The Muffia

by Nicholas, Ann Royal

  His voice urged me on, so sexy, adding to my pleasure. But I couldn’t tell if he was getting any himself.

  “You want to what?” he asked, drawing it out of me. “Tell me what you want.”

  “I want to— I want— Oh, I’m going to . . . come—”

  I screamed out a couple more times and felt my body twitch involuntarily for those many lovely seconds when all is release and nothing matters. Then all is warmth and glow.

  “Wow.”

  “Yeah, wow,” Cullen said. “You did that all by yourself, you know.”

  “I had a little help.”

  “That was all you, Madelyn. You’re wild. Are you sure this is your first vibrator? You seem pretty good with it.”

  “Yes, I’m sure. Was I really loud?”

  After the case I’d tried to mediate that afternoon, I had to wonder if any of my neighbors had heard me.

  “Eight on a ten scale. I wish I were there with you,” he said sweetly.

  “Mmmm. Maybe next time,” I said, not ready to let go of the glow just yet. “That was great, Cullen. Thank you. I feel much better.”

  “It was my pleasure.”

  “Was it?”

  “I’m not twenty anymore. It’s no fun if it's all about me.”

  “You and I have an interesting relationship.” We did, I thought. I’d never had another one like it.

  “That’s an understatement.” He laughed.

  I glanced at my watch. “Shit, I've gotta go.”

  “Hey, what about me?” he demanded.

  I did feel bad that there’d been no reciprocity, but hadn't I’d told him up front that I had to pick up Lila? Why was he guilting me? “I’m just playing with you.” He was, too.

  “I would like to return the favor sometime,” I offered, half hoping he wouldn’t hear me.

  “No pressure.” It seemed as though now, the passion spent, there was an awkward silence where neither of us seemed willing or brave enough to venture the suggestion that we physically get together.

  “I’ll call you later,” I said finally. “After I talk to Berggren’s assistant and try to get Nissim’s address which, and I repeat, is against my better judgment.”

  “Great.”

  Still slightly embarrassed, I thought of a whole new subject to take our minds off the unsaid. “How’s your mother doing?” Even though the woman had been hostile to me, it did seem polite to ask.

  “Pretty well, thanks,” Cullen said. “A lot better. Her doctor told her the cancer was in remission, which kind of shocked her, I think. So she just left yesterday for a cruise up the Nile with a college friend and fellow cancer survivor from Smith.”

  “That’s great.” There was another healthy pause so I continued, “I mean it is great, isn’t it?”

  There came a silence during which I considered whether or not he would have preferred her to actually die. Finally he said, “Yes, I mean, of course it’s great. But it was a pretty sudden turnaround—for me, I mean. And then she announced she wanted to see the Pyramids before she died. She was going to buy me a ticket to go along, but I really need to stay here and get my life in order.”

  To my relief, he was talking about his mother in a different tone of voice than the one he’d been using bringing me to orgasm, which is, of course, as it should be when a man talks about his mother.

  “It is one of those places we’re all supposed to see before we die,” I said in support. “I don’t know about you, but I haven’t seen much on that list—The Grand Canyon. New Orleans.”

  “Not on the list,” he said.

  “Should be, shouldn’t it? Even after Katrina.”

  “The weird thing is,” he went on, “I can’t remember my mother ever telling me she wanted to see the Pyramids. She tells me everything. You’d think that would be something she’d mention.”

  I wasn’t sure how to respond because I felt an instinctual awareness that there was something slightly off about Cullen’s relationship with his mother. His tone of voice sounded more like that of a jilted lover than a son.

  “Well,” I said, “thanks again. You made my day.”

  After we hung up I lay there for a few more seconds, thinking about the extremes of cancer and self-stimulation. Maybe they weren’t opposites. As I’ve said, the older I get and the more experiences I have, the less I’m sure about anything. Or maybe it’s that I know more, but it's about less of what really matters.

  If anyone had told me back in my thirties that I would one day be so easy to arouse, I wouldn’t have believed it was possible—by any guy, with or without mother issues. And if anyone had told me I’d become the kind of woman who could be satisfied with the little gifts life handed to me, I wouldn’t have believed that either. Generally, I find these days that I’m filled with gratitude for what I do have and I’ve stopped moaning about what I don’t. But there was no more time for philosophy. Lila had a volleyball tournament.

  Chapter 29

  “Thor?” I said into the phone upon hearing a man pick up at Berggren’s house.

  “This is Nestor.” No wonder he didn’t sound like Thor.

  “Hi, Nestor,” I said. “I don’t think we’ve met. This is Madelyn Scott-Crane calling. I’m a friend of Berggren’s.”

  “Oh hello, Madelyn,” said Nestor, dripping with the superior attitude of the insecure.

  “I need to get some contact information from Berggren, if that’s possible.” I was secretly hoping Berggren hadn’t yet returned from New York and that he’d not been instructed to keep people’s contact info private. All he needed to do was type Nissim or ZsaZsi into the big database and I’d have what I needed.

  “That won’t be possible,” Nestor said. “Berggren is very protective of her list, as you must know.”

  “Yes, but this isn’t a celebrity actor’s information I’m after, if that’s what you’re worried about,” I said. “This is just the guy who’s engaged to Berggren’s producing partner. I think he’s in real estate. You must know ZsaZsi—”

  “Of course. But I’m afraid I’ve been instructed not to give out any information of any kind, except the dates of upcoming Spoken Word events.”

  “I see,” I said. “Nestor, are you new?” His silence told me I’d assessed the situation correctly. “Is Thor in?” I continued, thinking that by asking for a more senior member of the staff I could guilt Nestor into giving me what I wanted.

  “No. He had to—”

  “Who’s that on the telephone, Nestor?” a voice demanded. I identified the timbre and vocal characteristics as those of the mighty Norseman, the blonde and beautiful Thor.

  Nestor hesitated. “It’s a friend of Berggren’s.”

  “Well . . . who?”

  Someone covered the mouthpiece and all I heard for several seconds were garbled sounds. Then, “’Allo, Madelyn,” Thor said. “How’s it going, yah?”

  “Thor,” I said, trying to sound as cheery as I could without sounding sappy. “I’m fine. How are you? Nice to hear your voice.”

  “I’m good, thanks, yah. What can I help you with? Berggren won’t be back until late tonight.”

  “Well, I’m trying to find out the address of ZsaZsi’s fiancé. I can’t remember his name,” I lied.

  “Of course. You mean Nissim, yah?”

  “Yes, that’s it. Nissim.”

  “So sorry, Madelyn. I can’t do that. Besides we don’t have it.”

  “Shoot,” I said, already armed and ready for the next line of attack. “You see, I wanted to send them an engagement gift.”

  “Oh gee,” said Thor, sounding stumped. “An engagement gift. Yah, that’s different, I think. Hold on.”

  He put me on hold. I don’t know what he thought I was going to do with the address anyway. It wasn’t exactly saleable to the guys who hand out maps of Hollywood so tourists can drive around to celebrities’ homes.

  Thor came back on the line. “Here is ZsaZsi’s post office box: four-zero-five-six, Beverly Hills nine-o-two-one
-o.”

  A post office box is useless. “Don’t you think it’s kind of impersonal sending an engagement gift to a PO box?” I asked as mournfully as I could.

  “Yah, but so sorry, Madelyn, that’s all we have here,” Thor said. “Maybe Berggren can get you the street address, but at the moment she is somewhere over Nebraska, maybe.”

  His sing-songy accent was lulling me to torpor when I heard him blurt out, “I know what you can do!”

  I waited for him to tell me what had sparked his ah-ha moment.

  “Why don’t you bring the gift on Saturday?” he asked. “They will be here for the dinner party, yah.”

  “Really? What a good idea,” I said. It wasn’t a good idea, really, but it was at least a workable idea: I’d arrive at Berggren’s early, find out the actual address and then call Cullen and Jelicka. Based on the zip code of Nissim and ZsaZsi’s PO box they could live anywhere. But I seemed to remember they lived in the Hollywood hills. And knowing what traffic was like between the hills and Mar Vista, after they left their place for Berggren’s, there’d be plenty of time for Cullen and Jelicka to snoop around while we were all partying. I thanked Thor for his brilliant suggestion and hung up.

  Chapter 30

  “So—” I began, coming into the upstairs hall bathroom as Lila began rinsing the green soapy avocado cleanser from her face. The bathroom, which had been done in shades of orange and peach, was in dire need of redecorating. What had I been thinking when I chose those colors? It must have been right before the divorce when I wasn’t really thinking straight. “What’s going on at school?”

  We’d had our dinner—frozen Mandarin Orange Chicken from Trader Joe’s—during which time I’d kept the discussion topics to ballet, her recent disappointing “C” in math and what we might do for summer vacation. Of course, I just wanted to come out and ask her how my vibrator got into her bedside table, but I had to wait for the right opportunity.

  “What do you mean, what’s going on at school? It’s school, Mom.” She had her long blonde hair tied in a loose knot on top of her head and it wobbled there, threatening to come undone whenever she moved.

  “Yes, I know it’s school, but what’s going on with your friends? What’s going on in PE? That kind of thing.”

  “Nothing,” she said. “More girls have obvious pubic hair, maybe. Is that what you want to know?”

  This wasn’t my idea of easing into it. I handed her a décor-appropriate orange towel and she began drying her face. “Any problems with your teachers? How’s Mr. Rodriguez these days?”

  Mr. Rodriguez, Lila’s social studies teacher, had a reputation for belittling everyone in ninth grade for being uninformed about history. It was true they were uninformed, but he was probably overly optimistic thinking he could improve Americans’ awareness of world history by criticizing the country's hormonally challenged teens. The truth was, the average American didn’t care about history.

  “He doesn’t bother us anymore. We reported him.”

  “Ah.” I had encouraged her to be assertive, but I didn’t like the sound of this. “How did you do that?”

  “Linda, Savannah, Kim and me—”

  “Linda, Savannah, Kim and I—”

  While hanging the towel back on the ceramic towel bar, her fourteen-year-old face revealed feelings of boredom, intolerance and disgust, which consisted of rolling her eyes, puffing up her cheeks then dropping her jaw as she let out an unnecessarily dramatic sigh.

  “Linda, Savannah, Kim and I walked into Principal Jenner’s office and said Mr. Rodriguez was acting inappropriately toward us.”

  Now I really didn’t like the sound of this. “Was that true?” I asked with trepidation.

  “Yes. I mean, I guess it’s all in how you define inappropriate, right? He has no reason to tell us we’re bad students because we don’t know all the details of whatever war we happen to be talking about. That’s inappropriate.”

  “But the word inappropriate suggests something different,” I said. “It’s not a word one uses lightly—especially when you're talking about a male teacher and a group of young female students.”

  “I know,” she retorted. “That’s exactly why we used it. Principal Jenner probably wouldn’t have told him to shape up if we said he was being mean because we couldn’t remember which century World War II was in or something, so we did what we had to do to protect ourselves.”

  “But he also has a reputation that he has to protect. And he has a family. What will his wife think? Lila, you don’t want to be one of those women who makes accusations when they’re not true.”

  “Why not?”

  This couldn’t be my daughter talking. My daughter had more integrity.

  “Because they’re not true, that’s why,” I stuttered. It was difficult to believe that, despite her youth, Lila couldn’t grasp the seriousness of her offense. “And because . . . because you don’t hurt people like that— especially when it’s a lie. It was the wrong thing to do.”

  She shrugged. “But for the right reasons.”

  “No, it wasn’t. You should know when World War II was.”

  “Well, whatever… he’s a lot nicer now—to everyone. So it worked.” She made a move to exit the bathroom, but I blocked the door.

  “Ends don’t always justify the means, young lady, and I’m going to call Linda’s mother tomorrow to discuss this.”

  “No,” she whined. “Don’t.”

  “Don’t you say ‘don’t’ to me. I am the parent here and you are the child.”

  Then I lost my patience with her. Maybe I’d lost patience with myself as well. Lila was her own person—I had to remember that— but she was still my daughter and living under my roof, which gave me permission to complain about her bad behavior. It never would have crossed my mind to be so manipulative. I also liked to think none of the women I knew could behave in such a way. That said, I realize there are plenty of women, probably many whom I knew—even women in the Muffia—who would do this kind of thing and worse to get what they wanted. It just wasn’t the kind of behavior I wanted to encourage in my daughter. Well, I’d made my point and I’d continue to work on her, but at that moment, there were other issues I needed to deal with.

  “We’ll see. I’m very angry with you right now and I want to sleep on it. But I’m still going to be angry in the morning.”

  “I know when World War II was, in case you want to know.”

  Then she gave me the kind of smile that told me she was already far more skilled than I’d ever been, or ever would be at manipulation. I didn’t have time. I was tired and I wanted to get to the point—why was my vibrator in her drawer? Still, I tried to segue into it.

  “Is there a boy you’re interested in?”

  She sucked her teeth and sat down on the toilet lid. “No, Mom. Just like there wasn’t a boy I was interested in last week or the week before. What are you fishing for?”

  “I’m just curious about whether there’s a boy in your life.”

  “No. There’s no boy,” she huffed. “I should never have told you about Amy Villetta giving a blow job to that tenth grader at Claremont. Then you wouldn’t be hounding me like this.”

  “I’m not hounding you.” Glimpses of similar conversations I’d had with my own mother came flooding back, though none had been about blow jobs. Neither would I believe Mother ever owned a vibrator. Nor, if she had, that I would have borrowed it.

  “Things aren’t like they were when I was fourteen,” I went on, “I realize that. Kids are exposed to more, earlier in their lives, and they grow up a lot faster. That’s really what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  “Mom, we’ve already talked about this.”

  “Listen, you—I’m your mother.”

  She gave me her best glower. “Really?” Sarcasm dripped. No one’s better at it than the teenage girl.

  “Yes, really. Like it or not,” I went on. “And I’m going to continue to talk to you about sex as much as I want to because i
t’s important and I don’t want you, you know, making a mistake and getting in trouble.”

  Again she rolled her blue eyes as she pulled the knot out of her hair, letting it fall over her shoulders. Her freshly washed face glowed with youthful beauty. Any mother would be terrified of such a girl being taken advantage of, though I realize her personality had already shown itself as one not to be toyed with.

  I was trying to be cool. Not fourteen cool. I was aiming for around twenty: young enough to be listened to, but old enough to have some authority. As far as she was concerned, at forty-two I was practically dead. I wanted her to trust me and listen, but I had to establish some kind of a parental line at the same time.

  “You’re at the age when boys will try to get in your pants—plain and simple. When you get to be my age the situation gets reversed.”

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind about that. But boys will try to get in your pants, if they haven’t already. It’s normal. And with your looks, I’d say you can count on it.”

  “I’m not really interested in boys yet, Mom. I’ve told you that. I’m still into sports.”

  “OK. Well, let’s just have this little discussion before you need to, then. You must be curious about sex—birds and bees, that kind of thing.” I thought I was doing a pretty good job of keeping up a casual yet upbeat demeanor.

  “Can we talk about it tomorrow? I’m kinda tired and I want to go to sleep.” Lila yawned and got to her feet.

  Realizing I was still standing in the doorway, I moved aside to allow her to pass then followed her into her bedroom, where I conveniently needed to be for Act II of the sex discussion: The dildo in the drawer scene.

  She pulled the covers back and began to climb into her princess bed—painted pastel yellow and white, with the pink duvet decorated with yellow flowers—while I, meanwhile, opened the drawer of the bedside table and pulled out the Rabbit.

  “There it is. I’ve been looking for this,” I said, trying to sound surprised, not angry. “What’s this doing in your bedside table?”

  Flipping around she saw what was in my hand and the rosy color drained from her face as she gasped.