Lala Pettibone's Act Two

by Heidi Mastrogiovanni

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Brenda whispered.

  “If it involves girl-on-girl, then yes,” Lala whispered.

  “How did we miss that? College was so wild. So how did we stay stuck in such a rut?”

  “Your loss, ladies,” Helene whispered. “It’s quite lovely. Not my daily cup of tea, but definitely something to sample.”

  “Indeed,” Geraldine whispered.

  The three younger ladies stared at their honored bachelorette.

  “What are you looking at?” Geraldine asked.

  “Does my dad know?” Helene whispered.

  “Are you kidding? He loves hearing about the summer I studied cooking in Milan before I married my late husband. I could repeat the story of sharing a flat with Carmela and her boyfriend Giuseppe and all the resulting permutations ad infinitum as far as your father is concerned, and it still wouldn’t get old.”

  “Okay, thanks,” Helene said. “I think I’ve got enough images to haunt me for a while.”

  “I wonder if it’s too late for me,” Lala mused.

  “It is never too late,” Geraldine said.

  When the beguiling performers executed their final pose and King Kong’s champagne glass slid off stage, Lala, Geraldine, Brenda, and Helene exploded in applause and cheers.

  “Encore!” Lala screamed. She stood up and waved her hands in a kind of spastic recreation of British royalty’s standard twisting of the wrists to greet the masses.

  “What are you doing?” Geraldine giggled. “You look like Queen Elizabeth with a brain tumor. That’s not what you’re going for, is it?”

  “Once more!” Lala yelled. “Are you taking volunteers from the audience? Take volunteers from the audience! Right here! Right here! Pick me! Pick me!”

  And then Lala started trying to pull her beautiful dress up, and it was instantly clear to everyone that she was intending to flash her boobs at the stage.

  “Sit down!” Brenda guffawed. Brenda, Geraldine, and Helene yanked at Lala’s sequined dress and forced her back into her seat. Brenda sat on Lala’s lap and pinned Lala down until Lala agreed to “stop acting like a fucking lunatic, and I mean that as a compliment.”

  A delicate, white curtain fell from the lights above the stage. The four friends watched as a man and woman—who were, Lala whispered, “Naked? Are they naked? I can’t tell, I think they look naked? Or is that the lighting playing tricks? Anybody have a definitive opinion one way or the other? Anybody?”—descended from the air. The aerialist duo used the white curtain to perform a weightless dance together. The choreography was graceful, stunning, filthy.

  “That is schmutz on wings,” Lala gasped.

  “Have I died?” Geraldine asked. “Am I in Heaven?”

  “He is gorgeous,” Brenda whispered.

  “Gorgeous,” Helene echoed.

  “I saw him first,” Lala declared.

  When, far too soon, the last erotic interlude of the erotic evening—this one a gorgeous dancer with a guileless air doing a tantalizing routine on top of a television in an attempt to grab the attention of her football-focused partner—concluded, and the performers took their bows, and the lights came up in the audience. The four women reluctantly shuffled out, seemingly loath to abandon the site of this ephemeral sin palace.

  Lala paused in the lobby of the theatre.

  “I’m only slightly kidding when I say that I might need to run up to the suite and . . . and . . . well, you know . . . do something about this excess sexual energy that has enveloped my mind and body, so I don’t take a flying leap onto the crotch of the first handsome man I see. I mean, of course, I still intend to have sex with someone tonight, but all in due course. So maybe I should just take a few minutes and go . . . hmm . . . what euphemism shall I employ?”

  “Masturbate?” Geraldine suggested.

  “That is not, dear Auntie Geraldine, strictly speaking, a euphemism,” Lala said.

  “It’s not a euphemism, not strictly speaking,” Helene added.

  “Pleasure yourself?” Brenda offered.

  “A bit Victorian bodice-ripper, no?” Lala said. “I mean that as a compliment.”

  “Jack it?” Brenda suggested.

  “I’ve always liked that one,” Helene said.

  “Awww, what the hell?” Lala said. “Let’s just go dance it off. And if I crash land on some poor schmuck’s scepter and crown jewels, he’ll have to fend for himself. Seriously, I gotta worry about him? What am I, Florence freakin’ Nightingale?”

  _______________

  “I’m not a hundred percent sure, because I don’t remember ever actually looking at his face, but I think the aerialist is up there in the balcony staring at you.”

  Lala spun around and looked up in the direction Helene had pointed. She peered at the figure peering down at her from the upper level of the small and intimate space.

  The four women were dancing in a circle under a dome that was emitting a pulsating series of lights that alternately made Lala, Geraldine, Brenda, and Helene look like Disney princesses and Twilight Zone space aliens. They were at the coolest and coziest and most exclusive nightclub in their hotel, and Geraldine was giving the younger women a lesson on timeless, infinite stamina.

  After Hour One, Lala had complained that her feet hurt and could they please sit for a little bit and maybe have some champagne?

  “I wanna dance!” Geraldine declared. “I can’t stop dancin’!”

  “Yeah, yeah, fine, we’ll dance again soon. Can we just sit for fifteen minutes? Pleeeeeze?”

  They returned to their alcove in the patio, with Geraldine shimmying and shaking as they passed through the crowd.

  “Come on! Let’s go back in and dance!”

  “Geraldine, my poor feet give up,” Lala said. “A bottle of Dom Perignon, please.”

  The androgynous waiter smiled and winked at Lala.

  “Have you had the Dom Perignon here before?” he asked.

  “Nnnnnooo?” Lala said.

  “You’re in for a treat.”

  He sashayed away and the four women watched him depart.

  “Me like,” Brenda said.

  “Me want,” Helene said.

  “Me getting married,” Geraldine said. “But me not married yet.”

  “Me saw him first,” Lala said. She leaned back on the cushions that were spread out in a fashion that suggested the nightclub might be shooting a cover for the Ikea catalogue’s ‘Moroccan Nights’ edition and scanned the crowd. At the far end of the patio, Lala saw someone she thought she might recognize, flirting with someone she was sure she didn’t recognize.

  Is that our chauffeur? she thought. Mother of God, is he cute.

  Before Lala could make any declarations that she was going to go hit on Clark because he was so freakin’ cute, and she saw him first, the epic chords of the theme to the Superman movies began to thrust forth from the club’s speakers. And then out of nowhere a man dressed in a Superman suit was being carried over to their table by a team of muscled men who had hoisted him above their heads to make it look like Superman was flying in with a bottle of Dom Perignon in hand.

  “Look at that!” Lala screamed. “That is delightful! Don’t shake the bottle or the bubbly’ll be all over the damn place! My God, is that a presentation or is that a presentation?”

  Lala smiled and sighed.

  “Ahhh, champagne,” she said. “Your explosive whispers are the demi-sec soundtrack of my life.”

  “I thought I was very specific about not ordering a stripper,” Geraldine said, her eyes undressing every man within five feet of the champagne bottle.

  “I didn’t order a stripper,” Lala said.

  “Well, now I think I’m rather sorry I was so vocal about that. Maybe Superman could take off his uniform? Or maybe just drop his pants and give
us a quick glimpse of his tushie?”

  The Superman bearers halted in front of the ladies and gently lowered the hero of comic book and screen to the ground.

  “Oh, hiiiiii,” Lala gasped. “Are you adorable, or what?”

  Superman smiled at the ladies, motioned for his crew to produce four glasses, and popped open the bottle.

  “Ahhhh!” Lala screamed. “I knew the explosion was coming and still it caught me off-guard. It’s a metaphor for my life.”

  And now, back on the dance floor, after having savored the delicious champagne, Lala was watching someone who might be the gorgeous aerialist staring down at their group.

  I’m not sure if that’s him, she thought. Did I ever get an actual glimpse of his actual face?

  “Lala, whoever that guy is, he’s staring right at you,” Helene said. “Wow. That is some intense look he is giving you. You must remind him of an old girlfriend.”

  Lala stopped dancing and squared off at Helene.

  “An old girlfriend?” Lala shot at Helene. “Old? Owwww!”

  Geraldine had just hauled off and whacked Lala hard on both her shoulders with the flat palms of her hands.

  “That hurt! Why did you do that?”

  “I’m knocking the chip off your shoulder,” Geraldine said.

  “Both of them? I’ve got chips on both my shoulders?”

  “Yes, apparently you have. What does ‘old’ refer to besides age?”

  Huh? Lala thought.

  “Come on, you’re smart,” Geraldine said. “Another meaning for the word ‘old.’”

  Damn it, Lala thought. She’s right.

  “I’m sorry, Helene. I somehow managed to forget that ‘old’ can also mean ‘former.’”

  “I understand,” Helene said. “No problem.”

  “Really, I have no excuse other than the fact that you’re younger than I am, and I sometimes feel so past-my-prime, but that is no excuse for being rude and for being a total putz, and I shouldn’t be so AAHHHH!”

  Lala stumbled over her feet as she turned around to face the person who had just startled her by tapping her on the shoulder. Then she spun back, once again stumbling over her feet, to challenge the other women.

  “No one saw him coming?” she hissed. “No one could maybe have given me a warning that he was coming?”

  “Sorry,” Brenda said. “I was focusing on the lady brawl in progress.”

  “Excuse me for interrupting, but I had to come over. I’ve been watching you dance,” the handsome young man said. To Lala.

  “Yeah?” Lala said. “You have? Okay, I’m sorry, can we just pause for a moment? You are the aerialist from the show, right?”

  “I am,” the handsome young man said.

  “I thought so,” Brenda said. “But I wasn’t sure.”

  “Apparently none of us took in much of the details of your face,” Geraldine admitted.

  “I get that a lot,” the handsome young man said, smiling. “Ladies, may I join you?”

  “Of course,” Geraldine said.

  “Indeed,” Helene said.

  “Please do,” Brenda said.

  “Duh,” Lala said.

  The handsome young man and the four lusting-to-various-degrees-with-Lala-being-the-odds-on-favorite-to-be-the-most-crazed-of-the-bunch-as-usual women began dancing together. In no time, there was almost no space between Lala and the handsome young man. He had moved in to single her out as his dance partner after only a few bars of music had played.

  Gosh, Lala thought, I hope I don’t remind him of a friend’s mother or a teacher he had a crush on in elementary school.

  The handsome young man smiled at Lala and very delicately placed his hands on either side of her waist.

  Thank God, thank God, thank GOD, I wore Spanx, Lala thought.

  “I like to find the slower beat in any kind of music,” he whispered in her ear. “It’s so much sexier, don’t you think?”

  Gosh, Lala thought, I always assumed not having kids disqualified me. But maybe I’m an ersatz MILF! Wow, I bet there are some fun possibilities with that. Let’s find out, shall we?

  “May I cut in?”

  Lala looked in the direction of the deep, rich voice that had just startled her and her dance partner, and saw what the handsome young man would look like in about thirty years.

  Whoa, Lala thought. Did you win the DNA lottery, or what? Count your blessings, kiddo.

  “Dad!” the handsome young man whined. “Not right now, okay? We’re having a really interesting conversation here.”

  The handsome young man’s dad smiled at his son and at Lala.

  “Josh, don’t you have an early rehearsal for the new show tomorrow? Hadn’t you better get some rest?”

  “Your father is right, Josh,” Lala said, not looking at Josh at all anymore but, instead, staring into the eyes of his dad. “Go home and go to sleep. Sage advice from your elders.”

  _______________

  “You have a lovely home,” Lala said.

  Lala’s path to a spacious, opulently appointed, corporate-owned apartment with a killer view in the Aria Hotel that evening was paved with lascivious intentions mixed with a sturdy serving of female solidarity.

  After Josh sulked off and Lala began dancing with Theo, Josh’s father, Lala learned in the course of a myriad of songs—and so did Geraldine, Brenda, and Helene, because Theo expansively and happily included all the lovely women in the sphere of his newfound dance troupe—that Theo was Josh’s boss as well as his parent, having been for many years a producer of a long list of Cirque du Soleil’s extravaganzas across the globe. Josh’s mother, they also learned, had been one of the managing directors for the Vegas shows until five years earlier, when she left the United States and Theo, “not in that order,” to start a new life in Nova Scotia running a yoga retreat and bed and breakfast.

  “We’re great friends,” Theo said, “as long as a continent separates us.”

  After many more songs, Lala emitted the first notes of a whimper and looked like she was about to drop kick her stiletto heels into the air, so Geraldine cut Lala off before her niece could unconsciously descend into the realm of the unsexy.

  “Why don’t we go sit for a bit?” Geraldine suggested.

  The party continued on the patio, where Theo asked the ladies if he might be allowed to order them all a pitcher of margaritas because his buddy Sonny was behind the bar at the club that night, and “nobody makes margaritas like Sonny anywhere in the world, not hyperbole.”

  As soon as Theo was out of earshot, the four women went into a huddle.

  “Okay, so, Brenda,” Geraldine continued, “we finish the margaritas, and then we head back to the suite and leave the two single gals to wreak havoc.”

  “Stop reading my mind,” Brenda said. “I am so on that page with you.”

  “But . . . But it’s your bachelorette celebration,” Lala said.

  “Could you have made that sound more half-hearted?” Brenda chuckled.

  “Yes, it is my bachelorette celebration, and I am having the time of my life, and I look forward to all of us convening for mimosas and brunch by the pool tomorrow sometime around noon to continue the festivities, but, in the meantime, Brenda and I are old married ladies, and we need to head up to the suite before we turn into pumpkins. Old married pumpkins.”

  Wait, Lala thought. Is that . . .

  “Lala, where are you going?” Geraldine demanded. “Theo will be back any minute and you can’t—”

  Lala leaped up from the Moroccan cushions, an act which did not put her in her best light because there wasn’t much traction to be had from the low-lying pillows, and she made several false starts that sent her tumbling back on her ass before she finally managed to get on her feet with the help of a boost from Helene.

  Damn it, where’
s Theo? Lala thought. Did he see me wobbling like a weeble? Okay, don’t have time to obsess about that right now.

  Lala pushed her way through the tight crowd until she was close enough to pounce on their chauffeur, who was standing alone at the edge of the patio looking out onto the dance floor.

  “Clark!” she brayed. “So great to see you! Come with me? Please? Okay?”

  Lala grabbed Clark’s hand, spared a moment to note that he was reacting by smiling and not by motioning for security to haul her away, and took that as permission to drag him back to their cushion cave with her.

  “Look who I found!” Lala screeched.

  “Hello, ladies,” Clark said.

  Look how shy and cute Helene is! Lala thought. Is she blushing, or is that red glow coming from the strobe light out on the dance floor?

  Lala grabbed Helene’s hand and pulled her up. She put Helene’s hand in Clark’s.

  “Go dance, you two,” Lala commanded.

  “Would that be okay with you?” Clark asked Helene.

  God, is he adorable, Lala thought. All shy and cute and stuff. God.

  “I’d love to,” Helene said.

  “Good,” Lala said. She gave them a nudge bordering on a shove toward the dance floor. “Excellent, go. Come on. Get going. More margaritas for me.”

  And now Lala was alone with Theo in the corporate apartment that had been his home since he and his wife split up and would continue to be his home, as Lala had learned over a fresh batch of margaritas that Theo had mixed himself when they got to his place, and that Lala had dubbed “way better than Sonny’s, as outstanding as Sonny’s were, I’m not kidding,” until he left for Moscow to supervise the building of a new Cirque du Soleil theater complex in Red Square. Next week. For two years.

  “Sheesh,” Lala said. “And just when I was thinking that a long distance romance between LA and Vegas should be no obstacle to lifelong happiness and, forgive me for being forward about my now dashed fantasies, but in tequila veritas and what the hell anyway, you’re leaving town. I seem to have that effect on men.”

  “Well, you know,” Theo said, “I caught myself entertaining those fantasies quite a few times tonight.”