Chapter Text
Every year on the Saturday before St. Patrick’s Day the Chicago river is dyed highlighter green. In LA, if the river turns green it’s usually a problematic algal bloom. In this city, it’s an excuse to start drinking at 9am. Starting in 1962, what used to be nearly 100 pounds of fluorescein which has since been swapped for a secret-recipe eco friendly vegetable powder, is distributed along the river from Wabash Avenue to Columbus Drive, transforming the stretch into a shocking green akin to parrots, frosting, or ectoplasm.
Senna’s podcast episode posted, I swiveled to face my office mate, Petra. “I’ll see you tomorrow. And remember, just because someone dares you to jump in the lake, you don’t have to take them up on it. That’s how you end up getting held for trespassing.”
Petra shot me a dirty look. “First of all, that was one time. Second of all, it’s a HUGE LAKE, a GREAT lake, who was I possibly trespassing on? And third, you CAN’T go home! It’s St. Patrick’s Day! These plans have been in place since last St. Patrick’s Day, practically!!”
Petra Pavlides. Fellow podcast producer and editor for our pop culture department. Greek parentage, Kentucky raised. Petra, just a year older than me, seems infinitely more experienced. Where my life jolts with stops and starts, hers has been one long sprint of fun to the finish. Empirical and anecdotal evidence, including Myers-Briggs results, Enneagram numbers, and zodiac signs, shows we are opposites. Current age: 25. Height and build: 5’4 former soccer player. Style: If it’s not athleisure she’s not wearing it. Marital status: single. Temperament: Extroverted, buoyant, easily distracted. Trivia: Hair styled successfully to look like Kate Middleton’s.
“I know, I know, but I have to shore up my social reserves for Friday.”
Q and fiance Sarah were hosting a big industry party in Quizzical’s event space. I was told no less than three times by each, and at least twice by Petra, that my attendance was mandatory. Petra gave me her usual cool look to indicate I was being weird again.
I took a breath to start explaining the finer points of Theo Kennedy’s Guide to Minimal Social Engagement, but she cut me off.
“Hey that reminds me.” The wild Petra light was back in her eyes. “Did you hear who’s going to be there on Friday?” It’s not unusual for celebrities to wander in and out of our offices, or to hobnob with Adam as they come through Chicago. It was also not weird for Petra to be as excited every time.
Hobnob, like so much else in our lexicon, comes from Shakespeare. To hob and nob was to drink alternatingly and congenially to each other’s health.
“Who?” I asked. “Michael B. Jordan? Keanu Reeves?”
“Jonathan Park!!” She practically crowed.
“Oooooh,” I said. “That is news!”
Q talking about Jonathan Park was like Kanye talking about knowing Beyonce. He was probably the person Q name dropped most frequently, apart from the anecdote he kept telling about the Casamigos party where he met George Clooney. Jonathan and Q were actually friends, both Chicago born and bred, they had gone to middle school together before Jonathan moved to Korea to train with his music label full time. Sports allegiances still aligned, they went to Cubs and Bears games whenever Jonathan was in town. But he’d never been on the pod, so we had never met. Despite my curiosity, I wasn’t sure I ever wanted to.
“He hasn’t been in the US for ages, MMXVI have been promoting their album in Korea and Japan mostly. But you have to see this ....” She was already pulling up YouTube. On screen, an unidentifiable figure in a hulking coat, Cubs hat, and face mask was making his way into PC Entertainment’s iconic headquarters building in Seoul.
From a scrum of reporters came a question in Korean, subtitled for us in English, “Jonathan are the rumors true, are you leaving MMXVI? Does this hiatus mean the band is breaking up?” Followed up by a chorus of similar.
A distinctively American, “f*ck off” issued from behind the mask. Yep, it was him alright.
“If he hates reporters this much how the hell do he and Q get along?” I queried Petra.
“No idea,” she said. “Maybe Q never asks him any questions.”
I shook my head in disbelief before standing. “Speaking in statements only: no lakes, no jaeger, and no riling up Louisville alums.”
*
Quizzical’s West Loop offices were a short Blue Line ride from my house. But I hoped that, with walking, my thoughts; the party, Petra’s news, brief snatches of romantic comedy dialogue, would dissipate like fluorescein in the river.
Great poetry, novels, and speeches are often quotable in a way that still bears their weight. “All that is gold does not glitter; not all those who wander are lost.”
Rom-com quotes have the special privilege of being momentus, declarative catharsis in context and completely inane without it:
“Here’s looking at you, kid.”
“You had me at hello.”
“Nobody puts Baby in a corner.”
“If you’re a bird I’m a bird.”
You never know, maybe Jonathan’s explicit expletive made sense in context, too.
Despite the chill snap evident still in March, I meandered my way east toward the river instead of north to Wicker Park. Whenever anyone asks, I always say I wasn’t tan enough for LA. Which is true, if I didn’t keep my eyebrows dark or apply copious eye makeup I’d look less styled and more like Casper the Friendly Ghost. And I’m certainly not trying to look friendly. Had my mother not been who she was, I think it would have been easy for me to fall into the usual traps of impossible-to-attain girl-next-door idolatry. But with Lenny embedded in the fashion world, and Lenny’s own indomitable spirit, I instead grew up thinking it better to look interesting than to look like everyone else. The 5’7 inheritor of her wiry frame, large features, and wardrobe, striking feels more within reach than pretty ever did anyway.
A tour boat floated by as I crossed the river above, the water already returned to its usual, less fluorescent hue from the parade just days before. A few sightseers seated on the top deck waved up at me. I waved back, friendly ghost indeed.
The reality of moving away from LA was a bit more grim. Without Lenny I floundered. Several of my friends took gap years, traveling abroad, making big plans. I took a gap year out of my life, minimal conscious thought, minimal activity. Finally, thinking of her disappointment if she saw me then, I got it together, accepted a deferred offer, and pressed play again. Only I knew it wasn’t the same tape. I stayed in LA for my dad (photographer turned entrepreneur), but after two years he didn’t decide to stay in LA for me.
Lex Anderson. Location: San Francisco. Marital status: Remarried. Style: Patagonia fleece. Trivia: Turns out, the only thing we had in common was adoring my mother.
After college, with nothing to stay for, I thought Chicago, and Quizzical, could be just the fresh start I needed. New cities brim with promise. There’s a frisson of possibility in the air, the realization that this could be your Senna Bernstein story. Like you could open your door to someone saying, “I’m just a boy, standing in front of a girl, asking her to love him.”
Walking home in the cool dusk, I felt it stirring again. Maybe it was the mystery chemicals wafting off the river. But it felt like something big was coming, and that this time, I didn’t have anything to lose.
Far from the main thoroughfares in Wicker Park, there is a stately brick home with dark shutters and copper-turned-jade detailing that seems like it should house Baudelaire orphans or Banks children. Instead it houses four women upwards of 70 and me, the ghoul in the attic. Sisters Trudy and Vauda and friends Bobbie and Corley had moved into Trudy’s place together when Trudy’s husband passed, children moved away, and homes housing one occupant became too burdensome to maintain. The foursome form an extremely powerful bridge quartet. Scores of friends circulate through their clubhouse for bridge night, which is nearly every night, except for Fridays when they play poker, or Mondays when they watch the Bachelor with me when in season.
Petra had been inside once to help me navigate a couch upstairs. She deemed them “goals,” and henceforth started referring to them as the Golden Mafia. Cheap attic rent meant I could continue to afford Lenny’s taste. Plus the Mafia are really good at Jeopardy, and I’m learning a lot. I called hello as I walked in.
“Is that you, Theodore?” Trudy. Asks me every time. Won’t call me Theo.
“It’s me,” I said, coming into the parlor where four separate tables each housed four occupants.
“Have some coffee, it’s mostly Baileys, and it’s divine.”
I availed myself of the bar cart then trooped upstairs. If Jonathan Park was coming to the party, there’s a good chance he was coming on the podcast. It was time to undertake what I had so far avoided, and learn everything there is to know about worldwide phenomenon MMXVI and Q’s Beyonce — Jonathan Park.
