A Year Straight (13 page)

Likewise, the darkness that ensues after a bad self-inflicted haircut is like no other. It is a feeling set aside by the universe specifically for women who are feeling bad about themselves and just can't resist feeling worse. And the fact that you did it to yourself allows for endless mental flogging.
I'm so stupid. I do this every time. This is L.A. Maybe I can get extensions.

Sleep was my only refuge from the storm stirring inside, until I awoke the next morning and looked in the mirror. Still no reply from The Yoga Teacher. 10:00 a.m. New York time. I got dressed and took extra time with my makeup to compensate for my hair. I ran into Carlos in the lobby.

“You smell like a brewery,” I said, cringing. “How are you even functioning? I feel like the worm at the bottom of the tequila bottle you guys were polishing off when I left you.”

“Yes, but you have to admit you had fun last night, didn't you?”

“I did.” And that was all I would admit to.

I drove us over to the Gaia Media campus in our spiffy hybrid rental car. As we pulled into the parking garage, my stomach did a somersault at the sight of Justin. I'd been so distracted, it hadn't occurred to me that I might see him there. Four security checks later, Carlos and I grabbed cups of coffee and tea and made our way to the conference room. Justin fiddled with his laptop at the podium. I went up to say hello.

“Excuse me, sir. Are you leading this training?”

“Well hello there. Yes, in fact, I am.”

“Great. Is there a placement test for those of us who've already had private lessons?” Justin was testing out his laser pointer and shone it in my face like a cop wielding a flashlight.

“Hmm, why don't we discuss this over dinner tonight? There's a place I know called Magnolia, corner of Sunset and Vine. Eight o'clock?”

“See you there,” I said. I returned to my seat smiling.

“Hey, isn't that the guy that was in the office a while back?” Carlos asked.

“Yeah, that's him. Hey, do you have a pen I can borrow?” I wrote “magnolia sunset/vine 8” in sloppy script on the back of my folder.

I felt a little guilty for being bored to tears throughout the training, but not even Justin could make billing interesting. The number seven kept jumping out at me from his PowerPoint presentation. I'd always known the number to be auspicious. Seven. Before The Adjustment, it had been seven years since I'd even looked at a man. And before that, it had been seven years since I'd gone off to college and come out in the first place. As silly as I knew it was to try to apply a theory to something as mysterious as my sexuality, I did it anyway. I made a list on my notepad:

THE LIST, LIKE the training, went on and on, until I was back in my hotel room and it was seven o'clock. Time to leave for my date.

TJ's new ring tone went off on my way to the restaurant. I'd assigned her a motorcycle engine sound in honor of her new girlfriend, Moto Guzzi.

“I'm on my way to a date, what's up? And are you wearing a helmet at all times like you promised?”

“Is it a date with the Don't Move Guy?” No matter how many times I'd been reminded that I shouldn't tell TJ anything she might stockpile as ammo against me, I still told her everything. And she always used it against me.

“Yes. He's nice.”

“Uh huh. Call me when you're done. Which shouldn't be too—”

“Goodbye.”

I was early for dinner and Justin was late. I approached the empty host station.

“I suppose you're here to eat.” One of the waiters glided
over, grabbed a menu from the pocket of the podium, and gave me a big smile. He was cute in that Ben Affleck way, where he looked just like every other tall, white, brown-haired aspiring L.A. actor who could either play a hip young dad or a charming single guy on a sitcom, but with a special little twinkle in his eye.

“It 's what I do best. Oh, and I'll need two menus please,” I said.

“You don't even know my name and you want me to have dinner with you?”

In spite of myself, I laughed. The waiter was charming, just like that guy on that sitcom.
Uh oh.

“I have a few more hours on my shift, but I suppose I could join you for a few.” The waiter straddled the chair across from me. In New York, a waiter would be fired on the spot for sitting down on the job. But California was much more laid back. So much so that the waiter reclined, leaning on the rear legs of his chair, looking quite at home.

“Why don't you earn your tip and bring me a glass of wine? A big one,” I said, trying to shoo him away before Justin arrived while still maintaining the flirtation.

“You nervous about breaking up with the guy who's meeting you here?” Again, I laughed, this time a loud and boisterous roar. “Seriously, what kind of guy makes a pretty girl like you wait?”

I waited and waited, growing hungrier and more irritated
by the minute. I was accustomed to the West Coast time difference—the difference being that in New York, people (aside from my brother) were on time, and on the West Coast they were not. But when forty minutes rolled by, I rolled up my sleeves, took a deep breath, and decided to brave dining alone. Normally opposed to ordering Italian food anywhere other than Italy, upon the waiter's recommendation I opted for the fusilli Bolognese. It was out of this world. Ten points for good taste. The waiter, whose name I learned was Paul, kept me company by popping by every few minutes to refill my already full water glass or to drop off a free treat. As I was picking out my dessert, I received a text from Justin. “So sorry. Something came up. Make it up to you sometime?”

I decided not to question the question mark at the end of his message. Was he going to make it up to me or not? No matter, because I had already moved on to the next course. Back at the hotel, I took a long hot shower, daydreaming all the while about Paul, who'd suggested I return to the restaurant “real soon.”

T
wo nights later, I returned to the restaurant with my college friend Mary, who'd relocated to L.A.

The place was packed, and Paul was tending bar. He was surrounded by women who either wanted a drink, Paul, or both.

“Are you really six two?” one of the women asked. Upon sight of me, he motioned us over to two empty seats at the end of the bar.

“You just made my night,” he said, placing down two wine glasses and uncorking a bottle.

“I know,” I replied.

“No, really,” he said, apparently unaccustomed to an upfront woman such as myself.

“I know,” I repeated, leaning toward him. Mary was
taken aback by my feisty demeanor, which she, too, was unaccustomed to. She remembered me as shy.

“This is the new me,” I said, clinking glasses with Mary, whose eyebrows were still raised. We sat and chatted and sipped on free wine, all the while assessing Paul. The way he flung glasses around in his black button-down, he seemed confident, a master of his craft. There is something satisfying about watching a person doing something they're good at. In the same way that Matt Damon makes me feel safe when he's robotically hopping rooftops in the Bourne Trilogy, Paul made me feel assertive, because he was.

At some point during the evening, Paul and his older, slightly sleazy coworker were hunched over the bar as I recounted the details of winning the Miss Lez pageant. Mary nudged me with her knee to try to stop me, but I was too entertained to stop. Their reactions were so predictable that I felt like a puppetmaster tugging at the strings.

“Yes, there is a swimsuit competition.” Their eyes grew wide. “But not all the contestants wear swimsuits, actually.” They sighed, disappointed. “For example, I went out on stage dressed as David Hasselhoff.” They tilted their heads, perplexed. “Then I tore off the costume and morphed into Carmen Electra.” Their eyes widened again.

At closing time, Paul invited me to stay and hang out while he cleaned up. Mary headed home, giving me a covert thumbs-up on her way out the door. As Paul counted the cash
from the register right there on the counter between us, I basked in the intimacy of his trust in me.
This is the stuff girlfriends do.
Then he beckoned me into the supply closet for a kiss. It was cramped in there. We struggled to keep our lips locked as we tripped over mops and buckets, knocking piles of neatly folded napkins off the shelves.

“I don't think you're in any shape to drive home,” he said.

“And whose fault might that be?”

“Well, I'll make it up to you by giving you a ride.”

“How thoughtful of you.”

“To my house.”

“How opportunistic of you.”

I guess it was true what all my friends always said about L.A.—that everyone there wants something from you. But that was alright with me, because I wanted it, too.

He pulled out of the employee lot in a Jeep, my number-one choice in the middle school game MASH. I was in heaven, cruising down the 101, Ben Affleck at the wheel, the warm L.A. wind in my hair.

On the front porch of his house, my knees buckled at the sound of a dog barking behind the door.

“Don't worry, that's just Louie,” he said.

Ever since I was a kid, I have had a disproportionate fear of dogs. Like, yes, it makes sense to get a little bit nervous when you see a Rottweiler walking down the street toward you with no owner in tow. But to climb your parents
as if they were a jungle gym at the sound of a dog's collar jingling? That is problematic. My fear of dogs supposedly stems from when I was a baby. There is a story about me in my stroller outside a store and a big ferocious dog scaring me. I can't quite remember the details, but here is the elaborated version I told as a kid, when embarrassed in front of my friends: “A giant German shepherd lunged at my jugular, and my dad dove into its path to save me just in time.” It's probably more like: I was sitting in my stroller and I was hungry. My dad went into the store to get a snack. I heard a dog bark and I forever associated the sound of a dog barking with the fear of starving to death.

Luckily, Louie was not a Rottweiler, but he was a substantially sized dog. I leaned over to let him sniff my hand and did my well-rehearsed act of pretending to be cool.
Okay, Elena, just breathe. Don't be afraid, because dogs can sense fear, and if he senses fear, that might set him off. Breathe.
Pet, pet.
Breathe.
He brushed up against my leg.

“Aw, he likes you. He doesn't do that to just anyone.”

“Really?” I knew that the answer was “No, duh, not really,” but I really did not care. Turned on by the rush of the Jeep ride and threat of an attack dog, I launched myself at Paul, grabbing him by the shoulder and turning him around to face me. We kissed with ferocity, groping each other, flinging clothes off with the same finesse with which he mixed a martini. We made an abrupt, rough landing on his bed, and
Paul reached over to his nightstand to retrieve a condom. As he was tearing it open with his teeth, he joked, “I hope these haven't expired. I think they're from when I was fifteen.”

“Well, I see you haven't grown since then, so at least it will still fit!” I burst into hysterics.
Wahahaha! I am so funny!
It wasn't even true that it was small, actually. And I wasn't meaning to perpetuate the myth that size matters, thereby wounding his ego so deeply that he might never recover. It was simply a perfectly timed, cleverly phrased, irresistible joke. But he didn't laugh along. And then it really did get small.

“Ohhh,” Paul grunted, dropping the condom onto the floor and rolling over to the other side of the bed to go to sleep. I guess there are some things you just don't joke about.

The next morning I awoke to the sound of a coffee grinder. Louie must have sensed I'd woken up, because he trotted into the room and put his cold wet nose on my arm.

“Good morning?” I said tentatively, hoping Paul had either forgotten about my comment or had forgiven me.

“Morning, sunshine. Coffee?”

“No err, yes please. No sugar, just milk.”

I peeked around the doorway of the kitchen and gave him a little frown.

“Forgive me?”

“You know, Miss Lez, you're gonna want to pump up the man's ego when it's in your best interest. Here.” He handed me a mug and gave me a playful light spank. “There's
a great brunch place up the street. You can borrow a T-shirt. They're in my dresser.”

At brunch we each ordered two different things, one savory, one sweet. We talked about everything from eighties actor crushes (Wil Wheaton/Alyssa Milano) to secret dreams (pursuing professional figure skating/playing Thor in the feature film). Afterward, we practically ran back to his house and gave it another go in his bedroom. I didn't crack any debilitating jokes, and everything went smoothly—wonderfully, in fact. Afterward, Paul was sleepy.

“Take a nap,” I said. “I'll take Louie for a walk.” I was willing to overcome my fear of dogs to impress Paul.

Outside, I was beaming in my sunglasses, dog leash in hand. I felt proud, walking Louie around the lake. Perhaps some people even recognized Louie as Paul's dog.
Lucky me!
After forty-five minutes, Louie looked tired, so I tied him to a telephone pole and popped inside a café. I kept an eye on him at all times, on tiptoe, in line for my lattes. The last thing I needed was to lose Louie. When I got back outside, two girls at a table were looking at me and whispering. They looked from Louie to me and back at Louie again. It occurred to me that I might not be the only girl walking Paul's dog.