Queenie (10 page)

“To college girls and other orphans,” he says finally. “And to Marcel and Marcel.”

We all drink to us. This wine tastes fine, maybe because this time there’s no food with it.

“Well,” Oscar says. “This one’s all right.”

“A dessert wine of their country,” young Marcel the chef says, lifting his glass. “Only good one they’ve got.” He refuses one of Oscar’s cigars with an air of preferring to flame only toward me. “À mademoiselle.” I’m pleased to see he looks at Nym only politely. And dubiously.

“Et à—mademoiselle?”
Apparently he’s never seen pearl tits before. Maybe he will again, in Beverly Hills.

All this time, Aurine’s been sitting there, in her yards of Toulouse-Lautrec. She’s taken one of Oscar’s cigars, and she’s smoking it. She tells me afterward it’s her first. Though she’s not blowing smoke rings, you would never know. “I had to do something,” she tells me later. “I knew I was in the presence of God.” But out of respect for his mysteries, which aren’t yet clear to her, she doesn’t say a word.

When she does this, she doesn’t have to. Soon as Marcel-the-younger’s eyeballs begin to smart, from the smoke that seems to be coming from hers, he says “Madame is not pleased?”

She speaks slowly. God may be prompting her, but his enunciation isn’t quite clear. “It is being suggested, you get a cut on our wine.”

His jaw drops. He does of course. But she’s always known that! When the head of the kitchen purchases, that’s his right.

“But today, I choose them personally,” he stutters. “All except this one, the Monbarzillac.”

“Hélas.”
Aurine’s voice seems to come from her stomach. “Maybe it was not the wine.” It was not, she said later, I already knew it. But how can I say what God and my nose are telling me? Looking at her cigar, she speaks in the voice of somebody who has swallowed one. “It is being suggested, that you take a cut on the food.”

God thinks of the right insults, all right. L’Alouette stands fast, but young Marcel’s hat may knock the roof in.

Then we hear that sound, that same sound from the other Marcel. As Oscar says later, it’s the combined sound of what all the headwaiters in the world think of the customers—comprising a snigger, a belch and a fart.

From then on (as I tell Sam Newber later) though the message from above isn’t clear to me yet, the stage directions are. Everything goes off—Boom!—in a different direction at once.

The chef, hunched over the serving table, is dancing from dish to dish, screaming “
Crapaud! Salaud!
What he has done to it?”

And dish by dish, old Marcel answering in a deep, wine-dark monotone, is authenticating it:

“Soupe à l’eau de boudin?
Oui!
I pee in it.”

“Cepes à la Perigordine? With the garleek, and the grep-joos?
Oui!
I pipi in it too!”

“Et le poularde!” he shouts. “Le cognac? C’est moi!” He informs us he’s been drinking since yesterday, to insure himself a supply.

Young Marcel the chef is an old Marcel now. He has his hat off—showing a head shape I could never go for, and is hoarse as a frog. “
Et le sauce Madère?
”

Old Marcel nods, his chaps hanging. He is weaving.

The chef turns to Aurine. “Madame, madame, made with Spanish Madeira, the 1945.”

Old Marcel is young. A devilish grin splits his face.
“Oui! Oui!”
He pounds his chest. “And with me, Marcel Boulanger, nineteen oh five!”

Just before the chef hits him, which nobody blocks too quickly, he passes out. As the two busboys drag him to a cab, he rouses. “Not the wine. Tell her, the food yes, and why not, my heart is broken. But if the wine is off, it wasn’t me. What kind of a pig would do that to good wine!”

It’s Dulcy who starts the giggling. After a bit all of us are at it, even Aurine. All the women, that is.

The men are just sitting there. Are they queasier than us, when it comes right down to it? I doubt it. It’s just that whenever the shit hits the fan it’s us who are trained to squeal. I wish women wouldn’t do that; it doesn’t mean a thing. All it means is that then the men can be embarrassed for us. Though we’re the ones who end up laughing. I turn to Oscar, who’s got an odd look on his face, like the rest of them. On his face I recognize it, sheepish as it is. Why, he’s proud! “It’s true,” I mutter half to myself. “A woman would never think of doing it.”

For the first time in my life, he puts me down. “Queenie—it’s even truer a woman couldn’t.”

Just then Rudolph comes quavering in. He’s been to the bathroom; he can’t get in. Nym and Candido have locked themselves inside.

When they come out, she’s wearing his mink.

Then—why, suddenly, it’s all female-solemn, and the men who are grinning. Those kind girls are determined not to let Nym go home without company. Theirs.

“To that large, empty flat,” says Alba, casting up her eyes.

Dulcy says, “With that large, empty bed.”

In fact they’re planning to babysit her, round the clock. For after all, what is the main characteristic of an orphan? She’s alone.

When they finally leave, everybody is escorting everybody, it hasn’t been decided where.

So we three prepare to take my cake, and go home.

In the kitchen, the chef, his head in his hands, turns in his notice. “How is one to cook in this profaned kitchen? With two sets of dishes, like the Jews? No, Madame, I have been spitted on the soul.”

“Not spit,” Oscar mutters at me, but I won’t play. I’m a bit off him. For it’s struck me, with a great thud, that it’s not only for love that Oscar keeps me and Aurine. It’s for amusement.

Meanwhile she’s convincing the chef—in French—that his soul is curable. “Expensive. But I’ll pay.” So she rehires him for more salary, and a new set of dishes. She says nothing doing though, to any bargain over me. Though she might have asked me first. “No, no, Marcel, how could you ever think so?”

It’s the wine situation all over again; she always knew he was married; now she’s using it. “How you think I could give this pure young girl to a—
bigame
!”

Oscar translates in my ear, “Bigamist.”

The chef looks up at her. “Why you always call me Marcel, Madame? When my name is René.”

Aurine says later it’s one more argument for the existence of God.

And the day’s not over yet. In fact, it’s only supper-time.

We’re home, we’re already set for bed—or Oscar’s saying I ought to go, just like years ago—when we get the call from Martyne.

To be brief—from Martyne who never is—the party ended up at Alba’s. All except for Rudolph, who thank God went off to the Met. “He has never missed a Monday,” says Martyne. “Then Potto and Candido, they have such an altercation!”

“A what?” says Oscar, holding the phone so we can hear. “Are you sure you’re pronouncing your
l
’s?”

“Oh, a fight then, and balls to you, Oscar Selwyn.”

Actually she’s laugh-talking so loud that Aurine and I can hear even before we scramble upstairs to the extension.

“A real ball-bustin’ fight.” She seems to have balls on the mind. “During which
fisticuffs
,” she says, “which Potto loses, Dulcy leaves.”

“Always a mistake, to leave,” Martyne says sagely. We know it’s one she never makes. Meanwhile, she goes on, Alba and Nym have fled upstairs, away from the violence. “At least that is the interpretation that is taken,” says Martyne, all Southern nice-nelly again. “At first.” Until Candido, the winner, goes upstairs after them. “And finds those two girls naked as jaybirds. In the sack.”

“Never!” Aurine says. “Not Alba.” What she means is, not any of us.

“Wait,” Martyne says. Seems that whatever else Candido finds under the covers sets him in a rage she can hear three flights down. Maybe he isn’t Alba’s brother, he’s yelling, but he isn’t queer either, he’s going to settle everybody’s hash all right.

“Alba throws him out,” says Martyne. “A guy like that is
dangerous
. And she can always get him back.”

“Just what did he find under the covers?” Oscar says.

Martyne says, “Wait.”

Twenty minutes later, she says, Alba’s tipped-off banker arrives—to pray for Alba, and throw her out. What do you mean, Alba says to him, it’s my brother who was after Nym here, as Martyne will tell you, she was here all the time, you know Martyne.

“An uncalled-for crack,” Martyne says. “Which she’ll be paying for.”

But you always told me your brother is queer, the banker says.

“Hand it to Alba,” says Martyne, “she never makes a move she caint prove.” Martyne stops for breath. “So once she
does
prove it; she tells Nym and I to leave. And when we do, there they are—she and that banker—down on their knees. By the bed of course. Prayin’ for Candido.”

“Hold it,” Oscar says. “Over the telephone, all this action’s too much for me. Where are we—genderwise? And Martyne dear, where are you phoning from?”

She’s stopped laughing. “Whah—ahm baby-sittin’,” she drawls. When she turns that Southern, it’s always the same reason. “Lahk always. Oney Ah don’ often get to do it for somebuddy so young.”

“Martyne!” Aurine, beside me, is whispering it. “That Nym is a menace. Get out of there, quick!”

“Hon, you know how hard it is for me to leave places. It’s psychological.”

Aurine is almost in tears. “But
cherie
—we’re
straight
.”

“Hon’chile,” Martyne says, so slow and golden. “We girls
all
are. Three times a day. Ain’t it wonderful!” Then her voice drops to its natural. “And if somebuddy else needs a lil bitty
extra
straightnin’, why I’m capable.” Then in a whisper. “Those two pasted-on pearls were kind of needed—get it?” Then she hangs up.

Downstairs, we find Oscar whooping and slinging his two-fifty avoirdupois around like he’s trying to slap his own back. “Don’t worry, Queenie,” he gasps out. “Laughter is good for the heart.”

And I’m laughing with him, again; I can’t help it.

Because by then I get it too of course. And a hai hai hai.

Nym is a boy.

Aurine is slower to get it; her genders are always so firmly fixed. Then her smile spreads, like for a christening of male quintuplets, like it does for males anywhere, including the Deity. “Trust God.”

But hours later, I’m still thinking, “Not on your life! Why should I? Who sez?”—all the things you do think when you’re up to here with your own background. Which is seeping slowly away from you. That’s the sensation, and it’s terrible. All the mother’s milk and backchat you’ve been raised on, slowly curdling. Like your blood’s running away from what you are. And you still have to go on being it.

“Don’t brood,” Oscar says cheerily, having his midnight snack at the kitchen counter, “or we’ll have to get you a sitter.”

I can’t smile back. Not even when Alba calls to say next week’s send-off for me is still on, her prayers have been answered: on a promise to the banker—to go to a doctor—plus an exchange of large checks all around, Candido is allowed back.

“Well, good night,” Oscar says to me, his arm around Aurine. “Au ’voir, Marie Antoinette, if that’s who you’re being; you’re pretty enough. But it’s been a hard day.”

“
Cherie—
—” says Aurine, “you have a pain?”

I think so, but how can I tell her of all people where? Or from what.

“Oscar, she looks like a cow getting ready to butt,” Aurine says nervously.

“Calf,” Oscar says. “A Marie Antoinette calf.” As they go out the kitchen door, he blows me a kiss, and points to the box on the counter. “Let her eat cake.”

An hour later, I’m still there.

So this is envy. In the heart of the female. It’s a kind of pure feeling, Father, like maybe that accidie the church says sometimes comes over the saints? Like a hole you drop into, from which to see other people’s sky. A prison is as pure as anything, I guess. Only I never see my gender as a prison before. I’m into it deep and sudden. A silly chick, sinking from the weight of all her skirts, into the bog everybody told her was there.

And I know what they’ll counsel me. Pull those skirts over your head, baby, and just show that bog what you’ve got for it. Now that you accept the true position of women in the universe, put the best bottom on it you can. Set about learning the
positions
. It’s all going to look different to you, dearie, once a man gets inside those skirts.

So it will. Why else am I dragging my feet? There’s my cake on the counter, like my virginity. I open the box. A pink-and-white sugar tit with a large
Q
on it, maybe for the largest question a girl can ever ask: “What have I got? What haven’t I?”

Answer, from the baritones: “Get laid, girlie. Q-uick Q-uick!” You don’t save a cake, you eat it. You don’t cure virginity, you end it. And you can’t end it and have it too.

Not that I plan to. In our family, a maidenhead’s not much of a prize, more of an impediment. Which you have to make the most of. The girls’ viewpoint is: Take a good look at the one who’s removing it. Every time.

I feel better already. Chewing a piece of René-Marcel’s last tribute to me, I feel almost fine. Anybody’s background looks absurd, if you have to spend a whole day with it. Especially at the Alouette restaurant.

Too bad of course that God, obeying Aurine’s demand to give me her looks, didn’t slip in her temperament as well. But that’s the deity for you. He’s fixed it so no matter what’s in our respective hearts, the answer’s much the same for both of us: “Take a look at all those lovely men!” Especially since in my case, chances are one hundred and ten percent that the person removing my impediment will be one of them.

So, I just have to hope that college will be different from the Alouette on a private day.

O René-Marcel, today did I see the true theology of the world? Or the true position of women there? Or only how thee differs from me? Not necessarily vive-la. But nothing to do with the shape of your head.

For there we women were, René-Marcel, and there you men were, a Ninth Avenue motley all of us, but is gender any classier at the Ritz? And there I am, thinking….

Why is it a woman never feels her organs belong to herself alone, even while she’s sitting there? Why does the gossip on her insides belong to the world?