by Judith Gould
“What’s the catch?” he asked. “Or the prize, for that matter?”
She gestured to the row of white porcelain sinks. “Do you know how one cleans dirt off one’s hands?” She watched his eyes carefully.
He gave a low laugh. “Every child of four knows that, Anouk. With soap and water.”
“No, Klaskins.” She shook her head. “By one hand washing the other.”
He stared cautiously at her.
“I do not think I need to tell you that Rubio’s position as Antonio’s number two is open?”
There. The juicy bait was dangling in plain view. She heard the sharp intake of his breath.
“What do you want from me, Anouk? We both know Antonio’s planned on offering the position to Edwina.”
She didn’t mince words. “A little favor. You see, Antonio was rather . . . indiscreet this morning. To put it coarsely, he was bent over his desk. Getting screwed.”
He stared at her. “I don’t see what that has to do with me.”
She walked over to the sinks, leaned into a mirror, and, turning her head this way and that, eyed her makeup critically. Reassured that her face was perfect, she turned back around. “You are known to be a very beautiful and very clever man,” she said.
A rare smile hovered on his sensuous lips. “And you, Anouk, are known to be a very beautiful and very devious woman.”
She met his gaze unflinchingly. “That’s right.” Her voice was hard as nails. “We have a lot in common, don’t we? Neither of us cares what we have to do as long as we get what we want.”
“And what is it that you want?”
Her gaze never faltered. “Doris Bucklin and Liz unexpectedly walked into Antonio’s office and caught him in flagrante delicto”
His eyes widened. “I see. Of course, you know I can’t do anything about that.”
“Oh, but you can.” She nodded definitely. “You can pretend it was you, and not Antonio, that Doris saw. And apologize to her for your behavior.”
He threw up his hands. “This is crazy! For once you’ve really gone too far, Anouk.” He couldn’t help laughing. “I mean . . . Antonio and I don’t even look vaguely alike! For one thing, I have long blond hair and he’s almost bald. Give the old hen some credit. She’s not that stupid.”
“Listen, Klas,” she said coldly. “Everyone in this town knows that Doris is a walking, breathing bottle of booze. Who is to say she doesn’t suffer blackouts? Or even hallucinations?” A faint smile crossed her lips. “God knows that whatever is pumping around in her system must be two-hundred-proof.”
“You fight dirty, Anouk.”
She shrugged negligibly. “I fight to win. Now, you know how small this town really is. If Doris tells any of her friends about what she saw, gossip is certain to spread like wildfire. Who knows? Antonio might even lose some customers. I do not want that to happen. However, if it looks like it might, I want all bases covered. That is where you come in. We will simply see to it that two conflicting stories are circulating—one about her catching Antonio, and one about her catching you.” She smiled sweetly. “That is the beauty of it, don’t you see? Nobody will know which version to believe!”
“You are positively shameless, you know that, Anouk?”
“Yes, I am. And yes, I know it.”
“And Liz?”
“I have already taken care of Liz.” She waited a moment. “Well? Will you help, or won’t you?”
“Dammit, Anouk, I don’t know,” he said, starting to pace back and forth with his hands in his trouser pockets.
She watched his reflection sliding back and forth in the silvery mirrors. The bright overhead fluorescents bathed him in a surreal brightness and, if it was possible, he seemed even more handsome in that usually unforgiving light. She could smell the sharp chemical odor emanating from the deodorant cakes in the urinals; catching sight of mashed cigarette butts and a puddle of urine on the floor, she averted her gaze in disgust.
Finally he turned back to her. “You’re asking for a lot,” he said quietly.
“I know that. But I intend to quash any potential scandal.”
His voice was ironic. “At any cost, no doubt.”
She was silent.
“I don’t suppose you’ve considered my reputation?” A sudden awareness came into Klas’s eyes. “Or doesn’t that count?”
“Your reputation will not suffer,” she assured him. “If you do exactly what I say, neither you nor Antonio will be touched by any scandal. I only intend to confuse the issue.” One of her hands reached out to touch his arm. “I will make it worth your while, Klaskins,” she said softly.
His eyes were as hard as hers. “Worth enough for me to fill Rubio’s position and get a fifty-thousand-dollar-a-year raise?”
Anouk swore under her breath. “Fifty thousand a year! You’re not only clever and ambitious, Klaskins. You’re positively greedy!”
“Not as greedy as you, Anouk,” he replied with a smile. “Well? Are we on?”
She smiled brilliantly, hiding her contempt for him, and held out her elegant hand. “We have ourselves a deal,” she said, briskly shaking on it. “The official announcement of your promotion will be made on Monday. Meanwhile, I have seen to it that the news has already been leaked to Women’s Wear Daily.”
He couldn’t keep the bitterness out of his voice. “You couldn’t wait until after you’d talked to me? You were that sure of yourself?”
She didn’t say anything.
“Just tell me one thing, Anouk. If I hadn’t agreed to do as you want, what would have happened then?”
Anouk wagged an admonishing finger. “You know exactly what I would have done, dear boy.” Her laughter tinkled musically. “Anouk giveth, and Anouk taketh away. Now, it’s time you started earning that hefty raise of yours,” she said dryly. “Start spreading the word that you used Antonio’s office for a tryst and that Doris walked in on you.” Her heels clicked swiftly as she marched over to the door and pulled it open. She turned around and looked back at him questioningly. “Are you coming?”
“I’ll catch up with you in a minute. I have to use the facilities first.”
“All right.” Her voice was suddenly hard and flat. “Klas . . . ?”
He looked at her.
“Don’t powder your nose too much. If you’re not careful, that South American shit will not only give you a deviated septum, it’ll make you lose everything you’ve gained.” Then the door shut behind her and he was alone.
Klas stared at the door. His coke habit was the last thing he’d expected Anouk to know about. Was there anything she didn’t know?
He waited another moment and then went shakily into one of the cubicles and locked himself inside. Fishing in his pocket, he withdrew a tiny brown glass vial filled with cocaine. Unscrewing the cap, he tapped a little mound out on the back of one hand.
It was his fourth snort of the day.
It was a fine send-off, as memorial services went. Rubio had been popular, his acquaintances many, from the highest to the lowest social strata. The folding chairs were packed, and the overflow lined the aisles at the sides of the Samuel I. and Mitzi Newhouse Gallery. Straights were rubbing elbows with gays, and well-heeled Upper East Siders were sitting alongside Rubio’s East Village cronies. There was a mixture of sorrow and anger on their faces. Many of those attending to mourn and remember were at risk in the same way Rubio had been, and only time would tell which way the health pendulum would swing for them.
The eulogies began, starting with Antonio’s. Then, one by one, Rubio’s friends and coworkers got up to express their sorrow and loss.
Edwina spoke last. She felt wilted from emotion and knotted inside. Tears provoked by the other eulogies streaked her cheeks. Everything she had been planning to say had already been said; she didn’t know what more she could add.
“There are those,” she began quietly, surveying her packed audience from the lectern, “who dare say that this dread disease which felled our frien
d is the punishment of a vengeful God.” The force of her voice surprised even herself; then it dropped an octave to a gentle whisper: “And then there are those, like me, who choose to believe that God is plucking some of his choicest, brightest blooms . . .”
“That was beautiful, Ma,” Hallelujah whispered when Edwina was finished and had returned to her seat. “That was really beautiful.”
Chapter 14
“Fantabulous! Absolutely super-faaabulous, baby!” Alfredo Toscani had to yell to make himself heard above the music pounding over the megawatt sound system. “Now, toss that delicious hair of yours like a weapon and kiiiccckk those beautiful legs in a sassy strut! Oh, yeah, baby. That’s it!”
Shirley whipped her head around to make her waist-long auburn hair fly, and as she kicked up her legs, the clothespins holding together the back of her borrowed skirt slipped off and clattered to the floor. Instantly the skirt billowed and began to slip down over her bony hips. With a cry, she caught it by the waist and tugged it back up.
Alfredo’s crack team proved they were all different parts of one well-oiled machine. Panther, the shaven-headed black girl, sprang forward to collect the clothespins and then pinched the skirt tight again; an assistant took Alfredo’s Hasselblad and handed him another that was loaded with fresh film; Victor, the in-house hairdresser, took the opportunity to jump forward with his brush and comb; Despina Carlino, the makeup artist, gently dabbed Shirley’s sweat-glossed forehead with a powder puff; and Slim Mazzola, the stylist for the shoot, fussed and tugged to get everything back to looking just so.
Shirley felt drained. The actual photo shoot had been in progress for less than twenty minutes, but she was ready to drop. She’d had no idea that modeling was this physical, or that the strobes were so blindingly bright and hellishly hot, or that one photographer required such a large staff. And to think that all this was just for her portfolio shots.
“Ready, baby?” Alfredo called out when the assistants finished their touch-ups.
Shirley nodded solemnly.
“Good.” Walking circles around her, the wiry little photographer tapped a finger thoughtfully against his lips. Then he brightened. “Tell you what. I think we’ve done enough full-body shots for the time being. What do you say we do some close-ups?”
Shirley nodded apprehensively and swallowed.
Sensing her tenseness, he put his arm around her shoulders in a friendly fashion. “First, we’ll start with some serious shots. Don’t worry. You won’t need to try to look serious. Just think back to something unhappy that’s happened in your life. This magic little box”—he patted the Hasselblad hanging from around his neck— “will do the rest. Think you can do that?”
Shirley nodded. Put that way, she decided, it didn’t sound difficult at all—she had more than her share of unpleasant memories.
Shirley was alone. Alone in that madhouse in front of which the blue neon cross flickered and buzzed. There was no one to rescue her. No one to come swooping down out of nowhere to carry her off to a paradise of love and laughter and kindness.
She survived the nightmare of home life by making herself as invisible as possible.
Then her beauty surfaced.
Brother Dan was not blind to the orchid flowering in his midst. Having long since wearied of his unattractive wife’s swollen ankles and stingy thighs, he awoke to the eminently more youthful and prettier flesh growing up right under his nose. For him, Shirley was a flower just waiting to be plucked.
His advances began with his “accidentally” brushing against her, but as time went by, he became more and more blatant. He would squeeze her buttocks. Grope her small boyish breasts. Feel between her thighs when her mother wasn’t looking.
A far more serious assault occurred two days after Shirley turned twelve—a sunny Friday in spring which she would never forget. Her mother was out that afternoon, peddling religious pamphlets on street corners, and Brother Dan made his move the moment Shirley came home from school. He was standing in the doorway of her room, blocking her path. The moment she saw the look in his watery, bloodshot eyes, she pressed her books protectively against her breasts and tried to make a dash past him.
With lightning speed his arm caught her around the waist and he pulled her against him.
A strangled sob caught in her throat and her books went crashing to the floor.
“You’re real pretty, Shirley, you know that?” His warm breath exploded against her face and the nauseating reek of bourbon and hair spray and sweat enveloped her like a miasma. Before she knew what was happening, one of his hands reached up under her skirt and he tried to kiss her.
Swiftly she averted her face and began struggling ferociously. As his clumsy lips landed near her left ear, she bucked and writhed and managed to squirm out of his grasp. Pushing him away, she made a desperate lunge for the stairs. But she wasn’t fast enough. His hand shot out and he caught her by her long loose hair, jerking her back toward him.
She gasped and tears of pain stood out in her eyes.
“Shirley, Shirley,” Brother Dan said in a resigned voice. “When are you gonna learn not to run away from me?”
“Please,” she begged, the tears streaming down her face. “You’re pulling my hair so hard it hurts.”
“You’re not gonna run away from me, girl!” he hissed. “You hear me?”
She tried to nod, and he let go of her hair. Without warning, a single swipe of his hand ripped her dress and slip down to below her thighs. The sudden chill of her nakedness raised goose bumps along the flesh of her arms and shoulders. Cowering, she covered herself ineffectually with her arms. Danger signals were clanging furiously in her mind—some primeval intuition told her that this time he wouldn’t be content to just grope her.
The next thing she knew, he was fumbling with his fly and his angry swollen red penis leapt free.
She backed away from him, steepled her hands in prayer, and in a babble beseeched God to make him leave her alone.
“Shut up!” Brother Dan roared, lashing out with an open palm.
She saw it coming and tried to duck, but too late. His hand caught her across the face and she went reeling, stumbling into her room, where she landed faceup across her bed, and bounced, the sweep of her arm clearing the lamp and her collection of ceramic figurines off the nightstand.
Brother Dan’s body seemed to block out the door. “You’d better not fight me,” he said quietly as he kicked the door shut and approached the bed. “Or you’ll be real sorry.”
She stared up at him, her eyes wide and afraid. “Please . . . don’t hurt me?” she begged in a small voice. “Please . . .”
He slapped her viciously again. “You shut up!” he snarled, and then he was atop her.
She bucked and twisted and tried to claw at his face with her hands, but after the first swipe he leaned one arm across her throat and the other on the pit of her concave belly. She was pinioned and near choking. For an instant she was aware that he was poised over her, seemingly suspended in midair; then her eyes went wild and she let out a scream as his hips swooped down and he put all his weight behind his penetration.
If there was any mercy in that terrible act of violence, it was that it did not last long. After half a dozen thrusts, an agony of his own seemed to overtake Brother Dan, and his eyes glazed over as a cry of animal anguish bellowed forth from deep within his lungs. She stared up into his loathsome contorted face and began to tremble. Shirley had never felt so filled with shame and hatred. She didn’t know which she wanted more—to kill him or die herself.
After he pulled out of her, he stood beside the bed and tucked himself casually back into his fly. “One word to your mother about this, and I’ll kill you,” he warned her grimly.
From that day on, Brother Dan abused her at every opportunity— and the assaults went undiscovered for three years.
Then, one day when Shirley was barely fifteen, Ruth returned unexpectedly early from her pamphlet peddling and caught her husband in Sh
irley’s room—in the midst of one of his shuddering orgasms.
“Mommy,” Shirley cried with relief. “I’m so glad you know! Now you can stop him from hurting me!”
But Ruth didn’t blame her husband. “You wretched girl!” she screeched, slapping Shirley so hard that her face burned and her teeth knocked together. “You Jezebel!” She punctuated each burst of words by giving Shirley another stinging slap. “You whore! You slut! Get out of this house at once and never come back!”
Shirley could only stare at her mother blankly. She didn’t know how to vindicate herself. She’d been convinced that her mother would save her.
Now she realized she should have known better.
Grimly Ruth thrust two plastic garbage bags at Shirley. “Pack up your things!” she snapped, her breasts heaving in fury. “And take everything you can carry. What you don’t take, I’ll burn, you loathsome creature! I never want to see you or anything of yours again!”
“But where am I supposed to go?” Shirley sobbed, her voice a keen of despair.
“I know where you’ll go eventually!” her mother snapped with satisfaction. “Hell! But in the meantime, you’ll find a place. Oh yes, I’m sure you will. Girls like you never have any trouble getting things from men, do you?” And then, after savagely stuffing the garbage bags full of Shirley’s belongings, Ruth pushed her daughter out into the night.
The moment the door slammed shut behind her, Shirley could hear the dead bolt being thrown with finality. She shivered and held her collar shut. A bitter wind was sweeping in from the sea, and it cut right through her thin, shabby jacket. It was late November, and the weather was turning cruel.
Having no place else to go, like many a homeless child, she headed into Manhattan to spend the night at the Port Authority bus terminal. Young, tired, hungry, and listless, she was easy prey for the city’s predators. Within one hour six different men tried to lure her away with extravagant promises. She rebuffed them all, and when one of them tried to steal her bags, she clutched them tightly against her. Finally a sweet-faced young girl came over to her. “Hey, honey. You look like the world’s collapsed on you,” she said gently.