Twenty-Something

When Eleanor went into the garage this morning, she noticed Lila’s friend’s bike was leaning up against the wall. She saw that his car was gone. Eleanor figured that Lila’s friend was not up to the task of putting his bike back on his car after an evening of pub hopping with Lila and her cousin last night. All three were in their twenties and, at the moment, approaching life in similar ways.

Lila, 21, was taking time off after two years of college to be a nanny. She declared she was happy to have her own business and to be earning money. Lila’s friend, David, 23, was attending the local community college. Following high school, he went to college in Washington for a year or two, became disenchanted and left to spend six months in Argentina. Lila’s cousin, Emma, 23, graduated from college in Montreal last Spring and was, as she put it, “trying to get her life together,” working as a bartender and traveling when she could.

Friends gathered in the living room of the railroad flat.

Eleanor began thinking about how she and Chauncey had spent their twenties. They graduated from college in Los Angeles and moved to New York City with several other friends. Most of their friends were actors trying hard to get their Equity cards so they could audition for paying roles. Chauncey and Eleanor went the graduate school route. It just seemed a whole lot easier than actually figuring out what to do with the rest of your life.

The summer theater company.

One summer, though, Eleanor was persuaded to join some of these friends in Vermont to be in a summer theater company. She had to call up her uncle and ask for an advance on a small inheritance from her mother who had stipulated that Eleanor could not have the money until she turned 25. Eleanor was 22 at the time. Chauncey stayed in the city to work and write a novel, though he was a frequent visitor in Vermont.

The view from the kitchen in the railroad flat.

One-year old Prudence and eight-year old Daphne in Vermont.

As she thought about being in her twenties, Eleanor was struck by how much she and Chauncey moved around. During their seven years in the city, they lived in two apartments in Manhattan, one of which was a railroad flat in the West Village with a bathtub in the kitchen, and one in Park Slope. Then they spent ten months in Vermont where Chauncey was a bartender and Eleanor a freelance editor. By this time, in their late twenties, they were married and had their first child. Still, they drove across country with their one-year-old daughter and eight-year-old Samoyed to return to Los Angeles where Chauncey’s family lived and where many of their actor friends had landed.

Eleanor was 30 by the time she had decided on a career path. Chauncey was 31 or 32. Eleanor smiled as she closed the garage door and saw the bike waiting patiently for its rider to return.