This Vacant Paradise

by Victoria Patterson

  And it was the rush of anticipation, adrenaline spreading through her, that made her feel powerful, a conviction returning that life was once again somewhat contained, and a willingness—a desire—to continue living it.

  But later, alone in her bedroom, she knew her power would deflate, sifting through the items that she’d stolen or thinking back on her actions, the inklings of guilt and remorse, and an awe at her inability to cull the impulse, knowing that when she entered a store or worked at True Romance, whether she wanted to steal or not, she probably would.

  FASHION ISLAND HAD carted in a twenty-thousand-pound white fir tree, 115 feet tall. Specialized cranes had lowered the tree, suspending it midair and placing it directly on flatbed trailers. Finally, the cranes had lifted the tree to its present, erect state. Decorating the branches were seventeen thousand color-coordinated lights and ornaments and bows—silver, gold, and red. Esther had had to memorize these facts, a job requirement for Fashion Island employees, in order to satisfy inquiring customers.

  Underneath the tree, on a huge, circular red felt blanket, were large plywood fake presents with gleaming plastic bows. Esther and Brenda were outside, standing near the Christmas tree, watching children climb the presents and smile for pictures.

  “How are your kids?” Esther asked, unable to remember the specific names.

  “Thank God for Maria,” Brenda said and sighed wearily. Her eyes met Esther’s with an amiable blankness. “It’s Sean that I can’t stand,” she said. “Why can’t he leave me alone?”

  Brenda’s hair was a rich dyed blond, shoulder length, tucked behind her ears so that her diamond stud earrings were visible. She wore a tangerine-colored sweater. Her waist was small and her breasts round and polite. Her legs were her best feature, which, whether exposed or not, were long and defined. She carried herself with assurance and elegance, and a halo of sexual energy surrounded her.

  Esther understood why Charlie had succumbed to the pleasure of not only being in contact with near perfection, but also being physically devoured by it. She envied Brenda, able to dismiss her husband, to take lovers, and to buy whatever pleased her.

  She knew that Brenda went through hobbies as quickly as she updated her wardrobe. Her affair with Charlie had been during her academic phase, which had extended beyond her Jazzercise phase and her foray into the culinary arts.

  Brenda was taking painting lessons and had told Esther, “Sean told me to paint landscapes, but I told him that I’m creating tiny foldout vaginas from tissue paper—just to bother him.”

  Even though (or more likely because) she was established and surrounded by money, Brenda somehow managed to make it seem unimportant. She had a way of making Esther feel that she was relaying things about herself in confidence, things that she’d never told anyone before. But Esther knew that she gave this impression to others as well.

  There was dampness in the air, a hint of fog and drizzle. A yawning hunger came over Esther, and she realized she hadn’t eaten since that morning.

  “You must be freezing,” Brenda said, looking at her disparagingly. And then, “Where’s your jacket?”

  A little rain blew, wetting Esther’s face. She thought of Eric wrapped in the jacket. “I’m okay,” she said, rubbing her hands along her arms.

  Brenda smiled, and her eyes showed that she didn’t believe it. She laughed. “I don’t know why,” she said, fishing in one of the shopping bags at her feet, tissue paper rustling, “but I just remembered something: Charlie used to call me a ‘blueblood.’” A gleam came to her eyes, a first hint at emotion. “He told me I used the word ‘bedlam’ too much.” She broke the tags off with her hands and handed Esther a black cashmere cardigan.

  THE SMALL GOLD hoop earrings Esther had stolen hung from her earlobes, the bracelet she wore on her left wrist, and the lipstick—a little too orangey—was smoothly applied on her mouth. Brenda had invited her to The Palms for cocktails and a late dinner, and her acceptance had been influenced as much by the chance at a free meal (and two sour apple martinis) as by anything else.

  Her empty plate had been cleared—grilled salmon with a wedge of lemon, a side of steamed vegetables (“God,” Brenda said, “you were hungry!”).

  Brenda had only picked at her gigantic Cobb salad, and Esther had toyed briefly with the idea of taking home the leftovers, but the thought of having to voice her desire had made her decide against it.

  Large tinted windows overlooked the bay, Christmas lights muffled and swaying on the water, stars and moon invisible. An occasional sprinkle of rain splattered against the glass.

  The Christmas boat parade had finished, and Esther saw one lone sailboat, red lights strung along its mast, motoring its way home, making a smeary, bloodlike trail on the water.

  For a moment, she concentrated on listening to the monologue of the man at the table next to theirs, speaking to his male friend. (“I told her, ‘If you look nice, it’s because I made you look nice—from your hair to your nails, right down to your underwear. These other people don’t really care about you. Not the way I do.’ I told her, ‘You want new breasts, I’ll get you new breasts.’”)

  The Palms was fishing themed, with nets tacked on the walls and schooner models set inside glass cases. Esther still wore Brenda’s cashmere cardigan, and as she rose from their booth to use the restroom, she followed Brenda’s eyes to the bar, where she saw Fred Smith standing, his hand at the rim of a glass. His shoulders were wide in his blue silk shirt and his bicep muscles, unflexed, were the size of grapefruits. Mingling around him were women, but he ignored them, his concentration on a televised golfing event.

  “What’s he doing here?” Brenda asked, in such a way that Esther knew that she was both thrilled and appalled.

  Fred Smith, a retired black basketball professional, had had the impudence to retire to a multimillion-dollar beachfront home, almost single-handedly constituting Newport’s less than 1 percent African American population.

  Esther was well acquainted with him, as he’d approached her a number of times at Shark Island. The quickest way for Grandma Eileen to disown her was for her to take up with Fred.

  “He doesn’t look as tall,” Brenda said, “as he does in those American Express commercials.”

  Fred’s bullet-shaped deluxe speedboat was bumping against the dock outside the restaurant. He threw loud and boisterous parties that required police intervention and made for front-page stories in the Daily Pilot.

  Sexy. But not her type. There was his problematic skin color, the tattoo that crept up the back of his neck, the diamond stud earring in his left earlobe, and his irrefutable ladies’-man reputation (although she was confident that she could be the woman to break him of that habit).

  And she knew that while Brenda and the like would find amusement in his presence, and that he’d gain a certain acceptance with his money, he’d never crack their inner circle. If he were included, it would be only at the margin, as token proof of their open-mindedness.

  Fred confused her: His millions rivaled Paul’s inheritance, but his money was less significant than his person. Hesitation and doubt prevented her from seriously considering him as a possible love interest. She knew that it was connected to her fear of being associated with a black man—she couldn’t cross that threshold, and even in her imagination, she wasn’t that brave.

  Fred seemed to understand all this, so his flirtations carried a challenge, a thrusting at her beliefs, and a hostile, teasing quality, as if he were daring her to acknowledge the weaknesses in her character.

  Her interactions with him had a cathartic quality, especially when they were antagonistic. All the coarse prejudices of her family, everything she’d been brought up to believe about black people, seemed to be brought into the light of day and ridiculed with his attentions. Sometimes she teased him back, participated, but usually she was cold and direct, and he seemed to appreciate this about her.

  As Esther began to make her way to the restroom, her eyes met Fred’s assu
red eyes, and a smile came to his face.

  She kept her face blank and continued her walk, straight past him. She was aware of the effect her appearance had on others, accustomed to attention when she moved through a restaurant. She knew what it meant to look beautiful, even when the conditions inside her were ugly, and she was satisfied by Fred’s attention.

  As she reapplied her lipstick in the bathroom mirror and scrutinized her image, observing the lines around her mouth, a ripple of fear passed through her. The bathroom was lit in a soothing darkness, except for the harsh lighting above the mirror, meant to assist women in makeup application. The light drew out her worst features: face pale and garish with foundation, lipstick, and blush, each pore open for inspection. She pondered the loss of her power, inevitable through age and decline. She wouldn’t depend on plastic surgery—the results were shocking and perverted, rather than ageless.

  As if to prove her point, a woman exited a bathroom stall, looking very much like Jack Nicholson as the Joker. When she smiled at Esther—a fat, red lipstick–enhanced, ear-to-ear congenial grin—it seemed that her face might split.

  “I love that color on you,” the woman said, referring to Esther’s newly pirated lipstick. Her eyes shone, and her face was shiny and stretched.

  “Thanks.”

  “Chanel?”

  “Mm-hmm,” Esther confirmed, reading the tiny print at the base: “It’s called I’m Not Really a Waitress.”

  The woman’s smile continued to radiate in alarming disproportion to her other facial features. “Well, it looks fabulous,” she said. With concentrated effort, she began reapplying her own lipstick in the mirror, and in the lighting Esther saw the tiny, parallel face-lift scars at the beginnings of her left ear: //.

  BACK AT THE booth, as Esther and Brenda waited for their check, Fred crossed the restaurant, his long legs moving slowly, hands deep in his pockets.

  “He’s coming,” Brenda whispered.

  As Fred got closer, Esther saw that he was staring at her. She saw the challenge in his eyes, and she knew immediately that he would provoke her.

  His hands came out of his pockets, and he briefly rubbed an elbow with a palm.

  “I’ve got this one,” he said, his hand moving to their table—graceful fingers, filed nails.

  Esther was irritated, wishing that her free meal with Brenda had been extended to two free meals, rather than one.

  Brenda was delighted, not so much because it made a difference to her pocketbook, Esther knew, but by the novelty and the story she could tell her friends later.

  “Really,” Brenda said, in compulsory hesitation, “it’s not necessary.”

  “Not a problem,” he informed his listeners. “I bought The Palms last week.”

  Brenda thanked him and introduced herself, and her amused and dismissive tone was proof that Fred was a carnival curiosity, nothing more; by Fred’s blasé reaction, Esther realized that he knew it as well.

  “When,” he said, turning away from Brenda and casting his full attention on Esther, “are you going to marry me?”

  She looked at him very straight and very hard. A silence while he stared back, the awareness of Brenda watching them. Then he laughed, and she wanted him to leave, her cheeks burning, knowing that Brenda would pass along an anecdote, and that she’d already become the brunt of a joke.

  “Fred likes to tease,” she said, moderating her reaction for Brenda, but her voice had an edge. “He’s not serious.”

  He continued to look at her.

  “Why did you decide to buy The Palms?” Brenda asked.

  He ignored her, continuing his smiling appraisal of Esther.

  Esther repeated Brenda’s query, since his concentration was focused on her and she had a better chance of getting a response. But even before he answered, she knew that he was going to say something to embarrass her.

  “Aren’t you ready for the love of a black man?” he asked.

  Esther heard Brenda laughing, but she kept her gaze on Fred. “You,” she said, “are crazy. You’ve got plenty of women, so leave me alone.”

  “And you,” he said, his laughter lingering in his eyes, “my sad and lonely friend, are equally crazy.” He paused. “But you’re also a beautiful, beautiful woman, even if you’re not ready to accept my love.” He tapped at his heart to emphasize his sincerity. “Can you blame a Negro for trying?”

  9

  AT BEAUTIFUL NAILS, two female employees of indeterminate Asian ethnicity and age—probably Vietnamese, Esther thought, early twenties—led Esther and Brenda to the glass display selection of nail polish bottles. “I’m not used to these vampy colors,” Brenda mused, her fingernail clinking against the bottles of purples and reds, “but Charlie doesn’t like women to paint their nails a trashy color, so there”—she selected a bottle—“ha! See, I’m so over him.”

  Esther selected a pale, creamy color called Bunny Nose, in agreement with Charlie’s aesthetic, and the employees led Esther and Brenda to their spa chairs, side by side. While the employees worked—efficient, examining cuticles and preparing soaking solutions—they spoke to each other in their native tongue. They sat on small stools so that they appeared to be squatting, positioned at the feet of their clients.

  The one who was taking care of Esther had shiny black hair, a cascade hanging across her shoulder, and she said something that delighted the other, whose hair was braided down her back. They laughed, covering their mouths with their hands.

  “I wonder what they’re saying,” Esther said.

  “Oh, they’re making fun of us,” Brenda said. “You can be sure of it.” She wore a turquoise velour tracksuit, and the zipper jacket was a softer color at her rounded breasts, where the material was stretched.

  The employees seemed indifferent, at best, and it made Esther uncomfortable. And their language sounded brusque, no matter what they were saying. She looked down at the woman who held her wet, sudsy foot; the woman began scraping at her heel with a pumice stone, and her eyes looked back up at Esther—through her.

  Brenda said, “I used to go to Nail Emporium—it’s so nice and clean inside—but it got so bad. The employees are very, very rude.”

  Esther nodded in agreement while the woman placed her foot back in the tub of sudsy water and lifted her other foot for examination. She had also had a bad experience at Nail Emporium, involving a shy and ostensibly gentle woman, also of indeterminate ethnicity, who had butchered Esther’s pinkie with a cuticle trimmer, accidental or not.

  “They would find anything to make fun of clients,” Brenda continued. “You couldn’t understand what they were saying, of course, but you could tell. I saw them make fun of this woman who was getting her upper lip waxed. They were laughing—‘hee hee hee’—and this woman got so mad. They tried to stop her—‘Oh, no, miss, we no laugh at you, no, no’—but she left.”

  The employee took a small brush to Esther’s toes, and as she worked, she continued to chat quietly with the woman who was scrubbing Brenda’s heel—but then Brenda’s foot was set down for a second so that the employee could say something back to her friend, with full attention.

  Brenda looked at Esther in complete alarm and disgust.

  “Talk, talk, talk, talk—jibber jabber,” Brenda said loudly. “Sooo annoying!”

  The chatter between the employees ceased abruptly, and before they knew it, the older woman who manned the phone and the cash register—probably their boss or manager—was at their side. “Everything okay, Mrs. Caldwell?” she asked, her face directed at her employees, severe and angry, letting everyone know her familiarity with Brenda, as well as her position in the matter.

  Three clients sitting across from Esther and Brenda watched with sympathy, and one gave Esther an acknowledging smile, as if suggesting that the current crisis was all part of the hazards of beauty.

  “Fine, Diana,” Brenda said, graciously suppressing her anger in empathy for the trouble Diana had in keeping her employees in line.

  “Oka
y, Mrs. Caldwell,” Diana said, her eyes still on the two squatted before them, “but you let me know if any more problem.” And then she spoke angrily in her native tongue for several awkward moments, while her employees kept their heads down in shameful displeasure.

  “Well, that’s that,” Brenda offered, as the older woman resumed her post at the phone and the cash register.

  For several moments, all was quiet, the thrum of the spa chair vibrating against Esther’s back.

  The employees had been appropriately chastened, and now they peered at their clients’ feet with fierce attention, as if it were a life-and-death matter.

  Esther closed her eyes, enjoying her gentle foot massage. Fingers pressed into her calf, back down to her foot; a soothingly cold emollient was spread on her legs. The fingers of her left hand were directed to a bowl that contained a warm, gel-like substance, so that she had to lean a little to her left.

  “Whatever happened to Daniel, what was his last name?” Brenda asked.

  “Logan,” Esther said, opening her eyes, feeling a pinch of shame.

  “Logan, that’s right. Daniel Logan.”

  “I’d rather not go into it,” Esther said, examining the cover of a Cosmopolitan on the side table. The woman on the cover—her bosom thrust forward in a low-cut leopard-print swimsuit—radiated a trouble-free, voracious sexuality.

  “I heard that he wanted to marry you, but that his stepson from his second marriage came home from college to visit and you ended up flirting with him.”

  Esther didn’t speak, remembering the sagging, pelicanlike pouch of skin below Daniel’s chin and his obsession with the saxophonist Kenny G.

  “How could you do that?” Brenda asked, delighted.

  “Daniel Logan was sixty-three at the time,” Esther said, flipping through the magazine with one hand. “Besides, I was just flirting.” She paused, glancing at an article titled “Seven Bad Moves to Take His Climax to the Max.”