L.A. Woman

by Cathy Yardley

  “What?”

  “That whole conversation.”

  Kit paused again. She knew he understood what she was talking about. “But it was a guy, right?”

  “Does it matter?”

  She could hear the shrug, she swore to God. Like the phone shifted. “I’m just curious.”

  “Why?”

  “You’re a friend of Tika’s. I’m a friend of Tika’s. We both know what she’s like with men. They’re the center of her world—briefly, and regularly.”

  Okay, now she really didn’t like the direction this conversation was taking. “So, what?”

  “So you’ve been taking a lot of cues from her lately,” Kit pointed out. Then, in a quiet voice, lower than his usual mumble, she made out the phrase: “I’ve been a little worried.”

  “Worried about what? That I’m going to sleep my way across town? Is that all you guys think about?”

  “You’re right. A guy thinking about sex. How unusual.”

  “Yes, I’ve been screwing every guy that crosses my path,” she said, rolling her eyes, leaning back in the chair. “I’ve been taking extra yoga classes for when the Third Fleet’s scheduled to come in. I’m giving out frequent user cards—after every tenth session, I buy the guy a sandwich.” She huffed impatiently. “Honestly.”

  He paused. “Hmm. I’m always in the market for a good sandwich.”

  “Screw you, Kit.”

  “Among others, eh?”

  She squealed in annoyance, then hung up. When it rang, she answered it. “Yes?”

  “Hi, I’m your local navy recruiter, and I wanted to let you know the Third Fleet’s in….”

  She promptly hung up on him again. She started laughing. Kit was—like the kid brother she never had. Or the guy in third grade who always threw rocks at her, little ones. He was easy to talk to, probably easy to cry on, and definitely harmless.

  In short, Kit was a nice guy.

  He was right. She didn’t want to sleep with a nice guy, either.

  “I think I’m dying.”

  Taylor leaned back on a chair at the Bar Marmount, watching Martika look at her drink. “Excuse me,” he said, gesturing to an invisible three-foot circle surrounding his seat. “This is a drama-free zone.”

  “I’m not being drama,” she protested, sprawling back in her own chair disconsolately. “I feel it. I feel sick. I can feel it in my chest, in my stomach, in my head…everywhere.”

  Taylor sighed the sigh of the much beleaguered. “Sure you do. So what does it feel like?”

  “Like I’m going to throw up,” she said nervously, feeling nauseous just thinking about it.

  “Girlie-girl, you’ve got a history of stress-stomach. Did they ever confirm those were ulcers?”

  She frowned at him. “That was when I was working at the design house, Taylor.”

  “You can’t say you’re not stressed out now, Tika. Sarah’s starting to turn into a little diva with the Raoul incident, the fact that you’re rooming with a woman period, the fact that your design job is stepping up a notch, the fact that you’re turning thirty…”

  She hissed at him, glancing around.

  He rolled his eyes. “All sorts of stress lately. You’re not the only one.”

  She knew he was referring to their discussion after Luis dumped him. She had tried to respect his need for space, or whatever. It had been short-lived. They had spent a few days apart, then they were back to normal. Normal for them.

  “Well, and I’ve been having headaches. And I’ve been way bloated.”

  “Tell me about it,” he said, glancing over her all-black pant-suit ensemble. “Time to go back to the gym, honey. That’s not water weight, that’s fat.”

  “Don’t be bitchy to distract me,” Tika said, swirling her soda around. She sipped at her Pellegrino. She would’ve loved to have gotten drunk, but the last time she’d tried…ugh. She reminded herself of Sarah’s regurgitational ballet, that first night on Stoli. “I’m really worried.”

  “Obviously. So why don’t you go to a doctor?”

  “Because I don’t want to hear that I’m dying.”

  Taylor sighed, then stood up and opened his arms. “Come here.”

  “Taylor, what are you…”

  “Don’t argue with me, woman,” he said, in his best butch-straight-guy voice.

  She got up. He enveloped her in his arms, something only a man of his height could do. “You are not dying.”

  “You don’t know that,” she said, muffled against his shirt.

  “Shh. You are not dying, because it’s all about you. You are simply too fabulous to die. If you die, not only will the sorrow be too much for the world to bear, it would be pointless because the world would cease to exist if you weren’t dutifully standing at the center of it, giving us purpose, telling us what to do. Giving us something to dream about. You cannot die.”

  She felt tears welling in her eyes, and she hugged him a little tighter. They must’ve been a sight—standing like big hugging giants in the middle of a trendy bar in Los Angeles, looking like refugees from the death of disco, with an Amazonian club queen crying like an actor in some really bad drag dinner theater. She laughed at the image of herself, even as she cried, knowing she was going to look like a raccoon when this was all over. She felt Taylor’s broad hand smoothing down her shoulder in comforting strokes.

  She thought of her father, inexplicably—how long it’d been since she’d spoken to him. Back then, she was still a giant, gangly fifteen-year-old. She ran away a little under a year later.

  “Feel better?”

  “Are you kidding? After that speech? I felt like you ought to have been playing the theme from Patton in the background.” She sniffled, sitting down in her chair. She mopped at her eyes, pouting at the thick black that came off onto the cocktail napkin. “Boy, I’ll bet I look gorgeous. But I will say this—my stomach feels a little better.”

  “Damn,” Taylor drawled. “If you really do die, can I get your car?”

  “Bitch. You drive like an old woman.”

  “You drive like some ugly NASCAR driver,” he said, shrugging. “We balance. You know what you need?”

  Her phone rang, playing a tinkling electronic version of “Animal” by Nine Inch Nails. “What do I need?” she said, glancing at the number that flashed in the display. She didn’t recognize it.

  “Another trip to Pointless Party,” Taylor said, all but rubbing his hands together in glee. “We’re due, don’t you think?”

  “Okay, I suppose. But no drinking…I’ll explain later. This is me, and you are?” she finally said, answering the phone.

  “Martika?”

  She didn’t recognize the voice. It sounded high for a guy, sort of, and…well, vaguely familiar. Which narrowed it down to, oh, about five hundred men. Conservatively. “Yes? Who’s this?”

  “This is Ray.”

  Still no bells. “Ray…”

  “From Pointless Party. From…” He lowered his voice, as if in uncertain company. “You know. The storeroom.”

  The…oh. “Right! It’s been a while.” A few weeks, anyway. She shouldn’t have to remember everybody she’d screwed in the past few weeks. Actually, what with dealing with Taylor and enduring new diva-Sarah, she’d been off her game. Maybe she hadn’t slept with anybody since then. Maybe not. He was pretty good. “Strangely enough, I was just talking about going back there. Wanna come?”

  Taylor was mouthing “Who?” to her, and she made a pantomime of closing a door, then moving her hips as if getting laid. He laughed, even as she noticed other patrons staring at her. She smiled sweetly at them. Ray still hadn’t spoken. “Can you talk?” he said, instead.

  She frowned. “Of course I can talk. You’re hearing me, aren’t you?”

  “I mean…well, this isn’t easy to say.”

  She rolled her eyes. His story, as they say, was getting tiresome. “Try just spitting it out. Or try not saying it.”

  “You remember that night?�
��

  “Vaguely,” she said, just to be bitchy.

  “Well,” he said, “I have a confession to make. I’m, well, married.”

  She smacked the heel of her hand on her forehead. “I see.” She gestured to her ring finger on her left hand. Taylor started laughing even harder. “Well. Mistakes were made, consider yourself uninvited, and it was…well, uninspiring, to be perfectly honest. Have a nice life.”

  “Don’t hang up!”

  She sighed, throwing her head back in exasperation and staring at the ceiling. “You mean there’s more? What, are you married to a man or something?”

  “No! No. Nothing like that. We’ve been married for a year, and I’ve been wondering if maybe I made a mistake. When you came on to me…” Tika winced at that part. “I wanted you. I wanted to see if I could have sex with someone other than April.”

  “Fantastic. So glad I provided a useful service.”

  “Well, the thing is, I was very upset, I was sort of plastered. I wasn’t myself. I had trouble with the condom.”

  “I think I remember that,” she said. “I was fairly plastered myself.”

  “Well, it broke, but I wanted you so much that I…”

  “Wait a second,” she said, feeling her body go cold. “What do you mean, it broke?”

  “I said I was drunk, right? I was clumsy, and impatient, and stupid…”

  “Are you saying you had sex without it?” Now the cold radiated from her stomach to her throat. That nauseous feeling was now clenching at her chest, like fire. Oh, the ulcer was in overdrive, who was she kidding?

  “I told everything to April, naturally. I realized afterward that I wanted to be with her for the rest of my life, that I’d made a dreadful mistake…”

  “Oh, fuck you,” she said sharply. “Why the hell are you calling me? What have you done, you dickless little twerp?”

  “She wants you to get a blood test. She wants to know what you may have given me.” He sighed.

  Martika’s eyes almost exploded with the shock. “What?”

  “It takes six months for an HIV test to be absolutely certain,” he said, his tone high and mournful, like a teenager who’d been pulled over by a cop. “She doesn’t want to wait six months to figure out what’s going to happen to me, if she should stay or not. She thinks you ought to get tested…”

  “Well, you tell your little wife that she can just wait it out and deal with you,” Martika said in a low voice. “Besides, how do I know that you haven’t slept with anybody else? Idiot!”

  “Now see here,” he said, and the righteousness of his voice made her frenzied, “I don’t make a practice of sleeping with total strangers. There may have—oh, okay, there was one other time, but really…”

  “If I had you here now, I’d string you up by your balls,” she hissed.

  He sighed. “My wife…”

  “This is none of her goddamn business! This is all your fault!”

  “You were…”

  “Shut up, shut up. You can’t make me take those blood tests.”

  “She might,” he said thoughtfully. “She’s a lawyer.”

  Tika hung up, then shut off her cell phone.

  Taylor’s eyes were wide, nervous. “What just happened?”

  “I’m going in for a blood test,” she said. “Oh, and I might just be dying, after all. Or killing someone. That asshole!”

  Judith was sitting at her desk at work. Her ordinarily clean office had developed a bad case of clutter—there was a cold cup of coffee growing fungus by her penholder, and behind her on the credenza her schedules were strewn like dropped playing cards. Her organizer still had the previous month in it—she hadn’t bothered to refill it, much less write down her daily tasks.

  She stared at the screen…waiting.

  Roger: Judith? I need to talk to you.

  Judith heard the ping of the message, then got up, trying not to look flustered, and shut the door to her office…and then closed the vertical blinds.

  “Roger.” She could feel her cheeks heating with a blush. “I missed you,” she typed, feeling stupid but saying it anyway. She didn’t message him all weekend—David had used the computer most of the time, ham-handedly fumbling at briefs. “I tried to message you at two in the morning on Saturday, but you weren’t there.”

  Roger: It was 5 a.m. I got your e-mail, though. I’m sorry I wasn’t there to talk to you.

  Judith felt her heart beating heavily in her chest. It was ridiculous, this.

  She’d woken up in the middle of the night this weekend, feeling the bulk of David’s boxer-covered body pressing against her side, and she’d felt…revulsion. The need to write to Roger had been tangible, driving. She had assumed he wouldn’t be online—but she hoped. Not finding him, she’d contented herself with rereading e-mails from him. And she’d written one herself, pouring out her heart. And obviously, he’d read it.

  Roger: I’ve been thinking about you. Every day.

  “I’ve thought about you, too,” she wrote back, wondering how he took the e-mail she sent. What he thought of what she’d written.

  She’d started e-mailing him the night of the law school party. He’d apologized if he’d offended her. On the contrary, she said that it wasn’t anything, they were just friends, it was just the Internet. They were just having fun.

  And continued to have fun—the next time David had to go out of town, once when he was at a soccer game with some interns. She’d managed it various times, waiting for the beep. And had been indulging in baths almost every evening—thinking of Roger every time.

  Roger: Judith, what you said in the e-mail…

  Judith felt her stomach contract. “Which part?”

  Roger: The part about you thinking you might be in love with me.

  “Oh. That part.”

  Roger: And then the part where you said you knew that was stupid.

  Now she was definitely blushing. “It is stupid,” she typed. “I mean, I don’t know you, I’m married, for pity’s sake…”

  Roger: You’re not happy there.

  “That’s no excuse!” She was typing hard enough for the keyboard to clack in protest. “I made a commitment. I mean, sure, it’s not the way I thought it would be. But what is?”

  Roger: You deserve to be in love.

  “That doesn’t change anything.” She felt like crying. She couldn’t—she was at work, for God’s sake!—but she wanted to put her head down on her desk and weep.

  Roger: I love you, too, Judith. And I don’t think that’s stupid.

  Judith blinked, then reread the sentence again. And one more time. Then blinked away tears.

  That changed everything, somehow. She didn’t know what she’d do next, but…he loved her, she thought. They loved each other, somehow.

  Roger: I wanted to tell you when I saw you in person, but I think you needed to hear it now.

  “Oh, Roger,” she whispered, typing in: “So now what do we do?”

  Roger: I don’t know. I’ve never been in this situation before.

  Judith wiped the tears away, then yanked a compact out of her top drawer and repaired any makeup damage. Her eyes looked a little smaller, but she doubted anyone would notice.

  “At any rate, it’s nice to know you’re there,” she typed. “It’s nice to know somebody out there loves me.”

  It was sweetly unfulfilling. She was loved. She was in love. It would be enough. Like one of those fourteenth-century chivalrous things. Unless you counted that virtual sex thing—which, frankly, Judith wasn’t even really admitting to herself.

  Judith, you must be losing your mind. What next? Clandestine adventures in B&B’s that have an Internet connection? A “quickie” behind a closed office door—by yourself? Have you lost your mind?

  She didn’t care. She was happy for the moment. That was enough.

  Roger: I think I need to come out to L.A. and see you.

  Judith read the line, and all the happiness and emotion that had whirled thro
ugh her at his first proclamation of love went cold, still and clammy. “You WHAT?” she typed.

  Roger: I’ll fly to L.A. We need to see each other. We need to talk about this.

  “But…why?”

  There was a long pause between instant messages.

  Roger: Because that’s what people in love DO, Judith. You can’t expect us to keep going on this way.

  Judith held the sides of the computer, as if for balance…or maybe as if she could shake some sense into him, long distance. “You can’t. My husband! My family! What will they think?”

  Roger: I’m not in love with them. What difference does it make? Don’t you want to see me?

  He couldn’t possibly be serious. They only had a cyberaffair, for pity’s sake! This wasn’t…

  This was real. Strange, more than likely pathetic, but very, very real.

  She’d spent most of her life catering to other people—being the perfect daughter, perfect girlfriend seguing into the perfect wife. She was a model employee. She didn’t even litter, for the love of God. She rarely even speeded.

  Her mind raced. She took a few deep breaths, trying desperately to remember what her meditation coach had taught her about stressful situations. When was the last time she’d seen him?

  Roger: I don’t want to hurt you more…but I want to see you, feel you, more than anything.

  Could she do it? Could she move from a virtual affair to a real one? Did she want to?

  Did she want more than an affair?

  Roger: Judith—if you don’t want me to, I won’t. It’s all up to you.

  She typed, slowly and methodically, then stared at the send button for a second. Biting her lip, she clicked on it, seeing her own message come over as if someone else had typed it: