L.A. Woman (7 page)

There was a pause. “Um, Sarah…I’ve done a lot of thinking.”

“So have I. I figure we don’t have to have both desks in the second bedroom, just yours would be fine. It’s a lot bigger than mine, anyway and…”

“Sarah, I’m not living with you.”

He might as well have been speaking Swahili. “What? What?” Her mind went numb.

“I’m not going to live with you.” He sighed. “You’re just a little too much of a distraction, and frankly, I’ve gotten a lot done…I can’t afford to screw this up. I really need to focus.”

The peace she envisioned shattered like a glass bottle dropped on a hard tile floor. “You need to focus,” she repeated carefully.

“I figured I’d get my own place, and you could visit me every weekend, just like you used to do when you lived up here. Hell, we could probably see each other more than that. We practically lived together our final year of college, remember?”

But never in actuality, she thought, again with that sheen of numbness. It reminded her of her state at five that morning. “So, you’re moving down here, but you’re not going to live with me, so you can focus on your job.”

“That’s it,” he said encouragingly, since she wasn’t reacting with any emotion. He sounded relieved. “That’s it exactly.”

“Martika was right,” she said, with a voice of growing wonder. “You
are
a dick.”

“What?”

“You…are…a…dick.” She said the words slowly, with exaggeration. “Which word don’t you understand?”

“Thanks a lot, Sarah,” he said, his voice freezing cold. “Thanks a fucking lot. I tell you about my promotion, and this is the best you can do? Thanks for being happy for me, I mean, what else could I expect from my girlfriend?”

“Oh, don’t play that shit with me,” she said, leaping up from the chair she’d sat down in. “Don’t
even
try to guilt me. I pulled a twenty-nine-hour straight
day
working for an idiot. I could have been killed. And your idea of boyfriend-type support is that I should
grow up and pay my dues?
And now, after being engaged for four
fucking
years, you’re going to move to the city that I moved to—” she took a deep breath “—JUST TO GET YOU A PLACE TO LIVE, AND NOW YOU’RE GOING TO
LIVE SOMEWHERE ELSE? JUST BECAUSE I’M A FUCKING
DISTRACTION?
”

“Don’t yell at me. I mean it, Sarah,” he said, his voice full of dire threat. “I don’t have to put up with this shit.”

“No, you don’t. Not ever again.” Her voice wavered, and she knuckled her tears out of her eyes, smearing the liquid down her cheeks with the back of her hands. “Go find someone else who knows how to be your
girlfriend,
dickhead. And
fuck off!
”

She hung up on him. Within a moment, the phone rang again.
“What?”

“We’re through, Sarah,” he said. “And don’t ever hang up on me again.” With that he promptly hung up on her.

She sat, shaking, unable to believe what had just transpired. She was now unemployed, she thought, and now single again, a state she hadn’t been in…God, had it been five years? She’d been twenty. And she hadn’t been much good at dating, even then.

She realized she was rocking back and forth, and stood up, walking around. She felt like screaming, or doing something similarly crazy. She felt like vomiting, but nothing came. She cried a little more—it helped, but not enough.

She needed to vent this. She needed to get a grip on it. Somehow.

What,
she thought, crazily,
would Martika do?

After a moment’s thought, she went to the freezer, and got out the bottle of Stolichnaya Vodka that Martika kept stored there. She then got out the cranberry concentrate which was also in the freezer. Then, with the care of a chemist, she poured the vodka directly into the pitcher of cranberry concentrate, and mixed it. She got herself out a glass and filled it to the rim.

“Peace within the storm,” she said, with determination, and emptied the glass in one long, extended swallow.

I am sick to death of that tight-assed prig.

Martika got back to the apartment around ten or so. She was trying to stay away from it more and more lately, which was usually a sign that she’d be moving again, fairly soon.

She didn’t know what Taylor had been thinking. “She’s sweet,” he’d gushed, in that oh-so-Taylor way of his. “She’s like a little
doll.
You just want to stuff her in a backpack and take her home, put her under glass on your mantel. And a voice like a little cartoon girl…you know, one of those Japanese ones, where every other word they say is ‘Oh!’ with eyes as big as dinner plates.”

“And I would be interested in continuing to live with her
why?
” Martika had responded, smoking her Dunhills outside Tacos Tacos after a night of clubbing at Revolver.

“You’d be a
good influence,
darling,” he’d purred, knowing that her maternal instinct was a weakness, damn him. She was the goddamn “den mother of Santa Monica Boulevard,” self-appointed. The idea of training a real daughter instead of her wanna-bes
was
a little appealing.

When she first met Sarah, she really thought she could do something. She was so…so funny, in a clean, prepackaged kind of way. She was a lot of good raw material. She had to ditch the Eddie Bauer catalog crap that she was wearing, to start, and she had to have that stick up her ass surgically removed, but otherwise, Martika had some high hopes.

Those hopes had diminished over the past few months. Now, going back to her apartment was like going back to Bosnia, when her home was supposed to be her refuge from the pricks, both literal and figurative, of the outside world. She had gotten nowhere with the Bitch, as Martika now called her. It was time to give notice.

She got home, and there were no lights on, so she almost jumped out of her skin when she heard Sarah’s voice. “Tika? That you?”

Martika made a sharp gasp, then grumbled. “You scared the
shit
out of me, Sarah,” she said. One more thing to add to the Bitch List, as she’d referred to Sarah’s various flaws when speaking with Taylor. “Why are you sitting here with no lights on, anyway?”

“There aren’t any lights on, are there?”

Was it her imagination, or was Sarah slurring? Rummaging around, Martika turned on a light, and gasped again.

There was a pool of red on the table, around an empty glass, a pair of scissors, and Sarah’s arms. To her relief, it was too thin to be blood. One sniff suggested it was her emergency Stoli.

“Sweetie, what…” Martika started, then gasped again as she got a good look at Sarah. “Oh,
shit.
Sarah, what did you
do?
”

“Huh? Oh.” Sarah’s fingers went to her head. Her hair was now shorn unevenly, sticking out in comical waves and tufts. “Did you know that there are Native American tribes that cut their hair to mourn people?” she asked, as if she were merely discussing a casual topic of conversation. “I always thought that was sort of cool.”

All thoughts of leaving fled Martika’s head. From the looks of it, this little girl had done some serious damage to a fifth of strong vodka, and cut off all her hair. This was some deliciously juicy trouble, and the type that was right up Martika’s alley.
Man
trouble.

“Don’t worry,” Martika said, sitting down while shutting off her cell phone. The Bitch was dead, thank God—and Martika had some work to do with this poor little girl. “Just tell me everything, and I promise, we can make it all better.”

S
arah woke the next day, with her mouth tasting vile and her head pounding. She seemed to recall waking up and staggering to the bathroom to throw up, which she did with enough force and momentum that the toilet seat fell on her head. She also seemed to remember Martika being there, like a watchful mother hen—which was strange, since Martika didn’t even like her. Did she?

Well, if she didn’t, she’d probably like her even less, now…flashes of last night came back to her in bizarre, disjointed cuts that reminded her of a really bad art house movie. Her, telling Martika about how she met Benjamin, and then proceeding to tell her entire life story and how it related to men and sex and oh God, why hadn’t Martika shut her up? Probably thought she was psychotic—best to humor her, Martika had probably been thinking, or else Sarah might have gotten violent. Sarah rubbed at her temples. Of course, that might have happened. She’d never been in quite the state she’d been in last night.

She was wearing jammies, at least, she thought, looking down at her T-shirt and shorts. Then realized that wasn’t her T-shirt, although she recognized the shorts as a pair she didn’t wear anymore. She’d probably gone to throw up naked, or something. Good God. It just got worse and worse.

She looked out to the living room gingerly, wincing as light poured in through the balcony doors. God it was bright. What time was it? A glance at her clock—six o’clock. Where the hell did the time go?

Her gaze fell on the kitchen table, and she smiled. Walking over like an old woman who’d forgotten her walker, she shuffled her way to where three of Taylor’s Hangover Remover sodas sat, with a note:

Thought you’d need this.

Be ready to be picked up at 7:00.

We’re going to see Joey.

MARTIKA

Sarah read the note, slowly, three times. She then opened a soda and drank every drop, having remembered the positive results it garnered the last time she’d gone out with Taylor. She didn’t know why she was being picked up…and she had no idea who Joey was. However, it gave her an hour to get ready. She figured that she owed Martika that much. After all, she’d put up with a really amazingly nasty scene the previous evening.

She wandered into the bathroom, yawning slightly, looking forward to brushing her teeth…then turned on the light, looked in the mirror, and screamed.

She looked like a cross between a punk rocker and a scrub brush. Whole hunks of her hair had been cut short, while other layers of locks had been left at their original length, just past her shoulder blades. Her fingers reached up, and her mouth rounded in a circle of disbelief.

Oh my God.

She just kept brushing her fingers over the bizarre modern art that used to be her hair, tickling her fingertips with now wavy, now sticking-straight-out locks.

She seemed to vaguely remember thinking at one point the previous evening about Native Americans—God, what sort of train of thought had brought that on—and she’d remembered in
the crap-trap that was her mind something about them cutting their hair. The scissors seemed to move of their own accord, like something out of
Alice in Wonderland.
She had literally not thought a thing about it since that moment, and now…holy shit, she looked like a mutant, she ought to be dragged out and shaved bald…

She brushed her teeth, trying as best she could to brush the terrible taste out of her mouth while simultaneously and religiously avoiding looking at herself in the mirror. Just a glimpse made her want to cry. She retreated to the shower, pulling the decorative curtain Martika had bought in front of the glass shower doors so she wouldn’t have to see even the frosted reflection of her head. She stayed in the shower for a long, long time, waiting for the bathroom mirror to get good and coated with steam before stepping out to the fluffy bath mat. She wrapped her head in a towel-turban, then dried off and went back to her room. She got in jeans, a T-shirt, and rummaged around for a hat. She was still looking for one—she was sure she brought one from Fairfield—when she heard Martika come in the house. “Sarah! Sarah! Sweetie, are you ready? Are you okay?”

Sarah found a floppy denim hat that she only wore when gardening back home. Grabbing what straggly long hair remained, she stuffed the whole thing under the brim as best she could. “I just have to put on my shoes,” she called.

Martika gave her a studied look, then grinned broadly. “You look like you’re about ten years old.”

Sarah frowned. “You don’t have to rub it in. I can’t believe I did that to my hair.”

“I can, and it’s about time. Not for you to cut your hair,” she corrected, waiting patiently as Sarah pulled on a pair of Keds with no socks. “I mean, obviously you’ve been storing that little episode up for some time. Now that you’ve let it out, I think you’ll be much healthier. I almost called you today, to make sure you were all right, but I wanted to make sure you got enough sleep…you were up puking half the night.” It sounded
odd, all that maternal caring coming from an hourglass Amazon like Martika, but at the same time it was very, very comforting.

Sarah stood up, feeling awkward. “I wanted to say thank you, Martika. You were really…you’ve been so…”

“Don’t even worry about it. I’ve been waiting for you to become, well, interesting since I moved in here. I was starting to give up hope,” Martika said, laughing in that rough-scratchy way of hers. Sarah, surprisingly, did not feel insulted. “At any rate, we’re going to see my hairdresser, Joey. You’re lucky, he usually needs an appointment at least a month in advance, but he owes me a few favors, so I’m finally cashing in on one.”

“Thank you…”

Martika smiled. “Sweetie, this is just the beginning. You’re single now. You just wait…this is going to be so much fun!”

Sarah felt about ten when she walked into the salon in Beverly Hills. Martika had zoomed them there in her midnight-blue BMW convertible in about half the time it would have taken Sarah to go across the street, it seemed. Sarah tried as best she could to surreptitiously grip the car door handle while Martika managed to put on lipstick, talk to Taylor on her cell phone and negotiate traffic on a busy Wednesday night. “Taylor, sweetie, you’ve got to meet me at the salon. Joey’s salon, silly. We’ve got a
project
going on. Yes, Sarah is with me.” She smiled at Sarah even as she narrowly avoided plowing into a VW bug. Sarah smiled back nervously, feeling her palms grow sweaty. “We’ll be there in about…oh, here we are. Gotta run. We’re drinks later, right? Maybe Sarah will come with.” She winked at Sarah, then seemed to float the car into a parallel parking spot. “Later.” She beeped off her cell phone, then gestured to a very posh-looking salon storefront. “Voilà. Let’s go get you girlish.”

Sarah looked in, anxiously. She saw her reflection in the mirror, as well as Martika’s. Martika was wearing a micromini in some black stretchy material, a black sleeveless sweater-top, and knee-high black boots. She also wore sunglasses, pushed up to
act like a headband for her crazily tumbling maroon curls. Sarah, on the other hand, really did look like a ten-year-old in her jeans, T-shirt, Keds and floppy denim hat. If Martika looked older, she probably would have passed for Sarah’s mother, for pity’s sake. She followed behind Martika, head down, trying to avoid the gaze of other patrons who were all swathed in soft pink robes and who were staring at her expectantly.

“Joey!” Martika did a trademark squeal, then went over to air-kiss a man who was wearing black leather pants and a crisp white T-shirt that Sarah could have bounced a quarter off. “Sweetie, it’s been
ages!
”

“You bitch. Tell me somebody else did your hair color, and I’ll strangle you,” he said, though his tone didn’t sound at all threatening. In fact, it sounded like some sort of compliment, in a weird, femmy sort of way. “It looks good, but you know I can do better.”

“L’Oreal Hydrience, can you believe it?”

“
Eyew.
Box color.” Joey rolled his eyes. “So, where’s your project?”

Sarah wasn’t sure she liked being referred to in these terms.

“Here’s our girl,” Martika said, gesturing to Sarah as if she were Vanna White turning letters.

He looked at her, and his eyes widened so far that his pierced eyebrow twitched. He made a low whistle. “Hmm. I don’t suppose…I just signed on for hair, Tika, I didn’t sign on for a full-day here…”

“No, no, hair to start,” Martika said. Okay, now Sarah was pretty sure she was feeling offended. “Sarah, sweetie, take your hat off for Joey, okay?”

Sarah obviously understood why it was necessary, but she still felt like Martika had asked her to strip. It would have been no less embarrassing. She slowly reached up, grabbed the brim of her hat, and tugged it off. The few long strands tumbled limply down her back.

Joey gasped. “Oh, my.”

Martika simply nodded.

“Ah…well…” Joey was obviously trying to get a handle on this unexpected situation. He circled her like a knife-fighter. “Um. I see.”

“I know you’ve seen worse,” Martika said. Sarah wasn’t sure how, but it sounded good when Martika said it. “I’m thinking chic, kicky, something fun. Something that says ‘I eat men like you for breakfast.’ But still sexy.”

“I’m thinking something that says ‘No, I didn’t stick my head in my Mixmaster,’” Sarah said under her breath.

Joey heard it, and laughed. “Well, all right. Let me go to the magazines, I’m sure we can do something…you’ve got a good natural wave,” he said, obviously getting his balance back. He sounded all business. “Kicky, sexy, fun,” he muttered, as he wandered over to the magazine rack.

“Sarah, darling, I heard
everything,
” Sarah heard Taylor’s voice say from the front of the room, and she smirked. “I’m so very, very sor…
Oh my God what happened to your head?
”

Martika rolled her eyes, and Sarah laughed.

“Obviously you didn’t hear everything,” Sarah said, grinning.

“Obviously.” He circled her, much as Joey had. “Wow. When you get drunk, you really get drunk, huh?”

“I don’t know. I don’t get drunk a whole lot.”

Martika and Taylor gave each other challenging grins. “We’ll fix that,” they said in unison.

“Um, I don’t know…”

“Right! Here we go. It looks kicky and fun.”

Sarah, Martika and Taylor hunched together like football players in a huddle, looking over the magazine Joey presented to them. There was a woman in a sharp dress with hair that looked…well, like she’d just emerged with curls from a very sexy wind tunnel.

“I don’t know…” Sarah repeated, but Taylor and Martika were already ushering her toward an impossibly thin young woman in black jeans and a white T-shirt, her hair pulled back in a severe bun. The woman nudged her into a changing room
and handed her a pink towel, giving her head only the quickest glance and the most fleeting sneer. Sarah then shut up. She couldn’t keep her hair the way it was, that much was apparent. And Martika and Taylor seemed to know what they were doing. Right?

She sat down and allowed Joey to wash her hair in something that smelled deliciously like apricot. The whole time, Martika updated Joey on the Benjamin fiasco. Sarah didn’t mind…after all, if you couldn’t share with your hairdresser, who could you share with, right? With every sentence, Joey seemed to get more irate…and more convinced that he would make her a masterpiece. “This one’s going to be an ass-kicker,” he said, eyes narrowed and eyebrow ring glinting. “That prick, that absolute
prick.
”

It felt good, Sarah realized, as several pink-clad women deliberately eavesdropped, then started giving their opinions. There was something about salons, good salons, that was like group therapy and a very nice slumber party all rolled into one.

But as they continued to talk about Benjamin, it hurt her heart…yes, that prick, that absolute prick. Four years engaged, five years together, and he couldn’t live with her? That was disturbing. She felt tears welling up, and tried to think of other things, but she couldn’t and gave up. The women simply nodded to her and shared stories, which helped slightly.

“Don’t waste any tears on that asshole,” Martika said firmly. “You’ve been doing fine all these months without him, right? And to be honest, he’s just been using you.”

“I know,” Sarah said, trying not to move her head as Joey snipped and yanked at her hair. “It’s just that I’m
used
to him using me.”

“Oh, honey, I know that one,” an older woman in the chair opposite chimed in.

“Well, now you can get used to being independent,” Martika said, and several other women nodded firmly. If they’d all stood up and broken into a spirited version of the new Charlie’s An
gels song, Sarah wouldn’t have been the least surprised, it was that sort of day.

Taylor smiled with delight. “You know what this means.
Wardrobe.
”

“I’m unemployed now, Taylor,” Sarah pointed out, then it suddenly occurred to her…she was in a salon in Beverly Hills. She had heard rumors that somebody had paid one hundred dollars for dim sum for one in this town. Good God, she was going to be on a budget from here on out. What the hell was she doing?

As if reading the panic in her eyes, Martika put a strong hand on her shoulder. “You won’t be unemployed for long.”

Taylor put a comforting hand on her other shoulder. “We know it’s hard,” he said, and his voice was soothing. “Still, at the very least let us
think
about what you ought to be wearing. No offense, girlie, but every time I see you in that Eddie Bauer denim dress, I just want to cry.”

“For me, it’s that sundress with the flowers,” Martika volunteered. “The Laura Ashley PTA one.”

Sarah pulled her lips tight, offended. “I don’t see anything wrong with what I wear.”

“Of course you don’t. I’m sure Benjamin approved of all of it.”

Martika had her there, so Sarah kept her mouth shut.

Like a couple of excited schoolkids, Martika and Taylor tore through old magazines that Joey was about to throw away, only keeping the most recent of everything. Lots of them were in Italian or Czechoslovakian, with women that looked like cats and shot hateful glances at the camera. “What do you think of this?” they would say periodically. Sarah kept saying she wasn’t sure. Apparently, they thought that meant “perfect!” because that would be inevitably yanked out.