if she was my girl
I didn’t see my neighbor from across the hall the next morning. I must have overslept.
Didn’t surprise me, though. I stayed up all night watching movies. Romance movies. Okay, so I’m an old softy. A closet romantic. So what? Or maybe it’s just that I’m lonely as hell.
Either way, I love a good tear jerker as much as the next gal. I’ve even been known to well up from time to time, but don’t tell anyone. I wouldn’t want that getting around.
And No, I don’t watch the Hallmark Channel or the Lifetime Network. That’s girls’ stuff. I’m talking about tough love. Hoozy movies. Bogey and the Duke.
Like Casablanca, the Quiet Man, and Notorious. You heard me right: Hitchcock. Hitch was a closet romantic too, you know. Like in North by Northwest. Or Vertigo. And just in case you’re wondering, the answer is No, I’ve never seen The Crying Game. Fuck off.
But the greatest love story ever told (and maybe the best movie ever made) is, believe it or not, the classic John Ford western, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, starring John Wayne himself.
I know, the Duke’s idea of romance was to throw a gal over his shoulder and smother her in trail dust. But Liberty Valance was the story a man who had the world for the taking, sacrificed it all for the love of a woman, then died without even getting the woman at all. Schmuck.
Imagine that: having the girl of your dreams right there in the palm your hand, only to let her go just to do the right thing. Now if that isn’t romance, I don’t know what is.
What would I do in similar circumstances? I’d do exactly the same thing, of course: sacrifice it all for the love of a good woman. But that’s easy for me to say; I’ve never been tested. All strictly theory, so far.
My neighbor from across the hall; she could be my cactus rose. A great girl like that. Then it got me to thinking: a girl as beautiful and as wonderful as that, why didn’t she have a fella already? Maybe she did. I never thought about it like that.
What if she’s got a boyfriend already? I’ve never seen anyone go in or out of her apartment, but she sure does talk on the phone a lot.
Maybe that’s who she’s talking to: her boyfriend.
Maybe he’s a doctor. Maybe he’s too hoity-toity to set foot inside the Hacienda Palms. I know if I were a doctor, I would be.
Maybe he drives an S series Mercedes. Convertible. Maybe he sits around with his doctor buddies sucking nitrous all day and watching old episodes of Grey’s Anatomy, ridiculing and remarking on how Hollywood always gets it wrong.
Maybe my neighbor from across the hall became a nurse just to meet doctors. It’s not out of the question; it wouldn’t be the first time someone becomes a nurse just to hook up with a doctor.
Or maybe her boyfriend is some surfer dude. Maybe he’s a bank robber on the side. Oh wait; they already made that movie.
Or maybe she’s got some wanna-be gangsta rapper for a boyfriend. God, wouldn’t that be tragic. A great girl like that with some loser boyfriend. Unfortunately, that seems to be the way these days. I see it all the time: a beautiful girl with some dumbass-looking guy whose pants are half-hanging off his ass. It’s a sad state of affairs.
Perhaps it’s just a sign of the times, like platform sneakers, or the mullet cut. Maybe so; but it’s not for me.
No, sir. If she was my girl, I’d treat her like the Queen of Sheba. Whatever that means.
If she was my girl, I’d get her out of those damn scrubs she’s always wearing and into a flowery sundress. Why was she always wearing scrubs, anyway? Did she sleep in them? Shower in them? Nurses. They’re a peculiar breed.
If she was my girl, I’d lasso the moon for her. Wait a minute; they already made that movie, too.
But seriously, who is she talking to on the phone all the time? Talking on the phone can be dangerous, No, I’m not talking about brain cancer. What I’m talking about is wrong numbers, as in the 1948 movie classic, Sorry, Wrong Number, starring none other than Barbara Stanwyck.
If you haven’t seen the movie already, it was directed by Russian-born filmmaker Anatole Litvak. You know, The Snake Pit? The Long Night? Doesn’t ring a bell? Anastasia? Ingrid Bergman won an Oscar for that one. Still nothing? Anyway.
Sorry, Wrong Number, is the story of a bedridden woman who, because of a crossed telephone line, hears all about a plot to murder someone’s wife. No one will listen to her, not even the police. In the end, turns out it’s Her they’re planning on murdering. Awesome movie.
We even did the play back when I was in prep school. I went to the Thacher School, just east of Santa Barbara. Same school as Howard Hughes. I even played the part of Leona Stevenson, the bedridden housewife. The lead! Like Fatty Arbuckle before me, I spent my share of time in women’s attire.
What if someone was plotting to murder my neighbor from across the hall? What if it was the serial killer? What if that’s who was calling her all the time?
But do serial killers really call their victims first? These days, it’s hard to tell. Everyone’s spending all their time on the phone anyway, why not serial killers?
If she was my girl, I’d save her from the serial killer. Like Cary Grant and Priscilla Lane in Arsenic and Old Lace.
If she was my girl, she wouldn’t be talking on the phone all the time. She’d be down at the beach, Pacific Park, the Santa Monica Pier. With me!
If she was my girl, I’d take her out for dinner and dancing—every night of the week.
If she was my girl, I’d shower her with flowers until the whole Hacienda Palms was swallowed up like by a giant Venus Flytrap.
If she was my girl.
First, however, maybe I’ll take a nap. Watch another movie. Open a can of Spam. What’s the hurry, anyway? It’s been forty-nine years already, what’s a few extra days? Little did I know, I was about to be pulled out of my cushy little lair.
