West 57

by B. N. Freeman

  I should have said no. It was a crazy day. I didn’t want to fit in a meeting with Helmut, even though the Gernestier building, which is practically around the corner from me, is like visiting the Ritz. He probably has a driving range in his office with a multimedia simulator. You can do book deals around the world and play St. Andrews at the same time. I could work there, if I wanted. I could make a lot of money. I could pick the authors I liked.

  Libby Varnay. Not King Royal.

  Morningside Park, not Captain Absolute.

  I didn’t know if I would say yes to his offer, and I didn’t know if I would say no, but it was my choice. How dare Garrett tell me I was letting other people make my decisions. No one decides for me but me.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Yes?”

  “Yes, let’s open some champagne.”

  “And talk?”

  “And talk,” I said.

  We set a time in the early afternoon. I hung up the phone. I looked up, expecting to hear Sonny bellow at me for betraying him. I couldn’t meet with Gernestier. I couldn’t dream of handing his house to an accountant like Helmut. Are you crazy, darling girl? Instead, I was alone in the office. Just me.

  Maybe my little ghost fantasies were over. Maybe I was on my own now, and I had to make my own way.

  If only I had a clue where I was going.

  27

  I arrived at the Gansevoort early to collect Bree and King for the big bookstore event. My phone rang as I was paying Farouk, and it was my mother calling.

  “Julie! Where are you?”

  “At King’s hotel, mother,” I said.

  “Perfect, so am I. Come see me.”

  “You’re at the Gansevoort? Why are you at the Gansevoort? You always stay at the Pierre.”

  “That’s true, but Bree raved about this place and all the pretty young things, so I decided to try it. It’s only a couple nights. Some of us are not locked into routines where we cannot change a single thing in our lives without complaining about it to everyone who will listen.”

  Ouch.

  “I’m pretty busy, mother.”

  “Room 614, my dear. See you in a minute!”

  She hung up. Me being me, I gave in and took the elevator to the 6th floor.

  Cherie’s door was propped open on one of those metal security rods. I knocked softly and then entered. It was a suite, like King’s. Remnants of mimosas and croissants sat on a tray at the dining table. Enya was playing on an iPod dock. I called out, “Mother?”

  “In the bedroom, my dear.”

  I wandered into the king-sized bedroom and said, “Oh!”

  My mother lay face-down on a special massage table. She was stark naked except for a towel the size of a postage stamp draped across her backside. Two Swedish masseurs as large as Shrek tended to her body, one placing hot black rocks on her legs, the other sliding his meaty hands down the glistening, greasy skin of her back. The men wore form-fitting shorts and form-fitting t-shirts, and it was impossible not to notice that they had nice forms to fit.

  “Hello, Julie!” my mother called cheerily. Her voice was a little muffled, because she was talking through a hole in the table.

  “Couldn’t this have waited until you were decent, mother?”

  “Oh, I’ve seen you naked often enough, what’s the problem? Say hello to Erick and Pieter.”

  “Hello,” I said.

  Erick and Pieter smiled at me with very white teeth. I’m not sure they spoke English.

  “If you like, they’ll do you next,” Cherie said. “Strip down, and you can have a shower after.”

  “No thanks.”

  “It’s very relaxing. They have amazing fingers.”

  “I’m sure they do, but no.”

  “Well, I suppose you’re already pretty relaxed,” Mother said, giggling. “I saw the photos in the paper. It’s about time, my dear! Overdue!”

  “I really don’t want to talk about this.”

  “Oh, don’t be such a prude. There’s nothing to be embarrassed about. Was it wonderful? You always used to rave to me about the sex with Thad and what a stud he was in bed.”

  “I did no such thing,” I said.

  “No? Well, maybe I just assumed it was wonderful. Anyway, Thad sounded happy when he called me this morning.”

  “Thad called you?”

  “To talk about business, my dear, but I’d already seen the newspaper. I grilled him for details, but never fear, he was very discreet. He says you’re meeting him this afternoon to go over a few scripts. Excellent. Of course, my advice is that you save the scripts until next week in L.A., and you two can get in a quickie before the show.”

  Ninety seconds with Cherie, and I was already exasperated.

  “Do we really need to talk about my sex life in front of Erick and Pieter, mother?”

  “Oh, you don’t mind, do you, boys?”

  They both said “No, ma’am” in unison. I guess they did speak English.

  “I mind, mother.”

  “Oh, fine, such delicate sensibilities you have. We’ll take a break, shall we? Wait in the living room, boys, and keep your fingers limber.”

  Erick and Pieter gathered up the rocks from my mother’s back and smiled at me as they left. As nimble as a thirty-year-old, my mother pushed herself up on the massage table and sat, nude, with her legs pedaling like a bicycle. She had not a wrinkle to be seen on her golden skin, and her breasts were perkier than mine. However, her body has had plenty of surgical assistance, and mine is still the way God made it.

  “Do you want a robe?” I asked.

  “No, I’ll just get it oily. Really, my dear, when did you become so conservative?”

  “I’ve always been conservative.”

  “Well, we’ll loosen you up on the coast.”

  “What’s this about L.A. next week?” I asked. “We haven’t talked about that.”

  “What about it? I head home tomorrow. Thad goes back to Cali next week when his run in the play is up. I figured you could come with him, and the three of us could talk about the studio.”

  “I never said I was moving to L.A., mother,” I told her.

  “Did I say you were? I said talk. It doesn’t hurt to talk. Of course, once you spend time at Thad’s beach house, you’ll never want to leave.”

  “Thad and I are not an item. It was one night. It probably won’t happen again.”

  “Julie, are you a member of some sect that focuses on self-deprivation? For most of us, there are few problems in life that cannot be eased by the insertion of a male sex organ into one’s vagina, but apparently you are an exception to the rule. Was it really so bad?”

  “I never said it was bad. It was good. It was what I needed. I’m just saying it doesn’t change anything.”

  “Sex changes everything, my dear. It always does.”

  I sighed. “Are we done, Mother? I have to go.”

  “Yes, yes, the bookstore event. Bree is very excited. She’s convinced Captain Absolute will enter the Times list at #1. That’s marvelous. Your father would be proud.”

  I didn’t gush about the book, and Cherie noticed my lack of enthusiasm.

  “What’s wrong? You’re not still worrying about this nonsense with Sonny, are you? I told you to give that up.”

  “It’s not that simple. Did Bree tell you that we were grilled by an FBI agent this morning?”

  “Oh, she mumbled something about an accident involving some reporter. Sounds like nothing. The death of a tabloid reporter is much like a long-awaited bowel movement. Both involve removing crap from this world, and both are cause for relief.”

  “Mother!”

  “Critics and reporters don’t elicit much sympathy from me, my dear.”

  “This reporter was doing a story about Irving Wolfe, King Royal, and Sonny.”

  “Well, Sonny hardly came back from the Great Beyond and ran him down, did he?”

  “I’m just saying it’s suspicious.”

  “I agree!
When we do the movie, we should work it in somehow. Tell the story in flashbacks, use the rumors as part of the script. Is Wolfe alive? Is there a fortune to be found in some musty safe-deposit somewhere? Did this reporter find the truth and meet an untimely end? I like it.”

  “This isn’t a movie.”

  “I realize that, but you didn’t kill the man yourself, did you?” Cherie asked.

  “Of course not.”

  “Then I don’t see how it concerns you, my dear.”

  I sighed again. “I have to go, mother,” I repeated. “Was there something else you wanted to tell me?”

  “Only that I understand you’re meeting Hellmoooooooooot again this afternoon, and I wanted to chat to you before you chatted to him.”

  “Where on earth did you hear that?” I asked.

  “From Helmut, of course. I’ve done deals with him. Remember that weird little Japanese anime film I did that made a fortune? Gernestier had the rights. So Helmut and I go way back. Of course, he knows we’re rivals on this deal. He wants you for Gernestier, and I want you for me.”

  “I’m not a free agent third baseman, mother.”

  “No, you’re much prettier than that, my dear. So what are you going to tell him?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “Why not?” Cherie demanded.

  “I haven’t had time to decide. I’ve had other things on my mind.”

  My mother clucked her tongue at me. She climbed off the massage table, and even averting my eyes, I couldn’t help but notice that she was plucked bare in sensitive places. This is not the kind of thing you really want to know about your mother. She patted my face, and her capped teeth smiled.

  “I love you, Julie, and I want the best for you.”

  “I know that.”

  “I’m offering you a better life. Money, travel, romance, power. Warm days, cool nights. Truly, it’s paradise out there. What’s not to love?”

  “I didn’t say no, mother.”

  “Then say yes. Look, Julie, I understand this is hard for you. You’re still grieving your father. However, sooner or later, you are going to have to make some decisions about your life. You are procrastinating, and you can’t walk in place forever, not when West 57 is dying. Helmut is going to want you to decide. I’m going to want you to decide.”

  “I will decide,” I said. “But I’ll make the decision. Me, not you.”

  Cherie shrugged. “I wouldn’t have it any other way. This is your call, my dear. Just make the right decision, all right? Pack your bags for L.A., and I’ll start condo hunting for you when I get back tomorrow.”

  I hate it when Garrett is right. I wasn’t calling the shots in my life. Cherie was.

  My mother returned to the massage table and climbed on, stomach down, inserting her face into the hole again. “Send the boys back in on your way out, will you? Good luck at the bookstore today! I hope you get a crowd!”

  28

  We got a crowd.

  You’d have thought that someone really important and influential was in the store. You know, like a Kardashian. Usually, author events at bookstores are depressing affairs. It’s the writer, a bookseller or two, the author’s spouse, and a couple homeless guys sleeping in the back row among a hundred empty chairs. The author poses for a photo next to a big stack of books, and the store returns them to the publisher the next day. Writer egos are fragile to begin with, and they usually walk out feeling like perfume spritzers in the mall.

  Not today.

  We had five hundred people bulging out onto Fifth Avenue. Maybe more. It’s a two-story store, with an event space upstairs. The crowd filled the upper level, trailed down the stopped escalator, and swelled into a bubble on the outside sidewalk like they were trying to get into the Top of the Standard. You have to give King credit. Most of these people probably didn’t know who Irving Wolfe was. They were here for the man who sang Assy McHattie on YouTube and moonwalked with Whoopi on The View.

  In two days, King Royal had become a pop phenomenon.

  “More books,” Bree said over and over, like it was her mantra. “We need more books! I’m going to see if they can courier another couple hundred copies from across town. This is freaking amazing!”

  Yes, it was amazing. It was chaos on the way to becoming anarchy, and the customers just kept coming.

  The crowd swallowed up Bree as she went hunting for a store manager. I stood next to King in the back room, peering out at the sea of people. They’d taken us through the loading dock entrance to avoid being mobbed. King studied the people through a crack in the stockroom door. He had his arms folded over his chest and a solemn expression on his face.

  “Nice crowd, King,” I said, which was an understatement.

  “Yes, the Captain would be proud.”

  “You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to,” I told him. “You could just sign books.”

  That was wishful thinking. If King didn’t talk, there would be a riot. These people were here because they wanted to hear the next thing out of his mouth. He was like an uncensored love child of Donald Trump and Lady Gaga.

  “Oh, no, I must address them,” King said.

  “Well, it’s going to take a few hours just to get through the book line, so keep it short, okay? Fifteen minutes is fine.”

  “It will take as long as it takes, Julie Chavan.”

  “We’ll start in five,” I said.

  “Yes, I must ready myself.”

  “Do you have to pee?”

  “No, but I require privacy to gather my thoughts.”

  “Of course,” I said. He probably had to pee.

  I left King in the stock room. On the sales floor, the booksellers had erected a velvet rope barrier to keep the crowd back and carve out a little niche with a podium and signing table. The people were impatient. The buzz was loud. I checked out the crowd and saw lots of tattoos and muscle shirts and an odd mix of scantily clad twenty-somethings and middle-aged women who looked as excited as if they were at a Tom Jones concert. I hoped no one tossed panties.

  The mob scoped me out as someone in charge and shouted questions.

  “Will he sign my breasts?” asked a blonde near the front of the rope.

  “No.”

  “How about my ass?” asked the man next to her.

  “No.”

  They groaned with disappointment. I fought my way to the balcony overlooking the first floor and saw a party going on below me. From Reference to Cooking to Mystery/Thriller, there was hardly an open square foot of real estate inside the store. Most people carried little red bags with their copy of King’s book. One of the managers, whom I knew well from other author events, spotted me and waved. He made a little jerking motion with his hand like pulling on an old cash register.

  Ka-ching.

  “Is it fair to conclude that we are geniuses?” said a voice in my ear. It was Bree. Somehow she’d found me again. She surveyed the rock concert enthusiasm in the bookstore and did a little dance of joy.

  “Are we geniuses if we sell a book to people who aren’t going to read it, just so they can meet an author who didn’t write it?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Then we’re geniuses,” I agreed.

  Our self-congratulations were drowned out by a roar from the upstairs crowd. King Royal marched from the stock room with a copy of Captain Absolute under his arm. People whistled and shouted his name. He swayed unsteadily, and I suspected his private time had been used to down a few drinks from a hidden stash. He grabbed the microphone and climbed on top the author’s table, next to stacks of books. Not on the floor. On top of the table. He was larger than life, towering over everybody in the store. They could see him downstairs, and they cheered lustily.

  As the crowd stared, I heard whispers travel among the people in giggles and gasps. Everyone began to point. I didn’t understand what was attracting their attention, and then Bree murmured, “Uh oh, looks like someone crashed the party.”

  “What?�
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  I looked at King and murmured, “Oh, crap.”

  King had traded in his baggy pleats for snug khakis, and let’s just say that his robust manhood was impossible to miss. I could have hung a coat on it. Songbirds could have perched on it. Kelly Jax would have swooned.

  In front of us, a young woman in the crowd whispered to a friend, loud enough that we could hear: “No way that’s real. That’s a sock.”

  Bree, helpful as ever, leaned between them. “It’s the genuine article, darlings, take it from me.”

  They turned to her with big eyes. “You’ve seen it?”

  “In the flesh. It’s a thing of beauty. Like a Renoir.”

  “Wow.”

  Noticing the buzz, King looked down at himself. Don’t say anything, don’t say anything, don’t say anything, I begged him in my head, but that was like asking the wind not to blow and the sun not to rise.

  “Yes, I have been blessed in my physical endowment,” he announced into the microphone, which broadcast his voice all the way onto Fifth Avenue and probably caused four traffic accidents. He cleared his throat and went on with the solemnity of Lincoln delivering the Gettysburg Address:

  “A man without a big Johnson

  Told his doctor how much he wants one

  I’m only at four

  Give me six inches more

  And I’ll bed every girl in Wisconsin!”

  The crowd roared its approval, and King flashed a coy grin and jiggled his curls at their adulation. Welcome to the miracle of modern celebrity. King was definitely in the big leagues now.

  I wondered how long the pain would last. I thought about throwing myself over the balcony, but it was like a mosh pit below me, and there were enough people to break my fall. I had visions of several more hours of songs and poems. However, before King could move on to his next X-rated anecdote, I heard a strange noise burbling up from the crowd. I’d never heard anything quite like it. It was a musical sort of growl-howl-snarl-yelp-yip, a combination of braying donkey and Justin Bieber song, and it came from several directions at once. Other people heard it, too, and looked around in confusion. As we listened, it got louder.