Wednesday, March 02, 2005

An encounter with The Chick from American Beauty

I was sitting in this coffee shop/wine bar around the corner from studio 1021, writing in my journal and rereading Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. This winebar/coffee place called The Banquette is nothing special but I like it because you can work in there for hours and no one cares. They also have nice soups, like squash and lentil, though the lentil soup that day was kinda greasy.
So I'm sitting there, writing, and in walks that chick from American Beauty, Mena Suvari. I couldn't think of her name at the time, so I said to myself, "There's that chick from American Beauty." She was with this older guy, older like maybe late 30s/early 40s, not very attractive, with fine brown hair that was slightly curly at the ends like a baby's. He was dressed like this character on Deadwood, the priest who eventually goes insane and is mercy-killed by Swearengen. That is to say that this man was wearing a dark cloakish type of thing and the kind of rugged, oil-cloth boots you should only wear on a field frequented by horses. I remembered then that my friend Tony, who worked as a waiter in WeHo, had waited once on Mena Suvari and her husband, who is some successful producer or another (I realize I could verify this with imdb.com but that would take the fun out of it), and Tony said that Mena was nice but that he'd found her husband creepy. Apparently he was fully and frothily delighting in the fact that he's married to a young, beautiful Hollywood starlet. Tony is gay and so wasn't affected by what this guy probably imagined to be deep dark pangs of jealousy, but bad taste is offensive, no matter what.
But I didn't think about that showboating when I saw Mena; I only remembered that detail much later. What I remembered was Tony saying she's married to a not-that-good-looking producer dude. So, seeing this guy flapping around in his cloak, protectively shielding Ms. Suvari from the cruel eyes of The Banquette, I wondered: Is this The Guy? I didn't stare too long at Mena, just long enough to take in her heavily made-up face (lots of foundation), her turquoise sweater and white, long coat which was pretty and looked expensive in a handmade-by-some-unknown-but soon-to-be-hot-designer-fresh-out-of-fashion-school kind of way. I continued to scrawl in my notebook, as if about something all-consuming, but really I was writing something like "that chick from American Beauty just came in and her husband (?) is with her and..."
As I wrote that, I listened as Mena, in a high voice, uncomfortably asked if the sandwiches could be made with wheat bread instead of panini. Like I said, The Banquette is nothing special, just one of those coffee shops with a few grills for making sandwiches... so the waitress explains that panini is all they have, and then there's some back-and-forthing I don't quite catch because of a loud espresso machine, but somewhere in there, I hear the waitress defensively explain that the sandwiches would be "ice-cold" if made with anything other than panini bread. I honestly have no idea what the fuck she was talking about at that point, but I felt sorry for her that she was obviously being questioned so heavily by Mena and her baby-haired cloaked friend/husband person that, backed into a corner like a terrified feline, she had resorted to a crazed line of no-logic, you know, the old "ice-cold sandwiches" defense. Does it get any thinner than that?
Anyway, Mena and baby-cloak man decided to take their business elsewhere. They walked out of The Banquette and into Pete's, the real restaurant right across the lobby (both are located at the bottom of an office building). I kept on writing and maybe a moment or two passed and then, spaced out, I looked up, expecting to take in the ordinary scenery of The Banquette as it had been pre-Mena. But I looked up and BAM! Not an eyeful of garlic, but something more unexpected: Mena was back! And for whatever reason she was staring dead at me when I looked up. She did not have a friendly expression. Her mouth was set tightly, her cheekbones drawn in and her eyebrows were mashed down. We locked eyes. And because her expression was hostile, even if it was in a distracted, bland kind of way, I returned something that probably didn't look so friendly either. Then, when I realized what was happening, I broke the eye contact.
Isn't it weird that Mena and I gave each other rude looks? Why did she give me a rude look anyway? I wasn't doin nuttin! Speculations welcome...

5 Comments:

Blogger PJ Smorg said...

Having toiled for many years as a sandwich maker, I'd like to inform you that the "ice-cold sandwiches" bit is not a ruse. Paninis, my dear, are made from fine sliced cheeses, delicious roasted vegetables, and thinly cut meats from around the globe. With all of this prep work being done in advance, the only way to securely store said ingredients is to refridgerate them. Thus without heating upon the panini grill one would have a decidedly fridgid panini with which to fill their tummy. Perhaps not "ice cold" as the panini maker suggested to the young actress, but quite cold indeed.

6:52 PM  
Blogger You've Got What I Need... said...

Did you happen to say any of that inner monologue of yours outloud by chance? Especially the too much foundation stuff? That's bound to get a glare from a supa-sta'!

Yes, my sister did truly hose herself down in front of the farm hands, but she's married with dos ninos now and thus no longer up to do the party, party, scene. She can still drink her 200 lb. sailor hubby under the table, though.

We're all just so proud.

10:47 PM  
Blogger Blog ho said...

I wish this would have ended in violence or sex. I don't know the girl, but I saw the movie and I liked it. It ruined several years of my life but it was worth it. Anyway, you should have kicked her ass.

8:15 PM  
Blogger PJ Smorg said...

Yes! Mr. Ho I am becoming quite a fan of yours. I'd like to see just about everything in my life end in violence or sex. Imagine our dear Margaret Louise rising from her corner, never breaking eye contact with this tarted up starlet. Suddenly Maragret Louise lunges for her, and rips off her top! Rose petals start shooting from this American Beauty chick's (Mira Surveeny?) plunging cleavage. Momentarily blinded by the onslaught of crimson flora, Margaret Louise wipes her eyes and forces her thumbs deep into the ear canal of-

Fuck it.

11:02 PM  
Blogger Victoria said...

..I wish it had be Thora Birch.

1:34 PM  

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