Venus Envy (29 page)

An hour passed before George asked, “Where’s Larry?”

T
HE DISMAL ANSWER TO “WHERE’S LARRY TAYLOR?” CAME
the next morning before ten o’clock, when Frank Armstrong received a phone call from the Virginia State Corporation Commission concerning price fixing. Mildred’s face drained of color when Frank relayed to her how he had gotten together for dinner with George Demerius, Pickens Oliguy, Larry Taylor, and Randy Milliken in the beautiful little town of Orange. Nothing had seemed unusual except that Randy Milliken spent half the night bitching about filling out forms for the state highway department. Each of them had bid on repaving the Louisa off-ramp on 1-64 and Randy mentioned that he thought it was a $600,000 job, whoever did it. Larry had left the table.

“He obviously left the table to call the appropriate department to report price fixing.” Mildred rubbed her
temples with her thumbs. “Damn, what’s the matter with him?”

Frank perched on the corner of her desk. “I don’t know. I’ve built a good business and a good reputation. Larry knows I wouldn’t engage in price fixing and with Randy, well, he was hot, a slip of the tongue. No more than that.”

“Sounds like Larry Taylor’s, a real Boy Scout. Probably carries a copy of the Ten Commandments and the United States Constitution in his back pocket.”

“Well, I wouldn’t exactly call him a flexible person.” Frank rubbed his chin. “Mildred, get me George on the phone. Let’s see what he thinks.”

“Hold the phone away from your ear.”

“Why?”

“Because it’ll melt.” Mildred began dialing.

Frank walked into his small office and picked up when Mildred hollered. “George.”

“I’ll kill that cocksucker! He’s out of his fucking mind! I’ll swoop down on him from twelve o’clock and blow him out of the sky.”

“Have you talked to him? I haven’t called yet.”

“I’ve been calling that sorry son-of-a-bitch since I took the goddam call from the commission this morning, hell, not an hour and a half ago. I mean, shit,
I
walk into the office and the phone is ringing. My girl isn’t here, so I pick it up. Under investigation for improper conduct of bidding procedures. Or some such bullshit.
I
demanded to know who would do anything like this, you know, and then I got that clear, like crystal clear, so
I
call the asshole and he isn’t available for comment. Not only is he a walking hemorrhoid, he’s a chicken-shit too!”

“Once the first domino falls, there isn’t anything we can do,” Frank said, half to himself.

“You got that right. The commission will investigate.
Depositions up the wazoo. Hearings behind closed doors, supposedly to protect us, but it won’t stay closed for long. Never does, good buddy, never does.”

“Guess I’ll call my lawyer.” Frank sighed. It wasn’t just the money that depressed him; it was the colossal waste of time.

“Milliken’s doing the same and Pickens is out on a site. Poor bastard probably don’t know what hit him yet. If you hear from them before I do, call me back.”

“Sure thing.”

“You know what I’m going to do?” George launched in. “I’m getting old, Frankie. I worked hard and I may not be the smartest guy in the world but I did pretty good. I believed this was the land of opportunity, and I emphasize
was.
Now you can’t even take a shit but what somebody’s going to scream, ‘Is it ecologically sound?’ Know what I mean?”

“Yeah, I do. It’s harder and harder to do business.”

“I’m not, anymore. This is the straw that breaks the camel’s back. I’m selling out. I know I won’t get what my business is worth in these times but I ought to get enough to retire, and Lorraine and I are going to Arizona. I’ve had it.”

“I understand.” Frank felt weariness wash over him.

“Frank, get out while the gettin’s good.”

“I can’t do that, George. I want to leave my business to my kids. Frazier is a quick study, you know.”

“I have no doubt of that but it’s a matter of time before this gets into the papers. Paving cartel, old boys’ network, greedy businessmen—you know what I mean? Shit, I fought in Korea. I’ve paid enough taxes to build an interstate between Richmond, Virginia, and Louisville, Kentucky—you know what I mean? Not only will this suspend business for a while”—he stepped on the word
suspend
—“those press nancyboys will ruin my good
name. And you know what? Even if we’re cleared there will forever be shit sticking to our names because some pissant thought he heard us discussing bids. Look, I could wring Randy’s neck right now but he mentioned a ceiling price. He didn’t actually pin down his bid, nor did anyone else pick up the ball—you know what I mean?”

“I do and I hope this will be cleared up during the investigation.”

“Cleared up or not, we’ll be dragged through the mud and I’m out of here.”

“George, I’m sorry to hear that but I understand.”

“Hey, buddy, cover your ass.”

Frank pressed the disconnect button, then dialed his lawyer. She advised him to say “No comment” when the papers called—and they would. She also told him to meet her for lunch.

When Frank finished with Barbara he walked back into Mildred’s office. “I’ve got to meet Barbara Garrick for lunch.”

Mildred rolled her chair back. “She’s a killer. She learned at her daddy’s knee.”

“Yeah.” Frank remembered Weed Garrick, Barbara’s father, who had been his lawyer until he died suddenly of a massive coronary. “You know what George said?” He paused a second. “He’s selling out. He says he’s worked too long and too hard for this shit. He and Lorraine are moving to Arizona.”

“Too hot.”

“Yeah.”

“What are you thinking, Frank?” Mildred peeped over her half-moon glasses at her beloved boss.

“I’m thinking that when it rains it pours.”

T
HE BLACK PENUMBRA OF ASPHALT SURROUNDED THE
shopping-center buildings, threatening to eclipse their brightness. As it was an off time, the dark surface showed more than usual. There weren’t many cars to cover it.

Frazier noticed it and, being a paving contractor’s daughter, roughly figured in her head what it would cost to pave this parking lot retail. Her father often didn’t take a fee for such work but rather a percentage of shop rentals over a period of ten or fifteen years. This kept money flowing in instead of arriving in huge chunks from big jobs that would blow apart his taxes for that year. Frank Armstrong would never cheat on his taxes but he would never pay more than he had to either. This technique he passed on to his daughter.

Frazier rolled out her cart of groceries, a shopping long overdue. Lingering over the artichokes with the girls
wasn’t her idea of fun, so Frazier put off the chore until the cupboards were bare.

Out of the corner of her eye she had seen Laura Armstrong and Ann Haviland in their aerobic togs, wearing neon-colored visors with the country club logo slicked on the front. They hadn’t seen her yet and if possible she would scoot out of there before they did. Ann’s snarls irritated her but Laura’s sanctimonious attitude about Carter, marriage, and womanhood gagged her.

Mandy had told her at work today that Ann had pitched many a public fit over Billy’s engagement. How convenient. She could mime heterosexual drama with no heterosexual pain, and declaring that Billy had broken her heart spared her dating men for perhaps six months. As it was, Ann had dated Billy three whole times after Frazier’s letters. Apparently this was enough for a delicious intimacy in the public’s mind, an intimacy drummed up by Ann, the born-again heterosexual.

Frazier wondered what woman she was busily seducing now. It couldn’t be Laura. Not even Ann would step on that buried land mine. Besides, who would want to crawl between the sheets with someone that bitter? Also, rolling around like that might break Laura’s hair. A major tragedy.

Frazier had lied about her sexuality before the hospital stay. She was now ashamed of her cowardice but she was also learning to forgive herself. Ann, cut from a different cloth, actually relished the drama of being gay. She employed the secret language so as to speak to a member of the tribe right under the noses of the enemy. Ann would whisper to Frazier, “So-and-so is a friend of Bertha’s,” or “She worships at our church.” The excitement in her voice proved her need to participate in the subterfuge. Who knows, who doesn’t, who will, who
won’t. It was all so terribly important. The weekend binges at safe places sequestered from hostile eyes and disapproving attitudes provided the very fuel for Ann’s life. Being gay added glamour to an otherwise listless life. Maybe the only thing remarkable about Ann was that she was gay. If homosexuality were accepted, out in the open, the Anns of this world would feel robbed of their furtive thrills, their specialness. The lure of the forbidden attracted Ann even as it repelled Frazier.

Caravaggio excited Frazier. Not who was and who wasn’t. She hadn’t the time for information breathed sotto voce, for well-manicured women leaning over and saying,
“Contra nous,”
when they meant to say
“Entire nous,”
et cetera, et cetera. She never gave a big rat’s ass about who was straight and who was gay. Frazier always figured that if you were happy about yourself, if you had a decent sex life, you didn’t have the time to worry overmuch about what anybody else was doing and to whom they were doing it. In that respect she found most people, regardless of persuasion, sorry little creatures, bored with their lives, desperately hoping that someone had hot sex somewhere and then resenting the hell out of them for having it. They were like hungry children with their noses pressed up against the bakery window-pane until in anger they smashed the windows.

Frazier felt no responsibility whatever for any other human being’s sexual misery. One might not be able to vault out of the ghetto, one might not be able to climb the corporate ladder, there were countless might-nots, but surely one could improve one’s own sex life, one’s own emotional life, without having to destroy someone else’s happiness.

Frazier clung to a vain hope because as she reached her Explorer, both Laura and Ann bore down upon her, twin avenging Furies.

“You tell my husband that if he doesn’t straighten up and fly right I’ll take him for every penny he’s got,” Laura seethed. What happened to the long-suffering wife routine?

“Tell him yourself.” Frazier opened the driver’s door.

“After all that you’ve done to your family and your friends”—Ann’s voice filled with tinny righteousness—“the least you could do would be to help Laura and to help Carter too. He’s at a crisis point. He needs his wife and family.”

“I am his family.” Frazier slid into the driver’s seat and closed the door.

Ann rapped on the window. Frazier ignored her and pulled out. In her rearview mirror she could see the two of them, heads together, their brightly colored visors nearly touching. They looked like two chickens picking over a succulent Japanese beetle.

I
THOUGHT THIS WAS THE ROLLS-ROYCE OF WHEELBARROWS.”
Mandy wobbled behind the laden piece of equipment.

“It is. It’s got two front wheels and it’s perfectly balanced,” Frazier replied.

Mandy set her burden down. “Well, it weighs a ton.”

“Here.” Frazier grasped the two wooden handles and easily lifted up the wheelbarrow, rolling it toward her outer flower beds. The rich topsoil exuded a pleasing fragrance to a gardener.

“I forget how strong you are.” Mandy bent over and picked up the tools scattered by the back door, the dog and cat racing in circles around her. “I’ll be glad when we get more light. This weekend.”

“Me too. I can work outside up till nine at night. I love the long soft evening light.” She set down the wheelbarrow and took the shovel Mandy handed her. “I’ll spread a thin layer on what I’ve dug up here. See,
you’ve got to work the fertilizer down into the ground. That’s why I try to get old man Hitchcock to come over with his plow and disc it for me but the weather has been so bizarre he’s behind in everything. Didn’t hurt me to turn it up by hand.”

“’Cept for the blisters.”

“And that was with gloves.” She tossed the brown earth over her rectangular beds. These were the fall beds, which by mid-July would be putting forth early mums, the huge mums, and the zinnias that heralded the end of summer.

Lines of marigolds alternated with grass strips between the rows of her vegetable garden. The fall flower beds bordered her backyard at the sides. The rear was a two-foot stone wall with a white gate set in the middle.

“This is about as quiet a weekend as either of us has had in a long time,” Mandy said as she raked over the new soil.

“My mother’s no longer speaking to me, so that helps. Carter took off with Sarah Saxe for Nags Head. Kenny’s in New York and Auntie Ru, to whom I spoke at the crack of dawn, is tending her own garden. Apart from them no one else calls me anymore. I guess I’m both freed and abandoned.”

“I’m glad your business doesn’t depend on this place.”

Frazier heaved a big shovelful. “And not just for the obvious reasons. People here are tight as ticks. Try raising money for charity.”

“It is odd.”

“Plantation mentality.”

“Huh?” Mandy paused a moment.

“In the old days you took care of your people. Why take care of anyone else’s? Giving to strangers isn’t part of our heritage. That’s not the best explanation but it’s
the only one I have, because I can’t say that I’ve found my people to be ungenerous in other fashions.”

“Funny how ways hang on long after the means.” Mandy wiped her neck with a kerchief, which she stuck in her back jeans pocket. “Are you getting used to it? Being iced out, I mean?”

“Yeah. I’m learning to live with quiet—and you know something? It’s a good thing.”

“You’re better about it than I would be,” Mandy said truthfully.

“Oops.” Frazier turned up a bulb and sank to her knees to dig a hole for it. As she smoothed over the bulb with her two hands she felt the cool grains of soil slip between her fingers. This was the source of all wealth, good soil. In this part of the world about the best one could hope for was Davis loam. But Frazier had seen the rich black earth of Iowa, the endless fertile prairies of America. She stood up. “Mandy, if we ever forget what made this country great we deserve to fail, you know. It’s the earth, the rivers. We’re so rich we could be the breadbasket for the world.”