The Wrath of Dimple

by Lucy Woodhull

  “Yes, it is. Do you think I became a model at fifty by quitting? Do you think I got a handsome, young, well-endowed second husband by quitting? Can you imagine what my third one will look like?”

  Diego flicked a worried gaze to me, but I just shrugged. He’d married her—I couldn’t help him. No one could.

  She continued giving me loving advice— “Samantha, I will not see you sink back into despair. You get those little bumpy stress zits, like after you didn’t make the cheerleading squad in ninth grade. Or tenth grade. Or eleventh—”

  “Okay!”

  “You were sad before you met Sam, and you’re sad now. Obviously, the solution is to go back to him! It’s not hard. Geesh—young people make everything so difficult.”

  “He doesn’t remember me!” I finally lost my temper and yelled. I tried to stand, but the toll of depression and all those fried cheese sticks had done something unpleasant to my muscles. I flopped back against the couch. “We’re strangers.”

  “That’s just silly. Nobody goes to Cuba to rescue a stranger. They have communists there!”

  My eyebrows came together, for they were as flummoxed by her logic as I was.

  “You have two choices. Go get him, or die alone.”

  “Those are my choices?”

  Suzie flapped her hands. “I’m going to stay here with you until you do the right thing.”

  I gasped.

  Diego gasped.

  Suzie smirked. “I thought that would get you going.”

  Oh, my God—the Suzie monolith had achieved self-awareness.

  I made it to my feet to face the grim quest before me. “What do I have to do?”

  “Take a shower, for God’s sake. What have you been eating? You’re too old to sleep in makeup—it gloms in your wrinkles. I’m putting you on a juice cleanse. You’re so puffy!” She took off her coat, tossed it in Diego’s direction, then bustled toward the kitchen. “Do lesbians even use juicers?”

  I ran to the bathroom and locked the door. I hadn’t lived under the same roof as Suzie since the day I’d left for Los Angeles, when she’d said, “Finally, I get a Suzie cave!” as she’d slammed the door in my face. She’d begun hauling my belongings out of my room a month before I’d left.

  While hot water sloshed into the bath, I peeled off my once-lovely dress and wondered…why wouldn’t lesbians use juicers?

  * * * *

  Ext: The Philadelphia museum of art—day.

  Angle On: Samantha Balboa wears a gray sweatsuit, her hands wrapped in white boxing tape. The air is frosty, and her breath puffs out before her as she jogs in place. She punches the air at the bottom of the steps to the museum. Her trainer, Suzie, looking gorgeous and decades younger than her age in a black skull cap, holds a stopwatch nearby.

  Suzie: You’re a bum, Samantha.

  Samantha Balboa: That’s not very nice.

  Suzie: I’m motivating you. I’m your trainer.

  Samantha Balboa: You’re very, very good at ‘motivating’.

  Suzie: I’m good at everything. Now—run up those steps, four at a time! Gotta burn an inch off that backside to re-win your husband!

  Angle On: Samantha huffs while she runs, but with her short legs, she can only manage two steps at a time.

  Angle On: Suzie, being carried up the steps by Second Husband Diego. They arrive next to a struggling Samantha.

  Suzie: Now the real training starts!

  Samantha Balboa: That wasn’t real?

  Samantha falls to her knees.

  Suzie: If you want to win a man back, you have to be the perfect woman. Get on the table.

  Angle On: Suzie points to a beige padded table on metal legs, beside which an Aesthetician in a white lab coat stands.

  Suzie: You’re getting waxed from stem to stern.

  Samantha Balboa: I don’t need to get waxed, I’m fine the way I am.

  Suzie: Samantha, we women are competing with porn stars for our men’s attention! That means we need to be plucked, painted, perfumed and sanded to within an inch of our lives.

  Samantha Balboa: Look, waxing is great, if you like it, but Sam has never complained— Did…id you say sanded?

  The aesthetician lifts up a portable wood sander. It whirs into life while a maniacal grin plays about her features. Samantha balls her fists and gets into a defensive crouch.

  Samantha Balboa: Maybe I could start with something else? You know, work my way up to being sent to the hospital?

  Suzie and Diego roll their eyes.

  Suzie: Fine.

  She claps her hands and a Doctor appears. He’s holding a syringe.

  Suzie: Give her the Botox, Doc. I want to achieve French teenager levels of perfection on that sagging face of hers.

  Samantha Balboa: No! I’m an actress. They pay me to move my face.

  Suzie: Do you think Nicole Kidman has that sort of attitude? It’s not how you act, it’s how you look! The same is true of relationships. Ask Diego!

  Angle On: Diego falls to the ground and begins doing pushups. Between each one, he claps and grins at Suzie.

  Second Husband Diego (muttering): There will be no third husband. There will be no third husband.

  Suzie: See? I have motivated Diego into stepping up his beauty routine! If your relationship isn’t driven by terror, it’s dysfunctional. I’m writing a book about it.

  Angle On: Samantha begins jogging in place again.

  Samantha Balboa: Um… I’m going to go for a run now. I’m definitely coming back here, though.

  Suzie: Liar. You know, your acting could really use improvement, dear.

  Samantha sprints down the steps. The aesthetician and the doctor start after her. Suzie points at her second husband. He scrambles to his feet and lifts her into his arms.

  Suzie: Onward, Diego! If you don’t catch her, I’ll go to Barbados with the sexy underwear model I met in LA!

  * * * *

  Over the next couple of days, I was forced to remind myself once a minute that my mother was trying to help me. The fact that it felt like medieval beauty torture sent me into the dark recesses of my fantasy land to avoid thinking about what was being done to me. One should not need a Percocet after going to the salon!

  I was used to a certain level of scrutiny, but Suzie’s army of sadists took it to a whole new level. My pores were scooped, my lashes were thickened, my eyebrows were threaded, my ass was buffed, and my nether regions resembled those of a Barbie doll. Suzie nearly turned herself inside out trying to force me to Botox my face, but I finally won out by threatening to chop my long hair into a pixie cut. Short haircuts on women were Suzie’s Kryptonite and caused her old-fashioned head to cave in.

  Maybe I’d still do it one day, just to get her.

  The days spent with her were oddly relaxing, in a hellish way. Being pampered was nice—when it didn’t fucking hurt—and in between criticisms, she gave me encouragement in getting Sam back. The whole thing brought us closer together, although when she left and put a few thousand miles between us, I wouldn’t mind. Too much.

  Before she left on Tuesday morning, D-Day, she gave me a hug and engulfed me in her powdery perfume. “You can do this, Samantha,” she told me. “You’re my daughter, and I’m wonderful! Some of me must have rubbed off in there somewhere.”

  I thanked her for the compliment she paid herself, and put her and Diego in a cab while shedding a tear or two.

  I ran my hands through my Brazilian-blown-out hair, set my manicured hands on my burnished hips, and squared my cashmere-clad shoulders.

  Time to get my man.

  Chapter Eighteen

  An Affair to Finally Fucking Remember

  I set about on my secret Tuesday mission in scruffy jeans, a long, black coat with a hood, and sunglasses. I’d hired a car for the day to store my sexy dress in—that’s what I would wear to meet Sam. Thanks to my mother, I was almost too glamorous for what I intended now, but I’d tried to cover my perfect makeup and amazing hair so that I wouldn’t sti
ck out at my destination.

  The Ninety-Nine Cent Store.

  Hood up, glasses on, I entered the place not too fast, not too slow. I’d thought about what Sam would do to case the joint, so I searched for security guards and cameras. No guards, not for this low-rent place in a non-cool corner of Manhattan, but I did see one camera near the checkout, well away from where I wanted to be. Good.

  I’d shopped in many a Ninety-Nine Cent Store in my time as a poor secretary aka un-hired actress. I was definitely not slumming amongst the dirty linoleum floors and overstuffed shelves—I was taking a time machine. Half my first apartment had been furnished from a store just like this, and I didn’t consider that to be a bad thing. I still stopped in occasionally to grab gift bags priced at two for ninety-nine cents instead of the five bucks a pop they wanted at the Duane Reade.

  I roamed the aisles searching for what I wanted, and I finally found it in a deserted area toward the back. Perfect.

  My stomach jumped into my brain, gave it a hard slap, and said, What are you doing? I ignored it. I was making a grand gesture. Okay, a cheap and silly gesture, but it wasn’t as if I could walk into the Met and grab a Degas. I didn’t have the skill set, or the ovaries.

  I picked up items from the shelf—a puzzle, a book, a framed picture. The frame was cheap as hell and the corners didn’t match up. I grabbed several of the items at once, and promptly dropped them.

  “Oh!” was my sound of false dismay.

  Nobody heard me—the closest person was a lady with two jabbering kids the next aisle over. The frame hadn’t broken, as there was no actual glass, but only a flimsy sheet of clear plastic. In one motion, I swept to the floor, scooped up the frame in my right hand, and the other items in my left. On the way up, facing the display, I noisily dropped everything on the shelf. Except for the frame, which now hid inside my coat.

  My contraband clasped against my belly, I coughed, using the motion to shove the picture into the front of my baggy jeans. My coat fell closed, and I walked away…down the aisle, and out of the door.

  I’d just stolen art.

  Correction— I’d just stolen ‘art’.

  I giggled like a moron, like Holly Golightly when she and her boy Fred lifted masks from the five-and-dime. As I slid into my car, waiting a couple of blocks away, I laughed out loud for much too long. The whole thing hadn’t taken ten minutes. I now had an hour to kill before I would meet Sam at the coffee shop he’d picked. I asked my driver Billy to take me back to Ellen’s place to change—much more comfortable than a phone booth, even for this super woman. Did they even have phone booths anymore in New York?

  I added another layer of makeup I didn’t need and slipped on the simple, long-sleeved red sweater dress. Figure-hugging, yet with a modicum of warmth. Black tights, red high-heel oxfords, and my black coat. I was ready.

  Ready too early. I sat not watching an old episode of Friends. It was on, but my mind strayed to Sam. I turned the pilfered picture over and over in my hands. At exactly fifteen until three, I went downstairs and got in the car again. Five minutes later, we idled in front of the coffee place. Breathing hard, I lingered, my palms sweaty. I shoved my ‘grand gesture’ in my bag and took a deep breath.

  Billy smiled at me through the rear-view mirror, his dark eyes shining, and said in a lilting Jamaican accent, “You look great. He’s lucky, whoever he is.”

  A nervous laugh fluttered out of me. “Thanks, dude. It’s my husband. I think he’s gonna dump me.”

  He shook his head. “Naw—you care too much. Men know how valuable that is. Oh, no, don’t cry!”

  I laughed and flapped my hands over my tear ducts. Billy knew what to say to get good tips. I grinned and stepped out of the car with my purse. A million things to say crowded my head, but I just put one foot ahead of the other until I got to the entrance. My hand reached out, and, as if from far away, I saw it open the door. My face felt numb, and not from the cold. A quick, desperate look around—I’d beaten him by, like, ten minutes probably.

  I got into line because I was too revved up to sit. I bought a giant latte, collected a bunch of sugars, and took them out to the car. I waited while Billy circled the block, but when he came round again, I passed the coffee through the passenger window. “Here. It’s so freaking cold today.”

  “Thanks, Ms Lytton.”

  “Samantha—I just told you my stupid sad story, after all.”

  He winked, and I went back inside. I didn’t want to buy my coffee until Sam arrived and I could get him one to bribe him into staying for at least ten minutes. I sat. I drummed my fingers on my purse, which I clutched too tightly. I waited. A couple of minutes later, one of the baristas approached me. “Samantha, right?” she asked.

  I nodded.

  “I was told to give you this.” She gave me an envelope.

  My hands shook, a lot, as I took it and thanked her. The lady lifted her eyebrows and smiled with a look I couldn’t identify.

  Was he seriously missing this meeting? Had I just gotten a Dear Jane letter? I stared at it, my eyes brimming with unwanted tears for long moments while I worked up the courage to open the damned thing.

  I nearly ripped it asunder in my desperation and slid out a plain, cream note card. In Sam’s hand, it read—

  Roses are red,

  So is your head,

  Meet me where we square-danced

  And you wore the stupid gingham dress.

  I’m not a poet.

  At least I know it.

  S.

  I made an inhuman squeaking sound, then started laughing. I looked up to see all three baristas surrounding my table and grinning at me. “It’s a treasure hunt!” said the lady who’d handed me the note.

  “Then get me a caramel latte, ’cause I’m gonna need it!”

  They cheered and went about their profession. I wiped the tears from my eyes. I’d shared a lot of little anecdotes with Sam, but I had not told him about hiding from gangsters at the Dress Barn in LA. We’d run there from the seedy motel he’d hidden me in the first night we’d ever hung out together. It had been my first kidnapping!

  I did a quick search on my phone, and there was a location about ten blocks away from us in midtown.

  My coffee in hand, the coffee shop cheering, I ran to the car. “Billy!” I cried. “I’m not being dumped. I’ve been sent on a treasure hunt!”

  He turned around. “For real? That’s something every driver dreams of, second to ‘follow that car’.”

  I was really starting to like this flattering genius. I told him where we were going. “Have you gone on a treasure hunt before?”

  “Nah, but on one very long night, Sean Penn took me on a tour of strip clubs.”

  I declined to ask him to elaborate.

  The rush hour traffic had begun glomming up our route, so it took a few minutes to get there. I finished my coffee, my joy zinging through my veins faster than the caffeine. Nobody would go through an elaborate treasure hunt just to dump someone at the end.

  I had a fighting chance. And he remembered. He remembered. He remembered, he remembered, he remembered, he remembered! Maybe not everything—the doctors had told us at every turn that the chance of that happening was slim to LOL. But maybe he recalled enough to keep me, and that’s all I really gave a shit about. We’d make new memories. Together.

  We pulled up to the Dress Barn, and I leaped from the car, Billy laughing behind me. I rushed into the store and…didn’t know what to do next. I started searching through the racks blindly to no avail. I’d just decided to ask a sales associate when I caught the eye of one. She inclined her head to the side once, twice. I followed her directions to the accessory area, where a white cowboy hat sat atop a table full of sale jewelry. I giggled and picked it up.

  On the underside, I found a note—

  Remember the gent

  Who painted the drunken clown?

  He brought you to me.

  (Hey, I wrote a haiku!)

  S.

/>   The Picasso. I hugged the smiling associate then ran back out to the car.

  “Where to next?” Billy asked.

  “I’m not sure.” On my phone, I searched for the harlequin that Sam had stolen from my old job at Steak on a Stick. That bastard clown had ruined my life, yet had also brought this amazing man into my life. Damn, it now hung in a museum in Barcelona, not New York. I slumped back into the seat.

  “What’s the clue about?”

  I said, “It’s about a Picasso painting, but that painting is in Spain, not New York.”

  Billy pulled into traffic. “Maybe it’s about a different Picasso?”

  “Is there a Picasso museum in NYC?” I searched for it—nothing. And there were too many New York museums that had at least one of Pablo’s efforts.

  “There’s a taco place named Picasso’s Tacos down near One World Trade.”

  I sucked in a breath. Sam—hell, everyone—knew my love for tacos and our cat! “Billy, you’re the best—let’s go!”

  It took a long time to get that far south, and the sun turned the streets into rainbows of sunset along the way. I gazed out of the window and thought about Sam, a steady stream of wishes and dreams in my head. I held the hat in my lap—a cheap cowboy hat just like the ones we’d danced in at the Dress Barn while hiding from our pursuers. My thoughts kept me warm, but didn’t keep me from shaking.

  Full dark had descended by the time I jumped from the car to run inside the taco place—just a simple storefront. The man behind the counter handed me an envelope the moment I walked in. “It comes with this,” he said, holding up a shredded pork taco on a paper plate. “Sit—eat!”

  I did as he’d told me, and I ordered one to go for Billy. Mmmmmm it was warm and savory, and reminded me that I’d been too nervous to eat today.