Story of My Life (20 page)

Of course with my luck it turns out I’m actually pregnant. The rabbit dies, so I have to visit the clinic for real this time. I can’t believe it. And I don’t have a nickel to my name, I owe every body in the western hemisphere, I’m like a fucking Third World country—empty treasury, exploding birth rate. Jesus. And what’s really depressing is I don’t know whose it is, I mean, it could be Skip’s and it could be Dean’s. If this had happened a few months back there would’ve been like twenty suspects, but even two is too many. Francesca and Jeannie want me to call Dean, they say it’s only fair. No way. I’d rather have the kid than call Dean, and I’m not about to have the kid.

I call Carol first, my sister, and she’s really sympathetic, I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have Carol to talk to sometimes and she says if I can’t find the money anywhere else she’ll get her boyfriend to cough it up, he’s rich and she’ll threaten him with a sex embargo if he gets difficult about it.

I go, where’s Dad? and she says he’s in Cancun with a new bimbo. Which is just great. Whenever I need my old man he’s on some beach with a nineteen-year-old sex kitten. Story of his life.

Next I call my old man’s office and his secretary claims he’s in Europe on business and then she says, I just sent you the check for your school tuition.

And I’m like, incredible, I don’t believe it. Something actually going right in my life for a change. I must be dreaming.

So I make an appointment for the next week and I use the tuition money, which is kind of ironic because last month I used my supposed abortion money for tuition and now it’s the other way around. And if that’s not weird enough I see Skip Pendleton a few nights later, he’s with some anorexic Click model and pretends not to see me. Meanwhile my breasts hurt like hell and I feel like I’m filling up like a water balloon. I try not to think about the thing inside me, I mean, even if it’s a person instead of a fish I want to say, hey, believe me, I’m doing you a favor. You don’t need this shit.

I’m so distracted that I totally forget the appointment is the day before my birthday. When I figure it out I’m like, what the fuck, I want this over with. They tell me I should be able to walk out of the clinic that afternoon and barring complications I’ll be fine in a day or two. I tell them I’ve got twenty-four hours till the first day of the rest of my life.

Don’t ask me why, I don’t want anybody to think I’m getting mushy in my old age, but for some reason I decide to visit Mannie in the hospital. They’ve got him over at Lenox Hill, I walk over. Out in front these two old guys are having a wheelchair race down the sidewalk and people start cheering them on, these two guys must be in their eighties but they’re really starting to cruise and people are jumping out of the way, then a nurse and an orderly come out and start screaming at them and chase them down.

Mannie’s like a cartoon version of an accident victim, they’ve got him in this body cast, he’s like a mummy in traction. His head is pretty well bandaged up but you can see his face and when I come in he opens his eyes, he starts smiling like a lunatic, I don’t know if he remembers me or if he’s just like a baby that smiles at anything.

So I go, it’s Alison, Rebecca’s sister. Then suddenly I feel bad, like I maybe shouldn’t mention Rebecca, right?

He smiles, the guy’s beaming like a headlight, either they’ve got him on some really great drugs or else he’s glad to see me.

I’m really sorry, I go.

I know, don’t tell me, I have a real gift for saying the intelligent thing.

I sit down in this chair beside the bed, just to give myself something to do. He’s still smiling, it’s beginning to drive me crazy, it’s like he knows something I don’t know, so finally I go, Rebecca asked me to send her best, she had to rush out of
town for some important stuff but she wanted me to check up on you and say hello and all.

Which is totally a lie, I don’t know why I say it, except maybe to make him feel better.

And after another few minutes of smiley-face I go, it was an accident, right? His face is really white, white and red where he’s cut and stitched, he looks like some painting where the colors are all wrong and not true to life.

His mouth starts to move and I lean closer so I can hear what he’s saying. Finally he says, in this gnarly whisper, tell her I love her.

And I’m like, what are you, nuts? You’re crazy, you’re really out of your mind. Listen, I go, I hate to be the one to tell you but she’s actually a total bitch, she doesn’t give a shit about you, she doesn’t give a shit about anyone but herself, she hasn’t even asked about you. That’s what kind of person Rebecca is.

He’s not really looking at me, he’s looking through me, still smiling, and I say, what is it about her? I mean, tell me, I’m dying to know, this is really bugging me.

All he does is say it again—tell her I love her.

I say, I’m sorry, Mannie, I didn’t mean that, it was just jealousy. Becca had to go out of town but she asked me to look in on you and everything. I’m sure you’ll hear from her soon, I go.

I don’t know if he hears me or not. I leave him grinning into outer space like some kind of Moonie, somebody way beyond
your basic logic and facts. The thing is, he looks happy, which is more than you can say for the rest of us.

Francesca comes with me to the clinic. She’s lost about twenty pounds in the last two weeks and she’s looking great. I make her promise not to call Dean no matter what. We sit around in this waiting room with
Mademoiselle
s and
Ladies’ Home Journal
s on the coffee table in case we want to get some summer tanning tips or learn how to make a supermoist coffee cake that will drive hubby into fucking raptures and then they call me in and I undress, put on the little paper robe, climb up on the table, stick my feet in the nice cold stirrups.

I want drugs, I say, as soon as the doctor shows up.

I’ve heard they give you Demerol and I tell them I have this monster tolerance, forget about the correct dosage for my height and weight, but the doctor says for outpatients all they recommend is a local. I’m like, give me the express. She sticks a needle in my uterus and I try to do my sense-memory, I do a sense-memory of Dean just imagining him sitting in that chair of his where he reads and talking about Shakespeare or the stock market or something, I re-create the expressions on his face, his crooked smile, I put him right there next to me talking. Forget about sex—they’re hoovering my insides out . . . the local isn’t enough to kill the pain and it’s hard to do my sense-memory, I can’t concentrate, I keep losing the
image, his face and his voice keep fading like something on a bad TV set in the middle of nowhere. . . .

So I try to remember that rhyme we used to say in school— Miss Mary Mack Mack Mack all dressed in black black black, but I draw a blank on the rest . . .

Afterwards it hurts like hell. They give me another incredibly painful shot to close up my uterus and after that it’s cramp city.

Francesca takes me home in a cab and puts me in bed and Jeannie comes in with some ten-milligram Valiums and I drift off into some kind of brain death for about sixteen hours.

Jeannie wakes me up a little after noon, she’s bought me two dozen long-stemmed roses and my mail on a little breakfast tray, birthday cards from her and Carol and my mother and a bunch of other people. Nothing from my dad. Not even a fucking card.

Any messages? I go, and Jeannie says Francesca called to ask how was I doing, that’s it.

So I just lie around in bed all day, I’m not exactly feeling too terrific, but why bitch?

My mom calls after five, she’s very economical about little things like waiting for the rates to go down but then she’ll spend a hundred and fifty dollars to have the poodle trimmed.

Happy birthday, baby, she says. You’re all grown up now.

Thanks a lot, I go.

Did you get my card? she says.

I got it, thanks, I say.

Then she starts to tell me about her boyfriend, how thoughtless and inconsiderate he’s been, how he’s not sensitive to her needs, yada yada yada. She goes on and on, she’s not blasted yet, but I can hear the ice cubes rattling at the other end of the phone. It’s not like I’m not sympathetic, but it’s a little depressing because maybe just this once on my birthday we could talk about me. I’m the kid here, after all, even if I’m supposed to be a big girl now. I’m the one who could maybe use some advice, and it makes me wonder, what’s the point of being an adult, except that you can legally drink in all states of the union, my mom might as well be sixteen the way she talks. . . .

Finally I tell her I’ve got to get dressed for my party and ask if she knows where Dad is. She doesn’t but she’s sure he’ll call.

Right.

At seven Jeannie says it’s time to get dressed and helps me pick out my outfit, basic black, leather skirt from Fiorucci and a Kamali silk top, fishnet stockings, killer pumps from Bennis and Edwards that I borrowed from Didi a few months back.

You’ll be raped on the street, Jeannie says after she checks me out.

I go, can’t rape the willing.

That’s my girl, says Jeannie.

I’m fine, I go.

Didi and Francesca have chipped in and got me a limo, so the four of us go over to Sam’s and meet the gang there, a table for sixteen, the usual suspects. Rebecca’s prep Everett is there, don’t ask me why, he’s like all mopey and it’s like being at my
birthday will at least remind him of Rebecca a little bit so he can keep being miserable. Plus Didi and Whitney and Mark from the tanning place and a bunch of other idiots who are all my friends sort of, and when I walk in everybody jumps up—happy birthday, Alison!—and I’m looking around thinking just maybe Dean will be there but he isn’t and why would he be, really?

So we have this big dinner, I mean, some of us have this big dinner and some of us just keep going to the bathroom, Jeannie’s got blow and so does Mark, Didi keeps screaming at us saying we’re fucking drug addicts, she’s really disgusted. It’s amazing she doesn’t even see that it’s like pretty ironic, to say the least. When we all do a chorus of “Amazing Grace,” she gets really mad.

Things kind of get out of control after a while. The prep tries to beat up the waiter, don’t ask me why. He’s one of those fighting drunks, plus his heart is broken. He offers to marry me at one point and I say, thanks, but I don’t believe in marriage and he goes, I can respect that point of view, saying the words real carefully like he’s afraid he’ll drop them and they’ll break. Then he offers to pay for the meal and everybody thinks this is a cool idea, suddenly he stands up and bangs on a wineglass with a spoon until he breaks it, so then he pounds on the table till he gets everybody’s attention and then he looks around like he’s not sure where he is until suddenly he remembers. He weaves his head like he’s ducking a tiny plane that just skimmed the top of his hair. Then he goes, really serious, today is Alison’s birthday.

Everybody goes wild and cheers, partly because it seems amazing that he can even talk or remember what the occasion is.

Today, he goes, Alison is an adult.

A lot of catcalls and hisses for this idea. The prep takes a direct hit—a piece of cheesecake on the cheek.

I’m serious, he goes. I mean this. I love this girl, no, wait, she’s not a girl, now she’s a woman.

So of course Didi and Francesca start singing Bob Marley’s “No Woman, No Cry.”

Everett waves his arms for silence, his right hand is still bandaged from where Mannie cut him, he’s like, I love her sister, but I love her too. I’d like to treat Alison and all of you to dinner because you’re all friends of Rebecca’s and I love Rebecca and I love all of you.

So everybody’s cheering and throwing shit at the prep and I have this funny feeling about this offer. Sure enough, he remembers when the waiter brings him the check that he gave Rebecca all of his credit cards.

Later we go to Nell’s and then the Zulu Lounge and then we end up at our place but it’s too small and the prep says he’s still got this suite over at the Stanhope, he can’t afford to pay the bill so he keeps staying on. So we go over there, it’s getting toward dawn by now and Jeannie takes up a collection and makes a run over to Emile’s place. . . .

The party goes on for two days.

Some of the people disappear eventually, some come back the second night, two guys from this Australian rock band drop by for nine or ten hours and Emile shows up with fresh supplies, I guess we must’ve called him. Francesca keeps coming and going, trying to rescue me, at one point she offers to take me shopping at Bergdorf’s with her Dad’s credit card but me and Everett hold down the fort, sitting in the middle of the floor going, I can’t believe somebody else feels that way—wow, I thought I was the only person in the world who felt like that—and him telling me about Rebecca and me talking about Dean while I burn holes in the upholstery of the Louis Cat-house chairs. We just can’t talk fast enough to free up all these great thoughts we’re having. Great minds sink alike, right? So at some point I ask Everett if he knows the three great lies. I tell him the first two while he sits there nodding like a guru or something with like the intense calm that only the truly crazed and manic can fake. Then I say to him, so what’s the third?