Butterfly (40 page)

on to him, her fingers tangled in his long platinum hair.

Her second lover retrieved something from under one of the silver domes on the serv-

ice cart. He fed her a chocolate-dipped strawberry.

The rest of the food was now consumed; they paused in their lovemaking to savor the

gourmet excellence of Butterfly’s kitchen. The two men fed her, taking morsels from each

platter and feeding them to her in erotic ways. They drank the wine and then the coffee

and shared the creamy sweet richness of the Italian pastries.

They both entered her one last time, taking turns, going slowly, reserving their own

climax so that her pleasure could be prolonged until finally she spoke the first word

uttered in over three hours of lovemaking—it came out in a deep, contented sigh:

“Enough…”

23

Hollywood: 1969

Ann Hastings wanted to get laid more than anything in the world. It was a terrible thing,

she decided, to be thirty-one years old and
still a virgin.
Especially in this day and age!

As she pulled her Mustang into the reserved space in the small parking lot behind

Tony’s Royal Burgers (Eddie kept the sign for sentimental reasons) she thought of all the

girls she had just seen up and down Highland Avenue, in embroidered blue jeans, bare-

foot and long-haired, their hips and thumbs thrust out in hopes of a ride. And a ride was

what they usually got!

Ann sometimes found herself bewildered by this new age. She frequently felt as if she

had fallen asleep years ago and had only just now awakened, a stranger in an even stranger

land. Like a Ms. Van Winkle. There were revolutions going on all around her: racial, anti-

war, cultural, sexual….

Sex was definitely on her mind these days.

How could I not help thinking about it? she asked herself as she walked through the

rear entrance of the diner, waved to the workers, and headed for the door labeled PRIVATE.

With movies out now like
Midnight Cowboy
and
Hair,
and posters for
Oh! Calcutta!

everywhere, displaying flesh, flesh, flesh! TV newscasts had shown the kids at Woodstock,

naked, making love in the grass, free and happy. Women were now taking the Pill. They

were allowed at last to be sexual aggressors. It was an age of free love and liberal sex. For

God’s sake,
everyone was doing it!

Well, maybe not everyone, Ann decided as she quietly entered the office and closed

the door behind herself. Beverly was at her desk, going through the morning’s mail.

Carmen was at the other desk, her fingers flying over the adding machine.

They
didn’t seem to be involved in the sexual revolution.

How many years had Ann known Beverly Highland? Ten, she calculated. They had

met in 1959 in that old apartment building on Cherokee. But even though they had

worked together for Eddie in the years since, Beverly still remained something of a mys-

tery to Ann.

Amazingly, there wasn’t a man in Beverly Highland’s life even though she was posi-

tively beautiful. Not just in her looks, which were stunning, but in the way she walked, in

her manner, in her
soul,
Ann thought. Beverly just seemed to walk right and talk right;

she was gentle and poised and soft-spoken. And she looked absolutely perfect in her Mary

Quant miniskirt and white patterned tights. She even carried off the old-fashioned

French twist in this space age of Sassoon and Nigel Davies hairstyles.

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Kathryn Harvey

And Beverly was also financially well off. Not exactly rich, but she had made some

wise investments out in the Valley, plus she owned part of the Royal Burger chain. She

had to be one of the most desirable, the most eligible young women in L.A., and yet, as

far as Ann knew, she was not involved with a man. In ten years Beverly had not had a

boyfriend. She had not even dated. Beverly’s entire life, Ann had come to learn, was

devoted to work. In fact, she was so dedicated to work, and put in so many hours running

Royal Burgers, that Eddie and Laverne had stepped out of the picture almost altogether.

Why, Ann wondered now as she had wondered many times before, did Beverly avoid

men?

And then there was Carmen Sanchez, the company’s bookkeeper. On that first day six

years ago when Beverly had brought Carmen into the diner and announced that she was

going to be working with them, Ann had thought,
Aha!
believing she had her answer at

last. Beverly must prefer women, it was that simple. But then Carmen’s belly soon swelled

and when she went into labor she cursed a man named Manuel.

In the five years since the birth of little Rosa, Carmen led a celibate life. She, too, did-

n’t seem to want anything to do with men.

But at least, Ann thought now, Carmen had known a man, if only once. Ann wasn’t so

sure about the intensely private Beverly, who never let anyone get socially or physically

close to her. Was it possible, Ann wondered not for the first time, that Beverly was as sex-

ually innocent as herself?

“Where’s Debbie?” Ann asked as she threw down her purse, sank into the sofa and put

her feet on the ottoman.

Beverly didn’t look up from the mail she was reading. “Debbie’s left us.”

Ann groaned.
Not another one.

“Where did she go? San Francisco?” That was where the last two secretaries had

decided to run off to.

“I don’t know. She just came in this morning, announced that she was no longer

Debbie Schwartz but Daffodil, and that she was going to go out and find her karma.”

Ann shook her head. They were having a hard time keeping good employees.

Beverly finally looked at her. “How did it go?”

“There was a little trouble in the Reseda store, but I cleared it up by firing the manager

and putting the assistant manager in his place. I think she’ll work out. We should get no

more Health Department complaints on that horizon.”

“Anything else?”

Ann massaged her feet. She was now the regional manager for Royal Burgers and had

to make frequent rounds of the fourteen stores. Her particular responsibility was quality

control—she made sure that the same high standards were maintained at all the outlets.

“Well, Carmen was right. Sales are falling off in all of them. Ever since McDonald’s came

out with the Big Mac last year, Royal Burgers has been steadily losing customers. All my

managers agreed we should come out with a double burger. I also think we should install

the new microwave ovens in all the stores.”

Beverly nodded and jotted something on a piece of paper.

BUTTERFLY

175

Her desk was a mess, which was very unlike Beverly, who was punctiliously tidy in

both her person and her home in the Hollywood Hills. Ann had visited the Spanish-style

house several times and had never failed to be impressed with the orderliness of it. Beverly

insisted upon the same discipline in the Royal Burgers stores. Dirt and untidiness had no

place in her life.

But because she couldn’t seem to keep a secretary, and because Eddie was no longer

interested in being involved in his own company, Beverly had the constant job of keeping

from being overwhelmed by paperwork.

Part of which, this morning, had to do with going through the contents of the thick

envelope from her clipping service.

This was another mystery about Beverly that Ann often wondered about. Her obses-

sion with Reverend Danny Mackay.

Ann was very familiar with the flamboyant Texas preacher. Anyone who watched the

news or read the papers or went into bookstores recognized that famous smile. Ever since

his stirring speech outside Parkland Hospital in Dallas back in 1963, Danny Mackay had

become something of a celebrity. And now, with his new book,
Why God Took the

Kennedys,
on the best-seller list, his fame was growing.

Ann didn’t know what Beverly’s connection with the charismatic Reverend was, but

she suspected Beverly might have actually known Danny Mackay at some time in her

past. Whatever the relationship was, Beverly was very private about it. She was also obses-

sive about it.

Take this clipping service, for example. Beverly had contracted with them six years

ago, upon her return from Dallas. “Anything on Danny Mackay,” she had told them. It

didn’t matter how slight the mention, or in what paper, they were to send her the clip-

ping. Beverly spent one morning a week going through that thick envelope and poring

over the news items of Danny Mackay’s activities. Beverly sat there now at her desk,

studying the clippings with an intense look on her face, reading about Danny’s tour in

Vietnam, where he was preaching to the troops.

Ann got up and went to the small office refrigerator. Taking out a can of Metrecal and

slowly pouring it into a glass, she went back to thinking about sex.

It was absurd that she was still a virgin. And Ann couldn’t really say why she was,

except maybe that she didn’t have much opportunity to meet guys who appealed to her.

Her job at Royal Burgers kept her pretty busy, and when she did find herself in a social

situation, she always seemed to be out of place. After all, she was thirty-one, over the age

to be trusted. She felt old in this suddenly youth-oriented society. Anyone who had gone

to high school in the fifties, it seemed, was a dinosaur. With so many nubile and willing

young girls around these days, plumpish, thirtyish Ann Hastings didn’t stand a chance.

That is, until she met Steve.

Steve Fowler was a professor of political science whom she met at a recent antiwar rally

in Century City. They had nearly gotten arrested together and had only just escaped the

police batons by jumping into his VW and racing away from the scene. They had gone to

a vegetarian restaurant for some meaningful dialogue; one thing led to another, and

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Kathryn Harvey

before she knew it, Ann found herself accepting his invitation to go to his apartment

sometime and smoke grass.

And tonight was the night.

She wasn’t in love with Steve by any means; she wasn’t even particularly attracted to

him. But he was bright and intelligent, a man of conscience (he had been reprimanded

last year for telling his students to march out of the classroom and not come back until

Nixon had called all our troops back from Vietnam), and he had breezily declared that he

liked “Rubenesque” women.

He was also older than herself, and hinted at being a very experienced lover.

That was when Ann had decided to take the plunge and find out what it was she was

missing. At last certain Mysteries were going to be revealed to her tonight, and she could

hardly contain her excitement.

“If you don’t need me anymore…” she said when she’d finished the Metrecal.

Beverly smiled and said, “Take the day off. You’ve earned it.”

Ann laughed and hurried out. Take the day off! Hardly! She had too many things to

do before getting to Steve’s place at six: buy a new outfit, get her hair done, splurge on a

manicure, and finally get on over to Family Planning for the diaphragm….

The adding machine went clackety-clackety-clack and delivered up its bad news.

Carmen pulled the long tape out, tore it off and frowned at the final figures for a minute

before turning around and tossing it onto Beverly’s desk.

“We’re going to be in trouble real soon,
amiga,”
she said, “if Eddie doesn’t do some-

thing and fast.”

Beverly didn’t need to read the tape. This was a subject they had been discussing for a

long time now, ever since harsh reality hit home: that McDonald’s and Kentucky Fried

Chicken were rapidly taking over areas Royal Burgers had once monopolized.

It was a frustrating situation. Once Eddie had made enough money to provide him

and Laverne with expensive new toys and unlimited travel, he had lost all interest in his

company. “You run it,” he had told Beverly two years ago when he had waltzed out of the

diner jingling the keys to his brand-new Lincoln Continental. As far as Eddie was con-

cerned, as long as Royal Burgers kept him in cars and boats and airplane tickets, he was-