All Eyes on Her

by Poonam Sharma

  “Nothing.” I brightened. “Absolutely nothing at all. So, when are you due exactly, and where can we get you an appointment for your first pregnancy massage?”

  Cassie twirled before the mirror in a purple Christian Dior tank dress, while I sat on the white leather couch normally reserved for the husbands and sugar daddies. At least over some window shopping during our lunch hour in Brentwood the next day, I knew that I could bask in another single woman’s woes.

  All right, so I wasn’t exactly single. I sure as hell felt like I was. And as anyone who’s ever had a mullet will tell you, it’s how you see yourself that really matters.

  “I don’t know if it’s my color,” she said.

  “You’re twenty-four,” I insisted, “everything’s your color.”

  “Why is everyone so snippy lately?” she asked, leaning over to adjust her hair and her cleavage and then springing back up like a shampoo ad.

  “I’m not snippy. I’m just making an observation. Everything was my color when I was twenty-four, too.”

  “Is there something you need to talk about, hon?” She chewed wildly then snapped her gum.

  “No…but who else is snippy?” I wandered over to the jewelry display.

  “Kris with a K.” She waved the idea of him away.

  Kris with a K was a record producer whom she had met about three months before, during a party at some swanky mansion owned by his best friend, who happened to be a retired tycoon in Malibu. (Read: summer rental by a couple of guys studying surfing at Pepperdine.) By “Kris with a K” we had deduced that he meant “a guy named Chris who was embarrassed to have been given such a generic name at birth.” And by “record producer” we figured out that he meant “trust fund baby who had blown his most recent monthly allowance on some mixing equipment.” Cassie didn’t care what he claimed or called himself, so long as he kept getting reservations at all the best restaurants, and was willing to ensure that his neighbors were woken by the concert of her nightly satisfaction whenever she made a late-night booty call. The other perk was that he had a cappuccino machine on a self-timer set to wake them up in the morning exactly when the sun lit up the length of the Malibu shoreline that reflected onto an entire wall of his bedroom. The problem, lately, was that he had decided he really wanted to get to know her.

  “So Saturday morning I flip on the radio,” she told me, “because I was already awake and didn’t feel like joining him in the shower. And Sade is singing, and you know how much I love Sade, right?”

  I nodded, holding a citrine chandelier earring up to my face before a display mirror.

  “Well, he comes out of the shower, hears me singing, and then jumps back into bed and starts nibbling on my ear.”

  “So far, so good,” I chime in, holding up the other earring.

  “Yeah, I thought so, too. But just as I’m hitting the part where she sings the chorus, he asks me, Hey, babe, who sings this song? And I go, Sade. And he goes, Why don’t we keep it that way?”

  “So what?” I chuckled. “At least he’s got a sense of humor. Maybe it’ll make up for his lack of ambition.”

  “So what? So…that kind of crap is not gonna fly with me.” She marched back into the dressing room.

  “Oh, relax,” I teased, and slipped a pair of bangles on to jingle them around. “Why not? It’s funny.”

  “Because, Monica,” she yelled from inside the cubicle, “I’m a girl who has sex with the lights on.” Reappearing in her tank top and jeans, she slipped her bag over her shoulder.

  “So confidence means that you have no sense of humor?” I took her cue to head for the door.

  “So…when you get me—” she yanked a swath of hair out of the back of her tank, and shook it effortlessly “—you get all of me. I’m that girl. And…”

  She paused while we stepped onto Montana Avenue.

  “What?” She stopped. “You think I’m crazy?”

  “No,” I said, linking my arm in hers to force her to keep walking. “I think you’re great. You’re…authentic. You say what you mean. That’s very rare, and sometimes I don’t think you give yourself enough credit for it.”

  “Yeah, right,” she answered, pushing her sunglasses up into her hair. “With men. But I could never have the balls that you have at work.”

  “Mmm…because you choose not to.” I intended to only think the comment but ended up saying it out loud.

  I took her silence as a signal that I should explain.

  “It’s not like you ever tried to apply to law school. Not that there’s anything wrong with what you’re doing, if you’re happy. But you could have gone if you wanted to, and…and sometimes the disparaging comments you make about yourself give me the sense that you want something else.”

  “Meaning?” she asked, while we paused at an intersection.

  “Let me ask you something,” I said, trying as gently as I could to get her to acknowledge how much time she spent picking the ticks out of my fur. “Why do you compliment me so much?”

  “I don’t do that,” she instantly responded, and continued across the street, weaving between shoppers.

  “Yes, you do, honey. And you don’t have to keep propping me up. We’re not all that different.”

  “Monica, it’s not like I idolize you or anything.”

  “I know that,” I clarified. “But I care about you like you’re my little sister. And maybe it’s nothing, but it worries me every time you put yourself down in comparison to me. Indirectly, every compliment to me becomes an insult to you. You’re like, upward grooming me or something. And I hope you know that just because I smile about it doesn’t mean that I agree that I’m particularly impressive. Or that I believe you couldn’t do everything I do because I don’t.”

  “Okay, okay.” She steered us toward a nail salon. “You caught me. My secret plan was to get you drunk over lunch and lure you to a nail salon and have you groomed today. Honestly though, those paws of yours could use a good buffing, don’t you think?”

  “Cassie…” I tried to gently return to my point.

  “I know, Monica.” She stopped in front of the nail polish display. “I know. But not everybody was taught to…well, to think about themselves that way. And maybe…sometimes maybe I wish that I did.”

  I’d made my point. She knew how I felt, even if she refused to see herself any differently. So we ordered up two express pedicures, settled into the vibrating massage chairs and decided to leave the grooming to somebody else.

  The polish on our toes was drying when I got the call that a package had arrived for me at the office. It was a set of house keys from the Realtor. And it was accompanied by a glossy, full-color brochure displaying a three-bedroom, three-thousand square foot, Mediterranean-style ranch with a working fountain in front and a hand-tiled patio with lush landscaping surrounding the pool out back.

  At least in the brochure.

  The reality (much like an Internet date or the first time you got reeeeeallly drunk) failed to live up to the dream. I left work early and headed over to the cozy little upper-Brentwood cul-de-sac where the house was insulated against almost everything. At first I thought it was the wrong house because rather than being drawn in by the serenity of the neighborhood, I was surprised and irritated to find a group of construction workers sawing happily through the roof of my mother’s house.

  “Excuse me?” I tried, attempting not to scrape the suede off my shoes by colliding against any of the roofing materials littering the pathway.

  No response.

  “Hello?” I raised my voice a little bit.

  Still nothing.

  “Yo! What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I’d cupped my hands around my mouth and barked.

  The leader of the pack of what I could only assume were powdered-sugar-covered demolition-men rose to his feet.

  “What do you want?” He wiped his brow and tried to get a better look at me.

  “Your name, for starters.” I planted my hands on my hips in an
effort not to look like an ant from his perspective.

  He raised an eyebrow, seeming pleased. “Will that get me your number?”

  “All right, buddy. I am not in the mood for this,” I said, rooting around inside of my purse for the cell phone. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing here, but this is private property. It’s my mother’s house, and I’m planning on selling it. So if you don’t get off that roof right now, I’ll have to call the police.”

  “No need for that,” he said, climbing down a ladder that was propped up against one side of the house. “Don’t get your thong all in a bunch, lady. The name’s Luke, and I’m coming down.”

  I demanded, “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t call the police, Luke—” when he was finally standing next to me “—or I’ll make sure they’re here in less than two minutes.”

  I held out the cell phone with the numbers 911 punched in.

  “Damn, you L.A. women really are cranky when you don’t get your way.” He smiled, flashing a surprisingly perfect set of teeth before adopting the most patronizing voice I had heard since Jonathan tried to explain to his date at the last company dinner why the water in the finger bowls was not meant for drinking. “Like I said, I’m Luke. And if your last name is Gupta, then your mom hired me to renovate this roof. So don’t you worry about a thing, miss. You just go and get yourself another pedicure or whatever, and let me do my job, okay?”

  I seriously considered kicking him in the nuts. Not for my own sake, but for his. If we didn’t expect dogs to refrain from assuming our children were dinner without a few newspaper taps to the snout, then why should we expect walking erections to refrain from dismissing women half their size without a few swift kicks to the groin?

  “Look, Luke.” I used the same voice I once employed while explaining to a moth-eaten former rock star why hopping into his hot tub was not a part of the services Steel paid me to provide. “My ‘pedicure or whatever’ is none of your concern. And it wouldn’t kill a guy like you to consider washing your face or shaving once in a while, either. As for your little job on the roof, there’s been a change of plans. I am selling the house, so we’ll need to stop construction. Immediately.”

  Unfortunately, my speech failed to stifle his amusement. On the contrary, it seemed to tickle him practically pink. Yes, he was the grown man with a ponytail in a Dorito-streaked T-shirt, but he was the one laughing at me.

  “Stopping construction is not a problem,” he replied, and shot me a lascivious grin. “But stopping payment is. Your mother’s check was nonrefundable, and if I were you, I would want that leak fixed before I tried to sell the place.”

  “What?” I swallowed hard to keep my composure, lest I give him the satisfaction of seeing me lose my cool. “But I can’t sell a house that’s still under construction.”

  “Then I guess you’ll have to wait until after we’re done.” He crossed his bulging forearms before him and threw me a contemptuous expression. “So it looks like you’re stuck with us. At least for another few days,” he told me.

  “First of all, don’t tell me what to do,” I growled, gesturing with my car keys because I had had enough of him. “Secondly, I will expect the work to be completed promptly, or else you can look forward to a massive lawsuit, which I will personally litigate. Personally. As in, when I’m not getting a pedicure or something, I’m working as an attorney. And third, don’t waste your breath trying your burly contractor routine on me or strain your neck watching me walk away…I’m engaged.”

  eleven

  “YOU’VE GOT QUITE A PAIR ON YOU!” SOMEBODY ACCUSED me, while I admired the view from Zinc’s rooftop bar in Manhattan Beach that Friday night.

  “Thanks. But you’re not the first man to tell me that” was my canned response, along with happily baring my enormous fangs.

  This wasn’t your usual hint of an impending public breakup. It was a compliment, coming from a werewolf, at Steel’s Annual Costume Fete. Every year, the partners agreed on a theme for the event, and every year, the entire team went way over the top in attempts to outdo one another’s costumes. This year’s theme was The Night Of The Living Dead. Burnished scarlet velvet lined the booths, gothic candelabras floated on rafts across the rooftop pool, and golden goblets and bubbling cauldrons overflowed with something resembling blood but tasting a whole lot more like raspberries.

  Aside from giving us the chance to take the usual Hollywood dress-up to another level, the Fete always promised at least a few office rumors about litigators who either accidentally woke up next to their clients, or alone in remote corners of West Hollywood. Since said clients were always invited, security was routinely top-notch, to the point where no one other than the partners even knew the location until hours before the event. And our clients made full use of the chance to roam a party incognito, donning outfits so outrageous that they could usually barely be recognized.

  And we all know how anonymity breeds audacity, which often looks a lot like stupidity. Hence the potential for trouble and the awkwardness of doing damage control the morning after.

  Last year’s theme was The Arabian Nights, and the year before that was The Venetian Ball. I discovered early on that the place to go for a costume in Los Angeles was Splashy, a members-only custom-tailored, lingerie and garment boutique, accessible exclusively by private appointment. Their seamstresses could professionally fit everything from bikinis to medical scrubs to crotchless mesh bodysuits in ways that made anybody look like a million bucks, at no extra charge. This year, they had transformed me into The Queen of the Vampires, and fastened me into a black leather gown that bumped me up at least two bra sizes. They’d even helped me find a pair of fangs that were two inches long and sharp enough for me to risk hurting myself whenever I spoke.

  “I bet you could tear me apart with a set of fangs like that!” the werewolf continued. “And I’m pretty sure I’d thank you for it.”

  “You’re not the first man to tell me that, either.” I grinned at the furry stranger, wishing I could see him better through what looked like hours of professional makeup.

  In the light of day, would he have a scar running from ear to ear? Or a pair of eyes set only millimeters apart? Or actually be hairy enough not to have required very much of a costume at all?

  You could never be sure who you were dealing with in a city where real estate developers turned out to be house-sitters, men who claimed to be in their thirties had an extra fifteen years and a couple of plastic surgeries behind them, and the hot-shot music producers who you met in the VIP section routinely turned out to be living in their cars. The last time a man seemed so happy about the prospect of me tearing him apart, he wasn’t wearing a werewolf’s costume at all; he was some pin-striped venture capitalist I’d met when I wandered accidentally into an unmarked S & M lounge off La Cienega.

  “So how about it?” Contestant number one extended an elbow toward me, and asked, “Care to take me back to your castle and give me new reasons to howl at the moon? No names…no questions…”

  I could tell by the tone of his voice that the prospect of sexual anonymity was supposed to entice me. But it didn’t. Judging by his boldness and his charm, I wasn’t too concerned about the chances of my hairy friend winding up with nobody to paw at that night.

  “Maybe some other time,” I said, guzzling down half the contents of my goblet and spotting Cassie on a sofa across the way.

  “But I’ll let you tie me up!” he tried one more time, with a paw on my arm, “I’ve been a very bad wolf.”

  “And how do you know that I wouldn’t take off your mask once I had you under my control?”

  “Maybe I was hoping you would.”

  It was the nicest kind of dirty offer a girl could have hoped for at a party like that. So I smiled, turned and walked away.

  I waved at Cassie and Jonathan before detouring to refill my goblet at the punch cauldron. A hammered and partially beheaded Marie Antoinette stared back at me from the opposite side of the
pot. It was Stefanie, of course, but for the first time I could find no real animosity in her eyes. She looked worn-out, more than anything else, and quickly enough, the twinge of guilt over my being jealous of Sheila came screaming back to me. Because Stefanie wasn’t merely looking at me. She was looking over my shoulder at Cassie, who had draped herself impishly across the shoulders of a joyful Jonathan. Undoubtedly, Stefanie was expecting me to say something, but the disappointment on her face was so raw and conspicuous that I grabbed the ladle, topped off her goblet, and then quietly filled my own.

  It wasn’t my problem, I reminded myself. I shook it off and went to busy myself with the business of making nice with the partners and their partners instead. The first ones I spotted were Niles and his wife, Barbara, dressed as Frankenstein and his electrified bride. I threw my shoulders back and marched over to them, hand already extended.

  “Monica, you remember my wife, Barb,” Niles slurred, with the first prurient smile I had ever seen cross his face. It was rather unsettling; kind of like finding out that your grandfather still has a libido.

  “How nice that you could make it, Monica.” Barb spoke through clenched teeth, extending a rather chilly handshake.

  “It’s nice to see you again, Barb. It was a shame you couldn’t make it last year. And what fantastic costumes…the makeup must have taken hours,” I gushed.

  “Yes, yes it did,” Niles answered. Barb simply blinked and stared at me.

  “You know, we don’t get many chances to see the partners as real people. So this party’s always a lot of fun. They’re all business at the office.” I aimed the comment directly at her, searching for some hint of acceptance.