Dear Dwayne, With Love

by Eliza Gordon

  I wince and look up, meeting the eyes of everyone around the table. “Uh—yeah?”

  “Charlene was asking if you’ve heard anything about your suspension being shortened.” Viv looks up at everyone. “She’s texting,” Viv says to the entire table, tsk-ing me.

  “No texting! Put your phone away! Rule breaker!” the group chides, lobbing their crumpled napkins in my direction.

  I slide my phone back into the pocket of my sweater. “As far as I know, it’s still the whole month. So, if I’m not fired first, I’m back in two weeks, I think? I’ve lost count.”

  “Enjoying the freedom to spend with whomever it is you’re texting, I’ll bet,” Viv teases, peppering the air with loud smooches.

  “Do you have a new beau? Already? Wow, you modern girls move fast,” Charlene says, polishing off the last of her dessert. “And why aren’t you eating your cake? Oh dear, it’s because she’s in love. Now you’re watching your weight like one of those Cosmo-reading bimbos.”

  “God, no. No new boyfriend. I just got rid of the last one.” But I feel my cheeks burning, not because this harmless flirtation with Marco means anything—he’s just my friend! He’s not even that—he’s my trainer.

  “What’s wrong with Cosmo?” Shelly asks. I’m so grateful for her diversion. “They publish good articles about how to improve your orgasm. I read it religiously.”

  “Please don’t use the words orgasm and religious in the same sentence,” Charlene says.

  “Why not? Every orgasm should be a religious experience,” Shelly says, cackling. She and Lydia high-five.

  The two waitresses who’ve been handling our “birthday party” return to clear plates and remind us that the next party booked for the room is starting to arrive. I again thank the whole group for moving the meeting, for the bizarre gossip, for the cake (“But you hardly touched it!”). Charlene and Viv follow me out to my car so we can transfer the load of cat supplies. When Charlene asks me where so much stuff came from, I realize I can’t lie—my new friends deserve the credit, and most assuredly Minotaur for such a great deal on all this stuff.

  “A friend of mine works at Target. He used his employee discount—”

  “He? I knew it,” Viv says.

  “No, it’s not like that at all, seriously.”

  “Well, whoever he is, tell him thank you so much,” Charlene says. “You girls catch up. I need to get back to the office so I can poop in peace before everyone takes their second coffee break.”

  “Thanks for that visual, Char. Oh—and can you leave this smaller bag of Friskies out back with a Post-it for Howie?” She gives me a thumbs-up as she loads the last bag of dry cat food into her trunk. I hug her goodbye, but Viv shows no sign of leaving.

  “What is going on?” she asks.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You look different. You’re walking taller. Have you lost weight? You have a new male friend at Target, just days after you dumped Trevor. You didn’t eat the cake today. You ate a salad with actual green vegetables in it for lunch. I’ve known you for six years and have never seen you eat anything green unless it was a Shamrock Shake from McDonald’s. And you were texting under the table. Something is definitely up, and I’m not leaving until you come clean.”

  Crap.

  So I tell her the whole delightful story, talking as fast as I can because she has eighteen minutes before she needs to get back to work. When the sky opens up, we duck into my car that now smells like my gym bag.

  “Dani, you should tell everyone about this competition so we can sponsor you! Don’t you have to raise money for the children’s hospital?”

  “Probably. I think that’s the point?” I say.

  “You know how these women love their charities. We could raise a small fortune.”

  “They don’t love Howie the Pop-Can Man. He’s a charity.”

  “They’re afraid of Howie the Pop-Can Man,” she says. “Also, did you read that book he gave me to give you? Because he’s gonna ask if I’ve seen you.”

  “Tell him I’m only a couple of chapters in and really freaked out about how this fictional society promotes promiscuity. Although if it were a real place, I’d move there yesterday.”

  “You guys read weird books,” she says, checking the time on her phone. “Anyway—you absolutely need to make an announcement when you come back so we can all start fund-raising and supporting you. Can you imagine? If you got to meet The Rock? That would be like your whole life’s dream come true!”

  “I know . . . I know! But I’m afraid to even think about it. And I don’t win by raising the most money—I win by winning my age group on this insane course. Plus, Shithead Trevor found out about it, so now he’s signed up, and he’s at the same gym, and thank heavens I have some new gym friends who’ve got my back—”

  “Is that who you were texting? The new gym friend?” she air-quotes.

  This time my face heats up. “He’s just the trainer.”

  “Just the trainer. Mm-hmm.”

  “Don’t! It’s not like that!”

  “And this is different from the Target guy?”

  “Yeah. Target guy is named Minotaur.”

  “Like the mythical beast? Is that his real name?”

  “You should see him. And I don’t know what his real name is. He’s just Minotaur.”

  “But he’s not romance material?”

  “He has a long-term girlfriend. Plus, he’s huge. I’d actually be afraid of what a Minotaur penis looks like if everything else on his body is super size.”

  “You could google it, but then you’d be Lisa Rogers. Or whoever Lisa Rogers is,” Viv says, cackling at herself. “Okay, but the trainer isn’t married? Otherwise entangled? Oh man, is he gay?”

  “Shut up, Viv,” I say, my face aching from smiling so hard.

  “His name?”

  “Marco. Please don’t tell anyone else.”

  “You know I’ll tell Ben. But no one else, pinky swear. Wait—how can you afford a trainer right now?”

  “My agent got me a deal for the first two months. And then after that . . . I guess I’ll start looking into plasma donation?”

  “Holy smokes, you’re in love.”

  “I am not. I just really, really want to win this competition. I really want the walk-on role in a film. I really want to meet The Rock.”

  “Okay, Danielle Steele. Whatever you say.”

  “Don’t tell anyone yet.”

  “Fine. But you’re wasting precious time.” Viv smiles and leans back against the seat. “I won’t say anything if you promise to keep my secret too.” She giggles.

  I follow her hand down to her midsection, her palm now resting flat against where her uterus might be hiding under her tasteful, well-matched work attire.

  “No. No. Are you serious? But—I’ve only been gone two weeks. You did the preggo test when I was still there. I thought it was negative!”

  “The doctor said it could’ve been too early for the at-home test.”

  “A baby? Viv!” I reach across and give her a big squeeze. “Is Ben so excited?”

  “I don’t know if there’s a word to describe what Ben is right now.”

  “So all the beans and spinach and farting worked,” I say. “Oh my lord, you’re gonna be a mommy.”

  “That’s the plan.”

  “Whoa.” While Viv talks about how it’s still early in the pregnancy, barely seven weeks, and there’s so much potential for things to go wrong and they’re not telling anyone but close family and friends until the first trimester passes and more about vitamins and the beginnings of morning sickness, et cetera, talking long past her eighteen minutes . . . a disconcerting dread settles over me.

  My friend, two years younger than I am, is going to have a baby. A baby she desperately wants. If I got pregnant right now, I’d likely consider jumping off the Fremont Bridge. Which is the second-largest tied-arch bridge in the world—i.e., it’s super tall, in case you’ve never been
to Portland.

  I’d be terrified to be a mother. I’d either be as crazy as Mommy or run away in terror like Gerald Robert Steele did.

  Speaking of parenting: I need to stop by the pet store and get goldfish food for Hobbs.

  See? I can’t even remember to feed my depressed goldfish. Probably why he’s depressed. Maybe he needs a girlfriend? No. Like I’ve told him before, relationships are complicated. Plus, he’d probably try to eat the other fish.

  As Viv and I finally cheek-kiss and part ways, my secret suddenly feels really . . . unimportant. In the bigger scheme of things, you know?

  Before I can get to wallowing too much, my phone buzzes again, my heart fluttering at the immediate (and unsettling) hope that it’s Marco.

  The caller ID says otherwise. “Hi, Georgie.”

  [breathless, frazzled, as per usual] “Are you busy? You’re still off work, right?”

  “Yup.”

  “I need a favor—just for a couple of hours.”

  These conversations never end well. “You always say a couple of hours, and then it turns into an overnighter. I have plans tonight.”

  “I thought you dumped your boyfriend.”

  “What favor do you need, Georgette?”

  “Dante shoved a pencil eraser up William Morris’s nose, and I need to go to the pediatrician first to see if they can extract it before I go to the ER. Our medical insurance deductible right now is ridiculous, and if the pediatrician can do it in his office—I just need you to watch Mary May and Dante until Samuel gets off work.”

  “When will that be?”

  “He’s in court right now or I’d have him come home. I called his assistant, and she said he’s expected back at the office by four. So could you stay until then?”

  Exhale slowly. “Fine. I’ll be right over.”

  “You’re a lifesaver, Dani. Seriously." [screaming in background] "Okay, drive fast, wherever you are now.”

  I never thought I’d say it, but I really miss Joan the Crone. At least when she screams at me, it doesn’t involve handfuls of food or feces.

  Pray for me.

  Better yet, pray for Georgie’s chimpanzee children in my care for the next three hours.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  April 7, 2016

  Dear Dwayne Johnson,

  The next time Georgie says IT WILL ONLY BE A COUPLE OF HOURS, please, please remind me that she’s a liar-liar-pants-on-fire.

  It’s two o’clock in the morning. I did not make it to the gym tonight, and Marco said that means we’re running double tomorrow night (er, tonight?), and I’d be scared, but I’m too tired to be anything but tired at this very moment.

  My darling sister and her husband are at the hospital with their youngest child because the pediatrician could not remove the pencil eraser shoved into his face by Dante the Future Serial Killer, so poor little William Morris is having surgery right now to remove the rubber chunk from his sinus cavity. LET’S HAVE KIDS ALL THE KIDS AREN’T KIDS GREAT LET’S HAVE MORE KIDS. My sister is a moron. Maybe while she’s at the hospital, she can get a two-for-one and have her tubes tied, you know, to save on that “ridiculous deductible.”

  So I’m on my old crappy laptop because Georgie’s letter “I” is still not functioning, and I just managed to get Dante off the ceiling fan (you totally think I’m kidding, don’t you? REFER TO EXHIBIT A BELOW—yes, that is a human child hanging from a ceiling fan!) and into bed, and I may have given him a dose of Dimetapp because Jesus, that kid never stops moving. (I never step foot in this house without my own stash of Dimetapp. Secrets!) At eleven I was bribing him off the refrigerator with Twix Bites dredged from the depths of my purse because he wouldn’t listen to me, and poor little Mary May was conked out on the couch after a long crying jag because she thinks Dante killed William Morris, so I found some kids’ show that makes the Teletubbies look normal and Operation Dimetapp went into effect because I was afraid Dante would wake her up again and renew the earlier anxiety attack brought on by the fact that her mother is still not home and she thinks her baby brother is dead.

  Anyway, if Georgie asks, we’re going to say that Dante was just extra sleepy. That’s the story and we’re sticking to it.

  Oh, and Viv’s pregnant. She’s super happy. I think I should’ve invited her and Ben over to babysit Georgette’s kids so they could instead make an appointment for a hysterectomy and vasectomy, just to be double sure. Then they could take all the money and sanity they’d save and travel the world.

  The big news of the day should be the Lisa Rogers situation—she’s some sort of super-secret hacker chick involved with an alleged global corporate espionage operation. It sounds a bit Jason Bourne to me—the Lisa Rogers *I* knew hardly seemed smart enough to open a mayonnaise jar on her own, but I guess that’s part of her false persona?

  I’m still glad I punched her lights out. She deserved it. Jerk.

  This is all top-secret shit, though—like, apparently Homeland Security might even be involved. This is so exciting!

  It was nice seeing everyone at the MotherCluckers’ meeting. It really was. Except I didn’t want to eat the tiramisu because now that I’ve been trying to cut out fattening stuff, I can’t stop googling caloric contents, and seriously, that one slice of heaven was almost five hundred calories, bro! I know, right? I broke the Clucker rules, but I couldn’t eat it because I knew Miraculously Beautiful Marco would make me do a thousand extra sit-ups.

  And I never thought I’d miss working in the hen hutch, but I’ve spent the better part of the afternoon thinking about stuff . . .

  I don’t want to be these women.

  I don’t want Imperial Health and Wellness to be the only thing that defines me. I don’t want to spend the next twenty-five years growing my ass and decorating my cubicle with photos of places I’ll never get to visit and/or counting down the days to my one week of paid vacation wherein I will take an all-you-can-eat cruise down to Mexico and end up with norovirus so I can spend the entire trip puking and shitting my guts out in a cabin the size of walk-in closet while the poor maid sneaks around me dressed in a full hazmat suit to leave clean towels and Mexican Pepto-Bismol.

  I cannot see myself doing the same mind-numbing job day in and day out, hoping that the company doesn’t go under, thereby ruining my chances of a decent retirement, during which I can join a real book club where we giggle about mommy porn and cross-stitch naughty sayings while we pass around plastic plates of Triscuits topped with canned cheese product and pimientos for color as the party host fills our glasses with Costco boxed wine and I sip surreptitiously from my flask that reads “Vodka never disappoints.”

  It may be okay for these women, but I can’t do it.

  I want more. (Although I do want that flask, so keep your eyes peeled in your travels, yeah?)

  Does that make me a jerk?

  I called Lady Macbeth while I was waiting for Pizza Hut to arrive and asked her again what’s available to submit me on, even if I have to drive to Seattle for auditions. (Yeah, maybe don’t tell Georgie I fed her kids Pizza Hut. She’ll figure it out once they get diarrhea from all the grease.) DJ, I need to rethink basically my whole life. Am I too young for a midlife crisis? If it is in fact happening, does that mean I’ll only live to be, like, 58? Is that how this works?

  I think I need to move back to Los Angeles if I’m going to make a go of this acting thing, especially now that the waters of Stage III have been sullied by the Trevor fiasco; plus, I’ve had to pull back on some of the evening acting classes for now, until ROCK THE TOTS is done . . .

  Okay, that was a pause in the conversation because Mary May woke up. The aforementioned Pizza Hut just came out of her butt. That’s what I get for breaking the magic Georgie diet.

  She drank a cup of warm almond milk with some cinnamon as per Georgie’s “Instructions for Babysitters” and then willingly returned to bed and curled up with her stuffed Canada goose named Ice Cream. There’s hope for Georgie’s offspring yet if little M
ary May has anything to do with it. (Thank GOD she woke up to poo in the potty.)

  Anyway . . . funny story: It’s spring in Portland, so this house is freezing at night, and the thermostat is preprogrammed on the app on Samuel’s phone, which happens to be in his pocket at the hospital, so I can’t turn up the heat. Thus, I go into Georgie’s closet looking for a sweater and some thicker socks, and guess what I find?

  Ooh la la, Georgette, I didn’t know you had it in you. You little vixen.

  I didn’t want to touch anything because EWWW, but I might have snapped a photo [EXHIBIT B BELOW]. You never know when you might need ammunition against a sister. Hey, growing up in a house full of angry estrogen makes you forever a strategist, as per the Strategy of Sisterhood, modeled after Niccolò Machiavelli’s The Art of War, only with girl shit.

  There’s a studded collar and a riding crop and a chain leash and a whip thingie with these long tassels and two vibrators (okay, shut up, I have one too—what modern woman doesn’t?) and then stuff I’ve never seen before and I’m pret-ty sure I don’t want to know what it is, but this is hilarious because Georgette plays like she’s pure as the driven snow and she pooh-poohs Mommy’s romance novels and she behaves like the perfect mother and wife with her carob cookies and her organic diapers and responsibly sourced coffee beans and ha ha ha ha ha, Georgette Heyer Steele is a SEX GODDESS!

  (Judging by the size of this studded collar, she’s the dominatrix. Samuel’s the submissive one. Oh. My. God. This is priceless!)

  Way to go, sis. If I knew you wouldn’t kill me for finding your impressive collection of very naughty toys, I’d give you a fist bump. But only if you washed your hands first because . . . gross.

  God, no wonder they have so many kids. If the house is rockin’, don’t bother knockin’! (Now I need to bathe in bleach. Gerald Robert Steele used to say that and we didn’t know what it meant when we were little, but now it’s just icky and I feel stained in every possible way.)

  ANYWAY, it is seriously 3.30, in the morning and Miraculously Beautiful Marco is expecting me at the gym twice at some point in the next 18 hours . . .