What’s worse is that I only had a few days to get accustomed to this, due to my rapidly approaching birthday. It was impossible, I thought; how am I supposed to grow up in a little over a week?
“Oh my God, I’m really going to be thirty-fffff . . .” I muttered to myself, unable to even say the word.
I had, however, a partner in this crisis; Jamie, my best friend since third grade, was born exactly a week before I was. I ran for the phone.
“Hi, it’s me,” I said when she picked up. “Are you busy?”
“No, I’m just watching Sigmund and the Sea Monsters,” she answered.
“Do you know we’re going to be thirty-fffff . . . ?” I whimpered. “I just found out.”
“You are bad at math,” she said.
“You knew?” I asked.
“I’m a microbiologist,” she explained. “It’s important when you’re trying to find a cure for cancer that you know how to subtract.”
“See? At least you have a career,” I argued, feeling even more depressed. “When you answer the phone at work, you say, ‘Molecular Genetics, this is Jamie,’ and when I answer the phone, all I get to say is ‘Hi.’ I don’t feel like a grown-up, do you?”
“No, I’m a kid in a lab coat,” she admitted. “I keep having stress dreams that I get exposed at work and my boss calls me ‘duplicitous,’ and I don’t even know if that’s a word.”
“I can’t be thirty-fffff . . .” I whined. “I ate an entire can of spray cheese yesterday by myself, except for the stuff that I sprayed into the dog’s mouth.”
“People stared at me all day yesterday, and I thought it was because I looked especially beautiful,” she said. “But when I got home, I realized it was because a button had popped off my shirt and my left boob had come out to get some air.”
Then we both giggled.
“I don’t want to be thirty-fffff . . . ,” I sniveled. “What are we going to do?”
“We’re going to stay thirty-three,” she said firmly.
“Can we do that?” I asked.
“Of course we can,” she answered. “If we don’t feel thirty-fffff, let’s not be thirty-fffff. When the time is right, then we’ll move on. But I have to go now. My Cap’n Crunch is getting soggy and the Crunchberries are beginning to bloat.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t know you were eating dinner.”
“Nah, it’s just a snack,” she said. “For dinner, I’m having chocolate. At thirty-three, you can still do that.”
“Yeah, you can,” I agreed. “In fact, I spy with my big eye another can of spray cheese in the cupboard.”
Walk All Over You
The flight attendant, his blue-vested chest puffed out like a rooster’s, knelt beside the lady sitting next to me.
“I know you must hear this often,” he gushed in a whisper loud enough for me to hear, “but I am your biggest fan! I know every word of every song you’ve ever sung, and I’ve seen all of your films.”
The lady sitting next to me turned and smiled widely at the attendant literally kneeling below her, and nodded in a slow, almost queenly gesture.
“Thank you,” she said quietly.
“It’s such an honor—an absolute privilege—to have you aboard,” the attendant continued, throwing an open hand onto his chest so hard it hit with a thud. “I cannot tell you. I am so honored. I—am—so—honored!”
The lady sitting next to me, still bearing the wide, expensive-lipstick-encrusted grin, closed her eyes softly, gave a nod duplicating her first, and parted her lips slightly, only to give another quiet “Thank you.”
As soon as the attendant scurried away, the woman who had checked my boarding pass before I got on this plane suddenly appeared and leaned over to whisper closely into my neighbor’s ear.
“I must thoroughly apologize for what happened back at the gate,” I heard her say. “I’m so sorry it was such . . . an inconvenience. The security searches are random, and there was no way of knowing it was . . . well, you! Please accept my apology on behalf on the crew and the airline.”
Again, the lady sitting next to me, the smile still frozen on her face, nodded and bequeathed a “Thank you” to the woman.
“I am your biggest fan,” the boarding-pass lady then relented. “I just love you! I used to try to dance just like you.”
The lady sitting next to me nodded and smiled. “Thank you,” she said again quietly.
Wow, what a show, I thought to myself. Finally, my frequent-flier miles have paid off and the lucky upgrade that launched me into first class has landed me right next to a movie star. I had heard rumors that although my accumulation of frequent-flier miles wasn’t going to get me to Europe, if I played my cards right, it would land me in a big leather seat in first class for absolutely nothing. It worked like this: If there was a seat that a rich person didn’t spend a ridiculous amount on just so that they could get free drinks and eat fancier peanuts, all I had to do was flash my frequent-flier card and I was upgraded to sit among the chosen people.
Right.
For almost two years, I had been flashing that card as soon as I checked in, but it was always met with a disdainful look that seemed to say, “You . . . silly peasant person! How dare you think your kind could slip into the elite section! Back to the cattle car with you! Why, you’re just lucky we even let you people sit down!”
But I wasn’t about to give up on my dream. I’ll hunt something down for the rest of my life if there’s a chance I can get it for free or a relatively good discount. My little corn-teeth have elongated to the length of Julia Roberts’s horse choppers because I can’t seem to find time to floss and my gums are receding, but if I can get $3.00 off a bag of Kitty Litter with the right coupon, I’ll pursue it harder than I did a husband.
But finally, it happened, despite the fact that I wasn’t the only person who had trouble believing it.
“You’re in first class?” the ticket lady, who was now kneeling like a subject in front of the lady next to me, had asked quietly when I tried to get on the plane.
“Oh yes,” I answered as I handed her my first-class boarding pass. “I’m eccentric. I like to dress like a poor person. A DuPont lived in a bird’s nest for years and years and then he started killing wrestlers! Rich people are all very odd. My money has caused me to snap and start wearing overalls. In fact, I’m building a nest myself. Would you mind if I took that quarter-size ball of lint from your sweater and added it to my new home? It would look perfect in the kitchen.”
And then, moments after I took my seat, clearly more consumed with the fact that I was in first class and not who was in first class with me, I was not only sitting next to a rich person, but it was a famous rich person to boot and the airline people were freaking out.
Now I, naturally, being the polite, private, live-and-let-celebrities-live sort of person that I am, did not turn my head and stare at the mysterious famous person next to me. I did not. Even though the temptation to do so was scratching away at me from the inside like a rat would claw at trash, even though the desire was filling my insides up like a balloon ready to burst with helium, even though it was the one thing that I wanted to do more desperately than anything I’ve ever wanted to do in my life aside from vomiting the moment my husband chewed on a chitlin, I kept my composure and stared straight ahead.
And that’s exactly what I did, for an entire three seconds.
And then I had to turn and look at her. What choice did I have? Here was an authentic (or at least a relatively high percentage of authenticity, most likely within the seventy-fifth to eightieth percentile) famous person sitting next to me. How could I not look? How could I not gawk? It was nearly inhuman not to turn my head and pick apart her features until I recognized her or was fairly confident that I could find a flaw that I could mock her secretly with.
Who could it be, I wondered as I turned my head to ogle her. Who could it be? She was a singer, an actress, and a dancer. Who, who, who?
Oh
my God, my mind raced, maybe it is, Liza Minnelli, I hoped. Liza! Mizzzz Liza! Oh! Oh! Oh! Please let her be drunk, God, please let her be drunk and on goofballs! Life is a cabaret, old chum, it certainly is, it certainly is, although out of the corner of my eye, I could tell that my next-door neighbor celebrity’s hair was too long and blondish to be Liza. Suddenly, I gasped. Maybe it’s Ann-Margret, maybe it’s Ann-Margret and we could talk about Elvis! Or Charo!! Maybe it’s Charo! Oh, what are the chances? Oh, God, please let it be Charo, I begged, please let it be Charo and not a Landers sister!! Coochie-coochie, God! Please, coochie-coochie!! She’s a spitfire! She’s a pistol! We could sing the whole way to L.A.!
Coochie-coochie!!!
Oh shit, I thought, as a grisly vision popped into my head. What if it’s . . . Carrot Top?
But I saw as soon as I finished my head turning and took in a good long gape, that it wasn’t Charo, it wasn’t Ann-Margret, it wasn’t Liza, and to my relief, not the human Dreamsicle Carrot Top, because that would have been simply enough for me to flee right back to coach.
The truth is, I didn’t know who the hell it was. I didn’t have the slightest of ideas.
Oh well, I sighed to myself, she probably makes Lifetime movies or hocks something like “Face-Lift/Ass-Tuck in a Jar” on QVC. Now, if my mother was here, she’d probably know exactly who this lady was and might possibly start harping about how the Face-Lift in a Jar was more like “You Mean ‘Lift My Hopes and then Kick Me in the Face’ You Lying Son of a Bitch Jar” and she would be very appreciative if the lady would give her a refund by the time they touched down in Los Angeles, because people go to hell for things like that, you know. A check would be just fine.
But the lady next to me had to be rich, I knew that, because she was shopping for a house in the L.A. Times real estate section, and my detective’s eyes saw that she had circled some chunks of land that held a pretty hefty price tag. I guess that’s what kind of reward life hands you after you sell truckloads of shitty face cream to ladies who looked like they have potstickers under their eyes.
As we were taking off, I thought of a brilliant idea: Since I was in the first row, the flight attendant in the vest was strapped into his seat, facing me. When we hit a slight bump, he broke his stalker-like gaze at my neighbor, and I was able to catch his attention.
“Who is that?” I mouthed, nodding my head in the famous lady’s direction.
The flight attendant scoffed and looked offended. “NANCY SINATRA,” he mouthed disgustedly at me and then shook his head.
WHOA.
WHOA! Nancy Sinatra? Nancy Sinatra! “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’ ” Nancy Sinatra?
Wow, I said inside my head, spying on her seems so much more interesting now! Okay, it’s no coochie-coochie, but she was the Chairman’s daughter and that counted for a whole lot, especially in my family.
If you even begin to mention the name “Frank” or blithely make the “f” sound in front of my Nana, she will not hesitate to tell you what undoubtedly is the biggest story of her life:
“When Pop Pop and I were living in New York before the war, he took me to the Brooklyn Paramount one night to see Tommy Dorsey. During the show, he announced that somebody new was going to sing, and out popped this skinny fellow. What a beautiful voice! We were crazy about him! On the way out, I looked at the sign outside the Paramount and I saw the name Frank Sinatra. I said to Pop Pop. ‘Hey, he’s Italian! Let’s remember his name, he was such a good singer!’ ”
Nana will tell anyone this story with unbridled enthusiasm and ultimate joy. Sadly, the remainder of her life experiences were unparalleled to seeing Frank Sinatra sing for the first time when he was a nobody, especially after he became FRANK SINATRA, His Royal Highness of the Italian Americans. In our world, he had more power than the Pope. So nothing, not even the birth of my mother (“What’s the big deal?” Nana is known to have said. “The doctor gave me a shot and I went to sleep, then I woke up and had a baby. No biggie, believe me! I’ve worked harder peeling potatoes!”) or the day Pop Pop returned from the war (he, by the way, after spending three years on various European fronts, living in mud, eating out of cans, and writing letters dutifully every day, came home to an empty house due to the fact that Nana apparently got hungry while she was waiting for his homecoming and went out to get a bite to eat), could compare to the beacon of a skinny, unknown Frank Sinatra.
Nothing.
And now, sitting next to me, sitting approximately seven inches away by my estimation—granted, I am slightly lackluster in the spatial relations department, so it may have been as much as a foot—was Nancy Sinatra, the closest thing left of the Chairman on this earth.
I mean, our elbows were almost touching. I was close enough to pass her a virus. In fact, I was closer to Nancy than Nana ever was to Frank.
And that’s when I realized I had a problem.
There I was sitting next to Nancy Sinatra, and I already couldn’t wait to tell everybody, especially Nana. And there was no way that I could tell my Nana what had just happened without her looking me in the face and asking, “What did she say when you told her that Pop and I saw Frank Sinatra at the Paramount before he was famous? And what did she say when you told her that I looked for his name? And that I remembered his name? What did she say? What did she say?”
It was then that I understood that I was going to have to break down and become one of them.
I was going to have to become a fan.
The realization was ugly, at best. Nancy Sinatra was not my first celebrity encounter, however. On the contrary; I am a seasoned celebrity encounterer. When I worked at Pizza D’Amore in high school, I served three slices of pepperoni to Sugar Ray Leonard and kept it cool by only asking him three times how he liked it, telling him that I put the pepperoni on those slices personally, if he hadn’t noticed, in the shape of an S, an R, and an L. I bumped into Al Roker on Sixth Avenue in New York and completely stopped myself from saying an automatic “Hi,” although a somewhat long “Haaaaaa——” escaped before I realized what I was doing, which would account for the look of horror on Al’s face as he jumped into the street like the Lucky Charms elf and was nearly flattened by a FedEx truck as he tried to flee from me. I once mistook Maria Shriver for a girl I went to high school with, but I don’t really consider yelling “Still snotty after all of these years, huh?” at her a freakout, since I believed her to be someone altogether different.
The only time I have really ever freaked out when spotting a celebrity was when I did indeed see Carrot Top and the volcano of protruding cheekbones and alleged “eyebrow realignment” that he has become, looking not only permanently startled but desperately malnourished as well. And a little like a lady, as long as we’re being honest. Frankly, I always figured that it was against all odds that you would ever see the big orange menace in daylight, given that I believed Satan kept that little imp in a box and only let him out on special occasions or religious holidays to scramble about the world to instigate mayhem and breed hate among humans. But then again, that’s pretty much what he was doing when I saw him hangin’ with his homies in Santa Monica, his eyebrows lifted to his hairline and the flames of hell that double for his hair flying all over the place. He glanced in my direction and I fully believe was responsible for the Mr. Twisty pretzel dropping from my hands onto the dirty sidewalk, where a filthy homeless man wearing nothing but a loincloth beat me to the punch and had himself a nice Mr. Twisty supper.
But Miss Nancy Sinatra was no such demon, even though I was very hesitant to start up a conversation. In fact, my mouth dried up and my hands started to sweat and I noticed that I was trembling.
I was afraid. Now, I’m not exactly sure what I was afraid of—I mean, she seemed nice and cordial and cheery to everyone else. But I spent the next hour going back and forth—should I say something, should I not say something—and several times I cleared my throat to begin telling Nancy Sinatra Nana’s tale, but then I would chicken out at the last moment.
&n
bsp; I just didn’t want to be one of those people, the kind of person who tells an insignificant story to someone they think gives a shit when they couldn’t care less, particularly a famous person. I’m sure that my Nana’s story wasn’t going to be the first time she heard someone tell her about seeing her father singing when he was a skinny little kid; it probably wouldn’t even rank in the first thousand times she’d heard it. In fact, it most likely happened to her on a regular basis, maybe even hourly. Why would she care? Why would Nancy Sinatra give a shit?
And all of a sudden, I realized that I didn’t really need to be concerned with that. I didn’t really need to care if I was boring Nancy Sinatra with an age-old story. Because I wasn’t telling the story for me, and I wasn’t telling the story for her. I was telling it for Nana. I was telling it for the pride Nana carried with her for sixty years, and how seeing Frank Sinatra was one of the most significant moments in her life.
I was going to tell Nancy because Nana never got to tell Frank.
And once I understood that, I cleared my throat and said to Nancy Sinatra, “Ms. Sinatra, I’m sorry to interrupt you,” for which she must have taken me at my word, because she just kept reading the L.A. Times real estate section. So I cleared my throat again and said much, much louder, “MS. SINATRA, I’M SORRY TO INTERRUPT YOU,” after which Nancy Sinatra turned and looked at me.
“I’m sorry, I know you’re busy, but this will only take a minute,” I said quickly as she stared at me. “Before the war, my grandparents, Nana and Pop Pop, saw your father singing with Tommy Dorsey at the Brooklyn Paramount, and after the show, my Nana made it a point to look at the marquee and catch his name. And she said to my Pop Pop, ‘Nick, we have to remember that Frank Sinatra kid because he’s Italian and has a beautiful voice.’ She loves that story, and she loved your father.”