Almost Royalty: A Romantic Comedy...of Sorts (18 page)

Unlike most Los Angeles synagogues, Rabbi O’Toole had no problem attracting younger members. In fact, his congregation was exploding with them. His Rock-the-Shabbat was an enormous hit and heavily attended. But the more senior rabbis became jealous, and somewhat fearful for their jobs. A small internal campaign was waged, and Rabbi O’Toole was ejected on the basis that his Judaism was not philosophically compatible with the synagogue’s existing philosophies, something to which the rabbinical staff had not given a second thought when Rabbi O’Toole was covering hospital visitations and funerals.

But Rabbi Francis O’Toole wasn’t flustered. He had been anticipating this action for one year, and in fact, planning his departure.

Relying heavily on his experience as an Herbalife salesman, he and Sabre created a corporate structure for their synagogue which ensured that he and Sabre could never be fired. There would be no board of directors, no officers, no pesky president of the synagogue to appease over parking spaces or who got to carry the Torah this week. He and Sabre would have all of the power, and be accorded the title “Head Distributors.” Everyone else would merely be their salesman.

But it wasn’t just his Herbalife years he relied on. His rock-n-roll experience was put to good use. Instead of having a permanent location, Rabbi O’Toole used the model of the “disappearing nightclub which only the chosen can find” for his synagogue.

Sometimes they were in a vacated Koo Koo Roo, which still smelled of roast chicken. Sometimes they were in the bottom of an abandoned building. Sometimes they were in the abandoned offices of a bankrupt law firm.

What was left of that blond mane, bleached white by so many summers at the beach, was in a pony-tail that went down to the middle of his back. And of course, Mo-Zest-Flock, led by Sabre’s original vocal stylings, rocked at every Shabbat, and his young congregation danced, pounded on the walls, and clapped themselves silly.

Whereas most synagogues followed a line of Judaism which generally fell into orthodox, conservative, or reform, Rabbi O’Toole’s had an original vision of Judaism which he called, “progressive-eclectic.” In truth, progressive-eclectic was a unique goulash of modern management orthodoxy, personal-empowerment psychology, and flagrant irresponsibility, for which he always attempted to find basis in the Torah through his original interpretations.

Short of singing “Jesus Loves Me” there was very little behavior which was unacceptable in Rabbi O’Toole’s synagogue on Shabbat. In fact, it was unusual to go through a Rockin’ Shabbat with Rabbi O’Toole and not see a minimum of twenty people talking on their cell phones while others checked email on their iPhones or ate Chinese food.

You wanted to read from Torah but weren’t Jewish? Come on up and join the other Roman Catholics who preceded you. You were thinking of converting but thought it was too difficult. Don’t worry. Come to synagogue for a while and when you’re ready we’ll have your conversion in someone’s swimming pool during a barbecue.

Rabbi O’Toole was doing something that no other rabbi had done. He was making Judaism accessible and acceptable—to Catholics, Christians, Buddhists, and Mormons. And the crowds who stuffed into his “location of the week” showed that his take-what-you-want-and-leave-the-rest version of Judaism, his progressive-eclectic, was speaking to a large group of Southern Californians, few of whom ever actually bothered to convert.

By the time I actually walked in the door, I think that things had gone a little too far. Sure, who hadn’t heard of Rabbi O’Toole’s infamous “How to Survive the High Holidays” lecture, a speech which all but admitted, “The holidays are a drag, but what are you going to do?” When I finally stumbled on the secret location, he was on to something much bigger: Comparing the biblical prophets from the Torah to ’60s, ’70s and ’80s television characters.

It was one thing when he compared Ruth, the Moabite who joined the tribe of Judah, to Alf, the alien, who joined the tribe of humans. I could almost understand his analogy of Jews, searching for a homeland, to the Tribbles on
Star Trek
, facing diaspora. But the day I got off Rabbi O’Toole’s “Judaism made Accessible” train was the day he told the story of Rachel and Leah by comparing them to Marsha and Jan, from
The Brady Bunch
. Even for a religious lightweight like me this was too much.

“You see, although Marsha was older than Jan she was the babe whom everyone wanted to date, just like Rachel.” I looked around the room and counted eight people who put their cell phones away as Rabbi O’Toole paused to see how his brilliance was affecting his congregation. “And Leah, like Jan, is the daughter that her dad needs to get connected, well in this case, he needs to marry her off… and we all remember how jealous Jan was of Marsha.” OK. I was embarrassed to realize that I, like everyone else in the congregation, did remember this, having watched more than my share of Nick at Nite. More to the point, I had that stinging moment of self-recognition when I realized that I knew much more about
The Brady Bunch
than I ever would about the Torah.

“Thank God I live on the Westside,” said some guy. Yes, I thought. Only on the Westside would you get challah with pesto in it. I was standing outside at Rabbi O’Toole’s latest secret location, the Yoga studio of a gym in Brentwood which was rumored to have once had O.J. Simpson’s football jersey hanging in it.

“Aren’t you, uh…?” I turned around. Some guy wearing a Hawaiian shirt and jeans was talking into his cell phone which was plastered to the side of his head. “No, I can’t go to the Lakers’ game with you tonight. My restaurant is opening.”

He wasn’t talking to me. I started to walk away.

“Hey, wait a minute,” said Mr. Cell-Phone, who stopped me by grabbing my arm.

“Aren’t you… Cathy?”

“No, I’m not,” I said as I walked away.

“Stop!” said Mr. Cell-Phone.

“Where did we meet, where did we meet?” said Mr. Cell-phone, eyeing me.

I knew where we had met.

Mr. Cell-Phone was that pompous guy Richard from the suicidally boring Ivy & Elite mixer.

“We met at an Ivy & Elite mixer. And your name is Richard.”

“Right. And you’re… Connie?”

“Courtney.”

“Right. Didn’t I get your phone number and everything?”

“I don’t remember.”

He had.

“Because if I did get your number, I was definitely going to call you. I mean, I never take someone’s phone number unless I’m going to call them.”

Silence from me.

“Well, how’d you convince them to let you in here… Connie?”

“Courtney.”

“Right. I mean, this place is pretty exclusive.”

“Richard, this isn’t an Ivy & Elite mixer.”

“I know. But…”

“And I think I have the credentials that this place might be looking for.”

“What’s that?”

“I’m Jewish.”

“You are?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t look Jewish.”

“Are you?” I asked.

“Am I what?”

“Are you Jewish?”

“Good Lord, no. I’m Episcopalian… Church of England.”

“Then what are you doing here?”

“This place is hot. I mean everybody is trying to get in here, if they can find it.”

“But you’re Episcopalian?”

“So what.”

“You follow ‘The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost’ party line?”

“Sure. Who doesn’t?”

“Well, Rabbi O’Toole, for one. Unless his progressive-eclectic has gone very wide, I’m pretty sure that he doesn’t follow your Holy Trinity line of reasoning.”

“Oh, that’s OK. To each his own. Besides, I’m not here for the religion. I’m here to pick up clients.”

Richard proceeded to tell me that due to his extensive list of contacts, Rabbi O’Toole had made him the leader of his Young Professionals Group.

“If you give me your phone number and if you go out with me sometime, I’ll bring you to the Young Pros Group,” he said.

I think I was beginning to understand. Richard’s interest in Rabbi O’Toole’s congregation might have been about clients. He was an agent. But then again, it might have been about an available and rapidly expanding pool of eligible women.

Hmmm.

“Richard, I gave you my phone number at the Ivy & Elite mixer. And since you said that you never take anyone’s phone number unless you’re definitely going to call them, I’ll definitely wait for you to call me.”

A day and a half later, he called.

“Carrie, I’m at Bar Marmont right now. It’s really hot. You should come down,” said the message on my voice mail.

Was that an invitation?

“You’ve got to go out with him,” said Bettina later that week while we were jogging.

“Yeah,” said Marcie, who had joined us in a fit of inspiration.

We were attempting to run seven miles, and the going was slow.

“What are you, nuts?” I said. “This guy’s a jerk.”

“He sounds like great husband material,” said Marcie.

“Would that be because you think he has money?” I said. “Why should I go out with someone who can’t even get my name right?”

“That,” said Bettina, “is the kind of detail that you need to overlook.”

Later that week, I got another message on my voicemail. “Cory, it’s Richard. Just checking in.” That, and the other six hang-ups on my voicemail, were definitely worth ignoring.

“Connie?” said a voice on the phone.

“No,” I said.

“I mean… Courtney?”

“Yeah…”

“Hey.”

“What?”

“It’s Richard.”

“What can I do for you… Rick?”

“It’s Richard, not Rick.”

“Whatever.”

“There’s this restaurant that’s opening.”

“Yeah.”

“And it’s going to be really hot.”

“OK.”

“And I’m a limited partner in the restaurant.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And I was wondering if you’d like to go to it with me.”

“I’m really busy right now, Rich.”

“Richard.”

“What?”

“It’s Richard, not Rich.”

“Whatever.”

“But this is the type of thing that you need to be seen at.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me. All the right people are going to be there.”

“I was wondering where they were hiding.”

“You really should take this more seriously,” he said. “I’m sure you don’t get invited to events like this too often.”

“If you really think that’s true, why would you want to be seen with me?”

“Because I think it will be… well… different. I’ve never dated a plus-size.”

“I’m a size 6.”

“That big? I thought you were a 4.”

In a city which had seen the proliferation of actresses who had punished their bodies into semi-starvation, the average dress size for women living between La Brea Boulevard and the Pacific Ocean spanned between a size 0 and a size 2. What made this statistic all the more miraculous was that many of these size 0s had little boy hips and 36D-size breasts.

And I was a size 6 and nowhere near a 36D.

“Well, Rickie,” I said.

“Richard.”

“Uh huh. Let me check my schedule and get back to you.”

It was a foregone conclusion that I was going to go out with him. I knew that Marcie and Bettina would nag me into it.

I wondered if I could find some place on the Westside that sold food with fat in it, so that maybe I could be really large—like a size 8—before we went out.

Richard took me to the restaurant of the moment, a Zagat-described “toughest ticket of the decade” on Melrose in West Hollywood.

“Did I tell you that I was a limited partner in this place?” he said, loudly enough to startle the non-English speaking valets.

“Every 15 minutes,” I said.

We entered the restaurant.

“I’m sorry, we don’t seem to have your reservation,” said the maitre d’.

“But I’m…” Richard turned his body away from me and asked to see the manager.

After what appeared to be a heated discussion with the manager and maitre d’ he came back.

“I set them straight. Let’s go to the bar and wait while they set up my table.”

The bar was, well, nice. I suppose the profit center of the restaurant has to be. I’m not sure what the normal mark-up is on wine, but Richard proceeded to order a Cab that even in the most marked-up retail stores goes for $42.00. Only here, it’s going for $90.00. And the two bottles of water he ordered (retail $2.00) are going for $18.00 a bottle.

We hadn’t had a piece of bread before he downed the Cab like it was Gatorade. And then he ordered another bottle.

We’ve got $276 on the tab, he’s a sloppy drunk, and we haven’t eaten a thing.

We’re finally seated at a table two inches from the swinging reach of the kitchen door, a table so small that it made the meal trays in an airline coach section look generous. It didn’t really qualify as a table. It was more of a tablet, something that my mom would have put on my lap so that I could eat dinner while watching television and not spill anything on myself.

“I love being where the action is,” said Richard.

“You know,” he went on, “there are no smart people in Los Angeles.”

Well, there were two things that I knew about Richard immediately.

Number 1.

“You went to SN-IVY,” I said.

“How’d you know?” he replied while reaching for what would be his sixth glass of wine, which he proceeded to spill on our tablet.

It was easy.

You couldn’t have a two-word conversation such as “excuse me” with a SN-IVY (my acronym for the School that was Not-Ivy League but managed to produce the biggest jerks in the world) grad without receiving 20 minutes of pure disdain. Innocent remarks such as “That’s interesting,” “Turn left here,” or “Can I help you?” could be counted on to produce a torrent of snotty remarks from a SN-IVY grad such as “Not really,” “What do you know?” or “Why would you think that you could help me?”

It was as if they purposely asked you questions to set you up for their ludicrous reply, which was always delivered on autopilot as if it pulsed from a chip that had been implanted in their brain on the day they signed the SN-IVY acceptance letter and had Daddy send in the deposit.

I usually knew better than to engage with a SN-IVY person, but sometimes I slipped: A SN-IVY Grad once asked me the history of my violin and before I realized that it was a typical SN-IVY set-up, she cut me off after ten words with “Does anyone care?”