Читать книгу Tales Of A Drama Queen - Lee Nichols - Страница 7

I wake with the Sunday edition of the Santa Barbara News-Press on my belly. I’m depressed and hungover, and unsure how to take the newspaper delivery. Helpful encouragement, or a hint that I’m not welcome for long?

The headline of the Lifestyle section is about Oprah buying a fifty-million-dollar house in Montecito, the über-rich suburb of Santa Barbara. Eager to jump into the job and apartment hunt, I make a list to evaluate my present situation:

Oprah: Recently moved to S.B.

Me: Recently moved to S.B.

Even Steven.

Oprah: Between forty-five and fifty.

Me: Twenty-six.

I’m ahead!

Oprah: Famous and beloved.

Me: Not so famous. And even my lovers don’t belove me.

Back to even?

Oprah: Offers wisdom, advice and companionship on nationally syndicated hugely successful talk show.

Me: Interviewed once on the street. Local news-woman asked what Christmas gift I’d give the world. I said, “Miatas.”

Oprah slightly ahead.

Oprah: Owns her own magazine: O. Graces cover each month in cheerful, feel-good outfit.

Me: Own many outfits.

Gap widening.

Oprah: Never lost fiancé to Iowan Floozy.

Me: Lost fiancé to Iowan Floozy.

Oprah shoots forward.

Oprah: Billionaire. Driven, smart, self-made.

Me: Credit risk. Coasting, smart, self-conscious.

Can taste Oprah’s dust in my mouth.

Oprah: On the chubbier side.

Me: The less chubby side.

Cold comfort.

Maya enters, bearing fresh coffee. “Did you see Oprah’s moving to town?”

“Is she?” I take a life-giving sip. “Where’s Brad?”

“Working.”

At SoftNoodle, a post-dot-com dot-com. They wanted a name that evoked both software and brains. Instead, they got impotence. “He works Sundays?”

“All the geeks do.”

“He’s not geeky. He’s perfect.”

“He’s not perfect!”

“He looks, talks, tastes and is Perfect Brad.”

“Tastes?”

“You know what I mean. Name one way he’s not perfect.”

“He’s not Jewish.”

“Oh,” I say. “That.”

Maya and I have been friends since we were twelve. She always celebrated the major Jewish holidays, unless she had other plans, but that was the extent of it. Maya’s mother, on the other hand, was really observant. She died of breast cancer last year—her funeral was the one time I’d been back since college. Since then, Maya has taken religion more seriously. Not that she’s started attending synagogue or anything, but she knows her mother wanted her to marry someone Jewish.

“So no wedding bells?” I say.

Her face clouds. “The wedding bells were supposed to be for you and Louis.” She sits next to me. “Did he really hurt you, Elle?”

I’d been thinking about that, between bouts of obsessive eating. “Other than my pride? No. C’mon. Of course not.” I take another sip of coffee, wishing it were a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Chubby Hubby. The name of the ice cream makes my heart hurt. “Yeah. I guess he did. I miss him. I liked him. I really—he was solid. We really knew each other—little things, you know? The stuff that doesn’t matter, but that’s all that matters. And he was…well, he was there. That’s important in a fiancé.”

“He was there.” Her tone says, you don’t sound like a woman in love.

“Do you remember in high school, when we wanted to be mistresses?”

“No.”

“Maybe that was just me.” I’d seen a special on 20/20 about Kept Women. It had made an impression. Your own house, designer clothes and an allowance. All you had to do was have sex whenever he wanted. I liked sex—it didn’t seem like a hardship. “That’s pretty much what I had going.”

“You were his mistress?”

“Well, we didn’t have sex whenever he wanted. But I lived in an apartment he paid for, I didn’t work, he bought me clothes.” I look at her. “I should’ve asked for an allowance.”

“Do you love him?”

“Sure. That’s what kept it from being tawdry.” I finish my coffee. “I know you must’ve thought I led this exciting, sophisticated, romantic life…”

“Not really.”

“But to tell the truth it was kind of—” I look at her. “What do you mean, not really?”

“You never sounded happy. Just sort of…empty.”

“Empty? I wasn’t empty. I had the shopping and the lunches and the…the…museums. It was full. Very full. I was settled, Maya—I had it all. A man I loved, a lifestyle, friends…”

Maya gives me a look.

“I had friends! People from Louis’s work. I could’ve stayed with one of them, but it would have been—you know. More comfortable for everyone if they stick with Louis. Besides, I wanted you.”

“Good. They can stick with Louis, I’ll stick with you.”

I feel sort of weepy, and Maya gets that pitying look in her eyes again, so I ruffle the newspaper and say, “You think I should get a place downtown, or on the Riviera?”

“You might not have a choice. How much can you pay?”

I look around her apartment. “What’s the rent here?”

“Take a guess.”

It’s the second story of a cape in a nice neighborhood—the upper eastside. Hardwood floors, white walls, a big kitchen with tile counters. Maya’s always had good taste, and the decor is mostly minimalist with Asian and Jewish accents thrown in. A Chinese lantern hangs over the dining room table and the mantel displays her mother’s collection of antique menorahs. “I don’t know,” I say. “Nine hundred?”

Maya snorts. “Try sixteen.”

“But it’s only got one bedroom, and no dishwasher!”

“Dishwashers are two hundred a month extra.”

“Oh. Well…” I don’t know how to tell her, but she’s been had. I bet this was the only place they looked at. Not everyone is good at this kind of thing.

“You’ll find something,” she says, and hands me a set of keys. “Use my car. Brad and I are sharing. You want to come shopping?”

I brighten. “Shopping?”

“Groceries, Elle,” she says, laughing. “Then I have to stop by the bar.”

“Oh. No. I should start the apartment hunt.”

“Back in a few hours, then.” She closes the door behind her, and I have a brainstorm: I’m gonna find the perfect apartment before she gets back. This is my new life, this is the New Elle—if Oprah can buy a fifty-million-dollar house without breaking a sweat, I can find an apartment in the time it takes Maya to buy detergent and cottage cheese.

I’m into the last ten minutes of Davey and Goliath when a key turns in the front door. I hit the off button on the remote a moment before Maya enters. I wish she’d come later. Goliath had disobeyed Davey, and I’m pretty sure he had a lesson coming.

Maya glances at the TV. “What were you watching?”

“Mmm? Oh, the news.”

“What’s going on?”

“Lot’s of…bad stuff. The usual. You’re back quick.”

“I’ve been gone four hours, Elle.”

“Well, I’m going to look at an apartment.” I point to the classifieds crumpled on the table. “There’s an open house, at one o’clock.”

She checks her watch. “It’s twenty after, sweetie.”

So I lolled around watching Davey and Goliath reruns and missed an open house. So what? It’s only Sunday. I’ve been in California less than twenty-four hours. I’m supposed to have accomplished something by now?

It’s not like I don’t have goals. Of course, I have goals. They are, after much soul-searching:

Apartment.

Car.

Job.

Man.

And, of course, the complete obliteration of Iowa, by Act of God, Hanta Virus or Crème Brûlée. I’m not particular.

I have assets as well as goals, by the way. I got $1,100 for my Vera Wang wedding dress. Was going to sell it on eBay, but began weeping when I wrote the header: Vera Wang Wedding Dress: Never Worn. Sold it to a local wedding boutique, instead, for their first offer. I would have talked them up, but it cost Louis $4,800, and I wanted him to suffer. If he ever learns how cheap I sold it for, I mean. Which he won’t.

So $1,100 plus the roughly $4,000 in our household account, which was by all rights mine. Plus the triple-wick candle and instant ear thermometer, and so on.

I’m flush. A single girl in Santa Barbara with five grand and change. It’s a monster stack of cash, burning a hole. The future lies before me, full of abundant promise and happy surprises, like an endless sale rack at Barneys.