“Yeah.”
“That was Carla. She was jealous because I got you as a client. She wasn’t even expected in this morning, for cryin’ out loud.”
“She gets first pick of the clients?”
“She gets the first pick of everything. Hours, clients, gyms.”
“Seniority has its benefits, in any business.”
“Seniority! She’s been there three months. I’ve been there two and a half years, since it opened, for cryin’ out loud!”
“There’s jealousy in every business, I guess. What’s she got you haven’t got?”
“Didn’t you hear Marta say something about her wanting Carla to sleep late this morning? Guess who crept out of a double bed, and tiptoed out of a bedroom this morning, so Carla could sleep late?”
“I see.”
“Marta.”
The waiter Fletch had had the day before recognized Fletch. He looked around hopelessly, probably for another waiter. Reluctantly he approached.
Cindy leaned forward and said to Fletch with great vehemence: “I don’t care what business you’re in. No one should get special perks or advancement because of sex!”
Fletch cleared his throat. He looked up at the waiter.
The waiter said, “So interested to see you’re alive and well today.”
“Thank you, I think.”
“And what will your ‘usual’ be today? I can’t wait to hear. In fact, I’m sure our chef, who didn’t sleep a wink last night, reliving your order of yesterday, cringes in his kitchen this noon upon the possibility of your return.”
“You ate here yesterday?” Cindy asked.
“A memorable experience, Ms.,” said the waiter. “In fact, we’ve asked the dining-out critic of the News-Tribune to pass us by until this particular customer either moves out of state or passes on to his eternal damnation of hiccups.”
Fletch said to Cindy, “I just ordered a—”
The waiter held up his hand. “Please, sir. It does not bear repeating. Having heard your order yesterday, I barely got through the rest of the day and the night myself. If we can’t believe each day can be better than the last, where would we all be?”
Fletch said to Cindy, “Do you think he’s insulting me?”
“Oh, no,” said Cindy. “I think he’s trying to instruct you in the finer points of fast food.”
“Fast food takes refinement?”
“You bet.” She said to the waiter, “Anyway, I’m ordering for him today.”
“Oh, thank God! Sir, someone has finally taken you in hand!”
“He’ll have five scrambled eggs.”
The waiter looked at her, astounded. “That’s it?”
“And a chocolate egg-cream,” Fletch muttered.
“Yes,” Cindy said. “You see, from now on, a certain kind of demand is going to be made upon his body, in his new job.”
“He doesn’t want to hear,” Fletch muttered.
“And you, Ms.?”
“I’ll have a banana split, three kinds of ice cream, fudge sauce, marshmallow, and chopped nuts.”
“What will that do for you?” Fletch asked.
“Make my tummy happy.”
Fletch said to the waiter, “I’ll have you know this young woman this morning has already fed me a dose of ground elk’s horn.”
The waiter said, “I could have guessed that.”
“It was not,” Cindy said. “That’s a fake. I think it’s really pulverized cow’s horn.”
“Oh, sigh,” said the waiter. “What happened to those nice people who used to say, ‘Just a Coke and a hamburger rare’?”
“Young people can’t get any respect from waiters,” Fletch muttered, “no matter what they do for a living. No matter what they talk about.”
“What’s my job description?” Fletch asked between sucks of his chocolate egg-cream through a straw. “Call boy?”
“You’re a whore, sir, like the rest of us, and don’t you forget it.” Cindy picked up her spoon. “If you think anything else, you lose control, of yourself, of your client. It’s a profession, you know. You must not lose control. Losing control can be dangerous.”
The waiter had brought their lunches announcing, “Five aborted chickens and a bowl of frozen udder drippings.”
Fletch asked of Cindy, “How did we end up here?”
“We were brought up the same, I expect. All Americans are, to some extent.” With her spoon she was spreading the whipped cream and the marshmallow evenly over her ice cream. “We were brought up primarily as sexual objects, weren’t we? I mean, what were all the vitamins, pediatrics, orthodontistry really for? Why did parents and schools make us play sports? To learn a philosophy, to learn how to win, how to lose? Nonsense. Parents and coaches protested, complained, argued with referees and each other more than we did. For health reasons? Nonsense. How many of your friends survived school sports without permanent knee, back, or neck injuries?” Cindy put a heaping spoonful of ice cream, fudge sauce, marshmallow, and whipped cream in her mouth. “Must be outdoors, doing things, but not without sun blockage, to preserve the skin. Lotions morning and night. The sole purpose was to create beautifully shaped legs, arms, shoulders, flat tummies, in gleaming, fresh skin.”
“I’m a sex object?” Fletch asked.
“That’s all you are, brother. Growing up, what was the intellectual discipline you were given? The theology? philosophy? culture? Me, a thirteen-year-old girl, comes running home from school, bursts into the house, and says, ‘Mama, Mama, I got an A in mathematics!’ And Mama says, ‘Yes, dear, but I’ve been noticing your hair is losing its sheen. Which shampoo are you using?’ ”
Quietly, Fletch was eating his plate of eggs.
“Who were held up to us as heros?” Cindy asked. “Teachers? Mathematicians? Poets? No. Only those with beautiful bodies, athletes and film stars. They are the ones interviewed on television continuously. And are they ever allowed to talk about how they really become so fast on their feet, or how they get themselves into the character of a role they’re playing? No. All they’re ever asked about is their sex lives, how many times they’ve been married, and to whom, and what each affair was like. Prestige, Fletch, is in how many people you can attract to your bed.”
“Therefore, you become a whore.”
“Isn’t that what it’s all about?”
“Very clear-sighted of you.”
“I think so.”
“You enjoying your banana split?” It was half gone.
“Very much.”
“I can see that.”
“Very much.”
“But, Cindy, I, uh, have some qualms, about, uh, actually doing it, uh, you know, for money.”
“I hardly ever actually do it. At the spa, the machines beat the clients. They get all stressed and strained, and I see that they get excited, and I jerk ’em off before they know what happened. Then they get apologetic that they couldn’t contain themselves and I ‘missed a really good time,’ in quotes. When I’m out at night as an escort, mostly I sit in the restaurants and the clubs watching some old boy drink himself blue in the face. I just listen to him, sort of. Usually, that’s all he really wants. It’s very boring. When he’s totally drunk, I hustle him back to his hotel room, strip him, and put him in his bed. Next morning, he thinks he’s had a wonderful time, done wonderful things with a wonderful girl. He hasn’t. You’ll learn. I’ve probably made love to fewer men, or, fewer times with a man, than that secretary over there.”
She nodded to a young woman at a nearby table with an older man. On their table, besides their lunches, were notepads, pens, a folder of papers, and a calculator.
Cindy said in her throat, “’Cept I get paid more.”
Fletch said, “Maybe I mean emotionally. How am I supposed to handle, you know, being paid for being intimate, emotionally? I worry a little about that.”
“That’s so much bullshit handed out by the psychiatrists. And let me ask you: Who’s more intimate with a client,
a whore or a psychiatrist?”
“Uh…”
“I know their text by heart. The guilt trip. Whores have an enormous need for love, but we don’t know what love is. Our only way of valuing ourselves is by setting a price on our affections, our attentions. Isn’t that true of psychiatrists, too? Man, they’re just projecting. I don’t care. They have to make a living, too. I just wish they wouldn’t lay their own sickness off on us.”
“But you, Cindy, after two and a half years of this, how can you ever really, truly relate to a man again, have a genuine experience?”
“I don’t want to. I never did before. I never will.” She was scraping her ice-cream bowl clean with her spoon. “See, that’s where everybody’s wrong, at least about me. About many of us. I mentioned a friend to you, a real friend. She works at Ben Franklyn, too. We’ve made our money. Next week, we’re splitting. We’re going to Colorado, going to buy a dog-breeding ranch, and live happily ever after.”
“You’re lovers?”
“You bet. See, making love to a man means nothing to me. Emotionally. Morally. Whatever those words mean. I don’t care about men. Going to bed with a man doesn’t bother me any more than it would bother you to go to bed with a boy, or a dog.”
Fletch said, “What kind of a dog?”
Cindy sat back from her empty bowl. “The way I was brought up, eating that ice cream was more of a sin for me than going to bed with a man. Or men. Or a whole track team.” She looked at her empty bowl. “I enjoyed it.”
“Things are different, for me,” Fletch said.
“I suppose so. That’s your problem.”
At the corner of the block, walking toward them, was a yellow skirt familiar to Fletch. So was the dark blue, short-sleeved blouse above the skirt.
“Oh, my God.”
Cindy stretched her arms a little. “But, for you and me basically it’s the same thing, I expect. I was developed into a supposedly brainless, cultureless beautiful body, a sexual object, and told men are materialistic oppressors and making babies is a no-no. I’m not really an athelete. I’m not an actor.”
Fletch had sat up straight. Under the table he had moved his feet into a sprint position. His eye measured the distance between his table and the door of Manolo’s. “Oh, wow.”
“It comes time to make a living,” Cindy continued. “What am I supposed to do? Pretend I’m a big intellect? Or, worse, pretend I’m a worker-ant?”
The woman approaching them spotted Fletch.
Then she spotted Cindy.
Fletch said, “Oh, no.”
With certainty, Cindy said, “I am doing exactly what I am supposed to be doing. I am exactly who I am supposed to be.”
“Fletch!” the woman said.
“Uh…”
Then she said, “Cindy!”
Cindy turned around. Delight came on her face.
“Barbara!” she squealed.
Cindy jumped up and hugged Barbara around the neck.
Barbara hugged Cindy.
Fletch stood up. “Ah, Barbara…”
When the hugging and squealing abated, Barbara looked at Fletch. She was still holding Cindy’s hand.
Barbara said, “I didn’t know you two know each other!”
“You have a hickey on your neck,” Barbara said to Fletch.
The waiter had brought a third chair to the table, heard with relief they wanted nothing more than the bill, and gone away.
“A passion mark,” Barbara added, looking closely at him from under the shade of the umbrella. “It wasn’t there when you left me this morning.”
Fletch fingered the mark on his neck. “I, uh…”
Cindy’s eyebrows wrinkled in confusion.
“And that’s not the way you were dressed when you left this morning.” Barbara put her hand on his rolled T-shirt and jeans on the table. “How come you’re in shorts?”
Fletch folded his arms across his chest.
“What does your T-shirt say?” Barbara leaned forward and moved his arms. “ ‘You want a friend?’ What does that mean?” She reached into his lap. “Your shorts say the same thing.”
“They do,” Fletch admitted with dignity.
“Did you get a bargain?” Barbara asked.
Fletch croaked, “How do you two know each other?”
“We’re old friends from school,” Barbara said easily.
“You are? Old friends?”
“Yeah.”
“Good friends?”
“I’ve mentioned Cindy to you. She’s been advising me on the wedding.”
Fletch said: “Ah!”
“Fletch!” Cindy yelled. She hit her forehead with the heel of her hand. “You’re that Fletch!”
Accusingly, Fletch asked Barbara, “And why aren’t you wearing jodhpurs?”
“Ho, ho, ho,” Cindy laughed.
“I change for lunch,” Barbara answered. “I hate the beastly things.”
“This is the Fletch you’re marrying on Saturday?”
“In the flesh.” Barbara put her hand on his thigh. “Fletch, you’re awfully hot. You’re sweating. Your face is red. You all right?”
“Ho, ho, ho,” said Cindy.
“Oh, my God,” said Fletch.
“But how do you two know each other?” Barbara asked.
“Ho, ho, ho,” said Cindy.
“I, uh, we…” said Fletch.
“Is there something funny?” Barbara asked.
“Not really,” said Fletch.
“Ho, ho, ho,” said Cindy.
“After we’re married,” Barbara said, “I have the small hope Fletch comes home at night dressed something like the way he goes out in the morning.”
“Ho, ho, ho.” Cindy was choking with laughter.
“Barbara,” Fletch said slowly and seriously, “Cindy and I met in the course of business.”
“Ho! Ho! Ho!” laughed Cindy.
The secretary and the older man at the nearby table were frowning at this disturbance.
“The course of business?” Barbara asked.
“The course of business!” Cindy laughed.
“In the course of business,” Fletch affirmed. “Now, Barbara darling, if you’d just—”
“Barbara darling!” yelled Cindy.
Not understanding Cindy’s raucous good humor, Barbara said to Fletch, “Oh, by the way. I just heard on the car radio that someone has confessed to murdering Donald Habeck.”
Fletch snapped forward in his chair. “What?”
“A man named Childers, I think. Went to the police this morning and confessed to killing Donald Habeck. A client of Habeck’s—”
“I remember,” said Fletch. “The trial ended two or three months ago. He was accused of murdering his brother.”
“Well, this morning he admitted murdering Habeck.”
“But he was acquitted. I mean, of murdering his brother.”
“So you needn’t trouble your little head about the murder of Donald Habeck anymore. You can go back to doing the job you’re assigned to do.”
“Yeah,” Fletch said grimly. “Thanks.”
“We can get married Saturday, we can have a honeymoon, and maybe you’ll even have a job when we get back.”
“That’s right.” Cindy had stopped laughing. She was looking at Fletch with new eyes. “You’re a reporter!”
Fletch sighed. “Right.”
“For the Chronicle-Gazette,” said Cindy.
“For the News-Tribune.” Fletch looked a dagger at Barbara.
“What’s going on?” Barbara asked.
“Cool,” said Cindy. “That explains everything!”
Fletch said, “I’m afraid it does.”
“Have you written anything for the newspaper I might have read?” Cindy asked.
“Sunday,” Fletch said. “Did you read ‘Sports Freaks at End of Line’?”
“Yeah,” Cindy said. “Sure I did. The lead piece in the sports section. Real good. Did you write that?”
Fletc
h said, “Just the headline.”
“Oh.”
“What were you doing?” Barbara grinned gamely, as if asking to be let in on a joke she might have already ruined. “Being undercover?”
“Thanks for asking,” Fletch said.
Cindy began laughing again. She clapped her hands. “Super!”
“ ‘Super,’ ” Fletch quoted grimly.
The waiter gave the bill to Fletch. “Serving you, sir,” said the waiter, “is an affliction I’d hate to have become an addiction.”
Fletch stared at him.
Cindy took the bill. “No. This is on the company, remember?” She laughed out loud again. “You might say, it’s on the house!”
“Anyway, Cindy,” Barbara said. “We’re going to be married on a bluff, overlooking the ocean. Did I tell you that? The weather’s supposed to be nice Saturday.”
Cindy was paying the bill in cash. “Remember, we’re having dinner with my mother tonight,” Barbara said uncertainly to Fletch.
“Tonight for dinner,” Fletch said somberly, “I’m having my head on a plate.”
“Cindy,” Barbara said. “Around the corner there’s a sports shop. There’s this great-looking skiing suit in the window. You know, for our honeymoon. Want to walk over with me and see how I look in it?”
“Sure,” Cindy said. She left the waiter a generous tip.
The two women stood up from the table.
Fletch remained, elbow on the table, chin on his hand.
“See you, Fletch,” Barbara said.
Fletch didn’t answer.
Cindy said happily, “See you, Fletch! At the wedding! Saturday!”
After Cindy had gone a few paces, she turned around, again doubled over in laughter. “Fletch!” she called. “You’re being married on a bluff!”
“Hello? Hello?” Fletch knocked loudly on the frame of the screen door. Inside the bungalow a television was playing loudly but nevertheless was drowned out by a child crying, other children yelling, and the noise of some mechanical toy. “Hello!” he shouted.
The front porch was a junkyard of broken toys, a scooter with its neck twisted, a crunched tricycle, a flattened plastic doll, a play stove that looked like it had been assaulted with an ax.
Fletch Won Page 12