What Would Oprah Do (11 page)

“Good for you!”
Jill said. “He doesn’t deserve your tears, and he never did. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you were going to meet him.”

“I know, but you would’ve tried to talk me out of it. No matter how stupid it was, I had to go. I had to see what he wanted, and feel like I had the upper hand. Even though his news totally caught me off guard, for the first time since we broke up I got to feel good about how he sees me. I wasn’t the girl throwing his shit off my balcony like a lunatic, I was composed.”

“What’s important is that you feel good about it. In a way, you got closure on your own terms, looking like a bombshell.”

“I know! I was great, and left with my head held high. Even though tomorrow I know I’ll think of ten brilliant things I should have said
.”

“Wouldn’t it be great if we could press rewind and say exactly what we wish we
had said? That would be the best super power, Re-confrontation Man, goes back in time and says all the things the rest of us think of after the fact.”

“I did throw in that I wished Jessica luck, since when a man marries his mistress he creates a job opening
.”

Jill flinched. As soon as I said it, I felt bad. “Oh shit, Jill.”
I felt like I should apologize, but I didn’t want to.

“Hey, it’s
true. My situation is my own damn fault. Don’t sensor yourself because I’ve turned into a home wrecker. Steven and I are close to being done anyway.” I wanted to believe her, but she’d said that before.

Dear Oprah,

I am an emerging hat designer from Atlanta. My hats are beautiful and versatile, and worthy of a spot on your Favorite Things
list. They have detachable jewelry, so you can dress them up or wear the jewelry separately. I’m an entrepreneur, a fearless female. I will send you one of my hats, so you can see the ‘jewel’ that they truly are.

Regards,

Cate

P.S. If you would like to order hats for you staff, please let me know.

A friend of
Lainey’s called me this morning about carrying my hats. Her name is Rita and she has a small boutique in upscale Buckhead, right beside Hermes! This is my big break, so I couldn’t possibly tell her that I haven’t made the hats yet. She wants to see them ASAP, before she leaves on a buying trip to New York. I need to make a prototype, but I can’t learn how to bead jewelry in two days. Since Gorilla Glue has worked to repair everything from my broken reading glasses to my wedge sandals, I can use it to glue the beads onto a hat. I’ll just wear a beaded necklace to show how the jewelry on the actual hats will be removable and able to be worn separately.

I had a lot to do in one day: going to Vivian’s and coming home to establish myself as the leading designer in posh headwear. Even if I’m a big hat designer someday, I will still help Vivian. Going to her house is like a mini vacation for me, and I get to feel good about helping her. I thought Vivian would be reluctant to accept my free watering services in addition to my ten paid hours a week, but to my surprise she didn’t hesitate.

As soon as I walked into Vivian’s house, I could smell coffee and bacon. “In here!” she yelled. In the kitchen there was a plate of bacon drying on a paper towel, and a bowl of cut fruit.

“Are those mangos?”
I asked.

“Breakfast of champions.”
Vivian smiled. “I don’t care what anyone says, bacon is good for you. Fruit balances it out. What’s new with you?”

“I am trying to design hats.”
As soon as I said it, I wished there was a little more confidence behind it. I felt like I might as well have said, I’m trying to reinvent the wheel.

“Well, honey, that sounds interesting. I didn’t know you wanted to do that. Why don’t you sit down and tell me about it?”
Vivian moved the bacon and fruit to the table, which she had already set with dainty dishes befitting a tea party.

“I don’t know if that’s what I want to do, but I have to try something.”
I said, sitting at her kitchen table. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m thirty-two years old, and I’m still not sure about what to do with my life.”

Vivian poured coffee for both of us. “That’s how a lot of things feel at the beginning. You’re out there trying things. Cate, I think you’re brave.”

I felt myself tearing up, and wondered when I became so emotional. “Really? I feel like a mess. I thought it would be so fun, so exciting, figuring it out. Instead I feel lost. I don’t know why I still feel that way, when I have an idea about what I might want to do. Things are falling into place. I’ve bought the materials and have someone interested in selling the hats. Does it mean anything that I feel like a fraud, like I’m just flailing around pretending to be something, instead of becoming something?”

“What would it mean?”

“That I’m not on the right track. I feel like I don’t know me anymore, like I’ve spent so long on a path that I didn’t like, that I can’t make it right. And when I’m here I feel like I’m trying to sponge off your life, soak up your happiness, your peace. I want what you have in your life for
myself, and I don’t know how to do that.”

I let the tears fall only mildly worrying that Vivian would think I was a ridiculous
, self-indulgent grown brat. Vivian left the room, returning with an embroidered handkerchief. She handed it to me. It was soft, like it had been washed a thousand times. As I dried my tears with it, she sat there looking at me with the tenderness of someone who would give anything to mend you if they could.

“It must be hard.”
Vivian said. “When I was your age, I was married, and I already had Betty. I know women’s lib was supposed to do a world of good, and don’t get me wrong, we needed equal rights, but no one told us how to do the rest of it.”

“What? You don’t think I’m pathetic, having every option and no idea what to make of them?”

Vivian shook her head.
“Oh God, no. Your generation has all this pressure. You’re supposed to have a successful job and be independent, but still find a good husband. You’re supposed to have kids and be a good mother and spend the rest of your life juggling your so-called good fortune of having it all. I had the luxury of finding a hobby that I loved, without having to manipulate it into a career. I simply turned it into a business because I
wanted
to. Besides, back then there wasn’t all this pressure to be happy.”

“Vivian, do you think I’m silly?”

“Why would you ask me such a thing?”

“Is it silly that I can’t even figure out what I love to try to make a living at it? I don’t want to go back to nine to five, which is really eight to six, corporate life. I want to enjoy how I spend my days. I don’t feel like that’s asking for too much, but it’s not happening very easily.”

“The best things in life rarely happen easily.”
Vivian said before she took a bite of bacon. It was the thick cut slices that I love, but my anxiety had killed my appetite.

“I thought this would be different. I had felt like it was time for me to make a change before I got laid off. I even prayed for it, and I’m not religious. I thought it was kismet, the
timing, that it would just work itself out.”

“Maybe it is working itself out. Your idea of timing and divine timing may be very different things. How do you feel when you pray now?”

“Oh, I don’t pray. That was sort of an isolated incident. I don’t even go to church.”

“I don’t go to church either, but one doesn’t have anything to do with the other. I pray when I’m working in the garden. It’s the most spiritual thing I know.”

“I’m not even sure how spiritual I am.”

Vivian burst into laughter and continued for so long she sounded like she was trying to catch her breath. Buddy came over to the table, as if he was checking on her.

“Oh my
,” She said as she dabbed at her watery eyes, and started laughing all over again. It lasted so long, I started picking at a piece of bacon, wondering what was so funny.

“I needed that,
” she said when the second bout of laughter subsided. “What will they think of next?” Vivan shook her head and chuckled. “Trying to measure your spirituality is like trying to figure out how alive you are. You just are, and those two things are one in the same. If you’re alive, you’re spiritual by your very being. I’m sorry, honey, I hope I didn’t hurt your feelings. I just got tickled...” She started laughing again.

“Picture…picturing you with a thermometer trying to see how much…” She waved her hand as she tried to quit laughing, tears streaming down her face. “Oh my, I’m sorry, I know this is important. I’m not trying to make fun, but when you get to be my age you have to take the laughs as they come.” Vivian was still smiling ear to ear, wearing the remnants of her laughter. If I had known that my befuddlement would bring her so much amusement, I would have started confiding in her sooner.

“I’m glad to provide the entertainment, really.”

“Seriously,” Vivian said, still dabbing at her eyes. “Spirituality is within you. When you need guidance, ask for it. Even when you don’t need guidance, keep the lines of communication open. It’s important to feel connected, to be connected.”

I wondered if this is why I didn’t know which end was up, if I had let my request for guidance end with one prayer. I never set out to become a person of prayer; I just wanted to find my purpose in life. Before I could say as much to Vivian, I realized that the two are inseparably intertwined. Whether I wanted to or not, it was time for me to change. While it made sense that to change my life, I needed to change myself too, I had always resisted anything I perceived as religious in nature.

I couldn’t ignore this fact any longer. A prayer had gotten me started on this journey, and it seemed that more prayer was my only way to continue. I hadn’t defined my original prayer as anything more than what it was, a request for divine intervention. I just assumed that more prayer would have to be of a different nature, imagining myself with some nun-like devotion to something I don’t completely understand, giving up all worldly desires and feelings. I thought that to be in tune with God, I would have to give up all the pieces that make me, me. Could the spiritually enlightened me still get excited about Chanel lip gloss, the annual Kate Spade sale, or even sex? I told Vivian my fears, as best as I could verbalize them, and asked her if there was hope for me.

She nodded in the direction of the back yard. “After breakfast, we’ll start with the spring planting. Don’t think about it, but when your mind settles, and you’re not thinking about what to say anymore, start
a conversation. Prayer is such a formal word. Let the garden be your sanctuary. I tell ya, honey, you’re a product of Bible Belt living. God made you who you are. Now you have to give up the fire and brimstone version that you’ve inevitably had shoved down your throat and let God be God.”

I ate a big bite of mango and contemplated this. Could it be that easy? Why not? It was when I prayed before.

Vivian set out packets of flower seeds and sent me off to a section of the garden to start. Sure enough, I got into a rhythm and the words came to me. Before I knew it, I was asking for guidance and direction. I didn’t feel anything. A few hours later when all the seeds were planted, I felt a sense of calm, but no answer or gut
instinct. I asked Vivian if that meant anything. She said the calm was my answer, that it was ok to try different things and see what stuck. I did feel inspired by the colors in the garden. Green was starting to appear on hydrangeas and hostas, with small but pretty buds of varying colors. Could that translate into the colors of the beads? My hat project didn’t seem as stressful as it had at first. I could do this. It wasn’t me hanging out on another limb. I was trying on different hats for my life.

When I got home
, I went through the stack of mail that I had let accumulate into a pile on the kitchen counter. There were bills I hadn’t expected. As I looked at my bank statement online, I saw that I was further over my budget than I had thought.

At the time I had bought my supplies, I rationed that is was necessary
. You have to spend money to make money and invest in yourself. At the rate I was going, I would have to sort out my destiny fast. I tried to tell myself that this feeling was inevitable as my savings dwindled, but my sense of calm was dissipating fast and being replaced with the panic of before.

In an attempt to calm my nerves by focusing on the task at hand, I set out with a bottle of gorilla glue to create a prototype of my hats. After a lot of trial and error, I got the beads to stick to the wire
. Before I knew it I had two hats, each with its own distinct flare, ready to bring to the meeting. The meeting went better than I could have imagined. The woman wanted to order thirty hats, only asking how quickly I could have them ready.

I tried not to chew on my lip as I wondered how quickly I could learn how to make the jewelry proper
ly. As soon as I sorted out how to bead with the fish-line-like wire, I could work around the clock. I told her it would probably be a week.
There’s no need to panic
I told myself,
Be grateful you have beads for thirty hats. So you are going to run out of money…and your credit rating went into the toilet after some poor decisions in your mid twenties. You need capital, an investor
.

I decided to go to the credit union and apply for a loan. I’d done my banking there for ten years; surely it would pay off to have been a loyal customer all this time. I saw online that they had a program for new business owners and made an appointment. Dressed in my smartest suit, I went to my appointment with the downloaded paperwork already filled out.

After a lengthy wait, a small bald man with round rimless glasses came and sat down beside me. “Ms. Sanders, we appreciate your business, but your loan application has been denied.”

I explained that I’ve been
a loyal customer, and that my credit score was only low because after I bought my condo I bought furnishings that were no interest for 6 months, and then forgot all about it. By the time the bills came in, I thought they were promotional mailers, and I threw them away. I didn’t even know I was on my way to credit hell until they started calling me. I was in my mid-twenties then and made some poor decisions. Couldn’t we put up my condo as collateral? He paused, as if trying to be diplomatic before explaining that my mortgage was an interest-only loan, and the condo market had crashed with the rest of real estate. He said I had no equity in my home to use as collateral.

I went back to my history as a member of the credit union. He listened politely before telling me that my history with the credit union hadn’t been desirable, and produced a list of all of my overdraft fees over the years.
While trying to hang on to my last shred of dignity, I tried to explain to him that the overdraft fees were part of the profit they have made from having me as a customer. He said he was sorry, but that’s not how the credit union views my history and that without any current sustainable income, I was too much of a risk. At that point there was nothing else to do. As if I had any money, an additional bank account that I had omitted from my application, I told him that I understood and would have to spend out of pocket.