Books : America the Beautiful : Excerpts

Chapter Twenty-Five: Baby's Breath

"You keep this love, thing, child, toy.
You keep this love, fist, scar, break.
You keep this love."

-- Pantera

You learn a lot about a man from his toothbrush. Charlie had two.

He had finally invited me over to his tiny Silverlake one-bedroom house for a home-cooked dinner. While he checked on the parchment paper salmon and cockle rapini he was cooking in his dishwasher, I snooped around. Out on his tiny wooden deck decorated with small white hanging lights, I met his various herbs in tiny terra cotta pots neatly arranged on a low picnic table bench. Lavender and tarragon and basil, only they had names like Lola and Sweetums and Nettie-Arlene. Near a spotted dish with a generous portion of old scrambled eggs for the neighbor's cat, I spun the tire of a bicycle that hung from a hook under a yellow striped awning and went inside the humble cottage.

Near a large window, there was a small metal card table from the fifties with a white enamel top and three mismatched metal chairs with diamond patterned velvet cushions in sumptuous golds and purples. A patchwork quilt covered one wall while exactly opposite hung an Israeli poster of Sammy Davis Jr. in a pair of sunglasses giving the smokin' guns. Above a foldout futon couch, there were hats with buckles, buttons, plumes, and silk flowers for nearly any occasion. The digs were small, but cozy; magical. It looked as though a secretly rich jester lived there.

While the wild rice steamed, we decorated devil's food cupcakes. We mixed food coloring into little pots of store-bought vanilla frosting, made our own colors. Mauvy brown, orangish-pink, grey. I was as free as a kid again. Charlie put a big swipe of blue frosting on my nose. I let it dry there, almost wishing it were a tattoo.

Then I made the mistake of excusing myself to use his restroom to pee (and secretly see how I looked with blue frosting on my nose) only to excitedly discover we had the same Queen Amidala toothbrush.

When I emerged, waving the toothbrush wildly in my hand, he froze and before he could utter a word his body gave him away. "That's my fiancée's. Mine is the other one, the plain blue one."

"Oh," I said, trying to play it off like I already knew he had a fiancée. "Well, I have the same one as her."

Her sounded funny and separated itself from my sentence, hung suspended in the air like that staticky transmission of Princess Leia when she appears and begs for Obi-Wan's help. Of course he had a fiancée. As I looked around his house now, it became crystal clear.

There were little feminine touches everywhere, China Rain-scented candles, a pink paper lantern in the window, a framed poem written on a stained cookie doily. And a fucking right out in the open goddamned Lilith Fair CD.

At that point Charlie began to pace.

"Her name's Arielle; she's a part-time model who works with the blind, training guide dogs, and she's away right now on a bathing suit assignment in Jamaica but she hates it because the modeling world is so fake and what we really want to do is open up a little restaurant and have a full-service catering business complete with flowers and ice sculptures and hors d'oeuvres and stuff because, I mean, people love parties and with the whole Internet deal I think people are really gonna want to get back to basics like good clean eating and artistry in general, and dinner's almost ready so why don't you take a seat."

I thought about all the men I had ever loved in terms of their toothbrushes. Jasper's had bristles made from hemp and he was obsessed with porn; Jym's was electric and he wasn't so great at head; my first boyfriend used a Water Pik and he never wanted sex. I wondered what horror I was being spared by seeing Charlie's plain blue toothbrush -- impotence? infidelity? schizophrenia? nymphomania? WAS HE A WOMAN? Suddenly I was furious.

"Did you think we'd have an affair?"

"No," he said sweetly, "I thought we'd become awesome friends."

"Oh, so I'm not good enough, is that it? I'm not attractive enough for you?"

"No...I..."

I brushed tears away with my fingers. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"It never came up. I really wanted to but I didn't know how. I was actually gonna tell you tonight and I'm really glad we are talking about this now." Then calmly he said, "Phew! I feel a lot better."

God, he was worse than Karl, so thorough and eventempered. I felt like the Tasmanian Devil spinning out of control next to him. Then Charlie began to cry, too. "I'm sorry for not telling you sooner. I had no idea I would like you this much. I never meant to hurt you." He wiped his nose on his arm. I noticed how golden blond and hairy his arm hair was. The snot made a silvery trail as it dried on his skin.

Click click click click click -- my mind was a busy arrivals and departures sign updating its schedule again. That would explain why he never tried to kiss me, why he never walked me to my door and never even came in my house, ever. I thought, Have I filled in the empty spaces with my own explanations and deductions again? What did I do THIS time? I wanted to run out to my car and drive away, but even standing here arguing and being sad with him was more fun than anything else in the world, so I stared out his big bay window instead. The sun was setting now.

She's a part-time model who works with the blind repeated in my head. I thought, Part-time. Oh, she's beautiful all of the time, but she just models part of the time, making a fortune when it's convenient for her. But her real passion? That's donating her time training dogs for the blind.

I looked at Charlie now, watched him light three blue candles. His eyes were damp and shone wet in the flickering light. I thought, This guy is never going to leave her. I'd have to be modeling for Amnesty International on a full-time basis to turn his head and even make a dent. "She's coming back in two weeks and I'd really love for you two to meet. I think you'll really like each other."

"Yeah, sure, whatever." I tried to laugh it all off, but I snorted snot out of my nose and had to excuse myself.

In the safety of their bathroom, hugging my knees in close, I said her name out loud, "Arielle." That made it real. Then I rested my head on the toilet with the clear undersea themed polyurethane lid. Seeing the seaweed and tiny opalescent seashells and a sea horse trapped forever in plastic made me feel even sadder. Charlie knocked on the door.

"Everything OK in there?"

I wondered if I would ever have real love all to myself with someone as real as Charlie, forever.

"Mer, please come out here and have dinner with me."

I wanted to hate him. Instead I opened the door. "Charlie," I said.

"Yeah?"

"Does she know about me? I mean what did you tell her about me?"

But their phone rang.

The machine picked up and a girl's voice, soft and nervous, pleaded "Baby, are you there? It's an emergency." He ran for it. I moved outside to give him some privacy. Under a million twinkling galaxies I wondered how many other people were sitting down to awkward heartbreaking dinners this minute.

I could see him pacing from the warm yellow light of the kitchen to the dark of the den. Then I heard him say, "OK. I'll be on the next flight out." With heavy steps Charlie came outside to tell me the news: "Arielle's father had a heart attack." This hit me like a bowling ball punch in the teeth. "They don't know how serious it is, but..."

"Of course, yeah, my God. Is there anything I can do?" I said, gathering up the dishes.

"No, just leave it," he said before scurrying off to pack.

The air felt cool against my face. Suddenly I'm three, sitting in my father's lap in a dark room. I am holding my stillborn baby sister. I'm trying not to spill her off my lap. I like how tiny her fingers are. I think my mom is mad at me because she won't let me hold her all by myself, even though she is not heavy at all. She holds the head and says, "We are going to say good-bye now." My mom says her name over and over again. Shiva Plum Shiva Plum. My daddy is crying, I think he is mad at me, too. Then the men put her in the tiny coffin my daddy made for the baby. My mom just keeps kissing her and I get to kiss her, too. Then my daddy pulls her away gently and my mom's fingers are stiff and she is crying and won't look at us. Thinking of it now, I wonder why our capacity for grief has to grow roots, too.

With their mismatched dishes in my arms I looked up in time to see a shooting star streak across the night sky. I made a healing wish for her, for them, then wiped the blue frosting off my nose.

I came home to two messages. One was Charlie, calling me from the airport to tell me he was just thinking about me and wanted to make sure I was all right. He wondered if I wanted to have coffee on Thursday when he got back to town. "No, thank you," I said out loud.

The second, from my mother: "Mer, darling, it's Camilla calling. Listen, Larry Flynt saw the piece they ran on me in Vanity Fair, the one with the family photo; anyway, like I said, his office called and wanted to know if you and Grandma and I would be interested in doing a photo spread entitled 'Three Generations of Pussy' for Hustler. I told them I didn't think you would be interested, but just call me so I can let them know for sure. Grandma said whatever you decide is fine. It would be a free trip to Capri or the Bahamas, but I'm fine either way. Love you! Mchwa!"