Growth is Rarely Linear

This week I've been especially busy (at the bar and otherwise) and didn't have time to write a new post—so I'm sharing some fiction instead

Please forgive the imposition, but between a visit from family and four consecutive days working at the bar, I have nothing to be wrong (or even right) about. I figured now was a good chance to share some of my other writing I don’t know what else to do with.

I wrote “Growth is Rarely Linear” in a fiction writing class for my grad program this past summer. It reflects a lot of my darker moments in Brooklyn last year, when I was deeply unhappy with my job and that unhappiness was creeping into the rest of my life. I am happy to say most of the events depicted are pure fiction, although many readers of this blog might see I borrowed their name or the name of someone they know for a character (who were all pure inventions). I don’t think it’s my favorite story I’ve written, and I was experimenting with voice in some ways I don’t love in retrospect, but I’m proud of it anyway and it does reflect something I’ve found to be true this year as I’ve re-embraced my life here in Brooklyn—that most people crave community, are eager to share about themselves, and are curious about you when you give them the opportunity to be. In that way, this story has retroactively become a bit of a tribute to the many, many new friends I’ve made this year, in Brooklyn and otherwise, and how much meaning and contentment I’ve drawn from even fleeting conversations with strangers in bars, coffee shops, parties, and out in the world generally. Also, Kos Kaffe is actually where I’ve written most of my blog posts, my screenplay, and my other writing this year.

A quick note—the footnotes in this story are important and you should read them as you go.

Enough preamble—here’s the story—feel free to skip this post if you’re not into fiction.

Growth Is Rarely Linear

“Hey—what would a depressed person order from Amazon?”

Andi, marginally recovered from the nap that had violently annexed her Sunday afternoon, wondered why the stranger next to her at the communal table in Park Slope’s Kos Kaffe decided to ask her, specifically, that question, instead of his friend sitting across the table (who he had walked in with and dapped up twice in the subsequent fifteen minutes), or even the older woman on his left side who was at the very least not more of a stranger than her. She turned to face him, a man in a frayed red sweater with “Hahvahd” written in block white letters on the front. She realized she had waited too long to answer.

“I’m sorry, what?” She shook her head and blinked theatrically as an excuse and apology for the clarification. “Blechh, still drinking my coffee.” 

It was her second vanilla latte that afternoon.

“I’m writing a screenplay—the character’s depressed. What would they buy off Amazon?”

Andi said she really didn’t know. Maybe a weighted blanket? Blackout curtains? 

The screenwriter hadn’t shaved in at least a week, and he shook his head at her like he was disappointed in the answer.

“I don’t know. Maybe.” He pursed his lips and pressed the delete button repeatedly. 

Andi turned back to her latte and her book and frowned. She turned back to the man¹.

“Good butter?”

* * *

Forty-three minutes later she was walking down Fifth Avenue and still frowning. She had always thought of herself as a happy person, even on the days she ate takeout in bed and then slept next to the leftovers because the fridge was too far away. Other people thought she was happy. Her fifth grade teacher had said she was “a joy to have in class.” In college, her sorority had put her in charge of decorating the house before recruiting events. She did have a bit of an issue with frowning when she was thinking, but people only commented on that because they knew she was happy. 

She considered the evidence. She’d skipped the last few biweekly work happy hours, and when her boss asked why she said her eyes hurt and she needed to go home. There’d been blue-light glasses on her desk the next Monday. 

Andi had stopped saying hello to her roommate, who was usually watching TikToks on the couch and never said anything back.

She’d been on two dates since the weather started to turn, and she’d left both after finishing her drink in less than ten minutes, going to the bathroom, then saying she felt sick. She’d split the check the first time but not the second.

Andi didn’t think about (but it might interest you to know) that she’d confirmed to the Netflix app that she was still watching Queer Eye four times in the past six days, that she’d only made it to page 76 of the book (Red, White, and Royal Blue) her roommate had given her for Christmas, and that the last vegetable she’d eaten had been the pepper that comes in the Papa John’s pizza box. 

She paused just past the door of the only bodega in the neighborhood that sold McConnell’s Turkish Coffee ice cream (which is legitimately delicious when each bite is peeled off the top of a still-mostly-frozen pint with a small spoon).

Andi smiled at an UberEats delivery guy as he exited in a way she believed, mistakenly, to show warmth and friendliness. He did not smile back². 

Andi looked at herself in the reflection of the store window and saw a booger hanging out of her right nostril, which she could only assume had been there since she had blown her nose into a napkin back at the cafe. God, she was an idiot. An idiot who looked depressed. She wiped away the booger with the back of her hand (gross) and then pushed her hair behind her ear. 

“No mirror at home, huh?”

It was the homeless man sitting on the sidewalk a few doors down, in front of the permanently-closed laundromat. He wore surprisingly nice sneakers except for the fact his right big toe was sticking out of a giant hole, jeans at least 3 sizes too long, and a gray hoodie. He held the leash of a large pit bull-ish dog, lying quietly next to him. Andi had been scared of pit bulls since she’d seen Training Day, even though she had read several articles about how they actually weren’t more violent than other breeds.

“Had a booger in my nose,” Andi said. She pointed at her nose, in case he didn’t know where it was.

He laughed. “Where they’re supposed to be, right?”

“I guess.” Andi walked a few steps closer. 

“You look kind of depressed.”

Andi stopped. “Huh?”

“No offense.”

“Some taken.”

“Are you depressed?

“No.”

“Then what’re you offended for?”

Andi couldn’t think of anything to say. 

“Whaddya have to be depressed about?”

“I don’t know.” Andi thought for a moment. She almost said rent, then realized that was probably in bad taste. “Global warming.”

“Fair enough.” He slapped his knees, like Andi’s aunt on Thanksgiving when she was about to leave for her hotel. He stood up, slowly, and stretched. “Got money for a sandwich?”

Andi gave him a twenty. Before she could react he handed her the leash attached to his dog and walked inside the bodega.

* * *

Andi rarely interacted with dogs, and in fact was a self-described cat person, even though she never spent time with cats either. Last Labor Day weekend Andi had pet her roommate’s parent’s dog, a Shitzu-Poodle-mix named Darla, when she arrived at their place in the Hamptons, who then spent the entire first evening by the bonfire licking Andi’s feet through her sandals. Andi had worn her running shoes the rest of the weekend. Andi had also not cried once during her seventh-birthday-celebration screening of My Dog Skip.

Outside the bodega, to Andi’s great relief, the dog kept its head down and didn’t move. She stood about ten feet away, as far as the leash would allow while still leaving some slack. A man walked by and scratched the dog’s ears. Andi told him it wasn’t her dog. The homeless man had still not emerged. She looked through the window but didn’t see him. 

Even though she didn’t want to touch or smell or be near the man’s dog, Andi was surprised by how little his imposition bothered her. She suspected she was looking forward to basking in the self-satisfaction of having helped a homeless man in need. 

But she did not get the chance to bask. A young couple with a German shepherd passed on the other side of the street. Andi felt a slight tug on the leash as the pit bull stood and barked furiously while looking as menacing as possible. She knew immediately she couldn’t hold the dog back if it tried to run. The young couple dragged their dog, barking in return, down the street. Andi sheepishly waved, which they ignored³.

“Your dog is too loud! You can’t stand here!”

The cashier from the bodega yelled at Andi in an accent she couldn’t place. She explained that it wasn’t her dog, actually.

“I do not care! The dog is very loud, you cannot stay here!” He moved towards her, shooing her away, while the dog kept barking behind her. “Go! Go! Go! Go!”

Andi took a step, and the pit bull, recognizing that movement was now allowed, immediately dragged her down the street. She frantically yelled for the cashier to tell the man she’d be back. He didn’t acknowledge her as he walked inside⁴.

* * *

Andi tried a few times to pull the dog back towards the bodega, but it would plant its feet and refuse to turn around. She had very little conviction left in this particular moment, and allowed the dog to guide her up Flatbush Avenue and eventually to Prospect Park, and then the open green just past Grand Army Plaza. The dog peed as soon as she hit the grass (this was the exact moment Andi realized the dog was a girl).

She let the dog guide her slowly from tree to tree. As they walked, a couple with a small child smiled at Andi.

She felt confused and also profoundly calm.

 “What’s her name?” A middle-aged woman stopped a few feet away and crouched, holding out her hand for the dog to smell. She smiled at Andi. She was beautiful, Andi noticed. She didn’t want to explain.

“She’s Greta.” Greta, a name Andi chose without thinking, was the name of her fifth grade teacher.

“A pretty name for a pretty girl. I always like dog names to be two syllables. How long have you had her?”

The woman pet Greta, who panted happily. It looked like she was smiling. 

“I got her last year. September. The shelter didn’t know how old she was but I think she’s about four.” 

“She’s very friendly. I had a pit growing up. So sweet.”

Andi felt outside of her body. She looked at herself, waited for her face to peel off. Instead she smiled.

“I’ve never had one before. But she’s been amazing. Kept me outside all winter, which was great except for that snowstorm in February.”

“That was a tough one. I have a corgi at home and she didn’t want to go outside at all. We had to carry her and scoop out a spot in the snow for her to do her business.”

“Greta loved the snow. She kept sliding herself down the hill over there until a park guy came by and told me to put her back on a leash.”

They talked for twenty minutes as the light slowly faded. The leaves were only just starting to come in, and little speckles of light filtered through the trees settled on the green. If she’d been paying attention, Andi would have taken a picture. She had a park-focused Instagram account she hadn’t posted on since the summer of 2018.

“Do you walk your dog around here?” Andi asked. 

“Every day once it gets warmer.”

“Maybe see you, then.” Andi smiled. The woman smiled back. “I’m Andi, by the way. With an I.”

“Barbara. Nice to meet you.”⁵

* * *

When Andi got home she had decided to keep Greta. She looked like a Greta. 

Her roommate (Kate) was on the couch watching a video of a beautiful woman walking through a spacious beach house, smiling. Kate didn’t turn around when Andi came in, but did pause the video and take out one of her headphones.

“You were gone a while.”

“It’s been interesting. What are you watching?”

“It’s my brother’s ex-girlfriend. He’s visiting. In Puerto Rico.”

“They’re not together?”

“No. Kinda weird.”

Andi let Greta off the leash, and she immediately stuck her face into Kate’s. Kate stroked Greta good naturedly, like she had expected to see her.

“We have a dog?”

“Yeah.”

“Cool.” 

Greta whined while Kate⁶ stroked her ears.

“I think our dog’s hungry.”

* * *

At the Key Food a few blocks away, Andi decided to buy a 20 pound bag of Blue Buffalo dog food because it was the second-most expensive dog food on the shelf. She didn’t know what made dog food good or bad. She walked home with it over her shoulder, flexing her arm muscles every time someone walked by so they could see how heavy it was. It was the exact moment Andi felt best about herself.

“Hey, bitch! Where’s my fucking dog!” 

It was the homeless guy.

“I said where’s my dog! Where’d you fucking go?”

Andi stared, her mouth hanging open.

“Where—where were you? I couldn’t—”

“I was taking a shit! Where’s my fucking dog?”

“I…I tied her to the post outside. To the lamppost. You didn’t see her?”

“Then what the fuck is this?” He gestured to the bag of dog food. 

“It’s, uhhh…it’s dog food. For my dog.”

“You don’t have a fucking dog.”

“What? Yes I—”

“I see you all the time. You buy that ice cream. You don’t have a fucking dog. Definitely no dog that’s eating that shit.”

“Wait, you see me—”

“I’m always sitting there! You think I don’t see people? Where’s my fucking dog?”

“I-I have a corgi. Named Frito. He doesn’t like to come outside—”

“Bitch, that bag’s for fifty-pound dogs and up.”

* * *

Andi led him to her apartment, still carrying the dog food. He swore under his breath the whole time, which Andi assumed was mostly him calling her a bitch (he actually called her many other things).

He promised to yell if she wasn’t back in three minutes. She left the dog food outside. Inside, Greta lay with her head in Kate’s lap on the couch. 

Andi scratched Greta’s ears. It was her first time petting her. Greta closed her eyes and turned her head so Andi would scratch her left ear. 

“Your dog took a shit in the kitchen, by the way.”

Andi led Greta outside. She walked up to the man, wagging her tail and smiling  as if she had expected him to be there. Andi handed him the leash.

“Sorry about that. I’m Andi, by the way.”

“Go fuck yourself.” He picked up the dog food and left⁷. 

Andi watched them go. She turned around to her reflection in the glass door. 

She looked kind of depressed.

* * *

Fifteen minutes later she walked back into her apartment with a grocery bag and a snake plant. She put the baby sweet peas she’d just bought in the freezer, then scribbled the directions the woman at the plant shop had told her on a sticky note (Water once every 3 weeks. You can honestly just stick it in a corner and fucking ignore it. It won’t die). She stuck it on the bottom of the pot.

She put the snake plant next to their bookshelf. Its shadows in the semi-light looked like they were climbing the walls.

“What happened to the dog?” Kate took out her headphones. She looked concerned.

“She was a loaner. Sorry.” 

“Oh. I liked her.” She did look sad about it. “You got a plant?”

“Yeah. Easiest one to take care of, they said.”

“Let me know if I can help.”

Andi sat on the far side of the couch. They didn’t say anything for a moment. Andi thought about Greta’s barking, earlier. It hadn’t been that annoying.

“Want an edible?”

Andi looked over. Kate had green eyes. She’d forgotten. 

“Gummy?”

“Brownie. Peanut butter.”

“Thanks, I’ll pass. Maybe next weekend, though.”

They sat for another moment. It was the most they’d talked since before Thanksgiving.

“Want to watch a movie tomorrow night?”

Kate shrugged. “As long as it’s not scary. Sure.” She put her earphones back in.

Andi made herself Mac and Cheese and sweet peas for dinner. It tasted pretty good, actually. She sat next to Kate, who was still on her phone, and read her book for an hour with their legs interlocked in the middle of the couch. Then she went to bed.

1.  Conley was actually a consultant at McKinsey, a well-regarded firm where he had worked since graduating from college 14 years before. He had been working on this screenplay for the past 2 years, and had only written about 15 pages which he edited repeatedly. Most Sundays he would go to a coffee shop and stare at his screen for an hour or two—today, he had written the first two lines of a monologue for his protagonist, a dashing young lawyer who gets fired for standing up for a female colleague being harassed by his boss. The screenplay’s title was Unbarred.

2.  Kervin was listening to a podcast recapping season 4 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and didn’t notice Andi at all. He had been having a good day, as his two-year-old daughter had hugged him that morning and said she loved him for the first time. He had smiled at every person in the bodega moments before, including the cashier, who had only grunted at him as he bought a packet of cigarettes.

3. The couple, Priya and Bruno, had adopted the German shepherd three weeks before and named him Cedar. They had lived together for three years, and were flirting with the idea of getting engaged, but had been unprepared for the chaos an 80 pound, hyperactive dog would introduce to their one bedroom apartment in Gowanus. Priya worked from home and had been forced to take on most of the responsibilities of dog ownership as a result, and Bruno, who initially had been coming home early to help out, had chosen to run errands each day in the past week rather than immediately return to the apartment. They weren’t used to fighting and had decided to take this walk as a way to calm down before discussing their options.

4. Andrei had only been living in the US for 18 months since leaving his hometown in Hungary for the first time in his life. He spent most of his time in the shop watching Barátok közt, a Soap Opera that had run for approximately 10,000 episodes since 1998, and whose title loosely translates to “Among Friends.” He lived in an apartment with his uncle, Ivan, who worked alternating shifts with Andrei at the bodega and was the only other person in the city he knew who spoke Hungarian.

5. Barbara had only spoken to two people besides Andi that day—her doorman, who always said hello and had asked after her daughter, Deirdre, that morning (Deirde, her only child, was in her Junior year at Carleton College in Minnesota)—and her husband, who had said “MmHmm” when Barbara had asked him to grab more coffee the next time he was at the grocery store.

6. Andi was not aware that her roommate had consumed an especially potent edible about 2 hours before, and was therefore only loosely aware of herself, in the way of a person napping in a pool float. Andi didn’t know edibles had become a regular part of Kate's nightly routine, ever since she’d started having nightmares following a violent mugging on Atlantic Avenue in January. She hadn’t told anyone about the incident but had sprained her left knee when she’d been pushed to the ground and had needed to replace her phone and make copies of Andi’s keys, saying she’d dropped hers down a subway grate.

7. Cody (Greta’s actual name) had been with Carl for more than three years, longer than he’d been unhoused. He had sold his watch, an heirloom from his maternal grandfather, to buy food for her the previous winter. He rented a small storage unit in the neighborhood where he kept blankets to keep Cody warm in cold weather and several bags of dog food, and where he slept when there wasn’t a better option.