Undiscovered Gyrl: The novel that inspired the movie ASK ME ANYTHING (Vintage Contemporaries) (10 page)

Monday, December 24, 2007

 

My mother obeys the Catholic custom of cooking seafood on Christmas Eve. Tonight she served my favorite, linguini with lobster. Plus a big yummy salad with feta cheese, pine nuts and hearts of palms. Then we all sat around our fake Christmas tree sipping fancy apple liqueur and opening presents. My mom said that my gifts were thoughtful and terrific but that my real gift to her, as far as she was concerned, was how well I pretended our evening together was making me happy when it was obvious I was still heartbroken over the boy who had dumped me for his ex-girlfriend. Mark nodded with neckless sympathy and proposed a toast to the wonderful boy I was going to meet next who would treat me like royalty. Sweet, right? He means so well.

My mom gave me a bunch of presents but I won’t bore you with what they were. The only good one was a three at a time movie subscription to Netflix. I will need this to continue my film education. Finally, I will get to see more than just the first 11 minutes of movies!

Very soon it will be Christmas. I should probably stop writing now or else I’ll become one of those blogger-chicks
Anton Tuttle hates, the lonely kind who whines because they can’t find their soul mates.

Maybe I will call Anton and have sex with him before he goes back to college. Boy, would that make him happy.

When I was little my mom used to force me to listen to an opera called
Amahl and the Night Visitors.
It tells the story of the night before Jesus was born. I would scream and fight and beg her not to make me listen. I would never tell her this but tonight when she played it before dinner, it gave me goosebumps and I came an inch away from sobbing. I will never be a little girl again and, man, is that sad.

Oh, yeah, it’s “benighted,” not “beknighted.” Thanks for writing, Carmelo, and telling me what a benighted person I am. Merry Christmas to you too, douche bag.

11:59 and not a creature is stirring except my computer mouse.

Santa better not come down the chimney tonight because I’m so lonely I might blow him. Admit it, I am your favorite ho ho ho.

Have yourself a merry little, okay?

Tuesday, Christmas, 2007

 

Whenever peple ask me what my goal in life I always say tp figure out what my goal 8n life is. Now finally I know. To be Margret Sponer. I justgot back from the Spoonerss party (I am tooo drunk to type!!!) and I swear it was the most gorgeus ever. The house was amaz8ng decorated. The tree looked perfecwith antique ornaments and l8ttle lights. Could been a deparment store. Candles glistered everywhere. And the food looked more amazing to eat. uh-oh. What does that mean? Drunk! How Marg does 8t with no sleep blows my mind. Just to give you an idea there were little red bowls on all the en tables filled with chocolat coins-wraped in gold foil. Well guess what? In the foil was printed “From the Spoooners!!!” Margaret printed it herself with some sort of litte mahc8ne. Now you know what I’m talkin’ ’bout yo. The woman’s a godddesss!

Now I shal hurl me down to sleep. I can’t believe Paul let me drive hom this drunk. Unless maybe it d8dn’t show. At the door Paul gave me week’s payin cash for my Chrismas bonus.” I am rich.

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

 

Garlic1235 wrote to tell me that a chick in her hometown stabbed her boyfriend in the neck with a kitchen knife because he opened one of his Christmas presents early. Garlic
found this funny but I don’t. I am worried that the dude who got stabbed might be Dan because the chick with the knife sure sounds a whole lot like Martine before her bleeding time. Ha!

LordJCgrl wrote to tell me to stop using OMG in my blog because it offends her as a Christian. I felt really bad. Then I searched and discovered that I had never used OMG once in my whole entire blog! So this chick was calling me out for no reason. OMG, what a righteous, crazy bitch.

Yes, lovelessinAL, I am aware that I type like shit when I am drunk. Are you aware that the reason you are loveless is that you state the obvious like it is insightful?

I am soooooo hungover.

Let me tell you more about the Spooners’ party. Workwise I had almost nothing to do because Cole fell asleep pretty soon after I got there. As long as I had the intercom in my hand I was free to do whatever I wanted. Cole only woke up once. I reswaddled him, sang him a few carols and he fell back asleep.

I must have looked extra cute because I got a ton of attention. It didn’t hurt that I was the only female there older than 10 and younger than 35 and by far the cutest. I wore my new black velvet dress, my patent leather flats and my
new fancy underwear so I felt extra confident. Even Paul told me I looked adorable and he never compliments me on my looks.

I replied “Boy, I sure don’t feel it. I hardly slept last night.”

“Excitement over Santa’s arrival? Or boy trouble?”

It would have been easy to joke and say Santa but I didn’t. I said boy trouble.

“Well forget him. You’re young and beautiful. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you. Trust me whoever this punk is, you can do better.”

I cannot tell you how happy this made me.

When the party really got started for me was when I got the flamingly gay bartender to fill my half-empty nog glass with pure rum. I got louder and happier and pretty soon all the men started flirting with me. I don’t think they expected me to be smart at all, so when I cracked jokes right back at them they loved it. The younger guys were dressed in conservative suits and ties. They all had perky annoying wives except for one who had a tacky implanted girlfriend with big hair and fat lips like she got punched. (I’m sure she deserved it. Ha!) The senior partners kicked it old school in red turtle-necks and double-breasted blazers with sailor buttons. Their ancient wives wore too much makeup on their face-lifts.

The men were gentlemen at first, giving me college advice and laughing loudly at their own jokes but as soon as
their wives turned around, a dirty twinkle came into their eyes and they would touch my shoulder for too long and make inappropriate comments. I could practically hear the boners sprouting in their gray flannels. Ha, I say. Ha! It didn’t gross me out though. I love being a celebrity.

There was one weird moment I must tell you about even though I’m not sure if it was really weird or I just imagined that it was. Paul entered the kitchen as I was filling the ice bucket. He reached into the freezer to get his special vodka out. Our hands touched. We looked at each other. It was like that famous moment in that French movie Dan showed me where the two fated lovers finally meet. I forget which one. Who’s that director? Louch something? Oh, who cares? Fuck Dan. No more Dan. Anyway Paul said something I totally didn’t expect.

He said “We have to stop meeting like this. Maggie’s getting suspicious.”

I didn’t know how to take it. I mean I knew it was just a flirty joke but was he trying to tell me something? I didn’t know what to say so I decided to pretend that I thought he was totally serious.

I whispered all scared “You’re not going to tell her, are you?”

This freaked him out. He turned sort of red, filled up his glass and quickly left. I know what you’re thinking. He was just drunk. He made a stupid lame joke and he was embarrassed that I took it seriously. But I know when somebody’s
joking. He was half joking. Something’s going on with him, I can tell. Do I want to know what? No. I just hope he loses Margaret with all his heart. Oh shit. Freudian slip. I meant “loves.” But I really mean it. It would be awful if he didn’t love her.

Thursday, December 27, 2007

 

Saturday I’m going to my dad’s to celebrate Christmas. I shopped for his present today. I decided to buy him long underwear and heavy socks because his arms and legs get so cold when he goes outside. This is due to the fact that they are concentration-camp skinny with no circulation. While I was at the department store looking, I heard a little girl say “Daddy, isn’t this pretty?” I turned around and saw this sweet little black girl holding up a red plaid scarf. Her dad was handsome with a bright smile. He replied “It sure is. In fact it just might be the prettiest scarf I’ve ever seen.”

I know it sounds corny but I got all choked up. It reminded me of when I was little and my dad and I used to do things together. I hid my face in some ski jackets and sort of coughed until I could stop crying. I must have looked like such a freak! Later I walked over and saw the dad standing at the cash register. The little girl was in a big leather chair reading a book. I don’t know why but I just had to talk to him. I tapped him on the shoulder and said “Someday when
she’s all grown-up, she’s going to remember when you did things together like this, and she won’t be able to stop crying. Nothing’s more important to a little girl than time alone with her daddy.”

He smiled that big smile and said “The feeling’s mutual.” I started crying again. The dude must have thought I was having a nervous breakdown. Hey, maybe I am! Did that ever occur to you, Katherine?

Driving home I called my father to welcome him back from his trip and confirm our plans. Even though I knew it was the last thing he wanted to hear, I told him the story about the man and the little girl in the department store. I just wanted him to know that even though we really aren’t friends anymore, deep down I still love him and wish he wasn’t dying.

When the story was over, he said “Wait, wait, let me get this straight. You talked to a negro?”

I was so shocked I just sort of stuttered.

He said “Honey, relax, for Christ’s sake. It was a joke.”

He hurt my feelings and he knew it. I think he felt guilty. He got quiet and said “Yeah when you were little, boy, was I ever your hero. When I got home from work you’d run to the front door. Daaadddy! You’d take me by the hand and lead me to your room. I was the only one you wanted to play with. I was your hero, all right. Then your mom kicked me
out. Right before Christmas. You grabbed my leg and wouldn’t let go.” He laughed and coughed.

“Are you serious?”

“About what?”

“I grabbed your leg?”

“Oh, yeah. You latched on like a pit bull. I dragged you halfway across the lawn. There was a foot of snow too. I was afraid the neighbors were going to call the cops.”

“How come you never told me this?”

“It’s in the past.”

He coughed some more.

I told him I’d see him Saturday.

After I wrapped his present in the last of my Christmas paper (snowflakes on a silver background) I went to my room and cried for a while. Then I slept like a dead person. When I woke up I drank a disturbing amount of caffeine. Then I called Jade and she wasn’t home. I texted her and she did not text back. I am starting to truly hate her guts. I was so desperate to go out, I called Fat Merci again but she had plans with high school friends and didn’t invite me to come with. I asked her flat out why not, and she said because I get stupid drunk and it’s embarrassing. Fine. Fuck it. She’s a loser anyway. I didn’t tell her that. It’s the Christmas season. I just hung up like I could care less. I will never, ever speak to her sloppy fat ass again.

Now I was really desperate so I texted Anton Tuttle and he called me back in six seconds. Remember him? The gamer with the long hair and cute smile who insulted my blog? Well, he couldn’t believe I wanted to hang out with him. (Neither could I.) He asked what I wanted to do. I said “Get drunk at your house.” He said he had no liquor but he did have some killer weed. I said “Even better.” I am going to shave my legs and bikini line now just in case this is the luckiest night of Anton’s life.

LATER: 11:47
p.m.

 

When Anton opened his front door and saw me standing there, he smiled and said “Whoa, no bra.”

“Truth in advertising.”

“You’re pretty smart, you know that?”

“Smart enough to be nice to cute guys with killer weed.”

We went downstairs into his basement and proceeded to get thoroughly stoned. I kept wondering if maybe I should have sex with him. It would make him happy and it might be good for my ego to be worshiped again. But then I’d think about Dan and I couldn’t go through with it. Our sex was sacred lovemaking. I knew it wouldn’t be like that with Anton and maybe not even very fun. Just to make sure, I let him kiss me and take off my shirt. I waited and waited for some feeling to hit me. Nothing. Finally he was moaning and breathing so hard (a form of begging) that I gave
him a hand job. It was over superfast and he spurted a ton. Homeboy was due! He said it was my turn now. I said don’t bother.

When I got home I went straight to bed but I couldn’t sleep. Sad lonely thoughts twisted and turned in my brain. I started wishing I had gone to college because nothing could be worse than this. A very dark place. I got up to blog, hoping it would make me feel better. It hasn’t. I feel worse. I should never have let Anton kiss me. I don’t even know him or like him.

The TV is telling me all about some Pakistani lady running for president who got shot and killed today. I know I’m supposed to care. I don’t care about anything.

Friday, December 28, 2007

 

I’ve received many emails asking me why I haven’t blogged about Paul Spooner since the Christmas party when he semi-hit on me. Some of you think it’s because we are lovers now and I am too afraid to tell you. Boy, do you not know me. If Paul and I were lovers I would need to tell somebody about it and there’s no one I trust more than you guys, for the obvious reason that you don’t know my real name. Plus I would never be with Paul in a sexual way. Never. I love and respect Margaret way too much. And third, the Spooners
have been in Seattle all week visiting Paul’s parents. So go wash your filthy minds out with soap. Ha!

Saturday, December 29, 2007

 

When my dad opened his longjohns and socks today, he smiled like they were joke gifts when in fact they were very high quality expensive items. How can anyone be so ungrateful? Why couldn’t I just have a normal father? All he said was “Thanks, kid” then he tossed the box aside without even reading the card. I should be used to behavior like this but I am not. It still hurts.

I gave Affie a sterling silver picture frame so she can frame a pic of my dad and have something to remember him by after he is dead. My mom says I make jokes like this because I think it will make it less painful for me when he actually dies. Maybe, but he does seriously look terminal. The long drive to Affie’s mother’s house must have been hard on his weakened system. The skin on his face is red and flaky. His yellow-white hair and beard look matted and homeless. His belly has gotten so big it looks like it’s ready to explode. And the scariest thing is how frail his voice is. Like a little old lady’s. Plus he kept clearing his throat like he’s coughing up acid all the time. When I asked him how Christmas was he said “Gunga Din meets Brothers Grimm.” I have no idea what this means
but it’s obviously bad. Please tell me if you understand the joke.

When it was my turn to receive gifts, my dad said “I know what my little girl likes” and handed me an envelope. It was a card of a reindeer peeing “Merry Christmas” in the snow. Inside was a wrinkly hundred-dollar bill. He signed the card “Your #1 fan, Dad.” When I pulled the money out I saw that he had recycled an old card. The previous signature was blotted out with sloppy Liquid Paper. What a pathetic example of fathering! Then his dead eyes moved back to the TV where a college bowl game was playing. He absolutely had to watch it because he had a two-hundred-dollar bet. Twice my Christmas present!

Affie gave me a big box of the same stinky Indian incense she gave me last year, which I still haven’t used a single stick of, and a wool sweater with animals knitted across the front, which I wouldn’t wear even if I was a ten-year-old blind retard going on a field trip to the zoo. As lame as her gifts were, at least she took the time to wrap them.

I wish I understood my father. Every time I tell my mom another one of my theories about why he treats me like shit, she always says the same thing: “He’s an alcoholic, honey. It has nothing to do with you. It’s a disease. The only thing they love is their next drink.” She’s probably right. But I still look for theories, I can’t help it. I wonder if maybe I don’t
build up his ego enough with compliments. Or maybe he thinks if I was never born my mother wouldn’t have kicked him out. Or maybe my face and body look so much like my mom’s when she was young that it freaks him out to be around me. It’s like a ghost or something. A ghost he used to bone! Or maybe he is afraid that if he felt true fatherly love for me it would remind him of the good old days when we were a family, and his heart would break in two. Or maybe my mom is right and he loves only his next drink and hates everything else, including me and the drink he’s holding in his hand.

Driving home to face another Saturday night alone, I did something stupid. I visited Elysium Books. Don’t worry, I didn’t go in. I’m not that self-destructive. I just stood outside and watched Glenn A. Warburg through the window ringing up a purchase. The window was decorated with holly, pine branches and old leather books stacked on a little antique stepladder. Maybe Glenn is gay. How many straight men decorate like that? I really wanted to enter and say hello. I knew we would have a wonderful conversation and that he would give me brilliant transcendent advice about Dan. Then he would butt-rape me. Just kidding! God, relaaax! Next I stopped at a liquor store that just opened and tried to buy some wine coolers. Even though I flirted with the cute Asian emo behind the counter he said no way,
not without a better fake I.D. Because I still haven’t activated my Netflix, I then stopped at Blockbuster and rented an oldie but a goodie called
Random Harvest.
It is a film that Dan and I watched a lot of one night. After we fooled around, he told me all about one of the actresses in the movie, a gorgeous girl named Susan Peters and how she was nominated for an Oscar for the movie but then a few years later was paralyzed from the waist down in a hunting accident. She got a few more acting jobs in a wheelchair but then became so depressed, she starved herself to death when she was like 30. The story of Susan Peters was so sad that ever since, I’ve wanted to see the movie all the way through. Tonight was the perfect night to do it because I was in the mood to let all my emotions out. Boy, did it work. I had to pause the movie about 50 times while I cried and cried. My mom overheard me and came in. She said obviously I should work in the film business one day. Movies were clearly my bliss.

“No,” I thought, “Dan is.”

I wish I had amnesia and then suddenly remembered that I have a soul mate I had totally forgotten about. How great would that be?