I don’t normally make it a habit of being one of the last guests to leave a party. I also don’t arrive first and I don’t leave straight after dessert—I’m not an asshole.
But this was an exceptionally fun party with a LIVE Karaoke band who stayed later than planned because when my friend Orna’s posse (who are SO game with the LIVE karaoke), aren’t finished singing—THEY DON’T LEAVE.
It was after midnight when they pried the microphone out of my hot little hand and I wedged my swollen feet back into my heels. After a few goodnight hugs, I made my way to the parking lot which was nearly deserted.
There was the valet, a lovely man around thirty (that is a man, right?), sitting alone on a black wooden stool, almost hidden by a fog that had come in on its little cat’s feet (a bow to Carl Sandburg), while we wailed away the hours like a bunch of wannabe rock stars. I can only imagine what he was thinking right around hour three when a bunch of us got up to murder “Summer Nights”, which was followed immediately by a drunken but rocking’ version of a Doors song by an accountant livin’ his dream.
Of the three sets of keys still left hanging on the board next to the stool, mine were the easiest to pick out. The brightly striped KCRW mini-membership card made them easy to distinguish from the other Benz keys hanging there, (a little aside, here in LA the joke is to go up to a valet and say “the black Mercedes” and watch his head spin around. It’s like describing your black canvas wheelie bag to the angry dude behind the desk at airport baggage claims).
Anyway…
As he went around and opened my door for me, I asked him how much I owed him.
“Five dollars”, he replied with a smile.
That seemed like bargain considering how late it was and the torture that poor man had endured for hours on end…sitting on a stool…in a damp fog…listening to us—sing.
I was going to give him ten bucks. Just because.
That’s when I reached into the cute little clutch I had strategically jammed full of everything I would need for the evening right before I left the house.
Altoids, lip gloss, drivers license, insurance card, phone, one migraine pill (because nobody wants to get hit with a migraine at a LIVE karaoke party), and a tiny tin of customized “Orna’s Big 5-0” M & M’s that were given out as party favors.
Everything it seems except money.
Even in the dark I’m certain he could see how crimson my face was becoming. I was mortified.
He held my keys out to me as I stammered and sputtered and continued looking in vain through my now useless little bag for something valuable to give the man.
Without making eye contact—I handed him the candy.
“I. Am. So. Sorry”, I said as I finally looked up at him with those huge cat eyes from the cartoons. One giant cat eye stayed glued to his face, which was smiling broadly, while the other was looking around to see if someone else would come walking out so I could bum some money.
“I don’t have any cash”, I could hear the words coming out but I felt so awful and the sudden let-down from my LIVE karaoke buzz was so excruciating that I wanted to slide under the car and die.
“It’s no problem, it’s just money”, he said in a soft, sweet, heavily accented voice.
“I knooooow, but I feel like a…”, was what my mouth was saying. My head, on the other hand, was screaming, ‘Just get in the car! Drive! Get outa here! NOW!’
“It’s okay lady”, he said, interrupting my argument. “You should go. It’s very late. Don’t worry, it’s just money. Please”.
He put my keys in the ignition and gently guided me into the driver’s seat as I babbled on, pleading with him to forgive me.
After he shut the door I sat there for a second like a cash-less idiot. Before I pulled out onto a foggy Pacific Coast Highway, I rolled down my window for one last heartfelt apology as I folded the tin of Altoids into his hand.
“Here take these, I feel awful. But be careful. They’re curiously strong”.
“Please don’t worry”, he said with that huge smile beaming at me like a lighthouse. “I want you to forget, so you can drive safe. It’s just money. Drive safe. Please.”
I got all misty-eyed as I drove away. Sometimes just a random act of kindness can do that to you. It can remind you of what is important in life. Like friends, love, LIVE karaoke and the gentle, wise and forgiving kindness of strangers.
Not money.
And that worrying while driving in dense fog is not advisable.
P.S. I found my wad of folded up cash on the floor in the dining room just where it had fallen during the great purse switch.
Carry on,
xox
