If he was the laughing type, he’d be roaring at this point.
She concealed her irritation. “What kind of salary did you have in mind?”
“Tell me what ya lookin’ for.” He looked like a buzzard circling prey so helpless it already stank.
She said, “Oh, about eighty grand.”
He did a histrionic double take. “Grand is right, Your Majesty. We’re talkin’ grandiose.”
“Your Grace will do.” She gave him a full-wattage smile.
“I was thinking more like twenty-five.”
Good, she thought. Excellent. He was probably really thinking about seventeen.
She opened the folder. “Well, now, I’ve already given a little attention to your books.”
He snatched the folder out of her hands. “Where’d you get this?”
“Same place that high-priced service of yours gets it. You’ve got one, don’t you? You probably pay them twenty-five a year. I can save you that much just by doing your financial checks for you. So look— take that twenty-five and the twenty-five you just offered— I’ll do it for fifty.”
The amusement was gone now. He was starting to look dangerous. “You got some nerve, ya know that?”
Talba was wondering if she’d gone too far when a timid voice spoke behind her. “Mr. Valentino?”
“What is it, Eileen?” His voice was furious. Talba could see the woman wince, bracing for a temper that he probably didn’t bother controlling if he didn’t feel like it.
“I’ve got a call for Ms. Wallis.”
“Ms.… Ms.…” He seemed to be struggling to remember who the hell Ms. Wallis might be.
“May I take it here?” Talba asked coolly, and picked up the phone.
“Did I get you at a bad time?” It was Darryl.
“Couldn’t be worse. How’d you find me?”
“Took a chance. Listen, there’s no time to talk. I’m sending you a client. You got the job, I presume.”
For the benefit of Valentino, who was hanging on her every word, Talba said, “I see. You’re sending us a client.”
“Look, it’s a lady whose kid goes to another school. She just made a scene in the counselor’s office, and I thought of a brilliant way to get her out of here.”
“Uh-huh. What was that?”
“Suggested a hotshot P.I. Oh, shit, she’s yelling again. Listen, I’ve got to go.”
Talba set the receiver down, wondering what this was going to do to her negotiation. She decided not to go the apologetic route. Instead, she smiled and held out her hands. “Well. Looks like I’m a rainmaker.”
“You’re mighty damn big for ya britches, you know that?”
“Actually, I’m a little embarrassed about that— I didn’t solicit it; it just happened.”
“And how exactly would you define ‘it’?” he asked.
“A friend said he had a client for us. No details; no nothing.”
Valentino shook his head. “Well, I can’t pay you fifty thousand dollars.”
He damn sure could, she thought. She knew exactly what he was taking in. But she said, “Okay. Forty-five.”
Eileen Fisher appeared again. “Another call for Ms. Wallis.”
Again, Talba picked up. “This is Aziza Scott. Darryl Boucree called about me.”
“Yes, Mrs. Scott. He called, but he didn’t tell me what it was about.”
“I’m calling from the car. See you in ten.”
Valentino seemed hardly to notice the interruption. “Twenty-seven tops,” he said.
Tops, my ass, Talba thought, and tried not to think about what Darryl was sending them. She was starting to perspire, partly from fear, and partly from the realization that she was doing it, she was going to get what she wanted. “Forty plus benefits.”
“Of course benefits,” Eddie said. “Think I’m a piker? Twenty-seven and benefits.”
Several thousand dollars later, when they had finally shaken hands, a well-dressed woman arrived, nervously twisting the nice-sized diamond she wore. Talba breathed a sigh of relief— apparently, she was able to afford an apprentice hotshot.
Valentino was suddenly the perfect host. “Come in, come in, Mrs. Scott. Would you like a cup of coffee?”
The woman was tall, African-American, straight-haired, straight-nosed, and probably, if her clothes were any indication, straitlaced. She was dressed for the business world, and from the looks of her gray suit and gold jewelry, high up in it. Talba thought she looked like a bank officer.
The woman addressed herself to Talba. “Mr. Boucree seemed to think you’d be able to relate to my daughter.”
“Mr. Valentino and I work as a team. Excuse me a moment, will you? I’ll get another chair.” She was making it up as she went along, but it seemed to be working. The woman relaxed and sat.
When Talba came back with the chair, Eddie was already talking. “What can we do for you?”
“My daughter’s been molested.”
Talba gasped, but she kept quiet, taking a cue from Eddie, who shook his head slowly, murmuring, “Mmm. Mmm. Mmm.”
“The thing is, no one will do anything!” Scott sounded whiny and at the end of her rope.
“I’m so sorry.” Talba said, no longer able to contain herself.
“She still has braces on her teeth.” The woman was twisting a tissue, but maybe, just maybe, she didn’t seem quite as anguished as Miz Clara might have been in her situation.
“Why don’t you start at the beginning,” Eddie said quietly.
Aziza Scott took a breath. “I read her diary. I don’t like to admit it, but I didn’t know what else to do. She wasn’t acting right. Nothing made her happy all of a sudden— she was sullen and pouty all the time instead of only three-quarters of it.” She tried out a smile on this one, but none of the three of them had the stomach for it. “I thought maybe I could find out what was bothering her.”
Talba didn’t think this was a first, the thing with the diary.
“It was in there.”
“That she’d been molested?”
“That she’d had sex. Here. You read it.” She handed it to Talba, opened to a page with a section marked in yellow highlighter, and Eddie had no choice but to wait until she’d read it.
***
He picked me over Shaneel! Bet that’s never happened to her in her whole life. “You,” he said. “Come with me.” Just like that. As soon as we were in the bedroom, he said, “Baby, you beautiful. Anybody ever tell you that? You got a bottom like somethin’ out of the movies. You want me to rub your back? Come on. Let’s go over to the bed.”
Well! I’m embarrassed to write what happened next— stuff I never even heard of. Wow. I can honestly say he taught me things about my body I never suspected. Oh, yeah— all right! That part was real good. But it still hurt when we did it.
Why doesn’t anyone ever tell you it’s going to? I asked Shaneel and she just laughed at me. I wonder if it always does— every time, I mean?
At first I wasn’t going to do it. No way, José! Cassandra Scott from Catholic School? I don’t think so. But then, while I was lying there feeling like that, I just thought, why not? Why not do it with him? I’ve got to do it with somebody sometime, and he’s a grown man— been everywhere, done everything. Why not find out what it’s all about?
Anyway, I made him wear a condom.
***
Talba handed the diary to Eddie, and asked, “How old is she, Mrs. Scott?”
“Fourteen. And you see what she says about him.”
Talba said, “Statutory rape.”
“Not exactly,” Eddie said, “Louisiana law is tricky. Here, it’s called ‘carnal knowledge of a juvenile.’”
“But it’s still a crime. Why not go to the police?” asked Talba. Eddie gave her a look that told her not to rush things.
“Cassandra says she doesn’t know who the man was. I tried to get it out of her, and I did go to the police. They say they can’t do a damn thing without a name. Then I went t
o find that little bitch Shaneel, and the idiot counselor wouldn’t even let me talk to her. Goddammit, you see how frustrated I am? No one will do anything!” Talba remembered what Darryl had said about her causing a scene in the counselor’s office. She hoped it wasn’t going to be repeated.
Grasping at straws, she said, “There’s no name anywhere in the diary?”
“Oh, yes, there’s a name. Toes.”
“Toes.”
“My daughter had her first sexual experience with a man named Toes.” She twisted the tissue till it tore, and at this moment, her anguish seemed real to Talba. She didn’t care much for the name Toes herself.
Eddie said, “We need to talk to the girl.”
Scott nodded. “Might as well. She doesn’t talk to me, that’s for sure. But I don’t think it’s— I don’t want to be rude, but I really think she’d respond better to Ms. Wallis.”
Take that, Talba thought. Take that, Eddie Valentino. I’m the right demographic— young, female, and as dumb as the kid when it comes to guys. Scratch that. Formerly as dumb as the kid.
She was feeling magnanimous. Instead of letting Eddie do the dirty work, she jumped in ahead of him. “I’ll be happy to talk to her, but we do work as a team. Okay if Eddie comes along?”
“I guess it can’t hurt.” Scott didn’t seem happy about it.
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Magic Mirror
A Whim
I went to live in Paris on a whim. I’ve always had strong whims.
Danger and murder didn’t enter into my calculation, because there was no calculation. It was, pure and simple, a whim.
It isn’t that my life in Florida was unsatisfactory. I had my condo at Channel Point, and my rotund tortoiseshell cat Twinkie, and my column in the Bay City Sun three times a week. Naturally, being society editor, I had more invitations than I could handle— everything from the Rotary dinner dance at the country club to the grand opening of a convenience store on Route 98. A lot of people envied me.
I was close enough to Luna Beach to drive over and see Daddy and Mama pretty frequently. Of course, the talk around there was that I was fired from my job or disappointed in love, or both— preferably both. When the ladies at Mama’s women’s club tried to get her to tell them why I was moving to France Mama said, “I have no more notion than you do. I never could do a thing with Georgia Lee once she got an idea in her head.” And it’s true. She never could.
The real story is this: the top brass at the Sun were practically on their knees begging me to stay, once they realized I really was quitting. And as for disappointment in love, I had three ardent admirers at the time I chose to leave Bay City. I admit that two of them were married and one— a weasel named Ray— wasn’t worth a damn, but if I wanted male companionship, it was available.
Actually, I left Bay City because of Cecilia Driscoll’s daughter’s wedding. Since Cecilia’s husband owned an Oldsmobile dealership whose full-page advertisements ran regularly in the Sun, Cecilia’s doings were deemed extremely noteworthy by the powers that be. (“A whirlwind of a weekend chez Driscoll,” I would write. “Cecilia and darling daughter Debbie transformed the house on Rhododendron Road into a French Provincial bower for a brunch in honor of…” and so on.)
Cecilia started prepping me for the wedding months in advance: the church (Episcopal, naturally, although all Cecilia’s people had been hard-shell Baptists); the color of the bridesmaids’ dresses (pale lilac); the groom’s future employment (high school football coach). Is it any wonder I got a teeny bit bored with it all?
At Cecilia’s Christmas eggnog party she took me aside and said, in a conspiratorial tone, “Debbie has chosen Alençon lace for her veil.”
I was into my second eggnog, which was definitely more “nog” than egg. Straight-faced, I said, “Can I use your phone? I’d better call and stop the presses.”
I thought her smile was tight, but attributed it to her latest face-lift.
The wedding took place in April and I attended personally, my notebook tucked into my beige silk clutch. The occasion was typical, with stephanotis, princess necklines, and a toddling ring-bearer. Maybe it was newsworthy that the mother of the groom had a run in her hose. I had my photographer take some shots at the reception, and that was that.
I did, I admit it, get a giggle out of the picture of Cecilia. With her eyes half-closed she looked like Mama Toad instead of the mother of the bride. But truly, the others were worse. “Deliberate sabotage” is an ugly phrase, isn’t it?
The rest was in no way my fault. I turned in a perfectly respectable write-up, but in the next day’s paper three paragraphs concerning a marijuana raid were inserted, through an editing snafu, at the end of the wedding story. It read something like, “The Driscoll family’s out-of-town guests included… Joe Jones, who police said is wanted in Georgia for trafficking in a controlled substance; Jack Smith, recently released on bail on a similar charge,” and on like that.
You can imagine. As soon as the edition hit the stands Cecilia was in the publisher’s office. Did he back me up, apologize, smooth it over? After she stomped out he called me in, white as a sheet, and said Cecilia’s husband would pull his advertising if I wasn’t fired from the Sun immediately. I told him I hadn’t done anything wrong. He said maybe if I apologized she’d relent. I wanted to ask if Cecilia Driscoll was the boss around here, but the answer was obvious. I caved in and agreed to apologize. Then I left and went to the ladies’ room.
I stayed there a long time, gazing in the mirror. The greenish cast on my face, a reflection from the tile wall, made me look as sick as I felt. I remembered, suddenly and forcibly, that I was looking at my thirty-fifth birthday. From there, it was a mere hop down the road to the big four-oh. And where was I, and what had I accomplished? I was in Bay City, Florida, and I had accomplished getting myself into a position where I had to grovel to Cecilia Driscoll.
That’s when my whim started. I leaned over and stuck my face close to the mirror. “Georgia Lee,” I whispered. “Georgia Lee Maxwell.” Georgia Lee Maxwell, I realized, was not going to apologize to anybody. Furthermore, Georgia Lee Maxwell was sick of small-time aggravation. If I were going to have aggravation, I would have big-time aggravation.
I was leaving the Sun. I was leaving Bay City. The month was April. April in Paris. I was going to Paris.
Good-bye to Luna Beach
It wasn’t as farfetched as it may seem. Thanks to Mama’s ideas of refinement, I’d had years of French lessons from Mrs. Desirée Davis, a Parisienne who, by way of marriage to a GI, had ended up in Luna Beach. Because of her, I could read French pretty well. My speech I judged to be passable. Writing was different. I could struggle along, but I certainly couldn’t write the language well enough to go over there and join the staff of a French newspaper.
This was where Loretta came in.
We had been colleagues at the Sun some years before, Loretta covering fashion while I covered society. Then, through one of life’s ironies, Loretta went off on a trip that should have been mine and found a new existence.
The trip was to Atlanta. A Bay City majorette was entered in a prestigious baton-twirling competition there, and I was scheduled to go with her and write up her experiences. However, two days before I was supposed to leave I came down with a horrible strep throat and Loretta got to go instead. While she was there Loretta went to a Coke party for the twirlers and met a wealthy businessman named Wendell Walker, who was there representing one of the competition’s sponsors.
You guessed it. Six months later Loretta married Wendell and went off to live in luxury in Atlanta.
Of course I wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t come down with strep. Would I have met and married Wendell Walker? I tell myself I couldn’t have, since I was married to Lonnie Boyette at the time. (My high school sweetheart. He spent all his spare time in the river swamp, blasting away at innocent wildlife with a shotgun, and loved his bird dog better than he loved me.) Still, I might
have met Wendell, and we might have gotten married after I got divorced. It’s such an example of the Road Not Taken, isn’t it?
Eventually, Wendell was named CEO of his company and transferred to New York City. Loretta did all right for herself in New York. Despite being well-off she had continued to work, and after a while she ended up as executive editor of a glossy women’s magazine called Good Look. She never forgot her old girlfriend, either. When she wanted a story for Good Look that she thought was right for me, she’d call and offer me the assignment. I made a fair amount of freelance money that way, writing pieces about how to tone your calves and thighs by walking through beach sand, or making table settings using fishnet with conch shells and driftwood. At the time of my defection from the Sun, I was a fairly regular contributor to Good Look, which was why I felt I could call Loretta with my proposition.
Once I got her on the phone, though, it wasn’t as easy as I thought. She commiserated with me heartily about my troubles, but when I put forth my idea there was a good thirty seconds of dead air— at my expense— before she responded.
At last she said, “Well, Georgia Lee, I don’t… Have you ever been to Paris?”
I was miffed. “I certainly have. I went with Daddy and Mama when I was sixteen, and I spent a whole week there on my European tour.” (To tell the truth, it was five days, but I thought I had to make as strong a case as I could.)
More silence. I said, “I do speak the language. When I was there, I spoke to all kinds of people.” I remembered the conversation I’d had with the tacky-looking man who approached me in the Louvre. I’d understood his suggestions only too well, and after he’d followed me through a few rooms I’d been able to say, “Leave me alone or I’ll call the police” in perfect French.
“You know”— Loretta’s voice had a high, pinched quality— “we have fashion people on our staff who go to Paris twice a year for the couture shows, and the prêt-á-porter—”
“Naturally,” I said. I was being nice as pie, despite my growing annoyance. “I’m not asking to cover the fashion shows. What I’m offering is to do a monthly column about— um— other aspects of Paris.”
The 13th Fellow: A Mystery in Provence Page 22
