Читать книгу Iris Has Free Time - Iris Smyles - Страница 9

Where do ideas come from? The ancient Greeks believed inspiration to be divine, that one of nine muses whispered into the ear of the artist, who was not himself a genius but a conduit. “Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story of that man skilled in all ways of contending, the wanderer, harried for years on end,” Homer begins The Odyssey.

I was almost home when I realized I didn’t want to be. My roommate May and her boyfriend Felix would be there—they were always there—and I wanted to be alone. So when I saw the subway entrance on Fifty-third and Seventh, I decided to head downtown.

I got out at West Fourth and walked toward NYU but veered south when I came upon Washington Square. I’d spent so much time in the park during college; to go there now would mean a retreat. I continued around it, past NYU’s administrative buildings, where I imagined committees busily deciding whom to admit next year, whom to give my freshly vacant spot.

I walked down into Soho, past bars I’d frequented as a freshman, past plain, unmarked doors, which at midnight opened onto chic nightclubs, past phone booths decorated with ads for the upcoming season of Sex and the City—a glamorous photo of Carrie Bradshaw in a black T-shirt covered with rhinestones spelling her name.

I headed east toward Broadway and then down again, bobbing along the rushing river of shoppers, past windows behind which mannequins stood silently, posed in body-hugging T-shirts—“Hottie,” “Fabulous,” “Sexy,” written across the bust.

I turned east again wandering deeper into the Lower East Side, looking in at the displays of small designer boutiques along the way. A $150 T-shirt with the words, “Gold Digger,” hung in one window. Another, “Page Six Six Six.” Another, “Thank You Thank You Thank You,” written three times vertically the way it appears on plastic shopping bags.

I walked on, past a walled-up construction site plastered with ads for new albums, new movies, new stores, and past a newsstand where I paused, recognizing the faces of Justin, Shawn, and Richie staring out from the cover of New York Magazine.

I went in. A bell rang as I entered. A middle-aged Pakistani, with three long hairs combed across the top of his head, looked up. He followed me with his eyes as I walked the length of the store, which was covered floor to ceiling with new issues of popular glossies. Giving up, I returned to the front and asked about the magazine in the window.

He hopped down from his perch behind the register and, cutting in front, beckoned me to follow. Scanning the wall quickly, he handed me a different issue.

“No. The one in the window,” I repeated.

“Is old. This one you want,” he said, pressing it into my hand.

“No,” I said, handing it back. “That one. I know the guys on the cover!”

He sighed and went outside to have a look, then came back in and knelt down to untape it from the display.

“Two dollar,” he said, as he handed it to me.

The three had been profiled for “Models Suck,” the logo decorating their popular line of T-shirts. I hadn’t known about their fashion venture. I flipped back to the cover to see the date. August 24, 1998, a year before I met them in Atlantic City with Lex.

“This is not a library,” the clerk announced.

I paid for the magazine and left.

I walked a few more blocks—aimless, adrift—when, looking into another window, I was startled by my own image reflected back. The late-afternoon light had cast a mirror-like glare, so I could not see in but only myself trying to. There I was, the whole of me, paused in a Depression-era suit—a woman lost in time.

What do you know about PowerPoint? About Excel spreadsheets? About answering the phone? I interviewed my reflection. And what do you care? I went on, as a song in my head started up, grew louder, and was backed by a beat to which I could dance. The song my muse was singing was clear:

Forget corporate America, Iris! Selling T-shirts! That’s your game! Why worry over all the things you don’t know, when there are obviously so many more important things that you do? That a T-shirt with the words, “Second Base” would be capital! That underwear featuring the words, “Bad Ass” could go with it! And the great thing about T-shirts is you don’t even need to know how to sew! The really great thing is you don’t need to know anything! All you need is one good idea.... Staring into the window, at a T-shirt just visible behind my own reflection, I discovered I had many.