LITMIR.BIZ

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side and propped myself up on an elbow, so that we were face-to-face. “Because he’s a wonderful man who wants to give me everything and share his life with me. And I love him.”

      He gazed at me. “I wish it were so easy for me.”

      “What do you mean?”

      “To want to share my life with just one person.”

      “Oh.”

      “Don’t think that means that you’re the reason I don’t want to marry Pristina,” he added quickly. “I wouldn’t want to give you the wrong impression.”

      He’s not my favorite person. He is so my favorite person. Somehow I’m never busy when he wants to do something. When I first started bringing him around, Electra listened to him preach and do his number for about ten minutes. Then she decided to hate him. She said she’d never met somebody who had so little conviction. She said in a really sick way, we were great together.

      He calls me almost every night. And we don’t even have to say a word sometimes when we’re with each other. We just breathe and it’s fine like that.

      “You want to have sex?” he asked.

      “Sure.”

      “I’m bored,” he told me, right in the middle. “I can’t finish.”

      “Then don’t.”

      He took my arm and examined it. “Your skin is practically alabaster, Doll. You need to hit the beach…get a tan.”

      In L.A. everyone is supposed to be tanned. It’s part of the image that you live your life under the sun. Everyone is supposed to be beautiful, too. Sometimes everyone is beautiful.

      Jeremy’s hair gets oily really fast and so does his face. He snarls when he’s angry and his lip curls up and his teeth bare like he’s a big cat hissing at prey. He wears stupid shirts and he’s a jackass and a real jerk. He lectures me. He tells me I’m boring in bed. He’s beautiful.

      Chapter 5

      “I need a date, Doll. I need to book the church,” my mom said on the phone the next day.

      “Aren’t you getting a little ahead of yourself, booking the church already?” I asked, glancing at the calendar. Yep, still August. For some reason the stick man was wearing a grass skirt. “Roman’s not coming back until February.”

      Karen rapped on the wall. “You have to book the venue the first thing—haven’t I taught you anything?” she screamed.

      “March,” I said into the phone.

      “Okay, I’m looking at the calendar. The 8th and the 15th are both good.”

      “How ’bout March 15?” I heard my dad say in the background. “That was the day Julius Caesar was assassinated.”

      “Oh, be a little more macabre, Arnold!”

      “No, I like that,” I said.

      “March 15 it is, then,” my mom replied. “Now, honey, are you coming home at all to see Maddy before she has to go back to school? She’s getting back from Europe next week.”

      My sister is nineteen and will be a sophomore at Stanford. She has spent the summer in Paris, working as an au pair to some French family to pay her way. I think that’s really weird. I spent the summer in Paris once and was totally fine to let my parents pick up the check.

      “I’m really busy, Mom. I don’t see myself coming home anytime soon,” I replied.

      “You’re not that busy!” Karen shouted.

      “Well, you’re going to have to come home at some point,” my mom informed me. “To do marriage counseling with Reverend Nelson.”

      “Christ, Mom, you have got to be kidding me!”

      “I am,” she laughed. “Reverend Nelson says he’ll allow for just one session when Roman gets back.”

      “Better thank Grandma Jane for that one, Doll,” my dad said in the background. “She slipped a big donation into the collection plate last Sunday with your name on it.”

      “You still have to come home at some point,” my mom said.

      I haven’t been home in months. I can’t cross the county line without some childhood monster jumping out at me. I see them at all the old haunts—Coastal Cone, Santino’s Pizza Parlor, Foster’s Freeze. Only now the little demons are all grown up. Still, I remember them and they remember me. No matter what I do or who I become. It’s like a creepy Never-Never Land.

      I popped into Ava’s salon to have my hair cut after work. Normally I would avoid senseless, excessive trimming, but with Ava being the receptionist and making my salon appointments, I can never get out of it. In her salon, they play nothing but techno and everyone has colored streaks in their hair like cotton-candy pink and bubblegum blue and apple green. Ava may be a “starving” actress of sorts, but not really starving because her father keeps her in large amounts of cash. She only keeps that job for the social interaction and the deal on color.

      She needed a ride home but she had to work until six, so I went down to Aldo and bought a pair of expensive black slides. Then I went over to The Limited and got a few new sweaters. Sometimes it’s sweet liberty to spend money you don’t have—almost like you’re living someone else’s life. Then you get the bill and oh, no—you realize it really was you and this is your life.

      “Guess what?” Ava giggled as we drove home listening to Madonna’s Immaculate Collection. She had fresh lavender highlights and a cheeky glow. “Dylan likes me. And I like him.”

      Last night while we were out Dylan left this very keen message on our answering machine. He played the whole song “Ava Adore” and hung up when it was over. If you listen to the lyrics of “Ava Adore” you’d realize it’s a song about some seriously messed-up love.

      But what a smooth move, really. That’s the way a big dorky asshole cajoles you into falling for him, by impressing you with his smooth moves. I told you I was onto his methods.

      “Oh, shit! Don’t think I didn’t see this one coming! The fuck!”

      Ava had just broken the news to Electra.

      “Ava…not Dylan,” Electra pleaded, when Ava told us he was on his way over. We were having Baja Fresh on the patio in the backyard and a homeless man we call Fret was standing on the other side of the gate, in the alley, asking us if he could please have some money. We call him Fret because when people say no to him he goes back and forth with his hand in his mouth, saying, “Oh, dear, oh, dear.”

      “Get out of here before I call the fucking police!” Electra finally screamed, throwing something at him. It was that limp green onion they always wrap up with your burrito. He ran off before she could chuck the slice of lime that comes with it.

      “Electra, that was mean,” Ava told her, frowning.

      “Well?” she asked haughtily, throwing her hair over one shoulder. Electra has the longest, shiniest brown hair ever. Stunning. She is fucking gorgeous.

      “Well, you shouldn’t be so mean,” Ava lectured. “The man is homeless!”

      “Yes, and I work for a living,” Electra replied, spooning up some of her rice. She eats a burrito from the center and never touches it with her hands. Her mother’s family name is on a bottle of whiskey. Her father’s family name is on a pack of cigarettes. Electra doesn’t like it when you talk about all that. She thinks it’s gauche for people to go around flaunting their wealth. Now check out those monogrammed Gucci slides of hers, and the matching bag.

      “Back to Dylan,” I said, pouring more margarita into my glass from the pitcher on the center of the table.

      “Yeah, why him?” Electra demanded.

      Ava

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