My Three Husbands (16 page)

Whitman opened the door to the deck. The sound of chattering birds wafted in. A big squirrel skittered up a tree. Whitman sucked in a deep Buddha breath. “How can you not love it?” he said.

“What?”

“Life! This!”

“Yeah,” I said. “Life is a banquet and most poor assholes are starving to death.” I'd watched
Auntie Mame
with the dads every year since I was eight. I knew the whole thing practically by heart.

“The voice can be a mellifluous instrument, Venus. It doesn't have to be a flat, depressed monotone.”

“Yes, Auntie Mame.”

“And speaking of banquets, you're expected to be at the big bash tonight.”

“No,” I said firmly. “We're not going. I came over to tell you.”

“You can't pretend to be my assistants for the duration of one cocktail party?”

“It's our honeymoon, Whitman. We want to be alone.”

“Away from us, you mean.”

I blurted out, “Do you have any condoms I can borrow?”

Whitman shook his head. “We don't use condoms. One of the perks of a long-term monogamous relationship.”

“Okay.”

“But I'm glad to know that you're protecting yourself. There are so many awful love bugs out there. It takes just one—”

It could be simple chafing, I thought. I had no clue what genital herpes looked like. Maybe it was just dry skin, or irritation from the hand job I'd given him earlier in the day.

Or maybe he'd picked it up from that bitch he'd been calling. She'd given it to him, and maybe he'd passed it on to me.

At least now I knew why Tremaynne had been acting so weird. It was the shock of discovering he had an STD. I was dealing with it myself.

“I wonder if they sell rubbers in that chic little boutique off the lobby,” Whitman said.

I shook my head. “They don't.”

Whitman scratched his head. “Then I'm sorry, I don't know where—” His face brightened. “Maybe we could get you some industrial-strength Saran Wrap from the kitchen.”

I smiled politely. “Could we borrow the car and drive into McCall? There must be a drugstore there.”

Whitman picked up his pants and dug through the pockets. “Maybe Tremaynne could go and you could come to the cocktail party with us.”

“I think we'll both go into McCall.”

He drew out the car keys. “I just thought since you were so keen to meet celebrities.”

“Why? Who's here?”

“Who isn't?” Whitman said.

“Harrison Ford?” He was old, but major.

Whitman waved me away. “You just go into McCall and get your rubbers. Your dad and I will have to meet all the stars ourselves.”

There was a click of the door release and Daddy came in. “I just saw Susan Sarandon,” he said. “At least I think it was Susan Sarandon.”

“Where was she?” Susan Sarandon was my favorite movie-star mother. She was my mom's favorite actress after Bette Davis.

“Everyone's on their way down to the cocktail party,” Daddy said. “Whit, I don't know if I brought anything dressy enough.”

“Whatever you wear, I'm sure the women will be all over you,” Whitman said. “As usual.”

“It's been set up as a big photo op,” Daddy told me. “So the investors can shake hands with movie stars.”

Whitman glanced at his watch. “Holy cow. John, go hop in the shower.” He tossed me the keys. “Venus, drive safely.”

“Where's she going?” Daddy asked as I raced towards the connecting door.

“Into McCall to buy some condoms,” Whitman said.

“Tremaynne can do it.” I was suddenly breathless with excitement. “I'm going to that party with you guys.”

 

 

I had two evening dresses with me. The one I chose was a kooky-looking pink satin thing from the Sixties that I'd found at Goodwill for $4.00. The low-cut bodice was partially covered with sequins and there was a weird bow in the back that looked like a propeller. The calf-length skirt was partially slit up the sides. It was sort of Jackie Kennedy Goes to Las Vegas. I slipped into the orangey-red nylons my mom had given me, and my purple, scuffed stilettos. Around my shoulders I artfully draped the white silk and cashmere shawl the dads had brought me from one of their trips to Italy. If I folded it right no one would see the big coffee stain.

Tremaynne sat on the bed, playing with Whitman's car keys, watching me. “It's just a bunch of stupid movie stars,” he said.

I stared into the magnifying cosmetic mirror and carefully applied pale pink lipstick. I had about ten dozen cases left over from my days as a Lorrie Ann Lady.

“You'd rather hang out with a bunch of stupid movie stars than me?” He sounded wounded and a little incredulous.

“Come with me,” I said, keeping my tone light.

“I hate movie stars.”

“Why?”

“They're not earth-conscious,” Tremaynne said. “Nobody here is. They couldn't build this place if they were.”

“I think it's beautiful.”

“That's because your dad was the architect.”

“Maybe. So what?”

“You're never going to get away from them,” he said.

“Who?”

“The dads.”

I looked at him.

“You're like their little puppet,” he mocked. “They pull your strings and you move.”

I was determined not to react.

“You're so brainwashed you can't even see how they manipulate you.”

I stood there wondering if he was revealing some terrible psychological truth or if he was just jealous and trying to turn me against them.

“They're part of the corruption,” Tremaynne spat.

“Excuse me? What corruption?”

“The corruption that creates places like this. Do you know what was here before?”

I shook my head.

“Nothing. Totally unspoiled land.” He got up and came close, gently tracing the pattern of the rose tattoo on my breast. “Untouched wilderness habitat.”

He was like a snake charmer, and I was the snake.

His hands slid under my skirt, up my thighs. With sudden fierce kisses he pressed me back against the marble sink. “Let's get out of here,” he whispered. “Let's go someplace else.”

“Where?”

“Out into the woods.”

“In what?”

He jangled the keys to the SUV. “We'll take a blanket. Swim in the river. Sleep under the stars. Come on, Venus.”

“Not this time,” I said. “Next time.”

He was instantly off me. His voice turned harsh. “There is no next time. There's only now, Venus. This is it.”

“What are you saying?”

“It's me or the dads, babe.”

My heart was racing. “You said you
wanted
to come out here. To the lodge.”

“I wanted to check the place out. I did. And now I know.”

“Know what?”

“It's even worse than we thought.”

“Who's we?”

He turned away.

My throat clenched but I was determined not to cry. “You've treated me like shit all day,” I managed to choke out. “You even accused me of having genital herpes, which I don't. But
you
do. So
you
go get the fucking rubbers, and then you'd better do something nice, so I'll want to be with you.”

“Hey, Venus—”

“Life's a feast, Tremaynne, and I'm not going to starve to death.”

“Venus, wait—”

I was out the door before he could stop me.

P
arty sounds rose from below as I gloomily made my way along the second-floor hallway, stilettos clicking on the flagstones. Part of me wanted to run back to Tremaynne. Part of me wanted to punch him. Part of me wanted to rewind my life up to the point where I met him and then start all over again from there.

Would I marry him again, knowing what I knew now?

It was almost like he'd turned into a complete stranger. Alone, in my apartment, unmarried, we'd been so happy. But now that spell had been broken. We'd been hatched into a new world. And the real test of our love was just beginning.

In my heart of hearts I was praying that Tremaynne would make an effort, come after me, surprise me. It wouldn't take much. Everything in me was yearning to make up. To be with him. But in this world, not outside in the wilderness.

Some honeymoon. Maybe it was time to morph into someone else for a while.

Sometimes the best thing to do is become a little girl again. Whenever my own life seems too crappy and confusing to deal with, I just switch it off and turn into a mindless daddy's girl. I follow the dads around and watch from the sidelines, the way I used to do when I was eight and thrown into their social life in New York. All their friends were nice to me. I got a lot of attention. A kid in that Manhattan world of careers and connections was a rarity, a curiosity. I didn't have to do anything except pretend not to be the angry little girl I really was.

I hated the dads back then. I could never be the absolute sum total of their existence, the way I was with my mom back in Portland. The dads would buy me expensive new clothes, dress me up the way they wanted me to look, and then drag me along wherever they went. In Manhattan I was always terrified and excited at the same time. I never knew where I'd be next, and I had no identity except as the dads' part-time daughter.

All those Manhattan parties. The endless introductions. The nonstop networking. The insane devotion to careers and money. “What do you do?” one of their friends once asked me.

“I'm a child,” I said.

Much as I resented them and their endless social drive, I wasn't blind to the fact that the dads were in love. It was
their
relationship that came first, not Daddy's and mine. And it was their love that I found so puzzling. Where did it come from? It seemed to give the two of them a kind of mysterious stability that was entirely lacking in my chaotic, rummage-sale life with Carolee back on the West Coast.

I was jealous of their love.

I still was.

The partners I found never gave me that quiet, steady glow of happiness I always associated with the dads. It was starting to worry me. Like my mom, I seemed to have absolutely no ability to judge character. I was so greedy for love that I took whatever presented itself. I was like a starving dog. Throw a bone my way and I was on it in a flash.

I clicked on down the hallway, half taking in Daddy's calm, orderly building. Stone and wood walls were interspersed with giant out-thrust windows. At the end of the hallway I came out into a bright open space over the lobby. The walls and ceiling were glass. There was a dramatic staircase, perfect for making an entrance, but I pressed the button for the elevator instead.

A light went on. The elevator door opened. A movie star was standing inside. A name so big that I couldn't even say it to myself. He smiled. I stared. I couldn't move. The door closed.

I ran over to the banister to watch him get out on the lobby level, right below where I was standing. Was it really? It was. You could sense the atmosphere changing, shifting to accommodate his fame. People tried not to stare. He smiled. Waved at someone. Everything he did looked casual, but you could see it as a picture in
People
magazine. A man wearing a black suit came forward to shake his hand. Cameras flashed.

The vast two-story room next to the lobby, called the Great Hall, was crammed with laughing, chattering people. From above, I could see all the little groups of twos and threes and fours. Gleaming bald heads, slender tanned shoulders, lots of blonde hair, gold jewelry and diamonds. People were talking, drinking and eating. Three stuffed birds with long tails—pheasants maybe?—were artfully arranged along a gleaming wood table piled with food. Another table served as a bar. The enormous stone fireplace was banked with urns of wildflowers. Some guy was playing tunes on a grand piano. He must have been famous because a lot of people were standing around watching him.

I looked for Harrison Ford and Susan Sarandon but didn't see them.

The Really Big Name carefully swam out into the crowd. His presence goosed up the level of conversation. There were shrieks of laugher. Heads swiveled in his direction.

I remembered the lurid stories about how he'd been arrested in L.A. with a young black prostitute. I was, like, totally shocked. Someone that famous, and that handsome, had to go to a prostitute for sex? His career nose-dived, but lately he'd made a comeback with three hit movies. Romantic comedies. There was talk that he was going to boost his career by doing an action flick with lots of kung-fu and car crashes.

The Great Hall where the party was being held opened out onto broad stone terraces front and back. People went in and out, back and forth. The glass roof and walls were so clean they looked invisible. It was like being outdoors. I could see the sky glowing with the last of the soft evening light. It all looked magical, unreal. If my husband had been with me, everything would have been perfect.

As I stood there watching the scene, I was suddenly overcome with a wrenching sense of loneliness. I'd felt this before, but never so acutely. It's because of this feeling that I got into drink and drugs when I was fifteen.

The feeling was that I was a complete outsider. Always had been and always would be.

Like now. Where did I belong?

I could enter that glittering world below only as the daughter of the dads. I had no other claim to be there, amidst fame and money and beauty and talent. Or I could go back to Tremaynne, the husband who hated everything this place stood for, and sneak away into the woods with him.

But I'd gotten my fill of nature that afternoon. I was afraid to go back into the forest. I could see it out there, looming in on all sides, dark, mysterious, full of bugs, snakes, and wild animals.

So there I stood, stuck between two identities, neither of them my own. If I wasn't daughter or wife, who was I? I had no career. I was a twenty-five-year-old twice-divorced bankrupt chick who worked in a porn shop. There was nothing that made me unique.

“I thought you were dead,” I heard a breathless voice behind me say.

Startled, I whirled around. It was the cute young woman who'd been working as a valet when we arrived. Now she was wearing a bow tie and standing there in front of me with a tray of bottled waters.

“Didn't you die in a car accident?” she asked, sounding worried. “In Europe somewhere?”

“I don't think so.”

“I read it somewhere,” she insisted.

“Shouldn't believe everything you read.” I had to stop myself from automatically flirting with her.

“You hardly have any accent at all,” she gushed. “If I didn't know, I'd think you were American.”

I smiled dumbly, not knowing what the fuck she was talking about.

Her green eyes bored into me. “You're, like, Swedish or Icelandic or something, aren't you? It's hard to tell from your name.”

And just what was my name, I wondered. Mrs. Phillip Klunk? Ms. Venus Woods? Miss Venus Gilroy?

“I saw your last music video,” the young woman went on. “Kristin” was printed on her name tag. She wore no makeup. Freckles were splattered across her nose like cinnamon on cream. She looked disgustingly healthy, like an older version of Pippi Longstocking. “It was so awesome.”

I could see the worshipful awe in her big green eyes. It gave my sagging ego a sudden boost.

“My parents caught me watching it,” Kristin confided. “They grounded me for a
month.”

“Why?”

“The church!” she exclaimed. “That was three years ago. I was only eighteen.” She gave me a bold look. “I've got my own place now.”

“Which video was it?” I asked nonchalantly.

“That one where you're naked on the big white horse.” She momentarily came to her senses. “Oh gosh, I'm so rude. They're going to fire me.” She proffered the tray. “Would you care for an advanced hydration delivery beverage?”

“A what?”

“Water. That's what we have to call it.”

“Why?”

She shrugged. “Someone who owns the company was an investor or something.” She couldn't take her eyes away from the rose tattoo on my boob. It seemed to fascinate and frighten her.

I recognized a groupie when I saw one, having groupie tendencies myself. I suddenly understood how JD or any performer would get high off adoration. It felt kind of dangerous. Like I had this secret power if I ever dared to use it.

Down below, I finally caught sight of Daddy and Whitman. They were standing with Marielle and Fokke, their Dutch friends. Fokke was an investor in Pine Mountain Lodge.

Daddy saw me first. He waved. The others looked up and waved. I waved back.

Kristin hungrily watched my every move. “Are those your handlers?”

I spit out a laugh. “Sort of.”

“Famous people
never
travel alone,” she affirmed. “They've all got, like, an entourage. Before I started working here, I never heard that word used for people. Handlers. Only for animals.”

My handlers, all four of them, were motioning for me to come down. Even from a distance Marielle looked stunning. She was wearing a shimmering pure white Chinese-looking neck-to-ankle sheath that accentuated her height. Her big yellow diamonds flashed and sparkled.

I adjusted my coffee-stained shawl. “I gotta go.”

“Oh, sure,” Kristin nodded. “Hey, do you think you could give me your autograph?”

“I don't have anything to write on.”

Kristin set down her tray. She pulled a piece of paper and a pen from her pocket and thrust them at me.

I still didn't know who I was supposed to be. “What do you want me to write?”

She thought for a moment. “Just put: ‘To my dear friend Kristin. Who's not the geek she looks like. I hope you'll look me up when you come visit me in'—where?”

“Iceland?” I suggested.

“ ‘Iceland. My number is—' ” She looked over my shoulder. I could feel her warm breath, smell her apple-scented shampoo. “Then write down your phone number.”

“I probably won't be there,” I said. “I'm always on tour.”

“Oh.” She sounded disappointed. “Sure.”

I handed her the paper.

“Thanks.” She read it, smiling, then suddenly looked crestfallen. “You didn't sign it!”

I took the paper back. “How do you want me to sign it?”

“With your name, of course,” she laughed. She saw me hesitating. “Just put, ‘Love, Godiva.'”

It was such a relief to finally know who I was.

 

 

Daddy was famous for his dramatic staircases. They were like his signature in a building. The staircase at Pine Mountain Lodge was a long curving swoop of stainless steel and wood unattached to the wall. I decided to make my entrance that way instead of by elevator.

I knew that people were watching me. Maybe they all thought I was Godiva, whoever she was. I gave all my fans a big closed-mouth smile as I headed down to pick up my Grammy.

Just as I reached the next to the last step my ankle gave out. It didn't hurt, but it just, like, collapsed. I let out a gasp of surprise and pitched forward on my stilettos. Arms flailing, desperately trying to keep my balance, I careened across the lobby and was about to crash into a wall when a pair of strong arms suddenly caught and held me.

“Jesus Christ!” I gasped. I was so embarrassed I couldn't look into my rescuer's eyes.

A deep voice with a foreign accent asked if I was all right.

“Yeah, I think so. My ankle just sort of collapsed.” I straightened up and put my full weight on it. “Seems okay now.”

It was then that I looked into his dark eyes and realized who he was. I sucked in a shocked breath. He blinked, as surprised as I was.

“It's you?” He smiled. “Laurie Ann?” But then, as if some inner warning had gone off, his eyes flicked nervously back and forth, scanning the crowd. “What are you doing here?” he whispered.

“I'm on my honeymoon,” I whispered back.

“But I thought you were already married.”

“I was. This is a new one.”

Daddy and Whitman hurried over and began fussing.

“Well, you certainly know how to make an entrance,” Whitman said.

“It was her ankle,” my rescuer said.

“Lean back,” Whitman ordered, “let me feel.”

Daddy clasped me under my armpits and tilted me back while Whitman lifted my leg and examined my ankle. I felt like we were part of a dance team.

“Thanks,” Daddy smiled at my rescuer. “We'll take her from here.”

“Which one is your husband?” Marcello whispered in my ear.

I couldn't help it. I started to laugh as the dads led me away.

 

 

“Is that who I think it was?” Whitman asked Daddy in a secretive undertone.

Daddy nodded. “We'll go back and I'll introduce you.”

Those were the hushed, tactical tones they used for business or professional maneuvering at parties in New York. But it was Marcello they were talking about, wasn't it?