Death of a Neighborhood Scrooge

by Laura Levine

  “I’m an actor,” he said, treating me to another glimpse of his dazzling smile. Which suddenly seemed a lot less dazzling that it had just a minute ago.

  Now it all made sense. The guy wasn’t looking for a date. He was looking for a job. I should’ve known this whole thing was too good to be true.

  “So you want me to hire you,” I said.

  Now his smile turned sheepish. “Well, actually, yes. But we could go out on some dates, too, if you like.”

  Above me, I felt Cupid putting his arrow away and flying off to Club Med.

  “I’m sorry to disappoint you,” I said, grabbing the brownie before he could get his scheming paws on it, “but I’m not really a TV writer. I write ads for small businesses here in L.A.”

  Ryan’s smile froze.

  “But it said in your profile that you were a famous TV writer, an accomplished bungee jumper, with a PhD in Celtic Literature from Vassar College!”

  “Profile? What profile?”

  “On Smatch.com, the dating website. That’s where I saw your profile. It also said you were a chocoholic into P. G. Wodehouse.”

  “Is that why you brought this book?” I asked, gesturing to Joy in the Morning.

  “Yeah,” he nodded. “I haven’t actually read any of it.”

  By now, I was in a state of shock. I simply couldn’t believe that Lance had the monumental gall to sign me up on a dating website without my permission.

  “Well, it’s all a pack of lies. Except for Wodehouse and chocolate. A friend of mine apparently put up my profile without my knowledge. I haven’t been near a TV studio in years. I spend most of my time writing toilet bowl ads for Toiletmasters Plumbers.

  So, no, I’m not really a famous TV writer.”

  “That’s okay,” Ryan II said with a sigh, slipping his head shot back into his attaché case. “I’m not really single.”

  At which point, his cellphone rang, and he grabbed it.

  “Oh. Okay, honey. I’ll be right there.

  “That was my wife,” he said, clicking off his phone. “Gotta run. Her water just broke.”

  Grabbing his attaché case, he scooted for the door.

  “Do you me a favor, willya?” he called out on his way out the door. “Return the book to the Venice Library. I think it’s overdue a couple of weeks.”

  And so he left me, alone with my chocolate chunk brownie and an overdue library book.

  No doubt about it. Cupid had definitely left the building.

  * * *

  I was so disgusted, I could barely nibble at my double chunk chocolate brownie.

  Oh, who am I kidding? I scarfed down every last crumb, and scraped all the stray frosting off the napkin, too.

  I wish I were one of those frail creatures who “can’t eat a thing” when they’re upset, but somehow my tummy always makes room for double chunk chocolate.

  Slurping the last of my Frappuccino, I hauled myself up and made my way back to my Corolla.

  Not only had I driven down from Bel Air to Westwood to meet the unscrupulous Ryan Gosling II, I now had to battle traffic out to Venice to return his stupid library book, which I dropped into the return box outside the library.

  I only hoped they slapped him with a hefty fine.

  All the way back to Bel Air, I thought of Lance and the many ways I’d like to throttle him for putting my profile on Smatch. Back at Casa Van Hooten, I climbed into bed, just waiting till Lance got home so I could read him the riot act.

  Normally I’d have Pro’s warm body to comfort me in my hour of need, but now all I had was the second double chocolate chunk brownie I’d bought at Starbucks.

  I ate it in bed, careful not to spill a crumb on Mrs. Van H’s zillion-thread-count sheets.

  Channel surfing on the guest bedroom TV, I came across an episode of My Cat from Hell. But it was way too painful to watch, evoking, as it did, so many tender memories of Prozac. Instead, I opted for a Christmas special with the Property Brothers (who, I bet my bottom Pop-Tart, never showed up on a blind date with head shots and résumés!).

  During the commercial breaks, I took particular pleasure in drawing pot bellies on the models in Lance’s Jockey for Men underwear catalog.

  At last I heard the front door open.

  “Yoo hoo, Jaine, honey. I’m home!”

  Seconds later, he was bursting into my room, clearly having glugged down a mighty swig of Love Potion #9.

  “Oh, Jaine! I had the best dinner date ever! Graham and I sat in a romantic corner booth, thigh to thigh, candlelight flickering in Graham’s eyes. We ordered chateaubriand and the most heavenly bottle of pinot noir and talked and talked all night!

  “I told him about my job at Neiman’s. I may have exaggerated just a tad. If he should ever ask, I’m the general manager.

  “He told me all about himself, his boyhood in Kansas, his job as a postal carrier and about his dead boyfriend Peter, who passed away a few years ago, and who he kept calling his ‘honey bunny.’ Which so warmed my heart. Shows you that underneath those fabulous pecs beats a heart of gold.

  “To be perfectly honest, I wasn’t paying all that much attention to everything he said. I was just so distracted by his eyes! I don’t know if you noticed, but they’re a spectacular shade of Tiffany blue. Which is where I hope we’ll be buying our engagement rings. Yes, I know what you’re thinking, that I’m going way too fast. But he’s the one. I can feel it in my bones.”

  I was quite certain that Lance’s nauseating enthusiasm was spewing not from his bones, but from a more centrally located part of his bod.

  Finally he realized I was just sitting there, stony-faced.

  “Silly me. I’ve been babbling on about Graham and forgot all about you. How did your date go?”

  “Not quite as well as yours,” I said, barely restraining myself from bopping him over the head with his Jockey catalog.

  “How was Randy?”

  “For starters, he was married.”

  “Oh, no!”

  “He showed up at Starbucks with his head shots hoping I would give him an acting job. Apparently my Smatch.com profile claims that I am a famous TV writer.”

  Still lost in Graham-land, Lance failed to detect the fury in my voice.

  “How could you go behind my back and sign me up for a dating service?” I shrieked, finally getting his attention.

  “I wanted to surprise you.”

  “I was surprised all right. You told me you met Randy on line at the supermarket.”

  “Technically, I did. I saw his profile on the Smatch app while I was waiting on line at the supermarket.”

  “And those lies you made up about me! Bungee jumping and going to Vassar!”

  “I know! Weren’t they great? No need to thank me, hon. That’s what friends are for. You’re going to love Smatch! So Randy was a bust. Big deal. Now you have a vast database of men just waiting to be discovered.”

  “Forget it, Lance. No way am I staying on Smatch. I’m going to delete my profile right now!”

  Lance’s eyes widened in dismay.

  “But you can’t! I paid a hundred and twenty bucks for six months’ membership.”

  And just like that, I started melting.

  I don’t know if you’re keeping a tally, but so far, Lance had bought me a cashmere sweater, dangly earrings, and now a $120 membership in an online dating service.

  He’d spent a small fortune on me.

  “I only want what’s best for you, sweetie,” he said, smiling at me hopefully.

  And the thing of it is, he really did. He may be the most aggravating man on earth, but he really cares about me.

  “Just give it a chance, will you?” he begged. “Somewhere out there, there’s got to be someone just right for you.”

  “Okay,” I conceded. “I’ll give it a chance. But first thing in the morning, I’m rewriting my profile.”

  “You’ll probably want to take out the part about you being a body double for Scarlett Johansson.”

>   “What??!”

  “Just taking a little poetic license.”

  “Oh, all right. And speaking of poetic license, I took the liberty of making some creative changes to your Jockey catalog.”

  And I must admit it was quite soothing lying back against Mrs. Van H’s eiderdown pillows listening to Lance’s yowls of dismay as he discovered the pot bellies I’d drawn on his Jockey studs.

  Yes, most soothing, indeed.

  Chapter 11

  You can’t imagine the utter pap Lance had made up about me on Smatch.com. In addition to the Vassar/bungee jumping/Scarlett Johansson body double thing, I was also apparently a Cordon Bleu cook and part-time lingerie model.

  I quickly set about correcting these whoppers and reading the many messages I had received from lingerie fetishists and Scarlett Johansson stalkers. Not to mention the boatload of bilge from scammers professing to be brain surgeons /attorneys/nuclear physicists writing such Pulitzer Prize–winning billets-doux as:

  You are prety ladie. I will like to know you very much.

  After cleaning up my Smatch profile, I spent the next several days back in the trenches with Scotty, desperately trying to trim the fat from his bloated epic.

  Work was even more intolerable than usual due to the fact that the Santa Anas had not let up and the temperature was climbing well into the eighties. Scotty, ever the cheapskate, refused to turn on his A/C. Even with all the windows and French doors open, the House of Scrooge was a veritable sauna.

  Thank heavens I managed to have some fun at night with Lance.

  We popped in at a couple of Christmas parties, the most festive being the annual Toiletmasters Christmas bash (where my boss and genial host, Phil Angelides, served eggnog from a claw-footed bathtub), took in the Christmas boat show at the marina, and saw the spectacular display of Christmas lights in Beverly Hills. (None of which, according to Lance, were as brilliant as the twinkle in Graham’s Tiffany blue eyes.)

  No matter where we were, Lance simply could not get Graham off his mind.

  After their first date, Lance assumed he’d be spending scads of time with his new flame. But Graham told Lance he’d be tied up until after Christmas—which sent Lance spiraling into an eddy of doubt, bombarding Graham with emoji-laden texts, parsing every reply with the gravity of a monk studying an epistle from Saint Paul.

  “What if he doesn’t really like me?” he’d moan as I worked my way through my annual supply of Christmas fudge. “What if he’s just trying to let me down gently? What if he’s lost interest? What if I never get to see him again?”

  “What if I take this piece of fudge and shove it in your mouth so you’ll give me two minutes of blessed silence?”

  Of course I didn’t say that. I was far too kind a person, and far too busy eating my Christmas fudge.

  On Christmas Eve, Lance and I went to his hipster Unitarian church in Santa Monica, a great old Spanish sanctuary with a bell tower, red tile roof, and wood-beamed ceilings. A striking raven-haired minister, who looked like she might have graced the cover of Vogue a decade or two ago, presided over a series of inspirational poems and readings while a world-class choir, no doubt full of Hollywood backup singers, belted out a medley of soaring hymns.

  Sitting there, breathing in the bracing scent of the pine garlands adorning the pews, I was filled with a sense of peace. Next to me, Lance was staring off into space, either contemplating the wonder of the season or parsing the hidden meaning in Graham’s latest text.

  Back home at the Van Hooten manse, we stopped in the living room to admire Lance’s Christmas tree with its eclectic mix of traditional ornaments, handmade baubles, and strands of fresh acorns.

  After enough oohs and aahs from me to stroke Lance’s ego, we adjourned to the den, cups of mulled cider in our hands, to watch our favorite holiday movie, Christmas in Connecticut.

  Normally I adore this flick with Barbara Stanwyck as a kitchen klutz pretending to be a Martha Stewart clone. But this year, my heart wasn’t in it. In spite of the mulled cider and deluxe TV with surround sound, I felt an empty spot in my lap. A spot where Prozac should have been, demanding her Christmas Eve belly rub.

  Try as I might to shove her out of my mind, I missed the little rascal.

  Lance, too, was distracted, obsessively checking his phone for messages from Graham.

  So, longing to see Prozac, I left Lance—eyeballs glued to his phone—and headed next door to check in on Christmas Eve at The House of Scrooge.

  * * *

  Lupe greeted me at the Parkers’ front door, a wan smile on her face.

  “How’s it going, Lupe?”

  “Not so bueno,” she sighed. “I’m stuck here with Mr. Wonderful when I should be home with my family for Christmas.”

  I remembered how Scotty refused to give Lupe time off for the holiday. What a bum.

  “Everybody’s in the living room watching Scotty’s movie, the one he made when he was a little boy. Dios mio.” Lupe shook her head in disgust. “He was every bit as—how you say, stinky?—then as he is now.”

  She led me to the living room where Scotty, Missy, and their tenant, Dave Kellogg of non-cereal fame, were gathered around watching Scotty’s long forgotten remake of A Christmas Carol.

  Scotty was stretched out on his recliner, clutching a tumbler of discount booze, while Missy sat perched on the sofa, Dave in an adjacent armchair.

  In the corner of the room was a massive artificial tree with built-in lights.

  Whaddya know? For once it looked like Scotty had actually forked over some dough for the holidays.

  But then I noticed a price tag dangling from the tree.

  “He buys a fancy artificial tree every year,” Lupe whispered, following my gaze. “Then he returns it on January second.”

  Yikes. The man defied belief.

  “Ms. Jaine is here,” Lupe announced, shooting Scotty a filthy look before flouncing off to the back of the house.

  “Jaine!” Missy cried, turning around to greet me. “How nice of you to stop by. C’mon in. We’re watching Scotty’s movie.”

  As I walked around to the front of the sofa, I saw something that made me gawk in astonishment.

  There, curled up in Missy’s lap, was Prozac—with a pair of fuzzy reindeer antlers strapped to her head!

  First, the mistletoe cap. Now this—from the cat who puts up a battle royale when I even try to change her flea collar! I could not believe she was sitting there, with Bullwinkle’s headgear strapped to her noggin, docile as a Stepford cat.

  “Come sit here, Jaine.” Missy patted a spot on the sofa next to her. “Scarlett, honey, look who’s here!”

  Prozac tore her eyes away from Missy and glanced up at me lazily.

  Oh, yeah. It’s whatshername.

  “You hold her,” Missy said, setting Prozac in my lap. “You must miss your little darling.”

  Indeed I did. Unfortunately, the feeling was not mutual.

  Although Prozac remained on my lap, granting me the privilege of scratching her back in the sweet spot right behind her tail, never once did she take her eyes off Missy, gazing at her with the same kind of reverence I gaze at my Christmas fudge.

  And Prozac wasn’t the only one under Missy’s spell.

  Dave was having a hard time keeping his eyes on the TV, stealing covert glances at Missy every few seconds.

  The only one paying attention to the clunker on the TV screen was Scotty, busy trashing all the other actors, reserving most of his scorn for the guy playing Bob Cratchit, an actor named Everett Chambers.

  “Have you ever seen such a wooden performance?” Scotty bellowed at the screen as Cratchit begged for a day off from Scrooge. “I’ve seen better acting from a ventriloquist’s dummy. What a doofus!”

  Prozac eyed him appraisingly.

  Takes one to know one.

  Scotty caught her looking at him.

  “Why, even that cat could turn in a better performance.”

  Was he kidding? Prozac coul
d give Meryl Streep a run for her money.

  We all sat there, uncomfortable, as Scotty continued to rant at the screen, glugging down shots of booze between zingers.

  “He does this all the time,” Missy whispered in my ear. “Blames the failure of the movie on everyone else in the cast, instead of his own terrible performance.”

  And indeed, as I looked at the young freckle-faced Scotty on the screen, I practically needed a diabetes shot to get through his syrupy portrayal of Tiny Tim.

  “Care for some popcorn?” Dave asked, holding out a bowl, in one of the rare moments he wasn’t gazing, rapt, at Missy.

  “Be careful,” he warned as I reached out to grab some. “It’s discount popcorn. Most of the kernels haven’t popped.”

  So there I was, gnawing away at unpopped popcorn, gazing down at my cheating feline, Scotty bellowing in the background—wishing I could just take Prozac, rip off her stupid antlers, and drive back home to my apartment.

  But my escape plans were interrupted just then by an angry banging on the front door.

  By now I was used to angry banging at Scotty’s front door. This did not seem to be a house where people popped by for friendly chitchats.

  Missy, alarmed, jumped up to get it.

  Seconds later, she returned with Scotty’s ex-wife, Elise, who looked even angrier than when I’d first seen her barging into Scotty’s living room the other night.

  “You miserable piece of slime!” she screeched at Scotty. “I still haven’t gotten my alimony check.”

  “Really?” Scotty said, with a patently phony look of surprise on his face. “It must’ve gotten lost in the mail.”

  “My God,” Elise groaned, “you’re almost as bad a liar as you were an actor. You never wrote me a check.”

  And off she marched toward the foyer.

  “Where the hell are you going?” Scotty cried out.

  “To your office, where I will find your checkbook and write myself my alimony check.”

  Alarmed at the thought of parting with his money, Scotty started to haul himself out of his recliner.

  “You take one more step, Scotty, and I swear I’ll beat the living daylights out of you.” With that, Elise rushed to the fireplace and picked up a rusty poker, waving it in the air, itching to bop her former husband on the bean.