by Jane Lotter
As the remaining dancers struggle to stay on the floor, the competition takes on the ruthlessness of a Roman chariot race. When in Rome, indeed! Elbows, knees, and spiked heels become makeshift weaponry. A dancer intentionally stomps on my instep. I realize it’s the obnoxious, insulting Sally. I can’t believe she’d physically attack me like that, and I stare after her. She and her partner look back, laughing.
“She hurt you?” Vera says.
“It’s nothing,” I say, glad there’s enough gin in my body to deaden the pain.
“Sorry,” Vera says. “It’s sorta my fault. I had a one-nighter with Sally a while back. When I sobered up the next day and told her there wasn’t going to be no more, she was none too happy about it. Still, she has no call to get nasty with you.”
“I’m all right.”
“So you say. But let’s have some fun anyways.” Vera maneuvers us across the room, near Sally and her partner. Then she swings us round, and we do the dance move known as a kick ball change, which—as Vera sways hard to her left and forcefully kicks her left foot—comes off as a sort of body slam into Sally’s partner’s backside. Sally and her partner go sailing off into a table and chairs.
“Guess they got eliminated,” Vera says.
The remaining couples whirl through a few more songs, but it’s obvious who’s the best dancer in the room, and in her arms I’ve become the second best.
Soon, all the contestants are directed off the floor except Vera and me. Vera beams as the room fills with applause. A spotlight bathes us in light.
We do a quick victory turn and then one of the judges—not Davita—hands us a large trophy. Vera clutches the prize, as we move in tandem toward the bar. I’m winded, but Vera’s hardly ruffled. We make it over to where Ruby stands, applauding. “Lover, you won!” she says.
“You bet we did,” Vera says. “Course, the judges are all bombed. Look at Davita over there.” She points to where Davita, her eyes spinning like pinwheels, stands clinging to a table, trying not to fall over. Vera gives a throaty laugh. “What the hey. I guess everybody in this place is tits up.”
Vera sets the trophy on the bar. “Sweetheart,” she says to Ruby, “make me a whiskey sour? Margo’s buying. Margo wants a—”
“Double martini,” I pant.
Vera slaps me on the back. “Double martini, single woman!” she says. “A wicked combination.”
I smile. I’m proud we won the contest. Like Vera, I stare at the trophy as it gleams in the light. It looks pretty much like every big, shiny dance trophy you ever saw in your life. It even looks a bit like the prize I won with Finn. Except there’s something special about this trophy that will cheer Vera’s heart every time she looks at it: the happy couple on top is one-hundred-percent female.
CHAPTER TEN
AN INNOCENT LAMB
When Ruby finishes work at eleven, she stashes Vera’s trophy behind the bar. Eager to enter the cha-cha and rumba contests, dancers still crowd the ballroom. But the three of us—Ruby, Vera, and I—make our way through the crush of women and over to a back stairway. With Vera in the lead, we hurry up the concrete steps to the second floor where we creep along a quiet, carpeted corridor. We come to Room 205. We all three stop in front of the door and stare at it.
“This is your niece’s room,” Vera says. “Guaranteed. Go ahead and knock, Margo. If your niece answers, you two can tangle right now. If not, Ruby unlocks the door and you go on in, nose around. Either way, Rube and I will stay out here and keep watch.”
I look up and down the empty passageway. Then I look from Vera to Ruby and back to Vera. She nods for me to go ahead. So I do. I knock on Georgia’s door, but there’s no answer. I knock again. Still no answer.
“No one home,” I say.
“Maybe she’s on a bender,” Ruby says. Her voice cracks with nervousness. “She sure wasn’t feeling any pain in the lounge today. Maybe we’ll open the door and there she’ll be, passed out all over the floor.”
“How can you pass out all over the floor?” Vera says. “A body only takes up so much space.”
Ruby shrugs.
“Well, anyways,” Vera says, “if she’s out cold, she won’t mind callers. So there’s nothing to fret about. Go on now, Rube, unlock the door.”
Ruby pulls a keycard from her pocket. Her hands are trembling. “I do not believe I’m doing this!” she says in a harsh whisper. “Lover, what are you getting me into?”
“Just keeping my end of the bargain,” Vera says. “Besides, you got to once in a while walk on the wild side or life gets mighty dull. Open the door, sugar, and we’ll be done with it.”
Ruby inserts the card into the electronic lock. It beeps. But when I reach for the door handle, Ruby grabs my wrist. “Promise you won’t take anything!” she pleads.
She’s running a tremendous risk on my behalf, I know, so like a Girl Scout I raise my free hand and make a solemn pledge. “Promise. Quick look round, then—poof!—I’ll vanish. No one will ever know I was here.” She lets loose of my wrist.
With Ruby and Vera keeping guard, I slip into the darkened room, closing the door behind me. I feel anxious, but I force myself to move forward and switch on a lamp. Standing there, the heels of my shoes sinking into the plush carpet, I see Georgia’s room is something more than your average hotel lodgings. It’s a luxury suite, decked out glitzy retro Rat Pack style.
I can’t help but admire the care some interior decorator took in choosing the vintage amoeba-shaped coffee table, chrome lamps, and sleek Eames chairs. The walls are hung with original black-and-white photographs of Palm Springs in the 1950s and ’60s. In addition, another noteworthy feature of the place is that it’s been . . . ransacked! Plundered! Pilfered! Great Jupiter, some other detective has been here before me! Someone’s gone through Georgia’s things!
It’s like opening the Great Pyramid of Giza and finding grave robbers got there ahead of you! It’s like making your way to the front of the Clinique counter at Bonus Time and discovering they’re out of goodie bags! It’s like—
But hang on. Hang on one minute. Georgia’s suite hasn’t been ransacked. That’s not it at all. There’s another explanation for why this place looks like it’s been looted: Georgia lives like a pig.
By my calculations, she’s had the room a little over twenty-four hours, yet it’s complete chaos. Bath towels, lingerie, half-eaten meals from room service lie about. Single-serving liquor bottles from the minibar, drained of their contents, peep from sofa cushions.
Reassured now that no one has broken in before me, I move through the suite, looking for God knows what. I’m careful not to disturb anything, though in all honesty, who could tell if I did? A brief inspection of the pink-tiled bathroom and lime-green bedroom reveals nothing more than the lingering scent of Dior Pure Poison. I go back out to the living room, wondering what it is I think I’ll find.
I move to look at something of interest—drug paraphernalia scattered across the top of that amoeba-shaped coffee table—when I bump into a pile of magazines resting on the floor, next to the table. The pile tilts and topples over onto the carpet. Now I’ve done it! I promised Ruby I wouldn’t touch anything, and now I’ve made a mess. Or at least, you know, I’ve added to the general confusion.
I go down on hands and knees, hurriedly scooping things back up. I’m picking up a bunch of magazines when something sandwiched between them—a black binder—catches my eye. Though it’s not really the binder I take heed of, so much as the label on the front of the binder.
The label intrigues me because the typeface is unusual. For one thing, it wasn’t computer printed. It was produced on a typewriter. And judging by the aging, yellowed look of it, somebody typed that label—which says “Thalia Television Productions,” by the way—a long time ago.
I get up off the floor and sit down on the sofa, thumbing through the binder. It contains a typewritten script, the title page of which reads “Spy Team Final Episode—Story and Teleplay by Arthur Just.”
/> Spy Team. Lots of people are old enough to remember this series, or to at least have seen reruns on late-night TV. My father created Spy Team. The main characters were a sophisticated black man paired with a gorgeous milk-colored blonde woman. It also had that catchy, unforgettable theme song—they still play it on the oldies radio stations.
Spy Team’s premise was that the man, Saxe, and the woman, Ariana, were high-school gym teachers by day and international spies on evenings, weekends, and holidays. Saxe and Ariana had perfect teeth and wore fabulous clothes. They had electronic gadgetry; they were highly skilled in the martial arts; they looked fantastic in gym shorts. Saxe and Ariana were never openly linked romantically, but part of the show’s appeal was that there was a constant undercurrent of sexual tension between them. Nearly every episode worked in a suggestive joke around Saxe’s name: Saxe appeal, great Saxe, Saxe before marriage.
Spy Team ran for only three seasons. It was what my father came up with at the end of his life, at the end of his creativity, and I feel he was embarrassed by it. I think he thought the show was trash. Whenever it was time to turn in a new episode, he had to get himself drunk just to write it.
Why, I wonder, does Georgia have this old script? Why would she even want it? I close the binder, and my gaze travels down to the rest of the magazines littering the floor. A line of black pokes from beneath a copy of Us Weekly. With the toe of one shoe, I push Us aside. Underneath is a second black binder.
I put Spy Team down and pick up this other binder. It, too, has the look of age. It, too, contains yellowing pages that were long ago composed on a typewriter. But as I flick through it, I see this script wasn’t written for television. No, this is the script for a feature-length film.
I flip to the title page. It’s called An Innocent Lamb, and at the bottom of the title page there’s a quotation:
“Is not this a lamentable thing, that of the skin of an innocent lamb should be made parchment? That parchment, being scribbled o’er, should undo a man?”
—William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 2
Below the title are the names of the script’s coauthors: Orson Welles and Arthur Just. A thrill goes through me. Orson Welles! I’m holding a script by the late Orson Welles! And also by my father—apparently he cowrote it.
But Orson Welles! The man who created Citizen Kane, the motion picture the American Film Institute calls the greatest American movie ever made. I’m enough of a movie fan to know Welles not only directed and starred in Citizen Kane, he cowrote it with Herman J. Mankiewicz. And didn’t they each take home an Academy Award for Best Screenplay?
I weigh the script in my hands and think about what it is, the history of such an object, the rarity. My pulse quickens, and I remember the French phrase Dottie used: “Ça me fait bander.” Well, okay, not exactly. But I am excited.
And now I know what happened. I comprehend this whole big mess. Georgia must have discovered these two old scripts—Spy Team and An Innocent Lamb—in my father’s attic office, his sanctum sanctorum. Charlotte found out; perhaps they argued over ownership. Either way, when Georgia ran off, she took the scripts with her.
It’s also obvious that these are the mysterious and unnamed “things” Charlotte wants returned to her. The Spy Team script is basically worthless. I imagine Charlotte wants it as a memento, because our father created the show. Plus, she was a fan of the series. She had a teenage crush on the actor who played Saxe. So the reason Georgia took the Spy Team script is because, like Tully said, she gets a kick out of driving her mom crazy.
But An Innocent Lamb is priceless. It must be. If this story by Orson Welles and my father is even half as good as Citizen Kane, it’s worth an incredible amount of money.
It’s apt that the title, An Innocent Lamb, is from Shakespeare. If someone discovered a long-lost play by William Shakespeare, what would it be worth? Millions! Well, Orson Welles was the Shakespeare of film. He crafted the greatest American movie ever made, and finding an unproduced script by him, even one written with a coauthor, is a big deal.
But I remember what Tully said about the hidden value of things. I thumb through the script and see that it’s a period piece full of murder, mayhem, and swordplay. I realize the hidden value of An Innocent Lamb is that nobody knows it exists.
Orson Welles and my father are both long dead. Georgia, who fancies herself a screenwriter, could tweak the story a little, update it, then put her own name to Welles’s genius. After that, she could peddle it to any studio she chose.
Holding the script, looking down at it, it’s as though I’m inside Georgia’s head and can see her whole dirty scheme laid out in front of me. I know what she’s plotting; I know what she’s planning to do. And I’m livid at the thought of it. I’m angry because she has no right to appropriate Welles’s work.
So what do I do? Do I take An Innocent Lamb? Do I steal the thing? Every impulse in my body says to nick it and run.
But I remember my promise to Ruby, my solemn pledge not to take anything. Reluctantly, I bend down and scoop the magazines back into their pile, slipping the two scripts in as well. Relax, I think. You know what room Georgia’s in. You know what she’s scheming. Tomorrow morning, you can return and confront her face-to-face.
So that’s it. I keep my vow to Ruby. But even so, I feel good because I have a plan. I know my next move.
I switch off the lights and step out into the hotel corridor.
Vera and Ruby sit on the hallway floor. Ruby’s eyes are closed, and her stocking feet rest in Vera’s lap. Vera kneads the soles of Ruby’s feet. Both women look up when I exit the room. “Good hunting?” Vera says.
“Not bad,” I say, thinking I’ll keep my discovery to myself. “Thanks so much for your help.”
To this cryptic statement, Vera makes no comment other than a yawn. She stands, then helps Ruby up. Ruby puts her shoes back on, and a moment later we three say good-night.
Just before the two of them disappear through the stairway door, Vera stops and blows me a kiss. Instinctively, I reach up and catch it.
It’s midnight when I reach my room, but I’m not sleepy. My mind races with thoughts of Orson Welles, my father, Georgia.
I open the minibar and pull out two single-serving bottles of gin. Tomorrow, I’ll deal with Georgia in person. In the meantime, I put gin in a glass and sink down into the sofa.
The coffee table holds numerous advertisements for spa services in Palm Springs: hot stone this, aromatic that, mud facials, detoxification, exfoliation. I pick up a brochure and take a look. “We pamper you,” it says. I sip gin and envision a whirlpool spa filled with men and women drinking white wine and wearing disposable diapers.
“Let yourself go,” says another pamphlet. “Depend on us.” There it is again, that image of incontinence.
I wonder about the sort of people attracted to this type of thing. Then again, if I’m honest, I know I myself am attracted to it. In a whirlpool spa, you don’t have to think or be sad or grow old. You just float there, an amoeba with credit cards.
Eventually, I get into bed with my brochures and my drink. I lie there, half reading about herbal body wraps, half reflecting on all that’s happened this day, on all that’s happened in my life. I lie there, as I do every night, remembering Finn Coyle. After a while, I fall asleep.
In the morning, I wake up hungover and shaky. It’s early. I’m eager to confront Georgia, but there’s no way I can do that on an empty stomach. I decide to take a quick breakfast in the hotel dining room.
An older woman—well, older than I—sits at the next table. She’s expensively dressed in silk cropped pants and a silk top. A cashmere sweater is thrown over her shoulders with the indifference that comes from having money. She’s definitely not in Palm Springs because she loves women. I’m guessing she’s a well-heeled matron who’s here because she loves women’s golf.
In a curt Midwest accent, she harasses the waitress. “My coffee’s cold,” she says. “These eggs are hard.” (They look
fine to me.) The woman goes on like this for several minutes, relentlessly bullying the waitress. She threatens to withhold a tip, threatens to complain to the manager.
I don’t believe the woman is that dissatisfied with either the food or the service. I think she’s upset about something in her own life, and she’s releasing that anger onto the waitress. People do that all the time in restaurants.
“Take these back,” she commands the waitress. “Tell that cook to try again.”
I feel for the waitress. There was a time in my life when I waited tables. I was in my late thirties, old enough that the little success I’d had as a model was drying up. I had few marketable skills, and it seemed like I’d never have what you might call a career.
“This is the worst service I’ve ever had,” the woman rants to no one in particular.
I can’t stand it any longer. I’m both hungry and nauseated. My head is pounding. I’m annoyed that this woman has advantages, yet no appreciation of those advantages. I resent that she obviously has money, real money, but the waitress and I don’t and most likely never will. There’s even something about the woman—the superior attitude?—that reminds me of Charlotte. Something that makes me want to reach out and hurt her, make her feel as lousy and damaged as I feel at this moment, as I have felt much of my life.
I twist round in my chair and face the woman. “Really?” I say. “In your whole life, this is your worst restaurant experience? How awful for you.”
She responds with a slight smile.
“I hope you don’t mind my asking,” I say, as if she were a famous movie star and I one of her fans, “but how old are you?”
She hesitates. “Not that it’s anybody’s business,” she finally says in that Midwest accent, “but I’m seventy-five.”
“Seventy-five years old,” I repeat.
She nods in a brittle, condescending way.