Tasting paradise

Him. This face. Sparsely-bearded, a perennial smile across his face. A big bear of a man who wouldn’t hurt a fly. Not a handsome face. Crow’s feet at the corner of his hazel eyes and deep wrinkles furrowing his forehead. Thinning and grizzling hair. On the fat side masterly tailored out of view with two-grand suits. He’s still the same slightly perspiring , jocund man. He’s the buddy you would share a beer with, on the porch, at the end of a summer day after gardening together. He is the uncle , pocketful of candies, doting on his nephew and nieces. He is Santa at the mall, smiling for cameras, speaking softly to kids , keeping a warm smile as one of them is bawling uncontrollably for his mother. He could also be the warm ,cheerful , checkered-shirted lumberjack at the local bar wisecracking freely over a pint with the bartender as pool balls ricochet in the glow of green-shaded lamps. He remains the same innocuous-looking man and he is staring at me.

Brought up in the Midwest, I longed for a different America. I had nothing against Main Street and its banks, restaurants, hair salons or any business lining continuously my city’s major thoroughfare. As you turned left or right, badly-maintained roads meandered through corn or wheat fields and reached single-story houses with barns and silos on the side. To get to my place, one had to leave the asphalt and drive up a dirt dusty road. Arty, the spaniel, would greet you jumping shoulder-high ,waltzing in endless circles , yelping you welcome. Mom was behind the kitchen counter hacking away at some of Daddy’s prey. The stew wafted all over the house , up to the wooden stairway and left into my room. A dressing-table with pictures of two drunk girls tacked around the mirror. Me, blonde, like so many in those parts, green-eyed like mommy, a discreet dimple cleaving my chin like daddy. The other one, Dakota, the girl who remained. My old bed with its thick quilt and myriads of plush toys, token of the little girl who never left. Posters. Lots of them. Actresses. Singers. Out West. Bland teenage room where I took my first boyfriends. Kissing and fondling at first. Consensual , two kids investigating in the ways of adults. Parents out for the week-end. I lost my virginity. My one true love. He is married today, two kids, working on his father’s farm, his wife tending the till at the local grocery store. Bliss. Could have been me.

Left for L.A. Acting school, I simply had to become a poster myself. Classes and auditions. Auditions and classes. Nights out in L.A, loud music in clubs, lewd boys on the dance floors insisting on taking you home. It was so difficult finding a job: you’re too tall, you’re too small, you’re too fat, you’re too smart. My breakfast table is full of job ads circled in red. Beautiful girl wanted, payment in cash, no audition, two-hour session. Money got tight. I took a part-time job at a local restaurant. Mommy and Daddy couldn’t send much more. I knew Mommy got her old job back the day I left. Their emails were cheerful, always supportive. Two years in smoggy L.A, simply no time to go back home. Rainy Sunday afternoons in L.A, quiet streets, the TV was on for background noise. Tears rolled freely down my cheeks, friends out for the week-end, I couldn’t afford the trip. Desperation kicked in and enhanced by ransacking the liquor cabinet. Cottony-vision, self-deprecating laughs, then the ringtone of my phone brought hope home.

I will always remember the interview. I was ushered-in by a high-heeled, slender-bootied secretary. Him behind his desk looking intently at a file ( my press book?) wire glasses perched at the tip of his broad nose. He greeted me with a cheerful smile, not really getting up but bending over and motioning me to a chair. A harmless one-hour conversation with an appointment set for the next day for signing contracts. I ran like a madwoman in the street, thrilled, feet not touching the ground, feeling like shrieking with glee, had to wait for the apartment to bury my head in my pillow and exult, exult, exult. The next night, at a fancy restaurant, expensive two-bites dish , French wines: Champagne, Meursault, Haut-Brion, Yquem in that order. I was love-drunk with my life at the time, tasting paradise. The contracts were not with him but back at his place ,Beverly Hills, of course. Chauffeured car driving up the fearful bends, an innocuous ( once again) hand on my thigh. Soft music , dim lights in a spacious living-room, patio doors opening on a small terrace and below bustling twinkling L.A. The pop of Champagne being uncorked in the kitchen. He staggered in with two flutes bubbling away , laid them down on the low table. The bear pounced on me, I squirmed away, he backed off. He mumbled something about contracts. I rubbed at the bitemark on my neck. He apologized, threw himself on the floor , begging me, almost crying. I was at a loss, I didn’t know what to do , contracts on one side , a cab drive back to my place, and ,in the middle, this big bear of a man abusing himself in the vague hope of turning me on. I felt sorry for him. I felt he was not forcing himself on me. I was wrong.

It’s been three years now. I’m back. I’m waiting for Dakota to show up. He’s dead, locked away. No one talks about it; the din has faded. He is now truly harmless, innocuous , this big bear of a man, smiling benevolently on the cover of a magazine advertised on the side of a bus which has stopped at a red light in front of the bar’s sidewalk seating area. The same old playful man smiling invitingly, convicted and condemned, publicly-executed, shamed for eternity. But he lives on, inside of me , this contagious smile , with the ravenous lips I know too well, it keeps haunting me, it keeps shaming me.