Almost Royalty: A Romantic Comedy...of Sorts (34 page)

I looked around the room. All heads were down, not even giving me eye contact.

“But I think I have the answers… well, my answers,” I said.

“What?” said the Group in almost unison, leaving me wondering who else in this room had never dared to say that they shared my confusion.

“Well, for one thing, it’s time to leave,” I said. “This. For good. But the other thing is that I think that I want to try to live as moral, humane people have for thousands of years. And there is a manual for that, and an endless interpretive commentary.”

“Unfortunately, Courtney, our time is up,” said Roberta. “It sounds like you have a lot of anger toward me which I think we need to address alone… in our next session.”

“Forget it, Roberta,” I said.

The Group gasped in unison.

“Feeling an Ancient Pain?” I said to the Group. “In the wallet?”

“We need a few sessions to say goodbye,” said Roberta.

“Kids’ tuition coming up, Roberta? Or is it time to trade in the Bentley for the new model? Sorry, Roberta, I’m not going to spend what’s left in my IRA saying goodbye to you. Unless you want to give those sessions to me for free?”

Roberta sat in silence with her head down.

“Oh, nothing to say? I just want you to know, Roberta, that I’ve been lying to you for years. I’ve wanted out of therapy so much that I started telling you what I thought you wanted to hear, and you didn’t even…”

“That’s enough,” said Roberta. “So is this it… you’re not coming back—to Group or anything?”

“That’s right,” I said. I stood up and faced the Group, my Tuesday Night Group.

“I wish… all of you… the very best,” I said. “You too, Frank.”

I walked out the door and straight to my car.

When I got out of the elevator in my apartment building, I could hear a deep baritone voice singing what I thought was Papageno’s Aria from Mozart’s Opera,
The Magic Flute
.

“Pa-pa-geno, Pa-pa-geno, Pa-pa-geno,” projected through the stucco walls of my apartment building, not deadened at all by the stained indoor-outdoor carpeting which graced every hallway. I didn’t know we had an opera singer in the building, who was staying… in my apartment?

As I opened my door, Marshall, mid-aria, turned to greet me.

“PA-PA-GENO” roared out of his mouth.

“Don’t tell me,” I said, “there’s a talent portion to the
Face of Tomorrow
competition?”

“Marshall sings opera in an amateur group,” said Jennifer.

“Really. Where’s Haggis?”

“Out buying us more grass goo,” said Jennifer.

“SOME GUY NAMED JOSH CALLED, HE’D LIKE YOU TO CALL HIM,” sang Marshall.

“Josh?” said Jennifer. “I thought…”

“Josh?” I said, pleased.

“YES, JOSH,” sang Marshall, “CALL HIM. CALL HIM. CALLLLL HIMMMMMM.”

And then I smelled something so familiar and so delicious. “What are you two eating?” I said.

Jennifer started laughing.

“You have to ask?” she said.

“Where is it?” I said.

“On the coffee table.” And there it was in all of its gooey, sloppy splendor. Velveeta nachos.

“Good Lord, Marshall, are you sure you should eat this?” I said. “This is a butt builder if there ever was one. “What about all that work you had… did for the competition?”

“I’m planning on running with you tomorrow,” he said. “I’ll burn it off.”

And he did want to run. They all did.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” I said. “I really am going to do about 10 miles.”

“Sure,” said Marshall.

“You bet,” said Jennifer.

I didn’t even know if I was going to do it. It was an overcast drizzly day that clearly could become a downpour. Seventy-two hours before the marathon. I wanted to take a little run to stay in shape, something short enough not to get hurt and long enough to keep my muscles warmed.

I also wanted a break from Jennifer, Marshall, and especially Haggis before I killed them.

When Haggis returned with his grass goo he immediately sniffed the air. He walked into my sunken living room and sniffed.

“Where is it?” he said. He opened the curtain on my faux fireplace and sniffed. He went into the kitchen and sniffed. He opened the French doors into my vanity/‌bathroom and sniffed. And then he opened the closet.

“Just what I expected. Aaaahhh!” he yelled. “What’s that?” Abyss came trotting out with a Velveeta fondue mustache-goatee on her face and nuzzled my leg, leaving a greasy stain in the image of a hairy smiley face on my pants which I knew I would never get out. She had gotten into the nachos plate, which Jennifer and Marshall had hidden in my closet 15 seconds before Haggis opened the door.

Haggis walked out with his evidence, the remaining two soggy chips and the plate, licked free of Velveeta by Abyss.

He looked at me.

“You really are an unhealthy influence,” he said. “After all the work I’ve done with these two.”

I looked at Jennifer and Marshall. They turned their faces away.

“So leave,” I said. “This is who I am. I’m addicted to Velveeta. A Velveetaholic. I own it. Wait. I take responsibility for it. This is the food I have. All of you know me and knew what to expect. So leave.”

“Look, I’m sorry, I just think that…” said Haggis.

“No, you don’t,” I said, “that’s what you don’t do… Think. Because if you did, you’d confront your clients, your two paying clients, who ate this stuff. It was their choice.”

“But you need to know how bad…” said Haggis.

“No, I don’t need to know anything out of your mouth. I just need to know that if you—someone who’s not even a friend—ask for and accept my hospitality, you aren’t going to insult me in my own home. And let me tell you, Haggis, it’s only because I have the most marginal thread of tolerance left in my body that I don’t say what I think of you and…”

“Courtney, don’t!” said Jennifer.

I sighed.

And then I gave Haggis my nastiest possible look.

“That must be my marginal thread of tolerance talking to me,” I said.

“Gee, I’m tired,” said Marshall. “Why don’t we all call it a night?”

“An excellent idea,” said Haggis.

We started jogging at a fast walk pace, 13 minutes per mile. More like a fast crawl. I heard a few gasps, a few pants, but I pretended not to notice.

After about a half mile we came to the perimeter of the park just before we crossed the street.

And then I saw them.

“Oh no,” I said.

I stopped abruptly, the way you do when you think you just ran into an ex-boyfriend who seems to be with someone who you quickly realize is much better looking than you are.

“What is it?” said Jennifer.

“Look,” I said.

There she was. Alien-scanner model thing, alien-scanner model thing’s fabulous husband, alien-scanner model thing’s trainer.

Alien-scanner model thing’s Muscle had already assumed the pose, standing on the edge of the group, sending us threatening looks.

Haggis took three steps in front of us, assumed the pose, and sent alien-scanner model’s entourage threatening looks.

“Is that…?” said Marshall.

“It is,” I said.

“Wait a minute. No… Reggie?” shouted Haggis. “Reggie McDougal, you little girl. Is that you?”

Alien-scanner’s Muscle looked at us carefully.

“Haggis?” said alien-scanner model thing’s Muscle. “Haggis, you fat head. Is that you?”

Haggis runs across the street and embraces Reggie. Reggie speaks to alien-scanner model thing, apparently introducing Haggis to her entourage. We wait on the curb, observing rule #4 of the
L.A. Etiquette for Interacting with Star/‌Celeb Royalty in Public Places:

Rule #4

“During an accidental encounter with a star/‌celeb and his/‌her entourage, the non-royalty must wait to be granted an audience with the star/‌celeb before joining the star/‌celeb’s entourage.”

Haggis motions us to come over.

Before I can say anything, Marshall and Jennifer sprint across the street. I wait at the curb. Haggis turns toward me and motions me to come across the street. I start across.

Just as I reach the curb, I hear Marshall say to alien-scanner model thing, “It’s impossible to believe, but you’re more beautiful in person than the most beautiful picture which I have ever seen of you, and I think that you are the most beautiful woman in the world.”

Always a good thing to say to an alien-scanner model thing, especially one who is a former model.

Alien-scanner model thing actually seems pleased. Marshall tells her he was here for the
Faces of Tomorrow
competition, the model/‌spokesperson category. Alien-scanner model thing didn’t laugh. However, I think I saw alien-scanner model thing’s husband turn away and roll his eyes.

I tell them that I need to keep running and excuse myself.

When I leave, alien-scanner model thing is giving Marshall pointers on working the runway for his walk in the model/‌spokesperson category during the competition.

When I get back to the apartment, Marshall, Jennifer, and Haggis were chatting about how nice alien-scanner model thing had been. She had promised to email over a list of her pointers for a successful walk down the runway.

“Great,” I say, knowing she never will.

“Oh yeah,” said Marshall, “some guy named Frank called. He’d really like you to call him.”

Everything Old Is New Again

The Copper Pan had changed. A little.

The space next door once occupied by the ridiculously overpriced women’s clothing store had been annexed by the Copper Pan once the clothing store patrons had grown weary of paying $375 for the same jeans you could buy at The Gap for $55.

Bigger, because of reasons having everything to do with population growth and nothing to do with itself, the Copper Pan was a success.

Those same young professionals who once lived in the apartments above San Vicente Boulevard, who came there nightly in their leased, 48-month payment plan, royal blue with cream interior BMW 325s on the way home—first, second, third year legal associates, junior agents, baby investment bankers—stopping by at 8:45 p.m. before the kitchen closed to pick up a salad to eat in their sweats while they watched 30 minutes of television before bedtime—had aged, gotten married, bought teardowns below San Vicente but above Wilshire, and had babies, that being the latest can’t-do-without accessory on the Westside.

Those (now) married professionals, more than a few having become the infamous SAHMs (Stay-At-Home Moms), wanted a restaurant where they could take their kids that cooked the same food that their mom (they and their spouses basically unwilling to cook, clean, or parent) had made on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday night.

The cloth napkins, mysteriously gone for a few months, now brought back once those regular customers selected “going green” as their new cause du jour.

The frizzy red-haired five-foot-two hostess who came to L.A. to live with her boyfriend after graduating from Williams with a degree in applied mathematics, who ran the marathon in under four hours, who snickered and shook her head when she saw me, “Who you breaking up with now?”—gone, probably to marriage or a PhD program at Berkeley or Stanford.

She was replaced by a five-foot-eleven, 110-pound actor-model wannabe with long straight blond hair vaguely resembling alien-scanner model thing, a refugee from the actor-model immigrants who flood L.A. yearly, thinking that the hostess gig was a good place to be for a while.

“At least I’ll be seen, I mean producers come here, right?” She was right about the producers and wrong about being seen.

The menu—gone, well not gone, but the things that I liked on it: pan fried chicken, pan fried whitefish, pan fried potatoes—gone, or only served as a special. The menus clearly “trimmed” (always a good word on the Westside) from four pages down to two, clearly reflecting the diets of the regulars, deleting anything with fat and carbs. A menu that also reflected the owner’s calculations on how to maximize profits. I’m sure the owner was forever wondering, “How much can we charge for a salad?”

Something else that had changed. Frank was on time. Clean hair without that trademark baseball cap, pressed shirt (cotton, long-sleeved, not a faded T-shirt with holes from Senor Frog’s Mazatlan or In-N-Out Burger, or the PoMo “Britney, I’m Not So Innocent” tour shirt), wearing a new leather jacket, clean jeans, and new Nikes, and looking about 20 pounds thinner. But nervous. When I returned his call, he asked if we could meet for lunch at the Copper Pan on Saturday.

“You sure you want to go there,” I said. “I mean, Frank, that’s our break-up spot. We already did that.”

He wanted to go there.

It was important, he said.

“Thank you for coming,” he said, “you look great.”

“Thanks,” I said. “What’s up?”

“The guy who answered your phone. Is he the one who asked you to marry him?”

“No.”

“Who was it?”

“Marshall. Jennifer’s friend. They’re here for the
Faces of Tomorrow
competition, which starts in 90 minutes, so we’d better hustle.”

“I was hoping that we could talk for a while.”

“I don’t have much time,” I said.

The waiter appeared. Too good-looking. An actor-wannabe, gay.

“I don’t understand your menu anymore,” I said. “So just give me what everyone else orders.”

“You mean solidified nothing?” said the waiter in rounded vowels, modulated, and perfectly spoken. Make that a Juilliard theater school-trained actor-wannabe, gay, with an attitude.

“OK, a Nicoise salad,” I said.

“Bot-tled Wah-ter?” said the Waiter.

“Got any milkshakes?” I said.

The waiter gives me a sideways rolling eyes look.

“OK, lemonade,” I said.

“Burger, well done. Fries. Root Beer,” said Frank.

Frank looks around, jumpy. Appears to be catching his breath.

“Frank, what is it? Did you give me some disease?”

“No,” he says. “OK, OK. When I saw you in Group recently, I realized something important. I…”

The waiter appeared with our drinks.

“The bartender told me to tell you that no one has ordered a milkshake in five years. But if you want it, he thinks he remembers how to make one.”