THE WORLD OF FORM - Chapter 2 The Phone Call

"I'm married!" Tiffany said.

"Who's this?" I demanded. I had just returned home and decidedly ignored the many messages that my telephone answering machine told me I had waiting. At this hour, people could wait but my stomach couldn't. In my haste, even a microwave minute was too long. Chopsticks ready, I was standing by the refrigerator door, stuffing some cold orange chicken into my mouth, when the phone rang, not once, but again and again and again. Obviously, someone was trying to get my attention and wasn't willing to leave another message. So I answered it using the speakerphone and divided my limited attention span.

"Anna, now Tiffany," she said. "My man loves the association with Audrey Hepburn."

"Really? Married? You mean Brent?" I asked. I had dropped a choice piece of chicken on the floor and was contemplating the 5-second rule.

"Yes, my lovely, wonderful, spontaneous Brent. We just flew to San Francisco today. Brent woke me early and say go Chez Panisse. We stop at my favorite Nordstrom and Brent buy me new dress and show me ring and say go court, see judge and marry now. We wait in line for few wonderful hours. Then we go Chez Panisse for dinner. Everyone was so wonderful, so loving. I want let you know and invite you back to Los Angeles. Brent and I want to have you and my other friends for special weekend. A weekend of love and happiness. A reunion. Wouldn't that be so wonderful? Anyway, I been begging you come down. Help me plan the reception and invite everyone, everyone we used know."

"Everyone?" I asked.

"Oh, yes," Tiffany said. "I think those girls think I never get married, never settle down. I think some of them not married. Really, I don't care so much. But I always dream of wedding, wonderful wedding. Besides, I been asking you come down for ages. Take vacation. Visit old friends. Email so cold.

"You know I ask you before. Someone, now who was that? That Filipina reporter sent you something. It just gives vibes of being so important you know?"
How could I say no? Anna, or Tiffany had spent so many nights listening to my stories about men, talking about other women and their men and helping me find another style.

Shopping in Noho, Anna, who favored dresses, matching porcelain nails and stiletto heels, had told me years ago, "You no need really find your inner geisha, girl. You just need look like you know how be great geisha. Underneath, I think all geisha have steel bones."

"Are you sure you don't mean whale bones?" I asked.

"I don't confuse geisha with those Victorian type. If you must, girdle enough. I wear girdle. Men like slender waist. Corset, not every day wear. And never whale bone. What PETA think? Corset good for wedding night or just plain naughty night, you know?" Anna had said with a laugh.

"You just need to find your style. California dragon girl, I think," Anna said. "Sweet, but sexy. You're problem, you too smart. Men no like smart girl who smarter then them."

"So should I play dumb?" I asked.

"No I think you not Marilyn Monroe type. You no look good as blonde anyway," Anna said taking a cheesecake pose.

Shopping on Melrose or NoHo with Tiffany had always been fun and we would stop in the quaint coffee shops and plan our next meeting of the Guerrilla Geisha Girls. I liked the name 3G, even if some other Asian women objected at first because we weren't all Japanese Americans. Tiffany was born and raised in Bangkok, but had come to Los Angeles looking for true love in a land of artifice.

"I think that what all men looking for when they see Asian girl, so I like," Tiffany had said, quelling all other objections with that mischievous smile.

So now that Tiffany was asking, how could I refuse? When one of your best old friends gets married, why not celebrate? Weddings are better than funerals "better clothes, better food and better music," Tiffany added.
Of course, the 30 messages on my machine were all from Tiffany. "Hello. Girl, when you get home?" Or "Never turn on your cell phone still?" It made me laugh as I finished off the chicken and turned on my computer.
So after some finagling, I got the month off, packed light because Tiffany needed to shop for her wedding dresses and wanted me to be coordinated as her maid of honor. "This like Asian wedding. I need 3 or 4 dresses. You need match."

"Why are we going to be smoking?" I said.

"No, funny girl. Funny face, okay. Funny girl, no okay. Streisand, too diva.

"We need look color-coordinated. Brent not think all Asians look alike, you know. He not color blind, either," Tiffany said.

No awful brides maid dress in poofy pastels. Not with Tiffany. Of course, we would talk food. Food for the welcome party. Food for the post-ceremony bridal shower and food for the reception when family and co-workers would be invited.
When I got off the phone with Tiffany, I immediately sent an email to the major domo of those days, Masako.

"A wedding? Honto ni? Anna, ne, Tiffany. Kangaerarenai wa ne," she wrote. "I can hardly believe. I'll ask Kenichi. He won't mind. You know he likes me to go and practice English and find out the latest about America in America."

"The problem is," I wrote in my email, "I don't live there any more so we don't have a base camp and I think the newlyweds will be too busy."

"Yes," Masako wrote back. "Best to keep out of the center of confusion." I could just imagine her laughing. She liked Anna, but Masako was all business and didn't have the soft social butterfly flutter of Anna. Yet together they had been the perfect combination and over the years we had been together, Masako had helped harden up Anna's business sense and Anna had softened Masako's hard edges.
Masako and I approached Meg, one of Masako's old friends. Meg was much married, even then, and her gourmet healthy cooking had drawn Masako in when her relationship with their mutual friend had cooled into a mere acquaintance-hood.

Tiffany wouldn't be meeting me at Burbank, "Oh, I too busy, honey. I have so much do and I want new dress—two or three because you know that Asian way. I want to narrow down to 10 or 15 before I take you for a look-see."

Masako and her friend Meg would be there. Masako had once dated a friend of Meg's husband, or as Meg put it, the man had been Masako's temporary sponsor.

"Students on a budget need someone to take them to dinner, even if their budget includes Armani," Masako once said.

As the airplane circled on approach, I thought of what my colleagues up north had said about the smog…so thick you can't really tell when there's a fire or who or what to hose down. My office mate had opined, "They don't have to snort drugs up down there with all the CO2 in the air," and the receptionist retorted, "That's why they can snort coke. Their noses are already damaged so they don't notice the difference."

Yet it wouldn't be the smog choking me. This time—the guilt. The dead don't always stay dead and how would you see a ghost when the air filled with mysterious angels?

Meg, dressed in her old button front jeans that I'm sure she'd picked up at a garage sale or flea market and cotton shirt that was so old it has come back into style, stood waiting for me near Masako. I recalled that Masako had a yuppie allergy to denim, particularly the old American jeans for which her fellow country men and women yenned. Yet the cultural tolerance she now displayed could only be considered remarkable. Cool and crisp linen in conservative beiges and blacks, Masako pursed her red lips with impatience, but broke into a wide smile when she saw me.

On the way to Meg's Santa Monica house, Masako, who had donned a hat because of her irojiro bijin allergy to the California sun, mentioned that her mother had begged to take care of her children, if only to lessen the grip Masako's mother-in-law had on their affections. Masako's mother probably left her husband in Osaka with a refrigerator full of prepared dinners and hopped on the Shinkansen to Tokyo with 24-hour notice from her daughter and probably less notice to her husband. I was certain that grandpa would be there long enough to re-arrange his golfing schedule before he joined her. Whatever their relationship, they always presented a united front against the other grandparents who lived in Tokyo like Masako and her husband. Japan is one competitive nation.

"This is my little vacation, ne," Masako said. "My husband doesn't mind. He wants me to practice my English and will join me later to practice his."

He probably couldn't wait to get out from under his in-laws eyes and out from in between any grandparent contest. School was in session and between the cram school schedules where grandparents and parents united to pressure the children to achieve the best score to get into the best schools so what could go wrong?

"Did you get in touch with everybody?" Meg asked. "I dug up an old address book and sent out some emails, but we have a lot of work to do. Some people have moved and some people seemed to have evaporated into thin air," I told Meg from the back seat as started up the motor and began to get on the freeway. "Have you met Brent yet?" I asked Masako.

"No. He was out of town when I arrived, but I think he must be one special guy," she replied. "Look…he burned all these Brad Pitt DVDs for me, ne. Very thoughtful."
I looked at the writing on the jewel cases that also had colored photocopies of the original covers. His handwriting was neat and stylish, with large capital letters and flourishes on the t's. "I guess I know what we'll be doing at night. Just like the old days—popcorn and eye-candy."

"Our Tiffany found her old address book, too," Masako said, pulling out a worn 4 x 6 book covered with leopard faux fur. "I have mine, too." Masako pulled out her PDA. "She also gave us cell phones. Look, so old they have no color, no camera, no email. You can just phone and reception isn't that good. Must be real old."
"Bad reception is normal here," Meg replied. Why do you think that guy wanders around asking, 'Can you hear me now'? On my block you can be in front of a house and still not get reception to the person inside. You might just have to walk up and knock on the door. One of Chris' friends calls from two doors down."

"You're kidding?" Masako replied in mock horror. "That primitive?"

"LA people get out of their cars to knock on doors?" I asked.
"Only if they have to," Meg said laughing.

"Wasn't that what cell phones were made for?" I asked.

"I took the gray one. I think the yellow one was meant for you. I thought you'd have gone for more sensible colors in the rainy country," Masako said looking at my bright yellow plaid coat. At least my jeans were black.

"Just because the days are gray, doesn't mean I have to wear gray," I replied. "Not even when gray is the new black."

"Usually, when I wear too old black it's gray," said Meg.

"You wear too many old clothes. Anyway, I also have something else for you from Tiffany," Masako said, indicating the large purple designer paper bag that was behind the passenger seat.

"Wow. This is like Christmas," I said, looking at the packages wrapped in brown grocery bag paper and sealed with silver duct tape.

"Christmas usually comes better wrapped," Masako said, laughing somewhat snidely.

"That's not all," Meg added. "Each is numbered, so I think you should wait until we get home." I pulled out a few of the packages and shook them and then replaced them in the iridescent purple bag which I suspected Tiffany had bought. I'm sure she too had sniffed at the practical but artless way the packages had been wrapped. "Don't worry," Meg said, laughing. We checked to make sure nothing was ticking."

"And if anything was fragile, it's already broken," Masako said.