To keep working, I depend on the financial support of gotham girl’s readers and sponsors. I know your resources are precious too. And so, I am ridiculously grateful for your help. Now, more than ever, gotham girl could use your support.
Hello, Lovelies, How the hell are you?
Today, April 11, 2015, is a big day for me. On the one hand, it was the day you could say I lost everything; my amazing job, my insurance, my apartment, my lovely burgeoning relationship, and life as I knew it. And I never really got any of it back—no matter how hard I tried. On the other, it toughened me up. My gob is not easily smacked. My flabber is not so easily ghasted.
Then, this November, it happened again. So, this time, I was like, “Alright-already, Universe… I hear you,” and I finally wrote a rom-com where the midlife heroine gets everything she lost back and more.
I think the trick when you’re writing for television or mainstream readers and it’s based on your weird-ass life (credit to Elise Loehnen for this) is to figure out how to turn the ME into WE. We are all a little electric… it’s what animates us every morning to get out of bed. It’s what sparks the idea in yet another boring-ass meeting. This is the story of a spectacularly silly burnout, how she goes dark, and how she gets re-lit.
Ellery Allbright Goes Dark
A Novel
By Alisa Kennedy Jones
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination or are used facetiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental, or because it’s genuinely funny.
To my dear ex-husband, thanks so much for divorcing me!
That restraining order really gave me time to write…
We once loved-together
And we floodlit that time
Input-output-electricity
But the lines overloaded
And the sparks started flying
And the loose wires
Were lashing out at me
She's not going to fix that up
Too easy
— Electricity, Joni Mitchell
“I have been to hell and back, and let me tell you, it was wonderful”
— Louise Bourgeois
PROLOGUE:
April 11, 2017 | New York City
“Shhhh... Don’t speak,” he whispers.
Out of the blackness, a man’s face swims into focus, his head haloed in the warm glow of the studio spotlights.
Holy fuck… Gaaaaaaaghgh!! Who’s this guy? And why are his words so… swarthy? He has total romance novel hair—completely lustrous and thick. I mean… Do you ever look at somebody and think to yourself; I just know that man’s going to buy me a horse.
He reminds me of that actor, Milo Venti-mi-ma-something, from that big network show I never watch because everyone is always crying, or dying or giving birth, and then crying some more. You know the one I’m talking about. But he’s not on the guest schedule this week—at least Ned didn’t mention it. Unless someone’s dropped out? It is part and parcel of hosting a nationally syndicated talk show. Entitled divas warring over the green rooms, refusing to share the sofa, or even appear together to talk about whatever silly re-hashed comic book blockbuster they have coming out. Faye Dunaway almost got into a full-on backstage catfight with Martha Stewart about who would shoot first. Stewart won. Naturally.
“Shhhh... Hold still, the wound’s really close to your jugular,” whispers Swarthy Milo.
And I do. Because I will do anything he tells me mostly because of that hair. Behind him, the large, illuminated orange and red marquee reads, “That’s Ellery!” and I realize I must be at work... Hosting the show. Oh, shit! I catch snippets of alarmed whispers amid the hush of the departing studio audience.
“Is she... dead?” A concerned woman asks a junior staffer.
“So much blood!” laments another.
“My cousin has the same thing.” Admits still one more.
Over the studio PA system, I hear Ned’s voice calmly intoning, “Ladies and Gentlemen if you could please make your way to the rear exits of the studio, you will be met by staff and comped for dinner at one of the network’s partner restaurants. Ms. Allbright has clearly suffered a medical emergency and is receiving prompt attention. We thank you for your patience and understanding.” Ned is my producer and best friend—more like my service beast. Or my service unicorn, he would argue, so that he can sit under the seat in front of me or in my lap when we fly. We have known each other since NYU. He is the most rhythm-free gay black person I have ever encountered. Every time we go dancing, he morphs into a white investment banker from Princeton. It is downright embarrassing. But what’s going on? Why is everyone leaving? The show is just starting? Isn’t it?
“Miss Allbright...” Oh, it’s Swarthy, again. “I want you to blink once if you can understand me.” He says with great intentionality as though he is trying to potty-train a two-year-old.
I blink once to show that I comprehend him. We two are Simpatico, Swarthy, and me. Or, at least, we will be as soon as I am able to explain what’s happened, which is the weird thing here as I cannot—speak—that is. And I am America’s explainer extraordinaire—it’s like my whole job description, so this will not do for long.
Now, before we go any further, just a quick caveat that it is practically an unwritten rule in Manhattan and well, of all rom-coms everywhere, that if, at any point in your beautiful life, you ever pass out in New York City, you will invariably be woken up by some handsome, scruffy medical type. Someone authentically brave, badass, and true, with a sonorous voice, smoldering eyes, and fantastic hair—just like this guy. Everyone knows this. It’s like a rule of physics and one of the perks of living in such a motherfucking hard-ass place. Just so you know.
“Ms. Allbright, did you take anything?” He said.
What? Ha! Oh, mister. I want to tell him, I take everything. You see I have this thing with my… and then I see it. All down the front of his shirt, he is soaked in crimson. Whoa, that is a lot of blood. It is pretty much a Walking Dead amount of blood. And just under his collar, is a golf-ball-sized splotch of gelatinous pinkish-gray stuff.
Holy fuck, is that my brain? Did I just get brain on Swarthy Milo? I reach up toward it. Um-I-I’m going to need that back, mister. Christ, why couldn’t it be anything else? Why couldn’t my ovaries have shot what’s left of my eggs at him? In little ‘pew’, ‘pew’, ‘pew’ noises? That’d be way less gross. But I already love someone… Don’t I?
A tsunami of images floods back in on me now and it’s everything not to drown in them.
-
I’m out walking on our street on the Upper Westside. It’s the first real day of spring—all the cold and damp of winter are temporarily banished for a few weeks before the swamp of summer heat kicks in. The sun’s warm rays are forcing every single muscle in my face into a deep squinty-smile. Above, the blossoms on every tree buzz, and every leaf, root, and insect thrums with life and electricity.
I wave to our neighbor Gerald. He is in his seventies with a wild Einstein mane and wiry white tentacle eyebrows. A retired lawyer, with a penchant for fly fishing, he is decked out in his fishing vest and waders—fly casting. There is no river nearby so instead he targets street signs, taxis, and the occasional jogger who swats him away. No one ever complains. Really. Gerald’s been doing this for longer than anyone can remember. Plus, he’s taken the hooks out of the flies. “Catch anything?” I call out to him. He smiles, and shakes his head, “Soon enough, Apron!”
Why is he calling me Apron? Is it because…? I cook? Yes, I think I cook.
_
Next, I’m walking toward Zabar’s. I am going to get… coffee? I’m not getting a coffee at Starbucks or anything… I’m doing like Suze Orman always says to do and buying the cheapo regular coffee and going home and making a whole pot of it because I have work to do for my fabulous job that I can’t quite fully remember right at this moment, except that it involves talking to loads of people. But now there’s this rising feeling in my chest. A low growling—like a caged animal pacing, and I can’t quite catch my breath. It shifts to restless wings rising, beating in my chest. But there’s also this sense of unremitting, long-legged joy. An odd euphoria. It feels like the opening of The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Aren’t I the happy girl tossing my cap in the air? I just need to breathe.
_
Cut to a defiant girl with a shock of white, blonde curls, no more than five. She shouts up at me, naked and furious from the bathtub, her plump belly covered in chocolate pudding, refusing to bathe. “You are nuffing but a stinky butthead!”
“Butthead?” I gape, cackling as I rush to tickle her, getting chocolate all over the both of us now.
“I didn’t say it in a way that’s funny, mommy!” She roars, laughing in spite of herself, her Nietzsche-like will buckling. And I love her so much my heart could break. Ok, I’m a mom. Her mom. That much, I can remember.
_
Just then, another jolt, and I’m in my Upper Westside apartment kitchen. How did I get such a good kitchen? This is NOT at all typical for Manhattan. Huh, is my life a Nancy Meyers movie? If so, go me! And here’s a guy. Yowza! Am I dating him? With a dark, closely trimmed beard, eyes like molten chocolate, and a mischievous grin, he reminds me of a pirate. A foxy, well-groomed pirate with great dental hygiene. He’s explaining to me in a French accent so thick, it borders on ridiculous—he sounds like Pepe Le Pew—the skunk from the old Warner Brothers cartoons who’s madly in love with the girly cat. He is French-splaining to me how to shuck an oyster.
“You open zem like ziss…” He says wrapping his arms around me and positioning both hands over mine from behind—the dangerous metal instrument ready to murder and dismember this poor defenseless mollusk. The shell snaps open, and I let out a sharp cackle as the briny juice explodes all down my face and front. I turn to him, soaked. “Lovely, thanks. Now I smell entirely like pussy.”
“But ziss is marvelous!” He exclaims, gesturing in a lightbulb moment. “Zey should make ze parfaaaam!” He mimes a telephone call, “Allo? Chanel?” Then, laughing directly into my open mouth, he kisses me. There’s a palpable intimacy between us. He kisses me again, my face held closely in his hands. He’s not just a boyfriend, he’s more. Intuitively, I know he’ll be good with us—because there is an us. “OOH, ooh, even better!” He says—his ebullience peaking, “Dryer sheets!” except with his accent “sheets” comes out like, “Dryer shits.”
Okay, I must love this man. He is my exact brand of goofy.
_
The world tilts again and now I’m on stage doing my opening monolog before a live studio audience of six hundred-odd people. I’m telling the story of how I almost gave birth to my youngest daughter in Joan Rivers’ living room at The Plaza and how with each increasingly excruciating contraction I’m insulting a different aspect of Joan’s décor—which is completely Versailles-like. I mean, it’s a pink palace and I should be so lucky to give birth in her freakin’ elevator at this stage in my career.
Halfway through, I catch my image on the monitor. Oh, I look quite hot today, all done up. I note the sleek shape of my hair, blown out for the taping—when do I ever have time for that? Never! Most of the time, I look like I’ve combed my hair with a fork. We must be in Sweeps Week. I turn to see our main guest waiting offstage in the wings and it’s George Michael and he’s already grooving, backed up by a full gospel choir, and I’m like... Wait just a darn minute... Isn’t George Michael dead? Dead like the song, Last Christmas, because he literally died last Christmas of 2016. How is it that I’m now hosting the undead? And as I wrap up my introduction, I am at the top of my game—addressing the audience, who are all laughing and applauding, “And now everyone, I give you... straight from the pearly gates (What am even I saying?) here to perform his hit single Freedom, the one, the only, Saint George Michael!” And there’s a roar of applause—clapping from everyone. Even Dymphna, who never likes anything. She’s pretty much the Life-Cereal-kid of bosses—a dour perennial whose hideous statement necklaces could easily double as Krav Maga weapons—even she is cheering. I’ve done it. Today. Somehow, I’ve pulled off something miraculous Go me? And then the audience begins to shimmer.
_
Next, I’m across the table from an older child. She is six with dark blonde, curly bird’s nest hair. She pokes at a bowl of soggy flakes scowling, and asks, “Mommy, what color is a shadow?” And all at once, I love her with a depth like no other. Her voice like velvet—so serious and genuine—takes my breath away and before I can answer, I cut back to the studio where Swarthy Milo intones more insistent than ever:
“Ms. Allbright. Did. You. Take. Anything?!!”
Oh, you again... Well, hello there, smoldering antihero. As I try to speak, I hear my own soft, croaky whisper for the first time: “I’nnn ha uh sei...jure...”
“A what?” He cocks his head like a Labrador.
Man, this hurts. “See...jur." A moment passes and I watch his eyes light up as he comprehends.
“You’ve had a seizure!” He exclaims and I blink once now in the affirmative. There we go. Yes, my dude, you got me. And I think how I’m going to explain this as a one-off, isolated incident to the network and to Dymphna, who just happens to be more revered and feared than Anna Wintour—except in the world of daytime television. Before you say “What the hell kind of name is Dymphna? Dymphna is the patron saint of mad and mentally ill women everywhere and Ned and I can only surmise that her mother was a bizarrely ardent Catholic who didn’t like her baby daughter very much, or there was some mishap with the anesthesia and somehow cooler heads did not prevail in the naming department. Needless to say, Dymphna O’Dean, Executive Producer of the That’s Ellery show, now goes by D. O’Dean, arbiter of all things New York culture, taste, and talk and is the driving force behind getting That’s Ellery on air. But I could already hear the angry huff in her voice, interrogating Ned off in the wings.
“What’s going on? Has she had a stroke? This can’t happen—not with the Artisanal Wonder deal. I need you to fix this Ned, now!” And I want to tell her, I’m fixing it, but Swarthy is talking to me again.
“You’ve had a grand mal... tonic-clonic seizure?” I blink ‘yes’ again. He studies me.
“Happen a lot?”
I blink once again because I can’t explain to him that yes, my brain occasionally likes to burst into particles of radiant light and it’s so on-brand for me to do it on live television with the whole world watching. I do everything else on camera—from colonoscopies to mammograms. Why not this? Still, I can’t believe it’s happened at this point in my life—right when everything’s been going so great. Oof…
And isn’t it just the absolute foundational lesson of life? The exact moment you think you’ve become the person you’ve always wanted to be—responsible, killing it at work, bills paid, going to yogalates, reading nightly to the kids, donating to public radio, never mind a healthy relationship, complete with mollusk lessons—suddenly the universe rushes in to compel you to be something more, something different, something else. Someone getting brain on a perfectly handsome stranger in the middle of a live show.
“Do you know who the president is?” Swarthy quizzes me.
I groan thinking of that reprehensible hot dog skin of a Commander-in-Chief. Swarthy smirks. For once, couldn’t this part be different? It’s always the same questions; Do you know your name? Do you know what day it is? Can you tell me who the President is? Can you tell me who the Cheeto is? And then, the very way they say your name: “Ellery? Ellery?” It’s always in that bossy, infantilizing tone, like you’re five and they’ve just caught you stealing candy. Never mind that you’re a fully grown-ass woman in a Phillip Lim frock, and Louboutin’s, supporting an entire household and raising two children, or that you put yourself through college on your own when your useless hippie parents couldn’t be bothered to help, so you had to be the responsible one.
Now, the world shakes in a clumsy jostling motion. I’m being lifted onto a gurney and the latches snap into place. Overhead the concerned faces of Ned, Dymphna, and the crew flicker past. In the wings, I'm being wheeled out past a bank of monitors all looping on replay. Do they show a woman thrashing about in the throes of a violent fit before a horrified audience? Do I dare even ask to see it when all is said and done? Has it already been leaked to the press? Surely production will give it to HR and legal. I can hear Janice now, “She’s trouble, that one—not allowed in the studio anymore.” But how to live? Either way, it will get reported to all the various authorities and then it’s back to no driving and all kinds of rules for me. We push through the open doors. A shadow casts over the street as I clunk upwards into the ambulance double parked along Broadway, lights flashing, silent.
Swarthy Milo climbs aboard and leans in close now, his face a few forbidden inches from mine. He studies me with a strange, unwavering intimacy. Fuck, fuck, fuck, is he going to kiss me? Because I could probably use a mint.
Then, a darkness plays over his visage. It’s as if there’s this reverse gravity weighing down on him, a pressure over his shoulders, pulling his entire being toward me as if he could somehow see me in reverse, just moments before all of this, simply as a normal 40-year-old woman, telling funny stories to a group of random strangers. And I recognize now that it’s sorrow. Deep, hollowed-out sorrow.
And I wish I could tell him, “There, there. Chin up, mister. It can’t possibly be all that bad,” but he shakes his head and sighs, “There are things they can do… prosthetics, implants.”
Wait, what? Please-to-repeat? Shit, when did I morph into that Slavic cleaning lady from 30 Rock? Hold up there, Swarthy. Prosthetics? Prosthetic what?
Just then, I see a shimmer in the upper left corner of the ambulance as the mobile medical equipment trembles. I hear Swarthy’s voice cut through the veil of sparks and indigo, “Status epilepticus with multiple cranial injuries, dislocated, shattered jaw, both sides, facial fractures…”
And I realize, holy cats, this can’t be good.
So, parts of the novel echo my memoir, but there’s more of the universal WE that fiction enables. And to have George Michael as one’s Gen-X spirit guide is truly the most fun thing to write.
Stay safe, Lovelies, and know that I’m thinking of you. I hear you’re electric… – xoxo, gotham girl
*As an Amazon Associate, gotham girl may earn from qualifying purchases, at no cost to you.
The shitty draft is not so shitty. Your writing is amazing. I, too, like Milo Ventimiglia (but I like how you said it better LOL) and am trying to picture him as swarthy. To me, that word makes me picture someone who's older with some wrinkles? LOL
So much truth and beauty in this, LOVE! I was just writing about "Freedom 90" for an upcoming Womancake essay, can't wait for you to read it. Oh, the detail about the sonorous voice? I'm a sucker for those! I think Philip Seymour Hoffman always had an undeniable sexual presence, even when he was plying the most pathetic losers, because his fucking VOICE was so powerful.