Driving Mrs. Emerz

Toni gave Emerz a split-heart pendant for Valentine's Day, 14 karats. Awkward, I gave him nearly the same thing. A chain of broken-heart-shaped charms around Emerz' neck, one soon to green after a shower or two. "Semi-charmed kind of life," says Emerz.

Emerz wants me to teach him to drive. He's got a new S4; a triumphant, sneaky purple, with a tight gearbox that Emerz can't make heads or tails of without wince-inducing grinding noises and knee-bruising stop shorts after stalling out. We take to the streets. I'm driving, he's riding shotgun, fiddling with the balance and fade. I take the corners hard, squealing, fishtails and exhaust and skid marks marring the quiet of the vacant summer neighborhoods dotting the Connecticut coast. "You see that?" I say, pushing and pushing, feeling the G-force settle in my stomach. Shuttered clapboard houses blur out the tinted windows. "You see that? That's how you do it." Emerz grips his seatbelt, rethinking the purchase. Maybe next he'll get the Mini-Cooper. He hears they are surprisingly roomy and spry.

Later, we watch Days of Thunder in the den, dazzled by the careening curls of Kidman, tight and sprawling and golden in the dusty light of the hospital, in the clinical light of the racetrack.

"That's a woman in love," says Emerz, after she issues another ultimatum to Cruise; young, dumb and full of...himself.

"You're the expert," I say.

Toni's in Southampton with her godfather, admiring the cold winter surf, discussing a possible summer position at Christie's, overhearing two twenty-something male assistants canoodling on a back porch. Emerz and I prefer the shapely and shiftless Long Island Sound to the endless expanse of the Atlantic. Call us pragmatists--we like to see what comes next, what's speeding around the corner. We like to know we're not alone. We like to be able to water-ski most anywhere, shredding over ferry wakes, twisting between lobster buoys, skipping over schools of blue fish. We forgive the oily sand, the murky beaches, the possible Plum Island fall-out, the yahoos on jet skis, the occasional power plant. The preemptive penicillin makes my skin sensitive to sunlight. Good thing the sky is dust gray, empty and dull through the moon roof.

Emerz climbs into the driver's seat, pops the clutch and we stutter back towards home. We watch The Door in the Floor, Something's Gotta Give and Cruel Intentions, admiring the colors; the green of the high hedges and rolling lawns, the blue of the ocean and sky, the crisp white of Bridges' and Keaton's and Philippe's untucked Oxfords, but telling ourselves we've made the right decision. To celebrate I drive us to Dairy Queen. It's closed, which we suddenly realize we knew it would be.

The New Mandy Moore, the Old Diane Keaton

Emerz called me, told me there was a Mandy Moore vehicle I had to see to believe. "Why," I asked. "Because I said so," he said. If there's something to be said for Diane Keaton, it is that she can still pull off a hat. Or, at least, she thinks she can. Ever since she was romanced by Jack Nicholson in "Old People Doing It in the Hamptons," Hollywood has decided that Keaton is the poster girl for mature sexuality. The problem is that she treats the role and the sex with such immaturity. Whenever the man comes around she melts, going from frigid to bubbly in a wrinkly spasm. That movie, while not as revolutionary as some would have us believe (it comes nowhere near the much more serious and touching "Away From Her"), as well as a growing concern and industry surrounding older people's sex lives, has given birth, miraculously, to "Because I Said So," in which a meddling, sexually frustrated woman lives her love life vicariously through her youngest daughter, played with admirable effort by Mandy Moore. Ever since Moore hit the scene with "Candy" I have been a fan. I also enjoyed "In My Pocket." She dated Fez pre-Lohan and for a while was mired in a three-way tie for third place with Jessica Simpson and, I don't know, Willa Ford for the pop queen title. Simpson was religious with a sinfully inspired body, Ford looked like a monster truck spokeswoman, Britney was our sweetheart and Xtina was wondering how she got involved considering her pipes. Moore needed a hook, and she never came up with one. I find it charming as to how she is always apologizing for her previous work. First of all, don't apologize for "Candy" and then give me "Because I Said So," and secondly, don't treat me like I didn't know exactly what "Candy" was when it came out - tasty and bad for me. In fact, the fact that you are apologizing at all makes me wonder whether you still don't get the joke, the obvious sexual metaphor of a 15-year-old girl singing about something sooooo sweet. The movie minus Keaton would be standard romcom fare. A woman is confused as to what she wants, strings along two different but okay guys, acts surprised when they find out about each other and aren't thrilled, makes a pouty face, eats dinner alone during a slow song while balancing a huge red wine glass precariously on her knee. One man is right for her, the other is successful. Her loft is all exposed brick and black and white movies playing in the background. She runs a catering company and loves her job. Food makes sense to her- she knows something is wrong with her and Tom Everett Scott when she burns the souffle. Moore looks good as a cook. The extra 8 pounds settle well on her body. Emerz liked this movie because of Piper Perabo (Keaton's middle, sensual daughter between Rory's mom on "Gilmore Girls" and Moore) who needs to divorce her agent. He is a big fan of "Coyote Ugly." You say, "Who isn't?!" but Emerz is a really big fan. He saw it in the theaters twice and bought the lobby display "for a song," and has a poster signed by Maria Bello and Adam Garcia in his bathroom. Also, he's from New York and he goes to the real place often. Too often. Like, thrice a week. Watching Annie Hall experience her first orgasm with the Dad from "7th Heaven" (Stephen Collins, who also kills it on "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia") has its charms, but by the third time you see them together you wonder when they are going to get into a rhythm and learn how to do it without breaking everything in their apartments. First orgasm? Yes. Keaton explains to Moore that her father "said he didn't have all day and he worked at night." And now that she has had one she loosens up and lets Moore live her own life. How liberating for them. And then the movie is over. How liberating for us, the audience, for whom the whole afternoon has just opened up as we rejoice in being alone.