WG2E All-For-Indies Anthologies: Viva La Valentine Edition (30 page)

“Remember, if all else fails, go to Amoeba.”
The largest independent record store in the country, Amoeba sat
across the street from the Jack-In-The-Box where we had breakfast,
and to a time fritterer like me, it was heaven.

“The Amoeba plan. Right.”

He pulled a twenty from his wallet and handed
it to me. “In case of emergencies.”

“I’m prepared for emergencies.”

“Then go buy yourself something pretty.” He
leaned over and kissed me, the correct punctuation mark for cheesy
lines from days gone by. He tucked the twenty into my bra, his
finger tips grazing the top of my breast, and I flushed. Timing
sucked, but I was already looking forward to our Valentine’s Day
night.

If you think about it, this was the perfect
opportunity to showcase what a fabulous catch I was. Understanding.
Patient. Adaptable. Not high maintenance. I was a keeper.

After Jay dropped me off and drove away, I
strolled around Hollywood Boulevard, gradually expanding my loop to
include a few streets up and down the block. I stopped off at a
dance-supply store (legwarmers: fifty percent off) Capitol Records
(looked too confusing to enter but Duran Duran’s star on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame was out front), then back to Hollywood
Boulevard.

I wandered into Iguana Vintage where I did a
systematic study of pink crinolines, then walked farther down the
street to admire candy colored wigs in the window of a costume
shop. Finally I landed at a used bookstore and took my good old
time, because how often have I actually been able to spend all of
the time I wanted in a used bookstore without someone asking if I
was ready to leave?

I picked up
Nabokov Lectures on don
Quixote
for me (I’ve always been drawn to windmills) and
Hi-Fis and Hi-Balls
, a small pictorial documentary of the
fifties bachelor, for Jay. As I continued around the store, I found
more and more books I liked for me and a few my parents might
enjoy. I called my Dad and asked if there were any books he or Mom
were on the hunt for. He said no. It was 11:54.

I discovered the Cinema section, picked up
Hollywood Horror
, also for Jay. I chatted with the owner
while he rang up my purchases.

That’s when I discovered I had lost my
wallet.

I dug through the items in my handbag.
Notebook, pen, cell phone, lip-gloss, book, yes.

Wallet, no.

I looked around the interior of the small
store. “I lost my wallet,” I said. “It’s green. Do you see it?”

The owner’s expression changed. “You can’t
pay?”

“Not right now. Can you hold the books?”

“I don’t hold merchandise for people who
can’t pay.” He wasn’t making eye contact with me, he was making eye
contact with my left breast.

That’s when I remembered the twenty.

I reached into my bra and pulled out the
bill. “Put the Nabokov back. I’ll take the other two.”

He took the money, handed me the books and
eleven dollars in change, and I left.

I tried to retrace my steps, but had a hard
time remembering all of the places I’d gone — when I wasn’t worried
about things like identity theft, money, and fraud. I returned to
each of the stores where I’d frittered away my morning, and with
each “No” I received in answer to my question about a lost wallet,
my chest tightened as if I’d freebased a pound of bacon. Amid
internal voices of panic (
What are you going to do now?
) and
name calling (
What kind of dummy loses their wallet on Hollywood
Boulevard?
), the voice of reason piped up (
You probably left
it in Jay’s car).

Yes, I thought. That is logical. That is
possible. That must be what happened. I dropped it in Jay’s
car.

I stopped on Thomas Edison’s star on the Walk
of Fame and texted my sister (we have this thing about light bulbs
– don’t ask). I discovered carrying around a batch of books was
more of a pain than I’d considered. I walked to the Kodak Theater
to sit and read.

For decades I’d known it only as the Academy
Awards theater, and if I was going to sit around somewhere, it
might as well be in front of the Academy Awards theater, surrounded
by giant gold Oscar statues. Unfortunately two things made the hike
futile: weirdoes in costumes and no place to sit. I went to
Grauman’s Egyptian Theater instead and set up camp in their
courtyard.

But first I should arrange my ride home from
the airport tomorrow, a minor point that hadn’t been resolved and
was starting to worry me. I called a friend, asked for my favor and
she declined (she had a facial scheduled). We chatted briefly and
hung up.

That’s when I discovered my battery was only
half-full.

Let’s recap:

• I’m alone in Hollywood
  

• I have no wallet
  

• I’m down to eleven dollars and the coins at
  the bottom of my handbag
  

• It’s two o’clock
  

• My cell phone battery is slowly running out
  of juice
  

• Jay can only reach me by cell phone
  

Arranging a ride from the airport could be
dealt with later because I could
not
afford for my cell
phone to die. My cell phone was my lifeline. Good thing I committed
Jay’s number to memory when we first started dating. I could call
him from a landline/payphone/stranger/weirdo in costume’s cell if I
had to.

Sometime after two it started to get chilly.
I ordered a small tea from Lickety Split and huddled in a seat by
the heat lamps outside of their shop. Thank God I brought that book
with me, because Jay hadn’t called yet, which made me think he
couldn’t get away to call, which made me think he was going to be
working at the house in the Hollywood Hills pretty late.

Somewhere around 3:30 I finished my tea (I
nursed it) and thought maybe I should eat something. Still no word
from Jay, probably eating at the job. I walked to Two Guys from
Italy and bought a slice of pizza. I was mildly concerned about
money at this point and, while a glass of cheap Chianti might have
calmed my nerves, I didn’t want to risk the expenditure. My slice
cost me $2.39. After carrying the pizza and water to my table I
checked my cell for a call or text.

That’s when I discovered my cell phone was
blank.

WTF? By an optimist’s perspective, the
battery had been half-full! How could it have gone dead? What was I
going to do?
Calm down, Annie. Think. Take a bite of pizza, then
turn on the phone.

I did and it came back on with one bar (a
quarter full? Is it appropriate to still be optimistic at this
point?) but at least there was a display.

Let’s recap again:

• Already wandered up and down Hollywood
  Boulevard
  

• Ate one slice of pizza
  

• Down to seven dollars and change
  

• Conserving phone battery
  

• Getting cold, as sun is going down
  

• No word from Jay, who is on a mountain where
  he gets no cell phone reception
  

Logic told me it was time to use the Amoeba
plan. Big, indoor music store. I wouldn’t be outside where it was
cold. I should get there while it was still sunny-ish. I would
potentially have a lot to do, which was good because it appeared as
though I was running out of ways to kill time.

I arrived at Amoeba about 4:30. The store was
loud so I checked the screen of my phone every fifteen minutes or
so, willing Jay to call. I had
no idea
how long his workday
would run but the quarter-full battery situation (let’s just face
facts and call it almost empty, shall we?) forced me to hope for
the best but prepare for the worst. And since I knew once the sun
goes down it doesn’t go back up for awhile, I planned to stay at
Amoeba for quite some time. I headed for the one dollar albums.
Remember, conserving money? This was the best
frittering-time-not-money-plan-I had all day.

I filled the next two hours (you read that
right) with a system. Flip through a bin of albums, check my phone,
move to the next bin of albums, check my phone. All told there were
twenty-four bins on top, another twenty-four bins on the floor.
About fifty albums per bin. (Twenty four hundred albums, or
forty-eight checks of the phone.) My routine was interspersed with
a trek to the female vocal section, then to the movie section, the
listening station, used CDs, new CDs.

That’s when I discovered it was dark
outside.

One more time with feeling:

• I was running out of things to do at
  Amoeba
  

• The employees were starting to watch me like
  I was up to no good
  

• I had to pee
  

• Amoeba had these annoying signs announcing
  “No Public Bathrooms”
  

May I remind you it’s still Valentine’s
Day?

It was 6:30. All I wanted was to find a safe,
secure place to sit, read, and wait for Jay’s call. If he was still
working at 6:30, he probably wasn’t happy. And me calling him would
probably just – wait, I
can’t
call him because he doesn’t
get reception on the mountain! So there’s no point using up my last
ounce of battery juice on a call that won’t connect. I was down to
seven dollars. Seven dollars wasn’t going to do me a whole lot of
good so I spent a dollar plus tax on a Julie London album to set
the romantic mood later. It was 6:42 and I was loaded down with
books, an album, and a barely functioning cell phone. Things were
not looking good.

Original plan: sit on a bench outside Amoeba
and read.

New plan once I saw the type of people
outside Amoeba after the sun went down: go to Jack-in-the-box,
order a soda, and nurse it until Jay calls. (How poetic is this?
The same Jack-in-the-Box where we started our day. Like it’s
our
Jack-In-The-Box.)

He’ll be so proud that I’m self-sufficient, I
thought. That I kept busy while he worked. Yes it sucks this is our
first Valentine’s Day, but I’m sure that fact isn’t lost on him, so
he doesn’t need me to remind him. He will smile inside when he
considers what a complete, independent, loving person I am,
especially when I give him presents I bought for him with my
limited money. He will look back on this day and recognize his good
fortune.

6:57: Large Coke. Corner table where they
might not notice that I plan to sit with said Coke for as long as
it takes. I pulled out my book and my cell. Sat the phone on the
table next to my Coke and read.

7:32: Consider calling one of Jay’s friends,
just to tell someone where I was. But I don’t know them that well
and I don’t want it to get back to Jay I panicked and bothered one
of his friends. Besides, I am newly in love, so I think everyone is
newly in love. I don’t want to interrupt anyone’s special plans.
Sit tight. Jay will call.

7:44: Maybe I should text Jay to tell him
where I’m at, so he gets the text when he gets off the
mountain.

In case you can’t get my cell, I’m @
jack-in-box

Sending failure. Try again?

Yes.

Sending Failure. Try again?

Yes.

Sending Failure. Try again?

Yes.

Sending Failure. Try again?

No.

Hmmm. I guess this is all part of that
no-reception-on-the-mountain thing. I saved the message as a draft
so I could try again later.

8:03: Finish reading my book. We are now
officially nine hours past the time Jay dropped me off. Maybe his
day is done now. Maybe he’s driving down the mountain right
now.

8:16: Try to call Jay. Call doesn’t connect.
Freakin’ mountain!

8:22: Maybe Jay’s battery died.

8:23: Try to call one of his friends even
though I don’t know them very well. Call doesn’t connect
either.

Now I’m getting nervous. Because, no matter
how much I’m rationalizing the lack of contact from Jay, all of
which has to do with his location, I’m pretty sure his friends
didn’t go Buddhist on Valentine’s Day (translation: I’m pretty sure
they weren’t on a mountain.)

8:24: Call Dad?

8:24 (and seven seconds): Don’t call Dad,
because it’s 11:24 where Dad is and he might not understand that
I’m alone at a Hollywood Jack-in-the-Box because I’m a thoughtful,
considerate, independent, loving woman.

8:25: Call sister. She’s an independent woman
too. She’ll understand.

The call doesn’t connect.

Shit! Now I’ve got a real problem. There’s a
very good chance that it’s not Jay’s cell phone or the mountain
keeping me shrouded in silence.

I turned off my cell phone. I’m not sure why.
Three seconds later I turned it back on. Patience is a thing of the
past. I left my patience back at Amoeba.

My display returned. It took forever for the
phone to finish reading the sim card. I had to pee again. With the
battery almost empty, finally I was able to call my sister. It
dumped into her voicemail, which proved she had better plans than I
did on Valentine’s Day, and that my phone was working.

I went into text drafts. Found the
Jack-In-The-Box one. Sent it. Now, the wait. Only, I was about to
burst.

I collected my things and went to the
bathroom. Experience taught me it takes about five minutes for a
text to get from my phone to Jay’s. My trip to the restroom took
four and a half. When I came out, he was walking through the
door.

He got my text! He wasn’t abandoning me! He
wasn’t trapped on the mountain!

Relief flooded over me like a warm waterfall.
I ran to him, expecting open arms and a passionate kiss, but tried
not let my Hollywood adventure show on my expression (lest any
visible relief on my part taint the independent, considerate woman
thing).

Before I reached him, I knew something was
wrong. “Jay?”