Gizelle's Bucket List Read online

  I quickly understood why people called New York City a jungle, because jungles are filled with the most exotic creatures. Thanks to Gizelle, I met many of them. One of my favorites was our zany flyer guy friend, who stood on the corner of Forty-Third Street and Eighth Avenue, wearing a sign for Diamond gentlemen’s club. Bespectacled, fiftyish, with hair that looked as though he enjoyed experimenting with electricity, our conversations tended to run as follows:

  “Ohhh hey, Gizelle! Hey!” He never failed to greet her, which was always in the middle of a busy workday for him. He’d wave his hands in the air excitedly; there was never any passing without stopping. He’d lean over and pet Gizelle, eyes big behind his glasses, and she’d wag her tail politely. “How are you, Gizelle? How you ladies doing?”

  “We’re good,” I’d say, answering for Gizelle as usual. “How are you?”

  “Oh, I’m good . . . Free strippers! Lap dances! . . .” He’d call out, midconversation, flyers in his hand.

  “ . . . things are good. Just working, paying bills . . . Naked ladies! Classy girls!” Someone snatched a flyer with a bodacious half-naked, Kardashian type on it and he was quick to hold up another.

  “You ladies going to the park?”

  “Yeah, we’re just going for a little run-walk, getting some fresh air.”

  “Strippers! Exotic strippers! . . . That’s just great. I love the fresh air, too.”

  I smiled and nodded in agreement.

  “Okay, well, enjoy your evening, ladies. See you tomorrow I hope. Bye, Gizelle . . . Strippers! Hot, sexy girls!”

  He and I never knew so much as each other’s names—it would have broken a code between New Yorkers to be so presumptuous as to ask any personal details of each other. But he knew Gizelle’s. We talked almost every day, he rubbed Gizelle’s head just right, and she liked him, sometimes even resting her chin on his knee while he tousled her ears. I liked him, too. And I wouldn’t have ever had reason to speak to him if it weren’t for Gizelle. The whole thing made me wonder if I could officially cross “strangers” off Gizelle’s list of fears.

  Another favorite exchange occurred when we ran into a guy who looked like John Candy, wearing a black Phantom of the Opera T-shirt topped with an unbuttoned red Hawaiian shirt. I bumped into him outside of the Shake Shack on Eighth Avenue. He studied Gizelle with a few curious looks before addressing her, “Well, hello, big puppy!” (We liked him immediately.)

  He looked back up at me.

  “May I pet your dog?”

  “Of course!” I walked closer.

  For a moment his hands squeezed into fists with excitement before he bent down to pet Gizelle on the head.

  “What is the doggy’s name?” he asked, looking at her tenderly.

  “Gizelle,” I beamed.

  His mouth silently dropped open. “Oh my GOD. GI-ZELLE? From Enchanted?” His voice got higher with each exclamation. I smiled. “Yeah! You know it? People never know it.”

  He clapped his hands together with recognition.

  “Ohmigod. Girl. I know it.”

  And what happened next was nothing less than cinematic. The man curtseyed at Gizelle, a beautiful, balletic curtsey, and then began to sing Amy Adams’s “Happy Working Song” from Enchanted. He spun and twirled on the sidewalk as people zipped by. Pedestrians stared at Gizelle as they passed but completely ignored the dancing maestro of Disney lyrics. I swung Gizelle’s leash in time to his song, certain this was the type of thing that could only happen in New York City, also certain that we were definitely in the movie Enchanted and really had fallen down a well to an eccentric, wonderful land where people like him existed.

  Even though Gizelle seemed like a New York natural, I often wondered how she was feeling about her new life. Was she comfortable here? Did she feel out of place? Despite seeming pretty content, there were certain things that still scared her, like buses. She would never get over the buses. She’d back away slowly as the M20 vroomed up Eighth Avenue, then the moment the bus stopped and the air brakes made that loud Ksssssh sound she’d dive toward the buildings, hugging her big body tight against the walls, tugging me along with her. I still wince at the sound of bus’s air brakes today. “It’s okay, girl, don’t worry,” I’d soothe, stopping to rub her ears and calm her down until she’d shake off her fear, and we’d carry on through the neighborhood.

  Sometimes our neighborhood freaked me out, too. We lived next to a place called the Times Scare, which was New York City’s only year-round haunted house. So, if the guys wheeling hot dog carts at warp speed weren’t enough, or the thousands of tourists staring into their SLR cameras, the street artists shilling CDs, the guy chasing you for “free hugs,” or the people cursing at me and Gizelle— on top of that, there were also people dressed as zombies. They roamed our street with bloody gashes and bite marks painted on their faces, growling and snorting at tourists year-round to advertise that haunted house. Given where Gizelle and I had grown up, a Nashville suburb so quiet that families of deer and wild turkeys came to graze in our backyard, the Times Square community was an interesting and sometimes frightening new normal.

  Often we walked across Forty-Third Street to the Hudson River for fresh air, next to a dog park that looked like nothing more than a few parking spaces with a fence around it. I would press my body against the railing that lined the Hudson and look out onto the water. The earthy, salty, tang of garbage mixed with river entered my nose, and I was reminded that I was living on an island, and I couldn’t decide if we were both trapped on it like the dogs in the dog park or if we were thriving in the City of Dreams with the whole world at our fingertips: strippers, zombies, and everything in between.

  A friend once told me that New York City was the only place where you could travel the world without leaving the city’s borders, and I hoped this was true, because Gizelle and I were going to remain here, carless, conspicuous, and curious. The only other home we’d known was hundreds of miles away in Tennessee. We had our first grown-up apartment, a lease in my name, and bills to pay.

  I watched planes fly over the Hudson, and I envisioned getting onboard. I wanted more newness; I wanted to keep traveling. But I couldn’t. I had responsibilities I had signed myself up for—trying to take care of a dog as a busy young person, finding a real job, paying rent, starting a 401(k) (whatever that was). College life and travels were in the rearview mirror. I would remain fenced in on this crazy island of Manhattan with the dog that people mistook for Cujo or Godzilla no matter how badly I wanted to escape it. But, for a girl, having a big dog people called Cujo had some advantages. Maybe we could still kind of escape.

  It started with Central Park at night, a place I never would have considered going without my dinosaur at my side. We bolted up Eighth Avenue while patrons at bars and restaurants looked out at us like we were the cast of Madagascar escaping the zoo. The dollar pizza guys stopped with dough in hand, the customers at Shake Shack stared out the glass, a wave of heads turning in unison as the NYC misfits flew by. We darted through the herd of after-work traffic, faster than everyone, barging through business suits as people dove out of the way. We were on a mission: to leave the world of concrete and skyscrapers behind.

  When we passed through Columbus Circle and reached the trees, I would look at Gizelle and say, just as I used to in college, “You ready? We’re here! There’s grass! Look at the grass!” I’d unhook her leash, and we’d disappear into the park. My feet softly swished against the grass and Gizelle’s paws dug in to make a careening turn. And even though it wasn’t Smoky Mountain silent, when I listened to our feet and paws against the earth, I felt relaxed.

  We jogged through the trees, onto the sidewalk, and sometimes we’d cruise all the way to the Literary Walk, where I’d stroll with my head propped toward the bright sky. I’m in Central Park! At night! With Gizelle! I thought. That fact alone was worth every worry I had about my move to Manhattan. I felt so safe with my gentle giant in the park at night: she came up to my thighs, had a bro
ad chest and a powerful, confident stride. Strangers would never know my dog with the head the size of a basketball was actually afraid of basketballs. Yet Gizelle did more than play bodyguard. I was twenty-three and had no idea what I was doing with my life. But when Gizelle and I ran through the park together, my fears disappeared. I knew I wouldn’t ever be lonely as long as I had her.

  During the day, Central Park belonged to millions of other New Yorkers, but at night it felt like ours. We walked to the grand tunnel by Bethesda Fountain. It was quiet and lit up in gold. Inside, we made all sorts of discoveries. Once it was a woman rehearsing Puccini in a long dress, and we sat on the ground to watch her for our own private opera show. Another night there was a violinist in a top hat who let us request all the songs. “Bob Dylan!” “Elvis!” “JT!” “The Lion King!”

  I’d stroll home like a tourist with my head lifted toward the sky. Often we’d wind up at the New York Public Library by Bryant Park. The stairs were empty, and I would let out her lead so she could roam up and down, sniffing to her heart’s delight until she’d finally find a place to sit with her bum backed into one stair, paws a step down. I’d sit next to her, with one arm around her, resting my head on her shoulder like she was a human, and this was a bench in our front yard, which in a way it kind of was.

  But our favorite getaway of all didn’t even require shoes or leaving the apartment building. At night, we’d sneak up five flights of stairs to the top of Rio. I’d kick open the broken door that said NOBODY ALLOWED ON ROOF, and step onto the roof. The fresh air would blast me in the face. Okay, the floor of the roof sloped into a slight U, it looked like someone may have patched it with duct tape, there were wires that seemed to serve no purpose, and when it rained there were puddles up there, but we had a view of the city lights. I’d put in my white earbuds and would warm up for ballet. And then because no one was watching (I hope), I’d pas de bourrée and leap and twirl across that roof like I was onstage at City Center. Gizelle would lie there and watch, her tail slapping the roof when I’d flick my toes and curtsey in her direction.

  Up on the roof, no one was eyeing me, except for Gizelle. In fact, Gizelle would watch me like she had just spent her life earnings’ worth of dog treats on a front row ticket to my show and it was an Oscar-worthy performance. Sometimes she looked at me like she loved me more than anything in the entire world. Sometimes she looked at me as though I were the entire world.

  6

  Working Girl

  “ This résumé looks perfect, Lauren.”

  There was no getting around it: New York was expensive. I had achieved the baseline requirement: I was a hostess, training to be a waitress. I cut corners like most young people in NYC: no cable, no eating out, no gym membership. I entertained myself by wandering around with my dog. But having a dog, especially a Gizelle-sized one, in New York City was a luxury in itself. Gizelle’s grocery bills were more than mine, she was a frequent vet visitor with issues here and there—an eye infection, a UTI—and she required heartworm and flea and tick prevention, dog walkers, ear cleaning supplies, shots, and because she was bigger, her bills were always bigger. So, I utilized resources and pulled the “but . . . Gizelle is our family dog” card, and Mom and Dad helped pay for her, while I desperately searched for my first real job so I could chip in, too.

  Like many eager young twentysomethings who move to New York City, I arrived in town with big dreams, little in the way of savings, and hardly any connections. I only knew that if I was going to get my bite out of the Big Apple, I was going to have to work for it. And even though I didn’t have many leads on jobs and my employment “experiences” weren’t deemed particularly important by anyone—internship at Dad’s office, cashier at Cool Springs Mall slipper kiosk, waitress at Ruby Tuesday—I really wanted an office job where I could be creative and work on projects that I cared about. (I know—Millennials.)

  My hostess gig was at a bar on the Upper West Side that served a confusing mix of sushi, fajitas, burgers, and pasta primavera. I got in the habit of coming home after a shift at Hi-Life Bar & Grill, showering, and crawling into bed. But instead of giving in to the urge of sweet, sweet sleep, I thought about how Dad kept telling me to “hang in there and keep working hard,” and how Kimmy kept promising, “someone will hire you eventually.” So, I would open my laptop, tuck my toes under Gizelle, and continue the search. I knew there was only one way to showcase Lauren as the best candidate for that great NYC job, my one and only chance at marching those heels I always borrowed from Kimmy into one of those shiny buildings in midtown. My golden ticket to a job somewhere in Manhattan: my résumé.

  The nighttime honks of Times Square crept into the apartment. Now, how am I going to make my life sound much more important than what it has been? I mused, twiddling my fingers across the keyboard. Then I looked down at Gizelle laid out across my feet and tapped the bed, asking her to please come up here by me, and she did: maneuvering her body around to crawl up the bed until she was resting her nose on the edge of my computer. I sat for a moment, stroking her cheek and her silky ears. I knew exactly what I needed. Buzzwords. I needed buzzwords. Words like:

  Excellent communication skills. Okay, this one was true. My best friend wasn’t human, and yet I had just effectively communicated with her.

  Problem solver. I did live in Manhattan with a dog the size of a Mini Cooper. You do the math.

  Strategist and team player. Raising Gizelle required coordinating walks with Kimmy, and working with an array of free trustworthy babysitters.

  Great public speaking skills. I’d presented in front of large groups of tourists in Times Square, delivering speeches like, “This is Gizelle, she is about a hundred and sixty pounds. Yes, that’s around seventy-five kilos. Yes, her coat is called brindle. No, you may not ride her, sir. Yes, English mastiff. No, not a Cane Corso. No, not a Chihuahua, either. (Ha. Ha.) Yes, Photos are fine . . .”

  Then I claimed to be proficient in Excel and Photoshop, organized and detail oriented, and with that, I set off, applying to nearly every entry-level job available in Manhattan in hopes of finding a career.

  My dream was to be a travel journalist. I also wanted to start my own T-shirt company, charter my own big-dog nonprofit, and open a restaurant called Carbs You Dip in Stuff. But, I didn’t know how one did any of those things. I did know how much my rent was. So, for the time being I lowered my expectations and focused in on finding stable employment, something with growth opportunities, even though sometimes I was terrified of what I would grow into. Often I didn’t think I was anything but the talentless, scatterbrained, indecisive middle child who wanted to be too many things at once. I was a confused girl terrified of growing up, wishing she could hop around forever and never settle down.

  But I tucked those fears away and set my mind on a career the way Gizelle sets her mind on a slice of dollar pizza, if one happens to be in my hand. She stares up at it with both desperation and determination, as though if she looked at it long enough, she could will it to miraculously become hers. I wanted one of those vital, consuming, high-profile jobs in Manhattan with free San Pellegrino in the kitchen and candy in the reception area, a mailroom, a security check-in, a badge with my photo on it, and a view of the Empire State Building. I wanted to wear a pencil skirt! And I wasn’t giving up; I wasn’t looking away, not even for a second, until I got it.

  I must admit, looking for a career on my time off from the restaurant job was not so bad. I could spend the whole day with Gizelle. Sometimes we’d take breaks and stroll to Central Park on a Tuesday afternoon. I could bring my laptop to Bryant Park and apply to jobs underneath the canopy of trees with my mastiff at my feet.

  I just kept sending out that résumé. And my résumé scored me some work. I earned a freelance gig writing about dishwashers and car tires, then a spot with a temp agency filing documents written in what seemed like hieroglyphics. The week after that I assisted a high-profile entertainment lawyer in the West Village who turned to stare at me w
hen I answered the phone, and asked if that was my “real voice.” (I still have my mom’s high voice, by the way.) I temped in showrooms in SoHo and reception desks in midtown. I went on dozens of interviews and was constantly rejected. No one is ever going to take me seriously with this damn voice. I also applied to all the writing jobs on Craigslist that I could find, but it seemed as though neither my pen, my personality, nor any of the other tools I’d depended on thus far were going to land me a career.

  I was beginning to feel like a nobody. But I still felt desperate to keep busy and productive, making use of every moment. So every time I went out with Kimmy and drank too much and slept away a Saturday, I felt guilty. But every time I stayed in, I felt guilty for not embracing New York City nightlife in my twenties. I couldn’t win. All I wanted was to live in my own present moment and believe that I was exactly where I was supposed to be, but most of the time I only worried about all of the places that I wasn’t.

  A visit with Gizelle to Central Park at night was always a welcome break. When we passed through Columbus Circle and reached the trees, I unhooked her leash and always felt as though we’d jumped a fence and broken free. I watched Gizelle take off and I would chase after her, darting in between the lampposts and into the trees, with the city noise fading into the distance.

  I never wanted to overdo the running with her but I still wanted exercise, so I created a “Mastiff Run,“ a workout regimen where I ran lifting my knees high, practically in place, while Gizelle strolled beside me, with no pressure to keep up. This running style would not win many points for exercise form, but it was great for nighttime in the park when no one was watching.