Yummy Yummy

Vanessa confirmed every California Girl cliché years of American television had secured in my mind.

Vanessa lived in Laguna Beach, had her lips filled with collagen and a facelift, owned her own business, was having an affair with a married man named Brad, wore makeup to the gym, motivated herself by blasting Tina Turner’s Simply the Best over her car stereo, had no food in her cupboard but shelves full of vitamins, always ate out, went to a life coach, was glazed with optimism, and described everything as phenomenal. Even though Vanessa had been to New Zealand, she couldn’t locate it on a map.

Ellie’s sister Susan met thirty-four-year-old Vanessa two years earlier in New Zealand on a Contiki bus. Susan told Vanessa Ellie and I were visiting America on our way to England and Vanessa said we could stay a few days. The plan was to travel around America for three months and find work.

A week at Vanessa’s turned into two weeks, then four weeks, then six. In between what turned into an overstay based on our cultural misinterpretation of her suggestion we “Stay as long as you like,” Ellie and I travelled for short periods around southern California, returning to Vanessa’s after phoning to hear she missed us. We had overspent our budget and couldn’t find work without a work visa, and besides, we loved returning to Vanessa’s place to marvel at the novelty of her world.

There was the trip to Los Angeles when Vanessa got her lips filled with collagen followed by two days playing Monopoly in her lounge because she was too self-conscious to accompany her giant lips to work.
We enjoyed regular visits to her hair salon: Vanessa never washed or styled her own hair.

Meeting Vanessa’s friends at cafés and restaurants, we were partial to comprehensive discussions on men from women whose sole ambition was to get married. Other topics included looking after their appearance, avoiding aging and food.

Every night we ate at one of Vanessa’s favourite food establishments where all food was equally described as “phenomenal.”

At the Newport Food and Wine Festival, The Bangles played and Ellie and I giggled how we were the only people younger than thirty-five. We met two lawyers who drove us down the Pacific Coast Highway in their convertibles, me in a light blue BMW from the James Bond film at the time, and Ellie in a black Mustang convertible. Her lawyer friend allowed her to drive drunk. The night ended at a private beach where the lawyers skinny dipped as the sun rose and terrible hangovers greeted us all.

After starting a conversation with a stranger on a Greyhound bus, we joined another new friend to stay with her and her boyfriend at Lake Elsinore. Welcomed with open arms as if we were family, they took us out on Lake Elsinore on a wakeboard boat and fed us homemade chicken and ice tea. We pitched our tent in her boyfriend’s cactus garden to find his neighbours – and friends – were a brother and sister partial to sleeping with each other. The male sibling had a scar across his face from a knife fight. There was tension in the neighbourhood, Mr Scar Face had recently pushed his sister aside and was sleeping with a male neighbour – not the one we stayed with. I think the “couple’s” parents were also siblings because Scar Face and his sister had lopsided features, suggesting inbreeding.

“Don’t worry,” said our new friend’s boyfriend, “I have a gun in the house.” From that point onwards we avoided the ice tea in case they drugged then locked us in a cellar and made us sleep with the neighbours.
Between adventures, we were grateful to return to Vanessa’s. The New Zealand dollar was weak, or the American dollar was strong, and we were spending cash fast.

One morning a few weeks into our stay, Ellie and I were lounging around Vanessa’s place when she called from work.

“Oh my God, you have to turn on the television. It’s terrible.”

“What’s going on?” I started flicking through the hundreds of television channels and saw news appearing.

“Planes have hit the twin towers,” said Vanessa. “It’s crazy.”

The American broadcasts seemed like a movie trailer. From each corner of the screen, in five-second sequences, different angles of one plane hitting the twin towers faded onto the screen, while over the footage a deep voice, like a movie preview voiceover said, “America. Under attack.”

For some reason, I ignorantly thought planes crashing into buildings might happen every day in America. Maybe this kind of news never makes it to New Zealand, I thought, rationalising I was seeing something bad, but not terrible. Whatever the situation was, I concluded, had been made to look worse due to America’s predisposition for over-dramatisation. After my short time in America it seemed everything was dramatic.

Slowly each television station broadcast planes hitting the twin towers. Another report came in that a plane had crashed into the Pentagon. Footage was on repeat with people running through the streets of New York and ash clouds enveloping them. The ash clouds made the television footage look black and white and eerie.

Planes hit buildings and Americans were filmed saying, “Oh my God.”

In the subsequent days as the “fight against terror” ensued, the state of California sold out of American flags and Vanessa decided we should go to church.

The Saddleback Church seemed to rise from the Californian desert like a stadium for Jesus. Surrounded by a giant carpark stretching to the blue undefined smoggy horizon, we pulled into Saddleback Church in Vanessa’s Ford Explorer, our American flag flapping.

Our pilgrimage nearly over, we would soon get the answers we craved about 9/11.

Vanessa parked her truck half a kilometre from the church. We got out and moved with the masses towards where The Lord would communicate the truth to us through a charismatic and attractive chosen leader. Greeted on the church steps by mesmerised, suspiciously happy looking people serving nourishment for the soul: free donuts and coffee – considering America was under attack, none of this seemed right.

Donut and coffee in hand, it was this moment I decided I loved America.

The massive church had tiered stadium seating: across the front three movie-sized screens beamed footage of the dot-sized evangelist to us dot-sized disciples seated in the back rows. The screens seemed to enhance his power. Along with other Americans who had accepted the lord into their hearts and had fear in their minds, Vanessa, Ellie and I sat at the back as punishment for our late-arrival sin. I hoped I hadn’t angered the lord. Considering September eleventh, he had enough on his plate.

We came for hope and answers. The evangelist told us these attacks were good versus evil and everyone nodded. I cleverly deduced America was the good in this war. Apparently God wanted us to know that America would not stand by as American freedom and “way of life” was challenged. I picked a piece of donut from my tooth and swallowed the last of my coffee while considering the merits of dairy creamer versus real milk; I had to admit, I preferred real milk and for this reason, I wasn’t sure if I would make it in America.

After the service, the evangelist offered baptism. Because he was a seasoned pro and orator, for a moment I thought maybe if only I had been baptised 9/11 wouldn’t have happened. I was wracked with guilt. The evangelist supported his flock in these trying circumstances so they trusted him; he knew the baptism uptake would be high so made it easy for us. “Come on down,” he said, and I smiled back at his perfectly white teeth-shine reaching us in the back row.

Visualising taking up the offer and being baptised, I imagined splashing around in the giant spa pool pretending to speak in tongues. “Jesus free me from my burdens,” I would say between blowing bubbles and faking seizures, “Sha le bub, la la bub.” Splash splash. “Please me Lord. Take my body and make me one with you,” Bubble bubble splash splash. The real flair would come when I pretended to almost drown then recover and rise again. “You have saved me with your love by testing my faith. I will be guided by you for you for I am a believer in creationism.” Splash splash, stand up and clean the armpits, wash my hair, shave the armpits and legs, then I would be done.

“Do you guys want to get baptised?” Vanessa asked, as if it was a fun ride or the offer of another donut. I grinned and declined as did Ellie who I knew was completely offended. Ellie thought religion should be taken more seriously than a quick baptism splash: baptism was a life-time dedication of the soul.

Maybe because Ellie and I declined, Vanessa decided not to get baptised, thinking it would be more fun if friends did it together.

To do all she could for the little children of September eleventh, Vanessa decided to donate stuffed toy rabbits, her business mascots.

The idea was a local television station filmed the supportive donation and interviewed Vanessa in front of a truck while in the background a giant soft-toy rabbit loaded boxes of itself onto the back of a truck for delivery to the children. Which children, we didn’t know, but someone needed to wear the giant rabbit suit and Ellie volunteered.

That evening, a brief clip aired on the local news showing a giant disorientated looking rabbit loitering around the back of a half-filled truck. A few seconds of Vanessa flashed onto the screen, her taut pumped lips reflecting the video camera’s light. “I just wanted to do something to help,” she said, her eyes clouded with thoughtfulness.

Running out of money, and American in fear of the next terror attack, it was time to fly to England.

In the Los Angeles airport departures lounge, we could identify the Americans from the British: brown skin and white teeth for the Americans, white skin and brown teeth for the British.
We flew to Heathrow.