How to Meet Cute Boys (18 page)

So I obsessed. Would Max and I work out? Was it over? I had to live with the circling doubts—once he went away I had no way
to tell if things were about to get better, or worse. I figured I should at least try to distract myself, so I left messages
for pretty much everyone I knew, hoping a social life would emerge. Surprisingly enough, it did. Chandra called, asking if
I’d be “down with” lounging by her pool the next day. I practically did verbal back flips I was so eager to accept. (“I would
LOVE
to! Thank you
SO
much! It will be
SO
fun!”)

The following morning I set off to find Chandra’s Mediterranean manse high in the hills of Laurel Canyon. I knocked on the
door, and Krantz, a man of indeterminable sexual orientation with a hairless, gym-toned chest and wearing a Burberry plaid
swimsuit, answered.

“Oh,” he said, blocking entry. “Are you the assistant from Team Todd?”

“No,” I said. “I’m a friend of Chandra’s.”

As though I hadn’t spoken, he said, “You’re delivering a script?”

“
No
. I’m a friend? Of Chandra’s?”

“
Who
are you?”

This continued until a person named Kate with a perfect body and a belly chain appeared. “Fuck, Krantz, leave her alone,”
she said. “Chandra told me she invited some writer girl.”

Krantz looked me up and down. “So you’re a
journalist,
” he spat. “I handle all of Ms. McInerney’s publicity”—he stepped aside—“so
behave
.”

I followed Kate into the backyard, trying to figure out who was who. Kate turned out to be Chandra’s Kato—a noncelebrity who
lives rent-free in the house of a famous person, does odd jobs, acts as a confidante but isn’t exactly a friend. Chandra,
apparently, was finishing up a consultation with her guru and would be out shortly, so Kate-o played hostess, introducing
Laura, a redhead wearing shorts that revealed the practically albino skin on her legs, who volunteered that she was “VP of
development at the studio” and sat in the shade all day while applying sunscreen.

Once Chandra was “centered,” she joined us by the black-bottomed pool. Her posse clearly wanted her attention, and didn’t
enjoy new competition.

“
Love
this fucking pita bread,” Laura said from her corner, dipping it in the mushy eggplant caviar Kate was passing around. “And,
Chandra, your stomach looks so fabulous I’m … speechless.”

“Artuuuurrrrro,” Chandra purred, patting her abs.

“Who’s Arturo?” I asked. I was paddling about on a raft and being generally ignored.

“Private trainer,” Laura said. “Forget it—you’ll never get an appointment.”

I started to say I didn’t want an appointment, and wondered if now would be a good time to ask Chandra for some Max advice,
but Krantz interrupted.

“So, spill,” he said to Chandra. “What’s the latest?”

“I’ve been.
So stressed,
” she said. “Like, everyone keeps doggin’ me about this new movie and I told James, like, I’m going to pull a fuckin’ Ed Norton
on him, commandeer that editing room and fix the fuckin’ thing myself, knowwhatImsayin?”

“So the film isn’t working,” Krantz said.

“What do you mean?” Chandra lowered her sunglasses to give him the evil eye. Marooned on my raft, I thought,
This could get interesting
. “Bitch, what are you saying, that I think I’m not good in my own muthafuckin’ movie?” she said. “That’s cool, dawg.” Chandra
got up and stormed into the house, returning with a bottle of mineral water, but she kept yelling at Krantz the way there
and back. “You’re sitting there?” she hollered, her voice echoing off the red Spanish tiles. “Saying this movie will
harm my career?
And you’re my fuckin’
publicist
. What
THE FUCK?
” She twisted the cap off the bottle like she was breaking a chicken neck.

“That’s not
remotely
what I meant, McC,” Krantz wheezed. “The movie is amazing—you’re in it, I mean,
hello!
”

“Don’t be fronting, Krantz,” said Chandra, arranging herself back on her lounge.

“Seriously, you owe it to Chandra, as her publicist,
as her friend,
to tell her the truth,” said Kate-o.

Laura jumped in, saying, “Krantz, you are so fucking fired!”

It was like watching a group of sharks start feeding on one another.

“I am telling the truth.”
Krantz was starting to sweat.

“Awright, chill. I’m letting it go.” Chandra reached for a bottle of suntan oil. “But Krantz, you gotta learn how to represent,
knowwhatImsayin?” She stabbed her oily finger in the air. “You gotta think about my interests every time you
open your big fucking fat fag mouth
.”

I couldn’t believe she’d said that. But everyone else looked away like they hadn’t heard.

Then, “What do
you
think, Franklin?”

Here was my chance to get beaten to a pulp. “Well, film is art, right?” I said. “Art is subjective …”

Laura snorted.

Kate said, “Art? She attached herself because the studio offered her eight mil!”

“Yo, and ’cause I got da biz on with my costar,” Chandra said, adding, “Onscreen of course.”

“Yeah, journalist present,” Laura snickered.

“I’m
not
here to—” I started to say.

“Everything that is said today is
off the record,
” Krantz interrupted, spraying flecks of eggplant caviar in my direction. He turned to Chandra, nodding. “Now she won’t be
able to print anything even if she wants to.”

This shut me up for the afternoon. I realized I’d never get a chance to talk to Chandra about my Max dilemma, but figured
it was safer to be ignored anyway. The oddest thing, though, was when I left. Chandra acted like it was the main event. “Thank
you
so much
for coming,” she said, walking me to the door. “I
need
my friends around me right now, Franklin. You
know
how hard this is for me.”

“How hard what is?” I said.

“Oh, everything.” She waved her hands around the beautifully appointed room, like,
See how much I have; see how difficult it can be
. “Look at this.” She held up her arm and scratched at it. “I think I’m breaking out in a
rash
.”

I told her I didn’t see anything.

“You don’t see anything
yet,
” she said, and closed the door. As I was walking to my car, I could hear her yelling, “
Kate!
Page Dr. John!”

I got home, checked my voicemail for a call from Max (no), then checked my e-mail for a message from practically anyone. There
was an invitation to a porn site called “Young and Tight.” (Fucking Collin. Lately he’d been forwarding me porno links, which
he thinks is the height of comedy.) Also a quick note from my dad with a digital picture of him and his surfboard standing
on some Costa Rican beach. (It was signed, “Love, The Big Kahuna.”) And finally a passive aggressive jab from the Mother regarding
the bridal shower—she was “just checking” to see if I needed any help since I was “getting such a late start.”

I’d procrastinated enough to antagonize her, so I spent the evening trying to find a Martha recipe for quiche lorraine. (There
was one, naturally.) Then I made a shopping list for the shower in my beautiful notebook. I placed an order for flowers from
the chichi-est but most cost-effective florist I could find. (The arrangements would be cream and lavender,
of course
.) The shower was practically taking care of itself, so I decided I’d earned an evening off. I ordered in a sausage, pepperoni,
and mushroom pizza and a six-pack of diet Coke, and consumed both while watching
The Goodbye Girl
on AMC and marveling at how hot Richard Dreyfuss was in that movie, even though he’s so short.

It wasn’t until I was waiting in line to buy groceries from the gourmet market the following day that I realized I’d made
a terrible mistake. The shopping was taking longer than I thought it would, Bristol Farms was incredibly crowded, and I still
had the flowers to pick up and all the cooking to do. My cell phone rang, and I literally spazzed out trying to get to it
in case it was Max. With the contents of my purse dumping out on the floor, I looked at the caller ID, but it was just the
Mother. She had the phone instincts of a sadist.

As I turned the ringer off, I noticed a woman in line in front of me staring my way with a bemused look on her face. Curious,
I inspected her purchases while I unloaded my cart onto the conveyor belt. I spied a tray of gourmet cookies, a packet of
turkey hot dogs, four Wolfgang Puck frozen pizzas, and a six-pack of diet Coke.
Finally!
I thought.
A sympathetic ear
.

“It wasn’t him,” I said, holding up the cell phone with an
aw-shucks-you-caught-me
smile.

“Excuse me?” she said.

“You know how it is. He calls, he doesn’t call. You think he wants a commitment, he starts acting like he doesn’t. Sometimes
I think men won’t be happy until we’re all acting like maniacs, strapped to the walls of some mental institution with paper
slippers on, know what I mean?”

The woman picked her purse up out of her cart and clutched it to her chest. “Actually, I don’t,” she sniffed. “I married my
first beau. And it’s lasted fifteen years.”

She turned to face the front of the store, and I had to stand behind her in line for the next ten minutes while trying to
pretend we’d never spoken.

It took three trips from my car up the stairs to my apartment to get everything inside. In between trips, I checked but no
message from Max. I’d thought leaving the house would change my phone karma. Like how when you’re in a restaurant, starving,
and waiting for the food to come—if you go to the bathroom, your meal will usually be sitting there waiting for you when you
get back. But this technique doesn’t really work with phones.

“I don’t see why I can’t get the out-of-town hi.
At least,
” I said to the Mother, shifting the phone to the other shoulder so I could sift flour for my light-as-air quiche crust.

“The
what?
”

We’d been talking less than two minutes and she was already annoyed.

“It’s, like, the
holy grail
of phone calls. He’s in Vegas, this totally new environment, but even with all the extra stimuli he calls just to say hello.
The OTH—it was the only thing keeping me going.”

“Ben.” She sighed. “Your lips are moving, but you’re not really saying anything.”

“I am
too
saying something. I’m saying my relationship isn’t going well,
Mother
.”

“Then why don’t you end it, Daughter?”

I told her that wasn’t a very helpful suggestion since I had no intention of breaking up with Max, not that we were going
out. Plus, I added, this wasn’t a very sympathetic thing to say.

“Well
I don’t know what else to suggest,
” she huffed. “What did you expect? This kind of behavior is simply what happens when you date a guy half your age.”

“He’s not half my age,” I argued. “He’s half your age.”

“He’s still too young for a serious relationship.”

I took a deep breath, counted to five, and started cracking eggs into a mixing bowl. “I don’t think his age has anything to
do with it, if you really want to know.”

“Fine.”

“You know, maybe you should just tell me everything’s going to be okay,” I said, furiously beating the eggs. “That’s really
all I want to hear.”

“Well,
of course
everything is going to be okay,” she said. “Your life will end just because this relationship might not work out? Please.”
I heard the knock on the door. “Just a minute!” she called out. “Ben, I have to go.”

“Where are you going?”

“My date’s here.”

“You have a date?”

“With my Pilates instructor.”

“You take Pilates?”

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I was obviously hatched out of some kind of pod. There’s simply no way that woman ever gave birth.

The day of the shower was a nightmare. It took four trips back
down
to my car to load everything up. In between each trip I checked my voicemail for the OTH. No such luck. Meanwhile, I devised
this inspired dessert idea that involved miniature terra-cotta pots I bought at the nursery. I envisioned a tiny, edible rose
garden, and I figured this extra touch would
really
make Audrey crap her pants. But I forgot to rinse out the pots, which were clay and should have dried overnight, so I had
to pray no one would notice there was real dirt along with fake dirt in their ice cream. Then I ran to the grocery store to
buy the fresh roses, but they only had the expensive cabbage kind, which wasn’t what I had in mind. I bought them anyway (sixty
bucks for twenty-four, and I only needed sixteen). And
then
I hauled it all over to my mom’s condo in Calabasas, which is only, like, four thousand miles away. The Mother, true to form,
opened the door looking gorgeous. Navy blue suit, pretty camisole peeking out at the nape. Her pristine condo—white fluffy
carpet, beige slipcovered furniture, rattan accent pieces—smelled fresh and clean.