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Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Razbliuto: Chapter 4
Previous chapters can be found here. This one's posting kind of late but hey, that makes it right on time for Valentine's Day. Hoo boy.
I was talking to some people I had never met before in the kitchen of Johnny and Lucy's apartment. It was the first party since the one where I met Lola. When the lady in question walked in to grab a drink I announced "and now here is one of my favorite people." She smiled in gratitude, got what she wanted and left.
We had actually met up once after Citizen Kane. We got a drink at a bar in her neighborhood. If the first day together was wonderful because of what we shared with each other than this felt like the inverse. There was a lot of sharing from the both of us about parents, about feelings of unhappiness. But I felt a distance from Lola this time. I'd see her across from me at the table and I realized that I being friends with this woman was not what I truly wanted. I knew we were just going to talk and then part ways in about two hours. The feelings I had for her couldn't be expressed with just a hug at the end of the night. Here we were appearing emotionally naked to each other. It's not something I usually do, certainly not with someone I had known for such a short while. That meant a lot to me. Did that mean anything to her? I'd hear her talk about her boyfriend and it seemed like he didn't offer the personal depth someone like her demanded. That could be a totally unfair assessment as I had only met the man once and very briefly at that. But when I hear her speak of him I remember what Lucy told me about how quickly Lola goes through men. Perhaps she didn't want to get so intellectually intimate with a boyfriend. So what did that make me? Was I a second therapist, one who doesn't charge? I was telling myself I still wanted to be her friend. I still valued her presence. If I wasn't going to be a lover I'd settle for second best. But the feelings I had when I first saw her remained true. I wanted to be more than a friend. That first perfect day together should have spawned something much more than just narcissistic conversations about why we're both crazy. But because of a stupid matter of timing, because when she told me she had to work on finals while at the same time she was being romanced by someone else, we couldn't take the extra step we should have. For someone who could be so open at times Lola was awfully hard to read. Sometimes I figured I could disappear and she would never notice. Then we would hug and it felt like her body was saying "thank you." I was unhappy with how things turned out but I didn't want to just forget about her.
One thing that was always fun to do at Johnny and Lucy's parties was to introduce different people to each other and see how they would get along. I know Johnny and Lucy would do that individually and after a while their friends, including myself, would follow suit. I'm thankful that I do not have the responsibility of introducing Lola to a man named Frank but I had a front row seat to their first interaction. Frank was a regular at the bar/lounge Johnny and I would frequent named The River. I think the reason I got on so well with Johnny, besides our similar ambition of becoming writers and love for The Sopranos, was that it often felt as if we were the only ones at The River who didn't bother putting up a bulldog front. The place is heavy with masculine energy of the overgrown adolescence type. The place was filled with nerdy boys from the Midwest and East Coast who had come out to California to reinvent themselves. They looked around the Bay Area, Hell the whole country, and saw that what was once considered geeky was now cool. If superheroes and computer sciences were being reconsidered by the masses then why not the obsessors of these obsessions? These guys grew up hearing about California as the land of dreams. Growing up just outside of L.A. I was taught to expect this behavior from those emigrating to our state. I didn't think I'd see as much of this phenomena in San Francisco. Oh, how naive I can be. I should say that most of the people I have met at The River are wonderful people. But a guy like Frank is a perfect example of what bothers me about the place. Hailing from Texas Frank called himself a "Sex Nerd." He fancied himself a ladykiller. If asked for an entertaining anecdote amongst friends he thought nothing of revealing how he paid a stripper to rough him up at a club. Perhaps labeling his lecherous lifestyle with a term as quirky as "Sex Nerd" made him more at ease with himself. Most everyone I knew thought it made him sound even stupider.
In one of Johnny and Lucy's rooms Lola reclined on the couch like Cleopatra. Frank sat in a chair to meet her eye line. With a lack of options I sat on the floor, lower than both of them. Frank was telling Lola of his job once working for the accounting firm formerly known as Arthur Andersen.
"You're evil," she said with a giggle.
The thought of Frank seducing Lola with his plastic charms flashed across my mind. I rejected it quickly. Why would someone as smart as her fall for such slime? Anyway, I found out listening to their conversation that Frank worked with her uncle. I was assured that as bad as Frank was wouldn't sleep with a young woman whose big Russian uncle he had to see everyday.
I couldn't let such thoughts bother me. I had other Lola business to attend to. Lucy and I talked about the damage her friendship with Lola had taken after Lucy tried to play matchmaker. Apparently the two weren't talking for a while, although I found out such things happened a few times over the course of their friendship.
When I first met Lucy I had already known Johnny and her brother Blake. In my mind she existed solely on their realtionship to those two. Then, quite randomly, we were sitting next to each other on the bus. I was going home from classes, she from a dental appointment. We started talking about her desire for some independence. She was supporting Johnny as he tried to start his writing career but she had ambition of her own. She talked about becoming a midwife, which interested me as my Mom's an RN. She told me she didn't just want to be seen as "Johnny's girlfriend" and after that day I no longer saw her as such. She told me at the party that the bus ride felt like a perfect little date. She could see those qualities she saw in me meshing well with Lola's personality. She wasn't wrong but because of, oh let's call it a mix-up, Lola thought Lucy was lying to me and ended up hurting me. I was somewhat surprised and glad to hear that Lola actually did think of my feelings when I wasn't around but I promptly informed Lucy that she had done nothing wrong. I told her the only way she would have hurt me if she and I had stopped being friends. Frankly I was dumbfounded at the idea of two women fighting over me. I suppose it makes sense that the only way two women would quarrel over me was becuase of an overblown scheduling conflict.
Much later in the night I saw Lola curled up almost feline-like in front of the apartment's windows. Being quite drunken at the time I wasn't shy telling her that she appeared to know she was the most beautiful thing in the room. She wasn't offended by the comment. Inspired by talking to Lucy earlier I told Lola that I'm really glad we're friends, just friends. It felt true. But I knew it's not what I really wanted. She appreciated the sentiment all the same. We talked some more. I found out that she was actually from The Ukraine, not Russia. I say I'm from Los Angeles even though I was raised in the bustling metropolis known as Moorpark so who was I to criticize?
Lola was gone by the time I walked into the kitchen late into the night. I was half zombiefied due to my liquor consumption. Lucy, as drunk as me but with three times the energy, was standing next to Frank. She told me in an elated manner "this guy gives the best advice." She then ran giddily from the room. I stood there with him and let out the sigh of the lovesick. He guesses it was Lola pretty quickly. He told me that I had to be ruthless to steal a girl away from her boyfriend. "That's how I've always done it," he said. Before I could tell him that wasn't my plan another woman, a stranger to me, ran into the room and gave Frank a big hug. She said she was leaving and with great enthusiasm told Frank how great it was to meet him.
"See, I don't even remember that girl's name," he told me as soon she left.
He told me how success with woman was all about the confidence in your stance. He compared his stance, which made him look like he was working security at a barely attend mall fashion show, to my more reserved look. I couldn't muster up the energy to let him know that a minor case of scoliosis and a family history of back problems left me somewhat permanently lopsided. He told me that the change I needed wouldn't happen overnight. He then told me to read Neil Strauss's The Game. I had worked in a bookstore long enough to know that I wanted nothing to do with the types of guys who read that book.
Walking away from him I couldn't believe that Lucy would recommend Frank's consultation. To paraphrase master wordsmith Jimmy Pardo, what I had just heard had to make my list of Top 1 worst pieces of advices I had ever received.Labels: razbliuto
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