Never Too Rich (14 page)

“
All right.” Her voice was suddenly
hard and flat. “Klas . . . ?”

He looked at her.

“
Don’t powder your nose too much.
If you’re not careful, that South American shit will not only give
you a deviated septum, it’ll make you lose everything you’ve
gained.” Then the door shut behind her and he was alone.

Klas stared at the door. His coke habit was the last
thing he’d expected Anouk to know about. Was there anything she
didn’t know?

He waited another moment and then went shakily into
one of the cubicles and locked himself inside. Fishing in his
pocket, he withdrew a tiny brown glass vial filled with cocaine.
Unscrewing the cap, he tapped a little mound out on the back of one
hand.

It was his fourth snort of the day.

It was a fine send-off, as memorial services went.
Rubio had been popular, his acquaintances many, from the highest to
the lowest social strata. The folding chairs were packed, and the
overflow lined the aisles at the sides of the Samuel I. and Mitzi
Newhouse Gallery. Straights were rubbing elbows with gays, and
well-heeled Upper East Siders were sitting alongside Rubio’s East
Village cronies. There was a mixture of sorrow and anger on their
faces. Many of those attending to mourn and remember were at risk
in the same way Rubio had been, and only time would tell which way
the health pendulum would swing for them.

The eulogies began, starting with Antonio’s. Then,
one by one, Rubio’s friends and coworkers got up to express their
sorrow and loss.

Edwina spoke last. She felt wilted from emotion and
knotted inside. Tears provoked by the other eulogies streaked her
cheeks. Everything she had been planning to say had already been
said; she didn’t know what more she could add.

“
There are those,” she began
quietly, surveying her packed audience from the lectern, “who dare
say that this dread disease which felled our friend is the
punishment of a vengeful God.” The force of her voice surprised
even herself; then it dropped an octave to a gentle whisper: “And
then there are those, like me, who choose to believe that God is
plucking some of his choicest, brightest blooms . . .”

“
That was beautiful, Ma,”
Hallelujah whispered when Edwina was finished and had returned to
her seat. “That was really beautiful.”

Chapter 14

“
Fantabulous! Absolutely
super-faaabulous, baby!” Alfredo Toscani had to yell to make
himself heard above the music pounding over the megawatt sound
system. “Now, toss that delicious hair of yours like a weapon and
kiiiccckk those beautiful legs in a sassy strut! Oh, yeah, baby.
That’s it!”

Shirley whipped her head around to make her
waist-long auburn hair fly, and as she kicked up her legs, the
clothespins holding together the back of her borrowed skirt slipped
off and clattered to the floor. Instantly the skirt billowed and
began to slip down over her bony hips. With a cry, she caught it by
the waist and tugged it back up.

Alfredo’s crack team proved they were all different
parts of one well-oiled machine. Panther, the shaven-headed black
girl, sprang forward to collect the clothespins and then pinched
the skirt tight again; an assistant took Alfredo’s Hasselblad and
handed him another that was loaded with fresh film; Victor, the
in-house hairdresser, took the opportunity to jump forward with his
brush and comb; Despina Carlino, the makeup artist, gently dabbed
Shirley’s sweat-glossed forehead with a powder puff; and Slim
Mazzola, the stylist for the shoot, fussed and tugged to get
everything back to looking just so.

Shirley felt drained. The actual photo shoot had
been in progress for less than twenty minutes, but she was ready to
drop. She’d had no idea that modeling was this physical, or that
the strobes were so blindingly bright and hellishly hot, or that
one photographer required such a large staff. And to think that all
this was just for her portfolio shots.

“
Ready, baby?” Alfredo called out
when the assistants finished their touch-ups.

Shirley nodded solemnly.

“
Good.” Walking circles around her,
the wiry little photographer tapped a finger thoughtfully against
his lips. Then he brightened. “Tell you what. I think we’ve done
enough full-body shots for the time being. What do you say we do
some close-ups?”

Shirley nodded apprehensively and swallowed.

Sensing her tenseness, he put his arm around her
shoulders in a friendly fashion. “First, we’ll start with some
serious shots. Don’t worry. You won’t need to try to look serious.
Just think back to something unhappy that’s happened in your life.
This magic little box”—he patted the Hasselblad hanging from around
his neck— “will do the rest. Think you can do that?”

Shirley nodded. Put that way, she decided, it didn’t
sound difficult at all—she had more than her share of unpleasant
memories.

Shirley was alone. Alone in that madhouse in front
of which the blue neon cross flickered and buzzed. There was no one
to rescue her. No one to come swooping down out of nowhere to carry
her off to a paradise of love and laughter and kindness.

She survived the nightmare of home life by making
herself as invisible as possible.

Then her beauty surfaced.

Brother Dan was not blind to the orchid flowering in
his midst. Having long since wearied of his unattractive wife’s
swollen ankles and stingy thighs, he awoke to the eminently more
youthful and prettier flesh growing up right under his nose. For
him, Shirley was a flower just waiting to be plucked.

His advances began with his “accidentally” brushing
against her, but as time went by, he became more and more blatant.
He would squeeze her buttocks. Grope her small boyish breasts. Feel
between her thighs when her mother wasn’t looking.

A far more serious assault occurred two days after
Shirley turned twelve—a sunny Friday in spring which she would
never forget. Her mother was out that afternoon, peddling religious
pamphlets on street corners, and Brother Dan made his move the
moment Shirley came home from school. He was standing in the
doorway of her room, blocking her path. The moment she saw the look
in his watery, bloodshot eyes, she pressed her books protectively
against her breasts and tried to make a dash past him.

With lightning speed his arm caught her around the
waist and he pulled her against him.

A strangled sob caught in her throat and her books
went crashing to the floor.

“
You’re real pretty, Shirley, you
know that?” His warm breath exploded against her face and the
nauseating reek of bourbon and hair spray and sweat enveloped her
like a miasma. Before she knew what was happening, one of his hands
reached up under her skirt and he tried to kiss her.

Swiftly she averted her face and began struggling
ferociously. As his clumsy lips landed near her left ear, she
bucked and writhed and managed to squirm out of his grasp. Pushing
him away, she made a desperate lunge for the stairs. But she wasn’t
fast enough. His hand shot out and he caught her by her long loose
hair, jerking her back toward him.

She gasped and tears of pain stood out in her
eyes.

“
Shirley, Shirley,” Brother Dan
said in a resigned voice. “When are you gonna learn not to run away
from me?”

“
Please,” she begged, the tears
streaming down her face. “You’re pulling my hair so hard it
hurts.”

“
You’re not gonna run away from me,
girl!” he hissed. “You hear me?”

She tried to nod, and he let go of her hair. Without
warning, a single swipe of his hand ripped her dress and slip down
to below her thighs. The sudden chill of her nakedness raised goose
bumps along the flesh of her arms and shoulders. Cowering, she
covered herself ineffectually with her arms. Danger signals were
clanging furiously in her mind—some primeval intuition told her
that this time he wouldn’t be content to just grope her.

The next thing she knew, he was fumbling with his
fly and his angry swollen red penis leapt free.

She backed away from him, steepled her hands in
prayer, and in a babble beseeched God to make him leave her
alone.

“
Shut up!” Brother Dan roared,
lashing out with an open palm.

She saw it coming and tried to duck, but too late.
His hand caught her across the face and she went reeling, stumbling
into her room, where she landed faceup across her bed, and bounced,
the sweep of her arm clearing the lamp and her collection of
ceramic figurines off the nightstand.

Brother Dan’s body seemed to block out the door.
“You’d better not fight me,” he said quietly as he kicked the door
shut and approached the bed. “Or you’ll be real sorry.”

She stared up at him, her eyes wide and afraid.
“Please . . . don’t hurt me?” she begged in a small voice. “Please
. . .”

He slapped her viciously again. “You shut up!” he
snarled, and then he was atop her.

She bucked and twisted and tried to claw at his face
with her hands, but after the first swipe he leaned one arm across
her throat and the other on the pit of her concave belly. She was
pinioned and near choking. For an instant she was aware that he was
poised over her, seemingly suspended in midair; then her eyes went
wild and she let out a scream as his hips swooped down and he put
all his weight behind his penetration.

If there was any mercy in that terrible act of
violence, it was that it did not last long. After half a dozen
thrusts, an agony of his own seemed to overtake Brother Dan, and
his eyes glazed over as a cry of animal anguish bellowed forth from
deep within his lungs. She stared up into his loathsome contorted
face and began to tremble. Shirley had never felt so filled with
shame and hatred. She didn’t know which she wanted more—to kill him
or die herself.

After he pulled out of her, he stood beside the bed
and tucked himself casually back into his fly. “One word to your
mother about this, and I’ll kill you,” he warned her grimly.

From that day on, Brother Dan abused her at every
opportunity— and the assaults went undiscovered for three
years.

Then, one day when Shirley was barely fifteen, Ruth
returned unexpectedly early from her pamphlet peddling and caught
her husband in Shirley’s room—in the midst of one of his shuddering
orgasms.

“
Mommy,” Shirley cried with relief.
“I’m so glad you know! Now you can stop him from hurting
me!”

But Ruth didn’t blame her husband. “You wretched
girl!” she screeched, slapping Shirley so hard that her face burned
and her teeth knocked together. “You Jezebel!” She punctuated each
burst of words by giving Shirley another stinging slap. “You whore!
You slut! Get out of this house at once and never come back!”

Shirley could only stare at her mother blankly. She
didn’t know how to vindicate herself. She’d been convinced that her
mother would save her.

Now she realized she should have known better.

Grimly Ruth thrust two plastic garbage bags at
Shirley. “Pack up your things!” she snapped, her breasts heaving in
fury. “And take everything you can carry. What you don’t take, I’ll
burn, you loathsome creature! I never want to see you or anything
of yours again!”

“
But where am I supposed to go?”
Shirley sobbed, her voice a keen of despair.

“
I know where you’ll go
eventually!” her mother snapped with satisfaction. “Hell! But in
the meantime, you’ll find a place. Oh yes, I’m sure you will. Girls
like you never have any trouble getting things from men, do you?”
And then, after savagely stuffing the garbage bags full of
Shirley’s belongings, Ruth pushed her daughter out into the
night.

The moment the door slammed shut behind her, Shirley
could hear the dead bolt being thrown with finality. She shivered
and held her collar shut. A bitter wind was sweeping in from the
sea, and it cut right through her thin, shabby jacket. It was late
November, and the weather was turning cruel.

Having no place else to go, like many a homeless
child, she headed into Manhattan to spend the night at the Port
Authority bus terminal. Young, tired, hungry, and listless, she was
easy prey for the city’s predators. Within one hour six different
men tried to lure her away with extravagant promises. She rebuffed
them all, and when one of them tried to steal her bags, she
clutched them tightly against her. Finally a sweet-faced young girl
came over to her. “Hey, honey. You look like the world’s collapsed
on you,” she said gently.

Shirley began to cry.

“
Wanna talk about it?”

Shirley shook her head vehemently and sniffed. “No,”
she croaked, wiping her nose with the back of her hand.

“
Bet you got no place to go,” the
girl said. “Come on, wipe your eyes. I know somebody who can
help.”

Shirley stared at her. “I don’t know ...” she began
hesitantly.

“
You can’t stay here,” the girl
told her. “You don’t look much more’n fifteen. If the cops don’t
round you up, some crazy’s gonna stab you for whatever you got in
them plastic bags.” She took Shirley by the arm and led her outside
to Ninth Avenue.

The “somebody” the girl knew turned out to be a
fur-clad pimp in a mile-long Chrome-laden pimpmobile. He eyed
Shirley with sloe-eyed interest and flashed a gold-toothed smile.
“Hey, pretty mama,” he greeted her, “get in the other side and I’ll
take care o’ you like a princess.”

Shirley stood there on the sidewalk, indecisive. But
there really was little for her to decide. She was cold, hungry,
and penniless.

Slowly she walked around to the other side of the
car, and the pimp switched on the motor. She was about to climb in
when she noticed him slipping the sweet-faced girl a little white
packet through the window. “You find me some more pretty white meat
for my stable and I’ll give you another fix,” he was telling
her.