Trophies, page 29
Finding herself enmeshed in the hedge was like being in the embrace of an iron maiden. The more Marion struggled, the deeper she became entangled and the more she was pierced. During her efforts at writhing free, she managed to get a glimpse through to the other side of the hedge and recognized her neighbors’ back house by the awful construction. So near and yet so far! Within a moment, she was reduced to balancing on one heel and chirping pitifully like a lost baby bird. After ten minutes, she was delirious and envisioning archaeologists discovering her skeleton one thousand years in the future: “The Bushwoman of Beverly Hills,” they’d no doubt call her. Her remains would become a traveling museum exhibit and experts would debate the purpose of her breast implants. Had they been of ceremonial use? For protection? They’d determine that the North American continent must have undergone a brief ice age after noting the heavy clothing she was wearing at the time of her death. They’d describe her tribal jewelry as—
Suddenly, providentially, two brown hands pierced the hedge and started pulling the vines away from her legs and dress. Was it a thousand years later so soon?
Then a familiar voice said, “I tried to call cab but you no listen.”
It took the housekeeper fifteen minutes to extricate Marion from the hedge fortress. When she realized she was free and—aside from a tattered dress and scratched-up legs—no longer doomed to become an exhibit, she reached into her tote to give the woman compensation, but the housekeeper held up her hand.
“You better than that puta at your home, Mrs. Zane,” she said. “You keep it. You might need later.”
Then she and her Portuguese water spaniel turned and walked away. Marion thought she was having a mystical experience until the housekeeper turned in to the service entrance of her neighbor’s property and she finally realized the woman was Xio’s coffee-break buddy from next door. Everybody’s staff knew everything about everybody. Is that what they thought? That she was better than Tawnee-the-puta?!
“Wait!” she cried after the housekeeper. “I don’t need it! I’m going to be fine! And the hedge wasn’t my fault; I was bumped!”
Shredded, bleeding, and leafy, Marion silenced Charlie’s astonished tongue with a withering look, passed through the gates of the compound, and trudged up the steep driveway to the steps of her house. It was 9:25. Time enough for a shower and a quick change (and a Polysporin application) before she had to get Patti. Thank God Richard slept late.
But just as she reached the main steps of the mansion, the front door opened and she heard Richard’s voice.
“I’m only doing four miles,” he was saying. “Tell him I’ll meet him at noon.”
Then Richard emerged in a sweatsuit.
Back in the bushes!
Marion almost landed on the gardener’s machete as she dove in. She grabbed it by the handle to keep it from rattling against the base of the stairs her husband was bouncing down.
Richard was awake before noon? And he’d taken up jogging?
He must be trying to rejuvenate himself. Marion’s heart sank because that meant he still had Tawnee around. (And that he obviously didn’t know about the dog poop lying in wait for him.)
Marion’s suspicions were confirmed when she stood up and heard a bloodcurdling twenty-syllable scream. She looked up to see Tawnee-of-the-Valley wearing cutoff jeans and one of Richard’s Turnbull & Asser shirts tied at the waist, standing just inside the open French doors of the mansion’s left-side living room. Marion should have taken satisfaction in the sight of the masseuse’s lopsided ponytails, which failed to fully cover the bandages on her scalp, but instead she was outraged.
That bitch was in her house!
And screaming outside of her house to boot. Richard was now bouncing back up the driveway. When he caught sight of his formerly perfect wife, he tripped and rubbed his eyes to make sure he wasn’t seeing a mirage.
“Marion? What the fuck?!”
Marion looked down and saw that she was still holding the machete, so she thought fast and started whacking a few bits off the pittosporum bush to her left, muttering, “Never did like the way they prune these…”
“Don’t lisssten to her tricksss!” Tawnee wailed. “Ssshe wasss trying to kill me, Richie!”
“And ruin a perfectly good gardening tool? Don’t be absssurd, Rich-ie.” Marion leaned the machete against the stairs, smoothed back her leaf-filled hair, and picking up her thousand-pound tote, did her best to swan up the stairs.
“What the hell is going on with you?” Richard bellowed after her. “First the dog collars and now covered with blood, sneaking around with a knife?”
“It’s called a machete. And I wasn’t sneaking. I was trying to avoid crossing paths with the main symptom of your midlife crisis.” And just what did he mean by “dog collars?”
Marion continued up the stairs, refusing to turn around and let Richard see the tears that were currently forming in the corners of her eyes.
“Ssso, you’re, like, denying you bought one thousssand dog collarsss on the Home Ssshopping Network and had them overnighted to thisss addresss?” Tawnee screeched from her post on the portico. We know it was you becaussse it wasss on your credit card!”
(?)
Mystery rat fucker again!
Marion wanted to ask for more information. She wanted to put her detectives on it so they could catch whoever was masterminding the meltdown of her marriage, but the tears were now streaming down her face and she wanted to hold on to the last three ounces of pride she had left. “Richie, please tell that thing to stop talking at me,” she begged, grabbing the handle of the front door.
“I’m calling Dr. Wymer!” Richard called up the stairs. “Do you hear me, Marion? You’re out of control! And I don’t deserve this treatment! What did I ever do to make you treat me like this! What did I do?”
That was it. Marion had to turn around.
“What did you do, Richard? What did you do? How about Ellie-May-with-the-mange, for starters!” she cried, gesturing with her thumb at the portico. “You suspect the one person in your life who’s showed you nothing but twenty years of undying love and support and honesty rather than consider for one second the hundreds of others who you might have crushed during your half century of business dealings—any of whom might want to see you destroyed! Or the vision-vine people or assorted shrinks you might have blabbed to in a freaking altered state! You bring that insulting, brain-dead bottom-feeder into your bed and into our home and then ask: ‘What did I do?’ I’d say don’t make me sick, but it’s too late for that!”
“He-ey,” Tawnee singsonged. “Are you, like, disssing me?”
“I know about the boy, Marion,” Richard said quietly. “I’ve seen a picture.”
(?)
These accusations were getting beyond weird. But Marion was through defending herself to someone whom she’d implicitly trusted for decades. She no longer had the strength. “Neither one of us knows shit, Richard. Or we wouldn’t be in this position.”
And with that she slammed the door.
Xiocena was there to hustle her up the stairs, past Tawnee-of-the-Valley, who ran back inside before her, and past her master bedroom, where, she noted, the bed was thankfully made. Marion complied numbly as her friend bathed, made up, and dressed her. She numbly complied as she was led down the colonnaded corridor and grand staircase, past Richard, who was on the phone in his office, and Tawnee, who was trying futilely to figure out how to work the remote in the media room. She was almost numbly complying herself out the front door when she saw a cat in the act of spraying the Rodin and froze in her tracks.
“It belongs to the puta,” whispered Xiocena.
Marion had always been an animal lover. She’d nurtured a menagerie of critters over the years, including an old lame thoroughbred she didn’t have the heart to put down who was currently residing in a Malibu “assisted-living pasture” with round-the-clock veterinary care. The only reason she didn’t have a dog at the moment was that she was still mourning Wally, her seventeen-year-old Bouvier des Flandres who’d passed away at the foot of her bed six months back. But the strain of the tragedy she was undergoing and the sight of the wretched masseuse’s pet invading the sanctity of her home and defiling her possessions made her bloodthirsty with rage, and she lunged to punt the cat across the room. Fortunately, the cat was faster than she was and Xiocena had opened the front door. Marion could only look at her shaken friend in self-ashamed disbelief.
Maybe Richard’s right. Maybe I am going crazy.
50
Gods with Goods
“Tell me about the one on page four,” Aristotle Papadopoulos said into the phone, folding the catalog and scooting his glasses down to the tip of his aquiline nose to get a closer look at the photograph.
Most of the statues in the catalog that Mariah had sent to him looked pretty much the same. He wasn’t married to any particular period, material, subject or artisan, relying instead on instinct to guide him in his choice of the perfect statue for his endless lawn. Forty minutes earlier, his instincts had led him to settle on a fairly large form on page five, but he wasn’t quite ready to cease savoring the sound of Mariah’s velvety voice—so he’d been stalling by asking for information on every statue in the catalog that still possessed its head.
“That one too is Archaic period, Mr. Papadopoulos…”
“Ah! What did I tell you to call me?”
“I mean Aristotle. Archaic period because of the rigid stance, blank stare, and it’s another kouros. We approximate the date of its creation as late fifth century B.C. due to the type of garment and limestone material. It is two and a half meters tall—”
“So am I.”
Mariah laughed and Ari felt as if birds’ wings had suddenly grazed the back of his skull. So soft. So musical. He could go on listening like this forever.
“Note the mannequin-like quality of the limbs and how at this time the Greeks had not yet developed…”
Ari looked at a torn paper towel on his desk on which Pepper had scratched down an address for him, and frowned.
Why had he allowed his wife to commit him to doing her job of collecting their daughter from a playdate? He’d have to end this phone pleasure too soon.
And why had he allowed her to commit him to an evening of misery, trapped at a table with, and subjected to the pretentious babblings of, her girlfriends? She’d decided both playdate and dinner party without consulting him.
His wife had stolen his time.
Yes, he loved Maybelle, and yes, Billy Price, who was hosting the dinner party, was his friend, but he saw the child daily and he and Billy ran into each other twice a week, attending other activities arranged by their wives. Also, without consultation. From now on, Ari vowed, he would refuse such wastes of time.
A man must determine his fate!
“Do you want to know about any other statues with heads?” Mariah asked.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Heads, Aristotle. You only wish to hear descriptions of the pieces with intact heads. Is that your prerequisite or are you simply having some fun?”
“Both,” Ari chuckled. “I’m enjoying your knowledge. And your voice.”
Again Mariah laughed. An American woman might admonish him for his blatant flirting, but Mariah found his compliments flattering. “I apologize and will not waste your time anymore.”
“You are never a waste of my time,” Ari replied smoothly. “I am very interested in the piece on page five. In fact, it calls out to me. What is the price?”
“A price can never be quoted without a prior viewing. Shall we arrange to meet at my company’s warehouse?”
Should he? Why not?
“Ah, yes. That would be good. But we shall have to wait until Monday, and make the arrangement through my secretary. She grows claws if I mess with her schedule.”
“Of course; I understand. Since I cannot, ah, satisfy your desires at this moment, will you settle for a verbal description of the statue?”
“Oh, yes. Tell me more!”
“The statue represents a river god—a potami, as they are called. So you’ll need to keep it wet.”
“I can do that,” Ari breathed. “A wet fountain would be nice.”
“It is a statue of Baphyras, a god of Pieria in the north.” Maria began to giggle.
Oh! Oh, my goodness!
Ari’s head began to tingle.
He had to end the call too soon since Maybelle’s pickup time was nearing. Ari crunched Pepper’s scribbled address information into his pocket and took the catalog with him on his way to the car. He wanted to hold the picture up against his lawn to see if it belonged there.
Outside, in the driveway Ari tucked the footless Barbie he was carrying into his back pocket and wedged Maybelle’s Disney Princesses car cup under his arm. He held up the catalog, and gazing upon it, he smiled. The little minx had left out a key feature in her description of the statue. It was a feature that reaffirmed his wish to place it in his fountain, a feature that would send a strong visual message to his wife when she happened to pass by the river god.
Not only was Baphyras’s head fully intact, but he also possessed a fully intact and generously proportioned set of male genitals.
Ari got in the driver’s seat of his car and smiled.
Things were going to change.
51
Hard on the Knees
Before she had a driver, Marion used to relish cruising along the stretch of Sunset Boulevard between South Mapleton and Baroda on days with light traffic. Here, the street opened up and banked like a racetrack, giving a rare opportunity to Angelinos who drove cars designed for autobahn use to drive them as they were intended to be driven. But even though the traffic was sparse, she blew through the turn without joy. She was too occupied being pissed off and contemplating her body and comparing it to Tawnee’s.
Marion had awakened anticipating a spa day. What she got was a shit-smelling, bush-sticking, husband-and-slut-encountering, cubistfaced-psycho-friend-pissed-off-plastic-surgeon-threatening-to-nevertreat-her-again day.
Patti had been a nightmare at David Thayer’s. It was bad enough giving the poor doctor the ol’ switcheroo, but then Patti’d had the nerve to try to hustle extra procedures (like ear-pierce-hole reductions and eyelash implants) before David even started in on her chin. When David caught Patti perusing his confidential patient files, Marion thought she wouldn’t escape with her life. Instead, she escaped with twenty-four hours to either convince the Riviera Country Club to allow David to drill a well on his adjoining Pacific Palisades property that tapped into their aquifer…or face life without David’s laser.
That meant she had to get hold of eight board members she barely knew whose maids wouldn’t give out the number of their second homes in Montecito and Malibu because they wanted to spend their weekends undisturbed. That meant she’d need to twist the arms of linking contacts in her Black Book. That meant she had to go back to the compound.
And you-know-who-wears-short-shorts would be there.
In her house.
And that pissed Marion off.
She was almost as pissed off as she’d been when David Thayer agreed to drive Patti home. She’d wasted her entire awful spa-deprived day waiting for Patti in that office. She’d read every pamphlet on every procedure David Thayer was licensed to perform.
And it was that that had made her contemplate her body—and compare it to Tawnee’s—which wasn’t a good thing to do when she was pissed off and driving and blowing through turns without joy.
By the time Marion was waiting for the Benedict Canyon light to change, pissed off and contemplating her body and comparing it to Tawnee’s, she’d decided the only physical area where Tawnee had her beat was the knees. Marion had always been sensitive about her knees. They’d been so chubby in her chubby youth that when she’d lost the weight in her early twenties, the skin on her knees had never snapped back.
They had a baby-fat fold. Just inside the thigh. It formed every time she sat on her heels.
As Marion turned up her street, pissed off and contemplating her body and comparing it to Tawnee’s, she thought about a pamphlet she’d read while wasting her spa-deprived day waiting for Patti Fink. It described a procedure that would pull up her leg skin the same way as you pulled up a stocking. It was probably painful, but squatting as she was under David’s fluorescent waiting-room lights, it looked absolutely necessary.
Now, as she drove through the Zane compound gates and up the driveway, the fading afternoon light seemed kinder and she straightened and tensed her left leg to take another look.
So as she pulled up to the Zane mansion, pissed off and contemplating her body and comparing it to Tawnee’s and looking at the skin above the knee on her extended left leg, Marion didn’t see Tawnee, directly in her path, squatting (without a baby-fat fold), trying to pull her cat out from under a bush.
And Tawnee never saw what hit her.
52
Mad Friends and Englishmen
Her guests were due any second and Claire was frozen in her foyer, trying to make a decision. She couldn’t decide which looked worse, her dining room or her face.
After viewing her four-hundred-plus picture gallery on WireImage, Craig-the-stylist determined that Claire’s only impediment in her campaign to make the cover of Town & Country was her mouth. Since she’d always felt just the tiniest bit thin-lipped (and was shelling out twenty thousand a month for supposedly the best magazine-cover-grabbing publicist west of the Rockies), Claire took this observation as valid and allowed Craig to call her dermatologist and make arrangements. Problem was, she’d never had lip augmentation before.
