Chapter Twenty-Four
The day after my father’s funeral, Natalie came to visit me about eight o’ clock in the morning with bags of ice cream, chips, and cookies in one hand, and about ten movies in the other. She called me last night apologizing for not being able to make it to the service, promising to make it up to me and there’s only one way to make up something like that up to me and she knows it: Junk food and Jerry Springer. She felt so bad and I felt bad for her feeling bad so we set up a date to eat and cry our hearts out together.
“Wow, this is quite the place Kingsley has here,” Natty comments on her way into the apartment. “The outside looks okay, I mean if you ignore the huge eyesore on the side, but the inside is really amazing. Kingsley must have thousands, maybe even millions.”
“Shut up, Natalie, what if he hears you? He’s just a few rooms away. And second, that huge eyesore on the side of the apartment is a beautiful mural. I like it.”
“Of course you would,” Natty said and followed me to the kitchen where we unloaded the groceries and searched for an ice cream scooper. When we couldn’t find one we settle on a large metal spoon and I did the honors of dishing up two bowls of double-fudge-extra-chocolate-chip-cookie-dough ice cream for the both of us.
“So are you sure you’re free today?” I asked her on our way back to the living room, where practically the only existing tv sat. She shoved season one into the Blu Ray player while I crossed my legs on the couch and fluffed a pillow behind me, watching in amusement as Natty tried to figure out how to work the technology.
“Don’t ask me,” I tell her when she gives me a questioning look. “I barely trust myself with a DVD.” I shove a spoonful of cookie dough into my mouth and close my eyes while Natty swears away. I think she just about on the verge on throwing the stupid thing on the ground when Kingsley walked in with a curious look on his face.
“What’s going on here?” He asked, looking at me. Then he caught sight of Natty and smiled. “Don’t I know you? You look really familiar.”
Natty set down the blu ray player and turned around at the sound of Kingsley’s voice. When she saw him she gave me a look as if to say, “Good job, he’s even better than I remember,” and smiled back at Kingsley.
“Oh yeah,” she said. “I work for a well-known fashion magazine and you’ve done a couple of pieces for my boss. I’m the one who set up the interview for Jesse. We met about six weeks ago.”
Kingsley shifted his weight and looked away uncomfortable. I know he is feeling embarrassed of forgetting Natty in such a short period of time, especially because she’s so damn unforgettable, but Natty found it amusing.
“I’m Jesse’s best friend,” she continued on despite his hilarious facial expression. “If I remember correctly, I moved into your house right after you moved out. Even though Jesse moved to Colorado a while later, we became really good friends.”
“I see,” is all he says and walks towards the tv quickly, as if to change the conversation. Good, Natty could go on forever about the two of us, but I have to love her. She’s the only one, besides, strangely enough, Kingsley, who’s been there for me since my mother passed away, and now she’s here for me once again when I need her.
“We can’t get it to work,” I say, eyeing the evil invention like vermin. “Why do they make these things so complicated nowadays?”
“What are you? Eighty?” Kingsley observed the small black box for a while and laughed. Not just a little bit, but he laughed hysterically, almost like a mad man. I jumped back a little and let the spoon in my hand fall into the bowl in my lap. Natty looked a little freaked out herself and I could see in her eyes how she was beginning to question his sanity.
“Wow, you two are really…special,” he says, setting the box down where it first sat on the entertainment center, below the TV. He reached in the back of it and pulled out a short black cord. “Did you guys ever consider plugging it in?” he asked and walked over to the wall to plug the cord into the outlet. Immediately the box lit up and the channel on the tv changed to the image of a movie menu. I sighed in relief, glad I’d be able to watch my Jerry Springer after all, but irritated that Kingsley could figure out something so obvious before my supposedly-intelligent friend and me.
“And what is this anyway?” He asked incredulously as the background music for the menu blared with the extra added touch of “Jerry, Jerry, Jerry!” chanting along with it. “Jerry Springer?” His face contorted when he picked up the blu-ray box and tried to hold back an even bigger laugh.
“You actually watch this show?”
“Of course,” I say defensively. “Watching other peoples’ dyfunctionality makes me feel a lot better about my own. I’m not even afraid to admit.”
“It’s true,” Natty chimed in. She grabbed her bowl of semi-melted ice cream and sat down next to me on the sofa.
“You’re insane,” he tells us, laughing my reasoning off with a shrug. “You both are.”
“And you don’t know anything,” I say, refusing to let him have the last word in this debate. What is he talking about anyway? Jerry Springer is a legend. He’s the only white guy I know who can talk that much trash to his guests without being dead. Serious, the way he has come at some of these peoples’ lives---it must be in the contract not to punch him or something, because I’ve never seen anything anymore reckless.
I clicked a random button on the remote and somehow (thank goodness) I managed to select a video to play. Jerry announced that today’s segment (which was like, twenty years ago), is called “My mother slept with my boyfriend” and I prepared to tune Kingsley out completely, except he took a seat in the reclining chair right next to the sofa, on my side. How annoying. He can’t even appreciate it properly, but about fifteen minutes later we were all getting amusement out of the stupidity of it all. It’s exactly this show’s ridiculousness that has kept it on the air for so long.
“Man, I could have sworn her hair was real,” Ted said after a five minute brawl between three sisters, a boyfriend, two strippers and an uncle.
“Na uh,” Natty said. “I knew that was fake from the moment I seen those tracks, honey.”
I looked between the two of them and chuckled. Only these two…
“Ohmigod!” I say and turned my head around as a SUPER old woman pulls down her shirt for her jerry beads. “Natty, did you have to get the uncensored version? I’m scarred for life. Ugh.”
“I can’t see,” Kingsley complained. “I’m blind.”
“Really you guys, it wasn’t that bad. And that lady is in good shape for her age. I’m guessing at least seventy-five and she still had some bounce left in her.”
“Natty, when I projectile vomit, I’m going to aim it in your direction,” I warn, causing her to erupt in evil laughter. Sometimes I wish I could find normal people as friends.
“Shut up and eat your ice cream,” she told me, waving a spoon my way after shoving some into her mouth. “This stuff cost me big bucks because of your weird eating habits. The lady who checked me out asked me if I was pregnant. “
“Are you?” I teased. “No baby-making with Ben, yet?”
Okay, so maybe I tend to put my foot in my mouth sometimes. I shouldn’t have said that. Natty looked away from me for a moment and I could see a sad glint in her eyes.
Whenever she talks about Ben her eyes get all big and she gets this cheesy smile on her mouth. She acts as if they’re a match made in heaven, so why is she getting so emotional all of a sudden? Maybe she’s still thinking about what I told her about him, but you know, I could have been wrong, right? Maybe?
“I’m going to use the bathroom,” Kingsley said out of nowhere. I think he was sensing one of those moments that are awkward for men if they stick around for it.
“I’m sorry, Natty, I shouldn’t have--” I begin, but I don’t know how to end it. “I—I—“
“You were right,” she told me, saving me from my lack of articulation.
“What are you talking about? You are pregnant?” Omigod, I’m going to be the godmother/aunty of a child by an evil sonofabitch.
“No!” She exclaimed, flushing. “Gosh, you are so dense, Jesse. “
She took the remote from me and turned down the volume on the tv. “I mean, you were right about Ben. About everything. He’s a cheater and I never should have trusted him from the start.”
Natty told me all of her problems and I listened. She told me how she caught Ben cheating, and in her own apartment of all places, and how she kicked his ass before kicking him out of her life. Kingsley never came back into the room to finish watch the episode with us, which is a shame, because he missed Jerry’s Final Thoughts, but I’m glad I got the time alone to hold my best friend and make sure everything is alright. It’s nice to be on the giving end every once in a while, and tonight Natty and I caught up with each other’s lives and feelings. Even though Natty did most of the talking, that was okay. Everything was okay.