Ed King (27 page)

Diane, who was drinking gin, said, “To Mum, then,” and after Club’s toast—“To Mum, the old fighter!”—she offered: “Rest in peace, Mum, and no more misdeeds.” Harriett Rivers, whose gravelly voice betrayed her many years of Golden Virginia roll-ups, said, “No more misdeeds? Your old mum?” And once more, they all went bottoms up.

Diane and Club pursued a post-funeral mission to finish off a fifth of Gilbey’s while sitting in the constable’s rusty chairs a few feet from night traffic. Memories, memories. The shifty dealer they’d bought puff from with the lame, chained dog just past Park Crescent, and playing football with those slobbery and foul-mouthed Carricks on the supposedly offlimits cricket pitch in winter, and the blind boy on Trelawney Road whose eyes scared the shite out of you because they rolled back so far in his head, and baked potatoes on Bonfire Night. The more they talked like this, the more treacly they got. Still, Club held his drink well—as juiced as she was, she could see that about him. Reeling in bed afterward, she
regretted bashing Jim Long in front of Club, and rued her version of her current circumstances—well-heeled divorcee, living large and on a spree, was how she’d besottedly painted things for him.

Diane flew back to Kirkland feeling cash-depleted and chastised. The constable, at least half a dozen times, had dropped his jowly head in her presence and opined, “Oh, if she could have seen you at the end, it would have brought a ray of happiness in,” and “She asked after you any number of times. She had her regrets, you know, and wanted to make things right with you, in my opinion, but it’s a fair trip from America, she knew that. Too bad when someone’s on their last legs, eh?” Diane smoldered in her coach seat now. She chewed her fingernails. The important thing was to put it all behind her. Her mother was dead, and the constable, for all intents and purposes, was noise wafting away in the Gulf Stream. Who was he to insinuate or accuse? A constable on foot patrol, portly and huffing. A dunderhead with an awful mustache too often dipped in ale froth.

Redelivered to The Palms, Diane took to the pool deck in the French-cut bikini Jim had bought her in Puerto Vallarta. It was a Saturday, and The Palms’ tenants were out in numbers. Some brought radios, so there was music, not played too loudly, and some discreetly broke the rule about glassware and, while Diane kept track, got tipsy. The whole scene was sexy in an American way—the chicks, mostly, glistened with health, and the dudes, mostly, had weight-room muscles. Diane could see that many of them were restless, as if they believed there was something better to do elsewhere. They were like nice state-university kids on spring break, but a little older, and they left Diane feeling so self-conscious that on Saturday evening she went shopping for less European-looking swim apparel that would let her sit around the pool without disturbing people. She found a red two-piece that Lynn Long—Jim’s sister, who’d married a PGA golfer—might have worn in her era as a hot chick attending U of O, kind of a Miss Teen USA look. Then she went into a club called the Pelican because she felt like it, and, besides, there was nothing to stop her, including the bouncer, who nodded not at her but at her boobs.

The singer onstage was called Sir Charles, and with his long fingers and huge Afro, his over-the-top bellbottoms and half-opened shirt, he called to mind Sly Stone. Diane took a seat at the end of a long bar where the servers, costumed in black tank-tops, black flares, black aprons, and
sensible shoes, came to yell at the bartenders, pick up orders, and keep track of tabs. Underneath, these girls looked a lot like the bimbos at The Palms, with their careful hairdos and sunny complexions. The bartenders, all three, looked like soap-opera bachelors, two with the air of marriage material, the third with a slightly more sensual demeanor, as if he moonlighted as a gigolo. From him, she ordered a mai tai.

A good corner, because she blended into the commerce there, and could watch without self-consciousness the loud behavior apparently natural to the Pelican, and also watch the dancers, most of whom were terrible, so that Diane thought of opening a dance studio, Diane’s, where couples would learn to salsa and tango and where singles could pursue each other. Maybe during the day her space could be sublet to Al-Anon and Weight Watchers for meetings; at other times it could accommodate a support group she’d run, fee-based, for divorced women seeking to get back on their feet but having a time of it. Maybe Sir Charles needed an agent, or the bartender needed a pimp, or she could set herself up as a quasi-legitimate masseuse, or get good at investing. Diane, sipping from her mai tai, tried to think of ways not to work and still cash in, like people at the top who, instead of working, intercepted funds.

In the midst of such thoughts, she was assailed by a guy, tall, neat, but not good-looking, whose come-on was to yell, over Sir Charles’s “Let’s Stay Together,” “I know you probably think I’m hitting on you.” Diane answered, “Mind reader.”

“I’m actually just checking,” the guy said, without smiling, “to see if you want to score some blow.”

“I don’t do blow.”

“Want to get started?”

“I want you to get out of here.”

“What if I give it to you?”

“You’re giving away blow.”

“Yep,” said the guy. “Like free-sample sausage in the grocery aisle. Same strategy. Customer grooming.”

Diane put her elbow on the bar and her chin in her hand. The coke dealer did, too. He had closely cropped gelled hair and a broad, Gallic nose; he wore his polo shirt buttoned to the throat, tight chinos, and a wedding band. He looked law-abiding, if a little greasy—like many of Candy Dark’s clients. “Free blow,” said Diane.

“Yep.”

“I never turn down samples.”

“Now you’re talking.”

“What’s your name?”

“My name is … Bill. I mean Mike. Why did I say Bill? My name is Michael Bill, I mean Bill Michaels. But just call me Bill. Or Mike. What’s your name?”

“Funny,” said Diane. “My name’s Bill, too.”

“Great,” said the coke dealer. “What are you drinking?”

“I’m drinking a Mike,” said Diane.

The coke dealer’s wedding band was alongside one nostril, and the green face of his sizable watch, with its articulating silver band, now glowed in the relative darkness of the Pelican. He looked hangdog, impatient, big-elbowed, and uncoordinated, and hulked like a basketball player. “Great,” he said. “Mike. Whatever. Bill. But maybe, since you’re nursing that mai tai, I ought to come back later.”

“Why?”

“Take your time. Nurse away. I’ll come back. We’ll do the blow.”

Diane, from behind, was crowded by one of the all-American servers, who put a hand on her shoulder and yelled, over Sir Charles, “Hey, Mike!” Mike returned a peace sign, and Diane said, “I thought this was like free-sample sausage, Bill. So why would you and me be doing blow?”

“Fine,” he said, checking his watch. “You do the blow, I’ll watch.”

Diane unzipped her handbag for a matchbox. “Take that,” she said. “Put in your blow. I’ll be here for a while.”

“You never did blow before?”

“I’ll figure it out.”

“Good play,” said Mike. “Be seeing ya.” But ten minutes later, he brought the coke.

On Sunday, Diane wore the less noticeable bathing suit and made an effort to talk to people. There were two girls in chaises ten yards away with whom she chatted about Mexico, tanning salons, England, and carbs. One, Kelly, pointed out a guy who had good pecs. The other, Teddie, assured her that guys loved British accents. They compared suntan lotions. Diane said she was in 226 and that the girls should come around when they wanted, for margaritas. Kelly responded to this with a too-many-margaritas anecdote. Teddie, who had a
Cosmo
in her lap, said
people called her Ted. Next they talked about the Princess of Wales, who, said Kelly, wasn’t good-looking. She couldn’t understand the big deal, the hype, which maybe Diane, being English, could explain. Surprisingly, Ted was well versed in the nuances of royal intrigue, and spoke authoritatively, at some length, on the Duchess of York, who, she said, was weird-looking. Diane agreed. There ensued a dialogue on standards of beauty. Ted was not an admirer of teased hair and provided the example of Olivia Newton-John, “after she went spandex, in
Grease
.” That was a weird look. Another was leg warmers. They checked out a guy with great shoulders who, said Ted, was a jerk, not that she meant to be judgmental. Diane made sure to mention 226 again, where the door was open a lot.

In the pool, she asked the guy with great shoulders if a drifting air mattress was his. It wasn’t, but that didn’t stop him from suggesting that it was probably okay if she used it, or from pointing out that she had an accent. Later, Diane asked three hot-tubbers if she could turn on the jets. It was fine with them, so a guy got out and turned the jets on, and Diane, with the small of her back against one, added a few words to a conversation about chlorine, what it did to your hair and skin, and a few words, too, on hot water and muscle pain. This led to inquiries on London hotels, and on the Princess of Wales, who was in the news that week for attending Live Aid.

Some book talk happened in the late afternoon, because a guy asked Diane what she was reading. She showed him the cover of
An Indecent Obsession
, by Colleen McCullough. He hadn’t read it, but he’d seen
The Thorn Birds
and had opinions about the actors. Diane celebrated Bryan Brown’s sheep-shearing muscles, and in response, the guy celebrated Rachel Ward in partial undress. Partial undress, he said, was better than full undress. Why? Because of suggestion. Next he asked Diane what
An Indecent Obsession
was about. She said, “A war nurse,” and then he gave her the title of his book—
Gorky Park
—and a plot summary of the first hundred pages. Somewhere along the way he must have recognized that he was boring, because he suddenly interrupted himself to say, “Enough on my book. You must be British.” As if that helped.

By five, there were a dozen people to say hi to in the future, including girls who’d been told to drop by 226 any time they wanted, and guys she felt confident she’d intrigued. On Monday, there were only a few people around the pool, but she managed, again, to strike up conversations, or at least to make contact, nod or say hello, and on Tuesday, she passed a good
part of the day sunbathing, and making small talk, with a girl named Emily who worked as an accounts-receivable clerk for a contractors’ supply company. Emily had a Peter Pan hairdo and gawky legs, and wore the sort of bathing suit women generally started wearing only after they’d had children, with a built-in skirt and a bow at the back. She seemed listless, and entered the water tentatively, clinging to her mottled shoulders. Diane wanted to cheer up Emily, so around noon they repaired to 226 for cheese and crackers, and made rum-and-Cokes in large paper cups, with ice, and then a second round of rum-and-Cokes to carry back to the pool. There, Emily confessed that she was taking a mental-health day, wanted to change jobs, wasn’t comfortable in Kirkland, missed Spokane, and felt depressed.

Tuesday evening, there was a cabaña party that spilled out onto the terrace of chaises longues. Diane, in a shift and sandals, was introduced to a friend of Kelly’s and Ted’s named Shane, and accepted his offer of a gin-and-tonic in a plastic cup, but not his offer of a hot dog or a hamburger. “You’re going meatless,” observed Shane, who, muscular, with a cyclist’s thighs, stood forthrightly with his hands on his hips. “Hey, I know this guy from London. He’s—”

“Uh,” said Kelly, “I think Diane’s probably sick of people mentioning England all the time, just because she has an English accent. Even though she’s really nice about it.”

“She’s super-nice about it,” confirmed Ted.

She was, in fact, so diligently nice, that her reputation for niceness ascended. People at The Palms said hi to her, nodded, smiled, waved at her through her open door, chatted with her in the parking lot, greeted her in halls, spoke with her in elevators, flirted, commiserated, invited her to parties, even—in the case of Emily—sought her out for wisdom, which she dispensed with care. Then, one night, at a cabaña social, a girl she’d met beside the pool asked Diane if she knew where to score blow. “I do,” said Diane. “How much?”

“Just a rail or something. Or even a couple bumps.”

“Sure,” said Diane. “Let’s go up.”

Victim One rounded up a friend—Victim Two—and they followed Diane to 226, where they drank rum-and-Cokes, listened to Santana, and watched television with the sound off while Diane, taking her lead from “Mike,” set them up with her sample blow, free of charge.

The following Saturday, she tracked down Mike at the Pelican. Onstage
this time, instead of Sir Charles, was Street Life—eight guys, three with theatrical horns, one with timbales, a cowbell, and congas, and a lead singer who went shirtless but wore an open vest, so that the crawling veins in his arms, not to mention his knotty chest, could function to advantage. Street Life wasn’t just brassy but loud, and that let Diane sit close to Mike, the better that he might understand what she was telling him, and, as she spoke within inches of his big pink-hued ear, the better for him to feel her warm breath and note her Obsession from Calvin Klein. “Yes,” she lied. “I did do the blow. It wasn’t what I expected.”

“What did you say?”

“I didn’t get super off on it,” she said, in Americanese, but he showed no sign of grasping her humor. “You didn’t get super off on it,” he replied.

“Ten-four. You read me.”

“I’m sorry you didn’t get off,” yelled Mike. “How can I help you with that?”

Diane put a hundred-dollar bill on the table. Then she picked up Mike’s left hand—the wedding-band hand—set it over the bill, patted his fingers, moved away from him about two feet, took a sip from her mai tai, crossed her legs, and watched the Street Life guy make love to his mike stand while covering “You’re Still a Young Man.”

Mike drummed his fingers on the bill. He was holding back a smile, she saw, as if he knew what was going on. “Obviously,” she thought, “he knows what I’m doing,” which was a thought she’d had about dozens of johns when she was younger but no less sure of herself. And what she’d learned in that era was that knowing what was going on didn’t stop a whole category of men from being stupid. Diane suspected that Mike was in this category. “If you’re a narc, you have to tell me,” he said, as he moved closer in the name of being heard, to which Diane replied, an inch from his ear, “I’m not a narc, don’t worry, Mike,” and kissed him, in a friendly way, on the temple.