Finding It (32 page)

My mother could have named me something more normal. I could’ve been one of a million Jennifers or Amys, and it wouldn’t have made one bit of difference. But no. She had to saddle me with Vivia Perpetua and a load of baggage about sex. I have more baggage than the Louis Vuitton flagship store on 5th Avenue in New York City, which I visited once with my best friend Fanny Moreau who works as a Regional Merchandiser for LVMH. Fanny is gorgeous, smart, talented, and has sophistication oozing from her otherwise immaculate pores. She’s French, so I’m pretty sure the sophistication gene is hardwired into her DNA. Fanny
never
lies about her sexual history. She is confident and blunt.

Like when I first met her. She told me her name was Stéphanie Elise Girard Moreau, and I told her mine was Vivia Perpetua.

“How
horrible
,” she gasped, as if I had just confessed to having been born one half of a blind and deaf Siamese twin. “I cannot call you this name. To me, you shall be Vivian.”

She pronounced the name in such a seductive way it made me wish my name was Vivian.

“Like Vivien Leigh?”

“
Exactement
.” She smiled. “Only less
tragique
.”

We were best friends from that moment on. We talk every day, and we share
all
of our secrets.

The first time I told her I’d lied to a lover about my sexual prowess, she said, “Honestly Vivian,” pronouncing the end of my name with her charming nasal accent, “I do not understand why you lie about such things. If a man won’t accept you for who you are, he is not worth the Dior Gloss.”

Fanny and I are addicted to Dior’s Addict Ultra Lip Gloss, but at $25.00 a tube, we’re careful to use it on only the most delectable and Dior-worthy dates. It has become our code-phrase.

“Was he Dior-worthy?”

“I thought he would be, but he spent sixty-eight minutes talking about his ex, suggested I pay half of the bill, and then tried to use a Groupon to pay for his half.”

“
Chérie
, I hope you saved the Dior.”

Fanny is obsessed with Christian Dior. Not the conglomerate, but the couturier. She even quotes him.

“Remember Christian’s mantra: ‘The tones of gray, pale turquoise, and pink always prevail,’” she once quipped, in an effort to persuade me to wear an absurd fuchsia bubble skirt.

But I digress.

I was supposed to be telling you about my pathological need to portray myself as a virgin, why it is my mother’s fault, and why I am now in the eye of the maelstrom that has destroyed everything I once cherished.

Maybe I should start at the beginning….

Losing My Virginity

I lost my virginity when I was seventeen to Leo Crandall, a gangly cello player who lived down the street from us. My mom fell in love with Leo from the first time he rode his Little Fire Chief Big Wheel up our driveway and declared he was “on duty.” She proclaimed his mop of blond hair, wide brown eyes, freckled nose, and slight lisp “blooming precious” and insisted we play together often, even though I complained he used his Transformer to crush my Strawberry Shortcake doll. As he grew, Leo became more studious, earnestly practicing his cello while other boys his age were perfecting rad tricks on their BMX dirt bikes.

In our junior year, we both worked at Sonic Burger. Sometimes he would give me a lift home. Leo was sweet and dependable, like a sad-eyed basset hound, but he didn’t raise my pulse. If Steven Spielberg ever wanted to turn my life into a movie, Leo’s part wouldn’t be played by Ryan Gosling or Brad Pitt. Leo did not have leading man appeal. He was more of a supporting character, like Harry Connick, Jr. in
Independence Day
.

I had sex with Leo because I was angry that Jason Thomas asked Carrie Stemokowitz to the prom instead of me. Jason had been the subject of my preteen fantasies ever since he’d blocked a dodge ball from hitting me in the face during fourth grade PE. Carrie was my arch nemesis. Petite, popular, pretty, and the captain of the pom-pom squad, she was my polar opposite.

I was angry with my mother for insisting I go with Leo to the Prom and for making me wear one of her vintage store finds, a ruffled gown in a shade she called
delicate daffodil
. I disagreed, saying it was more of a junkie jaundice yellow, which prompted my mother to cross herself and my father to peer at me over the top of his tortoiseshell glasses. My dad, a professor of Religious Studies at UC Davis, could make a lecture hall full of self-impressed students tremble with a single disapproving glance.

I was angry at Leo, too. Why’d he have to ask me to the prom? Why not Carrie Stemokowitz? After all, Carrie was the one with the super-huge crush on Leo. Not the silently-suffering, worship-you-from-afar kind of crush I had on Jason, but a creepy stalker-like pseudo-obsession that reminded me of that Glenn Close movie—the one where she has an affair with Michael Douglas and then becomes unhinged when he won’t leave his wife. I’m not saying Carrie would have killed someone over Leo Crandall, but if pushed, I think she could have been a bunny boiler.

The way she always stared at Leo was kind of disturbing. She twirled a lock of her wavy hair around a finger and batted her long, curly eyelashes at him. Once, in Chem class, Leo’s Chap Stick dropped out of his pocket and rolled across the floor without him noticing. Carrie picked it up. Later, I saw her pop the lid off, sniff it, and then rub it over her lips. She had this weird look on her face, a bit like when Buffalo Bill tossed the bottle of Jergens down to his victim in
Silence of the Lambs
. I half expected her to moan, “It rubs the Chap Stick on its lips.”

If Leo had asked Carrie to the prom, I think Jason would have asked me to be his date. So my first sexual encounter was the product of this bizarre love triangle fueled by molten teenage anger.

I liked Leo, but I didn’t love him. And that’s all I could think about when we fumbled around in the back of the rented limo.
Why aren’t I doing this with someone I really love? I’ll bet Jason Thomas wouldn’t be so awkward
.

I didn’t have sex again until my senior year in college. I was too busy trying to keep my GPA up and my waistline down. Freshman fifteen? Try freshman forty. The night I met Travis Trunnell, I was uncharacteristically hammered. My then-BFF, Grace Murphy, had lured me to a cheesy bar called the Tijuana Yacht Club.

“The servers wear tight speedos and dance on surf boards,” she’d said.

“Speedos and surf board dancing? Are they straight?”

“Vivia,
seriously
! You can’t study all of the time or you’ll die an old maid, like Mary Shelley.”

I was into Gothic literature at the time, and more than a little obsessed with Mary Shelley, so her comment was like a jugular shot.

“Mary Shelley experienced one of the greatest love affairs of all time. She did not die an old maid,” I argued.

“Are you sure?” Grace squinted. “Because I am pretty sure Professor Atkins said she died a virgin.”

“Mary Shelley did not die a virgin! She was Percy Bysshe Shelley’s wife. When they were courting, they would meet at her mother’s grave and Percy would recite poetry.”

“Eww!” Grace grimaced. “Is that what you want, Vivia? To marry an effeminate necrophiliac who recites poetry as foreplay?”

Unable to argue with such logic, I slipped into my tightest jeans and followed Grace to the ramshackle bar with sand on the floor.

I had just slammed my sixth Hawaiian Punch Shooter and stumbled onto the dance floor when I noticed a tall, muscular beach boy staring at me from across the bar. My stomach flipped and I had a sickening vision of me hurling all over his feet. I thought I looked so cool, gyrating to 2 Live Crew’s old school anthem, “Me So Horny,” but when Travis Trunnell stared at me, I suddenly felt lame.

I was grinding away to the climactic moan backtrack when I caught my reflection in the club’s mirror, hips rotating, booty shaking. Years later, Grace described my smooth moves as a sad epileptic white girl’s imitation of a twerk. Harsh. Could anyone look sexy dancing to lyrics that include
“Sucky, sucky. Me sucky, sucky”
? I don’t think so.

Travis waited for me until the song ended, a slow, easy smile stretched between his dimpled cheeks. I must have stopped breathing because he leaned down and whispered in my ear.

“Breathe, baby, breathe. You don’t want to pass out here. You’ll wake up with your pretty face buried in a sandbox.”

I don’t remember what I said. I just remember looking into his blue eyes and thinking I would die if I didn’t have sex with him. I didn’t know his name. Didn’t know his story. But I had to have him. Grace, the psychology major, called it primal lust.

Travis ordered me another Hawaiian Punch Shooter, and beneath the glow of neon palms, we pretended to be interested in each other’s lives when all we really wanted to do was drop and have dirty, sweaty sex.

Travis attended UC Berkeley on a full ride football scholarship. The more we talked, the more I liked Travis. His slow, sexy drawl and his hand on the small of my back made me feel fuzzy all over.

I still wanted to have nasty sex with him, but I also wanted something more than a bar hookup/bootie call connection. I didn’t want him to think I was a slut. I summoned the last vestiges of my common sense and told him I would have to call it a night.

That’s when I realized Grace had encouraged me to dance with Travis and then slipped out the back door. She even took my purse. Clever bitch.

No Grace meant no ride home.

Do you believe in serendipity?

I do.

I don’t believe
everything
is preordained. I doubt our higher power involves Herself in every detail of our lives. If you had the universe at your disposal and an infinite amount of time stretching before you, would you fill your days deciding whether Nancy Jones should have Caesar Salad for lunch? Probably not.

I decided Fate had brought Travis to me. A higher power was telling me to abandon my no one-night stand rule and go home with the sexy Texan. After all, when the universe gives you a tall, handsome gift, you don’t give it back.

We went back to his place, a third floor apartment with a frat house vibe. He offered me a warm Corona and put on a slow jazz CD. I hate jazz. All of those horns. It’s like someone handed out musical instruments at an asylum and ordered the patients to play whatever came to mind. He had a fake mink blanket on his bed. That’s about all I remember: jazz, warm beer, and a cheap blanket.

I woke the next morning with a case of bedhead and a tennis ball-sized rug burn on my tailbone. What would Saint Vivia have said if she looked down from her celestial perch to witness my walk of shame? I had to walk the five miles from Travis’s house to the dorms, heels in hand, pride in shambles.

Travis and I hooked up a few more times, but I was never able to get over the way we had met. My shame was
that
huge. Little did I know, my naughty night with Travis would come back to haunt me like a Kardashian sex tape.

I vowed to abstain from sex, graduate college, and channel my energies into my Journalism career. I worked freelance until I landed a job at
San Francisco Magazine
writing fluff pieces for the Style Section—ironic, since the bulk of my wardrobe consisted of heavy metal band Ts and jeans. Fashion was not my forte. Once, I bought a fake Prada from a sketchy boutique near Chinatown. A burgundy satchel in buttery soft leather, with braided biker chain handles. Later, Fanny pointed out the shiny emblem read
Prado
instead of
Prada
.

The editor who interviewed me said she dug my “edgy youth on the verge vibe” and hired me on the spot. Since then, I’ve been assigned pieces titled
Out of the Recycle Bin and Into Your Closet
and
Fabulous & Faux: How to Rock a Fake Fur
.

It isn’t hard-hitting, investigative journalism, but I like to think my work at
San Francisco Magazine
serves an educational purpose. Besides, if I hadn’t gotten that job, I might not have met Nathan. Nathaniel Edwards, III.

Nathan’s family owns Opulent Style Publications, the publisher that produces
San Francisco Magazine
and a slew of other upscale monthlies devoted to culture, art, and posh living. He is a junior partner in one of the largest law firms in the Bay Area, but also serves on Opulent Style’s Board of Directors. He is smart, driven, stable, respectable, and honest. He would make any woman the perfect husband. In fact, in seventy two hours and thirty four minutes he is supposed to become
my
perfect husband.