Tart (22 page)

He tries very hard not to laugh, but it's no use. “You, um. Well, let's see…you were dancing with this guy, I think his name was…what was it? Something unusual…”

“Clay?” I ask hopefully.

“No. Something else. You were ranting about Clay most of the night, but the guy you ended up with had some other name. Oh. I know. Malcolm. No, wait, that's wrong. Merrit. He seemed to know you. You know a Merrit?”

“Vaguely,” I say.

“Well, you got to know each other much better last night.”

“Oh, God.” I bury my face in my hands. “Why me?”

“He was cute,” Tim offers. “Funny accent.”

“British?” I ask.

“Yeah, exactly. See? You do know him.”

“Whatever. Um, if it's not too grisly, do you mind saying what I did with him?”

“Like I said, you were dancing. Pretty close. Lots of tongue action, from where I was standing.”

“Fuck,” I mumble.

“And then you got up on the bar.”

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

“Which was okay—I mean, you know, it was April Fool's Day, you were in the spirit of things. Except then…”

“Please,” I cry, pulling at my hair. “Just get it over with. What did I do?”

“You fell off. Or possibly, you dove—it's debatable.”

“No.”

“And then, when Merrit tried to help you up, you sort of…” He cringes.

“
What?
Tell me.”

“Puked.”

“No. What did he do?”

“Seeing as the projectile landed more or less on his very pricey-looking shirt, he mostly tried to get it off.”

“Oh, God.” I flop back down on my futon, utterly destroyed. “Just tell me. Was my wig still on?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you, Angels of Mercy,” I sigh. “At least Cleo's the alcoholic slut, not me.”

“Except you did give this Merrit character your phone number.”

“Yeah,” I laugh. “And I'm sure he'll be calling right away.”

“Oh, he already did,” he says, handing me a slip of paper with a phone number on it. “I told him you'd call as soon as you're feeling better.”

 

I do the only thing I can do, of course: I get the hell out of Santa Cruz. Even if it
was
Cleo who made an ass of herself, I need a change of scene or I'll wilt with regret and humiliation. I'm so desperate, I actually visit my father, who's a good sport and takes me to the movies, but I feel like a loser, sharing popcorn with my dad on a Friday night, watching gorgeous people fall in and out of love on the big screen. Saturday, I go to my mom's and savor the sight of Em eight months pregnant, looking considerably more swollen and less perky than usual. But watching my mother dote on her, asking every five minutes if she'd like more ice cream or a cool rag for her forehead is too depressing, so I end up leaving early Sunday morning. I stop in the city to hobble around aimlessly on my half-healed ankle, fingering the cheap trinkets in Chinatown and longing for the expensive shoes in North Beach. When I drive past Clay Street a debilitating wave of melancholy and jealous rage breaks on me; I have to pull over because the tears are making my contact lenses all foggy.

When I get home Sunday night, Rose tells me that Merrit called twice. “And…?” I press hopefully.

“And what?”

“Nothing,” I say, crushed.

There's a long pause as I drag my duffel bag in and heave it onto my futon.

“Okay,” Rose says, as if she's been holding her breath. “I won't lie. Clay called, too.”

“He did?” I hate to admit how my voice wobbles with hope and happiness.

“Three times,” she confesses grudgingly.

“Really?”

“But, Claudia, let's face it. The guy's a two-timing weasel.”

“Maybe it wasn't him at the pub—or, maybe that girl's just a friend….”

She shoots me a deeply sarcastic look, and I flop onto my futon in despair.

“You're right. I'm pathetic.”

“Just forget him, okay?”

“Ha. Easy for you to say.”

“Not easy for me to say. I liked him a lot—I thought he was perfect for you.”

“You did?” I sit up, a goofy grin on my face.

“
Until
I saw him with that prepubescent skank.”

I flop onto my back again. “You're right. He's in rebound mode. Making up for lost time. I won't call him back.”

“You definitely will not. And I think you should call Merrit. He's adorable. You love Brits.”

“Hmm,” I say doubtfully. “I puked on him.”

“He's still interested, obviously. And he'll help you get your mind off Clay.”

“Maybe.”

“So call him,” she says, bringing me the phone and the scrap of paper with his number on it. Rex comes, too, and stares at me mournfully, huffing his dog breath into my face. He's been freshly braided and looks like Bob Marley.

“Not tonight,” I say.

“Why not?”

“I'm busy,” I mumble, clutching a pillow to my chest.

Rose gives me a look, and so does Rex, but they both back off and head for the bathroom together. “Okay. If you say
so. I've got to shower fast. I'm meeting Tim downtown in a few minutes. You want to come?”

“No, thanks. That's great, though. Is he as soul matey as you suspected?”

She just shrugs mysteriously and fights an impish grin. “He's pretty fantastic. But I don't want to jinx it.” Then she shuts the bathroom door and turns on the shower.

I lie there, listening to the water running through the ancient pipes, hearing them groan and grumble deep in the walls. I wish Rose was going to be around to chaperone me, make sure I don't do anything stupid like binge on Häagen-Dazs or dial the seven little numbers that would deliver up Clay Parker's irresistible voice.
You've got self-control,
I tell myself;
you just stay right here, Bloom. Clay Parker? You don't need no stinking Clay Parker, you've got better things to do with your time.

With this mantra looping through my brain, I settle in for a long night of staring at the ceiling.

Around eleven o'clock, as I'm digging into my third bowl of Dulce de Leche, I actually pick up the cordless and punch in the first five digits of his number. What makes me put it down again isn't willpower, sadly, but my fear of the hello I'll hear: that bubbly, twenty-one-year-old sassy brunette voice—an echo of the tart I once was.

F
irst faculty meeting of spring quarter, all in attendance, and I'm so bored I'm covertly listing everything I can think of. I start with “Ten Worst Fashion Faux Pas in This Room,” then move on to “Best Orgasms of My Life” (as soon as I realize number one was with Clay Parker, I abandon this endeavor). Eventually, I opt for the much safer “Rose's Soul Mates Since August,” which I attempt to order chronologically. I'm on number thirty, circa New Year's, when out of the gray sea of acronyms and the never-ending slosh of budget concerns, something of interest bobs to the surface.

“Speaking of guest artists, guess who's here in Santa Cruz as we speak? Merrit Russell. Can you believe it?” The faculty responds to Westby's announcement with the appropriate collective gasp. I bite my lip.

“
Serenade
's up for a Tony,” says Monica, and she's so front-of-the-class crisp in her Liz Claiborne separates, I almost feel sorry for her. She keeps shooting Westby needy, approval-seeking glances. I wonder how Clay ever made it through
seven years of marriage to such a kiss-ass. “I read in the
New Yorker
that he's in town for a few months.”

“Monica and I have been racking our brains trying to find him, but so far we've had zero luck.” Westby turns up her palms.

“He's quite a recluse, from what I understand,” Monica says. “Even so, we wanted to get him up here for
something
—a guest lecture, anything. It would be a shame to let him go without even meeting him.” And then, perhaps afraid this sounds too groupie-like, “Our students would really benefit—they come in contact with so few award-winning writers.” I cringe, knowing what's coming next. “When I was at NYU…” She starts every other sentence this way. Mare steps on my toe under the table and I suppress a giggle. “…there was a constant flood of top-notch writers, directors, actors. On my first day of grad school I met Tony Kushner. Imagine.” If she says another word about the vastly superior cultural benefits of New York, I'm afraid I'll puke all over her pressed yellow blouse.

Before I can stop myself, I blurt out, “I can get Merrit Russell.”

Monica slips her glasses down slightly on her nose and peers at me. I swear she studies Westby and copies her gestures precisely. Pretty soon she'll be doing the mad-eye twitch. “What does that mean, exactly? You can ‘get Merrit Russell'? Are you familiar with his work?”

“Of course I am.” Okay, not a lie. I didn't realize he was a playwright, let alone up for a Tony, but if rumors are to be believed, I French-kissed him, or Cleo did, anyway. “We're friends.”

Monica clears her throat. “Is that right?” I know she doesn't believe me. Every head in the room is turned toward us now, gawking like rubberneckers at a grisly car crash. “Then why did you fail to respond to the faculty e-mail I sent out, requesting any information that might help me contact him?”

Gulp. She's got me there. “I don't always, um, read. Every. E-mail?”

“Right,” she says, her eyes darting first to Esther Small, then to Westby.

Mare steps in. “We really do need to cut back on the e-mails. The other day I came in and found fifty-nine new messages.”

“Good point, Mare. And that's interesting, Claudia—you know Merrit Russell.” This from Westby, who's wearing one of her many cryptic expressions and tapping the tips of her fingers together lightly.

“Sure. He's working on a play set in Santa Cruz. That's why he's here.”

Monica barely stifles a choking, incredulous sound. She tries to disguise it as a cough, but nobody's fooled.

“Catching a cold?” I ask her icily.

She smiles. “Of course you're aware that Russell's work has always focused on issues of class in eighteenth-century England?”

I swallow hard and nod. Is it possible I've got the wrong Merrit Russell? Could I be talking about the perverted barfly Merrit Russell, while Monica's referring to the Tony Award nominee?

“I just find it curious,” she continues, “that he would take a sudden interest in little old Santa Cruz.”

Around the table, there are chuckles and exchanged glances as the tenured crowd savors the comic relief I've inadvertently provided; their collective smugness makes me want to scream.

I dig my nails into my own thigh and announce in what I hope is a calm yet commanding voice, “We could do a staged reading of his new play.”

Westby sits up straighter and gives me what I think might be an encouraging look. “Could you arrange that?”

“I'm pretty sure,” I say. “He's a totally cool guy.”
Note to self: stop saying “totally” and “cool” at faculty meetings.
“He'd probably go for it.”
Also, nix “go for it.”

“Excellent. Would you direct it?”

“Love to.”

Monica's shooting poisonous darts from her eyes, and Esther Small's mouth looks like she just bit into a lemon, but Westby's obviously pleased and maybe even a little proud. “Keep me posted on that. It sounds like a very good plan.” She glances at Monica. “This may not be NYU, but we can occasionally provide glimpses of culture here.”

I concentrate on repressing a savage cry of victory when I see the look on Monica's face.

And then I realize: I'm now forced to ask a Tony nominee to save my career—a Tony nominee I recently puked on.

 

Okay. Mega-panic. It's moments like these I wish I were a Valium addict. My heart has migrated from its usual spot in my chest and is now performing a naughty little samba in my throat. I'm sitting (scratch that: Cleo's sitting) at a sunny table in the Java House, waiting for Merrit Russell.

After I called yesterday and we set up a time to meet, I was faced with a terrible dilemma: to wig, or not to wig. I went around and around for hours, putting it on and yanking it off, until Rosemarie finally saved me with “Look, just wear the stupid thing or he won't recognize you. Take it off later if you feel like it.”

“Cleo.” I jerk my head around so violently, my Cleo hair nearly flies across the room, but thanks to the wonder of bobby pins I'm still a brunette when I rise to meet him.

“Merrit.”

He hugs me with surprising force, then kisses me on the cheek. This could be interpreted as merely European, though it feels decidedly intimate and even nuzzly, which is a little disturbing.

“How
are
you?” I gush, backing up awkwardly and successfully knocking over my chair. I blush and he quickly rights the chair, chuckling fondly, as if this is a private joke between us—you kiss, I knock things over.

“I'm fine. Wow, look at you. You're even lovelier in the light of day.”

I clear my throat and wish to God I had some memory of our night spent groping, just so we'd be on the same page. Then I recall the dancing-off-bar-puking-on-shirt part and figure that blackout is preferable in this case.

We sit down and I sip my water. “I'm really sorry about that night,” I begin, as my cheeks burn.

“What do you mean? I had a great time.”

“Did you?” I ask, not bothering to hide my disbelief.

“I never liked that shirt, anyway,” he says, looking very serious. Then his eyes go bright and he laughs and I start to loosen up a touch. “Actually, all my friends back home are shameless alcoholics. Imagine how relieved I am to find out not all California girls live on wheatgrass and tofu.”

“Wheatgrass, tofu and tequila,” I say. “The three basic food groups.”

We banter. We flirt. We talk books, movies, London, music, California, food and celebrities. It's not exactly relaxing; I feel decidedly on the spot, but he is the epitome of charm, and I do get a little buzz off his flirting.

Eventually, I've got to work the conversation around to the hard part, namely why I'm here, in a goofy
Pulp Fiction
wig, pretending to be Cleo Coors who sells underwear at the mall, when really I'm a bad dye-job blonde trying to manipulate him into handing over his play.

Unfortunately, there's no natural segue into this kind of thing, so after an hour of torturous foreplay, I finally opt for the element of surprise. “By the way,” I say, yanking off my wig, “I'm not really a brunette.”

His eyes widen.

“And…well, my name's not Cleo, either.”

“Let me guess,” he says. “FBI.”

“No, but I like that. Um…I know, this is totally weird. I just—I wore the wig a couple times as a lark, and I happened to run into you.”

“Both times.”

“Yeah. Then the name was—I don't know, something I threw together. That sounds so lame.”

He reaches across the table and squeezes my hand. “It's okay,” he says. “I'm a writer. I like interesting people.”

“Interesting. That's a good euphemism.”

“Okay,” he says. “I like crazy people. So what's your name, if you don't mind my asking?”

“Claudia.”

“Lovely. Claudia what?”

“Bloom.”

“Ahh,” he says, nodding knowingly, as if this explains everything. “Claudia Bloom.”

“I don't sell underwear at the mall.”

“Don't you, now?” He looks increasingly amused, which I suppose is better than incensed.

“No, I don't. I teach theater at the university. Mostly acting and directing.”

This elicits a single arched eyebrow. “Interesting,” he murmurs.

“And, well, I have a favor to ask.”

“Uh-huh…?”

“I would be absolutely and completely indebted to you if you would please, please, please let me do a tiny staged reading of your play. The one you're working on. Any part—I don't care—it could be nothing but the footnotes. I mean seriously, it would just help me out in this totally important way because I'm such a complete idiot I got myself into this huge bind and I—”

“No problem.”

“What?”

He's smiling at me the way you smile at a retarded child who's just done something very touching, albeit idiotic. “I said, no problem. I finished a draft last week. I'd love a chance to see it on its feet.”

“You're kidding. Really?”

“Really.”

“Oh, God, Merrit, I can't even tell you how much I appreciate this.”

“I can see that,” he says, his smile going a little wolfish around the edges. “And don't think for a minute I'm above exploiting that.”

 

I'm lying on my couch with Medea curled snugly on my chest, thinking about Clay, unfortunately. I keep swinging back and forth between the kind of longing that makes your stomach drop pleasantly and the kind of jealousy that makes you want to vomit or break things.

I've been avoiding his phone calls for weeks. He finally showed up on my doorstep this morning, demanding an explanation for my disappearance. The sight of him there almost made me give in—I wanted to press myself against him so desperately, smell his fragrant heat—but then I thought of my dark-haired replacement, and his arm slung over her shoulder. I refused to make a scene, so I just told him that things weren't working out. I babbled on about not wanting to be exclusive, about seeing other people. Every single trite breakup cliché that popped into my head came flying through my lips. I think I even used that tired old line “I just want to be friends.” It was pathetic.

He looked sad, then angry, then his face went sort of blank, like someone who doesn't speak English. I wanted to tell him the truth—about seeing him with that girl, and how it made me throw up, I was so upset—but my pride kept me rattling off vague phrases about “needing space” and “not being ready for a commitment.” Eventually, he just shook his head at me, like I'd really disappointed him, turned around and left without a word of goodbye. That pissed me off. As if I was the one who'd screwed up. It wasn't me who decided to test drive a younger model.

After replaying this scene twenty or thirty times, I force myself to think about this afternoon; I'd spent it strolling
through the redwoods with Merrit, discussing our plans for his play,
Organically Grown.
Half a mile into our hike, he lit a cigarette, took a seat on a mossy stump and confessed he wasn't much of an outdoorsman. After the cigarette, and a breath mint, and a long, reasonably pleasant kiss, he put his hand on my breast, and I removed it. I can't remember the last time I removed the hand of someone I was willing to kiss.

And there, in the presence of warm April sunlight streaming through branches and the hush of all those ancient, towering trees, I covered my face with my hands and started to cry.

Conveniently, Merrit assumed I was overwhelmed by my attraction to him and started babbling nervously about “No pressure” and “Just enjoying every moment.”

I had no desire to tell him the truth: that I was crying because I wasn't twenty-two anymore, and because I'd finally fallen in love—me, who doesn't even believe in love, most days—and because I was no longer thrilled to kiss someone just because his mouth tasted different from the last mouth I kissed.

Medea looks up, blinks at me and inches closer to my face. She stretches her neck until her tongue is tracing tiny sandpaper trails along my cheek.

Only then do I realize I'm crying. Again.