As I’d packed, the night before I left Ireland, I’d told Anna and Helen the very same thing. ‘My life is over.’
‘It’s not.’ Anna had been visibly distressed.
‘Don’t patronize her,’ Helen had urged.
‘You’ll meet someone else – you’re young,’ Anna said doubtfully.
‘Ah, she’s not really,’ Helen interjected. ‘Not at thirty-three.’
‘And you’re good-looking,’ Anna struggled on.
‘You know, she’s not bad,’ Helen admitted grudgingly. ‘You have nice hair. And your skin isn’t bad. For your age.’
‘All that clean-living,’ Anna said.
‘All that clean-living,’ Helen echoed solemnly.
I sighed. My living wasn’t that clean, it just wasn’t as unclean as theirs, and my good-for-my-age skin was thanks to slathering on so much expensive night-cream that I used to slide off my pillows, but I let it go.
‘And… ‘Helen said thoughtfully. I leant forward on the bed, all the better to be praised. ‘… You have a lovely handbag.’
I sat back, disappointed.
‘Funny that,’ she mused. ‘I’d never have put you down as an expensive-handbag kind of a girl.’
I tried to protest; I am an expensive-handbag kind of a girl, I’m almost sure of it. But I wasn’t getting into another row with Helen, where I tried to convince her I was irresponsible with money.
Besides, as it happens, it had been Garv who had given me the lovely handbag in question.
‘In your granny!’ Helen had chuckled. ‘You expect me to believe Mr Peel-an-orange-in-his-pocket would shell out over a ton for a sac à main. That’s French, you know. Anyway, you know the way your life is over? You won’t be needing your handbag any more, will you?’
But I wouldn’t surrender it, which led her to remark suspiciously, ‘Your life can’t be that over then, can it?’
‘Shut up, you’re getting my car,’ I said.
‘But it’s only for the month. And I have to share it with her!’ She jerked her head at Anna.
Then I heard something which catapulted me right back to the present. ‘Ice-cream sandwich!’
I sat up on my towel. A young man was passing by, staggering under the weight of ice-cream that he hadn’t a hope of selling; not to this crowd of anorexics.
‘Popsicles?’ he called desolately. ‘Blue Gelatos, Cherry keys?’
I felt sorry for him. And hungry. ‘Go on,’ I said. ‘Give me an ice-cream sandwich.’
We conducted our business briskly, then he was once more on his profitless way. I wondered if anyone ever shouted abuse or threw stones at him as he plied his high-fat, high-sugar goods along the beach. ‘Garn! Clear orf.’ The way people do to drug-pushers in other communities.
And then I was alone again. Suddenly I was very glad I was in California, because I could blame the horrible feeling of being out of step with the rest of the human race on my jet lag. It made it not my responsibility, and I could always try fooling myself that I’d feel perfectly normal in a few days.
Watched hungrily by the two Scandinavian-looking girls, I ate my ice-cream. Their expressions were so avid I felt quite uncomfortable. In fact I nearly offered them a bite. I couldn’t help feeling that if this was a book, someone would have invited me to join in a game of volleyball or at least struck up a conversation with me – the lifeguard or another sunbather. But the only person who spoke to me all day was the ice-cream seller. And I suspected I was the only person who spoke to him.
8
Late afternoon, Emily picked me up from the beach. When we got home there was still no phone call from David Crowe. Her desperation filled the house. ‘No news is good news,’ I tried.
‘Wrong,’ Emily said.
‘No news is bad news. They keep the bad news from you and cover themselves in glory with any good news.’
‘Well, you ring him then.’
A bitter laugh from Emily. ‘It’s easier to get an on-set pass to a Tom Cruise movie than to talk to an agent who doesn’t want to talk to you.’
But she rang him anyway. And he was ‘not at his desk right now’.
‘I bet he wouldn’t be “not at his desk right now” if it was Ron Bass on the line,’ she said gloomily.
I took it that Ron Bass was some hot-shot screenwriter.
‘I feel a strange but compelling urge to get bollocksed-drunk,’ she said. ‘Could your jet lag handle going out this evening?’
‘What have you in mind?’ Would I be forced to go out with a gang of girls and dance to ‘I Will Survive’, as always seemed to happen to women who’d just split from their men?
‘How about dinner somewhere nice?’
‘Lovely!’ Relief that there would be no Gloria Gaynor made me sound more enthusiastic than I felt.
‘That’s the spirit. You know what?’ she said thoughtfully. ‘What you need to do is let your hair down a little.’ Even though Emily was very fond of Garv, she’d always thought that I’d missed out on the necessary rites-of-passage high-jinks by getting married so young. ‘Go a bit mad for yourself while you’re here.’
‘I’ll see,’ I said noncommittally. Jesus, little did I know…
‘We’ll call Lara. Lara likes a drink. And Connie. And Troy. And Justin.’
A quick round of phone calls, and then she just went and got that really pulled-together look. Just bang-bang-bang, like it’s easy or something. The dress, the heels, the bag, the hair, all smooth and shiny, shiny, shiny.
Then she opened her wondrous make-up bag and shared with me some of her knowledge. Lotion was smeared on my lips, ‘to get that bee-stung look’. My eyelashes were curled with a little machine (I believe it may have been called an eyelash curler). Then she produced a little tube and said, ‘This’ll get rid of your jet-lag bags.’
‘No need,’ I countered smugly. ‘I have my Radiant-whatchamacallit.’
‘Radiant, schmadiant. Wait till you try this.’ She dotted some cream under my eyes and – dramatically – I actually felt my skin contract.
‘What is it?! Who is it by?’ I was all set to run out to a cosmetic counter and hand over the small fortune this magic gear would undoubtedly cost.
‘It’s Anusol.’
‘Huh?’
‘Piles ointment. Five dollars a tube, works a dream, all the models use it.’
Do you see what I mean about her always being ahead of the game?
Then a few seconds on my hair with the straightening tongs, and some aloe vera on my ring finger – I’d burnt the tender skin where my wedding ring used to be (which sounded like the title of a particularly maudlin country and western song).
Emily marched to the door, all snappy little sounds. The tap-tap of her heels, the crack of her handbag clasp, the click of her lighter, the clack-clack of her nails. I loved it.
We were going to some place on Sunset, she said. The Troy person couldn’t come, nor could Connie, who was up to her tonsils in wedding arrangements, but apparently Lara the jar-head and Justin could.
‘Are either of them married?’ I asked casually.
Emily laughed, ‘God, no. Both single.’
‘Single single?’
‘Is there any other kind?’
‘Divorced single.’
With a sympathetic look she said, ‘No. They’re single single.’
As we drove along, palm trees were silhouetted against the skyline. The sun was setting and the sky was layered with colours: pale blue low down, rising and darkening overhead to a deep luminous blue, in which the first stars twinkled like pinholes in fabric.
We passed the neon lights of gas stations, motels offering waterbeds, billboards in Spanish, used-car lots, signs for Mexican food, chiropractors and houses with really high numbers. There couldn’t possibly be 22,000 houses on this road. Could there?
‘Maybe,’ Emily said. ‘Sunset is about twenty miles long.’
Sunset. She means Sunset Boulevard. I’m driving along Sunset Boulevard, I
thought, feeling like I was in a film.
At some traffic intersection a man stood holding a ragged piece of cardboard, which said in big, crooked letters WIFE WANTED. There was even a phone number. He looked presentable enough, that was the weird thing.
‘There we are, Maggie,’ Emily indicated him. ‘May the best woman win.’
‘I’m already married,’ I said automatically.
Funny how you forget.
We pulled up in front of a big, white hotel, then some young men were upon us. For a mad moment I thought it might be because of my bee-stung lips and curly eyelashes, but they turned out to be valet parkers.
‘So you give them your car key and they park the car and bring it back when you want it!’ I’d heard of such a thing, but never before seen it in action. I find parking immensely stressful so I raved with praise for this most civilized of notions.
‘But you pay, they’re not doing it out of the goodness of their hearts,’ Emily said hastily. ‘And you’ve to give the driver a tip. In we go.’
It was a packed, vibey place. Everyone looked tanned and buffed and gorgeous. However, I wasn’t asked to leave. I liked them for that.
As soon as we were seated, Emily said, ‘Here’s Lara.’
There was a tall, blonde woman swinging herself past tables, and all I could think when I looked at her was: rolling fields of wheat. She had a gilded quality, as if she’d been dipped in golden syrup. There were a lot of beautiful people in that restaurant and she was possibly the best looking of them all.
‘Heeeyyy,’ she exclaimed at me, when Emily introduced us.
‘Hey,’ I replied. Normally I’d say ‘Hello’ or ‘Nice to meet you’, but I was keen to fit in.
The waiter arrived. Or should I say, the curtain went up. I’d been told that all waiting staff in Los Angeles were resting actors, and this Adonis was so beautiful and so ‘on’ that he just had to be a thesp.
‘Hey ladies,’ he dazzled. ‘My name is Deyan, I’m your server this evening and I’m going to give until it hurts.’
‘Who is that?’ Lara’s face, as she gazed at him, was puzzled. ‘Kevin Kline in In and Out? Or that guy from Will and Grace?’
Not you again, went Deyan’s alarmed look. ‘It’s my interpretation of Jack from Will and Grace,’ he admitted reluctantly.
‘I knew it!’ Lara was radiant. ‘You know what, Deyan? I’m not really in the mood for Jack tonight. Serve us in the style of…’ She swept a blue light over me and Emily. ‘Who do we want? Choose an actor. Arnie? Ralph Fiennes?’
‘I like Nicolas Cage,’ I confessed.
‘How about it?’ Lara questioned Deyan.
‘Which movie?’ he asked sulkily.
‘Wild at Heart?’ I suggested tentatively. ‘City of Angels?’
He became still and faraway, and I thought he was disgusted at my suggestions. Then his entire body assumed a lanky, boneless quality. ‘Rockin’ good news,’ he drawled. He had Nic’s heavy-lidded charm right down!
It was only when I heard myself laugh that I realized it was a long time since I’d found anything funny.
‘C’n I git you beautiful ladies a drink?’ Deyan husked slowly.
‘Vodkatini with Gray Goose, no ice and four olives,’ said Lara.
‘Apple Martini with Tanqueray and cracked ice,’ Emily decreed.
‘The same,’ I mumbled. ‘The apple one.’
‘Peanut, you got it!’
I had to admit to being absolutely astounded by this Lara. When I’d first clapped eyes on her swingy, honey-streaked hair and her taut, gold-leaf body, I’d immediately decided that if you looked up ‘Airhead’ in the dictionary, you’d see a picture of her. But she was intelligent as well as beautiful. I wasn’t entirely convinced this was fair.
Across by the bar, Deyan stopped abruptly, dropped as if he was about to kneel on one knee, but stopped about a foot from the floor, swivelled his body back to us, pointed a finger and winked. He mouthed some words, one of which was definitely ‘peanut’. I had to hand it to him, he was really working hard.
Then he was back with the drinks. Still in character he began, ‘And today’s specials are…’
Right away my brain went into Screensaver mode. I couldn’t help it. I wanted to know what the specials were, but something to do with maintaining eye contact for such a long time seemed to interfere with my hearing. It always happened.
‘… blah blah blah done in a blueberry blah…’
‘Ooh,’ I murmured appreciatively, nodding my head, still locked in that hideous eye-meet.
‘… blah blah blah served with blah blah and blah.’
‘Did anyone listen to that?’ Lara asked when he was gone. ‘I always get ADD when they start.’
Overjoyed that it wasn’t just me, I exclaimed, ‘It’s like when someone gives me directions. All my energy goes into nodding my head and looking attentive.’
Lara declared. ‘You go!’ (Big US of A compliment.) ‘Me too. I always get the start – “Make a right.” Then it’s like they scrambled the words and I only get, like, one in twenty –’
‘– “Second set of lights,”’ I chipped in.
–“Left on Doheny.” Where d’ya find her?’ She looked at Emily and pointed at me. ‘She’s great!’
Her effusive friendliness was over the top, but it still burnt off some of the sense of my own defectiveness. Who was this Lara? Apparently, she worked in a production company.
‘A movie-production company?’
She gave me a surprised look that said, Are there any other kinds? before nodding. ‘Sure, a movie one. An independent.’
‘That means,’ Emily said, ‘they make intelligent movies.’
‘But not much money,’ Lara laughed.
‘Busy week?’ Emily asked.
‘No. Next coupla weeks I’ll be pulling together the launch party for Doves but right now I’m taking some down time.’
‘I’ve had way too much down time,’ Emily sighed.
I listened attentively. ‘Down time’ – it seemed to mean ‘quietish patch’. One of the things I love about coming to the States is getting the new slang before it comes out in Ireland. To my knowledge, I was the first native of the Blackrock hinterland to use the phrase ‘no-brainer’, acquired on a trip to New York to see Rachel. It’s a bit like seeing all the big films six months before they come out at home.
‘I’ll probably have nothing but down time for the rest of my life.’ Emily was becoming maudlin. ‘Bastard agent.’
‘It’s three days!’ Lara admonished. ‘Give the guy a chance.’
‘Five days. He’s had it since last Friday.’
‘Three working days. It’s nothing. And how’s the new script going?’
‘Badly. Very badly’
‘’Cos your confidence is so low. Hey, here’s Justin.’
Justin wasn’t what you might call a looker. He had glasses, short, tight black curls, and he was sort of plump. Although to be fair, all he was was probably a pound or two over his optimum weight, but because everyone else in LA was so slender he looked tubby by comparison.
‘Sorry I’m late, guys.’ His voice was quite high-pitched for a man. ‘Desiree’s real depressed and I didn’t want to leave her.’
I thought Desiree must be his girlfriend, but it turned out to be his dog.
Emily told me that Justin was an actor.
‘Would I have seen you in anything?’ I asked him.
‘Maybe.’ But he didn’t seem to be taking the question too seriously. I play expendable fat guys. You know when they beam down to a planet and one of the crew gets zapped by an unfriendly native? That’s me. Or a cop who gets killed in a shoot-out.’
‘Don’t knock it,’ Emily said. ‘You’ve got more work than you can cope with.’
‘’Sright! In Planet Movie fat guys needed to be expended a lot.
‘So!’ he said to Emily. ‘What happened with your blind-date dinner party on Saturday?’
‘Oh God,’ Emil
y groaned. ‘Well, I get there and Al, the guy they’d lined up for me, looked OK.’
‘Always a bad sign,’ said Lara drily.
‘He tells me he works in the organ-donor business, and I decided I had to fall in love with him. This man saves lives, I thought. So I said, “Tell me about your work.”’
‘Big mistake in this town,’ Lara said to me. ‘You ask someone to pass the water jug and you get a ten-minute monologue about how great they are.’
Emily nodded. ‘He has to go to car wrecks to check out the dead people’s organs, so he starts going on about an accident site. The man had been – this is awful – decapitated. “His head was thirty yards away,” Al says. “They didn’t find it until the next day. It was off the highway, in someone’s front yard. The dog found it.”’
‘Ew,’ Lara and Justin shuddered.
‘He enjoyed telling me just that bit too much,’ Emily agreed. ‘I had to go to the bathroom. And when I came back in I heard him telling the entire room, “THE DOG FOUND IT IN THE FRONT YARD”. Mind you, I got on really well with this other guy, Lou. He took my number. But he hasn’t called me.’ Suddenly sobered, she observed tightly, ‘I can’t have a relationship. No one wants my work. I’m the biggest failure I ever met.’
‘No, you’re not,’ I consoled desperately. I swallowed hard and made myself say it. ‘I’m about to get divorced. I can’t think of a worse failure.’
At least you’ve been married,’ Emily said gloomily. ‘Although right now I’d settle for sex. Thanks to Brett’s botch-job penis enlargement I haven’t slept with a man for nearly four months. How about you, Maggie?’
‘Not quite that long.’ I was much too embarrassed to discuss it in front of Lara and Justin. It had been hard enough admitting I was getting divorced.
‘Well,’ Lara beamed, ‘I haven’t slept with a man for eight years.’
She had to be joking. All was still as I waited for the punchline. I mean, this woman was off the scale. And if she couldn’t get a fella, what hope was there for anyone, anywhere?
‘Are you serious?’
‘Sure.’
I’d heard about women like her. Emily had said Los Angeles was full of them – stunningly beautiful, intelligent, nothing too neurotic going on, but they’d been hurt by so many men, who could just take their pick of beautiful women in this town, that they’d decided to throw in the towel and totally shut down emotionally.