I slammed the door shut and ran out to get help, but the only other person in the store was a little old lady who was at the cash register. I hated to scare her, but I had to tell her there was a naked man in the dressing room flashing himself. The two of us waited for him to come out, practically standing up on the balls of our feet ready to run, but he didn’t, and we didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t leave the store and I didn’t want to leave her there alone with him. So she suggested I run next door to the coffee shop and get the cook. He was a big tattooed muscled-up guy in a sleeveless undershirt and paper cap, a stained apron tied around him—a huge hunk of comforting New York man. He went to the dressing room and pounded on the door. “Hey, buddy,” he said, “you gotta get out of there or we’re calling the cops.” The door opened right up, and out came the most perfect man you’ve ever seen. He looked like Alain Delon, wearing a three-piece suit and a snap-brimmed hat. He carried an umbrella and a briefcase, and had a newspaper tucked under his arm. He ducked his head, tipped his hat, and walked out the door just like a gentleman of your acquaintance passing on the street. The cook shook his head, muttering to himself, then went back to his coffee shop. While the old lady and I collected our wits, we talked about all the crazy things that had happened to us in New York.
Finally, I left, and leaning against the wall a couple of doors down, was a pimp-looking guy wearing a purple satin shirt who growled as I walked by, “Hey, honey. Want to f***?” (You can fill in the blanks.) I just about died. I couldn’t believe it. I mean, what are the chances of running into two nuts in fifteen minutes? Even in New York? I kept on walking and he didn’t try to follow, but a half-block later I realized…I’d left my portfolio in Love Saves the Day. My heart dropped into my stomach. I’d have to go back and get it. I had to have it for Mrs. Vreeland. So I took a deep breath and walked back, past the guy, who obviously took it as a sign I was interested in his proposition. When I came out again he was there, in front of the store waiting for me, and started walking down the street beside me. I looked straight ahead, trying to concentrate on something other than what he was saying, when a cab with its light on miraculously drove up. I leaped out into the street, flagged it down, practically getting run over, and jumped in. As the door shut and I was safe, I said to the purple-shirt guy, “Don’t you get slapped a lot?” He just shrugged and said, “Yeah, but I get f***** a lot.” Then he walked on, whistling a tune.
So anyhow, my blood was good and pumped by the time I got to Vogue. In the cab, I spritzed myself all over with Chanel No. 5, like Mrs. Vreeland had advised, to cover the flop sweat, and then had my interview. Is this a crazy town or what?
Now it’s nearly midnight and I am going to take a hot bath (in oil) and go to bed. I haven’t heard Aurelius come in yet. The weird thing about living right next to him is that we know what the other one is doing, and I’m not sure I like that. I have no idea where all this is heading, but I do really like him. I just have to ask myself if I love him, and the answer to that, according to Mama’s rule, has to be no.
Please write soon and let me know what is going on with you and Leo. Do you have to ask yourself if you love him?
I know I love YOU,
Cherry
42
* * *
LEAVING FOR OZ
The highway from Little Rock to New York seemed as long as the yellow-brick road, except Cassie didn’t have a wise scarecrow, cowardly lion, or kindhearted tin man to keep her company. No little dog Toto. Just her Blue Bird of Happiness sitting on the dashboard. It hadn’t been at all hard to leave Nick and the big empty house. She just wrote him a note and left. He might not even see it until the next morning.
What a life it would be to be married to a doctor, never seeing him, always playing second fiddle to the hundreds of patients who loved him and thought he was God Almighty. No wife can ever give a man that. Not that Nick had suggested she marry him, but he’d taken off early again last night and they’d gone out for dinner at a nice Italian restaurant. He told her about his marriage to Nicole and how, yes, he had done a little surgery on her. And how she had left him two weeks before her thirtieth birthday.
“So what kind of surgery did you do on her, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“As a matter of fact, I did her nose.”
“Ah. Wasn’t that weird, operating on your own wife?”
“Not really. When I operate, all I think about is the work at hand. You have to.”
“You really love doing noses, don’t you?”
“I’m the Michelangelo of noses.” He used a funny Italian accent and tried to smile, almost made it.
“I’m sure you are, but for me, I don’t know. The whole beauty thing, with the expensive clothes and plastic surgery and all just seems so…empty and silly.”
“Most people don’t think that way. Some women will do anything to be beautiful, always did. Back in the eighteen-hundreds, they used to faint from pulling their corsets so tight it cut off the blood flow. Some of them even died from kidney and liver failure. A little nose job or face-lift is nothing compared to that.”
“I know you’re right. My ex-boyfriend is making a fortune as a model in New York right now. Maybe I just don’t like what having good looks does to people. Anyhow, I’ll just keep the nose I have for now, so you might as well give up on that one.”
“You don’t have to get your nose fixed. You’re a beautiful girl, just like you are. I always have to try to make someone that little bit more perfect. I’m also clumsy with women. I haven’t dated that much since Nicole left. I don’t have the time for it.”
“I guess you didn’t have time for marriage, either, did you?” He didn’t answer. “I’m sorry. That was rude. You’ve been nice to me. I appreciate you letting me stay at your place, but I’m going to have to get on with my life. I wish you luck in finding a woman who can deal with a husband who’s never there.”
“Maybe that’s why doctors have such high divorce rates.”
“Yeah. It’s a good thing they make so much money.” He did smile at that.
He brought her home, then went to the hospital and came in late, as usual, but this time she was awake and heard the doorknob to her room gently turn. He waited a moment, tried it again, then went away. She fell asleep, knowing he wouldn’t be back.
She left the next day, a note on the stove, his dinner warming in the oven.
Dear Nick,
I couldn’t wait around to say good-bye. Thanks for everything. I hope you find your dream girl. Maybe a nurse would understand. I’m sure there are a lot of them just waiting for you to look their way. I know of one brunette O.R. nurse who was sure mad when she thought I was with you.
Adiós,
Cassie
Then she got into the Thunderbird and headed east, her heart beating faster at the proposition of seeing Lale again. The only thing she had to go on was Cherry’s address and a map of Manhattan she’d gotten in a bookstore in Little Rock. Wouldn’t Cherry be shocked when she opened her door and Cassie was standing there? Maybe Lale would be in her room. Maybe they’d be in bed. She wouldn’t think about that.
One thing she knew, though, is that they would be surprised when they saw her.
43
* * *
MIAMI MOONLIGHT
By the time the plane touched down in Miami, I felt like an old hand at air travel. I didn’t know what a big Vogue shoot would be like, but this one must not have been a big one, because it was just me and Ron Bonetti, a funny little gay guy named Gerard Robinson who was the hair and makeup person, and the editor who was paying the bills and overseeing everything, a woman with heavy bangs and thick glasses named Rita Todesco who seemed like a weird choice to work for Vogue, since she wore long black shapeless dresses and sensible shoes, and seemed like she didn’t give a hoot about fashion. I guess she was good at details. Permits would have to be gotten, I suspected, for shooting on a public beach, and other things I couldn’t even imagine. Ron brought most of
the props and stuff.
Ron said that Mrs. Vreeland had called him into the office a few days before and told him what she liked most about his photographs was the sensuality in them. She knew he could capture the feeling of the ocean air, the scent of the sea, the texture of the sand, the grit in the bathing suit. She wanted the heat and masculinity of the sun to come through in every shot, as if it was seeking out this delicious pale morsel to ravage, and she was running from it. She told him her ideas for moon-bathing, the contrast to sunbathing, and how the cool light of the moon should make love to me and I should surrender to it, rather than hide under wraps, as its light moon-tanned me into whiteness. Ron did her voice perfectly, with a word in practically every sentence emphasized. I was okay with the moon, but a little bit worried about the actual time spent out in the sun because, no joke, after trying and failing miserably for years to get tan when I was a teenager, I always got a horrible blistery burn every time I went swimming. I hated suntan lotion, especially Coppertone, which made me feel sticky and yucky and the smell brought back memories of the sharp chlorine of the public swimming pool or the fishy tea-colored water of the lake, and the inevitable burns. I always had a feeling suntan lotion was somehow bad for you, too, maybe even poisonous, since your skin drinks the chemicals up and puts them into your bloodstream. People who make that stuff don’t really care how safe it is, as long as it works. The bottom line was that I just didn’t get out in the sun much unless I had on a hat and long sleeves, and if I went swimming I’d dip in and out and then lie under an umbrella. I was never much of a swimmer anyhow, and besides, it ruined my makeup. That was something I never wanted to be seen without, and swimming with my face in the water was definitely out, so really, why bother?
But Mrs. Vreeland’s visions of the shots were beautiful, and I think she also picked Ron because he was a master with lighting. These ideas sounded like they would need a master to pull them off. Mrs. Vreeland didn’t worry about how something was going to get done—she just saw it in her head and figured we would find a way to make it happen. She apparently liked the small jobs he’d done for her, and this was his first big opportunity to do editorial. He was totally pumped, and so was I. Like Ron said the first time we met, we were going to be together in Vogue!
Gerard I met for the first time at the airport. He was little but muscular and had really short hair, which was kind of weird when everyone else had long hair. He was dressed all in black, a sleeveless T-shirt (showing off fresh bright tattoos of roses and fighting cocks with big tail feathers), tight bell-bottom jeans, and a black leather jacket thrown over his shoulder. He seemed pretty laid-back, but then he’d obviously done it all before and was probably jaded by travel. Rita didn’t say much at all to us, just introduced herself and then went to the gift shop and got a bunch of magazines and candy. Just before we went through the line to get on the plane, Gerard pulled out a package and asked me if I’d carry it in my bag for him, that he didn’t have enough room in his own, so I said sure and crammed it in, although I didn’t have all that much extra room, either. It was a little cheeky of him, I thought, but he was the one who would be doing my face and hair and we had to be together for four days, so I was nice about it. He had a transistor radio clipped to his belt with an earphone and was bopping up and down to the music until I had to nicely ask him to stop it. He was beginning to get on my nerves. He was even shorter than Ron, and I felt like the center pole in the circus tent as the four of us picked up our carry-ons and got in line for the plane. The guy at the gate was going through some of the bags, and opened Gerard’s and Ron’s, but waved me on through with a wink, which I returned.
I had a terrible time with the small amount of leg room on these planes, and couldn’t cross my legs unless I practically jammed my knees into my mouth. I had to sit at an angle, legs out partway into the aisle until the food cart bumped into my legs a few times, then I made Ron change seats with me and I got the window. He had no such problems. Gerard and Rita sat behind us, Gerard still listening to the radio. I don’t know how anybody can stand having racket in their ears all the time. I need a little peace and quiet, especially in a plane, which might fall out of the sky at any minute, so you need to be able to hear any unusual noise it makes.
“Boeuf Bourguignon or Chicken à la King?” I voted for the beef and the stewardess put down a little plastic plate with some kind of meat smothered in brown gravy and Crayola-bright carrots and peas on it.
“Boeuf Bourguignon. Hmm.” I eyed the gray meat. “Looks like the old Swanson Salisbury Steak TV dinners we used to eat back in the fifties. They were part of the Amana food plan that came with our freezer.”
“I think it is the old Swanson Salisbury Steak TV dinner from the fifties. They got a great deal on the leftovers when Amana discontinued the food plan.” Ron sawed away, trying to cut his beef, which was hard, given how small the plate was and how little elbow room we had.
We ate it, drank our drinks—Coke for me and vodka for Ron—in the small flimsy plastic cups and burped a little. I guess with that tiny kitchen the stewardesses had to work in we couldn’t expect real food.
“I have something to tell you, Cherry,” Ron said after the stewardess picked up our plates.
“Sounds serious.”
“Becky left me.”
“Oh, Ron, I’m so sorry. What happened?”
“She fell in love. With Grace.”
“Grace?”
“Another woman.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I kid you not. Ironic, isn’t it? I’m the one who had the career with beautiful women, and all the time I thought she was jealous of me, she was doing the same thing.”
“Well…if she was…like that, why did she marry you in the first place?”
“That’s what women do. They get married and have kids. Except we never got around to the kids part. I just thought she had a low sex drive. The woman she’s with now has two. Kids, not sex drives. Becky and Grace can both be mothers. Kind of confusing to have two mothers, though, wouldn’t you say? It’s weird.”
“Yeah, that would be a little confusing. Which one would be the home-room mother? Would they take turns baking the cookies? But then, I guess life’s weird in general. Everybody’s just got their own kind of weirdness. Are you okay?”
“I’m okay. I mean, I’ve known for a long time it had to end—it was just a shock that this is the way it went down. Frankly, it’s not losing Becky so much as it is changing all the habits. You know, when you live with somebody, you’re connected by a whole string of experiences, each one a thin cord—like she knows how to make your eggs, what kind of underwear you wear. Your music. Your bad dreams. The time she went with you to the emergency room when you cut your finger. All those cords wind into a thick rope that holds you together, and when you break up, it’s like somebody took an ax and cut them all at once. It’s a shock. You have to start all over again.” He paused, looked at his hands, flexed his fingers. He didn’t have a wedding-band crease because as far as I knew he had never worn a wedding band. Not in front of me anyhow. “So how’s your love life?” he finally said.
“It’s great. I’m seeing Aurelius Taylor, the saxophone player I told you about. He’s the sweetest guy in the whole world.”
“Uh-oh. Sweet. That’s the kiss of death, like a girl saying about you ‘He has a good personality,’ when you really want them to say you’re a sexy big hunk o’ love.”
“He is a sexy big hunk o’ love.”
“Liar.”
“Stop it! He is, too.”
“Suuure, he is. I can tell by the excitement in your voice.”
“Oh, shut up. What do you know?” He was so annoying. The worst thing was that there was truth in what he said.
We stayed at the Albion Hotel, a few blocks off South Beach, a beautiful old Art Deco hotel. I had my own room, but we had to use it for the hair and makeup. It was warm, and I hadn’t realized how heady the soft Miami air would be, or how exotic the pal
m trees were, which I’d only seen in pictures. Shucking off my coat and putting on sandals and a slinky silk dress, I felt like I was in some movie like South Pacific or something.
The first night, we all went out to a Cuban restaurant, which I loved because it had rice and pinto beans and pork, which I grew up on, but also exotic stuff like fried plantains, which were kind of like bananas only not as sweet. There was great Cuban music and we all danced, except for Rita, who went back to the hotel early. I guess part of her appeal for Vogue was that she wasn’t a party girl. Gerard, on the other hand, was a wild man on the dance floor, flinging me around and then disappearing like a whirligig into the crowd to dance with perfect strangers, leaving me alone at the mercy of every guy who wanted to cut in, and I began to wonder if he might be on something. I had given him back the package he gave me to carry on the plane, and when I asked him what it was, he said casually, just like he was ordering breakfast or something, “Oh, it’s drugs. LSD. Ether. Pot. A few uppers and downers. Poppers.” Ether? Was he going to give himself an operation? What was that all about? I nearly freaked. I’d had all that stuff in my bag and if I’d been caught, I’d probably be in prison! He was not going to get me to carry it back on the plane, so he might as well forget about that. I bit my tongue to keep from telling him off, because we still had to work together, but after this shoot was over, no way, José, would I ever do him any more favors.
The first morning went all right—the sun was out, the beach was beautiful, and the bathing suits and hats were cute. Rita was still in one of her black dresses, but she’d added a straw hat and big sunglasses and changed her orthopedic shoes for orthopedic sandals. Some of the shots were in the water, which was a lot colder than I thought Florida water would be, and Rita waded right in and put Band-Aids over my nipples, which stick out anyhow, but really stood up when the cold water hit them. Can’t have nipple bumps in Vogue, I guess. It was pretty embarrassing. Then a big wind blew up, and the sand just about wrecked everything. It’s hard to look into the camera and be sexy with sand blowing right in your eyes. We had to keep stopping and redoing the makeup, especially the lip gloss, which got like sandpaper and gritted in my teeth, and Gerard had to stand and hold a big silver reflector to keep the wind out of my face and give it more light. He was almost lifted up and blown out to sea a time or two, but finally the wind died down enough to get the shots. We worked all morning, then stopped for a nice lunch by the pool at the hotel. I felt like a glamorous ad for some exotic drink or something, out there in a fuchsia bikini, big hat, and sunglasses, drinking my fruit drink, eating little sandwiches, just like in the movies. I could get used to this. Then we went back upstairs to my room to redo the makeup, and Gerard pulled out a pair of scissors.
Cheap Diamonds Page 33