Codename: Wedding
“Pull it towards you. No, wait, I can’t hold it…” I stretch my arms as far as I can. “A little higher…” and I stand on my tiptoes and try and stick the corner of the poster to the wallpaper of my bedroom.
“Is it straight?”
“No, hang on – lift it up just a little bit more,” answers Terry, who’s holding up the other side of the poster and has pieces of tape coming out of her mouth. “Keep still,” she mumbles while she pulls one off and sticks the poster to the wall with it. She sticks a couple more on her side and then comes to fix mine.
When we’re done, I walk away from the wall to assess the final result. “I guess that should do it.”
Okay, it’s no Rembrandt, but believe me, it makes an effect. I’ve created a sort of calendar for the next three weeks, and for each week I’ve set specific goals: how much weight I should lose and when I should fix my hair and exercise to tone my muscles up. My main objective is obvious: I am planning to turn myself into something as similar as possible to a real woman. In fact, the last box in my calendar is a colourful picture of Madeleine Hunt wearing a swimsuit. Next to it, I’ve glued a picture of Dave wearing a tuxedo that I cut out of a gossip magazine. In the first box I’ve stuck a picture of me and marked it with today’s date. I don’t have many pictures of me, to be honest. I don’t like having concrete images of my own disappointments lying around, nor do I want to leave tangible proof of how useless hi-def technology is: if I ever do have any heirs, I’m guessing they’d rather I leave them government bonds or shares in some Fortune 50 company. I do have a few photographs of me, though, and for this project I deliberately chose the worst of them all in the hope that it will help motivate me properly. It’s a horrible picture taken last year at the office New Year’s Eve party. I call it ‘Godzilla in sequins’.
It’s a cool idea, right? But there’s something missing… Oh, right, the name! Choosing the right name is of the utmost importance, if you don’t want to fall in the ‘I’ll start tomorrow’ trap. There’s no way you won’t stick to the plan when it has a name, though, and for that reason – and because there was a huge empty space right at the centre of the poster – I decide to write in big red capital letters THREE WEEKS TO MAKE HIM FALL IN LOVE WITH ME. It’s too long, I know, but I couldn’t come up with anything more punchy. Anyway, the important thing is that it sounds serious.
“Is all this going to take much longer?” asks Terry as she lets herself collapse onto my bed. My bedside cabinet is an awful mess – there are even the remains of two tacos and a bottle of red wine. Without taking her eyes from me, she somehow manages to extract a glass from the jumble of cables and wires and pour herself some.
“No, I still need to sort out the stuff in the boxes,” I answer distractedly.
Well, a couple of photos and a poster wouldn’t have been enough, would it? This isn’t a school assignment, this is serious, and that’s why on the way back home from work I stopped at the mall to pick up a few things. I even got paid today. The problem is that now my bedroom looks more like a refugee camp… It’s overflowing with boxes, bags, wrapping paper, pre-cooked food, weights… I’ll admit that there’s a chance I might have gone over the top, but I need to indulge myself because I’m pursuing a higher goal: preserving the human race from extinction. Well, more precisely, preserving myself from extinction.
“I can’t believe I’m actually helping you.”
“Quit complaining!” I snap. I am so sick of her miserable attitude at the moment. She doesn’t reply, so I go over to the couch and start digging through the piles of magazines in search of one particular bag. “Wasn’t it you who told me that I should take advantage of this opportunity to prove to him how much I’m worth?” I remind her as I root through pictures of ridiculously buff bodies and disgusting diuretic drinks.
“Yes, I did,” she admits, “but I had a slightly more traditional approach in mind. You know, like maybe talk to the guy, add him on WhatsApp, maybe message him the odd risqué picture…”
“And that’s exactly what I’m planning to do,” I respond. “Except for the whole risqué pictures thing, of course.”
“Yeah, sure,” she murmurs, looking around her in confusion. “I would have bet on that.”
“Look, what’s so wrong with me trying to present myself at my best?” I stop rummaging about in my shopping for a moment to defend myself, but then remember just how grouchy Terry is and decide it’s useless to even try to explain my reasons to her and so I go back to my desperate search. “Where the hell did it go?” I cry, as I look on my desk, behind the bookshelf, in the space between my cabinet and the drawers. But I can’t find it anywhere.
“Which of the piles of useless junk you’ve bought but are never going to use are you looking for?”
“Oh, here it is,” I exult, grabbing a huge bag. “Et voilà!” I say, while showing her what I think is the ace up my sleeve.
“Let me see,” murmurs Terry, leaning towards me to try and work out what I’m holding as I walk past her. “Slim & Fast,” she reads, “what is it?”
“This, my dear, is the latest nutritional revolution,” I start explaining excitedly, opening the bag and taking a tin can out of it. “Check this out,” I say before throwing it at her.
“High protein cookies?”
“With no carbohydrates.”
“Fifteen dollars?” she shouts after reading the price stamped on that package of gastronomic insanity.
“I’ll admit that they are not exactly the cheapest food you can buy,” I reply laconically.
“This is robbery! What the hell did you buy them for?”
“Because by my reckoning, if I eliminate all carbs from my diet, my body will have to finally burn some fat to produce energy, but, at the same time, I won’t lose muscle tone. Assuming I actually have any muscle tone. I presume I must have.”
“Okay. Are you seriously telling me that you blew half of your salary to buy some food which has been chemically modified to eliminate all its sugar?”
“Exactly,” I nod while pulling a brochure out of the bag. “See? It says it’s ‘Infallible. Test it yourself’,” I say, reading out what it says. “‘Provides you with a balanced diet that you can follow throughout the week without damaging your kidneys’,” I continue reading.
Terry is still very suspicious, but she decides to open the can to inspect a cookie. She looks at it from various angles and sniffs at it gingerly, but she doesn’t seem particularly enthusiastic. “Are you sure that these are edible?”
“Quite sure. And there’s even a list of all the food I have to avoid eating.”
“Like what?” she asks, while biting into the cookie.
“Let’s see… No rice, no pasta, no mushrooms, no chocolate,” I say, running through the list like a robot. “Oh, I’m not supposed to have any tacos either. But we already had tacos for dinner today,” I say, giving her a guilty look.
“Well you’re starting tomorrow anyway,” she reminds me, while taking another cookie. “You know? They’re actually not bad.”
“… no flour, no cinnamon, no pepper, no yogurt…”
“Is there anything you can actually eat?”
“Did you know that cured jellyfish doesn’t contain sugar?” I ask, while turning to look at her, hoping that I wasn’t the only person around who didn’t know.
“Come again?”
“I can also eat antelope meat. Ah – but it has to be raw,” I say, disgusted. “Why would I eat raw meat?”
“Maybe they mean like a carpaccio.”
“And where the hell am I going to find an antelope in Mission?”
“I really don’t know. Maybe in Chinatown, you can find all sorts of food down there.”
“Do you think they sell them already dead?” I say, images of poor animals being butchered filling my head.
“Why don’t you go to see a nutritionist?”
“I… no, no…” I reply.
“Why don’t you even think about it? They’re professionals,” she says, attempting to convince me, but I am not even listening to her.
“How on earth do they think I’m going to manage this? This is nuts!”
“What?”
“Did you know that three quarters of alcoholic drinks contain sugar?” I ask her in shock, pointing to the list in the pamphlet.
“Are you kidding me?”
“No, I’m not! According to this, I can’t even have a glass of wine!”
“How about white wine?”
“How am I supposed to be able to eat an antelope carpaccio without getting drunk first?” I ask, on the verge of bursting into tears.
“Not to mention the cured jellyfish,” she says, helping herself to another cookie to avoid laughing at me. “So what’s left to eat? There must be something you can have… How about cough medicine? Did you know that you’ll fail a breathalyser test after two glasses of the stuff?”
“The list says that gin and whiskey contain an unbelievable quantity of sugar.”
“Well, you can still have vodka.”
“Straight, without fruit.”
“You’d better have some antacids ready then,” she suggests, while picking at the crumbs in the can. “Why don’t you choose a less drastic diet?” she continues, trying to use some common sense, “or just go see a damn nutritionist!”
“It’s too late to go to a nutritionist now! The dinner is in less than three weeks and by then I want to be half the weight I am now! Plus, I want to get myself a hairdo like Scarlett Johansson.”
“Sam, come back to down Earth, please. I love you, but you’re completely out of your mind. You are never going to be able to lose that much weight in so little time.”
“Of course I will!” I reply, absolutely sure. “All I need to do is make a few small sacrifices.”
*
“Small sacrifices? Did you say small sacrifices? Not eating sweet food after six o’clock is a small sacrifice! Wearing a tie on Sundays is a small sacrifice!” Brian cries, while he follows him around the room on his swivel chair. “Going to the urologist’s is a…” he ponders for a few seconds and adds: “Okay, that’s a big sacrifice, but a necessary one!” he specifies solemnly. “But not sleeping with anyone for three months? That’s just plain sadism.”
It’s poker night and they’re at Dave’s place. These occasions are men only: each of them bring a six pack of beer and they usually watch NBC Sports while playing and making bad jokes, smoking cigars and complaining about the referees. But not tonight.
There was a sudden change of plan, and now it’s just the two of them, alone in what Dave calls ‘The Bunker’, an apartment on the sixth floor of a smart little building on 36th Street. It’s hardly bigger than a two room apartment and he found it by chance, while he was sitting browsing the ads in a bar not far from The Chronicle’s offices. He didn’t read the ad with much interest at first, but he had soon found himself obsessed by that apartment. He managed to visit it twice in a week, get hold of the plans and find an interior designer who would take care of the furniture and decoration. He got the keys and even had his name on the intercom after only a month.
The place had originally been an accountant’s office, which had then become home to a pharmaceutical rep and now, after complete refurbishment, it had turned into an elegant bachelor pad for relaxed evenings, equipped with all mod cons and was the perfect place to escape from frantic daily city life.
This is the place where Dave spends his Saturday nights and where every single detail, from the adjustable lights to the dark curtains, is meant to create the right atmosphere for him to realise his wildest fantasies. He would never give up even one of the bottles of perfumed oil he keeps in his apartment, but right now he’s dragging away big black trash bags crammed with anything that might remind him of the existence of women. He’s getting rid of the lot and he has no intention of changing his mind. He’s throwing away all the magazines, bath salts and bottles of Moët & Chandon and trying not to pay attention to the annoying voice in his head that for the last few days has been shouting “What the hell are you doing?”
“I’ve made my mind up and I’m not going back.”
“Dave! It’s three months!”
“Yeah, Brian – three months,” he replies mockingly to his friend. “It’s not ten years, it’s just three short months out of my entire life.”
“Dave, three months might not be too long for me but it definitely is for you. And come to think of it, it would be long even for me, and I am certainly not you.”
“What do you mean? What kind of guy do you think I am?” he says, raising his eyes towards his friend, while taking a bottle of stimulating coconut gel from the coffee table.
“Well…” Brian mutters before catching sight of the gel. Dave follows his friend’s eyes and realises what he’s holding in his hand. He looks at it in disapproval and says, “Whatever, it doesn’t matter. From now on, that is a closed chapter.” And he throws the bottle in the trash.
“Okay, but please explain to me why you came here, instead of staying in your own home. I mean, you want to steer clear of women, so you move here? It doesn’t make sense.”
“I need peace and quiet, and this is where I can find it. Anyway, think about it: nobody would ever try and look for me up here in Nob Hill, because everybody knows I never sleep here.”
“I understand, but I seriously doubt that you’d be in danger of finding a line of ex-girlfriends waiting for you on the front lawn anyway. Come on, man, you’re being paranoid.”
“Better safe than sorry,” he replies. “And anyway, it only takes me about twenty minutes to reach the office from here, and that means that I consume less time and money and have fewer chances to get… distracted. Let’s be honest: what I need to do right now is think about my career. I can’t just rely on luck any more,” he says, trying to convince himself more than his actual audience – which is Brian and a few reproductions of modern art.
“Look, I don’t know what to think about all this… No, wait,” Brian interrupts him, leaping from his chair in horror. “What are you doing? You’re not seriously thinking about throwing Onky away, are you?” he cries, snatching from Dave’s hands a strange wooden reproduction of some weird, unknown pre-Columbian fertility deity and hugging it to his chest.
Dave grabs it back and pushes him away. “Cut it out, Brian!” Then he turns to the statue and says: “I’m sorry, Onky, but you’ve been fired.”
He throws the statue away without a second thought. “You’re breaking my heart. You know that, right?” Brian mutters, pointing accusingly at Dave. “You just killed the very spirit of this house and one of the most important things in our friendship with it. We shared our Playboys for twenty-two years – doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
“Shit! I nearly forgot the most important thing of all.”
“What is that?”
He goes over to his bookshelf, pulls open a couple of drawers and starts searching amongst documents, empty CD cases and other random stuff that’s inside. He’s sure he put it there, but he can’t find it any more. “Come on, I know you’re here…” he murmurs to himself while digging around in dusty pieces of paper. He doesn’t usually keep anything personal in the house on Pacific Avenue, but there are a few things that he prefers not to have around at home. It’s nothing really important, but it’s always better to be discreet when you have a lifestyle like his. Nobody has ever searched his stuff, but he doesn’t want to run any pointless risks.
“Ha!” he exclaims victoriously when he sees the worn corners of a little red phone book. It’s small and cheap, one of those phone books that you can easily find in any thrift store, and it looks like it’s ready to be thrown away, but as soon as Brian sees it, he goes pale. “No!”
“I have to.”
“No, you don’t. You can’t throw it away!”
“I have to,” replies Dave inflexibly, waving it under his friend’s nose.
“No!” Brian complains, while reaching out both hands to him. “There are all the numbers of the Playmates 2000 to 2005 in there! Can’t you remember how hard it was for us to get hold of them?” he asks between sobs.
“You mean how hard it was for me,” Dave corrects him.
“Right, and now do you really want to throw away the fruit of all that hard work? Don’t you have any pity? I can’t take this, my heart isn’t strong enough,” he moans, grasping at his chest. “I’m almost forty, do you know what the chances are of someone my age surviving a heart attack?” He throws himself desperately at Dave. “I’ll pay you, but please don’t destroy that phone book. Where will all those poor bunny girls go when they need shelter?”
“Not to your house, that’s for sure. Come on, deal with it,” he says, pushing him away with a smile. “What would you do if you had one of Playboy’s ‘bunny girls’ number anyway? If Katy found it, you’d end up in a wheelchair for the rest of your life,” he says, going over to the trash can to eliminate that link with the old Dave, that reckless guy who almost destroyed all his hard work and reputation.
“You’ve got the wrong idea, I don’t want anybody’s number,” says Brian, trying pull himself back together. “I’m out of the game anyway.”
“So why the hell are you kicking up such a stink about me throwing everything away?”
“Because you’re like a brother to me. A rich, buff brother with no serious commitments. Knowing that you were out there having fun almost made married life bearable,” he sighs.
“Don’t worry, Brian. I’ll be back to my regular life in three months,” he reassures his friend, patting his shoulders. “And when I am, I promise you that I’m going to do my best to make your marriage the happiest one in history!”
“Yeah, I’m sure you will,” Brian jokes.
At that moment, a phone starts ringing.
“Is it yours?” Dave asks.
“No, mine’s dead, the battery’s flat – it must be yours.”
Dave points to the jacket hanging on the back of a chair by the table, where he put it when he arrived. Something is flashing in its pocket. “Who the hell can be calling me at this time?”
“You should turn it off now and again…”
“A journalist never switches off his phone, Brian!” retorts Dave, retrieving his phone. It’s been a tough day, but all in all he’s managed to keep calm, until now at least. But one quick glance at the screen is enough to spoil his mood and make him feel utterly depressed and unable to face any difficulty. “No! Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
“Who is it?” asks Brian from the other side of the room, shocked by his extreme reaction. Dave was completely calm a moment before and now he’s pacing back and forth and cussing the whole universe.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.”
“Dave?”
“Fuck!” he repeats, running his fingers through his hair.
“What the hell is going on?”
“Simone.”
“What?”
“It’s Simone!” He repeats, as though that were enough to explain his behaviour.
“Who? The dancer from Las Vegas?”
“No, that’s Mary. This is Simone, the air hostess from New York.”
“Let me guess,” interrupts Brian, holding up his hand and closing his eyes like a mind reader. “Let me see if I can imagine her correctly… So, leather upholstery,” he says, mimicking the shape of a curvy woman with his hands. “Small front airbags, shapely bumper,” he continues whilst biting his lips. “It’s a sports model, right? What colour? Blue? Nah, maybe white? Or chrome red?”
“Yes, exactly,” confirms Dave with a grim smirk, while he looks at his phone. “Damn it all to hell!”
He hadn’t foreseen this. He’s barely begun his three months and he’s already thinking of giving in.
Maybe he could just… No, he mustn’t! “No exceptions, no exceptions,” he repeats to himself as he tries not to answer the call.
“Hey,” says Brian, aware of his friend’s frustration, “come on, it’s just one night,” he says in a sympathetic tone. “This will help you say goodbye to Onky in a more honourable way. It’s just for one evening, nobody would know about it. Starting from tomorrow, you can forget that you even have a dick, but go and have fun, at least tonight!”
“I don’t know, you might be right. And she doesn’t even live here…” says Dave, trying not to show too much enthusiasm for the idea.
“That’s what I’m saying!”
“She doesn’t usually stay in town longer than three or four hours. I’m sure she’ll be flying back to Moscow before midnight,” he says, checking the time.
“Great! You can go and get her and take her back after a couple of hours. It’s perfect.”
“Hmm…” Dave finally turns to look at Brian, as if he’s hoping for a sign. He tries to think of all the pros and cons. And the pros seem to outnumber the cons… “Brian, get the hell out of here.”
“Yeah, that’s the Dave I like to see – straight to the basket!”
“Yes, sure,” mumbles Dave, feeling defeated as he grabs his stuff without even looking at his friend. “I think I should be back in less than half an hour,” he says, thinking aloud while he looks for his car keys. “And, Brian, could you…” he says on his way towards the door, gesturing at the trash lying on the carpet.
“This stuff?” Brian asks, knowing what his friend is trying to say.
“Yeah. I mean…” Dave stammers in embarrassment.
“Yeah, no problem. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it.”
“Thanks. It’s just that otherwise I won’t make it on time,” he says whilst nervously checking his Rolex again.
“Sure, off you go now.”
“I’m going, I’m going…” he says once he’s finally in the hall. He barely says goodbye – he doesn’t really need to be polite with Brian, they’ve known each other forever and a simple gesture is enough for them to understand what the other means. He turns to check the living room one last time to make sure everything is in order and then disappears, slamming the door. Brian suddenly finds himself alone, but he doesn’t mind. He starts roaming around the apartment with an ambiguous smile on his face, enjoying the temporary silence and mentally organising the rest of his evening. He could go to the bar, or he could surprise Katy by coming home with take-out from the Chinese. Why not? He already knows what he’s going to order: two plates of chicken with almonds and some fried noodles. But before enjoying those delicacies, he needs to do something. He pulls the fertility statue out of the trash bag and puts it back in its place on the table by the sofa.
“Welcome back, Mr Onky,” he greets him fondly. “You’ve just been reinstated. Let’s consider this a fresh start, huh?”
Once he decides that there’s nothing else he needs to do, he leaves, taking the trash with him. He makes sure that his keys are in his pockets and prepares to head home. He picks up his jacket from the sofa and just when he’s about to open the door Dave reappears, holding some keys in his hand. He looks at them in amusement. “Did you really think you could fool me?”
Brian burst into laughter. “I almost did, though! Almost!”
“And you thought it would be that easy, right?”
“I am going to win that hundred dollars, Dave. It’s already mine.”
“You’re delusional.”
“We’ll see!”
“I’ll take a cheque.”
“You’ll last a week. Tops.”