Cheap Diamonds

by Norris Church Mailer

  “So, Cherry, didn’t you say you were a painter?” Sal asked. “With an art degree? And you’ve had shows?”

  I had just stuffed a big piece of veal chop into my mouth. It was kind of dry.

  “Hmm.” I chewed fast, trying to get it down so I could answer. It took a few minutes. “Yes, I have a B.A. and had shows at school. One at the bank. No, I haven’t been painting, but I would love to. I just don’t have the room for it in my apartment.”

  “Oh, really? That’s interesting,” Sal went on, “because I have a huge loft down in SoHo, and my roommate, who is a painter, just moved out. Would you be interested in maybe setting up an easel and painting down there? There’s loads of room. Zack wouldn’t mind, would you, Zack?”

  Lale looked surprised. Not as much as I was.

  “Why would Zack mind?”

  “Well, he lives there, too.” Sal smiled at Zack with a loving glint in his eyes. Zack sawed away on his steak, not looking at either one of us.

  “You do? I didn’t know that! You guys live together?”

  Well, this was weird. If they were living together, then why did he try to put the moves on me? Were they boyfriends? What about Cassie? Now that I thought about it, I remembered that Sal had once said he had a boyfriend from Arkansas. What was going on?

  “Come on, Sal. We’re roommates, Cherry. Just roommates. That’s all.” Lale seemed a little red-faced, but Sal went on, as if he didn’t notice.

  “Right. We’re just roommates, and since our painter roommate moved out we are in danger of having to give up our great loft, as only artists can rent them. So what do you say? The rent’s right—thirty-three dollars and thirty-three cents a month for each of us. Thirty-four cents for me—I’ll throw in the extra penny. You’d be able to come and paint as much as you want, or not at all if you don’t want to. But you’d be the artist of record on the lease. What do you say?”

  “Wow. Well…sure. That’s great. I would love to.”

  Even sight unseen, it seemed like a pretty good deal to me. I’d just have to keep an eye on Lale, although he had been a perfect gentleman ever since that night at Max’s. I think he was too smart to try that again. Or maybe he really was, down deep, gay.

  So that’s how I got a studio. And why I started hanging out with Lale and Sal in SoHo and painting again. And why I still couldn’t bring up Cassie. Not yet. At least not until the commercial was done, which we were scheduled to shoot in a few days. After that was over, I was really going to have to sit down and talk to him and write to Cassie, even if he got mad and made me move my painting stuff out. I had to, before the ad appeared, or she would see it and my rear end would be grass.

  Milton Greene let us see the contact sheets for the ad, and they were pretty great, I had to admit. They were in color, the two of us looking at each other like we were madly in love. I wore a white ermine coat and a necklace and earrings of huge, real diamonds, Tiffany, no less—they had a guard bring them who hung around until the shooting was over—and Lale was duded up in an expensive tuxedo and white tie. Up on Milton’s wall was a picture he had done back in the fifties of Marilyn in white fur, and the ones he did of us were a little reminiscent of her. Not that she and I look much alike, but the lighting or makeup or something was similar. The French people were really happy with them, and popped the cork on a bottle of Dom Pérignon to toast us. That’s all that mattered. Suzan was happy, too. She actually smiled at me when I went into the agency now, and I had to hide in the bathroom whenever I saw Freddy coming because he was sure to corner me and get in my personal space, like they say up here, with his boozy breath. The other models were beginning to be friendlier, too, famous ones I didn’t even know—like Lois Chiles—said, “Hi, Cherry,” when I saw them at go-sees, like they knew me, as if I had passed some test or something and was one of them now. It had all happened so fast. It wasn’t even Christmas yet. When the commercial came out, it would really be a big deal, but until then I was going out on as many go-sees as I could, trying to get more work and keep it all together. I even got a job doing catalog, which is the bread and butter of models, for JCPenney. The clothes were awful and the work was hard, changing one outfit right after another all day long as fast as we could, not much in the way of styling, but it was great because Suzan had told me I was too exotic for catalog work. They put a short blond wig on me and darkened my eyebrows, but I didn’t care. It was good money.

  Wearing those catalog clothes, I realized how much I had changed. Not even a year ago I shopped at JCPenney in Sweet Valley and thought the clothes were pretty good. I had a charge account there and Daddy let me charge up to a hundred dollars, which I paid out fifteen or twenty dollars a month, then I could charge another hundred. Now, after wearing all these designer things, I knew the difference between clothes and fashion. The girl who shopped at Penney’s seemed like somebody else now. A pitiful relation with uneven hems, poor thing.

  “So let’s go over it again,” I said, picking up the script Lale had thrown on the floor. “You can do it. Just pretend you’re an actor in a bad soap opera. Have you ever watched those things?”

  “Don’t make fun of soaps. They pay a lot of money. Lots of actors get their starts in them. I’m going to start going to the Actors Studio, too, one of these days, and sit in on the lessons with Lee Strasberg. He’s a famous teacher. James Dean and Marlon Brando used to study with him. I’m not going to just be a pretty boy my whole life with somebody else saying the words for me. This modeling thing is just the beginning. In fact, I’ve already been in movies.”

  “I remember. The naked one. You have to show it to me one of these days.”

  “I wasn’t naked in the movie. It was an NYU student film. I’ve done three of them, and Axel thinks I’m pretty good. I’ll take you to a screening over there of the next one.”

  “Sure. I’d love to see it. Why don’t you get Sal to introduce you to Andy Warhol? I’m sure he’d put you in one of his movies.”

  “Nah. Those superstars don’t go nowhere except showing off at places like Max’s.”

  “‘Anywhere,’” I interrupted.

  “Anywhere. They never get in the big movies, just those stupid home movies Andy makes. I hung out over there at the factory a time or two and all they did was sit around and get stoned and take each other’s picture. It was boring.”

  “You’re not into getting stoned?”

  “I never said I didn’t smoke a little pot, but those guys are zonked out all the time. I like to be in charge of my brain.”

  “Yeah, we saw one of his films in art class once. Or at least part of it. The whole thing was six hours long and it was of a guy sleeping. For forty-five minutes, all that was on the screen was his stomach, going up and down as he breathed. I was never so glad to get out of an art class in my life.” I changed the subject. “Did you take art in school? You never did say where you were from in Arkansas.”

  “No, I didn’t take art. Not many of the football guys did. I’m from Buchanan. Little place up in the Ozarks.”

  “Right. Buchanan. Isn’t that where St. Juniper’s is?”

  “Yeah. You know that place?”

  “I heard of it. You still have family up there?”

  “Mother and Daddy, little sister, Brenda.”

  “What did they say when you came to New York to model? My daddy wasn’t crazy about it at all.”

  “Oh, they didn’t say much. I didn’t come up here to model—I just kind of fell into it accidentally. Photographer saw me and wanted to take some pictures and all, so that’s how it happened.”

  “Yeah, I can see that. Photographers are always stopping me on the street, too, wanting to know who I’m with. That’s their pickup line. I’ve gotten work out of it, though. Most of them are legit, but you have to be careful. I always make them go through my booker. Who was your photographer?”

  “Guy named Michel Denon.”

  “Oh, he’s one of the French photographers! He’s famous. A lot of the girls go t
o France their first year to get some experience. Suzan said something to me about it, but I don’t think I’m ready to leave New York yet. I feel like I just got here.”

  “Me, too. It’s been good to me—don’t get me wrong—but I still think I’ll move on one of these days. There’s something a little bit, I don’t know, sissy, about it all.”

  “Yeah, I guess a fair number of the guys in the business are gay.” I glanced at him to see if he would react to that. He shrugged.

  “Makes no difference to me. Me and them get along. I let them know right up front that I’m not like that and they leave me alone.”

  “Do you have a girlfriend?”

  “No.”

  “None at all?”

  “Nobody special.”

  “I bet you go out with a lot of girls. Don’t you?”

  “I guess you could say that.”

  “Did you have a girlfriend back in Buchanan?”

  “Why are you so interested in my girlfriends all of a sudden?”

  “I’m not. I couldn’t care less. I’m just trying to get to know you, since we’re working together, and I’m kind of your new roommate.”

  “I think you’re more interested than you let on.” He leaned back, narrowed his eyes at me. I got chilly again.

  “I think not. I have a boyfriend, and he’s not the kind of guy who sticks his tongue down some strange girl’s throat the first time he meets her.”

  “Are you still mad about that? Is that what this is all about?”

  “I’m not mad. It just didn’t thrill me, that’s all.”

  “Do you want one pint of blood or two?” He held out his arm and started rolling up his shirtsleeve.

  “Forget it. Let’s just read this copy. And try not to be such a hick when you talk. There’s not much call for hicks in the movies.”

  “What about The Beverly Hillbillies, Miss Smartypants?”

  “Right. Forget what I said. You’d be perfect as Jethro’s twin brother.”

  “Thanks. I think. Okay. Here we go…You ought to be in Diamonds & Ermine…”

  30

  * * *

  FATHER LEO

  Dear Cherry,

  There’s no way to ease into this, so I’ll just out with it. Little Lalea passed away. It was so awful, I can’t tell you. I thought Cassie was going to hang on to the coffin at the funeral and not let them bury her. It took two men to drag her away so they could take it to the graveyard, and as they lowered it into the ground she hyperventilated and nearly passed out. They had to find a paper sack and make her breathe into it. I’ve never seen anybody as overwrought as she was. Annie was right there with her, of course, and her brother, Barry, me and Bernadette and Snuffy, but there wasn’t a big crowd. Janet and Brenda didn’t come, of course, but George did, and he sat right beside her and held her hand. That gave the old biddies in town something to talk about, that’s for sure. Somebody ought to take a peach-tree switch to Janet. She’s got a mouth on her sharp as a yellowjacket stinger, still telling everybody who will listen it wasn’t Lale’s baby and it was a blessing it died. She totally blames Cassie for running Lale off and taking him away from her, and nothing is going to change that. Frankly, I think Lale was ready to run off in any case, but there’s no doubt this kicked it into high gear. Has he said anything about Cassie or anything? I have kept my promise not to say anything to her, but I wish you would write her. She’s going to find out when that ad comes out, and it will be harder on her than if you tell her yourself. I really worry for her. She did try to kill herself on the railroad tracks that time. But I’m not going to butt in anymore about it. You do what you need to do.

  On this front, things are pretty much the same, with a few new wrinkles. We did giant papier-mâché animals in class, and the whole art room was crammed with elephants, giraffes, and dinosaurs. They’re pretty incredible, though, and the show we had was great. After it was over, we hauled them down to the Children’s Hospital in Little Rock, as a memorial to little Lalea, and the kids were so thrilled to get them. But the trip down there was mind-blowing, I can tell you. I borrowed a Ford Ranchero to carry one of the elephants, but it wasn’t tied down too well and it flew up like Dumbo and bounced down the highway! Some state troopers thought it was a foreign car rolling over and over and they nearly had a heart attack, roaring down on us with their sirens blaring. But when they saw it was just me and a girl (a cute blonde) from my class chasing it down the road, they helped us tie it back down and didn’t even give us a ticket. Fortunately there were no wrecks because of it. It was skinned up pretty good, but you can always fix papier-mâché with a little paste and paint.

  Oh, one more little thing happened. I slept with Father Leo. Well, not exactly slept…I can hear you screaming now, so calm down and I’ll tell you all about it.

  You know I’ve been hanging around a lot up there at the abbey. Father Leo was teaching me to use the pottery wheel and I was getting pretty good at it. Then he told me he’d had an offer of a grinding stone at an old abandoned gristmill that sits down by Bad Luck Creek. The owner said he could have it to make a kick wheel out of, and Leo said he would give me his old one for my class. The only thing we had to do was go out and get it. That was Saturday morning. When I got there, bright and early, it was just him and me. The other two guys he had asked to come and help didn’t show up. That’s sort of fishy, isn’t it? I thought so at the time, too, but couldn’t be sure. He didn’t have on his priest suit, either, just a flannel shirt, and he looked so cute, with his long hair and beard that has some red glints in the sunshine.

  I had no idea how we were going to get that thing into the truck—you know I’m not much good for back-breaking work—but off we went. It was the first time we had been out together alone like that, and it was a little tense, to say the least. It must have been obvious I’ve had a crush on him for a long time, but then I figured he must be used to that. Everyone has a crush on their priest. To make conversation, I asked him how Bad Luck Creek got its name.

  “Well,” he said, in his teacher’s voice, “that’s debatable. A lot of settlers had plenty of bad luck back when they first started up here, but I think it goes back to this old mill we’re going to, which rumor says has a secret room that used to be part of the Underground Railway long before the Civil War started.”

  Remember when we used to play Nancy Drew and looked in old houses for secret rooms? I waited for Father Leo to tell me more. The man does love to teach.

  “The miller got word that a man with his wife and four kids had escaped and were coming up from Louisiana. Their owner had the slave catchers all up the line on the lookout for them—six slaves were a valuable commodity. I can’t imagine how they did it, but they made it to the mill, all still together. Unfortunately, not long after they arrived, one of the miller’s children came down with diphtheria, and the whole family got it and died. The runaway family took care of them until they buried the last one, but then they came down with it, too, and all of them died, except for one of the kids. The doctor who had been treating them was a sympathizer, but his wife wasn’t, and apparently she blew the whistle.

  “The child who was left, a girl about twelve, came out carrying her little bag, clearly set for travel, when the catchers came whooping down and gave chase, shooting their guns. She got scared and jumped into the creek, right out there by the wheel, and drowned.”

  Just as he said that, we pulled into the yard of the mill. It was really creepy. The creek ran right next to it, dark and deep. An old wheel with the slats rotted out sat still in the water, a grave marker. The windows were broken out like blind eyes. Cherry, I swear I thought I saw a little black girl peek out of one of them. I asked him if it was haunted.

  “Oh, absolutely,” he said, laughing. He was enjoying the whole thing just a little too much for my taste. He said he thought he’d heard voices coming from someplace, maybe underground, like a swarm of bees buzzing down there. Inside the building, he said, even in the summer, there are unea
rthly cold spots that made the hair stand up on your arms.

  I asked him if he’d ever been in the secret room. He said he hadn’t, and why don’t we go look for it? You know, Cherry, how you and I never liked tight places, and the last thing I wanted to do was look for an underground room where a bunch of people had died. What if they were still down there, like in a big grave? But I didn’t want him to think I was a wuss, so we went inside.

  Well, the Reader’s Digest version is that after a lot of trying, we found the trap door. It was just a dusty little room under the floor, no bodies, but there was still a platform they used for a bed and some pots and things. The hair did stand up on my arms, as promised, when we heard a noise, although it was probably just a mouse or something, but it scared me so much I grabbed Leo and the next thing I knew we were kissing and he had his pants down, or maybe I pulled them down. It happened so fast I can’t say positively he even got all the way in, so I’m not sure it really counts. It was his first time with a woman in fifteen years, so I don’t blame him for being quick on the trigger. We never did get the grinding wheel into the truck—we just went back to the abbey, both of us kind of in shock. I haven’t talked to him since, and that has been a couple of days ago. I’ll let you know what goes on. I think I am in love with him, and it is all so awful.