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Authors: Marisa de los Santos
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without embellishment, my facts made for pretty slim pickings. One paltry, isolated humiliation after another does not a movie make.
It probably doesn’t even make for particularly scintillating conversation, although Lake was as engaged a listener as anyone could ask for. We were able to talk because I’d arrived at Vincente’s at 11:10 A.M. on the dot, ten minutes after they opened (standing panting at the door when they came to unlock it would have been too pathetic) and was their sole customer for a good half hour. Vinny, who bore a startling resemblance to Oliver Hardy (minus the Heil, Hitler mustache), had pulled out the chair across from me and guided Lake into it, saying, “Sit, darling, don’t let this lovely little girl eat alone,” with such kindness that I forgave him the “little” on the spot.
At Lake’s encouraging, and it didn’t take much, I poured out my tale of woe—okay, not of woe exactly, but at least of embarrassment and dislocation—and her vehement, beautifully timed interjections of “Tell me you’re joking!” and “She did not !” were music to my ears. By the time I got to the air-bag story, I was well on my way to being head over heels in like with Lake, and, when I got to the line “Safety first!” the horror-struck expression on her face—jaw dropped, eyes widened, eyebrows leaping—cemented it.
So that when the subject of The Women came up, when she brought the subject of The Women up, I thought at first I hadn’t heard her correctly. I’d fallen passionately in love with classic films when I was fourteen and saw The Philadelphia Story for the first time. That this woman had, during our first real conversation, mentioned a George Cukor film and that she’d done so wholly unprompted by me seemed too good to be true.
This is how it went.
She said, “What about the men? Are the men any better than the women?”
I said, “Men? There are no men. You hear about them, but you never see them.”
She said, “Ah, like in The Women .”
I held my breath.
“Over a hundred and thirty speaking roles,” she said, “and not a single man.”
I stared at her. Spaghetti alla puttanesca, great listening ability, a sense of humor, and hair that looked nothing like a newscaster’s. All this and Cukor, too?
Vinny called from the kitchen, and Lake stood up.
“Wait,” I said, setting down my fork, “ The Women . Best line.”
She thought for about one and a half seconds before saying, “‘Any ladle’s sweet that dishes out some gravy.’”
My cup ranneth over.
While it was still running, about two minutes later, Piper walked in. Piper breezed in, with Kate hot on her heels, and even though I’d left the eighth grade behind years ago, I still wished Piper had shown up a few minutes earlier, back when I was sitting with a friend, deep in conversation, or maybe right at the moment when the entire bistro was reverberating with the friend’s Garbo-like laughter at an extremely witty remark I’d made. Really, when you encounter your nemesis, it’s nicer not to be adrift in the center of an empty restaurant, skating your fork across your nearly empty plate, entirely alone and with the scent of whore pasta reeking from your every pore.
But when, despite my best efforts to avoid it, Piper caught sight of me, she suddenly didn’t look at all like a woman with the upper hand. For one thing, she blushed, the pale raspberry stain showing through her makeup and traveling into the irreproachable roots of her blond hair. And for another, her eyes took on a nervous, almost stricken look, like Tippi Hedren’s eyes when she first begins to think the birds are after her.
I smiled my best bare minimum, only-just-qualifies-as-a-smile smile, then turned my attention to the inside of my handbag. Handbag rummaging is one of the lamer avoidance tactics, I know that, not nearly as impressive as turning your attention back to, say, the volume of untranslated Simone de Beauvoir lying open
It probably doesn’t even make for particularly scintillating conversation, although Lake was as engaged a listener as anyone could ask for. We were able to talk because I’d arrived at Vincente’s at 11:10 A.M. on the dot, ten minutes after they opened (standing panting at the door when they came to unlock it would have been too pathetic) and was their sole customer for a good half hour. Vinny, who bore a startling resemblance to Oliver Hardy (minus the Heil, Hitler mustache), had pulled out the chair across from me and guided Lake into it, saying, “Sit, darling, don’t let this lovely little girl eat alone,” with such kindness that I forgave him the “little” on the spot.
At Lake’s encouraging, and it didn’t take much, I poured out my tale of woe—okay, not of woe exactly, but at least of embarrassment and dislocation—and her vehement, beautifully timed interjections of “Tell me you’re joking!” and “She did not !” were music to my ears. By the time I got to the air-bag story, I was well on my way to being head over heels in like with Lake, and, when I got to the line “Safety first!” the horror-struck expression on her face—jaw dropped, eyes widened, eyebrows leaping—cemented it.
So that when the subject of The Women came up, when she brought the subject of The Women up, I thought at first I hadn’t heard her correctly. I’d fallen passionately in love with classic films when I was fourteen and saw The Philadelphia Story for the first time. That this woman had, during our first real conversation, mentioned a George Cukor film and that she’d done so wholly unprompted by me seemed too good to be true.
This is how it went.
She said, “What about the men? Are the men any better than the women?”
I said, “Men? There are no men. You hear about them, but you never see them.”
She said, “Ah, like in The Women .”
I held my breath.
“Over a hundred and thirty speaking roles,” she said, “and not a single man.”
I stared at her. Spaghetti alla puttanesca, great listening ability, a sense of humor, and hair that looked nothing like a newscaster’s. All this and Cukor, too?
Vinny called from the kitchen, and Lake stood up.
“Wait,” I said, setting down my fork, “ The Women . Best line.”
She thought for about one and a half seconds before saying, “‘Any ladle’s sweet that dishes out some gravy.’”
My cup ranneth over.
While it was still running, about two minutes later, Piper walked in. Piper breezed in, with Kate hot on her heels, and even though I’d left the eighth grade behind years ago, I still wished Piper had shown up a few minutes earlier, back when I was sitting with a friend, deep in conversation, or maybe right at the moment when the entire bistro was reverberating with the friend’s Garbo-like laughter at an extremely witty remark I’d made. Really, when you encounter your nemesis, it’s nicer not to be adrift in the center of an empty restaurant, skating your fork across your nearly empty plate, entirely alone and with the scent of whore pasta reeking from your every pore.
But when, despite my best efforts to avoid it, Piper caught sight of me, she suddenly didn’t look at all like a woman with the upper hand. For one thing, she blushed, the pale raspberry stain showing through her makeup and traveling into the irreproachable roots of her blond hair. And for another, her eyes took on a nervous, almost stricken look, like Tippi Hedren’s eyes when she first begins to think the birds are after her.
I smiled my best bare minimum, only-just-qualifies-as-a-smile smile, then turned my attention to the inside of my handbag. Handbag rummaging is one of the lamer avoidance tactics, I know that, not nearly as impressive as turning your attention back to, say, the volume of untranslated Simone de Beauvoir lying open
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