by Jen Beagin
“Who?” Lena asked, confused.
“They’re Danish . . . actors,” Mona said.
Another smile. Of course, Lena had a space between her teeth. A perfect, slender space that Mona wanted to touch, possibly with her tongue. She felt a sudden and intense craving for churros.
“Uh-oh,” Terry said in her ear. “Not this shit again. Aren’t there rules of ethical conduct for a professional housekeeper?”
“Don’t be such a goody-goody,” Mona murmured to Terry.
“Do you smoke?” Lena asked.
“Occasionally,” Mona lied.
“Feel like taking a break?”
They smoked on the patio. Lena smoked unfiltered Camels; Mona, Marlboro Ultra Light 100s. I bought these by mistake, she wanted to tell Lena. I’m not a candy-ass.
Mona already knew that Lena owned two galleries—one in Taos, the other in Santa Fe—and that her husband, Paul, was a semifamous painter, but apparently, Lena was a semifamous potter and ceramicist known for her dinnerware. Mona confessed that she owned about eighteen bowls, all mismatched, and only three plates, and that she often thought of bowls as boobs, and spoons as detached nipples. If she couldn’t spoon food into her mouth like a baby, she said, she wasn’t interested.
“Can I ask you a personal question?” Lena said.
“Sure,” Mona said.
“Are you straight or gay?” Lena asked.
Mona blew smoke toward the sky. “Neither. Or both.”
“Ah,” Lena said.
“Why do you ask?”
“A few years ago, my daughter left her fiancé for a woman,” Lena said. “An older woman she met at a coffee shop. They ran away together. I never knew she had it in her to do something like that. She’d always been so boy-crazy.”
“There’s a place between straight and gay,” Mona said, “and it’s a very real place, but most people think it’s an imaginary place. Some fake, slutty island or amusement park.”
Lena smiled. “I don’t think that.”
“Right,” Mona said. “But there’s a stigma. I’ve never liked being labeled bisexual—in fact, I can barely bring myself to say the word.”
“Maybe you should give it your own name,” Lena said.
“Sometimes I tell people I’m part fruit,” Mona said. “I mean, if it comes up. It’s like being part Spanish or whatever.”
There was a silence.
“Which fruit?” Lena asked, and smiled.
“Lime,” Mona said flatly. “I’m part lime.”
“You sound bitter,” Lena said. “Which I love.”
Terry was right: Mona had a small crush on Lena. Was it romantic or platonic? She looked at Lena’s boobs again. Were they big enough to suffocate her? Yes. But Mona didn’t want to bury her face in Lena’s tits. She wanted to be Lena’s tits. She wanted to be Lena, period.
“Is your daughter still with the woman?” Mona asked.
Lena had stubbed out her cigarette and was now stretching her neck and shoulders. There was something lithe, languid, French, and feline about the way she carried herself, a combination that Mona associated with fame.
“No,” Lena said finally. “But I still think about it. I never forget anything.”
* * *
MONA BEGAN REFERRING TO THE house as her Hungarian lover. She felt as though she were dating the house, especially as it took between four and five hours to clean. The place perfectly reflected her personality and aesthetic, and she felt changed in its presence—more optimistic and imaginative, steady and self-possessed, less bothered by trivialities. Even her skin looked better.
She carried her bucket to the master bath, turned on the light, and checked her face in the mirror. Too much orange lipstick today.
“I don’t think it’s too much,” Terry said warmly.
Mona sprayed the mirror with Windex.
“I heard a rumor that you’re in love again,” Terry said.
Mona smiled. “You’re so corny.”
“Well?” Terry asked. “Anyone we know?”
“Actually,” Mona said, “it’s this house, mostly. And I’m more than in love. I’m . . . besotted.”
Terry chuckled. “Must be quite a hunk, this house.”
“Hey, the best way to remove soap scum is to lather the tiles with the same soap that produced the scum.”
“Really?” Terry said.
“For extra buildup, mix it with Comet or something abrasive,” Mona said. She rinsed the tiles and moved to the sink. “Now I’m going to polish the faucet with Windex and a dry rag, which is the only way to get it really shiny and perfect. Always, always use a completely dry rag on reflective surfaces, Terry.”
“Dry rags,” Terry repeated. “Right. I’ll remember that.”
“I’ll probably remind you again,” Mona warned.
“Is it safe to say you’re also besotted with the bathroom?” Terry asked.
“The toilet paper in this house is black instead of white, Terry,” Mona said. “Which pretty much sums it up for me.”
“Gosh,” Terry gushed. “Black toilet paper! Where would you even find something like that?”
“France,” Mona said, though she had no idea. “Pretty sure it’s French.”
“Hmm,” Terry said.
“Guess what color the toilet is,” Mona said.
Terry laughed. “Hot pink?”
“It’s the color of black tulips,” Mona said. “Which was the color of my childhood bedspread. For me, it’s the color of memory itself.”
“Interesting,” Terry murmured.
“The toilet has a high tank and a long chain flush, at the end of which hangs this terrific black-beaded tassel.” Mona pulled on the chain. “I could flush this mother all day long, Terry.”
“So, let me ask you,” Terry said. “Which famous person, if any, can you envision sitting on this toilet?”
“Fuck, that’s a smart question.” She wetted a rag with Pine-Sol and cleaned the floor around the toilet. “Don’t forget to get behind the toilet.”
“Have you thought of a person yet?” Terry asked.
“Well, it would have to be someone cool and extremely talented. Right now, I’m picturing the French actress Isabelle Huppert sitting on this toilet, and sitting on her lap is . . . Prince.”
“Which prince?” Terry asked.
“Prince,” Mona said. “You know, Purple Rain Prince.”
“But wouldn’t Isabelle Huppert be sitting on Prince’s lap?”
“I don’t think so,” Mona said.
Terry seemed to find this highly amusing.
“It’s extremely romantic in here,” Mona said. “I almost want to light some candles and—I don’t know—make out with someone.”
“Who would that be?” Terry asked knowingly.
Mona didn’t answer.
“You’re still missing Dark,” Terry declared softly. “Understandably. He had a powerful effect on you.”
“I just want to feel Spanish again, Terry,” Mona said. “If you know what I mean.”
“What about Mr. Disgusting?” Terry asked. “Did he make you feel Spanish?”
“Mr. Disgusting made me feel like a little-known fjord in Greenland,” Mona said. “Or the aurora borealis. Unmoored or unknown, a hidden and remote spot not on the tourist map. He said a photograph would never do me justice.”
“I’m wondering what makes this house Hungarian,” Terry said, changing the subject. “Is there a Hungarian flag on the wall?”
“God, no,” Mona said. “It looks like a house you’d find in Los Angeles.”
The architecture was refreshingly no-nonsense: a boxy one-story made of steel and concrete, with a flat roof and an open plan. Floor-to-ceiling windows throughout opened onto patios as large as the indoor spaces. A courtyard filled with plants and trees and a reflecting pool centered the house.
“You know, Terry, most of my clients would shit this place up with a bunch of knickknacks and electronics, but they don’t even own a te
levision.”
“Do you clean that table with regular old Windex?” Terry asked now.
She was referring to the coffee table in the living room, which was a large, square, translucent box supported by short stainless steel legs. Mona wasn’t usually a fan of glass and steel furniture, but she made an exception for this table because the clear box was stuffed with thousands of gold leaves.
“Yep,” Mona said. “But first I remove all the books and magazines. And this heavy-ass Jean Arp sculpture.”
Mona gingerly placed the statue on the floor, and that’s when she noticed a pair of shiny black feet standing in the corner near the fireplace. The feet belonged to a statue of a very tall, very naked, very well-hung African man. His cock, however, was dwarfed by the enormous antelope horns coming out of his skull. The horns were real, but the rest of him was carved from dark, solid wood.
“Terry, you’ll never guess what I’m seeing right now,” Mona said.
Terry sighed. “Not someone’s diary, I hope.”
“The Kosas’ latest acquisition, a life-size statue of a standing naked black dude, staring at me,” Mona said. “He has horns!”
She checked her watch: 10:40. Roughly twenty minutes to photograph herself with it safely. She ran out of the house to fetch the tripod.
Her new thing was the photographic sequence. A story told in six to ten shots. Unfortunately, it was the same story over and over.
“Is that unfortunate, though, Mona?” Terry asked. “As part of your overall thesis, I happen to think you’re saying something interesting about repetition. And monotony. And perhaps loneliness? Not to mention the tension between the working class and the wealthy. What I also find interesting, Mona, is that you keep repeating your pattern of drifting from house to house, forming intimate and sometimes inappropriate relationships with your clients, and I’m beginning to suspect the photographs are linked to this impulse. They’re a bridge, a conduit—”
“Not now, Terry,” Mona interrupted.
She tried to have an audience in mind before starting a photo sequence. Someone from her past, a guy she’d dated or been dumped by, or someone like Dark, or her mother, or Yoko and Yoko. Often it was total strangers in a gallery or museum. Today it was Paul and Lena.
1. This is your cleaning lady: sweaty, up close, and blurry;
2. Standing in your beautiful living room;
3. Feather-dusting the long dong of your life-size African statue;
4. Removing her apron;
5. Pretty much naked;
6. Dressed in your favorite clothes;
7. Reclining on your fine Italian leather daybed, pretending to be you.
And . . . cut. Time check: 11:11. Make a wish and wrap it up. She changed clothes and then risked one last shot. Back in her own outfit, she posed behind the statue, feather duster in hand, peeking out from behind its muscular shoulder, gripping its enormous—
“Good morning,” Paul said.
Mona froze. Paul was standing roughly twenty feet away, wearing a dirty T-shirt, a pilly cardigan, and paint-splattered pajama bottoms. In his hand, a small piece of cardboard.
She let go of the statue’s cock. Paul was staring at her. Thank Christ she wasn’t wearing his wife’s clothes, but they were right there, sitting in a loose, sloppy pile on the leather daybed. He entered the room. She watched him eyeball her camera before sitting down. The cardboard he held was a piece of dry toast.
“What are you up to?” he asked casually.
She’d been caught doing other things—pretending to be blind, dancing, eating from a bowl of frosting with her fingers—but she’d only been caught taking photographs one other time. She’d fully expected to be fired on the spot, blackballed and run out of town. Instead, her client Henry had handed her a check and told her he had stomach cancer. This was the one who’d undergone chemo and pooped in the tub. Henry was dead now. Paul was very much alive and more muscular than she remembered.
“Well,” she said, and took a deep breath. “I guess I’m attempting to . . . make the mundane meaningful.”
A borrowed phrase from one of their art books, but it sounded right. True, even.
“What?” he said.
“I’m trying to make . . . art,” she said, and winced. “Out of the mundane.”
He bit into his toast and chewed solemnly.
“It makes my life feel less absurd,” she explained.
He swallowed. “I thought you were a poet.”
“Oh, I do both,” she said. “I was just photographing myself with this statue here. I saw it and, uh, fell in love with it, like, immediately.”
As if to demonstrate, she rested her hand on its shoulder.
“That’s an ancient fertility statue,” he said in his usual monotone. “It’s from the Ivory Coast. They say just touching it will make you pregnant.”
She stepped away from the statue and wiped her hand on her apron like a jerk.
“It appears you’re also in love with Lena’s shoes,” he said.
How to explain that part?
“And her clothes?” He pinched Lena’s blouse between his fingers and raised his eyebrows at her.
“I plead the Fifth,” she said.
He smiled. “You’re not under arrest.”
What am I, then? she wondered.
“I’m not angry,” he said. “I’m only confused. And curious. Why don’t you sit.”
She sat across from him. For some reason, he removed his glasses and set them on the gold table. His naked eyes were as dark as the burnished leather they sat on and held a startling amount of despair. The effect struck her as indecent, as if he’d disrobed. Put your glasses back on, she wanted to tell him. For God’s sake.
Unable to meet his eyes, she focused on the familiar black-and-white photograph behind him of a quaint side street in France in the 1960s. It showed a man in a black dress suit leaping off a very high wall toward the pavement below. There was nothing to break his fall, and yet he was suspended, fully horizontal, arms outstretched. He looked happy and insane.
“I take pictures of myself in people’s houses,” she said. “Wearing their clothes. It’s something I’ve been doing for years.” She pointed to the photograph. “It makes me feel like that guy.”
Paul glanced at the photograph over his shoulder.
In fact, she had several photographs of her jumping off the daybed with the photograph in the background, her arms outstretched, her face alert and ecstatic. It was her most prized sequence in the Hungarian lover series, as well as the most personal.
She could feel Paul studying her face. Dude, she pleaded inwardly. Glasses. Right there. Pick them up, put them on. So easy.
“This coffee table also feels like an old friend,” she said. “I dream about it at least once a week.”
“That’s funny,” Paul said with a straight face.
Mona shrugged. “Is it?”
“The leaping man in that photograph,” Paul said, “is the same man who designed this coffee table.”
“What?” Mona said.
“His name was Yves Klein,” Paul said.
“Shut up,” Mona said.
Paul shrugged and laced his fingers behind his head. “Look him up. He’s quite famous. You should show me your work. I’m interested to see what . . . you see.” He looked around the room, as if trying to see it through her eyes.
“What—like right now?”
“Yes.”
Roughly fifty shots were stored on her camera, and she was pretty much naked in about thirty of them. Did she want him to see her tits? The answer was . . . probably not.
“So?” he said. “Show me.”
Should she mention the nudity? No. “The whole thing is slightly—” What was the word? “Unethical.”
“Good art is never safe,” he said. “Or ethical.”
“The thing is, the photographs sound better than they actually are,” she said. “I mean, the idea is good on paper, but the execution—”
“Don’t equivocate,” he said.
He stood, walked over to her camera, and began scrolling through pictures. One picture in particular seemed to capture his interest. She hoped it wasn’t the one in which she was humping the chartreuse velvet curtains in their bedroom.
“Shit,” she said out loud.
He turned the camera off and set it on the coffee table.
“I want to show you something,” he said.
Please don’t let it be your penis, she thought. He stood up and asked her to follow him down a short hallway. They stopped at a door that was usually locked. Paul opened the door and they entered a long rectangular room with a wall of windows on one side facing a wall of drawings and paintings on the other. The paint-stained herringbone parquet floors led up to a raised wooden platform between two beat-up, red leather chairs.
“This is my studio,” he said. He walked over to a drafting table near the windows and began rummaging through some papers. “I spend most of my time here.”
The place needed to be power-washed, but she was no longer here as a cleaning lady. She was . . . what, a fellow artist? Unlikely. He wanted something from her.
Praise? Reassurance? A hand job?
The wall of drawings featured a muscular, beautiful woman with long black hair and a big, juicy ass.
She would try praise first.
“You’ve really captured this woman’s behind,” she said. “Her butt is very capably and carefully rendered—”
“That’s Nadine,” Paul interrupted, standing next to her now. “She’s supposed to be here.” He looked at his watch. “Unfortunately, she’s what you call a closet alcoholic.”
“Right,” Mona said knowingly.
“You are a closet alcoholic, as well?” he asked.
“Living room,” she said.
He blinked.
“I’m a living room alcoholic,” she explained. “I only drink in my own living room.”
He frowned and tugged on his beard.
“You shouldn’t be cleaning houses,” he said.
Where was this going?
“Am I being fired?” she asked.
“No, no,” he said, and shook his head.
She waited for him to continue, but he said nothing. He smiled and looked at his watch again. “I should get back to work,” he said. “Carry on with what you were doing.” He waved his hand. “In the living room.”