Roadmap Part 13

CHAPTER 31 - FLIGHT

"What do you want for breakfast?" I’m standing in the bathroom doorway while he combs his hair.

"What've you got?"

"I've got eggs I've got toast I've got cereal I've got orange juice," paraphrasing his lines from one of his sitcom characters.  If he recognizes it, he gives no sign.

"What kind of cereal?"

"Cornflakes and raisin bran."

"Raisin bran sounds good."

I make breakfast, trying to ignore my "It feels married" anxiety flashes.  When he enters dressed in his tour guide outfit, he sees there's no fruit with the meal and opens a cabinet to get an orange. "Coconut milk! You've got coconut milk!"

And fish sauce and curry and oyster sauce. Si Fu’s Thai girlfriend taught me to make curry dishes.

On his Voice Mail message, he'd promised to tell me all about it. Now, as we eat, I have to pull anecdotes out of him. I tell him what his aunt had said about why she didn't bother with the Sistine Chapel.

"Bertie is so...American," he shakes his head, looking down on his cereal, remembering. "Like we're on a tour around Paris and we pass this statue which was probably the prototype for the Statue of Liberty, you know?  Just like it, but smaller.  And Bertie goes (stands and points finger), 'Look, everybody! There's the Statue of Liberty!'" He mashes his hand over his eyes, "And I just wanted to disappear."

When I lived in Canada, you could spot the Americans, I tell him.  They were the loud, obnoxious ones who were acting like the world belonged to them.  Yes, that's it, he agrees.

After breakfast, he stands smoking on the patio while I sit on the doorway steps, asking about the memorial ceremony.

"Everybody—all the vets—if they didn't know each other, they knew somebody who knew somebody." He mimics their Nisei accent, "'Your name Takai?  I had buddy name Bobby Takai—Oh, he’s your brother? Sure, I know him, I know him.'"

"Like a family reunion."

"Yes.  A huge family reunion."

"You didn't miss much. O.J.'s still on trial for murder."

"I know. That's all they watch over there. CNN.”

"Do you think he did it?"

He smashes his cigarette out, "At first, when I heard that his wife had been murdered and they were after him, I thought it was pure prejudice 'cause he's black.  But as time's gone on and the evidence has piled up...the DNA in the blood found at the scene matching his and all that. Well, after a while, you realize he did it. He fucking did it!"

I agree. "The thing that's always gotten me is his stoic macho attitude, his poker face. Why doesn't he say, 'You've got the wrong guy! Find the guy who did this! I'll give all my money to whoever can come forward with a clue!’"

"That's right. That's right. I never thought of that before. She was almost decapitated, that's how deep the neck wound was. When you think of how much blood you get when you just cut your finger!" He winces. "You realize how much blood there must have been, his ex-wife for God's sake. It's hard to imagine he could be so cool about it."

My car's packed, I'm ready to go to work. So is Shane. He locks the door, then hugs me, a brief kiss, "Thanks again for taking care of everything."

We go our separate ways.

xx

At work, people say, "What a fabulous dress! You look so beautiful." It's the same dress I wore last night. Only then does it occur to me that Shane never said a word about how I looked. But then, he never has.

xx

I drive home from work in a stupor of disorientation. Passing through the familiar stores of the canyon, they now appear to me as meaningless as a ghost town.  I stop to buy sleep insurance—a pint of Black Label—then kick my Mercury into low gear and force it up the first sharp incline on the road that always leads to The Relationship House.

Wishing myself back in Shane's handmade oasis.

  xx

Door’s locked. The door is never locked. I knock and Eva opens it. One look tells me that she's gotten worse. Pacing the tiny kitchen talking on her cordless as if her life depended on it, while she plunders the open refrigerator. As I enter, she barely nods to me. Every inch of available space is covered with plastic containers.  She stops to throw the cat out into the night air, then locks it. Anger permeates her every movement, her every word; I have no idea what she's talking about or to whom, although it's in English.

Unable to shake the clammy feeling of approaching doom, I tiptoe past her with my bags of food. Will put them away later. As I move my stuff back in, I tell myself that maybe it's not because of me...maybe it's because of Edward or Carmelita or Renato. But when she averts her eyes and flinches as I pass her, I think Here we go.

By midnight, I'm sitting on the edge of my bed feeling like a stranger in this room. My plan is to sleep and worry about her tomorrow. If Tony was still here, I might have a fighting chance with Eva. But he's gone and taken that happy-go-lucky veneer with him. Edward's still here but of course his cabin is dark. 

What's happened between Eva and me? 

I weep over the uncertainty, the unpredictability of love. Why can't love be enough? My nose is so clogged from all the tears, I can't breathe. I go to the bathroom to blow my nose. I blow into toilet paper until my nose is tender. Then exit the bathroom and hesitate in front of Eva's closed door. Inside I can hear her ordering aromatherapy items from a catalogue.  Her voice softer than in the kitchen, almost coy:  "Can I do that? Can I order both eucalyptus and lavender?"

Carmelita isn't around. She must be in Santa Barbara visiting her other aunt.  The house echoes with Eva's droning suck-up voice. Whatever her beef with me, I'll find out soon enough. I return to my room. But I can’t even sit on the bed. Feelings push through my attempts to numb them. Eva can't be as furious with me as she appears. Maybe I need to grovel; that worked before. I love her. She's my mentor. 

When I first met her, Eva warned, "I can only take care of myself and my two kids. There's no room for anyone else." Yet she took me in literally off the street when all I owned was in my car. When I needed nurturing, she showed me how to partake of what nurtured her.

"People often turn on their mentors," a drama teacher of mine once said.  But can mentors turn on their protégés?

I knock on her door.

"What is it?"

My eyes swollen from sobbing, I now stand in her doorway. Can she smell the booze? If she can, she'll see me as weak and pitiful. Something in me knows that she prefers me that way.

"Eva, are you mad at me?"

Still holding her catalogue, "Yes, I am."

"Why? What have I done?" I'm crying again.  She puts the catalogue down on her cross-legged lap, but doesn't let go. Her horn-rimmed reading glasses make her look like a schoolmarm, "To begin with, you gave too many directions to the restaurant. It was so controlling. Like you didn't think I knew how to drive."

Thank God.  If this is all it is.

"I'm sorry. I get really compulsive in cars. I think I was killed in an automobile accident in a past life." Will that fly?

But Eva's posture on her air-mattress grows more rigid. "After we got to the restaurant, I just had to get away from you. Then everything seemed okay, but when we got back in the car, it started again!"

"I'm so sorry, Eva, I really am. I don't mean anything by it." I remember asking her forgiveness at the time.

"And..." she says, leaning towards me like a crumbling statue, "I thought it was very insensitive of you to take me to a restaurant that made me sick."

Uh oh...

In film it’s called  "rack focus." Everything blurry suddenly comes into sharp focus. And vice versa. "I asked you if you could eat Chinese food and you says yes."

"So you took me to a place that didn't have salad on the menu and you know I only eat raw food!" This last is spit out in slow deliberate chunks. I can finally see what lies beneath her words. My days are no longer numbered. I'm in Eva's Kangaroo Court, facing the railroad job she's designed to get rid of me. Why? Because Shane has a beautiful garden and loves me? Is she really that jealous? 

I can't let her get away with it. "I'm sorry, but I saw you ate broiled salmon at Seventh Heaven.” 

She leans forward even more, looking ready to leap off the bed and grab my throat, "You know what your problem is? You act all sweet and nice and like everything's just great, but underneath you're a raving bitch!"

Okay. Six months ago I probably would have bought that. And six months ago, it might have been true. But. This is just the pot calling the kettle. "That's bullshit!

For a split second, I think again she's going to attack me. But she stays seated: "See?  Even that you have to call it 'bullshit' proves how much rage you have."

Now wait just a...

There was a time when this Mad Hatter talk would have doused the flame of my reason. When Boris and I used to argue. My eyes are dry now. I state with a calm that amazes me, "I'm moving out. You won't have my 'energy' around anymore."

She sits back, relaxed and still as a Buddha, "Thank you."

"You're welcome."

Mission accomplished.

Back in my room, I wonder how much of my dead calm announcement has to do with my perception of a safety net spread beneath my tightrope? My safety net called Shane. Well, even if we can't live together, I'll at least have his refuge while I search for new headquarters. And, beyond that, I'll have his loving support.

And underneath all this is my Screaming Self yelping, "It's your fourth move in six months! A tumbleweed has more stability. Get a life!

xx

Edward's in the kitchen the next morning, pummeling me with coolly stated questions while he runs the blender: "You picked him up at the airport? Was he happy to see you?"

"Of course."

"So are you guys are going to keep seeing each other?"

Where are these bitchy questions coming from?

I talk about meeting Shane's family. He winces when I tell how Sissy took two pictures of us. I know he’s putting himself in Shane's place. That's his problem.

"We're very much in sync," I insist. "We finish each other's sentences."

"Really?"  He sounds so surprised.

"Yeah.  It's not casual.  It's a bona fide Thing."

But even as I say it, I'm getting scared. Clichés have haunted me ever since meeting Shane.  If it seems too good to be true, it probably is. Telling people jinxes it.

Pouring his smoothie into a glass, he says, "I told Suki that you have to find a new place and the first thing she asked was, 'Is she moving in with Shane?'"

Against my better judgment, I tell him what Shane said about moving in upstairs. "Maybe I can take his place downstairs if he moves up there."

"Mmmm..." Edward looks doubtful, "but if things get dicey between the two of you...then you'll have to move again."

"I know, I know!"  But how could they, I wonder,  Get dicey?

He rests his back against the stove, grimly stirring his granola. "You know, Suki is talking about wanting to live together.  Don't tell her I said this, but I'm not ready.  I've still got a lot...to work out."

For two days, I procure boxes and put stuff into them.  Eva's mood frightens me. I'm afraid she might destroy my stuff. If I can store my scripts and videotapes and reels somewhere, she can have anything else. Everything I value, I pack in my car. In between packing, I take breaks on the sofa with Carmelita.

"Are you serious about thees guy?" she asks with that mature, knowing look of hers and that winsome accent.  "Are you theenking of marriage?"

"I don't know. I hope not marriage, but yes, I am thinking of living with him."

Worry crosses her lovely teen age face, "Ayee, Carrie, go slow.  You must be careful. Very careful."

This from the Latin Spitfire of the Western Hemisphere.

"With the guys, if you are too fast," she cautions.  "They don't appreciate."

I know it's so and yet I know...(as the song goes).

xx

It's been two days since I kissed Shane in front of his door.  Two days without a call from him. I've circled ads for promising apartments, called a few, but they require credit checks. My credit is shot from the Tough Times of last year's marriage. I just paid rent a week ago on this place and a new landlord will want first, last and security deposit. All of a sudden I can't get arrested at all the places that usually hire me. My Vida Loca has finally caught up with my secretarial life, and nobody wants my sleepless, spaced-out self in their law office.

But there’s worse news.

The man who once called three times a day to tell me his whereabouts is now silent. I've turned into my most needy self, calling my Voice Mail at every opportunity to see if perhaps he's left a message.

Finally I call Kaiulani. Her Bahamas lover has bailed. No more plans to fly there. A letter from him finally arrived with the blunt news that he "reassessed" and decided it would never work.  After all those weeks she spent waiting by the phone.  I leave her a Voice Mail:

"I want you to know that I understand now what it's like for someone not to call.  It's agony,"

In return, Lani leaves a warm, supportive message:

"I'm so sorry, Carrie. Isn't it shitty? Maybe this trip for Shane was real important and he needs to be with his family right now. Just hang in. I know it's hard but (she sighs) hang in."

I can only look into the void for so long and then I call for prophesy. The psychic in Ventura is not surprised (of course) to hear from me. She "reads" me over the phone:

"It's nesting time for you. Time to gather all the material you've collected over the years and focus, because you are coming into a period of wholeness.  "

What about Shane?

"I see that you've been shyly falling in love as if for the first time. He enables you to live out your femininity on all levels—emotional, physical, mental.  And he feels you're the perfect woman for him."

My heart grabs at this.

"You feel you need for structure in this relationship, commitment. But I'm getting that he's holding back from asserting his feelings, feeling distant. For some reason, he's more cautious than you are. It could be that the weak link is that he doesn't know himself what he wants from life and so he doesn't know what he wants from you."

Then she adds, "He is your emotional soulmate."

As for the outcome: "It really depends on how both you and he feel. It's Fifty-Fifty. Aquarians need their independence. Cancers are the same."

"Would Topanga be good for me?"

"No," she answers.  "I see power struggle."

"Echo Park?"

"I'm getting it could work very well there."  And one last thing: "You are going through some deep changes, really coming into your own now."

Buoyed by this assessment, that night I call Shane after my dance class.

CHAPTER 32 - SPIRIT GRAMS

"Shit, this hurts!"

The pain in my chest feels like it's shooting straight into my heart.

"Isn't it a bitch?" Kaiulani drags on her Marlboro Light. "It's like 'Did anybody get the number of that semi that just hit me?'"

I pour more vodka into my glass. It's been years since I went through this kind of horror. I'm surprised and devastated to find how little has changed.

Five hours ago, I was in dance class thinking, "Call...don't call...call..."  Bumping and grinding, wondering what love's got to do with it as I reviewed the three quickest ways to scare a guy off:

(1) Call him;

(2) Drop in on him;

(3) Infer that you want a commitment.

Venus is retro.  Mercury's retro.  Communication will be difficult.  But that's never stopped the truth from coming out.

After class I sit in my car and cry. I feel so alone. Why should I keep wondering if he can help? Why not just ask? Because he hasn't called. He’s been back three days and it's like he's still gone.

Edward told me he got Shane's postcard yesterday.  So where's mine?

I'm aware that I want Shane to rescue me, which is the last thing my co-dependent self needs. If Tony were here, he'd probably say, "Keep your fence strong.  Don't drag him into it." But Tony's not here and I miss Shane. I miss he peace of his World.

Forcing myself to drive, I pass pay phone after pay phone. Unable to stand it, I stop at a busy corner, get out and dial.  I listen to the phone ring with a growing sense of foreboding. Even if he's there, my desperate call gives him the upper hand.

He's there.

His voice sounds distant, weak when he says hello.

"Hi, it's me."

"Hello you," now it sounds warm, familiar.

"What are you doing?"

"Getting ready to make dinner.  Want some?"

"Yes."

"Come on over."

"I'm calling because I'm going through some heavy shit."

"Oh."

"It's got nothing to do with you." Why am I lying? "But I need to talk."

Turning onto these familiar Echo Park streets, I'm already comforted.  It feels right to be back here.  But the thought of living with a man feels premature and scary.  Do I want to give up my space, the first I've had in a decade?  Do I want to form a couple when I'm not yet even fully single?  With someone I hardly know?

"I think you're just looking for a friend you can fuck from time to time," Tony had told me when we last talked about Shane.  Then why am I letting this crisis push the envelope?  Is it really all part of my Great Experiment to find out What would happen if...?

  Carrie's Lab.

xx

His house is so dark at first, it looks vacant. He's stretched out on the loveseat watching a nature program about seals. I hesitate in the kitchen, waiting for him to greet me. He does. In a casual, distracted sort of way. He sits up and after saying hello, continues to watch the seals, as if unable to tear himself away. When he finally gets up, he yawns.

"How ya doin'?" I ask.

"Oh, fine."

"Jet lagged?"

"No, not really." Half an hour later he will mention that my phone call woke him up. He'd been sleeping on that couch for the last three hours. At work, he'd fallen asleep for an hour at lunchtime.

It's hard for me not to touch him, but he simply walks toward me with his standard hospitality, "Juice?"  Sure. 

On the kitchen table, I see it. My postcard.

Even as he holds out the bottle, "This one okay?" I feel as if he's still talking to me from France. I pour it myself while he puts sausages into a pan. Unable to stand my own tension, I go to the patio, sit in the chair by the ferns and steal one of his cigarettes from the small table.

When he comes out to join me, his eyes widen into perfect O's:  "Smoking!  You're smoking!" Forgetting the night when I bummed one in the Polynesian bar.  Taking one himself, "Okay, let's hear it."

I tell him about Eva. Our fight.

"Sounds like something else was bugging her."

I tell him that I suspect it might be jealousy. Maybe of my friendship with Tony. She only just revealed that she had a crush on him. I never realized...

He shakes his head in amusement, "You girls...you girls..."

"I told her I'm moving out."

He flicks ashes into the jar lid he's set on the table, "Yeah, roommates are tough to live with.  I couldn't have one."

I have my answer.

Coming over to pick up the cigarette pack, he holds it out, "The last one..."

"...before the firing squad," I say, leaning my head back for the blindfold.

He laughs, lighting his own, "Before you go back to Pope Whatshername."

Dinner's ready. He tosses raw baby spinach and cilantro with olive oil, setting it next to a platter of Trader Joe's Phoney Mulroney's turkey cilantro and beer sausages and steaming rice. Placing chopsticks for each of us on either side of the salad bowl, he urges, "Go ahead, eat."

I haven't eaten all day and I've never been less hungry.

He lifts a spinach leaf: "This will be my first salad in three weeks." Biting into it, savoring it as if it's caviar, "Mmmmm...."  It is delicious. I pick at it.

We try to talk. I tell him about this new magazine I found, Chopstix, which devotes itself to building Asian American self-esteem. Margaret Cho’s on the cover.

"Cho's sitcom is a miracle," he says. "Look at me.  I've barely eeked out a career playing bit parts."

"There’s also a story on the Miss Saigon controversy.” About Asians objecting to a white actor cast as an Asian.

"We're not saying don't play us,” Shane says. We're saying, that's okay, as long as we can play you."

"You mean you want to play an American. Instead of an Asian American."

"Exactly! I saw Miss Saigon in London and at intermission the woman I was with said there was too much ‘testosterone’ on stage. I asked, ‘Would you say Glass Menagerie has too much 'estrogen'?"

No.  But I know what she means.  Time to switch topics.

"Some articles struck me as defensive.  Like the one about how Asian dicks are just as big as anyone else's."

"I thought that was good."

"It seemed weak, putting it in print like that.  Instead of whining about it, why not just have a dick that's as big as anybody else's?"

"Because it's an issue. Whites have made it an issue."

"Really?  I never heard of it."

He rolls his eyes incredulously, "Yeah, well, I grew up hearing about it and the school I went to was pretty mixed."

"So maybe that's why I don't know all this stuff.  I went to an all-white school in Florida."

He sets his chopsticks down, face tense, "Well, let me tell you, there's plenty of folks out in the world who aren't from Florida and they make it an issue."

"It reminds me of the Women's Movement..."

Why can't I let it drop?  He's getting so upset.  We've never argued like this.  But I keep at it:  "Like when Ms. magazine came out and people were asking, 'Why are these women writing about being strong?  Why not just be a strong woman?'"  He doesn't answer.  "Then I realized that they have to do it to get people's attention, get them thinking.  That's how they form an identity as a cultural force."

"Chopstix wouldn't exist if there wasn't a need for it," he says. "You know, when I saw Lou Ann in Switzerland, she said, 'Why can't people just get along?'  She's sitting with me and two other Asian Americans and I told her, 'Easy for you to say—you've got blond hair and blue eyes.'  People like you can 'get along.' When you're a person of color you're always in danger. Your life's on the line because of other people's prejudice.'"

"Plenty of people are prejudiced against blondes, too," I point out, feeling the bog rise to my neck. "My friend, Rosie, has to cope with people assuming she's dumb because she's blonde."

He shoots me a look of disgust, "You can't talk about her problems and racial problems in the same breath.  In high school I had Latino buddies. When we'd  get stopped by the cops, they'd work them over."

"Cops are assholes," I murmur, wishing for common ground, but not willing to surrender.

"Blondes aren't pulled over for being blonde."

"Sometimes they are. I was once. A cop gave me a 'warning' and his phone number."

"You're mixing apples and oranges. I'm talking about life-threatening situations."

"What about Nicole Simpson?  She was blonde and she got her throat slashed."

He stops talking. I push my still full plate away. Why couldn't I let him make his angry points and feign agreement? I watch him push rice around on his plate. To think I was just bragging to Edward about how "in sync" we are.

The silence is killing.

A thought occurs, Now he's going to offer me something.

"You should take some of this fruit home with you," he nods toward the bowls of fruit I'd placed everywhere.  "I'll never eat it all."

A peace offering? Cultural reflex? Or is his kindness how he fills a Vacuum?

"Better eat that," he nods at my plate, "or I'll have to throw it away."

"I can't," I'm already gathering the plates to wash them. While I take them to the sink, he goes into the garden and lights up. I watch him from the doorway as he contemplates the ferns, back taut.

"If you have any suggestions or hear of a place for rent, I'd appreciate it if you'd let me know," I say softly, trying to sound casual, but it comes out stilted, contrived.

He flicks an ash at the concrete, "You could try my landlady's place up on the hill."

"Which hill?"

"The one at the end of the block."

Memory. Following him up the steps to the apartment building on the pre-dawn hill. That awesome view.

"We can go look at it if you want.  I'll take you there."

In his living room, he holds out two jackets, "Which one do you want?"  I take the blue one. We take off up the street. He's three paces ahead. I force myself to keep up. This is no after-dinner stroll. To our left is Elysian Park, where fog is rolling in, wrapping the pines and eucalyptus in an enchanting mist. When I mention it, he doesn't respond.

The place is just as I remember it. A couple of Frank Lloyd-influenced forties-style buildings sprawl across one corner of the vast hilltop property. One blue and one peach-colored.

"I think she rents these places for four-fifty a month."

He must have it wrong, I think. Or maybe that's what they were two years ago when he moved into his place.

Since it's too late to knock on the landlady's door, there's nothing to do but stand at the courtyard's hillside edge and immerse ourselves in the panoramic view, which projects for our viewing pleasure downtown... Century City...the Observatory...the Hollywood sign and Shane claims, on a clear day, even the Pacific Ocean.

We stand side by side in silence looking out. I'm fighting the urge to kiss him as I did in that elevator.  As we kissed that first night in Topanga.  Right now all I want is to stand here at the edge of the world and make out with him, but he keeps his distance.  As we head back to is place, he's even farther ahead of me than he was before.

"Did you encounter any prejudice in Europe?"  Why am I back to this topic?  There must be other ways to get conversation going. But this seems to be the Topic of the Night. Besides my living situation.

"Are you kidding? They hate the Japanese. When we were in Nice, some vets went into a café and couldn't get waited on. On their way out, one of the vets who spoke French, said to the waiters, 'During the war, we saved your ass.'"

"Were you with them?"

He gives a short, angry laugh, "If I had been, I would've torn the place apart."

Is he capable of such violence? He seems to think he is.

xx

Back at his place, he puts fruit in a bag for me, urging me to "take it home."  Lingering with my bag of apples and oranges, I ask: "Do you want to be solitary tonight?" Taking in air, he looks as if he's contemplating a chess move.

"Never mind," I tease. "You took too long to answer." He doesn't smile back.

"Yeah, I guess this jet lag is catching up.  I need to sleep."

“Oh I almost forgot…” I ask if I can store my valuable stuff at his place.  My computer is still in his room anyway.

"Go ahead."

We go to my car and he helps me carry two boxes of videotapes from my hatchback—placing them under the fly fishing table on which my computer still sits.  On the way back to the car, I realize he's said absolutely nothing in the last few minutes. It's as if we're strangers. Worse.

Because when we were strangers, we had so much fun.

"You seem reserved."

"Yes.  I am reserved."

Deja vu. I remember this behavior from years ago when I was single. My hand is on the handle of the car door. He's a few feet away, politely waiting. My heart now feels as if it's turned to lead.  Mercury's laughing at me from its heavenly illusion, but I can't stop myself. 

I have to know. "Shane, are you going to keep seeing me?"

"I don't know," he says softly, truthfully.

I want to scream but when I open my mouth, it comes out a sharp laugh. "Somebody told me this would happen when you came back from Europe. Because your perspective would’ve changed. " Before he confirm or deny, I turn back to the house, "I have to get my stuff. I can't leave it here."

Now I'm way ahead of him, aware of how upset and vulnerable I look, but the fact that he says nothing to contradict, merely follows, says it all.

xx

"You are shyly falling in love, as if for the first time." I throw the boxes into my car, "Is that okay?" he asks with characteristic care as the box he places tilts precariously.

"Fine," I say, slamming down the hatchback. Again at the driver's door, I lean back against the car, hugging myself as if to let go would spill my guts all over the pavement.

"I feel like a fool."

He digs his hands into his pockets, eyes the ground, "When I was in Europe these past weeks, I thought a lot about what happened with Grace and why.  I came to realize how needy I was and that maybe I was getting involved too fast for the wrong reasons. And these last couple days I did a lot of thinking about you and I don't want to repeat the same mistake."

I can't answer. I'm trying to reconcile "Did you want to suck my cock even before we met?" with "Maybe I'm getting involved too fast..." Why don't they ever say that last one first? Why can't I?

He shifts his weight from one foot to the other, "It's not like I'm seeing anybody else or that I want to see anybody else...I need some time alone.  I haven't been by myself in three weeks."

I choose my words carefully, hearing the crack and groan of the thin ice under them, "I can understand that you don't want a relationship just to have a relationship, I feel the same way. I need to heal, too. so I understand. But I like you."  He says nothing.

Then he stands next to me, leaning back against my car, mirroring me: "Well heck, we can still hang out.”

What does that mean?

He draws me to him, one hand encircling my shoulders, the other cradling my head against his chest so I'm wrapped inside the cocoon of his body. His hand pressed against my hair, my nose pressed into his soft neck, we stay like that a good long moment.

As we part, he says, "Sorry about the Canyon Crisis, but I just can't..."

"I know. It's okay."

He kisses me lightly. I'm reminded of every last night I ever had with any lover.  Everything but "I hope we'll always be friends."

My head throbbing from the beat of my heart, I turn on the ignition and fight the urge to drive off a cliff. I've got to be with someone right now before I fall completely apart. Kaiulani lives ten minutes away via the Golden State Freeway. I can't stop at a pay phone to call her, I might walk into traffic. Praying that I will make it safely to her condo, I drive with my head buzzing. 

Was it Lust or was it Memorex?

Maybe there are no answers.  Anyway, if it was lust, it sure ain't now.

Kaiulani opens the door looking exquisite in red silk P.J.'s

"I'm here to join the Club."

Kaiulani's large eyes grow even larger, "No, oh my God, no!"

Shivering, I try to breathe, "He says he doesn't know if he wants to see me anymore."

Kaiulani screams and holds me.  I finally start to cry.

xx

  I make it to the great white cushy armchair next to Kaiulani's great white cushy sofa and collapse there sobbing. All three of her huge fluffy cats come and sniff at the sole of my foot where it dangles at the end of a crossed leg—the tips of their triangular noses all pointed at one spot.

"They're trying to comfort you," Lani calls to me as she heads for the kitchen.

I spend the rest of the evening sitting in Kaiulani's white cave drinking, smoking, rehashing details and exchanging horror stories of love gone wrong.

"There's a new pop-psych book out," she smiles, "on how to keep a guy.  It says, 'Don't play hard to get.  Be hard to get.'"

When I tell her that he wouldn't eat the brownies I'd made that first night, she sighs, "We're doing it wrong. It's our own fault. We're giving them too much and they don't appreciate it."

Kaiulani had paid her entire way in the Bahamas.  She'd been planning to pay her way back there again to be with “Mr. Right.”

"I know it hurts," Kaiulani says soothingly, sipping her Salty Dog. "I keep wondering, 'When will I learn?'"  Mashing one out and lighting up another, "On the other hand, I want PASSION. At least I will have had that."

My exact words a month ago. But what good are NOVA love affairs if they take us with them when they burn out?

It's three-thirty in the morning when Kaiulani confesses:

“I got dressed today. I woke up crying and cried the rest of the day. I just felt so alone. Then at some point I turned on the TV and sat there, eyes all swollen, watching the O.J. trials and y'know, this is how far gone I was...I fell into such disgust and rage watching that asshole, thinking about how they all tiptoe around and how he'll probably get off after all this, that I started fantasizing. 

I started planning how I could sneak past the guards with an AK47, get into the courtroom and blow them all away, all those hypocrites—the lawyers, the judge, the jurors, the smug reporters. Then I thought, no, a gun's too big, they'd catch me.  How about a knife? I figured out how I could smuggle in a knife, make it all the way to O.J. and then slit his throat like he did Nicole's." 

We just howl at this and pour more alcohol, toasting to our fantasies.

But no matter what we talk about, I'm haunted by flashbacks of Shane's home. The centering tranquility of the Little Joshua Tree, the woodsy warmth of the rooms, the lovely calm to which I couldn't wait to return each day.

You are moving into wholeness. Really? Then how was I able to merge so easily with someone else's reality?

"I thought 'This is it,'" Kaiulani's saying. "My dream come true. A man who's not afraid to give me the home and the baby I want in an island paradise," she blows out the smoke with a choked laugh.  "Shee-it."

Yeah, well I told all my friends that Shane was the "anti-Boris."     

"It's like you buy the whole picture," I muse drunkenly, "and then the man turns it around and says, 'Why did you have it upside down?'"

At four-thirty, Kaiulani shows me to her guest room where I crawl under her comforting comforter, allowing Jack the Rippa to snuggle with me before I leave consciousness.

xx

The next morning I wake up in Kaiulani's pure white bedroom, anxious thoughts tumbling like so much dirty laundry. Where will I live? Where will I work?  What kind of love life do I want for myself? Something's collapsed inside me.  The insouciant "mensch" I'd been evolving into has crumbled.

In my head, I hear:

“You must ACT AS IF.

As if you had courage...

As if you will soon have your own place…

As if you have True Love and A Destiny.”

A spiritual telegram.  Now if I could just get out of this bed. Another one comes in: “Don’t Settle.”  I say it out loud.  And for a moment, I feel free..

I find Kaiulani under a pristine white comforter kissing Top Model. She yawns and says, "I had an incredible dream last night. I dreamed I opened the drawer where I keep Bill's letters and the photos we took in the Bahamas and put them in the drawer where I keep mementos from past lovers. Then I went to the computer, sat down, turned it on and said, 'Okay, it's Showtime!' And I wrote my next screenplay from beginning to end." 

Kaiulani makes toast while I sag against the cushions of her sofa like an empty bag. I just paid rent and now have to come up with money for a new place.  Eva probably won't push me out because she'd have to give half my money back.

"Call Shane's landlady," urges Kaiulani. "I've got a good feeling about her."  I try twice.  The third time she answers and says, "I have one vacancy opening up in a few days, but I'm not exactly sure when because the tenant is rather unreliable."

Rent? Four hundred and fifty dollars.

"Call her back and offer her money," Kaiulani insists. "Let her know how serious you really are."

I do and Gertrude the Landlady says amicably, "That's not necessary. I'll hold it for you."

My depression has lifted. Kaiulani says she has no room at her place where I can store my stuff, so I take everything to Rosie's. 

"I'm in desperate need of a coffee break!" she shrieks. A stack of her glossies and acting résumés sit on her desk ready to be sent out, but her computer just crashed--with her entire agent mailing list. 

xx

We go to the corner café where we commiserate about Mercury Retro.

"One thing I've learned," says Rosie, "when men say they need their space, they need their space. You'll see, he'll come running and be all 'Where are you?"

“I doubt it.”

"Hells bells, you look great," Rosie enthuses.  "And you're having adventures!  ou're an inspiration!"

Right/  A homeless, divorced inspiration.

Behind us, a table of artsy-fartsy middle-aged women are waxing on about their ex-spouses soon-to-be-ex-spouses. 

"Men!" one cries, "You know how men are about their pee pees..."

 Another one responds, “God yes, men and their pee-pees! I have four boys and I can attest they are like that from the day they are born.”

I utter a silent prayer:

“God, no matter how bad it gets, don't ever let me be like them."

When we get back, I use Rosie’s phone to check my Voice Mail and hear Shane’s voice: 

      "Somebody named Georgia called for you.  I'm sorry, I didn't write down her number. Something about a temp job for tomorrow. Hope you're doing okay and things aren't too wild and crazy for ya in Topanga.  Gotta go to work now, then I've got a rehearsal for a reading, so I'll be back...later.  I'll talk to you soon."

"He's going to call you tonight!" Rosie insists. "Mark my words."

But he doesn't