The Desert Rose

by Larry McMurtry

  But Harmony just didn’t really want to be involved with that question. She looked around the bar hoping maybe someone from the show was there who might sit down and chat with them. She didn’t know if Gary really knew about Denny being in jail twice before, not for anything real serious, once just for hot checks and once for stealing a car from his father-in-law not thinking he would call the police much less press charges, but the man had apparently never liked Denny being married to his daughter, so he did. Mainly the jail things were just things Denny bragged about, just a little bit of wildness, he did like the idea that he was wild, sort of in the sense of always seeing how far he could go or doing things like making love in the middle of the lake.

  “You see, I don’t think he realizes,” she said. “I mean, his mind doesn’t work like yours and mine, Gary. He probably just thinks I know somebody who will loan me the money if I really need it.”

  “Only you don’t,” Gary said, not being harsh, just pointing it out.

  “Yeah, but Denny just thinks about scuba diving and betting on basketball and doing coke and stuff like that,” Harmony said. “He’s not like you. It’s not like he ever understood my life.”

  Not like I do either, she thought, holding up the empty peanut bowl so Giorgio would bring some more. She kind of had to wave it around to get his attention but when he saw her Giorgio came right over and filled it up, giving her a grin with his very white teeth. She had always sort of thought probably Giorgio would ask her out someday but so far he hadn’t gotten around to it, just expressed his affection by being liberal with the peanuts.

  Gary meanwhile was being very patient and kind but Harmony knew him well and could tell that he thought her attempts to excuse Denny’s behavior were total horseshit, which was probably true.

  “He understands that you live eight miles from town, which is too far to walk,” Gary pointed out.

  Then Harmony remembered the unusual business about Pepper and Bonventre, which was a good thing to change the subject to since Gary was fascinated by anything that smacked of intrigue in the world of the shows.

  “Hey, could we go to Madonna’s?” she asked and told him what Pepper had said. He didn’t look the slightest bit surprised, which made Harmony feel like she must have been living on another planet or something, because Gary seemed to think it was normal whereas she had never given the possibility of Pepper dancing at the Stardust one moment’s thought.

  “Would you let her if he makes the offer?” Gary asked.

  “No, she’d have to be topless,” Harmony said, realizing that was a strange answer since she herself had been on stage there topless for twelve years. Another funny thing was that when the pressure to be topless had got real intense, which had been fifteen years ago almost, it was Gary who had persuaded her that it was right to do it. Previous to that she had always been covered and had never supposed she would work topless but Gary of course had seen her breasts, he had to dress her, some of the changes were so quick modesty was the last thing on anybody’s mind, and he had made it seem like basically an artistic thing, told her her breasts were truly beautiful and what was the point of the show if not to show people beauty, mainly people who never got to see very much of it at any one time.

  So she agreed to work topless, not being so sure at all that she really wanted to, plus Bonventre made it worse by telling her practically every day that her breasts didn’t match. But finally she began to feel that Gary was right, it was just beauty she was offering, and after all most of the people in the audience were married couples, older ones mostly except for the honeymooners, and a lot of them came from small towns and they just ran grocery stores or had car dealerships and sort of led ordinary lives so it was true they didn’t get to see all that much beauty. Often if a couple who had seen the show happened to see her in the bar afterward they would almost always come up and tell her how beautiful they thought she was and how much they enjoyed the show. They were so sweet about it usually and seemed so thrilled to meet her that Harmony more and more realized Gary had been right.

  But Pepper was just sixteen, at that age she would never have uncovered her breasts on stage, probably not even if Didier had asked her and she had loved Didier a lot.

  “Anyway, Madonna says Pepper can easily get a ballet scholarship if she keeps working,” Harmony said.

  “Why would she want a ballet scholarship if she can be lead dancer at the Stardust?” Gary asked.

  Harmony didn’t really know the answer to that, she was suddenly getting the peculiar feeling that everybody understood her daughter better than she did. It was bad enough that all her friends felt they had to just immediately tell her what she could expect from every boyfriend she managed to get—they were usually right, too, it was a big thrill for her if a boyfriend turned out not to be as bad as everybody said he was.

  But that was just boyfriends, Pepper was her daughter. For presents Madonna always gave Pepper subscriptions to all the good dance magazines, she had always encouraged Pepper to set her sights high. Not that being the lead dancer at the Stardust was nothing, it was quite an honor really, but still it wasn’t like getting into ballet in New York or somewhere where you would have to dance a lot of different roles, at the Stardust Pepper would just have to do the same routines five or six thousand times depending on how long they ran the show. For a girl who got bored easily it didn’t make a lot of sense.

  Plus there was always Bonventre to consider. Since Denny loved video games on Sundays they sometimes went to one of the arcades, one day it occurred to Harmony that Bonventre was like a human Pac-Man, he sort of beeped around the casino eating up whoever he bumped into. It might be a blackjack dealer or it might be a showgirl, it didn’t matter to Pac-Man.

  “What do you think, does Bonventre just want to go out with her or what?” Harmony asked.

  “Harmony, you just live in your own world,” Gary said, as if it sort of made him sad. From behind the bar Giorgio was smiling at her with his big white teeth again. He was quite a nice-looking guy really, very Italian. Now that he was out of baccarat he always wore bright shirts, they looked like silk, with the sleeves rolled up to show his muscle, he was always sort of smiling and showing off his muscle, it was kind of charming really, you could just see him thinking how could any woman resist me. Harmony loved it when some guy sort of preened like that for her, it was sweet and also more fun usually than actually going out with him. The Continental types who looked so great in silk shirts usually got stiff as a fish once they put a suit on. They would even forget how to do the sexy smiles, much less conversation, and would sit there looking sort of worried and drinking lots of drinks until some sort of meal had been gotten through and they finally figured it was time to make the pass. Their behavior would become so hopeless it was kind of winning—unless they had terrible breath or something Harmony would usually let herself get won if only to see if she could sort of get them to remember how irresistible they had felt when they had just been sort of lightly coming on in a bar, or maybe letting her watch them shoot craps. It was definite that Giorgio was attracted, she had the notion he was a little afraid of her or something so she gave him a smile back, maybe he would get over it. She was trying to remember whether Giorgio was actually married or not, meanwhile Gary was not really doing much to clarify the situation with Pepper, he was just sitting there sucking ice cubes and waiting for it to be time to go to work.

  “I think we ought to pick up Jessie, she’s got her own problems,” he said. “You know she had the dentist appointment today.”

  “Oh, God, I was gonna call her,” Harmony said, ashamed that she had become so engrossed in her own miseries that she forgot to call her best friend on a day when she had a trauma to face.

  Jessie had a very low pain threshold, any dentistry, even just a cavity, worried her for weeks, she couldn’t stop thinking about the novocaine needle. Gary might point out very gently that having novocaine wasn’t really that major but it didn’t ease Jessie’s mind at al
l.

  Jessie lived in a sand-colored apartment building across the road from the Desert Inn. Sure enough when they got there Jessie was in tears, she was sitting out on her tiny balcony in her bathrobe, crying and then dropping wet Kleenex beside her chair.

  “Look at that, a pyramid of wet Kleenex,” Gary said, trying to joke. “You girls will be lucky not to both get fired, you’ve both certainly ruined your eyes.”

  Jessie was a beautiful woman, an inch taller than Harmony, but not confident, it was actually not diplomatic of Gary to mention firing since that was what Jessie lived in dread of. In all she had three operations on her breasts, one of which was a disaster, they had done a tuck wrong or something and when it was over her nipples pointed straight down. Fortunately that was correctible or Jessie would have never worked another day. Even so she was paranoid about her scars, which were up under her breasts and hardly noticeable even in the dressing room, much less from the audience.

  “What’s the matter, did the novocaine hurt?” Harmony asked.

  “Yes but that’s not the terrible part,” Jessie said. “He says I have to have two root canals.”

  That was pretty sobering, a root canal for Jessie would be the equivalent of open heart surgery for most people, she was just not up to dealing with much pain.

  Jessie’s apartment was a mess, she got around to basic matters like making the bed only about once a week. The sight of it always brought out the housewife in Gary, he went around picking up beer bottles and emptying ash trays, Jessie didn’t smoke but Monroe was seldom without a cigar.

  Harmony didn’t know what to say about the root canals, when it happened they were all going to have to be very supportive, for sure. While she was trying to think of something a little bit cheerful she could say to Jessie she wandered into the bedroom to see if Jessie had bought any new stuffed animals recently and woke up Francois, Jessie’s miniature black poodle, who had been napping beside a stuffed raccoon. Jessie was totally vulnerable to stuffed animals, she would buy any species not already in her collection. She had about a hundred arranged along one wall of the bedroom plus several on her bed.

  A stranger just walking in probably would have thought Francois was stuffed too but in fact he was a live dog and the minute Harmony woke him up he began to yip and jump around on the bed wanting to be picked up and cuddled. Jessie loved Francois more than she loved Monroe or anybody else—naturally he was extremely spoiled and got very outraged if he didn’t get whatever he wanted instantly. Fortunately he was cute, Harmony enjoyed cuddling him herself and took him over and sat him on top of the stuffed hippopotamus, supposedly a third life-size that was by far the most expensive of all Jessie’s stuffed animals. Once for about two weeks Jessie had gotten a boyfriend who was sort of a high roller, he was from Texas and very excited about the fact that he had actually seduced a show girl. He had been generous enough to buy her the hippo, which cost $600, before he went back to his wife.

  Now Jessie had her heart set on a stuffed polar bear that was about as large as the hippo but there was widespread agreement that she would be lucky ever to get the polar bear, certainly Monroe wasn’t likely to pop for it.

  Francois was not wild about being on the hippo. He began to yip so Harmony took him back into the other room. Gary was holding Jessie’s hand but had evidently not come up with too many cheering words about root canals because Jessie still looked frightened and actually paler than usual.

  “Okay, but I didn’t even tell you the really bad part,” she said, totally miserable as only Jessie could be. “The really bad part is he wants me to have braces.”

  “My goodness, you’re a grown woman,” Harmony said, “you don’t need braces.”

  “Well, he said that at my age your gums get soft and mine are real soft and they’re letting my teeth begin to move around. I do have a space, see?” And Jessie opened her mouth so they could see the tiny space that had developed between Jessie’s front teeth and the ones just to the side of them.

  “Well, so what, nobody has to look at your teeth under a microscope or anything,” Gary said.

  Except the human microscope, Bonventre, Harmony thought, she had never known anybody with such an appetite for flaws as Bonventre, he could look at you as you walked down a hall in street clothes and say “Harmony, you look like a chub-ette,” or “This is the Stardust, not the Fat Follies, Harmony, how come you gained three-quarters of a pound?” and when she actually got on the scale it would probably be three-quarters of a pound exactly. Some girls became so paranoid about it they suspected Bonventre must have a secret scale set in the floor, maybe out by the check-in sheet or somewhere so that he knew everybody’s weight to a hair before they even got to the dressing room. Harmony’s instinct was that one reason Bonventre treated her so sullenly was because all these years he kept expecting her to gain and she hadn’t, she was only maybe two pounds over what she weighed when she came to Las Vegas as a girl, mainly because right off Didier had told her what to eat and impressed upon her that the very worst thing was to turn to food when she was depressed. She might not have any control in the love area but she didn’t just sit around and eat because she was blue.

  It was a big frustration to Bonventre, nothing would have made him happier than for her to walk in with a couple of new pounds on her midriff, but she hadn’t let it happen. If she had Bonventre would have demoted her long ago or else fired her altogether.

  It did seem though that Jessie’s dental problems were more major than usual, even having to have novocaine wouldn’t make her cry up a whole box of Kleenex, which she had practically done.

  “On top of that my overbite’s getting worse,” Jessie added. Harmony gave her Francois to hold, hoping that would cheer her up.

  Gary was looking like he had had a little too much depression for one day.

  “Nobody ever died of an overbite,” he said. “Nobody ever died of having an insurance check stolen, either. What we need around here is a little perspective.”

  “I’ve already got a prescription,” Jessie said, misunderstanding completely. “Who stole the insurance check?”

  “Well, Denny, I’m hoping it’s a joke,” Harmony said.

  Both of them looked at her as if to say who do you think you’re kidding, she didn’t particularly think she was kidding anybody, maybe she just didn’t want to admit he was a total criminal yet.

  Jessie had never been able to work up much outrage. Her view was that Denny probably needed to see a minister. She herself had been brought to Christ a few months ago and had been baptized in the swimming pool of a little motel whose owner was quite religious, but she was timid about trying to get other people to find Jesus, she felt it had to be a personal need and had never pressed Harmony or Gary very much about it.

  Then Gary noticed it was nearly seven, they all had to get to work. It was not until they were driving along the Strip that Harmony remembered to tell Jessie about Bonventre offering to audition Pepper to understudy Monique. Jessie was a lot more surprised by the information than Gary had been.

  “Goodness,” Jessie said. “Then if Monique quits Pepper might be making more than you.”

  That was an aspect of the matter that had not so much as dawned on Harmony, it would certainly mean Pepper would have a lot more money to spend on clothes. That didn’t necessarily make it a good idea, though, Pepper had plenty of clothes.

  Meanwhile the sun was setting but they were only a block from the Stardust, she wouldn’t get to see the whole sunset. She loved driving and looking out the window, it was too bad there wasn’t time for a little drive, she had sort of a tiny fantasy which was that Denny was waiting for them in the parking lot in the blue car, he gave her back the check and they made up. Harmony took her time walking in, giving the fantasy every chance to happen, but it didn’t, basically she was just out thirteen hundred dollars and late for work too. She could only take about three seconds to flirt with Billy, the sweet young cop who sort of kept the traffic moving in front of
the Stardust. Gary practically cried every time he saw Billy, Billy was so beautiful, but he was married to an English girl, a dancer at the Trop, Gary was just out of luck in that instance.

  Still, Billy was sweet, he gave Harmony one of his wonderful little shy smiles that you had to look quick even to catch, but she caught it, he was a beautiful kid and it was pretty cheering, by the time she got backstage her spirits had risen, she was feeling okay and was not the least affected by the fact that Rodney tore into her for checking in five minutes late.

  6.

  WHAT WAS actually more bothersome than Rodney was the fact that the backstage smelled of elephant fart, probably for the very simple reason that one of the elephants had recently let one. A couple of younger stagehands waved brooms around pretending it would make the smell go away, but it didn’t.

  “Rodney, is the elephant sick or what?” Harmony asked. Rodney was one of Gary’s protégés, he was only twenty-two and seemed to think it was his duty to bitch if anyone in the show was a few minutes late.

  “Do I look like an elephant doctor?” Rodney asked, he always liked to have a comeback. In fact he just looked like a slightly pimply kid from L.A. who had probably been gay from the moment he was born.

  “Rodney, I just asked,” Harmony reminded him and went on to the dressing room. Probably the trainer had been trying to make the old elephant learn something new. It didn’t like to and farted a lot on those occasions.

  Harmony waltzed into the dressing room to discover Jessie standing there in her G-string showing the other girls the little space between her teeth, though about the only one who was trying to be sympathetic was Cherri, the other three girls were basically more interested in getting their makeup on. Cherri was the youngest showgirl, she was only nineteen and by her own report had pretty much been happy all her life. Consequently she was sort of awestruck by the number of miseries Jessie came up with day after day. Cherri was from Houston and her breasts were sort of the envy of everyone, including people from other shows, they weren’t small and yet they stuck straight out, without the tiniest suggestion of sag. Even Bonventre, who had seen his share of breasts and had had horrible remarks to make about most of them, hadn’t been able to come up with an immediate criticism when he saw Cherri’s.