breakfast with shirley maclaine in the big sur
by Dell Franklin
Miranda and I sit at a table in a cozy, rustic, near empty dining room in the cozy, rustic (No TV’s) Big Sur Inn on the Big Sur. We are in excellent snooping distance from a table where a mother and daughter eat breakfast, the mother petite, well-preserved, her hair a silver helmet, the daughter freckled and slightly resembling a middle-aged Shirley MacLaine. Miranda is no fan of my ravenous appetite for eaves-dropping and gossip and is trying to block out their conversation.
“I’m so busy,” the daughter informs Mom, breathless. “It seems like I do EVERYTHING down at the office. And the more I do, the more they expect me to do!”
“Honey, you must learn to delegate authority,” advises Mom, daintily sipping tea. “You know that.
“If I don’t do it, well, it doesn’t get done right, or at all. I’m snowed, just snowed. Look, I’m president, I’m a Rotarian, and everything comes back to MY desk.’ Just then her cell phone plays a peppy jingle. She glances at it, sighs. “I must take responsibility. Every month we have to…well, like this golf tournament I’m promoting. What I want to do, I want our members running around in these great big sombreros. That’s our theme—Cinco de Mayo, and I think it’ll draw a lot of local media attention, and who knows where that can lead.”
“Sounds like a wonderful idea, dear.”
“My idea, Mom. But of course, I have doubters.”
“Oh, there’s always doubting Thomases. You can’t allow them to get you down.” She studies her fretting daughter. “It’s a thankless job, honey…you knew that going in.”
“Somebody’s got to do it, Mom! I’m that kind of person—I give back.”
The Big Sur Inn is popular with people in hiking shorts, and cultured American and European tourists, and whenever Miranda and I stop here for breakfast on our way home to Cayucos after a night in Carmel or Monterey, we hear fairly intellectual conversations. I haven’t heard anybody like Shirley, who, as she talks, displays a hearty appetite while the mother nibbles morsels and sips tea. It is mid February and according to Shirley she is booked with nonstop events until June and then there is a huge convention down in LA--Rotarians from everywhere coming out of the woodwork. This job is twice as hectic as when she was president of the Lionesses. She has no time to herself.
“I try and get to bed by ten, Mom, but I never make it” Her cell goes off. She glances at it, returns to Mom. “I’ve got to get in my run, so lately I’ve been getting up at five in the morning, before I go to the gym for my yoga…”
“Five in the morning? It’s still dark out, you could get hit by a car!”
“In Carmel? No way.” She eats, drinks, sighs. “I never get to bed before midnight. I’m working on an average of four hours sleep a night. My phone never stops…”
“Dear, do you realize you’re looking more and more like Shirley MacLaine every day?”
“Oh yes. People keep reminding me. I’m flattered. And friends actually tell me I ACT like her. You know…kind of snappy and…abrupt. No nonsense, please!” She flashes a long-suffering smile tinged with pride. “I liked her best in ‘The Apartment.’”
The mother’s face turns serious. “So how’s Jeff?”
Shirley’s eyes roll in exasperation, like in “Terms of Endearment” when Jack Nicholson aggravated her. “Mom, do you REALLY want to know?”
“Well of course I do, dear.”
“Well, he really, really, really pissed me off this time.” She watches Mom sip, sit back, wait. “He took a hundred thousand dollars out of our joint account and used it for a down payment on a condo for his daughter from his first marriage. Spoiled rotten and never held a real job in her life. I blew my top.”
“I don’t blame you!”
“I mean, it’s MY money, too. We ARE married. Shouldn’t I at least be consulted?
Mom nods with gravity, dabbing at her lips with a napkin. Miranda sighs, which means she’s been listening and is disgusted. Leaning toward me, she whispers, “I don’t blame her one bit for being pissed off. I’d be pissed off, too.”
I lean toward her, whisper back, “Maybe the asshole’s got so much money it doesn’t matter. I mean, come on, they’re from Car-MEL.”
“I’m sure they multi-millionaires. Look at her jewelry. My God! The woman’s loaded. That emerald on her finger’s worth thousands, and look at her wedding ring. But still, it’s the idea—that asshole didn’t consult with her.”
“Can you imagine the real Shirley MacLaine taking that kind of shit?” I whisper back harshly.
She hushes me as Shirley goes on about the husband. According to her, she gives everything in the relationship and receives nothing in return. His business, his life, take priority over hers in every instance! She is growing angry.
“We almost had it out the other day, Mom. I mean, I was close to leaving him.” She shovels part of an omelet into her gullet.
“You don’t want to, honey. You must try and make this one work.”
“Mom, we’re both busy, granted. I mean, we hardly see each other, and when we do, we bitch at each other. So I told him…” The phone plays its jingle. She snatches it, screams into it, “stop calling goddammit, I’m busy!” She shuts it off. Takes a deep breath. “So I told him we needed to have lunch, have a long talk, see if we could get our relationship back on track, before it’s too late.”
“Good idea. Communicate. It was wise and mature of you to suggest this course of action, dear. I’m proud of you.”
“So we meet at Monique’s for lunch. I wait half an hour. Then he pulls into the parking lot and sits there another fifteen minutes on his cell phone! The rotten prick. The nogood bastard!”
The Mom, previously unruffled, displays her first sign of emotional discomfort. “That was rude, very rude.” Wrinkles of concern and chagrin wreathe her exquisitely made-up face and one can see where she might have driven a hard bargain in her day.
“Humiliating is the word, Mom. Total lack of respect.”
“You must stand up for yourself, dear.”
“Well, he finally comes in, and I want to know why I have to wait half an hour for him to show up, and then he’s on his cell phone for fifteen minutes while I’m sitting starving when my day’s backed up and I’m hours behind! But of course, HE has deals. Fifteen minutes means fifty thousand dollars. Does he want me to sacrifice fifty thousand dollars? I was so mad…”
After the mother reaches across to pat her hand and calm her down, she explains that her deceased husband and Shirley’s father wouldn’t dare treat she, her mother, like Jeff did or he would be OUT. Then Mom, for whatever reason, mentions her sister and Shirley’s aunt, Barbara Jean. Barbara Jean took no guff from her three ex husbands and at 76, alone, is content to live with her dogs and cats.
“SHE’S where you get your Shirley MacLaine,” Mom says. “Everybody’s always said she’s the spitting image of Shirley MacLaine.”
“Oh, I know. She told me she used to leave an egg in one bowl, next to an empty bowl, and she warned her husbands, if they didn’t shape up, she’d switch the egg to the other bowl, and that meant she was kicking their asses out.” A giddy laugh emanates from her, and she seems dreamy-eyed, far away. “Guess I’m like Barbara Jean, Mom. Everybody says I am. She takes no prisoners.”
“All her husbands, and every man who courted her, they were scared of Barbara Jean. All she had to do was look at you and you wilted.”
“Half an hour I wait, fifteen minutes in the parking lot while I’m absolutely steaming, you think Barbara Jean’d allow THAT to happen, like I did?”
Mom shakes her head adamantly. “She would’ve put that egg in that other bowl but quick!” she says fiercely.
Miranda and I are finished with breakfast. When we came in, the pair was eating. They’ve already had several refills of coffee, hot water and ice water. We stand. I don’t think either of them noticed us, so consumed were they with Shirley’s daunting, and I’d say insurmountable problems with work and spouse. Back in the car, I say “Any bitch’d try that egg-in-the-bowl crap with me, she’d be out on her ass.”
“Oh yes,” Miranda scoffs, pruning up her face. “As if there’s a woman alive who’d live with you, much less marry you.” She sighs. “It was bad enough listening to those two, don’t you dare keep bringing them up like the busy-body you are.”
Miranda and I sit at a table in a cozy, rustic, near empty dining room in the cozy, rustic (No TV’s) Big Sur Inn on the Big Sur. We are in excellent snooping distance from a table where a mother and daughter eat breakfast, the mother petite, well-preserved, her hair a silver helmet, the daughter freckled and slightly resembling a middle-aged Shirley MacLaine. Miranda is no fan of my ravenous appetite for eaves-dropping and gossip and is trying to block out their conversation.
“I’m so busy,” the daughter informs Mom, breathless. “It seems like I do EVERYTHING down at the office. And the more I do, the more they expect me to do!”
“Honey, you must learn to delegate authority,” advises Mom, daintily sipping tea. “You know that.
“If I don’t do it, well, it doesn’t get done right, or at all. I’m snowed, just snowed. Look, I’m president, I’m a Rotarian, and everything comes back to MY desk.’ Just then her cell phone plays a peppy jingle. She glances at it, sighs. “I must take responsibility. Every month we have to…well, like this golf tournament I’m promoting. What I want to do, I want our members running around in these great big sombreros. That’s our theme—Cinco de Mayo, and I think it’ll draw a lot of local media attention, and who knows where that can lead.”
“Sounds like a wonderful idea, dear.”
“My idea, Mom. But of course, I have doubters.”
“Oh, there’s always doubting Thomases. You can’t allow them to get you down.” She studies her fretting daughter. “It’s a thankless job, honey…you knew that going in.”
“Somebody’s got to do it, Mom! I’m that kind of person—I give back.”
The Big Sur Inn is popular with people in hiking shorts, and cultured American and European tourists, and whenever Miranda and I stop here for breakfast on our way home to Cayucos after a night in Carmel or Monterey, we hear fairly intellectual conversations. I haven’t heard anybody like Shirley, who, as she talks, displays a hearty appetite while the mother nibbles morsels and sips tea. It is mid February and according to Shirley she is booked with nonstop events until June and then there is a huge convention down in LA--Rotarians from everywhere coming out of the woodwork. This job is twice as hectic as when she was president of the Lionesses. She has no time to herself.
“I try and get to bed by ten, Mom, but I never make it” Her cell goes off. She glances at it, returns to Mom. “I’ve got to get in my run, so lately I’ve been getting up at five in the morning, before I go to the gym for my yoga…”
“Five in the morning? It’s still dark out, you could get hit by a car!”
“In Carmel? No way.” She eats, drinks, sighs. “I never get to bed before midnight. I’m working on an average of four hours sleep a night. My phone never stops…”
“Dear, do you realize you’re looking more and more like Shirley MacLaine every day?”
“Oh yes. People keep reminding me. I’m flattered. And friends actually tell me I ACT like her. You know…kind of snappy and…abrupt. No nonsense, please!” She flashes a long-suffering smile tinged with pride. “I liked her best in ‘The Apartment.’”
The mother’s face turns serious. “So how’s Jeff?”
Shirley’s eyes roll in exasperation, like in “Terms of Endearment” when Jack Nicholson aggravated her. “Mom, do you REALLY want to know?”
“Well of course I do, dear.”
“Well, he really, really, really pissed me off this time.” She watches Mom sip, sit back, wait. “He took a hundred thousand dollars out of our joint account and used it for a down payment on a condo for his daughter from his first marriage. Spoiled rotten and never held a real job in her life. I blew my top.”
“I don’t blame you!”
“I mean, it’s MY money, too. We ARE married. Shouldn’t I at least be consulted?
Mom nods with gravity, dabbing at her lips with a napkin. Miranda sighs, which means she’s been listening and is disgusted. Leaning toward me, she whispers, “I don’t blame her one bit for being pissed off. I’d be pissed off, too.”
I lean toward her, whisper back, “Maybe the asshole’s got so much money it doesn’t matter. I mean, come on, they’re from Car-MEL.”
“I’m sure they multi-millionaires. Look at her jewelry. My God! The woman’s loaded. That emerald on her finger’s worth thousands, and look at her wedding ring. But still, it’s the idea—that asshole didn’t consult with her.”
“Can you imagine the real Shirley MacLaine taking that kind of shit?” I whisper back harshly.
She hushes me as Shirley goes on about the husband. According to her, she gives everything in the relationship and receives nothing in return. His business, his life, take priority over hers in every instance! She is growing angry.
“We almost had it out the other day, Mom. I mean, I was close to leaving him.” She shovels part of an omelet into her gullet.
“You don’t want to, honey. You must try and make this one work.”
“Mom, we’re both busy, granted. I mean, we hardly see each other, and when we do, we bitch at each other. So I told him…” The phone plays its jingle. She snatches it, screams into it, “stop calling goddammit, I’m busy!” She shuts it off. Takes a deep breath. “So I told him we needed to have lunch, have a long talk, see if we could get our relationship back on track, before it’s too late.”
“Good idea. Communicate. It was wise and mature of you to suggest this course of action, dear. I’m proud of you.”
“So we meet at Monique’s for lunch. I wait half an hour. Then he pulls into the parking lot and sits there another fifteen minutes on his cell phone! The rotten prick. The nogood bastard!”
The Mom, previously unruffled, displays her first sign of emotional discomfort. “That was rude, very rude.” Wrinkles of concern and chagrin wreathe her exquisitely made-up face and one can see where she might have driven a hard bargain in her day.
“Humiliating is the word, Mom. Total lack of respect.”
“You must stand up for yourself, dear.”
“Well, he finally comes in, and I want to know why I have to wait half an hour for him to show up, and then he’s on his cell phone for fifteen minutes while I’m sitting starving when my day’s backed up and I’m hours behind! But of course, HE has deals. Fifteen minutes means fifty thousand dollars. Does he want me to sacrifice fifty thousand dollars? I was so mad…”
After the mother reaches across to pat her hand and calm her down, she explains that her deceased husband and Shirley’s father wouldn’t dare treat she, her mother, like Jeff did or he would be OUT. Then Mom, for whatever reason, mentions her sister and Shirley’s aunt, Barbara Jean. Barbara Jean took no guff from her three ex husbands and at 76, alone, is content to live with her dogs and cats.
“SHE’S where you get your Shirley MacLaine,” Mom says. “Everybody’s always said she’s the spitting image of Shirley MacLaine.”
“Oh, I know. She told me she used to leave an egg in one bowl, next to an empty bowl, and she warned her husbands, if they didn’t shape up, she’d switch the egg to the other bowl, and that meant she was kicking their asses out.” A giddy laugh emanates from her, and she seems dreamy-eyed, far away. “Guess I’m like Barbara Jean, Mom. Everybody says I am. She takes no prisoners.”
“All her husbands, and every man who courted her, they were scared of Barbara Jean. All she had to do was look at you and you wilted.”
“Half an hour I wait, fifteen minutes in the parking lot while I’m absolutely steaming, you think Barbara Jean’d allow THAT to happen, like I did?”
Mom shakes her head adamantly. “She would’ve put that egg in that other bowl but quick!” she says fiercely.
Miranda and I are finished with breakfast. When we came in, the pair was eating. They’ve already had several refills of coffee, hot water and ice water. We stand. I don’t think either of them noticed us, so consumed were they with Shirley’s daunting, and I’d say insurmountable problems with work and spouse. Back in the car, I say “Any bitch’d try that egg-in-the-bowl crap with me, she’d be out on her ass.”
“Oh yes,” Miranda scoffs, pruning up her face. “As if there’s a woman alive who’d live with you, much less marry you.” She sighs. “It was bad enough listening to those two, don’t you dare keep bringing them up like the busy-body you are.”
