Fifty Cents For Your Soul Read online

  Single, independent, I shared rent and groceries with my friend and lover, Andre Vaughn. We met when I played a homely teenager during my six weeks’ worth of soap opera. The way we fell in love was one big cliché…or a movie script. Framed by an open dressing room door, I took off my fake glasses, fake overbite, body padding, and the stupid wig that hid my long, curly, palomino-gold hair. “Frannie?” Andre said, skidding to a halt and staring into the room. “Andre,” I said. “Frannie!” Andre said, moving closer. Fadeout…

  Later we both swore we heard background music: piano and violins, maybe even a harp. We even swore we heard James Brown singing “I Want You So Bad.”

  So yes, Mrs. Carvainis, I’m an ecktriss. Even though I wait tables at an Italian restaurant, my agent tends to forget my existence, and my mother thinks I should finish college and teach school.

  If you keep to your present path, you will reach the top of your field.

  The Death card may imply mishap rather than physical death.

  Ain’t got no cat. Snake.

  “Frannie, are you asleep?”

  Opening my eyes, I watched Bonnie slide her perfect body into the whirlpool.

  “Wool-gathering,” I said. “What were you trying to tell me before, during aerobics class?”

  “Last night I had this really weird dream.”

  Wisps of steam swirled around Bonnie’s chin.

  “I dreamed about you and demons,” she said.

  Chapter Four

  Before Bonnie and I could discuss her dream, a gaggle of sweaty, giggly, white-footed gooney birds invaded our whirlpool.

  Bonnie showered, whereupon we headed for The Spa’s snack bar.

  After avidly consuming two all-beef hot dogs snuggled inside two whole-grain wheat buns, I crunched a frozen cappuccino between my teeth. Bonnie drank what The Spa calls an “Orange Julia” ‑‑ named for Roberts ‑‑ and I call an “Orange Environmentalist.” Filled with a virtual alphabet of vitamins, nothing had been killed to blender Bonnie’s brew, not even an orange.

  We didn’t talk about demons.

  I didn’t mention Tenia’s snake.

  We might have picked apart Bonnie’s dream if “Mr. Biceps” hadn’t squiggled his taut butt between our stools. When he offered to pay our tab, I swallowed my annoyance, but that meant we had to endure his inane chatter. At least Bonnie did. I needed Andre to finish what I had started in the whirlpool.

  Or maybe, instead, I’d sit and visualize the phone call that would confirm Mrs. C’s “contracts and money” prophecy.

  I said goodbye to Bonnie.

  Then, pausing at The Spa’s doorway, paraphrasing J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan, I said, “Clap three times if you believe.”

  Exiting The Spa, I clapped three times.

  Chapter Five

  Upon arriving home, I changed into my favorite Betty Boop T-shirt, sat on the edge of my favorite piece of furniture (a barber’s chair), and stared at the phone.

  Andre had signed the lease on our apartment five months before we met. He says I moved in at noon-thirty and by 1:15 had redecorated. A slight exaggeration. It was probably more like 3:15.

  Be that as it may, I had suspended several plants from any rafter I could find, brightened a few corners with potted palms, and covered the scarred wooden floors with what my mother calls “ersatz Oriental.” Wall fissures were hidden by framed theatre and movie posters, hung haphazardly because the cracks had no perceptible pattern. For example, A Star is Born (Garland’s version) rested two inches below the ceiling’s molding while The Graduate was eye level, assuming the eyes belonged to whoever reclined on our ersatz leather couch.

  One week later I had added The Diary of Anne Frank, Mom’s housewarming gift.

  “I’ve heard,” Mom said during her first and only visit, “that you can get cancer from dry-rot fungus.”

  I hung Anne above the ersatz fireplace, the only lump of matter that had received Mom’s seal of approval.

  “Use it in good health,” she had stated, just before she stepped into the hallway, gazed pointedly at the fifth-floor stairwell, then shot me her patented Jewish sacrifice look. Mom has varicose veins.

  “Frannie, ah, Fran, why do you, ah, keep staring at the phone?” Andre said, sounding like James Cagney. He ‑‑ Andre, not Cagney ‑‑ sat in our living room’s overstuffed armchair, a script in his lap.

  We have phones in our kitchen, bedroom and living room. This phone, the one without an answering machine, squatted atop my second favorite piece of furniture: a miniature merry-go-round horse, topped by a circle of smoked glass.

  “I’m visualizing a call from my agent,” I said.

  “You’re practicing A T and Telepathy? Trying to elicit a call by thinking ‘ring’ inside your head? Oh, I get it. The fortune teller.”

  “Not fortune teller, Andre, spiritualist.”

  “How could you waste grocery money on that shit? Speaking of groceries, I hate generic peanut butter. Please buy Peter Pan.”

  “Peter Pan was a damn chauvinist,” I said. “He never saw Wendy as a real woman. He wanted her to mother the Lost Children and sew his shadow back on.”

  Andre winked. “He taught Wendy how to fly.”

  “Big deal. I think I read somewhere that an airline has added a direct flight from Kennedy Airport to Never-Never Land.”

  “Jesus Christ! An innuendo goes right over your head.”

  “It does not!”

  “Next you’ll tell me that Peter Pan wanted to screw his mother.”

  “I will not! I left Freud and his dissident friends at Syracuse University, and I’m not into kinky.”

  “Really! What about Mickey Roebuck?”

  “What about him?”

  “He wears ladies’ underwear.”

  “He does not!”

  “Have you ever seen him in his underwear?”

  “No! Have you?”

  “You never saw his panties, not even when you shared his loft?”

  “Our relationship was platonic and…you’re joking, right?”

  “Maybe.”

  One thing I hate about Andre is what I call his enigmaticism. Had he seen my friend Mickey in panties? And if so, where? “Maybe” meant I’d never know because Andre would simply change the subject.

  Extending his hands, he molded them around an imaginary crystal ball. “I see Oscar on the mantel,” he said, sounding like that kid in The Sixth Sense, the one who saw dead people. “Watch out for the flames, Oscar, we have no fireplace screen. Too late! I see Oscar melting, mellllting.”

  I felt my temper simmer. “Our fireplace is dysfunctional, you idiot, just like you and me!”

  “I see travel…a plane…destination Never-Never Land. I see romance with a boy who wants you to sew his shadow back on.”

  “A boy who won’t grow up!”

  “I see a Kansas tornado and Auntie Em.”

  My temper boiled over. “Knock it off! Bonnie recommended Mrs. Carvainis and ‑‑”

  “I see danger, but you will give in to it, even enjoy it.”

  Tempering my temper, I said, “What kind of danger?”

  “I see a tall man, a soap star.”

  “How tall?”

  “Six foot one.”

  “And a half,” I said, because halves are very important to people who are five foot two and a half.

  “I see him ripping off your clothes and kissing you in places you’ve never been kissed before.”

  “Go on.”

  “I see the tall superstar ‑‑”

  “How’d we get from soap star to superstar?”

  “-- taking a break and fixing himself a tuna sandwich.” Rising, Andre placed his script on the chair.

  “It’s almost suppertime,” I said. “You’ll ruin your appetite.”

  “Jesus, Frannie, you sound like your mother.”

  “What an awful thing to say.”

  “Sorry.” He humped one shoulder, then the other, rotating sinewy back muscles. “A hangm
an has knotted a goddamn noose in my neck.”

  “When we’re rich and famous we’ll buy a Jacuzzi.”

  “Speaking of famous,” Andre said, glancing toward his script.

  “Big scene tomorrow?”

  “I get shot saving Trish from bank robbers. There’s this great bit in the hospital where I express my love for that gorgeous slut…if it was a movie I’d win an Academy Award. Then I pass out.”

  “Your love? But I thought Trish was pregnant. I thought what’s his face is the father. I thought…never mind. I’ll fix you a tuna sandwich, Andre, then cue you until it’s time for me to perform my waitress bit.”

  “Shit, I forgot. Your boss called. There’s a private party tonight, so New York’s finest Italian restaurant won’t need the services of Frannie Rosen, Long Island’s consummate purveyor of matzo ball soup and gefilte fish.”

  “Oh, good! I need the money, but my waitress uniform reeks of garlic, parmesan and Chianti, and this nutcase left Forever Asmodeus on the bus seat next to mine.”

  As I paused for breath, Andre said, “Forever who?”

  “Asmodeus. Some kind of demon. Forever Asmodeus is a sexy horror novel, honey, and I’ve been dying to read it. So I’ll spend tonight at the Laundromat. But first…”

  Pushing Andre to the floor, I straddled his long, lean body.

  “He rips off all her clothes,” I said, as he began to peel denim down over my tush. “That’s what you call rip?”

  “Your jeans are skin-tight, Frannie. Maybe you should spend the night with a diet guru.”

  “You dirty rat.” Rats! My enunciation sounded like Bette Davis, not Cagney. Rolling away, I wriggled out of my jeans.

  “Tell me what you want,” Andre said, “and then I’ll tell you.”

  “I want to make mad, passionate love.”

  “Say the words, baby.”

  “I love you,” I said, kicking my jeans toward the fireplace.

  “And I love you. Say the words, Frannie.”

  Andre got turned on by explication, but I didn’t. “You’re supposed to kiss me in places I’ve never been kissed before,” I said. “Good luck.”

  He kissed Betty Boop.

  “Wait a sec,” I said. “Let me take off…hey, what’s the matter?”

  He had propped himself up on one elbow. Between his eyes was what I called his White Anglo-Saxon Protestant crease.

  “What’s with your WASP crease?” I said. “Is something wrong?”

  “No.”

  I tend to blurt out every catastrophe, from a broken fingernail to a broken water main, but Andre keeps his mouth shut…like an unsteamed clam. “You look underwhelmed,” I said. “Why can’t we make love?”

  In a Jerry Seinfeld voice, Andre said, “It’s almost suppertime. You’ll ruin your appetite.”

  He turned his head sideways. I took a moment to admire dark blonde hair falling into blue eyes shaded by lengthy lashes. Perhaps his nose was a tad aggressive and his mouth too generous, but all the ingredients came together to produce a classic profile. On the other hand, he claimed my nose was impertinent and my mouth pouty. We had selected our black cat, Snowball, from the animal shelter because Andre insisted the cat’s eyes looked like mine.

  “Andre,” I said, “do you want to hear about the whirlpool?”

  I told him…showed him. Show and Tell, and I could tell he was getting turned on. This time he straddled my body. Then he lowered his face to my breasts and sucked Betty Boop’s expressive eyes.

  My nipples responded to the wet warmth while my vagina began to generate its own moisture. I could feel it on my fingers, still teasing in order to tease Andre. His cock pried my fingers apart, discovered the dampness, and thrust.

  “Suck Betty,” I said. “Suck…yes…more…yes…Betty Boo…yes!”

  Instead, he pulled out and shifted positions, until his erection was level with my chin. “Frannie, c’mon, please,” he urged.

  “I can’t. You know I can’t.”

  “Yes, you can. Forget Jewish inhibitions.”

  “Inhibitions have nothing to do with it. I can’t put it…you in my mouth, Andre. I’m sorry.”

  He changed positions again. “Someday,” he said, then penetrated.

  Penitent, I lifted my legs onto his shoulders, giving him easier access. Damn my mother all to hell! She’d told me a gazillion times that Good Jewish Girls didn’t ingest a man’s you-know-what.

  I gasped, shuddered, writhed, moaned.

  Andre moaned.

  I came.

  Andre came.

  I sighed.

  Andre laughed.

  I said, “What’s so funny?”

  Andre said, “There’s a Peeping Tom at our window.”

  Turning my head, I saw a black face with tufts of hair protruding from its ears. An ethnic nose. Unshaven, whiskered cheeks…

  A black demon!

  Green-tinged amber eyes stared, unblinking. Lithesome rather than lecherous, the Peeping Tom stuck out his tongue, then lifted one foot to cleanse the callused pads between his needle-claws.

  I looked at Andre. “Who let Snow outside on the patio?”

  “You did, Frannie, and it’s not a patio. It’s a goddamn balcony.”

  Last summer I had decided to convert our patio…balcony…into a greenhouse. When I was a kid, The Secret Garden was one of my favorite books. However, since I killed our house plants with disturbing regularity, the plan had never materialized. Sometimes Andre cooked hamburgers atop a tiny Hibachi grill. Sometimes I tossed our fat black cat out there so he could fill his lungs with polluted city air.

  After we had the cat neutered, we changed his name from Snowball to Snow, and Andre swore Snow’s I-need-pussy meow had mutated. According to Andre, Snow now sounded like Streisand. To me, he sounded the same as always. Screechy, as if his whiskers were being zapped by an electrologist.

  Rising to my feet, I walked to the window, opened it, and watched my fat cat leap from sill to radiator to rocking chair. A window philodendron tottered and fell. “I planned to trim the leaves anyway,” I said, staring at dirt, tangled roots, and stems.

  Andre said, “What leaves?”

  The phone rang. I recognized the ring. It was strident. It whined. It procrastinated and justified. It was my agent.

  It was my mother.

  “Daddy wondered if you’d like to bring your boyfriend over for a Sunday cookout,” she said. Although she had lived on Long Island for twenty-five years, her voice retained her Chicago syllable stress. In fact, she could have announced home games for the Chicago Cubs.

  She knew how to phrase a question, too. The invitation came from Daddy. Mother couldn’t care less.

  “My boyfriend has a name, Andre Vaughn,” I said. “Gee, Mom, I think we’re busy Sunday.”

  “You think? Why don’t you check your calendar, Frannie? Your father hasn’t seen you in weeks. He misses you, worries about you.”

  Daddy misses me. Daddy worries. Jewish guilt. Talk about passing the buck. On the other hand, Daddy passed me bucks while Mom mailed me wedding notices clipped from local newspapers. Birth announcements, too. And self-stick memos. “Remember your stupnagel cousin Charlene?” Mom had once written, her microscopic handwriting embellishing the sticky square. “Charlene is married to an accountant, teaches junior high school, and just had a baby girl.” Jewish subtlety.

  IT’S A BOY read the card I mailed when Andre and I adopted Snow.

  I ran to the bathroom and washed away Andre’s proof of desire, hoping Mom would believe I was checking my calendar.

  “If you have to go potty,” she said when I returned to the phone, “you could at least offer to call me back.”

  “Sorry,” I said, thinking that my mother was more clairvoyant than Mrs. Carvainis.

  “How’s Anne Frank?”

  It took a moment. “Fine,” I said, glancing toward the movie poster.

  “What about Sunday, Frannie?”

  Okay. I got the connection. Anne had
been shut up inside an attic, and would have given anything for freedom and fresh air. Anne Frank didn’t let weeks go by without an obligatory parental visit.