“I like how you’re taking care of yourself,” Jan told her. “You’re inspiring me.”
“You should come to my class,” Lenore said, resting her right arm at her side and beginning another set of curls with her left. Jan nodded, staring at the television, where a triple murder was being dissected by a cast of chiseled actors. While Jan contemplated how to tell her mother that a criminal enterprise was unfolding under their roof, Lenore leaned forward to touch her toes. A thin piece of magenta satin peeked from the top of her sweatpants.
“What’s that you’re wearing?”
“A tracksuit,” Lenore said simply, as if that was all Jan wanted to know.
“Underneath it.”
“Oh! This thing,” Lenore said, fingering the material and grinning.
“I got my level 2 thong in class today.”
“Level 2?”
“It’s got my initials on it,” Lenore said proudly.
“Congratulations,” Jan said. She felt a twinge of sympathy for her mother, so pleased right now, and still unaware of Jan’s news, which hovered like a swarm of quiet bees. For a moment she thought of not telling her, but didn’t want to lie. “Mom, there’s something I need to talk to you about.”
“I am not quitting this class, so you can forget that.”
“No, no. I’m all for you pole dancing. It’s about Marcus and me.”
“Is everything all right?”
Jan proceeded to inform her mother about the recent series of events. Lenore listened with increasing surprise, an occasional intake of breath, and three ohmigods. But when Jan finished, she said “I’m actually kind of relieved. I was worried you were going to tell me you were splitting up.”
“We’re fine.”
“Well,” Lenore said, pondering the matter further. “This is not what I expected when I moved in here.”
Jan nodded as she took this in. The situation was not what she had been expecting either. “I understand that. And if you’re uncomfortable with it, I get that too. You could probably move in with Jessica or Amanda,” Jan said, naming her younger and older sisters.
“I did the books for Dad,” Lenore said. “I can do them for you.” Jan was not certain she had heard her mother correctly. “You want to work for us?”
“I want to install a stripper pole in my room. They cost over three hundred dollars, even with the senior discount. I don’t want to have to ask you for the money.”
“Are you sure?” She looked at her mother, not believing she could be so sanguine about the prospect.
“What? Do you think I’m going to say something about morals? While we’re being moral, they’ll cut off the electricity.”
Lenore was nothing if not a survivor. The family had moved from New Jersey to Arizona when Jan’s father, Shel Griesbach, bought a share in a business that sold “authentic” Indian blankets to Native Americans who would then sell them to tourists. He went broke when his biggest clients abandoned souvenirs to go into the casino business. Shel Griesbach died in a Carl’s Jr. where he was drinking soda and circling the want ads with a red pen. When Lenore buried him, she vowed to carry on. She was not a widow looking to throw herself on a flaming pyre. Life was to be lived, their family had to eat, she needed a stripper pole. Who couldn’t understand that?
Jan was astounded by her mother’s reaction, but said she would discuss her offer with Marcus later that evening. Jan brought it up when they were getting ready for bed, and Marcus told her it was all right with him. So it was decided that Lenore would be allowed to participate in the business, within certain parameters. They agreed that no one would tell her about the dead body. If this was going to work, they would have to compartmentalize.
It was Jan’s belief, since they had agreed this would not go on indefinitely, that it was their responsibility to maximize earnings in the brief window available. To this end, she asked if Marcus had a Web site and was surprised when he answered in the negative. Was he not aware that the two biggest businesses on the Internet were sex and financial services? That night, at Jan’s behest, Marcus sent an e-mail blast to the workforce, announcing that the operation was going online and requesting that they each come to Shining City to have pictures taken for the Web site.
Jan spent the following day doing Internet reconnaissance, exploring the slippery byways of the cybersex world. Sitting at the kitchen table with her laptop open, she began her journey by doing a search for the word “sex.” The number of sites that popped up was 393, 000, 000— more than one for every American citizen. Though hardly puritanical, Jan was nonetheless amazed by the sheer size and unimaginable variety of the international sex bazaar readily accessible to anyone with a computer. She traveled through webcam sites, where for a small fee a person on the other end would engage in an infinite variety of auto-erotic acts, sex club sites where lovers of cunnilingus could get together to share their interest with strangers, fetish sites where those who enjoyed collecting the “shaved body hair of horny housewives” could find a sense of warmth and community. As Jan navigated through the flotsam and jetsam of this phantasmagorical universe, it dawned on her: Prostitution was refreshingly low on the scale of deviance, almost innocent, in comparison to so much else. Narrowing her research, she returned to the main page of the search engine and typed in “Escort Services Los Angeles,” both to absorb the aesthetic of the sites themselves and to see what she could borrow from the competition. This time, the figure that came up was an eyebrow-raising 2,780,000. Jan was savvy enough to realize that that wasn’t the actual number of services with which they would be competing, but it was nonetheless a trumpet blast in her ear. As an experiment, she typed in “Shoe Repair Los Angeles” and was amused when the number 2,050,000 popped up on the screen. What had made her think of shoes in a business context? Was it a fleeting memory of Joe Ripps, her unlucky father-in-law, proprietor of Sole Man? Not everyone was able to be an entrepreneur. Marcus apparently possessed the gene. She still couldn’t believe it.
Jan began to consider how Shining City could distinguish itself, stand out somehow in this riotous garden, a sunflower among posies. Sunflower! There was a good name, and something they needed— Shining City, in her estimation, did not exude the correct level of je ne sais quoi. She realized, though, that Sunflower was a trifle hippie, suggesting love beads and the scent of patchouli oil. The hippie image hadn’t been marketable since the heyday of Haight-Ashbury, and Jan instinctively knew this was not the context in which it should be revived. Even if she were to call it Sunflower; Sunflower what? Escorts? She found the word escort risible in this context. She knew a euphemism was necessary in this delicate business, but escort? Jan was determined to come up with a clever name that would serve to re-brand the operation.
She had loved the word Ripcord. The verb rip was an active one that implied a tear in the fabric of the ordinary, and cord suggested strength, versatility, and perhaps a hint of bondage for those whose thoughts leaned that way (she was intrigued by where her mind was now leaping). The two discrete words when combined formed something even more powerful. So what that it had triggered a resounding thud in the retailing sector? She briefly considered borrowing the appellation, but decided a clean break with the past was best. Jan took out a pad and made a list of names.
Elite … Discreet … Tout Suite…
They all had a certain predictability about them, a generic aspect indicating to her that they must already exist. It was important that Jan’s new business be perceived by those who knew about it as high-end. It wasn’t that she was a snob, exactly; it was hard for someone who lived in Van Nuys to be a snob. Even the most minimally refined sensibility kept bumping against the Del Taco reality of the neighborhood. Whatever Jan was involved in, however questionable, had to satisfy her personal aesthetic. Perhaps she didn’t live in a fancy house or drive an expensive car, but she could still control the smaller details, and that mattered to her.
Jan stared at her computer screen, where a pop-up window advertising
Conversations With She-Males! was vying for her attention. Jan opened her computer dictionary, typed the word “prostitute,” and clicked Synonyms. She read: harlot, strumpet, whore. None of them was better than escort.
The next day, Jan was at Ripcord going through a rack of jackets, marking down the prices with a Sharpie.
“I can’t buy you out,” Plum said. She was seated behind the cash register, sipping a protein shake, the cornerstone of her new diet, which consisted of nothing else. “I wanted to talk it over with Atlas, but when I tried to track him down, I found out he’d checked into rehab.”
“Marcus told me.”
“You knew?”
“I assumed you knew.”
“Well, I didn’t. Do you ever wonder what your husband isn’t telling you?”
Behind Jan’s quiet eyes, an ancient tribe exalted terrifying gods on the tip of a fiery volcano while a brass band played speed metal, but all she did was smile calmly and say: “Sometimes.”
“Anyway, I tried to figure the money out from every angle, but I can’t get it together.”
“Then let’s mark down the merchandise and have a going-out-of-business sale.”
Plum didn’t respond immediately, giving Jan a chance to take in the beginning of what was becoming a noticeable physical transformation. The portly Plum was losing a significant amount of weight and, while still more zaftig than svelte, was looking increasingly like her old self. Now Jan waited. Ordinarily, she would have let the conversation trickle toward a vague conclusion, but today would be different. Jan knew the Ripcord dream had a toe tag. The store no longer figured in her calculations. And now there was a new career. She wished she could tell Plum about it.
The rest of the conversation had a melancholic tone. They took turns reminiscing about their venture, taking pains not to cast it as the folly it had so clearly been, and made plans for a going-out-of-business sale. Then Plum said “So, who was that woman Marcus was with yesterday?”
Jan wondered if her soon-to-be-erstwhile partner was baiting her, but Plum’s expression revealed nothing. “I thought I told you. She’s a business associate.”
“She was pretty hot for someone in dry cleaning.”
Jan was not going to allow herself to be drawn into yet another personal conversation with Plum. She summoned all the equanimity available to someone who had recently dumped a corpse in the Angeles National Forest and said “No kidding.”
“And you believe him?”
“Yes.”
Later that day, as Jan waited in the carpool line at Winthrop Hall, her mind ranged over what had recently transpired. She had gone from wretched shock and distress, through rigorous critical analysis, to some kind of acceptance—if not an embracing—of her new and unexpected fate. The next few months would be critical ones in the life of her family, and it was very important that she remain circumspect. What would she call the business? And when would her new thong stop chafing?
Jan was startled from her reverie by the rapping of delicate knuckles on her car window. She looked over and saw a well-manicured hand striking the glass. The woman was about Jan’s age, but a daily routine of professional pore cleansing, massage, and aromatherapy worked in concert with a four-hundred-dollar haircut to take ten years off. She was pretty, but not breathtakingly so, and keen. You could tell she wanted to be liked. Jan rolled down her window.
“Hi, I’m Corinne Vandeveer. We’re having an auction to raise money for the victims of the Guatemala earthquake.” Corinne talked as if ten cups of coffee whirred though her system, but her breath was fragrant with mint. “I thought you might be able to donate some items from Ripcord.” How did Corinne even know that Jan owned Ripcord? None of her three kids was in Nathan’s year, and the two women had never spoken. But Corinne was a Turbo Mom, and these women possessed a kind of subtle acuity when it came to school-related endeavors that awed Jan. “Can you help us out? You could just drop the stuff at my house.”
Corinne’s timing could not have been more propitious, and Jan readily acceded to her request, although she had been so preoccupied with the events of her life that the earthquake, which had claimed nearly twenty thousand victims, had escaped her notice. Jan was already working her way down the carpool line and away from Corinne when Nathan threw his backpack into the back of the car and climbed into the passenger seat. He grunted a greeting and began to eat a pastry.
When the car in front of her began to move, Jan stepped on the gas and they pulled off the school grounds. She looked at Nathan.
“What are you eating?”
“Apple tart. They sell them in the vending machines.” Then it hit her.
Tart! An excellent word! It says whore, but cheekily, in a saucy, naughty Victorian way. As she drove home, Jan conjured with this newfound philological bauble her son had unknowingly dropped in her lap. It was good, certainly, but somehow incomplete.
Chapter 16
Rabbi Rachel appeared to be around forty. Slightly overweight, with a masculine haircut that framed a kind face, accented by quiet brown eyes that opened up to the Ripps family and invited them in. Wearing jeans, a work shirt, and no makeup, she projected the aspect of an earnest graduate student. On her head perched the kind of cap Lenin wore to the Revolution. It had not occurred to Marcus that the rabbi who would be officiating at Nathan’s bar mitzvah would be a lesbian. It didn’t particularly bother him, it didn’t bother him at all, really, but it was something he noticed. He was ambivalent enough about the whole bar mitzvah concept to welcome anything that would bring it out of the realm of the ordinary and make the experience a more memorable one. This was a good start. Marcus shifted in his seat, trying to find a position that was comfortable for his back, as he listened.
“Too many families get caught up in the frou-frou of the bar mitzvah,” Rabbi Rachel was saying. “It’s easy to forget what the experience is supposed to be about.”
They were in Rabbi Rachel’s modest office just off the sanctuary. The rabbi was seated behind her desk, and Nathan sat across from her, flanked by his parents. Jan’s hands were folded on her lap as she listened. Nathan was nodding at the rabbi’s words. Marcus noticed a beat-up acoustic guitar on a stand in the corner. Was she a folkie? He was too young to have experienced the sixties, but the multifarious manifestations of pop culture circa 1966 appealed to him, and an acoustic guitar was an unavoidable one. Its presence in Rabbi Rachel’s office made him like her more than he would have had she displayed, say, a banjo.
“Between dealing with the caterer and the DJ and the people coming in from out of town, it can turn into something you have to get through, as opposed to something you’re supposed to revel in. So I would say to you now … enjoy this. Nathan’s going to do great, he’ll chant his Torah portion, which we’ve been discussing …” Here she winked at Nathan and smiled at Marcus and Jan. Marcus liked the way she implicitly allied herself with his son. Perhaps the experience would actually have some resonance for the boy. He had thought Nathan’s main interest was in having a big party, so this was a new wrinkle. Marcus had never felt a connection to anyone in the religion racket in his life. Perhaps Rabbi Rachel would lead Nathan down a godly path that would actually serve him as he grew older, something Marcus had never experienced. The agnostic-leaning-toward-atheist in him was pricked by the nascent religiosity of his son, a boy still a step removed from the chaotic, often overwhelming reality that necessitated religion in the first place. Marcus was of two minds about this. He welcomed Nathan’s exploration of this half of his ancestral background, hoped that perhaps it could provide a concrete moral framework by which to live. But it also reminded him of the wind-blasted place where he dwelt, pondering his own flexible ethics, uncertain where he was heading. May Nathan be spared the darkness of doubt, Marcus thought.
“Nathan is learning the prayers, he’s working on his haftarah, and he’s going to be writing a sermon,” Rabbi Rachel said.
“I’m writing about Abraham,” Nathan informed his parents.
“The subject of Nate’s speech is determined by the time of year it is and where we are in the Torah,” Rabbi Rachel informed Nathan’s infidel father.
“I like Abraham. He’s cool,” Nathan said. He liked him? This biblical patriarch, this Father of the Jews, this willing participant in human sacrifice? Of his son, no less! Abraham was, in the estimation of Nathan Ripps, cool? Surely that was good. If Nathan believed Abraham to be cool, then perhaps he was buying into the deistic view.
Marcus relaxed a little.
“Nate and I are going to meet every few weeks to check on his progress, but it’s important that he do this. It’s his speech, and I like to ask parents to take a step back from the process. This is about your son becoming a man,” Rabbi Rachel said with a wry smile, indicating that she appreciated the unspoken irony of such a statement, given that Nathan barely looked twelve. The definition of man was malleable.
Nathan appeared eager at that moment, his face exuding an openness and energy that Marcus never would have associated with the present circumstances. Although the boy possessed his father’s physical DNA, the spiritual clay of which he was made seemed something else altogether.
When the meeting ended, Rabbi Rachel asked Marcus to stay behind for a moment. She asked him if he was Jewish, and he said he was not. He told her he was more interested in philosophy than religion, but he appreciated what religion could do for some people and was supportive of Nathan’s exploration.
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