19
I get lost driving in Venice. The streets near this part of the beach angle and cut into one another unlike anywhere else in Los Angeles, so it always surprises me when I am able to find Lizzie’s store. She named it Tizzie’s, which I thought was charming when I walked in that first time and she bought my jewelry before anyone else. But now as I park my truck, I wonder if the T of her sign was less expensive than an L. Knowing Lizzie, she got a deal on it somehow, but I guess it’s better than a D.
The store is the usual customer-challenged turmoil when I walk in, but it’s Monday, so I try to pretend to myself it’s because of that. The shop is completely rearranged; new items next to retro, any decade fair game.
“Merchandising, that’s what they call it.” Forgoing a hello, Lizzie has launched into an explanation of her retail method madness. She is sitting on a high stool behind the counter, Santa-suit red hair above pale skin, sipping a diet soda in a to-go cup that looks as though she could dunk her entire head in it. Lizzie is inexplicably attractive in an against-your-will kind of way. I have never seen her in the same pair of glasses twice. Today’s are cat eye. For the first time, I wonder if the lenses are fake.
“Suddenly the customer wants to buy, but they have no idea why.” She taps her purple-painted fingernail against the jumbled-bright innards of a display case for emphasis. I realize she is directing me to the new location of my jewelry.
Reassuring her what a big change it is (this is true, I just let her interpret it how she likes), I see my earrings and pins in a chaotic clump intermingled with outdated high school rings, forgotten feather earrings, and molded plastic bracelets. My creations look enslaved.
“I need to get that check from you, Lizzie.” I smile as I say it, trying to make it pleasant somehow.
“Uh! You never come to visit—just business, business, business with you. Besides, I specifically recall saying—”
“That was three months ago, I can’t wait any longer.”
“Well, if your stuff sold better in here, hon, maybe I’d have the money for you.” She is holding her Goliath-sized beverage cup ominously, as if it were always intended as the weapon it seems. “You know, I’ve believed in you a real long time. Hell, I’ve had your trinkets in here since when was it?”
“For a good while, Lizzie, yes, and now I just need to get paid.”
“That is not gonna happen today.”
I want to grab her drink and throw it in her face, but I am silent for a moment, though wish I weren’t. Wish a stream of invectives were pouring forth, covering her with righteousness. For a second, I consider taking the rest of my jewelry back, but that would piss her off so much that I’d never get a check for all the other pieces she sold.
“Okay, three more weeks, can you have it for me then?”
“Of course, Yvette, haven’t I always been right as rain with you?” Lizzie’s sunny smile is as reassuring as a cloudy day.
Yeah, I think as the bell on the door clangs my departure from the store, right as a thunderstorm on my economic parade.
When I get home from Lizzie’s, the only messages on my answering machine, besides yet another hang-up, are ones concerning work. One is from an actress who just got back in town and is wondering if the pieces she ordered are ready. They are, so I’ll call her to set a time to take them, and I make a mental note to remind myself to somehow work it into our conversation how great they’d be on her when she attends the premiere. Another message is a possible new commission; a woman saw my jewelry on a friend of hers and wants to see what I’ve got for herself. Why couldn’t Michael have called? Just once, I wish he would call to say hey, how are you, I was thinking about you. I haven’t seen him since Friday night, and he did call on Saturday, though it wasn’t much of a conversation what with radio people talking to him in the background as if the phone to his ear was merely some odd contraption to be ignored. I’ve been having a small little feeling that I disappear for him if I’m not right in front of him. Like he does for me when I think about Andrew, actually. Stop already. Andrew is out of my life and Michael is here now. Though not enough really somehow. Though maybe he would be more if I could stop thinking about someone I haven’t been with in over four years.
But I am relieved that there isn’t a phone message from Suzanne asking when she can see her veil. I need to sit down and finish the damn thing. Dipen doesn’t have the jewelry ready yet, though there is some invoicing I can do on commissions, but I really should just work on the veil. Talking to Reggie will help me begin even though our conversations have been kind of stilted since Michael’s been in the picture again, but work anguish Reggie understands. I know he is at the editing room, so I leave a message on his home number, while wishing for the millionth time that he had a cell phone like everyone else. That and his refusal to watch the Oscars are his two acts of defiance as an Angeleno, which I respect, though it would be a lot easier if Reggie weren’t so difficult to reach anytime other than our morning calls. He is usually always out.
One night last year, he came to my apartment, and we ate the Mexican food he’d brought, then pored over a photography book he’d found on turn-of-the-century New Orleans, talking until late about the future filming of his script. Before he left, he used my phone to check his messages, which I found odd since he was heading home, but then realized that there are times when I want to know before I drive home if messages are waiting for me. He pressed some buttons, listened for a bit, hung up, and hugged me goodbye, his body cousin-comfortable with mine, then was out my door.
I went into the kitchen for a glass of water to take to bed. Noticing that I was out of milk for my morning coffee, I headed out to the gas station/convenience store two blocks away. About to cross the street to reach the store, I noticed Reggie’s car in the parking lot, but far away from the gas pumps. Then I saw Reggie with his broad back to me, talking on the pay phone. I was just about to shout to him, but a voice in my head stopped me. Why hadn’t he used my phone for the call he was making? Traffic was scarce, so I easily could have crossed the street and asked him or just said hello, but I stayed on the corner, letting the situation unfold.
Reggie hung up, got in his car, and took off in the direction opposite his home. It was clear he never saw me. I waited until he was a good distance up the street and out of view, then walked to the store, wondering what it was that was waiting for him? And who? And when, if ever, would he tell me?
Though maybe Reggie’s silence about whatever and whoever that was—or is possibly—in his life is no different than the silence I’ve kept about seeing Andrew a couple of weeks ago. Okay, it will be two weeks ago exactly tomorrow night since I saw Andrew. Like I didn’t know. Like he hasn’t been in and under and around every thought I’ve had since then, damn him. And damn you, Michael, for not distracting me enough from him. But I just need to focus more on that relationship, on Michael, because it definitely is moving forward, I can tell, and soon, eventually, the name Andrew will just be one big “Who?” and Michael is the only man I will want to be with.
I hope.
I do?
I cannot figure out how to dress. I am going to a baby shower with Michael. I could tell he really doesn’t want to go, mostly because he said, “A baby shower? I’m a guy. I’m not even supposed to go, much less have to.” Not that I completely disagree with him. Where I grew up, you’d never catch men at a baby shower. No woman in her right mind wants them around for that. “But,” I explained to Michael. “This baby shower is for two men.” The music producer I worked for when I first moved here, Bill, and his partner, Tom, adopted a baby, and they aren’t women so I guess that throws the whole females-only baby-shower code straight out the window.
As I stand in front of my closet staring into its depths, the only item that keeps popping into my head for me to wear is a pair of breasts. I keep trying to bring my mind back to a pretty skirt versus a dress, but for some reason, all I can think is, What I really need is a different pair of breasts. I tell myself that this party is not that thematic—okay, it is about a baby but not how we dress. Bill and Tom definitely don’t have breasts. Or need them even for the baby. I suddenly wonder if this body part has finally evolved into scenery—pretty but useless, like the palm trees everywhere. Anyway. I put on a pale pink top that I love with some gray pants, go to the safe in my studio for a necklace, earrings, and bracelets of citrine, amethysts, and gold, grab the baby gift, and go.
I am late, in my truck driving the 101, praying that I get there on time. Michael was supposed to pick me up, but he called half an hour ago to say that things at the station were crazy, the new Sunday-morning talk show had a little blow-up on the air. I had a feeling he was hoping I’d say, “Oh, don’t worry about it, I’ll go by myself.” But no way. Going to a baby shower alone is as bad as going to a wedding solo, in a “Why aren’t you further along in your life?” kind of way. So I gave him the address and said he could meet me there.
The baby shower is at a house in the hills of a friend of Bill’s, but on the Valley side, which is much less treacherous, but almost as exclusive. As I pull up to the large iron gates in front of the sequestered community and wait while the man in the guardhouse checks his list, I remember a story the nuns used to tell us that if Saint Peter won’t let you in the Pearly Gates, run around to the side and Mary will sneak you in the kitchen door. How could I not prefer Mary with promises like that? I always imagined her in a fragrant spotless kitchen, stirring a big pot of gumbo, places at a table ready and set. Then the massive iron gates swing open and a second guard waves me in.
A swarm of valets in pale pink oxford shirts descend upon my car. Michael is standing waiting for me on a meticulously manicured lawn; I am shocked that he is on time. He is surrounded by a forest of giant topiaries depicting every character in Alice in Wonderland. The Red Queen’s mallet is hovering menacingly over his head. Michael has a look on his face of a man consigned to a circle of hell that he didn’t know existed.
“I’m late, I’m late,” I say as he kisses me. I wish we could stay at the Mad Hatter’s tea party instead of going in, but we stop kissing and turn toward the house, a spectacularly authentic faux French chateau, and walk up a long stone path covered by a continuous archway of pale pink balloons.
“Well, this is nice.” I immediately feel like a woman I once overheard exclaiming that the Louvre sure is big.
A pale-pink-shirted man greets us at the door. “Hi! I’m Ken. Everyone’s outside.”
I put out my hand to introduce myself, thinking he is the host, Bill’s friend, but he cuts me off by repeating his lines, and while one hand takes my gift, the other, with a sweeping winglike motion of the arm, guides us along.
Through a bank of open French doors, I see a sea of pale-pink-shirted men moving among a tiny handful of extremely well dressed guests. I realize that I actually have dressed appropriately for this party—as one of the caterers.
“Oh, my God,” I say as we step outside. “It looks like a wedding.”
“Or bat mitzvah,” Michael replies.
Music is wafting from a string quartet playing on a parquet floor laid on the grass. A huge white tent covers ten tables swathed in pink organza and white. Each one is perfectly set for ten guests with a lifelike diaper-clad baby girl doll sitting on every china plate. Trays of mimosas and canapés glide by us, stopping only long enough to be emptied of their wares.
I see Bill and a young woman leaning over a large lace-covered bassinet. A veil of white netting suspended from a tree branch above is streaming down, surrounding the baby’s bed. I have an almost irrepressible urge to yank down the veil, throw it on my head, and vow “I do,” but I wonder if Michael is the man I want to say that to. Andrew pops into my brain, so I try to get rid of him by quickly taking Michael’s arm to walk with him down the carpeted aisle to see the newborn child.
“Here she is,” Bill says, pulling aside the veil. The sleeping baby looks just like a cherub. I’ve heard that before in nursery rhymes and fairy tales, but this one truly does, a sweet little cherub fallen from a cloud.
“She’s perfect,” I tell Bill, and introduce Michael to him, then Bill introduces us to the baby’s mother, Sarah, a seventeen-year-old from the Midwest.
“We took her on a shopping spree on Friday; got her hair cut and colored,” Bill gushes as Sarah stands by and blushes. “Malibu beach was yesterday and tomorrow a private tour of the museum. She is having a nonstop great time.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful,” I say to her. “You’re really getting to know L.A.” But not her own baby, I think, then immediately realize that that may be the point.
“And there’s a movie star here!” Sarah suddenly yells, causing the flock of pale-pink-shirted men to stop, turn, stare, then quickly move on.
“Oh,” is all I can think to say.
At that moment, Michael, who has said nothing except “Congratulations” to Bill, takes my arm and leads me away.
“Okay, where?” I say to Michael, looking around at the few other guests as I give in to the voyeuristic urge to find the movie star in this extremely sparse crowd. “Him?”
A few feet away stands a blond man that anyone would define as gorgeous. Not that I recognize him, but I figure that has more to do with my box office attendance than his.
“I guess.” Michael snags two snacks off one of the ever-roaming trays going by. He has just put one in my mouth when a woman approaches us.
“I thought that was you,” she cries, putting a perfectly French-manicured hand on my arm.
Tonette is Bill’s personal trainer, has been for a long time, so I knew her when I worked for him. As she leans in for a hug, I remember that I always felt that Tonette and I could have been friends if only I was more…L.A. somehow.
“I’m getting married. Did you hear?”
I hadn’t, but I can tell. Prenup is written all over her, and I don’t mean a contract. Tonette’s ring is huge. A mammoth marquis that does not require a lifting of her hand for me to see, so in that sense it’s discreet. Her dress is layers of whispering sheer creme chiffon culminating in a moment of silence on her amplified breasts, and tiny sparkly flowers dance in her hair.
“Oh, Tonette, I am so happy for you.”
“Are you getting married?” she says, scrutinizing Michael and me. I glance at Michael to see his response. He looks as if he has just gotten on his own personal inner rocket ship that is taking him far, far away.
“No,” I say to Tonette while still smiling, but not inside.
“Uh, you have no idea how awful the planning is, but we’ve only had one fight—which is practically unheard of.” Tonette leans in toward me as if she is about to dispense the secret to a long life. “It’s ’cause I’m keeping those conversations sexy—that helps.”
I cannot imagine what she means. I immediately wonder if whenever I do get to plan that event, the wedding may not even happen because I won’t know how to be sexy discussing a guest list. What—something borrowed, something blue, something porno, something new?
At that moment, an annunciation is made by one of the pale-pinkshirted men that luncheon is to begin. Tonette says she’ll see me later, and scurries over to unknown-movie-star-man, who I realize is her fiancé. Michael has already started walking over to fix a plate, so I hurry to catch up with him. The buffet table runs the length of the house and is overflowing with dishes of every culinary kind. Guarding it like angels ready to serve are ten of the pale-pink-shirted men, while ten more move about under the tent filling all hundred glasses with champagne. Tom, Bill’s partner, is already in line waiting on the carving of a ham when Michael and I join him. After introducing Michael to him, I congratulate Tom on this great event.
“And we’re having a second one next month,” Tom exults as glistening pork is piled high on his plate.
“Second what?” I ask, while thinking, Isn’t this celebration enough?
“Baby! We were picked eight times. That’s never happened before. The adoption agency kept saying, ‘No couple has ever been picked eight times,’ so we decided we’d get two—better for her not to grow up alone.”
I wonder if this is the start of some new maternal movement—single mothers everywhere choosing only men to raise their young. Maybe they figure that way they won’t ever be replaced. Like the way Michael can’t replace Andrew? Oh, good God, will you please stop thinking of him? Jesus.
“The other mother’s fourteen,” Tom is saying as I pick up the conversation again. “Poor thing’s having a baby soon because some guy molested her.”
Though he probably did a bit more than that unless it’s the next baby Jesus they’re getting.
“Is any of this kosher?” Sarah asks, appearing in line.
Michael and I take our overfilled plates to sit down and dine. As we settle at the nearest table, moving aside the swaddling-clothed babes, Tonette and unknown-movie-star-man amble by and sit at a table alone on the tent’s far side. The host who owns the home still has not arrived, but the trinity of parents makes a visitation before us.
“Mind if we join you?” Tom says as Bill pulls out a chair for Sarah.
The only other guest at the party—a woman we haven’t met—pulls out a chair at our table and plops herself down without saying a word to anyone. Considering how little Michael has contributed to any conversation since we’ve been here, her behavior seems oddly normal for this event.
“So,” Bill says, turning to me. “How long have you two been going out?” He gestures at Michael and smiles, as if I might not be sure who he meant.
“For a little while now, and then a longer while last year, so all combined, I guess a good while now.” I glance at Michael to see what he thought of that, but his entire attention is focused on the pork on his plate. He seems to be adopting a strategy of “If I pretend this party isn’t happening, it’ll go away.” It almost makes me wish I hadn’t brought him, but then I see Tonette and am glad I did anyway.
“Congratulations! In L.A., the way things go, that is so unusual.”
“What’s unusual?” says the woman we still haven’t met. “You two are engaged?”
“No,” I say. “We’re usual. I mean, we’re dating. Usually. Anyway.” I wish the conversation had never started, so I turn my attention to Sarah. “You’re having a nice stay?”
“Yeah, it’s been great, although I didn’t go to temple yesterday,” she says, while cutting the pork on her plate, then with a nervous laugh adds, “But what my mother doesn’t know won’t kill me.”
But does she know about any of this? I think.
I actually have gone to temple, once, with Michael, on a High Holy Day the first year we were together. It was nice; a lovely informed—I mean, Reform—service. And I did fine. I didn’t genuflect in the aisle, and I even followed along in the prayer book pretty well. I had to keep quiet during the Hebrew lines, but it was all pretty familiar in an Old Testament sort of way. The service was progressing along fine when suddenly during the ram’s horn time, it hit me that I was waiting for Mary to arrive. Not Jesus, and God clearly was their Big Guy, but Mary was who I wanted right nearby. Then I remembered that actually Mary was a Jew, and for the first time I wondered who she had prayed to. God? The One who needed her to have His son? I tried to imagine what that must have been like for her—to grow up without a mother figure to give her guidance. Sitting at the baby shower with a madonna soon to be bereft of child, I realize that years from now, the baby in the bassinet will have more of an answer to that than I ever will. Though I guess my own mother’s immense and perpetual silence was kind of similar.
The quartet, which had disappeared during lunch, returns and, after getting settled, launches into Brahms’s “Lullaby.” When they finish, Tom goes to the parquet floor and takes a microphone from a sound man standing nearby. He begins with some of the funnier lines from his last hit TV show, then proceeds to speak eloquently of the great honor he and Bill have received. It is the best acceptance speech I’ve heard, and God knows there are a lot in this town, although normally the object received isn’t alive. As he expresses their deep gratitude to Sarah, none of us can keep a dry eye—his warmth and tenderness toward her are vibrant. But as he continues to glorify her, Sarah suddenly breaks down and deeply cries. As huge engulfing sobs capture her body, all the way over on the lawn’s other side, the baby joins her with a wail. The quartet immediately starts playing the lullaby again but louder and faster this time, as Tom practically throws the microphone at the sound man, and he and Bill run to comfort their child, looking for all the world like they want to die.
The still-unintroduced woman at our table scoops Sarah up in her arms and gently leads her inside. Tonette is a blur of creme concern as she flies by, joining them away from our eyes. I look at Michael and the expression on his face says everything I thought it would—he is ready to take this opportunity to flee. We get up from the deserted table and walk over to Bill and Tom to say goodbye. I notice that unknown-movie-star-man is alone on the far side of the tent. All ten baby dolls that were on his table are now sitting on the floor at his feet, like some infantile fan club turned plastic that he can keep.
“Thank you for having us.” I kiss each father on the cheek.
“Don’t forget your baby,” Tom says as he goes to a table, grabs two dolls, and brings them to me, laying one in each of my arms. “In fact, there are so many, take two.”
As Michael and I walk back through the house to leave, Ken is still standing at the front door like a heavenly messenger whose announcement never arrived. When we get outside, Michael takes my ticket to the valet, and I see Sarah, the still-unmet female guest, and Tonette sitting on the curb, so I walk over to tell them goodbye.
But what comes blurting out of me instead is nothing I would have planned. To Sarah I say, “Congratulations,” then immediately deeply wish that I had not, then in a fluster I turn to the female guest I still have not met and give her a hug. After extricating myself from that mistake, I say to Tonette, “It was so nice to meet you—I mean, see you.”
The three of them stare at me as though I am stark raving mad and for a second I wonder if I am, or at least mad from this experience I’ve had. I briefly consider trying the goodbyes all over again, but I decide it is best to just go away.
Walking over to Michael, who is waiting for me next to my truck, I realize I have spoken to the three women the way I wish they really were: a mother who is happy about the situation with her child, a kind friend who has wished me marital bliss, and a woman I don’t know and will never see again.
Michael slips his arms around me and I kiss him, as four fake baby hands dig into my breasts. He helps me into my truck, telling me that he has to get back to the station, but maybe later he’ll come by. I start to offer one of the dolls to him, but I know that he doesn’t have any use for it. Of course, neither do I.
Michael walks to his car, and as I start to turn the truck around, I see Tom and Bill walk outside with their arms around each other and Bill carrying their now peaceful child. Sarah looks at them and smiles. I suddenly feel a terrible wave of sadness, then decide it is just that lonely Sunday thing; if Michael were coming with me, I’d be fine. But a voice deep inside me tells me that’s a lie.
The guards do not glance up when my truck drives out the tremendous gates. It is like leaving a heaven imagined by someone else. I take a left onto Sepulveda and am traveling a good ten minutes before I realize I am heading the wrong way to get home.