Rockin’ smiles. “Tawney is that you?”
She walks over and busses his cheeks. “In the flesh.”
“And that’s some flesh,” Rockin’ drools. “Right buddy?”
It is apparent to Georgie that Rockin’ is not at all surprised by Tawney’s appearance and his anger mounts. Who is she to break in on his broadcast, damn it.
Rockin’ asks, “So Tawney, what is the name of Georgie’s little friend?”
“I never kiss and tell,” Tawney says wickedly, drawing several appreciative howls from the men in the crowd.
“I think I just felt a bead of sweat drip into my underwear,” Rockin’ jokes. “Is it warm in here or is it me? On that note, let’s go back to JJ in the studio. And remember, Wiley’s Ford and Q92.7 can put you in a brand new Explorer if you get down here to 48th and the West Side Highway by six o’clock. Take it away, JJ.” They go off air and Rockin’ sneers at Georgie. “What’s the matter? Pussy got your tongue?”
“Fuck off,” Georgie spits. He gets up and walks around the table to Tawney, grabbing her arm and keeping his voice low. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Just visiting, love,” she says, planting a light kiss on his lips.
He wipes the back of his hand across his mouth. “I thought you were supposed to be in Paris.”
“My shoot was canceled. So, I’ll be around. Want to grab something to eat later?”
“What about Herr Director? Did he jet to Paris without you.”
“I’d rather not talk about him.”
“I’ve got an idea, let’s not talk at all.” Georgie storms away, past fans that hold books for him to sign, past Sheila who is trying to get through the crowd to stop him and finally past the furious glare of the station manager. He keeps walking right out the door of the dealership.
Chapter Thirteen
Renny is she rushing across the West Side Highway at 48th street when she spots Georgie only a few feet away, heading in the opposite direction.
“Hey,” Renny calls out.
He looks up, his expression tight. “What are doing here?”
They meet at the cement median in the road. “I heard they were giving away a car and I came to see if I could win.” Renny moves a piece of wind blown hair out of her face.
“Are you usually lucky?” he asks.
“I was hoping to get lucky,” Renny says, surprised by her own forwardness.
His serious expression turns slightly playful. “You don’t need the dealership for that.” Georgie sticks his arm out and flags down a cab. “Let’s get out of here.”
Renny’s body tingles as his hand comes to rest on her lower back while ushering her into the taxi. Whizzing past the dealership, Renny notices a woman teetering on black platform maryjanes frantically waving at them.
***
Forty-five minutes later, Renny is in her bed with her shirt unbuttoned, her bra undone, and her pants and underwear bunched around the ankles. Georgie lies beside her in a similar state of undress. They’d started by kissing in the cab, making it nearly impossible for the driver to hear the address through the darting of tongues. His lips were rough, yet exciting in their hunger. Once inside her apartment they’d gone straight to the bedroom, where he’d lifted her onto the mattress with an intense concentration that turned his eyes dark. They didn’t speak a word to each other, as if language would annul their bestial urgency.
Sweaty and exhausted, with his stickiness spotting the sheets beneath her, Renny tries to catch her breath and find the right words for reintroducing conversation. “So?” she asks, wishing for a verbal do-over the moment it’s said.
He rolls over and looks at her for a moment. Popping out of bed, he pulls up his pants. “I’m hungry. Do you feel like Italian?”
Not exactly where Renny was heading with this conversation, but she decides to roll with it. “Sure.”
***
“What is this called again?” Renny asks as a waiter divides a fried loaf of bread in a light brown sauce and deposits a portion on the plate in front of her.
“Spedini.” Georgie waves his hand and tries to affect an Italian accent, which sounds more like an impersonation of Brando in the “The Godfather.”
Renny’s fork penetrates the fried loaf, causing cheese to ooze out, off the plate and on to the plain, white linen tablecloth. Once in her mouth, the cheese, bread and sauce dance together on her tongue. “This is delicious.”
“This is the best Italian in the city.”
When they’d pulled up to the corner of Mulberry and Broome in the heart of little Italy, Renny had to hide her disappointment as she peered at the “Grotta Azzura” sign. A cement staircase leading down to the basement of a nondescript white stucco building did not portend the fine dining experience she’d envisioned for her first meal out with Georgie. But now the small dining room, with its close together tables, blue walls and aging Italian waiters feels comfortable. A laid back dinner after an intense lay. “So who won the truck?” Renny asks.
“I have no idea.”
“What do you mean?”
“I walked out before the drawing,” he says matter-of-factly, taking a piece of bread and dipping it in the left over sauce on his plate.
“Oh. But I thought…”
Georgie takes a bite. “To hell with them. I’d had enough. I hate those promotional gigs anyway.”
“They aren’t gonna be mad?” Renny asks.
“I don’t care if they are. That station makes a bundle off my name and me. Besides I have a contract. They can’t touch me.”
“Wow, I wish I could do that,” Renny says.
“You told me, but what do you do again? Advertising, right?”
“The company I work for is a marketing consultant. We do some advertising. We’re known for coming up with names for either new or existing products. It’s really…”
His attention shifts as he flags down a passing waiter. “Could you bring us some extra butter?”
The waiter nods. Georgie turns back to Renny. “I’m sorry, what were you saying?”
Renny continues, “About my work, it’s really exciting to work on new products. I just wish I had more autonomy, you know, to do my own…”
Georgie interrupts, lifting the bottle of wine on the table. “Do you want more?”
“Uh, no I’m good.” He fills his own glass, his third. Renny goes on. “If I do well with this potato chip thing I’ll be able to do more on my own.”
“I hear you. I’ve been thinking of going off on my own, you know?”
“You have?”
“Yeah. The show would be so much better without Rockin’. He’s a foul weight around my neck. The problem is he’s got a contract too and…”
Renny swallows her disappointment as Georgie refocuses the conversation on him. It’s not that she minds listening to him, it’s just she’d hoped to share some of her life, too.
***
Climbing into the cab behind Georgie, Renny falls onto the seat. When he gives the driver just his address, her heart soars. We’re going back to his place, she thinks! After four glasses of wine and a lot of food, she feels the waistband of her pants pinch, but who cares; she’ll be taking them off soon. Sitting back in the seat, Georgie wraps around her, his lips caressing her neck and her ear. And as if he’s reading her mind, he undoes the front of her pants and slips his hand down the back, cupping her buttocks. Georgie groans as she nibbles his ear. Renny catches a glimpse of the driver peeking in the rearview mirror. “Let me hear you,” Georgie whispers.
“The driver’s watching us,” Renny whispers back.
“Cool,” he says. His other hand reaches under the back of her shirt and deftly undoes her bra. Georgie’s mouth dips down the front of her shirt as his hand massages her nipple. The night’s libations have some of her inhibitions locked away, but she can’t help feeling uncomfortable with the fact that the cab driver’s eyes are glued to the rear view mirror instead of the road. Renny tries to blo
ck it out by closing her eyes and focusing on Georgie’s touch. As one of his hands shifts to the front of her underwear, his other hand lifts her shirt up, allowing him to take her nipple in to his mouth. A moan escapes her throat just as the cab jerks to a stop and the meter spits out a receipt.
“Twelve-fifty,” the driver calls out.
Georgie pulls back, leaving her shirt hoisted up on one side and her left breast fully exposed. The driver’s eyes are fixed on the free show, his lips curled up on one side of his face in a lopsided leer. Renny quickly pulls her shirt down, while George hands money to the driver. “This will cover her ride, too. Next stop, 80th and West End.” He kisses Renny deeply. “I’ll call you.” And with that, he gets out of the cab and shuts the door. A thump on the outside hood signals the driver to go.
The cab pulls away leaving Renny speechless. She tries to furtively zipper, button and hook, while ignoring the driver’s wolfish glances.
What the hell just happened here, she thinks?
Chapter Fourteen
Sara walks into the reception area of Apple, White and Weete, Attorneys at Law. “I have an eleven o’clock appointment with Alan White. I’m a little early.”
“And your name?” inquires the receptionist, a polished twenty-something wearing a headset attached to a massive phone console.
“Sara Matthews.”
She checks the appointment calendar on her PC. “Friday’s are always so busy. Ah, there you are.” She waves Sara to the chairs. “Someone will be out in a moment.”
Sara takes a seat on a masculine, chocolate-brown leather sofa in the waiting area, the kind with burnished gold studs on the edges. Her eyes travel up to the gold lettering above the reception desk: Apple, White and Weete, Attorneys at Law.
She taps her foot. How did she let her friend Nancy talk her into this?
“I don’t need a divorce attorney. We’re not talking about it at all. Bart hasn’t mentioned divorce,” Sara told Nancy at the suggestion.
“Bart hasn’t called enough to mention anything. And you have to protect yourself. Just meet with Alan. You won’t be sorry,” Nancy pestered.
Alan White was the attorney Nancy hired after her husband Peter ran off with his twenty-year-old store manager and left her holding nine-month-old twins and a jumbo mortgage on their center-hall colonial in Rye. Nancy claimed that Alan White was her savior. “Thanks to him I got the house, the kids and half of Peter’s sporting goods business.” The only thing Nancy didn’t get was Alan White. The counselor has one rule—he never dates clients.
Must be gay, Sara thinks.
A curvaceous secretary appears in front of Sara. “Mr. White will see you now.”
Sara follows the secretary as she teeters through a maze of hallways, drawing her eyes to the woman’s beige five-inch stiletto heels. Fuck me pumps at a law firm? Odd. Sara tries not to walk too close. If the woman falls off her shoes, Sara doesn’t want to be her landing pad.
Sara is ushered into Alan White’s office. From Nancy’s description, she envisioned a modern day swashbuckler with a legal brief flying in his hand instead of a sword. Instead, she finds a slight man in his early forties. He’s at least two inches shorter then she, with wiry brown hair receding from a large, shiny forehead.
Alan White takes one look at Sara and whistles out loud, “Wow, look at you! I hope you’re not gonna drop that thing in here. We just had the rugs cleaned.”
Sara is stunned by his vulgarity.
He waves at her and sits at his desk, “What movie comes to mind?” he chuckles, revealing small pointy teeth. “I don’t know nothin’ about birthin’ no babies, Miss Scarlett. Hell, I don’t even know how to do the Heimlich. So no choking either. Have a seat. Would you like something to drink?”
Sara is tempted to leave, if only she could make it to the elevator fast enough so he wouldn’t catch her. “No, I’m fine.”
Alan instructs the secretary, “We’re all set, you can close the door.” He then turns to Sara asking, “You need a hand getting into the chair?”
Sara sits quickly, revolted by the thought of his hand anywhere near her. “No, I’m fine.” You uncouth little man, she thinks. She sees his eyes drink in her face and even though she is accustomed to being admired, Sara finds his hypnotized expression unsettling. “Mr. White, is there something wrong?”
He quickly shuffles his papers. “I’m sorry, I lost my train of thought. Ah, here it is. Well that’s some family you married into.”
“You’re familiar with them?”
“It’s hard not to be. Your mother-in-law is in the papers quite a bit. Did you bring the prenup with you?”
Sara pulls the document from her purse and hands it to him.
He flips through. “It looks to be pretty much what you described. Pretty standard.” He turns a page, “What’s this? A dip the pickle clause? I haven’t seen one of those in a while. So your husband had a wandering dipstick?”
“Excuse me?”
“He cheated on you before you were married, right?”
“Excuse me? Something like that would be none of your business.”
“Everything is my business if I’m handling your divorce.”
“I don’t know that I’m getting a divorce.” Sara pushes her hair behind her ears.
He leans forward. “Listen, I know you’re still coping with the fact that he left. I bet you’re even hoping that the two of you might reconcile. And believe me, I think your husband must be nuts to have walked out on you. Normally pregnant women don’t do it for me. But if you don’t mind my saying, you’re a knockout. Even with the pouch!”
His gaze lingers too long for Sara’s liking. “Mr. White, I…”
He cuts her off, “Call me Alan. You can’t bury your head in the sand and wait. If you do, he’ll bury you. Nine out of ten clients that come to me with circumstances like yours, the end is inevitable. I know I’m being blunt, but when this is over, you’ll thank me. They all do.” Pen in hand he fires questions at her. “Have there been a lot of other women?”
Sara stammers, “No, enough of that. Bart’s confused, but it doesn’t mean that.”
“What about men?”
“I have never cheated on my husband.”
“Not you. Him?”
“Him?”
“You know, switch hitting.”
“My husband is not gay, if that’s what you’re asking,” Sara sputters.
“Okay, calm down. We’ll find out everything we need to. First I’ll hire an investigator. We need to know what he’s doing, check on all his assets and make sure nothing has been hidden yet.”
“An investigator? Is that really necessary, I mean he’s my husband.”
“He left you, isn’t that what you told me? With a two-year old and another about to hatch. You said he’s where?” Alan White checks his notes. “The West Coast, right? Maybe California?”
Sara wonders how she strayed into Smutville.
“I sense your hesitation,” he says, filling in her silence. “I’m sure Nancy told you I’m the best around. Did she tell you what they call me at the courthouse?”
“No, she didn’t.”
“The castrator. And you know why? It’s because I take the guy’s balls. Your husband will be praying he was a eunuch by the time I finish with him. Don’t worry, because we’ll get everything.”
Sara doesn’t want everything, just Bart, her husband, the father of her children. And she wants to shake Alan White and yell at him to shut up. Without even realizing, she is on her feet. “Thank you for seeing me on such short notice, but I don’t think this is going to work for me.” She snatches the prenup from his desk and suddenly the path to answers is traced in her mind, only it doesn’t include Apple, White and Weete, Attorneys at Law.
Sara leaves, feeling Alan White’s eyes follow her down the hall.
He calls after her, “It’s not the first time I’ve made a client run for it. In time you’ll have the stomach for it.”
Sar
a doesn’t look back, because she knows she’ll never have the stomach for Alan White.
Chapter Fifteen
In the Soho offices of It’s New York magazine, Gaby storms out of her editor’s office and throws her papers down on her desk. She hisses, “Asshole! Who does he think he is? I don’t show for a few days and he’s havin’ a goddamn hissy. Big fucking deal.” Gaby was so shaken up after the incident at Phosphorous, she’s been living in a Valium haze for the past two days. This morning, the angel on her shoulder made her toss the bottle in the garbage before the devil on her other shoulder convinced her to retrieve them. Gaby is unsure which shoulder resident will win out when she gets home from the office. Yet, even in her drug-induced fog, she heard the half dozen nasty messages being left on her machine by her editor, Richard D. Burnell, aptly nicknamed Dick. Yesterday’s was his swan song. “You better show your face in the office tomorrow, Gaby Bowers, or don’t bother coming in again. Ever!”
Gaby figured the only way to dig her way out of this hole would be to hand him an article. No problem, she thought. Settling in last night with the aid of two of her little white pills and a couple of glasses of Cabernet, the words spilled easily from her mind to her laptop. After proofreading it Gaby deemed her work a masterpiece.
“Now look at it.” She sits at her desk and scans the pages. There is nothing more degrading then silently standing by as Dick bloodies her work with his pointy red pen, drawing arrows and crossing out sections. “He has it in for me,” she sputters. “This is the best damn article ever handed in at this shitty little magazine.”
Dick is a graduate of Columbia’s esteemed journalism program. He spent the last ten years working his way up through the magazine world. He resented Gaby for a number of reasons. First, because the owner of the magazine, Rita Zigg, hired her. Rita was a big fan of Unmentionables and credited a pair with her third husband’s proposal. Office legend has it that after becoming acquainted with her password; Mr. Zigg gave Rita a flawless six-carat diamond ring and ownership of the magazine. Since then she’s worn the marriage, a hefty allowance and her publisher’s title quite merrily. Gaby was reluctant to take the job, never having considered writing about anything. But Rita wouldn’t take no for an answer.
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