8
M
allory had not been to the Plaza Hotel since she was six years old and her mother took her to show her where “Eloise” lived. Now, twenty years later, she was wearing a fedora and following her heavily tattooed, bleached blond, pirate hatwearing nemesis into the side of the building and the entrance to the now private residences. People had been outraged in 2002 when the famous hotel was purchased for over seven hundred million dollars and a plan was announced to convert it to a private apartment building. Mallory agreed with the outrage, but in the end some of the rooms were declared interior landmarks, and many were kept as hotel rooms. The new owners restored and maintained the regal elegance that had made the Plaza Hotel one of the most famous hotels in the world for over a century.
A white-gloved door attendant showed them to the elevator and pushed the button for the top floor. When the gilded door slid closed, Violet said,“One more thing—you have to have a tattoo.”
Mallory and Alec looked at each other.
“Mallory doesn’t have a tattoo, Violet. You should have said something earlier,” Alec said. Obviously, Violet was in the clear, and Alec had a shark on his left arm. But Mallory had not yet succumbed to the needle, to the amazement of her fellow burlesquers.
“I wasn’t finished,” Violet snapped. “If you don’t have a tattoo, someone there will give you a temporary one.”
“Like the kind children wet and press on?” he said.
“Why don’t you just wait and see?” she said.
Mallory and Alec exchanged another look. With a smile, he rolled his eyes as if to say,
This night was your idea
.
The door opened to a majestic space that, with its high ceilings, crystal chandeliers, and antique furniture, perfectly matched the elegance of the building that housed it.
The richly appointed backdrop was incongruous with the Rihanna-Eminem song playing over the sound system and the hipster crowd showing lots of skin and yes, ink-covered skin at that.
A super skinny, tall, blond Ann Coulter look-alike greeted them at the door. She wore a towering purple hat festooned with feathers and semiprecious stones. It was the most remarkable headpiece Mallory had ever seen. Mallory thought she looked familiar—like she had seen her picture in Page Six or maybe the
New York
magazine “Intelligencer” pages.
“Come on in! I’m Penelope. Do you mind if I take a photo of your tattoos? It’s for an art project.”
“Sure,” Violet said.
“I
loooove
this,” the woman said, twirling her finger in the air around the purple flowers on Violet’s chest. She aimed her digital camera for the shot, then proceeded to take photos of Violet’s back and arm while Mallory and Alec stood off to the side.
“This is weird,” Mallory said to him.
“Would you rather be home watching TV?”
“I feel like I’m on TV. Maybe this is all a setup for someone’s reality show.”
Penelope turned to them.
“I know you,” she said to Mallory.
“No, I don’t think we’ve met.”
“I’ve seen you in my club. I
never
forget a face from my club,” she said dramatically.
“What’s your club?”
“The Slit. I’m Penelope Lowe.”
Now Mallory knew why she looked familiar. Penelope Lowe was a notorious party-girl heiress who owned the club the Slit. Most true burlesque performers bristled at Penelope’s calling her shows burlesque—they were more highly sexualized performance art.
“Oh, sure. Great place. I saw your Christmas show last year. My friend Bette Noir brought me.”
“I love Bette! How
is
she? No one sees her anymore now that she’s a celebrity.”
“She’s great. She does a lot of shows in LA because that’s Zebra’s home base.” Zebra was the eccentric, flashy, pop music superstar who had turned Bette from a burlesque performer to a tabloid staple and fashion icon.
“You should do a show with us sometime.”
“Thanks, but I’m exclusive to the Blue Angel.”
“Don’t be ridiculous! Agnes has to get with the times and relax a little. You girls are the only ones who don’t rotate throughout the clubs here, and it’s only going to hurt your careers. I mean, who does the exclusivity help? Only the old lady.”
“Well, she gave me my start, and I’m happy there,” Mallory said. She looked at Violet, who had not gotten her start at the Blue Angel but who was benefiting from the consistency and quality of the shows there. She hoped she wasn’t going to use this as an opening to pad her schedule. Or maybe Mallory should hope she would—and in the process, get herself fired from the Blue Angel. That would end the little problem of having her in Alec’s face all the time. But she felt conflicted because she was protective of the Blue Angel; she wanted Agnes to remain on top.
But Violet had already mixed into the crowd, and Mallory didn’t know if she’d even heard Penelope’s invitation.
“Fair enough,” Penelope smiled. “So show me your ink—burlesque dancers always have the best work.”
“I don’t have any tattoos.”
“Unbelievable! Virgin flesh. Phenom. You’re first of the night. Go down that hallway and turn right. When you’re finished, find me. I’ll take a photo. Oh—and if you want a better hat, Brenda Waites Bolling is debuting her fall collection in the library.”
With that, she turned her attention to the shark on Alec’s arm.
Mallory made her way through the crowds to the hallway, stopping only to take a mimosa from a roving cocktail waitress. She wore an elaborate hat that looked like a peacock sitting on her head.
At the end of the hallway, she walked through an archway to find a small, well-lit room with a woman seated at an easel surrounded by paint. She had artwork propped up all over the room, elaborate colored-pencil sketches of nudes, flowers, ornate crucifixes, and old movie stars.
She had waist-length brown hair, a wide nose, and smiling brown eyes. Her arms and legs appeared to be covered in splattered paint, but on closer look, Mallory realized the swathes of vivid color were tattoos.
“Is that... Are those . . . ?” Mallory had never seen anything like it.
“Tattoos? Yes. Come on in.” She gestured at the stool in front of her.
“I don’t want a tattoo,” Mallory said. The woman laughed.
“I’m not a tattoo artist. I’m a painter.”
Mallory stared at her leg. It looked like a Jackson Pollock.
“It really looks like paint.”
“That’s the idea,” she said. “I got them from Amanda Wachob.”
Mallory sat on the wooden stool.
“So what’s the deal with this? Penelope told me I had to come to this room if I didn’t have a tattoo.”
“I’m going to paint one on,” the woman said. “I’m Celeste.”
“Mallory,” she said. “So how does it work?”
“You can describe an image to me, or pick one from my drawings or paintings.”
“How long will it last?”
“The paint?”
Mallory nodded.
“You can completely remove it later tonight with baby oil. Or if you want to keep it a while, just tape Saran Wrap over it while you shower. If you don’t protect it while you shower, it will start to crack and wear off in a few days.”
Mallory stood and looked through the paintings and sketches. She didn’t see anything that she could live with on her body, even just temporarily. She couldn’t imagine how people could commit to a permanent design.
“I don’t know. . . .” she said.
“Well, tell me about yourself. What do you do?”
“I’m a burlesque dancer.” It had taken Mallory a while to be able to say that. In the beginning she had felt like a poser, and after three years of law school and half a year working at a Park Avenue law firm, saying she worked in law was almost as deeply ingrained in her as her name.
“Cool,” Celeste said. “Where do you perform?”
“The Blue Angel,” said Mallory.
“I love that club! I haven’t been there in a while, but it was the first place I ever saw a burlesque show.”
“It’s one of the oldest in the city. It featured burlesque when it was nowhere else to be found. Now burlesque is everywhere. Or, at least, everyone calls their shows burlesque,” she said, thinking of Penelope and the Slit.
“I’ll have to come by and check out your act. Well, let’s think of an image for your painting. How about a blue angel?”
“Sure,” Mallory said, liking the idea.
“I can do like a sexy, Varga girl with wings or more of a straight-up angel. What do you think?”
Mallory thought for a minute. It was a tough decision. This was why she could never get a tattoo.
“You decide,” she said.
“I say go for the hot chick,” Violet said. Mallory turned, having not even realized she had entered the room. Celeste looked her up and down.
“I can see you don’t need my work.”
“No, I don’t,” Violet said. But they were looking at each other in a way that told Mallory they might like to work each other over—in bed. “Mind if I watch?” Violet said to Mallory.
“No,” she said.
Violet took a seat on an Edwardian couch. Celeste arranged paint on a palette—half a dozen different shades of blue, black, white, and purple.
“So we’ve decided on a fallen angel Varga girl?” said Celeste.
“Sure. Sounds good.”
“On your bicep?”
“Okay.”
Mallory looked around the room while Celeste took the fine-tipped brush to her arm. The paint was cool for the first second it touched her skin, then she didn’t feel much at all.
Violet moved closer, sitting on the floor near Celeste, ostensibly to watch her artwork. But Mallory could feel her eyes on her body, roaming from her legs, to her breasts, and back down again. It was unnerving, but she didn’t know what to say or do about it. She felt oddly controlled by the two women, Celeste using her skin as a canvas, and Violet viewing her like an object. She felt her mind slipping into a fantasy of Violet’s walking over to her and slipping her hand under her dress again, this time her fingers moving under the elastic of her underwear, brushing over her clit before dipping inside of her.
“That’s cool,” Violet said. “Can I try?”
“What? Painting something?” Celeste said.
“Yeah. On her.”
“Sure. But not on this design—you’ll wreck it,” Celeste said. She smiled flirtatiously at Violet.
“You want to paint something on me?” Mallory said.
“You’re the one in the chair,” said Violet.
“I think one painted tattoo is enough,” Mallory said.
“Don’t worry—I’ll put mine where no one will see it.”
Mallory felt something twitch between her legs.
She couldn’t look at Violet. Instead, she focused on the beautiful image appearing stroke by stroke on her arm. It was a long, lean brunette, wearing a blue corset and black hot pants. Her legs were drawn in black stockings, and the brush danced around the lower end of her bicep to create small stilettos. The woman was looking to the side, her hands behind her back, on which Celeste created a large blue ostrich feather that looked like wings.
After ten minutes, Celeste put her brush aside and appraised her work.
“Are you finished?” Mallory said.
“Yes,” Celeste said, giving her a hand mirror. Mallory held it to her arm. The burlesque angel looked even more fantastic when she could see it straighton.
“I love it,” Mallory said. “It almost makes me want a real one!”
It was true. She had sat in that stool intending to wash the paint off as soon as she got home. Now she was hoping it really would last a week if she took care of it. She wondered if Alec would like it. Maybe that was why he was so hot for Violet—all the images adorning her flesh.
“My turn,” said Violet.
“Are you an artist?” asked Celeste.
“Yeah,” she said dryly. “I’m a real Renaissance woman.”
“I can’t think of another image I want painted on,” Mallory said.
“I know what I’m doing on you.”
“Don’t I have a say in what’s going on my body?” Mallory laughed nervously.
“No,” Violet said.
Celeste relinquished her stool, giving Violet access to the paint and brushes. Mallory glanced at the entrance to the room, wondering if Alec would be looking for her.
“Pull up your skirt,” Violet said. “Actually, you’d better take it off. I don’t want to get paint on it.”
“You can paint on my other arm. I’m not taking off my skirt.”
“I thought you said you were a burlesque dancer,” Celeste said. “Don’t be shy around us.”
Thanks a lot,
Mallory thought.