Aftermath of Dreaming(103)
After enduring twenty minutes of this while alternately calculating how many sweaters this session is costing and admonishing myself to get back in the moment and “Enjoy this, goddammit,” I sit straight up, look the masseuse in the eye, and say, “Okay, it’s my birthday, but stop spanking me.” She looks completely shocked, as am I, so I try to diffuse things by laughing, which helps not at all, then I realize that she has in her favor both being fully clothed and able to hit while I do not, so I grab my towel and leave.
Suzanne and Matt are giving me a party this evening, but I don’t know if I want to celebrate being thirty. The number sounds frightening, but I can’t keep saying I’m twenty-nine because, for one thing, I’m not, and what would I do about the events of whichever year that I’d have to erase? And for another, the whole time I was officially twenty-nine and would tell someone that in response to their horrid question, it always felt like a lie. “I’m twenty-nine” begs the unspoken thought, “She must be thirty.”
As I drive to Suzanne and Matt’s house in one of my new sweaters, which is not making me feel as fabulous as I had thought it would when I tried it on in the Barneys dressing room, I want to call Suzanne from my cell phone and tell her that I can’t make it after all. But I know I can’t do that, so I console myself with the fact that at least it’s not a surprise party, thank God, just a regular one.
Although, actually, maybe the party should have been a surprise because then everyone who’s going to come has arrived by the time you open the door. But with a regular party, guests can show up anytime they want, if they actually remember to come. I spent the entire blessedly short soirée praying that more people would walk through the door, as I tried to be a happy and appreciative birthday girl for Matt, Suzanne, and the few obviously date-book-proficient guests who remembered to attend. Maybe it being on a Monday night confused people and it got erased from their minds somehow. Or Suzanne didn’t call everyone, but I doubt that. It was the first time I had seen Reggie since our day two weeks ago in Santa Barbara, and though we’ve been talking on the phone to try to ease past our blowup, the moment we hugged hello felt weird. Like it was uncomfortable to hug, but also uncomfortable not to hug, so we ended up having one of those don’t-know-the-other-person-too-well, quick, sideways hugs. I know he felt it, too.
I considered telling Suzanne that I was too tired for the cake, but I knew that wouldn’t fly with her, especially since she had made my favorite German chocolate cake like Momma used to. Even with that, I could not get out of there fast enough when the party was over—rather early, thank God.
Driving home on the PCH to get to the 10, I look out my truck’s windshield into the night. There isn’t a heavenly body in sight. In fact, the entire sky is completely blank, as if God had dragged a blanket along on His way to bed, catching every object in its hem. I wonder if some huge erasing phenomenon is going on—the entire zodiac of stars and calendars obliterated forever. I decide to feel lucky that the erasing hadn’t gotten around to everyone’s date book before my party began; at least some people came. And maybe it means that this birthday doesn’t have to count. Maybe the universe is giving me a little gift for all my teenage years in bars when I looked older but really wasn’t, so now I can truly be younger and not only when I have sex.
It is too early to go to bed when I get home and I have a feeling I won’t be tired for a long time anyway, as if I am destined to be awake for every hour of this dreadful birthday. So I sit on my couch, wondering if Momma is thinking of me wherever she is, if her spirit is sending me birthday love. Maybe Daddy thought of me today. But probably not, considering that the last birthday of mine that he was around for was sixteen years ago. It seems more probable that Momma did from beyond the grave.
The ringing of the phone is such a jolt that it makes me jump. As I pick up the receiver, wondering whose date book the erasing possibly could have passed over, I hear “Happy birthday” in my ear. It takes me a minute to believe who it is.
“How did you get this number?”
I realize that isn’t the friendliest greeting in the world, but I am in shock. Andrew’s perfect vocal shield wraps me in close as he tells me that he’s been calling it for quite a while, which really is not an answer, but he has just never left a message. For over two years since I moved into this apartment, I’ve had a different phone number from the one he used to call me at in my Beverly Hills apartment when we were seeing each other, so the only way he could have gotten this number was if he had called my old Beverly Hills number within six months after I moved to this one and gotten the referral for my new one here. Which means that some of those hang-ups I’ve heard on my answering machine in the past five years actually have been him, my fantasy confirmed. I can tell he is on a cell phone and driving in his car, moving through the city under the big, empty sky.
“You sure flew out of that theater fast,” he says. “Fuckin’ FBI couldn’t find you.”
“Yeah, well, I guess they didn’t look very hard.”
“I think about you a lot more than you think I do.”
“Well, considering that I don’t think you think about me at all, I guess you do.”
Which makes him laugh, which makes me laugh, and there it is. One second of mutual time between us yielding and spreading until it connects our now with when we were before. A highway in one hello.