Wasted Beauty (15 page)

Every morning Rick does fifty sit-ups and twenty-five pushups. One night he avoids TV altogether, reads thirty pages of a novel by someone named T. C. Boyle, gives up, calls Laura and ends up on the phone with her for forty-five minutes. When Laura tells him she’s been meditating and that Rick should try it, he says he will. Henry comes to the phone, gives his dad the sandcastle and ice-cream report, and hangs up before Rick can say good-bye. Rick meanders out into the backyard, places himself under the canopy of stars and smokes a cigarette. He thinks, I’m such a lucky guy.

Friday night arrives and Rick decides to take in a movie. But he never gets there. Instead, he strolls the twisting streets of Greenwich Village. Everywhere he goes he sees couples holding hands, kissing, laughing together. He enters a lounge and sits at the bar, waiting for an interesting woman to come sit next to him just so he can tell her how much he misses his wife. It happens all the time on TV. It’s a way to get laid, right? Isn’t that what I want? To get picked up and go home with a stranger?

When a bony-faced queen tries to strike up a conversation, Rick finishes his drink and leaves thinking, I miss Laura. Back home, he tosses his keys on the kitchen table and they echo off silent walls. Why doesn’t my family come running in? Why isn’t Trina grabbing hold of my legs and shouting, “Daddy, we missed you so much! Mommy said we had to come back and get you!” Why aren’t they here? Why aren’t I there?

Rick finds a bag of stale chips shoved behind the cereal boxes, stowed in a halfhearted attempt at discipline. He grabs four beers, uncaps them and lines them up on the coffee table. He flicks on the TV and finds himself watching a movie called
Sleepless in Seattle
. Tom Hanks’s wife has just died. Rick notices the red light of the message machine blinking and his heart leaps. There’s one person on this cold, cold earth who thinks of me. Why can’t I appreciate that?

In the first blush of dawn, Rick finds himself on the couch with a sour stomach and blocked sinuses. His jeans are strewn with oily potato chip crumbs. In his gut a restlessness, an anger is building. He roams the house, fuzzy. Go up to bed, Rick. Just go to bed. Go-to-bed. I can’t go to bed, because to go to bed just means sleeping, then waking up again. And what will I do tomorrow, I mean today, Saturday? I’m tired of cleaning.

Rick finds a bottle of whiskey in the liquor cabinet. He knocks back a shot. The pudding in his head shifts and throbs. He downs another. He lights a cigarette. “Yes, the house will stink of smoke, Laura.” He hears his own voice reverberate, unanswered. So what? He has an urge to go find a bar and get into a brawl, but it’s five thirty in the morning.

What if I call an escort service? That would be interesting. Even if I don’t do anything with the girl. Just sit her down and tell her about my fucked-up life. Or tell her about my fucked-up life and then have sex with her. That could work. But then I’d have to kill her. And myself. An option. The whiskey kicks in.

In his study, Rick slides open the bottom drawer of his mahogany desk. In the rear, “secret” compartment, are two videotapes. The first is called
Faces of Death
and it catalogues fatal accidents, suicides, murder. Footage of people shooting themselves in the mouth, dying in car collisions, exploding, burning, all caught on video. Why do I keep this? Posterity? The second tape was given to him as a joke by a best friend’s wife on his fortieth birthday. It’s a collection of vintage porno featuring John Holmes a.k.a. “Johnny Wadd.” Rick thinks, in a few years Henry will be old enough to know what this is. I’ll have to find a better hiding place. On the other hand, pretty soon I can throw it out because I won’t know what to do with it.

The Johnny Wadd tape delivers the full spectrum of cheesiness, from the orange-tinted lighting to the oscillating psychedelic wah-wah soundtrack. Rick likes the hippie girl Johnny is plowing and before he can hold himself back, he’s coming. Waves of ecstasy roll through him as the moustachioed Casanova slides his stem in and out of the spaced-out chick. Rick thinks, what a waste. Beautiful girl like that. Then he thinks, I guess girls didn’t shave their pussies in 1970. Then he thinks, wonder where that girl is today? Probably a Republican homemaker in Orange County. Then he thinks, I’m such an asshole. For a few minutes he doesn’t move, letting the blobs of cum cool on his stomach. He smears the gray puddle with the tip of his finger, making a perfect circle around his navel. The stuff exudes a familiar smell that’s weirdly reassuring. Rick wipes his belly with his underwear and, bare-assed now, flips off the VCR with the remote, leaving the TV screen empty and blue. He curls into a fetal posture and falls asleep on the couch, dragging the cushions over his body in lieu of a blanket. He dreams deep dreams, farts unconscious farts and luxuriates in the warmth of his own gas.

RENA LETS THE TERRY-CLOTH ROBE FALL OPEN AND
inspects the faint stubble on her legs as she addresses the cell phone. “What are you telling me, Marissa?”

Marissa says, “They decided to go brunette.”

Outside the hotel room window, birds hop in and out of the flowering red hibiscus. Rena can hear the garden workers spraying down the ferns and flowers, Spanglish mingling with the birdsong and traffic hum and the last of the morning’s humidity. She lights a cigarette and says, “That’s such crap.” Rena thinks, I’m so over this L.A. thing. This con game. The perfect weather, everything’s a big deal. And all they do is lie.

“Sorry, honey.” Marissa’s voice is clipped and cool. Probably flipping through photos as she speaks. Things are different now.

“That cover was mine. I was due.” The hairs on Rena’s legs are growing stronger and sharper. Shaving turns leg skin into a weapon. Time for a wax.

“I agree. What do you want me to say?” Does Marissa sound far away because she is far away or because she just doesn’t care?

“I want you to say I have the cover.” Rena finds a miniature bottle of vodka in the minibar and drains it. It tastes wrong. She feels sleepy. It’s ten
AM
.

“I can’t say that, honey. Next one. You’re going to get it.”

“Does this have something to do with Paul?”

“Don’t even go there.”

“Paul is best friends with those guys.”

“It’s not worth it, honey. Listen, Tuesday, I’ve got you in for a session for H&M. Stay away from salt this weekend. You’re flying tomorrow, right? No sundae on the flight.”

“Fuck H&M. I need a cover. I’m spinning my wheels, Marissa.”

“You made twenty thousand dollars last month. That’s not spinning your wheels.”

Paul is doing this. It has to be Paul. The editor’s assistant had called her directly, all wound up, saying she had to cancel gigs, be ready, absolutely no haircuts. The designer himself called Rena. Everyone called. Everything was set but the actual session.

“So who’s shooting this? Have they decided?”

“I haven’t heard. Listen, Rena, I ordered a car for you. It’ll be there in twenty minutes. Go to my spa. Put some mud on your face and relax. It’s on me. We’ll talk Monday, OK?”

Rena is treated like a star the minute she walks in. She’s ushered to the special rooms, worked on by the top girl. As she lies on her stomach, waiting for the masseuse, she hears chatter outside the room. Paul Yorkin is shooting the fall cover with Angie. Has to be the same one. Of course. So I lost the gig. Without a cover I lose my spot. I will become second rate. Once you lose your momentum you’re dead. Marissa lied to me. Fuck her. Fuck them all. I didn’t ask for this. They dragged me into this, especially Paul.

On her way out the twittering girl at the counter wants an autograph and Rena explodes, “You don’t even know my fucking name.” The girl looks hurt, so Rena promises to send a photo, signed. She lights a cigarette and someone comes running at her, shouting, “No!” Rena escapes out the door.

I should call Paul and chew him out, but what’s the point? He’d only gloat. Or worse, try to start something again. Fat fuck. It’s not my fault he left his wife, that he’s unhappy. Now he wants to make me unhappy. And why? Because he “loves” me? Bullshit. He’s as selfish and piggish as the rest. So he ruined his life. Who cares? He’ll get another girl. Another girl he can fall in love with. Have babies with. I never loved him like that. Never did. Couldn’t. I tried but I couldn’t. That’s all. Not my fault. Shit happens.

She calls Fred. But Fred sounds distant and preoccupied, absorbed in his readings or just stoned.

On her way back to the Four Seasons, Rena buys a liter of vodka, hangs a DND on the door, puts a DND on the phone, draws the curtains, clicks on the cable, and zones out on confessional talk shows for the rest of the afternoon. She wakes up dizzy with no idea of the time, calls room service for two pots of coffee, drinks one cup, gets back into the vodka and orders the pay-per-porno. What would I do if I ever met a man with a dick as large as the guys in those films? Doesn’t matter, I’m not fucking anybody anymore. The porno world is just like real world, full of big dumb pricks.

By four in the morning she’s eaten every Famous Amos cookie, the Pringles and the Mason jar of cashews in the minibar. She falls asleep in the bath, cell phone in her hand, calling Paul’s voice mail and hanging up.

She wakes when the concierge rings her room to tell her that her driver has arrived. A half hour later she’s made it to the lobby, where she chews out the front-desk girl over the incidental charges. The driver takes her bag and she chain-smokes all the way to the airport. Her damp cell phone isn’t working.

On the plane she drinks a bottle of Beaujolais and lets the businessman next to her make goo-goo eyes and dumb conversation until she finally shuts him down by asking about his wife. Then using the overpriced in-flight phone, she calls Marissa, her favorite haircutter, her favorite makeup guy. She calls every bar and every restaurant until she finds Adam and then insists he stay on the phone until she lands. After an hour he says he has to get off. She finds Fred and now he sounds happy to hear from her, ready to engage. She asks if she can come by and he says he would love to see her. Could she pick up fresh fruit and flowers on her way?

The captain cheerily announces that they are ahead of schedule but Rena knows from the cyclic roar of the engines they are stacked over the airport. When they finally land there is no gate available, and when they do find a gate, there are no personnel to wheel the ship into the ramp. She tries to find Adam again and is told by two different flight attendants to stop making calls. She falls asleep under the thin airline blanket while everyone on the plane files off. The businessman sheepishly wakes her and hands her his card. She shoves it into the barf bag. Her cell phone is completely dead as she walks up the ramp off the plane.

The limo driver waits at the bottom of the escalator with a sign that reads “Coke” instead of “Cook” and she thinks, that would work. She hands him her bag and they walk out to the parking garage in silence. In the car she lights a cigarette. The driver says something and she snaps, “Don’t talk to me,” cracks the window and glares at the other limos and cabs flashing by. The LIE is a parking lot and they are stuck for another half hour. The city skyline lies cushioned in a gray haze.

When Rena arrives in front of Fred’s building, she remembers he asked for fresh fruit and flowers. She rolls her overnighter around the corner to a twenty-four-hour Korean fruit stand. She finds kiwis and a grapefruit and a bouquet of gladiolas. Under glaring fluorescent light, the foreign-born men who run the place seem harried and distrustful, unmoved by her glamour. When she gets back to Fred’s building, he doesn’t answer the buzzer.

She has his key, so she lets herself into the building. It is late, the unventilated stairwell close and hot. The apartment is dark and quiet, too. Fred is under the covers in his bedroom, asleep. For the next hour, Rena arranges flowers, cleans up the little kitchen. She feels useful for the first time in a while and it occurs to her that she wouldn’t mind being Fred’s wife, taking care of him, cleaning his house, feeding him. She takes a break to smoke a cigarette, strips and gets into bed with him even though she’s on West Coast time and is bound to be awake all night.

He looks so gone when he’s asleep. Younger. He’s let a piece of fluff grow on his chin and it makes him look like he’s from a different time. Maybe someday they will really get together. Rena wants to wake him and tell him that they have to leave, right now, run away to another place. Greece maybe. The islands are perfect this time of year. He could clean himself up, and they could sun themselves and read every day. Or Morocco. Or Australia. Wherever. She’d pay for it all.

I’m being ridiculous, she thinks. He likes it here. And that’s OK. We’re together. Things don’t have to be the way they are for everyone else. She wants to squeeze him hard, but is afraid of waking him. She compromises by stroking his arm. His skin is smooth like a marble Greek sculpture at the museum.

His limbs are flat and still. Like the way Daddy was. She puts a hand to his forehead, cool as the grapefruit she’s just picked out of the grocery bag. She shakes him and liquid seeps out of his mouth. She lifts one of his eyelids and it stays open, staring.

Carefully, Rena dresses. Methodically she checks the apartment for drugs. Under the armchair she finds ten glassine envelopes, five opened, five untouched. She gathers them up and drops them into her purse. Then she calls 911. When she slips out the front door, she leaves it unlocked. There’s no reason to stay. Emergency Services will come and they’ll know what to do.