Second You Sin (17 page)

“Good. As I was saying, the only people worse than the fags are the Jews. They run everything in Hol ywood. Between the kikes and the queers, I don’t know how I take it.”

Even in the wide shot, you could see my mother’s fingers whiten as she squeezed the scissors ever more tightly in her hands. Too bad Yvonne didn’t know my mother’s maiden name was Gerstein.

“Do it,” I heard Andrew whisper to my mother’s image on the monitor. “Do it, do it, do it.”

“You know,” my mother began, her face clenched even tighter than her fingers. “I think . . .”

“Oh!” Yvonne interrupted. “I just realized—that new kid on the set I told you my producer was putting the moves on? You met him. He was that little blond piece of ass you were talking to when I walked in.

Cute, but what a little queen! Imagine what
his
mother must be like!”

“Would you excuse me for a minute,” my mother said. “I just need to get something.”

My mother walked out the camera’s range and Andrew and I watched with a kind of morbid fascination as Yvonne leaned closer into the mirror and examined her face with the rapt attention of an astrophysicist studying the surface of Jupiter for microscopic evidence of life. She pul ed her skin tight behind her ears, released it, pul ed it back again.

“If she has one more facelift,” Andrew said, “her eyes are going to be behind her head.” My mother came back into view with a glass bowl halfway fil ed with a viscous-looking brown gloop. “I have your color mixed,” she said cheerily.

“Isn’t that kind of dark?” Yvonne asked. “You know I want to stay blond, right?”

My mother smiled. “It gets lighter when I put it in your hair. Don’t worry, sweetheart. I’ve never met a woman who’s more blond than you.”

Yvonne smiled back. “Darling Sophie,” she said.

“It’s always such a pleasure to meet someone like you, someone I can real y open up to. Most people are so stupid. Take my audience—a bigger bunch of morons you’ve never seen. I want to throw up every time I have to stand in front of those idiots and losers. But you! You’ve been so helpful. I guess it’s part of your being a service person. I feel you’re genuinely interested in taking care of me.”

“Oh,” my mother said, her smile growing even wider. “I’m going to take care of you, al right.”
16

The Best Thing You’ve Ever Done

My mother told the director that she was ready to dye Yvonne’s hair. He started the cameras rol ing again.

Al three monitors above Andrew’s desk came back to life.

As you might imagine, Yvonne steered the conversation to much safer shores, and my mother chatted along as if she didn’t have a care in the world. My mother combed the dye through Yvonne’s hair and massaged it into her roots. She wrapped the wet strands in a towel and placed a shower cap over Yvonne’s head.

“We just need to let it sit for ten minutes,” my mother cooed, “and then it’s time for your big unveiling!”

The director’s voice came from offscreen again.

“While you’re sitting, Yvonne, why don’t we shoot some interview drop-ins with Mrs. Connor?”

“Marvelous,” Yvonne cooed. “Are we set?” The director answered yes. “So tel me, Sophie, how did you get into the beauty shop business?”

“It’s an interesting story,” my mother began, which was always a sure sign that it would be just the opposite. I took this as an opportunity to chat some more with Andrew.

“I’m kind of disappointed,” I told him. “I thought my mother would defend me a little more. Hel , I thought she’d defend herself.”

“Don’t be too hard on her. Celebrities have that effect on normal folk. I’ve seen Yvonne be a lot ruder than that to some of our guests during the commercial breaks, but when the cameras start to rol again, everyone’s stil there smiling and chatting away. Nobody stands up to people like Yvonne.

Even people who’ve had to eat her shit for years keep coming back for more. Exhibit A: Yours truly.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Everyone’s got to make a living. And I can always hope that one day her key light fal s on her head. At least I have that to look forward to. Who knows, maybe one day I’l get the chance to start a show of my own.”

“She’s ready,” my mother chirped, and Yvonne settled back at my mother’s station. The shower cap around her head ensured that not a single lock of her new hair color revealed itself. The director moved the cameras around a bit to make sure they captured the look on Yvonne’s face as she saw the results of her dye job.

Yvonne wiggled her shoulders excitedly. “I can’t wait to see what you’ve done, Sophie. Wil I be terribly, terribly glamorous?”

“You’l feel like you’re in
The King and I,
” my mother promised. She eased off the shower cap, revealing the tightly wrapped towel beneath.

“I’ve always loved Deborah Kerr in that movie,” Yvonne whispered. “So elegant!”

“Dear, dear, Yvonne,” my mother answered, pul ing away the towel, “I meant the
other
star . . .” My mother enjoyed the shocked silence for a moment before finishing her sentence. “. . . Yul Brynner, darling.”

Gasps and one short yelp came from the production staff in the salon.

Yvonne couldn’t seem to catch her breath. “I’m . . .

I’m . . . I’m . . .”

“A bitch?” my mother offered. “An insufferable, homophobic, anti-Semitic poser with bad implants and a worse attitude?”

Yvonne’s eyes narrowed into slits. Her faced flushed a radio-active shade of red. “I . . . You . . .”

“What is it, dear?” my mother asked sweetly. “I’m just trying to help. You know how we ‘service people’

are.”

“I’m
bald!
” Yvonne screamed.

Andrew and I ran from the bus into my mother’s shop. Every face in the room was white—even the African-American ones. Nobody knew what to do or say.

“Don’t you hear me?” Yvonne’s screamed again.

“I’m bald! Somebody do something.”

“We offer a ful selection of wigs,” my mother said pleasantly. “Perhaps something in the style of Eva Braun? You can wear it with your swastika.” Out of the crew’s shocked silence, one woman, I think it was Margie the light hanger, let slip a low chuckle that grew into a palms-over-the-mouth giggle and final y erupted in a loud and hearty guffaw. That set off the woman next her, then the queeny beautician, and soon half the room was cracking up.

“You, you, you.” Yvonne couldn’t find the words.

She ran her hands over her smooth head. “You al . . .

suck!
I hate you al !”

That got everyone laughing, final y free to put in her place the tyrant who had oppressed and terrorized them for years.

“They’re al laughing at me!” Yvonne wailed, like Sissy Spacek in
Carrie.
Only, Sissy was the hero of that piece.

I made my way through the crowd to my mother’s side. “You OK?” I asked her.

“Never better,” my mother said. “You ask me, she deserved a lot worse. She’s lucky she didn’t come in for a bikini wax.”

I kissed her cheek. “My hero.”

Yvonne looked at us. “You two . . . you two know each other?”

“Oh!” my mother said. “Let me introduce my son, Kevin. You had such kind things to say about him.

And me.”

Yvonne stared at the two of us, open-mouthed. I suspected it was the first time in years she’d been speechless.

“I know the trim I gave you may be a tad extreme,” my mother continued. “But once I saw your true nature, Yvonne, I couldn’t resist making the outside you match the beauty within.”

“You, you
cunt!
” Yvonne cried.

My mother put her hands to her cheeks in mock outrage. “Such language! In front of my child, no less.”

“You vicious, kike
cunt!
”

“Yeah, yeah,” my mother said. “Fuck you, Kojak.” She triumphantly turned her back to Yvonne and took my arm. “Let’s go, my darling, faggot son.” Walking her to the door, I ran into Andrew.

“Are you going to be al right?” I asked him.

“Peachy,” he answered. “She’l probably fire me for this.” His face was lit with joy.

“And that’s a good thing?”

“Sure is. Watching Yvonne today, I realized just how miserable I am working for her. There has to be something better I can do with my life than work for that nightmare.” He turned to my mother. “Thanks, Mrs. C. I owe you.”

“Darling.” My mother threw her arms around him.

“I’m so sorry if I got you into trouble with that terrible woman.”

“No, real y,” Andrew said, “it’s a good thing. I need to move on.”

“Such a good boy,” my mother said, stil pressing Andrew against her ample bosom. “If Kevin wasn’t so hung up on his conflicted bisexual boyfriend, you’d be perfect for him.”

“Hmmm,” Andrew replied to my mother, but smirked at me over her head, “Kevin didn’t give me al that detail when he said he was involved with someone.”

“Wel , Kevin’s like that,” my mother answered.

“Always afraid to show his vulnerability. Even when he was a little boy, when he’d wet the bed, he’d take the sheets and . . .”

“Maybe we could save the humiliating walks down memory lane for another time,” I suggested.

“See?” my mother said to Andrew.

Andrew disentangled himself from my mother.

“Sorry it didn’t work out for you being on the show.”

“Oh.” My mother sounded surprised. “You don’t think they’re going to air this?”

“Uh, no,” Andrew said. “Of course not.”

“Huh,” my mother said. “I think it would make for a very exciting episode. I could see it playing to a broad range of demographics across a wide spectrum of households sampled by the Nielsen ratings.”

I looked at her with a WTF expression.

“What?” my mother asked, as if she always talked like that. “I took a book out of the library about television programming. I thought if I was going to be getting into the business, as it were, I might as wel learn a little about it.”

I considered tel ing her that one appearance on
Yvonne
didn’t exactly put her on a level with Brandon Tartikoff, but I knew I’d be wasting my breath. I turned to Andrew instead. “So, you’re going to be OK?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I’l find something. Or maybe even start my own thing.”

He gave me a hug and whispered in my ear,

“Listen, if things don’t work out with Ambivalent Man, give me a cal , OK?” He took one of his business cards out of his pocket and pressed it into my palm. I put it in my wal et.

“I wil ,” I said.

Just then, Yvonne’s screaming voice cried out

“Andrew!” only spread out over several seconds, so it was more like “Annnnndddrewwwwww!!!”

“Sounds like they’re playing my song,” he said cheerily.

“Maybe Yvonne’s song should be ‘I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair,’” my mother suggested. “Oh, I guess she can’t real y sing that anymore, can she?” My mother laughed at her own joke.

Andrew chuckled and walked away.

I took my mother’s hand and we headed for the door.

“You know,” my mother said, “I hope I did the right thing. Do you think I went too far?”

It was reassuring to hear her ask. Til that moment, my mother had never shown any sign that she even understood the concept of “too far.” Or, at least, that it could apply to her.

“You kidding? She’s probably needed someone to tel her off for years. I was proud of you! But making her bald? That took courage.”

“Oh, that? Please. Her hair had been treated, colored, and straightened so many times that it was two or three blow-dries away from fal ing out on its own. I just hurried the process along a little. Trust me, I’ve cooked spaghetti that was in better shape than her hair.”

Behind us, we heard Yvonne continuing to scream, Andrew raising his voice to be heard above the roar, and the director making calming noises while more than a few staffers whispered and snickered among themselves.

“They real y don’t like her very much, do they?” my mother asked.

“Apparently not.”

“I can’t imagine what that must be like,” my mother said. “Everyone at Sophie’s Choice Tresses loves me, you know.”

“I know, Mom.”

“I’m a very good boss.”

“The best.”

We’d reached the front door. My mother warily regarded the crowd that had gathered outside to watch the taping through the window. They were stil there but stood stock-silent, the “We Love Yvonne” signs hanging limply by their sides.

“Would you describe them,” my mother asked, “as an angry mob? Because, if so, maybe we should wait awhile before going out.”

“They look more stunned than angry,” I said.

“Yvonne is quite beloved,” my mother observed.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have depilatorized her. That could have been a mistake, ratings-wise.”

“You don’t have any ratings,” I reminded her.

“Yvonne is the one with a show, not you.” My mother continued to study the crowd. “We al have ratings, dearheart. In one way or another.”

“In that case, let’s go face your critics.” I put my hand on the door handle.

“I don’t know about this. Do people stil get lynched? I have a very sensitive neck.”

“I don’t know,” I said, opening the door and pushing my mother outside, “let’s see.” The crowd stepped back a bit as we emerged.

They surrounded us in a half circle and openly gawked at us, as if waiting to see what horrors my mother might commit next. We were like twin Frankenstein monsters being eyed by torch-bearing vil agers.