The Yes Factor

by Erin Spencer

  “Whoever buys that purse is going to be one happy person. But I don’t know why on earth you’d ever want to sell it. It is class,” Sharlene says.

  “That purse was bought as an attempted peace offering by her philandering husband.” Bex comes to my defense, seeing that Sharlene is being a bit too pushy.

  “Oh my goodness, oh honey, that’s why you couldn’t channel that yacht energy I was trying to give you. I could see that you weren’t receptive to it. That you’re lost at sea instead of feeling the femme fatale power of the sexy Siren that you are.” Sharlene has suddenly turned as sympathetic as Mother Teresa, and as dramatic as Shirley MacLaine. What is it with this town and “energy”?

  “We’re fine.” Bex turns to Sharlene. “We’re just on our way out.”

  “Ladies, ladies. I’ve seen this before and I want to help. I won’t take no for an answer. It’s on the house.” Sharlene leans in conspiratorially. “And knowing Victoria at the counter and how tough she can be with pricing, you ladies are probably due a little something extra anyway.”

  Sharlene drags Bex and me over to the evening gown section. “Now I know it looks a little over the top, but trust me, this will bring out your inner vixen.” Sharlene pulls out a slinky Bob Mackie dress with beaded fringe. Somehow, despite being covered in sequins, the dress is understated and glam. “It’s got a bit of stretch and hugs all the right places,” Sharlene says with a wink, and pushes the dress into my arms.

  I reach out my arm and Bex passes me the bottle. We’re side by side on loungers underneath the leafy canopy of her backyard. If I reach up, I could almost pluck an avocado from the tree. I slowly fill our wineglasses with the crisp dry white from a vineyard somewhere near Santa Barbara.

  “Twenty, Thirty, Forty, One, Two, Three, Four, Five. One thousand eight hundred and forty-five bucks.” Bex hands me the money.

  “Is that the price of my marriage?” I take a sip of wine and stare upward into the clear sky, cradling the wineglass against my chest and ignoring the bills in Bex’s outstretched arm.

  “Well, considering what Ethan makes, I’d say your marriage has a much higher price than that.”

  “Take out eight hundred dollars for a shopping trip with Maddie. As long as she stops calling me Miss Liv. And the rest, well, what does that buy these days in Hollywood?” I turn with a weary smile to Bex.

  “A hell of a lot of fun. We’re still going out tonight, aren’t we? Glamour & State, right? The place you read about in Conde Nast?” Bex is enthusiastic, and now she’s the one egging me on.

  I get a sinking feeling in my stomach as I remember Jason aka Channing Tatum Look-alike and the date I’ve lined up for Bex. After Millionaire Mayhem and the drama at brunch, I’d completely forgotten about it.

  “Um, yes.” I know I should just fess up and tell her about it but I chicken out. Maybe Jason will be a no-show? I’m too messed up from the emotional craziness of today to even think straight. “Sure, let’s do it, we’ve got spending money after all.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Glamour & State

  LIV

  Glamour & State takes up a huge swathe of two blocks in what’s now the Hollywood that everyone comes to for vacation. At some point these formerly scuzzy blocks of urban decay turned into a Vegas style playland for adults.

  “Where do all the strippers go now to buy their heels and fluorescent fishnets? And where did all the pawn shops go?” I turn around in confusion, looking up and down the block. “When I lived in LA, this was the last place I’d want to stop at a red light, let alone get out of the car.”

  “Welcome to the new and improved city of dreams. Brought to you by commercial real estate developers.” Bex waves her arm like a girl unveiling a convertible at a car show.

  She looks amazing. The Bob Mackie dress that Sharlene gave me had a hard time hugging my A-cup curves. I would have needed two padded bras to fill it out. I convinced Bex to try it on and it was meant to be. Her inner vixen was ready to roar.

  A group of twenty-something guys hustles past us, and one of them turns around and gives Bex a whistle.

  “It’s Wednesday night. Don’t these people have jobs? Or school?” I hadn’t expected Glamour & State to be so popular…or so young.

  But then I wasn’t the one who suggested it. I have twenty-six-year-old Jason to thank for this hotspot. Dear God, please don’t let this night turn out like Chandace, or worse, like last night. I’m skating on thin ice with Bex right now, and so far, my wingwoman skills have been disastrous. I should have told her during our backyard wine session that tonight we, or she, were going to meet someone I found on her Tinder, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I want her to have fun, and hell, I want to have some fun, too, after this afternoon’s confession of my mess of a life.

  “Come on, let’s get some drinks—bottle service maybe?” Bex excitedly takes my hand and we join the decked out crowd making their way up the red-carpeted sidewalk to Glamour & State. It feels good to see that she’s got a spring in her step again.

  The place is huge inside, a high-ceilinged fortress of bricks that must have been an old factory or warehouse. In its current incarnation, it’s the watering hole of every trend seeking, Instagram posting wannabe out to see and be seen.

  “This place is insane,” I whisper to Bex as we walk past the three young hostesses in super tight and super short black dresses guarding the foyer entrance, illuminated by an oversized glass chandelier. They’re almost too young to be pretty, with puppy fat faces and exaggerated makeup that looks like they’re playing dress up.

  “Not a girl, not yet a woman,” Bex says, finding the perfect lyric as usual to sum up a situation.

  “Or is it just that we’re old? Either way, they were definitely born after Britney’s first hit.” I wonder if it was a mistake to have lowered Bex’s age range on Tinder. Glamour & State should be renamed Glamour & Steak, it’s such a meat market.

  “We’re not old,” Bex corrects me. “We’re women.”

  She gives the girls a smooth hello and saunters past, making a low-key but confident entrance like a female version of Clint Eastwood in a western. Maybe Sharlene is some kind of vintage voodoo witch doctor because that dress has transformed Bex into a sex kitten.

  The low lit main dining room is a crowded sea of round tables. It’s an eclectic mix of today’s LA—Hollywood industry types with suspiciously younger arm candy so you’re not sure who’s a daughter and who’s a date; boisterous guys vying for attention from bored looking girls checking their phones; a table of tourists who seem a bit overwhelmed; a suited up group of young professionals who must be in either real estate or insurance sales. And swimming through it all is a synchronized crew of sharp, casting-ready waitstaff. You definitely had to have a headshot to get hired at this place.

  “Let’s go check out the upstairs bar.” I look at my phone to see what time it is. 8:23p.m. Good, we’re doing okay for time. Jason said around nine thirty. I have two text notifications on my lock screen.

  Darling, still busy in Dubai. Alan said that Clarissa… From Ethan then, Sweets! Where are you? Did you go… from Clarissa. I sigh and put my phone away. No need to read either of those texts any further, certainly not now.

  We leave the main dining room and walk back through the entrance foyer to ascend a wide staircase that leads to the upstairs bar. It’s an airy, less crowded space, an intimate setting that feels much more exclusive than downstairs. I’m pleasantly surprised. Maybe Jason won’t be so bad after all. We slide into a cozy, semi-circular booth, one of six that line the side of the room, the other side anchored by a long bar of thick, rounded marble. Two bartenders are making cocktails in focused concentration, quickly turning and reaching every now and then to pull a bottle from the mirrored shelves behind that go all the way to the ceiling, myriad liquor labels, and bottle shapes forming a 3-D mural of twenty-one-and-up delights.

  Bex squints her eyes looking at the bar. “Maker’s, Four Roses, Blanton’s, Woodf
ord. Oh my God, wow. They have Pappy Van Winkle. I’m impressed, Liv. Nice choice with this place. I should start reading Conde Nast!” She gives me an approving smile. I cringe.

  A cute waiter appears out of nowhere. “Hi, how are you two doing? Here’s our cocktail menu, and I see you’ve noticed we have a wide selection of ultra-premium spirits. Pappy is one of my personal favorites.” The waiter looks at Bex and gives her a warm smile. “I admire a woman who knows her bourbon.”

  “You know, why not? We’ll take two Pappy’s,” Bex orders decisively.

  “Coming up.” The waiter turns as I leaf through the cocktail menu.

  “Pappy’s? I’m not sure I’m going to like that. This elderflower gin fizz sounds really good. What tha—Bex, Pappy is eighty dollars a glass.” I drop the menu in shock.

  “I know. We’ve got a few coins burning a hole in our pockets, so don’t worry about the price. And trust me, you’ll love it. Forget your Kool-Aid gin. This is for big girls.”

  The waiter returns with our order. Served in a hefty crystal glass that seems to weigh at least four pounds, the Pappy is indeed delicious. With each sip, I feel warmer and more relaxed.

  “Told you it was good.” Bex laughs.

  “So…the waiter’s cute.” I give Bex a look.

  “Do not even go there. After The Weeper, I’m done with chasing after the waitstaff.” Bex crosses her arms.

  “Okay, fine. But what about yoga teachers?” I tease her.

  We’re not even halfway through our drinks when the waiter appears with two more glasses of Pappy on a tray.

  “Ladies, this is from your neighbors over there.” The waiter points to a pair of hot guys two booths over. Even though they’re sitting down, I can tell they’re tall and fit, their shirts pulled taut over rippled muscles and broad shoulders. One of them turns to us and nods, lifting his own glass in a silent “cheers.” The chunky titanium watch wrapped around his wrist is surely more expensive than a hundred bottles of Pappy.

  Bex smiles, raises the fresh glass in a return “cheers” and as she goes to take a sip says like a ventriloquist, “I’m dying, I think that’s…I don’t know his name, from the Lakers.”

  “You know I have no idea about sports. The only thing I know about the Lakers is Paula Abdul. Wasn’t she a Laker Girl? Those guys are Lakers? For real?” The Pappy is tasting better and better.

  “Hey. I’m Jason.” Bex looks up, expecting to see Mr. Laker, but instead she’s staring up at a tall, lean, brown-haired guy who looks like he could be Channing Tatum’s brother (siblings of celebrities aren’t ever as hot as their famous brother or sister). Still, there’s no doubt he’s attractive, and with that slim fitting V-neck sweater you can see he has the tight body of an Olympic swimmer. Bex, meet Jason, your date that you don’t know is your date. And who’s also not a Laker.

  “Hi,” Bex says somewhat unsure as she looks over at the Laker booth.

  “I’m Toby.” Jason’s friend steps up to extend a hand. Toby has the kind of arrogant jerk appeal of an ’80s era James Spader. He’s cute and he knows it.

  “Hi, I’m Liv. And this is Bex.”

  Interpreting this as an invitation, Toby sits down beside me in the booth while Jason slides in next to Bex. We’re now sandwiched in between these two man-children.

  “Bex, you’re hot. Even better than your photo.” Okaaay, well, Jason doesn’t beat around the bush. Does this generation even know how to flirt?

  “My photo?”

  “Yeah.” Jason whips out his phone from his jeans pocket and opens Tinder. He turns the phone to Bex and I can see her photo and a preview frame of their conversation on the screen.

  “I wasn’t too sure if you’d show up tonight. I mean, I figured at your age you probably have kids or something.”

  Suddenly Bex is downing the Pappy like it’s water. Under the table, I feel a sharp stiletto bearing down on my foot. Yup, I’m in trouble.

  “Oh, right, you know, I did almost forget. That early onset Alzheimer’s is getting to me.” Bex turns to me in a harsh whisper. “What the hell have you done now?”

  “It’s fine,” I whisper back, fully cowed. “Just think of it as the last of my matchmaking. Trust me.”

  “Do not say trust me, because I don’t,” Bex hisses, then turns back to the table to face Jason and Toby.

  “So,” she says to Jason in a fake upbeat voice, “we met on Tinder and here we are in person!”

  “I know, cool isn’t it? Hey, what was it like when you were dating at our age? Would people really put ads in newspapers? Like paper newspapers?” Jason seems dumbstruck, and I realize that despite the insensitivity, he’s being serious. I also realize that hot bod of his doesn’t have much of a brain.

  “No, we’d send out carrier pigeons with notes attached.” Bex goes to take a swig of her bourbon, then frowns when she sees the glass is empty.

  “And what about video dating? My mom said she did that one time. Hired a makeup artist and everything.” Toby says this with a tone of disbelief, like it’d be more believable if his mom had said she’d been kidnapped by aliens. “Whatever, man, I’m just glad we have these apps now, it helps to cull the herd. I’ll get us a round.” Full of largesse, Toby motions for the waiter.

  “Finished with the Pappy?” the waiter says to Bex. “Another round?”

  “No thanks, man, we’ll change it up and have four Jack and Cokes,” Toby says.

  Upon hearing Jack and Coke, the waiter gives Bex a glance as if to say, “For real?”

  “Did you fine women want those Cokes to be diet?” Toby looks at Bex and me. God, this was a mistake. I’m surprised he didn’t call us ma’am.

  “I’m good, I don’t need another drink.” Bex’s face has turned as hard as stone.

  “Go ahead and bring four,” Toby says. “No harm in me having yours if you don’t want it. So,” he turns to me, “what are you on?”

  What am I on? Is this guy for real?

  “I’ve only had a couple of drinks. I’m not on anything.” I sniff at him, losing my ability to be nice. Why do we women feel like we have to be nice to everyone anyway? These guys are redefining the word jerk.

  He laughs and pulls out his phone. “No, I mean like what apps are you on? Seems like you’re up for it, too.” He gives me a sleazy look. “I’m on Tinder, Bumble, Match, The Society. Pretty much everything. I think it’s good to diversify. You know, like stocks.”

  Toby is swiping through the photos on his phone. “I met her on The Society, it’s the invitation only one. I think you might be out of the age bracket.” He looks up and intently assesses my face. “It’s very high class, very exclusive. She is total second wife material.”

  “Second wife material?”

  “Yeah, you know. First wife material is the kind of girl you want as the mother of your children. Reliable, nice, good-looking but not too sexy, so she’ll stay at home and raise the kids.”

  “Raise the kids?” I’m in total shock. I can’t believe the words I’m hearing from this jerk’s mouth. If Toby is the future of what it means to be a man, I can only hope that every woman becomes a lesbian. I thought this younger generation was supposed to be past stereotyped gender roles. Toby sounds like he’s straight out of a 1950s misogynist guidebook.

  He continues on, oblivious. “Whereas second wife material is the hot girl, the girl every guy in the room wants to fu—”

  “Okay, I get it,” I snap.

  “First wife—Jennifer Garner. Second wife—Jennifer Lawrence,” Jason chimes in and lays it all out as a simple equation.

  “Exactly, bro!” Toby reaches across the table to give Jason an enthusiastic high five.

  “Liv, I need to run to the ladies’. Come with me.” Bex grabs my arm.

  We both sit there and wait for either Jason or Toby to move out of our way so we can leave the booth. Jason is staring at his phone. Toby finally gets up so we can leave and says with tacky innuendo, “Don’t have too much fun without us. Or if you do, t
ake photos.”

  “Liv, who the hell are these morons? How does he have my photo?” Bex talk-shouts to me over her shoulder, furious. She’s walking so fast I can hardly keep up. “Have you been on my phone? I changed all the passwords for my profiles. I told you not to mess with anything! Where is the damn bathroom?”

  “Um, you gave me your phone to help navigate to yoga, remember?” I quietly reply. “I might have gone on Tinder.”

  “I can’t believe you! I really can’t.” Bex pushes open the door of the women’s bathroom.

  “I mean, he’s cute,” I say in weak defense. “And he’s probably too young to be a felon?” I’m floundering and I know it.

  “How could you do this to me after last night? He’s an asshole, and his friend is even more of an asshole. He’s nowhere near as cute as those men who sent over the drinks. And that just happened organically, analog-ally! Jack and Coke, my ass.” Bex is indignant, then looks around slightly bewildered. “Is this the bathroom?”

  “It’s looks like a Mary Kay cosmetics showroom.” I’m confused, or maybe drunk. “Let’s talk, okay? Please don’t be mad. I just thought it’d be fun to see what else is out there. You had your age range set at forty to fifty-five! I’m surprised you didn’t just go up to sixty. So, I lowered it a bit. Look, there’s actually a sofa in here.”

  We plop down on the pink velour sofa; the bourbon hitting both of us hard. Suddenly, two glasses of rose champagne float in front of us. “Complimentary bubbles?” a young woman asks. We exchange side glances, and a “what the hell” look and take the glasses. “Well, we sure as hell didn’t get served free champagne in bathrooms when we used to go bar hopping.” Bex’s voice is still brimming with irritation.

  “This is a Lounge, not a bathroom,” I correct her sarcastically, trying to lift her mood.