I Still Have It. . . I Just Can't Remember Where I Put It (13 page)

“She’ll never go away,” he repeated. “I know. I’m married to her.”

There is nothing more dangerous than a litigious person married to a lawyer. Such an individual has nothing to lose and everything to gain. Her lawyer was free and she was sleeping with him. The only thing more difficult than getting our expensive lawyer on the phone was getting him off it. He charged by the sentence. Three years and a six-figure legal bill later, we had twenty-five innocent cement steps destroyed so we could reposition three of them four and a half inches farther toward Mexico. The good news was we had obtained a survey that proved the corner of our pool was indeed on our land, and on this issue at least I got to tell her to shove it.

By this time, the quiet couple next door had moved. It turned out they were only renting the house and the actual owner of the property was eager to lease it again speedily so as not to lose a month’s rent. This meant he was not too fussy about the character of prospective renters. Now, I forgot to mention that our house and the house next door were originally one lot. Our house was numbered 225 and the house next door was 2251/2. This meant that people were constantly ringing our doorbell by mistake. I was now answering my door to a parade of strange women who showed up late at night and asked for Romeo. More important, the new tenant once stole my pizza when it was left on my front stoop. He did. I saw him.

After he left, things got bad. A then-rising starlet, who shall be nameless but not bottomless, moved next door with a husband who had a fierce temper and two vicious hellhounds that frothed at the mouth and spewed saliva through the fence at passersby. Eventually, the lovebirds were divorced and the Irreconcilable Differences moving company appeared one blessed morning. A pink moving truck and a blue moving truck parked outside the house and their possessions were carried out and divided accordingly. She took the furniture, he took the dogs.

Of course, immediately before we moved to Las Vegas, a charming couple bought 2251/2. For a blissful two weeks we lived side by side in felicitous peace and harmony. Then we moved.

Now we live in an apartment and have no problem with the people who live above us, below us, and next door to us. However, I come in late at night and my dog barks the moment I put my key in the door. They have registered complaints about me.

I have no talent for growing plants. I always kill them. I went into a nursery once and saw my face on a wanted poster.

Vacations of the Not So Rich and Famous

T
HERE ARE A FEW PLACES
I
WANT TO VISIT BEFORE
I die. This is one of the places I visited that almost killed me. I blame Katie Couric and Matt Lauer for this particular experience. They know nothing about it, but still, it’s their fault. The
Today
show was being broadcast from France one week. I’m not even sure how I saw the program, because this was before my dog was fifteen and needed to be walked at 6:00
A.M
. and before I had a child who had to get to school by eight, so I don’t know what I was doing awake at seven in the morning, but I was. This particular morning Katie and Matt were in the Loire Valley. French wine country could not have looked more beautiful. The markets, the vineyards, the castles…it was all out of a fairy tale, and I love a fairy tale.

A few weeks later I received the call.

“Hi, this is Andrea, I’m a booker from
Vacations of the Rich and Famous,
and we’d like to know if you and your husband would like to go on an all-expenses-paid vacation to the Loire Valley. First-class tickets and accommodations are taken care of. You will be whisked from the airport to your five-star hotel and an unobtrusive film crew will follow you while you sightsee and dine in fabulous restaurants.”

I said yes very quickly just in case Andrea had dialed the wrong number and meant to ask someone who was more famous.

The day before we were set to leave for Paris, our itinerary arrived. Martin, who is a much more detail-oriented person than I am, scrutinized the first-class tickets.

“Rita, something is wrong here. It shouldn’t take twenty hours to get to Paris.”

I looked at the tickets. “Well, we have a two-hour layover in Houston and a six-hour layover in Miami. And we’re flying via Canada. I’ll call my friend Andrea. There’s been a mistake.”

There was no mistake. The tickets were indeed first-class, but they had been purchased with frequent-flyer miles and these were the only flights available. The hotel and restaurants had already been reserved and the film crew was on its way from Germany.

“I assure you,” my friend Andrea promised, “once you arrive in Paris you’ll be whisked to the hotel and from then on everything will be perfect.”

I felt better as I thought about how much fun being whisked would be.

“Even though your tickets don’t allow it, I’ll arrange for you to be let into the first-class lounges on your layovers. Bye,” she said, hanging up the phone just a little too quickly.

I swallowed the fact we were not allowed in the first-class lounge in Houston, but I fought our way into the first-class lounge in Miami. They knew nothing about any special arrangements, but a six-hour layover plus a delayed flight added a note of urgency to my plea. I just kept remembering that all we had to do was arrive in Paris and everything would be fantastic.

Twenty-five hours after leaving Los Angeles, we arrived in France. As we waited for our luggage to arrive I scoured the baggage claim area to locate the people who’d be doing the whisking.

A scowling middle-aged man approached.

“
Bonjour.
I am François. I am your tour guide.
Merde!
” he shrieked. “That is all
your
luggage?”

“Yes. Martin and I have two suitcases each. If we’re filming for five days, we have to wear different clothes.”

“This will not fit in my car. You will have to take a train.”

“How do I get to a train with all this luggage?”

“That is your problem.”

So much for being whisked. We held firm and insisted François drive us to the Loire. We watched as he removed the roof from his convertible and shoved the luggage into the backseat and trunk while mumbling things in French we were thankful we didn’t understand. I don’t know why someone would meet travelers at the airport in a compact convertible, but there would be many more things I didn’t understand to come.

We checked into a lovely hotel that was carved out of limestone two hundred years ago and decorated at about the same time. Martin and I went to sleep for a few hours while the film crew set up breakfast to be filmed on the front lawn. Orange juice, croissants, and eggs waited for us on a small table. They were covered with a plastic sheet to protect them from the rain that was beginning to fall quite heavily.

“You vill sit here and eat zer brekfest like it is not raining,” Eva, the German film director, commanded. Martin and I smiled and ate obediently. I like my orange juice watered down anyway, and Martin always enjoys a soggy croissant.

The weather bucked up and our next stop was a busy outdoor market. Parking was a problem for most of the market’s visitors, but not for François. François created his own parking spaces. This particular one had the car perched on an island in the middle of a street.

“Is this legal?” I worried.

“
Bien sûr.
It is fine,” he said, waving the film crew’s van over to park behind us.

Now this was the experience Katie and Matt had promised me. The fruits, cheeses, smells, and sounds of the outdoor market were extraordinary. We arrived back at the car just in time to witness the policeman placing the tickets on the windshields of both vehicles.

François pulled them off and stuffed them in his pocket nonchalantly. We returned back to our prehistoric hotel to rest.

“I will pick you up at five o’clock. Make sure you go to the bathroom before we leave. There are no facilities in the
cave
,” François warned.

“The cave?” I repeated.

“Yes, you are so lucky. Tonight we are having dinner with my friends in a
cave
in wine country.”

I wasn’t sure how to dress for a cave with no bathroom…maybe a burlap dress and astronaut diapers?

We met François’s friend André and toured his lush vineyard with the Nazi camera crew trailing behind. Then it was time to enter the cave. Martin and I followed François and André into André’s subterranean wine cellar. I know it must be hard to find good cave cleaners these days, but this one really could have used a good dusting. The walls were covered with what I call fungus and what André called mushrooms. He stuck his hand into a cobwebbed wall, pulled out a fungus-covered bottle of wine we would be having with our meal, and wiped it on his pants.

“Fantastique!”
he exclaimed Frenchly.

Martin and I sat down with around twenty people and our film crew and ate a menu of varied, unnamed barbecued meats accompanied by fabulous wine. Around ten we all began wandering out of the cave to either find a bathroom or to create one of our own.

The next day’s highlight was a trip to a sixteenth-century château. As usual, François created his own parking space between two elm trees and gestured to the film van to park alongside.

“Do you have zer permit?” Eva asked François.

“Pardon?”
he replied.

“Did you call ahead and get permission from zer authorities to film in zer castle?” Eva repeated.

“I will do that right now,” François replied. “You go on. I will catch up with you.”

We were filming outside in the castle gardens when we were stopped by security.

“May I see your film permit?” the guard asked.

“We’re with the TV program
Vacations of the Scattered and Disorganized
,” I replied. “Our guide is arriving with it momentarily.”

François arrived permitless and entered into a heated argument with the security guard that culminated in money changing hands and our group being able to film anywhere we wanted. When we were done, we returned to our parking spots. We had a parking ticket. There was no parking ticket on the film crew’s windshield because there was no windshield. The van had been broken into and all the film crew’s passports and wallets had been stolen along with their spare equipment. We returned back to the hotel while the German crew visited the police station.

Our filming temporarily curtailed, we visited François’s parents and the school he’d attended as a young boy. No trip to the Loire is complete without these two fascinating stops. When the film crew returned, we visited a small family bakery, an impressionist art museum, and a restaurant situated in a house on a lake. François accrued at least ten more parking tickets.

The final night we all dined together at the limestone hotel and were one big, happy, dysfunctional family. I had one more disagreement with François when he wanted us to take the train back to the airport. We refused, stuffed our luggage back into his convertible, and began our journey back to Los Angeles. This flight was much better. It only took twenty-three hours.

Martin and I still remember our trip to the Loire Valley fondly, and if we ever go back, we’re going to look up François. He won’t be hard to find…I’m pretty sure he’s in parking ticket prison.

I have a girlfriend who’s so into recycling, she’ll only marry a man who’s been married before.

What to Wear…Not

“
W
HO DO YOU THINK IS CRAZIER
, D
OLCE OR
G
ABBANA?”
I asked my friend Lisa as I leafed though a fashion magazine.

“Let me see what they’ve done now,” she replied, grabbing the thick, shiny fashion bible from my clutches. “Oh, my God! Why is she naked and bound in electrical wire?”

“It’s not electrical wire. It’s a pashmina string shawl. Evidently, we’re all going to be bound in them by Christmas.”

I retrieved my magazine and continued to flip.

“Karl Lagerfeld has been taking his bad dreams a little too seriously as well.”

Lisa grabbed the magazine once again.

“She’s on fire. Are we all going to have to set ourselves on fire this winter?”

“That’s one way to keep warm.”

I continued my quest to find a picture of something I would actually wear.

“Oh, now
this
is me. I can see me going to the bank in this. They might give me some extra money if I agree never to come in again.”

“That is scary,” Lisa commented, scrutinizing the photograph. “Where are you going to get the gold paint, the feathers, and the pacifier?”

“I don’t know. Saks?”

As far as I can see, there is a complete disconnect between the photos in the sleek fashion magazines and the clothes that people actually wear. The models—or, as I like to call them, TPWHs (that’s an acronym for telephone poles with hair)—either are starved from birth or have metabolisms like hummingbirds. In any case, they’re bonier than fish carcasses.

I can hear the photo editors now: “Push the envelope, Helmut. I’ve seen the girl in the bikini riding a llama in Marlo Thomas’s living room a million times. We want something different.”

Not only are the photos different, they are becoming increasingly sexual. I was leafing through a copy of
Vogue
on an airplane and the man next to me became transfixed.

“I have to know. What part of a woman’s body is that?” he asked.

“I’m hoping it’s her tonsils,” I replied, hastily turning the page.

Comfort and time management are really not factors here,
I thought as I looked at the woman wearing a pair of shoes that laced to her crotch.
And look at those high heels. The last thing that girl needs is to be taller. If she were a firefighter, she could rescue people without using a ladder.

“When would a woman actually wear shoes like that?” my puzzled neighbor asked.