While their cause was dead to most, these natives were very much alive and extremely vocal. They’d assembled after a four-hour sunset prayer meeting to protest once again an establishment dedicated to Satan. “Purity before Profit,” they chanted with raised signs that called for a boycott of all Drake enterprises. They did so until escorted off property by security.
From Marlena’s perspective, the only downside to the nudity incident was that it hadn't been perpetrated by visiting celebrity. He was merely a New York advertising executive, so the colorful mishap wouldn't be picked up by the national press.
However, for the owner-developer it was no laughing matter because a week later, Harry Drake received an indignant letter from Letty Brown-Hawker. Co-signed by ten Baptist and Pentecostal churchmen, her letter threatened a boycott of the hotel "by all decent, God-fearing souls in northeast Wyoming" unless the saloon’s name was changed before the first bonfire celebration at Halloween.
"Look at this!" Harry growled, entering Marlena's suite and flinging her the letter. "It's also published in today's local paper."
"I never read that rag," she declared.
Then, taking up the letter, she pretended to read it aloud. “All persons found guilty of committing public improprieties shall be sentenced to a month's hard labor sucking the sweat off Mrs. Brown-Hawker’s thighs, jowls, and double chins.”
As the maid emerged from cleaning the bathroom, Marlena tossed the letter into the leather waste can under her desk. The maid glared at her, then exited, leaving them alone.
Harry tapped his chest. “It’s my hide they’re after now, but they’ll go after yours next. Wait and see. You won't be laughing when a lynch mob shows up here.”
“Phooey. These are the same Jesus freaks who see Santa as an anagram for Satan. They’re nut cases. Ignore them.”
He scowled at her.
"Oh, get off your high horse, darling.”
Tossing her hair, she twirled and whirled, looking in her dance like a glittering cross between a gypsy queen and Rapunzel. Drake's concern with their affront to the community's moral fiber was effectively quashed by a performance that continued passionately in her bed.
During the months following the nudity incident, it seemed Marlena was right, at least from the perspective of Drake’s bottom line. The Alta Hotel received a ton of positive publicity in Town and Country, Cosmopolitan, and Esquire. Travel writers zeroed in on B.L. Zebub’s “risqué, vibrant appeal, rivaled only by Studio 54 in New York and the Monster in Key West.”
Chapter Six
"Right in here, Mrs. Bellum.”
"Ms. Bellum, if you don't mind," she said, following the nurse into the examination room.
“Please take off everything except your bra, Miss Bellum,” said the nurse, “and put this gown on with the opening to the back.”
“I never wear a bra,” Marlena said. "Burned mine in '69."
“Then take everything off,” said the nurse matter-of-factly. “You can sit up here on the end of the table. Dr. Huddleston will be right in."
On both coasts, she was thinking, women were cutting wide swaths through barbaric restraints that had for too long held them hostage. No fault divorce was now available, and abortion was a legal right. On the bathroom mirror, her roommate had slapped a sticker: "Out of the war, out of the home, out of the closet."
In Alta, however, the natives didn't know from Gloria Steinem, though women had got the vote in 1869 and knew how to shoot a bear. In this town, the past loomed large, immovable as Alta Mountain, and certain superstitions ran deep.
Marlena gazed at the documents framed on the wall. There were Dr. Ronald Huddleston’s diploma from Stanford University Medical School and his certification of residency at a St. Louis hospital.
In the second grade, Typhoid Ronnie--so nicknamed because Ron gave her the mumps, chicken pox, measles, and finally scarlet fever--would dip her red-gold braids into his inkwell and torment her with opinions that contradicted her upbringing. He said Catholics were ignoramuses who worshipped graven images and were over-populating Earth.
The scarlet fever she got from him kept her in quarantine while her mother successfully schemed to move her family back East, where Faith had grown up. Yet, despite Ron having been something of a bad luck charm, Marlena was looking forward to seeing him again.
Yesterday, on the pretext of picking up medication for a house-bound patient, Chloe had conned her into taking the royal tour of Ron Huddleston's offices and state-of-the-art medical equipment. She'd quickly seen her old nemesis was that rare thing, a good man and a sexy one.
Chloe had then convinced her to make an appointment. "Regardless of your iron constitution, Lena, you've been complaining of a stomach ache ever since we got here. You might have an inflamed appendix."
In the nineteenth-century novels she'd read as a girl, there was a type of man called “Beauty’s Dog," a fetching title for Ron's sort. The women of Alta could do worse, it was Marlena's opinion, than trust Dr. Ron with their pap smears.
A good man is hard to find, she thought as she settled herself atop the examination table. But a hard man will come quickly, if you just put your lips together and blow.
She was wriggling her toes when Ron came striding through the door, his kind, grey eyes twinkling and a broad smile widening his boyish features.
“Howdy,” he said, dropping his gaze to scan her chart. “Was it yesterday you and Dr. Vye came by, or was that a dream?”
"A nightmare, you mean. Now it appears you can't get rid of me."
Ron's hands and trimmed fingernails were immaculate; he was closely shaven, his sideburns long and neat; his full head of auburn hair was carefully gelled and slicked back. When he came closer, holding out his hand, she inhaled a whiff of Bay Rum, her favorite scent.
“Thanks for seeing me on short notice, Ron.”
“No problem. How are you feeling today?”
“The same.”
“So, the nausea you mentioned has continued for more than a week?”
“Yes.”
“Any other symptoms?” With a firm, gentle touch, he began checking her throat and neck for swollen glands.
“I’m having trouble sleeping.”
“Are you taking anything for it?”
“Valium and Brandy Alexanders.”
She added, "That's a joke, Ron."
“I hope so. Combining alcohol and pills can be deadly.” He put the stethoscope on her back and began listening to her lungs. “Now, breathe deeply for me. Once more, a deep breath.” He continued to listen as she took several long breaths.
“Any cough or congestion?”
“No.”
“Dizziness?”
“Some.”
“Abdominal pain other than nausea?”
“Some.”
“Tarry stools?”
“Making this up as you go along? Of course not.”
“Exposure to school children in the past week?”
“Not on my diet.”
As he listened to her heart through his stethoscope, his grey eyes were gazing steadily aside, which allowed her to examine his features. Other than the auburn hair and the pale, unusually long eyelashes, she never would have recognized this serious-looking young doctor for the boy who had sat behind her in second grade.
“Your pulse and blood pressure are normal. Your lungs sound fine. You don’t have any signs of acute appendicitis or our local influenza. Your temperature is slightly below normal.”
“So, other than cold feet, nothing's wrong with me?”
“Hopefully that's the case. Have you had any fainting spells?”
“Sometimes I feel dizzy when I stand up. Maybe I’m channeling the Russian astronaut.”
“When was your last menstrual period?”
“I’m late, but that’s not unusual.”
“How late?”
“Oh, a month or so. Make that two.”
“And you say that’s normal for you?”
&n
bsp; “My flow is erratic; the timing's all over the place. Usually it’s heavy, but at the end of October, there was some spotting and that was all she wrote.”I can’t believe I’m chatting with Typhoid Ronnie about my periods! He was asking her another question. She asked him to repeat it.
“I said, is there a chance you might be pregnant?”
“Are you serious? Can't be. I've worn an I.U.D for five years.”
“What I meant was, are you sexually active?”
“Oh, I see. Um, yes.” She could feel herself blushing.
The last time was Sunday, when Harry casually strolled in. She'd been out of sorts after waiting for a day and a half. But eventually she gave up pouting and sat on his cock, which was her favorite way to orgasm. Then he'd rolled her over, spanked her, entered her, and come quickly.
But as they parted, he'd spoken to her in way that rankled. As he buckled his belt, towering over her as she lay naked on the bed, he refused to answer her questions about spending time over the holidays. He sounded like a professor delivering a lecture.
“Follow your own inclinations, for your own reasons. I can’t bear on my shoulders the burden of your lonely childhood, Marlena.”
Parting was always unbearable torture for her, especially when he whistled as he walked away. But after that cold message, she'd started to feel physically sick, and she'd been nauseated ever since.
“Using any other form of contraception besides the I.U.D.?” Dr. Ron asked.
“Why? It's foolproof, isn't it?”
“No form of birth control is 100% effective. Sometimes I.U.D.’s spontaneously slip or hang too low to be fully protective. Mind if I take a look?”
“You’re the doctor."
He called the gray-haired nurse back in. Marlena was instructed to put her feet up in the stirrups and lie back.
“Big scoot toward me,” he said. “Just a little more. Good.”
After a few seconds of investigation, he said, "there are no mullerian anomalies."
"Meaning?"
"You don't have two sets of equipment--two vaginas, two cervixes, two uteruses. Sometimes they account for a pregnancy where one wouldn't otherwise be expected."
"I didn't realize there was such a thing."
"It's not that unusual. They occur in one of three thousand women."
"It must lead to some unusual conversations in the bedroom. I can think of another advantage."
"What's that?"
"A woman might claim to be a virgin when she's not, because one hymen is still intact."
"Technically speaking, she'd be right."
"That's the kind of technicality that might save a Muslim woman's life."
When the examination was concluded, Ron waited until the nurse was out of the room, then he turned and put a hand on the table. He was looking directly at her.
"What's wrong with me, doctor?" she asked sweetly. "Will I live?"
“You'll make it to Christmas. That's a joke, Lena. We’ll run a chemical test to confirm it, ” he said, “but I’d estimate you’re about eight weeks pregnant, give or take a couple weeks.”
“But what about my frigging I.U.D.?”
In her seven-year marriage to Codwell Dimmer, they'd used virtually no birth control, and yet she hadn't conceived. When Harry became her sexual Svengali, she’d chosen the I. U. D. for its invisible, highly effective protection. There simply must be another explanation for her symptoms.
“The I.U.D. was a low hanger, so I removed it. If the test turns out negative and you’re not pregnant, you’ll want to have another inserted or choose a different method, such as the birth control pill. I’ll be glad to help you with any option you choose.”
“If I'm pregnant, is it too late to, uh, get rid of it?”
“If it's the first trimester, there's no viability. We don’t do the procedures here, but there’s one clinic in Cheyenne, and many options in San Francisco. I'd be glad to call for you.”
She was glad she'd come to see Ron. An older doctor would've hemmed and hawed, even lectured her on the abortion issue.
Not that it was anyone's fucking business what she did with her own body. My God, she thought, getting knocked up was certainly not part of the grand scheme for her and Harry. She stared at the ceiling, her hands tightly clenched on her stomach.
“Are you all right?”
“No, I’m not all right. According to you, I'm fucking pregnant.”
“Then, a pregnancy at this time wouldn't be desirable?”
“On a scale of one to ten, ten being the least desirable, pregnancy would be an eleven hundred pound gorilla.”
“Forgive a personal question. How would your husband feel about it?”
“Not good. We’re separated.”
“Oh, I'm sorry. Is there anything I can do...as an old friend, I mean?”
She managed a pale smile.“You can join me for a drink, doctor. I’m not in a mood to be drinking alone in my hotel suite.”
“What a lovely idea, Lena. But it’s not yet ten, and I have a roomful of patients. Here, let me give you a hand up.”
“That's why we’re called patients, because we need a lot of it to see you guys. My mother used to say, 'you spend your whole life waiting on some damn man.' Dad could never move fast enough for her."
“I remember your dad. He was quite a funny guy. Didn’t he have a serious accident around the time you left Roosevelt?”
“Literally a ton of coal fell on his legs at New Gillette Electric. We left Wyoming and moved to Cleveland so Austin could have experimental transplant surgery. I attended Cleveland State on scholarship, then the University of Arizona for architecture school. Lucky me, PAD's biggest project happened to land in my home town.”
“Dr. Vye mentioned you’re a kind of social director now for the hotel?”
“I've taken on special events as a consultant, but I still do design work for PAD in San Francisco. I travel back and forth on a regular basis.”
More regular than her periods were. She felt numb, but she could hear herself prattling on. "My PR gig gives me a perfect excuse to hang out at B.L. Zebub’s, where everyone knows my name and what I drink."
“Would the drink offer still be good later this afternoon? My rounds are over around five.”
“Faith's in town for our reunion. But if you come by B.L. Zebub’s at six, I’ll be sure to be there. I can stand only so much family togetherness.”
Though Marlena no longer believed in guilt, a thought that brought a feeling of shame seared her heart. Years ago, she'd slammed the door shut on her parents, rejecting them both without any explanation.
“You can get dressed now. Take all the time you want. We'll call you with the test results, so be sure to leave a phone number where you can be reached.”
“Okay. When may I expect them?”
“Tomorrow evening at the latest. But I may be able to pull some strings.”
“You already have, doctor."
He chuckled. At the door, he turned and said: “Save me a good seat. Tell them I drink Guinness and the name is just Ron.”
"Only the best seat in the house will do for Just Ron."
He gently closed the door.
The wide smile creasing her heart-shaped face gradually faded. She sat on the edge of the examining table, still wearing the blue paper gown.
But though her blue-green eyes were looking out into space, Marlena was feeling not so much spaced-out as she was feeling tuned in. She was focused on her own psyche, a place she seldom visited, much preferring to keep busy.
Chapter Seven
Marlena was taking another look at her thought processes during the past half hour. Something was not quite right.
When such moments of illumination arrived, cousin Chloe had taught her, she should sit perfectly still and allow her thoughts to flow where they would.
“When you’re taking a walk in your inner space, nothing is unimportant.”
It had started while she was on the examining table-
-a sensation of hyper-awareness, as though she were floating above herself and peering through a crystal skull into her working brain. Oddly, her mind seemed much younger; a seven-year-old brain was displayed for her to observe, the brain who'd been Typhoid Ronnie's sidekick.
Marlena focused on two separate reactions that had been going on inside her head during his physical examination of her.
On the one hand, she'd been thinking: Fuck! That's Typhoid Ronnie’s hand feeling me up! Let me outa here!
On the other hand, he now was an adult doctor of medicine, a sanctioned authority figure, and she was his patient. It was her job to submit without a struggle, right?
But, why so fast? Her submissive response had come up so quickly, she'd barely registered the first impulse. This insight shed light on episodes from childhood that had been on her mind since the discovery of the two notebooks.
Had she been programmed to be sexually passive?
Marlena touched her bare feet to the floor, coming back with a thump to the present. As she pulled on her bell bottom jeans, she jerked her mind back to the ominous specter of being pregnant and ruining her dream.
Did Typhoid Ronnie continue to bring her bad luck? But Chloe had taught her that we make our own luck. As she closed the examination room door, nausea swept over her in waves. Fearing she might tip over and embarrass herself, she walked slowly down the hall.
Harry had grown colder of late and their meetings were less frequent. Would she be able to get him on board with an escape from this gossipy town, if indeed she was carrying his child?
“Distant men and far-off places,” Dr. V had once observed, “often appear far more romantic than they really are.”
Naturally, if she confided in Chloe, she would be pressed to answer a slew of questions she'd much prefer to ignore.
What professional damage was she doing to herself? How would the community perceive of her if they knew of the affair? What legal hot water was she in? Finally, how would it all end?
Blah, blah, blah….
The Fire Night Ball Page 3
