Exclusive (22 page)

Ida took the robe from her, thankful to have something to cover herself. She wrapped herself up in a short yellow terry-cloth robe that smelled of incense and cigarettes.

“Not that it is any of my business, but why don’t you just go inside and put your clothes back on?” Amala asked.

Ida didn’t know what to say, so she said the first thing that popped into her head. “You’re right, it isn’t any of your business.” There was no way she would tell them that she was waiting for Sammy to…finish up.

God, she had made a real mess of things! No, Sammy was the one responsible for this mess, quite literally if he finished off what the panty smelling had started.

Not caring what they thought of her actions, Ida raced inside and headed to the bedroom. If Sammy wanted to…fondle himself, that was his business. She would die and burn in hell before she ever came back to this house of horrors again. Sophie and Toots were right. She let men rule her.

That’s when she remembered the $3 million she had just arranged to transfer into Sammy’s bank account! Ida stopped so quickly her brain jostled the inside of her skull. What had she done? What kind of man borrowed $3 million from a woman, then played…pocket pool afterward?

Ida was shocked at herself and shocked that she’d been so stupid not to see what was right in front of her face all along. Sammy had simply been using her for sex while preparing to bilk her out of a small fortune. Stupid and ashamed didn’t begin to describe the way she felt.

She figured she’d waited long enough for Sammy to take care of business. She zipped back to his room and found her clothes where she’d left them. She dressed, spotting her purse next to her cell phone. She looked around the room, making sure she hadn’t left anything behind. That’s when she remembered her black-and-red panties in the other room. Brazen beyond her wildest dreams, Ida hurried back to Amala’s room, saw the pile of silken underclothes on the bed. She spotted her missing drawers, snapped them up, and put them in her purse. Not caring if she ran into Sammy or not, she hurried outside and literally ran all the way to the end of the road. When she stopped long enough to catch her breath, she called a cab.

“How long?” she asked.

“Fifteen minutes,” they replied.

“Thanks.”

Ida sat down on the curb to wait for her ride. Crushed and hurt, Ida paid no attention to the cars cruising by, and no one seemed to notice an old woman crying her eyes out. With her nose running and her eyes saturated with tears, she opened her purse to search for a tissue. When she couldn’t find one, she thought, “Fuck it,” and blew her nose on the panties Sammy had just sniffed.

************************************************************************************************

“George has asked me to go away for the weekend,” Mavis told them. “I don’t know what to do.”

They were all gathered around the kitchen table discussing the day’s events while Mavis cooked another healthy meal for all of them. Tonight’s menu consisted of poached salmon, steamed asparagus, and an arugula salad with lemon juice.

Toots set the table with her new royal-blue dishes. Sophie made a fresh pot of coffee, but Ida hadn’t volunteered to do anything but sit and stare out at the ocean. At the mention of George, she perked up. “Tell him no, whatever you do,” Ida said.

“Don’t listen to her, Mavis. She’s just jealous because you’ve met a rich man, and she hasn’t,” Sophie said.

Toots put paper napkins beside each plate. “If you two start up again, I swear I’m going to drag both of you out to the beach and hold you under until you’re gasping for air.”

“Damn, you’re a cruel bitch. Last night she threatened to throw me down the staircase. Today you want to drown me. If you weren’t postmenopausal, I’d swear you had a massive case of PMS. Or maybe you just need to get laid. Yes, I’m sure that’s what it is,” Sophie said, offering up her usual two cents’ worth.

Toots finished setting the table, turned around so she could look at Sophie. “Do you have to talk about sex now? We’re getting ready to eat.”

Sophie cackled. “I won’t say what I’m really thinking, but yes, I like to talk about sex. And yes, Ida, I know you’re getting laid on a regular basis, but I still like talking about sex, and, no, I don’t give a hoot if I ever have it again. I simply like to see the expressions on your faces when I talk about it. Ida, you might want to start taking pictures, them being worth a thousand words and all.”

“Girls, I am serious. I need your advice. George has invited me to his place in La Jolla. I didn’t ask, but I am sure he’ll want to get…romantic.” Mavis placed the bowl of arugula in the center of the table.

“Screw what he wants, what do you want?” Sophie asked. “Men never give a good rat’s ass about what we want. It’s always about them and what they want. Right, Toots?”

“Why are you asking me?” Toots said.

Sophie rolled her eyes upward. “You’re the most experienced woman among the four of us. I’m sure you can help Mavis.”

“Yes, Toots, not that I think you’re a…well, you know, I don’t think you’re a tramp or anything, but you do have a lot of experience with men.” Mavis lifted the lid on the steamer, poked the asparagus with a fork, then put the lid back on.

“Okay, since you all seem to think I’m the resident expert on the male species, what do you want to know, Mavis?”

Mavis washed her hands, dried them on a kitchen towel, then faced Toots. “He said he’d recently been measured for a VCD. I have no idea what that is, but I think it might be some sex toy or something.” Mavis’s faced turned ten shades of red. “I guess what I want to know is if any of you girls know what that is.”

The kitchen was silent except for the hiss of the steamer and the bubbling of simmering water where four thick slices of salmon were poaching. All eyes were on Toots.

Toots held up her hand. “I’ll be right back.”

Mavis, Ida, and Sophie watched as she raced up the stairs. Less than a minute later she was back with her laptop.

“What are you doing with that?” Ida asked.

“Patience, Ida.” Toots quickly booted up the computer and on to her Internet service provider. “I can find out anything you want to know. I’ll Google it. Now I’m ready.” Toots sat at the head of the table, waiting for Mavis. “Okay, Mavis. Shoot.”

“I’m sure he said VCD.”

Toots ran her hands along the keyboard, stopped while waiting for her search results to appear on the screen. “Oh.”

“What? Is it something bad?” Mavis asked. Her face was white, and her now-slender hands gripped the dish-cloth like a life preserver. Coco, sensing something was wrong with her mistress, ran from her corner in the kitchen, sliding to a stop at Mavis’s feet.

“Grrr.” Coco made herself known.

“I don’t think ‘bad’ is the proper word.” Toots glanced up at Mavis, who looked like she was ready to faint. “It’s not bad, it’s just…well, let me read what it says.”

“Okay,” Mavis said.

Toots found her reading glasses tucked in her skirt pocket. “‘VCD, a Vacuum Constriction Device, is an external pump with a band on it that a man with erectile dysfunction can use to get and maintain an erection…’”

Toots looked up. She had never seen her three friends so…entranced. She continued reading. “‘The VCD consists of an acrylic cylinder with a pump that may be attached directly to the end of the…man part.’ And before you ask, Sophie, no, that is not the word they used. ‘A constriction band is placed on the cylinder at the other end, which is applied to the body. The cylinder and pump are used to create a vacuum to help the…man part become erect while the band ring is used to maintain the erection…’”

Toots removed her glasses. “Well, ladies, I think that gives us a pretty good idea of what VCD stands for.”

The room was deathly quiet, then exploded with laughter when Sophie removed her hand from her mouth. Toots laughed, then looked at Ida, whose shoulders shook like a hula dancer’s while she struggled not to laugh too loudly. Mavis was catatonic. Her mouth moved, but nothing came out. She reminded Toots of the spirits upstairs.

“Mavis.” Sophie snapped her fingers in front of Mavis’s face. When she didn’t get a reaction, Sophie filled a small cup with water, tossing it directly in Mavis’s face.

Mavis spit and sputtered back to life. “That was a mean thing to do, Sophie! Why did you do that?” Mavis wiped her face with the kitchen towel she still held in a death grip.

“You left us for a minute. I was helping you return. I think you should sit down,” Sophie said, pulling out a chair, helping Mavis sit down.

“So is that VCD thing what I think it is?” Mavis asked Toots.

“What do you think it is?” Sophie couldn’t keep quiet if her life depended on it.

“It sounds like something vulgar.”

Toots, Ida, and Sophie couldn’t restrain themselves any longer. They burst out laughing even louder than they had before.

Sophie said, “Let me explain it in terms you can understand. It’s like a…bicycle pump, only instead of pumping up a flat tire, you’re pumping up a…limp noodle.”

Once again, they cackled with laughter, hooting and hollering until their sides were aching. Ida laughed so hard, she snorted. Toots managed to use all the napkins on the table to dry the tears of laughter streaming down her face, and Sophie wore an evil grin a mile wide. Mavis, poor naive Mavis, just sat there while the salmon burned.

Suddenly, Mavis jumped out of her chair, “I’m ruining our dinner. I hope you girls don’t mind overcooked salmon. Maybe ‘overcooked’ isn’t the proper word. Burned salmon.”

Toots replaced the napkins, Sophie poured each of them a cup of coffee, while Ida helped Mavis scrape the salmon off the bottom of the pan. Toots put the asparagus in a serving dish and placed it next to the salad in the center of the table.

“Let’s eat; I for one am starving. Mavis, this looks divine,” Toots lied, then forked an asparagus spear.

For the next ten minutes or so, no one spoke. The only sounds were those of silverware clinking against the glass dinner plates and Sophie slurping coffee like a pig. Toots cast her a dirty look. Sophie slurped even louder. Ida glanced at Toots as though silently asking her to tell Sophie to mind her manners. Coco sat in Mavis’s lap, stretching her skinny neck just high enough so she could swipe her little pink tongue over the edge of Mavis’s plate and snatch bits of salmon and asparagus.

“I don’t think I will go to La Jolla with George after all,” Mavis said out of the blue.

“Do you really want to?” Toots asked. “Don’t let a bunch of crazy old sex-starved women like us make your decision for you. If you want to go, I think you should.”

“I do, I mean I did, but now that I know about that…thing, I’m not sure. I haven’t been with another man since Herbert. He is the only man I’ve been with and—”

“—Don’t choke, Ida. Sorry, Mavis, go on,” Sophie said.

“Shut up, Sophie!” Toots admonished. She turned her attention back to Mavis. “You were talking about Herbert being the only man you’ve been with.”

Mavis rubbed the top of Coco’s tiny brown head. “Yes, well, I’m not sure if I can have a romantic relationship with George.”

Ida finally chimed in. “Can I ask if you were considering a romantic relationship with him before Toots enlightened you?”

Sophie had remained silent much too long. “Romantic relationship? Enlightened? Give me a frigging break. I swear you two act like virgins. Mavis, were you planning to screw George before you knew he needed a penis pump to get it up?”

“Sophie Manchester, you’re a crude old woman. Now shut up and let Mavis speak.” Toots turned to Mavis. “I’ll kick her if she interrupts you again.”

“And I’ll shove my foot so far up your ripe old ass, you’ll wish you’d been slapped,” Sophie said, her eyes full of mischief.

Mavis picked up where she’d left off. “I may have been. We haven’t known one another very long; I still can’t believe he’s interested in me. He’s handsome, wealthy. He has a Porsche.”

“That alone is reason enough to sleep with him?” Sophie interrupted.

“I don’t care about all those material things. We do have a lot in common, though. He has all those dry cleaners. I love to sew. George said he would take me to a fabric show someday. He goes to learn about the new fabrics and how to care for them.”

Toots thought Mavis looked happy, really happy. Her eyes sparkled, her peach-colored hair had grown out a bit and now, because she was spending so much time on the beach, she’d gained a few blond streaks. Her creamy skin was now a warm gold color. On top of all that, she’d lost another twenty pounds. She was a miracle makeover. Toots thought Mavis was beautiful. Her skill with a needle still amazed them. All the clothes Toots had purchased for her at Catherine’s in Charleston had been remade into simple and elegant designs. Toots often wondered why Mavis had never chosen a career in fashion. She had no doubt she would’ve been a roaring success.

“I think you should go. If you don’t want to have a sexual relationship, just tell him. I remember when I was married to…I think it was…I can’t remember which husband, but one of them had the same problem as George. We had a sexless marriage, but we were the best of friends. Sex isn’t everything. Love, respect, and friendship do make for a happy, satisfying life. As you all keep reminding me, I’ve been around the block a few times, so I should know.”

“This salmon is starting to smell,” Sophie said to no one in particular. “Let’s clean up and go sit on the deck. I want to smoke so bad I could die.”

“Me, too. I’ll make a pitcher of frozen strawberry daiquiris. We can get rip-roaring drunk if we want,” Toots said.

Thirty minutes later, the kitchen was so clean it sparkled, the dishes were in the dishwasher, the fishy smell long gone. Toots carried a pitcher of strawberry daiquiris and four glasses outside to the deck. This is the life, she thought, but it would never be Charleston. That was home.

Ida, Sophie, and Mavis looked comfortable as they relaxed in the bright blue-and-green-striped lounge chairs she had shelled out a small fortune for. Nothing was too good for friends and family. Now if Abby and Chris were here, this night would be close to perfect. She looked at her watch. It was too late to call either of them, as they both had to be up early for their jobs.