Aftermath of Dreaming(77)



I am waiting for Michael, who is running late, in front of his friends’ house, which is in that demurely named Greek-god section of the Hollywood Hills, Mt. Olympus. Michael has friends who live in a house that I hate. I am expecting to see Malcolm McDowell walk outside in a toga any minute now. I wonder if they know that their house inspires hate. I decide that they don’t. I decide to remember this, this fault Michael has of picking friends with homes like this—I think it will help the next time he doesn’t spend the night.

I have changed my shirt a few times now. First into the alternate one that I brought, then back again. Then a few minutes later, I change again.

I had an odd feeling this morning when Michael called to invite me to this dinner party that there is a list. That if I had said no, the next woman would just slide into place, like a bullet in a gun. I know that’s not true. Literally. It’s probably just those tons-of-women Andrew memories getting to me. I mean, I know Michael has strong feelings for me. I just still don’t have any idea what they are. Or what we are to each other. Sometimes I think, Well, we’ve been seeing each other altogether for over a year now—we just have big breaks between dates, that’s all. I am trying to think of it more that we’re on our own time frame with each other, and I’m sure that at some point we really will progress. I’m choosing to look at our relationship in stages. Though I’m wanting to move forward to the next one. But sometimes I have a little feeling that with Michael there isn’t another stage after this. Though clearly, going to this dinner party at his friends’ house is some kind of relationship-progressing event. I think. I am waiting to see what he introduces me as.

Finally Michael arrives. I get out of my truck after he parks, and he does that little laugh of his when he sees me, like my presence is some kind of anticipated surprise he feels obligated to pretend he didn’t know about. The moon is completely, urgently full. It is hanging above the hills in a rather menacing way. Light is everywhere. It could practically be afternoon, especially with the way sunlight is out here. No hard shadows, just gleaming, glowy, never-landing light, as if it’s been decided that we all need to be looked at through a soft-focus lens.

As we embrace for a kiss, I notice more silver in Michael’s hair than I ever have and I know that each strand represents deejays and shows and audience numbers, and I wonder if even three concerned hairs are about us.

He actually does not introduce me to his friends at all. I walk in first and am immediately surrounded by the host and hostess, who repeatedly ask me my name while pecking at me with their hands as if I have layers and layers of clothes needing to be shed, which I don’t, and I try to find out their names, but for some reason they don’t tell me, so I turn to the only other guest there, Kevin, whose name I already do know because years ago I spent three days with him at an odd little film festival in Spain.

He was there with his eight-year-old daughter, and I was there with Tim, who was busy with his professional friends, so I kinda latched onto Kevin’s kid, Kitty, who spent the whole time teaching me the Spanish she had learned from her Mexican maid here in L.A.

I haven’t seen Kevin since then, but I guess being with Michael in our relative-time relationship, I forget that Kevin and I basically are virtual strangers, so I hug him. A big hug. I think “full body” is the right term for it. Immediately I feel him completely freeze up, but instead of stopping, I commit further like some kind of terrible therapy exercise, then I start patting him on the back, like my grandmother would when you rate a really special hug, and I just cannot seem to stop. Finally, I pull my body back from this very forward motion and see that Kevin looks totally frozen, as if he can only move his mouth.

I ask him about Kitty, who, he says, is away at boarding school. I wonder if the child is ever allowed to stay in L.A., then Kevin locks his eyes onto Michael as if he never wants to look away. I suddenly remember him doing that in Spain to Tim, and for the first time, I understand why I spent all that time there with his daughter. I wish she’d come flying through the door this minute so I’d have someone to talk to.

Instead, there is Slim. The hostess. I have managed to figure out her name, because Michael kept saying it to her, and seeing as how I have never heard him say word one to me or anyone about physical appearance, I figure this must be what she goes by. The pressure of that name leaves me exhausted. I wonder if it does that to her, too. She has very clearly had a face-lift, and I’ve never been able to tell any of that stuff—nose jobs, eye lifts, I mean, Michael Jackson could get by me—but this one is very noticeable. What strikes me is that her skin actually looks more tired pulled up so tight, as if it was just allowed to fall, it could finally rest. I want to give her skin a Valium.

Slim herds us into the dining room, which she has decorated in the style of old Pompeii. I am feeling profoundly mortal in a way I never have before. We sit down, the five of us, spread around a lap pool of a table. Salads are already at each place.

Kevin, who somehow has managed to find his chair, fork, and plate, all the while staring straight at Michael, announces that he hasn’t eaten a raw tomato in over twenty-five years. If it’s put under the broiler for even thirty seconds, he’ll eat it right up, but not raw, not him. Slim starts in about how a tomato isn’t even a vegetable at all, you know, it really is fruit, to which I say, “Yes, in August, I eat them all the time just like an apple. You know, a little salt and you’re set.”

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