Queen of the Oddballs

by Hillary Carlip

  By fall, I was celebrating one exciting, powerful year of being on my own.

  And then I met Maxine.

  Katie, my ex who had remained a close friend, had gone out with Maxine a few times, but on each date, she said, she kept thinking that Maxine and I should meet. “We’ll all go out to dinner,” she announced. “You have to know each other, you’d be perfect together.”

  That’s precisely why I kept putting off the dinner. “I’m not ready for a relationship now,” I declared. “I’m loving being alone.”

  Katie finally convinced me to go out with her and Maxine on a chilly Thursday night in November. We met at Pane e Vino, an intimate Italian restaurant on Beverly. Maxine was charming and adorable, funny and smart. (Damn.) She was a TV writer-producer working on the number-one hit sitcom, so she was also creative and successful. (Crap.) And then she invited Katie and me to a screening the following night of Catherine Deneuve’s new film, Indochine, premiering at an event Maxine was producing to benefit Amnesty International—she had a conscience, too. (Shit.)

  After dinner, we went to her house, a big mistake for someone trying to avoid a relationship, because her home was as intriguing and inviting as Maxine. A bungalow near the Hollywood Bowl, every room was splashed with colors deep and bright, walls filled with brilliant art—similar to the kind I had been making. In a corner of the red-and-yellow living room sat a drum set, one bass drum with “SAMMY” across it, the other emblazoned with “DAVIS JR.” “Sammy was the greatest entertainer of all time,” she said, “and when his estate was being auctioned off, I had to rescue his drum kit.” She told me she was a performer—she used to do stand-up comedy and even had a band—then turned to writing. She had a deep love of variety shows since childhood, so she completely freaked when I confessed I had been a juggler and fire-eater. She even had a very specific collection of old tiki bowls and mugs from Harvey’s, a restaurant in Lake Tahoe in the fifties and sixties. I too had collected Harvey’s bowls.

  All of this did not bode well.

  That night Maxine asked me to dinner for the following week. I hesitated. Besides my resistance to what seemed inevitable, another quality about Maxine made me nervous. She was so upbeat and optimistic. Maxine had her own light—she didn’t need mine. However, I did agree to see her.

  On the morning of what was to be our first date, Maxine called. “Wanna go to breakfast so we can discuss where we’re gonna go for dinner?” she asked.

  Amusing and charming, right? But her enthusiasm freaked me out. Here was someone I wouldn’t be able to just “date.” When Maxine and I did take the plunge, it was obvious we’d be together for years to come. And I just wasn’t ready for that. But would I ever be? Suddenly it dawned on me that maybe I was the one with the commitment problem. Perhaps that’s why I always chose others who couldn’t commit—to let me off the hook. Hell, I couldn’t even commit to one career, afraid I might be missing out on something else.

  And, despite the pull, I found plenty more reasons for not getting involved with Maxine. If I was showered with the kind of attention and care that I’d never really before received, could I give up being so self-reliant? What would I do in a relationship with a person who had nothing to “fix”? Could I stand giving my heart to someone and risk having them carelessly neglect it again? Could I take any more loss so soon after losing my dad?

  I couldn’t start seeing Maxine but I also couldn’t not see her. I passed on breakfast but did keep our plans for dinner.

  During our first couple of weeks of “dating,” I tried to take it slow. In fact, I was always putting on the brakes. Maxine would call me four times a day; I’d call back once. One day she sang “I’ve Got the World on a String” in its entirety on my answering machine, each verse ending in “I’m in love.” I had to stop seeing her for an entire week after that. We’d sleep together only on weekends—luckily she was busy working so she didn’t have that many nights available anyway. When we did hang out, we always had a great time. On Sundays we’d wake at 5:00 a.m., make coffee, and head into the chilly winter mornings combing the flea markets, sharing the steamy, caffeinated brew from a little red thermos cup as we searched for vintage treasures. We went to Outsider Art exhibits at museums and hung out with each other’s fascinating friends and equally fascinating exes who had become family.

  But then came spring and with it a hiatus from her TV show. Maxine wanted to go to Europe. And she wanted to take me with her. I still had plenty of issues with receiving—the last trip to Europe was paid for by Jennifer’s job, not her. Letting Maxine pay would be tough, and since I wasn’t making enough money to afford the trip, that was the only option. I also was definitely not ready to be with her—hell, anyone—twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, for three whole weeks. But she persisted, and despite my trepidation, I agreed to go.

  On a cool day in May we flew to Paris. The more romantic Maxine was, the more I stiffened in terror. So we argued while eating lavender crème brûlée in Juan-les-Pins, sobbed during a boat ride in the Blue Grotto on Capri, broke up in a sacred forest in the south of France, and didn’t speak a word to each other in a sleeping car train to Positano. We had heavy discussions about our relationship at three ancient ruins, two seashores, in four taxis, and at six outdoor cafés. Poor Maxine was mystified.

  Finally we decided to cancel the last leg of our trip, Venice, and go home early instead. We took a train to Rome, where we would spend our final night before flying back to L.A. Now that the pressure was off, we didn’t argue; we didn’t even weep. We rented Vespa scooters and tooled around town. At twilight we rode to a charming outdoor café on the Piazza Navona. Other patrons had parked their scooters out front, lined up in a row like a Vespa showroom. So I gave my scooter a little gas and picked up the front wheel a bit to ride up on the curb and join them.

  I pulled to the end of the row and parked next to the last scooter, then watched as Maxine gave her scooter a little gas and turned to pull up onto the curb. Not enough gas. She tried again, but this time gave it a bit more throttle than necessary. Suddenly Maxine was careening full speed ahead, doing an unintentional wheelie right in front of a statue of Jesus. As she tried to slow down, her scooter peeled out of control, wiped out, and slammed into the scooter parked at the top of the row. That scooter banged into the next parked scooter which thwacked the next, and the next, and the next, and the next. As I stood and stared in stunned silence, each Vespa fell, like dominoes, until, at last, my scooter went down, and I was knocked to the ground, under the whole pile.

  Maxine’s pants were ripped, her knee and arm bloodied, and both of us lay sprawled on the sidewalk. We looked up at each other and simultaneously said, “Are you okay?” We each nodded. Then we burst out laughing. Uncontrollably. We laughed so hard that despite the pain and the fact that we still couldn’t stand up yet, it was our cheeks that hurt most. It was a relief to feel pain somewhere other than in our hearts.

  When we finally stopped laughing I looked at the mess we’d made and saw each fallen scooter as a symbol of each of my reasons for not allowing myself to be in this relationship: “I can’t take so much attention”; “I’m scared to commit”; “I can’t handle being with someone so together, someone who doesn’t need my help”; “It’s too soon after Dad died, I can’t handle any more potential loss.”

  One by one each of my excuses was knocked to the ground.

  And there I lay, under the pile, scratched and scarred but still in one piece.

  I picked myself up, limped over to help Maxine, and surrendered to the destiny I had been trying so desperately to avoid.

  We never did make it to Venice. But we did manage to make it to each other.

  1997, 1998, 1999

  1997

  As breaking news follows alleged murderer O. J. Simpson driving to the courthouse for the verdict in the civil case against him, I spot my girlfriend Maxine on TV, on her way to a meeting, coincidentally driving behind O.J.

  We get season ticket co
urtside seats to the premiere year of the WNBA. At every game we sit next to L.A. Sparks player Lisa Leslie’s mom and failed O.J. prosecutor Christopher Darden.

  Princess Di is killed in a tragic accident as her car tries to elude paparazzi.

  Maya Angelou’s memoir, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, is banned from the ninth-grade English curriculum in Maryland because some horrible, nasty, stupid white parents say it “portrays white people as being horrible, nasty, stupid people.”

  While promoting my book, Girl Power, I speak at Wellesley College. Meanwhile, Wellesley graduate Hillary Rodham Clinton doesn’t have a clue that her husband Bill is spilling his semen on White House intern Monica Lewinsky’s navy blue dress.

  Two years after my book is released, the hugely successful Spice Girls sell over 45 million albums and make a mockery of, I mean popularize, the term Girl Power.

  1998

  Smoking is banned in all California bars and restaurants. Good thing my father died because of his smoking habit and didn’t have to live to see this day.

  Fifty-five-year-old Michael Douglas’s divorce is final, leaving him free to be with his girlfriend Catherine Zeta-Jones, twenty-five years his junior. FDA approves Viagra for use as a treatment for male impotence.

  I play basketball every Sunday with a group of female friends and several “celebrity guests” who stop by and play with us, including Rosie O’Donnell, Martina Navratilova, Sara Gilbert, and Melissa Etheridge.

  Just months after President Clinton denies he had sexual relations with “that woman,” he admits in taped testimony that he indeed did. At the MTV Movie Awards, Jim Carrey wins for his convincing performance in the film Liar Liar.

  1999

  Rev. Jerry Falwell warns parents that since a popular Teletubby carries a purse, is purple, and has an antenna shaped like a triangle, Tinky Winky is gay.

  Charlton Heston serves his second year as president of the National Rifle Association as two Littleton, Colorado, teenagers open fire on their teachers and fellow students, killing thirteen and injuring twenty-four at Columbine High School.

  Katie and I collaborate with Debbie Gibson, now Deborah Gibson, to adapt Skirts into a Broadway musical. At a reading in our producer’s living room, future Tony winner for Hairspray, Marissa Jaret Winokur, plays one of the lead roles, and fan-favorite soap opera star Ricky Paull Goldin another.

  Lance Armstrong wins his first Tour de France and, after eighteen failed nominations, Susan Lucci finally wins a Daytime Emmy Award for her role on All My Children.

  Maxine and I, along with another partner, start an enormous Internet Company—Voxxy, an online network for teen girls. We get Jennifer Aniston to be our spokesperson and do a broadband show with us, and I go from a life of freelance to being a boss of about forty employees.

  As we head into Y2K, everyone stockpiles supplies and prepares for all the disasters that might occur on New Year’s Eve, when the clock strikes midnight.

  Leaving Las Vegas…Please!

  A word of warning: If you ever say to your mother, “Think about what you’d enjoy doing, just name it, and I’ll do it with you,” be prepared.

  Feeling badly about not spending enough time with Mom after my dad died, and seeing how hard she worked to continue running his business, overwhelmed with responsibilities, I mistakenly made that offer. I figured it was the least I could do—go with her to see some theater, join a book club together, go shopping.

  But no, my mother wanted me to take her to Hell.

  I remember an episode of Night Gallery that I saw in the early seventies where John Astin, best known for his classic portrayal of Gomez Addams, the French-spouting, arm-kissing patriarch of the creepy and kooky Addams Family, played a hippie who died and was sent to Hell. Only there he found no fiery inferno, no whips or chains, no snake pits or vats of boiling oil. His Hell was a drab room covered in ugly wallpaper, where an elderly suburban couple showed endless slides of their summer vacation—forcing the hippie to face an eternal after-lifetime of boredom.

  Had I been featured in that episode, condemned to my own distinct version of Hell, viewers would have been subjected to the sight of me in the most plastic, soulless, hyperoxygenated, boob-inflated, money-sucking place on earth—Las Vegas.

  In the Night Gallery episode, the devil was quick to point out to the tormented hippie that “Up there, this identical room is someone else’s idea of Heaven.”

  So give the devil his due. For while Vegas is my Hell, it is Mim Carlip’s Heaven on Earth.

  1997. The first year I took my mom to Vegas (yeah, this became a yearly sojourn of torture), we were sitting in a restaurant at the MGM Grand after a long, tedious day of losing money at the quarter slots. As we were both digging into oversized ninety-nine-cent shrimp cocktails, one of the televisions at the bar showed some headline news.

  Mother Teresa had just died.

  I closed my eyes to quietly honor the life of the saintly woman who had devoted her years to helping the sick and needy, to spreading compassion and goodness throughout the world. But my contemplation was interrupted by the arrival of an unruly group of drunken “islanders” who gave Gilligan—and the Skipper, too—a run for their money. Dressed in tie-dyed sarongs, fake flowered leis, and Hawaiian shirts that were louder than the inebriated revelers themselves, each of them wore on their head a large, brightly colored felt or velour stuffed parrot, beak rising high, tail feathers flowing down necks and backs. As the waitresses served them frothy drinks, the female revelers, wearing bras concocted of coconut halves, began to sloppily sing, “Wastin’ away again in Margaritaville….” The men, wearing flip-flops embossed with parrots and sunglasses festooned with the same feathered friend of choice, joined in at full volume. A hugely pregnant woman in a T-shirt with the words “Parakeet Inside” sequined over her belly sang loudest and most out of tune.

  Hellooo! Mother Teresa just died, motherfuckers!

  I asked our waitress, whose Fu Manchu acrylic nails were dotted with rhinestone flowers, “What’s going on?”

  “Oh,” she answered matter-of-factly. “Those are Parrot Heads.”

  “Parrot Heads?”

  “Jimmy Buffett fans,” the waitress explained slowly, as if I had some sort of learning impediment.

  There was a huge outburst from the tropical posse as they returned to the chorus of their object of devotion’s greatest hit. Not a tinge of solemnity. You could bet that if Jimmy Buffett had gone to that big island in the sky, they’d all be removing their stuffed parrot hats out of respect and crying into their margaritas.

  As we left the restaurant, I saw an elderly woman sitting at the Wheel of Fortune slots, weeping. Finally. Someone’s showing some reverence for Mother Teresa’s passing. I smiled at her and asked, “Are you okay?”

  She shook her head. “It’s terrible. Tragic. I’ve just been denied a cash advance on my ATM card.”

  1998. As if something or someone were forcing Mom and me to look Heaven and Hell right in the face, the following year’s trek to Vegas featured another icon’s demise.

  This time the breaking news unfolded while we were staying at the Mirage. I had convinced my girlfriend, Maxine, to join us despite the fact that she hates Vegas as much as I do—especially after doing gigs at most of the hotels during her stand-up comedy days.

  At 6:00 a.m. Maxine was still asleep, and Mom had already hit the slots. I was at the hotel gym, running on a treadmill that featured its own built-in television, relieved there was no cardio equipment with built-in slot machines. I turned on CNN and suddenly saw a “death montage.” When a series of still pictures of a celebrity’s early days flashes on the news, even with the sound off you can tell that the person has met their maker.

  This time the celeb happened to be Mr. Las Vegas himself.

  Frank Sinatra had just died.

  I ran back to the room to tell Maxine. For the next two hours we huddled on the bed watching the coverage, and imagined how the city would pay homage to the Chairman of
the Board. Frank’s likeness would be carved into butter sculptures at all the $12.99 buffets. In his honor, the Liberace museum would temporarily shroud the world’s largest rhinestone. Men would eat ham and eggs off of hooker’s boobs like Frank did, according to Kitty Kelley’s unauthorized biography. (Were they sunny-side up? That seems redundant with boobs. I would have gone with scrambled or a nice cheese omelet.)

  It was time to meet Mom in the lobby so we headed down in the elevator. We gasped when we heard the piped-in music playing “The Lady Is a Tramp” and wondered if it was just a coincidence or if the Muzak programmers had already begun their tributes.

  When the elevator doors opened, I was immediately assaulted with all that I hate most about Vegas. A cloud of toxic smoke in the shape of an iron lung hovered above the Pai Gow poker tables. The casino smelled like a nauseating combo-platter of stale beer and White Diamonds, Liz Taylor’s perfume, which, years later, would provoke a bus driver to go berserk on an over-scented passenger. I heard buzzers and whistles and bells and sirens, like France during the occupation, and I even saw an old man at a roulette table, smoking a cigarette through the tracheotomy hole in his neck.

  Mom was waiting by longtime bachelors Siegfried and Roy’s white tigers, on display behind glass. “Did you hear?” I asked.