Sleeping With Dogs and Other Lovers Read online

  Chapter 37

  She neared the bandstand, the music now overpowering the thunderous crashing of the waves. Madeline was on stage, dancing and playing a tambourine. Cynthia was glad that Madeline hadn’t noticed her. She really didn’t want to get into the issue of the hotel mix-up, which had become even more embarrassing and incestuous after the Max thing happened.

  The dance area was a little sparser now, but some diehard partiers were still bumping and grinding away in various degrees of disguise. She watched a half-naked Madame Mozart dancing with drunken Thomas Jefferson and a headless——well, maskless——cartoon dog. She was no longer angry with Lolita. It was clear that Max found her and she had no idea that he was her Max. Margie was dancing with abandon, her hair blown wild in a way that Cynthia had never seen it. She looked about twenty years younger. Cynthia cut in, taking Jefferson’s hand and politely twirling him … then casting him off into his own dizzy solo.

  “So, girls,” she said, taking her place in the triangle, “quite the night.” They huddled in close, arms around shoulders, heads touching, forming the hub of a dancing, rotating wheel.

  “You are telling me,” giggled Margie. “Those were some frisky animals I was cavorting with.”

  “Define cavorting,” said Cynthia, feeling a bit maternal toward her mom all of a sudden.

  “Just be happy,” said Lolita, “that your mom had the time of her life tonight.”

  “I am,” said Cynthia, realizing at that moment that she too was happier than she’d been in a long time. She also wanted to get going before Max made his way down the bluff. “You know what I need, though? A ride. Now.”

  “Me too,” said Lolita.

  “Tell you what, girls,” said Margie. “I’ll take you as far as my house. We can have a slumber party … make some popcorn.”

  “I love slumber parties,” squealed Lolita.

  “Okay, Mom, let’s go then,” said Cynthia, motioning excitedly toward the parking lot, like the leader of some urgent expedition.

  “What’s the big hurry all of a sudden?” asked Lolita.

  “Nothing,” said Cynthia, “I’m just not that much of a beach person.” They climbed into her mother’s Mercedes and rolled onto PCH.

  “I don’t want to alarm anyone,” said Margie, checking her rearview mirror, “but there’s a naked man running after us.”

  Cynthia and Lolita turned around to see said man wildly waving his arms and all his other appendages.

  “Yeah, he’s cuter without his beard, don’t you think?” asked Cynthia with a smile.

  “Wait,” said Lolita. “That’s my Maximilian?”

  “No, Lo, that was my Max.”

  Lolita and Margie gasped in unison: “What?”

  Chapter 38

  Morning. Cynthia woke up in her old bed in her Mom’s house. She was naked except for a few remnants of fake animal skin. They’d all passed out before any popcorn was popped. She also realized she had no idea where Max even lived now. Max, the man you love to love and hate to love and hate to hate and love to hate. She told herself that she was better off without him for a while.

  But then her phone buzzed——Max on caller ID——and her heart raced ever so slightly.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello, Cynthia?” It was Lolita. “I found this phone on the beach last night and stuck it in my purse. This morning I found your number——and mine——in the recent calls. Believe me, I had no idea that my Maximilian was your Max.”

  Cynthia and Lolita convened in the kitchen. Lolita twirled the phone on the countertop like a spin-the-bottle bottle.

  “I figured you didn’t know,” said Cynthia. “How did you even meet him?”

  “He came into the shop. He was pretty charming.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know,” Cynthia said, opening the fridge. “So, do you want an omelet?”

  “And an aspirin,” sighed Lolita. “Yeah, I guess he just happened to want to check out the shop. Quite the coincidence.”

  “Lolita,” said Cynthia, “let me fill you in on Max and coincidences: There. Are. No. Coincidences.”

  “Wow, he is a sneaky one,” smiled Lolita. “You know, I thought for a minute he was there to pick up Tanya. When I came out of the office, his eyeballs were stuck like glue to her t-shirt.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m not excusing Max in any way, because there is absolutely no excuse for him, as a rule. But those are some seriously distracting nipples.”

  “Yeah, you’re right,” laughed Lolita. “One client took one look at them and tripped over his wiener dog.”

  Cynthia laughed hard.

  “I swear,” Lolita continued, “he hit his head on the counter. I immediately thought, Good god. Along with me and my business, Tanya’s titties are going to be named in a lawsuit. But, anyway, Cynthia, I never would have gone anywhere with Max if I had known. Much less whatever else we did.”

  Cynthia paused and said, “Are you talking about the grapes-in-the-boobs game, or was there more?” As she said this she realized that the answer might be a make-or-break for their friendship.

  “Like I said,” shrugged Lolita, recalling the grapes fondly. “I think that was about it. I don’t remember much of what happened last night. But, just so you know, I don’t do that to friends. Ever. Even if you’re not exclusive. Even if you’re broken up. It’s not worth it … I don’t have that many friends to spare.”

  “Okay, thanks,” said Cynthia. “That’s good to know.” She believed that Lolita was basically telling the truth. She did wonder if her new friend had also sort of fallen for Max, though. They talked some more while Cynthia chopped fruits and vegetables.

  A few more fleeting details from the night before drifted back to Lolita. “Max mentioned something about leaving on a trip to Southeast Asia. Or was it the south of France? I know it was south something.” Lolita wondered if Cynthia wanted help in plotting some sort of revenge on him.

  “You know,” said Cynthia, handing Lolita a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice, “I already got him pretty good.” She told Lolita about leaving Max in the lurch up on the bluff.

  Lolita, having just taken a generous sip of juice, came very close to spit-taking it across the room. She covered her mouth with both hands and somehow swallowed successfully before bursting into laughter. When Cynthia went on to recite a bit of Max’s vagina monologue—the euphemisms she’d heard before her departure—Lolita really lost it, spreading her arms and torso across the countertop, as if this degree of laughter required every ounce of energy she had, and that she needed to at least partially lie down to avoid falling down.

  “God,” said Cynthia, also starting to convulse into giggles, “I wish I had a video of him sprinting after us down Route 1. That sucker would be viral on YouTube by now. There may not be anything funnier in the entire world than a man running as fast as he can … wearing nothing but sneakers.”

  Lolita was laughing and crying now. “His junk was bouncing around like a hyperactive puppet.”

  “Puppet?” said Cynthia. “I’ve got another story for you.”

  They talked and laughed for a while, not just about Max, but covering other adventures with the opposite sex—good and bad—and in their lives in general. They enjoyed one another. They felt closer, like they really were becoming good friends. Being there in Cynthia’s mom’s kitchen—after a slumber party, no less (even though it had turned out to be all slumber and no party)—immediately made Lolita more familiar, as if she had known her for a long time … like a friend from school or something.

  The results came in from last night’s dates—messages from the night before (those straight-to-voicemails) and new ones from the morning. The clients were all very happy. Cynthia put them on speaker.

  Bianca (art director/beauty queen): “Hello, Cynthia. Just wanted to say Elliot was wonderful. I never realized how fun making love to all my favorite cartoon characters while they talked dirty to me would be. Later!” Winona (chef): “Hi, Second Acts.
Winona here. Well, Jack is a little shy, but he likes my food and I like his bassoon. My goodness that sounded dirty. Well, you know what I mean.” Emma (writer-director-star): “Good news, Cynthia. One, Wilson and I got along famously. Two, he’s executive producing my new project. Three, do you know of a good groomer. His seeing-eye dog is looking kind of scruffy.”

  “Wow,” said Lolita with a smile, “that phone is chockfull of good news.”

  Cynthia and Lolita talked about how Second Acts was off to a smashing start. Lolita said that if Cynthia would keep trying to find her someone, she’d help promote the business in any way she could.

  “My paranormal pack of dogs might come in handy in that regard.”

  “Are you kidding?” asked Cynthia. “Those pups are a deterrent to romance.”

  “Only to mine,” she replied. “Besides, they know every dog of every eligible single guy and gal in L.A. They are movers and shakers in the dog park set.”

  Cynthia looked down and saw King curled up at Lolita’s feet. She swore he wasn’t there a minute ago. “Where the heck did he come from?”

  “Oh, he was with me in the backseat last night.”

  Cynthia had absolutely no memory of that, but then again, the whole evening was a bit fuzzy. She served up two Bloody Marys, a pot of coffee, two bagels, some fruit salad, and two perfect omelets. Lolita had a bite or two of hers, but then held it down for King, who licked up the rest in one slurp.

  Tou-tou, Fifi, and Fred scuttled into the kitchen, followed by Margie. Except she didn’t scuttle, she staggered. She was still wearing the dog costume, looking very much the worse for wear. The costume was covered with sand and beach grass.

  The Shih Tzus had a brief stare-down with King, but then they all licked each other all over and the tension subsided. “Nothing like a lick fest to make fast friends,” said Lolita.

  “Speaking of friends,” Margie said out of the side of her mouth, “where’s my omelet? Where’s my coffee? Most importantly, where’s my Bloody Mary?”

  “Here, here, and here,” said Cynthia with a smile, happily sliding her own breakfast across the counter to her mother.

  “Ahh,” said Margie, “have we officially entered the you-taking-care-of-me-stage of our relationship? Because it couldn’t come a minute too soon.”

  “As far as I can tell,” said Cynthia, “the mad madam of the dance floor doesn’t need taking care of quite yet.”

  Margie closed her eyes and smiled, recalling only a small fraction of it all. “That was fun,” she said. “I see now what that Sally Hemings saw in Thomas Jefferson. But I have no idea how I drove home. In fact, the entire evening is a blur. I do have a vague memory of a naked running man, though. It reminded me a little of the Pete Blatt episode.”

  Cynthia couldn’t believe it. “Wait,” she said. “You saw that?”

  “Cynthia, darling,” said Margie, raising an eyebrow, “you try being a widow for five years, with no dates or prospects, and not notice an erection in a pair of skimpy gym shorts. I also noticed the orange-pukey sheets in the garbage and the missing bottle of Pisco.”

  “Wow,” said Cynthia. “Thank you in retrospect for not busting me. I wonder what else you knew.”

  “Let’s face it,” said Margie, putting her arm around her daughter, “moms know everything.”

  Cynthia smiled, thinking it was probably true—in the best and worst sense. She was quite sure her mother would always drive her crazy, but at that moment she appreciated her in a whole new way. It suddenly seemed like maybe Margie had always been a pretty good mother and now was a pretty good friend. Cynthia doubted she’d always feel this way, but it was nice while it lasted.

  “Umm,” asked Lolita, “what exactly are we talking about now?”

  “We got off-topic,” said Margie. “We were talking about that naked fellow on the road. It felt like a dream, but I’m deathly afraid it wasn’t. Please, do not tell me you and Max are together again.”

  “No, Mom,” said Cynthia, picking up Max’s phone and scrolling, “we were never together, per se. However, we do have his home number and all of his contacts. So this could be fun.”

  Lolita smiled and nodded, but Margie shook her head and rolled her eyes. Cynthia held her mother’s hand. “I’ll find something lasting one of these days, Mom. But I’m going to find that for you first.”

  Margie kissed Cynthia on the cheek. “What a good girl. I know I drive you nuts sometimes.”

  “Sometimes?” asked Cynthia, grasping her mom’s dog’s tail and twirling it like a lasso.

  Lolita smiled, thinking about how nice it would be to still have a mother. “Can I rent you to drive me crazy once in a while?”

  “Absolutely,” said Margie.

  Cynthia knew how her mom felt. She too wanted a lasting relationship and she was more determined than ever to find it. Her inner Shirley MacLaine as Miss Kubelik longed to be adored. And she was aware that it wouldn’t be Max. Or Paul. Or Walter. But at the moment, Second Acts had to be her one big commitment. She loved finding love for others. Being a matchmaker, matchmaker, and making matches was something she found incredibly fulfilling. Getting paid for it was a pleasure. It suited her better than any career she’d ever had. It came from a deep, important place. But it took a lot of time and energy. It was an around-the-clock operation. She didn’t have time to be her own matchmaker.

  At least that was how she felt right here, right now. Tomorrow was another story.

  The End