Shop Till You Drop (13 page)

“It’s not,” Helen said.

“You’re too picky,” Peggy said. “I can find you two high-paying jobs in no time. Give me those ads.”

She took the paper from Helen and started reading. Pete sat on her shoulder and studied the ads, too. Or maybe he wondered why someone was holding his cage liner. Either way, the quizzical green bird made Helen laugh.

“Here’s one,” Peggy said. “ ‘Dancer/escort—Twelve hundred dollars a day. Cash guaranteed. Easy entertainment. ’ Can you dance?”

“Me? My family’s German. Unless it’s a tune with a tuba in it, I can’t dance.”

“Hawthorne is German?” Peggy said.

That was a stupid slip, Helen thought. “No, Hawthorne is my married name,” she lied. To distract Peggy she said, “What’s the other job choice?”

“Wrestling. The ad says, ‘We need athletic females of all types and sizes. Earn one hundred dollars an hour. No experience necessary.’ ”

Helen pretended to consider the ad. “Where would I wrestle at?”

“The big question is what you would wrestle
in
.”

“In?” Helen echoed.

“Want-ad wrestling is generally done in something: JellO, mud, Karo syrup. For some reason, the guys at the clubs get off on that. They also get to spray you with whipped cream, but that’s extra.

“Of course this wrestling gig could be porn. Then you’d be wrestling in something else—a dirty movie.”

“For a hundred bucks an hour? And no residuals?” Helen said.

“Hmm,” Peggy said. “Wrestling could be hard on your back. How’s your health insurance?”

“Don’t have any,” Helen said, happy to tell the truth for once.

“Then you need to buy some lottery tickets,” Peggy said, and was back on her favorite subject. “The lottery is up to forty-two million. I’ve got a new system for winning. I’ve read the interviews. The big winners use family birthdays for their numbers. Those numbers must be lucky. I’m using my mother’s birthday and Pete’s.”

“Awwwk!” Pete said.

“Do you think parrot birthdays count the same as human ones?” Helen said.

“Pete’s family. He’s closer to me than anyone.”

There was a flash of purple, and Margery the landlady charged past the bougainvillea, frightening Pete into a squawking fit that everyone ignored. Helen had never seen her so brilliantly dressed. Margery’s evening shorts were deep orchid, her toenails tangerine, and she was wearing purple sandals that ended in big bows at her slender ankles. Helen wished she had the courage to wear shoes like that.

Margery sat down in the chaise longue next to Helen. “Wait till you see who’s moving into 2C, girls,” she said. “Have I got a treat for you.”

“Who?” Helen and Peggy said, sounding like a pair of owls.

With that, the jungle of poolside palms parted, and out stepped Tarzan in gym shorts. Helen expected him to uproot the palms with his bare hands.

Long black hair tumbled past his tanned shoulders. His high Slavic cheekbones gave an interesting slant to his cobalt blue eyes. He was six feet tall and strong, but without the gnarled gym muscles Helen hated. This manly vision was wearing the smallest pair of red shorts the law allowed, with an interesting bulge in front.

“He looks like Fabio,” Peggy whispered. “Only better.”

Helen could feel the sexual electricity surge across the Coronado lawn. The heavy, humid air seemed about to explode. The fabulous half-naked hunk was heading straight for them. He strode over the grass, an almost unclad colossus. Oiled muscles rippled in his mighty thighs. Helen thought of statues of the winged god, Mercury. Helen thought of things the nuns in St. Louis said were occasions of sin.

“Oh, my,” Helen said.

The manly vision stopped in front of Margery’s chaise longue. He bent down, exposing tempting tanned crescents of muscled buttock, and gave Margery a chaste kiss on the cheek. She blushed.

“Thank you for everything,” he said, looking deep into Margery’s eyes. His voice was a caress. He produced a business card from God knows where. “If you ever need me for anything, anything at all, just call this number.” The godlike figure disappeared back into the palm jungle.

“Oh, my,” Peggy breathed. “I know what I need.”

“This is a setup,” Helen said, hoping to recover her wits. “He’s a Chippendale. You paid him.”

“He’s paying me,” Margery said, smugly. “He’s the new renter in 2C. I made him some of my fudge. Naturally, he was grateful.”

“Is he mortal? Does he have a name?” Peggy said.

“Daniel Dayson.” Margery pronounced it the way some women would say Matt Damon or Russell Crowe. “He’s the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen, and I’m working on my eighth decade of guy watching.”

“Is Daniel straight?” Helen said. It was a sad fact in South Florida that the best bodies usually belonged to gay men.

“That boy has plenty of lady friends, but he needs the right woman,” Margery said.

“That’s me,” Helen said, but she knew it was hopeless. She was too ordinary for a man who looked like that.

“He’s got to be a male model. Or an exotic dancer,” Peggy said.

“Wrong,” Margery said. “He’s a fire equipment inspector.”

“He’s hot enough to inspect my equipment any time,” Peggy said, and the three women launched into a deplorable series of jokes involving fire hoses and heat.

When they finished, Helen’s stomach hurt from laughing. Her brain sizzled with suppressed desire. “I think I’m more impressed by his steady job than his eye-popping physique,” she said.

“I’m not,” Peggy said. “Although I admit a man with a job is a rarity down here. But oh, lord, the way that man moves . . .”

“Squaaak!” Pete the parrot said, hopping back and forth on her shoulder.

“Shut up,” Peggy said absently, brushing the bird aside. Pete sat in stunned silence. It was the first time she’d ever talked to Pete like that.

Desiree was dead.

Helen could forget that for half an hour or even half a day. Then she’d see a young woman with blonde hair tumbling down her back or hear a newscaster’s solemn voice, and it would come rushing back. Once again, she’d see that shocking news story. First, the bride-to-be in her black dress, then in her black body bag.

Desiree was dead. Desiree was dead. As Helen walked home from work Tuesday night, her feet pounded that rhythm into the pavement.

Helen went dragging into her small, stuffy apartment and threw herself on the lumpy bed, not even bothering to change out of her suit. Her feet hurt. Her head hurt. She felt old and fat and tired. But most of all, she felt discouraged. She’d wasted another lunch hour looking for work. Christina was due back in three days, and Helen still did not have another job. She would never escape Juliana’s. She would never get away from her guilt.

Desiree was dead. Desiree was dead. The words pounded in Helen’s head until it felt like the whole room was beating to the rhythm.

Then Helen realized the whole room
was
beating to the rhythm. Her landlady was pounding on the door and calling her name. That woman had quite an arm on her. What was wrong now? Did Margery want to raise the rent? Helen straightened her rumpled suit, pushed her hair back, and opened the door.

Margery looked like an exotic orchid in a swirling lavender-print shorts set. Her toes were painted fuchsia. In her hand was a glass plate with one perfect chocolate-dipped strawberry.

“Thought this might cheer you up,” Margery said. “You look like forty miles of bad road. You’re too young and pretty to be so hangdog.”

Margery was smart, Helen thought. Her landlady had seen the slump of Helen’s shoulders as she came up the sidewalk and knew something was wrong. Rather than probe with nosy questions, Margery plied her with chocolate. It almost worked. For a minute, Helen thought of telling her about Desiree’s death. But then she hesitated, and the impulse was lost. Helen had kept silent for so long, she had lost the ability to confide.

Like all good liars, Helen knew enough to tell part of the truth when possible. So she said, “Work’s getting me down, Margery. I feel like a lumberjack around those women at Juliana’s.”

Margery snorted so hard it hurt Helen’s sinuses. “You don’t want to look like one of those helpless Barbie dolls, do you?”

“It’s not how they look. It’s how they make me feel. So Midwestern. So out of it. They’re so fashionable. They’re so South Beach.”

“Helen,” Margery said. “Those women are not real South Beach. They’re only wanna-bes. That’s why Juliana’s has to keep people out. Because they’re afraid. On South Beach, the doors are wide open. Everyone can walk in and succeed—or fall flat on her face.”

“No,” Helen protested. “Christina belongs. She goes to all the clubs. She knows the South Beach nightlife. She’s seen at all the hot places: Mynt. Pearl. Kiss. Rain. Crobar. She goes to dinner at The Forge. She’s been to B.E.D. with four women and one man.”

“I don’t care about her sex life,” Margery said.

“No. B.E.D. is the name of the club. It costs about a thousand dollars to get a good bed, at least that’s what Christina said, but you sit on these big beds, see, and—”

“The guys get to say, ‘I went to B.E.D. with four women last night.’ Real sophisticated.” Margery sniffed. Helen was grateful she didn’t snort.

“I guess that sounds silly. But Christina was at Bash the night Leonardo DiCaprio danced topless.”

“That’s what she says. Maybe she just read about it in
Ocean Drive
magazine. But I’ll tell you this much, Helen, even if she was there—she may remember Leonardo, but he won’t remember her. You don’t need to know the names of the clubs. Half of them will be out of business by next week. Don’t let Christina intimidate you. If she was really South Beach, she’d be in South Beach, not Fort Lauderdale.

“Eat your strawberry. You’ll feel better,” Margery commanded. “I’ve gotta go.”

And she was gone, leaving Helen with one perfect strawberry. Helen ate it in tiny bites, making it last as long as possible. On any other night, it would have cheered her up. But not tonight. Tonight she had to live with Desiree’s death. Tonight, she also had to live with her past.

As the evening sun sank lower, so did Helen’s spirits. In another hour, she would have to get out the cell phone she only used once a month and call her family. Helen dreaded her mother’s tears. Not even the call afterward to her beloved sister, Kathy, would make things better.

It was almost seven o’clock. Time for the call home. Helen locked the doors, closed the blinds, and opened the door to the closet with the water heater. She pulled out the suitcase and rummaged through the old-lady underwear until she found the cell phone and a piece of pink cellophane from a gift basket.

Helen didn’t have a phone in Lauderdale. She didn’t want to be traced. She’d bought this one in Kansas City and mailed her sister Kathy a thousand dollars to pay the monthly phone bills. Helen hoped that would cover them for a long time. If anyone found out about the phone, it was registered to a false name and purchased in Kansas. She hoped that would be enough to confuse any pursuers.

Helen braced herself, and dialed her mother’s number in St. Louis. “I will not get angry,” she told herself. “I will not shout. Mom belongs to a different generation. She doesn’t understand.”

“Hello, Mom,” she said. Her mother burst into tears. Actually, it was more like a whining wail. It always set Helen’s teeth on edge.

The phone call went exactly as Helen expected. Her mother cried and begged Helen to come home and be a good wife to her bad husband. “Think of your immortal soul,” her mother sobbed. “The Pope says divorce is wrong.”

“So let the Pope live with him,” Helen said, then regretted her outburst. She had hurt her mother’s feelings again.

“We could get a lawyer and work out the other problem, Helen honey, if you’d just get back with your husband.”

The other problem. Helen could not talk about that. She brought out the piece of pink cellophane. It was her escape. She crinkled the cellophane and said, “What’s that, Mom? I can’t hear you. I have to go now. You’re breaking up. I’ll call again on your birthday. Bye, Mom.”

Helen hung up the phone. The short conversation left her emotionally drained, as tired as if she’d been digging ditches. At least the call to her sister would be easier. Kathy was the only person from her old life who knew where Helen was and how to reach her in an emergency.

Kathy lived in the near-perfect St. Louis suburb of Webster Groves. She and Tom had a new baby, Allison, and ten-year-old Tommy Junior. They also had a big old house that needed paint and new plumbing. Tom’s salary was frozen at 1999 levels, and Kathy worked part-time as a checker at Target. But she rarely talked about their money problems.

“Helen, you sound tired,” Kathy said, when she answered the phone.

“I’ve been talking to Mom,” Helen said.

“Was it awful?”

“No worse than usual.”