by Maria Semple
“I met the sweetest guy today,” Violet said. “A bass player.”
All day Violet had been analyzing what had happened between her and Teddy. All day she had reached the same conclusion: nothing. Their meeting was purely accidental. She had made it clear she was married. She’d probably never see him again. But paying to have his car fixed was trickier to rationalize. Technically, it was David’s money. But he had just given a bunch to a charity for struggling musicians. And if he did happen across the mechanic’s bill — which he wouldn’t, as all the bills went straight to the accountant — Violet would say she’d helped a struggling musician.
Still, as Violet kept combing over the details of her strange encounter — Teddy’s soulful eyes, the way he kept repeating what she said as if she were the most mesmerizing person in the world, how safe she felt when he took her hand, how their banter made her twinkle, how she practically dared him to kiss her, the desperation she felt offering to fix his car, and the insanity as she tried to play it down — her shame intensified. She kept having to remind herself that nothing illicit had happened. No self-exculpation was necessary. If it were, would she be telling her husband?
“He was playing at a health fair,” she added. “I helped him get his car fixed.”
“I’m going to get Tara McPherson to do some artwork for the Troubadour shows,” David said. He shot antiplaque rinse into his mouth and swished it around.
“That’s a great idea.” Violet stepped into the closet. She quickly changed into her pajamas while David was occupied with his teeth, to ensure he wouldn’t see her naked. “Oh,” she said, emerging from the closet, “I sent Sally a belt from Hermès. One of those orange ones with the H buckles. It’s a bit arriviste for me, but she likes that kind of thing.”
“I’ll get Tara to do some T-shirts for the guys at KROQ,” David said. “They did me a real solid playing that single.”
Violet felt a pang every time David ignored what she said. In a college psych book, she once read that conversations were like contracts between people. Everyone would prefer to talk all the time, but if they did, the person they were talking to would lose interest and end the conversation. Therefore, in order to keep talking, a person had to stop talking and listen to the other person. Then, and only then, could they continue talking themselves. At the time, Violet had found it cynical. But after sixteen years of marriage, what she would give! She didn’t expect David to genuinely care about a person she’d helped, or a present she’d bought for his sister, but he could at least act as if he cared. One time, as an experiment, Violet had decided to only listen to what he said and never bring anything up about herself. After a couple of days, he grew depressed and became hostile toward her. Still, he had never asked a single question about her day or how she was. Violet had secured her proof that he was a selfish asshole, but she felt terrible to have been responsible for any strife. The whole thing taught her to every day volunteer something about herself. Even knowing it would be met with indifference.
Violet put on her new hat.
“Hey, look at you in that hat,” David said. “What a cutie you are.” He blew her a kiss in the mirror and headed off to bed.
JEREMY didn’t protest as Sally led him to the bedroom and shut the door. “Do you have to use the restroom?” he asked.
That’s what was so weird about the way he spoke, Sally realized. His voice had no inflection. She was about to change that, and how. She took the beer out of his hand and set it on the dresser.
“Forgive me,” she said, “but there’s something I have to do.” She kissed him. He stood there with frozen eyes. She kissed him again.
This time he puckered back with a loud “Mmwwaa.” Mmwwaa was the sound your grandmother made when she kissed you. Sally tickled his lips with her tongue, caught an opening between his teeth, and wedged them apart. She went in for a slow, sensual kiss. His tongue flapped wildly in her mouth. “Mmwwaa.” He pulled his head back and wiped the saliva off his face. “What?” He was breathing heavily. “What do you have to do?”
“Make love.” Sally kissed him again and undid his top button.
“Here?” His voice cracked.
“That’s right.” She walked him to the foot of the bed and pushed him onto the mountain of purses and coats. She straddled him with straight legs to showcase her flexibility. He grabbed her ass. She gave him a few seconds to register the firmness of her glutes. She slalomed her tongue up his cheek to his ear, then recoiled when she hit something synthetic. Weird, he had earplugs in. “Take off your pants,” she whispered. She climbed off the bed and locked the door. When she turned around, his tighty-whiteys were nestled in his cords at his ankles. Everything about him was reedy and pale: his dick, his thighs, his pubic hair.
Sally unwrapped her dress, appreciating how sexy it must look as it poured onto the floor. Because of her firm, small breasts, she could get away with going braless. In thong and heels, she sashayed toward Jeremy in big pronounced steps. (It was a walk she had learned at a bridal shower years ago, where a stripper had been hired to give the girls lessons.) In one move, Sally slipped one leg out of her underwear and raised her turned-out leg so her foot was next to Jeremy’s waist. Not something he got the pleasure of seeing every day, she was sure of that. He grabbed a breast in each hand and pulsed them. She smiled once, then again to mask a wince. The last thing Sally needed was for Jeremy to come before they made love, which she knew was a serious possibility. Therefore, she couldn’t risk licking or even touching his penis. She wanted them to come together this time, their first time, for the romance.
“You turn me on so much,” she said. “I swear, I think I might come as soon as you stick it in me.” She picked up his dick, now thick and vanilla, like a Twinkie, and lowered herself onto it. Jeremy’s eyes rolled back in his head. She knew it — he was coming! She let out a yelp and faked it, “Jeremy! Jeremy!” He closed his eyes and gulped. “Oh God,” she said. “Did you come, too?”
“Yes.” His eyes were still closed.
Sally rolled onto her side and covered her face with her hands. “I’m so embarrassed.”
His eyes flew open, but he didn’t look over.
“I’ve never done that before,” she said. “I bet you do that to all the girls, naughty boy.”
“Do what?” His eyes moved across the ceiling, as if he were counting the white cork tiles.
“Drive the girls crazy with your statistics.”
“No girl has ever done that to me.” Jeremy pulled his pants up and shuddered, as if the cheapness of what happened had just penetrated him. He fixed his eyes on the floor.
Sally could tell she was losing him. They had both partaken in the desperate act of a middle-aged woman in a Marina del Rey condo. She was lying naked, a stranger’s sperm dripping out of her onto someone’s jean jacket. All because she had played it wrong too many times before. The married travel agent who didn’t leave his wife for her like he had promised; the Pepperdine law student who had moved in with her for two years, then dumped her the day he passed the bar for some paralegal who “was a better fit intellectually”; the would-be garment king who had talked her into bankrolling his leather jacket business, then dumped her, along with twenty-six grand of credit card debt in her name.
This one Sally would play right. She pulled her knee into her chest, then twisted so her back was arched and her breasts were well showcased. A classic sexy pose, like those early shots of Marilyn Monroe, only Sally wasn’t so fat. “Well, did you like it?” she purred.
“Yes.”
“Don’t make me do it again,” she said with a tease. She didn’t want a big wet spot on her dress. She grabbed something from the bed and cleaned herself off. Whoops. It was Maryam’s scarf. Sally kicked it under the bed and got dressed.
There was a knock on the door. The knob rattled. Sally ignored it. “Would you like to do it again sometime?” she asked.
“Yes.” Jeremy patted his pockets. Sally could relax: he wanted a pen to wr
ite down her number.
“Sally! Jeremy! Are you in there?” It was Maryam, of course.
“Maybe we could go on a date.” Sally fixed Jeremy’s collar. “You could send a car to pick me up.”
“That could happen.” Jeremy had a sweet submissiveness that was starting to grow on her. Sally’s type was usually hot guys with hot cars. Like Kurt and his white Jeep Wrangler. How she had loved driving around LA with him, her hair flapping in the wind, a Starbucks venti in one hand, the other clinging to the roll bar for dear life. If Don Henley had ever seen them, she was convinced he would have starred them in his next music video. Sally smiled now just remembering it.
“Sally! Are you in there?” Maryam again.
Sally grabbed her coat and swung open the door. “There you are!” she said. “Jeremy had to pee and I was just getting my coat.” Sally turned. Jeremy stood in the dim light, flipping a quarter in the air, slapping it on his hand, then doing it again. He must have not found that pen after all. . . .
“If you want a ride home,” Maryam said, “we have to leave now. I’m sure my cat is peeing all over my comforter as we speak.”
“God, okay. I’m ready.” Sally tossed Maryam her jacket. “Here you go.”
“Where’s my scarf?”
“You didn’t have it on when you came in,” said Sally.
“But —”
“It’s in the car,” Sally snapped. She reached into her pocket and found the single business card she’d tucked in especially for this occasion. She slipped it to Jeremy. “Call me.” She gave him a peck on the cheek.
“Mmwwaa,” he said.
CHAPTER TWO
From One to Ten
THE SPLASH OF COLD WATER HELPED. AT LEAST IT WOULD MASK THE TEARS streaming down her cheeks. Violet opened her eyes and stared at herself in the mirror, something she normally took great pains to avoid. She obviously wasn’t beautiful, or people would have said so. But was one feature in particular the culprit? She had big eyes, long lashes, high cheekbones, a nice-enough nose. Maybe it was her mouth. Her mouth might be too small, her lips too thin. Or was it her chin? In some pictures it looked pointy and witch-like. Violet had always wanted to know what number she’d be on a scale from one to ten. She once asked David. “Whoooaaa,” he had said, “there’s no right answer to that question.” She promised not to get all weird on him. He relented and told her she was an eight. She thanked him for the compliment but secretly went wild with insecurity. Why just an eight? Was she really a six, and he added two to keep the peace? Would he someday leave her for a nine? God knows he was surrounded by them. Years back, when one of his bands was playing the Coliseum, Violet went to find David in his makeshift office, the production trailer. In the tiny bathroom, she saw a Perfect Ten magazine. It made her want to collapse.
Thump. Thump. Thump. The swift pounding of David’s heels heralded a confrontation. This one promised to be a doozy. An hour ago, in the middle of their private yoga class, David had spotted the dead gopher at the bottom of the Jacuzzi. The one Violet had completely forgotten to take care of. David castigated her in front of the yoga teacher. Ten minutes later, Violet excused herself to the bathroom, and had been here ever since.
“Honey!” David entered, sweaty from yoga. “What happened? Why didn’t you come back?”
“I couldn’t deal with yoga today.” Violet blotted her face.
David took a breath. She knew he was trying to control his temper. All she could do was wait and hope. “Shiva wanted to confirm our place at the yoga retreat next month,” he said.
“I’ll call her about it later.” Violet opened the shower door and turned on the steam.
“Wait a second,” he said. “Are you crying?”
“No, I’m fine.”
“Is it the gopher?”
“No, it’s —”
“What the fuck else am I supposed to do? I’m standing there trying to balance on one leg, and Shiva says pick a spot to focus on. So I look into the Jacuzzi and I see the same dead gopher that was there — what — two weeks ago?”
“You were right to yell,” Violet said, instantly regretting it.
“Yell? I would hardly call that yelling.”
“I know, I know.”
“Really. Let’s get Shiva on the phone and ask her if I yelled at you. I was merely expressing my very authentic and justifiable shock. You said you’d take care of it two weeks ago. Come on, Violet, what’s going on? I used to be able to rely on you.”
“I’ll go fish it out now.” Violet headed out.
“Violet, stop.” She froze in place, as if playing red-light-green-light. “Every time I come home,” he said, “there’s some truck in the driveway and a Mexican I’ve never seen before walking around scowling. Have one of them get the gopher out of the Jacuzzi.”
Violet couldn’t stand him looking at her fat ass anymore. She turned around and walked toward the shower. “Okay, I will.”
David intercepted her and gave her a big hug. She stood on her tiptoes and looked into his eyes. They were so gorgeous and mournful, even when he was angry. “It’s just that I trust you,” he said. “When you say you’re going to do something, you usually do it. I’ve grown to expect it from you. Remember, you’re UV-A, not UV-B.”
UV-B: Violet despised being called that. David’s first nickname for her, Ultraviolet, was endearing. Ultraviolet had morphed into Ultra, and then UV-A. One day, many years ago, when she accidentally locked her keys in her car, Violet had jokingly referred to herself as UV-B. Even though it had originated with her, UV-B struck her as unspeakably cruel coming from her husband.
David got undressed and stepped into the steam. The door sealed shut behind him.
Violet knew she deserved this. She hadn’t worked in five years. She didn’t have to quit her job, but the hours were brutal and she had grown to despise the executives with their idiotic notes. As David had put it, she was too rich to let people dumber than she was have power over her. Plus, it was time to get serious about getting pregnant. She’d been off the pill for a year and nothing had happened. Before she resorted to in vitro, Violet decided to quit her job. A week later, driving down Mulholland, she saw an open-house sign at the bottom of a long driveway she’d always wondered about. On a lark, she went up. She got out of the car and found herself pulled up the exposed aggregate stepping-stones, through the Aleppo pines, and into a glass box on five acres overlooking Stone Canyon Reservoir. The realtor was in the yard talking to a client, so Violet walked through the house alone. It was as if a benevolent force guided her from room to room. Violet had been in a few Richard Neutra houses before and knew instinctively that this was his and arguably one of his best. The place had been neglected since the sixties and needed a ton of work. Still, she raced down the hill to David’s office, alive with images of David and her living in the house, entertaining in the house, bringing their elusive baby home from the hospital to the house. Without removing his headset, David had said that if she really wanted it, she could offer full asking price. He didn’t need to see it. He trusted her. She was UV-A.
How could she have foreseen that the house would be her undoing? The restoration and addition cost four times the estimate and took three times as long. Overnight, Violet shape-shifted from in-demand, Emmy-winning writer to resident dunce. Every day David pummeled her with questions she couldn’t know the answers to. Why didn’t the electrician show up? Who scratched the brand-new floors? Why did the decorator charge twenty grand for a throw rug? How did that window get broken? Why did they deliver the wrong tile? But the house was Violet’s big idea, so she stoically accepted her role as human bucket for David to vomit into. In addition to the daily drubbings, she was paying for the remodel with her own money and ended up burning through her entire savings. When they finally moved in, Violet was pregnant and, for the first time in her life, unemployed and without a penny to her name. David had no reaction to the news that she’d need to start sending her bills to his accountant. She knew it was
a fair trade. Lots of women would gladly get called a dumb fuck a couple times a week in exchange for not having to work.
Steam hissed from the cracked shower door. “Ultra?” David stuck his head out. “Aren’t you coming in?”
“One second.” Violet opened the medicine cabinet and lifted the colorful Venetian glass votive they’d gotten on their honeymoon, crammed tight with Q-tips. Underneath was the business card she couldn’t throw away but hadn’t dared touch.
TEDDY REYES
BASS PLAYER
Violet closed the cabinet door and gave her face a hard look. Her skin was holding up well. From one to ten, she’d give herself a seven, with room for improvement.
CHAPTER THREE
Goodnight Nobody Kate Mantilini Hamburger Hamlet / El Torito
Learn to Park Where Would It Be? The Putting Green
Flatland What Positions Do You Like?
SALLY WAS FOUR BLOCKS FROM JEREMY’S BUILDING WHEN SHE STARTED LOOKING for a parking space. His street was nothing but apartments, which meant there was never any place to park. It made Sally want to scream. She trolled the endless stretch of crammed cars and had to remind herself: when Jeremy became a giant TV star and they were married and living in Beverly Hills, she’d be nostalgic for the days she fretted over finding a parking space in the valley.
A car pulled out — smack in front of Jeremy’s building! Sally gunned it and waved to the exiting Cadillac. The old boat had left so much room that Sally was able to glide right in, headfirst, without having to go into reverse even once. She turned off the ignition, then thought of something: if this was her one allotment of good luck for the day, did she really want to waste it on a parking space? Maybe she should park somewhere else. A car pulled up alongside her. The driver gave Sally an exasperated are-you-staying-or-are-you-going look and threw up her hands. That settled it. No way was Sally going to gift this biotch with a primo parking space. She pulled the key out of the ignition.