This One Is Mine

by Maria Semple

  “Why? Because I’m so gross?”

  “Because, if I’m inferring correctly, you have mother issues and I’m an older woman who has recently stopped breast-feeding.”

  “Hot. Do you still have milk in your tits?”

  “No!” Violet said as she fluffed the rice. “I’ve cared for you in a way a mother would and you sexualized it. It’s classic repetition compulsion.”

  “The doctor is in! I’ve never met anyone like you before. Dig?”

  “Yes,” Violet said, almost wistful for the time when these words would have thrilled her. “I dig.”

  “You can’t say, Yes, I dig. You have to just say, Dig.”

  “Dig.” For Violet, his attempt at badinage had all the lightness of a protein bar.

  “Nobody’s ever been nice to me like you have,” he said. “I’ve never felt this loved by somebody.” The creature now sounded needy. Violet was sick at herself for what she had allowed to develop between her and this . . . person. She needed therapy. She’d get it, starting Monday. She owed it to David.

  “Now, open up these gigantic gates.” He was outside! There was no point in panicking. Violet simply had to make it through dinner, bid him adieu, and change her cell phone number. She pushed the button to open the gate and waited at the front door. “Jesus Christ,” he said from the darkness as he tripped on something.

  “Sorry. I should have turned on the lights.”

  Teddy emerged wearing jeans, a T-shirt, and a dark wool coat. His face was much more prepossessing than she had remembered. It filled her with calm, knowing she’d cast him back out into the world so handsome. He’d find another girl in no time.

  “Don’t kiss me,” he said. “I have a sore on my mouth.”

  “Is it herpes?” Violet retracted the mixing bowl into her body.

  “No, I don’t have herpes yet. Ha! Listen to me. I don’t have herpes yet. Aren’t you glad you know me?”

  He beat her to her own thoughts; Violet had to give him that. Standing there tentatively in his secondhand clothes, Teddy reminded Violet of that line in Sweeney Todd where Mrs. Lovett says to Toby, the street urchin who has developed a fondness for her, What a lovely child it is. A rush of warmth filled Violet. For Stephen Sondheim, for putting it all down in words. And for her father, for telling her he would.

  “Welcome,” she said.

  Teddy stood in the foyer and scoped out the place. “This is it?”

  “It’s not the biggest house. But it’s by a good architect and we like the spot.”

  “You’re seriously apologizing for this house? Jesus Christ. The view out this window is like a fucking airplane.” Teddy followed Violet into the kitchen and sat at the counter. He checked out the valley lights to his right and the city lights to his left. “Okay, I just got a contact high from that magical acid you and David took.” He opened a New York Post.

  “David gets the New York edition Fed-Exed to him.” Violet turned on the burner for the spinach. “He likes it better than the national edition.”

  “When I get to be a rich rock star, I’ll have to start doing that with the Desert Sun.” Teddy twirled around on the kitchen stool. “What’s for dinner, Lucy?”

  “I might have conjured up some brown rice, sautéed spinach, and tofu. Oh! I forgot the peanut butter.” Violet opened the microwave and removed the jar. She dug in a spoon and plunked some into the ginger-soy mixture.

  “Wait,” he said. “You’re putting peanut butter in spinach?”

  “It’s a ginger-soy-peanut sauce.” She pulled a small whisk from a Tuscan ceramic.

  “Peanut butter? I don’t think so.”

  “It’s a common ingredient in Asian cuisine.”

  “I can’t eat sugar,” he said. “It’s bad for my liver.”

  “Who’s talking about sugar?”

  “There’s a ton of sugar in peanut butter.”

  “Peanuts are nuts. Nuts are fat and protein. Not sugar.”

  “You’re so fucking out of touch up here in your glass castle that you don’t even know what’s in peanut butter!” Teddy gave her a lusty laugh and did another 360.

  “Peanuts are in peanut butter.” Violet wondered what the Kennedy girl must think of her boyfriend’s intelligence, or lack of it.

  “Say what you want,” Teddy said. “All I know is spinach and peanut butter don’t go together.”

  “They do, though.” Violet stabbed the glob of peanut butter with a fork and raised it in the air. “But it’s up to you. In or out, just tell me.”

  “Out.”

  Violet pitched the fork into the sink.

  “Ha!” Teddy said. “Did I tell you I have a pimp nature?”

  Violet threw the spinach in the pan. The flash of steam caused her glasses to fog. She didn’t bother wiping them.

  “WE’D like the tarte tatin, please,” Sally said. “To share.”

  “Right away.” The waiter withdrew the menu and retreated.

  “Are you nervous about Sunday, my love?” she asked.

  “Not really.” He patted his jacket. “I was wondering. Do you —”

  “Yes, Jeremy?”

  “Have a pen? I wish I knew the breakdown of viewers in terms of sharps and squares. I want to remember to ask the producers tomorrow.”

  Sally knew herself well enough to know she was on the verge of one of her “Crazy Sally” episodes. The dinner wasn’t over, she reminded herself. Perhaps Jeremy needed some space to gather his thoughts before he proposed. It was time to check her blood sugar anyway.

  “Excuse me,” she said.

  To get to the bathroom, Sally had to walk through two rooms and a patio. She wasn’t sure, but she thought that meant they had a bad table. In the front room, Sally came upon the entire band Aerosmith, dining with some music business types. She could introduce herself as David’s sister.

  When David was just eighteen, he had joined a corporate accounting firm in Denver. Soon after, Aerosmith had come to play Red Rocks, where the band’s manager had discovered someone was embezzling money from the tour. The manager called David’s firm to send over their “most straitlaced” auditor. David ran the numbers and found a rat’s nest of improprieties. The manager was so impressed he hired David to join the tour the next day. A year later, in a hotel lobby in Sydney, some local kids saw David emerge from a limo with Aerosmith and gave him a demo tape of their band. Not knowing what else to do with it, David passed the demo to a guy from the record label. That’s how David had “discovered” Commonhouse. His reputation as a no-nonsense manager with an ear for music was on its way. Her geeky brother, David! The only record he’d ever bought was a Beach Boys greatest-hits album.

  The guys in Aerosmith would certainly remember David if Sally dropped his name. But any time she had tried it in the past, a pall settled over the conversation. People still had to be civil to her — David’s stature required it — but it was obvious what they were really thinking: David was an asshole. Sally opted to let Aerosmith dine in peace, and continued to the patio.

  Adam Sandler was eating with his posse. He locked eyes with Sally, then returned his attention to his friends. Sally felt a jolt of humiliation that he had seen her emerge from Social Siberia. But, then again, for all he knew, she could have been eating with Aerosmith. Sally knew he’d glance back up at her, so on her way to the bathroom, she made sure to sway her hips.

  Sally sat down on a toilet seat and took out her diabetes kit. She pricked her finger, dabbed the drop of blood on the test strip, and stuck it in the glucometer. Her seven o’clock reading had been a low 79, but with the swordfish and rice she’d just eaten, she had figured on something between 90 and 110. The glucometer read 260. Dang. It might be a false reading, considering she’d just eaten. Under normal circumstances, she’d hold off until her nighttime shot of Lantus. But not tonight. If Sally was going to indulge in a couple of bites of tarte tatin and a real sip of champagne, not a fake one, she’d have to counteract it with three units of Humalog. She washed
her hands, dug out her syringe and insulin bottle, and lifted her dress. Her stomach had begun to bruise, which wasn’t the most romantic sight in the world. She’d better take this shot in the leg. She drew out the insulin and stabbed herself in the quad. It hurt. The needle was dull. Time to throw it away. She applied pressure to the injection site. If she stood still for about a minute, it would help with the bruising.

  Sally had to be especially vigilant about keeping her blood sugar near 100 because she’d gone off her birth control pills without telling Jeremy. This morning she had peed on the ovulation wand and it had come up pink, which meant she was in the all-important forty-eight-hour window. If the egg traveling down her fallopian tube was to get fertilized tonight, her sugar levels had to be absolutely consistent.

  She recapped the syringe and returned it to the cosmetic bag, where she put the needles to throw away when she got home. She checked her smile in the mirror from the right, the side Adam Sandler would see as she returned to her table.

  The maître d’ stood at the star’s table, blocking her line of vision. Sally considered it inappropriate for a maître d’ to bother a celebrity like that. She paused.

  “Excuse me.” The hostess gently touched Sally’s arm. “Can I help you with something?”

  Sally jerked from the woman’s touch and returned to her table. Jeremy was flipping a quarter and scribbling the outcome on a scrap of paper. The tarte tatin had been split onto two plates, and Jeremy had already wiped his clean. She waited for him to acknowledge her, but he didn’t. She sat down, cut into her dessert, and took a bite. There goes thirty carbs for nothing, she thought.

  “Try it with the whipped cream,” Jeremy said eagerly. The whipped cream! That was it! He had hidden the ring in the whipped cream.

  Sally gave him a beguiling smile. “I think I just might.” The joy she’d kept bridled for the past month broke free. She had to steady her hand as she sliced across the dollop. The edge of her fork clinked against the hand-painted plate. Sally’s eyes, her face, her past and future, fell on the fork positioned over the only remaining portion of whipped cream big enough to contain a ring. She slowly lowered her fork. It hit ceramic. She mashed the whipped cream. Once, twice —

  “Just get a little bit.” Jeremy helpfully stuck his fork on her plate. She attacked his fork with hers and smashed flat the whipped cream and the apple tart. Growls came out of her mouth. “Sally?” Jeremy asked. “Are you okay?”

  “Sorry to interrupt,” said a familiar voice behind Sally.

  Jeremy looked up. “Hi,” he said.

  Sally spun around. Adam Sandler had come to their table! Had their chemistry in that one glance been so powerful that he’d brazenly ask her out right in front of her boyfriend?

  “Look who’s here!” she gargled.

  “Sorry to interrupt.” Adam Sandler shifted his weight and looked down bashfully. What a sweetie!

  “Not at all,” she said.

  His eyes still on the floor, Adam Sandler said, “You’re —”

  “Sally!”

  “Jeremy White,” said Adam Sandler.

  “Huh?”

  “The maître d’ tipped me off. You’ve got to believe there’s like nobody I’d come up and bother while they’re eating. Basically, you and any Pittsburgh Steeler. And Al Gore. But that’s because I heard he was talking trash about my mother.”

  “What did he say about your mother?” Jeremy asked.

  “He’s joking!” howled Sally, rolling up her eyes.

  “I’ve got to thank you for your Rose Bowl pick last year,” the movie star said.

  “Number one versus number two is a terrific angle,” Jeremy said. “Works nine percent better in bowl games than regular season.”

  “I bet the money line,” said Adam Sandler.

  “You got plus one fifty, then. One sixty at kickoff.”

  “You’re a fucking genius.” Adam Sandler turned to Sally and said, “May I?”

  “Sure.” She had no idea what she had just permitted.

  Adam Sandler grabbed Jeremy’s cheeks and shook his face. “I love this guy,” he said. “If you didn’t have a girlfriend, I’d kiss you.” He let go of Jeremy’s face. “Good luck Sunday, by the way. They’ve been promo’ing the shit out of you.”

  “Thanks,” said Jeremy.

  “I’ll let you go,” Adam Sandler said, and walked off.

  “Don’t!” cried Sally after him.

  The waiter swung by. “Would you be needing anything more this evening?”

  “Just the check,” Jeremy said.

  DINNER was delicious and the conversation, covering topics from Teddy’s favorite movie (Vanilla Sky) to his theory on the origin of hepatitis C (invented by drug companies), airless. Violet had let Teddy’s misnomers, conspiracy theories, and harebrained schemes go undisputed, and even feigned interest in his idea for a TV show he proposed they team up to write.

  “I can’t believe it’s almost ten o’clock,” Violet finally said.

  “What is that, a hint?”

  “Not at all.” She stood up and cleared their plates. He had eaten around the cloves of garlic. She didn’t trust people who didn’t like garlic, especially big fried pieces.

  “It is a hint!” he said with a laugh. “Look at you. You’re throwing me out.”

  “If that’s what you want to call it.”

  “Well, thanks for dinner.” He reluctantly got up. “I haven’t had a home-cooked meal in years. I hope David realizes what a cool chick you are.”

  “Who knows anymore.” Violet walked to the front door, but Teddy lingered at a painting.

  “Is that you?” he asked.

  “It’s a portrait David had commissioned for our anniversary. That’s me at the pool. You’ll recognize the view.”

  “Coco’s family is totally into art, too,” he said. “They just sold a Picasso for like seventeen grand.”

  “Seventeen grand? It must have been a print.”

  “No, it was a painting. It was just really small.”

  Violet let that one go, and opened the door.

  “So, we’ll hang out again?” he said. “Maybe with your husband?”

  Teddy and David friends? David would last about two seconds in conversation with this jejune nitwit.

  “Teddy?” Violet said.

  Teddy twitched.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “That’s like the second time I’ve heard you actually say my name. I still kind of can’t believe I know you.”

  “I was about to say something intimate.”

  “Shit,” said Teddy. “What?”

  “I want you to know that the intensity I felt for you wasn’t something that had ever happened to me before.” Hopefully, Teddy would find comfort in these words when she stopped returning his calls.

  “Hey,” he said. “What are you doing tomorrow? You want to see me play in this gooney Rolling Stones cover band in Long Beach? We totally rock, even though the lead singer is a fucked-up junkie. I’m going to fire him after the show.” He couldn’t have known that David had once managed the Rolling Stones, and Violet had spent her honeymoon jetting through South America on the Steel Wheels tour.

  “Really?” she said. “Bill Wyman kicking Mick Jagger out of the Stones? That can happen?”

  “Shut up. Just come check us out.”

  “I wish,” said Violet. “But I’m driving up to meet David at the yoga retreat in the morning.”

  “I thought he was going alone.”

  “I decided to join him.”

  “While we were having dinner? Jesus. Am I really that dull? I told you I’m tired, right?”

  “Like you said, relationships are complicated.” She kissed him on the cheek and closed the door. She returned to the kitchen and started the dishes.

  Then her cell phone rang.

  Without even looking at the number, she went to the front door and opened it. Standing there, phone in hand, was Teddy.

  TO be on the road
with a rock band was to become intimately familiar with Scarface. The movie was on a constant loop in tour buses, dressing rooms, and hotel suites. Roadies had Scarface tattoos. Production offices were indicated by life-size cutouts of Al Pacino in that white suit. The video game was a recent annex to the riders of David’s bands. Snippets of the movie’s dialogue were played between songs on the precurtain mix tape. David knew them all: “First you make the money, then you get the power, then you get the women.” “You think you can take me? You need a fucking army if you gonna take me!” “You’re all a bunch of fucking assholes. You know why? You don’t have the guts to be who you wanna be. . . . You need people like me so you can point your fucking fingers and say, ‘That’s the bad guy.’ . . . Well, say good night to the bad guy.” “I never fucked anybody over in my life didn’t have it coming to them.” Before their encore, Commonhouse would blast, “You wanna fuck with me? Okay. You wanna play rough? Okay. Say hello to my little friend!” Then they’d rip into “Light Sweet Crude.”

  David’s personal favorite moment was when a business associate suggested doing something that displeased Tony Montana. Tony considered it, then said, “So that’s how you wanna play it?” One of the most sinister lines in the history of cinema.

  So that’s how you wanna play it?

  Violet had sent David off to a yoga retreat so she could fuck some guy named Teddy Reyes in David’s ten-million-dollar house while their daughter slept at LadyGo’s in Pasadena. Did Violet take him for a fucking chump? Had lust damaged her brain? Didn’t she realize that David had spent the past fifteen years beating off groupies? What did she think happened on the road, anyway? But had he ever cheated on his wife? Never once.

  When David had first met Violet, he was seeing a girl in Sacramento whom, to this day, he had never told her about. Sacramento Sukey, she was known to any band that rolled through town. She was famous for the blow jobs she generously bestowed, not only on the band members but roadies, too. No doubt, she was a skank. Still, David found her kindhearted and a good listener. She had a kid and cut hair or something. David found himself spending hours on the phone with her every night. He even flew her to Japan and Australia on one of the tours. He kept her quarantined in his hotel room, of course, for fear of getting ruthlessly teased if anyone discovered he’d developed bona fide feelings for the blow job queen of central California. In the early days of Violet, David had rendezvoused with Sukey a few times. But the moment he got engaged, he cut Sukey off. And now, sixteen years into a marriage, fresh from weaning their baby daughter, Violet was cheating on him?