Part 19 (2/2)
She shook her head. ”Please, don't.”
”Now, hold on a minute. You wanted to be interviewed. You have to be willing to take the hard questions.”
”Okay,” she said, whispering.
”I must be crazy, but if what you say about Harlan is true, and the fact no one has busted down the door supports it, then we might as well talk, that is, if you really want to, Maddy.”
”I do.”
I ignored the other connotation those words conjured and went back into my room. I reached for my carryall and listened for the rush and clatter of footsteps coming down the hall, but silence continued to reign. Perhaps it was true. Perhaps my friend had forgiven me my anger.
Unzipping the carryall, I pulled out the iPod touch and the camera gla.s.ses and brought them back into the second bedroom. Maddy was already up and putting on her clothes. I waited until she'd finished, then pointed to the Biedermeier chairs. ”Why don't we do it over here,” I said.
She nodded and sat down. I seated myself on the other chair, put on the gla.s.ses and placed the iPod touch on the small table between us.
”What's with the gla.s.ses?”
”That's where the camera is. You ready?”
Her face split into one of her wry smiles. ”As much as I'll ever be,” she said.
”All right. Just state your name, age, and occupation, then go wherever you want with it. It's up to you.”
She nodded and I reached for the record b.u.t.ton.
15.
Interview with Maddy Regehr Location: Suite B-57/59 ”Now that I'm doing this, I feel so stupid, like I'm giving a deposition, or something.”
”You want to stop? You don't have to do it, you know.”
”No, let's go on.” She fell silent for a moment then nodded. ”My name is Madeleine Regehr, I'm thirty-six years old, and I'm a burned-out interior designer.” She laughed, then fell silent again, her expression turning serious.
”I've often wondered how a life can go awry. Is it the paths we consciously choose for ourselves, or the roads we leave untrammeled? Is it the big things, or the little things with interest compounding daily, that finally break us? It was these kinds of questions that filled my head when I left for college. I'd lived most of my life in a small Connecticut town, swathed in the bliss that comes with the ignorance of the privileged. Don't get me wrong, the nineties hadn't pa.s.sed us by. We had troubled youth, a crime index that would've shocked a big city, and a divorce rate off the scale. My own parents were anomalies-they'd been married for twenty-five years and were happy.”
”But you weren't?”
”No. I guess it was because I felt stifled in that little town. Besides being dry, it had nothing for a young person to do, so you spent your time looking for trouble...and finding it. I was caught shoplifting- twice, prompting my parents to send me off to boarding school in the tenth grade. I fought it at first, managing to fail out the first semester.
”My parents drove up to the school and we spent the whole drive back in silence. Somehow, that was worse than if they'd yelled at me.”
”Were you glad to be home?”
”No. About the third day I was back, I realized it was worse than being in boarding school. My friends had no ambitions other than to get married, live in their husband's shadows, and screw the tennis pro at the country club. I begged my Mom and Dad to send me back, promising to make straight 'A's.'
”They were skeptical, but I won them over. I think it was my father who saw it first, recognizing in me a little something of himself at that age. He convinced my Mom, and they in turn convinced the school. Apparently, it wasn't easy, as I'd been far from their ideal student. Their proviso was that I study at home and take their final exams under the watchful eye of a hired proctor.
”It was one of the hardest things I'd ever done. Throughout the entire summer, my parents and I played the roles of teachers and student, spending six, seven, sometimes eight hours a day drilling me in the finer points of high school curriculum. I think we all discovered a newfound respect for one another.
”Anyway, two weeks before the new school year was to begin, I took the exams and aced every one of them, the lowest grade being a 'B.' My Mom and Dad were so proud, and I felt something I'd never felt before: a sense I could do anything I wanted, that I didn't have to end up like my friends, as some trophy wife.
”I worked my b.u.t.t off for the next two years and got those straight 'A's.' I ended up grabbing a choice scholars.h.i.+p to Yale, where I majored in philosophy.”
”Still trying to answer those questions?” I asked.
Maddy smiled.
”I'm nothing if not stubborn. It was that and a yearning to learn more about myself and the rest of humanity, to try and make some sense of it all.”
”Did you?”
”No. But I could see why everyone is so consumed with living the good life, why 'things' matter more than ideas. You can grasp a Rolex in your hand, you can caress a new BMW, but an idea must first be understood. And no one outside of the department seemed willing to understand the simplest thing. They wanted to be entertained.”
”Bread and Circuses.”
”Exactly. And it was that realization that finally turned me off of the 'Great Quest.' And while I did not descend into 'moral degradation,' like my fellow cla.s.smates, I nevertheless became less consumed with the inner world and more obsessed with the outer one.”
”No boyfriends?”
”You want to hear about that, huh?” she said, grinning. ”Sure, I dated, but no one serious. That came later.”
”So, what came next?”
”I managed to graduate, though it was not with the honors my parents came to expect. The problem was I'd been spending most of my spare time going to New York to visit the art museums and the tiny little galleries in Soho.
”The scene was so vibrant back then, right around the turn of the Millennium. I think it was all that apocalyptic c.r.a.p everyone was going through, I don't know. But I had a ball just absorbing everything. My only problem was I had no talent to be an artist, at least the kind I wanted to be. The breakthrough came for me when I took the wrong bus one day and ended up in the design section.
”On the street level, there was storefront after storefront selling fabrics, furniture, objects d'art, you name it, all to the trade. From the second floor and up were all the architects and design firms who patronized these places.
”I was fascinated, and I think this is where my philosophical questions were finally answered, because I felt a sense of synergy at work. I knew-without a flicker of doubt-I belonged on that street. I'd finally come home.
”I spent the whole day visiting those stores and making a nuisance of myself with the questions I asked. One woman who owned an Italian furniture store was kind enough to tell it to me straight: if I wanted success in this business, I had to go back to school. And the only one that counted was Parsons School of Design.”
”What did your parents think?”
She tilted her head, considering the question. ”To be honest, I don't think they were overly thrilled with the idea. I think they equated it with the bohemian lifestyle of a Soho artist, which they were deathly afraid I would become. When I told them the kind of income I could make, they changed their tune and agreed to finance me. And as I'd had a full scholars.h.i.+p to Yale, it was less of a burden for them.
”I applied myself the same way I had in high school and college, and graduated with honors. The day after the ceremony I received three job offers from the top design firms on the street. None of them paid very well to start, but I took the one from Halsey Design because they seemed to be the most willing to challenge me, and because they were the best of the best.
”The next two years were the most grueling I've ever experienced. Most of it was spent as Rudy Danzig's gopher. He was the firm's top designer, and he ran me ragged. If Rudy needed a fabric sample, I'd run out and grab it. If he needed a floor plan, I drew it. And that was one thing that always galled me. I did most of the grunt work, and Rudy took all the credit, even for those creative little touches I came up with on my own.”
”Sounds like you hated it.”
”I loved every minute, because I knew I was learning what it would take to make it. My break came the day Rudy had a heart attack. He died right on the job site. The client, a real 'Nervous Nelly,' called the firm in a tizzy; and that's when I met Matt Halsey.
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