The Queen of Cool (5 page)

Sid moves off toward the computer and starts futzing with the iTunes playlist.

“I think you hurt his feelings,” I say.

“No. He’s hypersensitive. You know,
artistic.
I’m doing him a favor. I’m making his skin thicker.”

Kenji pulls me close. His tongue licks my lips and runs along my teeth until I’m all hot and bothered. I pull him into a quiet corner.

“You’re my girl,” he whispers, his tongue flicking in my ear. Making my skin tingle. His arms coil around me.

“Snake,” I say. “Tonight you’re my snake.”

“So, Libby,” Mom says, hanging up the phone. “That was Perla’s mother. Evidently Perla came home drunk Saturday night after attending a party at our house.”

“Mmm-hmm,” I say.

“Did you have a party while your father and I were in Desert Hot Springs?”

“Uhm. I can’t remember. What exactly did we agree was the definition of a party?”

“More than fifteen people.”

“It wasn’t a party then. It was a get-together.”

“Were you drinking?” Mom asks.

“There might have been some beer. I can’t remember.”

“Well, I guess you’re grounded, then.”

“Okay,” I say.

I whip out my cell phone and start to call Perla.

“What are you doing?” Mom asks.

“Just ’cause I’m grounded doesn’t mean I can’t run out and get a coffee, right?”

“I mean it this time,” Mom says.

Yeah, right. I sigh and hang up my cell phone.

Dad passes me in the hall and picks up his keys off the hook.

“Where are you going?” I ask.

“Grocery store,” he says.

“Can I come?”

“Okay,” he says.

“Libby’s grounded, Mitch,” Mom says. “She had a party this weekend.”

“Okay,” he says. “Then I guess I’ll drive.”

“Hopeless,” she mutters as she throws her arms up in the air. I grab my sweater.

It’s the same old routine. Even when my mom means it, she doesn’t
really
mean it.

Dad and I have the Thanksgiving-is-next-week shopping list. I push the cart. I remember when that used to be fun, after I was too big to stand in the cart, like the captain of a ship, pulling products off the shelves as Dad read the list in a booming voice, calling foods by antique and archaic names: victuals, comestibles, viands, legumes, verdure, herbage.

Tonight he grunts one-word answers to my questions, and his mouth hangs downward in a perma-frown. Food shopping is a long way from being fun now.

For a while we walk side by side in silence. When we pass a product that he worked on a campaign for, he blows his lips out, like a horse. It is an unspoken rule that once he’s worked on a product’s ad campaign, we never buy that product again. We leave it on the shelf and buy the competition.

“Mitchell?” A man says to my dad.

He’s a Hollywood hipster type. Vintage Levi’s, tan skin, probably a bit of Botox. He looks familiar.

“Neil,” Dad says.

The two men shake hands.

“God, it’s good to see you,” Neil says, glancing at me. “Is this Libby?”

I nod.

“Last time I saw you, you were just learning how to walk,” Neil says.

“It worked out,” I say. “I’m pretty good at it now.”

Finally I realize that I’ve seen him in a few movies and TV shows.

“What are you up to?” Neil turns to my dad.

“Oh, this and that,” my dad says. “You know how it is.”

He looks uncomfortable. He loosens his tie.

“Your dad was one of the best writers I ever knew in the scene,” Neil says.

“Really?” I say.

“Did you ever finish that Great American Play?” Neil asks.

“I got into advertising instead.”

Dad says it all quiet, like it’s a bad thing. Like he’s embarrassed.

“Ah.”

There’s a long pause.

“You’ve been doing well. I caught your last film on cable the other night,” Dad finally says.

“Yeah. Things seem to be going great,” Neil says.

He knocks wood on his head three times.

“That’s great,” Dad says.

“Great,” I say, almost under my breath.

“Well, good seeing you, Neil,” Dad says, and we start to move along.

Dad picks up the signal I was sending him. He’s good like that.

“Yeah, you too,” Neil says.

They shake hands.

“Oh, hey! Mitchell!” Neil suddenly exclaims, turning back down the aisle toward us. “A group of us have a theater company going again. Just to, you know, get away from Hollywood. Jake’s there. And Eddie’s running it; he’s clean and sober now. We just missed the old days, you know?”

“Yeah,” Dad says. “I do.”

Then they start talking about the old days and the Alphaville Theater, the collective that I discover Dad and Neil helped start in college. Pretty much everyone they mention is a successful actor or director now.

“You were going to be a revolutionary writer,” Neil says. “What happened, man?”

I have never seen Dad’s face look so alive. Talking to Neil, he looks like a young man. All his worry lines turn into laugh lines.

“I got sidetracked,” Dad says. And I notice that he glances in my direction.

It hits me. He got sidetracked. By
me.

“I’m having a baby,” Neil says. “It’s about time I became a dad. You know what they say nowadays, life begins after forty.”

“Yeah,” Dad says. “Life begins after forty.”

“Well, here’s my card. Call me. We’ll go for a beer or something. You can come by the house. I’ll show you my cars.”

“Okay,” my dad says.

Neil pulls a bottle of gourmet salsa off the shelf and disappears down the aisle.

Dad doesn’t say anything for two aisles, and then he stops. I keep rolling forward, struggling with the cart, until I notice he’s not with me. I turn around.

Dad is standing in the middle of the soup aisle. He looks confused.

No.

He looks
lost.

Perla leans over to check her face in the side mirror of my car.

“Oh, my God,” she says.

“What?” I say, jumping off the hood and joining her by the door.

I turn around in time to see Tiny Carpentieri walking toward us.

Kenji elbows Perla in the rib cage, and they begin to laugh.

“Hi, Tina.” Sid says

“Hi, Sid,” she says. “Hi, Libby.”

I look down at her. Way down.

“Yes?” I ask.

“Well, I was wondering if I could get a ride with you the day after tomorrow to pick up our zoo shirts. Sheldon has a prior engagement.”

“You don’t have a car?”

“No.”

“Then how do you get around?” I ask.

“I take the bus. Or I bum rides off of people.”

“The bus?” I laugh.

“
No one
takes the bus in Los Angeles,” Kenji says.

“I take the bus,” Sid says.

Kenji laughs out loud. “Of course
you
take the bus, Sid.”

“Libby, come on! We got stuff to
do,
” Perla yells from the passenger seat, her bare feet sticking out the open window. Her toenails are painted pink with white daisies on them.

“I’ll meet you here at the flagpole at 2:45.”

“Thanks,” Tiny says, smiling widely. She waves goodbye and leaves.

“I bet she can’t drive ’cause she can’t reach the pedals,” Kenji says.

“I can’t believe you have to work with her now, Libby. She looks like some kind of freaky
doll.
” Perla laughs.

“She looks nothing like a
doll,
” I say.

“Yeah, maybe it’s more like an action figure,” Mike Dutko says.

Kenji high-fives him.

“Tina is not a joke,” Sid says.

“What is she, like, your girlfriend?” Kenji says.

Sid doesn’t answer.

“You
love
her,” Perla teases. She starts clapping. “Sid loves Tiny.”

“You guys are being total assholes,” Sid says.

“Come on, Perla, get out of the car,” I say. “Kenji. Let’s go be alone.”

Kenji puts on a smug face as he trades places in the passenger seat with Perla. I drive quickly, eager for a distraction.

Kenji and I are lying on his bed watching a DVD I didn’t want to rent.

He starts kissing me. I feel nothing.

“Where are you?” he asks.

“What do you mean?” I say.

“Aren’t you into it?”

“I guess,” I say.

“You guess?”

“Well, sometimes hanging out feels
too
easy. You know?”

“No, because you hold out on me all the time,” he says. “Maybe I should go out with Perla. Did you ever notice she’s a
hand talker?
”

“No,” I say.

“You know,” he says. He puts his fist in front of his crotch and mocks a hand job. “She’s like the Hand Job Queen.”

I give him a look.

“You’re disgusting,” I say.

He laughs and pulls me in for a kiss.

“I wish you were going to be available during the winter break and around after school and stuff,” he says.

“Just ’cause I have this zoo internship doesn’t mean I’m not available,” I say.

“Well, you can’t come to Disneyland with us. I mean it’s Junior Cut Day. It’s a tradition,” he says.

“I have to go pick up my zoo uniform and get field observation training.”

“See? It hasn’t even started yet and it’s already cramping your style.”

“Oh, please,” I say. “Once you’ve seen the Disney Christmas parade, you’ve seen it.”

He pulls me in for another kiss. I hold back my tongue.

“Do you want to do it?” he asks, all low-like, trying to sound sexy.

“No,” I say.

But I let him put his hand down my pants.