Wentworth - Ali in Wonderland

Ali in Wonderland

and other tall tales

Ali Wentworth

www.harpercollins.com

The names and faces in this book have been changed to protect MY innocence.

To my mother for what she taught me...

To my daughters for forgiving me what

I taught them.

Well-behaved women seldom make history.

A BUMPER STICKER

Contents

T here is a moment in every womans life in which she becomes completely unzipped, demented, whacked, non compos mentisfor some it lasts minutes; for others, their entire lives. I have exemplary friends; many are CEOs of corporations or volunteers for nonprofits, almost all are meritorious mothers and ethical women. But if you gave them each a glass of pinot noir and a cushy ottoman, they would regale you with stories of the time they went bonkers.

I cracked like a Baccarat tumbler on a slate floor in Santa Monica, California, fourteen years ago. I was living at the time with a towering Jewish comedy writer named Ari. I was in awe of his deranged outlook on life and shock-jock sense of humor. He was brilliant, cynical, and wildly funny; I never tired of his monologues on everything from Britney Spears to Nazi Germany. I met him in Los Angeles, but like me, he was from the East Coast and knew what real snow looked like, as opposed to the tons of soap flakes Aaron Spelling had trucked in for his holiday party. There was a familiarity about Ari; it was as if wed known each other since Hebrew school (as a Protestant Ive never been, but you get the gist). Theres a scene in the movie Broadcast News when Albert Brooks says to Holly Hunter, Ill meet you at the place, near the thing, where we went that timethat was our constant dialogue. We were ultimately better suited as naughty siblings than mates and preferred ridiculing celebrity sex tapes to making our own. We bought a house in L.A. that became a fortress against all the hardships of the Hollywood grind.

Ari spent most of his time writing and decorating the house with Moroccan antiques and twelve-foot Persian rugs. We swam in our black-bottomed granite pool and threw infamous Christmas parties. (Not at the same time.) There was always an abundance of liquor, glazed hams, spinach dip, hummus, gingerbread cookies, and a giant Christmas tree, which Ari, being Jewish, always protested against. The party would be sprinkled with just enough celebrity to be titillating: Michael Keaton, Sandra Bernhardt, and once, the gorgeous Robin Wright. All brought by other people. For us, getting the guy who did our taxes to come was a triumph.

We would drive to San Francisco just to eat at a hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant with soup dumplings that melt in your mouth. We hiked canyons with our dogs, had brunch with people who were also running like frenzied rodents in the Hollywood Habitrail, and hit every Sunday-morning flea market from Orange County to Long Beach. We were slowly scaling the wall of middling success; he was churning out TV pilots and I was auditioning for everything from the cop dramas in which I would only scream, Get down! He has a gun! to Lifetime movies about runaway pregnant teens. Occasionally I would read for the pretty blond lead, but I would invariably receive uplifting feedback like, Shes a seven, we need a ten! Ari bought a tiny apartment in Manhattan so we could have a safety raft when Hollywood beat us up. And get the one thing Los Angeles is incapable of producinga decent bagel.

A ny emotional hole I had, Ari would try his best to cork and spackle. He was always thoughtful; if I had to travel somewhere, flowers always awaited me. He was protective; once, when the doorbell was stuck and kept ringing and I thought it might be a killer in a hockey mask, he abruptly left work and drove home the wrong way on the 405 freeway to placate me. And if someone was rude to me, he was out for blood. Theres nothing more seductive than a man who will duel at dawn for you. Or duel any time of the day, really. Once we were traveling to New York, and the TWA representative informed us our tickets were for a later flight. He said hed put us on the flight in coach seats. Thats impossible, Ari said, I paid for first-class tickets. Ari was trying to impress and had spent many miles getting these tickets.

The haughty representative sighed dramatically. You have coach seats, sir, and even if I had first class, I have a waiting list already filled with devoted platinum TWA flyers. You acquired yours with dividend miles. Im going to need you to go ahead and step out of the first-class line so I can help people who actually have first-class tickets.

Ari leaned his six-five frame over the ticket podium. I bought these tickets for this flight! And Im not leaving until you honor them!

The TWA representative looked at him with dead eyes. Could you please leave, and take your white-trash girlfriend with you?

Wah? Oookkkaayyy, now hed crossed the line. There was no reason to sling insults, and if so, why smack me? Ari looked right at the guy. When you were a little boy playing in the sandbox with the other kids, and Timmy wanted to be president and Scooter wanted to be an astronaut, did you actually dream of one day becoming a TWA ticket representative? He left the man completely deflated. Yes, it was mean. No, Im not proud of how much I enjoyed it. But never in my life had anyone defended me with such tongue and dagger! And although it was demonstrative and effective, it gradually rendered me unhealthily dependent.

Ari proposed in a castle in Ireland. Yes, a castle, a fortress with stone arches and buttresses that offered weekend tours. He was a man of extremes. We were in Paris when he shocked me with the news that we were taking a weekend excursion. And with a snap, we were on Aer Lingus, heading to Dublin. The bastion was down a long and hilly road dotted with sheep and dandelions. We had our choice of any of the twenty-four bedrooms, as he had rented the whole damn thing. We scurried down one hallway to the next, inspecting the Chinese bedroom, the red lacquer bedroom, the yellow English garden bedroom, and so on. We decided on an ivy-wallpapered room that overlooked a leprechaun green meadow. In the evening the butler poured us champagne in front of a roaring fire. Dinner was served at a long oak banquet table with an ensemble of forks and a festival of sparkling wineglasses. (Ari had flown in a chef from Paris. Naturally.) And then, after a sampling of sorbets, he got down and produced the box. A sparkling emerald ring was placed on my left hand. It felt heavy, in every sense of the word. The whole thing was so spectacular, fantastical, and overwhelming. All this for me? Any girl would feel the luck of the Irish and be Riverdancing from the dungeon to the tower, but something was amiss. It was as if I were watching it all on TV and yelling, You go girl! to the woman played by me.

W hen we returned to L.A., we were bombarded with congratulations and happy wishes. And as the weeks went on, Ari started to float dates and honeymoon destinations. I wasnt the girl who bought all the Brides magazines and tore out photos of bouquets and earmarked pages with colored tabs in Martha Stewart books. I found fault with all possible wedding locations. We couldnt do Marthas Vineyard, my sister had been married there; Manhattan was too busy; Hawaii, too far; London, too cold; Napa, too obvious; Wyoming, too anti-Semitic; and everywhere else was just too... wrong. It would be juvenile to chalk this behavior up to being a child of divorce; I didnt have Kramer vs. Kramer night terrors and had nothing against the institution of marriage. I just couldnt set a date. Or find a place. Or choose a dress. Like a pacifist in a fighter jet, I couldnt pull the trigger.