Love Like That

“Oh, is that all?” Electra asked, none too sorry.

“It was for a movie, Electra,” Ava informed her. “I would have been billed.”

“As what?”

“Party Girl Number Three,” Ava replied.

“Pooh,” Electra dismissed. “You’re Party Girl Number One, sugar.” She got up from the couch. “Now howsabout I turn off this depressing moaning and put in something we can sing to? That’ll make you feel better!”

“You don’t even care,” Ava grumbled.

“Sure I do!” Electra said, turning on my karaoke microphone. I think I have a serious problem because sometimes I’ll use it when nobody’s home.

“But you’re just trying to make me forget about it,” Ava complained.

Electra started dancing around the living room, singing “Back in Baby’s Arms.”

“I’m serious,” Ava told me.

Electra climbed up onto the coffee table, really belting it out. She always dresses like she’s going clubbing. In her shockingly low-cut red pants and seriously scandalous red spangled tank top, it was like watching Shakira but hearing Patsy Cline.

Ava’s good at depression, very good—but not even she could help herself. She laughed hysterically. In all honesty, it’s pretty easy to placate her.

I drained a bottle of Coors Light (who the hell bought that?) I’d found way in the back of the fridge. It had no label and that meant it was free to anyone who wanted it. Electra labels everything because if she doesn’t, she thinks we’ll eat her food. I would never eat her food. She eats the grossest shit I’ve ever seen. I don’t even know what half of it is. She has cheese that looks like Kraft Singles, but when you read the label you see that it’s really fake veggie cheese made from a bunch of supposedly healthy crap. I don’t think anything that color can truly be healthy no matter what it’s made from.

Electra collapsed on the couch and fanned herself with a Lucky magazine. “Any calls, Ava?”

“Just Jeremy. He said to call him, Doll.”

“I don’t know why. He called me at work after he talked to you,” I told her.

“Typical.”

“Yes, and how typical of him to come running as soon as Roman’s touched down on foreign soil,” Electra said, her voice decidedly snotty. I knew she was just jealous that she didn’t have anyone to come running just then. Except for brief moments of kindness or hilarity, Electra really only wears one face. Not much mystery there.

Ava jumped to her feet and slipped and slid over to me across the smooth floor in her socks. I let her fall into me and take my hand in her dainty way. She turned my finger this way and that, trying to catch the light with the diamond. “Are you going to keep seeing Jeremy, Doll?”

“I’m going to keep hanging out with him, yes.”

“He sleeps over, though.”

“Yeah, but it’s not like we’re screwing every time. I just…need that.”

“Need what?”

“Him. His company.”

“Then why are you marrying Roman?”

Ava pretends like she’s dumb but she’s really not. A space-case for sure, but if you watch Jeopardy! with her she busts out with every answer and you get embarrassed that you didn’t know half that shit when Ava of all people did. Ava thinks you have to pretend to be dumb to get what you want. Sometimes it works.

I pushed her off me. “You know why I’m marrying Roman. I love him.”

“But you love Jeremy, too…don’t you?”

“But I love you, too…and I’m not going to stop seeing you, am I?”

She frowned. “I guess it’s kind of the same thing.”

“Yeah, and you can’t just give up a bad habit just like that,” Electra contributed. “Like smoking. You know it’s unhealthy but you do it, anyway.”

“Are you going to quit?” Ava asked me.

“Eventually. When I get tired of waking up with a bad cigarette hangover.”

Electra cracked up. It’s nice to have her empathy sometimes. I welcome the change.

I know Roman would never have an affair. Never! But he’s over saving the citizens of Cameroon from a bleaker fate. I’m here. Huge difference. Excuses, excuses.

“Hey, while we’re on the subject of Stupid, what does he think of you being engaged, anyway?” Electra asked curiously.

“He said good luck, but he meant it sarcastically.”

Ava put her head on my shoulder, all dreamy. “It’s all so romantic, this separation. That you have to wait to be reunited and when you are, you’ll be getting married! It’s just so romantic!”

“Yeah…I know it.” It’s so romantic, I say all the time. Our relationship is just pure romance. A real fantasy. It’s such a fucking fantasy that in the two years that we’ve been together, I think I’ve only seen him on fifteen separate occasions.

I patted Ava’s head. “Why don’t we get you out of that old shirt and go to Barney’s Beanery? Maybe it would do you some good to get out of the house.”

“Okay,” Ava agreed. She got up. “You come too, Electra.”

“I will.” Electra watched her leave the room. She looked impressed. “That was pretty nice of you, Doll.”

I shrugged. “Yeah, well…I’m feeling magnanimous.”

We raised our eyebrows at each other. Then we laughed.

I called Jeremy before we left and told him to meet us. I was looking forward to seeing him. He’s not the world’s easiest person, but we connect. Maybe because I suppose I can be pretty difficult, too. Sometimes we don’t give each other even one inch. Electra says we are so close that we know each other’s every fault, and so we get defensive with each other. She doesn’t know everything, but she is right about him knowing my every fault. I tell him things I could never, ever tell Roman.

At the Beanery I hung out by the bar, sipping pale ale as Electra and Ava played pool. There was a big swarm of guys around their table. Ava practically has Come fuck me over written across her forehead and Electra can’t go anywhere without having men accost her. She loves that. It gives her more power as a feminist because she can say they’re only interested in her body. Well of course they are. She doesn’t have her fucking IQ tattooed on her forehead. And even if she did…with that body no one would care.

“What do you think of that one?” she asked, taking a break to talk to me. She pointed her pool cue in the direction of a pretty boy in a pair of tight jeans and a baby-blue muscle shirt, hair all gelled to perfection.

“Gay,” I replied.

“The fuck! He’s not gay.” She licked the corner of her mouth. “His name’s Troy. That’s manly enough.”

“I still say no guy with a body like that and hair like that is straight in West Hollywood, Electra.”

“He’s a model,” she said, shrugging. “The one on the Calvin Klein billboard outside the Beverly Center. You know, in the underwear?”

“I thought he looked familiar.”

“I’m going for him,” she said, narrowing her eyes.

“Just be careful!” I shouted after her as she pranced across the bar. The last time she tried to woo a gay guy she really frightened the poor fella. It was a traumatic experience for us all. I think she’s convinced that she’s so beautiful she can turn homosexual to heterosexual like it’s simple chemistry. It’s annoying to be around that, but I grudgingly respect such blazing self-confidence.

I waved as I saw Jeremy come in. He walked over to me and tousled my hair. Then we hugged. He stood next to me and we chugged pints as we watched the scene.

“So who’s Harlot O’Hara’s newest conquest?” he asked.

I aimed my glass in the pretty boy’s direction. “What do you think?”

“Gay.”

I laughed. “That’s what I said!”

He took my hand and examined my engagement ring. “Looks fake.”

“Oh, come on.”

“It does!”

I pulled my hand away. “You could congratulate me, you know.”

“Congratulations.”

“Thanks.”

He shook his head. “Marriage, man. It doesn’t seem like you.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. You’re all goofy and shit. You’re all over the place.”

“What a strange thing to say!”

“You’re the strange one, toots. Want another beer?”

I studied his features as he leaned over the bar to order us two more. He has a big nose, I think. And his hair is so dark you can see where the hair on his face is going to pop out even when he’s just shaved. He has deep dark eyes that are blue and gray like the ocean on a stormy afternoon.

Sometimes I kid myself and say that Jeremy is the love of my life. Sometimes I want to murder him. He’s cold and critical and not very supportive. But the way he makes me feel…I just can’t explain it. I can’t even explain it to myself. He makes me feel so good. He makes me feel like I am not alone. He makes me feel safe. I don’t tell him these things.

Electra came back looking smug. “He’s not gay. He’s coming home with us.”

“Good for you.”

She eyed Jeremy while his back was turned. “My God, Doll, what is that shirt he’s got on? He looks like he just got off his shift at the hospital.”

In reality he writes copy for the Associated Press. He tells people he’s a reporter but it’s not like he’s scooping stories, really. He just takes the words and feeds them into the computer and then later they show up under someone else’s byline and never Jeremy Flowers.

I nudged her. “Let’s bail soon. I want to go after I drink this last beer.”

“I’m almost ready, too. I’m eager to introduce that pretty boy to my bed.” She laughed as she sashayed off.

I watched her go. She’s a funny girl. She would never feel an ounce of guilt over anything she does when Josh isn’t looking. Do I feel guilty? Of course. But like I told Ava. I need Jeremy. I can’t explain just how or why. I just know I do. Maybe it’s that he can relate to me in some twisted way. We both want the best we can get, but even when it’s great, we’re never sure if we’ve got it. We both want to get somewhere, only we’re not sure just where.

Or maybe it’s just that I adore him in a very strange, mystically irritating way. Maybe it’s as simple as that.

“What an awful fucking world,” Jeremy was saying later as we watched the late news and it seemed like everything was about killing and kidnapping and terrorism and hate crimes. He was lying on my bed with me and taking up most of the space. He’s a big, tall man so he’s allowed to do that. I’d say just a little taller than Roman but much paunchier.

“You’re not kidding.”

He turned on his side and looked at me.

“What?” I asked. Two picture frames had already gone over on my desk from Electra’s sleigh bed knocking against the wall. She and the pretty boy were shouting from her room. I couldn’t count all the times I’d heard, “Oh, yeah! Uh-huh, that’s right! Give it to me, baby, give it to me!”

“Nothing. Just thinking about you and my girlfriend.”

Jeremy’s girlfriend is named Pristina. I laughed my ass off when he told me that. He rolled his eyes and told me to get an encyclopedia and that really insulted me. Apparently Pristina’s of Eastern European descent. Whatever. I could give a fuck where she came from. And I certainly don’t need to get an encyclopedia. I’m quite positive he didn’t know the intricacies of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia before Pristina told him of how she was named for her parents’ birthplace in Kosovo. He won’t even play against me in Trivial Pursuit because he knows I will kick his ass in every category except Sports & Leisure.

She sounds exotic and interesting, but trust me. She’s not. And she has a mustache. She really does. I saw this infomercial recently for this roll-on hair remover. You just roll it right on and your hair wipes right off. I thought about ordering one and having it shipped to her.

He seems to find her unattractive, but then acts as though she is the loveliest woman in the world. He seems to dislike her personality, but then acts as though she is the most delightful woman in the world. I can’t really figure out why he stays with her. But if I were to ask, he’d just shake his head at me like I so do not get it.

She works as an in-house nurse to a very sick and very wealthy old man who has been hanging on to life with an iron grip for years now. She is there five days a week and sometimes six. There are several other nurses who attend to him as well, and all of them are secretly hoping that he will remember them in his will. The whole setup reminds me of this porno movie I saw once where all these nurses were helping these con artists conspire to steal this dying man’s money, or something like that. They spent most of the movie giving one another oral sex. I can’t remember how it ended. I was probably too busy giving oral sex myself.

“So what are your deep thoughts on Pristina and myself?” I asked.

“Well, I’ve figured out her big problem. She’s too goddamn demanding.”

“I’m sure.”

“You know what your big problem is?”

“What’s that?”

“You have no feelings, Doll. No emotion. You’re so fucking apathetic. That’s what your problem is.”

“I think I have a lot of feelings,” I informed him. “Just ’cause I don’t go around crying and giggling all the time doesn’t mean I have no feelings.”

He gave me a look. “Are you even happy about being engaged?”

“Give me a little credit. If you really want to know, I am very happy. I’m just not going to go on and on to you about it.”

“Why not?”

I gave him a look. “Jeremy.”

“Doll.”

“I’m just not going to sit here and spew my engagement bliss to you. Get it?”

“I guess.” I noticed his breathing was deep and uneven. “But can I ask you something?”

“You know you can.”

“How are you so sure that marrying Roman is the right thing to do?”

I turned on my side and propped myself up on an elbow, so that we were face-to-face. “Because he’s a wonderful man who wants to give me everything and share his life with me. And I love him.”

He gazed at me. “I wish it were so easy for me.”

“What do you mean?”

“To want to share my life with just one person.”

“Oh.”

“Don’t think that means that you’re the reason I don’t want to marry Pristina,” he added quickly. “I wouldn’t want to give you the wrong impression.”

He’s not my favorite person. He is so my favorite person. Somehow I’m never busy when he wants to do something. When I first started bringing him around, Electra listened to him preach and do his number for about ten minutes. Then she decided to hate him. She said she’d never met somebody who had so little conviction. She said in a really sick way, we were great together.

He calls me almost every night. And we don’t even have to say a word sometimes when we’re with each other. We just breathe and it’s fine like that.

“You want to have sex?” he asked.

“Sure.”

“I’m bored,” he told me, right in the middle. “I can’t finish.”

“Then don’t.”

He took my arm and examined it. “Your skin is practically alabaster, Doll. You need to hit the beach…get a tan.”

In L.A. everyone is supposed to be tanned. It’s part of the image that you live your life under the sun. Everyone is supposed to be beautiful, too. Sometimes everyone is beautiful.

Jeremy’s hair gets oily really fast and so does his face. He snarls when he’s angry and his lip curls up and his teeth bare like he’s a big cat hissing at prey. He wears stupid shirts and he’s a jackass and a real jerk. He lectures me. He tells me I’m boring in bed. He’s beautiful.

Chapter 5

“I need a date, Doll. I need to book the church,” my mom said on the phone the next day.

“Aren’t you getting a little ahead of yourself, booking the church already?” I asked, glancing at the calendar. Yep, still August. For some reason the stick man was wearing a grass skirt. “Roman’s not coming back until February.”

Karen rapped on the wall. “You have to book the venue the first thing—haven’t I taught you anything?” she screamed.

“March,” I said into the phone.

“Okay, I’m looking at the calendar. The 8th and the 15th are both good.”

“How ’bout March 15?” I heard my dad say in the background. “That was the day Julius Caesar was assassinated.”

“Oh, be a little more macabre, Arnold!”

“No, I like that,” I said.

“March 15 it is, then,” my mom replied. “Now, honey, are you coming home at all to see Maddy before she has to go back to school? She’s getting back from Europe next week.”

My sister is nineteen and will be a sophomore at Stanford. She has spent the summer in Paris, working as an au pair to some French family to pay her way. I think that’s really weird. I spent the summer in Paris once and was totally fine to let my parents pick up the check.

“I’m really busy, Mom. I don’t see myself coming home anytime soon,” I replied.

“You’re not that busy!” Karen shouted.

“Well, you’re going to have to come home at some point,” my mom informed me. “To do marriage counseling with Reverend Nelson.”

“Christ, Mom, you have got to be kidding me!”

“I am,” she laughed. “Reverend Nelson says he’ll allow for just one session when Roman gets back.”

“Better thank Grandma Jane for that one, Doll,” my dad said in the background. “She slipped a big donation into the collection plate last Sunday with your name on it.”

“You still have to come home at some point,” my mom said.

I haven’t been home in months. I can’t cross the county line without some childhood monster jumping out at me. I see them at all the old haunts—Coastal Cone, Santino’s Pizza Parlor, Foster’s Freeze. Only now the little demons are all grown up. Still, I remember them and they remember me. No matter what I do or who I become. It’s like a creepy Never-Never Land.

I popped into Ava’s salon to have my hair cut after work. Normally I would avoid senseless, excessive trimming, but with Ava being the receptionist and making my salon appointments, I can never get out of it. In her salon, they play nothing but techno and everyone has colored streaks in their hair like cotton-candy pink and bubblegum blue and apple green. Ava may be a “starving” actress of sorts, but not really starving because her father keeps her in large amounts of cash. She only keeps that job for the social interaction and the deal on color.

She needed a ride home but she had to work until six, so I went down to Aldo and bought a pair of expensive black slides. Then I went over to The Limited and got a few new sweaters. Sometimes it’s sweet liberty to spend money you don’t have—almost like you’re living someone else’s life. Then you get the bill and oh, no—you realize it really was you and this is your life.

“Guess what?” Ava giggled as we drove home listening to Madonna’s Immaculate Collection. She had fresh lavender highlights and a cheeky glow. “Dylan likes me. And I like him.”

Last night while we were out Dylan left this very keen message on our answering machine. He played the whole song “Ava Adore” and hung up when it was over. If you listen to the lyrics of “Ava Adore” you’d realize it’s a song about some seriously messed-up love.

But what a smooth move, really. That’s the way a big dorky asshole cajoles you into falling for him, by impressing you with his smooth moves. I told you I was onto his methods.

“Oh, shit! Don’t think I didn’t see this one coming! The fuck!”

Ava had just broken the news to Electra.

“Ava…not Dylan,” Electra pleaded, when Ava told us he was on his way over. We were having Baja Fresh on the patio in the backyard and a homeless man we call Fret was standing on the other side of the gate, in the alley, asking us if he could please have some money. We call him Fret because when people say no to him he goes back and forth with his hand in his mouth, saying, “Oh, dear, oh, dear.”

“Get out of here before I call the fucking police!” Electra finally screamed, throwing something at him. It was that limp green onion they always wrap up with your burrito. He ran off before she could chuck the slice of lime that comes with it.

“Electra, that was mean,” Ava told her, frowning.

“Well?” she asked haughtily, throwing her hair over one shoulder. Electra has the longest, shiniest brown hair ever. Stunning. She is fucking gorgeous.

“Well, you shouldn’t be so mean,” Ava lectured. “The man is homeless!”

“Yes, and I work for a living,” Electra replied, spooning up some of her rice. She eats a burrito from the center and never touches it with her hands. Her mother’s family name is on a bottle of whiskey. Her father’s family name is on a pack of cigarettes. Electra doesn’t like it when you talk about all that. She thinks it’s gauche for people to go around flaunting their wealth. Now check out those monogrammed Gucci slides of hers, and the matching bag.

“Back to Dylan,” I said, pouring more margarita into my glass from the pitcher on the center of the table.

“Yeah, why him?” Electra demanded.

Ava looked thoughtful. “He says I’m a star in his sky.”

Electra looked at her as though she were pitiful. “Oh, please. Must we go through this galactic debacle again?”

And the whacked-out milk lecture starts in five, four, three, two…

“You need to learn that women are like dairy products to men, sugar. They’re fresh before use, and spoil quickly. Women friends are like milk. Something substantial to drink if there’s not an appealing alternative in sight—like a Coke. Right now you’re like an unopened carton of milk to Dylan. And man, he’s gotten thirsty. So he wants to drink you because you’re right there and there’s no Coke and he’s fucking thirsty! That’s all it is! So fine, but when he trashes you, don’t be surprised. You won’t even go to the recycling bin because milk fucking spoils! Hello!” Electra shrieked.

“You’re totally stuck in the Milky Way, Electra, and besides—I’m not trying to alter the course of the universe,” Ava informed her. “I just like him.”

“Yeah, well…he’ll stop thinking of you as his fucking star as soon as you start thinking he’s pulled down the moon!”

Ava looked to be considering this. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure,” Electra said graciously.

“What makes you the authority on absolutely fucking everything?”

“Oh, ha ha, really funny!” Electra bitched as Ava and I collapsed into giggles. “Let’s have a gathering, then. I can’t handle Dylan on his own. Doll, you call some people.”

I called Jeremy even though I suspected he was with Pristina. He was. He told me over a bunch of restaurant racket that he may come over later because she was on call. If Pristina were kidnapped and held for ransom and I had a lot of money, I would put it all into mutual funds and not even feel guilty.

I hung out in the living room with Andy Whitcomb, who is my best guy friend. We grew up around the block from each other and have been pals since our moms were in our elementary school PTA. I even took him with me to college, which we attended at Chapman University in Orange. Andy is just like me. And just like me, no way in hell was he moving back home after graduation. So he lives nearby, just off Third Street near the Beverly Center. Everyone thinks he’s gay because he works in couture at Nordstrom and his apartment is beyond Pottery Barn. Fashion sense aside, he’s not gay at all. He is actually a real sleaze. When he talks about the female sex organ he calls it “trim.” One time he was hooking up with a girl and he found a hair on her nipple all long and dark just like it was a pube. Instead of ignoring it he bit it off with his teeth. When I heard that story I laughed for an hour. Andy gets laid a lot.

“Do you want to be in my wedding?” I asked him as he strummed his guitar and I looked through a Victoria’s Secret catalog for a pair of sexy boots I just know I saw in there. Have to have them. Ava and Dylan were making out on the other couch. I am a total voyeur. I kept sneaking glances at them.

“Yeah, sure,” he replied. “But there is no way in hell I’m wearing a dress.”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m sure you can wear a tuxedo just like the other guys, Andy. Only you’ll have to stand on my side.”