Nobody Owes Me Anything

I've been ignored, forgotten, cold-shouldered and erased. But oh, the joy of that kindness I wasn't expecting.

Am I really living in an Edward Hopper painting, or do I just think too much about getting less than expected? This painting is “Morning Sun.”

I had just come home from an appointment with a man whose waiting room gives pride of place to a monumental photo of his dog. Asked my husband, “Did he mention your book?”

More than a month had passed since I gave my podiatrist a signed, pawprinted copy of my memoir Starter Dog. No, he didn’t mention it. This baffled my husband, who has never published a book. An author gets used to such moments. To send a book into the world, if your name is not Stephen King or Sally Rooney, is to receive a free lifetime membership in the Society of the Ignored. I can’t tell you how often I repeat to myself, “Nobody owes me anything.”

Not now, not ever.

A lifetime before I published a book, nobody owed me a Valentine, a date on Saturday night or admission to the freshman class (my top college picks all declined). Nobody owed me a job. To be paid fairly for my work as an editor, I had to leave a newborn fashion magazine for the swaggering newsmagazine upstairs. The industry set a higher value on titles read by men than it did on women’s titles—50 percent more, in my case. The fashion magazine owed me the going rate. I owed it to myself to move on.

Believing you are owed can be a maelstrom of torment. Years ago, at one of the swanky affairs for which I’m no longer on the guest list, a flame-haired woman with fury in her eyes cut a path toward me like a galleon in the Spanish Armada. “I supported your membership in my club,” she hissed, within earshot of corporate worthies nibbling their faux crab mini-quiches. “You never gave me a word of thanks.”

I felt myself blanch. Madame Galleon had a point. I should have sent her a handwritten note on my prettiest paper. Should have treated her to lunch at the club before I quit within a season. Whatever possessed me to join a golf club, when I never played the game or had any interest in learning? I apologized for my transgression; she accepted, lips pursed as if she doubted my sincerity. Bad enough that I forgot to thank her. Even worse, I failed to value the place she’d made for me in the plush bastion of her club. Having carried her resentment in silence, she was out for blood.

The kind, gracious action is always a choice.

I wonder how many other grudges Madame Galleon took to her grave. Did she ever come to see that nobody owes anybody anything? The kind, gracious action is always a choice. It cannot be exacted like tribute.

Eleanor, as I’ll call her, chose to end our virtual friendship without a word. Was there a kind, gracious way to drop me? “It’s time to edit my life,” she might have said. “I’m feeling overwhelmed. I need to focus on the real world and let the online one go.” Revisiting the last months of our email exchanges, I see her pulling away like a rowboat toward the horizon. She plans a “social media fast.” Her mother dies; she can’t concentrate. Her messages lose the pulse of anticipation, then stop altogether. I missed every signal.

Eleanor was real to me. How could it not work both ways? Her responses to my writing might as well have come from inside my head. My praise for her art seemed to help her press on (“Your opinion means an enormous amount to me”). I knew the slant of light in her white bedroom, where every book and vase had the presence of a brushstroke by Picasso. Knew her mother had raised her on William Blake. She marveled at how much we had in common.

In the early days of her silence, I still believed we’d eventually meet in one of the jewel-box bars she frequented. I made a discreet inquiry: was Eleanor okay? Yes, as far as I could determine. Then she unfriended me on Facebook. There must have been others she cast out, but I still clung to the notion of my specialness. Eleanor, what have I done to offend you?

Nothing, I’m just about certain. We had our shining moment, and it ended. Explanations are among the things nobody owes me.

Somewhere on the west coast, Eleanor is photographing the progress of light across one of her vignettes: a candlestick with a museum-shop look, a copper platter and two sculpted apples with stems that curve toward each other as if in conversation. She has moved at least once since my card came back “address unknown.”

The silence of neglect often passes for the natural order of things.

In the trunks of cars across the land, books signed by the author lie between the windshield scraper and a box of canned chickpeas from Costco. People wait to hear from the awards jury and the lover gone AWOL. They drop off resumes, “just in case,” with vacant-eyed junior employees.

The silence of neglect often passes for the natural order of things—until you’re called to attention by an unexpected gift. I’d been feeling despondent when an orchid arrived at my door, its white petals soft as a baby’s cheek. I never got the hang of keeping orchids alive, except in the greenhouse of my imagination, where time rolls back 30 years and I’ve just opened the card on which the florist has written my friend’s good wishes. As the sight of her name swells my heart, it matters not at all who ignored, forgot, cold-shouldered or erased me. I never thought to send her flowers or anything else, but my friend was never one to keep score. She knew we didn’t owe each other anything. Between us it was all free, our cups running over.

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What makes you feel like a charter member of the Society of the Ignored? Tell me about it. I promise to reply, although perhaps not as quickly as usual. Today my family’s celebrating Christmas. Please bear with me. This time next week, the festivities might be a story. Meanwhile, you might enjoy “A Melancholic’s Guide to Happiness.”

I welcome shares, hearts, memories, other points of view… it all builds the case that something particular and real is happening here at Amazement Seeker. Remember, though: Nobody owes me anything. A paid subscription, if you happen to be in the mood and have the means, is like the orchid I never expected. I’d keep writing these letters to the world if no one paid, ever. I wouldn’t be myself if I didn’t.