Mallory tossed her bag on the sofa, and dropped her coat in a heap on top of it.
“Hello? Alec, are you here?”
It was almost eight o’clock at night, and the day of silence between them had been agonizing. She’d called him twice from the office but got his voice mail. She couldn’t wait another minute to finish the conversation that had escalated into a fight, then find a way to move on.
Mallory sank into the sofa, trying to remember the last time she’d been so exhausted. Maybe the night she pulled an all-nighter junior year. Or the first weekend she spent with Alec when she was so excited to be next to him she couldn’t sleep. Last night was the same—she would doze off for a short while, then wake with a start, realizing where she was, her body still feeling the thrill of Bette.
She’d slept on Bette’s couch, under the picture of the redhead. She had dreamt she colored her hair, but it came out bright purple. The firm sent her home for the day and told her not to come back until she looked like a lawyer, so she left, but when she arrived home in the dream, she looked like Bette, and Alec told her he could never be in love with a lesbian.
She heard the key in the door, and Alec walked in, clearly happy to see her.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey.”
He took his time putting his coat in the closet. When he turned to face her, his expression was warm but guarded.
“I’m glad you’re here. We need to talk,” he said.
“I know.”
He crossed the room and pulled her into a hug. It felt so good to be held against him, to breathe his familiar Alec smell, to feel the brush of his lips against her temple. This is love, she thought.
“I’m sorry about last night,” he said, sitting next to her on the couch. “I was way too harsh. I was thinking about it after you left, and I thought about texting you, but I decided to let us both have the night to cool down. Did you stay at Julie’s?”
“Um, Alec, I really feel bad about last night.”
“It was my fault. I know you’re not a quitter, and if you are this unhappy at the firm, we will talk about it and figure out a way to fix it. I love you—I want you to be as happy in your career as I am in mine. I thought you had that with your law career. It seems impulsive just to change your mind about something after you’ve invested all these years.”
“I know. I’ve thought that too. But until I got into the firm, I had no idea what it really meant to be a lawyer. I love the law; I like the ideas behind it. . . . I liked learning it. I just don’t want to spend my life practicing it. So a part of me is thinking, if I know this now, why spend another five years going down the wrong path? Won’t it just be harder and more of a waste to leave then?”
“What else would you want to do?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then I think you should give it some more time—see if you can figure out something else. But until then, try to give this your best shot. Certainly don’t make a decision until after you’ve taken the bar again. I know you’re going to ace it, and I want you to experience that, so you stop feeling so bad about what happened in August.”
He hugged her again, kissing her forehead, her nose, her lips. He moved his hand inside her blouse, and when his fingers brushed her nipples she thought of Bette.
“Alec,” she said, pulling back.
“It’s fine, baby. We’ll figure it out,” he breathed, his mouth moving down her neck.
“Wait—I need to tell you something.”
She pulled back, taking his hand and leading him to the couch.
“I was really upset last night. You and I are supposed to be able to talk about anything, and I was admitting something to you that was hard for me even to admit to myself, and you freaked out. I left here, and I tried calling Julie, and she didn’t pick up, and Allison wasn’t around. I even went down to Allison’s building. I didn’t want to come back here, so I thought of calling Bette, and luckily she was home.”
“You called Bette Noir?”
“Yeah. I saw her yesterday, and I’d started telling her about my job situation and she was so understanding. . . .”
“Well, I’m glad she was there for you. It’s a bit odd that out of all people she’s the one who you ended up confiding in, but so be it.” He reached out and stroked her hair.
“Yeah. Well, it was a little more than confiding.”
He stopped touching her.
“What do you mean?”
“This is hard for me to explain, Alec. I was upset—not just about the fight last night, but about the way things have been between us since I got to New York.”
“What do you mean, how things have been since you got to New York?”
“It’s hard to explain.”
“Try.”
“I feel less close to you. I feel like an appendage to your life here instead of really being a part of it. Part of the reason I let myself get pulled on stage the night of my birthday was because I thought, on some level, it would make you finally see me. I don’t feel like you want me physically the way you used to. . . .”
“I think our sex life is as good—if not better—than ever.”
“Then why do you look at other women all the time? And why are you so fixated on the idea of having a threesome—like I’m not enough?”
“First of all, all guys look at women. It’s human nature. And I’m not fixated on the idea of a threesome. I just think it could be interesting, and I would like to experience that with you. If it doesn’t happen, it’s not a big deal.”
“It feels like a big deal.”
“I think you’re overthinking things.”
“Maybe. But that’s the way I’ve been feeling. And so last night I was upset. I went to Bette’s, had a few drinks. And then we . . . hooked up.”
Alec smiled a funny smile and shook his head. “What are you talking about?”
“Just what I said. We hooked up.”
He pulled back on the couch, looking at her as if she was a stranger.
“Can you be more specific?”
Mallory thought of herself being blindfolded, of Bette unbuttoning her blouse. . . .
“She kissed me and . . . I let her touch me.”
“I can’t believe you. You are such a hypocrite! You get of-fended—angry, actually—because I admit to you that I fantasize about bringing another woman into bed with us—us being the operative word here, Mallory—and then you run off and let another woman fuck you the minute we have an argument.”
“We didn’t . . . she didn’t fuck me. It wasn’t sex. She just touched me. . . . It was nothing.”
“Did you come?”
“What?”
“Did you have an orgasm?”
“I mean, yeah, but . . .”
Alec pushed himself off the couch and stalked off to their bedroom. He slammed the door.
Jesus. Mallory put her head in her hands. Bette had been right—this was a disaster. How could she have done this? She’d spent all this time worrying about his losing interest in her, his neglecting her, about their not having the same connection any-more—and then she’d gone off and hooked up with someone else. But did it really count if it was a woman? She wasn’t a lesbian. It wasn’t as if there was a chance she would have a relationship with Bette, leave Alec for her. That was the basic problem with infidelity—the risk that one person would leave for the new partner. Bette was not a threat to her intimacy with Alec—it wasn’t the same as if she’d slept with another man, someone she could fall in love with and have a side relationship with. What had happened with Bette was nothing. And it wasn’t the same as his hooking up with another woman, even with her in the room. Alec had relationships with women; she, Mallory, had not—had never, would never. Plus, she wasn’t the one asking to do things to spice up their sex life; she was the one focused on him, and on them. So why should he be mad that she’d done something a little crazy? Wasn’t that what he wanted from her? Be adventurous—go to the Slit. Be open-minded—let me grope Bette under the table. Be more interesting—let me fuck you in a public bathroom. But the second she’d acted on the adventurousness he’d asked her to tap into, he was freaking.
She followed him into the bedroom.
“You’re the hypocrite!” she said. “You ask me to do things that are way out of my comfort zone—you take me to see women take off their clothes on my birthday, an experience you have no idea if I’ll even like; you tell me to dance for you, as if I need to step it up a notch to be worthy of your interest. You kiss another woman in front of me, ask me to be open to having sex with her, fuck me in a bathroom because God forbid we just come back here and do something pedestrian like make love. And then I have the opportunity to push my own boundaries a little, and you can’t handle it!”
He shook his head. “You don’t get it. All those things were about us, Mallory. What you did last night was about you. But you’re too insecure to see that distinction. Ever since you got to New York, you’ve been threatened by my life here, the life I established here looking forward to the day when you would finish school and join me so we could share it together. I couldn’t wait for you to get here and for us to explore this world together. I’m a journalist, Mallory. A writer. I am always looking for new things, interesting stories, a different way to look at life.”
“I know . . . and I love that about you.”
“You love it, but it threatens you, too. So then you run off last night and do something that you know will hurt me. Did you even think about that for a second?”
“No . . . I mean, I didn’t think you would be upset.”
He looked at her like she’d slapped him.
“You . . . didn’t think I’d be upset?”
She started crying, realizing what a huge mistake she’d made. “No, I didn’t.”
“Then we don’t know each other the way I thought we did. Maybe you were right. We’re not ‘clicking’ lately. I think we need some time apart.”
Now she was the one to look stunned.
“You want to break up? Over this?”
“What do you define as ‘this’? The fact that you slept with someone else? Or the fact that you thought I wouldn’t care? Or the general lack of connection between us lately?”
“You were just looking for an excuse to break up with me.”
“I can’t believe you really think that, but if you do, it explains why you handed me the perfect reason to do it.”
“Fine. I’ll leave.” Her sobs were, at that point, inhibiting normal speech. She started throwing random items of clothing into a suitcase.
Alec retreated to the living room. She sat on the bed, hyperventilating, and dialed Julie.
Poppy was pleased. The Morticia Addams costume was a hit. At least, if you were judging by the reaction of the cute guy in the suit in the front row. She would swear she could see his hard-on from the stage.
She was surprised to see Bette chatting him up after the show. Very unlike her.
In the dressing room, she asked, “Do you know that guy at the front table—the suit?”
“The cute one?”
“Yeah—if you go for that Wall Street type.”
“That’s Justin Baxter. He used to be a regular when this place was totally underground. “
Poppy had heard all about the early days, before Agnes got fined for letting the girls get completely naked and also serving alcohol. Poppy still didn’t totally understand the rules, but it had something to do with cabaret licensing. She also knew the Slit got away with their shows because of payola, but Agnes didn’t play that game.
Bette continued. “He and his wife are art people—they can make careers—artists, dancers, actors. When the Baxters think you are hot, you are hot. I didn’t get my gig at the Blue Angel until after I headlined a Baxter bash.”
“What do you mean?”
“Once or twice a year he hires me for private parties. He and his wife have a shitload of money, and they love spending it. They’re flying me out to LA in a few weeks for his birthday party. It’s going to be insane. They have an . . . open relationship. To say the least.”
Poppy wondered if Bette had ever slept with him. She decided to ask. After all, they were technically lovers now, right? And lovers could ask each other things like that.
“Did you ever sleep with him?”
“Of course not. You know I don’t sleep with men. And I especially don’t sleep with men who come to shows. And I suggest you don’t, either.”
That seemed a bit sweeping, but it wasn’t a point worth arguing at the moment.
“What does he do?”
“Nothing.”
“He doesn’t work?”
“Not that I know of. She’s got the bank. Martha Pike. Ever hear of her?”
“No—should I have?”
“Kegel Queen? Ring a bell?”
Poppy gave her a blank look. “What’s a Kegel? That Jewish noodle dish?” Since moving to New York she’d learned a lot about Jews. She’d certainly never met one in Arkansas, where she grew up.
“Poppy, I need to speak with you,” Agnes called from outside the dressing room.
“No. That’s kugel. Ask Agnes about Kegels. She’s the one who taught me all about them.”
“Coming, Agnes.” Poppy pulled on her pink satin robe. She hated not being “in the know.” And why didn’t she ever get invited to private parties by rich dudes? She wondered what Bette got paid.
“Hey, Agnes—what’s a Kegel?” she asked.
“Ugh! You American girls. Do your mothers teach you nothing? The Kegel is exercise for your vagina so it don’t get too loose. Thank God you have me to help you or in ten years you’d be in trouble.”
That couldn’t be what Bette meant. How could that guy’s wife make tons of money off of vagina exercises? She might have to get more specific with this particular line of questioning.
“Have you ever heard of the Kegel Queen?”
“Of course! Her husband used to be good customer. She invent little ball you put in your vagina, and you squeeze and there, tight.”
Good Lord. Yet another thing to tell her friends back home that they wouldn’t believe.
“Now we have business to discuss: Kitty is ready to do her first show next week, but I don’t have anyone to work as cleanup girl between sets. If we don’t find someone, I need you to help out just for a show or two. Kitty has been very patient, and she auditioned for me last night, and she’s ready. She’s been supportive of all you girls and, since you were the last girl to move up to the stage, I need you to just help her out.”
Poppy said nothing. If she spoke at all, she would say something along the lines of, are you fucking kidding me? But Agnes couldn’t tolerate swearing. Poppy could not think of a response that didn’t include at least one expletive.
“Thank you, Poppy. You’re a good girl. So remember, next Friday night you’re our stagehand. Hopefully just for one show, and we’ll find our new girl.”
Poppy watched her walk off. She turned to the dressing room, but decided not to go in. If she saw Kitty in there, she might explode.
She walked out to the main room and sat in a chair. Across the room, Mr. Kegel himself was pacing and talking on his cell. Most of the audience had cleared out, and aside from a few stragglers and Kitty Klitty still trying to get some money in the tip jar, it was just the two of them. He eyed her as he finished his call, then strolled over to her.
“Nice performance,” he said.
“Glad you liked it.”
“Justin Baxter.” He held out his hand.
“Poppy LaRue.” She let him take hers. He had beautiful, gunmetal gray eyes.
“I know. You’re making quite a name for yourself already.”
“Really?”
“Absolutely. I haven’t been to this club in a year or so, but I had to check out Agnes’s latest and greatest.” Things were looking up! Agnes might try to demote her for a show, but it was too late; the word was out. Poppy LaRue had arrived. “We’re having a little party back at my place. Care to join? My wife always welcomes the addition of an artist to our little get-togethers.”
“Sure. I just have to change.”
“My car is outside. I’ll be waiting.”
Poppy felt his eyes on her as she walked back to the dressing room. She was surprised to feel her heart racing a bit. Was he hitting on her? He did mention his wife, but Bette said they had some sort of open relationship. Of course, she had also said she would never sleep with a guy who came to the shows. But who was she to judge? And she’d made it perfectly clear she wanted to hook up with Mallory—whom she’d met as an audience member. Hypocrite!
Poppy wished she’d brought better clothes, but how was she supposed to know she’d be going home with some hot rich dude after the show? From now on she had to be prepared for anything. This was how she’d imagined her life in New York would be—and how she had imagined it would feel to be a performer at the Blue Angel. She felt, for the first time since moving to New York, special. It had been easy to feel special in Arkansas—she had always been the prettiest; she had been the most adventurous; and, thanks to her German, film-fanatic grandmother, she had been the most cultured. She knew she had impressed Agnes at that first meeting by knowing about the Marlene Dietrich film, The Blue Angel. And no one else in her town had ever heard of burlesque. But her grandmother had grown up in Berlin, and she gave Poppy a cosmopolitan sensibility that drove her to New York. The problem was, once she’d arrived, she had felt invisible. She was no longer the standout blonde, the most interesting, the most ambitious. She was just like everybody else—until two weeks ago when she stepped onto the Blue Angel stage as a performer for the first time. Now she was somebody. Justin Baxter had confirmed it.
“We’re going to the Bell Jar,” Bette said.
“Thanks, but I have plans,” Poppy was pleased to announce. Of course Bette just assumed she was waiting around for her.
“Oh? Anything interesting?”
“I’m going to a party at Justin Baxter’s place,” she said smugly.
“That’s not a good idea.”
“You’re just jealous that you’re not the only one he’s interested in anymore.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Bette said. “Fine—go. I’ll try not to say ‘I told you so.’ ”