The Desert Rose (16 page)

Her philosophy of being a good sport was soon put to the test since to be gallant Dave opened three different kinds of K rations. For him it was a big deal, sort of like taking her to a fancy restaurant or something, usually he just restricted himself to one kind at a time. The sun was just beginning to come up, which made Harmony wish she had just gone on home and put on her sleep goggles, at least she would have been able to feed the peacocks and make Pepper breakfast. Why was she sitting around smelling garbage trucks when she could have been smelling the desert and feeding her own beautiful child and beautiful birds? Plus she had to eat at least a few bites of the K rations, variety or no variety they were not exactly what a normal person would choose for breakfast.

Dave didn’t have any liquids available except beer so she drank quite a bit in order to wash down the K rations. The smell of the K rations made her a little nauseous. She thought this is a disaster I’ve walked into, what am I doing in this kitchen? This is something Jessie would get herself into, how come it’s me this time? To make matters worse Dave began to get his feelings hurt when he noticed she was just sort of picking at the K rations, he had obviously made a special effort by opening three different kinds. He started making remarks like waste not want not, trying to make out like it was joke although it was definitely no joke, nothing about the occasion was what she would call a joke. She felt she was probably going to vomit every time she put a bite in her mouth, her only hope was to immediately wash it down with a lot of beer, but the beer didn’t mix too well at all with the vodka tonics. They might not have had an effect but they were there. She got the feeling she was going to be very lucky not to get sick, although she could usually eat anything, it had just been quite a while since she had given her stomach that much of a test.

She told herself she was never going near that particular
craps table again, Gene could pine all he wanted to, it wasn’t worth it. While she was wondering what she’d do on her breaks from then on Dave sprang a surprise. He had just been sitting there reproachfully, watching that she didn’t somehow manage to sneak the rest of the K rations down the Disposall or something, then suddenly he forgot about the K rations and jumped at her, his hand went right between her legs before she could even drop her fork. Maybe it wasn’t a total surprise, she had sort of guessed he was thinking about it, she would just have expected a little more subtlety though, an invitation to inspect the bedroom or something, although there wasn’t really a bedroom, just a little living room with a turquoise rug and a daybed. It was just about the time Dave made his move that the vodka tonics plus the beer finally had an effect.

She felt sort of disconnected while the big event was happening, not that she tried to stop it, anything was better than eating K rations and anyway, after all, she had been the one who had taken him off hold. Besides, it was a short event, Dave was disappointed in himself and said he was out of practice, it had been quite a while, which made her feel a little sorry for him, so what if he liked K rations? it was just his Marine background. She held him close for a while, after all he had needed her a lot and she did like the gray streak. It was too bad he had such a horrible apartment, Pepper would have some awful things to say if she ever saw that turquoise rug. Dave seemed sort of helpless lying there beside her. She couldn’t help feeling a little love, although she did plan to avoid the two-dollar craps table for a while.

Then when Dave slept she got dressed and found that besides the K rations there was no phone. She had to use a pay phone across the street at a laundromat to call Pepper and tell her she would have to cook her own breakfast, Jessie’s operation would probably be taking place anytime.
Pepper was kind of uncommunicative but that was nothing new. “I guess you spent the night at the Waldorf-Astoria, is that right Mother?” she inquired. Harmony just let it pass, why go into it? At least Pepper promised to tell Myrtle about Jessie’s accident. Myrtle and Wendell worried about Jessie constantly, maybe they would want to send some nice flowers.

IV

N
O SOONER
had her mother hung up than the phone rang again and it was Bonventre, he said he hoped he hadn’t awakened her, obviously he was making a big effort to be super-polite. Nope, I’m up, she said, and waited—she wasn’t going to build his ego by giving him any chatter, chatter was her mother’s department.

“The reason I’m calling is about the audition,” he said. “We were wondering if you could come this afternoon at about three?”

“How long will it take?” she asked. For all she knew she could be getting married that afternoon.

“Oh, about an hour, we just want you to try out a few routines,” he said.

“How about two-thirty then?” Pepper asked. “My lesson starts at three-thirty and Madonna doesn’t like it if I’m late.”

“Fine,” Bonventre said. “And if you’re late and she gives you any trouble I’ll just send someone to strangle her.”

That was the kind of remark he was famous for—Pepper just let it pass.

“If you like we’ll send a car to get you at school,” he said, he was definitely coming on like Mr. Smooth.

“It’s okay, I got a car,” she said. “I’ll just show up. Why did you say Madonna had an ass like a prune?”

She just thought she’d hit him with that, why not? He was surprised, too—there was total silence on the line for quite a few seconds. Then he finally managed a chuckle.

“Pepper, it was just a lovers’ quarrel, don’t take it seriously,” he said.

Bullshit, she thought, you’re not Madonna’s lover, but she didn’t say it. He sort of chuckled again, he seemed to find her attitude pretty amusing.

“How did one like Harmony ever have one like you?” he said. “See you at two-thirty.”

The stupid peacocks were pecking at the screen door, they were pissed that their momma hadn’t come home to scatter them some corn. Their momma had sounded pretty drunk, in fact, no doubt she had met some criminal on the order of Denny and had popped right in bed with him, that was totally par for the course. Pepper threw a few handfuls of bird feed out in the yard, at least it would keep them from pecking a hole in the screen. She got a bowl of cereal and some orange juice and went to see if Myrtle had survived the night or if Wendell had got the Buick fixed or what.

Myrtle was already outside in her bathing suit. Once in a while when the garage sale scene had gone totally dead she got on a sunbathing kick and would sit around in her bathing suit rubbing oil on herself. It was grotesque since she was a total mass of freckles anyway. The tow truck and the Buick were there, only the Buick hadn’t been disconnected from the tow truck, probably Wendell had been too tired when he got home.

Myrtle had already oiled herself good, which annoyed Maude—she didn’t like the smell. Maude was the world’s most spoiled goat, all right. She immediately came over and began to butt Pepper’s shins a little, she was hoping for some of the cereal.

“Get away from her, you little bitch!” Myrtle said. She was hung over and not in a fantastic mood. Maude totally ignored her, she sort of acted like she was starving so Pepper let her clean out the cereal bowl once she had eaten all she wanted.

“Hey, can I use the Buick if you’re going to sunbathe?” Pepper asked, why let it go to waste?

“I thought you had a Jap driver now,” Myrtle said.

Actually, why go to school? Pepper was thinking, maybe she’d just wake up Woods and they’d skip it and hit the arcades, maybe it was time to reveal that she was going to be his godmother-in-law. Or they could drive out to the lake or something, it didn’t seem like a day for classes.

“Where’s Harmony, them peacocks have been having a fit,” Myrtle said.

“I don’t know, except she’s drunk, she just called,” Pepper said. “Jessie’s stupid disc broke and she shattered her ankle. I think they’re operating on it this morning,”

“Oh lord, Wendell will die,” Myrtle said. “He thinks that Jessie hung the moon.”

“So is he ever going to take the Buick off the tow truck or what?” Pepper asked. So far as she could see the one unusual thing about Jessie was that she was the only one in town who consistently got worse boyfriends than her mother. Of course her intentions were good. She had given Pepper a stuffed animal for every single birthday and Christmas that she could remember. Pepper had the feeling that when she was sixty-five or so she would still be getting two stuffed animals a year from Jessie. Quite a few of them had got practically eaten by Maude, who liked stuffed animals even better than Cheerios. Jessie was always checking on them on her visits and looking real distressed if they happened to have a couple of limbs chewed off or something.

“Jessie’s never been strong,” Myrtle said, she was more upset than she wanted to admit. The next thing she did was kick over her bottle of suntan oil, so that pretty soon a little stream of suntan oil had trickled all the way down the driveway to the road.

“She’s not going to die, she just broke her ankle,” Pepper pointed out. About that time Wendell came out of the
door barefooted, in his pants and undershirt, and stopped and looked sort of puzzled when Myrtle told him the bad news. “My goodness,” he said. That was about all he ever said, but he did go down and unhook the Buick from the tow truck. When Pepper saw that she cut back in the house and got dressed, meaning to get out of there before Myrtle thought of a garage sale she wanted to recheck, in which case she would take the car.

She wanted to call Woods but decided that might arouse suspicion, she just got the Buick and took off and intercepted him just as he got off the school bus. His parents insisted that he ride the bus because they didn’t want him spoiled by money. Woods was one of the few kids around who didn’t have his own car. His mother was a paranoid about car wrecks and just wouldn’t allow it.

Woods was sort of proper in some ways, he wasn’t wild about missing school but on the other hand he was hers to command and when she said it’s hooky day, let’s hit the arcades, he just got in and pretended to vomit at the sight of all the goat hair. “We ought to sell this car to a mohair company, we’d make a fortune,” he said. Still, he considered himself an eccentric and sort of enjoyed riding in the car of a true eccentric like Myrtle.

He had a little dope which they proceeded to smoke and Wood said he needed food so they got him a couple of chili dogs at a place near the Circus Circus. He was in sort of gross condition, seemed to have gained maybe twenty pounds overnight, but it didn’t slow him down at the arcade. Before long he had a little crowd watching, it was obvious just from the way the machine sounded that the king had come. Woods gave it his total concentration. She got a little bored and went out and sat on the fender of the car, thinking more about the audition than about Mel.

The main thing she was wondering was whether she’d have to do the top drop, usually you did at auditions according
to reports. It meant a lot of creeps like Bonventre got a free look at your tits, of course they would get that anyway if she became the lead dancer. Woods finally came out looking a little annoyed, he had been on the verge of breaking his own record at Space Invaders but someone in the crowd had had an epileptic seizure, fell right over backwards according to Woods, naturally it had broken his concentration. Woods was kind of nervous, not because of the guy falling over backwards but because he was afraid someone would spot him and tell his mother. Woods sort of lived in terror of his mother, which was understandable, she definitely wasn’t afraid to punish her kids. No doubt she would ban Woods from the arcades for several months if she knew he was playing hooky.

“I don’t know why I take all these risks, I guess you bring out the masochist in me,” Woods said. He was sort of scrunched down in the seat and was ready to go even lower if they happened to pull up beside his mother at a stoplight. Pepper liked it, it was sort of amusing to keep Woods on the edge of trouble. Buddy would never defy his parents for her or anyone else, he was a total chickenshit in that regard. All Buddy had going for him was his looks.

Woods suggested they go out to the lake, he was more comfortable in an area his mother didn’t frequent, so while they were driving out she sort of told him the big secret, she was going to be his godmother-in-law. Woods had to admit that was kind of the ultimate in weird. He said Mel often came to their house for dinner, he and his parents were very old friends. It was going to be pretty strange having Pepper come to dinner as Mel’s wife. Woods knew all about the lingerie though, that was how Mel knew his mother—when he had been a fashion photographer she had been a lingerie model, hosiery particularly. That was interesting, just from seeing Woods’s mother around the pool it had always struck her that she had great legs.

Woods was definitely glad she was getting rid of Buddy though, he liked to describe Buddy as a local yokel. They sat around the lake for a while, smoking the last of Woods’s dope, then they drove back and she dropped Woods off a block from school, he was going to try and sneak in and do his science lab, hoping no one would notice that he had just arrived.