Life, Libby, and the Pursuit of Happiness Read online

  Ariel Keller is the most like-me friend I have ever had. Perhaps she is actually the most like-I-want-to-think-I-am friend because she is naturally cool. I have to work at it and then still catch myself in the middle of the most uncool conversations or predicaments.

  Had she not dropped out of the high finance world to enjoy the life of a barista at Elliott Bay Book Company, Ariel and I would probably never have met. With her newly pierced nose, she served me soy vanilla lattes with cinnamon every day when I moved to Seattle five years ago. I basically camped out among the walls of books and the creaky hardwood floors at the bookstore. Eventually I mustered the courage to initiate a conversation with the sarcastic, lively, dark-haired gypsy behind the café register.

  Finding a good friend when recess is no longer a part of life is harder than dating. But soon I was sharing my load (a bad habit of mine) and treating her like a long-lost friend. One rainy Friday afternoon after I had asked for a refill, she pulled up a worn stool to my table, and I told her the story of my homelessness (blatant uncoolness).

  I tossed out the line I used when casting for empathy from strangers. Only Ariel remained seated for any words that followed. “While I was in Paris for my final semester at Northwestern University, my family not only changed the locks but changed the address of my home.”

  I vividly recalled hearing the news.

  It was the day I broke down on the phone with my mother. It took a lot of courage and desperation for me to blubber my loneliness over the long-distance connection. As I spit out the words, “I just want to be home again. I…I want to be speaking English, and…and…reading in our window seat facing the garden. I…”

  She interrupted me at that point to inform me those things would never happen again. “Well, except speaking English,” she offered as my weeping turned to animal moans.

  Mom had accepted the psychology department chair at UCLA. Dad had agreed to relocate if she agreed to return to the Midwest after retirement. He was a self-employed life strategist. Ironically, he helped people work through life transitions…while his wife reported the loss of the family home with the warmth of a stock update to their lonely daughter curled in a fetal position thousands of miles away.

  Welcome to my life.

  My crying did not seem to affect my mother in the slightest. Well, other than it made her uncomfortable. She closed with a really memorable line.

  I knew this to be true, because I remembered it.

  Clearly.

  Verbatim.

  “I gave up plenty of offers during the course of your childhood for the sake of the work…the work of parenting. I would think that your pending graduation from college would lend itself to new freedom…for both of us. Bye, dear.”

  Click.

  From then on I watched the Paris rain without warm thoughts of home to push me through the isolation. At that point I became a foreigner to those around me and to myself. Even the faith I had found during my early college years, which usually kept me afloat after a mother storm, seemed flat and thin…stretched too far away from its point of origin—a small, musty, brick church with orange carpet in Evanston, Illinois.

  Paris transformed into a vast playground for a once-shy young woman who found herself untethered to anything familiar. When people asked where my home was, I listed a city close to wherever they were from. Why not? This should be the privilege of the homeless. The world was my home. This autobiographical revision led to interesting encounters and many party invitations.

  I spent a good portion of the remaining three months living it up with New York neighbors, Colorado comrades, and fellow Floridians over red wine, Brie, and Gauloise cigarettes. I was everyone’s little bit of home away from home. I still had a collection of phone numbers and email addresses from all over the United States. But I would never contact any of them. After all, I wasn’t myself at the time. They wouldn’t even recognize the uptight person I was back in the States, back in the land of cubicles and panty hose and time clocks.

  After graduation, I leapfrogged several jobs in the Chicago area, but the lack of a personal support system and few chances for advancement threw me into a depression. When the market continued to offer nothing more than hyped-up assistant positions (how ironic), my little sister convinced me to come and live in the Seattle area. She and her husband, Nate, had moved to the Northwest after their prom/wedding ceremony. One of those odd cases of true, young love, it seemed.

  I was longing to be a part of a family again…or for once. And the thought of being near my nieces Helen and Libby (my namesake, poor gal), was enticing. An offer for me to actually live with them was never extended, and I decided that was too much for me, anyway. A single woman should enjoy the chance to live downtown instead of in the affluent suburbs.

  I relocated to the wetlands of Washington and chose to room with the only Seattle transplant I knew from Northwestern days—Ferris Franklin. We got along swimmingly because Ferris was like a brother. In fact, we looked of the same gene pool with reddish-brown hair and fair skin.

  As it turns out, almost-siblings have a definite honeymoon period.

  Within a month the buddy-fun started to wear off. I realized my mood swings were not really mine—they were reactions to Ferris’ bizarre, almost menstrual-like cycles of grumpiness. I started to wonder if his real name wasn’t Ferrina. But on his good days we were in sync. We both liked to have our space, which was difficult in his one-bedroom apartment. We liked a bit of a mess so that we could have our belongings near us at all times. And we both had a strong penchant for cheese-and-tomato pizza at midnight. But after a few months I needed more space, had heartburn, and was sore from sleeping on the “futon mattress,” which looked suspiciously like two dog beds pushed together.

  It was at this pathetic point in time that my coffee server turned into my real estate agent. Ariel hooked me up with her cheap-cigar smoking uncle who ran an apartment search service with such clever ads as “Your Place or Mine?” They were actually chartreuse flyers that filled the metro wastebaskets. One had stuck to my foot during my first week in town. It looked scary, like a ploy to round up ladies of the evening. Ariel promised me that Uncle Clay was indeed scary but legit. I was so eager to get off of the pet mattress that I accepted her offer to accompany me to his office.

  For several weeks we followed Clay’s Pig Pen shroud of smoke as he showed us a fine selection of upscale drug houses. I suspected he listened to the police scanners to find his next property. Just as I was about to beg Cass for a place to stay, Clay actually earned his fee. It was a one-bedroom located in the Queen Anne area. The rent was just over the max I had set for myself. Brick building, warm honey-colored wood floors, built-in bookcases, and a real breakfast nook. I even liked the ambience of the worn rugs, thin cracks in the ceiling that resembled a topographic map of the Mississippi water system, and chipped high gloss paint around the doorway. It looked like maturity at a very adult price.

  I justified the splurge because it had a window seat, and I was now a window-seatless orphan who deserved to reclaim childhood comforts. I was also banking on the then recent promises for quick advancement Cecilia had made when I entered the Reed and Dunson program.

  If only I had known I would never be able to afford that window seat.

  As I took in the awesome Seattle cityscape against a baby blanket pink-and-blue sky backdrop, I had to admit, even if things were not turning out as planned, I was very lucky to be here. I wondered what a Croatian sunset looked like. Would I ever see the life Aunt Maddie made for herself?

  Would I ever see a life that was truly made for me?

  The next best thing to a date with a personal oracle was a fortune cookie. I pried open the golden, mouth-shaped cookie that was ready to spew deep wisdom.

  “Life is an uphill journey. Don’t lose your footing.”

  What a cheap-shot fortune for any Seattle dweller. I shook my numb legs back to life and began the trek back to my apartment. The Chinese food expanding, I unh
ooked the top of my pants and loosened the strap of my shoes (Convenience Advantage: mugger) and got out my cell phone (911 Advantage: me). But my breathing was so ragged I figured I would have a heart attack before anyone good or evil got to me, so I used the first number on my speed dial and left a message for Ariel.

  “I ate two adult portions of Chin Chin’s without you. And I got demoted. I have a week to learn how to be an assistant. Oh, yeah…I have been faking life. Call me.”

  The red flag did not fly in my consciousness until the middle of the night. Wide awake, tossing and turning, I realized I had used my in-the-moment call on Ariel instead of Angus, my boyfriend. If after four months Angus was still not my in-the-moment call, he would certainly never become my one-and-only anything.

  My mind made a shocking confession. I had chosen Angus to distract me from my life. He was never meant to become a part of it.

  I stared at the ceiling and listened to my stomach churn.

  A lethal dose of MSG in Chin Chin’s? Or a side dish of reality?

  Four

  I awoke to rain rushing over my window on Saturday morning. Sometimes I felt as though I lived in a 400-square-foot vehicle going through one gargantuan car wash. Yet I didn’t find the fickle Seattle weather depressing. Somehow rainy days and Mondays never got me down. Though I’m not morose necessarily, I finally lived in a city where the weather patterns seemed to reflect my persona.

  While lounging in my pajamas, I munched on toast with crunchy peanut butter and sipped my last can of Diet Coke. I had finished off my Tully’s ground espresso the day before, and I couldn’t deal with walking the five yards to one of the countless conveniently located coffee shops in my neighborhood. So I sipped cool caffeine and watched cartoons, pouting because Ariel hadn’t called me back after my obvious SOS message.

  I sucked peanut butter away from the peanut chunks and then spit the chunks into my empty can. Nothing against peanuts. It was totally for entertainment purposes and the challenge. This is what the real me did.

  “Stellllllaaaaaa!” Angus’ familiar routine started up like a oil-deficient lawn mower. My forehead tightened and my hands molded into fists. My body was telling me something, but I was too perturbed to listen.

  “It’s open!” I yelled, immediately bothered by my own tone. I remembered my midnight thoughts about our relationship and felt bad. “Come on in.” I called out with an effort at cheer.

  “Geez. Whatsa matter with you?” Angus came bounding in with his usual black T-shirt and black jeans—both with strategic holes I helped him make by dragging bricks over them as soon as they were released from the Old Navy shopping bag. The hole-thing was part of his rocker image. An image dated by about twenty years to the rest of the world, but a look still passable for normal in Seattle. When I asked him why he didn’t just buy used black T-shirts and jeans for an authentic look, he rolled his eyes. His “you so don’t get my scene” look. I wanted to point out that few did because his band, Mistaken, struggled to get any kind of play time in this music club-loaded town.

  “Sorry. Really.” I was. He had puppy dog eyes. But, sometimes, when he opened his mouth…

  “Is this one of your designated lazy days? I kinda wish I had stayed in bed longer. I’m wiped after our long rehearsal.” He went into my kitchen and, surprised to find no coffee brewing, returned with a box of Frosted Mini-Wheats.

  I neglected to mention that I saw red ants near the box yesterday.

  “I have some bad news.” I said, inhaling a big breath and preparing my story of woe.

  “You don’t want me to move in?” He kept mentioning this. It made me very nervous. I liked having a significant other, but one complete with their own significant-other dwelling. I ignored him and forged on with my important news.

  “I got a demotion.”

  “I second that demotion….” he sang out a variation of the old Smoky Robinson song. This was the way we conversed. I said things, and then he played off of them to veer toward tangents relating nothing whatsoever with the concern, dream, sorrow I had just expressed. He was a strange mix of a handsome, dark, almost-philosopher and a pull-up-the-girls-dresses sixth grade dork.

  With clarity that comes from understanding you’ve been pretending your way through life, I wondered whether I was attracted to the frosted or wheat side of Angus.

  “It was a huge disappointment. I had plans. I was supposed to make my big move by now.” I weighted my words, hoping to communicate the severity of the situation.

  “Do you want to go to Pike Place Market?” While this could have seemed like one of those aforementioned tangents, it wasn’t really. He knew I enjoyed the market when I hit depression mode. I took it as a gesture of love (he hated the tourist element unless they were paying a $10 cover charge to hear him).

  I kissed his cheek and then bent over to look beneath the couch for a pair of jeans I wore last weekend. I owned two pairs, Fat and Fatter, and rotated them according to my cycle of water retention. Today required Fatter.

  “Dang, I cannot find them.” I continued to strain forward, rummaging.

  “Nice view though,” Angus says with an annoying chuckle. The geek side of him was coming out like acne.

  “Found ’em!” I overlooked his last comment (this was a pattern) and focused on the previous one—the one indicating sensitivity to my sad state of being.

  Holding hands, we strolled down Pine Street toward the market. His soft, nearly delicate hands had caught my attention in the beginning. He had been reading Hamlet at Elliott Bay when my eyes gravitated toward his slim fingers and followed his silver thumb ring as it turned pages, brushed hair from his eyes, scratched his nose, and knocked his coffee mug off the table.

  Seeing the incident taking place before he was even aware of what he had done, I quickly crossed the room to help him clean up. At first he thought I worked there, so he apologized but left me to do the work, but when he realized I was just another customer he got on his knees to help. This is when I noticed those intriguing eyes—a hint of green blended with the almost cocoa hue, highlighted by dark, long lashes. His voice was a nice medium tenor with pleasant inflection. A voice that I swear he manipulated into a fake English accent that day.

  Angus and I initially hit it off on a very innocent conversational level. I was curiously attracted to details about the artistic underbelly of the city, and he was curiously attracted to my interest in him. The question-and-answer sessions soon fell flat and were replaced by kisses and small talk. It felt so good to do something apart from the corporate culture that consumed me during the week that I bought into a cubic zirconium version of “like”—it wouldn’t pass for real under scrutiny, but it sure sparkled.

  Even while it was happening, I knew I was playing dress up in my personal life only because my professional life plan was falling so short of “the dream.” If I could not be defined by an adequate professional title, then I would improve my social title.

  And “girlfriend” sounded just fine.

  Hanging with Angus’ crowd did have its benefits. I was no longer shocked by bus-riding Goths or dog-collared clerks at the 7-Eleven. And I was proud of my enlightened, liberal state. Enlightened without substances, that is. I didn’t get into the drugs that made the rounds of this social group, so after about an hour with some of his friends who did indulge, I felt superhuman. Exceedingly smart, clever, fast-thinking, and overflowing with active brain cells. Brilliant.

  Perceived genius, it turns out, is addictive.

  The market bustled beneath a late morning rainbow. Everything shimmered as visitors and regulars melded into a unified group of shoppers taking in the colorful produce, infamous fish market, and treasures sold by artists and vendors. After a few minutes of wandering and sneaking grins at each other, Angus and I stopped at a display of jewelry. I used to feel badly if I didn’t buy. But a Seattle native once told me that expressing appreciation for an artisan’s work was part of the market exchange.

  “Look at these. Do y
ou think they’d look cool on my guitar strap? They match your eyes.” Angus kissed me and picked up several crystals with thin silver hooks.

  Well? They were pretty, but I didn’t see how they fit his man-in-black image. And I said so with a “you’ll look prissy” add-on. (I imagine this part playing in slow motion before Judgment Day officers. “Did you know this would start an argument?” they would ask from behind clipboards. “Maybe…Okay! I knew it would start something.”)

  Angus appreciated the candor.

  And then he bought them.

  “Why do you do that?” I asked. Surprised to be looking for a fight in place of my morning coffee…though I had known deep down…

  “What? Not follow your commands?”

  “I didn’t command anything. I did, however, provide you with some valid input. Input you asked for and totally disregarded.”

  “No. I regarded it and disagreed. There’s a big difference. You’re one of those people who thinks your opinion is the rule. You’ll be shocked to know that when other people express their opinion, they also actually believe that opinion to be true.”

  The petite Asian man on the other side of the table handed Angus his change and began arranging his jewelry in color-coordinated piles while looking off into the crowd surrounding the nearby $5.99 bouquet display. He acted interested in the bounty of six-dollar floral bunches, but he was turning red anticipating my response.

  This was how we worked. Angus and I started as one fine-looking couple, but we became a two-headed monster in the public arena. And neither of us had been the diffuser in past relationships. We were fire starters, the both of us. He was nicer on a day-to-day basis than I, but I’d found someone with my temper.

  Turns out, I didn’t love dating me.

  I wasn’t about to say it aloud, but Angus was right about me. When it came to basic issues or questions of taste, I did think my opinion represented the moral majority. I was the first to admit I didn’t have my act together, but somehow the little decisions that created my act shined a bit too perfectly in my mind’s eye.