Hangovers & Hot Flashes

by Kim Gruenenfelder

  “Oh," I say nervously. Then, “So what did you think?”

  He answers carefully. “I can see you in them.”

  I have no idea what that means. “Uh… thank you?”

  “It’s a compliment.” He assures me. Then he changes the subject. “Back to hardware stores. Want to know why I like them so much?”

  I nod. John surprises me by taking my hand. “Come with me.”

  As he pulls me out of aisle seven all I can think is, He’s holding my hand. Girl happy.

  We stop near the lumber section. “Do you see that?” he asks, pointing to a neatly stacked pile of wood beams. “I could make a new deck out of that. Brand new. No weak spots or rot. And I could stain it any color I want. Or that…” he continues, pulling me toward the paint section. “A couple of buckets of paint and a Saturday to myself, and Kris has a whole new bedroom. Or that…” he says, pointing to an electric saw displayed in the front of the aisle with a 50% off sign. “I could make a new dresser if I had one of those.” He turns to me, practically glowing. “I look around this store and see endless possibilities! I could buy lumber, tools, paint… even toilets… and accomplish something! Or, to put it in your terms, replace an old worn out countertop with new marble. Out with the old and falling apart, in with something new and sparkly. It’s like this mini new lease on life, and all you need to get it is a free weekend and this place.”

  “Wow," I say, my voice softening. “How are you not taken?”

  He visibly winces. “That’s a complicated question. Maybe some night over a glass of Mouton Rothschild, I’ll tell you.”

  He doesn’t pronounce Mouton Rothschild the way I do (meaning in French, and correctly). When the words come out of his mouth, they have an American droll to them, like he’s not even attempting to get the accent right.

  It is the sexiest thing I’ve heard in months.

  Don’t get me wrong: I think you should always try to speak and understand the language spoken anywhere you visit. I think the ultimate sign of respect is to try to speak to someone in their native language. And I have been to the Mouton Rothschild vineyards, and the people who work there are amazing, and I can’t hear the name without thinking of them. But I’ve also heard people talk about that wine more for social status than actual enjoyment. Something tells me, McGuinness over here might pronounce it wrong, but he would actually enjoy the wine.

  John gives my hand a light kiss, then drops it. “Back to aisle seven.”

  I make a face. “Rats.”

  As I follow him back to the dreaded plumbing aisle, he asks me, “So what’s your version of the hardware store?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know, where’s the place you go to be at peace, and be optimistic about the future?”

  “A bar," I answer dryly.

  He turns to me and narrows his eyes, not appreciating my joke. So I joke again, “You thought I was going to say shoe store, didn’t you?”

  “Oh yeah, but bar is so much less clichéd," he answers sarcastically.

  I debate a moment, “Okay, I’ll tell you, but you can’t make fun of me. The theater.”

  John’s eyes flash to the right quickly, then back to me. “Like, live theater or the movie theater?”

  “Well, both. But mostly live theater. And not just big plays at the Ahmanson or the Dorothy Chandler. I mean, like, ninety-nine-seat theaters where actors are trying to get their art together; Shakespeare festivals where people can show me a new interpretation of the same play I’ve seen and read ten times, a play on Broadway where an actor who is only known for some stupid sitcom or action movie can somehow move me to laughter in The Importance of Being Ernest or move me to tears in The Boys in the Band. When I was younger, all I wanted to do was work in the theater. I was so happy even if I had only one line, or was just being a tech in my all black outfit. Theater makes me feel… alive. Content with the world. And my place in it. It’s the only place where my mind isn’t zinging in three hundred directions all at once.”

  As I speak, John is looking right into my eyes, and his smile is getting bigger and bigger. I don’t even remember the last time I had a man so completely focused on me (who I wasn’t paying to work on one of my shows). Or has looked so utterly charmed.

  “You remind me so much of Kris," he says.

  His daughter. Right. He’s only here because of his daughter.

  “I just wish I could get her to channel that excitement and energy you both have, and use it to get into college.”

  “How do you mean?”

  John looks uncomfortable. He takes a long breath, then says, “You don’t have kids… ummm…” He nervously runs his fingers through his hair, struggling to find the words. “Kris is amazing, and she has a lot of gifts: theater and production, for one. And she is the hardest worker I’ve ever met when she wants something. But both of her sisters were straight A students in high school and always had college on their minds. Kris, on the other hand, hates math, and has some Bs. Which, back in my day, was normal, but in this Tiger Mom culture is somehow a failure. Anytime I mention college, it turns into a giant fight, and by that I mean at a drama level only a teenaged girl can manufacture. Every few months she lectures me that college is a waste of time and money, and why can’t she just jump right into production at eighteen. And, you know, shows like Diamond Girls don’t help, because whether those women went to college or not, they inherited their money. We live in a two-bedroom condo at Malibu Beach Complex that I own only because my wife pushed me to put three percent down on what she thought was a starter place a million years ago. I couldn’t afford to buy it now, and I have two mortgages because I’ve had to borrow against it for college for the first two girls. So, Kris won’t be getting any windfalls from me. I understand why she wants to just get out there and make money.”

  Crap. He hates me. He thinks I’m ruining his kid’s life. How do I fix this?

  “I think there’s one woman on your show who is self made,” John concedes.

  “Yeah, me," I blurt out defensively. Then quickly backtrack. “I mean, Claudia on the show.”

  “You, too, though. And that’s amazing,” John says, in a tone like he’s placating me. He shakes his head. “I didn’t mean to burden you with this. I’m sorry. This is not your battle. I shouldn’t have mentioned it," he smiles, but this time his smile isn’t as genuine. “Come on, let’s find you some toilets.”

  I spend the next hour just wanting to sink into the floor and disappear.

  Twenty-four

  Zoe

  “Dating sucks!” I declare as I walk into our house.

  “Preach!” I hear Carlos agree from the kitchen.

  “Are the kids home?” I ask/project as I drop my purse at the door and kick off my high heels.

  “Are you kidding? It’s not quite 10:00. That still gives them two hours and five minutes before they will text us to say, ‘Almost home!’ with a smileyface emoji!’”

  “How are we both home before ten?” I ask as I walk into the kitchen to see Carlos leaning against our counter, eating a Trader Joe’s enchilada, a pint of beer by his side.

  “We’re old, kid," Carlos says, smiling and shrugging. As he spears his fork through a piece of chicken enchilada, he asks, “So how were the girls?”

  “Alex has a new crush, Michelle is already tempted to torch Steve’s car, and Vanessa is… well… Vanessa," I tell him as I open our pantry, “How were Jamal and Phil?”

  “Phil is still dating that crazy girl…” Carlos begins.

  “Still?!” I interrupt, then shake my head. “Man, that girl must have a tongue like a porn star. What is it about sex that makes men do such dumb things?”

  “Men? Need I remind you we both went out to a bar tonight?”

  “That isn’t for sex, it’s for kissing," I correct him as I paw through boxes of pasta and Rice-A-Roni, looking for the bag of double chocolate Milanos I bought yesterday. “If you want to have sex, that’s up to you. I just want kiss
ing.”

  “Wow. I feel like I’m in college again," he says, popping another bite of enchilada into his mouth.

  “Ha, ha," I mutter/groan. “Shit. Where are my cookies?”

  “Do you really need to ask that? We have two teenagers in the house.”

  I push a few boxes of instant oatmeal from side to side and lift a box of instant mashed potatoes in a mad search. “Which is why I specifically put two bags of Chips Ahoy at the front of the shelves and hid the Milanos behind the pasta.”

  “A trick that worked beautifully… never.”

  “I need cheese," I decide, moving on to the refrigerator. I open the cheese drawer and exclaim, “Oh… COME ON!”

  “He ate all of my garlic bread, too," Carlos tells me.

  “He doesn’t even like blue cheese. I knew the rest of the Brie would be toast, but why take the Stilton?”

  “Now see, you complain that you’ll be a mess next year when they leave. But think of what a luxury it will be to come home and actually have the food you saved still be here.”

  “Don’t say things like that," I warn him for the millionth time.

  “I’m just pointing out…”

  My shoulders immediately tense up, and I lift my hands into fists in the air like I’ve just seen a spider. “Seriously Carlos. You know how the thought of them leaving makes me get…”

  “Sorry. Paws up," he says immediately, lifting his hands in surrender. “How about some wine?”

  “I don’t want wine. I want cookies," I pout. “Or at least cheese.”

  And then a thought pops into my head: the two of us could just head out to Canter’s Deli, one of my favorite places to go in the middle of the night when I was in my twenties. That would make me happy. Devour a sky high pastrami sandwich with thick cut steak fries and a black coffee (my old stand by), then a noodle kugel for dessert. Or maybe a black and white cookie.

  But before I can even suggest it to Carlos, a string of thoughts pelt down my idea: The kids have a midnight curfew; we need to be home waiting for them. Plus, Carlos is already eating. It would easily be a fifty dollar meal, money we don’t really have. Parking would be a pain…

  “Actually, can you open a Rioja for me?” I ask him as I return to the pantry to track down something palatable. “There’s one in the wine rack.”

  As Carlos retrieves the Rioja, I scour the shelves, and finally settle on some Ritz crackers. While he opens the bottle, I take that time to return to the fridge, where I pull out a stick of butter to spread on the crackers. Carlos and I spend a minute or two puttering about, assembling utensils, glasses, etc. By the time he has handed me my glass of wine, I am eating crackers from the tube and sawing cold butter with a dull knife to spread on top.

  “So you didn’t get your kiss tonight?” Carlos asks me.

  “No," I admit. “Michelle did though. It was weird.”

  “What was weird?”

  “Well, we were all sitting at a table near the bar: Vanessa, Michelle and me. Alex had to leave early. So, Vanessa kept berating Michelle and me with all of these new dating rules. At some point this insanely hot guy walks in by himself and goes to the bar. So we’re all talking about what do you say to a man who looks like that? Story goes on longer, but I’ll make it short. Michelle ends up making a beeline for him: no subtlety at all! She says something, he says something back, and then they just left together! Like, just like that!”

  I wait for Carlos’ appropriate reaction: one of complete surprise.

  Instead, he patiently waits for more of the story.

  “Nothing?” I ask him.

  “Nothing what?”

  And so I repeat, “Michelle just walked up to a guy whom she had never met… one who was gorgeous and way out of her league… said some magical one liner to him and then left with him. Just like that.”

  Carlos nods, still waiting for more. He is exasperating. I throw up my arms and exclaim, “And reaction please!”

  He seems thrown. “Oh! Um… what a slut?”

  “She’s not a slut!”

  He looks down to the floor, saying under his breath, “Okay, she’s not a slut…” He pops up his head and tries again. “You go girl?”

  “No!”

  Carlos shakes his head. “Okay, just tell me how I’m supposed to react and I’ll do that.”

  “Don’t you find it bizarre that a man would just have sex with someone he doesn’t know at all?”

  Carlos shakes his head slowly. “Not even a little bit.”

  “Oh come on! No witty banter? No seeing if you have anything in common? Sex is a very intimate act, Carlos. You’re supposed to get to know the person.”

  “Why?”

  “Why? Because you are.”

  He shrugs that shrug he has when he thinks I’m wrong, but doesn’t want to get into an argument. “If you say so. But I guarantee you that there is not a straight, unattached man in this city who would utter the phrase, ‘No, I’m sorry, Ms. Gadot, I can’t possibly give you a ride home. I have an early meeting in the morning.’ Even if they just met.”

  He’s just trying to get my goat. And I won’t take the bait. “That is so not true.”

  “It is true. What amazes me is that you were shocked.”

  “We were both shocked. Vanessa was shocked, too, and it’s Vanessa.”

  He laughs. “Ha! Women.”

  “So you’re saying that I could just walk up to any guy, tell him I want to have sex with him, and he’d do it?” I challenge.

  Carlos answers, “I want a qualifier here, but yes. I mean the guy may say no because he’s married, or has a girlfriend, or needs to pop a Viagra before he can get going. But other than that… witty banter is just frosting on the cake. As a matter of fact for some men, it’s just our way of getting to the cake.” Then he jokes. “And also, if she’s into frosting, we can pick up a can of whatever she wants on the way to her place.”

  I sigh. “Well, you’re married to me. Of course you would think I could do that.”

  “Okay, yes. I still think you’re the hottest bitch in this place. Always.”

  I feel a grin spread across my face. “Awww… That’s very sweet. Although you’re too old to pull off that sentence. It sounds like you should be dying your hair and getting Brotox.”

  “I don’t want to know what that is. Anyway, forgetting about you: If a woman who I didn’t know, who looked like Michelle, walked up to me at a bar and asked me to have sex with her, I’d be looking around for hidden cameras, because I would be sure I was being Punk’d. Too easy. So easy that I would later tell that story to Phil and Jamal, and they would call Bullshit. Oh, speaking of Jamal,” Carlos continues. “He thinks you are the coolest wife in the world.”

  “Why would… Oh my God! You told them?!”

  “You didn’t tell your friends?”

  “Well, of course I did. But I didn’t realize you were going to tell your friends.”

  “So you thought I would just start hitting on women tonight and they would have let me do that without saying anything?”

  “Well, it was a boys’ night.”

  “I don’t know what you think goes on on boys’ nights, but no.”

  We both take a moment of silence to regroup. I pop a chunk of butter on my cracker and eat it. “So, did you get any?” I ask.

  “You mean did I get kissed, did I get laid, or did I get a number?”

  I’m a little surprised by his answer. “You got kissed?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Well, then you didn’t get laid," I think aloud to myself. Then my mouth drops. “Wait, you got a phone number?”

  “No. I could have though. And she was very cute.”

  “So why didn’t…”

  “She thought I knew her Dad," Carlos says. “And she kept talking about something called mindful awareness…”

  “But if she was cute enough, by your definition…”

  “Plus she said she liked A-Rod. Fucking A-Rod. I mean… I can’t.”<
br />
  Several women over the years have said they think Carlos looks like A-Rod. They always mean it as a compliment (one time, a woman told him that while stroking his arm, for fuck’s sake), and I have never understood why he gets mad at being compared to a guy who absolutely should have beat out Blake Shelton for Sexiest Man Alive. He’s not even a Red Sox fan. But I drop it and ask, “Fair enough. So neither of us like the bar scene.”

  “And I had forgotten just how much I hate it until tonight. I think it’s time we call the time of death on this thing.”

  I put up my index finger. “No, no. I have one other thought. But you need to promise not to get skeeved out.”

  He keeps his eyes on me while turning his chin to his right. “Oookaaayyy…”

  “What about a couples’ date?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  I pull out my phone. “Vanessa recommended this site. It’s kind of like eHarmony, but for couples.”

  “So, in other words, nothing like eHarmony…”

  “Fine. Tinder for couples,” I correct myself as I press a button I have already preloaded. “No weird clubs where there’s either a ridiculously high membership fee, or no booze. We can easily find another couple to swap with just by swiping. I can get to know the husband while you hang out with the wife.” I watch my number one choice pop up, then hand Carlos my phone. “On the site we can exchange pictures and talk via messaging. I already prescreened a selection for you.”

  Carlos takes my phone. He scrutinizes the picture and scrunches his nose up like a skunk just died in our kitchen. “I hate redheads.”

  “Fine. Swipe left. Next weekend, the kids are on a field trip around the Pacific Northwest for college tours. That gives us almost a week to find a couple we like. We go through the site, put up our own pictures, then pick six couples: We book our top two choices for Saturday and Sunday night dinner, book choices three and four for Happy Hour cocktails Monday and Tuesday, maybe a Sunday brunch. We let everyone know in advance no ‘play’…”

  “Ewww…” Carlos exclaims.

  “That’s what they call it. Do you know what it means?”