*
The car was gone. The spot empty.
“You’re sure it was here?” Evelyn asked, looking around for Desiree’s red Jaguar.
“I’m positive,” Mildred said flatly.
“Have you tried her mobile?”
“Silly me,” Mildred said. “I hadn’t thought of that.” She whipped out her phone from its nesting place between her breasts.
“Ingenious,” Evelyn said.
Mildred dialed and pressed the phone to her ear. She listened and her face fell. “Her phone is out of service.” Mildred looked to Evelyn for advice on what that meant.
“That’s odd. Say, let me go get my car. I’ll pick you up then we’ll run you by her condo. She might have gone home.”
“But why would she do that?” Mildred said as they walked back across the street.
“Because, my dear, love is a mysterious thing. Now, stay put and I’ll be right back.”
“Shouldn’t I come with you?”
“Not in those shoes,” Evelyn said.
“Right,” Mildred said.
“I’ll be back in a flash.”
“Maybe Desiree will show up while you’re gone,” Mildred said hopefully.
“Yes, well...maybe so. If she does, we’ll all go back in, have a drink and forget the whole thing ever happened.” Evelyn walked away, lighting another cigarillo.
Mildred’s heart deflated like a leaky balloon. Her hands shook and her right eye twitched. They were the exact same symptoms she had experienced when Cindy Lee stole the egg money and left her high and dry.
But that couldn’t be happening again. Not this time. Desiree wouldn’t leave her. She had said she loved her not more than twenty minutes ago. She did say she loved her, didn’t she? Wait a minute, Mildred thought, she didn’t say it. I did.
Oh my God, Desiree had deserted her. Her brain knew this was the truth, but her heart, ever hopeful, rebelled. She remembered a line from some movie she had seen once: The only thing worse than a hopeless romantic is a hopeful romantic. What movie was that from?
A black Lincoln Navigator with dark tinted windows pulled up alongside Mildred. It was impossible to see inside and Mildred wasn’t certain who it was until the window rolled down and Evelyn smiled at her. “Come on, get in.”
Mildred climbed into the passenger seat. “Nice car.”
“I know. I think it’s brilliant. Nothing like this would be possible in London, but stateside you can have your dream car. I had a white Hummer before but it was hell to park. The turning radius in a Hummer is bloody short.”
Mildred thought perhaps Evelyn was trying to distract her with this talk of cars. She blurted, “Do you think she’s left me? Run away?”
Evelyn smile tightened and her lips thinned. “No worries, love. I’m sure she has a reason,” she said a little too brightly, patting Mildred’s hand.
Titanic
“What’s the address, love?”
“You’ve never been there?” Mildred said.
“Well, no it doesn’t really work that way.”
“Oh. Right. It’s 519 Wilshire Boulevard.”
Evelyn plugged the address in to her GPS. “Desiree really is more than just a gigolo, you know. I like to think we’re on friendly terms. We’ve spent a lot of time together over the years.”
“Years?” Mildred said.
“Yes. We’ve been having our weekly tete a tete for over ten years now. Just not at her place. I understand her need for privacy.”
“Ten years,” Mildred said. “How old was she when she started?”
“Oh, I’d say twenty-something,” Evelyn said as she pulled the Navigator into traffic.
“I had no idea it’s been that long. Did you two ever think about…” Mildred lost her courage.
“Having a relationship?” Evelyn completed the sentence for her.
“Yes,” Mildred studied Evelyn’s profile. She was good-looking. What Desiree would call a handsome woman.
The thought of Desiree sent Mildred’s heart plummeting all over again. Desiree had taught her so many things and now she might be gone, taking Mildred’s one chance at true happiness with her. She’d do anything to get Desiree back if she was indeed gone. She hadn’t realized before that true love was such a slippery and ethereal thing. Now that she knew she would make sure to nurture and care for such a fragile thing. And keep it caged.
“I suppose there were a lot of reasons Desiree and I didn’t try to make a go of it,” Evelyn said, interrupting Mildred’s thoughts. “Our age difference, my inability to commit, my hectic work schedule and the fact that I can be a total arse.”
Mildred laughed despite herself. “Well, you’re being a pretty nice arsehole now.”
“Shhh…don’t tell anyone. It’d ruin my reputation.” She pulled the Navigator over to the curb in front of Desiree and Mildred’s condo. “Here we are.”
Mildred looked up at the building that she had begun to think of as home. Her feet seemed glued to the floorboard. Her hands shook so badly she couldn’t open the door.
“Well,” Evelyn said, “Are you ready to go in and see if she’s there?”
Mildred nodded yes. But her heart said no. She was afraid she already knew the answer.
*
Mildred held the note in her shaking hands. Evelyn watched her. They stood in the dining room of the condo. Mildred had found the note propped up by the vase of flowers in the center of the table.
“I’m afraid to open it,” Mildred said.
“Do you want me to do it for you?” Evelyn asked.
“No.”
Well, somebody has to open it,” Evelyn said matter-of-factly.
“I feel like Rose in Titanic. She almost had the love of her life and then it was all taken away from her before it even began. Jack and Rose could’ve had a wonderful life together but a sinking ship and a freezing cold ocean parted them.”
Evelyn tried to put a positive spin on the movie. “If I recall correctly it changed Rose’s life. She went on alone to become the person she was beneath all the pomp and fluff.”
“I don’t want to be Rose and I don’t want Desiree to be Jack,” Mildred said.
“Forget the soppy movie and read the note.”
Mildred opened the envelope and pulled out a sheet of paper. Desiree’s perfume wafted out of the envelope and Mildred’s nose twitched. Then her eyes began to water so much she could scarcely read the three lines of writing on the paper: “I’m sorry. I can’t stay. Take care, Desiree.”
“What does it say?” Evelyn said.
Mildred didn’t trust her voice to not crack. She handed the note to Evelyn.
Evelyn sighed and said, “Oscar Wilde did say that brevity is the soul of wit.”
“That isn’t witty. It’s horrible. And what does ‘Take care’ mean?”
Evelyn didn’t believe in mincing words. She said, “I believe it’s a nice way of saying ‘Sod off.’”
Mildred burst into tears. Evelyn took her in her arms, saying, “Do you know whom I admired in that movie? Molly Brown. Now there was a dame who knew how to overcome tragedy.”
Evelyn’s words didn’t soothe Mildred’s breaking heart in the least. She sobbed louder.
Evelyn patted Mildred’s back and let her cry to her heart’s content.
The Mystic Grape
Terrence wasn’t as bad as Desiree imagined. Yes, it was a small town. Yes, there was the acrid smell of chicken shit as you passed the city limits sign, but there was also the pastoral scene of hay bales rolled like giant spools of thread sitting in fields of verdant green. As the sun rose, turning everything rose-colored, Desiree was reminded of the poet John Donne and his poem The Sun Rising. She decided upon further reflection that it was a bad poem to contemplate because it was about lovers who give time the boot.
She wondered what it would’ve been like to stay in bed with Mildred, turn off the alarm clock, and tell time to take a hike—they were in love and didn’t care what the hell time i
t was. She imagined Mildred’s warm back as she snuggled up against her. The silkiness of her thighs. The spot right behind Mildred’s ear that sent shivers down her spine when kissed. The way Mildred’s nipples hardened under her lips. The way Mildred’s legs wrapped around her waist. Then Desiree slid down further and further, kissing and nuzzling until Mildred moaned in delight and…
Desiree batted away the thoughts and turned the radio up even louder, hoping the music would drown out her daydreaming. She’d have to avoid romantic movies, books, songs, and especially poetry if she didn’t want to think about Mildred at every turn. Her new life would have to be monastic.
Of course wandering around Mildred’s hometown, seeing the things that Mildred had seen her whole life was not the best plan either, but at the moment it was the only one she could come up with.
Desiree’s stomach grumbled. She needed to get back to the basics of life, namely food, shelter, and work. She couldn’t sit around all day wallowing in her lost love misery. She had made the right choice. It was up to her to make the best of it and that meant she needed to keep busy.
As she drove down Main Street, she saw a diner called The Mystic Grape. She slowed the car and looked through the picture window as she rolled past. There was a counter for lone eaters and booths for people who had other people.
Desiree parked her car out front. Then decided that a red Jaguar parked out front was advertising her arrival. So she parked it half a block down in front of Elmer’s Hardware store.
The downtown had obviously come under the spell of gentrification with the exception of the hardware store, which upon closer inspection looked like it would make a great segment for the television show Hoarders. How anyone could find anything buried in all the dust and jumbles of tools was a mystery. There was probably some hunch-backed old guy in there that knew where everything was.
There were also boutiques, a gelato shop, a bicycle store, a used bookstore, and several art galleries. Terrence wasn’t all that bad. At least not on this side of town. Desiree figured if she drove to the other side she would find the everyday practical stuff like grocery stores, gas stations, car lots and motels. Speaking of which, she needed a place to sleep and shower. She peeked in the window of the bike shop. Maybe she could do some biking—it might be a bike-friendly town. She noted the bike lane. Yep, she just might like it here.
At least (in some messed up way) she was with Mildred by hanging her hat in the place where Mildred had been born and raised. She’d have to find that Co-op and check out Mildred’s old girlfriend Cindy Lee. Mildred had told Desiree that Cindy Lee had taken up working at the Co-op. Desiree chuckled. Maybe she could get a job at the Co-op and could screw with Cindy Lee as karmic payback.
She opened the door to The Mystic Grape café and its name began to make sense. There were New Age doodads everywhere. Crystals and sage sticks were for sale by the front register. There was an array of dreamcatchers, tarot cards, incenses, and self help books lined up on shelves against the back wall.
That explained the mystic part. The grape part was more than evident as the entire café was purple. Desiree felt like Jonah in the whale only she was inside a grape. Even the waitresses wore purple leggings and a tie-dyed shirt splattered in various shades of purple.
“Take a seat anywhere, Hon,” one of the waitresses said. She had purple hair piled high on her head a la Marge Simpson. Desiree wondered if the hair color was a job requirement. She glanced around. No, only the one had purple hair. Perhaps she was in charge.
Desiree sat at the café counter. She moved a basket of crystal geodes and snapped up a menu. She was starving. Even if the food was all purple it smelled good.
The waitress working the counter came over to her. She pulled a pencil out from behind her ear, licked the lead point, and poised it over an order pad. “Have you decided on anything?”
Desiree glanced back down at the menu. “I’ll have the number seven.”
“How do you want your eggs?”
“Over hard.” Desiree studied the waitress. She was pretty in an understated way. She glanced down at her nametag. It read Greta. Greta! As in Mildred’s Greta? How many women named Greta could there be in a small town like Terrence?
“Hash browns or country fries?”
“Huh?” Desiree said, brought back from her Greta revelations.
“Your potato choice?”
“Oh, uh, hash browns.”
Greta ripped the ticket from the pad and clipped it to the spindle. She turned back around. “Coffee?”
“Yes, please. That would be good.”
Greta poured her a steaming mug and put a little bowl of creamers and sugar in front of her.
“So, you’ve got an interesting name,” Desiree fished. “You don’t hear it much anymore.”
“Oh, it’s a silly story really. My mama loved Greta Garbo so she stuck me with the name. You think that’s bad, my best friend has a mama who was a big fan of Joan Crawford.”
“Her name’s Joan?” Desiree asked even though she was pretty sure she knew the answer.
Greta moved down the line to pour more coffee for some obvious regulars—men retired from jobs of quiet desperation. They looked like permanent fixtures on their stools.
“No, she named my friend Mildred. After the movie Mildred Pierce.”
Bingo! Desiree beamed. “How funny.”
“I guess,” Greta said, smiling. “Unless you’re the one who’s saddled with the name. All the other girls in school were Ambers and Ashleys. Then here comes Greta and Mildred.”
The short order cook dinged a bell and Greta picked up the plates. She slapped the plates down in front of the men at the end of the bar like she was dealing cards. Next she grabbed the coffee pot and topped off Desiree’s mug. “So what brings you to Terrence? Just passing through?”
“No, actually, I’m thinking about staying. Is there a decent motel around here?”
“Well, how long you planning on staying with us? Short-term or long-term?”
Desiree’s heart pounded. Greta sounded like Mildred. They both had the same sweet accent.
“Well, I was thinking about staying long-term if I can find a job.”
“In that case I’d recommend one of the cottages by the lake.”
“There’s a lake?” Desiree opened her napkin as Greta delivered her heaping plate of food.
“It ain’t a real lake exactly. The City Council got a wild hair a few years back and tried to make Terrence a vacation destination. So they took Old Miller’s pond, dug it out bigger, and dubbed it Lake Nobegone after that fella up in Minnesota who named his town Lake Wobegon. Then they built these little cottages for people to rent for a week or two in the summer but that didn’t pan out so good.”
“Wow, it actually sounds kind of cool,” Desiree said. She cut her eggs and mashed them into her hash browns. Greta handed her the ketchup bottle and Desiree dumped ketchup over the whole mess. She hadn’t eaten her breakfast this way since she left home. She had been afraid the big city folks would make fun of her love of ketchup. How many other things had she been denying herself just to fit in with other people?
“Yeah, but most people in Terrence don’t feel the need to be renting vacation destination cottages.” She called on down the counter. “Floyd, why don’t you call your mama and see if she’s interested in renting out one of those cabins at Nobegone?” She looked back at Desiree. “He’s my fiancé. We’re fixing to get married soon.”
“That’s nice.”
“His mama is on the City Council so she’s got what you call a vested interest in keeping ‘em rented,” Greta whispered out the side of her mouth. Without looking at Floyd, Greta said, “Floyd, honey, I asked you to do something.”
Desiree smiled. The tone of Greta’s was sweet, but the words were unmistakably a command. There was absolutely no doubt about who was wearing the pants in that relationship.
“I’m checking, sugar. I’m texting mama right now,” a young man at the end
of the counter replied. He wasn’t half bad looking if you liked the Richie Cunningham type. He was every mother’s dream boyfriend for their baby girl.
Desiree polished off her breakfast while they waited for Floyd’s mother to text back. Greta refilled coffees and got a piece of pie for a man at the end of the counter who looked like he didn’t need a piece of pie.
There was a tiny beep then Floyd said, “Sugar, Mama said number 9 is in pretty good shape.”
“This nice lady here is looking for a place to settle. Can you help her out today?”
“Sure thing. I can take her by before I go to work.”
“If it’s okay with work. I don’t want you getting in no trouble,” Greta said firmly. “We got a wedding coming up and I need me a solid man with a job.” She threw Floyd a sexy grin and wink—his reward for doing what she said.
The men at the end of the counter laughed. “Yeah, honey pie, don’t you be screwing up,” one man said in a falsetto voice.
Floyd turned beet red from the tip of his ears clear to the tip of his fingers. “Damn, honey, I’m the manager. I can stroll in when I want. If I got business before hand then I got business before hand.”
“Sure thing, honey,” Greta said, rolling her eyes. She refilled Desiree’s cup for the third time. “What’s your name, girl?”
“De…” Desiree stopped. “Uh, Diane.”
“Well, Diane, it’s nice to meet you. You keep with Floyd. He’ll get you all set up.” Greta set a slice of coconut cream pie in front of Desiree. “This is on the house. Kind of a welcome to town present.”
“Thank you,” Desiree said sincerely. She felt weepy inside. These people were so damn nice. No wonder Mildred was the way she was.
Desiree picked up her fork and took a bite. Heaven. Pure heaven.
Home Sweet Home
“Hot damn, that is some nice looking set of wheels,” Floyd said, ogling Desiree’s car.
“Catch,” Desiree said, throwing him the keys. Floyd evidently had been a baseball player. His quick hand caught the keys, no problem.
Gigolo Girl Page 17
