The Girl in the Flaming Dress

by Michael J Vaughn

  “Sure.”

  Dr. Al looks away. “Ah, there she is. Emma! Over here.”

  Emma is a rail-thin lady with white hair and fragile features. Gerry has time to whisper, “This is your cabaret star?”

  Al’s only response is a twinkle in his eye.

  With its yard-sale decor, the lounge is rife with photographic settings, but Gerry’s having a hard time getting anything interesting. Emma’s features are entirely unextraordinary: flat lips, average nose, dull eyes. Her skin is so pale that too much lighting makes her disappear entirely. He pulls out the usual bag of tricks: make her laugh, make her serious, the profile, the lookaway, hands folded under the chin. Finally, he turns to the good doctor.

  “Al? Any ideas?”

  “Maybe have her play?”

  “That is so obvious I’m wondering why I didn’t think of it.”

  The stage is a cutout behind the bar. It takes ten minutes to get Emma situated at the keyboard.

  “What now?” she says in a tiny voice.

  “Do that song you played at the audition.”

  “And ignore the camera,” says Gerry.

  “Okay.”

  She tinkles around in the high register, just warming up. As she works her way lower, the sound grows in volume and breaks into a bouncy rhythm, what Gerry understands as “stride” piano.

  Emma’s face comes out of hibernation. Her features begin to blossom. Joy. Delight. Gerry snaps away, working the variations of angles, framing, shutter speed, plane of focus. Now Emma is singing; her voice grows. A bit of Ella, a pinch of Janis. The song seems really familiar, and the lyrics gather force in Gerry’s head until Emma rambles into the chorus.

  “The Girl’s Got Rhythm…”

  Gerry snaps more photos and gives Dr. Al a sideways look.

  “AC/DC?”

  “Isn’t she great? Plays the organ at my wife’s church. When I walked into their talent show, she was playing ‘Black Dog’ in swing-time.”

  “Fucking fantastic.”

  By the time Gerry leaves, it’s still freezing, but the sky has cleared out. The Milky Way hangs over Middle Stack Mountain like a fairydust blanket. It never gets old.

  He lives in a cluster of long, low buildings that resemble army barracks, white with green trim. He crunches around the corner and finds Angela stationed at his porch, smoking a cigarette. She wears a white woolen coat and a silver cowgirl hat.

  “You should not be smoking those things,” he says. “They’ll kill you.”

  “Oh!” she yaps. “Funny man. And you should get a car.”

  “Not on your life. Make you some hot cocoa?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Got a funny story to tell you.”

  “Good.”

  Nine

  Karen is a bundle of symptoms: a pleasant post-coital soreness, a half ton of guilt, and what they used to call the jitters. Still, it’s a sunny day, and the Columbia River is a continuing slideshow of postcard beauty. After a town called Boardman, the road drifts south, away from the river, and turns into a nice wide highway.

  Content to follow where I-84 takes her, she climbs into the Blue Mountains and begins, once again, to feel the shedding of identity. She is Karen Someone, and no one need know anything more. She grits her teeth as she skirts the city of Boise, loops around the Sawtooth Mountains and finds herself headed toward another city, Twin Falls. This will not do. As soon as she’s clear, she heads toward Nevada, whose eastern reaches are nicely barren of people.

  A darkness settles in. The blacktop has a fresh coat of snow, as if she has just missed a storm, and gusts of wind knock her around. The jitters return.

  Out of the snowy desert rises a blossom of white light. Karen climbs a long rise, passes a welcome sign for Nevada, and tops the hill to find a carnival, a wide strip bracketed by large buildings and flashing signs. A veritable Brigadoon of a town. A roadsign reads Welcome to Jackpot.

  She slows down to review the pickings. A grand block of a building rises to the left. She thinks, Start at the top, work my way down? A big sign with curving letters declares Cactus Pete’s.

  After the long, climate-controlled drive, the outside temperature is breathtaking. She crosses the lot, enters through a revolving door, and finds a carpeted sea of slots and tables. She feels an inner desperation trying to flog her into starting the job hunt tonight, but who is she kidding? Even in a casino, it’s likely that the managers keep standard hours, and she’s too road-weary to make an employment pitch. Plus, she has money. She did not expect this. She expected to be desperate at all times.

  Karen passes a cocktail lounge. A tiny old lady sits at the keyboards, on a stage behind the bar, playing…. ragtime? A man kneels before her, snapping photos. The lady begins to sing, surprisingly well. Karen spots a sign pointing to the registration desk. As she approaches, the words of the song strike a trigger in her memory.

  “AC/DC?”

  A young man smiles at her.

  “I’m not… entirely sure why you would need it, but yes, all of our rooms have AC.”

  Ten

  He is dressed in a ribbed cream sweater that accentuates his pecs and shoulders. His eyes are dark brown and hooded, a little lupine. Thick black hair, tight on the sides, spiked up top. A bit of smolder, a touch of secret agent.

  “So what should I do?”

  Gerry snaps to. “Oh, sorry. Just taking inventory. Objectification is part of my job. Give me a dead-on look. No emotion. Now a goofy smile – party smile. Okay, take it back ten percent.”

  A cleft chin. He’s going to have to hate him for that.

  “Okay. I just told you the funniest joke in the world.”

  Not much.

  “Damn! Tough audience.”

  Better.

  “All right, let’s dispense with the sweater.”

  He takes it off a little slowly, and then holds it in front of his stomach like a shield. Uh-oh. This one is not a natural.

  “Okay, um, drape the sweater over your shoulder, like you would with a suit jacket.”

  He does so, with all the joy of someone waiting in line at the DMV.

  “Cory.”

  “Something wrong?”

  “We have got to loosen you up. Tell me your story.”

  “Story?”

  “Yes. Why are you here?”

  “Oh. Um. Well, these are for my husband, Alec. For Valentine’s Day. And kind of a thank you.”

  “What for?”

  “Oh. Well. I lost my job, six months ago. A major political shitstorm. I was so traumatized that Alec told me to take some time off. So I joined a gym and I… kinda went nuts.”

  “And you’re how old?”

  “Forty-two.”

  Gerry fiddles with his shutter setting. “So you’re a 42-year-old with ripped abs, great hair and a cleft chin. Cory, you’re a freakin’ Adonis.”

  Cory tilts his head. “I was told you were… hetero?”

  Gerry laughs. “I am. But as a photographer, I get to tell people the truth about their appearance.”

  “Oh.”

  “I guess what I’m saying is, we are working with scads of raw material. But we won’t really hit the jackpot, so to speak, unless we can get a little personality in there. Look, if anything I shoot comes out too goofy or embarrassing, I have a delete button that says Poof! It never happened. But ya gotta work with me.”

  Cory runs a hand along his stomach.

  “Okay. So how do you usually start?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never shot a gay boudoir before.”

  Cory laughs. “Okay. So how do you start with women?”

  “I don’t know if you’ll like it.” He snaps a shot of Cory’s shy smile.

  “Hey, whatever it takes.”

  “Get on the settee and pretend you’re a panther.”

  “Really?”

  “Hop to it, mister!”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Gerry’s at his usual table in the Desert Room, finishing a
tortilla salad. Angela’s in a red suede jacket, looking unusually beatific. Her hair is sky blue.

  “Was it awkward?”

  “It’s always awkward. But once I broke down his boundaries, it was actually a lot of fun. Just a couple of guys being wacky. At one point, I’m telling a grown man, ‘Um, Cory, I’m going to need you to spank your ass.’ The camera is a license to do rude and funny things.”

  Angela chews on a fry. “I wish I had been there. He sounds hot.”

  “And married. And gay.”

  “Nothing wrong with absorbing the visuals, mother superior. But you, Uncle Gerry, would prefer it if I stayed young and innocent forever.”

  Gerry sighs. “Of course, Angela.”

  Eleven

  Karen’s too nervous to eat, so she heads out first thing to pursue some work. Passing by the front windows, she looks across the street at an older-looking casino, Barton’s Club 93. Past that is a sudden rise of earth, a high ridge that seems positioned to protect the town from oncoming weather. It looks man-made, like an abandoned dam. At the moment, it’s covered with an even coat of white.

  Since she’s pursuing a bartending position, Karen goes to a bartender, a tall blonde woman standing guard over a mostly empty sports book.

  “Hi honey. What can I get you?”

  “Hi. Can you tell me who I should talk to regarding… employment?”

  She smiles. “You’re in luck. He’s in his so-called office. Right around the corner there. See the big 36? Just go through that door. Look for Dr. Al, and tell him Darla sent you.”

  “Thanks!”

  Karen wanders that direction, feeling the strange quiet of the casino. A man in a black cowboy hat sits at a slot machine. The hours at the 36 Steakhouse are 5-9:30 p.m., but the door is open. The interior is sleek and metallic, black upholstery, chrome fittings, walls of blue and green. A large man sits in a booth, poring over papers. He’s dressed in a rumpled gray suit, a black shirt, no tie. He’s bald with a wide face and a generous silver beard.

  “Excuse me.”

  “Oh! Hello.” His voice is a slightly raspy baritone. “Who might you be?”

  “Hi. I’m Karen. Darla told me to come in here. I’m looking for a job.”

  Al seems a little distracted, as if he’s fighting the idea of an interruption, but then he relents. “Sure. Have a seat.”

  He slides the papers to one side of the table. As Karen scoots in, she sees the name Dwight Yoakam on the top sheet. Likely a performance contract. Sitting to the side of her interviewer, she’s feeling a little self-conscious. She went for the lucky peach blouse, and she may be showing more of herself than she anticipated.

  “Would you like a beignet?” He waves toward a plate of pastries dipped in powdered sugar, like little brown skiers who have just had mad wipeouts. Karen tries not to laugh at the memory.

  “Thanks. I love these!”

  “So what kind of position are you looking for, Karen?”

  “Hmwell,” she says, still chewing. “I was working as a bartender for a caterer in Hood River, Oregon. I had to move here for personal reasons – a sick relative.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s all right. Life throws you curves.”

  Al sets his arms on the table, contemplating his options.

  “To tell you the truth, Karen, it’s our slow season, so I don’t have anything immediate. But I’d kinda like to keep you around. It seems like I’m always running short on bartenders. Considering your… situation, would you be interested in temporary assignments?”

  “Sure.”

  Hold on a sec.” He punches a number on his cell phone. “Yeah, Phil. Hey, how are you set for the convention? Got enough servers? Cool, yeah. Got a woman named Karen here. I’ll send her your way. Great. Thanks.” He hangs up and gives her a smile. “Karen? We seem to have work for you.”

  “Fantastic!”

  After getting lost a couple of times in the back hallways, she meets Phil, does some paperwork and gets a reporting time for the coming weekend. Feeling much relieved, she goes to a diner called the Desert Room, ringed with weirdly mummified saguaro cacti, and orders a sausage scramble. She overhears a man talking in the next booth, something about a boudoir photo session. She can’t hear the other person in the conversation, so she assumes he’s talking on his cell phone. Which is so rude, really, depriving potential eavesdroppers of their full entertainment value.

  Twelve

  They’ve got him to the side of the main floor, so the traffic is pretty mellow. Phil hit up some of his vendors for props. The favorite is a six-foot trout that barely fits in the frame. Throw in some accessories from previous gigs – oversize sunglasses, feather boas, goofy hats – and the booth makes a nice little diversion. The automatic camera spits out triple-photo strips like the ones at amusement parks, and a few of the customers even take the time to drop a bill in his tip jar.

  Still, from an artistic point of view, Gerry is deadly bored. When ten o’clock arrives, he’s more than happy to hang the Back in 15 sign and head out to take some candids. He’s also excited to try out his new toy, a candy red Nikon that cuts an interesting mid-line between his old-style portrait cameras and the new digitals. The first adjustment is shooting using a screen. It feels weird, holding the camera away from his face, but in the long run this might be better for his eyes. The auto-focus is another thing. It creates a delay between the release of the shutter and the actual shot. It’s almost like he has to fire a little bit ahead of the action he’s looking for.

  By mid-morning, the convention is pretty active (fishermen being early risers), and there’s no shortage of subjects. The stage holds a shallow pool for fly fishing demos. The floor offers dozens of booths for gear and clothing, plus a trio of sleek-looking boats. The back of the theater is lined with food stands. Even this early, the favorite is a combination bratwurst/beer stand hosted by Von Scheidt, a Twin Falls brewery. Of course, the real draw might be the Bavarian dirndls worn by the servers, which offer plenty of cleavage. Gerry spots an old-timer with a hundred lures attached to his fishing hat and takes a shot. Sadly, it’s time to get back to his booth.

  Thirteen

  After too many days of thinking about how much she’s spending on her hotel room, Karen is delighted to be back at work. She and Brenda have only three ales to choose from – an oatmeal stout, a red ale and a brown porter – and Manuel and Rhaz do a good job of supplying them with bratwurst. Looking at her dirndl in the reflection from the taps, she realizes the lucky peach blouse was an excellent choice for her job interview.

  Her next customer is quite a character, an old dude whose fishing hat resembles a porcupine. As she hands him a porter he says, “Sorry I’m late, I had to get through the metal detector.” Which completely cracks her up.

  Fourteen

  Karen is somewhat surprised to find a body on her sofa, but then the previous night trickles into her brain. Faced with a sudden snowstorm, she offered her Twin Fallsian coworker refuge in her room (her room that she has got to give up). Karen sets up the coffeemaker, hits the switch and peers through the curtains. It’s no longer snowing, but the town is a complete whitewash. Past the trailer park, toward the desert, she sees a black dot moving at a rapid pace. It stops very suddenly, and then she sees a man walking after, with a pack on his back.

  “Whatcha lookin’ at?”

  Karen jumps. Brenda laughs.

  “Sorry. I’m kinda stealthy.”

  “There is a black critter running around in the snow, with some guy following it.”

  “You got some scintillating shit happening in this town. Well. May as well find out for sure.” She digs into her purse and pulls out a small pair of binoculars. “Hey, don’t judge. I am an avid birdwatcher.”

  “And what else?”

  “And what else. Here.”

  Karen manages to focus just as the man slides a stick from his bag. He places a tiny pink dot on the snow, sets his feet and swings. The pink dot disappears.
The black circle, an extremely fluffy dog, stays in his spot. His owner says something, and the dog takes off like a shot.

  “How freaking adorable! He’s golfing with his dog.”

  “Adorable or insane,” says Brenda. “I’m gonna grab some coffee. My head is a circus.”

  “That’s what you get for drinking from the stock.”

  “Well someone had to.”

  Fifteen

  The encounters with Kerry are getting more and more awkward, but he simply can’t leave without slipping a twenty into her mailbox. And there she is at the door, made up and as fetching as ever. Her eyes have this little touch of green, and it bothers him that he notices such things. She invites him in for a hot chocolate, but he begs off, citing some made-up portrait session. Halfway home, he receives a solid thwack on his shoulder.

  “Asshole!”

  Angela wears a lemon-yellow raincoat. Her hair is blood red.

  “Yeah?” he says. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  “That girl is sending more signals than AT&T! For the sake of women everywhere, go ravish her.”

  “Yeah, well maybe you should get a life.”

  “Ha ha. Very funny. Hi Sophie.”

  She reaches down to give the golf dog a head scratch. Sophie’s constant expression is joy, so it doesn’t really change much.

  “Can I make it up to you?” asks Gerry. “I’m doing a treasure hunt.”

  “Oh goody!”

  The treasure hunt is the first step in the editing process, when Gerry deletes unusable photos and save the good ones for later. The failure rate for candids is extremely high, since all kinds of random nonsense can venture in to muck things up. A blurred face on a fly caster. Bad shadows on a girl looking at landing nets. A man trying on a vest.

  “Why that one?” asks Angela. “Looks pretty clear.”

  “Yeah, but look at that expression. I’m selling a convention, not laxatives.”