Lucid (25 page)

For example, the Duck with a lazy eye on my right hand screams to this sniffly kid with his finger up his nose, “Hey booger brain, ever heard of a Kleenex?”

The kid stops, turns, and with his finger still second knuckle deep into his nostril yells, “You smell like a Kleenex!”

Five-year-olds come up with the best comebacks.

Once I have the kids’ attention and that of their parent/nanny, the Milkmaid on my left hand tells the Duck some fanciful biography of the kid à la my normal shtick. The children scream and laugh and shout back rewrites of my stories, which are pretty clever, and the adults are so delighted they basically throw money. Several ask if I do birthday parties. The Duck answers that we only do bat mitzvahs and sweet sixteens because our material is so sophisticated.

Andrew shoots a ton of footage that will cut together into a masterpiece. At lunch, he fantasizes about taking it to festivals, licensing it to cable television. He’s really lost it.

I’ve never seen him happier. And perhaps because I’m still feeling guilty for being a poophead last night or maybe because I now know I love him, I’m not even annoyed by his drumming and humming. He raves about my comedic timing and goes on and on about our future plans as a puppet troupe. There is even one stray reference to my shirt being really pretty.

Then just as his gigantic gross burger arrives, he casually asks where would be a good place for a first date. If a guy wanted to make a good impression without, you know, overdoing it and looking too whipped.

“Is this a hypothetical question? Or is there someone who’s got you whipped?”

“The lady in question is a friend of Cassie’s. I used to see her a lot at my brother’s place.”

I chew a fry, in the most casual way, while all the blood rushes to my head.

“So how come you never asked her out before?”

“Her boyfriend would’ve objected. She dumped him when she found out I’d broken up with Carmen, or at least the two events had quite the coincidental synchronicity.”

My heart is actually breaking. Whether this anonymous rival is formidable or not, eventually one will be. I try to maintain the ridiculous smile I have plastered on my face while my insides turn to mush.

“So tell me all about her.”

“Amy? I guess the basic attraction is attraction. She’s model gorgeous. Maybe that’s because she’s a model. And she’s real funny. And easy to hang with.”

“What happened to only wanting to be with someone you love?”

“I’ve been thinking about that,” he says, “and I don’t know if I believe in love at first sight. And since we’ve been friends for a long time, maybe it’ll be that thing you know where love comes out of friendship. So what do you think?”

“Take her to Little Owl.”

To which the obviously appropriate response should be: “Let me take you there instead. In fact, let me take you everywhere for the rest of our lives.”

“Perfect,” he says. “Thanks.”

Two hours later, I sit on Emma’s couch and get up the courage to say, “I’m not sure I want to talk about it, but I’m in love with Andrew.”

It’s like hitting the world’s biggest hornets’ nest with a baseball bat. She doesn’t know where to pry first. After asking eight questions at once, she settles on, “Tell me what you mean by ‘being in love’ with him.”

“All my life I wondered, actually doubted, actually was pretty certain that I’d never be in love with anyone. And there was this moment last night, when absolutely nothing was going on between us, except me being a sour bitch, when the thought jumped into my mind that I’m in love with this guy. That I have been in love with him from the very first moment. That this is the thing I didn’t know if I would recognize when it happened, and now I can’t ignore it.”

“Why would you want to ignore it?”

“Because I can’t have him.”

“Why not?”

I sit in silence for a moment. “Can we just end the session right here? I mean you’ll get paid and everything.”

She laughs.

“I’m actually not kidding, and if you laugh at my agony one more time, I’m not only walking out that door but I’m never coming back.”

Another homerun to the hornets’ nest. Which is great because now it becomes a whole bunch of questions about how do I feel about her and her process, and Nicole and her process, and Sloane’s
mother and her process, and I’m just looking at my watch hoping we never get back around to Andrew.

Which of course we do.

“Of course you can get Andrew. You’re a lovely girl…”

Kill me now.

“You’re very intelligent, you have an original sense of humor, though you rarely use it here…”

I interject, “And I can cook and have a darling personality. So what was I worried about?”

A silence follows that is meant to be meaningful. “I think this is the first time you’ve ever actually mocked me.”

“I think you haven’t been paying attention.”

“Let’s talk about why you’re angry with me.”

“Sure. I’m in love with my best friend, who really likes me a lot, so much that he’s asking my advice on who to date and where to take them, and if you define your job as rubbing salt into people’s wounds, expect them to be angry. It’s called human behavior.”

One thing is for sure, I will never tell her that Andrew knows about Sloane. I am not interested in hearing her tell me I’m certifiable for letting my crazy out of the bag. I’m already painfully aware it was a mistake since Andrew, or anyone for that matter, would prefer to be with a psychologically stable model.

For the remaining eleven minutes, I basically clam up. Which drives her crazy. And makes me feel I’m getting Nicole’s money’s worth. Which makes me wonder for the first time in a while why I do this at all. I used to think that it was this insurance policy against compete abnormality. At least I knew I was crazy and was seeing someone about it. So I was better off than Sloane. Then when
Emma raised the stakes from weirdo to psycho, I began feeling really in need of insurance. But I wonder whether this quack is up to providing it.

Her finest hours are always when I get sad about my dad. Mainly because she just shuts up and listens and lets me work it out for myself. But also because she really cares, and I can see that she is a genuinely nice person. Which is not the same as having the credentials to save you from schizophrenia.

I somehow waste three hours wandering around Central Park thinking about Andrew. It’s pretty repetitive. Sort of like how I would imagine squirrels think about acorns in the winter. Rather than obsessing about productive things, like
Innuendo
and my career, or even the GED, my mind keeps coming back to Andrew. Even when I think about getting cast as Robin, I realize it will mean moving to Hollywood and never bumping into Andrew and Amy. Worse would be if I impulsively turn down the job because I can’t move three thousand miles from him. Then I’d have to cry myself to sleep every night for the rest of my life because I wouldn’t have Andrew or a career.

Of course, I’ll always have Sloane. So at least I’m getting kissed in an alternate universe. I mean, of course, Sloane is.

All that obsessing and wandering gets me home less early than intended. It’s Jade’s night to cook (once a month) and it’s usually best to have a disaster squad on hand, if not a full battalion of EMTs. So I walk into the apartment, hoping that it hasn’t burned to the ground, only to find Nicole and Jade poring over VRBO (vacation rentals by owner). Jade is still wearing the swim goggles she dons while cutting onions. Sauce is on the stove and it smells good.

Jade announces that we are going to rent a beach house somewhere this summer. Nicole tells me that she will make sure that the holiday fits within my production hiatus.

“My production what?”

“You can pretend all you want that you’re not getting this show, but I know that you are.”

“Just how do you know that?”

She looks in my eyes, and there is love in her voice as she says, “I just do.”

“That’s good enough for me,” pipes in Jade, “and Boris.”

I haven’t felt the impulse to hug Nicole for a long time. When I reach out, she reaches back, and we hold each other, and I say in her ear, “I’ve got a chance, Mommy, I really do.”

“You never call her Mommy; what’s up with that?”

“She’s getting older, dear,” Nicole says. “Careful, it’ll happen to you.”

But all this time her eyes are locked to mine and I can see she is just proud of me. For a role I might never get? No. She’s proud of me because she’s proud of me.

As we are sitting down to our traditional bucatini diabolo decorated with Jade’s famous broccoli trees, my cell rings. Looking at the screen, I excuse myself for a second. Shutting the bathroom door behind me, I offer, “You don’t know what to wear to the Little Owl? I’d suggest a simple black dress.”

Andrew laughs. It’s an honest, spontaneous laugh, and it makes me a little sad because he doesn’t know all the times I could make him laugh if he only chose me. And because I realize I’ll do it anyway, so he doesn’t have to choose me.

“Let’s have dinner,” he says. “You and me.”

“She turned you down?” I’m kidding, of course.

“Yep.”

“Oh, I see, you just called your one loser friend, who’ll always be available as a last minute backup since she doesn’t have a life.”

“Basically.”

I’m so happy. I’ll get to see him tonight. “Can’t leave for an hour.”

“I’ll try to be patient. Meet you at this place called the Little Owl. Where I overconfidently have a romantic corner table reserved.”

“Super. I’ll be the brunette in the little black dress.”

“Me too.”

I go back to the kitchen, and Nicole wonders why I look flushed and giddy. Jade says that Andrew must’ve called. Nicole says she’s betting on Thomas. I tell them it was just a really entertaining telemarketer and immediately begin shoveling down the pasta.

We spend dinner debating between Cape Cod and the Vineyard, like we can afford either, but Nicole is really excited about the three of us getting away together. And I like that. Very, very much. For the first time, I wonder if maybe everything is coming together.

I walk into the restaurant for my after-dinner dinner. The place is packed per usual, and I look around for a romantic table in the corner. There he is. There is a bottle of red wine on the table and two glasses have been poured.

He beams when he sees me.

“Excuse me, lady, I’m waiting for a brunette in a little black dress.”

“She stood you up too. It’s getting to be a trend.”

He stands, kisses my cheek, and holds my chair. Like he’d do for his mother or his sister. But he does seem really happy to see me.

I pick up the wine bottle and look at the label, which is in French.

“We’re celebrating you getting turned down?”

“I’m celebrating that they didn’t card me when I walked in with the bottle. I got it in Paris with my dad last summer. It’s going to really stand up to those gravy meatball sliders I have my eye on.”

“Paris, huh? You’ve been holding out on me.”

“Sure.”

I hate that about him. He always says things that I both despise him for saying and wish I’d said myself.

My cell rings and I’m not sure why I even glance at the screen. It’s Thomas. As I slip the phone back into my bag, Andrew smiles…

“Are you holding out on me?”

“Sure.” Boy, that kind of immediate payback never happens in real life.

“I’m guessing it’s Thomas because if it was Jade, you’d have answered.”

“Oh, only two people call me?”

“Well, three, including me. Call him back. It might be about the role.”

“I can’t even believe you. What makes you think it’s not some guy I’m dating that you’ve never heard of?”

“You didn’t take the call. That’s what makes me think it’s not some guy you’re dating that I’ve never heard of.”

Rats. I hate that about him.

“Call him back, I mean it.”

I want him to want me to never talk to a guy with hair like that for the rest of my life. Under his scrutiny, I call Thomas back.

“There you are,” Thomas says in his George Clooney voice. “Feel like catching a late supper?”

“I’ve eaten, thanks anyway.”

There’s a brief silence and then no longer in his George Clooney voice, he says, “Yeah, I can hear the restaurant. Back at Jean-Georges, are you?”

“No, I’m at the Little Owl.”

“With who?’

“Whom.”

“I stand corrected, who is buying your dinner?” I don’t like his tone, I don’t like him anymore, and I don’t care if he doesn’t like the fact that it’s…

“Just Andrew.”

“Hey, thanks a lot.” Andrew grins.

But at the other end of the phone, nobody is grinning. After a pause that makes me a little uncomfortable, “Okay,” he says gravely, “I was going to do this face-to-face, but I think I need to let you know that Macauley is going with the other actress.”

I am devastated. This must be what a head felt like in the French Revolution just after the guillotine blade fell. It is no longer connected to my body, but it can still manage to fix on one horrible thought.

“What happened?” Andrew is immediately alert, concerned, on my side.

“Wow,” is all I can manage.

“Listen,” Thomas offers in a softer voice, “Macauley really likes
you and is already talking to Rosalie and me about putting you in his next feature. So I think you and I should maybe sit down and go over that and some other things I have up my sleeve.”

Something in his voice just makes me feel I never want to see him again. Even if it means missing out on all the sparkly opportunities he dangles in front of me.

“Sounds good. Could you do me a favor and break it down with my agent first? She got all pissy about us running around behind her back.”

Big silence. Confirming that he may have had more things up his sleeve than just his arm.

“Might be a problem,” he says, “getting her in the middle of it. Let me call you tomorrow so you can get back to your date. And babe, I’m sorry about the role. You know how hard I tried.”

I gather all my self-control. But have to at least go for: “Yeah, thanks. Thanks for everything.”

“You didn’t get it,” Andrew says as if the loss is his own.