Aftermath of Dreaming Read online

  Roxanne sees me see her blow-dried, dyed-blond, appears-everywhere hair. “Plus,” I say, trying to fix my gaffe, “being pinned.”

  “Pinned?” Roxanne’s eyes swim over my body, as if trying to find this new form of piercing that somehow slipped past her au courant antennae.

  “It’s an old-fashioned promise thing. A guy would pin his sweetheart with his fraternity pin before she got the ring. Of course, this is 1998 L.A. so the concept is pinning yourself instead of waiting for someone else to do it.” I silently bless Momma’s stories of Daddy’s Sigma Chi days for this immediate inspiration.

  A fish in the X is staring at me from one eye while his fins silently keep him in place. I have a sudden image of each fish in the alphabet tanks sporting one of my pins, yet still swimming—a mobile hydrodisplay.

  “And the prices are?”

  The make-or-break moment has arrived. I pull out a price sheet from the bag and place it on the counter in front of her. Every item in the trays is on it: listed, described, and priced. I figured out a while ago that a piece of paper is much better than pointing to each piece of jewelry while saying a number, then sometimes having to go back and repeat a price since people couldn’t remember so many at once. And a tangible sheet of paper makes it seem as if the prices exist separately from me, so if a customer is teetering, I can drop the amount a bit, instantly becoming good cop to the price sheet’s bad.

  Roxanne studies the figures, looking from them to the trays and back again. I try to read her expression, but she just looks professionally guarded. A prayer for my jewelry to be in her store suddenly starts chanting over and over in my head.

  Roxanne picks up one of the rings, puts it on, then holds her hand out in front of her, like the opposite of a palm reader, farther away will tell her more. She squints at it, turning her hand this way and that, takes the ring off, looks at all of the trays one more time, then glances around behind her, catching the eye of the salesgirl who has been standing in a far corner refolding perfectly stacked cotton tees.

  “I’ll take one of each of these four rings, plus an extra of this for me,” she says, pointing at the one she had on. “These three bracelets, one of each of the ears, and one, two, three, four, yeah, these five pins.” Roxanne’s fingers skipped, landed, and hopped over my wares, as I quickly jotted notes of her selection, to transfer to an order form later on. “Figure out the details with Sandra here.”

  And as the salesgirl sidles up, Roxanne angles away.

  5

  “Reggie, can you believe it, I got in another store.” I am holding my cell phone with my right hand, steering my truck with my left, and trying not to let my euphoria increase my speed as I weave through the choked lunch-hour traffic on Beverly Boulevard.

  “It’s that new one I told you about last week that Bill hooked me into and, okay, short version for now, but she bought tons of stuff, so now I’m in two stores. Well, Tizzie’s probably counts only as half since Lizzie still hasn’t paid me for that last batch that sold, but you know what I mean, and Jesus, I’m so happy, I feel so much better since this morning with Suzanne which, you know, fine, she’s my sister and a bride so that’s like everything annoying about either role multiplied, but who cares, I just made a sale, okay, sorry sorry sorry for the long message, but I just had to tell you, and call me later, I’ll be home tonight, okay, I love you, bye.”

  I press the red button to end the call, then continue holding it down, turning off the phone. Suzanne always tells me I should leave it on in case of an emergency, and after Momma’s accident, I guess I should, though maybe that’s why I don’t. Traffic has taken over the road. I crawl through two more intersections, then push the red button on the phone to turn it back on to check my voice mail at home even though I am on my way there. Maybe Reggie’s left a message since I called him this morning after Suzanne’s. Or maybe Michael called. Thank God Reggie got over our Michael contretemps. I hope. I punch in the number to autodial my home as I come to a dead stop behind a car that is double-parked.

  The one and only message, besides yet another hang-up—a wrong number probably, but I seem to get those constantly—is from Michael, who is already back to calling himself “me.” As in “Hey, it’s me.” I love “me.” Love that he didn’t identify himself, like he did the few times he called in the first months after our breakup, as if our not having sex suddenly meant I shouldn’t know his voice anymore the way he could no longer know my body, nor I his. I play his message three times, listening again and again to him asking if he can see me tonight, and leaving his cell phone number (I guess he thinks I didn’t keep it—I did), for me to page him so we can make a plan immediately. This clearly elevates our date to extremely extremely urgent, and that makes me extremely extremely happy, so I’ll page him right now and make a plan for us to celebrate my sale and our reuniting. Jesus, I love life right now.

  I punch in his Westside area code, and am about to press the first number of his cell phone/voice mail/pager, when I realize that maybe I should not. Maybe this gushy, happy, rushy feeling means I should slow down. With him, at least. Because the thing about starting to see someone I’ve already had a relationship with is, I can’t just give him a kiss at the door. That would be weird because the whole how-soon-do-we-have-sex thing has already been done, so my only option for maintaining some control over not immediately falling headlong into him is to wait a bit before I see him. Dammit. I wish I hadn’t thought of this. My body so loves the idea of him tonight. Okay, I’m just gonna page him right now and see him this evening, I don’t care, what difference does it…No I won’t. I’ll wait until later to call him back—that won’t kill me—then I’ll figure out some night this week to hook up. God, I hate restraint. Maybe he can go to that opening of my friend’s show with me tomorrow night. That’d be waiting long enough. Jesus, just kissing him yesterday was so divine. Maybe tonight really is okay. No, this is better (keep repeating that) because I need to focus on getting this order together, though I’d really rather see him instead.

  Traffic has finally started moving now that I am east of La Brea and in the genteel pseudo–East Coast world of Hancock Park, which my neighborhood would be described real-estate listing-wise as “adjacent to.” I’ve never had a jewelry order this large before. For Lizzie, I just take new pieces to her store every four or five months, leave what she wants, then get a check (usually) after they sell. As for private sales, the most a customer has ever purchased at once was when a forced-retired-because-she-was-past-forty movie star ordered a ring, two bracelets, three necklaces, and four earrings. That was great. She loved everything, raved on and on, and wore four pieces in a picture for a Los Angeles magazine feature about her comeback film that then came and went, but the magazine tear sheet looks great in my press kit. She’s someone I should send a brochure to, whenever that gets done.

  But first I need to concentrate on Rox, especially since I told Sandra that everything would be delivered in a month. And then they’ll send me the check, she said. Jesus, that’s different from Lizzie’s. Paid before the stuff even sells. Like real retail. Maybe now that I’m selling to Rox, I won’t sell to Lizzie anymore. But no, it is another store; I just wish she’d get better about paying me. Although I’m not going to worry about that right now, I’m too thrilled about Rox. I hope everything flies out of the store, selling so fast that they order more more more. I start a quick prayer about that, then realize that I said one just a little while ago for Roxanne to buy my jewelry in the first place, and now here I am with something else. I guess if I’m in that pray-for cycle, it never ends.

  And I do pray about stuff, but mostly to Mary, because growing up Catholic in a South Louisiana family (which is redundant), when I first met Mary as a child, I picked her out of everyone in that crowd because God was clearly way too busy and Jesus always looked so unhappy up there on that cross, but Mary was something else. I figured she had gone through so much: being pregnant, but still telling everyone she’s a virgin; having
to mother, of all people, God. But in spite of all that, she always appeared okay and calm. I wanted that.

  Not that I pray to her in mass. I quit going when I was fifteen and I was seeing widow-man and was having premarital sex, which the nuns said was a sin that turns your heart black and the priest can see it in your eyes right before he gives you communion, then I guess the altar boys bodily eject you from the church, I don’t know, but I didn’t want to find out, so I just quit going and never went back. About four years ago I started studying Buddhism, so I meditate every day, but frankly I’m still a lot more comfortable around a crucifix.

  I was first introduced to Buddhism by an artist friend of mine, Steve, who took me to a meditation session that was held weekly at a Buddhist monk’s crummy apartment in West Hollywood. It was very informal, and En Chuan, the monk, taught for free, so I really have no business saying anything about the crumminess of his building, but this was 1994 and the whole of Los Angeles was wrapped up in that “if you are really spiritual, then you’ll manifest in all areas; i.e., you’ll be rich” bullshit, so at first En Chuan’s large and ugly 1980s junk-bond-built apartment building was a shock. But then it was a relief—I never could believe that harmony with God always results in large bank accounts.

  What did convince me of En Chuan’s authenticity was his constant smile and easy happiness; I wanted that. He was a doctor of Chinese medicine, sending most of his money each month to his family in Vietnam, and was a personal guru to several low-to-medium-wattage TV stars plus a hugely world-famous pop singer who would call for immediate (and free) in-person spiritual teachings at all hours of the day, though mostly night.

  The weekly meditation group consisted of six of us who met every Wednesday night in En Chuan’s beige-walled, brown-carpeted, lots-of-plants living room. We sat on black meditation cushions in a half-circle facing him—though one woman brought her own special leopard-print pad—and En Chuan would talk to us about Buddhism. Steve and the rest of them had been going for months, so my first few sessions were mostly concerned with trying to get used to this higher level of cross-leggedness that everyone else was able to hold for what seemed hours on end, then stand up and walk around without charley horses or limbs that were asleep and half dead.

  After a few months of going to meditation and getting inspired by the Buddhism, I decided to try not praying to Mary but to Kuan-En, the Buddhist goddess of love and compassion. Or I started meditating to her, is how I think the Buddhists would say it. I sat in my best effort at the lotus position and repeated her mantra (syllables whose vibrations engender love and compassion to yourself and all sentient beings, meaning animals, too, and plants, I think) over and over in my head.

  A few weeks into this, once her mantra came easy and fast like a lullaby I could sing without knowing I remembered the words, a feeling would come over me, or up from within, of being comforted and held in Kuan-En’s warm arms. It reminded me exactly of how I had felt as a child when I’d pray to Mary after waking up in the middle of the night from a bad dream. I’d be all turned around in bed, still terrified from the dream and of falling over the edge, so while I groped in the dark to find my pillow at the head, I’d say Hail Marys again and again, and that made me feel safe immediately. That was how Kuan-En’s mantra made me feel—as if Mary were with me and meditating from within.

  One night at the end of a session as everyone was putting their shoes back on, I pulled En Chuan aside and explained the familiar sense I’d get from Kuan-En’s mantra while meditating.

  “She’s Mary,” En Chuan replied, looking at me with his dark, twinkly eyes. “That’s why Kuan-En’s mantra feels like Mary’s prayer—it’s just different forms of one energy. If it’s more comfortable for you to use Mary’s name, do. It doesn’t matter; either way, it will help you.”

  I was so relieved—to continue meditating, but to have Mary part of it, too, because I just feel better with her around. Even though I automatically use the word God, I’m really talking to Mary, not the Big Guy in the Sky. I like that I can relate with whomever (or whatever) I’m praying to from a female point of view; and she was a female who actually got it all figured out. Even as a kid, I always knew that there was no way my experiences here on earth could ever be as difficult as hers. Of course, she didn’t live in L.A.

  I decide to stop at the wine and cheese shop on Larchmont Boulevard to pick up one of their special mozzarella/tomato/olive paste sandwiches and a cappuccino to fuel my work this afternoon and into tonight. I’ll turn some music up loud when I get home—I figure since Gloria’s never said one word about my screams, music isn’t going to bother her. Maybe I’ll put on that blues CD Reggie gave me on the disc rotator, with Lucinda Williams and Roxy Music, and let the hours slip away in a harmonic reverie of working on jewelry that will keep me distracted until I see Michael again.

  6

  Downtown L.A. makes me miss New York. Or makes me try to pretend that I am there, depending on the way the light is hitting the buildings. Because on a really bright, flat-light day, there is no way around the fact that I am on the West Coast and not in Manhattan. Even though the buildings here were built by men from back there and from Europe who went through Ellis Island before coming to L.A. to create tall office towers and high apartment buildings with beautiful, scrupulously detailed work of marble, terra-cotta, and tile just like in New York. But once L.A.’s collective consciousness decided it should have its own style based on easy weather and roomy land, bungalows with courtyards sprang up and two-story stucco structures became more alluring than the Gotham-esque towers of downtown.

  But not to me. One of my favorite aspects of designing jewelry is being downtown—daily, usually—in the jewelry district, a universe comprised of a few bustling blocks that looks like Manhattan’s Midtown filled with an international community. I’ve been here all afternoon and still have one more contractor in another building to see before everything closes: Dipen, an engineer from India who learned how to cast jewelry when he came to California ten years ago. He just moved offices, and I hope to God that means his schedule isn’t backed up.

  As I make my way toward the tinted-glass double doors to leave 608 South Hill Street—a building filled with stall after stall and floor upon floor of importers, wholesalers, and retailers; diamonds and pearls; stringers, casters, and setters; gems and stones of all kinds; bronze, titanium, and platinum; wedding rings and colored gold all glittering—I almost don’t notice my cell phone ringing. I manage to find it in my bag, push the green button, and shout a “hello” over the cacophony of sidewalk noise I have walked into.

  “Are you still going to that show tonight?” Reggie says, jumping right in.

  A sort of friend, Sydney, gave me comps to the opening of her one-woman show because I helped her find musicians for it. I had asked Reggie weeks ago to go with me, but he refuses to see anything live other than blues because he swears the musicians are all dead and only appear to still be breathing.

  “Yeah, I kinda have to. Why?”

  “I stayed up all last night reworking part of the script, and wanted to come by with some Manderette takeout and read it to you.”

  “I’d so much rather do that,” I say, crossing Hill Street at Sixth to get to Dipen’s building, which is over and down one block. The sunlight on Pershing Square looks like God adjusted his louvered blinds, reminding me that I need to hurry up if I’m going to catch Dipen still in. “I really don’t feel like seeing her show—I couldn’t even get anyone to go with me.” I don’t mention that Michael was the only other person I asked—he’s swamped at the station, so we’re hooking up tomorrow night. “But I promised Sydney I’d be there and, you know, bad friendship karma, so…Can I hear your stuff another night?”

  “You love Sydney’s shows.”

  “I know, but I could be working on sister-bride’s veil or hearing your script. How’s Thursday night?”

  “Probably. Breakfast mañana?”

  The theater in Santa Monica is a mob s
cene when I arrive. I am surprised at how momentous her opening night is, but I guess Sydney’s film career distinguishes this from the normally ignored L.A. theater event. A local news crew is creating a vortex of hierarchy for everyone trying to get inside. The famous are stopped to comment toward the camera and smile, while the rest are passed over, our bodies so much scenery for the finery going by. The crowd conveys me into the auditorium, and I quickly jump out as it passes my seat’s aisle. The chair beside mine is one of the few empty ones and its emptiness exudes a loud silence into the noisy air, informing everyone of the ticket left unused.

  As people keep pouring in, I pick up the program to kill the remaining minutes before the show begins. I read Sydney’s bio and the director’s, glance at the credits of the musicians whom I know, then notice a list of people thanked for their help in making this show possible and am surprised to see my name on it—that was nice of her—near the top since they are alphabetically arranged. A woman jostles my leg as she sidles past me to reach her seat. The audience is mostly settled, just a few stragglers are wandering in. I turn back to the list to see if I know any other names on it when suddenly I get a strange sensation, like the building’s about to explode. I turn around and in walks Andrew Madden, my ex-never-thought-I-could-breathe-without, whom I have not laid eyes on in almost four and a half years.

  Oh, my God.

  I immediately throw my program onto the floor so I can duck down to retrieve it, as chaotic gushing explodes in the theater. Andrew Madden is one of those particular people this town breeds who become internationally well-known. For almost four decades he has been a movie star, director, producer, studio head, and basic all-around grand Pooh-bah of La-La-Land. I keep my head down near my feet in hopes that Andrew won’t see me as he walks on by.