The Muffia (7 page)

“Actually," I said, "it’s because of my purchases that I'm able to go home alone.”

From the way he was looking at me, I could tell he had a better idea.

“Did you really want coffee, Madelyn?”

We’d reached the front of the line and the barista stared, bored, waiting for our order. “Because there’s a cute little tapas place around the corner on La Brea. Would you let me buy you a glass of wine?”

On the one hand, there was something sordid about even having a drink with someone you meet at a place like Babeland. It somehow suggested pre-meditation and repeat offenders. On the other hand, it seemed immature and too coy, frankly, to pretend that I wasn’t attracted to this man, nor interested in what he might offer. Could it be possible that he also longed for sex with somebody who could eventually become more than just an in-and-out girl? Most people do want something more than just a sex partner, but they settle because the “something more” is harder to find, to recognize and to maintain.

What was the danger in a glass of wine?
Perhaps I’d been kidding myself. This had to be what women my age do. Maybe every age—I’m just slow. They simply meet a man they’re attracted to and have sex. Isn’t that what I’d been saying I wanted?

I rationalized that the first interview with the Olympic Committee had gone well and I’d be moving to the next level of interviews and role plays—cause for minor celebration. And I didn’t need to be home for hours—Lila was at a friend’s house.

“I’m going to have to help the next people if you can’t decide what you want,” barked the ballsy barista girl with the giant golden-rimmed holes in her ears.

Cullen was still looking at me when I smiled up at him, doing my best to be perceived as “
available—not desperate
.” He had about three inches on me.
He seemed perfect
.

“I’d love a glass of wine,” I said.

“We don’t have—” the barista began, looking at me oddly.

“Thank you,” Cullen said, never taking his eyes from me as he tossed a few coins in the tip jar. “And you."

Chapter 7

Dark-shaded sconces diffused the ambient lighting and cast a shimmering glow over the ochre-colored faux-marble walls of the Andalucia Tapas and Wine bar. Placed at decorative intervals above plushly upholstered booths, they made the mood one of orchestrated romance. Contemporary paintings I could barely make out in the low light hung in every available spot, all affixed with tasteful labels indicating artist and sales price. A mahogany bar, which might have been rescued from a previous existence in old Hollywood, extended along one side of the restaurant with a chalkboard menu above it featuring wine and sherry tastings of the day. At six PM, the restaurant was almost empty, with only a scattering of the beautiful people who would appear later in droves, laughing, drinking and looking to hook up.

Cullen took off his sports jacket then raised his wine glass to me in toast, and I found myself wondering if he’d brought other women to the Andalucia. This was the kind of thought I didn’t want to be having, one of those thoughts that create obstacles to experience. It didn’t really matter if he had and I had no reason to think he had, other than, of course, the obvious one. But at that moment, he seemed completely focused on the wine.

“I wish they’d just call it Bordeaux,” he said, swirling his California Claret. “They’re not doing themselves any favors by calling it Claret unless they think by recycling an old word people
these days
probably only know from Shakespeare—that’s if they read—that the marketers can pass it off as something new everyone will want. It only fools the sycophants who are always trying to keep up with the next new thing. And like I said, in this case, it’s a new old thing. People are crazy."

He glanced over at me, appearing more nervous than he had in the Java Joint. “I’m rambling.”

“No, that’s fine. And people are crazy, I agree. At least we're entertaining.”

He smiled. “How’s your wine?”

I was drinking a Santa Barbara County Grenache, which someone had told me once was like Chateauneuf-du-Pape for one-eighth the price, so I ordered it whenever I saw it on the wine list, assured it would make me appear knowledgeable to my companions. "Not bad."

Cullen explained that he was kind of nervous, which was obvious, but I liked that he could tell me that without somehow feeling like he wasn’t being
guy
enough or something. I confessed that I was nervous, too, but I didn’t tell him just
how
nervous I was, which was about a nine on a ten-point scale. I hadn’t been on a date with anyone I liked in almost two years.

“Babeland is the first sex shop I’ve ever been in,” I volunteered after making sure my hand wasn’t shaking as I lifted my glass.

“Really?” he asked. “At the risk of offending you, today’s my third time. My ex took me twice before. She said she just wanted to look, but I think she was trying to give me a not-too-subtle hint that something was lacking in our sex life and that we needed to consider some ‘aids.’”

“Did she ever come out and say that?”

“No. She just left one day. Took the cock, too.”

"What?"

"Took the cockatoo. Our bird."

"Ah."

He hesitated, as if considering whether to amend what it was she'd taken, but then switched tracks. This was his first time going in alone, he told me, and definitely the first time talking and having wine with a woman he’d met inside the store. He said that today’s visit was actually research for a book he wanted to write—a whole series of books that would break the rules of mainstream detective fiction and create a new genre he called “Cop Erotica.”

I had no idea if such a thing was possible, but I wanted to take every word he said as the truth; I’d been lied to so often, however, my defenses were on high alert. At some point, I just decided to go with it, to just
be
with this man who seemed to care what I thought, who spoke about himself not like a typical LA narcissist in need of an audience but as a way to engage me, then listened intently to what I said in return.

As he spoke, I watched his lips, almost unable to take my eyes from them. They reminded me of the wedges of a perfectly ripe blood orange—plump, red . . .
succulent
was the word. And as I imagined tasting them, he leaned across the booth and kissed me—quickly, high up on my cheek just below the ear. Then he sat back to watch my reaction.

A swell of emotion danced the flamenco between my brain and groin. “Well,” I said, hoping something witty would come to me. “That was . . . quick.”
Duh.

He leaned in again, his blood orange lips meeting my own soft pink ones for     one . . . two . . . five . . . seconds. The brain/groin connection sped up and intensified, flitting back and forth like a Geiger counter when it’s right on top of radioactivity. I was shocked at how my brain went into lockdown mode, as if I was operating off my throbbing groin alone. It was almost as if it didn’t matter who the guy was once that shift occurred. With my eyes closed, he could be anybody. I could be anywhere. When I pulled away from him, the lust overwhelming, I found him looking back at me with the same ferocity.

“This is completely nuts,” I said.

“Do you not want to?”

“No. I do . . . I mean I do, and I don’t. You know. It’s . . . ”

He moved to my side of the booth and kissed me again.

“Nice,” I said breathlessly. Our tongues became disengaged from propriety and engaged with each other, pulling the rest of our unresisting bodies along.

“Very nice.” His arm came behind me and his left hand, which up to this point had been holding his wine glass, moved around my shoulders, and pressed me closer. My own hand reached behind his back to feel strength and a welcome absence of back fat
. Now, if I were really into him, would I have even noticed back fat?
Still—we’d have to get a room if this went much further, and I found myself thrilled at the prospect.

The management, whether by established practice or simply because they were happy to have people to serve in a down economy, thankfully left us alone in our dark corner booth. Everything was going so well, but I wanted to talk more. Though I thought I’d wanted a
zipless fuck
, when the opportunity presented itself, I realized I didn’t. Or I didn’t want it with Cullen. After all, it had been so long since I’d had a lover, I needed a little more preamble for my first time back in the saddle.

He knew somehow that I wanted to slow down and gently took my hand in his, caressing it, kissing me only with his eyes. He told me about living in France and Italy, where he’d learned about wine and worked in a few good restaurants; how he’d returned to Oregon, where he’d grown up and started a restaurant of his own; how he’d then sold the restaurant when an offer came along that he couldn’t refuse. He told me how he’d always written stories and how he’d moved to LA a year earlier, at forty-five, with his then-girlfriend to explore the idea of making a living at writing, but how, once he’d been here a couple of months, he’d discovered it was more difficult than he’d thought. Then he told me how his girlfriend, an LA native, had left him a couple of months earlier for an actor who’d landed a T.V. series, telling Cullen he and his writing were going nowhere and that he should move back to Oregon.

He said it was for the best that she’d left, that they weren’t compatible really. But he missed her anyway, and even missed the bird. LA’s so spread out, he complained, with everyone so busy chasing something not everyone can attain, that it’s hard to connect on anything more than a superficial level. He was lonely and to him, despite how many people lived here, it was the loneliest place he’d ever been. Now he was at that proverbial fork in the road and it was taking him longer than he would have thought to decide which direction to go.

As he spoke, I found myself agreeing with the things he said, and I started feeling more comfortable and less like a harlot, though feeling like a harlot hadn’t been all bad. I agreed with him about being alone, but that feeling alone when you’re with someone else was actually worse—to see that person every day and lie next to him every night and realize that whatever connection you might have once had was now gone—and the choice of whether to stay or go was a mutual decision that never seemed to be made together without one person getting defensive.

I was telling him my story when a couple came into the restaurant with their lips locked together. I couldn’t see them clearly—the place was too dark—but I detected a familiarity about the man.

Cullen turned, following my gaze.

“Somebody I know, maybe,” I said. “Not sure.” The guy kept leaning down to suck face with the woman.
How gauche.

A server led the couple in our direction and as they got closer, it was clear to me the man was Nate, as in Sarah and Nate, but the woman was definitely not Sarah. This woman had cleavage where Sarah was prone to good coverage. This woman wore a skirt and heels where Sarah wore Patagonia pants and flip-flops. His hands groping the woman’s ass made it pretty clear what was going on, and it at least partially explained the kiss in the stairwell at the last Muffia gathering. But now Sarah was pregnant.
This sucks.

Should I confront Nate? No. He’d just ask me not to tell Sarah. I could screw up his date, but that seemed like an immature thing to do as well. What I needed to do was report the sighting to someone in book club—
not
Sarah—and come up with a plan.

The worst thing about Nate and his paramour’s arrival was that it took me out of the tryst I was looking forward to having with Cullen.  In fact, I got very angry with Cullen for no reason at all.

But timing’s everything, isn’t it? And the timing’s always going to be wrong to have sex with someone you’ve just met, to whom you’re legitimately attracted, after seeing a pregnant friend’s husband dry-humping another woman when he thought no one was looking. For that moment, I had a bad taste in my mouth about all men—including Cullen. I turned to face him.

“I’m sorry, but I have to go. Thanks for the wine and for the conversation and, well . . . thanks for the possibility.”

Chapter 8

“It’s not our problem, Maddie,” Quinn said into the phone from her talent agency the following day.

“But I can help them,” I said. “That’s what I do—help people work out problems.”
At least that’s what I try to do when I get a job.

I was sitting in front of my computer in my home office where I’d been unsuccessfully trying to drum up mediation business for a few hours.

“
Sarah
and
Nate
need to work it out,” said Quinn. “And there’s something else you should know—Sarah told Lauren so it’s probably OK that I tell you—she’s not sure Nate is the father.”

“She’s not sure if—how long have you known this?” All right, I did sound a tad petulant, but I felt hurt, considering it seemed like I was the last Muff to find this out.  Further proof that I was being punished for living outside the geographical Muff hub.

“A few days. We didn’t think everyone needed to know right away.”

“
Weee—?”
I was annoyed now. “I wish I’d
known
I didn’t need to know right away
before
I was having a really good time with the first guy I’ve been attracted to in years who was also attracted to me—whom I left in the Andalucia Tapas and Wine Bar because I thought my friend’s husband was screwing around on her. If I’d known they were screwing around on
each other
, then I could have said, ‘Hello, Nate. How are you? Nice to meet your paramour; Sarah’s isn’t half as nice,’ then continued kissing the man I was with instead of creeping out of there.”

“You were already kissing him?”

“Yes, we were kissing.”

“That doesn’t sound like you, Maddie. You usually have your prospective partners' DNA analyzed first.”

“Well, maybe it doesn’t sound like me, but we were kissing and I was . . . it was great.” It sort of blew me away that Quinn wasn’t horrified about Nate and Sarah, but intrigued instead with my kissing Cullen. “Did you know about Nate?”

I heard her sigh. “Not exactly. But he’s always been a dog—and a doggy-dog, too.”

When I reflected on it, Quinn was right. Nate was a dog. But that didn’t mean I had to like it. I suppose I have an idealized view of what a marriage should be even if it’s none of my business. “That’s too bad,” I said. “But I guess if Sarah doesn’t care . . . does she
really
not care?”

“No . . . I mean, she
says
no, but how could she not care? Of course, I could be projecting—I’d mind. But maybe I’m just less evolved.”

“You know . . .” I began. “I have a theory about ugly guys. Not that Nate’s ugly. He has a certain geeky charm. But he’s not really good looking, so the theory still applies. I find that if guys are attractive and women look at them a lot, they have more confidence. If Nate were better looking, he wouldn’t need to try so hard to get attention, ya know? I mean, that’s my theory, anyway.”

As a mediator I try to understand the entire range and dimension of human behavior—mostly other peoples’, not my own—however odd or inexplicable it might be. But my
job
is to work out disputes—not to accept or justify the things people do that land them in the dispute in the first place; regardless of my acknowledgment that we’re all flawed and make mistakes that we know we shouldn’t, I’m still constantly astounded by the things we do.

“How was I supposed to know you’d run into Nate?” Quinn went on, still defensive. “I couldn’t tell you before. It was private. It’s still private. Don’t tell anyone I told you.”

“You knew. You
and
Lauren, which probably means everyone and I’m talking way beyond the Muffs.”

“Lauren is getting much better about keeping a secret.”

“Right.”

“Can’t you find this guy? What’s his name?”

“His name’s Cullen and he gave me his card but it’s just kind of weird how we met, you know, and to know in graphic detail what he could be doing right now with his Fleshlight.”

“His
what
? Where’d you meet this guy?” She gasped. “Wait. You met him in—”

“I met him in Babeland. Well, not
in
Babeland—next door. But I saw him in Babeland and I know what he bought.”

“A
Fleshlight
?”

“It's one of those metal-encased silicone cylinder things that guys put over their erect cocks.”

“Whoa. Watch out for guys you meet in sex shops, right?”

Quinn had gone all prim and proper on me. It was like all the sex talk was exotic and fun when it was
over there
, but when it was affecting her or someone she knew personally, she turned into a priss.

“You were the one who told me to go there in the first place
and
you were the one who told me I had to loosen up and now you’re telling me to watch out after failing to tell me something that might have made at least my evening turn out a little better.”

“
Sheesh
, I'm teasing, OK? Maybe you should go unwind with your own new toy."

“I might,” I said, still annoyed with her. She didn't need to know that I'd brought myself to climax three or four times already today with that new toy.

“If it’s any consolation, I didn’t go home with Frank Lassiter—whose real name is Orin Footlick, by the way. He's very cute, but we barely got through dinner before he started quizzing me on which celebrities I represented who might have parts for him in their movies, and I had to remind him that I book
commercials
."

"How'd that go over?"

"It didn't matter. He then tells me how he sees himself as a young William Shatner, only
he's
more talented, and that he'll be starring as the next Priceline spokesman, completely disregarding Shatner's history as Captain Kirk, pretty much the star of the most successful television show of all time.
Please
."

I’d taken the opportunity to Google Frank Lassiter, and his artificial persona’s web page came up. He looked remarkably like Ted Haggard, the defrocked evangelical male prostitute patron—perfectly coiffed with a toothy grin and a canned tan.

“He asked me what I thought he could make if I were to negotiate a deal for him in traditional as well as new media platforms, and what I thought about crossover Twitter synergy. I couldn't wait to get out of there,” Quinn said sadly. “I’m giving up on meeting men the traditional way. If we lived in another culture, we could hire marriage brokers, but we’re on our own and LA’s not a warm, fuzzy world for the female serial dater over thirty. Hey, how about I come over on Friday and we compose profiles for Match.com?”

“Can’t,” I said. “I’m going to a dinner party at Berggren’s.”

“Another dinner party? That woman has too much energy. Doesn’t she ever get tired of entertaining?”

To say Berggren has too much energy is an understatement. Berggren isn’t a member of the Muffia, as you’ve no doubt picked up, though she’s been dying to become one. Unfortunately, unless one of
us
were to die, that wasn’t going to happen. In the five years our Ladies’ Cliterature Club has been meeting, we’ve kicked out only one person—the inappropriately named Honor—who never read a single book and who none of us really liked. No one actually remembers how or why Honor attended any of the meetings in the first place—sort of a collective denial thing. At any rate, once she was gone we decided we didn't want anyone else.

Berggren has a dinner party just about every other week. She loves putting people together and, kind person that she is, usually invites me. We’ve been good friends since our days in New York, when I was in law school, struggling away against my better judgment. She’d been an actor back then and had changed her name from Elizabeth to her mother’s surname of Berggren—like when Susan Weaver changed her name to Sigourney, only Susan/Sigourney did it first.

Berggren and I have weathered feuds and the death of a friend, and when we found ourselves single moms in Los Angeles, we discovered we had even more in common. She’s far better than I am, however, at socializing—making the effort at both going out and meeting people, as well as staying home and inviting people to come to her.  As an independent producer of small, successful Sundance-type films, she always has interesting types swarming around her—great writers, celebrity actors and an endless supply of beautiful young interns of both sexes. She’s also had the energy and fortitude to keep her dream of making small, quality films going. While most people who start out in their early twenties producing films for love more than money begin to grow tired of the constant struggle, Berggren still seems to thrive on it. I envied her energy.

“Well,” said Quinn, “have fun. But let it be known that I was willing to come see you in Agoura Hills.”

I hesitated before I spoke again. I’d never met anyone I wanted to sleep with at Berggren’s house and Berggren herself was always too busy to have a satisfying conversation with anyone in her effort to entertain everyone. Perhaps signing up for Match.com
would
be a better way to spend my Saturday night . . .
Not.

“Duly noted,” I said, finally, with optimism.
Maybe this would be the dinner party that shattered my no go status quo.