God-Shaped Hole

by Tiffanie DeBartolo

  I tried to think brighter thoughts: my little French daughters. They’d call me Maman. They’d eat escargot and not think it was weird.

  I told Jacob that I was going out for a few hours, so he and Nina could talk.

  “Trixie, you don’t have to leave.”

  “It’s okay. I don’t want to be in the way,” I said, which was true. I left out the part about not wanting to be in the same room with someone my boyfriend fucked on a regular basis for three years. I grabbed a book, wished Nina well, and said I’d be back later.

  I went to the Cow’s End, a two-story café in Venice that looked like a barn dressed up as a living room. It was like being in the house of a hippie relative. There was unpolished wood all over the walls and lots of plush couches with dingy upholstery—a perfect location to over-caffeinate myself and read all afternoon. I told the kid behind the counter, whose name tag read Burn, that I was going to be around for a few hours. He gave me my first latte at a discount.

  “What kind of name is Burn?” I said.

  “It’s short for Bernard.”

  I think he mistook my curiosity for flirting. He asked me if I wanted to go to a keg party with him.

  “How old are you?” I said.

  “Eighteen. I’ll be nineteen in a week.”

  “I think MTV is older than you are.”

  “I like your shoes,” he said.

  They were vintage Air Jordans. “I’ve had them since you were in third grade.”

  Burn called me Babe. And he used the word “party” as a verb. I thanked him for the offer and graciously declined his invitation for a date.

  “Are you sure? It’s gonna be a rager,” he said.

  I told him I had a boyfriend. Not that I would have gone with him otherwise, I was just trying to be polite. I wanted to let him down easy.

  “So,” he said, “I’m not exactly looking for a wife or anything.”

  I felt sorry for Burn. He had a lot to learn about women. And his remark annoyed me enough that I developed a strong, sudden desire to put him in his place.

  “Bernard,” I said, “the truth is, even though you think you’re really cool, I’m pretty sure you couldn’t lick a pussy to save your life.” I waited for a retort but he didn’t say shit. “That’s what I thought,” I said.

  I picked up my coffee and found a warm corner to lounge in for the next few hours. I needed a quiet place to concentrate. I’d brought along a book I wanted to pay close attention to: a novel called Morning Glory by Thomas Doorley.

  On the surface, Thomas Doorley’s first novel was nothing more than a tale about a Vietnam vet who comes home from the war having had his right leg blown off in combat. I found the plot a bit predictable, in all likelihood because it was published in 1976, and I’d seen all the movies covering that topic. You know, Apocalypse Now, Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July. I remembered the news clips about the way the vets were treated, about the alienation, the post-traumatic stress disorder. However, curiously enough, the book contained an interesting allegory. I found the chaos of a man who’d lost part of himself, part of his flesh, and consequently felt like a part of his soul was missing. I saw the whole thing as a metaphor for something larger than a severed limb. Maybe I was reading too much into it, but I thought Jacob should read the book. I figured it might help him understand, might urge him to make contact with a man who, it seemed to me, was much more haunted by what he’d left behind than Jacob ever gave him credit for.

  Before I went home, I stopped by the salon where Sara worked. I wanted to thank her for being so nice to me the night before. She made me sit down in her chair. I told her about Nina. She felt sorry, but she wasn’t surprised.

  “Are you ready for a big change?” Sara said, wielding the scissors between her fingers. She wanted to cut my hair. “Last night you said I could.”

  “I was kind of inebriated then.” My hair had never been above my shoulders, not since I was a kid anyway.

  “Come on, it’ll look great, I promise. And if you hate it, it will always grow back.”

  “I’m scared,” I said. As soon as my brain heard that word, scared, I ordered Sara to start cutting. A haircut was a stupid-ass thing to be afraid of. And Jacob said living in fear wasn’t really living. It became a metaphorical experience of growth for me, a test of courage. Just like saying “I love you.”

  Sara led me to a big marble sink that practically gave me whiplash when I leaned my head into it. She shampooed my hair, then she took me back to her station and combed through my tangled mane.

  “Do whatever you want,” I said.

  “Sit still,” Sara begged.

  I’d had way too much coffee. I couldn’t stop fidgeting.

  “Keep your head down,” Sara said. “And don’t look until I’m finished.”

  Big clumps of hair started dropping into my lap. Against the shocking blue color of the salon walls, the locks looked like dead crows falling out of the sky.

  Almost an hour went by before Sara finally put the scissors down, but she still wouldn’t let me look. She was rubbing my head with a goopy gel that smelled like pineapples.

  “This is adorable,” she said.

  She shook the excess hair off of my face and lap, and had me stand up. My neck felt cold.

  “Okay,” she said. “You can look now.”

  My hair was maybe two inches long all over my head. Some of it stuck straight up in the air.

  “What do you think?”

  It was soft and fuzzy when I ran my fingers through it. And I could see my ears. “It’s cool,” I said. “I like it.”

  My first inclination was to go straight to my studio and make myself a new pair of earrings to celebrate the change, but I decided that could wait. I wanted to get home and show Jacob.

  I snuck into the apartment as quietly as possible and called his name.

  “I’m in the bedroom,” he said.

  “Is Nina gone?”

  There was a pause, then he said, “Yes.” I couldn’t see his face, but the tone of his voice told me he’d just rolled his eyes. Like it was preposterous for me to think he’d be in the bedroom with Nina.

  “Close your eyes, and keep them closed,” I said.

  I tiptoed in and stood next to the bed. Jacob’s eyes were shut, he wasn’t wearing a shirt, and he had the New York Times on his lap. We lived in Los Angeles but every day he read the New York Times. I took the paper out of his hands and repositioned myself so that I was in the best possible light.

  “Okay, open,” I said.

  “Wow.” He smiled, a bit startled. “You cut your hair.”

  “And the Nobel Prize goes to…Jacob Einstein!” I said, jumping up and down.

  “You’re a smart ass, you know that?” Jacob said.

  “I know you are but what am I?”

  “A smart ass.”

  “I know you are but what am I?”

  “Trixie, did you have coffee today?” He pulled me down, rolled me over, and lay on top of me.

  “Do you like my hair?” I said. “Sara did it for me.”

  He petted my head. “Yeah. You look like Jean Seberg from Breathless.”

  I didn’t know who that was. “Is she cute?” I said.

  “She was beautiful. But not as beautiful as you.”

  “How was your afternoon?” I said.

  “Long and depressing. Want to cheer me up?”

  I knew exactly what he meant by that. I had to stop him before he got carried away.

  “Jacob, if you want the milk, you have to buy the cow a meal.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “In the last twelve hours, I’ve had three lattes and a cookie. Put a shirt on. We’re going to get dinner.”

  We walked to Second Street and, after ten minutes of deliberation, decided on Thai food. I ordered us Phad-Thai noodles,
a spicy eggplant and basil dish, spring rolls, and a bottle of water.

  “To go,” Jacob said.

  We hiked to the beach to eat and watch the sun set. Jacob wanted to tell me all about his day with Nina. Truth be told, I didn’t care to hear it, but he seemed like he needed to let it out. The gist of it was that she’d just gotten out of rehab—some kind of month-long program in a halfway house where you have to wash dishes, do laundry, scrub the bathroom floors, and somehow stay off drugs at the same time. Jacob said Nina was trying hard to kick her habit and stay healthy, and he managed to convince her to go back east, where I gathered she was from, and stay with her parents for a while. I didn’t pry any further because I wanted to seem unfazed. The last thing I needed to find out was that she’d tried to kiss him, or something that would make me jealous all over again. Besides, I had my own significant matter to discuss.

  “Jacob,” I said theatrically.

  “What?” he said quickly, imitating my melodrama.

  “I read Morning Glory this afternoon.”

  It took Jacob a few seconds to figure out what that was. He’d just bitten into a roll, and he paused with his mouth full to watch a wave fold onto the shore. When he finished chewing, he swallowed hard and looked back at me.

  “All of it?” he said.

  “No, not all of it. I have about three chapters left.”

  “Well?” he said. “What’s the verdict? Did I inherit my amazing talent, or am I a big fluke?” He played it off like it was no big deal. He didn’t fool me.

  “I’ll tell you what I think. I think you should read it. I think you need to read it right away.”

  Jacob wanted to know why I thought it so consequential that he read the damn book. I told him my interpretation of the story, how I thought it was about him, about his father leaving him behind. He tried to be nonchalant, but I could tell he was curious. I could tell he was grappling with all the old, unresolved demons.

  “I’m not sure I can read it,” he said, eyeing the blue-orange glow of the horizon. It looked like the center of a flame and was one of the only things I liked about living in Los Angeles—sunsets on the Pacific.

  I bet sunsets look just as beautiful on the Mississippi.

  I didn’t say anything else about the book. I knew Jacob would come around. He needed too many answers not to.

  SEVENTEEN

  The first time my ass ever touched a public toilet seat was the day I made the reservations for Jacob’s thirtieth birthday dinner. I should have recognized that as some kind of bad omen. I’m very particular about where I set my ass, so to allow that kind of mishap was beyond comprehension. It had never happened before, not even with those “for your protection” toilet-shaped tissues you’re supposed to lay down before you go. They don’t do a damn bit of good anyway—they just soak up the leftover pee that’s already on the seat. So I squat. I’ve always squatted, ever since I was a child and my mother told me there were microscopic germs on toilet seats that could give you elephantiasis. I didn’t even know what elephantiasis was, but it didn’t sound like anything I wanted.

  Two hours before I called the restaurant to make our reservation, I went to pick up Jacob’s birthday present at the antique mart on Beverly Boulevard. I got him a clunky old silver watch, dated 1946. It wasn’t glitzy or anything, just something special that he’d have for a long time—forever if he didn’t lose it. I engraved it myself, but instead of writing something mushy, I put his name, address, and telephone number on it. Like a dog tag. Jacob had gone through three watches in the eight months I’d known him. I wasn’t taking any chances.

  I drank half a bottle of water before I left the apartment. By the time I got to Beverly, I really had to go. Somehow I miscalculated the distance from my butt to the bowl and there was contact. Only for a second. Nevertheless, contact was made.

  Jacob’s birthday fell on a Friday, so Pete and I decided to cancel our usual Sushi outing the following night and take him somewhere nice instead. It was a momentous occasion and we wanted to splurge. I called a pricey restaurant down on Ocean Avenue—the kind with amazing food and an unusual number of Mercedes in the valet—and I made a reservation for eight people.

  “For when?” the lady said.

  “Friday.”

  “What time?”

  “Seven-thirty.”

  It was Monday. She acted like it would be no problem. She took my first name and my phone number, and everything was set.

  Friday afternoon rolled around and I got a call from the restaurant. It was the same girl I’d spoken to before. She told me our party would have to be seated either at five-thirty or at ten.

  “You can’t do that,” I said. “We have a reservation.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “You don’t sound sorry.”

  “We have another group coming in. We made a mistake and can’t accommodate you. But we’d love to offer you a complimentary dinner for two the next time you dine with us.”

  I told her to shove dinner for two up her vagina. That was the biggest bunch of bull I’d ever heard. After I hung up I ranted to Jacob about the injustices of Los Angeles, about how some people would sell their first born to kiss celebrity ass.

  “Jacob, I’d bet your left testicle that some hot-shot actor called up and needed our table. There’s no Academy Award-winning Beatrice to speak of, so they figured it was safe to dump us.”

  “Don’t be gambling with my balls,” he said. “So we’ll find another place to eat. Big deal. What’s a four-letter word for a baby kangaroo?”

  Jacob was engrossed in his daily crossword puzzle. It was obvious that he didn’t think restaurant politics were nearly as controversial as I did. To me, it was unacceptable. There was principal involved. That, and the banana split the restaurant served for dessert. It cost fifteen dollars and was worth every cent: three scoops of homemade ice cream surrounded by two bananas, a handful of fresh strawberries, blueberries, pineapple, a dish of almonds, and a dollop of whipped cream. On the side, they gave you two little pitchers. One was filled with hot fudge, the other one was filled with hot, gooey caramel.

  It was foreplay. We had to have one.

  “Trixie, all this fuss over ice cream?”

  I nodded.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Jacob said. He looked up the number of the restaurant and dialed. “But let me just say, if this works, I’m going to lose all hope in humanity.”

  “Join the club,” I said. “Joey.”

  Jacob spoke into the phone using his surfer voice. It was pretty close to his Greg impersonation, only a little deeper. He was extremely polite, telling the person on the other end of the line that he needed a table for eight people that night. He said he was getting ready to leave town to work on a film, and he really wanted to eat there before he left. He said his last name was Reeves.

  “Uh-huh. Sure. Right on,” he said into the phone. “Seven-thirty? Great, thanks very much.” After he hung up, he said, “We’ve got to get out of here.”

  “I told you.”

  “Why did you call me Joey?”

  “A baby kangaroo. Four letters. Joey.”

  EIGHTEEN

  When we got to the restaurant that night, Jacob announced us as “Reeves, party of eight.”

  The hostess picked up a stack of menus and immediately lead us to our table, only she looked at each person suspiciously, trying to locate the illustrious Mr. Reeves in our crowd. She was horribly dubious but she didn’t say anything. What could she say without looking like a complete fool?

  The walls of the restaurant were painted a pastel pink, all the dining chairs were made of wicker, and there were various ships hanging from the ceiling—a cruise ship, a battleship, a yacht, a catamaran, but miniature versions—the kind you can buy at a toy store and then build and paint in your basement. In the dim of the candlelight, the effect
was nautically romantic. We were seated at a lovely table in the back, right across from a gigantic print of an old sailboat navigating rough waters. Across it said: Brave Men Run in My Family. It reminded me of the painting in the diner where Jacob and I first met, only this one was nicer. And five times as big. And it had a boat in it.

  Not long after we sat down, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver came in with their kids. I heard Maria thank the maitre d’ for squeezing them in on such short notice. I was positive they were the ones who stole our original table. I almost went over and told them the whole story. They looked like normal enough people, and I thought they’d get a kick out of it, but Jacob said if I ever wanted to eat there again, I shouldn’t blow our cover.

  “We’re Reeves, remember? Not Beatrice.”

  The birthday party consisted of Jacob and I; Sara and Pete; Joanna Grace and her date, a shy schoolteacher with a heavy moustache, named Jim; plus Kat and her new boyfriend, Gopal. Gopal was a tall, lanky chap, originally from a small town in northern India. He spoke with a slight accent and was the only one at the table wearing a suit and tie. Kat said he never went out at night without a suit and tie on. She had a red rhinestone glued to her forehead, a pseudo bindi, obviously in his honor. Gopal had been in the United States for twelve years and he’d never heard of The Brady Bunch. Kat, conversely, spent practically every waking moment of youth watching television. She cited bogus lessons from the Brady family as mantras, and she knew every episode by heart. I guessed it would never last.

  Pete was on his third gin martini by the time we were ready to eat. He wanted to order for everyone at the table. He asked each of us, in turn, what we thought sounded good, then he took it upon himself to decide what we were going to have.