How to Meet Cute Boys (6 page)

I didn’t really blame the Mother, though—she was raised Roman Catholic, got married young, had two kids by twenty-one. Besides,
there was an upside: The Mother bought better junk food than all the other moms, taught me how to disco dance in our living
room to “MacArthur Park,” and when I got suspended for smoking pot in the high school parking lot, yeah, she grounded me.
But then, because she knew I’d stolen it from her and didn’t want me to tell my dad—who was about to leave on a surfing trip
and had a lot of grandiose ideas about how his kids should be parented (even though he was never there to do it himself)—she
let me invite friends over for a weekend-long sleepover party.

After we ordered, the Mother sat back and folded her arms across her chest. She studied me closely, like she was sizing me
up or something.

“What’s up?” I said.

“Not much,” she said. “You?”

“Not much.”

She hadn’t started complaining about my choice of restaurants yet, either.

“Why are you smiling like that?” I asked.

“Am I?”

“You know you are.”

“Well, I can’t tell you. It’s not my place.”

I reminded her that she never was one to stick to her “place” so why start now? She looked thoughtful and said, “You know
what? You’re right. Okay, the big news is … Are you ready?”

I rolled my eyes, and before I took my first sip of my coffee, I said, “Born ready.”

“Okay, then … Your sister is getting married.”

I gasped in horror. The coffee was a thousand degrees, too, and I sucked in too much. I could actually feel the roof of my
mouth sizzle. “Wait,” I said, grabbing an ice cube from my water glass. “
What?
You’ve got to be joking.”

“Not so far.”

“My twenty-one-year-old sister.”

“The only one you have.”

“Is getting married.”

“Yes.”

“To whom?”

“What do you mean ‘to whom’? To Jamie.”

“To her commando boyfriend, Jamie.”

“Ben, stop it.” She slapped her palm flat on the table. “Stop it now.”

The Mother may act like a big sister much of the time, but I knew from experience it would be unwise to push her too far.
Then I thought, as I often did,
Fuck it
.

I said, “He’s a gun-toting Republican from Texas who wants to join the CIA.”

“What does this have to do with politics?” she said, waving the thought away. “Your sister is getting married!”

“Have you ever
been
to Texas? They shoot gay people for fun in Texas!”

“Now you’re just being ridiculous.”

“Besides, you don’t believe in marriage.”

“How can you say that?” She looked offended. “I’ve been
married
three times.”

“Exactly.”

“Please don’t ruin this for me.” The Mother leaned forward. “I’m thrilled.
Thrilled
that at least I get to see one of my daughters marry the right man.”

The jab didn’t escape my attention, so I told her for the hundredth time that Jack was hardly the right man. She nodded, like,
If that’s what you need to tell yourself
…

“When did this happen?” I asked.

“Yesterday. She was going to call you but, well, you know. Anyway, Jamie proposed to her in the Color Me Mine where they met.
He put the engagement ring inside a ceramic mug she was painting. Isn’t it just adorable?”

I felt like I was going to throw up.

With that, the Mother kicked off an endless monologue about all the plans she and Audrey were already making for the wedding.
I sat there, stunned.
Audrey’s too young to get married,
I thought.
Nobody gets married that young anymore
. I didn’t want to get married. Why should she want to get married?

But every time the Mother’s voice went up at the end of a sentence, I nodded and smiled. I heard, “Something something something
bridal shower since you’ll be the maid of honor?” Nodded and smiled. “Something something something
very
Martha Stewart?” Nodded and smiled. And
then,
“Something something something who you’re going to bring to the wedding?”

Suddenly it occurred to me that I was about to become a cliché thanks to a ring in the bottom of a DIY coffee mug. I was the
twenty-seven-year-old sister who would have to bring her best friend to the wedding because I probably wouldn’t have a boyfriend
to take. Everyone would
tut-tut
over me, convinced that my decision to break up with Jack was a horrendous mistake, and the rumor that I was a lesbian (which
I
knew
was being circulated by my Catholic grandmother) would finally gain a toehold.
And yet,
I mused,
Little Miss Perfect promises to spend the rest of her life with a Nazi and she gets a party thrown for her
. This sucked. It
sucked
.

“When is this taking place?” I asked.

“The second weekend in March.”

I had six months to get a boyfriend.

“Well …” I offered. “I did just meet someone new. I think.”

“Someone new. You think. Sounds promising.”

The waitress put our food on the table—the Mother’s egg white and chicken omelet and my American cheese and bacon scramble.
To annoy her, I pointed at her plate and said, “Isn’t that like eating the mommy and the baby?”

She ignored me.

My breakfast looked delicious—all hot and gooey and just waiting to be eaten—but I couldn’t believe she hadn’t asked me
anything
about Max. So I glumly pushed the food around until the Mother finally asked a couple of perfunctory questions.

I gave her all the details anyway. How we met, how he owned his own company, how he hadn’t called yet, but how he would call
because, you know, the three-day rule, and how he said he wanted to hang out sometime …

“Then hang out.” She took a bite of toast, like,
That’s that
.

I looked at her like,
Is that all you’re going to say?

“What? You know, the first time Jamie saw Audrey, he followed her into that Color Me Mine off the
street?
He asked for her number and called her
that day
. Took her to that cute seafood place on the pier for dinner …”

“Yeah, Mom, because
he’s a stalker
.”

“And let me guess,” she said, taking a sip of her water. “You met this ‘Max’ person at some party where he was probably cruising
around looking to get laid. Honey, when are you going to find someone who can
really
give you what you need?”

I wanted to ask what Max had done to deserve quotation marks around his name, but decided to just give up. The Mother went
back to talking nonstop about Audrey’s wedding plans. I nodded/smiled until I got a neck cramp, and, finally, lunch with the
Mother was over.

Seriously disturbed, I went home and sulked.
Then you should hang out,
I thought. Maybe she doesn’t remember what it was like when she was younger, when she probably picked guys because they were
into man-perms and liked Pink Floyd. My mom—who used to be cool—was suddenly acting like I should be romancing with gállant
frat boys who wore pressed chinos and patronized ceramic chain stores. Yuck.

I stared at the ceiling and blew smoke rings. Maybe this wouldn’t be so jarring if she’d been grooming me from day one to
hubby hunt. But the first time I told the Mother I was in love—with a boy in a band named Deus ex Machina who wore Dickies
and drove a Vespa—she simply said, “Go on the pill, wear a condom anyway, and never confuse sex with love.” I entered the
sexual arms race armed to the teeth.

As the afternoon wore on, the things she said continued to nag. I put some leftover Chinese food in the microwave and curled
up to watch Sunday-night HBO in my pajamas. But after the first few minutes I realized the
Six Feet Under
was a rerun. So I sat there, channel-surfing, eating my food out of the box, and I started to feel more and more pathetic.
Like people were walking by my place outside, hearing the TV and thinking,
That poor, poor girl
. I turned the volume down another notch.

Jack was reliable,
I thought.
And on a night like tonight he’d have been sitting next to me, which is at least more dignified
. I finished the last of my kung pao chicken and turned off the TV. I figured if Max called that night, at least I could call
the weekend a success.

But he didn’t.

“Five days,” I said, brandishing my drink at Kiki and Nina. I’d been checking my voicemail every day, checking the caller
ID, too—not even a hang-up from Max. “Five days is too long.” (It came out
daysh
.)

“Maybe he lost your number.” Kiki was trying to sound hopeful.

“He didn’t loosh my number,” I said, with a look like,
Who do you think you’re kidding?
“That’s like saying, maybe the phone isn’t working, when you know, deep down inside, that the phone is
working
.”

“Well, maybe the phone
isn’t
working.”

“The phone company does not rest!”
I shook my drink in her face, and it spilled over my knuckles onto the dirty wooden table.
“Boys do not lose numbers of girls they intend to call!”

“Okay. Okay. Take it easy. It’s only been a couple of days since you met the guy,” Kiki said, nervously eyeing my fourth scotch
like now would be a good time to take it away.
From my cold, dead hand,
I thought.

Besides, that would have been against the whole Shortstop ethos—we were in the kind of dark, dank, smelly Eastside hole where
doing your best
Barfly
imitation is strongly encouraged. And I was doing just that.
If I keep going like this,
I mused,
I’m going to end up like Isabella Rossellini in
Blue Velvet,
standing outside naked with my arms stretched out and moaning, “He put his spell into me …”

Just then, the waitress interrupted to tell me I had to take my cigarette outside.

“Even
here?
” I was aghast.

“The city keeps giving us tickets.” She shrugged.

But the look on my face chased the waitress away. I continued to puff—calling after her, “This is my last one, I swear”—and
sat back, satisfied. Now I could torment my well-meaning friends in peace. “So back to the subject at hand, girls,” I said.
“
Five
daysh. Days. Not three. Not four.” I held my fingers up, and gave them a little countdown. “One. Two. Three. Four.
Five
.”

“It must be really awful for you to wait so long for him to call, particularly when you’re feeling fragile about your sister’s
engagement,” Nina said in a compassionate tone.

I turned toward her. “You’re right,” I said. “It
is
awful. Do you think there’s a reason—something about how I look, something that I said—that would make him not want to call
me?”

But ever since Nina decided to get her master’s in psychology, she answers every question with a question. As in …

“Do
you
think there’s a reason why he wouldn’t want to call you?” she asked, with a concerned look on her face.

“Nina, I don’t know if there’s a reason why he wouldn’t want to call me. That’s why I’m asking
you
.”

She ignored this last bit, saying, “It must be terrible to feel like there’s something wrong with you.”

That would be the “reflective listening” she’d learned last semester.

I looked back at Kiki, exasperated. “A little help?”

“Okay,” she said. “Just give me a second to think.”

“Take your time.” I looked away, worried that someone was listening to our conversation and I’d been discovered for the loser
that I was. Just the opposite, though—some sleazy guy at the bar with greasy hair and a motorcycle jacket was giving me the
eye. I gave him the finger. He laughed and went back to hitting on the bartender, ogling her bare midriff. Female bartenders
in L.A. always show their midriffs so they get bigger tips. It’s true. I imagine them at Crunch Fitness, working those abs.
They probably make more money than I do.

“All right, I’ve got it,” Kiki said. “Here’s the thing: If he’s not going to call, then I say fuck him and find somebody else.
I mean, maybe he just broke up with somebody. Maybe he’s still
seeing
somebody. Maybe he’s an asshole.” She shook her head. “If any of the above is true, then be
glad
he hasn’t called you, okay? It means he’s saving you a lot of trouble. So fuck him and find somebody else.”

I took a look around the bar. “There’s nobody good here.”

“Well,” said Kiki, “you know, wait a day or two.”

“So, what are we doing this weekend?” interrupted Nina, who usually gets bored about halfway through most conversations. (That
her lack of empathy may interfere with her career as a psychologist has never occurred to her.) “Maybe we could go do a nice,
long day at Malibu, get a tan.”

“I can’t,” I said. “I’m going with Audrey to look at wedding dresses.”

“Sunday?”

“I can’t. I’m going with Audrey to look at more wedding dresses if she doesn’t find one on Saturday.” I put my head down next
to my drink.

“
Goddamn
her.” Kiki banged her hand on the table so hard it hurt my brain. “I’m sorry, but this is the
last thing you need
. Hi? You’re twenty-seven. You’re single. And your twenty-one-year-old sister, who as we both know looks like a Barbie doll,
is getting married before you. It’s not okay.”

Nina said, “It must feel terrible to have your younger sister get married before you’ve even found a decent boyfriend.”

“Please shut up,” I said, only half joking. “I’m
happy
for Audrey.”

Nina raised her eyebrows at me. I noticed she’d recently had them tweezed into fine little arches—Drew Barrymore, but full
of scorn and surprise.

“You could hurt someone with those things,” I said.

I stood, found my balance, and said I had to go to the bathroom. But what I really did was sneak to the pay phone in back
to check my voicemail. It was pathetic. But I figured as long as I knew it was pathetic, then it wasn’t really pathetic, right?
Right?