Jessica Winter - Break in Case of Emergency

And there was, to Jen’s profound sorrow and regret, a wealthy retired friend of Leora’s who had outsourced her favorite horse’s daily exercise to a groom because she was so busy with her garden and memoirs, and shortly thereafter the horse had died of colic, which taught Leora’s friend an important lesson, as she wrote in an email to Leora, “about the value of remembering to take a breath and look around you so you don’t miss anything.”

“We’re so hard on ourselves. And that’s what makes us women great. But it also hurts us sometimes. What doesn’t kill us only makes us stronger, and vice versa,” Leora once said.

“What kills our horses only makes us stronger,” Daisy once said.

For the video project, they had, in Jen’s assessment, a decent if not excellent spread of ages, ethnicities, and cultural backgrounds. Geographical diversity among the interviewees wasn’t as good, but Donna wanted to do all the interviews and did not wish to travel. Jen had presented photos of each woman to Karina, who often said, “Even if it’s weird to talk about it, we always need to think about optics. It’s just a reality.”

They’d booked a video crew and blocked out studio time. Donna had a script for all six interviews that she wouldn’t share with anyone else. “It is down on paper,” she said, “but it’s not yet in the air. The conversation needs to breathe and fly on its own. Ink and tree mulch can’t contain it.”

For weeks, Jen had been trying to get the roster and budget in front of Karina for her approval. But whenever Jen caught her in person, Karina would ask her to put her questions in an email, which Karina would then ignore, no matter how many times Jen forwarded and forward-forwarded the email to her.

Then Karina had gone on vacation; on her return, she was perpetually “slammed” with other work. In the last few days running up to the shoot, Jen had given up, assuming Karina had given her tacit approval, or her approval-by-forfeit.

Karina — LIFt

Monday, Sept 14 11:14 AM

To: Jen

Subject: Shoot tomorrow

Priority: High!

Jen, as discussed, do not proceed with tomorrow’s shoot until you have my sign-off.

Jen — LIFt

Monday, Sept 14 11:56 AM

To: Karina — LIFt

Subject: Re: FW: Shoot tomorrow

Priority: High!

Of course — just switching this conversation to my work email. (I don’t see messages as quickly on the other email!) I’ll be right over with lots of cool stuff for you to check out. I’m excited for you to see what we’ve cooked up — be there in five.

Karina — LIFt

Monday, Sept 14 11:59 AM

To: Jen — LIFt

Subject: Re: FW: Shoot tomorrow

Priority: High!

Come by in an hour or so instead — I’m swamped right now

“We talked about seven,” Karina was saying, head shots and biographical sketches fanned out on her desk before her. It was four-fifty-five p.m., the day before the shoot.

“That’s true,” Jen said, who wasn’t actually sure it was true, “but we have a very strong crop of six.”

Karina continued to scowl at a head shot of the crusading socialite. Jen’s face burned and itched. She wished she’d remembered to bring her can of ginger ale to Karina’s office, imagined pressing the cold, damp metal to her cheek.

“So Petra has dummy screen shots from the six videos in a grid on the landing page for the whole package — I can show you on my computer, if you want.”

“Is Petra the one who’s always carrying the bag around?” Karina asked.

“Petra is—”

“—I don’t know how to make this clearer to you,” Karina said. “We talked about seven.”

“And we have six,” Jen said.

“Seven is Leora’s number, and last I checked, I’m pretty sure this is Leora’s foundation.”

“We shoot tomorrow and we have six.”

“Look, Jen, it’s up to you whether you see this as a collaboration or not, but that’s what it is. Collaboration. Communication. Give-and-take.”

“Uh-huh,” Jen said.

Karina shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you,” she said. “You have work to do. Close the door behind you as you leave.”

Jen was sitting at her desk. She couldn’t remember how she had gotten from Karina’s office to her cubicle. Daisy was on the phone.

“They don’t want any of the money to go toward salaries,” Daisy was saying into the phone. “Only toward the programs. Yes, I’ve explained that the salaries are part of the programs. If you want Leora’s money, you have to take it for free.”

Jen’s immediate visual ken had narrowed; the periphery was a retching taupe spatter of molding mushrooms and crusted-over oatmeal and curdling cream. A wheee of tinnitus rang in her ears and struggled to harmonize with the background whhooooossshhhhh. She sipped from her can of ginger ale, held the soda in her mouth for a moment before working up the courage to swallow it.

She took a saltine from its package, wetted and worried one corner of the saltine with her teeth, returned the saltine to its package.

She watched her hand pick up the phone. She watched her fingers dial Pam. She knew three numbers by heart: Jim, Meg, Pam.

“You sound upset,” Pam was saying.

Jen touched back into the conversation. She’d missed the ringing sound, the exchange of salutations. What had she said beyond hello?

“No, not at all,” Jen said.

“I’m sorry that I kind of closed the drapes on the world after the show,” Pam said. “I mean, you know this — I always get kind of depressed after an opening. Not depressed, just low. Like, the comedown.”

“I know,” Jen said. “You just need your space after something so big like that. It’s understandable.” Unstanbull. Jen had to concentrate not to slur her words.

In fact, Pam had scarcely crossed Jen’s mind lately. Jen felt a momentary gratitude that her carelessness happened to have synched with Pam’s customary spell of post-opening hibernation.

Thanks for no one

Thanks for nothing

“I think it was especially intense this time, maybe because the show was kind of personal?” Pam said. “I haven’t really come around to how I feel about that.”

“Well, you should feel great about the show,” Jen said. She placed her elbows on her desk and her face in her palms, phone jammed between her ear and shoulder. Inside her palms, Jen’s vision pulsed red and brown, with flickers of narrow bluish-yellow light.

“Is everything okay?” Pam was asking.

Jen had fallen into her palms and crawled out again. “Totally fine, sorry, I’m just being a space cadet,” she said. “I haven’t been feeling so well.” Feesowull.

“I’m sorry, lady. That sucks.”

“Thanks, I’m okay,” Jen said. “I — um — I meant to tell you — I’m—”

“I think there’s some weird bug going around,” Pam interrupted. “People who usually get colds in winter are getting them now.”

“I—” Jen stopped. Not now.

Say nothing thanks for nothing

“Maybe that’s it,” Jen said. “I’m getting a jump on flu season.”

She tried to remember a time she had ever lied to Pam before, and couldn’t.

“Yeah, makes me glad I’m a shut-in,” Pam said.

“You’re not a shut-in. Hey, I was wondering if you could do me a favor.”

“I can try.”

“So we’re doing this video series about women who have overcome adversity—”

“Who is ‘we’?” Pam asked.

“Oh, sorry, ‘we’ is the foundation. LIFt.”

“Right, okay.”

“So, first of all, I want to be totally honest with you: I’m asking you not just because you’re awesome and amazing and I think you’d be perfect for this, but because I’m in a bind. I need to find one more person to participate in the video series by tomorrow — long story, the deadlines got all messed up. I didn’t ask you in the first place because I was hesitant about mixing up our friendship with my stuff at work. But even though I’m in a spot now, I promise that I wouldn’t be asking you now if I didn’t think you’d be really, really great for this.”