Story of My Life (10 page)

Jeannie picks up the phone in the other room while it’s still ringing and says, oh, excuse me, really bitchy, and then slams it down.

There’s no answer, anyway. After I hang up Jeannie calls up Alex, my old squeeze, it doesn’t take long to figure this out because she keeps repeating his name and laughing real loud so I’ll know who it is and what a great time she’s having talking to my old boyfriend.

A few minutes after she hangs up Jeannie finally comes in and sits down on the bed, viciously crunching away on her potato chips. I hate to see her expending so much energy on getting me to notice that she’s not a happy unit, so I say to her, are you mad at me? I remember as I say it that Dean asked me that same question about twelve hours ago.

Who, me? she says, with a big fake look of horror. Mad at you? Why should I be mad at you? Just because you accused me in public of wanting to sleep with your boyfriend, is that any reason for me to be mad at you?

I bet Jeannie’s been rehearsing those lines all day.

Well, don’t you? I say.

No, I don’t. For one thing I don’t find him irresistible, no offense, and for another thing he’s your boyfriend and some of us are loyal to our friends.

Well, I’m sorry, I say, I guess I was wrong. And I feel kind of guilty when she says loyal to our friends because I have been awfully hard on her lately, I don’t know what’s wrong with me, I love Jeannie.

And Jeannie goes what? The infallible Alison? Wrong? Impossible. God, I hate George Michael, she says, watching his video on MTV.

I could say, well, that’s what remotes are for, babe, but instead I say, I don’t trust men whose last names sound like first names.

Jeannie says, I don’t trust men, period.

Well, at least it’s not just me she’s mad at. I ask her if there’s trouble with Frank and she launches into this thing about how Frank suddenly told her he can’t come up for the weekend, which was the plan because supposedly the other tennis pro suddenly came down with a sick grandmother and he has to cover all weekend. I’m like, sick grandmother? give me a break. Or maybe the dog ate his homework, right? And not
only can’t he come up but he’ll also be too busy to see her, she really wouldn’t have a good time down there blah blah blah and Jeannie, not real surprisingly, isn’t sure she believes him. She thinks something’s rotten on the island of Hilton Head.

So I do my bit. Come on, I tell her, he’s probably telling the truth, she should trust him, she’s going to marry the guy and trust is the basis of marriage and she can always wake up really early Saturday morning and call him if she thinks he might be slipping around, see if he’s actually home and if he sounds guilty. Or if she really wants to do a serious bedcheck she could fly down unannounced.

She says that’s a great idea, it cheers her up, she decides to go for it and surprise dear old Frankie. She hugs me and I hug her back. She calls up the airline and reserves for an 8:00
A.M
. flight.

You going to be able to wake up for that one? I say.

I may just stay awake, she says. God, this is great, I should be able to get to his apartment by ten, which is plenty of time.

She’s dying to catch Frank in the act. It’s nice to see her smiling again, but what a smile, all teeth and gums, like a piranha. She calls the limo service and books a car to pick her up Saturday morning.

Alison, she goes, you’re a genius.

All this boyfriend stuff makes me think of Dean. I call him and get the machine again. This time I leave a really neutral message asking him to call me when he gets in, very demure and ladylike. That’s me.

Jeannie and I talk for a while about what dickheads men are and then we watch some dumb TV movie, as if there’s any other kind, I couldn’t begin to tell you what it’s all about because my concentration is shot, I’m thinking about Dean, wondering where he is. It’s after nine so he’s probably at dinner somewhere. I remember he said he likes Indochine so I call up there but they say he’s not there. I try to remember the name of his old girlfriend. I could just call and hang up if he answered. . . .

Then I think, what am I doing? This isn’t me. This is somebody else. I’ve been in lust for three days and I’m acting like a jealous wife. I can’t believe this. I mean, I love men in general, I’m a huge fan, but I’m never going to make a fool out of myself over any one in particular. Not after Alex. So what’s my problem? Maybe I’m just going to have to give up on old Dean right now. I don’t need this emotional stuff in my life. I’ve got my acting, I’ve got my sanity.

Then I remember he said he’d call. So I’ll probably hear from him, right? It reminds me of that song, if the phone doesn’t ring you’ll know that it’s me. I try to concentrate on the so-called movie, Richard fucking Chamberlain looking soulful in his beard as per usual, exotic locations, I can’t even begin to figure out what’s going on, goddamn him it’s almost eleven o’clock. I can imagine Dean looking like Richard Chamberlain in about twenty years. . . .

Settle down, says Jeannie after I accidentally spill the ashtray all over the covers. So I tell her about why I’m so bugged
and she tells me don’t worry, he’s probably got some business dinner or something.

At two-thirty Jeannie’s sound asleep and I’m still staring at the TV set, wide awake with no help from artificial stimulants and no hope of artificial depressants. I absolutely cannot miss class again tomorrow. I get up and look in the medicine cabinet. Midol, Tylenol, a lot of other useless shit. I find a couple of Unisoms inside an old Halcyon prescription and take one. Back in bed, I think about calling. Should I act mad? Just a little hurt, maybe? Should I be cool and not even call? That’s what I should do. It would be uncool to call. But right now I can’t even sleep.

The phone rings and I practically break Jeannie’s nose grabbing for it. Jeannie goes, mumble mumble growl snore.

Rebecca says, hi, sis.

What? I go.

I just remembered what I wanted to ask you, she says.

Where are you? I ask.

She says, me and Didi are at some guy’s apartment.

So what did you want to ask? I say.

She goes, you remember that nursery rhyme we used to say in school, I’m trying to remember the words.

Rebecca, I go, there were only about five hundred nursery rhymes we used to say.

This is the one about Miss Mary Mack, she says.

Oh, right, I go. Miss Mary Mack Mack Mack all dressed in black black black with silver buttons buttons buttons all down her back back back. . . .

Yeah, she says, that’s it. How does the rest of it go?

I’m like, that’s all I can remember right now.

Are you sure? she says.

I don’t know, I say, not right now.

I hate to admit it, but it’s actually bugging me that I can’t remember the rest.

Try and remember, she says, I’ll call back later.

And I’m like, no way, don’t call back, I’ve got class tomorrow. How’s Didi? I ask.

She’s out of her mind, Rebecca says. Completely insane.

I go, so what else is new?

She’s got a drug problem, says Rebecca.

Which is pretty funny coming from her. Didi says the same thing about Rebecca. People who are really fucked up love having somebody who they can think is a little farther out on the limb.

After I hang up I call Dean and get the machine with his boring message.

Goddamnit, now I’m really mad. Still, if I show I’m mad he might just get really turned off and think, what right does she have, I’ve only known her three days. What I really am is mad at myself. He doesn’t owe me shit, it’s not like we have a relationship. God, I hate that word, it’s the death sentence for fun. Like, now we’re having a relationship, how should we
act? It’s almost as bad as marriage. Once you say those words you get rules and definitions and you start losing track of your feelings and then they die. It’s like, as soon as
Time
magazine comes up with a name for something you know it’s already not happening anymore, it’s already over.

Why the hell should sex get all mixed up with emotions? Forget it. It’s just skin rubbing against skin in the night. It’s just contact. There’s no need to get all soppy about it afterwards. Fuck Dean. Who needs it?

I mean, why does stimulation always lead to aggravation? Explain that to me, will you please?

I must’ve fallen asleep at some point because eventually I wake up. Jeannie’s at work. I’m on my way out the door to class when I get a call from this guy Brad I met in L.A. He’s in New York and wonders what I’m doing tonight. He’s pretty cute, I remember. I think.

I don’t know, I go, make me an offer.

He says how about theater and dinner, and I figure why not, it’s Friday noon and I’m not the kind of girl who spends Friday night waiting by the phone, I’m sorry but there’s no way, not for all the Deans in the world. So I say sure and he says he’ll pick me up at seven-thirty.

So it’s seven-fifteen and I’m trying to figure out what to wear, I have absolutely no clothes, when dickhead, my true love, calls. Just perfect.

Hey, he goes, it’s Dean.

Could you spell that for me? I say.

Sorry I didn’t get back to you last night, he says. I had a business dinner that ran late.

Yeah, I go. I put a lot of spin on it.

What are you doing tonight? he goes.

I’m like, I’ve got a date.

He sounds pretty surprised. I tell him I’m a popular girl, he should book in advance. He asks about tomorrow and I say it’s possible, and then he says he’ll let me go. He sounds so sad I’m practically crying by the time I hang up. I think about calling and canceling Brad, but it’s too late, in fact the buzzer rings and I’m still half naked and I haven’t even started my makeup.

We go to this play,
Liaisons Dangereuses
, it’s all about French people cooking up these sexual conspiracies, it’s not the sex they like so much as the planning and scheming to corrupt virgins and housewives, it’s all mental, but the worst guy of them all, the hero of the play, falls in love in spite of himself with this woman he’s trying to seduce on a bet and it really fucks him up.

Hey, tell me about it.

The play’s fine, I enjoy it, but it turns out Brad is a totally different guy than the guy I was thinking of, he’s not so cute and afterwards he has to drag us backstage to say hello to one
of the actresses who’s this great friend of his, and after we finally get back there and wait for all the other great friends of hers to have their little chat Brad goes, hi, Bradley Stone, and when that doesn’t bring the house down—I mean, she looks at him like he’s Chinese or something—he goes, we met at Morton’s with Carol and Rick, and it’s obvious she doesn’t have a clue who he is. And then he has to drag me into this mess just to spread the embarrassment around and he goes, this is Alison Poole, she’s an actress herself. . . .

I don’t even want to talk about it. I wanted to just disappear, I would have gladly melted into a puddle right there at her feet like the wicked witch in
The Wizard of Oz
, leaving nothing behind but some goo and this sapphire brooch I borrowed from Jeannie that I have to hold on to because it keeps coming undone. I don’t know, he meant well, but there comes a point sometimes when you know you’re in dating hell, when you’ve just got to grit your teeth and get through it, and I knew this was going to be one of those nights. I wasn’t into it anyway, I kept thinking about Dean, but I thought I owed it to Brad to make the effort to act pleasant.

Then we go to the Four Seasons where Brad makes a big stink about getting a fountainside table, and he keeps repeating his name like it’s a household word. Dinner lasts for three or four decades, I don’t know, Brad’s basically telling me all about how the entertainment industry would grind to a halt if anything happened to him, God forbid. That’s sort of the moral of every story. This guy’s a legend in his own mind.

Plus I freak out when I feel on my lapel for the sapphire brooch and it’s not there, but amazingly it turns up under the table, the fastener thing that holds the pin part of it is really loose, I’m like—gasp, the thing is only worth ten years’ rent, so I just hold it in my hand and squeeze hard when I think I’m going to fall asleep from boredom.

Finally he pays the check and wants to go to Nell’s and I tell him I’ve got to be up early, which is not necessarily a lie since I’ll probably have to shake Jeannie awake at dawn to get her flight, she sleeps like a corpse.

Anyway, Brad gets all pissed off. Just one drink, he goes.

And I’m like, Jesus, I’ve heard that line before but I don’t say it, I just smile demurely and say it’s way past my bedtime.

He just happens to pick this moment to tell me he has tickets to the U2 concert at the Meadowlands tomorrow night. And I go, I still have to head home.

At the door of my apartment it’s thanks for everything, Brad. When he realizes I’m not going to invite him up, he goes, I think it’s pretty rude after I’ve taken you to the theater and a pretty spectacular dinner to just . . .

To just what? I say after this long pause. He stopped when he realized what he was about to say. I go, do you mean it’s pretty rude to just run off without putting out? You expect a return on your investment, is that it?