Rob drops his laundry bag onto the floor. "I'll be your friend."
"Only if you want to," I add.
"Your name will be at the door on the twentieth." He bends over to pick up his bag. "You and guest. There are two weeks between then and now. That'll give me time to get over the fact that you're not interested in being my love slave. Or, it's time enough to dump the boyfriend."
Did he just say love slave? I think he did!
Rob Shachtley, widower at twenty-four, wearer of wedding ring binding him to a dead woman, moves outside. The door swings shut behind him. He raps on the glass above my head and draws a musical note with his finger on its dusty surface.
Then he walks away.
Four -The Daily Grind
Wednesday, January 11, 1995
New York Shock is housed on the third floor of a shabby building about three blocks from the Village Voice near Astor Place; our people see their people every day. Voice staff eats lunch at Bowery hot spots; Shock staff packs peanut butter and jelly, tuna on rye. We don't mind, we insist. God knows, we're such a better paper.
We have our audience. Copies garnish NYU halls. East Village types take it on the subway, sometimes leaving pages open, inviting rumination from residents of other boroughs. People in Brooklyn make a point of getting it hot, so to speak, off the press. It's easy to find in Chelsea: splayed across plastic chairs in Laundromats, on tile floors near ATMs. One can pick it up on a TriBeCa street corner, but probably not anywhere near Gramercy Park. Those on the Upper West Side skim it, think about doing a weekend activity listed in the back but rarely follow through. Near Grand Central Station, Midtown folk read Daily News headlines, disregarding Shock completely while drinking cups of coffee doused with whole milk and eating sugar-glazed donuts. SoHo citizens give it a quick glance if it's left behind on Dean and Deluca tables. No one from the Upper East Side has even heard of it.
The column, my column, bears my name, the day, the year: Sybil Weatherfield, January 6, 1995. A loaded name, a good year.
Despite my fame, one's gotta eat.
My poverty gives me the creeps. Haunted by thirty-thousand-dollar student loans, I lack knickknacks and the freedom to drink anything but water with dinner. Going out to eat is a problem. People talk about the great restaurants in New York; I wouldn't know. I don't shop on Fifth Avenue, never have. I eat canned tuna; name brands are treats, reserved for special occasions like Labor Day or Halloween. I'm thirty years old; don't think I'm unaware of this fact.
My short-lived boss calls out, "Ms. Weatherfield, could you come into the hall?"
I temp, therefore New York is.
Putting down Shock, I peek out of my cubicle. "Yes?"
"This goes in your in-box." Dapper as a butler, he waves a piece of paper at me.
I didn't know I had an in-box.
He holds the document out, and I grab. Just as I'm about to seize it, he snatches it away— forcing me to bob up and down. In my short skirt, I look like a city girl hailing a cab in a commercial for pantyhose.
Our eyes meet. A sly smile creeps out from behind his closed lips. A gas leak, a drippy faucet. Acid traces through my veins.
He lowers the paper again, offering it. I take the bait, making the reach. And just as I'm about to get contact, he pulls it away again!
This is a New York Shock.
It's like that guy in the opening credits of Kung Fu talking about snatching a pebble from his hands. Get the pebble, hit the road. I remember a peaceful Chinese man looking wisely upon David Carradine– as– Boy, a smooth pebble in his palm. The suggestion was parable, lesson, Grimms' fairy tale à la Asian Coming-of-Age story. Where is my satchel, my dusty sandals, my wide-brimmed hat to take with me as I wander the earth in search of knowledge, holiness, and righteousness?
Exasperated, I feel my cheeks sag and my frown lines deepen.
The man lowers that wretched memo/letter/fax cover sheet again.
Hell, no, says my face. I turn around, disgusted, and walk away. I'm a temp; irreverence is my luxury. If he wants me to see it badly enough, he'll put it on my desk.
I'm not, nor have I ever been, a full-time writer. If I don't go into the New York Shock offices at least twice a week, the staff forgets who I am.
Then I need to wear my Shock badge. It says, It's Shocking, But True. I'm Sybil Weatherfield. I Write.
Armed with a college degree from a good school in Southern California, I go — day by day— to different major corporations, time card in hand, job assignment in tote. This Renaissance woman punches a clock, earning big bucks for a temp agency and getting request upon request for Monday-morning returns. The good news is that I get to wear the same outfit over and over again. The bad news: no badge.
There are rules for a temp:
* Always— I mean, always— bring something to do in your spare time, but make sure it's not a book. You can use Microsoft Word to write that letter to your health insurance company you've been wanting to write, or you can figure out your monthly budget; but you can never, ever— not in a million fiscal years— open up a book and turn its delicate pages. That's a temping no-no. But know this, and know it well: it's better to keep busy than to sit around and twiddle your thumbs. Look industrious, not like a lazy ass.
* Don't go out of your way to look for projects. You may think it's your job to efficiently and quickly complete tasks and then chase after your transitory supervisors with a self-deprecatory willingness to complete a dozen more meaningless jobs, but it isn't. The truth of the matter is that your ephemeral superiors only want to keep you out of their hair. So do what they tell you and do it well, but that's it. One additional Is there something else you'd like me to do? is fine, but don't go overboard. Say no to displays of false humility.
* Don't be sexy. Dress professionally, not glamorously. Wear your glasses instead of your contacts. Part your hair in the middle. Go for the same rounded-toe, scuffed flats every sin gle day. You don't want to make anyone turn his or her head, and you don't want anyone to be jealous either.
* If you're educated, let it slip unpretentiously. Read Charles Dickens in the break room. Accidentally leave your Picasso date book by the water fountain. Carry around copies of the Economist. Say intelligent things about the House of Representatives.
* Be sure to mention you temp for a particular reason. You temp, but you really write. You temp, but you're also a cellist. You temp to save money for a trip to Florence to study art in monasteries. That sort of thing. Temping must never be an end in itself.
Why should you hint at your secret intelligence, your devotion to the classics, your plans to join the Peace Corps? People like smart temps, temps with goals. They don't like glamorous or buxom temps.
At least, these things work for me. And, yes, I have written more than one column on the job.
I get my temp assignment from my temp agency. I have a good working relationship with the girls who work there based on faux affection. They send me Christmas cards; I call for new assignments. We speak in hushed and gossipy tones about former employers, past johns. Over the phone, I scribble directions to floors on buildings near Penn Station, near Union Square. These addresses give bodies and faces to previously ghostly edifices.
New York, in the pretemping past, was mythical, intangible. Pinstripes on Wall Street, sweatshops in Chinatown, middle managers eating hot dogs while standing near vending carts. Corporate America eluded me.
But then, then: The early temping assignments. After hopping in place (skirt pushed high over hips) and squeezing into pantyhose a tad too small, I would push elevator buttons to dream-like floors, and I would