Stars (The Butterfly Trilogy) (51 page)

     This Starlite salon on Roxbury Drive in Beverly Hills was the embodiment of Philippa's vision of years ago; it had been hailed as revolutionary back then, a place of beauty and elegance where women could enjoy a few moments of peace from the stresses of daily life, where they could find friendship and sympathy among others who had the same problems, where they could learn how to improve themselves and to like themselves and to gain self-esteem. Revolutionary, and so in demand in its growing years that new salons couldn't be opened fast enough. So why did this salon seem empty? Had the needs of women changed?

     She recalled what Charmie had told her: "People are in a hurry these days; they want instant results. They aren't interested in putting time and energy into an involved program like ours. It worked years ago because housewives had the time. But now we've got to attract the professional woman who very often is a single mother as well. They need flexibility, plus the opportunity to be spontaneous."

     As she listened to Mandy's enthusiastic sales pitch for joining Starlite, trying to convince her off-the-street prospective customer that "you're
worth the time and effort it takes to get the results out of a program like ours," Philippa began to recognize the problem and also the way to resolve it. Starlite had to be brought up with the times.

     As she thanked the receptionist and left with a glossy brochure, Philippa was already visualizing the changes that were going to take place. She felt her old excitement start to return, the thrill of meeting a challenge.

     But there were obstacles. Philippa had to find out who was stealing from the company, and soon. And then the hostile takeover by Miranda International had to be stopped. Because once Miranda had control, then all those years, all their dreams and visions and hard work, might be lost.

     Philippa hurried back to the limousine, gave the driver instructions to return her to Starlite headquarters, then picked up the phone and dialed Hannah's private line. As the car pulled away from the curb and joined the traffic on Wilshire, neither Philippa nor her driver were aware of the sleek black Jaguar that was following them.

Tarzana, California, 1963

Y
OU KNOW WHAT YOU NEED
P
HILLIPA
? Y
OU NEED A MAN
. I
MEAN
, you're a healthy twenty-five-year-old woman. Don't you ever get, you know..."—he wiggled his eyebrows at her—"horny?"

     She smiled and shook her head at Hannah's cousin. "Max, I'm not getting into that with you again. Especially not this morning and in front of all these people."

     A small crowd had assembled on the sidewalk outside a storefront in Canoga Park. It was a bracing November morning, with the sun doing battle with gray clouds. For the moment, the sun was winning. Max was not.

     "I mean it, Phil," he said, following her as she walked over to where Hannah and Alan were standing. Alan was holding the baby; Hannah was managing her eight-month abdomen, being pregnant already with their second child. "Don't you want to sit down?" Philippa said.

     "I'm fine," Hannah said, shifting a little as she placed her hand on her lower back. "The ceremony's about to start, isn't it?"

     "Yes." Philippa looked over her shoulder. "Isn't it exciting? Our thirtieth salon!" The fruits of her vision of two years ago, the night Hannah got married. The night Charmie left Starlite.

     Hannah gave Philippa a quick hug. "Uh oh," she said. "Here comes Max again. And he's got his demented look on. Do you want me to call him off?"

     Philippa laughed. "I can handle Max!"

     "My family," Hannah said with a sigh. Approximately half the crowd there that morning to cheer the opening of the thirtieth Starlite salon were from Hannah's vast clan.

     The only guest from Philippa's "family" was Mrs. Chadwick, wearing her Sunday dress and a new hat with silk carnations on it, alternately crying and telling people how she knew Philippa when she was just a clerk in a drugstore. "I've known all along she was going to be a big success."

     And Philippa's success today consisted of owning thirty Starlite salons, each operating at a full capacity of eight hundred members, for a total of twenty-four thousand women. "Where else," a news columnist had written, "can women get away from the stress of families or jobs and enjoy an hour and a half of self-improvement among friends, losing weight on a diet that is both interesting and successful, learning about fashion and makeup techniques, receiving sympathy, and gaining inspiration through pep talks? This writer can give you the answer from personal experience: only within the privacy and safe, nonthreatening environment of Starlite's pleasant, chic little salons! Do yourselves a favor, girls, and check it out."

     Among the crowd gathered today for the ceremony of cutting the blue ribbon to open this thirtieth salon were the six counselors who would work at this location; among them was Cassie Marie, whose nervous energies had once gone into eating Snickers bars and aggressively crocheting afghans. A Starlite counselor had to be a graduate of the diet program; before they went to work they attended an intensive six-week training course. Salaries were based on length of time with the company and the number of groups conducted, plus there were incentives such as profit sharing and the opportunity to move up within the ranks, all the way to
the top position of area coordinator, which paid the most and offered the most prestige. So far, the thirty salons were scattered over southern California, but Philippa was working on plans to expand Starlite statewide and then, as soon as possible, nationwide.

     If only Charmie were part of all this, Philippa thought as two more florist's vans pulled up to the curb and men in coveralls began bringing out large floral sprays with ribbons that said SUCCESS and CONGRATULATIONS. But since the night two years ago when Philippa had found her friend in the closet, battered and bruised, they had not spoken to or seen each other.

     Philippa had tried several times to mend the break. She had sent notes, made phone calls, and even once went by Charmie's house, only to have her knock go unheeded, even though she had felt the presence of someone inside. Finally, she had sent a bouquet of flowers—carnations, Charmie's favorite—with a note saying, "Please, let's be friends." But Charmie had not responded. That had been a year ago.

     Thinking now of her best friend and wishing she were here, Philippa was reminded once again of her loneliness. Which was what annoyed her about Max and his insistence that she needed someone: he was right.

     She pushed that negative thought from her mind. After all, how
could
she be lonely? With a brand-new house up in the Enrico hills, which commanded a view of the Valley, and the new Starlite office in Encino to occupy her mind and energies, there wasn't time to think of loneliness. Philippa was busy from morning till night, scouting out locations for new stores and converting them into salons, hiring and training counselors, purchasing new equipment, and making sure everything ran smoothly. She was constantly on the go, from Thousand Oaks to Escondido. When she wasn't on the road or checking up on the twenty-nine salons, she was working at a furious pace in her office, with the help of her staff, fielding hundreds of phone calls from members with questions: Was okra allowed as a vegetable since it wasn't on the list? What about Metracal and Sego? Could honey be used as a white sugar substitute? Or with suggestions: a recipe for faux lasagna made from eggplant and cottage cheese, or a delicious vegetable dip using nonfat yogurt and clam juice. All of which had to be researched, tested, and then
incorporated into Starlite's massive data files ultimately to be passed on to members in the weekly handout sheets. Then there were the more personal letters that poured into the Starlite office from women who just had to say thanks and describe how Starlite had turned their lives around. Words such as "outcast," "unloved," and "freak" jumped off those pages and were followed by "popular," "in love," "job promotion." They were letters of praise. And whenever Philippa addressed a group, the members would clap and cheer, letting her know that she had many friends.

     There were men in her life, too. When she could manage the time, she went out on dates.

     Was
this
, she asked herself, the profile of a lonely woman?

     And when sometimes she felt so lonely that she considered telephoning Johnny at San Quentin or writing to him, she would remind herself how busy she was and how many friends she had and how her success was growing, and she would tell herself that she didn't need Johnny, that she didn't need anyone. Her life was very full and she was happier than most people seemed to be.

     Occasionally she would allow herself to think of Rhys. It had taken her a long while to get up the courage to read his book,
Searches.

     When Rhys's brother had taken Rhys's body back to northern California, he had also taken the butcher roll with all the words typed on it and had submitted it to a publisher. Last year it had zoomed to the top of the best-seller lists and been hailed as the "last great novel of the Beat Generation." And when Philippa was finally able to read it, she read the words she had read the night she found him dead: "Her face, with the sweet roundness of a cherub, she was like a pure, baby angel, when she opened her mouth to speak, light came out...She lay in my arms like a warm little quail..."

     As she now approached the blue ribbon that fluttered in the morning breeze, waiting for the attention of the gathered company, Philippa saw her own reflection in the window—a tall, slender young woman in a wool skirt and smart little jacket with oversize buttons, her auburn hair taken up in a fashionable French twist and capped with a Jackie Kennedy pillbox hat. She smiled, because she was pleased with what she saw. This was not the fat, unhappy Christine Singleton who had had to buy her clothes at Charlene's
Chubbies on Powell. This was no longer Rhys's round-faced cherub, his plump little quail. She was a woman in control now; a woman on her way to even greater successes. A woman who was definitely not lonely.

     She cut the ribbon, flashbulbs went off, and everyone traipsed inside, where tables of food awaited—nothing fattening. All the dishes were made according to official Starlite recipes: hard-boiled eggs in tomato aspic; a salad of marinated cucumbers, mushrooms, and asparagus; sandwiches of cold chicken breast on rye bread; vegetables and yogurt dip. The drinks were diet sodas, coffee, tea, and skim milk flavored with nutmeg. The one concession to sinful indulgence was champagne, which the entire company seemed to head for all at once.

     As everyone was congratulating Philippa, a red-faced Max suddenly came rushing in, shouting, "Jesus! The president's been shot!"

     The salon had a twenty-one-inch television set, and Max rushed to turn it on while the crowd gathered around.

     The television screen flared to life, displaying the words NEWS BULLETIN, and a voice was saying, "We interrupt this program—"

     "Oh God, oh God," Max said as switched the channels. Every station had a similar news bulletin; finally he found one that showed a reporter standing on the lawn of what looked like a hospital, and he was saying in a grave voice, "We have received no word yet on the condition of President Kennedy, who was brought to Parkland Hospital here in Dallas immediately after being shot while riding in a motorcade through the city."

     The room fell silent as everyone stared at the screen, dumbstruck.

     "As you can see behind me," the reporter went on, his voice breaking, "a crowd is gathering outside the hospital..."

     The camera slowly panned the scene. People were clustered on the lawn in front of the thirteen-story building. They stood or knelt in silence; many were weeping. A voice was coming from somewhere offscreen, addressing the crowd in a powerful, preacher-like voice. The camera continued to move, as if searching for the source of that voice, until it stopped on an old bus with a sign on the side that read "Danny Mackay Brings Jesus." A young man was standing on the dented hood of the bus, his arms outspread, calling his "brothers and sisters in Christ to join me in prayer for our beloved president."

     Philippa saw how the crowd turned toward him, their faces bewildered and hopeful, like children waiting to be led. When he spoke, she felt the power of his spirit come through the television set. "I do not know what is going on inside that there building, my brothers and sisters," the young preacher cried. "We have to lift our voices up to God and let Him know that we don't want Him to take John Fitzgerald Kennedy to His bosom today. We know who the world's going to blame for what happened here today!" Danny Mackay shouted. "They're going to blame Texas! But Texas didn't shoot our beloved president. The Devil did it!"

     As some of the guests left the salon, a few slumped into chairs in shock, or, like Hannah, began to cry softly. Philippa continued to listen to the compelling voice of the young tent preacher.