“I’ve got what I put together for Trident in the office,” I tell Jack, relieved to change the subject away from his breaking my heart, “and then we can work on the final edits for ReWild.” I may not be exciting, but am a professional.
“Great, let’s go look at it,” he says a little too enthusiastically, clapping his hands together for emphasis.
I nod. He follows me. I sit down at the desk and pull up the PDF on my laptop that I sent off to Trident and hand him my computer.
“What’s this?” He asks, leaning against the desk instead of sitting in the other office chair next to me as he scrolls through the document.
I tell myself this is better than if he was trying to be too chummy. It doesn’t help. I feel so rejected. My thoughts flash with embarrassment to the bathroom upstairs where I have my prettiest bra and panty set already laid out with what else I was planning on wearing tonight. Right now I feel like burning them.
“An overview of my growth on Instagram and Facebook over the last two years,” I say, my voice a bit hoarse, “my stretch goals for the launch of the coloring book, and the style guide I’m thinking of using.”
“Hmmm…” he chews on his mustache with his bottom lip, “I’m almost positive they want action rather than a report.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, deflated. I thought I did an excellent job.
“You’ve got to upsell yourself for this, Alpine. You’ve got to put yourself front and center as a storyteller of Horse Girls, think video not graphics,” he takes out his phone and starts scrolling through it, pulling up my Instagram account. “You’re the one that helped me learn this lesson, you need more video content, but of you, not just your hand drawing something.”
“Even you don’t think I’m photogenic, and you’re an excellent photographer,” I retort, my face hot and I’m sure the color of a tomato.
“I never said you weren’t photogenic,” he counters, “I said you were stiff in front of the camera. You just need to relax and let your charming personality come through. Practice more before getting in front of another professional photographer,” he winks at me.
“I don’t know how to do that,” I say, by which I mean I don’t want to do that. Being front and center isn’t my thing.
“It’s like anything else, like drawing; you weren’t automatically good at that when you started as a kid, were you?”
“For my age, I was,” I say, and he makes an exasperated face at me.
“Alpine, it’s like climbing a mountain; you do it one step at a time. Talk about your work, why it’s interesting to you, and why you’re doing it. Show Trident you can help sell this coloring book because people like you.”
“Okay,” I agree, thinking maybe I could force myself to talk about my love of the Howl’s Moving Castle book as a trial run. But not tonight.
“That’s it,” he gives my shoulder a squeeze, “Hey, listen, I’m going to take off and go test out my new camera in this light before going over to the Pennington’s.”
“I thought you were going to go over the final edits on the video,” I say tiredly. I know his tone. He’s done with me.
“I think it’s ready to go; I prefer the longer version of the two most recent versions you sent me,” he says, already moving out office the door, “I love the new music you found. I think it all works. They’re going to be thrilled.”
“Okay,” I say because sadness has stolen my vocabulary. I get up and follow him. There’s nothing else to say. He can’t wait to get away from boring careful planner me and over to exciting rich sexy Amy fast enough.
“Make a selfie video,” he instructs as I stay in the living room and he goes into the kitchen for his camera, “post it tonight before you meet with them tomorrow. Don’t tell them your potential, demonstrate it,” he says, sounding exactly like one of the nameless inspirational gurus my mom has followed over the years.
“Will do,” I nod, lying. It doesn’t matter. He’s already gone mentally. All that’s left is for his body to finish walking out the door.
**
After seeing Jack out, I go back to the office and sit. I stare at my laptop and the PDF I’ve created. I’d rather be outside right now, but I don’t want the possibility of running into Lorelei or, worse, Rune. Butterscotch stares up at me in hope for a moment. My mood is so black she gives up on me and slinks out the door.
Vivienne asks her clients two questions when they're having trouble in their romantic relationships. What does this feel like, and what does this remind you of?
She tells me she asks these questions because she points out that we humans tend to repeat patterns of behavior even when we want something different. Usually, we don’t even realize we’re doing it. By stopping and taking the time to notice how we feel, and what it reminds us from the past, we can start to recognize our patterns and consciously choose to respond differently.
What does this feel like? I ask myself. The easiest thing to focus on, the crumb I can manage right now, is Jack ducking out early and not staying to finish the final video edits even though he agreed to it. I close my eyes for a moment and ponder, and there it is. It feels a lot like working for Pamela Lyons.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Pamela frequently started ambitious client proposals with me, promising we'd work together step-by-step only to have her be too busy to participate once the actual work started.
In the early days when I didn’t yet have the skills to do the work she’d envisioned, I’d have to scramble for help from others in the office. More often than not, I taught myself what I needed to know on YouTube, or even at my art school library.
What does this remind me of? I ask myself Vivienne’s second question. It reminds me of being a tween and then a teen. It reminds me of working on dozens of ambitious artsy display ideas with my mom for one of her home parties, or event proposals, testing out specifics for her work as an event designer.
What always started out as a fun time with my brilliant creative mother, would often evolve into just me, working on her project alone. About a third of the way through my mom would suddenly decide there were three other things she needed to be doing. Syd was too smart to get caught up in these, she was always off at some sports activity. My dad was off at work in PR promoting some piece of sound equipment.
I remember lonely hours cutting out ornate crate paper hearts, writing calligraphy by hand for invitations, and painting dozens of terra cotta pots for a unique twist on centerpieces, or artfully branded swag bags.
A sob catches in my throat. I put my head in my hands and cry so hard the tears are running down my wrist. At my feet, Butterscotch has come back. She whines. I sniff and wipe my eyes before patting my lap for her to jump up. How will I manage my meeting with Trident in the morning, let alone pull together the courage to show up at the fundraiser on Saturday by myself when I feel like this?
How many men in a row haven’t chosen me as their romantic partner after all when it seemed exactly like that’s where things were going? I’ve got quite a track record now. It’s at least four now.
What I feel right now is mostly anger, anger at myself for not being able to read the signs from Jack better. Plus, of course, a large dollop of shame. It was probably obvious to others that Jack didn’t feel quite the same way I did, and I just didn’t want to see them.
I’m like Cinderella, but there won’t be any prince to meet at my ball this weekend. This only serves to remind me of my disastrous time with Rune in Sundance. Interesting and attractive enough to chat with over an extended dinner and a bottle of wine in a dark corner of a fancy bar, but not enough to dance with at a crowded party packed with celebrities. I’m never it. I’m never chosen.
What I feel like doing right now is grabbing Howl’s Moving Castle and climbing into bed, but it’s too early, and I’m too wound up. I hate that Jack has given me some relevant advice about making selfie videos while he was also crushing my heart.
Since I can’t go outside. Is there something else I could do to baby-step toward a selfie video? Something active that would help distract me from wanting to cry more angry, embarrassed tears over Jack? Twisting around in my big antique office chair, I take in the bookcase behind me. This is what people see when they’re on calls with me. The roses in their vase are gorgeous, but the empty vases lined up next to the arrangement appear to be exactly like what they are, in storage.
“That’s not really a good look,” I say to Butterscotch, stroking her soft ears with one hand while wiping my eyes on my hoodie with the other. Why didn’t I notice this before?
Next, my eyes drift critically down the first four shelves. This is also what people see when I’m on calls. The top shelf is filled with Theo’s fashion and design hardbacks mixed with Reuben’s gardening books; below that are several shelves of the paperback spy thrillers they both loved.
“None of this says Horse Girls, does it?” I ask her, “None of this says Shelby Alpinieri is a talented illustrator.”
If I were Vivienne, I’d be lighting incense and saying a prayer right now, calling on some goddess for inspiration. But I’m not quite as woo-woo as she is yet.
Or am I? What did Sophie do at the beginning Howl’s Moving Castle when she realized the Witch of the Waste had cursed her to be an old woman? She picked herself up, packed her bags, and went in search of Wizard Howl to lift the curse.
Sophie doesn’t know yet that she herself is a witch with her own powerful magic. She doesn’t realize she has the ability to speak things into being when she really means it. Wouldn’t that be a marvelous skill to have?
There’s nothing I can do right now about my heart hurting over Jack. I can, however, do something about improving the aesthetics of this bookshelf as a backdrop for my video call tomorrow morning and beyond. But I’m going to need mood music to do it. Wiping my tears, I turn on a mix of girl power music featuring Lizzo and open Pinterest.
Under “pretty bookshelves,” “illustrator bookshelves,” and “author’s bookshelves,” there are all kinds of visually alluring things I can do I’ve never considered. I hum along and chair dance as I stroke Butterscotch’s ears. I absorb the enchanting ideas of how others are creatively mixing books, art, flowers, plants, and knickknacks in ways and then, like magic, my own ideas start to flow.
For the next hour or so, Butterscotch and I run back and forth between the pantry in the laundry room, my room upstairs, the garden shed, and the barn. First, I pack up all of the old books I’m not going to read for donating (keeping back a handful of the thrillers my dad and sister would like).
Next, I put the rest of the glass vases in the laundry room pantry, and then go out and search for a small fern to transplant. There’s a lovely celery green clay pot in the potting shed I’ve been wanting to do something with. The fern and the pot will add a nice splash of color against all of the dark wood.
Out in the barn, in Theo’s special room, I find three cool wooden picture frames I can put my illustrations in. And then, finally, I go upstairs and lug down my grandmother’s hardback series of Mary Stewart classic suspense romances and her Marguerite Henry horse books.
“Let’s make some magic,” I tell the bookshelf as twilight fills the room with a lovely pink glow. The books, three of my favorite illustrations from the Horse Girls coloring book, and the one lone Breyer model of a lovely chestnut Arabian mare I brought with me all find their perfect places.
Keeping my photo app open on my large desktop monitor, I jump up and down between my desk and the bookshelf behind me as I arrange things. I make sure the most alluring and whimsical items on the bookshelf are viewable over my shoulder. The roses are scooted to my left on the top shelf so viewers can see them clearly, the potted fern is moved up a shelf. I really like what’s coming together.
Yes, it’ll be embarrassing to go to the ReWild fundraiser solo, but I have a table of friends to sit with. Thinking of Syd’s advice, I smile wryly. It would be fabulous if Jack thought somehow Rune was here to sweep me off my feet. Unfortunately, I don’t have my sister’s looks or spunk to finagle Rune into being my date Saturday night, even if he does owe me a favor over the loaning of the bed, or for being a jerk at Sundance.
When my stomach starts to growl, I realize I’ve been immersed in arranging and rearranging the bookshelf for hours. I make myself a large bowl of pesto spaghetti and climb into bed to finish reading Howl’s Moving Castle.