Spur of the Moment (22 page)

“I also made a lot of good investments. I got out at the right time.”

“I guess so.”

“Wine?”

“Please.”

“Do you like caviar?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

“Pâté?”

“Bring it on.”

Her parents were filthy rich, but they lived in New York, and while they owned two floors of a 9,000-square-foot penthouse, they had no yard to speak of. Even on their vacation home in Martha's Vineyard, they had just a little scrap of lawn to call their own. Marin was used to wealth, but not this kind of wealth. She did her best not to let on how impressed she was.

“I said I didn't go to guys' houses on a first date, but I have to say, you've piqued my curiosity. Want to give me a tour?”

“Actually, I have other plans for this afternoon, if you don't mind.”

38

The Scoop

“D
o you need some more water? Are you still hungry? Do you need more pain medication? I know you said you're fine, but you don't have to pretend to be strong for me.”

“Chelsey,” Rob groaned, “I'm not an invalid.”

The phone rang. Chelsey didn't make a move.

“I will live for the length of time it takes you to pick up the phone.”

Chelsey decided he was right and crossed the living room to retrieve the phone. “Hello?”

“I miss you,” Ana said.

“I know, I miss you guys, too.”

“You are coming back to performing next weekend, aren't you?”

“I don't know. I feel so guilty. I leave Rob alone all day when I go to work, I just can't bear to leave him alone at night.”

“So I guess meeting for drinks tonight is out of the question. It's just, with Marin in L.A. and you incognito . . . I'm desperate for female companionship. I know I have friends from high school and college, but they're not my bestest bestest friends like you and Marin.”

“Oh, I wish I could, but I don't think I can. I need to watch Rob . . .”

“Who is it?” Rob called.

“Ana. She wants to go out for drinks. I told her I can't go.”

“Chelsey, are you bonkers?” he said.

“Hold on, Ana.” Chelsey covered the phone receiver.

“Go out. I mean it Chelsey, I love you, but you've been smothering me.”

“You need me. What if . . .”

“Chelse, I have your cell phone number. If I fall and can't get up, I know who to call.”

Chelsey got back on the phone. “Apparently my patient thinks I've been smothering him. It's all lies of course. Evidently the fact that when I'm home I won't let him cook for himself, get his own glasses of water, or fetch pain medication, he thinks I'm being overbearing.”

“Is he getting around okay?”

“Yeah, actually, he's doing well.”

“Leave. Out, woman!” Rob bellowed.

“All right, I'm being ordered to get out of this house and have drinks with you.”

“Excellent. Meet me at the Funky Buddha at nine.”

“Actually, why don't I pick you up in my new car?”

“You got a new car?!”

“Yeah. I got six thousand bucks back in insurance from the Honda, which was plenty for a down payment. I bought a Saturn. The insurance is really low because it's one of the safest cars out there, and I figure with my recent displays of driving skills, or lack thereof, safe is probably good. It's not the sexiest car, but still, I'm all excited about it.”

“Okay, pick me up at ten to nine. I'll trust that you can get me to the bar in one piece.”

 

 

A
t 9:02, they ordered cosmos and promptly began to dish.

“So did ya hear about Marin?” Ana asked.

“What about her?”

“She's in love.”

“That's awesome.”

“With a good-looking millionaire.”

“No!”

“Yes. Listen to what they did for their first date: He took her to his estate for a picnic. He has this sprawling yard that looks like a botanical garden with trees and a creek and a swimming pool and a tennis court, and they have a picnic by this creek with all the kind of expensive exotic foods and fine wines you'd expect from a millionaire. What am I saying, he must actually be a billionaire.”

“That bitch.”

“My sentiments exactly. So then he takes her up in a hot air balloon. His own private hot air balloon, and they do that for a couple hours and then he takes her on his private plane—”

“Private plane!”

“To San Francisco, where they have dinner at some swanky place, see a play, and then retire to the Palace Hotel where they proceed to make love almost all night long and then he whisks her back to L.A. in time for her shoot at four in the morning. She said it was the best sex of her entire life, and she can really see herself falling for him, because he doesn't fawn over her like every other guy she's known. She says he's really broadening her mind and he makes her laugh and is exciting and impulsive and all this stuff. I mean I know this isn't a profound insight, but God, life is not fair!”

“Completely not fair. I am so jealous.”

“I love that you said that. I'm about to combust I'm so jealous of her. I mean I love Scott, but if Scott was a zillionaire who could support me so I could just go to auditions all day—”

“That would be awesome! They're going to get married, aren't they. She'll go straight from her rich dad to her rich boyfriend.”

“I'm sure they'll get married,” Ana sighed bitterly.

“Disgusting.”

“Completely. I mean even if this never turns into anything, just to be able to say you went on a kind of fairy tale date like that? But I'm sure they'll get married. I've never heard Marin talk about a guy like this. She always gets bored with guys in like three minutes.”

“Like Jason.”

“Exactly like Jason.”

“So what does this rich guy do that makes him so rich?”

“Nothing. He sold his business three years ago and made zillions.”

“God, this gets grosser by the second. What company?”

“I don't know. Internet something I think. I just hope her being with this guy, Jay his name is—oh! I forgot to tell you. He's an older man. Thirty-eight.”

“Ooh, a fourteen-year age difference. Very
One Life to Live.”

“Yeah, so anyway, I just hope that her being with Jay doesn't mean that she's going to stay in L.A.”

“If the show is a success, she'll have to stay out there anyway.”

“I want her to succeed, but I also . . . you know the five of us have lived together for years. I went straight from the dorms to living with them, and so even though now we have these nine-to-five jobs, it's not like we're really grown-ups, you know? And if Marin goes off and leaves us . . . soon everybody will run off and get married and we'll have to become real grown-ups, grown-ups who don't have plastic fish decorating their walls. We'll have furniture that matches and we won't be able to have Pop-tarts and beer for breakfast—”

“You do
not
have Pop-tarts and beer for breakfast.” Chelsey looked stricken.

Ana realized she'd made a tactical error on that one. “No, no, of course not, that was just a theoretical example. My point is, I like living in this stage of
sort-of
grown-upness. I like feeling like I still live in college with my greatest friends in the universe, except for you of course.”

“Well, he's rich and doesn't have to work, maybe he can buy a place here.”

“Yeah, let's go with that. It'll be so big that even though they're married, he'll let us all live with them and he won't even notice we're there.”

“Good plan. You know, I'm really glad you asked me out for drinks, just the two of us. I've always felt so out of things because I don't live with you and I don't have all those years of history with you.”

“You know we love you.”

“I always thought you guys were so clique-ish.”

“We were?”

“You had all these inside jokes.”

“We did?”

“It took me forever to feel comfortable around you guys.”

“It did?”

“You guys would crack up at this stuff I just didn't get at all. You still do. Like that whole pht-pht-pht thing with Scott.”

“You don't think that's hilarious?”

“No.”

“But it is hilarious.”

“No, actually it's not.”

Ana was shocked by this revelation. “Really? Oh.”

“But I get it. You and Scott have always had this really powerful connection. I'm so happy you two finally got together.”

“Me too. I love having regular nookie.”

“Here here.”

“Another round?”

“Is the sky blue? Absofuckinglutely.”

They ordered more drinks and Ana thought about what Chelsey had said. Ana and Scott had always gotten along well. She'd always really admired his artistic talent. She'd always wished she could be more relaxed about life like he was. But maybe what had really formed such a strong bond with him was working with him every day for the last two years. In so many ways, when she thought about her days at the office it was like thinking back to being in a war—something that induced post-traumatic stress disorder and was something that one
survived,
made it through by the skin of their teeth, etc. All along she and Scott were able to get to know each other in a way their friends never could.

Sometimes crushes were well and truly crushed. In Ana's case, the overwhelming rush of feelings that had been unleashed when she let herself see Scott as something more than a friend had trampled her old feelings toward Jason into oblivion.

Ana sipped her drink and suddenly a memory from college she hadn't thought of in years came rushing back to her. It was a night after a performance she'd particularly bombed. She'd been too focused on the audience's reaction to her, thinking “Do they like me?” and not “What is going on in the scene and what can I do to progress the story?” or, better yet, not thinking at all and just reacting to the events around her.

She had retreated to her bedroom after the show as her roommates drank and laughed in the living room downstairs. She lay on her bed writhing in shame, her face buried in her hands. Every now and then a distinct memory of something painfully embarrassing would jolt through her and she would spasm and moan aloud at the memory.

Scott knocked on her door carrying two Fat Tire beers and a bowl of cheese popcorn that was a distressing shade of urine yellow.

“What's up?” he asked. “Are you tired? Why did you ditch us?”

“I don't deserve to be part of this group. I suck. You should tie an anvil to me and toss me in a river. I deserve nothing more than total abandonment and a slow, painful death.”

Scott stopped midway from transferring a clot of popcorn from the bowl to his mouth.

“Where is this self-flagellation coming from?”

“My performance tonight, of course! How can you even deign to speak to me?”

He chewed thoughtfully and washed the popcorn down with a long swallow of beer. “You have self-esteem issues,” he pronounced.

“I'm quitting. I'm never getting on stage again.”

“What are you talking about? Your performance wasn't bad.”

“Don't humor me!” Ana couldn't help it, she began to cry. She was so embarrassed, exposing herself like this, revealing her frailties and insecurities, but she couldn't help it.

“That bit when you and Jason were at the restaurant waiting for the waitress to bring your check and you said, ‘Maybe if we look at her needifully she'll bring it.' Then that expression you made . . . ‘Needifully . . . Maybe if we look at her needifully.' That was hilarious.” He chuckled at the memory.

“Really?”

“It was hilarious because that's exactly what it's like when you're trapped waiting for the waitress to bring you your check. You can't go anywhere or do anything. You've already eaten and caught up on conversation with your friends. All you can do is sit there and hope and try desperately to catch sight of your waitress to let her know you need her. Then when you went and tackled her—it was perfect.”

Ana suppressed a smile and dried her tears. She took a handful of popcorn and tossed it into her mouth, letting the powdery, synthetic cheese melt on her tongue.

“There is no such thing as a mistake in improv, Ana. Whatever happens, go with it. You're a smart girl but you can't be so cerebral on stage, always in your head. With more practice, you'll shake that habit. You've got talent, I promise.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Then he let out a majestic fart.

“Aah!” Ana screamed.

“Much better.” He patted his stomach contentedly.

“Much better for you maybe. Putrid for the rest of us. Ghastly! Fetid!”

“You're just jealous you can't make such impressive noises using only your digestive system.”

“Um no, I don't think so.”

“You can protest all you want, but I know the truth.”

Ana giggled, and Scott joined her. When he snorted, the laugh-snort combo made Ana helpless with laughter.

That, she realized, was why she loved Scott. He paraded around as if everything was always fun and games, but when she needed a friend, a confidant, a lover, he seamlessly became those things. And when she needed a little comic relief, when she needed the gods on high to send in the clowns, he was that, too.

She realized she'd had hundreds of the nights like that with her friends from Spur—nights when she'd let her guard down, revealed her dreams and falibilities and truest self. Performing had a way of revealing the rawest, realest emotions. The six members of Spur had all seen each other emotionally naked, vulnerable, exposed, and it created a connection between them that went to depths that were hard to find with other friends.