and—
Oh my God!
It’s him!
He’s slipping through the first-class curtain,
passing right by me with this big grin on his face,
motioning for me to meet him at the back of the plane.
I manage to levitate over the sleeping giant next to me,
and float down the aisle right into Ray’s arms.
He wraps me into a hug so hot
that I practically burst into flames.
We slip into the bathroom,
and lock the door.
Then, without even saying a word,
we start kissing.
And we kiss and kiss and kiss
until I can feel his kisses running all through me.
And now he’s starting to unbutton my shirt and—
that’s when I wake up.
No!
I don’t want any honey-roasted peanuts.
It Figures
The pilot just announced
that there’s a breathtaking view
of the Grand Canyon
for the passengers who are seated
on the left side of the aircraft.
Guess which side
I’m sitting on?
Ladies and Gentlemen, We Are Beginning Our Dissent
Will the passengers in coach class
please return your seat backs and tray tables
to their full upright positions for landing.
And will the passengers in first class
please take a moment
to stow their personal footrests
beneath their seats.
Their personal footrests?!
Oh, and if it’s not too much trouble,
would they mind returning
their empty champagne bottles
and caviar buckets
to their personal in-flight servants?
Those first-class passengers
who are still submerged
in their individual hot tubs at this time
should take this opportunity to climb out
in order to allow their geishas
sufficient time to towel them dry.
At this time we must also request
that all the exotic dancers
place their clothes back on their bodies,
and that all masseuses fold up and stow
their portable massage tables in the massage table bin
located at the rear of the first-class cabin.
Kindly take a moment to hand
your monogrammed cashmere blankets,
your imported goose down pillows,
and your exclusive complimentary
American Airlines Armani bunny slippers
to your personal in-flight butlers
for placement in the overhead compartments.
Thank you for flying with American Airlines.
We hope that all of you,
even the scum
who could only afford coach class,
will have a very pleasant stay here
in the Los Angeles area.
The air quality at the present time
is hideously unhealthy
for all living creatures.
That’s L.A. Down There
Lurking under a curtain
of olive brown mist
that’s hanging over it
like a threat.
That’s L.A. down there,
simmering in that murky smog stew.
But from where I’m sitting,
it looks more like
Hell A.
I Didn’t Want to Get on This Plane
But now I don’t want to get off it.
I gather up my stuff in slow motion
and make myself follow
the sumo wrestler down the aisle,
past the flight attendants standing by the cockpit,
grinning and nodding at me
like those bobble-head dogs
that people stick on the
dashboards of their cars.
I force myself to step through
the gaping steel jaw of the doorway,
and inch down the corridor of doom,
balancing on the tightrope
of dirty gray carpet,
painfully aware that every step I take
is leading me
closer and closer
to the sperm donor himself.
There He Is
The Whip Logan.
In three whole dimensions.
I don’t know whether
to ask him for his autograph,
kick him in the balls,
or run.
So I Don’t Do Anything
I wish I felt
like racing over to him
and flinging my arms around his neck.
I wish I felt
like telling him I love him
and all is forgiven.
I wish I felt
at least a tiny bit
glad to see him.
Not that my feelings
exactly appear to matter to him
one way or the other.
He’s too busy signing autographs
to even notice
that I’ve gotten off the plane.
I Watch Whip Logan
Chatting away
with his giggling fans,
scribbling on all their scraps of paper,
and their arms
and their T-shirts
and their whatevers.
I watch him
being so damn friendly
to everyone,
and
I feel—
what do I feel?
Nothing.
Nada.
Zip.
Zero.
Uh Oh
He’s spotted me.
That nice comfortable
nothing feeling
just morphed into dread.
Here He Comes
The guy from whose
ridiculously famous loins I sprang
is heading straight toward me.
He’s walking right up to me,
smiling at me
just like he smiled at Gwyneth Paltrow,
in that sappy opening scene
from The Road to Nowhere.
My real, live, honest-to-goodness dad
is standing here right in front of me
saying, “You must be Ruby.”
Who wrote this dialogue?
I want to say, “No, duh.”
I want to grab him by his collar and scream,
“Where have you been all my life,
you worthless piece of—”
But the words
get all fisted-up in my throat.
So I just nod.
Then his eyes start getting all blurry,
exactly like they did when
he was reunited with Julia Roberts
in that terrible remake of It’s a Wonderful Life, and he puts his arm around my shoulder,
just like he put his arm around hers.
Gag me.
So I duck down,
pretending I have to tie my shoe.
And when I stand back up
he doesn’t pull any more of that
arm-around-the-shoulder,
I’m-your-famous-movie-star-father crap again.
At least he’s capable of taking a hint.
“Welcome to California!”
He says it like he’s rehearsed it.
But he says it like he means it.
Like he really, really means it.
Well,
so what if he does?
Because I’m here to tell him
that he can’t just ooze out
onto the stage of my life
and play my father.
Not after Mom did all the hard work
of teaching me to be a decent human being,
which is something he obviously couldn’t have don
e
even if he’d bothered to try
since he clearly doesn’t know the first thing
about being one himself.
I’m here to tell him
that this is going to be
the toughest role he’s ever had to play.
Suddenly
A billion flashbulbs are exploding all around us
and people are shouting and pushing and shoving
and sticking cameras in our faces
and crowding so close
that it feels like we’re in a mosh pit.
“Whip! Whip!” they’re calling
from every direction at once.
“Is that your long lost daughter?”
“She looks just like you!”
“Come on, honey, smile for the camera!”
“Hey, Ruby, look over here!”
“Put your arm around her, Whip!”
“Come on, Miss Logan, give us a smile!”
“Damn paparazzi,” Whip says under his breath,
and then all of a sudden
these four incredible hulks muscle through the throng
and link arms to make a pathway for Whip and me.
“Thanks, guys,” he says as we rush past them.
“We’ll see you back at the house.”
Then he grabs my hand and starts running
toward the limo that’s parked out front.
“I’m so sorry, Ruby,” he says,
as we leap inside and it speeds away.
“I hired a look-alike to throw the reporters off the track,
but I guess it didn’t work.”
Is that all you’re sorry for, Whip?
It’s Creepy Being in a Limo
Because the only other time
I was ever even in one
was on the way to Mom’s funeral.
And there’s a movie star in this one.
He’s sitting right across from me,
staring at me like I’m a movie star.
Only this movie star
is my father.
How bizarre is that?
He’s just sitting here,
staring at me,
trying to catch his breath.
And now his eyes are getting
all disgustingly misty and he’s saying,
“You look so much like your mom.”
Whoa.
I feel like I’m the co-star
of one of those gruesome soap operas
and the director’s going to start shouting “Cut!”
if I don’t get a grip
and remember my line.
So I say, “You’re a lot shorter
than you look on the screen,”
practically spitting the words in his face.
But he just smiles at me,
that same smile that he smiles
in all his movies,
and says,
“I’m sure glad you’re here.”
Cut. Cut! CUT! CUT!
Sightsniffing
Whip tells the chauffeur to turn left on California
and take the Pacific Coast Highway to Sunset.
Then he presses a button on the control panel
and the tinted window floats down.
Across an expanse of strangely duneless sand,
I catch my first glimpse of the Pacific.
A little thrill runs through me.
I’ve always loved the ocean.
The sound of it, the feel of it…
And I guess this one’s pretty enough.
But there’s something weird about it.
It doesn’t smell right.
In fact, it doesn’t smell at all.
That’s what’s wrong.
I fill my lungs with what should be sea air.
But I might as well be in Nebraska.
I can’t pick up even the vaguest whiff
of seaweed or salt.
What kind of an ocean is this, anyway?
“You Wanna Stretch Your Legs?”
Whip asks me,
all boyish and perky
and so deeply upbeat
that I want to slug him.
But he doesn’t wait for me to answer.
He just tells the chauffeur
to pull into a beach parking lot.
“Let’s take off our shoes,” he says.
He tears off his $200 Nikes,
leaps out of the limo,
then turns and offers me his hand.
Which I pointedly do not take.
I slip out of my Payless sandals
and suddenly find myself sprinting across
the silky heat of the sand
toward the waves.
I might have been able
to enjoy this moment,
if Whip wasn’t prancing along
right next to me.
We don’t stop
till our toes are in the water.
“I’ve always loved the ocean,” he says.
“The way it feels, the way it sounds …”
And when I hear these words,
something flickers on and off inside of me,
like a tiny flash of lightning.
And I suddenly feel like sobbing.
The tears surge to my eyes,
swelling and stinging like salty waves.
But I don’t cry
I never do anymore.
Not since Mom.
I guess I must have used up
my entire lifetime supply of tears
on the night she died.
Whip Stares Out at the Water
“Maybe we’ll spot some dolphins,” he says.
And just then,
I see this sleek fin slice through the waves,
this shining fin attached to the back
of a velvety gray creature
that leaps up through the spray.
Suddenly I’m one big goose bump.
I’ve never seen a dolphin in the ocean before.
Only the one at the aquarium.
And wow!
There’s another one. And another.
It’s a whole family of them!
Cresting through the waves.
Spinning on their tails.
Like they’re putting on a show just for us.
And now they’re close enough
for me to see the smiles on their faces.
I’m not kidding—they’re actually smiling!
And then I notice that Whip is, too.
So I wrestle the smile off my own face
and watch his fade.
It’s a Very Long Driveway
Curving through a forest
of anorexic palm trees,
waving their scrawny necks around
miles above an unnaturally green lawn.
The house finally rolls into view.
It looks like Walt Disney designed it.
Turrets. Balconies. Gables. Flags.
There’s even something
that looks sort of like
a drawbridge.
What?
No moat?
Really, Whip.
You’re slipping.
I Wonder What Ray Would Think of This Place
It’d probably make him hurl.
He wants to be an architect someday.
Before I left,
he gave me an amazing drawing of a house.
He said he designed it especially for me.
Called it Ruby’s Slipper,
and said he wished we could live in it
together.
I can’t believe that I’m going to be living
three thousand miles away
from that guy.
I can’t believe it.
And I can’t stand it.
Be It Ever So Humble
Whip guides me through the front door
by my elbow.
(Does he have to keep touching me?)
And w
hat I see
makes it awfully hard to keep my eyes
from popping out of their sockets.
The front hall alone
is twice the size
of the house Mom and I lived in.
And the floor twinkles
like something straight out of
an old Fred Astaire movie.
There’s a gurgling indoor fishpond
right in the middle of it,
a curved marble staircase on the left,
and off to the right,
a living room roughly the size
of a football field.
Okay.
Maybe I’m exaggerating.
Half a football field.
In the Living Room
I feel like I’ve just
stumbled through the looking glass
into the Whip Logan Museum.
There’s movie posters from all of his films
plastered on the walls,
a framed thank-you letter from the mayor of New York City,
a plaque from the governor of Someplace-or-other,
and an honorary degree from Yale Drama School.
There’s a sculpture of Whip,
an etching of Whip,
a caricature of Whip,
and an enormous oil painting of … who else?
Signed by David Hockney.
There’s photographs everywhere:
Whip with Madonna.
Whip with Tom Cruise.
Whip with Michael Jordan.
Whip with Steven Spielberg.
Whip with Bill Clinton.
I don’t see any
of Whip with the pope,
but I bet there’s one around here somewhere.
And in the center of the mantel,
above a fireplace big enough
to rotisserize an elephant,
stands Whip’s Oscar,
shimmering,
under the beam of a single spotlight.
Jesus.
If this guy was
any more full of himself,
he’d explode.
He Ushers Me Out of the Room
And up the staircase,
down a hallway
carpeted with a rug so soft
that I sink in past my ankles.
He stops in front of an oak door
and whips it open (pun intended)
to reveal—
my bedroom.
I almost fall over when I see it.
Because it’s my dream room.
I mean, I don’t think you understand.
It’s literally the room of my dreams.
And seeing it is this totally
surreal experience because it’s the very
same room I described in an essay once
for a contest that won me first prize.
Whoever designed it
must have read my mind.
Because whoever designed it
got it exactly right.