Back Talk (4 page)

Gerald said.

“A sign that I no longer harbor any ill will for stealing my husband.”

“Anne …”

She gazed into his dark blue eyes. She couldn’t honestly say that she didn’t feel pain when she looked at him. They had been the perfect couple and everyone thought theirs was a marriage that would last. They had similar interests. So she thought for five years. They had agreed children were not really imminent in their plans. They both liked to travel; they enjoyed their careers and hobbies. It seemed they were madly in love. And then one day Gerald came home and told her he was in love with another man.

If anything can make a woman feel inadequate it’s being replaced by someone you have no hope of competing with. Phil had a penis and she didn’t. It was hopeless. She kept hoping one day she would find humor in this. That day had yet to arrive. “Gerald, what went wrong?”

“It’s not you. It’s not anything you did. It was me.”

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“No, it was Philip.” Anne poured herself another glass of wine.

“It would’ve happened sooner or later. I came to invite you to a barbeque,” he said, pointedly changing the subject.

“So I can hang out with a bunch of gay people. I’m sure I’ll find a date that way. No, thanks.”

“You never know,” Gerald said, finishing his glass of wine. “I worry about you, Anne. I want you to be happy.”

“I’m fine. Besides, I’m supposed to have dinner with my parents tonight.”

“Oh, goody.”

Anne laughed. “Don’t you miss those family dinners where my father keeps quiet while my mother meddles in your business. She still thinks I drove you to this.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I should call her.”

“No, don’t. The longer you stay away the closer she’ll get to letting it go.”

“All right. I should go.”

“Tell Phil hello for me.”

“I will. He feels bad, you know.” Gerald didn’t meet her gaze.

Instead, he went and picked a single yellow rose.

“I’m sure he does,” Anne said.
Like, everytime he holds you in his
arms.
She tried to imagine Philip falling down on his knees in penance to a righteous God and begging forgiveness for stealing her husband. Sure he does, Anne thought wryly. They had been divorced a little over a year and still she felt the loss and cursed the day Philip walked into their lives.

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It took Natalie three days to find out that Hilton had slept with another woman. Hilton was soaking in the bath in the big house and listening to a tape of Anne’s radio program on her portable player. She had to resort to using the first-floor bathroom because the third-floor tub was no longer useable. The white porcelain handle had come off while she was rinsing out the tub so unless she wanted a cold bath it was time to pick another bathroom. She was thinking about the show. She’d be acting in the capacity of an official observer all week. The Web site needed visuals. Hilton was spoiled from listening to Anne and watching her. Having seen Anne’s facial expressions as she took calls and made commentary would be priceless video footage. Her chair-spinning and paper-tapping gave the conversations more pluck. It was difficult now just to listen to the show.

Tomorrow she’d go in early and set up a Web cam to test out her idea. If she could stream the program, the Web site would be a 23

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new hotspot for her listeners and certainly fulfill all of Anne’s expectations for redesigning her site.

Amid this revelry of how to please the new boss, Nat burst into the bathroom. Her face was flushed and Hilton could tell she was fit to be tied. She had a pretty good idea why. Word had obviously gotten out. Not that she was hiding the fact that she’d also spent most of Saturday night in the arms of another woman. She would have preferred, however, that it stay quiet. She hadn’t seen Emily since then but it didn’t mean she wouldn’t in the future.

“What the fuck is going on?” Nat said, picking up the tape player and threatening to throw it in the bathtub.

“You won’t get away with it. Remember that
Columbo
show where the son killed off his father by dunking the radio in the tub.

Every cop in the world is aware of that stunt.”

“Fuck you,” Nat said. She clicked the player off and put it on the vanity. “You’re sleeping with some baby dyke down the street.”

“And?” Hilton said, slinking back down into the tub now that her life was no longer in jeopardy.

“And I’m pissed off.” Nat put her hands on her slim hips. She was dressed in tight black hip-hugger jeans and a low-cut red T-shirt that prominently showed her cleavage.

“Is that like an authoritative pose?” Hilton said.

“Yes. What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“The same thing you’re doing with the biker chick. I believe it’s called retaliatory fucking.”

“Great term. Did you learn that in therapy?”

Nat always reverted to therapy when she was at a loss on how to deal with Hilton. This was her way of reminding Hilton that she was not of sound mind and needed a nut ball like Nat to tell her how to behave in this savage world. Hilton had long stopped being offended.

Therapy had been her father’s idea because he was convinced that a six-year-old seeing her mother strewn out on the beach, seaweed in her hair, and drowned was a traumatic event. It had been a shocking sight, but it was anger, not trauma, that guided her into adulthood.

“I’m not sleeping with Sherry,” Nat said with a sigh.

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“What are you waiting for? That special moment? Or maybe you found someone with a conscience.”

Nat’s face flushed. “It’s not that.”

“Look, you started all this business. You’re about to bang the biker chick and I’m doing the neighbor. What’s the big deal?”

Hilton kept her voice even and her face placid. Nat hated these self-contained moments. She wanted tears and platitudes. She wanted a scene. Hilton refused to indulge her. She wanted to make this as painful as possible. This was what the therapist would call passive-aggressive behavior.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means maybe Sherry doesn’t want to bang a married woman, maybe she’s not comfortable doing someone else’s woman, maybe she thinks monogamy is important and you haven’t figured out a way to convince her that it’s all right,” Hilton retorted.

Nat swung open the bathroom door. “Fuck you!” she screamed.

Hilton had thrown the decisive blow. She was a marksman when it came to pinpointing a weak spot and hitting hard. “I can’t.

I probably don’t have a big enough dildo to compete with the ever-hard biker chick.”

Nat turned around and smiled. “As a matter of fact, you don’t.”

It was Hilton’s turn to snap. She grabbed the soap and hurled it with the precision of a big-league pitcher. It nailed Nat in the back of the head.

“God damn you,” Nat said, turning back around and going for Hilton. Liz and Jessie, who were watching reruns of
Leave it to
Beaver
on television in the living room, heard the commotion and grabbed Nat before she got to the bathroom.

“I think a little time out might be in order,” Liz said, putting her arm around Nat and leading her away.

Jessie stood in the doorway of the bathroom. “Great shot!”

Hilton rolled her eyes and got up and grabbed a towel. She dried off and put on her robe. Jessie looked on admiringly.

“You’ve got a great body,” Jessie said, sitting down on the commode. She obviously meant to stay.

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Hilton smiled. “The lucky sperm club is responsible for genet-ics, not character.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Jessie asked. She picked up the fingernail clippers and decided her nails needed a little work.

This was more togetherness than Hilton preferred but it was going to have to do. Jessie looked parked. “It means what you look like is simply a happy accident, and how you behave is of your own making.”

“I’d take happy accident any day. So I don’t get it.”

“Get what?” Hilton said, brushing her hair.

“Why you’re in trouble when Nat is the one who plays.”

“Go figure,” Hilton said. She sat down on the edge of the slowly draining tub and applied lotion to her legs. She was going to have to employ a plumber, just not a lesbian plumber this time.

Perhaps one afternoon when Nat was getting her brains fucked out she could bring someone in to repair the bathtubs at least. Maybe this time they’d get the pipes fixed instead of getting her girlfriend laid.

“I have a couple of theories,” Jessie offered.

“In your ever-humble opinion on lesbian life.”

“I have had a lot of experience when it comes to women.”

“Oh, do share.”

Jessie was never daunted by Hilton’s facetiousness. This was a good quality, Hilton had deduced. Most people shut off when taunted. Jessie seemed to view it as kindling. It was going to be a roaring fire.

“It comes down to you get what you give.”

“That’s it?” Hilton wished she had more body maintenance to do because Jessie wasn’t going to let her leave. She found her clothes and began dressing.

“Yes, you see there are basically three types of relationships.”

“Only three?” Hilton pulled on her shorts and thought about running by the Army and Navy store downtown to pick up some camouflage pants. Fall was beginning to linger in the air. Her friend Doug at the store had told her a new shipment was due in 26

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any day. This was the first fall of her life when she wouldn’t be going back to school, and she was finding a welcome relief in starting what might appear to be a new life. She had promised Gran she’d finish college and she’d fulfilled her promise.

“Yes, three—good, mediocre and bad. A good one is basically monogamous and long-term, or it’s a roll in the hay that doesn’t require the U-Haul at the end of the date. Then there’s mediocre, two people who have the roll in the hay and feel obligated to turn a one-night stand into at least a two-year relationship. One or both partners want out but don’t want the attached failure. Then there’s bad, which describes you and Nat, two people who are together but shouldn’t be.” Jessie stopped her pontification, got up off the commode and set the nail clippers on the counter.

“That clears up everything for me.”

“Glad I could help.”

“Are you guarding me?” Hilton asked as it suddenly dawned on her that Jessie had an ulterior motive for keeping her contained.

“Yes, but it appears the coast is clear. Liz told me to keep you busy for at least five minutes until she got Nat safely escorted off the premises.”

“I can always count on you two.”

Liz showed up. “Well, at least you didn’t put out an eye with that stunt.” She put her hands on her hips with the obvious intention of getting some form of remorse out of Hilton.

“With a bar of soap?” Jessie asked.

Liz gave her the look. “Well, I mean, I guess you could, but it doesn’t really seem all that plausible.”

“Did she go running into the arms of the Dildo Queen?”

Hilton asked snidely.

“I didn’t ask,” Liz replied. “Why don’t you come watch the rest of
Leave It to Beaver
with us.”

“Stupid show. Besides, I’ve got work to do,” Hilton said. She made her way to the attic and tried to forget about Nat.

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Wednesday morning Hilton was at the radio station an hour and a half early. The show didn’t start until ten. Shannon came in and did her perfunctory smell of the control room and then went out and lay down under the fan on the wooden floor of the office part of the studio. Hilton had deduced that Shannon found the control room too confined and noisy for her nap hour. She put her head down and closed her eyes. Inside Studio C she set up the Web cam and ran all the software so she could check the system before Anne went on the air. She double-checked the position of the camera. She walked by Studio B and waved at the new jock spinning tunes on the local FM station. It was his second day but he appeared to be doing just fine. Hilton liked him already because he was into social satire. Satisfied with her work she went to get a coffee. On the way out, Veronica, the show’s producer, stopped her.

“Hilton, may I have a word with you?”

“Sure,” Hilton said, thinking Veronica’s requests were never that; they were standing orders. Hilton was doing her best but Veronica was not easy.

“It’s about your wardrobe.”

Just then Anne came around the corner. “What’s wrong with her outfit?”

“I just think it should be more professional. I mean, a white men’s undershirt in dire need of bleaching and camouflage cargo pants are hardly suitable business attire.”

Hilton looked down at herself as if seeing her outfit for the first time. “No one sees me. It’s radio.”

“I just think when you get your first check you should go out and get yourself some nice clothes. I could figure in an advance if you’d like,” Veronica offered. She ran her hand over her well-coiffed brunette bun.

“You’re serious?” Anne said.

Hilton could see absolute mirth dancing in Anne’s eyes because Hilton’s secret of being an heiress was not information Veronica had been privy to as of yet.

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“Have you known me to be anything else?” Veronica said.

“Uh, no.” Anne took off her black blazer and put it around Hilton’s shoulders. Hilton slipped her arms into it and then stood there feeling distinctly uncomfortable. The blazer smelled of Anne’s perfume and it was still warm.

“Veronica, I think Hilton’s basic philosophy on clothes is to pick something off the floor, give it a good sniff, determine whether it’s inhabitable and then get dressed. Am I correct?”

Hilton nodded.

“But she has such nice lines,” Veronica said, running her hand along Hilton’s chin and checking her out.