Spur of the Moment

by Theresa Alan

  “Private plane!”

  “To San Francisco, where they have dinner at some swanky place, see a play, and then retire to the Palace Hotel where they proceed to make love almost all night long and then he whisks her back to L.A. in time for her shoot at four in the morning. She said it was the best sex of her entire life, and she can really see herself falling for him, because he doesn’t fawn over her like every other guy she’s known. She says he’s really broadening her mind and he makes her laugh and is exciting and impulsive and all this stuff. I mean I know this isn’t a profound insight, but God, life is not fair!”

  “Completely not fair. I am so jealous.”

  “I love that you said that. I’m about to combust I’m so jealous of her. I mean I love Scott, but if Scott was a zillionaire who could support me so I could just go to auditions all day—”

  “That would be awesome! They’re going to get married, aren’t they. She’ll go straight from her rich dad to her rich boyfriend.”

  “I’m sure they’ll get married,” Ana sighed bitterly.

  “Disgusting.”

  “Completely. I mean even if this never turns into anything, just to be able to say you went on a kind of fairy tale date like that? But I’m sure they’ll get married. I’ve never heard Marin talk about a guy like this. She always gets bored with guys in like three minutes.”

  “Like Jason.”

  “Exactly like Jason.”

  “So what does this rich guy do that makes him so rich?”

  “Nothing. He sold his business three years ago and made zillions.”

  “God, this gets grosser by the second. What company?”

  “I don’t know. Internet something I think. I just hope her being with this guy, Jay his name is—oh! I forgot to tell you. He’s an older man. Thirty-eight.”

  “Ooh, a fourteen-year age difference. Very One Life to Live.”

  “Yeah, so anyway, I just hope that her being with Jay doesn’t mean that she’s going to stay in L.A.”

  “If the show is a success, she’ll have to stay out there anyway.”

  “I want her to succeed, but I also . . . you know the five of us have lived together for years. I went straight from the dorms to living with them, and so even though now we have these nine-to-five jobs, it’s not like we’re really grown-ups, you know? And if Marin goes off and leaves us . . . soon everybody will run off and get married and we’ll have to become real grown-ups, grown-ups who don’t have plastic fish decorating their walls. We’ll have furniture that matches and we won’t be able to have Pop-tarts and beer for breakfast—”

  “You do not have Pop-tarts and beer for breakfast.” Chelsey looked stricken.

  Ana realized she’d made a tactical error on that one. “No, no, of course not, that was just a theoretical example. My point is, I like living in this stage of sort-of grown-upness. I like feeling like I still live in college with my greatest friends in the universe, except for you of course.”

  “Well, he’s rich and doesn’t have to work, maybe he can buy a place here.”

  “Yeah, let’s go with that. It’ll be so big that even though they’re married, he’ll let us all live with them and he won’t even notice we’re there.”

  “Good plan. You know, I’m really glad you asked me out for drinks, just the two of us. I’ve always felt so out of things because I don’t live with you and I don’t have all those years of history with you.”

  “You know we love you.”

  “I always thought you guys were so clique-ish.”

  “We were?”

  “You had all these inside jokes.”

  “We did?”

  “It took me forever to feel comfortable around you guys.”

  “It did?”

  “You guys would crack up at this stuff I just didn’t get at all. You still do. Like that whole pht-pht-pht thing with Scott.”

  “You don’t think that’s hilarious?”

  “No.”

  “But it is hilarious.”

  “No, actually it’s not.”

  Ana was shocked by this revelation. “Really? Oh.”

  “But I get it. You and Scott have always had this really powerful connection. I’m so happy you two finally got together.”

  “Me too. I love having regular nookie.”

  “Here here.”

  “Another round?”

  “Is the sky blue? Absofuckinglutely.”

  They ordered more drinks and Ana thought about what Chelsey had said. Ana and Scott had always gotten along well. She’d always really admired his artistic talent. She’d always wished she could be more relaxed about life like he was. But maybe what had really formed such a strong bond with him was working with him every day for the last two years. In so many ways, when she thought about her days at the office it was like thinking back to being in a war—something that induced post-traumatic stress disorder and was something that one survived, made it through by the skin of their teeth, etc. All along she and Scott were able to get to know each other in a way their friends never could.

  Sometimes crushes were well and truly crushed. In Ana’s case, the overwhelming rush of feelings that had been unleashed when she let herself see Scott as something more than a friend had trampled her old feelings toward Jason into oblivion.

  Ana sipped her drink and suddenly a memory from college she hadn’t thought of in years came rushing back to her. It was a night after a performance she’d particularly bombed. She’d been too focused on the audience’s reaction to her, thinking “Do they like me?” and not “What is going on in the scene and what can I do to progress the story?” or, better yet, not thinking at all and just reacting to the events around her.

  She had retreated to her bedroom after the show as her roommates drank and laughed in the living room downstairs. She lay on her bed writhing in shame, her face buried in her hands. Every now and then a distinct memory of something painfully embarrassing would jolt through her and she would spasm and moan aloud at the memory.

  Scott knocked on her door carrying two Fat Tire beers and a bowl of cheese popcorn that was a distressing shade of urine yellow.

  “What’s up?” he asked. “Are you tired? Why did you ditch us?”

  “I don’t deserve to be part of this group. I suck. You should tie an anvil to me and toss me in a river. I deserve nothing more than total abandonment and a slow, painful death.”

  Scott stopped midway from transferring a clot of popcorn from the bowl to his mouth.

  “Where is this self-flagellation coming from?”

  “My performance tonight, of course! How can you even deign to speak to me?”

  He chewed thoughtfully and washed the popcorn down with a long swallow of beer. “You have self-esteem issues,” he pronounced.

  “I’m quitting. I’m never getting on stage again.”

  “What are you talking about? Your performance wasn’t bad.”

  “Don’t humor me!” Ana couldn’t help it, she began to cry. She was so embarrassed, exposing herself like this, revealing her frailties and insecurities, but she couldn’t help it.

  “That bit when you and Jason were at the restaurant waiting for the waitress to bring your check and you said, ‘Maybe if we look at her needifully she’ll bring it.’ Then that expression you made . . . ‘Needifully . . . Maybe if we look at her needifully.’ That was hilarious.” He chuckled at the memory.

  “Really?”

  “It was hilarious because that’s exactly what it’s like when you’re trapped waiting for the waitress to bring you your check. You can’t go anywhere or do anything. You’ve already eaten and caught up on conversation with your friends. All you can do is sit there and hope and try desperately to catch sight of your waitress to let her know you need her. Then when you went and tackled her—it was perfect.”

  Ana suppressed a smile and dried her tears. She took a handful of popcorn and tossed it into her mouth, letting the powdery, synthetic cheese melt on her tongue.

 
“There is no such thing as a mistake in improv, Ana. Whatever happens, go with it. You’re a smart girl but you can’t be so cerebral on stage, always in your head. With more practice, you’ll shake that habit. You’ve got talent, I promise.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  Then he let out a majestic fart.

  “Aah!” Ana screamed.

  “Much better.” He patted his stomach contentedly.

  “Much better for you maybe. Putrid for the rest of us. Ghastly! Fetid!”

  “You’re just jealous you can’t make such impressive noises using only your digestive system.”

  “Um no, I don’t think so.”

  “You can protest all you want, but I know the truth.”

  Ana giggled, and Scott joined her. When he snorted, the laugh-snort combo made Ana helpless with laughter.

  That, she realized, was why she loved Scott. He paraded around as if everything was always fun and games, but when she needed a friend, a confidant, a lover, he seamlessly became those things. And when she needed a little comic relief, when she needed the gods on high to send in the clowns, he was that, too.

  She realized she’d had hundreds of the nights like that with her friends from Spur—nights when she’d let her guard down, revealed her dreams and falibilities and truest self. Performing had a way of revealing the rawest, realest emotions. The six members of Spur had all seen each other emotionally naked, vulnerable, exposed, and it created a connection between them that went to depths that were hard to find with other friends.

  39

  Dining Disasters

  “Would you mind if my family came to visit for Thanksgiving?” Scott asked Ana.

  “No, of course not. Why would I mind?”

  “What I mean is, would you mind if they stayed with us?”

  “Your parents?”

  “My whole family.”

  “Don’t you have three brothers and a sister, and aren’t they all married?”

  “Yes and yes.”

  “I don’t understand, you want to have ten people stay in this house?”

  “Plus four nieces and nephews.”

  “Fourteen people!”

  “They don’t have a lot of money. They won’t be able to come otherwise. I thought I could stay in your room, and Jack and his wife Lettie and their two kids could stay in my room, and John and his wife Laura could stay in Marin’s room, Mom and Dad and Suzy and her husband Dean and my nephew and niece Felix and Lacey can stay in the camper . . .”

  “Where will they park it?”

  “I was thinking in the parking lot in the apartment complex down the street. Then Beau and Suzy . . .”

  “I thought your sister’s name was Suzy.”

  “It is. It’s Beau’s wife’s name, too. I thought Beau and Suzy could sleep in the basement.”

  “We have an unfinished, appallingly unorganized basement.”

  “Yeah, I’d have to straighten up a bit. They can sleep on air mattresses.”

  “Wouldn’t it just be easier if we went to visit them?”

  “Yeah, probably.”

  “How about we do that then.”

  The phone rang, but Ana felt too lazy to reach her arm out to pick it up. Shortly after the third ring, Ana heard Ramiro’s baritone voice carry from the first floor. “Ana, it’s your mom.”

  Immediately Ana felt guilty. She couldn’t abandon her mother for Thanksgiving. It had always been just the two of them. What would Grace do without her? It was like she’d known Ana was making holiday plans that didn’t include her. Ana picked up the receiver from the phone on her nightstand.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi sweetie. How are you?”

  “I’m good. You?”

  “How’s your social life?”

  “Well, Mom, I actually have news for once. Scott and I have decided to make a go of being boyfriend and girlfriend.”

  “Oooh!” her mother squealed at such an eardrum piercing decibel that Ana reflexively pulled the phone several inches away. “Ana, I really want to get to know your new boyfriend. Come over for dinner Sunday night.”

  “Mom, you’ve known Scott for years. He’s been my roommate forever.”

  “I know, but I only knew Scott as a friend, not a boyfriend.”

  “I hardly know him as a boyfriend. We’re just getting started.”

  “Ana, please. I never get to see you. I’d really like to have you over for dinner. It’ll be a free meal.”

  “What are you going to get? Thai fusion? Paglia’s? I love their eggplant focaccia sandwich.”

  “No, I was thinking I’d cook.”

  “Dear god, are you nuts? Why would you ever think of doing something like that?” Her mother had almost never cooked anything besides mac and cheese and frozen pizzas for dinner when Ana was growing up. They frequently had breakfasts for dinners: frozen waffles, cereal, or homemade Egg McMuffin sandwiches. Even more distressing were the popcorn-for-dinner nights or the choose-your-own-adventure nights, which meant, practically speaking, that Ana would make herself a peanut butter and honey sandwich or a frozen pasta dinner. The very few times Grace had cooked—for holidays or Ana’s birthday—the results were at worst disastrous and at best inedible.

  What on earth would inspire her mother to cook for Ana and Scott? It was madness.

  “Ana, please. I’m trying to get more in touch with my domestic side.”

  Oh great, when you’re forty and I’m grown up and living on my own, then you go and find your domestic side. Nice. But Ana was blowing her mother off for Thanksgiving. If she came to this dinner and promised to stay in Denver for Christmas, maybe she wouldn’t have to feel quite so guilty. “Okay. What time should we be there?”

  Ana had repeatedly warned Scott to eat before he left for dinner and to expect truly stomach-churning fare.

  “It’s really, really bad. I mean tasteless and burnt and we’ll usually eat the entrée first and then the soup and salad and nothing is timed right so everything will be cold . . .”

  “Ana, Jesus, I get it already. I’m not expecting five-star cuisine tonight. You’ve warned me fifty times in the last three days.”

  Ana was anxious, and her anxiety was exacerbated by the traffic they were stuck in. Who would have guessed there’d be traffic on a Sunday night? Of course anyone who knew anything about football would know there was a game this afternoon, but Ana didn’t follow sports, and neither did her roommates.

  To Ana, sports weren’t about revelry or fun, they were about traffic that totally messed her up when she had someplace to be. Also, sports were about drunk idiots who started riots to celebrate their team winning a trophy or series or whatever it was called.

  Ana loved that the guys in her house didn’t watch sports. If they were flipping channels and there was nothing better on, they might keep a game on, but they’d provide a running mocking commentary about the fans, the announcer’s hair-cut, the players, the coaches, and how everyone involved took it so seriously, as if it mattered who won the stupid game.

  It wasn’t like it mattered all that much if Ana and Scott were fifteen minutes late, but she already knew the evening would be a disaster and this was just the first thing to go wrong in what promised to be an evening of humiliations.

  As soon as they walked in to her mother’s two-bedroom condo, Ana felt immediately relieved that it was Scott who was with her, and not Jason. If it were Jason on her arm, she’d be embarrassed by the old, dingy carpeting and the wildly ugly and out-of-date cabinets. She’d smart from how much she hated the Kmart table, the ceiling fan circa 1978, and the plebian knickknacks all over the place. She’d be embarrassed that her mother would buy nonorganic vegetables that were completely out of season and tasted like plywood, and the humiliation of the actual meal itself would likely have done her in.

  But Jason wasn’t here, and Ana was only sort of uncomfortable, the usual uncomfortable she felt around her mother, knowing that something would go wrong and she’d have
to fix it while assuring her mother it really was no big deal.

  “I’m so glad you could come!” Grace hugged Ana. “I have wine. Do you want red or white?”

  “Red please,” Ana said.

  Grace scurried into the kitchen to get the corkscrew. Ana remembered how jealous she’d been of Marin when she had first met Marin’s mom. Ana longed to have a sharply dressed mother who accessorized perfectly, whose makeup always was exactly the right shade for her skin tones, and whose hair was shiny and sleek and always cut so it lay just so, unlike Grace, who, no matter how much she straightened or blow-dried her hair, three seconds after she stepped away from the mirror it would kink and coil in the crazed, jagged loops of a drunk’s cursive.

  Ana had only met Marin’s mother once in the six years she’d known Marin. It was when she and Marin had graduated, and Marin’s parents had flown out to see the ceremony.

  Not once in the four years Ana and Marin had been members of the Iron Pyrits had either of Marin’s parents flown out to see one of their performances. Marin acted like it didn’t matter to her, but Ana knew it did. She’d overheard Marin on the phone several times to her mother saying how they had a show coming up in four or five weeks—plenty of time to book tickets—and the shows were really fun, maybe they could come out for a couple days and meet everybody.

  Twice her parents had told Marin they were going to fly in for the weekend, and these weekends were preceded by Marin going nuts and actually cleaning the entire house on her own volition, and nearly bursting into tears if one of the roomies left his or her shoes by the door instead of promptly charging up the stairs the nanosecond he or she got home to put them away in his/her respective closet.

  Marin would get her hair touched up and would buy new clothes, shoes, socks, and underwear, as if her parents had X-ray vision and would know if she were wearing holey underwear.

  She would buy good bottles of wine, put them in the wine rack, and warn her roommates to stay away from them or face her wrath. She bought weird foreign cheeses and exotic foods and spread them decoratively around the kitchen. She banned all frozen pizza or frozen dinners, and boxes of mac and cheese and Raman Noodles were hidden in closets and under beds.