The Starter Wife (17 page)
They looked like a good argument against inbreeding.
The big balls of fur were tumbling toward her house. The dogs knew where to go; they’d probably been dumping here their whole furry, oversized, stupid lives.
And out came Madame wearing palazzo pants, a crazy cap of bleached blond froth held down by a silver headband, both items of which should have been placed in an eighties time capsule. In the morning light, Gracie could see she wasn’t as young as she’d thought. She was probably in her forties, like, er, Gracie (gulp), in which case the woman did not have youth on her side as an excuse for her bad behavior.
For some reason, this just made Gracie angrier.
After all, this woman had almost turned her hot dog, Helen, into a shredded meat sandwich.
“Tiffany!” the woman sang. “Cartier!”
Gracie didn’t know why the woman was calling out the names of jewelry establishments until she realized the woman was calling her dogs.
“Gucci! Prada!”
Gracie crouched down behind the Volvo as the woman walked toward the fence with the barbed wire on top, separating the Colony from the unwashed masses on the public beach. She watched as the woman spread her arms, holding some sort of baton with a cup at the end, a throwing gizmo to use with tennis balls.
Gracie watched as the dogs crapped, peed, dug holes in the dirt where the asphalt ended, peed some more and matched that act with more crap.
The woman made not one move toward the pooper-scooper, threw not one glance at the mini-trashcan, traipsed not one inch toward the plastic bags hanging on the fence (with a sign,“for your convenience”).
Gracie was so taken aback by the chutzpah on display that she almost forgot to put her anger into her presentation. Finally, panting as though she was having an anxiety attack or being forced to sit through a screening of a Ben Affleck comedy, Gracie stood on her wobbly legs and shouted, “I see you!” Jaden looked up at Gracie, curious. The yell was somewhat garbled; the rise in adrenaline had flattened her diaphragm.
The woman made a lazy, lackadaisical turn, as though not surprised by this sudden turn of events; it was probably habit for her to be chastised by neighbors, Gracie thought.
She looked at Gracie and smiled.
Gracie marched toward her as Jaden watched, her arms swinging up at her sides. “Your dogs are—they’re pooping all over the place!” Gracie didn’t like how that came out. “Poop” had less impact than “shit” or “crap” even. She made a mental note for future reference. There was a reason, after all, that swear words were as popular as they were. Jaden would just have to understand.
The woman looked at her dogs, who had gathered around her like furry soldiers with friendly faces. They’d even come toward Gracie, slobbering and full of the dumb, happy energy that dogs with a lot of hair often seem to have. “C’mon, Pumpkins,” the woman said to her dogs, “time for your manicures!” She started walking away, followed by her slew of fur.
“Hey!” Gracie yelled. “You can’t just walk away from me!” You’ve got to clean up this mess!”
“Sorry!” the woman said in a singsong voice, her hips swaying back and forth in her palazzo pants as she sauntered back to her home.
“You look ridiculous in those pants!” Gracie shouted. Her diaphragm had finally inflated. “And that headband should be in a Billy Joel video!”
Jaden rode her tricycle over and watched the dogs roll toward their home as Gracie slapped her hands together and proceeded to clean up with her brand-new, never-used pooper-scooper.
T
HE
M
ALIBU
C
OLONY
is located west of the Malibu Pier, directly next to the Malibu Lagoon, at the end of the Malibu Creek.The creek dissects world-famous Surfrider Beach, where one can spy the ghost of Gidgets past, and where sewage runoff makes the waters at Surfrider Beach poisonous and the mussels that live there inedible. It is a place, as Will said, “Where the effluent meets the affluent.” It’s a wonder that the surfers Gracie would watch every morning when she got up before six (because divorce evidently causes insomnia) didn’t have three eyeballs and two heads, like the tender, amphibious creatures that populated polluted waterways.
But the view was sensational.
Gracie would come downstairs in the early morning before Jaden awoke, make a pot of coffee, and look at the antidepressants that her therapist prescribed (as did her friends), then put them back in a kitchen drawer, to be taken out and stared at again the next day. What was it Will had said to her? “Happiness comes from inside. A pill.”
Gracie would gaze out the kitchen window, which looked
directly out onto Surfrider Beach, where she could see on clear days from lifeguard tower 2 all the way to the Palos Verdes Peninsula. And she’d count her blessings, the same ones, every morning: (1) She had great eyesight (since the LASIK).(2) Her daughter was healthy (this usually came first). (3) She had a wealthy friend (who offered her an eight-million-dollar beach house for the summer).There sometimes was the fourth one: good teeth and excellent gums. Sometimes, when Gracie was feeling particularly needy, she’d count that last one as two.
So even though Gracie would never have another date in her life; even though there were numerous people she had considered if not friends then friendly, who would never condescend to speak to her again; even though her hands were freckled despite numerous attempts at bleaching gels and sunscreen; and even though Kenny was threatening to sue her for damages to his prized McRidiculous house (Something about vomit spots on the antique rug. Apparently, Jorge had eaten berry cobbler earlier in the day. And also, there was the matter of the shattered flat-screen), there was no denying she was one of the lucky ones. At least through the prime real estate months of Memorial Day through Labor Day.
Gracie took time with her coffee—she would have only two cups a day—soaked in soy milk (for calcium, the only thing less attractive than the word “dowager” was “hump”). She’d measure out the coffee after grinding it herself. She’d pour exactly four cups of water in, and not a drop more, leaving two cups for Joan’s housekeeper, who’d come in every other day around nine. And then she’d stand in front of the kitchen window, the venerated view in the house, and watch.
She was beginning to pick up the regular rhythms of Malibu life. She recognized certain surfers as they walked barefoot down the sandy path through the Malibu Lagoon from the
parking lot next to Pacific Coast Highway—the older, balding ones with the emerging guts who got there before dawn, before they headed to their real jobs. She imagined some of them were dentists, others teachers, a few definitely had blue-collar bodies. They all seemed married. They’d smile as they stretched in their tight black wetsuits, pulling the zippers on their backs up to their necks as they bent over at the waist, their feet planted in front of their surfboards. Inevitably they’d get down on their hands and knees, waxing their boards in the same circular motion, steadily, methodically. Then they’d hoist their boards and stand at the shore, pointing and debating, Gracie imagined, as to whether the waves were good, whether the water was cold (it was always cold), whether they’d have fun or not (they’d always have fun).
Finally they’d slip onto their boards and paddle to the waves about fifty yards out. They’d sit for a time and take turns catching the usual two- or three-foot waves. The amount of sitting versus surfing was dependent on how many surfers were bobbing up and down in the gray water.
Forty-five minutes to an hour later, they’d come out, wet and shivering, with blue lips, whipping the water from what was left of their hair. Maybe they’d high-five each other or shake their heads at the lost wave, the broken leash line, the youthful aggros who were encroaching on their turf. But they would always be smiling.
Watching them almost made Gracie want to surf. Then she remembered that surfing was a water sport. She didn’t particularly like getting wet. Then there was the fact that she wasn’t a good swimmer.
Why was it never easy for her?
Gracie poured her half cup of coffee with her half cup of soy milk and prepared for her usual pre-kid, surf-sand-and-sea
respite. She and Jaden had lain in bed together last night, watching
The Princess Diaries
until late. Gracie had actually cried at the end, a bad sign for her mental health.
Gracie looked out toward the beach, her eyes resting momentarily on the surf shack to the east of the access path to Surfrider Beach, a haphazard construction of large rocks, old wooden planks, and palm tree leaves, decorated by half a century of graffiti and decades’ worth of beer bottles and condom wrappers. Why, Gidget herself was probably deflowered in this very stronghold of Malibu surf culture. Recently Gracie had taken note of the modern category of tenants—the vagrants with their cigarettes and stolen iPods, the gang members with their shaved heads and large bottles of orange soda (and only orange soda) and twelve-packs; the tough, beautiful surfer dudes with their full-body tats and their full-bodied girlfriends.
The surf shack was quiet. No bodies, no movement.
Gracie’s eyes drifted toward lifeguard tower 2, which was closed up until about eight, when she’d see the silver pickup truck drive onto the beach.The lifeguard with the sun-reddened skin and sun-bleached hair all over his body would get out and trudge through the sand to his tower, where he’d sit until evening.
Gracie thought he had a pretty good gig; then she remembered that occasionally he’d have to go in the water and save people from drowning. This seemed like a lot of effort for a woman who had to wear 45 sunblock all over her body just to walk into the kitchen.
Gracie noticed a lone figure lying on the beach between her house and the lifeguard tower, about twenty feet from the chain-link Colony fence with the barbed wire on top of it. A thick, dark green blanket was covering the figure, so she could
not tell whether it was a woman or man, though she figured by the length of whatever was under the blanket, it looked to be a man.
She also presumed by the rapid, rhythmic jerking motion taking place under the blanket that the figure must be male. Gracie’s eyes widened and she performed a screwball-comedy spit take, her scientifically combined coffee cascading onto the floor. She didn’t like having to share her morning respite with a public masturbator.
“Jesus!” Gracie said. “He’s going to hurt himself!”
His movements were getting stronger, gaining speed. Gracie wanted to look away, but couldn’t. The pull of watching someone, even someone who was covered up, sexually satisfying themselves was too compelling.
Gracie felt inclined, as a good citizen, to put an end to the debauchery. She started knocking on the window, thinking that might get his attention; he might realize that, yes, there was a house mere yards from his “activities,” and yes, there might be people living in that house.
The movement did not abate. Gracie wondered if the man was trying to kill himself by masturbating to death. She wondered if she should call the Malibu sheriff (there were no police in Malibu); she wondered if she should call an ambulance—and given her heart rate, she wondered if it should be for the homeless guy or her.
Then suddenly the movement stopped. The figure under the blanket was still as a stone.
And then the man popped up, the blanket dropping to the sand. Gracie jumped back, spilling the rest of her coffee on the bleached-wood floor.
“Shit,” she said, but her eyes remained fastened to the man unfolding his long body in front of her. He was well over six
feet, with a loopy question mark of a bod, and a haystack of blond hair.
And he was in his tighty whities.
He didn’t appear to be dirty or particularly destitute. He started to dress, taking his time, as though he were in his sitting room off the master bedroom. He put on a dark blue blazer and topped off the outfit with the ubiquitous iPod and headphones, found on every homeless man Gracie had seen this side of the Malibu city limits. He bundled up his blanket and headed for the path leading through the lagoon, up to Malibu Creek and the Pacific Coast Highway. Gracie presumed he was going to get his morning coffee at the Starbucks at Cross Creek; she was angered by the fact that his morning coffee wouldn’t be interrupted by the sight of galloping self-satisfaction.
Gracie poured herself another cup and wondered what treasures the rest of the day would bring.
She also wondered how it was that a homeless man could have a better (and considerably more self-sufficient) sex life than she.
MALIBU LITERARY LIFE AND THE DEMI PROBLEMG
RACIE, ANXIOUS
to combine exploration with the semblance of being a good mom, had walked Jaden across Pacific Coast Highway to the Malibu Library, where they attended a storybook reading session for young children. Jaden was taken with the young, hip librarian in the Malcolm X glasses, and Gracie took advantage of her crush to hit the stacks. There was an entire section dealing with the history of Malibu. Gracie applied for a library card and took out several books on the Chumash Indians, who had claimed Malibu as home for four thousand years. An older librarian confided to Gracie that “Malibu” was actually Chumash for “sick land,” although the books maintained it meant “water which sounds loudly.”