This Is Not Chick Lit

by Elizabeth Merrick

  There were scores of washed-up female stars who might work, but Dolly had a particular one in mind: Pia Arten, who six or seven years ago had debuted as the nervy, stoic girlfriend of a professional football player stricken with leukemia and had stolen the movie out from under the famous male lead. She’d been nominated for Best Supporting Actress, and standing on the red carpet in a gold crushed-velvet dress, she’d been impossible to look away from. But Pia had turned out to be one of those unfortunate people who couldn’t take the bullshit, a handicap that had resulted in perfectionism, bad behavior, and (it was rumored) occasional spectacular acts of self-destruction: sending a bag of horse shit to an iconic male actor, yanking the baseball cap off a balding director’s head and tossing it into an airplane propeller. No one would hire Pia anymore, but the public would remember her. That was what mattered to Dolly.

  Pia wasn’t hard to find; no one was putting much energy into protecting her. By noon, Dolly had reached her: weary-sounding, smoking audibly. Pia heard Dolly out, asked her to repeat the generous fee she’d quoted, then paused. In that pause, Dolly detected a familiar mix of desperation and squeamishness. She felt a queasy jab of pity for the actress, whose choices had boiled down to this one. Then Pia said yes.

  Singing to herself, wired on cappuccino made on her old Krups machine, Dolly called Arc and laid out her plan.

  “The general does not enjoy American movies,” came Arc’s response.

  “Who cares? Americans know who she is.”

  “The general has very particular tastes,” Arc said. “He is not flexible.”

  “He doesn’t have to touch her, Arc. He doesn’t have to speak to her. All he has to do is stand near her and get his picture taken. And he has to smile.”

  “Smile?”

  “He has to look happy.”

  “The general rarely smiles, Miss Peale.”

  “He wore the hat, didn’t he?”

  There was a long pause. Finally Arc said, “You must accompany this actress. Then we will see.”

  “Accompany her where?”

  “Here. To us.”

  “Oh, Arc.”

  “You must,” he said.

  Entering Lulu’s bedroom, Dolly felt like Dorothy waking up in Oz: everything was in color. A pink shade encircled the overhead lamp. Pink gauzy fabric hung from the ceiling. Pink winged princesses were stenciled onto the walls: Dolly had learned how to make the stencils at a jailhouse art class and had spent days decorating the room while Lulu was at school. Long strings of pink beads hung from the ceiling. When she was home, Lulu emerged from her room only to eat.

  She was part of an intricate weave of girls at Miss Rutgers’s School, a mesh so fine and scarily intimate that even her mother’s flameout and jail sentence (during which Lulu’s grandmother had come from Minnesota to live with her) couldn’t dissolve it. It wasn’t thread holding these girls together, it was wire. And Lulu was the steel rod around which the wires were wrapped. Overhearing her daughter on the phone with her friends at night, Dolly was awed by her authority: stern when she needed to be, but also soft. Sweet. Lulu was nine.

  She sat in a pink beanbag chair, doing homework on her laptop and IM-ing her friends (since the general, Dolly had been paying for wireless). “Hi, Dolly,” she said, having stopped using Mom when Dolly got out of jail nine months ago. Lulu narrowed her eyes at her mother like it was hard to see her. And Dolly did feel like a black-and-white intrusion into this bower of color, a refugee from the dinginess surrounding it.

  “I have to take a business trip,” she said. “To visit a client. I thought you might want to stay with one of your friends so you won’t miss school.”

  School was where Lulu’s life took place. She’d been adamant about not allowing her mother, who once had been a fixture at Miss Rutgers’s, to jeopardize Lulu’s status with her new disgrace. Nowadays, Dolly dropped Lulu off around the corner, peering around dank Upper East Side stone to make sure she got safely in the door. At pickup time, Dolly waited in the same spot while Lulu dawdled with her friends outside school, toeing the perfectly manicured bushes and (in spring) flower beds, completing whatever transactions were required to affirm and sustain her power. When Lulu had a playdate, Dolly came no farther than the lobby to retrieve her. Lulu would emerge from an elevator flushed, smelling of perfume or freshly baked brownies, take her mother’s hand, and walk with her past the doorman into the night. Not in apology—Lulu had nothing to apologize for—but in sympathy that things had to be so difficult for both of them.

  Lulu cocked her head, curious. “A business trip. That’s good, right?”

  “It is good, absolutely,” Dolly said a little nervously. Lulu knew nothing of the general.

  “How long will you be gone?”

  “A few days. Four, maybe.”

  There was a long pause. Finally Lulu said, “Can I come?”

  “With me?” Dolly was startled. “Can you—but you’d have to miss school.”

  Another pause. Lulu was performing some mental calculation that might have involved measuring the peer impact of missing school versus being a guest in someone’s home, or the question of whether you could manage an extended stay at someone’s home without that someone’s parents speaking with your mother. Dolly couldn’t tell. Maybe Lulu didn’t know herself.

  “Where?” Lulu asked.

  Dolly was flustered; she’d never been much good at saying no to Lulu. But the thought of her daughter and the general in one location made her throat clamp. “I—I can’t tell you that.”

  Lulu didn’t protest. “But Dolly?”

  “Yes, darling?”

  “Can your hair be blond again?”

  They waited for Pia Arten in a lounge by a private runway at Kennedy Airport. When the actress finally arrived, dirty-haired, reeking of smoke, dressed in jeans and a faded yellow sweatshirt, Dolly was assailed with regrets—she should have met Pia first! The girl looked too far gone, too spent; people might not even recognize her! While Lulu used the bathroom, Dolly hastily laid things out for the actress: no mention of the general’s name in front of Lulu; look as glamorous as possible (Dolly glanced at Pia’s small, beaten suitcase); cozy up to the general with some serious PDA while Dolly took pictures with a hidden camera. She had a real camera, too, but that was a prop.

  They boarded the general’s plane at dusk. After takeoff, Pia ordered a double martini from the general’s airline hostess, sucked it down, reclined her seat to a horizontal position, pulled a sleep mask (the only thing on her that looked new) over her eyes, and commenced to snore. Lulu leaned over her, studying the actress’s worn, delicate face. “Is she sick?”

  “No.” Dolly sighed. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

  “I think she needs a vacation,” Lulu said.

  Twenty checkpoints presaged their arrival at the general’s compound. At each, two soldiers with submachine guns peered suspiciously into the black Mercedes with Dolly and Lulu and Pia in the backseat. Four times, they were forced outside into the scouring sunshine and patted down at gunpoint. Each time, Dolly cringed on Lulu’s behalf, searching her daughter’s studied calm for signs of trauma. In the car Lulu sat perfectly straight, pink Kate Spade book bag nestled in her lap. She met the eyes of the machine-gun holders with the same even look she must have used to stare down the many girls who had tried in vain, over the years, to unseat her.

  High white walls enclosed the road. They were lined with hundreds of plump shiny black birds whose long purple beaks curved like scythes. Dolly had never seen birds like these. They looked like birds who would screech, but each time a car window slid down to accommodate another squinting gunslinger, Dolly was surprised by the silence.

  Eventually a section of wall swung open, and the car veered off the road and pulled to a stop in front of a massive compound: lush green gardens, a sparkle of water, a white house whose end was nowhere in sight. The birds squatted along its roof, looking down.

  Their driver opened the car doors, and Dolly and Lulu
and Pia stepped out into the sun. Dolly felt it on her neck, newly exposed by a discount version of her trademark blond chin-length cut. The heat forced Pia out of her soiled sweatshirt, which mercifully revealed a clean white T-shirt underneath. Dolly noticed marks on Pia’s bare arms: small pink scars. “Pia, are those…” She faltered. “On your arms, are they…?”

  “Burns,” Pia said. And she gave Dolly a look that made her stomach twist until she remembered very dimly, like something that had happened in a fog or when she was a child, someone asking her—begging her, actually—to put Pia on the list, and telling them no. No way, it was out of the question—Pia’s stock was too low.

  “I did it myself,” Pia said.

  Dolly stared at her, uncomprehending. This made Pia grin, and for a second she looked mischievous and young. “Lots of people have, Dolly. You didn’t know?”

  Dolly wondered if this might be a joke. She didn’t want to fall for it in front of Lulu.

  “You can’t find a person who wasn’t at that party. And they’ve got proof. We’ve all got proof—who’s gonna say we’re lying?”

  “I know who was there,” Dolly said. “I’ve still got the list in my head.”

  “You?” Pia said, smiling at Dolly. “Who are you?”

  Dolly was quiet. She felt Lulu’s gray eyes on her.

  Pia did something unexpected then: she reached through the sunlight and took Dolly’s hand. Her grip was warm and firm, like a man’s. Dolly was startled to feel a prickling in her eyes.

  “It’s bigger than all of us,” Pia said tenderly. “That’s the horror of it.”

  A trim, compact man in a beautifully cut suit emerged from the compound to greet them: Arc. The sight of him eased the tension that had been building in Dolly.

  “Miss Peale. We meet at last,” he said with a smile. “And Miss Arten”—he turned to Pia, who looked even scruffier beside the meticulous Arc—“it is a great honor as well as a pleasure.” He kissed Pia’s hand with a slightly teasing look, Dolly thought. “I have seen all of your movies,” Arc said. “The general and I watched them together.”

  Dolly steeled herself for what Pia might say, but her answer came in a sweet voice that was like a child’s, except for the slight curve of flirtation. “Oh, I’m sure you’ve seen better movies,” she said.

  “The general was impressed.”

  “Well, I’m honored. I’m honored that the general found them worth watching.” Dolly glanced at the actress, expecting mockery. But Pia looked humble, absolutely sincere.

  “Alas, I have unfortunate news,” Arc said. “The general has had to make a sudden trip.” They stared at him. “It is very regrettable,” he went on. “The general sends his sincere apologies.”

  “But we…can we go to where he is?” Dolly asked.

  “Perhaps,” Arc said. “You will not mind some additional travels?”

  “Well,” Dolly said, glancing at Lulu. “It depends how—”

  “Absolutely not,” Pia interrupted. “We’ll go wherever the general wants us to go. We’ll do what it takes. Right, kiddo?”

  Lulu was slow to connect the diminutive kiddo to herself. It was the first time Pia had spoken to her directly. Lulu glanced at the actress, then smiled. “Right,” she said.

  They would leave for a new location the next morning. Arc offered to drive them into the city that evening, but Pia wasn’t interested. “Forgive my lack of curiosity,” she said as they settled into their two-bedroom suite, which opened onto a private swimming pool. “But I’d rather enjoy these digs. They used to put me up in places like this.” She gave a bitter laugh.

  “Just don’t overdo it,” Dolly said as Pia headed for the wet bar.

  Pia turned. “Hey. How was I out there, Mamacita? Any complaints so far?”

  “You were excellent,” Dolly said, then added softly, so Lulu wouldn’t hear, “Just don’t forget who we’re dealing with.”

  “I want to forget,” Pia said, pouring herself a drink. “I’m trying to forget, aren’t you?” She raised her glass to Dolly and took a sip.

  So Dolly and Lulu rode alone with Arc in his charcoal-gray Jaguar, a driver peeling downhill along tiny streets, sending pedestrians lunging against walls and darting into doorways to avoid being crushed. The city shimmered below: millions of white slanted buildings steeping in a smoky haze. Soon they were surrounded by it. The city’s chief source of color seemed to be the laundry flapping on every balcony.

  The driver pulled over beside an outdoor market: mounds of sweating fruit and fragrant nuts and fake leather purses. Dolly eyed the produce critically as she and Lulu followed Arc among the stalls. The oranges and bananas were the largest she’d seen, but the meat looked dangerous. Dolly could see from the careful nonchalance of vendors and customers alike that they knew who Arc was.

  “Is there anything you would like to buy?” Arc asked Lulu.

  “Yes, please,” Lulu said, “one of those.” It was a starfruit. Dolly had seen them at Dean & DeLuca a few times. Here they lay in obscene heaps, studded with flies. Arc took one, nodding curtly at the vendor, an older man with a knobby chest and a kind, worried face. The man smiled, nodding eagerly at Dolly and Lulu, and Dolly was taken aback to see that he looked afraid. As if she could hurt him. As if she would ever do such a thing.

  Lulu took the dusty, unwashed fruit, cleaned it carefully on her shirt, and sank her teeth into its bright green rind. Juice sprayed her collar. She laughed and wiped her mouth on her hand. “Mom, you have to try this,” she said, and Dolly took a bite. She and Lulu shared the starfruit, licking their fingers under Arc’s watchful eyes. Dolly felt oddly buoyant. Then she realized why: Mom. It was the first time Lulu had used the word in nearly a year.

  Arc led the way inside a tea shop. A group of men hastened away from a corner table to give them a place to sit, and a forced approximation of the café’s former happy bustle resumed. A waiter poured sweet mint tea into their cups with a shaking hand. Dolly tried to give him a reassuring look, but his eyes fled hers.

  “Do you do this often?” she asked Arc. “Walk around the city?”

  “The general makes a habit of moving among the people,” Arc said. “He wants them to feel his humanity, to witness it. Of course, he must do this very carefully.”

  “Because of his enemies.”

  Arc nodded. “The general unfortunately has many enemies. Today, for example, there were threats to his home, and it was necessary to relocate. He does this often, as you know.”

  Dolly nodded. Threats to his home?

  Arc smiled. “His enemies believe he is there, but he is far away.”

  Dolly glanced at Lulu. The starfruit had left a shiny ring around her mouth. “But…we’re there,” she said.

  “Yes,” Arc said. “Only us.”

  Dolly lay awake most of that night, listening to coos and rustles and squawks that sounded like assassins prowling the grounds in search of the general and his cohort: herself, in other words. She had become the helpmate and fellow target of General B, a source of fear to those he ruled.

  How had it come to this? As usual, Dolly found herself revisiting the moment when the plastic trays first buckled and the life she had relished for so many years poured away. But tonight, unlike countless other nights when Dolly tipped down that memory chute, Lulu lay across from her in the king-sized bed, asleep in a frilly pink nightie, her doe’s knees tucked under her. Dolly felt the warmth of her daughter’s body, this child of her middle age, of an accidental pregnancy resulting from a fling with a movie-star client. Lulu believed her father was dead; Dolly had shown her pictures of an old boyfriend.

  She slid across the bed and kissed the side of Lulu’s face. It had made no sense at all to have a child—Dolly was pro-choice, riveted to her career. Her decision had been clear, yet she’d hesitated to make the appointment—hesitated through morning sickness, mood swings, exhaustion. Hesitated until she knew, with a shock of relief and terrified joy, that it was too late.

  L
ulu stirred and Dolly moved closer, enclosing her daughter in her arms. In contrast to when she was awake, Lulu relaxed into her mother’s touch. Dolly felt a swell of irrational gratitude toward the general for providing this one bed—it was such a rare luxury to hold her daughter this way, to feel the faint tap of her heartbeat.

  “You know I’ll always protect you,” Dolly whispered into Lulu’s fragile ear. “Nothing bad will ever happen to us.”

  Lulu slept on.

  The next day they piled into two black armored cars that resembled jeeps, only heavier. Arc and some soldiers went in the first car, Dolly and Lulu and Pia in the second. Sitting in the backseat, Dolly thought she could feel the weight of the car shoving them into the earth. She was exhausted, full of dread.

  Pia had undergone a staggering transformation since the day before: she’d washed her hair, put on full makeup, and slipped into a gold crushed-velvet dress Dolly instantly recognized as the one she’d worn to the Academy Awards years ago, after her first movie. The gold fabric of the dress brought out flecks of gold in Pia’s eyes. The effect was beyond anything Dolly could have hoped for. She found Pia oddly painful to look at.

  They breezed through the checkpoints and soon were on the open road, circling the pale city from above. Dolly noticed vendors by the roadside. Often they were children, who held up handfuls of fruit or cardboard signs to the jeeps as they approached. When the vehicles flew past, the children fell back against the embankment, as if knocked down by the force of their speed. Dolly let out an involuntary cry the first time she saw this and leaned forward, wanting to say something to the driver. But what exactly? She hesitated, then sat back and tried not to look at the windows. Lulu watched the children, her math book open in her lap.

  It was a relief when they left the city behind and began driving through empty land that looked like desert: antelopes and cows nibbling the stingy plant life. Without asking permission, Pia began to smoke, exhaling through a thin slit of open window before tossing out the butt. “So, kiddo,” she said, turning to Lulu. “What big plans are you hatching?”