The Sex Was Great But... (3 page)

I pull my ridiculous hat off and fan myself with it to cool down. Kev points at me, as if to say he'll come and jam it on my head if I don't start hassling the passersby, so I put it back on, hide my face in the big woolen scarf, and try and tell myself no one will recognize me. The only compensation is that after I sort out my passport and ticket I'll be out of here and never have to face these people again.

Kev's got a point, wearing these get-ups when it's ten thousand degrees in the sun gets the punters thinking, all right, and within an hour we have enough for a coffee—thanks to the sympathetic local shopkeepers, for the most part. Naturally Kev says bollocks to coffee and hits the liquor store.

“Here, get this down yer,” he urges, passing me a can of beer on his return.

“Shit, Kev, we agreed coffee first.”

“No man, you fuck off! I just agreed to that to stop you whining and you know it. Emotional blackmail, innit? No, dead straight, Leo. I'm taking a stand with you on this one!”

“You're taking a stand with
me?
” I ask—my voice laced
with a fair degree of acid sarcasm. Kev is always taking stands. I figured it's something he picked up in the Seattle riots.

“Yeah. Too right I am. Enough is e-fucking-nuff,” he jeers, as he jabs his finger in my chest. “You're always pulling this shit on me! Well, this time the worm is for the fucking turning!”

When he talks like this I just switch off.

“Whatever,” I say, turning my back on him and taking a slug of the beer, thinking to myself it will at least be cold and wet. But it isn't cold and wet. It's warm and slimy and tastes horrible and I spit it out on the road.

“Hey, you lunatic. Don't waste that!”

“It's warm, you idiot.”

“Yeah, well, cold beer in the morning fucks your guts, man. You should know that.”

I give him a withering look.

“I was just thinking of you, see. Thought you'd like it warm anyway—more like coffee that way, innit?”

I don't reply. I am really pissed off with him, but I know it's pointless arguing. When Kev is taking one of his stands it's better to just nod and go with the flow.

The only other person I know who speaks about taking stands is my mum. Hers are political stands mostly, against wars or governments, multinational conglomerates or our local council. Standing here now, in the L.A. heat, in Kev's hat and gloves, I wonder how my mum will feel about the way I've turned out. After all the stands she's taken on my behalf here I am, age twenty-six, taking a stand on Vermont Avenue in L.A., trying to make passersby
think
so they'll give me their spare change.

The lack of sleep, the heat and the warm lager have con
spired to give me the mother of all headaches. I pass the beer back to Kev. He shakes his head like I'm some kind of hard case he's done all he can for. Then he sculls the contents in one, squeezes the can into a tight ball in his fist and heads it into the bin.

Kev respects the laws of litter disposal more than anyone else I've ever met. I guess because he gets his dinner out of a bin a lot of the time. He goes ape if I stick an empty can in the rubbish without scrunching it up first. Says it gives guys like him false hopes.

I've never thought about guys like Kev before, or their hopes. It makes me realize how lucky I've had it. Having a mum like mine, who not only didn't make me beg but put a roof over my head, fed me, and even made me soup and let me have the telly in my room when I was sick. More than anything else in the world right now, I want to be back in Islington with my mum.

Even though she can drive me mad, my mum and I are pretty close, probably on account of how my dad did a runner when I was two. It was a credit to him that he stayed so long, if you believe Auntie Lucy, who says family life totally did his head in. No one ever says anything, but I think Auntie Lucy may have had a fling with Mike. It's something about the way she was always sticking up for him when he was being trashed by my mum. Auntie Lucy is a bit of a slapper, if you ask me—well, ask anyone down the White Lion if you don't believe me.

I sometimes think about what my dad's like and wonder if he ever married again and started a new family. I don't even have a clear picture of what he looks like. There are plenty of photographs of him at Auntie Lucy's,
but his eyes have been poked out with a pencil in all of them. Apparently I'm the one who poked them out, although Auntie Lucy is always claiming that I did stuff I can't remember doing.

I never really liked school, but my mum was always on at me to finish so as to improve my prospects. I did okay at my A-levels, scoring a place on a computer and media studies course at Bristol University. I stuck it out, but I knew computer and media studies weren't for me.

I was determined to be a DJ, so back in London I worked at the market stall with my mum, building my contacts around the music scene and even cutting a remix CD that did okay around the clubs last summer. I know it wasn't a big dream, but then I wasn't into big.

I'm thinking wistfully about my decks, sitting in my room back in London, when this chick walks—wham—straight into me, sending me flying into a bus stop chair.

N
ancy has this theory that when a relationship has drawn to its conclusion, and the CD shuffle has begun, you can always plot where it all went wrong by the date you stopped asking your guy to wear a condom.

I stopped insisting on condoms with Ted the week before he revealed personal secrets about me to the
Star.
So Nancy could be right. She figures that once a girl feels committed enough not to insist on condoms—a stage she refers to as The Trust Pit—the emphasis of a relationship shifts. From here on in I'm going to try and put off The Trust Pit stage as long as I possibly can.

The reason I was thinking about Ted was because he
had given me the darling little candy-colored Tracey Ross I was wearing. It was his last gift to me and I was smoothing it down when—wham—I walked straight into a street person.

The force of our collision sent him stumbling into the bus stop chair.
My
bus stop chair as it happens. A bus stop chair that has my image plastered on it, advertising
“MakeMeOver—the show that will change your life!”
Seeing this loser, dressed up for a Canadian blizzard, collapsed on top of my own face made me feel kind of violated.

“Fucking Ada—watch it, will you?” he said in a British accent.

I apologized, but I don't think he heard me because a loud police siren was going past. Still obsessing over my reader poll, I figured I was probably coming over as really arrogant and unfeeling because I was just standing there saying nothing.

Actually, I was wondering why—why was this guy wearing a hat, gloves and a knitted scarf when it was eighty degrees or more?

He stood up and put his hand out. For a minute I thought he wanted to shake mine. Like, erk! I was quickly thinking how I was going to get out of shaking this mangy fingerless-gloved loser's hand without seeming too uptight or grossed out when he asked me for some spare change.

Talk about a Phew Moment. Remembering the fistful of coins in my hand that I had earmarked for the meter, I handed them over like a Get Out Of Jail card in Monopoly.

“Cheers,” he said, and smiled. Before I could stop myself I grimaced, because his teeth were all crooked and so—so British! He laughed. It was quite a nice laugh—even
though I was perfectly aware that he was laughing at how grossed-out I was by his outfit.

“Okay?” he asked, as I continued to stare. He was kind of cute in a Gap ad sort of way—if you took the piercing out of his eyebrow and had his teeth capped, that was. He had a luscious head of black curly hair, and a really nicely shaped face with strong features.

I tried to stop staring, but he also had these great big green eyes, almost neon in their intensity. The type of eyes that always seem to be laughing at a secret joke. I found myself smiling back. Really smiling—grinning in fact—well, as much of a grin as the Botox injections I've been having recently allowed for. On the wrong side of my twenties, I couldn't be too careful where lines were concerned.

That was when I caught the traffic warden out of the corner of my eye and remembered that now I had no ready change for the meter. This was a disaster.

“So anyway, cheers,” he repeated, leaving me shuffling through my bag for change, which was no easy task where this bag was concerned.

For once in my life, though, labels were the last thing on my mind, because before you could even say French designer a bag snatcher had run past, wrenched it off my elbow and charged across the street.

It was kind of surreal, really—the shock of it, and the speed at which it happened—but most distressing of all was the way the world kept turning on its axis. Life on Vermont Avenue carried on like nothing had happened. I guess it's like being in the jungle after a tiger has killed: the jungle does nothing to mark the death.

I stood there in a blank daze for a bit, rubbing my lower
arm like those amputees do when they first lose their limb. The force of the strap being tugged off had hurt a surprising amount. I said something helpless like, “Help, he took my bag!” but no one seemed to notice. It was as if I was in a bubble labeled “Disaster Area—Stand Clear!”

The only thing that happened was the traffic warden guy attached a ticket to the windscreen of my car. And then it hit me how totally random this was. My bag is me. I am my bag. That Birken is a survival kit for twenty-first-century L.A. living, containing, as it did:

• Palm VII organizer, with all my contact names and addresses (the one I've been meaning to back up for as long as I've been alive. And haven't).
  
• Black AMEX.
  
• Wallet with large sum of cash inside and empty photograph slot waiting for my leading man to fill it.
  
• License: one with a really nice photograph. Also the card that informs the world that in the event of death doctors are welcome to rummage around my internal organs for anything they might find useful.
  
• Cell phone, with all my vital numbers coded in.
  
• Corporate Platinum Visa Card.
  
• Checkbook.
  
• Diaphragm (and spare in case of emergency).
  
• Condoms (three).
  
• Makeup.
  
• Medical prescriptions.
  
• Vitamins.
  

You get the picture—my bag is my life, my life is my bag (and my shoes and car and…). The point was now it was gone just when I needed it most. Okay, this was it, the official worst day of my life. Not only had I been declared shallow, and proved myself crap at doing something as ordinary as running an errand, but I'd been accosted by a beggar in fingerless gloves, been the victim of street crime, and on top of that I now had a parking violation. A curse was upon me, just like that Iranian clairvoyant in Beverly Hills had warned.

Wilhelm says I have a tendency to bail out before the ship's started sinking, but in this case I think I was justified. So, even though as of that morning I had embarked on a drive to be deeper, kinder and less attached to material possessions, I began to weep with an abandon that would have done Gwyneth proud. And I'm not a weeper, either. Have you any idea what tears do to the skin under the eyes?

I guess it was one of those anarchy second things that Wilhelm had been banging on about. In no time at all I had gone from A-list celebrity with serious store cred, to a sobbing wreck bereft of dignity and without the contraceptive equipment to take me into stage two of my next relationship.

It was during a noisy gulp for air that I was distracted from my misery by shouting in the street. I looked up and spotted a street person—my street person, actually—lying in the middle of the road opposite Pedro's Grill, pounding his fists into the bitumen. What a lunatic! I felt a momentary twinge of regret that I had given this crazy what was effectively my last money. If not for him I would have put
the coins in the meter and I wouldn't have another parking violation to my name.

The traffic was swerving around him, horns were blaring and people were shouting at him to “leave it!” And then I saw that he was actually lying on top of the guy who'd stolen my bag, which changed everything. Oh, my God! Talk about a hero.

I felt terrible for not wanting to shake his hand earlier.

I could see the orange flash of my bag lying next to him, and it was as if the clouds of gloom that had hovered over me for the last few minutes had parted.

For the first time in months I was glad that my bag was orange, and not the must-have pale blue I'd requested, because at least the cars could see it clearly and were all swerving to avoid it, which was v. sensitive for L.A. drivers.

Next thing, another British street person was striding across the road, holding a can of beer up in the air to stop the traffic. P.S.: I know I shouldn't stereotype like that—I mean not
all
street people are British obviously—but he was too sartorially similar not to be lumped in the same national group. For a start, he was wearing an identical black woolen hat with earflaps. Would a North American male wear a hat like that? No.

Anyway, he picked up the Birken—only not by the handle or anything sensible like that, and everything fell out onto the road: wallet, Palm organizer, cell phone, makeup, and then he bent down and went about the laborious task of picking it all up.

His colleague climbed off the bag snatcher as if it was all over, but then the mugger grabbed him by his scarf and
shoved him about, yelling, “You crazy motherfucking bastard! What the fuck you doing man? Fucking—”

Nancy was right: from now on I was leaving errands to my PAs.

By that point I'd walked to the curb and was about to go forth into the fray myself. To do what, I have no idea, but at that moment the bag snatcher punched my beggar in the face with a fair degree of force and blood spurted out of his nose. And these weren't stunt people either—these were Real People—well, real street people.

The drama didn't stop there. A car—Lexus, I think—came speeding down Vermont, and while swerving to avoid hitting my beggar's colleague—who was still, to his credit, gathering up my stuff—it sped straight over my diaphragm! I heard something inside me snap—my suspended disbelief, possibly?

“Nooooooooo!” I screamed.

By the time I'd negotiated my way through the traffic the bag snatcher was cursing his way down the alley at the side of Pedro's Grill and it was just the three of us, standing in the middle of the road with slack jaws. My street person, his colleague and myself, thrown together, as the most unlikely companions in a war against street crime.

The itinerants handed over my bag. My phone was already vibrating so I answered it. It was Larry again, so I told him that I was in the middle of a Real Life Crisis and promised to call back. I knew he would think I was lying and call again, so I switched the phone off in order to deal with the situation at hand without further interruptions.

I didn't really know what to do next, but I knew I had to do something. However innocent, I had inadvertently
been the catalyst for this street person's mangled face. Profuse apologies seemed too shallow a gesture even for me. But what was I meant to do, or say? I was totally uncomfortable with the situation and there was no one on hand to delegate or advise.

“Is this yours?” my street person's colleague asked, holding up my diaphragm.

Unsurprisingly I went a sort of puce color when I saw the tire mark on it. And, even though puce was the color I was about to tout as the next big thing, I knew it didn't suit me.

He looked at the diaphragm, then looked at me and smirked. “Only it looks pretty fucking big. Check it out Leo. Fucking huge or what?”

Leo (my hero) to his credit didn't acknowledge the question, but my humiliation was complete just the same. I suppose readers of
Her Voice
magazine would see my reaction as further evidence of my shallowness. That I could stand there in the middle of Vermont Avenue with two itinerants—one of whom had unselfishly run to my aid and taken a punch—and feel embarrassed about a mark on my contraceptive device. But embarrassed I was. I grabbed the rubber item guiltily and shoved it in my bag.

“I think that wanker drove over it,” my street person's accomplice offered—but it was glee, not regret, that I heard in his voice. He had a tattoo of a fly or something on his lip, and a distinct lack of front teeth. Compared to him, my street person looked positively sophisticated.

Leo cuffed his colleague about the head affectionately. “Give it a rest, now will you?”

Later, sitting on the curb outside Vinyl Fetish, Leo tried
to stem the flow of blood from his face with my freshly dry-cleaned and favorite cardigan. I suggested that I should take him to the E.R. to get his nose looked at.

Both Leo and his colleague laughed. When I asked why they found a trip to the E.R. so hilarious, they explained that as they had no health insurance and no ID, let alone anything so vital in this great and wonderful land as cash, the E.R. was not an option for them.

It was a sobering thought. I mean, you hear politicians talk about health care, and what it means to be without it, but here was the evidence first hand. I am so glad I am a Democrat.

“Wow, I never thought of that,” I told them. “Gee. No ID—that's, like, so amazing? What about a license? A passport? You must have passports if you've come from—”

“Nope,” they assured me. “Nothing!”

“Nothing?”

“Zero,” added Leo's colleague. I was so not warming to this guy.

“But that's incredible. How do you exist?” The two of them fell apart with laughter at my question.

“Hey Leo man, is this chick like a wardrobe into another world or what?” the offensive beggar joked. “‘How do you exist without ID?'” he mimicked cruelly. “Hey, Leo, do you think if we walk through her we'll end up in, like, Narnia or something?”

They chuckled some more at my expense, but I didn't blame them, even though having been close to penniless and ID-less myself moments ago I didn't really think it was a laughing matter. I guess once you hit the streets like these guys you take your humor where you find it.

Ten minutes later we were still sitting on the curb. I didn't really feel totally comfortable about it, but I didn't think it would be appropriate to just get up and leave either. Not after all their help. I tried to think what Nancy would do in this situation but drew a blank. Nancy didn't get into situations; Nancy created situations and then dragged other people into them with her.

Since waking up this morning my life had taken off on a totally random course.

“This is so random,” I said for, like, the tenth time, wrapping my arms around my torso.

“Tell me about it,” said Leo, nodding.

“Your face is a mess man,” his colleague pointed out pointlessly. “Whadja let that guy smack you like that for, you big girl's blouse?”

I looked at the guy like he was filth. Leo was the hero here. And yet all his horrible colleague could do was berate him. So how come it's me that the national press thinks is lacking in depth?