Spa

by Olivia De Grove

  “Cathy, look, I.…” Joyce tried to sit up. She wanted to say something important and insightful. Something that would encourage Cathy, but at the same time discourage her from going too far. She didn’t want to contribute to another divorce. But the mud was like a shell of cement around her. She was literally stuck to the table.

  “That’s O.K. Don’t get up. I’ll see you later,” said Cathy, and she left.

  Get up, thought Joyce, listening to the receding footsteps. I’ll crack like a broken vase if I move an eyelid.…

  “You look like a rogelach.” The chirruping of Maxine’s voice filled the momentary void of silence left by the departing Cathy.

  “Why does everybody keep talking about food?” came a muffled query from the mound of clay where Joyce’s face should have been.

  “Harry said I should tell you he’s coming down tomorrow.”

  “Me?”

  “Don’t worry, he told me all about you. I know who you are. I spoke to him on the phone last night and he told me.”

  “He never said anyth.… Ah, Maxine, about the other day. I wasn’t trying to deceive you about my getting a divorce. I would have told you the truth right then, but you were in a hurry and I was supposed to be here incognito.…” Joyce was struggling to talk without moving her lips, but Maxine interrupted her.

  “So what’s the problem? What you said was perfectly true; the fact that it wasn’t you who was saying it doesn’t change a thing.”

  Joyce thought about that for a moment and then decided that it made sense after all.

  Maxine patted Joyce on the head and the sound echoed eerily inside the mud helmet. “Harry says you’ve got a real head on your shoulders. Anyway it wasn’t what you said that was so important. It was what you let me say to you. Talking to you and Adolpho has given me the courage to do some serious thinking. Now Harry and I can sit down and discuss what’s going on, like two adults instead of husband and wife.”

  Maxine departed with one more echoing pat, and Joyce wished that her forty minutes had been up ten minutes ago.

  “Hi, Joyce. How do you like playing ‘living statues’? I had this one yesterday. It’s a real drag, just lying there. Kind of boring isn’t it?”

  “Mummmmm!” replied Joyce, whose lips had apparently hardened in the shut position.

  Regina continued. “Have you seen my mother? Mildred’s on the phone. Says she’s got to talk to her and I haven’t seen her since this morning.”

  “Mmmmmmm!” complained Joyce rolling her eyes.

  “I guess not. Sorry I disturbed you. Bye.”

  Joyce tried to call after her. “Mmmmmmmmm!” she cried. “Mmmm-Mmmmmmmm!” She tried to lift herself off the table again but she was stuck fast.

  She lay still for a minute, trying to reason away the rising tide of panic which was welling up inside of her. Gretel would be along any minute. All she had to do was stay calm.

  Mittlehoff hurried along the corridor that led to the baroness’s private suite. When he got to the door he hesitated, and then knocked twice.

  “Come in!”

  She was lying face down on the massage table in the middle of the room, a small pink towel laid modestly across her lower hips. Alfred, her new personal masseur, was busy kneading the kinks out of her alabaster shoulders. Mittlehoff came halfway across the room and then stopped.

  “Stand where I can see you, for God’s sake, man!” ordered the baroness. And Mittlehoff moved closer to the head of the table. He looked nervously at Alfred.

  “Uh …?”

  “Don’t worry about him. Alfred and I have no secrets from each other. Do we, Bunnykins?” She turned her head slightly and looked up at her latest acquisition. Then she turned back to Mittlehoff. “Well, get on with it then.”

  “Uh … Uh.…” Mittlehoff stammered. “I … I did as you requested. I contacted all the suppliers and made it clear that his credit rating was somewhat questionable.…”

  “Good.”

  “So all the deliveries will be C.O.D. until he brings his accounts up to date.”

  “Excellent. He can’t possibly pay them. A little more to the right, Bunnykins. That’s it … right … there.” She let out a sigh of exquisite agony.

  “And … and then I paid the staff their back wages plus a little incentive on the condition that they leave immediately and most of them did, except for the cook, Adolpho, who seemed to have some strange idea about loyalty … and Gretel, the esthetician.”

  “Did you tell her what I wanted her to do?”

  “Yes, Baroness. And I believe that Ms. Redmond is scheduled for that treatment this afternoon.”

  “Marvelous. After Gretel is finished with her, she won’t have a kind word to say about the place—in print or out. Harder, please, Alfred, and a little to the left. What else?”

  “Well, uh, let me see, the supplies, the staff … oh yes. I thought of this one myself.” Mittlehoff chuckled maniacally. “Late last night, I cut the wires to the main telephone cable. They are now incommunicado.” He showed off his small pointed white teeth and waited for the praise to rain down on his slicked-back head.

  “You idiot!” She pushed Alfred’s hands away and sat up. “Get me my robe.”

  The masseur obediently draped the robe around her shoulders and she slipped it on.

  “How can I expect him to beg for mercy if the telephones are not working. What did you think he was going to do? Send his notice of surrender by carrier pigeon!”

  She stood up and Mittlehoff cowered in the force of her wrath.

  “Now I am going to have to go to see him. And you, you little worm, are coming with me.”

  Chapter 34

  Mariette was taking a load of sheets to the laundry by way of the pool deck, when she came upon the rapidly petrifying presence of Joyce Redmond.

  “Oh my God!” She dropped the load of sheets and ran over to the table. “Who’s in there?” She knocked on the head of the adobed shape.

  “Mmmm-Mmm!” came the muted plea from within the mud.

  “Just a minute, I’ll get the hose.” And she disappeared around the corner and into the gardener’s shed. A few moments later she returned, dragging the long green snake of a hose with her. “Hold on. I’m going to turn the water on, now.” And she twisted the end of the faucet, releasing a blast of icy cold water.

  Quickly she sprayed the area at the top of the table and, in a few seconds, the force of the water began to melt the mud and a face appeared. “Joyce, is that you?” cried Mariette, still spraying frantically. “Are you all right?”

  Joyce opened her mouth to reply, but in her enthusiasm to remove the mud, Mariette sprayed a jet of water right down the captive’s throat. Joyce coughed, choked and then swallowed. She was dying of thirst after being left out in the sun for over an hour in her ceramic coffin.

  Mariette continued to train the hose up and down Joyce’s body and, in a few minutes, minus most of the mud, Joyce was able to sit up and then totter to her feet, albeit not without some difficulty.

  The girl turned off the hose and offered her a towel. “Joyce, what happened?”

  Joyce was busy picking lumps of mud out of her hair. “What happened? What does it look like happened? That sadistic Valkyrie that you call an esthetician just tried to turn me into a human mudpie.” Joyce paused while she scooped a handful of sludge from her cleavage and slopped it on to the ground. “This is the last straw, Mariette. The last straw. I am going to see the doctor right now and demand to know what is going on.” And with that she snatched the towel and stormed off toward the doctor’s office.

  When she got there, she knocked once, and then without waiting for a reply opened the door and went in. The doctor and Belle Taylor broke apart, trying to look like they had not just been engaged in a frantic game of tongue hockey.

  The doctor cleared his throat and casually wiped a hand across his mouth to remove any trace of Bellissima No. 5. “Ms. Redmond, was ist das? You are all wet.”

  “I am
all wet?” said Joyce who now stood dripping puddles of muddy water on the blue and red Bokhara rug. “This place is what is all wet. This … this … sleep-away camp for celebrity sex maniacs. This … this … tropical torture chamber. This Caribbean Colonel Saunders franchise! This is not a spa—it’s a CIA survival camp!” She was practically shouting now, as she wiped some more mud off her forehead. “If I wanted to join the Whole Earth movement I would have gone to Ca … Ca … California!” Joyce was so upset she was starting to hyperventilate. She was taking big gulps of air, but none of it seemed to be getting to the right places.

  The doctor threw a look of alarm at Belle, and helped Joyce to a chair. “Here, Ms. Redmond, Joyce, sit down and try to calm yourself.” He draped the towel around her shoulders and Joyce took a few more deep breaths. After a moment, she started to feel better. The rising panic that had been her only companion for the last half-hour as she lay immobilized and helpless was slowly subsiding. The only problem was that she was beginning to itch—all over.

  She ran the nails of her left hand soothingly down her right arm and vice versa. Then she ran both hands down her legs and up again.

  “The itching will subside,” explained the doctor helpfully, “in a few minutes.”

  “A few more minutes and I might have subsided.” Joyce raked her nails across her throat and tried in vain to reach the center of her back.

  “Allow me,” said the doctor.

  “Don’t you touch me!” She pulled away.

  “But I can assure you that I.…” the doctor looked helplessly at Belle Taylor.

  “I think perhaps you should apologize to Ms. Redmond,” she said pointedly. “It seems that Gretel must have left the mud pack on too long. I’m sure it was just an accident.”

  “An accident! She did everything but put the finishing glaze on me. She left me there on purpose,” cried Joyce, frantically scratching her stomach.

  “I’m sure that is not the case,” said the doctor, though he didn’t sound too convinced. “And I am sorry that you were discomforted. But I’m sure you can understand that every place occasionally has these little staff problems.” He smiled weakly.

  “Little staff problems!” Still scratching, Joyce jumped to her feet. “You have more than a ‘little’ staff problem, doctor. What you have is little staff—very little, no telephone service, and no food. Now I want to know what’s going on. What happened to Paradise? Did somebody eat an apple? What?”

  The doctor looked over at Belle again. “You’d better tell her,” she said resignedly.

  “Ms. Redmond can I get you a robe, another towel?”

  “No, thank you,” said Joyce envisioning little prickles of terry-towel all over her irritated skin. “I’ll just drip dry, if you don’t mind. What you can get me is an explanation.”

  “Very well,” said the doctor contritely. “I suppose there’s no way I can hide the truth any longer. I thought perhaps I could forestall things before they got to this point.” He smiled sadly at Belle. “But, there has been some … uh … interference from another party which has, shall we say, escalated matters somewhat.”

  He sighed heavily and went to sit behind his desk. Joyce thought he looked older, and shorter. A man pushed to his limits. She almost found herself feeling sorry for him. And then she remembered the mud.

  “Before I begin, let me say that I am truly sorry that you and the others should have been inconvenienced during your stay. It was not my intention, not at all.” He shook his head from side to side. “If things had worked out differently.… But I am getting off-topic.

  “Some years ago, after I graduated from medical school.…”

  “By the way, where did you graduate from medical school?” asked Joyce, remembering Harry’s file.

  “University of Lichtenstein.”

  “Then why do you tell people you went to St. George’s?”

  “My dear Ms. Redmond, you come from a country where twenty percent of the population thinks that Los Angeles is the capital of the United States and that Kurt Waldheim is the ABC Evening News anchorman. How many do you suppose have ever heard of Lichtenstein? But, since your country’s involvement in Grenada, I thought that at least some of my potential customers would know of St. George’s.”

  Joyce nodded. “I see your point, go on.”

  “After I graduated, I was still young. I wanted adventure, so I travelled about Europe and, after a time, I met this woman, older, very wealthy.” He took a side glance at Belle whose mouth had formed a thin white line beneath her nose. “She was the heiress to the WENCO fortune.”

  “What’s a wenco?” Confused, Joyce looked from the doctor to Belle and back again.

  But before he could reply, Belle interrupted. “WENCO is the European equivalent of K-Mart,” she sniffed derisively.

  The doctor continued. “Daniella—the Baroness von Hasselberg by her marriage to her second husband—and I became close friends.”

  “He means,” scoffed Belle, “that he and the discount duchess were having it off.”

  “She knows what I mean,” he said with irritation. “The baroness and I spent several years together.…”

  Joyce pointed to the doctor. “Lover Boy and Lady Bug, right?”

  He winced, and Belle glowered. “I see you found the bracelet, when you were having a look around my office that day.”

  Joyce felt a flush rishing in her cheeks.

  “I keep it, not for sentimental reasons, but as my little emergency escape fund. It is worth quite a bit.” He directed this last at Belle and then turned back to Joyce. “Anyway, after a time I realized that there had to be more to life than just gallivanting around Europe spending Daniella’s money. By that time we had visited many spas, and so the idea came to me to open one of my own. Eventually, I managed to get Daniella to agree to put up the money for it, and I came here and opened this place.”

  “But it didn’t take off like he thought it would,” added Belle, with a hint of I-could-have-told-you-so in her voice.

  “No, it didn’t. I began to run low on money. Bills went unpaid. Daniella was breathing down my neck, demanding her money back. Things were tight. And then I heard that you were coming to do the article and I knew that might be just enough to tip the scales, to let the Americans know we were here. And then, of course, when I found out that Belle and her daughter were going to be here, too, I thought it might be an avenue from which I could acquire.…”

  Belle smiled grimly. “Some interim financing.”

  The doctor nodded. “But now, of course, it is too late.”

  “Why is it too late?” asked Joyce, who thought this story a lot more interesting, not to mention entertaining, than the one about the family fortune.

  “Because Daniella has done her best to ruin the place. It’s obvious that she—and that little scum Mittlehoff—are behind what’s going on here. Just after you all arrived, Mittlehoff showed up with an ultimatum from the baroness, sign over the deed to the place, or else.”

  “So that’s what’s been going on. And that’s why that she-wolf of the S.S. left me stuck in the mud. I guess she thought that after that experience I’d really crucify you and this place, in the article. Now that I know what happened, of course.” Joyce thought for a moment. “But I don’t understand, why destroy the business? If she were to succeed, it would only ensure that you couldn’t pay her back, and then she’d be stuck with a place with a terrible reputation.…”

  “Daniella doesn’t really care about the money. She just wants us to have to come crawling back to her.”

  “Us?” piped Belle and Joyce in unison.

  The doctor nodded. “Mariette and I. Mariette is the baroness’s daughter. She came with me because she couldn’t take her mother any longer. And Daniella can’t stand to be left in the lurch. It makes her very angry.”

  Now it was Belle’s turn to interject. “But I thought that you and Mariette.…”

  The doctor shook his head. “I know what you thought, Belle
, but give me some credit, please.”

  “Well, that puts a different cast on things, I must say.” Belle was talking more to herself than to the others, now, but her further comments were interrupted by a knock at the door.

  A moment later Mittlehoff appeared briefly in the doorway before stepping aside to allow the woman behind him to move into the room.

  Joyce’s first thought was that she was stunning—in a lethal sort of way. Tall, svelte, and elegantly dressed, her blond hair twisted into a gleaming golden knot on the back of her head, she swept into the room with all the exquisite grace that accompanies those who know they have the money and the power to destroy whatever lies in their path. Mittlehoff followed on behind her like an obedient daschund.

  The doctor regarded her without surprise.

  “Hello, Daniella, I’ve been expecting you.”

  “Hans.” She tilted her head slightly to one side, and then let her eyes wander over the two women in the room.

  “You must be the journalist. Redmond, isn’t it?” She said to Joyce, pulling off her long, dove-coloured gloves, “.… I recognized you by your mud.”

  Her eyes then shifted to Belle. “Well, well, if it isn’t Belle Taylor, the eighties answer to the Avon lady.” She looked back to the doctor. “We are becoming downwardly mobile, aren’t we, Hans? Next thing I know it’ll be waitresses and cleaning ladies.” She tut-tutted and handed her gloves to Mittlehoff. “Or perhaps you were hoping for a last minute bail-out? Trying to get a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. Well I’m afraid you’ve been casting your pearls before swine, my dear. She can’t possibly come up with enough money to enable you to get rid of me in time. I’m about to call your loan. Mittlehoff, the papers.”

  Belle bristled and moved a few steps closer to the doctor. “Tell the bargain basement baroness here, that if she says one more word about me, I’ll knock the bonding right off her teeth.”

  “I’m not about to be intimidated by the likes of you,” Daniella said to Belle, and then snapped her fingers. “Mittlehoff—where are those papers!”