The Desert Rose Page 15

  “So did Mother call?” Pepper asked.

  “No, we seen her at the hospital, she said tell you she’d come home and fix your breakfast in the morning,” Myrtle said. “The pore thing, she’s exhausted, she’s got dark circles under her eyes. Jessie’s real low, she can’t even move her foot for two weeks, I’d go crazy if that happened to me.”

  Crazier, Pepper thought, you’re already crazy. The dress was one Myrtle had bought in Hawaii, it was only about twenty-five years out of style, but who cared, not too many visitors were likely to hit the driveway that night.

  “That guy Bonventre called, he said tell you you got the job and please call him, I think they want you to start in a couple of days,” Myrtle said.

  Okay, that was quick, Pepper thought, but the immediate problem was how to get Myrtle calmed down, she was very hyper. Meanwhile the peacocks were screeching—nobody had fed them.

  “Well, I’m glad you got hired,” Myrtle said. “If Wendell moves out you may have to support me for a while, this recession has killed the garage sales business, I hear it’s that way all over America, too.”

  Pepper said fine, but it had no effect, finally she had to take Myrtle to Wendy’s. She ate herself into a stupor and went to sleep on the way home. Nobody could wake Myrtle when she konked out after a binge so Pepper went in and got a couple of blankets to cover her with and put Maude in the car to keep her company and let her sleep, it definitely wasn’t the first time it had happened.

  V

  1.

  “I’M GLAD Jesus loves me, I’m just not so sure about Monroe,” Jessie said. Harmony was holding her hand and trying to get her not to cry. When she cried she got her pillow wet and the nurse was annoyed, but trying to get Jessie not to cry when she was upset was like trying to get the rain to stop raining once it started or something, all Harmony could really do was keep handing her Kleenex.

  Monroe had come while Harmony was asleep at Gary’s, and evidently it hadn’t been such a great visit. Jessie had got upset because Monroe said Francois wouldn’t eat his dog food. It was her fault, really, she had got the wrong brand. It was liver-flavored, but it was still the wrong brand and according to Jessie Francois would just go on a total hunger strike until he got the brand of his choice. She was convinced he would starve himself to death in protest, sort of like an Irish freedom fighter. Jessie had been very upset by those hunger strikers.

  Apparently Monroe wasn’t that crazy about Francois, didn’t like Francois snarling at him every time he came in covered with grease. Anyway, he had not wanted to go get a lot more dog food, he said any dog will eat when he gets hungry but Jessie said he just didn’t understand Francois, who would certainly prefer to starve rather than eat a brand of dog food he didn’t approve of.

  Harmony promised to go get some more dog food herself, she could run over to the Safeway between shows, which would be a long time before Francois reached the starvation point. Her promising didn’t solve the problem though—the problem was Jessie was losing confidence in Monroe.

  “Maybe he was just tired and grumpy, he had to work under a truck all night,” Harmony pointed out. “I know he loves you Jessie. He said this very morning that he’d like to marry you.”

  “I know, but how can I marry him if he doesn’t get along with Francois?” Jessie said. She was definitely devoted to her poodle.

  Harmony had a headache, she had only got to sleep about four hours, which was less than half of what she needed, nine was her preferred number of hours. Besides, though she had gotten real sick to her stomach she still felt queasy as a result of the K rations. The breakfast had really been a severe setback. She didn’t have the strength to take up for Monroe, anyway she had never thought he was much of a boyfriend. But at least he was a boyfriend and when Jessie didn’t have one she could be difficult to get along with and would be even more so now that her career was probably over.

  It was lucky that Myrtle and Wendell showed up at that point. Myrtle was wearing her Hawaiian dress and had actually made an effort to fix her hair. Wendell was wearing his green sports coat, Harmony thought they looked like a very happy couple. Myrtle immediately invited Jessie to get well and come out and help her with garage sales, although Harmony knew she was just being nice, a garage sale that only took in 75 cents a day didn’t need two people to run it.

  Wendell seemed nervous. The old woman who was the other patient in the room woke up and began to wheeze, she made a very unpleasant sound, which Wendell said reminded him of a pump sucking air. He leaned over to whisper it to Harmony, which was a mistake because Myrtle was so jealous that anything like that made her mad at Wendell. Harmony was always forgetting how jealous she was—things that were completely innocent, such as a whisper, didn’t strike Myrtle as innocent.

  I guess I better get out of here before I get Wendell in worse trouble, Harmony thought. She told Jessie not to worry, she was definitely going to get Francois the right brand of dog food, maybe she could even do it before she went to work, though in fact what she did was go back to Gary’s and hold ice packs under her eyes, she got puffiness and dark circles when she didn’t get enough sleep.

  The ice pack took care of some of the puffiness but the dark circles were definitely there. She had expected Gary to be asleep but instead of sleeping he had taken a bunch of pills and was irritable and hyper. She was really glad to get to work because she felt she and Gary were probably on the verge of a major fight. He started needling her about a belt she had bought, he said it looked like it was made of tinfoil, like it was a belt of chewing gum wrappers or something. She knew it wasn’t real silver but it definitely wasn’t made of tinfoil. Gary only picked on her clothes when pills or something upset his metabolism, but she wasn’t at her best due to lack of sleep and they barely got to the Stardust without the major fight breaking out. There was a thing or two about him that she wouldn’t mind criticizing if he wasn’t going to let her alone.

  They ran into Cherri in the parking lot. She was in a great mood because Bonventre had decided he wanted her sister Patti to come and try out for the show. In fact she was arriving the next day.

  “Oh good, now you’ll have your sister for company,” Harmony said. It might be Cherri’s lucky day but it definitely wasn’t hers because the first person she ran into on the way to the dressing room was Bonventre. He took one look at the dark circles and frowned.

  “Harmony, you look awful, will you come see me in my office before you put your makeup on?” he said.

  “Jackie, it’s just because of Jessie’s accident, I didn’t get any sleep,” Harmony said, but he wasn’t listening. If you had dark circles under your eyes it didn’t matter to him if it was World War III that caused them, he hated dark circles.

  She decided just to go on to his office, if she was going to get lectured it might as well be soon. His office was kind of a pigpen. Bonventre was too paranoid to let his secretary clean it out except once a year, he was afraid she’d stumble on information he didn’t want anyone to have.

  He seemed surprised to see her quite so soon, actually she had just stopped at the craps table to tell Gene not to look for her during her break, she thought it might be better to avoid Dave for a while. That perked Gene up quite a bit, his jealousy of Dave had been about to get out of hand.

  “Harmony, your daughter had a beautiful audition this afternoon, I guess you heard,” Bonventre said.

  “No, I didn’t hear,” she said.

  “Well, Gary was there, I assumed he told you,” Bonventre said. It made her wish there had been the major fight, maybe she would have killed him, what did he mean not telling her he had been at Pepper’s audition?

  “Well, be that as it may the audition was beautiful, the choreographers were extremely impressed, and we would like her to start as the understudy next week if that’s all right with you. Here’s the form you have to sign.”

  He handed her a piece of paper—the form the parent had to sign if a child that was still a minor wanted to wo
rk in one of the shows. Quite a few did, she knew of instances where girls who were only fourteen got their parents’ consent and went right to work.

  It wasn’t that she was absolutely against it, it was just that she hadn’t had a chance to think about it or talk it over with Pepper. Maybe it was something Ross should be consulted about, after all he was still her father even if he wasn’t around. But Bonventre was standing there looking impatient, he wanted her just to sign it instantly, he hated not getting his way if it had anything to do with the show.

  Harmony tried to sort of think about it quickly but she was too tired. Besides, it hurt her feelings that Gary hadn’t told her about the audition, sometimes he and Pepper sort of teamed up against her. It was mostly just over clothes and she didn’t take it too seriously, but now she got the feeling that everybody was teaming against her, Pepper and Gary and Bonventre and probably Myrtle—Myrtle must have known about the audition but she hadn’t let out a peep. It was really the wrong time for people to team up against her, she had two shows to do and was so tired she needed all her energy just for the shows.

  “Was it topless?” she asked, meaning the audition—it was something she kept thinking about.

  “No, Harmony, it wasn’t topless, it was just a dance audition, will you quit stalling?” Bonventre said. “Pepper’s going to be wonderful. She’s going to be a very big star. I wouldn’t think you’d want to stand in her way.”

  “I don’t want to. I just want to think,” Harmony said. Bonventre grinned like he was about to say something about her brainpower, but he didn’t. She was getting her feelings more and more hurt that nobody had told her about the audition. She felt she was about to cry, despite the fact that it was only thirty minutes till show time and would not help her face, which was not at its best anyway.

  “Jackie, I’ll give it to you at my break, I just have to discuss it with her father,” she said, feeling she had to get out of the office at all costs.

  “Oh fuck, Harmony, you don’t even know where her father is!” Bonventre said. He was on the verge of being in a rage.

  “Yes I do,” she said, which was a lie. She thought Reno but it could have been Tahoe, Ross tended to go back and forth. Anyway, she could always find him because she knew his best friend, a guy named Martin who was a cashier in Reno.

  “I’ll give it to you at my break, I have to do my makeup now,” she said. She got up and hit it out of there before Bonventre could stop her.

  “Cover up those dark circles!” he yelled, as she was leaving. She happened to notice that Murdo’s dressing room was empty, which was unusual, he was usually there playing low-grade blackjack with Lucy, the girl who was the magician’s assistant—she and Murdo were from the same hometown, some place near Chicago. Harmony popped into his dressing room, where she would have a little privacy—she tried to choke off the tears but she couldn’t, all she did was choke them off enough that it felt like she was crying through her nose. Fortunately Murdo didn’t come in, he was always getting a sore throat just before his act and having to rush to the emergency clinic for a last minute spray job, maybe that explained his absence.

  Harmony couldn’t stop the tears, she just felt for a minute that she didn’t have one single person on her side, even Gary her closest friend hadn’t told her about the audition. It wasn’t that she wanted to stand in Pepper’s way if she wanted to be a star, it was just kind of sudden not to have a child anymore. It wasn’t that long ago that Pepper had still played with her dollhouse and had been a little girl—maybe only about five years. Pepper had got quite grown when she was twelve. It just seemed suddenly that she didn’t have a child—people were making decisions and she wasn’t even being told.

  But despite her hurt feelings time was running out, she was usually out there waiting for the feathers to come down on the hoist by this time. About all she could do was rush into the restroom and splash water on her eyes. It wasn’t going to be the best night of her career but she couldn’t help it. Most of the girls were in the last stages of getting their makeup on when she finally got to the dressing room. Fortunately she was very efficient about that process and just ignored the chatter and fixed herself as best she could. Instead of being first on stage she was last, Gary was about ready to have a fit. He was looking really nervous, probably part of it was the pills.

  “Harmony, don’t do this to me, we’re barely going to make the curtain,” he said. She just held out her arms and didn’t say a word, it was not time to go into the business of why he was teaming up against her. Gary could tell she was not at her friendliest though.

  “Did you hear about Murdo?” he said.

  “Did he get a sore throat?” Harmony asked—it was unusual for Murdo not to be in the dressing room.

  “No, he got arrested for writing a hot check,” Gary said. “Bonventre won’t make his bail so I guess we’re without a ventriloquist for the first show.”

  That was too bad—people loved Murdo even if Genevieve did say she could see his lips move. The check part reminded her of Denny and she had to press her lips tightly together as she was getting on her disc. She didn’t want to cry again. They had put Cherri on Jessie’s disc, she looked a little nervous about being up high. Harmony wanted to wave at her not to worry, but before she could the show started.

  2.

  GARY WAS waiting for her when the finale was over. It was not just that he wanted to take care of her costume either.

  “Harmony, I’m sorry, please forgive me,” he said. “I don’t know why I didn’t tell you about the audition. I guess I just didn’t want to upset you anymore right now. I know it was a wrong decision, I just wasn’t thinking too clearly. Do you want to go get something to eat?”

  They drove up to the Waffle House because Gary said his body clock was all screwed up, his body clock felt like it was time for bacon and eggs. The Waffle House was full of old couples who were all dressed up and eating waffles. Probably they had decided that rather than spring for a dinner show they would just eat waffles and save a little money.

  Harmony ordered a waffle herself, but when it came she was too tired to eat. Mainly she drank coffee, hoping she would somehow be able to stay awake through the second show. It was a relief that Gary had apologized, she could understand that he hadn’t wanted to upset her. He told her about Denny making Pepper mad and how beautiful she looked and how all the choreographers thought she danced so well. Hearing him describe it she got over the bad feeling and just decided to go on and sign the work consent form. Why shouldn’t Pepper be a star?

  “Do you think Ross would care?” she asked Gary. He had known Ross quite well.

  “Ross would love it,” Gary assured her, probably he was right.

  Then she went to the ladies room and sort of went to sleep sitting down. Probably it was only a nap of about a minute, but what woke her up was a dream about Francois having starved to death, his corpse was lying right there on Jessie’s bed.

  It was a big relief to realize she was still in the ladies room and it hadn’t happened yet, although maybe it had. Francois was so tiny and so annoyed if he didn’t get his way, maybe he had starved to death in record time just to make them all feel horrible.

  “We gotta hit the Safeway,” she told Gary. They still had plenty of time before the second show so they hit it. Gary definitely wanted to be able to tell Jessie Francois was fit as a fiddle. Harmony was nervous until they got to Jessie’s apartment and saw that she had just had a bad dream while sitting in the John. Francois was very much alive and not that grateful, they had to wash all the wrong brand dog food down the Disposall before he would touch a bite.

  “You know my theory,” Gary said. “Only people who have unhappy sex lives keep animals this small. It makes me wonder about Jessie and Monroe.”

  “Gary, I’ve told you ninety times I wasn’t big on Monroe,” Harmony said.

  “Well, he’s a kind man,” Gary said.

  “Okay, but that doesn’t mean a sex life,” she said.
They sort of had a little argument about what Jessie ought to do as they drove back to the Stardust. It was wonderful that Gary had thought to apologize so they could be friends again and have a serious talk about Jessie. After all, Jessie was the one with the serious problems. Harmony didn’t think the mere fact that Jessie loved Francois meant she had an unhappy sex life, but once Gary developed a theory he sort of clung to it. He seemed to think the fact that Francois was a miniature was very significant, but it was a part of the theory that Harmony couldn’t follow, she was just too tired.

  Just as they got to the Stardust Gary said, “Harmony, there’s something else I’ve been concealing because I didn’t want to upset you.”

  “Gary, I don’t know why you don’t just tell me things,” she said. “Is it about Pepper getting married?”

  “That’s right, hold onto your hat,” Gary said. “She’s not engaged to Buddy. She’s been going out with an older guy who’s very rich. She says he’s very nice and he’s crazy about her and wants to marry her.”

  Harmony took that in stride. The only point that bothered her was that if it had been going on for a while then Pepper was a little too good at keeping secrets.

  “How old is he?” she asked.

  “I get the impression maybe forty-five or so,” Gary said.

  “Gary, Didier was about sixty when I fell in love with him and I was seventeen,” she reminded him. “That was one of the best things that happened to me in my life, maybe Pepper will be as lucky as I was.”

  The second show went better than the first. The fact that Gary had apologized helped her be less tense, she sort of got a second wind and got through it all without falling asleep on stage or anything. Cherri was so excited about her sister coming that it sort of gave everyone a lift. Cherri was very bouncy when she was happy and was getting up a group to hit the discos, but Harmony had to pass, what she needed was sleep. Gary had given her his car, he was going to catch a ride home with the disco crowd. His body clock was still screwed up, he thought he might even dance a little while the pills wore off.