The Art of Undressing

by Stephanie Lehmann

  He snapped at me. “Why are you so goddamned negative?”

  Maybe I’d leave this place and never come back. That would show them!

  After my cheese platter was done, Jean Paul had me join Tara piping out rosettes of butter. When he left the room, she said, “This would encourage dairy consumption, don’t you think?” I looked on the table in front of her. She’d piped two big breasts of butter complete with nipples. Ralph laughed. Even Tom laughed. She quickly scraped it off before Jean Paul returned and eyed us suspiciously. He passed behind me. I thought my rosettes were pretty good. My hands didn’t even shake while he leaned over my shoulder.

  “It iss time for lunch.” He scraped softened butter from the mixing bowl and flung it onto the table in front of me. It landed like a humongous splat of bird shit. “Stay and do a hundred more. The rest of you, out!”

  I was smoldering. More humiliation! It wasn’t fair. I leaned over the table and did some more, but everyone was gone and it was totally absurd. After doing about fifty more, my back was aching. I straightened up, stretched my waist to the right, to the left, cracked my spine. Why was I doing this? Jean Paul would never know if I finished, and even if he did, he’d only see what was wrong, not what was right. There was no point to this pointless exercise, no point in going on at this school. He would never let me into the Master Class. I was wasting my father’s money, so why did I even bother to come anymore?

  I went to the refrigerator where my swan bodies were waiting to be filled with cream. The tray of necks was right underneath.

  Underneath the necks, I saw Tara’s tray of biscotti. She’d already baked them off. They just needed to be thawed out and served. Oh, the temptation. The temptation to take them and dump them into the garbage. That would feel so good. For about a moment. But really, who cared about her stupid biscotti anyway? Probably not even her.

  I took out my own trays and slid them onto the table. They looked good. Professional. At least, I thought so. No one else would, though. Jean Paul would insult them, just like everything else I did. Because everything I did was intrinsically ugly, wasn’t it, because it was done by me. Yes, I think I finally understood. That was the message. What was it Tom had said? Of course I was into it. She’s a professional! I was just an amateur, though, and always would be. I started smashing the bodies to bits. Crushed each one using the palm of my hand. Scrunched them in my fingers until they were pebbly little bits and pieces. Then I took every single neck and pressed on it with my thumb till it cracked in half. How could I have let myself think, for one moment, that he would ever appreciate me? My eyes were stinging with regret even as I was indulging in my misery. My new recipe. Choux paste crumbs. Just add tears and stir.

  I’d never been to my father’s office before. The secretary didn’t know who I was. She probably didn’t know I existed. But I insisted on seeing him. She led me in. I sat across from him and balanced my knife roll on my knees. Between us was a huge modern wood desk that was layered with papers and folders and thick law books. It was not the time to think about affairs and betrayal. Not the time to ask how Emma was doing. It was the time to let him know I was a flop and a failure. A bad investment.

  “I’m quitting school.”

  He leaned back in his black leather chair—the kind with thick arms and a back that went higher than his head. “You don’t want to be a chef anymore?”

  “No.”

  “And what do you want to be?”

  “I’m going back to the idea of getting a law degree.”

  “Really.”

  “I want to do some good in the world. Help other people.”

  “Sounds idealistic.”

  “Is that bad?” To the left of his computer was an eight-by-ten, black-and-white photograph of Leah. Next to that was a color snapshot of Emma.

  “It’s not easy.”

  “You don’t think I can?” And why should he? I’d backed away from law before. But this time would be different. I’d work really, really hard. Steel myself up to study like a fiend for the dry, boring, tedious classes. Make myself passionately interested in the constitution, the federal government, public policy . . . I would even make myself wear those stupid skirt suits.

  “I thought you wanted to make pastries.”

  “I did.”

  “What happened?” he asked. “You didn’t get into the Master Class?”

  Obviously I wasn’t going to impress him by following in his footsteps. “I want to help women who’ve worked in the sex business.”

  This seemed to amuse him. “Help them?”

  “To get out. Recover. Find better lives.”

  He leaned back in his chair. Crossed one ankle over the other knee, exposing a patch of skin between his sock and his cuff. It was white and hairy. “And how do you think you’ll do that?”

  “Change the laws, for one thing.” I met his eyes. “So the guys who go to them are just as culpable if not more so.”

  He leaned forward. “Forget about your idealism. Women who work in the sex business like it. If not, they get out. No one makes them do it. Sure, there are the self-destructive ones, but the laws won’t help them. They need counseling, and even that probably won’t help. For the most part, these women are shrewd. Like your mother. She hasn’t suffered, has she?”

  I didn’t know how to answer that.

  “They don’t need your help, Ginger. If anyone needs help, you do. What went wrong with cooking school, anyway? I paid a lot for your tuition. Now you want to quit in the middle of the semester? You’re never going to succeed if you don’t finish what you start.”

  “The chef hates me.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know! He has from day one.”

  “Maybe you should ask him before you go and quit.”

  “I tried to talk to him. It didn’t help.”

  “Then try again. Show him that you care.”

  This was too much. “What do you know about ‘showing you care’? I’m your flesh and blood and you never cared about me!”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You stayed away! Throughout my entire childhood!”

  “I was staying away from Coco, not you. I couldn’t be associated with a woman like that. What do you think it would’ve done to my reputation if people at the firm knew about her?”

  “Nothing!” I was almost hyperventilating; it was so thrilling yet scary to be finally confronting him. “They wouldn’t have cared. They would’ve thought it was cool! That’s what my friends always thought.”

  “Don’t try to lay this on me. You’re upset about school, and that has nothing to do with me or anything I did or didn’t do. So my advice—”

  I sat erect. “I’m not asking for your advice.”

  “You took my money, young lady, you’ll take my advice! Don’t expect it to come easy. Nothing of any importance comes easy! It takes commitment!”

  I stood up. “Oh, yeah? If you’re so big on commitment, what about your commitment to Leah?”

  “What?”

  “I think you know what I mean.”

  I looked down at him from across the desk. He was silent, but his guilty face betrayed him. At least he had the decency not to deny it. “If taking your money means taking your advice, I’d rather get a job churning out donuts at Krispy Kreme.” I turned and walked out. As I passed the secretary, I had a twisted half smile on my face. This had to be considered a partial victory. I’d finally had a fight with my father. I’d never felt more like I was his daughter. Too bad I also wanted to murder him.

  chapter thirty-six

  “ d on’t you have the banquet tonight?” Coco was surprised to see me come home.

  “I’m not going.”

  “Why not?”

  I just wanted to get to my room. She followed me down the hall.

  “Ginger. What’s going on with you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Why did you take off last night?”

  “I’m sorry!”

&
nbsp; She followed me into my bedroom. I threw my knife roll on the floor. Took off my sneakers, got in bed with all my clothes on, and put a pillow over my head. I’d never had a lock on my door, and it was long overdue. On second thought, that would imply I was settling in for the long haul. What I really needed was another door in another building in another city . . .

  “Fine,” she said, turning to go. “But if you want to talk about it, I’m all ears.”

  I took the pillow off my head. “Did you know,” I blurted out, “that Ben was unfaithful?”

  She turned back around. “What?”

  “He cheated on Leah.”

  “Really? Do tell.” She sat down on the edge of my bed.

  “Maybe I shouldn’t.”

  “Come on, I live for this.”

  I winced. She was joking. Sort of. And that’s just what I didn’t want to play into. Please her by hating him. But I felt the need to bounce this off her. Get her particular point of view. So I explained all about the diaries, and what he’d done, and how Leah had suffered. “It just gets me so mad. It seems like he didn’t even feel bad about it. In a way, that’s the worst part. He barely apologized to her. He basically said it wouldn’t have been a problem if she never found out.”

  “That is sort of true.”

  “You’re defending him?”

  “I’m just not judging him.”

  “You hate Dad for all sorts of reasons. For this you choose not to judge him?”

  “Maybe she wasn’t giving him any, and he had to find someone who would.”

  “What if she wasn’t giving him any because he was a lousy lover?”

  “Then it was her job to teach him to be a good lover.”

  “For some women,” I said, “it’s not so simple.” I was seething inside. “It’s not so mechanical. They need an emotional connection.”

  “Are we talking about you now?”

  Well, we certainly aren’t talking about you. Thought, not said. I kept my mouth shut. There was no winning here. If she knew I let my feelings interfere with my desire for sex, she’d really feel like a failure as a mother.

  “Jesus,” she said, taking my silence as a yes. “I would’ve thought if I taught you anything in life, it’s how to enjoy sex.”

  “And anyway,” I said, “you’re blaming the victim! As if it’s Leah’s fault the ‘poor’ guy had to cheat. Don’t you think faithfulness is important? Doesn’t it mean anything to be faithful?”

  “There are two sides to the story. Leah wasn’t perfect. I know you like to think she was, but she wasn’t. So cut your dad some slack, okay? That’s all I’m saying.”

  Maybe she was refusing to judge my father because of her own past. Maybe she hadn’t actually slept with her customers . . . but she’d certainly entertained scores of men. Married men. Men like my father.

  Maybe she had slept with them. I never had been sure of how far she went. Never asked her directly. Never wanted to know for sure. But maybe it was about time I did know the truth.

  “Mom?”

  “Yes?”

  “Did you ever . . .”

  “What?”

  “Have sex. With men. For money.”

  Coco fluttered her eyelashes and spoke like a Southern belle. “Why, I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean!”

  “Did you?”

  She got up off my bed. Went to fluff her hair out in the mirror. I waited for her to speak. Didn’t move. My ears seemed to stand at attention.

  “It was always an option. You give a guy a lap dance. He tells you to call him. Maybe he’s not bad-looking. Maybe he says he’ll take you shopping. Make it worth your time. So you go out. Have dinner. Go to a hotel. Have sex. He gives you five hundred bucks. And you never see him again. Or maybe you do the same thing all over again. And again. And again.” She laughed. “Lots of girls did it.”

  “But did you?”

  She groaned. “You wanna know? Okay. There was one man. He was loaded, he was handsome, he was married, and he liked anal sex.”

  “Too much information.”

  “His wife refused to do it! That’s why I’m telling you, you need to be flexible.”

  “Thanks.”

  “He spent a shitload of money on me.”

  “That’s nice.”

  Her eyebrows were raised, her hip was jutting out, and she was grinding a stiletto heel into my old blue rug, waiting for me to say something disapproving. But I was so tired of being disapproving. It never seemed to get me anywhere.

  “Look,” she said, seeing the distress on my face. “It lasted about six months. After awhile, I realized it was making me feel like crap. I told myself absolutely no more of that, never again. Lots of the girls . . . I’d see them doing it for money on the side—eventually they’d self-destruct. I wasn’t gonna go there. I had to draw the line, or I never would’ve lasted.”

  Well. Okay. That wasn’t completely horrible. And she was intact. Had come through more or less unscathed. Maybe Leah had been right. Maybe Coco really was a strong person. “This is all so ridiculously backwards. I’m the kid. I’m the one who’s supposed to be in rebellion. I’m the one who’s supposed to have you disapproving of me. But how can I possibly earn your disapproval? By being an uptight prude? Great. That’s lots of fun. Just what I want to be. It’s impossible! You’re an impossible mother to displease!”

  She tried not to laugh. Maybe it was funny. “You irritate me sometimes. You don’t wear makeup. Or heels. And you really do need new bras.”

  “Great. I’m rebelling against my mother by letting my breasts sag.”

  She laughed. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to laugh. You’re so important to me.” She sat next to me, took my hand, and squeezed it. “You know that, don’t you?”

  “I guess. But . . .” I felt my eyes tear up. Forced out the words. “I never was as important as the men.”

  “Are you kidding? Of course you were.”

  I shook my head. The tears came.

  “Ginger. Honey.” She put her arm around me. Gave me a hug. “That was my job.”

  “And you were a workaholic.” I made an unattractive snorting sound.

  “You are the most important person in my life.”

  The moment she said that, I knew it was true. In a sense, it was all I’d ever wanted to hear her say.

  Now that she’d said it, I realized how scary it was for it to be true. The most important. That’s a lot of responsibility. Where was Jack when I needed him?

  “I know it wasn’t easy growing up with me,” she said. She gave me a tickle in the ribs. “When it comes to sex, I set the bar pretty high, huh?”

  “Yeah. I mean . . . I’m hopeless. An amateur. I can’t have sex without feeling emotionally involved. It has to mean something, or I just don’t want to do it.” We were both half joking, but still, on some level, it was the truth, and I really did feel like I was admitting to being a wimp.

  “Hey. If you want to go around having meaningful sex, that’s fine with me.”

  “Do you really mean that?”

  “Yes!”

  “You aren’t just saying that?”

  “Just don’t be surprised when you get hurt. Sex with feelings is a risky business, let me tell you. God knows, I was never good at it.”

  “So . . . you won’t lose respect for me if I only have sex with someone I really care about?”

  “Hey, look. If that’s what you really want . . . I’ll just have to deal with it. But I just have to say, honey, you take sex so seriously . . . and it doesn’t have to be that way. Maybe someday you’ll relax and have more fun with it, because, I’m sorry, but you don’t know what you’re missing.”

  I sighed. It was annoying to hear that, but on some level I knew there was truth in there. And I did know what I was missing. I was missing Tom. I was missing the banquet. I was missing the chance to present my beautiful swans. I told Coco all about how I’d killed them off. “Jean Paul will never let me into the Master Class now.”


  “Do you have time to make something else?”

  “He assigned things.”

  “So?”

  “The banquet is about to start.”

  “Dessert comes at the end.”

  “I can’t just walk in there with my own dessert.”

  “Why not? If you don’t give it a shot, you’re gonna go back there tomorrow, face all those people, and feel like dirt.”

  “Dirt?” I stood up. “That’s it! I do feel like dirt.”

  “That’s good?”

  I kissed her on the cheek. “Yes!” I said, “it’s very, very good.”

  This was a route I could take with my eyes closed. I ran down the stairs, down the block to the corner grocery, and headed straight to the cookie section. Grabbed two packages of Oreos. Next, the refrigerator for a tub of soft cream cheese and a stick of butter. Then what . . . yes . . . please god, let them have it . . . instant chocolate pudding. There it was, high up on the top shelf. Four packages. What else did I need? Back to the refrigerator. A carton of milk and heavy cream. Did I have time to whip it up? I looked at my watch. Not really. I grabbed a can of Reddiwip. Anything else? Think. No time to forget and come back. This was it. I went to pay.

  The very same woman who’d worked behind the counter when I was a kid was behind the cash register. I’d never known her name. But there she was. Standing in the exact same spot, flanked by shelves of cigarettes, batteries, phone cards, condoms, and aspirin packets.

  “How are you?” she asked.

  “Good, thanks. How are you?”

  “Good!”

  That’s what we always said. No variation. I considered asking her name. Hesitated. Why change the routine after all these years? On the other hand, why not? “What’s your name?”

  “Name?” I’d startled her. “Rose.”

  “Rose. Hi. My name is Ginger.”