Tales From A Broad (37 page)

I feel the silence in the house pool around my feet much as the sea did earlier. I take a shower – more water streaming over my head – and have a most revelatory idea. I shall join the family for lunch! Yes, I think I can sit down for lunch. I'll call Frank now. It's not something I do, you know, take an hour out of the day and sit inside somewhere and lunch. But I can. It's a normal sort of a thing and I can and I will. I put in a new pair of contacts and from the corner of my eye, I see the possible rip in the plan – pages of faxes piled in the tray. I bravely walk to them, praying they all say the same thing, ‘Great job! Thanks!' or ‘Name your price!' Sure.

The first one makes me sit down. It announces a conference call at 1 am my time with a guy in Los Angeles. That means I get no sleep at all. The next one makes me reach for the bucket. The most annoying client on my roster chirps that she will be in Singapore for a week. Can she stay? I write back in magic marker ‘NO, GO AWAY' but I don't send it. This client wrote one book and then wrote it again with a different title and some new names attached to the same old ‘dashing' nobleman and ‘raven-haired' broad and has proceeded to do this again and again unbeknownst, apparently, to the publisher and public. Okay, that's not at all fair of me to say. I never read anything after the first one. Don't need to. Hate the stuff. All sounds alike.

Here's one from Melanie reminding me that we're all meeting for her girls' night out farewell party at Vie. I told her I'd attend even though this is a dress rehearsal. She isn't going anywhere.

And here's the one I was expecting. Not always from the same client but I get something like it once a month. It attacks me for failing to notice that the contract I accepted on said client's behalf was actually a document designed to destroy his/her life. Ah, but what they never pick up on is that if you read the contract backwards, it says, ‘The publisher has the right to pretend he wrote your boring book and send you on a negative publicity tour and rip you off in every possible way he can think of because that's why he really wanted to be a publisher in the first place.' It's understood that I'm in cahoots with Lucifer.

I get on the computer and do the old damage control and swear that Client Zip is welcome in my home and we'll have all sorts of fun (even though I know that she'll be asking dumb questions like, ‘Did you like my last book?' and ‘Can you get me more money?' and ‘But what do you really know about this market?') and just as I sign off, it's time to go to Dr Soondartisradnoosvishnuam's.

His office smells of jasmine. Crystals of amethyst and quartzite the size of my leg are planted in the centre of the waiting-room floor. Sitar music wafts overhead and a bookshelf solely housing titles by Dr S himself stands directly in front of all the chairs so it is impossible to miss. Quite a spectrum of subjects the good doctor writes on – from parenting to hair analysis. I fill out the general information questionnaire – happy for any opportunity to talk about myself – with startling lies. I ‘on occasion' smoke; consider myself a ‘light drinker'; exercise ‘consistently and moderately'; ‘eat three meals a day'; ‘do not have more than two cups of coffee'; have ‘never' suffered bouts of depression. I think if they have to ask this sort of thing, then they can't be real doctors. I'm going to make Dr S figure it out. If someone admitted they drink lots, eat lots, smoke lots, never sleep, don't get off the sofa, etc – well, I guess any idiot could give a fairly correct diagnosis.

Dr Soondartisradnoosvishnuam appears and ushers me in. He's a short man with thick, unstyled hair. In his small examining room, a computer screen sits on a side desk. It displays an enlarged human eye on the screen. I say, ‘I don't know, Doc, I feel sort of watched all the time.' He laughs warmly and explains, in a voice that sounds trapped in a bubble, that he can ascertain almost anything about your health by looking at your eyes, more specifically, your retinas.

‘I see,' I say.

Dr S gives a little snort and wags his head. As much voodoo as there is around the room, I find myself liking him. I do believe he has a gift, a sixth sense. I trust him. Perhaps it is because he chuckles again as he reads through my report.

He asks me to lift up my right leg. He pushes it down and chortles again.

‘What's funny?' I ask.

He says that I made a lot of jokes on my record.

‘I did not.'

He turns red trying to swallow his laugh and magnifies my eyeball. Which really gets him going. I've never seen a doctor enjoy his work so much.

‘What? What?'

He asks me if I ever have bouts of rage.

I say I'm not telling. He writes something down and looks at the sheet again. He smiles.

He flips my ear with his index finger. ‘So you're a literary agent,' he says.

‘Yeah.'

‘I have a book.'

‘Yes, I saw them out in the waiting room.'

He asks me if I'd be interested in his novel, a murder mystery set in Santa Fe.

‘Listen, Doc, I'm barely in the business any more but I'll see what I can do,' I say as I lift the other leg up and he pushes it back down. He giggles.

He asks me if I stay up late, if I like salt, if I have dreams of being Indian, and what I eat during the day.

‘I don't know. You tell me.'

‘Why, I bet you have crackers and drink a bottle of wine.'

‘Sometimes I have chips and beer,' I say.

He tells me I need chromium, vitamin B and ‘Dr Soon-better' powder.

‘You have a blood sugar problem,' he says.

I give him a couple of pieces of my hair for a $400 analysis and pay $300 for the vitamins and a box of ‘Dr Soon-better' powder. I lug it all home and put it on top of my Biospliven carton.

There is a note from Frank: ‘Took the kids out to dinner. Have a nice bath and relax.'

I work until they come home.

‘Hey, kidlings!' I say and hug and kiss them. They smell like fries and clutch Happy Meal junk. They laugh about something the evening presented. I tell them about the moon. They tell me about the lighthouse. Frank goes out for beer. Susie returns from Francis's and I head for Melanie's party, leaving a note for Frank.

The minute I walk into Vie, I see something's horribly amiss. What are Samantha and Louise doing at the same event? The same table? Sitting next to each other. It was at Melanie's farewell lunch, six months ago, that they had a spat and they haven't spoken since. They look extremely uncomfortable so I sit between them and it works out fine. I have two people to share a bottle of wine with and the tension in the room sort of makes us all a little thirsty, then a little bawdy, which turns to bawling as we rehearse our ‘goodbye and good luck' speeches for Melanie.

And then I see that I have to race home to make the 1 am conference call.

I'm sure it's rather impressive when I fall asleep in the middle of it. I wake up, acutely startled, when the producer asks, ‘What do you think, Fran?' If I were a tad smarter I would stay quiet, pretend the phone's dead. If I were not so sublimely dumb, I would choose not to say, ‘Huh? Wha …? Are we still on the phone?' And, when they answer ‘Yes', I most certainly would not say, ‘Oh, good, I thought there was something wrong with the TV.' And, indeed, it is most unfortunate that I fall asleep again.

At four in the morning, Frank is not in our bed. He is not in Huxley's room or Sadie's room. He is out on the balcony. My morning has become his wee hours. He sits with a glass of beer and stares out at the sea, occasionally jotting down something on a notepad.

I bring my coffee out. ‘At last, we meet again!' I say. ‘We're like the cartoon sheepdogs. Fran and Frank doing our shifts. Remember that cartoon?'

‘Yep.'

‘You okay?'

‘Yep.'

‘What's wrong?'

‘Nothing.'

‘Why are you still up?'

‘Working.'

‘Big project?'

‘No.'

‘So why are you up?'

‘I have work to do.'

‘I didn't think you were that busy.'

‘Yep.'

‘Boy, you're in a bad mood.'

‘Wasn't a minute ago. I'm working, okay?'

I want to tell him this is
my
balcony but then I realise it actually isn't. Still, I resent him sitting there making his mood fill up all the open spaces.

‘Well, guess I'll go for my run.'

‘Guess so. See ya.'

Inspiration is like dandelion fluff; you can't catch it in the air, it has to land on you. I never know when these moments are going to come but just as I'm thinking about how much I miss doughnuts, it hits me: Frank needs a party. I need a party. Same thing. Melanie's doesn't count; I had to pace myself so I'd be fresh for the conference call. Plus, no men.

When I get home, I call Safra Resort and book the beachfront canopy, table for 20, for Father's Day. My girlfriends say they have to ask their husbands but think it sounds like a plan and eventually I hear that everyone can come, except for Caroline's crew, who already bought tickets to the American Club barbecue and bowling tourney.

At Safra, the kids can play on the beach, run around the playground and throw coins into the video machines while the adults drink beer, watch the planes take off and the sun set. Most of us like to ride our bikes there and generally leave wobbly and full. It's always a good time.

‘Look, Frank, I know tomorrow is Father's Day,' I say to him while we get dressed to go over to Pam and Jacque's new house (17,000 square feet and probably no yard for that poor Appaloosa they just bought, what with the three other horses they're raising … anyway, not my problem), ‘but can we start it – you know, doing all the things you want to do –
after
I get back from my ride? Maj and Mag have me doing a four-hour but I'll go really early so I can be back.'

‘Fran, that's fine. I don't even want to acknowledge Father's Day. Commercial holidays are for lemmings.'

I come out of the bathroom holding my mascara wand. ‘Frank! You have to celebrate things in life. You can't just plod, plod, plod. Father's Day is the day you can design to be your perfect day. Whatever you want.'

Frank looks at me like I am a talking booger.

I continue, ‘All right, I didn't want to tell you because I thought it'd be a fun surprise, but …'

‘So don't tell me.' He tucks in his shirt, walks out to the computer and begins emailing.

I follow. ‘Well, I think it will make you happy, so …'

‘Can't get much happier, Fran.'

‘What's
wrong
, Frank?'

‘Nothing,
nothing
and
NOTHING
. I don't want a Father's Day, but obviously that doesn't matter. You just won't let things well enough alone. You'll just keep doing whatever
you
want.' He turns off the computer and goes downstairs.

He's right about one thing … I run to the top of the steps half naked, half mascaraed, and scream, ‘AM I SUPPOSED TO APOLOGISE FOR THINKING OF YOU? FOR WORRYING ABOUT YOU?'

‘You're a real piece of work, you know that?' He leaves the apartment and slams the door.

I follow.

‘Go back inside, Fran, and take a fucking pill. And by the way, I'm not going to Pam and Jacque's.'

‘How can you do that to me? To her? She made dinner!'

‘I. Don't. Care.' The elevator door closes behind him.

I go to Pam and Jacque's house alone. There are three other couples besides Pam and Jacque and the widow Fran. Frank is dead to me.

‘Frank is sick,' I say.

After a glass of wine, I tell someone else, ‘Frank is away. In Hong Kong. Big project.'

After two glasses of wine, I tell everyone, ‘Frank is a bastard', and I go over the whole entire thing just like it happened and I get everyone to hate him as much as I do.

Over coffee, I tell them there's probably a bigger context I should mention which might be important in our judgement of Frank, and perhaps I should enumerate his strengths, out of a sense of honesty and fairness. Unfortunately, at this point in my analysis, everyone has to leave, as happily married people do on a Saturday night, so we plan to continue the discussion at Safra the following evening, amidst assurances that everything will work out fine.

‘Oh, I know. This happens to us all the time. I mean, not
all
the time, then it would be a really bad marriage. But we have so much fun together. And, I push. I do have to blame myself here …' I wave as the taxis pull out and return my gaze to the Appaloosa's pleasant nostrils. She nuzzles my cheek, nodding her big head ‘yes'.

Sunday morning, when I get back from my ride, Frank has tidied up the house, made fresh coffee, and put flowers in a vase, toasted bagels and smoked salmon on a plate and a grapefruit in a bowl. The kids are shiny clean, wearing clothes that fit and match. The toys are in their places except for the game of Memory they're all playing. Van Morrison is in the CD player. I've got a lot of road dirt on me and my helmet is dripping with sweat; my hair is foul and my toes hurt. I promise them I'll be down in a minute, don't get near me, I stink. The shower feels so good. I shave, dry off and do a little pampering.