Almost Royalty: A Romantic Comedy...of Sorts

by Courtney Hamilton

  “Ooh,” said Marcus, “is there anything there but oil refineries and the Navy?”

  “Lots.”

  “You should lie,” said Marcus.

  “Where are you from?”

  “Let’s just say, the Northeast,” said Marcus. He chuckles, looks around the room, and laughs—loudly.

  “Unbelievable,” said Marcus.

  “What?”

  “Well… I’ve never been here on a Wednesday night.”

  “Oh.”

  “There are only two times anyone should come here,” he said. “Thursday night—Sandwich Night—or for brunch on the weekends. Every other night is for the Bridge and Tunnel crowd.”

  “Oh.” I think for a moment. “Will you excuse me?” I ask.

  I walk out of the bar and speak to the hostess for a moment.

  I cross through the restaurant. For Bridge and Tunnel Night, there’s a lot of West Hollywood here, your basic smattering of TV stars, creative execs, and record industry types.

  I find the bathroom and look in the mirror. “OK then,” I say. I walk back through the restaurant and to the hostess.

  “Done,” said the hostess.

  When I walk into the bar, Marcus is sharing a laugh with the bartender. It looks like he’s ordered a second glass of the lame Chardonnay which I ordered. I sit down on the bar stool.

  “Are you having a good time?” I said.

  “Yeah,” said Marcus.

  “Good,” I said, “because this is the last time you’ll ever go out with me. I’m leaving.”

  I stand up and start to walk out.

  “What?” said Marcus. “Wait.”

  I look at Marcus.

  “Don’t worry, I’ve paid for my tab.”

  I walk to my car, get in, and drive home.

  It’s 8:45.

  “Did you talk to Josh for me?” asks Marcie.

  “No.”

  Marcie looks at me. “Well, when are you going to?” she asks.

  “I don’t know,” I reply.

  “What’s the problem?” asks Marcie.

  Tuesday morning, 6:15 a.m. I am at one of the profoundly unavoidable coffee joints on San Vicente Boulevard. It’s gray, drizzling and around 57 degrees. I think I just ordered a bottle of water and an Espresso Giganto. I need a wet drink and a dry drink.

  Marcie orders a peppermint/‌vanilla cappuccino Bigio (the smallest size) with a bear claw.

  It is six days after my encounter with Marcus. Marcus has left two voice mail messages since our date.

  One day after our date:

  “I’m impressed, a woman with moxie. Call me. We could have fun.”

  Three days after our date:

  “C’mon, you got me to come on a Wednesday night with the Bridge and Tunnel crowd. I deserve a call back.”

  Bettina walks in at 6:30, orders, waits two minutes for her drink, and then sits down with her latte Enormouso and a cinnamon roll. I don’t think she has bothered to wear running shoes.

  Before her first sip of latte, Bettina gives me an annoyed look. “Marcus tells me you won’t return his calls. If I go to the trouble to fix you up, you should at least return his calls.”

  “It wasn’t a good match.”

  “What do you mean?” said Bettina.

  “I mean I didn’t like him.”

  “It’s not about what you think, it’s about what they think. You don’t choose. They do,” says Bettina quite harshly.

  “Since when?”

  “Since you started running out of time,” said Bettina.

  “Look, Marcus kinda hurt my feelings,” I say.

  “You’re much too sensitive,” said Marcie.

  “Did you do the personal?” said Bettina.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Let me look at it,” said Bettina.

  I hand Bettina and Marcie a copy.

  “When you’re done, why don’t you join me for a short 20-minute jog up San Vicente.”

  “I’ll think about it,” said Bettina.

  “I don’t know,” said Marcie, “it’s too cold.”

  “On the East Coast this would be a heat wave.”

  “Is this the East Coast?” said Marcie.

  I looked out the window.

  “I didn’t think so,” said Marcie.

  “But we’ll never be ready for the marathon.”

  “Who is going to run the marathon?” said Marcie.

  “I thought we were,” I said.

  Marcie and Bettina look at me and laugh.

  I look at both of them and say, “I am. I’m running the marathon.”

  “You’ve got much bigger things to worry about,” said Marcie. She looked down at my personal. “Is this even how they’re supposed to be written?”

  “Yeah,” said Bettina “I thought it was supposed to say like SWF, 31, Blond, ISO SM, non-smoker, for romantic candlelight dinners…” she laughed.

  “This is for Match.com,” I said. “You’re supposed to describe yourself.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Bettina, who with Marcie, began reading my personal.

  Not What You Are Looking For in Los Angeles

  I know that many of you are searching for a person—my mistake—the Right Person, to be your wife. Having graduated from college—UC Berkeley, U Penn, Brown—and possibly hidden out for a couple of extra years in graduate schools, or maybe padded your resume with various years abroad or fellowships that—really, if you were to be honest—did nothing more than make you want to come home, sit in your parents’ back yard, and stick your face in a box of Oreos—you, like me, are anxious to hide your solidly middle-class background that your parents worked two jobs around the clock to achieve.

  In addition to your education, most of you have worked very hard to transform yourself into your image of what you should be. You have your acceptable cars—your Range Rovers, your BMWs (5-series or above), your Mercedes. You live in an acceptable area—apartments/‌condos in Brentwood, Santa Monica (above Wilshire only), Beverly Hills, Pacific Palisades. You have taste—you’re wine knowledgeable, have attended tastings and at some point, probably pretended to like cigars. You have things that make you interesting—first edition books, Japanese movie posters, Italian bicycles (a hobby/‌sport that hides the fact that you’re profoundly uncoordinated and on the borderline of losing that battle with the 20 extra pounds) which you ride on Saturdays with your club. But you’ve never really done anything—other than law, business, or maybe, just maybe if you got decent grades in those science classes—med school—that required any real work.

  So you’ve come to your 30s and you realize that the pool of available women is shrinking. Some of your friends, in fact more than a few of your friends, have gotten married and maybe a few of them are even starting on marriage #2. You know that it’s time to get into the game, before it’s too late.

  I’m sure that you have your criteria. It might be looks—weight, height, hair color and acceptable age range. It might be inspirations—Schoenberg, loves David Hockney, collects daguerreotypes. It might be fundamental beliefs—Democrat, Moveon.org contributor, Save the Volvo.

  But I’m going to guess that it’s really something else.

  I’m going to guess that you’re embarrassed that your mom has a lot of recipes that involve mushroom soup, onion dip mix, and Velveeta—followed by a tri-colored Jell-O creation.

  That your parents did and still do drive Fords and Chevys.

  That your parents’ house has one room—the fancy living room—which exists for show, that no one ever sits in, unless you have special guests.

  That you weren’t a debutante from Downey or a preppie from Peoria, because Downey had no debutantes, and Peoria no Prep Schools, and you never, ever knew what a debutante or preppie was until you landed in a college that was much better than your parents thought anyone in your family would ever achieve.

  That you weren’t Episcopalian, but Lutheran.

  Your parents weren’t the treasurers of your Reform
synagogue; in fact, your parents didn’t bother with temple membership at all.

  But you—like most members of your generation—want to hide all of this.

  So now you’re looking for a girl who is slightly better than all that—Who Has the Right Stuff. Someone whose parents were professionals rather than laborers. Someone who lived in Beverly Hills, Brentwood, Bel Air, Holmby Hills, South Pasadena, San Marino, maybe Flintridge.

  Someone who had a mom who didn’t have to work, but maybe volunteered at The Museum of Modern Art, The Junior League or on the Music Center’s Blue Ribbon Committee. Someone who had a dad who kept a job (in the case that he needed one), didn’t run off, and wasn’t a drunk, but instead had a yacht, played golf, and maybe even hunted.

  Someone who has a family that has alumni ties to schools—Stanford, Harvard, or Yale—at the college level, and feeder private high schools, elementary schools and pre-schools. Someone who uses the word “summer” as a verb instead of a noun.

  But that isn’t me.

  I will never have the goods—the money, the connections, the status—to get a child into the right pre-school, so that he can go to the right elementary school, so that he can go to the right middle school, so that he can go to the right high school, so that—of course—he can go to Harvard or Stanford.

  And I went to public schools.

  And I don’t speak French.

  And I believe in being nice because it is the right thing to do and not because you can get something from someone.

  And I don’t decorate or entertain like Martha Stewart.

  And I am addicted to Velveeta.

  And I refuse to hide any of this anymore.

  Bettina finished reading, rolled her eyes, and sighed. Marcie shook her head.

  “What is this?” said Bettina.

  “The truth,” I said, “something you have a distant relationship with, Bettina.”

  “What do you mean?” said Marcie.

  “Marcie, how much do you think you know about Bettina?” I said.

  “Don’t,” said Bettina. “Please.”

  “I don’t want to hide anymore,” I said. “I can’t hide your past, my past, or my mother’s.”

  Marcie looked at Bettina, “What about Bettina?” she asked.

  “Bettina,” I said, “why don’t you and Marcie take this time to get acquainted. Start by telling her about your feminist performance art pieces. Remember, ‘I Do… Not!’ And what was the name of that truck-driving friend of yours—Luba? And what about Wanda?”

  “I don’t think I want to hear this,” said Marcie.

  “This is just diverting attention from your problem,” said Bettina, “that you’re running out of time. And alone.”

  “You do know of course that single woman-40-educated-no man thing has been revealed to be pure crap,” I said. “And the demographics have changed—there are slightly more men in my dating pool than women—something like a surplus of 80,000 guys for every million of us women in their 30s.”

  “We don’t want you to be alone,” Bettina said with a small smirk.

  “I don’t know what you want, but I don’t think that you’re thinking about me. And I won’t be alone. Marcie will be fighting the good fight with me.”

  “What?” said Bettina.

  “Tell her, Marcie,” I said. “Tell Bettina the truth: that you and Greg—that it’s completely over. That you’ve been hiding that from us.”

  “How did you find out?” said Marcie.

  “On one of my jogs up San Vicente—the jogs neither of you ever do with me—I ran into him, with his new girlfriend—she’s an accountant.”

  “We… I… was just trying to help you,” said Marcie.

  “Well, I don’t want your help anymore if that’s what it is. I don’t want to be told I wear too much makeup, my hair is too long, too short, too blond, too common… blue is not my color, green is my color… I need these dishes, that car, this furniture… that Richard is right for me, Josh is wrong… and that I should ignore my feelings and hide my past.”

  “Josh is just soooo much higher than you on the Eco-Chain,” said Marcie. “It would never work.”

  “OH MY GOD—the Eco-Chain… we’re not eleven years old anymore.”

  “But the marathon?” said Bettina.

  “We were just trying to help you make the right choices!” hissed Marcie.

  “When did you decide that you knew what the right choices for me were?” I yelled.

  Marcie looked down. Bettina sighed, and drank her latte.

  “And when did you decide that your help included ignoring my feelings, pushing me to date stalkers, or celebrating my perceived inadequacies?

  “Nothing to say, Marcie? No insight for me, Bettina?” I yelled, loud enough to get the attention of the assistant manager. “Then why don’t you two take the next 30 minutes and get to know each other. And LEAVE ME OUT OF IT. That I confused this bitch-o-rama, this bi-weekly coven of witches, for a friendship—well, in the vernacular of my therapist—I take responsibility for it. But I’m done with it.”

  Then I stood up, threw out the last half of my Espresso Giganto, and walked out.

  18

  “In”

  Jennifer called me while I was doing my laundry. I hate doing my laundry and I’m terrible at it.

  “Marshall is coming down for the Faces of Tomorrow Competition.”

  I started laughing. “He’s a Face of Tomorrow? What, the face of Rogaine? Hey, do the reds go with the darks or do you do them alone?”

  “Try a cold water wash, then you can put all the colors together. Seriously, he’s coming down to be in the competition,” said Jennifer. “And we need a place to stay.”

  “We?”

  “Marshall and I. And Haggis.”

  “I thought Marshall had enough money to buy the Duchy of Luxemburg. Why don’t you stay some place fun like The Standard.”

  “There’s a problem.”

  “What? I know I have a problem. I don’t have enough quarters to do my laundry.”

  “I’ll tell you when I see you. But Marshall is tired of thinking for a living.”

  “He has a PhD in mathematics from Princeton.”

  “He wants a shot at exploiting his physical side.”

  “Who convinced him to do this?”

  “His therapist. And of course, Haggis.”

  “I thought that was a joke. He can’t be serious?”

  “Oh yes. He’s been doing a lot of work to get ready.”

  “Ready? For what?”

  “The model/‌spokesperson category.”

  “No!” I laughed. “What preparation does he need? He’s 42. It’s 20 years too late for modelling.”

  “He’s spent a lot of time working on his runway walk,” said Jennifer. “He hired an expert, one of those guys who coaches regional beauty contestant winners on to national competitions. You know, the guys who coach Miss America contestants.”

  “What—did the coach teach him to apply hemorrhoid cream on his butt to reduce the jiggly factor during his stroll down the runway?”

  “He didn’t need to. Marshall had that taken care of.”

  “No.”

  “Yes. He had his eyelids redone, his forehead lifted, and his nose straightened.”

  “That’s all?”

  “That’s all he’ll admit. But I think he had some other things done too.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well, he was working like a demon with Haggis to get ripped abs, you know, washboard abs.”

  “I guess. I’ve never seen them. I kinda thought that whole washboard ab thing was a Photoshop enhancement.”

  “Well, he couldn’t seem to get rid of his little gut. Ever. And then overnight, it just disappeared.”

  “Did the gut’s disappearance coincide with his visit to Dr. Fresh Face?”

  “His gut and his jiggly butt. And then his hair, it’s suddenly got all this sheen, this red in it.”

  “He had highligh
ts put in?”

  “He won’t talk about it. Meanwhile he’s working around the clock with Haggis. I almost never see him.”

  “Are you sure that’s what he’s doing with Haggis? Working?”

  “You know, I told him what you said. He was really insulted.”

  “Oh yeah? Has your boyfriend touched you yet?”

  “That’s beside the point.”

  “It is?”

  “He said he doesn’t define himself by his sexuality,” said Jennifer.

  “Unlike most human adults. What is he… Pippi Longstocking?”

  “That’s not fair. Dating is different now.”

  “How so? Isn’t a boyfriend still someone you’re having a romantic relationship with, usually involving sex, on a regular basis?”

  “It can be.”

  “Well if it isn’t, isn’t that a friendship?”

  “It’s not that.”

  “Then what?”

  “The sexuality.”

  “What about it?”

  “It’s just not that clear anymore,” said Jennifer.

  “There are new categories?”

  “There are no categories.”

  “Well, you guys will need to bring sleeping bags with you. If you’re going to stay here, you’ll be in the living room. With Abyss.”

  “Is she still up to her old tricks?”

  “Which ones?”

  “Barfing.”

  “Yes, she’s barfing. And she’s addicted to baloney. By the time you come down, I’ll try to understand your confusion with Marshall.”

  “You mean my relationship?”

  “Look, you know that someone’s sexuality is about as interesting to me as the answer to the question ‘de-caf or regular?’ But you know better than this. A guy who doesn’t touch you within a month of dating you, unless there’s a religious issue at hand… but that wouldn’t be an issue because he wouldn’t be around you for a month anyway… is gay. Or your brother.”

  “You’re wrong if you think it’s that simple anymore. You may be in for a surprise.”

  “You know what I think.”

  “I know, I know,” said Jennifer. “There are no mysteries.”

  There was a time, well to be precise—right now—when I thought everyone was gay. It was almost a knee-jerk reaction, something that clearly came from a period of time when I viewed an enormous portion of the male population with a great deal of mystery.