My ex didn't say anything else, but he stared at me for what felt like an unnatural amount of time with a very calm, almost scary look on his face.
"It's not what you think…" I started to say. I wanted to tell him that despite appearances, I had actually been a very good girl last night and hadn't slept over at some guy's house and that really he should be applauding my heroic effort to get home. I wanted to explain everything, but judging by the look of despair on his face, I knew it would be pointless. It would all sound ridiculous.
"Just don't," he said. He went and got a towel, put it down next to me, and left.
I sat on my kitchen floor wondering what kind of people I was friends with. I also wondered if I was ever going to get married. After about an hour, I decided to stop feeling sorry for myself.
Why not look on the bright side? I had just spent my second night in bed with a stranger I hadn't had sex with. You don't have to be a genius to recognize that I was obviously on some sort of a roll.
FALSE ALARM
SHONIQUA AND I had somehow managed to get jobs working on the same television show. Now we were actually getting paid to act stupid, and we were very excited about it.
We were on a plane to San Francisco, where we would be shooting on location for three days. I was telling her about the latest humiliation with my ex and the M &M costume.
"Bitch, you're really gonna need to get your shit together," she said, as the flight attendant handed us warm peanuts. "Can you believe this ho?" she asked the flight attendant. "I bet you're not running around in Halloween costumes in the middle of winter losing your drawers."
The flight attendant smiled at Shoniqua, then looked over at me and frowned.
"Lower your voice," I told Shoniqua. "You don't have to tell me I'm an idiot, I already know that. The problem now is that the landlord thinks I've been sleeping around since we broke up and I haven't."
"Fuck him," she said. "He was a pussy, anyway. He didn't deserve your ass and I don't give a shit what he thinks."
"Thanks, Shoniqua."
"What I would like to know is when are you gonna realize that you're a grown-ass woman?" she asked me.
I had never heard anyone call me a "woman" before and it scared me. I still thought of myself as a little girl-or boy.
"What does that mean?" I asked her.
"I don't fucking know," she said. "Don't you want to get married?"
"Yes, of course I want to get married, but does that mean I'm not allowed to go out and have a good time? Am I supposed to just marry any schmuck that comes along? And by the way, here's a news flash, Hammertoes. Nobody wants to marry me, anyway."
"You just love men too fucking much," she said. "You're like a man."
"You know what?" I told her. "It's better to get in the game and love men than to sit around on the sidelines complaining about them all the time like half of our girlfriends. Would you rather I was bitter and talked about how all men in L.A. are scumbags like everyone else in this town?" Now I was building momentum. "Have I ever once complained about being lonely or said that I was giving up? Have I?" I had started shouting and there were tears welling up in my eyes.
"All right, settle the fuck down with the crying. You obviously need to get some ass this weekend, and I'll get on it the minute this plane lands."
"Thank you," I said, relieved.
The flight attendant leaned into our row, looked at us disapprovingly, and asked us if we wouldn't mind keeping our voices down.
"I'm sorry," I told her. "She just got out of prison." Then Shoniqua made a gang sign and the flight attendant took off in the direction she came.
We landed in San Francisco and were driven to the W Hotel, where everyone working on the show was staying. We usually traveled with four or five producers, the director, and a couple of location scouts.
The three days went by pretty uneventfully due to fourteen-hour workdays.
On the last day we finished shooting early, at around five in the afternoon, so we met up with everybody at the hotel bar in the W. Everyone wanted to go out to dinner for our last night, but I was exhausted and told Shoniqua we should skip it.
Until this job, I had never experienced fourteen-hour workdays and my body was starting to shut down. Not only did I have a terrible work ethic mentally, it seemed my body was on the same page. I told everyone I was going to pass on dinner, when our producer Jeff informed me that one of his friends who lived in San Francisco was coming by to pick us up.
"He's good-looking, Chelsea," he said. "He's an attorney for the government, he's got a house and a boat, I think you'd like him. We'll all go to dinner."
I love how people list material items to get you interested in a person. I was just about to ask if Jeff's friend also had a bicycle but didn't have the energy.
"I'm too tired," I told Jeff. "I have no personality."
"Well, bitch, that's what I'm here for," Shoniqua jumped in. "Chelsea, I think we should go. I'm tired too, but this could be worth it." That's the kind of friend Shoniqua is.
I shook my head, unconvinced.
"Listen, I got a husband, so it's up to you, but I would hate to see you miss an opportunity to get some booty. Especially from someone who sounds like marriage material."
The idea that our Neanderthal producer Jeff could actually have a friend who would be considered marriage material was about as likely as Paris Hilton winning a spelling bee. The conversations Jeff usually had involved two main topics: sex with animals and family pornography. Tonight, he had somehow steered the conversation to the new phenomenon of asshole bleaching when I excused myself to the ladies' room. I had eaten way too much during the last couple of days and had neglected to do any sort of exercise. I needed to see firsthand what kind of damage I had done to my midsection. I went into the bathroom, stood in front of a full-length mirror, and lifted up my shirt.
Good God. I looked like I was carrying a small baby. Not full term, just three or four months. Then I turned to the side for a second look. Clearly, I was well into my second trimester. I started going over baby names in my head. I liked the name Lucifer, but only for a girl. My stomach was in the beginning stages of overlapping my jeans-a few more days of this and I could apply for my plumber's license. I have a body like a Latin American; when I gain weight it distributes itself evenly, but only from the waist up. I turned back to face the mirror head-on. I looked like two sticks with a baked potato on top. "Ugh," I said aloud.
A woman exited one of the stalls and I asked her if she had ever seen anything like this.
"Are you getting your period?" she asked.
"I hope so," I said.
"Well, it's probably just water weight," she told me.
I knew it wasn't water weight because not only do I make it a personal rule never to drink water straight, I could actually see the outline of the cheeseburger I had eaten earlier that day. I made a mental note to get my hands on a Soloflex immediately upon my return to Los Angeles.
I went back to the bar and told Shoniqua that I was fat and therefore not in the mood to meet my prospective husband. "Another time," I said
That's when Carter walked in. I took one look at him and announced, "We're coming."
The first thing I liked about Carter was that he was wearing a suit. I love a man in a suit. Especially without the jacket. It reminds me of after-work cocktails at expensive restaurants. Living in Los Angeles for eight years and seeing men walk around in sweat suits and open-toed sandals in the middle of the afternoon will really make you respect a man with a job.
Carter was adorable, about six feet tall and absolutely charming. He kissed us all hello and escorted the six of us out to his Yukon. I also like men with big cars. As we gathered in the backseat, Shoniqua pushed her index finger hard into my leg and said, "See, I fucking told you. It's a good thing you have me, cuz none of your white friends would go to bat for you like this."