My Fair Lazy - Jen Lancaster [92]
I must inadvertently let out a contented sigh because the male model two chaises down turns and smiles at me. Even though I’ve been engrossed in this book all day, I haven’t been completely unaware of my surroundings. I noticed when this dude sat down and took his shirt off because all the women around me let out a collective gasp. He’s been getting in and out of the pool at various points, and I can tell whenever he leaves because all the girls exhale and stop sucking in their tummies. I can see why they’re so into him; this guy with his sculpted abs, cornflower blue eyes, and chin-length, tousled golden mane would make Bradley Cooper look like an ugly stepbrother.
Of course, my type is of the taller, louder, fatter, bigger-headed variety, and Fletch prefers I keep my dating to a minimum, which means I’m one of the few chicks who doesn’t spend the afternoon either blatantly ogling or walking next to him and “accidentally” dropping her towel. I admit it’s been fun to watch, kind of like visiting the monkey cage at the zoo.179
I get back to my reading and I hear a male voice say, “Hey, great book.” I glance up and see NotBradleyCooper is addressing me. And then he lifts his book, which is a much newer hardcover edition of Brave New World.
I can feel fifteen sets of eyes boring into me. “Cool! Have you read it before?” I ask him.
“Only like a dozen times,” he says and turns up the wattage on his Ultrabrite smile. One of the gals behind me actually moans.
“I can’t get over how current it still is even though it was written, when? The forties?”
He flips to the front of his copy. “Huh, it was actually the early thirties.”
“Wow.”
As flattering as it is to have the pretty person’s undivided attention, I’m at kind of a crucial point, and my eyes keep drifting back to the bottom of the page.
“I’ll let you get back to what you’re doing,” he says. “Happy reading!”
And my reading is happy. Because I finally feel like I’m back on track.
Over dinner, I recount today’s stories to Fletch. I finish by saying, “Five bucks says all those chicks will show up with Aldous Huxley tomorrow.”
“Yeah,” he replies, “but it won’t matter.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“Well, you said he looked like a male model and he ignored all the slutty girls and he told you ‘happy reading.’ ”
“So?”
“That means he’s gay.”
Which is awesome.
I mean, come on, I’m reading Oscar Wilde next.
Of course, I may have to tell him I was the lady reading Huxley. He may not recognize me in my do-rag and old gym shorts.
The forecast this weekend is dismal, and I won’t be able to do any of my Utopian reading series180 by the pool. My foul-weather backup plan involves viewing classic musicals, and I’ve been happily ensconced in the world of Gene Kelly every time it’s rained, but I forgot to return my latest batch to Netflix and I’ve got nothing new. So, when Stacey offers me a last-minute invite to a live-theater marathon, I readily agree.
I’ve attended just about every kind of production at this point—huge budget shows with crazily elaborate sets; small, intimate productions where I sat close enough to determine which actors needed a shave; moderate-sized, painfully artistic shows; showy song-and-dance fests, et cetera. The one aspect I’ve yet to cover is the workshop, and I’m doing that today.
Stacey and I are going to a media day for the Steppenwolf Theatre’s First Look Repertory of New Work, which involves three brand-new plays being shown to an audience for the first time. The playwrights and actors use a scaled-down set, taking this opportunity to figure out what does and doesn’t work before the play goes into formal production. What we’re going to see is three shows in their most raw form. Stacey says sometimes the work is genius . . . and sometimes the play will never see the light of day again.
Today all three plays, which normally rotate nights throughout the run,