  I’m sure the folks at my local coffee shop will be thrilled when I ask them to add an ice cube to my Americano.

  “Oh really? You’ve never done that before, Lauren. What’s that about?”

  “Well, I’m cooling it down so I can pour it up my ass,” I’ll reply, starting to unbutton my pants. “I’m telling ya—the glow!”

  I certainly won’t be able to order mochas anymore.

  (“Would you like whip on that?”

  “Yeah, I would, and I know this sounds gross, but could you just squirt it on my asshole? Thank you so much. I don’t need a lid.”)

  But Saranella is just so enthusiastic, I have to try it. She’s a commercial actress and she’s fucking good at it—you just look at her and you really do want whatever it is she’s selling. She exudes this happy, clear, thin-person energy that we all want. And if pouring a pot of coffee up her ass is how she got it, start brewing!

  Saranella’s theory is that putting it up your bum is more direct—it’s sucked right into the bloodstream—which seems reasonable. By the end of the parking lot presentation I’m jumping up and down, clapping my hands with delight, realizing that if the coffee works I may never have to use this old gaping mouth hole thing again.

  The fun comes to a screeching halt, however, once she is actually brewing the coffee and setting up the enema area in the bathroom. She’s running past Jay and me with arms full of towels and pillows.

  He and I have been g
iggling about the idea all afternoon, making jokes about telling the local police department to be on alert to evacuate the area if something should go horribly wrong. But the sight of her laying out towels on the floor and showing me how to control the amount of coffee flow is starting to disgust him.

  They both leave to give me some privacy. I carry my bag of hazelnut coffee in a pink enema bag into the bathroom and do as I was instructed to do.

  I clench and hold the pot of coffee inside me, imagining the weight loss, the glow, and the energy and happiness I’m going to have when it’s all over. I bet I’ll be the only one at the Emmys with that unique glow. Perhaps it will even draw Joan and Melissa Rivers over to ask me for my beauty secret. “Well, Joan, it’s no secret. All you need are two things that most Americans have: a colon and some coffee!”

  The process starts out peacefully and ends with me screaming and grabbing at the walls, clutching the toilet so I won’t fall off.

  The period of “Oh my god, I have no bodily control whatsoever” lasts for a good few minutes, during which Jay’s Korean housepainter lets himself into the house and is walking around knocking on every closed door, yelling out, “Mr. Jay? Mr. Jay!”

  I’m hoping he’ll hear the sounds coming from the bathroom and just assume a cement truck is unloading there, but he doesn’t. He starts walking toward the bathroom door, which I have not locked and cannot reach from my perch.

  “Mr. Jay!”

  “HE’S NOT HERE!!” I scream. “Not here!!”

  Pause. Now I’m scared I sound so distressed he’ll come in to see if I’m okay. Then the footsteps stop.

  “Oh. Okay.”

  Oh, thank god.

  “Could you tell him something for me?”

  Motherfucker.

  “Yes—yes. What?”

  “Ummm. Tell him ... maybe I should write it down. Could I have a piece of paper—”