The Pleasure Set

by Lisa Girolami

  Sometime after midnight, Laney told Theresa she had to get home so she could be at the bank the next day at her usual time, seven a.m.

  Theresa walked her outside the Equinox, where a crowd of paparazzi jumped into action, snapping pictures of them. Some knew Theresa’s name and asked about her husband.

  “Theresa, does being a lawyer make it hard to be married to a stockbroker who has been in criminal trouble in the past?”

  “Is it true you’re planning to represent Steven Shaffer, one of the biggest criminal minds in Los Angeles?”

  “Your husband is being investigated by the SEC. Any comments?”

  “Theresa! Who’s that with you?”

  Theresa hugged Laney and whispered in her ear, “Get used to this. You’re in with us now.”

  As the cameras clicked away and voices called out for their attention, Theresa tightened her hug, holding Laney longer than she had expected her to.

  “Sleep tight,” Theresa said.

  As Theresa made her way back into the Equinox, Laney started for her car. A few of the paparazzi followed her, trying to get her to speak to them, but Laney kept her head down, ignoring the noises behind her.

  When she climbed into her Mercedes, she let out a huge breath. Having so much attention was electrifying but also a little intimidating. She was finally able to pull away and, just as quickly, the paparazzi turned back toward the Equinox.

  *

  “Kay Kitterman?” Hillary had stopped eating when Laney finished giving her the details of her evening at the Equinox. They sat at a small table outside Café Erewhon, under the shade of a Tipuana tipu tree. Laney had just come from the bank and was dressed like any other female executive in Los Angeles, while Hillary wore stylish sweatpants and a workout top.

  “Crazy, huh? And Morgan Donnelly was there. She’s married to the head of Kingdom Crossing Studios.”

  “Hollywood’s biggest business tycoon?”

  “None other. Hillary, it was like a who’s who of power women. And doctors, attorneys, authors. Oh, and Candace Dooring.”

  “You’re kidding. I watch Cyber High all the time.”

  “She’s on that show, too?”

  “You need to turn on the TV every once in a while.” Hillary laughed. “Well, my best friend has just entered the inner sanctum of Hollywood’s elite.”

  “One night of drinks hardly counts.” But Laney was still bubbling over.

  “It sounds exciting, anyway.”

  “It was great. I felt like a celebrity. I mean, you read about all that Hollywood glitz, but when you’re in the middle of it, it’s tremendous. The paparazzi actually swarmed us when we left. They were after Theresa, not me, of course, but it was a real high anyway.”

  “Wow. So you’re gonna end up in People magazine now, huh?”

  “I doubt it. Anyway, the women I met last night were really nice and supportive.”

  “The underground parties and glamorous settings don’t hurt either.”

  Laney agreed. It was a bit self-indulgent to imagine becoming a full-fledged member of such an elite group, but the possibility thrilled her.

  “So how was Theresa?”

  “Fine. She’s married to a guy named Roger Aguilar—some powerful Wall Street trader or something.”

  “Is she really attractive and Latin American looking? I remember seeing a magazine picture of this gorgeous woman and some Wall Street bigwig.”

  “That’s probably her. And the bigwig is screwing around on her with some woman who’s also a trader.”

  “That’s terrible. And divorce isn’t an option?”

  “Seems messier than that. She’s afraid he’ll take everything and leave her with nothing. So she’s trying to keep the façade going a while longer while she protects herself financially.”

  “She’s gotta be pretty angry inside.”

  “I suppose. But we sure had fun last night. She was a blast!”

  Hillary watched her a moment. “Last night was good for you, huh?”

  “Made me forget about Judith.”

  “Has she gotten her stuff out of your place?”

  “Three days ago.”

  “Good riddance, then.”

  Laney attempted a smile, but it felt more like a pained grimace.

  “And hey!” Hillary used her salad fork for emphasis. “It sounds like you have a new pack to run around with.”

  “Sure wish you could hang out with me.”

  “Cheryl and the baby are all the pack this dog can handle, thank you. Isabelle’s second birthday is coming up this Sunday. Will you be at the party?”

  “I wouldn’t miss my godchild’s party for anything.”

  Chapter Three

  Sandrine sat in her unmarked police-issue car under a sweeping oak tree in the Griffith Observatory parking lot. She sobbed as she gripped the steering wheel, unable to stop the tears that flooded from the deepest, scariest place in her heart. She had awoken at five a.m. from a reoccurring nightmare and been unable to shake its horror all day. Finally at lunch she escaped the claustrophobic confines of the police department and barely made it to the observatory before the racking tears blurred her vision and body shakes kept her from steering safely.

  The nightmare was the same as usual. She was six years old and standing in the kitchen with her mother. The cupboards and refrigerator were empty and she was starving. She was too terrified to ask her mother for food, but she’d die if she didn’t. When she finally whispered the words, her mother said, “I’ll feed you when I get back. Trust me, Sandrine.”

  Driven by her aching gut and the lie she knew her mother was telling, she said, “But you never do.”

  Suddenly her mother smacked her mouth and then shoved her to the floor. Too scared to look up, Sandrine listened to her mother rush out the door. As her mother walked away, she spoke in a voice that seemed three octaves lower than usual. “Trust me, Sandrine,” she said, then cackled. The words and cruel laughter slashed through Sandrine’s physical pain and made her cry in anguish.

  She stared out into the forest surrounding the observatory. After Sandrine had suffered years of emotional and physical abuse, strategically delivered when her father wasn’t around, her mother finally abandoned them both. Her father never left her side after that, but he also never knew about the abuse until much later. When Sandrine was a child, she was too ashamed to tell him. Worse, she never told him that she believed her mother left because she had been bad.

  Her father was her savior, reading her French fairy tales until she fell asleep each night and cooking wonderful meals for her, so she always knew she would never be homeless or hungry. But the words “trust me” haunted her solitary childhood so completely that she couldn’t trust anyone but her father.

  Though her mother was, at times, stable enough to perform minimal mothering tasks, the intermittent, unpredictable cruelty had destroyed Sandrine’s ability to believe that everything was okay, even when things were calm around the house. And though Sandrine now realized it wasn’t her fault that her mother left, she was still convinced of one thing: trust was an illusion.

  Although she trusted her father, her inability to trust others had not only stunted most of her relationships but caused other problems in her life.

  A car pulled into the parking lot. Thankfully, she had already stopped crying. She took a deep breath, wiped her face with her shirt sleeve, and turned on the car’s ignition.

  Get back to work where you belong.

  *

  The First Bank of Rodeo was unusually busy for a late Thursday afternoon. Laney’s phone hadn’t stopped ringing and her ear had stayed plastered to it.

  “I’ll send the branch expansion plan in an e-mail, Kent. Yeah, it’s a pretty tight plan. I asked David to look it over as well so the next step is to put an estimated budget to it. Yes. Maybe two weeks…”

  The intercom line was blinking. She looked up at Kelly, whom she could see just outside her office. The windowed top half of the office’s
front wall gave her a view of Kelly and most of the bank when the privacy blinds were open. Kelly had her ear to her receiver and waved at Laney.

  “Kent, I’ve gotta run. I’ll get that e-mail to you within the hour.” She punched the intercom line.

  “Your father’s coming by.”

  “Thanks, Kelly.”

  A half hour later, Edgar DeGraff walked into the office. Though it had been five years since he retired and turned over the presidency to her, he never left the house without being immaculately groomed and attired in one of his handsome Armani suits.

  “Dad.”

  “Good afternoon, Laney.”

  He handed her some paperwork and sat down in one of the chairs facing her desk. “Thank you for e-mailing me this retail business development report. I know you don’t have to check in with me anymore, but I appreciate it.”

  Laney waited for him to continue. He didn’t stop by unless something was really good or really bad.

  “Retail accounts are up thirty-one percent over last year. That’s amazing. You’ve done an incredible job, Laney.”

  Laney smiled. “We said we’d go after them hard.”

  “You went after them hard.”

  “There’s a team behind this, Dad.”

  “Yes, there is. And that’s why I made the trip out here to thank the leader.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I suppose I should be thanking you for accepting the president’s position. It’s an arduous job, I know. And you’re doing well.”

  After they talked a while longer, he rounded the desk and kissed her cheek. Laney watched him walk out and stop at Kelly’s desk to shake her hand. Though she couldn’t quite hear his words, it was clear he was catching up with Kelly’s life, as he always did when he stopped by. The phone rang and Kelly glanced at Laney, clearly not wanting to interrupt Laney’s father.

  She held up a hand, motioning to Kelly that she’d get the phone herself. “Laney DeGraff.”

  “Laney, it’s Theresa.”

  “Hello! How are you?”

  “Doing great. Did you get home okay?”

  “Yeah. The cameramen left me alone as soon as I walked toward my car. You?”

  “Just came from a steam and a massage. The last of my Patrón Platinum molecules are floating around in eucalyptus vapor back in Westwood. I wish you could have joined me.”

  Tequila that cost two hundred and fifty dollars a bottle wasn’t usually a weeknight splurge for Laney. Actually, it was never a splurge for her. “Sounds like fun.”

  “There’s nothing like feeling the steam roll over your naked body. You’d have loved it.”

  “Thank you for last night. It really helped me get out of my head. I’ve spent the last couple of weeks with my face hidden in a stack of books.”

  “No place for a magnificent woman like you, Laney.”

  “Self-imposed incarceration is the martyr’s playground.”

  “You shouldn’t choose to be a martyr, darling.”

  “What fun would that be?” Laney liked the light discussion, which was odd because the conversation with this straight woman bordered on playful teasing.

  “I can’t imagine that hiding in your bed reading books is fun for you.”

  “Maybe my morals demanded that I lament my breakup for a while.”

  “So you let life control what you believe is right or wrong conduct?”

  Laney admitted that she did sound pretty pathetic. “I guess I need to look at my morals a little closer.”

  “You can start with this very one.”

  “So what should I learn from this new enlightenment?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?”

  Laney thought about her recent solitary nights. “Don’t be a hermit?”

  “The lesson is a little more positive and pleasurable than that, Laney.”

  “Let your hair down and party like a rock star?”

  “That’s more like it. If you give me your address, I’ll pick you up at nine.”

  Another night out? And on a Thursday night? If she and Judith went out at all, it was either on Friday or Saturday, never both nights, and especially never during the week. And they always came home early and went right to sleep. No romance, no sex, usually not even any kissing. And of course toward the end, they never went out on weeknights because Judith always went out to do “extra work” in the evenings, after coming home briefly from her office job.

  “I’ve got a pen and paper.”

  *

  Theresa’s black BMW moved smoothly down Santa Monica Boulevard, eastward past Highland Avenue. The area was just east of the more glamorous Beverly Hills and West Hollywood areas and in the middle of the “working man’s” Hollywood, which was where all the companies that supported filmmaking were located. Film-editing and equipment-rental companies supplied their services to the studios and independent film producers in seldom-remodeled 1930s- and 1940s-era structures. In between those businesses sat dilapidated buildings with crumbling sidewalks populated by homeless people and a smattering of rent boys and girls.

  “Where are we going?” Laney breathed in the crisp, pungent smell of the new leather seats.

  “A meeting place where we hang out. We’re a block away.”

  “Interesting choice of neighborhoods,” Laney said, and Theresa nodded, obviously expecting that response.

  “This is one of the places we go where there are no cameras or nosey people. It’s our little hideaway.”

  They pulled up to an old storefront with a rusting sign that read Manny’s Tire Store. The neighborhood was definitely unsafe, especially at night, for two women parking a rather expensive BMW at the curb. Laney looked around uncomfortably for anyone who might pose a threat.

  Instead of entering the building via the litter-strewn front door, Theresa guided Laney to a side door that a passerby would scarcely look at twice. The broken streetlight made it even scarier.

  Because the Equinox had turned out to be a surprise, given its underground location and ramshackle exterior appearance, Laney went along with this adventure as well. Theresa must know what she was doing.

  After they walked through the first room, Theresa gave Laney a tour.

  “Gracie, who was at the Equinox with us last night, is an interior decorator. I let her loose and she had her way with this place. She turned this old tire-repair waiting room into our lounge.”

  Sure enough, what had probably been folding chairs, cheap coffee tables, and single-bulb light fixtures had been replaced with lush plum-purple silk couches, mahogany-and-glass tables, and posh pendant lighting. The walls were painted a surprising, but strangely complementary, burgundy with little gold fleurs-de-lis.

  Though devoid of people, the room had a well-appointed audio system that played velvety jazz.

  Theresa took her to another room, where Kay Kitterman and five of the women from the Equinox were mixing drinks at a grand bar, stocked with every type of alcohol imaginable.

  “This was the old back office. It took Gracie forever to get rid of the smell of sweaty men, but as usual, she did an expert job. We call this the Queen’s Salon.”

  And, fittingly, the room was designed in a style that must have been inspired by the 1940s Queen Mary luxury liner.

  Opulent dark wood wainscot walls and ostentatious ruby carpet set the stage for oversized caramel leather chairs and small, round gold-leaf drink tables. Period chandeliers glistened in the low light, and the only item out of place was a very large plasma TV screen.

  Kay stood and hugged Laney. “You made it!”

  Theresa and Laney settled on a sumptuous sofa and someone brought them drinks.

  “What is this?” Laney sniffed the russet-colored drink.

  “Cinnamon rum cures. Very trendy. You’ll like it.”

  It was good. The spicy concoction warmed her throat as she took small sips.

  “So,” Theresa said, “what did you say when Judith asked you to get back together?”

  “She h
asn’t.”

  Theresa nodded. “She will.”

  “I broke up with her and made her move her things out. I told her we were finished.”

  Theresa looked intently at her long enough that Laney began to fidget. “What?”

  “You may have told her you were through with her, but I’m not sure she was convinced.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “I can read your face. You’re not a hundred percent convinced right now that she needs to be out of your life.”

  “She needs to be gone. I don’t care what she says or does.”

  “Mark my words, she’ll tell you she fucked up and she still loves you and can’t you forget the whole mess so you can get back to your lives.”

  “Do I look like a pushover?”

  Theresa smiled. “Not only do I get paid to read the body language of my clients, but that of my adversaries and their clients as well. I can even read the judges. As hurt as you were, I’m sure you didn’t want to break up in the first place, but her cheating forced you. So I bet she saw a little uncertainty in your expression. She’ll ask you back. Just be ready.”

  Two women sat down together on a large chaise lounge. They giggled for a moment, then kissed, their lips lingering longer than was customary for friends or even for the typical Hollywood kiss.

  Theresa said casually, “They obviously have a crush on each other.”

  As the music played well into the night, the gathering took on more of a party feel. Eventually, the conversations gave way to random pairs of women dancing in the middle of the room.

  Theresa and Laney talked about Laney’s work and Theresa’s law practice.

  Finally at one a.m., Laney told Theresa she had to go.

  “Stay a while longer, Laney. The night has just begun. Have another drink and I’ll drive you home soon,” Theresa said as she got up to go to the bar.