Thirteen
Perfect White Isosceles Skirt
On the way home, my synapses were firing
on all cylinders. I fidgeted in my seat, unable to nap or read or just watch
the scenery. When I took my turn at the wheel, it was worse. And those Oregon
road signs! They greet you at the California border with the exact number of
miles to Washington, and they count down every single friggin’ digit like
they’re in some kind of hurry to get you out of the state.
I had an inkling as to what this
feeling was: the Perfection Point Excess Syndrome. Let me explain.
Your average female brain tracks
a relationship using two measures: the Expectations Quotient and the
Fulfillment Factor. These numbers rarely meet – the average female being
phenomenally adroit at raising expectations even as previous expectations are
met. Occasionally, however, there occurs the equivalent of a romantic ambush.
The male demonstrates a flash of psychology, writes a love poem that neither
sucks nor rhymes, or creates a chicken casserole that is actually edible. This
can result in the dreaded Perfection Point, causing the Vulnerability Index to
go right through the roof.
The most effective strategy for
avoiding a Perfection Point is a Relationship Conference, generally introduced
by the words, “Honey, let’s talk about us.” This disorients the male, sapping
essential energy from more important functions like fucking, video games and
televised sporting events. The male thus becomes irritated, retaliates by
pulling back on his previously gracious behavior, and Voila! The vital gap
between Expectation and Fulfillment is restored.
The real danger comes when the
Fulfillment Factor is allowed to exceed the Expectations Quotient, a phenomenon
known as the Perfection Point Excess Syndrome. This generally occurs when a
female with a critically low Expectations Quotient – say, a 39-year-old
marketing director fleeing the detritus of an aborted five-year love affair –
meets up with a guerilla romantic – say, an overdressed beachcomber with a
rodeo butt and Dostoyevsky laugh. If this is followed by unexpected displays of
wonderfulness – say, incredibly touching mythologies about women with skins of
glass – she’s in for a shitload of trouble. The Fulfillment Factor obliterates
the Expectations Quotient, completely undoing whatever powers of logic remain.
Thrown so completely out of her orbit, the woman reverts to the only defense
she has left: sabotage, immediate and devastating.
At Florence, the sun ducked under
the marine layer and threw out a stripe of burnt sienna – the very hue of
blossomfire. The Vulnerability Index pressed against an artery in my brain,
sparking a laser-tight headache. I was going to have to think of something
before I imploded all over the upholstery.
“Frosty, honey, um… I’m going to
pull over at the next rest stop, okay?”
My peripheral vision picked up
Frosty’s left hand invading my air-space, poised for a neck rub. I grabbed his
wrist mid-flight, just above the console.
“Could you, um… Frosty? Could you
do me a big favor and see how far it is to Hirshfield?”
“I think it’s about fifty…”
“Frosty.” (Whoops. Voice getting
stern. Settle down, settle down.) “I can’t explain this to you right now, but I
really need an exact number. Could you?”
A cloud of puzzlement passed over
his face. “Yeah. Sure.” He found a map of Oregon in the glove box and ran his
finger along 101. Good. I’m gonna make it. Three minutes later, the rest stop
arrow never looked so good. I pulled in, squealed the tires to the curb and got
out, trying with all my might not to look back at that concerned expression. I
pushed on the perfect white isosceles skirt of the women’s room symbol and
entered my haven.
I took three steps and burst into
a flaming spiral of Navy-barracks cussing. God it felt good! I turned on the
faucets and hand dryers to cover myself, but they were all on timers and I soon
tired of jogging laps trying to keep them going. I took my foul mouth to the
handicapped stall, flushed the toilet, sat down and rubbed my eyes with great
fervor. I began my therapy with a traditional Hebrew chant.
“Oh my God. Oh my God, oh my God,
oh my God.”
My head began to bob back and
forth like an autistic child, and I felt the onset of a good old-fashioned
weeping. My marketing brain (fixed firmly between skullduggery and hypnosis) began
scribbling out first drafts of plausible excuses for leaking mascara and
bloodshot eyes. Meanwhile, the rest of my mind lay itself down on a couch and
conducted a self-analysis, like one of those cartoons where Bugs Bunny plays
both sides of a tennis match.
“Vhat zeems to be zee trubbell?”
I asked.
“Skip the accent,” I answered.
“Okay. So what’s bugging you?”
“You know very well what’s
bugging me. He’s the most incredible man I’ve ever met, and now I’ve gone and
said something… dumb like ‘I love you’ and I’m getting all these fucking
idiotic ideas like marrying and moving into a campsite and having little glass
children.”
“Why are these ideas necessarily
idiotic?”
“The man spends his working hours
hunting garbage on a beach! Does that sound like husband-father material?”
“Well, maybe he’ll change once
you…”
“Oh no. Stop right there! I’ve
been down that highway before, sister, and it ain’t exactly a diamond lane, if
you know what I mean. Nah-ah. This is the Goodwill Store of life – as is, no
fucking warranties. It was getting so great. Why did he have to exceed the
Perfection Point?”
“The Perfection Point?”
“Well, yes, you see, that’s when
the Fulfillment Factor exceeds the… Wait a minute! You know exactly what I
mean!”
Ding!
“Sorry. Time’s up. I’ll see you
next week, and meantime you’d best get your sorry butt back to the car. Stop by
Marketing on your way out and pick up a barely plausible excuse.”
I went to the sink and washed out
every bit of loose makeup – better natural than sloppy – then walked to the
car, counting my steps. Twenty-two, twenty-three, okay, he’s going to ask if
anything’s the matter, thirty-one, thirty-two, so be ready, thirty-five...”
“Are you okay?”
“Oh, I’m fine. Probably my face, huh. You
know, sometimes I get these weird allergic reactions to bathroom cleansers. My
eyes were watering so much I had to wash them out.” Now… switch! “Frosty? Could
you take over? I’m feeling a little tired.”
Frosty was quiet and
understanding, God damn him, and seemed content to drive the rest of the way,
scanning the radio for country and western stations. I tipped back my seat and
pretended to sleep. To my great surprise, I nodded off somewhere around
Yachats.
“Honey? Sandy? Did you want the
hotel tonight?”
“Mmmyeeaah,” I said, stretching.
I was feeling unexpectedly affectionate. I played with Frosty’s shift-hand the
last ten minutes home, and gave him a most grateful goodnight kiss. I suppose
my dream state had canceled out my terrorist impulse. I watched him drive off,
then dragged myself up to the Carmen Suite, where I found my raging bull
(recently christened as Deniro) with a single red rose clenched between his
teeth. Eleven more stood in books atop the dresser, angled my way like the guns
in a firing squad. No card.
When it came to interrogations,
Jeremy was a lost cause. His everyday demeanor carried all the sincerity of a
Las Vegas car dealer, so any response he gave seemed like a lie. (“Jeremy, is
that stop sign red?” “Well… certainly it is!”) When I asked him about the
roses, he said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Strike one.
I got pretty much the same from
Hessie, who was nonetheless intrigued by the possibilities. Her guess was
Frosty, but I had already ruled him out. It wasn’t like him to let a dozen
roses go two or three days without water. Before we could discuss it further,
Hessie dragged me along on some errands. She took Highway 20 into the
mountains, to a pile of scraps near a construction site. A nearby sign read
FREE WOOD. We spent the next hour tossing two-by-fours and sheets of plywood
into the bed of her pickup.
“I’m almost afraid to ask,
Hessie…”
“No need to fear, honeykins.
We’re having a bonfire.”
“Any special reason?”
“It’s a Tuesday,” she said.
“We’ve got free wood, and you and I are members of a fire-loving species.”
I pulled an awkward discus throw
on a small plank and relished the fleshy thwack! when it landed.
“Ya know, Hessie? I like the way
your mind operates.”
Between the Mystery of the Roses
and the still-lurking Perfection Point Excess, I hadn’t bothered arranging my
next meeting with Frosty. I guess I wasn’t surprised when he arrived at the
bonfire – he and Hessie were now bosom buddies. We were standing guard twenty
feet from the Knickerbocker Beach parking lot, our fire licking the sky with a
seven-foot tangerine tongue, when I spotted a form down the beach and
recognized its rangy cowboy stride. I was surprised to find two other forms as
well, a stout woman with gray-blonde hair tucked into a blue bandana, and a
medium-sized man with a shock of straight silver, a broad Irish nose and a
black leather suitcoat jacket.
Frosty
greeted us with a grin.
“Hi
honey!” he said to both of us. “Hope you don’t mind – brought the folks.
Hessie, Sandy, this is my mom, Magdalena, and my dad, Jerry.”
You
could’ve knocked me over with a stalk of vermicelli. It would have been easier
to accept the appearance of Frosted Glass Woman herself than two such
normal-looking people claiming to be Frosty’s parents.
There were cordial greetings all
around, then they spent the next hour telling stories of their summer trip to
the Canadian Rockies. Like lots of retired folk, they spent a lot of time in
their RV. I was just biding my time till I could get some dirt on their son.
Magdalena was sort of a dead end, tight-lipped on personal matters, but Jerry
was downright gabby. My subsequent opening could not have been better
choreographed by Balanchine. Hessie and Magdalena drifted to the subject of
gardening – a mutual obsession – and headed off for a nighttime tour of the Bel
Canto’s English courtyard. Frosty stood on the far side of the fire, swapping
jokes with Carlotta, whom he had apparently never met before. Fighting back
little bug-bites of jealousy, I attempted to steer the conversation with his
father.
“When
I left the job with McDonnell-Douglas ten, twelve years ago, Maggie and I
really thought Sedona was the sticks – which was exactly what we wanted. Five
years later, it seemed like every goddamned yuppie in America had a sweatshirt
with the name of our town on it.”
I
shared a guilty laugh, picturing that exact garment atop my hotel dresser. Then
I went for the abrupt apropos-of-nothing.
“Forgive me for putting it this
way, Jerry, but don’t you find your son’s current occupation a bit…
unorthodox?”
Jerry unleashed a chocolate
baritone laugh, not quite as Godalmighty as his son’s. He tugged at the collar
of his turtleneck, as if it were one size too small.
“We have always found our son to
be a bit odd, Sandy – because he is – but we have also learned that he has a…
let me see, a sense for things. It’s never a good idea to bet against him. When
he started fooling with those second-hand computer parts I brought home, we
figured it was just a harmless hobby. Like Lincoln Logs. If you asked us about
our preferences, we would have picked one of the more standard careers: doctor,
lawyer, engineering like me. But if you saw the look in that kid’s eye the
first time he made one of those parts actually do something – oh! Utter
fascination. Well, like me, you would’ve just shut your damn mouth and let him
alone.
“But then came the predictions.
‘Dad, one day there will be millions of homes with small computers in them, and
they will all be hooked together through phone lines. People will do their
banking and shopping and letter-writing through them, and some people… some
people won’t even go into work anymore, they’ll just stay home and send it in
to the office.’
“And monkeys will soar from my bee-hind, I thought. But I didn’t say
anything. You know why? Cause he had that same look in his eye. So I trusted
him – and damned if he wasn’t right about the whole package. He and his buddies
in Silicon Valley made lots of trips to the bank, if you catch my drift.
“So now, I don’t know. He’s
looking for glass on a beach. Sure it’s odd. I certainly don’t understand it.
But just wait a little while, and don’t say anything, and somehow that David of
mine will make it all come out okay.”
My
eyes flashed. Jerry immediately saw his mistake.
“Oh
shit! I’m in for it now.” He put a hand to his mouth and whispered, “He’s got a
thing about the name.”
A
half-hour later, Frosty broke off his tete-a-tete with Carlotta (about time!)
and interrupted us, taking me by the elbow.
“Excuse me, Dad, I have something
of a personal nature I’d like to discuss with Sandy.”
His
dad’s laughter should have been warning enough. Frosty walked me to the edge of
the firelight, dropped me into a tango-dip and kissed me for a lengthy period
of time. I just couldn’t help my reaction.
“Ooh,
David…”
Frosty
lifted his face in mock anger. “Zat bassturd! He hass betrayed me!” He pulled
me to my feet. “So. Are you surprised?”
“At
what?”
“Normal
parents? Happy family? That my eccentric lifestyle was in no way inspired by
childhood beatings, or being dressed up as a little girl?”
I smiled and let my face fall
against his, tracing my nose against his cheek. “Tell you the truth? Yes.”
“Well, there you go. I like my
parents, and they like me. I know it’s freakish behavior, but you’re just gonna
have to deal with it. Why don’t you come over for lunch tomorrow? My mom’s
making deviled eggs.”
“I’ll be there,” I whispered. I
felt the aphrodisiac rush of a man whose mother makes him deviled eggs, whose
father believes in him. The Perfection Point had officially been obliterated.
Had I been able to ditch the family and friends I would have ripped off his
clothes right there and done that boy to a fine froth. Oh my.
Photo by MJV
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