by Hal Ackerman
“And what would be the downside of that?”
“You want to use my body as a vehicle to have virtual sex through a character you invented with a woman you think I had intercourse with after she was dead.”
“Too intimate?”
“I wouldn’t know who I was making love to.”
“It’s never who we think it is anyway.”
Her soft, supple skin, her desire for him, the scent of the sage, his exhaustion all wove an erotic blanket that snuffed out the fire of reason. He brought her to him. He felt a jolt of electricity as her nipples pressed into the flesh of his chest. From across the courtyard Watson began barking like a hoarse, frail lunatic. Stein catapulted himself from the embrace and ran outside, tucking his shirt into his pants as he stumbled out of her apartment.
Which is what Lila saw from Stein’s front steps.
I T WAS HOT as a Gila in heat in the desert, but it was frigid in Lila’s Acura even without the air conditioning. She had stared straight ahead for seventy-seven miles without speaking, without needing to pee, without yielding to Stein’s repertoire of annoying pranks, which in the past had succeeded in extracting her from the periodic funks into which she was prone to fall.
Earlier that day, fearful that Stein might leave for the desert without her if she were late, Lila had gotten a quick trim and set but had foregone her manicure, had dressed with what for her was wild haste, had the gas tank filled, the oil level and air pressure checked, and arrived at Stein’s apartment fifteen minutes early. On the way over she had telephoned from the car and gotten his machine, which intensified her anxiety. She was overwrought when she arrived and did not notice that his car was parked across the street. She had knocked and rung the bell and gotten no response but for Watson’s disoriented barking.
She did not knock at Penelope Kim’s door. Lila had made clear to Stein that she was not as big a fan of Penelope as he was. What Stein perceived as Penelope’s loopy mysticism, Lila viewed as lazy, magical thinking. Where Stein saw non-judgmental, all-accepting youthful exuberance, Lila saw an immature lack of awareness. And Lila also thought that Stein’s tacit approval of Penelope’s hedonistic lifestyle sent the wrong message to Angie at an impressionable age.
Stein had to laugh when he saw the look on Lila’s face as he stumbled across the courtyard pulling his pants on. “I almost wish it were what you’re thinking,” Stein said. She had slapped her car keys into his hand without looking at him, uttered her only two words for the next hundred miles. “You drive.” Ninety minutes later he pulled into a rest area that contained a string of twenty luxury clothing outlet stores, cut the engine and reached for her hand. “We’re not married, Lyle. I don’t want you to be miserable. We don’t have to prove we can endure an ordeal. Let’s just go back. Or you can leave me here. I’ll get a cab.”
Lila refused to respond. He backed up to turn the car around.
“I thought you had to see somebody.”
“It’s really not worth your being so unhappy.”
“You can fuck whoever you want to,” she snapped.
“That’s not entirely true in practice, but I appreciate the sentiment.”
“I don’t hear you denying it.”
“I would, if I thought it would help.”
“It would, if I thought you were being honest.”
He turned the engine on so the air conditioner would work. “She’s working on a script and she likes to pick my brain.”
“Well, that makes more sense than her being physically attracted to you.”
Stein felt that she was mollified and that the siege had lightened. “I’m just speaking hypothetically,” he said, “but some young women do like older men.”
“Older rich men, Stein.”
“You think money is the only attraction?”
“No, I’m sure that flaccid skin, diminished sex drive, and increased risk of prostate cancer are all major turn-ons.”
Stein extended his arms to her and she allowed her head to be coaxed onto his shoulder.
“Just explain what our relationship is,” she lamented. “We’re not lovers anymore. We’re not colleagues. We’re not business associates. We’re not related. We’re not clients. What the hell are we?”
“What about flovers?” Stein offered.
“Flovers?”
“Friends-Who-Used-To-Be-Lovers.”
“Are we not the two most pathetic beings on the planet?”
“We’re up there.”
“T HERE IT IS.” He looked down and sighed. Palm Springs lay before them, wedged into the mountain pass like a tracheal tumor. It represented to Stein everything that was wrong with America. Conspicuous consumption. Privilege and entitlement. Start with the name. Palm Springs. You had to say it in Italics. Like everything else liquid and verdant sounding around Los Angeles, it was a lie. The Palms were imported from Florida. And the Springs? Without the trillions of gallons of water it plundered from the Colorado River it would rank among the six most inhospitable climates on the planet. The theoretical temperature/misery index stayed consistently above one-seventy for eight months out of the year, and with an annual rainfall of less than an inch, its natural ecology supported but two indigenous creatures: the red-rimmed scorpion and a leafless, rootless, anaerobic cousin of sagebrush. Yet the median value of a home was upwards of three million dollars and it boasted more banks, more large American cars, and more golf courses per capita than any other metropolis in the world save that other bastion of democratic ideals, Kuwait City.
Lila’s mood had vastly improved. “I like it,” she smiled. They drove slowly through the commercial main strip of town, passing a succession of restaurants, pottery shops and real estate offices. “Don’t take this as a criticism,” she said, “but you never actually told me why we’re here.”
“It’s a surprise. I’m going to make up for all the times I’ve ever disappointed you.”
“We’re staying all month?”
He slowed down as they approached a beauty shop where a crowd was waiting to get in. But it wasn’t the name he remembered. “I’m looking for a beauty shop called Pavanne,” he said. “Have you heard of it?”
“Have I heard of it? Is that some kind of joke? Stein, I have told you about it a hundred times. It’s where all of my pampered, trust fund girlfriends go.”
“Good, then you’re really going to like this. Using all of my influence, and cashing in a shitload of important favors, I have arranged for you to have your hair cut and styled by Mister Paul Vane himself.” Stein waited for the round of applause. Instead, her eyebrows caved down in the center.
“Stein, this hits an all-time low.”
Truly he did not understand her reaction at all.
“Did I not tell you that I just this afternoon had my hair done?”
“Yes? So?”
“So? I cannot have my hair done twice on the same day!”
“Why not?
“Just tell me you’re not being serious and I’ll play along with you.”
“I really don’t get it.”
“You don’t get it? You don’t get why you cannot have hair- I’m not even going to talk to you about this. Just drive.” She folded her arms across her Givenchy blouse.
“I think you think I’m doing something bad to you on purpose… Suppose I said Wolfgang Puck was going to cook for you, would you tell him you’d already eaten?”
“I’d puke if I had to, and if you knew in advance we were going to Puck’s and let me eat anyway, I’d puke on you.”
“So I should have told you.”
“YES. So I could have cancelled my appointment with Rene.”
“Ok. All I’m just saying is, since Paul Vane has never seen you, what difference does it make if his starting point is your hair the way it is now, or the way it was this morning?”
Lila blanched. “Is there something wrong with it?”
“No! That’s not at all what I was saying!”
She flipped the v
anity mirror open and obsessively scrutinized her coif. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“I’m not not telling you anything.”
“I get frightened when you use double negatives.”
“Fine. I admit I have ulterior motives for bringing you here.”
“Thank God. At last!”
Every time she made Stein laugh it reminded him how much he loved that she could surprise him.
“This is the actual truth of why I’m here: The people who hired me think Paul Vane stole some of their shampoo bottles. I have to ask him about it and I thought he’d be more easily diverted if he were working.”
“So you brought me along as a decoy?”
“That and your air conditioning. And of course your scintillating company.”
“Nice afterthought.”
He mistook her irony for compliance.
“So you’ll do it?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Really?”
“I’ll change my life for you, but not my hair.”
The green art deco awning had been a landmark on the corner of Indian Wells and Sirkont for twenty-six years. Some people thought its name, Pavanne, derived from the courtly French dance. Those in the know understood it was a contraction of its proprietor’s name, Paul Vane. At its peak of popularity in the Reagan-Bush decade, Pavanne employed eight full-time cutters, two colorists, a facial practitioner, an herbal nutritionist, a receptionist, a bookkeeper and two custodian-stockperson-intern-trainees. One of whom, Michael Esposito, had become Paul Vane’s inamorata.
Stein and Lila were greeted at the door by the proprietor himself. Stein guessed that Vane was close to sixty, though he was very elfin. His skin was pulled taut across his delicate facial bone structure. His eyes were without guile and looked reverent when he looked up, which was almost always, since Vane was barely five foot four. He wore a maroon shirt that clung to his meticulously trim body. Even at rest he seemed to be constantly in motion, like a hummingbird whose wings flap at 4,000 beats per second just to hover. When Stein introduced Lila to him he threw his arms around her and squeezed hard. “It’s so good to finally meet you,” he exulted. “You are all that Charlotte and Rita ever talk about.”
Vane released Lila and alighted in front of Stein. “I’ve heard nothing at all about you,” he swooned, “but it’s all been fabulous. Come in!”
The decor of the salon had the decadent feeling of faded French elegance. Pictures of Southern California’s blue-blooded ladies graced prominent spots on the walls. Vane enthralled Lila with tidbits of gossip about the Presidential First Ladies he had done: Nancy Reagan (“Ronnie’s mom”), Barbara Bush (“A political breeding machine”), Roslyn Carter (“The only woman who ever came out of here looking exactly the way she looked coming in”). He ran his finger lightly along the perimeter of Lila’s hair. “I see you’ve been to Rene Douglas.”
“Really? Can you tell?”
“It fits your face perfectly. The man should be knighted.”
“Maybe you can give her a little trim,” Stein suggested. “Like an autograph signature.”
“We’re not here to have my hair done,” Lila abruptly announced. “We’ve come under false pretenses.”
“False pretenses. My favorite kind,” Vane exulted. Then he shrunk in mock horror and grabbed Stein’s forearm as if to forestall a faint. “Am I being audited?”
“I’d like to speak to you about Michael Esposito,” Stein said quietly.
He looked around wildly. “Michael? Do I know a Michael? Doesn’t ring a bell.”
“Your former business partner and intimate companion?”
“Oh, you mean Miss Espe,” Vane exclaimed with an exquisite mixture of self-deprecation and world-weariness. And for the first time he sounded like what he was-a man at the end of middle age who had suffered one more disappointment than he could endure.
Stein looked down directly into Vane’s troubled eyes. Gay or straight, pain is pain. “Is there a place where we can talk privately?”
Vane’s private retreat was part gymnasium, part French kitchen. Giddy laughter accompanied the pop of the cork as Vane cracked open the second bottle of chilled Fume. He kept a mini refrigerator alongside his Pilates machine, and Stein noted that both appliances had been well used. He had lived through the worst of everything, seen death often enough and at close enough range to clear his eyes of bullshit, and it had made him a reliable barometer. His only problem was the same as everybody else’s. He fell in love with the wrong people.
He had been fooled at first by Paul Vane’s Scarlet O’Hara excesses. But Vane was a solid citizen.
In the preceding forty-five minutes Stein had had all his pre-judgments about Vane dispelled and all those about marketing confirmed. It was about making people feel horrible about themselves and offering the product to save them.
“Let me see if I’ve retained any of this,” said Stein. “Manufacturers of designer products like Espe distribute only to exclusive salons. They don’t want discount drug chains to sell their goods at a cheaper price-God forbid the public should benefit.”
“Amazing,” Vane praised him. “The man has perfect retention.”
“I knew that, too.” Lila pouted.
“Of course you know it,” said Paul. “But we expect it of you.”
Lila was sitting on the pommel horse. The first glass of musky amber liquid had gone straight to her head. The second had whetted the warm spot between her legs and put her censor to sleep. “You should see his closet,” she giggled. “Three pairs of jeans that he still calls dungarees. Two sport jackets, previously owned. And no air-conditioning. How can you marry a man who doesn’t believe in air conditioning?”
Vane refilled their empty glasses. “That’s just what she needs,” Stein said.
“Do you think I’m smashed?”
Stein leaned over and kissed her on the forehead.
“Thank you. I’m sober enough to recognize the most patronizing kiss I’ve ever received.”
“I love this woman,” Vane exulted. He went on to outline the marketing plan that had been devised to create the maximum buzz around the release of Espe New Millennium. Only one salon in every area would be granted the license to market the product.
“Luckily you’re connected,” Stein said.
“One would think.” The sigh that Paul Vane let out could have changed the atmosphere of Jupiter.
Stein perked up, catching a glimmer of the unspoken truth. “Are you saying he didn’t choose you?”
“C’est la guerre. C’est l’amour.”
“The dirty little rat,” Lila shot.
“I bet it was that other place we passed,” Stein remembered the long lines. “They seemed to be doing a land office business.”
“Not all of us are in land,” said Vane.
“It must have hurt you not getting the franchise.”
“Why would I be hurt? Just because I took the little trollop in? Gave him a home, gave him love, made him a reasonably civilized human being, taught him the business, taught him all of my secrets, and as a reward he left me and marketed the things I gave him freely? Why would that hurt?”
“I only meant financially,” Stein murmured.
“Of course. I forget that straight men can make the distinction.”
Time had worn thin some of the zeal that Vane had once possessed in defending his lover’s transgressions. Only a frayed inner grace still remained. “Young men don’t know what love is,” Vane said. “If any of us ever do. Yes, he hurt me, but that’s what people do who are inexperienced in the world. It’s up to those of us who know better not to hurt back.”
“That’s very evolved of you.”
“When you’ve lived as long as I have, you’re lucky if the worst thing that happens to you is that a lover leaves. At least the little shit is enjoying himself.”
“I’d make him suffer,” said Lila.
“I love this woman.”
Stein declined having
his glass topped off. Lila accepted. “You knew Nicholette Bradley pretty well,” Stein ventured.
“God yes. The poor angel. Can you imagine?”
Vane nodded toward the gallery of photographs on his wall of celebrity clients. Prominent among them were several of her Vogue covers and layouts for the old New Radiance shampoo ads.
“Do you have any idea who could have done it?” Stein asked.
“It’s too ghastly to think.”
“No enemies? No rivals?”
“You couldn’t do anything but love her.”
Stein nodded ruefully. “True.”
“You didn’t know her,” Lila scolded.
It was a long shot that Vane would supply something helpful. He was just a bystander, like Stein, a victim of collateral damage. Stein felt the irrational desire to hug him. “We’ll be out of your hair in a minute he said. No pun intended. I just need to hear you say, so I can tell my boss, that you are not hijacking any shampoo.”
Lila had become Vane’s staunch defender. “Stein, that’s rude and ridiculous.”
Vane was feeling wicked himself, or flirting, or showing off. “Why would I steal what I can make right here in my sink?”
Stein had a bad premonition. “What are you saying?”
Vane extended his arms to them both like an ambidextrous courtier. “Would you like to see the plant?” He conducted them into a smaller room that was painted white and furnished with laboratory sinks and copper tubing. Shelves and cabinets were lined with retort jars containing all manner of exotic ingredients: dried and freshly preserved orchids, berries, buds and small twigs.
“Anybody can make what is essentially Espe New Millennium shampoo. It’s not the formula that’s copyrighted; it’s the name and the packaging. Ninety per cent of the products on the market have the same ingredients.”
Stein marveled when reality outflanked irony. “Are you saying that anyone could brew up a vat of Espe shampoo but they couldn’t call it Espe because Espe doesn’t exist outside its packaging?”
“That is the million dollar secret.”
“More like twenty million,” Stein observed.
“Probably closer to four hundred million worldwide. But I just make the bare necessity to satisfy my regulars.”
