“All right, your story wasn’t the crack up I thought it was gonna be, but I believe it. And I doubt Weepy Boy over here is gonna snatch any more purses, that right?” Toby shook his head emphatically. “You seem like a nice enough girl. Can I give you a bit of advice? You don’t have to be Evel Knievel to get a guy to fall in love with you. My wife didn’t do squat to get me hooked. She still don’t do much, but I love her. It’ll happen or it won’t, and if it don’t it just means there’s someone else.” I felt like I was his teenage daughter hearing that if a boy didn’t like me it was his loss. “You’re a terrific little lady, you hear me?”
“What about some love for Ruby?” one of the hookers taunted Marman.
“Owww, child,” said her friend. “We ain’t never gettin’ outta here tonight.”
“Death row for three ho!” Ruby said as she laughed.
I leaned in closer to Marman and asked what would become of these women. He said they would likely be bailed out by their pimp later that night and beaten for cutting into his profits. Or, he might not show up and they would be sent to Las Colinas Women’s Detention Center. “Most likely back out on the streets tomorrow night with a black eye and a fat lip,” he said far too casually.
“How much is their bail?” I asked.
“You’re not thinkin’—”
“How much?” I said.
“Two grand a piece,” he said. “You got that kind of money?”
“Can I write you a check?”
Officer Marman laughed. “Miss Warren, you seem like a good kid, but we don’t take checks from anyone. Ever heard of fraud?”
Heard of it? I’m living it.
“Give me an hour to get back here, okay? Come on, Toby. You’re coming back to Coronado with me.”
I gave Toby an extra couple hundred dollars for his trouble that evening, got him into a taxi, and returned to the police station, which looked like a warmer place than when I’d first passed through its doors an hour earlier. After taking care of Ruby, Tiffani, and Parfait’s bail, I handed Marman an envelope with five hundred-dollar bills in it. “Look,” I whispered. “This is not a bribe, okay? You just gave me some very good advice and I want to thank you. In this envelope is the name of a woman who lost her driver’s license because I asked her to pretend to pass out in the zoo so I could save her. Anyway, there’s no reason she shouldn’t drive so if you could—”
Marman grabbed the envelope and opened it. “This isn’t a bribe?” he asked skeptically. “It’s for my good advice?”
I shook my head. Marman took the slip of paper with Julie’s name and tucked it in his shirt pocket, then handed the envelope full of cash back to me. “Miss Warren, this is a bribe in the first degree. You wouldn’t pay Sigmund Freud himself this kind of money for his advice.”
My male consultant gets a lot more and he’s a complete idiot.
“But—” I attempted.
“Miss Warren, first off, we don’t have any say in license suspension. Second, what I told you was ʼcause you seem like a nice girl. A nice girl who’s had a hard life and don’t have anyone around to tell her that any guy would be crazy not to fall in love with her. Not ʼcause she can do a backflip or jump through hoops to prove how great she is, but because she’s good and kind and cares about people. ‘Cause she’s pretty, creative, clever, and a little bit nutty. And she loves family. That counts, Miss Warren. All of this counts a hell of a lot more than you know. That’s why I told you what I did, not ‘cause I thought you were gonna
pay
me for it. People say nice things to each other without getting paid for it. I know some people at the DMV. I’ll see what I can do for your friend. It don’t seem right that she can’t drive if you swear to me on your ... just promise me that you’re telling me the truth that she didn’t really go out cold ‘cause, if that’s the case, she really shouldn’t be driving.”
“I promise,” I said to my surrogate father for the evening.
“Free at last!” I heard Ruby’s voice echo through the corridors. “Free at last, free at last. Good God Almighty, I’m free at last!”
When I returned home, my cup of cold tea sat on the kitchen countertop. It had been nearly four hours since I’d been home, but that mug with its pressed Tetley tea bag sitting in a spoon beside it seemed like a relic from a former life. After leaving the station, I paid Ruby, Tiffani, and Parfait to be my bitches for the night. At first, they assumed I wanted to have sex with them, a great disappointment to Parfait, who quickly announced that she “hated eating punany.” I didn’t have any desire to have sex with any of these women—or women in general—but couldn’t help wondering why the thought of me was so repelling to a hooker. Much to her relief, I took the three of them to a diner and asked them each what they would do if they didn’t have to street walk. Parfait and Tiffani didn’t know, but Ruby said she would be a dancer, a singer, a model, and the CEO of a recording label.
At times during my evening as Richard Gere in
Pretty Woman,
I felt like the benevolent John empowering Ruby by asking her to focus more on what she wanted from life. At other moments, I suspected my motives weren’t as pure. Perhaps I was a voyeur peeking into the unseemly underworld of poor prostitutes, both repelled and intrigued by their plight. I felt guilty driving across the bridge that separated our island from the rest of the city, and returning to my life of clean granite countertops and crystal vases.
The number four blinked on my answering machine, letting me know I had messages.
Beep—
Hi, it’s Greta, touching base about tomorrow morning. Don’t forget we’re having the team brunch at the Big Kitchen afterward.
Beep—
Men are total dickheads
, Vicki launched without introduction.
I am so pissed off right now I could scream. Anyway, I found the most amazing stained glass window at Architectural Salvage. It’s sacrilege to even describe it as just a window. It’s a work of art. Anyway, I put it on hold for you to look at after the lunch thingy tomorrow. I hope you don’t think I’m being pushy, it’s just perfect with—”
Beep—
Mona Lisa, Mona Lisa, men adore you
, a very drunk Mike sang into the phone with a soundtrack of sports bar behind him.
I’ve been looking for love in all the wrong places, looking for love in too many faces
—” he switched before fumbling to hang up.
Beep—
Hello, Mona. It’s Adam calling to see that you’re okay after tonight’s incident. I guess you’re sleeping. I’ll call you tomorrow. I had a terrific time tonight, aside from the mugging. You really are a lot of fun.
Immediately, I picked up the phone and dialed, hoping it wasn’t too late to call. “Hello,” he said groggily.
“I woke you up, didn’t I?”
“Hey,” he said, pleased. “No, it’s okay. Is everything okay?”
“Fine, I just wanted to return your call. You sounded kind of, um, well, troubled.”
“You mean drunk. Sorry about that.” I heard a woman’s sleepy voice call Mike’s name.
“Oh, you’re, um, with someone. We can talk later.”
Mike muffled the phone and then returned to me. “Don’t worry about it. Hold on a sec,” he said as I imagined him slipping on his sweatpants and leaving a mass of blond hair on a pillow beside him. “Let me get to the other room.”
“No, that’s okay, I don’t want to interrupt your, um, night,” I stammered.
“I said not to worry about it. My friend is just sleeping.”
“Good friend?” I asked, trying my hardest not to sound jealous.
“New friend,” he said nonchalantly.
Too chipper, I said, “How great! This is a bad time to talk so why don’t we—”
“Mona Lisa, it’s one-thirty. You wouldn’t’ve called if it wasn’t important. What’s up? I’m in another room now. I’m all yours.”
All mine?! All mine?! You just had sex with a stranger! How “all mine” could you be, you perma-trolling fuck hound?!
“Um, okay. I just wanted to tell you that you were right about the purse-snatching thing. It didn’t go the way I’d planned.”
“I told you that one was a loser, Mona Lisa,” Mike said. “Stick with the sports references. I’m telling you that’s the best card we’ve played.” I imagined him sinking into a denim La-Z-Boy, and wondered what his home looked like. Probably a huge flat screen television was the focal point of his otherwise bare living room. Maybe a small leather sofa right in front of it and a functionally ugly table to support beer bottles and chip bowls. “Guys aren’t into this superhero shit. You know the only reason we dig Wonder Woman is ‘cause of her rack and invisible plane, right? Catwoman, too. I don’t even know what she does, but she sure looks good in that vinyl suit. Maybe that’s what you need to do, Mona. Get into the whole costume thing.”
“Mike, your sister bought my entire wardrobe. I
am
into the whole costume thing.”
He laughed. “I remember that first time I met you with that smock thing and clogs. You looked like something out of a gardening magazine.”
“Mike, focus. What am I going to do?” I hoped he’d tell me to forget about Adam, and promise that tonight’s bargirl was his last one-night stand. I silently begged to hear something sweet. I’d even take the drunken serenade at this point, but he sounded completely sober and sung out.
“Okay, the way I see it, you’ve been making a lot of assumptions about what you think this guy wants in a woman. You’ve gotta figure out what really turns him on. What his hot buttons are. What are some of the things he does in his free time?”
“Mike!” I shouted. “
You
told me to have a sordid past. I pay you so I don’t have to make assumptions about him. You’re supposed to be the male consultant!”
“And you were supposed to be Claudia Schiffer,” he said. “I never said I had any great inside track to the male mind. You chose me ‘cause you thought I could help you. I never said I’d be any good at this.”
“Well, you’re useless!” I shouted. Softening, I asked if he would still advise me if weren’t paying him.
“I wouldn’t know you.”
You are such a guy!!!!!
“Okay, but if you already knew me and we were friends, would you spend time with me on the phone listening to my problems and giving me advice? Or is this all just about the money for you? I mean if I fired you, would we still be friends?”
“You firing me?” he asked. Until that moment, I hadn’t considered it, but I wondered if Mike’s interest in me was purely economic. There was only one way to ever find out for sure, and asking him wasn’t it.
“Yes, Mike. I’m firing you.”
“Whoa. Okay. I didn’t know you weren’t happy with the way things were going. You seemed okay with how things were. When did this come on?”
“It’s not you, it’s me,” I told him. “I just don’t want to feel like this is all about the money. Every time I talk to you, I wonder if it’s only ‘cause you’re being paid.”
“Oh. I didn’t know you thought that. Okay then, I’m off the payroll, I guess,” he said.
Say it ain’t so! Tell me you love talking to me and you’ll still be a part of my life even after I fire you.
“Are we still friends? Will I still see you?” I asked a bit too desperately.
“I’ll see you tomorrow at the soccer game,” he said.
“Are you going to the brunch afterward?”
“I don’t know, maybe. I’ll see how I feel tomorrow.” He yawned. “Right now I’m thinking I’ll be lucky to make it to the game. I’m gonna get back to bed, Mona Lisa.”
Back to bed. Back to bed. Back to bed with HER!
I washed my face and watched the mascara stream from my eyes. I carefully wiped away black tears with the makeup remover Vicki suggested I use to avoid pulling my lids into a state of premature wrinkles. Stripping away my expertly applied makeup, I saw my real face, one that was depleted of life, siphoned.
* * *
I woke up in the middle of the night and decided to walk to the naval base in my slippers. Tonight, I would take the greatest risk of my life and scale the wall of North Island while the nation was just days away from declaring war on Iraq. I knew if I made it inside without being detected, everything would be okay. Perhaps I would just tip toe into the commissary and steal a Chipwich, or maybe I’d sneak into the mess hall, peel and shred potatoes to surprise the cooks with ready-to-fry hash browns for breakfast Whatever I did was really irrelevant It was making it inside during a time of heightened security that was my primary goal.
The thud of my body landing on the grass inside the naval base set off a series of lights that scanned the ground until fixing on me. I saw myself, looking like a blinded silhouette sitting beneath a UFO. “Put your hands in the air, Miss Warren,” an unseen man blared from the base public announcement system. “Don’t make a move or we’ll have no choice but to shoot.”
Next thing I knew, I was sitting in an interrogation room, wearing no underpants and smoking a cigarette like Sharon Stone in
Basic Instinct
. Except no one looked particularly titillated by me nor did I feel sexy wearing a patch of grass on my left arm. “Miss Warren, trespassing onto a U.S. military base is a capital crime.”
“Capital crime?” I shuddered at the faceless captain. “As in death penalty?”
“Precisely,” said another uniform.
“But I didn’t do anything except try to come inside. I was just going to look around, I wasn’t going to—”
“Silence!” the captain shouted. “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.”
What curtain?
“Your intentions are irrelevant, Miss Warren. You have committed an act of treason against the homeland, and now you will get what you deserve.” With these words, my hands were cuffed and my body yanked from the metal chair. I sat up and my eyes shot open, rescuing me back into a state of consciousness.
“Good God,” I said to no one, wiping a layer of sweat from my forehead. My heart still raced as if I were about to be escorted to the naval death chamber. I turned on my light and scanned the room to assure myself that I was indeed safe in my own bed. I leaned back into my pillows, silently repeating that there was no place like home. I fell asleep to the sound of Officer Marman’s voice: “You had your ruby slippers all along.”
Greta and I drove to Vicki’s house the next morning to pick her up for the game. Vicki’s car had broken down and she had no means of transportation other than her friends and the less-than-efficient San Diego mass transit system. Most of the time, economic class was an intellectual concept, not something I got to see firsthand. Of course, I knew there were “those less fortunate,” as Grammy used to call people with limited means, but they were these nameless, faceless people for whom we would collect food at Christmas. Or, removing ourselves even one step further, we would attend elegant garden luncheons or hat parties to benefit the “less fortunate.” Vicki wasn’t quite at the level of a canned food recipient, but driving through her neighborhood posed a stark contrast to the streets we’d driven to exit the island.