Plan C

by Lois Cahall

  Now Jean-Christophe comes over and tugs on my sleeve.

  “Yes? What is it?” I say.

  “You know the laundry?” says Jean-Christophe, “I just want to know – I want to know if um, if the sweatshirts are clean yet. In the washing machine.”

  “And why do you want to know that?” I ask.

  “Well, is everything in the washing machine clean at the same time?”

  “Yes…”

  “Okay. So you let me know when the sweatshirts are clean.”

  “Because…”

  “Because then the cat will be clean, too.”

  Chapter Ten

  I can feel the lusting eyes of the Sicilian pizza guy under my skirt. In fact, I can practically feel his eyelashes brush the back of my thighs as I mount the tiny staircase to the second floor gallery, the smell of garlic and oregano whirling up from his shop below.

  At the entry I’m wrapped in the overflow of muffled voices pouring into the cramped hallway. Ben helps me out of my jacket, which a waiter takes, and then hands me a flute of champagne from a table.

  I sip, I smile, I process the room and then I twirl around when I hear:

  “There you are! Ben! Libby!” It’s Kitty making her way across the marble floor, both arms held out like Cruella DeVille in a leopard Dolce & Gabbana print.

  We do the round of kisses. “You need a damn PhD to navigate your front buzzer,” I say.

  “Well, as soon as Helmut makes me rich I’ll have a doorman again,” says Kitty, lifting her water glass toward the heavens.

  My flute clicks her glass as Ben moves to the first painting. I stay back.

  “Since when don’t you have a glass of wine in your other hand?” I ask Kitty, who’s scrolling her Blackberry.

  “Face lift is two days away,” she says, her eyes on the tiny screen. “No booze is part of my pre-op.”

  “You’re not actually going through with that?

  “Does the Pope shit in the woods?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You’re late, you know.”

  “Sorry,” I say as Kitty looks at me in a way that makes me feel I’m distracting her from something more important. Great. Secondary to a Blackberry. “I’m late because I was helping Bebe sort through her decisions about adoption.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake!” says Kitty. “Why would anybody adopt kids? Why would anybody want kids? I hate kids! Except your daughters.” Kitty takes my wrist. “I love your girls.”

  “Well, they were kids once, too.”

  “But they weren’t disrespectful like those insects you’re raising now.”

  “Kitty, be nice. And be happy for Bebe.”

  “Happy?” she yells much too loudly. “Couldn’t she just get Henry’s sperm?”

  “She tried that route, remember?” I say, waving demurely to some potential buyers who are staring at us.

  “Fine, but I just read this article that said it’s best for a forty-year-old woman to get pregnant by a twenty-one-year-old guy,” says Kitty.

  “Is this your way of telling me you’re becoming a cougar?”

  “No, no. The article said that an older woman mating with a younger man makes for smarter babies.”

  “What article? Now you sound like me,” I say. “Kitty, Bebe is not going to hook up with some twenty-year old that she doesn’t even know.”

  “But it’s okay to traipse all over China to adopt?”

  “Kazakhstan,” I say.

  “Whatever. You know what drives me crazy?”

  “No. But I’m sure you’re going to tell me anyway…”

  “People always say it’s impolite to discuss religion or politics. I say discuss it all you want. Just don’t discuss your kids. And don’t show me their photos, either. Nobody cares about your damn ugly kids,” she rants. “If you want cute, check out the mixed media.” She points to the wall.

  “The room looks so alive,” I say, trying to appease her. My eyes scan the lily-white walls lined with perfectly positioned explosions of color.

  Kitty pats my back, “Excuse me,” she says, eyeing some people in black tie. “The entire Whitney board just walked in. This could be huge!”

  Clive “The Brit” joins Kitty, offering obligatory hand shakes to some arriving CEOs and their wives. But then he notices me out of the corner of his eye and approaches with that usual warm, brotherly, smile that makes me wish I weren’t an only child. We double-kiss on the lips.

  “Hi Clive, honey,” I beam. I happen to love Clive. We all love Clive. Except Kitty. As a matter of fact I’m not sure which Kitty despises more, children or Clive. But I’m not about to ask her.

  “Sorry the lift’s bust,” says Clive, referring to the fact that we had to climb the stairs instead of taking the elevator. And then he whispers into my right ear, “Personally, I think these sculptures are all rubbish, every one of them. I don’t think Helmut would know from sculpture if he lumbered over the horizon with his cock between the ample bronze buttocks of Rodin’s Thinker.”

  “You’re funny…”

  “But hey…” he says. “What do I know? I’m just a poor boy from the dodgy side of Yorkshire.”

  I latch onto Clive’s bicep. “No, you’re not. You’re pure brilliance.”

  “Are you aware, that the word ‘helmet’ is British slang for the shiny end of an erect penis?”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “I think it goes back to Cromwell. They had a particular helmet that looks a bit like the penis. Tall, shiny, self-important thing.”

  “Like this artist?”

  “A fellow named for his fellow! How daft!”

  Someone once said that England and America are two countries divided by a common language, but I melt over Clive’s accent. Sometimes I’m so hungry for the sound of a British voice I’ve been known to tune into satellite radio just to listen to one of their soccer games. I completely get Clive. His whole British schtick is hilarious: the gentle accent, the regal-sounding silliness, with just a hint of naughty, the self-deprecating humor. Give me a British accent and you’re thirty percent closer than the rest of the male population to bedding me. Not to mention that British men are “hung like water buffalos,” according to Kitty. It’s very clear why Kitty fell in love with Clive in the first place…

  Clive had run a hedge fund in the Mayfair part of London. He met Kitty at a Post-War and Contemporary Art sale at Christie’s in St James’s. Despite being dressed in Armani Black Label right down to the cufflinks, his body seemed to scream in a Yorkshire accent, “Get me out of here!” As it turned out, screaming was the reason he was at the auction in the fist place. He had heard that his favorite band leader – his idol - Screamin’ J Pepper would be there.

  It was many years before that Clive’s older brother had sneaked twelve-year-old Clive into a Screamin’ J concert under his father’s trenchcoat. Since then, he’d followed the band around much the way those crazy fans follow Phish in America. And here he was today, one row and one paddle away from Screamin’ J himself, an aging but still looking-good superstar, sitting next to some gorgeous forty-year-old. Must be his lover, Clive had thought. But she wasn’t his lover. She was his daughter, Kitty Morgan.

  Screamin’ J often accompanied Kitty to the auctions, not because he intended to bid – there was no chance of that. The former chart-topper had long since squandered his once-considerable fortune. He couldn’t afford to bid on the Poker-Playing Dog picture, let alone a Picasso. But ever since Kitty had become an art powerhouse, Screamin’ J had enjoyed lounging next to her at auctions, watching the numbers go up, for old times’ sake. Besides, he was often the only thing that sat between Kitty and disaster.

  Clive learned this when Kitty practically slammed Clive over the head with her paddle as he bid against her for an enormous Yan Pei-Ming. Screamin’ J. Pepper grabbed the paddle from Kitty’s hand and said, in a very un-rock-star way, “Katherine, Mother didn’t raise you to slam people over the head. Ask politely.” And the
n Screamin’ J sent a grin Clive’s way. Clive couldn’t believe it. He even turned around, looking over his left shoulder and then his right. Kitty followed her daddy’s gaze and that’s when her eyes met Clive’s and Clive put his hand out as if to say, “After you, madame.”

  “Thank you,” she said, “It’s for my client.”

  He gave the right-of-way to the Yan Pei Ming “Petite Mendiante” that was “Sold to the lady in blue, for 400,000 pounds.” She winked at Clive. And for Clive, it was love at first sight. Clive later told me that Kitty was so “fit” he couldn’t believe that Kitty Morgan, daughter of Screamin’ J. Pepper Morgan, would give a “battered satchel” like him a second glance. Clive instantly imagined Screamin’ J Pepper as his father-in-law. He imagined saying bye-bye to Pimm’s Cups and croquet, loosening his button-down collar, and ripping off his business suit to unleash the free spirit within.

  To Kitty, Clive was independent and fiercely passionate and he didn’t seem to mind her fault-finding, allowing her to critique him the way she would an oil painting. But there was something more. After the auction, Screamin’ J Pepper invited Clive to dine with Kitty and some very eccentric buyers. Seated between an old dame and the jealous wife of one potential buyer, Clive managed to disarm everybody with his gentle humor, not to mention his good listening skills. For a frenzied art dealer like Kitty, Clive could mean more sales. One week later, Kitty sold them 1.8 million worth of art, 5% which she took as commission. Though Clive refused her finder’s fee, she didn’t refuse his proposal. Six weeks later they were married in Venice, at her friend the Count’s house, in his “backyard gondola” - if you can call the Grand Canal a backyard.

  Soon after, Clive left London, moved into Kitty’s New York apartment and joined his company’s Manhattan office. But suddenly the former corporate drone found himself no longer able to function. He ached for Kitty’s art world and Screamin’ J Pepper’s music. Clive’s 9-5 briefcase-carrying, straight-laced existence just didn’t deliver anymore. He’d come home to the apartment to find various collectors sprawled on the sofas sipping Campari. Kitty would have to interrupt an intense discussion about German art in the 20th century to inquire, “How was your day, dear?” He’d just shake his head and put his hand up as if to say “never mind,” knowing he had nothing to offer these creative types. What was he going to tell them? “Gnarly market today, pound got a bollocking off the euro.”

  That’s when Clive began showing up at work dressed in jeans and tshirts, challenging his superiors, coming in late, leaving early, using up all his sick time and personal days. Pretty soon the corporation was “scaling back,” and Clive found himself unemployed with six weeks’ severance pay. Unfortunately, he was now into week twenty-nine.

  *

  I step back to take in some paintings, Clive on my left, Ben on my right. I inquire, “Hey Clive, how’s the web project going?”

  “Do I know about this?” asks Ben.

  “No, but now that you’ve asked…” says Clive. “I’m repurposing the J Pepper Morgan catalogue. Merchandising, downloads, Screamin’ J Pepper action figurines. It’s going to be um, huge. It had better be, because the old boy’s broke. After the fancy cars, the cocaine and the Hula girl incident in Hawaii…the lawyers’ fees… well…”

  My eyes glance to the first of Helmut’s holograms, a platform draped in black fabric with a light shooting straight up. It looks like – well, to tell you the truth - when the light hits the ceiling, it looks exactly like a penis. Is this for real? Am I the only one to notice this? Maybe I’m being a pervert?

  “And they call this art,” I whisper. “Kitty’s really deluded this time.”

  “Emperor’s New Clothes” says Ben, “And this time he’s really naked.”

  “There’s certainly nothing there.”

  . And then he’s there. Helmut. All six feet six of him, with Kitty on his arm. He’s smiling, greeting guests and Kitty is pulling him toward us.

  “Ben, Libby, allow me to introduce my rising star, the great Munich artist, Helmut Fach.”

  “Oh Mr. Fuck, so nice to meet you,” I murmur.

  “It’s pronounced Faccchhhhhhh,” he says. His face reminds me of one of those hearty Bavarians who dance in odd costumes vigorously slapping their shoes. And then, there’s his breath, which approximates how that Bavarian dancer might smell the morning after Oktoberfest. I lean back. Way back, but he leans forward to shake my hand. Our hands meet, and I hold my breath, staring at his flaming red hair.

  “Love your hair,” I try to say without breathing, “It’s wild.”

  “Yes,” he replies. “And the carpet matches the drapes.” He winks. If this guy were a character in the movie version of himself, I swear that Will Farrell would land the part.

  “We’re very excited about Helmut’s phallic holograms,” says Kitty. “Turns out he’s friends with my friend Axel Kassebohmer. And he’s going to be just as huge!”

  “Huger, actually,” says Helmut with a full-of-himself undertone.

  “I’ve heard of Axel,” says Ben.

  “And Berlin is so hot right now,” says Kitty. “They’ve even put Helmut’s face on a stamp.”

  “Wow!” I say. “Have you licked yourself?”

  “No, I’m self-adhesive,” he purrs.

  “What drew you to this subject matter, Helmut?” asks Ben, suppressing a chuckle.

  “I was a young man with a troubled childhood,” says Helmut. “It was something…something I saw in my youth that forever changed my interpretation of the world.” He lowers his head. I’m imagining it must be something Teutonic, dark. Very dark.

  “What did you see?” I ask, concern seeping into my voice.

  It was a penis….” He trails off.

  “Was it a soldier’s penis?” I dare ask.

  “No. Somebody I knew.”

  “Was it, like, your uncle’s penis?” asks Kitty.

  “No,” says Helmut.

  “Your father’s penis?” I ask.

  “No,” he says, taking a deep breath and looking off into the distance. “It was my mother’s penis.”

  “Your mother had a penis?” I say, imagining the sex-change operation.

  “Sort of. It was my mother, Helga, with a strap-on. She was taking my father from behind.”

  We fall silent. Then Helmut roars with laughter. “Got you!” he says.

  “Oh, Helmut, you’re such a dick!” says Kitty.

  “I knowwwww,” he says eyeing his penis art.

  Ben moves to the first painting attempting to get serious. “You must have looked at a lot of abstract expressionism. De Kooning…?”

  “”Helmut’s definitely a kindred spirit,” Kitty says. “But hardly an imitator, as you can see.”

  “Sure, I can see,” I say sarcastically, sipping my champagne and lost in whatever-the-fuck-they’re-talking-about.

  “It’s funny about German artists,” says Kitty. “They morph, they change, they pursue new things. But Helmut has found his niche.” Following Helmut’s eyes as they move to Kitty’s ass, I’ve already figured out the next niche he’s likely to pursue.

  “Just take it in. Take it all in,” says Kitty. “You can feel it coming at you.” I bite my upper lip in order to stifle laughter. “It’s insanity culminating into serenity,” says Kitty. “Like Francis Bacon and Monet if they had a love child and just well, went with it.” Now I guffaw into my glass and champagne is coming out a nostril. “This one is called ‘The Shaft,’” says Kitty.

  “ Of course it is!” I blurt out.

  Kitty shoots me an enraged look that says if she had a paint brush she’d stab me in the eyeball with it. “This is a penetrating analysis,” she says.

  “I can see that,” I say. Is it possible to snort champagne twice in two minutes?

  Ben can’t conceal his grin. And I’m getting drunk enough to feel mischievous.

  “You know, honey,” I say, “This sculpture reminds me of us.” I nuzzle into Ben’s side. “I mean how ma
ny couples still do it doggie style after ten years.”

  “How many couples still fuck?” says Ben.

  “Interesting,” says Helmut. “Maybe we should take a poll.”

  “Count me in. I’d fuck every day if I could,” says Kitty, eyeing Helmut’s wienerschnitzel.

  Helmut tosses his head back and roars with laughter. Kitty grins uneasily and shoots me one of her “I’m-gonna-kill-you” looks.

  “And this one…” says Helmut moving proudly to the next, “this one is ‘The Log and the Beaver.’” We study a beam light that penetrates the beaver carved from a piece of oak.

  “The Log and the Beaver?” I ask. “Or the Log in the Beaver?”

  “Interesting,” says Helmut.

  I slide over to the next exhibit, worried I’m going to wet myself.

  “Oh you’ll like this one, Libby,” says Helmut, one step behind me. “I call it ‘The Warrior in the Bush.’”

  I keep moving but Helmut and his bad breath are on my heels. “This one is called ‘Potent – tial,’” he says.

  Kitty is ahead of us now. “Oh! Oh! Oh God! This one is my favorite!”

  Ben leans into me. “It’s her favorite. It’s called ‘Oh! Oh! Oh God!”

  “Actually it’s called ‘The Member,’” says Helmut. “I bet you have a favorite member, Libby…” He takes my hand, kisses it and then glances up at Ben with a look that suggests he might want a three-way.

  Ben steps over to the last display which is a huge beam of phallic light, projecting out the small double-hung window into the traffic on the street below.

  “Our highlight of the evening,” he says, proudly. “This one I call ‘Der Dong.”

  We stand there studying it, struggling to keep our eyes from rolling. It’s like Darth Vadar has cast a beam to the ceiling in some Star Wars Trilogy.

  “This takes time to reveal its true purpose,” says Kitty.

  “Oh, I see its purpose all right,” I say.

  “There’s so much to take in,” says Ben.

  “Exactly, Ben! You understand me,” says Helmut. “I want the viewer to process its manliness. I love to watch a woman respond, as Kitty does.”