Love Like That

Love Like That
Amanda Hill

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Katherine and Kelli

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am so incredibly fortunate to have had such wonderful people help see Love Like That on its journey: Thanks to Stephanie Lee, my agent at Manus & Associates, because she was its motivational force; and to Farrin Jacobs, my editor at Red Dress Ink, for believing in this book enough to publish it. To Mom, Dad, Lisa, Terry and Mimi, for their encouragement, support and love. To Tammy Jensen, my mainstay, because after hearing the story countless times, she still read every word. To Ann Phillips, for her unwavering enthusiasm. To Regina Sanchez, for her invaluable guidance. To my friends from Ventura, for their many timeless qualities that will always call me home. And lastly, a bit of gratitude to those not named who provided such unforgettable inspiration for the people who live between these pages.

In the city you’ll find me

mixed beliefs in liquored drinks

confidence purchased in sleek boutiques

lost dreams in rings of nicotine

sordid nights triumphant with poetic lies

carnal pleasure anointed with tight-fisted thighs

comfort snorted in glittering lines

red lips rebel in a sea of neurotic faces

street lights flicker inconceivable wishes

hidden beneath my cheapened skin

nurturing my inconsistent sin

In the city you’ll find me

—Katherine Larsen

Contents

Prologue

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

Epilogue

Prologue

My vomit was teal. When I first saw it I screamed and said we should call 911. I thought my insides were really that color and that maybe I was an alien. Jeremy said to shut up and relax. He said it was from the blue curaçao in the drinks. Some of it had crusted on the underside of the toilet seat.

I closed my eyes and imagined I had woken up from a four-poster canopy bed with satin sheets and lace and lush carpeting beneath my feet like a princess in a fairy tale. The faucet was leaking. Jeremy was coughing from the futon. He yelled that he had smoked too much and how could I let him do such a thing. I stumbled leaving the bathroom, and lit a cigarette.

He acted like he didn’t know me. He does that sometimes. I lay down on the futon with him and concentrated on breathing as the smoke circled around us in yellowish-gray streamers. He put Alien in the DVD player and we watched it in silence.

“Are you going to live?” he finally asked.

“I’m not sure. It might help if you rub my back,” I replied.

He scratched it disinterestedly for a few seconds, then stopped.

I remembered when we first met how we would lie facing each other and smile sleepily as we talked about all the things lovers do. Now my back was to him and he didn’t seem to care. I guess because we’ve gotten routine. Or maybe just because we don’t have to care. Maybe that is our routine.

“Can I get something to drink?” I asked.

He sighed like I’d just asked him to rearrange the furniture and got up with exaggerated effort. “I’ll see what I’ve got, okay? But I’m warning you—it’s probably not much.”

He was right. The only thing in his refrigerator was this yucky fruit-soda-type diet drink. He drank half and handed me the bottle. I took a tentative sip and nearly gagged. But it was cold so I drank it.

He settled down again. “Don’t you have to pick Roman up from the airport today?”

“You know I do.”

He yawned. “How long’s he staying this time, anyway?”

“Um…am I totally retarded, or wasn’t I just telling you last night that he’ll be here for three weeks?”

“Well…I don’t know. I wouldn’t say you’re totally retarded,” he replied. “Seriously, though. Three whole weeks?”

I frowned at him. “You shouldn’t have a problem with it.”

“I don’t.” He put his hands behind his head and shrugged into the futon mattress.

“Then why did you say it like that? Three whole weeks?” I mimicked.

“I didn’t say it like that,” he informed me.

I sat up. “Yeah, you did. Like you’re put off by the idea of Roman being here that long because you know you can’t call me while he’s around.”

He eyed me. “Don’t fool yourself, toots. Three weeks isn’t even that long.”

I got up to locate my belongings. “Whatever. I’d better be on my way, actually.”

“Okay.”

How very odd to find my roommate’s shiny blue Prada pumps, which I’d borrowed on the sly the night before, in the cabinet beneath the kitchen sink. I thought the empty tequila bottle on the kitchen counter could probably explain a lot of things. But not everything.

I felt Jeremy’s eyes follow me to the door before he said, “Hey.”

“What?” I paused with my hand on the doorknob.

“C’mere for a sec.”

I went over to the futon and knelt down. He placed a hand on the back of my neck and pulled me down for a dizzy kiss. He let go first and stroked my chin with the pad of one thumb. “Have fun.”

“I will.”

“Give Roman my best,” he chuckled.

I rolled my eyes. “I’ll see you later, okay?”

He gave me a little wave and I closed the door behind me.

The thing about Jeremy is that I can always tell he’s irritated by the idea of Roman, but then he acts like it’s nothing to him. And I don’t really think he has the right to be irritated, anyway. His girlfriend lives right here in L.A. Maybe he was worried about the bigger picture. Maybe I’m always fooling myself.

Outside it was hot and bright with the end of June and someone was having car trouble in the alley. I walked down the stairs and thought for the thousandth time that someday I’m going to trip and fall down these stairs. My head will be crushed open on the cement with brains and blood pouring out and trickling down into the dirty flower bed, where we used to throw cigarette butts and beer caps before the neighbors yelled about it. They’ll call the police and say there’s a dead girl at the bottom of the stairs outside of their apartment. Jeremy will be questioned and will say he has no idea who she is. He’ll get his camera and take pictures of my gooey head and the ooze that’s seeping from the hole and he’ll hide them in a box with a lock and look at them sometimes with a guilty pleasure. Roman will wonder what I was doing there. He’ll find out. He’ll find out about me, like in that Gin Blossoms song I loved in high school.

I went into the mart next door. Figures they would be out of my cigarettes. I encountered two crazy homeless men on the way out. They were smelly and filthy and talking nonsense. They asked me for money and I lied and said I had none.

I drove home feeling gross. Raw and exposed. I usually don’t feel like that after being with Jeremy. I guess only when Roman’s coming to town later that day. It takes just a little time to adjust. Los Angeles looked exactly how I felt. Tarnished.

When I was a little girl, my mother would bring me down from the northern surf haven of my birth to shop at ritzy stores Ventura just doesn’t have. She wanted to expose me to all walks of life, despite the quasi-paradise existence of my seaside hometown that has made many a native never leave it. We would lunch in upscale cafés and swing glossy bags from swank boutiques as we walked on sparkling streets. L.A. was so nice to me then. She lured me to her. Now L.A. treats me like the grown woman I’m supposed to be. She refuses to give me guidance. Still she leads me on.

I told myself that any girl feels tarnished coming home still dressed from the night before—sequined jeans all wrong for day, sultry dark eye makeup a testimony to her underworld nocturnal activity. I said any girl would feel awful leaving her lover’s apartment with nothing but a seriously bad hangover.

I stopped at 7-Eleven for the cigarettes. I encountered Bruce Willis. He was coming out as I was going in. I wouldn’t have even noticed it was him if he hadn’t said, “Here you go,” in that Hudson Hawk/Butch Coolidge/John McClane voice of his as he held the door open for me. I was unfazed. He was wearing a baseball cap and dark sunglasses. I thought about busting out one of his movie lines on him to show my respect, but then thought he probably got that all the time so I didn’t say anything. I did have to wonder what Bruce was doing getting coffee at a convenience store east of Fairfax. It’s the heart of Hollywood, sure…but the Hollywood they only show in movies about snuff films and prep-school prostitutes.

There are some charming little pockets in this alarming neighborhood, though. Such as the blue-and-white cookie-cutter house where I live with my two roommates. It’s a nice house for three people. It even has a breakfast nook and a little backyard with a brick patio. I pulled into the driveway as Ava’s boyfriend came charging out the front door. He screamed something I didn’t hear over his shoulder. Ava chased him out onto the porch in silky pink pajamas, her white-blond hair fixed in two childish braids. She hurled an empty beer bottle at him and it shattered on the sidewalk.

“Jesus Christ, Ava!” he shouted. He stood there hitching up his cords as if he’d been without pants when this fight had begun.

She threw another bottle. There was a whole stash of empties lined up on the porch railing. She threw them all before storming back inside and slamming the door behind her.

“What’s going on?” I asked him. He looked funny, standing in a pile of broken glass on our sidewalk. I wanted to laugh at him.

He shook his head. “I just can’t handle this lunacy a second longer. See you later, hon. It’s been real.” He pushed his glasses up on his nose and ran to his Saab, peeling away from the curb and disappearing down the street. I knew he’d never be back.

Ava was in the kitchen fixing cereal when I went in. My other roommate, Electra, was sleeping on one of the couches in the living room. We really splurged on them but it was a good buy. They are both red with huge cushions and you’d think you’d get tired of red but it’s amazing what you can do with it. They face each other against opposite walls and there’s a big square coffee table in between them with a Zodiac wheel carved into it. The walls are painted cream, not white, and the floor is paneled in wood. We have posters around of our favorite movies like St. Elmo’s Fire and Legends of the Fall and the people we idolize like Marilyn Monroe and Ella Fitzgerald.

Electra wasn’t alone. She was sleeping with a man. They were both naked from the looks of things, all arms and legs hanging out from beneath a lavender chenille throw.

“What’s with the random dude?” I asked Ava.

“Oh, Electra wanted it last night so we took her to Crazy Girls to pick it up. She figured a strip joint would be a good place to find a ready and willing male.”

“I see. So what was that scene with Tim just now?” I asked. She got out the milk. I knew it was bad but I didn’t tell her.

She looked wounded. “Oh…the usual. There’s always something wrong with me.”

“That’s not true.” I looked in the fridge to find something to drink. Electra’s Brita pitcher was labeled with a note that said if either one of us drank her cold water she was going to kill us.

“But they think so.” Her lip was quavering. “You know what he said? He said our house was so dirty that he always had to go home and take a shower after he left.”

I poured water from the tap and pretended that the metallic Hollywood taste of it was ambrosia. I took a look around the kitchen. Food-stained dishes were piling up in the sink. The trash was overflowing by the wall. There was an empty jar of spaghetti sauce on the counter, next to two dry stems of angel hair that had dropped out of the package. A handful of them had fallen onto the floor and been stepped on several times.

“And then he was looking at my books and saying I wasn’t intellectually literate and that I should read the classics—like I haven’t. I said, look, for your information, I went to just as many private schools as you did,” she went on. “Then I told him this is California, not Connecticut—and it’s more important to impress people with what I’m wearing than what I’m reading. The next thing I knew we were screaming at each other.”

I sagged against the fridge and packed my cigarettes. “Tim was an incredible snob, anyway. That Ivy League act he had going on was annoying. I never liked him.”

“Yes, but I did.”

“You’ll get over it.”

“I always do.” She looked all hurt again.

I thought of something to say while I watched her douse her Fruity Pebbles with the stinky milk. “Come on, Ava. Just think of the next girl he dates and how she’ll recoil with horror when he asks her to stick her finger up his ass while she’s giving him a blow job.”

She spit cereal into the sink she was laughing so hard. I had to laugh, too.

“How’s Jeremy? Where’d you guys go last night?” she asked.

“Ugh. The Liquid Kitty.”

“Oh, no. Did you drink Lolitas?”

“Lolitas and Low Lifes. How’d you know?”

“There’s some bluish puke on your sweater.”

“That’s got to be attractive.”

“Bewitching. Matches your shoes, too. Hey, those are my shoes!”

I glanced down. “Oh, yeah, sorry. Forgot to ask.”

“That’s okay. I wore your green glitter tank top last night.”

Everything is community property when girls live together. At least it is with us.

I yawned. “I’m tired.”

“No time for a nap. Roman’s coming in at two,” she reminded me.

“I remember.”

“Can I go to the airport with you?”

“Sure.”

She put her bowl in the sink with a frown. “This tastes awful. I’m making Mini Raviolis instead. You want some?”

My stomach lurched. “Sounds divine.”

I thought about Saturday mornings when I was little as I walked down the hall. My mother making pancakes and my father reading the newspaper on the back patio, drinking coffee. The radio turned to 94.7 playing smooth jazz. My little sister and me watching Jem while waiting for our breakfast. No worries, no cares and no reality.

I could have carved out my own version of that life. I could be back in Ventura right now, undoubtedly married to my high school sweetheart. We would have one or two children. On weekend nights we would go to high school football games—at our high school stadium—with wink-wink plastic cups full of domestic beer. On weekend days we would brunch with my parents or his, maybe both, and then engage in home improvement or family time at the beach. And we would go to neighborhood barbecues, and we would buy our fruits and vegetables at roadside stands, and we would wish the 101 Drive-In hadn’t been torn down because wow, what a lot of great memories we made there back when we so weren’t watching movies, and we would probably be very happy.

Hometowns, though. They either suck you in or they spit you out.

I went into my room and sat down on my bed as daylight streamed through the dusty blinds and birds chirped annoyingly from the neighbor’s avocado tree. I was glad Roman was on his way because just then I wished I could run away to Australia and never come back again. I took a shower. I looked at myself in the mirror. I saw long strands of wet blond hair. A smear of Mango Mandarin lotion on one pale cheek. Blue eyes puzzled by the sight of a familiar stranger.

I couldn’t feel clean. I couldn’t feel good.

It’s not always like this. But when it is, I could just scream.

Sometimes I hate this dirty city. I’m starting to hate this dirty life.

Chapter 1

Roman didn’t mind that Ava was waiting at the airport with me. He’s not the kind of man who would think that was irritating. He hugged us both and kissed me and it was so good to see him. I don’t see him very often because he lives on the other side of the country. Sometimes he goes and lives in other countries. Sometimes I forget about the wonderfulness of him because he’s gone from me so often. But when I see him I always remember right away. I’m reminded that a smooth dark midnight sky is okay, but a sky with bright glittering stars is even better.

Ava talked most of the ride home about what had happened with Tim. How she couldn’t believe he would ditch her when they started off as friends. Roman was good-natured about it and listened as if he was really interested, even though I knew he really wanted to be hearing about my life and not Ava’s. He’s very nice to her, though. He doesn’t say cruel things about her like Jeremy does, like that she’s fucked up and beyond help. He says she’s just a sweet, wayward kid. I think she just gets involved with guys who are friends way too often, and there are risks involved in that situation. The same thing happens every time. A guy friend, most likely suffering from lack of a consistent lay, starts thinking his girl friend is a halfway decent piece and he should probably fuck her. The girl friend assumes that means he has fallen in love with her, so she falls in love with him. Then they’re not friends anymore. I could tell Ava a few things about that, and do, but she never listens, and she never learns. She says I’m a hypocrite.

She says I’m a hypocrite because I try to give advice and then I act however I want to and don’t even care at all. She says I’m a hypocrite for having a nice boyfriend like Roman and cheating on him when he’s away.

But that’s not what it’s about. I think Ava just doesn’t understand. She loves eternal. No questions asked. When she’s in love, there could never be anyone else. Even if her man was on the moon.

It’s not like I don’t love eternal. It’s just that I suppose I am more guarded at first. Ava dives right in without checking to see if the water is shallow. I guess what I mean is that when I met Roman, he was unbelievable in an almost ethereal sense…like Jake Ryan in Sixteen Candles. I thought for sure it would never last because it just seemed too good. So when Jeremy, who seemed much more like the kind of guy I should end up with, walked into my life about three seconds after Roman did…I took a chance.

And now it’s two years later. And I’m still taking chances.

Roman kept his hand on my knee while he drove us home. He’s not the kind of man who would ever expect me to drive, even in my own car. We kept smiling over at each other. I felt warm and happy. It was good to have him home. L.A.’s not his home and he says it likely never will be, but I always feel like he’s home when he’s visiting because then he’s home with me.

Electra was doing her toes in the living room when we got back to the house. She was wearing a turquoise-and-silver kimono with silky butterflies all over it. She got up to give Roman a hug. She highly approves of him. He doesn’t drive her crazy hanging around like most other guys would.

“Hey, I like that new poster of Marilyn,” Roman said appreciatively. Never mind the layer of dust coating the TV screen, the coffee table crowded with multiple nights’ worth of discarded Del Taco trash. Never mind the array of empty bottles nobody’s bothered to toss, the overflowing ashtrays. Roman only notices the new poster of Marilyn. I love how he looks on the bright side. I think that is a special quality in him.

“Thanks,” I told him. I didn’t tell him Jeremy gave me that poster for my birthday. He also gave me The Exorcist on DVD, which I suspected he purchased more for his own enjoyment than to celebrate the fact that I was turning twenty-five. He’s twenty-seven already so the thrill was lost on him. The thrill usually is.

Roman kissed my neck. “Want me to make drinks, Dalton?”

“I can do it,” I told him as I kissed his neck. I love my man. I think we are the perfect combination, just like peanut butter and jelly.

“So what’s new with you?” Electra asked Roman as he settled down to relax and I went into the kitchen to fix us some drinks.

He leaned back against the cushions and looked content. “I’m waiting to hear about my next placement. I won’t know anything definite until next week or so, but I’ve got a pretty good idea.”

“Really? Tell me about it,” she said. “I find your career so fascinating.” Electra can be overly sarcastic, but she was actually sincere.

Roman’s career is pretty fascinating. He works for the International Center for Relief and Advancement, which is a D.C.-based nonprofit organization. He and his colleagues are relief specialists who travel to nations with underprivileged economies and try to help them. Most of them have Dr. preceding their name, and a long string of impressive credentials to follow. At Roman’s level they research countries to assess their assistance needs. Then they strategize and write proposals about how to go in and improve the quality of life for the people who are most affected. If a proposal is accepted, it becomes a project, and then a team is sent to carry it out. It’s a far cry from event planning, which is what I do, but Roman says in many ways our jobs are similar. I think he is incredibly kind.

Roman lit a cigarette and tossed the pack to Electra. “Okay, so you really want to know? I have been busting my ass lately. I’m trying to get the director position for this next project so that Landon might finally start giving me the respect I think I’ve earned over the last six years that I’ve given my entire goddamn existence to ICRA. As it is, I’ll be working out of our charming West Coast bureau during most of my visit so Landon doesn’t think I’m just out here fucking around. That’s the one good thing about L.A.—having an office to go to when I’m here.”

I handed him a refreshing vodka tonic as I sat down on the couch with him. “That’s the one good thing?” I asked skeptically.

He relaxed an arm around my shoulders and kissed my cheek. “Not the only good thing, baby. You know what I meant. Gets Landon off my ass if I say I’m coming out here for work and not just to see you. We both know I come out here just to see you, but Landon doesn’t need to know that. If he did, he’d be imagining that all we do here is eat health food and go surfing, and that would horrify him, and then he’d give me a bunch of shit. Landon doesn’t understand the concept of leisure—even if we hardly eat health food and have yet to catch a wave.”

I laughed. Landon is Roman’s totally demanding asshole boss. Roman says he still treats him like an intern even though everybody else knows Roman has fully reached big-cheese status. Roman says Landon is on his case all the time, which is one of the reasons he has to work so hard. He loves his work, he says, and loves working hard—but Landon says, “Don’t just love it, Roman. Be in love with it.”

“Where will you be going this time?” Electra asked.

“I put in proposals for three places in Africa.”

“Africa’s awfully far away,” I said dubiously.

He jostled my shoulders. “It’s really not when you think about it. You just get on a plane and go. Besides, I’m staying here for three whole weeks. Just to be with my baby.”

I smiled. He wrinkled his nose at me as he smiled back.

“Can we go to Ruth’s Chris tonight like we did the last time when you came, Roman?” Ava piped up. She was sitting on the floor, cutting out magazine pictures with pink-handled scissors.

“Just say when, bella.”

I love that Roman is so generous without being grand or boastful about it. I love that he is so easy-breezy. He treats my friends as if they are special because he knows they’re special to me. It’s not like he’s some walking, talking, ever-smiling human Ken. I’ve seen him get pissed. I’ve heard him yell. Sometimes he can be the biggest SOB. But he doesn’t get put off very easily and that is really important to me.

Having Roman around was great. He would drop me off at work in the mornings so he could use my car during the day. Then he would pick me up in the evenings and we’d chat about this and that as we drove to the house. We’d cook dinner together and watch movies he’d rented for us, or read side by side in bed. I thought about how nice it was to be together, not having to worry about stupid shit like getting wasted or wasting time. It was cozy and fulfilling. When he’s here, life is grand. When he’s gone, life’s just life. When he’s not around I feel like there’s no end in sight. I’m a fish in a tank, dreaming of the ocean.

“You got a nice guy there,” Ava’s friend Dylan Waters told me one night, having randomly materialized. Technically you could say Dylan’s my friend, too, but I’m happy to let Ava take all the credit. It irks me how he’ll disappear for months and then suddenly he just shows up and starts hanging around all the time, giving unsolicited advice and acting like he owns the place.

“Thanks for the tip. Now, what are you doing here?”

He was in control of the kitchen, chopping up vegetables for a burger barbecue. He handed me a piece of avocado before dragging on a cigarette. “Miss me, did ya?”

I rolled my eyes.

“She called me,” he explained, with a shrug.

“That much I gathered. Now, what are you doing here?”

He laughed as he pressed a bottle of Tim’s Pete’s Wicked Ale into my hand. “Just shut up and drink this, will ya? It’s the last of the dude’s brew. He packed up his khakis and moved back to New Haven without even saying goodbye.”

“I take it you’re here to console her, then?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

“You know it,” he said proudly, like it was some seriously gallant act on his part. Yeah, really chivalrous. I’ve been observing this asshole’s methods since I was eighteen. He picks people up just to throw them over.

“You single right now?” I asked, eyeing him.

“Right now I am,” he said, winking.

It was a balmy evening and Ava and Electra were clustered around the patio table, wearing bright mango-and-banana tube tops and shimmery lip gloss. I pulled out a chair to join them as the men gravitated toward the grill.

I met these two during our very first week of college. We were having an “Around the World” party in our dorm where every room represented a different country and served a corresponding cocktail. My room represented the Ukraine so we were serving white Russians. You had to decorate and dress up so it was really authentic. I wore a fur hat and a sweater with fur cuffs to match. I don’t really remember how the three of us bonded. It’s hard to define the moment that you first become friends with somebody. They are so different from each other. Definitely the sugar and spice in my life.

In private, sometimes Jeremy refers to Ava as “Deprava.” He refers to Electra as “I’llfuckya.” Isn’t he clever.

Roman thinks Ava and Electra are entertaining and comical. When I asked him once if he thought they were freaky and over the top, he said of course not—they’re just girls.

“Dylan’s seriously unexpected appearance better not be your solution to getting over Tim,” Electra said to Ava, authoritatively. “I mean, if you’ve just summoned him here to dote on you, that’s acceptable…but I better not see you swooning!”

“I see you swooning over Dylan and I will definitely puke,” I added.

“He’s going to be my date at Aunt Carlotta’s wedding this weekend,” Ava explained. “You know I have to bring a date or Papa will make a fuss and try to set me up with Tony Montesilvano. I do realize Dylan’s hardly ‘date’ material, but at least he already knows the family.”

Electra and I exchanged glances. Yeah, okay. We could buy that because Ava’s pretty sensitive about exposing an unknown to the family. In fact, an unknown will usually run after meeting the family. The first complaint is typically the crazy priest, Father De Marco, who’s always shaking a crucifix and shouting drunkenly in Italian. The Damianos brought him along when they relocated from New Jersey. Ava says they moved for a change of pace, but I swear I once overheard Uncle Paolo say they had to “flee” New Jersey because of that “dispute” with the Gasparellos. Now they live on a heavily guarded, walled estate in Del Mar. I mean all of them, and we’re talking like thirty people. Ava’s stepmom, Anna, used to be a showgirl at Bally’s. She is only twenty-nine. Ava’s father, Carlo, married her after one date. Oh, and just for the record—Ava’s little brother, Luciano-Marciano, told me once that he and Anna do it in the closet sometimes when his father isn’t home. Why the closet? You tell me.

“I’m going to call Josh after dinner and make sure his ass is on a plane,” Electra told us. “Because if I find out he took a later flight due to some bullshit market disaster, you just better know he’s not getting any kitty when we go to Palm Springs!”

Electra’s boyfriend lives in New York City. She met him while he was getting his MBA at USC and these days he is a big-shot investment banker on Wall Street. Ava and I call him Mr. Big Bucks in private. Electra is supposed to move out there when she’s ready, but since she’s not ready, he just flies in every now and then to spend a bunch of money on her and get laid. They are planning to get married, but they don’t know when and neither of them is worried that they’ll break up so they don’t press the issue. Out of sight, out of mind is how she feels about Josh. But when Josh is in town, hey, love the one you’re with! Josh thinks Electra is all that and a bag of chips. The cat’s meow. The bee’s knees! He suspects nothing and thinks that his little jewel of a girlfriend is as faithful to him as the Pope is to the Catholic Church.

“Hey, how do you ladies want the burgers?” Dylan called.

“Bloody,” I replied.

“Ew, disgusting!” Electra shrieked. “And here’s something for you to file away for future reference, dipshit—you don’t cook a Gardenburger like a meat burger, you just cook it till it’s not frozen anymore.”

“Kiss my ass, bitch!” Dylan said merrily.

“Kiss mine!”

“You first!” He stuck his ass out and pointed at it. She kissed the air and he went crazy laughing. Roman shook his head and winked at me over the flames.

When we were done eating, Electra went inside to call Josh and the four of us stayed outside and smoked twilight cigarettes. The sky was all violet and red. Electra wrapped the fence with bamboo and put out tiki torches last summer to feign tropical. If not for the police helicopters circling overhead and the constant rush of passing traffic out on Fountain, the ambience would be downright sultry.

Dylan gave Roman a long look. “Hey, brother, can I ask you something?”

“Sure you can, brother,” Roman replied. He had a hand resting comfortably on the back of my neck.

“Is it hard for you to be away from your fine-ass woman so much of the time?”

“Please,” I said, rolling my eyes.

“No, seriously,” Dylan said, rolling his right back. “I want to know.”

Roman looked thoughtful. “Well, of course. Why do you ask?”

“Just wondering.’ Cause you know chicks, they get lonely. And when they get lonely…well…all I’m saying is you shouldn’t leave a fine-ass woman unattended for too long.” He gave me a sly wink, looking devilish in the firelight. We settled into an uncomfortable silence. I shot Dylan the look of death and kicked Ava under the table.

“Bacco, tabacco e Venere riducono l’uomo in cenere,” she said to Roman, knowingly. Wine, women and tobacco can ruin a man. Roman laughed.

“What the fuck was that?” Dylan demanded.

“Nothing, bastardo. You come inside with me now,” she commanded him. “If you’re coming to San Diego with me for the weekend, then we need to get packing.”

“Anything you say, bella.” He slung an arm around her neck and kissed the top of her head as they got up from the table.

I watched them go.

Roman was frowning. He looked concerned. “Do you get lonely?”

I shrugged. “Sometimes.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “You should tell me these things.”

I shrugged again. “It’s nothing, Roman. I just get lonely. I miss you.”

He kissed me. “I miss you, too, Dalton. You have to know that.”

“I do.”

“Promise?”

“Yes.”

We kissed again. He told me he had something special planned for the weekend, in honor of our two-year anniversary. We were going away, just the two of us. I said I couldn’t wait.

Chapter 2

I was surprised when he proposed. It came out of nowhere. It was the Fourth of July and we were having wine and cheese and crackers and crème brûlée on a cliff by the ocean on Catalina. We were talking about random stuff like what kind of cheese is in cheesecake and how it’s weird that Italy is shaped like a boot and what was really going on in the movie Vanilla Sky. Then he got all serious.

“You know something…Dylan made a good point the other night.”

“Which was?”

“Us being apart as much as we are. It’s not right.”

“Oh, that.” I didn’t want him thinking I was some baby who went around bawling about how neglected she was. “Well, let’s not judge ourselves by anything Dylan has to say. He’s pretty much just a big dorky asshole.”

He laughed. “No, just outspoken, I think. An unexpected voice of reason.”

“That’s putting it very tactfully. Like saying he’s one sweet son of a bitch.”

He laughed again. Then he put his hand in mine and looked at me with soulful eyes. “Really, though. There’ve been some things on my mind that I’ve been wanting to talk to you about. I thought now that we’re alone would be a good time. What do you think?”

My heart was pounding as I nodded. I was expecting him to tell me he was tired of things the way they were, tired of me, tired of our relationship. I was too young, too silly and lacking direction. I was never serious, completely trivial, and always broke because I made impractical purchases like my Louis Vuitton Mary Janes and those strass-inlaid Chanel sunglasses that were almost as much as my rent payment but so fucking glamorous I just couldn’t deny myself. I felt jittery and nervous. What if he’d done some research and now he knew all the things about me he wasn’t supposed to know? What if he wanted to tell me what a horrible person I was for acting the way I did in his absence?

But that wasn’t it at all. Instead he started talking about the future and how much I meant to him and how he didn’t want to lose me but he was leaving again. Not just leaving to go home but really leaving. He’d gotten his next placement. He had to be in Cameroon by August 1 and would be staying six months. He said he was afraid that one of these days someone else was going to snatch me up while he was gone. He said he was afraid that I was going to find someone else. Fireworks exploded in the black sky above, shimmering gold and pink and green on the black ocean below. He asked me if I would marry him when he got back, and said that if I wanted, he would give up his career for me.

How grand and traditional. A moonlight proposal by the sea.

“Are you sure you want to marry me?” was all I could think to say.

“Why would you ask me something like that?” he laughed.

I guess because there are two sides to every story. The Roman me, the me he sees, is the nice Dalton. The lover. The one I would be all the time, if the mean Dalton, the hater, wasn’t always demanding her share of the limelight. That Dalton has fists. She bullies the nice one into submission. She says, “Listen, when you’re nice people fuck with you. When you’re not, you can fuck with them.”

Good Dalton says why. Bad Dalton says why not.

“I could see us getting married,” I said thoughtfully.

“So can I,” he said eagerly.

A thought popped into my head. Electra once saying our relationship is chaste.

I may tone it down around him, but I’m still far from darling. It’s not like we never get down. It’s not like we sit around listening to Mozart and comparing Monet and Matisse. Roman himself is not some stiff. He is a wild man. He speaks other languages and I’m not talking just French and Spanish. He lives most of his life in jungles and deserts that most civilized people wouldn’t go to if their lives depended on it. He wears his hair longer like a gay man or a celebrity and isn’t ashamed of it. He has a real camera, the kind that cost a thousand dollars and not some cute pink thing from Toys “R” Us with Barbie written on it.

We are not chaste. We are classy.

“But I would never ask you to give up your career,” I said boldly. “Your work is your whole life.”

He slipped the ring onto my finger. “Not my whole life, Dalton.”

He doesn’t call me Doll like everybody else does. As the story goes, my mom thought that my given name of Dalton was too heavy at first so she shortened it and it stuck. I guess the real spelling should be Dal but then people would mispronounce it because people can be stupid like that. Doll’s fine with me…but I draw the line at Dolly. No fucking way.

The ring itself was a shining band of platinum, crowned with a glittering two-carat piece of ice that could catch the sparkle in someone’s eye from across the room. I wore it wound around the designated finger of my left hand like a collar encircling a dog’s neck. All the time fluttering my hand and watching it wink at me in defiance, representing everything I have ever, and never wanted. But I think these are things most every woman wants even if she acts like she doesn’t. It’s just all so confusing when it really comes down to that one final choice about your life. It’s kind of strange to finally have to say, this person is The One and Only One for the rest of eternity.

To be honest, it’s overwhelming. Not because I don’t want him. I definitely want him. I’m just overwhelmed because the last time I saw him he was my long-distance boyfriend and now he’s my future life partner. Forever.

“Can I go to Cameroon with you?” I asked.

“Well…getting the directorship doesn’t exactly mean I’ll have carte blanche in Africa,” he told me. “It actually means I’m going to have to work like a dog. I’ll hardly have time to sleep, much less show you a decent time there. And Cameroon rocks, but it’s not the kind of place a girl like you would enjoy on her own.”

I was disappointed. After becoming engaged…you’d think…I don’t know. I suddenly felt like the only difference was me having a sparkly reminder of Roman that got snagged in my hair.

“We’ll do it like so,” Roman said. “I’ll go and do this for six months. I’ll perform so brilliantly and dazzle Landon so hard that he won’t even blink when I appeal to him to let me stay in D.C. for a while, later, so that we can have a real home and life together there before I’m expected to take on another project.”

“That works for me,” I said.

“You’re so understanding,” he told me, eyes all limpid. “What did I ever do to deserve you?”

“I think it’s the other way around.”

“Nonsense, Dalton. I’m the lucky one here.”

We were driving home a couple of days later when something occurred to me. As we cruised past the Overland exit on the 10, the one that leads to Jeremy’s apartment, it occurred to me that “forever” with my future life partner is not supposed to include my current partner in crime.

But what am I, crazy? Jeremy practically hates me. He treats me like a nuisance. The same way I treat him.

We pulled into the driveway. Roman got our luggage and took it into the house, where my roommates were camped out in the living room, watching a Brat Pack movie marathon.

“I got engaged,” I reported.

Electra was off her couch in a flash. “Engaged!” she screamed. She grabbed my hand and eyed the ring jealously. “Wow!”

Ava crowded in for a look. “That’s a big one. A real big fucking diamond! You must be so excited, Doll!”

“Of course I’m excited,” I replied as Roman poured champagne for all of us. And I really was. Excited. Nervous. Scared. Everything.

Roman extended his stay so he could be with me almost up until the last minute before having to report for his assignment. He said he was just going to quickly fly to D.C., shave and change his clothes, then catch his flight to Cameroon. He’s so funny like that. He comes across so sane and orderly, and then lives his life by the seat of his pants. I’ve never known anyone like him before. Like as in someone who really does the things they say they’re going to do. If Roman woke up one day and wanted to learn how to play the piano, he would sign up for piano lessons that afternoon instead of just talking about it forever. It’s like how the Duquesnes are from Syracuse and they all go to Syracuse, naturally, but at the last minute Roman Duquesne decided he wanted to go to Georgetown and turned in his application the day before the deadline. He was expected to become a doctor like his older brother and two older sisters, but he went into international studies instead. Everybody always said he was a dreamer and a fool, and that his spontaneity would get him nowhere fast, but now he says they’re eating their words because he’s living his life the way he wants to and that’s what life is all about. That’s a good philosophy, I think. Live your life however you want to.

On his last night in town, we ate at a scrumptious Italian restaurant. We drank lots of red wine. We ordered plates of pasta with tangy red sauce. As he slathered pieces of warm sourdough bread with butter for the two of us, he asked me if I was disappointed that he was leaving. I wasn’t sure how to respond. Every time I’m with him I know he’s going to go away again. I love knowing that we’re getting married, but I’m an instant-gratification kind of girl. I want everything now.

“It’s okay,” I told him. “I’d love it if you were staying…but I understand.”

“It’s a great career opportunity for me, you know. I think my getting the directorship means that Landon may finally be taking me seriously. It’s going to lead to great things, Dalton. For both of us.”

I nodded. “I know.”

“It’s only six months,” he reminded me.

“I’m not complaining,” I reminded him.

He looked at me for a moment. “Are you angry that you’re not going with me?”

“I don’t think I’m angry. Now that you mention it, though, six months does sound like quite a while. You’ve never been gone that long.”

“You’re right. I haven’t,” he said thoughtfully.

I didn’t want to sound like some selfish bitch girlfriend who thought she should be more important than anything else in the world. I didn’t want to be that girlfriend, either. So I told him, “I’ll deal. There are probably some loose ends I should tie up before I go anywhere, anyway. I have had a life here for quite some time. A silly life, I know, but still.”

He looked visibly relieved as he sipped his wine. He’d obviously been worried that I was going to have some big freak-out about the whole issue. “First of all, it’s not a silly life. Be twenty-five and enjoy it. I know I did. Second, six months is hardly any time at all. It will fly by. And it’s actually a really smart idea for you to get all your loose ends tied up, and you’re a smart girl to suggest it. Think of all the time you’ll have to plan the wedding, right? I think on the whole, women are probably more knowledgeable about weddings, anyway.”

I didn’t point out that he is cultured about every subject and could plan a nice wedding if he really wanted to or had the time. Nor did I point out that I am hardly that kind of woman. I had a vision of myself fully vamped out, walking down the aisle to “Poison” by Alice Cooper. Actually, this was the beginning of a script idea Jeremy had once. It was called You and Me and the Devil Makes Three. He never finished it and too bad because it really started getting good when the bride whipped out a knife and started butchering the wedding guests.

Roman smiled at me. “I think that’s when things will really get started for us, don’t you? When we get married?”

“Definitely.”

Later that night I bid my fiancé farewell in the grand traditional ceremony of fucking. I like the word fucking. I like the word fuck. It’s shocking and good for all occasions. He is gentler than most lovers have been and we have really great sex but right then it made my stomach hurt. It ached. Maybe from eating so much. Maybe because Roman was leaving. I found a focal point in a chaotic Mardi Gras poster on my bedroom wall. He fell asleep with his cheek pressed to my stomach. I played with his hair and watched the moon move across the sky outside my window.

When I drove him to the airport the next day he looked concerned as we stood in front of the terminal. It was hot and noisy out there, hardly a romantic goodbye spot. I hate not being able to go into the airport anymore.

“Are you going to be okay here?” he asked.

I laughed. “Roman, come on. I’m not exactly living in Tel Aviv.”

He fidgeted. “Yeah, I know. It’s just…this place. It really gets to you, you know?”

Ah, that it does. It takes a certain breed. L.A. is like a person. She’s like that one certain friend who’s always been such a bad influence. She makes you think you can act a certain way. Be a certain person. Put up with shit you wouldn’t put up with otherwise, because of the little rewards you get from her for being so understanding of her wicked ways. But for some strange reason, you love her like that. And she loves you, and she says it’s okay…it’s okay to be like that, because everyone’s like that.

I was really tired. I wasn’t thinking straight.

I fussed with the collar on his shirt as he placed his arms around me. He clasped his hands on the small of my back. People smiled at us. People thought, oh, we were so cute. And we are kind of cute. Roman’s really cute. He’s got that clean, woodsy look about him like he was born to wear flannel and whittle small wooden horses on the porch of a cabin in the mountains somewhere. Like a Ralph Lauren ad. His hair is the color of café au lait. And when my man squeezes me in a hug like this, I always remember that he’s a black belt in some exotic, ass-kicking martial art form.

“You just be careful out there, Dalton,” he told me.

I laughed. “You be careful out there.”

He kissed my forehead. “Take care of yourself, okay?”

“Okay.”

I watched him disappear into the terminal. I twisted my ring and wondered why I didn’t feel any different this time. I knew this was real. I knew it was good. But it felt just like any other time. Here today, gone tomorrow.

I bought a Diet Pepsi from a vending machine and sat on the hood of my car on top of the parking garage. The midsummer heat shimmered over the tarmac and sizzled on my skin. At one-fifty-three Roman’s plane lifted into the air, shooting toward the infinite azure sky. I waved four fingers. He was gone.

Normally on a day like this, I would return to the other half of my double life without a moment’s thought. I would return to the place where what started as a hopeless fling became an even more hopeless involvement. Where my lover doesn’t have hidden expectations. Where in fact he seems to have no expectations.

I wouldn’t say Roman has expectations, either. He’s not a forceful man. He doesn’t tell anyone how to live their life. But being around him is like being in church. A place where you just feel like you have to be good. With him I act like someone I’m probably supposed to be. His perfect, devoted little girlfriend. His lovely, good fiancée. With Roman I try to be a lady.

With Jeremy I am neither perfect nor devoted. I don’t think I’m ever very lovely or good. But I can act however I want. I can drink ten Captain Morgan and Cokes and talk gibberish and throw my clothes off and dance around like an idiot. I can confess to something horrible. I can act crazy without someone thinking I’m a psychopath, and even when he does think I’m a psychopath, he seems to like that about me.

Roman doesn’t make my heart foolish and he never drives the wild, wanton beast right out of me. He is perfect and safe and intellectual and deep.

Jeremy makes me want to torture someone.

Roman is the kind of man who holds doors open for women and never says tit or snatch and most definitely wouldn’t ever think of calling a woman a whore. He adores and worships his father.

Jeremy hates his father. They do not speak. He refers to his father as a bastard and a prick.

I decided to put him on hold for a while. I wanted to spend some time alone.

I wanted to cut my hair short. I wanted to spend a lot of money. I wanted to get high.

Instead, I went to a McDonald’s drive-thru and ordered some fries.

Chapter 3

I turned my calendar at work to August on the first of the month. I drew a little continent of Africa on the square and put a little stick man in it to represent Roman.

My boss came into my office and folded her arms at me. “If you’re bored, Doll, I’m sure I can find plenty for you to do. As it is, I gave you a whole list of things to take care of before the day is over.” She gave me a meaningful look.

“Oh, what?” I asked innocently. The list was long and uninteresting. “I was just, uh…keeping my calendar up to date.”

“Uh-huh,” she said, not convinced. “Now, listen. I’m going into a meeting with the rest of the partners and then I’m leaving straight for my lunch appointment. Can you try to remember to call on my cell if anything comes up?”

I nodded dutifully.

She looked at my finger with interest. “That’s not an engagement ring, is it?”

I hid my hand. I was actually surprised it had taken her so long to notice, but then again, Karen is very self-absorbed. “Oh, what? Yes.”

“Let me see it.” She took my hand and gave the ring a critical once-over. “Excellent clarity. From Tiffany?”

As if there is no other jewelry store in the entire fucking galaxy. But yes, it was from Tiffany. I still thought it was presumptuous of her to ask.

She nodded with approval as she let go of my hand. “This is the guy who lives back east, right? Not that other clown I see you with?”

“It’s the one back east. But he’s not there now. He had to leave the country for six months.”

She raised her eyebrows. “What exactly does he do again?”

The woman is fucking oblivious. “He’s with the relief organization. Remember? We did their fund-raising gala two years ago? You and I?”

“I remember now. Congratulations, then. That’s very exciting. We’ll have to take a lunch one day to lay out some ideas for your wedding.”

“Yes, we certainly will.”

She left me alone after that. I swiveled around to the window and stared out at the city. When I am way up high in this Century City skyscraper I pretend I’m somewhere else, like Chicago or Dallas or Atlanta. I thought my boss was probably having her period. When she’s on her period I keep my office door closed. Usually we get along okay, even though I think she’s an ass.

The dossier on Karen is this: Karen Brazington, executive partner of Charisma and guru of the event-planning industry in Los Angeles. Thirty-six years old. Once married to her UCLA sweetheart, a heart surgeon at Cedars-Sinai whom she left when he became married to his career, now divorced and not speaking except through their lawyers. Currently engaged to a William Morris talent agent named Sal Lefkowitz whom she met when he contacted her, by referral, to put together his niece’s bat mitzvah. Has lived in seriously high-rent Westside property all of her adult life and drives a new C-Class Mercedes in a fetching metallic silver. Wears her hair in a shaggy, uneven cut that she gets trimmed and highlighted every six weeks with nearly religious fanaticism. Drinks flavored martinis, listens to Sting and Norah Jones, coughs reflexively when exposed to cigarette smoke and watches all reality TV shows courtesy of TiVo.

Please don’t ever let this happen to me.

My job at Charisma is to be Karen’s personal and administrative assistant. On my résumé it says Event Coordinator. Karen gets to do all the fun work and the big planning. She gets to have the power lunches and wear the killer suits. I get to wear the killer suits, too, but only for show. My only real purpose there is to do everything Karen doesn’t want to do. My friends say I have a glamorous job. And in some ways it is a glamorous job. It is so glamorous that sometimes I want to jump out the window.

I started at Charisma right out of college. I walked into an employment agency with big plans to walk out with a corner office and a fancy title and sixty thou’ annually right off. Instead I walked out with a new job as the assistant to the office manager at Charisma. I think that literally translates to “slave” because all I did then was put away supplies in the copy room, wash the dishes in the kitchen and run errands for people. Karen noticed me and made me her assistant after four months of that mindless crap. She liked me. She said I was sharp. I think what it was really all about was that she liked the way I dressed. When I first started with her, she sat me down and said, “You and me, from now on, are a team. We need to look like a team, think like a team, take care of each other like team members. So far you’ve got the first part down.”

There are some perks. I get to go to premieres and their after parties. I get to talk to famous names on the phone. I get to go to the Emmys, the Golden Globes and the Academy Awards. But since I’m not really into all that shit, sometimes it’s really just like a whole lot of unpaid overtime.

There are also some quirks. Such as the long, endless days of trying to keep myself sane. Luckily you learn pretty early on that to keep yourself sane in the life as somebody’s assistant, the trick is to waste as much time as possible when the boss isn’t looking. So I wandered out into the hallway to see if anyone was doing anything. The head-honcho meeting was in full swing in the conference room. Lots of free time until they got out.

There was a deep discussion going on among my fellow minions about how everyone had lost their virginity. I joined in.

It happened when I was fifteen with the neighbor boy Charlie Porter. He was cute in an ugly sort of way, with coarse dark hair like a rottweiler and knowing eyes the color of desert sand. He was popular because he acted like a jerk and he didn’t care, and kids respected that quality. He was the kind of boy who talked back to teachers and wasn’t afraid of the consequences. When his parents were gone he had parties and people had sex in his parents’ bed and no one washed the sheets afterward. He was forever sucking on an orange Tootsie Pop so his breath always smelled like oranges. He wore Drakkar Noir cologne and forest-green Vans and listened to Jane’s Addiction and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Total dream.

Charlie lived up the street from me, at the top of the hill, and the water from the hose when he washed his dad’s car would run down in the gutter past my house with soap bubbles and leaves. We played together when were little kids. But somewhere around the start of middle school, boys become boys and girls become girls. That’s when Charlie started calling me fatty and porky and piggy and his friends did the same and laughed while they rode their skateboards past my house and I hid beneath the front window and watched, ashamed. Then I would go upstairs and watch Stayin’ Alive and wish I were some sexy dancing queen on the Manhattan show scene instead of a fleshy preteen eating Oreos and dreading the fact that my P.E. class had access to a swimming pool.

On the first day of school sophomore year he passed by me at my locker and stuck a little pink flower in my hair. They grew in clumps of orange and purple and fuchsia by the front entrance of the school, where all the most popular kids hung out before the bell rang. I was wearing black pants with suspenders. I was skinny from dieting all summer. I was starving. When I turned around he kept walking, his back to me, his arm out as he slapped hands with Pete Keller. I glanced in my locker mirror. No way. I knew that Charlie and Aurelia Sparks had broken up over the summer, but still. They’d been together since seventh grade.

In geometry the teacher asked us to pick homework partners. He passed me a note that said to pick him because my last name came before his in the alphabet and she was going to call on me first. When she got to me and I said Charlie Porter, the whole class turned around to look at me. Aurelia had a pinched-up expression on her face. She had worn her hair in the same glossy golden ringlet curls since we were little girls. I could feel my face burning. Charlie said, “Okay,” like it was no big deal, like thirty pens weren’t suddenly flying across thirty pieces of loose-leaf paper, penning notes to be distributed via the hallways of Ventura High as soon as nutrition break was under way.

I went up the street to his house after school and banged on the door. He answered it, eating a piece of toast with lots of peanut butter slathered on top. I could hear the TV in the background, the characters from Charles in Charge trapped inside of a rerun. I asked him what the hell was going on and felt my face burning again. He told me to relax about it, then threw his toast over my shoulder and pulled me up against him. We kissed and I could taste peanut butter and the faint sweetness of orange candy rolling around on his tongue. He said I could come in after that and I said I had to go home. I almost fell walking back down the hill. My mother made my favorite dinner that night, chicken and pasta with mushrooms in cream sauce, and I couldn’t even eat it. She laughed and said the first day at school will do that to you. Later that night I wrote Charlie’s name next to First Kiss in my diary.

He held my hand the next day walking into geometry. I thought Aurelia’s eyes were going to pop out of her head. When I had tried out for cheerleading she had been one of the judges. I knew she had voted against me even though I had practiced my routines for weeks and was definitely the best choice. I heard her talking about me in the bathroom after class, as she and Liz Major stood in front of the mirror in their cheerleading get-ups, putting more and more drugstore makeup on and spritzing themselves with Le Jardin. She said, “He’s only into her now because her boobs have gotten so fucking huge.” Liz said, “No kidding. Remember how fucking fat she used to be?”

I knew I wasn’t “fucking fat” anymore. But even when you’re not fucking fat anymore, you sometimes think and act like you still are. You see the same person in the mirror. You’re surprised that the most popular guy in school suddenly likes you. A real dream come true.

“Fuck those stupid bitches,” my best friend Lily Lovejoy told me at lunch. We shared a bag of carrot sticks and a half pint of chocolate milk. “Aurelia’s a piece of trash and Liz is just debris. You know you’re not fat anymore. And you weren’t even fat, you were just a little chubby. There’s a difference. So fuck those cheap whores.”

Lily always had her own way of putting it all into perspective. She taught me a lot about life. She taught me almost everything. This is Lily Lorraine Lovejoy and you goddamn better believe it. Her motto then, her motto now.

“Lily is totally right,” Daisy Kiplinger agreed. My other best friend, she was eating frosted Hostess treats and outfitted in various forms of surfer-girl wear. I knew she was ditching fifth and sixth period to go to the beach even though it was only the second day of school. “I’d like to see that bitch choke on her pom-poms and for Liz to O.D.”

Everyone started saying Charlie and I were “going out.” Everyone acted like I had never been forgotten, like those dumpy in-between years had never happened, like I had been important forever. Now I joined Lily and Daisy talking shit about all the bitches who were always hanging around our boys. I still remembered how our boys had called me names, but now they referred to me as one of their “girls” with pride. I still remembered how the bitches had looked at me in the shower in P.E. as if I was a gruesome creature from a Tobe Hooper movie, but now they couldn’t stop talking about how cute my clothes were and how we should all ditch and go to the Busy Bee Café and how I just had to go to this party and that party. At football games, Aurelia bounced around with the other cheerleaders, her hair bouncing with her, throwing hard looks my way. Everybody said she was jealous because she still liked Charlie. Liz Major came up during a break once and gave me half her Coke and asked if I had any cigarettes. We smoked together up behind the snack bar, her in her cheerleading get-up and me in my Guess jeans and an oversize Stussy sweatshirt that belonged to Charlie. She said now that I was with Charlie, everything was cool. She said now that I was with Charlie, I was cool. I told her that was very gracious of her, but that I had always been cool. I said it was only stupid people like her that had made everybody else think otherwise.

Charlie waited a grand total of six weeks before asking, “Can we do it?” one afternoon when we were in his room fooling around and listening to The Cure. “C’mon, Peaches,” he said. “It’ll be fun.” I thought about it. Lily’s virginity was long gone. I wasn’t sure that Daisy had ever been a virgin.

“I guess,” I told him. “I mean, you love me, right?”

“Yeah. I totally do.”

“Okay, then. We can.”

His naked skin was clammy and his pillowcase smelled like greasy hair. He was insistent and bold and I was surprised when it touched me. I closed my eyes as he dug his chin into my chest, making a bruise. My head kept hitting the Bible that was behind me on the bookcase. The Bible was on top of a book called Naked Lunch. After what felt like an eternity he tensed and collapsed and I felt sticky hot wetness running out of me and down onto the faded Scooby-Doo sheets.

I rode my bike home afterward with “Lovesong” running through my head and an uncomfortable dampness in my underwear. When I went to the bathroom it was all red and brown and weird in there and I didn’t want my mom to see it when she did the laundry. It hurt like fire to pee and I had to squeeze my eyes shut and hold on to the roll of toilet paper as I did it.

My mom gave me a cookie as I got a can of Diet Pepsi from the fridge and told me I was getting too skinny. She said she was making fried chicken for dinner and she wanted me to eat a whole plate. I pictured great big bones of some dead chicken, covered in globs of greasy fried flour and oil, and a mountainous mass of mashed potatoes erupting and overflowing with salty gravy. Suddenly everything sounded horrible.

I asked Charlie to the Sadie Hawkins Dance the next day. He said he was going with Aurelia.

I was so wrapped up in the loss-of-virginity round table that I forgot to call Karen with the message that her lunch appointment had been changed to Thursday. Oops. When she got back from Barney Greengrass she yelled at me to get behind the eight ball and start thinking outside of the box. She said I had to step up to the plate and take ownership.

And I thought I could get by on the ability to multitask with attention to detail in a fast-paced environment.

“You’ll never be promoted if you can’t even remember the smallest details,” she told me with a frown.

I nodded.

“You’ll never convince me that you want a future here if you can’t even keep on top of the things you do now.”

I nodded.

“Now, try to get me the things I asked for by the end of the day, could you?”

I nodded.

“Your first priority is straightening out that catering mess at the Hyatt!” she yelled. “Tell them we are paying bulk for lunch or we’re taking our business elsewhere!” she screamed, just before slamming the door on her way out.

The idea of calling the caterers and haggling over the chicken florentine for the Women in Business luncheon down in Irvine was really unappealing. So I surfed the Internet.

I looked on www.weddingchannel.com and started freaking out because there are about a million and a half details that go into planning a wedding and so far I’ve only taken care of the location…kind of. My mother wants to have the wedding at our church and the reception at this old mansion in Santa Paula that rents out for such occasions. But when I told Lily I was getting married her mother got on the phone and said if we really want to do something special we should have the reception on her yacht. It’s parked in the Ventura Harbor and was Kitty’s wedding present from Lily’s first stepfather, Don. He died when we were in sixth grade. He drowned in the ocean during a day of bad undertow when he was surfing. They had to drag his body out of the water. Kitty was so upset that she got married again eight months later, to a stockbroker named Al who wears lots of gold chunk-chain jewelry and shaves his head bald on purpose. Al smokes cigars and calls women “honey” no matter how old they are. Everyone loves Al.

Thoughts of all the things that make a bride crazy and annoying drove me to the Cosmo Web site, where I read a piece titled “A Girl’s Life in the Big City.” According to the girl in the article, life in L.A. is just like in the movies. L.A. men are successful and nice and vying to set up romantic dates, everyone goes to trendy bars or clubs to drink green apple martinis every single night, the rent on a stylish two-bed-room beachfront apartment is completely affordable, and one is always, but always, outfitted in really expensive sandals and sundresses. Because as I’m sure you already know, it is always summer here in Los Angeles. Endless Summer, just like the Beach Boys sang.

You’ve got to love the stigma of the feminine existence in this town. I wondered if any of the other readers thought this chick’s perspective to be true to life, because I couldn’t really relate to such ridiculousness at all. I drank a fattening blended coffee drink and snacked on some Cheese Nips and stressed about my enormous “minimum” payment to Macy’s and heard Karen bitching on the phone to her attorney through my wall. I cranked up my music to tune her out and got back to my surfing.

I pulled up the Lonely Planet Web site to read about Cameroon, even though Roman told me all about it before he left. It had a big warning message about what a dangerous place it is. Roman’s there with a group of big cheeses who have government connections. He always comes home safe. I thought if he got kidnapped like in Proof of Life and a man who looked and talked like Russell Crowe showed up to help me find him, Roman might be on his own.

Our meeting was fortuitous. Roman was only at that gala because Landon commanded him to make an appearance. I was only at that gala because Karen has this habit of pretending she can totally handle it and then calling me at the last minute before an event and begging me please, please will I attend, because the woman can’t fucking do anything for herself. I’d planned to skip Roman’s speech for a smoke break but then thought I’d wait it out because Karen was giving me the eye. Turned out he had some really interesting things to say. I thought what a smart, handsome man and knew he would never talk to me, even though I swore I had caught him looking at me a lot. The next day there were a dozen peach roses waiting for me at work with a note asking me if I would have dinner with him. I never had any idea that men actually did things like that.

He took me to an unknown restaurant and we ate creamy garlic pasta and drank delicious sweet wine and he talked to me as if I was every bit the intellectual that he was even though he was ten years older than me and he had graduate and doctorate degrees on a shelf at home from fancy universities like Georgetown and Oxford. I was fascinated. I was enchanted. He lived in Washington but he spent a lot of time out of the country (“in the field” was how he put it) doing really nice things for really unfortunate people. At my door he kissed my cheek and asked if he could call me when he was in town again. He was the first man who ever walked me to my door and kissed my cheek like that without expecting a screw in return. I said yes. He came back the very next weekend and took me up the coast to a bed-and-breakfast in Santa Barbara. We held hands as we took moonlit walks on the beach and cuddled in corners of dark romantic restaurants and bade each other good-night before going into our rooms to sleep in separate beds. He said he had to go back to D.C. but he wanted to fly me out to visit as soon as we could arrange it. And so became our relationship.

And now we’re getting married. And I know I really lucked out. Because with Roman I’ll never have to worry about sitting in this office for the rest of my life, wishing I were somewhere else. With Roman I’ll never have to worry about anything.

I picked up the phone to call the caterers. Might as well make myself useful till then.

Chapter 4

I picked up Electra on the way home. She works right in Beverly Hills so usually we carpool. The funny thing is that I’m almost always the one driving. She says it’s because her big red Range Rover is a gas-guzzler, but I think it’s just that she likes to be chauffeured.

“Has Roman called from Cameroon?” she asked.

“He will when he has time. He said he’s going to be very busy.”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s what they all say. You know, I can just tell when Josh has his secretary lying for him. Like he’s really in that many meetings!”

A quick rundown on this one. Electra Hanover Kibbler, former Miss Teen South Carolina. All-knowing know-it-all. Want her opinion—you’ve got it. Don’t hate her because she’s beautiful.

At home we found Ava sprawled out on the living room floor. She was burning every candle in the house. She was playing Morrissey and drinking vino from a big jug. She was wearing Mickey Mouse socks and her hair was in beribboned pigtails.

A quick rundown on this one. Ava Maria Damiano, household pet and resident oddball. So sheltered growing up that she only ever left the family home to go to Catholic school. Grew up fast in college. Decided that grown-up life sucked and she’d rather be somebody’s baby.

“What’s wrong, sugar?” Electra asked. “Why aren’t you at your acting class?”

“I didn’t want to go,” Ava replied, pouting.

“I hope to God you’re not wallowing in memories of Tim,” Electra told her, as she sat down on one couch and I sat down on the other.

I noticed that Ava was wearing one of Tim’s old shirts. He’d left it at the house and bitched for weeks that he knew we had it even though Ava swore it was nowhere to be found. I’d kept it hostage in my middle dresser drawer, with a note attached that read, “You are one nosy fuck,” in all caps just in case he went looking. When you write in all caps it means you are YELLING at someone.

“Are you wallowing in memories of Tim?” I asked.

“I’m not wallowing in anything,” she replied.

“So are you moping for a reason, then, or do I have to come down there and beat it out of you?” Electra demanded. Harsh, but necessary. Ava pretends. She denies. She can go wacky just like that. It’s hard to know when she’s on and when she’s off.

“I fucked up an audition,” Ava told her, pouting anew.

“Oh, is that all?” Electra asked, none too sorry.

“It was for a movie, Electra,” Ava informed her. “I would have been billed.”

“As what?”

“Party Girl Number Three,” Ava replied.

“Pooh,” Electra dismissed. “You’re Party Girl Number One, sugar.” She got up from the couch. “Now howsabout I turn off this depressing moaning and put in something we can sing to? That’ll make you feel better!”

“You don’t even care,” Ava grumbled.

“Sure I do!” Electra said, turning on my karaoke microphone. I think I have a serious problem because sometimes I’ll use it when nobody’s home.

“But you’re just trying to make me forget about it,” Ava complained.

Electra started dancing around the living room, singing “Back in Baby’s Arms.”

“I’m serious,” Ava told me.

Electra climbed up onto the coffee table, really belting it out. She always dresses like she’s going clubbing. In her shockingly low-cut red pants and seriously scandalous red spangled tank top, it was like watching Shakira but hearing Patsy Cline.

Ava’s good at depression, very good—but not even she could help herself. She laughed hysterically. In all honesty, it’s pretty easy to placate her.

I drained a bottle of Coors Light (who the hell bought that?) I’d found way in the back of the fridge. It had no label and that meant it was free to anyone who wanted it. Electra labels everything because if she doesn’t, she thinks we’ll eat her food. I would never eat her food. She eats the grossest shit I’ve ever seen. I don’t even know what half of it is. She has cheese that looks like Kraft Singles, but when you read the label you see that it’s really fake veggie cheese made from a bunch of supposedly healthy crap. I don’t think anything that color can truly be healthy no matter what it’s made from.

Electra collapsed on the couch and fanned herself with a Lucky magazine. “Any calls, Ava?”

“Just Jeremy. He said to call him, Doll.”

“I don’t know why. He called me at work after he talked to you,” I told her.

“Typical.”

“Yes, and how typical of him to come running as soon as Roman’s touched down on foreign soil,” Electra said, her voice decidedly snotty. I knew she was just jealous that she didn’t have anyone to come running just then. Except for brief moments of kindness or hilarity, Electra really only wears one face. Not much mystery there.

Ava jumped to her feet and slipped and slid over to me across the smooth floor in her socks. I let her fall into me and take my hand in her dainty way. She turned my finger this way and that, trying to catch the light with the diamond. “Are you going to keep seeing Jeremy, Doll?”

“I’m going to keep hanging out with him, yes.”

“He sleeps over, though.”

“Yeah, but it’s not like we’re screwing every time. I just…need that.”

“Need what?”

“Him. His company.”

“Then why are you marrying Roman?”

Ava pretends like she’s dumb but she’s really not. A space-case for sure, but if you watch Jeopardy! with her she busts out with every answer and you get embarrassed that you didn’t know half that shit when Ava of all people did. Ava thinks you have to pretend to be dumb to get what you want. Sometimes it works.

I pushed her off me. “You know why I’m marrying Roman. I love him.”

“But you love Jeremy, too…don’t you?”

“But I love you, too…and I’m not going to stop seeing you, am I?”

She frowned. “I guess it’s kind of the same thing.”

“Yeah, and you can’t just give up a bad habit just like that,” Electra contributed. “Like smoking. You know it’s unhealthy but you do it, anyway.”

“Are you going to quit?” Ava asked me.

“Eventually. When I get tired of waking up with a bad cigarette hangover.”

Electra cracked up. It’s nice to have her empathy sometimes. I welcome the change.

I know Roman would never have an affair. Never! But he’s over saving the citizens of Cameroon from a bleaker fate. I’m here. Huge difference. Excuses, excuses.

“Hey, while we’re on the subject of Stupid, what does he think of you being engaged, anyway?” Electra asked curiously.

“He said good luck, but he meant it sarcastically.”

Ava put her head on my shoulder, all dreamy. “It’s all so romantic, this separation. That you have to wait to be reunited and when you are, you’ll be getting married! It’s just so romantic!”

“Yeah…I know it.” It’s so romantic, I say all the time. Our relationship is just pure romance. A real fantasy. It’s such a fucking fantasy that in the two years that we’ve been together, I think I’ve only seen him on fifteen separate occasions.

I patted Ava’s head. “Why don’t we get you out of that old shirt and go to Barney’s Beanery? Maybe it would do you some good to get out of the house.”

“Okay,” Ava agreed. She got up. “You come too, Electra.”

“I will.” Electra watched her leave the room. She looked impressed. “That was pretty nice of you, Doll.”

I shrugged. “Yeah, well…I’m feeling magnanimous.”

We raised our eyebrows at each other. Then we laughed.

I called Jeremy before we left and told him to meet us. I was looking forward to seeing him. He’s not the world’s easiest person, but we connect. Maybe because I suppose I can be pretty difficult, too. Sometimes we don’t give each other even one inch. Electra says we are so close that we know each other’s every fault, and so we get defensive with each other. She doesn’t know everything, but she is right about him knowing my every fault. I tell him things I could never, ever tell Roman.

At the Beanery I hung out by the bar, sipping pale ale as Electra and Ava played pool. There was a big swarm of guys around their table. Ava practically has Come fuck me over written across her forehead and Electra can’t go anywhere without having men accost her. She loves that. It gives her more power as a feminist because she can say they’re only interested in her body. Well of course they are. She doesn’t have her fucking IQ tattooed on her forehead. And even if she did…with that body no one would care.

“What do you think of that one?” she asked, taking a break to talk to me. She pointed her pool cue in the direction of a pretty boy in a pair of tight jeans and a baby-blue muscle shirt, hair all gelled to perfection.

“Gay,” I replied.

“The fuck! He’s not gay.” She licked the corner of her mouth. “His name’s Troy. That’s manly enough.”

“I still say no guy with a body like that and hair like that is straight in West Hollywood, Electra.”

“He’s a model,” she said, shrugging. “The one on the Calvin Klein billboard outside the Beverly Center. You know, in the underwear?”

“I thought he looked familiar.”

“I’m going for him,” she said, narrowing her eyes.

“Just be careful!” I shouted after her as she pranced across the bar. The last time she tried to woo a gay guy she really frightened the poor fella. It was a traumatic experience for us all. I think she’s convinced that she’s so beautiful she can turn homosexual to heterosexual like it’s simple chemistry. It’s annoying to be around that, but I grudgingly respect such blazing self-confidence.

I waved as I saw Jeremy come in. He walked over to me and tousled my hair. Then we hugged. He stood next to me and we chugged pints as we watched the scene.

“So who’s Harlot O’Hara’s newest conquest?” he asked.

I aimed my glass in the pretty boy’s direction. “What do you think?”

“Gay.”

I laughed. “That’s what I said!”

He took my hand and examined my engagement ring. “Looks fake.”

“Oh, come on.”

“It does!”

I pulled my hand away. “You could congratulate me, you know.”

“Congratulations.”

“Thanks.”

He shook his head. “Marriage, man. It doesn’t seem like you.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. You’re all goofy and shit. You’re all over the place.”

“What a strange thing to say!”

“You’re the strange one, toots. Want another beer?”

I studied his features as he leaned over the bar to order us two more. He has a big nose, I think. And his hair is so dark you can see where the hair on his face is going to pop out even when he’s just shaved. He has deep dark eyes that are blue and gray like the ocean on a stormy afternoon.

Sometimes I kid myself and say that Jeremy is the love of my life. Sometimes I want to murder him. He’s cold and critical and not very supportive. But the way he makes me feel…I just can’t explain it. I can’t even explain it to myself. He makes me feel so good. He makes me feel like I am not alone. He makes me feel safe. I don’t tell him these things.

Electra came back looking smug. “He’s not gay. He’s coming home with us.”

“Good for you.”

She eyed Jeremy while his back was turned. “My God, Doll, what is that shirt he’s got on? He looks like he just got off his shift at the hospital.”

In reality he writes copy for the Associated Press. He tells people he’s a reporter but it’s not like he’s scooping stories, really. He just takes the words and feeds them into the computer and then later they show up under someone else’s byline and never Jeremy Flowers.

I nudged her. “Let’s bail soon. I want to go after I drink this last beer.”

“I’m almost ready, too. I’m eager to introduce that pretty boy to my bed.” She laughed as she sashayed off.

I watched her go. She’s a funny girl. She would never feel an ounce of guilt over anything she does when Josh isn’t looking. Do I feel guilty? Of course. But like I told Ava. I need Jeremy. I can’t explain just how or why. I just know I do. Maybe it’s that he can relate to me in some twisted way. We both want the best we can get, but even when it’s great, we’re never sure if we’ve got it. We both want to get somewhere, only we’re not sure just where.

Or maybe it’s just that I adore him in a very strange, mystically irritating way. Maybe it’s as simple as that.

“What an awful fucking world,” Jeremy was saying later as we watched the late news and it seemed like everything was about killing and kidnapping and terrorism and hate crimes. He was lying on my bed with me and taking up most of the space. He’s a big, tall man so he’s allowed to do that. I’d say just a little taller than Roman but much paunchier.

“You’re not kidding.”

He turned on his side and looked at me.

“What?” I asked. Two picture frames had already gone over on my desk from Electra’s sleigh bed knocking against the wall. She and the pretty boy were shouting from her room. I couldn’t count all the times I’d heard, “Oh, yeah! Uh-huh, that’s right! Give it to me, baby, give it to me!”

“Nothing. Just thinking about you and my girlfriend.”

Jeremy’s girlfriend is named Pristina. I laughed my ass off when he told me that. He rolled his eyes and told me to get an encyclopedia and that really insulted me. Apparently Pristina’s of Eastern European descent. Whatever. I could give a fuck where she came from. And I certainly don’t need to get an encyclopedia. I’m quite positive he didn’t know the intricacies of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia before Pristina told him of how she was named for her parents’ birthplace in Kosovo. He won’t even play against me in Trivial Pursuit because he knows I will kick his ass in every category except Sports & Leisure.

She sounds exotic and interesting, but trust me. She’s not. And she has a mustache. She really does. I saw this infomercial recently for this roll-on hair remover. You just roll it right on and your hair wipes right off. I thought about ordering one and having it shipped to her.

He seems to find her unattractive, but then acts as though she is the loveliest woman in the world. He seems to dislike her personality, but then acts as though she is the most delightful woman in the world. I can’t really figure out why he stays with her. But if I were to ask, he’d just shake his head at me like I so do not get it.

She works as an in-house nurse to a very sick and very wealthy old man who has been hanging on to life with an iron grip for years now. She is there five days a week and sometimes six. There are several other nurses who attend to him as well, and all of them are secretly hoping that he will remember them in his will. The whole setup reminds me of this porno movie I saw once where all these nurses were helping these con artists conspire to steal this dying man’s money, or something like that. They spent most of the movie giving one another oral sex. I can’t remember how it ended. I was probably too busy giving oral sex myself.

“So what are your deep thoughts on Pristina and myself?” I asked.

“Well, I’ve figured out her big problem. She’s too goddamn demanding.”

“I’m sure.”

“You know what your big problem is?”

“What’s that?”

“You have no feelings, Doll. No emotion. You’re so fucking apathetic. That’s what your problem is.”

“I think I have a lot of feelings,” I informed him. “Just ’cause I don’t go around crying and giggling all the time doesn’t mean I have no feelings.”

He gave me a look. “Are you even happy about being engaged?”

“Give me a little credit. If you really want to know, I am very happy. I’m just not going to go on and on to you about it.”

“Why not?”

I gave him a look. “Jeremy.”

“Doll.”

“I’m just not going to sit here and spew my engagement bliss to you. Get it?”

“I guess.” I noticed his breathing was deep and uneven. “But can I ask you something?”

“You know you can.”

“How are you so sure that marrying Roman is the right thing to do?”

I turned on my side and propped myself up on an elbow, so that we were face-to-face. “Because he’s a wonderful man who wants to give me everything and share his life with me. And I love him.”

He gazed at me. “I wish it were so easy for me.”

“What do you mean?”

“To want to share my life with just one person.”

“Oh.”

“Don’t think that means that you’re the reason I don’t want to marry Pristina,” he added quickly. “I wouldn’t want to give you the wrong impression.”

He’s not my favorite person. He is so my favorite person. Somehow I’m never busy when he wants to do something. When I first started bringing him around, Electra listened to him preach and do his number for about ten minutes. Then she decided to hate him. She said she’d never met somebody who had so little conviction. She said in a really sick way, we were great together.

He calls me almost every night. And we don’t even have to say a word sometimes when we’re with each other. We just breathe and it’s fine like that.

“You want to have sex?” he asked.

“Sure.”

“I’m bored,” he told me, right in the middle. “I can’t finish.”

“Then don’t.”

He took my arm and examined it. “Your skin is practically alabaster, Doll. You need to hit the beach…get a tan.”

In L.A. everyone is supposed to be tanned. It’s part of the image that you live your life under the sun. Everyone is supposed to be beautiful, too. Sometimes everyone is beautiful.

Jeremy’s hair gets oily really fast and so does his face. He snarls when he’s angry and his lip curls up and his teeth bare like he’s a big cat hissing at prey. He wears stupid shirts and he’s a jackass and a real jerk. He lectures me. He tells me I’m boring in bed. He’s beautiful.

Chapter 5

“I need a date, Doll. I need to book the church,” my mom said on the phone the next day.

“Aren’t you getting a little ahead of yourself, booking the church already?” I asked, glancing at the calendar. Yep, still August. For some reason the stick man was wearing a grass skirt. “Roman’s not coming back until February.”

Karen rapped on the wall. “You have to book the venue the first thing—haven’t I taught you anything?” she screamed.

“March,” I said into the phone.

“Okay, I’m looking at the calendar. The 8th and the 15th are both good.”

“How ’bout March 15?” I heard my dad say in the background. “That was the day Julius Caesar was assassinated.”

“Oh, be a little more macabre, Arnold!”

“No, I like that,” I said.

“March 15 it is, then,” my mom replied. “Now, honey, are you coming home at all to see Maddy before she has to go back to school? She’s getting back from Europe next week.”

My sister is nineteen and will be a sophomore at Stanford. She has spent the summer in Paris, working as an au pair to some French family to pay her way. I think that’s really weird. I spent the summer in Paris once and was totally fine to let my parents pick up the check.

“I’m really busy, Mom. I don’t see myself coming home anytime soon,” I replied.

“You’re not that busy!” Karen shouted.

“Well, you’re going to have to come home at some point,” my mom informed me. “To do marriage counseling with Reverend Nelson.”

“Christ, Mom, you have got to be kidding me!”

“I am,” she laughed. “Reverend Nelson says he’ll allow for just one session when Roman gets back.”

“Better thank Grandma Jane for that one, Doll,” my dad said in the background. “She slipped a big donation into the collection plate last Sunday with your name on it.”

“You still have to come home at some point,” my mom said.

I haven’t been home in months. I can’t cross the county line without some childhood monster jumping out at me. I see them at all the old haunts—Coastal Cone, Santino’s Pizza Parlor, Foster’s Freeze. Only now the little demons are all grown up. Still, I remember them and they remember me. No matter what I do or who I become. It’s like a creepy Never-Never Land.

I popped into Ava’s salon to have my hair cut after work. Normally I would avoid senseless, excessive trimming, but with Ava being the receptionist and making my salon appointments, I can never get out of it. In her salon, they play nothing but techno and everyone has colored streaks in their hair like cotton-candy pink and bubblegum blue and apple green. Ava may be a “starving” actress of sorts, but not really starving because her father keeps her in large amounts of cash. She only keeps that job for the social interaction and the deal on color.

She needed a ride home but she had to work until six, so I went down to Aldo and bought a pair of expensive black slides. Then I went over to The Limited and got a few new sweaters. Sometimes it’s sweet liberty to spend money you don’t have—almost like you’re living someone else’s life. Then you get the bill and oh, no—you realize it really was you and this is your life.

“Guess what?” Ava giggled as we drove home listening to Madonna’s Immaculate Collection. She had fresh lavender highlights and a cheeky glow. “Dylan likes me. And I like him.”

Last night while we were out Dylan left this very keen message on our answering machine. He played the whole song “Ava Adore” and hung up when it was over. If you listen to the lyrics of “Ava Adore” you’d realize it’s a song about some seriously messed-up love.

But what a smooth move, really. That’s the way a big dorky asshole cajoles you into falling for him, by impressing you with his smooth moves. I told you I was onto his methods.

“Oh, shit! Don’t think I didn’t see this one coming! The fuck!”

Ava had just broken the news to Electra.

“Ava…not Dylan,” Electra pleaded, when Ava told us he was on his way over. We were having Baja Fresh on the patio in the backyard and a homeless man we call Fret was standing on the other side of the gate, in the alley, asking us if he could please have some money. We call him Fret because when people say no to him he goes back and forth with his hand in his mouth, saying, “Oh, dear, oh, dear.”

“Get out of here before I call the fucking police!” Electra finally screamed, throwing something at him. It was that limp green onion they always wrap up with your burrito. He ran off before she could chuck the slice of lime that comes with it.

“Electra, that was mean,” Ava told her, frowning.

“Well?” she asked haughtily, throwing her hair over one shoulder. Electra has the longest, shiniest brown hair ever. Stunning. She is fucking gorgeous.

“Well, you shouldn’t be so mean,” Ava lectured. “The man is homeless!”

“Yes, and I work for a living,” Electra replied, spooning up some of her rice. She eats a burrito from the center and never touches it with her hands. Her mother’s family name is on a bottle of whiskey. Her father’s family name is on a pack of cigarettes. Electra doesn’t like it when you talk about all that. She thinks it’s gauche for people to go around flaunting their wealth. Now check out those monogrammed Gucci slides of hers, and the matching bag.

“Back to Dylan,” I said, pouring more margarita into my glass from the pitcher on the center of the table.

“Yeah, why him?” Electra demanded.

Ava looked thoughtful. “He says I’m a star in his sky.”

Electra looked at her as though she were pitiful. “Oh, please. Must we go through this galactic debacle again?”

And the whacked-out milk lecture starts in five, four, three, two…

“You need to learn that women are like dairy products to men, sugar. They’re fresh before use, and spoil quickly. Women friends are like milk. Something substantial to drink if there’s not an appealing alternative in sight—like a Coke. Right now you’re like an unopened carton of milk to Dylan. And man, he’s gotten thirsty. So he wants to drink you because you’re right there and there’s no Coke and he’s fucking thirsty! That’s all it is! So fine, but when he trashes you, don’t be surprised. You won’t even go to the recycling bin because milk fucking spoils! Hello!” Electra shrieked.

“You’re totally stuck in the Milky Way, Electra, and besides—I’m not trying to alter the course of the universe,” Ava informed her. “I just like him.”

“Yeah, well…he’ll stop thinking of you as his fucking star as soon as you start thinking he’s pulled down the moon!”

Ava looked to be considering this. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure,” Electra said graciously.

“What makes you the authority on absolutely fucking everything?”

“Oh, ha ha, really funny!” Electra bitched as Ava and I collapsed into giggles. “Let’s have a gathering, then. I can’t handle Dylan on his own. Doll, you call some people.”

I called Jeremy even though I suspected he was with Pristina. He was. He told me over a bunch of restaurant racket that he may come over later because she was on call. If Pristina were kidnapped and held for ransom and I had a lot of money, I would put it all into mutual funds and not even feel guilty.

I hung out in the living room with Andy Whitcomb, who is my best guy friend. We grew up around the block from each other and have been pals since our moms were in our elementary school PTA. I even took him with me to college, which we attended at Chapman University in Orange. Andy is just like me. And just like me, no way in hell was he moving back home after graduation. So he lives nearby, just off Third Street near the Beverly Center. Everyone thinks he’s gay because he works in couture at Nordstrom and his apartment is beyond Pottery Barn. Fashion sense aside, he’s not gay at all. He is actually a real sleaze. When he talks about the female sex organ he calls it “trim.” One time he was hooking up with a girl and he found a hair on her nipple all long and dark just like it was a pube. Instead of ignoring it he bit it off with his teeth. When I heard that story I laughed for an hour. Andy gets laid a lot.

“Do you want to be in my wedding?” I asked him as he strummed his guitar and I looked through a Victoria’s Secret catalog for a pair of sexy boots I just know I saw in there. Have to have them. Ava and Dylan were making out on the other couch. I am a total voyeur. I kept sneaking glances at them.

“Yeah, sure,” he replied. “But there is no way in hell I’m wearing a dress.”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m sure you can wear a tuxedo just like the other guys, Andy. Only you’ll have to stand on my side.”

I know this is the kind of thing everyone will ooh and ah over and think is the most adorable thing they’ve ever heard in their entire lives.

He nodded. “I’ll do it, then. Hey, you know something funny?”

“What’s that?”

“This’ll only be the second wedding I’ve ever been in.”

“The reason behind that, Andy, is that the majority of your bozo friends will be lifelong confirmed bachelors,” I predicted.

“Let’s hope so,” he said. “But don’t you want to know what’s so funny about it?”

“Enlighten me.”

“The other wedding I was in was Dan’s. Remember? Ha ha ha!”

Andy is cute but too much of a scamp. He has brown hair and impish brown eyes and a wiry build like a soccer player.

“You’re a fucker,” I told him, glaring.

“I am and I won’t deny it,” he practically giggled.

He was referring, of course, to Dan Michaelson. My high school sweetheart. Though our breakup took place years ago, we have sustained a heinous feud. This feud spreads out over time and geography. It has invisible, toxic tentacles.

“You’ve got to admit it’s kind of ironic,” Andy laughed. “I mean, wasn’t the original plan for you and Dan to get married at the same time? To each other?”

“Yeah, when we were seventeen,” I said, starting to get itchy. I feel sick talking about Dan and Andy knows it. “Anyway, you just take that Dan shit and shove it. Now, promise you’ll really be one of my bridesmaids?”

“I promise, Doll. It’ll be a great honor.” He winked at me. “Want me to play ‘Jane Says’ for you?”

“Sure.” He thinks it’s one of my favorite songs because my favorite grandmother, my father’s mother, calls me Jane. She doesn’t like my first name at all. Dalton is actually my mother’s maiden name, and since my mom was an only child and had no cousins, there was nobody to carry it on in the traditional way. Grandma Jane said Dalton was an awful name to give to a cute little baby girl and she was going to call me by my middle name, and always. Grandma Mary, my mother’s mother, said there was absolutely nothing wrong with the name Dalton and that she would never understand why Grandma Jane had to be so hateful about it, especially because everyone got in on that Doll thing, anyway. Only a few people call me Dalton as it is. My mother when she’s very angry with me, my father when he’s very angry with me, and Roman. He says Dalton is a noble name and that he can’t say Doll with a straight face, it’s so ludicrous.

Anyway, it’s not one of my favorite songs, really. It’s just one of the only songs Andy can play and definitely one of the only songs he can sing without making you want to run for cover. Case in point—he finished singing “Jane Says” and started belting out “Everlong.” Oh. My. God.

I zoned and pretended that instead of an ICRA project director, Roman was a famous musician away on tour and I would soon be joining him. We would ride in a big bus all across the country with a hot tub in the back and drink champagne and when he gave a concert he would dedicate a special love ballad just for me as I watched from backstage. In the song he would refer to me as “My Girl,” just like Jim Morrison. When people asked about his love life in interviews he would say he would never dream of going anywhere without taking his girl with him. I would make tank tops out of concert T-shirts with the band’s name on the front and wear them with jeans and a leather jacket as I posed next to him for press photos. I would hang out with fashion designers and models. Fans and groupies would hate me and say they wouldn’t know what Roman even saw in me.

Jeremy showed up around midnight. Ava and Dylan had retired to her bedroom and Andy had joined everyone else outside. I didn’t know who half those people were. That happens a lot around here. They were being too loud.

“Wow, am I glad to get away from that,” he said, flopping down on the couch beside me.

“That being Pristina?” I asked.

He pulled his hands down over his face. “Her friends are such bitches. It makes me love coming over here.”

I gave him a skeptical look. “Why, because my friends aren’t bitches? Come on.”

“No, because nobody here cares. Anything goes and you may get shit for it, but nobody really minds. Around her friends I have to act totally different. I have to act all…I don’t know, like I have to carry her purse and shit.”

“Oh.”

“Do you mind if I go see who’s outside?”

“Go for it.”

I watched him leave the room. What a strange creature, really. And what a pushy broad, that Pristina!

Dylan came out of Ava’s room with hooded eyes and a lit cigarette hanging out of his mouth. He put his hands on his hips and peered at me, shirtless. Dylan is not unattractive. He’s sexy the way all scoundrels are. He doesn’t work out, you can tell, but he has a solid, manly body. He has green eyes.

“Hey, would you ever carry a girl’s purse?” I asked him. “Like, if you were dating her?”

“Fuck no,” he replied. “What kind of sick dude would ever want to date a girl like that?”

My point exactly.

Jeremy returned with two bottles of Heineken and handed me one. I guessed the beer stash was dwindling because Jeremy knows I hate Heineken and will only drink it as a last resort. He turned on the TV to see if there were any good movies on.

I watched the way his shoulders hunched forward as he leaned onto his knees to change channels. His face was earnest as he observed the activity on the screen. I wonder if Pristina thinks she’s a lucky girl. I hope she does. I know I’m a lucky girl because when you strip away all of the foolishness and weirdness and constant bickering between us, it’s actually nice to have a friend like Jeremy. It’s nice to have a friend who would rather come keep you company than go home and be alone…even if to keep you company means that you’re both being adulterous.

We slept quietly in my bed that night, on sheets printed with fish, holding each other in a comforting embrace. Occasionally he would wake up and kiss my neck and stroke my hair. Sometimes that’s all you need—to have somebody there—to get you up the next morning and make you think about how sweet it feels to have warm blood in your veins and hot breath in your lungs and a whole life that’s all yours to live and live and live.

Chapter 6

After checking the mail each day for two weeks, I was excited to find a postcard from Cameroon waiting for me on a Friday afternoon. On the back it said simply, Love YOU! This was a sign that a package of strange foreign goodies would soon be coming my way, with a long handwritten letter.

Roman doesn’t send e-mails. He says that such casual communication is at the root of today’s relationship problems, because you just go ahead and type what you’re thinking. He says when you speak you stop to think about what you’re about to say. He says e-mail is cold and harsh. I ask him, Don’t you go ahead and write what you’re thinking with a pen? He says no. He says you carefully craft every sentence because there is no backspace, no delete, and so you don’t want to make a bunch of mistakes. Mistakes make a letter look messy.

And his letters are certainly beautiful. I feel like they should be read in a special place, so on occasion I have driven seventy miles up the coast to read them by the Point. It is one of my favorite seaside spots in all of California. I get out of the car and feel the Pacific wind on my face and smell the salty air that reminds me of being a little girl coming home from the beach, with wet towels in the back of the car and sand in my ice cream and a song on the radio about a girl named Peg done up in blueprint blue. Then I pop in on Lily and we go eat at Yolanda’s and make big cheesy pigs of ourselves and try to bargain for the big juicy black olive that comes on top of the enchilada plate. Then we go to Baskin-Robbins for a pint of mint chocolate chip, and take it home to her mother and Al, and her mother gives me a “cold soda for the road” which is never name brand because Kitty can be cheap like that, but it’s delicious all the same.

I decided to call him.

“Baby! Is everything okay?”

“Fine,” I replied. “I just got your postcard. Thanks!”

“Too bad you can’t send me yourself by mail like that,” he said. “It would make things a hell of a lot easier for me over here.”

“I could send myself by plane,” I joked, only half kidding.

“Yeah, but I’m so busy here you would never even see me. So how’s everything going, Dalton? Making wedding plans?”

“Yeah, I’m on it. Booked us a church and everything. Unfortunately, we have to go to marriage counseling with Reverend Nelson when you get back. Just once, though.”

“I think we can handle the critical cleric our way. Let’s get tossed before we go and then argue the whole time just for fun,” he suggested with a laugh.

“Now you’re talking!”

“Listen, Landon’s coming in on an early flight. He says we’re just having breakfast but I know he’s really coming to review me, so I have to get back to bed.”

“Okay. Miss you.”

“Miss you, too.”

That night I took Ava and Electra to the opening of a new club on Sunset, the reigning celebrity “It” girl’s Monaco. Charisma had put together the premiere party and the free alcohol flowed like an endless river. Sometimes I love this plastic town when I’m wasted. I love how everybody is somebody even if they’re nobody. I like painting on a whole new face and wearing black-on-black sparkles and teetering around in to-die-for shoes with to-die-by heels. I like how everybody’s pretty, and important, even if half the time they’re making shit up or really glamorizing their lives so they won’t seem inferior to anyone else. Everybody does it. Even me! It’s all part of the act.

Ava and Electra brought their new handbags, but I was without because Jeremy was with Pristina. If Pristina needed a transplant and I was a positive match, I would run away to Mexico and let her search for another one while I was wasting away in Margaritaville and loving every second of it.

He called around eleven the next morning. I was watching Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning and painting my toenails glittery green. Sometimes Jeremy and I prank-phone-call each other by leaving clips from our favorite horror movies on each other’s voice mails at work. These are like our love letters. Electra says we are sick.

“What’d you do last night?” he yawned into the phone.

“I got loaded.”

“Oh. I hung out with Pristina.”

Big news. “Oh, really, how was that?”

“Typical.”

“Figures.”

“You want to do something today?”

“If you want to come over, we’ll figure it out.”

He came over while the movie was still on and I was still in bed. I was wearing white flannel pajamas. He got in bed with me in his clothes and pulled me close. We were soft and warm together.

I closed my eyes and put my hand down his pants. He put his down mine. We didn’t say anything for the longest time. In the background people screamed and hollered as they were hunted down and murdered in innovative and amusing ways. He was wearing Woods by Abercrombie & Fitch. I turn into absolute jelly when he wears that.

“I was thinking about you last night…when I was with her,” he breathed into my ear.

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah.” He moved his hand down.

“And what were you thinking?”

“I was thinking about how Pristina always shaves.”

“That’s not thinking about me. That’s thinking about Pristina.”

“I was only thinking it because you don’t shave sometimes.”

“I’m not trying to impress anyone.”

He sighed into my neck. “I was just saying. I guess it’s okay how you don’t shave sometimes.”

“Thanks.” I ran my fingers up and down his back, underneath his shirt. “I really feel like I need your approval.”

“You’re so touchy sometimes, Doll. It’s a wonder I even stick around!”

He stuck to me, anyway.

“You ruined my pedicure,” I told him, after. I wagged a foot in his face so he could see. I was reclining against the headboard. I was smoking a cigarette. He was sprawled across the bed on his stomach.

“Tragedy.” He crawled over me. He picked up my nail polish off the nightstand. He flicked on the stereo. I’d last been listening to my favorite homemade eighties CD compilation. We’re talking some serious classics by the likes of Toto, Gerry Rafferty and Juice Newton.

“You have some seriously gay taste in music,” he told me. He took one foot and began painting.

“You’re so generous with your compliments.”

“That was probably the best sex I ever had. Now, hold still.”

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