My roommate Stacey was concerned. “You don’t know this guy. He could be a mass murderer,” she screeched. This was before the convenience of Googling someone or typing a guy’s zip code into a registered pervert site to see if his name popped up. All I knew was location, location, location, and I doubted many murderers lived in the hills where mansions naturally included tennis courts—well, besides Phil Spector, but I would never date someone with hair like that, anyway.
I was definitely nervous but completely intrigued. Every first date is nerve-racking. It’s a lot like auditioning for a role. You get as pretty as possible, try to come off relaxed, and hope that they call you back. In fact, one of my friends, Jennifer Coolidge, whom I later met at The Groundlings theater, set me up with her executive producer from a TV show she was on. I was always attracted to what I like to call the “industry Jew.” Jewish men who wore little black-rimmed glasses and had a job in Hollywood truly did it for me. I always thought that would be an ideal match for me, the shiksa. This would only work, however, provided he would allow us to raise our children as Catholics.
I met with Jennifer’s industry Jew and he was instantly not attracted to me. I could tell this because the whole conversation was him asking me if I knew any funny “guy” writers. At the time, I had already been a staff writer on a network show, which I reminded him of, but he kept asking, “What guys did you write with? Who do you know that’s on Saturday Night Live?”
After the date, Jennifer called me and said, “Well, I talked to Joel...” The rest of what she said was just like what your agent would tell you when he tries to let you down gently that you didn’t get a part. “He’s going to pass. It’s not you. He thought you were great and really funny. It’s just not what he’s looking for right now. Don’t feel bad. There is something better out there for you and we’re going to find it. Besides, he dates his assistants, bimbos. I shouldn’t have even sent you out on this one. ... I just thought maybe it could lead to something else.”
Driving up to Fred’s house, I had the same nervous feeling I would get years later driving through the Paramount lot for yet another sitcom pilot audition. The house, or rather the mansion, was gorgeous. He had told me he scrapped the original house a few years prior and designed and built this one from the bottom up. I drove past it, checked the address a couple of times, and decided to park on the street, not in the circular drive, as I didn’t want to block anyone.
My car, a red two-door Celica, was new, and I was such a geek that I even had a personalized license plate that read USC MCD. I felt like “the bomb” at the time. I was early by, like, twenty minutes. I thought about waiting outside, but then I thought, No, have confidence, you’re here now, go in. So I walked up to the door, which was massive, and rang the bell. A Latina woman in a full-on maid’s uniform opened the door.
“Hi, I’m Heather. I’m here to see Fred,” I said oh so politely.
“Oh, yes, Miss Heather. We’ve been expecting you. Please come in,” she said in a subservient Spanish accent.
The interior of the house was equally stunning. There was even a dramatic MGM-like staircase and rich woods, but the house was still light and bright. The maid walked me through the foyer into a less formal living room. “Would you like something to drink?” she asked.
“No, I’m fine, thank you.” I learned later in life to always take the drink, whether it is coffee, wine, or water. Why the hell not? It makes the hostess or the receptionist feel much better when she looks at you fifteen minutes later and you’re still sitting there doing nothing.
She left and I remained seated on a dark leather couch.
I began to look at a big coffee-table book on fabulous pools by Kelly Klein. See, I thought, I may be twenty-one, but I can read! I’m interested in books and architecture and fancy pools. And I already have my real estate license!
Fred came into the room wearing shorts and—I kid you not—a USC sweatshirt. Yes, I know; I remember you, too, are a Trojan. At this point, I did start to think he was looking more like he was in his forties than the thirty-eight years I had initially estimated.
“You’re here early,” he said, somewhat taken aback.
Shit. Why didn’t I just sit in my car down the street and rock out to En Vogue on the radio?
“I got here quicker than I expected,” I replied.
“Really, even with Friday night, traffic?” he questioned.
Yes, Fred, I thought, because, you see, I’m a freak and I left a little after four to get here by six so as not to be late. I am always on time. People are either always on time, fifteen minutes late, or hours late. There is no in-between. I guess I’m always afraid of missing something when I socialize. Everyone knows the seven-layer bean dip is the first thing to be devoured. I also never want to inconvenience someone, and when you’re late, you do that.
Fred asked me if I wanted something to drink. This time, I said, “I’ll have vodka with cranberry juice.” He called out for Maria and said that he would have the same. First with the sweatshirt and then with the drink? Hmm. I get it. We’re so much alike!
Then he introduced me to Maria’s husband, who I guess would be considered his butler. The couple lived on the property and helped run it. Manuel, the husband, was busy making gourmet Wolfgang Puck-style pizzas in the wood-burning oven that Fred had built especially for that purpose. This was to be our appetizer. Next, he asked if I’d like the grand tour.
“Of course, I would,” I replied.
Fred took me through each impeccably decorated room. The house must have been about thirteen thousand square feet. He took me into his master bedroom. It had two separate master bathrooms en suite, one for Him and one for Her. The Hers included a big vanity, whirlpool tub, and shower. It was all done very femininely. His bath was rich and stately with dark green granite and chocolate wood cabinetry. What a brilliant design, I thought. Even in lavish baths you still have to share a toilet, but not here.
Fred showed me his closet, and then, with a flourish, “Hers.” Now this closet was enormous and empty because he was single and had never been married. It even had a special room inside it specifically for furs in order to keep them at a certain temperature at all times. Fred turned to me and asked, “Do you think you could fill this one day?”
“Maybe,” I giggled.
God, could I? Could I just go straight from college to marrying this rich older man and that would be it? I would just shop every day and have expensive dinners out. I’d always be significantly younger and he would always dote on me. How jealous would my sister Kathi, twenty-eight at the time and married with two kids, be? I knew I was mature for my age, because I believed I was mature for my age. But what about all those beer commercials with twenty-five-year-olds drinking and playing volleyball with other twenty-five-year-olds on the beach? Was I ready to kiss all that goodbye for a fur closet? OK, no need to decide at this minute, Heather. Let’s just get through dinner.
Fred excused himself to change while I waited. When he came back downstairs, he was dressed nicely in slacks and a long-sleeve button-down shirt. He walked me into the garage, where he decided that we would take the Ferrari to dinner. It was cherry red and there were these long cushions hanging from the ceiling of the garage so that when you opened the doors to the Ferrari, there was no way it would hit the Mercedes or the BMW parked on either side of it. He drove us to Chinois, a Wolfgang Puck restaurant in Venice.
As we valet parked, of course, I could practically hear the snickers coming from the valets. A young girl with a clearly older man—“Gold digger!” I imagined them saying this and much more to each other. I guess my blazer didn’t fool them. They must have known it was Guess, not Armani.
At dinner, Fred and I honestly had a great conversation. He was smart and funny, and if he was thirty-something, that was still not even close to my dad’s age, who was forty-five when he had me. After our fabulous dinner, we drove to some Wilshire Corridor high-rise to meet his uncle. Why, I don’t know. Maybe h
e wanted to show me off. Fred told me his last girlfriend was a twenty-seven-year-old model. At the time, I felt that twenty-seven was so much older than me. He said, “I had just had surgery and asked her to make me some soup, but she wanted to go out and buy it. I said I was so disappointed that she wouldn’t make it from scratch.”
I almost said, “Oh Fred, how simply terrible. How hard is it to open a can and pour it into a pot?” Thank God I stopped myself and realized that some people do make chicken soup from an actual chicken. I thought, note to self: learn how to make soup.
“What surgery did you have? ” I asked.
He was hesitant and said that it had to do with something “down there,” but assured me that “everything is fine now.”
As we rode in the elevator after visiting the uncle, we kind of grabbed each other and started kissing. Making out with Fred was fun. There were only a few flights to ride, so we couldn’t go too far.
When we arrived at his house, he didn’t ask me to stay or anything like that. He walked me to my car and said he’d call me. When I got back to the sorority house, I stopped at the second floor and told Nicole and a couple of the other girls the whole story with all the details and we ended up talking until about two a.m.
Just then, my roommate Stacey came down from the third floor and screeched, “Heather, you’re here. I was so worried about you. I thought you were dead. You go to this weird older guy’s house and then never return.”
Poor Stacey. She knew I was no slut and that I practically wore the scarlet V for virgin around my neck. So if I’m not out having sex, I must be in a gutter dead somewhere. Most of the girls, however, didn’t know I was still a virgin, because at twenty-one, it’s embarrassing. I never really talked about it. Besides, if I had told them, they probably wouldn’t have believed me. In fact, my sophomore year a rumor went around that I had sex with two guys in the Sigma Alpha Epsilon bathroom! What bullshit. I hadn’t even given a blowjob in my life. Apparently, that is what is said about you when you dance on tables in short skirts and cowboy boots.
The next date involved the dreaded tennis, which I had told Fred I was so good at. He told me that we would play tennis, swim, and then have dinner with some of his friends. I said, “Sounds great,” but knew I couldn’t play tennis for shit. When I got there, Fred was playing with some bald fifty-year-old guy whose girlfriend was thirty and not that hot.
When he suggested we play doubles, I said, “I’m so bummed. I packed my swimsuit but forgot to pack my tennis shoes. I’m wearing sandals.”
How brilliant was that? I hate sports dates, biking, hiking, skiing, and Rollerblading. They all suck. It’s like an added test. How cool are you? Are you sporty and low-maintenance? Do you love going to baseball games and eating Dodger dogs? No, I don’t! In my opinion, the only dates that are acceptable involve drinks and dinner. In fact, the best dates always involve drinks and dinner. I changed into my bikini, which I admit looked pretty good on me. At twenty-one, I could really pull a two-piece off, especially because I had a tan from real UVA rays. And there were no orange self-tanner streaks around my ankles or white handprint on my thigh, like I often get today.
Dinner, which we had at the house, included the bald friend, his snippety girlfriend, Fred’s personal trainer, and the trainer’s wife. The talk quickly turned to real estate, at which point I announced I had gotten my real estate license two summers ago, but I had a job working as a buyer for a major department store, which would begin in August.
Why didn’t I just hand them my college résumé?
I was so determined not to be a loser, to have a good-paying job straight out of college so that I could live on my own and not be thought of as an idiot. I was afraid to go into entertainment then, because growing up in LA, everyone is so jaded about the business.
I didn’t want to be a waitress at twenty-eight. I wanted to be financially independent or marry a really rich guy—whichever came first.
The annoying girlfriend questioned me, my age, what I was doing. ... It was almost as if at thirty she was so much more sophisticated than me.
I actually saw her a year later. She had had the bald man’s baby, out of wedlock, of course, and was still hoping he’d marry her. Guys don’t have to worry half as much about knocking up a twenty-one-year-old; it’s the women in their thirties and forties who keep getting pregnant “by mistake.” After having your monthly period for more than two decades, shouldn’t you know your cycle by now?
That night, like the previous date, ended pretty innocently, too. Fred and I just kissed and he walked me to my car. I think he was really kind of falling for me. Because my parents were in real estate my whole life, even though I was still young, I could absolutely keep up and contribute to the conversation. He said he wanted to throw me a graduation party. No way, I thought. How awkward. I’m supposed to invite my twenty-one-year-old friends to my forty-year-old boyfriend’s mansion? I knew I wasn’t going to be having sex with him by graduation, but I felt I would really owe him something if he threw me a big party. I couldn’t invite my parents. What would they think? I guess they could talk politics and discuss where they all were the day Kennedy got shot. The whole idea of it made me nervous. So I just laughed it off and said, “No, that’s not necessary.”
The following Saturday, we made plans to go to the beach. We met at his house and drove to his beach club, the Jonathan Club. I loved the Jonathan Club. Throughout college, whenever we wanted to go to the beach, I would get on the PA system and say, “Whoever is an active member of the Jonathan Beach Club, please come down to the foyer. I would like to drive you to the beach so we can use your membership number. Jonathan Club members only, please!”
A beach club makes a trip to the beach so wonderful. There are the cocktails, guys to put the umbrellas up, clean bathrooms, and finally attractive people whose bathing suits fit properly. My parents were never members of any beach or country club; with five kids and their busy careers, they didn’t have the time or the money.
When we arrived, I wondered if people thought I was Fred’s daughter. But since he was a member, they must have known he had no children. Maybe they thought I was his niece, like in the movie Pretty Woman. He wore his Beta fraternity sweatshirt! Come on, you’re in your forties! As much as I love my sorority house, no one should get a tattoo representing their house or be seen wearing the sorority or fraternity paraphernalia after age twenty-four.
Spring break in Cabo San Lucas was funny because we saw all these locals wearing T-shirts that said things like “Pi Phi” and “Kappa Sig Luau.” I guess some drunk Pi Phi or Kappa Sig just left the T-shirts behind a few spring breaks back. We pointed at an old Mexican woman selling silver necklaces, spotted her T-shirt, and said, “Looks like Pi Phi got some older international pledges this year.”
As Fred and I settled into our beach chairs, I saw a couple of guys I knew from college. I wondered if they understood I was on a date. Did they think I was a gold digger, too, like the valets? I imagined myself five years from then with two little kids, maybe pregnant with the third. Would Fred be a hands-on dad, or would we have Maria and Manuel with us in their uniforms chasing the kids around on the sand as I lay passed out drunk in a lounge chair with the other wealthy mothers?
On the fourth date, I met Fred at his house on a Wednesday at four p.m. and we worked out with his personal trainer in his gym inside the house—yet another physical activity date. At least I would just have to complete the reps I was instructed to do, which doesn’t take great athletic ability or balance. I ended up not minding this at all. I would work out more if someone else was paying someone else to make me do it. When it’s just me attempting to exercise, I stop at about six reps or two minutes in, whichever comes first. I tell myself, “You don’t want to get too muscular and be mistaken for Madonna.”
Fred and I then went swimming. His body wasn’t bad. Sure, his skin wasn’t as taut as a twenty-three-year-old’s, but he was no doubt sexy. The bummer was I had to get my
hair wet. It’s not like I’m a black girl and absolutely cannot get my hair wet, but it’s thick and takes time to properly blow out and curl. However, I loved getting ready to go out again in the “Hers” bathroom. I had to rush so as to not appear too high maintenance; I only blew my hair for a few minutes, letting it dry naturally, and came out in jeans and a casual top. Fred complimented me on how fresh I looked. Probably anyone twenty-five years younger than him looked pretty freaking fresh !
We went to a really nice Italian restaurant close to his house. When he called to make a reservation, he picked up the phone and dialed from heart. He said, “Marco … I’m great, thanks … Yes, tonight; say in about fifteen minutes. I’ll be with my friend, Heather.” Wow, the maitre d’ knew who he was just by hearing his voice? This was before caller ID, and I was most certainly impressed.
At dinner, Fred confessed that his friends had been asking him, “What do you talk about to a twenty-one-year-old girl?” He said he told them, “She’s very mature, funny, and smart.”
What a nice thing to say, I thought, and so true. Just look at me. I had all of this going on. Maybe this could work out? Maybe I could fall in love with this guy. He is attractive and tall and fit and really fun to talk to, and hell, he was even in a good house, Beta. I hit the jackpot. We could go to USC football games together for the rest of our lives. Sure, it would always have to be with his friends and their bitter forty-something-year-old wives or their insecure thirty-five-year-old second wives or their pregnant thirty-year-old girlfriends, but who cares? We’d be in the VIP box with a fabulous parking pass.
When we returned to his house, we went up to his bedroom to watch TV. We snuggled on a lounger and started to kiss. He was a good kisser and I was getting into it. I knew there was no way I was going to have full-blown sex with him. Remember, I was a virgin, but I was ready to have some fun. He maneuvered himself on top of me. I could feel his erection on my jeans. We kissed for about five seconds more when he said to me, “Ah, just hold me.”
You’ll Never Blue Ball in This Town Again Page 6
