The Starter Wife

by Grazer, Gigi Levangie

  Gracie stood there for a moment, wondering if she had the heart (or guts) to inform her “guests” that they were sort of, really, absolutely trespassing. Their boldly colored blankets with Pepsi and Coors logos were spread out. The kids were already making use of the large pieces of driftwood jutting out of the ground at various angles, half buried in sand and rocks. Babies were already piling sand into their gaping, precious mouths, the grown-ups were sitting back on the palms of their hands, taking in the surf and the first beer of the day with equal enthusiasm.

  Gracie took one look and they took one look at her, and there was a crucial moment, a moment when all manner of decisions were made. Then Gracie waved and smiled, and the families all waved and smiled back, and then she walked right back up the stairs.

  “No luck?” Will asked.

  “They said they’re very sorry, and they’ll turn it down,” Gracie lied.

  “I can see that,” Will replied, his voice loud over the ranchera music. Ana was now dancing with Jaden on the deck. “I want you to rest up. According to Internet estimates, there are fifteen parties between here and the twenties.” ( The “twenties” being the houses at the other end of the Colony.)

  “Do you think he’ll be at one of these parties?” Gracie asked, expertly changing the subject.

  “Every person in Los Angeles is going to be in the Colony. Of course he will,” Will said. “Now work on your tan. Everyone looks better with a little color.”

  Gracie, with her paper-white skin, situated herself back under an umbrella watching while Jaden and Ana spun to the beat of the boom box and laughed.

  Finally Will and Gracie leaned back in their chaise longues and closed their eyes in an attempt to rest up for the big day.

  THERE WAS NOTHING that could have prepared Gracie for her first official Fourth of July in Malibu—not Vietnam, not Iraq, not the Fred Segal Annual Sale.

  Everywhere she looked were bodies: in her driveway, under her house, outside her kitchen windows, south toward the pier, north into the sun. And every house in the Colony seemed to be hosting its own Fourth of July party. Each house vibrated and groaned as scores of people streamed out onto the beach. Music clashed with music clashed with dogs and parrots and forced laughter.

  Gracie was miserable.

  Gracie, Will, and Cricket had worked their way down from the north end of the Colony, as per Will’s instructions. Will had jotted a map of the Colony down on a napkin—Leo lived just north of the Colony, then Sting, then the head of UTA, then Beyoncé, who was renting (and had forgotten or neglected to order valet), and on and on and on. As they walked north along the sand, skipping the houses from the hundreds through the eighties (Will had spied too many children), Gracie experienced a sense of vertigo—she realized she was already claustrophobic—even walking along the beach in the open air. Just the thought of attending five parties in a row sent her into a tailspin.

  But Will was not to be denied. Dressed in khaki shorts and a linen shirt, with leather flip-flops gracing his waxed feet, he was in his best homo-couture. His black and gray sunglasses, the latest in a string of design triumphs from Marc Jacobs, set off his new array of carefully devised highlights. He declared himself homo-fabulous.

  Gracie, according to Will, was less divine. After he expressed fear and then anguish over her choice of last year’s Juicy sweats and a long-sleeved dull gray T-shirt, Will had flown through her closet and insisted on a bathing suit/sarong combination that Gracie felt made her look like a woman on the prowl for a third husband. Will made it clear that this was the look he was after and the look she should embrace.

  “But I’ve only been married once, and I’m not on the prowl,” Gracie said.

  “Then what are you doing, Ms. Boldly Flirtatious?” Will asked.

  Cricket walked in, sweating profusely as she carried two small children and a sack of sand toys, followed by her nanny toting a third small child and a beach umbrella. “I can’t park in the fire lane! They threatened to tow me!”

  “But I have plenty of parking out there,” Gracie said.

  “No, you don’t,” Cricket said. “There’s five cars, a valet, and a giant bouncie in your driveway. I parked outside the gates and walked.”

  Welcome to Malibu on the Fourth of July. Good luck getting a parking space.

  FIRST PARTY

  Leo’s house. At least Will was pretty sure it was Leo’s house. It may not have been Leo’s house at all—in fact, there was no proof it was Leo’s house. There were no pictures displayed, no Gisele sightings, no evidence, in fact, that anyone actually lived there. Because there was no furniture—no tables, no chairs, no couches, no TVs, no rugs, no nothing.

  What there was, Gracie ruefully noted, was an abundance of excessively beautiful, excessively young people.

  “This is ridiculous,” Gracie said to Will. “People like this don’t exist outside of Versace ads.”

  She was watching a girl, fifteen, sixteen, float from one end of the deck to the other, beckoned toward an open-air bar and the promise of illicit, fruit-flavored vodka. She was wearing a bikini over a body for which clothes were an unnecessary burden.

  “Oh, but they do, as you can see,” Will said. “I call them ‘The Blanks.’”

  He watched eagerly as a young man with blond hair and tawny skin, seen all the better with an open-to-the-waist shirt and jeans that accented the kind of package that had been opened many, many times, walked by.

  “Hello, Jon Voight,” Will said, waving a bottle of Neutrogena. “I do sunscreen!”

  Gracie shuddered at the reference to Midnight Cowboy.

  “And the Blanks are?” she asked.

  “Look at the expressions,” Will said. “It’s not Botox, it’s that heady mixture of youth and stupidity.”

  “Maybe it’s disinterest.”

  “Trust me, these people aren’t ‘Spellers,’” Will said.

  “That’s it. What’s the point of me staying here?” Gracie said.

  They took off, the median age of the party dropping two decades the moment they walked off the deck.

  SECOND PARTY

  “What’s that smell?” Will said, beating at the smoky air in front of his face.

  “It’s called marijuana,” Gracie coughed. A bearded man was thrashing bongo drums in a living room covered from floor to ceiling with what Will claimed were East Asian textiles.

  “How retro. You know, this could be like the Swan of houses,”Will said, looking around. “Look at the bones.”

  Gracie looked around. She felt as though she were in a sequence from Helter Skelter. The women lying on the low couches could be stand-ins for Squeaky Fromme et al.

  “Leave?” Gracie asked.

  “Too late. Cricket has been indoctrinated,” Will said.

  Cricket was in a corner, about to share a joint with a man who could have been a Cheech or a Chong (Gracie couldn’t remember the difference).

  THIRD PARTY (after dragging Cricket from the second party and the clutches of Cheech/Chong)

  Very many famous people in a too-small venue. Gracie bumped into Barbra Streisand. Will had a conversation with Michelle Pfeiffer. Cricket, stoned, asked Jim Carrey to marry her. Mel Gibson clutched a Diet Coke and scowled at the water.

  “I’m the only person I don’t recognize here,” Gracie said.

  “I know, isn’t it divine?” Will said. “Michelle’s so animated, it’s like she’s on beta-blockers.”

  “Do you know her?”

  “Of course not,” Will said. “But look at her. She’s so ethereal, like Cate Blanchett from Lord of the Rings. If she had a penis, I’d be married.”

  Matthew McConaughey squeezed by, pinching Gracie’s butt as he passed.

  “Oh my God,” Gracie said.“I’m in love.”

  “You’re so easy,” Will said. “That was arbitrary harassment.”

  “What’s your point?” Gracie asked. “I’m forty-one and a gorgeous man just pinched my butt. I can die now.”

 
“I hear he’s hung like Wilbur,” Will said.

  “Wilbur?” Gracie asked.

  “The horse, you idiot,” Will said. “What is happening to the world of cultural reference?”

  TWO PARTIES LATER, and finally they had made it to friendly territory. Number 152. Lou’s house. Gracie didn’t recognize his house from the beach—the architecture was obscured by people in various forms of dress and undress lying on the expansive deck.

  By this time Gracie was nearly in tears. She didn’t know if she could fight her way back home, and she was thankful for the respite. “I’m not strong enough,” she said to Will as they walked up Lou’s steps, past the bodies, whimpering as he stroked her hair.

  But Will, feeling a little brave and a lot more drunk, was eager to attend more parties, so he left her to her own devices.

  “Will you be okay?” he asked.

  “I think so,” she said. Then, “What happened to Cricket?”

  Will looked around. “Oh, shit. I think I lost her at the A-list party.”

  He blew her a kiss and teetered off. Gracie walked onto Lou’s deck and crossed over to the open door leading to his living room.

  “LOU?” she asked, placing one foot gingerly in front of the other.

  “Lou?” she continued as she looked around his living room, passing the kitchen. As loud as it was outside, the place was quiet. A tomb.

  “Lou?” she asked again.

  She looked at the stairs leading to what she imagined were the upstairs bedrooms. She looked around again and decided that they were friends, it was okay, he wouldn’t mind if she went looking for him.

  She walked up the stairs and into the master bedroom. It opened up onto a balcony. The view was magnificent, better than Joan’s (of course, she wouldn’t tell her). The bed was neatly made. Several books were on a side table. Gracie walked onto the balcony and sank into the view.

  “Gracie,” Lou said. He was standing behind her.

  Gracie turned to see him and immediately felt ashamed. What was she doing, standing here, walking through his house as though she owned it? As though she owned him?

  “I don’t mind,” Lou said, as though reading her mind. “You were looking for me?”

  “Honestly, I was looking for somewhere to rest before I went on to my place,” Gracie said. “Even when I get there, I know I’m going to be greeted by mobs. You didn’t tell me how scary Fourth of July in Malibu is.”

  “You didn’t ask,” Lou said.

  Gracie stared at him. The way he was looking out at the water. Did she smell scotch on his breath? Did she even know what scotch smelled like? How could she be forty-one and not know what scotch smelled like?

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “Hey, I had a good time the other night,” Lou said. “A really good time. How come you didn’t marry me instead of that knucklehead?”

  “First of all, you didn’t ask. And second, you’re talking about your number two guy,” Gracie chided. “Your right-hand man.”

  “Ah, he’s a piece of shit,” Lou said, “but he’s my piece of shit, I guess.”

  “I better be going—” Gracie said. She wasn’t even sure why she was standing there.

  “No,” Lou said, grabbing her arm and then just as quickly letting it go. “I need to talk to you.”

  Gracie looked at him.

  “Sit down,” Lou said. Then, sensing her hesitation,“Please.”

  She sat on one of the no doubt very expensive but highly uncomfortable wrought-iron chairs on his balcony.

  “Am I getting a little color?” she asked, looking down at her arms.

  “You know what you look like in that getup?” Lou asked. “I was looking at you and I just realized. You look like my fourth wife.”

  “Really?” Gracie asked. “Because I was really going for the third-wife look.”

  “Well, you missed it,” Lou said. “Listen, Gracie, I have something to tell you. But I don’t want to tell you unless you can guarantee me that you’ll keep it a secret.” He looked her straight in the eye.

  “Oh, my God,” Gracie said. “You’re gay.”

  Lou smiled, but he said, “It’s not a joke.”

  “Let me think,” Gracie said. “To be honest, I’m not entirely sure that I’m trustworthy.”

  She sat there and thought for a moment. Could she be trusted with a secret? A highly secret secret?

  “Go ahead,” Gracie finally said, “shoot.”

  “Are you sure?” Lou asked. “Because I feel like I want to tell you, but it’s a burden, what I have to say.”

  “Then why tell me?”

  “Good question,” Lou said. “Here’s the sad part. You’re the only person who will understand.”

  Gracie leaned back. So here it was. He was going to level with her, tell her the reason for the shadow behind his eyes. Was she ready for it? Here was real intimacy, something she hadn’t experienced with her husband since …

  “I’m going to kill myself,” Lou said.

  Gracie gasped. And then she sprang up and started hitting him. “You idiot!” she screamed. “You stupid, stupid, dumb, stupid—”

  “Stop!” Lou said, grabbing her flailing arms. “Gracie, stop!”

  “You have everything to live for!” Gracie yelled. “You have a child, you have, you have … a really nice car, and the women—Lou, think of all the women you haven’t slept with yet! Think of them, for God’s sakes, Lou!”

  “I’m not really going to kill myself!” Lou said, grabbing her from behind, his arms wrapped around her back, pinning her arms to her sides.

  “I’m going to kill you!” Gracie yelled. “Why are you screwing with me?! I’m emotionally vulnerable!”

  She started struggling again—

  “No fucking kidding,” Lou said. He was still holding on to her. The pleasure of feeling a man’s arms wrapped around her was not lost on Gracie, even if it was solely to keep her from hurting him.

  “Are you ready to listen to me?” he asked, still holding on to her.

  Gracie just nodded. He started to let go. “Just … don’t let go,” she said.

  Lou kept his arms wrapped around her. “Okay, you’re calm now, right?”

  Gracie nodded again.

  “I’m going to kill myself”—he squeezed her as she struggled again—“but I’m not going to kill myself.”

  “What do you mean?” Gracie asked.

  “Gracie, it’s like this.” Lou looked at her. “I have this fantasy. It’s something I’ve thought about for a long time. I want to go to my own funeral.”

  Gracie shook her head, disgusted.

  “You’re sick,” Gracie said. “You need help. I hear the new antidepressants don’t mess with your, you know—”

  “I’m not depressed,” he said. “I’m obsessed. For the last couple years, I’ve been to more funerals, and I got to thinking about my own, and you know what? I want to be there.”

  “But you would be there … at your own funeral,” Gracie said. “Lou, how is it possible that you’re this sick? You’re supposed to be the rock!”

  Lou shook his head. “I just … want to experience it,” he said, “and then, a couple days later, I resurface. It becomes one of the great Hollywood stories. But now I know who my real friends are.”

  Gracie looked at him. Lonely, lonely Lou.

  “Real friends?” Gracie asked. “You know how many real friends I have? Three. And that’s a lot. You don’t need to do this. I’ll save you the trouble. I’ll tell you right now how many real friends you have.” She made a zero with her thumb and forefinger. “You want real friends? Live somewhere in Ohio.”

  “You’re my friend,” Lou said.

  “How can I be your friend, Lou?” Gracie looked at him. “I don’t even know you.”

  Lou let go of her and looked out at the water.

  “Can I talk you out of this?” she asked.

  Lou just stared at the water. “Did you ever see A Star Is Born?”

&
nbsp; “The first, the second, or the third?” Gracie asked.

  “I’m old. I’m talking the first or the second.”

  “Good, because frankly, I’m not a big fan of Barbra Streisand’s hair in the third,” Gracie said. “That Orphan Annie thing. Not attractive.”

  “That’s how I’m going to do it. I’m going into the water tonight. I’ll leave my clothes on the beach, a note.”

  “I’m begging you, Lou,” Gracie said. “You don’t need to do this. Please, for my sake, for your child’s sake, please don’t.”

  Suddenly Lou pointed. “Hey, did you see that? A dolphin. Dolphins are good luck.”

  18

  DO YOU FEEL FIREWORKS?

  DESPITE EVERYTHING she’d been through in the last couple of months, Gracie had never felt so depressed as she did when she left Lou’s house. And it wasn’t because she thought every single female in sight had a better body than she had, although that would have been enough.

  Lou, the one man in the world that she took for being a sane, well-adjusted, upstanding serial monogamist, was just as nutty as the rest of them. That he was willing to create an elaborate hoax by faking his own death so he could attend his own funeral, all the while taking notes on his so-called friends, proved beyond a reasonable doubt that he was damaged goods. Lou was just another tragic figure from the Land of Broken Toys.

  Gracie meandered down the beach, much like Jaden did when she didn’t want to go home but had no choice in the matter. Was there anything Gracie could do? She’d tried to reason with him. She’d tried yelling at him. She’d pointed out the damage he could be doing to his son.

  She’d even informed him, in serious tones, that this endeavor was an incredible turnoff. That she had been this close to sleeping with him. Yes, maybe it wasn’t the ultimate threat—she was not a supermodel; her vagina was not a weapon of mass destruction. But still, she had felt that flicker of something. Was it anticipation? Before meeting the Unknown Suitor, she had forgotten that flicker—her flicker had flicked out.