Aftermath of Dreaming (5 page)

And I watched Momma do her own version of this while I was growing up. It wasn't unusual for her to change outfits three times a day. Every social function's attire was highly stratified, even a trip to the grocery store had its own code—Daddy didn't allow her to wear pants there. And in the small town that we lived in everything was so close, and Momma could just pop home, exchange one perfectly accessorized look for the next, and head back out. But in L.A., most places I go are a good twenty minutes away, so driving home is not an option.

Which is how I decided that if I really needed to, I could change my shirt in my truck. A bra covers just as much as a bikini top, I decided, so surely a quick switcheroo on a side street would not be that different from a swimsuit stroll on the beach past completely clad customers at a café.

Not that I do this a lot. Only once in a while, when it is absolutely necessary. Like now, today, after a morning with my sister-the-bride before an appointment to show my jewelry at a recently opened store. Rox is what it's called, for the owner, Roxanne, who previously ran a rock star's wife's store on Sunset before going out on her own, backed by the rock star's producer, Bill, whom coincidentally I used to work for and who very kindly set up this appointment for me. Which I'm thrilled he did. I feel ready, but also a little nervous.

Because I haven't really done this before. Sold to a store. I mean, I do have my jewelry in Tizzie's, a small shop in Venice. One day while window-shopping, I wandered into the store, and the owner admired my earrings and necklace, then flat out said she'd love to carry my stuff, even got me to give her the pieces I was wearing, so sure she was they would sell. And I was flattered since I had been designing jewelry for only six months. I've been selling pieces there for almost a year, but I haven't tried to sell to other stores because private commissions have kept me really busy. But when this connection to Rox appeared, I thought, why not fol
low it up? My goal is to sell to department stores and go national. And I guess showing my jewelry to the women who commission counts as practice somehow, but they have already seen one of my pieces on someone else and call me specifically to get something that will be at least as good as or usually better than their friend's.

But here I am, parked on this street off Beverly Boulevard, around the corner from Rox, with fifteen minutes to kill until it is time to go in, and the idea of changing my shirt is relaxing me a little somehow. I wish Reggie had been home when I phoned him after Suzanne's; he would have made me feel better about this appointment. With all that Michael-brunch insanity between us on the phone this morning, I didn't remember to tell him that my appointment with Rox was today, so he has no idea. Maybe I'll try him at the editing room after all. Stop. Now, just relax. The appointment's going to be fine. She'll either buy my stuff or she won't. Please, God, make her buy a ton. Now c'mon, focus on something I can control, like…which top should I change into? Black is the obvious choice, but dark blue accomplishes almost everything black does while still being blue. I take my pins off the pale pink top I am wearing that I hoped would subconsciously convey to Suzanne my happiness about her impending nuptial bliss and affix them onto the dark blue fitted knit one. I whip off the pink top, put it on the seat next to me, and as I am about to pull the blue one down over my head, I notice an elderly Hasidic man in a large station wagon watching me as he slowly drives by. His expression indicates that he does not equate my partial nudity with a day at the beach.

 

If sea water were a store, it would be Roxanne's boutique. Tiny, aquatic-colored tile descends the walls from pale to deep. Clumps of clothing sprout up in beams of light focused from below and above. Three aquariums, each a different letter of “ROX,” hold languid blue angelfish. As I wait for the salesgirl to get Roxanne, it is hard even for me not to be overcome by the extensive color-coding, especially when it strikes me that the shirt I changed into matches.

Emerging from the depths of the store, Roxanne glides to the counter where I am waiting, puts her overly manicured hands on her hips, and says, “Let's see what you got.”

No “hello” or “nice to meet you,” so I quickly decide to forgo all that, too. I read somewhere once that mirroring the other person's behavior in a business meeting helps you establish a rapport—I just never thought that would mean being curt, but it's her store; I'm only selling to it.

I lean down, unzip the fake Vuitton travel bag, and start taking the black trays out. I bought the bag when I began going to women's homes to show my jewelry for private commissions and sales. I needed something large enough to carry the trays in, and I realized that with the amount of gold and gems (semiprecious, but still) coming out of it, the women would assume the bag was real, and the implied fiscal success might make them feel better about the prices they were going to hear.

“These are the earrings, bracelets, and rings I told you about on the phone.” I have set three trays on the counter side by side. Straightening a ring in one of them, I glance at Roxanne to see which pieces have caught her eye, then unhook a bracelet since her attention is on the earrings, and lightly blow imaginary dust off it, turning it this way and that, as if to check its gems, but really to give her time to see everything without me staring at her or off into space. I put the bracelet back, wait a long moment, and then bring the last tray out.

“And these are the pins, though they can also be worn as pendants on a chain. See this…” I pick one up and turn it over to reveal a small loop on the back. “But I prefer them for what they are.” I have jumped in, my words escaping in an air-bubble rush, like a sea diver adjusting his mask. “The whole idea is a further personalization of our clothes. That simple black top we all have, well, you put one of these on, or two really, and the odds of someone else…I mean, how many parties have you been to where thank God for different hair or we'd all look just alike.”

Roxanne sees me see her blow-dried, dyed-blond, appears-everywhere hair. “Plus,” I say, trying to fix my gaffe, “being pinned.”

“Pinned?” Roxanne's eyes swim over my body, as if trying to find this new form of piercing that somehow slipped past her au courant antennae.

“It's an old-fashioned promise thing. A guy would pin his sweetheart with his fraternity pin before she got the ring. Of course, this is 1998 L.A. so the concept is pinning yourself instead of waiting for someone else to do it.” I silently bless Momma's stories of Daddy's Sigma Chi days for this immediate inspiration.

A fish in the X is staring at me from one eye while his fins silently keep him in place. I have a sudden image of each fish in the alphabet tanks sporting one of my pins, yet still swimming—a mobile hydrodisplay.

“And the prices are?”

The make-or-break moment has arrived. I pull out a price sheet from the bag and place it on the counter in front of her. Every item in the trays is on it: listed, described, and priced. I figured out a while ago that a piece of paper is much better than pointing to each piece of jewelry while saying a number, then sometimes having to go back and repeat a price since people couldn't remember so many at once. And a tangible sheet of paper makes it seem as if the prices exist separately from me, so if a customer is teetering, I can drop the amount a bit, instantly becoming good cop to the price sheet's bad.

Roxanne studies the figures, looking from them to the trays and back again. I try to read her expression, but she just looks professionally guarded. A prayer for my jewelry to be in her store suddenly starts chanting over and over in my head.

Roxanne picks up one of the rings, puts it on, then holds her hand out in front of her, like the opposite of a palm reader, farther away will tell her more. She squints at it, turning her hand this way and that, takes the ring off, looks at all of the trays one more time, then glances around behind her, catching the eye of the salesgirl who has been standing in a far corner refolding perfectly stacked cotton tees.

“I'll take one of each of these four rings, plus an extra of this for me,” she says, pointing at the one she had on. “These three bracelets,
one of each of the ears, and one, two, three, four, yeah, these five pins.” Roxanne's fingers skipped, landed, and hopped over my wares, as I quickly jotted notes of her selection, to transfer to an order form later on. “Figure out the details with Sandra here.”

And as the salesgirl sidles up, Roxanne angles away.

“Reggie, can you believe it,
I got in another store.” I am holding my cell phone with my right hand, steering my truck with my left, and trying not to let my euphoria increase my speed as I weave through the choked lunch-hour traffic on Beverly Boulevard.

“It's that new one I told you about last week that Bill hooked me into and, okay, short version for now, but she bought tons of stuff, so now I'm in two stores. Well, Tizzie's probably counts only as half since Lizzie still hasn't paid me for that last batch that sold, but you know what I mean, and Jesus, I'm so happy, I feel so much better since this morning with Suzanne which, you know, fine, she's my sister and a bride so that's like everything annoying about either role multiplied, but who cares, I just made a sale, okay, sorry sorry sorry for the long message, but I just had to tell you, and call me later, I'll be home tonight, okay, I love you, bye.”

I press the red button to end the call, then continue holding it down,
turning off the phone. Suzanne always tells me I should leave it on in case of an emergency, and after Momma's accident, I guess I should, though maybe that's why I don't. Traffic has taken over the road. I crawl through two more intersections, then push the red button on the phone to turn it back on to check my voice mail at home even though I am on my way there. Maybe Reggie's left a message since I called him this morning after Suzanne's. Or maybe Michael called. Thank God Reggie got over our Michael contretemps. I hope. I punch in the number to autodial my home as I come to a dead stop behind a car that is double-parked.

The one and only message, besides yet another hang-up—a wrong number probably, but I seem to get those constantly—is from Michael, who is already back to calling himself “me.” As in “Hey, it's me.” I love “me.” Love that he didn't identify himself, like he did the few times he called in the first months after our breakup, as if our not having sex suddenly meant I shouldn't know his voice anymore the way he could no longer know my body, nor I his. I play his message three times, listening again and again to him asking if he can see me tonight, and leaving his cell phone number (I guess he thinks I didn't keep it—I did), for me to page him so we can make a plan immediately. This clearly elevates our date to extremely extremely urgent, and that makes me extremely extremely happy, so I'll page him right now and make a plan for us to celebrate my sale and our reuniting. Jesus, I love life right now.

I punch in his Westside area code, and am about to press the first number of his cell phone/voice mail/pager, when I realize that maybe I should not. Maybe this gushy, happy, rushy feeling means I should slow down. With him, at least. Because the thing about starting to see someone I've already had a relationship with is, I can't just give him a kiss at the door. That would be weird because the whole how-soon-do-we-have-sex thing has already been done, so my only option for maintaining some control over not immediately falling headlong into him is to wait a bit before I see him. Dammit. I wish I hadn't thought of this. My body so loves the idea of him tonight. Okay, I'm just gonna page him right now and see him this evening, I don't care, what difference does
it…No I won't. I'll wait until later to call him back—that won't kill me—then I'll figure out some night this week to hook up. God, I hate restraint. Maybe he can go to that opening of my friend's show with me tomorrow night. That'd be waiting long enough. Jesus, just kissing him yesterday was so divine. Maybe tonight really is okay. No, this is better (keep repeating that) because I need to focus on getting this order together, though I'd really rather see him instead.

Traffic has finally started moving now that I am east of La Brea and in the genteel pseudo–East Coast world of Hancock Park, which my neighborhood would be described real-estate listing-wise as “adjacent to.” I've never had a jewelry order this large before. For Lizzie, I just take new pieces to her store every four or five months, leave what she wants, then get a check (usually) after they sell. As for private sales, the most a customer has ever purchased at once was when a forced-retired-because-she-was-past-forty movie star ordered a ring, two bracelets, three necklaces, and four earrings. That was great. She loved everything, raved on and on, and wore four pieces in a picture for a
Los Angeles
magazine feature about her comeback film that then came and went, but the magazine tear sheet looks great in my press kit. She's someone I should send a brochure to, whenever that gets done.

But first I need to concentrate on Rox, especially since I told Sandra that everything would be delivered in a month. And then they'll send me the check, she said. Jesus, that's different from Lizzie's. Paid before the stuff even sells. Like real retail. Maybe now that I'm selling to Rox, I won't sell to Lizzie anymore. But no, it is another store; I just wish she'd get better about paying me. Although I'm not going to worry about that right now, I'm too thrilled about Rox. I hope everything flies out of the store, selling so fast that they order more more more. I start a quick prayer about that, then realize that I said one just a little while ago for Roxanne to buy my jewelry in the first place, and now here I am with something else. I guess if I'm in that pray-for cycle, it never ends.

And I do pray about stuff, but mostly to Mary, because growing up Catholic in a South Louisiana family (which is redundant), when I first met Mary as a child, I picked her out of everyone in that crowd because
God was clearly way too busy and Jesus always looked so unhappy up there on that cross, but Mary was something else. I figured she had gone through so much: being pregnant, but still telling everyone she's a virgin; having to mother, of all people, God. But in spite of all that, she always appeared okay and calm. I wanted that.

Not that I pray to her in mass. I quit going when I was fifteen and I was seeing widow-man and was having premarital sex, which the nuns said was a sin that turns your heart black and the priest can see it in your eyes right before he gives you communion, then I guess the altar boys bodily eject you from the church, I don't know, but I didn't want to find out, so I just quit going and never went back. About four years ago I started studying Buddhism, so I meditate every day, but frankly I'm still a lot more comfortable around a crucifix.

I was first introduced to Buddhism by an artist friend of mine, Steve, who took me to a meditation session that was held weekly at a Buddhist monk's crummy apartment in West Hollywood. It was very informal, and En Chuan, the monk, taught for free, so I really have no business saying anything about the crumminess of his building, but this was 1994 and the whole of Los Angeles was wrapped up in that “if you are really spiritual, then you'll manifest in all areas; i.e., you'll be rich” bullshit, so at first En Chuan's large and ugly 1980s junk-bond-built apartment building was a shock. But then it was a relief—I never could believe that harmony with God always results in large bank accounts.

What did convince me of En Chuan's authenticity was his constant smile and easy happiness; I wanted that. He was a doctor of Chinese medicine, sending most of his money each month to his family in Vietnam, and was a personal guru to several low-to-medium-wattage TV stars plus a hugely world-famous pop singer who would call for immediate (and free) in-person spiritual teachings at all hours of the day, though mostly night.

The weekly meditation group consisted of six of us who met every Wednesday night in En Chuan's beige-walled, brown-carpeted, lots-of-plants living room. We sat on black meditation cushions in a half-circle facing him—though one woman brought her own special leopard-print
pad—and En Chuan would talk to us about Buddhism. Steve and the rest of them had been going for months, so my first few sessions were mostly concerned with trying to get used to this higher level of cross-leggedness that everyone else was able to hold for what seemed hours on end, then stand up and walk around without charley horses or limbs that were asleep and half dead.

After a few months of going to meditation and getting inspired by the Buddhism, I decided to try not praying to Mary but to Kuan-En, the Buddhist goddess of love and compassion. Or I started meditating to her, is how I think the Buddhists would say it. I sat in my best effort at the lotus position and repeated her mantra (syllables whose vibrations engender love and compassion to yourself and all sentient beings, meaning animals, too, and plants, I think) over and over in my head.

A few weeks into this, once her mantra came easy and fast like a lullaby I could sing without knowing I remembered the words, a feeling would come over me, or up from within, of being comforted and held in Kuan-En's warm arms. It reminded me exactly of how I had felt as a child when I'd pray to Mary after waking up in the middle of the night from a bad dream. I'd be all turned around in bed, still terrified from the dream and of falling over the edge, so while I groped in the dark to find my pillow at the head, I'd say Hail Marys again and again, and that made me feel safe immediately. That was how Kuan-En's mantra made me feel—as if Mary were with me and meditating from within.

One night at the end of a session as everyone was putting their shoes back on, I pulled En Chuan aside and explained the familiar sense I'd get from Kuan-En's mantra while meditating.

“She's Mary,” En Chuan replied, looking at me with his dark, twinkly eyes. “That's why Kuan-En's mantra feels like Mary's prayer—it's just different forms of one energy. If it's more comfortable for you to use Mary's name, do. It doesn't matter; either way, it will help you.”

I was so relieved—to continue meditating, but to have Mary part of it, too, because I just feel better with her around. Even though I automatically use the word God, I'm really talking to Mary, not the Big Guy in the Sky. I like that I can relate with whomever (or whatever) I'm
praying to from a female point of view; and she was a female who actually got it all figured out. Even as a kid, I always knew that there was no way my experiences here on earth could ever be as difficult as hers. Of course, she didn't live in L.A.

I decide to stop at the wine and cheese shop on Larchmont Boulevard to pick up one of their special mozzarella/tomato/olive paste sandwiches and a cappuccino to fuel my work this afternoon and into tonight. I'll turn some music up loud when I get home—I figure since Gloria's never said one word about my screams, music isn't going to bother her. Maybe I'll put on that blues CD Reggie gave me on the disc rotator, with Lucinda Williams and Roxy Music, and let the hours slip away in a harmonic reverie of working on jewelry that will keep me distracted until I see Michael again.