Slate (6 page)

“You can't—” Sweeney began to protest, now somewhat flustered.

“Can't
what
?” asked Valentine, matching Sweeney's earlier hypocritical smile. “Write what you like in your column—about me, about this bar. We're calling it Slate, by the way. But it doesn't matter what you write, because when I open on New Year's Eve, you'll be here along with every other faggot in Boston.”

“I wouldn't count on it,” said Sweeney, with a resumption of his dignity. “I just wouldn't count on it.” He turned sharply on his heel and swept out of the bar, slamming the door behind him.

C
LARISSE PAUSED IN HER headlong rush down the stairs as she saw a white rectangle being slid beneath the street door. The paper was given one last flick from outside, and it spun around and came to rest on the newly scrubbed marble tile. She flew down the remaining steps and yanked open the door. A raw wind blew a sheet of rain across her face as she leaned out and looked in both directions along Warren Avenue, but no one was in sight. Clarisse pulled back inside and retrieved the envelope from the floor. She ran one long fingernail under the flap and sheared the paper open. Inside was a card with a gaudy photograph of the Pig Tail Bridge in South Dakota. Clarisse flipped it open and read the typed message.

— —
YOU ARE CORDIALLY INVITED
— —

TIME:
This Thursday, 7:30-10:00 P.M.

PLACE:
Mr. Fred's Tease 'n' Tint

OCCASION:
To Welcome Our New Neighbors

YOUR HOST
&
HOSTESS:

Mr. Fred
&
Miss America Perelli

Clarisse put the invitation back into its envelope and with her fountain pen scrawled across the front: “We're going. No argument.” Then she shoved it into Valentine's mailbox.

Clarisse was about to fling herself out the door when she noticed a letter in her own box. She unlocked it and took it out. It was another invitation to the party. In Valentine's hand, scrawled across the front in green ink was the message: “I'm not letting you out of this one.”

At the appointed time on Thursday night, Valentine arrived at the Tease 'n' Tint. Mr. Fred greeted Valentine with a broad smile.

The roundness of Mr. Fred's face was emphasized by his large hazel eyes and bushy mustache and echoed by the rest of his body. His rotundity and the shining clearness of his skin made him appear younger than his thirty-five years; in fact, Mr. Fred looked like a baby pumped full of helium. Mr. Fred Perelli was, moreover, a vision of neatness, from his carefully shaped hair to his carefully starched dark blue smock and highly polished white wing tips. There was a charming hesitancy in his gestures and in his speech, and his eyes were constantly watchful of those around him as if gauging whether they were happy with him or not. The week before, in a neighborly gesture, Mr. Fred had brought a large box of Italian bakery cookies to the bar for the workmen and had introduced himself in a neighborly way to Valentine.

“I don't know where Clarisse is, Mr. Fred,” said Valentine, now stepping into the shop and looking around curiously. It was the first time he had been inside.

There were only two hair-cutting stations, each with a lime-green Formica shelf and a large circular mirror behind. On one of these shelves was a large glass punchbowl, and the other held an array of liquor bottles and mixers. Miss America's manicure table was against a wall and on it were two ice buckets and a stack of parti-colored paper napkins. There were no other guests and no sign of Miss America. Valentine asked, “Am I early?”

“You're right on time,” said Mr. Fred. “Clarisse is already here,” he added, with a gesture toward the door to the back room. Then he said, with a tilt of his head and a glance at his makeshift bar, “I'm flawless with henna rinses, but I couldn't mix a decent drink to save my life. Besides, I'd be nervous fixing a drink for a real bartender.”

Valentine nodded absently, for he was looking carefully at Mr. Fred's hair. It occurred to him that it had been a different style the week before. Then he realized that it also had been a different color. “Let me go ask Clarisse what she wants first. Is it all right if I go in back?” Mr. Fred smiled and nodded. Valentine went into the small back room. On one side was the sink for washing customers' hair, and on the other were several out-of-date dryers. Clarisse was under one of these, the old-fashioned plastic cone pulled down over her head. Her legs were crossed, and she read silently from an open law text resting in her lap. She looked up when Valentine loudly called her name.

“Is Mr. Fred doing your hair?” Valentine asked, surprised. “Raymond's going to be furious.”

Clarisse raised the cone. Her hair was dry and she'd pushed it back off her ears with small ornamental combs at each temple. “I didn't have my hair done. I just had to get these last few pages down and this dryer is great for concentration. I know it's rude, but my career comes before politeness.”

Valentine shrugged. “There's nobody out there. You and I are the first ones here. I guess the South End doesn't like to be the first to arrive at a party.”

At the back of the small room was an aqua curtain, and just then a shadow from behind crossed its folds. Valentine heard the clatter of dishes and a sweet musical humming. Clarisse evidently heard none of it.

She tapped the cone above her head. “These things are great. They're like sticking your head in a vacuum. I'm thinking of buying this old one from Mr. Fred for the apartment.”

“Your place is soundproof.”

“You tell me that when Susie and Julia are taping ‘Battle of the Network Stars' right underneath me.”

“What would you like to drink?”

“A Pearl Harbor.”

“I'm out of Mídori,” said Mr. Fred apologetically, coming up from behind. “And I forgot the grapefruit juice.”

“Scotch and water then, Mr. Fred,” said Clarisse with a smile. “But that will have to be my only drink of the evening. I have an exam tomorrow.”

Clarisse went back to her book, and Mr. Fred followed Valentine back to the bar. As Valentine prepared the drinks for Clarisse and himself, Mr. Fred poured a glass of 7-Up.

“Who else have you invited?” Valentine asked.

“Oh…everybody,” replied Mr. Fred with a vague smile. “Everybody,” he repeated more firmly, as if that were a slightly better explanation.

“Mr. Fred,” a light female voice called from the back room. “Would you come help me with the hors d'oeuvres, please?”

“Coming,” Fred responded immediately. He took his 7-Up and Clarisse's drink as well, and hurried toward the back.

Alone at the front of the shop, Valentine looked about. The overhead lights had been dimmed, but not enough to relieve completely the effect of purple-flocked wallpaper and lime-green furnishings. Valentine stepped closer to the long wall and examined the photographs of the exotic models displaying three generations of exotic hairdos. The styles of the fifties most fascinated him, and he went down the row of photographs, pausing briefly before each. When he reached the last, he took a long swallow of his drink and turned, startled to find Miss America Perelli standing behind him.

“Pick a state,” she said with a smile.

Miss America was nearly her brother's height, but slender and pale, with short curly chestnut hair. Her eyebrows were thick, the lashes long, and she was wearing her white manicurist uniform. Pinned just above her left breast was a stickpin bearing the image of Old Faithful above the word
Yellowstone
. Her earrings were tiny lumps of coal, rounded and glazed, with the letters
W. Va
. etched into them. Valentine's first impression of her remained: there was something forlorn about Miss America, as if she had just that moment despaired of ever having the opportunity to hike up the slope of Mount St. Helens. On a manicurist's tray around her neck was a platter bearing a number of small sandwiches, the crustless bread dyed a rainbow of pastels, and cut into the shape of all the continental United States.

Valentine picked up a pale blue Mississippi and bit into it—cream cheese and chives, also dyed blue, but tasty.

“I didn't mean to make Mr. Fred abandon you out here,” said Miss America with a confiding smile. “It's just that I get so nervous when he's around liquor.”

“I see,” said Valentine blandly, not caring to pursue that matter.

“Mr. Fred used to be a terrible lush,” Miss America went on, “but he stopped drinking right after the apartment sale.”

Valentine looked over the tray for a second sandwich.

“Try Utah,” suggested Miss America. “That's my favorite.”

Valentine picked up pink Utah and put it into his mouth—pimento spread.

“You see,” Miss America said, “one time I went to visit our aunt out in Worcester—about six and a half years ago, I guess—and I made the mistake of leaving Mr. Fred all alone. Well, Mr. Fred went out and got drunk on Friday night, but then on Saturday he ran out of money. So on Saturday afternoon he dragged all the furniture out onto the street, put up a for sale sign, and sold every stick of furniture we owned. We had wall-to-wall carpeting, and he pried it up off the floor. Then he spent all that money on Saturday night. When I came back on Sunday, the whole apartment was empty, and there was Fred, passed out in a sleeping bag on the kitchen floor.”

“Well,” said Valentine uncomfortably, “it looks like he's over that stage.”

“Yes. Do you know that it was a
bartender
who got Mr. Fred to go to AA?”

“Is that right?” Valentine replied with vague interest.

“It certainly is. Not only did he get Fred dried out, but they became lovers, too. Unfortunately, it didn't last.”

“Nothing does,” said Valentine philosophically.

“That's for sure,” said Miss America darkly, pushing a yellow Connecticut toward Valentine with an exquisitely manicured finger. “Last year, Mr. Fred fell off the wagon and used the rent money to put a down payment on a chimpanzee. I have to keep an eye on Mr. Fred every minute. I hate to have to say it, but Mr. Fred is just not ready to deal with the world on the world's terms. And that's where I—”

Valentine was saved by the bell over the front door. Julia and Susie had come in. “Oh, excuse me,” said Miss America, and went to greet them.

Susie wore a severely tailored gold silk outfit designed in the style of a garage mechanic's one-piece coveralls. A patch sewn above the breast pocket read, in crimson thread,
Lube Jobs
. Julia wore jeans, a red flannel shirt, and a many-zippered, -pocketed, and -belted black leather jacket. Her black motorcycle cap was drawn down so low that the brim cast her eyes in deep shadow. Julia's fists were plunged deeply into the pockets of her jacket, and her elbows were thrust defiantly out.

“I hate parties,” Julia said to Miss America. “I hate meeting new people.”

“There's nobody new here,” said Miss America mildly, looking around. “You already know Daniel. Clarisse is in the back. And that's it. There's nobody else. I wonder,” she went on doubtfully, “if I should have let Mr. Fred plan this whole thing…”

“Where's the beer?” said Julia sharply.

“In the refrigerator in back,” said Miss America. “Mr. Fred!” she called quite loudly and very suddenly. “Here comes Julia. Give her a beer. Quick.”

Julia stalked off.

“Julia's a little upset,” explained Susie with a sigh. “She spent the
whole
afternoon down at the bottom of the Harvard pool, and then they told her that the check would probably take six weeks to come through. Julia gets real upset about money sometimes. The problem is—”

The front bell rang again, and several more guests arrived: young women—white, black, Hispanic, and Oriental; overdressed, over-madeup, over-coiffed, certainly over-perfumed—and all known to Susie. In another few moments, Mr. Fred came out of the back of the shop with Julia and Clarisse.

By now, the bell over the front door rang continually as guests flooded in. It seemed as though they had waited in the Warren Avenue shadows for the correct, fashionable time to arrive. Several cops coming off duty wandered over to pay their respects. The prostitutes, who seemed to make up nearly all of Mr. Fred's clientele, came. Members of the male leather fraternity—the Rubber Duckies—who availed themselves of Miss America's closest cuticle-shearing, dropped by. Proprietors of several small local businesses, sculptors and painters from the Boston Center for the Arts, and neighbors from the area all came by to drink Mr. Fred's punch and liquor and to nibble at Miss America's pastel, geographical sandwiches.

Valentine brought a fresh drink to Clarisse and seated himself in the chair next to her in a small waiting area near the front.

“I shouldn't have this,” she said, sipping it. “I plan to work later on this evening.”