Tiny Ladies in Shiny Pants

by Jill Soloway

  When I arrived it was late at night. I caught a cab to one of the places Let’s Go Costa Rica said was clean and lovely and Young Travelers Congregated. Time to begin my adventures. I walked in the door of the hostel. It was hideous, and fluorescently lit with waxy linoleum tile floors, slick with the stench of cheap disinfectant. It was like checking into a foreign hospital for no good reason. There were no travelers sitting in a klatch playing guitar and inviting me to join them, so I went to my room and went to sleep.

  I awoke the next morning jet-lagged and confused. What was I supposed to do now? I grabbed my duffel bag and went through the lobby. I walked into town and sat in a café, and cracked open my fresh travel journal. Yes, I was a subject now, not an object! I was Kerouac! Costa Rican men were standing at a counter drinking shots of espresso, and I hadn’t seen that before, so I wrote it down. And waited. For another thought. Anything to write about. I hadn’t even gotten through the first page and I was done. I closed the book and buried it deep within my bag so I wouldn’t have to see it again. It would be the first of many beautiful, leather-bound journals, empty save page one.

  I went outside and saw a lot of multi-colored buses and sixties-style architecture and inhaled thick black bus fumes. I wondered where the tortoises and monkeys and thatched-roof huts were. I got on a bus to go somewhere I’d read about.

  But it soon became obvious Costa Rica was unwilling to share with me her waterfalls and palm fronds. My whole trip is a memory of running, getting to a town, checking in somewhere, not knowing what to do, checking out, reading the guidebook, finding a hut, finding it full of cockroaches and Australians, running again. I finally made a friend but decided I couldn’t stand her mere hours later. I finally found a tour that would take me to the jungle but changed my mind because one last warning sign foretold rigorous physical demands. I knew what rigorous meant.

  Happily, I also knew what resort meant. I opened my guidebook and flipped to the section. I didn’t have much money left, but I had my parents’ credit card and I knew how to use it. When we were kids, every last week of August, our family had gone to an expensive resort in Mexico or Jamaica. This was something I could do.

  I took a taxi to a giant concrete ugly sixties pyramid-shaped hotel. The lobby had more linoleum, this time disguised as marble. I didn’t care. I checked into my room and breathed a sigh of relief. Ahhhh. No more stinky buses or hairy travelers or orange drinks in dirty bottles. This place had room service, and a pool. I changed into my bathing suit and went downstairs, jumping in within seconds. Again with the ahhhhh. I paddled around a little, got out, ordered a banana daiquiri and lay flat on a chaise. Yes.

  No. Within a half hour I was drunk and burnt bright red, skin afire and bubbly. I guess I missed the part in the guidebook about Costa Rica being near the equator and all. I stumbled back to my room, applied aloe vera everywhere, then made a sticky hovel for myself under the starchy sheets, alternately cold and feverish. It felt like the worst flu I ever had. I cried. The next day my skin peeled off in sheets like dried Elmer’s glue and I was ready to run again. But I couldn’t go home. I had done Camp Pinecrest for four days; I needed to at least get past that.

  I got on a bus to anywhere. Next to me was a young couple. The girl placed her hand on the boy’s thigh, palm up, and I watched as it casually bounced with the rhythms of the bus on the bumpy road, telling the world she belonged to someone. The sight grabbed my heart, and I got off the bus and called Max von Sydow to tell him I missed him more than life itself and to please come and meet me in Torteluga. He told me to grow up and tough it out. I imagined him in Chicago wearing Miss Wurher’s soft-perm hairdo and brown polyester pants.

  After exchanging numerous “I Love You More’s” with the man I despised, I hung up. I didn’t know what to do or where to go. I paged through my guidebook. I came across a listing about an American who helped travelers find accommodations with local families. Hmmm. This sounded good. When I dialed the phone, little did he know the only acceptable thing he could have done was drive straight to me with a silver Volvo and an empty trunk. Instead he gave me the name and address of a lovely family who rented out rooms to travelers, and called ahead so they’d expect me.

  I took a taxi a few towns away, clutching the address, determined this would be the Native Experience for which I’d come this far. We twisted and turned down streets with addresses ordered something like 1, 88, 3, 88, 765, 14, 88, and 14. Turned out they used the Random and Repeated system to number homes in Costa Rica. The driver finally found the house and dropped me off.

  The host family was lovely enough but sadly, also had a linoleum floor and used too much cleanser. Nothing smelled like incense or wood or the way I wanted my Latin American experience to smell, just bug spray and cheap disinfectant. The family showed me to a room with a frayed bedspread. Ol’ Brown-and-Gold Crybaby lay down and had at it again, snuffling her tears into the nubs of the chenille.

  That night, we ate an awkward dinner of Beans and Rice with Delightful Gristle. I thanked my new family effusively and told them in my college Spanish how happy I was that I finally found a place in Costa Rica that felt like home, a place where I could just relax and use it as a base and really start to explore the country. Then I went back to my room and fell asleep at six-thirty.

  I awoke at three in the morning, alert as a cat. Time to run. My host family snoozed, unaware their new guest was goin’ on the lam. I wrote them a note in halting Spanish. It said “Tico, no esta usted, es mi,” which I’d hoped meant “Friend, it’s not you, it’s me,” but I now realize may have meant, “Friend, you’re not you, you’re me.” Then I waited and watched out the window.

  Soon the sun rose. In the distance, I saw a taxi go by. Then another. Then another. This was good. Taxis came here. I grabbed my bag and snuck out the front door, running like a kid who’d just left a pile of burning doo-doo on their doorstep. I hailed the taxi and went to a pay phone. This time I was smart. I called my mom instead of Max von Sydow, and she told me that if my little heart desired to come home early, my little heart should come home early. I went to the airport and feigned an emergency stomach flu to a reservations agent and she arranged for me to get on the next plane.

  I had about an hour to wait. I passed a room with a sign that said CHAPEL and went in, hoping to squeeze in my transcendent travel experience. I pushed open the heavy door to find… more fluorescent light and linoleum. Someone should really put that in the guidebook: Costa Rica! Come for the Fluorescent Light and Linoleum!

  I sat in a pew and looked up at the mommy who was going to have to be good enough until I could get home to my nice soft Jewish one. I think she was the Virgin Mother Mary or some such. I get confused and don’t know why everyone is named Mary in Catholicism. Who’s Magdalene? Which one was the prostitute? Which one was Jesus’ mom? I don’t know. If some of these chicks were named Kimberly or Donna it would help.

  An hour later I was on the plane, and five hours after that I was home, sweet home. It was years after camp and so my mom’s browns and tans had been traded in for art deco pinks and grays, but the couch felt just as good. I promised myself and the world, I would never go anywhere again.

  I spent the next few days watching All My Children and eating Lean Cuisines, and soaking up the air conditioning and velour pillows. God, was I happy. I may have been ruined for life, but at that moment, for all I cared, Miss Wurher could eat my snatch while Max von Sydow and the Costa Rican host family watched.

  To close, if this book helps one person not travel, it will have been worth it. That’s right, unlike Mary Morris or Let’s Go, Jill’s book says: Let’s Don’t Go, Okay? Seriously, don’t. Go anywhere. Television is plenty interesting. Also, women shouldn’t travel alone. No one should, not even men. It’s really lonely. If you have to travel, travel with someone. Also, sleepaway camp sucks, especially Camp Pinecrest, where the woman who runs it, Miss Wurher, is a big fat stupid Jew-hating bitch.

  2

  Tiny Ladies in
Shiny Pants

  I’m getting nervous.

  My heart is beating, way too fast.

  I can see her, at the end of my street, and she’s coming this way. Oh god, here she comes, is it true? Here she comes.

  Her name is Rebecca and she lives just down from me in the hilly roads of Silver Lake. She’s my friend Rob’s girlfriend, and she’s in this band called Becky, so, it’s weird— it’s my natural instinct to call her Becky instead of Rebecca, right? But it turns out she doesn’t like being called Becky. So I asked her, you know, that being the case and all, if she really thought that calling her band Becky was a good idea, or if, at least, she should consider breaking the moratorium on people calling her Becky.

  She smiled, then laughed, then said that could be a good idea.

  I smiled.

  We smiled, and it was awkward. And then it was over. I went home and showered off gallons of sweat. That was the last time I saw her, about a month or so ago. And here she comes again walking her dog and I will have to think of something to say, try to figure out some way to act normal in her presence.

  Maybe you’re wondering why I’m behaving this way. I’m not sure if the name Rebecca sounds familiar to you, but it should, because THIS IS THE REBECCA FROM FUCKING REAL WORLD SEATTLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and I am not lying! Do you remember Rebecca? She had white blond hair and greenish eyes, she went into the music studio and put on some cans so she could lay down some tracks???!!!! With Sir Mix-A-Lot? Anyone? Rebecca from Seattle Real World??!!

  I am a starfucker. I am a fuckin’ star fucking starfucker. There is nothing I love more than a star, except a reality star, which proves nothing except that I’m disturbed in a very special way. You would think I would rather have lunch with George Clooney than Amaya from The Real World Hawaii but you would be wrong.

  Celebrity has always been more important to me than anything. My whole career started because my sister and I did a play about the The Brady Bunch, which was just so I could meet Eve Plumb. When I eventually got my conversation with Eve Plumb, it was mostly just sad, like talking to someone with those eyes that suggest they were raised in a war-torn region.

  Even before we created the Brady Bunch play, I’d put a lot of thought into fame. I wanted to make a documentary about how it felt to be a Brady. I imagined that it was really hard to be Eve Plumb, or any celebrity for that matter. The most tragic-seeming part to me was what it must have felt like to not only lose anonymity, which was obvious, but, more important, to lose moments of possibility, often the very magic of life. At that time, I knew that if I—anonymous Jill—walked into a bar and someone turned and looked at me, and our eyes met, any number of thoughts could run through my mind: Who is this person? What are they staring at? Is this my soul mate? A special teacher of a special life lesson? A freak? A new friend?

  For a celebrity, all of that’s gone. I wanted to interview Eve Plumb and ask her what it felt like to never again have the chance to be “Who is that?” and forever be “That’s Jan!” Even worse, “That’s Jan!” could only be followed by disillusionment, because she wasn’t Jan, she was Eve. Eve had not spent the same amount of time with the fan as the fan had spent with Jan. She’d never have the requisite amount of interest in the fan, and would always be only a disappointment. That’s what I wanted to ask her, “Say, Eve, how does it feel to be a great big disappointment to everyone you meet?” Luckily I never made that documentary.

  I had a theory that as shitty as life might be for celebrities, they served a very important purpose. They were our modern day replacements for Greek gods, particularly in their multiplicity, which was lacking in the Judeo-Christian singular God. Instead of Athena and Apollo, we had Farrah and Lee Majors. Rather than pray to Eros for love, we’d read a story in People about Brad Pitt. I could understand why adults would desire this ascension, and could see how badly stage parents would want it for their children, even against better judgment.

  But now that I’ve spent time around famous people, stardom appears to be less a need to ascend, than an urge to regress, to infancy. Stars, in all actuality, are great big babies. Forget walking into a bar alone. You’re never, ever alone when you’re famous. You’ve always got your nanny with you, in the form of a publicist or a posse. Stars get to reclaim the special feeling that we haven’t had since we lay on our back in a pram, people approaching to see the adorable baby, cooing, “Hello! Well hello there! I see you! Yes I do I do I do I do, I see you yes I do! Oh you’re such a good baby and a good smiler with one toof! Look at your one toof! Yes I see your one toof!”

  The constant head-turning that stars attract is the closest thing to returning to that delectable über-importance. The giant bodyguard is like an ever-present, ever-vigilant good version of Daddy. The paparazzi are Grandma and Grandpa, demanding to snap more, more, more pictures of baby.

  If you’ve ever seen an actor in the hair and makeup trailer you’d know it’s like a great big changing table. Hands come at the big babies with wet-wipes. They get their hair combed and spritzed and sprayed, then patted flat with a firm hand, neck-chilling amounts of attention given to even one errant strand. People constantly want to know if they’re comfortable, bringing cashmere blankets and three new pairs of Uggs to choose from. On one show I worked on, when one of the lead actresses sat in the hair chair, she clutched a hot water bottle with a fur cover, like a real live, living, breathing hot teddy bear. I want to clutch a hot water bottle all day. I want a hot water bottle placed on all parts of me, all day.

  Of all the actors I worked with, this one fascinated me the most. I would watch her from afar, waiting on the set. She seemed so content, like the biggest happiest baby in the world. I loved the way she sat with her feet propped up, waiting for someone to tell her what to do next, leaned back in a director’s chair with her name on it like it was ordered out of a Lillian Vernon catalog Especially for Her. Clutching her furry hot water friend who emanated a moist heat, and covered by her blankey, she welcomed the few she liked with overbearing, entitled intimacy, then ignored the rest with toddler-style imperious, haughty dismissal. And who could blame her? Adults are all manners, no boundaries; children and celebrities are all boundaries, no manners, which sounds much less exhausting.

  People bring stars great cups of sweet creamy things from Starbucks to drink from a straw, then stand by to take the cup back if they don’t feel like holding it. Stars get plates of bacon, just bacon—if that’s what they wish for, the way a baby refuses to eat anything but hot dogs for a week. If the crew is eating from the lunch truck and big baby prefers sushi, big baby gets sushi.

  Whether it’s about an ascendance to the heavens or a regression to the anal stage, losing myself in fame has always been an endless source of interest for me. People and US is the practice of my religion, like meditating on rosary beads. Like driving, it holds onto just enough of my brain so I can relax, leaving the rest of me to breathe evenly, the way I’m supposed to.

  It was clear from the moment I was old enough to focus that there was one Most Important Ever, glassy-square-eyed Alpha Male member of our family—the television. My sister and I stared at him for six hours a day after school, our pupils buzzing, brains overstimulated. My mother kept an eye on him as she weighed her Puffed Rice into a scale each morning. And I knew that if I was inside that box (and wearing a Cubs uniform), there was a chance my father might look at me when he got home from work.

  My mom is the original starfucker. She has always believed everything she read, a devoted out-loud repeater of boldfaced tidbits of news in the Chicago Sun-Times about local celebs like Phil Donahue. In fact, she even uses the words “local celeb” conversationally.

  She was a PR person by occupation as well as obsession. Her days were spent angling for press placements for her clients. Nothing happened unless it was written about. Our lives paled in comparison to the lives of those who demanded coverage. As soon as I was old enough to move about the city on my own, I gravitated toward places where I could meet
stars.

  I blame my young stalking habits on my eighth grade best friend. Our family had just moved to a new neighborhood, called the Gold Coast, and I didn’t know anyone at my new school yet. Fresh from the soul trampling I’d received at summer camp, I was ready to be friends with the first person who’d have me. Her name was Luisa.

  Regular life bored Luisa. She blew off school all the time, because she had nothing to lose. She lived in a cramped apartment with her chain-smoking mother and stories about her French chef father. At only thirteen, she was quickly developing a punk-rock misanthrope pose that drew me in. I was getting tired of my array of kelly green cable-knit sweaters, and in my never-ending search for identity, I was more than happy to cut school with her the day the Cars came to town.

  It was 1978. Luisa was in love with Cars guitarist Elliot Easton, and felt certain that he would love her too as soon as they met, if only she had the right clothes. Luckily, Fiorucci had just opened up at Water Tower Place, our local mall. In the dressing room, I hunched near the floor as she changed into the pants that would become the center of her wardrobe and the marker of a moment in fashion that would begin anew—purple satin supertight peg-legs. If you’re freaking out right now about how to integrate what I just told you about the cable knits, please understand that even though we were preps, we wore our sweaters with supertight peg-leg Gloria Vanderbilts and leg warmers, so it wasn’t a HUGE stretch to try on such a pant. The cut was familiar; it was the sheen that was new.