Stars (The Butterfly Trilogy) (47 page)

     He flung his arms around her and began kissing the breath out of her. Hannah did not resist. They staggered and fell against a wall, the entrance to the hall of mirrors. Kissing greedily and madly groping for each other, they fell inside and sort of bounced off one glass wall and then another, ricocheting into the maze as he squeezed this and she grabbed that, unaware of the hundreds of images they created of themselves, while overhead a crazy strobe light made them look like actors in an old silent movie.

     They fell against a transparent wall; Alan hiked up her skirt. She helped him frantically pull her panties down, while people nearby, half-blinded and confused by the strobes, fumbled like moles through the glass maze. He got his zipper down and was inside her between two flashes of the strobe; Hannah curled one leg around him as they bumped against the wall, and Alan managed to get her sweater up over her breasts. To passersby on the other side of the transparency, who laughed as they banged their noses against glass they didn't know was there, Alan and Hannah just looked like another entwined couple madly making out.

     It was all over in a couple of minutes. Alan gave a violent shudder, and Hannah cried out. Then she was quickly smoothing down her skirt and drawing her sweater down before anyone could see, and he was zipping himself up. They hung onto each other, about to collapse.

     "God!" he said, laughing. "That's why they call this the fun house!" He looked at her and kissed her again, long and deeply. "Hannah," he said, "let's get married."

     She could hardly breathe. She felt a warm stickiness running down her legs; nothing had ever felt so good. "Isn't this awfully sudden?" she said breathlessly.

     "We've been after each other for three years. I'd consider that a long enough engagement."

     A dozen thoughts raced through her mind with the speed of a Tilt-A-Whirl: Greer Academy, her own fashion design business, her growing involvement with Starlight, her desire for independence. But all she could think of was Alan. "Yes," she said. "Yes, let's get married."

     "Tell me," he said a few minutes later as they hurried out of the fun house, eager to go somewhere private. "What was the thing about me that attracted you the most?"

     Her hand slid down his back and cupped a perfect buttock. "Your smile," she said.

     Philippa was exhausted, but she was so energized, so excited, that she couldn't sit still. The clock on the kitchen stove told her she had worked nearly all through the night. Dawn would be breaking soon; she supposed she should go to bed and get some rest, because now that old Mr. Fox was turning over much of the drugstore's management to her, Philippa had to be fresh and alert for work. But she couldn't sleep.

     She surveyed the mess she had made in the apartment and laughed at herself. There were notes and diagrams and pictures cut out of magazines strewn all over the place. Having borrowed the pastels and sketch pad Hannah used for designing her fashions, she had worn every shade of blue down to a nub, leaving colorful smudgy illustrations scattered about the apartment like stylish throw pillows. And she had run through nearly half a roll of adding machine tape, the column of figures curling out of the machine and down onto the floor. The Valley section of the
Los Angeles Times
classifieds was folded neatly next to the telephone, little red circles indicating where Philippa had marked stores for rent. The first thing in the morning she would start making her calls. Because after her crazy night's
work, moving figures about and adding up this and that and getting onto paper, in aggressive colors, the images that had plagued her for days, she knew now that her scheme was going to work.

     She was going to make Starlite into a real business!

     Going to the fridge and taking out a Tupperware container of cottage cheese and peaches, Philippa looked at the clock again. Hannah still hadn't come home from her date with Alan. She smiled. Apparently her roommate had found true love at last.

     The phone rang, startling her, and she ran to answer it. At this hour, a phone call was likely to be an emergency.

     "Philippa!" came Hannah's breathless voice. "Guess what! I'm married!"

     
"What?"

     "Alan and I. We drove to Las Vegas! Oh, Philippa. We got
married!
"

     Philippa couldn't believe it.

     "I haven't told Mom yet," Hannah said. "Oh God, she wanted me to have a big wedding. But Alan and I just couldn't
wait.
Oh, Philippa! I'm so happy! We'll be home in a few days. Oh God, you won't believe it!"

     After she hung up, Philippa felt giddier and more energized than ever before. A Las Vegas wedding! How delicious, how unconventional!

     And then: Charmie! She had to tell Charmie!

     The phone rang and rang at the Charmer household with no answer, which was strange; Philippa knew that Ron was on a trip and that Charmie had taken tonight's Wednesday group. But she should have been home by now. It was so late that it was nearly dawn. Where could she be?

     Dialing again and still getting no answer, Philippa felt a sudden chill of fear. It wasn't like Charmie, who was a light sleeper, not to pick up the phone. If she wasn't home, then where was she? And where was the baby?

     Throwing a jacket on, Philippa grabbed her car keys and hurried out.

     "Charmie?" Philippa called out as she rang the doorbell. "Charmie?"

     She listened but could hear nothing from inside the house. Avenida Hacienda was quiet except for the periodic slap of newspapers on porches as the newsboy pedaled by. Dawn was just breaking over the tops of the ancient oaks that lined the street. Philippa looked at the driveway. Charmie's car was there; Ron's wasn't.

     She rang the bell again, then she knocked. "Charmie?" She pounded. "Frizz, can you hear me?"

     Finally she tried the doorknob and found it unlocked. As the door swung away from her, she called, "Frizz? Are you home? Frizz?"

     She went inside, then she saw a smashed vase and a chair on its side; her alarm grew. "Frizz! Charmie! Are you all right?"

     She listened. Thinking she heard a sound, she made her way toward the hall, pausing to listen. Yes, there it was, a faint thumping sound.

     "Charmie?" she called again, more softly. "Where are you?"

     The master bedroom was empty; she saw the crumpled sheets, the belt tied to the brass headboard. She followed the sound to a closet. She listened, heard something scuffling inside. She tried the knob and found it locked, but she noticed an old-fashioned skeleton key on a table nearby.

     When she opened the door and found Charmie, naked and crumpled and surrounded by a heap of junk, she said, "Oh my God," and reached down for her.

     "Philippa?" Charmie said weakly. "Help...me up...please."

     She cried out when Philippa tried to get an arm around her. Charmie took shallow breaths, held her rib cage; Philippa ran to the bathroom and came back with a robe, helping Charmie into it. "I'm calling a doctor," she said.

     But Charmie said no, holding on to Philippa, steadying herself. Her face was swollen, her eyes were black and blue, and her upper lip was cut. "No doctor. Please, just...help me into the kitchen...water..."

     Philippa started to protest, and then, remembering the plea she herself had once made to Mrs. Chadwick not to involve a doctor, helped her friend into the kitchen.

     "My God," Philippa said as she settled Charmie into a chair. "What happened?"

     "Ron. He caught me coming home from a meeting," she said, taking the glass of water from Philippa. After she gulped it down, she said, "Jesus, I hurt. I must have been in that closet for hours. What time is it? Why did you come here?"

     Philippa filled a towel with ice from the freezer and gave it to Charmie to hold against her face. Then, putting the kettle on the stove and pulling
out cups and tea bags, her hands shaking she was so furious, she said as calmly as she could so as not to upset Charmie, "Hannah called. She and Alan Scadudo ran off to Las Vegas and got married. I tried calling you but didn't get an answer."

     "Las Vegas! Jesus—" She winced. "Oh God, Philippa, I feel awful."

     Philippa found some aspirin in the bathroom, along with a bottle of iodine and some Band-Aids, and did what she could to fix the cuts on Charmie's face. When the tea was ready, she set the cups on the table and took a seat opposite her friend. "Do you want to tell me about it?" she said.

     "No."

     "All right," Philippa said, although with difficulty, because she wanted to help.

     "It's just that—" Charmie started to say. "Oh God, what a mess. How do these things happen?"

     At the sound of the front door opening, they both froze, and then Ron stumbled into the kitchen. He looked terrible, and he reeked of whiskey. "Oh honey," he said when he saw his wife's swollen face. "Oh God, I'm so sorry. What have I done?"

     He fell to his knees and buried his face in her lap, sobbing like a baby. "I'm so sorry! I didn't know what I was doing! Forgive me. Please forgive me. I promise I won't ever do it again. How could I hurt you? I love you."

     When he raised his tear-streaked face, Charmie stroked his head.

     "I'll make it up to you, I swear. How 'bout we go somewhere nice? How 'bout I take you and the kid to Disneyland? You know how much he loves Mickey Mouse. Can we do that?"

     "Yeah, sure."

     "Listen, I mean it this time. I'm going to quit drinking. I'll go to AA, I'll do anything. We belong together, baby, don't we?"

     "It's all right," Charmie said. "Go on now. Get some sleep. We'll talk later."

     He stumbled off to bed, never even acknowledging Philippa.

     "Charmie, you cant let him keep doing this to you," she said.

     "Stay out of this, Philippa, please," Charmie said wearily, switching the ice pack to her other cheek. "You wouldn't understand."

     "But why do you let him keep hurting you like this?"

     "You don't know, Philippa," she said, taking small breaths because of the stabbing rib. "You've never had a man. You've never been in love."

     "Is this what being in love means? Being locked in a closet?"

     "Let me tell you something. The first time Ron did something like this to me, I went home to my mother. Do you know what she said? She said she couldn't let me in because it wasn't convenient. That's all I ever was to her, an inconvenience. I'm sure if abortion had been legal in 1937, I wouldn't be here now."

     "But that's no reason to stay with an abusive husband."

     "Philippa, I'm not an inconvenience to Ron. He loves me. He
needs
me."

     "Charmie, listen," Philippa said quickly, filled with fear. "I've been working on this wonderful idea for Starlite. It's going to be big and sensational. But I need your help. I can't do it alone. There is so much we can accomplish together—"

     "I'm not coming back, Philippa."

     "You can't mean that!"

     "I don't need Starlite. I'm not obsessed with being thin like you or Hannah. My husband likes me just the way I am."

     "But he calls you Fattie! He humiliates you in restaurants, in front of your friends! Charmie, don't you see? He's using fat as a weapon against you! He keeps you subordinated by keeping you fat. He makes you feel worthless so you think you deserve his abuse."

     "I deserved what I got!"

     Philippa stared at her in shock.

     "Ron forbade me to go back to Starlite," Charmie said, looking away, "but I went ahead behind his back. I deserved what I got."

     "Charmie, that's not true! No one deserves to be treated this way."

     Charmie suddenly stood up, bracing her ribs and wincing with pain. "I don't want to talk about this anymore. It's our private affair and none of your concern."

     "Maybe not, Charmie, but I'm your best friend. Remember how we once stood up to Amber—"

     "Oh for God's sake, stop living in the past!"

     "But it's important to remember the past. How you and I both were once—"

     "I said stop it!"

     Philippa tried to maintain control. "Please, come with me right now. I'll help you. We'll go get the baby and you can stay with Hannah and me. I have such big plans for Starlite and I need your help."

     "You don't need my help, Philippa. You've never needed anyone's help. Hannah and I follow you around like a couple of faithful dogs while you spout your self-righteous bullshit. 'As you believe so shall you be.' Jesus! Do you really think anyone swallows that?"

     Philippa stared at her. She began to shake.
I'm losing Frizz. Just like I lost Rhys.
"Please, Frizz, I know you're hurting—"

     "Don't condescend to me! And stop calling me that! Just get your skinny body out of here and leave me to live my life
my
way. Okay?"

     "Charmie—"

     "Get out," she said wearily, leaving the kitchen and heading for the bedroom, where Ron's snores came through the closed door. "And do me a favor, Philippa. Okay? Don't call me anymore. And don't come back."