Wicked Stepmother

by Michael McDowell

  Cassandra was very pleased by this, for her intuition had proved correct.

  Ben James looked at Cassandra closely, and said in a low voice, “You take care of these people, all right? You tell ’em what to do. I’ll get them an agent, and a tax man, and all that business, but they still are going to need somebody close to them to tell them what to do. And I think that should be you. You’ve done a good job so far.”

  Cassandra flushed, and replied, “Of course, let me give you my numbers. Call anytime. The band is very important to me.”

  “One piece of advice . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “Whatever they do, make sure they do it right. I’ll get going on things from my end. And I’ll depend on you to keep things straight up here. One other thing: they all have to be ready to get up and go. If their agent wants them in New York or Washington tomorrow night, I want you to make sure that they get there. Fuck their jobs, if they’ve got them. We’re going to make sure they don’t need ’em for long.”

  Cassandra realized suddenly to what extent she was already involved in all of this. She didn’t shrink, but took the opportunity to explain to Ben James the financial structure of the group. “Jonathan was engaged to Apple, and before he died, he put aside twenty thousand to set up the studio for them. While we were working on the conversion, he died and I finished it up. I help them here and there, not real support, just making sure they don’t waste all their time in trying to figure out how they’re going to eat. It’s not that—” She paused reflectively.

  Ben James finished for her. “You’re not supporting them, no. This is an investment, believe me. When I get back to New York, I’ll have my lawyers draw up a set of contracts, one for you, one for me, and they can sign. That way everybody’ll be protected.”

  Cassandra nodded her assent to this.

  Ben James was as good as his word. An agent arrived in Boston three days later, met the band, listened to them play, and remarked, “I intend to make a fortune off you people.” He flew back to New York, and contracts arrived four days later. The agent was to receive fifteen percent of all revenues; and Cassandra became the group’s official manager, at another fifteen percent.

  “I told him to put down ten for me,” she said to Rocco and Apple. “I guess he forgot.”

  “He didn’t forget,” said Apple. “He spoke to us, and cleared it all, and we told him to make your take fifteen as well. None of this would have happened without you.”

  “And Verity’s cocaine.”

  “Next time I see Eric,” said Rocco, “I’m going to shake his hand.”

  Things began to move quickly for People Buying Things. Their new agent showed up with a photographer and took shots of the band rehearsing, in actual performance, and then, with Cassandra’s help, arranged portrait shots using the Brookline mansion as background. These photographs and press releases began appearing almost immediately in the Globe, the Herald, and the Phoenix, as well as the local rock periodicals. Bert and Ian’s visibility in the gay community got the photographs and releases into the numerous bar throwaways in town.

  Cassandra commissioned an illustrator who had once worked on an issue of Iphigenia to design an insignia for the band. He came up with a logo of the Art Deco initials PBT surmounted by a broad red dollar sign, with three vertical crossbars bearing the name of the band. It was painted onto Rocco’s bass drum, and used on all the posters and fliers. Cassandra had many hundreds of T-shirts printed up with the insignia, and allowed them to be sold below cost in record and trendy clothing stores.

  Using her personal funds, Cassandra backed the production of a flexi-disc—a record pressed onto one side of a six-inch square of thin cardboard—and had it distributed in the monthly edition of Charts, the Boston equivalent of Billboard. Copies of the disc were also given away at bars and in record shops. “Velvet Glove” gained immediate attention. It was played widely in gay discos, and then picked up a little later by WERS and WZBC, the Boston radio stations specializing in new rock music. Unasked, Verity came up with funds to produce a forty-five of the song, with “Nan Reagan’s Humiliation” on the reverse side. In four weeks, by the beginning of November, the single was a number four seller in Boston, and a number twelve in New York.

  Their new agent insured that the one-night stint at Paradise was repeated. Before long, People Buying Things was headlining on Monday or Tuesday nights, no mean thing for a local band without an LP. Ben James fiercely sold the group to the program manager of Channel 68, an independent Boston television station. As a result, a performance of the group at Channel One was taped for airing in mid-December in a featured time slot.

  What the agent couldn’t immediately negotiate was a major record contract. “If you people had come to me two years ago,” he told Cassandra over the telephone, “there wouldn’t have been any problem. But the bottom’s fallen out of the market since then, everybody’s scattering for cover, and the record companies don’t know what they want. What we got to do is convince ’em that they want People Buying Things.”

  “How do we do that?” asked Cassandra.

  “I want to send your people on a tour.”

  “Where?”

  “New York, Columbus, Chicago, St. Louis—St. Louis is big right now, God knows why—back to New York, New Haven, and places in between.”

  “That’s expensive.”

  “I know it is,” said the agent. “And there’s got to be some front money to get things going. But I think it’ll get paid back, and paid back quick. Once they get started the thing’ll be self-propelling.”

  “How much will it take?” asked Cassandra.

  “Three thousand will get ’em out there. Five thousand’ll do it right.”

  Cassandra paused a moment.

  “Well?” prompted the agent.

  “We’ll do it right,” replied Cassandra firmly.

  19

  Eric turned full around on his chair and peered through the smoky amber and blue lights of the Paradise. He and Verity sat at a table that had been reserved for them at stageside. All the other tables in the place were now occupied and surrounded by a ring of standing spectators, who in turn were surrounded by those leaning against the bars. Three red spots swept continually over the crowd, and occasionally the green beams of a laser would come on, aimed at mirrors or at the enormous glitter-ball above the stage. In beat with the driving recorded music, luminescent bands of lime-green light struck across the ceiling in precise cross-hatching. Two television cameramen stood in conversation with Rocco, their shoulder video cameras resting on the stage. A third cameraman roamed through the audience taping for images to be edited into the final cut of the performance.

  The mood of the audience was up.

  Eric swiveled back and took a swallow of his third Scotch and water. He watched Verity, who wore a new pair of silver-framed glasses with cat-eye slits. Otherwise her outfit was conservative compared to most of those surrounding her. Eric wore one of Jonathan’s Izod pullovers and a pair of his tan slacks. Verity was unabashedly attending to an argument at the next table. She and Eric had each done four lines of cocaine in the car before coming inside.

  “Some of these people,” he said in a low voice as he leaned across the table, “give me the creeps.”

  “You’re looking in a mirror, Eric.”

  “No. Look over there at that woman by the deejay booth.”

  “The one in the three-piece suit?”

  “Not that one,” said Eric irritably, “the bald one with the dangly earrings. She’s got the masthead from the Boston Globe stencilled across her scalp. And the other one with the dyed hair, whatever color that is—”

  Verity raised her glasses to peer across at the two women. “Puce,” she pronounced. “Puce,” she repeated, and lowered her glasses again.

  “What kind of woman has puce hair? What kind of woman has the name of a daily newspaper tattooed on her head?”

  “One who is very sure of herself. The kind of woman who w
ouldn’t give you the time of day.”

  Verity took a sip of her bourbon and turned her attention to the stage. Eric continued to look around, pointing out members of the audience to Verity, with disparaging comments on their appearance and behavior. Verity waved to her sister, when she caught Cassandra’s eye, as she stood at the far side of the stage. Apple appeared over Cassandra’s shoulder, and both smiled and nodded.

  Eric relentlessly pursued his diatribe against the audience.

  Verity finished her drink and set the glass down hard. “Eric,” she said in a hard voice, “the only reason you’re upset is that I’ve brought you to a place where not everyone is in Newbury Street drag like yourself. Remember, you’re the one who asked me to take you out. And you also said you didn’t care where we went so long as we were together. So shut up.”

  “When I said we should go somewhere together, I wasn’t talking about a place like this.”

  “The only reason I agreed at all was so that I could pick up my four grams.”

  “Shhh!”

  Verity continued to speak at a normal volume.

  “Any other dealer in the city would be happy to make the trip out to Brookline to deliver to me, considering the amount of money I drop on coke each week.”

  “Will you shut up?” cried Eric, glancing around them with furtive desperation.

  “Christ!” sighed Verity. “Do you really imagine that there is anybody in this room, and I’m counting the cop on the door, who hasn’t used cocaine, and doesn’t have his own personal dealer?”

  “Shut up, goddamnit! You never know who hangs out at these places. The narcs have got plants everywhere!”

  “Give me the four grams then,” said Verity matter-of-factly. She opened her purse and took out six crisp one-hundred-dollar bills, and pushed them across the table.

  “For God’s sake!” gasped Eric, and snatched them up. He pushed the bills into his pants pocket.

  “Where’s the coke?”

  He breathed hard through his nose, and pressed a glass vial against her leg beneath the table. She reached down, took it up, held it up before her eyes, and then dropped it into her purse. The roving cameraman came by and focused on her just as she was snapping the pocketbook shut. She smiled broadly.

  “You’re making me a nervous wreck,” whispered Eric.

  “Good. Then maybe you’ll shut up. I want to hear the band tonight. I’m an investor now.”

  “All right, but we’re so close they’re going to blow us away. I hate loud noise. And as soon as they’ve finished, we’ll go someplace quiet, okay? You and I have got things to talk about.”

  “We do not,” said Verity flatly. “And I intend to stay here tonight until they shoot that last dog.”

  The recorded music left off abruptly. The red spots moved off the audience and focused on the stage. Verity was suddenly aware that Bert and Ian were in their customary places. She could see Rocco and Apple standing in the shadows to the left of the stage. Cassandra was edging along the crowd toward the light-and-sound booth. A man Verity recognized from watching television raced up to one of the microphones, and experimented with the sound.

  Verity flinched. Eric had grabbed her hand.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Hey, we really do have stuff to talk about tonight. I mean, seeing you for the past couple of months has really made me realize what a bad mistake we made in breaking up, I mean it, Verity. Listen—”

  “You always get maudlin when you mix coke and liquor. You shouldn’t do it.”

  “Aw, Verity, come on.”

  The lights had gone out, except for a single white spot on the announcer, large enough to include Verity’s and Eric’s heads in its circumference. Verity smiled into the blinding light. “Eric,” she said through barely opened lips, “everyone in this bar can see us. Three video cameras are aimed at that man who is standing three feet away from us.” She maintained a low civil voice as she spoke, and her smile was vague. She picked up her glass, and casually spilled the ice onto the table. “If you don’t let go of my hand, I am going to smash this glass against the side of your head.”

  Eric tightened his grip and started to speak just as the announcer’s voice boomed through Paradise. “And now, ladies and gentlemen, Paradise, in connection with Channel Sixty-eight, is proud to give you the hottest, the newest, the rockingest group to hit the boards of any Boston stage: PEOPLE—BUYING—THINGS!!!” To riotous applause the announcer trotted offstage. Rocco flew on and slid behind his drum set. Apple was right behind him, and raising her left foot in a high arc, kicked the microphone off the stand and into her grip. The band immediately launched into the introduction to “Braces.” When Apple opened her mouth to sing, the audience applauded—for her teeth had been painted a shining silver that caught, broke apart, and reflected the spotlight in the same manner as the glitter-ball hanging above her head.

  The audience stamped their feet, applauded, whistled, and screamed their approval.

  Verity gritted her teeth. She wrapped her fingers about Eric’s wrist and dug her sharp nails into his flesh. She dug hard and deep enough to break the skin. Eric released her suddenly. His yelp was lost in the noise cascading about them. He stared at his wrist, with the four tiny crescent lacerations welling drops of bright blood. He glared at his wife and his lips formed an unheard Bitch before he stood and pushed his way through the crowd.

  Verity lost sight of him almost immediately. She signaled the waiter for another bourbon, and then turned back to watch the performance.

  While Verity and Eric were at the Paradise, Louise and Eugene Strable sat at opposite ends of the velvet-covered couch in Louise’s apartment living room. She was curled into one corner, her slippered feet drawn up under her, a glass of Scotch and ice in her hand. “Eugene,” she said lovingly, “you’re so jumpy tonight, what’s wrong?”

  She sighed when he did not immediately respond. She picked at an imaginary speck of lint on the slacks of her navy-blue pantsuit, hoping that the jangling of her gold charm bracelet would attract his attention when her words did not.

  Eugene got up suddenly, and went to pour himself another drink. His suit jacket was draped over one of the dining chairs in the alcove. His tie had been loosened, but his vest remained buttoned. He made a noise to suggest irritation as he recapped the sherry and replaced the decanter. He stood for a few moments in the curve of the bay window, and looked out onto Marlborough Street. Moonlight filtered brightly through the golden autumn trees, and a breeze stirred a scattering of fallen leaves along the sidewalk.

  “Eugene,” Louise insisted from the sofa, “what is wrong with you?”

  He turned and looked at her, but did not come nearer.

  “Jeannette found out,” he said bluntly.

  “Found out about what?” asked Louise, in apparently genuine surprise.

  “About us. What do you think?”

  After a moment, Louise said, “You mean she didn’t already know?”

  “Of course not. How would she know?”

  “A smart woman always knows,” said Louise sententiously.

  The lawyer shrugged. “Jeannette’s always so tied up with her charity and committee work—never thought there was any real world but her own.”

  “Then how did she find out?”

  “I’m not sure—I think someone may have said something to her.”

  “I bet it was Cassandra,” said Louise harshly. “That little tramp.”

  “I don’t think so,” said the lawyer mildly. “And it really doesn’t matter now anyway. Jeannette has proof.”

  “Proof?” Louise cried, putting her drink on the end table. “What sort of proof? Has she been following you?” She got up from the sofa and went to the window and peered out into the night. “Is that her standing across the street? Has she been looking in my windows?” Louise jerked the cord that drew the draperies closed. Eugene Strable moved out of her way.

  “She hired a detective.”

&
nbsp; “You mean we’ve been followed?” Louise struck her fisted hand against the back of a wing-backed chair. The bracelet clattered loudly against the upholstery tacks. “This is so awful, Eugene. I’m not going to stand for it. Is there some man out there now with binoculars and a notebook? Because if there is, I feel like giving him something to put down in his notebook.”

  “Jeannette hired a woman. I don’t even know what she looks like. She must have been pretty clever.”

  “Some woman’s been trailing all over town after you?”

  The lawyer laughed ironically. “Most nights she must have followed me here. Maybe she is out there now.”

  Although the curtains had been drawn, Louise moved uneasily away from the bay window. “Is there going to be trouble?” she asked. “Do you think that detective got any photographs? You know, with a telescopic lens or something?”

  “Photographs of what? Of us sitting on the sofa with drinks in our hand? You know we always go in the bedroom for . . . Well, you know we’ve never done anything unseemly in here.”

  Louise poured herself another drink, occupying herself several moments with fresh ice cubes, and opening another bottle of Scotch. She seemed to regain her composure as she did so.

  “So,” she said, turning to the lawyer, “what was the point for Jeannette? Now that she knows, what’s she going to do? Did she ask you to ‘give me up’ for the sake of the children?”

  Eugene looked puzzled. “We don’t have any children. Jeannette wants a divorce.”

  Louise took a long swallow of her drink.

  “Do you want one?” she asked.

  Eugene didn’t answer at first. He looked closely at Louise, and said, “If I got a divorce, you and I could get married.”

  “Well, yes,” said Louise absently, “of course we could. . . .”