I Like You Just the Way I Am (17 page)

She seemed unfazed and assured me payback would be a bitch as she followed the DJ outside for a cigarette and never returned. We waited for a good fifty minutes before realizing we’d been ditched.

*   *   *

Simone called me the
next day to sit on the phone with her as she tiptoed out of the DJ’s apartment. I tried again to apologize for my behavior, but she wasn’t really listening.

“I don’t think he has a girlfriend. I searched his place and couldn’t find a single rubber band. He’s moving out of town in a few weeks because he’s taking a job for the government. Do you think I’ll hear from him?” she asked with zero irony.

“Of course,” I said, knowing she probably wouldn’t.

Hanging up, I asked myself why I tried to tempt Simone, one of my oldest friends, with the offer of giving my husband a hummer in West Hollywood traffic. Why would I want to throw a twenty-year friendship under the wheels of a slow-moving SUV? Like most good things in my life, I’d convinced myself that somehow, somewhere, Simone would pull the rug out from under me, as all women were genetically programmed to do. Mistrusting her was unwarranted, unfair, and obviously a product of my own insecurity. The truth was, Simone was more prey than predator, and entirely too self-involved to be intentionally malicious. Her problem was her taste in people. She wasn’t out to destroy me. If anything, she was out to destroy herself. I contemplated whether or not Jason could have gotten something out of her had he taken the douche bag “I’m gonna make you feel like shit” approach. But I stopped myself. It didn’t matter. I was married to a good guy, and Simone hates good people. That’s why she’s friends with me.

9.

“You Aren’t My Real Father”

Those were the final
words of the toast/slam-poem/hate-haiku that my father’s new ten-year-old stepson delivered to an engagement party of 150 people. Sandwiched between my dad’s haidresser and the lady who stuffed my late grandmother’s shih tzu, my husband and I tried to stay calm. As the microphone made its way closer, I had a frightening realization: If I was going to keep my sanity through my dad’s wedding weekend, I needed to be on drugs.

After a twelve-year stint of bachelorhood, my father was finally ready to give marriage the fourth old college try. In my unhumble opinion (which is really the only opinion you need to worry about), he had two reasons for doing this: (1) my sister and I just got married and he was copying us, and (2) fear.

At sixty-eight years old, my father knew the day was coming when he’d no longer be able to care for himself. Eventually, he’d lose all mental awareness and I’d gain power of attorney and force him to live in my guesthouse with my mother, his estranged wife. From there, there’s really no telling what might happen. I could, perchance, see myself forcing them into giving me the childhood I always wanted. I might hypothetically build a stage in the living room, where I’d perform
Gypsy
every night (with matinees on Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays). Maybe I’d make them time me holding my breath in the pool. And if I were feeling particularly kinky, I’d even allow them to tuck Jason and me into bed with a story. (Preferably not the one of their divorce. Too many dead babies.)

The third reason for him getting married again also had to do with being in love, but as an outsider, it still felt more like 1 with a subconscious hint of 2.

*   *   *

My dad met Kristen
shortly before I met Jason, at one of three bars he used to troll for pussy—specifically, pussy that wasn’t friends with other pussy he’d already bedded and stopped calling. Unlike her predecessors, Kristen had a U.S. passport, was over twenty-one, could read, and already owned her own pair of boobs. She didn’t need anything from my father, making it a total mystery as to why she’d want to hang out with him. My dad proposed to Kristen just before Jason asked for my hand, and by the time my wedding rolled around, he was already over it and broke up with her. He still brought her to our Napa nuptials as his date, however, because he’s a dick like that.

Around Christmas, Kristen wised up and started seeing someone else. And my dad pretended to be unfazed, aside from when he’d call me every morning to play the game “Kristen’s Still In Love With Me, Right?” I like my dad best when he’s on the verge of an emotional breakdown because that’s the only time he actually listens to me—because I’m talking about him.

After one whiny phone call about how he was going to be spending Christmas Eve alone (even though he’s Jewish and the holiday means absolutely nothing to him), my guilt kicked in and I invited him out to LA to celebrate with Jason and me.

“You invited your dad out to spend our first Christmas as a married couple with us?” Jason asked, more than a little annoyed. “It’s like, I kind of knew before marrying you that you were already married to your father, but I just assumed once we were married that your thing with him would sort of die off.” He marched upstairs and slammed the bedroom door, just like my father would.

My enmeshment with my dad did have a tendency to appear to outsiders like we were in a relationship. Especially when I turned twenty and for vanity reasons he started introducing me to people as his “friend” and sleeping in my bed whenever he came to visit me at college. To clarify, I was living in a studio apartment that he was paying for, so in a way I think he actually considered it his bed. And for the record, nothing inappropriate ever happened between us. As long as you consider kissing on the lips appropriate.

“I’m inviting Larry over as a buffer, so deal with it!” Jason called down ten seconds later.

Larry was Jason’s best friend. If he were a pageant girl, he’d be Miss Congeniality. He’s the guy who no matter where you are in the world knows somebody who owes him a favor. Larry and Jason met in Los Angeles ten years earlier at one of Larry’s epic house parties in the Hills. They didn’t speak until the next morning, however, when Larry discovered Jason pants-less, covered in Bugles, and passed out on one of his Kingsley-Bate lawn chairs. He was the best man at our wedding and had recently called off his own engagement to a somewhat quirky woman who once, out of anger, shaved a swastika into his dog while he was in Dubai on business.

Around 5
P.M
. on a Friday, I picked my dad up from the airport—because he doesn’t like that cabs cost money—and brought him back to our house. When we arrived, Larry and Jason were building a fire and drinking scotch. Since he was not a fan of sharing my attention with people, places, or things, I was certain my dad would make some sort of passive-aggressive comment about why the fuck Larry was over. But as it turned out, my dad was psyched Larry was there. Larry was Jewish, always impeccably dressed, business-minded, newly single, and thirty-five, the same age my dad was in his head. From the minute my dad sat down on the small sliver of couch separating Jason and Larry (even though there was a whole living room filled with empty seats), he didn’t stop talking. And everything out of his mouth was in weird single guy code. I only know this because each sentence started with the phrase, “This is single guy code.”

An hour and a half after I told her dinner was being served, my sister, Amanda, showed up. Amanda is sixteen months younger than me, and my only full sibling. Before I started dyeing my hair brunette to gain respect from society, people often mistook us for twins. The only real difference is that she is a total bitch and I’m not. Amanda was the kid who, after receiving a subpar haircut at our neighborhood mall, threw herself prostrate on the ground, screaming until my mom dragged her writhing body out to the car and shut her up by promising to buy her a Missoni do-rag. When we started getting allowance, I spent mine on Asian masks, which I used to pretend I was the family’s foreign exchange student, and she’d buy long Lee Press-On Nails to pretend she was my wealthy white slave-owner.

Amanda and my father have a completely different relationship than he and I do, in that Amanda doesn’t give a fuck what he thinks and as a result my dad ignores her. When my mom decided parenthood wasn’t for her, Amanda and I were both deported to Phoenix for a year of living under his roof with his third wife, Ursula. (I named her after the sea witch from
The Little Mermaid
if that gives you any indication of my feelings about her.) After six months, Amanda cracked and begged my mom to take her back. She had little tolerance for my dad’s totalitarianism and missed my mom’s democratic approach to parenthood, one of the highlights being the
No drinking hard alcohol on school nights
suggestion taped to the fridge. I, meanwhile, found myself staying another four years because I didn’t know how to tell him no. I’d been recruited to fill him emotionally and I was too weak and desperate for parental attachment to refuse. Though conditional, he gave me the love and attention my mom saved for her boyfriends. I was devastated to lose Amanda and assumed she felt the same until a girl on the playground at school told me she heard Amanda raving about how excited she was to become an only child.

Just before the beginning of my junior year, and right around the time Ursula sponge-painted every wall in our house period-blood red, my dad told me he was getting a divorce. Besides finding out from him that I got into UCLA because he opened my acceptance envelope without me, this was the best news I’d ever heard come out of his mouth. What I didn’t realize at the time was that with both my sister and Ursula gone, I would become my father’s only significant other.

*   *   *

At Christmas dinner, my
dad had Larry cornered. “I’m in amazing shape, I have all the money I could ever spend, and I’m a local celebrity. I should be thrilled with my life. And I am. I’m so happy,” he assured Larry, the only person in the room who was still listening to him. “Kristen and I want different things. It just didn’t make sense, so I had to cut her loose, you know? The guy she’s dating now, I can tell you right now, that’s
all kinds of wrong
. She’ll probably never be over me fully. Frankly, I’m surprised she hasn’t reached out to wish me a Merry Christmas.” He looked at his phone like one of my desperate girlfriends waiting for a call from a guy who obviously hates her.

“It sounds like you’ve made up your mind,” Larry said, kicking back in his chair and picking his teeth. The rest of us made a mass exodus to the kitchen.

“You get that your dad was totally broken up with, right?” Jason said, loading the dishwasher.

“I know. I almost feel bad for secretly kind of loving it.” I smiled.

“Jenny, this is a guy who takes a woman to Paris, then comes home with two albums’ worth of pictures of just himself. I’m happy about it too. Good for her! He was leading her on!” Jason offered Kristen a supportive “you go girl” nod—wherever she was.

“I’m completely invisible to him. I don’t even know why I came over. If I made more money, maybe he’d give me some respect,” my sister said, storming in and scouring the pantry for something sweet.

“I don’t think that’s true. He gives me respect and I don’t make any money,” I said, thinking I was helping.

“Hey, now that Kristen has obviously ditched his ass, maybe you guys can get back together,” she retaliated.

Jason looked at me sharply. “Don’t even think about it, I’m your only man now.”

“Sidebar,” Amanda said, reappearing with a mouth full of Red Vines, “Do you guys get the vibe that he kind of likes me?”

“Who, Dad?” I asked.

“No,” Jason and I answered in unison.

“Not Dad, assholes. Larry.” Amanda threw a vine at Jason’s head.

Jason and I looked at each other. Were we really that blind? Were we too busy enjoying the fact that my dad had been dumped to catch Larry crushing on Amanda? The three of us proceeded back into the dining room with caution. Larry immediately noticed Amanda and stopped picking his teeth.

“Check out this picture of me at the top of the Eiffel Tower,” my dad said, handing Larry his phone and standing up to use the restroom. “Remember—if it rings, don’t answer it. We’re sending Kristen to voice mail.” He winked conspiratorially.

“Hey, guys,” Amanda said, flirty.

My dad ignored Amanda but handed me his empty glass and said “Water” before disappearing out of sight.

When Jason and I looked up, Amanda and Larry were smirking at us. They glanced at each other, then again at us, and started laughing that annoying laugh that people have when they aren’t yet in a relationship and still feel superior.

In that moment I knew: Amanda was going to fuck Larry.

When Sunday rolled around, both Amanda and Larry stopped answering their phones. Kristen never called my dad, and he continued to rattle off excuses as to why she didn’t for the entire ride to the airport.

Fifteen minutes after we peeled my dad out of our backseat, assuring him that Kristen’s new boyfriend was impotent, Amanda returned my call from two days prior.

“So you may wanna sit down for this,” she started.

“Okay.”

“Well, I’m with Larry. And, well, we’re in love.”

Both my jaw and the phone fell to the floor. Sure, I thought she’d sleep with Larry. But love? Amanda? The only time I’d heard my sister use the term “love” was when she was talking about that Cartier bracelet you screw on your wrist.

Jason picked up the phone and Amanda explained how instead of going home after Christmas dinner, she and Larry drove up to Santa Barbara and checked into Bacara for the rest of the weekend. Now they had matching tattoos and were considering moving in together.

Jason hung up and stared at me in disbelief.

“My best friend is in love with a bitch, and now I’m gonna be stuck hanging out with her forever!”

“Okay, slow down.… She’s my
sister
—you were already stuck hanging out with her forever.”

“So you’re not denying that she’s a bitch?”

“No. But she’s like a fun bitch.”

“What’s a fun bitch?”

“It’s like someone who’s bitchy but still kind of—,” I started before he cut me off.

“Just tell me it’s not gonna last.”