51/50: The Magical Adventures of a Single Life

by Kristen McGuiness

  “Oh, for one of your dates?”

  I felt like such a schmuck. Like the star of a bad reality show trying to find candidates for my affection. I found out Neil is already seeing someone, but I pressed on. “Well, if you know of anyone, even one of your nerdy, player dudes,” I offered. Because Neil is actually the man who spawned one of those bad reality shows. His was the one with the Tommy Lee look-alike in the Jamiroquai hat.

  “You want a nerdy, player dude?” he asked.

  “No,” I laughed. “Not really. I just figured you might have one. I’m just trying to figure out how to get dates. It’s a lot harder than it seems, even when you ask your friends. And I am so tired of online dating. If I go out with one more Prius-driving liberal who reads The New Yorker...”

  Neil cut me off because I was nervous and rambling. He told me, “I think I have someone for you.”

  And that is how Neil Strauss set me up with Jason. Jason and I started e-mailing and it’s actually pretty exciting. He is smart and disturbingly funny, and I was beginning to think that Neil had done pretty well for not knowing me. And then I told Jason I lived in Silver Lake. He sent me back a botched version of the Red Hot Chili Peppers lyric, “You can only find East Side loving on the Westside.”

  First of all, he quoted Anthony Kiedis. Albeit incorrectly. Anthony Kiedis is one of those sober douchebags who demands a certain kind of hot tea during interviews and makes people meditate with him. And the quote itself? I don’t even get it. What does “East Side loving” mean, and how does it only take place on the Westside? I know Jason is trying to get in a dig, but the insult isn’t really clear, which is why he follows up with another e-mail. In that one he tells me the only good things about Silver Lake are that it is near the Department of Immigration and that our homeless have good tans.

  Often when I speak at my meetings I open with a reference to Brave New World. In the classic book mankind is divided into two groups: the Alphas and the Betas. The Alphas are good-looking, strong, popular, the dominant species. And the Betas, well, the Betas are like Danny DeVito in that movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger—they’re “the shit left over.” And I have spent my whole life with the Betas assuming I was an Alpha. All the while, having the Alphas take one look at me and know that I am a Beta.

  And it is no different now. The Westside is filled with the beautiful, the tanned, the dominant, and also the incredibly, painfully unaware. The East Side might be the shit left over, but it’s good shit. I feel comfortable amongst the houses, the hills, the untamed gardens, the Latinos, the hipsters, the small, winding streets, and the sense of wonder that my neighborhood inspires when I go on my morning hikes. So many nights I park my car and walk down my street, and the streetlamps hit the palm trees just right, spotlighting them against the darkened, starry sky. The air smells cool and clean, and I forget we are a city made of smog. I walk past the rose garden that sits on the corner of my block; I stop and close my eyes and hear the barking of dogs and sirens in the distance. I feel the warm spring breeze of an April night against my face, and I fall in love all over again. Because I love this city, but I am in love with Silver Lake.

  I am not in love with Jason. He is good-looking, strong, and popular. And just the right type of smart for his side of town—witty, charming, and cruel. He loves his friends. And he talks a surprising amount about his dad, Fred. “Ah, Fred. What a guy.”

  “You’re close with your dad?” I ask.

  Jason thinks about it. “Close? I guess. We work together so I see him every day. Fred’s a total character. I like to describe him as a cross between Hannibal Lecter and Archie Bunker. Although, he’s a bit more vicious.”

  “Wow.”

  “And fucking hysterical.”

  “I have a grandma like that.”

  “Really?” But Jason doesn’t care. He goes back to Fred. In fact, he won’t shut up about the guy. I am a little thrown by why he keeps doing this until I realize that even Alphas need a security blanket. The easy topic they can grasp onto when they’re not sure what else to say.

  I can see through the gap of Jason’s button-down shirt that he has a nice tanned chest with short brown hair with a small smattering of grey from his thirty-nine years of bachelorhood. When a piece of food falls off my plate, Jason picks it up with the calm briskness of a man who cannot have anything out of place but realizes that calling too much attention to that fact might get him labeled as OCD. And Jason is not down with being diagnosed. I am sure his home is immaculate.

  “I’m up in the Hills,” he tells me.

  “Oh, Hollywood?” I ask.

  “No, Beverly. Right behind the hotel.” Jason sort of looks over my shoulder, and I am sure he is checking out some anorexic model with big tits, but he’s respectful enough to bring his attention back to the woman with whom he is sharing a table.

  “I love that neighborhood. I go hiking up there.”

  He lights up a bit. “I’m right there. I’ve got that Art Deco number as you’re walking to the trail.”

  I know which one is his, and I’m impressed. “God, that’s a great house.”

  “Yeah. The neighborhood signed a petition trying to make it a historical property so I couldn’t tear it down.” He shrugs, and the light goes out of him. “I still plan to... I mean, give me a fucking break. We all know that modern homes have the best value.”

  He says this with a bit of a sad laugh, and when I say that I love dark Craftsman homes, he says that so does he. And it’s odd that we share the aesthetic. For a minute, we actually look like we might be natural and honest here. It is a beautiful evening with Los Angeles sparkling before us. Jason points out that Catalina is out there, and we can almost see the light of the ocean. And for a second, we get a little soft and sappy over the city we both love so much. And then Jason’s friend Martin and Martin’s girlfriend sit down and join us at the table.

  I should say I was thirty minutes late for the date. I was at a meeting in the Valley, and well, there’s this little thing called L.A. traffic I hadn’t accounted for. And by that time, Jason had run into Martin and his new girlfriend. The girlfriend has lumpy implants, a fourteen-year-old son, and seemed to apply an incredible amount of lip gloss as an alternative to speaking. I walk up apologizing, and Martin ribs me for my tardiness. He asks how I know Neil, and I explain I used to work for Neil’s former publisher.

  Martin immediately quips, “You look like you’re from New York. Is your last name like Witherspoon or something?”

  I don’t know why Martin is on the offense with me. Maybe it’s because I was so late; maybe it’s because it’s how I’m dressed; i.e., not wearing a bikini top and Juicy Couture sweat pants like his girlfriend. Either way, he seems to think I am some sort of Tracy Flick character. Or maybe he just thinks I’m Reese Witherspoon.

  When Jason and I move to our table at Asia de Cuba, I think we have shaken Martin for good, but then just as my date and I begin to move past our stereotypes and actually enjoy each other, Martin and his lip-glossed lady sit down.

  “Dude, did you see those waves up past Zuma last week?” Martin says, interrupting any conversation that may have been in the works. I hear the word waves, and I’m out. I don’t mind watching surfers take off their wetsuits, but outside of that it might as well be football.

  “That was fucking sick.” Jason becomes the dude I figured he would be. “I just booked my flight to Belize last week.”

  “I was just there!” Martin nearly squeals.

  “No way. Did you get some pussy?” Jason asks and then apologizes to Martin’s girlfriend. “I’m just fucking with him.”

  But she’s tuned out as well, although I get the feeling hers is a more permanent condition. Martin needs an out because by the shifting that’s going on in his seat, he probably did.

  “Aw, poor Kristen. She can’t join us in this conversation.” Martin gives me a nasty look, and I just laugh at him.

  “No, really, it’s okay,” I shoot back. “Tell us about th
e pussy, Martin.” Jason likes that one, and we share a laugh at Martin’s expense.

  Finally everyone is done with their appetizers because this date is not making it to the entrée. Jason and I walk out together, the other couple disappearing behind us.

  I am parked up Sunset, and Jason walks me to my car. I turn down toward the garage, and it is a steep hill. I am wearing heels, but before I can even worry about negotiating the terrain, Jason grabs my arm and holds me up, and then it hits me: I don’t want Jason, but man, I do love a guy who can do that. Who knows how to manipulate the conversation, who is strong enough to walk me to my car even though it’s out of the way, and then bold enough to grab me and lead me when I am walking downhill. We go into the underground garage, and the warm night air is whipping at our backs, and suddenly, I get playful. Under Jason’s sturdy grip, I feel free. I take the lead. I can see that he didn’t realize that underneath the witty banter and the sarcastic remarks of my Beta self, was a seismically Alpha girl.

  But there’s no time to get to know her. I drop him off at his car. We talk, we laugh, we kiss on the cheek. And that is that. Because I have fucked Jason before. Many times. Back when I partied, he was just the type of rich, hot asshole with whom I would do a lot of blow, talk some serious and honest bullshit, and ultimately bang when the sun came up. And then, like now, we would never speak again. This time I go home. And I don’t end it like some scared little Beta girl who’s playing with the wrong team. I end it like a classy Alpha from the East Side. Because I’ve got enough assholes on my side of town, I certainly don’t need to fight traffic to date one from Beverly Hills.

  35

  Date Thirty-Five: Fake Cannoli and Pixie Dust

  The South Beach Diet is interesting for a myriad of reasons. One, I am losing weight. I wasn’t fat; I wasn’t even Bridget Jones heavy, but the extra ten pounds I can carry makes me go from svelte to frumpy pretty quickly. I think it’s because I already have a round face, either that or a demanding self-image. Anyway, the one thing you cannot eat on South Beach is sugar. And that is hard. Because it’s like Mimi once said, “When you’re single, sugar is how you find that sweetness that you’re missing from lack of romance. That little mmm, mmm, good.”

  However, South Beach does give you recipes for substitute mmm, mmm, goods. Like mixing ricotta with Splenda and a little bit of cinnamon. Basically, it’s the low-carb version of a cannoli, and being half Italian, I love cannoli. Last week, I bought some genuine curdled ricotta. It even had a basket in it, so you could remove the cheese from the watery liquid in which it stews. The ricotta fell apart, and when I mixed in the sugar substitute and the cinnamon, I closed my eyes, bit in, and felt like I was being kissed. This is what happens when you remove sugar from me.

  On Friday I go to the grocery store, and I try to repeat the experience. I buy a cheaper brand of ricotta, though, because I’m feeling pretty confident in the South Beach trick. Today, I open it up, all excited for my Sunday treat. I mix it up. I bite in, and ick. The ricotta is not strong enough, authentic enough, curdled enough to create the same reaction. It tastes like paste.

  And I am afraid the same goes for Jeff. I am disappointed but only as much as I am about the bowl of bland cannoli sitting next to me as I type. This has happened before. Many times. Richard. Peter. The first date they’re funny, they’re smart, they come from loving families, and drive decent cars. They seem cool, or cool enough, and I know that my mom would like them. And then they pick me up for date number two. They do not park and get out of the car. And I know parking spaces are tough in my neighborhood, but there is illegal parking right in front, and if you put on your flashers, and just got out to greet me, it would make a world of difference. Jeff doesn’t park; he doesn’t even double park. He is in a driveway down the street, and then when I come up to the car, he nervously reverses out, so that I am negotiating between his moving vehicle and the oncoming traffic. He isn’t rude, he’s just nervous, and he doesn’t know the best way to handle the 2,000 pounds of metal that is his BMW.

  I get in. A little ruffled, but with the weight loss, looking like I have always wanted to look when getting into a date’s BMW. Mimi loaned me a very grown-up dress from her line, and my hair is a little wild, and I am wearing heels and holding a clutch, and my lipstick (I am wearing lipstick) is on perfect. I sit down and cross my well-lotioned legs and say, “Hi.” Jeff looks at me, glances down at my legs, smiles nervously, and says, “Hi” in return. And though I can see he thinks I look pretty, he doesn’t say it. And not because he’s an asshole, but because he’s too scared.

  Jeff is a grown professional with a nice car, a good job, a well-gym-ed body, and a Harvard degree. He should have the self-confidence to be able to say to the gussied-up dame sitting next to him, “Wow, you look great.” But he doesn’t, and so we move into the humorous banter that served us so well on Wednesday. We go to one of my favorite restaurants. It’s situated in the heart of Laurel Canyon, next to a country store that has been there for decades and surrounded by amazing houses that, if I did not love Silver Lake so much, I would dream of living in one day. Jeff pulls into the restaurant’s drive, and I can tell he is still nervous. He gets confused with which entrance to use, and then when we get out of the car, he has difficulty communicating with the valet. I stand there and look over at the far end of the parking lot, and while he gets his ticket and hands over the keys, I fade away to a memory that happened in that same lot so many years ago.

  Oliver and I had been on the verge of starting a relationship for months when it happened. He was deciding between staying with his girlfriend and leaving her for me. At first, when it all began, he had told me they were almost broken-up, that it had been agreed upon that he would be moving out at the end of the month. But as the end of the month drew near, as he took her to New York for a film premiere, as he continued to have his trysts with me and return to her at the end of the night, I saw where it was going. I might have been a cheat myself once, and at the time I was nowhere near sober, but I was aware enough to know that I didn’t want to become any more of the other woman than I already was.

  “Oliver, this isn’t fair to me,”I said. He was in New York with his girlfriend and had called me while walking home alone late one night.

  “I know.”

  “And it’s certainly not fair to her.”

  “Kristen, I want you to know that I see this ending only one way. I am just trying my best to negotiate through it all.”

  “You’re in New York with her Oliver. That’s not negotiating. That’s taking a vacation. I’m sorry. I don’t want to be a home wrecker,” I explained.

  “It’s a little late for that.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Look, I just need some more time,” he told me.

  “Fine. I’ll give you two weeks. Don’t call me. Don’t e-mail me. If you haven’t decided by then, your decision will be made.”

  Days went by without him calling, and though I was hurt, though I felt there was something there worth investigating, I had begun to move on from the idea that I had met my match.

  Until one night. I went with a friend to the MTV Movie Awards, I wore the shortest dress in history, and I drank an obnoxious amount of champagne. I ended up at a party on Laurel Canyon and was flirting with an old friend. The friend in question later went on to have a brief but public affair with Britney Spears, because that’s just how things go on that side of town. I remember going outside to have a cigarette when I got the text message, “What if two weeks happened early?”

  It was Oliver, and he had broken up with his girlfriend. He had been at a party at the Chateau Marmont and asked where I was. In minutes, I was on the street outside of the party, and he was walking with a friend, who had driven him over to me. We were still on the phone, because the excitement was too great to hang up. He saw me from a distance and I could hear him inhale as he asked, “Is that you?” And it was as though in the drunken universe of time, he launched across that distance
in a moment’s wisp and was in front of me, and I was in his arms and in the air as he repeated over and over in my ear, “You’re so beautiful. You’re so beautiful.” And we kissed and laughed and spun around in the parking lot of this restaurant I go to with Jeff.

  At dinner, Jeff tells me about how when he was a kid, he had a lazy eye, “It was horrible. I had to wear this ridiculous patch for two years, until they moved me into bi-focals.”

  “Bi-focals?” I cover my mouth, trying not to laugh.