A Half Dozen Fools (3 page)

"Sorry about that. I know I should wait until we get divorced, but I can't help it. I adore you."

He pressed so close Elyse could smell the hot, clean skin on his neck. The aura of confidence that comes with money and power swirled all around him, too, which turned her on even more, in spite of her reservations. She would have loved to ravish him with kisses, but forced herself to pull farther away.

"I could adore you, too, Joel. Maybe I will, after your divorce."

He tickled her ribs, and she couldn't help but giggle. He kept it up and she squealed for mercy. Her giggles caught in her throat, however, when she glanced up to see Dominique slip inside the room. Even more unfortunate, they happened to look directly in each others' eyes.

Dominique's face hardened. Elyse blanched and stepped away from Joel, who finally noticed his wife had come in.

"You weren't coming to find me?" Dominique asked her husband in an accusatory tone.

"Of course I was," Joel answered coolly. "Just needed to get some of the bodies out of here first, and make some room. Here," he cooed, "I saved the best for you..."

As he led her over to Craig, Elyse made her way toward Mickey, who was leaning against the wall by the door. He'd observed all and was smirking. Elyse wrinkled her nose like a bunny.

"Now's probably a good time for me to go."

"Mm, understandable. So, you'll come and see my show?"

"Yes, of course. Thank you so much for inviting me. Have a good night."

In the dark hallway outside, Elyse squinted to get her bearings. As she forced herself to focus, her stomach roiled. She suddenly felt woozy and wondered if the thought of Joel tickling her in front of his wife was making her ill.

She drew a deep breath.
Enough of this bullshit! Get me out of here now
.

She headed for the living room in a mad search for Dylan.

* * * *

It was after four A.M. when Elyse sat upright in a cold sweat. Rudely awakened by a sharp pain in her gut, her skin had grown clammy and she was shaking from the chills. Since she rarely succumbed to illness, she felt confused and disoriented by what was happening to her body. Then, pain struck, again.

She at least possessed the wherewithal to get out of bed and head for the bathroom. She reached the commode just in time to heave numerous times before rolling down against the floor. The cool tile was a relief against her hot skin, so she rested there until another wave of nausea brought her back up to the porcelain god. She cursed silently between her retching, wondering what in the world was causing it. After the throes of physical chaos had ebbed and finally ceased their hold on her, she slid back down to the ground again, damp hair stuck on her sweaty brow.

Lying naked on her bathroom floor, a barrage of thoughts ran through her head.

Did I drink too much? Was it the champagne after vodka? Wait--did I eat enough, to begin with? Too much? Maybe it's a virus, or the flu.

But, no--somehow, she knew those reasons were not the cause of her projectile heaving. As her body resumed normalcy, the cold floor against her face also clarified her memory, and an image from Joel's party rose in her mind.

She pushed the limp strands of hair off her face and forced herself to focus.

That stupid blow up my nose--that's what it is!

Then another more distant memory flooded her mind.

She remembered an artist she'd met in Paris during her junior year abroad. He'd told her how a person vomits after inhaling heroine, a sure sign the person has "gotten off." Elyse had never doubted his information was spot-on, since he, himself, was addicted to the "junk." While she wondered whatever had become of him, she also recalled a moment at the private gathering in Joel's bedroom.

After Mickey had asked Craig where he'd gotten the coke, something in Craig's smarmy way of answering had bothered Elyse, although she'd been unable to put her finger on exactly what it was. Now, after puking her guts out, she remembered Craig saying his usual "dealer" was out of town. Who knew what his replacement had cut his purchase with? It could easily have been tainted by a bit of bad Brown Sugar, or some other stupid designer drug.

She rolled her eyes and thought how dumb she was not to have listened to herself by refusing to partake, in spite of Joel urging her on.

After a while, the floor grew cold and hard against her skin. Shaking from the break in feverishness, she knew her purge was over. With her body no longer on fire, she pulled herself up to the sink and washed her face. After brushing her teeth, she dragged her weary body back to bed, cursing her own weakness in character.

She pulled the fat comforter up past her chin and snuggled into a soft cocoon. Drifting off to sleep, she vowed never to bend to peer pressure again, and never to take another recreational drug for as long as she lived.

The little green man switched to blinking red the second Elyse stepped inside the crosswalk. A devilish smile lit her face and she decided to risk it anyway. She sped her pace and kept right on trucking--a blatant dare to voracious drivers revving their engines in wait. Between her move against the walk-light and the crisp October air, Elyse shivered with aliveness. With head held high, she strutted across Broadway, her long, dark hair billowing in the wind like a flag of victory.

Exhilarated by her risqué move so early in the day, Elyse glanced back at sleepy businessmen still on the corner behind her and laughed out loud. On the other side of the avenue, she congratulated herself for not panicking or breaking into a run and strutted giddily toward the subway station. At the Eighty-Sixth Street entrance, she skipped down one long staircase after another, deep into the bowels of the transport system. When she finally reached the lair of mechanical beasts, she waited for the downtown Number One to take her to work.

Twenty minutes later, Elyse emerged from the subway stop at Columbus Circle and hurried toward her favorite coffee shop.

The sky had darkened and the winds had kicked up by the time she turned off Seventh Avenue. As she turned the corner by the old copy shop, she glanced across the street at the Make-Up Place, halfway down the block. When she saw her boss in the window fiddling with the display, Elyse pulled her coat collar up around her chin and kept her gaze ahead.

Damn, Judy's at the helm, today!

When Elyse entered the coffee shop, she was breathless from her walk in the cold air. Her spirits brightened at the sight of the young cook by the open grill behind the cash register. Dressed in a clean, white uniform, the effervescent Eduardo smiled and waved.

"
¡Hola, amor!
" he said gaily. "
¿Como estás?
"

Elyse loved practicing Spanish with the cheerful Eduardo. With a grin, she waved back. "
Bien. ¿Y tú?
"

"
Fantástico
, baby,
fantastic
. You wan' your usual?"

"
Si, por favor
."

She watched him expertly crack two eggs onto the hot griddle.

"Why you in such a good mood today?" she asked playfully.

"Whass not to be happy about? I got my health, my beautiful family, a good job. What more I need? I live in America, baby, where life is good!"

Elyse nodded, envious of Eduardo's simple, joyful philosophy. Conversely, she felt an unnamed lack in her own life, from something she couldn't quite define. How she dreamed of sharing an attitude as positive as Eduardo's! Not once had she seen him unhappy at work. His cheerfulness was infectious, and she always left the coffee shop feeling better--at least, for a while.

Elyse paid the cashier and took a seat by the window. Savoring her melted egg-and-cheese on a bagel, she watched a Winnebago pull down Fifty-Fifth Street and park at the southeast corner. By the time she'd finished eating, two more trailers had pulled in and parked along either side of the street, followed by vans and trucks. Police cars stationed at either end of the block rerouted traffic, while a team of workmen set up wooden ponies to keep it out.

Grabbing her cup of coffee to-go, Elyse hurried to find out what show was shooting in the neighborhood today.

* * * *

While Judy Hoffenzimmer droned on about petty family issues, Elyse cleaned the retail counters in the front area of the Make-Up Place. As she sprayed and wiped, she stared out the window, far more interested in the hustle and bustle going on outside than in listening to her boss complain. She craned her neck to better see the full scope of people with a purpose coming and going from vehicles and trailers parked along the street.

An older man with glasses was talking to a young woman jotting notes on a clipboard held against her waist. A group of technicians ...ed over equipment packed inside an open van. Another group of techies hoisted lights onto dollies and rolled them toward the building next door. A lady with a pencil behind one ear carried a pile of clothes into the trailer directly across the street.

Smitten by her experience on Joel Lebanthal's film, she'd been reading everything she could lay her hands on about the use of makeup in movies, television, and video. And judging from the number of people and level of activity out on the street today, a big-budget feature was in the works. Her creative juices pumped at the thought of being part of such a project. While that world was a tough nut to crack, she salivated at the thought of doing so one day.

The sound of Judy's voice tuned Elyse back into her current place of employment. All at once, the tattered, worn appearance of the waiting area blazed painfully dull. The dingy, gray shag carpeting had clearly seen better days, as had the oversized sofas whose faded dot pattern was covered in stains. And if she wasn't mistaken, the lava lamps were originals, yet hardly attended to as of late. The cutting-edge ambiance first created at the Make-Up Place had long since diminished, with nothing new introduced under its current ownership.

An upcoming doctor's appointment had forced Judy Hoffenzimmer to remain stone-cold sober that morning. Without her morning "meddies" she'd grown crankier than usual, which manifested in a bitter diatribe against her pampered progeny.

As Judy bitched on and on about her spoiled teenage daughters, Elyse prayed for a potential customer to come in and rescue her from listening. But alas--with the street cut off for the movie shoot, foot traffic was all but dead. And Elyse had only one private session booked later in the day.

Elyse sought to free herself from Judy's self-absorbed complaining. Searching her mind for something constructive to do, she finally decided to go in the back and reorganize her studio. She waited for a pause in Judy's monologue. Luckily, Judy stopped to read a text on her cell phone. Elyse turned and excused herself. She groaned silently, however, when Judy texted back a reply and followed her, continuing her rant.

"When her daddy told her she was gonna have to take care of that brand-new Mustang, herself," she spewed, "you think she listened? Oh, no! Leaves it up to him to service it, every time. I told her this morning, 'Tammie, you get on up and take that car in, yourself, so Daddy can drive me to the city.' But--no! What does she do? She rolls over an' goes back to sleep! And what does Rod do?"

Since Judy actually stopped talking, Elyse figured this was a cue to respond.

"He took her car to be serviced?"

Judy spoke up quickly, as if the question had been purely rhetorical.

"He took her car to the service station, himself! Left
me
to drive into the city all alone, today, and open the store by myself! Only to have to go back to Jersey later, in time for my doctor's appointment. Which I hate! I hate going to the doctor. But I got to have my glycemic index checked..."

Elyse tried to dull Judy's screechy twang by running water in the sink next to the tester units. Undeterred by the background noise, Judy only upped the volume. She kept right on complaining, blabbing on and on about all her problems, and how her life was so much more stressful than anybody else's in the world. Elyse thought about suffering people in third world countries and nodded emptily. She washed every brush within her reach in an effort to tune out her boss.

When she turned off the faucet, Judy's voice blasted raucously in the sudden quietude.

"And Samantha's no better!" she howled.

The sudden reverberation of her own brashness gave her a start, and she blinked in surprise. After a second, however, she resumed her yakking, merely toning it down a notch.

"Every Sunday, Rod gets up and washes her car. Been doing it a whole damn year!"

Having washed every brush and wiped down every counter, Elyse started detailing the eye shadow units. Even so, there was no escaping Judy's lamentations.

"Now that Samantha's got a car, too, he washes the both of them. Washes and waxes 'em both 'til they shine!"

A pang of jealousy stabbed Elyse. Never in her whole life had she bought a brand-new car, only used. As a matter of fact, she'd sold her last one just a few months after moving into the city. The added cost of parking space in Manhattan was practically prohibitive--at least, for a working girl. Yet, here were two spoiled girls half her age with pricey new vehicles they didn't even appreciate. It made her want to scream, but she managed to swallow the urge and keep a smile on her face.

"I don't know what they'll do when they go away to college," Judy said in a voice that hinted she was secretly proud of her baby girls' insouciance. "Probably call Daddy every weekend and cry about how hard things are, away from home. 'Daddy, Daddy, we need you to come down, this weekend, and change the oil! Daddy, I need to go shopping! Daddy, Daddy--'"

Elyse could take no more. Just as Judy started in with another round of indictments against her flesh and blood, Elyse interrupted--as sweetly as she could, of course.

"Geez, that's crazy, Judy. But, you know, I was thinking. Maybe we can drum up sales, today, by handing out flyers. I can go out and stand at the corner of Fifty-fifth and Seventh, near the movie shoot. Give them out at Avenue of the Americas, too. Maybe we can get makeup artists in from the movie. Or, the actors. And--whoever!"