by Laura Levine
“Mrs. Tucker!” she said, jumping off her stool and heading to the front door to greet a customer, clomping along in those ridiculous high heels of hers.
“Jimmy Choo knockoffs,” Lance said, following my gaze.
“Who’s Jimmy Choo?” I asked.
“Send this girl to fashion camp,” Lance said, rolling his eyes. “He’s only one of the world’s hottest shoe designers.”
Okay, so sue me if I happen to shop at Payless.
By now Frenchie was at the door, air-kissing her customer.
“How nice to see you, Mrs. Tucker,” she cooed.
“Mrs. Tucker’s one of our best customers,” Becky whispered. “Frenchie never lets her out of her sight.”
Mrs. Tucker was a woman in her fifties who dressed like a kid in her twenties. There was something creepy about the way she’d crammed her menopausal body into low-rider jeans and a midriff-baring tee. I’m no fashion expert, but I think its safe to say you should stop baring your midriff once it’s got liver spots.
“Love your outfit,” Frenchie gushed.
“You should, sweetie,” the older woman said. “You sold it to me.”
Frenchie laughed gaily. “So what can I show you today? We’ve got some fabulous new capri’s that’ll look just smashing on you.”
Like a blond hurricane, she swept through the racks, pulling out one item of clothing after the next. Mrs. Tucker’s eyes shone with anticipation. After Frenchie got her set up in a dressing room, she hurried over to where we were standing.
“What a silly old bat,” she said. “If I had a tummy as pouchy as hers, I’d shoot myself.
“Where the hell is the label thingie?” she asked, rummaging in a drawer behind the counter.
“It’s right here,” Becky said, handing her a device that looked like a stapler.
“Just watch,” Frenchie said, ripping out the size 8 label from a pair of sequinned capri’s. “She’s going to ask for these in a size 6. You’ll see.”
And as if on cue, Mrs. Tucker popped her head out the dressing room door.
“Frenchie, honey. These are a size 8. You know I wear a size 6.”
“Right, Mrs. Tucker,” Frenchie said. “I’ll go find you a pair.”
As soon as Mrs. Tucker disappeared back into the dressing room, Frenchie looked through the drawer and found a size 6 label. In an instant, thanks to the “label thingie,” Frenchie had it sewn onto the capri’s.
“Here we go, Mrs. Tucker,” she trilled, heading for the dressing room. “A size 6.”
“Did I just see what I think I saw?” I asked, amazed.
“Yes,” Becky said. “We switch size labels all the time.”
“What a brilliant idea. I wish Bloomingdale’s would start doing that. If they did, I might even try on a bathing suit.”
“As long as we’re here,” Lance said, “why don’t you try on a few outfits?”
“I already told you. I’m not interested in buying any clothes.”
“Oh, come on. Just one outfit.”
“No way, Lance. I’m not trying anything on. Nada. Zilch. Nothing.”
Ten minutes later I was squeezed into a dressing room with an outrageous assortment of outfits I’d never in a million years dream of wearing. There were skintight pants, see-through blouses, and one of those handkerchief-sized tank tops I’d seen earlier.
“How am I supposed to get into this?” I asked, waving it out the dressing room door.
“It’s spandex,” Lance said. “It stretches.”
Somehow I managed to squeeze myself into it. And for the first time in my life I knew what it felt like to be a sausage.
“Try it on with the harem pants,” Becky called out.
Oh, God. Those harem pants. Just the memory of them makes me shudder. I’ll spare you the gruesome details. Let’s just say I looked like Barbara Eden on prednisone.
I stepped out of the dressing room and everyone gasped. Not in admiration, I can assure you.
From over at the counter, where Mrs. Tucker was paying for her “size 6” pants, Frenchie didn’t even bother to stifle a laugh.
I struggled through a few more outfits, each one more disastrous than the last.
Eventually even Lance gave up.
“I think Jaine’s more the tailored type,” Becky said diplomatically.
I scrambled back into my elastic-waist pants and T-shirt and came back out of the dressing room, ready to strangle Lance for putting me through such a humiliating ordeal.
Perhaps sensing how irritated I was, and trying to make amends, Becky said: “Hey, Jaine. I was just wondering. Have you ever written any advertising copy?”
I nodded. Of course, not everyone would consider Toiletmasters a major account, but it was advertising.
“It just so happens that the owner of the store is looking for someone to write a new ad campaign. Would you be interested in the job?”
Suddenly I was in a much better mood. Paychecks have a way of doing that to me.
“Should I try to set up an interview for you?” Becky asked.
And, in another move I’d live to regret, I said yes.
Chapter 3
I drove home on Cloud Nine.
Well, technically I drove home on Olympic Boulevard, which was clogged with bumper-to-bumper traffic. But I didn’t care. I had an actual job prospect. Something I desperately needed. You see, I’d just lost one of my biggest clients, Tip Top Dry Cleaners. They’d decided to go with a full-service advertising agency, instead of a woman in sweat pants cranking out ads at her dining room table. Well, phooey on them. I sincerely doubt any ad agency could match my slogan. (At Tip Top Cleaners, We Clean for You, We Press for You, We Even Dye for You.)
But the fact remained, I had a pesky little thing called rent to pay, and so any job offer was a welcome one. So what if I didn’t know the first thing about funky fashions? So what if, aside from belly buttons, I had no idea what was “in” or “out”? I bet plenty of great ad campaigns were created by people who didn’t know much about the product they were selling. For all I knew, the guy who invented Got Milk? was lactose intolerant.
The first thing I saw when I let myself into my apartment was my cat, Prozac, hard at work at my computer. Okay, so she wasn’t writing. She was licking her privates. But she was working hard at it.
“Hi, poopsie,” I crooned. “How’s my little love bug?”
My little love bug yawned and went back to her G spot.
One of these days, I’m going to get myself a sweet slobbering dog who’ll cover me with wet kisses the minute I walk in the front door. But until then, Prozac is my only significant other. We share a one-bedroom apartment in a 1940s duplex in the slums of Beverly Hills, far from the megamansions north of Sunset. Not that I’m complaining. I happen to love our apartment. It’s on a pretty tree-lined block, right up the street from a Starbucks. We’ve got hardwood floors, original tile in the bathroom, and a great view of our neighbor’s azalea bush. The only thing I don’t like about it is the aforementioned rent, which has the annoying habit of coming due at the beginning of each month.
Still starving after the three shards of lettuce I’d had for lunch, I fixed myself a healthy snack of peanut butter and Pop Tarts. Then I scooped Prozac off my keyboard and spent the rest of the afternoon working on a resume for one of my clients, a recent LSU graduate. (The LSU in this case standing for Lazy, Slow, and Unskilled.) It wasn’t easy thinking up accolades for a kid who seemed destined to spend the rest of his life asking, “Would you like fries with that?”
Eventually, Prozac woke up from her umpteenth nap of the day and began howling for her dinner. I fixed her a bowl of Fancy Fish Guts and grabbed a light dinner of Cheerios and bananas for myself. Of course, I use the term “light” advisedly. At Café Ennui, it probably would have fed a family of four.
I always try to eat light the night of my class.
Once a week I teach memoir writing at the Shalom Retirement Home. There’s not much teaching in
volved. Mainly, it’s listening. Each week my students, mostly women in their eighties, show up, health permitting, with their treasured memories. Most of their essays are scratched out on old-fashioned lined paper. Only Mrs. Horowitz has a computer, a laptop her son bought her, which she confesses she uses as a plant stand. Their stories aren’t written with the greatest of skill, but they are written from the heart, and I consider it a privilege to hear them.
The only fly in the Shalom ointment is Abe Goldman. The lone man in my class, Mr. Goldman is an argumentative old coot who bears an uncanny resemblance to Mr. Magoo. Just my luck, he’s madly in love with me.
That night when I showed up at Shalom I found a box of Tic Tacs at my spot at the head of the table.
“For you, cookie,” Mr. Goldman said with a wink. Or maybe it was a blink. Mr. Goldman has an unfortunate tic so I can never tell whether he’s winking or blinking.
“Thank you,” I said, smiling weakly.
“To make your breath kissing sweet,” he added, with another wink/blink.
“So,” I said, deftly changing the subject. “Who wants to read their essay?”
Mr. Goldman’s hand shot up like a piston. Mr. Goldman was always eager to read another chapter in the saga of his life as a carpet salesman.
I looked around the room, desperate for another volunteer. But my ladies, unlike Mr. Goldman, were often shy about reading their essays, especially the first essay of the evening, before the literary ice had been broken.
“Anyone?” I called out, ignoring Mr. Goldman’s hand, now waving frantically.
I shot a pleading look at Mrs. Pechter, a round powder puff of a woman with bosoms as big as throw pillows, but she just popped a Tootsie Roll in her mouth. I switched my imploring gaze to her best friend, Mrs. Rubin, but she shook her head no.
Finally Mrs. Horowitz, she of the plant stand computer, raised her hand.
“Mrs. Horowitz! Thank goodness. I thought we’d have to listen to Mr. Goldman yammer on about the joys of broadloom for the next twenty minutes.”
Okay, so I didn’t really say that. What I said was, “Go right ahead, Mrs. H.”
Mrs. Horowitz was an imposing woman with steel gray hair and a purse the size of an overnight bag. She fished out her essay from the depths of her purse, then took a deep breath and began:
“A Day at the Boardwalk.”
Mrs. Horowitz wrote about going to Coney Island with her parents as a child—riding the steamy IRT subway from Flatbush to Brighton Beach, eating hot dogs with pickle relish, wearing long one-piece bathing suits, and teasing her father, who never ventured out from the shade of their beach umbrella.
As Shalom essays went, it was excellent. Lots of interesting details and, like most of my students’ efforts, written from the heart.
“Very good!” I said when she was through. “Any comments, class?”
“Wonderful,” said Mrs. Pechter.
“I liked it, too,” said Mrs. Rubin. A tiny birdlike woman who played Robin to Mrs. Pechter’s Batman, Mrs. Rubin often echoed her best friend’s sentiments.
Mrs. Greenberg and Mrs. Zahler chimed in with their praises.
Only Mr. Goldman looked unenthused.
“It was the BMT,” he said.
“What?” Mrs. Horowitz blinked, puzzled.
“It wasn’t the IRT subway,” Mr. Goldman said. “It was the BMT that went from Flatbush to Brighton Beach.”
“Mr. Goldman,” I said, “we’re talking about the quality of writing. About imagery and feelings. What does it matter if it’s the IRT or the BMT?”
“It matters plenty if you want to get to Brighton Beach.”
I fought back the impulse to hurl a Tic Tac at him.
Mrs. Horowitz’s eyes blazed with fire.
“Don’t tell me it was the BMT, Abe. It was the IRT.”
“BMT.”
“You’re saying my memory’s no good?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
“Look who’s talking,” Mrs. Pechter piped up. “The man who forgets to zip up his fly.”
“I never forget to zip up!” Mr. Goldman shot back. “Sometimes I forget to zip down, maybe, but never up!”
“If Mrs. Horowitz said she rode the IRT,” Mrs. Zahler chimed in, “she rode the IRT.”
“Not to Brighton Beach, she didn’t.”
“I loved Mrs. Horowitz’s description of eating that hot dog with relish,” I said, eager to put an end to the subway debate.
“Feh,” said Mr. Goldman. “I don’t like hot dogs with relish. I like mine with sauerkraut.”
“Wonderful job, Mrs. Horowitz,” I said, ignoring Mr. Goldman’s culinary preferences. “Now who’d like to read next?”
Mrs. Zahler and Mrs. Rubin read their essays, and then—with a half hour to go before the end of the class—I could no longer ignore Mr. Goldman’s hand, waving frantically in my face.
“Mr. Goldman,” I said, with a forced smile. “What’ve you got?”
My eyes glazed over as Mr. Goldman started reading his latest installment in the story of his life as a carpet salesman. This time he wrote about going to see Debbie Reynolds’ show at a carpet sellers’ convention in Las Vegas. I can’t remember the details because, frankly, I wasn’t listening. Instead I was deciding which flavor of ice cream to pick up on the way home from class. I was debating between Chunky Monkey and Rocky Road when something Mr. Goldman said caught my attention:
And then after the show, Debbie Reynolds said to me, “So, Abe, how about coming up to my hotel room for a little hanky-panky?”
Inwardly I groaned. In Mr. Goldman’s memoirs, every attractive woman he met had the hots for him.
Modesty forbids me to divulge the details of what happened next, Mr. Goldman went on, but let’s just say that when Debbie gave me her autographed picture, she wrote, “To Abe Goldman, I’ll never forget our night of bliss in the jacuzzi. Yours very sincerely, Debbie Reynolds.”
Mrs. Pechter snorted with derision. “You and Debbie Reynolds? Don’t make me laugh.”
“Now look who’s getting the facts wrong,” Mrs. Rubin chimed in.
“This isn’t a fiction course,” Mrs. Horowitz said with a sneer. “You’re supposed to write the truth.”
“That is the truth,” Mr. Goldman insisted.
“Are you sure you’re not taking a little poetic license?” I asked.
“No, I’m not taking poetic license. It really happened!”
“I don’t believe it!” Mrs. Horowitz snapped.
“What do you know?” Mr. Goldman said. “You think the IRT stops at Brighton Beach.”
“Well, class, I see our time is up for tonight.”
“No, it’s not,” Mr. Goldman said, checking his watch. “We still got ten minutes to go.”
“Time’s up,” I repeated in the steeliest voice I could muster.
The ladies gathered their purses and back support cushions and headed out into the hallway. Only Mr. Goldman lingered behind.
“So, cookie,” he said with a wink/blink. “Want to go for a moonlight stroll in the parking lot?”
Not in this lifetime, I didn’t.
“Sorry, Mr. Goldman. I can’t. Why don’t you give Debbie Reynolds a call?”
Okay, so I didn’t make the crack about Debbie Reynolds. I just grabbed my Tic Tacs and ran.
I made a pit stop at the market to pick up some ice cream and came home to find Prozac still curled up on my keyboard. I scooped her off and checked my e-mails. Just a message from someone named Heidi who had pictures of hot girls with barnyard animals she wanted to share with me. And some letters from my parents.
After an evening doing battle with Mr. Goldman, I didn’t have the strength to deal with my parents. Don’t get me wrong. My parents are lovely people. But high maintenance. The two of them attract trouble like sofa bottoms attract dust bunnies. Everything in their lives somehow evolves into high drama. Drama that worries me half to death, yet manages to leave them unscarred.
To paraphrase the late, great Henny Youngman, my parents don’t have ulcers. They’re just carriers. No, I’d wait to read their letters in the morning.
In the meanwhile, I got undressed and headed for the tub, where I spent the next half hour up to my neck in steamy water. Just me, my rubber duckie, and my good buddies Ben & Jerry.
YOU’VE GOT MAIL
To: Jausten
From: Shoptillyoudrop
Subject: Big News
Hi, darling—
Keep your eye out for the UPS man. I just sent you the most fabulous cubic zirconia engagement ring from The Shopping Channel. Two carats, set in platinum over sterling silver. It was on sale, only $39.95, plus shipping and handling. And before you go jumping down my throat, yes, I know that technically you’re not engaged, but you can always wear it on your right hand as a cocktail ring. And besides, a mother can dream, can’t she?
Big news here at Tampa Vistas. We have a new social director, a genuine Broadway writer and actor. Everyone’s very excited. His name is Alistair St. Germaine. Maybe you’ve heard of him? He’s done all sorts of plays, mainly Off Broadway. Not only that, he used to be a brain surgeon, too. Although it seems strange, doesn’t it, him being a writer and an actor and a brain surgeon? Anyhow, he’s written a play that he’s going to produce right here in our clubhouse. Daddy is going to audition for the lead. Isn’t that exciting?
Well, keep your eye out for that engagement ring. And for a fiancé to go with it, haha!
Lots of love,
Mom
To: Jausten
From: DaddyO
Subject: Your Daddy, the Actor
Hi, honeybunch—I guess Mom has told you the big news. I’m going to be starring in a play at the Tampa Vistas clubhouse. We’ve got a new social director, some hotshot writer from New York, a real smart guy; I can just tell he’s oozing with talent.