The Gift Bag Chronicles (14 page)

“So you’re saying
we
won’t be the ones to decide to change things, but that something —”

“Hang on a sec, I have another call,” he says, clicking off.

I close my eyes. Again. My cozy little Sunday has suddenly withered into a desert stretching before me. A desert without a boyfriend but with a soundtrack. I open my eyes and check out
the kitchen window. Christy is still banging away on the piano. Show tunes, I think, picking out the strains of “Rent.” I stand there for a couple of minutes listening to her, trying to decide if she has any idea how sound carries in the hills, or if she’s totally enjoying the fact that it does, when Charles clicks back.

“Sorry,” he says, sounding breathless again. Like he was jogging or walking fast. “But that was Patrice.”

“Patrice?” I say, turning from the kitchen window and heading into the living room.

“Patrice
Fielding.”

I freeze midstep. What is Patrice doing talking to Charles, and on a Sunday morning? It was weird enough she unexpectedly showed up at the wedding, but now she’s calling Charles?

“Patrice called you?” I say casually. “Just now?”

“Yeah, well, we were trading calls Friday, and then she just reached me,” he says, sounding equally casual. Maybe too casual. “She wanted to go over some things — she’s coming to New York next week — and she mentioned she had seen you at the wedding and you seemed a little flustered by her presence.”

A month ago, I didn’t even know Patrice, and now I’m tripping over her everywhere I go? Even on my day off.

“For the record, I wasn’t
flustered
,” I say, realizing I sound totally flustered. “I was
concerned
. When the entertainment editor of a national magazine shows up at a wedding where there’s no media allowed, I get
concerned
. Anyone would be. You would be.”

“Look, don’t get defensive.”

“I’m not defensive, I was
concerned
,” I say again. “I needed to clarify she was there strictly as a guest.”

“She said you upset her date.”

“I upset her date? Oh, give me a break, Mickey Delano
lives
to get upset. He loves putting on a show.”

“Okay, never mind,” Charles says, backtracking now. “She just brought it up, and I thought I’d mention it to you.”

“And I’ve
explained
it,” I say. A moment of silence hangs in
the air. A beat too long. Like the tide receding on an empty beach. “Look, let’s not talk about work, let’s not talk about us,” I say, rushing to fill it. “I seriously need to do nothing today.”

“So what are you doing today?” we say simultaneously, and I realize this — asking each other about our different days — has become our default mode.

I stare out the living room window at the eucalyptus trees thrashing in the Santa Ana winds. “What I always do. Papers, movie, nap. Order something in later. Watch HBO,” I say, not bothering to mention Christy and the piano. “You?”

“It’s a gorgeous day here,” he says. “You know, one of those first crisp fall days.”

He keeps talking, a rundown of his day, his run in the park, lunch with friends, maybe an early movie, but his voice is like the muffled sound from an apartment down the hall. Maybe it’s the heat, or our argument, or the fact that we’re still in two different cities, two different time zones, with some 40 degrees and 2,800 miles separating us, but my mind drifts off. That’s one of the things I miss most about living back east. The seasons. Especially fall, that sense of forward motion every September, that the planet is spinning forward, carrying you effortlessly forward. In L.A., nothing carries you forward except your own will.

“You know, maybe we can at least figure out how I can spend September and October working out of the New York office,” I say suddenly, pressing my forehead to the window, feeling the coolness of the glass and the heat beyond it. “And then you could spend the winters in L.A. Bicoastal according to the seasons. Maybe that’s a way to start.”

“Umm, yeah,” he says, like he’s surprised or startled that I’ve interrupted him.

“Look,” I say, pulling away from the window. “I’m just saying it’s a way to explore making a change. A baby step. Plus, I miss New York in the fall, and you know the winters in L.A. are so —”

“Hold that thought, I have another call,” he says, clicking off.

“As I was saying,” I say pointlessly. I stand there a minute waiting for Charles to come back on when I hear my other line click. Oh, screw it. “Hello?” I say, clicking over.

“You are up.”

Oscar. A day early by our usual Monday morning quarterbacking, our conference call with Steven where we go over everything about the event. Something must be up for him to call on Sunday. Oh, God. Maybe Jennifer already called him to complain about something?

“Yes, I’m up. Ambulatory. Caffeinated. Even read the Sunday papers. But what’s wrong? Did Jennifer find out about Patrice being at the wedding and call freaking from Hawaii?”

“Why are you always braced for bad news? I don’t even get a ‘Hello, Oscar, how are you?’”

I take a swig of coffee, cold now and pure grit, wondering where this is going and if I’m in a mood to go there.

“You’re right. Hello, Oscar. How are you? Now, please tell me what’s up. I’ve got Charles on the other line.”

“Oh, hey, tell him I need to talk to him first thing tomorrow about the Kia launch party next month.”

“Sure, actually, hang on,” I say, clicking back to Charles.

“Where did you go?” Charles says, sounding annoyed.

“I had another call,” I say. “Oscar. Needs to go over some things about last night. He also wants to talk to you. Let me call you right back.”

“No, look, go ahead and take it, I’ve got to get going anyway,” he says, sounding rushed, mentioning the movie again. “We’ll talk later.”

Before I can protest, he’s gone. I sigh, click back to Oscar. “Charles says to reach him at the office Monday. Now, tell me what’s up with Jennifer.”

“Look, Jennifer hasn’t called. No one’s called, and I’m bored. It’s too hot to do anything except eat. Let’s go to brunch.”

“Brunch?” I say dumbly. “No one does brunch anymore.”

“I’m offering to buy you a meal and you’re turning me down?”

“I just saw you less than twelve hours ago. I don’t want to go to brunch.”

“Lunch
. Call it lunch if that will make you feel better.”

“Look, isn’t there some wannabe actress over there you can take to brunch? Lunch?” I say. “Someone else you can play with? I thought you had a hot date last night after we finished at the ranch.”

“No, I told you. Elsa’s out of town.”

“Elsa’s out of town,”
I say, laughing for what I realize is the first time today. “I can’t believe you’re dating someone named Elsa.”

“I’m not ‘dating’ Elsa. You think no one does brunch anymore. Well, no one ‘dates’ anymore. I’m
seeing
Elsa.”

“The way you’re ‘seeing’ Amber, and what was that other one’s name, Brandy?”

“Alex,” he says with an exaggerated sigh. “Try and follow along. I’m seeing Elsa, but I hang out with Amber, and for the record, Brandy is over.”

“Okay, forget the girls. Isn’t there a game on? I know there’s a game, somewhere, in some country, on some channel,” I say, turning back for the kitchen. “Just hang up the phone, turn on the TV, and you’ll forget all about brunch.”

“Actually, there is a game on. Or there will be. So let’s go to lunch and then we can watch the game.”

“Okay, maybe that’s your day off,” I say, pouring the rest of the coffee down the drain and reaching in the refrigerator for a water. “My day off is watching a movie, taking a nap and maybe even a bath. Alone. Or it was,” I say, checking out the window at Christy, still banging away.

“Look, Garbo, it’s too hot for a bath. Besides, you have to eat. Come on, I’m buying. Meet me at Hugo’s,” he says, mentioning the legendary West Hollywood breakfast joint.

“Hugo’s? You expect me to leave my nice air-conditioned house on a day like this to go to Hugo’s and eat breakfast?”

“Yeah, because they have the best blueberry waffles in L.A.”

“I haven’t eaten waffles in years. Nobody eats waffles any—”

“Which is exactly why you’re going to meet me there in half an hour.”

“Know what the secret of a good waffle batter is?”

“No idea,” I say, spearing another forkful. “Sugar?”

“Yeast. And letting the batter rest.”

“Sounds like wine,” I say, looking up.

“Sounds like a lot of things,” he says, eyeing me over his coffee cup. “Leaven and time.”

“You learn that from Hot Fat?” I say, reaching for my coffee cup.

“No, the Army.”

I pause, my cup in midair. “You were in the Army? You mean, when your dad was in the Army?”

“I was in ROTC in college.”

I put the cup down. “Okay, what are you, fifty? I thought that bald head was just a fashion statement.”

“I told you. I was an Army brat,” Oscar says, leaning back in his chair. “I was just following my old man. What’s amazing is that I went to college. He never did.”

“So you actually served where, Vietnam?”

“No, I was too late. Fort Hood. Three years. By the time I left, I was manager of the mess hall. How did you think I got into event production? You run the mess for a thousand guys in boot camp, nothing scares you.”

I push my plate aside. Maybe it’s all the sugar from the waffles, which were absurdly good, so three-dimensional compared to most breakfast foods, or maybe it’s the fact that we’re sitting directly under the air-conditioning vent, but the world seems
much more palatable than it did an hour ago. “I thought you got into it by being a roadie or a grip or something,” I say, reaching for my cup, which is pretty much empty. I drain it anyway.

“You want more?” Oscar says, nodding at me and then looking around for the waitress.

“No,” I say, pushing it aside with the plate. “I’ve had more than enough. I should get going.”

“What?” he says, turning back around. “Don’t you want to hear my old Army stories? I can bore you to tears between innings of the Dodgers game they’ll have on at Barney’s Beanery in about” — he pauses to check his watch — “half an hour.”

Being bored to tears by Oscar’s old Army stories doesn’t sound like the worst thing to do on a Sunday afternoon. Still, I’m not sure this is the smartest idea. My life is complicated enough dating a man I work with. Not sure I need to log more time with another male colleague. “It’s not that,” I say. “I just don’t think I should go from waffles to beer.”

“Don’t you ever do anything that’s not USDA approved?”

“You know what I’ll feel like later? Like I ate too much, drank too much, and wasted way too much time.”

“And that would be wrong?”

“Uh,
yeah,”
I say, spotting some high ground — and moral at that — and heading for it. “Women are into self-improvement even in their downtime because there are not enough hours in the day to just
waste
them. Take today. I planned to spend my so-called downtime sleeping in, reading the papers, watching a movie, taking a nap, and taking a bath. All very restorative. Very self-improving. Even if it looks like I was doing nothing in particular.”

“How is that different than watching the game over a few beers?”

“Calories, and it just
is,”
I say, waving him off. “Look, why do you think shopping is women’s number one leisure activity?”

“What’s your source for that?”

“What’s my
source?”
I say.

“I was a statistics major. We’re big on data.”

“You were a
statistics major?”
I say, realizing between the Army, his major, and his pet goat, I know virtually nothing about Oscar.

“Yeah, but go on,” he says, nodding.

“Okay, let’s go with common lore for now — women like to shop,” I say. “It’s all about the acquisition, about improving yourself by acquiring something, so even your so-called downtime — which doesn’t exist, as I’ve explained — is about self-improvement. Personally, I think women would be better off if they bought stocks and real estate instead of clothes, but that’s just fine-tuning the impulse. Guys, on the other hand, like to drink and hang out and eat and watch sports.”

“And fuck, but you’re wrong,” he says, shaking his head. “Guys like to do nothing in their downtime. No agenda. Eat, watch the game. No agenda.”

“The agenda is eat and watch the game,” I say, choosing to ignore the fuck reference.

“No, trust me, it’s about the lack of an agenda. Especially if you’re with someone who has one.”

“Okay, you want to go down that road?” I say, leaning forward. “The old male-female dichotomy? ‘Honey, let’s go pick out lawn furniture this weekend.’ ‘Fuck that, I’m watching the game.’ Which means, depending on the power dynamics of that relationship, that no lawn furniture will be picked out
or
the woman will do it herself.”

“Hey,” he says, “I know plenty of couples where they would spend the day — the
day
— picking out not only lawn furniture but new paint for the bathroom, garden tools, and pricing refrigerators which they don’t even
need.”