The Goddess Rules (6 page)

But she didn’t. Instead she just watched very carefully as if studying for a biology paper, and vowed to practice every lick and stroke on Jake one day, possibly in another lifetime, but hey, even if they came back as ants she’d be sure to blow his mind. She watched and learned, before realizing that the glass was steamed up and she was probably a pervert. At which point she snatched the curtains shut and tiptoed to the sink to brush her teeth in the dark.

Chapter Four

The next morning Kate was woken by a colossal thudding on her shed door. It didn’t take more than a split second for her to fathom that it was Mirri Moncur and that Kate had overslept. But not by accident. Just before she had fallen asleep last night, Kate had rather belligerently decided that she was not going to abide by orders issued in flagrante delicto from a hammock containing a handsome, naked young actor. She simply didn’t see any reason why she should kowtow to Mirabelle Moncur’s needs. Especially when she hadn’t turned up for dinner last night and had failed to let Leonard know.

Kate was also just a bit peevish about the fact that Mirri was having great, tree-banging sex, and that she herself had gone to bed in a pair of earplugs and a bra. The earplugs because the “wow”s and the “again, again”s were not conducive to sleep, and the bra because as she’d pulled on her nightie she had suddenly noticed that her boobs were a bit farther down her chest from where she usually found them. In a panic she remembered that Marilyn Monroe slept in a bra to avoid such a horrifying eventuality as this. So Kate followed suit. She supposed she could ask Mirri, whose tits seemed, like time and tide, to wait for no man, for some tips in the keeping-your-breasts-aloft department, but that would have entailed talking to the oversexed old tart.

“Bugger off,” Kate shouted at the pounding outside.

“It is eight twenty-five. I waited twenty-five minutes before I came to find you.” Mirri’s voice rang out like a French foghorn.

“Well, you can wait even longer. I don’t open until nine,” Kate barked and pulled the duvet over her head.

“I say to you last night, eight o’clock. You say fine. This is unprofessional.”

“Well, you crossed the boundaries of professional behavior when you decided to remove your dress on my doorstep and reenact the bloody Kama Sutra,” Kate yelled back. But instead of a brick through the window she was met by sounds of merriment behind the door. Kate ignored it for all of five seconds, then couldn’t contain herself any longer. “What’s so funny?” she snapped, and sat up in bed.

“You watched us.” Mirri had sat down on the doorstep and lit a cigarette. “It was a good performance,
non
?”

“Don’t be so disgusting,” Kate spat, with the disapproval of a Sunday school teacher at a wife-swapping party.

“No wonder you are tired. You lay awake all night thinking about it.” Mirri laughed. At which point Kate got out of bed, stomped toward her door, and threw it open.

“Would you please put that thing out? It stinks.” Kate glared at Mirri and her cigarette. “And for your information I would rather have burned my hair than watch that pathetic display outside my window last night. Next time I’ll call the police.”

Mirri casually stubbed out her cigarette and stood up. “Then I shall return to my room until nine, when you prefer to begin working. But you must stop being so English about making love. It is too boring,” Mirri said, before she pushed off back to the house without a hint of emotion. Leaving Kate looking like a rhinoceros about to charge—all dust and fury.
The only difference being that rhinos don’t wear bras under their nightdresses,
Kate thought with a cringe as she looked down.

Eventually Kate pried herself from bed and made her way to the house with her sketch pad and pencils—but only for Leonard. She didn’t care a bit about Mirri Moncur or her lion cub. In fact, this morning she cared about very little. She had slumped into one of those black pits of despair that seemed to be part of the landscape of life with Jake. They were the times when he vanished from her life for days on end. And these were the days that she barely survived. The days she wished that she could just sleep through and not have to feel. She knew that the sensible thing to do would be to resolve, quite simply, never to see him again. But she also knew that it was the time she was least likely to make the break—she was weak and diminished and she knew that when he did finally reemerge, she’d be so relieved that she would forget the misery. She often wondered, as she did this morning, how she had become involved in such a dysfunctional relationship. She’d never have believed herself capable of it before she met Jake. It was something that insecure, idiotic women in magazines or television talk shows did. It wasn’t something that an attractive woman with a job and friends should have given the time of day to. But what she’d never understood before was how you could actually love someone who behaved so carelessly toward you. She didn’t understand it now, either; she just knew that she didn’t want to spend another minute without Jake in her life. But for Leonard’s sake and for the sake of not allowing her life to be completely governed by Jake, she got up and, tucking her cell phone into her jeans pocket, went to find Mirri Moncur.

Kate arrived at Leonard’s kitchen door and rapped out a perfunctory knock before pushing it open and letting herself in. She and Leonard had lived this way for a while now. His house was open day and night to Kate, and he was very fond of saying, “
Mi casa, su casa,
my dear.” Actually he applied this expression to everything from cornflakes to friends. What was Leonard’s was, by extension, Kate’s. Similarly she’d have been delighted to share everything she owned with Leonard. Though it hadn’t come to that yet—he had little need for either combat pants or pencils, and though he had taken a queeny shine to a pair of Janis Joplin’s cowboy boots that Jake had bought for her on eBay, they would never have fit him. So Kate merely shared her tales of youthful misspending and occasionally her magazines with Leonard. And one day, when she had a palazzo in Venice and caskets of jewels, she’d share those with him, too. Though jewels weren’t really his thing. Leonard was not camp in an Elton John way; rather he was discreetly appreciative of all beautiful things and had exquisite taste. There was nothing of the rhinestone poof about him.

“Leonard? It’s me.” Kate poked her head into the kitchen. The house was deserted.

“Through here,” Leonard called out from his study across the hall. Kate looked about slightly cautiously in case Bébé was off his leash and prowling the corridors. Or indeed to see if Mirri was off her leash. Though in fairness it was Kate who had been unreasonable and pathetic this morning. Kate had been practicing a bit of an apology and planned to deliver it with as much grace as she could muster.

“Come in, come in.” Leonard was sitting behind his desk and stood up when Kate walked in. “Tea? Coffee? Sherry?” he inquired as Kate gave him a small hug and then perched on the edge of a leather library chair.

“Thanks, but I’ve got to speak to Mirabelle about this portrait,” she explained as Leonard seized the moment and poured himself a small sherry.

“Ah, yes, the poor thing was very apologetic about not making it to dinner last night. She ran into an old friend and got carried away.”

“I’ll say,” said Kate when Leonard’s back was turned.

“Sorry?”

“That’s a shame.” Kate smiled. “Still, we had a lovely time.”

“Absolutely we did.” Leonard settled back down to do his work. “Can’t possibly look my accounts in the eye without one of these,” he said as he raised his sherry glass.

“Quite right, too.” Kate stood up. “Have fun with your accounts.” And with that she went out into the hall and up the stairs to the top floor.

“Ah, come in, come in.” Mirri opened the door with a flourish as Kate waited hesitantly. It wasn’t the reception she’d expected. Mirri was smiling, warm, and dressed in a flowing sky-blue caftan. Kate had imagined that the only thing that would be blue would be the air—with a stream of abuse for Kate’s rudeness this morning. But Mirri seemed not to even remember, let alone mind. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

“Good, well, here I am,” Kate said, somewhat disarmed. “The thing is, Miss Moncur, about this morning, I’m sorry. It was unprofessional of me not to turn up on time. You’re right.”

“Oh, this is fine.” Mirri swept Kate into a chair in the corner next to where Bébé was sleeping on the carpet. “I understand that you are just jealous of what happened last night.”

“Jealous?” Kate wondered if she’d misunderstood Mirri’s French accent.

“It was not diplomatic of me to make love near your house.” Mirri sat down on the bed and waved her hand dismissively. “I understand.”

“I wasn’t jealous,” Kate said.

“Darling, of course you must be. You were with a slug of a man when I came in the other day. Quite charmless.”

“I’m sorry?” Kate asked, not able to believe that Mirri was serious for a moment.

“Don’t be sorry. I felt sorry for you.”

“What?”

“You could do better.” Mirri smiled at Kate. “But enough of that. Let’s discuss my
petit chat.
He is after all why we are here.”

“You just called my boyfriend a slug.”

“He was your boyfriend?” Mirri scowled. “Then why didn’t he behave as if he was? He took the sheet from you. He didn’t defend you when I said your paintings were average, and he didn’t throw me out. This is not the kind of man you want for a boyfriend.”

“I really don’t think that it’s any of your business.” Kate’s cheeks had begun to glow pink with anger. Who on earth did this old cow think she was? And what was she doing noticing all those things about the way Jake behaved? If Kate spent her whole time not noticing them, then why should anyone else?

“No, you’re right. The sex must be amazing. For you to put up with this slug. Am I right?” Mirri wandered over to the mirror and began piling her hair on top of her head. More as an act of vanity than hairstyling.

“I refuse to talk about this any longer.” Kate got up from the chair and went to sit beside the lion cub on the floor. She was shaking with fury. “So were you thinking oil or watercolor?”

“I was thinking that you shouldn’t put up with a man like that. You’re not unattractive. Although your clothes are wrong.”

“My clothes?”

“Those trousers? You were perhaps going to repair a drain?” Mirri asked.

“It’s called fashion. It’s something
young
people tend to enjoy.” Kate sucked air in through her mouth and looked pointedly at Mirri Moncur’s slightly turkeyish neck.

“Oh, I’m not criticizing you.” Mirri smiled. “I just find it amusing that so many young women complain of not finding a husband yet they dress as if they don’t need one. See? If you look as if you can unblock your own drain, a man will not feel wanted or needed.”

“That’s an interesting view of the casual clothing phenomenon. I’ll be sure to alert the Gap to the implications of the mass production of cargo pants on the institution of marriage.”

“Oh, you’re too serious. I just think there’s nothing wrong with looking pretty.” Mirri eased her long blond mermaid hair back over her shoulder.

“Nor do I. But I think the connection between trousers and husbands is tenuous. And it didn’t do Jennifer Aniston’s chances any harm when it came to nabbing Brad Pitt.”

“This Pitt is not a man. He’s a girl with facial hair. No substance.”

“I think a lot of women would disagree with you.” Kate was losing her patience now; the woman was clearly mad. “If you don’t want to discuss the painting, then I really ought to go and do some work.”

“I think oils.” Mirri bent down to kiss her pet on the nose. “Women may disagree with me about this Brad Pitt but this is why there is no romance left in the world. What has he to offer that a lesbian lover doesn’t?” Mirri argued in her perfectly irrational, perfectly confident French way.

“Well, I think maybe . . .” Kate shook her head impatiently.

“Oh, apart from the cock. They all have the cock. But do they know what to do with it?” This was a rhetorical question. And one look at Kate told Mirri Moncur that her visitor was not qualified to answer it. Kate suspected as much herself, too. Much as she hated to admit it. “No, because women are all fair and good and charming and dying to fix their own drains and take responsibility for their own orgasms so there’s no point in the man even trying to be a man anymore. See?” Mirri lit up a cigarette with her omnipresent lighter. “We have castrated them. It’s too sad.”

“I love men.” Kate tried to sound liberal and on top of the argument.

“No, you love the wrong man. You love a slug who isn’t capable of loving you back,” Mirri pronounced.

“He’s my boyfriend,” Kate lied. “And I really take exception to you commenting on something you know absolutely nothing about.” She knew that was becoming irritatingly bolshy but there was something about Mirri Moncur that brought this side out in her.

“I’ll tell you everything you need to know about . . . what’s his name?”

“Jake.”

“Jake.” Mirri took a long drag on her cigarette. “He is weak. Maybe because he has the small cock. Maybe because he doesn’t like his mother. Really it’s irrelevant. He’s weak and he thinks that because you love him, you are even weaker. So he is mean to you. He won’t call you. He doesn’t care whether you call him. But if you do, he thinks you’re foolish.”

“You don’t know the first thing about Jake,” Kate said, not able to look Mirri in the eye. “He loved me. He wrote songs for me . . .”

“He’s not good enough for you.” Mirri stubbed her cigarette out on an ashtray on her bedside table.