“I couldn’t understand a word, dear,” Geraldine said. “David, did you get any of that?”
“I wasn’t listening,” David said.
And still Lala didn’t stop chatting. She couldn’t figure out any other way to maintain the perky energy that might prevent them from knowing that she couldn’t stop replaying the last months of Terrence’s life in her head. She didn’t want them to know that the images of IV drips and syringes and vomiting and wonderful hospice nurses, whose non-stop kindness only made it more difficult for her not to be constantly sobbing in front of Terrence as they upped the doses of his morphine to help keep him out of pain, were flooding her mind in a way that they hadn’t since the awful years immediately after Terrence died.
When they got back to Manhattan Beach, it was just before dinnertime. Lala asked David to please wait just a minute and she would come right back to help him with the bags.
“I’m not an invalid,” Monty insisted. “I’ll help him with the bags.”
“NO!” the three of them yelled.
Lala ran from the parking spots behind the fourplex and through the courtyard to Stephanie and Chuck’s place.
Got to see my puppies, she thought. Got to see them now. Must hug puppies. Now.
“Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Stephanie!” she crowed when Stephanie’s mom and dad opened the door.
I can’t remember their names, Lala thought. Damn it. I am such a putz.
Stephanie’s mom, Linda, was holding her granddaughter and was also balancing Yootza, Lala’s dachshund, in her arms. Yootza, who was normally a complete grouch, a quality that Lala found ceaselessly endearing, was snuggled up against Linda and Trixie. Lala thought she could hear him purring.
“Look, Yootzie,” Linda cooed. “Mama’s home!”
She gently handed the grey-faced little hound to Lala, and the moment that Trixie realized that her best buddy was being taken from her, she began to wail with wrenching, full-body sobs.
“Ohh,” Stephanie’s dad Leland said. He patted his granddaughter on the top of her head, which only seemed to add to Trixie’s distress.
Linda nodded at Lala and Yootza and smiled.
“Babies,” Linda sighed. “When they’re sad, they cry with their whole little souls.”
Yeah, Lala thought. I know how they feel.
You Know What You Can’t Do?
As she had done from her earliest memories, Lala retreated to find solace with her animals. Her regular work routine of sitting on the couch with her dogs and working on her laptop while her television show addictions played at a low volume in the background brought Lala a lot of comfort as she relived memories of her life with Terrence with a vividness that hadn’t really been with her since shortly after he died.
It took a week of popping half an Ambien so that she could fall into blissful oblivion fifteen minutes after swallowing the little bisected pill for Lala to start to feel somewhat righted again. And throughout this unexpected period of upheaval and adjustment, Lala worked very hard to make sure that everyone, especially David, couldn’t tell that she was in a fresh phase of non-stop, low-grade widow’s agony.
I’m David’s girlfriend, she silently mused while Say Yes to the Dress once again played in the background. And I guess I really do still think of myself as Terrence’s widow. Maybe I can combine the two words for all of us who have to move on after we lose our mates. Gidow. Wirlfriend. I love words. Oh, honey, do not buy that dress. Don’t listen to your stepmother. You do not want to look like that on your wedding day.
Most of the time, Lala was successful in being her usual self so no one would worry that something was amiss. But then there were those moments when forming complete sentences in conversation was just beyond her abilities.
“I feel like making a chopped salad for dinner,” David said one evening after he had gotten back from speaking at a day-long conference at UCLA for undergraduates interested in going to veterinary school.
“Yum. Delish. Greens. Yes. Thanks.”
“Are you okay?” David asked.
Oops, Lala thought. Gotta up the vigilance.
“I am great!” Lala said. “I feel so great, I think I’ll make the chopped salad while you relax and play with the pups.”
David peered at Lala with increased concern.
Oops, Lala thought. Overcompensating again.
“You never cook,” David whispered, sounding somewhat terrified.
“Kidding!” Lala brayed. “I’m kidding, you silly goose! You make the damn salad! Everyone knows I never cook!”
Thankfully, high-powered distraction arrived shortly after their return from Big Sur in the form of another meeting at Sony Pictures Studios. Zoe drove to Manhattan Beach on the day of the meeting to get ready with Lala and to travel to the studio together.
Getting ready involved Zoe talking Lala off the ledge she had gotten herself onto.
“Check again! Are you sure? Check again, please, Zoe!”
“Lala,” Zoe said with an exaggerated level of calm that she desperately hoped might make her producing partner less crazy. “There are no drops of any kind in your bag. I promise you. I’ve checked four times now. All is as it should be. Your notes are in there. Several pens and a highlighter are in there. Your phone, your not-tested-on-animals blush, and your not-tested-on-animals pressed powder compact is in there.”
“Good,” Lala gasped, her voice still trembling. “Let’s hope I don’t poke any of the stuff in my bag in my eyes before we get to the conference room.”
Clive and his manager Garrett were already in the conference room when an assistant brought Lala and Zoe in to join them.
Clive stood when they walked in and extended his hand, first to Lala and then to Zoe.
Garrett remained seated.
I’m thinkin’ Garrett’s a dickhead, Lala thought, smiling broadly at Clive and pumping his hand.
“Lala, you look great!” Clive said, sounding astonished.
“Ohhh, thanks,” Lala said unenthusiastically, Clive’s note of surprise having been entirely impossible to miss.
“I’m sorry,” Clive added. “It’s not because I’m shocked that you could look great, Lala, it’s just that your eyes were in so much distress last time we saw you.”
Okay, I have to admit that that’s a rather endearing save, Lala thought.
“Yeah, okay, Clive, can we get this meeting started?” Garrett growled.
“Garrett, don’t be a total dickhead,” Clive chuckled.
Clive, you are growing on me at a rapid rate, Lala thought as she sat in the chair that Clive had pulled out from the table for her.
The meeting was light and gregarious and fun, all of it coming from Clive’s end because Garrett didn’t do a whole lot more than sit there and scowl. Lala and Zoe and Clive talked about possible casting choices, about songs that had come to Clive’s mind while he was reading the script that might work on the soundtrack, and about location ideas, including actually filming the Parisian scenes in the novel in Paris, which made Lala’s couer skip a beat.
Garrett ate all the deviled eggs that were on the once again bountiful cart of savory and sweet snacks and legions of varied beverages.
Damn, Lala thought, I love deviled eggs. Greedy schmuck.
“Give ’em the DVD,” Garret growled through a mouth full of yolk.
“Excellent idea. Thank you, Garrett,” Clive said with what Lala immediately recognized was genuine and completely inexplicable affection.
Wow, Lala thought. You are a far better person than I, Clive.
Clive grabbed a DVD case from the seat next to him and handed it to Zoe.
“We’d like you to please consider Matthew Finch as the director for Dressed Like a Lady. Take a view of his latest film, and let us know what you think.”
Zoe looked at the cover and smiled.
&nbs
p; “We saw this!” she said. “Lala, it’s that comedy we just saw!”
“It is? That’s the director you want? We loved that film!”
“Excellent!” Clive said.
“Good,” Garrett huffed. He slid over to the cart, grabbed a Perrier, and ostentatiously wrenched the top off. “Meeting’s over.”
While Lala and Zoe were standing and smiling at the sinks and mirrors in the bathroom that had once been the location of so much random trauma and was now transformed to a place of optimism and exuberance, Eliza from Accounting ran in. Her eyes were bright red and wet and she was panting.
“Omigosh, dear,” Lala said. She grabbed a paper towel and held it under the faucet. “Here, wipe your poor eyes.”
“Thanks,” Eliza gasped. Lala patted her back while she gently dabbed her eyes over the sink.
“Did you put drops that were intended to dissolve wax in your beagle’s ears in there?” Lala asked sympathetically.
Eliza lifted her head and peered with her anguished eyes at the possibly misleadingly stable-seeming woman.
“Did I what?” Eliza said.
“Did you—”
“Lala,” Zoe interrupted, “that’s not a thing.”
“Oh. It’s not a thing. Right.”
Eliza started crying anew.
“Oh, dear,” Lala said. “I didn’t mean to add to your distress.”
“You’re not,” Eliza sobbed. “I don’t know what just happened. This stupid guy in the cubicle next to mine always wears headphones, and usually I can steer clear of him, but today he started singing along. It was quiet at first so I could kind of ignore it, and then it got louder. I thought I should probably just go out and get my own headphones so I wouldn’t hear him, but then I just lost it. I stood up and I started screaming at him, and my supervisor came over and I quit my job! I did it without thinking. I just got so fed up with everything. What am I going to do?”
“Which department are you in, dear?” Lala asked.
“Accounting,” Eliza sniffled.
Lala and Zoe looked at each other. There was an immediate understanding between the partners.
“I think we could use a good accountant for our production, don’t you?”
“I sure do,” Zoe said.
“Are you a good accountant?” Lala asked.
“I am,” Eliza said. “I work very hard.”
“Excellent,” Lala said.
The three women walked out of the building together. On the way, they established that Eliza lived in Santa Monica in a small apartment she shared with two roommates.
“Well, I don’t live far away from you at all. I’m in Manhattan Beach,” Lala said. “Do you have plans for tonight?”
Eliza said that she didn’t, and so they agreed to meet at the Whole Foods in Venice, where they shopped for sandwiches and side dishes and wine and dessert.
When they got to Lala’s place, her dogs were waiting at the door. David was doing an overnight shift at a 24-hour veterinary hospital in West LA.
“Look at your pups!” Eliza crowed when she walked in. She got down on the floor with the dogs and started rolling around with them, much to the immediate and complete delight of Chester, Petunia, Yootza, and Eunice. Lala and Zoe gave each other a look that clearly indicated they were quite pleased with this confirmation that they had made a good choice in hiring this fellow fan of animals to work with them.
The women and the dogs got themselves comfortable in various locations in the living room. Wine was poured and deemed superb, sandwiches were devoured and deemed sumptuous, and potato salad German-style, as well as potato salad with mayonnaise dressing and macaroni salad with capers, were sampled and were deemed “Omigod, SO tasty!”
The women chatted while they ate and exchanged pieces of biographical information. Eliza had also gone to school in Connecticut, at Trinity College in Hartford.
“Loved it. Hated the winters,” she said.
“I know, right?” Zoe said.
“Right, I know,” Lala agreed.
They settled back on the sofas and in the cushioned chairs with their vegan blueberry scones, vegan carrot cake, and English Breakfast tea that had ample shots of brandy in it.
It had been decided early on that this would be a slumber party so that there would be license to, as Lala explained to the young women, “not worry about if it’s getting late while we brainstorm regarding the project and also get completely hammered.” And they would watch the DVD of the film helmed by the director they would most likely be working with.
Lala switched on the TV and the previews leading up to the film began playing.
“Tooters,” Lala said, reading the DVD case. “Is that the same movie that we saw? I didn’t remember it being called that.”
“It’s the same one,” Zoe assured her. “Look at the cast and the character names.”
“Oh, yeah. Gosh, you’d think I would have remembered a title like that. Well, there were a lot of mojitos involved.”
“I love mojitos,” Eliza said. She had Yootza on her lap and was holding him like a baby. Lala watched as her grumpy dachshund gazed at Eliza with serene adoration.
“I do not know how you managed that, Eliza,” Lala said. “Yootza is such a grouch. You’re like canine Valium.”
The previews were over, and Tooters began. Lala sat back, looking forward to being delighted and diverted as she had been at the first viewing in the movie theater. It took about fifteen minutes for confusion to begin. She tried not to start worrying and decided to give the film another half hour to transform back into the quality entertainment she fondly remembered. Five minutes into that pledge, Lala had seen enough.
“I’m sorry, did he just say his brother’s farts smell like Chinese food? Who writes crap like that?”
Lala grabbed the DVD cover and read the credits.
“He wrote and directed this! That guy they want to direct our movie wrote and directed this piece of crap.”
“It’s not that bad,” Zoe began, and when Lala and Eliza immediately looked at her as though she’d had an instant lobotomy, she had to agree that it was not good.
Clive wants him, Lala thought. We are fucked.
“We are fucked,” Zoe said. “Clive wants him.”
The room went quiet, but for the sounds of Petunia snoring and a character in the movie named Bart telling a character named Brody that they should go to town and “Get dick-deep in the radical, man.”
I doubt they’re talking about protesting in favor of single-payer healthcare, Lala thought.
She picked up her teacup. It was nearly empty. Eschewing the pot of tea on the coffee table, she grabbed the brandy bottle and filled the cup with that. Lala sipped steadily as she continued to watch the screen and reflected on the dream of a quality creative future that was crumbling in front of her. And that reminded her of another time when her plans for the future were suddenly lost. And that made her quickly get over herself vis-à-vis her career.
“You know what?” Lala said. “It’s not life and death. If Clive wants this guy and having this guy gets our movie made, we’ll make it work. Let’s look on the bright side.”
She drained the last drops out of the brandy bottle into her cup. Zoe and Eliza watched her in hopeful anticipation of hearing what the pluses to this silver screen slop festival might be.
“We’re out of brandy,” Lala said. “But I’ve got a full bottle of Bailey’s Irish Cream in the cupboard. See? Things are already looking up!”
Life, Lala observed, continued as it always did unless the Grim Reaper had other plans, and she did her best to push any thoughts of loss out of her mind. Thankfully, life was newly quite busy and helped distract her. The filming of Dressed Like a Lady, Drinks Like a Pig was fast-tracked when Clive’s production company came aboard, and Clive kept Lala and Zoe, and now Eliza,
busy with all aspects of the production. He made his admiration for the women clear, and Lala appreciated the extra activity in her life. Until they moved into their own office space, Clive gave them complete access to two of the five offices that Sony had given him on their lot for the project, and Lala spent many hours, often seven days a week, at the studio, doing anything that would help get the job done.
“I really think we should film the Paris scenes on location,” Clive said one day.
“Mais bien sûr!” Lala cooed.
“Tu parles français?” Clive asked.
“Tu n’as pas idée, mon cher.”
I’m not entirely sure what I’m trying to indicate with that, Lala thought. But it sounds knowing. And rather insouciantly French, I think. J’espère.
Lala’s conscious attempts to banish the painful memories of losing Terrence started to work, and her conscious efforts to behave as though she were feeling confident and optimistic about life also started to work, so that acting—something Lala had to admit to herself she had never been especially good at, even during all those years in college and when she was auditioning in New York (“How in god’s name I didn’t realize I absolutely sucked in just about every role I ever had is entirely beyond me . . .”)—like she was okay was proving surprisingly effective. Whenever she thought about someone she loved—specifically David—dying, she just imagined a big stop sign and silently yelled “STOP!” to herself. And doing that really started to help. It really did.
But there were those stray moments when the interior voice slipped into the exterior.
At dinner . . .
“Honey, do you want more ice—”
“STOP! I’m sorry . . . You were saying?”
While hiking up to the Hollywood sign . . .
“Lala, look at that cute puppy over—”
“STOP! I’m sorry . . . Puppy! Cute!”
During sex . . .
“STOP! No, I’m sorry, David . . . don’t stop . . .”
On her personal horizon, there was a lovely event coming up that would also serve to help Lala feel distracted. Monty was turning seventy-five, and Geraldine decided that a big birthday weekend celebration, especially given his recent health scare, was a must.
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