“So like I said, I am really quite organized already. I mean, you can see, obviously. It’s just my assistant was such a fucking idiot.”
Indeed, the house was quite tidy; all the surfaces were polished and clutter-free.
“Yes, very impressive. So what exactly do you need help with?”
“Well, I can never seem to find something when I need it. I’m not a secretary, so filing isn’t my specialty, right? And I try to deal with electronic documents, but the cloud shit never seems to work for me, no one has been able to set it up for me properly, and anyway when I give script notes, you know, I still like to mark up a hard copy. I’m really really busy, I have so much going on, and I need things organized in a simple way so I know where everything is. I am not even sure you can help me, but I figured it was worth a try.”
Jane nodded. “Let me see what I can do. Where do you want me to start?”
“Like I said, my office.”
She actually had not said that. Jane startedujjayibreathing to remain calm.
“Okay, show me the way.”
The house had an open floor plan, and Kim’s office was a nook right off the living room.
Kim pulled open a desk drawer made for hanging files, but there were no files; only messy stacks of papers.
“I have to get on a call now, so why don’t you go through some of this. There’s personal stuff in there, too, but I don’t care, you can look over anything and everything. I’ll be like thirty minutes to an hour.”
The surface of the desk was pristine, but for a cannabis vaporizer. Because there were so few extraneous items on display, each object—like the Buddha—felt freighted with significance. Jane surmised that Kim, a tense ball of nerves all day, would greetthe night with a mist of weed to soothe, numb, and conjure patience, a haze that only masked troublesome issues that cannabis could never make go away.
Jane sighed. Last night, she had an argument with Teddy about his marijuana use, an argument they kept lapsing into as if it were on repeat.
Teddy had gone shopping and forgotten milk. Jane couldn’t understand how he could go to the market without checking first and seeing what they needed.
“I wasn’tshoppingshopping. I just went in to pick up some things I wanted for dinner.”
“But it didn’t even occur to you to look in the fridge and see what else we needed? Or to ask me?”
“I don’t plan every minute of my day like you do, Jane. So sometimes huge catastrophes—like not getting milk—happen.”
“Not getting milkorberries.”
“We should call in FEMA.”
His sarcasm is what had tipped her over the edge.
“Well maybe you could plan a little better if you smoked a lot less weed.”
“Jane, stop. It’s legal. It’s medicine,” Teddy told her.
“Okay, but what are you medicating?”
“I need it to deal with you!”
“Nice, Teddy. I’m the problem, and not the fact that you’re stressed about going nowhere with any of the careers you’re supposedly pursuing—”
“Jesus, Jane, back off! I was joking!”
“It didn’t sound like a joke to me,” Jane said, wounded.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t you think that being high all the time makes you lose focus? Are you truly happy doing nothing at all?”
“Yeah, well at least I’m not slicing and dicing my way through life like you do, labeling everything and everyone,” Teddy shot back. “And I am not high all the time. You see what you want to see, Jane.”
