A Close Encounter with a Bad Girl

On my bookshelf, at the end of the Homeric epics and the Dickensian novels, you'll come across a tittle that doesn't seem to belong. It's The Bad Girl's Guide to Getting What You Want by Cameron Tuttle (Chronicle Books, 2000). Opening this slim volume to page 20, you'll find:

There's a bad girl inside every girl. You may not feel it. You may not believe it. But she's there ... Look at pictures of yourself when you were 10 or 12, seven or eight, four or five. Go back as far as you have to go to find the impish grim, the sparkly eyes ... Look for the smirk, look for the fire, look for the little girl who didn't know enough to be afraid of her own wants. When you spot her, you'll know it.

In the subsequent pages, Tuttle outlines various ways to revive the bad girl and use her indomitable spirit for everything, from getting a date to getting off the hook to getting even.

I have a soft spot for bad girls (most men do). So when I stumbled on Tuttle's book during a random visit to Borders, I promptly snatched it up, hoping a better understanding of the bad girls might help me get on their good side.

But reading it, I became intrigued by the saucy authoress who writes, for instance, "Traffic is the most underutilized pickup scene in America. Think about it! You're alone, you're bored, you only need one hand on the wheel, and you've got a captive audience ... It's window-shopping at its best. It's a babe browse-o-rama ..." or "It's helpful to have a few handy phrases memorized to break the ice when traveling in a foreign country ... When in France: Bonsoir, monsieur. Êtes-vous puceau? (Good evening, sir. Are you a virgin?)"

By the time I finished the book, I'd instantly become one of Tuttle's fans (I'm pretty certain I'm not the only good guy who's fallen for this bad girl guru). I must admit I even had a little cerebral crush on her, like I did on Estella after I read The Great Expectations and on Elizabeth Bannet after Pride and Prejudice. Whereas Dickens' Estella and Austen's Lizzy are confined to the fictional realm, Tuttle is very real and very close by. She happens to live in the Bay Area, I found out.

This Saturday, I met Tuttle in person.

In her expert assessment, I am a bad girl too. What's more? She loves me for it. I think it might have something to do with the fact that, while she watched, I shamelessly announced to a roomful of strangers that I was single.

It had been a gray day all along. It began with an incessant drizzle around lunch time. By dusk, nobody could escape the steady shower that canvassed the city. Sheltered under a long umbrella (the kind Gene Kelly used in his famous Singin' in the Rain tap dance number), I braved the weather to get to my friend Sasha's book release party.

For the debut of her latest book To-Do List ("from buying milk to finding a soul mate, what our lists reveal about us"), Sasha was hosting a List Slam at Cafe Royale, a downtown bar. As far as I know, it was the first of its kind. The protocols are roughly the same as those of a Poetry Slam. You write down your name on the sign-up sheet. When you are called, you step up to the microphone and read your composition. But at a List Slam, you read, instead of verses and rhymes, a to-do list, a to-don't list (as the case may be), or simply a list.

For example: 30 things to accomplish by 30 (meet Nelson Mandella, learn fluent Spanish, hot-air balloon over the Serengeti ...), things to do when you're not a teacher anymore (work out in the morning, make a proper breakfast, go out for cocktails past 9:00 ...), or things that drive you crazy (stupid jokes). These examples are straight from Sasha's book; they're the tangible proof of people's hopes, dreams, frustrations, and anticipations, all recorded on an assortment of scrap papers in their own hands.

There's something enviably bold about publishing the promises you make to yourself for everyone else to see. It means, whether you can live up to them or not, you're willing to be held accountable for them.

As I walked into Cafe Royale, I exchanged embrace with Sasha.

"Are you going to read your list?" she asked.
"I didn't bring one with me," I replied.
"Well, you can write one up right now," she said.

Sasha had reserved a candle-lit corner of the place specifically for impromptu list-making. Several people were already toiling away, some intensely scribbling on their tabletops, others staring at the ceiling as if their invisible list might magically appear up there.

While I was debating whether to participate or not, a girl behind me asked, "Do you have a pen?"

I handed her my cherished Waterman (she had a face I could trust), then put list making out of my mind.

I walked across the room, waved and smiled at a number of familiar faces, then made my way to the front of the bar. While waiting for my Cappuccino order, someone slided into the gap between the unoccupied barstools next to me. She wore a waist-length cream-colored sweater that hugged her snuggly figure. Her honey-dipped hair had a gentle bounce. And her chest--or, rather, the name tag pasted there--caught my attention. It read Cameron.

I had known for some time that Sasha and Cameron Tuttle were close friends. So I took a chance.

"Are you Cameron Tuttle, the one who wrote The Bad Girl's Guide ...?" I ventured.
"As a mater of fact, I am," she replied, with an unmistakable twinkle in her eyes.
"Oh my God! I have all your books," I gushed.

(Actually, if I had bothered to consult the agenda of Sasha's List Slam posted on her blog, I would have found out my favorite bad girl mentor was scheduled to be there.)

I think I properly introduced myself afterwards, but I can't be sure. I might have been too starstruck to be my usual coherent self.

"Everybody, we're going to begin the List Slam in about 15 minutes," I heard Sasha announce from the end of the bar.

I looked at the microphone dangling from the stand at the center of the room. It seemed to beckon. As I recalled, Tuttle's famous advice to the bad girls in training was, "Whatever you do, have fun doing it."

I quickly excused myself, reclaimed my pen from the girl who'd borrowed it, and took a seat among the list writers. By then, there was hardly any blank sheet left, so I dashed off mine on a quarter sheet someone was kind enough to spare.

Soon, the List Slam began. I was preceded by Adam, a friend of mine, who shared a list of things nobody knew about him ("One: I sing to myself all the time."), followed by Becky, the girl who borrowed my pen, who outlined a list of reasons she stopped seeing someone named Matt ("Three: He's fucked up.")

When I was called, I pulled the folded sheet out of my shirt pocket (where it had been fluttering against my pounding heart) , and read aloud my "10 Things to Do at Cafe Royale Before the Evening is Over."

1. Compliment Sasha on the cute outfit she's wearing.
2. Take advantage of the public forum and declare that you are single.
3. Flirt with someone adorable.
4. Get a receipt for buying a copy of To-Do List so you can use it for tax write off.
5. Ask Cameron Tuttle, the author of The Bad Girl's Guide, for her autograph.
6. Finish the espresso drink you've already paid for.
7. Give the bartender compliments on her nice tattoo.
8. Figure out whom you want to have brunch with tomorrow.
9. Write a blog entry about what you've just done here.
10. If you hear a to-do list that's better than yours, steal it.
    

So there I was, in front of a swelling crowd of four or five dozens friends and strangers (mostly strangers), announcing my single-dom publicly on a microphone.

Afterwards, still high on the adrenaline from my little stunt, I approached Tuttle.

"I know this isn't even your book," I said, holding a copy of Sasha's book, "but would you mind signing it anyway?"

She grabbed the book, opened it to the inside page with the publisher's watermark, and wrote in in bold, block letters: Kenneth, I can see you are a bad girl & I love you for it!

Who would have known? A good guy can have fun being a bad girl!

Postscript: I came home singin' in the rain (sans Gene Kelly's tap steps), because I got someone's phone number before the evening was over.

(Blog image recreated based on Susannah Bettag's illustration for the cover of The Bad Girl's Guide to Getting What You Want.)