Lala Pettibone's Act Two

by Heidi Mastrogiovanni

  “Oh, sweetie, what a lovely thing to say. I’m so relieved because—”

  “Okay, yeah, I am kinda pissed off at you for being the catalyst that launched me into having to go through this shitbag of a day. Wow, did I have fantasies on my way over there. Like James was going to be my date for the wedding, and I was going to catch the bouquet . . . Oh, well, Helene can be my date. I shouldn’t be so pessimistic. I should look on whatever positive sides there are, here. We’ll have a blast, just two single gals hanging out and getting toasted, and I promise not to trip her or elbow her after you pitch your flowers to the unmarried—”

  “Ummm . . . Helene is bringing Clark to the wedding. Our chauffeur from Vegas? He’s her plus-one.”

  “Jesus. Love is in the air, huh? Fuck. Well, I think that’s great, and I’m also taking all the credit for her happiness since I practically shoved them into bed together, and I will be reminding Helene of that at every available opportunity for decades to come.”

  “You want to get gussied up and go out for a fancy dinner?”

  “Can I have a rain check? What I’m itching to do is get back upstairs and get back to work. First day of the rest of my life blah, blah, blah, blah. I’ve got some new ideas for that Mata Hari in Heaven series I told you about.”

  “Honey, I think you might want to rethink that concept a little? Or at least revisit the casting? I just can’t quite envision Sean Connery in a silver lamé evening gown.”

  _______________

  Lala was back home in her bathrobe. She had just finished a bowl of delicious spaghetti and was sipping the last of a glass of lovely red wine. All the dogs were asleep in the living room. With her laptop in tow, Lala settled herself next to Yootza on the couch and flipped on the TV.

  What to watch, what to watch, what to watch? she silently debated.

  “Ohhhh,” Lala gushed when the offering on Turner Classic Movies appeared on the screen in sumptuous black and white. “Who’s in the mood for Now, Voyager? I am! I am! Transformation! Rebirth! Heartbreak! Multiple Second Acts! And, yes, of course I realize that I own this fabulous film on DVD, and so I could watch it whenever I want, but isn’t it more reassuring when fate takes a hand in our joy?”

  Lala thrilled as she watched frumpy Bette Davis struggle to find her way in an unkind world.

  “She doesn’t feel pretty! Or safe! Or hopeful! I know exactly what she’s going through. Isn’t this fun? We can’t wait until the part where she feels pretty and safe and hopeful, huh, kids?”

  Lala absentmindedly opened her laptop, not with the intention of beginning to work, but with the hope of finding something additional to divert her attention so that she could procrastinate on a second front.

  Lala’s first stop was in her e-mail’s in-box. She scanned the long list of left-wing, virtual schmoozefest communiqués and listings for local meet-up groups to practice French. Her eyes landed on a subject line that read “Dressed Like a Lady, Drinks Like a Pig” and in the instant before she shifted to the “From” column, assumed that the e-mail had been sent to her by James.

  When she saw the source e-mail address, Lala immediately remembered the name of Helene’s literary agent.

  Oh, come on, Lala thought. I don’t feel rejected and disappointed enough today? You want to remind me how one-dimensional my characters are? I’m not opening it. I am not. Fuck.

  Lala clicked on the e-mail and winced.

  “Hi, Lala,” she read.

  Bitch, she thought.

  “Sue me. I was wrong,” Kelly Franklin Adams had written. “I got an advance copy of your novel. Where did all that quality stuff come from? It’s like Bridget Jones’s Diary for women over 40 if Nancy Meyers and Erica Jong had written it.”

  Head spinning, Lala thought. Eyes can’t focus. Wow. This is a very good feeling.

  “I’ll be out in LA at the end of the month, but I really don’t want to wait that long. When can we set up a Skype appointment, so we can talk about how we’re going to work together?”

  Lala stared at the screen. She took a controlled sip of wine. She gazed down at Yootza, who had his upper lip curled within his lower teeth and looked like an adorable, old, grey-bearded troll.

  “My heart is racing,” Lala whispered. “I must get you a teeny little stocking cap, Yootza. That would be a hoot. I am really enjoying this. I never want to forget this feeling.”

  Lala began typing. And reading aloud.

  “Dear Kelly. Thank you so much for your e-mail. I’m very pleased to hear that you enjoyed my novel. But, at the same time, I have to tell you that my immediate reaction to your suggestion that we work together is to point out that it might benefit us both if we were to acknowledge that you and I didn’t seem to have the same opinion of my work when this story existed in screenplay form. And, while I do understand and happily admit that the comedic novel form seems to be much more suited to the telling of this particular tale, I fear that we could not—given what I can only describe as your somewhat harsh and dismissive reaction to my earlier efforts—hope to establish a working relationship that would have much of a chance of being mutually respectful and . . . Oh, for heaven’s sake.”

  Lala hit the delete key with a demonic smile.

  “The poor woman doesn’t deserve to have her ear bent off,” Lala told her dogs. “And, by the way, I’m choosing to keep my finger on the delete key for the whole shebang rather than just blocking the text and hitting delete once because it’s much more satisfying this way. Much.”

  Okay, Lala thought. Succinct. Cogent. Concise. Every antonym you can think of for “longwinded.”

  Lala sat back and watched Now, Voyager.

  “Let me tell you something, Bette. Your Act Two is just around the corner. And it’s gonna be a doozy. Trust me on this.”

  Lala smiled and relaxed. And then, out of nowhere and unbidden, the image of one of her eternally favorite cartoons from The New Yorker popped into her head. It was of an executive in his office. The man was talking on the phone while he was consulting his datebook that he had open on his desk.

  Pithy, indeed, but not terribly gracious, she thought.

  Lala read the last line of Kelly Franklin Adams’ e-mail aloud.

  “When can we set up a Skype appointment, so we can talk about how we’re going to work together?”

  Fuck gracious, Lala thought.

  “Dear Kelly,” she typed. “How about never—is never good for you?”

  The Sun’ll Come Out Today

  The caterer made sure there was a bottomless pitcher of signature champagne cocktail waiting in Geraldine’s bedroom for the bride and her entourage.

  The ladies had awakened early and were gathered at Geraldine’s place to get ready. Lala’s four dogs would also be participating in the ceremony. They were all asleep in the bedroom, all wearing special outfits for the occasion: tee shirts that had stencils of tuxedoes on the ones for Yootza and Chester and stencils of old-fashioned wedding dresses on the ones adorning Petunia and Eunice.

  Benedict the Great Dane was to be Monty’s best man. He would be wearing an actual doggie morning suit that a Beverly Hills neighbor of Helene’s had made for him.

  Lala and Brenda and Helene had surprised Geraldine with matching dresses that they had picked out together at Macy’s because Lala had a coupon for twenty-percent off everything for one full day of your choice, and “they have amazing sales anyway, so with the coupon added it’s a steal, and there’s also a Wetzel’s Pretzels at the mall, and I’ve been having a yen for one of those buttery salt bombs lately.”

  The dresses were in a delicate floral pattern of very pale purple on an even paler purple background, tea-length and with cap sleeves, v-neck, belted natural waist, and pleated skirt.

  “So classic,” Helene had said when they were trying them on together in the dressing room.

  “So flattering,” Br
enda had agreed.

  “So fuckable,” Lala had concluded. “Can you believe what they’re doing with polyester nowadays? Keep your fingers crossed. I should only get lucky in this dress.”

  Geraldine cried when the three of them appeared in front of her, grinning in their finery, and clutching their lovely, simple, white rose bouquets. Lala lunged for a box of tissues. Helene and Brenda immediately began frantically fanning Geraldine’s face.

  “Watch your makeup!” they cooed.

  “You all look so gorgeous. My little angels.”

  “Stop crying!” Lala ordered. “Like anyone’s going to be looking at us. You are the most beautiful bride in history. No one is even going to notice we exist. Omigod, why are our glasses empty?”

  Lala grabbed the pitcher of signature champagne cocktail and began pouring.

  “Nobody move! Nobody start crying again! The Maid-tron of Honor is on it!”

  _______________

  “Maid-tron of Honor,” Brenda whispered. “I like that. You made that up?”

  “Mmm hmm,” Lala whispered. “I mean, probably not, but it was new to me when I thought of it.”

  Lala and Brenda and Helene were standing in the middle of the courtyard of Geraldine’s fourplex, next to a new, white metal garden archway that would be serving as the huppa for the ceremony. Lala looked around the beautiful grounds and smiled. The windows of all the apartments were festooned with yards of flowers strung together in cascading strands. Five rows of eight white rattan chairs were arranged in a semicircle around the archway, and they were filled with close friends and family of the bridal pair.

  Clark was in the front row, and he couldn’t take his eyes off Helene, who also never stopped smiling at him.

  “On the East Coast?” Lala said to Brenda and Helene. “An outdoor wedding? Nonstop anxiety. Nonstop checking of the weather report up to the very last second before the ceremony, and, oy vey, what if there’s rain predicted? Better rent a tent just in case. Here? Nice. Every damn day. God love Southern California.”

  Resting in their places immediately by Lala and Brenda and Helene were Lala’s dogs. They had been the escorts down the very short aisle leading from Geraldine’s front door, through the center of the rows of chairs, to the archway. Helene came in first, leading Chester on his leash. Then Brenda walked down with the two gals, Petunia and Eunice. Finally, it was Lala with Yootza, who had a small, white lace pillow tied to his back that had the two white gold wedding rings attached to it.

  Standing beneath the archway was Rabbi Denise, the head of the LGBT reform congregation in El Segundo and a friend of Lala and Brenda from high school.

  And then there was Monty, standing with Rabbi Denise and his beloved Benedict. Monty looked like an ambassador to the Court of St. James in some Lifetime adaptation of a thriller-cum-romance. Lala caught Monty’s eye and winked at him.

  “You look devastatingly handsome,” Lala said.

  Helene waved at her father.

  “Love you, Daddy,” she said. Monty started to sniffle.

  A lone violinist sounded a single note, and all eyes turned to Geraldine’s apartment. Geraldine’s door opened, and Geraldine appeared on the arm of Thomas, her dear “Salman Rushdie.”

  Monty gasped when he saw his beautiful bride.

  “Great reaction, Uncle Stepdad,” Lala gushed. “I love you so much for loving her so much.”

  Lala smiled at her beautiful aunt. The violinist began to play again. After the third note of the piece, Lala got confused.

  Is that the Wedding March? she thought. That’s not the Wedding March. Is that . . . wait a minute . . .

  Beside the violinist, a young singer from one of the local amateur theater groups began to sing in a slow, operatic voice, maintaining lyrically that she had fooled around and fallen in love. The song had the words about fooling around and falling in love repeated in the verse, in case anyone had missed the point the first time that fooling around had lead to falling in love.

  Had Lala or Brenda or Helene or Monty or probably even one or all of the dogs been drinking a signature champagne cocktail at that moment, there would have been a geyser of spit-takes.

  “You know why she picked that song,” Lala said through clenched teeth as she desperately tried not to go on a giggling jag. “So we wouldn’t all be blubbering right now. Auntie Geraldine’s a flippin’ genius.”

  The singer’s voice reached a deafening crescendo as Thomas gave Geraldine’s hand to Monty and retreated to his seat in the front row next to Clark. The words “fooled” and “around” were sung more times than Lala could accurately tick off on her fingers and still hold her bouquet without getting entirely confused and having to start counting all over again.

  Rabbi Denise smiled as the song ended. She cleared her throat.

  “Dearly and eternally beloved, we are gathered here today because it may sometimes be too wonderful to imagine, but it is never, thank goodness, too late to believe in happy beginnings.”

  _______________

  “Well, this dress didn’t do me much good.”

  “Oh, the night is young,” Geraldine said.

  Lala and Geraldine were taking a break from the dance floor and were standing together at the bar. Monty was still shaking it, solo, to the beats of a Beatles block spun by a young man the universal opinion held as the best DJ ever.

  “Where did you find him?” Lala asked. “He’s fabulous.”

  “Craigslist,” Geraldine said.

  “Wow,” Lala said. “A secular miracle. Such a good omen for you and your adorable husband.”

  They watched Monty on the floor. He was surrounded by a love battalion of couples, including Brenda dancing with her husband, Frank, and Helene and Clark making out under the camouflage of slow dancing to a ballad.

  Then a new song began a moment before the old one had ended, and Geraldine’s new husband just as seamlessly shifted from what had been—if a best educated guess was anywhere near discerning what was going through Monty’s head—a variation on a highland jig to moonwalking to Paul McCartney singing “My Love.”

  Monty shimmied his shoulders as he slid backward and waved at Geraldine and mouthed, “My love does it good.”

  “God, I envy you,” Lala said. “He is adorable.”

  “He is, isn’t he? Your time will come. Trust me. It’s never too late.”

  “Yeah, I need to remember that. You know, I have been flirting shamelessly all night. Whorishly. I think if I catch the bouquet, Monty’s friend Mr. Shaughnessy from the VA Hospital might choose that as exactly the right moment to pop the question.”

  “What time is it?” Geraldine asked.

  “I don’t know. You in a hurry? You’re not leaving on your honeymoon until next week because you agreed to plan it that way so I could drink all night tonight and not have to—”

  “Yes, yes, I remember,” Geraldine said. She turned to the bartender. “Dear, do you have the time?”

  “It’s just after eight o’clock.”

  “Oh, excellent, thank you,” Geraldine said. She turned back to Lala. “You’re still writing those lovely blog diary thingamajigs to David, aren’t you?”

  Lala’s whole body deflated a little.

  “Way to ruin my buzz, Auntie. I stopped after the whole James-has-a-new-girlfriend-and-it’s-not-me fiasco. I haven’t even sent an e-mail that consists of much more than ‘Busy, can’t write much now’ to Theo. I think I’ve lost my joie. For vivre at any rate or, dare I say it, even for sex. I mean, sure, I can still flirt a good show at a wedding, but if it were to come right down to it, I don’t think I’m up for—”

  “Nonsense,” Geraldine huffed. “Stop talking crazy. It’s like riding a bicycle. You’ll be up on that seat again in no time.”

  “You sound bizarrely confident in that prediction, Auntie Nostradamus.”


  “Let’s just say I have a hunch that good things are right around the corner.”

  Geraldine waved to Stephanie and Chuck, who were on the opposite side of the dance floor trying to waltz.

  “Stephanie! Chuck, dear!”

  The two of them scurried over to Geraldine and Lala and stood before them bobbing their heads in unison.

  “It’s just after eight o’clock,” Geraldine told them.

  “We know,” Stephanie leaned in and whispered.

  “We’ve been checking,” Chuck said, his head next to his wife’s and his voice just as low. “We didn’t want to say anything.”

  Lala watched them as they bounced out of the courtyard without saying another word. She shook her head to clear her focus.

  “They are so nutty, those two. Adorably nutty. Do you know what that was all about?”

  “No clue,” Geraldine said. “Let’s get back out there.”

  Helene joined them at the bar before they could return to the dance floor.

  “Where’s Clark?” Lala asked.

  “Bathroom.”

  “Good, because I’ve been wanting to accost you about the bouquet, but I didn’t want to do it in front of him, and there hasn’t been a moment that you two haven’t been joined at the lips since Rabbi Denise pronounced your father and Geraldine husband and wife. Listen, technically I think you should just let me have the bouquet. As a gesture of gratitude for hooking you up with Clark.”

  Helene furrowed her brow and wrinkled her nose. She seemed to be fighting a mighty internal battle. At last, she exhaled.

  “You’re right. It’s yours.”

  “Ha ha! Sucka!” Lala crowed. “Hadja goin’. Look, since I don’t have a boyfriend, I’ve decided I’m going to leave the bouquet for you. With my affection and my best wishes.”

  Helene moved to hug Lala, but she stopped herself midgesture.

  “That’s not a ploy is it? To get me off my guard and the next thing I know I’m on the ground with your foot on my neck and the bridal bouquet in your sweaty little paws?”

  “Oooh, nice narration,” Lala said. “You better use that in one of your books, because if you don’t, I swear I’m gonna.”