The Hinky Velvet Chair (29 page)

“Let’s go over here.” Jewel drew Griffy around the corner by
the dumpster. “I wanted to tell you, you mustn’t do that machine again.”

“Why not? You did it twice.”

Jewel lowered her voice. “There are side effects when you do
it twice.
More
side effects, I mean.”

“What kind of side effects?”

“When I got zapped that second time? I started, well, seeing
things.”

“Things?”

“It’s like, whenever I made eye contact, I could picture
what guys were thinking about me. You know how guys think?” She put the doped
punch cup down, and Griffy promptly kicked it over.
There goes that sample.
“Why do you think I started wearing shades?”
She let this sink in. “I don’t know if it’ll ever wear off. I hope it does,
because there are times you don’t want to read minds, even the minds of people
you love.”

Griffy nodded.

Jewel said gently, “You know, don’t you, that Lord Darner
isn’t in Skokie. He’s in Virgil’s bed. I saw your face this morning and I knew.”

Blinking, Griffy said, “In — in Virgil’s
bed?
In
Virgil’s
bed? Why—” She covered her masked face with her hands. “You
knew — oh!” she said, sounding guilty.

Jewel patted her shoulder. “Weird feeling, isn’t it? He’s
been living with me for three weeks. Something... happened the other day and he
got trapped in Sovay’s bed. Then Virgil swapped that bed for the one in the
master bedroom. I think Clay told him too much.”

“That’s why the bed was different!” Griffy sounded
thoughtful. “And — that’s why I had those crazy dreams. But how—?”

“I’ll explain the whole thing later. But do you understand
now why Virgil switched the beds? Clay says it’s to get control of me and make
me protect him from the law. But what I wanted to warn you is, now he’s talking
about getting rid of the bed.”

The tall green feathers quivered. “He wouldn’t dare!”

“He will. It crushed him when I convinced him that Lord Po —
Darner was in there, doing you when he thought you two were alone.”

Behind Griffy’s mask, her eyes darted. “Virgil was so sweet
last night.” Tears appeared in her eyes and she blinked them away. “But then
this morning he was such a poop. So I thought maybe last night was all an act.
He’s a good actor,” she said unnecessarily.

What if she loses
Virgil and decides to keep Randy as consolation?
“Lord Darner hates being
trapped in beds.”

But Griffy was a nicer person than that. “I’ll find Virgil
and keep him busy. You go get Lord Darner out of there.”

Now for the rest of Jewel’s plan. “Thank you, but I have a
better idea. Tell Virgil that while he was eating his birthday cake, you had
locksmiths change the lock on the bedroom door.”

“But I didn’t.”

“Never mind, tell him anyway. I’ve fixed it so nobody can
get in there, not even with a key.”

“But—”

“He’ll hate it. You want leverage? This is it. I don’t like
leaving Randy in that bed one minute more than I have to, but, if you want to
keep the old buzzard, you’ll need some ammo.”

“Not ammo,” Griffy protested. “I don’t want to
shoot
him.”

“If you don’t defy him, he’ll never know he’s not the boss.”
Jewel waited while the deviosity of this percolated into Griffy’s melon. “If
you still want him.”

“Yes,” Griffy said slowly. “I do. He can be awful sometimes —
like now — but when he loved me — he used to love me—”

“So this is how you find out,” Jewel said bracingly, before
Griffy could break down again.

Griffy sniffed and stood straighter. “I see.” Her green
feathers trembled with determination. “Yes. That’s what I need. Leverage.”

“Mind, I still want Randy back.” Uh, that wasn’t the way
she’d meant to phrase it.

“Of course,” Griffy said nobly.

It was all very well for Julia to say, “defy him,” Griffy
thought, striding up the alley in agitation, but she had spent a very peaceful
eighteen years letting Virgil run things. That had worked fine. Well, they’d
moved more than she had liked. And often he wouldn’t let her talk to neighbors.
And when they’d lived in hotels, she couldn’t talk to the maids, either, or to
people in elevators, or waiters, or anyone. But he’d never asked her to pretend
to be his sister before.

She squeezed past a dance in a neighbor’s garage. She hadn’t
danced in ages. Virgil controlled way too much of her life. They were playing
eighties music, and her feet began to shuffle. Her hips moved, and a
nice-looking guy with a receding hairline smiled at her, and she thought,
Why not?
She wasn’t in that big a hurry
to defy Virgil.

Receding-Hairline Guy was a pretty good dancer.

The mask got in the way of some of her best moves, but the
moves were rusty anyway. With a pang she thought of her stripping days, when
she could dance for six hours straight, given water breaks.
I was alive. I was on my own, which sucked
sometimes. But I got to pick my apartment and my day-off clothes and I didn’t
have to take elocution lessons from Virgil. Or ring a bell to get my sheets
changed in my own house.
She looked over her partner’s shoulder and saw the
tips of Sovay’s feathers bobbing nearby.
Or
have snakes come for to visit.

So when Virgil tapped her partner on the shoulder and pulled
her away from the dance, she was in a fighting mood.

“What is your problem?” she demanded. “I get to dance
sometimes.”

“We have guests,” Virgil began.

She cut him off. “So? I had to send Clay to drag you out of
your hole to meet them.”

She saw him blink, and she realized he was off balance. Boy,
you didn’t see that very often.
Julia was
right. He must be upset.

“Dance with me,” she said softly, and held out her hand.

He took it and looked into her eyes, swinging her into the
dance. “Do I know you anymore?”

Oh God, this was the breakup conversation. “You pulled me
out of a dance to tell me you’re done with me?”

“You don’t listen to me anymore.”

“I’m listening. I always listen to you. Your voice is — is
always with me.” Hot sadness welled up in her throat. “But I’m talking back
now.” Had she lost him by speaking her mind?

His voice went husky. “Haven’t I taken care of you?”

The heat in her throat hardened into a lump, silencing her.

He swung her around. “What is it, Griffy? What do you want?”

The mask was too hot. She pulled away from him to take it
off and wipe her eyes. “I think I want to find out who I am. Maybe go to
college. I don’t want to pretend to be anybody else, I’m no good at that, you
know that. I’m not smart enough to keep up with your work. But you didn’t — you
never brought—
“ Never brought your work
home with you,
she was going to say, but often he had, and he’d always
scolded her for talking too much, or for her clothes, or for her walk. “I think
I want to be me. I don’t want to pretend to be your sister,” she said.

He put his palm over her mouth. “Not so loud!” He moved
nearer to her again. “It’s just for a few—”

She pushed his hand away. “It’s always just for a few. A few
days, a few weeks.” Over his shoulder she saw Sovay’s feathers again, not
moving.

Sovay was listening. But was Virgil?

He thought he could talk and she would be silent, like a
girl in a chorus line with a twelve-pound hat on her head, smiling at catcalls.
She needed leverage. She needed
ammo.

She leaned into the shadow of his big red mask. “I’ve had
the locks changed on our — on
my
bedroom door. You can sleep someplace else from now on.”

He stood still. “You couldn’t. When?”

“While you were eating birthday cake. I called them this
morning,” she added, thinking,
Boy, this
lying thing is easy.
“After you were mean to me at breakfast. I told them
when it would be good to come.” He stiffened all over. She told another lie. “If
you don’t want me, I know where I can get all the comfort I want.”

His red feathers trembled. “You devious little
slut.”

Her heart shrank up cold.
Well, that worked.

“I’m
not trying to
get a twenty-something into bed,” she said, feeling her mouth go puckery with
nastiness. This was excruciating.

His eyes closed. “You still don’t understand.”

Behind him, Sovay’s feathers were even nearer now.

In quiet despair, she said, “No, Virgil. I do understand.”

She ran back to the house, knowing that even if he followed
her, Sovay would be too quick. And he would never put Sovay aside for her.

The yuppies crowded even thicker outside her garage door.
She couldn’t even get to her own garden gate, so she went to watch from behind
the dumpster, feeling like garbage.

Kauz’s voice crowed about the marvelous Venus Machine. “Who
vill try? Who is villing to change their life? Who vants to be irresistible?”

Sovay pranced forward in her gold-and-black mask and seated
herself in the Venus Machine with a flourish.

Virgil stood among the crowd, his red feathers motionless.

Griffy brushed through the garden, past the wreckage of the
birthday cake, into the house, past the caterers in the kitchen, sorry she’d
taken off her mask because her face was crumpling and she could feel sobs
coming up in her chest.

She squeezed them down and hurried through the empty house
to the ladies’ cloakroom off the foyer. Her shoes clacked in the darkened
marble hall. Panting, she hung her mask on a hook in the candle-lit cloakroom,
then ran into the lavatory and threw herself into a pink brocade chair to cry.

o0o

Jewel saw Griffy run past the cake into the house and thought,
Oh, hell.
The woman was too nice to
fight with the likes of Virgil.

She gritted her teeth and followed.

When she found her in the cloakroom, Griffy was sobbing
exhaustedly.

“Oh, girlfriend.” Jewel went back out and hung her mask on a
peg beside Griffy’s, grabbed up a box of tissues, and went back in. “I take it
he acted like a brat.”

“He was
horrible,”
Griffy sobbed. “He called me a
slut.”

Jewel dabbed at her chin. “Huh. That must mean he believes
that Randy’s in the bed.” He would have to give her the videotape now. She
tried to feel triumph, but Griffy was so clearly the victim of fallout from her
brilliant strategy that she felt guilty. “He’ll come around.”
I hope.
“If he wants you back, he’ll let
me get Randy out of that bed.”

Griffy raised her head at that. “Oh.” She sniffled. “I
hadn’t thought of that.”

“And he’ll have to ask you for the key, because he thinks
you’ve changed the locks.”

Griffy shook her head. “He’s too proud. He’ll never
apologize.”

Jewel squinted. “Are you telling me Virgil can’t figure out
how to ask you for the new key without apologizing?”

“You’re right,” Griffy said, with a laugh. “But what do I do
then? I don’t have a new key.”

“Let me know when he’s asked, and I’ll deal with it.”

High-heeled footsteps strode into the outer cloakroom.

Sovay sailed in without her mask. She cast a pitying glance
at Griffy and went into the potty stall. “My God, what stinks?” she said from
the stall, and made a horking noise. Lavish spews plopped in the toilet. “I was
told this would be a
high
class
party.” She horked again. More plops.

Jewel raised her voice. “You know, Sovay, if you’re gonna
hang around with a high-standards guy like Virgil, you have to pretend to have
class twenty-four-seven. It looks tacky if you can’t speak to your rivals
without throwing up.”

“Rivals!” Sovay said in a hoarse voice. “You’re pathetic.”
Hork.
“You’re a cow and Griffy’s a hag.”
Hork, hork.
The toilet flushed.

“Julia’s right,” Griffy said. She went to the mirror,
winced, and began repairing her makeup. “Virgil’s very fussy. He would never
put up with anyone low class.”

Jewel patted Griffy’s shoulder. “Tell it, sister,” she
whispered. “By the way, Sovay, Lord Darner says your English accent is fake.”

“Fake?” Griffy paused with a hairpin in her hand.

“Yeah, Sovay, where is Lord Darner?” Jewel said. “Last I
knew, he was with you, banging the headboard against the wall. What did you do,
fuck him to death?”

“Ooh, you’re mean!” Griffy whispered.

“Maybe I’ll tell Virgil I saw him coming out of your room,”
Jewel added.

“Liar!” Sovay cried from inside the stall. “You never did!”

“No, I didn’t,” Jewel said. “Maybe screwing a human snake
made him disappear in a puff of smoke.”

“Bitch!”
Hork.
Thrashings from the stall. “You’re both pathetic bitches!”
Hork, hork, hork.
The toilet flushed again. Sovay swept through the
lavatory without pausing to primp. They heard the cloakroom door bang.