Fag Hag (Robert Rodi Essentials) (2 page)

The driver turned down Sandy’s street, which was exactly the kind of peaceful, tree-lined thoroughfare that had induced a desperately bored Hemingway to flee this very town decades earlier. Natalie forked over a stingy tip and bolted from the cab.

She let herself into the house with her key, and Carmen DeFleur, the family collie, raced up to greet her, a little wobbly in her old age. (Sandy always gave her pets both a first and last name; “They have their dignity, too,” she insisted.) Natalie squatted to let the dog lick her face, which it did with an enthusiasm bordering on rapture.

“Who’s there?” called Sandy from the corridor.

“Me, Mom,” Natalie called back, lifting her head slightly so that the dog didn’t accidentally French-kiss her.

Sandy appeared in a navy blue suit and bare feet, with an apron knotted around her waist. She was drying her hands on a dishtowel. Her hair was spectacularly coiffed.

“What gives?” said Natalie, astonished. “Never saw you in an apron before.”

“I know, it’s just humiliating. I actually had to go out and buy one. The dishwasher just refuses to work. I even tried kicking it.” She slung the dishtowel over her shoulder and kissed Natalie’s cheek. “Come on into the kitchen. I called a repairman, who was so rude on the phone that when he got here I wouldn’t let him in. He was
very
angry. He must have told his office because now they won’t send anyone else.” They were in the kitchen now. “I keep thinking if I kick it hard enough”—here she gave the offending appliance a good, swift one with her naked foot—“it’ll start up again. Filthy mechanical thing. How are you, dear? Where’s that devastating young man of yours? Has he cut his hair yet?”

Natalie took a seat at the kitchen table and looked around at the dizzying disarray; it was like a Williams-Sonoma store had exploded. The mess got worse with every visit. Sandy had married at seventeen and given birth to Natalie nine months later to the day, but even as a child Natalie had thought her mother an eccentric old lady. She was now in her mid-forties, still youthful; but the air of senile ineptitude about her had grown much more profound, especially since her second husband’s death.

“Peter’s busy,” said Natalie. “This place is a pit, Mom.”

“I haven’t had time to clean.” She untied the apron and hung it up; the moment she turned her back, it slipped off the hook and fell to the floor. She joined Natalie at the table and continued. “Getting Accessorizers Anonymous off the ground has been an ordeal. We still don’t have a meeting space; the church won’t let us use their back room because they say the group is ‘silly.’ Father Litty’s exact word for it. So you can see the kind of stigma we have to fight. It’s an uphill battle. In the meantime, we’ve been meeting at each other’s homes. I was the hostess last week. We had a hard case, then. We’re supposed to be anonymous, but I’ll tell you who if you’ll keep it secret. Carolyn Bixby—do you remember her? Josie’s mother. A sick woman! Do you know, she picked up a cranberry cocktail dress that she liked so well, she actually bought a
car
to go with it? Nathan threatened to divorce her. I had to call him myself and assure him she was getting help; he had the nerve to give us a deadline to cure her! How can people be so insensitive? Don’t they know this is an illness? Am I boring you, dear? Why’d you just look at your watch? What on earth have you done to your hair? Is this why you haven’t called?”

As usual, Sandy’s steamroller stream of consciousness left Natalie totally unable to reply; she shook her head to clear it and said, “How’s Carmen DeFleur?” The dog was under her chair now, panting happily at having Natalie home again.

“Fine. The vet says if she stays on the pills she’ll be all right. But she keeps throwing them up. Honestly, I had no idea this beast was going to cost me a king’s ransom in medical bills when I got her. You kids both wanted one, though, so I fought Max tooth and nail for it, and now you’ve moved away and I’m left alone with her, an overemotional dog with a thyroid problem who empties her guts onto my rugs twice a week. I’d get rid of her, but you and your brother would never speak to me again. It’s so embarrassing. Greta Ledbetter came by last week and there was dog vomit in the dining room. I nearly swooned from mortification. Greta, of course, knows every household product manufactured since Jimmy Carter was president, so she spared me no detail on what to do, but finally she advised me to Scotchgard all the rugs. I said, ‘Greta, this is a genuine, century-old Persian, not a fake from Marshall Field’s. I am not going to laminate it like a driver’s license.’ She left in a snit and then two days later my auburn rinse was no longer a secret in town, and you can guess who was responsible for
that.
Now I can’t decide if I should accept her invitation to her daughter Lisa’s wedding—she’s marrying some ill-mannered doctor from Jordan or Iraq or one of those dreadful places where divorce is punishable by death. But I’ve already ordered a gift and I don’t think I can return it. So you see all the trouble this dog has caused me.”

Natalie put her hand to her cheek and stared at her mother in amazement. “You never change, you know that?”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, what’s that supposed to mean? You kids are so sarcastic. I can never tell if you’re making fun or not. It’s a sign of immaturity, I hope you know that. Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, so naturally it’s the first to be embraced by juveniles. I wish you’d outgrow it. I wish you’d—well, what
did
you do to your hair, anyway? And that outfit! Darling, you look like Pierrot! I wore something just like it one Halloween. Max went as Bluebeard. That should’ve told me something about Max, but I was naïve. If I knew then what I know now! Could’ve spared myself a lot of Traceys and Staceys and Laceys over the years. Max did love his ‘acey’ girls. Honey, stop looking at your watch. If I’m boring you, just say so. It’s a ridiculous color, anyway; who ever heard of a purple watch? Let me see the face. What on earth—are those monkeys?”

“They’re just stylized people, Mom,” said Natalie, feeling creepy at her Mother’s face practically pressing against her wrist. “They’re by a famous artist, his name is Keith Haring.”

“But they’re just outlines,” she said, astonished. “He got famous by doing just outlines?” She released Natalie’s hand, and Natalie tucked it between her knees. “I suppose any generation that would call outlines of people art is the kind of generation that would put art on a watch face. You don’t wear that to work, do you?”

“Sometimes. I’ve got about twelve watches. I rotate them.”

“Twelve!” Sandy crossed her arms. “I’ve had just two since I was a girl. We’re very different, you and I. You’re just like your grandmother, flamboyant. I was always more commonsensical, more straightforward.”

Natalie gave her a you’ve-got-to-be-kidding look.

She smiled and winked. “We have the same taste in men, though. Wouldn’t have put up with all the ‘acey’ girls if Max hadn’t been an Adonis. Where’d you say your young man was? Looks like a movie idol, that one.”

Natalie shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “Mom, Peter and I aren’t really together, you know. We’re not a couple.”

“Nonsense. You’re inseparable.”

“He’s not in love with me, though.”

She grimaced. “Well, you’re in love with him, that’s plain as the nose on your face.”

Natalie shrugged. “So?”

She rubbed her forehead. “I’d give you a lecture on how demeaning it is to throw yourself after a man who doesn’t want you, but it’d break my heart to do it. Do you mind if I don’t?”

“Actually, I’d prefer it.”

She leaned forward, yanked her daughter’s hands from between her knees, and held them. “Listen. Carolyn Bixby has a son, Hank. He picked her up after the meeting last week and I saw him. Not an Adonis, but—well, rather pleasant, in a solid sort of way. I asked her about him. He’s twenty-seven, he’s single, he’s a real-estate agent, and he has his own two-storey mock Tudor house in Darien. He drives a Saab. I’ll invite him to dinner, you can meet him. Say yes.”

Natalie contemplated an eternity of middle-class paralysis with solid Hank Bixby and his big house and his Saab in a blighted suburb, no doubt with kids shitting and pissing on everything. She compared that to even a single night of lights and music and drugs and excitement with vital, beautiful, passionate Peter. “Forgot it, Mom. I’ll take my chances with the guy I’ve got.”

Sandy sat back and sighed. “Very well.” She raised an eyebrow. “Maybe he’d like you a little better, honey, if you just lost some weight.”

“Mom!”
It was a forbidden subject.

“Sorry, sorry,
mea culpa,”
she wailed in mock abashment. She got up from the chair and headed into the dining room. “Will you help me move some furniture? The Landseer fell out of its frame, can you believe it, and it’s stuck behind the sofa. I tired getting it out with a coat hanger, but it’s really jammed down there.”

Natalie shook her head. Her mother wouldn’t Scotchgard a hundred-year-old rug, but she’d go after a hundred-year-old painting with a wire prong. “Commonsensical and straightforward,” was she? She’d have to hell her brother Calvin about that. He’d howl.

After rescuing the Landseer, Natalie took Carmen DeFleur for a long walk around the block, and as the collie joyfully sniffed every tree and traffic sign and squatted about every three yards, Natalie’s mind turned back to Peter. Had he and Maurice spent the day together? Were they even now walking down Halsted Street, looking in shop windows and comparing notes on what they saw, laughing, making jokes, sharing their aspirations and hopes and reliving their pasts, forging bonds that would be, oh, so very hard to break? Or had they gone their separate ways this morning, each eager to call his friends and tell them about his wonderful new boyfriend? In which case, their bond would still be almost exclusively sexual. Their date last night—the dinner, the drinks afterward, all of it—could be counted as foreplay. They’d have been thinking ahead to the sex and not have their minds in the present. Now, however, that mystery was over, and everything depended on whether they’d spent the post-coital hours in each other’s company, or apart. Natalie closed her eyes and prayed fervently for the latter.

Sandy begged her to stay for dinner, and, not for the first time, Natalie detected in her mother’s tone an almost desperate longing. Although she felt for her, she refused; an entire meal’s worth of Sandy’s inane prattle would drive her right out of her mind. She hugged her good-bye and walked to the station, intent on a nice, leisurely ride back to the city. The numbing motion and noise of the train always pacified her, helped her to think without hysteria.

When she finally got home, it was nearly dark, and her little studio apartment was cloaked in shades of gray. In the far corner she could see the red light of her answering machine flashing, flashing. She rewound the tape, pressed PLAY, and went to the refrigerator for a Diet Coke as she listened.

Beep. “Natalie’s, it’s Peter.” (Rustling sounds, like sheets.) “Maurice just left, it’s—Christ, it’s ten-thirty in the morning. Last night was
incredible.
I can’t wait to tell you all about it. Why aren’t you home? Call me.” Beep. “Hi, it’s me again. What, did you go somewhere for the day without telling me? Not fair. I’m home alone and bursting with news. Call me! This is an order.” Beep. “Me again. Uh-oh, it’s starting. It’s three, I was missing Maurice so I dialed his number, and no one’s home. So I started getting crazy, thinking, he’s out and I’m in, what does that mean? Why isn’t he home worrying about what to wear tonight like I am? And why aren’t
you
home? I need you to be there! Goddamn you, you harlot!
Call
me!” Beep. “Guess who? I hate the world. I took a nap and now it’s five and I have crease marks in my face that no
way
are gonna come out by the time Maurice comes by to pick me up. Hope he enjoys dating a disfigured guy. I shall never forgive you for being away today. Good-bye. Have a nice life.” Beep. “Me again. Remember to meet us at Roscoe’s around eleven. Can’t wait!” A lengthy hiss followed. That had been his last message.

Natalie let her head fall back against a wall. Thank God, thank God, they hadn’t spent the day together. Tonight would be an easy battle to win. Go ahead, Maurice, she thought; go to a French restaurant, enjoy Peter’s company, even think about a future with him, if you like. Your hours of pleasure will be few enough. You are in my rifle sight, and I aim to kill.

M
AURICE WAS EVERYTHING
she’d hoped he’d be: haughty, pretty, vacant—a typical Halsted Street cipher. She’d been waiting at Roscoe’s for more than an hour, hiding her anger at Peter for being late by flirting with some of the beautiful boys in the bar, when all of a sudden he swept in, wearing his stunning Armani suit, with what could only be Maurice in tow; she was so glad to see Maurice’s I’m-shallow-as-a-birdbath smirk that she instantly forgave Peter everything.

They were giddy; they’d had champagne. Peter giggled as he introduced her to Maurice, whose handshake was limp; Natalie smiled in triumph at the jellyfish grip and Peter beamed, thinking she was smiling because she liked him.

“Well,”
said Maurice, with just the right degree of feminine lilt to his voice, “I’ve heard quite a lot about
you,
Natalie.”

“I’m sure you have,” she said in her most theatrical manner, “and I hate to disillusion you, but I’m not really a goddess. Appearances to the contrary.” She lay her hand on his shoulder. “You, however, are one divine piece of work, Maurice.”

He blushed crimson and tittered. “Oh—thank you.”

She smiled. The first offensive was now successfully completed. Natalie, brilliant strategist that she was, knew that the quickest way to disarm a man was to tell him at once everything he was dying to hear. Now she’d feed him even more, and then, when he was thoroughly enjoying being flattered so outrageously, she’d suddenly stop. As a result, he’d hang on her every word, her every gesture, and try in an undoubtedly pathetic manner to get her back on the subject of himself. In short, he’d be thoroughly co-opted; if he spoke five words to Peter the entire night, she’d be surprised.