God-Shaped Hole Read online

  Copyright © 2002 by Tiffanie DeBartolo

  Cover and internal design © 2002 by Sourcebooks, Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  Published by Sourcebooks, Inc.

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  “Preaching The End Of The World”

  By Chris Cornell

  © 1999 Disappearing One Music (ASCAP)

  All rights reserved. Used by permission.

  “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad” By James Steinman

  © 1977-Edward B. Marks Music Company

  Used by permission. All rights reserved.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  DeBartolo, Tiffanie.

  God-shaped hole / by Tiffanie DeBartolo.

  p. cm.

  1. Paternal deprivation—Fiction. 2. Fatherless families—Fiction. 3. Personals—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3604.E46 G63 2002

  813’.6—dc21

  2001054268

  Contents

  Front Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Acknowledgments

  Prelude

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  Forty

  Forty-One

  Forty-Two

  Forty-Three

  Forty-Four

  Forty-Five

  Forty-Six

  Forty-Seven

  Forty-Eight

  Forty-Nine

  Fifty

  Fifty-One

  Fifty-Two

  Fifty-Three

  Fifty-Four

  Fifty-Five

  Fifty-Six

  Fifty-Seven

  About the Author

  Back Cover

  For Jeff

  Because your truth was a soul-truth.

  So to thank you

  and to never forget that you happened.

  Acknowledgments, sappy drivel, and an email address:

  I am supremely grateful to the following people:

  Two of the classiest men I know—my agent, Albert Zuckerman, and my editor, Hillel Black, for opening their hearts to Jacob, Trixie, and to me. I am forever in their debt.

  Ruth Danon, April Krassner, Catherine Barnett, and everyone at the NYU summer intensive writing workshop, for giving so much of themselves. And to Tim O’Brien for his priceless advice and encouragement.

  Chris Cornell, for combining fifteen little words in such a way as to instigate ninety thousand other ones.

  Richard Weiner, Bob Shook, Fay Greenfield.

  Ben Heldfond, Eddy Midyett, Troy Reinhart, and Corrine Clement, as well as all my dear friends and relatives who influence and nurture me. You know who you are.

  My grade school and high school English teachers, especially Miss Canavan, Mr. Antognoli, and Mrs. Shattuck.

  Above and beyond: to four of the five most important people in my life: my parents, Candy and Eddie DeBartolo, and my sisters, Lisa and Nikki, for not only accepting but encouraging my unusual imagination, and for their unconditional love and support.

  Lastly, to Scott. The coolest, most noble man I know. I thank him for everything.

  If you’d like to communicate with me, send an email to: [email protected]. I’ll answer the nice ones. I might even answer the psychotic ones. But if you write to tell me how much you hated the book, don’t think you’re going to get a response.

  PRELUDE

  When I was twelve, a fortune-teller told me that my one true love would die young and leave me all alone.

  Everyone said she was a fraud, that she was just making it up.

  I’d really like to know why the hell a person would make up a thing like that.

  I remember the whole horrendous scene, more or less, like it was yesterday. A splashy dinner party in Hollywood the week of my seventh-grade Christmas vacation. My dad was a piss-faced entertainment lawyer—he ran one of the biggest firms in town—and he was always dragging us to one god-awful party after another, purely for show of course, to appear as if we were the quintessential family, which was a big crock of vomit. We were sitting at a large round table overpopulated by too many wine glasses and an empty bread basket. Me, my parents, my brothers Chip and Cole; along with a made-for-TV movie star; his wife, who was a famous TV star herself; and another guy who I was told was a pitcher for the Dodgers. He’s the one who ate all the bread.

  Apparently the people throwing the party thought it would be fun to have a fortune-teller working the room, as a sort of bohemian novelty, I imagine. I watched her roving. She had deeply etched lines around her eyes, though everything else about her seemed young. Her hair looked like cotton candy and was the same shade as her lipstick. I tried to figure out how old she was but it was impossible to tell. She seemed both ancient and ageless. Maybe a vampire, I thought. She was dressed like a gypsy, with a heavy shawl, lots of lace, and huge hoop earrings. They were gold and they touched her shoulders. I recall thinking that I could probably get my fist through one of them if she’d let me try, but I didn’t mention it when she came over because something about her scared the shit out of me.

  As soon as she hit our table she made a beeline to where I was sitting, as if no one else were there. She smelled like cigarettes. Even at that age I had a delicate nose. Smells formed the basis of my first and most critical impressions, and the nicotine compounded my already negative hunch about her.

  “My name is Madra,” she said. “What’s yours?”

  “Beatrice,” I said. But what I thought was, Hey, if you’re so psychic you’d already know my name. I didn’t say that though. I was shy back then.

  “And how old are you, twelve?” she said.

  Wow. Okay. Maybe she was clairvoyant after all. Because I didn’t look twelve. Especially with my hair the way it was. I had long, thick black hair, and instead of trying to deal with it, my mother used to pull it up really tight into a ponytail on top of my head. I looked like I’d had a fac
elift. Couple that with my skin, which has always been the color of a bleak winter, and my rawboned little chicken legs, it’s a wonder I passed for double digits at all.

  “That’s right, I’m twelve,” I told Madra.

  “But you have a very old soul, my dear. You are almost at the end of your cycle. You have lived many lives and are reaching nirvana.”

  I sat there, hypnotized. She might as well have been speaking Swahili, that’s how little sense she made to me. She took my hand, turned my palm face up, and studied it.

  “You are an artist,” she said. “You will have a long life. And a great love.”

  My brother, Chip, who’s five years older than I am, said, “What a load of crap.” Madra acted like she didn’t hear him; she just kept going.

  “You will also know much sadness, but you are strong.”

  She frowned, and I thought I detected a tear in her eye when she broke the last bit of news. “You will lose your soulmate to tragedy. Not enough time, not enough time.” She shook her head, lurid. “Bless you, Beatrice.”

  Madra put my hand down. She walked to the next table where Warren Beatty was sitting. She sat down on his lap, examined his right ear, and told him he was going to have lots of children. He laughed and said she had the wrong Warren Beatty.

  Back at our table, my family was reeling from my predicted future. They had petty lives and thus found my fated misfortune hilarious. I was greatly distressed. It was 1984. That year, my true love was John Taylor from Duran Duran. He played the bass and wore eyeliner. I was sure he’d be dead by morning.

  He survived.

  ONE

  If your intentions are pure

  I’m seeking a friend

  for the end

  of the world

  That’s all the ad said. That, plus a phone number.

  It was the biggest one under the section titled MEN SEEKING WOMEN in the LA Weekly. I didn’t usually even read the Weekly. I never liked going out all that much. Reading it only reminded me that I lived in L.A., and no one with any sense would want to be reminded of that. With its constant contradiction of sunshine and violence, going out in Los Angeles was like offering yourself up as a sacrifice to the god of hellfire. It just brought me down.

  But for some reason that day, I felt an urge. Was it claustrophobia of my apartment, or of the couple-hundred mile radius I helped populate? I had my suspicions. Either way, it all screamed Get me out of here!

  I picked up the Weekly right in front of the natural food market two blocks from my apartment. It was only six o’clock and I didn’t feel like spending the entire evening alone, nor did I feel like succumbing to a knock on the door from Greg, my neighbor-slash-ex-boyfriend, who deep down I loathed to all hell but who also, conveniently, lived right down the hall. When he was bored he came looking for sex, and I wasn’t in the mood to endure the wrestling match of my conscience versus my libido. I was feeling weak and wanted to see what my other options were.

  I was flipping the pages, looking for movie listings, when it caught my eye.

  Seeking a friend for the end of the world

  I couldn’t have put it better myself. Except to add one question: Where the fuck have you been all my life?

  I read the ad over a few more times and then, for some nonsensical reason I’ll probably never be able to explain, I did it. I skipped the movie, went up to my apartment, and called the number. Sometimes the most consequential moments in my life originate from a state of completely witless human auto-pilot.

  After four rings an answering machine picked up and a computer-generated voice asked me to leave my name and number. It caught me off-guard. I didn’t know what to say and didn’t want to sound asinine. I hung up.

  Ten minutes later, after jotting down exactly what I would tell him to make myself sound enchanting, I called back and left a floundering message that wasn’t even close to what was written on the Post-It note I held in my hand.

  “Uh, hi. My name’s Beatrice. I’m twenty-seven years old and, well, I don’t know what else to say. I saw your ad in the Weekly. I was intrigued. Call me if you want. I mean, I don’t know, I’ve never done anything like this before but, anyway…here’s my number.”

  Like I told the machine, I’d never called a personal ad before, and hadn’t ever planned on calling one. As a matter of fact, I made fun of people who had to advertise for dates, and I usually prefer my own company to any old idiot, unless I’m really horny. But I wasn’t too proud to admit that in a city where women choose men by the kind of car they drive, and men choose women by the size of their breasts, I’d become moderately despondent.

  I’m only a B cup.

  Besides, the ad seemed different, inspiring in a way. I asked myself if any of my former lovers would have ever thought of something that provocative to write in a personal ad, and because the answer to my question was a resounding no, I figured it was worth a shot.

  I didn’t hear from anyone for almost two weeks, and I had all but forgotten about it until I answered the phone and heard his voice.

  He said, “Trixie?”

  I paused. “Do you mean…Beatrice?”

  Chuckling a little, he said, “Isn’t Trixie short for Beatrice?”

  If it was, I said, I’d sure as hell never been called it.

  I knew it was the guy from the ad as soon as he spoke. Whoever he was, that is. The tone of his voice was smooth and rich, like freshly ground coffee. And he spoke softly, deliberately, as if every word he uttered were a self-portrait.

  He told me his name was Jacob Grace, and he apologized for not calling me back sooner, although he gave no explanation as to why it took him so long. He said he was twenty-nine, that he was a writer—currently working part-time at the Weekly—and that he’d very much like to meet me as soon as possible. He said all this as if he were in pain, as if I were a lost love he never got over. Or maybe that was the dreamer in me. I try to find meaning anywhere I can. It’s the only way I know how to validate my existence.

  Jacob and I arranged to meet for lunch the next day at Fred’s on Vermont. It wasn’t too far from where he worked, he explained. He ate there a couple times a week.

  “They have corn dogs and pop-tarts on the menu,” he said boyishly.

  I asked him what he looked like, pretending I needed to know in case it was crowded. I really just wanted to make sure he wasn’t some kind of Quasimodo.

  “What do you look like,” he said back to me, more a statement than a question.

  “I have long black hair, and I’ll wear a topaz stone around my neck.”

  “You were born in November,” he said. “So was I.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Topaz is the birth stone for November. I have brown hair. See you tomorrow.”

  TWO

  I got to Fred’s a few minutes early and stood outside, peering in through the slats of the wooden blinds. The place was like a time warp, with brown and yellow leather booths, caricatures of old movie stars on the walls, and vintage white toasters on every table. I’d never been to a restaurant where they let you toast your own bread. There was a jukebox in the corner, and a massive cappuccino machine behind the counter. But what really caught my eye was something on the wall. I could see it from where I was—a painting of a rocky beach with a raging sea crashing down upon it. In big letters across the front was scribed the phrase: NOT NOW.

  It was a kitschy piece of shit but something about it made my heart hurt.

  I was going to walk in and get a table, then I spotted Jacob. He was in the booth right under a bad likeness of Lauren Bacall. Don’t ask me how I knew he was the guy, I just did. It was a typical spring day: warm, clear, a predictable bore, with the temperature reaching the mid-seventies, but he was wearing a black, ratty, old wool coat that looked like it had been through a war. He was smaller than I’d pictured him—a little taller th
an me, but he looked fragile somehow, sitting alone with his head down. He hadn’t shaved that morning, I could tell because there was a hint of scruff across his delicate jaw. And his hair was brown, like he said, but a fiery brown, as if it were flecked with cinnamon. It was disheveled and still a little damp. My guess was that he’d washed it before he left his house but probably didn’t own a brush—it stuck out and around in all directions. He reminded me of a puppy from the pound.

  I watched him as I entered, hoping he would spot me. He never raised his gaze. He was reading what looked like a foreign newspaper when I walked over.

  “Jacob?” I said, feeling as if I were interrupting something.

  Only then did he look up, and I caught sight of his eyes. They were deep–set, so much so that they almost appeared in shadow, a watery version of his hair color, like liquid leather. And they were older, wearier than his age let on. But I sensed in them a splash of irony, too; a proud acceptance of the fact that life can be a bitch sometimes, that some people feel things too deeply. I always felt like that myself, that I didn’t marry into the landscape of the human world like others did, that I was on the outside looking in. I imagine it’s much easier not to take things so seriously, to just blend, but I’d long ago given up trying to live in vain and I knew I had to suffer for it. I was just sick, beaten, in a city of millions, of suffering by myself. I was twenty-seven going on sixty-five. I should have received Social Security for my misery.

  I’d never seen that look on another face before, had never identified it in another person. I’d met with it only in fiction. But everyone falls in love with Holden Caulfield when they’re sixteen. They read The Catcher in the Rye and don’t feel so alone. The problem is, they get over it. They forget that grief. Or they bury it. I never could.

  So I was instantly attracted to Jacob, mainly because he had that look, like he still remembered. But the contentment on his face said he found value in it, wasn’t plagued by it like I was. As far as I was concerned, that made Jacob the smarter one between the two of us, and who couldn’t use someone who’d maybe teach them a little something about life and how to live it, the only problem I could foresee was that my attraction to him began to manifest itself as a feeling, a specific part of my body was melting, and I hoped I could sit down in case anything started to drip—I was wearing a skirt.