2. The first impression

“Few have strength of reason to overrule the perceptions of sense, and yet fewer have curiosity or benevolence to struggle long against the first impression.” –Samuel Johnson

Late Friday afternoon, Becky drove Jen to a tennis club in Beverly Hills where Bradley’s friend Chase spent weekends. Jen didn’t know Chase very well, which made him the perfect target for her mission. Furthermore, Jen had always had the impression that Chase was kind of a playboy. Every time Jen had seen him at a party or out somewhere, he always had some woman hanging around him, a different one each time, and sometimes more than one at a time. Jen felt pretty confident that she could get him drunk and convince him to come home with her; then, with any luck, someone would see him leaving her place in the morning, or, even better, get a picture of him.

When they arrived at the club, Chase was playing tennis against a gangly, young-looking guy in odd pink shorts. Chase was easily dominating his partner, who was panting heavily, heaving his skinny limbs reluctantly across the court with a lot of exasperated huffing every time the ball came to his side. Chase’s performance suggested that he knew he had an audience. He made a show of landing last-minute backhand shots and jumping up like a basketball player to return shots that would have been out of bounds anyway. Every time he jumped up high, his right arm swinging in the air, his shirt would rise up to show a bit of his unnaturally tan and muscular stomach, a move that had to be premeditated. That’s a good sign, Jen thought to herself, watching with Becky from a bench on the sidelines since she didn’t like to play. She had considered using the treadmill inside the club while she waited, but she didn’t want to get too sweaty. Still, sitting outside in the hot glare of the cement courts, she began to feel warm and a little dizzy.

When Chase and the stranger finished their match, they came over to greet Jen and Becky. Jen introduced Becky and tried to give Chase a hug, but he had already stuck out his hand to shake hers, and her waist collided with his fingers as he pulled his hand back.

Up close, Jen realized that the skinny kid’s shorts were covered in an Escher-like pattern of interlocking pink and white flamingos. This matched his overall appearance of being some sort of floppy rag doll, with his skinny body and large, sheepish face. Next to Chase’s chiseled superhero jaw line, the kid’s head looked round like a cantaloupe. They both belonged in comic books, but drawn in very different styles.

“This is Skipper,” said Chase, pointing at the owner of the shorts. “He’s down visiting from San Francisco.”

“Pleasure,” said Skipper, extending his hand to Jen and then to Becky and shaking their hands rather stiffly. He was still panting a bit.

After a moment of awkward small talk about the nice weather, and a round of predictable jokes about how the weather was always nice in Los Angeles, Skipper’s cell phone, which was housed in a holster stuck precariously onto the waistband of his shorts, began to ring. It was playing one of those pulsing, spastic techno songs that made Jen think of a hundred rubber balls bouncing around an enclosed parking lot.

Skipper pulled the phone out of its carrier and looked down at it, frowning at the number on the screen. With his head bowed, Jen could see that his wispy hair was already thinning on the top of his head, despite his baby face.

“Gotta take this,” he muttered, walking to the far end of the court, where he paced back and forth for a while, his hand to his ear.

“Is his name really Skipper?” Becky asked in an overly dramatic whisper.

“No, his name is Andrew or something,” said Chase. “He just likes ‘Skipper,’ not sure why. Interesting kid,” Chase concluded, looking over at him. Skipper was still pacing, gesturing angrily with his free hand like a day trader in a movie, his officious mannerisms making a striking contrast to his zany clothing.

“What’s he so pissed off about?” Jen asked. “He’s not a stockbroker or something, is he?”

“Yeah, he’s something like that,” Chase said in a vague, evasive tone. “He’s in some kind of business.”

“What kind of business?” asked Becky, who had majored in economics in college.

Chase hesitated. “I don’t exactly know,” he said. “Something with a lot of buying and selling, always on his cell phone, you know…” Chase trailed off uncertainly. “Plus he organizes events,” he added, his voice suddenly more committed and cheerful. “That’s how I know him. He meets all the beautiful people.” He winked at Jen. Becky shot Jen an exasperated glance. Jen ignored both of them and kept her face blank.

“Let’s get a drink,” said Becky, sounding annoyed.

The three of them walked towards the little ritzy café by the swimming pool. Jen and Chase walked close to each other, Becky a bit behind. Jen felt pretty sure that Chase knew why she had planned this visit, and that he’d be amenable after a few drinks. But she also felt less than sure that she could go through with it. She hadn’t spent time with Chase in at least six months, but she had felt some kind of continuity in their acquaintance because she always saw him on the cover of magazines, usually looking healthy and tan as he enjoyed a shirtless run with one of his male actor friends. The magazine covers had seemed cheesy enough, but Chase was even more annoying in practice than in theory. She certainly didn’t feel attracted to him at all. And yet, she told herself resolutely, she needed to look past those visceral, physical fears and concentrate on the task at hand, because it was really important that she sleep with him, or at least give the public the impression that she had slept with him.

It was at times like these, when she needed to really focus on a goal, that Jen’s yoga training proved invaluable. With a deep inhale, she calmed her panicky nerves; with an exhale, she released all of her self-doubt as to whether she could rise to this occasion. Thinking of Becky, she devised a mantra to accompany her breathing: I can do it, I can do it, she told herself over and over.

As they reached the bar, Jen was a bit calmer, but her earlier dizziness was turning into a headache. A man in a blue jumpsuit, kneeling on the edge of the patio, was straightening a drainpipe with a small mallet, making rhythmic metallic clanking noises. The café was piping trendy dance music onto the patio, the beats clashing with the uneven banging of the hammer. For a moment, Jen wanted to just leave and go home, but she reminded herself that all of this annoyance was for a greater good. Thinking of her substitute yoga teacher, she decided that she had to ignore the pain in her head and focus on her plan for ten minutes. If she could get through ten minutes, she could get through anything.

She looked at her watch. It was 5:50. The three of them sat down at one of the patio tables to have a drink. She was not going to think about her headache until six.

“Do you guys want to order food?” asked Chase.

Becky nodded yes, while Jen said, “No,” aloud.

“Oh, come on,” said Chase, smiling condescendingly at Jen. “You should eat something.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” asked Jen, trying to keep her tone more on the light and playful and less on the I-hate-you-you-overtanned-idiot side.

“What have you eaten today?” he asked.

Jen rolled her eyes. Because she was very thin, she got asked this sort of question all the time. People imagined that she must starve herself, when in fact she just maintained a healthy eating and workout regimen. However, on this particular day, she had been doing a cleansing fast which restricted her diet to water with maple syrup and lemon juice. She usually only did this fast every Monday and Wednesday, but sometimes added Fridays if she needed to look cute for the weekend.

“That’s none of your business,” Jen replied.

Chase seemed to be about to shoot back some kind of sarcastic retort, but just then the waiter arrived, and Chase interrupted himself with a little hiccup. The waiter was very strong and athletic-looking, with the muscular arms, lean abdomen, and bowlegged gait of prizefighter. His face, on the other hand, was so young and babyish that it looked photoshopped on, like the body had gone through years of rough experience that the face was just catching up to. Jen thought he was ridiculous, but Chase greeted him like an old friend, beaming at him and grabbing his giant bicep in an affectionate gesture.

“What took you so long?” Chase asked, smiling.

The boy smiled back politely as he asked for their order. Chase ordered for everyone without consulting them: a pitcher of microbrewed beer with four glasses and a large pizza covered in arugula and prosciutto.

“Also,” said Jen, “I’d like a salad.” After his comments, she wanted Chase to see her eat something, but there was no way she was going to break her fast with pizza, even if it was covered in a bunch of yuppie greens. “With no goat cheese or bacon,” she added.

Realizing she might need a drink, she also ordered a gin and tonic, a drink rumored to have zero carbs.

Chase gave the waiter a friendly wink, as if in apology for Jen’s order. Jen noticed him watching the waiter as he hurried back inside the restaurant. She wondered if Chase knew him from outside of the club.

“What’s with your order?” Chase asked her, turning his head back to the table. “Don’t like bacon?”

“I’m a vegetarian,” Jen told him, which wasn’t true, but she hoped it would stop him from further scrutinizing her diet. She looked down at her watch; it was only 5:56.

“Sounds like a lot of mind-havoc to me,” said Chase.

Jen looked quickly to Becky, whose eyebrows were raised in an expression of open, pleasurable surprise. A lot of people in LA went to Becky’s self-actualization seminars, but very few of them had the same particular area of focus as her.

“You do Groundbreakers?” she asked, the excitement in her voice barely restrained.

“Oh yeah, I love it,” replied Chase. “Totally changed my life.”

“Mind-havoc is one of my major renovation areas,” Becky said, breathlessly. “It’s, like, all over my self-awareness blueprint.”

Jen flinched a little at the Groundbreaker’s jargon, which Becky usually kept smartly to a minimum around her.

“Oh yeah, mine too,” said Chase. “I used to be knee deep in mind-chaos. I’ve been stripping it out of all my support structures; I think I’m getting close to where I can start rebuilding.”

The man fixing the drain stopped his hammering, looked up, snorted loudly and audibly, and then looked back down at his work.

“My coach says I need to focus on what I want, not on what I think other people want me to be,” Chase continued.

“Oh my god, so do I,” said Becky, sounding like a teenager on a cell phone. She scooted her chair a little to the side so that she could look him more fully in the face.

Ten minutes later, Becky and Chase had established that they had been at many of the same seminars and events, including the one just this past week, that they both had liked the female guest speaker from India but not the male doctor who had presented on “emotional dry rot,” that their coaches were friends-of-friends with each other, that they both took the same vitamins and supplements, and that they were both certified as yoga instructors. By the time their food and drinks came, Jen’s ten minutes of involvement had long expired and she had completely shut out their conversation. Instead she was doing seated meditation exercises, focusing on the rhythmic beat of the techno music and its intermittent alignment and discord with the throbbing in her head. Whenever Chase or Becky seemed to be directing a comment at her, she nodded in a gesture of empty agreement.

Skipper returned to the table shortly after the food arrived.

“Asshole,” he said, pointing at his phone as he sat down, scraping the feet of his metal chair across the concrete patio. Without any further niceties, he pulled a slice of pizza from the tray, took an enormous bite, winced as it burned his mouth, and washed it down with a huge swig of beer from Chase’s glass.

Becky coughed loudly. Then she stood up from the table and coughed again. “I think I need some cough drops,” she said to Jen. “Will you come with me and get them?”

“I’ll go with you,” Chase volunteered eagerly, jumping up.

“Actually what I’m really getting is tampons,” Becky said. Chase sat back down, waving his hand in a gesture of mock dismissal.

“Carry on then,” he said.

Jen and Becky walked across the deck of the pool to the club’s little convenience shop.

“What is it?” Jen asked her when they were out of hearing range.

“I’ll tell you when we get inside,” said Becky under her breath.

They entered the store, a wave of cool air-conditioning hitting Jen as the electronic doorbell ding-donged to announce their arrival.

Facing the door was a rack of tabloid magazines. Jen automatically scanned the covers for her own face, finding it quickly on one of the trashiest ones at the bottom of the rack.

“Heartbroken Jen flees to Michigan,” it said.

“What?” said Jen aloud.

“Don’t look at those,” said Becky, who had walked on ahead to the other end of the little aisle and was holding a small packet of cough drops.

“Why would it say I’m moving to Michigan?” Jen asked.

Becky gasped and dropped the cough drops on the ground. Jen watched her lower herself into a perfect, easy squat and then pop up smoothly again, holding the packet.

“I don’t know anyone in Michigan,” Jen continued.

Becky interrupted her before she had finished. “Don’t read that garbage,” she said, walking over to Jen and pulling her away from the magazines by the arm. “I’ve got something important to tell you,” she added, once they were back by the cough drops.

“What is it?” Jen asked, absentmindedly picking up a box of sugar-free mints for herself.

Becky paused for a minute. Then she began speaking very quickly, as though she were trying to get all of her thoughts out before Jen interrupted.

“Listen, I know you came here to sleep with Chase but I think I have a real connection with him and I don’t want you to do it, you owe me, I got that magazine for you and I was sooo tired and I have always done every favor you asked me to.” Becky paused to take a breath.

“Becky,” Jen said.

“And I really like this guy and you just want to have some kind of revenge sex with him and I don’t disrespect you for that but I never meet anyone I like and I never ever ask you for anything.” Her face was red and flushed.

“It’s fine,” Jen said. Becky paused, breathed deeply, and threw her arms around Jen like Jen had just given her the best present of a lifetime, instead of a crappy white elephant.

“You’re the best,” said Becky, giving her a little kiss on the cheek.

Jen wanted to think that she was doing Becky a favor, but the truth was she had already decided she wasn’t tough enough to go through with her plan. Since the moment they had walked away from the table, Jen hadn’t wanted to go back and face the unappealing prospect of how she would spend her evening. There aren’t enough gin and tonics in the world, she thought to herself. Jen hated to admit defeat, but frankly it was a huge relief.

They paid for their mints and cough drops and walked back past the pool towards the bar. “You can have the other one,” Becky said in the no-nonsense tone of a legal negotiator.

Jen snorted as though this were funny, but in fact it wasn’t a bad idea. That kid seemed annoying, but there was no way he could be more annoying than Chase.

Chapter 3:
http://kickoutofyou.blogspot.com/2008/03/3-death-of-intelligence.html