Reinventing Mona

by Jennifer Coburn

  “I woke you up, didn’t I?”

  “Hey,” he said, pleased. “No, it’s okay. Is everything okay?”

  “Fine, I just wanted to return your call. You sounded kind of, um, well, troubled.”

  “You mean drunk. Sorry about that.” I heard a woman’s sleepy voice call Mike’s name.

  “Oh, you’re, um, with someone. We can talk later.”

  Mike muffled the phone and then returned to me. “Don’t worry about it. Hold on a sec,” he said as I imagined him slipping on his sweatpants and leaving a mass of blond hair on a pillow beside him. “Let me get to the other room.”

  “No, that’s okay, I don’t want to interrupt your, um, night,” I stammered.

  “I said not to worry about it. My friend is just sleeping.”

  “Good friend?” I asked, trying my hardest not to sound jealous.

  “New friend,” he said nonchalantly.

  Too chipper, I said, “How great! This is a bad time to talk so why don’t we—”

  “Mona Lisa, it’s one-thirty. You wouldn’t’ve called if it wasn’t important. What’s up? I’m in another room now. I’m all yours.”

  All mine?! All mine?! You just had sex with a stranger! How “all mine” could you be, you perma-trolling fuck hound?!

  “Um, okay. I just wanted to tell you that you were right about the purse-snatching thing. It didn’t go the way I’d planned.”

  “I told you that one was a loser, Mona Lisa,” Mike said. “Stick with the sports references. I’m telling you that’s the best card we’ve played.” I imagined him sinking into a denim La-Z-Boy, and wondered what his home looked like. Probably a huge flat screen television was the focal point of his otherwise bare living room. Maybe a small leather sofa right in front of it and a functionally ugly table to support beer bottles and chip bowls. “Guys aren’t into this superhero shit. You know the only reason we dig Wonder Woman is ‘cause of her rack and invisible plane, right? Catwoman, too. I don’t even know what she does, but she sure looks good in that vinyl suit. Maybe that’s what you need to do, Mona. Get into the whole costume thing.”

  “Mike, your sister bought my entire wardrobe. I am into the whole costume thing.”

  He laughed. “I remember that first time I met you with that smock thing and clogs. You looked like something out of a gardening magazine.”

  “Mike, focus. What am I going to do?” I hoped he’d tell me to forget about Adam, and promise that tonight’s bargirl was his last one-night stand. I silently begged to hear something sweet. I’d even take the drunken serenade at this point, but he sounded completely sober and sung out.

  “Okay, the way I see it, you’ve been making a lot of assumptions about what you think this guy wants in a woman. You’ve gotta figure out what really turns him on. What his hot buttons are. What are some of the things he does in his free time?”

  “Mike!” I shouted. “You told me to have a sordid past. I pay you so I don’t have to make assumptions about him. You’re supposed to be the male consultant!”

  “And you were supposed to be Claudia Schiffer,” he said. “I never said I had any great inside track to the male mind. You chose me ‘cause you thought I could help you. I never said I’d be any good at this.”

  “Well, you’re useless!” I shouted. Softening, I asked if he would still advise me if weren’t paying him.

  “I wouldn’t know you.”

  You are such a guy!!!!!

  “Okay, but if you already knew me and we were friends, would you spend time with me on the phone listening to my problems and giving me advice? Or is this all just about the money for you? I mean if I fired you, would we still be friends?”

  “You firing me?” he asked. Until that moment, I hadn’t considered it, but I wondered if Mike’s interest in me was purely economic. There was only one way to ever find out for sure, and asking him wasn’t it.

  “Yes, Mike. I’m firing you.”

  “Whoa. Okay. I didn’t know you weren’t happy with the way things were going. You seemed okay with how things were. When did this come on?”

  “It’s not you, it’s me,” I told him. “I just don’t want to feel like this is all about the money. Every time I talk to you, I wonder if it’s only ‘cause you’re being paid.”

  “Oh. I didn’t know you thought that. Okay then, I’m off the payroll, I guess,” he said.

  Say it ain’t so! Tell me you love talking to me and you’ll still be a part of my life even after I fire you.

  “Are we still friends? Will I still see you?” I asked a bit too desperately.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow at the soccer game,” he said.

  “Are you going to the brunch afterward?”

  “I don’t know, maybe. I’ll see how I feel tomorrow.” He yawned. “Right now I’m thinking I’ll be lucky to make it to the game. I’m gonna get back to bed, Mona Lisa.”

  Back to bed. Back to bed. Back to bed with HER!

  I washed my face and watched the mascara stream from my eyes. I carefully wiped away black tears with the makeup remover Vicki suggested I use to avoid pulling my lids into a state of premature wrinkles. Stripping away my expertly applied makeup, I saw my real face, one that was depleted of life, siphoned.

  * * *

  I woke up in the middle of the night and decided to walk to the naval base in my slippers. Tonight, I would take the greatest risk of my life and scale the wall of North Island while the nation was just days away from declaring war on Iraq. I knew if I made it inside without being detected, everything would be okay. Perhaps I would just tip toe into the commissary and steal a Chipwich, or maybe I’d sneak into the mess hall, peel and shred potatoes to surprise the cooks with ready-to-fry hash browns for breakfast Whatever I did was really irrelevant It was making it inside during a time of heightened security that was my primary goal.

  The thud of my body landing on the grass inside the naval base set off a series of lights that scanned the ground until fixing on me. I saw myself, looking like a blinded silhouette sitting beneath a UFO. “Put your hands in the air, Miss Warren,” an unseen man blared from the base public announcement system. “Don’t make a move or we’ll have no choice but to shoot.”

  Next thing I knew, I was sitting in an interrogation room, wearing no underpants and smoking a cigarette like Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct. Except no one looked particularly titillated by me nor did I feel sexy wearing a patch of grass on my left arm. “Miss Warren, trespassing onto a U.S. military base is a capital crime.”

  “Capital crime?” I shuddered at the faceless captain. “As in death penalty?”

  “Precisely,” said another uniform.

  “But I didn’t do anything except try to come inside. I was just going to look around, I wasn’t going to—”

  “Silence!” the captain shouted. “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.”

  What curtain?

  “Your intentions are irrelevant, Miss Warren. You have committed an act of treason against the homeland, and now you will get what you deserve.” With these words, my hands were cuffed and my body yanked from the metal chair. I sat up and my eyes shot open, rescuing me back into a state of consciousness.

  “Good God,” I said to no one, wiping a layer of sweat from my forehead. My heart still raced as if I were about to be escorted to the naval death chamber. I turned on my light and scanned the room to assure myself that I was indeed safe in my own bed. I leaned back into my pillows, silently repeating that there was no place like home. I fell asleep to the sound of Officer Marman’s voice: “You had your ruby slippers all along.”

  Chapter 29

  Greta and I drove to Vicki’s house the next morning to pick her up for the game. Vicki’s car had broken down and she had no means of transportation other than her friends and the less-than-efficient San Diego mass transit system. Most of the time, economic class was an intellectual concept, not something I got to see firsthand. Of course, I knew there were “those less fortunate,” as
Grammy used to call people with limited means, but they were these nameless, faceless people for whom we would collect food at Christmas. Or, removing ourselves even one step further, we would attend elegant garden luncheons or hat parties to benefit the “less fortunate.” Vicki wasn’t quite at the level of a canned food recipient, but driving through her neighborhood posed a stark contrast to the streets we’d driven to exit the island.

  Although we were minimalists on the commune, I always knew that this was a matter of choice rather than deprivation. Never in my life had I met someone whose car broke down. Automotive death was not a part of the Coronado car life cycle. Everyone we knew always had relatively new cars that were quietly replaced every few years.

  Greta and I passed two seemingly unattended young children playing with remote control model cars on the sidewalk in front of Vicki’s house. The apartment complex was sea green concrete with wrought iron bars shielding every window. From one window hung a bright red planter box with a few rotted stems bent hopelessly.

  Before we’d reached the second story of the apartment building, we heard shouting from Vicki’s apartment. It was hard to hear exactly what she and her boyfriend were fighting about, though we could easily get the gist of the discussion. He was a loser; she was a bitch. When I knocked on the door, I half expected Marlon Brando in a sleeveless undershirt to answer. Unfortunately, I did not get the Hollywood sanitized version of the abusive lover.

  In an instant, I understood why Vicki had never mentioned a boyfriend before. He was disgusting both to look at and to listen to. The man literally had a head in the shape of a papaya, gaining girth during the long journey north. His eyes were covered in crust at eleven in the morning and his face looked as if it hadn’t been shaved in four days. The same time must’ve elapsed since his last tooth brushing as I could see scraps of food clinging to coffee and tobacco stains.

  “What!” he said.

  “Shut up, you dickhead!” Vicki shouted. “These are my friends. I’m going to play soccer, remember?”

  “How could I forget, Bruiser?” he snapped. His arm acted as a door chain, allowing us to see his limp black armpit hair draping from his undershirt “You better not get any more marks, you hear me? People think I’m beating up on you.” Vicki grabbed her cleats from the chair beside the door and brushed past him.

  “Where’s my kiss, Mia Hamm?” he called after her.

  “Kiss my ass,” she shouted.

  The three of us were silent for the first ten minutes of our car ride, then Greta and I simultaneously burst into questions about Vicki’s boyfriend. “I’m sorry, Vicki, but that guy is gross. You have so much going for you, I can’t understand why you’re with that creep,” I said.

  “It’s temporary,” she said tersely. “Just until I get back on my feet.”

  Greta couldn’t resist a little sarcasm. “He seems like just the guy to help you with that.”

  “Jimmy’s not that bad,” Vicki said.

  “Compared to what?” I asked.

  “Come on, you guys. We’re not all on the same boat here. I’ve got an exit strategy. If I keep dancing, I’ll be able to move out in another two or three months. Jimmy knows I’m leaving, which is why he’s pissed at me. Ever since I started making money, he says I’m too big for my britches. Says I think I’m too good for him.”

  “You do, don’t you?” I asked.

  “Do what?” she knit her brows. Greta pulled into the soccer field parking lot and turned off her ignition, but none of us got out of the car just yet.

  “You do think you’re better than him, don’t you?” I asked.

  “I think he’s a dickhead,” she answered.

  “And you know that you’re better than a dickhead, right?”

  Without thinking, I insisted that Vicki stay with me for a few months while she decorated the downstairs bedrooms. “Don’t even go home tonight. We can go to your apartment Monday morning while Creepo’s at work and pick up your stuff. You’ll stay with me, do the downstairs rooms, and keep dancing until you get some cash reserves.”

  Vicki laughed.

  “What?” Greta turned to her. “I think Mona’s right. It never fails to amaze me how many beautiful young women with so much promise and talent wind up with men completely and totally unworthy of them. You need to get yourself out of there today. That guy is trouble.”

  I nodded, and without further discussion insisted that Vicki move in immediately. It was not without some guilt that I began to worry about Vicki’s ability to decorate my home with her limited knowledge of interior design. I hated myself for such snobbery, but quietly fretted that she might make my grandparents’ dated (but undeniably regal) estate look, well, cheap.

  After the Kickin’ Chicks’ worst loss of the season, the team and friends gathered at the Big Kitchen for their end-of-season party. By one, most of Judy’s other patrons had cleared out of the breakfast joint and went about their day. The gravel-voiced goddess emerged from the kitchen to personally serve coffee for everyone.

  Mike looked surprisingly well-rested, though he didn’t show up to the game until halftime. I tried to keep my eyes on the field and not allow my head to turn every few minutes, checking for his arrival, though I was not entirely able to control the impulse. His hair was still wet, which meant that while I was sitting in my fold-up fan chair, dutifully cheering for his sister, Mike was likely showering with HER. “Good morning?” I accidentally asked instead of stated when Mike arrived.

  “Hey, morning to you, Mona Lisa.” He leaned to kiss my cheek. Just morning, ay? Not a necessarily good one for you? Or was it going well until you realized you had to show up to the game and tear yourself away from HER?

  “What’s the score?” Mike asked.

  You everything; me squat.

  “Three, nothing, we’re down,” I said, keeping my eyes locked on the field for the first time.

  “That sucks.” He secured his chair legs into the soil and plopped into his seat beside me.

  What sucks is that I’ve completely and totally fallen for you when you are unavailable to do anything other than break my heart. I cannot afford to fall in love with you. I simply do not have the emotional reserves to do it, and that is what sucks, not the Kickin’ Chicks being three goals behind at halftime!

  “Yeah, totally sucks,” I returned.

  “Hey, it’s a game, kiddo, don’t sweat it.” He punched my arm. “Don’t take it so hard.”

  A game?! Kiddo?! Arm punching?! I wanted to kill him, then cry.

  * * *

  At the Big Kitchen, Mike sat his well-rested, clean-smelling self next to me. “What’re ‘ya having, Mona Lisa?”

  Heartache. “Um, probably the sautéed veggies with tofu and brown rice. How ‘bout you?”

  “Not sure yet,” he said as he continued looking at the menu.

  The indecisive jerk doesn’t even know what he wants for breakfast!

  After Judy took our breakfast orders, Brooke stood at the head of the table and toasted the end of a successful soccer season and awarded each player with a special designation. Greta won the “Brick House” award for allowing only ten goals to be scored against the team in twelve games. “Unfortunately, four of them were today,” Brooke said as she winked. “But we still love our little Tokyo tomboy.” Vicki won Rookie of the Year, which she accepted with a self-mocking round of blown kisses around the table. “And the reason I named these two last is because Greta and Vicki not only brought their love of soccer and their athletic prowess to the team, they also brought us our two most loyal fans.” All heads turned toward Mike and me. “When we met Mona back in January, she played a scrimmage with us and let’s just say she had a lot of spunk. We knew she’d be a valuable asset to any team as long as she stayed off the field.” The group laughed good-naturedly as Mike patted me on the back.

  “You’re next, buddy,” I muttered through my smile.

  “Anyway, Mona has been to all twelve games, which tells us that she’s either a tr
ue blue Chicks fan or,” she paused for effect, “she’s got a crush on one of the players.”

  Through the laughter of the crowd, Mike announced his sheer delight with this idea by patting his heart with his hand. “Lesbian soccer groupies, now we’re talkin’.”

  “I’ll get to you in a minute.” Brooke held court with her hand on her waist and her head moving back and forth like a talk show panelist. “So it gives me great pleasure to give a special award for our number-one fan, Mona Warren, who, by unanimous decision, we name an honorary Kickin’ Chick.” The table erupted in a round of “awwww” and applause. Thankfully, before I could get mushy at the thought, Brooke quickly turned her attention toward Mike. “Now you, Dog,” she placed her hand on her hip again. “We had our doubts about you when you showed up for Vicki’s first game and started going off about this one’s a lesbian and that one’s a dyke. And God knows you don’t do much to dispel that machismo image in that punk-ass column of yours. But Mike, I’ll give you this. You show up at the games and you are a true blue fan.” The team laughed and nodded in agreement. “The time you really won me over, though, was when you showed up with pink face paint to one of our games.”

  “Hey, it takes a secure man to wear pink,” Mike heckled.

  “It takes a loser to wear face paint,” Vicki shouted from across the table.

  “Hey, it shows commitment to the team.” Mike laughed. “I’m a guy who’s not afraid to commit. Or wear makeup. Or pink. Shit, I’m queer,” he said, sliding into his seat and feigning embarrassment over his self-outing.

  “Well, Mike,” said Brooke with a tremendous lipstick smile, “so am I.” She winked. “And as a special gift to our most dedicated male fan, I’m going to give you what you’ve been waiting for all season.” Dramatically, she flipped her long black hair behind her back and strutted around the side of the table to Nadia, our angelic-looking brunette midfielder. She placed her hands on Nadia’s full cheeks, turned to Mike and asked if he was ready. Before he finished nodding, Brooke leaned in and gave Nadia the most passionate, soulful kiss I’d ever witnessed—live or celluloid.