Misery Loves Cabernet

by Kim Gruenenfelder

  “Yeah, but one’s a judgmental alcoholic, and the other one keeps gambling away the money I give her. They don’t count.”

  “Drew, you can’t just steal an old lady from an old folk’s home!”

  “I didn’t steal her! She specifically told me the place was like a minimum security prison, and she was free to walk away at any time.”

  My iPhone beeps a call coming in from Jesus Gonzalez. “That’s Jesus now. Let me call you back.”

  For the first time in my life, I hang up on Drew, and answer the other line. “Hello.”

  “Don’t you dare get mad at that nice boy for springing me,” Mawv says haughtily.

  I sigh. “Mawv, where are you? Grandma and Mom are worried sick.”

  “I’m on my way to California. Andrew invited me to stay with him at his home over the holidays, and I have accepted. Andrew sent his security guard to escort me from the home. Gorgeous boy. I could bounce a quarter off his ass.”

  “Mawv—”

  “Seriously, if I were sixty years younger . . . eh, he still wouldn’t give me the time of day. But he sure is pretty to look at.”

  “Mawv, where are you specifically? Are you still in St. Louis?”

  “No, no. Andrew rented me a private jet so that I could land without being hounded by the paparazzi.”

  I’m confused. “Why would you be hounded by the paparazzi?”

  “I’m not sure. But Andrew insisted that I didn’t want to fly on a commercial plane, because the moment I landed, the paps would be snapping away, and the photos are never flattering.”

  I’m getting a headache.

  I spend the next half hour harriedly on the phone with half of my family explaining what happened, then tracking down a helicopter to take me back to the city so that I can meet Mawv at Drew’s house when she lands.

  Ten minutes after that, I am packed, checked out, and in front of the hotel waiting for a cab to take me to the heliport.

  “Are you sure you don’t mind driving home by yourself tomorrow?” I ask Liam as the cabbie puts my bag in the trunk.

  “Not at all,” Liam says soothingly, adjusting my coat collar so my neck stays warm. “Have snow chains, will travel.”

  “I really had a great time tonight,” I say apologetically. “I’m sorry I ruined it.”

  “You didn’t ruin it,” he assures me. “Your boss, Mister Me Bollocks, ruined it. Story of my life for the next month.”

  “Story of my life for the rest of my life,” I joke.

  We stare at each other, each wondering the proper way to end the night. A little kiss good-bye? A big kiss good-bye? A hug?”

  We continue to look into each other’s eyes for a few moments.

  After what seems like an eternity of a staring contest, I tilt my head and ask him coquettishly, “What?”

  Liam breaks into a grin as he shrugs. “I just wanted to thank you for a truly perfect evening. I can’t remember the last time I had this much fun. It was like a perfect third date.”

  I smile, and turn my eyes away. “Thank you,” I say, almost embarrassed by my obvious feelings for him. “I had fun, too.”

  “And you know the best part?” Liam asks me.

  I shake my head.

  “Because we’re not really dating, you won’t even hate me in the morning.”

  On that note, he kisses me on the nose, then helps me into the cab.

  And as I am driven away, I think of my next bit of advice to write:

  Frequently we have to control our impulses. And that sucks.

  Twenty-eight

  All good things must someday end. Fortunately, this is also true of bad things.

  “I quit,” I say to Drew when he answers his door a few hours later.

  “What are you talking about?” Drew asks, as I push past him and yell, “Mawv?! Mawv?!”

  “In here, dear,” Mawv yells from Drew’s kitchen.

  I walk into the kitchen to see my ninety-five-year-old great-grandmother, wearing nothing but a lace camisole and panties, playing strip poker with a shirtless Jesus, who’s all of twenty-three. She has a cigarette dangling from her mouth, and a large glass of whiskey at her side.

  I think seeing dogs play poker would have been less jolting.

  “Hey, Charlie,” Jesus says, smiling brightly at me.

  I ignore his shirtless physique to ask the obvious question: “Jesus, do you mind telling me why you kidnapped my great-grandmother?”

  “I wasn’t commissioned to kidnap her,” Jesus calmly enlightens me. “My services were enlisted to bring her safely home. And I did that.” He looks up at Mawv. “Did you feel your life was in danger at any time that I was with you?”

  “Well, not until now,” Mawv says, eyeing me suspiciously.

  “Raise you twenty,” Jesus says, throwing in a red chip.

  “I have a cab waiting outside,” I tell Mawv purposefully.

  “Now, what is twenty worth again?” she asks Jesus.

  “Each hundred is worth one piece of clothing,” he answers.

  “You’re coming home with me tonight,” I continue. “And then Mom is going to bring you back to St. Louis tomorrow. Where are your things?”

  Mawv takes a puff of her cigarette. “Don’t you use that tone with me, young lady.” She looks at Jesus. “I think you’re bluffing. I’ll see your twenty, and raise you fifty.”

  She throws a blue chip and a red chip onto a pile of chips on the counter as Drew walks in. “I paid the cabbie, and sent him on his way.”

  I turn to Drew. “You what?!”

  “I said I paid the cabbie—”

  I interrupt Drew by slapping him dead in the face.

  “Ow!” Drew grabs his cheek. “You hit me.”

  “I’m going to do a lot more than that in about two seconds. Mawv, get your goddamned stuff! Jesus, since Drew got rid of my ride, I need you to drive us to my house.”

  “Can’t do that, Charlie,” Jesus warns me apologetically. “And, if you try to remove her from the residence, I’m going to have to call the police and have you arrested for trespassing, assault and battery, and kidnapping.” He looks up at my Mawv, and throws down a blue chip. “I call.”

  My jaw drops as I look at Jesus. He shrugs. “I’m sorry. But there’s no court order saying she’s a danger to herself or anyone else. She legally had the right to leave St. Louis, and she legally has the right to be with Drew.”

  Drew’s face lights up. “Jesus, my man! That’s brilliant! What’s assault and battery?”

  “What Charlie’s doing to you now,” Jesus says. “Hitting is assault. The yelling at you is battery.” He puts down his cards, then says to Mawv, “Full house. Tens high.”

  “Excellent!” Drew says, smiling.

  I raise my hand to hit him again, and he flinches.

  As Mawv puts down a straight flush to Jesus’ full house, I put down my hand, and try to soften my voice. “Seriously, Mawv, everyone is worried about you. You need to be in a place where people can give you your medication, and watch out for your safety.”

  “There are people here who can do that,” Mawv counters as she pulls the pot of multicolored chips toward her. “Your boss has a bigger staff than the White House.” She holds up her drink. “And this Gladys person who works for him makes the best drinks in the state.”

  I look at Mawv’s highball glass of whiskey. “Isn’t that just three shots of Canadian Club over crushed ice?’

  “What’s your point?” Mawv asks.

  Drew looks at me. “Can I have Gladys whip up a little something for you?”

  “Nooooo!” I yell.

  “Seriously, because you reek of wine. I’ll bet that’s why you’re so angry, you’re drunk. Maybe a little pot to mellow you out?”

  “I reek of wine because I was splitting bottles of the stuff—bottles!—with Liam before I got pulled away from a romantic dinner in the middle of the snowed-in mountains so I could fly home and deal with yet another one of your screwups!”

&
nbsp; “Since when is helping out an old lady a screwup?” Drew asks.

  “Since when is ninety-five an old lady?” Mawv asks, offended.

  “Never get in the middle of a domestic squabble, sweetie,” Jesus says to Mawv as he deals another round.

  As Mawv nods her head to show she thinks that’s good advice, I practically yell, “This is not a domestic squabble. I am not Drew’s wife, I am . . . I was . . . his assistant.” Then I turn to Drew. “And you have crossed the line for the final time. I quit.”

  I walk out of the kitchen, and prepare to walk out the front door. I’ll call a cab once I’m out. For right now, I just need to say my exit line and go.

  Unfortunately, Drew never lets anyone have the last word. He follows me. “You can’t quit me!”

  “Yeah? Give me one good reason why.”

  “Because I’m your family.”

  I turn around and glare at him. “In what twisted world do you live in that you could possibly ever consider yourself family?”

  “Don’t give me that look,” Drew says offhandedly. “I’m neurotic, I’m self-involved, and you’re constantly having to deal with me. I fit in beautifully.”

  I shake my head, and turn to leave again. “I’m so out of here.”

  “And because I love you,” Drew says.

  I stop at the door. I’m so tired of this. I turn around to Drew. “At the risk of sounding like one of your damn movies, you don’t even know what love is. Love is not making your loved one deal with hippo poop. Ever. Or, making your loved one accompany you to Idaho at three A.M. because you, and I quote, ‘need to see winter.’ Or, making them pull you out of a toilet . . . twice. And let’s not even get into the fact that I have a roommate right now because of you. . . .”

  “Yeah,” Drew says, pointing at me. “And you’re welcome!”

  “No,” I say, throwing my hands up to the sides of my head in exasperation. “You don’t get it. I can’t like someone if . . . you know what? Never mind. Like I said, I quit. I need to lead a normal life. And this is clearly not normal.”

  Drew crosses his arms. “Do I get to talk before you leave?”

  I sigh. The man exhausts me. “Fine.”

  Drew looks over at the table by his front door. He might as well have a lightbulb go on over his head, because clearly he has an idea. “I don’t love you in the way you want to be loved. But never doubt that it’s there. I love you unconditionally. I love you because you’re cute, I love you because you think I’m a pain in the ass but you’re still here, and I love you because you have a certain Charlieness that I have not been able to find in any of my other friends. I have loved you through Dave, Danny, Steve, Jim, Jeff, John, Marshall, Patrick, Jerrys numbers 1 and 2, and Jordan. I’m gonna love you when you fuck it up with Liam, and I’m gonna love you when you fuck it up with the next guy. I’m gonna love you the day you walk down the aisle when you finally do find the right guy, and I am going to love you every Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s, and Fourth of July until one of us dies. And, for that reason, you can’t quit.”

  I look him in the eye to see if he’s lying. He doesn’t look like he is. He looks like a vulnerable man who has just admitted his deepest, darkest feelings, and wants to feel like they’ve been reciprocated, and like he’s been accepted as a caring human being.

  Which is why he’s an actor. I look over at his front table, and set my sights on the script on top of the highly polished wood. I quickly walk over to the script. “Which page?” I ask angrily.

  “Fifty-six,” Drew admits sheepishly.

  I flip through to page fifty-six. As I do, Drew continues monologuing at me, a desperation creeping into his voice, “Your favorite color is something called eggplant. It’s this really dark purple that you always wanted to put your bridesmaids in when you get married. . . .”

  He’s not getting me this time. I keep flipping through the script pages while Drew continues, “Only now you’re so irritated with them, you figure you’ll put them in bright orange polyester microminis with white go-go boots. You tell people your favorite sex symbol is Jared Leto, but really it’s Stephen Colbert. You tell people your favorite book is A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, but really it’s Oh, Not Again, the book your mom wrote in 1979. . . .”

  I get to page fifty-six, and start scanning the page. Drew continues, “And you didn’t have me read this script because you thought I might get an Academy Award, you did it because you wanted to go to Paris to see Jordan.”

  I look up from my reading.

  “Yeah,” Drew says. “I figured that out, and I read it anyway. That night. I came home with a drunk woman who wanted to have sex in a harness, and instead of doing that, I read a script you told me to read. And I committed to the project the next day, guaranteeing you a second chance with Jordan, or a first chance with Liam. So, you can get mad at me for hippos, and trips to Idaho, and granting your great-grandmother her dying wish. But you are staying. You’re stuck with me. Because, you know what? I am the best thing that ever happened to you. You’re just too blind to see it.”

  I stand there, dumbfounded.

  Wait a minute, the best thing that ever happened. . . . I lift my hand to slap him again. He flinches. “All right. That last line was too much. I take it back.”

  I put down my hand, still glaring at him.

  “It was,” Drew continues. “I had you after white go-go boots. But then I pushed it.” He takes my hand, and kisses it. “Seriously, I fucked up, and I’m sorry. But I can make it up to you. What is it going to take to keep you from quitting?”

  Good question. And I know the answer. Because, despite how badly my day ended, I think back to earlier in the day, when I was really energized. When I got to scout locations, learn about permits, read through the writer’s latest script changes, and in general do something I thought was invigorating and interesting.

  And, for better or for worse, continuing to work for Drew could help me do what I want to do in the future.

  However, I’m not sure how Drew will handle my demand.

  You want the foolproof test to see if you’re in a good relationship? Tell the person the thing that you’re most afraid to tell them. Then see how they react.

  I take a deep breath, and say to Drew, “I want to produce a movie that you’ll star in.”

  Drew just seems confused by my request. “Oh, I don’t think you want to produce the type of crap I star in.”

  “No, I’m not talking about one of your blockbuster movies. I want to produce a movie like A Collective Happiness for you. Something that’s important. Something that will be remembered. Think about it: you could be like George Clooney. You could star in an Ocean’s Seventy-two, then star in a small movie that will be nominated for a slew of Academy Awards.”

  Drew smiles to himself. “I like the sound of that.”

  “And I could find you the script. Then help secure the financing. We could go to Sony or Universal for a development deal tomorrow, and we’d have studio offices by the end of the week.”

  Drew furrows his brow at me. “Nah, I’ve had studio development deals before. It’s an ego offer that never works out. You develop scripts for years, and no one ever greenlights any of your projects.”

  True enough. I try a different approach. “What if I manage to secure a good script for a low-budget film, then put together outside financing? Would you do it then?”

  Drew thinks about it a moment. “If I agree to star in a small movie, you don’t quit?”

  “No.”

  “And you still get me my coffee?”

  I roll my eyes. “Until I find the right project for you, yes.”

  He shrugs. “Done.” He puckers his lips together, thinking. “Can you get me a trailer for the next one?”

  “Sure,” I say, then I walk with him to the kitchen to announce to Mawv that she can stay. “By the way, you do realize that Liam crack is going to cost you an extra hundred dollars a week.”

  “Hey, y
ou can’t do that. I’m economizing.”

  Twenty-nine

  Some men are just an itch you can’t scratch. Get away from these men.

  Despite our romantic evening, once Liam got home from Lake Arrowhead, we were back to being just roommates. He was a roommate who made me breakfast, who was fun to watch DVDs with on a weeknight, and who was helping me on my career path. But he was still just a roommate.

  And by now, I am ready to explode.

  “Maybe I should just fuck his brains out, and get it out of my system,” I suggest to the girls on Saturday night.

  “Yeah. Because women are so good at doing that,” Dawn responds dryly.

  “No, seriously,” I continue. “I’ve had the last few days to think this through. How many gorgeous men do you know who are good in bed?”

  This is followed by Dawn, Kate, Andy, and Jenn answering with, “Not many,” “Good point,” and “I’d say about ten percent.”

  I’m surprised Jenn and Andy would give the same answer, but I run with that. “Weird answer, but okay: let’s go with ten percent.”

  “Way too optimistic,” Dawn insists.

  “Word,” Kate concurs.

  Dawn turns to her. “I’m sorry. Did you just say ‘word’?”

  “Guys, Liam will be back in less than five minutes. Eyes back to me.” All four girls turn their attention back to me. “Okay, so ten percent. That means I have a nine-to-one shot that I’ll pin him to a wall, show him who’s boss, then be wildly disappointed, and lose my crush.”

  “Why would you pin him to a wall?” Andy asks.

  “I don’t know. Because he’s standing right now, and I can’t afford to lose time. You’re missing the bigger picture. A show of hands. Am I allowed to do this?”

  Naturally, this is met with a split vote of two each.

  To backtrack: I spent the rest of my week utterly charmed with my new roommate, and completely hating myself for having a crush on him. And I kept thinking about kissing him at the most inopportune times. Like when he makes breakfast. Or when he was fixing my TiVo. And even though he’s been wearing long flannel pajamas around the kitchen all week, I still think about wrestling him to the ground, and giving him a big smooch.