Wicked Jealous: A Love Story

by Palmer, Robin

  I barely touched dinner because it had been macaroni and cheese and German potato salad drowning in mayonnaise. Ironically, Hillary was the one person who barely showed any reaction to my new look, even though she was the one most into appearances. The first time she saw me post-makeover, I saw the surprise on her face, but instead of saying something like, “Wow—look at your haircut!” or “I had no idea you actually had legs!” all she said was, “Simone, you haven’t seen my box of Frownies, have you?” which were these little patches you put on your face while you slept in order to prevent wrinkles.

  “Thanks, but I had a big lunch,” I replied, looking around for something heavier than a pillow to hit her over the head with in case she tried to force-feed me. It was like the woman was trying to kill me with carbs.

  She shrugged as she dusted off the seat of my desk chair before sitting down. “So Simone—now that you’re finally starting to show an interest in fashion, even if it’s, you know, used things that might be infested with bedbugs—”

  What was up with the bedbug thing? “I prefer the term vintage, pre-owned, or gently used.”

  She shrugged. “Vintage, covered with bedbugs—same thing. By the way, are bedbugs fatal?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Too bad,” she replied. “I mean, good. Anyway, I thought maybe we could have a whole girls’ day and go shopping this weekend!” she said. “It’s such a mother/daughter thing to do.”

  “But you’re not my mother.”

  “Well, no, but I’m your father’s soon-to-be wife,” she said.

  “You’re not engaged,” I clarified.

  “Well, not officially, with a ring or anything,” she admitted. “But obviously, that’s the plan.”

  Sure, it was her plan, but what about my dad’s? The few times I had tried to ask him, he had changed the subject.

  She stopped looking in the mirror and glanced at the walls I had recovered with old French movie posters. Luckily, Nicola and I had been able to get all my stuff back from the storage space, so it was now my room again. “I keep meaning to tell you, if you want, I can have my assistant get you some posters of some current movies. The one for the new animated musical about the cow who wants to be a Broadway dancer is so cute.”

  “Thanks, but I’m good,” I replied. Maybe I was being too mean. Obviously, Hillary and I would never end up with a Hallmark commercial–type relationship, but she was trying . . . in her own twisted, warped way. “So this shopping thing . . . that sounds fun. I’d love to.”

  “Fabulous! We’ll make a whole day of it on Saturday, complete with lunch. Maybe somewhere with Italian food or milk shakes. We’re going to give your dad’s credit card a serious workout.” As she walked out, she stopped at the smoke detector above the door. “You don’t really need this, do you?”

  “Well, if there were ever a fire, it would be kind of helpful, don’t you think?”

  “Mm, I guess. It just ruins the whole . . . look of the room, though.” She shrugged. “It’s okay. We’ll keep it up. For now.”

  I was a bit surprised when, instead of turning right on Camden Drive into the Barneys New York parking lot on Saturday, Hillary kept going down Wilshire toward Hollywood. And I was even more confused when she made a left onto Fairfax and then a right into the parking lot where Ross Dress for Less and Kmart were.

  “What are we doing?” I asked as Hillary pulled into a parking space next to a beaten-up gold Chevy Impala. “Do you need socks or something?” For people who actually cared about clothes like she did, Kmart and Ross were solely socks-and-underwear destinations.

  “No. This is your day, Simone!” she said as got out of the car and walked toward the Ross entrance. “But I’ve been dying to check this place out. It’s supposed to be very cool.”

  The only thing that would make Ross Dress for Less cool to someone like Hillary is if Justin Bieber tweeted about it. Which would probably make Jason Frank shop there.

  As soon as we walked in, Hillary made a beeline over to the misses section and held up a very large sweatshirt that said MY HEART BELONGS TO MY CAT over a picture of a kitten playing with a ball of yarn. “Ooh, look!” She held it up to me. “This would look so cute on you!”

  I pushed it away. “I’m allergic to cats.” I looked at the tag. “Plus, it’s a size XXL.”

  She went through the racks and held up one that said PROPERTY OF A SPOILED ROTTEN CHIHUAHUA. “How about this one?”

  Cute animal sweatshirts? Really? “If I had a chihuahua—or even a dog—that might work,” I replied, “but I don’t.”

  “Wow. I never would have guessed from your wardrobe that you were so picky,” she replied. Once I managed to get myself disentagled from the reindeer Christmas cardigan that Hillary was trying to wrap me in (“You can never stock up on holiday wear too early!” she cried as I started sneezing from the acrylic) and made my way over to the juniors section, I was in business. I’m not sure where I had picked up the idea that the bordering-on-too-much-cuteness of a pink-and-white seersucker sundress could be fixed by putting a black mohair cardigan with little pearl buttons over it, but when I tried the outfit on, it totally worked. And the same sweater with a white tank top, denim pedal pushers, and black ballet flats was also a great look. Still, every time I tried something on, I was half waiting for someone to come in and arrest me for impersonating a girl with style.

  “Simone, look what I found,” I heard Hillary say as I tried on a stretchy denim jacket with a blue-and-white-pinstriped sundress.

  I turned around to see her holding an orange and brown caftan. “Oh wow. That’s . . . interesting,” I said. “If I were, I don’t know, going on a cruise or something. With a bunch of senior citizens.”

  “Did you put that outfit together yourself?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. And the whole thing together only costs thirty-two dollars.” Not only did I have a flair for putting together French-looking ensembles, but I also seemed to have a nose for bargains. “What do you think?”

  She shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know. I mean, it looks like what the model on the cover of last month’s Elle was wearing, which I guess some people might think is cool and all, but . . . do you really think it’s your style?”

  “Well, seeing that I’ve never had a style before, I’m not sure,” I replied. “But it’s so cheap, I figure why not give it a try, right?”

  She sighed. “I guess.” She held up a green rayon dress with an autumn leaf print that was so wrinkled it looked like it had been run over by a car, which then had backed up over it again. “You sure this isn’t more your speed?”

  I shook my head. “I think I’m good. Thanks.”

  Just then some crazy lady a few doors down, who had been muttering about how she used to be someone before the recession, lumbered over to us. She leaned in and squinted. “What color lipstick is that?” she shouted.

  I leaned back. Wow. Someone sure liked onions. “I’m not wearing any,” I replied. “This is their natural color.” Now that my hair was short, it seemed to make them look even more red.

  Hillary tapped her on the back. “Excuse me, ma’am, but if you’re interested, I’m wearing M.A.C. Ruby Woo,” she announced as she pursed her lips.

  The woman squinted at Hillary. “Nah. Too much of a bluish tint. But this one over here,” she said, pointing at me, “she’s got the perfect red.” She patted me on the cheek. “I hope you put those smackers to good use, honey.” She turned to Hillary. “She’s a real beauty, isn’t she?”

  Hillary forced a smile. “She sure is.”

  I saw a red corduroy newsboy cap sitting on a bench and picked it up and added it to my outfit. I wasn’t usually a hat person, but it worked really well with my bob and glasses. I looked at Hillary and smiled. “You know, I think I might actually be able to get into this whole shopping thing.”

&
nbsp; The thing about shopping at places like Ross and Kmart (While I am so not a Selena Gomez fan, her cork-wedge sandals? Super cute.) is that you get a lot for your money. Which is why, after we had paid for it (well, after my dad had paid for it), I ended up bogged down with bags as we made our way back to the car. None of which Hillary even offered to help me carry, even though she hadn’t bought anything (“Wear stuff from here? I don’t think so,” she sniffed, after I held up a cute little lavender Jaclyn Smith tank top in Kmart that I thought might look good on her). And because I was bogged down with bags, I couldn’t walk very fast. Which meant that when I saw Jason Frank coming out of Whole Foods, all sweaty in shorts and a tank top, chugging some sort of Gatorade thing, I couldn’t just take off.

  “Simone!” a voice called. A voice that, unfortunately, sounded very similar to Jason’s. “Wait up!”

  I didn’t wait up. I kept walking. Faster.

  Hillary, though, did not. She stopped and turned around. “Is he talking to you?” she asked.

  “Probably not,” I said, walking faster. “There are a lot of Simones in L.A.,” I lied. “Almost as many as there are Madisons.”

  “Hey! Simone Walker!” Jason called.

  “He is talking to you,” Hillary said. “But he’s so . . . cute.”

  Realizing my options were to either make a run for it and get mowed down by the white Cadillac that was weaving its way through the parking lot, driven by what looked to be a very old, very short woman peering over the steering wheel, or just stop walking and attempt to be a normal human being who had some experience talking to human beings who happened to have penises, I went with the latter. Although the thought did cross my mind that if the Cadillac swerved and hit me, it wouldn’t suck.

  “Hey Jason,” I said as nonnervously as possible when he got to us. Why was I nervous? I hadn’t been that way the last few times we had talked. Was it because I had a lot less skin covered?

  “Hey,” he said.

  Usually, I found sweatiness really gross, but I had to say it was a good look for him.

  “You, uh, cut your hair,” he said.

  I nodded. “A few weeks ago.”

  “It looks good. You can see your face now.”

  I nodded again. Maybe I could get away with convincing him I had laryngitis. The last thing I needed was to embarrass myself in front of Hillary by saying something dumb.

  “It is cute, isn’t it?” Hillary asked. “Although if my eyes aren’t playing tricks on me, I’d swear that the right side is just a little longer than the left. And not on purpose. But I guess that’s what you get when you go to one of those walk-in places!”

  Luckily, Hillary was going to do it for me.

  She flashed a smile at Jason and held out her hand. “I’m Hillary Stone, senior VP of development and production at LOL Films and Simone’s soon-to-be stepmother.” I wondered if people in other cities introduced themselves with their job title or if it was only here in L.A. “And you are?”

  “Jason.”

  “Nice to meet you, Jason. I’m assuming you’re a classmate of Simone’s rather than a boyfriend, since the time I peeked on her Facebook page when she was in the bathroom, her relationship status said ‘single.’”

  I looked at her, horrified. Soon my location would say “in jail,” because I was going to kill her. Luckily, before she could do any more damage, her cell rang.

  She looked at it. “It’s my shrink. I have to schedule an emergency session to process my frustration that your father is having so much trouble moving through his commitment issues. Excuse me,” she said as she walked away.

  At least she didn’t have any problem embarrassing herself, either.

  “So that’s your stepmother, huh?” Jason asked.

  “Not yet,” I replied. “Hopefully, not ever.”

  He nodded.

  As we stood there in silence, I was glad to see that he seemed to be no better than I was in terms of the whole conversation-making thing. Instead he looked at the ground, where he seemed to be fascinated with an empty Rockstar can that was rolling around.

  He pointed at my bags. “So you did some shopping?”

  I nodded as I tried to juggle my bags. “Yeah. Just a few things for summer.” As I juggled, I dropped one of the bags, and it spilled open. Unfortunately, it happened to be the bag with the bra and underwear portion of my purchases. “And, some, uh, other things,” I said as I quickly shoved them back in the bag. I may have never kissed a boy before, but I could go to my grave saying that Jason Frank had seen my underwear.

  “Okay, well, I should probably get going,” he said, sounding a little freaked.

  “Yeah. I think that would be a good idea,” I replied.

  “See you around.”

  “Uh-huh,” I mumbled.

  As I watched him walk away, Hillary drove up. “You ready?” she called out the window.

  I nodded and started to walk toward the car.

  “Simone, before you get in, can you do me a favor and take a look at the trunk and make sure it’s closed? I feel like I hear it rattling.”

  As I walked behind, the car moved back, right toward me.

  “Hillary?” I called out. “What are you doing?”

  Instead of stopping, it continued. Faster.

  “Hey, what are you doing?!” I yelled. “You’re going to hit me!” Just as I was about to get mowed down, I jumped out of the way.

  She stuck her head out the window. “Whoops. Sorry about that. Sometimes the gear gets caught in reverse instead of drive,” she said with a smile. “You okay?”

  I nodded and, wobbly-kneed, made my way over to the passenger side. Hadn’t she ever heard of brakes?

  At least if I had gotten flattened into a pancake I wouldn’t have to worry about having another awkward conversation with Jason Frank.

  “She sounds like a real Shelly Stewart,” Naomi said a few days later when I told the Zumba Brigade about my outing with Hillary, leaving out the part about my run-in with Jason because I didn’t need his mom, Cheryl, knowing about it and embarrassing either of us. Naomi was a new member of the ZB and my latest Facebook friend. You would have thought that as women with husbands and kids and jobs, they’d be too busy for quizzes and Farmville and YouTube videos of dogs nursing a litter of motherless kittens, but that wasn’t the case. While I appreciated being considered one of the five special women in Marcia’s life on those post-this-on-the-walls-of-five- special-women-in-your-life-and-let-them-know- how-much-you-care-(or-else-risk-a-lifetime-of-bad-luck) messages, and Cookie’s all-caps “U R DA BOMB, SIMONE!!!!! (DID I SAY THAT RIGHT?) XOXOXO” messages, it was starting to get a little embarrassing. Especially because it made it look as if my only real friends other than Nicola were middle-aged moms. Which was pretty much the truth, but Facebook didn’t need to know that.

  “Who’s Shelly Stewart?” I asked. She wasn’t part of our group. “Is she that woman who was in class last week wearing the I BRAKE FOR LOEHMANN’S T-shirt?”

  “No. Shelly was Morty Cushman’s girlfriend,” explained Cheryl.

  “Who’s Morty Cushman? Is he that chiropractor you threatened to sue?” Nicola asked. People in L.A. loved to sue other people.

  “No. Morty was Brenda’s ex-husband,” Gwen replied.

  Nicola and I looked at each other, confused. Although I hadn’t been able to convince her to Zumba with me (“Simone, you know you’re my best friend in the whole world, but even quality time with you can’t cure my allergy to exercise”), she had begun to join us post-workout for coffee. Unlike Hillary, the Zumba ladies hadn’t gotten the memo that Nicola’s ever-changing hair color was a very popular form of self-expression, which meant that every time she showed up with a different look, there was some major cringing going on. At least on the lesser-Botoxed faces in the group.

&nbs
p; “They’re from The First Wives Club,” Rona explained.

  “What’s The First Wives Club?” Nicola asked. “Is that over on Wilshire Boulevard near Whole Foods?”

  A row of lipsticked O’s faced us. “It’s only one of the greatest movies ever made,” Cheryl said. “Bette Midler? Diane Keaton? GOLDIE HAWN?”

  Nicola shook her head. “Never heard of it. I tend to stick to Monty Python,” she said. She pointed to me. “As for her, if it’s not a depressing French film where people sit in cafés debating the meaning of life while puffing on cigarettes, she’s not interested.”

  “That’s not entirely true,” I said. “It doesn’t have to be depressing. It just has to be French.”

  Cheryl sighed as she patted me on my arm. “My husband would love you.” I wondered how Jason’s dad—a man with such great taste—felt about the fact that his son listened to Justin Bieber.

  “Shouldn’t you girls be watching movies with that Austin Katcher boy? Or Tyler Laufer?” Cookie asked. “They’re both such warmies.”

  “ ‘Hotties,’” I corrected.

  She took out her notebook and made a note.

  “Who?” asked Nicola.

  “I think she means Ashton Kutcher and Taylor Lautner.”

  Nicola wrinkled her nose. “But they’re such . . . boys. Simone and I, we like . . . real men. Like . . . loggers. Or ranchers.”

  I looked at her. “What are you talking about? We hate being outside.”

  She shrugged. “Well, we wouldn’t actually go outside. They would. We’d stay by the fire and . . . I don’t know . . . knit.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Speak for yourself. I have no idea what my type is.” Although after my run-in in the parking lot with Jason, I was thinking maybe I could hold off on that whole interaction-with-the-opposite-sex thing for a while longer.

  “Anyway,” Cheryl went on, “in the movie, Shelly Stewart was this very mean young woman, played by Sarah Jessica Parker, who started dating Morty—I can’t remember who played him—when he divorced Bette Midler—”