Sunday we were invited to an impromptu dinner party at Jim and his gay dad Erich's house. They boyfriend had experienced their hospitality on Super Bowl Sunday, but it would all be new to me.
I have to admit, I've been torn as to what to write about it.
On the one hand, their was the weirdness. How could there not be? But on the other hand, I was a little touched to be included. We've lived here over a year and these are the first people I'd consider "friends", so I'm a little reluctant to slag them off in a blog post. I'm sure the feeling will pass in time, but for now all I'll say is it was warmly bizarre. You can't pick your family, or your neighbors, so you just make do with what you've been dealt.
And if I'm being honest, our neighbors back in LA weren't exactly a box of chocolates either.
In particular, there was Monique.
Our house in LA was nothing but glass and we never quite got around to dealing with window coverings. At first it was simply because of aesthetic differences, but then it became a financial concern. We could barely hang on to the house and privacy wasn't our first concern. Luckily, the way the house was situated, only one other house could really look in, our across the street neighbors, Helen and Pierre. And even then, you couldn't really see into our house from their house proper because it was further up the hillside. The only view into our home really came from an apartment they'd built over their garage at street level.
Helen and Pierre were nice enough. It didn't take long before we realized there was a third person living there, a ghost-like waif we'd see slowly wafting up and down the stairs between the apartment and the house.
This would be Monique.
Nothing was ever said about her for the longest time, but then I came home one day and the boyfriend seemed stricken. He'd just been chatting with Pierre in the street and he'd discovered that the girl was his 29 year old daughter who'd moved home because she'd been stricken with a mysterious disease.
Several of them, evidently.
"We should be her friend" the boyfriend said.
I don't remember exactly what transpired next. I think we left a note for her at the apartment door inviting her over for dinner. At any rate, she came over one evening and we got to know each other. She seemed gaunt and frail and almost near death, but she was friendly and sweet and charming. In hindsight, the first warning sign was her choice of drinks - vodka on the rocks. Hey, if you have a terminal disease, why not live a little?
But here's the thing... she wasn't sick.
She was batshit insane.
I don't know what exactly caused her to move back home in the first place, but she now had her parents hoodwinked into thinking she had multiple rare and serious diseases. Her parents would spend there days carting her from one specialist to the next, and Monique spent her off-time trawling the internet for new diseases and symptoms. As soon as one group of doctors would close in on a diagnosis, she'd switch symptoms and leave everyone baffled. Except us. Once she grew comfortable with us, she basically let us in on the ruse. On the rare occasion her folks would go out for the night, she'd be at our door in minutes with a martini in hand, wearing enormous fur boots and smoking a Gitane. The only thing terminal about Monique is she was terminally pretentious.
"Want some coke?" she'd ask, pulling a vile from her purse.
We nicknamed her "Cookoo Bananas."
She began to scare us.
Things finally spun out of control on her 30th birthday. She said "friends" of hers were throwing her a big birthday dinner at Geisha House in Hollywood and she wanted us to come. We never thought to question how a shut-in could have friends. We reluctantly agreed to go. The day before the event, she called and asked if she could ride with us. Again, we reluctantly agreed.
And so the three of us show up at Geisha House at the appointed time to discover there are no friends. Just the three of us. She never even bothered to explain it. We were shown to our table and she immediately excused herself to go "powder" her nose. Again and again and again. Each time showing back up to the table with huge powder donuts of cocaine around her nose.
We didn't know what to do.
So we ordered dinner.
Monique, obviously, had no appetite. As we frantically tried to finish our dinner, Monique was bopping around the restaurant and club, annoying fellow diners and practically dry humping the DJ. Finally we had enough and told her we were leaving, but she would have none of it. She told us to leave and she'd find her own way home. Normally, with anyone else, we'd be concerned. But with Monique, we just didn't care anymore.
We went home and went to bed. Around 3am we heard a car race up the street and screech to a halt in front of her house. She'd evidently been thrown out of the club and some guy had picked her up hoping to get lucky. But the 20 minute drive with Monique had wised him up and he practically tossed her out of the car once he got her home. I'm actually surprised he bothered stopping at all.
After that, things spiraled downhill. We avoided her at all costs, but then the phone calls started.
"What was that TV show you were watching last night? It looked interesting."
"What did you have for dinner last night? It looked like lasagna?"
She could see in the house.
And she was watching us.
Soon we just avoided answering the phone, even though she could see we were home. The whole situation was turning into a horror movie. The phone would be ringing as the boyfriend and I would steal nervous glances out the window and see a frail silhouette, framed in Gitane smoke, phone to her ear... calling.
One day I went to get the mail and turned around and Monique was standing there, with an evil smile.
"I had a funny dream last night where your house burned to the ground..."
She turned and walked away.
We were growing genuinely alarmed. We feared leaving the dogs alone inside the house, thinking we'd return to them boiling in a pot on the stove ala "Fatal Attraction".
"I WILL NOT BE IGNORED!"
And then finally one night, there was a knock at the door. I answered it and there stood Monique with a shopping bag.
And she was irate.
She thrust the bag at me, which I could see was filled with CDs.
'THIS IS ALL OF MY FAVORITE MUSIC. LISTEN TO IT AND THEN YOU'LL UNDERSTAND ME!"
I tried to beg off and hand the bag back to her, but she screamed "LISTEN TO IT!" and stormed off.
The next day Monique was gone. Institutionalized.
She was gone for months and evidently moved back home shortly after we sold the house. I always wonder if she's terrorizing the new owner.
So, whenever I start contemplating the motley band of misfits we now find ourselves friends with here, I count my blessings. At least none of them have threatened to burn the house down.
Yet.
