Underneath It All (5 page)
Authors: Margo Candela
11
Danny
D
ismissed with little more than a withering look, I head out of the master suite, down the butler’s stairs and stop at Danny’s room. He might make my skin crawl, but he’ll do just about anything I ask him to.
ismissed with little more than a withering look, I head out of the master suite, down the butler’s stairs and stop at Danny’s room. He might make my skin crawl, but he’ll do just about anything I ask him to.
I press my ear to the door and try to listen for any suspicious sounds. I always imagine that he’s whacking off. It grosses me out to even think about it, but I can’t help it. Silence, normal silence, at least. It must be safe. I drum my fingers on the door and step way back just in case.
Danny opens the door slowly and peeks out. He must have been doing something nasty after all. When he sees me, his chest puffs out and a huge grin covers his face, as if I showed up at his door with a six-pack and one of Mrs. Mayor’s needlepoint pillows with the inspirational sayings her kooky friend from LA insists on sending and Mrs. Mayor insists on displaying.
“Jacquelyn. Fancy meeting you here.” He leans up against the doorjamb, crossing his hairy arms over his dingy undershirt. I see he’s developing a bit of a beer belly. “Or should I call you Jacqs?”
“No. Danny, do me a huge favor—”
“Huge? I think I can handle that.”
“Uh, right, Danny, you pig. Can you skip over to the library and let Mr. Mayor know that Mrs. Mayor will be down in forty-five minutes?”
“Sure. But what will you give me?”
“Nothing, Danny, as usual.” I check the polish on my fingers.
“Not good enough. I need some incentive, if you know what I mean.” He wiggles his eyebrows at me.
“OK. I won’t tell Mr. Mayor that you keep a rolled-up porn mag underneath your seat in the car, if you know what I mean.”
“Let me put on my shirt.” Danny shuts the door in my face.
“Thanks, Danny, you’re a peach.”
12
Anita and Lei
I
wander into the Kitchen as Anita and Lei, the two-woman cleaning machine, polish and wipe. Since they wear jeans and T-shirts, not the traditional maid uniform Mrs. Mayor believes more appropriate to a mayor’s mansion, she insists Danny or I answer the door. She answers only when she wants to seem down-to-earth and she knows it’s friendly press or one of her stray Hollywood friends dropping in on their way to Napa.
wander into the Kitchen as Anita and Lei, the two-woman cleaning machine, polish and wipe. Since they wear jeans and T-shirts, not the traditional maid uniform Mrs. Mayor believes more appropriate to a mayor’s mansion, she insists Danny or I answer the door. She answers only when she wants to seem down-to-earth and she knows it’s friendly press or one of her stray Hollywood friends dropping in on their way to Napa.
“Hi, guys. How’s everything going?” I try to sound as if I’m asking them not because I’m supervising them but because I myself am being supervised.
“Very good, Jacquelyn,” Lei answers cheerfully. She’s mopping the Kitchen floor and Anita is scrubbing the counters. Everything looks dust-free and polished. Like a house in a magazine. Exactly the way Mrs. Mayor likes it and Mr. Mayor expects it.
Lei is from China, and how she hooked up with Anita, who’s from Honduras, I don’t know. Anyway, they’ve been cleaning the Mansion as a team for years. I don’t think they ever exchange more than two words to each other about anything except cleaning while at the Mansion.
Anita hardly ever talks. When I first met her, I asked her something in Spanish, only she gave me a curt reply in accented but perfect English. Lei serves as the de facto head housekeeper. She takes care of all the nitty-gritty details, such as making sure that there’s always a large supply of toilet paper and that the mail makes it from the mailbox to my desk for sorting after Danny makes sure it’s bomb-free. She also deals with the other people the Mayors employ to keep their house looking good and running smoothly.
The Mayors have a professional landscape service take care of the yard. Bert, the owner, comes along to supervise an ever-changing parade of Latino and Asian men who never come in the house. Not even to ask to use the bathroom. I think they’re under orders from Bert to hold it until they’re done. Or else they’re peeing in the bougainvillea.
Midway through their work, Lei will have Bert in for a cup of coffee in the Kitchen, where they’ll talk about the state of the plants and flowers. If Mrs. Mayor wants new plants or whatever, she tells me, and I tell Lei, and Lei tells Bert. While this is going on, Anita goes outside with water and snacks for the crew.
There is a very set hierarchy but sometimes I don’t quite know where I fit in. I know Anita thinks I’m privileged, and she treats me with the same polite detachment she treats Mrs. Mayor with. She’s a bit warmer toward Mr. Mayor and babies him a bit, which he seems to like. Danny she hates outright. She thinks he’s lazy and immoral. She found his porn stash while cleaning his room, and Lei asked me to tell him to keep it somewhere else on days they clean his room.
Lei is friendly with me the same way my bikini wax woman is. She’s privy to a lot of the intimate details of my and everyone else’s life, but she’s so matter-of-fact about what she sees, hears and knows, it doesn’t seem to make anyone uncomfortable. Lei does treat me as her superior, though, even when she merely comes to me for confirmation of something she knows needs to be done and has probably already done.
“Would you like some coffee or tea?” Lei asks. Anita pauses. It’s her job to make the coffee or tea that Lei offers.
“No thanks. I have some work to do in my office.”
13
Natasha
I
head through the Kitchen and into my office, the former maid’s room, where I spend most of my time when I’m not attending Mrs. Mayor’s needs. She had a decorator come in and do it up for me based on my chakras. They don’t have a live-in maid since it would be very un-PC. Anita and Lei, who keep this place shiny, have to trek across the city by bus six days a week with the Fast Passes that Mrs. Mayor has me purchase for them. Just because she trusts them with her panties doesn’t mean they won’t take the $35 and buy crack, or costume jewelry on QVC.
head through the Kitchen and into my office, the former maid’s room, where I spend most of my time when I’m not attending Mrs. Mayor’s needs. She had a decorator come in and do it up for me based on my chakras. They don’t have a live-in maid since it would be very un-PC. Anita and Lei, who keep this place shiny, have to trek across the city by bus six days a week with the Fast Passes that Mrs. Mayor has me purchase for them. Just because she trusts them with her panties doesn’t mean they won’t take the $35 and buy crack, or costume jewelry on QVC.
Around my office I’ve scattered some scented candles along with the tall plain white candles in thick glass containers I got at the botanica around the corner from my flat. When I’m feeling especially superstitious or desperate, I group them all on a table and burn a little sage. This is something I picked up from a wannabe hippie roommate while at Berkeley. Up until then I thought you had to haul your ass to church to ask for what you wanted.
My parents are lackadaisical Catholics and, aside from an odd cross or two, religion was relegated to church, appropriate holidays and moral occasions where they could use Catholicism to bend me to their will. But my college roommate, a white girl from Connecticut, had a whole shrine set up in her room and it seemed to work for her, so what the hell? There is nothing wrong with lighting a few candles and burning a tad of dried sage during times of crises or indecision. Right?
At least I don’t dive for the Xanax like Mrs. Mayor does, which then makes my life all the more difficult. It’s hard to present her as the caring and articulate First Lady of San Francisco when she’s higher than a cloud and couldn’t care less about anything except waving her fingers in front of her face.
“Jacqs, honey, you decent?” Natasha pokes her head in. Without waiting for an answer, she lugs her makeup case over to my bathroom vanity. “We gotta make this quick. Mrs. Mayor will want a touch-up after she’s done getting dressed. You’re looking a little peaked, darling.”
“I have jaundice.” For all I know I might.
“Honey, what you need is a vacation and some sex. That’ll perk your complexion right up. Always does mine.” Natasha takes my chin into her huge paw and begins to paint on foundation.
“Sex? Vacation? I don’t think either is in my job description.” But I could use more sleep. When I sleep I can enjoy both in my head, don’t have to go anywhere and don’t have to explain to my mother why I went on a real vacation (and probably had sex, lots of it) instead of coming home for a visit like the obedient nonsex-having-three-times-a-week-calling daughter she thinks she’s raised me to be.
“Just tell her you need a long weekend to get laid. She’ll understand that.” Natasha flicks an extra coat of mascara on my lashes.
“Oh, sure, and afterward we could braid each other’s hair and eat s’mores while I tell her all about it.” Mrs. Mayor loves gossip. So do I, but this woman thrives off it, especially when it’s about her.
“I doubt that woman has ever had a true woman friend. She even finds me threatening.” Natasha rubs, tickles and smears with singular concentration.
“Natasha, honey, you’re more woman than most biological women can ever aspire to.”
Natasha executes a graceful curtsey and then comes at me with a lip brush. In a matter of minutes I look like I’ve had a week of sun and sex. Or at least some fresh air.
“The ‘Isla Bonita’ look ...” Natasha caps her favorite red lipstick.
“Natasha, I hate to break it to you, but you are aware that Madonna is Italian, not a Latina or Indian or whatever she’s into this month.”
“She’s Jewish now, I think.” Natasha worships at the altar of the Material Girl, who can do no wrong in Natasha’s eyes. All her makeup looks are based on the different phases of Madonna’s career. Last week she sent me out Madonna circa “Like A Prayer” and Mrs. Mayor looking like a Waspy version of “Justify My Love.”
“So is she pissed at me?” Last thing I want is for Mrs. Mayor to hold a grudge. It’ll just grow over the weekend, and I don’t want to face an angry wannabe socialite on Monday morning.
“Pissed? Maybe a little high. She
is
clueless. She asked me,
me,
for blow job tips.” Natasha puts a hand to her padded breast. “Me of all people.”
is
clueless. She asked me,
me,
for blow job tips.” Natasha puts a hand to her padded breast. “Me of all people.”
“She did not!” Mrs. Mayor might have no problem with culturally insensitive questions and assumptions or inspecting my guinea-pig bikini waxes, but she’s never gotten
that
personal. “What did you tell her?”
that
personal. “What did you tell her?”
“I told her I was a good Catholic girl saving myself for marriage.” Natasha purses her lips and gets back to work on my face.
“You and me both, sister ... Still, where does she get off asking me about Mexican art? I’ve never implied I know anything about art, Mexican or otherwise.”
“Honey, don’t you know yet? We’re here to function as emissaries and the tellers of secret wisdoms from our respective tribes. If you were black, she’d ask you how to pick a good watermelon.” She shrugs her massive shoulders nonchalantly.
“Natasha!” I’m shocked that she has the guts to say what I’ve always thought, but never wanted to admit to. No matter how easily I can move between my personas of Jacqs and Jacquelyn, I’m still an anomaly, and the most innocuous events will remind me of that. “It still doesn’t make it right.”
“No, it doesn’t, but that’s the way it is. If you want to dance with the piper, you gotta dance to his—or, in this case, her—tune.”
“Speaking of which, how’s your man doing?” Natasha’s husband is a dancer with some elaborate gay revue.
“Doing everyone within dick range, from what I can tell.” Natasha fusses with my hair. “You’ve got great hair, honey. Thank your mother for me. I found some blond pubes in his Calvin Klein. And not my shade of blond.”
“What are you doing inspecting his underwear?” I pull my head away. Sure I had my share of suspicions about boyfriends and my ex-husband but I never resorted to digging through the hamper for evidence.
“Jacqs, for such a smart girl you are a stupid woman,” she says as she plants a kiss on the top of my head.
“Maybe they just got there by accident.” Yep, I think those seven words pretty much confirm my stupidity.
“Yeah, he accidentally rubbed his crotch against some skinnier, younger, more energetic version of me.” She checks herself out in the mirror and sighs.
“Jesus wouldn’t do that.” I swear that’s his name and his bit involves a white robe and golden halo. He goes by the Spanish pronunciation of his name, as in HeySeuss, but it doesn’t make anything he does any less shocking to his mostly Anglo audience. “He loves you.”
“How can he not? I’m fabulous,” Natasha says without her normal verve. “This marriage thing is a bitch. No wonder you bailed.”
“My circumstances were a little more boring than yours.” To say the least.
“Boring, that’s me! I’m a boring, old, fat married lady.” With one final sweep of the brush, Natasha steps back. “I’ve never been happier or more miserable.”
“Have you considered therapy?” I like Jesus. I just wish he wasn’t such a slut.
“Therapy, feng shui, acupuncture, couples massage. You name it, we’ve done it.” She leans in and hugs me hard, all 200-plus pounds of her. “You’re the last romantic, Jacqs.”
“That’s me, a romantic.”
14
Nate
I
lock my office door and click open a web browser to an anonymizer site. Never can be too careful when one is slightly stalking an ex-husband over the Internet.
lock my office door and click open a web browser to an anonymizer site. Never can be too careful when one is slightly stalking an ex-husband over the Internet.
Nate is a creature of habit and it’s made it very easy to keep track of him, though he did smarten up and change his e-mail passwords shortly after he rightly suspected I was peeking into his accounts. I don’t know why he bothered; he lays his whole life out in his blog for the world to read. Why anybody besides me would read it is beyond me, but Nate always thought very highly of himself.
Mostly his entries deal with his job, traveling for his job, movies he’s seen and food he’s eaten. He also frequents a handful of message boards that I don’t bother to search more than once or twice a month. There’s only so much personal stuff I can glean from vmware.for-linux.configuration and comp.dcom.sys.cisco postings, other than he’s still as big a geek as the day I divorced him.
I find it all sort of comforting; knowing that Nate’s life is as boring as I told him it would be if he lost me. The proof is here right in front of me on my monitor.
We met on a wild spring break in Palm Springs, when he saved me from a marauding group of frat boys intent on dousing me and my T-shirt with stale beer. True, I did “spill” the first one down my front, but it rapidly got out of hand. Nate was a party boy, majoring in nothing in particular at UC San Diego, and I was in debt up to my then-unpierced ears as an earnest Berkeley poly-sci major with definite plans to continue on to law school and fight the good fight. Friends said it would never work out, but they were wrong. At least until we split up.
We wound up living together, much to my mother’s horror and my father’s denial, when Nate came up to San Francisco after graduation to make his millions at some dot-com. After a year Nate proposed—or rather, was strongly encouraged to propose by me right before a rare visit from both of my parents. I couldn’t ask Nate to move out of our flat and there was no question that my parents would stay with me, I mean, us. I had to figure out a way to show my parents I was an independent grown woman, without getting in trouble for it. I decided the best way to do it was over the phone.
It all went wrong somewhere and I somehow gave my parents the impression that Nate had something
very
important to ask my father. After that lie, all it took were three solid days and nights of intense conversation (mostly on my part) to get Nate to march off to Tiffany’s.
very
important to ask my father. After that lie, all it took were three solid days and nights of intense conversation (mostly on my part) to get Nate to march off to Tiffany’s.
A Tiffany engagement ring! Not that I didn’t have real goals and aspirations (I had taken my LSATs and did well), but getting a ring from Tiffany’s was something I had never even dared to imagine, though somehow I always knew I wouldn’t accept less.
The appearance of the ring on my finger changed everything. My parents were happy, his parents were happy, even Nate seemed happy. And I felt like a fraud, but it didn’t stop me from accumulating a small library of wedding guides, books and magazines.
Despite all my reading on having the perfect wedding, we ended up eloping. Bina was there, teary-eyed, and some other friends, but no family. We always planned to do something formal, something real, but never got around to it.
Whatever, by that time I was so over it, Tiffany or no Tiffany. I still dream about the ring, though. It was so sparkly and pretty. It wasn’t the ring’s fault that it symbolized my unrealized dreams of a nice wedding surrounded by our happy families instead of the hasty elopement I suggested only to spare both of our families from having to meet each other. Secretly, I think everyone was relieved. A Nate-and-Jacqs wedding ceremony and reception was just too much trouble for everyone, including Nate and Jacqs, to deal with.
There was nothing romantic or fuzzy feeling about the whole ordeal. I felt cheated, and it was my own fault. I didn’t let things progress naturally and so I got an unnatural result—a forced proposal, an impersonal marriage ceremony and a nagging sense that things weren’t exactly the way they should be when two people get married.
Nate, on the other hand, settled into married life,
really
settled. I realized this one rare night when we were getting frisky on the couch, instead of staring glassy-eyed at the TV as we usually did when we found ourselves home together after a long day at work.
really
settled. I realized this one rare night when we were getting frisky on the couch, instead of staring glassy-eyed at the TV as we usually did when we found ourselves home together after a long day at work.
“Hold on. What the hell ...” I flipped on the light and, to my horror, found a solid chunk of flesh in my hand where Nate’s formerly trim body used to be.
“Let go, Jacqs.” Nate moved my hand lower. “Come on, I have to get up early tomorrow.”
“Come here!” I grabbed his hand, pulled him into the bathroom and on the scale. “Holy crap, Nate! You’ve gained ... what? ... thirty pounds?”
“Yeah? So?” Nate shrugged. “Listen, baby, this isn’t doing much to get me in the mood.”
The sight of a shirtless Nate in bright fluorescent light didn’t do a thing for me either, but it wasn’t the time to be petty. “Nate, this is serious. You have to start going to the gym and especially stop eating fast food.”
“I don’t have time to go to the gym. Come on, are we going to do it or not?” Nate tugged on my hand and flipped off the light.
“Do it?
It?
We used to make love, Nate. Now we just do it and we don’t do it that often. I’m serious. You need balance in your life. It’s all work, work, work. All we talk about is your job or what’s on TV or where we’re going to eat. It’s boring, Nate.”
It?
We used to make love, Nate. Now we just do it and we don’t do it that often. I’m serious. You need balance in your life. It’s all work, work, work. All we talk about is your job or what’s on TV or where we’re going to eat. It’s boring, Nate.”
“Maybe your little job gives you time to go to the gym, read magazines or whatever it is you do with all your free time, but I have real responsibilities.” Nate reached into the medicine cabinet for the dental floss.
“Don’t make fun of my job, asshole.” But how could he not? I’d been at my fourth dot-com for three months and still didn’t have my own desk. I spent most of my day rotating amongst other people’s computers or reading magazines in the reception area. For this I was earning $65,000 and I’d already gotten a raise and a promotion, but no desk. Not even a hollow-core door balanced on two filing cabinets. “I’m looking for another job, I told you this yesterday.”
“Whatever. I have a real job that I can’t set aside just because I feel like going shoe shopping or whatever. How do you think we can afford to live the way we do?” Nate snapped.
“Honey, you don’t make nearly enough money to get away with being this fat.”
And that was the beginning of the end. No one was surprised when we announced we were splitting up. My mother, of course, but she tends to get upset over every minor and major life event, from cutting bangs in to my hair when I was twelve to shacking up with Nate, to my elopement with Nate, to my failure to stay married to Nate. What did she expect? We were both pretty immature and he was really fat.
Nate’s family, an amalgamation of a long legacy of divorces and remarriages, saw this one as an unpleasant but somewhat necessary family initiation ritual. Because of this, I ended up confiding to his mother more than to my own. She was actually very pleasant throughout the whole thing and gave me some good advice, which resulted in my gaining custody of our flat and he taking the ring back and moving out of the country.
The ring was the only perfect thing about the whole thing.
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