Waiting for the Galactic Bus (17 page)

“I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”

His quiet bitterness shriveled Charity. He could be a nice man if he let himself; what would that cost him? This was no way for a man to live, all alone in the dark, even visitors kept at a distance. Dane made her feel woman enough to be a fire hazard, but this Jake, it was like she was wallpaper or something. Not natural. The worst thing in the world, even in hell, was being alone. He didn’t notice her. He irritated the living Jesus out of her.

“You don’t have to be so mean about it.”

Jake waved it away. “Nothing personal. History’s full of sinkholes. Today’s moral bedrock is tomorrow’s quicksand.”

He
really
ticked her off, partly for what she couldn’t understand, mostly for what she could. Real men like Roy or Clint Eastwood didn’t talk so wimpy. “When it comes to morals, right is right and wrong
 
—”

“Is debatable. Don’t argue morality or guilt with a Jew. We invented them.”

“You don’t look Jewish.”

“My God, she said it!” Jake’s laughter was a dry, wondering bark that had no warmth in it. “She actually said it. You must have been an evangelical.”

“Tabernacle of the Born Again Savior,” Charity owned with wistful pride. “Not that it helped a whole lot.”

“Indeed.” Jake sank again in his chair. “Tabernacle of the... the more shriveled the existence, the more elaborate the credentials. Virtue measured by what you wouldn’t do, at least under scrutiny, and others judged for what they would and got caught at. You don’t want Grace, Miss Stovall. You want to get even.”

She didn’t get that at all. “Get even with what?”

“I’ll show you.” Jake touched a button on the arm of his chair. Across the room a four-foot screen jumped to life in ravishing color subtly enhanced by soft music.

“This is the ultimate,” a deep male voice oozed from the screen. “This is Ultimate Rise. What you’ve worked for and deserve, and it’s waiting for you.”

The camera moved over stunning vistas of sunken living rooms in luxurious cream leather, each casual furniture piece worth a fortune. Bedrooms of imperial opulence, kitchens that inspired domesticity and did all the work, cozy dens, conversation pits cunningly designed around fieldstone fireplaces, bathrooms of unbridled hedonism with heart-shaped tubs and frothing Jacuzzis. Charity ogled.

“Where’s that? They don’t have that in Pittsburgh even.”

“I’d say not,” Jake remarked with a sideways glance. “I’ll bet you never missed
Dynasty
or
Knots Landing.”

“Course not. I even wrote a letter to Alexis telling her what a slut she is.”

“But such a rich slut, eh? All that scheming and immorality in the middle of all that wealth. The painful fascination of pressing your cold little nose against the windowpane and deciding that rich is nasty, virtue is just plain folks and the American Way. The envy of the have-nots: Alexis will get what’s coming to her, evil will be punished. And you sure as hell want yours. Religion is what you sing on Sunday, Miss Stovall. Your true faith is what you want all week.”

“Hey, you make me sick, you know that?” Charity flared, surging out of the chair. “What do you know how hard it is to get anything nice? There was a factory in Plattsville, now there’s nothing. Just a mis’rable piddly little town full of people that have to stand outside — that’s true, that much, what you said — stand outside looking in at folks no better than us taking the best while we get the leavings.

“What do you know about living on welfare checks or credit run out at the store? Huh? I grew up with not enough; with stepparents because my own was... were a couple of God knows what from God knows where. You try that, Jake: nothing to call your own and nowhere to go but down or dead. You watch all the pretty, silky commercials like this one about all the nice things you can buy with the money you’ll never have. You try that —”

“Admirable,” Jake acknowledged. “At least you’ve learned to state the problem.”

“Don’t you laugh at me,” Charity seethed. “Don’t you laugh at us. All we got in Plattsville, all the rest of you goddammit
left
us is the kind of God and Jesus Christ we can understand. Look at me! Forget this bullshit movie dress that’d take me six months to buy if I didn’t eat or pay rent. Do I look fat? Like I never missed a meal or a trip to the dentist? Last one we had moved out three years ago, couldn’t make a living. You get a toothache now, you gotta drive twenty miles. If the car will make it.

“Your kinda people laugh at us for crying in church when we feel like crying all the time. Why shouldn’t we want a Jesus with sword and fire? If He’s got no sword and fire when He comes, by God, we’ll give Him ours. We got lots of that.”

“And anger. Envy. Getting even.”

He seemed to be goading her. With nothing at hand to throw at him, Charity threw the truth. “Damn right we want to get even.
Everyone else does.”

Until she heard it, Charity never guessed such a rage lived in her, that rush of deep emotion always prayed and sung out of her in the Tabernacle, cleansed and released until the need built up again. She always thought it was the Holy Spirit. More frightening than that, but damn right she wanted hers. Why not?

Jake moved another piece on the chessboard, considered the consequences, then rose and took his cabby hat from the mantel.

“You sound ready to get some of yours.”

“I sure am.” Charity clawed at her hair gone frizzy and hopeless from damp. “Between Dane and his poetry and you, gimme a break. I want to find Roy.”

Jake escorted her down the hall to the entrance. “No fear, he’s doing very well. The Paladins pounced on him the minute he arrived. No different here than on earth. Messiahs are a weekly special.”

“Oh. Where can I find him?”

Jake gave her a searching glance. “Why not let him find you? Ultimate Rise just happens to have a vacancy, and I’d say you’re entitled to the good life for a change.”

Charity remembered that sinful bathtub and the acre-wide living room and was tempted. “Maybe for a little. Just to rest.”

“You’ll love it,” Jake promised. “Fully automatic, live-in butlers, magnificent view. On a clear day you can see Robin Leach. I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t expect you. What’s the matter, woman? I’m tempting you to a freebie paradise and you look positively ill.”

She did feel sick, cold with a winter thought. “Gol-lee. Jake. All that stuff I said...”

“All quite true.”

Was that what all my praying was about
? “Lord Amighty, no wonder I’m damned.”

“No, Miss Stovall. Love and hell are alike in that respect; they are what you bring to them. The script is yours; only the props are furnished.” Another keen scrutiny. “And growing always hurts.”

Damn,
Charity yearned as Jake’s cab whisked her away.
Doesn’t anybody around here talk straight?

Drained, quivering with the release of emotion. Not even Roy would guess there was so much mean in her. Or maybe he did.

Was that what got us together, each wanting to get even any way we can and seeing the same thing in the other?

“The weather’s better in the high-rise district,” Jake tossed over his shoulder as they drove through clammy fog.

“That’s nice.” Charity sat back with her own thoughts. Strange thoughts with a disturbing familiarity, like ugly cousins met for the first time who resembled her too closely for comfort.

    18   

This can’t be hell, the
plumbing works

From the taxi window, Charity goggled up at the splendor of Ultimate Rise. “Now, that is class!”

“As advertised.” Jake handed his card over the seat. “Anytime you need a cab.”

“I sure will, thanks. You’re nice when you don’t talk so weird.” When Jake came around to open her door, Charity noted the pallor of his face and neck. “You ought to get out more, Jake. Be with folks.”

“I’ve been there.”

“It’s kind of embarrassing. I can’t pay you. Not even a tip.”

“On the house. Your new condo, Miss Stovall. Corrupt yourself in good health.” Jake slid into the front seat, meshed gears and drove away.

A uniformed doorman spun the revolving doors at just the right speed to receive her smoothly. Across an opulent lobby large as a parking lot, a tailored, obsequious desk clerk held out her keys. “Your duplex, Miss Stovall. Elevators to your right. Welcome to Ultimate Rise.”

The elevator whispered open, wafting light, breezy music to her ears from an old Audrey Hepburn movie. A cool voice inquired: “Floor, please?”

“Uh. Floor.” Charity always flustered when singled out for a decision. “I don’t know. Do I press a button or something?”

The elevator voice had the sepulchral hush of an undertaker’s receptionist. “Floor, please?”

“I don’t know,” Charity implored the upholstered walls. “What do I do with an elevator that talks?”

“What do I do with a human who can’t?” The retort held a nuance of electronic bitchery. “I’m just a machine. Now, at least. I used to be a high-fashion model. Died of drugs, but I did have lovely cheekbones. Name, please?”

“Charity Mae Stovall. From Plattsville.”

“Finally. Penthouse duplex,” the elevator confirmed. “Going up.”

The music breezed and sparkled as the doors swept open on paradise. Charity gasped.

Definitely nothing like it even in Pittsburgh. A white apartment, everything perfect. The parquet foyer led down three steps to a sunken living room wall-to-walled in white carpet. Gleaming chrome-and-glass coffee table topped with oversized art books left at just the right angle. Cream the walls, ivory the grand piano, gossamer the powered silk drapes that slid noiselessly aside to reveal a spacious balcony and, beyond, a breathtaking panorama of fashionable Below Stairs.

“I’m rich.” She said it again as the truth sank home. “I’m RICH. Just like in the movies. WOWIE!”

Charity skipped from one vast room to another, wonder treading on wonder’s heel. Downstairs alone was big as two houses together. Living room, guest rooms, extra baths, kitchen, pantry, a whole freezer room, more rooms just for the hell of it.

“GOOOINNG UP!” Hiking the velvet skirt, Charity took the spiral designer stairs two at a time to the master bedroom with its emperor-sized water bed covered with an eiderdown and CMS-monogrammed silk sheets in powder blue. The master bath was done in pink.

Charity wallowed and rolled on the water bed like a contented puppy. The quilt hissed gorgeously as it slid against her skin. She paraded in front of the huge mirror and decided that gray velvet looked kind of tacky here, and then yipped with new delight to discover a full dressing room with three full racks of dreamy clothes, all in her size. Charity stepped out of the movie dress into nylon underwear and a soft linen caftan. Mirrored results were edifying. Feeling audacious, she wondered if she could get away without a bra — but no, that was for the liberated city women she disapproved of on principle.

“On second thought, why the hell not?”

Charity hiked up the caftan, popped the bra and let it drop on the carpet. She wasn’t a feminist, but the Devil had already liberated the hell out of her at the White Rose Motel, and this was her house, so she could be comfortable without feeling, you know, trashy or common. Besides, she wasn’t big enough to be all that floppy without a bra.

Descending the stairs, she felt exotic in caftan and bare feet. The cream leather sofa invited her; she melted into it before a four-foot television wall screen. The remote control was near her hand; one touch blossomed the screen to life, panning slowly across a snowy and familiar interior. Charity’s eyes widened.

“That’s this place. Mine, right here.”

“That’s right, Char.”

Even the voice was familiar, a nasal London yelp out of the speakers just as she remembered from
Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.
“This gowerjus condo in the carefully secluded and mowst expensive paht of Below Stairs is the hideaway of glamorous Char Stovall.”

She giggled. “You better believe it.”

“Char has been the constant companion of Roy Stride, rising young political leaduh.”

Gol-lee, where was Roy now? Well, she thought, he won’t be hard to find. If he’s no worse off than me, he sure ain’t hurting.