Reinventing Mona (8 page)

“Like
Weird Science!
You know what I mean. Think about the material you’d get for your column.” His body had stopped at the door, and his hand was on the knob. “Come on, Dog. I just want to make a guy unbelievably happy. Please. Six months. I’ll pay you.” At the mention of cash, he was ready to talk.

“How much?”

“A thousand a month,” I offered.

“What do I gotta do for this thousand a month?”

“Advise me,” I told him. “Just tell me what a guy wants from a girlfriend. Teach me how to become irresistible. We’ll meet once a month and the rest we can do by phone. Ten hours a month, tops. Please, Dog. I’m desperate. I don’t have much experience and I really need a, a guide.”

“A guide dog?” He laughed. “You seem nice enough, but it’s like workin’ for the other side. I’m a guy’s guy. I can’t turn coat and be your fairy godmother.”

“Two thousand?” I countered myself.

“I’m real sorry. I’m gonna have to pass.” The knob turned.

“Twenty-five hundred,” I wailed.

“Done.” He smiled. Lifting his hand off the doorknob and shaking my hand, I enjoyed the most disempowered victory in the history of battle. “So, what’s your name?”

“Mona.” I smiled. “Mona Warren.”

“Right. Why don’t you cut me a check for December and we can get started right now?”

“Now?”

“Now a problem?”

“Um, no, no. Now is good. Now is great. I’ll go get my checkbook. Grab a seat, Mike. Is where we were before okay with you?”

He didn’t answer but returned to his place on the couch. “You think I could get another beer while you’re up?”

“Yes, absolutely,” I shouted from my office. “Should I order a pizza?”

“Sounds like a plan.”

I returned to the couch where Mike had been partially absorbed by the burgundy chenille pillows. He leaned back, draping his arm around the back of the couch and resting his left ankle on his right knee. I sat primly in the corner, assuming about a fifth of the space. After I ordered pizza to Mike’s specifications, he gave me his orientation. “Look, I’m the kinda guy who just tells it like it is. I don’t do the whole happy talk at the front end, then finish on an up-note deal. I say what’s on my mind. That gonna be a problem for you?” I shook my head to assure him that no happy talk would be needed “If you’re serious about this, I’m gonna have to lay the shit out there bluntly for you. You’re not gonna cry if I hurt your feelings, are you?”

“No, no, absolutely no crying.”

“Good, ’cause I gotta tell you, we
can
make you hot, but it’s gonna take a lot of work. A lot. And I gotta just focus on my game and not worry about hurting your feelings, okay?”

“Okay. Do you really think I can be
hot
?”

He sighed. “It’s doable. You’re not half bad looking, Mona, but I got my work cut out for me.”

“I am ready to learn. Eager to learn.”

Mike told me I was too passive, too accommodating. “You told me you were desperate and raised your price. You gotta get out of that mindset. I don’t care if you’re freaking out that I’m gonna leave, you’ve got to be cool about it, like hey, I’m offering something here. Take it or leave it.”

“But you would have left it!”

“Sure ʼbout that?” He smirked. A half hour later, our pizza arrived just as Mike was telling me I was devoid of any sex appeal. He continued chewing as he advised me on how to be more attractive. “You got a decent little body, Mona, but I really have to work to see it in that smock you’re sporting.” He swallowed and bit into another slice in the same breath. “You got a nice-looking face, but news flash for you, women are wearing makeup these days.” His eyes scanned me, assessing me from head to toe. “You gotta do something with the hair. It’s just sorta sitting there doing nothing for me.”

“Oh,” I said sadly. “What’s it supposed to do for you?”

“The deal is that you aren’t gonna be sensitive about this. You want the truth or you want me to tell you a bunch of useless shit that’ll make you feel good?”

“After you’re done ripping me to shreds, you’ll tell me what I’m supposed to do about it, right?”

I couldn’t believe how much pizza this man could devour. How did he stay in such good shape shoving food in his mouth like letters through a mail drop? “First thing is you gotta start working out and get everything toned up. You could lose a few pounds, but no more than five, ten. I’m gonna hook you up with my sister on the clothing and hair thing ʼcause I didn’t sign up for the Queer Eye Fab Five team. I’m strictly a consultant on how to act, got it? Pay Vicki a hundred an hour and she’ll take you shopping, hook you up with a good haircut and all that.”

“Um, okay. Is she, um, how should I put this?”

“Hot?” he finished.

“Well, I mean, is she
—
”

“She’s a great-looking girl and if she’s got the time, I’m sure she’ll be willing to help me out.”

“Okay.”

“I think the best advice I can give you right now is to watch sexy women. Look at how they carry themselves. Watch how they move their bodies, how they dress. Look at their facial expressions. They’re cute and they know how to use what they got. You should go to a strip club sometime and watch the girls work the crowd. They know how to play the game.”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m going to do.” I rolled my eyes. “I’m going to a strip club with a wad of twenties.”

“Go with a wad of twenties and you’ll be very popular.” Mike laughed. “My buddy told me his girlfriend took a stripping class and it was totally hot. Said she was like a whole different person. Had this ‘I’m hot shit’ attitude after a one-night class.”

“But I don’t want to be a stripper,” I said. “I don’t even think I’d strip for Adam. I’d be too embarrassed.”

“You’d be
embarrassed
?”

“Yes, I’d feel completely self-conscious.”

“You need the class, Mona,” Mike insisted.

“Trust me, you want to know what these girls know. You never have to strip for anyone, but get over the ‘I’m embarrassed’ thing.” Abruptly, he looked at his watch. “My work is done here. My sister is in L.A. this week, but I’ll have her call you first of the year to set up a time to shop and do the hair thing. Here’s my cell phone and my home number if you need anything.”

At the door, he looked softer than the last time we stood at the entry to my home. “You know, I kinda dug tonight. Maybe it’s the holiday spirit or something, but I really feel like I’m doing something good here. Giving back to my community. Hey, have a good one. Remember, no cookies for Christmas, and sign up for that class.”

As his car pulled out of my driveway, I leaned against the inside of the front door with a self-satisfied grin. “I did it,” I said to no one. For a moment I questioned whether a guy like Mike could help me land a guy like Adam. One was my dream man; the other was every woman’s worst nightmare. He definitely was my New York. I smiled remembering my first time in New York. I did make it there. I’d make it again and marry Adam just as I planned. For the first time in years, I felt a sense of peaceful assurance that everything would work out for me.

I have the absolute perfect birthday for someone who camouflages herself in the world. I share my big day with none other than Jesus Christ. Talk about being upstaged. Because of this gift from God (my birthday, not Jesus), I have never had to endure a cluster of restaurant wait staff singing “Happy Birthday” to me. I have never had school or workmates taking collections for my birthday present. I always had an excuse not to throw a party. I took great consolation in this fact because it meant I would never have to suffer the humiliation of a poorly attended gathering.

Greta called early Christmas morning to wish me a happy birthday and make sure I still planned to attend dinner at her parents’ house. Inspired by Mike’s assurance that I had babe potential, I decided to run on the beach before showering and changing for Greta’s. Rather than run along the cement walkway, though, I decided to climb over the wall of rocks and run barefoot along the shoreline.

* * *

My first Christmas with Grammy was spent dining in a hotel restaurant and window-shopping at closed stores, making us acutely aware that our family portrait was composed by tragedy. Something about getting away from home helped us escape the reality of looking at each other from opposite ends of an enormous dining room table. Grammy could’ve easily filled the seats with a dozen of her friends; it just seemed easier on both of us if we got out of the house. I suppose it was because the accident happened right around this time of year. We never really talked about it. It was always just assumed that Christmas would be spent anywhere but home. Each year our celebrations were further from home until our last trip.

There were years we stumbled onto very familial Christmas dinners. While I was on semester break from UCSD, Grammy and I stayed at a bed-and breakfast about two hours outside of Dublin. It was possibly the coziest, warmest place on earth I’d ever visited. The Hennigan family ran the bed-and-breakfast, and Grammy and I were their only guests that week. They were a retired couple with five grown children who all lived within a three-mile radius with families of their own. The Hennigans’ walls were cluttered with framed photos and souvenir plates from places they’d traveled. A pewter mug with their family crest shared shelf space with a stuffed teddy bear wearing a knit sweater from a local preparatory school. A half-finished game of Scrabble sat on a table where a silverware box was resting, waiting to be polished.

Grammy and I were like cats on a fishing dock, slightly tipsy and cuddled together under one of the many handmade quilts strewn across the Hennigan home. A fire blazed and people continued drinking, exchanging stories of the worst winters that ever hit Ireland.

Grammy and I also spent Christmas holidays in Jerusalem, Australia, Thailand, Athens, Rome, Barbados, and New York. Our New York trip was our last Christmas together. We were very much the tourists venturing through Central Park in a horse drawn carriage, taking in two Broadway shows and even going to the top of the red-and-green lit Empire State Building observation deck. I thought of how many couples planned to rendezvous there since
An Affair to Remember,
one of the only classic films I actually hated. I could never understand why Deborah Kerr didn’t just show up in her wheelchair to meet Cary Grant. Grammy said I couldn’t understand what a stigma it was to have a disability back then. She said it wasn’t like these days when people in wheelchairs are in Kmart commercials. Still, if I were madly, passionately in love, I’d hope that my Cary Grant would adore me no matter what. I would crawl up every last stair of the then-ADA noncompliant observation deck, panting and sweating, declaring, “I cannot walk, my darling, but I can still love. I can love you until I draw my last breath of life,” or something equally dramatic. The kind of crazy talk you can only get away with in old movies.

* * *

Not only could I walk, I was able to run, and decided I’d better get to it if I was serious about losing that ten pounds Mike suggested. As my feet hit the wet sand, I noticed the imprint darken, then quickly fade. I thought about last Christmas and the one night I spent off the pages of the New York tour book—the first time I crawled out of my own life and into someone else’s. Grammy said she wanted an evening to herself so I walked all the way from The Plaza down to Greenwich Village. I planned to hail a cab, but was distracted by the street vendors. I bought a blue fuzzy Kangol beret and scarf, which the Pakistani merchant said accentuated my eyes. A few blocks later, I picked up dangling earrings and a necklace made from old subway tokens. From the token lady, I also bought a belt made from Metro Cards. On Thirty-Fourth Street, a man named Gunther sold prints of the Statue of Liberty that he designed with torn strips of subway map. Without noticing the two-mile trek, before I knew it I was sitting in Washington Square Park on an unseasonably warm night, bumming a cigarette from a man who would’ve prompted Grammy to clutch her purse.

As it turned out, the cigarette guy had a little street band that performed in the park for tips while intermittently exchanging undersized envelopes with passersby. “What are you dealing?” I asked.

“I deal nothing, sweetheart,” he defended good-naturedly. “What do you call yourself?”

“What do I call myself?” I laughed. It sounded as if I had a choice. Then I realized that I did.

“Um, Monique.”

“Sit down, Monique, we sing a little song about Monique. She take my smokes, she steal my heart.” From the pocket of his black wool coat, the young man pulled out a harmonica and his friend picked up his guitar from the ground and tossed the rainbow colored strap across his shoulder. I balanced myself on the metal rail fence and listened as the two improvised a song about “Monique, so beautiful, can’t hardly speak.” I giggled. Mona would never hang out in the park with drug dealers who write songs about her. But Monique kind of liked it.

“I take requests, Monique,” said my Jamaican Romeo. “Like take out the garbage, honey. Kiss me here, kiss me there. Change our baby’s diapers. Love me all night long, sweetheart.”

Romeo was smoking something very potent, but I didn’t care. I could see he was a harmless musician who made ends meet by dealing a little dope. Besides, we were in the middle of a very public park. The worst thing that could happen is I’d get arrested. “You look like a Beatles girl to me, Monique. You like dem Beatles?” he asked. Romeo and his friends belted “A Hard Day’s Night,” serenading me like a prop, a gimmick while people tossed coins in their guitar case.

“You a musician, Monique?” Scooby the guitarist asked.

“Musician? No. I’m an engineer.”

“You tapping your toes and moving your lips like you want to play with the band, Monique. You want to play music with Romeo and me?” I shook my head in emphatic denial. “You head nodding no, but you feet tapping yes. What song you like? We play and you can hum along.” He took chopsticks from his coat pocket. “You tap these on the fence and be the drummer.”

When the guitar played the opening bars of John Lennon’s “Across the Universe,” my throat constricted. My mother sang this song to us kids most every night at bedtime. I knew every acid-inspired word, including the Sanskrit passage where most people just muddle through or fake it till the “Om.” With the freedom of being Monique, I began singing and Scooby harmonized.