“Uh, I’ve never done this before.”
She points to the floor. “Just follow along. You’ll pick it up fine. It’s a great confidence builder. You’ll see.”
She takes her position next to one of the poles. “Okay, ladies, let’s do some warm-up!”
The girls take position and I try to blend in, hoping no one will notice that I have no idea what I’m doing. From the corner of the room, a sexy Prince song envelops the room, and I watch as Jaden begins to sway her hips slowly but precisely to the beat, stretching and breathing deeply. The other girls are also swaying, some of them with their eyes closed.
I try to sway too, but I suddenly feel very exposed, like everyone is watching me. My gut is bulging out of these yoga pants, and I must look about as comfortable as a cow dressed up in a tutu.
“Feel the wave of the music, ladies. Let your hands explore your bodies as you stretch out.”
I peek out my clenched eyelids to see the other girls’ hands drift gracefully up and down their bodies as they stretch forward and backward.
“Feel your hands moving across your breasts and down your hips. Enjoy how your skin feels, the texture of your hair… Feel the air around you, the coolness of the floorboards under you…”
Whenever I am made to meditate or focus on how anything feels, I immediately begin to itch. It’s only one itch at a time, but it’s continual. My foot itches. I scratch it. Then my head itches. I scratch it. Then my back itches. I decide to rebel against it and just stop scratching. Eventually it’ll go away.
“That’s it, ladies. Grind those hips around in a slow circle. Slower. Your body should feel like it’s moving through thick chocolate fudge.”
My body feels like it’s moving through a thick farm of angry mosquitoes. My back still itches. Okay, fine. I’ll scratch it. Now my nose itches.
I’m distracted from my rampant itching only by Carmen slipping through the door and whispering, “Sorry,” to Jaden, the instructor. I say a quick prayer that she won’t come over by me, but God must be busy with more pressing issues.
“Hi!” she whispers, taking position next to me. “Having fun?”
I nod silently, as if to communicate a deep connection to the movement, one I can’t break by getting into conversation about it at the moment. I’m desperately trying to copy the moves of the other girls without letting them know I am looking at them – and, of course, be sexy and seductive at the same time.
After about a half hour of learning how to strut, crawl, squat, stand up, and floor-worm like a stripper, I’m starting to enjoy myself and get the hang of it a little. We’re lining up to do pole-spins, when suddenly a loud chirping sound begins to blare out from the pile of shoes and purses in the corner.
“Ladies,” Jaden says sternly. “You know you’re supposed to turn off your phones in here. Whose is that?”
We all look around innocently. I know that it’s not mine, because I have the Britney song still selected as my ringer, and this one sounds like a bug at a campfire.
But after a few awkward seconds, when the bug continues to chirp and no one makes a move to get it, I begin to wonder. Did the repair guy reset my phone options? Of course he did.
Jaden glares. “Please take it outside, and leave it off when you’re in the studio.”
I tiptoe out the door. “Hello?” Why did it ring so many times? Did the repair guy also forget to activate my voice mail? Now I have to go back to that place and waste more time. Annoying.
“Hey, babe.” Victor’s voice hits me like a Mack truck.
“Victor!”
“How’s LaLa Land?”
“Maybe you should come find out.” I twirl my hair coyly.
“Yeah, right.” He laughs. “I saw you called the other night. What’s up?”
I did call. The other night. And the night before that. I feel a bite of insecurity, and my coyness is replaced with a stream of bumbling self-consciousness.
“Oh, I… was just calling to say hi. My phone broke, though. I met this friend. It’s a long story. I’m at stripping class. I miss you.” Is it possible that last part sounded like an innocent cough or something?
“Did you say you’re at stripping class?”
“Uh, yeah. It’s a classic exercise trend in L.A.”
“Tsk, tsk, you naughty little slut. When are you coming home?”
“Monday night. So, what have you been doing?” And why haven’t you been calling me? And why haven’t you said you miss me back?
“Monday night, huh? And will I be getting a lap dance on Monday night?”
“We didn’t learn that yet,” I mumble.
There is an awkward pause, and then Victor covers the mouthpiece, but I can still hear him say, “I’ll be there in a minute.”
“Where are you?” I demand. “Who are you with?”
“I’m out with some people.” A pause, and then, “That okay with you?” Victor’s tone is light, with only a twinge of defiance. But it’s there nonetheless, and maybe he’s right. Maybe it’s not my business.
Another awkward pause. “Sorry.” He coughs. “So. What else is going on?” he asks. “How’s work? Any more of those crazy interviews on the street corner?”
“Yeah, a few.” I’m still glum because “I’ll be there in a minute,” indicates that the phone conversation I’ve waited all week for is about to be cut short.
“Listen, Lindsey, it probably wasn’t the best time for me to call, seeing as I’m out at dinner right now.”
“So why did you call now?”
He ignores this. “So let’s talk when you get home, okay? Dinner Monday night?”
I can’t hang up like this. This is not how I wanted it to be.
“Victor?”
“Yeah?”
“Uh… You still want that lap dance?”
He laughs. “Do you accept tips?”
“Only tens and higher.”
“Sounds like it’s worth it. See you then.”
I smile, disconnect the call and sit down on the step outside the studio. Let’s talk when you get home, Victor had said, which got me thinking. Is New York my home? What is home, and how do you know you’re there? I still have my apartment back in Chicago, and most of my stuff is still there. Is “home” wherever my stuff is? Holly used to say that home was wherever her dog, Cha-Cha, was. If she went on vacation and left Cha-Cha home, home was waiting for her return. If she took Cha-Cha along, home had come right along with her.
But I don’t have a dog. So I suppose my furniture, dishes, and box of disorganized photographs constitute the next best thing. That seems a little off to me. though. Why would “home” be the place that houses my crappy twenty-four-inch television, and not the place that houses me? Or maybe “home” follows me around, and settles in wherever I may be at the time. If that’s true, it would mean that right now, I have three homes. Three homes! Or that I have none, depending on how you interpret it. “Three homes” sounds so wealthy and glamorous. “No home” sounds lonely and lost. But it’s all a matter of perspective, really. So it’s decided. I am a woman who has three homes. The only problem is, I can’t escape the nagging feeling that if I did have a dog, I’m not sure where he’d be right now.
“Hey, you never came back.” Carmen walks through the door, followed by her classmates, who are toweling off and chugging bottled water. Carmen sits next to me.
“Victor called.”
“Finally! What did he say?”
“Not much. He was out at dinner. It’s already nine o’clock there.”
“Hmmmm,” she muses, which is quite possibly the most frustrating response in the whole English language. No clue how to begin to interpret a good, long “hmmmm,” so I decide to analyze it later, when I have more time.
Carmen tells me that she’s leaving in a few hours to drive up to San Francisco for a gallery tour, so that’ll give me three whole days to crack down and get some good work done before I go back to New York. I hug her good-bye and realize that
my heart aches when she walks away – even more so when I think about the warm, welcoming comfort she’s given me, versus the evil wrath that awaits me when I have to see Jen again. I’ve known Carmen for less than a week, but she already feels like a friend – which may be exactly what I need.
I begin the next day by taking inventory of my life.
Health: Could be better. Haven’t worked out in quite a while. I am an extremely busy woman of the world, who has very little time for such things as exercise. Mental note to begin hiking/swimming/jogging routine as soon as humanly possible. L.A. is game.
Love: Victor has only called once this week, and technically he was calling me back, so it doesn’t really count. But he is a guy, and guys hate talking on the phone, right? Luckily, I am so incredibly busy that I have no time to think about this right now. If Victor wants me to sit around thinking about him and wondering what he’s doing and obsessing over how he feels about me, he is just going to have to wait.
Work (and this is where any trace of optimism vanishes like vapor in the open wind): I’ve come up with virtually no ideas for the newsletter, and Jen is expecting to write up our first collaborative issue in four days in New York. I have fifty interviews to show for my trip to L.A., and no idea where to go from here.
A fax has come through from Jen, outlining a long list of L.A. hot spots – stores, restaurants, clubs, even animal shelters that are becoming the latest trend in celebrity philanthropy. At the start of my trend-tracking career, such a list would’ve made me squeal with glee and delight. But as I stare at it now, I am paralyzed, because I know that in each and every one of these places, there is so much to capture and learn, but I am blind to it. I can stand directly in front of it, eat it and drink it, kick my heels up in the thick of it—and still not see it or recognize it at all. The truth about my life’s inventory is, I suck at this job and my chances of getting fired are higher than probable. Schlumping back from Starbucks, it dawns on me that I do know who I am. I am indeed Dumped Woman Walking – not only by Victor, but by Liz, Gordon-Taylor, and the entire universe that I tried to pretend I could be a part of.
The next day goes by in a haze of depression-induced lethargy. I lie on the couch, snoring as the dried-up bits of pepperoni and crust crumbs from the Domino’s pizza fall from my shirt into the cracks of the sofa cushions. I have just watched seven reruns of Doogie Howser on cable, and it has really tired me out. I have absolutely nothing to offer this world, apart from the remote possibility of perpetuating the human race (which seems like a real howler, seeing as I can’t find one single animal, mineral, or vegetable of the male species to love me, much less impregnate me). There is only one thing to do in times like these – sleep, of course – and it is the one thing I have learned and mastered with great skill and confidence. Sleep. Sleep.
• • •
But the next day I get up. My back hurts from lying around so much, and it occurs to me again that this is probably my last chance to see L.A. The thought motivates me to take a shower, get ready, and get out of the apartment – not necessarily to accomplish any work, but at least to do something interesting.
Carmen calls from San Fran, and I give her the bare-bones version of my woes. But she just laughs and tells me that I’m a drama queen and that every day is a chance to turn everything around and start over. Maybe she’s right. Maybe not. I don’t know. I just don’t know anymore.
I spend the day driving around, past the hot spots Jen’s listed for me, just so I know where they are. Katsuya, the wildly popular celeb-hangout sushi restaurant that Carmen swears is overpriced with mediocre food. Lucky Strikes, the midnight fluorescent bowling alley where Bruce Willis just had his birthday party. Hot clubs like The Highlands, Voyeur and Exchange L.A., where “young Hollywood royalty sips low-carb fig martinis in the VIP room until the wee hours,” according to Us Weekly. I vaguely wonder if I’m on the guest list at these places, but at the moment I’d rather swallow an electric razor than find out. I have to lift myself out of this funk, and fast. I need something – something to raise my spirits and give me back a little confidence. If only Victor would call again…
I’m on my way home when I decide to purchase a map to the stars’ homes from some guy on the corner. Perfect. Driving past Gwen Stefani’s mansion will inspire me to get back to the grind – in the hopes that someday I can have a life like hers. Hell, I’ll even drive past John Travolta’s ten-million-dollar “bungalow,” to remind myself that people can indeed have comebacks and rise to glory after being embedded in muck.
Of course, turns out I can’t find any of these crazy houses, as they are all buried ass-deep in this bizarre vertical labyrinth called the Hollywood Hills. The narrow roads going up fit only one car, which makes me wonder how all the celebrity substance abusers get home in one piece. After getting thrice lost on the way down, I finally give up and return to the apartment.
I want to drink. Soak my sorrows in cheap vodka to the point where smoking an entire pack of Camel Reds sounds like a fantastic idea. Then I can puke up my despondent outlook and toxic attitude, and start completely and totally afresh. But there’s nowhere to smoke in this city. I picture myself sitting on the street corner in front of 7-Eleven, puffing away with tonight’s selection of brown baggers. Maybe they’ll know what’s trendy.
But instead I put on my suit and sit down by the pool, my feet swooshing around in the cold water. Feels great. I’d love to go in, but the chlorine would kill my highlights.
And then it hits me. I know what I need. I need to immerse myself in water, to cleanse myself of this venomous karma that’s built up and kept me from thriving in my new life and job. I need to plunge headfirst into the sea in a baptismal ceremony organic to the California experience. I need to take what is offered to me, to follow the path that life lays down before me. I need to go back to the beach. And I need to take that surfing lesson from the blond guy who woke me up.
Chapter 14
In the history of popular music, there are five singers whom I can’t listen to. It’s not that I don’t like them as people, and it’s not even that I don’t like their songs. It’s that for whatever odd reason, their voices make me skeeve and shudder like sharp nails screeching across a chalkboard. To some people just the mere thought of eating liver makes them turn green and feel urgently nauseous. To others it may be the smell of paint primer or some other strong odor that instantly induces an overwhelming nervous queasiness. For me, it’s the sound of these particular five voices, and let me tell you, the effect is quite potent.
The first is Karen Carpenter’s. And yes, I realize that she had anorexia and died at a young age – very sad. But I had nothing to do with that, and I’m not going to feel like a bad person for saying that her voice runs creepy shivers up my spine and makes me want to scrub my face and body with a Brillo pad. The next is Christopher Cross’s, the one who sang “Sailing” and the theme song to that movie about a drunk Dudley Moore trying to get it on with Liza Minnelli in New York. When I hear those songs, it sounds to me like Christopher Cross needs a strong hit of oxygen. Or like he takes a deep breath, and then starts singing when the air is about halfway out of his lungs. I’ve never heard anything like it, apart from Michael McDonald (from the Doobie Brothers), whose solo hits sound suspiciously like Christopher Cross after popping a month’s supply of steroids. I forgot about Michael McDonald. Okay, with the inclusion of Michael McDonald, that makes six total.
The fourth voice I hate is Burl Ives’s, the fat daddy who wore cardigan sweaters and bounced laughing children on his lap for a living in the seventies. When I was six years old, listening to “Goober Peas” and “Polly Wolly Doodle” on my scratchy record player, I did not yet understand the term “closeted pedophile,” but I did know that those songs tweaked my “be alert” sensor and gave me a funny feeling in my tummy. Of course, I am not alleging Burl Ives to be a pedophile. I’m sure he’s not. I’m only saying that the whole business just left me regarding Burl Ives with the same di
scontent with which I still regard childhood horror-foods such as creamed beets and minced olive loaf: thanks, but no thanks.
Number five. My God, this voice is the reason that keeps me a hell-mile away from 98.7’s “Eighties Hits at Noon.” That black-haired, black-eye-linered, purple-coated freak from the Cure. His pale, pancake skin and strained voice, moaning out like an injured cow… the whole thing makes my skin crawl. I can’t recall what this singer’s name is, but I’m convinced that he tries to save time by recording his tracks while simultaneously attempting to erotically asphyxiate himself in the linen closet. Which is not the visual image I like to imagine while driving down the highway at lunchtime.
And finally we come to number six. I almost hate to mention this one, because the man is highly respected in the music biz, and widely considered to be one of the “greats.” But reputation chucked to the wind, I have to say that I really can’t stand the voice of James Taylor. I don’t know why. I just don’t like it. But I do feel kind of sorry for the guy. I mean, he’s had a billion hits back in the day, but is now pretty much reduced to the incessant overplaying of “You’ve Got a Friend” on the soft adult contemporary stations, and occasionally, the elevator version of “You’ve Got a Friend” at the doctor’s office. But the point is, James Taylor’s voice makes me cringe, and if I hear it, I must get out of aural range as fast as humanly possible.
And wouldn’t you know it. The next afternoon, after I park my car and wade through the hot sand toward the Surf Shack… after I take a deep breath and pause to contemplate the impending rebirth of my spirit and personal vitality, I pull open the straw door and am immediately assaulted by “You’ve Got a Friend” (the non-elevator version), droning through a bass-heavy boom box on the floor.
Bad sign. Shit.
I look up quickly to see the blond guy, Danny, showcasing some surfboards to a touristy-looking couple in the back corner of the shack. He doesn’t see me. Wow, that is one California tan. And those arms. I watch as his blond-streaked hair flops over his eyes as he runs his hands slowly down the front of a red surfboard, explaining its texture and contour to the customers. I wonder how he got those streaks. Somehow I just can’t see this guy sitting in a salon chair with his head wrapped up in foils.
Bicoastal Babe Page 11
