White Leather and Flawed Pearls

by Susan Altstatt

  Harlan drank most of the wine and was going on about the press and countermeasures (a favorite topic). Things I Needed to Learn. He was quite emphatic with his bread and cheese.

  “—So when they enquired about sexual matters, you see, I merely said, ‘I sleep with my guitar.’”

  “Plugged in.”

  “Exactly. (You’ve done your homework.) Noncommittal, you see, but memorable. Put them off, but give them some tidbit for the daily column. A technique to be mastered early.

  “Actually some time elapsed before one of them had presence of mind to ask if I still slept with my guitar, to which I answered, ‘Yes, and since I own over a hundred of them, it gives me a very rich emotional life. But busy.’ Since that time, that’s all they remember.”

  Just look at him now: white shirt, white slacks, white canvas jacket, white cap, white shoes. If Tom was like the classified ads for thoroughbreds, you know, the dressage and three-day event hopefuls “Athletic, willing, spectacular mover—,” Harlan brought more to mind the listings on collector cars: “World-class racing performance with classic luxury. One owner. Lovingly maintained.” Wow.

  It didn’t matter how he was gotten up, it was always done with the same whimsical, delicious care. He was just ultimately desirable. It was equally obvious he belonged to no one present. Look. Don’t touch. I knew what Tom meant when he’d said he looked “expensive.” I would have called it more like “unaffordable.”

  We were sitting on the sand below the cliffs at Drake’s Bay, and the wine was all gone and the Brie and French bread almost were, and things had gotten very quiet except for the waves’ long, lazy arch and dump against the sand, when the question, which had been baying at me now since yesterday, slipped out like a dog under the fence.

  “Why did he marry me, Harlan?”

  He loaded up the last of the bread with the last of the cheese and ate it. Dusted off the crumbs. “Why do you think?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You never asked him?”

  “Scared to.”

  “Ah. And he never said? I assumed some conversation took place on the matter.”

  “He said a lot of stuff.”

  “Par exemplum?”

  “Like, kids have a right to know they were conceived in love.”

  “Ah. Such a romantic.” He clicked his tongue in contained mirth. “Having not the slightest doubt one was conceived in love is not the bower of roses Thomas fantasizes.”

  “Like, if one or the other of you had sex change surgery, he could’ve married you.”

  Done it at last. The man is shocked. Eyes as round as Krugerrands. “He didn’t!”

  “He did.”

  “He lied to you!”

  “He said he’d rather have it done to himself than you. He cried a lot, Harlan.”

  “That was most unkind of him, seeing there’s no truth in it. What a wretched wedding day he must have given you.”

  “Don’t know; it had its up side.”

  “What’s more, he’s left me guilty by implication; I feel obliged to set your heart at rest. No such matter was ever discussed; you can’t realize how contrary to his nature that would be. Thomas never, never considered sex change surgery. Be assured. Why, the procedure adds five years to one’s looks at best, or so I’m told.”

  I gaped at him.

  I’d been had. Intellectually, emotionally strung along. Bested. Or worsted. Stung beyond endurance, overcome with the urge to do something ignominiously physical to him—I scored a fast hit on his immaculate little shirtfront with a double scoop of sand. I hoped it went inside! I hoped it got in his underwear! I hoped it chafed!

  He was laughing, scrambling backward.

  “You! You—you—you—”

  “Go on! Think of a word!”

  “Poop!”

  I arced another great gout of sand at his head, his dark blowing hair. He was running down the beach—“The word is poof, dear—”

  “The word is snake!” He should be like an Arab horse, longer on endurance than speed. What I hadn’t known, but was finding out—he could also dodge and change directions faster than Joe Montana.

  “My favorite is—catamite—interesting derivation—look it up sometime—Means—a pretty lad—kept for—immoral purposes!”

  The idea Joe Montana brought to mind: I’d always wanted to try tackle football, but never found a social opportunity. I launched myself arms first through the air, like a cartoon superhero.

  Talk about beginner’s luck. I hit his back and grabbed. Then he was going arms first too, both of us sailing through the air. Into the wet sand Harlan plowed, with me on top of him. The next wave, a big, foaming pile of gritty, icy, gray-green Pacific broke waist deep over us.

  The water drained through our clothes—mine into his, into the sand, sucking and sliding away below us. His hair streamed out over the departing water, black foam tendrils.

  I was lying on him, full frontal contact, like a heavy breathing scene out of some movie, a sex-reversed China Girl or From Here to Eternity—looking down into his face, and he was a shipwrecked sailor whom lascivious mermaids thought far too pretty to let drown. The expression on his face was unmistakable. He melted. What used to be known as “sweet surrender.”

  I’d been had again. Yet. Still. Conned into setting him in his position of greatest strength. This was his game, his gambit: he was master of it. He’d taken Tom with it a thousand times.

  I got off him as fast as I could.

  I walked up the shelving sand to where the dry began, and sat down with my arms around my knees and my head in my arms. Under my elbows I could see a billion sandflies streaming by, all in one direction, absorbed in their own affairs. The waves dumped quietly. Arched over, broke, and retreated. After a while, Harlan was sitting there beside me. We sat in silence for a long time. I heard him sigh. “Learn something new every day, don’t we?” he said.

  “Speak for yourself.”

  “I was. Miranda. Look at me.”

  “Nobody’s called me Miranda since third grade: a bunch of guys made it ‘Miranda Salamander’ and I had to kick ’em all repeatedly in the shins to make ’em stop.”

  “You might have been more gracious. The salamander lives in fire.”

  “No they don’t. They’re little and wet and they live under rocks.”

  “Legend,” he said softly, “has them native to the fire. So don’t look at me, then. But listen. I want you to know that Thomas never contemplated sex change surgery. Third World butcher shops are not his venue. And together, we are the last, the very last thing on earth that any legitimate clinic wants to see come prancing through its doors. A five-minute evaluation of his personality profile, or of mine, and with any professional conscience they would say—”

  “No way, Jose.”

  “Not my words, dear, but certainly my drift.”

  “Don’t call me dear.” The waves came in their order, pouring over heavily. Sighing back out again, playing with the sand. “Unless you mean it, that is.” I had to take my head out of my arms to look at him. “Do you mean it?”

  “Yes-No. I suppose.”

  “Make it a hundred percent, and you’re welcome. You are covered with sand from head to foot, know that? You are a sight!”

  He grinned wickedly. “At last we match.”

  We were too filthy and too far away for our regular evening pilgrimage to Chez Panisse. We found an oyster-market-cum-café on the east side of Tomales Bay, serving oysters and oysters, and very little else but oysters. We each put down a dozen fried, and when that didn’t seem to do the trick, we split a third dozen between us. All there was to drink was American beer, which Harlan didn’t fancy. We went home very sober.

  “Thank you for a wonderful outing. You should consider going into business: the finest tours of San Francisco and environs.”

  “C’mon, you: I wouldn’t do it for just anyone.”

  He went into the bathroom. I heard the shower start.

&
nbsp; What if he burst out wet and naked and pulled me into the shower with him? Nothing. The shower went on running. Some night I’d go inside my room and shut the door, and only then I’d notice his hand was still in mine, and he was on the end of it. And then. And then.

  I went to the phone in my room, found Tom’s London number that I’d cribbed off Harlan when he wasn’t looking. I got an operator, asked for England, asked for the number. I imagined him answering. Imagined everything I had to say—

  “Tom.”

  “Well, well.”

  “I’ve got a question for you.”

  “Unusual time.”

  “I wanted privacy.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “I’m worried about Harlan.”

  “You two not getting along?”

  “Contrariwise. I’m afraid we are.”

  “Oh?”

  “Tom. You know how attractive he is.”

  “What are you trying to tell me?”

  Then I could say, “I practically made love to his picture when I was thirteen, just like yours—” No I couldn’t. I could say, “We’re getting closer and closer. We’re living together: falling in love with him would be so inanely simple—”

  “Christ, I understand that, but is he doing something to provoke it, outside of just breathing in and out?”

  “I don’t know. Sometimes I think not, others I get myself convinced he’s moving in.”

  “He wouldn’t. God. Maybe he would. Is he trying to get back at me? I’m really getting what I’ve earned; that’s what you’re trying to tell me, isn’t it?”

  “I simply want to know what I should do if he winds up in bed with me some night!”

  Even thinking it I felt stupid and miserable, like the jerk who’s just yelled “Fire!” in a crowded theater.

  Then Tom—the real one—answered the phone. “Rhymer.”

  “Hello, love.”

  “Well, telepathy works.”

  “I wanted to hear your voice, that’s all.”

  “Getting cold on me already? Here I was wanting you in bed. Or the shower, or the living room or—What’d y’do, give Harlan the slip? Wondered how long that’d take.”

  “He’s the one in the shower.”

  “Is he now.”

  “I took him to the beach. Got him all sandy.”

  “God. Don’t mar the finish.”

  I had to laugh; I knew just what he meant. I told him about Harlan on the first day, in his black leopard coat and eyeshadow, saying, “I am safe on the street—”

  “He is, too: nobody takes liberties with Harlan.”

  “You do.”

  He chuckled. “Look closer. He issues the invitations. All I do is RSVP.” Then he said, “Is he being happy?”

  And here was the place to tell him. “He’s running around raising my consciousness on vintage clothes and vintage cars and vintage wines, and playing guitar and dancing at the same time, and jogging Golden Gate Park and eating better than I ever dreamed was possible, and—”

  “Oh, Harlan’s fond of his comforts, all right. I’m fond of his comforts. Keep on loving me, that’s all I ask. Any sign of your papers?”

  “No. We’ll be on that plane the minute they arrive.”

  “Certain he’s not doing a number on you?”

  “Who?”

  “Who else?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “About the papers, and how long it takes.”

  “I was right there in the passport office with him—”

  “Every time?”

  “The only time. Why would you ask that?”

  “Thought I caught a whiff of where he’d been, that’s all.” Almost as good a jab as the one about the finish.

  “Tom?”

  “Still here.”

  “What’s the name of it? The perfume he’s soaked in.”

  “Seraglio.”

  “What? Oh no!”

  “What I call it. Well? Don’t you think he smells like the Sultan’s favorite?”

  “Favorite what?”

  He giggled. “I won’t tell. Seriously. He’s very territorial, like a dog fox. Anything that’s his, he puts his scent on it. You couldn’t borrow his shirt and forget for a moment whose it was, now could you?”

  Another item of the class “things I can’t tell him”: I’m wearing Harlan’s silk jersey and shorts for pajamas.

  “Ah—” said Tom, “I guess it’s got no name but his.”

  “What?”

  “I had it blended specially for him in Paris.”

  “His own private perfume? People can do that?”

  “Lots of old-time stars have had their own. Famous men have done it. For their lovers.

  “I fancy that old master parfumier wasn’t so surprised. He asked me what I saw in Harlan. I told him, too. He did some tests to see what his skin was like. Then he squired him around Paris for a night or two to see what he was like. Quite a scene. And that’s what he came up with.”

  “I think he got it right.”

  “Yeah. I’m proud. One grand gesture I thought up that worked. Harlan’s got a million tricks like that, all swarming in his head; but I, well I’ve never been so fertile-minded. I’m in luck if I come up with one. Find one right gesture for him.” He drew a breath. “So now, how about yourself? I owe you a wedding present. I bet you’re thinking about that.”

  “No I wasn’t.”

  “Has to be something really special. Think about it.”

  He was up to something.

  I suddenly remembered Madame Hoang’s bracelet. I knew that was it: I’d been so dense, I thought he’d bought it for himself.

  And teasing me to guess was going to be half his fun.

  Chapter 8

  Wednesday, September 3

  I remembered reading something, some dignitary’s address to the British Medical Society, how we need for health’s sake to change the image of our heroes: how James Bond, if he were real, would have a hundred illegits by now, and every venereal disease known to man.

  And that was before AIDS.

  Well, I didn’t have AIDS, I knew that. AIDS takes much longer than two weeks to show. But some things probably don’t. I wondered what things.

  I remembered all the pills in Tom’s suitcase.

  We went jogging anyway. From the Academy of Sciences, down the bridle paths to the beach. And back. Pain. Not quite like a knife in the gut, but too much like to make it any fun. How long was I going to ignore that I was sick? Tender, bloated, painful, queasy sick.

  Harlan never got tired. And he never sweated. Not at all. The bones in my pelvis gritted with every step, like my joints were beginning to rot out. My damn old hair was in my face. I actually longed for Harlan’s hair bands.

  Bet he had ’em made to order. Welcome to the world of unlimited money dispensed with unlimited nerve. I bet he did. His very own custom hair bands, black satin, like his heart. Scared to put one in my hair, all sorts of legendary precedents came to mind, like the Wicked Queen’s poisoned ribbons zapping poor Snow White.

  That’s ridiculous. If I’m spiteful enough to typecast Harlan as the Wicked Queen, it’s a pretty sure sign Snow White I’m not.

  ———

  Lord God, Father Almighty, I don’t want to love him.

  Lord Jesus Christ, do not let me love him.

  Lord God, Holy Spirit, please make me stop loving him.

  Dona nobis pacem.

  Dona nobis requiem.

  Dona nobis cold showers. Navy coffee. Something.

  ———

  Afternoon already. We’re in a big old smelly thrift shop in San Jose. “Harlan. Harlan!” I’m bouncing up and down so I can spy over the racks. I see Harlan shoot out of the book section, his fingers still keeping place in the middle of a volume called The Wines of California. “Look, look look Harlan, Harlan, Harlan, Harlan—This is what I’m looking for? This is one! Isn’t it?”

  All he says is, “Does it fit?”

  Oh G
od. What if it doesn’t? What if it’s too small?

  Dingy plywood booth. No lights. Lank dank curtain. Piles of sweaty musty clothes people hadn’t hung back where they found ’em. A fringe of price tags (unacceptably high ones) stuck behind the edges of the mirror.

  Out of the running shoes, the Levi’s, the shirt. A sweet dry benediction of antique withered silk over my head. The moment of truth. I don’t fill it out like Mae West. But the shoulders cling honestly to my shoulders. The waist is in the vicinity of my waist. The hem lies demurely near the concrete floor. Hot Damn. The shirt, the Levi’s, the running shoes. Out into the light. Harlan’s still poring through The Wines of California.

  “It fits!”

  He looks me in the eye for a moment without speaking, just the kindest, quietest smile.

  “Thomas will love it. Very much.”

  “It doesn’t match the top thing.” The gown is a waxy-hued mosaic of small random wrinkles spaced with shriveled, crowded lace. The peignoir, shades lighter, has acquired big square creases like a road map.

  That got one of his little shrugs. “So the gown made it into bed; the peignoir spent its youth in the hope chest, poor thing. There are ways to minimize such differences.”

  The two together cost $2.99, the same as Harlan paid for The Wines of California.

  Good fortune to ponder in silence: all the way home from San Jose. The gown and wrap are such a treasure. $9.99 would have seemed an amazing error. $19.99 would have seemed a steal. By now, I can make a fairly accurate estimate, the vintage clothes shops would have wanted $99.99 at least. $199.99 wouldn’t amaze me.

  But it was too old to be content labeled. If the collar has a tag saying 100% SILK, dry clean only, the girls in the back room can relate. If the label’s in French or German, 100% seide or 100% soie, forget it. And they never know raw silk at all: be it heavy and rich and labeled; it could lap your skin and cling to your hands like the living essence of love, they wouldn’t know what it was.

  Most people never do know what something is, if they—first off—don’t expect to see it, and it isn’t plainly labeled on the collar.

  ———