With a Little Luck: A Novel Read online

  “Yes,” she says. “Odd, and just as much of a theft as the other items.”

  “Have you confronted him?”

  “No,” she says.

  “That’s unlike you.”

  “I know. Because I have even worse things to deal with right now.”

  “Like?” I prod. “And why don’t I know about them?”

  “Just happened,” she says, and then looks sideways both ways, indicating that this one is big. “It’s bad.”

  “Take a breath and spit it out.”

  Nat slows to a stop and exhales. She looks at the ground as if the words she’s trying to find are somewhere down there. Finally, she looks back up at me. “You know my dad,” she says. “E.T.”

  I nod and smile. Nat’s father’s name is Donald. “E.T.” stands for “Enemy of Technology.” He’s incapable of figuring out the simplest computer issues and constantly bothers Nat to come help him out.

  “Yes, I’m familiar. But we do this because we love our parents. You know, we’re probably the last generation that will ever even have this opportunity, because I think kids these days are hardwired at birth to be tech-savvy.”

  I notice Nat shifting from foot to foot as I get off topic. “Sorry,” I say. “Go on.”

  Nat takes a deep breath. “Last night I was over there because his email had supposedly ‘disappeared.’ How he manages to find new and inventive things to screw up on his computer is beyond me.”

  “It’s kind of an art.”

  “Yeah.” She rolls her eyes. “Art.”

  “Maybe he just wants to see you,” I suggest. “Did you ever think it’s just an excuse to get you to come over?”

  “No. Because I see my parents plenty. Can I finish?”

  “Finish …”

  “So last night I go over there to help him find his email, which as you can imagine wasn’t ‘lost,’ but he’d done some cockamamy thing that made it appear that way. So I restore his settings and then decide to check match.com to see if there’s anyone interesting who hasn’t already been on the site for the past seven years, and when I go to type the URL into his drop-down menu bar, a bunch of his ‘recently visited sites’ expose themselves.”

  “Uh-oh …” I say.

  “And I do mean expose.”

  “Double uh-oh …” I say.

  “Beyond double uh-oh.”

  “How bad?”

  “Not just regular porn. Asian girl porn. Asian teen-girl porn.”

  I twist my face while trying to think of something I can say either to defend how this porn could have accidentally found its way to his computer (“I thought your dad couldn’t find a website on purpose if his life depended on it!”) or to perhaps initiate a fast subject change, like, “Look! George Clooney just walked by! With his arm around Matthew McConaughey!”

  She goes on. “I mean … not just one site … dozens.”

  So much for my brilliant defense. Your Honor, we’d like to discuss a plea.

  “That’s … awful.”

  “No shit!” she says. “Do I tell my mom? Do I bring it up to my dad?”

  “Never talk to a man about his porn habits,” I say. “That’s a sure way to get rid of him.”

  “It’s my dad,” she reminds me. “Much as I may like to right now, I can’t ‘get rid of him.’ ”

  “Still applies,” I say. “I just don’t think you wanna go there.”

  “Asian cheerleaders,” she says, with a look on her face like she just realized the milk she guzzled was sour. “Pom-poms and innocence lost.”

  “What can come of it?” I ask, immediately regretting my choice of words, so I keep going. “You bring it up to him and he’s embarrassed and you’re condemning and God forbid you tell your mom and she hates him for the rest of their marriage—”

  “Oh, she’s hated him since 1985.”

  “Still. It’s a different kind of hate.”

  “I’m horrified,” she says. “I can’t even look at him.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “That is profoundly awkward. I feel for you.”

  “It’s revolting.”

  “Dads are handfuls,” I say.

  “Yours gambles and thinks the sun rises and sets around you. Mine is a pedophile! Slight difference. I can’t even say ‘handful’ and ‘dad’ in the same sentence anymore without conjuring up mental images that will drive me right into therapy.”

  “You already see a therapist twice a week.”

  “And now I need a third day. This is not just horrifying. It’s expensive.”

  “Okay,” I say, trying to find a bright side. “But he’s not acting on it, right? He’s just … looking …?”

  “Why are you defending him?”

  “I’m not. I just … He’s still gonna be your dad, so I’m trying to soften the blow.” Why does every turn of phrase I utter somehow sound perverted in this context?

  Nat sinks her head into her hands. “Can we talk about you again?”

  “Yes,” I say as my cellphone rings and I look at the caller ID but don’t recognize the number.

  “Hello?”

  “So I was serious about wanting to go on a date,” he says. It’s Ryan.

  I nudge Natalie and point to the phone, mouthing “Ryan” as I practically bounce out of my skin.

  “Well …” I say. “You know where to find me.” What does that even mean? Why did I say that? He just found me. Idiot.

  “Well … that’s what I’m doing now,” he says. “I’m finding you.”

  “Okay, then,” I say. “Hello.”

  “Hi,” he says. “What are you doing tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow?” I repeat back, looking to Nat for help with my answer. She nods. “I’m, well … I’m on the radio from seven to midnight.”

  “And I’m on the radio from four to seven,” he says. “So what about lunch?”

  “I eat lunch.”

  “As do I. Would you like to do that together?”

  “Sure,” I say. “That sounds … fun.”

  “I promise we’ll stay on the ground.”

  “Otherwise you’ll be six feet under it,” I reply warmly.

  Ryan tells me to “wear something nice” and says he’ll pick me up at twelve-thirty.

  “You soooooo like him,” Natalie says the second I hang up. “I could see it in your face. And your voice changed into your ‘I like you’ voice.”

  “I don’t have an ‘I like you’ voice.”

  “Oh, you totally have an ‘I like you’ voice.”

  We stand in silence for a minute before I can no longer take it and am sure that I will explode from excitement.

  “I have a date tomorrow,” I say. “A real one.”

  Ryan arrives at twelve-twenty-nine, wearing a great-looking suit. He’s so handsome that he almost looks like he belongs on a red carpet somewhere. He hands me three lilac orchids wrapped in plastic as soon as I open the door. Three. A perfectly odd number.

  “For the lady,” he says.

  “Thank you,” I say, blushing. “Come in while I put these in something.”

  Ryan follows me inside my apartment and takes a cursory glance around. I get self-conscious immediately, wondering what he’s looking at, what he’s thinking, why I still have that stupid bright green stuffed frog I won at the arcade two summers ago—what am I, fourteen years old? But my memory quickly relives the sequence of that night: I’d won the balloon-water-gun game, besting a thirteen-year-old—who no doubt spent about fifteen hours a day parked in front of a PlayStation—after eating not one, not two, but three cones of cotton candy (the third hadn’t gone down nearly as easily as the first and second, but two was an even-numbered no-go, and one wasn’t cutting it); after riding the Witch’s Wheel not once (or twice, which would have been unthinkable) but three times; after wasting three nickels on the wishing well (low percentage, admittedly); after watching the odometer roll through a triple seven; after brushing my hair for three minutes with my lucky Vidal Sassoon brush. That
little hopper was luckier than a squirrel in a nuthouse, as my dad says. It was my reward for doing everything right that day and a reminder to be vigilant about superstitions. So it wasn’t going anywhere.

  “That’s a pretty dress,” he says, taking in the seventh outfit I tried on—a slightly nicer-than-average sundress with medium-heeled ankle boots. Moose loves the boots, perhaps a touch too much, which is why they reside on the top shelf of my closet.

  “Thank you,” I say. “You look pretty sharp as well. Am I dressed okay for our destination?”

  “You’re perfect,” he says, and I find myself wishing he was talking about me and not just my outfit.

  I notice him looking over my shoulder at the horseshoe on my wall.

  “It’s a horseshoe,” I say, and then wonder why I said it. Duh. He can clearly see it’s a horseshoe.

  “Is there a story behind it?” he asks. “Do you ride horses?”

  “I have ridden horses,” I say. “But not since … I don’t even know when. That’s not why I have the horseshoe. I mean … horses are great and all, but that’s not … I’m not a horse aficionado or anything.” Can someone stop my mouth from moving? Jesus!

  “Okay,” he says, with an easy smile. “I’m officially clear on what it doesn’t represent, then.”

  “It’s important that the … you know, the curvy part, that the shoe be mounted upright, you see? Like so.”

  And I trace the shape in the air, illustrating. “It’s to ward off bad luck,” I blurt.

  “I see. And how’s that working out for you?”

  Fine, until I stopped being able to form an intelligent sentence. “It’s working out very well,” I say, and then once I’ve placed the orchids in a shallow jade vase, I walk back toward the door. “Shall we?”

  Ryan opens the car door for me and then walks around to let himself in. I wonder whether he’ll have a radio station on or a CD that will provide a glimpse into his inner soul, but when he starts the car … nothing.

  “So where are we going?” I ask.

  “It’s a surprise,” he says, and then quickly changes the subject. “Did you know that Big Brad Stevens does traffic on KRST in a fake voice under a pseudonym?”

  Brad Stevens is our sports guy. He’s the most mild-mannered psychopath you’ll ever meet. I always exchange pleasantries with him in the hall when I pass him because I want to remain on his good side, and he has always been entirely pleasant, but I’ve heard stories about him flipping out, making interns cry. And there’s a rumor that he once got into a fight with Bill and tried to choke him. Which would explain a lot, including the giant dent next to Bill’s Adam’s apple.

  “No way,” I say. “How can he get away with it?”

  “He just does. A lot of people do it. He has a mortgage to pay and, well … KKCR—”

  I interrupt him at that point. “Oh, you don’t have to tell me how pathetic the pay is at KKCR.”

  “I mean … don’t blow his cover.”

  “Are you kidding? You think I want to be on that guy’s bad side? He’s like Jekyll and Hyde, and with plenty to Hyde. And apparently he’s two different radio hosts as well. Fitting.”

  “Now if he ever gets on your bad side, you’ll have something to hold against him,” he says with a wink. I have visions of my blackmail note in uneven newsprint cut and pasted together in different fonts:

  After about a twenty-minute drive—everywhere in L.A. pretty much takes twenty minutes to get to—we turn onto La Tijera and I start getting nervous. This is the way to the airport. If he thinks I’m getting on any type of aircraft with him, ever again, he’s nuts. I keep my mouth shut, though, and after a few short blocks we pull into a driveway, and wouldn’t you know it … Ryan has managed to outdo himself.

  And by “outdo himself” I mean make a quasi-mockery of our date while further convincing me that he and I just might see the world through the same bizarre, twisted tinted lenses. Hilarious.

  “Welcome to Chuck E. Cheese’s,” the hostess says as she looks around, behind and beyond us, to locate the children we should have with us if we’re at all self-conscious or self-respecting, which, as it turns out, neither of us is.

  But then Ryan says something that catches me completely off guard.

  “I heard you’d never been to Chuck E. Cheese’s before.”

  “That’s true,” I reply. “But where did you hear that?”

  “On the radio,” he answers. “Someone requested Jonathan Coulton, and you said that you assumed all Jonathan Coulton fans spent a lot of time at places like Medieval Times—which is uncool, by the way; he’s great, and ‘Skullcrusher Mountain’ is a hilarious and beautiful song—and then you went on to say that you’d never been there or to any theme restaurant. Not even Chuck E. Cheese’s when you were little. And I thought, How sad.”

  That was nearly six months ago. I remember saying that on the radio, but that was way before Ryan and I met cute over cheesecake. He’s been keeping tabs on me from afar! (I hope not from a helicopter. Come to think: Did he and Pilot Dan already know each other? Did I bring my pepper spray?)

  I refocus. “Gee, Ryan, you have a pretty good memory for inconsequential stuff.”

  “I’d hardly call Chuck deprivation inconsequential,” he balks. “Everyone should go to Chuck E. Cheese’s at least once.”

  “Yeah, it wasn’t exactly on my bucket list. And I don’t recall it showing up on the one hundred, one thousand, or even one million things to see before you die. But thanks for taking such an active role in making sure my life is complete.” I’m giving him a hard time, but inside my transition to total mush is nearing completion.

  “I complete you, I know. It’s what I’m here for.”

  Once we’re seated and the “rules and regulations” have been laid down by Lloyd, our pimple-faced waiter, who seems as enthused about his job as he would be if you offered him some more acne, we peruse the menu, settling on the Barbecue Chicken Pizza, the Garden Fresh Salad Bar, and Cinnamon Sticks for dessert, which I can only hope will be like churros.

  I’m a sucker for the old-school games—Galaga, Centipede, Ms. Pac-Man—and it turns out so is Ryan. So when we’ve finally eaten ourselves firmly to the point of gluttony, we march over to the arcade and let the games begin.

  It should be noted that I’m totally comfortable eating like a pig in front of him, which is normally not the case when I’m crushing on a guy. That’s not to say that I like Ryan any less. There’s just an ease that allows me to shove pizza into my mouth like, if I don’t eat fast enough, a basket of puppies will be killed.

  It should also be noted that we play videogames for two hours, laughing our overstuffed guts off, and when it’s time to call it a day, neither of us wants to. We sit in his car for about twenty-five minutes, after which time it’s really getting obvious that either I need to just get out of the car or he needs to kiss me, ’cause otherwise he’s gonna be really late for his shift.

  I reach for the door handle just as he reaches for me.

  “Wait,” he says, and I turn back to face him.

  “Waiting …” I say, with nervous anticipation.

  And he leans in, stopping just before our lips meet. He looks me in the eyes, and we’re just centimeters from each other but I can see by the tiny crinkles forming next to his eyes that he’s smiling. I close my eyes and feel things I have never felt until now. Like these are the lips that were created to kiss mine. This is a kiss that I would never get bored of. This is that thing you read about but think doesn’t really exist. But it turns out it does.

  Double uh-oh.

  Jerry, don’t you see? This world here, this is George’s sanctuary. If Susan comes into contact with this world, his worlds collide. You know what happens then? Ka-shha-shha-shha-pkooo [exploding sound].

  —KRAMER, ON SEINFELD

  Chapter Thirteen

  So, yes, the next six weeks are pure bliss. My show ends later than his, but our days are open to spend time together. I constantl
y remind myself that he’s Guy Number Three and I shouldn’t get my hopes up—I even push him a little at times, testing him, giving him reason to be a jerk or show his true colors or introduce me to his wife and family—but each passing day seems to prove me wrong. A rare case where I’m happy to be proven wrong.

  We spend our first weekend away together at a bed-and-breakfast in Laguna, and my heart melts when I find out he’s made special arrangements for Moose to come with us. Ryan is considerate and charming—and his biting sense of humor and severe case of the smarts give him balance. His obvious good looks, when you add everything else up, are just a bonus. Looking at la package totale, it’s virtually impossible not to fall for him.

  Everyone at both stations knows we’re a couple, and while at first we tried to hide it, we ultimately decided there was no point. Even interest from callers has quieted to a dull roar since we’ve stopped divulging the date dirt. And we don’t work at the same station, so if by some stroke of bad luck things go south—which, who am I kidding, they always inevitably do—he can stay on his floor, I’ll stay on mine, and we’ll just pretend this never happened.

  As if.

  I’m a pretty private person by nature. While, yes, I scan all of the gossip blogs every morning so I can have fodder for my show and be in the know so I’m not blindsided by caller questions, the truth is I find them all to be completely vile. Each crotch shot more disgusting than the next. I can’t imagine what it’s like for these celebrities to be under a microscope 24/7, and you can argue that “this is the life they chose” so they deserve it, but I disagree. These people chose to play a sport or act in films or on TV or on the stage; they didn’t go into those careers because they were desperately seeking an invasion of their privacy. The same does not hold true for reality stars of any kind. Those people get what they deserve, and I have no sympathy for the Kates and Kardashians of the world. And, yes, on occasion I’ll give out a few random tidbits about my life on the air here and there, but only if it’s wildly interesting or, alternatively, a sign that I’m completely unraveling. It’s never the focus of a show, not that anything in my life is interesting enough to hold people’s attention any longer than someone fixing a flat tire on the freeway shoulder.