by Gigi Anders
“‘Hairy’?” I asked. I had no idea what he meant.
“Yeah, tell me about your first orgasm in Paris,” he said.
“Um, okay.”
When we hung up I screamed to the ’rents what had just happened.
“Were joo JOO weeth heem?” Mami asked. “Because joo have to be joo.”
“I don’t think Woody Allen would make a very good son-in-law,” Papi remarked.
And so over the summer (and the following couple of years) I sent my leetl Voody postcards, letters, French versions of Woody Woodpecker comic books, and yes, I informed him about my first orgasm in Paris. I described the room, the ambiance, the weather, and closed with this: “Would that there had been someone else there to enjoy it with me.”
To my Parisian and domestic friends, I became a kind of unfamous celebrity. My delight over Voody was infectious, and I cherished what he and I had so intimately created. A fantasy. My fantasy was that Woody Allen and I were affiancé. His fantasy was…well, obviously, I don’t know what his fantasy was. In all, I wrote dozens of times, sometimes as moiself, but usually in the persona of “Emma,” because as Emma I was much less restrained. (When the Soon-Yi thing hit the fan back in 1992, I wrote about Voody’s and my romance for the Washington Post. It was called “Woody and Me: A Love Story. Sort Of.”) One of Voody’s letters included a casual suggestion that I drop by and see him the next time I was in the city. Mental note to self: If ever you leave Paris, you’ll always have Voody.
North American reentry après France was tough. How’re you gonna keep ’em down on the farm after they’ve seen Paree? Hey, how’re you gonna keep ’em down on the farm after they’ve seen the FARM? I wrapped up my final English and art history credits at the University of Maryland in College Park (which, after Paris, was like being in Bombay), and emerged in 1980 with a bachelor’s degree and scant possibilities for employment. I hadn’t taken a single class in journalism, though I had written a regular column for the Beaver News called “Anders Ganders.” And while my regalia may have been a pair of webbed feet, it was a start. After a brief waitressing apprenticeship at Angelo’s Wayside Inn in Silver Spring, Maryland, I decided to go work at the Washington Post. I could probably write some stuff there. It never once occurred to me that most people didn’t just one day decide to go do that and then go do that.
So I did that.
A year later, I went to New York to visit Mary Lou, my platonic Frenzy boyfriend Rob’s older sister. She knew the whole Woody story, and on a cold, cold Manhattan night, we impulsively decided to go see him in the flesh at Michael’s Pub. Woody used to play jazz there on Monday nights. The club, on East Fifty-fifth, wasn’t far from Mary Lou’s place. While we were walking the few blocks, Mary Lou put on a pair of sunglasses. To me she was the epitome of common sense and cool, so I put my shades on, too. The city looked dark.
“Why are we wearing our sunglasses again, Lou?”
“Because the wind hurts our eyes,” she replied.
Michael’s Pub made my heart pound with apprehension. I was abruptly ambivalent about this whole thing. Laughing girls and the clatter of dishes and Woody there with his clarinet and his hair looking so red under the hot lights—it all made me feel like a Jubanique interloper.
It was suddenly too real.
After the set, I shakily got in line to greet Woody, as did almost everyone there. From her chair, Mary Lou signaled a thumbs-up to me and smiled encouragingly. I looked back at her as though it was the end of something. I noticed a pale, skinny brunette sitting next to Woody, smoking a cigarette and aloofly sipping Perrier. She looked about fifteen. I smoothed down my long nubby gray-and-white tweed wraparound sweater. It was my turn and there he was, glancing up at me from behind his imposing, silly glasses. I felt nauseated.
“Hi,” Woody said. “Who should I make this out to?”
“No, nobody,” I said. “Nobody. This isn’t…I don’t want…not an autograph.”
“Okay,” he said, composed.
“Wait,” I said. I felt myself sinking. I took a collaged envelope I had prepared out of my cardigan pocket and proffered it. I would have recognized one of Voody’s envelopes instantly. Surely Voody would recognize one of mine.
But Woody Allen just stared at it, blankly. His pubescent date exhaled languidly and looked away, bored out of her mind.
“It’s from Emma,” I said. “Emma B. Ovary?”
“Emma,” he said. It wasn’t a question. He looked baffled.
“Yeah,” I whispered to the floor. “Emma. You know.”
He acted like he didn’t know. The man in line behind me was snorting his impatience. The skin under my ’zoomies was soaked, as were my armpits and my face. No amount of concealer or powder, not even industrial strength, could’ve quelled it.
“What am I supposed to do?” Woody asked me, holding the moist envelope.
“I don’t know!” I cried. “’Bye!”
I pulled away, full of shame and tears in that blurry room. As Mami Dearest would’ve said, “Joo blew eet.” Yes, I had tendered enough information for a man who’d been nursing a transcontinental love affair with a woman he found fascinating. But probably not for a celebrity who’d scribbled a few playful notes to a besotted college student.
Was Woody being coy? Was he embarrassed I’d shown up unannounced while he was out on a date? Did he even remember who I was? Was it that he just didn’t like my sweater? My curvaceous Cuban ass? My abnormally large head?
“I want to go home now, Lou. Okay? Please?”
Mary Lou understood. We put our coats and scarves and gloves on.
“Did you tell him who you were?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said. “Yes.”
“Weird. Oh well. You tried.”
“I know,” I told her. “I don’t know what happened. I felt closer to him when I didn’t meet him. Woody’ll never be my husband now.”
“Thank God,” Lou said.
When we stepped into the street, the wind had picked up. It was biting. Mary Lou put her shades back on. I started to also, then didn’t. I was still crying. Was it Woody or the wind? Whatever it was, it was good to be walking away from it.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Little Blue Box
For a Jubana who’s never fantasized about her wedding day, it was amazing how effortlessly I clicked into my alter ego, Lulamae–Holly Golightly. Being in love and Breakfast at Tiffany’s had brought me here, to Tiffany & Co. on Wisconsin Avenue in Chevy Chase, to check out engagement rings with Paul. Yes, my prehistoric beloved Dino boyfriend had become my prehistoric beloved Dino fiancé. Fee-AAAHn-ceh. Such a great word! Boyfriend can’t compare to fiancé. It’s so much more…je ne sais quoi. Wahndehr Brayt as opposed to croissant. Wal-Mart as opposed to Tarjay. Schlitz as opposed to Champagne—any Champagne. Or maybe I just like saying French words a lot.
So across the glass counter we leaned, and I knew we would lean that way forever. It was so beautiful and we had rain in our hair and I couldn’t remember a happier moment than on this Saturday afternoon in October, with me in my single-breasted black patent leather raincoat with the electric-blue wool lining, and Paul in his lined khaki trench coat. The sky’d been Jeremy Irons moody since morning, when we’d drunk our cafés con leche and chewed our toasted bagels—sesame for me, pumpernickel for lui—with cream cheese, sitting at the same family room table where Mami Dearest and I’d fought over the wedding guest lees and reception appetizer selections just weeks before. (The prospect of matrimony may be the only time in Juban life when people will actually, like, plan ahead.)
Lucida Lust. Who knew I had it? Must’ve been a very latent gene. Because when I laid my Helen Keller eyeballs on Tiffany’s brilliantly blinding Lucida ring, I could suddenly, miraculously SEE! I was cured! Tafetán color champán—bring it on! A-a-a-mazing grace…Really. It was sick how much I loved that ring. First of all, the name. It’s Spanish. Well, it’s actually Latin. Close enough. It means bright or shining or clear. Lucid,
get it? LOO-see-dah. The distinguished, continental man helping us said it meant “the brightest star in the constellation,” but en Español that would be lucidísima. Whatever. Lucida was the One.
“Le plus lucide,” I told Paul, who’s sort of multilingual. He took off his raincoat. Perhaps I sounded a tad too enthusiastic; it seemed to be making the reptile fiancé sweat. Do reptiles sweat?
“Oui,” said Paul.
I tried on a one-carat Lucida engagement ring in a platinum setting with a matching diamond-less Lucida wedding band, also in platinum. (I knew the 18-karat yellow gold setting would flatter my skin more, but the hell with that. Besides being the most durable of all the precious metals, platinum is, well, platinum.) The rings were truly, flawlessly, simply orgasmic. The closest mere mortals can get to this mise en scène is at www.tiffany.com/ expertise/diamond/rings/combination_lucida_ring .asp?ring=dia band&. What was weird about it in real life was that nothing was weird about it. Because it was Tiffany. Because it was Paul. Because it was right. After all, everybody knows nothing bad could ever happen to you with a Dino-man in Tiffany. Plus, the man who loved Holly Golightly for the Lulamae she really was, in her soul, was named Paul. Plus, Holly realizes Paul is the One while they’re standing in the rain, holding each other and wearing raincoats!
“This is beautiful!” I cried. I put my hand in the fiancé’s paw so he could have a closer look.
“Nice,” he said, nodding. Men know nothing. They just want to do this so they can move on to the next thing, which in Paul’s current context meant either shrimp fajitas or salmon a la parrilla with shrimp and marisco sauce. We’d made plans to meet up afterward with my old Washington Post friend Joe McLellan at Cactus Cantina, our fave Mexican restaurant in D.C., just north of the National Cathedral. See? A very wedding-y weekend: Tomorrow morning we’d have our first appointment with Rabbi Bruce in his study at Temple Shalom for premarital counseling.
“We put as much emphasis on design as on the quality of stones,” said Tiffany Man. He reminded me of David Niven, suave and cosmopolitan with his thin little mustache, and John McGiver, with his balding head and vaguely superior manner. “The Lucida provides a marvelous alternative to a strictly traditional or modern engagement ring. It’s a lovely blend.”
“It IS!” I cried. I glanced at Paul. Face shiny but body still vertical. Good.
“This diamond shape is called the Lucida cut,” Mr. Niven-McGiver continued. “It’s our own creation. A mixed cut, not quite square, rather like a round brilliant on the bottom, so it has a lot of sparkle.”
“It DOES!” I cried. I sure was crying a lot in there. Hey, my Lucida was worth crying over. It was lucidísima.
“The wide band gives the ring security,” Mr. Niven-McGiver expertly explained. “It’s a more contemporary style. Very sleek. Graceful. We’re known for a few specific designs. This one was introduced in 1999.”
“You’re not gonna stop making it, are you?” I asked, slightly alarmed. “It’s like a perfect little sculpture from MoMA, but it’s wearable!”
“We’ll always carry it,” he answered, discreetly slipping me his card. Jesus, even the card stock was thick and creamy and gorgeous. Of course it was. “It’s part of our permanent collection.”
“How are you doing?” I asked Paul. “Are you okay over there?”
“Sure,” Paul said.
“Really?”
“Why?” Paul asked.
“Could you give us a moment?” I asked Mr. Niven-McGiver, who nodded elegantly and glided to the end of the counter. “You. Divorc-ed Dino.”
“Si?”
“You. You are a…um, how shall I put this…”
“Cheap bastard?”
“Right. Exactly. Thank you. So why aren’t you, like, passing out with fever or throwing up or running away screaming?”
The fiancé took my tiny fiancée hand in his huge big one and kissed my palm, careful not to mar MY LUCIDA.
“I love you,” he said. “And yeah, it’s expensive.”
“Dear, it’s, like, five digits, this combo platter.”
“It’s Tiffany,” Paul said with a shrug. “And it’s what you really want, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” I admitted. “It is.”
“Okay, then. This is, I hope, a once-in-a-lifetime purchase. That’s what savings accounts are for. You know, an investment. You’ll have it forever. I want you to have what you want. I live to serve, isn’t that what you always tell me my place is? My raison d’être?”
“It’s becoming part of my haaand,” I said with a swoony sigh, clutching my hands to my chest like a nosegay. Lucida had to be better than crack.
“You know, Martha never liked diamonds,” Paul said, trying on one of the two plain platinum Lucida wedding bands Mr. Niven-McGiver had left on the counter for him. The plain ones are unisex. Men usually choose the 4.5 millimeters width, or the 6. Both were fabulous on Paul and the most expensive sohkehr was only $1,000! So cheap! That’s like one little magazine story for me.
“The ex-rated wife didn’t like diamonds?” I said, incredulous.
“Nope. Not her style. We had our gold bands made. We designed them ourselves.”
“You are so lucky to be with me,” I said, closing my eyes and shaking my head.
Paul kissed me.
“Hey, is this really okay?” I asked him. We were, after all, shlubby journalist Democrats. “Are you sure you can afford this? Because if not, we can look on Sansom Street. Isn’t that where you told me in Philadelphia that’s, like, a whole city block, and all the members of our tribe sell the pet rocks there?”
“Aw, come on,” Paul said, slipping off his Lucida. His naked hand looked sad without it. Just your basic reptilian paw. “Every woman wants that little blue box experience.”
“Can’t put the rain back in the sky / Once it falls down / Please don’t cry….”
“Ooo,” Paul remarked. “That’s good. ‘Can’t put the rain back in the sky.’”
We were sitting in my car in the Giant Foods parking lot behind Cactus Cantina, listening to Lucinda Williams’s CD Essence. This song was called “Are You Down?”. We’d arrived early and were killing time waiting for Joe to join us. I’d loved Lucinda for years, especially Car Wheels on a Gravel Road. I loved introducing the fiancé to the music I loved; musically he was kind of a one-trick pony. For him it was jazz, jazz, jazz.
“Lucida’s amazing,” I agreed, exhaling my Parliament and sucking my lime Tic Tacs.
“Who?”
“Lucinda Williams.”
“You said Lucida.”
Well. Now that we clearly knew our ring’s names—and sizes—Paul and I would buy each other’s separately and act surprised when we proffered our little blue boxes.
“Can’t force the river upstream / When it goes south / Know what I mean?”
In Rabbi Bruce’s cozy study, I was excited and loose and giddy. Paul was grim and vigilant and tense—arms gripping his chest and legs crossed for the entire two hours. He appeared tortured.
“This isn’t the Inquisition,” I whispered to him as Bruce gathered some papers. “You’re allowed to take off your raincoat.”
“I’m fine,” Paul said, shifting mournfully in his chair as if it were electric and he’d spent the last decade on death row and all appeals for clemency had been exhausted.
Bruce talked with us about the history of Jewish weddings—Reform Judaism is about informed choice, and no limits were put on what was possible.
“You don’t plan a wedding and make decisions as if the last four thousand years of Jewish weddings didn’t exist,” Bruce said. “So we’ll consider that carefully. At the same time, you should be free to determine the most meaningful content. That’s liberating: It creates awe and respect.”
“In with the old, in with the new,” I said. “I love it. Individuality! Right, sweets?”
Paul looked stricken. I attributed this to the fact that my Jewish fiancé had never had a Jewish wedding. Martha the ex
was a WASP who’d converted to Catholicism.
“My primary point,” Bruce said, “is that only the bride and groom know what’s truly meaningful to them. That’s what I’m after. The only thing we always include in the ceremony is for each of you to tell the other, in Hebrew and in English, ‘Be consecrated to me with this ring, according to the law of Moses and Israel, according to the law of God.’”
We moved on to the history of our romantic relationship. Bruce wanted to understand how Paul and I got from “Hello, how are you?” to “I want to spend my life with you.” Bruce asked about our biggest conflicts and how and if we’d solved them.
“We’re trying to anticipate the big-ticket items,” Bruce explained, “so that when they come up in the future—and they will—they won’t blow your marriage out of the water.”
Paul looked seasick. Was my Lucida sinking like the Lusitania? The Lucidania?
“You seem unsettled,” Bruce told Paul. “Unresolved.”
“Paul’s broken up with me before,” I said. “Lots of times. Every time we get too close. He’ll say stuff like, ‘I love you but I’m not in love with you,’ or, ‘I just can’t! Godspeed!’ or—”
“So I’m watching Groundhog Day?” Bruce said.
“You totally are,” I said. “It’s so predictable. Then he calls me up, crying, and we pick up where we left off. It’s what we do. No biggie, really.”
“You can’t keep going through that,” Bruce said. “It must be tearing you to pieces. Paul? Is this a pattern? ‘Marriage, don’t tread on me’? Because if that’s the case there’s no reason to set a wedding date.”
“WHAT?” I shrieked.
“I’m…kind of…criss-crossed and padlocked,” Paul said. “I am.”