The Queen
Friday afternoon I'm on my way to meet Bonnie and Susan, the Coors promo girls who occasionally work the crowd at the Bar, for a movie. As I make my way to the theater, I'm stopped in my tracks by a black and gold dress in a shop window. It's so beautiful that I can barely breathe. I don't know the shop, so I don't know what kind of designers they carry or what the prices are like, but I can imagine - it's the Upper East Side, after all. So instead of going inside to ask, I just stand on the sidewalk, my ears turning red from the cold, and stare. I wonder what I'd look like with that thing wrapped around me. Maybe someday I'll have the courage to stroll into a shop like this one, head held high despite having jeans on, and ask to try on a dress without any hint that I might not have the wherewithal to walk out the door with it. But not today. I get my feet moving again.
I buy my ticket and head inside, where the girls are waiting for me. I get hugs and smiles from both, no sign of the tension that I'd thought Susan's invitation created the day before. We stop by the snack stand, where I easily cave to my permanent weakness for Junior Mints and Coke at every movie I attend. Susan gets some Twizzlers and Diet Coke, while Bonnie passes, claiming to have had a big lunch. The theater is nearly empty, so we plant ourselves happily in the center, me with a Coors girl on either side of me.
After a few commercials and previews, "The Queen" starts. I was just a baby when Diana married Prince Charles, but I was in high school when she went through her divorce and when she died, and I remember how awful it all seemed at the time. To my surprise, the movie barely touches on her life, and you barely ever even get a glimpse of her until later in the film. It really is all about Queen Elizabeth II and her family, and newly-elected Prime Minister Tony Blair. I won't give anything away, other than to say that the movie was beautiful, with only one even slightly heavy-handed cinematic metaphor. I mentioned that I'm a Helen Mirren fan - but the truth is that it didn't occur to me even once the entire time that I was watching anybody other than Queen Elizabeth II herself. She absolutely deserves her Oscar nomination, and even without having seen the other nominees, I hope she wins.
When the lights come up, it's obvious that Bonnie has been crying. I offer her my last few Junior Mints, and she smiles and takes them without a word.
It's still a little on the early side - barely four o'clock, and I'm not on at the Bar until six - so we decide to go get a cup of coffee. I actually end up with a very rich hot chocolate - I'm being very bad, but I've been indulging myself a little on purpose these last few days, and it feels good. And we end up sharing our stories of how we ended up at the jobs we have. You already know my story - how I was in a low-paying, somewhat dead-end publishing job, and decided to become a barmaid after I had a great time guest bartending one night. Susan, it turns out, is a college student who was looking for a way to pay the bills, and saw an ad for promo girls on Craigslist.
Bonnie, on the other hand, quit college a couple of years ago. She'd been dating a guy a couple of years ahead of her, and when he graduated with a banking job in New York, she just left school behind and followed him here. A few weeks later, he dumped her and kicked her out. She had no friends or family in the city, and no place to live. She managed to talk her way into staying at a hostel for a little while in exchange for cleaning up the place, and took on babysitting jobs when she could, using references from families she'd sat for in high school in Indiana. Then she met someone who needed a roommate in Bushwick, at a price she could actually just about manage - and right around the same time, the mother of one of the girls she was sitting for told her she had a friend who worked for a modeling agency, and would probably be interested in meeting Bonnie. It turns out she was.
"Wait, you're a model?" I say.
Bonnie raises an eyebrow. "It's not that outlandish, is it?"
"No, I didn't mean it that way, you're really pretty. But you're also really nice, and I've met too many models in this city who treat everyone over a size two like dirt."
She shrugs. "Maybe it's just the models who never had to mop up shit and vomit for six months. Anyway, I still haven't had many gigs yet, I'm just getting started, which is why I need this job, too. They're still training me, working on 'my image,' stuff like that. So you probably wouldn't have seen any of my work, anyway."
"Still, it's kind of a great story. You were really brave to stay in New York and try to make it here instead of turning tail and running home to your parents."
"No... running home to my parents would have been braver, since they made it real clear to me that I was an idiot for dropping out of college. It turned out they were right, but I didn't want to give them the satisfaction. I stayed here because I'm stubborn."
I smile. "That's not a bad story, either."
Soon enough, it's time for us all to get going - I have to work a shift at the Bar, and they're going to hit at least three or four bars with their Coors gear. "We should do this again," I say as I get a couple more hugs and general agreement from the girls. We're just about to part on the street, when I find myself asking one more question.
"Bonnie, why did he dump you?"
She looks down at the sidewalk, then over at Susan, who shrugs. Turning back to me, she says, "That's a story for a different kind of drinking."
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to pry."
Bonnie smiles, says, "Don't worry about it," and turns with Susan to go.
I buy my ticket and head inside, where the girls are waiting for me. I get hugs and smiles from both, no sign of the tension that I'd thought Susan's invitation created the day before. We stop by the snack stand, where I easily cave to my permanent weakness for Junior Mints and Coke at every movie I attend. Susan gets some Twizzlers and Diet Coke, while Bonnie passes, claiming to have had a big lunch. The theater is nearly empty, so we plant ourselves happily in the center, me with a Coors girl on either side of me.
After a few commercials and previews, "The Queen" starts. I was just a baby when Diana married Prince Charles, but I was in high school when she went through her divorce and when she died, and I remember how awful it all seemed at the time. To my surprise, the movie barely touches on her life, and you barely ever even get a glimpse of her until later in the film. It really is all about Queen Elizabeth II and her family, and newly-elected Prime Minister Tony Blair. I won't give anything away, other than to say that the movie was beautiful, with only one even slightly heavy-handed cinematic metaphor. I mentioned that I'm a Helen Mirren fan - but the truth is that it didn't occur to me even once the entire time that I was watching anybody other than Queen Elizabeth II herself. She absolutely deserves her Oscar nomination, and even without having seen the other nominees, I hope she wins.
When the lights come up, it's obvious that Bonnie has been crying. I offer her my last few Junior Mints, and she smiles and takes them without a word.
It's still a little on the early side - barely four o'clock, and I'm not on at the Bar until six - so we decide to go get a cup of coffee. I actually end up with a very rich hot chocolate - I'm being very bad, but I've been indulging myself a little on purpose these last few days, and it feels good. And we end up sharing our stories of how we ended up at the jobs we have. You already know my story - how I was in a low-paying, somewhat dead-end publishing job, and decided to become a barmaid after I had a great time guest bartending one night. Susan, it turns out, is a college student who was looking for a way to pay the bills, and saw an ad for promo girls on Craigslist.
Bonnie, on the other hand, quit college a couple of years ago. She'd been dating a guy a couple of years ahead of her, and when he graduated with a banking job in New York, she just left school behind and followed him here. A few weeks later, he dumped her and kicked her out. She had no friends or family in the city, and no place to live. She managed to talk her way into staying at a hostel for a little while in exchange for cleaning up the place, and took on babysitting jobs when she could, using references from families she'd sat for in high school in Indiana. Then she met someone who needed a roommate in Bushwick, at a price she could actually just about manage - and right around the same time, the mother of one of the girls she was sitting for told her she had a friend who worked for a modeling agency, and would probably be interested in meeting Bonnie. It turns out she was.
"Wait, you're a model?" I say.
Bonnie raises an eyebrow. "It's not that outlandish, is it?"
"No, I didn't mean it that way, you're really pretty. But you're also really nice, and I've met too many models in this city who treat everyone over a size two like dirt."
She shrugs. "Maybe it's just the models who never had to mop up shit and vomit for six months. Anyway, I still haven't had many gigs yet, I'm just getting started, which is why I need this job, too. They're still training me, working on 'my image,' stuff like that. So you probably wouldn't have seen any of my work, anyway."
"Still, it's kind of a great story. You were really brave to stay in New York and try to make it here instead of turning tail and running home to your parents."
"No... running home to my parents would have been braver, since they made it real clear to me that I was an idiot for dropping out of college. It turned out they were right, but I didn't want to give them the satisfaction. I stayed here because I'm stubborn."
I smile. "That's not a bad story, either."
Soon enough, it's time for us all to get going - I have to work a shift at the Bar, and they're going to hit at least three or four bars with their Coors gear. "We should do this again," I say as I get a couple more hugs and general agreement from the girls. We're just about to part on the street, when I find myself asking one more question.
"Bonnie, why did he dump you?"
She looks down at the sidewalk, then over at Susan, who shrugs. Turning back to me, she says, "That's a story for a different kind of drinking."
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to pry."
Bonnie smiles, says, "Don't worry about it," and turns with Susan to go.