“Oh. I can’t write that.”
This is getting tiresome. “Why not?” I ask, clearly irritated.
“Because a few years ago I made kegel on her show, and I don’t want to offend her.”
“Kugel,” I correct him.
“Excuse me?”
“You made kugel on her show. Kegel is…” I’m so not explaining this to my boss. Although, if he did make Martha Stewart kegel, that is a show I would want to see. But I cross her off the list. “Never mind. Number one. Roger Moore, George Lazenby, Timothy Dalton, and Pierce Brosnan, or anyone else not Sean Connery, playing James Bond.”
“I can’t say that,” Drew says, taking a sip of his coffee (now with two sugars).
I roll my eyes. “Now what?”
“Pierce is a good guy,” Drew says emphatically. “I don’t want to hurt his feelings.”
“I agree. Pierce is a good guy. But I doubt he’s reading Maxim, and even if he is, if he has any kind of a sense of humor, he’ll think it’s funny.”
Drew furrows his brow, and shrugs. “Okay. That’s one, I guess.”
“Good.” I put a star by that one. “Number two. Britney Spears.”
“Oh.” Drew looks up, and smiles appreciatively. “I like that one.”
It was a safe bet. No straight man I know will admit to liking Britney Spears. And yet they all loved that kiss.
“Good. Number three. Fat-free ice cream.”
“Fat-free what?” Drew says, jerking back his head.
“Ice cream,” I repeat.
“You’re making that up,” he accuses me. “Isn’t that a contradiction in terms?”
“No, I’m not. And yes, it is,” I tell him.
“Well, is it any good?” Drew asks.
“Of course not,” I practically spit out. Apparently, it is stupid question day after all.
“Okay, you can put that one down,” he says.
“Good. Three down, only seven to go. Number four. People who have been to a Star Trek convention more recently than they’ve been out on a date.”
“Good. I hate those people,” Drew says.
My phone interrupts us. Drew looks at it expectantly. “Is it Dawn?” he asks.
I check the caller ID. “Yeah.”
“Answer it!” he demands, and jumps up from the couch, suddenly a nervous wreck.
I do. “Hello.”
“Are you alone?” Dawn asks.
“Ask her about me,” Drew whispers.
I silently wave him off. “Yeah. What’s up?”
“What do you think of Drew? Be honest.”
Shit. I can’t tell her what I really think of Drew with him sitting right next to me.
Drew whispers, “Is she asking about me?”
I jab my index finger at him harshly, and put it up to my lips to pantomime Sssshhh. “Why do you ask?” I say nonchalantly into the phone. “Do you like him?”
“Yeah, I think I do. He’s called me every night this week, and we talk for hours. I haven’t met a guy like that in a while. And he’s sent me flowers every day this week, which normally would creep me out. But, I don’t know, for some reason, I think it’s kinda cool.”
“Drew did that?” I ask, audibly floored. I never thought of him as a “talk for hours” kind of guy. Unless he’s talking about himself, of course.
Drew hands me a note he’s just scribbled: If we get married, I’ll make sure she makes you the maid of honor.
Threats will get you nowhere, I write back, just as Dawn says, “Yeah. At first, I thought he was a bit overbearing, but now I like him. He’s really quite sweet.” She pauses for a second. “And you’re sure he’s not there?” she asks suspiciously.
“No,” I lie, while scribbling down, She likes you.
There’s silence on the other end. “Oh, my God. You are truly the worst liar I’ve ever met. He’s sitting right there next to you listening to every word I say, isn’t he?”
“No,” I say, as weakly as a kitten. “Actually, he’s standing in front of me, sort of towering over me.”
“Put him on,” Dawn says.
I hand the phone to Drew. “She wants to talk to you.”
Drew takes the phone cautiously. “Hello?” His voice immediately softens. “Hey, baby. Did you have a good time last night?…Yeah. Me too….”
He covers the phone. “Get out,” he says matter-of-factly.
As I grab my coffee and head out the door, I hear Drew say, “Oh, just working on that ‘Blow Me’ list I told you about….”
Great. He told everyone in the world about this list but me.
“I’d love some ideas!” Drew says as he takes a pen and writes, Michael Jackson…Al Sharpton…any white person who celebrates Kwanzaa…”
As I stand outside Drew’s trailer waiting for him to get off the phone, I contemplate their new relationship. Maybe he’s not the self-centered twit I always think he is. Maybe he’s actually a nice guy who wants to find a soul mate. Who’s just like the rest of us: just trying to figure out where he fits in the world, like everyone else. Sweet, insecure…
“Charlie! I’m off the phone! Blow me!” Drew yells as he swings open his trailer door.
Or not.
Several crew members turn around as I shake my head, and walk back into his trailer.
When I walk back in, Drew’s grinning at me like a lovesick high school girl. “She likes me! She really likes me!”
“I know,” I say, a bit patronizingly, as I walk back over to the couch and have a seat.
“She sure is a sweetie,” Drew says. “Can I buy her jewelry yet?”
“Too soon. Now, back to the list.”
“Right.” Drew hands me his list of Dawn’s suggestions. “I can’t use any of these, can I?”
“No,” I say, taking Dawn’s list, crumpling it into a ball, and throwing it into the new elephant trash can. “Number five…”
“Anyone who confuses me with Tom Cruise,” Drew says, finishing my sentence.
Yeah, that would be my number five, I think sarcastically. I mean, what man wouldn’t hate that? I know the last thing I would want to say to my date, even more than, “I got herpes from my last boyfriend” would be, “You sure look a lot like Tom Cruise.” It would be like someone telling me I look like Heidi Klum. “Okay, I can write that,” I say slowly, giving him time to reconsider.
He doesn’t. “And people who say they love all my movies, and then name films I’m not in.”
“Great,” I say, writing down numbers five and six (hey, even if they’re stupid, at least I’m two closer to being done). “Any others?”
“Nope. That’s it,” Drew says, downing the rest of his coffee.
“Number seven. Hillary Clinton.”
“I can’t say that,” Drew says, reaching over to take my coffee.
I let my shoulders slump, and drop my chin into my “Oh, for God’s sake” look. “You can’t stand Hillary Clinton.”
“Yeah. But what if she runs for president? I want to be invited to the White House again.”
I cross Hillary’s name off my list, then cross another name off. Drew glances at my pad. “Who was that?”
“Dick Cheney. Same principle. Okay, what about supermodels who weigh one hundred pounds, even with their fake boobs?”
“Why would I hate them?” Drew asks.
Clueless. Absolutely clueless. “Because all women do!” I retort.
“But Dawn’s one hundred pounds,” Drew tells me. “And aren’t you about a hundred pounds?”
I burst out laughing. I can’t believe how dumb men are. “Dawn’s almost a hundred and thirty pounds, and she works out everyday. I’m…Well, let’s just say, more than a hundred pounds.”
“Really?” Drew says in utter amazement. You’d think I had just told him that yes, the moon really was made of cheese. “Well, I guess it’s okay then.”
“Women around the country will adore you,” I say dryly. “Number eight. Women who wear tiaras at their wedding ins
tead of veils.”
Drew looks at me blankly. I scratch it out. “We’ll just change it to women who don’t know anything about sports. Number nine, autobiographies written by celebrities who are under thirty.”
Drew nods appreciatively.
“And number ten…stupid top ten lists.”
Drew smiles, and gives me an appreciative round of applause. “Your limo will arrive promptly at seven o’clock tomorrow evening.”
“Thank you,” I say.
We hear a knock on the door. “Mr. Stanton,” I hear Madison, our P.A., say through the door. “Your new elephant is here. Her trainer wants to know where to put her.”
“That reminds me,” Drew says to me, “I’m gonna need you to find someone to redo my backyard. I bought an elephant.”
I peek through the curtain to see a huge elephant being led by her trainer to Drew’s trailer.
I let my head fall into my hands.
Ten
Our family isn’t crazy, they’re colorful.
At seven o’clock, I pull up to my mother’s house in Beverly Hills. The second I get out of the car, I hear gunfire.
I race up the walkway to the front door, use my old key, and burst inside.
“Mom!” I scream from the front hallway.
I hear crying from the guest room downstairs. I run over, and there’s my mother’s “whatever,” Chris, collapsed in a corner, sobbing.
“My God, what happened?” I ask, racing up to him.
Chris tries to speak, “Your…your…” He continues sobbing. He tries to talk, but he’s crying so hard, he can’t catch his breath to get more than a word out.
“Chris, you’ve got to calm down,” I say, feeling myself starting to shake. “What happened?”
“Your…mother…,” he manages to squeak out.
“What about Mom?” I say, terrified. “Chris, what happened to her?”
“She…she’s gone,” he says, then howls like a wolf, and falls into my lap.
Oh my God. My mother. What the hell’s happened? My mommy. The first love of my life. The only woman who ever truly loved me unconditionally. Who had total faith in me. Who said I could do whatever I wanted in my life, as long as I tried my best, worked hard, and took chances when I needed to.
Sure, she criticized. But that was only because she loved me so much, and wanted the best for me. And sure, she may have called me every frigging day of my life, but that was only because she cared, and she missed me.
And how did I reward her for giving me all that love? By being bitchy, getting annoyed, wishing she would love me less. And now? Now that she’s gone, I can never take that back. I can never let her know how much she means to me. How much I love her. How much I—
“Darling, I didn’t hear your come in,” my mother says cheerfully, interrupting my thoughts. I look up, and there she is, standing in the doorway, wearing an apron and wiping her hands with a towel. “Your sister and Hunter are already here.”
Once again I hear a loud gunshot. Bang! Mom doesn’t even flinch.
Instead, she makes a tssk sound with her mouth. “By the way, Jeannine sent the divorce papers to your father today. So he’s a bit on edge.”
Bang! goes another gunshot as I ask, “How on edge?”
“He’s shooting air rifles in the backyard.”
Bang!
“Don’t you worry the gunshots are going to scare the neighbors?” I ask, alarmed.
“We live near the Osbournes. Do you really think anyone gives a crap?” my mother asks in return.
Before I can answer, she sees Chris sobbing on my lap, and sighs. “Chris, sweetie, you’re getting Charlie’s skirt wet.” Mom walks up to him and hands him a pink pill and a small glass of water. “Take another Valium, love, and try to get some sleep.”
Chris lifts his head from my lap, lets Mom feed him the pill, then put the glass to his lips. He drinks the water, then falls onto her chest. Mom puts her arm around him like she used to do to me when I was a kid. “Good,” she says soothingly. “Now, can you make it upstairs, to my room, and get some sleep?”
He nods, his face buried in her chest.
“Good,” she says, then stands up with him. The two walk out of the guest room, me following behind.
I stare in disbelief as I watch the two climb the stairs. “I’ll be up in a few hours,” Mom tells Chris. “If you can’t sleep, there’s a Deepak Chopra audiotape on the nightstand, as well as Sounds of the Rainforest.”
“Okay,” Chris says quietly. “I love you.”
“Me too, sweetheart,” Mom says, then comes back down the stairs to me, acting as though nothing out of the ordinary has happened. “I’ve made a roast chicken for us…”
Bang.
“…with roasted potatoes, and some asparagus, which I know you’re not crazy about, but your father is, and he’s had quite the day…”
Mom puts her arm around me, and slowly leads me toward the kitchen. I am speechless.
Bang.
“Now I’m not sure how much he’ll eat. He’s in quite a snit.”
We enter the kitchen, and I see Hunter holding the air rifle, my father by his side. Andy is sitting at the kitchen table, her face buried in her hands. A glass of red wine is in front of her.
“Darling, you haven’t touched your wine,” my mother says to her, sounding like Donna Reed.
Andy lifts her head, glares at my mother for not seeing the complete absurdity of the situation, and drains the wine in one gulp.
“Well,” Mother says in a slightly huffy tone, “I hardly think you could detect the hints of cocoa and cherries that way, but I suppose it’s your life.”
Bang. Hunter shoots a tin can off Mom’s back gate. “That is so cool, Ed,” Hunter says, pumping the gun, then shooting again.
“Yeah,” my dad says, brightening a bit. “The trick is to think about your ex-wife, then pull the trigger. You don’t have one of those yet, do you, son?”
Yet?
“No, sir,” Hunter says, handing my dad his gun back.
“Good, good,” Dad says, taking the gun back. “Sometimes I wonder why anyone bothers to get married. You just end up divorcing them and giving them half your money anyway.” Mom hands him a joint. “Thank you, love.”
Dad takes a big hit of pot while I calmly take the gun out of his hand and stick it in the broom closet.
“And on the subject of people bothering to get married,” I begin, “Let’s talk about your daughter.”
Mom turns around and her face lights up. “You mean, you’re—”
“Nooo,” I say, sighing. “Your other daughter.”
“Right,” Mother chimes in. “The subject on the table is seating arrangements.”
Hunter and Andy exchange a panicked glance with each other, and I know the extra guest subject has not been broached. “Actually, Mom, I think we need to start with the number of guests.”
Mom turns to Andy. “We did agree on two hundred, right?”
“Yes!” Andy says immediately. “We did agree on two hundred. Emphasis on the we.”
Mom looks at my Dad, who sits down and takes another hit of pot, ignoring the conversation.
Hunter coughs self-consciously. “Unfortunately, my mother did not agree to two hundred. She has insisted that we invite fifty extra guests, friends of her and my father’s.”
My mother grabs her chest in horror (she likes to do that), but Hunter quickly adds, “However, I will be more than happy to pick the up the extra costs.”
“Not necessary,” Dad says immediately.
Andy and I look at each other in shock. We could not have just heard that right.
Hunter continues, “You’re being very gracious, sir. But I don’t want us to get off on the wrong foot….”
“Will there be women your mother’s age there?” Dad asks Hunter.
Hunter looks at me like “What the hell is he talking about?” I shrug. I honestly don’t know. Finally he says, “Well, yes sir. Many of them—”
“Are any of these women single?” my father interrupts.
“Um…some of them are divorced, or widows…”
“Then bring them to my tent,” Dad says with a determined tone. “I need a woman. And I am too old and fat to be chasing women my daughters’ age. If I have to pay ten thousand dollars more to meet women my own age who aren’t already in my social circle, so be it.”
I must say, that went a lot easier than planned. We all heave a collective sigh. “Okay, then,” I say, “on to the subject of seating.”
“I want all the single women my age at my table,” Dad says. “And don’t be shy about letting them know I’m on the market,” he says to Hunter.
“No, sir…,” Hunter begins.
“Ed,” Mom says, “you can’t sit with the single women. You have to sit at the bride’s parents’ table.”
“Why?” he asks.
“Because it’s tradition,” she insists, slightly raising her voice.
“So is the bride being a virgin, but we did away with that years ago. Hell, you and I personally did away with that….”
“Okay, then we won’t have a bride’s parents’ table,” Andy says quickly, interrupting him before he can get too graphic. “We will, however, be having siblings, parents, grandparents…”
On that note, both my parents wave their arms in the air, yell, “Aaahhh, shit!” and “Goddamn it!” respectively, and walk out of the room, leaving Hunter, Andy, and me by our lonesome.
Thirty seconds of silence pass. Then a minute. The three of us are staring at each other in silence like we’re in some sort of highstakes poker game.
Hunter finally speaks. “Do you think they’re coming back?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” Andy and I say in unison.
When they do come back, they are carrying a giant purple board with them, with green circles pasted on it, and numbers on each of the tables, from 1 to 20. Dad sets the board down on the kitchen table. “This is the seating plan for the hotel dining room.”
“Hold on,” Mom says, then goes to a drawer, pulls out five more green circles and a glue stick, and glues the five extra tables onto the board.
A Total Waste of Makeup Page 11