Photo by Eric Gilkes
After college I moved to the highlands of Arizona, where Fletcher was attending his last year of school. I thought I would land some great job—I had a shiny new degree! Except all I could get was a gig as a restaurant hostess. Not quite what I’d planned.
Even before I departed for Arizona, I worried that I’d made the wrong decision. My college classmates were heading off to really important-sounding jobs in New York—like “Short-Term Fixed Income Trader,” and “Portfolio Analyst”—while I was following my boyfriend to the cactus fields of the Southwest. The voice in my head taunted me, saying that a strong and independent woman wouldn’t go to Arizona.
“Your relationship is well worth it,” said Mom, calmly sweeping away the clutter of my thoughts.
In the little town of Prescott, Arizona, Fletcher and I signed our first lease together and settled into a tiny carriage house tucked behind a Jack-in-the-Box—tucked so close that we carried our clothes to the laundromat by walking the wrong way through the Drive-Thru. We decorated the place with a cheerful quilt and a skinny secondhand table in the breakfast nook. We wore cowboy boots to Whiskey Row for Taco Tuesdays.
But when I met new people they were always asking, What do you do?
I didn’t go to the hostess job till four, and then all I did was usher cotton tops to their tables. It was already September—and I had done nothing with my life!!! I was always hoping for the sound of Fletcher’s bike tires crunching the gravel outside our door, for him to pop home from class and rescue me from the time.
I started seeing a shrink—something I’d done a few times after Dad died, though I’d never found someone I liked. I liked this one. And at the public library I happened upon a little hardback copy of The Year of Magical Thinking, and for the first time found my grief described in the pages of someone else’s story. And finally, facing the whole what-am-I-doing-with-myself conundrum head-on, I did what anyone in my situation would do: I started nine projects at once.
One of them was volunteering for political campaigns: See, I’m using my degree and stuff! And so now I had an answer: “Political campaigns,” I said with a confirmatory nod, when people asked. That did the trick. (I didn’t mention that I wasn’t getting paid.)
After a few months of that, a man from Flagstaff called and asked me to help manage his run for Congress. My pulse sped up when he said it. I didn’t want to be responsible for someone’s run for Congress; that sounded terrifying. Yet this would be real work. I took the job. And I could just see Dad in the YMCA locker room reporting my progress to the guys. He would have been pulling a razor through the silky lather of shaving cream on his neck when he paused to turn and say, “Great! She’s running a campaign out in Arizona!”
I called Bubbie to tell her instead. She was sitting in the white armchair by her bed when she picked up the phone. I could hear the hum of TV news in the background. “That’s wonderful darling,” she said. “I’m so proud of you.” I felt warm as I smiled into my silvery Motorola, and we turned to chatting about other things.
But this job wasn’t like hosting at the restaurant or doing data entry in Dad’s office. People were counting on me. Meanwhile, I knew nothing. What did I know? Nothing.
I lingered over email, smudging my keyboard as I ate while I worked. I drove around Arizona’s First District, getting lost, making weeny efforts at organizing volunteers, at raising money. My candidate was smart and kind—perhaps too kind, I would consider much later, to win a congressional race. But we went to the Rotary Club picnic and ate mushy potato salad. We attended luncheons for white-haired women in bright polyester suits where he gave speeches about sensible immigration policy. With the help of some good-natured retirees, I procured call lists; we would have a phone bank. As the months unfolded, the campaign thrust me into that uncomfortable zone where I couldn’t do everything and yet I also couldn’t pass the buck down the line. In other words, shared responsibility.
Some days I actually thought my candidate might win, a pleasant but ridiculous idea, since ninety-seven percent of the district—give or take a couple percentage points—had never heard of him. Nighttime was when I worried about that, eyes open in the murky dark, thoughts appearing and disappearing as fast as signs on the freeway.
Me: Shit did I send that email about the phone bank?… And jesus I should’ve sent the invites for the Friday event by now… What about the bumper stickers?… We’re gonna lose… I know we’re gonna lose…
The voice in my head: And it’s your fault!
Me: What?
The voice: You’re gonna lose and it’s your fault. You’ve been pretending you know what you’re doing—yeah, right. You have no idea. Know what that makes you? A FRAUD.
Me: Oh god you’re right I am a fraud…
The voice: And you know what they’re gonna do when they find out? They’re gonna demand your salary back.
Me: Holy shit can they ask for my salary back? What would I even do???
We lost in the primary, but they didn’t ask for my salary back.