The Ten Best Days of My Life (22 page)

“No, I knew she'd be a responsibility, like I said, it's just too much for me to handle right now.”

I'd never felt like a worse person in my life.

“Forget it,” I said, taking the crate, “forget I said anything.” I walked out.

I took Peaches with me back to my car. I turned the ignition; it wouldn't start. That was all I needed. I started banging on the steering wheel. “Why can't anything go right? Why can't one thing go right in my life?” That's when I lost it in the middle of the parking garage. I just sat there crying into the steering wheel, moaning and with slobber all over me. It felt good to cry like that, like I needed to get everything out. All those words people said, “You just can't take care of anything,” kept going through my mind.

I took Peaches out of the crate, put her on the leash I had with me, and we left the car in the garage.

I could not go back to that apartment. I needed some air, so Peaches and I walked up La Cienega Boulevard. Again, we were the only ones on the street in the middle of the day, but I didn't care. I just needed to walk and clear my head.

I think we must have been walking for about an hour, past stores and cars, on the street. I was numb to all of it. All I wanted to do was walk until I couldn't walk anymore and try to make some sense of everything. The sun was pretty hot that day, and both Peaches and I were starting to get tired after the long trek so I took a seat at a table outside a coffee place.

I wasn't even thinking of my failure anymore. All I could think of was how tired I was. I was too tired to worry about anything anymore. When I look back at it now, I think I just surrendered.

We must have sat at that coffee place for over two hours. The people who worked there were kind enough to give Peaches a bowl of water, and after she finished that, she curled herself into a ball on the sidewalk and fell asleep. I could see the people inside looking at me from time to time, wondering whether or not I was going to leave there already, but I just couldn't. I would have bought a cup of coffee, but I didn't have the money even for that so I just sat frozen with my thoughts, hoping maybe I'd become invisible.

There was no one who was going to make my life better but me. I thought I was at the worst moment of my life on the day I left Charles, but now I realized that was just the beginning. I couldn't, and I didn't want to, ask anyone for help then, and I knew I couldn't ask now either. I would have to make this work. I would make this work.

As the sun was beginning to set, I picked up Peaches and walked the three miles back to my apartment with her in my arms.

The two of us slept right through the night. Normally, Peaches would have woken up and started yelping, but this time she didn't. I realized she was as I tired as I was.

We both woke up at about seven the next morning. I was actually surprised to see that she hadn't peed on the remaining clothes I had left out. She was just staring at me on the edge of the covers with those eyes, so I took her out again for another big walk.

During the day I bought her some chew toys on my already overdue credit card and sat with her in the apartment, teaching her to chew on the toys instead of my Gucci pumps. I learned that scratching on the front door was her cue to go out. As the days passed, I barely took phone calls from anyone and concentrated on training Peaches.

Dana had told me about Runyon Canyon. A lot of people with dogs went there to exercise, so I got a bus pass and started taking Peaches up there for morning walks. After a couple of days of going there, you start to know the other people with their dogs. At first you give a smile then say a little something about their dog. “Your dog is so cute.” Something like that.

After a month of going there, I had made some friends. It was just like Dana said, you need to go with a group. The group in this case was Peaches and me.

I was even starting to look better from all the walks. The carb mush had started to turn strong and lean.

Then, one day, on one of our hikes, I saw a woman who looked familiar, but it was one of those things where for the life of me I couldn't place her. Her chocolate Lab didn't look familiar, but once I got a little closer to her and saw her frosted lipstick, it dawned on me.

“Hey, don't I know you?” she said to me.

“No, I don't think so,” I lied.

She looked at me again and then at Peaches.

“Wait a minute, you're the girl from the pet store. That's the dog we fought over!”

“Oh yeah,” I acknowledged sheepishly. “I remember you now.”

“You know, I've thought of you since then,” she said.

“She has,” the guy with her concurred. “She's totally mentioned you and that dog. She thinks you two were meant to be together.”

“I do,” she added. “You were so determined to have that dog. I saw the way that dog looked at you.”

“You think?” I said, looking down at Peaches, who jumped up as I petted her head.

“Yeah, she loves you. You can totally see it.”

“That's why I didn't even take the teacup poodle. I ended up getting this big thing,” she said, petting her Lab.

“I don't think she fits in that Fendi bag.”

“No, I gave the bag to Peter and Lucky,” she said, pointing to her friend and his shih tzu. “This is my dog. This is the dog I'm supposed to have.”

“Whew,” I said, taking a deep breath. “I feel much better now.”

“Oh, this is Bambi by the way,” she said, petting her dog.

“This is Peaches,” I said, picking her up.

“I'm Morgan,” she said as I shook her hand. “Peter and I take our dogs here every morning. Why don't you start joining us?”

“Yeah,” Peter said, “join us!”

And that's how we made our first friends in Los Angeles. From then on, Morgan and Bambi and Peter and his dog Lucky and Peaches and I met at Runyon Canyon and walked. After that, we took our friendship beyond the canyon and started spending evenings together. Peter and Morgan, as it turned out, worked in the shoe department at Barneys and Morgan had plans to go back east.

“You've got to take my job when I leave,” she said. “Barneys is the best place to work.”

And that's how it happened. The day after Morgan's going-away party, I started working with Peter in the CO-OP Shoes section at Barneys. I wasn't making loads of money, but at least it was a start and I was able to pay my rent and put a dent in the credit card bill.

“Mom,” I said when I called her one night, “Peaches is fine. I'm fine. I'm really happy here.”

“I'm so proud of you, sweetheart,” she said.

“Did you tell Dad I got a job?”

“I'll tell him later. He's busy right now.”

“Can I say hello to him?”

“Well,” she said, “he's sleeping. Maybe tomorrow.”

While it did bother me that my dad and I still weren't talking, it went away quickly. I was three thousand miles away from being Bill Dorenfield's daughter. I was just another Los Angeles transplant.

I hung up the phone as my little dog jumped up on my lap. Buying Peaches was the smartest thing I'd ever done. Meeting Peaches was one of the best days of my life. Because of her, I had a job, friends, a life.

Just like Tom Joad, I knew California was going to be tough, but I was finally a grown-up realizing my own responsibilities . . . and I wasn't about to screw it up.

"You are the best dog in the whole wide world,” I tell Peaches as I scoop her in my arms and give her a hug.

That's when it suddenly dawns on me again.

This could be one of the last times that I ever get to scoop up Peaches in my arms and give her a hug.

I don't understand it, heaven should be like having a summer house and a winter house except one house would be for the good, fulfilling things you were going to do on earth and the other house, the one you live in permanently, for all the screwups you made. Maybe the winter house isn't insulated well or something and that's your punishment. Not being able to be with Peaches every day will be like hell rather than fourth heaven.

I embrace my little dog tighter as I take her with me to my closet.

“What's the point of even getting dressed?” I say aloud to Peaches since she's the only one there.

I decide to leave my Diane von Furstenberg wrap dress for another time (most likely no other time, though, since I'm probably out of here soon enough) and keep on the black Juicy velour sweats I've had on for the last two days. I take Peaches with me as we go downstairs to watch my favorite show in heaven,
What Ever Happened When Your Favorite Movies Ended?
It's nice to know that Katie Morosky (Barbra Streisand) dumped her husband, David X. Cohen, and went back to Hubbell Gardner (Robert Redford) in
The Way We Were
. It feels good to know that E.T. was able to call little Elliott when he got back to his planet and they spent years having a nice long-distance friendship. I even start to forget my troubles in the middle of
A Place in the Sun
when the Montgomery Clift character, George Eastman, suddenly gets a reprieve from the gas chamber and gets out of prison and marries Elizabeth Taylor and goes on to run his uncle's company. The anxiety begins again, though, when Dorothy realizes that maybe there is another place like home and she starts stalking tornadoes around Kansas so she can go back and visit her buddies in Oz. The whole
Wizard of Oz
thing is too much like heaven and, at this point, since I know I can't click my heels three times to get back to earth, I have no idea where home is. This is causing me to freak out again.

Jeez, I can't even concentrate on what happened after
The Breakfast Club
ended. Judd Nelson and Molly Ringwald are now the hot couple at school, which is a bad move if you ask me. What does she see in him anyway? I have to say that when it comes down to it, I never liked
The Breakfast Club
. I don't even know why it's on here. I remember the first time I saw the movie and waited the two hours for them to finally leave school for the day, and then the movie was over. Waste of my time. Nothing happened there. Who do I speak to about getting
The Breakfast Club
off my “favorites” list. Who put it on there anyway? Who in heaven thinks they know me so well that they would put this movie among my favorites? Did they just assume that because I'm a woman I would automatically love this freaking movie? Huh? Huh?

Oh no, I'm not going to pass this test! My cellulite is going to come back! My shoes are going to pinch! I'm going down to fourth heaven! Oh no, I'm totally going down to fourth heaven!

Is it possible to have an anxiety attack in heaven?

I've got to get out of here. I've got to just take a walk or something, calm down, clear my head.

“Come, Peaches,” I say to her. “Wanna take a walk? Come outside with me.”

Peaches doesn't answer me and keeps watching the television. Peaches always loved
The Breakfast Club
.

“Come on, it's our thing. We always took walks together on earth, we haven't done that here.”

She still doesn't move, the lazy dog.

“Fine,” I tell her, leaving the house, “I'll catch you later.”

I'm walking through the streets of my neighborhood, mansion after mansion surrounded by rosebushes and fruit trees with the most succulent apples, lemons, grapefruits, and oranges ripe to perfection.

“Hi,” an old man calls from his Tudor mansion, “feel free to grab a couple of bananas if you like.”

I don't even answer him. I don't even wave back. What did he do that was so special to get those coconut palms?

I see some other lady potting plants in front of her two-story greenhouse.

“Hi,” she says. “Isn't heaven grand?”

“Isn't is just?” I say condescendingly, although she has no way of getting it.

Why is everyone so darn happy? Am I the only person in all of heaven who ever had to take the entrance exam?

This is when I start my jog. I've never been much of a jogger. Actually, I've never been a jogger at all, but it's the only way I can stop these people in their perfect seventh-heaven homes from sharing how fantastic their deaths are. If I can just run a couple of miles and get myself tired and weak, hopefully I'll be too tired to think about anything.

Maybe I'll just turn myself in.

“Forget it all,” I'll tell Deborah, my bad-dye-job guardian angel. “I get it. I didn't lead a fulfilling life and I wasn't going to. Just send me down to fourth already.”

There's just no sense in going on with this. I'm done. They've got me.

Maybe fourth heaven won't be so bad though. It's not like I'll be there by myself. Alice says she thinks all the people on fourth are really cool. Maybe I'll learn how to play the guitar and join some band.

“Oh, screw the jog,” I say aloud. I'm not even close to being out of breath. I suppose it's because I'm not a being who gets tired anymore, darn it.

“You sure you don't want any fruit?” the old guy with the fruit asks again as I pass him.

“I don't want your stinking fruit, okay?” I shout at him. “Now quit asking!”

“Okay, okay, you don't have to fret about it. Are you okay, lady?” he asks. “Would you like to come in for a cup of tea and maybe a bowl of fruit?”

I flip him the bird. Somehow this makes me feel a little better, but not enough. I look back at him a few times, and every time I do, he's standing there staring back at me like he can't understand what just happened.