Ms. Taken Identity (6 page)

She winks and breezes on her way, and I slam the door till it falls off its hinges. In my mind, anyway.

When I get back to the apartment, I ditch any plans that might require an ounce of brain, like coming up with a lesson plan,
or reading for my dissertation, or putting the cap back on the toothpaste. This is all about getting in touch with my inner
chick. So I watch
Oprah
.

I’m hoping for something that’ll build on yesterday’s time at the bookstore, maybe a show called “A Male Writer’s Guide to
Further Understanding the Ways and Habits of the Chick-lit Heroine.” Of course, I’m asking a lot there, so I’ll settle for
a makeover episode. But what I get is Jay Leno, and Jay talks a lot about comedy and kids doing comedy, because he’s written
a book about how to be the funniest kid in your class, and he brings out a group of precocious kindergartners who giggle a
lot and pick at their clothes and do stand-up bits, which include a couple of haltingly told knock-knock jokes about poo.
Cute, but not exactly the show I was looking for, to be honest.

And maybe it’s the disappointing
Oprah
that leads to an unproductive evening with the writing. I can’t seem to get anything going, since those topics—Jay Leno,
kid stand-up comics, poo jokes—weren’t high on the list of chick-lit plot devices I gleaned yesterday. Even so, when Oprah
gives you lemons, you make lemonade, so I sit and wrangle with it, and the best I can come up with is that my very witty heroine
is slightly overweight, so she becomes addicted to fashion to help her feel better about herself, which causes her to go into
debt, which causes her fiancé to get angry and break up with her, which makes her eat lots of ice cream and run the credit
card up even more and sink into despair; but then she gets her scrappy on and decides to go off to comedy camp, where she
becomes the world’s most famous knock-knock joke teller and meets a Hugh Jackman look-alike who loves a size-twelve woman
who can make him laugh, and they have lots of sex and live happily ever after. I think I have everything I need in there,
but the plot strikes me as a bit ridiculous, even by chick-lit standards. (I think.) Which means my evening is a total waste.

I go to bed that night feeling not quite so rosy as I did yesterday at this time. I thought I’d have a few chapters done,
or at least a draft. But no need to panic yet. I’ve only been at it one evening, and I figure even the real chick-lit aficionados
like Katharine Longwell need at least a week or two to crank out one of these things. I fluff my pillow, get comfortable,
and cheer myself with the thought that tomorrow is another day. Yes, things will be better in the morning.

But they aren’t.

Nor are they any better in the afternoon, or evening, or night, nor on Wednesday or Thursday or Friday, despite the fact that
I’ve revised my methods, expanded my field of research, become more inclusive, so that instead of just watching
Oprah
, now I’m watching
Dr. Phil
and
Rachael Ray
and
Ellen
and the Oxygen and Lifetime and Hallmark networks, and everything on Bravo, and shows like
Grey’s Anatomy
and
Ugly Betty
and
America’s Next Top Model
, and any movie with Meg Ryan, all the while eating my Chunky Monkey and M&Ms; and I’m paging through
Glamour
and
Allure
and
Marie Claire
and
Town & Country
and
W
and
Cosmo
(no Molly article,
yet
) and reading articles called “Put the
Oh!
in Your Orgasm” and “Blow His Mind with These Down Under Tricks” and “Seven Saucy Secrets to Spice Up Your Booty Call,” and
I’ve been into mall stores and boutiques called White House/Black Market and bebe and Bronx-Diba Shoes and Claudia Milan and
Ylang Ylang and Aeropostale and Harari and Lucky Brand Dungarees and Satine and Anthropologie and BCBG Max Azria, where I’ve
seen metallic sweater dresses and floral halters and linen flounce skirts and lace dot camisoles and raw-edged capris and
fringed denim shorts and halter jumpsuits and silk charmeuse shirts and bra top dresses (with hidden bralette shaping) and
paisley tunics, and shoes, lots of shoes, such as slingbacks, sandals, stilettos, platforms, pumps, slides, wedges, and boots—ankle
and mid-calf and knee high—and I’ve seen purses and clutches and totes and pochettes and slouchy hobos and saddlebags and
satchels and baguettes, and I’ve smelled perfumes and held diamond rings, all the while thanking the clerks for their patience,
since I’m only a stupid guy taking notes, trying to find the perfect gift for my girlfriend, but all of it to no avail, so
that by Saturday night, as I lay on the couch with my empty ice cream cartons and candy wrappers and new love handles, I don’t
have a single useable page of the novel. And I am a total wreck.

So what’s the problem here? Oh, sure, my characters look the part, in their Balenciaga minis and Jimmy Choo shoes, with their
Lancôme brush-on lip shine plumper stashed in their Louis Vuitton purses. But get up close, stand next to them, and poke them
with your finger, and you’ll notice something odd: they don’t flinch, they don’t poke back. They’re mannequins. They’re like
those Indians in the old westerns who speak slowly and drop all the articles and use bad grammar: “I tell white man he have
nothing fear from buffalo rider.” Wooden, stilted, one-dimensional.

And the reason I can’t make them breathe or move or talk is that I don’t understand the real people they’re supposed to be
like. Women who take surveys to find out if they’re more like Jen or Angelina, or know that wrap dresses tend to slim a curvy
figure, or that skirts in twill or gabardine give shape to a saggy butt, or that bows are in but sparkly brooches are out,
or how to apply Enjoue Beaute Skin Glow in Pearly Pink or Giorgio Armani Luminous Silk Foundation in No. 5 to get Eva Longoria’s
smoky eyes or Kirsten Dunst’s flushed cheeks. Who are these people? They may as well be from another planet, and if you’re
saying, “Actually, men are from Mars and women from Venus,” then you’re precisely the type of woman I just don’t understand.

Women like Hannah, or Skyler, or any of the women I’ve ever dated, or hung around, or liked, they don’t say things like that,
or care much about wrap dresses or lip plumper or bows or sparkly brooches or Jen or Angelina or skin glow or Eva’s smoky
eyes. And I guess I’ve always known such women exist—one hears rumors—but I haven’t exactly made the effort to get to know
them and their habits and mannerisms. It seemed like a good and honorable thing, to have missed out on all their frippery.
But now I’m paying the price.

B
radley and I are watching football Sunday afternoon, and even though the Rams have won and the Chiefs are winning, and big,
I’m not enjoying any of it. Bradley notices and asks me what’s wrong, so I tell him.

“Don’t sweat it, man,” he says, like we’re talking about a hangnail. “You just need to spend some time with my sister and
her dancer friends.”

At first I think it’s code for something else, and I expect him to repeat it and make finger quotes around “sister” and “dancer
friends,” or at least one of them, and then explain the true meaning. But he doesn’t. He just goes back to watching the game.
Then I remember: he actually
does
have a sister and she
does
have dancer friends. Still...

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“That day I helped her with her furniture, some woman was eating a candy bar, and she said, I swear to God, ‘I may as well
be gluing this chocolate to my ass.’ Then two of them get into a discussion about which is better, Godiva or Ghirardelli or
some other crap, then somebody else jumps in about the style of jeans the ass-gluer’s wearing, and how that’s a good fit for
her, since she’s short-waisted. Whatever that means.” He stuffs a few nachos into his mouth. “I suggest you get down to that
dance studio and make like SpongeBob and soak it all up.”

Oh,
that’s
what he’s talking about: go to a dance studio. Yeah, I’ll do that, right after I jam a screwdriver through my ear. “News
flash: I don’t know how to dance.”

“No kidding. That’s why they give these things called lessons, so people like you can learn. It’s the perfect cover: a public
place, lots of chatter. You’ll fit right in.”

I picture the studio, and me at the studio, and other people with me at the studio, and little beads of sweat begin to form
on my upper lip. But if it would help… “What’s the name of the place?”

“Dance something or other.”

“Oh, I love that place. I’ll head right over.”

“Just get me the phone book. I’ll know it when I see it.”

I fetch the yellow pages and he thumbs to the dance section.

“Aha! Here it is,” he says, “Dancing Daze.”

Jesus. A place that likes to pun. I despise it already. “So what kind of dancing does she do?”

“Hmm. That part never came up.”

“Okay. What nights does she go?”

He shakes his head. “That part either.”

“What
did
come up?”

“The half-off shoe sale at Macy’s, chocolate, jeans for short-waisted people. Oh, and the instructor’s name. That came up
a lot.”

I wait for him to give it to me, but he doesn’t. Instead, he conspicuously turns away and takes a swig of his beer and holds
the bottle up to his mouth for quite some time, like maybe if he does this long enough, I’ll forget what we’re talking about,
and my own name, too, and we’ll move on to something else. But I wait, patiently.

“Well?”

He sets his jaw, serious-like. “Let me ask you a question, Mitch. How important is it for you to pull off this stunt?”

“Give me her name.”

He clears his throat. “Uh, his.”

“Fine,
his
.”

He chews at his lip. “It’s… Adonis.”

No fucking way!

“Mitch, he’s a dancer. He’s Greek. What’d you expect?
Jim
? And anyway, remember what the Bard said: ‘What’s in a name?’”

A hell of a lot, I’m guessing, when you’re a dance instructor by the name of Adonis. How tight are this guy’s pants?

“Look, if it’ll help any, I’ll call my sister, explain the situation, tell her to be on the lookout for you.”

I almost toss the remote at his head. “Oh, that’s brilliant. ‘Hey, Sis, I have a writer friend who’s working on a book about
shallow, superficial characters and he wants to research the project by eavesdropping on you and all your friends. Be especially
trite and vacuous with your comments, because that would help a lot.’” I give him a look.

“I’m just trying to help.”

“Yeah, well that doesn’t help. That’s idiotic. ‘I’ll call my sister, explain the situation,’” I mimic in a lunkheaded voice,
to let him know how I really feel, in case he doesn’t already. “In fact, with help like that...” I start, but I can’t think
of a way to complete it, not that gets it right, lets him know this whole thing is driving me nuts, that nobody told me there’d
be days like this. But maybe that’s just the point. I
can’t
think right now. And that’s my goddamned problem.

He shrugs. “Your call, Baryshnikov.” Then he starts yelling at the referee on TV.

There’s a scene in the first
Indiana Jones
movie when Indy’s about to lower himself into the chamber where the Ark is buried, and he sees all those snakes, and he rolls
back on his side, repulsed and disgusted and horrified, and says, “Snakes. Why’d it have to be
snakes
?” That’s how I’m feeling later, tossing and turning in bed, only I’m saying, “Dancing? Why’d it have to be
dancing
?” Because I hate dancing. I am repulsed and disgusted by dancing. And not because it’s unmanly or unhip, or in any way snakelike,
because, brother, it ain’t; I’d trade places in a heartbeat with Gene Kelly in
Singin’ in the Rain
if it meant having any part of my body near Cyd Charisse’s. The problem isn’t even the dancing per se. The problem is that
I’m
no good
. And I don’t do a thing if I’m no good at it, because I can’t stand looking ridiculous and foolish and klutzy, or being reminded
of my deficiencies and inadequacies and shortcomings, even if it’s only for the electric slide, and I
never
do those things in public, where there is gawking and guffawing and pointing, and where I could be the butt of a joke (“Hey,
look what that guy does with his arms. It’s chicken-man!”). And maybe I’m overly self-conscious about all this—or thin-skinned,
or kakorrhaphiophobic, or whatever a shrink might say—and maybe I should just get over it. But fuck that, really.

So...

As I see it I have three options: chuck the whole project and live with the knowledge that Katharine does this better than
me; keep plugging away as I am and go insane; head off to dance class with Adonis and Co. and make a total ass of myself.
Not the most soothing plotlines for a bedtime story and, as a result, I sleep terribly and dream awful dreams, and this is
how desperate I am when I wake: I’m prepared to cloak myself in tips gathered from
Cosmo
’s “Now and Zen” article. I shall be calm and still, a pool of tranquil water, and listen to the universe for answers.

I give the writing another try and it gets me nowhere.
I breathe deeply from the diaphragm
.

I go to the bookstore to check out the new
Glamour
,
Harper’s Bazaar
, and
Vanity Fair
, and they yield nothing.
I delight in my oneness with consciousness
.

I consider talking to Molly, even if it means she’ll know for all eternity I came crawling to her for help, but she’s wearing
a T-shirt that says Taster’s Choice and the same skirt she wore to my office the other day, and I’m guessing it might be hard
to talk with her about plunge bras and v-strings and Italian lace tangas and keep my mind—and eyes—where they need to be.
I take a cold shower (which, strictly speaking, was not mentioned in the article, but seems like the thing to do).