Diary of a Jetsetting Call Girl

by Tracy Quan

  “I mean, Milt has a very nice house,” I said, “but I don’t want you going back to New York with identifying shots.” I’m responsible for what Allie does while she’s here. God! It’s really like babysitting.

  “The Document I’m Creating,” Allie intoned, paused, had some more wine, “has-nothing-whatsoever-to-do-with-Milt-or-this-house.” She set down her glass. “This IS a nice house, but wait’ll you see this cave! Mary Magdalen’s final dwelling. I’ve heard that it’s the size of—the size of a small townhouse! Like a duplex! Have you seen the pictures on the web?”

  “No,” I admitted—impressed, despite myself. “This is all news to me.” That’s a lot of real estate for a single woman! “But … didn’t you take a picture of Tini today? Inside this house?”

  “No! I was just showing her …” Allie sipped some more rosé, avoiding my gaze.

  “What were you showing her?”

  “How many pictures I had left on the camera.”

  Strange.

  “But you hardly know her.”

  Allie looked confused and uncomfortable. “I—I know I hardly know her!”

  “What were you doing in there?”

  “I told you! I was showing her … I was just showing her how the camera works. I don’t know. It seemed like a good idea at the time,” Allie said in a high voice. “She seems like such an interesting person! Is there some reason why I can’t befriend another sex worker when I’m in a foreign country? Is it a crime for two sex workers to fraternize? Sex workers all over the world are divided by borders and laws, but we still have the right—-”

  “Allie, please, this isn’t a press conference! Sometimes, it’s not a good idea to ‘fraternize’.” I poured some more wine. “Did you two exchange numbers?”

  “Of course not!” Allie said. “Why would I do that?”

  “You looked awfully chummy, and you were just ranting about your right to befriend someone five seconds ago! Why WOULDN’T you exchange numbers? I need to make sure you don’t do something that will create a problem for me. Or Milt.”

  “How would I do THAT?”

  “Well, you just never know. There are too many variables. Do you understand?”

  “I guess so.” Allie looked lost now.

  “Okay, look, if Isabel hears that you and Tini exchanged numbers, she might get the wrong idea and think it’s all about me going over her head. If she thinks I’m trying to cut her out by dealing directly with Tini, that’s a huge problem for ME. Look,” I pleaded with her. “I don’t want Isabel to stop taking my calls! I just started doing business with her, and she’s an important contact. I’ve had some bad experiences, okay?”

  That meltdown with Trish—I still haven’t recovered from it, but I don’t want to go there with Allie. It’s too embarrassing. I allowed her to think I was remembering some hellish incident from the long ago past when I was a junior call girl.

  “Well,” Allie said, in a shaky voice. “I can promise you that Tini and I weren’t exchanging numbers—and if we did, it wouldn’t be for business! I wouldn’t lie to you about that!”

  Then why is Allie so jittery?

  OMG. How could I be such an insensitive, sexually naive, clod??

  Allie has a crush on Tini. I’ve never known Allie to be hung up on a girl, but I suppose there’s a first time for everything. And perhaps, well, she feels shy about telling me something so … unconventional? Yes, this might be a little more than Allie was prepared for emotionally. Despite all her radical posturing.

  Anyway, Tini made it very clear that she’s not into girls.

  Oh no. Is there something in the Provençal breeze? My unrequited hots for Duncan. Allie’s sudden infatuation with a pre-op tranny who won’t give her the time of day.

  Well. These inappropriate longings are like hundred dollar bills in the hands of a runaway teenager. They come, they excite you, they’re gone within a week. Or a day, if you’re lucky.

  It’s nothing another glass of rosé can’t fix. We both needed a day off from Milt!

  Tuesday morning, July 16, 2002

  … But perhaps did not need this hangover. Where did I put the Prontalgine?

  Still, I’m glad that Allie and I have decided we can stay for another week. We work well together, she uses condoms the same way I do, and I know all her faults and her quirks.

  A visit to the retirement-grotto of Marie-Madeleine! Perhaps the mountain air will do us both some good.

  And Duncan has promised to stop at the cibercafé before we head out for the massif de la Sainte-Baume.

  Tuesday, later

  I didn’t expect the road from Nans-les-Pins to Plan d’Aups to be quite so challenging—and I wasn’t even driving! Duncan, of course, was equal to the challenge. I, in the back seat, tried to reduce my anxiety by making light of it.

  “I can see why people might prefer to travel this road by donkey—if they had a choice,” I told him.

  “Yes,” Duncan agreed. Once again, I was staring at the back of his neck admiring his neat hairline—but this time, it was to avoid looking out the window. “Imagine what it must have been like during the transition from mule to motorcar,” he said. “Sort of like being able to choose between DOS and Windows, when both platforms were in use.”

  “Omigosh!” said Allie. “It’s really steep!” She lowered her window, and faced the breeze. Gazing out at the sky she pointed toward a pale building on a distant windswept plain. “Do you think we can stop at that Benedictine hostel?” The building she was pointing to was about the size of a thimble. “It’s soooo inspiring! To be so high up! I wonder why there’s no railing, though. Shouldn’t there maybe be a fence here? I mean, look how close we are to …”

  I looked away from the sky, wishing she would shut up, yet hoping to sound magnanimous. “It’s really amazing,” I said, “how much you know about this area. I mean it’s your first trip to the south of France.”

  “Oh!” Allie simpered. “It’s not so amazing. And Mary Magdalen is our patron saint, after all.”

  “You’re sure about that?” Duncan spoke in a flat, noncommittal voice.

  “Sure about what?”

  “Your patron saint.”

  “What do you mean?” Allie turned to face him but he—to my relief—didn’t reciprocate. He was focusing on the road.

  “She’s also a patron saint to hairdressers,” he pointed out. “There’s a lot of debate about the Magdalen’s identity. The details of her life are unclear.”

  “Are you saying that Mary Magdalen needs to be rehabilitated?”

  “No,” said Duncan. “I’m not.”

  “Well, that’s what it sounds like.”

  Why is Allie taking this shrill tone?

  I, staring down the side of the hill, didn’t feel this was appropriate. There was a sheer drop and Duncan was about to make another sharp left. Now is the time to agree with every opinion the driver’s ever had in his life, about everything. On the other hand, Duncan’s quite socially skillful—he didn’t actually express an opinion just now!

  I cleared my throat and tried to change the subject. “These things are highly subjective, aren’t they?” I said.

  “Subjective?” said Allie. “Well, in my opinion, Mary Magdalen having a bad reputation is a GOOD thing. For everybody! Whether they realize it or not!”

  She’s being unnecessarily querulous, and needs to remember that Duncan is performing a valuable service here. Getting us up this winding mountain road! As he came to a sharp bend, we heard a horn. I looked behind, saw nothing and held my breath. The vehicle coming toward us. Let it be a small bicycle or at least not the size of a tow truck. A mid-size Citroën. It seemed to take forever for us to pass. When I opened my eyes, we were making another sharp turn.

  I tried, again, to get Allison out of this argumentative mode. “You seem very interested in the saints,” I said. “You’re not thinking about conversion, are you?”

  “Conversion?” Allie said. “What do you mean?” Best not t
o go there—don’t want to give her any new ideas! She turned to Duncan. “Maybe the monks at the hostel will let me take some pictures?”

  “The hostel is actually run by nuns,” said Duncan. “Benedictine monks took care of the cave for two centuries, but Dominicans took over the Magdalen enterprise in 1295. The Benedictines were chased out—evicted by Charles of Anjou.”

  “That’s terrible! Where did they go?”

  “Nobody seems to know or care,” said Duncan. “History is written by the sitting tenants. Dominicans were the next big thing.”

  “People were just—thrown out?” Allie looked horrified. “After taking care of her cave? For two hundred years?”

  “Mmmm.” Duncan was expressionless. “Supposedly, they left without a fight. Dominicans in, Benedictines out. That’s how it goes.”

  “The poor things! I wonder if they starved to death!”

  “A hundred years ago, some Benedictine nuns came back when that hostel was built, but the Dominicans control the cave and they keep the Benedictines in their place—at the foot of the mountain.”

  “Is this really true?” she asked. “Why are you saying these things about the caretakers of Mary Magdalen’s home?”

  “I have a feeling—” Duncan spoke very carefully “—that the history of Magdalen-worship isn’t as pretty as you might like it to be.”

  Allison became rather subdued, and didn’t speak to Duncan again, until we reached the parking lot of the Plan d’Aups snack bar, next to the Benedictine hostel.

  “So, ummmm, do you think any of the Benedictines will be able to, um, speak English?” Allie asked him.

  “I wouldn’t count on it,” he said. “Why don’t you let me translate?”

  Quel relief to be on flat ground again! The hôtellerie—no longer a thimble—is a big boxy affair, bright yellow brick with a red sloping roof. I watched Allie and Duncan disappearing through an archway, and found a corner table in the snack bar, where I could recover from the unsettling car trip and the remains of my hangover.

  A banal accordion tune—French folk Muzak—was coming from the overhead sound system. The perfect accompaniment for my thoroughly mediocre cup of tea. The cure for a hangover isn’t mountain air so much as mountain fear, followed by some stale tea and even staler music. The combo was strangely refreshing.

  After a second cup, I was ready for the trek to Marie-Madeleine’s mountaintop “maisonette.”

  But first: a voicemail from Isabel with scheduling possibilities for Katya—young, tall, Hungarian, “and very refined, like a 1950s supermodel.” And a message from Milt, happy to receive my news: “Excellent, kiddo! Glad you ladies can honor me with your presence. But things got a little screwed up here, and I have to stay another night. Tell Duncan I’ll be coming back in the A. M., will you? “

  Allie appeared at my table, carrying a stack of brochures—Pèlerinage à la Grotte, Fête de Sainte Marie-Madeleine—but wearing a sad frown.

  “They closed the footpath to her cave! For security reasons!”

  “Where’s Duncan?”

  “He’s making some phone calls for me. And talking to the nuns about—um—about the footpath.”

  That strange look again! Or did I just imagine it? She seems to be worried about something.

  On our way back to St-Max, Allie sat in the front of Duncan’s SUV, staring mutely at the pine forest alongside the N560, sighing occasionally as she fiddled with her cellphone. I closed my eyes and drifted off, grateful for silence. When I opened them, we were pulling into town, and Duncan was negotiating (with his usual deftness and civility) a minor knot of cars, pedestrians and mopeds around the Restoration fountain in the Place Malherbe.

  After driving up that treacherous road, to the tune of Allison’s whims, Duncan surely deserves a break. And a good meal. I’ve suggested taking us all to dinner at the monastery because it’s almost around the corner, a three-minute drive. He thinks we’ll have a better time in Entrecasteaux where his friends run a small restaurant called, what else, Lavande.

  “The roasted gambas—” he smiled when my eyes lit up “—are locally famous. If we leave early enough, you can visit the castle. Check out the local architecture. It’s very eleventh century,” he added. “And Allison’s curious to see the old church.”

  Later

  Dinner with Allie and Duncan, in a well-preserved, relatively unhyped, medieval village … seemed like the best idea I’ve heard all day.

  As we sat in the SUV, waiting for Allie, Duncan filled me in on recent history. “When the castle was auctioned off last year, the new owners agreed to allow daytime visits.” He glanced at his watch. “We might have to settle for an exterior view.” He looked at his watch again, with as little expression as possible, and raised his left eyebrow.

  “I’ll go upstairs and find Allison,” I said.

  When I knocked on her bedroom door, there was no response. Turning the handle gently, I listened for Allie’s blow-dryer. The room was silent, and the bathroom door wide open. No sign of Allison herself, but her suitcase—a kind of window to her soul—was lying on the floor, wide open. I spotted some Queer Diaspora T-shirts, two boxes of Trojans, and a battered paperback—A Vindication of the Rights of Whores—before I noticed the brochures and maps on her bed, her disposable camera on top of a half-open map. Feeling somewhat uncertain about my behavior, I stole a quick look at the open map before exiting my best friend’s temporary sanctum. It’s a very detailed street map, with purple arrows added, perhaps by Allison, and some unfamiliar, red handwriting—not hers. A map of St-Max? Or somewhere else?

  Downstairs, I heard Allie’s breathless voice. It was coming from behind the library door. “It’s a really steep road!” she was saying. “I don’t know. I’ll find out. No, I can’t ask him. I just can’t!”

  Who on earth is she talking to? I felt embarrassed about listening, and tried to compensate by rattling the door before I entered. The guilty look on her face surprised me.

  “I—I was just taking a quick look at something in here.” Here being a book on her lap, a glossy edition of The Golden Legend. “And then my phone rang!”

  I took a quick look at the carpet. My inner housewife feels almost guilty about spilling Astroglide while fucking Milt on that chair—though I’m the only one who can see the spot. As for The Golden Legend, I was mystified.

  “If we don’t leave soon, we won’t be able to see much,” I warned her. “Don’t you want to visit the church before it gets dark out?”

  “Yes!” she exclaimed, bouncing out of the armchair. “Let’s!”

  During our meal at Lavande, Allie’s interest in The Golden Legend became much clearer halfway through her first glass of rosé. I listened with half an ear, savoring the texture of the gambas.

  “Don’t you think it’s kind of a neat coincidence?” she said. “How Mary Magdalen landed at Marseille? So did I! And so will—” She paused, frowned, turned to Duncan. “Are you sure you don’t want some wine?”

  “I’ll just nurse my Evian, thanks.”

  “I had no idea Mary Magdalen was ever in Marseille,” I confessed. “Where’d you hear that?”

  “Mary Magdalen was in a boat with Maximinus and a few other people.” She picked up her wine glass. “Maximinus was one of the original seventy-two disciples—and the original Saint Maximin who settled here.” Amazing. Almost overnight, Allie has latched onto some quite specialized Catholic folklore. “They all landed at Marseille. According to The Golden Legend.”

  “The golden agenda,” Duncan pointed out. “Written by a high-ranking Dominican.”

  A cloud passed over Allie’s face. “Do you think you might be a little prejudiced? About Dominicans?”

  “I don’t have a dog in this fight.” Duncan refilled my wine glass, then Allie’s. “The Dominicans made themselves useful to Charles of Anjou. They suppressed local heretics, helped out during the Inquisition and squashed a social movement, but it wasn’t enough. The Golden Legend gave them a prestige that
wasn’t purely military.”

  “They squashed … a social movement?” The look on Allie’s face—sheer terror—made me recall my own feelings on that precarious mountain road. “Could they do something like that now?” Allie was gazing directly into his eyes, causing me to look away—embarrassed, yet grateful that she wasn’t bored.

  “The Inquisitions are over,” Duncan told her. “I recommend the linden soufflé. It’s Nora’s special recipe.”

  “Perfect,” I said, as Duncan looked around for the owner. “Let’s have three. I never share dessert.”

  All seemed normal during our return trip.

  As Duncan turned right, onto the N7, Allie piped up: “Let’s all have brandy by the pool!”

  Our last chance to drink freely before Milt, like Magdalen, alights at Marseille. At which point, Allie and I revert to our two-drink rule. “Excellent idea,” I agreed. “Duncan?”

  I was wide awake as we made our way back to the house, but must have had blinders on. I dashed upstairs to brush my teeth, checked my voicemail, then wandered downstairs to set up our after-dinner drinks in the kitchen. I switched on the pool lights, and noticed that the house was much too quiet. I found a bright orange napkin, large enough to function as table cover, and organized three glasses of Armagnac on one of the low poolside tables. My first domestic gesture in days. It felt good to be playing house again.

  I sipped some Armagnac and stretched out, under the black sky, on a sun chair. Could Allison be in the library? Double-checking the virtues of The Golden Legend? A familiar sound—hard to describe—made me get up. Cradling my glass, I walked past the rose garden, through the olive trees, breathing in thyme and lavender, remarking silently on all the competing scents.

  The SUV was parked in its usual place and Allison’s window was rolled down. What I saw was so shocking—yet normal—that my entire body felt betrayed. Allison, with her seatbelt still fastened, was holding onto the back of Duncan’s head with one hand. His face was buried in her neck—thank God he didn’t see me. I could tell, from the way he handled her, the things she said, that his fingers had slipped between her legs. She gasped loudly, moaned in a way that she never does when it’s business, and began kissing him, hard, on the mouth. He wasn’t resisting. He wasn’t teasing her. He was too hungry for that. How could you, I wanted to scream—but didn’t. And that’s when Allie opened her eyes.