With a Little Luck: A Novel Page 9

  “Which shoulder am I supposed to throw the salt over?” she asks. She’s probably just humoring me, but screw it, I need humor.

  “The left,” I say.

  “Okay,” she says.

  “With your right,” I add.

  “Wait—what? Left or right?”

  “Throw the salt over your left shoulder with your right hand.”

  “Oh,” she says. “I’ll have to do it again.”

  Now, for a moment, I almost forget the misery, as I ponder this advanced concept from the superstition rulebook: If you spill salt, then incorrectly administer the antidote by using the wrong hand to toss more over the wrong shoulder, should you do the shoulder toss twice? That makes me think about the maximum amount of bad luck you could bank before a painting scaffold fell on your head, and that makes me think about general wallopings, and that of course leads me back to New York and my affair to forget.

  “You will not believe the whirlwind romance I just experienced over the weekend.”

  “Spill!” she squeals. “Is he tall? Funny? Mortgage holder? Fully vested? Does he have a brother?”

  “Yes, yes, a bunch of I-don’t-knows, and for his mother’s sake I sure as hell hope not, because one son of his kind would be enough to make you want to shoot yourself,” I say. Then I add needlessly, “He’s history.”

  “Oh, God,” she says. “Please tell me he’s not dead.”

  “Cute,” I say. “Dead to me. But sadly, still alive.”

  “I think we have different definitions of ‘whirlwind romance,’ ” she says.

  She has a point. Plus, if we’re going to be honest about the term “whirlwind romance,” isn’t it really used only in cases of celebrity? And doesn’t it usually just mean “They got engaged/married too soon, but they’re too important and/or we’re too polite to say it”? And at minimum, I have to acknowledge you can’t really have a “whirlwind romance” with one kiss and no sex. So perhaps I’m exaggerating a tad.

  “No, it started out great,” I say. And then proceed to tell her how quickly it devolved into complete crap. I tell her all of this in between her shouting at the line cook for “more this,” “less that,” and “Rodrigo, are you trying to kill that piece of meat a second time? It’s already dead!”

  “I should let you go,” I say.

  “No, you shouldn’t. I mean, yes, you should, but come to the restaurant.”

  “I can’t,” I say. “I’ve gained six pounds.”

  “My pastry chef is gonna be pissed he had no part in that,” she says. “So you can’t even fit out your door now? Get your fat ass over here.”

  I sit in silence for a minute, listening to the sounds of her crazy kitchen, knowing that it would be nice to get my mind off Vile Kyle. I look around, and my apartment is empty. I don’t even have Moose, because the doggie day care closes at seven and my flight didn’t get me home in time to pick him up.

  “Fine,” I say. “I’ll be there in thirty.”

  When I walk into Eat It, I’m impressed, as usual, by the fact that Nat really has her own restaurant. And it’s a hit. I know the restaurant business is impossible to begin with, and she didn’t have some trust fund to fall back on or keep sinking into the place if it failed. Yet she took the chance and did it.

  The place is full of Los Angeles hipsters, and on any given night you can often find a celebrity tucked away in one of the corners. I do a cursory scan as I make my way into the kitchen because I don’t want her to say, “Did you see so-and-so?” when I get there, and then have to sneak a totally obvious peek. I don’t see anyone.

  The kitchen always amazes me. So many people, each doing their part to bring together this well-oiled machine of complete chaos. I would probably have an anxiety attack if I was responsible for not overcooking someone’s line-caught wild salmon, yet I just stood on a stage and introduced the Rolling Stones to thousands of people. I guess we all have our comfort zone.

  “I thought I felt an earthquake,” Nat says as I walk in. “But it’s just my obese friend.”

  I roll my eyes and give her a hug.

  “You’d be the same if six pounds crept up on you out of nowhere,” I say.

  “I gain six pounds after a good meal.”

  “Whatever.”

  “Did you see Leo?” she says.

  “DiCaprio?” I turn my head back reflexively, distracted from my unpleasantness by the prospect. “No.”

  “Good,” Nat says. “He’s not here. I was just checking if the extra poundage was causing hallucinations.”

  “Well, I can tell you it’s about to start causing some pain and suffering,” I say as she fends me off with a spatula.

  Nat shakes her head and moves on. “I started painting my apartment,” she says. “And now I regret it, because I’m being photographed at home for a ‘Hot Chefs of L.A.’ article in Los Angeles magazine. They didn’t want to have ten pictures of ten people all in similar-looking kitchens, so we’re being pictured ‘elsewhere.’ Stupid. Especially when you consider that if I was truly hot, they’d have asked me to pose in a bikini, casually grilling up wieners at the beach. So annoying.”

  “How about, ‘amazing’?” I challenge. “You’re being profiled in a magazine. One that people actually read, no less!”

  “I know, I know,” she says, dipping a wooden spoon into a sauce and tasting it, then twisting her face sideways like it needs something. “But I passed out after doing the one wall. I don’t know what I was thinking deciding to paint my own apartment.”

  “What color?” I ask. “And you need to paint the entry wall first.”

  “Red,” she says. “It’s bold.”

  I’m absolutely certain that red is a bad color for her. I know this because it’s also bad for me; in numerology you have good colors and bad colors based on your Life Path number, which is determined by the date and month of your birth. Nat’s birthday is the eighth of November. I was born on the seventh of the same month, so of course we get along. Our bad colors are red and black. Nightmare, right? I mean, fine, I don’t need to wear red … but black? It’s only the most stylish, slimming color there is. So to answer the question you must be asking yourself: Yes, I wear black. But never all black, and always with a good-luck color to balance it out, and only because it’s black, which really can’t be avoided. I do not wear red. And I would never paint the walls of my apartment either color—that would just be asking for trouble.

  I pull out my iPhone and Google it to confirm I’m right about the color catastrophe. Sure enough. I look up at Nat, panicked.

  “You can’t paint your walls red,” I say. “It’s a bad-luck color for you.”

  She gives me her usual “That’s your burden, Berry” look. “It’s gonna be okay. Relax.”

  “Nat, no. Seriously. You need to paint over it. You’ve only done one wall.”

  “No,” she says, abruptly annoyed.

  “Then can you make it an accent wall?” I suggest. “My friend Brady used to have one wall painted blue, and the rest of the walls in his apartment were white. It was an accent wall. It was cool. Not overbearing.”

  “You mean bold,” she corrects.

  “I mean unlucky,” I reply, looking back down at my phone. “How about yellow? Yellow is bold. And cheerful.”

  “And jaundiced. Are you high?”

  We go back and forth for a while, me trying to convince her that a pale yellow would be soothing and pleasant and a bright yellow would be bold just like red, so really yellow is the way to go. She says yellow is the color of piss and “La Cage.” I’d have gone with “the sun,” but Nat’s a little more acerbic.

  I know that this interview and photo shoot are going to mean big things for Nat, and I don’t want her to screw it up. I also know that in my bathroom I have two full canisters of white paint from when I repainted my own walls.

  “I just remembered something,” I say, and tell her I have to go.

  “You didn’t even eat!” she says.

 
“What part of six pounds did you not hear?” I call behind me as I’m leaving. “I just came by to see your warm self.”

  “You said ‘warm.’ You should have said ‘hot,’ ” she shouts. “Bite me!”

  “Not eating,” I shout back.

  Here’s the thing: It’s not breaking and entering if you have a key. Um, I think. And Nat and I each have keys to each other’s apartments in case of emergency. She may not realize this, or necessarily agree, but this is totally an emergency.

  M-E-S-S-Y! Jesus, is Nat’s place messy. I hate clutter. Leaving dirty dishes in your sink is not only an invitation to ants and roaches—it’s just disgusting. It’s amazing that this girl runs an immaculate kitchen, yet her own kitchen is a total pigsty. Once I’ve washed and towel-dried everything, I feel I deserve a mini-break, so I sit down in front of her TV and I’m three-quarters of the way through The Bachelor when I realize I’m totally getting sucked into this crappy fake reality show and whatever person gets chosen will never end up in a real marriage because that only happened once and I’m still not convinced that Trista and Ryan aren’t getting paid boatloads of cash by ABC to stay together so they can keep the dream alive. Disgusted with myself for getting (once again) lured into that trap (I may or may not have seen every previous season of The Bachelor), I head back to Nat’s foyer and get down to business.

  I roll up my sleeves and embark upon the cover-up. There is no way she will have that interview tomorrow with one red wall. She’s one of ten Hot Chefs in L.A. An inexplicable aversion to clean dishes and a tendency to wear pigtails ten years too late aside, Nat has her life together—not partially painted walls in unlucky colors. This is what best friends do.

  I’ve brought a drop cloth and a bunch of newspaper to put on the floor, which I lay out as I prepare to undo the Red. She’ll thank me later. Nobody would want an entire apartment full of red like this. It’s abrasive.

  And that’s what I find myself telling the police two hours later when they are banging on the door because Nat came home after work, heard movement in her apartment, and tearfully called to report a burglary in progress.

  “Please turn around, ma’am, and put your hands behind your head,” the first officer says.

  “Ma’am?” I say. “Really? How old do I look? Can I put the paintbrush down first?”

  “Hands behind your head, ma’am. Drop the paintbrush.”

  Again with the ma’am. I’m six pounds fatter, and now I’m a ma’am. This day keeps getting better and better. I drop the paintbrush on the floor—thank God I put the newspaper down—turn around, and put my hands behind my head. A second officer pats me down.

  “My name is Berry. Natalie Engle, the person who lives here, is my best friend. You can ask her.”

  “The woman who lives here is the person who called the police,” Officer Ma’am says. “You have the right to remain silent …”

  They just don’t get that I’m her best friend and there’s no need to read me my rights. I try to tell them as much. “Well,” I say. “You can tell her it’s me and—Oh! Ouch!”

  They’re actually putting handcuffs on me. This is new.

  “Please step out of the apartment, ma’am.” It’s Officer Ma’am who says this, and Officer McFeely guides me out into the hallway and then keeps me facing the wall.

  “Do you have ID?” McFeely asks.

  “Yes,” I say. “In my bag, in there on the floor.”

  Officer Ma’am goes to collect my bag and get my ID while McFeely stays with me. Once Ma’am has my wallet, he takes off in the elevator.

  “Where is he going with my ID?” I ask.

  McFeely ignores me.

  “I was just painting my friend’s apartment. Is house-painting a crime?”

  “No, but breaking and entering is,” he says.

  “Berry!” shouts Natalie, when she exits the elevator with Officer Ma’am. “Yes, I know her.”

  “Thank you,” I say.

  “What the hell, Berry? Why didn’t you tell me you were heading over?”

  Natalie is not amused. “I came home and heard noises in my apartment. I thought I was being robbed! Or about to be raped.”

  “Neither,” I say. “See? Lucky you!”

  “What were you doing?” she asks.

  “I was painting,” I say. “And I finished. And you’re welcome. You have all white walls again now, and your place will not look crazy when the interviewers come tomorrow.”

  Natalie shakes her head and crosses her arms in front of her chest. “No, I’m looking at the only crazy around here,” she says.

  “Ladies, we’re going to need to run checks on you both, so if you could accompany us back downstairs,” McFeely says.

  “Checks for what?” Natalie says.

  “Warrants … missing persons … wanted persons,” he says. “We’re required by law.”

  “So help me God, Berry, if I have some parking ticket warrant and I get arrested now because of you I will kill you.”

  “I’ll have to make sure they put us in different cells, then.”

  The two officers guide us downstairs and put us where they can maintain a visual while they sit in the car and run us through their system. The handcuffs are still on me, and they’re uncomfortable, to say the least. I have no idea how people willingly use these things during sex, but please continue to count me out.

  Despite the fact that I feel a little bit like we’re in an episode of I Love Lucy, Natalie is fuming.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, quietly. “I really was just trying to help you. I guess I had some extra energy after my disastrous weekend and I tried to channel it into preventing you from tempting the Bad Luck Gods, since they’ve been causing such havoc with me lately. At least where men are involved.”

  She doesn’t say anything.

  “I’m sorry,” I say again. “It was stupid.”

  “It’s okay,” she finally says. “I know you meant well.”

  “I did. And now the place is ready for your close-up. I even tidied up for you.”

  “You didn’t have to do that,” she says. “The tidying. We know you didn’t have to do the painting.”

  “I just wanted you to have a good interview.”

  “Thank you,” she says. “You are a lunatic. But I know you meant well.”

  “Okay, ladies,” Officer Ma’am says. “You’re both clear.” McFeely uncuffs me and walks back to the car.

  “Sorry for the confusion,” I say. Neither cop responds. “And feel free to never call me ma’am again,” I add under my breath.

  I imagine I hear McFeely say “whack jobs” under his breath, but I know that’s impossible because he’s here to serve and protect, not denigrate.

  Natalie and I walk back upstairs so I can get my bag, and I apologize about seventeen more times. Finally, when I’m sure she’s not angry, I leave. But I call her on the way home just to make sure.

  I wanted to buy a candleholder, but the store didn’t have one. So I got a cake.

  —MITCH HEDBERG

  Chapter Seven

  If there’s one more thing you should know about me, it’s this: I tell it like it is. Always. Sometimes, that makes things uncomfortable. Sometimes, it’s made me unpopular. But for the most part it’s what’s made me me.

  So when I’m walking into work on a warm Tuesday evening and there are a dozen or so guys camped out in front of our building to watch contestants sign up for Daryl and Jed’s “Best Chest in the West” contest and one of them shouts, “Show us your tits!” my reaction is slightly less classy than perhaps I’d have wanted. “If I wanted to show my tits I’d work in TV, not radio,” I say, which gets a laugh from some and encouragement from others. All of which I ignore. When your nickname at puberty was “The Young and the Breastless,” you tend to be sensitive about these sorts of things. Granted, I grew into myself eventually. Or, rather, they grew out of myself, but when you come from humble beginnings such as those, you don’t soon forget.

  I
walk past the long line of girls who are signing up and take note of their buckled boots, multiple tattoos and piercings. I’d say the girls range in age from about eighteen to thirty-five, with the exception of one woman standing in line who, I’m certain, is confused about where she is. She looks to be at least eighty-five years old—possibly older—and there’s no way she’s in line to show her boobs. I see more scalp on her head than hair, and her husband or companion is in a wheelchair for chrissakes. No, she is definitely not here to sign up for the contest.

  My wanting to save her the trouble of waiting unnecessarily in the long line and possibly being embarrassed by the mere suggestion of her entering a wet T-shirt contest compels me to walk over to her.

  “Hi, excuse me,” I say, but she doesn’t answer. Hearing-impaired, perhaps. I speak up again, this time tapping her gently on the shoulder, feeling her fragile bones so thinly covered by translucent skin. “Hello?”

  Startled, she turns to see who touched her. “Yes?”

  “Hi,” I say. “Can I help you find … something?”

  “Er … I don’t think so,” she says, sneering—yes, sneering—as she looks me up and down.

  “I work here at the station,” I say. “My name is Berry, and, well, it’s just this line is for a contest that they’re having on our morning show tomorrow. Daryl and Jed.”

  She just stares at me uncomfortably.

  So I go on. “This line you’re standing in is for a … silly contest.”

  “Get to your point, missy,” she says, baring teeth, sounding not so much like the sweet grandmother who knits you a quilt or bakes you cookies but like the one you’ll have nightmares about tonight. And by “you” I mean “me.”

  They say no good deed goes unpunished, but I’ve already started this, so I keep going.

  “Ma’am,” I say, conjuring my least favorite word for the occasion. “This line is for a wet T-shirt contest.”

  “I know what the line’s for, you nosy broad. Why don’t you mind your own damn business?”