Queen of the Oddballs

by Hillary Carlip

I have always been drawn to psychics. They’re quick, to the point, and they often offer deep insights without having to spend months on the kind of long-winded probing therapists favor. Over the years I’ve had many sessions with clairvoyants who were spot on, helping to guide me. Of course, I’ve also seen just as many kooks, like the effeminate, bleached-blond man in his fifties who, throughout my reading, held on his lap a blind chihuahua wearing a tiny sombrero. Swear. Every time the psychic began a sentence—“There’s someone coming into your life whose name begins with a T…”—the sightless Mexican pooch would squirm and yelp, whereupon the psychic would harshly reprimand him, “Settle down, Pepe, settle down!” And there was the woman who, during our session, kept answering her phone, placing bets with her bookie. After the sixth call she finally shrugged apologetically and said, “What can I do? I’ve got the gift.” And I’ll never forget the psychic/astrological reading during which the astrologer kept referring to me as a “Lie-bra” rather than a “Lee-bra.” Yeah, I could really focus on what she had to say. But even the kooks won me over because each of them had at least one enlightening morsel to offer.

  My friend Mark told me he had had a mind-blowing, life-altering reading with a psychic in Van Nuys whose premonitions had convinced him to go to an audition he’d planned to blow off, and there he won a guest-starring role on Knots Landing. This woman was no storefront scam artist, Mark assured me—her regulars included a who’s who list of Hollywood celebrities.

  So I made an appointment to see Madame Zola, Psychic to the Stars.

  At the time it seemed like a good idea, but now, sitting in her unventilated living room full of plastic-covered furniture, I’m feeling wary. Tom Selleck and Shelley Long are nowhere in sight. Finally, though, I recognize the familiar brunette in the rocking chair. She could sort of pass for a celebrity. She appears on television nightly—hawking goods on the Home Shopping Network. Just a week earlier, during one of my sleepless nights where I was up worrying, it was this very same woman who had almost convinced me to order a set of eight Watering Can Napkin Holders, even though I don’t own a single linen napkin.

  The plump woman beside me sucks hard on her Lifesaver and shouts at the soap opera on the TV. “Crook!” she cries. I edge away when she begins to bounce excitedly up and down, each bounce un-sticking the plastic from her bare, sweaty thighs with a THWAP.

  “You watch out or he’s gonna get you!” THWAP.

  “Don’t go with him!” THWAP.

  I consider getting up to leave, but I stop myself. I’m desperate. There is so much I need to know. What else could I write if not movies? I can’t sit all day and night in an office so TV staff writing is out, and I don’t think I could make a living composing poetry. A book could be great, but what would I write about? And what about my relationships? Will I ever meet anyone who’s right for me? And will she stick around?

  I have to stop being so preoccupied with my life. I look around the living room for a distraction and zero in on Madame Zola’s elephant collection. First I count them—two on the mirror, five on the mantle, six on the coffee table, four hanging on the wall. Then I break them down into properties—three ivory, four brass, two wooden, three ceramic, five glass. Twenty minutes later, while the Home Shopping Network hawker shifts uncomfortably on her crackling plastic-covered chair, another hefty Eastern European woman saunters into the room from the back of the house. She’s wearing a floral-print housedress with furry pink slippers, and sports a terrible cough.

  Madame Zola, Psychic to the Stars.

  She hacks, and then, with an accent as thick as the fur on her slippers, says, “Stephanie, I ready for Stephanie.”

  Home Shopping Network lady rises and follows Madame Zola into the back. To avoid obsessing about my situation any further, I begin to count once more. Buttons on the couch under the plastic (twenty-one), pictures of Mary with Baby Jesus (nine), artificial plants (seven). Then I watch the woman next to me jump up and scream at the TV again.

  “You’re so full of it!” THWAP.

  “Stop lying!” THWAP.

  I see she’s yelling at an Aquafresh commercial.

  Finally HSN’s Stephanie leaves out the front door, and Madame Zola summons me. I follow her into the kitchen. She stops at a Formica table covered with orange peels and a spray bottle of Lime-A-Way. With a long, loud slurp, Madame Zola swallows a section of an orange and drops heavily into a stained velvet armchair.

  “Seet,” she says.

  I seet on the metal folding chair across from her.

  “Geeve me your hand.” Madame Zola covers her mouth as she coughs, and then, with that hand, also sticky with orange juice, she grabs mine.

  “You tired, no?”

  My eyes are dark-circled from lack of sleep—it didn’t take a psychic to see that. “Yes, I am,” I say, unimpressed.

  Cough, cough, cough. “I see relief.”

  I hope you can say the same for yourself, Sister.

  “You have doubts about something?”

  “Sure.” Well, she’s right about that. That something would be her.

  “I knew that.” Cough, cough, cough.

  She pulls a Kleenex from a plaid print box and hacks something into the tissue. Would she have done that if Barbra Streisand were sitting here? Probably. And Babs would rave about her reading, “She was so refreshing. Who feels comfortable enough to expel phlegm in front of me, know what I mean?”

  Madame Zola tosses the soggy tissue into a woven trash basket that brims with previous wads. Her focus returns to me. “I see much confusion.”

  I perk up. “Yes. That’s true. Tell me more, Madame Zola.”

  “I see a man. Deep, brown eyes. Mysterious.”

  “Hmmm…are you sure it’s a man?”

  “I see a moustache, you figure,” she shrugs. Cough, cough, cough.

  Madame Zola, if you know so damn much, why don’t you get a fucking lozenge?

  “You think too much.”

  I sit there quietly, thinking about what she has just said.

  “You so busy thinking, you no can hear.”

  I think about that, too.

  “Think with heart instead of head. Answers will come.” Cough, cough, cough.

  For the next fifteen minutes, Madame Zola hacks and tells me many inconsequential things—“You will go on trip someday, somewhere.” “Blue is good color for you.” “Beware of a Leo.” Then she stands up abruptly, hand outstretched.

  “Fifty dollar please.”

  I place the cash on the table, avoiding her coughed-on, sticky hand. I thank Madame Zola and quickly leave her house.

  Heading south on the Hollywood Freeway, twisting past Universal Studios, I ponder Madame Zola’s words. “Think with heart instead of head. Cough, cough, cough.”

  That night I go to Aviva Center, where I’ve been volunteering, teaching creative writing. My class is made up of eight teenage girls who represent four races, five gangs, and nine felonies. Uncommunicative at best, they are guarded, hostile, defensive, and defiant. One girl in particular stands out. Raging and rebellious, she constantly speaks of morbidity, destruction, and death. Ironically, her name is Serenity. For the past month she has refused to participate in any writing exercises. But tonight Serenity pulls me aside.

  “Here,” she says, shoving a pile of her journals into my hands.

  “Take ’em. Read ’em. Lemme know what ya think.”

  When I return home after class, I turn on the TV, keeping the volume low, and then listen to my messages. There’s one from my agent regarding a meeting with Disney about a job rewriting a script. Do I want to rewrite someone else’s script? Do I want to write scripts at all? What should I be doing now? Should I even go to the meeting?

  Then, like a spiritual sign reminding me to quiet down and stop spinning out, I see a familiar face on the TV. It’s Stephanie on the Home Shopping Network selling a Scrapbook Set by Pixie Press.

  I settle onto my bed, open Serenity’s journals, and start to read. Piece
after piece, in poems and essays and journal entries, her writing is eloquent and powerful, insightful and raw. I’m completely blown away. Her work reminds me of what I love about writing: the art of it, the essence; bold, intimate sharings of soul spilling onto paper what we might not dare say aloud. The kind of writing that has nothing to do with bidding wars and green lights and notes from studio executives’ maids.

  I get up and stroll outside to my balcony. I see cars snaking in all different directions on the streets below. I breathe in the night-blooming jasmine and listen. Other than a few crickets chirping, it’s finally quiet. And—as if illuminated by a spotlight circling the Hollywood skies to announce a premiere—amid the many roads, I clearly see which one to take. Serenity should have a forum for her writing. So should Lakeisha, who’s been on the street since she was twelve, and Sara, a chubby, pierced Riot Grrrl who publishes her own zine of rants called Sourpuss. Why not write a book and include their voices?

  I look up to the Moon, which has always been a comfort since my own teenage days when I hung out on my roof. I feel grateful. Especially to Madame Zola for her sage advice.

  And anytime in the future that I find myself thinking with my head instead of my heart, I will give myself a reminder—a simple “Cough, cough, cough.”

  1991

  Just weeks after I see The Silence of the Lambs I’m in a public sauna when Jodie Foster walks in. Despite already sweating for twenty minutes, I stay an additional half hour and nearly suffer from heat stroke just to watch Jodie talk to her friend. Completely naked.

  Rodney King is severely beaten by police officers after leading them on a high-speed chase and resisting arrest. The beating is captured on video and aired repeatedly on television.

  I have a garage sale at my house with my friend Daryl Hannah, who makes a Splash selling her junk for the first time. I buy some of her used books for a dollar while my old tennis shoes, which she purchases for fifty cents, end up on her feet in Steel Magnolias.

  Iraq declares some of its chemical weapons and materials to the UN and claims that it does not have a biological weapons program.

  Author Douglas Coupland coins the phrase “Generation X” as grunge music hits the scene.

  Two of my rerun icons—Natalie Schafer (Lovey on Gilligan’s Island) and Nancy Kulp (Jane Hathaway on The Beverly Hillbillies)—die.

  I drive to see 1,760 yellow umbrellas erected near Interstate 5 by the artist Christo, while 1,340 blue umbrellas are simultaneously unfurled in a valley in Japan.

  Janet Jackson signs a $30 million contract with Virgin Records, Michael Jackson signs a $65 million contract with Sony, and I receive a $12.43 ASCAP royalty check for my Angel and the Reruns song, “Buffy Come Back,” playing on the radio in Thailand, Belgium, and Czechoslovakia.

  Michael Landon is treated for cancer and spends weeks in the hospital room next to my father’s.

  Life, Death, and My Soap Opera Girlfriend

  I met her and fell in love with her as she was dying of leukemia. Well, she wasn’t—the character she played on a highly rated soap opera was.

  She had starred on the show for many years but due to the fact that she wanted to pursue opportunities in feature films, she suddenly contracted the deadly disease and was on her deathbed.

  My father had been battling the same deadly disease for three years.

  I had never watched a soap opera until I started dating Jennifer. In her final days on the show, her lush blond hair and bright blue eyes couldn’t have been more alluring as she gasped, collapsed, and wept in her husband’s arms—making him promise he’d move on without her. Even as she was dying, she was radiant.

  I can’t say the same for my father.

  The blood leaves my arm, flowing swiftly down a tube, passing through a machine, then returning to a vein, this time in my other arm. Since it is accompanied by a torrent of cleansing liquids and hydrating fluids, within moments my bladder is full, and I have to pee like crazy. But I’m stuck in this position and will be for another four hours, needles and tubes in both arms acting as restraints.

  If my own father can lie there, being poked and prodded daily, if he can lose his hair and all that he eats; if he can lose his strength, his pride, and any dignity that’s left as a nurse has to clean the bed he has soiled; if he can barely open his eyes but still make jokes and make sure the nurses don’t feel put out; then I can lie here restrained, with blood and liquids flowing, bladder bursting, as the technicians collect platelets that could very well save Dad’s life—for the moment, at least.

  The first time Jennifer and I kissed, we were at her memorial service. It was held in a friend’s backyard one late summer afternoon, and everyone came dressed in black and delivered eulogies honoring her dead character, Emily Stevenson.*

  They spoke of her boldness, her beauty; her youth and her restlessness—all the days of her life—keeping up the ruse late into the evening. I even made a donation to the Leukemia Society in memory of her character.

  As Jennifer and I began to see each other regularly, something happened that I never expected. I got hooked. Not just on Jennifer, but on her soap opera. It didn’t matter that she was dead and gone; the characters continued to speak of her, mourn her, and have flashbacks of her, so I still felt her presence. And by the time they stopped mentioning her altogether, it was too late for me. I had developed a serious habit.

  This was not exactly the best time to start a new romance. For the previous three years I had been taking care of my father while he was in and out of the hospital. I had spent every day by his side while my mother was relegated to keeping their business running, and, although my brother was frequently at the hospital donating platelets for my dad, he was mostly busy struggling to support his family and raise two young children. Since I was now writing a book and made my own hours, I was able to do my work as I kept my dad company, massaged his feet, ran to summon the nurse, and questioned the doctors.

  “Squeeze my hand,” I say. I hold on to him, tightly.

  “Oh, sorry, Bob,” the nurse keeps repeating. “I’m so sorry.” She continually pokes my father’s arm with a large needle, trying to put in a new IV.

  Charming and still handsome at sixty-four, with the face of a seasoned character actor who could have played the kindly neighbor, my father is beloved by all the nurses.

  “Let’s try it again,” she says. She inserts the needle into another vein.

  My strong, unshakable dad winces and squeezes my hand until it’s numb. Pools of blood form under his skin, instantly bruising.

  “Sorry, Bob. You have no veins left, and the couple I see just keep rolling,” she tries to explain as she pokes once more, creating another clotting mass.

  Finally my dad loosens his grip around my hand and focuses all his attention on the nurse.

  “Good thing I kicked that heroin habit,” he teases.

  She laughs, eases up. The IV needle finally settles into a vein.

  One evening, about six months after Jennifer and I began seeing each other, I arrived at her house and found her on the doorstep talking to a striking woman who looked like she had stepped out of the pages of a European Vogue.

  “Hey, I want you to meet Vincenza,” Jennifer said. “She’s my international agent. Vincenza, this is my girlfriend, Hillary.”

  “Nice to meet you,” we both said, shaking hands.

  “Guess what, Honey? We’re going to Rome.”

  “You are? That’s great. When do you guys leave?”

  “No, we are going. You and I.”

  “What?”

  “Jjjjjhyes,” Vincenza said, drawing out the word in her thick Italian accent. “Jennifer we want for magazine photos spread. She huge star in Italy. It shoot in Rome next week for three weeks, and she only come if you come. I say jjjjjjhyes.”

  “Wow,” was about all I could utter.

  I had never been to Europe and had always dreamed of going. And what a way to go. Star treatment, all expenses paid, in the throes o
f a wild romance. It was perfect. Except for one small detail.

  I didn’t want to leave my dad.

  There is a specific smell on the third floor cancer ward of Saint John’s Hospital that wafts into the elevator doors as soon as they open. Sour and foul, perhaps it’s the closest thing to the scent of death.

  A therapist tells me to shield myself before going into the hospital. Every day I stop before the doors that slide open to the lobby, and there I take a deep breath of what seems like fresh air, even in Los Angeles. I visualize a shield around me, protecting my body, heart, and soul, but I make it a glass one so I’m not shutting out anything I need to receive or, more important, give.

  When the trip came up, my father’s leukemia was in remission. He hadn’t been in the hospital or on chemo for several months. He had even returned to work. I told him about Rome, and he said, “Of course you’re going. End of discussion.”

  “What if something happens to you while I’m gone? I’d never forgive myself.”

  “If you stay here on my account and miss this opportunity, I’ll never forgive you, so either way you’re screwed.”

  In fact, my dad announced, during the time I would be away, he was going to Dallas on a business trip. So off Jennifer and I went to Italy.

  Upon our arrival, a limo picked us up at the airport, and we sped down the streets, an incongruous sight—flashy car among ancient ruins. In media-glutted Los Angeles, Jennifer was rarely recognized. Though I had heard that she was internationally famous, her face even plastered on potato chip bags in Greece, neither one of us was prepared for what was about to happen.

  As we neared the hotel, we saw an enormous crowd waiting outside. When the limo pulled up and they spotted Jennifer, the entire mob surrounded us, screaming and knocking on the windows. Homemade signs read: “Jennifer we love!” and “Welcome Emily Stevenson to Roma!”