Young Jane Young(76)

If you change your name, turn to page 146.





146


Everything is online. Maybe they can find out about you, but there’s some justice in the fact that you can find out about anything. You google “legal name changes, Florida.” In less than five minutes, you find out everything you need to know: how long it will take, where you’ll have to go, what it will cost, and what documents you will need.

You pay for a background check to prove that you have committed no crimes. You haven’t, by the way.

You go to the police station to have your fingerprints taken, and you sign your name for a notary.

You file a Legal Change of Name form at the courthouse.

The clerk reads through your paperwork. She says, “Everything looks in order.”

“Is that it?” you say.

“That’s it,” she says. There’s a long line, and she doesn’t care who you are or what you’ve done. She cares that your paperwork has been filled out correctly, which it has been. You feel a swell of gratitude for bureaucracy, for government.

Still, you expect someone to try to stop you. You expect media to show up. No one does, or maybe no one cares about you anymore. You aren’t, after all, Tom Cruise. You aren’t famous. You are infamous, and maybe people tire of infamous people when they stop doing infamous things.

The clerk schedules a hearing.

No one objects to your petition, so the hearing is canceled.

Your name is changed.

You are Jane Young.



Turn to the next page.





You go to your grandmother to ask for money. You know she’ll give it to you, but you hate to do it anyhow.

She is so tiny, tinier than your mother. She is barely larger than a child. When you hug her, you think you might crush her. She wears slacks with thin belts and flats with capped heels. She is always dressed just so. An Hermès scarf. A quilted Chanel handbag. Things well made and chosen with care. Things cared for once they were chosen. Suede shoes are brushed. Necklaces are wrapped in paper so they don’t tangle. The handbag has its own bag and is stuffed with tissue paper when it is not in use. You remember pleasant afternoons passed in your grandmother’s closet. “When you have little, mine Aviva, you learn to take care. When you have much, you must accept that you could someday have little,” she would say. “To take care of something is to love it.”

If she leaves the house, there must be earrings. Today’s earrings are fruit made from jewels – jade, emeralds. They’re her favorite. Her father made them, and they’re one of the only things she brought from Germany. All she has from Germany is that which she brought, because she will never buy anything German as long as she lives. Someday, she promises to leave the earrings to you. But you hate thinking of “someday” because someday she will be dead. Who will call you “mine Aviva” when she is gone?

You tell her you need to go away, to start fresh. You say you’re sorry for everything, for the shame you’ve brought on her and Aunt Mimmy and the Grossman family.

She gets out her checkbook and she puts on her reading glasses with the delicate filigree chain and she takes out her tiny polka-dot checkbook pen. She asks you how much you need.

You ask for ten thousand dollars. You’re not as dumb as you once were. You know ten thousand dollars won’t last very long, but it will give you enough to start over.

She writes a check for twenty thousand dollars, and then she pulls you close to her. She smells like carnations and apples and talcum powder and Chanel No. 5. “I love you, mine Aviva,” she says.

You almost cry to hear the way her German accent wraps around the syllables of your name.

“That man was no good,” she says, “and if Grandpa were still alive, he would cut off his balls.”



You leave your mother a note, saying you’re leaving town and you’ll call her once you’re settled.

You buy a bus ticket to Portland, Maine, and when you get to Portland, you buy a cheap car.

You drive to Allison Springs, where your parents once took you on vacation.

It’s winter, so the town is empty.

You rent an apartment just outside the center of town. It’s one bedroom, five hundred square feet. The walls have recently been painted to exorcise the memory of the prior tenants, and everything still smells of fumes. The apartment feels enormous because you have nothing.

You eat lobster rolls and think about jobs you could do.

You are willing to work hard, but you want something with flexible hours. You have a baby on the way.

Also, you’re sick of bosses. You want to be your own boss, but you don’t have much money to start a business.

You’re in your apartment, weighing your options, and a movie with Jennifer Lopez comes on television. It’s a dumb fairy tale, where she falls in love with the person for whom she’s planning a wedding. You are through with fairy tales. You will never have a workplace romance again. However, you are interested in her business. You try not to consider what it means that you are watching romantic comedies for occupational advice.

What do you really need to be an event planner? What does JLo have?

A desk. A phone number. A business card. A computer.

I could do that, you think.

Events by Jane, you think.

You have made decisions in worse ways before.