Aftermath of Dreaming Read online

  Honest to God, it is all I can do to look at her face and not her breasts. Now, growing up, I went to the French Quarter all the time and would see the girls on Bourbon Street with their pasties and twirls, so I’ve always known that I’m small. I just had no idea until I moved to L.A. how big Big can get. No wonder men stare in incredulous fascination—what this woman had was like nothing on my body at all.

  “You must be the sister,” Mandy says, moving all of her selves aside to let me in.

  Nice to meet you, too, I think, while I force a smile.

  Just past the foyer that Mandy has led me into, I can see an austere living room filled with clusters of chattering, tittering women. As I move to join the festivities—Mandy has already entered the room—a waiter intercepts me, blocking my passage with a tray of champagne glasses that he holds in front of my breasts.

  My “no” comes out a bit too vehemently, so I soften it with, “I mean, thanks anyway, but do you think I could get a vodka on the rocks with a twist?”

  He scrutinizes me, as if trying to predict what other social sins I will commit today.

  “No, okay.” I brush my request off with a laugh, but he’s not buying it. “How about a coffee?”

  “Espresso.” His tone implies that it is patently obvious I have never attended a bridal shower on the West side.

  “Make it a double.”

  After that delightful tête-à-tête, the party looks like a downright refuge. I see Suzanne sitting next to a building of gifts that appears ready to topple onto her at any moment. Hearts and love and pink and doves decorate the packages, while ribbons cascade down the sides. I immediately envision jewelry of thin multicolored cords dotted with gems encircling necks, arms, and waists, making presents of their wearers. I want to create them.

  “There you are,” Suzanne yells through the soft and pretty voices of the women in the soft and pretty dresses, as she gestures wildly for me to join her across the room. I immediately regret my outfit, especially the time wasted on the new bra that is making little to no difference on me.

  Which reminds me of when I was in first grade and wanting to be like straight-haired Suzanne, I decided to wear headbands. Momma bought one in every color for me, so I could wear a different one each day. The headband was visible in my hair, a happy strip of bright color among my curls, but it had no effect on how my hair looked, though I was certain it did. Certain that by wearing the small binding object, not unlike the one currently on my chest, I had entered the great sorority of life.

  On the third day of wearing a headband to school (green was the color du jour), I was walking to the swings at recess to meet my best friend, when a tall blond eighth-grade girl came up to me.

  “Why are you wearing that?” She used a tone that I had only heard used by Momma and Daddy when they were really mad. She was in too high a grade to be Suzanne’s friend, so why was she talking to me and about what? I was wearing the same plaid pleated uniform as everyone else.

  All around us, girls were playing hopscotch, jumping rope, hand patting sing-song games, whispering in groups, or lounging in the sun with their socks rolled down and skirts pushed up until a nun came along.

  “That headband. It looks ridiculous in your hair. Curly-haired girls can’t wear headbands.” Her face contorted from the honey-sweet American dream to a deep ugly sneer. “You look stupid.”

  The green plastic hair ornament had become tighter and tighter with each of her words. My face felt hot, and I didn’t want to look at her anymore. She made a nasty laugh, again said, “You look stupid,” then walked away, leaving me standing there. I didn’t just feel stupid, I felt dumb, a word Daddy wouldn’t let us use about anyone, but there I was using it about me in my head. None of the other girls seemed to have heard her, but I figured they already thought the same thing and just hadn’t said it.

  I went to the bathroom into the farthest stall, closed and locked the door behind me, and broke the headband with my hands, the sharpness of the plastic hurting me with each break. Pieces of green flew out onto the hexagonal tile floor, as I kept bending and breaking until the headband was just tiny bits of bright shards lying on the dingy white tile. My hair was all wrong and I hadn’t even known it. If that wasn’t dumb, what was?

  I was about four when I noticed that my hair was curly without the pin curls that Momma laboriously put on Suzanne every night before bed. When I asked Momma why I didn’t need those, too, she told me that I was blessed, that the angels curled my hair every night while I slept. I tried to stay up a few nights to meet these angels and talk to them, to see if the pin curls they made were the same as the ones Momma did on Suzanne or better—maybe they used golden pins from heaven. But as I stomped on the already broken pieces of green headband on the bathroom floor, I wondered why those angels couldn’t’ve picked on someone else.

  “Yvette, Yvette.”

  My sister was calling me, rescuing me from this memory as she couldn’t when it happened.

  “Come meet Betsy, my wedding coordinator I’ve been telling you about.”

  As I walk down the two steps into the sunken living room, Suzanne turns to the older, conservatively dressed, and professionally happy looking woman sitting on her left and, pointing at me, says, “See her height? Now don’t you think her bouquet can be taller?”

  I make my way through the ocean of estrogen, hug Suzanne, then move to the empty chair next to them, slipping into it like a life preserver. “It’s so nice to meet you,” I say to the wedding coordinator. “I’m Suzanne’s sister, Yvette.”

  “Legs apart!” Betsy bellows.

  “What?” I jump in my chair, suddenly worried some odd animal is on the loose that only attacks feet that are close together.

  “Your legs, you have to keep them uncrossed and apart or you’re out of the game.” Her silver-haired head is close to me, watery blue eyes peering into my face. She is grinning madly.

  “The game.”

  “Whoever keeps their legs uncrossed during the whole bridal shower wins the prize! Of course, Suzanne here has already won—she’s the bride!—but you ladies—”

  “Have to—” I smile and nod at her.

  “That’s right—keep those legs apart!”

  “Right, well, lucky for me I’m not wearing a skirt.”

  Betsy’s licensed and official smile quickly turns into a frown as she notices my black pants for the first time. She looks as if someone just told her that the wedding march was legally banned.

  “I need to have a fitting with my veil,” Suzanne says, leaning past her still-in-shock wedding coordinator. “I’ve waited long enough; the wedding’s just over a month away, for God’s sake. How’s next week?”

  I wake up in a scream. The black clothes I wore to the bridal shower are on the floor next to my bed, and I try to remind myself that nothing else was there, but it feels as though something just left my room. I am still for a few moments, sitting straight up in bed, barely daring to breathe, as I listen, trying to hear anything, anyone, some tangible evidence of what scared me, but the apartment is quiet.

  As I sink back onto my pillow, I am relieved no one was really there, but I’m still flipped out. My praying to Mary before going to sleep clearly did nothing to keep the dream away. I consider calling Michael to ask him to come over, but it’s after three in the morning, and even though it’s Sunday, he probably has a long work day ahead. I don’t know where he gets his energy. I wish more of it was spent on me. He almost called me his girlfriend the other night. Kind of, at least. He phoned on Wednesday in the late afternoon, wondering if I wanted to hang out later, then showed up at nine P.M. with Indian food and a video of The Phantom of the Opera with Lon Chaney. Even though it was a silent film, Michael insisted we not speak. “The music, after all,” he said, which was fine with me. I love Lon Chaney in that role—taped-up nose and dreadful wig, so desperate for the love of someone plainly annoying as hell. Like Gone With the Wind, sort of. Though with that story, I had no patience. I co
uldn’t stand Ashley, and found Scarlett a fool for wasting her time and thoughts on him. One rainy summer day when I was ten, in the middle of reading the book in my grandmother’s attic-playroom, I literally threw it down in disgust and tramped loudly down the stairs, my critique coming out in my feet. My grandmother was in her sitting room, embroidering pillowcases for a cousin’s bridal trousseau.

  “I can’t stand Ashley,” I declared, flouncing onto the couch, but carefully so as not to jar her needlework.

  “Ashley Wilkes is a perfect Southern gentleman,” she said without looking up from the violet petal she was sewing and knowing exactly whom I was talking about.

  “Then I don’t like Southern gentlemen.”

  She pulled the needle taut from the cloth, stopped her embroidery, and looked at me with her gray eyes over her glasses, as if acknowledging my age and deciding that there was still time for this view of mine to be saved. Then she handed me a tea towel, and suggested I help with that, thereby ending the subject.

  The Phantom of the Opera video had ended, the credits were rolling by, I was lying on my couch with one of Michael’s arms around me, happy, but the movie had made me think of Andrew in a sideways sort of way, and I didn’t want to. I had already missed part of what Michael was saying to me, small and low in my ear.

  “I mean, we hang out and stuff, isn’t that enough? I know there’s a label for that, but I’m not into semantics.”

  By “stuff” I guessed he meant that we have sex. And I didn’t exactly want labels, either—though, okay, maybe a little—what I really wanted was the security of “I love you.” And to actually feel it for him. Which I think I really will—fully, completely, and truly—once I finally forget about Andrew which surely will happen any day because how long can one interaction, if I can even call it that, which, okay, I am calling it that, an interaction and so much more because he talked to Sydney about me for Christ’s sake, and what’s that if not the result of an interaction we had, but even so, how much longer can that fuel these constant thoughts of him? He is married, after all, with children, like Suzanne will be soon, but at least Michael will be at her wedding with me, and maybe their love spell will move onto us, so next year we’ll be up there. But is that what I want?

  It is obvious that I’m not going to fall back asleep, so I get out of bed, put away the clothes I wore to Suzanne’s shower, and go to the kitchen for a glass of water and that forces me to pass Suzanne’s veil on the iron stand in my living room. I keep moving the damn thing back and forth from my studio to this room, half to force myself to finish it, half to get it out of my sight. I wish it would take flight and my responsibility for it would end. Why in God’s name did I ever agree to do this for her? Could there be any bigger emotionally loaded commitment to make? Sure, I’ll be completely responsible for what everyone sees around your blushing bridal face on your wedding day. No, that’s not too much pressure—okay! I figure I have another week of putting Suzanne off before she tears down my door to see it, but surely I can finish it by then. In fact, I know I can. It’s a veil, for Christ’s sake, not the David I’m meant to create—just get it done. If only I didn’t get such ennui whenever I try.

  19

  I get lost driving in Venice. The streets near this part of the beach angle and cut into one another unlike anywhere else in Los Angeles, so it always surprises me when I am able to find Lizzie’s store. She named it Tizzie’s, which I thought was charming when I walked in that first time and she bought my jewelry before anyone else. But now as I park my truck, I wonder if the T of her sign was less expensive than an L. Knowing Lizzie, she got a deal on it somehow, but I guess it’s better than a D.

  The store is the usual customer-challenged turmoil when I walk in, but it’s Monday, so I try to pretend to myself it’s because of that. The shop is completely rearranged; new items next to retro, any decade fair game.

  “Merchandising, that’s what they call it.” Forgoing a hello, Lizzie has launched into an explanation of her retail method madness. She is sitting on a high stool behind the counter, Santa-suit red hair above pale skin, sipping a diet soda in a to-go cup that looks as though she could dunk her entire head in it. Lizzie is inexplicably attractive in an against-your-will kind of way. I have never seen her in the same pair of glasses twice. Today’s are cat eye. For the first time, I wonder if the lenses are fake.

  “Suddenly the customer wants to buy, but they have no idea why.” She taps her purple-painted fingernail against the jumbled-bright innards of a display case for emphasis. I realize she is directing me to the new location of my jewelry.

  Reassuring her what a big change it is (this is true, I just let her interpret it how she likes), I see my earrings and pins in a chaotic clump intermingled with outdated high school rings, forgotten feather earrings, and molded plastic bracelets. My creations look enslaved.

  “I need to get that check from you, Lizzie.” I smile as I say it, trying to make it pleasant somehow.

  “Uh! You never come to visit—just business, business, business with you. Besides, I specifically recall saying—”

  “That was three months ago, I can’t wait any longer.”

  “Well, if your stuff sold better in here, hon, maybe I’d have the money for you.” She is holding her Goliath-sized beverage cup ominously, as if it were always intended as the weapon it seems. “You know, I’ve believed in you a real long time. Hell, I’ve had your trinkets in here since when was it?”

  “For a good while, Lizzie, yes, and now I just need to get paid.”

  “That is not gonna happen today.”

  I want to grab her drink and throw it in her face, but I am silent for a moment, though wish I weren’t. Wish a stream of invectives were pouring forth, covering her with righteousness. For a second, I consider taking the rest of my jewelry back, but that would piss her off so much that I’d never get a check for all the other pieces she sold.

  “Okay, three more weeks, can you have it for me then?”

  “Of course, Yvette, haven’t I always been right as rain with you?” Lizzie’s sunny smile is as reassuring as a cloudy day.

  Yeah, I think as the bell on the door clangs my departure from the store, right as a thunderstorm on my economic parade.

  When I get home from Lizzie’s, the only messages on my answering machine, besides yet another hang-up, are ones concerning work. One is from an actress who just got back in town and is wondering if the pieces she ordered are ready. They are, so I’ll call her to set a time to take them, and I make a mental note to remind myself to somehow work it into our conversation how great they’d be on her when she attends the premiere. Another message is a possible new commission; a woman saw my jewelry on a friend of hers and wants to see what I’ve got for herself. Why couldn’t Michael have called? Just once, I wish he would call to say hey, how are you, I was thinking about you. I haven’t seen him since Friday night, and he did call on Saturday, though it wasn’t much of a conversation what with radio people talking to him in the background as if the phone to his ear was merely some odd contraption to be ignored. I’ve been having a small little feeling that I disappear for him if I’m not right in front of him. Like he does for me when I think about Andrew, actually. Stop already. Andrew is out of my life and Michael is here now. Though not enough really somehow. Though maybe he would be more if I could stop thinking about someone I haven’t been with in over four years.

  But I am relieved that there isn’t a phone message from Suzanne asking when she can see her veil. I need to sit down and finish the damn thing. Dipen doesn’t have the jewelry ready yet, though there is some invoicing I can do on commissions, but I really should just work on the veil. Talking to Reggie will help me begin even though our conversations have been kind of stilted since Michael’s been in the picture again, but work anguish Reggie understands. I know he is at the editing room, so I leave a message on his home number, while wishing for the millionth time that he had a cell phone like everyone else. That and his refusa
l to watch the Oscars are his two acts of defiance as an Angeleno, which I respect, though it would be a lot easier if Reggie weren’t so difficult to reach anytime other than our morning calls. He is usually always out.

  One night last year, he came to my apartment, and we ate the Mexican food he’d brought, then pored over a photography book he’d found on turn-of-the-century New Orleans, talking until late about the future filming of his script. Before he left, he used my phone to check his messages, which I found odd since he was heading home, but then realized that there are times when I want to know before I drive home if messages are waiting for me. He pressed some buttons, listened for a bit, hung up, and hugged me goodbye, his body cousin-comfortable with mine, then was out my door.

  I went into the kitchen for a glass of water to take to bed. Noticing that I was out of milk for my morning coffee, I headed out to the gas station/convenience store two blocks away. About to cross the street to reach the store, I noticed Reggie’s car in the parking lot, but far away from the gas pumps. Then I saw Reggie with his broad back to me, talking on the pay phone. I was just about to shout to him, but a voice in my head stopped me. Why hadn’t he used my phone for the call he was making? Traffic was scarce, so I easily could have crossed the street and asked him or just said hello, but I stayed on the corner, letting the situation unfold.