The Lupo was on her way. I clicked off the phone and set it down on the table. Outside the wind was beginning to pick up, and through the French doors I could see low-lying shrubs in the garden lean with the breeze, their dead thatch and loose leaves giving way to the gusts.

Lupo. I laughed. It was the nickname we had given our friend Courtney while in college. Lupo was Hawaiian for “wolf,” and with her being half Hawaiian and socially on the prowl any time we went someplace public like a restaurant or club, it was a fitting moniker. Courtney had always been the kind of person one would dub the social director: Always eager to meet new people, try new things – and the icing on the cake – always the center of attention, something I never failed to point out to her. Courtney and I bumped heads in the past. My problem was that she had no tact, and was no substance and little style. Courtney’s problem with me was every girl’s problem: Why was I not paying enough attention to her? She was a friend but a friend at arm's length. She had a way of annoying to the point of going along with the program just to shut her up, the very reason Aaron and Devin dispatched her this evening.

“How many spot lights do you need shining upon you?” I asked, recalling an exchange from years ago. “You realize that half of the men in here think you are an embarrassing idiot and the other half only wants to get laid, right?”

“You’re such a jerk, you could be a friend and hang out with me.”

“And do what? Part the crowds as you make your way from the dance floor to the bar, making sure people only direct their gaze towards you and the beauty you radiate? Your only usefulness is as a wing woman to draw others in closer, but why do I need to do that, I’m not pathetic.”

“I see you in the back of the bar mister, hiding out with girls you knew from long ago who don’t even matter. At least I go out and broaden my horizons and meet new people.”

At about this point she would normally reposition her half shirt or arch her back a little to make sure I was staring at her chest, because after all the focus was always supposed to be on her. I never bit. I generally would say something to annoy her further.

“You should really get those things reduced; they’re going to cause excruciating back pain someday. That is, unless you have your brains partitioned between them and you run the risk of the procedure making you dumb.”

“You are such an ass.” She would always have that response ready along with a shake of the head. Sometimes she would deliver the line half laughing. “I don’t know why we even hang out.”

“Because you need the attention of a good looking guy,” I’d say. “You really don’t, but you haven’t figured it out for yourself so I have to mention it over and over. Maybe that’s why we get thrown together – so I can play Captain Obvious.”

If you got to know Courtney you’d find she was like every other Redondo Beach girl – long wavy hair, perfect smile, tan skin, leggy, athletic build - but that attitude, that “me first” mentality she employed, really got under my skin. And she was on her way here. They knew how to play her against me, too. The longer I held out the longer I would have to hear her go on about how my holdout was undermining her night out and her chance of being in the public eye. And there was no talking sense into this one; as far as she knew, hers was the only voice worth hearing. She wouldn’t leave no matter how polite the request. The one thing she did well was follow directions; once she was sold on the program she was in tooth and nail. The only way she would leave my place was with me in tow. Their plan was a flawless chess game and she was the checkmate waiting to happen.

When she arrived I was dressed and ready, looking as suave and dapper as a person who was about to eat donuts could be.

“Hey you!” she said as I held the door open for her, “you look good, really good.” She always started out pleasant. It would sour as things progressed.

“Michelle said you hadn’t been taking care of yourself but I gotta say, for a shut-in you clean up pretty well, mister,” she added. I ushered her out the door before my mother could come out of her bedroom and make Courtney indulge her in an unnerving game of twenty questions.

“I’m driving,” I said.

“Is this a macho I can’t ride in the car if a woman’s driving kind of thing?” she asked.

“No, it’s a I don’t know if you can drive a car safely and talk at the same time kind of thing, so I’m not taking any chances.”

“Funny,” she added, poking her tongue out. She motioned to my car. “I see you still have the car.”

“I do,” I replied. I opened the door and she slid into the passenger seat.

“Such a gentleman. There should be more guys like you.”

I shut the door and walked around. “No way,” I replied once inside, “that means more competition.”

I fired up the engine and within seconds the tunes came blaring over the speakers. “What are you listening to?” she asked.

“Jody Watley. I’m indulging this recent fascination I’m having with late 80s and early 90s music. The stuff that was in just before grunge dropped the hammer.”

I forwarded the disc to another song. “I remember this one!” Courtney squealed. “This one had some guy rapping on it but he was low key and sort of down, not that bitches be up in here style you always hear.”

I shook my head. “You’re talking about Rakim. That's not his style, always sounds like he does on this song.”

Courtney began grooving in her chair to the beat, and joined in the chorus with Jody:

Friends will let you down
Friends won’t be around
When you need them most
Where are your friends
___________________________________________________________________________________

Grace is a restaurant on Beverly Boulevard between the Hancock Park and Park La Brea sections of mid city which dates back to the 1950s when the restaurant was called Muse. Since then it has undergone renovation after renovation and slick marketing ploy after slick marketing ploy. In the 60s the place became a hangout for the anti-war crowd; in the 70s it was a hip late night after hours watering hole for the disco set; and the 80s brought about another change in ownership and marketing strategy, emerging as the cool ultra-hip “it” place for bankers, analysts and other higher wage earners. In the 90s there was more of the same – new owners, new fads, new menus – but the same result. The property just couldn’t get a new lease on life.

Somewhere around 2003 the group that owned the Westwood Restaurant & Grill bought the place and renamed it Grace. The menu was different and the decorations were eclectic, but the gimmicks remained the same, thus Wednesday night’s “Donut Night.” People would come far and wide just to have a donut and a cup of coffee in a sit-down restaurant after nightfall. The wait would extend out the door regularly. To an outsider the ritual seemed silly – and it was – but for somebody knee-deep in Southern California pop culture, this was one of the better places to hang out and be seen. This was the place Courtney and all of the Courtney clones in the southland clamored to go.

Inside the place looked just as I remembered, its décor as every bit chic and eccentric as the first time I walked through those doors. Black and white glass chandeliers hung in the waiting area like earrings, dangling just above my head. Drowned flowers floated effortlessly in towering test-tube like cylinders, a few with black lights behind them to alter the colors of the flowers. People sat impatiently in the waiting area while outside the entrance others paced back and forth while quietly enjoying the solitude of a cigarette as they waited. Tonight we had a reservation, as it was the only way to get a seat on donut night. Inside we found Michelle, Aaron and Vanessa in the restaurant’s poor excuse for a bar. I once read the reason Grace had a small bar was for keeping the emphasis on the menu and not the spirits, which is a curious thing for an establishment with over 5000 wines on hand to say.

“Well look what we have here!” exclaimed Aaron as I pushed past a few people to get to the group.

“You got me out of the house. Pat yourselves on the back, you got me,” I responded to the four of them.

Michelle pointed at me. “Lupo. I knew it would work. It always works on you. You could have just been more receptive. Otherwise you wouldn’t have to deal with a night of...”

She nodded in the direction of Courtney, who had already carved out a place for herself at the bar and was making flirty eyes with the guy on her left. “What’s good here, any drink specials tonight?” I heard her say. God, she was so fucking obvious.

“I guess it’s a lesson learned the hard way.”

The place was getting noisy and it was barely past seven. As one of the few restaurants in Los Angeles that served food past eleven it was a popular place, but things usually didn’t pick up until after nine or ten.

Aaron leaned in, trying to close the distance so he could be heard. “Devin called, he’s running a little late.” He shrugged. “You know, the life of a star.”

“What’s going on with that?” I asked. “I thought he no longer did Burger King commercials.”

Aaron shook his head. “He doesn’t. They got rid of all the people doing those commercials. Now they use a guy dressed up as the Burger King mascot, except he has this really huge plastic head. It looks kind of creepy. Anyway, he’s inserted Forrest Gump-style into football games, so he intercepts the ball and returns it to the house, or runs onto the field and does a dance. It’s sort of funny. How could you not have since that commercial? It's always on.”

I gave Aaron an I don’t know motion with my hands. “I just haven’t, I don’t say why. So what...is he doing something else now?”

Michelle broke in. “He’s doing commercials for Nivea skin cream. They have a whole men’s line that's been launched, and Devin is sort of their spokesmodel. He’s in a commercial where it’s like he’s been out partying all night with his girl, and then the next day she’s in tub detoxing with cucumber slices on her eyes, and he’s in front of the mirror putting on Nivea under his eyes.”

“That’s it?”

“Yeah.”

“So he stands in front of the camera and puts lotion under his eyes? And that’s working?”

“Dude, it’s been on TV all of the time,” Aaron rejoined. “And he’s already done another two commercials that they haven’t put out yet. He is the face of their men’s line.”

“He’s the poster boy for metrosexuals!” exclaimed Michelle. “They even made him better looking than you,” she added, winking.

From behind me I heard Courtney: “Guys, guys, the bartender said beginning at eight he is going to make some specialty drink that’s blood red and has five kinds of alcohol. We totally have to order some.”

I smirked at the group as if to say “I may have forced your hand to bring her into this, but now you have to put up with her for the rest of the night.”

The hostess came into the bar and flagged us down. As much as the restaurant world was going hi-tech, Grace shied away from employing pagers or those illuminating, buzzing coasters.

The woman led us into the main dining room past a couple leaning too far over their table to feed each other a shared plate tandoori quail, past a booth filled with harajuku girls done up in blue and red, with the frilly, stringy white material hanging loosely around their sleeves and reflecting brightly off the low lighting, and past another table occupied by two couples dressed in 50s-era bowling attire. Grace never failed to attract subculture upon subculture, each convinced the tiny restaurant was just the place to receive their personal stamp.

I stood while Vanessa and Courtney slid into the booth, and eyed one of the harajuku girls across from us. She had bleached hair with jet black tips which were tied off in pony tails. The makeup was overdone as per the style, but she really went overboard with the eye liner. I took a good look at her and the glitter in her hair that reflected the light before taking a seat.

“I assume you are here for donut night?” the hostess asked.

Before any of us could answer, Courtney piped up. “Um, yeah, and we also want whatever the drink special that cute bartender makes on Wednesday nights. He was talking about it earlier. I don’t know, do you think I should get his phone number? He seems sooooo nice.”

“Mark is married, or wasn’t the ring on his finger clear enough for you?” the hostess spit out as she walked away, shaking her head.

Courtney looked us over. “What?”

Devin showed up just as our waiter came around with coffee for the table. “A waiter?" I excalaimed. "You drag me out of the house and can’t go to the trouble of getting us a seat at one of the girls’ stations? Who am I supposed to ogle?”

Courtney perked up and ran her forefingers from top to bottom to top again of her outfit. “Um, hello?” She said with a bewildered look on her face. She was wearing the same kind of ensemble that she’d always put together, a half shirt with either a skirt or low riding jeans. Tonight it was jeans. The girl had no imagination; if it weren’t for the Sunday paper ad inserts for The Gap or Macys, she wouldn’t be able to dress herself.

“Some things don’t change,” Devin interrupted.

“And some people are still never on time,” I shot back as I got out of the booth. “How are you, you old smoothie? I hear you are Hollywood’s next sex symbol.”

“I can only hope, I’d certainly welcome the work,” he said as he slid in past me and gave Courtney a pinch on the arm. Devin was the only one in the group who ever indulged Courtney. Half the time I thought he was keeping his opportunities open in the event he needed a quick fuck.

“You seen it? The commercial I mean.”

“He hasn’t seen it, Devin. You’d think mister health-and-beauty would have run across it by now,” Michelle responded.

I shrugged. “I haven’t seen it. Ex-cuuuuse me,” I said in Steve Martin fashion. “I’ve been busy.”

“Yeah, busy doing nothing,” Aaron chimed in. “You’ve spent weeks in that house doing nothing, just growing old with the pictures on the wall. It’s creepy.”

“That’s not true,” I responded. “Every so often I go to Gelsons and pick up groceries. So there, I get out.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

The waiter came by a second time with more coffees and a dessert menu. “Again with the waiter guy?” I looked around the main room. “They really need some talent for us to leer at. I can’t deal with the sausage fest and the forty-something hostess with a perpetual scowl carved into her face.”

Courtney piped up again. “You could buy me a drink at the bar, Reed.” She twisted in place on the booth bench to look cutesy. She smiled as she turned from side to side.

“No thanks,” I said with a wave, “I’m only on the joe tonight.” She frowned a baby-like pouting frown. “You’re no fun.”

Devin began sliding out of the booth. “I’m in the drinking mood. Care to join me?” He extended a bent arm to Courtney.

“Ooh, Mr. Nivea Man, how could a girl say no?” She crinkled her nose and winked. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the entire table roll their eyes in unison. Courtney slid out and hooked her arm in Devin’s.

“That’s right Devin!” yelled Michelle once the two were across the room and swallowed by the din of the place. “Act like you want to get into her pants!” She lowered her voice and turned to Vanessa, who had been silent since we had arrived. “Sorry.”

Vanessa and Aaron had been dating since just after Aaron, Michelle, Courtney and I graduated from college. Vanessa had been in California on a study abroad scholarship from Australia, and to hear the two of them tell the story, it was ‘love at first sight.’ It’s funny they chose to be revisionist with their tale, because I knew the real story, the one in which Aaron tried on four or five occasions to hit on Vanessa only to be shot down every single time. I knew the truth, that during attempt number six following a night of heavy boozing by both of them at a party did they finally hook up. Another love story brought to you by alcohol – lowering inhibition and self-doubt for centuries. I let them tell their version of the story although I’m forced to stifle a laugh every time.

Vanessa and Aaron were getting married next month in Santa Barbara, and though it seemed like years ago, it was only the previous October when Aaron asked me to be the best man. It felt a little strange standing up for the two as I knew so little about Vanessa. I never took the opportunity to get to know her and soon I would have to stand in front of a room filled with people and tell them how perfect and in love the two were. With as little as I knew about her and in a greater way the two as a pair, I felt like I would be lying.

Aaron tugged at Michelle’s sleeve. “Tell our boy here about next week.”

“Next week? Oh, next week, duh! We want to do a dinner thing for my birthday.”

I scratched my neck. “You’re birthday is next week? Wow, it didn’t even cross my mind.”

“It’s okay, you’ve been pre-occupied.”

“So where’s the place going to be?”

“That’s the problem. I wanted to go to Crustacean but we can’t get in, so I’m thinking, I don’t know, maybe Mastro’s?”

Crustacean was a restaurant off little Santa Monica in Beverly Hills that specialized in French colonial era Vietnamese seafood. It was very popular and very exclusive. It was the kind of place you went just to see the other beautiful people who would be dining. It was also the kind of place where the bill could grow out of control if you were not careful.

“Crustacean is cool, but I would stay away from Mastro’s. It’s become too trendy from what I hear. It's jumped the shark.”

“But we can’t get into Crustacean,” Michelle replied. “I’ve tried.”

“We all have tried,” added Aaron. “They are flat out booked up.”

“Who did you talk to?”

“Like a name? I don’t know, just anybody who answered the phone.”

I shook my head while reaching into my pocket for the phone. “You have to know how to play the system, and never take no for an answer.” I paused while the phone rang. When the woman picked up on the other end I tried to sound as polite and soft spoken as I could. “Good evening, may I speak with Rene, please.”

There was a pause and then I was temporarily placed on hold. A moment later a man’s staunch voice filled the speaker. “Good evening, this is Rene.”

“Rene, good to hear your voice. Reed Becker here. It has been a while, how are you? I’ve meant to come in sooner, but I have been away for some time.”

“Mr. Becker, I am so happy to hear your voice.”

“Rene, Mr. Becker is my father. Don’t try to make me feel old.”

“And we are deeply sorry for your loss. Your father and Mrs. Becker came to the restaurant perhaps once, twice a month. He was very well liked here, and we were all in awe of his wine expertise.”

“Thank you Rene, that’s very kind of you to say.” I smiled in silence for a moment, and then tried to change the subject. “And how have you been Rene? How is that marvelous little girl of yours, I think her name was Candace?”

Aaron, Vanessa and Michelle sat back and listened as I worked Rene, though what they thought of as “working the man” was anything but. In truth Rene was a nice, knowledgeable guy with whom I enjoyed talking. That I used his status as beverage manager at Crustacean to get a table...that was different.

“Candace is growing every day. I am amazed by how quickly it passes. I feel as if I’ll turn my head one day and boom! she will be in kindergarten.”

“It does go quickly,” I agreed. “Rene, I don’t mean to impose upon you, and I know you are always overbooked, but I’m hoping you can do a favor for my friends and I.”

“Yes?”

“A good friend of mine is celebrating her birthday and she has always wanted to dine at your restaurant. I wonder how much of an imposition it would be to get a table for next Thursday for...” I paused and mouthed “how many” to the group. Michelle held up 6 fingers.

“...for six people,” I continued. “It doesn’t need to be in any great location, just wherever you can put us. You would be doing me a great favor and I would be in your debt.”

There was a pause on the other side of the phone and I heard the flipping of pages, then: “Can you do an 8:30 reservation time?”

“I can do whatever time is necessary to make things easiest, Rene,” I replied.

“Then 8:30 it is. I shall write you in.”

“You are a life saver, Rene.”

“I know. I look forward to seeing you next Thursday.”

I clicked the phone off. “8:30 next Thursday. Since I got you in I assume I am one of the invited six?”

Michelle sat back in amazement. “Whoa. That was so cool. I mean really.”

“What I tell you, he’s not dead yet,” proclaimed Aaron.

A different waiter came by with a plate of jelly-filled donuts. “Who ordered the jellies?” Vanessa raised her hand and the waiter used his tongs to transfer two donuts from his plate to hers.

“The glazed?” Aaron and I motioned to the guy and he put the plate in front of us.

“Aren’t you getting anything to eat, Michelle?” asked Vanessa in her thick Aussie accent.

“I am, I think I am going to get the pastry-wrapped hoisin duck. You should really try some Vanessa, it’s very good.”

Vanessa cracked a reserved, conservative smile, very proper and polite. “I think I will brave the jelly donuts and coffee tonight, thank you.”

Aaron gave me a quick elbow in the ribs. “Here it comes...” he whispered.

“I don’t know if I should even eat these donuts,” Vanessa continued, “since they are jelly filled and all. I can’t jeopardize being able to fit into my wedding dress this close to the date.”

Aaron gave me a knowing nod. “What did I tell you?”

“My god, it’s so close, you must be totally excited!” exclaimed Michelle. “Is your maid of honor helping you out with the details, there must be so many.”

Vanessa nodded with her head down, as if reminded by Michelle of all the details still unfinished. The two began to talk in earnest about the wedding and Aaron turned his body towards me.

“She totally drives me nuts with the whole ‘I can’t eat this or I can’t eat that because I’ll look fat in the dress’ thing. Come on, look at her. She’s rail thin!”

“What can you do, it’s perception,” I replied. “And totally subjective.”

“Hey man, I’m really glad you came out tonight. And if you feel like we’ve been badgering you with the phone calls and emails then sorry, but we care, dude.” He took a long gulp of coffee.

“I’m just glad Devin’s been able to get Courtney away from the table,” I grinned.

Aaron looked over my shoulder. “You spoke too soon.”

Before I could turn I heard her voice. “These are the yummiest things ever, they’re just so good!” she yelled to nobody and everybody. A few tourists at the table across from us looked up from their dish of oysters with truffled ponzu sauce, their faces wrinkled in anger over having been interrupted. Courtney even bumped their table as she walked by.

“Scoot over hot stuff,” she urged me, “I need to sit down for a moment.”

I instead slid toward her and got up. “Take my seat, I need some air anyway.” As I maneuvered around her I took a bill from my pocket and calmly slid it under my plate without anyone noticing. I excused myself and went to the restroom at the far side of the bar.

While standing in line a guy approached me. “Hey buddy, are you part of that group with the noisy brunette, the sorta oriental-looking one?”

“She’s Hawaiian.”

“Yeah, whatever. She’s a noisy broad.”

“She’s the type that thinks she’s the center of the universe no matter where she goes, and all attention should be squarely focused on her.” I cracked a half grin. “Los Angeles, what are you going to do?”

The guy mumbled something under his breath and walked back in the direction of the bar. When I emerged from the men’s room Vanessa was standing off to the side of the bar. She smiled as I approached.

“I didn’t know such a small and – um – kitschy kind of place could be so popular,” she began.

“It’s not my cup of tea,” I replied. “Don’t get me wrong, I like noisy popular places as much as the next chap, but I never bought in to this fascination with donuts. I mean, despite the line at the door, the music, the atmosphere, and the vibe, at the end you are sitting in a restaurant eating two dollar donuts. That’s not for me.”

“Me either,” she quickly added. “Like I need to be stuffing myself with sugar right now.” She added a quick, nervous laugh.

“Please. Are you fishing for a compliment? You could eat a dozen and not have a thing to worry about.”

She smiled. “You might think so, but it goes straight to the thighs.”

“Who cares, they’ll be hidden by six layers of wedding gown.”

“I care,” she said as a be-all, end-all to the discussion. We stood there in silence. It was the most we had ever said to each other.

“Since this place isn’t your vibe, and it sure isn’t mine, what do you say we get out of here?” I suggested.

She looked alarmed. “You mean leave?”

“You Aussies really pick stuff up fast,” I responded. I nodded in the direction of the group. “They won’t miss us, we’ll only be gone for a little bit.”

I could see from the look on her face she was thinking over my proposal.

“There it is,” I said, pointing towards the door. “All we have to do is walk through.”

“Oh alright,” she said finally.

“The trick is to remain incognito,” I explained, slowly inching towards the entrance, “which is why it really helps that this place has a separate bar entry.” Vanessa followed behind, quietly slinking her way towards the exit.

When we emerged outside she smiled. “That wasn’t so hard,” she announced in her thick accent, adding “I don’t even feel bad about it.”

“Let’s walk,” I suggested. We started down Beverly going toward Fairfax.

“I have a confession to make,” I began, “and I don’t know if you want to hear it. But I feel I should tell you, regardless.”

Vanessa perked up. “That sounds so forbidden. Out with it then, what is it?”

I laughed. “It’s nothing like that.” I bent over to pick up a pebble and tossed it into the bushes. “I am going to play a pretty large part in your wedding a few weeks from now and I know nothing about you.”

She stopped walking as soon as she heard it. “That’s so strange, because I’ve been thinking the same thing. I was even going to say something to Aaron but I thought he’d get defensive about it.”

“Why would he do that?”

“He’s been under a lot of stress – both of us have – with the wedding plans and making arrangements for the out of town guests, but he’s also under a lot of strain because he’s going to start his master’s program in January and then he’ll be looking to change jobs to get into his career. And then there’s the cost of the wedding.”

“I thought his parents were paying for most of it.”

“They are, but there is still a portion we are paying for and it has been a struggle to cover all the loose ends.”

I scratched my head. “Well, he’s doing an ace job of holding it together.”

She smiled. “He is.” We walked twenty or thirty feet in silence. “Have you thought about what you are going to say at the wedding?” she asked.

“No. Sometimes my best thoughts come to me the night before or morning of. It’s a strategy that has worked before so I am sticking with it.”

“Oh,” she replied. We continued to walk in silence.

“Don’t worry, I won’t say anything embarrassing. I’m not the kind of person who looks for a cheap laugh at the expense of the bride and groom. It's your moment in the sun, not mine.” I stopped and pointed to the other side the street. “We should cross here; the sidewalk ends just ahead.” We waited for the light and made our way across.

“He talks about you. Aaron talks about all of his friends, but he talks about you more than the others. You can tell he feels a special bond with you.”

“We’ve known each other a long time. We have gone through a lot,” I responded.

She stopped walking. “Then why is it we’ve never hung out? Why don’t you ever come around? It’s almost like you are avoiding me, it’s like you don’t even want to get to know me as a person, as the woman one of your best friends is going to marry.”

“Yeah, that does sound bad, it does sound like I’m avoiding you. I’m not. I’m respecting your space. I’ll tell you something about me: Girlfriends, fiancées and wives get very nervous around me, and it has nothing to do with my stunning good looks.”

Vanessa laughed nervously.

“Jokes aside, there’s something disturbing about my outlook on relationships. They see that I go from one woman to the next without looking for anything extended. Just get what I’m after and move along, to put it bluntly. Then they fear that my point of view is going to rub off on their man and then it will be back to single life for them. So they usually don’t ask me to join in a group night out on the town and I end up hanging out with my single friends. The funny thing is that my view on relationships is a personal guideline. I don’t go around seeking converts.”

“Oh,” she softly replied.

“So of course I grouped you in with that set of women. I thought that as soon as you saw me out with the crowd and behaving the way I do, you’d want Aaron to have nothing to do with me for fear of losing him.” I shoved my hands into my jacket pocket. “Fear of losing him to the dark side of decadence and debauchery.”

“You never even gave me the chance to make that impression,” she protested.

“It was a forgone conclusion on my part. Am I wrong? If so then I’m sorry, I’ve missed out on somebody who Aaron thinks is wonderful.”

We arrived at another stop light. Vanessa ran a hand through her long golden brown hair, trying to untangle some strands that had been thrown about by the mild evening breeze. I watched her as she pulled at her skirt to straighten out the wrinkles. The girl took great care in her appearance. I’d never once seen her with either too much or too little makeup, or even dressed down for an occasion.

“I should be angry over how you lumped me in with the other women. I take pride in being unlike most women. They are insecure if they think their man is going to up and bolt over something like that. It makes you think those women are the ones with something lacking, you know?

“The truth is I adore Aaron, and encourage him to go out and spend time with his friends, with or without me,” she continued. “I think the notion that a woman is dead weight holding a guy back is moronic. Any guy who thinks that way has allowed his girlfriend to do it to him.”

“I agree.”

“Good! Common ground. The truth is you and I are not so different, Reed. When I was single I cut a large wake and went around with a lot of different people. I sowed my oats.”

I bristled. “I really hate that term. The implication is that you have to get out there and work something out of your system, like there is a behavior to unlearn. That’s so far from what it is, at least for me.”

She nodded. “Okay, I’ll buy that.”

We walked crossed Fairfax and continued walking. “Since you have my undivided attention and we’re going through what lawyers would call ‘the discovery process,’ why don’t you tell me something about yourself. Pretend it’s one of those speed dating places where you only have 60 seconds.”

She raised an eyebrow. “How would you know how those dating places operate? Trouble getting a companion?”

“You wish. And stop stalling...go.”

Vanessa lit up with a smile and radiance meant to draw in the listener. It was as if she were in an interview and this was her moment to sell herself to the employer.

“Okay. I love the outdoors. I love to cook. I take pride in making myself look good but I don’t like frilly girl things like overpriced salon products and shoes.”

“Bullshit,” I interjected. “Every woman loves shoes. It’s a known fact.”

Vanessa laughed. “Okay, I confess,” she began, holding up her hand, “I love shoes. I just don’t feel any need to spend gobs of money on them like those Sex and the City girls. Get real.”

“I can buy that.”

She stuck out her tongue playfully. “I’m not selling. Anyway – I don’t see marriage as a business relationship or the end of a woman maintaining her beauty and weight just because she’s reeled in a man. I don’t play games. I don’t use sex as a weapon against Aaron. I’m usually the one who initiates.”

“I didn’t need to know that,” I responded.

“Now you know. I love my friends and would do anything for them. Just because I am about to get married doesn’t mean I have to play matchmaker for my girlfriends on the assumption my happiness is the correct happiness for everyone to experience. I miss my family but I am glad to be here in California. I hate the people who have relocated to Los Angeles yet do nothing but complain about how nothing here is like how it was at home. If it’s so great then move back, you know? I wish my boobs were a little larger. We’re not talking Pamela Anderson, just something more than the small b-cup I have going on. I don’t like my chin. I wish I could go jogging more often but I am not a morning person and it gets too hot later in the day.”

She paused and removed a piece of lint from her pocket, stopping to take a quick look at what it was before flicking it away into the breeze. I tried to imagine her in a wedding dress, the veil pulled over her face and her hands hidden by flowers. She’d make a beautiful bride. Aaron was a lucky guy.

“I like Aaron’s friends, the ones I have been able to meet at least,” she continued. “Um, what else...my favorite color is crimson red. I have no idea what the fascination is with American football. I want children, but no more than two. Aaron might want three, but we are still working that out. Most of all, I’m tired of hearing whispers behind my back that I am too thin or I’m starving myself. I don’t. Sometimes I eat like a pig. I just have this rail-thin body and that is that. Some people have it, some don’t. Get over it.”

She turned to look at me. “How was that? Did it provide you with some good insight?”

I smiled. “That’s a lot to sift through.” I paused. “B-cup, huh?”

Vanessa grabbed my arm and pushed playfully. “Sheesh. You men are all the same.”

“Hey, don’t group me in with the heathen. Mine is a special kind of stink,” I joked.

“So a serious question for you – actually, two: Why are you single? You seem level-headed and outgoing, which somehow in California are elusive qualities few of the beautiful people have. As one of the beautiful people with that advantage you should have women throwing themselves at you, no?”

“If I were attached, women wouldn’t be throwing themselves at me. Besides, you said you weren’t a matchmaker.”

“No matchmaking here, promise. I was just curious is all.”

A trio of cars whisked by us, the lead car honking as guys hanging out the window yelled “hey mama!” and “oh baby!” towards Vanessa as they flew by. She mumbled something under her breath and shook her head.

“I mentioned earlier about how I don’t go looking for a relationship,” I started. “I am not one of those people who feel they are defined by whom they are attached to or how long they last in relationships.” I folded my hand into a hitchhiker’s thumb and pointed in the opposite direction to indicate we should turn around. Vanessa nodded and spun around. “I define dating as two people maximizing pleasurable time together with no obligation necessary. You get what you want out of the person, be it time well spent, good conversation, some laughs...”

“Sex,” she interrupted.

“Sex is an eventuality, it’s part of our chemical makeup and you can’t deny that, no matter how much you try to preserve your sense of morality or some perception that you are or are not a ‘slut’ according to the popular standard. So yes, sex. I just have a good way of sniffing it out so that it happens sooner than later. Over time you come to expect it’s going to happen right away.”

“Uh huh,” she responded skeptically.

“Okay, maybe I do a few things to help push the process along. You said it yourself, I’m one of the beautiful people.”

“Fair enough.”

“Besides, I am sort of seeing somebody currently.”

Vanessa nodded knowingly. “Ah yes, the mysterious Canadian woman Aaron told me about.”

I laughed. “Not mysterious. I don’t even know what she is. She’s nearly three thousand miles away. She has her own life and ambitions, I have my own. We spend hours on end trying to convince each other that we should be dating other people – people who are in our own geographic area. We keep trying come up with reasons why there’s nothing worthwhile for us to pursue.”

“Long distance relationships are trying. Believe me, I know. There was a period of four months where I had to go back home to Perth and it was unbearable, not to mention the phone bill between there and the States. Have you ever thought that your inability to come up with a good reason why it can’t continue means there’s something there after all?”

“Well thank you captain obvious,” I mocked.

“Yes, but I am being serious. Lots of people can’t see the obvious right in front of them.”

“I am not one of those people.”

“Okay, next question, I told you I had two. I know what happened to your father and how you went overseas to bury him during the summer and I'm sorry to hear that. Everybody said that since you have come back you’ve been a different person – more negative, more withdrawn, and any helping hand extended your way you’ve slapped down. Why? We’re walking and talking now and you don’t seem anything like that. So why forsake your friends?”

That question stung. I stopped walking and pulled the zipper higher on my jacket like I wasn’t going to let anything in. That was the problem; that was entirely the problem. That was why July, August and September were essentially lost months. I had become a miserable, dormant person and had shut out everything and everybody – my family, my friends, and everybody else along the way. ‘No man is an island’ said John Donne, though I had tried in vain to prove the 17th century poet wrong. During a quiet evening one night after I had returned to Los Angeles, my mother told me that a strong base of friends is something nobody should ever let go to waste, be it in times of joy or times of sorrow.

“They won’t always be there,” I remembered her saying, her perpetual smile lighting up her face, “and the time will come one day where your friends will feel you are no longer worth the effort. Especially if it goes unrequited. They are the cushion for when you fall in ways your family can never be. Value the friendships you have and keep those bonds strong before it’s too late. And irreversible.”

A beat passed before I responded, as my mother's words still echoed in my head.

“I am slowly coming around and emerging from my shell. But the truth is they are right, I have been a real asshole. For months I walked around in a zombie state where I didn’t notice what land I was in or what day it was.” I stared giggling uncontrollably. “Did you know that when I was in Europe, I traveled from Dundee in Scotland, to London, and wasn't even aware of it? I was in a cloud. I remember being in Germany days after having left London and asking Carolyn – she's the ‘mysterious Canadian’ you referenced earlier – when we were going to London. It made her cry. She just held me close and wept. That’s how out of touch I was.” I paused. “You’re the first person I have mentioned that to.”

“Wow,” was all Vanessa could say.

“I didn’t do things for myself. I didn’t reconcile the reality, and the reality was that things were no longer going to be like they were when my father was around. It was time to grow up and time to get serious about life. It was time to re-plot a course for the future and follow that path. I spent an entire summer listening to people tell me how I should be instead of deciding for myself. Oh, I know they all meant well but that isn’t the point. I sat on the sidelines waiting for things to happen when I needed to make them happen myself. I only came to this conclusion recently. Now I am slowly putting things in order and trying to take charge. But it’s not going to happen overnight. It’s not a flip-of-the-switch process.” I tapped at my temple with a forefinger. “Now I know. And I’m fine with that.

“And I will embrace my friends,” I continued. “I realize the error of my ways, to answer your original question. It’s a journey, it’s all a journey. One big fucking journey. Maybe I won’t be as confident going about it as I was in the past. Maybe any grace I have will falter, and maybe I’ll take a step backward or slip along the way. I’ll break more eggs trying to make my omelet, that’s for sure, but it will get done. And once it is, watch out!”

Vanessa smiled warmly. “Now you’re going to make me cry.” She reached into her pocket for a tissue. “Dammit, no Kleenex. I left my purse in the restaurant.” She quickly wiped the edges of her eyes so as to not smear her mascara.

“This was a good idea, I’m glad we had this private moment to get to know each other.” I leaned in toward her. “I know now Aaron couldn’t have made a better choice in a wife. You two are going to be very happy. And I will be honored to share in your wedding day.”

She fanned at her eyes frantically with her hands. “Would you shut up! Now you are really going to make me cry!” she exclaimed, half laughing.

We were half way back when my phone rang.

“Hello?”

“What the fuck? Where did you disappear to?” It was Aaron. “And do you know what happened to Vanessa?”

I shook my watch free of my jacket sleeve and looked at the time. We’d been gone just over thirty minutes.

“She’s with me Aaron, we’re taking a walk down Beverly Boulevard.”

“What for? Wait, you’re not trying to skip out on the bill, are you?”

“Please, that’s bad form. Besides, Vanessa left her purse in the booth. Hey, check under my plate, the one with the barely-touched glazed donut covered in huckleberry jam.”

There was silence on his end and I heard utensils clang together as he lifted the plate.

“Fifty bucks, huh?”

“That should cover a chunk of the bill. Give us about fifteen minutes and we should be there.”

“What are you guys doing, anyway?” asked Aaron. He sounded puzzled and a little fearful.

“I have whisked away your fiancee into the night. Her radiant beauty is more than you deserve and I must have her for my own." I held my hand over the mouthpiece and made a face at Vanessa. She returned in kind with a funny face of her own.

I removed my hand from the mouthpiece. "Relax Aaron, let’s just say I was interviewing Vanessa for the job of your wife.”

“How’d she fare?”

I looked at Vanessa and smiled as I replied. “Passed with flying colors, buddy. We’ll see you in a few.” I clicked off and slid the phone back into my pocket.

I pointed at a row of apartments lining the corner of the Stanley Avenue and Beverly Boulevard intersection. “Has Aaron ever told you about the time, while at a party at those apartments over there, when he managed to outmaneuver me for the attention of some pretty little thing, about how he managed to outsmooth this smoothie?”

She shook her head, laughing. “Oh really? Mister politics and current events? You’ll have to share that one with me.” We crossed the street and continued moving in the direction of the restaurant. “I think I’m going to like having you as a friend of the family.”
__________________________________________________________________________________

When we arrived back at the restaurant we found the group seated at the booth and broken off into pocketed segments. At the far corner of the booth, Michelle was listening to Courtney as she waved around her arms describing what was undoubtedly some fantastic high point in one of her recent nights out. Michelle took quick, short sips of her cosmo and tried her best to keep up with the rapidp-fire pace of Courtney’s storytelling. Closer to us, Devin was showing Aaron some pictures stored in his camera phone as Aaron, while was watching and pointing to certain details of the photos, went on excitedly about something, likely politics or economics.

“How else do you explain trickle-down economics?” I heard Aaron ask as we came within earshot of the table. “They practically say in the name that they are pissing on you. They essentially say ‘as we frivolously piss away the vast amounts of money we have, anything that lands on you, the little people, you are free to have.’ Honestly, who is going to buy into that concept? So you have to tweak it a little, like Ron Reagan did, and sell the optimism behind it and the possibility of you becoming one of the fat cats if you work hard, invest, and spend wisely. You can be one of the people pissing instead of the pissed upon.”

“Whatever man, I just think Greenspan’s a fucking genius,” replied Devin. I laughed. Devin was talking about the economy. Devin knew nothing about economy beyond what was in his bank account. The guy didn’t even vote. I shook my head in disbelief.

Aaron looked up from his diatribe. “Hey, you guys made it back.” A waiter slid between the booth and us, deftly depositing a check on the table. “And just in time to help pay the check,” Aaron added, waving at the bill resting in its tray.

Vanessa moved around Devin and sat down next to Aaron, grinning. “What?” he said.

“Oh, nothing,” Vanessa responded. I knew she was thinking about Aaron and any pickup moves he might of tried at the party I mentioned earlier.

Standing there, I looked over the group one by one, and remembered what my mother had said. Then I thought back to the Jody Watley song that played in my car earlier as Courtney bopped around in her seat trying to sing along. Friends will let you down, friends won’t be around.

Devin noticed me standing there, smiling. “What’s up with you?” he asked.

“Nothing, I’m just taking this all in. Hey, give me your camera phone for a moment.”

“Why, what gives?”

“I want to get a picture of all of us, this moment, right now. I want to remember this just as we are.”

Devin slid his Motorola across the table. I palmed it and approached the table across from us where the harajuku girls were seated.

“You must all be good with cell phones. Would one of you mind taking a picture of my friends and me?”

The entire table covered their mouths politely and giggled softly. Finally one stood up – a girl outfitted in powder blue with a matching electric blue wig. Earlier I had noticed her sizing up Devin. I handed her the phone and pointed out the button to push.

Everybody moved in closely and I slid in on the far side, wrapping an arm around Michelle. She had tried so hard to get through to me during the past few months – much more so than the others – and withstood every roadblock I used on her. I smiled at her and she leaned in and kissed me quickly on the cheek.

As the harajuku girl motioned for us to move closer together and smile, I decided Ms. Watley had it wrong all along. Friends will be around. When you need them most, there are your friends.