Story of My Life Read Free Page A

except I say five hundred dollars instead of a thousand, and she says it sounds like he totally deserved it. He’s such a prick, I go, and Carol says, yeah, he sounds just like Dad.
    And I go, yeah, just like.
    Jeannie comes back Sunday morning at 9:00 A.M . She’s a shivering wreck. For a change I’m just waking up instead of just going to sleep. I give Jeannie a Valium and put her to bed. It’s sort of a righteous feeling, being on this end of the whole experience—I feel like a doctor or something.
    She lies in bed stiff as a mannequin and says, I’m so afraid, Alison. She is not a happy unit.
    We’re all afraid, I go.
    In half an hour she’s making these horrible chainsaw sleep noises.
    Thanks to Skip, Monday morning I’m at school doing dance and voice. Paid my bill in cash. Now I’m feeling great. Really good. In the afternoon I’ve got acting class. We start with sense-memory work. I sit down in class and my teacher tells me I’m at a beach. He wants me to see the sand and the water and feel the sun on my bare skin. Hear the volleyballs whizzing past. No problem. First I have to clear myself out. That’s part of the process. All around me people are making strange noises, stretching, getting their yayas out, preparing for their own exercises. Some people I swear, even though this is supposed to be totally spontaneous, you can always tell some of these people are acting for the teacher even in warm-up, laughing or crying so dramatically, like,
look at me, I’m so spontaneous
. There’s a lot of phonies in this profession. Anyway, I don’t know— I’m just letting myself go limp in the head, then I’m laughing hysterically and next thing I’m bawling like a baby, really out of control, falling out of my chair and thrashing all over the floor . . . a real basket case . . . epileptic apocalypse, sobbing and flailing around, trying to take a bite out of the linoleum . . . they’re used to some pretty radical emoting in here, but this is way over the top, apparently. I kind of lose it, and the nurse says I’m overtired and tells me to go home and rest. . . .

    That night my old man finally calls. I’m like, I must be dreaming.
    Pissed at you, I go, when he asks how I am.
    I’m sorry, honey, he says, about the tuition. I screwed up.
    You’re goddamn right you did, I say.
    Oh, baby, he goes, I’m a mess.
    You’re telling me, I go.
    He says, she left me.
    Don’t come crying to me about what’s-her-name, I say. Then he starts to whine and I go, when are you going to grow up, for Christ’s sake?
    I bitch him out for a while and then I tell him I’m sorry, it’s okay, he’s well rid of her, there’s lots of women who would love a sweet man like him. Not to mention his money. Story of his life. But I don’t say that of course. He’s fifty-two years old and it’s a little late to teach him the facts of life. From what I’ve seen nobody changes much after a certain age. Like about four years old, maybe. Anyway, I hold his hand and cool him out and almost forget to hit him up for money.
    He promises to send me the tuition and the rent and something extra. I’m not holding my breath.
    I should hate my father, sometimes I think I do. There was a girl in the news the last few weeks, she hired her boyfriend to shoot her old man. Families, Jesus. At least with lovers you can break up. These old novels and plays that always start out with orphans, in the end they find their parents—I want to say,don’t look for them, you’re better off without. Believe me. Get a dog instead. That’s one of my big ambitions in life—to be an orphan. With a trust fund, of course. And a harem of men to come and go as I command, guys as beautiful and faceless as the men who lay you down in your dreams.

2
Scenes for One Man and One Woman
     
    Watch Out! Rebecca’s coming to town, and I’m definitely not talking about the one from Sunnybrook Farm. This is my maniac sister. She’s flying in from Palm Beach with her