Essays and Stories by Marian Keyes Read online

  Just then a girl emerged into the room after Nick. She was weeping.

  "Nick . . ." she beseeched, trying to grab on to him. She was sloe-eyed, silky-haired and tiny; with a sudden, fierce passion, I wanted to be her.

  "Take care, baby." He steered her, very firmly, to the door. "Missing you already."

  "But . . ." she tried again. Nick kissed her tenderly on her forehead, while managing to deposit her in the hallway.

  From the way Tandy rolled her eyes at me, this clearly happened a lot.

  Nick clicked the door shut, waited, tensed against a storm of crying and yelling from outside, then relaxed when nothing happened. She 'd obviously decided to limp away and lick her wounds quietly. "Why do I always hurt those I love?" he inquired of no one in particular, then absentmindedly left the room.

  Suddenly I was very glad I wasn't that dainty, exquisite girl.

  "Granola," Tandy called. "Come and meet Grace."

  For the first time I noticed a little white terrier, sitting alert in a basket. He was staring, as though mesmerized by me. Yikes! You can fool people into believing you're a human being, but animals work on a different level. Granola knew there was something very weird about me.

  "What's wrong, doggie?" Tandy coaxed.

  "Okay." She shrugged. "Be rude. So Grace, you want to go out tonight and get trashed on strawberry cheesecake martinis?"

  "That would be delightful!" I'd just been shot through with that lonesome, away-from-home feeling. Getting trashed on strawberry cheesecake martinis sounded exactly like what I needed.

  Later, as we left to go out, I told Tandy about calling first to the wrong apartment.

  "You did what? You called into crazy Karl's?" She was horrified. "He is like, a totally insane alcoholic. He 's always yelling and howling at the moon, like a crazy dawg.

  "Although," she said, as we passed his door, "he 's quiet right now." She sounded almost disappointed.

  As we drove along, palm trees were silhouetted against the skyline. The sun was setting and the sky was layered with colors: pale blue low down, rising and darkening overhead to a deep luminous blue, in which the first twinkling stars were set like diamonds.

  We went to a bar on Sunset. It was a cool, vibey place, packed with good-looking people. If I hadn't been with Tandy I'd have never gone in—way too intimidated.

  Almost as soon as we sat down, a bottle of champagne was sent over by a handsome dude who liked the look of Tandy. "Take it back," she told the waiter. Then to me, "I don't want to hook up with him so it wouldn't be fair."

  "Oh. Okay."

  Over flavored martinis I got Tandy's life story. She came from a rich, academic family back East. Her elder sister had a Ph.D. in something scarily impressive and managed to run a home and was very good at tennis. Her younger sister made her first four million by setting up an Internet site selling lovely handbags and she was so good at horseriding she could have made the Olympic team if she 'd wanted. Tandy's entire family were aghast at her decision to become an actress and even more aghast that she was working as a temp while waiting to hit the big time.

  "It 's hard when you come from a place where everyone else is perfect," she said wearily.

  Tell me about it!

  "So how about you?" Tandy asked. "You're an actress too?"

  They've given me a whole new identity, a bit like the Witness Protection Program. Apparently I'm an actress, but on account of there being a little too much of me, my resume shows only wallpaper parts—the fat best friend, the jolly fat work colleague, the weird fat roomate. Fat being the common thread.

  "So what age are you?" Tandy asked.

  I froze. What age was I? In real time I was several hundred millennia, but in LA years . . . ? What had they told me?

  "It 's okay," she whispered. "Same for me. My resume says twenty-two years old, but I'm actually in my mid-twenties."

  "Looking good."

  "Well, twenty-seven," she admitted with a sigh.

  "And I'm twenty-nine." I'd just remembered.

  "So am I."

  We gazed at each other fondly and decided to order another lot of martinis. I was having a Really Good Time, but I mustn't forget that I was here to WORK.

  I got my first break when we went to the ladies' room to fix our makeup.

  Tandy held a little bottle up to me. "You want some Envy?"

  Envy! One of my seven deadlies. "You mean . . . in that container . . . is Envy?"

  She twisted the label side towards her and studied it quizzically. " 'S what it says."

  I couldn't believe my luck. I'd only been here a few hours and already I was making progress. They had told me I would experience the sins in the most unexpected ways. Now I knew what they meant.

  Tandy squirted me and I beamed at her from my cloud of fragrant mist. One down, six to go.

  Chapter Two

  Sleep is a wonderful thing. We don't have it where I come from.

  But I'm a human now—so I will sleep, I will eat, I will work and in the process commit the seven deadly sins. Then I can go home, a better, wiser angel, and no one will ever refer to me again as "Not the sharpest knife in the drawer."

  Already I was ahead of the game. On Earth less than twentyfour hours I'd got sprayed with Envy.

  Would it be possible to just proceed to the local mall and buy Pride, Gluttony, Anger, Sloth and . . . and . . . the others (I'll remember in a minute what they are), experience the lot in half an hour and spend the rest of the week working on my tan? Unfortunately a discreet inquiry revealed that none of the other deadly sins were available in perfume form.

  I awoke into a citrus-bright morning and I was hungry. Nick was in the kitchen, hunched over a bowl of marshmallow Cheerios.

  "Sleep well?" he murmured darkly. Nick was good at murmuring things darkly. He didn't seem to communicate in any other way.

  "Yes! It was great, I kind of saw all these movies in my head."

  He looked at me like I was insane. "Dreams," he said faintly.

  "Um . . . of course." Yikes!

  Luckily the phone rang and Nick, giving me another odd look, threw himself at it. I heard a high-pitched gibbering, like the noise a broken cassette makes. A woman. She sounded upset.

  "Sure, baby," Nick crooned, "I know baby, I'm sorry baby, I never meant to hurt you, baby. Take care, baby. Bye."

  He slammed down the phone, sighed with enough force to almost knock the chairs over, then slumped into moody silence.

  The noise of a key scratching at the door heralded the arrival of Tandy, back from walking her dog.

  Granola raced into the room, stopped dead when he saw me and took a couple of careful steps backwards. Tandy's gorgeous face was flushed and angry. "Why do I go to the dog park? Like, WHY?"

  "So your liddil doggie can play with the other liddil doggies," Nick said, his head in his hands, staring into his bowl.

  "I go to meet men!" She addressed her rant to me. "Instead I get all these women coming up to me. How old is Granola? How long have I had him? What is the point?"

  "Calm down," Nick said. "Eat something. Oh no, I forgot, you don't do that, do you?"

  "So, Grace." Tandy ignored him. "What are you going to do today?"

  Actually, today I was hoping to commit Sloth. Just as soon as I found out what it was. But I had to play my part as a wannabe actress from Smallsville looking for a foot in Hollywood's door. "I'm meeting an agent. There 's a chance she might take me on."

  On account of Nick and Tandy also being actors this provoked a storm of enthusiastic inquiry. Who was she? Who did she represent?

  In the middle of their interrogation the phone rang again. Another woman for Nick. "I hear you, baby," he murmured. "But I never said I wanted a relationship."

  "Why do I always hurt those I love?" Tandy said, in a brooding voice that was uncannily like Nick's.

  Nick glared at Tandy. Tandy glared back.

  I went to get ready for my meeting. I'd been sent to Earth with beautiful clothes,
everything a girl would need.

  "Oh my God, I love your purse," Tandy breathed reverentially. Then I felt her tense up. "But . . . but isn't this from the new collection? I thought you couldn't buy it for another six months!"

  Of course Tandy would know! What with her high-achieving sister—well, one of her high-achieving sisters—selling lovely handbags. I had to mumble something about having a contact in the design room and getting a sample copy. Honestly, sometimes they can be so inefficient Up There. And they have the nerve to complain about me . . .

  As I was leaving I hesitated and said, "This may sound a little weird, but do either of you know what Sloth is?"

  "You're right," Tandy said. "It sounds a little weird."

  "It 's an animal," Nick said. "A small British animal. I'm pretty sure."

  I wasn't so certain. Like, how could I commit a small British animal?

  To be fair to my superiors they'd pulled out all the stops to equip me for life in Los Angeles—I had a hire car and—even better, the ability to drive it—a fake resume and a glossy collection of eightby-ten head shots.

  As I drove under clear blue skies and along palm-fringed highways to Beverly Hills, I passed skanky-looking motels, dentists, adobe-style houses, nail salons, gun shops, pet care outlets, tanning salons, more dentists . . . and I wondered about the personality I've been given. Generally, I didn't seem to be too neurotic, I hadn't had one urge to self-mutilate. I also seemed to be punctual. And a nonsmoker. All a little dull, but however.

  The agent, Robyn Dude, was a power-suited powerhouse. She spoke extremely quickly, out of one side of her mouth. She was the kind of woman who'd look magnificent pulling the pin out of a grenade with her teeth.

  "Yeah, I think we could get you some parts. But," she said, "I'm going to give it to you straight. Your face is great, that cherubic look is kinda now, but if you don't drop to ninety pounds, soaking wet, you're gonna be playing character parts for, like, forever."

  "The fat best friend, the fat roommate," I said, almost sulkily.

  "Right!"

  I felt a strange resentment. Okay, this wasn't my body, I'd only got it on loan and only for a week, at that, but couldn't they have given me something a little more appropriate for an actress?

  There seemed to be nothing further to say. Just before I left something occurred to me. "Do you know the meaning of the word 'Sloth'?" I asked.

  Her face filled with dark color and she looked like she might pop. She opened her mouth and yelled, "Some nerve! No one works as hard as me. No one. Okay, we 'll try and get you some nonfat parts, if that 's how you feel, but you better get to a spinning class right now and don't leave until you've dropped three dress sizes!"

  I had no clue what she was talking about. None. Nervously I thanked her for her time and closed the door on her. In the waiting room was a brainy-looking young woman. Or at least she was wearing those rectangular, tortoiseshell-framed spectacles that people wear if they want to look brainy.

  On impulse I said, "Sorry to bother you, but do you know what Sloth is?"

  She shrank back against the wall like I was a crazy person.

  "Sorry," I mumbled, making for the sunshine and my car.

  "It means lazy," she called after me.

  "It 's not a small British animal?" I called back.

  "No, that's a stoat. A sloth is a lazy South American animal."

  "Thank you."

  So Sloth meant being lazy. Lazy. No wonder Robyn Dude had been so offended!

  I drove home, depleted of any energy. All this being human was exhausting. For the rest of the day I lay on the sofa, watched talk shows and energetically commited Sloth. I also ate many, many small, round wonderful things. Pringles, I believe they were called.

  Chapter Three

  The following day, Los Angeles behaved totally out of character—it was raining. As I watched the drops scoot down the window, I composed a letter of complaint in my head. "I was distinctly promised blue skies and endless sunshine, yadda, yadda. Imagine my disappointment . . . I'd like a full refund . . ."

  Tandy and Nick went to work and I hung around the mall, but eventually I had to return to the apartment—lured by savory snacks.

  Late afternoon, Nick came home and did a bit of that moodyprowling-around-the-room stuff that he was so good at, then came to a halt in front of me.

  "You've eaten that whole tube of Pringles. You glutton!"

  "I'm a glutton?" I asked faintly, hardly able to believe my luck. "Do you mean that I'm committing . . ." I could hardly say the word with excitement. ". . . Gluttony."

  "Hey, I'm kidding. It 's just nice to see someone eating around here now and again." He looked meaningfully at Tandy's bedroom door as he said this.

  "It 's not a problem." I was very excited. "I just need to know if being a glutton is the same as committing Gluttony."

  "Yeah, I guess," he admitted reluctantly.

  There went Gluttony off my list. And it had been great! Almost as comforting as Sloth. And Envy had smelled very nice. I could see why people enjoyed the seven deadly sins so much—my empathy and understanding were simply exploding. Next on my list was, let me see, Lust perhaps. Or Greed.

  "You can be . . ." Nick studied me. ". . . a little strange, sometimes."

  I swallowed, suddenly nervous. The expression in those eyes of his unsettled something in me.

  "Well, I'm a woman," I said heartily. "Think of a man, then subtract all reason and intellect!"

  This got a halfhearted laugh out of him.

  "How was your day?" he asked cautiously. "Did your agent call?"

  "No, seeing as how I haven't dropped twenty pounds since yesterday. How was your day? In fact, what do you do?"

  "Carpenter. Just until I get my big Hollywood break," he said dryly.

  "I thought all resting actors worked as bellhops."

  "Not me. I haven't got the right look for a bellhop."

  I knew what he meant. He did have a touch of the pyschopath about him. No wonder he 'd got typecast as a man who can hold his hand in a flame while remaining impassive.

  "Well, you know my closet door? It 's the worst piece of carpentery I've ever seen. Could you fix it for me?" I asked.

  "Fix it? I made it."

  "Whoops," I said, my at-the-best-of-times rosy face igniting into an inferno of shame. "Sorry, I . . . er, sorry."

  Come home Tandy, oh please, come home.

  And then Tandy walked through the door. I am not a very accomplished angel, but sometimes, if I try really, really hard I can make things happen.

  "You're early," Nick accused.

  "Yeah, I am," Tandy looked in confusion at her watch. "What 's going on? It 's five after six now but I didn't leave work until six thirty. I must 've read five-thirty as six-thirty. Or something . . . That is so spooky . . ."

  Yes, I felt ashamed, since you ask. Freaking her out like that.

  Only the fantastic news she 'd had earlier in the day was enough to distract her from my dirty low-down manipulations in the spacetime continuum. She 'd been sent a script by her agent and she was going for an audition in the morning.

  "Isn't that the best news? I'll be in my room learning my lines."

  I have to admit I was disappointed. I'd been hoping we could get dressed up, go out to a bar, flirt with men and see if I could get a Lust thing going on with one of them.

  "I just hope," she sighed, "that crazy Karl doesn't do anything too crazy tonight. I could use a good night 's sleep."

  "What 's with crazy Karl?" Nick suddenly sat to attention and looked at the wall that divided the two apartments. "It 's very quiet out there."

  "Too quiet," the three of us chorused.

  "But seriously, we haven't had to call the cops in days. There hasn't been one drunken tantrum from him since . . . since Sunday."

  "Not since Grace called on him."

  "Grace called on him?" Nick sounded slightly too interested.

  "When I first arrived I got the wrong apartment,"
I hastily explained. "He told me I was out of my mind."

  "Sounds like Karl."

  * * *

  Tandy went to her room with Granola and I spent the evening watching TV, while a succession of heartbroken women kept Nick on the phone murmuring, "I know, baby, I'm sorry, baby, you'll meet someone else, baby, no, your life is not over, baby . . ."