Everything is so easy when you are in a new relationship. Every single minor good thing about the other person is amplified by the newness of the situation. White Liz had a car, a ten-year-old tan Jaguar with a lockable glove compartment and a powerful motor and leather seats. She looked good driving in it. Nothing special, necessarily; but I decided I was in love with that car. How I adored riding around in the passenger seat, responsible for nothing, and listening to her good stereo system. We sped through Hollywood late at night and watched stoplights change from red to green. She was a fast driver; not only that, she dressed well. Not only that, she was a good email writer. In the beginning, the little things awe you, and it’s very beautiful.
“Let’s get Thai food,” White Liz said.
“Terrific. I could go for some Thai food.”
“What’s your favorite?”
“I don’t know—pad Thai? Is that too unoriginal?”
“Pad Thai is for beginners, certainly,” Liz said. “Do you know larb?”
“No. But it sounds disgusting. What’s larb?”
“Sam!” said Liz. “You have to try larb! It’s the crown jewel of Thai food. Tell you what, I’ll order some, and we can share it.”
“Sure. I’m game,” I said. I liked looking at her face as she drove through traffic, with my hand on her tiny, skinny, muscular thigh; furrowing her cute little brow with concentration, looking for the best parking spot. She was my girl now, and she was beautiful.
“I’m dating someone,” I announced to Isaac.
“Incredible,” he said. “Does she deep-throat?”
“She’s not in the business,” I said. “I mean, she is, but she doesn’t get naked on film.”
“That doesn’t answer my question,” he said.
“I refuse to talk about it,” I said, proudly. I respect her.”
“God, you really have gone off the deep end,” he said. ' Well, when can I meet her?”
“You should come up to the house this weekend. Hell, bring some friends. Let’s have a little party. Let’s have some normal people up at that place, you know? I want to show you guys where I live.
It’s very ugly, but sort of . . . impressive. Bring a bathing suit. Tell everyone!”
Isaac brought eight or so people to Malibu that Friday night, all art-school friends of his. Liz and I greeted everyone at the door, and Timberlake offered them drinks.
“None for me,” Isaac said.
“What, you on the wagon?” Timberlake laughed.
“I am,” Isaac said calmly. “Who’s this asshole?” he asked me, hooking his thumb toward the ’Lake.
“He’s nothing,” I said, apologetically. “I’m afraid you’ll have to deal with him.”
‘Yep, you’ll have to deal with me,” Timberlake crowed. “Cuz I am a porn-making machine, and I am going nowhere.”
“I’m very sorry,” I said, taking Isaac by the elbow, the better to escort him around the grand house.
The sun going down, we gathered around the circular glass table, the very same table where my porn actors congregated on a daily basis as they waited for their fuck scenes to begin, and we drank our drinks and listened to summer sounds. Some of Isaac’s friends, charmed by the house and the grounds, wandered around on the lawn, doing cartwheels. “Whee, man, where the hell are we?” The contrast between the hipster east-side gallery life that they knew and a fortressed garden in Malibu was so pleasing for all, it was hard to exaggerate.
“You should come with me for just a second,” Liz said to me, gracefully excusing herself from the table with a polite nod. I followed her and her tiny behind, which was clad in tight black pants that had some polyspandex in them, to a first-floor guest room that was crammed full with ugly knickknacks and a rocking chair. She swept a path clear on the ugly, brownish Early American desk, slapping a pair of doilies to the ground, and hopped up on the table.
“I want to make out with you.”
“You what?” I asked, coming closer to her.
“I want you to kiss me.” She stared at me for a second. “That okay?”
I put my head near hers, smelling her hair, and touched her silky clothes and skin, and we pressed into each other, our skins trembling with electricity and the happiness of something new. Then we moved to the bed, that thick and expensive pillow-top mattress. Not long after, we headed back out to the party, where the conversations were suddenly more provocative, and marked by a good deal more participation by us.
Hours passed, bugs chirped on the grounds, Liz was charming the girls, and I was smoking Isaac’s cigarettes and having a deep and dirty talk with his best friend Harry, who was half Italian and half mean, but also a painter and a mathematician in his spare time. Harry had a lot of chips on his shoulder, and there was something pent-up and rageful about him, yet there was something excellent about him, too, you could tell, and you could tell the thing he was mad about was that he hadn’t quite discovered how to let the world know how good he was.
“You guys have a great place here,” he said, looking off into the impressive vista, at the purple mountains, folding his arms.
“Thanks,” I said, sipping a beer. “You know ... I really like that girl in there,” I confided to him.
“Liz? Oh, yeah. You got lucky.”
“Thanks, man. I think I did.”
“She’s good-looking.”
“Very.”
“I would pound her,” Harry admitted.
“Sure,” I said.
“I would actually do okay in porn,” Harry said. “I have a superbig dick.”
I said nothing for a second.
“I guess we should be getting back.”
“Sure,” Harry said, patting me on the shoulder. “Sure, sure. Nice place you got here, man. Best of luck with it.”
We all listened to music and gabbed, congregating around the table until it was two o’clock in the morning and Timberlake was depressed and yawning. I brought out an excellent experimental ambient album that I thought would invigorate everyone’s spirits, but instead everyone hated it and laughed at it. Eventually Isaac got the troops together, including his buddy Jams, who was wearing heavyframed glasses and kept on talking about his painting style and the gloves he had to buy tomorrow to paint with and Jams’s girlfriend, who knitted her paintings, and they got into their cars and readied themselves to drive on down the mountain. Liz and I retired to the guest room, sort of drunk, dead tired, and collapsed into the bed, keeping our clothes on.
“What should we do tomorrow?” I whispered.
“Eat breakfast,” she whispered.
“What do you want to eat for breakfast?” I said gently, kissing the top of her head.
She snuggled into my chest. “Biscuits.”
“I want hamburgers.”
She said nothing, only cuddled more into me.
“Millie’s,” I mumbled to myself. “We’ll go to Millie’s, of course.”
We curled around each other, into a sweet warm cocoon, apart from the rest of the world.
Three hours later, the sun was out, and it hit us in the face and we had to get up, and Liz brushed her teeth with my toothbrush and tried to smooth her wrinkled clothes. We drove an hour into Silver Lake and ate at Millie’s, where I got a chicken-fried steak and a coffee. I remember the hot sauce that they brought to our table. It was the green kind, and it was delicious.
“Let’s go over and see my place,” I suggested.
We drove over to Echo Park and she saw the roach den, pushed the wire door open. I hadn’t been home in weeks, but everything was still there, everything in its spot. My computer, my jar of change.
“I so need a shower,” White Liz groaned
“This, er, facility may not meet your expectations,” I explained.
“I don’t fucking care.” She trudged over to the tiny stall shower I called my own, a far cry from Malibu. The beige paint that clung to the shower walls was rumpled and bulging with water stains. The nozzle was dingy, spewing one singular rope of water at you. “Are you just gonna stand there and watch me?” Liz asked.