I Get Along Without You Very Well

Not a Star, Not a Rose: Episode 17

- Can I just have some pineapple juice?

- I don’t know, can you?

- Oh god, did your grandma say that too?

- My mother.

- And then you’d have to say may I . . .

- That’s right.

- I think they said that on Pee Wee’s Playhouse too, didn’t they?

- How the hell would I know? That’s a kids’ show.

- My ex liked it.

- Which one?

- Um, second to last . . . I think. No wait! It was that guy I . . . kinda stole from Cady . . .

- Kalmia, Kalmia . . . here’s your pineapple juice. You stole a guy from your best friend?

- She was better off having nothing to do with him.

- What was wrong with this one?

- Well, he was kind of a Nazi, but that’s a whole other story. In other ways, he was kind of like the guy I’m with now — he was always saying I was perfect . . . except . . . my nails.

- You have nice nails. I like the blue polish.

- Well, he didn’t. But he was willing to put up with the color as long as there weren’t any chips or smudges. That just drove him crazy. He’d be holding my hand, right . . . and my god, if any little spot on my nails wasn’t completely smooth, he’d grip my wrist and lift my hand up to my face and just slowly shake his head . . .

- How were his nails?

- Immaculate. His mother was a manicurist. I found this out the day he kidnapped me.

- Are you serious?

- Yep. See, for his eighteenth birthday, his parents were taking us to dinner at the Marine Room . . . I was gonna meet them for the first time . . . but I ended up meeting his mom the day before.

- He actually kidnapped you?

- He waited around after school for my play rehearsal to get out, and then he blindfolded me and led me down the street to her salon. I smelled the place before he let me see anything — those places stink. So I was kinda freaking out.

- Well, yeah.

- He took off my blindfold and introduced me to his mom . . . then he just strolled out and left us alone and she told me to have a seat so she could put some fake nails on me.

- Did you let her?

- Oh no. I said thanks but no thanks, my nails were healthy and this wasn’t my idea.

- What’d she say?

- Oh, I know it wasn’t your idea, hon — but my boy doesn’t wanna go to the Marine Room with you with your nails like that. He said, Mom, you gotta do something about her nails!

- So . . .

- So I agreed to let her file and polish them.

- What color?

- Pink.

- Ah, you sold out.

- I kept my own nails, and I kept the peace, Deke. Anyway — I did something a little rebellious.

- You should have just flipped her off and left.

- Funny you should say that. As I was leaving, I noticed one of my middle fingernails wasn’t quite dry. So I smoodged it up a bit.

- Smoodged?

- Yeah. That was my little gesture to both of them.

- Please tell me you dumped him after that.

- Well, I wanted to go to the Marine Room.

- Ah.

- It’s a really cool place. I mean, the tide comes right up against this huge window and eventually it’s like you’re underwater . . .

- I know, I know, I’ve been there with Tiff.

- Oh.

- When did you dump him?

- The following week, over something else.

- You know, the polish on your right middle finger is kinda . . . smoodged . . . right now.

- Oh, not you too!

- No, no, I just think it’s a weird coincidence.

- Guess I’m still making that gesture.

- Why aren’t you writing this stuff in that journal?

- Because . . .

Continued in Episode 18: All the Things You Are