by Brett Paesel
It was funny. The birthday party. I told Pat the story later. I told it to the mommies at the bar. It was funny, but the whole thing moved me too.
A couple of porn stars are already onstage. Shannon and I lean against the wall, hearing Colin ask a question. It’s answered by high-pitched squeals.
The sobbing magician was a relatively small part of the party. I ended up having to substitute for a mommy in the puppet show, reading from a script as I crouched behind the cardboard theater, my puppet hand losing feeling. Spence insisted on sitting beside me as I furiously turned pages with my other hand.
When the cake was brought out, Isabella refused to let anyone sing “Happy Birthday” to her, so we all hummed “The Wheels on the Bus.”
And a baby bit an older child, who screamed that he was going to get rabies now, just like the bunny, and die.
As the party thinned out, I found the magician in the kitchen drinking a Coke and stroking the bunny.
“Hey,” I said. “Rough crowd.”
The boy looked up at me.
“She was really scared,” he said, leaning down to kiss the top of the bunny’s head.
“Yeah, I could tell,” I said. “You know, the kids just didn’t know what was going on. They thought that the bunny had really disappeared.”
“That’s dumb,” said the boy.
I sat at the table.
“How long have you been working on your act?” I asked.
“Since I was twelve. That’s when I got my first kit.”
“You know, my brother did a lot of magic tricks,” I said. “His best one was this thing with hoops that connected and then didn’t.”
“I do that trick,” he said, his voice a bit lighter.
“What’s your name?”
“Dylan,” he said, straightening up in the chair.
“So, Dylan, here’s the thing. I used to be an actress on TV,” I started.
I was about to give him some mommy/performer wisdom, when I got caught by my own words.
Used to be . . . used to be. Who am I now?
I’ll think about that later, I thought.
“As a fellow performer,” I told him, “with a certain amount of experience, I can tell you one thing.” I paused for emphasis, resisting a motherly reach for his hand, which was buried in the bunny’s fur anyway. “You’ve got to know your audience, buddy. It’s that simple. Don’t throw away your talents on a crowd that’s not going to appreciate you. The toddlers don’t get your act. Don’t waste time worrying about what they think, or what they want.”
The boy magician smiled. I couldn’t tell if he was comforted or was simply shooting me the smile so I’d get up and leave.
I reached over and pet the bunny, waiting for him to say something. When he didn’t, I stood up and quietly left him with his bunny.
Did I make a difference?
I’ll think about it later.
I do Colin’s show in a mental haze. I can’t stop thinking about the party—about the boy magician.
Shannon and I follow a couple of porn stars onto the set and we do a couple of preplanned jokes. The guy comics take over and somersault over the couch, landing on the floor. This causes the audience to roar as if a lion just ate a Christian. A greasy, drunk rocker dude bounds onto the set. He is a surprise guest, Lemmy from Motörhead. He sits next to Colin, beer in hand, talking about how truly fucked-up he got last night, banging a porn star in a hotel room till the management threatened to call the police.
“But a guy’s got a right to fuckin’ party,” he yells.
The audience goes wild.
At some point the porn star sitting on the orange shag carpet in front of me passes me a steel dildo. She tells the audience that it’s a great new product because of the weight of the steel. The dildo feels pretty damn heavy to me. I consider bringing up concerns I would have about such a weighty sex toy causing vaginal tearing and fistulas.
But I don’t want to be a spoiler. Even a spoiler of Lemmy’s great time, whoever he is. So I bounce the dildo up and down in my hand, like I’m testing the weight. I bounce the steel penis as if I’m considering. Which I am.
You’ve got to know your audience, buddy. It’s that simple. Don’t throw away your talents on a crowd that’s not going to appreciate you.
I pass the penis and get some peace.
Hey, I don’t begrudge the audience their good time. I don’t begrudge Lemmy, Colin, Shannon, or the girl with the doll of herself.
I just want to go home.
The Standoff
The Carter Preschool fund-raiser is a bear of an event that supposedly raises half the school’s annual income. Every year each family is expected to donate five hundred dollars’ worth of stuff to the silent auction, be on a committee, do setup and cleanup on the day of, and work a two-hour shift per parent during the event.
As always, Pat and I manage to meet requirements with a minimum amount of effort. For this year’s silent auction we donate one of my mother’s paintings (found in the back of our closet—$400), a voice lesson (given by Pat in our living room—$75), and an old end table of ours (antique?—$25). Needless to say, we don’t win the incentive prize—a pricey bottle of champagne for the first family to raise more than five thousand dollars in donations. That is won by the Henleys, who donate a guitar signed by all the members of U2 and a week on Mandarin Fishing Boat (airfare not included).
In signing up for a committee, I know enough to steer clear of food, purchasing, and the silent auction. My first year at Carter I was “beginning parent,” not required to do much but watch and learn.
I watched the Food Committee meet biweekly for two months, generating charts of who was going to make what food when. Where would they store it all?
I watched the Purchasing Committee having to buy or rent everything from plastic spoons to forty-five foldout tables.
I watched the Silent Auction Committee having to store auction items in their homes. A sign from one of those unlucky committee members remained on the bulletin board for weeks:
WHOEVER PURCHASED THE GRANITE BUST OF EINSTEIN—WE LOST YOUR PAPERWORK SO WE DON’T KNOW WHO YOU ARE!!!! PLEASE CLAIM IT!!! MY SON KEEPS BANGING HIS HEAD ON IT EVERY TIME HE OPENS THE CLOSET TO GET HIS SWIMMING TRUNKS.
Apparently, no one claimed the bust, as the sign was eventually replaced by:
TO WHOEVER DID NOT CLAIM EINSTEIN, WHOEVER YOU ARE!!!! YOUR LACK OF CONSIDERATION HAS RESULTED IN YOU LOSING EINSTEIN. MY HUSBAND AND I HAULED HIM OUT TO THE DRIVEWAY AND LEFT HIM THERE. YESTERDAY HE DISAPPEARED. SOMEONE’S GAIN. YOUR LOSS.
Knowing what I know, I sign up for the Program Committee, chaired by Jerri Regan, of course, who likes to do everything herself. This turns out to be an inspired move on my part, as I end up attending only two meetings. One to approve the program design—already mocked up by Jerri—and one emergency meeting, called because Jerri has lost the artwork for the back of the program. By the time I arrive, she has found it on the backseat of her car and all I have to do is assure her that it always feels like it’s never going to get done, but somehow it always does. I offer to cut and paste the ads for companies who donated, but she says she’s already done that. “See? It always gets done,” I say at her door.
As for the two-hour work shift, I sign Pat up for Bar and myself for Patrol.
My feet are already aching fifteen minutes into my patrol shift. I stand between two long tables displaying silent auction items. It’s an odd assortment. On a table labeled “Pamper Yourself” sits a big basket of men’s skin products flanked by a signed script of Frasier and a pink T-shirt that says “Go Kitty.” A sign over the table on the other side says “Services.” Cards behind the bid sheets indicate an array of services, from a three-hour consultation with a divorce attorney to Pat’s voice lesson.
“Who donated the porno videos?” whispers Lana into my ear.
“There are porno videos?”
“Over there.”
Lana points to a table labeled
“Adult Entertainment.”
“You’re kidding. I thought that meant adult activities like drinks at the Skybar.”
“You can be shockingly naive.”
“Come over and look. I think someone donated a butt plug. It’s either that or a wine cork. I don’t want to touch it.” Lana tugs my arm.
“Can’t,” I say. “I’m on patrol.”
“Patrol?”
“For two hours I have to walk back and forth between the tables of auction items, to make sure no one steals anything.”
“Well, you’d better plant yourself right in front of that darling framed poster of the two kids dressed like strawberries,” says Lana. “Because that’s the first thing some crazed mom is going to rip off while no one’s looking.”
I agree that it seems odd to be standing guard over this rather ordinary stuff. The U2 guitar is in a minivan parked next to the ticket takers. If anyone wants to see it, they have to ask one of the other patrollers to let them in the van with a key she’s wearing around her neck. The guitar is one thing; but I can’t imagine anyone lifting the stuff I’m guarding. And if they tried, I don’t know what I’d do. I don’t have a whistle. There doesn’t seem to be any protocol. I think it’s a free-form thing. Would I use shame? Pointing wildly at the stealing mom, screaming, “Stealer!!!! I’ve caught a big stealer. Here she is—a lying, stealing bitch.” Is shame punitive enough? Too punitive?
After Pat comes over to slip me a glass of wine and inform me that he just bid on a ceramic ladle, I continue thinking about my role as patroller. I decide that I would sidle up to the stealing mom, lay an unfriendly hand on her shoulder, lean close to her ear, and whisper between clenched teeth, “If you put the Restoration Hardware gift certificate back down and walk away without a scene, I’m going to forget I saw you.”
I like the idea of my being some tough-love-mom-cop so much that I start to hope that I catch someone.
Lana comes back half an hour later, holding a couple of beer bottles.
“For the troops,” she says, waving the beers at me.
“Where are they?” I ask.
“They’re over there.”
She nods at Michelle and Katherine, who appear to be circling the same table.
“Someone donated an actual face-lift,” says Lana. “Katherine wants it and she’s up against a pretty determined adversary.”
“Who?”
Lana indicates a much older woman in a head scarf who sits close to the table.
“That babushka over there, keeps upping the bid by five bucks. At first I thought she was a man. But Katherine’s sure she’s a woman.”
“Whoever she is, she doesn’t look like the kind of person who would want a face-lift,” I say.
“Maybe she’s going in for some kind of extreme makeover,” Lana says. “If she gets the face-lift along with teeth veneers, a butt-lift, and an all-over chemical peel, she could end up looking like Suzanne Somers.”
I watch the scarfed old lady rise from her chair, slowly making her way over to the table, where she picks up a pen and writes something down.
“That’s it,” says Lana. “I bet she just pushed the face-lift up to fifty-five dollars.”
“How high is Katherine willing to go?”
“She said to send her home if she goes above one twenty-five.”
“Well, how much is the face-lift worth?” I ask. I haven’t a notion about what kind of money we’re talking about here, having never, not for one minute, considered cosmetic surgery. I’d rather wear a bag over my head for the rest of my life than submit to a surgeon slicing into my facial flesh, I’m that afraid of pain and permanent damage. I blacked out while getting my ears pierced.
“I think you can get a face-lift for about eighteen thousand. Unless you go to Brazil, where they do it for around seven hundred. That’s where Enrico goes.”
“Katherine’s not going above a hundred twenty-five for an eighteen-thousand-dollar procedure?”
“You’ve got to draw the line somewhere,” says Lana, squeezing past me to deliver the beers.
During my two-hour patrol I don’t get to nab any stealers, though I stiffen when I see a mom finger some bath products in a way that I would describe as suspicious. Katherine and the old lady push the face-lift bid into the eighty-dollar range. Other interested parties drop out when they see the old lady eyeball Katherine, pointing at her in a hexlike manner.
It occurs to me that the old lady may not be anyone’s guest. She seems so completely out of place that I wonder if she just strolled in off the street with a couple hundred bucks burning a hole in the pocket of her apron. In Los Angeles it’s hard to tell. The old lady could be anyone, could be an art director for TV commercials. Spence’s urologist looks like Loni Anderson. My friend tells me that Dustin Hoffman (whom he did a movie with) “looks crazy like a homeless person.” The most shocking star-in-real-life moment I had was when I met Morgan Fairchild, who looked exactly the same as she did thirty years ago. She looked so much like her I thought she must be someone else.
Nothing and no one are what they seem.
Pat is finishing up his bar shift as I sit at a table with my pals. He seems to have caught silent auction fever, having managed to slip away long enough to up our bid for a mini-pinball machine you play with your thumbs.
Lana rubs one of my feet as I look out at Marie, who swoops toward us trailing a blue silk scarf. Her skin is so unnaturally tan that she looks like she’s been lost at sea.
“It’s all going fabulously,” she says. “People are bidding like animals and the band’s about to play. Maybe someone will take off her top and dance in her bra. That’s what happened last year.”
I introduce Michelle, Lana, and Katherine.
“Marie,” I say, “is the chair of the Membership Committee for Carter Preschool.”
“I thought about running for president,” she says. “But I didn’t want to run against Richard. His wife is a regular on Strong Medicine—you know, the Lifetime doctor drama. Anyway, I figured I’d lose to him because he’s got the celebrity factor working for him.”
I smile at the ridiculous truth of this. In Los Angeles, joining particular preschools can be a way to get chummy with stars. Mommy talk on any given playground can revolve around which star’s children go to which school. An acquaintance of mine actually wet her pants when she saw Jodie Foster checking out the playground at her preschool. Frankly, I’m surprised that this acquaintance recognized Foster, as I’m told that Foster doesn’t look like Foster.
“How are you ladies doing tonight?” asks Marie, switching gears.
“Katherine’s got her eye on the face-lift,” I say, pulling my foot from Lana’s lap.
“Great choice, Katherine. Start early,” Marie says.
Katherine looks unsure about how to take this. I want to tell her that my experience with Marie has been the same. I never know if she’s meaning to insult me in her smiley fashion, or if she’s completely unaware that in a two-minute conversation she’s managed to make me feel like a voodoo doll that’s been needled several times over.
“That woman over there keeps upping the ante,” says Lana, pointing to the old lady who has pulled a chair up to the table where the bid sheet is.
Marie looks over.
“Oh,” she says. “That’s Charna. She’s a friend of my husband’s. Great actress. Used to have a recurring role on Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.”
We all look at Charna.
“She hasn’t really worked since,” says Marie. “She probably figures that a face-lift could fire up her career again.”
We watch as Charna pulls a muffin out of her pocket and starts to nibble.
Katherine sighs. “Well, now I feel awful. I don’t want to deprive a poor old woman of her last shot at the big time.”
“Yeah. You might as well give up,” says Marie. “She’s tough. She’d as soon beat you to a pulp with a bat than let you get that face-lift. I’d be amazed if you won.”
Katherine sinks lower in her chair. “Jesus. Who needs it?”
“I’ve been telling Katherine that she doesn’t need a face-lift anyway,” says Michelle.
Marie squats down in her gown so that she’s eye level with us. She looks at Katherine closely.
“It’s the eyes that really give you away,” she says. “You see this sag at the end . . .”
She points to the edge of Katherine’s eye.
Katherine says, “Sag?”
“Well, it’s a ‘droop’ really,” says Marie. “The eyes start to droop and your nose starts to drop.”
“My nose has always looked like this,” says Katherine.
“Oh,” says Marie. “I didn’t mean to say that your nose had already dropped, I’m just saying that it will. Everyone’s does.”
“All right,” says Lana. “All this talk of sagging and drooping is driving me back to the bar. Anybody want another?”
“Yup,” says Michelle.
“Sure,” says Katherine, touching her cheeks and pulling them up.
Lana nods and turns to the bar.
“I wish we had two face-lifts to auction off, instead of one,” says Marie. “I just know that Charna’s going to go to the mat for this.”
“It’s no big deal,” says Katherine, waving a dismissive hand.
“A whole face-lift—no big deal?” Marie says. She thinks, then pops up, “Ladies, come with me.”
Marie speaks with such authority that we stand up and follow her, the blue scarf rippling as she marches ahead. She stops at a bid sheet flanked by before-and-after pictures. One is a photo of small, saggy breasts.
“Ohh,” says Katherine sympathetically as she looks at the sad rack.
“This is what this guy can do for you,” Marie says, pointing to the other picture, which shows a set of round, pert, perfect breasts. They look like the breasts in fourteenth-century Flemish paintings—symmetrical and hard, like balls that have been glued to the torso.
“My,” says Michelle. “Those look really solid. I bet you could pound a nail with them.”