Eye to Eye (23 page)

“Lame,” I say to Ronnie. “That desert island question is looking easier by the minute.”

The e-mail that I most dread opening has the subject line as, “CLASS YESTERDAY” and is sent from none other than HRH Paige Prentiss, who probably wants to pass down another order or two from on high. I debate letting her ruin my day, but curiosity gets the better of me.

Typically cryptic little princess. One of the downsides of teaching is that it quintuples your volume of “I need to talk to you about something, but I'm not going to say what,” conversations, which are up there on my list of things I love with black jelly beans, parsnips and root canals. For a solid week after her mother's visit, Paige refused to speak in class. And because I am a masochist, I even noted that her posts on the “Dr. Weatherall is a Liberal Bitchess” Web site had subsided. However, I have watched enough horror in my life to know that just when you think the Freddie, Jason or Hannibal of your life is down for the count, there's always the chance that they might jump out of a closet, or show up at the door when you very least suspect it. The devil, in my life, does in fact wear Prada.

“Almost finished?” Ronnie asks.

“You know when you were talking crazy about that whole back for the Ph.D. thing? Well, you should think long and hard about it. It doesn't remove the Ians from your life, it simply triples their number and gives them institutional channels by which to torture you. Just some food for thought.”

“So long as it provides food proper of the nonegg variety, tell the little monsters to have at it.”

 

On the way home, traffic has slowed from “jogger” to “glacial.” I'm starting to get my bearings, and wondering what every visitor to L.A. must wonder: how any sane human being ever survives this traffic. Atlanta is no walk in the park, not by a long shot, but this is positively masochistic. My cell phone keeps cutting out, but I leave Toni a message asking if she's talked to Tino. For just a moment, having seen how hard Ronnie and Earl are struggling, I admit how lucky I am at this juncture in my life. I may not have long-term friends, but I do have kind acquaintances. And if the Paiges of my life, or the smug Asas, or the indifferent Maxwells occasionally get me down, Ronnie is right to point out that at least I go home to a sweet apartment with a fixed computer and yuppie snack food in the refrigerator.

“This is insane,” Ronnie says. “We've moved approximately two city blocks in the past ten minutes.”

“But there's Mexican food at the end of the rainbow. And Earl behind a microphone. I miss the way he used to sing at the Saloon.”

Earl used to serenade Ronnie back at the bar in Langsdale, changing the words to whatever song was on the radio to some rhyme-free bluegrass yodel like, “When you gonna ride my hooooooog, city gaaaaaaal,” or “L.A. woman, ride away with meeeeeeee.” Ronnie always put her hands over her ears, but deep down she liked it. And Zach would shake his head when I asked why he never sang to me like that.

“You on a bike?” he'd say. “That's a laugh. Pardon me if I don't know any diddies about you riding off into the sunset
after
you've finished the latest eBay auction for your twelve thousandth pair of shoes. But seriously, I'll be thinking about it.”

I looked out the window at a pair of half-naked blondes teetering down the street in too-high slingback heels, and I knew exactly why Ronnie was thinking about leaving.

“You know any car games?” I ask. “This is worse than traveling cross-country.”

“Tell me about it. On a normal road we could have been in Vegas by now.”

Ronnie fiddles with the radio, and my cell phone rings.

“You mind if I take this?” I ask. “It might be Toni.”

“No problem,” Ronnie says, turning the volume down slightly.

“Doris?” I hear a man's faraway voice through the static, “Doris? Where are you?”

“L.A.,” I say. “Who is this?”

“Zach. What are you doing in L.A.? Are you with Ronnie?”

“I am,” I say, mouthing the word “Zach,” to Ronnie when she looks over. “She says hello.”

“Did you tell me you were going to L.A.? Must have slipped my mind.”

I think of saying something snippy about teenager girls causing brain-rot, but bite my wicked tongue.

“I won't keep you,” he says, “but I wanted to put this thing in the mail to you about the opening of the theater. We're shooting for December, but I don't have your address.”

It's a good thing I'm biting my tongue because the following thoughts are vying for first place in racing from my mouth: Why, why, why would anyone EVER open a theater in DECEMBER, when you can't even walk to your driveway because of the snow in Langsdale, when all the little ticket-buying children of the corn are heading home for the holidays? And THEN I'm thinking YOU DIDN'T EVEN KEEP MY ADDRESS, YOU ASSHOLE! But since I am in some form of Zen, pre-decision-making mode, and I know Zach well enough to know that this is, in fact, his anemic version of effort, I do what my mother and kindergarten teachers once taught me: I say nothing at all.

“Doris?”

“Bad reception. I sent you my address, ages ago. Twice, even.”

“Well, I can't find it. And I'd really like for you to come. I checked your school calendar online, and the opening is after you're done with exams, before the holidays, so if you want to, I'm hoping you can squeeze it in. I'm even screening
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
in your honor.”

And I know I'm just being pissy because I say, “Thanks a lot. Why? Because you think I'm some kind of hag so you're starting with a hagfest in my honor? I'll be sure to block out the dates.” About halfway through I stop saying it bitchy and start laughing. Zach laughs, too, because he's the kind of guy to whom you can say “hag” without his thinking “breakup.”

“That's exactly right, Doris, and you can tell your cohag that I'd love to see her and Earl there, as well. I'll save you seats front and center and you can recite every word.”

“Which, of course, we know from our years in hag school.”

“Naturally.” He sounds like he's smoking, and I feel a little worried for him. Zach may date a youngster, but he's not the sort made happy by just anyone. No, it takes a special breed of faux hag to keep him on his toes. “It's not the same without you two here, but have fun tearing up the town, and say hi to Earl.”

“Okay. Can do. I'm down to a bar, but I'll call you when I'm back in Atlanta.”

“Miss you,” he says. “Really.”

And then the phone cuts out.

 

There must be some mystical force at work in California that turns people healthy before it turns them homeless and or overcoiffed and or skeletal. Like in vampire movies when the victim is first bit and looks eroto-ravenous, rather than simply corpselike. Whichever force it is, and however tired he may be at the end of the day, Earl looks fabulous. He and Ronnie have both dropped a bit of weight from the I'll-be-rich-in-my-next-lifetime diet, but underneath Earl's teddy-bear exterior is a clearly defined set of muscles and abs that, while not washboard, are hardly the doughy mass I've come to expect on myself, or even Zach. His hair has lightened a bit, and Ronnie is still bitching about the fact that Katie, the nymphet with whom he works, convinced him to wear tighter T-shirts for bigger tips from women
and
men. And while I completely understand Ronnie's territoriality, I have to say that Earl looks hot.

But if his exterior has morphed, the Earl I remember is still the one who greets us at the door, spatula in one hand and the other giving me a half hug, then squeezing Ronnie on the arse.

“You ladies have a good afternoon?” He stares at Ronnie a little longer, searching her face. She walks over to him and kisses him softly, holding his hand. It looks like a makeup kiss to me, but for what, I don't know.

“Mellow,” I reply. “We're conserving our energy for karaoke. And fictional shopping with our fictional money tomorrow. I have a whole pretend L.A. life now, with imaginary Chanel sunglasses, an imaginary fake tan and an imaginary tight little ass. If only I could move out here and live the dream.”

Earl gestures us into the kitchen, where he's been slaving over a hot stove, grilling shrimp in the pan. Huge, elegant, expensive shrimp. It's one of those “Gift of the Magi” moments where I wish that I could make the meal disappear and give Ronnie and Earl back whatever portion of their income went into making my evening special.

“I figured you'd had enough of the steak with Bita,” he said. “We'll load up on dinner here so we can stick to drinking at karaoke. Get yourself ready, Doris, because they make one mean margarita.”

“Mmm,” I say, my eyes glazing over only slightly. “I can't wait to get good and toasted. That's the thing about Atlanta, it's destroyed my tolerance. I have to drive myself everywhere, and one does not drink and drive on the freeways. It's not like Langsdale where you could sort of fake it down the back roads. I'm practically a teetotaler these days.”

Ronnie frowns. “So that would explain your evening with Maxwell?”

“Maxwell?” Earl asks, the “tsk tsk” in his voice barely masked. “What happened to Zach?”

I give my best vacant Hollywood answer. “He says ‘hi.'” Earl leaves it and I go back to Ronnie's question.

“Okay, so there was that little glitch. Let's not talk about Atlanta. I go back soon enough, and I'm so enjoying being around you both. Even if you are morphing into scary ‘beautiful people,' and I may be reduced to eating pork products and ice cream all alone by my next visit.”

“Not likely,” Ronnie says. “As soon as I get that check from Burning Spear, I am never, ever touching an egg again. Not even on Easter.”

We eat dinner on the small patio behind the apartment, and even if Ronnie and Earl are living on the cheap, the view from outside is both free and beautiful. I wonder how it is that L.A. gets such a bad rap, when as much as I love New York, there aren't any vistas quite like this, not available to the underemployed, at any rate.

“Look,” Earl says, as if reading my mind, “smog finally lifted.”

After dinner, we head over to the Mexican dive bar. In some ways, it's an L.A. equivalent of the Saloon: unpretentious surroundings, cheap liquor, sauced clientele. However, you can't miss that this is L.A. Every other song is some heartfelt Mexican ballad, sung in Spanish, blending seamlessly into the tragic renderings of Patsy Cline and Johnny Cash. Tragic largely in that they're sung by hipsters who no doubt discovered Johnny from his
American Recordings
and own
At Folsom Prison
in a strictly ironic manner.

“I love this place,” I say to Ronnie. “We don't even have to sing. It's great just watching.”

“Nice try, Doris,” Earl winks at me. “But I've already signed you and Ronnie up.”

Earl changed into a fitted black T-shirt and equally fitted jeans. When he saunters up the bar to get the songbook, I notice that Ronnie isn't the only one checking him out. In fact, as he was standing at the bar, a slight, blond woman sidled up beside him and gave his left butt-cheek a firm squeeze. And much to my surprise, instead of telling her to mind her own person, Earl hugs the girl.

“Are you seeing what I'm seeing?” I ask.

“Every day of my life,” Ronnie replies. “That's Katie. If you look her up in the dictionary, the second definition is ‘obvious' and the third is ‘really, really obvious.' She once had the nerve to tell me that she and Earl had some inside joke that involved her hands on his ass. I can only guess it involves Earl showing her what one looks like, since she clearly doesn't eat enough to have one herself. Earl says he doesn't want to hurt her feelings, so I said that as long as the punch line doesn't involve his pants below his knees, to suit himself.” She shoves a chip in her mouth and chews it like a robot.

I can't believe that Ronnie is being so calm. It's either a manifestation of extreme security or defeat. I, however, am racked with sympathetic paranoia.

“Okay. Don't take this the wrong way, but if that was Zach, I would like seriously be thinking of murdering both of them. What is the
matter
with that girl? And not to be the stunningly huge bitch that we both know I can be, but she's not even that cute, especially in this town. She's clearly a C-list kind of blonde.”

“Which is why I pay her no mind.”

Earl returns to the table with drinks for us and Katie trailing behind him.

“Doris,” he says. “This is Katie.”

She barely looks in my direction.

“Hey, Doris,” she says, then gesturing in a cutesy half-wave, “Hey, Rhonda.”

Ronnie takes a loooooooong sip from her glass. I detect the faintest smell of blood diffusing through the proverbial waters, but Katie continues, “I'm begging Earl to sing one of those sweet country songs. He's so funny. I tell him he's like that Uncle Jesse guy in the
Dukes of Hazzard
movie. The singer.”