Laurie Graff - You Have To Kiss a Lot of Frogs

David missed his father. I missed his father too. And I missed my father. My idea of a father. I sure loved Henry, but it never was a substitute for not knowing my real father. Mel had become a fictional character in my life. The clown who threw all the emotions of my childhood up in the air and juggled them like colored balls, unconcerned if they stayed up there or crashed to the floor.

In my mind, David had had the perfect suburban childhood. I assumed the love David received from his dad made everything easy for him. I assumed anyone who had a dad like David’s grew up happy. I didn’t get David’s darkness. I made an open-and-shut case that didn’t hold water. Perfect father equals perfect life. Not true. Nonetheless, I kept to my theory and hoped it would turn David into who I wanted him to be. And I thought my connection to David and Sid would turn me into everything I wanted to be. That it would erase everything Mel was unable to be. Mel. An embarrassment. My secret. On dark days, the likes of Mel made me question myself. Made me think I could never get a guy like David. But what was a guy like David? Only over time could I see that a guy like David wasn’t worth having.

Life moved on and I chose to keep David out of mine.

Daylight Saving Time Ends

Grand Central Station, NYC 1989

I stood at a pay phone on the corner of 42nd and Madison, checking my answering machine in the hope there would be a message that anyone called to hire me to do anything. New York City was in a recession. I suppose the rest of the country was too, but they were not my concern. I was concerned about me on the island of Manhattan. My unemployment claim was about to expire, I only had two regional commercials running and I needed a job. There were no messages. I thought I’d check again. My change fell back down into the slot and then dropped on the ground. I bent down to pick it up, but I couldn’t see a thing. We had moved the clocks back last night and now I was well rested, but felt blind. I could barely see. It was so dark out and still so early! It couldn’t be much past lunchtime, I thought. I tilted my watch up toward the streetlights and saw, in fact, that it was almost rush hour. As I gathered up my dimes and nickels, I noticed a pair of familiar feet walk by.

“Fred,” I called out, stopping my friend in his tracks. “Where are you going?” I stood up, putting my change back in my purse.

“To work.”

“Wow! Work. What do you do?” I asked.

“Oh, I’m working at Whiting and Ransom,” he said. He was totally not excited. “They call it a law firm, but it seems more like a cover for white slavers to me. Ransom indeed… Right.”

“Oh. So. Really. What do you do there?”

Fred paused for dramatic effect before he finally answered.

“Proofreading.”

“Proofreading,” I said. “Really! You know how to do that?” I was impressed.

“Any idiot can learn.” Fred had just finished doing a showcase production Off-Off B’way where he played a woman. He looked pretty good with red lipstick and dangling earrings. It had gotten him great attention and an agent, but apparently it hadn’t readily turned into income.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“Me? No place. I have no job. Hey,” I said, “I’ll walk you to yours, okay?”

“Okay,” he said. “We’ll have to go through Grand Central. I’m working there two days and I already know all the shortcuts.”

I loved rush hour in New York. Swarms of people moved by us in rapid succession. It was like a movie montage of people hurrying, scurrying to buses, trains and planes. Fred worked the graveyard shift and went to work at five o’clock when everyone else went home.

“This is great!” I said. “I don’t get this in my apartment.”

I accompanied Fred through Grand Central Station, onto the escalator into the Pan Am Building, and continued to ride the elevator with him to his office. I walked him down the hall and into reception, when he finally turned and blocked me with his hand.

“You have to stop! Now! You can’t go farther than this. You can’t come with me to work,” said Fred.

“But what am I going to do?” I walked Fred to the end of the reception area, peeking through the archway into the long hallway. “Hey. How do the guys look here? Have you had time to check anyone out?”

Fred and I had met in acting class five years earlier. The teacher assigned us a scene where I played a girl whose plans to hang herself were put on hold until she met her new next-door neighbor. Just in case he turned out To Be Somebody.

A nice-looking guy whisked by us down the corridor. I followed him with my eyes until I saw the band of gold glittering from a stack of briefs. “Too bad,” I told Fred. “So, any cute lawyers around here you can fix me up with?”

“I’m looking for the same thing myself,” said Fred.

“Well, keep your eyes open! For both of us!”

“We’ll double,” said Fred, pointing for me to walk back to the direction of the elevator bank. “I don’t want to be late.”

“How are things going with Larry? Good? Maybe one night you and Larry, and me and a lawyer cou—”

“I’ll talk to you later,” said Fred, literally pushing me toward the elevator.

“Maybe tomorrow,” I called out after him. “Maybe tonight,” I said, getting into the elevator. “I can call you here. I bet I can get a job accompanying people to their jobs. What do you think?”

The elevator doors shut tight before I found out.

Earlier that day I tried to sign up with a Temp Agency. STAR TEMPS: YOU CAN STILL BE A STAR WHILE YOU WAIT FOR THAT BREAK! The moment I walked in the door I knew I did not want to be there. They gave me a written test.

Here are three numbers: 162, 539 and 287.

Which number is the biggest?

Which number is the second biggest?

Which number is the third biggest?

Not the smallest, the third biggest. There were thirty-five problems. That made a page of one hundred and five sets of numbers. My eyes were starting to cross. 1086975, 1097656, 1086456. There were no commas. I was losing my mind. I went to the guy at the desk. I did not want to take the test.

“I do not want to take this test,” I said to the guy at the desk. “I am a college graduate. I know how to count.”

“If you want to be a file clerk you have to take this test,” he said.

“I don’t want to file.”

“Are you saying you don’t want to be a clerk?”

“I’ll be a clerk,” I said. “But I don’t want to file.”

“All clerks have to file. Unless you type. You type?”

“I do. I’ll be a typist.”

“Clerk-Typist,” said the guy. “Is that what you want to be?”

“Yes. Yes! That’s exactly what I want to be. And Receptionist.”

“What?”

“Receptionist,” I said. “I can answer the phone.”

“Well, which? Clerk-Typist or Receptionist?”

“Both.”

“Both? What do you mean?”

“Clerk-Typist Slash Receptionist. That’s what I mean. I can type. I can answer the phone.”

“I don’t get it.”

“There’s nothing to get. I can do both. I can type. I can answer the phone. Clerk-Typist Slash Receptionist,” I said looking into his blank face, feeling the need to repeat it as if I was speaking Greek.

“Oh. Then you have to take a typing test.”

I left.

It had started to rain. I reached into my bag for my umbrella and pulled out a recent copy of Backstage. There was an ad for an audition cross-town in Hell’s Kitchen for a show. A nonpaying show. A showcase. A musical. The call was for WOMEN: TWENTIES AND THIRTIES. I fit.

I walked from STAR TEMPS until I saw a small sign pounded into the brick wall along the side of an alley on 52nd Street near Ninth Avenue. The sign had the initials ACT. Artists Creating Theater.