“How do you know?”
“Because I know you.”
“We still haven’t said I love you,” I say, as if that means by extension that I don’t love him.
She gives me a knowing look.
“Where are you guys going?” she asks.
“Loteria.”
“I love Loteria!” she screeches. “Farmers Market?”
“Yes,” I say. Loteria is technically not a restaurant but more of a food stand in the middle of Farmers Market in West Hollywood. That said, it’s the best Mexican food I’ve had in L.A.
“Okay,” she says. “First of all, nobody breaks up with someone at Farmers Market. It’s just not done.”
“Oh, really? Says who?”
“Come on! It’s Farmers Market. Fresh food! Happiness!”
“Well, there’s always a first for everything.…”
“Let’s go, Ms. Half-Empty,” she says, and then, the consonance of it having struck her, she sings: “Half-empty dempty sat on a wall; half-empty dempty anticipated a great fall; all the good girlfriends and all the good men couldn’t convince half-empty to quit making herself miserable all the time.”
“Catchy,” I deadpan. “Where are we going?”
“Farmers Market,” she says. “I need broccolini for service, and you need to get out of your head. It’s perfect. You’ll be there early and prepare yourself for impending doom … or tasty enchiladas. Or both.”
“Fine,” I say as I grab my bag, checking for my chewy Rolaids. You never can be too careful in the Book of Berry.
Natalie and I pretend that my relationship is not about to potentially end as we fondle fruits and vegetables. After a good amount of time discussing pineapple, when it’s ripe, how you know it’s ripe, and who the person was who did the extensive research to decide that pineapple supposedly makes semen taste better (this is a widely circulated and, at least in my own experience, totally untested rumor), we say our goodbyes. I’m left alone at the fountain in the middle of The Grove, still unfortunately contemplating the pineapple/semen thing, so I head into the Barnes & Noble to see what’s on the “new” tables.
Turns out an awful lot is new, as always seems to be the case, so I’m quickly consumed, reading back-cover synopses, flopping open thick biographies I know I’ll never finish.
I’ve just turned the first page of Cheever when I feel a pair of eyes burning into the side of my face, and I look up to catch a guy with about a three-day beard staring at me. This alone isn’t remarkable; believe it or not, Berry gets her share of the lookie-loos. It’s probably the combo studious co-ed/closet party girl thing I’ve got going on to this day. Wife-beater under a ratty Lakers T-shirt, designer jeans with carefully spaced rips on the thighs, low-slung woven Bottega purse with beater Adidas that are nonetheless clean. Not exactly Versace material, but a definite look. What’s remarkable is that he doesn’t pretend he wasn’t staring and quickly redirect his glance. Instead, he casually but persistently makes his way to the pile directly across from me.
He smiles. I smile back and focus my attention on the table.
“Wanna hear a poem?” he says, so I have to look back up at him. Oh, boy. He’s wearing sunglasses inside. The first sign of trouble. Guys, unless you’re Stevie Wonder or the Terminator, sunglasses inside are never appropriate. And what’s this about a poem? What do you say to that? Say no and you’re rude. Say yes and you’re opening the floodgates to God knows what. Some poems are pages and pages long. But he can’t have pages and pages memorized. Or can he? Beowulf is a poem, for God’s sake. What if he reads me Beowulf? That’ll take all day. I’ll never get to my breakup dinner—oh, God, I just mentally called it a breakup dinner—in time. Maybe it’s just a haiku.
“Uh … sure.”
“Looking back, life was pretty worth my while,” he starts. “But in the end, turned out death was more my style.”
He stops there.
“Is … that it?” I ask.
“That’s it,” he says.
“I … like it,” I say, now confused and uncomfortable.
“It’s a suicide note,” he says.
Now I’m even more confused and uncomfortable.
“Uh …” I stammer. What do I do now? Call a suicide hotline? Guide him to the self-help section? Run?
“You like it?” he says. “You said you did, but do you really?”
“I really like it,” I say. “It’s just a poem, though, right? Not like a real suicide note?” And if not, is anyone else the recipient of this note? Or just lucky me?
“Just a poem,” he says. “For now.”
“Okay,” I say, with an awkward smile. “Well, it’s very interesting. Thank you for sharing it with me.” I look down at my watch and see that I’m supposed to be about three hundred yards away with Ryan. Thankfully. “Well, I gotta run.”
“That’s cool,” he says. “Nice chatting.”
On that note, I exit and head back to Farmers Market to meet Ryan. Every step I take I think about Suicide Note Guy and wonder if that was some kind of omen. A precursor to the death of my relationship. I did tell Nat that maybe I should end things. Was that little encounter a sign that I should commit Relationship Suicide? In the end, death was more his style. I’m confused and upset, and now a laughingstock, so maybe it’s not the worst idea to quit while I’m ahead … if this can even be classified as ahead.
When I get to Loteria, I spot Ryan immediately, and my heart starts beating faster. Stop it, heart. I can’t tell if it’s I Still Like You beating or I’m Panicking Because I’m About to Break Up with You beating, but before I can even determine which it is, I notice that he’s standing next to two older people and they’re talking. They seem to know one another. Ryan waves me over and then points at me as he says something to the couple that I can’t make out because despite working daily with a producer who is behind Plexiglas, and despite my one very exciting helicopter ride, my lip-reading skills are not what they probably should be.
A crowd-witnessed breakup is not what I expected at all. I can’t tell if I’m more nervous or less nervous.
“Hi,” I say to the trio.
“Berry, this is my mom and dad,” Ryan says. “Mom … Dad … this is Berry.”
“Very nice to meet you,” the mom person says.
“You, too,” I say back. The dad just smiles and nods.
“Did you just bump into your parents here?” I ask. “Because that’s a fun coincidence.”
The parents look to Ryan, and it’s clear from their look that this was a planned meeting, but I was the only one not in on the plan.
“No, I ambushed you,” Ryan admits. “I wanted you to meet my parents, and I didn’t want it to be awkward and stressful for you if I said, ‘Do you want to meet my parents?’ and I didn’t want you to stress in the time leading up to the meeting of my parents, especially since there’s been some tension lately that I really want to get past, assuming when I asked you said, ‘Yes, I’d love to meet your parents,’ so I thought I’d just bring us all together. At a taco stand. Which in hindsight maybe wasn’t the best idea because now there’s no place to sit, but I did want you to meet. So here we are.”
Ryan is rambling like he never does. He seems almost nervous. Totally out of character. I guess he wasn’t breaking up with me. And I guess I’m not breaking up with him.
“We’re really happy to finally meet you,” the dad says. “I’m Robert, and this is Lily.”
“It’s very nice to meet you both,” I say. Then add, “I love the name Lily.” Kiss ass.
“Oh, you don’t have to flatter me,” she says. “I’ve been listening to you both on the radio since day one, and I’m already a fan.”
“Thank you,” I say, wondering if my complexion is mimicking my embarrassment. “But I swear, I really do love that name.” I open my mouth and for some reason don’t have the forethought to stop myself from the next sentence that comes bounding out like a runaway train. “If I got a dog and it was fema
le, I was going to name her Lily. But my dog is a boy. Named Moose. He’s super-handsome. But really, Lily is too pretty a name for a dog, anyway. Not that dogs aren’t pretty, but, you know …” I trail off. Essentially I’ve just equated my boyfriend’s mother not only to a dog but to a bitch dog.
Kill me.
“Okay! So I’m not the only one who’s nervous!” Ryan says with a laugh.
I bury my head in his chest and try to momentarily hide my face, but when I think better of it and straighten up, everyone is still there and I’m not a child hiding in the safety of her mother’s pants leg.
“Let’s find a table and sit, shall we?” That’s Robert. The person I haven’t insulted. But there’s still time.
Thankfully, once we order, there’s a natural ease to our conversation. Ryan’s parents already know way more about me than I’d like, yet I’m still trying to make a first impression. It’s a bizarre dynamic. Lily couldn’t be sweeter. She laughs at all of Ryan’s jokes, good or bad, and I can see where he gets his lightheartedness from.
“You know,” she says, “the last girl Ryan wanted us to meet was his prom date.”
“Mom,” Ryan says, but it’s already out there. Nobody in his adult life has ever met his parents. This is a big deal. Much bigger than I’d realized.
“Wow,” I say. “How do I compare?”
“Well, you don’t have braces,” Robert chimes in. “So that’s a plus. I didn’t know if he was more embarrassed of us or the girls he was dating, so either way, it’s a good sign that we’re all together tonight.”
“It wasn’t you, Dad,” Ryan says. “How could it be you guys?” Then he turns to me. “I’m pretty lucky. I have the best parents on the planet. And they know it, so they say stuff like that just so I’ll say stuff like this. Shameless.”
I watch the easy camaraderie that they have, and while having two mature, happily married parents isn’t something I can relate to, it’s definitely something I can admire.
“We know it wasn’t us, son,” Robert goes on. “We just wanted Berry to know that this isn’t a normal thing. That she’s special.”
“She knows,” Ryan says.
It’s not until our food comes that I notice Suicide Boy from the bookstore is hovering nearby. He catches my eye and nods at me. And here I thought he was just some random extra in my life who had already fulfilled his purpose. There he is again. Ryan notices me noticing him.
“You know that guy?” he asks.
“No,” I say. “I met him in the bookstore about an hour ago. I didn’t meet him, really. He came up to me and told me a—” I stop myself, because I don’t want to go into detail. It seems almost too bizarre.
“He told you a what?”
“A poem,” I say. “He walked up to me and asked if I wanted to hear a poem.”
“Sounds like you’ve got some competition,” Robert teases his son.
“Hardly,” I say. “He was creepy.”
“She’s taken,” Ryan announces to no one in particular. He puts his arm around me. His parents smile proudly, and I have to admit it feels good.
Later, when Lily and Robert have headed back to Encino, Ryan and I walk to The Coffee Bean, get a couple hot teas, and sit outside.
“Sorry about the ambush,” he says.
“Your parents are great,” I say. “I was thrilled to meet them. Although, yes, being able to make sure I looked presentable would have been nice, too.”
“You always look presentable.”
“Ten points for that one.”
“So … as they said, I don’t bring girls to meet my parents,” he says. “And it’s true, I don’t usually have relationships past the three-month mark. Ever.”
If you include the helicopter ride and Chuck E. Cheese’s, Ryan and I have been dating for four months. I’ve broken his personal record.
“Is that by choice?” I ask.
“I guess it is in a way, but it’s not like I watch a calendar and when their three months are up I kick ’em to the curb. I guess I just never like anyone enough to stick it out. That’s part of it, anyway. The other part is, if we want to get all psychological about it, I guess I have a fear of commitment.”
“Huh,” I say, surprised that he’s opening up this way and also that he has this fear, since I’ve just met his perfect parents and you’d expect that type of fear to come from a person from a broken home. A person like me. But I guess not.
“What I’m saying is that I’m happy you’ve made it past the three-month mark.”
“I am, too,” I say.
“And now I feel all vulnerable and stupid, so your turn. Share something with me.”
“Okay,” I say. “Well, you know how I have a few superstitions.…”
“I have noticed, yes.”
“It goes beyond that,” I admit. “I mean, it can be almost crippling. I have certain … things …”
“I enjoy your things very much,” he says, teasing.
“Hey …” I say. “You opened up about being a total commitment-phobe … I’m trying to open up to you, too, here. So shut it.”
“Shut,” he says, pursing his lips and reaching up to zip them shut and turn the key, showing me he’s locking his mouth.
“Thank you. Where was I? Oh, well … things. I don’t like even numbers—you know that. That’s whatever. Here’s more you don’t know: If I hit too many yellow lights on my way to one place, that’s a bad omen. So much so that I’ll reschedule whatever it is, even if I push it to an hour later if possible.”
Ryan nods but says nothing.
“If I’m going to get a manicure and they don’t have the color I want, it’s going to be a bad week. If I have something important, like a job interview or a first date—not that I’m having those currently—I have to wear a color called It’s in the Bag. I’ve bought seven bottles of it, and it’s proven its worth. Mostly. If for some reason I forget to bring it to the salon and they don’t have it and I get another color, the job is as good as lost. I may as well not even go to the interview.”
Ryan nods again and raises his eyebrows as if to say, “What else?”
“I am afraid of black cats. I know it’s cliché, but I am, I just am. I will get into a car accident to avoid a black cat crossing my path. If I have a friend who has a black cat, I won’t go to their house—ever. I’m also afraid of William Shatner. He did a spoken-word record, and it’s haunted me to this day. I felt like if you played it backward, there’d be a secret message in there, like an even creepier ‘Revolution Nine.’ So every time I see him on a Priceline commercial or one of his TV shows it gives me a chill. I feel like something bad is going to happen and often it does. Shatner. Something’s up with that guy.”
Ryan’s smiling, and he probably thinks I’m crazy, but I go on. “If I sneeze and nobody says ‘Bless you,’ I’ll bless myself, and on occasion I’ll call my mom and tell her I sneezed so she can bless me. If someone else sneezes and I don’t bless them, I feel like bad things will happen to them or me or both. I always bless a stranger. That’s why I get so incensed when nobody blesses me.”
Ryan raises his hand.
“Yes? You can speak now.”
“You’re crazy,” he says. “Truly.”
“Thanks for that.”
“And I am crazy about you,” he adds. “In fact, I am sixty-four percent more crazy about you after that diatribe than I was before you started. You’re adorable.”
I know I’m blushing. I force out a thank-you, and try to keep my smile about the size of a normal person’s so I’m not a beaming idiot on the outside like I am on the inside.
It’s funny how a few hours ago I thought maybe this wasn’t right, and now … maybe I was wrong. Maybe this is for real. Maybe it just took three guys to get it right.…
Yeah, but so what? Everybody’s weird.
—CHRIS CHAMBERS, IN STAND BY ME
Chapter Seventeen
On a major high after my meet-the-parents ambush, and thrilled to b
e absolutely, positively not broken up, I walk into my apartment to find Moose looking up at me expectantly. I assume that even though the dog walker took him out earlier, he may want an extra walk, and I’m in too good a mood to say no to my boy, so I grab his leash and we head downstairs.
Moose doesn’t seem to need to do any of his business and after our third lap around the block, I’m pooped—even though he hasn’t. We head back upstairs, and once I’m home I do a quick change into my PJs, brush my teeth, pull my bedcovers back, and nestle in. I start on my left side. Left arm outstretched under my head, under the pillow, right knee up and over my left leg. Then I flip. Right side, right arm outstretched under my head, under the pillow, left knee up and over my right leg. Repeat. Always the same, night after night.
I realize this sounds obsessive, maybe even has tinges of OCD. But it’s comforting, and I’ve been doing it since I was a little kid. Puts me to sleep every time. Tonight, though, on the third go-round, my left knee pushes forward and meets …
What.
Is.
That??!?
A body? A large, broad, slightly flabby male body. I scream and jump out of my bed, run out the door, down the hall, into the elevator, and out on the street.
I’m waving my arms and screaming and crying, my heart’s going a mile a minute, and a guy walking his dog rushes over to me.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
“No!” I shout. “Call the police! There’s a man in my apartment, in my bed, and I just got in it and I was in my apartment for at least twenty minutes not even knowing he was in there and he’s in my bed, he is in my bed!”
“Okay,” he says as he pulls out his cellphone and dials 911. “Calm down. You’re okay. You are okay, right? He didn’t … touch you?”
“His back touched my kneeeeee,” I cry, the word “knee” drawn out into heaves and sobs.
“It’s okay,” the guy says. “You’ll be okay.”
I look down at his dog, an English bulldog who’s looking up at me, head cocked sideways, one snaggletooth sticking out to greet me.
With a Little Luck: A Novel Page 18