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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780446695633 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Grand Central Publishing |
| Publication date: | 05/29/2007 |
| Edition description: | Reprint |
| Pages: | 304 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.25(w) x 8.00(h) x (d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Finishing Touches
By Deanna Kizis
Warner Books
Copyright © 2006 Deanna KizisAll right reserved.
ISBN: 0-446-57808-8
Chapter One
A Sense of Proportion
When Zach called to tell me my best friend, Cecile, had been in a car accident-hit head-on by a taxicab on Beverly Boulevard-I pictured the crash happening in front of the new Design Within Reach, where the old aquarium store used to be. I was wrong. Turns out it was closer to the La Brea intersection, not far from the curry place where Cecile and I sometimes went for ice-cold beer and samosas that were as addictive as Krispy Kremes. I imagined that Cecile's car would cost several thousand to fix and that she'd have a concussion, perhaps, in which case I'd take a couple of days off from the interior design shop where I worked and put cool washcloths on her forehead until she felt better. Again, not correct. Cec's car was smashed inward like a stomped soda can. She was in intensive care at Cedars-Sinai, where she lay like a pummeled box of blueberries.
At the time, my other closest friend, Bryn, was sitting on my couch picking at a jar of green olives and looking at me like, What? When I told her what Zach had said, she jumped up, grabbed her keys and wallet, and ran for the door. I got in Bryn's car and reached for the seat belt, then closed my eyes and tried to get a grip. If I didn't maintain some sense of control, the car would open up andswallow my stomach, my lungs, my arms, my legs, my head. My brain would fall to the leather seat, whirring and clicking, and I'd be stuck riding shotgun in Bryn's Volvo forever.
Looking back on it now, I wonder what I would have said if Bryn had put this scene on pause, so she could tell me that I'd soon lose all sense of propriety. If she told me I'd soon cause others terrible pain even as I experienced, at times, true joy. I didn't know then that I, Jesse Holtz, was what one could call the "cheerleader friend"-the supporting cast member who rallied behind those who were prettier, smarter, and just generally more alive than I was. (There's one of us in almost every group, I'm told.) Nor did I know that I'd soon break every rule upon which our female alliance was based. How could I have known?
This can't be happening to Cecile, I thought. She'd always been the charmed friend, leading the charmed life. The friend I'd trade places with instantly. If one could actually do such a thing, I mean.
Only hours before, Cecile and I were on the Griffith Park public tennis courts, rectangles of green that are sandwiched between the 5 freeway and the park's easternmost edge. It isn't swanky there by any means. There's no clubhouse-just a soda machine and a drinking fountain that the joggers who are always running by use to water their panting dogs-but the bathrooms are clean, and the sound of cars passing just beyond the tree line is either distracting or as soothing as ocean waves, depending on how you feel about things.
I watched Cecile attempt to lob a ball. Her racket, clutched in her long, tan arm, sent the fuzzy orb sailing over the chain-link fence that stood between us and a women's league soccer game, and I remember thinking, We'd be playing better if we were keeping score. Unlike the she-jocks in the field, who were ripping ferociously up and down the grass and delivering kicks that could shatter a knee, Cec and I were rallying, which meant the fun of cooperative Mischief-as opposed to competitive play-became the whole point. We wasted court time entertaining each other by swinging our rackets like baseball bats, jumping about, mangling serves, and doubling over in laughter.
"Did you see that?" Cecile called over the net. "Could I be any worse at this game?"
"We'll never see that ball again," I said, laughing. "But seriously: You're really good!"
Keeping score, on the other hand, was a whole other game. I didn't generally compete with Cecile, of course; like most women, I could size up where I stood in the looks and charm pecking order in mere seconds. But the tennis court was the one place in the universe where I had a slight edge. Cecile knew it, too. When we'd play for real, her expression would fix. Her ponytail would get tighter. She'd pull her visor down low on her forehead, as if to say she had only one thing on her mind: to kick my ass. Which was fine with me because I had ideas of my own. My jaw would constrict and my brain would crackle with visions of slick countermoves and brutal fusillade. I'd grip the racket so tightly that my fingers would cramp into a disfigured, achy little claw. I'd call her outs with horrible precision. I'd serve with a violent grunt-such sweet defiance! When the end came, whoever lost would throw her fists down to her sides, lift her chin, and scream, "Crrraaaaapppp!" at the sky.
On that particular Saturday morning (a brightly hot Los Angeles day, even though it was the sixth of December), we were doing a quick warmup when Gerry, our beloved, Permatanned, sixty-five-year-old tennis instructor, showed up, racket in hand.
"Get in position, Jesse!" he yelled, striding onto court and putting on his sunglasses, which he kept dangling around his neck from a pair of neon Croakies. "Good. Now get it over the net! ...
"Okay, Cecile, it's right there! You got it.... Great! ...
"Now, Jesse, get moving! ... Yes? ... Yes? ... Yes! Now that's tennis, ladies! That's tennis!"
An hour later, Cecile plunked down on the green wooden bench where we'd dropped our stuff.
"That was so not tennis," she said, dabbing her face with a towel and bending to stretch her pretty legs.
"You're just annoyed I took that last game off you." I took a swig of her water and stuck my thumb down the front of my tank top-I was sweating, and it made me itch.
"Please, I'm the least competitive person in the world."
"Only because-tennis aside-you always win."
"Hey," Cecile said with a laugh, "that's true!"
She put her racket inside its case and slung it over her shoulder. Her green eyes were squinting in the sun, and her pale cheeks gleamed with a peachy flush. Her Wilson was nicer than mine. It was a present from Zach, who thought the fact that Cecile had decided to learn a sport-she had a genteel job as fund-raiser for the L.A. Philharmonic, after all-was the most adorable thing he'd ever heard. Mine was a hand-me-down from Bryn's husband, David. I managed Gilded Cage on Robertson, a store that I personally wouldn't buy so much as a picture frame from, and considering what Taryn paid at the shop, new sports equipment that's manufactured for athletically-ambitious-but-ultimately-novice players like myself was out of the question.
"Same place?" I asked Cecile, following her swaying tennis skirt into the parking lot.
"Always," she said, adding, "I don't care if the wedding's two weeks away. I'm getting the patty melt and fries."
I called Bryn as I was pulling out of the driveway.
"Hey, screener, it's just me," I said to her voice mail as I wound my way around Mulholland fountain. On weekends it was commandeered by Latina newlyweds and their petal-sheathed bridesmaids, who would form pastel arcs before the gushing water- a suitable backdrop for a romantic wedding party photo. "House of Pies. Meet us, okay? Oh, and I got the supplies for the place cards because I know you wanted to start those, too. Bye."
Bryn, Cecile, and I had disproved the theory that women don't play well in threes. I met them in a literature class freshman year. Cecile, who was seated front and center, was going on and on about her analysis of the dream sequence in The Idiot. I don't remember her take on it, just that I was captivated by her profile-straight nose, tumbling locks straight out of a Renoir painting, and a lush, rose-colored mouth that looked beguilingly out of place, like a lace bra under a school uniform. Cecile was fiddling with a pencil, and she'd occasionally pull a tendril of hair behind her ear. Bryn was splayed in a nearby chair, wearing combat boots and an incongruous baby doll dress. She had a look of intense amusement on her face, and when Cecile finally came up for air, Bryn said, "Oh, would you please get over yourself." I barked out a laugh that rose into the air and joined theirs-surprising everyone in the room, including me. After class, Cecile and Bryn invited me to Jabberwocky for a coffee and a study session. I'd spoken to one of them-if not both-every day since.
"You're not going to believe how screwed up this case I'm working on is," Bryn said, stomping up to our table at the House of Pies. We were sitting in a sunny spot that was bright enough for Cecile, who hated dark corners, large enough for Bryn, who liked to sit Indian style, and nowhere near a mirror because I hated watching myself eat. The booths at the HOP were blue Naugahyde, the tables chipped Formica, the carpet a hideous diamond pattern. We'd been coming here since we migrated to L.A. after graduation. (Bryn went to law school at USC, and Cecile followed Zach, a food critic who hoped to capitalize on the L.A. restaurant boom. I, meanwhile, was just born here.) It had gotten to the point where I knew which waitress would let me substitute Caesar dressing for vinaigrette without charging extra and who would invariably forget to bring our water.
"There's the sexy bridesmaid," Cecile said, patting the seat next to her.
"Please, I'm enormous," Bryn said, sliding into the booth and crossing her feet under her shins.
"What about me?" Cecile said with a moan. "I'm going to end up getting married in a giant sheet."
I was easily fifteen pounds heavier than both of them, but I'd long since accepted that where beauty is concerned, perception and reality haven't been introduced.
"So get this," Bryn said. "Intuit decided to buy out this smaller company that makes packaging for big corporations-cereal manufacturers and the like. They make an offer, get the company. But here's the thing: After the money gets transferred, the stockholders decide to hold the funds in an offshore account-"
"Cec," I said, "do you have any idea what she's talking about?"
"I'm too bored to even listen," she said.
"You guys suck," Bryn said, picking up a menu. "Tell me, then, what crucial issue were you two talking about?"
"Fish," Cecile and I said in unison.
I filled Bryn in on the situation: We all knew Cecile had decided months ago that she wanted to serve salmon at her wedding, which was to take place in the jasmine-scented garden of a Santa Monica hotel in fourteen days. Her logic was that chicken always got too dry, and she didn't really eat red meat. Zach, however, was suddenly antifish. He was a steak man, he'd announced to Cecile the night before while she was innocently brushing her teeth. Plus, steak seemed classier to him, and more appropriate for a December wedding. She tried to explain that the menu was already at the printers, the event itself fast approaching, but he was adamant.
"I think he's intentionally being difficult," Cecile said. "Seriously-on some level, he's enjoying seeing me unnerved."
Bryn's eyes met mine-rarely did we get to hear about a Cecile/ Zach squabble.
"Look, this was bound to happen," Bryn said, reaching for a napkin and blowing her nose. "It's in his job description: food critic."
I nodded. "Remember the time we tried to make him a birthday dinner?"
Cecile rolled her eyes. "I prepared for weeks. Still, two months ago I asked Zach point-blank, 'Are you going to get all foodie on me about what we eat?' and he says, 'Nah, it's your day, whatever you want,' blah blah blah...."
"Well, it is your day," Bryn said. "When I planned our wedding, David wasn't even allowed to speak."
"Precisely. My day, my menu."
"Why is that, though?" I said. "That the wedding's supposedly only about the woman?"
They turned to look at me as though I'd suddenly started barking.
"I'm not talking about you, Cec, I'm just asking. You know how my brother, Henry, goes out with that guy Hameer? He told me that in some Muslim weddings the groom shows up in a fancy car or on a horse wearing this elaborate costume, and then the bride gets to come to sign the contract."
"Well, thank you, Jesse, for that cultural lesson in misogyny," Bryn said.
"Not all Muslims are misogynist-"
"Ugh, God." Cecile put her head in her hands. "No, I know what you mean. I'm starting to sound like one of those nightmare brides. Okay. I refuse to argue about food with my future husband."
"Who's perfection," I added.
"Who's perfection." Cecile smiled. "You know what? Show up in a tutu and cat collar and eat steak with your hands. See if I care."
"Jesse was already planning on that," Bryn said.
I shrugged. "It was supposed to be a surprise."
"Let's talk about something else." Cec turned in my direction. "Tell me again why I wouldn't rather be single."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Finishing Touches by Deanna Kizis Copyright © 2006 by Deanna Kizis. Excerpted by permission.
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