Significant Others (23 page)
“Probably,” said DeDe.
“You think they’ve been doing it?”
DeDe thought exactly that, but she refused to give shape to her fears.
Polly took a bite of the apple, chewed and swallowed. “You know what?”
“What?”
“You should fake her out, pretend to be fucking around yourself.”
DeDe gave her a doubtful look. “With you, I suppose.”
“Sure. I could be real convincing.”
“I’ll bet.”
Polly turned and grinned at her.
“I could never be that petty,” said DeDe.
“Force yourself,” said Polly. “There are big stakes here. Sabra’s wrecked a few marriages in her time.”
DeDe didn’t want to hear this. “She’s not all that good-looking,” she said.
“Yeah, but she’s rich.”
“I’m rich,” said DeDe.
“She’s rich and famous,” said Polly. “And she gets to do everything. Broadway openings, limos all over the place, personal friends with Lily and Jane …”
“Thanks,” said DeDe. “Thanks a lot.”
Polly studied her a moment, then sat up and pulled on a celadon sweatshirt.
“Where are you going?” asked DeDe.
“I’m outa here,” said Polly. “There’s a burger out there with my name on it.”
DeDe felt deserted again. What would she do? Go back to her tent and wait for Anna to return from her quilting class? Should she be there, looking useless and alone, when D’or returned?
And what if D’or
didn’t
return?
Polly hopped to her feet and began searching the tent for her socks. “Come with me,” she said. “I won’t be gone that long.”
“Well …”
She handed DeDe her shirt. “C’mon, Mama. Let’s get dressed and go to town.”
A
CCORDING TO JIMMY, THE MOST IMPOSING SPIDERS
were female, and this one certainly fit the bill. Fat, furry and crimson-bellied, she dangled from a fragile trapeze, weaving her macramé only inches from Booter’s sunburned face.
He was in a tent; he could tell that much. His mouth tasted foul, and his head was throbbing. His feet were bound together, and his hands were tied behind his back. He was lying on his side, facing the spider.
His first thought was: “Weaving spiders come not here.”
That was the Bohemian motto, but he drew no comfort from it now. At the Grove, the phrase meant dealmaking was prohibited, no business on the premises.
Here, it meant nothing.
Here, that spider could weave where she wanted.
He’d been conscious for almost five minutes when he heard a woman’s voice outside the tent. “Where is he?” she asked.
Someone hissed for quiet.
“We have to call the police.”
“Sure. Turn him over to men.”
“I don’t care, Rose. We have to.”
He heard boots scuffing against earth, then saw the tent flap move, revealing a woman in a black T-shirt. She held a walkie-talkie in one hand, and her head was shaved to varying degrees, forming a sort of topiary garden on her scalp. She squatted on her haunches to examine him.
“Listen,” he said, “whatever you think I did—”
“I don’t think. I saw.”
“I was in a canoe,” he said.
“I know that.”
“I fell asleep. I must have drifted.”
“Did you enjoy the show?” she asked.
So they had seen him watching.
“Answer the question,” she said.
“It was an accident,” he said. “I didn’t know where I was. I went up there to ask directions.”
“You’re lying,” she said.
“Don’t tell me I’m lying!” How dare she talk to him like that? Who, after all, had clobbered whom?
“What’s your name?” she asked.
He hesitated. What if she called the police? He could clear himself, of course, but what sort of indignities would he be forced to endure? “I don’t have to tell you that,” he said at last.
She appraised him coolly for several seconds before dropping the tent flap and walking away. He hollered, “Wait!” but got no response.
She came back about fifteen minutes later.
“Thirsty?” she asked.
He was and said so.
“I’ll have some water sent by for you.”
“Wait a minute,” he said. “Don’t go.”
“What?”
“You’re making a very big mistake, young lady.”
“Yeah?”
“I know how it may have looked to you, but I’m no Peeping Tom.”
“O.K. Then who are you?”
“I’m a member of the Bohemian Club. We’re up the river a bit. I don’t want to make trouble for you, but—”
“I asked your name.”
“Manigault,” he muttered. “What?”
“Manigault. Roger Manigault.”
“Sure.”
“Well … I don’t have my wallet with me.”
“As in Pacific Excelsior?”
“Yes!” He literally sighed with relief. Thank God she knew about business! “That’s me!”
“That’s you?”
“Yes! I’m not the sort of man who—” She cut him off with a wild bray of laughter. “Booter. They call you Booter?”
“Yes. Now will you please untie—”
“Reagan’s friend?”
“Well … I know him…. I wouldn’t exactly say—” She dropped the tent flap and went howling into the night.
T
HANKS TO BOOTER, DINNER HADN’T HAPPENED TONIGHT
, so Wren postponed her journey home, stopping off at the greasy spoon near the Monte Rio bridge. Michael and Thack wouldn’t call for at least an hour, so why not settle her nerves with a basket of fries and a chicken-fried steak?
The greasy spoon was a “family restaurant,” replete with squawling brats, cracked plastic menus and redwood room deodorizers for sale next to the cash register. She was debating dessert when a teenaged girl approached, wearing an expression of tentative fandom. “O.K.,” she told Wren. “If you’re not, you might as well be.”
Wren put her fork down and stuck out her hand. “I guess I am, then. What’s your name?”
The teenager, on closer inspection, seemed more like a young woman. She was short and wiry, with freckles and a sparkling pink-gummed smile. “Polly Berendt,” she replied. “I really can’t believe this.”
“What?” said Wren. “That you found me eating?”
Polly laughed. “You look just like you look on TV. Better. This is the most amazing thing. This is so great.”
“Sit down.” Wren winked at her and patted the place mat across from her. “We’re frightening the nuclear families.”
Polly cast a glance over her shoulder, than sank into the chair. “Sorry,” she said. “I get loud.”
“Yeah,” said Wren. “Me too.” She popped open her compact mirror and began to repair her lipstick. “You on vacation or something?”
Polly didn’t answer for a while, lost in her amazement. “What?” she said at last.
“You on vacation?”
“Oh … yeah. I’m down at Wimminwood. Know what that is?
“Uh … well, a women’s music festival, right?” She’d read about it on the bulletin board at the Cazadero General Store. She’d figured the kid for a lesbian.
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“So what are you doing here? Playing hooky?”
Polly chuckled. “Yeah, more or less.”
“All by yourself?” O.K., she was flirting a little, but what harm could it do?
“No. I’m here with a friend. I mean, here at the restaurant. That blonde lady over there.”
Wren dropped her lipstick into her purse and gazed across the room. Caught in the act of watching them, the blonde looked decidedly uncomfortable. Wren gave her a little smile, which induced even more embarrassment.
“She’s against this,” said Polly.
“Against what?”
“Me coming over here.”
“Why?”
Polly shrugged. “She says it’s tacky.”
“Nah,” said Wren. “I think she’s jealous.”
Polly cast a quick glance at the blonde, then looked back at Wren. “No shit?”
Wren gave her one of her Mona Lisa smiles.
“That would be wonderful,” said Polly.
“What?”
“If she would be jealous. I don’t think she likes me that much.”
“Well …”
“Could I get a lipstick print from you?”
Wren blinked at her.
“I collect them,” said Polly. “It’s a hobby. I already have Diana Ross and Linda Evans and Kathleen Turner.”
“Sure. Fine. What do I do?”
Polly beamed at her.
“I can’t believe this.”
“What do I do?” Wren asked again. “Blot on a napkin?” Her eyes wandered across the room. The blonde woman was staring straight down into the remains of her hamburger. She was obviously mortified.
“Or,” Wren added, “I could pucker up and really smooch on it.” She looked back at Polly and grinned conspiratorially. “Your friend would like that.” Polly giggled.
Wren picked up a napkin and settled on something between a blot and a smooch, giving the results to Polly. “Happy summer,” she said.
“Same to you,” said Polly, shaking Wren’s hand briskly. “Same to you.”
M
ICHAEL AND THACK HAD CROSSED THE RIVER
without a hitch, drying off and dressing in a dockside room erected for just that purpose. They’d followed the ravine up the forested hillside until they found the footbridge Wren had told them about. It loomed above them, huge and skeletal, like an abandoned railway trestle.
“What now?” whispered Michael.
“We go under it,” Thack replied. “Up that hill.”
“Wait!”
“What?”
“I heard something.”
Thack cocked his head. There were rustling sounds, then the resonant thump of footsteps on the bridge. Michael flattened himself against a support post, pulling Thack back into the shadows. The moon was traitorously bright.
A voice called: “Who goes down there?”
Michael held his breath, glancing at Thack. Wren’s words reverberated in his head.
They won’t shoot at you…. It’s just a club…. They won’t shoot at you….
Thack pressed his finger to his lips, clearly intent upon going through with this madness.
The footsteps commenced again, then stopped at mid-bridge. A flashlight beam probed the underbrush only yards away from their hiding place. Michael hugged the post and prayed for release. Or at least leniency.
“Who goes?” yelled the guard.
Michael looked at Thack. Enough was enough.
Thack shook his head emphatically.
The guard stood there for half a minute, then began to walk again. Away from them. Off the bridge and up the hillside.
Thack’s eyes flashed triumphantly. Michael expelled air and whispered: “Let’s get the fuck outa here.”
“What? Swim back?”
“Sure.”
“C’mon. The worst is over.”
“How do you know?” asked Michael. “What if he comes back?”
“Well, we’ve come this far. Don’t be such a pussy.”
“I’m being practical,” said Michael.
Thack gave him a friendly goose. “Then don’t be so practical, Maude.”
They waited another five minutes, then continued up the hillside until the lights of a road led them into the Grove. Men passed them in boozy clumps, singing and jostling, hooting hello as if they, Michael and Thack had been there all along, making merry under the redwoods.
Manhood, it seemed, had been their only requirement, their only badge of identity.
“This is so unreal,” said Michael. “It’s like a hologram or something.”
“Pinocchio,
” said Thack.
“What?”
“You know. Those wicked boys on Pleasure Island.”
They were walking through a gorge, apparently, with ferny forests climbing the slopes on either side. The redwoods along the road were as fat around as Fotomats, clustered so tightly in some places that they became walls for outdoor rooms, foyers for the camps that lay behind them.
The camps were wonders to behold. Giant tepees and moss-covered lodges and open-air fireplaces built for the gods. Strings of lanterns meandered up the canyon wall to camps so lofty that they seemed like tree houses.
And everywhere there was music. They heard Brahms for a while, then Cole Porter. Then an unseen pianist began tinkling his way through “Yesterday.”
Thack asked: “There are no women at all?”
“Nope,” said Michael. “They’ve been to court over it.”
“How do they defend it?”
Michael shrugged. “Women make ‘em nervous. They can’t be themselves.”
Thack chuckled and slipped his arm across Michael’s shoulder.
“I wouldn’t do that,” said Michael.
“What?”
“This is the straightest place on earth, Thack.”
“Oh.” Thack removed his arm, looking vaguely wounded. “Plenty of
them
are doing it.”
“Yeah, but … you know … it’s different.” Michael knew how gutless this sounded, but he was still feeling incredibly paranoid.
A hawk-faced old man was catching his breath against a tree. Thack approached him, somewhat to Michael’s alarm. “Excuse me, sir. We’re kinda lost.” The old man chortled. “New here, eh?”
“Yeah.”
“Where ya wanna go, podnah?”
“Well … Hillbillies, we were told. Booter Manigault’s camp.”
“Ah.” He nodded slowly. “You guests of Booter?”
Thack hesitated ever so slightly, so Michael said: “Right.”
“Good fella, Booter.”
“Yeah, he is,” said Thack.
“The best,” Michael added, perhaps a little too eagerly.
“I tell you what you do,” said the old man. “You keep on down the river road … this road right here …”
“O.K.,” said Thack.
“It’s a few camps down, on the left. You’ll see the sign.”
“Thanks a lot.”
The old man said: “What’d ya do? Pass it and double back?”
“Uh … yeah, I guess we did.”
“Well, you just keep on down this way. You’re on the right track now.”
“Great,” said Michael.
“On the left,” added the old man. “You can’t miss it.”
“Terrific.”
“Sign’s over the entrance. Big bronze one.”
As they withdrew, both nodding their thanks, Michael wondered why old men take such a long time to give directions. Was it senility or a yearning for company?
Or just the unexpected exhilaration of feeling useful again?
