by Laura Levine
I looked up to see the harried maid scurrying to our side, with two frosty bottles of Evian and carrot sticks, beautifully arranged in a cut glass bowl.
Patti grabbed an Evian from the tray and pouted.
“Yuck, Rosa. This water’s too cold. How many times do I have to tell you, I want it chilled, not icy?”
“Shall I bring you another, Ms. Patti?” Rosa asked through gritted teeth.
“Oh, forget it,” Patti said, with an irritated wave. “Just go.”
More than happy to escape, Rosa scooted back into the house.
As I watched her retreating figure, it occurred to me that perhaps I’d been a tad optimistic thinking that Patti had miraculously morphed into a sweetheart since high school.
“Like I said on the phone,” she said, reaching for a carrot stick, “I need somebody to help me write my wedding vows. You wouldn’t believe how many writers I’ve been through.”
After the little scene I’d just witnessesed, I had no trouble believing it. None whatsoever.
“I’m counting on you, Jaine, to come through for me.”
The look in her eyes told me it wasn’t so much a wish as a royal edict.
“What sort of vows were you thinking of?”
“I’ve had the most fabulous idea.” Her eyes lit up. “Instead of a traditional ceremony, I’ve decided to reenact the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet.”
Huh?
“Only this time, with a happy ending!”
For a minute I wondered if Mamie’s spit in my ear had affected my hearing.
“I’ll be up on that balcony.” She pointed to an elaborate wrought iron balcony on the second story of the house. “My fiancé will stand below and when I ask him to ‘deny thy father and refuse thy name,’ he’s going to say ‘okey doke,’ and then instead of all that gloomy-doomy suicide stuff, I’ll come down and marry him. See? A happy ending!”
By now, even Mamie’s jaw was hanging open with disbelief.
And for the first time it hit me that Patti Marshall was an idiot. All those years at Hermosa High, we were terrorized by a prized num-num.
“It’s really a very simple assignment, Jaine. All you have to do is—”
“Rewrite William Shakespeare.”
“Yes! Make it hip and modern! Isn’t that the best idea ever?”
Compared to what? The Spanish Inquisition?
“C’mon,” she said, jumping up from the chaise, “let’s go up to the balcony. Once you see how gorgeous it is, it’ll put you in the mood to write.”
The only thing that would put me in the mood to write this bilge would be a lobotomy.
With Mamie still in my arms, I followed Patti back inside the house and up to her bedroom, a hot pink extravaganza (think Fleer’s Dubble Bubble) that led out onto the balcony.
“Inspirational, isn’t it?” Patti gushed as we stepped outside.
“Um. Very.”
“How do you like the railing?”
I dutifully oohed and aahed over the elaborate wrought iron scrollwork that bordered the balcony.
“I had it imported all the way from Verona, Italy,” she beamed. “That’s where the real Romeo and Juliet were born.”
I didn’t want to bust her bubble and tell her that Romeo and Juliet were fictional characters, so I just kept oohing and aahing.
“The workmen just finished installing it yesterday. And I’ve ordered statues of Cupid that’ll be scattered around the garden. Won’t that be romantic?”
Somehow I managed to nod yes.
At which point, she draped herself over the railing and, with great gusto, began mangling Shakespeare:
“Romeo, Romeo, wherefort ares’t thou, Romeo?”
At the sound of this exceedingly bad line reading, Mamie let out a plaintive yowl, as did Shakespeare, no doubt, from his grave.
I joined Patti at the railing and gazed down at the rolling green landscape below.
“That’s where Dickie proposed to me,” she said, pointing to a wooden gazebo nestled in a bower of trees. “The Secret Gazebo.”
“The Secret Gazebo?”
“We call it that because you can only see it from up here on the balcony. It’s practically impossible to find down on the ground unless you know where it is.”
“A secret gazebo. How romantic.”
“I’ll say. I’ve had some pretty kinky sex down there.”
Luckily, she spared me the details.
After assuring Patti that I’d been sufficiently “inspired,” we trooped back downstairs where she took Mamie from my drool-infested arms.
“So now you know the assignment,” she said with a toss of her ponytail. “Just dash off a scene where Romeo proposes to me, and I say yes. Only of course, Juliet’s name will be Patti, and Romeo’s name will be Dickie. And get rid of all the stuffy language. I want it to be snappy and sassy. Like Friends with swords and long dresses.”
By now I was on Auto Nod, bobbing my head at everything she said, no matter how inane. Five more minutes with her, and I’d need a neck brace.
“C’mon,” she said, “I’ll walk you to your car.”
We headed outside just in time to see a bright yellow VW beetle pull up in the driveway.
“Oh, look, it’s Dickie!”
A tall, sandy-haired guy untangled his long legs from the car.
“Dickie, sweetie!” Patti cried, racing to his side.
She threw her arms around his neck and locked her lips on his. When they finally came up for air, she said, “Honey, say hello to Jaine. I told you I hired her to write our wedding vows, didn’t I?—You remember Dickie, don’t you, Jaine?”
I looked up at her fiancé and took in his shy smile and spiky, slightly tousled hair. There was something about that smile of his that seemed familiar, but I couldn’t quite place him.
“I’m afraid not.”
“It’s Dickie Potter. He was in our class at Hermosa.”
“Dickie Potter?” I blinked in surprise. “The same Dickie Potter who played tuba in the marching band?”
He nodded.
When I last saw Dickie Potter, he was a committed nerd, all knees and elbows, his face sprinkled with acne, someone Patti never would have looked at twice. But over the years, he’d blossomed into a major cutie.
“What a change, huh?” Patti winked.
“Patti and I ran into each other at last year’s Hermosa High reunion,” Dickie said, gazing at her with a worshipful smile.
“Yeah, he took one look at me, and the next thing I knew he was divorcing his wife.”
Patti giggled coyly, the happy homewrecker.
“Poor Normalynne,” she said, without a trace of sympathy. “Didn’t know what hit her.”
“Normalynne Butler?” I asked, remembering a tall, gawky girl who played flute in the band. “You were married to Normalynne?”
“Yes.” Dickie nodded ruefully. “I’m really sorry it ended the way it did.”
“Oh, poo. I’m sure she’s over it by now,” Patti said, waving away his doubts. “Well, it’s time for Jaine to get out of here and leave us alone.”
She threw her arms around him once more, clearly ready for some wild times in the gazebo.
“It was nice seeing you,” Dickie said to me, over her shoulder.
“Very nice,” I said, eager to make my escape before the action got X-rated. I gave a feeble wave and was heading for my car, when Patti called out to me.
“You better not screw this up, Jaine, like you used to screw up in P.E.” She shot me the same demoralizing look she’d used so effectively all those years ago in the Hermosa High gym. “You were such a klutz.”
Then she laughed a tinkly laugh for Dickie’s benefit. She wanted him to think she was kidding. But she and I both knew better.
“And don’t take too long,” she trilled. “I want the script in my hands the day after tomorrow.”
So much for Patti having changed. Whatever initial burst of goodwill she’d shown me was history.
The bitch was back.
I trudged up the path to my apartment, wondering how I was going to survive working for Patti, when I saw my neighbor Lance stretched out on a deck chair.
Lance and I live in a modest duplex on the fringes of Beverly Hills, far from the megaman-sions to the north and just a hop, skip, and jump away from the gangs to the south. It’s a neat old 1940s building where the rent is reasonable and the plumbing impossible.
“Hey, Jaine,” Lance said, his blond curls glinting in the sun. “How’s it going?”
“Don’t ask,” I grunted.
“C’mere,” he said, patting his chair. “Tell Uncle Lance all about it.”
Lance works odd hours as a shoe salesman at Neiman Marcus, which is why he can often be found lolling about on deck chairs in the middle of the day.
I plopped down next to him and he put a comforting arm around my shoulder. An arm he promptly jerked away.
“Yuck. Why are you wet? And you smell funny.”
“It’s dog spit. One of the perks of my new job,” I sighed. “I just got the assignment from hell, writing for a ghastly woman I used to go to high school with. A world-class bitch, the queen of mean.”
“Any chance she’s gained oodles of weight and grown a mustache since high school?”
I shook my head, dispirited. “Patti’s actually thinner than she was back then.”
“That’s because the mean gene burns calories. That’s your problem, Jaine,” he said, glancing at my thighs. “You’re way too nice.”
“She actually wants me to rewrite Shakespeare. She wants me to make it ‘snappy.’ Like Friends with swords and long dresses.”
“Why don’t you just turn down the job?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I was hoping to spend the money on a few luxuries like food and rent.”
“Poor baby,” he tsked. “Know what you need? A nice frosty margarita. C’mon, let’s go to my apartment and I’ll make you one. With a big bowl of chips.”
“Great,” I said, my taste buds springing to life.
“Oh, wait. I just remembered. I’m all out of tequila. And margarita mix. And chips, too, for that matter.”
Five minutes later we were sitting in my living room feasting on lukewarm Snapples and leftover martini olives.
“It’s funny,” I said, sucking on a pimento. “You spend decades trying to forget how miserable you were in high school, and then, after only a few minutes with the Class Dragon Lady, it all comes flooding back.” I took a desultory slurp of Snapple. “I was so awkward in high school. I swear, I spent four years with the same damn zit on my chin. What about you? Were you a mess?”
“Not really,” Lance said with an apologetic shrug. “I had my own set of problems, trying to explain to my dad why I wasn’t reading Playboy and playing football, but I didn’t go through an awkward phase.”
Prozac looked up from where she was nestled on Lance’s lap.
Me, neither. I’ve always been adorable.
“You can’t let this Patti creature make you feel bad about yourself,” Lance said, with an indignant shake of his curls. “You’ve got to do something to boost your self-confidence.” His brow furrowed in thought. “You know what you need?”
“Yes,” I said. “A frosty margarita. But if memory serves, you’re all out of tequila.”
“You need a new look! An entire wardrobe makeover!”
His eyes shone with evangelical fervor. Lance has been dying to do a Henry Higgins on me for years.
“Forget it, Lance. I can’t afford to go shopping.”
“Okay, then, we’ll do the next best thing—closet therapy. With me as your closet therapist.”
“My closet therapist?”
“Yes. I’ll get rid of all the ghastly clothes in your closet you shouldn’t be caught dead in and then put together some adorable outfits, so you can show Patti what a hot number you really are.”
“Really, Lance. I don’t care what Patti thinks of me.”
“Of course, you do. Now c’mon. It’s time for closet therapy!”
And with that he took me by the arm and marched me to my bedroom closet.
“Gaaack!” he cried, surveying its contents. “It’s worse than I remembered.”
For some odd reason, Lance is convinced I have terrible taste in clothes. According to him, moths come to my closet to commit suicide.
“Anyhow, here’s how closet therapy works,” he said, getting down to business. “You make three piles. The clothes you’re going to keep. The clothes you’re going to give to charity. And the clothes so hideous even Goodwill won’t take them. Are you ready to start?”
I nodded with a distinct lack of enthusiasm.
“Here we go.”
He grabbed a perfectly lovely striped blouse and held it up.
“Gaack! Polyester!” he shuddered, tossing it onto the floor. “Into the Hideous Pile. Omigod. And look at this jacket. Where did you buy it? A Russian thrift shop? And a Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs T-shirt! I may go blind!”
It shows you how much he knew. That T-shirt happened to be a collector’s item.
I plopped down on my bed and watched as he tossed one perfectly usable item of clothing after another onto the Hideous Pile until my closet was a graveyard of wire hangers.
“Are you sure you can’t afford to go shopping?” Lance said, surveying the wreckage.
“No, Lance, I can’t.”
“Well, then, Houston, I think we’ve got a problem.”
He was staring at a lone cocktail dress that had survived the massacre, when his cell phone rang. He checked his caller ID, then grabbed it eagerly.
“Hi, Kevin! Great to hear from you... . When? ... Now? Sure, I’m not doing anything. I’ll be right over!”
He hung up and turned to me, smiling sheepishly.
“Don’t kill me, Jaine, but I’ve gotta go. I’m meeting Kevin at the movies. Did I tell you about Kevin? No? Well, I think he could be Mr. Right. We met the other night on line at the yogurt parlor. He’s a nonfat cherry vanilla, just like me.
“Don’t worry,” he said, waving to the mountain of clothing in the Hideous Pile. “I’ll help you clean up this mess later tonight. Well, maybe not tonight. But tomorrow for sure. Or the day after.”
And with that he blew out the door so fast, he practically left exhaust fumes.
I got up with a sigh and plucked Prozac from where she was napping on the Hideous Pile.
Then, one by one, I began hanging my fashion rejects back in my closet.
When I was all done, I caught my reflection in the mirror on the back of the closet door. There on my chin was the start of a blockbuster zit.
Yep, it was beginning to feel a lot like high school.
Chapter 3
It wasn’t easy turning Romeo and Juliet into an episode of Friends, but with a positive attitude and a fistful of Excedrin, somehow I managed it.
Two days later I had the finished pages in my hot little hands and set out to deliver them to Patti. We’d arranged to meet at the bridal salon where she and her bridesmaids were being fitted for their gowns.
“You’ll never guess who my bridesmaids are,” she’d said on the phone when we’d set up the date. “Cheryl and Denise!”
Oh, yuck. Cheryl Hogan and Denise Gilbert were Patti’s two best friends from high school—Denise, a striking brunette; and Cheryl, a delicate blonde with enormous Betty Boop eyes. Together with Patti, they formed a most unholy alliance—the Terrible Trinity, I used to call them.
They had this way of collectively scanning you, zeroing in on your latest zit or bad hair day with the unerring accuracy of an MRI.
“Won’t it be fun,” Patti had gushed, “the four of us getting together again?”
Yeah, right. About as much fun as gastric bypass surgery.
I made my way over to Cynthia’s Bridal Salon in the tony Montana Avenue section of Santa Monica, where the valet parking cost more than my car. I circled the block a few zillion times searching fo
r a space on the street, but there hasn’t been an open parking space on Montana since D.W. Griffith was shooting Birth of a Nation, so eventually I had to admit defeat and toss my keys to the valet.
He drove off with a frightening squeal, and I walked the few steps to Cynthia’s, my palms gushing sweat. I told myself I was being ridiculous. I couldn’t let the Terrible Trinity intimidate me anymore. It had been almost twenty years since graduation. I was an award-winning writer with an impressive career writing toilet bowl ads.
Okay, so maybe writing toilet bowl ads wasn’t so impressive. And maybe the only award I’d ever won was the Golden Plunger award from the Los Angeles Plumbers Association. But it paid the rent, didn’t it? Well, not always. Sometimes I had to get cash advances on my credit card. Which reminded me, if I didn’t pay my MasterCard bill soon, I’d be hit with another late fee. And ditto for my Nordstrom bill. And Bloomingdale’s. Not to mention the bills from the phone company and my dentist. By now I was in a funk just thinking of all the money I owed.
All I can say is it’s a good thing I don’t make my living giving pep talks.
With a weary sigh, I pushed open Cynthia’s country French doors and headed inside.
Cynthia’s was a plush cocoon of ankle-deep carpeting and flattering lighting. Soothing classical music tinkled in the lavender-scented air. I looked around and was relieved to see that Patti was the only customer in the store. Maybe there’d been a change of plans and Cheryl and Denise weren’t going to be there after all.
Patti stood on a raised platform in her wedding gown, a froufrou Renaissance-inspired number with a low-cut bodice, puffy sleeves, and enough material in the train to upholster a hotel lobby.
A seamstress knelt at her feet, pins in her mouth, making alterations, while an elegant older woman, her silver hair swept back in a chignon, stood by with a nervous smile on her face.
“Cynthia, how many times do I have to tell you?” Patti snapped. “I want the bodice lower.”
Was she insane? If that dress were cut any lower, it would be a belt.
“Are you sure?” the silver-haired woman asked, a noticeable tic in her left eye.
“Yes, I’m sure. I paid good money for these boobs. I want everyone to see them.”