Story of My Life (3 page)

That night my old man finally calls. I’m like, I must be dreaming.

Pissed at you, I go, when he asks how I am.

I’m sorry, honey, he says, about the tuition. I screwed up.

You’re goddamn right you did, I say.

Oh, baby, he goes, I’m a mess.

You’re telling me, I go.

He says, she left me.

Don’t come crying to me about what’s-her-name, I say. Then he starts to whine and I go, when are you going to grow up, for Christ’s sake?

I bitch him out for a while and then I tell him I’m sorry, it’s okay, he’s well rid of her, there’s lots of women who would love a sweet man like him. Not to mention his money. Story of his life. But I don’t say that of course. He’s fifty-two years old and it’s a little late to teach him the facts of life. From what I’ve seen nobody changes much after a certain age. Like about four years old, maybe. Anyway, I hold his hand and cool him out and almost forget to hit him up for money.

He promises to send me the tuition and the rent and something extra. I’m not holding my breath.

I should hate my father, sometimes I think I do. There was a girl in the news the last few weeks, she hired her boyfriend to shoot her old man. Families, Jesus. At least with lovers you can break up. These old novels and plays that always start out with orphans, in the end they find their parents—I want to say,
don’t look for them, you’re better off without. Believe me. Get a dog instead. That’s one of my big ambitions in life—to be an orphan. With a trust fund, of course. And a harem of men to come and go as I command, guys as beautiful and faceless as the men who lay you down in your dreams.

Watch Out! Rebecca’s coming to town, and I’m definitely not talking about the one from Sunnybrook Farm. This is my maniac sister. She’s flying in from Palm Beach with her latest squeeze, staying at the Stanhope. If I was the management at that establishment I’d hide all the valuables, tie everything else down and stretch a tarp over it. Last time she was in New York they actually threw her out of the Sherry Netherland, and Rod Stewart and his band used to practically live at that dump. Like, I’m sure those guys behaved themselves, right?—TVs out the windows, groupies out the wazoo. . . . So you can imagine what my sister can do to a room. Becca uses things up quickly—cars, credit cards, men, drugs, horses, you name it. The men and the credit cards are sort of mixed up together—after she’s totally burned out some guy she usually asks if she can have a credit card, which he’ll wait for five days and then report stolen. I don’t know, she must give great
head is all I can say because these guys always say yes, even when she’s done something really horrible like sleep with their best friend. The best way I can think of to describe Rebecca is to say she’s like the Tasmanian Devil, that character in the Bugs Bunny cartoons that moves around inside a tornado and demolishes everything in his path. Or else she’s like an entire heavy-metal band on tour—all wrapped up in this cute little hundred-and-ten-pound package.

What really worries me is the combination of Becca and Didi. When those two get together it’s like—what were the two things you were never supposed to mix in chemistry class or you’d like blow up the whole school? You know what I mean. Not oil and water—something else. So much for my education. Blanks that never got filled in. None of the above. Story of my life. Anyway, I know several drug dealers who are going to open bottles of Cristal and buy new Ferraris when they hear that Becca’s back in town—I’m talking about guys who bought their
first
Ferraris out of profits from Didi’s trust fund—but for the rest of us it’s basically like hearing that a hurricane’s cruising across the Gulf toward your brand new uninsured beach house. Just when I was getting my acting together.

But the main thing is I’ve met a guy and I’m totally in lust, so who cares about Rebecca? What’s really amazing is that his mind is what I was attracted to first, and I wasn’t even thinking about the other thing.

I’m at Nell’s, as usual, hanging out. Me, Didi, Jeannie, Rebecca and my friend Francesca, who I haven’t mentioned
yet—she’s practically my best friend, we used to show horses together, no one else could stand her because she was Super-JAP, her Dad’s a big movie producer and her mother is some sort of Rockefeller, so she had a stableful of the best hunters and jumpers in the country, she was always throwing tantrums and screaming at the judges and the other girls but we got along great from the word go, and now she supposedly works for William Morris although I’ve never been able to reach her there. She has one of those incredible jobs that you just hate the people who luck into them, the kind of job I’d have to have if I was ever going to become a member of the work force. So she works for William Morris, but when I say
works
I’m being a major philanthropist. I mean, she gets this job as an assistant to a high-powered agent and the next week her boss gets diagnosed with AIDS and of course everyone is totally sympathetic and enlightened—I mean, come on—so of course the agency keeps him on even though he’s in the hospital half of the time and three-quarters of his clients bail out for ICM and CAA and Triad, so all Francesca has to do is show up once in a while and answer letters of condolence. But meantime she’s got this sort of credibility and access from being with William Morris, not to mention being her father’s daughter.

So Francesca, she knows everyone, right? Partly because of her family and also because that’s her great passion in life, meeting rich and famous people. A lot of people think she’s a snob or a starfucker because all she can talk about is lunch
with Jack Nicholson and drinks with Sting, but she’s so up front about it you can’t hold it against her, really. She’s totally wide-eyed, which is pretty amazing given her background: all these famous people always coming over to the house for dinner, you’d think she’d get jaded, but she’ll walk across the room to meet a guy who had a walk-on in
The Young and the Restless
, congratulate him on his career. Granted, it’s a little bit
too
much sometimes—like, Francesca, I’d like you to meet Adolf Hitler, and she’d be like—oh, wow, I just loved your last war. Her ambition in life is to get invited to Mick and Jerry’s house for dinner. She keeps cultivating people who know them and saying nice things in public about Mick’s music and Jerry’s legs and even
I
want to puke sometimes when I’m around her. But basically she’s totally cool and would do anything for me or any of her friends.

So we’re sitting on one of those supposedly antique couches at Nell’s and I have to go to the bathroom—no, honestly. It’s wall-to-wall people so while I’m waiting for this path to clear this guy says to me, didn’t I see you onstage in Williamstown last summer?

And I’m like, sure.

He goes, in
The Seagull
, right? Wasn’t that you?

And I go, I wish.

He looks real young—I mean he looks my age, boyish. Blondish hair that needs a trim, white sneakers, blue jeans, white shirt, this old ratty blazer that fits him like a bathrobe. Eyes like the Caribbean, warm and blue green.

So I go, if you want to meet me, just say so.

And he says, you are an actress, aren’t you?

And I say, how can you tell?

I don’t know, he says, the way you carry yourself.

It’s called a Maidenform underwire, I go, because that’s where he’s looking.

God bless the manufacturer, he says. I’ll buy some of their stock tomorrow.

I like the way he raises his eyebrows and the corners of his lips when he says this.

So I look down at his crotch and say, you’d be better off buying stock in Levi Strauss. Looks like it’s going up.

I kind of hope they might come down, actually, he says.

And I go, suit yourself, there’s no law against self-abuse.

He doesn’t have a snappy comeback for that one. Most guys can’t really go the distance. But still, he’s cute.

So really, I say, how’d you know I’m an actress? I’m thinking, maybe my training is starting to show, I know my voice is a lot less nasal than it used to be, at least some of the time, my voice teacher says I’ve got to work my voice down into my chest—it’ll have a lot more room down there, he goes, he’s sort of a dirty old man, but cool. Plus I’m working on my posture. My mom used to actually try to get us to walk around the house balancing a book on the top of our heads, that’s so typical of her, we’d be like, right, sure Mom, pass the Doritos and turn up the volume on your way out—that’s probably the only thing anybody in my house ever thought of doing with
a book so naturally I’m impressed by guys who actually read some. But I kind of wish I’d listened to my mom about posture, I’m like the hunchback of Seventy-eighth Street and now I have to improve my posture for my acting career. Anyway, I’m asking him how he knew I was an actress.

I guess I’m just incredibly perceptive, he says.

I go, am I supposed to believe that?

Also I overheard you talking to your friends, he says.

You’ve been eavesdropping, I say. Actually, I’m kind of flattered. Usually when I’m out with Didi it’s hard to get any attention. Plus I like the fact that he’s honest enough to admit the real story—if there’s one thing I hate it’s the usual bullshit.

He tells me his name is Dean Chasen and I tell him mine is Alison Poole. I mean, that’s a sign right there—if I have any doubts about a guy I just give him a bogus name.

Dean’s waiting for me when I come out of the bathroom, so I let him buy me a drink. Francesca and Didi are waving and pointing from the other end of the room but I ignore them, I’m into what Dean is saying, it turns out he knows everything about theater, even though he’s a Wall Streeter, sells bonds or something. We start talking about all the plays around town and he asks me about my classes and then we have this debate about method versus other kinds of training, when he first came to New York he studied at the Neighborhood Playhouse for a while under Meisner. He’s thirty-two, it turns out, but he seems a lot younger. He says he wants to retire at the age of thirty-five and write plays, maybe novels.

It’s a funny thing but I’ve noticed when I’m with creative guys like artists and actors, they hardly ever talk about their work, they’re always talking about the stock market or something like they’re trying to convince you they understand the real world, then you get with stockbrokers and bankers and all they want to talk about is art and the theater and they practically apologize for making a lot of money.

Usually when I meet a guy it takes me about three seconds to wonder how big his dick is. Didi and Jeannie swear by the hand method—you know: big hands, big dick—but I was so into just talking to Dean and listening to him that it was like hours before it even occurred to me to notice he had these long, delicate hands, and after the first night I slept with him I called Didi up right away and said thin fingers don’t always mean what you think.

We just start talking like we’ve known each other all our lives. Dean notices a lot of stuff, he has this really interesting way of looking at the world—for instance, they have this real good DJ at Nell’s and he was spinning some weird oldies in with the new stuff and suddenly Dean says, you know, “Lightning Striking Again” is the only song that actually
features
the backup vocals.

So I say, I like the line,
I can’t stop now, I can’t stop
, that could be my theme.

Anyway, Dean just notices these funny little things. I like that. In some ways he’s like a five-year-old boy practically. When I told him he was like a little kid he says, Alison, we’re
a nation of children. I love the way he comes up with stuff like that. I mean, I was just talking about him but he turns it into something about the world.

The next thing I know we’re at his apartment, still talking. It’s like we’re a dialogue machine or something. I tell him about my old boyfriends and that I’ve slept with thirty-six guys and I go, how about you?

He goes, none, totally deadpan.

And I go, don’t give me that.

And he goes, honest, no guys. Cracked me up.

He tells me about Patty, this girl he just broke up with after two years. He still loves her, he says, but basically he doesn’t like her, she wants to get married and move to the suburbs and he’s not ready for that. So they broke up about a month ago. I tell him he doesn’t seem like the suburban type and he says, really.

Sometimes I feel like I’m stuck between being my father and being some kind of animal, he goes. What I do for a living—don’t get me wrong, I like it and it’s challenging as hell, but it’s so conventional I feel like I have stay up all night and beat myself up just so I know I’m still alive. He says, in a few years I’m going to quit and just do what I want to do.

So fine, I say, who’s stopping you?

I’m afraid I’ll stop myself, he goes. I’m afraid I’ll get fat and complacent in the meantime.

I’ll call you in three years and remind you, I say.

If the markets hold up, he says, I’ll have a million and then some by then. This starving artist thing, I don’t think it’s
entirely necessary, you know? If I can put some money away I think I’ll be able to really concentrate on writing a lot better than if I’m working as a messenger, he says.

Absolutely, I go, but I’m thinking, I don’t know, how many great writers worked on Wall Street for half their lives then suddenly started cranking out the old masterpieces? I mean, I like this guy a lot, but my brain is still functioning, okay?

So then we talk all about drama and he keeps jumping up to pull books off the shelves and read me bits, he’s got like about eight walls of books, his living room looks like the public library or something.

Finally when the birds start squawking outside he says, you want to stay over? and I’m, like, sure, why not? Here we are having this great conversation, but I’m also thinking, here’s this guy I really like and respect, maybe I shouldn’t fuck him. You know, it’s been so long since I’ve met a guy who isn’t a total asshole that I forget what the rules are. Then I remember about Skip’s little present. The doctor told me two weeks and it’s only been about a week since I started taking the pills and I still feel a little itchy. And it’s weird but all of sudden now that I can’t fuck him I really want to, and for a minute I consider taking my chances. But that would be a really shitty thing to do, so I explain the situation and he’s really sweet about it. We’ll just have to wait, he says.