Family Affair (39 page)

I haven’t been to Jason’s in a while because my work schedule rarely allows it, but also, I just don’t love parties. I always feel like I’m being forced to have a good time. It’s kind of like having your boss over for dinner. It’s supposed to be fun but it just ends up being more work. Jason is known around town for having these super-elaborate game-themed parties, and invites are coveted. He has them catered by top-notch L.A. restaurants, sometimes multiple restaurants with tents stationed in various rooms in his house, and he always has two rooms of games going simultaneously. Still, I find them awkward at best. But I try to force myself out of my isolated shell every now and then and Jason’s parties are as good an opportunity as any.

Jason is a script doctor who’s pretty well known around L.A. He gets paid a lot of money to rewrite scripts that were written by people who were also paid a lot of money but didn’t quite achieve what the producers wanted. Or they achieved what the producers wanted but not what the studio wanted. Or what they really failed to achieve was what the star wanted. Or what the star that replaced the original star wanted. And so on. So Jason comes in and “punches up” the script with new dialogue and jokes, and the big scenes that will usually end up in the trailer and quite often be the only funny parts of the movie. You know how sometimes you’ll catch a movie and you’ve already seen all the best parts in the trailer? That was done on purpose. The movie sucked, so they hired a guy to come in and build five “trailer moments” into the script. These moments trick gullible viewers into the theater, helping the studio to recoup at least some of the money it spent. You know, like in
Point Break
when Keanu Reeves’s boss says, “Do you think that taxpayers would like it, Utah, if they knew that they were paying a federal agent to surf and pick up girls?” And Keanu says, “Babes,” to which the boss replies, “I beg your pardon?” And Keanu says, “The correct term is ‘babes.’ “ Best line in the movie. Except it wasn’t in the movie. It was only in the trailer. (And, yes, Keanu’s name in the movie was Johnny Utah. You just can’t make this stuff up.)

I didn’t know any of this until Jason explained it to me. He also explained that he never gets any credit on the movies, which seemed kind of unfair, but he assured me he was crying all the way to the bank. Personally, I cry at the bank, too, most often after viewing my account balance.

But getting back to the party: Jason is wearing a bandana on his head, a sweatshirt, short shorts, and kneesocks—the kind with the colored bands at the top. He looks like a character from a Wes Anderson film, which presumably is what he was going for. Jason always encourages people to come to Game Night dressed as a recognizable character from a movie, and the best costume wins a prize. He’s not strictly recognizable, but the shamelessness wins in my book, anyway. I didn’t dress as anyone but me, because even that can be a challenge and it’s not Halloween. Then again, with my newly ripped sweater maybe I’m a homeless person or a survivor in one of those post-nuclear-holocaust movies. Or maybe I’m a Freddy Krueger victim. Or—even worse—I’m Freddy Krueger! He wears a sweater, right?

I swallow my concerns and put on my game face as Jason kisses me on the cheek, takes the champagne, and subtly spins me around—forcing me into a face-to-face with, you guessed it: Everybody Eyes—I mean Dies. The (kinda adorable) bastard stands before me, smirking. I find myself glancing back and forth between his eyes and the gun on his chest.

“Like my shirt?” he asks.

“It’s quite uplifting,” I say.

“Everybody dies,” he says, with a knowing nod.

“Yes,” I reply. “I believe that was the original title of that R.E.M. song. But it seemed like a downer, so Michael Stipe went with ‘Everybody Hurts’ instead.”

“We didn’t actually meet before,” he says, and extends his hand. “I’m Dustin.”

“Hi, Justin,” I reply.

“Dustin,” he says.

“I’m sorry. I’m Berry.”

“Well, which is it—you’re sorry, or you’re Berry?”

“I’m Berry. With an e.”

“She means she’s berry sorry,” Jason says.

“Berry like the fruit,” I overexplain. “Not with an
a
, like Barry Williams from
The Brady Bunch.”
How many times have I said that? Enough to want to never hear myself say it again. Yet there it was. Does anyone even know who Barry Williams is? Do I watch too much Nick at Nite? While I’m lost in my thoughts, is Justin/Dustin saying something else?

He is: “Or bury. Like, with a
u.”

I smile. “You know, everybody dies, but not everyone is buried.”

He smiles. My, that’s a nice smile. “Berry.”

“Berry,” I confirm.

“Good,” Jason says. “Now that you both know her name so well, you can be on the same team.”

“Great,” I say.

“Berry’s single,” Jason adds, immediately walking away in a supreme act of assitude, leaving Justin (no … Dustin) and me to stew in that teeming vat of awkward.

I’m going to ask that we pause for a moment here. Yes, I’m single. But was that necessary? Did Jason need to point it out like some yenta matchmaker? And on a scale of one to totally desperate, how did I just rate? So what if I haven’t had a boyfriend in … um … a very long time? It hasn’t been strictly my fault. I’ve had bad luck. Case in point: People are opening umbrellas indoors, right into me. How’s a person supposed to find love with that kind of thing going on all around her?

“I don’t know why he said that,” I tell Dustin. (Yes. Dustin.) “That was … really unnecessary.”

“Not necessarily unnecessary,” Dustin says, grinning. Dustin is undeniably good-looking. And charming. My mood lightens as together we move into Game Room One.

“Hey, man!” some guy says to Dustin, raising a hand for a high-five. “Congrats on the Grammy!”

I watch Dustin carefully in this moment—partially because I’m wondering what this Grammy business is (he won a Grammy?), but more important, I’m wondering how he’ll respond to a high-five. This is far more critical than it might sound. I myself am not a high-fiver. I suppose it’s sort of a “dude” thing, but still, it gives me pause.

Dustin responds to the high-five in kind. I suppose it would be rude to leave the guy hanging … but anyway, what’s this Grammy business?

“You won a Grammy?” I ask. “That’s huge.”

“Yeah, thanks,” he says.

“Should I know who you are? You’re not Kanye West, are you?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Wow. You’re all kinds of famous. And, well … occasionally hated.”

“Only by friends, acquaintances, and immediate family,” he corrects. “I’m actually a record producer. And I haven’t ever worked with Kanye, but I’d love to.”

“We all have our own crosses to bear,” I say, taking a sip from my drink.

“That’s what Jesus said.”

That’s when I spit on him. No, let me clarify: My drink suddenly came spraying out of my mouth, all over Dustin’s completely-ridiculous-but-man-it-sure-is-growing-on-me T-shirt.

“Oh, my,” I say, attempting to dab his shirt dry.

“You’re trying to get me back for ruining your sweater, aren’t you?”

“Yes, that’s it,” I say. “I was locked and loaded. Thank God you cracked a joke. I was about to drown.” I look away in embarrassment.

“So what do your days entail?” he asks, sensing that I’m horrified and generously trying to change the subject.

“Eating, mostly,” I say. “Errands. Taking my dog to the dog park.”

“Okay, let’s get back to the dog in a minute. No job, huh? Trust-fund baby? Wow, I knew I liked you. Come to Poppa.… ”

“Ha! I wish. I work nights. In radio, actually. KKCR.”

Dustin steps backward and smacks himself on the head. I didn’t know people actually did that in real life. “Classic rock! Shit, you’re Berry Lambert!”

“I am.” He’s heard of me? Wasn’t the “Berry” part a giveaway? How many Berrys does he know? Chuck Berry? Fred Berry? Franken Berry?

“I should have recognized your voice,” he says, and I must admit, I never get tired of hearing that. And now we have even more to talk about, and it seems my luck is changing.

Things progress famously from there. We’ve just won our seventh round of charades, with Dustin acting out the iconic scene in
Saved by the Bell
when Jessie gets hooked on caffeine pills and has a major meltdown: “I’m so excited, I’m so excited, I’m so, I’m so … scared!”

I turn to Dustin: “Do you ever feel like a total fraud? Like you have no idea how you’ve even scraped by this far without the whole world finding out? Sometimes I can’t believe they pay me to do what I do.”

“Every day,” he says.

“Really?” I implore. Maybe it’s the fact that I drank a whole beer (don’t believe what you hear about radio folk—I’m a total lightweight), or maybe it’s because I really feel the need to connect, but it seems like I can really talk to this guy.

“Shit, yes,” he says. “I get paid to turn knobs and listen to music all day. The truth is, it’s all the artist. Remember when Don Was hit the scene and everyone said he was a genius producer? Well, he produced Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones! Give me Kobe and Shaq, and I’ll be a Phil Jackson ‘genius,’ too. Half the time, I ask someone in the room, ‘How’s this?’ And they say, ‘It needs something—maybe more compression on the rhythm guitar or gate it a little.’ So I pretend to turn a knob and ask, ‘What about now?’ And they say, ‘Yeah, that’s better,’ even though nothing’s changed. So yeah, I hear ya. I’m in constant fear of being found out and forced to grow up.”

“Oh my God,” I say and laugh. “You kinda jumped metaphors with Kobe and Shaq, but I get it. I so get it. That’s me. On the radio. Wondering when the other shoe is going to drop. Or when I’m gonna walk in and find out that they’ve hired someone even younger and cheaper than me, or someone with some kind of formal training, or even worse—our station’s gone completely sans DJs and they’re having everything done via computer. After all, it’s classic rock as in ‘classic.’ All the songs are good by definition, so how hard is it to pick ‘em? I mean, if I was a DJ for a ‘mediocre rock’ station and everyone listened to my show, now that would be talent.”

We talk like this the whole time we’re not acting out an animal, event, or movie title (Dustin would have been arrested in the Middle East for how he mimed
Cocktail
), and together we win first prize for our team. We decide to celebrate by going out for a drink, which turns into an all-night make-out session on my couch. I never take guys home with me—stop it, I know what you’re thinking; it’s true—but Dustin and I really seemed to click. We got each other’s jokes and seemed to have everything in common, from a love of churros (delicious) to almost identical scars on our right arms (his from a broken wrist, mine from an unruly toaster oven) to having the same favorite
I Love Lucy
episode (you know the one: “Slowly I turned …”).

When you barely know a guy and you take him home with you, I guess it’s pretty much a given that you’re gonna sleep with him. So I don’t. I figure all the girls in the music industry probably just sleep with him at the drop of a hat. More specifically, the drop of his pants. (Or whatever. Something usually drops; that’s my point.) Regardless, I draw the line at not-so-heavy petting. I want to stand out. Not be like all the other girls.

“This is super-fun and all,” I say, gently pushing him away and sliding his fingers out of the all-too-convenient hole in my sweater. I look into his now-most-definitely hazel eyes. “But I don’t want to give you the wrong idea.”

“That you like me?”

“That I’m a whore.”

“Sweet. So I don’t have to pay you?”

“I’m serious,” I say. “I kind of like you. And I never like anyone, so I don’t want to screw this up by being a total slutbag.”

“What if I like slutbags?”

He kisses me again, and it’s a major effort to pull away, but I do. My thinking is this: Maybe the umbrella wasn’t bad luck at all. Maybe it was good luck. Maybe all of my silly fears have been just that. You don’t know how big this could be for me. This could be huge. Maybe his umbrella was meant to snag my sweater just so we would meet. I am definitely not going to ruin this.

I sigh and mentally dig in my heels. “I … think you should take off.”

“My clothes?”

He’s all smiles. It is increasingly hard to say no. So I don’t.

“Yes,” I say. “Most definitely yes. But some other time.”

“Okay …” he says, rising from my couch. The word “rising” sticks in my mind, and I almost reconsider. But no. I’m going to do this one the right way.

I walk him to the door and store my number in his iPhone. He kisses me on my forehead and pulls me in for a hug. He says he’ll call me tomorrow, and I feel almost giddy as I close the door behind him.

Oh, Dustin. Dustin. My adorable, hilarious, clumsy, poorly dressed Dustin.

It was Dustin, right?