Notes from the Backseat

Thursday, September 18

8:45 a.m.

Shit! Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!

Okay, I know, breathe. If I hyperventilate back here they won’t even notice. I’ll be a blue-faced corpse and they’ll have no idea until we hit the first pit stop. Marla, I don’t want to die alone, in the backseat, wedged uncomfortably between a surfboard and a trunk full of my best shoes!

Then again, at least my white go-go boots will be with me in my last hours.

They suck. Totally, utterly.

Coop and Dannika that is, not the go-go boots.

Why did I ever think I could seriously be with Coop? If he’s in league with this Satan in Organic Cotton, I want nothing to do with him.

Oh, there they go laughing. Ha ha ha ha ha. The world is so deliciously funny when you’re a big, gorgeous guy riding shotgun with your delectable supermodel hippie chick behind the wheel. Never mind the lump of a girlfriend pouting in the backseat. She’s just there to keep the surfboards from flying away.

Marla, what am I going to do? I’m being held hostage by a couple of excessively beautiful bohemians with no appreciation whatsoever for fine luggage, vintage travel wear or—in short—me.

Right. I know what you would say. Just back up, slow down, start from the beginning.

I’ll try. Thank God I never get carsick. I have a feeling putting pen to paper at the moment is the only thing between me and double homicide.

So, back to the beginning. Let’s see…where did I leave off?

As I mentioned, early this morning my outlook was bright and my outfit was impeccable. I was wearing my low-belted chemise suit in autumn green, my leopard-print car coat, and my signature leopard-print kitten heels. I’d tied a green scarf over my hair and at the last minute I added those huge, Jackie O sunglasses you love. No point in modesty here, I looked positively elegant. I surveyed myself in the mirror and was convinced that no matter how glamorous Coop’s best friend might be, I’d give her a run for her money.

Dannika was driving up from San Diego, and since I live farther south than Coop, she was picking me up first. I heard her car pull up, but by the time I got to the window, she was already out of view. I waited for the doorbell, took a deep breath, turned the knob and pulled.

There she was. All the air left my lungs and I stood in the doorway dumbstruck. I know you have her yoga tapes and she’s enough of a D-list celebrity, what with her new show and all, to warrant casual recognition from most people, but seeing her in person is a different experience entirely.

She’s stunning. There’s no other word for it.

I wish I could say her teeth are showing signs of decay or her boobs need propping up—that the way she looks onscreen is all make-up, lighting and flattering camera angles—but the truth is, in person she’s five million times more beautiful than she is on TV. Is that just slit-your-wrists depressing or what? Her hair is so shiny-blond, so long and healthy and shampoo-commercial-bouncy, it hardly seems real. I swear the Los Feliz light was caressing every strand, spilling sparkles into the air around her until her whole head was surrounded by a lemon-hued halo. Her skin was dewy-fresh, lightly tanned and radiant. Her eyes were a deep ocean color—Malibu on a good day. She was at least five foot eight and her body was so fit and toned, it’s hard to imagine any inch of her succumbing to sag or cellulite. She was wearing a tank top—one of those sporty little REI numbers with spaghetti straps and a built-in bra—and loose-fitting, wide-legged yoga pants that hung just low enough on her slender hips to reveal an inch of brown belly and a pierced navel. Flip-flops on her feet, sunglasses propped in her hair, a few fleamarket silver bracelets on her arm, a string of jade beads around her neck and a tiny diamond stud in her nose; those were the accessories that set off her features with the irritating minimalism of an all-natural hippie bombshell.

Her fashion choices are diametrically opposed to my own. She’s Zen simplicity, I’m Catholic excess. She’s flip-flops, I’m kitten heels. She’s hemp and organic cotton, I’m wool gabardine and cashmere. She’s green tea lip balm, I’m candy-apple-red lipstick.

I wish I could feel disdain for her aesthetic, but let’s face it: the look works for her. And then some.

The moment I laid eyes on her, I could feel the ugly tide of envy and insecurity poisoning my blood. She just stood there, beaming at me. She took a step toward me and before I knew what was happening, she had me wrapped up in a hug that smelled of some heady essential-oil mixture—maybe jasmine cut with ylang-ylang. When she pulled away, I could see her lips moving, but I couldn’t quite make out the words. I was in shock, I guess. Somehow I managed to mumble a generic response that I hoped would match her greeting in some vaguely logical way. She went back to beaming at me, so I guess I succeeded.

When she saw my luggage, her big, radiant, white-toothed smile died on her lips.

“You taking…all this?”

I nodded. “It is a wedding, right? I couldn’t very well go to a wedding without a hat or two.” I patted my hatbox affectionately.

“Well, it’s a…casual wedding,” she said, looking worried. “Are you sure you’ll need this many suitcases? Phil and Joni are pretty low-key. They live in the woods.”

“I brought casual, too. I like to be prepared for every circumstance.”

“Yeah,” she said, still eyeing my cases uneasily. “Right. Well, let’s just drag it all out to the car and see what we can do.”

You know how I’ve always wanted a convertible—obviously an enormous, gas-guzzling beast from the late ’50s? Of course, the fact that I can’t drive and have no desire to learn puts a slight damper on this yearning, but occasionally I peruse eBay’s classic car pages anyway, just for fun. Well, when I saw Dannika’s car, my heart, already dangerously close to failure, dropped two stories and bounced hard in the pit of my stomach. It was the most beautiful vehicle you could possibly imagine: a ’57 Mercury convertible, fire-engine red, totally cherry. Propped up in the backseat with its fins in the air was a slightly battered lemon-yellow surfboard. The whole tableau was achingly California, right down to the chrome hubcaps glittering in the sun like precious gems.

I should have been excited. Here I was, about to ride shotgun in the car of my dreams. In a matter of minutes we’d be heading up the coast to spend the weekend in a rugged seaside village, where I’d bond with my new beau and his incredibly hip, glamorous friends. Dannika’s car should have filled me with hope. I should have been thinking about how great my leopard-print car coat and oversized glasses were going to look peeking out of that Mercury with the top down.

But that’s not what was running through my brain. The single, white-hot, stomach-churning thought that was tearing through my consciousness was this: if you like the same car, you like the same guy.

Period.

Dannika had popped the trunk by now and was wrestling with my suitcases. Her shoulders were pure, sculpted muscle and they rippled as she heaved the largest case into the cavernous trunk. I could see no problem; the boot on that Mercury was so enormous, we could have fit five times as much luggage. All she’d brought besides the surfboard, as far as I could tell, was an old, weather-beaten backpack and a wet suit. Seeing all that room, I was tempted to run inside for my mink, since I know it can get chilly in Mendocino. But I could tell by the way Dannika was huffing that she wouldn’t appreciate an additional item added to the cargo.

“Wow,” she said, loading the medium suitcase. “What have you got in here? Cement?”

“Mostly toiletries.”

That’s when I remembered the trunk of shoes I’d left in the hallway.

“Oh, just one more thing,” I said, handing her the hat box. “I’ll be right back.” I was tempted to ask if she could get it, but I didn’t want to admit she was in better shape than me and I didn’t want her smile, which was already getting tight around the edges, to go completely rigid. I wished she’d picked Coop up first so he could load everything and smooth the tension with his warm, contagious laughter. Somehow, he’d find a way to spin it so he was the butt of the joke, not me.

I came back out with my trunk and, let me tell you, getting it to the sidewalk was no easy task. Guess I never realized just how heavy shoes can be. To my horror, I was starting to sweat by the time I finally made it back to the car.

When Dannika saw me standing there proudly with my trunk of shoes (which was, by the way, hardly any bigger than the mini-fridge we had in college, so what was the big deal?) she folded her arms across her chest and raised an eyebrow.

As you can imagine, that look filled me with a fresh surge of resentment. First, the cocked eyebrow is my signature look. No one can pull it off like me, as I’m sure you’ll agree. But beyond that, she was using it out of context, which is never acceptable. The raised eyebrow is a form of punctuation and to use it without due cause renders it as offensive and sloppy as a random comma or semicolon dropped into the middle of a perfectly good sentence. To think that my innocent little trunk of shoes caused a raised eyebrow was, simply put, insulting. Not to mention stupid.

“Everything okay?” I asked coolly.

She slammed the trunk shut with more force than was absolutely required and jutted her chin at my final piece of luggage. “Why don’t you just shove that in the backseat?”

“Oh, there’s room in the trunk, isn’t there?”

“Coop needs some space, too.”

I nodded. “Yeah, but he won’t bring much. You know boys—just a couple T-shirts and a toothbrush, I bet.”

“Unlike some people,” she said under her breath. “Anyway, it’s fine, just throw it in the backseat.”

I did, but not without tweaking a muscle between my shoulder blades as I tried to display how effortlessly I could haul it up off the sidewalk and into the convertible without even bothering to open the door. I don’t recommend it. The pain was unbearable and even now I can feel a dull, throbbing ache near my spine. Of course, my pride had more power than my chiropractic issues, so I slapped a smile on and settled into the passenger seat, reaching instinctively for my seat belt. There was nothing there.

“Oh, no seat belts in this baby,” she said, throwing the Mercury into gear and lurching away from the curb roughly. “Sorry ’bout that. I never wear them, anyway. Just feels too restrictive, you know what I mean?”

Marla, I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned this, so please don’t think I’m weird, but I love seat belts. Death by highway is one of my more potent fears and the feel of that strap creating a band of resistance across my chest is, to me, delicious and comforting. I mean, statistically, the 405 is about a thousand times more likely to get us than cancer or terrorists or psycho killers. Most people are in denial about this, but for me it’s all too real. Every time I ride in a car, I feel my mortality pressing in on me like sticky, oppressive heat. I suppose that’s why I’ve never learned to drive; if I didn’t plow into a semi out of sheer terror, I’d surely contract a terminal stress-related disease within weeks.

Dannika apparently doesn’t share my road phobias. She tore through Los Feliz and over to Silver Lake like a New York cabbie on speed. Her hands rarely landed on the wheel. She was perpetually adjusting the radio, playing with her bracelets, swigging water, toying with her hair as it whipped about like a bright gold streamer. I gripped the armrest with one hand and pressed my feet into the floorboards to keep from flying through the windshield.

The only thing that saved us from a four-car pileup was that everyone—men, women, babies—stopped what they were doing as she drove past and stared at her golden beauty. It kept other cars from ramming into her and it cleared pedestrians from her path. As she tore up onto the sidewalk in front of Coop’s, steering with her knees while she applied her lip balm, I started to see what people mean by the phrase a charmed life.

“Hey!” Coop came bounding toward us, down the steps of his craftsman bungalow and over to the Mercury, a big smile taking up the better part of his face. “If it isn’t my favorite girls!”

Dannika screamed and bolted from the car as soon as she heard his voice. She leapt into his arms as if they were long-lost lovers separated for decades by war and famine. I felt this molten lump of something taking shape in my chest—jealousy, I guess, or rage or psychosis—whatever it was, I could feel it congealing and sizzling inside me, like doughnut batter dropped into a vat of boiling grease. I let myself out of the passenger’s side, hoping that by the time I walked calmly around the car the hug would be over, but when I got there Dannika was still clinging to him, her blond hair shining more brilliantly than ever in the sunlight, her slender tan arms clasped around his neck fiercely.

Over her shoulder, Coop’s eyes met mine and when I saw the apology there the dangerous lump inside my rib cage broke apart a bit. His face was saying, “Sorry, she’s…like this sometimes,” and somehow just sharing a secret look with him while Satan clung to him pathetically made me feel more poised again.

“Wow,” he said, when she finally loosened her grip enough to allow some air into his lungs. “Long time no see, huh?”

“Months!” She looked at him with an appraising eye, now. “You look different.”

“Really?” He stepped around her, then grabbed my hand and surprised me by leaning down and planting a firm, warm kiss on my lips right there in front of her. Not that Coop and I are stingy with kisses—it’s just that we don’t have much practice doing it in front of other people. Three months doesn’t give you loads of PDA opportunities, I guess.

“Hey, kitten,” he said into my ear. “You look so great. Love those shoes—God, what an outfit.” His voice made the already half-dissolved doughnut in my chest dissolve completely. I realized then that Dannika hadn’t commented on my travel ensemble. That’s the genius of Satan. You don’t recognize the affront until it’s too late to retaliate.

“You do, you look different,” Dannika repeated, sounding annoyed that he’d even greeted me. “Something’s changed. What is it? Did you lose weight?”

Coop patted his stomach, barely existent. “Don’t think so…”

“Shave or something?”

He touched his face, always sporting a couple days’ worth of stubble. “Yeah, right,” he laughed.

She shook her head, mystified. “Your aura’s different,” she said. “Are you getting enough vitamins?”

“Wait a minute, my aura needs vitamins?”

She slapped his shoulder. “Two separate observations, you moron!”

He looked at me. “I’m really happy for the first time in my life. That’s all.”

“Huh,” Dannika said. “Well, it doesn’t suit you.”

He shot her a look.

“It doesn’t! What can I say? You look underfed or something.”

I tried not to gloat, but I doubt I pulled it off. “I think he looks great.”

“Huh,” Dannika said again, and the irritation packed inside that one syllable only added to my joy.

Right. So that’s pretty much the good part of the day, in a nutshell. What followed was an arsenic cocktail with a ground glass chaser.

Where to begin?

Well, I doubt it escaped your attention: I’m in the backseat.

Which was okay, at first. I mean you know, Dannika was driving and I was hardly going to ride shotgun anymore with her behind the wheel—the view from up there was just too terrifying. The passenger seat isn’t nicknamed “the death seat” for nothing. I was just about to volunteer when Coop beat me to it.

“I’ll ride in back,” he said, tossing his duffel bag in the trunk and scooting in next to the surfboard. “Sweet!” he said. “You brought your board.”

“Where’s yours?” Dannika asked.

He hesitated. “You think there’s room?”

“Well, Gwen did bring four suitcases.” She said it sort of jokingly, sort of not. It was like she was tattling but pretending not to tattle, which really ended up being more annoying than if she’d just tattled outright.

I stared at her, unsmiling. “A hatbox is hardly a suitcase.”

Coop laughed and slung his arm around me. “Gwen’s a good Girl Scout—always prepared.”

Dannika flipped her hair over one shoulder. “Go get your board and suit—we’ll just shove it in somewhere. We haven’t surfed together in a million years! That’s half the reason I even agreed to come.”

Coop, being amiable and, really, so in love with surfing I could see he was salivating at the very thought, did what he was told. In a few minutes, he returned with his board under one arm and his wet suit under the other.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I grabbed my shortest board, but it’s going to make the backseat sort of cramped.”

“Gwen’s got short legs,” Dannika said, eyeing me.

Considering that she had long, lithe, slender legs, it seemed like a pointedly bitchy comment. When I looked her in the eye, though, she winked, like getting Coop to bring his board was this really fun mutual goal of ours—a sisterly effort—and her making me feel like a midget was all part of our coy, girlie plot.

“Gwen?” Coop said. “You going to back me on this?” He nodded at his board. “It’ll be in the way, don’t you think?”

I shrugged. “If you guys want to surf, bring it.” I’d be a sport. What was the big deal? I brought a trunk of shoes; he could bring his board if he wanted. “I don’t mind the back. That way you two can catch up.” There! I’d be generous. He’d think I was incredibly confident, not threatened in the least by the demonic blonde.

“Great!” Dannika’s eyes gleamed with victory. “Thanks so much, Gwen. We haven’t seen each other since…that night in Malibu?”

I felt my throat seize up. It was like a giant hand just reached over and closed my esophagus.

“Uh-huh.” Coop looked at me. “Dannika’s mom lives there,” he said, sensing my discomfort. Maybe sensing my imminent death due to lack of oxygen would be more accurate.

“That was so long ago,” Dannika continued, oblivious to my silent horror.

Why do the words night in Malibu sound so ominous when placed side by side in this context? Why couldn’t Coop have a horrible, pockmarked, male, alcoholic best friend who wears vomit-stained corduroys and refers to women only in anatomical terms? Why, why, why, why, why?

Coop let me into the backseat and took special care in arranging the boards in order to provide me with the maximum amount of legroom. Not that I needed any, according to Dannika. Yeah, don’t mind the Oompa-Loompa in the back; she’s just along for the ride.

Look, I know what you would say. Relax, Gwen. Breathe. You remember—in and out. There you go.

But do you realize I’ve been in the backseat for hours now and no one is paying any attention to me? Sure, every twenty minutes or so Coop glances back with one of his vaguely apologetic, sickeningly adorable grins. Once he asked me, “What are you writing?” to which I replied, “Just catching up on some correspondence.” That satisfied his curiosity a bit too readily. How does he know I’m not penning love letters to my six-foot-seven husband who currently resides in San Quentin? What does Coop care about that—he just listens to Dannika going on and on about the great times they’ve shared, careening wildly in and out of traffic. I can’t hear much of what they’re saying; random phrases drift back at me every now and then like bits of confetti, but I find little comfort in them. I hear Dannika calling out crazy night and that time in Seville and thought I’d die. I see her turning to him, her bright white teeth shining as she laughs, her profile so perfect and well-shaped it’s sculptural. They’re happily reminiscing, reliving their years of chummy intimacy, and I’m the recent acquisition, the girl-come-lately.

Okay, we’re stopping. I’ve got to snap out of this. I’m working myself into a fuming little wad of rage back here. Smoke’s coming out of my ears. If I don’t regain control, Coop is going to see I’m a possessive, pint-sized freak with no sense of humor.

More later…

Hugs and kisses from the Furious Midget,

Gwen

Thursday, September 18

10:23 a.m.

Dear Marla,

Since when is breakfast an organic banana, seven ounces of soy yogurt and a double shot of wheatgrass? This chick doesn’t eat enough to sustain a sparrow. God, I hope she develops a thyroid problem soon and becomes obscenely obese. Maybe then she’d know how the rest of us feel.

Okay, that’s not nice of me. I should exercise a little compassion. But do Nordic supermodels who live on nondairy yogurt and wheatgrass really deserve my compassion?

Here’s the thing: she hates me. I can tell.

And she’s after Coop.

Look, I know you said if they’ve been friends this long and they haven’t gotten together they obviously don’t have any chemistry. I knew at the time there was a gaping hole in your argument, but it took me this long to put my finger on it. You see, Coop’s never denied or confirmed the nature of their relationship history—he’s only referred to her as his “best friend.” He never sat me down and said, “Gwen, in case you’re wondering, Dannika and I never had sex.” Actually, come to think of it, I’ve barely heard any mention of Dannika at all in the three months we’ve been dating, except as an occasional character in the stories from his college days. I thought of her as a distant historical footnote, not as a rival worth considering. I was way more concerned about the cute blond barista with the crew cut who flirts with him at Café Europa.

But now it’s clear to me: they’ve definitely had sex. Maybe not recently, maybe not on a regular basis, but they’ve slept together.

I can’t decide what’s worse—knowing they’ve been intimate, or worrying that they’re dying to get intimate.

Whatever. The point is, they’ve done the deed and now I’ll have to live with it. Every time he gets me naked, I’ll have to wonder how my hideous little pygmy body measures up to her smooth airbrushed curves. Okay, yes, so I have more curves than she does, actually, but my curves aren’t the miles-of-flawless-skin kind; my curves have dimples and…you know…texture issues.

Is this productive in any way?

God, how am I going to get through this weekend?

Maybe if I just focus on the actual events, I’ll avoid a full-on panic attack.

We’re back on the road now, headed along the coast. No I-5 for this crowd—way too sterile, according to Dannika. She’s all about the scenic route, even if it means extending our estimated time of arrival by at least three hours.

The brief stop in Malibu was very enlightening. Satan was kind enough to yell over her shoulder that we’d be stopping soon for “breakfast.” I guess she was feeling guilty about shoving me back there like an ill-behaved pet and monopolizing my man’s attention. A few minutes later I found myself standing at the counter of a chichi little juice bar, staring at several cases of bright green wheatgrass behind glass. When I’d heard the word breakfast I had visions of greasy potatoes, syrup-drenched pancakes, a mocha piled high with whipped cream. I was ravenous and hunger always makes me a little edgy—you know how I get. It was easy to see as soon as we pulled up that this place wasn’t exactly the greasy spoon of my dreams. The menu was primarily liquid-based; there were smoothies with exotic names like Tahitian Sunrise and Arab Blue. In addition to wheatgrass, they were juicing things I never imagined you could drink, like beets and ginger, parsley and yams. In the solid-foods department there was soy yogurt, homemade granola, flaxseed protein bars and fruit salad. My stomach growled and I felt a surge of hunger-induced homicidal hysteria coming on.

“Dannika’s a raw food junkie,” Coop said when he noticed me staring in disbelief at the menu.

“So I gathered.” My voice sounded tight and strained.