A map of how she talked
I attended a reception at Lincoln Center for the Jeff Bridges photography show. Oliver was there, as he is with most notable cultural events we can get into for free, and he had indulgingly brought a date. I went alone because women are heartless bitches, etc. We all camped out near the hors d’oeuvres, drinking the vino gratis with sour faces.
As you may know, I am a photographer. When I want to make a picture of something, either I do it outdoors, in a studio, or on location. In the cases of the studio or location, I set up the lights, with the help of my assistant. Lighting is the hard part of photography. It is the lighting that creates the spaces and the mood and the image itself. What type of equipment you use, and its positioning, is the whole ballgame. Of course, if you’re shooting outdoors, god already made those decisions for you. That’s why god is a great photographer.
Jeff Bridges, on the other hand, takes photos only on sets where he is an actor. On these sets, entire teams of professionals, not under his direction, have put up lighting for the purposes of the film. Even if he stands somewhere with his camera other than where the film director’s camera is, he’s using the lighting they designed. It’s pretty easy to get nice shots when you’re using someone else’s professional lighting. All that’s left for Jeff is framing, a fool’s paradise.
So we stood around, protecting the hors d’oeuvres from intruders, drinking the wine that was provided for that purpose, and staring glumly at each other. Or, rather, Oliver and I did. His date, a slip of a girl named Melissa who was probably on temporary leave from the orphanage, had a Cinemascope smile. It was obviously her first Bad Celeb Art outing.
Melissa floated off to rub elbows, but Oliver and I glumly stayed the course.
“How’d you meet her?” I asked.
“She’s friends with a coworker.”
“Who, someone I know?”
“Yeah, Teri Calahan.”
“Teri Calahan? Say, this girl looks sort of like — “
Oliver winced. “Yeah, it’s her daughter.”
I rooted around in the Swedish meatballs for a minute. “No shit?”
Oliver whimpered, “I shouldn’t be here. This is a disaster. She heard about the event, she wanted to come. I thought, okay, it’ll be nice for her. Then I realize she’s jailbait in a sleeveless dress. I mean she’s 20, everything is legal. Except the drinking. But I just feel weird about the whole thing.”
“All right, don’t worry. If the cops bust in, I’ll shout ‘They went that way’ while you go out some other way.”
Melissa floated back over to us, overdressed and finding a new world to conquer. She glided right up to me, putting her arm around my waist as she handed her empty winestem to Oliver. His eyebrows shot up and he retreated into the wine-queue crowd.
“Hello, Young Melissa,” I said.
“This is very, very exciting,” she replied.
“I’m glad you’re enjoying it; would you like a cucumber sandwich?”
“It’s been such a boring week, and here I am meeting all these people. I just loooove Oliver, and —”
“Well, we all love him. To know him, in fact —”
The hors d’oeuvre throng bore down on us, and Melissa moved to my other side, her fingers trailing off my back. She grabbed my free hand tightly.
“Thanks for being here with us,” she grinned at me.
“All right,” I said amiably. She stroked my hand as she looked around and finally ate a cucumber sandwich. The crowd hustled tighter in on us. Our defenses had broken down. We were no longer lords of the food table. Melissa was jostled, or self-jostled, and several times compressed her chest against mine. “Oliver was bringing me a drink,” she said, “but he hasn’t yet returned.” Then she plucked my wine glass from my fingers and it became her wine glass.
As I stood there scratching my head, Melissa stood there scratching other parts of me. She was a friendly girl. Perhaps you won’t believe me, but I didn’t appreciate it, because I didn’t understand or trust it. Meanwhile, her fingers grazed my crotch. This was getting ridiculous.
Oliver returned with six or seven wine glasses in his embrace. He distributed them among us. “Oliver, can I talk to you for a second?” I tugged on his arm and started out toward the masses.
“What about our great spot?” he asked, aghast.
“Melissa will be in charge,” I said, and she grinned.
I took Oliver to a far corner. “She’s a very friendly girl,” is how I put it.
“Yeah, she seems a nice sort —”
“I mean she’s up in my grill. You know me and personal space — if I can see you, you’re too close. She’s a toucher.”
“Well, some people are just tou —”
“Look, Oliver, she’s way too friendly for friendly. I don’t trust her intentions. It’s like she’s playing checkers on me.” I ran my fingers acrobatically across Oliver’s chest and back to try to explain to him, topologically, her method of conversation. Then I leaned in to his ear and whispered, “She also touched me where I can’t touch you.”
I drew back and watched his face sag. “What the hell is Teri teaching her?”
“I don’t know, pal, but you’d better be careful. She’s On the Loose.”
Oliver swallowed hard. “I’d better talk to her. I don’t mean, talk to her about this, you know, just, uh, she needs to be distracted.”
“She’s pretty distracted. Calm her down. She obviously doesn’t get out much.”
“Yeah.” He started back to her.
“Say, uh, Oliver?”
“Yeah?”
“You — you aren’t trying to sleep with her, are you?”
“Of course not,” he muttered, and hurried over.
Now I knew we were all doomed. I wandered out into the street and the subway. One of the biggest problems with Lincoln Center is it’s all that way uptown but not quite near enough to Gray’s Papaya. One of the biggest problems with me is I’m just another sex-obsessed prude. I gathered no moss all the way back to the bar, for one last solitary drink, in some insufficient lighting.
by Jack, December 16, 2003 9:07 PM | More from Women
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