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I just completed graduate school on the West Coast and moved back here to find a career in publishing, and all in all, I felt like I was making the right moves. While I had friends in school, I never found the core group of people that would be mine for life, and in New York, I have an emergency support system.
Plus, New York has far more options for a career in publishing than California and over eight and a half million people who could be potential friends.
Honestly, before turning in my final thesis, it all sounded pretty simple.
Find a job—preferably as an editor at a prominent New York publishing house.
Get an apartment.
Find new friends.
Find a man etc, etc.
Alas, things in real life are never as easy as they are on paper, and as a result, I’m currently spending forty hours of my week working side by side with my parents and living out of my brother Evan’s old bachelor pad in Chelsea.
As I’m the blood sister of the former resident, the single-guy paraphernalia littering the place is an actual nightmare. But hey, I guess I can thank the stars, the sun, and the moon that I’m not living in my childhood bedroom.
Still, my New York friend count is at a staggering zero, and I’m not even going to address the reality that when it comes to the whole find-a-man task, I’m woefully behind the curve.
I just kind of forgot to make it a priority.
I was too busy reading Stephen King novels, studying hard to keep a perfect GPA, and chasing a level of perfection high enough to trigger unmistakable pride from my hard-to-please father.
Bruce Willis—aka my dad—is a man of too many words and most of them are stubborn, cantankerous, and filled with enough sarcasm to make Amy Schumer’s new Netflix special look watered down.
For as long as I can remember, his life has revolved around two things: his family and his business—Bruce Willis & Sons Floral. Established in 1980, my family’s florist shop has become one of Chelsea’s pride and joys.
Ironically, my dad only has one son, my brother Evan, who lives in Austin, Texas.
So, really, it’s just Bruce Willis & Wife & “Temporarily Back Home from Graduate School but Not Planning on Working Here Forever” Daughter Floral.
But that’s too long to fit on the storefront marquee, so I’m stuck dealing with all the looks I get, wondering if I’ve undergone gender reassignment surgery.
And now I, Mabel Frances Willis, am a twenty-four-year-old, college-educated, sexually stunted woman, who’s barely held a penis in her hands.
Prospects on penis-encounters aren’t looking great with that old-lady moniker, but thankfully, everyone calls me Maybe. A nickname that was created because my parents realized about two years into my life that the name Mabel wouldn’t suit me until I reached an age where senior citizen discounts and Melba toast became a constant in my daily routine.
Although, maybe Maybe isn’t the world’s greatest nickname.
The utter definition of the word revolves around indecisiveness.
Do I want to meet a man? Maybe.
Do I want to have sex? Maybe.
Do I want to live the rest of my life as some virginal literary spinster with more cats than chairs in my house? Maybe.
See what I mean?
“Maybe!” My dad’s voice fills my ears again. “Where are you?”
With the way he shouts, you’d think the shop was a ginormous warehouse, but it’s barely 1500 square feet.
“I’ll be there in a sec!” I call back, but he doesn’t wait. He never waits. Waiting is nowhere in Bruce’s vocabulary.
“Okay! But I need to know one thing! Did Phil follow up on the Carmichael wedding?”
“Yes!” I shout back and add my resume to the email in progress.
“And what’s the status?”
“The bride is still convinced she wants tiger lilies and cascading orchids in her bouquet!”
My dad’s Dr. Evil-inspired chuckles echo off the walls of the shop. “Sounds like that bride is about to take her dear old dad for an expensive ride!”
Oh my God, get me out of here.
I hit send on my email and cross my fingers that this publishing house—Windstone Press—will actually call me for an interview. Once the little whooshing sound that signifies my message was sent fills my ears, I shut my laptop, step back out into the main shop, and prepare to face the Bruce-themed music.
“Where in the hemp oil have ya been?” he asks, crossing his beefy arms over his chest. “I thought you were going to man the front.”
“I had a few resumes I needed to send out.”
“To who?”
“Publishing houses.”
“Which ones?”
I sigh. “New York ones, Dad.”
“Pretty sure I had that one figured out.” He grins at my sarcasm. “So, that’s what you do with a degree in books? You work in publishing?”
A degree in books. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.
I majored in English Literature and got my master’s degree at Stanford University, one of the most prestigious English Lit programs in the country. With the way he talks, you’d think I went to some back-alley online university and obtained a degree in dog walking, but it’s not worth the explanation. I’ve said all of these things no fewer than a thousand times, and this is still how the conversation always goes.
