Party Girl_ A Novel - Anna David [40]
“Oh, honey.” Oh, honey is about all she’s said during this incredibly unpleasant conversation. Lately I’ve been having this feeling that I’ve stopped disappointing Mom—that, in fact, she’s resigned herself to the fact that I’m always going to be sharing disappointing news—and so she just sounds sad and I resent her for this.
“Everything’s going to be fine, Mom,” I say. “In fact, things will be better than fine.” I’m having this conversation on absolutely no sleep since yesterday, after getting home from work, passing out, then waking up and calling Alex, I’d proceeded to stay up all night with a gram while listening to this Black Eyed Peas song over and over. But obsessively playing the song had actually sparked some mind expansion of sorts, wherein I’d realized that the publishing world simply didn’t appreciate my gifts and it was time to find a place that did. “I’m beginning to think, like, screw the magazine business,” I say to her. “Maybe I should get into the film business, you know? I am, after all, in Hollywood.”
Mom “Oh, honey”s me a couple more times and doesn’t provide any of the comfort, I think, that a mother should. No proclamations that I was surely right and Brian and Robert were wrong and declarations that no one should undervalue her baby, who was clearly so special. “You better call your dad to talk about money,” she eventually says before we hang up. “And let me know what happens.”
The truth is that I’m a trust funder. The only thing is that Dad convinced me to sign the trust over to him and Mom when I turned eighteen and was supposed to get it. So, in theory, Mom and Dad share the responsibility, but Mom essentially relinquished all decision-making power to Dad so he decides if I ever get to see any of the cash. The fact that the money is technically mine—and I won’t get the bulk of it until I’m like forty-five or something—usually feels like a moot point. Convincing my dad that I need and deserve some of it has to be, I think, more challenging, and surely more guilt-inducing, than earning every penny.
But now, of course, I don’t have the option of earning it. I’d like to work, I think, as I dial Dad’s number. But they won’t let me. As I explain to Dad what happened—the version he gets is that I was fired even though I was doing a really good job because my two bosses were complete pricks—I promise myself that I’m going to make it through this entire conversation without crying.
“So, there’s no chance they’ll change their mind and take you back?” he asks.
“Haven’t you been listening, Dad?” I wail, incredibly irritated with him for not keeping up with the story. “I wouldn’t want them to take me back. In fact, I’m getting out of publishing and into the film business.”
He sighs. “How much do you need to live?” he asks, ignoring my film business plan altogether. “What’s your budget?”
Dad’s always asking me annoying questions about my “budget”—about how much I spend on dry cleaning and renting movies and other things—and it tends to depress the hell out of me. It’s so anti-life—this insistence he has on counting up every penny even though there are so many of them.
“Just send me a couple grand and I’ll start looking for a new job today,” I say, and for some reason this makes me want to sob. I’m such a piece of shit, I think. A good-for-nothing spoiled brat who can’t support her-self at an age where most people are married and self-supporting. Dad doles out a lecture on the importance of valuing money, promises to send a check in the next couple of days, and I’m able to get off the phone before the wracking sobs start.
I get into crying for a while, burying myself under my covers with a box of tissues to blow my nose into and watching my pillows get drenched in snotty, teary—and I have to confess, even slightly bloody—liquid. But then I remember that I don’t need to be depressed because I can just do a bump or two and that will make everything okay.
Just a little bit, I think as I get out of bed and walk over to my purse, to keep me motivated today. I pull out the