The Home For Wayward Ladies (8 page)

I stop caring that she’s my idol and take the offensive. “I’m not feeling sorry for myself. I accept my fate, Bette Midler. Take me to the pearly gates. I’ve already made enough mess of my life here. It’s time for me to let go.”

“Oh, Nick, you’re sadder than a sack of rotten potatoes.” When she touches the side of my face, I feel a warmth in parts of me that I swear have been dead for years. As I had always imagined, she glitters when she talks. “It’s not your time, honey. Besides, I don’t have that kind of authority. Taking souls is Liberace’s domain. And you’ll be pleased to know the gates where they send you homos are more rhinestone than pearl. Yes, I can assure you that nothing is dying here tonight except my credibility. Honestly, you owe God one favor and the next thing you know, He’s got you putting in face time in someone’s delusion. And in Washington Heights, no less. Yet I’d still wager that my lousy agents will still try and milk their 10%.” The down feathers in my duvet flutter when she floats down on my bed. It took me all of twenty two years, but with that simple gesture, I finally understand how shiksas feel on Easter.

Despite years of dreaming that someday I’d kibitz with Bette, her manifestation here and now is something of a head scratcher. “But why?” I ask. “Why did you choose tonight of all nights to call on me, Bette Midler? Lo, how I’ve beckoned so many nights before.”

“You need me now more than ever, darling Nick.”

“My mother put you up to this, didn’t she?”

“Nick, your mother is a strong woman, but Bette Midler doesn’t take orders from Tilly Applebaum.” The very idea that her visit is truly a coup with God has me perplexed. If the Divinity and the Divine are such good pals, then what explanation is there for her awful sitcom? “I watched you today at that audition, Nick. That was a tough break, them not letting you sing.”

“Bette, it’s all over. I’m moving back to New Jersey and studying to be a mailman.” 

“I don’t doubt you’re a pro at handling packages, but I’m going to let you in on a little secret.” She leans in. “You’re not moving back to New Jersey and you’re never going to be a mailman. Bubbeleh, that’s a government job; you’d have to pass a drug test.”

“Fine. It doesn’t matter what I do so long as it’s not this.”

“Let me get this straight- you think that because some dinner theater in Wisconsin can’t tell Jew from gentile you instantly raise up the ranks of martyrdom? Nick, they didn’t let you sing today, and, yeah, you’re right, that’s their stupid mistake. But if you don’t laugh in their face and say ‘Then I’ll sing louder tomorrow,’ then the stupid mistake is all yours. One day didn’t work out the way you had planned. But what about tomorrow? You haven’t earned the right to take to your boudoir with the curtains drawn like your career is over. What career?! Don’t be a putz. Look, sometimes life hands the artist shit on a platter. But the artist has still got to eat.”

“Um, are you telling me to eat shit?” I ask. 

“Kid, you’re thinking of the wrong Divine.” She lets out a laugh that shakes my box spring. “But we are talking showbiz so, yeah, shit’s a dietary staple. Get used to it.” 

When she talks, she slaps wildly at the air like it’s offended her. Her chest, in turn, bounces and heaves like two cantaloupes in a dryer. Frankly, it would be rude for me not to notice. Yes, I have been in the same room as her gazongas several times before, but never closer than Radio City, row double-R. Now I delight to have a seat in the front row, face deep in double-D. 

She’s pleased to catch me ogling. “What? You think maybe I don’t still got it? It’s your dream, baby. Give ‘em a squeeze if you please.”

When she offers, it’s somehow all I’ve ever wanted. She drapes my knees over her lap and lets me rest my weary head on her perfumed neck. My hand is placed delicately on her left breast. This moment is the first time I’ve felt peace all day. We contentedly sit quiet and still— a Pietà tableau of the Madonna and Child. 

“Everyone’s always going to have an opinion, baby. Didn’t you ever see my movie
Jinxed
?”  I stammer a nod, not wanting to say anything that resembles my true opinion about that crapfest. I had seen it considerably less than any of her other titles, yet still my total viewings tallied in the dozens. 

“Well, I have to admit,” she says, “it wasn’t my best work. The
New York Times
said my performance was ‘uneven.’ Uneven? Nick, I was playing myself. Uneven, my ass! I was so pissed that Bruce Vilanch had to stop me from sending them one of my bras to prove my left tit is the same size as my right. Right then, I was drowning in opinions. I started to think, ‘maybe the critics are onto something; maybe I’m not destined to be some big movie star.’ But there are two things Bette Midler won’t do: give up and give oral.”

“So, you started planning your comeback?” I ask. 

“First, I ate a whole package of Mint Milano Cookies. I knew there wouldn’t be a comeback until I could remember the sound of my own voice. So I went into the recording studio and laid down the tracks for
No Frills
. If it didn’t sell one copy, I didn’t care. That one was for me.” I know the album well and while it did sell more than one copy, that was only by a slim margin. 

“But how am I supposed to remind them of my voice when no one lets me make a sound?”

“Baby, it’s just like getting screwed— you don’t get a chance at the comeback if, the first time around, you never cum.” She leans closer like she’s about to tell me the secret of life. “They don’t got to
let
you make a sound, Nick. You sing anyway.”

Suddenly, a white carousel horse materializes at the foot of my bed. I recognize it as the same one she rode at the top of
Kiss My Brass
. “That’s my ride,” she says as she mounts the carved stallion, running her hands up and down its pole, enjoying her own crass gesture. “Sing louder tomorrow,” she says, “That’s the only way you’ll ever find your voice.” 

As she starts to drift into the purple-tinged ether, I feel the need to ask her everything I’ve ever wanted to know. Instead, all I get out is, “Wait, Bette Midler, please. Can you tell me what it was like at the baths?” 

The carousel horse suspends as she turns her head and purses her lips. “You ever go to a deli when the refrigerator’s gone dead? It smelled like that, only the baths had bigger salami.”


And, with that, she is gone. 

I wake up with a start. “Sing louder tomorrow, huh?” My throat is painfully dry so I take a slug of flat Diet Coke that’s been sitting on my nightstand since last Tuesday. Then, triumphant and inspired, I toss my sweat-soaked covers aside. ”Yes! That’s it!
Sing Louder Tomorrow: A New Cabaret
starring me— as Bette Midler.”

9

HUNTER

Once again, my evening was spent on my feet. As my Granny would have said, “My hush-puppies are howling and they won’t shut up.” Tonight’s assignment had me positioned at the southwest corner of Central Park handing out samples of some new caffeinated cereal bar called Pep-Up. My supervisor, an inconsiderate prig who wore a dumb fur hat like he rode a toboggan in, didn’t offer me time to scrounge up dinner. So, when he wasn’t watching, I pilfered a Pep-Up bar from my satchel. I took a bite of the awful thing and spat it into my glove. It tasted like cardboard and cinnamon and had enough dried berries to give me the runs (I guess that’s where the “Pep” comes from). What was remaining in the wrapper, I promptly threw to the ground. I watched for hours as even the pigeons refused to call it food. Still, the swarms of people carrying their Christmas parcels out of the Time Warner Center knew no better. It’s not all that often one hears the word “free” in New York, so I was made to deflect a ceaseless stampede of the Give-Me-Mores. I’ve never felt so popular and, now that I have, I’m willing to reconsider my priorities left over from middle school.

On my way home, I venture through the unholy land past the bodegas that make me feel foolish for having taken French in high school, but I suppose, “c’est la vie.” I wearily approach our front door. My nerves are more jangled than the bells on Santa’s sleigh. I center my breathing and steady my hand before I can manage the key into the lock. It is a Saturday night and I am hoping that Eli and Nick are anywhere but home. It would be wonderful to have the apartment to myself. That way I can take a long shower without fear of interruption. Anyway, my Ladies should be out being their usual promiscuous selves, otherwise, what would they have to complain about at brunch tomorrow morning?

I am annoyed to see the lights on through the peephole, which sends a flare that silence is not in store. When I push through, I am confronted by the raucous strains of Bette Midler. She’s singing something melancholic that somehow maintains a disco beat. Nick is obviously here, but he doesn’t seem to be alone. Rather, he is accompanied by a voice that I don’t recognize. Seeing as I cannot place it, it cannot belong to anyone that Nick has slept with before; Nick’s room is between mine and Eli’s so we too share a bedroom wall. That means I can typically identify his partners by how their timbre makes my pictures wobble.

I aim to march to my bedroom and close the door forever. I need time to prepare myself for the agony that will be another tomorrow. I am scheduled to waste my afternoon teaching an unruly four-year-old how to twirl batons for her upcoming pageant.  Not only is she too portly to pull off glitz, but she is also a swine in the personality department. I know; it’s our second appointment. Last week, every time she dropped her baton-- which would have been less often had I covered it in peanut butter --she would sit back on her haunches and wait for me to fetch the damn thing. I can’t help but think that my time would have been put to better use had I trained her grandmother to use that baton as a weapon while that little piggy was draped over her knee. It may sound barbaric, but my parents spanked me and I turned out just fine. Well, fine enough. Now, if I could only get past Nick and whoever he’s about to fellate in our living room, I can spend the evening scrubbing my skin until it bleeds.  

Nick is sitting on the floral print sofa that my parents donated to our cause. There is a half-empty bottle of wine poured between two glasses. He himself is poured into the lap of a tall, well-dressed man whose pompadour rivals that of Elvis Presley. I try to tiptoe by. The creak of the floorboards gives my presence away.

“Hunter is home!” Nick brays, removing his hands from the beautiful stranger’s inner thigh so he can clap them with delight. “Hunter, meet Danny. Danny and I were just discussing the show I told you about this morning. You remember, right?”

“Of course,” I reply, “where you rip off Bette Midler’s act and call it an homage.”

Not knowing which parts of Nick his new beau’s hand has already explored, I would rather not shake it as it is extended toward me. I do hate to risk contamination. However, being Southern, my social graces prevail. I reciprocate. His grip is firm, which it will need to be if he plans to keep Nick stable. Still, Nick must have thought this Danny fellow was somebody worthwhile otherwise he wouldn’t have spent the money on that fancy-looking bottle of wine. 

“Danny brought the wine,” Nick says. “Isn’t he spectacular?”  

“He appears to be just that,” I laugh, trying to appear coy but wanting nothing more than to be excused so I can wash all the parts of me that have skin. I take note of the way Danny fills out the front of his expensive designer jeans. He is as well manicured as he is well endowed. I think he wears his age well too. I wouldn’t peg him for a day over twenty-eight, which is a sensible match when combatting Nick’s frequent immaturity. It seems our Lady requires someone older and wiser telling him what to do. Even though I hear the shower sprinkling my name, I find time to pry a little further. “Danny,” I say, “what line of work are you in?”

“I’m a producer,” he replies humbly. “Some Broadway, some off-Broadway. And, if Nick plays his cards right,” he wraps his arm around my Lady’s neck, “maybe even some cabaret.” Nick’s nostrils flare as if he could smell doubloons.

“What an exciting life you must lead,” I say. Meanwhile, it’s a blessing for Nick that my sex drive has been in park, otherwise I would divert him by throwing a dildo out the window so Danny and I could privately discuss my
résumé
. “How ever did you two meet?”

Danny brandishes a brilliantine smile. “Nick is on the team that works for my show at TKTS. Have you seen
Nautical Woman
on Broadway?“

“I’m afraid I’ve not yet had the pleasure. But that title is so familiar. Why, isn’t that the show our Eli ushers for?”