The Break-Up Diet: A Memoir (33 page)

“This one's a top seller,” Sex Toy Lady said, lifting a neon blue phallic item out of her case and setting it on the coffee table. She stretched the electric cord to an outlet. Suddenly the mock penis swung into action and began hula dancing on the table. Ball bearings rotated under the surface of the blue rubber skin.

I couldn't imagine how that could possibly be comfortable. It looked more like something Martha Stewart would use to mix cake batter than something I'd want to use for sex.

The Lady held up another item—a dildo with a suction cup attached at the base. “This one's perfect if y'all ever wanna fuck Brad Pitt.” She licked the suction cup and stuck it wetly onto the television screen.

Although I can't say I never thought about the prospect, a dildo stuck to the TV wouldn't exactly be my preferred method.

The next item was a bottle of silicon lubricant. “It's amazin’,” Sex Lady said. “You can even screw in a hot tub and it won't warsh away.”

“Oh, this is my favorite!” Tawny reached into the grab bag and withdrew a hot pink, rubber cylinder the size of a Twinkie.

“It's perfect for giving guys hand jobs in movie theaters. If you grab it real tight on the end and pull it real fast, they blow their load instantly,” she said.

I peeled my eyebrows out of my hairline. There are just some things I'd rather not know about my friends and their sex lives.

Except maybe which theater seats
not
to sit in.

After nearly two hours of sex toy show and tell, I turned to the lady and said, “When do we get to see the lingerie?”

The roomful of women burst into laughter.

Personally, I didn't think it was particularly funny. I actually wanted to buy something cute to wear for Steven and was pretty sure he'd prefer it wasn't a glow-in-the-dark strap-on.

I guess the joke was on me. I realized the fact that “Lingerie Party” looks more acceptable on an invitation than writing: You're invited to my Wacky Dildo Party—where B.Y.O.B. means Bring Your Own Batteries.

sunflower in a bucket of snow

Easter
Sunday, April 20

The Easter Bunny was very good to me this year.

He hopped into the bedroom of our rented mountainside condo with a tray of croissants, fresh berries, orange juice, and a little blue Tiffany & Co. box. I pounced on the box and pulled a tail of the white bow. It opened to a silver
Return to Tiffany
tag bracelet.

A family snowboarding trip to Mammoth completed Steven's Easter present.

We sat at the thick oak table in our room and watched the passing chairs of the ski lift from the window while we finished breakfast. After dressing for the day, Josh, Steven, and I stepped out of the lodge into the crisp morning air.

“Mom, you look like a sleeping bag with arms and legs.” Josh laughed and shouldered his rented snowboard.

“Anything less than seventy-five degrees is too cold.” Spring skiing, my ass. I'd rather be in St. Bart.

“Are you sure you don't want to try it?” Josh teased, stepping into the bindings.

“No. I'm fine. I'll just wait here and take pictures when you guys come down,” I said.

“Are you sure, honey?” Steven held my shoulders and looked into my eyes. “If you want, I'll hang out with you in the lodge.”

“No, of course not. You guys go up and try not to kill yourselves. I'll just watch.”

The ski lift scooped Josh and Steven onto the bench seat. I followed the cables with my eyes until their seat was a speck against the blue sky.

I trudged carefully in the slush to the end of the run where they would eventually descend. Skiers and snowboarders whizzed by. I watched their movements as the skiers toed in to slow down and the snowboarders plowed their boards. It looked easy enough.

A small boy, not possibly older than seven, carved down the hill on a board the size of a Popsicle stick.

If that little guy could master it, I wouldn't have any problems; I'm pretty coordinated.

Soon an older lady followed; the unruly curls of her gray hair sprung from underneath a knitted hat as she slid to a stop in the icy trenches of muddy snow leading to the lift.

Okay, that did it. If a ninety-year-old woman could snowboard, I sure as hell could.

I tromped to the ski shop and rented a snowboard and boots. It wasn't long before Steven and Josh came zipping down the hill. Josh's experience on his skateboard made it a quick and easy transition to the snow. Steven skied for years in Switzerland, so Mammoth was little effort once he adjusted to the snowboard.

I stood holding the board and shuffled my boots in the slushy snow.

“You're going to snowboard?” Josh laughed and covered his mouth with a gloved hand.

“Are you sure you don't want to practice first?” Steven asked.

“No, I got it. I can do this, let's just go.”

Steven sat beside me on the lift bench. I linked my arm through his and curled it tightly. With my other hand, I death-gripped the metal frame of the seat.

The biting wind from the ascending lift chapped my cheeks and I shivered.

“Look at how beautiful everything is.” Steven nudged my side.

“That's okay. I'll take your word for it.” I kept my eyes squinched closed. The board dangled from my right leg and felt heavy enough to pull me off the seat.

I could just see it. Me, free-falling hundreds of feet directly into a pine tree and being carted away on a stretcher to a waiting medevac helicopter. Now, that's my idea of a great winter vacation.

“Get ready to step off,” Steven said as the ski lift reached the top. “Hold out the leg with the board first and step into it with your other foot as you come off the seat.”

WHOMP.

I tripped over the snowboard and found myself facedown under the lift.

The next bench was empty and narrowly missed hitting me in the head. I stood up quickly before another seat arrived and hobbled off the angled mat, one leg free, the other still snapped into the binding.

Steven held out his hand to help me step into the snow. “Are you all right?” he asked.

A cute, young blonde with a bright pink scarf tucked into her resort staff vest lifted a camera in my direction. “Would you like a picture?”

I brushed the dirty slush from the front of my jacket. “No,” I smiled with gritted teeth. “I would
not
like a picture.”

Steven helped steady me as I snapped into my bindings. I swiveled my hips toward the run and nudged my board forward. I skied ten feet and promptly fell over.

My bottom buried in the snow, it was like dropping anchor. I couldn't move until Steven came over and hoisted my anvil of an ass off the ground.

I stood unstably until he snapped back into his own bindings a few feet away. And then I fell over again.

“See if you can get up on your own,” he said.

It was the most absurd exercise further proving Newton's first law of physics. Forget the apple, just use my ass. There seemed to be some sort of magnetic field in the snow pulling me down. I fell every six feet, sometimes less. Once my butt landed in the snow, there was little I could do to lift myself. I struggled like an upended turtle.

On another three-foot distance ski, I fell forward onto my hands and knees. I pulled to a crouched position and clawed at the edge of the snowboard until the weight of my bottom pulled me over backward into the snow again.

It took forty-five minutes just to get far enough away from the lift so I couldn't see it anymore. It felt, only slightly, like progress.

“When you want to turn, point your arms in the direction you want to go,” Steven called out.

The grade of the hill changed and I started to pick up speed. My snowboard was headed straight for a large, rough-barked tree trunk along the side of the run.

“Turn! Turn!” Steven yelled.

By then, I was flapping my arms like Super Chicken. I knew I needed to stop, but wasn't sure how. I kicked my legs out from under myself and the board spun in the snow. I landed hard. When my ass hit the ground, I bounced. My beanie and sunglasses flew off, and I slid thirty feet headfirst down the hill.

Yard Sale. Snow accessories. Finders-keepers.

I lay still in the snow, staring up at the clear blue sky. Hot tears filled my eyes.

“Are you okay?” Steven plowed to a stop beside me.

Quickly, I reached to wipe away the tears. I didn't want him to see me cry. When I pulled my gloved hand up to dry my eyes, it dropped a dusting of snow across my face.

Steven unclipped his boots from his board and crouched beside me. “Ready to try again?” He took off one glove, brushed the snow off my cheek, and leaned to kiss my forehead. “I love you,” he said.

“I love you too.” It came out in a whisper. I couldn't trust my voice wouldn't break.

I felt like such a failure. All I wanted to do was be perfect for him. I wanted so much for him to love me because everything about me was right. And exactly what he wanted.

This beautiful, wonderful man loved me and had so much patience. But all I wanted to do was scream down an avalanche by kicking my feet and pounding my fists into the snow.

Josh slid to a stop a short distance away. “Geez Mom, this is the second time I've passed you. And you still haven't made it down the hill once yet?”

Steven shot Josh a warning look, shaking his head slightly, and waving a hand low to signal Josh to shut up.

That's when Josh became the target for a motherly iron-melting glare.

He caught the look. “Well, I'm gonna go.” He waved. “See you in a few minutes.” Josh maneuvered his board and shot down the hill.

Steven reached under my arms and lifted me to my feet, turning me around like a propeller until I faced the right direction.

Again, I skied ten feet and fell. I sat in the snow and unclipped my boots from the bindings.

Steven looked into my eyes for a long moment. Without a word, he stepped out of his bindings and shouldered both snowboards. He leaned to kiss my cheek and we walked the rest of the way down the hill holding hands.

There was just too much of a gap between my sheer force of will and my technical abilities. Maybe there are just some things that I really can't do.

golden girls take the scenic route to hollywood

Thursday, May 8

Yesterday, I called Valerie on the phone. “You're old!” I cackled like a witch and then hung up.

The annual pre-birthday telephone assault.

Today, I gifted her with my traditional birthday song. It was “Happy Birthday to You”—with a twist that included comments about her living environment, as well as, her odor and facial resemblance to a small primate. I crooned the song off-key at the top of my lungs, dragging out all of the vowels in yooou, zoooo, and monkeeey. She laughed, as did her partners at the firm and the rest of the staff that were apparently standing in the room while I was singing.

You've got to love speakerphones.

We planned to meet at Bonita's condo in Costa Mesa. Slated for Valerie's thirty-seventh birthday: a drive up to the City of Angels, dinner at a Mexican restaurant, and then over to see
The Producers
at the Hollywood Pantages Theater.

We arrived at Bonita's—all wearing the same suede boots.

Isn't there a proverb: birds of a feather shop together, or something like that?

“No one will notice.” I waved off the minor social disaster.

We climbed into Valerie's SUV for the road trip. Bonita hopped in the back. I rode in the shotgun slash navigator position—the perks of getting carsick like a dog.

“Which way should we go?” Valerie asked.

She rarely ventured north of the Orange County line.

“Take the 405 Freeway North to the 605 North to the 5 North to the 101 Freeway,” I said. “It's the fastest way with the least traffic.”

For the first thirty-five minutes, we drove in silence, definitely some sort of Guinness Book world record.

“How about some music?” I hoisted my bulging, leather CD case, opened it in the middle and flipped the pages. Bob Marley, John Mayer, Natalie Merchant, Nelly, Next, Nine Inch Nails, Pet Shop Boys, The Police, Puddle of Mudd…

Eclectic, yes. Alphabetically OCD, absolutely.

“Do you have any jazz?” Bonita asked, leaning between the seats.

I faked a cough. Excuse me whilst I remove this bone from my throat. “Um…noooo,” I said. “My CD collection would rise up in mutiny and shrink-wrap me in my sleep.”

“How about something Top 40 that we can all sing to?” Valerie said.

I slid a blood red CD into the player and advanced to the third track so we could all sing along to my favorite codependency theme song. In unison, we belted out the lyrics, earnestly promising we would be there to save some guy and take him away from his life.

“We should go to a karaoke club some night,” Valerie said, “but first we should stop off to pick up a case of ear plugs and pass them out before we start singing.”

I ran with the idea. “Let's just buy a karaoke machine, hook it up to my big screen and we can have singing slumber parties.”

“And we can bring a few bottles of wine,” Bonita said.

Can you get evicted for singing like a drunken dog with its tail caught in a door?

“Exit Santa Monica Boulevard and turn right,” I said to Valerie.

“What's the name of the restaurant?” Bonita asked.

“El something-or-other. I ate there once with a friend's family.”

“Is it open for dinner this early?” Valerie looked at me. “You called to make a reservation, right?”

“I called, but it was hard to understand the guy who answered the phone. I think he said they changed owners and now they serve Mexican seafood. When I asked, he said we don't need a reservation.”

“Mexican seafood sounds good,” Valerie said. “For lunch, I had grilled Ono brushed with a rosemary marinade. Fish is on my diet. I didn't eat the rice pilaf though, too many carbs.”

“How long ago did you say you were here?” Bonita asked, looking out the window at the passing shops and pedestrians.

“About fifteen years ago,” I said.

I took a second look at the neighborhood we were driving through. Bubbled and stick letter graffiti decorated the walls. Gray wrought iron bars covered the murky store windows.