by Laura Levine
Kandi and I have been best friends ever since we met at a UCLA screenwriting course. We hit it off right away, in spite of the fact that she’s reed thin and has fabulous chestnut hair that never frizzes in the rain.
I’d told her all about my new job with SueEllen Kingsley, and now we were celebrating.
“Three thousand a week?” she said. “That’s fantastic.”
“I know,” I said, flagging down a passing waiter.
“Garçon,” I called out. “Give me a bottle of your very best champagne.”
The guy looked at me like I was nuts.
“We don’t have champagne, señorita.”
“Then bring us a pitcher of your very best margaritas.”
He nodded and headed off to the bar.
“Can you believe it?” I said, scooping a wad of guacamole onto a chip. “All I have to do is write down a couple of recipes, throw in a few anecdotes, and I bring home three thousand a week!”
“That’s great news, sweetie,” Kandi said. “But I’ve got even better news for you.”
“What could be better than three thousand dollars a week?”
“Tommy the Termite wants to go out with you!”
“Tommy the Termite? Who on earth is that? Sounds like a mafia hitman.”
“No, silly. He’s an actor from my show.”
Kandi is a writer for the animated cartoon series Beanie & The Cockroach. For those of you lucky enough to have never seen it, it’s a stirring saga about a chef named Beanie and his pet cockroach, Fred.
“His name is Ted Lawson. He’s very cute, and apparently he’s just broken up with his girlfriend.”
“Sorry, Kandi,” I said. “But I’m not dating an actor/insect.”
I scooped up another glob of guacamole, while Kandi took a tiny bite off the corner of a chip. Which is why Kandi wears a size six, and I wear a size—well, never mind what size I wear. Let’s just say it’s somewhere in the double digits.
“What am I going to do with you, Jaine? You sit alone in your apartment night after night, and when opportunity comes knocking, you hide under the sofa cushions. Do you want to wind up a crazy old lady who gives birthday parties for her cats?”
“What, may I ask, is wrong with giving a birthday party for one’s cat?”
Kandi’s eyes widened. “Don’t tell me you give Prozac birthday parties?”
“Yes, in fact, I do, and for your information she really enjoys them. I put a birthday candle in her can of Fancy Mackerel Guts, and afterwards we eat cake and ice cream.”
Okay, so I eat the cake and ice cream. But Prozac licks the lid.
Kandi shook her head. “I can’t believe you’re passing up a chance to go out with a wonderful guy to stay home and work on your relationship with your cat.”
“Sorry, but you’re going to have to tell this termite guy I’m not interested.”
“No,” Kandi said. “You’re going to have to tell him. I already gave him your number.”
“Kandi! How could you?”
“What’s the big deal? When he calls, just say no. You’ve had plenty of practice.”
“I will, don’t worry. And besides, if he’s so great, why don’t you go out with him?”
“I can’t.” Kandi’s eyes lit up with excitement. “I’m dating someone.”
“Really? Who?”
“A martial arts instructor!”
“How on earth did you meet a martial arts instructor?”
“He’s teaching a self-defense course at the studio. One of the producers on the lot got assaulted on the way to her car by an angry writer, and so now they’re making us study self-defense. Oh, Jaine, he’s such a doll. So manly and sure of himself. Unlike the cerebral wimps I usually waste my time on.”
“Does Mr. Manly have a name?”
“Matt Malone. Isn’t that a great name? It’s so No Frills.”
“How long have you been seeing him?”
“Well, he hasn’t exactly asked me out yet, but I know he will.”
That’s Kandi for you. Ever the optimist.
“It’s obvious he likes me. He keeps calling me up to the front of the class for demonstrations. Last night, I kicked him in the groin. Not really. But he showed me where to aim. God, it was sexy.
“I’m telling you, Jaine,” she said, dabbing at the guacamole with the tines of her fork. “This time I’ve met Mr. Right.”
I smiled weakly. Kandi meets an average of 2.38 Mr. Rights per month. And 2.37 of them turn out to be duds. The amazing thing, though, is that she never gives up. She sails from one guy to the next, never bloodied, never bowed. Unlike yours truly, who threw in the towel after one measly marriage.
True, it was the marriage from Hell. But lots of other women recover from bad marriages. Why didn’t I? I’ll tell you why: Because those other women weren’t married to The Blob. That’s what I call my ex-husband. I didn’t always call him The Blob. Back when we were still married, I called him My First Husband. I should’ve known I was in trouble when he wore flip flops to our wedding. I’ll spare you the painful details of the rest of our four years together. Let’s just say that by the time the divorce was final, I was ready to check into a convent and throw away the key.
“Here you go, señoritas.”
The waiter was at our table, with a pitcher of margaritas. He poured us each a frosty glass.
“Here’s to your new job,” Kandi said, “and my new relationship.”
As fate would have it, neither lasted two weeks.
“Mommy’s home!” I called out as I let myself into my apartment, which—for all you architecture fans out there—is a 1940s duplex in the low-rent area of Beverly Hills. Not that the rent is actually low, but it seems that way, compared to the Casa Kingsleys of the world.
Prozac raised her head from where she was napping on my best cashmere sweater and looked at me through slitted eyes.
When will you get over the ridiculous notion that you’re my mother? she seemed to be saying. In case you’ve forgotten, one of us is a cat, and the other a mere mortal.
I know she doesn’t like it when I call myself Mommy, but I’m the one footing the cat food bills, so Mommy it is.
“Mommy’s got a new job,” I said, scratching her belly. “And guess how much I’m getting paid, snookums? Three thousand lovely dollars a week! That’s enough to keep you in albacore tuna morning, noon, and night.”
Her eyes shot open wide. Just the mention of food can do that to her. We’re a lot alike, my Prozac and I.
The phone rang, and I got it.
“Three thousand dollars a week? Congratulations!”
It was Lance Venable, my next door neighbor.
“I couldn’t help overhearing,” he said.
And it’s true. The man has x-ray hearing. Really. Lance hears toilets flushing in West Covina. Which was pretty disconcerting when I first moved in to my apartment, but I’ve gotten used to it now.
“So tell me all about your new job.”
And I did.
“Wow,” he said when I was through. “SueEllen Kingsley. I see her picture in the society pages all the time. What amazing tits. You really saw them naked?”
“Yep. They float.”
“How come nothing fun like that ever happens at my job?” he pouted. “All I get to see are bunions.”
Lance is a shoe salesman at Neiman Marcus. Tall and thin with a headful of silky blond curls, Lance has been working at Neiman’s ever since I’ve known him.
Unlike the other shoe salesmen at Neiman’s, Lance is not an aspiring actor/director. He knows he doesn’t want to spend the rest of his life selling shoes, but so far, he hasn’t figured out what he does want to do. So he spends his days fondling in-steps, and is kind enough to let me use his employee discount. Which means that instead of paying $500 for a pair of outrageously overpriced shoes, all I have to pay is $400. Not that I’d ever dream of paying $400 for a pair of shoes. But I could if I wanted to, thanks to Lance. And who knows? Now that I w
as making three thousand smackers a week, I just might.
We gabbed some more, mainly about Lance’s new boyfriend, a Brentwood real estate broker.
“Jim’s so great,” he gushed. “I only wish you’d meet a guy, too. Straight, of course.”
He babbled on about how kind/caring/handsome/loving/sexy/talented Jim was. I’d been down this road with him before, just like I’d been with Kandi, and I knew that as sure as Prozac would wolf down her next meal, there’d be heartbreak ahead. When it comes to picking boyfriends, apparently men are just as clueless as women. Which is why I for one am perfectly happy with a cat as my significant other.
Finally, Lance wound down about the Joys of Jim, and we hung up. I headed to the kitchen to get some kitty treats for Prozac and some Ben & Jerry’s for me. Then I checked my e-mail. Nothing except an offer to have hot cybersex with a woman named Brandi. And some letters from my parents. I decided to read my parents’ letters in the morning. I didn’t want anything to bring me down off my three-thousand-dollar-a-week high.
Don’t get me wrong. I love my mom and dad. But frankly, they’re—how can I put this gently?—they’re stark raving bonkers. To look at them, you’d think they’re just an average sixtysomething couple living in a retirement community in Tampa, Florida. But the truth is their lives are straight out of a soap opera. Somehow they always seem to be in the middle of a crisis, a crisis they expect me to solve. I’ve read about people like my parents, people who don’t feel alive unless they’re swirling in a maelstrom of drama.
Daddy is the main culprit. This is a guy who can take a perfectly ordinary day and turn it into an episode of Survivor. As my mom often says, “Daddy doesn’t have ulcers. He’s just a carrier.”
Mom’s only major lapse into nuttihood (aside from marrying Daddy) is her fanatic devotion to the Home Shopping Club. The woman has enough cubic zirconia to light up Times Square.
But enough about my parents. I’m sure you’ve got parents of your own to worry about. The point is, I’d had a good day and I wanted to keep it that way. I wasn’t in the mood for a domestic crisis, or one of Daddy’s bad e-mail jokes. I’d definitely save their letters for tomorrow.
Instead, I settled into bed with Ben, Jerry, and Prozac. The four of us happily watched an old Doris Day movie. At the beginning of the movie, Doris is a sensible woman, happy to be alone and independent. Not moping around, dreaming of having a man in her life. Why couldn’t Kandi and Lance be more like me and Doris? But then, of course, Doris falls head over heels in love with Rock Hudson and defects to the Lance/Kandi camp.
I thought about Lance and Kandi, and their quest for Mr. Right.
“What do you think?” I said, scooping Prozac up into my arms. “Are they the smart ones for trying? Am I a fool for holing myself up in the apartment with you? Should I give it one more chance and go out with that guy from Kandi’s show?”
Prozac purred in my arms, doing her best to look adorable. Of course you’re better off holed up here with me. Who wouldn’t be?
The phone rang. It was Lance.
“What guy from Kandi’s show?”
I told him what little I knew about Tommy the Termite.
“Promise me you’ll go out with him,” he said. “I won’t hang up till you promise.”
So I promised, and we hung up. I turned out the light, Doris and Rock still flickering in the background.
Maybe I would go out with Mr. Termite. And maybe one of these days when I talked to a man in bed, there wouldn’t be a wall between us.
YOU’VE GOT MAIL!
To: Jausten
From: Shoptillyoudrop
Subject: You’ll Never Guess What Your Father’s Done Now
Well, honey, I hope things are fine in Los Angeles, because they sure aren’t fine here in Florida. You’ll never guess what your father’s done now. He’s gone and bought a toupee.
It wouldn’t be so bad if he’d bought a regular toupee or joined the Hair Club for Men like a normal human being. But no, your father bought the darn thing at a thrift shop. That’s right. He bought a used toupee!
We were at the thrift shop donating some clothing, when suddenly I looked up and saw Daddy with this ratty brown monstrosity on his head. I swear, Jaine, it looks just like squirrel fur. I begged him not to buy it, but you know how stubborn your father can be once he makes up his mind.
“Where am I going to find another toupee like this?” he asked. “Try the city dump,” I said. But he ignored me and bought it anyway. He insisted on wearing it out of the store. I was so darn angry I didn’t even tell him that the price tag was dangling down his neck.
And now he’s strutting around like he’s God’s gift to women. He thinks people are staring at him because he looks “dashing,” when the truth is they’re staring because he looks like a recent escapee from a lunatic asylum.
Today at the Tampa Vistas Clubhouse, old Mrs. Farraday took one look at the toupee and said, “What a cute hat. Just like the one Omar Sharif wore in Dr. Zhivago.”
You’d think your father would be embarrassed. But no. He says Mrs. Farraday is senile and wouldn’t know a quality toupee if it sat in her lap. Even worse, now he thinks he looks like Omar Sharif.
Honestly, Jaine, with that toupee on, your father is a totally different person. It’s like living with a stranger. A stranger with a dead squirrel on his head. I told him I absolutely refused to have “dipsy doodle” with him if he wore that damn thing to bed. And so for the time being at least, he’s taking it off at night.
Love from,
Mom
To: Shoptillyoudrop
From: Jausten
Subject: Try Not to Worry
Please, Mom, the less I know about you and Daddy “dipsy doodling,” the better.
Try not to worry. Daddy’s always trying new things. Sooner or later, he gets tired of them. Remember the time he bought that case of “factory seconds” self-tanning lotion and he was convinced he looked like George Hamilton until his skin turned orange?
To: Jausten
From: Shoptillyoudrop
Yes, I remember. We’re still paying the dermatologist’s bills.
To: Jausten
From: DaddyO
Subject: Good news
Hi, Cookie!
Did Mom tell you the good news? I bought a toupee. A top quality hairpiece. And what a difference it makes. I look years younger, and not only that, it keeps my head warm, too. Especially in air conditioned restaurants. I’ll bet I won’t catch half as many colds as I used to.
And I don’t mind admitting, I’m getting lots of interested looks from the ladies. One of the gals at the clubhouse told me I looked just like Omar Sharif.
I’m afraid your mother is jealous of all the attention I’m getting. She makes fun of me because I bought the toupee at a thrift shop, but look who’s talking. This is a woman who buys steaks from the shopping channel. Every supermarket in town sells steaks, but no, your mother has to buy them from the television. And she makes fun of me because I bought my hair at a thrift shop?
Take care, honey.
Your loving,
Daddy
PS. Here’s a cute joke I heard at the clubhouse: What goes CLOP CLOP, BANG BANG, CLOP CLOP?
An Armenian drive-by shooting!
To: DaddyO
From: Jausten
Thanks for the joke, Daddy. But I think it’s supposed to be an Amish drive-by shooting. Because their horses go clop clop. Get it?
About your new head of hair: Are you sure you want to be wearing a used toupee? I mean, you have no idea who might have worn it before you. What if they had a scalp disease?
To: Jausten
From: DaddyO
Subject: Previously Owned
First of all, honey. My toupee is not “used.” It’s “previously owned.” The lady at the thrift shop told me it belonged to Burt Reynolds! Either him, or Sam Donaldson. And no need to worry about germs. I’ve already sprayed it with Lysol.
To: Jau
sten
From: Shoptillyoudrop
Subject: Self-respecting germ
Your father just sprayed his toupee with Lysol. He needn’t have bothered. No self-respecting germ would be caught dead in that wig.
I’ve simply got to think of a way to get rid of it.
Your desperate,
Mom
Chapter Three
I sat on SueEllen Kingsley’s toilet bowl with a sense of foreboding. Not about the book. After five minutes listening to SueEllen prattle, I knew her book (At Home With SueEllen) would never see the light of day. Not with recipes that began, “Have your maid debone a turkey…” This was a woman who probably needed directions to get to her kitchen.
No, I was worried about my father. Ever since my parents retired to Florida, Daddy’s been acting nuttier than ever. Last year, for example, he was convinced my mother was having an affair with one of the hosts from the Home Shopping Club. And now this business about buying a toupee at a thrift shop. What sort of person buys a used toupee? I only hoped he wasn’t going to wind up one of those crazy old men who take out their dentures in restaurants. Oh, well. There was no use worrying about it. With my parents living 3,000 miles away in Florida, there was nothing I could do.
I forced myself to listen to SueEllen, who was stretched out in the tub, rambling on about her childhood in the Deep South.
“We may not have had much money,” she said, “but from an early age I learned the art of gracious living.”
She picked up a pumice stone from a bath tray and began scraping away at her calluses. In addition to the pumice stone, her bath tray held such grooming necessities as a bottle of Cristal champagne, a Walkman TV, and a half-eaten salad. I eyed her salad covetously. Mainly because I was starving.
