Girl Act

by Kristina Shook

  “Don’t become bitter or angry, no matter how bad a man treats you, just move on,” she said and those words hung over us, like a glass about to fall from a shelf.

  “What about oral sex?” Paloma had asked.

  “Make sure to have oral done to you, since men like their penis in your mouth, and they expect admiration.”

  We both cracked up—I don’t remember what else, or if anything else was discussed because I was still laughing. At the time I had no penis envy. In fact, I thought the penis hanging with the scrotum sacs looked weird.

  “Girls, you must know the lips of your vagina,” she had told us.

  “How?” Paloma had asked.

  “Masturbate every day,” she had answered with deep-seated conviction.

  Masturbation? Was I ever naïve. See, I had thought only boys jerked off—that only boys had wet dreams, because they got to have ‘boners’ and we didn’t. “M.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.e,” Paloma had repeated like she was learning a new foreign word and didn’t want to forget it. Paloma lived by that rule.

  While I lumbered along tearfully, full of uncertainty and confusion, my body wanted so much sex. Penises flew through my dreams like obnoxious clouds and yet my mind told me that I couldn’t have a penis without love. When I gave in at that party in the closet, it wasn’t for pleasure, it was out of desperation—I wanted the sex to be hard and fast, and it was. Like I said, he was a nobody and I was, too.

  Paloma had it better. I guess I have always envied her. She and the Washington Square Park guy—actually an NYU Freshman did ‘it’ the right way. He licked and kissed her everywhere for two weeks and then they had sex. She called me up and said, “I like sex. It’s as good as the West Village lady told us it would be.” Ugh, I wish had been more like her.

  Anyway, New York City looked the same, filled with a mix of old and modern buildings, all fighting to be respected. The city’s color is light grey.

  “You can’t destroy our spirit,” Paloma had said a few days after 9/11.

  It’s always been that way; 9/11 just reinforced that belief for the whole country, or so I like to think.

  In Los Angeles, the colors are white and neutral for fashion, with accessories in bright colors, but in New York City, even in the summertime, you wear black. Paloma prefers everything she wears to be bright, bold and clingy. We stood grinning at each other—we had been cell phone friends for too many years, and now that was over and I felt so relieved.

  “You didn’t get killed by gunshot, I’m so damn happy. You know, I would have been destroyed if you had,” she said and we hugged. We had never really talked about my being held up at gunpoint in the Hancock Park section of LA.

  “I gotta ‘heart’ plan for us,” Paloma announced after we dropped my suitcase and bags in her apartment and took Shadow to Central Park. It is one of the best parks in the world—even though I haven’t seen all of the parks. We plunked down in the middle of Strawberry Fields. We weren’t the only ones there, as usual. Paloma took out two Tiffany boxes from her crimson leather bag. In each was a thin, silver-chain with a delicate silver heart hanging from it. She gave one to me.

  “This is for attracting ‘true’ love,” she said.

  She put hers on and I held mine in my hands, and then we made a pact out loud to find ‘true’ love and to claim it forever. “We hereby say no more casual dating, no more yo-yo relationships. YES to true love that leads to getting engaged, getting married and having a family to love and cherish deeply forever and ever.”

  Paloma had just dumped her on-again-off-again boyfriend for good. It might sound selfish and immature, but I was so glad we were both single at the same time, and that she had a love plan for us. She was the one who thought up my move out West, so I could have a thousand experiences, and I did. Of course, I had thought I was moving to Hollywood to be discovered, to become a big-name actress. Oh well, not every dream comes true.

  14

  RITUALS

  Okay, so now it was time for me to prepare, I had three seriously important events coming up: 1.) Going to my father’s place. 2.) Seeing my Aunt Helen die. 3.) The ‘true’ love pact. That meant doing rituals. Thank God, I had gone to the Hollywood Y’s counseling center for those $25.00 an hour sessions, because that’s where I had learned about the power of rituals. Like I said before, that amazing counseling-girl-in-training had totally helped me. Well, she introduced me to mini-rituals, as well as putting an end to my bar hopping.

  “Vivien, don’t give your mind that much time to worry or be sad. Limit it.” She had said, during one of my sessions.

  “Limit it? Like, how?” I had asked—I know, I sounded like a ‘Valley Girl’ minus the ‘Like totally’.

  She suggested that I buy glass jars with cork stoppers from the 99-Cent Store and fill them with my ‘worried’ or ‘sad’ thoughts. For twenty minutes every morning I scribbled as many worries as I had—and then stuffed them into the jars. Wow, I ended up filling five jars in two months. Good news, it worked!

  She had said, “Whatever ritual you do, just believe it will work and never dis-believe.”

  Now that I was in NYC I was going to stay at Paloma’s for a few days. So I had the chance to get my mind, body, spirit, and heart ready.

  For my first ritual—I went and got my teeth cleaned at my old dentist, Dr. Underly’s office. I met him during my college years, and he had acted like my shrink, my priest, my go-to older platonic male confidant. Of course he kept my teeth healthy, while he listened to me with genuine interest and concern. Back then, I was overfilled with many worries, anxiety over guys and fear about whether I was going to make it ‘big’ as an actress.

  Here I was, all these year later, coming to see him after not having made it ‘big’ in Hollywood. And I was ‘single’ again. Dr. Underly is a handsome, athletic man, who loves his wife and being a dentist. He once said, “Vivien, it must be hard to be you!” and I didn’t say a thing. I just nodded, and now I was ready to tell him—he was right—a hundred percent right. Go figure.

  His office used to be in Bronxville, but he had relocated to another town, so I headed to Grand Central, my favorite train station in the whole wide world, and took a train out to see him. His face looked older, but he was still athletic and still handsome. I told him all about ‘failing’ in Hollywood, how I had nothing to show for my years there and all the time I spent when I could have been hanging out with my Aunt Helen. And I cried; I couldn’t help it. He just listened, and when I stopped crying, he said, “You didn’t fail. You just have to wait and see what happens now. Don’t be surprised if it’s better than what you imagined.” A few minutes later his hygienist came in and cleaned my teeth and my dental confession was done.

  I left his office feeling semi-better. Back in the city, I took Shadow to Central Park, telling myself to write it out. I knew I needed to scribble out 100 fears, and that’s just what I did. I scribbled out 100 fears on Post-its. Okay, so not exactly 100 different fears—I repeated some of the same ones over and over.

  After that I went to dinner with Diego, Paloma’s brother, who is super good-looking, as in ‘hot’. First we headed down to SoHo to walk around. As I said, Diego is hot looking. That means not only do women check him out, but men do, too. He’s 5’8”, 180, toned, with stunning Latin skin and razor-cut hair. And he’s a construction worker. If they ever do a construction worker calendar, he would be the hottest one.

  So I asked him, “What’s it like being hot…hot-looking?”

  He smirked, and then said, “It’s all right.”

  “What’s going on, dating-wise?” I asked, carefully.

  I asked carefully because Diego had gotten herpes when he was twenty-three and Paloma and I were nineteen. He credited getting herpes to saving his Latin ass from getting SIDA (AIDS). He had to stop racking up the numbers and opt for a ‘real’ relationship. I think what happened to him protected us, because neither Paloma nor I do ‘it’ without a raincoat on the—you know what.

  We sat
on a stoop on Mott Street and a woman flirted with Diego, her gestures begging him to flirt back. He said nothing. Diego doesn’t talk much. He had only dated a non-Latina once, a Chinese girl when he was in high school, until her parents and friends found out. He actually got badly beaten up by a Chinese gang that her brother ran with. After that, he just started dating like a mad dog with rabies. And then he got herpes, and only had long-term girlfriends. But he was suddenly single again. After a long while of silence, I asked my next nosy question.

  “Do you believe in true love?”

  He stood up and glanced down at me, but I wasn’t going to budge until I got an actual answer out of him.

  “Yeah, I do believe in it. I’m searching for it. Besides, I have to give my mom some grandkids.” I nodded, and we headed into a Chinese restaurant, where he quizzed me on what qualities a guy had to have to be ‘my’ true love man. It was fun. I had only a basic list: nice guy, no baggage, wants an LTR that turns into marriage, great sexual ability, and family oriented.

  “All right, shut up,” he said, and I did.

  Third ritual: guy list. So that night, with a glass of white wine, (Paloma’s choice) I wrote out what my future ‘true’ love needed to have and be. It took me two hours. I mean, I really wanted to think about it, and I did.

  Meanwhile, Paloma was choosing clothes for her ‘online’ picture; she had decided that she wanted to try a dating site. Paloma is fearless. I fell asleep before she chose between a deep blue dress and a purple jumpsuit.

  When I woke up, Paloma was gone. I glanced at my Smartphone. The Tennis Actor had emailed me some nude shots, which was very sexy to see at eight in the morning. I deleted them and told him in an email not to ever post any online ‘nude’ photos to anybody now that he’s on a TV show. In LA, gossip sells—it sells better than water or food or humanity. No public bathroom is safe in Hollywood, not with the camera phones in everyone’s pocket.

  Well, he always looked yummy naked, but it was over and the ‘love’ had only been casual. Casual, as in my heart never raced. On top of that I had never felt that he was the one ‘true’ one. I had spent time with him and all the other guys always knowing that it was all ‘causal,’ as in casual affection—as in temporary and fleeting.

  Why had I done that? Why? Okay, so I knew I was starting to think too much, and I looked over my true-love-guy list and reminded myself that I have three years before thirty—that equals possibility, but only if I stay open and un-jaded—that meant a 50-50 chance at finding ‘true’ love. Who is he? Who is this future guy?

  Paloma said we couldn’t ‘fork-it up’. She felt she had been going down the same street because she stayed close to her family because she kept the rent-controlled apartment, and because she didn’t really move out of her ‘comfort’ zone. And now she wanted us both to get ‘it’ together and walk down the street of TL (true love) towards the ‘true’ guy, not the ‘temporary’ guy. Paloma has read every biography and autobiography of every major actress, established singer, or successful business woman—and she wants to be remembered as they will be.

  She had decided that online-dating was the only way guys who would never see her otherwise, could see her. So when Paloma called, wanting her purple pumps, I had to race over to the West Side and meet her at the photo shoot. Okay, so most people just take a regular photo and uploaded it on Facebook or on a dating site and that’s that, but not Paloma. She does photo shoots. She gets character shots, glamour shots, and now ‘online’ dating shots. When Paloma vows to do something, anything, to improve her life—she does it to the fullest.

  The photographer Neal was a serious techno-geek with vibrant tattoos, ear piercing, and wearing Paris chic and Saks Fifth Avenue. He had turned his Upper West Side condo into a photo studio, and had his fashion photos framed on all the walls. It was furnished with a black sofa, white modern chairs, and a Plexiglas coffee table covered with a stack of expensive photo books by five world-renowned fashion photographers. Paloma’s makeup artist friend Andre was already set up when I arrived. Paloma was wearing her sapphire satin bathrobe, looking like a true princess. Or an over-the-top-crazy woman. Paloma gave me a hug, grabbed her pumps and ordered me to watch her photo shoot all in one breath. I plunked down on the white shaggy rug and watched Paloma transform. Okay, so no feathers or leopard print layouts; just classic photos of her from the waist up—real and pretty. She only had wanted her purple pumps because they made her feel ‘extra’ confident. Go figure! The photo shoot was digital of course, so Neal, Andre and I got to review every single photo.

  “Remember, this is for ‘true’ love, no hookups or friends with benefits bullshit,” Paloma warned us.

  I selected the seventh and fifteenth shots, because she looked so relaxed and genuine. We voted, and in the end she chose number fifteen. Sometimes it feels good to be right. Then she had Andre, who not only does hair and makeup, but computer stuff as well, set her up on the ‘online’ dating site. All of a sudden, Paloma’s private password was selected, her personal profile was written, and her TL (true love) photo uploaded.

  After that, Paloma treated us (her and me only) to a manicure/pedicure back on the Upper East Side. We laughed out loud. FYI, waxing the pubic hair is trendy in NYC, too. However Paloma’s boycotting it and keeping her bush. She told me, “I don’t want not to be untrue down there. And no guys ever complained neither!”

  Anyway, I felt such an urge, such a desire, to stay in NYC and not to go to Cambridge, not to face my ‘single’ father and his broken heart or my dying Aunt Helen—but I see life like one big movie with a million scenes in it. I want my life to not be an XXX rated one, but a better rated one (like a decent R). So that meant I had to face my family.

  I had only the next morning to do my final ritual; walking across the Williamsburg Bridge and hollering whatever came to my mind towards the East River, and the air. I got up super early, walked Shadow and then marched down to the bridge. There’s nothing like walking in NYC.

  The odd thing that happened to me was that the only word that came out of my mouth while I raced across the Williamsburg Bridge was—‘RESCUE’. A peculiar word. I wasn’t sure if it meant I needed to be ‘rescued’ or if I was going to be a ‘rescuer’. Then I remembered what my dentist Dr. Underly told me, “You didn’t fail. Now you just have to wait and see what happens. Don’t be surprised if it’s better than what you imagined.” And I mumbled, “Let him be right, please let him be right,” over and over on my way back to Palmoma’s.

  15

  ARRIVIAL

  Films shot in Massachusetts are The Friends of Eddie Coyle and The Verdict, some of which was filmed in NYC. And wow, Paul Newman delivers a ‘soulful acting’ performance, top-rate. And The Brink Job, (my father made me watch it four times). Jaws, The Paper Chase, Good Will Hunting, Monument Ave, Next Stop Wonderland, The Crucible, Mystic River, and The Departed, just to name the VCR’s in my yard sale box—like I said, it was a large box. Oh, and the make-you-cry film that I watch when I really want to sob is Love Story, filmed in Cambridge. In that movie, the character Jennifer Cavallier really knows how to love unconditionally and the character Oliver Barrett IV has to learn how to love on a more profound level and that was the problem that I thought about on my four-hour drive from New York City to Boston.

  I went right away to the elder care facility on Mass Ave to see my Aunt Helen. She had moved in there, having decided to give up her own home. I waited at the front desk, while they announced that she had a ‘guest’. There were fake flowers in vases and an oil painting of a summer-scenic-beach-scene, none of which helped get rid of the feeling that the place—was and is—the final stop before death. If I could play God’s role, I’d put an age limit on aging. I’d top everyone off at a hundred. Ugh! Next life—I’ll be back to coordinate the future.

  “Ms. Helen will see you, in suite 21, located on the 2nd floor.”

  I wrote my name into the ‘guest’ book, which had only eleven signatures in the last two weeks.
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  “It’s a real shame, but what can we do?” the fifty-something woman said, having read my disappointed expression. She had the picture-perfect face for being cast in a doctor drama TV series—for the scene where a patient is going into ‘code blue’. She’d say something like, “Now hold on. You can make it. You’ve just got to pull through,” and the camera would go in for a close-up on the dying person, as ‘hope’ slips away. Okay, back to reality.

  “My dad said he thinks she’s near the end, uh-hum, that’s how he phrased it. Is that true?” I asked her.

  She gave me one of those looks which makes you think you’ve accidentally said, “Motherf***er.”

  She cleared her throat and said in a lower voice, “She’s doing fine. No one knows when they’ll get the call; that’s the Lord’s business.”

  I nodded, because I couldn’t top a line like that. I mean, life really can seem like a movie, or at least like a TV show—that never ends until the final blackout. So I turned and headed for the stairwell. The way I figured it, I would see less misery or loneliness on the stairs than on the elevator.

  As I rounded the corner, a geeky, college-age guy, with blackheads and whiteheads across his face, stared at me like he hadn’t seen a female in a really long time, if ever.

  “Who are you here to see?” he asked, in a deep voice that just didn’t fit his soaring, lanky frame. It was hard not to want to imitate him.

  “My Aunt Helen, room number 21” I said, grabbing the railing.

  “She’s my friend. She sews a lot,” he replied.

  “Yup,” I said as I climbed a step. Eek! He was following closely behind me.

  “Oh, I just remembered she said you were coming. Your name’s Valerie.”

  “No, it’s Vivien,” I said, wanting him to buzz off.

  “Common enough name,” he said, like I was supposed to agree.

  “No, it’s not, I was named after Vivien Leigh from the film Gone with the Wind,” I corrected him.