The Optimist

by Sophie Kipner

  I know exactly what he is talking about so I don’t feel left out. Platza is when you get pummeled by boiling oak leaves in a sauna by big, fat, sweaty Russians – just my sort of therapy. I had to see Al get beaten up, as this would be the next step of our relationship. I think about what it would be like to tell people how my love with Al Pacino began, and now I hope I’ll be able to burst out, ‘It began with oak leaves and heat!’ You can’t go wrong when it starts in the steam room. I don’t have much experience with relationships but in the movies love begins when someone shows some skin. My mother told me once that when my dad saw her naked he told her he loved her. It didn’t last long, their marriage, but the thing to note here is that it started with the birthday suit, which means I have a chance. I pray my relationship with Al will end in a divorce-less marriage and summers in France at the Cannes Film Festival drinking Kir Royals. This must be an omen, or else why would Al be here with me right now, if we weren’t meant to be together?

  I slip my clothes off and put on a little red bikini. It’s tricky because I know the key is to reveal flesh but I’ve had this rash recently from eating too much gluten and it’s spread across my stomach. At least I’m feeling loose! The rash just looks like hives though, so I’m hoping Al won’t think I have a disease. I once made out with a guy who had a wildly visible case of psoriasis. I tried to pretend it wasn’t there but it was definitely there. It was all I could look at, like when you aren’t supposed to look at someone’s pimple because you know it’s rude but all you can see is that giant red, blistering mountain. The point is my rash looks nothing like his psoriasis.

  I hang my bag up on one of the shower hooks outside the main sauna room and walk in; the old-man body odor immediately hits me hard. The visibility is cloudy, which is a good sign for my temporary rash, and it covers my cellulite. I look pretty good in this fog. I should probably arrange to have all my first dates in this sauna. I lay my towel down and lower myself onto it with a sigh loud enough to sound like someone’s hand is creeping up my leg, the beginning of foreplay. A few heads turn and I watch them as I pretend to mind my own business. I feel like I’ve been here forever but I guess it’s only been four minutes. I’m sweating quite heavily, which I’m hoping also makes them think this is a sexual moment. I’m trying to get Al to look at me but he’s keeping to himself. Goddammit, Al, I think. Look at me!

  I inch a bit further towards him. When I recline like this my body looks slimmer. I’m liking this angle and I think, if he only were to look this way, he would like it too. I think about how the yoga is working already. I start to moan a bit to get his attention but it’s still not working, so I start saying things he might know like, ‘You fuck with me, you fucking with The Best.’ A few bald fat guys turn to me, wondering if I’m talking to them, but I just ignore them. ‘Okay!’ I say. ‘You wanna play rough? Okay! Come say hello to my little friend.’ I feel like I’m messing up the delivery but Al finally looks over. I’ve got his attention – at last – but I think my words are muffled with the thickness of the air so he isn’t really sure what’s going on.

  ‘Excuse me?’ he says.

  ‘Huh?’ I fake innocence. ‘I didn’t say anything.’

  Shit, I’m blowing this. I freeze.

  ‘I really want to get some ovah here!’ I say as tough and Bronx-like as I can, even though we’re on the other side of the country.

  ‘Igor, who the hell is this girl?’ Al asks. The ground below me is getting very thin. My body is becoming so heavy it’s going to give way any moment now and I’m going to fall through these cracks into some other universe. Hopefully, a universe wherein Al Pacino likes me.

  One of the large men with hairy chests, his especially greying, starts to signal to one of the other men to pay me some attention. They’re coming around.

  ‘You want something?’ he says.

  ‘I want that!’ I say, pointing to Al but unfortunately the large Russian thinks I’m pointing to the Platza bucket on the table in the middle of the sauna, not realizing I meant the sexy, Oscar-winning actor on the other side.

  ‘Manny, Platza!’ he yells.

  A man I assume is Manny sits me down on a slab in front of everyone, including Al, face down. Within seconds he starts to beat me with prickly, scalding oak leaves that have been soaked in hot water to expedite the healing process (i.e. circulation). I start to feel like I’m about to be tarred and feathered in front of a medieval crowd for some ridiculous crime, like adultery.

  I scream. It hurts. Russians are crazy. The men start to laugh; it makes me unsettled. I don’t understand what’s going on but I think Al would do something if anything were going wrong so I just try to relax and experience it. I want to be tough. I want to feel the pain so I get the heartache of our relationship out of the way. I look over at Al but he’s gone. I pounce up off the table and run around in the fog and thick heat looking for him, yelling, ‘Al! Al!’

  Manny tells me he’s not done yet but I don’t care because there’s no point in finishing if the man I was showing my penchant for masochism to is out of sight. I put my towel around me and go outside to splash some cold water on myself. My body is still burning from the heat so I go to the shower area to rinse off. I pull back one of the curtains and see Al standing there, naked, covered in bubbles. He is glorious. For a few moments we just look at each other, allowing the fire inside us and the water around us to cohabitate. I am waiting for him to invite me in but he’s momentarily speechless.

  I think he’s going to say, ‘What the fuck?’ in a really Italian way, but he doesn’t.

  ‘Can you please shut the curtain and let me finish showering?’ Al eventually says, as if this situation isn’t weird. He asks so nicely I want to follow his orders and close it but I get this sense that he’s saying No even though he’s meaning Yes. I’m a woman, we all send mixed signals, so I get it. I move in closer and push him up against the wall and let the warm water fall over us. It’s a really small shower with little room for two people so we keep having to push each other back and forth around the water because it gets really cold when it’s the other person’s turn. They get all the water and you’re just left there, shivering, watching them stay warm. I push back in.

  ‘Let the water wash away our sins,’ I say. He looks shocked but I think it’s because he’s never seen anyone so beautiful.

  ‘What the fuck is wrong with you?’ he says.

  ‘Doesn’t it feel so good?’ Before I give him a chance to reply I start swinging my hair around and circling my hips like I’m spinning a hula hoop, the more I do it the more energized I get. I feel really alive and excited about my life and my future with Al and I can feel myself getting stronger, my moves more wild and interpretive dance-like.

  ‘Whoa!’ he says. ‘Calm down. You’re scaring me!’

  The more he pulls back the more I want him, so I jump onto him and straddle his smallish frame, my thighs clenching the sides of his waist with all my strength.

  ‘Are you on PCP?’ he asks. I’m not sure to whom he’s talking so I just ignore it. Maybe he has Tourette’s syndrome and never told anyone. I grab both of his shoulders to brace myself and start thrashing my body about so he knows how great in bed I’d be. At this point I’m riding him pretty hard. It’s scary but fun . . . like all relationships.

  ‘Yes, Al!’ I scream. ‘Give it to me hard! Woo! Giddy up!’ I start laughing and whip my body around again to give my hair as much momentum as I can so it’s almost exactly like a Pantene Pro-V commercial, secretly thinking ‘What am I doing?’ but before I can stop, check myself, I accidentally hit him in the jaw with my elbow mid-swing. I hear a loud crack and his body gives way below me and we both fall to the ground. I lift up and see his nose looks like it’s on the other side of his face. Blood is streaming down with ferocity but it keeps getting washed away by the shower so I hope he doesn’t notice how bad it is.

  His eyes are closed for a second and I am scared I might have killed Al Pacino. I imagine what the hea
dlines would read: AL PACINO DIES WHILE HAVING SEX WITH A MODEL IN A RUDDIAN BATHHOUSE. I guess it could be worse!

  ‘What the fuck?’ Al says, waking up. He looks around haphazardly and sees the color red wash through the puddle of water he’s sitting in and quickly, intuitively, touches his nose. ‘It’s broken!’ he screams. ‘You broke my fucking nose!’ He’s going from really sexy to mad and scary in a matter of seconds – I’d say about thirty seconds – and now I’m worried. Before I can even think of a comeback, we’re surrounded by a group of men who start screaming for me to get out of the way. I start lifting my hands up, saying things that just come to me, like, ‘I’m so glad you’re here! I just found him like this! He must have slipped on the tiles, they’re so slippery!’

  ‘She broke my nose!’ Al keeps yelling. ‘She broke my goddamned nose!’

  I see one man coming towards me so I duck through his legs and start running. I grab my bag and run as fast as I can. It feels like I’m being chased by sharks, only we’re on land. They’re on my heels and they’re yelling at me to get out, which is annoying because obviously I’m leaving. I see the exit sign and, thank God, the big Russian man from earlier is distracted again by people coming in. I weave around him and don’t look back until I’m on the street. When I turn around, I see him talking to the guys who were chasing me and they start pointing in my direction.

  ‘I wasn’t trying to hurt Al!’ I exclaim. ‘I just got too excited!’

  ‘Who’s Al?’ he yells. Everyone’s confused.

  When Al comes out, nudging himself through the bouncers, holding his nose, eyeing me, people start calling him Miguel for some reason. I take out my phone and google a picture of Al Pacino. I realize I might have made a mistake.

  ‘You try to come back here and we call police!’ the big one says. He tries to look intimidating but I’m not scared; he’s so hairy he just looks like a big teddy bear!

  ‘You mean THE police!’ I retort confidently.

  On the way home, I feel like I am missing something. I feel naked, and then I look down and realize I’m still in my little red bikini. My sister calls just when I need a pick me up.

  ‘Where are you?’ Brenda asks. I can tell she is mad because I can feel her lips curl through the phone.

  ‘I’m downtown.’

  ‘Mary’s ballet teacher called and said she’s waiting for someone to get Mary and can’t find you. Are you almost there?’

  Shit. I look at my watch and realize I should have been there thirty minutes ago. I’m a terrible auntie sometimes, but thank God I remembered my bag; that would have been so embarrassing. I slide into my flip-flops, put my clothes on over my wet bikini – which is a really uncomfortable and sticky project in itself – shake the wet out of my hair and head towards her ballet school.

  When I finally arrive, Mary is sitting in the corner waiting patiently. Her little legs brush the floor below her in rhythm, slapping the air just like Al did this morning. I remember the way I followed him, how good it felt to weave around the ­second-hand pockets of his air. I remember how we tangoed in the shower together, how right it had felt. And I remember how shy he was with me; how I made him blush.

  ‘I have some big news,’ I say as I take her hand and help her off the bench.

  ‘Why are you so wet?’ she asks, eyes wide and captured. ‘Did you go swimming?’

  ‘I made love with Al Pacino today in the shower of a Russian bathhouse.’ It felt so good to tell someone. To say it out loud, to proclaim it to the universe! Sure, his name might have been Miguel but she didn’t need to know it was just his doppelganger.

  ‘Who’s Al Pacino?’ she asks.

  ‘Are you serious? Don’t be pathetic!’ I say, laughing for a moment, forgetting I’m talking to a child. ‘Oh right, you’re only five.’ I take another minute to think about her question. ‘He’s a very talented man. He’s the boss.’

  ‘Whose boss?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ I say. ‘Mine?’ I guess. ‘Ours? Everyone’s?’

  ‘Are you gonna get married?’ Mary asks me.

  ‘I have a feeling it was just one of those magical moments in life that aren’t meant to be anything other than just a moment. A perfect moment.’

  ‘But what about your other boyfriends?’ she says.

  ‘I haven’t met them yet.’

  ‘Oh,’ she huffs. ‘But I thought Milk was going to be your boyfriend?’

  ‘Milk?’ I exclaim. ‘What are you, high?’

  She frowns and scowls and says, ‘But he’s the best.’

  ‘He’s just a friend. That’s it. And anyway, he’s a doll but, you know, he’s young. He’s a boy. I need a man. Al, now he was a man. We had passion.’

  ‘I thought you’re not supposed to be in love with your boss.’

  ‘What I had with Al has really boosted my confidence and now I’m ready to get out there again! I’m not in love with him anymore, although the heart can take time to heal. I’m free to meet the right one now. Who knows, if I meet Al again by chance, then it means he’s probably my soul mate but for now, I’m unattached. I’m available.’

  I sense bemusement from Mary as she looks at me with pursed lips. ‘The lesson here, Mary,’ I continue, ‘is that it’s important not to be bogged down with doomed relationships and commitments and ties to the wrong person because then you’re unavailable to meet the right one.’

  ‘But how do you meet the right one?’

  ‘You just date everyone you can and eventually it works out. I mean, you have to be resourceful and imaginative; you have to think outside the box. For example, I never would have thought I would have had an affair with an aging movie star but love can surprise you.’ I grab her shoulders and look her straight in the eye. ‘You have to get out there and try because people who don’t try are losers.’

  ‘So you’re living a dream?’ she asks. That’s right, I think. She’s a smart little shit, that Mary. Then a few seconds later she tacks on a heartbreaker: ‘Mom says dreams aren’t real.’

  ‘That’s because your mom doesn’t allow herself to dream,’ I explain. ‘She only has nightmares. And people who have nightmares don’t want to believe they’re real because what you imagine can actually come true.’

  I pick her up and give her a hug so tight I can feel her legs loosen in the air. I spin her around in circles, pretending Al is with us and we’re all together, enjoying happiness as a family. ‘Do you know what you call people who live their dreams?’

  ‘What?’ she asks.

  ‘Winners.’

  ‘Oh, okay,’ Mary says. ‘Do winners make up their own rules, then?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Okay,’ she decides. ‘Then I want to be a winner, too.’

  ‘You want to know something?’ I ask.

  ‘Yeah,’ she says, eyes wide. Burning.

  ‘On a scale of one to ten, you’re twenty-seven thousand,’ I tell her. ‘Got it?’

  She smiles. She gets it.

  I can’t wait to get home to tell my mom about my adventure. I think this one would really knock her socks off, give us something to relate about, show her I am not just following in her footsteps but stepping it up a notch. Leading. I am hovering from my Al Pacino high like she did after each affair when we walk into the house.

  ‘You’re never going to guess, Mom!’ I exclaim. ‘I’ve been doing what you said, making the magic happen. Taking charge. Making romance.’

  She is, unfortunately, reading Dorothy Parker again on the couch, tissues and wine in hand, sniffling. This isn’t a good sign. I know it means she’ll be cynical.

  ‘And how did it turn out for you?’ she says, eventually, not looking up from her book. I want her to jump up, grab me, hug me, be proud of me, but she doesn’t.

  ‘It didn’t work out, per se,’ I explain, ‘if you were to judge it in the standard sense of a successful relationship, but it made a great story. Just like all your stories.’

  ‘Ha!’ She smirks.

  ‘
I just think I wasn’t trying hard enough. I probably approached it in the wrong way but I wanted you to know I went after it. I wanted Hollywood romance and got it, fleeting as it was. It was just like you said, you know, when you dated Frank Sinatra? It was a whirlwind!’

  I feel bad for not telling her that Al was in fact Miguel, but the truth would only derail my point.

  ‘Well, he’s an idiot if he didn’t see what a catch you are. I’m telling you, men are just downright baffling. Can’t see a good thing when it’s in front of them. No imagination.’

  ‘No imagination?’ Mary asks, butting in.

  ‘That’s the problem,’ I explain to her. Turning back to Mom, I add, ‘But the good sign is that he went along with it for a while. I’m going to find someone who can see just who I am, and I promise you will too.’

  But the wine switches her, pulling out from under her the rug of hope, making it harder for her to see what my adventures mean for her future.

  ‘You sound like your father,’ she says, blowing smoke out of her nose, ‘making promises you can’t keep. All this time, I resisted settling. Now I get it. The fantasy of love gnaws its serrated teeth until you have nothing left in you to imagine any outcome other than what’s in front of you. How plebeian!’

  ‘Oh, Mom,’ I say. ‘Don’t say that. You can’t give up now, after all this time of trying. It’s still possible.’

  ‘The only thing that’s possible is that it’s never going to be as good as you hoped it would be. You better get used to it, girls,’ she says, licking her index finger and flipping a page, countering everything she’s ever seemed to represent. Everything she used to teach us. ‘There’s what you hope for, what you pray for, and eventually what you get.’ She was doing what she did when she was sad: paraphrasing lines from Parker, as if she meant them, understood them.

  Mary and I stand there, watching the smoke form patterns in the living room, wondering when we’d meet our Rainbow Dans who wouldn’t stop delivering pizza, when we’d be able to ride that rollercoaster wind. I’ve had some setbacks, but I’m not going to give up. I have to find my love fast, because with each one of these failed relationships, my mother loses steam, becoming colorless. He’s right around the corner, my dreamboat, I’m sure of it, I just haven’t met him yet; a man who will understand me in ways men haven’t understood my mother or my sister. I remind myself it only takes one, just one man!