Change at Jamaica Station

Chapter Four

Chapter Four               

Caroline Has A Secret                                Spring 2019, Valley Stream, NY

I haven't slept in weeks. The exhaustion is numbing, but the new pictures of Tabetha are a warm fuzzy spot in my day. However, in the past six months that Tabatha Caulfield has become a celebrity, I'm never sure this is a good thing. I think back on her birthday celebration, five days after her Penn Station stunt, which was more like a reality check/intervention than a birthday, but there was gluten free cake involved, whatever that means. The cake was ok, but Tabetha really wasn't.

Gerri and I overlapped spending time with Tabby that day, and she seemed ready to make changes in her closed off life, but just not sure why or how. Anyway, it got me out of my own thought cycle, and I had to chuckle at some of her deadpan comments about sugar in cake, social media eating away at society, and not understanding at all why she could not wear hot pink to be interviewed on the View.

Gerri almost vomited on the preppy dress she dragged out and I suggested that she needed something less pink in a room with so many colorful women. Gerri called someone and a few items of taste were installed in her closet, including a bag for me with a new bikini. I always loved bikinis and still look good in them. Gerri gave her a few other tidbits of advice, and I helped ground her a little, but neither of us expected her to become a blond middle-aged sensation with a peppy step and a tennis racket. It's been a nail biter to watch.

As I flip through the People magazine that I pilfered from Capellini, the hair salon I work at part time as a receptionist, I stare at these glossy images of Tabby and recall her birthday six months ago.

Tabby's diatribe: So, the real question is does all this interconnectivity from social media make us less 'real'?"

Gerri handling her: "You mean does it make us less genuine?"

Tabby: "Yes. I think it's diluting connectivity. Nothing is actually a real experience anymore and then when you do have a real experience it's diluted by the fact that you saw some version of it on TV. Which is quite different from reading it, and having your own image of what that might be like because visual media has that image branded into your brain and oooh, is that cake? Is it gluten free?"

Gerri: "Your right in every way. Visual images affect everyone especially if you're a visual learner, but I think your just still a bit in shock. Let's not worry about it all now, and just eat some gluten free snacks, OK, kid?"

It's ridiculously hot for spring in New York. Not the way I wanted to spend Saturday afternoon, but here I am, standing around at the Valley Stream train station, finished flipping through the copy of 'People' magazine then opening the 'Elle' magazine. I stop to stare at the page with a small picture of 'Tabetha', not my 'Tabby,' looking as young and vibrant as in our high school yearbook. Magazines, news articles, daytime talk shows, that I didn't think much of at first, but apparently adding social media to the repertoire did the trick, but Gerri is the one who manages her Instagram and twitter as Tabby barely knows how to use her cell phone.

We suggested to change, perhaps she should at least try some new things and if she doesn't like it, at least she'll be educated as to why. I've got Tabby taking media classes at Manhattan Neighborhood Network, an educational branch of public television that has jumped on the social media bandwagon, but really, I just wanted Tabby to learn to use her phone. When Gerri started Instagram/Facebook/Twitter accounts for her the whole world went wild, and she has less than twenty posts, because Gerri doesn't have time to pee, let alone handle Tabby's new world. But her polished image is always bubbly and pretty, and if she sticks to talking about tennis and shoes, she's fine and I'm glad for her. Finally, something is going right for her since 9/11.