“Oooh efficient, I love that!” Kelsey rubbed her hands together, miming her eagerness.
“I can tackle the refrigerator, or we can have a look at your garage, or your closet.”
“Oh god—I mean, my closet—as you can imagine—is a disaster.”
“Don’t be silly. I wouldn’t imagine that.”
Of course, Jane had imagined exactly that. Was Kelsey’s hapless helplessness authentic, or a ploy to encourage enablers to enable her? It was remarkable she was taking care of four children; she seemed barely capable of taking care of herself. But Jane was a pro, a resolute warrior battling hordes of hoarders. She could always bring at least a smidgen of order to chaos. She’d seen some disturbing things on the job. Closets that were literally bursting, stacks of vintage shoeboxes and heaps of rank underwear and obelisks of virgin Lululemon clawing at the ceiling. She worried that someday one of these shrines to compulsive consumption and orgiastic materialism would topple and suffocate her.
Kelsey, steeling herself, said, “Let’s go for the closet. But first, I’ll need that Fiorinal. Do you want one?”
Jane demurred.
Kelsey’s enormous walk-in closet was stuffed with stuff. She apparently didn’t know how to use a hanger or, for that matter, adrawer. Shopping bags from luxe stores, full of clothes that had never been worn, were strewn about.
“Sometimes my mother buys me clothes to help me look like ‘less of a slut,’ ” she explained, using air quotes, “and they’re all hideous—old lady, ugly, Nancy Reagan crap—but I can’t return them. The people at Chanel all know my mother and would report back to her and then there would be hell to pay.”
Jane took it in. “These are valuable pieces, in mint condition. If you aren’t going to wear them, get rid of them.”
“Maybe I should put them in storage?”
“It’s not good to hang on to things. Clearing up the physical clutter helps with the mental clutter.”
“I know... but, at least my mother got me a gift, even though it’s not something I want....”
Jane understood. Her mother used to buy her clothes two sizes too small, as “motivation.” One pair of jeans became a fetish object: she’d imagine being thin enough to fit into them and then her whole world would make a dramatic pivot and her mother would love her. Or like her. She threw all her mother’s “gifts” into a Goodwill dump when she was twenty-nine. Not only was it cathartic, but it spurred the inception of her organizing career.
“You could donate them. Or take them to a resale place. You would make a lot of money, enough to hire me again.” As soon as she spoke, Jane was mortified. She didn’t really want to come back.
“Maybe. Sorry, I’m, like, the queen of procrastination!”
“Listen, I can’t force you to do anything, but I can give you my advice: Get rid of it. All. Of. It.”
Kelsey’s eyes narrowed. “Wait, my mother hired you—would you tell her?”
“Of course not!”
Why was Kelsey so cowed by her mother? The woman was a plastic Beverly Hills matron who had parlayed her minor celebrity as hostess of a game show on which she fingered tacky prizes into a lucrative marriage to the very best divorce lawyer in LA who had, all too predictably, divorced her not long after Kelsey was born.
“Give me a sec to think about it.” Kelsey walked over to a shelf overflowing with denim and held up a pair of jeans. “I haven’t been able to fit into these for twenty years.”
This was such a tired trope, as persistent and pervasive as a cancer.
“Did your mother give them to you?”
“No, they were part of my wardrobe on my show. I loved them so much. It’s possible I stole them; they always give you a hard time when you want to keep wardrobe.”
Almost two decades ago, Kelsey was a regular on a ludicrous teen drama about a coven of witches—good witches, pretty witches, aspirational witches—who all went to the same high school and cast spells over their boyfriends and demons. Often the boyfriend would turn out to be the demon. It was the kind of show that was addictive, like salted peanuts or OxyContin. It had imprinted an entire generation of young women and their gay best friends. Jane would hate-watch it, before “hate-watching” was a thing.
“Rule of thumb—if you’ve got the memory, you don’t need the item.”
“Actually, I don’t remember that much from back then—I did a lot of partying. Plus I had an eating disorder, which was amaaaaaazing. I could wear anything, but after I had the kids, forget it.” She sighed. “I wish I still had that stamina. Of course, hard to do any of that as a single mom. I mean, I will probably never date or have any fun ever again.”
“I doubt that, Kelsey.”
“Really? I hope you’re right.”
“I hope so, too. You deserve it.”
