AREA 47

SECTION 89:

COURTNEY, Chapter 21

Courtney could not have felt better if she had won the New York State Lottery: A book of her poetry had been accepted for publication.

The Postscript wasn’t bad, either:

Her face was on newsstands nationwide, actually worldwide.  Tyne Peck Geyerman’s newest magazine was a raging page-turning photo-flipping fashion-flashing SUCCESS.  Preferred had her booked into oblivion, at $1,100 a day, starting the instant she was released from her Tomboy contract.

Lauren Chase shared the Manhattan apartment with Courty, and the two were fast becoming best friends.  Courtney, at five-eight, towered over the shorter Lauren, who was 21, a home-loving Cancer, beauty contest winner turned model at age 18.  Lauren had just signed to do ads for all of Shreem’s hair products, which meant that she would shortly be flitting about all over the globe on extended location work so that the winds of the Seven Seas could blow-dry her hair for the camera.  Courty would then have the two-bedroom apartment virtually to herself (twenty-second floor in the brand new building; terrific view of the East River), including the advantage of Lauren’s homey furnishings.

Building security was tight, the neighborhood was semi-chic and classy, and Lauren liked to throw open the door to her apartment, and leave it open until she went to bed.  Courtney had been appalled, amazed, and then she took it for granted.

Three floors together in the building were leased by companies associated with Preferred Modeling, and many of the girls there were Preferred girls.  An informal party-in-the-works atmosphere developed, with girls always coming in and out, hanging around Lauren’s apartment.  An old padded Community-couch and a Chairman Mao People’s-Chair were permanently located outside in the wide hallway beside the door to Lauren’s apartment.  ‘Thrift shop refurbished.’  Month after month they remained, with a series of lady-like bets going on, postulating as to when they would eventually be stolen.

Many of the other girls’ apartments were really messy.  The models would not spend much time there; they’d sleep on a futon, eat To Go on disposable plastic and paper, then dash out to a party or a night scene and leave clothes and cigarette butts all over the place.  “I’ll clean up next week.”  Compared to this, Lauren’s apartment was a home: carefully chosen art on the walls, real people-oriented furniture, dishes in the cupboards; Lauren had one of her closets full of bed linens.

Three of the Regulars were present: Lauren, Courtney, and Peach from next door.  Courtney had inherited her status as a ‘Regular’ largely just by being in the right place at the right time (drawing Lauren as a roomie); but she had quickly been accepted as a Full Regular, losing her rookie status.  The door forever open, Lauren’s living-room TV forever on, the sound a nearly silent lull, remindful of humanity throbbing in the Real World out there somewhere (although no one ever seriously watched the TV).

The giant half-Cheese, half-Pepperoni pizza, delivered thirty minutes previously, was now crumbs and scraps of cold crust.

Courtney sat on the main couch (barefeet, wearing comfy old jeans, and a Banana Republic orange cotton work-shirt), yellow-padding lines of poetry.  Tentatively titled THE GREAT GOD PAN IS DEAD, the long rhyming-poem deplored the death of Nature in flowing, gentle phrases, and soft-focus sentimental metaphor: it lamented the caged-in forests, the disappearing flocks and pastures, the apparent end to all wild life——she had almost decided to plot Pan in Africa and have him analogously assassinated by an elephant hunter, except that that was such a cheap-shot.

Courty was not wearing her engagement ring.  Lunar girl Lauren had rocketed her over to Bonwit Teller to have it appraised, and when Courty found out what the flawless white ROCK was worth (!), it frightened her.  She didn’t dare wander around New York City with that dreadfully expensive diamond on her finger.  But it also seemed silly to come home and prance and preen around the apartment, wearing it.  She had it hid in her bedroom, until she could figure out what to do.

Peach and Lauren were down on the white carpeting, bent over the I-Want-You want ads in the Second Chance weekly bilge paper.

Peach was a raven-haired seductress, her long, lustrous hair a perpetual whirlwind of sexy disrepair, her lush body always restive and moving; she could climb into a 50-gallon plastic garbage bag with two peep holes, and still be wet-dream material.  “Single White Male,” Peach read, “attractive health-nut wants to spoil you with love and——”

“That means he doesn’t have any money to spoil you with,” Courty quipped.

“And attractive?” Lauren said.  “What does that mean, anyway?  It could mean anything from a purebred hunk to a low-life missing link who combs his hair!”

“I tried dating a health-nut at college,” Courty said.  “I didn’t mind taking his vitamin C, but we broke up when he wanted to give me an herbal enema.”

Lauren laughed.

“OK, OK,” Peach said.  She scanned, hungry for love, knowing it would never come to her this way, but half the fun was in the search, right?

“What happened to Larry?” Lauren asked.

Peach said, “He was last week; such a dreck.  SuperBOD, but the guy’s head is ‘slightly damaged groceries.’”

“You told me he was the Duke of Def!” Lauren said, sitting up straight.

“That was last week.  Here!  ‘Would love to spend quiet times snuggling with you, sipping wine in front of a roaring fire.’  Oooh.  Hot!”

“Roaring fire?  Sounds like a pyromaniac!” Courty said.

“Definitely an alcoholic,” Lauren said.

“An alcoholic pyromaniac, Peach,” Courty said.  “Hot.”  (Not.)

“Oh!  Oh!  Oh!” Peach shouted.  “Grounds for . . . grounds . . .”  She tried to read it, but she was shrieking with laughter, clutching herself, and then rolling on the floor, kicking her feet up in the air.  “I want him!  I want him!”

“Oh-oooh,” Lauren told Courtney.  She scanned where Peach had been reading and saw one that might be it.  She groaned and then read it out loud.  “‘Like to have your pussy licked for hours?’”

“Gawwwd,” Courtney said.  “Send photo?”

“Save that ad!!” Peach shouted.  “But no, here!  This one!”  Peach sat up and pointed as she read.  “Unhappily married entrepreneur needs grounds for divorce.”  Peach looked at Lauren for a reaction, smiling wildly, but Lauren just squinched up her face.  Peach looked over at Courtney. “Isn’t that GREAT?”

“At least he’s up-front about not wanting a commitment,” Courtney said, mostly concentrating on poetic phrasing.  “Don’t they have no-fault divorce in New York?”

“Peach,” Lauren said mock-seriously, placing her hand on Peach’s shoulder, “you’ve finally found your ideal man.”

“I’m serious,” Peach said, standing up, and starting an aerobics routine: Black hair everywhere.  “I think I’ll write him.  He probably has money.”

“I’ve seen some of these New York entrepreneurs,” Courtney said.  “You know, some guy with a car-phone in his hot-dog stand.”

Peach exercised.  Lauren absently perused the ads.  Courtney got all locked up with the final scene of her poem, rewriting it endlessly, but not quite getting it somehow.

The television mindlessly daydreamed homogenizing influences between regular abrasive hard-sell probes into America’s pocketbook.

Peach stretched, doing things with her body that only an ex-dancer could do without bleating in agony.  Her head tossed in a new direction, noticing for the first time the five-foot teddy bear on Courty’s bed through her open door.

“Courty, when did you get that bear?” Peach asked.  “God, he’s lovely.  I could cuddle him for hours.  May I borrow him some night when there’s no hotter action?  What’s his name?”

“Bosley,” Courty said.  “I asked Reed for a vibrator, and he sends me a teddy bear.  Boys!  They just don’t understand a girl’s needs.”

“Sweetie,” Peach said, “I’ll loan you mine.  Better yet, I’ll trade you: one vibrator for one teddy.  I ran down the batteries though . . .”

“There’s the boy I want to meet,” Lauren said.  “Byron Reed.  Oh, don’t look at me like that, Courty.  Roscoe and I are simpatico, we have an understanding that will last through the ages, I’m sure.  I’m simply curious.”

“Get curious about somebody else,” Courtney warned.

“But dear,” Lauren said, laughing, “you’ve told me nothing about him!  Byron lavishes this flood of gifts upon you, almost daily, and you sit there complacent, smug, satisfied, with that Cheshire Cat smile on your face . . . Do you know, Peach, that I don’t think they ever talk on the phone.  I call Roscoe, oh at least thirty times a week.  I’d be broke in a minute if I didn’t have MCI.”

Courty smiled a little.  “Don’t ever let him hear you call him Byron, or he’ll bite your head off.  He hates that name.”

Lauren continued, before Courty had finished speaking: “Does Byron call her?  Does she call Byron?”  She shook her head.  “What could be the attraction between Courty and BYRON?”

Peach stopped thrashing her black hair about and regarded Courtney mock-seriously.  “Yes.  I understand her smug, satisfied smile now.  She looks like someone just gave her an herbal enema.  And she liked it!”

Lauren shrieked with laughter.

“Low.  Low,” Courtney objected.  All the girls were now laughing at the joke.

The telephone rang.  Courtney decided to play a little game.  She sprang up and said, “I’ll get it!  It’s for me.”  She picked up the whole telephone, and carried it over to the couch before answering it.  “Hello, Darling!” she said brightly into the phone.

There was silence on the line for a moment, and then Courtney heard: “God damn it!  You’re there for two weeks, and already you’ve got a lover!”  It was Reed!  She had just been playing around, joking.  But it was really him.  Her heart stalled, thudded, and then raced.  She had only thought it through to the point where she would say, ‘Oh, excuse me.  I thought it was someone else.’

“Don’t be silly, Reed,” she said, keeping her cool.  “I knew it was you.  Your karma precedes you.”

Lauren and Peach looked at each other in amazement.

“I’m going to buy a gun and fly out and bury the son of a bitch!” Reed said.

“They’d never let you on the plane,” Courtney reminded him.

“Then I’ll drive!”

“Reed,” Courtney said, “calm down.  I knew it was you.”  Maybe I did!  “Honest.  I did.  Don’t ask me how, I just did.”  Lauren ran over and scooched up next to Courtney on the sofa so she could hear the conversation.  “Hey,” Courtney said, trying to push her away at first.  “My roommate is trying to listen in on us, Reed.  My female roommate.  Say hello, Lauren.”  Courtney shook her head in disgust, holding the receiver tilted so Lauren could sort of speak into it.

“Byron?” Lauren asked, timidly.

“YES!”

Lauren’s head shot back, with a fearful expression on her face, and she didn’t say anything more.

Courtney said, “Don’t worry, Reed.  I still love you.  I’m still wearing your ring.”  What a mess, Courtney thought.

Lauren opened her mouth in astonishment, touched Courtney’s empty left hand and then shook her finger forcefully in Courty’s face in stern condemnation: Naughty, naughty.

“Well, I’m glad.  I love you too . . . Well, here’s fair warning: I’m coming out next week.  I need to check up on the construction of the New York SoundSync.  And I need to check up on my fiancée.”

“That’s wonderful, Reed!  Oh, I have good news!  A collection of my poems has been accepted for publication.  A book.  I have a book of poems coming out.  Isn’t that great?”

Lauren whispered, “That’s news to me.”

“That is good news,” Reed agreed.  “You’re dangerous now.”

“It doesn’t pay much.  Just five hundred dollars for an advance.  But that’s really quite exceptional for a first collection of poetry.  From a largely unpublished poet, I mean.  Minor poet.”

“Does this mean that you’re finally going to let me read some of your work?” Reed asked.

“Yes, finally.  But, Goodness, it’s my early stuff.  Early, Early, stuff: Cro-Magnon Courty.  They kept my submission for two years!  You know what’s funny?  I’m on the cover of a magazine that’s in mainstream bookstores all over America, earning a fortune for it; but what really excites me is the idea that in a couple of months a small literary press is going to print out a limited edition of some of my poems——it’ll probably get distributed only in little, dinky, unconventional bookstores . . . but that is what really makes me feel good about myself.  Even though the payment is like, forget it.  Does that make sense?”

NO, Lauren pantomimed; shaking her head.  NO.  She spun her finger around the side of her head, telling Courtney that she was mentally wacko.

“Yes, it does make sense,” Reed said, after a pause.

Silence.

Courty said, “One of my girlfriends wants to trade her vibrator for Bosley, my new teddy.  What should I tell her?”

“Accept no substitutes,” Reed said.

Silence.

“Reed, it’s OK to talk to me.  Talk to me!  Tell me anything; I want to hear your voice.  Here, I’m taking the phone into my bedroom now so we can have some privacy.  Total and complete privacy.”  She did exactly that, pulling the 30’ extension cord under her door and closing it.  “Safe,” she announced.  “There aren’t any extensions, this is the only phone in the apartment, and I’m behind locked doors, speaking to the one I love.”

Silence.

“Re-ed!”

“Sorry.  I don’t know what to say.  I miss you.”

“That’s . . . a start.  How are you and Blue getting along?  She’s living with you now, right?”

“She’s fine.  She’s been helping out on my new album; working the board, contributing some musical parts.”

“Harlot’s album?”

“No, we finished that.  I’m doing an album now.”

“You?  Are you going to sing?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you going to . . . sing me a love song?”

Silence, and then: “Maybe.”

“Well, I hope you do.  And please, make it a big hit, OK?  I want my name to resound all across the radio waves of America.”  She laughed.  “Then I really will be dangerous!  I’ll be audio-visual.”  She sensed that somehow they were not communicating very well on the phone this time so she thought she’d better clarify: “I’m joking.  Don’t record a song about me, it would just embarrass me.”

Short silence.

Reed said, “I don’t know what day.  But I’ll be out, maybe Thursday or Friday of next week.”

“That’s great.  How long can you stay?”

“Mmmm, three or four days.  I have to be in San Francisco a week from Monday.”

“Great!  I have absolutely nothing to do at all, so we can spend lots and lots of time together.  Unless they call me.  It’s the kind of thing were I have to be available at a moments notice.  Even if I have to work, I’m sure we’ll have Hours and Hours together.”

“OK.  Well, I’ll see you then.”

“Reed, don’t hang up, I want to talk to you for awhile.  I’m lonely.  You’re not super-busy, are you?  What’s going wrong here?  We never have good phone conversations, but this is Terrible!  Sometimes BAD is BAD.”

That got the first laugh out of him.  “It is pretty bad.”

“If our sex was this bad, we’d never stand a chance!”

Reed chuckled.  “Well, you’re definitely right there.  I guess just talking to you on the phone doesn’t do it for me.  I want to see you and touch you and hold you.”

“Encouraging . . .”

“Instead you’re way over the FUCKING CONTINENT!”

She laughed.  Reed back to normal.

COURTNEY, Chapter 22
 

Copyright 2005 Area 47