It quickly became obvious that Smelly Melly and the blonde did not have a stable relationship. I often heard him on the phone yelling at his wife while I sat in my office and prayed that he would fire me. He acted like I couldn’t hear a thing. Instead of making me contact therapists for the anger issues I am assuming he had, he grabbed me by my hips and sat me in his lap like he was a mall Santa. I’d get up and tell him to leave me alone, and he’d laugh it off like he was joking around and I was taking it way too seriously.
Nobody in the office was a decent person. One of the partners was a pudgy Hispanic man with a beard and a bad attitude. He was really picky about his lunch, even though it was always from Subway. One day he ordered his usual ham sandwich and asked me to make certain it was “Virginia ham.” I rolled my eyes and went to get him the same ham sandwich I’d gotten him every day for the past three months. When I returned I was in mid-thought about whether or not picking up lunch was actually the job of the receptionist when Angry Hispanic Partner Guy snatched the sandwich out of my hand.
“Is this Virginia ham?” he asked curtly.
“It’s ham,” I replied. “They only have one kind.”
“I only eat Virginia ham!” he exploded. “Did you make sure that’s what you ordered?”
“It’s the same thing you’ve been eating since I started working here.”
“Go back and make sure it’s Virginia ham.”
“It’s Subway. You’re lucky if it’s from a pig, let alone Virginia,” I told him. “This job is stupid and your partner is a pervert. Get your lunch yourself, and maybe try choking on it,” I said calmly. Then I left and never returned. Fuck that noise.
I was making enough money waiting tables that I felt like I didn’t need to have my ass grabbed by a sex-crazed redhead’s hand every morning at 8 A.M. or try to locate what fucking farm a piece of ham was raised on. So far the only perk of the job had been the one time Christopher McDonald came into the office. He was my favorite from Thelma & Louise, and when he walked into the building I got butterflies. It was the only moment that I thought I might actually be working at a legitimate company. It turned out he was at the wrong address. I pointed him in the right direction and fantasized that I worked at the office that he had been looking for in the first place. It was probably a real production company where they had several selections of ham and none of them was from Subway.
I did meet a cute guy while I was working there. He worked in production of some sort and drove an old VW bus. He was tall and scruffy, just how I like them. I’ve probably only gone out with two guys who fit that description in my life, and neither of them lasted for more than a few weeks. My “type” never makes for a great boyfriend, but they’re usually pretty good in bed.
His name was Ben and he was kind of a mess, but he was really cute. He had a lack of responsibility that I found endearing. At times it’s fun to date a guy who doesn’t seem to care about anything, like the times I’m feeling lost and want to seem as if I have my shit together.
The first time we went out, Ben took me to an Italian place in Venice Beach. Taking me to a family-owned Italian restaurant always scores huge points. Someone once tried to take me to an Olive Garden, so I made him take me home.
The restaurant was great. Romantic atmosphere, great food, good wine. The only bummer was that he picked me up, so I had to ride in his old VW bus for forty minutes. The windows rattled, and if we went over a small bump it felt like the whole car would collapse. I can’t stand people who think it’s cool to drive old fucked-up cars that barely function, just because they’re vintage. It seems like an excuse not to buy a new car, and it usually is.
He paid for dinner, so at least he had some manners. I’d been out with enough “let’s go dutch” guys since I’d moved to L.A., and I had zero interest in going out with another. I don’t give a shit what people say about feminism, equality, whatever; every girl wants the guy to get the check on the first date. If they say they don’t mind, they’re lying.
After seeing the inside of his van I certainly didn’t want to see his apartment. If it was even a quarter as dirty, I’d never be able to lie on any of his furniture, and what I had in mind for that night required me to be on my back. I knew Tilley wouldn’t be home, so we went back to my place.
I decided I wanted to be sexy so I made him wait on the couch while I covered the bathroom with white candles, undressed, and called him in to join me in the bathtub—which I had filled with bubbles—so that we could have sex. The next day, when I told Tilley about my romantic night, she reminded me that only last week the bathtub had backed up and we’d spent hours scrubbing brown sludge out of it.
“That’s nasty,” she scolded me. “We have no idea what the hell was coming out of that drain.”
“I forgot.”
“Forgot? It took us three hours to clean out! Gross. The only time bathtub sex is hot is at a hotel or if you have one of those big fancy tubs. We have a crappy old rusty one and last week there was shit in it.”
“Oh my God, I had sex in a bathtub that had shit in it.”
“That’s what I just said. Maybe call your gyno and go get a checkup. So do you like him? Are you going out again?”
“I don’t think so,” I told her. “He’s pretty cute, but I don’t think he works more than once a month. I want to date someone with a little more ambition.”
“So you had sex with him because you knew it wasn’t going anywhere?” she asked.
“Exactly!” I replied, excited that I had a friend in L.A. who really understood me.
Tilley and I eventually graduated to a two-bedroom apartment. It was in a very busy area, right behind a bar named Tom Bergen’s. Bergen’s is an old Irish pub and they have shamrocks all over the walls and ceiling with celebrities’ names written on them boasting who has come in over the years. When I saw Kiefer Sutherland’s shamrock I knew the bar was my kind of place.
I called the area we lived in the concrete jungle. That was before Jay-Z called New York a concrete jungle and made it sound cool. It was a shitty gray neighborhood and the only view was asphalt. We were on the second floor and the heat pounded right through our sad little balcony door. The only air-conditioning was a tiny window unit and you could only feel cool air if you stood right in front of it and positioned your head just a little to the right. It was so bad that I actually missed the trundle bed.
I had been doing stand-up pretty regularly since I had left the dumb production job, and I was still working at Mirabelle. Chelsea was still doing comedy, too, so we went around to places together and got to know a lot of comics. A few of the places we went were okay, but most of them sucked. She even dragged me to a Starbucks across from the Beverly Center mall one night.
“We’re doing stand-up at Starbucks?”
“Yes,” she told me. “I know it sounds dumb but it’s supposed to be a good crowd.”
We walked in and there were two people there. Neither was there for comedy; they were there for Frappuccinos. Apparently the woman who “booked” it also forgot to show up, so the angry girl working at the counter helped us plug in an amp in the corner and told us to “have fun.”
Chelsea made me go first, and I quickly scared off the two people in the room.
“Next week I’ll try to get us a gig at Jamba Juice,” she told me as we walked out.
“You aren’t even gonna buy a latte?” I heard the angry counter girl yell as the door shut behind us.
A few nights later we were out at yet another bad open mic and I met this guy named Kevin. Kevin was a redhead and a comic. The red hair bugged me; I still had a bad taste in my mouth from my experience with Smelly Melly. Kevin was cute, though. He was from Boston and had a fun accent. We’d just met and he was being really flirtatious with me. I liked how bold he was.
Turns out, he wasn’t bold: He was just drunk. He got my email from a mutual friend and the next day wrote me a long email apologizing for hitting on me. I started to get kind of annoyed as I was
reading it. Nobody wants to wake up to an email from a guy that says, “I’m so sorry I hit on you, I was drunk out of my mind.” But he redeemed himself at the end of the email by saying that he thought I was cute and he wondered if I’d give him a chance to go out with him sober. I agreed, hoping the “sober” part was just him being funny.
On our first date, we hit it off pretty well. He wasn’t the kind of guy who made me laugh out loud, but he made me smile with his jokes and on top of it he seemed really responsible. Comedy was more of just something he was trying, but he didn’t expect it to pay his bills. He wore button-down shirts and had a job at Universal Studios. I never really understood what he did there, but it was a real job and he had health benefits. I was a little tired of dating losers, so his togetherness appealed to the part of me that was looking to get my shit together.
The night I had met Kevin he’d been in rare form. It turned out he wasn’t a big drinker at all. He started work at 8 A.M. every weekday and was in bed by 10 P.M. every week-night. Once in a while he’d have a little fun on the weekends, but that usually just meant he’d stay up until eleven. I wasn’t sure how our lifestyles were going to fit together, but I was determined to give it a try. It was time for something to change.
Kevin and I became boyfriend and girlfriend, and I liked it. I had missed having a boyfriend. Tilley had one. Chris Franjola and her had started dating, and they were having fun. I didn’t want to be the single friend anymore, and now I wasn’t. Finally when Tilley would come home and tell me funny stories about her and Chris, I could relate. If he did something to piss her off, I knew what that was like because I had a boyfriend, too. If he made her laugh, chances were good that Kevin had almost made me laugh that day, so I could just punch up the story and make it seem like he was a blast.
In the meantime, Chelsea and I continued to go to Red Rock. I tried really hard to just stay home and watch TV with Kevin, but I found it very daunting. I was annoyed that though he seemed like such a good time the night that I’d met him, he was more of a wet blanket. For the most part he wanted to order in and rent a movie. I liked that sometimes, I really did—but I didn’t like it five nights a week. I found myself pretending I’d get off work later than I actually did so that I could stay out past midnight without pissing him off.
I wasn’t doing anything wrong when I was out. I never cheated on him. I just wasn’t ready to spend every night on the couch. At the same time I wasn’t ready to go back to being single. I was sure that I was supposed to be with someone like Kevin and that if I could just be myself when he wasn’t around I could be the kind of girlfriend he wanted when he was.
Since I loved waking up with a boyfriend, I’d go to his apartment even if I was out past his bedtime. I had a key, which made me feel very adult, and if I was “working late” he told me to just let myself in. The next morning I’d stir a little while he got ready for his important job, then I’d fall right back to sleep for a couple of hours and go to my place later, after I ate breakfast, since he kept a well-stocked fridge. All I had in my apartment was a tub of whipped cream, which I was never able to look at the same again after the time I came home drunk and opened some, saw a huge handprint right down the middle, and noticed that Tilley’s bedroom door was closed.
Kevin’s irritation with my love of drinking was growing. He didn’t think it was as cute as I did that I liked to stay at Red Rock until 3 A.M. Since so far the only really impressive thing he’d done was get some of my friends into Universal Studios for free, I wasn’t sure why he acted like he was so much better than me or the people I hung out with. He thought it was time that I grew up, but I was only a couple of years into my twenties.
You’d think I would have just broken up with him, but that didn’t really occur to me. I was still new to L.A. and I wanted someone to be in the trenches with. I didn’t realize yet that it was enough to have good friends. I was searching for what everyone back home told me they already had.
One morning after Kevin went to work I decided to sit at his desk and do some writing. I wanted to feel productive, but if I went home to my place I would usually get distracted and end up at happy hour searching for shamrocks of old TV stars. I spotted a notebook and went to rip some paper out of it when I noticed my name at the top of a page. Underneath my name there was what looked like a list. I’m not one of those people who have the willpower to shut a notebook when it clearly says something about them. I still, at thirty-six, peek at my presents when I go home for Christmas. Patience isn’t one of my strong suits.
The page with my name on it was full of dates and abbreviations. It read something along the lines of:
11/7 RR w/CH 2 am call
11/8 RR w/ST 1 am call
And the list went on. It took me little time to figure out that “RR” was Red Rock, “CH” was Chelsea Handler, and “ST” was Sarah Tilley. There were other names and bars, but you get the idea. Kevin was keeping a list of when I went out, who I went out with, and what time I called him to let him know that I was coming over. It was pretty fucking creepy.
I immediately called Chelsea to tell her what I had found. She suggested I gather my things, go home, and never speak to Kevin again. I agreed with the “never speak to him again” part, but I had to confront him first.
“What are you going to say to him?” she asked.
“Just that I found this, that it’s borderline illegal, and that I’m breaking up with him.”
“I’m glad to hear that you draw the line at what appears to be stalking.”
“Thanks. If I’m not at Red Rock by eight tonight, have the police check his dumpster for my head.”
I hung up and called Kevin.
He got really excited when he heard my voice. “Hey! What ’cha up to?” he said with his annoying Boston accent.
“Oh, I’m still at your place. I thought I’d sit down and write for a bit.”
“Great! Come up with any new stuff?” he asked.
“I have a pretty good story, actually. It’s not all fleshed out yet, but it should get a good laugh when I tell it onstage,” I said drily. “Anyway, I borrowed some paper out of your notebook. Hope that’s okay.”
“Sure, why would I care if you borrowed paper?”
“Well, if you run out of paper how are you going to log my nightly activities?”
He was silent for a few seconds.
“Oh, that!” he laughed. “That’s my notes for my stand-up!”
“You’re writing jokes about what time I come home and what bars I go to? Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but those jokes aren’t funny.”
“No, it’s just … you do so many funny little things … ha ha ha ha, I just thought I should write them down so I can talk about my girlfriend in my act, you know?” He was really reaching.
“These aren’t ‘funny little things’ that I do. You didn’t write down that I alphabetize my CDs or that I set my alarm three times in a row before going to bed; you wrote down where I go and who I’m with!”
We went back and forth for a little bit, but he finally admitted that he was keeping tabs on me. He said that he felt like I went out way too much for someone who was in a relationship and that he started to write it down so that when he approached me about it, he’d have ammunition. He was correct, I did go out too much, but keeping a journal of it wasn’t any better.
“How about just saying ‘I think you go out too much’?” I asked him. “That would have been far more efficient.”
I told him that there was no way we were dating anymore and hung up. I grabbed my stuff, went to my car, checked underneath for a bomb, and drove home. I was a little relieved because I knew he wasn’t the right guy for me in the long run, but I found myself crying and I wasn’t sure why I felt sad at all.
The me now knows why it hurt. I was living far away from my family. I was a waitress, and I was broke. Having a boyfriend made me feel like I was doing one thing right, and now that that was over I was back to doing everything wrong.
>
When I got home I told Tilley what happened and she started laughing. I stared at her, wondering where the sympathy was, then a few seconds later I started laughing, too. I got myself ready and went to meet CH at RR. When it turned 1 A.M. I was relieved that I didn’t have to call anybody to check in, and that in turn nobody could write down what time I had called.
BIKINI ROCK BOTTOM
Shortly after I ended things with Kevin, I booked my first commercial. I was more excited than you can imagine. I finally had my first acting job and I had gotten it all on my own. I felt a new sense of independence.
The commercial was for Sprint Canada. I played a girl who sees Candice Bergen on a plane and tells her all about how I met a guy on vacation in Greece and we stayed in touch through Sprint Canada and now we’re engaged. It reminded me of Marc. Yes, we met in Mexico, not Greece. We stayed in touch through email, not Sprint. We were not engaged; in fact we hadn’t talked for a few months. Other than that, this commercial was our relationship.
My mom found it very disappointing that my first acting job wouldn’t be airing in the United States, but I assured her there were many more to come and that this particular job was really just a sign for me to get back in touch with Marc. I figured since he lived in Canada, he’d probably see the commercial. The least he deserved was a heads-up. I was so excited for a reason to reach out to him since I was completely bored in the guy department. I emailed him and anxiously awaited a response, but after a couple of weeks with no word, I assumed I wasn’t going to hear back.
Life As I Blow It Page 13