Dug For Victory: Poems from RIP-TV Page 6
This comes from rather late in the novel (chapter 19 of 22) and takes place in 1988, in the desert outside Palm Springs, California.
The girls took the good seat, facing front, and rode in silence. Emma Jasohn sat curled against Vivienne Helm, apparently sleeping, Helm’s left arm around her shoulders. Helm looked out the open window into the black night wind, the blue moonlit desert. She was unspeakably beautiful. Emma stirred.
“You are cold, Wolfie?”
“No.”
That was the extent of the dialogue until they turned into the long uphill drive, from one snaking ridge of which Helm pointed out the window at their destination, a green and white glow in the midst of a huge darkness. After hearing so much about its modern architectural awards: “Oh,” Emma said. “I thought it’d look more like a spaceship.”
Helm smiled and ran her lips over Wolfie’s hair. “No. Only an expensive house.” Next she addressed the seat opposite, smilingly: “I am thanking you now, Arg.”
With exquisite care, Arg Argyll relaxed a self-defensive posture quite startling in its rigor and suddenness, its instinctivity; Vivvy’s attention was fearsome, it felt like—that is, to experience it at close quarters was to come face to face with and to know—a physical threat, as from wild beasts. “For?”
“One hour. And I’m not dead. Thank you.”
What was the nature of the threat? Strangely impersonal—although not completely. If Vivvy acted on the threat she’d have her reasons but there wouldn’t be a reason Why. Already deranged as a child, at nineteen she was nuts, a tormented young superwoman driven mad, perhaps, although Arg rarely said so, by having been forced to play on bleeding feet throughout her first three professional years on The Tour, because of a shoe contract. “You’re welcome.”
In the meantime Arg like any other sentient being could only shake the head over Emma Jasohn, Girl Masochist; Swarthmore co-ed or no, only one major God-given talent away from a daily life of getting knocked around by band members and other less interesting people than Vivienne Helm, whom she had found out like a heat-seeking missile—this much was clear. She licked Vivvy’s jaw and spoke to her adoringly:
“That hemipeenie wouldna hurt you, Helm.”
“I know, Wolfie.”
“It’s just—meat. And you’re you.”
“I know, Wolfie. I know.”
Arg, who’d be calling their semifinal match tomorrow for national broadcast, wondered how well this exchange boded for the quality of play. Arg was inclined to think, Not very.
Cookie Toms, who would be joining Arg in the booth, agreed one hundred percent. “I mean, look at them. Just—look.” Why Cookie Toms should feel the need after nearly two continuous hours of the behavior to call attention to it, one more time, nobody knew; but she did. Maybe she’d found fresh meaning: “All I’m saying is, at some point this has to become about preserving the level of competition. Because without that, the reputation of the sport is.” But she’d already said that. She trailed off.
Assuming they’d been allowed to get a word in edgewise, everyone in Cookie’s part of the room had heard and said a lot by now about the reputation of the sport—and except for how two of its foremost young champions remained clasped in a slow dance on a wide-open dance floor in full view of a slowly circumambulating spectatorship of select celebrities, show business insiders, rapacious fan-page photographers, frustrated hostesses and a fascinated catering staff; and how the underage pair combined to smell like a dire Tijuana distillery accident; and how their midsections now and then met and fell to grinding in a manner more appropriate to a juvie hall jamboree—all this excepted, things looked terrific for the reputation of the sport. Really, peachy. Never better. Cookie and her fellows saw Emma Jasohn, who displayed a seeping bandage wrapped around her upper serving arm, slip a hand inside Vivvy Helm’s blood-stained thousand dollar blouse to caress the abdominal muscles thus revealed. By the time the girls had arrived Freya was long gone, which meant they couldn’t ask her. Nobody else knew what to do.
Emma felt completely relaxed. They’d walked in and the whole place had been misty with cocaine, forbidden to both, so they were just dancing. Helm, tall in her boots, was a wonderful dancer and this was the best party. Nobody bothered them at all. Emma liked the bronze reflections in the picture windows. Though the movie stars, who were plentiful, were mostly very leathery skin-wise, she liked them, too. She liked everything where Helm was. Her neck tickled.
“Helm, stop licking that—you’ll get sick.”
“No. I like it.”
“That figures.” She held her, one hand stroking bare skin. Young Marvin Gaye was playing on the terrific sound system. “Helm, is Lala’s name really Lara?”
She was still for a moment. “Ah. Lara. This is your girl, Wolfie, no? Your dead translator.”
“Yes, Helm, my dead translator. No more venom.”
“I love you, Wolfie, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” It was, naturally. They danced again, slow, to a classic. “So, is that her name?”
Helm smiled down at her, bemused. “It’s okay you don’t know, Wolfie! No, she has an Indian name no one is ever pronouncing, it’s too difficult. Lala is, this is like her actress name, I think?”
“Stage name.”
“Ja this is a stage name for her. All you had was kissing with Lala? You didn’t talk at all?”
“C’mon Helm, I didn’t have her since puberty like you, I only had a few days—we talked all the time, though.”
“Yes? What did you talk about?”
“You. Mostly.”
“Ah.” She looked like such a grownup, smiling down. “Now I believe you.” Emma swayed in her arms.
“I think she’s in love with you, Helm. I think that’s why she takes so many pills.”
“No,” said Helm. “It isn’t.” Now Helm wanted to know. “Did you invite her to your Coney Island?” She felt her heart would never beat again until she heard the answer.
“Oh. No. I thought all the crackheads around there would be a bad influence or something.”
“Ah.”
They danced. The other party guests milled around them. Kevin Costner very much wanted a dance with Emma Jasohn but it appeared to be out of the question. He brooded.
The house jutted out from a cliff face, making from the patio terraces a steep drop to the desert stones far below; they danced among the stars on a floor laid in space. Helm felt perfect. Everything she had achieved—as if the world she wanted had hurried to fit itself around her limbs. This room, she had summoned it. “Hmm?”
“Did you do that with Lala?”
“Do what?”
“What, what we did in the desert, Helm. What you did to me—did you to that to her? Too?”
Helm understood and shook her blonde head. “No, no Wolfie, I cannot, no one can. Other things but not that, never. Lala is always remaining a virgin. She has to be.”
“Huh? Why?”
Helm shrugged, a little. “It is, I don’t know why. Something from her father’s people, I think it comes. Lala’s Law.” Helm remembered. “Aversion, she calls—she didn’t tell you?”
“Lala’s Law?” Emma’s eyes widened. Lala had not told her this. Helm almost laughed:
“This also you never spoke to her—”
“Listen, Helm, you know I don’t care about that in a woman. But what about—what if there was Emma’s Law? Huh? I didn’t notice you asking me about my law. I mean, maybe I have a law, too—I mean maybe I did!” Helm grinned, reached into her pocket and shook the polished rattle in Emma’s upturned face. “You think you got it all figured out, Helm.”
“Yes. I do.” She ran the rattle ridges up and down the long, venom-collared throat. “I want you again,” she observed. “Emma.”
“Oh. Okay.” Emma was eager to explore the rest of the house, they were certain to find a private nook or even a secluded sofa, she figured. “There’s probably.” She felt Helm take her other hand and lead it to the custom tailored seams between her legs, as fine and firm as the ridged veins on a daylily petal; Emma’s fingers traced the way to the base of the zipper and back, fantastic needlework. “Helm. The room’s fulla movie stars. They gotta be able to concentrate on learning their lines—you’re not being nice to them, baby.” The shark came out and did a backflip. “Oh, you like that.”
“Hey girls!”
“Oh hey, Cookie Toms! What’re you doing here?”
“Why!” Helm exclaimed. This was her contribution. “Why!”
“It’s okay, Helm, I need to talk to her for a second anyhow.”
“Fine!” Helm stalked away in the direction of alcohol. Emma made to follow but Cookie had her by the left elbow and wrist and was walking her off the dance floor in another direction. Legendarily small with the strength of a pit bull, Cookie told Emma to watch her language; plus it was time to go. No, they hadn’t just gotten there.
“But we didn’t even talk to anyone yet!”
“Good!” Cookie really thought so. Emma didn’t understand the rush, she hadn’t even eaten. She wasn’t leaving without Helm—no, she wasn’t. She flashed her full preparedness to make a scene. That this punk thought Cookie Toms had time in her busy life for such a development was an insult, and a laugh. She said so.
Now one of the hostesses stepped up in hopes of having a word about coming to Hollywood but Cookie waved her off with such vehemence that she walked away wordlessly defeated, only handing the girl her gorgeous blood-stained jacket—vintage Third Edition, too bad it had a button missing. This hostess sighed. Emma Jasohn could have anchored an action franchise.
Maybe.
Helm reappeared, holding two glasses of champagne. She stopped a few feet off, drained one, and spoke:
“Cookie, don’t you have a woman for your own tonight?”
Emma turned and walked out of the party.
Cookie Toms had spent the previous 48 hours in Idaho, coping with an emergency at her son’s residential school. When she’d left Palm Springs earlier in the week, the papers had been full of poor Man McKinley and the man she’d wed beneath her (literally) in more or less flagrante delicto, Puerto Rico; in simultaneous and far less shocking news, the current US Open champion had appeared to be dating Lala—and doing so, what’s more, to everyone’s relief, in the appropriate manner: a close public friendship. As Cookie recalled, Lala’s player biography at this time had her dating an aviator. The two earthbound buddies had done their trick practices, Lala versus Lala, like manna on manna more like: the press dished it out and the public devoured it. Leave it to Lala. All had been well. Cookie had left.
Now this was happening.
She and Emma Jasohn stood outside on the gravel near a sunken spotlight and some agave spears, waiting for Cookie’s limo to come up from the idling area on the mesa’s lower ledge. The girl was furious and not listening to Cookie’s answers to her pointless questions. Cookie was here in Palm Springs to call the weekend’s matches, Cookie had been somewhere else all week, it didn’t matter: “You wanted to talk to me about something?”
“I’ll tell you later.” Emma sniffled and spat. “Hey, where’d Arg go?”
Cookie, who was not inclined to state the obvious, which was that Arg was still inside the house on the lower, party level, getting very coked and drinking heavily, said she didn’t know. “Arg is an odd bird,” she did concede.
The kid sighed and kicked gravel moodily with one red pump. She asked Cookie where she was staying; Cookie said with a friend in Palm Springs, an old friend. In fact the situation was a well-known, complicated one involving Congress and adultery. Emma didn’t have a clue: “Oh,” she said. “That’s nice.”
“No. Not nice.”
Emma spun around in a fury. “Go away, Helm! Go back inside, leave us alone!” A look of frank amusement crossed the other’s face as a scything sweep of brass and denim missed it by centimeters. “You think this is funny? Huh?” Helm nodded and drained the other glass of champagne; which made six, on top of the rattlesnake venom and sexual arousal. She was in orbit and Emma was livid. “I told you about my Party Rules, Helm—I told you!”
“Ja!” Helm threw back her arms together and let the champagne glasses fly: one, two, cheap coupes, not flutes, they shattered somewhere among the ornamental rock and cactus gardens fronting the home. “You told me! So?”
“So? Look what you just did, Helm—now someone’s gotta pick all that up and you know it’s gonna be some poor Mexican who probably won’t even have gloves. You—jerk!”
“We give them gloves.” The other hostess, from the doorway. “Very nice gloves.” It was true; they did well there.
“Goodnight and thank you for a lovely evening,” Cookie called. Emma glared in agreement and the big carved door swung closed. Then she brought the glare back to Helm. “What the hell is wrong with you, huh? You coulda had me for the whole night!”
“Still I will have you.”
“No, still you will not—I told you.” She shot a look at Cookie and lowered the volume a fraction. “I told you, Helm, I told you one rule—no, you’re the one that’s stupid, Helm, you’re the stupid one, because I told you all you had to do.” She paused but kept the forefinger going and Cookie had to marvel: courage or idiocy, either way it was peerless. It was like watching a brain in a jar get uppity with a mad scientist—any moment now Vivvy Helm would just lift her up and send her to where the bad champagne glasses go; Cookie really didn’t know what to do. “It’s like—it’s like—” The kid sought words as Vivvy locked and loaded in the manner of a human thunderbolt. “It’s like you did it on purpose, Helm!” Her voice fluttered the long blonde bangs. “Did you?”
Helm breathed heavily, then all at once subsided. Apparently disoriented, she touched her eyebrow and stammered “Wolf—Wolfie, don’t.” Emma went in very close.
“So you’re telling me you started getting all drunk so I’ll have to leave before I can meet any movie stars to take me away from you—is this the story, Helm?”
“Be quiet, Wolfie.”
“Is it?”
“You know. Yes—oh Wolfie, I don’t know.”
Emma couldn’t believe it. And now Cookie’s limo had arrived, sliding up in a tide of light. Helm stood there looking pathetic. She looked like she was wearing her mother’s clothes. Emma felt her heart clench, as if her heart were squeezing itself in its own fist. Her voice came out shaking:
“You think I would be with a movie star, when I have you. You think I need a dead reptile skin to remember you by—when I have you. I’m serious, Helm, what the hell is wrong with you? Fuck—I’m leaving.”
She turned to go and Helm grabbed her. Emma cried out sharply and her knees buckled. Then she went down. Instantly Helm was on her own knees in front of her, one fist full of bloody bandage. Cookie Toms raised a hand to her mind: it had all happened so quickly.
“Oh! Fuck!” Emma was in real distress, her eyes watering. “That hurts!” A nearby sunken spotlight gave the wound a blackened, livid cast. “Wow.”
“Oh Gott Wolfie I hurt you.” Helm stared.
“Oh no this is from before—it’s definitely healing, it’s just in this light—”
“No. No, before, when we—I’m remembering this. On the rock.”
“Your rock, Helm.”
“Oh Wolfie.”
This was a mess. “C’mon, baby, you know you’ve got no left hand to speak of—it’s okay.” Gently she took away the bandage, Helm let it go and Emma buried it in gravel. “I’m fine, really. Hey, Cookie, you got first-aid in your limo?” Of course the driver had first-aid; there were sharp rocks and cactus plants and drunken celebrities and steep under-lit driveways all over the place around here. Emma stood and guided Helm up by her elbow.
Helm wanted to resist; she wanted to dig in the gravel. She wanted that bandage back, she did. Helm felt herself resist the pressure of Wolfie’s strong left arm, pulling her upright. Self-knowledge staggered her; then a wave of arousal knocked her sideways. She was a psychopath. Her mouth dropped open and she almost screamed. Wolfie’s eyes were unreadable in the lights as she spoke to her:
“Well, come along then.”
“No, Wolfie, I can’t. You’re right, Ilya and everyone is right. I can’t be with you.”
“Okay!” Cookie Toms was satisfied. “Fine and dandy—let’s go, Emma.” She stepped into the limo.
“No, you can come, Helm.”
“But I’m no good for you, I break your party rule, I break everything—I hurt you, Wolfie.” Helm would go and live in a hidden cave, solitary, quarantined. “You don’t want me.”
“I want you okay, Helm. C’mon. You can come with us.”
Shaking and inebriated, the German gazed broken heartedly at the horrific arm wound. Cookie drew and released breath. This was going to be the worst semifinal match in the history of recorded play. Fortunately the first-aid kit had a big enough dressing. Emma poked her head inside the limo to inform her that Helm liked the facing front side, so could Cookie please move? Just this one time, Cookie did: what cared she? Emma darted into the seat beside her and called:
“C’mon, baby, get in. It’s okay.”
Zombified, Helm obeyed. She faced them as Cookie applied bandages by the light of the roof lamp. All of them could clearly see the bruises imprinted by long fingers—hers—around the wound below Wolfie’s serving shoulder. With the limousine in motion, already it was too late to jump out and run away. She wanted to—into the black night she’d run and run, they’d never take her alive:
“Huh—stop. Stop.” Her voice sounded weak. Cookie’s response, pitched unsympathetically, was prompt:
“You need to throw up, Vivvy?”
Emma said, “Probably.”
“No!” Helm managed a little force.
“Then cool it,” said Cookie.
Helm frowned hard out the window. That the greatest champion of all despised her, she had always known; it didn’t feel great. But Cookie was right, everyone was right about her. Even Wolfie had known. She hurt people. She’d hurt Wolfie. She was a dangerous person—her mind was sick, sick, with its sickening lust. She could never touch Wolfie again; this had to be over. Before she hurt her even worse and had to go to jail. All good feelings had to go.
“Listen,” said Cookie. “We’ve gotta come up with a story for this arm injury, pronto.”
“Huh?”
“Arg says Vivvy attacked you.”
“Arg needs to get a life.” The kid’s look was sullen and displeased. Vivvy, expressionless, in dead tones, spoke:
“Yes. True. I did.”
“You did not, you stupid idiot! Gigi Cheese! Look.” Emma turned her frank and open face to Cookie Toms. “What happened was, we were sorta having.” She couldn’t remember what it was called. “You know—fight sex. Fighting sex.” It was like Middlemarch was destroying her brain cells at a furious rate, like in groups of ten.
“Rough sex?”
“Yes! Thank you—yes. Except for then Arg just like poof! You know. Appeared. But this is what happened—not an attack, Helm.” Who wasn’t listening.
Cookie centered and fixed the last strip of tape. “So you’re saying, the story is you hurt your arm having rough sex—”
“Trying to have. Attempting.”
“With Vivvy.”
“With Helm, yeah.” She smiled, closing the sale. “True story in Bangladesh. C’mon—you done?”
“Yep.” Cookie dropped the tape back in the kit.
“Great—thanks.”
“My pleasure.”
Emma threw herself into the seat opposite. “Okay, here I am,” she informed the reigning Wimbledon champion, who flung both arms around her lap and burst into tears. “Hey Cookie, couldja turn the lights out—yeah, that’s better.” Cookie remembered now: Vivvy Helm could really cry. “Listen, Missus Toms I mean,” the girl continued, raising her loud voice to be heard, “you don’t like that version to put on the air, suit yourself. I’m only telling you the truth. I mean it was an accident, just say it was an accident, leave it at that—Helm, I’m sorry I called you a stupid idiot but you are.” The sobbing blonde wailed and Emma answered: “Yes you are you are you are.” She was stroking her hair.
“Bicycle!” Cookie cried. She’d just remembered, this had happened before, the last rough sex injury hadn’t been long ago, really. “We’ll say you fell off a bike. Cut it on a rock in a bike accident. Perfect.”
“Oh,” said Emma. “Whatever. Okay.”
Cookie blinked behind her famous glasses with the green frames. “It’s plausible, right?”
“Sure.”
Cooke wanted to cover all the bases. “You do know how to ride a bike.”
“Well, I mean, how hard could it be? Hey! Keep crying!” With her fists she pounded on Helm’s back like a log drum, harmlessly: “You should keep crying! Look what you did—we could still be dancing! You got all that cash on you, we coulda gone out to dinner or gone to a movie or anything! We coulda had steak plus lobster, you stupid jerk! Cry! I didn’t even eat—no, Helm, the rattlesnake was an appetizer, that was appetizer course only!”
Helm wiped her face on the tropical skirt and lay back with the comfortable lap under her head: “Oh, Wolfie. Even a bicycle you don’t know.”
“I know enough.”
“No. You don’t.”
Cookie Toms agreed about that. Emma noticed the skylight and inquired; Cookie was happy to open it for them, with the push of a button. In the sudden silvered brightness Vivvy smiled, kissed the fingers of her right hand and touched Emma’s mouth, she stroked her lips. “So,” said Cookie. “That’s settled.” There was a great deal else to talk about, however; Cookie did a preparatory throat clearing.
“Oh, Missus Toms! That’s what I wanted to talk to you about—I got another prospect for you, a girl down in Texas with a quick serve. You gotta go take a look, she’s got a huge future in doubles: Doreen Fanta. She’s the one I almost killed her father.”
“Uh-huh,” said Cookie. “I heard. Freya says you have regrets because you didn’t.”
“I do!”
“Don’t.”
“But he’s a menace, c’mon—listen, ask Arg about the guy’s mother, okay? He’s like outta some bestseller psycho and thanks to the cow fuckers in blue down there he’s on the loose so I gotta get—fine!” Emma signaled with both hands, indicating clearly that she didn’t want to hear any part of the Police Are Our Friends speech again from Cookie Toms, who nonetheless replied:
“Police departments across the country are sadly underfunded.”
“Yeah but the cops are eating really well so, you know, that’s what matters. Listen, this is what—I wanna send you down there to this place it’s so flat you won’t even believe it, with, like, some money to get the family outta there before the dad comes back. Really, it’s a mission of mercy and it’ll be like, two birds with a stone cause then you’ll see Doreen and you know I have an eye for talent, Missus Toms—did I steer you wrong on Theodosia?” Cookie had to admit, she had not. “You can get her into a tennis program, she’s like fourteen, the perfect age—and her brother, too, I think maybe he’s a great player—”
“Ah,” said Helm. “The brother. Your lover.”
“No that’s the other brother, Helm. The player is Diego, he looks like—he’s super-duper handsome. They’re half-Mexican. Dash is the oldest, he’s mine. Dashiell—named after Arg! He’s kinda big.” She smiled and in a ridiculous accent almost chanted: “Dashiell Canaanland Fanta.”
“Shut up, Wolfie!”
“Hey, who am I with—him or you?”
Cookie liked the sound of half-Mexican: it was always good when The Tour could find a way to liven up the color scheme a bit. And this kid did have an eye for the next big thing. “I’m intrigued,” said Cookie. She was. But other topics pressed. The future of women’s professional tennis, for instance. “About this match tomorrow,” she began.
“Him you love, not me.”
“That’s right, Helm, and I was saving myself for him so, you know, thanks a million.”
“He’s big!” Helm mocked.
“You better believe it, baby. A great big Tex-Mex brooding cowboy.”
“Ah. Macho.”
“Uh-huh. Plus artistic—he’s a photographer.”
Helm paused. “Huh.” She found that interesting—more interesting than their quarrel about him, which she dropped and forgot immediately. She mused upon the starry view, her mind on nothing in particular: just, it was interesting. There was silence, she realized. “What? Why are we quiet?”
Emma said, “Gawddamnit. You’re gonna steal my boyfriend.”
“What is this?”
“You’re a man thief.” Like a giant baby, smiling up at her. “Gimme the belt back.” Helm burst out laughing.
Cookie formed a query, a good introductory one: she wanted the story on this famous and really quite beautiful belt buckle at Vivvy’s waist. Here was her chance to ask—but it wasn’t.
“Oh!” Helm shouted and tried unsuccessfully to sit up. “Wolfie!”
“What?”
“Six hundred dollars they were charging me in Giorgio Armani for this belt—only the leather!”
“What!”
“I couldn’t believe it!”
“Never for this, Helm—this is cheaper than the first one.”
“I know!”
“This is worth fifty bucks, tops.”
“Twenty!”
“Well.” Emma didn’t know about that. “But for goodness sake, Helm, you’d think Giorgio Armani could’ve thrown in the belt considering how you were packing ‘em in for the matinee.”
“Yes. What?”
“Drawing a crowd, Helm—bringing customers through the doors, exposing them to the merchandise through art.”
“Yes and while we’re on the subject,” said Cookie. The rebirth of burlesque also needed to be spoken of, as something that shouldn’t happen again. “Speaking of that—”
Now Helm managed to sit up, briefly. “You’re right, Wolfie. They should be paying me.”
“It’s true, Helm.” Emma considered. “Though what you shoulda done is charge the people coming in to watch, you know? And then pay for the clothes with that. Like, a cash basis.”
“Yes. Shoulda.” Reclining again, Helm sulked. “You. Wolfie. Shoulda.”
“I’m sorry baby you know I can’t be two places at once.”
“Be quiet, Wolfie.”
Emma was examining the belt again. Cookie Toms was the one struck dumb. “I dunno, Helm, I think this could be worth a hundred.”
“Not dollars, Wolfie. No.” Emma wanted Cookie’s opinion but the older woman only shrugged. She’d once paid eight hundred dollars in Giorgio Armani for a belt with a buckle inferior in quality to those she’d grown up wearing from Woolworth’s; she’d told the story of this purchase countless times; she wasn’t going to tell it now. These girls were vicious.
“So you paid that, Helm, for this belt?”
“No—no, Wolfie. You’ll see—always there will be bargaining in these places.” Cookie Toms disagreed: other places, yes; not in America. Again she kept quiet. “So they were writing four hundred.”
“Whatevuh.”
“I know.”
“Gee, Helm, I’m really sorry that happened to you that you got overcharged hundreds of dollars in Giorgio Armani.”
“It doesn’t matter, Wolfie, I’m rich.”
“Yeah but every little bit helps.”
“Not so little as this.” She smiled and touched Emma’s vest with the back of her hand. “You’ll see,” she said again.
“Oh baby you’re so drunk.”
“No.”
Cookie was curious. “How much did you pay for the suit, Vivvy? Helm? I mean?”
Helm laughed. She would never tell a thing like that in front of Wolfie—it would be offensive. “A million dollars.”
“Oh! Man! I knew it.” Long fingers stroked the black lapel with reverence. “That’s cause it’s lined, though. Plus the rush tailoring.”
“Wolfie is mine, Cookie.” Helm told her. She sat up and enunciated. “Em-ma. She is mine.”
Cookie said, “Uh-huh.”
“She belongs to me.”
“Sure, Helm. Whatever you say.”
“Know it.” Helm lay back to rest her eyes on the passing starlight view while Wolfie ran long fingers through her hair.
“She’s really emphatic,” said Emma, after a pause.
“Yeah,” Cookie agreed. “And you’ve got the bruises to show.” She reached for the left cheekbone and Emma jerked back, annoyed. “I take it this is the one from where you called her a Nazi.” Cookie hadn’t been present for that episode and she wished she had been. No, she didn’t. The damaged girl from Brooklyn sneered:
“Oh please.”
“Nigger please.”
“Niggah, Helm. Niggah.”
Cookie cried “Hey!” But no sound beyond a rush of breath emerged from her throat which remained paralyzed by shock at what she’d just heard: dumbstruck, again, she watched as Helm raised the backs of her fingers to Emma’s mouth and Emma caught them and kissed them and returned their joined hands to the belt buckle. With a growl, Helm curled up on her side with her back to Cookie, imprisoning Emma’s left hand between her legs, and appeared to fall asleep. But she was barely faking. The ambidextrous American who continued to caress the blonde head in her lap smiled and spoke confidingly.
“Helm saved my life tonight, Missus Toms.”
Cookie Toms who had written fan mail to the Reverend King from adolescence didn’t know how to reply. She found herself remembering those illustrations in which warty witch faces hid or feathered braves knelt camouflaged among the pen strokes in a scene of schoolchildren building a snowman, dancing in a ring, tumbling down a hill. All night long she’d heaped blame for the present fiasco on the perverse, mentally unstable German player—but now Cookie Toms had spotted the Native American. Because look what this honey-eyed little sexpot had done to poor Vivienne Helm! Who had devolved, over the brief course of the Southern United States winter season, from a proud, aloof, fearlessly competitive champion and just maybe budding international role model into a full-fledged freak, a shuddering, appetite-driven creature taking exhibitionistic pleasure under the stars in the hands of this unbelievably bad girl from Brooklyn; of course. Cookie came from Queens. “You know,” she said at last, “you two have got to stop making such a spectacle of yourselves.”
Emma retorted, “What spectacle?”
“It’s bad for the game.”
“What game?” murmured Helm into the depths of Emma’s lap.
“Yeah, she’s right—ooh—she’s right about that. Cause we are the game, the two of us, you know, we’re in the fucking semifinals—oh don’t lick baby I didn’t have a chance to get this cleaned, you could get tee-bee or something. I mean, we’re the game, Cookie, I mean, Missus Toms.”
Helm moaned in accord. Cookie said, “You are not.”
“Are to.”
“Get this straight, Emma—both of you. The game is bigger than the players. You two could disappear tomorrow and it wouldn’t make one bit of difference to tennis, believe me. In the scheme of things, you’re just as expendable as anyone else.”
“Expendable? What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Is that a death threat? The fuck—are you hearing this, Helm? The schema things?”
“Kill her, Wolfie. Kill her before she kills us.”
“I should.” Emma looked around. “Oh baby it’s all bright again, I think we’re back in Palm Springs.” The German raised her face, winced at the streetlights, and returned lapward.
Back and forth Cookie watched the contents of the picture flip: two Apaches on the war path; no snowmen. One girl was pure and the other one defiled her and both girls played both roles. They took turns defiling one another’s purity. Cookie, frankly, couldn’t remember whether the adolescent behavior involved here was normal or not, what with the research being so constantly contradicted and updated all the time, thank God for feminism; she didn’t care, though. She didn’t like it. Temperate and sweet romance she would have welcomed, Cookie supposed—in truth, in her wildest dreams Cookie wished for some nice, smart, presentable, clean-living young lesbians to join The Tour and demonstrate by the utter absence of drama-damage in their lives that the public had nothing to fear, that lesbians were not to be feared, because they were normal. And nice.
These girls weren’t those nice lesbians, though. Not by a long shot.
Cookie pondered the problem before her. She was neither a prude nor a fool. Players on The Tour tested other women’s physical boundaries, by nature, by definition, as a matter of course—it was their job. Their power, their physicality in one another’s presence, stood as an affront to many, even most versions of feminine propriety; their appeal derived from this fact, in no small measure. Even here, even now, in America, near the end of the twentieth century, watching bare-legged girls dash to and fro in fierce competition felt naughty enough to act as a powerful ticket sales tool. Yet even as it titillated, Cookie believed, women’s tennis educated a world public in the ways of social advancement. For instance, in recent memory, Freya’s popularity hadn’t suffered when she’d come out as a lesbian—if anything her show of nerve had gained her many new fans. Here, clearly, tennis had helped lead the way toward the planet’s acceptance of some lesbianism. Partly thanks to Freya but also thanks to The Tour, for not banning Freya for life, humanity had been tested and had passed with honors—it could take it. But so much more lesbianism, all at once, and so openly, between such top young players: the readiness of anyone for this one-two punch was questionable. Whether The Tour itself already had as much lesbianism as it could take was in question; the capacity of its sponsors, not to mention a global audience, to absorb an enormously large amount of additional new lesbianism also presented some serious questions. Here came another: would parents, persuaded of the link—like something put out by the CDC—between tennis and lesbianism, begin to steer their daughters towards soccer and lacrosse in preference and in such overwhelming numbers as to check the development of the sport among Earth’s astonishingly numerous lesbian-hating societies for years and years and years to come? Wasn’t that what was really at risk here? That these two irresponsible, arrogant girls—both wacko head cases, by the way—possessed between them nuclear capability sufficient to destroy and obliterate professional women’s tennis in a mammoth scandal-blast of shame and revenue-shedding? Would even its past be forgotten, and all its storied champions go unsung, if this affair went much further? These questions, probably others, were hugely in question. Indeed, the possibility arose that these girls weren’t only bad for women’s tennis—they might be just as bad for lesbianism. Honestly, Cookie didn’t know where to begin. She heard Helm take a shuddering breath through her teeth and say, “Mine.”
“Stop,” Cookie said. “Stop it right now.”
“It’s,” said Emma.
“It’s what?” asked Cookie.
Other than trying to be helpful, Emma didn’t know. “I dunno.” She listened as Cookie gave an order to the driver to stop first at the Renaissance; Cookie always knew where all the girls were staying. Now Helm extended her limbs, stretched, sat up, shook her mane: it was like watching a large wave gather and crest, Emma had to blink as the bright hair splashed her face. “You feel better, baby?” There was no answer; although Helm spoke:
“Where are you staying, Cookie? Where is your—your friend’s house.” Now Helm smiled. “We will drop you.”
“I don’t think so,” said Cookie. “I’m dropping you. This is my limo.”
“No,” said Helm. “Our limo.” Emma gave a laugh and started looking out the window. She laughed again.
Cookie looked at them agog. “Are the both of you out of your fucking minds? I’m Cookie Toms! I won almost three hundred career titles—you can’t take my limo!”
Helm said, “Tell us where are you staying Cookie or we are leaving you here on the street.”
“Helm, we can’t do that—there’s no cabs around here.”
“So then she can confess, Wolfie. It’s simple.”
“You can’t have my limo! Emma! Tell her!”
“What?”
“Tell—tell her she can’t have the limo—tell her it’s bedtime, you both need to rest, you’ve got a big match tomorrow.”
The girl paused, fixing the translation in her mind. “Helm. How come you want the limo, baby? Where we gonna go this timah night?”
“I want to take you back in the desert, Wolfie.”
“Oh.”
“Where it is better.”
A rush of mad desire sprang through Emma’s skin and surged around the vehicle’s interior like heat lightning. She gulped, and spoke. “Oh. Okay.” Unobserved, behind smoked glass, the driver reached towards his rearview mirror and grasped the dangling rosary in gratitude.
“No!” said Cookie. “Not okay! Not okay!”
They were coming up on Helm’s hotel now and Cookie Toms was making a big mistake, noisily expostulating about what the hell was wrong with Helm’s brain—as least this was how it sounded, so, very insulting. Helm was getting mad, Emma could tell; but Cookie was too mad herself to notice certain details, such as great physical peril. Emma leaned forward and addressed her a little imploringly:
“Missus Toms, just give us the fucking limo—you can get another one really easy here.” They were circling towards the door, pulling up under the porte cochere. Still Cookie refused:
“Get out of the car, Vivvy!”
“No.”
“Missus Toms, please!”
“You get out, Cookie.” Helm’s voice was flat, menacing. “Missus Fake. Missus Fucking.”
“Are you getting out or do I have to throw you out?”
“Helm. No.”
Now Emma held and half-sat on Helm, pinning her to the seat in a tangle of legs. It had all happened very quickly. Cookie Toms was unharmed but she’d just had a flashback to the last time she’d been in an occupied horse stall—except the horse hadn’t excelled at youth soccer and it hadn’t been in high-heeled boots. Cookie felt a little lucky to be conscious. Ray-Ray; that had been the horse’s name, Ray-Ray the Kicker. Leaning close across the limo floor, she made a miniscule measurement gesture with forefinger and thumb in her assailant’s face:
“I am THIS close to getting you sent to a psych ward, Vivienne Helm. Because I could—and don’t think I wouldn’t!”
Helm reared back and spat past Emma’s shoulder, spittle ran down Cookie’s glasses. Cookie fell back, stunned, she was physically fearless but this was too much for her. Emma laughed out loud:
“Helm! That’s—don’t spit on Cookie Toms, she’s an institution, she’s like our Hirosheema, she’s historical to us. C’mon baby, don’t be this way, don’t give in to hostility now.” She kissed and stroked Helm’s face. “We had such a nice time tonight, didn’t we? I did.” Cookie thought this kid had seen too many Kim Novak movies or something, she was like a mutant in this day and age. “I’m serious, tonight with you was just—oh, Helm. It was practically the nicest time I ever had in my whole life. Please don’t spoil it for me, baby, please. Be nice.”
Emma could feel Helm’s body relaxing bit by bit and her own self pouring out to fill the softened space; she was aroused and her body was chasing after Helm’s wherever they met. She stole a kiss, then another, tasting salt traces. Then as if over the lip of a thumb-springed dispenser, like warm boysenberry syrup, Emma poured the rest of herself into Helm. Who finally smiled and kissed her throat and held her comfortably.
“Do you want me to be nice, Wolfie?” There was a brief, unsuspenseful silence. “No. You don’t.” Helm caressed her. “Come into the desert with me, Wolfie.”
“I.” Emma let her eyes slide closed to heighten the sensation of flying. Safe in Helm’s arms she soared. Helm flew and lifted her into the night, up to where the Moon only need whisper Don’t Go for Emma to hear; while far, far below, by way of adieu, Palm Springs expressed itself in written light:
P-A-R. Party Rules. Party Rules.
Emma blinked. “What time is it?”
“Who cares?” Helm answered unhelpfully.
“I gotta be home by midnight.”
Cookie Toms’ watch face glowed at the touch of a button. “Ten of.”
“Whoa!” Startled into action, Emma slid eel-like through Helm’s arms and was outside the limousine in a single smooth motion. In another, she stripped off her underpants to raise and dangle invitingly beneath the bright marquee. Helm dove out of the car in pursuit and snatched them from mid-air where Wolfie had tossed them, Wolfie who was already back in the locked car when Helm turned around; but she was lowering the window.
“Not nice,” Helm told her.
“Oh c’mon. I give you such a present.”
Tangling her fingers in the silk, Helm slipped everything into a trouser pocket to soak there. “Ja,” she replied in a rough voice. “Which you know I can take for myself. Better.”
“But baby isn’t it better to get them outta my own free will?”
“No.” She leaned down towards the window. “It isn’t.”
“How come I can’t sell you on this argument, Helm?”
“Never. You never can.” Helm felt her fingertips grow slippery and she breathed. The girls looked at each other. Emma almost got out of the limo again but she made herself sit there: Helm knew. Her face relaxed into a half-smile and came further through the window. “Stop trying.”
In two days at her son’s residential school, Cookie’s nerves had seen a lot of practice; now, adroitly sidestepping rage, she’d managed numb to practical in five or so easy paces. Already she’d wiped her lenses clean on the tail of her costly raw silk blouse (leaving scratches) and was more or less prepared to let Vivvy off the hook with an apology; which, however, she very much wanted. “I think I deserve an apology, please.”
Having forgotten Cookie’s presence Helm looked in the direction of her voice with mild surprise. Emma chimed in: “Go ahead and apologize to her, baby, you know she’s a proud woman.”
“That’s right—I am!” Cookie was.
“Yes. Proud Cookie. I apologize to you, proud Cookie. Please take your proud limo and go. Home to your proud husband—in Denver, no? Please, to your closet in Denver—go proudly.”
Emma clucked her tongue. “You’re the worst apologizer in the world, Helm.”
“What can I say?” she murmured, taking her hand from her pocket. She traced Emma’s lips with two wet fingers. This was a sacrifice. She watched intently as Emma gasped and her eyelids fluttered. She spoke her name.
Fact: Vivvy Helm was a beautiful young woman. It struck Cookie Toms hard, here and now, that what it would take to resist her, few people had lying around. The player from Brooklyn brought neither jot nor tittle of the necessary skill set to this situation. Emma was sunk. She was a goner. The thought flashed through Cookie’s mind that Helm was cheating—and no one could ever say how, nor remark upon the fact that it was really rather diabolical. Safe in the protective glow of her Wimbledon platter, Vivvy Helm was made of Teflon. The gypsy girl licking Vivvy’s fingertips was just kind of shiny. This looked bad for America: it really did.
Read More:
Famepunk: Part 1 US Open 1987 (2011)
Famepunk: Part 2 Middlemarch (coming May 2013)
Websites and other ways to order:
www.rip-tv.com
www.famepunk.com
Other books by Liz Mackie::
Selected Shorts from RIP-TV (Blurb 2005)
The Happy Valley (CreateSpace 2009)
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