I mean, look at these women — they were practically drooling all over him and they didn’t even know him. He’s not even that good-looking! Well, not really, anyway. Well, I mean, unless you go for that sort of look. Which I don’t.
“My, my, Brooke,” Vanessa said, interrupting my thoughts, “I didn’t take you for the jealous type.”
“Jealous? Vanessa, please! Why would I be jealous!”
“You tell me. What was with the little hand thing under the table? And why can’t you take your eyes off of him and his minions?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, quickly snapping my head back to face her.
“I don’t know what he sees in those girls, anyway,” Vanessa said. “They are so L.A. I’ve never seen so much pink clothing before in my life.”
“I know,” I said, taking off my wrap sweater to reveal the white wife beater I had on underneath it, “it’s pathetic.” Vanessa nodded her head in agreement, adjusting her D’Orsay pumps. “So,” I casually asked, “do you think that I should call Douglas later?”
“Why on earth would you do that?” she asked.
“Because he’s my
“He’s your
“Okay, I get it,” I said, cutting her off.
“Good,” she said, taking the apple slice out of her martini to nibble. “Okay, now, back to important things — does that woman over there realize that the hair color she’s got is not found in nature?”
“I know. It’s really sad,” I said, twirling my own long locks, which I had blown the curl out of to perfection that morning. “Just so we’re clear, though, you
What? You would have wanted to clarify things, too.
We watched Jack as he approached another group of women. And greeted them with a hearty “G’day mate!” He seemed horrified at his slip, but the women didn’t even seem to notice, in unison saying back, “G’day!” Jack quickly excused himself to return to our table.
“So, how’d it go, loverboy?” I asked him. “All ready to forsake New York for L.A.?”
“It went quite well, actually,” he said, tucking my pink bra strap into my wife beater. I looked down as his hand brushed against my bare shoulder. “I think that I had them all fooled. Either that, or they didn’t care — because I got tons of phone numbers!” Vanessa couldn’t control herself, eyes widening in disbelief. I myself stayed cool, as if I couldn’t care less. Or could care less. Don’t those two mean the same thing? Okay, well, just use whichever one means I didn’t care at all. Because I didn’t.
“You cad!” Vanessa said, smiling. Why the hell is she smiling? Those girls were massive bimbos! That, and the fact that he has no time to take any of them out since we are only here for the weekend. Although, if he moved anywhere as quickly as Douglas did, maybe he would. Anyway, what self-respecting women would all give their phone numbers to the same man? Maybe they thought they were on one of those reality dating shows. You see, this is why people hate L.A.
“The only problem is,” Jack explained, “for some reason, that Australian accent keeps rearing its ugly head.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said, “just don’t do it at the wedding.”
“Goddamn Crocodile Dundee,” Vanessa muttered into her drink.
After Vanessa and I had sampled every specialty martini on the menu (including one called the Mulholland Drive that was built for two and equipped with a very, very large straw), we managed to drag Jack away from his admirers and stumble back to our hotel suite.
We sprawled out over the Louis XVI furniture and feasted on all the minifridge had to offer. Snickers, Milky Way, Butterfingers, Hershey’s Kisses…no candy was shown mercy. After the first round of candy bars, we didn’t even look at the price list as we dove into the chips and mixed nuts. We were way too busy discussing matters such as: Why is the room spinning? Was it spinning before? And who can we call to make it stop?
Jack and Vanessa went out to the balcony to get some fresh air while I excused myself to use the ladies’ room. And wouldn’t you know it — our hotel suite is so fancy, we even have phones in our bathroom! I, of course, took this as a sign from God that I should give Douglas a call. Now, I know that Vanessa disapproved, but the last time that that girl was single was sometime in the 1980s. What did she know? And I’m sure, if given a vote, Jack would also have said that I shouldn’t call, but he’s a man, so what does he know? And at any rate, I’m sure that he was still very much turned on from the whole “hand on the knee/touching my shoulder” thing, so he couldn’t really be an objective voter, now, could he?
I sat on the edge of the cream-colored marble whirlpool bathtub and dialed the number. As the phone rang, I realized that I hadn’t taken the time difference into account. While I was still puzzling over the time in New York, counting back the hours on my fingers, the answering machine picked up.
“Douglas,” I said after the beep, trying very hard to sound sober, “it’s me. Things have been really crazy, but I’m just calling to tell you that I forgive you. I’m in California right now for Trip’s wedding, but I want you to know that the second I get back to New York —”
“Hello?” a very sleepy female voice answered, picking up the phone. Oh, my God. Oh. My. God. When I was busy calculating New York time, I instead should have thinking about the fact that Beryl had already moved in, thus, making the plan of drunk dialing Douglas in the middle of the night very, very stupid. Even more stupid than the name Beryl. Okay, nothing’s more stupid than the name Beryl, but you know what I mean.
There was no mistaking that voice. Even half-asleep, it still had a whiny “Daddy, will you buy me that?” quality to it. With just a touch of screech. It was a half an octave away from being a pitch that only dogs could hear.
A voice like that could only belong to a woman named Beryl. And I was quite certain that the sound of it was making me even more nauseated than I was before. “Hellooo?” she said, now sounding more awake and more annoyed. I immediately hung up the phone. What on earth was I thinking? How was making a complete fool of myself in the middle of the night taking me any closer to my goal of getting Douglas back?
Anyway, I thought in my drunken stupor, I just had to wait until Douglas cheated on Beryl (which he undoubtedly would) and she would leave him so that I could swoop in and reclaim my man and my apartment. There was one flaw with this plan that I refused to see at the time but now in hindsight is crystal clear: it relied on the irrefutable truth that Douglas was, and always would be, a cheater.
The room still spinning, I decided to shelve all further plans for getting back together with Douglas until I was decidedly more sensible, sound and sober. Now, it was time to go to bed.
But first, I walked across the gorgeous marble-encrusted bathroom and threw up.
15
I was dreaming that I was at Trip’s wedding, talking to Trip. As I spoke to him, my teeth began to fall out of my mouth, one by one. I hoped that no one would notice, but the more I spoke, the more my teeth fell out. As I introduced Jack as Douglas to Trip, one of my teeth went flying out of my mouth and hit the floor with a thump. I fell to the ground, trying to pick up that tooth and the rest of my teeth, but the thumping continued. The more I tried to pick up my teeth, the more thumping I seemed to hear. I woke up in a cold sweat.
I sat up in bed, thanking all that was holy that my teeth were still in my mouth, but the thumping continued. Dull and far away. Almost like a knock. I finally realized that there actually
I walked into the suite’s living room, past Jack and Vanessa, both passed out and drooling all over our eighteenth-century inspired throw pillows, to the door.
My eyes still drunk with sleep, I could barely see the man standing at the door, but I was almost positive that he was an airport employee delivering my lost luggage. I thanked him and tipped him and practically danced over to the coffee table to put the suitcase down to open it.
For a minute, I thought that I was still drunk I was so happy, but if I wasn’t already sober, I immediately
