Story of My Life (19 page)

I know, I’ve got to get a job, I guess I’ll have to waitress— God how depressing, but right now I’m having trou ble getting out of bed, I haven’t even been to class in a week. Tomorrow, after I go meet this so-called jewelry dealer I’m going to the doctor. I’d probably feel better about myself if I could go and
work on my instrument, but I feel too shitty to bother, it’s a vicious circle. Or is it cycle? Dean used to tell me these things. A few more months with him and I might even have started to feel educated.

Dean said he was buckling down to his work, really getting organized, going to bed early and waking up early, keeping a journal and working on some ideas for plays. I could tell that was kind of directed at me—blaming me for his wildness. There was this big slide in the bond market a few weeks ago and it really freaked him out, he’s like a reformed sinner or something. It suddenly occurred to him they might show him the door before he’d socked away his first million. Not that I’m any expert on employment but maybe jobs are like lovers—one day they’re boring and stupid but suddenly they’re real desirable when you think you’re getting dumped. I don’t know, he’d just broken up with his long-time squeeze when I met him, he was all set to get down and be irresponsible. Now that he’s scratched that little itch deep enough for a while and he wants to act like a grown-up again he needs somebody to blame for acting like a kid. When we’d stay up late he’d sometimes get in this panic, this big middle-class guilt thing about being a productive citizen even though the night before he’d wanted to be a bohemian, right? Then he’d take it out on me, get real weird in the mornings. I mean, I didn’t tell him to stay up all night, he was right there chopping the lines and pouring the drinks.

Now, after a little run with the bad girls, it’s back to the mature and responsible Patty. Enough of the postmodern
girls, now he wants the good old-fashioned kind. Patty’s like a banker or something. I can see her in her sensible shoes with her briefcase, or her Talbot’s clothes on the weekends in the country, doing the crossword puzzle, sipping decaf, buying antiques. Pass
The New Yorker
, dear. Certainly, muffin.

Dean practically has all of Shakespeare memorized and he can handle millions of dollars a day of other people’s money, he can be smart about other people but he’s like a foreigner to himself. Sometimes I just wanted to stand him in front of the mirror and say, Dean, meet Dean. Sit him down with himself and translate what he says into plain American.

So that’s Dean. Francesca’s wrong, he’s not a jerk. He is, but not really. I fucked up. I did something he couldn’t get over, and you can’t really blame him for that.

I don’t know, he did the same thing to me, screwing Cassie Hane. I suppose that was why I did it. I called up one night a few days before our killer Truth or Dare session and asked him to take me out to dinner and he said he couldn’t, he had to go out with some friends. What really pissed me off is he didn’t give me any explanation. That was that. You know, he could have said who these friends were who were so important and so exclusive that they couldn’t stand my company, but he didn’t. I said fine, really bitchy so even Dean could tell I was pissed, and hung up. Then I waited for him to call me back and the son of a bitch never did. I was furious. I was so furious I called him back after half an hour to tell him. I got his machine. After that I called up Cassie Hane’s boyfriend, Peter.
I didn’t say who I was, I just asked if Cassie was there and he said no, she had her own place and I said, you know how she got that Barneys ad? Dean Chasen is real good friends with the guy who owns that agency. And he goes, who is this? and then I go, a friend, I hate to see her make an idiot out of you. Then I hung up. Next I call up Cassie and I do this southern accent I can do perfectly from all the girls we used to show horses with and I go, Cassie, honey, I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings to y’all but I saw you the other night with Dean Chasen and I just thought it might interest you to know that he gave me a nasty little infection. And she goes, who is this? but I’m already gone.

So when Jeannie came home and asked if I wanted to split a gram I said sure. When that was gone we went to the Surf Club and Didi was there, and so was Skip. Skip was flirting outrageously, really hitting hard on me, all these steamy looks and sexual innuendos. I don’t know, I had a bunch of drinks, at that time of night Magilla Gorilla can start to look good and Skip’s no gorilla, he’s pretty decent-looking, plus I was remembering that he was actually really good in bed. Plus I was so mad at Dean. That’s what it was really all about in the end, when Skip and I were rocking the old sleigh bed back at his place, we weren’t really screwing each other, we were both screwing Dean.

I wish I hadn’t, but it’s done now. I think about calling him, but I don’t. I turn on the tube for a while and watch
All My Children
. Then I go back to sleep.

When I go to the doctor’s I tell her I just feel shitty and nauseous and I sleep all the time. She asks me about my period and I can’t really remember. I’ve been on the pill since I started going out with Dean but sometimes I forget to take it and I can’t really remember when I finished up the package. I don’t know, for a while there—like a couple of months—I was using the old withdrawal method, which is about as safe as Russian roulette. After surviving that I figure I should do fine on the pill. My gynecologist keeps telling me I should make the guys wear rubbers but I hate them and so do they. Safe sex, right? That’s like, truth in advertising, it’s kind of a contradiction in terms.

So anyway, I think this doctor’s barking up the wrong tree, but she takes some blood for a test along with everything else and sends me on my way without a single prescription for narcotics, which really depresses me, I’m going to have to find a new doctor. I mean, when I spend a hundred bucks I usually get off.

So I meet this guy at Jackson Hole who wants to buy the necklace. The short, balding type, maybe forty, he looks like my father. He has rotten skin, the pores in his nose are like the potholes on Second Avenue, you could lose a cab in one of those things. Real attractive, right? He’s wearing this incredibly
tacky diamond ring and a giant Rolex. If I had to list my least favorite things, jewelry on men would be right up there at the top.

After we sit down I take the necklace out of my purse—it’s in this blue velvet case—and he puts it down on the table and starts looking at me instead of the pearls. He goes, your sister Rebecca is a lovely girl, I admire her very much.

I go, she’s a big hit with all the boys.

And he goes, but I think you’re even prettier.

You’d be the first if you really did, I say.

Just to give him a little hint about why we’re here and all, I reach over and open the case for him. He picks up the necklace and holds it up to the light, sticks a little telescope thing in his eye and squints at it. I mean, this has got to be an act, I know damn well who he’s buying these for, but she certainly went to a lot of trouble to make it look authentic, the bitch.

When the waitress comes around I order a burger deluxe because I haven’t eaten in two days and frankly I’m starved and I figure I’ll tell him I forgot my wallet. I’m feeling really dizzy, for a minute I almost black out, my vision gets all blurry.

After a while he says, nice, not bad at all. Then he looks up and says, did you know that pearls are a symbol of purity? and I shake my head, I’m scarfing my burger.

I bet you’re pure, he goes.

And I’m like, right.

And he goes, I bet you don’t go out with just anybody.

So finally I’ve cleared this big wad of beef out of my mouth and I say to him, actually I fuck practically anybody. But in your case I think I’d make an exception.

And he’s like totally blown away that I’m talking like this.

So how much for the necklace? I go and eventually he offers me twenty-five hundred and I take it, he’s got the cash right there—naturally a guy who wears gold jewelry would carry a huge roll of cash, right?—so I take it and make him pay for the burger and I walk out of the restaurant feeling dizzy and puke all over the sidewalk.

And this guy who’s just bought my grandmother’s symbols of purity comes out and watches me wipe off my face and goes, you wanna come back to my place and lie down for a while?

I hand over most of the money to Jeannie because even though her father came up with the back rent I still owe for the past month plus the phone bill and that pretty much takes care of my little inheritance. And of course she immediately decides we should buy a quarter ounce. But I’m the irresponsible one, right? Well, okay, I am a little irresponsible and I don’t protest as much as I should about this idea. But I haven’t really talked to Jeannie in ages and I really want to sort of clear the air, you know, I mean Jeannie and I go way back, plus I’m feeling so bad I don’t think anything could make me feel worse and it’s either stimulants or another twenty hours in bed.

We just sit around the apartment and talk all night. It’s great. We start talking about Didi and how great it is that she’s off drugs because she really had a problem, she was just way over the top.

Next we start talking about guys, naturally. Jeannie says she doesn’t know, she’s just not sure about Frank, does she really want to spend the rest of her life with this guy who was kind of dull to begin with and then betrayed her with a bimbo? Frank is pushing for a fall wedding and now Jeannie’s got cold feet. I tell her she knows my feelings about marriage, I mean probably it works for people with really low expectations and about zero self-esteem, but show me a happy marriage and I’ll show you one fool and one hypocrite. Like, I’ve got a late meeting tonight, honey, don’t wait up for me. Okay, darling, don’t work too hard.

I don’t even mention that Frank has one of the smaller dicks I’ve ever experienced. Two inches of throbbing steel.

So after a while we talk about the old days on the horse circuit, that was where we got to know each other, sharing rooms in half the Hiltons of America, showing and jumping while everyone else was going to school and proms, riding all year long to qualify for the three big shows in Harrisburg, Washington and then Madison Square Garden, ordering room service and flirting with the busboys and the stable hands and the judges, and now it sort of feels like all of that’s ending, I mean it ended a long time ago, a few years back anyway, but
in a way we sort of grew up together on the road and in the saddle and moved to New York together and now I’m moving out to Francesca’s and somehow I don’t think I’ll see Jeannie much after a while. She really sort of screwed me over but it still depresses the shit out of me, because whatever comes next it won’t be the same.

And Jeannie is all excited about something she’s saying, I’ve been half listening, something about horses, and then she’s crying, saying, that wasn’t fair, that was so unfair, I still think about it.

It turns out she’s all upset about this one show out on Long Island when I won the ribbon for hunters. Showing hunters is very political anyway, it’s all up to the judges. With jumpers if you jump clean it’s strictly against the clock and more fun. The horses are thinner and they’re fast and nobody can rob you if you win. Hunters are big fat beautiful animals and they’re judged on form, supposedly. And I do mean supposedly.

So this one day Jeannie went before me, she was on this horse, Patrick Henry, he was beautiful and she had a great run, everything clean, I watched her from the stand and then I went out on my horse, Eric the Red. Eric was in this really rotten mood, I don’t know why, then when I get out there and start jumping I realize he’s lame. He banged two jumps early on and twisted once coming down. I was trying really hard to hold him up, he was pretty lame and I just thought, go for it, let’s just get through this thing.

So me and Eric the Red won first prize in the class.

Something weird was going on in that judging booth, don’t ask me what. Maybe my father paid somebody, maybe somebody liked the look of my ass in riding breeches, whatever.

It was so unfair, Jeannie goes. I never forgot that.

And I go, welcome to the world, Jeannie babe.

Because that’s the thing about hunters and jumpers. The jumpers are fair, it’s you against a clock. But showing hunters, it’s political. Great preparation for life, right?

Let’s face it, how often is anything fair?

Jeannie finally stops crying long enough to tell me she’s always competed with me, even though she loves me she’s always tried to outdo me in everything and never felt like she could, like this is news to me, and I go, it’s okay really and for about three minutes we’re best friends, everything’s fine, and we talk about really silly and trivial things that seem important enough at the time and finally she says, I’m going to give you the best birthday ever and then she goes whoops, like there’s been a big surprise planned and she blew it.

I sort of figured my friends would do something, I mean, I hoped they would. Ten days from now I’ll be twenty-one. It seems like I’ve been on the planet a lot longer than that. Like who is that woman who goes around the country to Ramada Inns pretending to be some forty-thousand-year-old man, charging people hundreds of dollars to come listen to her speak in this fake baritone about the wisdom of the ages? Well, whoever she is she’s an imposter, the real forty-thousand-year-old man is me. And I’m here to tell you, free of charge, that it sucks.