The Desert Rose (10 page)

“Please don’t say no,” he said. “Just go home now and we’ll talk about it next week.”

“Are you serious?” she asked, knowing perfectly well he was.

Mel just nodded. He was funny, he might be odd but he could put things in a way you respected. It seemed definitely weird and yet Mel was not just some flaky weirdo, in his way he was an extremely together kind of man. At times, when they were laughing about the underwear, she would forget that he was a lot older. The simplest thing was just to do exactly as he said, go home and not ask any questions or make any moves. Somehow he commanded respect, much more so than Buddy, who could make fifty moves a week and still be hard to take seriously except at the level of looks.

Then two days later Bonventre showed up at the dance studio and sort of leaned against a wall and watched her, not saying a word to Madonna or anyone else. It was no secret who he was, everyone in the studio knew Bonventre had suddenly appeared, it was about as surprising as if the President had just walked in. A lot of the other dancers got immediately shook but not Pepper, she felt very confident and just went on with her class lesson.

Finally when the lesson was over Bonventre went up to Madonna and they had a few words. Madonna looked a little strained, didn’t seem too happy that the great producer had walked in, but then she sort of nodded at Pepper and Pepper went over.

“Hi, Pepper,” Bonventre said, giving her a grin out of the corner of his mouth. “Jackie Bonventre. I like your dancing.”

Then without so much as mentioning her mother, who
had worked for him since before she was even born, he told her his lead dancer might be leaving in a few weeks, would she like to audition as her understudy?

That was the second big surprise of the week, Pepper had to glance at Madonna to see what was going on, but Madonna sort of deserted her, she was looking away as if her mind was elsewhere though Pepper could tell it wasn’t.

Bonventre could be a little nerve-racking, his grin came from so far out of the corner of his mouth that he might have been grinning at somebody behind him. Of course it was pretty flattering that he would pick her of all the young dancers in Las Vegas, to understudy for the lead, flattering and sort of scary at the same time, she had only heard about five thousand stories about what a mean guy he was. But she didn’t just kneel down and kiss his ass, after watching her mother be a pincushion for any man that came along all her life, if she knew anything it was that that wasn’t going to be her style. People that looked at her like Bonventre was looking got treated with total scorn, so she just said, “Well, thanks, I’d like to think about it, I’m engaged you know,” thinking how handy it was that Mel had made his offer just in time for her to use it.

That definitely took Bonventre aback, probably he wasn’t used to young dancers not kissing his ass. He sort of gave her a look and switched the grin from one corner of his mouth to the other, and then all he said was, “Well, Pepper, could you let me know, we’ve got to get an understudy.”

“Oh sure,” she said. “Just let me think about it for a day or two,” maybe it struck him as an amusing novelty or something because he got real friendly and told the story about stealing a car to take the driver’s test. She decided he was not that bad, he was kind of attractive in a fat sort of way. On Woods it didn’t work but on Bonventre it sort of did, it went with his meanness or something.

Then for some reason Madonna suddenly blew up and started yelling at him in French, and he said, “Well, you’ve got an ass like a prune, enjoy yourself,” and slammed out. Madonna burst into tears, which annoyed Pepper, after all so what if he produced a show, it was just a tits and ass show in Las Vegas, it was not as if he were Balanchine. Madonna should have hit him or something instead of letting him make her cry.

Then it turned out part of the reason Madonna got so upset was because she thought she had got engaged to Buddy, of course it was a reasonable thought since she knew nothing about Mel, but still off the mark, like shit she would get engaged to Buddy.

“It’s an older guy, you don’t know him,” Pepper said. “He’s sweet and he’s very rich. Anyway, I lied, I’m not engaged, but he did ask me.”

Madonna was wiping her eyes, she was still beautiful even if her hair was half gray, but it didn’t help her to cry. The news about the older guy definitely came as a surprise.

“I didn’t know about this man,” she said, sort of in a possessive tone, as if Pepper should tell her everything instantly. Then she sighed, as if Pepper had broken a promise or something. It was pretty annoying that she would get so possessive, even if she was almost like another mother it didn’t mean she got told everything.

Madonna sort of stood there waiting for her to explain but Pepper didn’t really feel like it, Madonna would just freak out when she heard about the modeling, she was not all that different from her real mother when it came to how she was supposed to behave.

“What do you think, should I understudy?” Pepper asked, thinking it was time to get back to the immediate problem, what to do about Bonventre’s offer.

Madonna wiped her eyes with a towel and sort of watched the other students trail out.

“Maybe I should do it,” Pepper said. “I could be getting some experience. Anyway, it’s just understudy.”

“No, it’s the lead,” Madonna said. “He is ready to destroy Monique. I knew it. Maybe he wants to destroy your mother too, so this is the way he chooses.”

Pepper thought that was a little farfetched, even if the guy did have a terrible reputation.

“Who said anything about her?” Pepper asked.

“She is a star too,” Madonna said. “As much as Monique.”

“Come on, she’s a showgirl,” Pepper said.

“Who is this rich man who is so sweet?” Madonna asked, watching her for every clue she might give away. Pepper thought fuck, why am I standing here getting grilled so she ignored that question and left, maybe in a day or two when Madonna got a little more used to the idea—either idea—they could discuss it some more.

Then she told Buddy who was extremely impressed, it meant he was fucking somebody who was a lead dancer, at least he would be if he could hold onto her for a few more weeks, of course he wanted her to take the job. They went to his house where he wanted to do practically every imaginable sex act in order to keep her interested. She was polite but actually not that interested, which Buddy recognized, he was not totally insensitive. She didn’t go so far as to tell him that Mel did more for her with a camera, he blamed Mel for all their problems anyway. Then he refused to let her borrow his Mustang, that was a first, usually he pretended to be sort of good-natured about it. It pissed her off but she had a pocketful of money she was about to give to Woods so it was no big deal, she just called a cab. Then Buddy said it’s just cameras you like he knew some people who went a lot farther than Mel had the guts to go. Pepper didn’t like the insinuation that Mel had no guts, she got rather cool when Buddy let that one slip. Naturally
it turned out the people made fuck films. “Oh great,” she said, “I bet I know what my part would involve, sucking your fucking cock for about a week.” Then he backed off, he always backed off when she got angry, he even pretended he had been kidding about not loaning her the car but she had already called a cab and went outside and waited until it came, with Buddy trying frantically all the while to get her in a better mood. He apologized so many times she thought she might vomit if she heard him say it one more time, and he said he had only mentioned the fuck films because he thought it might be kind of exciting. It was true they had talked about doing that once, most people in fuck films were ugly and they weren’t, they decided they could probably be the first couple of porn, but it was just mainly joking, it was just stuff they discussed when they were first dating.

Finally the cab showed up and she left, leaving Buddy in a frenzy, on the road to town he passed them in the Cadillac doing about ninety, he was on his way to collect a few tickets if he didn’t slow down. It was quite a relief to get to Mel’s. Right away she told him she had been under a lot of pressure, of course he was completely understanding and just said, “Forget about modeling tonight, Pepper, let’s just go sit by the pool. Would you like some dinner?” Sure, she said, she was starving, between the dance class and Madonna getting upset and then the fucking and a big fight with Buddy it was enough to give anyone an appetite. So Mel ordered a steak for her and they sat and watched the stars come out, another nice thing about Mel was that he didn’t pry, he didn’t just ask her to tell him every secret thing. He sort of listened to what she felt like telling him and then he might give a little advice.

When she told him about Bonventre’s offer he said right away take it, which was a surprise, they hadn’t even settled the question of whether she was going to marry him. She
wondered if maybe it had been a joke about marrying him, after all nothing that had happened between them had been very normal, maybe he just got a turn-on from asking or something.

“Why do you think I should take it?” she asked.

“Oh, because it means you’d stay here,” Mel said.

“Yeah, but I wasn’t going anywhere,” she said.

Mel just smiled, as if he knew things about her that she didn’t know.

“I have a confession to make,” he said. “Jackie Bonventre is an old friend of mine. I showed him a little bit of one of the films. The one where you’re in the blue bra.”

That was definitely a surprise, she didn’t know if she liked it or not.

“He was extremely impressed, and he’s hard to impress,” Mel said. “He said you were more beautiful than your mother.”

She couldn’t help smiling at that one, after having heard ten thousand times that her mother was the most beautiful woman in Las Vegas. Pepper couldn’t see it, her mother was very good-looking but the horrible way she dressed sort of spoiled it, all those loud blouses and shiny pants.

“I don’t know about the job,” Pepper said. “He’s supposed to be mean.”

“He
is
mean, but he wouldn’t be to you, since he knows I like you,” Mel said. “For one thing, we’re friends, though he says terrible things to me too. For another, I have money in all his shows.”

“Why, are you a gangster?” Pepper asked. That thought kept occurring to her, maybe he was a gangster, just one of the gentlemanly kind—there were supposed to be some.

“Sorry to disappoint you,” Mel said with a grin, he thought that one was funny. “I just happen to be rich.”

Once she had eaten the steak Pepper felt fine, things had certainly stopped being boring, at least. Instead of just trying to decide who she could go out with if she broke up
with Buddy, right away she had a rich guy who wanted to marry her and a weirdo producer who wanted to star her. She felt a little excited just having it all to consider—she asked Mel if he wanted some coke and he said sure. One of the Japs brought some out. What she would have liked was maybe to hit a disco but it was hard to imagine Mel wanting to do that, in fact it was hard to imagine him going out of his house at all, it was definitely his world.

Then, to show what a perceptive man he was, he cocked his head at her and said Pepper, would you like to dance. It was a surprise, though of course he had a great sound system and thousands of records, which seemed to appear as if by magic. Often when she first came in there would be a new pile in the study and she would check them out before she got undressed, he had all the right ones immediately, which was pretty amazing.

Also he was nice to dance with, better than Buddy although Buddy thought he was John Travolta II or something. Mel wasn’t flamboyant but he was okay, mainly it was an excuse to watch her, he definitely loved watching her move. They hadn’t really discussed his proposal yet, and she hadn’t mentioned it to Buddy yet either, there was no telling what kind of a freak-out it would have produced.

They danced until they were pretty sweaty, Pepper said how about a swim, of course Mel was agreeable. “I think I’ve got a suit for you,” he said, but Pepper said forget the suit, she just went out to the pool and shucked and dove in, wondering if he would go naked with her or if that would upset him. In fact he did go naked with her, she had been beginning to wonder if he had something missing physically, no cock or something but from what she could see in the moonlight there was nothing wrong there. There were times when she loved to swim, almost liked it better than anything, so she swam a lap or two while Mel rested and watched.

“Pepper, you’re so gifted,” Mel said. “If my father could
have got hold of you at the right time he’d have had you in the Olympics.”

“How come?” she asked.

“Well, he’s a swim coach,” Mel said. “But of course if you were a swimmer you’d just be peaking. Sixteen’s the best year.”

“Where was your father a swim coach?” she asked, that was an interesting piece of information.

“In New Jersey, at a high school in Trenton,” he said.

It was sort of startling, she had assumed his family must be rich too, though actually she’d never spent that much time thinking about his family, obviously he didn’t have any around very close.

“A swim coach?” she said. “So how come you got so rich?”

“I just happened to be good with money,” he said. “Sort of like you’re a good dancer. I’m that good with money. Or maybe a little better.”

Her hair was dripping, he reached out and sort of sluiced the water off of it, he liked it that she cut it so short. It was unusual for him to touch her, but he did it and he didn’t seem nervous, maybe it was the dancing or the coke. She wanted to kiss him, when were they going to get a better time? but he didn’t, he had just wanted to stop her hair from dripping apparently. It annoyed her a little, enough was enough, she was normally willing to make a move if she felt like something but with him she felt it ought to be him, he was too much older.

“Pepper, I think you’re getting impatient,” he said immediately, as if he had just read her mind. Her bangs were stuck together, he sort of took a finger and gently smoothed them out. They dripped on her face again and at that point he did kiss her, not for long, sort of light, but still it was a kiss, plus he caught the drip just when it hit the corner of her mouth. It was a delicate move, not something Buddy
would have come up with, she liked it, but then Mel smiled and asked her if she wanted to go in the Jacuzzi, the night was getting cold.