“No drama.” Beth started a checklist in her head.
“The guy I fuck is probably shorter than me. He probably doesn’t have a girlfriend—”
“So you do have morals!” Beth blurted.
Amanda looked at her exactly the way a cat would look if she’d asked it to spell antidisestablishmentarianism. “If he has no girlfriend, then he probably hasn’t been laid in a while. He hasn’t exactly given up hope, but he has no expectation of scoring with someone who looks like me. And he’s horny enough to be looking at me when I send out my ‘Let’s go out the back door of this joint and do it up against a wall’ signals.”
Beth tried to picture signaling all that, maybe by semaphore. “And you say girly shit is complicated?”
“Really, they’re not complicated. You ever have a dog?”
In dread and fascination she admitted, “When the kids were little we had a black lab.” Blake had wanted the kind of dog they put on bumper stickers about Martha’s Vineyard.
“So you know how you tell it to get out of the kitchen and it goes and lies down with just its nose across the doorway? And you point and say, ‘No.’ And it watches you, because, who knows, you might change your mind.”
Beth smiled. “Oh. Yes.”
“Well, then.”
Suddenly Beth could exactly picture Amanda giving out those signals. Nice little man in the kitchen, his arms full of other people’s dirty dishes, catches her eye and can’t believe she’s saying, walkies? Amanda wouldn’t play head games with him. She would just send that kind, unemotional, unmistakable message, and he would come trotting after her.
Now we get to the hard part.
“So what about the sex? Apparently I’m flunking that,” Beth said, trying not to sound hoarse.
“Same thing, really. When you meet a dog on the street, first, you make friends. Then, if he hasn’t been trained to ignore strangers or snarl at them, he tells you what he wants. Scratch behind the ear, maybe a scritch on the tailbone, maybe a tummy rub? No need for some long sensitive conversation with a glass of pink fucking zinfandel on the side. Just like a dog, he sends out signals. You don’t try to bellyrub an ear-scratcher.”
“I guess I’m not good at reading the signals,” Beth confessed.
“There’s only like four basic moves. BJ, hand job, front fuck, ass fuck.” Amanda shrugged. “You can ask them. I’m not into all the yakkity-yak myself.”
No, she wouldn’t be.
“What about the—the creepy vibe Nando was talking about?”
“That the cute little short guy with the tattoo behind his ear?”
Beth was amazed that Amanda knew them by name. “Yes. I mean I didn’t see his tattoo.”
“He’s picking up on you not being comfortable with the job.”
Another light bulb went on. Amanda knows them by name. She notices things about them. When Beth did the plumber, she’d been high on basketball and team endorphins. She’d barely seen him. When she did Nando, she didn’t have sex with Nando. She’d just had sex.
Suddenly she realized she’d been going at this job like a woman forced to remove a flattened skunk from her driveway—with a shovel, at arm’s length, holding her nose.
Yeah, she conceded, I suppose it’s possible a guy might notice that.
Men were people. They had feelings. Or, if you looked at it the way Amanda did, they were dogs.
That probably helped if you were a dog-lover.
“Can we talk about this again?” Beth said. “I promise I won’t cry all over you next time.”
“Anytime.” Amanda turned back to the ice maker without another word.
That evening, Pog made them log another report. Amanda and Jee complained bitterly, but Beth felt a fluttering excitement: her second quota report to the Regional Office! As she listed off the men she had tempted or downright incentivized since her last report, she began to feel more like a team member and less like a charity case. One of these days, she might even get paid.
Pog congratulated her. “Will you lookit this! You’re way over quota, Beth. You’ll get a bonus this month—in your first month!” When she added them all up, Beth realized she’d scored a lot better than she had imagined.
She didn’t quite know what to think of herself for this.
After supper, while Pog and Jee went over the contents of the under-sink liquor cabinet and threw away the dustiest bottles, Beth felt good enough to do what she’d been dreading. She called the home number of the director of the charity for homeless women where, as Beth Saunders, she had volunteered for ten years. Using her Beth Saunders persona, she begged a favor from the head of their Chicago office.
“Yes, a young friend of mine is interested in our organization. You’ll like her, Moira. She’s intelligent and presentable.” Beth wondered if she had any clothes that only whispered slut instead of screaming it. “Yes. Her name’s Beth Asucar. No, she’s white,” she assured the woman, cringing a little as she said it.
Jee was pulling the cork on a crusty bottle of pear brandy and giving it a cautious sniff. She didn’t flicker an eyelash, but Beth heard herself and suddenly felt that split down the middle that showed her clearly how Beth Saunders was falling away in chunks, like a warmed-over glacier.
“You will? That’s very kind of you,” Beth said, trying not to sound as grateful as she felt. “Her office skills are rusty, but I’ve found her very quick to pick things up. Of course. Oh, I’m fine. Of course. Gracious, yes. Enormous settlement. Well, I must rush, we’ll do lunch soon. Bye.”
She put the phone on the table with a trembling hand. Well, here goes.
“And you’re doing this why again?” Jee said.
“I want to know if Blake has been talking to Moira. I always did think they—were close, at one point. She might know where he is.”
And she wanted to dip into her old life, oh, so badly. The more comfortable she got with her new life, the more she missed the past. It was crazy. Seeing her old friends might soothe this ache. Maybe finding out that Blake and Moira still talked would cure it.
Next morning, her new friends descended on her room and dressed her with special care.
“Nothing slutty,” she protested. “I want them to keep me on until I’ve got what I want.”
“Are there any men in the office?” Amanda said.
“I doubt it,” she admitted.
“Just women? All like you were?” Jee said with that bright, eager, slipping-a-shell-into-her-shotgun note in her voice. “Wait here.” When she came back, her hands were full of sparkling jewelry. “Only diamonds. Nothing slutty,” she said wickedly, when Beth goggled at the fortune in her hands.
“What?”
“Now, don’t put them on until lunchtime. Give them the whole morning to get used to you like this. Then—frost yourself.”
“But what do I do with them until lunch?” Beth said, imagining carrying this treasure into the office in a paper bag.
“Purse. Do you have one big enough?”
“I do,” Amanda said and disappeared into her own room.
“But why on earth would I want to wear that at the office? It’s completely inappropriate for day wear.”
“Humor me,” Jee said.
Beth looked helplessly from face to face.
“Humor her,” Pog said. “Oh. Here.” She handed Beth a fistful of pristine hundred-dollar bills.
“What’s this?” Beth said, trying to hand it back.
Pog closed her fingers over it. “Mad money. In case these charity bitches try to kiss on the first date.”
So Monday morning, Beth put on one of Pog’s pastel blue, cut-down-to-Venezuela newscaster suits with a high-necked cami of her own under it, and a pair of her own shoes left over from Beth Saunders days, and carried half a million dollars in borrowed jewelry into the charity office in Amanda’s roomy dull-white Coach bag. She was determined to take it with her everywhere she went, even to the break room and the toilet. It would look awkward, but better than
having its contents discovered or stolen.
Her old friend Moira was not warm. Moira gave Beth Asucar a searching look up and down, then turned her over to the receptionist. “Have her process checks for now, Elaine.” Moira wore diamonds, Beth noticed. Big ones. Were they inappropriate for day wear, but okay for squeezing five-figure donations out of other women wearing diamonds? She’d never noticed or wondered before.
Elaine explained twice how to open each envelope carefully—”The last temp we had kept cutting checks in half”—and keypunch the vital statistics into the charity’s database. “Do not photocopy the check. We had a temp once who stole donor account numbers and identities.” Then Beth was to print out the list of her input and return it to Elaine, along with the stack of checks, “in the same order you input them, please,” and the stack of envelopes, ditto. Beth guessed that Elaine would then make sure none of the checks was missing.
When Beth finished that task, she was sent to wipe down the conference room table. The room was so familiar, it gave her intense feelings of homesickness and comfort. Low pink light from lamps and ceiling canisters. Mahogany table. Linen napkins. Photos on the walls of women’s shelters and bygone board members being kind to the inmates. The biggest donor of all, now deceased, stood wearing a hard-hat, her hand on a shovel. Beth had once wondered if there would ever be a photo of herself on these walls.
Moira reappeared and gave her another up-and-down look. “We’ll let Elaine stay on the front desk for now. You can help with the board meeting.”
Beth’s heart beat a little harder. Beth Saunders was still officially on that board, although she imagined it wouldn’t be long before they replaced her...but not with Beth Asucar. No, they didn’t seem to be warming up to the new Beth. Even supposing the new Beth would be acceptable to them, she couldn’t picture herself taking time out from her busy plumber-incentivizing schedule to come to meetings or run fund-raisers. And where would she give private dinners for donors and board members? At the Lair? Beth smiled, imagining Reg and his mouth serving champagne in a houseboy’s coat.
Chuckling to herself, she buffed the conference room and set it up from memory until it looked perfect. Moira didn’t comment. At nine-thirty, the board arrived: seven old friends of the old Beth Saunders. They floated past her desk without seeming to notice her.
“Coffee, Beth,” Moira called, and followed them into the conference room.
Beth felt weird carrying her bulky Coach purse into the conference room, so she shut it in the bottom drawer of her desk. Then she fetched the coffee pot. Without being told, she moved the cream and sugar nearer the hands of those old friends who she knew used it. She refilled cups. She plated pastries according to their tastes and delivered them without being asked. She felt their eyes on her.
“My goodness, she’s tall,” said her old tennis partner sotto voce, although not so sotto that Beth didn’t hear.
Beth glanced up and caught an unfriendly sidelong glance from an old kiddy-carpool buddy.
“That’s fine, Beth,” Moira said. “Start another pot. We’ll call for it.”
All conversation fell silent. Beth poured the last of the coffee. As she took the pot away, she heard someone say, “Where on earth did you get her?”
“Poor Beth Saunders called,” Moira began. Then the door closed.
Beth took the empty pot back to the break room and started another. She noticed her hands were trembling.
She retrieved her borrowed handbag full of borrowed diamonds and went to the one-holer bathroom and locked the door and sat on the commode and shook harder. She was cold with rage.
Why should they be friendly? You’re a total stranger. This board is a very tight-knit group. That’s why we’ve done such good work together over the years. Trust. For all they know, I’m an indigent identity thief who preyed on Beth Saunders’ good nature for a referral.
She could imagine Jee’s probable response to that line of reasoning. Yeah.
Well, she’d come prepared for this, even though she hadn’t known it...thanks to Jee.
She frosted herself. With the pastel blue newscaster suit, the virginal cami, and the sensible designer pumps, the diamonds made her look like a First Lady of the United States. A hot one. She brushed her hair into an elongated helmet style, using succubus makeover hair magic. Now she looked too young to be First Lady, but much, much better bred than the Beth Asucar who’d walked in two hours ago.
Beth began to feel the steel return to her spine.
Good grief. Was that it? Was Jee right? It wasn’t what you did, it was how young, pretty, and expensive you looked, which bore directly on how you got respected—and paid?
She certainly felt more powerful in diamonds.
She sailed out of the restroom, parked her considerably-lighter handbag in her drawer, and checked her borrowed jeweled watch. In another five minutes, they would call for more coffee. She had time to freshen her lipstick.
The conference room door opened a crack. “Coffee!” Moira called.
How had she never noticed before that Moira treated her office staff like servants?
Beth Saunders herself had never had servants, unless you counted caterers. And she was politer than this.
Beth fetched the pot into the conference room. As she poured for her old friends, she let those tennis bracelets slip down her wrist.
Someone gasped.
Murmurs started—quieter this time.
“Beth—it’s Beth, right?” Moira said, her voice all honey. “Where did you meet Mrs. Saunders?”
Beth straightened and looked her in the eye. “At a women’s shelter.” She was temped to add, We’d both been kicked in the face by our family and friends.
“Good for you,” said the carpool buddy warmly.
“Dedication,” commented the tennis partner.
“Well, Mrs. Saunders said you were presentable, and she spoke no less than the truth,” Moira said. “Have you ever done any event organizing?”
Flushing with surprise, outrage, and hurt, Beth felt her face shifting. Suddenly she remembered how she’d reverted to her fifty-year-old face in that restaurant with the detective. Oh, no. That won’t do.
She drew herself up and smiled Pog’s noncommittal smile. “Yes, lots.”
She watched glances pass from woman to woman around the conference table.
“Your last name again—” Moira said delicately.
“Asucar.” Beth smiled as the foreign-sounding name came out and the glances moved around the table again. “Spanish. My late husband was born in Barcelona.” Not Mexico. She didn’t have to reassure Moira, this time to her face, that Beth Asucar herself was Caucasian. She flexed imperceptibly under the dim conference room lights. Her diamonds glittered.
She could see their thoughts as if they were written in letters of fire on each forehead. Young, beautiful, rich. Looks presentable (translation: white) but she has that exotic name, which will spice up our masthead nicely. Experienced volunteer. That would be the very last consideration, of course. But it could be translated as, Accustomed to taking orders and doing the dirty work. Diamonds and submissive efficiency didn’t always come in the same package.
“Perfect,” said her old events committee co-chair. Exchanging another glance with Moira she said, “Would you be open to helping us organize the winter fundraiser? It’s rather elaborate.”
Beth smiled wider. “I’d be honored. More coffee?”
“Oh, never mind that. Elaine can get it,” Moira said.
“Elaine has to cover the front desk. And I promised to finish filing for her. I can’t renege on that now,” Beth said firmly. She poured the last coffee out, refreshed the cream, passed out the remaining pastries, and took the empty pot away, shutting the conference room door on a rising murmur of excited voices.
Beth sat at her desk, the empty coffeepot warm beside her shaking hands. Her heart thundered in her ears. They’re not like that. It’s just a way for them to know when someone is like them. T
hey never meet anyone different. Except at the women’s shelters. And their servants. It’s really a compliment to Beth Saunders. They already think of me as Poor Beth Saunders. They’re not bad people.
But she knew better.
It’s the diamonds. It’s just the damned diamonds.
Jee wins again, she was forced to concede.
Further thought forced her to admit something else: I do that too. I see the markers of class first. Then I see the person. Maybe. She hadn’t gotten the plumber’s name. She hadn’t even bothered to find out if Nando wanted his ears scritched or his belly rubbed.
Now I’ll be watching myself all the time, she vowed, burning with shame.
After a few long calming breaths, she realized she wanted stimulants. Five or six thousand calories’ worth of surf and turf, deep-fried macaroni and cheese balls, asparagus with Hollandaise sauce, mashed potatoes with truffle oil, a pupusu platter of Asian-Latin fusion cuisine appetizers, death by chocolate, mango sorbet, tiramisu, two bottles of dry French red wine, a pitcher or more of margaritas, and, to start with, some ridiculously expensive cocktail involving dry ice, creme fraiche, gold dust, pink-pepper-infused quail-egg-white foam, forty-year-old brandy, and a paper umbrella. Two of those, please. Yes. Right away.
She’d settle for a two-pound bag of Fritos and a case of beer.
She made another pot of coffee instead.
Then, as her heartbeat calmed, she stripped off all the diamonds except for one four-carat solitaire and packed them away in her handbag again.
Then she began slitting envelopes on the next pile of donor checks.
When the conference room door opened at eleven-forty-five and the board trooped out, it was a pageant of silent comedy.
Everyone looked at Beth eagerly. Everyone did a double-take. Beth bet herself that they were looking for the diamonds, not seeing them, and wondering if they’d imagined them. Had they been victims of a hoax? The eager looks turned to frowns.
Coed Demon Sluts: Omnibus: Coed Demon Sluts: books 1-5 Page 22