Single again, I decided to touch base with Tilley. I hadn’t seen her much over the last year or so and I decided that I should fix that. She was also about to turn thirty. I hadn’t ever been on a real vacation, and now was the time. I called her and we plotted a getaway to Cancún.
We stayed at a resort, one of those that give you bracelets and tell you to go nuts on the alcoholic beverages. I’ve never been fooled by those places—they don’t put enough booze in the drinks and you just end up tired and bloated from the overconsumption of blended fruit. I warned Tilley of the scam so we stocked our room with real alcohol. I started to wonder if my Cancún trip was going to mirror my Cabo trip, which in some ways worried me. In other ways, like how I might get to fuck a hot guy with an accent, it made me hopeful.
For the most part, we lay around in hammocks all day and went to bars at night. It was fun, relaxing, and it got my mind off turning thirty, until one day when we went to rent a car and one of the guys working there asked if Tilley was my daughter. I wondered if Shirley’s plastic surgery suggestion was something I should start to consider.
The final morning of our trip I woke up to the sound of the hotel phone ringing. Eyes still closed, I reached for it and put it to my ear.
“Hello?”
“Sarah?”
“Uh-huh. Who is this?”
“Ees Paco,” the voice said.
“Paco?” Tilley heard me and shot up straight in bed.
“Oh, hold on,” I said. “Must be the other Sarah.”
I started to hand Tilley the phone and she shook her head. “Nope. That’s for you.”
Confused, I listened as Paco rambled on about how it was nice to meet me and maybe he’d be able to catch up with me in L.A. “Maybe I visit soon and I has you cellphone number. Talk to you later!”
I hung up and looked at Tilley. “He has my cellphone number?”
“He does,” she said. “But don’t look at me. You gave it to him.”
“I did?” Why didn’t I remember this? I mean, I knew I had a knack for meeting guys on vacation but this was embarrassing.
Then a sudden memory flashed through my mind. “Oh … Paco …”
Paco had been cleaning off the tables at the last bar we were hanging out in (that’s my subtle way of saying that he was a busboy). I decided that he was cute and that busboys probably didn’t get enough attention, so I flirted with him and gave him my phone number—hotel and cell, just to cover all the bases. I also tipped him everything that I had in my wallet when I told him about the car rental incident and he said there was no way I looked old enough to be Tilley’s mom. He called me for about six months after that. I could hear the sounds of cars behind him and knew that he was calling from a pay phone. After a few attempts at talking I decided that when I saw an “unknown” number pop up I should always let it go to voice mail. I know I’m a good time, but the only reason a guy would be that persistent after meeting me for one night and not even having gotten sex out of it was that he needed a green card. I wasn’t that desperate yet.
When I got back home I decided that I needed to have another mini-vacation for my thirtieth birthday. Why not keep the ball rolling. Joanna had also just turned thirty. She owned an apartment in New York that she rented out. Her tenants would be gone for the holidays and she thought it would be great if we spent my actual birthday there.
Joanna didn’t mention to me that her apartment was the size of a litter box. I never knew what people were talking about when they said that the apartments in New York were tiny until I saw her place. The living room was the bedroom and the bedroom was the closet. The bathroom was so small that my knees stuck out of the door when I sat on the toilet and the kitchen was just big enough to turn on the stove and gas yourself to death in.
Her tenants left us a note that they had changed the sheets in the bunk beds and for us to make ourselves comfortable. Since that wasn’t really possible, I took the bottom bunk.
Like me, Joanna is a big baseball fan. She loves the Yankees almost as much as she loved her dog Stevie, who had passed away just prior to our visit to the city. She had had him cremated and we decided that during our trip to New York we would take him to the Yankee Stadium tour and spread him on the field. Since this was probably frowned upon, we divided Stevie up and snuck him in—in ziplock bags. I’d never been to Yankee Stadium so I thought the whole tour was great. Joanna reminded me that we were there for a purpose, and that I needed to focus.
When they took us into the dugouts and we sat on the players’ benches, I discreetly wriggled my bag of Stevie out of my coat pocket. I got it into the palm of my hand and began trying to unzip the bag. It was freezing and I was wearing gloves. I pulled a little too hard and ripped the bag open, which made the ashes sail all over the place, including onto the coat of the woman sitting next to me. She was paying too much attention to what our tour guide was saying to realize that I had just gotten cremated dog all over her, which I was grateful for. I cleared my throat until Joanna looked up and made eye contact with me. I nodded my head in the direction of the woman’s ashy coat and made an “I’m so sorry face.” She couldn’t quite tell what I was trying to say, so I whispered to her:
“Stevie’s on that lady’s coat.”
I patiently waited, dreading her reaction.
Joanna took a minute to process what I said, but eventually put it together. Her eyes welled up with tears. I thought she was going to lose it. She started laughing. “Hopefully she’s visiting from Europe,” Joanna replied. “Stevie always wanted to see Paris.”
Chelsea was also in New York that week, performing at Caroline’s Comedy Club, so Joanna and I decided to go see her on the night of my birthday. The show was really fun but I was still feeling restless. I was nervous that I was thirty and I wasn’t sure how to shake it.
We all went out after the show, and ran into some other comics whom Chelsea seemed to know. One was kind of cute. Actually he wasn’t, but I was drunk and he was flirting with me.
He told me that his name was Ryan. That reminded me that I was supposed to try to meet up with another guy named Ryan while I was in New York. I had met him in L.A. when he came in to Formosa with some friends of mine. You’d think after Nico I’d be turned off from dating customers, but in case you haven’t noticed, I always make the same mistakes at least twice. Ryan Friend of Friend had told me he was going to be in New York at the same time I was and thought maybe we could get together. I quickly went to the bathroom, texted him, then went back to the bar and flirted with Ryan Comic.
After several hours of drinking, I found myself sitting on a curb eating a huge slice of pizza while Joanna and Chelsea hailed a cab. When one finally pulled over, we all piled in the back then looked up to see that Ryan Comic had gotten in the front seat. Joanna and Chelsea looked at me. I shrugged and sighed, “It’s my birthday.” I had to make out with someone so unless one of them was up for the challenge, it looked like it was going to be Ryan Comic.
I had forgotten how small Joanna’s place was until we got back and saw it through Chelsea’s eyes. When we walked in, she looked around like she’d been taken hostage.
“Well, this is stupid,” she said. “I’m sleeping on the top bunk since it’s as far away from all of you as I can get.” With that she hopped in bed.
Joanna crawled onto the bottom bunk, so Ryan Comic and I were left to tangle up on the world’s smallest couch. We made out for about ten seconds before I decided that I wasn’t interested in him and fake passed out. He tried to wake me, but luckily I’m so good at fake passing out that I wound up passing out.
When we all woke up the next morning, Ryan Comic was gone. I checked my phone to see if Ryan Friend of Friend had called me back but he hadn’t. I felt a pang of disappointment. Chelsea and Joanna woke up and immediately started making fun of me for allowing Ryan Comic to come back with us.
“He was like thirty-eight,” Chelsea said.
“Really?” Joanna asked. “I thought he was f
orty-eight. The bald spot must have mixed me up.”
“Okay, okay, I get it,” I conceded. “But at least I didn’t do anything with him. And it could have been worse; I could have brought back the German wrestler we met at that one bar.”
“Good point,” Chelsea added. “Weren’t you supposed to leave at nine for your flight?”
“Yes,” I said. “What time is it?”
“Nine forty-five.”
I was flying out of Long Island and had completely missed the train I was supposed to take. There was barely enough time to make it, but if I took a cab I might be fine. Chelsea had to lend me a hundred dollars in order to get me to the airport. I was really starting off my thirties on the right foot. I’m also pretty sure I never paid her back. Chelsea, if you’re reading this, I owe you a hundred bucks.
When I got back to Los Angeles, I heard back from Ryan Friend of Friend. He said that he had been pretty busy while he was in New York and was sorry that we didn’t get a chance to meet up. He wondered if I’d like to go see a movie or something. I said yes.
The first date I went on with Ryan Friend of Friend was the best first date I’ve ever been on. Nothing special happened; we saw Ocean’s Twelve and went out to dinner. He scored points right off the bat by taking me to the movie first. I like it that way, because then you have something to talk about at dinner, although there isn’t a ton to dissect in a George Clooney sequel. He probably just figured if we had dinner last, when he took me home I’d still have a buzz from the nice wine he ordered, and we could fool around. He was correct.
We went to this little French place in Hollywood that I love. It’s got great food, a patio, and a good wine selection. When the bill came he opened it and said, “What the fuck did you have?” which made me laugh. I decided for that I’d let him touch my boobs.
Ryan really wasn’t my “type.” He always dressed like he was about to go on a hike, you know, like a lesbian. He loved to buy clothes at REI, which is where people shop when they are about to go on a camping trip or need bug spray for a weekend in Costa Rica. He also loved to talk about how the shirt he was wearing also repelled water or how his shoes could be worn in a lake.
“Well, are you going to a lake?” I’d ask.
“No.”
“Then why can’t you just wear land shoes?”
Regardless, it was crazy to me how much I wanted to hump him.
That hadn’t been the case when we’d first met. He’d come up to me when I was working one night to tell me that he’d been in the bar a few months before and I’d given him back the wrong credit card at the end of the night. Apparently it made a trip to Vegas a real hassle for him and he wanted to tell me all about it.
“So a few months ago I mixed up your credit card and you came in here on a Saturday night at eleven P.M. to let me know?” I asked. I was really busy, and really annoyed.
“I play softball with Mike Gould. He told me you’d think it was funny. I was mad about it all this time, but he insisted that you’re really cool. So I thought I’d just—”
“Sorry about your credit card. Can I get back to work now?” I walked off. Who is this dick?
He came back up to me later to try to explain again his motivation for telling me his story. “Hey, I wasn’t trying to bother you earlier when I told you that story. I just thought—”
“It’s not personal. I’m just really busy.”
“Okay, good. So it’s your problem,” he snapped. Then he walked away.
I told Mike later that night how annoying his friend was. He laughed. “He said the same thing about you.”
A few weeks later Ryan came back into the bar, and I wasn’t as busy. I was talking to some other customers and he overheard that I did stand-up. Then he realized he’d seen me perform before.
“You’re really funny. I saw you at the Improv a couple of months ago. I just put it together that it was you,” he told me.
That’s when I softened on him. After all, he thought I was funny.
THE CUSTOMER IS NEVER RIGHT
Unfortunately, even though Ryan and I had had a great first date, it became really obvious that he was still hung up on his ex-girlfriend. I was 75 percent sure that she was a lesbian, and I figured that since he dressed like one maybe they were meant for each other and I shouldn’t get in the middle. Either way, it was clear he was involved in an on-again, off-again relationship that always seemed like it was about to be on-again.
I was visiting my dad in Palm Desert, where he’d moved so that he could play golf on a regular basis. We went out to dinner and after five drinks I ended up telling him about Ryan.
“Sounds like a good guy,” my dad told me.
Given my dad’s track record, I made the decision to break things off with Ryan the next day. I called him on my drive home and told him we could just be friends.
“It’s obvious you and Mary are still talking, and I don’t really have an interest in dating you while you try to figure that out,” I told him flatly.
“I understand. This is sad, though, Sarah. I really like you.”
“It’s not sad. It would have been sad later, but I stopped it before it could get sad,” I told him calmly while I repeatedly blinked in order to stop the tears from flowing. “I have to go, the freeway is a mess.” I hung up and coasted home. I’d never seen the freeway so empty before.
Ryan and I became really good friends after that. I still had a huge crush on him and hanging out with him only made it worse, so I did it on a regular basis. Obviously I’d learned nothing from Andy, Patrick, and the list goes on. I continued to break my own rule of not hanging out with an ex. Since these guys were friends first, I had found a loophole.
When Ryan got back together with his ex for a while, I retaliated by dating a customer I met at Formosa. I know.
The first night I met him, Gavin was cryptic about what he did for a living. I was bartending and he was drinking—so I wrote down the name on his credit card and went home and Googled him. I quickly figured out why he wouldn’t tell me what he did for a living. Not all porn editors are proud of their jobs.
The next time that he came in I told him I knew what he did. He was definitely pursuing me and I needed to let him know that while my standards might not be high, they were higher than porn.
He explained that it was just a way to make money. He wanted to act and he wanted to edit real movies, he said, but for now editing pornography was paying the bills. He made it seem like it wasn’t a big deal. I decided to lower my standards. I needed someone to date so that I could show Ryan that I was so not interested in him. I know.
Gavin didn’t have his own place. He lived with an old man who used to be an acting teacher, or something like that. He said the old man needed help from time to time and he offered to let Gavin live in his house rent-free if Gavin could lend him a hand. So far Gavin was turning out to be a real catch. I opted to stick it out and just not tell Ryan any of those details.
I stayed the night at his house one time after we started seeing each other. It was creepy and musty and old, just like the acting teacher. He was certainly making enough money to get a small, shitty apartment, so clearly he was either really cheap or secretly involved in a twisted gay relationship with the old man.
He had two dogs and two cats and they all stayed in his bedroom with him. Apparently that was the only room that was really his. The fucking dogs were the size of grown men and they slept in his bed with him. His room was covered in Superman posters and dog hair. I still didn’t run. I know.
The Superman obsession didn’t stop with the poster. He had the giant S logo in the form of a sticker on his car. He also had a Superman tattoo. I guess I was dating a Super Loser.
Unfortunately Superman Returns came out while we were dating. I had never seen a Superman movie and I had hoped to keep it that way. Gavin, on the other hand, behaved in the days leading up to the release of that movie as if Jesus were about to pay him a visit. He even pulled one of those really
annoying moves and got tickets to the first showing at midnight the day it opened.
“I waited in line for five hours for these,” he said, beaming.
“That’s great,” I lied. Then I called Jackie and asked her if that was normal behavior for a man in his thirties.
“No, it isn’t,” she scolded me. “He’s ridiculous. Why are you still dating him?”
“Have you broken things off with that prick Colin yet?” I asked.
“No.”
“When you stop seeing him, I’ll stop seeing Gavin.”
“God, maybe I should move back onto your couch. At least then we were having some fun.”
I bought four airplane-size bottles of vodka and met Gavin at the movie theater.
“You want anything from the concession?” he asked. “We should get it now and go get a seat right up front.”
Up front at a movie? Worse—at a Superman movie. We really had nothing in common. “I just want lemonade,” I told him. “But only fill it up halfway.” It was going to be a long two hours.
The movie was horrible, and to make matters worse it was in 3-D. Twenty minutes in, I had already finished all of the alcohol I had with me and was trying to figure out if there was something in the seat that I could kill myself with. I looked over at Gavin. He was grinning from ear to ear. I don’t think I’d ever seen anybody look so happy. Oh my God, he’s retarded.
I broke things off with Gavin two days after the movie. I would have done it the next day, but I was so annoyed about the movie that I couldn’t even talk to him long enough to break up with him.
I decided to invite him to lunch and told him I thought we were going “in different directions.” He got really upset, which I wasn’t expecting.
“Is it because of the porn thing?” he asked. “I want to get out of it. It’s just that right now it pays the bills.”
Life As I Blow It Page 18