I IN THE SEMI-OPULENT aqua and gold ground floor suite at La Fonda Sur Rosa, Glenna and Brogan are dressed straight out of “Dallas.” You can almost see the cameras cutting in for closeups.
She’s reeking of Shalimar, the perfume she used to wear when she and Brogan were dating, and has on pencil-thin heels and a black suit with the new short skirt and gold metallic-cloth lapels. Her hair is in a lot of stand-up gold curls, and worn open and almost to her ankles is the Joie de Beavre fur.
Brogan you can hardly recognize. He’s got on this Bobby Ewing hairpiece called Alternative Natural Hair Addition and you honestly can’t tell it isn’t his. Where before he had that kind of bird nest that he was always patting to be sure was still there, this is thick hair that’s brushed to the side all loose and natural. Along with the hair he’s got a new gesture—I guess the Natural Addition freed up one hand—in which he grabs his chin in a thoughtful way. Definitely terrific how you believe what he says, where before you thought he was maybe bluffing. Now he looks like he thinks maybe you’re the one who’s bluffing, that maybe your check is the rubber check. Amazing.
Before everybody arrives, he takes his hairpiece off to show me. It’s about a zillion pieces of matching hairs threaded through this see-through plastic “scalp” that, as near as I can tell, is Velcroed right onto his head.
He jumps around to show me how it stays put.
“Even when he’s active,” Glenna says, “it doesn’t budge.”
And I know that means they gave it a heavy-screw test the night before.
• • •
Suddenly all at once men flood through the door, shaking hands with Brogan and heading for the bar. Those who spot Glenna sitting on the arm of a chair with her legs showing and the fur dragging the carpet get a peck if they’ve met her before, and if they really know her get a hug as well. The drop-ins and words-of-mouths and friends of friends nod at faces across the room to look like they belong, and Brogan shakes, claps, or nudges them all, because today’s crasher is tomorrow’s client.
The ones he knows are introduced to me, and the Model thing is working fine. I’m dressed in black with a lot of eye makeup and have moussed my hair so that it looks like early Farrah Fawcett. Exactly what guys think a model should look like. And I have on heels, too, because models are supposed to hit the six-foot mark. My mouth has got a lot of gloss and I don’t wear any jewelry—as if I’m on assignment. I’m completely into it, so that every time Brogan says, “You remember Jolene, our little niece, well I guess she’s not so little any more, now that she’s taken to being a fashion model, ha ha,” I hold out my hand and give them a knuckle-cracking shake.
The rancher types all think that’s great; you can tell. They all have some fantasy about a model. Maybe the buckets of money they think girls make, or the centerfold idea, something. I can see their minds supplying lots of details, and that’s fine. I’m on stage.
L.W. comes in after about half an hour and gives me a salute. Rather, gives me what a stockbroker would think was a high sign. Then, with a quick smile, looking like maybe he has overdressed for this crowd, he unbuttons his vest and loosens his silk tie. Perfect. He’s a pro.
Everybody gets a drink and then crowds around a table with an aqua cloth, courtesy of the motel, to munch on ribletts and surimi crab-claw analogs.
Across from the food, on another table, is this giant display that Brogan has rigged up of a cellular phone made to look like a gun. He saw in the paper a couple of weeks ago a picture of a couple of Arabs on the East Coast trying to sell the phone company on the idea, and mocked one up for himself. For this party. It doesn’t actually work, and he thinks it may be illegal, but it’s an instant stopper.
The men (and now there is a small group of women, too, in low-necked cocktail dresses and dangling earrings) all have to pick up the gun phone and put it to their ear, their head, point it at each other, then break into belly laughs.
Below the display, Glenna has hand-typed about fifty sheets of paper where the customers can sign up at the bottom if they are interested in seeing a demonstration of the gun phone when it’s actually operative. SIGN HERE FOR GUN-PHONE DEMO a big sign says, propped against a quart of Jack Daniel’s.
Everybody signs. Some of them sign up partners who can’t be there, or bankers they know will take it as a joke, oil prices being what they are, or maybe enemies that they think will fall over dead at somebody walking into their office with this black gun thing.
It’s a real conversation piece. The pee-say dee resistance, Glenna says.
And, except for the demo, Brogan is not doing any selling. No cookie king flyers; no cocoa photos. He’s acting like he’s having a big time giving a party—no expense spared, only the best—for all his good clients. Maybe he’s going to deduct the party on his income tax, but nobody faults that. The main thing is that nobody feels pressured. Nobody feels that this is in any way a squeeze. So they all relax and get another double and talk about the subject dearest to their hearts: the mess Texas is in.
“Great party, Brog,” someone says. “I’ve had four fingers and nobody’s breathed a word about Chapter Eleven for five minutes.”
A man in a plaid jacket says, “The only thing in this state that’s making money is cul-chure.”
“You taking ballet?” Brogan asks, to loud guffaws.
“Houston, let me give you an example, is paying one bunch of million dollars to bring down two hundred and fifty pictures of that hotshot Wyeth’s girl friend.”
“If I painted two hundred and fifty pictures of some naked little lady my wife would cut off my hand to the elbow,” says a fat man next to him.
“That’s not all she’d cut—”
“I mean second, she would.” More guffaws.
“Let me tell you about Fort Worth, another example here. Fort Worth, Texas, has got a several-million-dollar campaign to fix up their stockyards. Make them into the Williamsburg of the West.”
“I heard Williamsburg was itching to be the Cowtown of the East.”
“I heard Fort Worth got the new paper-money plant in-stead of Dallas.”
“Little d could use some of that mint green about now.”
“What I want to know is,” says the man in the plaid jacket, “What’s San Antone doing?”
“I’ll tell you what San Antonio, the third largest city in the third largest state in this U.S. of A., is doing—”
“You’re behind a census. Make that the second largest of the second largest.”
“—in exactly twelve months’ time we’ll be home to a brand-new Sea World, that’s what.”
“That’s not culture, that’s tourism.”
“In six months we’re going major league with a domed stadium.”
“That’ not culture, that’s sports.”
“That’s not sports, that’s hearsay.”
“What about the fifty-three-million-dollar HemisFair Plaza hotel complex, what do you call that?”
“Real estate.”
“A scam.”
“I’ll tell you what San Antone is doing for culture,” says the fat man. “It’s building a six-million-dollar Fern Barn. Don’t laugh. We’re talking about connecting your Botanical Gardens to a fifty-foot palm house plus a sunken room for tropicals, plus a free-form reflecting pool, plus the whole shebang which is architect-designed and trapezoid-shaped out of your glass and metal, is going to be partially underground. Now that’s culture. While little d Dallas is busy getting itself a few more busted banks, our town here is acquiring for itself a one-of-a-cultural-kind commodity.”
A silence falls. Nobody knows what to say to that. A Fern Barn?
Brogan decides it’s time to bring out his wad of twenties and riffle the folded stack, and he does. Peeling off two with out looking and pressing them into the hand of a waiter who walks by carrying a fresh bucket of ice.
• • •
I get a glass of soda and steal a glimpse in the mirror over the aqua sectional sofa. It takes me a minute to recognize myself, and that’s good. Behind me I see L.W. and give him a smile, but he’s listening for all he’s worth to some entrepreneur talking about fire ant eradication.
“Fire ants …” The guy begins what sounds like a canned pitch. He’s dressed in a shiny suit and has a razor-thin mustache. He looks like the kind of fall guy in films that you know is going to break down and spill everything when the gang gets to him.
“Fire ants are like fleas and roaches, boy. We’re not going to rid the world of fire ants. They’ll probably be around longer than you and me. But for your pasture and rangeland, even your vegetable garden, my product is fire ant specific. It has very little effect on native ants, all right? No effect whatsoever on honey bees. It also, let me say, has no effect, guaranteed, on aquatics or mammals. Your dogs and cats, mammals. We think we’re innovative with this product that has a half-life of thirty years and works up to ten years. Now eighty pounds per acre broadcast of the product will reduce the population immediately, the effective population, as you’ll perceive in one minute. You interested in this?”
“It sounds like a good investment to me, sir.”
“Investors are what we need. Let me explain to you the way it works. You know your old worker ants are the ones who forage out to feed the colony. Well, we have developed these defatted grits impregnated with soy oil—that’s the attractant—and then our insect growth regulator is imbedded in that. No worker ants develop. Got it? We’re not killing fire ants, we’re just zinging them right straight up into the flying stage. Growing them up in a hurry. You apply this growth regulator in the fall and spring, and before the ants go into hibernation they grow wings and fly off and your colony deteriorates. Only one problem, sonny. Flooding. If your application becomes too wet you can forget it: the grits become hush puppy mix.”
“That’s an amazing product you’ve got there.” L.W. looks as if he’s considering cash flow.
“You can say that again.” The sleazy man, being an experienced salesman, waits for the other guy to think it over out loud.
“I’m in investments,” L.W. tells him. “But these days, I guess you understand, I’m playing it cautious.” Slicking down his hair and checking his tie, he says, “Just about the time I began to get the hang of the market, and figure out that a fellow on his toes could make an unobtrusive dollar, the fat hit the fan and insider-trading became a dirty word.”
I grin at him across a sea of shoulders, and turn to mingle with the women, who are all bunched up together in a corner.
“Hi.” I squeeze into the small circle where they’re talking about what a bunch of ape shit horses asses the men are.
“This is too rough for your ears, honey,” one of them, a redhead in rhinestone glasses, says to me companionably.
“She’s their niece,” a big busty blonde explains.
“She’s just Brogan’s niece. She’s not the niece of every limp dick in the place, is she?”
“I didn’t ask the exact pedigree.”
“I’m Jolene Temple.” I give each of the five women a big handshake, which makes them feel better. A big hard squeezer.
“Growing up in this kind of environment will stunt your growth,” the redhead warns me.
“Must not have.” The blonde gestures, indicating that I’m as tall as she is and then some.
“Tell us about yourself, honey. You were nice to come keep us company. Not your fault how these things go. Women in positions of ownership aren’t exactly welcome around here.”
“I think we ought to stick together,” I tell them. “We women.” I look around at the group, and see that they are interested. “My mom and I used to go to this diner run by a fat man named Pete who served the best biscuits west of Natchez and cheese grits with sausage that would make your mouth …” I’ve just got to the punch line and checked to be sure they’re all following me when I say, “Eat here or we’ll both starve,” when I notice this certain man whose back is turned to me.
My voice trails off, although the women seem to like my story and pick it up and begin to toss it around, talking about how the goddamn truth it is.
He’s standing by Glenna’s side, and at first I think he’s talking to her but then I see that he isn’t talking to anybody; his shoulder is aimed over her head and he’s facing the Sub Rosa’s idea of wall art.
The way he stands—rocking back and forth on his heels—reminds me of someone. And even though I don’t recognize the suit or even the thick head of brushed-back “Miami Vice” hair, something about him has an awful familiarity.
For a minute I hope I’m wrong. But then I get a sinking feeling. Because if Brogan can have his Alternative Hair Addition on then there’s no reason Turk Jackson can’t Velcro one on his head, too. Because that’s who I’m looking at, no doubt about it.
Glenna never tumbles, because she’s working full time, watching traffic at the gun-phone table, being hostessy, eyeing the room, making sure the Mr. Jack and the roll of twenties are flowing as planned.
Dad turns and finds me looking at him. Since he can’t give me a wink because he’s wearing shades, he just nods his head and shoots me that sad-looking smile, the smile of a man who’s doing his duty, who’s come to take me back and provide me with a normal life.
I head toward the bar, edging slowly, keeping a lot of suits and bomber jackets between us. There’s a door into the bedroom part of the suite, and I’m thinking that I’ll cut out that way.
But when I get almost there, I nearly trip over a thin white waiter who’s got a tray full of glasses. He’s holding the tray with one hand, sloshing whiskey everywhere, and with the other he holds up two fingers—and nods “his” head toward the bedroom.
I look again at the face, and see, even with the tight man’s wig, that, of course, it’s Mom. Mom doing her number right under Brogan’s nose. Right here in the middle of his March 2, Texas Independence Day, party for customers.
I look around to see if my folks see each other. Mom has spotted Dad, but he hasn’t seen her. The usual.
She waves the fingers at me again, and jerks her head to let me know we’re going to slip right out through the door I was headed for.
My feet freeze. I look around for L.W., but there’s no way I can explain it to him in time. How my parents could be here and nobody know it; how their being here is the absolute worst.
There’s only one thing to do and I do it.
Running out the door, down the hall, and through the glittery gold and aqua lobby, I get in my car and head for the only safe place in the world I know.
Henry’s studio.