Like Warm Sun on Nekkid Bottoms (25 page)

The four of us, Mindie, Wendy, Morgan, and myself, discussed all the particulars with Aunt Helena, and given Mindie’s giddy belief that she was soon to be a major motion-picture star working beside Steven Spielberg, she was more cooperative than I ever could have hoped.

We would all drive down in the Duesy, make the quick trip to have it repaired, then head to the chapel for the inspection. Aunt Helena would meet us there with her husband, Pjuter, later that evening after their ‘thing’. We planned to have a nice dinner at the restaurant (on me) where the reception might be held (dependent upon food quality, atmosphere, and cleanliness of toilets—or lack thereof). ‘Nice dinner’ being a somewhat optimistic hope in my view. Mindie did not yet know Ms. Waboombas well enough to be in any way concerned about Tourette’s-like outbreaks of sexual gesticulation in public places, and once she found out there would likely be hell to pay—a payment Mindie would undoubtedly be charging to my account.

After dining, Helena and Pjuter would return home in the Duesenberg with Mindie, and the pastor, and Mindie would allow me to spend four nights away at the comics convention with Morgan and Ms. Waboombas, clearly still unaware that Ms. Waboombas planned to spend the entire trip fucking me raw. Mindie could be profoundly generous when distracted by good news that was all about her.

As Morgan, Wendy, Mindie, and the pastor positioned themselves in Helena’s classic automobile, my quirky aunt pulled me to one side and handed me an envelope.

“There’s some cash in there,” she said, “and a credit card to pay for the car.”

“I can take care of that,” I said, pushing back the envelope.

“No, no, I insist,” she said, returning it to me. “You never know. Something unexpected might come up, and I’d rather you had it just in case.”

Then she cocked her head to one side and began to whisper, conspiratorially, turning bodily away from the others while speaking out of one side of her mouth and not moving her lips. It made her completely unintelligible.

“What?” I asked. “I can’t understand you. What’s wrong with your face?”

“Nothing. Sssh. I just wanted to see if you knew…” she paused, eyeing me carefully. “You never actually
asked
Mindie to marry you, and—are you
sure
about this?”

I looked past her to Mindie, sitting in the middle seat with Wendy, talking in animated tones. I wondered how long it would be before Min learned the truth about the kind of movies Ms. Waboombas
really
made and the whole thing came unglued like a space shuttle.

“Of course, I’m sure,” I said, scoffing. “You think I’m some kind of spineless airhead who would go along with a marriage he didn’t want
just
because he was afraid of confrontation?”

I laughed. She didn’t. It hurt.

“Well, I’m not,” I said.

“I see,” Aunt Helena replied sadly, lowering her head a moment.

After a bit of studying her toes as she gently pushed driveway gravel around, she looked up and fixed me with an almost frighteningly intense stare—as if she could read things through my eyeballs that were printed on my brain. Things that were misspelled.

“Ms. Nuckeby was fired from her agency this morning. Did you know that?”

I was struck. “No, I didn’t. Because of that business yesterday?”

“Yes. I think your grandfather had something to do with it.”

I found myself suddenly growing very angry. He had no business…

“Damn him,” I sputtered. But after a moment, I softened a bit. Anger was difficult for me to sustain. “Well, I suppose it had to happen.”

“Corky! She didn’t deserve that!”

“I don’t know. She did show up at my home unannounced…”

“She
liked
you!”

“She didn’t even
know
me.”

“Sometimes you can just tell about someone,” she said warmly, as if remembering a time
she
could ‘just tell’.

“Or maybe she could ‘just tell’ that I lived in a multimillion dollar home…”

“Corky! You can make
negative
judgments about
her
without knowing
her
, but she can’t make
positive
ones about
you
without knowing
you
? You know what that is?”

“Umm—savvy?”

“Sexist. Misogynistic. At the very least, just plain unfair.”

“But with a certain wisdom of experience, Grandfather might have a point…”

“On the top of his head. And now I’m beginning to see the same point on the top of yours. Genetic, obviously.”

“Aunt Helena…”

“How does Mindie make you
feel
, Corky?”

I looked again over her shoulder at Mindie in the car, laughing vivaciously, chatting up Ms. Waboombas, obviously certain that she was on the brink of becoming a major Hollywood star—the kind who doesn’t have to perform oral sex on camera.

Aunt Helena continued without waiting for an answer. “And how did Ms. Nuckeby make you feel?”

I hesitated, then admitted in a soft and faraway voice, “Wonderful.”

“Then don’t you think, Corky, that she deserves at least a
little
time for you to make a proper determination of whom she is and what she really wants from you? Before you ‘Next’ her?”

I gave it some thought.

“I know you, Corky. You’re hoping that someday, somehow, Mindie will be nice to you and love you like you deserve to be loved. And you
do
deserve to be loved, my dear. But wouldn’t it be better to find someone who
already
likes you— maybe someone
you
already like, as well?”

Did love work that way? Two people genuinely interested in one another with no ulterior motives? Hard to imagine. But if it did…?

I looked down at my own toes digging in the gravel, then stopped, looked up at her and spoke with a confidence that surprised even me.

“How can I find her?”

Helena sighed a heavy breath of relief, nearly laughing. Why was she so certain about Ms. Nuckeby?

“She lives near the town where you’ll get the car repaired. The Duesenberg gets you to her without alerting or upsetting Mindie. Anything you do beyond that will undoubtedly anger your—quote— ‘fiancée’, quite a lot.” She said ‘fiancée’ as if it were a nematode that lived parasitically off other creatures.

After a moment, she took my face firmly in her hands. “
You
have to decide if it’s worth that risk,” she told me.

“Short of preventing the deaths of millions of people, it’s hard to imagine
anything
worth upsetting Mindie.”

“Really?” asked Aunt Helena. “Not even true love?”

The drive down was long and hard for all the men in the car— including the pastor—in every sense of the word. We were in the front, the pastor and I, Morgan in the third, far-rear seat, with the ladies in the middle seat between us. I missed having Morgan closer to me. He was a far better distraction than the pastor, and when disaster struck—as it inevitably would—I would feel better about using him as a human shield than I would a man of God.

“When you said ‘
lap
snorkeling’,” Mindie ventured of Ms. Waboombas, her voice dropping into a near-silent register so she could give the pastor the option of pretending he couldn’t hear, “you meant like—
oral sex on a man’s thingie
—that type of thing, right?”

Just by the way she said it I could tell I was never getting any in my lifetime. Another dream shattered on the harsh and forbidding shores of the Mindie Islands.

But now Ms. Nuckeby’s gentle sands lay only ten miles or so ahead, and with them—hope. I found myself looking forward to this trip more than I ever could when it was just a comics convention, or a chapel shopping expedition. Helena was right. I needed to give Ms. Nuckeby a chance. I mean, really. I already knew she looked good naked. We were ninety-nine percent there.

“What did you
think
I meant?” Ms. Waboombas asked. “Oh, well, that
is
what I thought you meant, of course,” Mindie said. “I was just confirming. I had always assumed actresses might be confronted with that sort of thing,
anyway
, even though they claim the casting couch is no longer an issue. I just wanted to make sure that it wouldn’t hurt my chances if I decided—you know—
not
to engage, as it were.”

“Not really. As long as you do the job on camera, skipping the rest just costs you money is all. Some don’t wanna and make less. It’s all good.”

“Well, that’s excellent news,” Mindie laughed. “
Excellent
.” She hesitated, then leaned closer to Ms. Waboombas. “I take it you
do
engage?
Sexually
, I mean?”

“Sure. But only with the hot ones, or the ones who are hung.” “Hung? You mean like—
with large weenies
—that type of thing?” “Is there another meaning of the word?”

“Well—I suppose not. But…how can you tell? I mean,
before
.”

“You can see it. When you’re dancin’, guys get into it, and— boom. If you can’t, it’s a good indicator he’s not worth squattin’ on. Then you pass. And lemme tell ya—the stereotypes? S’all true.”

“Is that right? Interesting,” Mindie said, not the least bit interested. “So at these—I don’t know, parties or whatever—where you’re dancing with the—what are they? Executives?”

“Executives. Businessmen. All kinds. Construction workers.”

“Really? Hmm. I guess they have to keep the unions happy,” Mindie laughed. Ms. Waboombas didn’t. “So…um…you dance with them, and then you…what…find a back room?”

I couldn’t believe Mindie was even curious. Why would she be curious? Sex for her had always seemed to be on equal footing with major dental work; if she ever had it, she’d put it off as long as possible, prefer it with Novocain, would cry and struggle the whole time and want a lollipop afterwards.

“Back rooms are usually provided by the clubs,” Ms. Waboombas said.

“Ooooh.
Exclusive
, eh?” That seemed to appeal to Mindie. “Like the Viper Room?”

“I don’t know. Never danced there.”

“You have to
be
somebody. Sooooo—you make a connection, you go into a back room—how do you know whatever the executive is going to honor his end? After things are—you know—complete?”

“You get it up front.”

“Oh! Before you even
start
!”

“Yeah. Maybe a tip after. Can’t do it any other way.”

“Aaaah. That makes sense. Then isn’t the pay from the movies themselves any good?”

“It’s all right. Some girls become stars and make a lot more, obviously.”

“Well, obviously. But in the meantime…”

Was Mindie considering this? I couldn’t imagine. Then why was she asking so many questions?

“…dancing rounds out the income,” Ms, Waboombas finished for her. “Yeah.”

“Interesting,” Mindie said, contemplating. “I’d never heard of this ‘dancing’ thing. I suppose they think it makes the industry look bad.”

“Some girls pretend they never have to do it, yeah. But it’s the main part of the business. It’s been around longer than the movies. Though the movies are what bring more guys to see you. Like advertising.”