Tales of a Drama Queen
Lee Nichols

www.millsandboon.co.uk

SEBASTIAN, MAESENEER AND BRONSON

August 21, 2004

Re: Our Recent Luncheon

Ms. Eleanor Medina:

I regret to inform you that I was not released from the hospital until yesterday. The injuries were severe and, as you no doubt recall, I have never been a good healer.

Dr. Armitage offered the opinion that the sugar, at the time of impact, was heated to approximately 370° F. Mr. Maeseneer, Esq., was kind enough to suggest that I initiate legal proceedings against the restaurant, pastry chef and, of course, yourself. However, as you know, I would miss the Gratinée de Coquille St. Jacques. And, as I am well aware of the state of your finances, expecting remuneration would be more than foolhardy.

Elle, please understand that I do not regret the six long years we spent together. You are a very special person, with a great deal of vivacity, and as one Chapter ends another is sure to begin. Although, if you will allow advice from a fond ex-fiancé, you might learn to curb your temper.

Sincerely,

Louis M. Ferris

Louis M. Ferris, Esquire

P.S. It has come to my attention that, during your somewhat disordered departure, you must have inadvertently removed my stamp collection with your belongings. Please return ASAP.

LMF: je

1665 Massachusetts Avenue NW • Washington, DC 20036 • (202) 555-0221

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 1

I got the fancy cheese grater from Williams-Sonoma. I got the obscenely fat, three-wicked candle his sister gave us. I got the cut-out New Yorker cartoons, saved against a rainy day for eventual decipherment. I even got the instant ear thermometer (I never get sick, but I knew he would miss it).

All was taken in manner of the break-up scene in The Jerk, where a drunk Steve Martin stumbles out the door, pants around his ankles, grabbing whatever catches his eye. Was proud at the time that I shrieked like a harridan for his sister’s handwritten instructions about burning the candle, then deeply disappointed to read simply: “Burn no longer than one hour. Enjoy!” Have been preoccupied on flight to Santa Barbara wondering what happens if I burn longer. Explosion? Toxic fumes?

For the first time, I drink real Bloody Marys on the plane, not virgins. Concern over Death Candle melts away in cloud of drunken amiability. I delight my neighbor, a genteel old lady wearing a Laura Ashley frock, with details of my breakup with Louis. Her eyebrows beetle when I call the Iowan floozy a scheming slut. Could she be from Iowa? I assure her I don’t think all floozies from Iowa are scheming sluts.

Am pleasantly surprised when old lady says there are extra seats in back, smiles kindly, and leaves in a waft of grandmotherly perfume. I scoot to the window seat and lay my head against the cold plastic wall.

Start to cry as I fall asleep to thoughts of my big, expensive, perfect wedding. And my small, cheap, flawed future.

I wake when the plane touches ground. There’s a scattering of applause, and for a euphoric moment I think it’s for me.

I was dreaming about trying on clothes in an endless, utopian version of the Better Dresses department of my childhood department store. The dressing room is large and shell-pink, filled with Donna Karans, Armanis, Guccis, Diors and pre-Stella-McCartney-bail Chloes. Everything I put on makes my body look like Halle Berry’s. When did I get such a perfect ass? I can’t stop turning and admiring it in the mirror. Like an old Labrador lying down for a nap, I turn and admire, turn and admire, searching for the best of all possible views.

Reaching for the price tag on a Missoni sheath, I can’t quite make out the numbers. I ask the manager (who, oddly, is my fifth grade teacher, Mr. Bott) to help me. He says, “You never were a good reader, Elle,” presents me with a gold Neiman Marcus credit card (not Robinson’s after all) and says, “Take it all, you gorgeous thing.” The beautiful young salespeople applaud.

I open my eyes, smiling modestly, to find a middle-aged couple across the aisle clapping. Because the plane landed. As if a safe landing is more important than a perfect ass in a Missoni.

I straighten in my seat, a crick in my neck, cranky from my nap. Doesn’t help that shopping orgasm was all a dream. And that my feet have swollen to the size of pineapples, and won’t slip back into my boots, forcing me to leave them unzipped.

I peer out the mini-window at the Santa Barbara airport. Looks like a Spanish hacienda. I’ve only been home once since college and the hacienda makes me feel nostalgic and young again—can’t wait to impress my friends and family with all the brilliant things I learned at Georgetown, plus tales of my fabulous attorney fiancé and high-society Washington lifestyle. Cheered, I wander down the stairs toward the tarmac, half-expecting the whir and flash of paparazzi cameras.

It’s all wrong. I’m blinded by runway lights, suffocated by fresh air, struck with sick-making vertigo. I clutch the stair-railing as I’m ambushed by the truth: I’m no longer twenty-one, all I recall from Georgetown is my relief at having graduated, my family doesn’t live here anymore, my fabulous fiancé dumped me for an Iowan floozy, I never had a lifestyle—and now I don’t even have a life.

I start crying again, and the grandmotherly old lady lays a gentle hand on my arm and brushes past, muttering “move it, you feeble lush.”

Resolve in future to keep my airborne Marys virginal.

I’ve lined up my seventh suitcase (of thirteen, but some are quite small) in the baggage claim tent, when Maya bounces up. She’s as cute as she was in high school, with a short tousle of blond curls, huge green eyes and a petite teenage body that belies her twenty-six years. She’s my opposite. I’m taller, with long dark corkscrew hair, and more curvy than petite.

She smiles at me, and I feel dirty, tangled, big and miserable. She sees my unzipped boots and unstable expression and opens her arms. I fall into them, weeping.

“Oh, Elle.” She giggles. “You’re just the same!”

Chapter 2

He’s perfect. Brad. Maya’s boyfriend.

It was ever her way. In high school, she had a string of cute, smart, loving boyfriends. My string consisted of the geeky boys in my fourth-period chemistry class. Bunsen-Burner-du-Jour and I would get drunk on Saturday night, fool around, then pretend we hadn’t touched each other on Monday. I got a C-in chemistry.

Perfect Brad. Charming, handsome, always says the right thing. Not in an Eddie Haskell way, but as if he really cares. For someone like me, who’s fairly certain no one would hold a funeral if she died, the effect is…effective. Okay, it’s cataclysmic. But I decide not to fall in love with him, on the grounds that it would be incestuous—and, honestly, if you’re living with Maya, why switch to Elle?

He is waiting when we get home from the airport. He gives Maya a welcome-home kiss, and me a nice-to-finallymeet-you peck on the cheek. He offers a nightcap. I take a ladylike slug of bourbon while they sip wine.

“You must get a good price on alcohol,” I say, because Maya owns a bar downtown with her father.

She yawns before agreeing. “Yep. We drink wholesale.” She sits on the couch with Perfect Brad, curled into the crook of his arm. It’s late and I know they’re ready for bed, but I don’t want to be alone. I knock back my bourbon so I can ask for another before they finish their wine and leave me.

They look so content and normal that I don’t know what to say. The price of liquor was my only conversational gambit. And I’m afraid that Maya’s going to ask about my life: what happened to Washington, what happened to Louis, what happened to the aborted wedding and the non-existent career? Certain she’s going to pounce, I distract her with Fodors-type questions about new restaurants in town.

“There’s a neat tapas restaurant on the Mesa,” she answers. “And a couple new Mexican places on Milpas. Superica’s still there, but the line’s around the block. L.A. people discovered it, so—”

I blurt: “The breakup was fine.”

She looks at Perfect Brad. He refills my glass. They’ve been talking about me.

“Good,” Maya says. “I’m glad.”

“I mean, perfectly amicable, reasonable, mature…”

“Okay, Elle. What happened?” she asks.

See? I knew she was going to ask.

“We realized we’d been growing apart. We had different goals, different priorities.” Like I wanted a wedding, and he wanted an Iowan. “It was very, he was very, I was very, we were very…civilized!” I gesture wildly with my drink, and a bit sloshes out. I clean the side of my glass with my tongue. Klassy. “Anyway, there’s nothing to say, really.”

They look at me, faces wreathed with pity and sympathy. I manage not to bawl.

“What about the wedding?” Maya gently asks. “We were all set to come…”

“Oh, that. It’s nothing.” I dismiss it with a wave of my hand. “But it was going to be beautiful. The flowers were hot-house peonies, the linens pale peach, the confetti cannon was rented.” Tears come to my eyes. “I’d even hired Mr. Whistle to cater.”

“Mr. Whistle?”

Yeah. Mr. Whistle.

It happened at Citronelle, in Washington, D.C.

I love Citronelle—the glass-front kitchen, the witty food, the elegant people. Plus it’s fun to say chef Michel Richard’s name with a cheesy French accent: Meeshell Reesharrrd.

I sat at one of the few tables with a view of the kitchen, sipping iced tea and watching one of the cooks fry shitakes, waiting for Louis. I’d come from Mr. Whistle’s, where he and I had discussed the wedding menu. The oppressively expensive menu I couldn’t afford. In fact, Mr. Whistle was this close to canceling my catering reservation. He’d run my credit card—never a good idea.

Which brings us to Louis, who is an attorney and makes buckets of cash. His buckets were the only reason Mr. Whistle had agreed to see me. I’d left him with a promise that I’d return after lunch with Louis and his platinum card.

Problem: Louis didn’t know he was paying for the wedding.

I’d tried to get my father to pay. But when I’d called him with the news, what did I get? No “congratulations, darling.” No “when’s the date?” Not even an “it’s about time.”

I got: “I hope you don’t expect me to pay, Eleanor. I’ve spent enough on marriage. Why don’t you elope?”

Dad’s had five wives, and is never so generous as during divorce proceedings.

Louis, on the other hand, is always cheap. But he’s almost an associate partner, so paying for my perfect wedding wouldn’t financially wound him—just sting a bit.

I was watching the shitakes sizzle when the maitre d’ showed Louis to our table.

“Allo, Lou-ee.” I always pronounced his name the French way when at Citronelle. I kissed him with a bit more oomph than usual. “I missed you,” I said.

He’d been in Iowa for two weeks on business, and I’d been lonely. Worth the sacrifice though—I knew nothing about the deal, but his bonus was meant to be significant. Maybe enough to cover the wedding.

“Hi, Ellie.” He hugged me, sans oomph.

It was good to see him. Tired and rumpled, his presence was an immediate comfort. He was my personal grounding rod: solid and true. He made me want to be a good wife, like, say Barbara Bush. Though, obviously, not so conservative, curly white-haired, or, well…old.

“Ellie. Are you listening?”

“What?” Oops, good wives pay attention. “Yes! I’ll have the chicken.”

“I said I’ve been trying to call you for a week. You never answer.”

“They have scallops today,” I said—his favorite. I didn’t want to tell him I’d been avoiding the phone because a credit card company or two might be wondering about payments. But his face clouded, and I knew he wouldn’t let me change the subject that easily. “Sorry I didn’t call back,” I said. “I’ve been so busy planning.”

“Planning?”

“Helloooo.” I laughed. “Our wedding.”

“Oh. Right. Um, listen—”

“Will you come to Mr. Whistle’s after lunch? We need to finalize the menu, and I want your opinion.” And your wallet.

“No. I can’t go to the caterer.”

Nuts. “Have to get back to work so soon?” Maybe I could slip his Visa from his wallet when he went to the bathroom. The scallops are spicy, and he always visited the men’s room to blow his nose after eating them. But how could I get him to leave the wallet?

“Ellie,” he said. “I’ve met someone else.”

Should I ask him to leave his wallet, so I could pay the bill? Maybe I should pretend I wanted to check he still had my picture—what?

“You what?”

“In Iowa. I met someone.”

“In Iowa you did what?”

He flushed. “I—I met someone else.”

“A woman? You met a woman?”

“We can’t get married, Elle. I’m sorry.”

A deep breath. Calm, calm. Six years is a long time, it was only natural he’d be getting cold feet. We’d laugh about this in a month. After he paid dearly.

“Of course we can still get married. Don’t be silly. It’s only one last flirtation.” The word flirtation stuck in my throat, but I refused to let the groom ruin my wedding.

Louis shook his head and mumbled.

“I understand, marriage is scary.” I patted his hand. “No matter how committed or in love two people are. So you met another woman on your trip. It’s nerves, of course, you—”

“I didn’t just meet her, Ellie.”

Something cold dripped down my spine, but I ignored it. The wedding dress had been purchased. The Wedgwood pattern (Classic Garden) chosen. “So, you slept with another woman.” I gulped my iced tea, feigning calm. “I’m extremely disappointed in you. But our time together means more than some one-night stand.”

“No. Ellie, I’m sorry, but—”

“If it makes you feel better, I’ll sleep with another woman.” A joke to lighten the mood, despite the anger I felt simmering.

“Elle. Listen to me. We didn’t just sleep together. We got married.”

“Married?!” I slammed my glass on the table. “What about Mr. Whistle?”

“And that’s when I grabbed the crème brûlée,” I tell Maya and Perfect Brad. “It was passing by on a dessert tray.”

I drain a third bourbon before Brad takes my glass and returns the bottle to the kitchen. I slobber shamelessly and tell Maya how much I love her. I yell to Brad that I love him, too.

“Is she gonna be all right?” he calls to Maya.

She tells him she’s seen me like this before, tucks me into my bed on the living room couch and follows Brad to the bedroom. I wonder if they’re going to have sex. I wonder how long it will be before anyone wants to sleep with me again.

I stare at the two towers of suitcases stacked next to me in the dark. Why don’t they make skyscrapers out of nylon, Velcro and wheels? Lightweight and durable. Suitcase apartments with zipper closets…

An hour later, I abruptly wake and lurch to the bathroom. Careful of my hair, I retch two gallons of Bloody Mary mix and Maker’s Mark, and seven little bags of honeyed peanuts. I flush as Maya knocks on the door.

“Elle? Are you okay?”

I open the door. “Better now.”

“Still a puker? Some things never change.”

Which is exactly what I’m afraid of.

Chapter 3

I wake with the Sunday edition of the Santa Barbara News-Press on my belly. I’m depressed and hungover, and unsure how to take the newspaper delivery. Helpful encouragement, or a hint that I’m not welcome for long?

The headline of the Lifestyle section is about Oprah buying a fifty-million-dollar house in Montecito, the über-rich suburb of Santa Barbara. Eager to jump into the job and apartment hunt, I make a list to evaluate my present situation:

Oprah: Recently moved to S.B.

Me: Recently moved to S.B.

Even Steven.

Oprah: Between forty-five and fifty.

Me: Twenty-six.

I’m ahead!

Oprah: Famous and beloved.

Me: Not so famous. And even my lovers don’t belove me.

Back to even?

Oprah: Offers wisdom, advice and companionship on nationally syndicated hugely successful talk show.

Me: Interviewed once on the street. Local news-woman asked what Christmas gift I’d give the world. I said, “Miatas.”

Oprah slightly ahead.

Oprah: Owns her own magazine: O. Graces cover each month in cheerful, feel-good outfit.

Me: Own many outfits.

Gap widening.

Oprah: Never lost fiancé to Iowan Floozy.

Me: Lost fiancé to Iowan Floozy.

Oprah shoots forward.

Oprah: Billionaire. Driven, smart, self-made.

Me: Credit risk. Coasting, smart, self-conscious.

Can taste Oprah’s dust in my mouth.

Oprah: On the chubbier side.

Me: The less chubby side.

Cold comfort.

Maya enters, bearing fresh coffee. “Did you see Oprah’s moving to town?”

“Is she?” I take a life-giving sip. “Where’s Brad?”

“Working.”

At SoftNoodle, a post-dot-com dot-com. They wanted a name that evoked both software and brains. Instead, they got impotence. “He works Sundays?”

“All the geeks do.”

“He’s not geeky. He’s perfect.”

“He’s not perfect!”

“He looks, talks, tastes and is Perfect Brad.”

“Tastes?”

“You know what I mean. Name one way he’s not perfect.”

“He’s not Jewish.”

“Oh,” I say. “That.”

Maya and I have been friends since we were twelve. She always celebrated the major Jewish holidays, unless she had other plans, but that was the extent of it. Maya’s mother, on the other hand, was really observant. She died of breast cancer last year—her funeral was the one time I’d been back since college. Since then, Maya has taken religion more seriously. Not that she’s started attending synagogue or anything, but she knows her mother wanted her to marry someone Jewish.

“So no wedding bells?” I say.

Her face clouds. “The wedding bells were supposed to be for you and Louis.” She sits next to me. “Did he really hurt you, Elle?”

I’d been thinking about that, between bouts of obsessive eating. “Other than my pride? No. C’mon. Of course not.” I take another sip of coffee, wishing it were a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Chubby Hubby. The name of the ice cream makes my heart hurt. “Yeah. I guess he did. I miss him. I liked him. I really—he was solid. We really knew each other—little things, you know? The stuff that doesn’t matter, but that’s all that matters. And he was…well, he was there. That’s important in a fiancé.”

“He was there.” Her tone says, you don’t sound like a woman in love.

“Do you remember in high school, when we wanted to be mistresses?”

“No.”

“Maybe that was just me.” I’d seen a special on 20/20 about Kept Women. It had made an impression. Your own house, designer clothes and an allowance. All you had to do was have sex whenever he wanted. I liked sex—it didn’t seem like a hardship. “That’s pretty much what I had going.”

“You were his mistress?”

“Well, we didn’t have sex whenever he wanted. But I lived in an apartment he paid for, I didn’t work, he bought me clothes.” I look at her. “I should’ve asked for an allowance.”

“Do you love him?”

“Sure. That’s what kept it from being tawdry.” I finish my coffee. “I know you must’ve thought I led this exciting, sophisticated, romantic life…”

“Not really.”

“But to tell the truth it was kind of—” I look at her. “What do you mean, not really?”

“You never sounded happy. Just sort of…empty.”

“Empty? I wasn’t empty. I had the shopping and the lunches and the…the…museums. It was full. Very full. I was settled, Maya—I had it all. A man I loved, a lifestyle, friends…”

Maya gives me a look.

“I had friends! People from Louis’s work. I could’ve stayed with one of them, but it would have been—you know. More comfortable for everyone if they stick with Louis. Besides, I wanted you.”

“Good. They can stick with Louis, I’ll stick with you.”

I feel sort of weepy, and Maya gets that pitying look in her eyes again, so I ruffle the newspaper and say, “You think I should get a place downtown, or on the Riviera?”

“You might not have a choice. How much can you pay?”

I look around her apartment. “What’s the rent here?”

“Take a guess.”

It’s the second story of a cape in a nice neighborhood—the upper eastside. Hardwood floors, white walls, a big kitchen with tile counters. Maya’s always had good taste, and the decor is mostly minimalist with Asian and Jewish accents thrown in. A Chinese lantern hangs over the dining room table and the mantel displays her mother’s collection of antique menorahs. “I don’t know,” I say. “Nine hundred?”

Maya snorts. “Try sixteen.”

“But it’s only got one bedroom, and no dishwasher!”

“Dishwashers are two hundred a month extra.”

“Oh. Well…” I don’t know how to tell her, but she’s been had. I bet this was the only place they looked at. Not everyone is good at this kind of thing.

“You’ll find something,” she says, and hands me a set of keys. “Use my car. Brad and I are sharing. You want to come shopping?”

I brighten. “Shopping?”

“Groceries, Elle,” she says, laughing. “Then I have to stop by the bar.”

“Oh. No. I should start the apartment hunt.”

“Back in a few hours, then.” She closes the door behind her, and I have a brainstorm: I’m gonna find the perfect apartment before she gets back. This is my new life, this is the New Elle—if Oprah can buy a fifty-million-dollar house without breaking a sweat, I can find an apartment in the time it takes Maya to buy detergent and cottage cheese.

I’m into the last ten minutes of Davey and Goliath when a key turns in the front door. I hit the off button on the remote a moment before Maya enters. I wish she’d come later. Goliath had disobeyed Davey, and I’m pretty sure he had a lesson coming.

Maya glances at the TV. “What were you watching?”

“Mmm? Oh, the news.”

“What’s going on?”

“Lot’s of…bad stuff. The usual. You’re back quick.”

“I’ve been gone four hours, Elle.”

“Well, I’m going to look at an apartment.” I point to the classifieds crumpled on the table. “There’s an open house, at one o’clock.”

She checks her watch. “It’s twenty after, sweetie.”

So I lolled around watching Davey and Goliath reruns and missed an open house. So what? It’s only Sunday. I’ve been in California less than twenty-four hours. I’m supposed to have accomplished something by now?

It’s not like I don’t have goals. Of course, I have goals. They are, after much soul-searching:

Apartment.

Car.

Job.

Man.

And, of course, the complete obliteration of Iowa, by Act of God, Hanta Virus or Crème Brûlée. I’m not particular.

I have assets as well as goals, by the way. I got $1,100 for my Vera Wang wedding dress. Was going to sell it on eBay, but began weeping when I wrote the header: Vera Wang Wedding Dress: Never Worn. Sold it to a local wedding boutique, instead, for their first offer. I would have talked them up, but it cost Louis $4,800, and I wanted him to suffer. If he ever learns how cheap I sold it for, I mean. Which he won’t.

So $1,100 plus the roughly $4,000 in our household account, which was by all rights mine. Plus the triple-wick candle and instant ear thermometer, and so on.

I’m flush. A single girl in Santa Barbara with five grand and change. It’s a monster stack of cash, burning a hole. The future lies before me, full of abundant promise and happy surprises, like an endless sale rack at Barneys.

Chapter 4

Monday. Would prefer to remain wallowing in self-pity, comforting myself with treacley Facts of Life reruns and family-size pizzas, but I’m afraid to appear as encroaching houseguest. Normally, I’d go shopping to kill time, but I need to conserve my monster stack of cash—my credit card companies have all fallen victim to some sort of computer virus. Technology. Just goes to show you.

I muster myself into a feel-good outfit and head downtown. Window shopping is just as satisfying as buying.

Except Santa Barbara didn’t used to be such a retail Mecca. When I was growing up, there were three local boutiques, the best of which specialized in sequins and appliqué. Now there’s Nordstrom, Bebe, Aveda and Banana, plus a Gap and Limited for when you need a single strap tank for the week that it’s in. Across the street is Bryan Lee (très L.A.), and down toward the beach are vintage shops catering to girls half my age—but I still manage to find a YSL suit I can squeeze into.

Fleeing temptation, I escape into the newish Borders Books, grab a Vogue and settle into a purple velvet chair.

A feature on Antonio Banderas takes a while to get through—kept having to pause and take deep breaths. Maybe my new man should be Latino. There are lots of Latinos in Santa Barbara. Suspect they are good family men, too.

I turn to the last page, “The Ten Best Satchels in America,” and compare them to my ratty old Coach tote. Everyone else is carrying satchels this year. Not tatty ancient totes. I want Vogue’s number one pick—the Fendi. It’s only $1,650. I wonder how much I’ll get paid at my new job. Louis billed three hundred an hour, last I checked, which was years ago. Surely I’ll make enough to afford a simple handbag.

I return Vogue to the rack and grab Cosmopolitan. I haven’t read Cosmo since college, but I’m single now. This month promises “A Dating Diary,” “How to Perfect Your Stripping Skills on Virtual Boy-Toys” and some advice I could really use: “Land That Man, Ace Your Job and Look Your Sexiest Ever.”

Standing in the check-out line, I read “Ten Girlfriend Goof-ups” and discover I’ve girlfriend goofed in every way. I could have kept Louis if I’d cooked hearty dinners, wore sexy underwear, feigned interest in his work and allowed him time “in his cave.”

“I can help who’s next,” the cashier calls. He’s California cute, with dark hair and a tan. That’s one thing about Santa Barbara—it’s packed with beautiful people. Dumb, but beautiful. I know. I grew up here.

“Do you have a girlfriend?” I ask Surfer Boy as I hand him the magazine.

“Uh, yeah.” He looks nervous. “That’ll be $3.79.”

I dig in my repellent, prehistoric, possibly-infectious Coach tote for my wallet. “I’m doing a survey. Does she cook you hearty dinners?”

“She makes pot roast sometimes.”

“Uh-huh.” I give him a five. “Does she wear sexy underwear?”

His eyes light up.

“Give you time in your cave?” I ask.

“Huh?”

“I don’t get that one either. You think you’ll ever break up with her?”

He doesn’t hesitate. “No doubt.”

See? Cosmo is wrong. All the peek-a-boo bras in the world wouldn’t have saved me and Louis. Which means it’s not my fault. It’d be Louis’s fault, but he’s clueless. That only leaves one person: The Iowan Floozy. I consider throwing Cosmo in the trash, punishment for misinformation, but decide against. Floozy probably has perfect stripping skills. I need a virtual refresher.

Chapter 5

A five-day crying binge, interrupted briefly with bouts of piggery and compulsive TV watching, and I’m ready to look at apartments.

I make several appointments for walk-throughs, feeling like the heroine of my own Lifetime Television movie. Against all odds—puffy eyes, bloated ankles, damaged brain cells—Elle Medina finds herself an apartment. But can she find love amid the rubble?

No. But she can sure find rubble. Thirteen apartment impossibilities later, and I’m back where I started.

“You wouldn’t believe these places,” I tell Maya one evening before she heads to work. We’re in the bathroom. I’m sitting on the toilet, downing a beer. She’s applying makeup.

“Like what?” she asks.

“Like a shack, with a toaster oven for a kitchen, mildew in the bath and heinous red carpet. Guess what they’re asking.”

She shrugs. I tell her she needs more eyeliner.

“I don’t know,” she says. “$700?”

“No, they want…well yeah—$700. It’s insane. Remember that set we built for the school play?”

“We didn’t build a set. We built one doorway.”

“That doorway was architecturally sounder than this place. I’d pay $700 a month for that doorway and be getting a better deal.”

“It was a nice doorway.”

“Then I saw a fantastic place in Hope Ranch.”

“Oh?” She lifts a brow. Hope Ranch is home to Santa Barbara’s nouveau riche—the old riche live with Oprah, in Montecito.

“A guest house. Beautiful white couches. Landlady wearing JP Tods. The ad was a misprint—they want $2,600 a month. Then there’s the place that smelled like cat pee, and the one where I’d have bathroom privileges. Since when is sharing a bathroom with two teenage boys a privilege? And all the places that won’t rent to you if you’re unemployed—which I’m not, I just don’t happen to have a job. And the places that won’t accept dogs and the—”

“You don’t have a dog.”

“Not yet.”

“Ellie…” she says, washing her hands and leaving the bathroom.

“Well, how can they hold my future dog against me, but not give me credit for my future job?” I follow her to the front door. “Seriously, I don’t think I can find a place.” I point to the mess I’ve made of her living room. “I may be permanently ensconced.”

She looks slightly alarmed. Possibly at my vocabulary. “Maybe you need a roommate. Then you could afford something better.”

“I don’t know, living with a stranger. It’s too bad you don’t have an extra bedroom here.”

“Yeah,” she says, as she closes the front door behind her. “Too bad.”

That evening, with Maya at the bar and Perfect Brad working late, I decide to clean their apartment. Because I’m a good houseguest. Plus, if I clean I can snoop in their drawers.

I do the kitchen before the bedroom, to establish my noble intentions. But washing dishes by hand always makes me think. If my world had flashback wiggles like in old movies, they’d pop up every time I did dishes by hand.

I wasn’t flashing back to falling in love with Louis: walking hand-in-hand on a cherry-blossomed path at the Jefferson Memorial, going on our first real date to Emily’s, greeting him in an apron and stilettos after he took the Bar (See? I used to be a Cosmo girl!). No, I was thinking of that shack-landlady, her hollow voice reverberating in my memory, “first, last and security…first, last and security.” And she wasn’t the only one, it seems everyone requires obscene amounts of money before they let you move in. I’m not sure my monster stack is going to cover first and last…and security? I wish.

I dry my hands and call my mother.

“Hi, it’s me,” I say, when she picks up.

“Me who?”

“Me, your daughter, Mom.” She never recognizes my voice. Sometimes I make her guess who it is. She got it right on the first try, once.

“Elle, thank God. I was worried. I got your message. I don’t understand. I called yesterday and Louis told me you’d already left. Santa Barbara? You’ll be back before the wedding, won’t you? I’ve already made my plane reservations. I still don’t—”

“Mom.”

“—know what I’m going to do about the hotel. The cheapest one you suggested charges one-fifty a night! That’s too expensive. Why can’t I stay with—”

“Mom—”

“—you and Louis. I won’t be in the way. You know the store takes every spare penny, and I—”

“Mom! Listen to me.”

“I am listening, darling. What do you think I’m doing?”

“Louis and I broke up.”

“Yes, that’s what he said. But I already made my plane reservations. The tickets, darling—they’re nonrefundable. I told the girl—”

“Mom—focus, please!”

“Well, you and Louis have broken up before.” Which is utterly untrue. She thinks that because we weren’t speaking after the Mizrahi couture incident, we were broken up. “It’s only pre-wedding jitters. You’ll just have to go back and make up.”

“It’s a little late for that. He married someone else.”

“He did what?”

“An Iowan.”

“He married an Iowan? When did he—how did he?” She pauses for a fraction of a second, which means she is truly shocked. “Well, are you gonna kick her ass back to the corn fields?”

Mom watches a lot of daytime TV. I often wonder what her New Age customers would think if they knew. She owns a crystal and herb shop in Sedona—she moved there when I went to college. She gives off an Earth Mama vibe, and a lot of her customers come in to ask for advice. Little do they know that the wise and evolved spirits she’s channeling are Montel Williams and Jerry Springer.

“Mom, I haven’t even met her.”

“Well, maybe you should. I was watching Ricki Lake this morning—you know she’s lost weight again—and there was a woman on who’d never confronted her mother when she stole her brother’s girlfriend…”

And she’s off. Why do I bother? She always makes me feel like this. Like the people on Judge Judy are more important than me. I don’t know why I called, why I—oh, right. Security. As in deposit. She marks up those crystals four hundred percent.

“Mom! Louis dumped me, and I’m living on Maya’s couch, and I don’t have an apartment or a job or a car or anything. I don’t care about intergenerational love triangles.”

I must sound desperate, because she actually responds. “Oh, Elle, honey. You should have come here, where I could take care of you.”

I feel my eyes water. “Yeah, I sh-should have…”

“I would’ve made you scalloped potatoes and Boston cream pie.”

I wipe my nose with the wet dishcloth. “B-better than chicken soup.”

“Hop on the next plane, darling. The red rocks here cure everything. Broken hearts included.”

She sounds so sympathetic, I’m almost tempted. Cake and sympathy and reversion to childhood. But it wouldn’t be like that. Ten minutes after I got there, everyone would know it was my fault that Louis married someone else. Which it wasn’t. And she’d rope me into her shop for horoscopes and palm reading; she decided when I was eleven that I had the Gift, even though I always thought Capricorn was the bull.

“In fact, I wrote a letter about that to Oprah,” she says. “She should do her show from here. In Sedona. For the healing energy. It’s a nexus, Elle—and Oprah’s a wise woman, like the wise women of old, imagine if she tapped into the—”

“Mom!” I cut in. “I need to borrow some money.”

Silence.

“I didn’t realize how expensive things are, when you don’t have any money. And my credit cards…well, Louis was going to pay them off after the wedding. But now…”

“Are you in trouble with credit again?”

“I am not in trouble!” And I’m not. Because I’ve moved. How are they gonna find me in Santa Barbara? “I just need a little cash.”

“You’re welcome to stay with me,” she says. “The café next door is looking for a busboy.”

“Thanks, Mom. But couldn’t you at least…”

“Why don’t you try your father?”

Bad sign. She never mentions him. Her friends in Arizona think I was an immaculate conception.

“You know how Dad is…”

“I do know. I saw a segment on Jerry Springer about deadbeat dads, and just because your father never missed a payment doesn’t mean he’s not a deadbeat. There was this man, a yacht repairman, something with yachts, maybe a designer, I don’t know, and he had seven kids—well his wife did, but he said only one of them was his—but she said at least four of them—”

I hang up, mid-story. That’s just ducky.

Chapter 6

So crossing off “apartment” on my little list isn’t so easy. But a car’s a car. Unless the license plate says 666 or there are dismembered body parts in the trunk, you get what you pay for. Besides, I think Maya’s getting a little sick of carting Brad to work every day.

I’ve decided a Passat is the way to express my new self. Elegant, but not flashy. High-quality, but not ostentatious. That’s the New Elle.

The VW dealership is downtown, and it’s where I make my first new Santa Barbara friend. Bob, the car salesman. He’s instantly smitten with me. I can always tell. And truth is, he’s not bad. I mean, he’s a used car salesman, which is hardly a Prince Charming job. But he’s tall enough, and has a good smile and nice eyes. I fill out a form—which, I notice him noticing, includes my home phone.

I decide that when he calls, I’ll tell him I just want to be friends. Because that’s the sort of thing the New Elle does. No reason to jump into a relationship with the first cuteish guy to come around.

I tell Bob I’ll settle for the bottom-of-the-line GLS model, but he says everyone who bought one wishes they spent a little more for the GLX.

Well! I love it when a salesperson gives you their personal opinion. It means they like you. We start in a Black Magic GLX with black velour interior. A quick drive, and Bob and I know it is too masculine for me, so we take the Mojave Beige with beige velour interior for a cruise to the beach.

“You look good in it, Elle,” Bob says.

“It feels a little soft,” I say. “Like I’m a soccer mom, Bob.” Bob. Bob. It’s a funny syllable.

I’m beginning to wonder if I’ll be happy with a Passat, when I see it across the lot. Silver. Curvy. Beautiful.

“That’s the W8,” Bob says. “Top of the line. Eight cylinder engine, leather interior, sunroof, five-CD changer…”

The minute I sit in it, I know. I’m like Goldilocks. This one is just right.

It’s late, and the dealership is closing, so I give Bob my information and he promises me he’ll put a deal together tomorrow morning. He smiles, and I mentally rehearse: I really like you, Bob, but I just want to be friends.

When I get back to Maya’s I check my little list:

Apartment. Not living in moss-walled shack or sharing toilet with teenage boys, so I’m ahead of the game.

Man. Will reject Bob with grace and tact. Apparently the streets of Santa Barbara are paved with eligible bachelors.

Car. Gorgeous Silver Passat! Will be stunning with new, employed-Elle wardrobe, and new, Antonio-Banderas-looking boy toy. It’s a W8, too. I like the sound of that, but must remember to ask Bob what it stands for.

Job.

Job.

Job…

The problem with my employment history is I have none. My mom sold real estate while I was growing up, and made tons of money, so I never got an after-school gig. It wasn’t until she bought her vitamin-and-runes store that she started getting tight. Plus, my dad sent her money for my upkeep when I was a minor. Now I’m a major, and I’ve never had a job.

Well, there was a brief period the summer after my second year at Georgetown. My roommate, Angela, convinced me it would be fun to join the team at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation in Virginia. I got hired as Martha Washington in a historical reenactment, while Angela got stuck with wench duty at one of the taverns. After two weeks, the administrators decided the public preferred a white-haired Martha to a young bride, and I was ousted by a retired flight attendant. I was a better Martha, though. At least I refrained from pointing out the emergency exits to George. Angela kept wenching while I slunk back to Washington. That’s when I moved in with Louis. I spent the rest of the summer womanning phones for EMILY’s List, but that was volunteering, not employment.

I’m home alone, halfheartedly scanning the want ads, when it hits me: What I need is a starter job. Preferably a starter job that pays well. And that’s not too demanding. Like, say, being a bartender. The neat thing is, I have this friend who owns a bar. Maya has to hire me, right?

“I need help,” I say when Maya answers the phone at the bar.

“What? The remote stopped working?”

“No, it works fine.” I click off Entertainment Tonight.

“So what’s the problem?”

“This job-hunt thing…”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t quite know how it works.”

“Oh. What part don’t you understand?”

“Um…” I look at the paper. “Take this one, for instance. Development Director wanted for World of Goods, a nonprofit organization dedicated to sending relief supplies to countries in need. Qualified candidates will have demonstrated experience managing others, working with board members, facilitating meetings, monitoring budgets and in all aspects of development.” I give Maya a moment to take it in. “What is development, exactly? Developing what?”

“It means fund-raising.”

“How hard can that be? It’s just asking for money. I did that all the time with Louis. It pays forty thousand a year. And it’s in tune with my values.”

“Louis ever find out how much of his money you were giving to the ASPCA and NOW?”

“Not yet—pledge cards don’t come ’til the end of the month. Anyway, World of Goods also gives you a housing stipend.”

“I suppose that’s what attracted you.”

“A little,” I admit.

“They offer a company car, too? That, a company charge card and a company boyfriend, and you’d be able to cross everything off your list.”

I make a rude noise.

“Forget anything with the word ‘director’ in it, Elle. Do you know how to type?”

“I know all the letters are on the keyboard and you push them to make words.”

“How did you get through college?”

“Hunting, pecking and oral presentations.”

“So secretarial, and basically all office work, is out. What else appeals?”

Ah, now we’re getting somewhere. “What I need is something that uses my natural charm and vivacity. Dealing with people, you know, in a sort of social setting.”

“Prostitution won’t work for you, Elle—you’d hate the dress code.”

“I don’t know,” I say. “I have demonstrated experience as a mistress.”

“Don’t even start. Seriously. What do you like?”

I decide against saying alcohol, and instead go for the real truth. “I like shoes. Maybe I could design shoes.”

Maya doesn’t say anything.

“I like people. And animals. You know how I like animals. Maybe I could be a vet or something.”

“You know who became a vet?” she says. “Anna Van der Water.”

“Yuck!” Anna Van der Water is this creepy girl we knew in high school. She wore cheap plastic barrettes in her hair—before Drew Barrymore made it cool—and her calves were bigger than her thighs. “Anna Van der Water, a vet. You know, I think maybe she was smarter than me.”

“I. Smarter than I. And are you kidding?” Maya says, loyal to the end. “Twice as smart.”

I hear glasses clinking at the bar, and am wondering how to get the conversation moving in a maybe-you-can-work-here direction when she says, “Listen, why don’t you come down and have a drink. My treat.”

See? A little patience, and it falls into your lap. “I’m kind of busy,” I say. I don’t want to sound desperate.

“Elle,” she says.

“Be there in twenty minutes.”

The bar’s located a block off State Street on one of the lower downtown side streets. There are no front windows, just a closed door with the name of the place in neon over it.

Shika.

The bar has never done well, and I blame the name. Well, it’s one of many reasons. It means “drunk” in Yiddish, I guess, which is Mr. Goldman’s little joke. (He once explained it’s actually “shiker,” not “shika,” but he went phonetical. I like Mr. Goldman.) Problem is Shika looks Japanese, and people find it disconcerting when they expect saké and rice-paper screens, but get photos of old Jews and every conceivable flavor of schnapps.

Inside, two men perch at the bar. Mr. Goldman is one of them, and the other is a man a decade older, dressed to kill. Other than them, and Maya behind the bar, the place is empty.

Maya offers me a margarita as I give Mr. Goldman a hug.

He doesn’t look good—his health has been bad since Maya’s mom died—but it’s still good to see him. As Maya mixes the margarita, we chat about my return to Santa Barbara, and my apartment and job hunt. I keep waiting for Maya to jump in and explain that I’ll be working at the bar, but she plays it coy.

Mr. Goldman and I cover the weather in Santa Barbara vs. D.C., and our conversation dwindles to nothing. So I turn to Maya. “I was thinking about my career. I think I’d be good in a service-industry-type position.”

She looks skeptical. “You’re more served than serving, Elle.”

“I’ve served!” I protest. “Does the name Martha Washington mean nothing to you?”

Maya explains my previous employment to her father and the other man, including some details I don’t remember telling her, and I realize maybe this isn’t the best time to discuss the bartending job.

“How about this?” I say. “I’ll start my own magazine, like Oprah. I’ll call it E.”

“Like the Entertainment network?”

“Oh, no. Well, I can’t call it Elle.” This stumps me. The best thing about the magazine idea is calling it E. I like the letter E. Plus, it has the bonus benefit of standing for e-mail and other electronic stuff: very now. “How about L—just the letter L.”

Maya makes the “L is for Loser” sign on her forehead.

Enough said.

“Want another margarita?” she asks.

I look down, mine is somehow empty. I have a flash of genius. “Let me make it,” I say. “I’m a whiz with blended drinks.”

“I usually just mix them,” she says.

“See that’s where you’re wrong. Where’s the blender?” I eagerly pop behind the bar.

All I want to say is: I know the top was closed firmly before I turned the blender to pureé. Must have been some kind of malfunction. Anyway, it was just a couple ice cubes and strawberries. And Maya was standing too close. A pity she was wearing white, that’s all.

Chapter 7

The next day, desperate for an apartment, Maya (who’s in an uncharacteristic tizzy: probably fighting with Perfect Brad) persuades me to relax my standards and see a place in…Goleta. The ad promises a “one bedroom charming garden paradise with fourteen-foot ceilings,” and the price is too good to dismiss—$650 a month.

“But it’s Goleta!” I wail. A suburb fifteen minutes north of Santa Barbara, teeming with strip malls and big box stores.

“There are nice parts of Goleta,” Maya says.

“Where?”

“People like it there,” she replies, vaguely.

“Who?”

“Oh, stop being such a snob, Elle, and look at the place.”

Well, it does say “garden paradise.” I will be the consummate country party hostess. Fabulous friends, whom I’ve yet to meet, will escape the city late Friday night to my oasis in Goleta. I’ll serve negronis and martinis—anything but margaritas—and prepare fabulous fresh meals from my kitchen garden. Olive trees and lavender will dot the rolling hills, and all for the pittance of $650 a month!

By the time I arrive at the house, I’ve persuaded myself that I’m on my way to Provence. I’ll be garden fabulous.

Then I turn into the dirt driveway. Dust billows into the car, and through watery eyes, I see the house. Bluish, with water marks streaming from the windows, giving it the appearance of a weeping cartoon house.

I put the car in Reverse, and a man bangs my hood in greeting.

He has long hair and a longer beard, à la ZZ Top. He wears black jeans on his stick-skinny legs, over which is an enormous belly not quite covered by a tank top.

“Here about the apartment, right?” he says. “It’s around back.”

I want to ask what happened. I want to ask why his house is crying. I want to ask if he needs help, if there’s anyone I should call. Instead, I obediently follow him toward the backyard.

ZZ stops in the garage. The concrete floor is partially covered with bronze carpeting—a deep, oil-stained shag. The walls are unfinished, revealing two-by-fours and assorted wires and pipes.

“So,” he says. “Any questions?”

“Well, one,” I say. “Where’s the apartment?”

“You’re standing in it.” At least ZZ had not lied in the ad. The ceilings are indeed fourteen feet high.

I’m describing my garage-for-rent experience at ZZ’s to Perfect Brad and Maya, only slightly crowing that I was right about Goleta, when the phone rings. Maya answers. “For you,” she says, a little incredulous.

My very first call in Santa Barbara! Possibly a job offer, though I haven’t actually applied for anything yet. Still, stranger things have happened.

“Hi, Elle. This is Bob. From the Volkswagen dealership?”

“Bob! Hi! How are you?” Oops, don’t want to be too nice. Think just friends. “I mean, um, hello.”

“Well, I ran your credit report and you don’t qualify for the Passat W8.”

“Oh, no.” I’m not too surprised, though. I mean, I do have some concept of reality. “We’ll have to settle for the GLX, then? A softer image isn’t such a bad thing.”

“Not the GLX.”

“Oh. The GLS?”

“Not even close.”

“Um…a Jetta?”

“No.”

“A Bug? They’re pretty cute. And I don’t need four doors. After all, I can only use one at a time!” I laugh in a bright and charming fashion, and notice Maya and Brad watching me as if I am a seven-car pile-up.

“Nope.”

“How about an, um…like a Focus or that other one. The Echo?”

“Those aren’t even VWs.”

“Right. VWs. Well, a Golf?”

“Not even a used Golf.”

“So…?”

“So I told you I’d call. I called.”

“I see. Yes. Thanks for calling. And is there, um, anything else you want to ask?” Because I may not qualify for a car, but I know when a man’s interested.

“Actually, there is.” His voice becomes a little warmer.

I smile and give Maya a look. The kind of look that says, Here we go again, I’m gonna let another one down easy. For some reason, Maya responds by passing me a box of Kleenex.

“Don’t be shy,” I say. “Ask away.”

“If you have any friends who can actually afford a car, would you give them my name?”

“Oh, sure.” I wait for it, and wait for it…I like you too, Bob, but I think it’s best if we try being friends, first. Dinner where? Piatti? In Montecito? Well, if you insist…

“Well, good speaking with you,” he says, and hangs up.

I try to be bright and charming as the dial-tone sounds. “That’s very flattering,” I say. “And you seem like a really nice guy. But I don’t think so, thanks.”

I pretend to listen as Maya gives Brad a happy-couple signal that sends him running to the safety of their bedroom. She takes the phone from my hand, hangs up and hugs me tight. I reach for the Kleenex.

Chapter 8

I’m never going to be Oprah until I take control. I have to stop coasting and make it happen.

So this morning, I’m awake at 7:00. I roll out of bed. Take a shower. Fix myself. Choose an outfit in record time. Make coffee. Buy the paper, and sit down, pen in hand, determined to find a job. Because finding an apartment in Santa Barbara is clearly impossible, and we Highly Efficient people don’t waste time on clear impossibilities.

I circle an ad for a Mental Health Worker and one for a Literacy Volunteer, and glance at the clock. It’s 11:45.

Almost noon! I woke up five hours ago. I swear I did nothing more than the above listed. I didn’t even turn on the TV. Not once. And five hours have passed? I’m temporally challenged. It’s chronological-ADD or something. Am I having blackouts? Do I sit, slack-jawed, staring at walls? In five hours, Oprah could have launched ten books to the bestseller lists, and all I’ve done is shower and dress.

So I stop coasting. I take control. And two normal hours later, I’m back. I didn’t launch a single book to the bestseller list, but I did spend $389 on a cashmere throw and fancy tin dog bowls.

I don’t want to talk about it.

I hide the bags behind the couch so Maya won’t scold me, and bury the now, uh, modified bowls deep in my luggage. Take an extended nap, dream of Louis scolding me for wasting postage and wake cranky. Why is everything suddenly so hard? It’s not as if I have such high hopes. I want a non-plywood apartment, a job that doesn’t require I pee into a cup, a running car and—eventually, though I’m rethinking this one—an adequate man. And some gorgeous new things. And a small thermonuclear device for Iowa.

Is that too much to ask? I watch TV, I read the magazines. Women everywhere are living my life. They have jobs like “public relations coordinator” and “fashion features editor.” Their Upper East Side apartments have huge windows overlooking Central Park, and they all stopped wearing pashminas two weeks before a certain person finally bought hers.

I pull the covers to my chin and try to work myself into a genuine clinical depression. Then it’d be a brain chemistry thing, and I could courageously fight it—unable to leave the apartment, waited on hand-and-foot, but admired by all. They’d probably profile me in the Santa Barbara News-Press, and the local network affiliate would pick up the story.

In two minutes, the daydream fades and I’m bored feigning depression. Possibly it’s more fun with an audience. My problem is, I’m surface-y. Not shallow, I didn’t say that. I’m quite deep, actually. It’s just that I like the surfaces of things. Surfaces are important to me. And depression’s not really a surface affliction. You have to burrow deep into your head for a good depression.

I’d rather burrow into the Neiman Marcus catalog. Which I do. And after an hour, I magically feel better.

My problem, I realize, is I’m not cut out to be Sarah Jessica in Sex and the City although I do have similar hair, if not darker and longer. I don’t need a Manhattan loft and sleek, underfed fashion-friends. I’m more Sandra Bullock, small-town-girl-makes-good. I can work as a bus driver or subway-token clerk, and it’ll be okay. Except not a bus driver or a subway-token clerk, because those are disease-ridden careers, but you know what I mean.

Cheered, I take a hot shower and toss on a Sandra Bullock, small-town-girl-makes-good outfit, and head for Shika. Things happen in bars.

Things don’t happen in Shika. Maya’s behind the counter, the sharp-dressed old man is perched on a stool. A middle-aged couple is leaving as I enter, and that is that.

“Oh, Elle,” Maya says. “I’m glad you’re here.”

It’s been a few days since I’ve heard Maya say anything other than: “How’s the apartment hunt? Job?” I perk up at this lavish greeting and tell her how pleased I am to be here.

“Do me a favor,” she says. “Watch the bar? I’ve gotta go to the bank.”

“The bank?” I’m honestly baffled. Do they actually make money here? “Why?”

“The bank’s a place you put money you’re not spending, Elle. I’ll explain later.”

“Ha-ha,” I say, in my razor-sharp witty way. “So just…watch the bar?”

“Stay away from the blender.”

“But I mean—what if someone asks for a Slippery Nipple on the Beach or something?”

Maya looks around the empty bar. “Monty’s good for a while. There’s a group that comes in, but usually not ’til later.”

“A group?”

“Don’t look so surprised. They’re a bunch of people Monty knows. Just make sure nobody steals the—” she looks around trying to decide what someone might steal “—walls.” She waves a bank pouch at me, says something about a night deposit, and heads for the door.

I realize this is my job interview. Maya won’t make me actually apply for the job, so what does she do? Casually makes a night drop, leaving me in charge!

“It’s all under control,” I tell her confidently, heading behind the bar.

Maya hesitates at the door, an unreadable expression on her face.

I wave brightly, and she sort of squares her shoulders and leaves.

I slip behind the bar and glance at the sharp-dressed man sipping his drink. He’s wearing a beige linen suit with a light-blue silk tie. It’s rare to see a man so nattily dressed in Santa Barbara. Most of them slouch around, subcasual in stained T-shirts and shorts.

“Need a refill?” I ask.

We both assess his drink. It’s seven-eighths full.

“Not quite,” he says.

Pretending to be cleaning, I forage through the cabinets under the bar. Nothing of note, except a half-eaten bag of Fritos. I bet Mr. Sharp-Dresser would like some Fritos. I pour them into a small bowl and carefully set them in front of him.

I smile and gesture at the Fritos, like I’ve presented him with foie gras. Under my steely eye, he deigns to take a chip, and pops it into his mouth. Takes a single bite, and stops, Frito suspended midchew.

“What?” I say. “They’re better than popcorn.”

He shakes his head.

I try a chip. It has the consistency of moist cardboard. I choke it down. “Sorry. This is my first night.”

He swallows and tells me not to worry—he needs the fiber. He says he’s Monty, and I tell him I’m Elle, and I’m starting the bartendress chatter when two men enter the bar.

One is paunchy, with dark hair and laugh-lines around his eyes. Sort of an approachable, teddy bear of a man. The other is tall, trim and would be sexy-handsome if he weren’t a redhead. Red hair is silly on men. I mean, he looks good, walking toward Monty, a white button-down over blue jeans. But red hair? The other guy, the teddy bear, he doesn’t walk so well, but he looks the sort who’d remember to put the seat down.

“You joining us tonight, Monty?” the redhead asks.

“Not tonight,” Monty says. “My ulcer’s bad enough.”

“Ulcer?” the teddy bear says. “There’s only one thing to do about the ulcer, and that’s—Fritos?”

“Help yourself,” Monty says, and looks to see if I’m going to object.

“Umm…” I say.

“Not the ulcer theory again,” the redhead says.

“It’s not a theory,” Teddy bear says as they move to the large booth in the corner.

“Should I see if they want drinks?” I ask Monty, to cover my embarrassment about the stale Fritos.

“Wait ’til others show up,” he tells me. “Or they’ll come to the bar.”

“I know stale, baby, and these are not stale.” Teddy bear’s voice easily carries to the bar. “These are fresh. Factory fresh.”

“Fresh from the factory that makes stale Fritos.”

The teddy bear gets louder. “They’re not stale!” He grabs a handful, shoves them in his mouth.

The redhead cringes. “Okay, okay. Because you ate them, that proves they’re not stale.”

“Actually, they are stale,” I say, from across the room. “Monty and I both thought so. Three to one. Stale.”

Teddy bear shakes his head, but can’t speak for all the chewing he’s doing.

“Wisdom, beauty and common sense,” the redhead says, indicating Monty, me and himself in turn. “All say they’re stale. Doesn’t that prove it?”

I think: I’m beauty!

The teddy bear manages to swallow; beaten, but unbowed. “How long you think stale Fritos stay in your colon?”

“Jesus, Neil.”

“Not as long as maraschino cherries,” Neil says. “But way longer than beef jerky.”

The redhead gives me a look, and smiles. And red hair isn’t that bad, actually. Plenty of attractive men have red hair. Howdy Doody. Carrot Top. I return the smile, and the door opens again.

Three men and a woman enter and head for the booth with Neil and the redhead. I watch as they sit, wondering if I should wait on them. What would Maya do? Will they want margaritas?

“Don’t worry,” Monty says. “One of them will come to the bar.”

And as if summoned, the redhead is here.

“Two IPAs,” he says, and I even know an IPA is a kind of beer. “And two Newcastle Browns.”

“Great!” I say, dripping with relief that I haven’t been asked to make a Grateful Dead, Hold the Jerry, or something.

“And a Manhattan and a Cosmopolitan.”

“A Manhattan?” I grab a hank of hair and tug, keeping the smile pasted on my face. “I love Manhattans. Big Manhattan drinker.”

His gray eyes crinkle. They clash with his hair. “If you don’t know how to make a Manhattan, that’s okay. I’ll just have—”

“Of course I know! I mean, what kind of bartender doesn’t know how to make a Manhattan?” I’ve never heard of a Manhattan. “You want that…on the rocks?”

“On the rocks, yeah.” He looks suspicious. “Tell me—what, exactly, do you put in your Manhattans?”

“Liquor. The hard stuff.”

He smiles, and looks at me, and looks like he likes looking. And I like that he looks like he likes looking, and I hope that’s what I look like.

I realize he just asked something that I didn’t hear over the sound of my ovaries chiming like eager little bells. “The what?”

“The primary liquor. The backbone of the drink. The Broadway of the Manhattan.”

“Um… Gin?”

He starts to shake his head no.

“Right! That’s a Chicago. I meant vodka.” I get the look again and continue: “Vodka is in the Brooklyn. You sure you don’t want a Brooklyn?”

The teddy bear interrupts with a bellow about Texas grapefruit being better than any other grapefruit, and the redhead says, “Maybe you should give me the beers first. Pacify the natives.”

“Two IPAs and two Nukey Browns.” The Newcastles are on tap, and I overpour one, but remember in the nick of time not to clean the drippage with my tongue. Though that’s gotta be a great way to get men interested. The IPAs are in bottles—thank the God of beer—and I plop them down.

“I’ve changed my mind,” he says. “I think I’ll have a Cosmopolitan, too.”

“Two Cosmopolitans—coming right up.”

“And, of course, a Cosmopolitan has…”

“Vodka,” I say, because I actually know, and wave airily. “And the rest.”

He sort of cocks his head, grins and returns to the booth with the beers.

As soon as his back is turned, I lunge at Monty. “How do you make a Cosmo?”

“No idea. They’re after my time. But a Manhattan is bourbon, bitters and sweet vermouth.”

“Monty! You could have told me!”

“Don’t look now,” he says. He excuses himself and heads for the bathroom, and Redhead is at the bar again.

“Problem with the beer?” I ask.

He smiles. “Just waiting for the Cosmos.”

“Won’t be a second.” I reach for the vodka—and there are six bottles, all different. I grab the closest, aware that Redhead is watching me and I’ve never mixed a drink other than Kahlua and milk in my life. I ease two martini glasses from the rack. So. Vodka, check. Martini glasses, check. And I’m stymied. “You know what?” I tell Redhead. “Why don’t you sit down, and I’ll bring them to your table?”

“That’s all right.”

“No, really.”

“I don’t mind,” he says. “I like it here.”

“No, really.” I smile, baring my teeth.

He smiles, but doesn’t move.

“Go sit down!” I bark.

He goes.

I turn toward the wall of liquor. Vodka, and…Schnapps? Cosmos are sort of pink, so I choose peach-flavored. And maybe brandy. That goes with everything, right? It’s the basic black of liquors. There’s a bottle on the top shelf that looks like brandy, all the way in back, like Maya’s forgotten about it. I splash some into a silver shaker. Adjust until the color is right, add a couple of maraschinos, and ta da! Cosmos.

“Maya should be back any minute,” Monty says, taking his seat and eyeing the drinks.

“Yes, she should,” I say primly, and serve the drinks. One for Redhead, the other for the normal-haired woman with the tortoiseshell glasses. I hover nearby as they sip.

The woman gags. Redhead only coughs.

“A little stiff?” I ask. “That’s how we like ’em, here at Shika.”

“This isn’t a Cosmopolitan,” the woman says.

“Not entirely,” Redhead agrees.

“Let me taste that.” Neil grabs Redhead’s drink and takes a slug. He shivers, a full-body expression of disgust. “That sure as shit is a Cosmo,” he says, suppressing a secondary tremor. “Never tasted better.”

“Have you ever had a Cosmopolitan?” the woman asks, and I’m just glad she’s looking at Neil, not me.

“So what if I haven’t?” he says. “That means I don’t know one when I taste it? Let’s say the first time you tasted a Cosmo, it was really a—I don’t know, let’s say it was a…”

“Manhattan,” Redhead deadpans, flashing me a glance.

“Yeah, a Manhattan,” Neil says. “So what you think is a Cosmo is really a Manhattan. That’s epistemology, baby! The limits of knowledge in—”

“That’s just crap,” one of the extra men says.

“It’s not just crap,” the other extra man says. “It’s utter crap.”

Which sets Neil bellowing again. “Utter crap? I’ll tell you what’s utter crap! The fact that George W was appointed president—”

Maya bounces over from the front door, and they all greet her with great relief. “I see Elle got you started,” she says. She smiles at them, and at me, and I feel I’ve been anointed. Then her gaze settles on my Cosmopolitans and her smile settles into a frown. “What are those?” she asks.

“Chicagos,” Redhead says.

“Well, I ordered a Cosmopolitan,” the woman says.

Maya looks at me.

“Cosmopolitans?” I say firmly.

“You don’t know how to make Cosmos, Elle.”

“They’re pink.”

“I’ll make fresh ones.” Maya takes the woman’s glass, and reaches for Redhead’s, but he stops her.

“I like it,” he says. “It’s unique.” He looks at me. “Sweet.”

“What are you talking about?” Neil the teddy bear says. “It’s awful. You can’t drink that. It’s not even a Cosmo.”

He’s shouted down by a volley of derisive hoots. Redhead sips triumphantly, and winces.

I scurry back to the bar as Maya fixes two Cosmopolitans. As she puts the bottles away, she pauses over the brandy I’ve pulled from the top shelf. “What’s this doing out?”

“Umm…”

“Tell me,” she says, fixing me with a horrified glare. “Tell me you didn’t use it in the Cosmopolitans.”

“Well…it’s not all I used.”

“Elle, this is de Fussigny—it’s a two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar bottle of cognac. It’s sitting on the top shelf so nobody opens it.” She doesn’t look mad so much as really disappointed.

“I’ll pay for it,” I say, wanting to shrink into nothing. “You know I have that monster stack of cash.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she says, though I know it does. “We might as well drink it now. You want a glass?” She pulls out some brandy snifters.

“I’ll have a glass,” Monty says.

“You have to pay for it,” I snap. “It’s expensive.”

“Elle,” Maya warns.

But Monty laughs. “How much?”

“Fifty bucks. It’s d’Fussy. Worth every penny.”

“Ellie,” Maya says.

“Hit me up,” Monty says, and lays a crisp hundred on the bar. “And one for the lady.” Meaning me. He’s now, officially, my idol.

“I’ll take a glass, too,” this lovely, deep voice says from three inches behind me, and Redhead is there for his Cosmos.

“Just one?” I say. “What about your friends?”

“Don’t push your luck,” he says, and takes the drinks back to his table.

Maya looks harried. “It’s not worth fifty dollars a glass. I can’t charge—”

“Oh, shush,” I say, and clink my glass with Monty’s. Maya snorts—trying not to laugh—and clinks her glass and we drink.

From the booth, Neil the teddy bear bellows something about us all living in a pentarchy while getting redder and redder in the face.

“What’s the deal with him?” I say. “Cute, but kind of argumentative.”

“That’s what they’re here for.” Maya sips her cognac. “Neil has a problem with rage. His wife said she’d leave him if he didn’t deal with it. He wasn’t beating her or anything, she was just sick of all the yelling. So he started this club. They come every Tuesday night and argue.”

“Does it work?” I ask. “Is he less rageful?”

“I don’t know,” Maya says. “I’m afraid to ask him.”

Maybe it’s the cognac, but we all laugh, and Maya tells me to watch the bar again for a sec, while she runs out back.

I panic. “No! Don’t leave me—I’m not ready!”

She ignores me, so I take my post and consider wiping the bar until it shines, but decide it isn’t worth the effort. Shika needs major renovation before cleaning will make it look any better. The booths are brown vinyl, the walls are painted dirty beige. The yellowing photographs of the Lower East Side of New York are fun, but better suited to a funky deli than a happening bar.

There are some good architectural details, though. The floor is hardwood, worn to a soft golden honey color. The ceilings are taller even than ZZ’s garage in Goleta, there are four skylights half-hidden by dingy fluorescent lighting fixtures and the bar itself is a great old art deco piece.

I happen to glance toward Redhead—only because I’m thinking we can paint the bathrooms a lovely deep red, and want to remember what shade of red I don’t like—and notice that he’s doing what I’m doing. Looking around the room, his eyebrows raising slightly at the good bits, and lowering at the ratty booths and walls. I wouldn’t mind renovating him. Shaving his head would be a first step, and—he catches me staring.

I’m not usually so weepy and pathetic. It’s the wedding, the engagement, Louis. Being left at the altar does things to your self-esteem. Plus, starting from scratch, back in the town where you went to high school—and realizing that you’ve accomplished nothing since then, except maybe what you thought was a nice, committed, six-year relationship, and even that fell apart, and there’s a man who catches you staring and he’s lovely except for being a ginger freak-head, and you don’t know what you want and barely know who you are, and what if he likes you and expects to see you naked, and dating is supposed to be this utter nightmare and you don’t know—

Long story short: I run away. I am a blur, fleeing out the front door.

I hear Maya’s voice say, “Elle?” but I don’t slow down. I am gone.

Wish I’d waited one more second, though. To see which direction his eyebrows went when he looked at me.

Chapter 9

Perfect Brad comes home at ten. He helps with my résumé. We finish at 10:07.

The next morning, memorizing sections A through D of the newspaper and putting off the classifieds as long as possible, I find this headline: Prize-Winning Bitch Missing.

I ponder the gratuitous use of the word bitch. You hear it on Friends and Will & Grace now, where calling any woman a bitch provokes screams of laughter. I don’t get it. Why aren’t they calling men assholes? Now that’s funny.

But no. The article’s actually about a female dog.

Prize-Winning Bitch Missing

A prize-winning golden retriever puppy was stolen from local breeder, Sally Ameson, last Wednesday. Ameson believes that a man claiming to be interested in purchasing one of her older dogs was responsible.

“I went into the back room to run the guy’s credit card,” Ameson said. “But he was gone when I returned, and Holly-Go-Lightly was nowhere to be found.”

The Santa Barbara Police Department ran a credit check, which revealed the Visa card to be stolen. “I never would have sold Holly. She’s unbreedable,” said Ameson.

After winning a blue ribbon at this year’s Santa Barbara Dog Show, the puppy was diagnosed with Clay Pigeon Disease, a rare disorder affecting a dog’s nervous system. The five-month-old bitch can live a normal life, but requires regular medication. “Without it,” said Dr. Van der Water of Riviera Veterinary, “she has little chance of surviving the next several months.”

If you have any information about this missing bitch call the Send Holly Home Hotline at 555-5658.

Figures they’d quote Anna Van der Water. Little chance of surviving the next few months—what does she call that, bedside manner? At least there wasn’t a picture of her with those stupid barrettes.

I enjoy fifteen minutes of revenge fantasies, deciding how Anna should be punished for having found a lucrative and reputable career, then force myself to read the classifieds.

There’s a new ad, for a “unique living opportunity in Mission Canyon.” And it is—get this!—only $500 a month. Unique? If $650 pays for a garage in Goleta, what can $500 possibly get you in Mission Canyon? I’m thinking a carport. With housemates.

I draw a dark blue X through it with my pen, and browse on. But it keeps nagging at me. Maybe what’s unique is that it’s a stunning one-bedroom apartment, for only $500. Doesn’t get more unique than that. I decide to chance it.

Mission Canyon lies just beyond the Santa Barbara Mission, towards the foothills. At sunset, the Mission’s peach walls glisten with falling light and the sky blushes a pink glow behind it. Across the street is the public rose garden. As I drive past, the scent of roses is thick in the air, and all is right in the world—if you ignore, for a moment, your little list.

I park in front of the house on Puesto Del Sol, next to the iron gate the woman on the phone mentioned. There’s a kid who looks like Eddie Munster—but without the formal attire and widow’s peak—tossing pebbles at a tree trunk across the street.

“You parked on my stick,” he says.

I look. There are any number of sticks on the ground. It’s true that I parked on some of them. “Sorry.”

“You broke it.”

“Oh. Which one is yours?”

He points to a stick exactly like every other stick, except broken. “See?”

It occurs to me that this is some new juvenile prank, the current equivalent of asking someone to page Mike Hunt. I smile weakly, and take a step toward the gate, and wave away a bug that whizzes by my ear. Take another step, and a second bug stings me on the shoulder-blade. Another step, another bug—on my butt.

I spin, and Eddie Munster is still tossing pebbles toward the tree trunk. Not the slightest sign of a smirk on his face. Little fucker.

I take five quick steps and close the gate behind me. Think I’m safe until a half-dozen pebbles sail though the bars and pelt my back. Briefly consider cracking Eddie Munster’s head like an egg on the rim of a bowl, but the New Elle rises above. Plus, I don’t have the firepower.

I step out of the line of fire and am hit with two bullets of fur. Much yapping ensues, and between barks one of the little black pugs tries to nibble my toes. After I realize this is not part of Eddie Munster’s evil plan, I pat the dogs, setting their pig-tails wagging delightedly.

“Penny! Pippin!” a woman’s voice scolds, and the beasts retreat. The woman is a schoolmarm, with withered cheeks, a sticklike body and white hair pulled into a bun. She wears a tailored cotton blouse and a full pleated skirt. And is that a cameo at her neck? I move in for a greeting and get a closer look. No, just an ugly piece of agate.

“Hi,” I say. “I’m Elle. We spoke on the phone?”

“It’s this way. I’m Mrs. Petrie.” And before I have a chance to worry about what I’ll find, she’s off at a canter, the dogs and me trotting behind.

The walk is through a well-loved, well-tended California-English-style garden. Roses, hydrangeas, lavender and Mexican sage are all in full bloom. “Unique” is looking better and better—and I start thinking the guest house will be a delicious little truffle of a cottage. Tiny, considering the price. But the garden! And it’s in Mission Canyon. There’s nothing shameful about telling people you live in Mission Canyon.

There is, however, something shameful about telling people you live in a trolley. Not a carport, a trolley. It squats, sans wheels, just beyond the garden.

“That’s a trolley,” I say.

“Water and trash are included,” she answers. She climbs the stairs and unlocks the door.

I enter behind her, and the trolley teeters a bit from our combined weight.

“Light switches, bathroom. Bed. Kitchen. I will return in five minutes for your answer.” She opens the door to leave, but pauses on the steps. “There is dirt on the back of your blouse. And your skirt.”

I start to explain Eddie Munster, but she interrupts with a glacial nod and leaves.

I sigh and look around, and it is still a trolley. It’s carnival red, except where the paint has chipped off to reveal a coat of mustard yellow. Half the floor is covered in green carpet, the other half, brick linoleum. In the “kitchen” is an all-in-one stove/sink/refrigerator unit. It’s 1950s—futuristic, and kinda cute.

The toilet, however, is less than cute, and sits directly next to the stove/sink/fridge. I’m talking ten inches away. A showerhead protrudes from the wall three feet above the toilet tank, and a drain is planted in the floor under it. There are brown curtains over the windows, and the roof is maybe two feet above my head. I’ve seen SUVs with more living space.

I need money. Not millions. I’m not asking for millions. I just don’t want to have to choose between ZZ’s garage and a converted trolley. My real apartment, I mean the apartment Louis and I lived in, has two bedrooms and…and it hits me. Louis is living in my apartment with his new wife. His wife. He married her. In a week. After six years with me, he married a stranger. He’s married. He’s somebody’s husband. He has a wife. What if he hears I’m living in a garage or a trolley?

I am suddenly thrilled with the drain in the floor, because I’m gonna throw up. I make a noise like a sick cat and bend over the toilet, and Schoolmarm Petrie knocks and enters.

Apparently she thinks I’m inspecting the toilet, because she says something about the plumbing and the pipes, and sternly warns against flushing “feminine napkins.”

“Well?” she finally says.

I straighten in a dignified manner. “I’ll take it.”

Leave messages for Maya and PB regarding my rental triumph. Do not offer specifics, due to theory that once I’m there, it will look less like a trolley and more like a gatehouse cottage à la the Cotswolds.

Have a private ceremony to officially erase “apartment” from my list. Wake up two hours later suffering from a sugar-crash and surrounded by the crumbs of a celebratory Anderson’s Butter-Ring—butter pastry, marzipan and white icing baked into sugary goodness. But the New Elle does not stop while on a roll. The New Elle continues rolling. The New Elle will apply for three jobs today, three tomorrow and three more each day until she is gainfully employed.

I look through my job folder—actually a stack of clippings stuffed in my mildewed, hateful tote. Over the last week, I’ve cut out every job that mentions “development” or “boutique” or “team leader” but not “director” (grand total: seven). I pick one at random, and in a burst of efficiency write a cover letter, stuff it in an envelope with a résumé, and place it on the kitchen table so Maya will remember to stamp and mail it.

Despite being exhausted from use of fiction-writing muscles atrophied since college, I have two more cover letters to write. I write “To Whom It May Concern” and am debating merits of following it with a colon or a comma when it hits me: I’ve no furniture, I’ve no silverware, I’ve no bedding, I’ve no gorgeous objet; in short, I’ve nothing at all for the new cottage.

This isn’t optional, this is housewares. Thing is, I started with $5,100, right? Then gave $1,500 to Schoolmarm Petrie for first, last, security. Spent $300 on assorted shopping. Well, $400. Let’s call it $500 on assorted shopping, to be safe. I do a little long-division and discover that $5,100 minus $2,000 is $3,100.

I count my money: $1,773.59. Must have it wrong. Even I cannot misplace $1,300 in cash.

I count it again: $1,612.59.

Again: $1,598.59. This rate of shrinkage, I’ll have nothing left by midnight, except the fifty-nine cents I’m so sure about.

I panic. I call Louis, and hang up on the second ring. I call back, and hang up on the first. I take a deep breath, and call a third time. I get a message. In a woman’s voice. I hear: Hi, you’ve reached the Ferrises. We’re not in right now—

I slam the phone down. The Ferrises? That is my fucking answering machine and my fucking fiancé. I call Maya at work and get the machine. I dial my mother and hang up before the call goes through.

Twenty minutes, and all the Butter-Ring crumbs later, I’m thinking more clearly: what I need is money, not comfort. I call my dad.

“Dad, it’s Elle,” I say when he answers.

“Hi, sweetheart.” He sounds pleased to hear from me. “Guess what?”

“I don’t want to guess. You got my message that I moved? I’m in Santa Barbara now. The flight was fine. I just rented an apartment.”

“I got married.”

That isn’t my favorite sentence. I feel the throb of an impending migraine. “You already are married.”

“Leanne? We divorced months ago. I met Nancy in Panama in October. We tied the knot last week in Hawaii.”

I want to ask why he didn’t invite me, but I know the answer: He’s still upset because last time he got married I said I couldn’t come this time, but would be sure to catch the next one. “Is she Panamanian?” At least that would be something new.

“She’s a school teacher from Vermont. She quit her job and moved in last month.”

“She quit her job and moved across country to be with you,” I say. “Does she know there’s no chance the marriage will last more than two years?”

“Eleanor, c’mon. That’s a little hard on your father. Your mother and I were together seven years.”

“Longer than me and Louis,” I say bitterly.

My father perks up. “Oh! That reminds me. You’re not going to believe this, but while Nance and I were on our honeymoon, we ran into Louis.”

“In Hawaii?” He never took me to Hawaii.

“No, no. That’s just where we got married. We honeymooned in Venice.”

“Venice?” He never took me to Venice.

“Most romantic city in the world. Me and Louis were trying to hire the same gondolier. Small world, huh? Anyway, he’s doing great. Got a huge bonus for some deal in Iowa. Gave him a corner office, too. He and his new wife were celebrating. Lovely girl. Have you met her?”

I can’t respond, due to the red-hot poker that has been shoved into my left temple.

“Charming girl. Pretty. Reminded me of you. Except not so…you know.”

“No, I don’t know. Not so what?”

He laughs weakly. “Oh, nothing.”

I take a deep breath. “Dad, I need money.”

Silence.

“Dad?”

“Louis said you took three thousand out of the household account. He thought that was very fair.”

“Three thousand?” I thought it was four. So I didn’t misplace $1,300. Only $300. I’m oddly relieved: misplacing $300 is easy.

“That’s what he said. Oh, and he asked about his stamp collection. Apparently got mixed in with your things.”

“I don’t want to talk about Louis. I want to talk about me. I’m running out of money. I don’t have a job. I just rented an apartment and I need a car.”

“Honey, I’d love to help. But you know how strapped I am.”

“You managed to scrape up the cash for Hawaii and Venice,” I shrill. “And to pay four alimony checks a month.”

“And that,” he says, “is why I’m strapped.”

Chapter 10

The next morning, in what she undoubtedly intends to be retail therapy, Maya and I go shopping. Housewares, remember? Our first stop is Indigo, a shop on State Street, past the Arlington Theater. It has gorgeous, gorgeous, just delicious Asian and Asian-esque couches, tables, fabrics, lamps, chairs, rugs. Maya checks price tags and drags me outside.

We try Living, Ambience, Home and Garden, and Eddie Bauer, and I am dragged from each. Maya finally snaps and grabs the car keys. An hour-and-a-half later, in Burbank of all places, I see the light.

Love Maya. Love IKEA.

I used to think it was the Wal-Mart of home furnishing stores. But there are endless rows of lovely things I always knew could be made at a reasonable price. And everything has these lovely foreign names like Hemnes and Beddinge. Four hours, and Maya had to bribe me away with Swedish meatballs at the cafeteria.

Best part: Their computers were down, so it was a snap to get an IKEA card with a fifteen-hundred-dollar limit, using my other (useless) credit cards to secure it. I was slightly over though, and had to put back assorted lamps, an IKEA teddy bear and one of the welcome mats. And the Persian-rug mouse-pad. Maya reminded me that I don’t even own a computer. Well, I’ll never own one at this rate, will I? Still, I returned the mouse-pad.

“The toilet is in the kitchen,” Maya mentions helpfully, as if I hadn’t noticed. I couldn’t convince her not to come in. So I’m putting away purchases, and she’s giggling at the trolley. “That takes ‘efficiency unit’ to a whole new level!”

I scowl and tell her to go away (but remember to pick me up tomorrow before she goes to work, so I can have the car, and to change her message to mention my new phone number, and to tell Perfect Brad that I’ll need help carrying the new IKEA chair inside when they deliver it).

I can’t tell if she’s listening, because she’s busy being fascinated by my three-utility stove/fridge/kitchen sink unit.

“Does it work?” she asks.

“Of course,” I say, though I’ve never actually turned it on. I open the refrigerator door. Feels cold. Turn on the tap—water runs out. Click on a burner. Smoke issues forth.

“Well,” she says. “That should keep the mosquitoes away.”

“A fourth utility to the thing,” I say. “It’s like magic.”

We finish unpacking, and Maya, who hasn’t quite stopped giggling, has to go to work. I stop her on the way out. “Tell me the truth. Do you think it’s like living in a trailer?”

“No, not at all.” She closes the door behind her, and calls out: “A trailer would be nicer!”

I think of something to yell back two minutes later, but by then I’m alone. I bustle around the trolley, making it mine and trying to ignore the growing sense of isolation and the encroaching dusk. I assemble my new bureau, and then disassemble the bits that don’t fit, then reassemble it and it’s perfect! I glow with satisfaction at being so handy and self-sufficient, and I look up and it’s pitch-black outside.

I meekly open the door, and the lovely tea-garden has been transformed into a horrible, brackish swamp. I lock the door. Close the curtains. Grab one of my IKEA knives, just in case. And curl up in my new comforter, pretending to leaf through Marie Claire.

The wind scratches tree limbs against the trolley, and I manage not to shriek. I often feel I’m in a movie; tonight, it’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Santa Barbara Years. I turn on all the lights, then realize this just makes the trolley a beacon in the darkness. Moths and rapists will be swarming around shortly. I turn the lights off. It’s worse.

I watch a rerun of Bewitched on the little TV Maya loaned me. Turn the sound up all the way. Not loud enough, as a gust of wind sends the branches into a terrifying crescendo, and something slams against the trolley.

I think it was a slam. It definitely wasn’t a tree branch. It could have been a knock. Schoolmarm Petrie seems the sort who’d make one sharp rap on the door, like the smack of a ruler down on an errant pupil’s knuckles.

I crack the door and peek out. Nothing but menacing swampland. And something brown at the bottom of the steps.

It’s a dead squirrel.

I clutch my throat in horror, like some prim Victorian lady who accidentally wandered into the Vagina Monologues, and debate the various merits of fainting and screaming.

A motion sensor light illuminates the Schoolmarm’s gate, and I see the shadowy form of a pudgy boy recede into the darkness. Eddie Munster.

“Hey!” I yell. “You little creep!”

I’d track him down and kill him, but that would mean leaving the relative safety of my trailer. Trolley. My trolley.

“Squirrelly, aren’t you?” he yells.

I respond with a well-reasoned string of curses, and slam the door. On TV, Samantha has black lines painted on her face. I wonder what happened to her. I wonder what’s happened to me.

Chapter 11

The telephone rings at 9:12, waking me from a Swamp Thing nightmare.

It’s Bob from the VW dealership. And when you think about it, being a car salesman isn’t so bad. Plus, he’s actually seen my credit report, and still he calls.

“Bob,” I say. Bob. Bobbing for apples. “Robert. Robbie. Rob. That’s a lot of possible nicknames.”

Silence on the phone.

I think of saying Bobby?

“Well, I just go by Bob,” he finally says. “I’ve been thinking about you since last week.”

“Oh, have you?” The New Elle plays hard-to-get.

“Yeah, I got this…borderline trade-in. My boss doesn’t want me to put it on the lot. And I know you’re looking for something affordable.”

“Borderline?”

“It’s a BMW, though. A Beemer. 1974. It’s virtually a classic luxury automobile. Plus, it’s not worth sending it down to L.A. for auction.”

“So you’ve got a car you can’t sell, and thought of me?”

“Yeah, you interested?”

This is insulting. “How much?”

“I’ll let it go cheap. Fifteen-hundred.”

Fifteen-hundred! That’s a huge chunk out of my monster stack. But I do need a car. “Can I come see it this morning?”

“This morning isn’t good. I’ve got real clients coming in. How about two this afternoon?”

Real clients. “Two is fine.”

“Actually, three would be better.”

I sigh. “Three, then.”

I hang up, and immediately check my voice mail to see if anyone called while I was on the phone…and I have a message! It’s not even Maya. It’s a smooth, masculine voice.

“Eleanor Medina,” the smooth, masculine says. “You’re a hard one to find. This is Carlos Neruda. We haven’t met…yet. But I’ve heard all about you, and I really want to talk. My number is—” he pauses, and I realize he has Antonio Banderas’s voice and I’ll coolly wait ten or eleven seconds before returning his call “—no, on second thought, I’ll call you back. Take care, Eleanor Medina.”

Ha! Take that, Bobby! You’re not the only car on the lot.

IKEA furniture delivered precisely on time. Perfect Brad, too, precisely on time. Perhaps Brad is Swedish. Perhaps he is Bräd.

I bought a white linen chair. Am very pleased with the mature, adult decision to choose white. I was worried it would be like a white T-shirt: a magnet for chocolate ice cream, tomato sauce, coffee, mystery stains. I’d stared at it drooling, like a dog at a barbecue, until Maya found me. To prove her wrong, I decided the New Elle was adult enough to take care of white linen. Am pleased with the decision—it’s pretty against the chipped carnival-red of the trolley walls.

“You’re sure that’s where you want it?” Brad says, after relocating it several times. If he weren’t perfect, he’d be exasperated. But he is, so I don’t worry.

“I’m sure. Thanks, Brad—you’re a prince.”

He stammers endearingly, and spots the bureau I assembled last night. He fixes the bits that were uneven, and puts the drawer-pulls on. He knocks together the sides and adjusts the two drawers that had refused to close.

I consider being insulted by the implication that I’m not capable of doing it myself. But honestly, men enjoy this sort of thing. Why ruin their fun? It’s like shopping. Men think it’s a chore, and can’t understand why we like it. He can fiddle, I can shop, and we’ll both be happy. Maybe I’ll repay Brad by buying him a new pair of shoes.

Then I realize I have a bigger treat for him. I am forced to wheedle and whine slightly, as he wants to get back to his office. But it only takes Perfect Brad fifty minutes, and I own the Beemer for one thousand, flat. Including taxes and registration and all that. Apparently fifteen hundred was far too much.

Don’t tell Andrea Dworkin, but it’s good to have a man around. I consider getting weepy about Louis, and how much I miss him. But frankly, PB is better at the manly stuff than Louis ever was. And I do have PB around, even if he’s just a loaner. So it works out fine.

I swing by to take Maya for a Beemer joyride and ask if she’s interested in a time-share agreement.

“There’s plenty of Brad to go around. Plus, I’ll cancel out all the non-Jewish parts.”

She laughs. “Don’t get any Big Chill ideas. I draw the line at furniture assembly and car shopping.”

“That is so bourgeois,” I say. “If you were young and hip, you’d share.”

“And if you were young and hip, Elle, you’d get a bunch of your tender places pierced, and sleep with girls. But, if you’re still interested in men…”

“What?” I say, thinking: Carlos? Is he a friend of Brad’s? I bet he’s a coder, too—exactly like Brad, but Latino. “What man?”

“You know the guy at the bar the other night?”

Redhead! I pretend to have no idea. “Neil? Monty?”

“The one who kept going on about Chicagos? He asked about you.”

“What did he ask, if I was taking my meds?”

“General stuff. He’s an architect. Wondered if I’d ever consider remodeling.”

I know she wants me to beg for info, so I play it cool. “Yeah, I saw him looking around.”

“I told him I couldn’t afford it. And Dad would pop a vessel if I even repainted. It’s the only reason I haven’t taken down the shtetl gallery. I’m thinking of having the lights removed, though. The ones blocking the skylights. And—”

“Okay, okay! What did you tell him?” I shift roughly, going up Carrillo Hill. “I mean about me!”

“Hmm?”

I glare.

She smiles. “Guess what his name is.”

“Theodore Bundy.”

“Here, he gave me his card.” She pulls it from her purse and hands it over.

I glance down. It’s a classy card. White linen, and embossed black sans-serif font, with his name, the word “Architect,” and a phone number.

His name is Merrick. Louis Merrick.

“Watch the road!” Maya yells, as car wheels shriek.

It’s a good thing Beemers are the ultimate driving machines.

After I convince the nice old man that we don’t need to exchange insurance information, Maya remembers an important appointment with her living room. I drive, very cautiously, to her house.

“So?” I ask when we get there, and her color looks normal again. “What do you think? Of the car?”

“It’s…really a BMW,” she says.

“1974 was the first year they made square taillights,” I say proudly. Bobby told me.

“Great,” she says, unimpressed.

Can’t she be a tiny bit excited? This is the first car I’ve ever bought for myself. It may not be a Passat, or even a Jetta, but it’s mine and I’m determined to love it.

“It’s great,” she repeats, with a little more enthusiasm. “It’s zippy, it’s fun and Beemers are suppose to run forever.”

“Thank you.”

“And the color doesn’t bother you?”

Okay. It’s bright orange—almost a perfect match for the architect’s hair—with a black interior that gives it the appearance of a low-budget float in a Halloween parade.

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