Lee Nichols - Tales Of A Drama Queen

Maya makes the “L is for Loser” sign on her forehead.

Enough said.

“Want another margarita?” she asks.

I look down, mine is somehow empty. I have a flash of genius. “Let me make it,” I say. “I’m a whiz with blended drinks.”

“I usually just mix them,” she says.

“See that’s where you’re wrong. Where’s the blender?” I eagerly pop behind the bar.

All I want to say is: I know the top was closed firmly before I turned the blender to pureé. Must have been some kind of malfunction. Anyway, it was just a couple ice cubes and strawberries. And Maya was standing too close. A pity she was wearing white, that’s all.

The next day, desperate for an apartment, Maya (who’s in an uncharacteristic tizzy: probably fighting with Perfect Brad) persuades me to relax my standards and see a place in…Goleta. The ad promises a “one bedroom charming garden paradise with fourteen-foot ceilings,” and the price is too good to dismiss—$650 a month.

“But it’s Goleta!” I wail. A suburb fifteen minutes north of Santa Barbara, teeming with strip malls and big box stores.

“There are nice parts of Goleta,” Maya says.

“Where?”

“People like it there,” she replies, vaguely.

“Who?”

“Oh, stop being such a snob, Elle, and look at the place.”

Well, it does say “garden paradise.” I will be the consummate country party hostess. Fabulous friends, whom I’ve yet to meet, will escape the city late Friday night to my oasis in Goleta. I’ll serve negronis and martinis—anything but margaritas—and prepare fabulous fresh meals from my kitchen garden. Olive trees and lavender will dot the rolling hills, and all for the pittance of $650 a month!

By the time I arrive at the house, I’ve persuaded myself that I’m on my way to Provence. I’ll be garden fabulous.

Then I turn into the dirt driveway. Dust billows into the car, and through watery eyes, I see the house. Bluish, with water marks streaming from the windows, giving it the appearance of a weeping cartoon house.

I put the car in Reverse, and a man bangs my hood in greeting.

He has long hair and a longer beard, à la ZZ Top. He wears black jeans on his stick-skinny legs, over which is an enormous belly not quite covered by a tank top.

“Here about the apartment, right?” he says. “It’s around back.”

I want to ask what happened. I want to ask why his house is crying. I want to ask if he needs help, if there’s anyone I should call. Instead, I obediently follow him toward the backyard.

ZZ stops in the garage. The concrete floor is partially covered with bronze carpeting—a deep, oil-stained shag. The walls are unfinished, revealing two-by-fours and assorted wires and pipes.

“So,” he says. “Any questions?”

“Well, one,” I say. “Where’s the apartment?”

“You’re standing in it.” At least ZZ had not lied in the ad. The ceilings are indeed fourteen feet high.

I’m describing my garage-for-rent experience at ZZ’s to Perfect Brad and Maya, only slightly crowing that I was right about Goleta, when the phone rings. Maya answers. “For you,” she says, a little incredulous.

My very first call in Santa Barbara! Possibly a job offer, though I haven’t actually applied for anything yet. Still, stranger things have happened.

“Hi, Elle. This is Bob. From the Volkswagen dealership?”

“Bob! Hi! How are you?” Oops, don’t want to be too nice. Think just friends. “I mean, um, hello.”

“Well, I ran your credit report and you don’t qualify for the Passat W8.”

“Oh, no.” I’m not too surprised, though. I mean, I do have some concept of reality. “We’ll have to settle for the GLX, then? A softer image isn’t such a bad thing.”

“Not the GLX.”

“Oh. The GLS?”

“Not even close.”

“Um…a Jetta?”

“No.”

“A Bug? They’re pretty cute. And I don’t need four doors. After all, I can only use one at a time!” I laugh in a bright and charming fashion, and notice Maya and Brad watching me as if I am a seven-car pile-up.

“Nope.”

“How about an, um…like a Focus or that other one. The Echo?”

“Those aren’t even VWs.”

“Right. VWs. Well, a Golf?”

“Not even a used Golf.”

“So…?”

“So I told you I’d call. I called.”

“I see. Yes. Thanks for calling. And is there, um, anything else you want to ask?” Because I may not qualify for a car, but I know when a man’s interested.

“Actually, there is.” His voice becomes a little warmer.

I smile and give Maya a look. The kind of look that says, Here we go again, I’m gonna let another one down easy. For some reason, Maya responds by passing me a box of Kleenex.

“Don’t be shy,” I say. “Ask away.”

“If you have any friends who can actually afford a car, would you give them my name?”

“Oh, sure.” I wait for it, and wait for it…I like you too, Bob, but I think it’s best if we try being friends, first. Dinner where? Piatti? In Montecito? Well, if you insist…

“Well, good speaking with you,” he says, and hangs up.

I try to be bright and charming as the dial-tone sounds. “That’s very flattering,” I say. “And you seem like a really nice guy. But I don’t think so, thanks.”

I pretend to listen as Maya gives Brad a happy-couple signal that sends him running to the safety of their bedroom. She takes the phone from my hand, hangs up and hugs me tight. I reach for the Kleenex.

I’m never going to be Oprah until I take control. I have to stop coasting and make it happen.

So this morning, I’m awake at 7:00. I roll out of bed. Take a shower. Fix myself. Choose an outfit in record time. Make coffee. Buy the paper, and sit down, pen in hand, determined to find a job. Because finding an apartment in Santa Barbara is clearly impossible, and we Highly Efficient people don’t waste time on clear impossibilities.

I circle an ad for a Mental Health Worker and one for a Literacy Volunteer, and glance at the clock. It’s 11:45.

Almost noon! I woke up five hours ago. I swear I did nothing more than the above listed. I didn’t even turn on the TV. Not once. And five hours have passed? I’m temporally challenged. It’s chronological-ADD or something. Am I having blackouts? Do I sit, slack-jawed, staring at walls? In five hours, Oprah could have launched ten books to the bestseller lists, and all I’ve done is shower and dress.

So I stop coasting. I take control. And two normal hours later, I’m back. I didn’t launch a single book to the bestseller list, but I did spend $389 on a cashmere throw and fancy tin dog bowls.

I don’t want to talk about it.

I hide the bags behind the couch so Maya won’t scold me, and bury the now, uh, modified bowls deep in my luggage. Take an extended nap, dream of Louis scolding me for wasting postage and wake cranky. Why is everything suddenly so hard? It’s not as if I have such high hopes. I want a non-plywood apartment, a job that doesn’t require I pee into a cup, a running car and—eventually, though I’m rethinking this one—an adequate man. And some gorgeous new things. And a small thermonuclear device for Iowa.

Is that too much to ask? I watch TV, I read the magazines. Women everywhere are living my life. They have jobs like “public relations coordinator” and “fashion features editor.” Their Upper East Side apartments have huge windows overlooking Central Park, and they all stopped wearing pashminas two weeks before a certain person finally bought hers.

I pull the covers to my chin and try to work myself into a genuine clinical depression. Then it’d be a brain chemistry thing, and I could courageously fight it—unable to leave the apartment, waited on hand-and-foot, but admired by all. They’d probably profile me in the Santa Barbara News-Press, and the local network affiliate would pick up the story.