should have let him learn the lesson—observe the warning of what a displaced woman could do. If he had been allowed to see the result of getting rid of one woman, it might help the new one convert her own rental in his arms to a longer lease.
Regrets over her mismanaged life faded in the glow of Dr. Rio’s memory, as did the embarrassment of her battle with his beloved Cadillac. In spite of the shamefaced end of their affair, the three years with him—well, near him; he was mightily undivorceable—were wonderful. She had seen movies about the misery of kept women, how they died in the end or had suffering illegitimate babies who died also. Sometimes the women were saddened by guilt and cried on the betrayed wife’s lap. Yet twenty years after she’d been replaced by fresher White Shoulders, Christine still insisted her kept-woman years were the best. When she met Dr. Rio, her forty-one years to his sixty made him an “older” man. Now, in her mid-sixties, the word meant nothing. He was sure to be dead by now or propped up in bed paying some teenage welfare mother a hundred dollars to nibble his toes while a day nurse monitored his oxygen flow. It was a scene she had to work at because the last sight she’d had of him was as seductive as the first. An elegant dresser, successful G.P., passionate, playful. Her last good chance for happiness wrecked by the second oldest enemy in the world: another woman. Manila’s girls said Dr. Rio gave each new mistress a gift of that same cologne. Christine had thought it was unique—a private gesture from a thoughtful suitor. He preferred it; she learned to. Had she stayed longer at Manila’s or visited her whores once in a while, she would have discovered at once Dr. Rio’s particular pattern of bullshit: he fell head over heels, seduced, offered his expensive apartment on Trelaine Avenue, and sent dracaena and White Shoulders on the day the replacement moved in. Unlike roses or other cut flowers, dracaena was meant to speak legitimacy, permanence. The White Shoulders—who knew? Maybe he read about it somewhere, in a men’s magazine invented to show men the difference between suave and a shampoo. Some creaky, unhip glossy for teenagers disguised as men that catalogued seduction techniques, as if any technique at all was needed when a woman decided on a man. He could have sent a bottle of Clorox and a dead Christmas tree—she would have done whatever he wanted for what he made available. Complete freedom, total care, reliable sex, reckless gifts. Trips, short and secret lest his wife find out, parties, edginess, and a satisfactory place in the pecking order of a certain middle-class black society that understood itself to swing, if the professional credentials and money were right.
Route
12
was empty, distracting Christine from the urgency of her mission with scattered recollections of the past. How abrupt the expulsion from first-class cabins on romantic cruises to being head-pressed into a patrol car; from a coveted table at an NMA banquet to rocking between her own elbows on a hooker’s mattress aired daily to rid it of the previous visitors’ stench. When she went back to Manila’s, dependent on her immediate but short-lived generosity, Christine poured the remains of her own White Shoulders down the toilet and packed her shoes, pride, halter top, brassiere, and pedal pushers into a shopping bag. Everything but the diamonds and her silver spoon. Those she zipped into her purse along with Manila’s loan of fifty dollars. Manila’s girls had been congenial most of the time; other times not. But they so enjoyed their hearts of gold—gold they had slipped from wallets, or inveigled with mild forms of blackmail—they were staunchly optimistic. They told Christine not to worry, some woman was bound to de-dick him one day, and besides, she was still a fox, there were lots of players and every goodbye ain’t gone. Christine appreciated their optimism but was not
Regrets over her mismanaged life faded in the glow of Dr. Rio’s memory, as did the embarrassment of her battle with his beloved Cadillac. In spite of the shamefaced end of their affair, the three years with him—well, near him; he was mightily undivorceable—were wonderful. She had seen movies about the misery of kept women, how they died in the end or had suffering illegitimate babies who died also. Sometimes the women were saddened by guilt and cried on the betrayed wife’s lap. Yet twenty years after she’d been replaced by fresher White Shoulders, Christine still insisted her kept-woman years were the best. When she met Dr. Rio, her forty-one years to his sixty made him an “older” man. Now, in her mid-sixties, the word meant nothing. He was sure to be dead by now or propped up in bed paying some teenage welfare mother a hundred dollars to nibble his toes while a day nurse monitored his oxygen flow. It was a scene she had to work at because the last sight she’d had of him was as seductive as the first. An elegant dresser, successful G.P., passionate, playful. Her last good chance for happiness wrecked by the second oldest enemy in the world: another woman. Manila’s girls said Dr. Rio gave each new mistress a gift of that same cologne. Christine had thought it was unique—a private gesture from a thoughtful suitor. He preferred it; she learned to. Had she stayed longer at Manila’s or visited her whores once in a while, she would have discovered at once Dr. Rio’s particular pattern of bullshit: he fell head over heels, seduced, offered his expensive apartment on Trelaine Avenue, and sent dracaena and White Shoulders on the day the replacement moved in. Unlike roses or other cut flowers, dracaena was meant to speak legitimacy, permanence. The White Shoulders—who knew? Maybe he read about it somewhere, in a men’s magazine invented to show men the difference between suave and a shampoo. Some creaky, unhip glossy for teenagers disguised as men that catalogued seduction techniques, as if any technique at all was needed when a woman decided on a man. He could have sent a bottle of Clorox and a dead Christmas tree—she would have done whatever he wanted for what he made available. Complete freedom, total care, reliable sex, reckless gifts. Trips, short and secret lest his wife find out, parties, edginess, and a satisfactory place in the pecking order of a certain middle-class black society that understood itself to swing, if the professional credentials and money were right.
Route
12
was empty, distracting Christine from the urgency of her mission with scattered recollections of the past. How abrupt the expulsion from first-class cabins on romantic cruises to being head-pressed into a patrol car; from a coveted table at an NMA banquet to rocking between her own elbows on a hooker’s mattress aired daily to rid it of the previous visitors’ stench. When she went back to Manila’s, dependent on her immediate but short-lived generosity, Christine poured the remains of her own White Shoulders down the toilet and packed her shoes, pride, halter top, brassiere, and pedal pushers into a shopping bag. Everything but the diamonds and her silver spoon. Those she zipped into her purse along with Manila’s loan of fifty dollars. Manila’s girls had been congenial most of the time; other times not. But they so enjoyed their hearts of gold—gold they had slipped from wallets, or inveigled with mild forms of blackmail—they were staunchly optimistic. They told Christine not to worry, some woman was bound to de-dick him one day, and besides, she was still a fox, there were lots of players and every goodbye ain’t gone. Christine appreciated their optimism but was not
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