Tales Of A Drama Queen. Lee Nichols

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take five quick steps and close the gate behind me. Think I’m safe until a half-dozen pebbles sail though the bars and pelt my back. Briefly consider cracking Eddie Munster’s head like an egg on the rim of a bowl, but the New Elle rises above. Plus, I don’t have the firepower.

      I step out of the line of fire and am hit with two bullets of fur. Much yapping ensues, and between barks one of the little black pugs tries to nibble my toes. After I realize this is not part of Eddie Munster’s evil plan, I pat the dogs, setting their pig-tails wagging delightedly.

      “Penny! Pippin!” a woman’s voice scolds, and the beasts retreat. The woman is a schoolmarm, with withered cheeks, a sticklike body and white hair pulled into a bun. She wears a tailored cotton blouse and a full pleated skirt. And is that a cameo at her neck? I move in for a greeting and get a closer look. No, just an ugly piece of agate.

      “Hi,” I say. “I’m Elle. We spoke on the phone?”

      “It’s this way. I’m Mrs. Petrie.” And before I have a chance to worry about what I’ll find, she’s off at a canter, the dogs and me trotting behind.

      The walk is through a well-loved, well-tended California-English-style garden. Roses, hydrangeas, lavender and Mexican sage are all in full bloom. “Unique” is looking better and better—and I start thinking the guest house will be a delicious little truffle of a cottage. Tiny, considering the price. But the garden! And it’s in Mission Canyon. There’s nothing shameful about telling people you live in Mission Canyon.

      There is, however, something shameful about telling people you live in a trolley. Not a carport, a trolley. It squats, sans wheels, just beyond the garden.

      “That’s a trolley,” I say.

      “Water and trash are included,” she answers. She climbs the stairs and unlocks the door.

      I enter behind her, and the trolley teeters a bit from our combined weight.

      “Light switches, bathroom. Bed. Kitchen. I will return in five minutes for your answer.” She opens the door to leave, but pauses on the steps. “There is dirt on the back of your blouse. And your skirt.”

      I start to explain Eddie Munster, but she interrupts with a glacial nod and leaves.

      I sigh and look around, and it is still a trolley. It’s carnival red, except where the paint has chipped off to reveal a coat of mustard yellow. Half the floor is covered in green carpet, the other half, brick linoleum. In the “kitchen” is an all-in-one stove/sink/refrigerator unit. It’s 1950s—futuristic, and kinda cute.

      The toilet, however, is less than cute, and sits directly next to the stove/sink/fridge. I’m talking ten inches away. A showerhead protrudes from the wall three feet above the toilet tank, and a drain is planted in the floor under it. There are brown curtains over the windows, and the roof is maybe two feet above my head. I’ve seen SUVs with more living space.

      I need money. Not millions. I’m not asking for millions. I just don’t want to have to choose between ZZ’s garage and a converted trolley. My real apartment, I mean the apartment Louis and I lived in, has two bedrooms and…and it hits me. Louis is living in my apartment with his new wife. His wife. He married her. In a week. After six years with me, he married a stranger. He’s married. He’s somebody’s husband. He has a wife. What if he hears I’m living in a garage or a trolley?

      I am suddenly thrilled with the drain in the floor, because I’m gonna throw up. I make a noise like a sick cat and bend over the toilet, and Schoolmarm Petrie knocks and enters.

      Apparently she thinks I’m inspecting the toilet, because she says something about the plumbing and the pipes, and sternly warns against flushing “feminine napkins.”

      “Well?” she finally says.

      I straighten in a dignified manner. “I’ll take it.”

      Leave messages for Maya and PB regarding my rental triumph. Do not offer specifics, due to theory that once I’m there, it will look less like a trolley and more like a gatehouse cottage à la the Cotswolds.

      Have a private ceremony to officially erase “apartment” from my list. Wake up two hours later suffering from a sugar-crash and surrounded by the crumbs of a celebratory Anderson’s Butter-Ring—butter pastry, marzipan and white icing baked into sugary goodness. But the New Elle does not stop while on a roll. The New Elle continues rolling. The New Elle will apply for three jobs today, three tomorrow and three more each day until she is gainfully employed.

      I look through my job folder—actually a stack of clippings stuffed in my mildewed, hateful tote. Over the last week, I’ve cut out every job that mentions “development” or “boutique” or “team leader” but not “director” (grand total: seven). I pick one at random, and in a burst of efficiency write a cover letter, stuff it in an envelope with a résumé, and place it on the kitchen table so Maya will remember to stamp and mail it.

      Despite being exhausted from use of fiction-writing muscles atrophied since college, I have two more cover letters to write. I write “To Whom It May Concern” and am debating merits of following it with a colon or a comma when it hits me: I’ve no furniture, I’ve no silverware, I’ve no bedding, I’ve no gorgeous objet; in short, I’ve nothing at all for the new cottage.

      This isn’t optional, this is housewares. Thing is, I started with $5,100, right? Then gave $1,500 to Schoolmarm Petrie for first, last, security. Spent $300 on assorted shopping. Well, $400. Let’s call it $500 on assorted shopping, to be safe. I do a little long-division and discover that $5,100 minus $2,000 is $3,100.

      I count my money: $1,773.59. Must have it wrong. Even I cannot misplace $1,300 in cash.

      I count it again: $1,612.59.

      Again: $1,598.59. This rate of shrinkage, I’ll have nothing left by midnight, except the fifty-nine cents I’m so sure about.

      I panic. I call Louis, and hang up on the second ring. I call back, and hang up on the first. I take a deep breath, and call a third time. I get a message. In a woman’s voice. I hear: Hi, you’ve reached the Ferrises. We’re not in right now—

      I slam the phone down. The Ferrises? That is my fucking answering machine and my fucking fiancé. I call Maya at work and get the machine. I dial my mother and hang up before the call goes through.

      Twenty minutes, and all the Butter-Ring crumbs later, I’m thinking more clearly: what I need is money, not comfort. I call my dad.

      “Dad, it’s Elle,” I say when he answers.

      “Hi, sweetheart.” He sounds pleased to hear from me. “Guess what?”

      “I don’t want to guess. You got my message that I moved? I’m in Santa Barbara now. The flight was fine. I just rented an apartment.”

      “I got married.”

      That isn’t my favorite sentence. I feel the throb of an impending migraine. “You already are married.”

      “Leanne? We divorced months ago. I met Nancy in Panama in October. We tied the knot last week in Hawaii.”

      I want to ask why he didn’t invite me, but I know the answer: He’s still upset because last time he got married I said I couldn’t come this

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