Indie Chicks: 25 Women 25 Personal Stories
Page 37
It couldn’t be.
Holding her breath, she stared at the slim, elegant, African-American woman in the picture.
It was.
Cady. A thin, beautiful Cady. Her foster sister and childhood best friend. Here. In nearby Los Angeles: former Congresswoman Rev. Cady Stanton (R. MA.) anti-pornography crusader and former size twenty, in the February twelfth L.A. Times—wearing one of those creamy new Donna Karan knits and looking no more than a size ten. She was promoting a new Christian TV talk show at “an old-fashioned church box-lunch social” at the Silver Cathedral in Anaheim.
She looked wonderful. The very fact made Regina feel betrayed—selfishly, childishly—betrayed.
February twelfth. Yesterday. Cady’s birthday. The same as Abraham Lincoln’s. She’d be forty-nine. A year older than Regina. They hadn’t seen each other in years. Too many darkly hoarded secrets and clashes of politics and religion had reduced their communication to an occasional holiday card.
Regina knelt on the paper and scrubbed, attacking the toilet ring as if it were the invisible barrier that imprisoned her here. If only she could talk to Cady about the accidents—the brakes that had mysteriously failed on the brand new Ferrari; a skittish young horse that had appeared in the stall that usually housed her docile old mare; and the Venetian chandelier—perfectly secure for three centuries, that had broken from its chains and crashed down on her bed.
Cady would have a rational explanation. She could always make things right, in the old days. Regina felt the sting of remorse. She shouldn’t have let their friendship slip away. She could have fought harder against Max’s intolerance. The San Montinaran royals, who traced their bloodline to pre-Indo-European Etruscans, were historically so racially biased they viewed Italians as ethnically impure upstarts, but it was Cady’s size that Max had been most insensitive about. What had he called her? “So intimidating; so larger than life.”
Would he be less intimidated now that Cady was a size ten?
With a sudden clatter, the Spoon pushed her way out of the stall.
“Won’t flush. Stupid cowboy plumbing. I’m surprised they don’t make us dig our own outhouses—they’re so into the hard labor thing around here. I had garbage duty this morning. Those cans weigh an effing ton.” She massaged a spindly arm.
Regina’s stomach let out a growl. She laughed.
“With all this starving and hard work, maybe I’m losing weight.”
The Spoon’s pinched face lit up with a sudden, genuine smile.
“Oh, God, I wish!” She studied her scrawny reflection in the mirror over the sink.
Regina returned the smile. They had found common ground—the contemporary woman’s compulsion to diminish herself.
“I am getting so fat,” said the Spoon, pinching her face hard as she grimaced at herself in the mirror. She craned her neck to study her buttocks, barely grapefruit-sized in spandex leggings. “I’m as big as a house! One week off cocaine and I must have gained ten pounds.” She hit herself hard on the backside with a clenched fist. “At least you have the tits to balance your butt, Princess. I used to, but I had to have them out. The silicone was leaking.” She lifted her sweater to reveal a gruesomely scarred chest. “Do you think the incisions are healing? The doctor said the drugs were wrecking my immune system. That’s why I’m here. They won’t give me new boobs until I’m officially off the toot. Like it’s going to matter if I’m a whale.”
Regina turned away. The woman looked like a torture victim.
“Here,” said the Spoon, making a sudden grab for the scrubbing brush. “I’ll finish the floor at this end. I don’t know why they didn’t change your duty when you broke your foot. You finish mopping. We don’t want to be late for group.”
“Why, thank you.” Regina grabbed the mop as her new-made friend marched toward the uncleaned stall with surprising vigor.
“I still can’t flush this thing,” the Spoon said a few minutes later. “The chain is stuck. Want to give it a try?”
Regina limped into the stall and pulled the chain hard. How awful to be so weak from bulimia you couldn’t flush a toilet.
“Princess! My God! Look out!”
Regina heard a crash and the gush of water as she felt bony arms yank her backwards.
The old toilet tank had pulled from the wall, smashing onto the bowl beneath. The roaring water scattered ragged porcelain shards across the tile floor.
“Oh, my God, that could have been me!” said the Spoon.
“Or me.” Regina watched the water rush around her ankle, ruining the Prada pump on her good foot as well as soaking her skirt. “If you hadn’t wandered in, that certainly would have been me.”
“Stupid wild-west plumbing.” The Spoon gave a shrug. “You’d think they’d have redone this stuff when they turned this place from a guest ranch into a clinic. Accidents like this must happen all the time.”
Regina stared at the shattered bowl, her chest tightening.
“I suppose so,” she said without conviction. “Accidents happen.”
Chapter 2—King of the Wild Frontier
Reverend Cady Stanton tore through the makeshift office she’d set up in her suite at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, yanking the white linen pumps from her blistering feet.
“What do you mean I have to be at Spago at noon? I’m trying to stick to a diet here, people. I’m promoting a TV talk show, not a food franchise.”
She sank into a chair next to the desk where Flo typed furiously on her laptop, and Albert Sneed, the network P. R. man, studied the tyrannical appointment book that had ruled their lives since she’d arrived in Los Angeles.
“Why Spago? All that talk about Washington pork is a metaphor, you know. Can’t those network people think of anything for a former Congresswoman to do but eat?”
Little Albert looked up at her with his pale, dead-fish eyes.
“Because you’re booked for Spago, Reverend. Twelve o’ clock. The limo’s on its way.”
Cady smoothed the skirt of her two-thousand-dollar suit, stretched taut against her heavily girdled belly.
“Do you know what I’ve had to put in my stomach today, Mr. Sneed? Bagels and cream cheese at the power breakfast with the Monsignor’s lawyers; doughnuts with the network studio crew, brioche with the sponsor’s wife in Pasadena—and you don’t even want to know about the pie at the video shoot at the Downey Foursquare Gospel Church Ladies’ Auxiliary Community Breakfast and Bake Sale. If lard was prayers, I tell you, those ladies could save the world.”
Albert gave a pained smile. “The limo will be here in five minutes.”
“Five minutes? Till I have to eat goat cheese pizza? No. These diet pills make me nauseous when I even get near grease.”
“You could stop taking them.” Flo shot a sharp look over her reading glasses.
Cady sighed. She hated it when Flo was sensible. And she nearly always was. Awfully important in an assistant.
But Cady knew she couldn’t blimp out again. Not after all the media hype about her weight loss. She couldn’t go through the hell of losing that forty-five pounds again—the fasting, the pills, the frenzied self-hatred. After twenty years of looking “matronly”, she finally had her teenage figure back. She wasn’t going to give it up without a fight.
And—she found this difficult to admit, even to the Lord—she thought she deserved a little romance. At least once before she hit fifty. She’d given up hope of traditional marriage when she entered politics, and the possibility of motherhood had been snatched from her thirty years ago by butchering doctors, but she could still hope for love.
“The Reverend has to keep taking the pills,” Albert said in Flo’s direction. “We don’t want to see her plastered all over the tabloids looking like Miss Piggy in her skivvies. Did you see that Star photo of Princess Reggie yesterday?”
Cady stiffened. Even though she and Regina hadn’t spoken since Regina’s mother died, she hated to hear cruel talk about the only white woman she ever truly conside
red a “sister”.
“There’s nothing funny about invading somebody’s privacy like that—especially Regina. She’s so fragile. When we were kids…”
Flo stopped her with a look. Albert was not to be told. Of course. The last thing they needed right now was for the soured friendship between Rev. Cady Stanton and the bad-girl princess of San Montinaro to be aired in the media.
“‘Judge not according to appearance’—John 7:24.” Flo gave Albert a withering look as she quoted the line of scripture. “Besides, I heard some bottom-feeder stole that picture from the surveillance video of a designer’s dressing room. There’s not a woman alive who deserves that kind of treatment.”
Albert parried with a smirk. “Not a lot woman alive are princesses. Sorry, but privacy doesn’t come with the job description. I’m tired of their whining. I heard on the radio this morning Reggie is so depressed about the photo, she had to go into hiding.” He chortled into his Starbuck’s cup. “What’s that old joke about how do you hide an elephant…?”
“Speed ahead, Mister. Hell’s not half full.” After a thirty-two year career as a Boston schoolteacher, and another ten as the first black president of the Boston chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, Flo was never going to be intimidated by a white boy half her age, network or no network.
Cady smiled carefully. She needed to keep the peace between her two top aides.
“I think people shouldn’t judge the Princess until they walk a mile in her Manolo Blahniks.” She massaged her own throbbing foot. “Anyway, don’t I have some fund raiser at the Silver Cathedral today? The Reverend Elmo Greeley is expecting me at one o’clock, so I can’t do lunch at Spago.”
Albert wrinkled his nose in a snotty-kid gesture that made him look even younger than his twenty-seven years. “Not ‘do’ lunch at Spago, Reverend. Nobody ‘does lunch’ any more. What I said was ‘get’ lunch. Pick it up. Your box lunch. For the social at the Silver Cathedral. You don’t have to eat it until after the auction. That may take a long time. Reverend Elmo has called out the troops. Each of you celebrities will auction your lunch on the air, and the highest bidders get to share the lunch with the celebrities.”
“I know what a box lunch social is,” Cady said. “I’m old enough to remember when churches gave them for real. But I didn’t know Wolfgang Puck made box lunches.” She might be a Hollywood outsider, but at least she could show him that she was aware of Spago’s celebrity owner-chef.
“He doesn’t,” said Albert. “Our people talked his people into doing this as a donation, but only with the provision that you accept it on camera. That’s why you have to be there at noon. The crew is already en route.”
“Then you can route them right back home again,” Flo said. “The Reverend has a twelve o’clock appointment right here.”
“Cancel it. And by the way, shoes are required at Spago.” Albert gave another annoying smirk. “What Bozo made a twelve o’clock appointment?”
Cady kept massaging and prayed for strength. She wasn’t good at taking orders; especially from a pipsqueak like Albert. When she lost her Congressional seat in November, she thought she’d go back to her Boston parish. But then the call had come. A bigwig Roman Catholic calling a Baptist minister—a black woman Baptist. The Monsignor’s Alliance for Christ was starting a family values television network. He wanted her on board. Television talk without the trash. It had sounded so good
“I made the appointment,” Flo said. “He’s been calling all week. I thought we ought to see him. He’s been so insistent, and he sounds sincere. He has a lot of clout with the younger voters, you know.”
“Voters? What voters?” said Albert. “Reverend Stanton isn’t running for office here. She’s launching a new television show. And we’re not going for a young demographic. Our biggest sponsors are fart pills and adult diapers. Doesn’t that tell you something about our target audience? I don’t care if you’ve booked her with Mickey Mouse; she’s going to Spago.”
Flo said nothing as she tapped away on the computer keyboard. Albert picked up his mobile phone.
“At least I’m going to wear a more comfortable pair.” Cady picked up the white pumps and headed for the bedroom. She rummaged through the closet for her Nikes, then collapsed onto the bed, fighting another wave of nausea.
A few minutes later, she heard an authoritative knocking at the outside door, followed by strained silence from Albert and Flo, and more knocking.
“Isn’t anybody going to answer that?” Cady got up and peered out the bedroom doorway. Flo didn’t slow the rhythm of her typing. Albert shot an angry look at the back of Flo’s head as he slowly put his phone in its belt holster. Finally he moved to open the door to the hallway.
But as the door opened, and a compact, muscular black man entered the room, all petty squabbling ceased. Albert’s head bowed forward. He seemed to shrink. Even Flo’s quick fingers stopped as she took an audible breath. Cady dropped her Nikes and automatically smoothed her hair.
In spite of the man’s outrageously casual dress—a too-big T-shirt and baggy Levis—the hint of expensive cologne, the Rolex watch, and the three-hundred-dollar haircut signaled some big money. He wasn’t movie-star handsome, but he had velvety brown eyes and full, sexy lips that seemed about to break into a grin.
“Power Magee?” said Albert. His voice was hushed, reverent. “Mr. Magee, sir. We’re… honored.” The poor kid was nearly genuflecting. “Reverend Stanton, Mr. T. Power Magee, the film director is here.”
“I can see that.” Cady stiffened. So this was the famous man—Tyrone Power Magee, exploiter of African-American womanhood and egotistical moviemaker extraordinaire, the man Vanity Fair called the “Black Fellini”. Big deal. A pornographer was a pornographer. What was he doing here? How dare he come to her office dressed like some down-and-out homeboy? How could Flo have done this to her?
But of course, Flo couldn’t help it. She might be a conservative when it came to family and education, but she was also a veteran activist. To her, any black man was a brother, even one as sexist and anti-family as T. Power Magee.
Albert backed away and disappeared into the bedroom with his cellular. The man really was no use at all.
Cady stepped into the center of the room.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Magee, but there’s been some miscommunication with my office staff.” She gave him her most distant, professional smile. “I’m unable to meet with you at this time. I’m on my way to Spago.”
She moved toward the door, hoping Mr. Magee would have the manners to stand aside.
He didn’t.
“I heard this new God Bless America Network was low-budget, Reverend,” he said. “But it’s hard to believe one of their biggest stars is forced to go around barefooted.” His cool, appraising gaze moved from her unshod feet up her Valentino-suited body until it rested steadily on her face. He had not moved an inch.
It was Cady who had to turn away.
“Flo, hand me my Nikes,” she said in a voice that was shriller than she meant it to be. “I’ll put them on in the limousine.”
“There’s no limo,” Albert called from the bedroom “I just sent him for the lunch.”
“Then call me a cab. Didn’t you say I had to be at Spago at noon?” Cady glanced at her watch. It was already 12:05. “And you’d better call and tell them I’ll be late.” She leaned against the wall and jammed a foot into a sneaker.
“I have a limousine outside,” said Power Magee. “I’d be honored to escort you to Spago, Reverend Stanton.”
Suddenly, absurdly, he was down on one knee, tying Cady’s shoelaces. “And maybe you’ll let me treat you to a birthday lunch.”
“Birthday? What birthday?” said Albert. “She’s got to be in Anaheim at one o’clock. Is today your birthday, Reverend? February twelfth? Why didn’t you tell me? We can use this. I’ve got to tell the Cathedral people.” He reached for his phone.
Flo laid a firm hand on Albert’s dialing arm.
&nb
sp; “It was yesterday. Leave it alone.”
Cady smiled. Flo knew she didn’t see this unwanted milestone as an occasion to celebrate, although Flo had quietly presented her with a copy of Terry MacMillan’s racy new book. Now she wondered if Flo didn’t have an agenda of her own.
“I’m not going to leave it alone,” said Power Magee. “Birthdays used to be real important to this lady. I can’t believe things have changed that much.” He concentrated on his elaborate lacing of Cady’s shoes. “She once even broke the law so she could keep a birthday promise to a friend. Got herself in one hell of a lot of trouble.”
“You’d better watch your tongue, young man.” Flo looked up from her keyboard. “This is the Reverend Cady Stanton you’re talking about.”
Albert looked as if he might cry.
“Cady Stanton has a pristine record. The Monsignor’s people assured me her background had been thoroughly checked.”
“Maybe.” Power Magee rose to his feet. “But a certain Miss Cadillac Deville Stanton once stole a Davy Crockett raccoon skin cap out of Filene’s basement. She wanted to give it to Myrna Loy Magee’s baby brother on his seventh birthday.” He stood up and fastened his gaze on Cady again. “You must have been what, ten years old? That’s when you got arrested and they sent you away to the foster home, wasn’t it, Caddy? I never did get to thank you properly.”
“Cady,” she said, carefully pronouncing her name “Kay-Dee”. She tried to keep her anger under control. How dare he bring up the ghetto name she had spent so many years trying to erase from the record?
Now her head swam as Power McGee’s gaze transfixed her. As her eyes focused, she saw him as he had been—a sad, skinny six-year-old, crippled by asthma, teased the bigger kids, and addicted to his grandmother’s television set. All he’d wanted for his birthday was that stupid hat. Too bad she’d been so rotten at shoplifting. They’d caught her with the raccoon tail hanging out from under her coat.