The Cosmopolitans (21 page)

By the time he returned to the bar, Valerie was being overly friendly with some sort of gang kid.

“What kind of gang?”

“You know, James Dean haircut, extra tight T-shirt. Pants two sizes too small. Boots.”

“What were they talking about?”

“She was asking him what kind of pomade he used. Some kind of market survey. Like we're going to sell products expressly to criminals. What next? Designer work boots? Luxury blue jeans? Brand-name men's underpants?”

Everyone buys something
, Bette realized.
Was anything beyond hard sell?
“Then what?”

“Well, at this point I took in that the place was rather dangerous. There were hardly any other women there. And one of them had a tattoo!”

“I see.”

“It had a rough-and-tumble atmosphere. And it was in the Village.”

“I live in the Village,” Bette said.

“Really?” And something turned inside Hector. For the first time he felt a bit . . . curious. For the first time he had the thought that Bette lived somewhere. And this tremendous knowledge made the truth lurch forward. “And that's when I realized that I am in love with her.”

“When?” Bette actually wanted to know, because she had fallen in love with Valerie at the first introduction of the word
Lucky
.

Hector's forehead crinkled. His mouth fluttered and a tiny tear appeared in his gray eyes. “When the thing that scared me most was not the thought of being robbed at knifepoint but the realization that I might never be dangerous enough to win her heart.”

And with that Hector became so overcome that he had to wipe his eyes on his sleeve and turn away for a moment, to regain the pretense that he relied on to replace his lack of composure.

The truth is that Bette's mind was a machine these days. She wasted no information and no opportunity. Her consciousness was purely associative as she was on survival mode, full time. So all she processed cognitively from this admission and display was: Fear + Danger + Love + Risk = Earl.

“You'll have to make her jealous.” It just came out of her mouth, as though her thought and speech were instantly coalesced. Normally this would have been something she would never have said or even considered. But now . . . there was a new kind of
instinct
. There was a new apparatus that had been assembled in her soul, one that wanted to be a master of its own fate. “Take out some other woman. See how she reacts.”

“Cheat on Sue? What if I get caught?” Hector had never, ever seen Bette give advice before. And certainly nothing beyond wearing a hat in the rain. He was elated and mortified, attracted and repulsed. He broke out into a rash and mopped his lips and neck.

But in that same moment it all became clear to Bette. What her subconscious had discovered was delivered to the forefront of her thinking.

“Maybe,” she said seductively, feeling something she had never felt before. Feeling
sly
. “Maybe someone who is also married.”

“Do you think she'll notice?” He was considering it.

“Valerie notices most things.”

Then it was exactly nine, and Valerie briskly entered the office in her newly acquired ensemble from B. Altman's.

“Hello, chums.”

Bette and Hector looked at each other and smiled.

Chapter 21

C
hums,” Valerie jauntily tossed. “Bad news!”

“Oh my God!” Hector panicked. He was so wound up. Was she leaving him? Already?

Valerie laughed that gorgeous laugh, like the wind through the pine trees outside Picasso's window in the South of France. Or something else unimaginable and mythic. She patted Hector on the back, and Bette saw him tremble.

“Don't sweat, Mary. Just a setback.” Valerie pulled off her leather gloves, hung her red-and-white woven hat with netting, and swiveled her chair up to her brand new desk. The one she made Hector order fit to size. “The Queen of Rumania is
not
available.” And then she sighed and pulled out her lipstick for a quick touch-up before launching into the day's new campaign.

Bette, who did not wear lipstick and would not know how to put it on, even with a mirror, grabbed her steno pad, her tool of war. “Do we need to find a new fallen monarch?”

Hector swiveled awkwardly in his chair toward Valerie's beacon of light. “What about . . .,” he hesitated insecurely, reaching for any way to complete the thought. “Albania?”

“Could be,” she considered, and then dismissed. “No, we need to find a new theme.” Valerie assumed the pose that equally fascinated both Bette and Hector. It was a lovely, determined stare off into the atmosphere. Her face relaxed, her brown eyes reflecting the office lamps, and her soft brown hair, hanging full and then bouncing off her shoulders. She looked like a painting in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Something both royal and divine. The way women with power used to be before the glamourless Eleanor Roosevelt, Bess Truman, and Mamie Eisenhower turned high society into a barn dance for the 4-H club.

Bette both enjoyed and observed Valerie's charm. “Something dramatic?”

“Hmmm, perhaps.”

“Something dangerous? Risky?”

“Like what?” Hector snapped. He was terrified of himself at that moment. So much so that it overwhelmed his usual terror of the rest of the world.

“Let's see,” Valerie intoned from her hypnotic trance. She recited a list of the attributes they were seeking for their ad campaign, as though taking inventory in a looking glass. “Something exotic, sensual, mysterious, dark. Something primal, animal, primitive, and implicating.”

There it was. A gift from God or fate or simply coincidence.

“Like . . .,” Bette offered hesitantly, even though she
was perfectly sure. “Like a . . . dark . . . y . . . savage?” Bette spoke with a combination of urgency and precariousness, as though holding a much-too-hot cup of tea for a little too long.

“What?” Valerie broke out into a surprised laughter of surprise. Her face aflame with amusement, illuminated from within. “Why Bette, what in the devil's name is a . . .
darky savage
?”

“You know,” Bette answered carefully, quietly, using all her strength to be sure not to falter. “A king of Africa. Like Emperor Jones.”

“Drinking hot cocoa?”

At least she's heard of Emperor Jones. So far so good
.

“Well,” Valerie seemed inspired by the outlandishness of Bette's proposal. “It
is
exotic.”

“But . . . but . . .” Hector was now worried about everything. “Who is going to purchase something because a Negro uses it? They are not generally considered to be experts.” This was his money after all. Which reminded him again about the ongoing problem of the budget and that made him have to sit down abruptly, and wonder how much more
this
was going to cost.

“No.” Bette carefully slipped on his leash. “A. . . white . . .”

“A WHITE MAIDEN!” It was only Valerie who was quick enough and smart enough and single-minded enough to take the bait without hesitation. “And an AFRICAN KING!”

“Like Fay Wray,” Bette said calmly, quick-drying the cement. “And King Kong. She can offer him a hot cocoa to soothe the
savage . .
. beast.”

“That is our slogan,” Valerie leapt out of her chair
like she had the secret to the Vatican Archives in her makeup bag. “ROCOCO, TO SOOTHE THE SAVAGE BEAST!”

“That's good,” Bette said, repressing a smile.

“I
LOVE
IT.”

“Me too,” whimpered Hector, still trying to figure out exactly what the theme was.

Valerie, ecstatic, commanded center stage and began acting out her visions of the commercial. “First, we show the captured white girl offering the beast some chocolate. Once he discovers how delicious it is, he drinks the entire bowl and, satiated, falls asleep as if they had just committed sexual relations.”

“On TV?” Hector croaked.

“No, no, no. Implied. Then while he snores, she can escape. Just like in real life.”

Some of this was a bit over Bette's head, but having done what she set out to do, she absorbed every word in preparation for the task ahead.

“This is it!” Valerie cheered. “ADVERTISING IS HAPPENING.”

“Where to?” Bette asked, writing.

“Where what?”

“Where does she escape to?”

“Good girl,” Valerie turned her light on Bette and bestowed her most elevating smile. “Let's see . . . well, she escapes . . . off into the arms of her hunter husband, camped in the jungle waiting for her return.” Valerie squinched her nose now, adorably imagining the final moment of her masterpiece. “And then, as the white girl and her hunter husband are sailing away, back to civilization, drinking Rococo on deck,
of course
,
the African waves at them from the shore. AND HE'S DRINKING IT TOO! And he is patting his stomach and speaking African.”

“Do you speak African?” Hector asked, completely overwhelmed.

“
Ooga-Booga
or whatever,” Valerie literally patted him on the head. “And it means YUMMM.” She licked her lips. “Which we, the audience, can understand when he smiles and shows his big white teeth. Very nineteen fifties. It fits in with a kind of one world, United Nations sentiment.”

Hector, happy at being touched, agreed. “But with America on top of course.”

“Of course,” Valerie nodded seriously, acknowledging his contribution. “THE WHOLE WORLD LOVES ROCOCO.”

Hector had finally taken in that something wonderful was happening but still had key questions. An African and a beautiful maiden? That would make him buy cocoa? How did one lead to the other?

“Um, Valerie?” he asked. “How does an African make people buy cocoa?”

“Wanting a warm cup of cocoa is a situation that anyone can understand. Anyone who has a television set, of course. The comfort of it is universal. Don't you get it, Hector? It is
mass
.”

“I see.”

Valerie strode over to Bette's chair. Bette could smell her perfume. Like a fresh mountain flower with a cold flowing brook.

“Very good, Bette,” she put her hand on Bette's shoulder. It was the first human touch Bette had experienced
since Hortense had pitifully embraced her goodbye. The warmth of a powerful hand on a tense, lonely shoulder. “You are learning very quickly.”

“I have to,” Bette said. And she felt like crying.

And then, of course, the inevitable ensued. The discussion of the need for a Negro actor and how to get one.

For a long time, no one could think of any, and then Hector thought of one.

“Paul Robeson?”

But it was Bette who surprised them all because,
coincidently
, she knew of a Negro actor. A Shakespearean. A noble . . . savage. And, unlike the blacklisted Mr. Robeson, Bette's contact was not besmirched and happened to be available.

You see, dear reader, once Cousin Bette had decided that she had to find a way to compete with Hortense, she assessed a number of factors. The best way for Earl to free himself would be to earn money. The best way for him to earn money would be to have an acting role. The best-paid acting roles were for those who appeared on television commercials. That's why the profits were so, as Hector put it, “inviting.” But no television commercial would feature a Negro actor unless the message satiated the insistence of whites on subservient images that made them feel better about themselves. Reinforced in their superiority. Safe. Therefore, she concluded that she needed to create a television campaign with a job for a black actor, one that Hector and Valerie would accept, that she could use to both help Earl step forward toward financial autonomy and self-esteem, while bringing him back into
a realm of engagement with her where negotiation was possible. And apparently, she had succeeded. So far. The other option being, of course, that in the face of this offer he would remember his true values, turn it down, and therefore stop shunning Bette. Believing that all human beings deserved respect.

Hector, at first, was choked up by all the sharing and group intimacy. But then came to his senses and was hit in the heart like a coronary by a return to balking at the immense expenses.

Yet again, Valerie knew exactly what to say.

“Are you scared?” she asked. As if it mattered.

So, of course he had to show her that, “Far from it!” he was
confident and fearless
.

This pleased Valerie, for, as she assured her colleagues, if they did something extravagant and pulled it off successfully, they would make their reputations. The investment would be worth it. And then, they would build their empire.

This finally persuaded Hector, but with one remaining complication.

“B-but,” Hector blushed.

“Yes?” Valerie asked dreamily, as if that job was done and she needed to replenish her imagination before moving on to the next.

“The cash.” He looked at his shoes.

Valerie put on a cinematic pout. “You were not going to pay for this out of pocket?”

“Uhmmm,” he mumbled.

“Hector!”

The answer unfortunately was, “Uh . . . yes.”

Valerie became very stern. It was clear that Hector
deserved to be spanked. And she was the one to do it. “Hector?”

“Yes?” His voice was very small.

“Listen up. FIND AN INVESTOR. A partner.”

“Like who?”

She had to teach him everything. “Someone to come in with seed money. Offer them shares.”

“Shares?”

“IN RETURN FOR THEIR INVESTMENT.” The situation was becoming grave.

“Oh, I see,” he leaked, even though he did not in fact
see
. “Is that how it's done? These days?”

“Great idea, Hector.” That was Bette. She was learning quickly and waiting for Hector to think of things himself was taking too long, yet he couldn't just say yes to other people all day. He would feel bad. All her life Bette had observed women giving men credit for ideas that the men had not conceived. But only now did Bette understand why. It was so those ideas would be taken seriously! The world was making sense after all. She was feeling comfortable, in a new way. As though she were an insider who
gets it
. And could finally play by the rules to her own advantage.

Valerie noted acutely how quickly the old maid was catching on. Most people on the planet simply could not conceptualize beyond their task, but Bette could. That would come in handy.

Hector liked getting the approval, finally. He guessed he'd done something right. That felt good. At least. But now the money conversation had to resume again, and he hoped he'd have another revelation as generating of approval as the last. This time, though,
it was Bette who offered the best solution. But Hector was fine with that, as he wanted her to not feel left out.

“You know,” Bette proposed. The synchronicity of the moment astounded her. Really, she was shocked at how easy all this was, how naturally it all fell into place. How could something so complex come together under her tiny reign? And yet, events were conspiring to offer her opportunities. And now she was finally equipped to exploit them.

“You know . . .,” she continued.

Bette broke the news carefully to both of her collaborators, that, in fact, in addition to knowing a Negro actor, she also knew a potential investor. A financial partner who would definitely be interested and would certainly be good for the money. In fact, this candidate was her own cousin. Her own long-lost cousin. Crevelle. They had only recently been reunited.

“The woman's husband is enormously wealthy,” she assured her hungry cohorts. “He's an extremely good-looking man. Even at his age. But my cousin, Crevelle, is very shy about her resources. She will participate, that I can guarantee. But no one must ever be so vulgar as to mention it to her face. You know,” Bette added. “The reticent rich.”

Valerie nodded with gravitas. She knew all about that from repeated personal experience.

“My cousin needs friends,” Bette divulged intimately. “And confuses money with love. So, if Hector would just mix the martinis and never mention who paid for them . . . Well, I will take care of the more uncomfortable parts. Just flirt, Hector, flirt. Even though she is
married
.”

Hector couldn't keep up. She could tell. He wasn't bright enough to take a hint. She would have to S-P-E-L-L it O-U-T for him again.

“Good work,” Valerie's soft mouth.

“And Hector,” Bette coached, with some very hard looks. “Some flattery and attention from you cannot hurt.”

He seemed surprised. “Really?” But then. Suddenly, it all came together inside his swirling, overwhelmed, thick, but existent consciousness, and he remembered Bette's earlier suggestion of how to make Valerie jealous. This perked him up considerably because today's activities had just enhanced his desire to make her jealous at all costs.

“Great,” Valerie tossed off in Hector's direction. “Someone's got the ladies covered.” Then she pouted. “But don't make me jealous.”

“Really?” His heart fluttered.

So, they were settled then. A Negro actor. A young white girl. Sell shares to Bette's cousin. Everything in its place.