Adult Assembly Required, page 26
Laura nodded. “What did Bob say then?”
“Nothing. We all changed the subject. He, Asher, and Libby went out for a drink—I think Nina might have been right about that boy band idea—and she, Anna, Maggie, and I made fun of Madeleine for a straight hour. It was very unsupportive of us, tearing down another woman like that, but it was deeply satisfying.”
Laura sighed. “I wish I was more like you. Or Nina. Or even Maggie. You’re all strong and interesting and funny.”
“I’m not strong,” said Polly, rolling over, surprised. “I can barely lift a box of books, Nina’s always complaining about my noodle arms.” She propped herself on one arm and waved the other like a fusilli.
“I didn’t mean it that way.”
“Hmm,” said Polly, unconvinced.
After a pause, Laura said gingerly, “Polly?”
“Still here,” replied Polly.
“Will you take me shopping for clothes? And maybe . . . to get a haircut?”
Polly stared at her, then sat up and threw back her head to make what could only be described as a yodeling sound. “Will I? I will! It would be my pleasure, though there’s nothing wrong with the way you dress, and your hair is amazing, I won’t lie. How about instead of cutting it I teach you to do lots of different styles instead? Short hair requires more maintenance, and you don’t seem like a high-maintenance person, if you don’t mind the continued uninvited commentary on what you’re like.”
Laura grinned at her. “No, that’s totally true, but are you sure I shouldn’t cut it?” She thought of something. “We’ll need to make it all thrift store, I’m not flush with cash right now.”
Polly nodded. “Thrift stores are the best, and we should bring Nina, because she knows all these thrift stores in weird places like Torrance and Whittier and Rancho Cucamonga.”
“That’s a real place?”
“Yup.”
Laura felt enthusiastic. “And, Polly, I want to try lots of new things. I know the things I like, but there might be all kinds of other things, right?”
“Almost certainly,” said Polly. “I didn’t know I liked paint by numbers until Instagram showed me the way.”
Laura paused. “Well, not sure about paint by numbers, but I want to try dancing, and karaoke, and stand-up comedy, and . . .” She struggled to think. “And pottery!”
Polly got to her feet. “I’m one hundred percent down for making sarcastic or supportive commentary, as needed. We can start tomorrow.” She shook herself and impulsively hugged Laura. “Right now I need to go meet with some friends.” She stepped back from the hug and held up her hand. “One more thing.”
“Yes?” said Laura.
Polly assumed a serious expression. “I understand your position that there’s nothing between you and Bob, but he was there to support you on trivia night, and last night he was ready to throw hands in your defense. That’s a lot of being present for a relatively new neighbor.”
Laura shrugged. “You were there on trivia night, and Maggie stood up for me last night as well. Los Angeles seems to be full of people ready to go to bat for strangers.” She smiled, covering the sinking feeling she had inside for not telling Polly the truth. “You’re a fine one to talk, you invited a potential serial killer to move in after knowing her for less than an hour.”
Polly narrowed her eyes at Laura, then made a face. “If that’s how you want to play it, we can play it that way.”
“How do you mean?” asked Laura.
“Distraction, deflection, denial, you know, the three Ds of self-delusion.”
Laura stared at her.
Suddenly Polly grinned. “Sorry, I spent last Thursday reshelving self-help and I guess it rubbed off.” She spun around. “I’ll be back later, you can dodge more questions then.”
She closed Laura’s door behind her and looked across the hall at Bob’s. She could hear Asher and Maggie laughing in the kitchen, and shook her head as she went upstairs to grab her shoes. If Laura wasn’t ready for the truth, there wasn’t much Polly could do about it, and it’s not like she was any model of self-awareness herself. Reaching her room, she realized the shoes she wanted were in the kitchen, and hesitated.
When she came downstairs, Laura had just come out of her room and smiled up at her.
“You changed your whole outfit,” she said. “I like those shoes.”
“Me too,” said Polly, heading out the door.
THIRTY-FIVE
The next day, after the bookstore closed, Nina and Polly took Laura to Goodwill, the first step in the Laura Costello Fashion Upgrade. Laura was already sporting her first new hairstyle, a simple pair of fishtail braids. The demonstration side was perfect, the other was . . . less perfect, but Polly said it would come with practice. Then she’d added big red ribbon bows to the bottom of the braids, which she said would provide “visual distraction.” Then she’d prevented Laura from undoing the braids and even now was watching her carefully.
Threading their way through a small tent city that had sprung up around the Goodwill’s perimeter, Nina and Laura had to wait for Polly to greet someone she knew, and Nina sighed.
“It doesn’t matter where we go, Polly always knows someone.”
“Even in a homeless encampment?”
Nina nodded and Polly rejoined them.
“Sorry,” she said. “Catching up with a friend.” She smiled at them and gestured to the wide doorway of the thrift store. “Shall we?”
Laura was overwhelmed by the clutter and endless rows of racks, organized by color or by purpose. Outerwear. Women’s tops. Men’s shoes. Children. But Nina and Polly had obviously been here more times than they could count, and waved at the women working behind the counter.
“Miss Hill,” said one of them, an elderly woman wearing a feathered hat and a determined expression, “I have something for you.”
“Miss Johnson,” replied Nina, “how very kind.” She went over to investigate, and Polly took Laura by the arm and led her away.
“It doesn’t matter where we go,” she said. “Nina always knows someone.”
“Huh,” said Laura, hiding a smile.
“So,” said Polly, “I saw your Pinterest boards, I get it. You like bold colors and big statements, and certainly you have the height for it, but I think we should work up to the seventies leather coat and Pucci pattern look.”
“But I love that look,” protested Laura.
Polly shook her finger. “Yes, but it doesn’t matter how inexpensive the clothes are, if you never wear them, they cost too much. Especially if they lurk in your closet and make you feel bad every time you look at them.”
Nina rejoined them, carrying a pair of stack-heel wing tips in a shade of red commonly referred to as oxblood.
“Score!” she said happily. “Gladys is my secret source.”
Polly narrowed her eyes. “Why are we not the same size? I would rock those.”
Nina shook her head. “No, you’re too bohemian for wing tips.”
“You’re wrong, I could totally pull off sexy librarian.”
They started bickering back and forth, and Laura wandered off to peruse the racks. Polly was right; she loved bright colors and big patterns, but at her size they drew more attention than she was comfortable with. She daydreamed about everyone looking when she walked into a room, gasping at her wonderful outfit, amazed by this tall, gorgeous woman in six-inch heels, gazing imperiously over everyone’s heads . . . but even in her dreams she wanted them to go back to ignoring her after a minute or two. She remembered very clearly a middle school dance—Nick had been there, and the youngest of her brothers—where a friend had talked her into wearing a then-fashionable black furry coat, enormously fluffy and over the top. She had felt very glamorous in it, and walking through the snow in matching boots and a woolly hat, she’d appeared invincible. Several grown women had smiled encouragement at her, and once or twice she’d felt the eyes of young men on her and wasn’t sure what to do with her face. Middle school had been agony for a girl taller than many of the teachers, in a society that judges people on their package rather than their contents. She’d walked into the gym, looking around for her friends, and a gang of middle school boys had burst into laughter and pointed: Look, it’s a gorilla! Then they’d pretended to run away from her, screaming, and everyone’s laughter had followed her across the room and everywhere she went after that. Gorilla Girl became a nickname she hated, and the joke of people running away when she came around the corner got old pretty much instantaneously. It faded away in high school, only to be replaced by you’re tall enough to be a model (not, she always noticed, you’re pretty enough to be a model) or you must play basketball. Grown men assumed she was older than she was—or didn’t care—and approached her all the time, commenting on her height and scanning her up and down in a way that made her feel sick with confusion.
Polly and Nina sidled up to her, clutching a selection of funky T-shirts in bright colors. Nina also had some dark vintage jeans and a pair of chunky boots.
“Right,” said Polly commandingly. “We’ve decided on a gradual approach. We’re going to start by keeping your basic shape—pants and tops—rather than putting you in ball gowns right away.” She looked at Nina. “I was ready to go full princess from day one, but I was overruled.”
Nina nodded, ignoring the slight. “We’re going to switch out leggings for vintage jeans. Get some cooler tees. And replace running shoes with boots, at least for when you’re not literally running. Then, when you’re good with that, we can go further.”
“Further, how?”
Nina laughed. “I don’t know, let’s take it one outfit at a time.”
Polly added, “Besides, leggings don’t make the most of your incredibly long legs and ridiculous butt.”
“What’s ridiculous about my butt?” Laura lowered her voice as several people swiveled to see for themselves.
“The angle of elevation,” replied Polly airily. “Go, try these on, you’ll see.”
* * *
• • •
After they’d finished shopping, Polly disappeared to meet some friends, and Laura and Nina decided to grab a quick dinner on Larchmont. Laura completely understood why she enjoyed spending time with Polly; she was hilarious and adorable and generally a force of nature. But she was surprised by how much she was growing to like Nina, too, despite the fact they seemed to have so little in common. Nina lived in a world filled with fiction and stories and words, while Laura experienced the world by moving through it, usually at speed. It wasn’t that she didn’t like books or movies, it was simply that her happiest times were spent in motion. Nina liked to wear clothes with character. Laura liked to wear clothes with spandex. Yet they found each other delightful.
It didn’t hurt that Nina was still reeling from Laura’s sports trivia prowess, and relived their triumph several times while they waited for their pizza to be ready.
“I’m pretty sure the Caltech folks bribed someone. There’s no way QuizDick could have come up with that exoplanet question himself.” She took a breath and her eyes widened. “By the way, an exoplanet is a planet that orbits a star other than our sun, and the only way to see most of them is by the minuscule disruption of other stars. It’s fascinating. It’s as if you had to find a single fish in the ocean by studying how the other fish were making room for it.” She frowned. “I think. I may not have understood it completely.”
“Huh,” said Laura. “I guess you looked it up.”
Nina nodded and literally hugged herself. “The only thing better than knowing something is NOT knowing something and finding out about it.” She frowned again. “By the way, your ex-boyfriend is an idiot.” Nina never met a subject she couldn’t change in an instant.
Laura went red. “Oh yeah, I’m really sorry about that.”
Nina shook her head. “He was remarkably uninformed for a scientist.”
The pizza came, and Nina busied herself separating the cut slices, blotting the excess oil with a handful of napkins, sprinkling red pepper flakes, getting fresh water, and all the other things you do once the pizza arrives. Laura was fascinated by the speed and accuracy of Nina’s small, pale hands flashing like the white gloves of a magician setting up a trick. She was like a little bird, one moment still, the next a flurry of movement. Laura thought of something and leaned forward.
“Did you know your hair exactly matches the plumage of the orange fruit dove?”
Nina raised her eyebrows. “Nope, I had no idea there even was an orange fruit dove, not going to lie.”
Laura sighed. “You’ll look it up later, I expect. Anyway, scientists can be dumb as bricks about things they don’t know anything about.” She added, “Which is, to be fair, true of everyone.” She folded a long slice of pizza and took a big bite. “Oh my god, it’s almost as good as New York pizza.”
Nina looked around wildly. “Shhh! The owner will one hundred percent throw you out if he thinks you’re dissing his pizza.” She wiped her chin. “I guess I get what you mean. Your fiancé—”
“Ex-fiancé.”
“Sorry, ex-fiancé, probably knows a lot about his area of whatever . . .”
“Membrane transport systems.”
Nina paused, considered whether to dig deeper, decided she wouldn’t be able to understand the answer even if she could formulate a question, and moved on. “I’ll take your word for it, but he definitely knows next to nothing about mental health.”
Laura got redder. Nina chewed her pizza and watched her new friend.
“There’s no need to be embarrassed about struggling to deal with an emotional and physical trauma.” She put her elbows on the table. “In some ways it’s easier to understand than, say, social anxiety, which I have.”
“You do?” Laura was puzzled. “You seem so confident.”
Nina shook her head. “For some reason you don’t make me anxious, and anyway, I do better one-on-one than I do in a group. Plus I’ve been going to therapy, and I take medication, which I don’t always want to do but which I decided was part of accepting, once and for all, that I’m a grown-up.” She looked around for the waitress. “I want a soda, do you want one?”
Laura shook her head and said, “I always thought being an adult meant being able to handle everything yourself.”
Nina nodded. “Sure.”
Laura frowned. “But then . . .” She tailed off.
“You don’t literally handle everything alone, though, right? You wouldn’t operate on your own burst appendix or install your own linoleum.”
Laura shook her head.
“Right, so why is it more grown up to handle your own emotional and mental health? There are experts for that.”
Laura finished her slice of pizza, and wished there were a dog to give the crust to. “I thought being a grown-up meant not needing help with anything.”
“No,” said Nina, “being a grown-up is accepting help when you need it.” She grinned. “So get a therapist, work on your shit, and when you’re up to it, I’ll take you to my cranky tame mechanic and we’ll find you a car.” She pointed a piece of pizza at Laura. “Living here is fun, but getting out of town is even better. Joshua Tree, Palm Springs, Disneyland, Carmel . . .”
Laura nodded, and thought of a good way to change the subject.
“Hey, I’m going to sign up for the LA Marathon. I don’t suppose you want to start running with me?”
Nina froze. “You promised you weren’t going to try and make me healthy.”
“I don’t think I actually promised,” replied Laura.
Nina shook her head. “There is no way I’m willingly going to run anywhere, unless it’s to the bookstore, because it’s on fire, and I’m carrying the last two buckets of water.”
Laura frowned at her. “In the world? You’d throw the last two buckets of water in the world on a burning bookstore?”
Nina ignored her. “It would have to be pretty serious for me to run, let’s put it that way.”
“Nina,” said Laura, “if you don’t start exercising now, you’ll regret it when you’re older.”
“Exactly,” said Nina. “If I run around and get sweaty now, I’ll regret it immediately, whereas if I wait, I’ll have decades of not-regretting ahead of me.” She changed the subject. “What’s going on with Bob? Polly says you two have crushes on each other but aren’t doing anything about it.”
Laura frowned. “Polly lives in a dreamworld.”
“You’re not answering the question, you’re telling me something I already know. Polly does live in a dreamworld, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t right. I saw the way he looked at you on trivia night. I saw how he looked at your idiot ex on Saturday night.”
Laura sighed. “We kissed, after trivia, and I thought maybe it was going to be the start of, you know . . .”
“More kissing?”
“Yes, exactly, more kissing, but then he backtracked the next day, and I don’t really know what to make of any of it.” She looked at Nina. “I’m feeling very confused about everything, and Bob’s one of the things I’m confused about.”
Nina nodded. “Sure, who doesn’t prefer a sense of cast-iron certainty and control? Trouble is it’s an illusion, things could go kablooey any minute.”
“Kablooey?”
“Yes, you know. Tits up. Pear shaped. Awry. I expected adult life to be long stretches of mastery, occasionally interrupted by a steep learning curve of chaos and excitement, but I learned recently it’s the other way around.” She looked at Laura and shrugged. “But what can you do?”
Laura narrowed her eyes. “You’re very philosophical.”
