Oh! You Pretty Things (2 page)

W
hen I get back to the dining room, Pete's on the landline, which only happens when someone places a to-go order or checks our hours. He's smiling, and when he catches my eye I brace myself for another assault of kindness. Then he says the words that are so much worse than
You're fired
or even
I hope we can still be friends
.

“It's your mother,” he says, proffering the receiver in my general direction.

A fizzle of adrenaline blooms at the back of my head, snaking up my scalp and down into my arms.

“
Seriously?
” I mouth, and Pete nods and looks at me quizzically, turning one palm up, and shrugging his shoulder, like
What's the problem?

I swear to God, my mother has a sixth sense about when I'm feeling vulnerable. It's no coincidence that she's calling right now, this minute, as opposed to twenty minutes ago when I was just garden-variety irritated. It's like she can smell my fear pheromones all the way in Reno.

I give Pete the “shut it down” gesture, flapping my hand in a sawing motion across my throat.

“Christ, Jess.” He cups his hand over the receiver. “C'mon, it's your mom.”

“
Not here,
” I whisper.

“She's right here,” Pete says, and he tosses the receiver onto the counter between us, like a rapper dropping the mic.

I must look stricken because his face morphs from mild managerial disapproval—no personal calls at work—into genuine concern. “
What the fuck?
” he mouths, eyebrows raised. “
Are you okay?
” He's probably wondering why an old lady like me doesn't want to talk to an older lady like my mother. Isn't that what old ladies do all day, talk on the phone and watch soap operas?

I wave him off with an attempt at a smile. It's ridiculous for me to not be fine. I can't be not fine. I'm totally fine. The receiver sits there for what feels like a long time. I wait for it to explode, or start leaking green slime, or turn into a snake and slither off the counter.

Eventually I pick it up. What else am I going to do? “Hello?”

“Well, there you are, cupcake,” my mother says, sparkly and brittle as a drugstore Christmas ornament. “I've been looking all over for you.”

My mother never calls me by name. It's all
sweet pea
and
cupcake
and
lamb chop
—a whole arsenal of diminutive food names that she's used in rotation for as long as I can remember.

I duck my head into the receiver like I'm trying to use it as camouflage. “Hi, Donna,” I say. “What do you want?”

“I'm just calling to check up on you, sugar pop. How's it going down there in Tinseltown?”

I snort a half laugh. “Seriously, Mom, how did you even get this number?”

“You gave it to me, honey pie.”

That's a total lie, but there's no point in going there. “Whatever. What do you need?” I guarantee that she is not calling me at the Date Palm at 5:00
P.M.
on a Tuesday to
check up on me
.

“Well, I'm having a bit of a crisis, and I could use a tiny bit of help.”

“I figured,” I say. “How much?”

“Oh, sparkle, no. This is important.”

“Don't bullshit me, Donna.”

“You're so cynical,” she says, and I can tell she's irked; no big surprise. Donna does not like to be called on her shit. “Maybe it's something
really
important, sugarplum.”

“So let's hear it.”

“Well, you remember my friend Emily, don't you?” She pauses for my assent, which I don't offer, because I have no idea who she's talking about. “She just had a big health scare and she hasn't been herself at all, poor thing. I mean, she can't work, she can't drive herself to doctor appointments, nothing. I've basically been taking care of her twenty-four hours a day for the past four months.”

“Why are you telling me this?” I say.

I can feel Pete and Kenner listening without even looking in their direction, and the hair on the back of my neck is waving like cilia. I'm sure I sound like the worst daughter in the world, but I've spoken to Donna maybe three times in the past five years, and every single time it's been about money. “Let me guess. In taking care of your friend in her time of need, you've fallen a bit behind on your own obligations and you were thinking that maybe I could dip into the imaginary money from Gloria.”

The money from Gloria is such a fucking thing. Gloria was my mother's mother—my grandmother, though I was never allowed to use that word. The gospel according to my mother is that Gloria beat the shit out of her when she was a little girl, but my memories of Gloria are of a more benign kind of crazy, like having me erase her crossword puzzles so she could do them a second time.

Gloria mostly raised me, which was a benefit for all of us. Donna was a product of the '70s, and there's a reason they called that era the “me generation.” She was hypnotically glamorous and predictably unstable, and sometimes it was just better for her to go off and do her own thing when the mood struck.

Gloria bought me breakfast cereal and shiny plastic headbands; Donna occasionally showed up with a bedraggled stuffed animal one of her dates had won at a carnival somewhere. Gloria watched from the window every morning as I waited at the curb for the bus, waving vigorously until we turned the corner and she disappeared from sight; Donna, on one of the only occasions when she drove me to school, made me take off my underwear in the car because she said it gave me a visible panty line. I got sent home from school after I forgot and did a backflip dismount off the jungle gym on the playground.

Gloria attended a couple PTA meetings every year; Donna was a school-year no-show, although once she picked me up from school on a spring afternoon wearing a bikini, which caused a gossipy clusterfuck with the other mothers that haunted me through middle school.

Gloria made sure I had dinner with at least one vegetable on the table. Donna took me along on dates to dive bars, where my entire meal consisted of a highball glass full of maraschino cherries.

When Gloria died, I was the beneficiary of her insurance policy, which my mother will never, ever let me forget. She's asked for that money a hundred times in the past decade, for a down payment on a condo, to invest in “biotech,” to buy an Arthur Murray franchise. After expenses and taxes, I walked away with fourteen grand. I've told her a dozen times that it's gone, but she refuses to believe me.

I turn away from Pete and Kenner's curiosity, tucking the phone between my ear and shoulder, and tell Donna yet again that there's no money left from my windfall inheritance.

“Don't be silly,” she says. “It's not imaginary. You were her beneficiary and—”

“So it
is
about money. I knew it.”

“I'm not calling about money,” she says. “Well, not entirely.”

Jesus Christ. Donna is the queen of oblique conversation. But short of hanging up the phone, there's really no way to rush her to a conclusion.

“Go on,” I say.

“It's just . . .” Her voice falters for a second before she continues, and it's so perfectly timed that I want to applaud her performance. “The doctors aren't sure what's going to happen to Emily and she's not talking to her son and she's miserable about it.”

“Sounds rough,” I say flatly. “So what do you need from me?”

“I can tell this isn't a good time, honey pie. I want to talk to you, maybe come see you in person, you know.”

I
don't
know, actually. Donna hasn't shown any interest in seeing me for about fifteen years, and our relationship works best with five hundred miles between us. “What do you mean, come see me?”

“I've got enough to come for a visit.” Her voice turns conspiratorial, like she's letting me in on a delicious secret. “But it might leave me a little short somewhere else.”

“So you want to come for a bonding visit, but you want me to fund it?”

“It's okay, peanut,” she says. “I'm sure I can pick up some freelance work in L.A.”

Donna teaches acting to children at Lights, Camera, Action! in Reno. It's a good living. All those cocktail waitresses line up to spend their hard-earned dollars to have my mother—a genuine child star!—teach their kids how to smile on cue and hork up a convincing sob.

“Teaching acting in L.A. is a whole different thing,” I tell her. “You know that. Plus, let's not pretend you'd have anything left over after you paid for a hotel.”

“Your roommate told me your door is always open. Megan's such a nice girl. And so pretty. You can tell she takes care of herself.”

Okay, first of all? Donna's never met Megan, my best friend and roommate. Megan politely accepted Donna's friend request on Facebook, and now my mother acts like Megan's the daughter she always wanted and never had.

“Listen, Mom,” I say, skittering my eyes around the near-empty dining room. “We're getting slammed in here. It's the dinner rush. I'm sorry. I can't help you.”

“Oh, sweet pea, just think about it.”

“Mom, there's nothing to think about. I don't have the money.”

“We'll think of something. You're my peanut-butter princess.”

I hang up without saying good-bye. It's funny how three words can catapult me straight back into childhood. “Peanut-butter princess” is what Donna called me when I was four or five, before the whole
you're-going-to-be-a-star
thing started, in that brief window when I still loved her fiercely and with abandon.

I
'm sitting on the gum-speckled curb, finishing my cigarette, when Kenner sidles up. He hovers awkwardly for a moment, then lowers himself into a praying mantis–like crouch.

“Pete's asking if you're coming back in,” he says. “Jayne bailed five minutes ago and I'm all alone.”

“Yeah,” I say, blowing a scrim of smoke between us. “As fast as my stubby little legs can carry me.”

Kenner looks at me blankly.

“It's a joke,” I say.

“That doesn't even make sense,” he says. “You're totally hot.”

“Don't patronize me.”

“You know,” Kenner says, tentatively. “If I did something to piss you off, I want to make it right.”

Kryptonite, I'm telling you. I'm such an asshole. “It's not you. I'm having a thing with my mom, and I'm bringing it along with me like a backpack.”

“I heard . . .” He pauses. “She teaches acting in Reno?”

How the fuck does Kenner know that?

“Yeah, to talentless child actors who are never going to get one single job, like, ever.” And by some horrifying trick of fate or low self-esteem I start confiding in
Kenner
, of all people. “When my mother was seven, she got a part on a nighttime drama for a season. She replaced another kid who got ugly over summer hiatus. It shaped the rest of her life. And mine, I might add.”

Kenner smiles, but his expression is weird and sad, not amused. “At least you have a mom to fight with.”

“Well, be careful what you wish for. The grass is always greener on the other side of Sunset Boulevard.”

Kenner wrinkles his nose. “Is that how the saying goes?”

“It is in my world. When I was ten, I bobbled an audition and my mother was so pissed that she left me at a bus stop in Burbank.”

“No way.”

“With three dollars in my pocket and only a vague idea of how to get home.” I inhale a lungful of smoke. “Though in her defense, I was well versed in the Santa Monica Big Blue Bus system.”

Actually, we only went to Burbank when she lost a job or broke up with a boyfriend. She'd get a wild hair to make me over in her image, which was a stone impossibility. I inherited exactly none of her acting ability and I've always been shy around new people. Donna didn't care. She'd swoop me up from Gloria's house or pull me out of class with a dog-eared copy of
Backstage
magazine and a determined gleam in her eye. We'd chug up over the 405 and down the 101 in her shitty, clanking Toyota and she'd coach me like a pageant mom on
Toddlers & Tiaras
. It never helped.

I choked every time the red light started blinking and the casting agents—an endless parade of too-thin women wearing pencil skirts and matte red lipstick—cued my first line. I'd stammer and sweat until they told me they'd heard enough.

“We'll be in touch,” they said, and never were.

Donna was usually pretty pragmatic about it. She'd cross the ad off her list and hype me up about the next audition, or else she'd drop me at Gloria's, and months would go by before she'd show up and we'd do it all over again.

On that day in Burbank, I don't know what happened. Maybe it was the other mothers and daughters in the holding area, blond and well dressed and patrician. We sat on the folding metal chairs in the waiting room and I watched my mother's eyes flick from one blonde to the next, finally landing on my mouse-brown head with disappointment that shaded into disgust.

When I got into the room, they didn't even let me read. A woman with a shiny black bob wanted to know what kind of products I used on my hair.

I giggled nervously and said I couldn't remember.

She asked me to smile “really, really big, so I can see those toofers,” and I could feel the streaky heat of embarrassment prickle up my chest and into my face.

She flipped my picture facedown onto a stack of paper. “Thank you, sweetheart,” she said, then flicked her glance toward my mother. “We'll be in touch.”

Mom thanked her for seeing me in a voice that sounded like cherry syrup, overly colorful and cloyingly sweet.

She waited until we got to the parking lot before she let me have it.

“I don't know why I even bother with you.” She dug in her fake Chanel handbag for a crumpled pack of Benson & Hedges. “You're a fucking ventriloquist's doll, and I am sick and tired of shoving my hand up your ass to make you talk.”

“I didn't even get to read,” I said.

“Because you looked like shit,” she said, exhaling a plume of smoke in my direction, and careening out the driveway onto Verdugo. “You're twenty pounds fatter and not half as cute as the other girls, and you have to sell it with your personality or you're fucked.”

I felt the familiar swell of tears rising in my throat and I turned to look out the window so she wouldn't see.

“Don't you have anything to say for yourself?” she said.

I took a breath. “I don't want to do any more auditions.”

She swerved the car to the curb, jamming the gearshift into park. “Get out, you little ingrate,” she said, her voice low and even.

I crossed my arms over my chest and tucked my chin. She leaned across me and shoved the passenger door open with a flourish.

“Seriously, get the fuck out,” she said. “If you're too good to go on an audition then you're too good to ride home with me.”

“I don't even know where we are.”

“When I was your age, I was driving a car,” she said, and I remember thinking, even then,
Jesus, she's so full of shit
.

“You'll figure it out,” she said.

I picked up my book bag and stepped onto the curb. She threw the car into gear and drove off with the door still gaping like a startled mouth.

And it's not like she was watching from around the corner, trying to teach me a lesson. She was gone. My best guess is that she ended up at the dive bar on Olive where old actors sing karaoke and get shit-faced, but I couldn't have told you that back then.

When a skinny lady with a mustache sat down beside me, I acted as though I knew what I was doing, studying the numbers on the metal bus sign like I was picking the optimal route.

Eventually, a bus pulled to the curb and I didn't even stammer when I asked the driver how I could get to Fourteenth and Idaho in Santa Monica. He rattled off a couple changes and tore two tissue-thin transfers from a pad by the steering wheel and pressed them into my hand.

“I got home eventually,” I tell Kenner, then offer him the pack of American Spirits.

“Thanks, no.” He looks faintly embarrassed. “I don't smoke.”

“You're too young,” I say. “You haven't developed lungs yet.”

He gives that the feeble half smile it deserves. “Well, Pete asked me to check on you. I can tell him whatever you want.”

“Maybe you can tell him I quit,” I hear myself say.

“What? No—really?”

“I don't know. It's time for me to move on anyway.”

Kenner bounces the heel of his ridiculously expensive shoe against the ground like a bashful little kid on the playground. “Move on to what?”

“No clue,” I say. “My skill set is limited.”

“Oh, I doubt that.”

“I'm divorced, twenty-nine, with a head full of celebrity trivia. I'm thinking sign twirler. I can get a little sun, do some cardio.”

Kenner laughs. “You're a pop-culture junkie? I'm
obsessed
. What blogs do you read?”

“
Deadline
,” I say. “
Radar
,
Page Six
,
TMZ
.”

“Are you kidding? I live for that stuff, even though three-quarters of it is bullshit.”

He sounds like he's speaking from experience, so I give him a look.

“My job before this,” he explains. “It was for a celebrity, oddly enough.”

“Really? Who?”

“I'm not supposed to talk about it.”

“Uh-huh,” I say, because that's how these conversations always have to start, all
Oh, no, I couldn't possibly
. “Give me a hint.”

Kenner sighs, but his eyes are shining with the desire to let it rip. “Well, he's an Oscar-winning film composer.”

“Yeah, no clue,” I say. “Um, Trent Reznor? Danny Elfman?”

“Not even close. This guy isn't a rock star who dabbled, he's the real deal.”

“Yeah?” I say. “Is he still looking for someone to replace you?”

“Huh,” Kenner says, and I can see the wheels turning as he considers the possibilities. “You know, you might be a good fit for him.”

“How was the money?”

“Twenty-five an hour, plus, you know—” Kenner waggles a shoe in my direction. “Extras.”

“Those shoes were an
extra
? And you left there to come here? For fuck's sake, why?”

“You're on call 24/7,” he says. “My boyfriend isn't a fan of the two
A.M.
phone calls.”

“Well, lucky me—I don't have a boyfriend.”

“It definitely takes a certain personality.”

“Abrasive and moody?” I ask. “Sign me up.”

“Neurotic and smart,” he says, then blushes a little bit at his own honesty. “I'll call and see if he'll interview you.”

“Really? Now?” I say. Inside I'm dancing the Charleston.

“It's the least I can do since I'm snaking your day shifts. It may take a minute. He's not good at answering his phone.”

“Then I will rock at this job,” I say. “Answering phones is one of my special gifts.”

The truth is, I don't have any special gifts. But I'm not an idiot.