Read Online She Is Me by Cathleen Schine - Free Book Online Page B

“you just call on the cell phone and say, ‘Oh, I’m stuck in terrible traffic.’ Of course, you’re just late, but you have observed the proper formalities.”
    “Your parents would like it. Your grandmother would definitely like it.
I
would like it . . .”
    Elizabeth put her sunglasses on, then took her sunglasses off and cleaned them on her shirt.
    “What’s the big deal?” Brett was saying. “We’re as good as married as it is.”
    “See? So why bother?”
    Brett scratched his chin. Elizabeth saw he had forgotten to shave. Or had he done it on purpose? To look like a movie star now that he was in Hollywood?
    “You can buy vodka in the grocery store here,” she said, a little manically, she realized, to break the silence. “I love that. Don’t you love that? I even like Lincoln Boulevard.”
    They were on their way to Malibu, driving along Pacific Coast Highway, cliffs to the right of them, beaches to the left, but Elizabeth thought fondly of Lincoln Boulevard, a street as undistinguished as any other swath of strip malls cutting through any city, town, or suburb in the country. But there was something special about Lincoln Boulevard’s dismal monotony, its density or maybe just the intensity, that made Elizabeth feel that here, in this dazzlingly grim tunnel of billboards and ghastly neon signs, here the culture of America had been born.
    The traffic was at a standstill in front of them. Brett slammed down the brake, hard.
    “Jesus,” Elizabeth said.
    Harry was still miraculously asleep.
    “Jesus, Brett.”
    “I just don’t see what you have against fucking marriage,” he said.
    Elizabeth thought this over, as she had done so many times before.
    “I don’t, either,” she said, sadly, returning her attention to the road.
    The house was right on the beach, a big, airy, modern house of glass and polished wood, the floors a pale gray concrete that mimicked the sea. It was not a mansion, which both relieved and disappointed Elizabeth. It was a house—a rich man’s house, but still, a house.
    The director of
Doll,
that edgy little comedy that made such a splash at Sundance, sat on a chair constructed of polished chunks of wood, its cushions wooly sheepskin. At first Elizabeth thought the frowning woman curled up and biting her lip must be Volfmann’s wife. Then she was introduced.
    “I have no idea how I got here,” Daisy Piperno said, holding out her hand. “Do you?”
    Elizabeth shook Daisy’s hand.
    “No,” she said.
    Daisy smiled. Her hair was black. Her face was a little bit round and pouty looking, with dark arched eyebrows and narrow, sleepy brown eyes. Those eyes rested on Elizabeth. That was how Elizabeth experienced it—they rested on her. And yet the other features of Daisy Piperno’s face were almost ludicrously animated. She bit her lip and looked around her, this way, that way, craning her neck, screwing up her face.
    “Emma Bovary bites her lip,” Elizabeth said. “Like you.”
    The agitated twisting stopped. Daisy turned her head and gazed again at Elizabeth. It was an unhurried appraisal, a look of thorough and sedate curiosity. Elizabeth blushed.
    “I know,” Daisy said.
    What on earth made me say that? Elizabeth thought. Had she offended the auteur? She caught Volfmann’s eye. He gestured like a parent urging a shy child to join the birthday party—Go on, go on, have a good time. Brett appeared at her side and Harry pushed his way between her legs. “Mommy, it’s a Flintstones chair,” Harry said, pointing at the chair Daisy still sat in. “And there’s scary men.”
    Daisy laughed. Elizabeth noticed several African masks on a shelf, one of which looked a little like Larry Volfmann.
    “Hey, Harry,” said Volfmann. “They’re not real men, Harry.”
    Harry shrugged. “Pretend scary men.”
    “Like me?” Volfmann said.
    “You’re not a pretend man,” Harry said. He was disgusted. He went off in search of a television. On the way his elbow bumped a vase