Dear Barry,
I know, your name is Barack. It’s just a bad habit. I love the name Barack! And I didn’t need Sarah S. to remind me that it means lightning in Hebrew. (That slut. She thought she was so hilarious with that “funny” proposition she tossed off at the water cooler—I hate that fakey little-girl “innocence” she puts on—all about how you and her could schlep off to Hawaii and you could teach her your favorite pastime, body surfing, and she could teach you her favorite pastime, shtupping.) As if I need Ms. I’m-So-Hip-Even-Though-I’m-Jewish to explain the meaning of your name. Excuse me, I was just as smart as she was in Hebrew School, even if I wasn’t the class clown, or should I say, trying very hard to be the class clown. I didn’t need Sarah to explain why, when you and I got introduced, that name of yours zapped me with an electric thrill and I knew that even though on the outside we don’t look much alike, inside we have so much in common. I just got in the habit of calling you “Barry” in case my officemate, Shira, glanced over and caught me writing you another message, back in the old days, when she and the other girls were backing Hillary and would have called me a traitor for preferring that a man (even a black man!) get promoted over our heads (again).
Now they understand why I loaned you so much money, even though you earn way more than I do, or why I devoted so much time and passion to a married man who will never leave his wife. If anything, my girlfriends were jealous that I was the one you were sending five, six, sometimes seven (!) messages in a day. (Ha! Take that, Joanie! Now do you still think he “just wasn’t that into me”?) It killed them that I was the one getting a constant stream of email saying how grateful you were that I’d been there for you from the start and in just a few more dollars (I think you meant “days,” Barry!) you could make me an honest woman and set me up, if not in the fancy mansion that goes with your new job, then a little house of my own, without that mortgage guy from the bank breathing down my neck, and you could list me as a dependent on that gold-Cadillac-plated insurance of yours, and throw me a few extra bucks a month so I could pick out something classier than the usual TJ Maxx and I won’t need to feel like a complete loser when that JAP Sarah prances in to the next goodbye party at the office and starts batting her fake eyelashes (oh please, don’t tell me you thought those things were real?) and stands on the tippy-tippy toes of those eight-hundred-dollar Manolos and whispers her dirty little nothings (and I do mean nothing!) into your adorably too-big ears (we should only be saying goodbye to her!).
Admit it, I’ve been patient. Haven’t I been content to sleep with that T-shirt you sent, the one with your picture on the front, instead of with you? I don’t mean to sound all weird or stalky, but there were times when I googled you every few days (okay, every few minutes) to make sure you were still ahead in the office betting pool, and you were taking care of your health, and you hadn’t gone back to smoking, and you were eating enough (but not too much … you promised at the Fourth of July picnic that you wouldn’t give in to the pressure to scarf down donuts and pork rinds and too much beer to please our redneck clients out there in the boonies). For a while, I even took to checking your grandma’s health a few times a day, and I sent you and Toot my very best vibes (sorry, Jews don’t do prayers, but vibes are the next best thing!) when the poor, sweet lady was on her deathbed. (I never met her, of course, but I loved her the way I loved my own Nana, whom my family and I used to visit every Christmas and Pesach in Miami, to which my parents chose not to retire when their own time came, although the reason was not, as a certain bigoted liar we both know would lead you to believe, because they thought there were too many black people and Latinos down there.)
Nor, as you may have noticed, have I outed you to your wife. I know you could never leave Michelle, let alone those two outrageously precious girls (whose hair I could totally take care of, if it ever did come to that, since it’s so much like my own hair, only the teensiest bit curlier). I could never hurt Michelle! She’s cute as a button! And so smart! And she dances so much better than I do! I mean, if I could imagine Michelle getting into threesomes, I would have suggested it long ago. Although if Michelle were that type (which I’m not saying I am, unless you say you are first), you wouldn’t have married her, now would you.
Although let’s face it, if your marriage were everything it’s cracked up to be, why would you have sent me all those messages? I know you act all straight-arrow, but maybe, when you visited all those swing states “on business,” you did some swinging on the side?
Which reminds me, boyfriend, you better ‘fess up about that jones you have for Rachel! Don’t you deny it! I heard it from Keith, who heard it from Chris, who heard it from the jones herself. That’s okay. I’m jonesed out on Rachel, too. Not that I’m, well, you know. Although I would be fine with it if I were. It’s more, like, she’s so liberal! And so Jewish! Just like me! If Rachel were into threesomes (or foursomes, or anysomes!) I would be so right there in the sheets jonesing with however many of you were in there!
: )
Maybe I shouldn’t say this, seeing as you might someday be part of my family (I love Michelle, but someone that cute and smart might get snatched up by some guy with better moves than you!), but I got in this really nasty argument with my sister the other day about whether a Jewish girl like me could ever really find happiness with a half-Kenyan, half-Kansan goy, even if he does have a law degree from Harvard. Not only did I convince her I was right, you so won over my parents on that last visit you made to Boca. They couldn’t stop talking about how polite you are, how intelligent, how well- spoken (not that they don’t expect black people to be polite! or intelligent! or well-spoken!), how much they love your smile (not that they think black people have brighter smiles than white people!), and how much they love that suit you had on (my dad says he can get that label for you wholesale, from his brother, you shouldn’t drop a bundle at Neiman Marcus or Armani like that other Sarah, the one who went on a spree with the company plastic, which just goes to prove you cannot trust anyone with that name). Not only that, you totally blew Dad away with that dirty joke in Yiddish! You were such a hit, kidding with them about how they should tell their friends at the club to please vote for the shvartzeh, my mom said to make sure you knew that in our family, we never, ever used that word, and you shouldn’t use it about yourself, the word you should use is mensch, although if my sister blabs about what’s been going on between us, my mom most definitely will take that back.
So, I know you know how much you owe me. Despite what some people in this office think, you’re not the type to forget everything I did for you just because you finally got what you wanted. You’re not the type to refuse to buy the cow because you can keep milking it for free. When I show up at your big inaugural bash and sashay past those Secret Service guys and tap Michelle on the back and demand the one dance that will have to substitute for the wedding waltz you and I will never have (sob!), I’m sure you won’t deny me.
No, the real reason I’m writing is because I’m afraid that once you get that damn promotion and you’re even busier than you are today, when you’re off flying here and there, getting our company back on track and rebuilding our good relationships with all the important clients who dropped us because the last guy was such a dolt, or you’re working late, going through the books (which I happen to know are a mess, not to mention they don’t show the ridiculous amount your predecessors spent on their fancy-schmancy lunches while the rest of us got by bringing bagels and yogurt from home), well, you certainly won’t have time to be sending me so much mail. And even though I’ll have that nice new house to live in, and that fancy insurance, and those extra dollars in my pocket, life will be a whole lot less exciting than it’s been for these past two wonderful years, when it’s only been you and me.
The company won’t be so dysfunctional. My job will get back to normal. Instead of worrying about what’s going on with the NASDAQ, or Putin and Saakashvili, or the nukes in Iran, the surge in Iraq, or the torture at Guantanamo, instead of worrying about education reform, infrastructure repair, renewable energy, global warming, or the appropriate tax bracket for guys like that unlicensed plumber we call in when certain people whose initials are SS insist on flushing their tampons down the toilet (I forget the guy’s name … big bald dude who keeps asking what it is about black guys that makes white chicks get hot and bothered, seeing as he happens to know, from his line of work, that the myth about black guys being supercircumcised isn’t true), I’m going to be reduced to worrying about this mole on my upper lip, or playing computer solitaire, or googling the guy I dated for a few months back in ’03, when I was working in the Atlanta office, or trying to decide if that chicken parm dinner I bought at Trader Joe’s a few weeks ago is still okay to eat, or—despite my vows not to—logging on to J-date yet again to see if anyone with a college degree and uncrossed eyes and something resembling a chin has posted his profile since the last time I logged in and checked.
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