Petty in Pink

by Compai

  Before Jocelyn could respond, James, Mariposa’s manager, who had been alerted by his sensitive staff to the cub-on-cougar tension, burst from the swinging kitchen doors. “Is everything all right?” he inquired, plunking a hot plate of bacon (extra crispy) in front of Melissa and turning to Jocelyn with a placating smile.

  “Actually,” murmured the buxom blonde, sliding Melissa’s card to the table’s edge, “everything’s fine.”

  “But…!”

  “Shut up, Pepper,” Jocelyn silenced her friend through clenched teeth. Tucking the card into her back pocket, she flashed the manager and girls a bright smile. “So sorry to disturb you!”

  The five girls watched Jocelyn and her fake-baked besties retreat from the table, unified by the same thought. All it took was the name. At the mere mention of Ted Pelligan those women had surrendered — tails between their designer-denim-clad legs. Someday, they incredulously pondered, Poseur could have that same kind of power. As if by magic, tables would open and lines would part, fees would be waived and parking tickets ignored. Someday they wouldn’t need Ted Pelligan to make things happen.

  They would just happen.

  “Did I even order this?” Melissa suddenly asked, bolting her bacon with a puzzled frown.

  Nikki eyed the small plate with a knowing titter.

  From the opposite side of the restaurant, Jocelyn began to scowl. Get your giggles while they’re hot, girls, she seethed, pressing a BlackBerry Touch to her aquamarine-studded ear and fanning herself with Melissa’s business card. “Ted Pelligan, please,” she breathed, switching her phone to a fresh ear and turning to her friends with a wink. They faced one another and high-fived, barely stifling their squeals. Seemed some fresh meat was about to be fried. And this time?

  It wasn’t bacon.

  The Girl: Miss Paletsky

  The Getup: Olive wrinkle-resistant pleated slacks, navy blue pleather pumps, dusty rose stretch-lace turtleneck, and classic navy blazer, all from Loehmann’s

  At Winston, school ends at three, with the notable exception of Fridays, which end at two. Excluding, perhaps, a Gossip Girl episode featuring Nate and Chuck’s first kiss (will they get it over with, already?), Winstonians could imagine no hour better spent. Which was to say, what they did hardly mattered (some gossiped, others shopped, some took their cars to get washed, others flipped through magazines, drawing devil horns on Miley Cyrus); that they did it at all—that was the point. They could have been in school right now, and yet… they weren’t!

  Even flossing felt like a second lease on life.

  Of course, no one—student or faculty—greeted end-of-week early dismissals with deeper gratitude than Miss Paletsky. Her bus commute took about an hour, leaving her just enough time to get home, sigh her Sigh of Unfathomable Woe, and put down her purse before Yuri roared into the apartment, shattering her solitude. Light fixtures quaked, picture frames shifted, tchotchkes jittered: the very walls trembled in his presence. No space could contain him. With Yuri inside it, the room creaked like a baby carriage hijacked by a silverback gorilla.

  Of course, one might wonder why she rushed home at all. Why not hole up in her office for a while, or get off the bus one stop early and window-shop on Melrose? Why not kill an hour or two at Sweet Lady Jane, where she could sit with a dog-eared copy of War and Peace and a cup of peppermint tea, and where Leon, if he was working, gave her chocolate rugelach for free? As Yuri himself often inquired (albeit when she was running in the opposite direction), What is ch’urry?

  The answer was simple: she must get home to her piano. Ever since Christopher “Seedy” Moon hired her to play for his pink engagement party, she’d been racked with anxiety. Of course, nerves were not unusual, and under normal circumstances she knew exactly how to cope. Practice, practice, practice. As Ms. Transky had instructed her as a young student: “You must play your pieces until your fingers acquire minds of their own—until your fingers are like your heart. You may command your heart, stop beating. Does it stop? So it must be with your fingers. You must trust them to play no matter what. Only then will you relax and play with confidence.”

  And so, after arranging eight of Christopher’s greatest hits into a thirty-minute program for piano, she practiced. “Kimchi Killah,” “Death in Venice,” “Gimme All Your Love (Gimme All Your Money),” “Little Miss Chang,” “Glock to Remember”: by the end of three weeks, she knew those pieces like her great-great-great grandmother knew Rasputin (a little too well). And yet, despite her preparation, her nerves hadn’t gotten better.

  They’d gotten worse.

  Of course, it was possible her anxiety had nothing to do with music. Tomorrow night, after weeks of not seeing him… she would see him. And there was nothing she could do—nothing she could practice—to prepare. Not that she hadn’t tried. She had, according to the age-old tradition of the pathetically crushed out, rehearsed to the bathroom mirror. There wasn’t a form of “ch’ello,” she hadn’t tried: the straightforward, adult ch’ello; the surprised and laughing I-didn’t-see-you-there ch’ello; the wry and ironic ch’ello; the subtly flirtatious ch’ello; the you’re-getting-married-and-I-don’t-care-because-my-heart-is-dead ch’ello…

  No, she commanded herself, plunking down at the wooden piano bench with a self-reproving frown. That her nerves had to do with a man she barely knew—an engaged man she barely knew—was too mortifying, too ridiculous, to consider. She was a grown woman! Not a silly young girl. Practice. Her trembling fingers (painted in her signature Krème de la Kremlin) hovered above the keys. Practice. The ethereal first notes of “Good Year Pimpin’ ” filled the air.

  And then the front door exploded.

  “You make noise like dying bear!” he boomed, rumbling into the room like a Soviet tank. The young teacher dropped her pale hands to her lap and cringed, reluctantly following her barrel-shaped fiancé with her bespectacled eyes. Thudding the short yet well-trampled path from the door to the overstuffed black leather sofa, Yuri reached for the TiVo remote, flopped into his seat, and kicked off his black-and-white Adidas sandals. As the leather fartingly surrendered to his dense weight, the plasma screen flicked to life, imbuing his already toadlike face with an amphibian green hue.

  Miss Paletsky sighed to her feet.

  “Where you go?” he grumbled distractedly, not taking his eyes from the TV.

  “To the bathroom.” What did he want from her? A hall pass?

  “Good.” He grunted. “Remember to bring me Icy Hot.”

  With contained exasperation, Miss Paletsky disappeared down the hall. The bathroom, with its flamingo pink sink and toothpaste turquoise tiles, hadn’t changed since the ’30s, when it hosted the primping rituals of countless aspiring starlets. She tried not to think about them (it chilled her dread), but then: the tea-brown water stain on the ceiling, the hairline cracks along the grout, the sun in the window.

  What were they if not a plea to remember?

  “Here.” She returned from the bathroom and plunked the ancient-looking Icy Hot on the glass table by Yuri’s meaty elbow. He grimaced, transfixed by the plasma screen, and fumbled for the three-ounce tube of ointment. Nothing short of a private meeting with President Putin or Carmen Electra could distract him from The View.

  “Go back to graveyard, Barbara!” he shouted at the TV, unscrewing the tiny cap. “Stewpid peasant.”

  As he rubbed the ointment into his furry hump of a back, the future Mrs. Grigorovich resumed her place at the piano, wobbly with grief. Not to say she wasn’t by now accustomed to practicing with Yuri barking in the background.

  But it was Friday.

  The day she looked forward to all week.

  The day of the extra hour.

  Did he have to take that from her too?

  On top of the upright piano’s closed lid, her soap-size plaster bust of Beethoven glowered down at her. Before she quite knew what she was doing, she swiped the sullen composer from his perch, squeezed him hard in her hand, and, with a screech seldom heard out
side Kung Fu movies, hurled him against the wall.

  “Oigah!” Yuri’s arms flew to his face as the tiny statue smashed to smithereens. “You crazy?”

  “I need to practice!” she cried, leaping up from the rickety bench.

  Still peering through the slats of his fingers, he gaped. “So?”

  “Alone! Alone! I need to practice alone.”

  With a dismissive hand gesture, he brushed her off, returning to the television. “Shut up, Whoopie,” he muttered, pointing the remote and raising the volume a notch. “Why don’t you look for your eyebrows?”

  Miss Paletsky stalked across the room, rooted herself in front of the plasma screen, and gritted her teeth.

  “Ch’ello!” Yuri raised his arms like a sorcerer conjuring a spell. “I am watching View!”

  “Yuri,” the young teacher declared, “I cannot marry you.”

  “We talk about this later,” he replied, gesturing for her to get out of the way.

  “There will be no more talking!” She clenched her fists, stomping her foot. “Engagement is nyet.”

  “Nyet?!” Yuri scoffed in indignation. “But you will be sent back to Russia! Like a dog.”

  “Dah, dah!” She clapped her hands once and laughed. “I am dog. I am bear. I don’t care.” Behind her octagon-shaped Lens-Crafters, her brown eyes narrowed. “I would rather be any animal in Russia than woman to you!”

  With a pensive grunt, her scorned suitor gripped the remote and thumbed the mute. “So,” he intoned as all around them, silence hummed. “There is someone else?”

  Miss Paletsky’s brow furrowed with confusion. “What?”

  “Another man!” Yuri slapped the arm of his chair. “Tell me I am wrong,” he challenged.

  His fiancée could only laugh, covering her face with her hand.

  “So, I am right!” He heaved himself out of the black leather chair, knocked into the table, and scattered its contents to the floor. Of course he is right! Why else does he come home an hour early, eh? To catch her! To catch her and him. But they are too quick! Too clever.

  “Tell me!” He gripped his knee, limping forward. Under his naked foot, the toppled tube of Icy Hot gasped, splooging all over the rug. “Who is this man?”

  “You are crazy,” she insisted, shaking her head. “There is no man.”

  “LIES!” he roared from the opposite side of the room.

  “There is no man!” she insisted again, this time bursting into tears. If only there were another man, she thought. Yuri sank to the floor and sighed, cradling his cranium in his stubby hands.

  He hadn’t meant to make her cry.

  “Lenochka.” He looked up, eyes red with regret.

  But she was already out the door.

  The concrete hardened under her feet as she ran, stinging her every step. But the pain was a friend—it ran with her—down the sidewalk, past the steady hush of sprinklers and peach bungalow apartments behind water-stained adobe walls, past the woman unloading groceries from her beat-up Saab, past the trio of Orthodox Jews, teenage boys in long black coats, wide-brimmed hats, on their way to services, past the hissing hydrant, the dog behind the chain-link fence, and the fallen palm frond, splayed like a broken fan in the gutter.

  Finally, clutching her ribs, she leaned against a rough cinder-block wall and caught her breath. Across the alley, its deep coral pink walls dusky with twilight, the landmark Formosa café appeared to watch her from behind green-and-white-striped awnings. As the half-moon shone through clustered banana trees and valets darted around lumbering cars, a back door swung open, releasing a burst of chatter. Two girls—real shriekers—in skinny jeans, baby-doll blouses, and heels ventured into the night air. Maybe I’ll go inside, thought Miss Paletsky, watching them dig into their purses. Take a seat at the bar. Have a drink, maybe. Something new—like fuzzy martini. Wait—was that the name? Nyet.

  Dirty navel?

  Minutes later, grinding their cigarettes under their heels, the girls headed back to the bar. There was a second burst of chatter, and then the back door swung shut, leaving Miss Paletsky in silence. She blinked down at her outfit: olive green pleated slacks, navy pleather pumps, dusty rose stretch-lace turtleneck—a scraggly run in the sleeve from snagging her watch—and classic navy blazer. She liked this outfit, and yet…

  A tinny gypsy waltz spiraled thinly into the night air, halting her thoughts. She sighed, digging her cell phone from her hip pocket. The last thing she wanted to do was talk to him, but she must. If she wanted a place to sleep—not to mention a place to wash and dress for tomorrow night—then she would have to make some kind of peace. She scowled at the flashing face of her phone, bracing herself for the toxic displeasure that accompanied reading his name. Christopher Duane Moon.

  Wait—who?

  She frowned at the screen, waiting for the letters to rearrange into the order she expected. They did not. The melody repeated. The name remained the same. She swallowed, lifting the phone to her ear.

  “Ch’ello?”

  “Miss Paletsky?” a small voice warbled from the other end. The young teacher’s frown deepened. He sounded so… feminine. “Something really bad has happened,” the voice went on. “Like, the worst thing ever.”

  Miss Paletsky exhaled, gripping her forehead. “Melissa.”

  “I know,” Christopher Moon’s daughter confirmed. “And I swear I wouldn’t call you if it wasn’t an absolute emergency.”

  “Where are you?” Miss Paletsky took command of her senses. “Why are you whispering?”

  Melissa hesitated. In order to get her Special Studies teacher’s personal home number, she’d had to sneak into her dad’s office—right next door to his bedroom and strictly off-limits—and nab it from his Rolodex. To make matters ten times trickier, she’d left her damn cell in her bedroom, forcing her to either use her dad’s office phone or risk sneaking into the office all over again. Needless to say, Option Office Phone won out, because if she did not take care of this situation as soon as possible—as in now—she might seriously die of a heart attack, which was—uh-uh—not okay considering she’d already planned to die in her sleep, in her nineties, in an ivory satin La Perla nightdress, with Marco and/or Pharrell at her side.

  Of course, Miss Paletsky didn’t need to know that.

  “I lost my voice,” she whispered, cupping the mouthpiece with her hand. “I always lose my voice in times of severe emotional distress, Miss Paletsky.”

  “I don’t understand.” The pretty Russian paced along the sidewalk. “What’s going on?”

  “He called it off!”

  “Who?”

  “Ted Pelligan,” she whimpered, strangled by the words. “The contract, the celebriteaser. Everything!”

  “Oh, Melissa,” Miss Paletsky fluttered her eyes shut. “I…” “I was like, ‘Why?’ and he was like, ‘Don’t insult me,’ and I was like, ‘What? What do you mean?’ and he was, like, ‘Ha! Please hold for Mr. Tone,’ and I was, like, ‘Who’s Mr. Tone?’ and he hung up on me.”

  “All right, calm down.”

  “But the party’s tomorrow night! Miss Paletsky, you have to talk to him. I don’t even know what we did!”

  “You can’t ask your father?” Her eye winked in suspicion. If Melissa couldn’t ask her father, then there was probably something a little underhanded going on.

  “Daddy’s too busy with the party,” Melissa replied, neglecting to mention that if her father talked to Ted Pelligan, then he’d find out she’d never canceled the celebriteaser to begin with, and it’d be off with her head—yet another way she would not allow herself to die.

  “I don’t know…” Her teacher hesitated. She was getting very strong adult-versus-teenager vibes, to borrow a California word, and she wasn’t about to play for the wrong team, no matter how supportive she was.

  “You don’t understand,” Melissa insisted, gasping every word. “Some fool sabotages my contest, and all the Man in K-Town’s got on him is ‘seaweed.’ Emilio loves the hous
ekeeper more than me. My dad’s marrying Vivien Ho. Oh, Miss P!” The letter P proved too much for her: Dior-stained tears slalomed down her cheeks; her breath caught in her throat. “Poseur has to happen,” she squeaked. “It’s the only good thing in my life!”

  A small smile flickered across Miss Paletsky’s face. Against her nobler instincts, Melissa’s bratty objection to her father’s fiancée filled her with affection. She shook her head, disapproving of herself, and sighed.

  “I will see what I can do.”

  The Gangsta: Seedy Moon

  The Getup: Ed Hardy black tiger knitted velour lounge pants, 18-karat yellow-gold chain by Cartier, carved Korean jade medallion from Momma Moon

  Friday night, and Seedy Moon felt like his polished ebony platform bed: king-size. Everything was perfect: big half-moon grinning outside his double-paned bedroom windows, daughter tucked into bed, his woman in the bathroom doing woman things… no cares in this world. Tomorrow night — with five hundred fineass people plus God as his witness — he would formalize their engagement. Had a whole speech planned and everything. “As y’all may know by now, I’m a songwriter. Yeah… that means I rhyme for a living. When it comes to settlin’ down, lemme tell you—we rhymers be trippin’. (Pause for laughter.) Engaged? Rhymes with caged. Married? Rhymes with buried. Now, with a lot of women you meet—y’all know who I’m talkin’ about!—those rhymes make perfect sense. But then someone like Vee comes along. (Pause to smile at Vee.) You be singin’ a different tune. With her on my arm? I’m the opposite of buried. With her in my heart? I’m the opposite of caged. If y’all want to know the truth (pause to take Vee’s hand), I’m walkin’ on air. I’m free.”

  Man, every time he even thought those words, he got choked up. With shining eyes, he smiled at the closed bathroom door. Was there any finer music than the sound of someone you love taking a shower? The squeak of the tap shutting off, the gargling drain, the shudder of the shower door. The whisper of a towel, the creak of a cabinet, the secret clatters at the sink. For real, dawg…