The Desert Rose (28 page)

Inside, she wasn’t quite as fine as she pretended to be for Gary’s sake. It was sort of a complicated birthday, getting off to the bad start and then finding out that Ross was living with Linda, then doing the last two shows, which had gone fine. When she stopped dancing she felt mixed up, from the complications. Any other night she could have had a long talk with Gary and he could have made her feel better, with his understanding, but he couldn’t do it amid hundreds of people.

She began to drink quite a few vodka tonics, she wanted to feel gay. She had always been a person who had a reputation as the life of the party, but this time the gay feeling wouldn’t quite come. After a few drinks she kept noticing Giorgio still smiling. She decided I’m gonna make him like me, this has gone on long enough, I’ll just make him like me.

So she proceeded to make Giorgio dance with her, he didn’t dance quite as well as he smiled, didn’t have a whole lot of rhythm but that was a small failing and the fact that she had encouraged him to dance definitely did have the
result of making him like her. It looked like all he had been waiting on was a little encouragement. During the last few hours of the party Giorgio practically never got an inch away from her—he even began to act a little jealous when other people asked her to dance.

Gary looked a little disturbed. Once when Giorgio had to go to the bathroom he looked at her askance.

“What’d I do now?” she asked.

“You shouldn’t have switched him on,” Gary said. “I mean he’s a nice guy basically but I don’t think you should have thrown the switch.”

It was just more pessimism, Harmony decided. At the slightest sign of a boyfriend everybody she knew immediately began to discourage her. It was a little annoying, after all it was her birthday, why couldn’t she be optimistic about Giorgio? At least for an hour or two, it might make the gay feeling come back.

The party wound down about sunup. By that time Harmony had had quite a few too many vodka tonics and wasn’t too clear about anything except that a lot of people hugged her and quite a few cried, they were all sort of sorry she was fired. Not as sorry as I am, she thought. Giorgio became nervous, Gary was kind of right about a switch, she had definitely hit his jealousy switch. A few dances wouldn’t normally make a man that jealous, but it did Giorgio, he was glad when the party ended and he could take her home.

He stopped and wanted to kiss her in the hall of the apartment building before they even got to his apartment. Riding over Harmony had sort of felt a lift, she was pretty drunk but it was still a lift that she had finally got Giorgio to like her, plus the sun was up and the day looked beautiful.

I guess I’m starting another year, she thought, riding home with Giorgio seemed a good way to start it. He was
wearing a beautiful silk shirt and was actually quite good-looking. But pouncing on her in the hall wasn’t a great success, just as he did it two little girls came out of an apartment all dressed up nicely to go to school and it embarrassed them—as soon as Harmony noticed them it embarrassed her too.

She made Giorgio quit but still it embarrassed her and broke the mood. He had been trying to unbutton her blouse, she wished he could have waited, she kept remembering how shocked the little girls looked and it affected her mood. Didn’t affect Giorgio, though—he had the blouse unbuttoned the minute they got in the door. Harmony wanted to get things in a slightly slower gear, she was a little woozy and slower would have been better, but Giorgio couldn’t slow down, apparently he had really been wanting her all those years when he stood behind the bar smiling. He had the urge to make up for lost time so they didn’t even make it to the bedroom, they just made it to the couch, though just for starters. By the time they got to the bedroom Giorgio was ready to make up for more lost time. The fact that she was so sleepy she couldn’t keep her eyes open didn’t matter to him.

Well, I sure made him like me she thought while he was making up for the lost time.

6.

H
ARMONY DECIDED
she and Wendell had the most in common, if only because he suffered as much from Myrtle’s jealousy as she did from Giorgio’s. All of her men had been capable of jealousy, even Ross, though Ross wasn’t capable of much, but she had never seen a man as jealous as Giorgio. In no time at all she knew why Gary had been
of the opinion that she shouldn’t have thrown the switch. The bad part was that he was even jealous of Gary, though he knew perfectly well Gary was gay. But gayness didn’t matter, Giorgio was even a little jealous of Jessie, didn’t like it that Jessie was living in her house. He had known showgirls who were girlfriends, he said. Harmony couldn’t argue, she just pointed out that Jessie definitely wasn’t her girlfriend, in that sense.

Basically Giorgio didn’t want her breathing in the vicinity of another human being. He wanted total possession. When she was younger she might have taken it as a sign of real love and been glad but this time she just took it as a sign of real jealousy and in no time she lost her optimism. The main problem was that for her love hadn’t really hit. The truth of the matter was that it had been her last night at the Stardust and a lot of vodka tonics had hit. After about a week she admitted love wasn’t likely to hit, either, despite the fact that Giorgio was good-looking and a nice dresser, she just didn’t love him.

That made the jealousy hard to handle, because of course she had had to stop going to work and didn’t have a whole lot to do. Giorgio wanted her to sit around the bar all day so he could be sure she wasn’t breathing in the vicinity of another human being, but a couple of days at the bar were enough. When it became the time of day when she would normally have gone to work she couldn’t of course and got depressed. She was beginning to hit the vodka tonics a little too hard, she would have daydreams of being in the dressing room putting on her makeup, things like that. If she sat around the bar she daydreamed and got drunk, and she had never been big on drinking, but if she tried to go over to Gary’s for a little understanding Giorgio threw a fit. And if she went home to feed the peacocks and see how Jessie and Myrtle were doing he threw another fit. He was even jealous of the peacocks.

The main thing was that she needed the understanding talk, she needed Myrtle and Jessie and Gary, particularly Gary, she didn’t want to make do with vodka tonics. She just had to face the fact that Giorgio wasn’t going to work out. Since love hadn’t hit and the sex wasn’t exactly the best she’d ever had it wasn’t that terrible a thing to face. Terrible was the fit Giorgio would throw when she told him.

One morning Giorgio had to leave early to go see his beer distributor and as soon as he left Harmony just packed the few things she had with her and called a cab and went home. It was a little discouraging. Giorgio had only lasted six days and she didn’t have another prospect in sight, except maybe Ross. Besides, there would be the fit to get through when Giorgio found out she was calling it off.

Moneywise she was down to two hundred and fifty dollars, and she hadn’t heard from Pepper in a week. Pepper was just leading a life that didn’t include her, things changed so completely when they changed. Although so far as the duplex went practically nothing had changed except that Myrtle had bought another lawn chair so Jessie could keep her company in the shade of the garage.

When the cab dropped her off there they were. Jessie had just done her nails and was watching them dry, and Myrtle was stirring her drink with one finger and trying to write an ad for a going-out-of-business sale. Holding garage sales had begun to depress her and she was hoping to get rid of the rest of her stock of secondhand clothes and imitation pearls.

They watched her get out of the cab as if it was the big event of the day, which might be the case. Apparently Monroe had gotten discouraged and wasn’t really trying anymore and Wendell worked all day, not a lot happened around the duplex.

“Hi, I’m back,” Harmony said.

“Why, was he unfaithful?” Jessie asked. She had a thing about men being unfaithful.

“Sure, give ’em time, they’ll all cheat,” Myrtle said.

“I can’t talk about it, I’ll cry,” Harmony said, which wasn’t true, she felt pretty good. She just didn’t feel like explaining that not only did Giorgio not cheat he even neglected his business in order to continue making up for lost time. Earlier on in life it might have made her love him, but this time it didn’t, she just mainly wanted to get along home and sit under the umbrella with her peacocks.

So that was what she did, not only that day but for the next week, spent a lot of time under the umbrella, drinking a few rum Cokes and feeding the peacocks. When it got real hot in the middle of the day she would put on her bikini and go back to the umbrella, it was very peaceful with just the peacocks.

Jessie and Myrtle had become fast friends. They sat in the cool of the garage most of the day, talking about men, how unfaithful they were and dishonest and not too sensitive and hard to understand. They had enough complaints to get them through the day. Harmony didn’t take much part, she didn’t care to hear complaints and had none to make particularly, men weren’t perfect but neither were women, much as she loved Myrtle and Jessie it was obvious they were a long way from perfect.

The big scene with Giorgio never happened. It was such a blow to his vanity when she just moved out that he dropped the jealousy issue and all other issues too, he chose to pretend it never happened. Harmony took the Buick and went to the bar once to show him there were no hard feelings, they could still be friends, after all it had only lasted six days. But Giorgio acted like she was someone he had maybe only been introduced to casually once or twice, he wouldn’t look at her and definitely didn’t rush over to refill the peanut bowl. It was pretty plain he would
rather she found another bar to drink in, she had to give up on still being friends.

“Well, I told you it was a mistake to switch him on,” Gary said. He came out often before going to work, to see how she and Jessie were doing.

“I didn’t mean to but it was my birthday,” Harmony said. “How’s Pepper doing?”

“Fine,” Gary said. “She knows the routines. Monique could leave now, as far as that goes.”

It seemed peculiar, Pepper was at the Stardust every day and she wasn’t. It had all happened so quickly she couldn’t even figure out what she felt about it, except definitely it didn’t feel so good not going to work. She had always kept herself in shape and already she was beginning to feel not in such good shape.

Gary was worried, he didn’t like her just sitting around with the peacocks.

“You gotta look for a job, Harmony,” he said. “Two hundred dollars isn’t going to last forever.”

“I know, besides I owe Madonna,” she said. “I always like to pay for Pepper’s lessons first.”

“You don’t owe Madonna, Mel paid her,” Gary said. “He knows you’re out of work. It wasn’t that much money. It’s like small change to someone who’s rich.”

She knew Gary was right, she ought to be job hunting. But Jessie read the want ads out loud constantly and none of the jobs available seemed like things either one of them could do. She had only been a showgirl and a waitress, maybe she could get a job as a waitress but she kept putting it off, hoping a girl would drop out of one of the shows and a producer would call. Everybody in town knew she was fired, if a girl dropped out surely they would call her.

7.

S
O FOR
a week she mainly sat under the umbrella, not so much thinking bad thoughts or good thoughts either, just sort of sitting, watching the days get hot, and then cool again, as the evening came. When the sun sank the sky got very clear—she loved the evenings. Sometimes just before sundown she would stand by the fence and look across the desert to the Strip, the lights were beautiful above the desert shadows. It was not a hurt exactly, to be watching the lights from across the desert, it was peaceful even, just different from being over there where the life was, putting on her makeup and getting ready for the show.

It was not easy to believe it was over, it had been her life since she was seventeen and she had taken care of herself. She wasn’t in really bad shape yet, maybe she had just gained a pound or two since being laid off. Looking over at the Strip in the evenings she just felt like it was a vacation, a little time to be with the peacocks. She would probably be back on the Strip any day, as soon as a producer who knew her had a girl drop out.

Only the problem was the money, it was running out fast. Even if all she did was go down to a bar and have a few drinks or maybe take Myrtle and Jessie to Wendy’s for dinner it used up money. There wasn’t enough to pay the phone bill, for one thing—any day the phone was going to be cut off.

“You should have took your real estate license,” Myrtle said. “You could be as rich as that guy Pepper’s marrying if you knew how to sell real estate.”

It was not a helpful complaint. It was true that a lot of girls went to the university and took real estate courses but
Harmony had just never had any urge to, real estate hadn’t interested her that much.

Then just when she thought she was going to have to call a guy she knew named Big Ben who owned a couple of restaurants, she practically knew he’d give her a job but she kept putting it off, a sort of miracle happened, which was that Ross called.

Harmony had about given up on Ross. Her guess was that he was wrong about Linda’s attitudes, probably Linda wanted to keep him to herself while she was pregnant at least. She didn’t think it was realistic to count on Ross to come through with anything, after all it was fourteen years, he probably didn’t really want to try getting back together.

Then one morning she was sitting at the kitchen table drying her hair with Jessie’s blow-dryer when the phone rang. She started not to answer, probably it was the Visa people, they were pretty persistent, not that you could blame them, but then she thought who knows, so she answered and it was Ross. He wasn’t calling from a pay phone, either, he was calling from his own apartment.