She tries to explain, but can’t. He tries to understand her, but can’t. He knows this is an area where logic doesn’t apply and he just listens and learns the lesson for next time.
This information, this anecdotal training in the understanding of women, gleaned from experience, books, advice, and mostly hurt feelings being hurled at him, fits in no previous compartment of his experience, and he has created a new memory bank just for housing it all. This memory bank is in a jumble. It is not coherent. Occasionally his more rational mind will venture in and try to arrange it, like a boy cleaning his room. But just when everything is in its place, the metaphor holds and two days later the room is a mess.
These encounters are probably the most formative experiences of his early fifties. He is collecting pleasures and pains, gathered from his relationships with ballerinas and librarians, decent females without the right pheromones, and nut-balls. He is like a child learning what is too hot to touch, and he hopes all this experience will coalesce into a philosophy of life, or at least a philosophy of relationships, that will transform itself into instinct. This fact-finding mission, in the guise of philandering, is necessary because as a youth he failed to observe women properly. He never sorted them into types, or catalogued their neuroses so he could spot them again from the tiniest clue. He is now taking a remedial course in fucking 101, to learn how to handle the diatribes, inexplicable antics, insults, and misunderstandings that seem to him to be the inevitable conclusion to the syllogism of sex. But he is not aware that he is on such a serious mission: he thinks he is a bachelor having a good time.
That night, he calls a restaurant that delivers and he orders an appropriate meal for a fifty-year-old. This is easier in L.A. than in Seattle, as most take-out food in any part of the country involves fat and cholesterol. In L.A., however, it’s a snap to order a low-fat veggie burger, or sushi, delivered right to your door no matter how complicated the route to your house. In Los Angeles you can live in the tiniest apartment in the tiniest cul de sac with a 1 4 in your address and twenty minutes after placing an order a foreigner will knock on your door bearing yam fries and meatless meatloaf. And if Ray’s solitary dinner at home were broadcast on satellite, the world would learn that millionaires, too, eat their dinners out of a white paper bag while standing in the kitchen. Even Mirabelle knows not to do that, as the self-prepared dinner is a great time killer for lonely people, and as much time should be spent on it as possible.
After the food arrives via the smallest car he has ever seen, Ray Porter turns on a small TV in the kitchen and begins channel flipping. At that moment he becomes Jeremy’s soul mate; their two hearts beat as one as they eat from a sack and rapidly click their way through the entire broadcast range, with similar timing of the occasional paper rustle and periodic foot shift. They are nearly indistinguishable as they engage in this rite, except that one man stands in the kitchen of a two-million-dollar house overlooking the city, and the other in a one-room garage apartment that the city overlooked. If Mr. Ray Porter knew where to train his telescope, he might even have been able to peer down fifteen miles to Silverlake, right into Jeremy’s window, and if Jeremy weren’t in an impenetrable stupor, he might even have been able to wave back. And if three lines were drawn, joining the homes of Jeremy and Ray to Mirabelle’s wobbly flat, the apex of the triangle would pinpoint the unlikely connection between these two wildly opposite men.
Mr. Ray Porter gets into bed and closes his eyes. He visualizes Mirabelle sitting on his chest, wearing the same simple orange cotton skirt she wore on the day he first saw her. He imagines the skirt draped over his head, so he can see her legs, her stomach, and her white cotton underwear. The lamplight penetrates the skirt and casts an orange glow over everything in his little imaginary tent. A sunset of flesh and fabric, which sends him into an onanistic fit. He is then silent and satiated, with a ghostly image of Mirabelle still lingering in his head. But soon an arbitrary array of untethered words, logical marks, and symbols rushes through his mind, sweeping away everything. Minutes later, his mind is clear and he falls asleep.
date
MIRABELLE’S FIRST DILEMMA IS THE valet parker. She can’t afford to pay someone three-fifty plus tip to whisk her car away. But parking is restricted and she will have to leave her car several blocks away if she doesn’t. She decides it is inelegant to arrive on this first date looking windblown, and she slides the car to the curb and takes the check the valet hands her, praying that Mr. Ray Porter will take pity on someone who is currently carrying only eight dollars in cash. The car vanishes and she pulls on the restaurant door but it won’t open, then she pushes, then realizes she is trying to open the hinged side, then she pushes on the correct side, then pulls, and the door finally gives way. She enters a darkened little cave, certainly not the hip spot in town, and sees a jury of older diners wearing gold-buttoned blazers and big shirt collars. There is a saving grace, though. A young actor from a hot television show, Trey Bryan, sits in the corner with several producer types, and his presence saves the place from being complete squaresville. The maître d’, a once dashing Italian, approaches her with a “Buona sera,” and Mirabelle wonders what he said.
“I’m meeting Mr. Ray Porter,” she chances.
“Ah. Nice to see you again. Right this way.”
He leads Mirabelle past several red leather banquettes and around a lattice. In a booth too large for two people sits Ray Porter. He is looking down at a notepad and doesn’t see her at first, but he looks up almost immediately. The incandescent lighting, filtered through the red lampshades, warms everybody up, and to him, she looks better than at Neiman’s. He rises to greet her and guides her into the booth, and sits her to his right.
“Do you remember my name?” he asks.
“Yes, and all the exciting times we’ve had.”
“Would you like a drink?”
“Red wine?” she questions.
“Do you like Italian?”
“I’m not sure what I like; I’m still forming,” says Mirabelle.
Ray Porter is relieved that he can desire her and like her at the same time. The waiter attends them and Ray orders two glasses of Barolo from the wine list, as Mirabelle plays with her spoon.
“So why did you go out with me?” He cascades his napkin open and lays it on his lap.
“I think that’s an impolite question.” Mirabelle puts the right amount of coy in her voice.
“Fair enough,” says Ray Porter.
“So why did you ask me out?” says Mirabelle.
The fundamentally simple answer to that question is rarely spoken on any first date ever. And the real answer doesn’t occur to Ray, Mirabelle, or even the waiter. Fortunately Ray Porter has a logical reply that prevents a silence that would have been awkward for both of them.
“If it’s impolite for me, it’s impolite for you.”
“Fair enough,” says Mirabelle.
“Fair enough,” says Ray Porter.
And they sit, each in a tiny struggle about what to say next. Finally, Mirabelle succeeds.
“How did you get my address?” she says.
“Sorry about that. I just did, that’s all. I lied to Neiman’s and got your last name, then one call to information.”