This One Is Mine

by Maria Semple

Genres: Satire; Contemporary Romance; Romantic Comedy

Synopsis

Violet Parry is living the quintessential life of luxury in the Hollywood Hills with David, her rock-and-roll manager husband, and her darling toddler, Dot. She has the perfect life--except that she's deeply unhappy. David expects the world of Violet but gives little of himself in return. When she meets Teddy, a roguish small-time bass player, Violet comes alive, and soon she's risking everything for the chance to find herself again. Also in the picture are David's hilariously high-strung sister, Sally, on the prowl for a successful husband, and Jeremy, the ESPN sportscaster savant who falls into her trap. For all their recklessness, Violet and Sally will discover that David and Jeremy have a few surprises of their own. THIS ONE IS MINE is a compassionate and wickedly funny satire about our need for more--and the often disastrous choices we make in the name of happiness.

Release date: December 4, 2008

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

Print pages: 304

Sample

CHAPTER ONE

Those Violets      Night Visitor      Tuesdays in Los Angeles

One Car      Museum of Broadcasting      Parrots!      Miracle Me

For a Geek      Troubadour      The Coatroom

DAVID STOOD AT THE SINK, A PINE FOREST TO HIS LEFT, THE PACIFIC OCEAN to his right, and cursed the morning sun. It beat through the skylight and smashed into the mirror, making it all but impossible to shave without squinting. He had lived in Los Angeles long enough to lose track of the seasons, so it took glancing up at CNBC and seeing live images of people snowshoeing down Madison Avenue for it to register: it was the middle of winter. And he determined that all day, no matter how bad things got, at least he’d be grateful for the weather.

His pool shimmered. Stone Canyon Reservoir shimmered. The ocean shimmered. He cocked his head and flicked his wrist, skipping an imaginary stone from the pool to the reservoir. It split some Westwood high-rises, then landed in the Santa Monica Bay. He wound up again — this time to clear Catalina — then stopped.

There was a furry . . . brown . . . thing floating in the Jacuzzi.

“Honey!” He walked into the bedroom. “There’s something in the Jacuzzi.” He paused, waiting for the daylight in his eyes to fade.

His wife was in bed, her back to him, her hair seeping from under the pillow she’d taken to putting over her head at night.

“Ma-ma, Ma-ma.” A squawk erupted from the baby monitor. There was a cough, then a bleat.

But Violet didn’t move. What was her plan? Who did she think was going to get the baby? Was a standoff really so necessary that Violet would let Dot cry like this? Jesus Christ. David marched by the bed, skirting the rug so his bare heels struck the hardwood.

“Aggh.” Violet pulled the pillow off her head. And there they were, the reason he fell in love with her almost twenty years ago in front of the Murray Hill Cinema: the violets tattooed behind her ear.

David’s dog walker, a friend of Violet’s from Barnard, had set them up. David managed two bands at the time — big ones, but still, only two. He’d been told Violet worked for a legendary theater producer and was the daughter of some obscure intellectual he’d never heard of. The plan was to meet half an hour before Full Metal Jacket. David arrived on time, but the movie had already sold out. He spotted Violet — she had said she’d be the one wearing red plastic sandals — sitting on the sidewalk in the ticket holders’ line, engrossed in the New York Times, and listening to a Walkman. Two movie tickets were tucked under her leg. She wasn’t a knockout, but wasn’t fat either, and had a face you wanted to look into. She turned the page of the business section and folded it, then folded it again. An artsy chick who read the business section? Who was responsible enough to have arrived early and bought tickets? With enough Ivy League pluck to sit on a dirty sidewalk and not care who saw her? It was done and done. He had to have her. As he stepped forward, she absentmindedly twisted her long hair off her neck. That’s when he first glimpsed the tattoo behind her ear, teasing him from the edge of her hairline. He found it wildly sexy. But something inside him sank. He knew then there’d be a part of her he’d never possess.

“I’ll get her, I’ll get her, I’ll get her.” Violet threw off the covers and trudged to Dot’s room without looking up.

The violets. Those fucking violets.

DAVID headed to the kitchen, comforted by the sounds of the morning: babbling Dot, the hiss of brewing coffee, the crunch of Rice Krispies underfoot. These days, there were two kinds of Rice Krispies, those waiting to be stepped on and those that already had been.


Pffft. He landed on some Krispy dust.

“Dada!” Dot shouted. She sat with perfect posture at her miniature wooden table, covered head to toe in croissant flakes, a darling, crusty monster.

“Aww, good morning!” David said, stepping on some Krispy virgins. “That’s what I like to see, my girls!” A carafe of coffee and his newspaper awaited. “Honey,” he said to Violet, “there’s something floating in the Jacuzzi.”

Violet opened the fridge. “What?”

He walked to the window. “It looks like a dead gopher.”

“Then it’s probably a dead gopher.” She rooted around in the fridge. “Ah! There it is.” She tore white butcher paper from a hunk of cheese. At least she still did that for him, got him the good cheese.

“How long has it been there?” David asked.

“Mama, what’s dat?” said Dot.

“It’s cheese, sweetie.” Violet sliced some off.

“Want dat.”

“I’ll get you some. First, I’m making Dada his breakfast.”

“How long has the gopher been there?” David repeated.

“I don’t know. This is the first I’ve heard of it.” Violet placed David’s breakfast on the counter: wheat toast, sheep’s-milk cheese, sliced apples sprinkled with lemon juice and freshly grated nutmeg. “Are we good?”

“You didn’t notice it when you looked out the window this morning?”

“Apparently not,” Violet said. “Oh! Your milk.” She removed a small pitcher from the microwave, set it next to the coffee, and surveyed David’s domain. “Okay, that’s everything.”

“It doesn’t upset you that there’s a dead animal in our Jacuzzi?”

“I guess it does, a little. For the gopher.”

“What gopher?” asked Dot.

“That water could have dysentery in it.” David sat down. “What if Marta took Dot in there to swim?” To underscore the seriousness of his point, he had called their nanny by her real name, Marta, not their nickname for her, LadyGo.

“Mama! Want cheese,” said Dot.

“I’m getting you some.” Violet walked a piece of cheese over to Dot, then sat down on a tiny stool beside her and looked up at David. “Marcelino is coming today. I’ll have him fish out the gopher, drain the Jacuzzi, and disinfect it.” There was no discernible edge to her voice. This was one of Violet’s most bedeviling tactics, acting as if she was being completely reasonable and it was David who was hell-bent on ruining a perfectly fine morning.

“Thank you,” he said. “Look, I’m sorry. Today’s big. KROQ is debuting the Hanging with Yoko single at nine. I’ve got tickets going on sale at the Troubadour at ten — Shit.”

“What, Dada?”

“Yesterday was my sister’s birthday,” he said to Violet. “I totally spaced it. That must have been why she kept calling the office.”

“I’ll get her something and have it messengered over,” Violet said. “I’ll make sure it’s expensive enough so she can’t complain.”

“Really? Thanks.” David was heartened. This was the Violet he loved, the Violet who took care of business. He jiggled the mouse on his laptop and clicked open his brokerage account. Up from yesterday, and the Dow was down eighty points. The hard part wasn’t making the money, it was keeping the money. And he had his gold stocks, his little fighters, to thank for that. He opened the chart for Nightingale Mining and sang its theme song. (After all, what would a stock be without its own theme song?) For Nightingale Mining — symbol XNI — he sang Metallica’s “Enter Sandman.” “X-N-I. X-N-I. Take my hand. Off to never-never land.”


Plunk. Something landed on the newspaper. David ignored it and clicked the chart for Wheaton River Minerals. “Now, that’s what you want a chart to look like.” To the tune of “Whiskey River,” David sang, “Wheaton River, take my mind. Don’t let memories torture me. Wheaton River, don’t run dry. You’re all I got, take care of me.”

“Good morning, Meester David.” It was LadyGo, sliding open the back door. She carried clippers and a canvas gardening bag.

“Good morning,” he said, then resumed singing. “I’m drowning in a Wheaton River —”


Plunk. David looked over. The Los Angeles Times was covered in something sticky. “Violet? What is this?”

“What is what?” She was lost in thought, staring at the floor.

“What’s all over the newspaper?”

Violet blinked, then got up. She stuck her finger in the goo, smelled it, then raised it to her mouth.

“Don’t eat it —”

Too late. “It’s honey,” she said. “That’s weird. I didn’t put any honey out.” She looked up. “There must be a beehive in the crawl space.” There was, in fact, a dark stain between two cedar ceiling planks.

“What do you mean, There must be a beehive in the crawl space?”

“Well, I don’t know.”

“You act like that’s something that always happens.”

“Want honey,” said Dot.

“No, sweetie,” Violet said. “This honey is not for you.” She turned to David. “Perhaps because it’s been so unseasonably hot, the honey melted and dripped through the ceiling.” She shrugged and returned to the little stool. “But I don’t know anything.”

The only reason Violet dared say something so self-pitying and provocative was that she knew David wouldn’t get into it in front of LadyGo. LadyGo, the human shield! David glared at Violet, but she wouldn’t look at him.

“Meesuz, look,” the nanny said to Violet, a glint in her eye. “The animals. They eat all the vegetables.” LadyGo held out a handful of sugar snap peas. Each pod had tiny holes bored in it. “I ask Javier. LadyGo, What animal is it? LadyGo, I spray next time.”

“No,” said Violet. “I don’t want Javier spraying the vegetables.”

“What animals?” asked Dot.

“Maybe las ratas. All the carrots? No mas.”

“That’s probably gophers,” Violet mused. “Oh well. I’ll just have to get carrots and peas at the farmers’ market tomorrow.” She got up. “Okay, I’m going to take a shower.”

David stared at the floor, took a long breath, and clenched his jaw. What the fuck was going on around here? Was this his house or a goddamned wild-animal sanctuary?

“I’ll call the gopher guy and the bee guy at nine,” Violet said. “There’s nothing I can do but deal with it, right?”

“Those are your vegetables. You planted them from seeds. They’re ruined. Why doesn’t that upset you? I don’t understand you sometimes.”

“I’ll try to be more upset, then.”

“What kind of a thing is that to say?”

“David,” Violet said. “Please, I can’t.”

“Where las ratas?” squeaked Dot.

“You can’t what?” David asked.

“I can’t,” Violet said. “I can’t . . . nothing.”

“You can’t nothing! Great. Thanks for the fucking insight.”

“Why Dada sad?” asked Dot.

“Dada’s happy,” Violet said quickly.

David got up. At the sound of the stool skidding, Violet flinched. LadyGo swooped up Dot and carried her away. For fuck’s sake.

A drop of honey landed on David’s shoulder. He pinched it off and grabbed his car keys. “I’m going to fucking Starbucks.”

SALLY awoke to the rising sound of the “babbling brook” feature on her alarm clock, which, like “bamboo waterfall” and “ocean waves,” just sounded like an airplane flying overhead. She hit the snooze button and braced herself. It wasn’t yesterday, her birthday, that had worried her. That was filled with phone calls, funny cards, a cake at work, and margaritas at El Coyote. It was today she feared, the day after: when everyone’s attention drifted elsewhere and she woke up in her same one-bedroom apartment on a noisy street, one year older. She took a breath, then another, then smiled. Thirty-six she could manage.

Moving on to today. Sally was teaching back-to-back ballet until Maryam picked her up for the party where Sally would finally be introduced to Jeremy White. Her husband to be. Since today was so jam-packed, Sally had done her bring-a-new-guy-home sweep of the apartment last night. She went over the list in her head one last time.

Waste baskets: empty

Box of tampons: off the toilet

Dishes: washed and put away

Floors: vacuumed

Medicine: tucked away in the fridge

Credit card bills: in the back of the desk drawer

Candles: everywhere

Sally sprang up. The gossip magazines she had plucked from the studio’s recycling basket were still visible on the coffee table. She didn’t want Jeremy White to think she was shallow, so she’d bought a New Yorker to place on top of them. She got out of bed, then tripped on something.

A wisteria vine from the balcony had crept under the door, across the carpet, and under Sally’s bed. She had noticed it last night when she was vacuuming. Thinking it a carefree touch — a thing Holly Golightly might have let grow wild in her first apartment — Sally had vacuumed around it. Now something terrible occurred to her. As of eleven o’clock last night, she’d been able to pick up the whole branch; this morning it was stuck to something. She dropped to her hands and knees and traced the vine under the Laura Ashley dust ruffle. A lime green tendril was coiled around the leg of her bed. That meant the vine had snaked around it while she was sleeping.

Sally shuddered. She yanked the wisteria, but that only tightened its grip on the metal rod. She clawed off the wet young growth with her fingernails, then threw open the door and hurled the awful branch off the balcony. But the door wouldn’t close. The stupid knob had been painted over too many times. She kicked the wood frame until the lock clicked. Her hands trembled as she checked to make sure her manicure wasn’t wrecked.

The tap, tap, tapping of tangled backstage passes hanging from the doorknob slowed until there was silence. Def Leppard, the Rolling Stones, Commonhouse, the Red Hot Chili Peppers. All bands managed by David at some point. All more important than his little sister’s birthday.

The babbling brook started up again. The New Yorker. She couldn’t forget The New Yorker.

TUESDAYS in Los Angeles made Violet sad. It always caught her by surprise, the sadness, like today, as she was driving, safe and alone in her car after another revolting morning with David. Then she’d see the open-house signs and would remember: Tuesday, open-house day.

She stopped at the light at Beverly Glen and watched Gwen Gold struggle to haul a sign from her white Lexus SUV and place it strategically to block the other signs. (Who cared if a dozen cars saw her, she had a house to sell, baby!) Gwen stuck several eye-catching GWEN GOLD flags in the hard earth, careful not to muss her Chanel knockoff pantsuit. She wore a grimace, and unlaced hiking boots over her hose, saving her smiles and good heels for later, when she’d be all poise as she presented the peekaboo city views and granite countertops, trying to concentrate on the client and not the math in her head — listed at 1.65, half of 3 percent of 1.5 is 30,000, if I can get five of these a year, that’s 150 before taxes, I could pay off the face-lift and put ten down on a condo. That’s good, that’s enough. . . .


Violet knew the type, and they made her sad. Those divorcées who had staked it all on being the perfect wife and mother. Nothing evil in that, nothing that everyone else wasn’t doing, nothing to be punished for. But something had gone awry, and now these women were single, fifty, and forced to earn a living without any discernible skills. So they became realtors. How had Gwen played her cards wrong? Had she let herself go after giving birth to four boys? Had that driven her husband into the arms of his hard-bodied young secretary? Had the pressures of a disabled child been too much for even a solid marriage? Or had Gwen had the affair? A desperately needed fling with a young green-eyed man who worked at J. Crew? And her husband, Stan — Violet thought Gwen would be married to a Stan — Stan had caught them and thrown Gwen out, just when her preppy lover got scared away by her need. Whatever Gwen had done, she didn’t deserve the indignity of this; of that Violet was certain.

The light turned green. Just past Deep Canyon, a woman wearing a puffy straw hat and a billowy white linen dress painted a picture of the valley, taking advantage of this especially crisp day. Violet caught a glimpse of the oil as she drove past. It wasn’t very good. It would never sell. How sad for this woman, who obviously imagined herself on Nantucket the way she was dressed, not choking on fumes overlooking Sherman Oaks. Would she try to get into a group art show with her series of unremarkable landscapes? Would a friend buy a few to make her feel good? Violet had an impulse to turn around and buy the painting on the spot, but she’d never make the U-turn. The traffic on Mulholland had gotten so relentless. She always felt as though someone was about to ram into her while she snaked along the only street in LA she had ever lived, the spine of the city.

Floating past the gatehouse guarding the swollen mansions of Beverly Park, Violet remembered words spoken by her father at this same spot, decades before the mansions. “When you get older,” he had said, “you will learn there are two kinds of people. Those who grew up listening to Sondheim on Mulholland, and those who didn’t.” Years later, he’d lose control of the convertible Jaguar on another part of Mulholland and sail to his death. A drunk-driving accident? A final attempt to make a splash — any splash would do — after never fulfilling the promise of his youth? It was unclear. Violet had hardly spoken to him toward the end.

She flowed with traffic down Coldwater Canyon. A cement truck was backing out of a driveway up ahead. Violet stopped for it, making the driver tailgating her slam on his brakes and hit his horn for a good ten seconds. But he didn’t know Violet had nowhere to go. A little shopping. Sally’s present. A movie by herself, perhaps. The New York Times at a sushi bar. Dot needed socks.

At the weird, long park along Santa Monica Boulevard, some workers had just raised a banner that read BEVERLY HILLS HEALTH FAIR. A dozen card tables anchored bunches of colorful balloons. But there were no people! How sad for the organizers, who had no doubt spent months planning this event. Violet wanted to reassure them that the crowds would come, just wait until lunchtime. A band was setting up on the grass. A brown-skinned man wearing a black suit sound-checked his upright bass. Poor dear. He probably had no idea how hot it was expected to be when he got dressed this February morning.

David had always accused Violet of feeling sorry for the wrong people. She could cry at the mere thought of Buzz Aldrin’s having to endure a lifetime of being known as merely the second man on the moon. “Ultra,” David would say — it was the nickname he gave her on their first date, as in Ultra Violet — “you really don’t need to feel sorry for Buzz Aldrin.” But once Violet saw the inherent sadness in one thing, she couldn’t stop.

That is why, when she walked into the French chocolate shop on Little Santa Monica, the tiny one that was always empty, the one that sold the gorgeous, bitter truffles, she couldn’t help it. She felt unbearably sad. The heaviness filled Violet’s stomach, then her chest. She grabbed a small wooden crate of truffles and placed it on the counter. At thirty-five dollars, no wonder there were no customers! The saleslady, her hair pulled severely back and tied with a silk scarf, looked up from her Sudoku book. Her sevens and ones were unmistakably French. This made Violet even sadder. She grabbed two giant crates and placed them on the counter. Perhaps this act of charity would stanch the sadness rising in her chest and prevent it from spilling out her eyes.

“Bonjour, madame,” Violet managed to say.

“Bonjour, madame,” answered the woman in that curt way of the French.

A pregnant woman announced her entrance with a singsong “Hi!”

Violet could tell she was eager to talk about her pregnancy, and obliged. “Is it your first?” she asked.

“Yes.” The woman touched her stomach. “Cody. A boy.”

This poor woman. She had no idea how hard it was going to be, even if she loved her baby as much as Violet did Dot. And how Violet did love Dot, was possessed by her. Not a night went by without Violet uttering her name, Dot, just before slipping off. Even if Cody was this woman’s blood and heart and every thought, did she know that love wouldn’t be enough? Love wouldn’t make being a mother any less boring or draining or bewildering. Love wouldn’t prevent her from, some mornings, standing at the bottom of the driveway, like Popeye, a wailing Swee’Pea dangling from stiff arms, waiting for the arrival of the nanny.

For too many years, Violet had identified with the comic-book lady on that eighties T-shirt — the one everyone thought was a Lichtenstein but wasn’t — who realizes, to her horror, OH NO, I FORGOT TO HAVE CHILDREN! But these first years of motherhood made Violet think there should be a follow-up T-shirt. On it, the same woman is finally cradling her prized baby. But she’s still stricken, and her thought bubble now reads IT’S ALL ADDING UP TO NOTHING! There was no reward, no thank-you, no sense of accomplishment, no sustaining happiness. Often, Violet would find herself standing in a room, having no idea what she had gone in to do. It reminded her of the great Stephen Sondheim line . . .


Sometimes I stand in the middle of the floor



Not going left. Not going right.


Then she’d realize that Dot was back in the other room. And Violet’s only purpose in leaving had been to get out of the same room as her baby. It was truly astonishing that something as unremarkable as having a kid would be the thing that had finally felled Violet Grace Parry.

“Congratulations,” Violet told the expectant mother.


“Et voilà.” The saleswoman handed Violet a sales slip.


“Merci, madame.”


There was a sticker on the French lady’s black cardigan. It was of a bear with a Band-Aid on its arm. I GAVE BLOOD, it read. That did it. Violet was about to start crying. She signed the sales slip without really looking at the amount. It began with a three.

SALLY was sitting on the edge of the tub inspecting her feet when the phone rang. It was her best friend. “Hi, Maryam, I don’t have much time.” Her toes looked good, no cuts, no blisters.

“I just want to give you directions to the party,” said her friend.

“I thought you were going to pick me up.” Sally admired her naked body in the mirror. How many thirty-six-year-olds could say there was nothing they’d want to change about their body? Heart-shaped ass, delts to die for, not a whisper of ab flab.

“But the party’s in Marina del Rey,” Maryam started in. “And I am, too, so it doesn’t make sense for me to drive all the way to West Hollywood at rush hour to pick you up, then have to drive you back after the party.”

Sally knew all this. But she needed Maryam to drive. That way, after Sally captivated Jeremy White at the party, she could tell him that Maryam had left without her, then innocently ask him for a ride home. She’d invite him up, tease him with the best kiss of his life, and abruptly send him on his way. Always leave them wanting more.

“Then I just won’t go,” Sally said.

“You can’t not go!” Maryam cried. “Jeremy never goes to parties. The only reason he’s coming tonight is to meet you. And my boss invited a bunch of people to impress them. If Jeremy shows up and you’re not there, he’ll turn around and go home, then I’ll look like an idiot.”

“You know I hate going to parties alone —” Sally practically dropped the phone: there was a red bump on her bikini line. Please, she prayed, not an ingrown hair. She took a closer look. It was. Fudge. If she didn’t get the hair out, it would get all gross and infected.

“I would pick you up,” Maryam said, “but I’m on location in the desert and I need to shower and change when I get home.”

“Unlike you, I’d never make my best friend do something she’s not comfortable with, so I just won’t go.” Sally squeezed the bump. Nothing came out. She pinched it between her fingernails. Blood collected under the purplish crescent indentations. What a freaking disaster! “Have a nice day,” she said. “Good-bye.”

“No, Sally —”

Sally hung up. Ice might keep it from getting infected. She went to the kitchen and popped an ice cube out of the tray, then placed it on the splotch.

When Sally moved into this delightful one-bedroom on Crescent Heights Boulevard, she had discovered a bunch of baskets that the previous . . .