Park Avenue (Book Six in the Fifth Avenue Series) (24 page)

“I mean, about the
chronic orgasms?
 
Not the drinking.”

“Yes,” he said
softly.
 
“It’s been awful.
 
Nobody knows what to do.”

“I do,” Spocatti
said.
 
“I’ve dealt with this before.”

“You have?”
 
He sounded at once relieved and
surprised.

“Once.
 
It’s rare what Piggy has, but it’s
treatable and I have the treatment with me.
 
Your name?”

“Marvin.”

“Marvin, if you could
start a tea service for Piggy, I’d appreciate it.
 
No biscuits.
 
We’re just going to serve her a
medicinal tea.
 
My own blend.
 
Crushed plants and exotic herbs.
 
I just need a carafe of hot water,
Piggy’s favorite teacup, a bit of honey if you have it, and also a
strainer.
 
Keep everything in the
kitchen.
 
When it’s time, I’ll need
your help to prepare the tea.”

“Of course.”

He looked around
him.
 
“Is the parlor through there?”

“Yes,” Marvin said,
gesturing toward the room to his left.
 
“She’s there, resting on the fainting couch.
 
But you should be prepared.”

“For what?”

“She doesn’t want to be
seen.”

“But I have to see her if
I’m going to treat her.”

“I think you
misunderstood.
 
You’ll see what I
mean.
 
She hasn’t seen Percy in
months.
 
She’s very sensitive about
how she looks.
 
Her hair has gone
white.
 
White.
”

“Who is Percy?”

“Her stylist.
 
Lovely man.
 
And how he used to
transform
Piggy.
 
She always looked so chic
after seeing him—so naturally blonde.
 
No one receives a kitchen-sink dye job
from Percy—he’s a pro.
 
What I
miss is seeing how Piggy was happy after she saw him.
 
She was better back then.
 
She didn’t take to the Goose so much.”

“To the what?”

“Grey Goose.
 
The vodka.”

“I see.”

He shook his head and
Spocatti watched his eyes well up with tears.
 
The man genuinely loved her.
 
“Anyway, right through there, Doctor
Benedetti.”
 
His voice was
thick.
 
“I’ll arrange for the tea
service and collect you when it’s ready.”

“Thank
you, Marvin,” Spocatti said.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-EIGHT

Spocatti found Piggy on a
yellow embroidered fainting couch in an enormous room in which nothing seemed
to match, but in which everything—somehow—nevertheless came
together.
 

It was a room filled with
antiques, but also modern touches.
 
And while it made no sense to him at first glance, he realized, as he
walked through the space, that everything had been carefully designed to
highlight the old by underscoring the new.

Piggy was stretched out
on the couch by a window sheathed with caramel-colored curtains.
 
She had an arm slung over her head,
which was covered by a massive black hat, the lace of which concealed her hair
and her face.
 
She was wearing black
pants and a black shirt.
 
She looked
as if she was in mourning.

“Piggy?” he said.

“It’s Ms. French,” she
replied.
 
“I don’t know you,
doctor.
 
Please let’s not be so
familiar so fast.
 
It doesn’t sit
well, especially at this point in my life.
 
I realize I’m compromised by my condition, but I’m still Piggy French.
 
I’m still of the French lineage.
 
I’m still in the book.”

“Of course, Ms. French.”

“You’re here to treat
me?” she asked.
 
“To rid me of these
demons that have swallowed me up and consumed me?”

“I am.”

“And you think that some
herb can actually cure me of this?
 
You really believe this?
 
You
think you’re beyond Western medicine?”

“I don’t believe in
Western medicine.
 
Many don’t.
 
Many believe the pharmaceutical
companies are a bait and switch operation.
 
They’re all about marketing, but their products are inferior to what the
planet offers us.
 
Still, people buy
and buy, not understanding that there are holistic alternatives.”

“What are you talking
about?”

“I believe in Eastern
medicine.
 
I believe in treating
people with what our planet provides for us.
 
I’ve treated one other woman who
suffered as you suffer now.
 
I know
my treatment works because it continues to work for her.
 
You’ll need to take the tea once per
day, in the morning, and life will go on as it always has for you.
 
It has a bitter taste, which is why I
suggest you take it with organic honey, but I think you’ll find that the
alternative is worse than the bitterness.”

“Alternatives?
 
Some say the other alternative for me is
a day spent passed out on the bathroom floor with an empty bottle of Grey Goose
just out of reach.
 
That’s
my
alternative medicine.”

“But that doesn’t need to
be your life.
 
If you’re drinking to
excess, I can help you there as well.”

“Oh, puh-lease.
 
If she were alive, Betty Ford would know
me by name.
 
Nobody has helped me
yet.”

“Ms. French, I’m not here
to upset you.
 
I’m only here to
help.
 
If you’d like me to leave, I
will.”

And Piggy, stunned that
someone would challenge her, turned her hat-topped head to him.
 
“Oh, no,” she said with all traces of
formality leaving her.
 
“Please,
forgive me.
 
I’m sorry.
 
I’m not myself.
 
I suppose I just sounded like what my
two ex-husbands called me—a cunt.
 
Can you imagine?
 
Both of
them calling me that word?
 
One
publicly.
 
The other privately.
 
Did they have a meeting of the minds or
was that just coincidence?
 
I gave
them everything.
 
I don’t understand
it.
 
Twice I’ve been called that
unthinkable, awful word, and sometimes, when I fall prey to the Goose, I
believe that what they said about me is true.”

“Are you on the Goose now?”

“Half a bottle of it.”

“What size was the
bottle?”

“A fifth.”

“I can help you.”

“I don’t want to be known
as a, uh, you know.”

“An alcoholic?”

“If you want to call it
that.”

“I’m not sure what else
to call it when you’re passed out on the bathroom floor with a fifth of Grey
Goose beside you.”

“Well, then.
 
I guess I
am
an alcoholic.”

“I can help you.
 
But you’ll need to be strident in your
resolve.
 
It won’t be easy, but it
will work.”

“I want to see Percy
again,” she said wistfully.
 
“You
have no idea how he tipped my hair.
 
How he made me youthful and blonde and pretty.
 
He made it so I could look at myself in
the mirror and feel good about what I saw.
 
You know, because of all this, I don’t accept invitations anymore.
 
Having my little rushes in front of old
friends, especially male friends, would send the wrong message.
 
They would smell my sex―and then
what?
 
Another marriage?
 
More suitors?
 
Sheer horror?
 
Being called a cunt for the third
time?
 
I want to be part of life
again, but I can’t...
 
At least not
with all that’s happening to me now.”

“I have made a special
medicinal tea for you,” Spocatti said.
 
“It will alleviate the orgasms—”

“Please!”

“—the little rushes
you’re dealing with.”

“That’s better.
 
Little rushes.
 
They are little rushes and I need to be
rid of them.”

“Will you drink the tea?”

“I’ll drink it,” Piggy
said.
 
“I’ll do anything, especially
since Edward recommended you.
 
He
said that you help him with his stump.”

“With his what?”

“His abbreviated leg.”

“Oh.”

“He says you make it so
he doesn’t feel as if it’s still there, which I don’t understand at all,
because of course it’s not there.
 
Hasn’t been there for years.”

“Our bodies betray us,
Ms. French.”

“Tell me about it.
 
As for me, the Chantrix works for a few
hours, but it wears off too quickly.
 
I could have one of my little rushes at any moment.
 
I need to warn you about that, doctor.”

“Let me see Marvin in the
kitchen and we’ll prepare my special tea for you.”

“Thank
you, doctor,” Piggy said.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-NINE

“Marvin,” Spocatti said,
when he found the kitchen.
 
“I don’t
want you to take this the wrong way, but this tea could also help you.”

Marvin looked up from the
tea service, puzzled.
 
“It could
help
me
?”

“It could,” Spocatti
said.
 
“There’s a side effect to
this particular tea that’s actually rather terrific.
 
Please forgive me if this offends you,
because that’s not my intent, but I noticed that you suffer from alopecia.”

“I suffer from what?”

“Baldness.”

Marvin’s face flushed.

“This tea,” Spocatti said
quickly in an effort to put the man at ease, “can actually relieve that
issue.
 
In six months, you could
have a full head of hair.”

“You’re joking,” Marvin
said.

“I’m not.
 
It works.
 
I have too many clients having too much
success with it to promise you otherwise.”

“But how can one drug
contain orgasms and also grow hair?”

“It just does.
 
It’s a holistic mystery,” Spocatti said.

“But I’m not sure that I
could afford it.”

“Could you afford ten
dollars a month?”

His eyes widened.
 
“Is that all it costs?”

“You’ve been such a great
help today, so that’s what it would cost
you
.
 
We need to get Piggy back on track.
 
You’ve been very helpful.
 
Others pay much more.
 
You wouldn’t have to.”

His eyes welled with
tears again.
 
“I started to lose my
hair when I was twenty-six,” he said.
 
“I was mostly bald by thirty.
 
It’s been years since I’ve had a full head of hair.
 
It’s been years since I was able to take
a blow dryer to it, and come up with something cute.
 
And I know I’d look younger with
hair.
 
I think being bald is what
has kept me from finding someone all these years.
 
I’ve hated being single.
 
In spite of my great affection for
Piggy, I’ve been lonely.”
 
He looked
at Spocatti’s head.
 
“You shave
yours.
 
I can see the stubble.
 
Why would you ever shave what must be a
thick, lush head of hair?”

“For the look,” Spocatti
said.
 
“And I can always grow it
back.
 
Here.
 
Before we go to Piggy, let’s steep a cup
of tea for you.
 
Are you game?
 
It’s on the house.”

“I’d be grateful.”

“The tea is very potent
and should only be consumed orally.
 
Do you have any rubber gloves?
 
We don’t want hair growing on your fingertips.
 
I need to strain the tea and let it steep
for five minutes before we proceed.”