Lucy's Launderette (17 page)

In the evenings, there was a steady trickle of working peo
ple, guys and girls in jogging or cycling gear or blue jeans, all discreetly checking each other out over the rinse cycles.

I went on working. I was a curiosity, a sideshow freak, and people gathered round to watch me paint. My mural gave them something to talk about.

 

I phoned Sky.

“Meet me at Evvie's,” she said.

“You got news?”

“I need someone to bitch to. And I haven't seen you in ages. How are you doing down there in shabbyland?”

“It's not shabbyland. It's a vital multi-ethnic urban and residential hub,” I protested.

“I prefer a brand-new steel and glass high-rise. The East End is full of cockroaches.”

“It is not. It has color.”

“Okay. So the cockroaches are colorful. Listen, I would have come and visited you before now but I don't know. It gets me down, that part of town. It's not exactly what you'd call upscale.”

“It's not supposed to be. But it might be one day. You need to hear my plan.”

“And you need to hear my news. About Max.”

“Oh, God.”

“You'll laugh, Madison. Really you will. This is one I bet you haven't heard.”

“Go on, Sky. Tell me.”

“Not over the phone.”

“Okay. Evvie's at nine o'clock.”

I
sat in our booth at the back and ordered a pot of tea. Five minutes later, Sky arrived. She looked great in a leather miniskirt, calf-high lace-up boots, patterned black stockings, black leather jacket with studs and white chiffon T-shirt underneath.

“You're wasting away,” she said when she saw me.

“Really?”

“You look almost THIN. Whatever it is you're doing, stop now. You don't want to get a chicken neck. People who lose weight too fast get chicken necks.”

“I haven't had time to even think about my lard. I've been painting.”

“And about time, too. I'm really hungry. What should I order?”

“The shrimp melt. Then I can have a bite of it.”

Sky slid into the booth and started playing the silent piano
on the edge of the table. It was one of the things she did when she was bursting with news. “Then you have to order something I want a bite of.”

“Okay. How about the bacon and tomato sandwich with fries and coleslaw?”

“Cholesterol? What's that? Go for it.”

We ordered and then Sky leaned forward, dropped her voice to a whisper, and got ready to give me her news.

It was always a good idea to have a confidential approach. I don't know why it was, but even in a city as large as Vancouver, somebody we both knew, some terminally nosy, backbiting acquaintance, always happened to be sitting invisibly nearby when we were dishing the dirt at top volume.

“So tell me all about Max,” I said.

“You won't believe this.”

“No, I probably won't but tell me anyway.”

“Those were his kids we saw down in Seattle.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And he does have a wife.”

“Big surprise.”

“But.”

“But?”

“He and his wife have been living separate lives for ages.”

“Oh, sure,” I said. “That's what they all say.”

“It's not what you think. It's his kids' fault.”

“That he's an indoor-outdoor, hotel-motel man?”

“I'll get to that. He and his wife were going to break up but their kids threatened them,” said Sky.

“What do you mean? How? I'm not following you.”

“They didn't want the family to break up. They didn't want their parents to separate so they made it impossible for them.”

“How?”

“They threatened to accuse them of anything…holding
Satanic rituals…psychological abuse…physical abuse…starvation.”

“The little buggers. The starvation one wouldn't have held water. They looked pretty chunky and healthy to me.”

“They are. But they're fixated with keeping their parents together. Max and Irene…that's his wife…know their kids well enough to believe they'd actually go ahead and do what they're threatening. Too bad there aren't any parent abuse groups around. I don't know of any, do you?”

“No. Gee. That's kind of rough.” I was sincere. It was always interesting to hear about the prisons and torture chambers other families could create for themselves. “So what about the uh…”

“The gay part?” asked Sky.

“Yeah.”

“Well, now, that's another story. You see, quite a few years ago, Max had been in the sportswear business.”

“I thought you said he hated sportswear, that he was broken up over the demise of sartorial splendor.”

“He is. He really does think people look like giant babies in pajamas when they wear sweats or track suits, so it's been pretty hard for him. The sportswear store was his father's and basically he was forced to go into the family business. Then his father died and Max's sense of duty along with him. He'd been wanting to get into the nostalgia line for a long time. It's a history thing with him. He just happens to have a really good instinct for antiques, antique anything, furnishings, clothes. Anyway, he'd had his eye on a small group of stores in Seattle that were doing okay, a little more than breaking even. He knew the owner wanted to sell. Trouble is, the guy is so YMCA you get pink flamingos in front of your eyes just talking to him on the phone. Not just gay, but militantly so. He does a female impersonator thing in a club in Seattle, goes
by the name of Elvira. He absolutely refused to do business with anybody straight. So Max figured the only way he was going to get what he wanted was by being something that he wasn't. He figured he would set out and court Elvira, put on the dog, as it were.”

“Only the dog had to be a poodle with a diamond collar and leash.”

“Rottweiler it wasn't.”

“So it's all been an act.”

Sky nodded.

My sandwich arrived. I took a huge bite. I had to keep up my strength if I wanted to hear the rest of the story.

Sky said, “I would have told you all this before. You miss things when you stay down there in Scuzzville. I tried to get in touch with you, find a number for you, but your Amazon roommate just kept saying ‘don't know, don't know.'”

“It's in the book, the Yellow Pages, under coin wash. Madison's Coin Wash. And it is not a scuzzy part of town. It has…character.”

“Whatever you say. Back to Max. The thing is, Max's kids don't know anything about their other lives. Irene has someone else, too. They just told the kids that they'd grown apart, which is the truth.”

“What does his wife, Irene, think of all of this?” I asked.

“She couldn't care less. As long as the money's coming in. They've got their obnoxious kids to support, after all. What does a teenager need more than a parent who's a walking wallet?”

“Nothing.”

“Right. So anyway, what does Max discover as he's hanging out in all these gay clubs and bars?”

“Don't know.”

“That women are falling all over him because they think he's gay.”

I gave Sky a snarky smile. “What about his macho dignity?”

She said, “Screw dignity. He couldn't get laid until he jumped the tracks. So yeah. I know what you're thinking and yes, he had a few other women before me, but women. Not men. Anyway, then came the day they were ready to break the news to their kids, that they were planning on separating definitively, and what happens? The nasty overgrown rug rats retaliate. So Max and Irene just went on sneaking around behind their backs and then Max met me. It's easier for him because he has the excuse of being away on business. It's harder for Irene. Someone has to be there for the kids so it's usually her. She has a new man, but as far as the kids are concerned, he's a colleague of their mom's who's always dropping around, an editor. Irene works at home. She's a children's book illustrator. I guess she sees the guy during the day when they're at school. But he works, too, so that leaves lunch hour.”

“Why is it that when you find someone you like there's always another kind of problem?”

“Max and I are luckier. The only people who know him up here are the nostalgia connections that Elvira put him on to, and believe me, some of them haven't seen the light of day in years. Die-hard clubbers and vampires. Come out of their coffins and caves only after midnight. So Max's life has been a little weird. And whenever he's back in Seattle, those kids of his are terrible. They control Max's and Irene's every movement, getting their friends to help spy on them to make sure there's no extracurricular nooky going on. Can you imagine a life like that?”

“Er. No.”

I thought my life was complicated. Somebody needed to open up university-level courses dealing with these kinds of situations. Extramarital Chaos 101. Rotten Teenage Children 200.

“So that means that you and Max are…?”

“Back together? Yeah. Pretty much.”

“Handcuffs, whips and all?”

“Wouldn't you like to know,” Sky gloated.

I sighed. While Sky's private life was moving ahead, I was right back to square one, mentally lining up my sexual disasters like toy soldiers and then knocking them down over and over.

“There's something I want to show you. “Sky had a devious look on her face. She reached into her purse, brought out a folded piece of newspaper and slid it across the table to me. “Unfold it.”

It was from the arts section of the daily newspaper. The article was about the vandalism performed on the works of the well-known British artist Paul Bleeker. I couldn't help blushing as I read it.

“That night at the movies,” said Sky. “Those little goodies you offered wouldn't have anything to do with this, would they?”

She knew most of it. She might as well know the last detail. I nodded slowly.

She shoved a fist up into the air and said, “Yes!” then laughed. “He was crazy not to recognize the real Lucy Madison, artist and W-O-M-A-N. You did the right thing. Anybody who's stupid enough to use chocolate as a medium is just asking for gangs of premenstrual women to attack and destroy his work the first chance they get. Just look on Paul Bleeker as an in-betweenie.”

Emphasis on weenie.

I said, “I don't know what hit me. Insanity, I guess. It just seemed like the thing to do at the time. Now I've got something to tell you.”

I started to talk. All about the launderette and my big idea. I went on and on describing my plan in detail. Sky sat very still and listened, an intense expression on her face. Then I said, “Of course there's one big problem with the idea.”

“What's that?” asked Sky.

“I haven't a cent to finance this baby.”

“You haven't been paying much attention to what my mother tells you. Leap and the net will be there. This is a really great idea. I love it. And there's somebody else I bet would love it, too. Might even want to put some money into it.”

“Who's that?”

“Max.”

I groaned.

“You underestimate him. He's a great businessman and he's not afraid to take risks.”

“I've got a problem with it.”

“Yeah, I know you do.”

“I'll bet he doesn't have any liquid assets either.”

“He has more than you'd think. There's money in muck as my grandfather used to say. Max and I are glorified ragpickers if you stop to think about it. Vintage stuff really is a gold mine.”

“I don't know, Sky. I really have to think about it.”

“You think about it then,” said Sky, “while I run the idea by him.”

“No. Not yet. Don't tell anybody. You and Connie are the only people I've talked to about it and quite frankly there's one thing I'd really like to do.”

“What's that?”

“Leave men out of it.”

Sky nodded and smiled her wise-woman smile.

“I suppose you could have a point. Listen. There's another thing. They're inaugurating a new club tomorrow night and Max and I are invited. Max knows the owner. You have to come.”

“Try to stop me.”

“Come round to the shop first and we'll put together an outfit for you. For the new you. Listen, there's something else.”

“What?” I asked.

“Guess who I saw in the Oakridge Mall.”

“I dunno. Who?”

“Candace Sharp.”

“No! Back for a visit, I hope.”

“Nope. She's back to stay.” Sky shook her head.

Candace had been a good friend of ours in the university art department years. Of all the students in painting class, she was the one I thought had the makings of a truly great painter. Her work was figurative and colorful, a little like mine, except that it was more scathing. It had real guts.

I said to Sky, “I hope you're kidding. Her idea was to stay in New York until she'd broken into the art scene big-time, and not come back here until she did. Not even for a visit, she said. I had a couple of postcards from her. It sounded like she was doing okay. Oh, let me see…the last one was about two years ago.”

“Yeah, well, she's back. And it gets worse.”

“How?”

“She's grown her hair and she's wearing it up in a bun.”

“Omagod.”

“A very tight bun. Max was with me when we bumped into her. She's working in a store in the mall. Max calls her Miss Bun-too-tight. You know, when it's so tight it gives you squinty eyes?”

Our Candace. Who'd signed her paintings “Hard Candy.”
Who, when she wasn't shaving her head, had colored her electroshock hairstyles all shades of the rainbow. The Candy who'd made body-piercing into high art.

“What store?” I asked.

“Get this. It's a lingerie store for the…what do they call it? The full-figured woman. You know the one? It has the name of that Italian artist who always does big people.”

“Boito's Beauties,” I said.

“That's the one. Yeah. A coy way to say fat women, eh? She's working in there. A humble little employee. You remember when she was at school she used to manage that record store? No management for her these days. Now, she's got the tight bun and she's wearing glasses on an old lady chain. Calf-length skirts, support hose and sensible shoes. Really, really scary.”

“Did you talk to her? What did she say?”

Sky looked solemn. “I asked her about New York but she didn't want to talk about it. Then I asked her about her painting and you know what she said? I mean, you know, a painter can paint anywhere. Right?”

“Right. What did she say?”

“That it was in the past and she didn't want to talk about that, either.”

“Oh, Jeez. I hope she didn't get religion, too.”

“I didn't ask her,” said Sky. “It was all so spooky.”

I wanted to cry. “But she's so talented.”

“I know,” said Sky. “So I invited her to the club opening, too.”

“Is she going to come?”

“She said she would. She said she wanted to see you.”

“Good. I want to see her, too.”

 

It was half past nine when I banged on the Retro Metro door. It was nearly the end of May and the last rays of sun
beat golden bronze against high-rise windows turning the city into a sequined giant.