Stars (The Butterfly Trilogy) (15 page)

     Frieda decided to call Bunny back and tell her the news right now, but when she rang, there was no answer.

     And so Frieda reached again for the phone, this time to call home and tell them where they could reach her—she had left in such a hurry she hadn't had time to phone. Then a young man walked by, wearing a tuxedo with a red cummer-bund. He was tall, well-built, with shoulders out to here, olive skin, and blue-black
hair done in an interesting way—crew cut on top, sides swept back over his ears to join long hair at the back. Frieda watched him, partly because he was incredibly watchable. She also thought how refreshing it was to see that there were still some young men who hadn't gone in for the dirty-hair look. Did they honestly think it was sexy, all those superstars at the Oscars who looked as if they hadn't bathed in a month? How would
they
like it if women decided to join the dirty-hair trend?

     When he suddenly turned and smiled right at her, she glanced back over her shoulder to see whom he was looking at. When she realized it was her, she thought he had mistaken her for someone else. But when she saw how long he stood there, still smiling, and how one eyebrow arched in an unmistakable "want to get it on?" fashion, Frieda was shocked. She was certainly old enough to be his...well, aunt, and she knew she was no beauty, being a rather horsey-jawed woman in her fifties. He paused, giving her one last look, as if asking her a silent question, and then he moved on, blending into the beautiful crowd.

     Frieda stared after him. What had
that
been about? she wondered as she picked up the phone and asked the operator for a number, area code 310: Beverly Hills.

     While waiting for her call to go through, Frieda gazed at her reflection in the glass partition between the phone cubicles, and she thought, as she often did, My God, I look like an
agent.
Which to her meant slightly mannish, bossy, hard-nosed. Not that that was what female actors' agents looked like; in fact, the majority of women agents in Hollywood looked like actresses themselves, being careful cultivators of slender bodies, full lips, fuller hair. Frieda was a walking stereotype, and she knew it. In her thirty years in the business, no one had ever said to her, No kidding,
you're
an agent? when she had told them what she did.

     As she heard someone answer the phone at the other end, she gave another quick look in the direction of tuxedo-with-a-smile, and she wondered, What had
he
seen when he had looked at her?

     "Hello, sugar?" she said into the phone. "It's Mother."

     "Mom!" came her daughter's voice; in the background were sounds of people splashing in a swimming pool. "Where
are
you? Your secretary called and said you had to go out of town all of a sudden!"

     "I'm at Star's."

     "That place in Palm Springs? What are you doing there?"

     "I came up here to see Bunny."

     "Oh,
Mother
." Followed by the sigh Frieda knew so well. "When are you going to start representing winners?"

     And Frieda wondered how she and Jake had managed to raise such a snob.

     "Isn't there snow up there now, Mother? You know how you can't stand the cold."

     "I bought a fur coat. I'll be warm enough. What? Of course it's
real
fur, darling."

     Frieda's daughter was a vehement environmentalist, crusading to save planet earth by using string bags at the supermarket, separating all glass, plastic, and aluminum, recycling all paper and cardboard, including used Post-its. And above all, boycotting such man-made products as plastics, Styrofoam, and fake fur. "Mom," she had said three months ago, when Frieda had been looking at faux ermine, "are you aware of the amount of pollutants and toxins that are poured into the environment when fake fur is manufactured? It's worse than Styrofoam. And, like Styrofoam, fake fur isn't biodegradable. When you throw away an old fake-fur coat, it goes into the land, poisoning the planet. Real fur, Mom, doesn't cause pollution when it's made, and it's biodegradable because it's organic, a natural part of the environment." But she did draw the line somewhere: only ranch-bred fur was allowed, nothing trapped.

     "How long are you going to be there, Mom?"

     As far as Frieda was concerned, her own private fur jury was still out, but she bought the real stuff to save the family peace, such as it was. "I'm not sure how long I'll be here, darling," Frieda said. "I might have to be here for another day or two. It depends." Frieda heard childish whining in the background. "How's Princess?" she asked, referring to her three-year-old granddaughter.

     Princess was the child's real name; it was actually written on the birth certificate. Frieda had thought it a bit on the fringe until she had seen the roster of Princess's preschool class, in which there was a Beauty, a Countess, and a Precious.

     "Mom, you're going to be proud of your granddaughter. Do you know what she wants to be when she grows up?"

     Frieda braced herself. "What?"

     "A neonatologist."

     "Last week you said she wanted to train Viennese Lippizaner horses."

     "I took her to St. John's to see Maureen's new baby in the nursery. Princess was very impressed with the neonatal monitors. She announced that she is going to design better ones. Isn't that marvelous?"

     Frieda sighed. "She's only three years old."

     "And very complex, Mom. You
will
be here for Christmas, won't you?"

     And suddenly there he was again, the attractive young man in the tuxedo. He seemed to be looking for someone, not anyone in particular, just someone. And as he walked by he smiled at her again, giving her the same look he had given her a few minutes ago. It nonplussed Frieda, who was not used to male attention, especially from a male who looked as if he could have any woman in the place. And then she recalled what her friend had told her, about Star's special "escorts." Was he one of them?

     She pushed him from her mind. Other women had sex with strangers, paid for it even, but not Frieda Goldman.

     "It depends," Frieda said into the phone, following the young man with her eyes and wondering how the hotel handled payment for the special escort service. "I have business to take care of here."

     "You're being very mysterious, Mom."

     "I take after my granddaughter," she said, thinking, It's Bunny who's being mysterious.
Too
mysterious. "I'll call you when I know something."

     She hung up and immediately dialed again, reading a number from a business card. "Hello," she said when she got an answer. "Mr. Bradshaw, please." Then, "Hi, Mr. Bradshaw, this is Frieda Goldman. Yes, fine, thank you. I was just wondering—that Lamborghini I ordered this morning"—the one with the two-hundred-thousand-dollar price tag—"does it come in any other colors besides red, white, and black?"

     Dr. Judith Isaacs was getting acquainted with the small private clinic of Star's, which was located on the second floor of the west wing of the Castle,
cut off from the rest of the mansion by a closed doorway marked PRIVATE. The medical suite consisted of a small operating room, a recovery room, a substerile room, and a supply room. She came upon a cupboard labeled Tits, and as she gazed at pale blue boxes, stacked upon one another on the shelves, she heard a voice behind her say, "Those are the breast implants."

     Judith turned and saw a woman she judged to be around thirty, very thin, with pale brown hair, wearing a T-shirt and jeans. She came into the room with a smile on her face. "Cheeks are in here," she said, pulling out a drawer. "Chins and noses in this one; penises over there." She smiled broadly at Judith. "Hi, I'm Zoey Larson, the nurse. You must be the new doc."

     Judith took the outstretched hand. "How do you do," she said.

     "I suppose Simon Jung told you about me. I'm a registered nurse," Zoey said, "with experience on the floor and also in the operating room. I've been here since Star's first opened two years ago. The clinic's pretty quiet; mostly we see sports sprains, the occasional stomach upset, rashes, and minor infections. We also see a lot of sex-related problems, like bladder infections, vaginitis," she added with a laugh. "Something about this place makes people get romantic. We also see respiratory problems because the guests forget that they're eight thousand feet above sea level. We get only the beautiful people here at Star's, and if they aren't beautiful, we make 'em that way! Three plastic surgeons from Palm Springs schedule private patients up here," Zoey continued, reaching up to push a hank of brown hair out of her face. "They check in with us afterward and come up the mountain to do post-op care. The routine stuff is left to the resort doctor, which is now you," she said with a grin. "Welcome aboard."

     "Thank you," Judith said, looking around and spotting, in the substerile room, an ashtray full of cigarette butts.

     "If you have any questions," Zoey said, "I'll be glad to answer them. Have you ever worked at a resort like this?"

     "No," she said, "I never have."

     "It's not like a real hospital, I'll tell you! We see a lot of famous people, movie stars, like that. We get some real doozies, too, because we're so private." Zoey folded her arms and leaned against a cabinet. "Most of our patients are in the building, just down the hall. We currently have four.
I'll let you in on a secret, Judith," Zoey added with a conspiratorial smile. "You've landed a cushy job."

     When the nurse stepped away from the cabinet, Judith caught her own reflection in the glass door. She stared at herself for a moment, as she had found herself doing lately, as if she were looking at a stranger. Judith saw a woman in her late thirties, not bad looking perhaps, with thick waist-length mahogany hair worked in a long braid down her back. Judith had never had problems with her looks; it was her mind she had always focused on. Was it good enough? Was it up to par? Could she make it through medical school and four years of residency? It had always been important, for as far back as she could remember, that she face mental obstacles and overcome them. She wasn't into physical fitness; brain marathons interested her more. Judith had graduated at the top of her medical school class; she had excelled during her internship and residency in Michigan. And that was why, when she had had her practice at Green Pines, in northern California, she had received invitations from medical centers and medical schools around the country hoping to recruit her. She had been a young woman going places. Now, she was a not-exactly-young woman who was already at a place. A "cushy" place.

     Zoey said, "You'll have things really easy here, Judy. I do most of the work running this clinic. Having a doctor in residence is to satisfy a legal requirement."

     Judith looked at her. Zoey had a pleasant, open face, and she stood relaxed, with her arms crossed, as if she were entertaining in her own living room. Judith thought about the time she had once asked an operating room nurse—a woman who had automatically addressed her as Dr. Isaacs—why some nurses addressed female physicians by their first names, even when meeting them for the first time. The nurse had said, "I suppose it's to be friendly, to let them know they are part of a sisterhood." But Judith wasn't so sure. For some reason, female nurses accepted the authority and superior status of male physicians and would never think of addressing a male doctor, especially one they had just met, by his first name. But when they saw a female physician, it seemed that they saw just another woman.

     As Zoey's last confidently spoken words continued to hang in the air, Judith thought about her employment interview for Star's. She had not been hired by the owner of Star's, Beverly Burgess, whom Judith had never seen and whom she had yet to meet, but by the very handsome and elegant Simon Jung, the general manager. They had met at the Ritz-Carlton in Palm Springs for dinner, and they had talked. "We're looking for a physician who doesn't mind isolation," he had said. "You will be expected to live at the resort, and it can get lonely. Dr. Mitgang, your predecessor, found the quiet life too boring, which is why we decided this time to look for someone who is happy with this sort of arrangement, and also a physician who is used to managing a small clinic. I understand, Dr. Isaacs, that you live in an alpine community right now. You must be used to skiing injuries, that sort of thing."

     Simon Jung had then looked at her application. "You're not married, I see."

     Judith thought of Mort, her husband, and their last afternoon together after fourteen years of marriage. Mort was watching college football, and his team, the team of his alma mater, wasn't doing well. With each unscored touch down, his silence deepened. Judith had been about to put a casserole in the oven. Instead, she put it on top of the TV and said, "I'm leaving you."

     He hadn't said anything and she had packed her bags. The Bruins lost and so did Mort and Judith.

     "I'm divorced," she said to Simon Jung.

     "Any children?"

     She hesitated. "No," she said. "No children."

     "This really is a great job," someone was saying to her. She looked at the thirtyish woman in the T-shirt and jeans. "Most employees live in the valley and come up every day on the early tram," Zoey continued. "But I'm on twenty-four-hour call. I don't mind it. The pay is great, and since I'm among the few employees who live up here on the mountain, I get to use the resort facilities—as long as I don't interfere with the guests, if you know what I mean."

     Judith looked into the woman's broad smile.

     Simon Jung had outlined the fringe benefits Judith would receive while working at Star's: an apartment in the Castle, meals in the dining room,
where excellent cuisine was served, maid service, room service, a generous salary, and light duties.

     When he had said, "Do you have any questions?" Judith had said, "Will I have to take care of any children?"

     "Children? No. Children aren't allowed at Star's. No one under eighteen."