Been There, Married That (ARC)

by Gigi Levangie

  I made a drastic mistake. Not compared to marriage. (I kid.)

  Before falling asleep, I looked up perimenopause symptoms on my laptop. Do Not. Ever. Do This. One article listed fifty-six symptoms categorized under “Common,” “Changes,” “Pain,” “Other.”

  Insomnia is common. Check. So is weight gain. Check. So is depression. How would I recognize it? Anxiety. Check. Vaginal dryness. Um. Between you and me? From viscous to sandpaper in minutes. Under “Changes,” body odor. Hair loss. Memory lapses. Where were we? “Pain,” you say? Migraines, joint pain. Burning tongue. Electric shocks.

  Electric shocks!

  How to overcome these symptoms?

  If dying is out of the question—which it is not (check Gabriela’s availability to raise Pep)—then one can reduce stress (ha ha ha ha), exercise, take hormones, have a good attitude.

  I have a fucking great attitude, damn it.

  Okay, I can jog.

  After a sleepless night, awakened by unforgiving sunlight, I padded over to the gym (after 8:00 a.m., per blueprint).

  Trevor, flouting the bylaws of Operation Blueprint, was attacking his Peloton, panting while yelling into the speakerphone.

  “GT’s into it?” Gasp. Sputter.

  “Dude, he loves this role,” an agent said. Dude the dead giveaway. “This is his role. That’s what he said. He told me personally, okay? Through his assistant.”

  “Great. What’d he think about the ending?”

  “Loved it. Wanted to fuck it he loved it so hard. Word for word.”

  “He read it himself?”

  Trevor didn’t read; that’s what people were for. He would listen while an assistant read a script out loud, droning on while he lay down on his office couch or conference table, invariably napping through the third act. He read through osmosis. (Vocabulary word, October last year.)

  “What? No, what?” the agent said with a sharp laugh. “He wants a rewrite.”

  “Let’s get a different writer. I’m sick of this asshole. He wants to get paid for another pass.”

  The asshole had written the very script that GT was interested in, but okay.

  “Great,” the agent said, “I’ll tell GT. He’s in town through Easter, then he goes to Malaysia to fuck young boys. I’m fucking with you. Fuck me, terrible joke.”

  (Yes, it was, dude.)

  “Great,” Trevor said. “Hey, Idiot Number Three, you get that?”

  Trevor’s third assistant squeaked.

  “Hey, Trev,” the agent said, “I’ll see you at Easter, dude, right?”

  “Of course, dude.”

  “Love Easter. My favorite holiday after Christmas,” said the agent. Who happened to be Jewish. “It’s the best, I wouldn’t miss it, you’re coming, of course you’re coming, bring the kids. Hey, how’s your son?”

  “Good, how’re your kids?” Trevor didn’t bother correcting him.

  “Amazing,” the agent said.

  This agent didn’t have children. He rented them for the annual Easter brunch.

  “GT will be there; he adopted a bunch of little shits. I have to send fucking iPhones and fucking skateboards and fucking Xbox controllers to his house every other fucking month.”

  Trevor laughed like a hyena. “Love you, man!”

  “Let’s make out!” the agent said and hung up.

  Great news. Trevor was busy courting George Treadwell, the Australian with the treacherous smile who’d been People magazine’s Most Beautiful Man five times—three more than Brad Pitt (in his twenties, thirties, and Botox-filler forties). Our divorce had slipped a couple of notches on his to-do list—thank you, Treacherous Treadwell!

  Distracted Trevor was the best Trevor.

  I skipped off, kicking at the pebbles on our driveway. The sun, already hot, burst through the generous sycamore.

  Today was looking to be a stunner.

  Then I remembered plans, my worst enemy, had caught up with me.

  Juliette’s gender-neutral baby shower at her Benedict Canyon mid-century modern (childproofed so that every toilet, cabinet, and staircase was unusable) was off to a shaky start. Juliette (#HappyMom2B) had been scrapping with her surrogate. A month ago, #HappyMom2B had sent out pink invitations embossed with white ink before recalling them in a text frenzy. The surrogate, paying off Bard student loans by renting out her uterus, had tearfully objected to pink.

  “Rent-a-Uterus screamed at Juliette for choosing the baby’s gender,” Liz relayed the gender kerfuffle. To placate Simone (let’s call her), Juliette sent out green invitations embossed with silver.

  But now, Simone wanted to choose the baby’s name. A genderless name. Plus, she didn’t want the baby to be “assigned” a gender until the baby was of age. And even then, the baby could choose another gender at any time. Pins and needles!

  “I’ve never allowed a surrogate to choose a name,” Juliette said, wearing a garland and tossing back pastel Jell-O shots. Her skin had healed from the chemical peel; she looked like a pretty Granny Smith with lips.

  “Seems like a bad precedent, if you’re planning on surrogating more ankle biters,” I said.

  “Gender is a societal structure is what Rent-a-Professor told us,” Juliette said. In Hollywood, if you don’t know or can’t do something (most things), you rent a person who knows and can. Juliette and Jordan rented a UCLA history professor once a month for salons, where producers and actors and directors who couldn’t pass an AP history class would tangle over Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings and Alexander Hamilton and pesky amendments, then ingest salmon spears.

  “Simone says the baby will decide its gender whenever she, he, ze, or shim or they is ready,” Juliette said.

  My eyebrow shot up. At least, I think it did; I wasn’t sure with the Botox.

  “So exciting!” Karyn said. “The future is so . . . futurey.” Mystery Asian, lugged around like a crocodile Birkin, smiled like a sphinx.

  “I’m choosing to be the Rock,” I said. “Or Neymar. Both! Alternating weeks.”

  Everyone knows the baby shower must go on, as money’s been paid for the sandwiches from Sweet Lady Jane and the mini-cupcakes from Susie Cakes, the valet and the shower planner / life coach. Not to mention the expense of the actual fetus. Baby Crate Simone’s SAT scores fetched her top dollar. Better that than working as a barista, if you’re trying to pay off that handy victim arts degree. (We’re doomed.)

  “Anyway, I’m confused,” Juliette said, “but of course I’m incredibly thankful.”

  “Hashtag blessed,” Liz said, with a smirk.

  “Hashtag grateful,” Karyn said, no smirk.

  “Hashtag Trevor wants a divorce,” I said.

  Everyone stopped mid-pastel Jell-O shot.

  “On it,” Liz said, breaking the silence and pulling out her phone. “I have a top-ten list of divorce attorneys. What kind do you prefer? Flashy? Low-key?”

  “You have lawyers? Plural?” I asked. “But you seem almost happily married.”

  “So do you. But no sex for six months will do that to a girl,” Liz said. “I can’t get divorced, though. All the rich lesbian soccer players are taken.”

  Juliette snorted. “I’d kill to not have to fuck my husband.”

  “Oh, please. Michael threatens divorce every morning,” Karyn said. “And we have the perfect marriage. We hardly see each other!”

  “Jordan bought me a vibrator,” Juliette said as we dismantled the macaron pyramid.

  “Finally, some good news,” I said.

  “Give it to me,” Liz said. “I mean it.”

  “Without my vibrator collection,” Karyn said in her quasi-British accent, “I would’ve left Michael years ago and sailed home.”

  “You would’ve sailed to Utah?” I asked.

  “By ‘bought,’ I mean the box was hidden in the back of his closet. Open,” Juliette continued. “The battery was run down.”

  “Red velvet?” I asked, shoving a macaron in Juliette’s face. Deflection by sugar. Then w
e snapped selfies at jaunty angles with a flotilla of filters. #livingthedream. #girlfriendsrthebestfriends #nofilterneeded.

  A dozen more “skinny” Jell-O shots and the wives got down to business: Whose husband (present company excluded) was fucking whom. Whose kid was retarded—sorry, disabled—sorry, special needs—sorry, learning differentiated. Whose kid will be a whore—sorry, in charge of her sexuality. Whose kid will be a sociopath—sorry, running an agency. We all knew, deep inside, our kids were probably growing up to be entitled, overeducated blobs. We were raising hothouse flowers, unequipped to climb a fence or fry an egg or spend five minutes bored. They couldn’t learn to throw a ball without a private coach or understand basic math without a tutor punching numbers in the calculator. Lord knows, they couldn’t get into college without bribing some official. Hollywood moms had thrown our Lululemon-clad bodies atop any “uncomfortable moment” grenade since baby took his first steps.

  “When the revolution comes,” I said, “our kids will be food.”

  Outside, a car alarm bleated. We stopped mid-bite, our heads cocked. In LA, we knew the sound of our car alarms better than the cries of our firstborn.

  “Don’t worry,” Juliette leaned over and whispered in my ear, “even if you get divorced, we’ll still be your friends.”

  Trevor appeared in my bathroom doorway, a towel around his waist, his abs multiplying. There was something on his mind; he’d forgotten hair gel. His naturally wavy, messy hair made him look ten years younger.

  Of course, I didn’t tell him. Take that.

  “Did I get my pee window wrong?” I asked from my porcelain throne. Cramps. Phantom period? My boobs hurt. Phantom pregnancy? Would I be birthing a phantom baby?

  My appointment with Izzy was still weeks away. “I have to consult the blueprint.”

  “The what?”

  He’d already forgotten.

  “I’m getting Easter,” he said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I need Pep. For Easter.”

  “We’re going to my dad’s for Easter,” I said. “She’s not a prop.”

  “Of course she’s not a prop; she’s a kid, and I need a kid to go to the big Easter party.”

  “I’ve already made plans with my dad; you’re welcome to come.”

  Even though my dad hates you and now I hate you.

  “Let’s ask Pep.”

  “No!”

  “Pep?”

  Trevor dodged across the deck to Pep’s bedroom. I raced after him to find Pep reclining on her bed, pillows piled high around her, transfixed, staring at her iPhone. The iPhone I told Trevor we couldn’t buy her until she was thirteen.

  “Honey, do you want to go to Grandpa’s for Easter, or do you want to meet Ariana Grande?” Trevor asked.

  “Not fair!” I said. Trevor knew Pep was an Arianator. Ariana Grande was one of very few things Pep still cared about. There was her iPhone, Christmas, and Ariana. We’d been to five concerts in two years. I couldn’t hear a high-pitched note above all the screaming. (And that was just me.)

  “No one can compete against Ariana Grande!”

  “Are you kidding me, Dad?” She actually put her phone down and looked up. My daughter still had eyes!

  “Would I kid?” Trevor squeezed in next to her. “I told her all about you; she’s dying to meet you!”

  “Mom?” Pep asked, her hands in prayer. I was flattered that she asked me anything. I was flattered that she noticed me standing there.

  “Fine,” I said, my arms folded across my chest. “I’m not going.”

  “Petra can go,” Trevor said. “She can watch Pep.”

  “What time do I need to be ready?” I asked.

  * * *

  The queens of Hollywood, the director who looked like an angry pear and her brutally bronzed “thought coach” wife, Turkey Jerky, hijacked every holiday. New Year’s Eve, Valentine’s Day, Easter, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Fourth of July, and whatever else comes after that. Labor Day?

  Even Labor Day.

  Trevor and I and two hundred others valet-parked our Teslas and Range Rovers and BMWs and gathered our recalcitrant, photo-op-ready children and hiked past paparazzi hives up the long, stone driveway (Hollywood’s Bataan) to the great lawn on a Malibu cliffside where the Easter Bunny had collapsed from heat exhaustion after hiding hundreds of eggs and bags of candy and plastic eggs filled with silver dollars for children of privilege, white or otherwise, to find.

  Before the festivities, Turkey Jerky read a fiery passage from Audre Lorde to the poker-faced crowd of agents and celebrities and celebrity agents and celebrity agent nannies. The kids were handed two Easter baskets—an empty one, the second filled with Easter swag—a pastel cashmere blanket, a cap emblazoned with the studio’s upcoming animated blockbuster title, twenty-dollar bills, and various toys. I hauled the swag-sket around while Pep raced a group of bigger kids to the bottom edge of a massive, aggressively pruned hedge.

  Pep had made me promise to grab her if I saw Ariana Grande. (“But please, Mom, please don’t say anything to her, don’t look at her, just come find me, please, Mom.”)

  Trevor took off to find Treadwell.

  My thoughts flicked to my dad milling around his bungalow in Venice and the tiny backyard with the bottlebrush tree that molted, its red spikes blanketing the grass. Before blueprint life, we’d made tentative plans to celebrate Easter at his place (I’d begged Trevor and promised three blow jobs a week—as a joke, of course; I’m not insane); we’d “hunt” for eggs and soggy Peeps, then eat brunch on the warped picnic bench beneath the molting tree.

  “Have you checked it out with knucklehead?” my dad had asked.

  Our connection had been sketchy. My father owned a flip phone, which I’d given him as a gift in ’03. He refused to part with it; for a man who was all over Facebook and day trading, he believed texting marked the end of civilization.

  “I worked it all out. Don’t worry about it,” I’d said, crossing my fingers.

  “I’ll see you here, Easter Sunday, 0900 sharp,” he’d said, then, “Be good.”

  I’d called my dad to tell him we weren’t going to make Easter. Trevor knew a producer who’d been on the lot for fifteen years, missed Mother’s Day at the Jerkys’ because his actual mother was on her deathbed in Palm Beach. He’d lost his deal. He lived in North Carolina now, teaching at a university. (Leaving Hollywood to teach was considered a notch below leaving Hollywood for prison. There’s no coming back from teaching.)

  “We have to play the game,” Trevor said as we drove to Malibu. “GT’s bringing all his adopted kids. Brad’s bringing the photogenic ones. Everyone’s coming.”

  My father had brushed it off and told me to tell Pep to have fun with Mariana Grande. And he told me to be good. I promised I would try. Couldn’t be that hard. Could it?

  I backed into the famed playwright turned screenwriter who watched in misery as his kids ran screaming in the grass. Beyond the pool, the ocean glimmered, liquid butterfly wings.

  We stood shoulder to shoulder, one big sigh.

  “What are you doing here?” I finally asked.

  “Networking,” he said, lowering his broad head.

  Gray stubble covered most of his face. Prickly genius, then.

  “Do you know where Ariana is?” I asked, realizing I hadn’t seen the Pixie Queen.

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  I grabbed a kale Bellini from a passing tray and gulped it down, then realized I’d lost track of Pep.

  Pep wasn’t lost, but she was lost. It’s not as though she’d wandered down one of the trails into the ocean (I think) or onto PCH (I’m pretty sure). Pep was a smart kid, but not street-smart. None of our kids were—they’d never even learned to cross a street by themselves.

  I followed the smell of burning meat into the vast kitchen. Staff members in bleached white uniforms buzzed around, preparing food.

  “Anyone here see a girl, red hair, tall for her age, sour
expression, her mom’s wry sense of humor?” I asked.

  “Check the screening room,” a woman said. “The girls always end up there.”

  This house had more hidden rooms than a brothel. I opened a door at the bottom of a long, narrow staircase and was overcome, strangled by the smell of strong, expensive, Malibu weed. I waved at the fumes. The screening room was black, the only light coming from a blond actress screaming in some awful horror film flickering on the big screen.

  “Pep?”

  I heard giggling.

  “Pep? Are you in here?” I tried to focus.

  “Pep, are you in here?” a squeaky voice mimicked mine. Know this: My voice is not and has never been squeaky. I’m pretty sure.

  “Mom, I’m fine.”

  I felt along the fabric-covered wall and flicked on the light.

  “Mom,” Pep said, “we’re just hanging out.”

  Pep was seated in the middle of a group of older kids. Teenagers. Mostly boys with greasy hair and squirrely expressions.

  “We’re going now,” I said. gritting my teeth.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “She doesn’t have to go,” a boy with a sideways smile said. He looked about fifteen. “Party’s just beginning.”

  “I’m her mother,” I said. “I say she has to go.”

  “Well, this is my house,” he said, standing. “I think she should stay.”

  “You may talk to me that way,” I said, “exactly never.”

  “You can’t say that to me,” he said, slurring. “Do you know who my moms are?”

  “I just did say it. What’re you going to do, cry to your mommies?” I said. “Pep. Get up. Now. Before I lose my composure all over this screening room.”

  Pep rose, slowly, stepped down the side, and slunk past me, glaring at me.