Always a good thing to say to an alien-scanner model thing, especially one who is a former model.
Alien-scanner model thing actually seems pleased. Marshall tells her he was here for the Faces of Tomorrow competition, the model/spokesperson category. Alien-scanner model thing didn’t laugh. However, I think I saw alien-scanner model thing’s husband turn away and roll his eyes.
I tell them that I need to keep running and excuse myself.
When I leave, alien-scanner model thing is giving Marshall pointers on working the runway for his walk in the model/spokesperson category during the competition.
When I get back to the apartment, Marshall, Jennifer, and Haggis were chatting about how nice alien-scanner model thing had been. She had promised to email over a list of her pointers for a successful walk down the runway.
“Great,” I say, knowing she never will.
“Oh yeah,” said Marshall, “some guy named Frank called. He’d really like you to call him.”
19
Everything Old Is New Again
The Copper Pan had changed. A little.
The space next door once occupied by the ridiculously overpriced women’s clothing store had been annexed by the Copper Pan once the clothing store patrons had grown weary of paying $375 for the same jeans you could buy at The Gap for $55.
Bigger, because of reasons having everything to do with population growth and nothing to do with itself, the Copper Pan was a success.
Those same young professionals who once lived in the apartments above San Vicente Boulevard, who came there nightly in their leased, 48-month payment plan, royal blue with cream interior BMW 325s on the way home—first, second, third year legal associates, junior agents, baby investment bankers—stopping by at 8:45 p.m. before the kitchen closed to pick up a salad to eat in their sweats while they watched 30 minutes of television before bedtime—had aged, gotten married, bought teardowns below San Vicente but above Wilshire, and had babies, that being the latest can’t-do-without accessory on the Westside.
Those (now) married professionals, more than a few having become the infamous SAHMs (Stay-At-Home Moms), wanted a restaurant where they could take their kids that cooked the same food that their mom (they and their spouses basically unwilling to cook, clean, or parent) had made on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday night.
The cloth napkins, mysteriously gone for a few months, now brought back once those regular customers selected “going green” as their new cause du jour.
The frizzy red-haired five-foot-two hostess who came to L.A. to live with her boyfriend after graduating from Williams with a degree in applied mathematics, who ran the marathon in under four hours, who snickered and shook her head when she saw me, “Who you breaking up with now?”—gone, probably to marriage or a PhD program at Berkeley or Stanford.
She was replaced by a five-foot-eleven, 110-pound actor-model wannabe with long straight blond hair vaguely resembling alien-scanner model thing, a refugee from the actor-model immigrants who flood L.A. yearly, thinking that the hostess gig was a good place to be for a while.
“At least I’ll be seen, I mean producers come here, right?” She was right about the producers and wrong about being seen.
The menu—gone, well not gone, but the things that I liked on it: pan fried chicken, pan fried whitefish, pan fried potatoes—gone, or only served as a special. The menus clearly “trimmed” (always a good word on the Westside) from four pages down to two, clearly reflecting the diets of the regulars, deleting anything with fat and carbs. A menu that also reflected the owner’s calculations on how to maximize profits. I’m sure the owner was forever wondering, “How much can we charge for a salad?”
Something else that had changed. Frank was on time. Clean hair without that trademark baseball cap, pressed shirt (cotton, long-sleeved, not a faded T-shirt with holes from Senor Frog’s Mazatlan or In-N-Out Burger, or the PoMo “Britney, I’m Not So Innocent” tour shirt), wearing a new leather jacket, clean jeans, and new Nikes, and looking about 20 pounds thinner. But nervous. When I returned his call, he asked if we could meet for lunch at the Copper Pan on Saturday.
“You sure you want to go there,” I said. “I mean, Frank, that’s our break-up spot. We already did that.”
He wanted to go there.
It was important, he said.
“Thank you for coming,” he said, “you look great.”
“Thanks,” I said. “What’s up?”
“The guy who answered your phone. Is he the one who asked you to marry him?”
“No.”
“Who was it?”
“Marshall. Jennifer’s friend. They’re here for the Faces of Tomorrow competition, which starts in 90 minutes, so we’d better hustle.”
“I was hoping that we could talk for a while.”
“I don’t have much time,” I said.
The waiter appeared. Too good-looking. An actor-wannabe, gay.
“I don’t understand your menu anymore,” I said. “So just give me what everyone else orders.”
“You mean solidified nothing?” said the waiter in rounded vowels, modulated, and perfectly spoken. Make that a Juilliard theater school-trained actor-wannabe, gay, with an attitude.
“OK, a Nicoise salad,” I said.
“Bot-tled Wah-ter?” said the Waiter.
“Got any milkshakes?” I said.
The waiter gives me a sideways rolling eyes look.
“OK, lemonade,” I said.
“Burger, well done. Fries. Root Beer,” said Frank.
Frank looks around, jumpy. Appears to be catching his breath.
“Frank, what is it? Did you give me some disease?”
“No,” he says. “OK, OK. When I saw you in Group recently, I realized something important. I…”
The waiter appeared with our drinks.
“The bartender told me to tell you that no one has ordered a milkshake in five years. But if you want it, he thinks he remembers how to make one.”
“You’re half way through your Improv class at The Groundlings, right?” I said. The waiter laughed and walked into the open kitchen.
Frank, taking a deep breath, pulls something out of his pocket.
“When I saw you in Group, I realized that I had made a big mistake,” said Frank, “so I got this for you.”
He pushes something across the table to me in a small, square, black box, which looks like something I once wanted so much.
It can’t be.
It better not be.
I’m afraid to open it.
“Open it,” said Frank, “it’s for you, just like you wanted it.”
“Frank…”
“Please open it,” said Frank.
But I already know what it is.
I open it.
Ooof.
I suddenly feel like I’m in hour five of a Twilight Zone marathon showing on a major holiday, like Christmas Day, right after the Wim Wenders version of Nosferatu starring exceptionally weird Klaus Kinski, or something equally strange, like that fabulous version of Dracula starring Frank Langella.
“One carat, set in platinum, with as few inclusions as I could afford,” said Frank, “and here’s the report that they gave me.”
He gives me the GSA report.
I look at it.
A VS1 rating.
Not bad.
“Oh, Frank,” I say. “Frank… it’s… beautiful. But I can’t take this.” I push back the ring box.
“No. Take it. It’s for you.” He pushes the ring back.
“Look, when I saw you in Group, I realized something I’d been thinking for a long time: I really, really screwed up.”
Something every girl dreams of hearing.
“You’re a good person. A very good person. With some weird habits.”
Not exactly what the girl dreams of hearing, the missing part being the garden-variety comment/lie—“You’re so beautiful, I think of you night and day.” But the girl is still listening.
Nice… nice. What? The girl dreams of hearing, “You complete me… You’re my soul mate… You rock my world,” not something you say about Becky, the girl who sat next to you in math class and loaned you an eraser when yours wore out.
“Yeah, but Frank, I doubt that Roberta is going to give you the thumbs up on this decision. I mean what about, “I have so much work to do?”
“Forget Roberta. It’s my life, not hers.”
“And there were those other problems…”
“I’m ready to make a commitment. So, also, I promise to do 50 percent of everything. And because you’re an attorney, I wrote it down.”
Frank hands me a piece of paper which he has written, “I promise to do 50 percent of everything. Agreed and Accepted, Frank Jamieson.”
“Oh, Frank.”
“Do you want me to have my signature notarized?” he says.
“Look, this is so sweet but…” I push the ring back.
Frank hands me a piece of paper with some dates on it.
“I’ve written the dates which I think would be good dates to get married on. I’m partial to June or October, but why don’t you choose a date that you would like. And remember it has to be before the end of the year. And take the ring.”
He pushes the ring box back.
It’s 2:10. If I really hurry, I can make it by 2:30 to the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium where the Faces of Tomorrow competition is being held.
Of course, that presupposes that you believe the L.A. mythology that you can get anywhere in L.A. in 20 minutes.
“Just think about it,” said Frank. “OK?”
“OK.” I take the ring.
“I have to go,” I say just as the waiter arrives. I fish out my credit card to give to the waiter.
“It’s OK, Courtney,” says Frank. “I remembered my wallet.”
A change. Interesting.
I stand up to leave.
“But you haven’t eaten a thing,” said the waiter, sounding more like he was reading a line from a Eugene O’Neill/Chekhov drama, projecting to the back of the theater, rounded vowels, head up, chest thrust forward, but instead standing smack in the middle of the Westside of L.A., “just like every woman on the Westside.”
“You’re a bit over-trained and over-qualified for this line of work,” I say to the waiter, gathering my things and jogging out that idiotic revolving Copper Pan front door, the one that never stops.
The Faces of Tomorrow competition was held in the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. It was a place where Jefferson Starship, Cream, and possibly the Moody Blues had played in the early ’70s, back when the clubs on Sunset—Doug Weston’s The Troubadour, The Roxy, The Whisky, Gazzarri’s on the Strip, and later Madame Wong’s—were places that you could discover something from some homemade garage band: an intensity, a passion, a voice with something to say even if it was “We don’t want our parents’ life.”
The kids in those homemade garage bands didn’t know that coming out here from Kentucky, Indiana, Georgia to “make it” in the music industry was a crazy dream; that some might not, and 20 years later while still “chasing the dream” they’d manage a cheese shop as “their day gig” and have kids, a mortgage and a bad marriage with their former lead singer.
But now, the music industry had been flooded with useless Harvard/Wharton MBAs, who were ruining the music industry, turning it into publicly traded businesses with shareholders that needed profitable quarters. It was a time when the music industry demanded product: girls or boys with minimal talent, absolutely nothing to say, shells, lumps of clay, finding them after a run on kiddie cable shows and bringing them to the fashionafia who made their hair straighter, their noses smaller and did away with their flabby stomachs, fat thighs and big butts.
The Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. Rock Gods had once played in the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium during a time when they had advocated anarchy, ending the war, overthrowing the government, speaking the truth even if no one wants to hear it, thinking their children with their unconventional names and their genius fathers might be the force of the future, never thinking that sometime after they were gone their children might not embrace their revolution, might lose direction, and might find themselves on network talent shows not as the talent, but as judges. No one would ever say, “Why are they judges, they’ve never done anything but be the kids of Rock Gods?” But everyone would think it.
But this is barely a rock venue now—Santa Monica Civic. It doesn’t hold enough people to turn the enormous kind of profit requiring 50,000 people for some corporate favorite like The Stones, with their T-shirts and beer mugs. And now, because it’s 40 years later and the guys are all looking at 65, they just plop out another version of “Brown Sugar” or “Satisfaction,” right after that puff-piece/love-fest interview on 60 Minutes runs.
Now there are foreign policy evenings with speeches by former presidents and secretaries of state, desperate to make some money after their years in government.
“How you doing?” I say, sliding into the seat next to Jennifer’s.
“OK,” she says.
I doubt it. Last night Marshall went to assemble his things for the competition. He couldn’t find the T-shirt or jeans he planned to wear.
“Jennifer,” he said, “where did you pack my things?”
I gave her a look. She ignored me.
“Just a minute,” she said. She ran into the bedroom where he was.
“I know I packed them,” she said.
“Where the hell are they?” said Marshall.
“I’ll find them, really, I remember packing them.”
“Damn it,” said Marshall, “you forgot to pack it. You’re just afraid to tell me.”
“I swear I didn’t,” said Jennifer, “it’s here somewhere.”
“It’s people like you—incompetents—who are holding me back. This is all that I needed you to do, and you can’t even do this.”
And that was my cue to walk into the room, where I found Jennifer crying.
“What’s going on?” I said.
“It’s a disaster,” said Marshall. “I don’t have clothes. I’ll have to drop out of the competition.”
“I have a friend around your size,” I said. “I’ll call him.”
“I’ll never win now. It’s all her fault.”
“Shut up, Marshall,” I said. “Jennifer has done everything possible to help you. We’ll get you a back-up T-shirt and shorts, and then we’ll keep searching for your things.”
“But now I’m too upset. I’m not in the right frame of mind to compete.”
“Then don’t,” I said. “It’s your choice. But next time take responsibility for your own things. She’s not your servant.”
And later, after Josh was on his way over with several T-shirts and jeans, Haggis came back from the store with “products” that Marshall needed for the competition: a laxative—“I mean, Marshall, I can see those Nachos sitting on your stomach” and a diuretic—“Too much water weight—you look like a girl who’s getting her period.”
“What’s the point?” said Marshall. “Jennifer forgot to pack my clothes.”
“Aah, Marshall,” said Haggis.
“I mean, that’s all I asked her to do and she couldn’t even…”
Jennifer continuing to cry.
“Uhh, Marshall,” said Haggis, “remember? I…”
“…competently…”
“Marshall, we put your clothes in my car yesterday. So you wouldn’t forget them at the last moment. Remember?”
He didn’t even apologize. Not a look, a glance, or an “I’m sorry.”
He didn’t even apologize.
And Jennifer? She just sat there. Crying.
In the program that they gave out, it appeared that there were about 25 candidates in the male model/spokesperson category—the program listing height, weight, hair/ey
e color—and age. Twenty-five guys (their boyfriends—past, present, future, in the audience) all under the age of 22.
And Marshall.
Most of them skateboarding, snowboarding, rock climbing, bulked up natural athletes, young girlish baby faces, the flush beautiful face of someone still a child with the body of an adult, that first moment, the first face making the transition from child to adult still excited about the possibilities of what they hoped for but didn’t know would never ever happen.
The M.C., a refugee from a successful TV moment of the late ’80s hoping to be recognized as a star—like maybe Arsenio, Donny Osmond, or that guy who shaved his head and played that tough cop.
“Ethan is 18 years old, six foot two tall, a surfer…”
The boys in the audience whoop it up for Ethan as all the other young, innocent beauties parade their wares. Ethan gets a 9.7 for body, a 9.8 for face, and an 8.7 for presentation. Clearly, Ethan, who raced through the walk like someone trying to escape his own fart-trailer doesn’t know a thing about working the ramp, but the judges—a former child star back from rehab who played the best kid in the family in a mid-80s family sitcom, a former model now divorced again making another tired run at “models who act,” and a former athlete who won six Olympic gold medals at some point, but must have the same plastic surgeon as Joan Rivers because he now looks like a Mary Kay Cosmetics saleswoman from Indianapolis—they sense his potential.
I looked over at my friend Jennifer. A good person, a loyal friend, smart, reliable. A good attorney. Educated. Kind. Nice. And pretty. Wasn’t that enough?
“Jeremy is 17 years old, six foot four tall, a starter on his high school varsity basketball team…”
A lot of love for Jeremy, some wise-cracking guy in the audience yelling, “Come to Mama, baby.”
9.5 on body, 9.4 on face, 9.0 on presentation.
“You know, Jennifer,” I said, “I want to support you in whatever you want to do. But Marshall? Is it his money?”
“Wouldn’t that make me shallow?” said Jennifer. “To want him for his money?”
“You and every other woman in America,” I said, “but at least I’d understand it. Kinda.”
“Well, he doesn’t have any money anymore,” she said.
Almost Royalty: A Romantic Comedy...of Sorts Page 28