The Spinster Diaries Read online

  Yes, I have a brain tumor—a subfrontal midline meningioma, to be exact. But it’s kind of more like a mole. A sort of internal mole. Maybe it’s compressing my olfactory nerve and significantly decreasing my sense of smell. Maybe it explains why I get so many headaches. Or maybe my sense of smell is just fine—coffee, anyone?—and constant headaches are par for the course when you’re addicted to caffeine and ninety percent of your job consists of responding politely to rude criticism from showrunners, studio execs, network execs, and actors with suspiciously large heads.

  According to Brain Surgeon #1, I’ve basically got two choices here:

  1) Have brain tumor taken out ASAP at a total cost to me of only one eyebrow.

  2) Ignore brain tumor, pretend it’s not there, focus on other things, continue working on romantic comedy screenplay, etc.

  Option #2 is definitely covered by insurance. Plus, it’s less invasive. In medicalese, they call this “watch and wait.” If I go with Option #2, I will have to come back in six months for another MRI, but until then I’m officially off the hook. In both scenarios, I get to keep my hair, which is a huge relief to me because, in all honesty, my hair is the only thing I’ve ever really liked about myself. It’s got this sorta vaguely Pre-Raphaelite thing going on, and from the right angle on a supergood-hair day, it might look a little like Helena Bonham Carter’s in A Room with a View. Not a lot like Helena Bonham Carter’s in A Room with a View because, let’s face it, she’s Helena Bonham Carter, and no matter what movie she’s in, her curls—every time we see them—have just been meticulously arranged by a licensed hair care professional standing just off-screen with a large canvas bag full of styling products. Still, it’s always been a source of pride to me, my hair—along with my ability to form cogent sentences and my Phi Beta Kappa key—and if everything the first brain surgeon told me is true, there will be no Sophie’s choice.

  I’ll get to keep both hair and brain.

  With only the slight possibility of a tiny scar on my forehead.

  And the slim chance that I’ll completely lose my sense of smell.

  But whatever happens, the ball’s in my court. It’s all up to me: the proper care and treatment of my brain tumor. It’s completely my choice. Apparently, this is the latest thing in medicine—this personal autonomy, this letting the patients decide things for themselves—and, me, personally? I’m not so sure I’m on board with it. I mean, it’s not like this kind of self-rule generally works out so well in other fields of human endeavor. It’s like when you let people make their own sundaes—the resulting sundae is generally lopsided, no? With far too many toppings. Or when you allow the actors on a popular TV show to decide which lines they will and will not say.

  Or which of the other actors they’re willing to work with.

  Or when, where, and how they’re willing to lose their on-screen virginity.

  No, people have areas of specialization for a reason. Brain surgery. Teenage melodrama. Sundae-making. And when all is said and done, I can’t help but feel that certain potentially life-changing medical decisions are better left in the hands of licensed, board-certified physicians and not delegated to, say, card-carrying members of the Television Academy.

  But still, overall, I think, good news from the first brain surgeon. And the second?

  Well, if the first brain surgeon’s office felt more like a high-end boutique (like the kind of place you’d have to be told about by a chic friend who’s super in-the-know about brain surgeons), the second, an “institute” at one of LA’s classiest hospitals, feels more like—well, Loehmann’s, I guess. You know, with the communal changing rooms. Or maybe Gate 77 at LAX. My appointment was for 1:30 p.m., it’s nearly 4 now, and although I did have the presence of mind to bring a book—a great book, a true classic—quite honestly, I’m starting to lose it. Under normal circumstances, the wait would be fine. Really, it would—I’m not the kind of person who says rude things to the guy behind the deli counter at Ralph’s when it takes forever to get a half pound of turkey, thinly sliced. So, in theory, I’m willing to give one of LA’s most prominent brain surgeons at least that much slack.

  Except it’s Valentine’s Day, I forgot my iPod, and with each passing hour I’m finding it harder and harder to concentrate on Mansfield Park.

  Seriously. If Fanny Price doesn’t stop going on about that fucking amber cross of hers, I may have to kill myself. Could the stakes in this book be any lower? I mean, you’re invited to a party, and you’re a poor relation so you’re probably not the sharpest dresser to begin with, but this much angst over a necklace? People are dying here. Not me, of course. I’m not dying. At least not according to that first brain surgeon. But what about the rest of these poor souls—my fellow passengers here at Gate 77? Who’s to say what’s wrong with them? Maybe their brain tumors are not so benign. Or maybe they’re tucked away like plaque in difficult, hard-to-reach places. Mine’s right between my eyes, thank you very much. That older couple, over near the water cooler? Which one of them is sick? That agenty-looking guy, in the suit, with the Blackberry—no, wait, scratch that. He’s obviously here with his mother. But check out the young Hispanic couple with the twins. Twins, people! Twins, as in babies. Little tiny babies at the brain surgeon’s. One of them is wailing his head off, and yes, the crying baby does tend to contribute to the overall Gate 77 feel of the place, but, hey, can you blame him? Babies of any size and shape should not be at the brain surgeon’s. Never. Ever. Under any circumstances. And neither, for that matter, should Mansfield Park, which—forgive me, Jane—lacks the sort of Emma-like sparkle you want with you when you’re a mentally unhinged single girl all alone at the brain surgeon’s on Valentine’s Day.

  Oh, thank god. That’s me. They’re calling my name. It’s my turn.

  FRIDAY, MARCH 17, 2006

  THERE IS A CERTAIN kind of heroine who desperately wants her life to be like a Woody Allen movie when in reality it’s probably more like My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and really she should just accept this, move on, and stop trying to pass for Jewish.

  But this time my life really is like a Woody Allen movie.

  I can confirm this because last night I actually rewatched Hannah and Her Sisters for the 80,000th time, outlined its entire structure, and wrote down all the most important beats and key turning points of the story. The beginning is about Hannah and her sisters (duh), but after that we meet Mickey Sachs, a stressed-out, overworked TV writer who’s constantly running to doctors at the drop of a hat. Kvetching about dizziness and possible hearing loss, Mickey goes to see a distinguished, white-haired ENT who forces him to take a lot of tests that require him to wear silly-looking headphones. When those tests prove inconclusive, he goes for a brain scan, and then another doctor—this one distinctly less avuncular and distinguished—tells him that the tumor is inoperable and he’s going to die.

  Except that turns out to be a brief, fake-out fantasy sequence.

  So really the whole “brain tumor” thing turns out to be nothing.

  Or, not exactly nothing.

  More like the launching pad to a really great second act.

  The stressed-out, overworked TV writer quits his job.

  He has a crisis of faith.

  He regains his faith.

  He falls in love.

  Sounds good, right? Like it might be funny, but at the same time spiritually uplifting. With a great soundtrack and great New York apartments and actresses who wear their hair naturally frizzy because believe it or not, people actually walked around looking like that circa 1986. True, it’s not considered canonical like Manhattan and Annie Hall, but Hannah and Her Sisters won not one, not two, but three Oscars.

  Including Best Screenplay.

  Which is probably why it exists as a book, an actual book, that you can buy and study if you are so inclined. You know, the way religious people study the Bible. They turn to it for advice and wisdom in times of stress, which is what I’m doing with Hannah and Her Sisters in the sincere hope
that my brain tumor story—a story that begins almost exactly like Hannah and Her Sisters—will follow all the preordained, from-on-high rules for romantic comedy and end just exactly like Hannah and Her Sisters.

  On Thanksgiving.

  With two people in love and about to have a baby.

  But how likely is that, really? For starters, the protagonist in my brain tumor story doesn’t even have an overpaid TV-writing job to quit. That’s right…still unemployed. Luckily, my agent, Arnie Greenblatt, is working overtime to correct this problem. Rumor is they might be hiring over at America’s top new medical drama. You know, the one where all the beautiful people discuss their love lives over gaping surgical incisions.

  In the second place—and this is perhaps the larger obstacle—I’m not the best heroine for a romantic comedy. In a pinch, I could be a best friend. But even that is a bit of a stretch. If we’re looking to generalize, I think we can safely say that as long as I continue living and working in contemporary, twenty-first-century Los Angeles, no straight guy’s ever going to catch sight of me across a crowded room and think anything but…

  HYPOTHETICAL LA STRAIGHT GUY

  Man, I wish that chubby writer-girl would move so I could get a better look at her petite-but-titsy actress friend.

  But I’m not deformed in any way. I’m not like, say, four hundred pounds with thin, stringy hair, oversize Sophia Loren glasses, and a pathological fear of leaving the house.

  I mean, yes, I am enormous. But here in LA the concept of “enormous” begins around size ten, which is the point at which salesgirls in trendy boutiques begin to greet you with the phrase…

  SUPER-SKINNY SALESGIRL

  We also have things in larger sizes.

  The sad, pathetic truth about me is that I’ve never really had the gumption to give “romance,” in all its traditional forms, the old college try. Perhaps that’s just sour grapes? Not valuing something you can’t possibly have? There was a point—and this must have been junior high, otherwise what else is junior high for?—where the job requirements for romantic heroine were explained to me in exhaustive detail. A lot of work would have to be done in order for me to qualify. Losing weight was job one, but after that came makeup, bleaching, waxing, eyebrows, skin care, cellulite removal, and a not insignificant amount of personality revision. Even the normal-size, normal-looking girls were doing all this stuff, and there didn’t seem to be an end in sight. Where they got the energy for it all, I have no idea. Later—much later, sometime in the early aughts—it would be explained to me that they all liked it, that the GirlWorld 24/7 Prettiness Struggle wasn’t a job or an obligation. It was something women did for themselves—for fun. For their own amusement. At the time, I guess I didn’t get that. To me, it looked like it was, you know…an actual real struggle. Something that was causing everybody a lot of pain and mental anguish. So when the choice was put before me, I just opted out and chose not to play. It’s not like I haven’t had my chances with men. No, wait. It is. It is like I haven’t had my chances. Or else (and I suppose this is the more likely scenario), I had them and just never noticed that I had them. Which is sadder: to go through life and never find the person who’s right for you? Or never to have bothered looking in the first place? Here’s one thing I do know: I know it takes a very bizarre combination of megalomania and incredibly low self-esteem to believe—really and truly believe, with every fiber of your being—that you are the one person on the planet for whom there is no one.

  And it probably doesn’t help that my heroes have always been spinsters.

  That’s right. Spinsters. Everyone thinks we don’t have those anymore, that they’ve disappeared from the face of the earth along with governesses and embroidered screens. But that’s wrong. We do have them. We totally have them. We just don’t talk about them anymore because it wigs people out to think of someone being a spinster and not devoting every second of her waking life to romance. No, in the present day, relationships are what make you healthy and sound and normal, and it’s not enough to just have these relationships. If you’re female, you also have to talk about them ad infinitum at book clubs and baby showers. And if you don’t have them—if you, say, haven’t been on a date since the first Clinton administration and love interests don’t effortlessly drop at your feet whenever you happen to be lost in a parking garage—well, people basically equate this with being, like, a serial killer or mentally ill or something. I can’t pinpoint exactly when this cultural shift happened, but we now live in a world in which it’s decidedly more shameful for a woman to admit that she has not spent her formative years pole dancing for fitness, perfecting her blow job skills, and dressing up in designer clothes, than for her to admit that she has.

  And I suppose that’s progress.

  Of a sort.

  But the world wasn’t always like this.

  Take the young Miss Frances Burney, for instance. One of the great heroes of my life; one of the top five people I turn to for wisdom and inspiration in times of stress.

  Never heard of her? Not surprising.

  Frances Burney isn’t Jane Austen, with her face all over coffee mugs and tote bags.

  She isn’t George Eliot—boring as shit but deemed to be important by the powers that be.

  She’s not in the be-blond-and-pretty-and-kill-yourself club with Sylvia Plath.

  Or the be-hyperintellectual-and-kill-yourself club with Virginia Woolf.

  But in her time, there was no female writer more famous than the young Miss Frances Burney, spinster, of the parish of St. Martin’s in the Fields.

  She was only twenty-six when her first novel came out—the unfortunately titled Evelina, or The History of a Young Lady’s Entrance into the World. And what exactly does this young lady do? She comes to the big city for the first time, buys some new clothes, and gets swarmed by Love Interests both true and faux.

  In other words, Fanny’s first novel wasn’t just a novel. It was a chick-lit novel.

  One might even dare to call it a rather derivative, uninspired example of the genre—except that Fanny’s first novel essentially invented the genre. You know, the one where a young lady buys some new clothes, has multiple Love Interests, and ultimately has to make some really big decision about her life.

  When this strange new kind of book first came out, circa 1778, reviews were good, sales were even better, and since it was published anonymously, all of London was scrambling to find out who’d written such an entertaining little romp. Once the mystery was solved—once everyone figured out that 1778’s It novel had been written by the nearsighted, badly dressed daughter of the town’s best-known piano teacher—Fanny got very famous, very quickly.

  Approximately as famous, I would say, as a modern-day reality-TV star.

  History does not record whether she changed her hairstyle, dropped ten pounds, and started frequenting the more exclusive boutiques on Robertson Boulevard, but we do know that in her midtwenties, Fanny suddenly became A-list, got invited to tons of cool parties, and met more than her fair share of famous people. True, she wasn’t exactly knocking ’em dead in the boyfriend department, but by the careerist standards of twenty-first-century LA, she was doing pretty well for herself.

  My agent Arnie Greenblatt would have been proud to represent her.

  And she wasn’t just a one-book wonder.

  Right before her thirtieth birthday, at a time when Mozart had yet to crank out his greatest hits and people still walked around looking like Gainsborough paintings, Fanny published her second novel—a much-anticipated follow-up in which another beautiful if incredibly naïve young woman comes to the big city for the first time, buys some new clothes, and gets swarmed by Love Interests both true and faux.

  Teeming with parties, socialites, new hats, degenerate gamblers, and languid metrosexuals, Cecilia, or Memoirs of an Heiress was twice as long as Fanny’s first book, three times more complicated, and, much to everyone’s surprise, an even bigger and more spectacular commercial success. Copies
flew off the shelves. Fans pointed and stared at her when she went out to public places—or they pulled up a chair and gave her an earful on how the “mixed” (i.e., not so happy) ending of Cecilia could be improved and made happier. They stood up and made a fuss when she entered rooms. They routinely addressed her as “Evelina” or “Cecilia,” which is sort of like the eighteenth-century equivalent of going up to Helen Fielding and calling her “Bridget.” In October 1782, while she was in Brighton with her BFF Hester Thrale, Fanny wrote to her favorite sister, Susanna…

  You would suppose me something dropt from the Skies. Even if Richardson or Fielding could rise from the Grave, I should bid fair for supplanting them in the popular Eye, for being a fair female, I am accounted quelque chose extraordinaire.

  And she was. She was something extraordinary.

  We all have obsessions.

  Subjects we can’t let go of.

  Stories we need to tell.

  Or at least I thought we did.

  As I creep further and further into my thirties and worry more and more about the brain tumor pressing on my frontal lobe, it’s beginning to dawn on me that not everybody spends decades of their life angsting and obsessing on the career struggles and romantic difficulties of obscure eighteenth-century novelists.

  Some people get married and have children.

  They try harder to get staffed on long-running medical shows.

  They don’t religiously devote all their weekends, vacations, and hiatuses to constructing an expensive, impractical, six-part miniseries about a nearsighted, badly dressed minor novelist. Yes, this miniseries would involve a lot of corsets and very wide skirts, but I, personally, do not think one tiny little six-part miniseries is too much to ask for the woman whom Virginia Woolf once called the Mother of English Fiction. That is why I have been working on mine so assiduously for the last six and a half years of my life, in between my actual paying jobs on teenage melodramas. And even when I try to take up more normal hobbies—like dating or knitting or writing romantic comedy screenplays—they never seem to take. What makes a person work so hard on an impossible, impractical task when the end result is almost certainly failure? Denial? Stubbornness?