All That Was Happy (4 page)

“
Stop insulting yourself like that,”
Scotia said. “Why do you automatically label yourself a loser just
because someone else, who happens to be your husband, behaves like
an idiot? Going through a divorce doesn’t make you a loser--you
don’t have to get off the planet just because somebody tells you to
shove off--you have just as much right to be here as anyone else.
If somebody thinks they can write you off, so what? As long as you
respect yourself, you don’t need to be concerned with others’
opinions.”

“
That was direct,” Beckie said, not
looking up, avoiding the psychic intensity of Scotia’s blazing eyes
by looking down instead and picking at her salad.

“
I guess I should tell you,” Black
said, “the group’s rule of thumb is that when we’re together, we
put aside the conventional conversational forms for something a bit
more upfront--since women are expected to wear so many masks during
their daily walk through the corridors of male power and
domination--since we’ve been trained from birth to feel that what
we do for men really doesn’t count as much as what they do for
us--we find it refreshing to meet once a week to say whatever we
really want to say, with the caveat that what we do say is said in
love and mutual respect. Scotia is sort of the Patty Hearst of our
little group--she just walks in to our emotional bank and starts
blasting away--but it’s only out of concern for you.”

“
I don’t know if I’m ready for anything
like this,” Beckie said. “My wounds are a bit new, and raw. Perhaps
I should just go home and go to bed.”

“
You can’t sleep it away, my dear,”
Betty said. “I tried that for years--instead of dealing with my
jackass producer of a husband, I chose to sedate myself in order
not to rock our expensive little boat. I wound up with a sleeping
pill addiction and I’ve got the shot liver to prove it. I finally
had to throw the bum out and get on with my life.”

The waiter arrived with a thick T-bone still
sizzling.

“
Please stay,” Black said. “It won’t
hurt you to at least eat something. And don’t I remember you
telling me you were bringing a friend?”

“
I did bring him,” Beckie said. “But
I’m not sure it’s appropriate to have a male guest at a table like
this.”

“
Well, I’m sure we’d all like to meet
him,” Black said. “Where is he?”

“
He’s right here,” Beckie said,
reaching into her large straw purse and extracting the salivating
handful of tiny canine, who, once at surface level, managed to
spring free onto the T-bone and work a corner of it with a
mind-blowing savagery.

“
Ladies,” Beckie said. “May I introduce
Mr. Boopers? A few hours ago, he saved my life.”

Chapter
5

“
So what’s your favorite flower?”
Scotia said.

“
White Chrysanthemums,” Beckie said.
“Whenever I see them, I feel giddy, as if I were on the verge of
fainting.”

“
White Chrysanthemums for a girl with
white-blonde hair--that’s just perfect,” Scotia said. “You’ve
certainly got the looks I wish I had. That long blonde hair and
those blue eyes certainly spell out California girl.”

Scotia, a diminutive waif with a shiny head
of short brown curls framing a lightly made-up elfin face, her body
wrapped against the wind in a large black leather coat, leaned
against the railing of the rudimentary fishing pier which jutted
tentatively over the swells and shook submissively as each
successive moonstruck foaming breaker contacted the loose-jointed
pylons, the whole structure of which hosted the three members of WE
who, along with Beckie, after dinner, had broken up into more
intimate conversational pairings, having foregone the usual walk
along the shoreline in deference to the crashing waves and driving
wind, choosing instead the relatively drier platform of the
pier.

“
I’m not a true native,” Beckie said.
“But I’ll take the compliment. At forty-nine years of age, I don’t
get many of them.”

“
You should get the compliments, from
the tourists if nobody else,” Scotia said. “You could double for
Suzanne Sommers. It sounds to me like you’ve been trapped in the
typical marriage, where your husband took you and your looks
totally for granted.”

“
I’m just starting to realize it,”
Beckie said. “Much to my dismay.”

“
If you’re not a native, where are you
from originally?”

“
Believe it or not,” Beckie said, “I’m
a native Tennessean. We came out here in the early ‘60’s when I was
ten years old--my dad was looking for work. He drove us out in a
‘62 Buick Special. I thought L.A. was going to be this little berg
by the ocean--boy was I in for a shock.”

“
You don’t have an accent,” Scotia
said.

“
The accent is something you lose when
you find yourself the butt of all the hayseed jokes,” Beckie said.
“I guess you could say my childhood entry into the multicultural
world of the Los Angeles school playground was nothing short of
brutal--the kids out here were a lot more sophisticated than I
was--they showed me no mercy. For the first year, my only friend
was a little girl from Guatemala--an orphan who spoke only broken
English. To make things worse, I developed early--by the fifth
grade I had pretty much the same body I do now--minus about twenty
pounds--and went through pure hell from all the nasty little boys
all the way to my Senior year at Van Nuys High School. I’m still
not over it. It’s probably part of the reason I married Bernie when
I was only 20--just to take myself completely off the market and
get the whole thing over with.”

“
How’d you meet Bernie?”

“
Believe it or not,” Beckie said,
“Bernie was the step-brother of my best friend Leah’s husband. Leah
married her boyfriend right out of high school. I got to know
Bernie through her--I think Leah did a little matchmaking in that
regard. Every time there was a family event, Leah invited me.
Bernie and I had our first kiss inside the pool cabana in
somebody’s backyard in Encino while attending a Bar-Mitzvah for one
of his cousins.”

“
Are you Jewish?”

“
No, it’s worse than you think--I’m
Catholic. His parents hated me. I was Bernie’s blonde shiksa.
Bernie’s mother was an ultra-orthodox Jew, and Bernie’s dad did
time in a concentration camp--he had the number tattooed on his
wrist and everything. I don’t have to tell you how my own Catholic
parents reacted to the news of me dating somebody Jewish. Both sets
of parents tried to break us up, so we ran off to Vegas and tied
the knot. Needless to say, we totally alienated our parents when we
showed up married. My mother never did get completely over it. But
enough about my sorry life--how about you?”

“
The short version? I’m single,” Scotia
said. “I’m likewise not a native, being a transplant from upstate
New York who also went into total cultural shock when I arrived a
few years ago. I came out here ready to conquer all, armed with my
AA degree in Physical Therapy and my Certified Massage Therapist
license. My plan was to use my skills to support me while I tried
to get into the movie business somehow, but I wound up working at a
day spa in Beverly Hills and I’ve left it at that.”

“
That’s one thing I’ve never gotten
used to about this town,” Beckie said. “Everybody you meet isn’t
really what they seem--every guy who serves you a hot dog is an
aspiring musician or actor--me, I was just a wife who worked for
her husband’s tool import business.”

“
What about kids?” Scotia
said.

“
We tried,” Beckie said. “Two
miscarriages later, at our doctor’s advice, we quit trying--which
is probably why I’m where I’m at today--Bernie left me to father a
child, because we believed I couldn’t give him one.”

“
You gave him two,” Scotia said. “They
just didn’t live very long. But they’re just as real--they still
have their role in the universe.”

“
That sounds very Catholic to me,”
Beckie said.

“
It’s also very Hindu,” Scotia said. “I
was raised Methodist, but I’m exploring something with wider
margins at the moment.”

“
Dr. Black was right,” Beckie said.
“You are a little firebrand. What you just said about my babies
being just as real as the ones who make it all the way to term
knocked the wind right out of me. Somewhere, deep down, I’ve never
accepted that I wasn’t their mother.”

“
Where are they buried?” Scotia
said.

“
Oh,” Beckie said. “No place,
really.”

“
They just took them, didn’t they?”
Scotia said. “They always do that--they did the same thing to me
when I had an abortion last year--I was only having the abortion to
please the man I was seeing, and emotionally I was in the wrong
zone and I let them get away with it. But since I’ve started
working with Maharaji, I’m learning to make some new connections
with myself and how I relate to the world. In fact, I think it’s
wrong for them to dispose of our fetuses the way they do. What
they’re saying is that whatever is inside a woman’s body is nothing
but trash to them. But that’s going to change--this coming year,
I’m getting a bunch of women together to start a class action
lawsuit about that.”

“
This is going too deep for me,” Beckie
said. “I’m starting to need a drink in the worst way.”

“
I’m sorry,” Scotia said. “I’ve become
something of a combat puncher since I’ve been in town. I live just
off Melrose, in Gower Gulch, which is a real psychic war
zone--everybody you meet is laying out their psychobabble all the
time--it’s probably the most bizarre pocket of L.A. I could
possibly have chosen, but I’ve adjusted, somewhat, and I think it’s
been good for me--you know what I mean--the way everybody around me
is working on their issues and all.”

“
Compared to you,” Beckie said, “I feel
like I’ve never talked about anything my entire life except what to
fix for dinner, where to go for dinner, or what movie to
rent.”

“
I had to learn to be willing to
explore the inner world,” Scotia said. “Most of the early
encouragement I received, I got from my boss, Vito. He’s a stylist
to the stars, but he’s into personal growth and discovery and all
that--he finally convinced me that if I was ever going to
strengthen the weakness in my aura, I would have to confront the
bad karma surrounding my abortion. To make a long story short, I
took Vito’s advice and started working with Dr. Black.”

“
I’m sorry,” Beckie said. “I guess
compared to your problems, my plain old everyday divorce must seem
dull.”

“
Not at all,” Scotia said. “It doesn’t
matter what your issues are--the real trip we’re on is learning how
to climb up the ladder of fear until we’re on top of the
world--until we’re free! That’s what Dr. Black is all about. That’s
why she started WE. Do you think you’ll be joining us, Beckie? Are
you ready to start climbing the ladder of your fears?”

“
If I look at my life all at once,”
Beckie said, “I feel buried alive--but I’m starting to like the
ladder idea--the idea that I’ll just take one problem at a time,
one fear at a time--my biggest fear earlier today was sleeping in
my own bed alone--I cried my guts out at the thought of climbing
into that bed all by myself for the rest of my life--after that, I
decided to kill my husband and then kill myself. I waited for him
outside the warehouse, but I fell asleep and he slipped past
me.”

“
Would you have really killed him?”
Scotia said.

“
Yes,” Beckie said. “I know it sounds
crazy, but at the time, I think I was a little crazy. I was going
to give him four shots right in the chest, then reload my spare
round and end my own life.”

“
Will you join our little group?”
Scotia said. “Will you become a member of WE?”

“
I want to say no,” Beckie said,
“because part of me had it all planned out to be a martyr--I’ve
spent my entire life serving my husband’s needs. Now that the
someone I served no longer needs me, it makes more sense to me to
kill myself.”

“
That’s part of the problem all women
suffer from,” Scotia said. “We sacrifice ourselves for others--the
problem is, in your case, you’re carrying the sacrifice too far.
That’s why the universe sent Mr. Boopers in to break up the
murder-suicide plot you had going. Mr. Boopers is trying to show
you that your services are still needed--that even a quarter pound
pooch is worth staying alive for--but you can’t serve Mr. Boopers
until you learn to stop punishing yourself.”

“
Wow,” Beckie said.

“
Yeh,” Scotia said. “It’s pretty
incredible, isn’t it?”

“
No,” Beckie said. “I wasn’t talking
about what you just said. I said Wow because I just saw something
in the water. Look down! I just saw a huge fish come up to the
surface and go back down.”

“
Oh man, you’re right,” Scotia said.
“There it is!”

“
It’s a shark!” Beckie said. “It’s
right below us!”

“
Dr. Black!” Scotia yelled. “Betty!
Come quick! There’s a Great White in the water!”

“
It’s got something in it’s mouth!”
gasped Beckie.

“
A seal!” Black said. “It’s eating a
seal!”

The group assembled on the rail and marveled
at the sight of the feeding shark, a creature unconcerned with
proper table etiquette, or climbing ladders of fear, and one not
needing permission of any sort to behave in whatever way it chose,
a creature whose life was spent effortlessly cruising through a
kind of liquid eternity, and who contained within its taut
muscularity all the energy and resilience of a god, imparting to
their collective souls a sense of awe, and a reverence, if such it
could be called, for the massive fish which had chosen that precise
instant to display itself to them as if to send them the message
that life wasn’t all wrapped up, that there still remained within
the envelope some room for mystery, and power.