by J. Levy
‘Excuse me Mr. Kofsberg please, but there is a lady in reception who wants to see you. She has blonde hair and bright red eyes from crying I think. She sure seems pretty upset. Is she Russian? Her name is Miss Pavlova.’ Betty the secretary tapped her left foot around the back of her right ankle. Manny wondered if she was trying to trip herself up?
What on earth was Meringue doing here in the daytime? He felt sweat beads moistening his armpits. Shit, he would have to be wearing a silk shirt.
‘Ask her to come in Betty and you can take your lunch now.’
‘Ok, surely, thank you,’ smiled Betty, moving into the room and leaving a blue folder at the edge of Manny’s desk. As Betty left, Meringue was in her place in moments.
‘Close the door,’ hissed Manny, pulling at his tie. His neck began to flare up, leaving a ring of red blotches, tainting his skin. Meringue’s eyes were red raw. Their visual combination looked like a before ad for psoriasis.
‘What are you doing here? We never meet in the day?!’
‘I’m homesick!’ wailed Meringue.
‘So why are you telling me?’ Manny faced the window, his back to Meringue. She looked closely at the grey flannel of his Zegna jacket. His black shoes shone and she knew that his Armani boxers would be spotless and white, as usual.
Meringue leaned against the desk, wiping her eyes and nose with a used tissue from her pocket.
‘Why aren’t you ever nice to me? You’re never kind.’ She asked softly. ‘For months I have done exactly as you want, all on your terms. I’ve asked nothing of you. I’ve always come when you called. Why, I’m not even sure if you like me?’ A small choke knotted in her throat. She swallowed, all at once looking so vulnerable.
Manny turned to her. She looked up at him, lit beautifully by the natural light from the window and for a moment she took his breath away and he couldn’t speak. Her eyes were red rimmed, but there was no denying the intensity of color. They were the deepest shade of violet. Her skin was milky white and her lips looked as if she had been stung by a bee, they were so plump and moist and pink. But it was the color of her eyes that captivated him. He had never seen her in daylight before. He realized sadly that he had never even looked into her eyes before. He had only looked at the top of her head while she sucked his selfish dick. Now she was looking into his eyes. A girl from the south who was far from home and lonely and lovely. He felt stirrings of emotion inside him. It was new but not entirely unwelcome. He held open his arms and then Meringue was inside them. He encircled her as fresh, warm tears rolled down her cheeks and onto the collar of his jacket. He held her tighter, breathing in the scent of her peroxide blonde hair. It smelt of roses from a far away, faded garden. He looked down at her dark roots and saw a few specks of dandruff. He felt her heart beating just below his own. An emotional shift prompted him to ask her a personal question about herself, the first one ever.
‘What the fuck is your real name?’ he whispered gently into her hair.
She gazed up at him, her violet eyes melting into his.
‘Mary,’ she said, slightly embarrassed. ‘Mary Pierce.’ *
Jezzy and Adrian
Shirley MacLaine was giving Jack Lemmon one of those looks, her face totally feline and her eyes twinkling like a minx. The look on Jack’s face was indescribably brilliant, one which had helped to make this movie a true classic. The light of the LCD screen lit up the living room as Jezzy and Adrian watched The Apartment for perhaps the twelfth time. It was close to 10pm. Jezzy wore bright red sweat pants, a white shoe string strap vest and no bra. She didn’t need one as her breasts were small and sat up nicely. Her hair fell in dark blonde clouds around her shoulders. She reached for the popcorn, thinking that it should come with a side of toothpicks because it always got stuck in your teeth and you always had to try to pick it out when the guy was looking the other way. Dating was so fucking stressful. You had to think about every little thing all the time. It made her tired. Physically. Mentally.
Adrian suddenly laughed at Jack. ‘I Love Jack, there’s never been anyone like him. He’s funny, sexy, charming, he’s just superb.’
Jezzy thought that Adrian’s musings of Jack were a little too over eager.
Adrian wore a green, stretched out, baggy T-shirt and jeans. He had a tiny butt, a slender waist and a very spotty back. Fuck, thought Jezzy, feeling as if she were clinging to the greasy rim of a well, from the inside. She was in way too deep now. His hand reached for hers. Large hands with fingers that were muscular from decades of piano playing. He began to stroke her stomach. Her body was taut and pale, but she’d always had a little rounded tummy. She hated it. Men seemed to like it. Adrian’s finger traced around her belly button, disappearing slowly beneath her waistband. Sweatpants were invented for this, thought Jezzy. She was already wet and had been since the start of the movie, just from watching him, a slight smile paying across his lips, watching the TV. The light from the screen flickered across his face, dark shadows disappearing into the furrows of his cheeks. As he laughed, his teeth seemed to glow. The credits began to roll as his middle finger slid inside her. She used her muscles to squeeze him from inside, already feeling full as she had always been small and tight and had been doing pelvic floor exercises for as long as she could remember. His other hand cupped her face and his warm tongue moistened her lips. Breathing her name, his breath smelt of coffee and popcorn. He lightly kissed her nose, around her mouth, down to her throat, as his finger probed inside her. She pulled at his T-shirt, wanting to see his flesh, reaching in for his small, hard nipples, like tiny ball bearings. The TV light sent beautiful shadows across his body. He had a row of three small moles on his chest, just beneath his left shoulder. She knew she would have to look at them every time they fucked face to face and the thought made her feel sick with familiarity. His tongue eased down her neck towards her breasts. Real, soft tits and deep pink swelling nipples. He took one between his teeth, letting it grow inside his mouth. Shit. She’d done it again, allowing herself to be bewitched by him. Could she ever get away like she had once before?
*
Meringue
Sunshine streamed through the windows of the little apartment just below Sunset, east of Crescent Heights. The sky looked as crisp as a bright blue cracker, as if it had preened itself to be cast as The Big Blue in a new Paramount epic. Across Hollywood, casting directors were sifting through headshots, achingly perfect 8’ x 10’s were plunging into garbage cans by the dozen, some hitting the trash without having even met the eyeline of the Casting Director. Still, there was promise in the air, after all this was Los Angeles: unknown one minute; Queen of the Universe the next.
Beige linen vertical blinds trembled slightly as the breeze wafted past them. Meringue leaned against the French doors, her violet eyes glazed over. She was bored. And homesick. Today she felt low and needing to ease herself out of this feeling, decided she had to bake. She moved into her tiny kitchen, comprised of just a few cabinets, a refrigerator and a stove along the back of the living room wall. She took out the ingredients she needed: butter; eggs; sugar; salt; sour cream; flour; baking powder; cinnamon; baking soda and vanilla. Good vanilla. The butter needed to be at room temperature if she wanted light, fluffy buns but it was as hard as a rock. She sat it out on the balcony and in a few minutes the sun had obliged and the butter was ready to cream with the sugar. Meringue pre-heated the oven and set to work. Twisting the radio dial to a talk station, barely acknowledging the quipping host but just wanting the company of a voice, she began to sift and cream, mix and stir. She took an ice-cream scoop, lovingly wrapped in an old blue frayed tea towel, from the drawer and scooping the mixture, put an equal amount into each muffin case. Within twenty minutes the muffin tray was in the oven and a couple of minutes after that she could smell the comforting scents of baking. She felt a little better. Getting herself a small glass bottle of strawberry juice, she sat at the table by the window and opened the drawer, taking out a pad of thick cream writing paper and matchin
g envelopes lined with apple green tissue paper. Pulling the top off of her violet fountain pen, she pointed the nib to the paper and began to write: Dear Mom…..
After a while the letter was finished, there were tears in her eyes and a couple of the words were smudged with damson ink. She sealed the envelope, wrote the address and then the muffins were ready. Meringue took the tray out of the oven, put them carefully on a wire rack to cool, prised one out of the tray even though it was too early and went out onto the balcony. The view from the third floor was quite incomplete, paralleling most lives in the City of Angels. Flat, sparse rooftops, a red tiled roof, two palms trees swaying absentmindedly in a barely there breeze, a glorious orange tree with Junoesque blooms, all encased in a fine layer of smog that had drifted aimlessly into Hollywood with nowhere to go.
LA in a nutshell: once you had arrived there was no way out and you were trapped between the city and your mind.
Meringue ate her muffin. It was as light as air and as she chewed slowly, another tear rolled down her cheek. She had thought she was feeling better, but the tastes of cinnamon and vanilla reminded her of home.
You couldn’t let them see you cry. Couldn’t say or do anything to offend them. Just had to roll with it, until the real thing came along. The Real Thing. She had had the real thing. Peace of mind anyway. When she lived at home in Florida and worked in the beauty parlor and had dinner with her mom twice a week. She had liked dating Joe too. Going to the movies, dances at the Small Town Supper Club and occasional dinners at Reggie’s Diner. She had been happy enough, even borderline contented. If only she hadn’t decided to try Los Angeles, but there was a constant nagging inside her head that kept asking her, what if, what if, what if you never try? And now that she was there, she couldn’t get away. Her mind felt lost, tormented, raped. Maybe she should see her shrink? Maybe she could make an extra appointment? It was only Monday, and she felt as if she couldn’t wait until Wednesday. That was it! That had to be the answer. She called the office and yes, of course he had time for her later on today. She went back to the view, her relief palpable as she sat on her tiny balcony, a glorious blonde, lost in the City of Angels.
*
Jezzy and Adrian
Montgomery Clift took Elizabeth Taylor in his arms, or rather George took Angie, and the world felt right. He gazed into her as she looked up at him with longing, their combined beauty almost too breathtaking to believe.
Zing! The microwave had finally succumbed to the frenzied popping of the corn. Jezzy pulled herself away from the seduction of the movie, pressed the pause button and looked over at Adrian. He was asleep. How could he sleep through a movie like this? It was so poignant. There was a small bubble of snot on the edge of his right nostril and his mouth hung open ever so slightly. Perplexity had planted itself between her eyebrows and she turned from him, searching for a more pleasing sight, to look out of the window. The rain fell incessantly on the grey rooftops, thumping down relentlessly across London and her mind. She eased herself off of the sofa and went into the kitchen to get the popcorn. Pulling the bag diagonally apart, the steam giving her a fleeting, buttery facial, she tipped the yellow misshapen bulbs of corn into a wicker basket lined with a square of kitchen roll decorated with pale green circles, placed it on the white formica counter top and went to the bathroom. She sat on the toilet and rested for a moment. All she could hear was the sound of her wee in the bowl. Relief seemed to drain from her body and she decided that she must stop feeling so uptight. Listening more acutely, she heard the rain outside and Adrian’s gentle snoring inside. She wiped herself, stood up and looked down at the bowl, thinking she saw her life in the toilet and that she was the only one who had the strength to stop herself flushing her existence away. Don’t be so dramatic, she thought silently scolding herself. She washed her hands with blue anti-bacterial soap, plunging the bottle to get more and more liquid, rubbing at her hands again and again to create more foam. Everything is good, she insisted, you have met him again after all these years, so of course it must be right. It’s fate! Can’t argue with fate.
Her hands were getting raw as she rubbed them. Drying them gently as they felt sore, she quickly slathered on some hand cream from a pink tube. Turning to leave, she remembered one more thing and grabbing the handle, she flushed her life down the toilet.
*
Frankie & Jezzy
Two red and silver balloons tied with ribbons of the same colours breezed into the café...and Jezzy tumbled in behind them. All that could be seen of her were her legs, slim and golden within oiled appearance 7 denier tights. Balloons atop faux tanned legs. Falling into a plastic-seated booth, the balloons now trailing obediently behind her, she gasped, inhaling more than her fair portion of air and grinned widely at Frankie who was casually sipping a bottle of Perrier through a straw. It was a bendy straw with yellow stripes. Frankie yanked at the little accordion bit attempting to make it longer, causing it to split as Jezzy thrust the balloons toward her.
Frankie sat helplessly, holding the balloons and staring sullenly at her split straw. A man fighting with a tray piled high with steaming spaghetti bolognese and slices of pappy white bread tried moving past her and the balloons.
‘Could you move those out of the way?!’ he snapped.
Frankie wrapped the ribbons three times around her left hand to make them shorter, thinking that people like him should be silenced. Then she stared at him, imagining him trying to suck up his spaghetti through a steel muzzle. Suddenly she gave a little snort of laughter. She felt stupid and blushed, feeling like a fool holding two balloons that weren’t even hers and solitarily snorting.
Jezzy returned with a tray bearing two cups of tea, two iced doughnuts (one pink, the other brown) and a fistful of straws. Frankie eyed the frosting and asked ‘Why do you always get one with pink icing and one with coffee icing when we both like the pink and hate the coffee?’
Jezzy sank into the booth and pulled apart the coffee doughnut. ‘The coffee one always looks fresher than the pink. The icing looks crispier, don’t you think?’
‘People aren’t supposed to eat brown things on February the 14th,’ said Frankie, sticking her finger into the coffee frosting and licking it, her face developing into a mask of disdain. ‘It’s as horrid as always.’ She pulled down on the ribbons, jabbed at one of the balloons and handed them back to Jezzy. ‘Very theme oriented these, who are they from?’
They gazed up at the heart-flecked balloons, floating near the ceiling, bobbing up and down suggestively, daring anybody to question their zaftig beauty.
‘Sorry, I forgot to say Happy Valentine’s Day!’ said Jezzy.
‘Go on then,’ smiled Frankie.
‘Happy Valentiny Day!’ Jezzy laughed aloud, thinking herself to be very amusing, and continued, ‘I don’t know who they’re from.’
‘Happy Valentine’s Day,’ sighed Frankie. ‘Are they from Adrian?’
‘No. He wrote me a poem that made me cry and sent an assortment of Valentine-inspired Origami. Please don’t comment.’ They smiled at each other, understanding without the need for explanation.
Frankie plunged her hand into her bamboo knapsack, pulled out a printed e card and pushed it towards Jezzy. She studied it, then looked up at Frankie with wide eyes. ‘Oh, it’s beautiful, it says really lovely things.’
‘I know.’
‘Who sent it?’
Frankie opened another straw, being very careful not to split its accordion. ‘Don’t know, it’s not signed.’
‘But you must have some idea!’ Jezzy was showing the first signs of an onset of frantic behaviour.
Frankie shrugged and sipped, ‘Yeah, it’s the online guy, even though it’s not signed it came from his e mail address, duh!’
‘The guy you haven’t met?’
Frankie nodded and smiled up at Jezzy from her icing.
‘You haven’t given him your real address have you, he could turn up on your doorstep or anything!’
‘I gave
him your work address, I’m not completely mad!’ Frankie smiled, ‘I thought he might send something there.’
‘Thank you so much for telling me,’ grunted Jezzy. ‘I’ll be sure to check my post box for your mail.’
‘I only gave it to him a couple of days ago, just let me know if anything arrives for me please.’
They both stared up at the balloons as the realization dawned on them.
Frankie was feeling calm now, serene almost, for she had a transatlantic admirer and balloons and she shared this with her best friend.
‘Jezzy,’ she whispered. ‘He wants me to fly out.’
Jezzy almost choked on her doughnut, but knew better than to waste the icing. She inhaled, chewed, swallowed and then exclaimed, ‘Never!’
Frankie nodded.
‘What about Sid?’ asked Jezzy.
‘He’s six, he’ll get over me.’
‘Frankie!’
‘No silly, it would be during school hols, I wouldn’t leave Sid in the middle of term.’
‘I quite like this Valentine’s Day,’ sighed Jezzy.
‘Yeah, it’s alright actually.’
‘Did you know Saint Valentine was beheaded in 269 ACE?’ Jezzy had become extremely serious.
‘Really, where?’
‘Well, don’t quote me, but I think it was just above the neck.’ Jezzy became spontaneously hysterical.
Frankie fought to control her laughter, but couldn’t, so she sank her teeth into the pink doughnut, letting the dough absorb her snickering.