Lingerie For Felons (29 page)

I decided to go for some middle ground.

‘You're mine. I don't care whether you're a good person or not. I don't even know what a good person is anymore. I'd have slept with a mean old judge today if it would have kept me out of prison. Luckily, I didn't have to.'

The next thing she said surprised the hell out of me. ‘I think I'm having an affair.'

Remember when I said you could never play ‘guess what?' with Emmy, because you would never, ever be able to guess accurately? Well here's proof. I would never have guessed that she was going to say that in a million years. She and Peter seemed to adore each other. And he is so nice, and so handsome, and so far from annoying or boring or stupid. My brain fuzzed and buzzed..

‘But…Peter?' I raised a hand then dropped it. ‘Don't you love him anymore?'

‘What?' She looked shocked. ‘Of course I do.' She started quietly considering her fingernails. I waited for her to speak, but she didn't.

‘Um, Em, what do you mean, you think you're having an affair?'

‘Well,' she explained. ‘I'm not sure if it counts over email.'

I felt a surge of pure relief course through me. So it was an Internet thing.

‘Oh,' I sighed. ‘Don't worry about that. Heaps of people do it. It's not real life. It's just…fantasy.'

Her head lifted up at this, and her eyes looked brighter. ‘Really?'

‘Sure,' I confirmed. ‘Who is it?'

‘We-ell…' She looked like she was groping for words.

Curiouser and curiouser.

‘It's sort of a…fan.'

Oooh. Ick. That's weird Kind of self-important, even for Emmy.

‘Oh,' I stammered. ‘A man, yeah?'

‘Yes of course,' she clucked impatiently. ‘You know I'm not into women.' A pause. ‘Well, not since Sally Hooper at college, but oral sex doesn't count… Anyway…'

After her initial uncertainty, I could tell she was now eager to have the story out.

‘It's hard to explain. He's…Japanese.'

‘You met him on one of your promotional trips?' I prompted.

‘No. I've never met him.'

‘Oh. But he's a romance fiction fan, yep?' I was trying to help.

‘Yep. And a…fisherman.'

‘A fisherman?' Weird.

‘Well, technically a master mariner. But, you know, on fishing boats.'

‘Right, so, he contacted you and...'

‘Look, he's from an old samurai family. He loves the books. He thinks he's in love with me. It's…kind of flattering.'

‘You need more flattering?' I was flabbergasted. The world adores Alyssa St James and she's getting off on being loved by some stinky fisherman?

‘It's hard to explain, like I said. He's…formal. Shy. It's like…courtly love.'

‘Courtly?' What the hell was going on? ‘But Peter's courtly.'

‘No, he's not. He might be nice, but he's still American. This is different. I'm different, with him.'

‘With him? You're not with him.'

‘Well, you know, talking to him. On the...computer.'

‘Huh.'

What to say next?

‘Look, I know it sounds weird.' Emmy was defensive now.

Damn straight it sounds weird.

‘I'm nice with him. I'm…genteel.'

I put my hand in front of my mouth. ‘Genteel? Hang on, did you grow a chastity belt while I wasn't looking?'

‘Don't laugh, Loll,' she berated me. ‘I think I'm in love with Kenzo.'

‘Kenzo?' I quizzed.

‘It's an old samurai name. I actually don't know his real name. But he's really into the whole honor and samurai thing.'

We were straying from the point. ‘Look, you don't love him. No one loves anyone on the Internet. They don't even know each other. “Alyssa” and “Kenzo” don't even know each other's real names, for God's sake.'

‘Actually, he still calls me Ms St James.'

‘Really?' I was puzzled.‘How long have you been chatting with him?'

‘Two years.' She went a little pink and I caught my breath. I had never, ever seen Emmy blush.

‘Two years? And he still calls you Ms St James?' I patted her hair. ‘I hate to break this to you, Em, but at that rate if you ever actually meet this guy he's not going to actually kiss you 'til you're like ninety years old, and you're not going to be looking so good by then.'

‘It's not like that, you sicko,' she exploded. ‘Like I said, it's courtly love, for God's sake. Fuck me, lucky one of us knows how to be genteel.'

‘Yeah,' I agreed. ‘You're so genteel. I feel like Jane Austen just listening to you.'

I could tell she was about to storm off, and I felt a pang of remorse. It was such a lovely party, and this was all so silly and unnecessary.

‘Look, Emmy,' I took her hand again and tried to reassure her. ‘It's okay. Enjoy it. He's obviously in no hurry. You don't need to do anything about this. It's a bit of fun. Enjoy it. Enjoy him. Enjoy being…genteel.'

I tugged on her hand and nodded towards the door. ‘But tonight,' I suggested, ‘You should be far from genteel. You are at a party. You have guests. Go get messy.'

Emmy considered all of this for a moment and then nodded her head in agreement and used our joined hands to drag me to the door.

‘Yeah, you're right. Come on, babe. The best bit's still to come.'

Two hours later, the party was going strong. Steve was regaling everyone with Super Sperm stories, and I was indulging in even more of Emmy's first class wine. I hadn't kissed Ralph again, as two more courses had been served and demolished, although I suspected he was gearing up for Round Two. But something was starting to feel wrong. I think it was the alcohol. I was starting to feel tired and a bit maudlin. Echoes of the conversations with Heidi and Wayne, and with Mom and Dad, kept spinning across my subconscious.

I've achieved nothing I've achieved nothing I've achieved nothing.

It felt like the world was shifting. Wayne reappearing from nowhere like some specter I can't shake — and maybe didn't want to — Mom getting sick, court. It was all making me think more than I normally do about what I should be doing, about the point of it all. And about Eve. What will I tell her I did to make the world better? I kept thinking about the great line of Brecht's:

In days to come, they will not say “the times were dark”,

But “why were the poets silent?”

Emmy looked over at me mid-sentence and seemed to sense my distress. She quickly changed tack, spinning away from Heidi, with whom she'd been exchanging charity ball horror stories, and launching herself upright as she grabbed the nearest crystal champagne flute and banged it with perilous abandon with her silver dessert spoon.

‘Attention, everyone' she barked. ‘We now come to the ceremonial part of the proceedings. Lola.' She inclined her head at me. ‘In preparation for this evening, everyone was asked to nominate their favorite Lola memory, with the winner — of a bottle of my finest French champagne — to be chosen by an eminent person — me — in accordance with criteria that are none of anyone's business except my own. Now, although they could not be here, Vera and Esteban also participated, as did Mom and Dad.'

With a flourish, Emmy brandished an envelope from somewhere beside her. What a strange development. Emmy has always had a taste for the theatrical, and I guessed she had sensed that I was feeling adrift, and a bit of a failure. I suddenly wished I'd been nicer when she'd asked me if I thought she was a good person.

Now, I know many people who can't bear having embarrassing attention drawn to them, and hate any kind of public affection or attention.

I am not one of those people.

What would the best memory be? Who would win? Probably Vera, I decided. Or Mom. Or Emmy, of course. The women in my family all have an incredible way with words. But then, Heidi can also be a bit of a surprise at times, and she has an unexpected competitive streak.

‘Drumroll please,' Emmy commanded.

In anyone else's house, this would be the cue for the assembled company to drum their fingers dramatically on the table top, but not here. Instead, Peter dutifully and discreetly pressed on some tiny little sliver of a remote control and the dramatic tones of classical kettle drums reverberated through the dining area.

‘And the winner is…Dick.'

Dick? I felt like laughing. What the hell could Dick possibly know about me that would be so effective as to convince Emmy to award the prize to him, against all of her prejudice?

‘And…before we move up the garden for petit fours, allow me to read you the winning entry,' Emmy went on. ‘Ahem.' She unrolled a little scroll and began to read,

‘“My favorite memory of Lola is of the first time we met. She was late to the bar, and came rushing in with wet hair. She'd been caught in the rain and she looked like Medusa. She'd had a run-in with the bus driver and didn't stop talking for fifteen minutes while she told us about it. She seemed pretty scary, but just when I thought I'd faint with terror, she stopped, cocked her head like an Alsatian dog and started listening to the conversation in the next booth. Then she peered over the top.

‘It was pretty loud, with some drunk, angry guy saying some really foul and scary things to the girl he was with. Lola walked right up to him, tipped her drink over his head and yelled “pick on someone your own size, asshole.”

‘I thought he was going to kill us. But as he emerged, it became clear that he was really short. Like Lola. Exactly her own size. The whole bar burst out laughing, and he skulked out of there like a little weasel. And I thought
Wow, I want to be just like her. Half the soldiers I know aren't that brave
.”'

Emmy put the scroll down and produced a gorgeous magnum of champagne from somewhere that she handed to Dick. Everyone started clapping and laughing and Dick was grinning from ear to ear. I was astonished. And felt small and unworthy at the same time. Dick, who I always thought was such a shallow, Republican-voting freak.

That's when I decided. Had an epiphany, if you like. That's when I decided that things were going to change. If I could be a hero to someone like Dick, I needed to start acting like one. I needed to be more directed. I needed to get myself together. I wasn't exactly sure how, but I felt like I could almost see the fog clearing, and as I looked around and caught Heidi's eye, an idea started to take fuzzy form.

I stood up, pushed out my chair and walked over to Dick. I picked up his hand, pulled him up and gave him a big hug. I didn't even feel like washing straight after. Dick smiled hugely, and for the first time in a long time I felt excited. And hopeful. I looked over at Ralph, and realized there will be no Round Two with him. He looked…empty.

I was suddenly sober, but very happy. That awful saying I've always hated popped into my head: ‘today is the first day of the rest of your life'.

Bring it on.

Full circle — The Southern Ocean; November 15, 2012, 7:06am,

I'm sitting on the cold, wet floor of this hateful boat, with my hands tied behind me.

The guy who's watching us is like some bad caricature of a Japanese soldier from one of those really racist old films about Pearl Harbor. He looks like he's made from stone.

And he keeps saying ‘don't move, don't move.'

We're toast.

I know it sounds kind of crazy to say this when you're the prisoner of an insane Japanese whaling crew, location unknown — somewhere in the Southern Ocean — freezing cold and wondering how the hell you got here, but I have really gotten my life together over the last six years. It's true. So that's why I'm still finding it hard to believe that all this has happened.

I know I always say this, but I really didn't plan it this way. In fact, I thought I had done everything I could to make sure it wouldn't happen like this. In the last couple of years, since that last arrest, I really have started over, and things have been totally coming together for me. Things are starting to look up. Let me prove it to you.

One: I run my own business now

I took a bit of a gamble and started my own thing. I don't know what you call it — company, venture, whatever. It's called Clean Money. I help people invest their cash without supporting Chinese gulags, strip-mining of the Arctic or doing bad things in rainforests. It's kind of like what I did for Heidi's animals, but on a bigger scale.

It's cool, because it involves two things I love: the math stuff — poring over forecasts, running the numbers, that kind of thing — and the sleuth stuff — digging up the dirt on some of these disgusting outfits and finding out how they really make their money. And believe me, some of the things I know now, it's a wonder I can buy anything at all, and am not naked and starving. There are some bad people out there in moneymaking land.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm no Wayne. The venture is hardly ever going to make me rich. But it's growing. The best thing has been attracting non-profit enterprises — little guys like Heidi's shelters — who have a little cash, or maybe a donations base, and are looking for a bit more stability. I've been bringing more and more of them on board lately, and it's really helping me grow the whole thing. Thank God, or I may have had to sell my body to keep it afloat. And I was kind of scared that when the punters saw these stretch marks, they might not have been so crazy about paying for it.

Things were a bit desperate in the beginning. But Mom was like this dogged little cheerleader. She threatened to give up chemo if I gave up on the business. And the rest, as they say, is history. After all, pretty hard to deny someone who's hooked up to a million tubes and looking like they're already half dead.

Okay, okay, I'm also pretty shameless when it comes to exploiting people I know, and so I had no qualms at all about letting Emmy spread the word among her charity contacts. Most of them couldn't care less how their money got invested, but it came as a revealing shock to me to realize that there actually are some right-on rich people out there, and I got some individual clients as well as non-profits out of Emmy's work on my behalf. I'm still not sure how she talked people into using me, although at least one guy who came to see me looked genuinely terrified when he arrived and kept saying over and over again, through these really pale and trembling lips: