“Bitch!” Anjoli said, laughing. “I simply don’t want to be bothered by their vile giggling at all hours of the morning.”
* * *
On April Fools’ Day, two wonderful events happened at the house. First, Jack finished his painting of Adam. It was magnificently colorful with thick swirls of yellow and red and orange defining his face. The painting wasn’t the cubist piece that Jack had originally intended, but it was even better than what he’d envisioned. There was a bright, modern quality about the texture and color that captured the spirit of our two-year-old. “You’re not going to sell it, are you?” I asked. “I want to hang it in the living room.”
“I’m glad you like it,” Jack said. “I’m going to do another and use that scattered concept we talked about.” He seemed so happy when he was painting. I wish I knew what Maxime was like when he was creating, but no one had seen that side of him yet.
The second joy of the first day of April was the arrival of Randy, the glass sculptor. Maybe it was the fact that the clouds literally parted and the sun began shining within an hour of his arrival, but I seriously thought Randy was a gift from heaven. He was about thirty with a body chiseled from stone. He had short dirty-blond hair and squinty brown eyes. There was no other word but yummy to describe Randy. Maxime was indeed handsome, but these days he looked like a castaway. Randy looked like the rescue boat.
Robin thought so, too. When she and Tom stopped by the house, she whispered into my ear that she may have actually had an orgasm through her eyeballs. We felt guilty watching our husbands help Randy unload his duffel bag and boxes of supplies as we silently envied the glass he touched.
Chantrell tried to act disinterested, but there was no looking past this man. As she passed her dead vegetable garden, she tried to sneak a glimpse at Randy and stepped on a gardening hoe. I found this more than a tad ironic considering she’d been carrying on with Maxime for weeks. Meanwhile, Jacquie terrorized store owners up and down the East Coast. She disappeared for days at a time, returning with shopping bags from as far as New York and Boston. This was fine with Maxime and Chantrell, who seemingly gave up their respective arts for a career in screwing each other.
“Ouch!” Chantrell shouted as she hopped around holding her bare foot. “It’s bleeding! My foot is bleeding!”
Randy dropped his bag and ran to her aid. Robin and I looked at each other in disbelief. If we’d known all it would take is slicing our feet open with gardening tools, we’d have done it first. “Did he not see my cast?” pouted Robin.
“I’m limping around like Quasimodo with this ankle,” I added. “You think I’d get a little first aid?”
I had mixed feelings when Chantrell contracted tetanus despite having gotten a precautionary shot at Urgent Care. On the one hand, she was screwing someone else’s husband. On the other hand, I couldn’t stand to see people suffer. And she was definitely suffering.
The next week, I saw her try to replant her vegetable garden and begin playing cello to her zucchini. She did not visit Maxime for three days. I kept an eagle eye on Randy’s place and, thankfully, Chantrell hadn’t ventured there either.
“Jack, take Adam to preschool with me this morning,” I requested.
“Do we need to talk to his teacher?” Jack asked.
“Nope.”
“What then?” he asked.
“I just want to hang out with you a bit,” I said, hiding my real agenda.
After we dropped Adam at school, I drove to an area I’d scoped out a few days earlier. As I slowed the car near a grove of trees, Jack looked at me knowingly. “You either brought me here to kill me, or to —” His voice trailed off, but his eyebrows rose hopefully.
“When was the last time we fooled around outside of the bedroom?” I asked.
“Or at eight-thirty in the morning?” he added.
As our bodies met, Jack’s elbow sounded the horn. We laughed and continued kissing like teens on prom night. “Let’s go in the back,” Jack said.
My heart raced. “Okay.” I may have actually giggled.
Minutes later our clothing was strewn across the minivan, and Jack was lowering himself into me. His head turned quickly as his face changed from lustful to terrified within a second as he looked out the back window.
“Luce, get dressed, quick!” Jack said hurriedly as he jumped back into the driver’s seat. I looked up to see a police car with its lights flashing driving toward our car.
“Shit!” I said as a layer of sweat covered my naked body.
“We’ve got to move,” Jack said, starting the car.
“Jack, I’m naked!”
“So am I, Luce!” he said as the car engine began. “Grab my pants. They’re right there by your side.” The car began moving quickly, and the police car began to follow. I reached into the back seat and started grabbing our clothing and putting on whatever I could find. “You’re dressing yourself?! I can’t believe you’re dressing yourself! Grab my pants over there!”
“Give me a sec!”
“You’re buttoning your blouse?! Just throw the thing on and get my pants. We’re on the main road in about thirty seconds and my dick is hanging out.”
“Well, technically it’s not hanging out because there’s nothing for it to be hanging from,” I said.
“Luce, I’ve got a cop behind me and I’m fucking naked! Grab my pants!”
I held Jack’s pants out for him so he could slip into them. As soon as he was covered, Jack stepped on the gas and began to outrun the police car. The officer turned on his siren and demanded that we pull over. “I can take him,” Jack said.
“Stop the car!” I shouted. “Jack, you’re talking crazy. We’re not getting into a police car chase over this. Pull over.”
“Pull over?!” he asked incredulously. “Pull over and say what?”
“Don’t say anything. Zip up your pants and let me do the talking.”
“Luce, you’ve got no pants on!” he reminded me.
“Pull over and hand me my underwear. They’re right down there next to the gas pedal.”
“I can take this guy, Luce!”
“Jack!” I shouted. “Snap out of it. We are not Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. We are never going to outrun this guy. He can see our license plate. Even if you can outrun him, he’ll be at our house in twenty minutes. Now pull over and hand me my panties!”
Thankfully, Jack knew to reverse the order of my demand. As I was pulling the elastic waist band over my hips, the officer looked in our driver’s side window and gestured for Jack to roll down his window.
“Don’t say a word, Jack. Let me handle this.” The window rolled down. The officer looked at my bare legs and blouse unevenly buttoned, then glanced at shirtless Jack.”
“Is there a problem, officer?” I said sheepishly.
“I expected you to be kids,” he said.
“Nope, just a boring old married couple trying to reignite some passion into our relationship,” I said, giggling nervously. “I was going to tell you a whole big story about losing my contact lens, but frankly you seem like the kind of guy who would understand our predicament. I mean, not that you seem like a guy whose marriage is boring or anything, but well, you know. Are you married?” I asked, glancing at his left hand.
“Thirty years,” he said, flatly.
“Wow, congratulations! That’s amazing. You and your wife must really have something special.” He said nothing. “This was my idea, officer. I thought maybe if we, you know, park, my husband and I could, you know, spark the flame. You can understand, can’t you? I mean, don’t you and your wife ever do crazy stuff like this?”
“No,” he said.
“Couldn’t you just give us a warning?”
“You didn’t know that you’re not supposed to have sex in public?” he asked.
“We were not having sex! We were about to have sex, but nothing had been, um, finalized yet. Officer, I beg of you, we have a child who would find his parents’ criminal record
incredibly embarrassing. Couldn’t we just pretend this never happened?”
“Lady, I saw your bare ass scurrying around throwing clothes around. How can I pretend that never happened? Look, you seem like nice enough people, but I gotta take you in.”
We saw a judge that afternoon who scolded us for our reckless behavior, ordered us to go to traffic school, and told us we were lucky he wasn’t pressing public indecency charges against us. Jack and I straightened ourselves out, grabbed some lunch, then picked up Adam at preschool. “That was fun,” Jack said.
I blushed, then peeked at Adam strapped into his car seat, playing with his Whoozit toy. “I know. Kind of exhilarating. I’ve never been wanted in the state of Massachusetts before.”
“I beg to differ,” Jack winked.
Chapter Thirteen
The following week, Aunt Bernice called. For the first time in months, she didn’t provide an update on her pubic hair. Instead, she sniffed that she missed her sister, Rita. “You spend eighty yeyahs with someone, and you know exactly how they would have reacted to something, and when theyah not theyah to do it, you miss it,” she explained.
“Did something happen today?” I asked.
“Something happens every day,” Bernice said.
“Why so blue today?”
I knew something had to have happened. After all, this was a woman who described the woman who mugged her in the Publix parking lot as wearing a very elegant hat. Bernice said, “I got this flyah — everyone in the building got it — that said six dollahs a room for carpet cleaning, three-room minimum. So I figyad for eighteen dollahs I’ll do both bedrooms and the living room.”
“And?” I urged her to continue.
“These burly men got to the apartment, and they said it’s going to be a hundred-twenty cawse I needed a deep cleaning. I said, ‘Who needs a deep cleaning?’ It’s not like I’m such a big shot. I don’t really know what happened next, but I paid them fifty dollahs and they cleaned my foyah.”
“Your foyer?!” I repeated.
“Yes.”
“They cleaned your foyer for fifty dollars?”
“Yes,” Bernice replied.
“What happened to the six dollars per room?”
“That’s what I want to know!”
“I don’t understand what happened, Aunt Bernice. You paid them?”
“Yes.”
“Why?!”
“I’m not shaw. They did a very nice job on the carpet. The foyah nevah looked so good. I thought they would get angry if I told them to go away. They were very big men.”
I boiled with rage and heartbreak. My elderly aunt was baited and switched, then paid two thugs not to beat her up. I was beyond infuriated with this carpet mafia.
“How did you pay?” I asked.
“Check,” she said.
“Did you sign anything?” I asked.
“They made me sign a form when they were finished,” she said. “I don’t know what it said. I didn’t have my reading glasses on, but they were pretty pushy about me needing to sign it before they would leave.” She sighed. “If Rita were heyah, she would know exactly how to handle those kids.”
“They were kids?!”
“They were young. Fordy, no more than fifdy.”
“Do you still have the flyer?” I asked my aunt.
“Oh, Lucy, I don’t think they have service in yaw area.”
“Aunt Bernice!” I exclaimed. “I don’t want to hire them. I want to call and demand your money back. They’re preying on the elderly. I’m going to report them.”
“Report them?” she asked.
“To the Better Business Bureau, the Elder Abuse people, and whoever else handles this sort of thing.”
“Lucy, you’re such an Erin Abramowitz.”
My aunt is gifted in managing to convert anyone she likes to Judaism.
“It’s Erin Brockovich, Auntie.”
“Now there was a goil with celluloid breasts,” she said, “but the way she saved those people from the dirty warter.…” She sighed. “A lovely, lovely goil. I wonda if she shaved her vaginer.” I knew it couldn’t last.
A few minutes later, I called Greg, the manager of the carpet cleaning service, who abruptly told me that if Aunt Bernice signed the release form and paid his workers, she must have been satisfied with the work. I assured him that she wasn’t. “Look, she’s eighty-four years old, and you sent two giants to her house who wouldn’t leave until they were paid fifty dollars to clean a foyer.”
“She could’ve said no,” he replied rudely.
“Do you advertise exclusively in senior citizen residences?” I asked. “Because this sounds a whole lot like preying on the elderly.”
“Look, lady,” he snapped. “Do you realize how cheap you sound complaining about fifty dollars? If your grandmother is half as stupid as you are, no wonder she didn’t understand the terms of service.”
“Excuse me?” I said in disbelief.
“What part of ‘you’re an idiot’ did you not understand?”
“Have you ever cleaned anyone’s carpets for six dollars a room?” I demanded.
“Not a deep cleaning.”
“Have you ever done any cleaning for six dollars a room? I mean, if someone were to audit your office, would they find one single invoice for a six-dollar-per-room service?”
“I don’t have time for this shit, lady!” he said.
“I’m going to report you!” I said like a snitty school marm.
“Go right ahead. They’ll tell you what I’m telling you right now — you’re an idiot!” Then he hung up.
As it turned out, the Better Business Bureau did not tell me that I — or my aunt — was an idiot, but rather that this kind of thing happens all the time. I filled out a rather unsatisfying complaint form, then called the Elder Abuse Hotline. They were lovely, but said unless my aunt was taken advantage of by her caregiver, there was nothing they could do. I then spoke with a woman at the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, who said the agency would be more than happy to investigate within the next six months.
“Auntie,” I said into the phone. “I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that we’re going to have to wait a while before this will be resolved legitimately. The good news is that I’m going to have fifty dollars worth of fun with these jerks.”
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
“You’ll see.”
* * *
In my best Southern accent, I called information. “Yes, Hollywood please. Can I have the number of Scarlett’s Gentleman’s Club? Thank you kindly.”
Next call: same Southern accent. “Hi, I wanna be a dancer, and I’m wonderin’ who I need to talk to.” A young woman told me it was Goliath who handled the hiring. “And how will I know who Goliath is?” I listened. “Oh, built like a mountain with tattoos and a goatee, perfect. Thanks, honey. Now tell me, what time does Goliath come in today?” She told me he was in after noon, but that I shouldn’t come in before three because he was always in a “real shitty mood” before then. “Aren’t you sweet to let me know that? Thank you, sugar. Now, if I could trouble you for directions. Just give me the cross street, and I’ll be able to find it. Y’all are right near the ninety-five, right?” She confirmed and gave me the intersection I needed to find Scarlett’s with ease.
Next call: same Southern accent. “Hi, honey, we had a hell of a night here and we’re needin’ a full carpet cleaning. Y’all think you can get out here to help us out?” The dispatcher asked a few questions. “We had a beer spill, it’s hella bad. I’m talkin’ about a pretty large commercial space so I’m gonna need to make sure I get your manager out here to do the job.” She said that she could send Greg. “Perfect, sugar. Now, he’s gonna need to talk to Goliath, and he wants this done pronto. Can you get here right at noon? No later cause he needs to take his nap at 12:30 pm.” She confirmed. “Great, now, two things I gotta tell you about Goliath. I love him like a brother, don’t misunderst
and now. But the man is hard-of-hearing so this Greg fella is gonna have to really turn up the volume, okay? Make sure Greg talks real loud and slow. And, Goliath is a sweetheart, but he’s dumber than a sack of hair, so Greg may need to remind him a few times about the spill in the VIP Lounge. He’s real thick. Okay, great, lemme give you the directions.”
The thought of nasty Greg shouting at Goliath, insisting that he clean the beer stain in the VIP Lounge was gratifying.
But not fifty dollars’ worth.
Next I called the Harley Davidson dealership. In my best New York accent, I said to the receptionist, “Yeah, uh, I’m tinkin’ about buyin’ my husband a hog for his birt-day. Where’s your showroom at, ah?” She gave me directions. “And who’s da sales managah?” She said it was Johnny. “How’m I gonna know dis Johnny person?”
The receptionist chimed, “Well, he’s the only colored fellow here.”
Good God, did people still say that? There wasn’t an ounce of malice in her voice. It was just a normal word to her.
My next call to the carpet cleaning place was answered by a different dispatcher. I could hear a dozen women’s voices in the background. “Do you clean businesses?” I asked in my normal voice. “’Cause we got a showroom that gets a lot of foot traffic, and it’s starting to look a little shabby. We sure could use a cleaning.” She said their manager, Greg, would be out doing a call that afternoon and offered to send him by at one. “Wonderful. Let me give you our address.” Then, just for fun: “You’re going to need to deal with our sales manager, so when you get here, just ask for Blackie.”
I just knew that any lowlife who ripped off old people was probably a bigot too. If he had made it through an entire lifetime without a well-deserved ass-kicking from a Southern black man, it was time to remedy that situation.
Finally, I made one last call to get information about the appropriate staff member at another Hollywood office building. Suzy, the lovely woman at the front desk, gave me the right person’s name, directions, and the number of employees who worked there.
Last call to the carpet cleaner. It was the same dispatcher as last time so I hung up and tried again. This time I got a fresh voice. “Hi, I need one of your managers to come out and clean our lobby carpet. One of the guys got your flyer advertising six dollar per room, but he misplaced it, so would you do me a favor and bring another forty or so? We’ve got a lot of guys down here who want to get their carpets at home cleaned, so we want to put one of your flyers in everyone’s box. In fact, first thing when you get here, give the flyers to me and remind me that Eddie wants them to go in everyone’s “in” box. I’m Suzy. Anyway, we’d love it if you could come out this afternoon, the later the better.” She said there was an opening at 3:30 pm. “Perfect. Tell me, what’s the name of the manager you’re sending out?” She told me it was Greg. “Great. I know Eddie will look forward to meeting him. That’s Eddie Gold. And make sure you save a flyer for Eddie. If I’m busy I won’t get the flyers in the boxes tonight, but I know Eddie will want one right away.”
The Queen Gene Page 9