Til the Real Thing Comes Along (13 page)

I quit, Arthur, she thought as she looked at the strip of pictures and noted sadly that they were beginning to fade. I thought
that maybe I’d meet someone and get married again, but I don’t have the energy, the time, or the interest anymore to look,
to date, or to get involved with flakes, which I’ve decided is all there are out there. I wanted to find someone for me, naturally,
but I wanted it for Jeffie, too, because we both need to be a family so badly. So badly I nearly married someone I tried to
talk myself into loving. But more and more I’m convinced it isn’t in the cards. Maybe you’re glad, because if I never fall
in love with anybody again, I’ll always be yours. Then she smiled, wondering what Arthur would say to all this. I’ll bet up
there where you are, you have a big laugh every time I get involved with one of these bozos. Well, it’s okay. I always used
to love making you laugh. She smiled a tired smile and put the pictures back, next to her high school ring. As she
closed her jewelry box she heard Dinah honking the horn. She put on her pearl earrings, grabbed her black-and-white checked
coat, ran into Jeffie’s room to give him a quick kiss, and as Dinah honked for the third time, she was out the door. Dinah’s
car reeked of Opium, the perfume she always wore, and she was dressed in some outrageous leopard-skin print dress. Dinah always
looked turned out, no matter what the occasion. Her ex-husband was an accountant who had insisted she dress conservatively.
The minute they separated she had gone on a shopping spree to “make my closet rival Liberace’s,” she’d declared. Free of the
accountant’s tyranny, her imagination soared. Even when she stopped by an early-morning soccer game to cheer Jeffie on, she’d
stride across the park, her blond penned hair done up in combs, her eyes shadowed, her lips lined, and the glare of her flashy
outfit would be enough to wake up the sleepy-eyed R.J., who invariably wore her jeans and black sweater under a hooded sweatshirt
with the hood up to protect her cold ears. R.J. never ceased to be amazed.

“You work every day, all day. How do you do it?” she’d asked one shivery damp morning in the park.

Dinah, defensive, answered, “How can you
not
do it? I’m in the people business. I see dozens of people every day. Frequently stars. I have to look good.”

“Di, this is a soccer game. In the Valley.”

“Do you know how many actors live in the Valley? Who could have sons who play soccer?”

“Hi, Dinah,” someone had said that very minute. It was Mike Farrell.

“I rest my case,” Dinah said to R.J., waving an effusive wave at Mike Farrell.

Tonight, Dinah was excited about the party. R.J. could hear it in her voice. Dinah loved parties. Her breathing changed just
talking about them.

“Robert’s coming from the office, so he’ll meet us there. I heard it’s going to be fabulous,” Dinah said. “A major party.”

“Great,” R.J. managed.

“Attitude,” Dinah said. “You have to do something about your attitude. Maybe you’ll meet someone.”

“Di, you’ve been living in Studio City, which is precariously close to Hollywood, for too long. That’s why you still believe
in the Someday-My-Prince-Will-Come school of love.
Well I don’t. I mean, let’s get down to cases. Even your beloved Robert gets queasy when you mention combining your families.
Doesn’t he?”

“You get Very shrill every time the discussion of men comes up,” Dinah said, making a right onto Sunset.

“Well, doesn’t he?”

“Robert’s not even divorced from Joanie yet,” Dinah said.

“They’ve been separated for twelve years,” R.J. reminded her. “And he’s been going with you for four of those years. Don’t
you think it’s time he made a decision?”

“He has to do things in his own time,” Dinah said. “Anyway, it’s not as bad as Richard Lavin. He’s living with his ex-wife,
and they’re both dating other people.”

“Oh, spare me, Dinah,” R.J. said. “Spare me from having to hear these stories. What happened to good old-fashioned wanting
to be together, like my parents had? It no longer exists. That’s why I’ve thrown in the towel.”

“No you haven’t,” Dinah said. “If you had, you wouldn’t be going to this party.”

“I’m going to the party because for the last four days and nights, while Manuela fed my son, who stopped in every now and
then for a hug, the only time I left my writing table was to eat the following: one baked potato, one container of cottage
cheese with an expiration date stamped on the bottom that was somewhere around the time of my senior prom, some grapes that
were so wrinkled I think they were up for the part of raisins in a Sun-Maid commercial, and eight ounces of V-8 straight from
the can. I’m hoping there’s some food at the party. I’m too smart to hope for a man. The ultimate thrill for me would be to
spot the chip dip of my dreams across a crowded room.”

Dinah drove through the Bel-Air west gate.

“How’s the writing going?” she asked.

“Okay. I’ve got a pilot idea I’m going to try to sell to a network this week. Actually it was Jeffie’s idea. Whose house is
this anyway?” she asked as they drove up the long driveway toward what R.J. could now see was an elegant Bel-Air home.

“Some friend of Robert’s. The guy has a party like this every year. You know. With three or four TVs, and everyone puts money
into a kitty for the person who guesses all the winners.”

“What winners?”

“Oscars.”

Oscars. It was Oscar night. R.J. hadn’t known. Didn’t care. Didn’t want to watch. She certainly didn’t want to sit down with
a piece of paper and match her movie consciousness with everyone else’s. She hadn’t even seen some of the nominated movies.
The red-coated parking attendant took Dinah’s car, and R.J. looked at the open door of the house and knew she’d made a mistake.
If only she’d met Dinah here instead of coming here in Dinah’s car, she could have munched a few hors d’oeuvres, had a glass
of wine, and gone home after half an hour. Back to the Yellow Robe of Texas.

There were about thirty people milling around, carrying wineglasses. Talking that kind of high-pitched cocktail party chatter
that’s usually punctuated by throaty forced laughter. Maybe, R.J. thought, she would just call a taxi. Say she had a headache.
An older gray-haired man in a suit walked smiling toward where R.J. and Dinah stood in the foyer.

“Dinah? I’m Jason Flagg. Do you remember me?”

Obviously Robert’s friend. Dinah remembered him.

“This is R.J. Misner,” Dinah said. Jason Flagg shook R.J.’s hand, looked her in the eye sincerely, as if he had learned to
do it that way in a Dale Carnegie course, and then proceeded to introduce R.J. and Dinah around the room. Despite R.J.’s attempt
to listen and follow along, the names were a blur, as if that comic, the one who was the master of doubletalk, Al Kelly, were
making the introductions. But she nodded and smiled at each of the guests. A tall thin girl with high cheekbones. A fuzzy-haired
man in a plaid blazer. Two starlet types, one in tight jeans, one in a silk charmeuse jump suit.- A pudgy man in his fifties
wearing a velour sweat suit. A handsome-looking couple: The woman was very tall, with waist-length blond hair. She wore tweed
pants and a silk blouse. The man was a blue-eyed redhead with lots of freckles. Handsome. Obviously an actor. The couple looked
as if they’d just stepped out of an ad for Ronrico rum.

R.J. smiled and nodded at everyone, having no more knowledge of what their names were than when she’d walked in. Ahh. She
spotted the buffet table, took Dinah’s elbow, and turned her in that direction.

“Food,” she whispered, while Dinah looked back over her shoulder at the crowd. When they were out of earshot of the others,
Dinah said, “There are a few single guys here.”

“Mmmm,” R.J. said and devoured a piece of quiche, a strawberry, and a chicken wing. One of the starlets, who passed out the
forms for the contest with the smiles and gestures of a game-show prize girl, handed R.J. hers and said, “Good luck.” R.J.,
who hadn’t had a chance to wipe off her hands, got sweet-and-sour sauce all over the form.

Coal Miner’s Daughter,
Sissy Spacek,
Raging Bull.
Who cares? she thought. “Is it okay if I don’t enter?” she said, thinking she was talking to Dinah. Then she realized that
Dinah had slipped away.

“Oh, sure, but it’s just for fun.” The woman from the Ronrico ad was standing between R.J. and the man from the Ronrico ad.
R.J. spotted Dinah across the room, talking to Jason Flagg and a dark-haired woman who had just come in.

“Jason tells us you’re a television writer,” the man said.

“Yes,” R.J. answered.

“Would you have written any show I’ve ever seen?” he asked.

“Patsy Dugan,” R.J. answered. An actor. The guy must be an actor. They were always nice to writers. Figured writers could
get them acting jobs. Boy, were they wrong. “I mean, I wrote her television show. Now I’m free-lancing, which is my way of
telling you I’m out of work.”

The man smiled.

“Comedy writing. God, that must be fun,” the woman said.

Yeah. A laugh a minute, R.J. thought. She would go home. As soon as she could get out of this conversation she would go home.

“Is it hard to do?” the woman asked.

“Let me put it this way,” R.J. said, now on automatic pilot, giving her clichéd answer: “Before I wrote comedy I was tall
and blond.” The woman and the man both laughed.

“How did you get into comedy writing?” the woman asked.

“Too short to act, too silly to write drama,” she said.

The handsome freckle-faced man had one freckle on
his chin that was a little larger, a little darker than the others.

“What’s Patsy Dugan like?” he asked. “Is she really as dumb as she comes off on the show?” R.J. had answered that one dozens
of times.

“That depends on what you think of as dumb. For example, she thinks that the moon is the back of the sun.” The couple laughed.
“Honestly,” R.J. said, straight-faced, doing her usual bit about Patsy. “Until recently she thought that Mount Rushmore was
a natural phenomenon.”

The man laughed. “I don’t understand,” the woman said.

“She thought it was formed by the weather over the years,” R.J. explained. “That if things had gone differently it could have
been Washington, Lincoln, and Jerry Lewis.”

Both the man and the woman laughed at that. Jason Flagg, hearing the laughter, walked over, his arm draped around the brunette’s
shoulder.

“We were just hearing about what it’s like to be a comedy writer,” the blond woman explained.

“Who’s a comedy writer?” the woman with Jason asked.

“I am,” R.J. answered. God, she wanted to go home.

“Isn’t that usually thought of as men’s territory?” the handsome man asked, looking long at RJ., who dropped the carrot stick
she was holding. She watched it sink irretrievably into the spinach dip. “I mean, is this an example of how women are now
breaking into fields that were formerly thought of as being controlled by men?”

“Oh, the men I work with are extremely liberated. If there’s some sketch having to do with women that they don’t understand,
they always say, ‘Let’s ask the broad what to do.’”

Now the four people laughed.

R.J. was on. Performing, and knowing it, and feeling like a jerk. God, she wanted to be home in her yellow robe. Not here
talking to these people, entertaining. One of the starlets who was collecting completed contest forms walked up and put her
hand on Jason Flagg’s arm. “Um… well, are any one of you through with your things that you fill in? Ready to… um…”

“Not yet,” Jason told her and she shimmied away.

“Ahh,” R.J. said, watching her, “if only she could speak… what stories she could tell.” The others laughed.

“Almost show time,” the blond woman said, touching the red-haired man’s $$$, “I’m going to go save us some good seats, darling.”

“We’ll join you,” Jason Flagg said. And he and the two women headed toward the living room, leaving R.J. face to face with
handsome. There was an awkward silence as she looked at him looking at her.

“So,” she tried, “aren’t you going to ask me what my sign is?”

“Not necessary,” he said. “I know what your sign is. Your sign is
Closed Until Further Notice,”
he said. “And one-liners are a great way of making sure everybody stays away until then. It’ll be nice when you’re able to
turn your sign over so it says
Open
.”

Oooh. Who was this guy anyway? Nasty. You talk to someone at a party and right away he thinks he’s got a right to be your
shrink. Next thing she knew, he’d be sending her a bill for his services. Time to get out of here.

“Nice talking to ya,” she said, moving away from the table, but his voice stopped her.

“I calls ’em as I sees ’em,” he said, and when she looked back at him he smiled a wry smile.

“If you ever get to know me,” he said, “and judging by the look on your face I’d say that’s highly unlikely, you’ll learn
that above all else, I tell the truth.”

Who cares, R.J. thought. Her luck. The one party she agrees to go to and she has to end up talking to some hostile, arrogant
jerk. When they’re that handsome they think they can say whatever they want. What a mistake. Dinah’s parties. She would find
Dinah and tell her she was going home.

“Don’t think it hasn’t been a pleasure.” She glowered at the man.

Dinah was now regaling a group in the corner with stories R.J. recognized as being about her ex-mother-in-law. When R.J. took
her aside to tell her she was leaving, Dinah shook her head in disbelief. “Did somebody say something wrong? Are you okay?
Can’t you wait until the show is over? There are so many nice people here, R.J., and after the show they’ll probably sit and
talk and you might
like one’of them and one of them might like you, and you could…”

R.J. knew she was behaving like a child. That it wouldn’t kill her to stay for the few hours it would take to watch the television
show, to smile and be sociable and not go home and pout because of one superficial thing one superficial man said to her.
After all, she’d been cooped up like a hermit for weeks, and just as an exercise she ought to see if she could last out the
evening. But she didn’t want to. Didn’t want to fake being interested.