I See You Made an Effort: Compliments, Indignities, and Survival Stories from the Edge of 50

by Gurwitch, Annabelle

  He heads out and it occurs to me that maybe his story was intended to be a metaphor. Is he saying that he chooses to gloss over what’s come behind? He’s witnessed my bad behavior, crappy career decisions, poor housekeeping skills and yet he doesn’t focus on it. Now, that would be very, very clever and shockingly compassionate.

  Before closing my eyes, I catch sight of our two ginger cats contentedly slumbering in a wicker basket at the foot of our bed. I brought these two into our home because my husband was beside himself with grief after our beloved twenty-one-year-old cat’s exit from this earthly litter box. The kittens had been abandoned by their mother, so we bottle-fed them. Now my husband is so completely bonded to these animals, I wouldn’t be surprised to come home one day and find him “wearing” them in an infant carrier.

  The cats, now a year old, have outgrown this basket they shared as kittens but refuse to give it up. They sleep stacked on top of each other. Are we becoming those ginger cats?

  I’m going to keep the Love Coach on my speed dial. My garter belt days might be behind me, but a sexy slip, maybe even pink, might be in my future. At least I can say I made an effort.

  THIS IS FIFTY

  Int. a Bedroom in Los Angeles—Late at Night

  It’s not the suburban Los Angeles bedroom you’ve seen in romantic comedies like Knocked Up or This Is 40. This bedroom didn’t have a set designer. It’s not designed. It’s furnished.

  The furniture, including a makeup vanity, armoire and set of drawers, is from the Art Deco period, the combined effect almost achieving the look that was once referred to as “shabby chic,” a trademark style that emphasizes the allure of timeworn objects, though in this case it’s a bit more shabby than chic. In just the right light, it might resemble a modest Parisian hotel room in an outer arrondissement, but in full sunlight it’s more akin to a B and B outside Fresno, raisin capital of the world. An upholstered armchair that looks as though a pack of lions has been sharpening their claws on it sits next to an unused cat scratching post.

  CLOSE ON: Five different TV remotes piled on a leather ottoman at the foot of the bed. One for the TV, one for the DVD player, one for the cable, one for a VCR that hasn’t been in use since 2001, and one belonging to a laser disc player, a technology that never really took. Each of the occupants suspects there might be a slim possibility that the signal from one of these remotes is doing something that makes the entire system work. It would sound cliché to note that three out of the five devices are flashing 12:00, but you know they are. The VCR simply reads: —:—.

  CAMERA PANS ACROSS the foot of the bed.

  A large comfy-looking California king dominates the room. A closer look reveals what appears to be a line down the middle of the bed. It is actually where two comforters meet. Each side has its own blanket.

  CLOSE ON: Her nightstand. We see a plastic night guard container, a pair of tweezers, a jumbo-sized half-empty bottle of over-the-counter acid reflux medication. The top is gone, having been misplaced during the mad rush to get the bottle open. An assortment of reading that includes: You Can’t Sell Your Teenager on eBay, So Don’t Even Think About It; The Blue Zone Diet—Eating Your Way to a Longer Life; Anger Management for Couples—Yes, You Need it, Too, Not Just Your Partner. Two pairs of reading glasses resting next to each other. A package of AA batteries.

  OPEN WIDER TO REVEAL: His nightstand. History books. Nazi: A New History of the Third Reich; Nazi: A New History of the Third Reich, Part II; and How the Third Reich Has Been Reinterpreted in New Historical Accounts. A small pyramid of crumpled receipts, an open box of Breathe Right strips and two pairs of reading glasses.

  A Teenage Boy enters the bedroom to speak to his Mother.

  The Mother is reading her dog-eared copy of You Can’t Sell Your Teenager on eBay.

  SON

  Mom, I need a poster board and markers for my science project.

  MOTHER

  We’ll pick up something tomorrow.

  SON

  It’s due tomorrow.

  MOTHER

  Are you kidding me? It’s nine p.m. How many times have we talked about not starting projects the night before they’re due? You know, if I were really a good parent I would let you fail, because that’s the only way you’re going to learn to be more organized.

  She closes the book, takes off her glasses and opens the drawer to her nightstand. She reaches her hand inside, intending to put them away.

  MOTHER (CONT’D.)

  I don’t even know if there’s anything open this time of night. I’m going to tell your dad . . .

  We hear the unmistakable whirring and thumping sound of a vibrator that has accidentally been turned on.

  Both the Mother and the Son freeze.

  She switches it off as quickly as she can.

  SON

  Mom!!!

  MOTHER

  Oh my God!!!

  In that moment, she knows that he knows what that sound is and he knows that she knows that he knows.

  SON

  Mom.

  Shaking his head, he turns and exits the bedroom.

  MOTHER

  I am so sorry.

  She calls to the Husband, who is in the bathroom adjoining the bedroom.

  MOTHER (CONT’D.)

  Honey, how much money have we saved for family counseling?

  HUSBAND (calling from the bathroom)

  None.

  MOTHER (calling after the son)

  I am so sorry!!!!

  FADE TO GRAY

  HOLLYWOOD ADJACENT

  Dear God,

  L.A. is a great big freeway. The weeks really did turn into years.

  I’m going shopping with one of my best friends and I am terrified.

  He and I have known each other for twenty years. We met acting in an independent film that never saw the light of day. There’s a saying in show business that when a project is a hit, everyone involved ends up hating each other, but failures have their own unique bonding power. It’s true. It’s like you made it off the Titanic on the same lifeboat.

  The project we did together was poorly written and disastrously executed. The producer and director had been romantically involved but stopped speaking to each other during the first three hours of shooting and spent the remaining three weeks passing hostile messages back and forth through the cast members. The makeup artists were endearing drag queens, but as they frequented a local dance club every night, they didn’t show up until long after the first scenes of the day had been shot. In addition, the director of photography was not only toiling on our film but also working hard on maintaining a toxically high blood alcohol level. Once he showed up with his arm in a sling from putting it through a glass window the previous night. “Don’t ask,” he said when he came to work with a patch over one eye. We didn’t.

  Many actors are fortunate enough to travel the world. Michael Caine has said he often signed on to films for their exotic locations. Hence, Blame It on Rio. I’ve found myself more often than not in a dilapidated warehouse in Pacoima with a view of a cement factory.

  This film was shot in a small town in Georgia that had the highest per capita number of serial killers in the nation at that time. Only three people died while we were there, but they were all in the same family, so technically they don’t count in serial-murder statistics. The budget was so low and the shooting days so long that my friend and I not only shared a dressing room, we also napped on the same twin bed, at the same time. The filmmakers ran out of money three-quarters of the way through the shoot. Conveniently, there was an “electrical fire,” which burned down the house we were using as a location. This happy accident resulted in a six-figure insurance settlement that meant we could reshoot numerous scenes on a soundstage at a higher budget. Still, the film turned out to be a complete turd. Stories from that gig are a perennial source of fun for my friend and me, particularly now tha
t it’s in the rearview mirror.

  Our friendship has survived because we dated for the briefest interlude, during which time both of us recognized that we were better friends than lovers. At first, I enjoyed the novelty of his insistence that I feign unconsciousness or English as a second language during sex. Once, when he was in a play, he asked me to come over and wash his clothes because “Hamlet doesn’t do laundry!” But the night he warily inquired if he really needed to tell people we were dating at the party we were heading to, I answered, “No, you don’t, because we aren’t anymore.” I found men who were happy to converse with me and he found women who were willing to do his laundry.

  At that time, we were at relatively the same place in our careers. We were both young enough to have a seemingly endless number of opportunities and goodwill directed our way. As an actor, I have gone on to some remunerative gigs, but I’ve had my share of dry spells, flops and terrible career moves. I’ve also been blessed with an innate inability to recognize entertainment destined for mainstream popularity. I read for a role on Friends and was subsequently invited to attend the taping of the pilot. “This’ll never last,” I announced to everyone within earshot.*

  Not my pal. He has been continuously employed on one television series or another and has invested well, so, as he puts it, “Money is no longer an issue.” He owns several homes and employs numerous assistants who each have their own assistants, all of whom have walkie-talkies. He travels with a bodyguard and his child has two nannies who also have walkie-talkies. His income supports a community the size of a small Pacific Island nation, so it only makes sense that he has a legion of seemingly well-compensated and readily available staff members.

  That our friendship has endured can also be chalked up to our having met before the tsunami of money and adulation overtook his daily life. We have seen each other through turbulent emotional times. We know where the bodies are buried. But between his work, his extensive vacation schedule and that he’s taken up flying, there are few times and places on this earth when we are in the same city at the same time.

  He’s asked for my help in picking out a birthday present for his wife. I actually had planned to do some shopping myself as well, but not at the expensive boutique he has picked, which has so few items on display, it’s like they are exotic animals in a private zoo. Still, it seemed like a perfect opportunity to get together.

  The ex-boyfriend encounter is the most difficult occasion to dress for. Your appearance must communicate I am doing just fine without you, even better than I was when I was with you; in fact, your approval means so little I dressed in under a minute. Nothing is as strenuous as effortlessness, so I’m already running late when an email lands in my in-box informing me that the $8,800 I was expecting to receive in theatrical royalties was incorrectly calculated using numbers applicable to a different scale production, which means I will be receiving less than a fourth of the fee. Coincidentally, I spent that identical sum on my son’s braces and music lessons just this week. I check in twice with my attorney to see if there’s been a mistake, even though I know each and every time my attorney opens an email it costs me even more money, but I can’t stop myself. This sum is a significant part of my income this year and I experience the loss like a sharp blow to the stomach.

  I will go shopping anyway, I tell myself. My ability to roll with the punches proves that I am not defined by the vagaries of my finances. I don’t measure my worth by the numbers in my bank account. I am not going to let this keep me from this much-anticipated get-together with my friend. I genuinely enjoy his company, plus, to be the confidante of the superfamous is a privilege that confers a sense of importance on the receiver. It’s the Hollywood equivalent of being granted an audience with the Pope and having the Holy See enlist your advice with his moral compass. Still, the famous come with their own set of rules.

  “You’re late,” he notes when I arrive twenty minutes past the appointed time. They can keep you waiting, but you can’t be late for the über-famous. I am tempted to tell him that my son was hit by a bus just to see his reaction, but I’m not that good an actress.

  I don’t want to admit to how much care went into looking this casual, and if I say too much about my financial woes it might make him feel responsible for me, and if I were to actually verbalize the difference in our status it would be awkward and might even threaten our ability to continue our friendship. The reality of making a living as a freelancer has become such a remote and distant memory, I know he would be surprised to learn that I’ve been collecting unemployment benefits, but I must avoid being viewed as a burden.*

  “I am so sorry, traffic was worse than usual. The 405 Freeway was closed for Carmaggedon.”*

  “Oh yeah, it’s a bitch.” He nods in agreement. “When we had construction near us, I didn’t leave my house for a week.” Traffic is one of the few equalizers in Los Angeles. In Los Angeles, commiserating over traffic is conducted with the same solemnity as the lack of transparency in totalitarian dictatorships is debated elsewhere around the globe.

  And it’s time to go shopping. He’s already treating his wife and her extended family to an Italian vacation, but he wants to surprise her with a small token of his affection as well.

  “A purse,” I say. “She’d never expect that from you,” and for some reason, I am suddenly energized. I am speaking with so much enthusiasm you would think I had invented purses or bought stock when the idea was first thought up. Such is the thrill that the anticipation of spending large sums of cash can create.

  I have never spent more than $200 on a handbag. The only way I’d pay $10,000 for a bag is if it contained $9,750 in cash and gave me a hot-stone massage. I have never stepped into the luxury purse section of a department store, and it’s like I am crossing the border into another country. I don’t have a passport, but my friend is my temporary visa. I have always considered these overpriced lady trophies gauche, but approaching the sleek, modular vessels enclosed in temperature-controlled glass casing, I can feel their power.

  In the late nineties I frequently purchased knockoff Birkin bags from Ousmane, a friendly Senegalese gentleman who stood on the corner of Amsterdam and Seventy-Seventh street in Manhattan. I bought them not only for myself but also for my friends. That ended when Gail Collins wrote about a supposed al-Qaeda connection to the knockoff handbag trade. Looking back now, it seems unlikely anyone would go to the trouble to manufacture, ship and sell faux designer bags to buy bombs when you could just drop a shipment of Hermès on us; even the fakes are really heavy.

  I am carrying a well-worn satchel fashioned out of a recycled plastic tarp. My bag has a shoulder strap made from a seat belt. I’m sure that the salespeople assume I am his assistant.

  I spot a purse that seems like it might be perfect. It’s a boxy black leather bag, large and rather unassuming. It has an understated elegance. It also has a price tag of $20,000. Which is $12,000 more than the amount I thought I was making this month and $18,000 more than what I will receive after I anxiously check my mailbox seven or eight times a day for three weeks. Even my friend admits, “It’s outrageous,” and I am strangely relieved to see there is a limit. I pick out a puffy caramel-colored tote. I inquire if I may touch it and find the texture soft and creamy. It’s like butter. I’m tempted to bite into it. It’s also so pillowy that just stroking it makes me feel sleepy and I am tempted to lay my head down on it. But I hold myself back, because this brioche-shaped bag has a price tag of $6,000, and I can’t afford to risk drooling on it.

  “It’s a keeper,” I announce with relish, exercising an executive decision with my companion’s credit card.

  “You know, if you really want to make this perfect, add in a two-thousand-dollar gift certificate to the store; everyone loves those. I got one once and it was the nicest thing I’ve ever been given.”

  Why did I add that caveat? I was given a beautiful if modest antique diamond ring by my husband
, and the kisses and hugs I received from my son when he was little were the greatest rewards I could ever hope for in this lifetime, but my heart is racing with anticipation. Am I going to get one as well? I want to be that person, perhaps the only one in his life, who doesn’t ask things from him, but I also really, really, especially after my financial news today, really want a nice present and I know he is my only chance at receiving something extravagant.

  I simply can’t walk out without buying something. Peer pressure. I head off to purchase a birthday gift for my mother. I had intended on purchasing her a travel kit I saw advertised on sale at The Body Shop, consisting of eight bath gels, but instead I fork over $42.50 for a candle. I come back to find he’s purchased a $2K gift certificate, so when you add in the tax, it brings the total to nearly the exact amount I have lost today. The salesperson asks what name to put on the certificate and, for a moment, I think he might actually be purchasing it for me. Instead, she slips the certificate into one of the silky pockets of the buttery loaf, and in thirty minutes we’ve spent $8,000. That’s $266 a minute.

  As we start to exit, he turns to me and says, “Thanks, this was great.”

  “It was really fun,” I sing, still high from having spent so much money, even if it wasn’t mine.

  We say our good-byes and head off to our separate cars. I didn’t get a present, but I am happy because I have triumphed. I have not asked for anything. I have gone shopping with someone who is loaded and I can handle it. It seems like a badge of honor, but as I pull into my driveway of our home it occurs to me that my entire house could fit inside my friend’s master bedroom and that I will either need to paint the exterior or make sure that the sun has set if he ever comes to our place.

  In the best of circumstances, our house, with its mixed-matched couches and floor-to-ceiling bookcases, has been generously described by visitors as having the furnishings of English professors. Ones without tenure. In the light of day, our living room couch looks depressed. Literally. That sofa has seen a lot of ass. Jeff purchased this couch before we started dating, so that’s seventeen years ago now. He likes to fall asleep watching sports on said sofa. My friend cannot come to our house and sit his oft-photographed posterior on our sagging cushions. My friend cannot use one of our one-and-three-quarters bathrooms. Our downstairs bathroom is tiny and with his big head (most actors have large domed heads), he will think it even smaller. He can’t possibly go into that wee room. I will need to expand that loo before he comes over. Retile at least. I don’t want him to feel sorry for me.