Dorothy on the Rocks

by Barbara Suter

  I look over at Pauline. She is busily crocheting, making hats and scarves for the homeless.

  “You remember Mariah Stacky, don’t you, Dee?” Pauline says.

  “Yes, honey, I do. She went on tour with us to Tennessee with Pied Piper,” Dee says. “She was wonderful as the mayor’s wife. Had a lovely soprano. She was the only one that could really hit the F-sharp in the ‘Rats, Rats, Rats’ number.”

  “I got a card from her. She’s living in Phoenix. For her health, you know. Terrible asthma.”

  “Really? Is she still married to that fire-eater?” Dee asks. “Remember he worked for Ringling?

  “Yes, but he retired. Mariah said they’re happy as clams on the half shell.”

  “Clams on a half shell?” Eddie yelps from the backseat. “That is just like Mariah to think it would be a hoot to be a clam on the half shell.”

  I lean my head back and close my eyes. Where are those ruby slippers when you really need them?

  2

  When I get home there is a phone message from Mr. Handsome: “Hey, Maggie Mae, how are you? Sorry I had to take off so early this morning. I had a great time and I want to see you again. How ’bout tonight? You’re so great. I mean hot. You know what I mean. Call me. I’m at home and then I’m out, but I’ll check my machine or you can call my cell. I’ll be free around ten. How was the Dorothy thing? Call me.”

  NOTE TO SELF . . .

  Be sure to get his name before you climb up on his lap and yell “giddyup.”

  I replay the message four times, copying down the phone numbers. Did he mean hot as in exciting, or hot as in hot to touch? I suspect he had mistaken the heat of a pre-premenopausal hot flash for sizzling passion but what the hell. For me it was one of those blurry nights that return in moments of clarity, like freeze-frame pictures. I was sure I remembered that at some point he was wearing a garter belt and I was perched on his lap yelling giddyup. That could explain the bruise I noticed on my left thigh when I was struggling into my Dorothy tights. But what is his name? I can’t remember it, or maybe I never knew it. And he didn’t leave it in the message.

  There is also a call from Charles: “Maggie, darling, where are you? It’s Charles. My God, it’s so hot and humid I’m sticking to myself. I just got back from Spain. Olé! And I’m dying to tell you all about it. How about dinner tonight? I’m footloose. My treat, darling. Just love to see you. Call me.”

  Charles is the curator of a small art gallery in Tribeca. His taste is very noveau yet very upscale, meaning he knows what sells for big bucks and doesn’t bother with fads. I wish I didn’t bother with fads and that I could make big bucks, but my life has been one fad after another. There was the women’s lib fad and the rock star fad and the downtown leather fad, the spiritual fad and the soybean diet fad and the Hampton fad, and now the too-much-scotch-not-enough-brain-cells-younger-man fad. And all of them ended up costing me, although what I’m not sure. At dinner that night Charles chats nonstop about Madrid and the matadors and the vino and the art.

  “Maggie, dear, you should see my newest find. We agreed on a show at the gallery in the fall. He does acrylics mixed with crushed shells on linen. Amazing textures. And what a colorist! Like O’Keeffe. Pure, vibrant. And yet not overbearing. I think they’ll sell like crazy. Very Hampton friendly. You should tell your friend Patty. I think she’d love them. Give me her address and I’ll send her an invitation to the opening. You would not believe the place I stayed.”

  Charles proceeds to wax poetic about the hotel and the gorgeous young man he had met in Santa Pola, a resort town on the coast of Spain that is apparently filled with gay men and nightclubs and nude sunbathing. As he talks my mind drifts off to a freeze-frame from last night. I am sure Mr. Handsome had a tattoo on his shoulder, and I am now trying to get it into focus. I think it was some sort of religious symbol . . . or was it an animal? I’m sure it had several arms and legs, or at least what looked like legs. Maybe it was something Hindu.

  “Maggie?” Charles snaps at me.

  “Sorry?” I say, coming back to attention.

  “Hello, earth to Maggie!” Charles says. “I was talking about my new artist.”

  “I’m listening, acrylic on linen. I love it. Sounds very Mapplethorpe,” I say.

  “What do you mean Mapplethorpe? God, Maggie, Mapplethorpe was a photographer. After all these years of my educating you about the art world, I would think you’d at least get the mediums right.”

  “I can only try,” I say. “You have to admit I can pick out a Hockney from a lineup.”

  “Hockney’s easy, dear.” Charles smiles at me indulgently.

  “Easy for you.” I smile back.

  “And then in Barcelona,” Charles continues, “I met a wonderful glassblower. Amazing vases.” He hands me another stack of snapshots.

  “He’s gorgeous, Mags,” Charles says, chewing on his olive. “He told me the secret to good skin is hydration. He drinks two gallons of water a day. Can you imagine?”

  “No.” I say. “I’d have to wear a catheter just to leave the house.”

  “I think he must,” Charles says. “You know people will do anything these days to look young. Have you heard about sheep fat? If you put it in the blender with some sea salt and cucumbers it makes a wonderful restorative scrub and takes off years.”

  “Really? I could have used some of that sheep fat this morning. I had to play Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz.”

  “Maggie, you’ve got to start singing for real again. Get out of that damn pigtail and pinafore and do cabaret. Put on a silky black cocktail dress and sing Cole Porter.”

  “I can barely get into the pinafore anymore, for Christ’s sake. A little girl in the front row heckled me. Called me a big lady, which is code for old and fat. And the cellar door wouldn’t spin. I practically had to get off and walk to the Land of Oz. I’m not the ingénue I used to be.”

  “Oh, who is, darling?” Charles says, finishing off his martini. Then he gestures to the waiter for another round for both of us. Charles and I met years ago. He was living with my accompanist at the time, Goodwin Albert DePugh, better known as Goodie, the best piano player to ever come out of Lake Charles, Louisiana. We kicked ass in the East Village clubs doing our Miss Goodie Two Shoes and Maggie the Magnolia act for the extremely hip, the classy cool, and the “true believers,” as Goodie liked to call them. We were the “wildly addictive soul sisters with sass and brass,” said the Village Voice. “Funny and heartbreaking, with harmonies to die for.” Goodie was my best friend; I was Ethel to his Lucy, and he was Rhoda to my Mary.

  When Goodie started to get sick, we all knew what it was. We knew it was the Big Sick. The Big Sick that no one could get away from in the eighties and early nineties. It was everywhere, and it was so devastating that no one wanted to look—certainly not me.

  Sometimes during a rehearsal Goodie would start coughing and couldn’t stop, and I would find some speck on the wall or crack in the floor to look at and will myself not to think until the coughing stopped and Goodie took a drink of water and said something about allergies. I would rub his back and try not to think about the Big Sick; I’d tell myself that maybe it was just allergies. After all, the pollen count was high and the ozone layer was disappearing at an alarming rate. Charles got Goodie hooked up to some experimental program. Goodie started having lots of colonics, the theory being you could flush the poison out. Get rid of the fluids—pump in healthy stuff. Purify the body. But nothing worked, and Goodie got thinner and weaker and sicker, and finally it got so bad that there was no place to look and pretend it wasn’t happening. Goodie’s brother Joe came up from Texas to help out. He was a civil engineer and we hit it off and became a couple, much to Goodie’s delight.

  “You two were made for each other,” he would say with a smile. So Texas Joe and I fell in love while Goodie fell victim to his compromised immune system. By the time the lifesaving “cocktail” came on the scene, he was too far gone. Lousy timing for a guy with rhythm
.

  Charles and I are having dinner at Ernie’s on Broadway. It’s a big, airy place with windows that open onto the street. Air-conditioning is pouring out of overhead vents.

  “They’re cooling the whole damn world; their electric bill must be enormous,” Charles notes as he sips his second double martini with two olives, light on the vermouth. He is a slim man with close-cropped hair, a diamond earring, and an assumed patrician air.

  “So did you make it back to Kansas?”

  “Yeah, but I almost left Toto in Oz. When the lights did their magic flashing thing, I tripped over the Wizard’s throne and the stuffed dog went flying. Frank had to throw him back to me from the wings just as Auntie Em ran onstage saying, ‘Oh Dorothy, I’ve been so worried’—well, you know the story.”

  “I sure do, and all the lines and all the lyrics,” he says.

  “Gosh, Dee-Honey should have called you this morning.”

  I glance at my watch. It’s nine fifteen. “I have to go to the ladies’ room. Will you order me an espresso when the waiter comes back?” I say to Charles.

  “Espresso, darling? I take it I’m not your last port of call tonight.”

  “Hmm, and I doubt that I’m yours.”

  “Bingo, baby, and a bull’s-eye as well.”

  Charles and I are all that’s left of our odd little family. During Goodie’s illness, he and Goodie and Goodie’s brother, Texas Joe, and I were together almost every night. We had dinner and watched TV and played scrabble and put Goodie to bed and made sure he was medicated and washed and comfortable. In the last months we would eat in his room, where a hospital bed had been installed. Sometimes I would read to him, and then, when he had fallen asleep, I would just sit and watch him breathe. After Goodie died, my affair with Joe came to its logical conclusion: the logic being that he lived in Houston and I lived in New York and neither one of us was willing to change the situation.

  I pick up the phone in the ladies’ room and dial Mr. Handsome’s cell phone number from the scrap of paper I stuffed into my bag. Smart me. Now if I could remember to charge the battery on my cell phone and put it in my purse, I’d almost be living in the twenty-first century. The phone rings and he answers, “Jack here.”

  Thank God, now I won’t have to ask his name, which is the height of rudeness. Or is it? After all I barely know him, except for the lap-riding, giddyup, possibly kinky sex episode.

  “Jack. It’s me, Maggie,” I say.

  “Wassup? Where are you? I’m on my way into the city. Let’s get together.”

  “Sure. I’m just finishing dinner. Why don’t you meet me at my place around ten thirty?”

  “Great. See you then. I’ll bring some beer. Rolling Rock, right?”

  “Yeah. Till then.” I hang up. Wow, he remembered what I drank yet I couldn’t remember his name. Obviously he’s better at relationships than I am. God is in the details, but then, so is the devil.

  I finish my espresso with Charles and walk him to the subway at Seventy-second Street. He’s going downtown to dance in some disco with naked waiters and strobe lights. We hug for a moment.

  “We are going to go to Saks and buy you a sexy black cocktail dress with sequins. And then I want to hear you sing ‘Night and Day’ in the key of G.”

  “Charles, I have plenty of sexy cocktail dresses with sequins,” I say.

  “Where are they? In cold storage?” Charles asks. “Come on, Maggie dear, it’s time to get back in the game.”

  “And I can’t sing anything in the key of G, you know that.”

  “Well then G-flat,” he says.

  “That’s not funny. You know how singers hate that word flat.” I hug him again.

  “Darling, you never sang flat a day in your life.”

  “You’re too nice.”

  “I mean it, Maggie Magnolia, it’s time,” he says, kissing me on the cheek and then hurrying down the subway stairs.

  Pesky tears well up in my eyes, and I stand a moment watching as he disappears into the station. Charles is grand in a too grand sort of way, and he’s a bit supercilious at times, but deep down in the midnight hour of his being, he is a kind and caring person who believes in his friends, is loyal to a fault, and can take the worst batch of lemons and turn it into the most delicious lemon meringue pie.

  With Charles gone, I focus on the rest of my evening, Rolling Rock beer and the Lone Ranger. Giddyup, indeed! I check out the clock over the Apple Bank for Savings on the corner of Seventy-third Street: it’s ten o’clock. I hail a cab. There’s just time to get home and freshen my makeup and fluff the apartment.

  As the taxi hurls its way up Amsterdam Avenue, I think of what Charles said about my doing a cabaret act, and I decide he’s right, I need to get back to the music. A few months ago I did a workshop of a new musical about the life of Eleanor Roosevelt, and I liked the accompanist. I’ll call him and then I’ll call Sidney at Don’t Tell Mama, and I’ll schedule a show.

  The cab stops in front of my building. The meter reads $6.40. I fish around in my belly bag and come up with a ten-dollar bill. “Keep the change,” I say, handing it to the driver. I’m a good tipper, mainly because it’s easier than doing the math. Dick Andrews, a neighbor, is in front of my building, walking his terrier, Mr. Ed, the talking Westie. Mr. Ed is a great conversationalist. You say something to him, and then he barks back at you in a very creditable fashion. When Dick and his wife are out of town, I walk Mr. Ed and often fall into deep conversations with him over a beer and doggie treat (for Mr. Ed, of course). He is an engaging little dog with plenty of insight into city life.

  “Good evening, Mr. Ed,” I say as I bend down and scratch him between his perky ears.

  “Arf, ar-arf-arf-arf?” Mr. Ed asks.

  “Pretty good and how’s by you?” I respond. Mr. Ed sits on his haunches, settling into conversation mode.

  “Arf arf ar-ar-arf—ar-ar!”

  “No really? You haven’t been out since this morning. That is a long time.” I scowl up at Dick. “They are mean to you. You have to come visit me next weekend.”

  “Arf-ar-ar-arf.”

  “I gotta run, Mr. Ed. Hang tough, little guy.” I stand and look at Dick. “Mr. Ed is mad at you.”

  “I know,” Dick says with a perfectly straight face. “You’re the first person he’s talked to all day.”

  It’s 10:17 by the digital clock on the VCR as I enter my apartment. Damn. I turn on the light in the bathroom. Yikes! The face that stares back at me from the mirror is very ragged. Bixby jumps up on the toilet seat and gazes at me in that punch-drunk way he does when he is rudely awakened from his cat sleep. I get out my economy size jar of Noxzema and lather up. I rinse with very cold water (rumor has it Sharon Stone submerges her face in ice water for a half hour every day—brrrrrr). I quickly apply under eye cover cream, powder, lipstick, and a little mascara. It’ll help, but still I’ll keep the lights low—that’s the ticket. Lighting is everything after forty years of age. I’m sure the person who invented dimmers for home lighting was a woman over forty. And God bless her.

  I wish I had time to do one of those facial masks that promises to peel off all the old skin and leave just the brand-new pink undercoat brimming with youth and hope. A new face to greet the faces that you meet. In this case a younger face in the person of Mr. Handsome, or rather Jack, as has now been established. I lean over and brush my short and sassy blonde, overprocessed hair with its equally overpriced highlights a few times toward the floor in an attempt to stimulate gloss. Blood runs to my head and I momentarily feel dizzy. Oops. Beer and espresso are the worst kind of gasoline, but it’s what my engine runs on. Protein, a little voice says. Eat protein. I look in the refrigerator. Skim milk, Dijon mustard, bean sprouts, yogurt, and mozzarella cheese. Cheese is protein, isn’t it?

  The buzzer rings. Shit, he’s here. Forget the protein and put on music. I put on a Billy Joel CD, dim the lights, and suck in my stomach. I turn the knob and open the door and there he is—as tall and handsome a
s I remember. He’s wearing jeans and a black T-shirt and carrying a six-pack of Rolling Rock.

  Young man, young man, hit me over the head and drag me anywhere, I think as he places the beer on the table and turns. And before I can say a word, he wraps his arms around me and smothers me in his embrace. Yes, smothers. It’s like a scene from a 1940s movie with me being played by Barbara Stanwyck, and Jack, the young man, played by Jack Palance, the Hollywood stud.

  I run my hand down his well-shaped gluteus maximus and stumble across a bump, a something or other, a garter belt? He’s wearing a garter belt! I knew the one in the freeze-frame memory wasn’t mine. So he comes equipped. I don’t linger on the telltale bump. I don’t want to appear surprised, but I do wonder if he is also wearing hose? Black fishnet perhaps, and who can imagine what else? He is moving his mouth down my neck, headed for my right breast. I moan and press against his privates. Yum. He is hard all right, very hard indeed—unless it’s just more equipment. No, this is definitely the real thing. He grabs me under my buttocks, does a quick wrestling maneuver, and just like that we are on the floor, writhing on that cotton throw rug again. Zippers are unzipping, buttons unbuttoning, legs parting, juices flowing. Sex. Sex is happening as it has happened for thousands of years. The double-backed beast, the two-headed monster, the sublime and the ridiculous, but, alas, I am a little too sober to make it to home plate. Damn, I think, as Jack makes his way down, down, down to the part I was told never to touch.

  “Don’t ever put your hands down there. It’s nasty,” my mother said as she stood over me, a curious five-year-old playing in the bath. Well fine, I won’t; I’ll let other people do it. Ha, ha, ha, I laugh to myself. But the thought of my mother and the lack of sufficient alcohol make me sit bolt upright.

  “What is it for Christ’s sake?” Jack moans, as he rolls off to the side, conking his head on the hardwood floor.

  “I have to pee,” I say weakly. “Sorry.”

  “Yeah, sure. You really turn me on.”

  “Likewise.”