Truths of the Heart (21 page)

The tour ended in a large room dominated by a white stone fireplace
which glowed with crackling flames. On a wall beyond hung a motion picture-sized
projection screen. To the left, on a white baby grand piano, in a Liberace-like
candelabra, a dozen white candles burned. Next to the piano, seeming to grow
out of the floor, sat a marble top bar with five white stools. Several gold
framed character sketches of sports and movies celebrities adorned the wall
behind the bar.

Looking around, the white candelabra candles burning, scores of other
red, white, large, small, fat and tall candles flickering everywhere, Carl was
reminded of St. Jerome's Cathedral at Midnight Mass.

Seeing his interest, Tommi confessed that candles were her favorite source
of light. Beyond the candlelight, the night glimmer of downtown Detroit twinkled
through floor to ceiling windows. Tommi said, “Here we are, my cuddly favorite
space.”

“Nice fireplace,” said Carl as he lit a Kool.

“It's gas, ceramic logs, who wants to mess with big ole logs.” She
flared her eye and drew on her cigarette holder, “Wood logs that is.”

“Right.”

She invited him to sit on the long white sofa which faced three
matching easy chairs.

She swayed to the bar. “So sweetie, what may I fix you to drink?”

“Rum and Coke.”

“Appleton rum okay?”

“Nothing but the best.” Declining the sofa offer, he followed her to
the bar and sat on a stool.

Tommi mixed his drink and presented it on a blue High Five cocktail napkin.
Then she took a bottle of slivovitz from a bar refrigerator and poured an ounce
of the liquor in a brandy snifter.

“That that Polish moonshine stuff?” Carl said.

“Slivovitz, yes dear.”

“Don't light any matches.”

She chuckled.

“Let me see that bottle.”

She handed him the bottle.

He took it and looked at the label. “This stuff really 70 percent
alcohol?”

“Believe it darling, put some of that on a cat's raw behind and watch
him run.” She flared her eyes, sipped and changed the subject. “You're probably
wondering why I asked you over.”

“I guessed, maybe radio advertising.”

“You devil, you, how did you know? Saluda`. Shall we dine?”

“Starved.”

“Bring your drink.”

She led Carl to the elevator, and they entered and began a slow
descent. Fifteen seconds later they exited into a roar of kitchen noise as
servers, cooks, and bartenders shouted, cursed in and around the smell of
cooking fat, aged beef, and Roquefort dressing. In there, too, was a whiff of
clams, oysters, and fish.

Tommi and Carl walked through the kitchen maze and entered, through
automated swinging doors, the High Five dining room.

Quickly greeted by a sassy lady hostess, they were seated in a corner booth
that normally accommodated eight. White tablecloth, wine glasses, shiny
flatware.

Tommi ordered a bottle of Beaujolais, then selected for Carl the
special King Cut porterhouse steak. “How do you like it done, Mr. Carl?”

“Raw.”

“Somehow I knew that.”

Tommi had the petite fillet, medium rare.

Drinking and eating, they talked of advertising, and that led to talk
of sponsorship of Carl's
Playing for Keeps
show. Tommi wondered if Carl
would be possibly interested in doing one or two broadcasts live from the High
Five, “A remote, I think they call it, be a smash.”

Carl liked the idea, would talk it over with the WJJ brass.

Flamed prickly pear ice cream for dessert, they sipped Grand Marnier
and smoked thin Macanudo cigars.

Puffing off a delicate stream of smoke, Tommi said to Carl, “Why don't we
go back upstairs, I have something you might be interested in.”

Short elevator ride up, entering Tommi's “cuddly favorite space,” Carl stopped
and stared. Sitting on two bar stools, dressed in mesh see-through everything,
two young ladies sipped from long stemmed Champagne glasses.

Mellow Stan Getz jazz playing in the background, the ladies smiled.

“Surprise, surprise.” Tommi said and introduced Mindy and Pearl to
Carl. Mindy a blonde, Pearl a brunette, Carl got a moist kiss on both cheeks.

After drinks fresher-uppers, Tommi walking to the sofa, said “How 'bout
we see a movie.”

All invited and sitting on the sofa, Tommi pressed a remote control
button, Mindy and Pearl cuddled up to Carl and, on the motion picture screen,
video played:

A young female dressed as a french maid scrubs a floor. Enter a tank of
a man. A Zorro mask hides his eyes. He cracks a whip at the maid. She shrieks.

As the maid shed her clothes and assumed a kneeling position, Mindy and
Pearl tugged Carl up and led him to the guest bedroom.

Seeing the bedroom door close, Tommi slipped into her office which had
a one way mirror view of the Carl, Mindy and Pearl show. Just in case she
needed it for future reference, video recording equipment captured the triple X
pretzel looking performance.

CHAPTER TWO

A funny thing happened on the way to the Super Bowl. The game just two Sundays
away, Carl was in East Lansing for the weekend. Exceptionally cordial, humble,
T.S. even rubbed his legs. Rachelle saw the little boy. The one who had
suffered a one-in-a-million accident that crippled a fame and glory career.
Friday night in bed he was meek, docile, giving, pliable, sensitive even.

 
After sex, as he wiped
Rachelle's body with a cool wash cloth, he gently broke the news: he was having
a little get-together next Sunday at his place in Detroit to watch the NFC AFC
Championship games. The games would decide the Super Bowl combatants. Corky and
his wife Sandy were invited; he thought it would be nice if Mrs. Bostich were
there. Her Pisces desire-to-please emotions taking over, she agreed.

Thrilled with the win, Saturday night, Carl scored several touchdowns in
bed with Rachelle.

The next week, Rachelle in Detroit for the football party at Carl's apartment,
she awoke in the wee hour of Sunday morning to an annoying itch in her pubic
area. She went to the bathroom, tuned on the light, and looked. Little white insects
crawled in her pubic hair. She screamed.

Carl entered. “What you screaming about?”

“What in the hell are these.”

He remembered Mindy and Pearl at Tommi's, the romp in Tommi's guestroom.
The next day he had found crabs on himself, bought an over-the-counter lotion
and thought he was rid of them. His quarterback-in-trouble mode scrambled, “Oh,
that's nothing, I wondered if you got them. I found them on me last week. Corky
got 'em too, we figure it was the men's locker room at the health club. Crabs.”

“You can't get them like that, can you?”

“Sure you can. There's some stuff in my medicine cabinet, take a
shower, lather yourself up good, wait twenty minutes, rinse, kills 'em fast.”

“What about the bed clothes?”

“Change 'em, pajamas too, I'm gonna sleep on the sofa.”

“Is there anything else?”

“Like what?”

“Like what.”

****

Sunday arrived and, everyone having a drink, watching the pre-game TV shows,
Carl and Corky made a bet on the point spread.

Sandy said, “I never did understand how that stuff worked.”

Rachelle shrugged.

Corky said, “It's the number of points a team has to win by. Say the
point-spread is San Francisco by ten points. If they win by only seven points
they win the game but the bet is lost. Get it?”

“No.”

Carl stepped in, “Let's say San Francisco ends up playing Philadelphia.
I think they will.”

“BOOOO” from Corky.

Carl, “If San Francisco is the favorite by ten points over
Philadelphia, the point spread would be San Francisco by ten points. If you bet
the ten point spread, San Francisco must win by ten or more points or you
lose.”

Shaking her head, Rachelle invited Sandy to the kitchen.

There, preoccupied with that locker room story about crabs, Rachelle said,
“Scary thing.”

“What's that?”

“Carl was telling me some people at his and Corky's health club were passing
around pediculosis pubis.”

“What's that?”

“Crabs.”

“You're kidding me?”

“Carl said Corky got them too.”

“Corky never said anything to me, dear, and you'd think I'd be the
first to know, now wouldn't you. I'd kill the son of a bitch.”

Rachelle paused,
Carl, you bastard liar you
.

The game over, Carl and Corky smashed, Corky and Sandy gone, Rachelle confronted
Carl. After a blistering argument, she drove back to East Lansing.

CHAPTER THREE

The short dark days of winter, cold, icy with freezing rain, blowing
snow. Seth, with a full course load, worked at da Vinci's as many hours as he
could fit around his class schedule. Seeing Rachelle in everything, he had
written her off to insane infatuation and juvenile fantasy. Com. 501 formal
classes were not meeting until March, just private sessions with Dr. Zannes, by
appointment, to keep on track with individual projects were scheduled. Seth
hadn't done any more work on his story idea. He hadn't made any appointments
with her either. He didn't want to see her.

All this eating his mind, to escape, needing subjects for a class assignment,
he went to Lake Lansing Park. There he took digital pictures of fishing huts on
the frozen lake, ice boats, skaters, children cavorting in the snow. He thought
he saw Rachelle driving by once but couldn't be sure. More photos—a skater
wearing a red toboggan hat, evergreen trees dripping with snow, a fisherman in
his hut sipping on a pint of Old Crow, two bluegills on the ice at his rubber
boot encased feet.

He took the snapshots back to his apartment, loaded them into his computer,
printed the pictures, then used the photos as studies. He painted
furiously—titanium whites, cobalt blue, yellow sun reflecting off the ice and
snow, purple shadows, rubber boots, tiny fish—but she was always there in the
back of his mind.

Forget her; she's a different person, changed since that first day.
Maybe it's you that changed. Maybe you imagined it all from the start. Think
about it. A professor, married to a famous jock, why would she look at a
starving artist with not even yet a bachelor's degree. Dreamer. So what else is
new? Damn! I don't want to see her. Why put my head in a blast furnace. Yes,
but at some point you have to if you're going to pass the course. Blah blah blah
. Damn!

CHAPTER FOUR

Monday, January
20

A typical Michigan January morning—battleship gray, sleet expected to turn
to snow later in the afternoon. Carl, working the phones on his
Playing for
Keeps
radio show, came up to a 4:30 break for local news. He lit up a fresh
smoke, took a sip of coffee, and Max, his call-screener, wheezed over the
intercom, “Hey man, there's a Tommi Gilmour on line one. Says she needs to talk
to you.”

Carl picked up.

Tommi needed to see him about something important, couldn't discuss it over
the phone, could he come by this evening. She told him she would have her limo
driver pick him up, same time, 6:30. Fine.

Carl wondered if this was going to turn into another of Tommi's Mindy and
Pearl treat nights. Maybe two new ones. Then again, maybe Tommi wanted to press
him on doing his
Playing for Keeps
show from the High Five.

Radio show over, Carl, picked up by chauffeur Gus, driving cross town, called
Rachelle from the limo phone:

She answered, “Hello.”

“Still mad?”

She hung up.

He re-dialed.

She answered. “What?”

“I talked to Corky, he said he did get them. Picked them up at the
health club, Sandy was lying to protect him. Call Dent, he got 'em there too.”

“That'd be like calling sewage to ask if garbage is smelly.”

“Love you.”

“Save it.”

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing.”

“Sound tired.”

“I am.”

“Tommi Gilmour wants to see me, going over to her place.”

“Lucky you. Anything else, I'm busy.”

“Bite me.”

She hung up.

****