Now that the initial rush of business success had dissipated, Jan nursed more reservations than she would have liked. The illegality of the operation still troubled her, and she had not entirely made her peace with the moral ambiguity. The palaver Marcus had been selling at the dinner party, though amusing to the other guests, made her question what they were doing all over again and her own part in it. After all, she was the one who said he was an investor. Now, along with the lingering guilt for which she was looking to do penance, Jan was concerned with how to retain a Van Nuys sensibility in their marriage when Smart Tarts was gushing Bel Air coin. “I have a confession to make,” she said. He looked at her quizzically. Then she told him about her donation to the earthquake victims. He smiled and squeezed her hand.
“I’m thrilled we can do that,” he said. “We’re going to make a chunk of money and invest it. Then we’ll take that money and spend it however we want. We can have a foundation and give it away if that’s what we decide.” This seemed to placate her, indicating, as it did, that his behavior would remain reasonable.
They glided off the hill toward Ventura Boulevard. Jan was pleased with how the evening had gone. Marcus had handled himself well, justifying her faith. Since the financial pressures had been relieved, Jan had been thinking of the myriad ways to enrich their lives. She considered getting a subscription to a series of plays, or planning a trip to Europe, but it was difficult to make that kind of time commitment given the unpredictability of their schedules. Now she had a solution.
“I want to start a book club,” Jan said.
Marcus turned onto Ventura and headed west. “Who are you going to get to be in it, some moms from school?”
“The Smart Tarts.”
“Really?”
“I have this idea. I thought we could read women’s books, classics that are hard to read on your own, like Anna Karenina. Did you ever read that?”
Marcus admitted he hadn’t. Jan told him he was welcome to be in the book club too.
They made love later that night, and Jan was pleased when Marcus noticed she had an entirely waxed undercarriage.
Chapter 17
Jan was vacuuming the living room on a May afternoon when Plum called. It had been a month since they’d spoken. There was no lingering animosity, but neither wanted to be reminded of their mutual failure at Ripcord and communion with the other would only reinforce it. Hence the subsequent radio silence. After a few minutes of idle chat, Plum let it drop that she was starting to stress about money. Atlas was behind in his alimony payments. Jan expressed supportive outrage and, in a spasm of guilt, offered to treat Plum to a day at Gentle, the female-only spa that had recently opened in Studio City.
A considerably thinner Plum greeted Jan there the next day. She had lost twenty pounds, as a result of ingesting nothing but Altoids and vitamin water for the previous month. She appeared tired.
“You look great,” Jan said.
“The misery diet,” Plum replied, trying to smile.
They were standing in the softly lit reception area. Silent attendants moved solicitously through the artful shadows. The stereo played an abstract tone poem by a pianist who sounded as if he had OD’d on Nembutal five minutes before the recording session. Jan hoped the environment would have a calming effect on Plum, who seemed on edge.
Jan had booked detox wraps, herbal spa baths, and something called a “tranquil mud experience” for them. Half an hour later, the two women, clad in white terry cloth robes, were seated side by side in large distressed-leather chairs in the Quiet Room, waiting for attendants to take them to their respective treatments. They were surrounded by similarly attired women sipping herb tea made with fresh mint or iced water with slices of lemon floating in tall glasses. In deference to spa protocol, they spoke in hushed whispers. Jan listened as Plum tried to convey the positive aspects of Ripcord’s closing, but the mixed emotions it had engendered were such that she was having trouble modulating her voice. She drew a hard look from the crisply attired blonde attendant charged with enforcing spa protocol.
After an hour of detox wrap, they were seated side by side, stark naked and completely enveloped in mud. A sprite sporting a name tag that said BEACON had smeared an earthen pudding from their hair-lines to the soles of their feet, and now the two women looked like jungle-dwelling creatures from some obscure island off the coast of Borneo, glimpsed in the pages of National Geographic. Having not seen Plum’s body recently, Jan had been amazed when her former partner undressed, confidently stepping out of her robe before having the muck applied.
The room they were in had terra-cotta tiles and a row of sparkling showers against one wall. Beacon had given them toothpick-like implements to clean the mud from beneath their fingernails and then excused herself, gliding out on cat feet.
Jan smeared a bare patch of elbow with mud. Satisfied that every inch of her was caked, she asked Plum what her plans were now that Ripcord had dematerialized.
“At least I didn’t get pregnant.” This response surprised Jan. Had Plum not been intent on exactly that? “I wanted a kid for all the wrong reasons anyway. It was like I was insane or something.”
“We all go through stuff.”
“I’ll still make art. I just want to find some way for it to pay.” Plum ran her hands through her hair and straightened her back. Then she said she well understood the things people did when faced with dire circumstances and no perceived means to ameliorate them. “Look at strippers,” she said. “But who wants to do that if they don’t have to?”
“What’s wrong with it? My mother’s taking a pole dancing class.”
“Where’s the artistic component? When I did nude modeling in art school, it had an aesthetic angle, so I could justify it to myself. And, to be honest, there was something about it … I kind of liked it, actually. You had power because no one could touch you. It was almost like worship.”
“It was a religious experience?”
“Ha-hah. No. But you’re on a pedestal. I like that. People can’t give you shit when you’re on a pedestal.”
“You could model again. I know it doesn’t pay a lot, but it might be a good way to meet some interesting people.” When Plum didn’t respond, Jan noticed that she was suddenly not looking well. “Are you all right?”
“I feel kind of…”
“What?”
Plum slid off the stool, and her head struck the tile floor with the sharp crack of a coconut smacking a cinderblock. Naked and mud-smeared, Jan rose and walked quickly to the hallway. She summoned Beacon, who arrived a moment later radiating concern. Beacon propped Plum’s head up on a pile of jasmine-scented towels while Jan slipped into a bathrobe. Poor Plum can’t even get through a tranquil mud experience without drama, Jan thought, covering her friend in a towel as Beacon took her pulse. Plum was still unconscious, although she appeared to be breathing. Satisfied that she had not expired, Beacon went to call an ambulance. Jan knelt next to the recumbent Plum, her knees uncomfortable on the wet tile. What had happened? Jan guessed it was a fainting spell. But had Plum compounded the problem with the blunt trauma to the head? The sound Plum’s skull made when it struck the floor had been sickening. How seriously was she injured? Right now she looked like she was sleeping. But wasn’t that what dead people looked like? Jan softly tapped Plum’s cheek.
“Plum … Plum … wake up,” she said quietly.
Plum’s jaw began to move and her eyelids fluttered. She slowly regained consciousness and said “I think I have mud in my twat.” That was a good sign. Jan laughed. Beacon returned with a tall glass of iced water with a lemon slice. Plum sipped it gratefully. But when she tried to get to her feet, she lay back down and complained of head pain.
“I’m really sorry,” she said to Jan. “You try and do something nice and I … did I faint?”
Beacon suggested that Plum try not to talk.
“Shut up,” Plum said. “I’m apologizing to my friend.”
By way of explanation, Jan to
ld Beacon: “She hasn’t had anything but Altoids and vitamin water for a month.”
“You really need to eat something,” Beacon said, undaunted.
“I’m sorry,” Plum said. “I apologize to both of you.”
The ambulance arrived quickly, and Plum was wrapped in towels, placed on a stretcher, and carried through the serene, neutrally toned lobby. The women waiting there barely looked up from the glossy magazines they were reading. As the ambulance sped toward the Valley Medical Center, Plum lay on the gurney still covered with the tranquil mud treatment. Jan was seated next to her in street clothes, fresh from the shower with the four different types of hair conditioner. She silently congratulated herself for having had the foresight to get cleaned off before the ambulance arrived. Plum now looked like a vanilla ice cream bar whose chocolate coating had been licked by a wolf.
She was taken into the emergency room, where Jan filled out the requisite forms. Returning the clipboard to the nurse behind the desk, Jan went in search of Plum. She found her ensconced behind a curtain in the ER, hooked up to an IV through which she was being hydrated. The section of her arm where the needle was inserted had been cleaned off. They had taken her towel, and she was wearing a hospital gown. She smiled at Jan, eyes and teeth gleaming in her dark face.
“I think the mud is a good look for me.”
Jan couldn’t believe Plum was making light of the situation. Jan asked how she was feeling. Plum said the nurse who admitted her had mentioned she might have a concussion and ordered a scan. She had not seen the doctor yet. Jan sat in the chair next to the bed and took Plum’s hand.
“I never know what to say to someone in a hospital bed.”
“I’m sorry you didn’t get your herbal bath,” Plum said, closing her eyes.
She reminded Jan of a Polynesian mask, a Gauguin figure as drawn by Modigliani. How does a person eat nothing but Altoids for a month? Plum had long said she could slim down, and had finally achieved her objective. Yes, it had resulted in her being prostrate and out cold on the floor of a day spa with a potentially serious head injury, but she was extreme. The woman could have survived the Donner Party.
Jan looked around the ER and wondered who else was there. Everyone was behind a curtain. You couldn’t see them, but you could hear them murmuring. It was quiet now, just people talking to friends and relatives. No howling, no cries of pain. Jan hoped they would do the scan soon. Nathan had to be picked up after school, but Plum needed her and she was already feeling guilty. Wasn’t that why she had invited her to Gentle in the first place? Jan noticed that Plum appeared to have drifted off to sleep. Was that a good idea? Weren’t people with head trauma supposed to stay awake? Couldn’t a person fade out and die as a result of some as-yet-undiagnosed brain injury? That was all Jan needed. A dead Plum would haunt her forever. Just as she was about to get up from her chair and find a nurse, Plum opened her eyes.
“So, tell me about this new business.”
“What new business?”
“The one Marcus is running.”
This was not a conversation Jan wanted to have. She was not as deft a liar as her husband. For her, a fib was an ethical compromise— it left a splinter in the soul that could only be excised by confession. It pained her to have to relate the litany of canards about the nonexistent dry cleaning business, to pretend that everything was normal at the Ripps home. Plum mentioned that she had taken a drive past the dry cleaner, and it didn’t appear to be open for business. Suddenly, Jan asked “Do you have insurance?”
“No.”
“I want to pay your hospital bill.”
“Forget it.” Plum shifted her head on the pillow and looked away.
“I kind of regret how I behaved with you … asking for the eggs … I shouldn’t have put you in that position. So thanks but no thanks.”
“You have bills, Plum, so maybe it’s a mistake to think something is below you.”
“What, like dry cleaning?”
Jan didn’t like the implicit superiority of Plum’s tone. So she leaned in and quietly said “Marcus isn’t a dry cleaner.”
“He’s not?”
The two women had shared any number of confidences over the years, and it had been difficult for Jan not to tell Plum about Smart Tarts. But a mixture of guilt, pique, and the vulnerability engendered by being in an emergency room loosened her tongue. When Plum looked at her, suddenly more interested, Jan said “He’s got these women working for him.”
“What do they do?”
“You know. They’re … working women. They … you know… work.” Jan’s expression, at once wry and culpable, suggested that no more questions need be asked.
“They work?”
Plum didn’t know what she meant. Was her mind was less agile than usual because of the blow to her head? Jan looked around to make sure no one was within earshot. Then, lowering her voice as if she was passing nuclear secrets, whispered: “He’s a pimp.”
“Figuratively?”
“Literally.”
“He’s not!”
“I know it’s hard to believe.”
“Get out!”
“But a family-values one. The girls have health coverage and retirement plans and everything.”
“Get out!” Plum’s voice sounded like the ringing of a slot machine. She suddenly remembered where they were and looked abashed. “You have to be kidding,” she said, far more quietly.
Jan told her everything, leaving out the story about dumping the dead body. Plum listened to the account in a stunned silence that only deepened when Jan began to detail her own complicity. The nurse, a pert, green-eyed blonde whose short hair evoked the crown of a baby bird, came in and said the scan would take place in a few minutes and was Plum comfortable? They didn’t hear her. She repeated her question at a louder volume, causing Jan to look up and say Plum was feeling much better. The nurse left to attend to another patient.
“When I found out, I totally flipped. And I mean totally. But then I started thinking about it. Remember in art history, the nineteenth-century French guys? Like Manet and Toulouse-Lautrec, Ingres and Delacroix…”
“Would you ever have sex for money?” Plum whispered.
“They painted tons of prostitutes,” Jan said, not certain whether she had heard Plum’s question correctly. “So there’s this tradition …” Jan was losing her train of thought.
“Would you?” Plum repeated.
“Would I …?”
“Olympia by Manet was always one of my favorite paintings,” Plum said.
“Toulouse-Lautrec loved prostitutes,” Jan said, trying to regain her footing.
“Would you have slept with Toulouse-Lautrec? What if you knew he’d paint you and that the painting would hang in some major museum?”
“Would you?”
“What if your marriage broke up because your husband was fucking a foot model, your store went out of business, you were in debt, and you didn’t want to work at Red Lobster? How about then?” It was as if this was something Plum had already considered. Before Jan could answer, a doctor appeared, wielding a clipboard. He was in late middle age, someone who had seen everything. When he beheld the mud-caked Plum, he pushed his tortoiseshell glasses up on the bridge of his nose.
“Oh, my,” he said. He took out a pen flashlight and told Plum to look at him while he beamed the light into her eyes. Then he played a Chopin nocturne on the back of her head. He asked Plum if they had ordered a scan and when she told him yes, he excused himself and said he would check on her later.
“Would you?” Plum said, picking up the conversation where they’d left off.
“Why, are you … would you?”
Plum thought about it a moment, rubbed her hands over her face. When she pulled them away, Jan noticed that her palms were flecked with mud. Then she nodded.
“You would not,” Jan exclaimed.
“Maybe I should talk to Marcus.”
“About what?”
“What do you th
ink?”
“Oh, Plum. That is not a good idea.”
Jan wished she hadn’t said anything about Marcus. She accurately attributed the momentary indiscretion to her own over-stimulated emotional state, but this insight did not make her any less angry with herself. Yes, she thought Plum might have been dying. Who, after all, could predict what a blunt trauma head injury might lead to? Internal bleeding, seizures, yes, even death. Yes. It happens. It wasn’t as if Jan had been entirely off base. But that was hardly an excuse. There are things a person must keep quiet about.
That night she did not mention Plum’s suggestion, nor did she say anything to Marcus the following morning before he left to play an early round of golf. But it was still rattling Jan’s cage as she drove Nathan to school. Telling a friend your alleged dry cleaner husband was a pimp—the ensuing inner cacophony was defeaning. But for the friend to then say she wanted to be a prostitute—the synaptic explosions that set off were of a significantly higher order.
Nathan was in the passenger seat reviewing vocabulary words for a Latin quiz and did not look up when Jan’s phone rang. A sense of frustration and woe overcame her as she listened to Plum’s incongruously cheerful voice inquiring whether Marcus had been informed of her request.
“Are you really sure you want to do this?”
“I think I have a good way to approach it,” Plum said. Jan could not begin to imagine what that might be, but she promised to talk to Marcus about it later that day.
Tool Box was the Los Angeles nightclub of the moment, and it was the location-to-be of Nathan’s bar mitzvah. Marcus and Jan were standing in the unadorned main room.
“The raw space is five thousand dollars. Then you have tables and chairs, linens and centerpieces … have you thought about whether you want a band or a DJ?” The speaker was Alison Clive and she appeared to be around thirty. Hipster-nerd eyewear raked across an oval face that was distinguished by a gold nose ring in her left nostril. Her hair appeared to have been cut with a garden tool and was streaked with a shade of green that belonged on a tropical fish. She was a party planner, someone to whom people turned when the fear of faux pas had loosened their billfolds. Alison held a clipboard to her flat chest as she talked to Marcus and Jan. “We’ve done a bunch of bar mitzvahs here and they’ve all gone gangbusters,” Alison said. “But I should tell you, I’ve been talking to another family about the date you want.”
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