How Perfect is That

by Sarah Bird

“Off label” is the Holy Grail in the world where mascara wand meets scalpel. Botox’s original official purpose was fixing crossed eyes. Calming migraines, stanching torrential sweating, paralyzing uncontrollable facial tics, and—eureka!—demobilizing pesky wrinkles were all off-label advances. The ladies perk up at the possibility of getting the jump on an entire continent and discovering another off-label Fountain of Youth.

  This is the exact moment when, ideally, I would have taken the floor, closed the deal, and had the ladies streaming in the front door. But since I am currently unavailable, I have lined up a secret weapon: Out onto the front porch steps the closest thing Austin has to a celebrity-socialite, Lynn Sydney Locke.

  Lynn Sydney is a vision. Her sexy little Miu Miu summer frock shimmers, her luxurious titian tresses glint, her “fun” art jewelry—sproinging Alexander Calder twists of copper—positively dazzles. I cannot suppress a surge of pride on seeing the ladies’ reaction to Lynn Sydney’s appearance, since roping her into this fandango was a triumph of timing and packaging.

  Lynn Sydney was the first person I called after the house voted to host the Plat Longs. I had a little ace up my sleeve in that regard; I knew that shortly after Lynn Sydney began her conquest of Austin she applied to be a member of the Platinum Longhorn board of directors and that Kippie Lee, backed up by the henchbitches, in a doomed attempt to block the newcomer’s inevitable rise to power, had blackballed her. I also knew that Lynn Sydney knew since her information may have been obtained through my personally telling the rising star; I could always spot a comer. So, although a smacking symphony of air kisses had since passed between the two divas, along with mad exclamations about the gorgeousness of the “pieces” the other was wearing, hostilities simmered. Hostilities I was hoping to ratchet up to a full, rolling boil when I called Lynn Sydney.

  Before I had finished uttering my name, Lynn Sydney was shrieking, “Blythe Young, no! I heard the most amazing story. Did you really feed K.L. and her crew Roofies? Tell me it’s true.”

  “It’s true.”

  “That is beyond beyond. I would give up all my minutes on my ex’s private jet to have seen that. And now they’ve totally banished you, right?”

  “I am officially beyond beyond.”

  “No, seriously, Blythe, I mean totally, no-going-back, Witness Protection banished.”

  “Permanent social Siberia. They’re trying to send me to prison.”

  This seemed enough evidence that I wouldn’t suck up and then roll over on her for Lynn Sydney to open up about her deep enmity for the princesses, stemming from the blackballing. “Can you believe they tried a ridiculous cock block like that? I mean, please, Blythe, you were like the third person to tell me every detail of that ‘secret meeting.’ Now it’s to the point that they’re knocking one another over to see who can get to me first with the dirt. Anyway, the Plat Longs are so Old Austin. I never remotely needed them, did I?”

  “Not remotely.”

  “Not that it matters anymore anyway. I am so over Austin. A girl can’t even put together a decent gay entourage in this city. I’m trying to decide: New York or London? Paris is out, the plumbing sucks. My agent found this really really cute flat in Mayfair. Right around the corner from Sotheby’s, so that would be fun. Anyway, Blythe, tell me, what’s up with you?”

  I thanked whatever lucky stars had delivered Austin’s hottest social commodity into my hands at the exact moment when she would be most open to being part of—as I packaged it on the spur of the moment—a “really fun guerrilla theater farewell to Austin.”

  And here she is now, stepping onto the front porch, causing consternation and homicidal envy among the princesses gathered beneath her. With a ringmaster’s arm extended toward the star attraction, Alli announces, “Spa Seneca is honored and delighted to present Lynn Sydney Locke as our opening speaker.” As I directed, Alli allows plenty of time for Lynn Sydney’s radiant presence to sink in before she speaks again. “Lynn Sydney’s topic will be ‘My House, My Self.’”

  Lynn Sydney smiles a little smile that is somewhere between personable and poisonous. “Congratulations to all of you for choosing such a wildly creative, out-of-the-box site for this event. Friends in London tell me they had the most marvelous time recently in a squatter’s flat. Very avant-garde. Tiny carbon footprint, all that. Charles and Camilla adored it. I will begin my presentation in five minutes. See you inside.”

  Lynn Sydney steps into the house and after a few seconds of consternation, Kippie Lee leads what is a very restrained charge up the stairs. The ladies do an admirable job of pretending that avant-garde and tiny carbon footprint had been their intention all along. Only when all the ladies are on the porch, about to enter the house, do I feel it is safe to step forward and nudge Millie into action.

  “Oh, everyone, wait a sec, I’m house chaplain Millie Ott and I would like to present to you Spa Seneca’s nutritionist, Fatima Sarowa.”

  That is my cue to place my carefully hennaed hands together over my heart, and bow to the group. My new look—covered from head to toe by a burka, little grille completely hiding my face and identity—seems to be going over well with my former friends.

  I gargle something indecipherable, then bow again.

  “Fatima is still working on her English, but I want all you ladies to know that having been trained in a culture where serving haram, ‘forbidden,’ food could get your hand cut off, Fatima will honor your individual preferences with a, literally, religious zeal.”

  This then is to be my real penance: catering to the insane diet specifications of a dozen hysterically finicky women. With a silent wave of Fatima’s elaborately curlicued hand, I gesture wordlessly for the women to enter.

  Then, buried in the burka, I stop breathing and don’t start again until all twelve of my Gretels have crossed the threshold and are inside the house. Now I just have to work on the second big item on my to-do list: Avoid being shoved into the oven.

  Find Your Path

  AS OUR COUNTRY’S greatest art and culture critic, Renaissance man Dave Hickey, says in his seminal collection of essays, Air Guitar, ‘Bad taste is real taste and good taste is nothing but the residue of someone else’s privilege.’” Lynn Sydney lectures to a dozen women with their feet soaking in tubs, basins, a pair of loaf pans, an old tofu container, and Big Lou’s water bowl.

  I once coordinated an affair at Laguna Gloria Art Museum where Dave Hickey spoke, so I had observed his mesmeric effect on my ladies. It was the year he won a MacArthur genius grant. That combined with the fact that none of the ladies understood a single word he said lent his every utterance an invincible air of infallibility. I pray that invoking his name now will convince key Pemberton Princesses that, once again, they are part of an “art” experience they must pretend to understand.

  Nikki and Kat both look crisply professional in white lab coats. A few weeks of cosmetology school have transformed Nikki, and worshipful Kat is doing her best to emulate her idol. They are abrading Bamsie’s and Blitz’s feet with a salt scrub. The Seneca crew relieved the ladies of their footwear as quickly as possible. In fact, Nikki and Kat were unbuckling and slipping shoes off even as Kippie and crew stood frozen, gaping in horror at the interior of the house. Although we had cleaned, deodorized, and sanitized, it is still a freak show which only the presence of Lynn Sydney Locke could have made not just acceptable but fashionable in a way that, thankfully, the princesses believe they can’t fully understand. All they know for sure is that if Lynn Sydney Locke is here, it has to be cool.

  So, instead of gagging on the smell of insecticide, the ladies study Lynn Sydney Locke. They try to figure out how many inches of leg they’d have to have transplanted to look as good as she does in a Miu Miu frock. “Look around,” she orders. “You will never again be in a space so free from the tyranny of taste.”

  Hypnotized, none of the women can turn her eyes away from Lynn’s glittering personage until she repeats her command, “Look around.”

  The w
omen gawk at furnishings scavenged from Goodwill and off the street on Bulky Item Pickup Day, furnishings that were ancient before they ever washed ashore at Seneca House. The full horror of the dump hits Kippie Lee and she starts to stand. I nod at Lute so vigorously that the burka bounces.

  Lute, golden ringlets trembling, leaps to station himself at Kippie Lee’s feet. Before another thought of escape has time to cross her mind, Lute is massaging K.L.’s arches and metatarsals with a level of ardor she has not experienced since her honeymoon. Or, more precisely, not since her sayonara screw with Cotton Donahue, the passed-out groom’s best man. I know that Miss Kip is still struggling with her philandering asshole of a husband getting his plaque scraped in an extramarital format. My bet that she will be up for a little grudge action seems to be paying off, judging from the way she melts back into her chair as Lute applies himself to her instep. That is good. That is very good. As long as we can keep Kippie Lee neutralized, we might be able to hold off a walkout.

  I snap fingers filigreed with henna tattoos, and my “staff” disperses among the ladies. Nikki and Kat start painting toenails. Jerome reattaches himself to Bamsie. Missy Quisinberry refuses Sergio’s offer of a shoulder massage. Sergio gives her one anyway.

  “As you can see,” Lynn Sydney continues airily, “this space has been designed to be as free of taste as is humanly possible. Spa Seneca accomplished such an unprecedented degree of taste-freedom through intensive research and analyses of the homes of computer programmers and clog-dancing aficionados. And why? Why do they go to this extreme effort? Because research has revealed that true, true, relaxation is impossible in settings that trigger the competitive decorating response. What we are doing is momentarily relieving you of the burden of taste so that you may all experience the ultimate intoxication: the weightlessness of moving about in a zero-gravity taste environment.”

  I can almost see the air around the princesses’ heads growing wavy as it heats up from the effort required to perceive such a dump as the ultimate intoxication. But if Lynn Sydney Locke, occupant of one of Architectural Digest’s “Ten Most Influential Homes of 2002,” says it is, who are they to argue?

  Lynn Sydney returns her listeners’ rapt gazes. “During your stay at Seneca Falls Spa Clinic you will be given permission to lay down the burden of connoisseurship. To unharness the yoke of discernment, cut off the shackles of refinement, and experience the freedom of tastelessness.”

  I peer through the grille in front of my face and study the women’s expressions. Are they buying this? Do they care enough about being perceived as discerning, refined connoisseurs to lay that theoretical load down here in Trashy Town?

  “Haven’t we all agonized over whether hammered pewter or brushed nickel is the fullest expression of who we are?”

  Heads nod.

  “Whether stained concrete is over? Whether we should have bought out at the lake before all the movie stars moved in and prices skyrocketed? How long are leather floors going to be au courant? Where do we hang the Larry Rivers?”

  Bamsie, whom I’d once watched fretting about where to place her R. C. Gorman poster, nods at their shared burden.

  As Lynn Sydney goes on, I circulate with a tray of Raspberry Razzers. Every Razzer that I, as Fatima, the shuffling pile of sheets, serve comes with a recipe card listing protein powder, Splenda, and low-glycemic-index fruits. The one ingredient not mentioned is tasteless, odorless, 190-proof grain alcohol. Though not ideal in the moral choice department, it is absolutely necessary and a distinct improvement over Rohypnol.

  I have sternly resisted the temptation to take the far lower road and customize each drink to correct the various psychic deficits of the individual guest. A pinch of crystal meth for the lethargic. The barest smidgen of Xanax for the temperamentally tense. And who among this chronically insecure bunch of strivers could not have benefited from the general boost in fellow feeling that only the most judicious administration of Ecstasy could have provided? But even when Sergio volunteered to bring those hollow-heeled boots out of retirement for me, I refused. I made a solemn promise to myself that I was going to do this the old-fashioned way: all liquored up.

  Which is exactly the state I pray the women are in when Lynn Sydney makes her announcement. “Well, ladies, I am so jealous of you all. I would give just anything to be able to stay, but”—she is gathering up her Hermès Birkin bag in orange crocodile with the palladium hardware—“it’s wheels up in…” She checks her Patek Philippe Calatrava for the time. “Shoot! Is it that late? I have to be at the FBO in ten minutes. Thank God there’s no security for private jets, right?”

  The ladies beam expressions of sympathetic understanding toward Lynn Sydney, and a desperate dream takes root in each of their souls: Never fly commercial again. She bends over and kisses each one in turn, and they breathe in Lynn Sydney’s unidentifiable fragrance. It makes them feel as if they had walked out onto the terrazzo of their Italian lover’s palazzo high above the Amalfi coast and are drinking in the scent of rosemary, sunshine, and sex. They each feel a palpable pang of yearning when Lynn Sydney heads for the door. She salves that sweet ache, however, with her parting comment: “I can’t wait to hear about the amazing experience y’all are going to have here. You have to remember every single detail, and then, when I get back from Bono’s thing, I’ll have y’all out to the ranch and we’ll debrief.”

  I am dazzled by how well and deeply Lynn Sydney has set the hook. There is no way now that I will lose the ladies. They would have endured trench warfare for the opportunity to “debrief” at Lynn Sydney’s ranch. I understand revenge, but what Lynn Sydney has just done for me goes way beyond that. I bustle my burka to rush after my benefactress before she steps into her waiting car.

  Outside, safely beyond my guests’ hearing, I whisper a word of thanks.

  Astonished, Lynn Sydney whispers back, “Blythe, is that you under there?”

  “Yes, I thought a low profile might be advisable.”

  Lynn Sydney’s laugh is warm and earthy. One might even have said down-home and redneck. “So, you are really, truly, and permanently out.”

  “‘Out’ doesn’t begin to describe what I am.”

  “In that case, don’t you remember me?”

  When I wag my burka in the negative, Lynn Sydney leans over and screeches in my ear like an eagle.

  “You’re an Abilene High Eagle?”

  The celebrity-socialite holds up circled thumb and forefinger glasses in front of her eyes, gives a bucktoothed, hick grin, and hundreds of thousands of dollars of orthodontia, cosmetic surgery, and the best Swami-tending money can buy fall away, leaving behind “Jo Rae Strunk? But you—”

  “Were a scrawny, semiliterate piece of white trash just like you? Yeah, that was me. One year behind you in school. I was always inspired by you changing your name. Can’t tell you how surprised and edified I was to rediscover you. Especially since you didn’t remember me. I don’t plan on coming out of the blue-collar closet until the next divorce is final. At that point, I’ll be set and can afford to own anything I want.” Lynn Sydney Locke slides into the backseat of the waiting car, pauses, and glances up at me. “Even a trailer-trash girlhood.” She closes the door, and the car glides away.

  Back inside the house, I find the women finishing a fourth round of Razzers. Kippie Lee is informing Lute of just how much of an honor she would consider it if he’d allow her to finance the recording of his demo. Blitz Lord is letting Kat paint her toenails Hematoma Heather. Missy Quisinberry’s eyes are rolling back in her head as Sergio gets after her tense trapezia. Cookie Mehan is receiving detailed instruction from Olga on how to give the perfect blow job. Bamsie and Jerome are arguing in the feverish way of couples one step away from ripping each other’s clothes off. And Morgan Whitlow is telling Paige Oglesby how really, really, no, really cute she has always thought she is.

  I pull Millie aside and whisper to her, “Deploy.”

  Millie nods uncertainly, picks up one of the giant m
enus of services I have put together, and goes to Kippie Lee.

  “Here are our services,” Millie says, holding the menu open so that Kippie Lee can peruse it while Lute rubs shea butter into her cuticles and gives her a breakdown of what it might cost to put the Fresh ’n’ Fruity on the road to tour behind an album. The services are another one of my fantasy creations, a dessert cart of indulgences: pomegranate-cream body wrap; French-vanilla sugar scrub; Thai lemongrass-coconut cuticle rejuvenation; peppermint cleansing facial. But it is Millie’s own free service that she pushes the hardest.

  Millie directs Kippie Lee’s attention away from Lute’s ringlets and to the last line on the menu:

  FIND YOUR PATH. Consult with a nondenominational pastoral counselor about the meaning of your life.

  I edge in a little closer for maximum eavesdropping and see Millie studying Kippie Lee’s face with an otherworldly intensity that makes Kippie Lee pull back and ask, “What are you staring at?”

  “You are sad. You are very, very sad. You are sad in a way that even the best figure and biggest house in the world will not make any better.”

  Kippie Lee looks spooked.

  Perfect! Millie is coming through. She was highly resistant to the whole idea of me prepping her for some maximally effective pastoral counseling sessions. I argued that, given how little time she had with the ladies, wouldn’t it help to know their deepest, darkest secrets? Millie had ethical questions with this approach, but I went ahead and gave her the scoop on all the ladies anyway. She listened to their backstories with the proviso that she would not use any of my intel unless she felt the “tingles” that meant a person needed her help. I told her not to worry about tingles; these gals needed so much spiritual healing, she was going to think she’d been electrocuted.

  And, obviously, that is exactly what is happening.

  “Could you give us a moment alone?” Kippie Lee removes her foot from Lute’s lusty grasp and rereads the description of Millie’s service: