Bicoastal Babe (21 page)

I hoist up my dress and begin the ritual. Tear off a large wad of TP and thoroughly wipe down the seat, just in case. Pull off a paper rim protector and carefully place it over the seat, as to cover every square centimeter. And – oh, shit. It’s a motion-detection automatic flusher. I hate these! The minute I sit down, it’ll sense motion and flush prematurely, splashing the cold bowl water up onto my butt. At which point I will have to wipe the water off my butt with more TP, sit back down, and try again. And tonight is definitely
not
the night I want to have that splashed-on-butt feeling under my gorgeous new cocktail dress. Here goes nothing.

I sit down and hold my breath. But I can hear the click that signals the beginning of the flush, and I try to jump up to avoid the splash – but my foot slips and I fall back onto the seat just in time. Fantastic.

When I’m all finished, I turn and give the toilet a very dirty look indeed. And it responds not by sensing my motion again, but by just sitting there, silent. No click. No flush. No nothing. Aaargh! Moody little bastard. I wave my hand in front of the motion sensor, but it ignores me. I wave two hands in front of it, but I get nothing. I do a little jig, willing it to cooperate – but I can feel it laughing at me:
Not happening, sister.
So if there’s anyone waiting outside to use the bathroom, they’re going to be welcomed by an un-flushed toilet, and I will, by default, become one of the gross women described above (though completely out of my control). But what can I do?

“Thanks a lot,” I tell the toilet, and for good measure, flip the bird in front of the motion detector. No response.

Finally I give up and begin to pull my dress back down into place. I reach behind the dress to make sure the back hasn’t come unclasped, when all of a sudden – CLINK… (pause)… SPLASH!

Oh, my God. That sound could mean only one thing. I slowly turn toward the toilet in horror, afraid to look down. But there it is. Jen’s bracelet. On the bottom of the toilet bowl. Like a treasure buried at sea. And still un-flushed.

Deep breath. I glance around the bathroom for a stick-shaped object, but there is nothing. I can’t believe this. Don’t they have a plunger with that wooden stick, or a long scrubby thing to clean the bowl? There isn’t a tool in sight that I can use to fish this thing out.

My mind races. Can I leave it there? Flush it down? Hope that Jen forgets about it? But what are the chances that she’d forget the one and only instance of
ever
being nice to another human being? I mean, the effort probably gave her a hernia. She’s probably in the emergency room right now. She ain’t forgetting about it, that’s for sure. I’m going to have to reach in.

Ewwwwwwwww!
Okay, I’ve got it. The worst is over. Nothing that a little soap and water can’t cure. And giving the bracelet back to Jen will be a bit funny, given all the exciting places that it’s been to visit.

Oh, for God’s sake—the sink also runs by motion detector. Is there really a purpose for this? Some genius out there is making millions of dollars because he woke up one day and said, “I’m going to invent a sink for people who are too lazy to turn on the water.” That’s just wrong.

I wave my hands in front of the sensor, but the water does not flow. “You’ve gotta be kidding me,” I say out loud (another benefit of the single bathroom is that you can talk to the appliances as much as you like), and start to shake my hands at it furiously. To no avail. What a piece of shit! I just don’t understand. How can the sink not work? This is the
Rainbow Room,
not the Delta terminal at fucking Chicago O’Hare airport. The automatic sink (in addition to the automatic toilet and the automatic hand dryer) is just simply a bad invention, and there are no two ways about it. I curse the single bathroom. In a multi-stall there would’ve been multi-sinks, at least one of which probably would’ve worked.

Seriously, I am about to cry. I look up in the mirror at my pee-soaked hand holding the pee-soaked bracelet like a wet noodle. There is nothing I can do.

I grab a paper towel (which is so soft it feels like a washcloth, because remember, this is the
Rainbow Room).
I wrap the paper towel around the bracelet and slip it into my purse. Then I wipe the offending hand dry with another paper towel and hope to God Victor doesn’t notice me eating left-handed tonight.

When I get back to the table, the waiter is just delivering our salads. “What’s the matter?” Victor asks. “You’ve got a funny look on your face.”

“Nothing.” I grimace.

Like an old-school gentleman, Victor stands up and pulls out my chair for me, but then just as I’m about to sit down, he grabs my hand (yes, that hand).

“You look smokin’ hot tonight,” he says.
“Trés élégant.”

And in a moment of shocking horror, he lifts my hand up to his face and kisses the back of it. I gasp and try to pull my hand away but he holds tight. Then he raises his eyes to mine with a dirty grin, parts his lips ever so slightly, and lets his tongue graze over the skin.

Oh, yes. Absolutely. Like Victor said:
Trés élégant.

F
inding a teen panel was easy in L.A., because it basically wandered up to me at the Starbucks and asked me for a ride. In New York it’s a wee bit more difficult, and I’ve wasted half of a day on it with no results. When I was a teen, where did we hang out? At the mall. But there are no malls in Manhattan. So I’m walking around, kind of half concentrating on it.

I’m trying to figure out what’s going on with Victor. I want to know how to define our “relationship” (for lack of a better descriptor), and exactly where I stand in it. It’s a great difference between men and women. Men are always content to go with the flow, la-di-da, status schmatus, happy in the moment (as long as the moment is during sex – or at least in the near vicinity of it). But women have the built-in need, at all times, to have a firm understanding of the category, class, type, stage, and level of the relationship – which must be verified and confirmed on an almost daily basis.

Particularly in a new relationship. In a woman’s mind, the temperature of a new relationship is being taken constantly, even if the man has no clue of it. Every word, every blink, every intonation, and every movement are being analyzed for clues as to what he’s thinking, how he’s feeling, and where the whole thing stands. Unfortunately, I am actually too busy to keep checking Victor’s thermometer, but when I can manage to find a few free minutes, my mind is right there.

After the charity ball I spent the night at Victor’s apartment, desperately trying to distract Victor from remembering the lap dance that I promised when I was in California. And it worked, for the approximate forty-five seconds that it took him to toss off his jacket, loosen his tie, and grab a beer from the fridge. I realize that when it comes to sex, a man’s propensity for logical argument tends to vaporize into the night air, but it was worth a shot. I explained to Victor that I’d taken only one stripping class, and that to have a really
good
lap dance, he would need to wait until I could accumulate more expertise. Then I pointed out that I was wearing a cocktail dress that night, which is not conducive to the movement of a lap dance – but if I took it off beforehand, there would be no tease.
And
that to optimize the lap-dance experience, I would need to select my own music beforehand, not pick through his CDs in a scattered, last-minute fashion. And also –

“All right, all right!” Victor threw his hands up in defeat. “ Man, you sure know how to kill a guy’s buzz.”

“That’s not very nice.” I laughed, relieved. Then I grabbed the beer out of his hand and took a swig. When he reached for it back, I winked and told him to go get his own.

But instead Victor collapsed into a chair and stared at me with lazy eyes. “So. Little Miss West Coast. Did you happen to lie out
topless
in California when you were supposed to be working?”

Because my tan is fake, my boobs really are the same golden-bronze shade as the rest of my body. “I did, actually,” I told him, and watched his eyes light up with excitement as he got up and followed me into his bedroom. Men are such fools. Where the hell did he think I could lie out that I could just whip off my clothes and be half-naked in public? My own apartment pool, in plain sight of the neighbors? The beach, which is patrolled by cops and lifeguards? But it’s true: When it comes to anything sexual, men don’t think.

So that was a good night. Tuesday night. But it is now Wednesday evening, and I haven’t heard from him, and I’m furious. He knows I have only a week here, and that I’m incredibly busy. Even if he calls tonight, I can’t go out with him until at least Friday. If I do, I look like a loser who has nothing to do but sit around and wait for him to call. And if he doesn’t call until tomorrow, I can’t go out with him until Saturday, which gives me only one more day to see him before I leave. I hate men. And no, I cannot call him. It is an absolute fact that men do not like to be chased, despite continual testimonies in
Cosmo
and
Glamour
from dopey, overweight guys who are too shy to approach a girl, so being chased is the only way they’ll ever go on a date.

To get my mind off of Victor, I pour myself a glass of wine and sit down with the new results from my Internet study. The activities section is pretty clear. Trendy new activities among young adults seem to include girls’ poker night, making home movies, knitting circles, art galleries, and “cleansing” binges (meaning a week-or-two stretch of no drinking, smoking, or eating solid food). Among those not into cleansing, hotel bars and lounges are gaining popularity, along with Ethiopian restaurants and retro diners. While body piercings are “over” in big cities, they’re just catching fire in suburban areas, although tattoos remain at the same level of popularity as a year ago. Fusion-yoga is starting to appear (more creative twists on the traditional form), and kickboxing seems to be making a resurgence among both men and women. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

But the rest of the study is a bit more difficult to make sense of. It’s all numbers and percentages, a confusing sea of facts and figures that I can’t seem to wrap my head around. Seventy-three percent of women in their twenties spend more time listening to music and talking on the phone than watching television, but the same is true for only thirty-seven percent of men. Seventy-nine percent of teens own cell phones with built-in video cameras, but only thirty-six percent say they’ve used the video component. Sixty-four percent of men in their forties believe a good family life is more important than a successful career, but in large cities, the percentage goes down to fifty-two. I feel the panic rising inside of me, and I have to force myself to calm down and take it step by step.

Okay, I’ve drawn up some charts to illustrate this stuff, broken down by demographics and time line, but something’s still nagging at me. The point of this whole thing is to allow our advertising clients to know and understand their consumers better. But what are all these numbers really saying? When I was in media buying, it was my job to navigate which magazines a certain advertisement should run in, or which television slots a commercial should appear during, based on the age group of who was likely to be reading or watching. But these numbers don’t add up to anything meaningful – and in certain places they almost seem to contradict themselves.

I call Carmen in California and immediately launch into complaining.

“I just don’t get it,” I tell her. “This stuff makes no sense. And now I’m in a position where I have to figure it out, because it was my bright idea to do this thing in the first place.”

“I think it might be the way you’re looking at it,” she suggests.

“What do you mean? You’re the one who helped me with these questions!” I don’t mean to take it out on her, but I’m really frustrated.

“No, the questions are good. But maybe it’s the way you’re interpreting answers.” I can hear a cork pop, indicating that she’s having a glass of wine as well. She and I are soul sisters, united by destiny and love for cheap chardonnay. “Look, I deal with art. I don’t know jack shit about this stuff, but it occurs to me…” Her voice drifts off, and I can tell that she’s afraid of overstepping her boundaries.

“Just spit it out. You’re not going to offend me.”

“Well, okay. Take me, for example. I’m a twenty-eight-year-old woman who is single. I like to party, go out, do fun things with my friends. Outside of work, I have all the time in the world to explore life and try new things. I spend all my money on myself and view the world as my playground of spontaneity. Just like you.”

“Playground of spontaneity – ha,” I mumble.

“But my cousin Sarah, who is also twenty-eight years old, is in a much different situation. She’s married with two kids. She’s a stay-at-home mom who runs around like crazy trying to organize block parties and church functions, get the kids to swimming class, ballet class, whatever. They’re tight on money because everything goes toward the kids and the house. She and I have
completely
different lives, and because of it,
completely
different perspectives on everything. Do you see where I’m going with this?”

“Sort of. Keep going.”

“My point is that if you ask that questionnaire of both me and Sarah, you’re going to get two totally different responses on just about every question. But when you get the results back, you’re analyzing it so we both fit into the same category: females in their late twenties. So no wonder it doesn’t make sense.”

“Wow, you’re so right!” In addition to being fun, caring, generous, and wonderful, Carmen is also brilliant. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of this before.”

“Give yourself a break. Those numbers are overwhelming. I would never have the patience to pull all that together.”

“Okay, so what’s the solution?”

She laughs. “Sweetie, that’s where you come in. You have to figure out a different way, that’s all. Don’t worry. It’ll come to you.”