Matthew came back into the room tying his necktie. At fifty-three, he was a thin man of average height with a perpetual grave expression. His eyes were prominent, giving him a bug-eyed countenance. The top of his head, bald except for a dozen long strands, was shiny and mottled with brown liver spots.
“Donna wants me as a guest on her show.” She waved the letter.
He raised an eyebrow.
“The Classic Woman. The beauty contest. She’s doing a follow-up show—two decades later. I was queen, remember?” When he failed to comment, she added, “All right, so I was queen by default. You know as well as I do that I should have won.”
“That was a long time ago.” He dropped his keys in his pants pocket and slipped the snakeskin wallet into the inner pocket of his dark blue suit jacket. With his back to her, he asked, “Do you suppose she ever suspected that you slept with one of the judges?”
“Really, Matthew,” she said.
“I’m teasing,” he said. “Go. Have your hour of renown.” He went to the door, then stopped. “I suppose you’ll want a new dress for this momentous event?”
“Oh, darling, you’re so perceptive.”
Taking out his wallet, he carefully selected a credit card and, moving behind her, dropped it on the vanity top. “Don’t get carried away. Leave the card and the receipt on my desk.”
“Thank you, Matthew,” she said sweetly, biting back the bitterness she felt at being treated like his mistress instead of his wife of eighteen years.
“Give my best to the illustrious Mrs. Lake,” Matthew said. His hand came around her shoulder and reached inside her kimono to cup a breast.
Amelia’s voice was tight. “It’s inconceivable to me how that woman ever bagged her own TV show. She’s a mousy little jellyfish—afraid of her own shadow. Her husband, naturally, is the driving force behind her success, and I don’t wonder. She’s incapable of an original thought.”
“I found her to be a stimulating conversationalist and quite intelligent.”
“When did you have this profound revelation?”
“When you placed her next to me at our dinner party for the mayor.”
“Is that all you found her to be?”
Amelia glared at him in the mirror.
His hand came away. “No need to be jealous. She could never be as sexy as you. Speaking of which, while you’re shopping, pick out something frilly that will please me, hmm?” He smiled, then turned and left the room.
After he had driven away, Amelia crossed to the dresser, retrieved the fifty, and went to the telephone on the nightstand. She dialed the number on the letterhead, then asked to speak to Donna Lake. As she waited, she thought of Fletcher, her young lover. In one hour she would be in his arms, his solid body pressed to hers. Fletcher adored her and would do anything to please her. Not that Matthew didn’t adore and lust after her, but it wasn’t quite the same.
She sighed, thinking that if Fletcher had only half of Matthew’s money, he would without a doubt spend it on her freely, not make her grovel and steal. No matter, she and Fletcher together would make all the money they needed. In a month’s time, if everything went well, she would be free of the Honorable Matthew Holstead Corde. The only thing she’d miss would be this magnificent house in Pacific Heights. Not a mansion by California standards, but a long ways from the rat hole trailer she’d grown up in. Well, one occasionally had to compromise.
Soon she would be in the limelight again and, without a doubt, the fairest of them all. She thought about the others. Donna still looked okay, but in no way extraordinary. Regina seemed to have an aversion to maintaining what looks she had. And Tammy had let herself go all to hell since giving birth to the twins. Corinne couldn’t possibly be a threat. Twenty years ago the woman had been rendered a monster, and no amount of plastic surgery could change that.
“Sweetie!” Amelia said cheerfully when Donna came on the line. “And how is San Francisco’s numero uno celebrity?”
CHAPTER 4
Tammy
Tammy Kowalski opened the front door and quickly ushered her nine-year-old daughters into the house.
“Go in the living room and watch TV,” she instructed the girls. “Don’t get into anything. I don’t want Daddy to know we were here.”
“Why are we here?” Kerry asked.
“Never mind. Just stay out of trouble.” Tammy pushed the girls toward the living room.
Tammy beelined to her estranged husband’s bedroom and, with a practiced hand, sorted through each drawer of his dresser and nightstands. She found nothing new since the last time she had been through his things.
At the unmade bed, she threw back the covers and bent over the mattress. Directly in the middle, on the mauve colored sheets, she saw a white, crusty stain. Then another. Semen? “Slut,” she whispered. She tossed the covers over the stain.
She moved into the bathroom where she rummaged through the vanity drawers, medicine cabinet, and laundry hamper. In the wastebasket she found the cardboard cylinder to a tampon. “Scuzzy bitch.”
On the floor, on her knees, digging in the wastebasket, Tammy caught sight of her reflection in the full-length mirror. She turned slowly and stared intently at her pale blond image. The summer had just begun, yet her skin was already the color of golden toast. Her round, icy gray eyes were bright in contrast.
She stood, pivoting this way and that, delighting in the scrutiny of her body in the mirror. The aerobics instructor, at thirty-eight, in pink spandex pants and black midriff top, studied her tall, lean figure critically. Tammy cupped her new breasts. The incisions had healed and the tenderness and swelling was gone. She had a strong compulsion to see her firm breasts in Gary’s mirror. She pulled at the elastic top, about to take it off, when the phone rang.
She flung open the bathroom door and shrieked, “Don’t answer that!”
After six rings the answering machine clicked on. Gary’s voice filled the room with a recorded greeting. After the beep a woman’s voice, sounding cool and sophisticated, said: “Hi, hon. Bad news. Can’t make tonight. Have to fly to L.A. Call you tomorrow.”
“Great vocabulary. Me Jane. You Tarzan. Friggin’ home wrecking retard,” Tammy muttered as she rummaged through the roll top desk in the bedroom. She came across the payment books for the car and the house in Daly City that Gary had bought for her after the separation four months ago. He’d paid for the new boobs, too, although he didn’t know it. He thought he could buy her off. Fat chance. She wasn’t giving up that easily. She’d trade it all in to be with him again.
“Mom, we’re hungry.” The girls, miniatures of their mother, stood in the doorway.
“Okay. Okay. I’m done here.” She threw an arm around each girl and started down the hall. “Oops, hold it a sec.” She shooed them out of the room and crossed to the answering machine on the nightstand. She rewound the tape, listened to several messages, and then, with a self-satisfied smile, she erased the last message —the one from the “homewrecker.”
In the living room, Tammy checked to make sure nothing was out of place. She sent the girls to the car as she locked up. Before joining them, she opened the mailbox, took out the mail, and sorted through it. There were a doctor bill, a couple of circulars, and a business envelope from KSCO TV. Tammy frowned. KSCO was where Donna worked. What would a TV station want with a doctor? Then she realized it wasn’t Gary they wanted. The letter was addressed to her, Tamara Kowalski.
She tore it open, read it, and then whooped. Donna wanted to interview her on TV. Hot damn! She couldn’t wait to tell Gary.
CHAPTER 5
Corrine
Corinne Odett took a long pull on the bottle of beer before slamming it back down on the Formica kitchen table. She picked up the two pieces of paper, the formal letter with the fancy embossed letterhead that she’d just torn in half, and carelessly matched the ragged edges together. She leaned forward to see better. At eleven in the morning, she was already well on her way to getting drunk.
“She has her nerve, that prissy little Goody Two Shoes.” Twenty years ago Miss Fourth Runner-up wasn’t good enough to be Corinne’s lackey. When it came to beauty, there’d been no comparison between the two. Not one of the runners-up had been in the same league as Corinne Rayann Odett. Not one.
That was twenty years ago.
With a trembling hand, she rooted through an overflowing ashtray, looking for the longest butt. She carefully straightened it, put it to her lips, and, leaning over to the stove, lit it from the gas flame under the coffeepot. She heard sizzling and smelled the acrid odor of singed hair.
Sparks dropped unheeded onto her lap. She coughed, then winced at the sharp pain in her lungs. On the countertop in front of her was a toaster. She could see her reflection in it. The greasy and dented chrome distorted her face. She moved her head slowly, studying the wavy image as her face shortened, then lengthened, her nose hooked down, long and pointed like a witch’s, then pugged up, nostrils large and round like an ape’s.
Corinne chuckled. The funny part was that her face looked better in the distorted metal than it did in a mirror. Corinne hadn’t bothered to really look at herself in a long time, but in her mind’s eye the true hideous image was cast forever. After two extremely painful operations by a plastic surgeon, the damaging effects of the acid had been altered little. She had lost the sight in her right eye. The angry, purple-and-white puckered skin on the one side of her face pulled her eye and mouth downward. The Phantom of the Opera had nothing on her.
A phlegmy cough came from the tiny bedroom off the kitchen. Her father called her name.
Maybe she would accept Donna’s gracious offer to appear on her show. It would serve the bitch right. She could sit with them, the four runners-up, swapping beauty and fashion tips and all that wonderful stuff glamorous women talk about.
“Cory?” her father called out in a weak, hoarse voice.
Now that the old man’s income had been cut off because of his bum health, maybe Donna would offer her a co-host position on the show. Everyone would benefit. Surely, people would tune in to see the marred beauty queen. The ratings would go up. And she’d have something to do, some place to go. God knows she didn’t get out much these days.
“Corinne? I’m hungry, daughter. You gonna let your daddy starve?”
The checks from welfare were regular and she only had to tolerate those do-good social workers snooping through the house now and then. They never stayed long. It was too much of a hassle for them to avoid staring at her, so they did a speedy check, then split.
“Corinne? Corinne? I know you’re out there. I can smell cigarette smoke. I thought we was outta butts.” He coughed. “Corinne, howbout some food? You know I gotta eat regular.”
“Shut up, you stupid old man,” she screamed, and hurled the half bottle of beer at the opposite wall. “You’ll get your goddamn food when I’m damn good and ready.”
CHAPTER 6
John
John Davie woke at 7:10 in the morning to the delightful sensation of someone expertly manipulating his penis. Lying on his side, he reached down and took hold of the slender hand caressing him. He felt warm breath on his back, then the light nip of teeth on his shoulder.
“It ain’t fair,” he said.
“What ain’t?” Wilma, John’s upstairs neighbor, whispered against his neck.
“That women get hornier with age. Men, on the other hand, only get limp and bald.”
“You’re not getting bald.” She wrapped a leg around him. “And you’re certainly not limp. Quite the contrary, my dear boy. And I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t mention age.”
He chuckled deep in his throat. “So whose turn is it?”
“I believe it’s mine.”
“Ummm.” John rolled over onto his back and closed his eyes.
Wilma took the cue without prompting. She straddled him, sighing as she fitted herself to him. She slowly moved up and down. “What a pity this will be our last time. I’m getting married.”
John’s eyes snapped open. “Married? Who? When?”
“This afternoon. To Dr. Greenwood, the chief of surgery at Bayview General. We’re flying to Reno. I’d invite you to the wedding, but I might forget myself and take you on the honeymoon.”
“Christ,” he said. “Today? Getting married today? Wilma nodded. “Well, hell ...” He rose up and turned her over on her back. “In that case, you just relax and let me give the bride a proper send-off.”
“You’ll spoil me. Oh dear ... ohh ...”
An hour later, John, wet from the shower, stood in the bathroom doorway and watched Wilma dress. For a woman who was more than a decade older than he, she had a remarkable face and body. Not beautiful, but attractive, extremely attractive and sexy as all hell. Wilma took good care of herself.
“I’m gonna miss you,” he said. “I had no idea you were moving out.”
“I gave your aunt notice last month. For a landlady, she’s not very gossipy.”
“She’s too busy worrying about me.”
“I think she’s relieved that I’m going. I’m sure she suspects that you and I occasionally wind up sleeping on the wrong floor. She has a good Hungarian girl in mind for you.”
John nodded, smiling.
“A virgin.”
This time he made a face.
“When’s the new novel coming out?” she asked.
“In the fall.”
“I want an autographed copy. It’ll be a best seller.” Wilma stepped up to him, kissed him briefly. “Good luck with the one in progress, John Tyrone Davie.”
“Good luck with the new husband, Assistant District Attorney Axelrod.”
She started to walk away, then stopped and turned back. “Regina Van Raven, a friend of mine, will be taking over my lease. I think you’ll like her. She’s about your age. Widow.”
John groaned. One matchmaker in this joint was enough. Then he remembered opening the window yesterday and seeing a woman and teenage girl in the front of the apartment house. The woman had looked familiar. “Does she have dark hair and drive a station wagon?”
“That’s her. I see your feelers are already out and twitching.” Wilma kissed his cheek, winked, then quickly went out the door.
At Gossan’s Boutique, in the heart of San Francisco’s shopping district, Amelia Corde posed before the three-way mirror. The white peplum dress with tapered sleeves and taupe snakeskin belt was perfect. It fit as if designed for her.
Lydia, one of two proprietors of the boutique, poked her head in the door of the dressing room. “Oh, that’s lovely. The moment I laid eyes on it I knew it was meant for you.” Lydia smiled slyly. “Naturally, it’s on sale.”
“Naturally.”
A few minutes later at the counter, Amelia handed Lydia Matthew’s credit card. Although the dress was a sale item, the woman rang it up at the full retail price. She opened the register, counted out a number of hundred dollar bills, and handed them to Amelia. Amelia returned one of the hundreds to Lydia and stashed the remaining cash in her eyeglass case.
“Thank you for your patronage, Mrs. Corde,” Lydia said, pocketing the money.
“And thank you, Lydia. Wonderful doing business with you.”
Amelia walked to a shoe store on Powell, where she bought a pair of taupe snakeskin pumps and the matching handbag. She resisted the urge to buy a second pair of pumps — Matthew’s generosity had its limits. And thinking of Matthew, she crossed to Sutter, to the Victorian Boudoir, where she selected a sheer, lacy corset in black and peach. The sales transactions were handled the same as at the boutique. The proprietors of at least four other shops in town honored her system.
As she headed back to her car, Amelia mentally counted her financial take for the day. Three hundred and fifty-five dollars in less than two hours. Not bad. And she didn’t have to do a thing for it. Well, Matthew would want a return on his money. But if she closed her eyes tight and imagined it was Fletcher, she could stomach it—almost. Within t
wenty minutes of claiming her late-model Mercedes at the parking garage, Amelia was in the Marina district, knocking at the door of her lover’s apartment.
To the blaring sound of a rock beat the last of the students filed out to the lockers and showers. Tammy Kowalski jumped down from the gym platform and pulled off her sweat-drenched headband. She was the only aerobics instructor at the Fitness Center. It was hard, exhausting work, but it kept her sane.
Her goal was to lose a few more pounds before the television interview. She hadn’t seen Regina, Amelia or Donna in months and they were all going to shit when they saw how great she looked. She could compete with any of them again.
The timing couldn’t have been better. A year ago she’d been fat and flabby. A dreary housewife with nothing to do but watch garbage TV. No wonder her husband had left her. Gary was a handsome, intelligent, professional man. A doctor needed a wife who was close to his equal socially and intellectually. And that was the reason she was getting her mind, as well as her body, in shape. She now watched TV shows that were informative, educational, and cultural, though much of it went over her head or bored her to distraction. She was also making an effort to read something besides romance novels.
When Gary left her, she had gone into shock. After the shock came the crying and pleading. For the first time her threats of suicide fell on deaf ears. And then there was the breakdown and those awful weeks at that nuthouse in the country. Her psychiatrist had assured her that after she had gone through the gamut of emotions, acceptance would eventually occur. No, she could never accept life without Gary. Never.
The only thing that had kept her from going completely insane had been her desire to improve herself and get Gary back. At four that afternoon she had an appointment with her plastic surgeon for an estimate on a face-lift.
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