SundayReview|LOOSE ENDS

The Trauma of Being the Also-Ran

IT was March 1997. I unlocked my apartment door, petted the dog and hit “play” on my answering machine.

“Hi, Brooke, I miss seeing you. Let’s get together soon.”

The voice asking for me was no one I knew. I deleted the call and didn’t think about it again until the following evening. Three messages waited on my blinking machine: my dad, my dentist and another call for a different Brooke Williams.

The stranger’s voice was breezy and confident. “Hi, Brookie darling, I just went to a fabulous new restaurant in the village that I want to take you to soon. Ciao bella.”

After a week of calls for this other Brooke, I was able to piece together a fuzzy picture of her life, a life that sounded much better than mine. Like me, she appeared to be 20-something, living in New York City, but no doubt with a better career and haircut.

Growing up in the 1970s, I knew tons of girls named Lisa, Heather and Ashley, but no one named Brooke. Not until I was 13, at Camp Lake Hubert, did I meet someone else named Brooke, and she was the popular one. All summer, whenever someone called my name, I instinctively turned around only to realize, my face burning like a California grass fire, that they weren’t talking to me.

That old feeling of being uncool had come back to roost since I moved to New York to pursue my dream of becoming a photographer. Everyone else seemed to have the same dream, and after two years, I was stuck in an office job working for a Japanese businessman who couldn’t say my name. On the weekends I wandered around the city with my Nikon wishing I was Diane Arbus.

The next message hit me like food poisoning, making my insides churn. “Oh, my god, Brooke, I just saw your new photography exhibit — you are so amazing.”

I had to sit down. I could handle it if she was cooler, but I was supposed to be the photographer.

How dare this other successful Brooke and her hip friends co-opt my answering machine and make me feel like a loser in my own living room. Checking my answering machine each evening was like passing a car accident on the freeway: I didn’t want to listen, but I was drawn in by the blinking red lights.

Feeling bad had started to feel good. Several days went by without a message and then ...

“This is Vogue magazine looking for Brooke Williams. We would like to see some of your photographs.”

Playing the message over and over again, I wondered if I was supposed to learn some cosmic lesson from this, or was the universe just mocking me?

My friends suggested I call Vogue back and show them my photographs, but I am too honest. It was like I found someone’s wallet on the sidewalk, and I had to inform my doppelgänger of her lost fortune.

The telephone operator informed me that there were actually four people named Brooke Williams in Manhattan. Somehow I knew that the one in the East Village — seven blocks from my apartment — was her. Before I could lose my nerve, I dialed.

“I am looking for Brooke Williams.”

“This is Brooke Williams.”

“Well, this is Brooke Williams, too,” I said, trying not to sound too pathetic.

“Are you a photographer?”

When she said yes, I blurted out, “Vogue magazine is trying to get in touch with you.” Expecting her to scream, or even gasp, I was shocked when she casually took down the number. We chatted briefly, comparing middle names and whether we used an “e” at the end of Brooke. Despite my inclination to hate her, I had to admit she was nice. When she asked for my number in case she got one of my messages, I thought, but didn’t say:

“Yeah, just in case my Aunt Marty from Iowa calls you by mistake.”

As mysteriously as the phone messages started, they stopped. Winter turned into spring and I landed a job working for Kenro Izu, a prominent photographer. In the evenings, I developed my own images.

Ironically, working with Kenro, I realized I was a better writer than photographer. I decided to leave New York and move to Maine. I started writing for a local newspaper and, after a few years, built up my credits and started having some success. The day I was published in The Washington Post, I couldn’t resist the temptation to Google myself. I typed in “Brooke Williams” and waited. The first link was for the website of Brooke Williams, the New York photographer. Ten years later, here she was again. I laughed the first time. Then I typed “Brooke Williams” and “writer.” Up popped an article written by her in Slate magazine.

I frantically typed in “Brooke Williams” and “Washington Post.” Her four-year-old article in Slate, a subsidiary of The Washington Post LLC, topped my article in The Post that very day. What was going on? This was supposed to be my moment.

I typed “Brooke Williams” and “Maine.”

Guess who. There was a New York Times Vows article detailing her husband’s proposal during a trip to Maine. I called my mom, who usually makes me feel better. “I keep telling you should use your middle name,” she said.

“I didn’t even take Christopher’s name when we got married, why should I change now?”

One evening, I noticed that another Brooke Williams, an aspiring actress from New Zealand, had started challenging Brooke Williams the New York photographer and now writer.

Behind her there were more Brookes: aspiring musicians, athletes and even a playboy bunny, Brooke “D” Williams. We were all trying to be someone.

Wasn’t I really just competing with myself, my biggest foe and critic? Why couldn’t I just be satisfied with what I had accomplished? Why did I have to keep comparing myself to everyone else?

I turned off the computer and started to feel better. I’m lucky that happened before Facebook, and the reality of thousands of Brooke Williamses.

These days, I am rooting for all of us. Being this Brooke Williams is hard enough.