by Deanna Kizis
It wasn’t until I was waiting in line to buy groceries from the gourmet market the following day that I realized I’d made a terrible mistake. The shopping was taking longer than I thought it would, Bristol Farms was incredibly crowded, and I still had the flowers to pick up and all the cooking to do. My cell phone rang, and I literally spazzed out trying to get to it in case it was Max. With the contents of my purse dumping out on the floor, I looked at the caller ID, but it was just the Mother. She had the phone instincts of a sadist.
As I turned the ringer off, I noticed a woman in line in front of me staring my way with a bemused look on her face. Curious, I inspected her purchases while I unloaded my cart onto the conveyor belt. I spied a tray of gourmet cookies, a packet of turkey hot dogs, four Wolfgang Puck frozen pizzas, and a six-pack of diet Coke. Finally! I thought. A sympathetic ear.
“It wasn’t him,” I said, holding up the cell phone with an aw-shucks-you-caught-me smile.
“Excuse me?” she said.
“You know how it is. He calls, he doesn’t call. You think he wants a commitment, he starts acting like he doesn’t. Sometimes I think men won’t be happy until we’re all acting like maniacs, strapped to the walls of some mental institution with paper slippers on, know what I mean?”
The woman picked her purse up out of her cart and clutched it to her chest. “Actually, I don’t,” she sniffed. “I married my first beau. And it’s lasted fifteen years.”
She turned to face the front of the store, and I had to stand behind her in line for the next ten minutes while trying to pretend we’d never spoken.
It took three trips from my car up the stairs to my apartment to get everything inside. In between trips, I checked but no message from Max. I’d thought leaving the house would change my phone karma. Like how when you’re in a restaurant, starving, and waiting for the food to come—if you go to the bathroom, your meal will usually be sitting there waiting for you when you get back. But this technique doesn’t really work with phones.
“I don’t see why I can’t get the out-of-town hi. At least,” I said to the Mother, shifting the phone to the other shoulder so I could sift flour for my light-as-air quiche crust.
“The what?”
We’d been talking less than two minutes and she was already annoyed.
“It’s, like, the holy grail of phone calls. He’s in Vegas, this totally new environment, but even with all the extra stimuli he calls just to say hello. The OTH—it was the only thing keeping me going.”
“Ben.” She sighed. “Your lips are moving, but you’re not really saying anything.”
“I am too saying something. I’m saying my relationship isn’t going well, Mother.”
“Then why don’t you end it, Daughter?”
I told her that wasn’t a very helpful suggestion since I had no intention of breaking up with Max, not that we were going out. Plus, I added, this wasn’t a very sympathetic thing to say.
“Well I don’t know what else to suggest,” she huffed. “What did you expect? This kind of behavior is simply what happens when you date a guy half your age.”
“He’s not half my age,” I argued. “He’s half your age.”
“He’s still too young for a serious relationship.”
I took a deep breath, counted to five, and started cracking eggs into a mixing bowl. “I don’t think his age has anything to do with it, if you really want to know.”
“Fine.”
“You know, maybe you should just tell me everything’s going to be okay,” I said, furiously beating the eggs. “That’s really all I want to hear.”
“Well, of course everything is going to be okay,” she said. “Your life will end just because this relationship might not work out? Please.” I heard the knock on the door. “Just a minute!” she called out. “Ben, I have to go.”
“Where are you going?”
“My date’s here.”
“You have a date?”
“With my Pilates instructor.”
“You take Pilates?”
“I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I was obviously hatched out of some kind of pod. There’s simply no way that woman ever gave birth.
The day of the shower was a nightmare. It took four trips back down to my car to load everything up. In between each trip I checked my voicemail for the OTH. No such luck. Meanwhile, I devised this inspired dessert idea that involved miniature terra-cotta pots I bought at the nursery. I envisioned a tiny, edible rose garden, and I figured this extra touch would really make Audrey crap her pants. But I forgot to rinse out the pots, which were clay and should have dried overnight, so I had to pray no one would notice there was real dirt along with fake dirt in their ice cream. Then I ran to the grocery store to buy the fresh roses, but they only had the expensive cabbage kind, which wasn’t what I had in mind. I bought them anyway (sixty bucks for twenty-four, and I only needed sixteen). And then I hauled it all over to my mom’s condo in Calabasas, which is only, like, four thousand miles away. The Mother, true to form, opened the door looking gorgeous. Navy blue suit, pretty camisole peeking out at the nape. Her pristine condo—white fluffy carpet, beige slipcovered furniture, rattan accent pieces—smelled fresh and clean.
“You’re wearing sweatpants?” she said, standing in the doorway, looking me up and down.
“Hi, fuck off, wanna grab a bag or something?”
“That’s a nice way to talk to your mother.” She took some bags out of my hands and fixed me with a smile. “Fuck you, too, darling.”
I explained that I’d be changing my clothing after I warmed the quiches in the oven, tossed the wild greens salad in the homemade Dijon vinaigrette, arranged the fruit salad on platters, assembled the flower pot desserts, uncorked the champagne, mixed the mimosas, and made the coffee—all in the next forty minutes. The Mother, with a bemused look, said she would make the coffee, drinks, and salad dressing, and plucked the recipe from my hand. Then she shoved me toward the bathroom and encouraged me to groom. I’d just managed to shower and towel my hair dry when guests started to arrive.
“Oooooh!” Audrey said, inspecting the spread as I laid it out on the buffet. “The quiche looks fabulous. I love the flowers … What are those flower pots for?”
I hugged her, suddenly overcome with happiness and my first two glasses of champagne. (The Mother mixes a mean mimosa.) Grandma arrived, choosing a seat in the corner where she told anyone who would listen about her mole biopsy and gave me queer looks. The bridesmaids, whom I secretly dubbed the “So Sisters,” gushed over all the girlish touches. (“Oh my God those quiches are so cute!” “Oh my God this salad is so yummy!” “Oh my God those flowers are so gorgeous!”) Even Jamie’s mom came. A grand woman whose name I can never remember. She picked at the nubs on her St. John suit and looked severely disturbed when I gave Aud the requisite vibrator with a note that guaranteed her a lifetime supply of D batteries.
All day I fussed over Audrey like a perfect maid of honor, getting a mimosa for her, and one for me. And one for her, and one for me. Aud opened a huge present that contained a KitchenAid ultra power mixer—the Rolls-Royce of bridal shower gifts—and she squealed with delight, so I squealed with her. “Rock on!” I yelled, jumping up and down while punching my fist in the air. “You got it!”
Between gifts and dessert, I found myself in the kitchen, watching the Mother make coffee. I was so grateful (I was so wasted), I started rhapsodizing to Kiki about how much I loved the woman who gave me life.
“She gives the best advice!” I said. “The fucking best! Right, Mom?”
“I’m glad you’re starting to realize that,” she said.
“You know what Mother always says? Move on. Move on! No out-of-town hi? Who needs it?” I snapped my fingers in the air: “Move ’em on out!”
“I love it!” Kiki said, clapping (she’d been matching me, as I matched Audrey, drink for drink). “Genius.” She turned to the Mother. “You are a total genius.”
“Now if o
nly you girls would take my advice.” The Mother rapped her knuckles on the Formica counter with each word for emphasis.
“Mmmm …” Kiki said. “But I mean, my mom gives me advice and I don’t listen. I just don’t. Dunno why.” She shook her head and scratched at the quiche she had somehow gotten stuck on the knee of her Prada pants.
“Well. I’m not actually your mother, so you just might listen to me,” the Mother said. “Ben’s mentioned your little problem with that producer fellow, and you need to move on. Have a one-night stand. Or find a husband like Audrey did. Men are everywhere. All you have to do is leave the house. Take a walk, and you’ll find one.”
“You really think so?” Kiki said. And then … if only I could turn back time, as Cher would say … she said, “You should write a column for Filly! An advice column! Instead of asking their own mothers, who our readers won’t listen to anyway, they could ask you. Ben, wouldn’t that be great?”
“A-ma-zing.” I sighed, gleefully sticking rosebuds into the fake Oreo dirt. “Brilliant. I looove it.”
So that’s how it happened. And even though I was supremely annoyed, I didn’t have the heart to tell the Mother I didn’t want her to write the column after all. I could have told Kiki, but I doubted she could do much about it; apparently the Whip thought the Mother was Candace Bushnell meets Ann Landers. It’s my job, I reminded myself, pushing the proofs aside and laying back down in bed, to immolate myself for the entertainment of others.
Then there was the question of my actually “moving on,” that brilliant idea of the Mother-turned-dangerously-empowered-advice-columnist. (She’d already sent me an e-mail asking if I knew any good lit agents.) It wasn’t working. I spent the morning wondering if Max, who was surely back from Vegas, got a lap dance while he was away, and how long he’d wait to call me. The phone rang and I leapt for it. Just Nina, calling to tell me about some guy she’d picked up at a Jungian seminar last night. After discussing his finer points, along with possible weak spots (she thought it was suspect that he asked for both her cell and regular phone numbers, as opposed to just one or the other), we returned to my topic of choice.
“I have a question,” I said. “Do you think Max got a lap dance when he was in Las Vegas?”
“I don’t see why he wouldn’t,” Nina said. I could hear her grinding coffee in the background. “I’m sure Max, like every other man, enjoys the fantasy that strippers provide.”
“What’s that?”
“The idea that a beautiful, naked woman exists just to satisfy his most secret desires and that she secretly prefers him to every other man in the club.”
“You mean, men don’t just desire the woman, but they believe she wants them, in particular?”
“Precisely.”
Somehow this was more disturbing than the scenario I’d come up with on my own.
“But why would he want to be desired by someone he pays,” I said, “when I desire him for free?”
“Because. With a professional he can have a pair of enormous fake tits in his face without commitment or obligation, which he can’t have with you. Most guys find a stripper the perfect antidote to an actual girlfriend.”
It was getting worse.
“Nina?”
“Yes?”
“Do you think breast size is important?”
“Do you think breast size is important?”
I was way too hungover for this. So I said, “Do you think that I think that you think breast size is important?”
“I don’t know, Ben,” she said. “Do you?”
I hung up on her.
The phone rang again and I answered right away. “I know, I’m sorry,” I rushed in, before Nina could bite my head off. “I’m having a shit day, my mom gets more action than I do, and she’s getting more assignments.”
“Have I been gone that long?”
“Max?” I said.
“Hey.”
“I thought you were Nina.”
“What’s this about your mother?”
“Don’t go there. So … how are you?”
“Good,” he said. “How are you?”
“I don’t know. Wait, did you get a lap dance?”
“What?”
“In Vegas. Lap dance. Did you get one?”
“Damn, B.” He laughed. “Cut to the chase why don’t you.”
“Seriously, did you?”
“I don’t like lap dances.”
“Come on.”
“No, really. Those girls wear too much makeup, their hair gets in your mouth. Your friends watch you get a hard-on, which is just plain weird. I’m way too much of a control freak for that sort of thing. You?”
“Did I get one or do I give them?”
“Do you give them.”
“I should think so.” This was a happy turn of events. “Definitely.”
He laughed. A deep, rich, filthy chuckle. He still likes me! He still likes me! I grabbed a pillow and held it tight. Max proceeded to tell me about his trip, how much money he’d lost at craps, and about how his friends dragged him to the Olympic Garden strip club, which he insisted was lap-dance-free. I chose to believe him (at least he had the decency to lie convincingly about it) and filled him in on the near disaster but ultimate success of the bridal shower. I left out the horror of the magazine column, though. Didn’t want to give Max a heads-up that my mom was advising me to dump him. And then, miracle of miracles, he said, “So I have an idea.”
“Does it involve a G-string?”
“Depends on what you want to pack.”
Did he just say “pack”?
There’s only one thing better than the out-of-town hi (besides an invitation to move in together). The weekend away.
CHAPTER
8
Palm Springs was Max’s idea. Not because Palm Springs is that great, but more because in L.A. we don’t have the equivalent of a Martha’s Vineyard. All we have are acres of empty desert filled with serial killers. A place once called home by Charles Manson and the Dinah Shore golf tournament, featuring a town overrun with spring-break-esque partyers who come to cruise up and down five sweltering blocks of cheesy gift shops while wearing HARD ROCK CAFÉ T-shirts. Put it this way, the OD scene in Less Than Zero wasn’t set in Palm Springs for nothing.
Nevertheless, I left home with visions of Bob Hope’s tan, martinis, and Neutra houses dancing in my head. Max was going to lavish me with attention for two whole days in a row. Unprecedented.
He was being very cute. Arrived at my house to pick me up holding a bottle of sunscreen tied with a bow, and he brought a stack of CDs he thought I would like to listen to on the drive. Even the traffic on the 10 and the guy in the Nissan next to us who picked his nose for two solid miles didn’t get me down. Nor did those creepy steel windmill things that you have to pass on the way. The tall stalks, with their two knifelike propellers, generate electricity. But to me they look like the dangerous vestiges of some otherworld civilization that the government is trying to keep hush-hush.
We finally arrived at the hotel—a midcentury marvel with a turquoise pool, an Eames marshmallow chair roasting in the sun, and tasteful cacti planted around like impassive aliens. At the check-in desk, my heart leapt when the extremely tan concierge said, “Suite Two-Oh-Four, Max and Ben.”
“Yay!” I said.
“Did you just say, ‘Yay’?” Max asked.
I shrugged, but inside I let out an orgasmic Yay! Yay! Yay!
The concierge let us into our room and Max immediately stretched out on the king-size bed and started looking for the remote. I carried my suitcase toward the closet and, after unpacking the four skirts, three sundresses, two pairs of jeans, and four pairs of shoes I packed so I’d be ready for anything, went to inspect the bathroom situation. I was hoping there’d be a noisy fan or a radio inside that would camouflage any nongirlie activities. No such luck.
“Do you see the remote in there?” Max yelled.
“In the bathtub?” I yelled back.
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“Well, it’s not out here.”
I came out and looked around. “Wait,” I said. “Do you see a TV? Hold on, here’s a note.”
I picked up the printed card that lay on top of the dresser, where a TV should have been, and read aloud, “Dear Guest. Welcome to the Resort at the Desert. We want you to enjoy everything our soothing environment has to offer, so all rooms are without television sets. Also, please be PC and do not smoke in your room. A $200 fine will be charged for smoking.”
Max looked pale. “Be PC?” he asked. “So the fact that I smoke makes me, like, as bad as a homophobic racist?”
“Smoke on the patio, evil one, and enjoy the soothing environment.”
“Hm.”
With that, Max went outside with a plastic cup filled with water to use as an ashtray. He didn’t look happy. I wasn’t so psyched, either—I’d picked the hotel because Filly once did a photo shoot here and everyone said it was fabulous, which meant if anything went wrong it would be my fault.
After washing my face and carefully reapplying my lip gloss, I went outside and found Max smoking glumly in 110-degree heat.
“Look at this, B,” he said, holding up the cup of water. It was almost empty.
“Did you spill?”
“Hunh-unh.” He shook his head and exhaled. “It’s evaporating.”
Max lay down to take a nap while I read the information booklet and discovered the hotel didn’t have room service, either. I resolved to keep this little factoid to myself for as long as possible. When Max finally woke up, we drove into town and had dinner at a gourmet Mexican restaurant the concierge recommended. The place was very popular, and self-consciously trendy. There were muted taupe linens and hand-ground blue corn tamales; they had a gas fireplace that was on, along with the air-conditioning. The menu boasted one hundred different exotic drinks. Max seemed tired, so I tried to engage him by babbling about the ridiculous thing I’d done while he was taking a nap earlier.
