Dani: Saturday, Oct. 20, 2:13 am
I’m dancing with my friends in Taylor’s living room, singing along with Stevie Wonder, and delighting in the smell of Topanga Canyon wafting through the windows.
Dani: Saturday, 4:07 am
We’re huddled together on the futon, trying to stifle another burst of hysterical giggles while watching Bad Lip Reading on Justin’s iPhone, which now wears an intentional case designed by moi. I’m so tired I can hardly see straight, but this is the first day I’ve spent with my best friend in almost two years, and there’s no way I’m wasting our last few hours together sleeping.
Rob: Saturday, 11:00 am
My friend Todd picks me up and we drive by Mr. Bones’ pumpkin patch, a large parking lot filled with hay bales, pumpkins and your garden-variety assortment of inflatable vampires and ghosts. SUVs are backed up into the street waiting to park, and there’s an area cordoned off with caution tape.
“What’s that for?” I ask Todd, pointing to a group of men in jackets huddled together.
“That’s the paparazzi area.”
“For a pumpkin patch?”
“This is the place celebrities come to get photos taken to show what good parents they are.”
I think of all the Halloween-themed celebrity family pics I’ve seen in People and Us magazines. I feel my love for Jennifer Garner and Nicole Richie start to dissipate like mist from a fog machine.
“I stopped going there with the kids when I saw Meg Ryan,” Todd says.
Dani: Saturday, 11:11 am
I stumble deliriously down to the Silver Lake farmers market for more homemade tempeh and pickled daikon. I eat my weight in fresh orange slices.
Dani: Saturday, 12:04 pm
I jaywalk across Sunset to my favorite thrift store, where I find two T-shirts that would look great on my former boyfriend, for whom I probably shouldn’t be buying clothes anymore. But they’re only $2, and I want to support the store, and old habits die hard.
Rob: Saturday, 12:30 pm
My friends Todd and Sarah’s twins, Auggie and Bruno, have both been ill but want me to play ping-pong. When it comes to a game of table tennis, my sense of competition borders on inappropriate. I make quick work of Bruno and then battle a bit with Auggie before dismissing him. The kids try to distract me by using a clipboard as a paddle and substituting brightly painted balls for the usual white ones. Nothing works; I am their master. Todd, exhausted from having been up all night with sick kids, loses in disgrace. I reign supreme.
Dani: Saturday, 2:20 pm
I’m sitting on a Silver Lake sidewalk, sharing a Mexican tempeh scramble with my girlfriend Eve, who’s visiting from Byron Bay. She’s pondering moving back home, but to Joshua Tree, where life will be simpler and more balanced—and hot.
Dani: Saturday, 3:27 pm
Eve and I are heading to my favorite health food store to stock up on superfoods and herbs. She pulls over less than two minutes into our journey, having received “three hits” from “her guides” that taking me to Erewhon is not her highest choice.
“Fair enough,” I say, exiting the car at the corner of Sunset and Hyperion.
“I love you,” she says as she drives away.
“I love you too, mama,” I yell back, turning to walk back towards Bella’s house.
Dani: Saturday, 3:32 pm
Michelle picks me up at the Moroccan café, where I will tomorrow run into her three times, to take me shopping for jeans that aren’t two sizes too big on me and to talk about why boys are behind and why she left the Orgasmic Meditation community.
Crossroads Trading Company’s racks are packed tight with super-fashionable options, and I’m overwhelmed in light of almost two years spent buying whatever’s least hideous at St. Vincent de Paul.
Dani: Saturday, 6:54 pm
We have 7 o’clock reservations at Sage, but Jodi (Bella’s mom) is still OM-ing. I’m face down on the futon, trying not to listen as a man she doesn’t date or kiss rubs her clitoris in an unwavering up and down motion for thirteen minutes in her bedroom eight feet away. An iPhone alarm goes off. The door opens.
“Wanna go next?” asks The Stroker.
Rob: Sunday, Oct. 21, 8:00 am
I am there when Joan’s on Third opens, having fallen in love with their dark coffee and luscious-though-overpriced breakfast sandwich. Besides, it’s far better than the Magnolia Bakery, which is run by bitches and serves anemic coffee. There’s a gaggle of animated LA housewives seated next to me, seemingly inspired by reality television. One starts misusing Spanish by saying “No esta chica,” when the salt shaker goes missing. Another, talking about Tim Robbins’ advancing age, pantomimes circles in front of her face and says she was attracted to Robbins, “before he got old and his face whatever.”
Rob: Sunday, 10:05 am
I’m back at Todd and Sarah’s and enjoy a second breakfast of a chocolate croissant with Auggie and Bruno because I love this family, and I love flaky crusts soaked in butter and chocolate. Pastries taste so much better at sea level near a large body of water. Todd’s haul from their local farmers market is like edible art. Just before they drive me to the airport, I ask Todd if he wants revenge on the ping-pong table. “OK,” he says, and then proceeds to kick the living shit out of me in front of the boys. Trying to save face, I suggest a game where I use a toy guitar and the boys use the clipboard. No one keeps score.
Dani: Sunday, 11:55 am
I walk up the steps to the Sweat Spot for Sweaty Sundays, a “contemporary class for everyone” and my favorite dance class ever. My teacher, Ryan, races in to hug me. And as his heart mashes against my heart, the tears well up and I squeeze even tighter, wishing I didn’t have to let go, or even just go, at all, ever again.