The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance: A Memoir (25 page)

“If I could count the number of guys at bars who have promised me that . . .” I stopped short. His hand was moving in little circles on the small of my back.
Oh, my gosh,
my legs went weak . . .
Warren Beatty knows how to touch a woman
. I mean it. It was the perfect amount of pressure, any softer would’ve been too soft, any harder would’ve hurt.

I relaxed into him. Just as I did this, I felt something else . . . his other hand going up my skirt.
Whoa there.
I put my free hand over his, and moved it down to my knee.
Should I tell him I’m Mormon?
I looked at my glass of wine.
Too late for that,
I decided. Besides I knew what would happen if I did. I’ve only been on one date with a celebrity before. It was with an eccentric French director that I met at an art opening. When I told him I was Mormon the first thing he said was, “Can you have ze sex?”

“No,” I answered.

“No sex?” He looked at me in disbelief. “Well if you can’t have ze sex, what can you do?”

For the sake of simplicity I took my left arm and lined it up just under my collarbones. “Nothing below here,” I said. I took my right arm and lined it up to my knees. “Nothing above here.”

“What about your armpit?” he asked. “Can your boyfriend do anything he wants to your armpit?”

I thought about it. Armpits seemed pretty harmless. “Yeah,” I said optimistically. “My boyfriend can do anything he wants to my armpit.”

“This is good,” the Frenchman said. “He can stick his penis in and out of your armpit, and if you grow hair there it is almost like
vagine.
”

Is it too late to change my answer?
I wondered, pulling a cardigan over my bare shoulders and covering any hint of an invitation.

I wasn’t about to make the same mistake with Warren Beatty, not if I wanted him to keep paying attention to me. So I kept my mouth shut. But a moment later Warren’s hand was going up my skirt again and no amount of pushing it down seemed to work. I had to think of another reason that this was not okay.

“Look,” I faced him. “A year ago a big shot senator came into Nobu with this young blonde. He didn’t think anyone could see, but I accidentally caught him publicly fingering her. I swore I would never be that girl. Okay?” I nodded my head at him, to emphasize I meant what I was saying. A simple
no
should’ve been enough. Instead, it was as though I were saying,
Look, there’s this thing about me, I know it’s “crazy” but it’s just this issue of mine, I don’t let men finger me in public, please love me anyway?

“I understand.” Warren took his hand off my thigh and moved his attention to my face, kissing my neck and then my ear. He was about to kiss my mouth when I looked around the crowded bar and tensed up.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

“There are a lot of people here,” I answered.

He shifted in his stool and surveyed the bar. “These people?” he asked. “You think these people can see us?”

“Yes,” I answered.

“These are the most self-absorbed people in the world. They can only see themselves.”

This was the perfect thing to say, mostly because it was true. Several people appeared to be looking in our direction, but if you really tried to pinpoint it, they weren’t looking at anyone, or anything.

“You’re right.” I laughed. And with that, the “hump” that I like to refer to as “my propriety” went right out the window. I started full-on making out with Warren Beatty, right there, in front of everyone. And the line I said earlier about the pressure on the back and the any softer any harder thing, it applied to his tongue, too. I could hardly process it. I was, right smack in the center of the movie kiss, waving my wineglass like a prop. It was perfect, until . . . his hand started to inch its way back up my skirt.

A voice in my head spoke up.
Is this the way things are supposed to be?
We can call it a conscience, or perhaps it’s just fear, but either way, it was pretty loud.
Is this what your life is going to be now? Do you gradually put a check mark next to all the things you said you’ d never do? And what about the glass of wine?
I felt the thin stem of it with my fingers.
Does this man get to redefine you just because he’s famous?

I stopped kissing him. “Sorry.” I set down my wine and moved his hand to my butt, a consolation prize, then I picked up where we’d left off. Because whatever, I’m not a saint, latter-day or otherwise. I’m a woman. And when things feel good, they feel really good. Besides, I already knew what I was going to do: leave. But I figured,
You might as well binge before you purge.
I spent the next fifteen minutes kissing him and trying to get away with as much as I could. When we came up for air for a fourth time, I broke away. “I have to go now,” I said.

“Come home with me,” he said.

“That’s okay,” I answered. “I don’t go home with
men
.” My excuse sounded slightly off.
Monkeys, yes,
I almost added,
but men, no.

“How do you know this situation will ever present itself again?” Warren asked me.

I took it in. Just like I get the subtle nuances of exclusivity, I understand the subtle nuances of star power.
How often do you get to sleep with Warren Beatty?
was his real question.

“I don’t,” I said. “In fact, the situation probably won’t present itself again. But ultimately when I wake up in the morning I wake up with myself, and I have to be happy with the decisions I’ve made.”

He made a face at me.
That’s crazy talk,
his eyes said.

“It was nice to meet you.” I stood up to leave.

“Let me walk you out.”

It seemed harmless enough. Except, while walking across the cobblestone street outside, “Let me walk you out” turned into “Let’s at least share a cab.”

While my intuition told me that if I got in the cab he’d try something more, I wasn’t ready to close the door on Warren Beatty. Because I knew once I did, he’d go home and I’d go home and we’d never see each other again.
It’ll be fine. I can call the shots,
I decided as Warren opened the door to the cab,
plus it’s environmentally conscious to carpool.

I hate my own ability to rationalize. Being alone in a taxi with Warren Beatty was like being in a cage. His hands were all over me. And I liked it, and I didn’t, and I did. And I didn’t. And just before it escalated to a point of any real major religious mistakes, we reached my apartment.

“Good night.” I kissed his cheek, jumped out of the cab, and shut the door behind me. I was almost to my apartment when it occurred to me,
I didn’t hear the cab door slam.
I stopped. A second later, the door shut softly and the cab drove away. I turned around slowly. Standing on my curb directly across from me was Warren Beatty.

For a second it seemed totally unreal.
I can’t shake Warren Beatty?

“Can I come in with you?” he asked.

“No,” I answered. “I don’t bring guys home with me.”

“Oh, come on.” He gestured toward my street, Avenue A at three A.M. on a Saturday. Several drunk people were stumbling by. “These aren’t exactly the Elizabethan times
.”

“You’re not going to lure me in with Shakespearean peer pressure,” I shot back. I expected him to at least laugh. Instead, he paused, his forehead wrinkled, and it looked like he was trying to remember something.

“Please?”

I couldn’t help it. I started laughing out loud. It wasn’t the word
please,
it was the way he said it, like he was trying to remember it.
What’s the magic word again? Oh, yeah: please.

“Did you hear how you just said that?” I stopped him. “It was too good. You do not need to come home with me,” I stressed. “You need to go back to your place and write that down, so that some day a character of yours says please and when he says it, he says it just like that.”

“Just let me come inside.” He laughed.

“Sorry.” I shifted my weight from hip to hip and made an apologetic face.

“You must realize how cute you are?”

Hearing those words come from him, it was like being hit by a spotlight.
That’s it,
I thought.
That’s the reason I raced to the bar from Nobu. It’s why I drank a glass of wine, and why I did one too many things. I wanted to know that I was pretty and hearing a famous man say it was more meaningful.

“Good night,” I said, this time for real.

“Oh, come on.” He blocked the door. “I just want to see you in your underwear.”

“Sorry.” I turned my key in the lock.

Warren leaned in, his face almost touching mine. “Just show me your tits,” he whispered.

“No, thank you.”
I pushed the door open and ran into the vestibule of my building.

“Good night.” I waved as I opened the second glass door. My apartment is the first door, just after the entrance. I took a single step and turned to open it. While I fumbled through my keys, I could still see Warren through the glass. I smiled as cute as could be, waved a final good-bye, and opened my door. In the privacy of my own apartment, I flipped on the lights and started doing the icky dance, shaking my fingers and gagging
.
It was then that it occurred to me,
My window faces the street, the lights are on, the curtain is open.
I turned. Warren Beatty was standing outside my window, looking genuinely concerned. Robotically, I put my hands at my sides, stomped across the room to the bathroom, and closed the door.

I’m Not the Kind of Girl Who . . .

Everyone gains weight back, at least a little of it. I knew this. I’d watched it happen to other people. But that wasn’t going to be me. I was a success story.

Only, when I started working at Nobu I was around food for the first time in four years. Not just customers’ food, they served the staff a family meal at midnight. It didn’t consist of high-end sushi. They’d set out troughs of pasta or stew, cheap food that fed dozens of employees. Oprah says, “Don’t eat after nine.” Pork roast at one A.M. was hardly on my maintenance diet. Within two months, I gained back fifteen pounds.

After I lost weight, Dr. Levin told me, “If you gain back five pounds, don’t stress about it, but if you ever gain more than ten come see me and we’ll put you back on the program.”

Only, I didn’t want to go to back on the program. Dr. Levin had also told me I was his favorite patient, a true success story, and I thought it’d be embarrassing to return. And so, determined to undo the Nobu fifteen, I decided to do something stupid: I looked on the Internet for the medication I’d taken during my diet (I couldn’t get these pills from Dr. Levin anymore because he only prescribed them to the obese). To my surprise, I found a Web site where, if I lied about my weight, I could purchase it. I wrote two hundred fifty pounds, ordered two bottles of phentermine, and clicked on express delivery.

When the pills arrived I knelt down and thanked them for their very existence. I took three a day and just like that, my appetite was gone. I didn’t need family meal. Hell, I didn’t need any meals. I was back on my diet, full force. And it was so nice to have some momentum again that I followed it all the way through. I woke up early and went running, I gulped down a gallon of water each morning, and I ate only steamed vegetables. Only this time there was one major difference: I didn’t need to lose eighty pounds. One hundred sixty pounds was technically already in the weight range for my height, only I’d gotten down to one forty-five and I preferred being there.

I love to apply myself. Within two weeks I lost fifteen pounds. As I shed this weight I noticed that I was getting more compliments and more attention.
Why not lose another five?
This way, when I went off the medication, I’d have a safety net.

A week later, I was getting ready to go to my friend Ptolemy’s birthday when, at the last minute, I decided to make him a card. What was initially supposed to be a simple birthday card became a cupcake card with thirty-one hot glue-gunned candles and a pop-out sign. Only the more I worked on it, the more I felt the need to perfect it. I colored each candle in obsessively. By the time the card was finished, it was 1 A.M. I ran out the door, but got to the party just as everyone was leaving.

“I’m so sorry,” I tried to explain, “I was making your card and lost track of time.”

“How long did this take you?” Ptolemy asked, opening my masterpiece.

I counted it out in my head. “Six hours . . .” I said.

When I woke up the follow morning I felt extremely tired, and a little bit dizzy. I walked into the bathroom, peed, stood up, and blacked out. When I came to a few minutes later, I was lying on the tile floor. The towel rack had mysteriously been ripped off the wall and I was surrounded by dusty bits of plaster.

What happened?
I stood up cautiously and looked at the place where I’d landed. In my cramped New York bathroom it was a wonder I hadn’t hit my head on anything. I took a few steps, nothing was broken. I was just a little sore.

Why is Tina always out of town when I actually need her
? I thought, opening the bathroom door. I took three steps into our living room when suddenly it happened again, only this time I did hit my head, on the small side table next to our couch. When I woke up I was lying on the living room floor, my head throbbing. I reviewed my symptoms: I was passing out, and I was exhausted.

Oh, no.
I immediately knew what was wrong with me: I’d been kissing a lot of boys lately.
I have mono!

I called Alison, a former Letterman page and one of my closest girlfriends. I explained what was happening and asked her if she’d take me to the hospital. I also called my bishop’s counselor, Brother Wagner, who’s the president of Saint Vincent’s Hospital. When we got to the hospital, he was waiting out front with a wheelchair. (This is one of the things I love most about Mormons. I make fun of my church, I roll my eyes at the culture, but whenever I’m in a crisis my Mormon friends are the first people on the scene.)