Practice Makes Perfect

Should say and should’ve said haunt and taunt my every wasted exhale.

I revolve in a stationary spiral under the scalding spray of my morning shower – my daily rehearsal – setting steely intentions for the day ahead. Today I will speak with confidence. I declare this out loud with gusto to my shampoo bottles, having recently read an article about the power of positive thinking. Words like ‘stutter’ and ‘stupid’ and ‘forget’ still scuttle around my skull, but I refuse to give them a voice.

While I lather up with suds from a bottle that promises to revitalize my dry curls, I practice my scripts for the day, memorizing conversational lines the way school taught me to memorize textbook definitions. Preparation is key to success.

First stop, Starbucks.

Hello. Can I please get a grande decaf medium roast, room for cream and sugar? Thank you very much.

No, that’s too much. Plus they’ll want your name. Start over.

Hi. Can I get a grande decaf medium roast, room for cream and sugar? For Amy. Thanks.  

I close my eyes and tilt my head back under the comforting cascade of water to rinse, fingers tangling in my matted mop. 

The morning meeting.

This week I had four interviews with prospective clients – all really promising – and have finished drafting proposals for two of them. I’ve also finished the script for Liz’s presentation at the business association’s luncheon tomorrow afternoon. That’s all for me. Concise but informative. Avoid looking at Frank, who always frightens your thought train off track.

Small talk with Liz, who’ll come looking for tomorrow’s speaking notes.

Hey! How are you? How was the concert on Saturday? Keep it simple. Nudge Liz into carrying the bulk of the conversation. Don’t forget to thank her. Thanks again for taking on this presentation for me. I really appreciate you being so accommodating.

The terrifying phone call after work. I’m still not sure if I’m hoping he’ll pick up or if I’d rather face the abrasive beep and yawning silence of his voicemail.

Hi Paul, it’s Amy. Friday night was great. Thank you for dinner and everything. I was just wondering if you’d be at all interested in going for a walk at the park on Saturday, and then maybe grabbing a drink? If leaving a voicemail, add: let me know!

Breathe. Steady steamy inhales; quiet controlled exhales. It will be fine. You are intelligent. You are capable. Paul seemed to really like you. Before I squeak the tap off, I take five seconds in Superman pose—hands on hips, chest puffed up. More deep breaths.

There’s a short line at Starbucks, which is good; it gives me time to practice my order. 

“Hi!” the perky brunette eventually beams at me from behind the counter. “What can I get ya?”

I begin to recite my lines, but somewhere between my mind’s mental intentions and my mouth’s physical delivery they’re hijacked by panic and roll off my tongue in a jumbled mess. “Hi-lo…Can I please get…um…a venti…” Shit. I try to return her smile so I won’t seem rude and it throws me off. Where was I? What was I ordering? I roll up and down on my toes, and the barista – Bailey, says her nametag – waits patiently. It’s a shiny nametag. I knew a dog named Bailey once. Or was it Riley?

On the way to work I find myself sipping on a venti dark roast, black and definitely caffeinated.

I’ve always preferred reading and writing to speech and conversation. The act of speaking requires an absolute, paralytic presence that tends to send my brain skipping like a scratched record and my tongue stumbling with all the finesse of Bambi on ice; whereas meticulous thought can be put into pen and paper, corrections carefully considered, and the final product crafted with complete clarity.

A career in writing was my naïve attempt to pursue a profession in which my talentless vocal chords would rarely, if ever, be called into service. I had been immensely disappointed to find myself blundering through verbal pitches, interviews, phone calls, and lengthy team meetings on the daily.

At this morning’s meeting, I’m sitting in a too-low chair, white-knuckling the arm rests for dear-life. I deeply believe that the world would be a better place if every in-person meeting was replaced with a perfectly structured email and clearly outlined action items that aren’t subject to the misbehaving memory or the interpretation of vague short-hand notes.

My colleagues are staring into my soul. My heart rate triples in speed, lurching and jolting erratically as if it’s off-roading across treacherous back-country terrain.

“Amy – why don’t you start us off?” Frank always starts with me, smug and proud of himself for this charitable act of sparing me from having to wait my turn.

“Sure…” I wasn’t supposed to start with sure. My face is suddenly hot. Are my eyeballs swollen? I can’t see anymore but I know everyone is looking at me. What’s that buzzing noise?

“I…last week…I mean…uh…this week? This week I wrote – finished web content – three of them…and uh…I um. Worked on my calendar. And sent some emails…”I glanced up at Frank in spite of myself, and right on cue his frown scatters the final burning fragments of my manuscript to the wind.

“Yeah…That’s it, that’s all…”

How did I get hired and how do I still have a job?

The rest of the team spouts their endeavors with ease and even comedy, while my brain comes back online.

Liz drops by my cube afterwards, but I’m expecting this and spin my chair around with what feels like genuine enthusiasm. I keep a steady grip on my pen with both hands. “Hey! How was your weekend…how – how was…it?” I know I’m supposed to ask about the concert, but she turns to greet someone walking by, leaving my inquiry to trail off the edge of an awkward cliff.

I struggle to brush it off, clicking the pen furiously until she returns her attention to me.

“Oh, good, good, all good. Do you have the notes for tomorrow’s presentation ready to print? Would love to book some time to go over it this afternoon if you aren’t too busy.”

“Sure – yeah – yes…I – I finished the edits. Um. I’ll drop a coffee – copy - off at your spot…desk…in a few min…minutes.” Jesus.

“Great! Thanks Amy! You have time to go over it this afternoon?”

“Oh…oh yeah – yes – two-thirty?” Was I even free at two-thirty? Why was I suggesting a time at all? I hadn’t looked at my calendar yet today.

“Okay, I’ll book us a boardroom. See you then!” She trots away before I remember to say thank you. 

The rest of the day fumbles by without too much trouble. I even manage to express my feeble gratitude to Liz during our meeting, but a heavy foreboding rock grows in my stomach as the unforgiving hours careen towards the final task on my to-do list.

In what feels like no time at all, I’m sitting cross-legged on the couch in my tiny cluttered condo, staring at my cell phone on the coffee table. I could (should) send a text instead, but I’ve been here before. I can’t bear to spend the following seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks lamenting the absence of bubbled ellipses and languishing in over-dramatic uncertainty. I had practiced. It would be fine. I re-run my lines one last time.

Hi Paul, it’s Amy. Friday night was great. Thank you for dinner and everything. I was just wondering if you’d be at all interested in going for a walk at the park on Saturday, and then maybe grabbing a drink? Reasonable. Confident. Dial.

“Amy?”

His tone is perfectly kind – even mildly surprised – but his off-script greeting throws my mind into anarchy.

“Paul?”

“Amy.”

“I..uh…h – hi Paul…” I try to tame the chaos into coherence.

“Hi Amy.”

“About…about last day – Friday – the evening…” My traitorous voice cracks. My ears are on fire. “Anyways…yeah. Just…calling to say…thanks. For it. That. The dinner.”

“Of course.” I can hear him smiling as he waits, offering me no rescue from myself.

“Anyways…” I squawk again, now in a panic to hang up and then maybe hang myself. “That’s…yeah okay bye!”

“Amy, wait -“

I throw my phone down on the table with disgust, and sit in self-pity until the English language is finally restored to my body. Hi Paul, it’s Amy. I had a really nice time on Friday and wanted to say thank you for dinner. Would you like to go for a walk in the park, and then maybe grab a drink on Saturday? Damn, that’s even better than the original. 

I ignore the jarring buzz of Paul’s return call. Not again. Not today. Instead I peel off my clothes and trudge into my evening shower – my daily debrief – analyzing and stripping away the day’s grimy failures.

Swaddled in the warm water’s safe embrace, I repeat conversations as they happened and reconstruct them as they were meant to be. I imagine my shame sliding off and swirling down the drain in a torrent of soap, skin and sadness, but it still tickles my heart as I crawl into bed without eating dinner. Tomorrow I will speak with confidence, I whisper on repeat into my pillow until sleep claims another day.