Butterfly (13 page)

“What about it?”

She glanced at her husband’s stern, patrician profile. “I’m afraid I’m going to be in the

papers again.”

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Kathryn Harvey

“Damnit, Jessica,” he said softly. “I wish you would stop calling attention to yourself.

Every time you do that, I have to pay. I go into a board meeting and all anyone can talk

about is the latest movie actor my wife is representing. Don’t you realize it hurts my cred-

ibility to have a reputation for being known as Jessica Franklin’s
husband?”

“I’m sorry,” she said, and felt a wash of relief to see the Sunset Boulevard off-ramp

draw near.

“I’m going to the gym this afternoon. I suppose you have to get back to the office?”

“Yes, I have a lot of paperwork to do. And then I’m meeting Trudie at Kate Mantilini

for a late lunch—”

He looked at her. “Better go easy on that, Jess. You look like you’re putting on weight

again.”

When Trudie saw her friend come in off the street and hesitate in the doorway, she

jumped up and ran to embrace her. “Congratulations, Jess!” Trudie cried. “It’s about time

someone put a stop to that bastard Walker!”

Jessica smiled at the customers, who stared at her as she followed Trudie to their table.

News of Mickey Shannon’s victory that morning had hit the streets and everyone was talk-

ing about it. As Jessica sat down with a flourish, breathless and scarlet-cheeked, she heard

murmurs of approval from nearby tables. She was in the limelight again and she loved it.

“This will be the one to do it for you!” Trudie said, barely able to sit still for the excite-

ment. “God, I wish I could have been there this morning! They said on the radio that

Shannon actually
kissed
you! Right on the mouth!”

Jessica reddened slightly. She prayed that John wouldn’t find out about that.

“I’m telling you, Jess,” Trudie said, beaming, thrilled and proud of her friend’s accom-

plishment. “You and Fred are going to have to turn down clients after this.”

Jessica laughed and tossed her short brown hair. She felt as if she stood on top of the

world. “I hope so!”

“What did John say?”

“Well, you know John,” Jessica said quietly, toying with her folded napkin.

Trudie saw some of the light dim in her friend’s eyes. “He isn’t pleased, is he?”

“Well, he’s right, you know. The trial did turn into something of a circus. I should

have insisted on a more dignified atmosphere.”

“You loved every minute of it, and you know it!” Trudie shook her head. “Oh, Jess,

when are you going to own up to the fact that you’re married to a prick?”

“That’s not true. John is a good man—”

“Oh, stop defending the jerk. Come on, let’s order, I’m starved.”

Kate Mantilini was currently
the
L.A. eatery, where bigwigs and movie types competed

for the best tables; men dressed in Members Only and Rive Gauche sat in boxy booths

with women wearing rhinestones and moussed hair. Trudie ordered for herself a meat loaf

and Wonder Bread sandwich, to be followed by a hot fudge sundae, while Jessica

restricted herself to a plain salad.

As Trudie watched her friend pick at the lettuce she felt her annoyance rise. She had

wanted this to be an outrageously sinful celebration of Jessica’s courtroom victory.

BUTTERFLY

53

Instead, her friend’s meal looked like a punishment. Trudie surmised that John must have

mentioned something to Jessica about her weight again.

It was Jessica’s main weakness, her irrational fear of getting fat, and Trudie knew that

John exploited that fear, turning it into a kind of power over her. Jessica was obsessed with

her weight; it was an obsession that had nearly killed her once.

That had been back in their college days at UC Santa Barbara when, thirteen years

ago, they had been thrown together as unlikely roommates in the freshman dorm:

painfully shy Jessica Mulligan, fresh from the cloisters of an all-girls Catholic school, and

Trudie Stein, a brash and sassy San Fernando “Val-Gal” who declared that a
shiksa
must

have snuck into her ancestry at some point in the past. They had experienced an almost

instant mutual rapport, Jessica having never known anyone as free-spirited and crazy-

minded as Trudie, and Trudie almost in awe of Jessica’s conventlike unworldliness and

innocence. In fact, Trudie had envied Jessica in those early days—twelve years of Catholic

schools had turned out an impressively bright and educated young woman, with high

grades and appallingly perfect SAT scores to prove it. Trudie, on the other hand, had

received a sporadic education, from her father, from the football-rally party atmosphere of

Taft High School. Trudie Stein had been a cheerleader and homecoming queen, and

knew how to take a car apart and put it back together as well as any boy could, but she

had barely squeaked through with a grade point average that could get her into college.

But then, she wasn’t going to be a lawyer as Jessica was; Trudie was going to follow in her

father’s footsteps into the construction business.

It hadn’t been until one particular rainy night when finals were drawing near that

Trudie had discovered the truth about her brainy, superachieving roommate—that Jessica

was literally starving herself to death.

“You’re not eating much,” Trudie said now as she ate her meat loaf sandwich. “Aren’t

you hungry?”

“I’m very hungry. But John is after me to lose weight again.”

“Damnit, Jess, there’s nothing wrong with your weight. I should have your thighs!”

“No, John’s right. I really should watch myself more.”

“I think you should just tell him to stuff—”

Jessica smiled. “The last thing I want to do is start something with John. You know I

can’t bear it whenever he’s angry with me. As it is, I work hard to keep the peace.”

“He’s got you brainwashed into thinking everything’s your fault. There are two people

in a marriage, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“Please, True. Can we drop it? Now, what’s the exciting thing you were so anxious to

tell me about? On the phone last night you mentioned something about a butterfly.”

Trudie absently toyed with one of her long dangly earrings. How to broach the subject

of Butterfly? She desperately wanted to get Jessica in as a member, to let her experience

that indescribable excitement and satisfaction that couldn’t be found in the real world.

Having walked away from her silver-haired lover in a mood of intense euphoria, Trudie

had decided that, surely, Butterfly could help Jessica.

“Well,” Trudie said, “you remember my cousin Alexis?”

“The pediatrician, yes.”

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Kathryn Harvey

“Well, she has a friend, a surgeon, they went to medical school together. Anyway,

Alexis’s friend got her into a kind of private club, and now Alexis has got me in as a mem-

ber…” Glancing around to be sure no one overheard, Trudie leaned toward Jessica and, in

a lowered voice, recounted her evening in the private rooms above Fanelli.

When she was finished, Jessica laughed and said, “You can’t be serious!”

“Dead serious, Jess.”

“But—” Now Jessica looked over her shoulder and then lowered her voice. “You

mean, it’s like a bordello? Where the customers are women, and the men inside are,

well—what are they?”

“They’re called companions.”

“I don’t believe it. Right here in Beverly Hills? How can something like that be kept a

secret?”

“Well, I’m certainly not going to blab about it to just anyone, and I imagine the other

members feel the same way. We’d put ourselves at risk, since it is illegal. And the screen-

ing of prospective members is very thorough. No chance of a newspaper reporter or a cop

sneaking in.”

“But it sounds dangerous. What about disease? What about AIDS?”

“It’s safer than a casual Saturday-night pickup. The companions are tested regularly

and frequently, and they’re required to use condoms.”

“But why would you do it, Trudie?
You
certainly shouldn’t have to pay for sex. Not

with your looks.”

“It’s not just the sex, Jess, although that’s a large part of it.” Trudie pushed her plate

away and reached for her coffee. “It’s more than that. It’s the…
fantasy
of it. You see, at

Butterfly you can live out any fantasy, any scenario you wish. It’s like making your dreams

become reality, for a little while, at least.”

Jessica settled back in her seat, her dark brown eyes betraying interest. Yes, she could

see Trudie getting involved in something like this—Trudie had always been a risk-taker,

had always liked the challenge, the element of danger. “What exactly did you find there

last night that you can’t find anywhere else?”

Trudie had to frown at this because she didn’t really know the answer. In fact, it had

occupied her mind all last night and today, trying to figure out exactly what it was that

had made her encounter with the silver-haired companion so intensely satisfying. “He is

an excellent lover,” she said quietly, her aquamarine eyes growing unfocused. “Very con-

siderate…made sure that he was giving me pleasure. But…” She ran her hands through

her blond shag. There was more to it, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. “Maybe it was

just the fantasy aspect of it. The knowledge that I didn’t know who he was, he didn’t know

me, we weren’t going to exchange phone numbers and pretend that we were going to see

each other again.” She looked at Jessica and shook her head. “I don’t really know, except

that when I walked through that door and saw that room, and then
he
came in, it was as

if the rest of the world, the real world, no longer existed. It was as if, for a few hours, all

my troubles, all my fears, all my disappointments just dissolved away. Leaving me com-

pletely free to live out a dream.”

BUTTERFLY

55

The two friends stared at each other for a moment while the busy restaurant bustled

around them, then Jessica said softly, “I’m happy for you, then, if that’s what it does for you.”

Trudie leaned forward. “I want you to experience it, Jess. I want you to know that

same happiness.”

“Me!” Jessica laughed and shook her short brown hair. “Oh, I could never do that,

True.”

“Why not?”

“I just couldn’t, that’s all.”

But even as her friend was protesting, Trudie saw the flicker of interest in Jessica’s eyes.

She knew that a part of her was intrigued by the idea, that Jessica’s innate love of a chal-

lenge was battling her common sense. That was what made Jessica Franklin such a good

lawyer—she never shied away from a risk, was always ready to take chances.

“I’m married, True. Why on earth would
I
go to Butterfly?”

“You have fantasies, don’t you? Just because you’re married doesn’t mean you no longer

dream, does it?”

“No,” Jessica said softly, thinking of her secret fantasy, the one she retreated to some-

times late at night when John and the world were silent and asleep and she was troubled

or tense or worried about an upcoming trial. It was always the same: a soft-spoken cow-

boy in a Western bar. She would conjure up the scene and the man to the minutest detail,

their conversation, the way he would look at her, his touch, the kiss…and usually she

would drift off to sleep and the fantasy would become a dream and her sleeping mind

would take over and let her live out an hour of ecstasy before she had to face the compet-

itive world again.

But it was only a dream. She could never
really
do it.

Trudie remained silent, sipping her coffee and looking around at the crowd in the

restaurant. She wasn’t going to press Jessica. Butterfly was something you turned to

because you wanted to,
needed
to. And despite outward appearances—a successful career,

a handsome, distinguished husband, a beautiful home on Sunset Boulevard—Trudie

knew that there was something desperately lacking in her friend’s life. Something that

Jessica had been wrestling with since she was a child, the thing that had driven her nearly

to her death thirteen years ago.

Noticing that little of Jessica’s salad had been touched, Trudie felt a twinge of con-

cern. That nightmare of thirteen years ago, when Jessica had suffered from anorexia and

would have died of it but for Trudie’s quick intervention, Trudie did not want to see

repeated. In their years together since, Jessica had fought the phantom that shadowed

her day and night, the morbid fear of getting fat, and Trudie had helped her through

days of hunger and self-chastisement when a deep-rooted need for approval would

threaten to manifest itself in the abuse of her own body. Jessica had starved herself in her

first year of college, but after that had managed to keep the anorexia under control. She

was slender now, but not too thin, at her proper and healthy weight. But when she

looked at herself in the mirror she still seemed to see something no one else saw, and that

invisible image terrified her.

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Kathryn Harvey

“Don’t think of it as a brothel, Jess,” Trudie said quietly. “Think of it as a place where