“I suppose it all worked out, though. I was on my way back to Charleston when I met this truck driver who looked like John Travolta. He helped me get to New York and find a place to stay where I wouldn’t have to worry about being mutilated on my doorstep. I got a job working at an art gallery while I waited for my big break, but I have to tell you, it’s been slow in coming.”
“The competition’s tough.” Fleur refilled Kissy’s glass.
“It’s not the competition,” Kissy said indignantly. “I’m exceptionally talented. Among other things, I was born to do Tennessee Williams. Sometimes I think he wrote those crazy women just for me.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“Trying to get the auditions in the first place. Directors take one look at me and won’t even let me try out. They say I’m not the right physical type, which is another way of saying that I’m too short and my boobies are too big and I look altogether frivolous. That’s the one that really annoys me. I’d have been Phi Beta Kappa if I’d stayed in college for my senior year. I’m tellin’ you, Fleur, beautiful women like you with legs and cheekbones and all the other blessings of God can’t imagine what it’s like.”
Fleur hadn’t been beautiful in a long time, and she nearly choked. “You’re the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen. All my life I’ve wanted to be little and pretty like you.”
This struck them both as being terrifically funny, and they dissolved in giggles. Fleur noticed their bottle was empty so she went on a scouting mission. When she returned with a fresh bottle, the bathroom was empty.
“Kissy?”
“Is he gone?” A loud whisper came from behind the shower curtain.
“Who?”
Kissy pushed back the curtain and climbed out. “Somebody had to use the facility. I think it was Frank, who is a base pig, in my opinion.”
They resettled in their old spots. Kissy tucked several wayward licorice curls behind her ear and looked at Fleur thoughtfully. “You ready to talk yet?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m not exactly blind to the fact that I’m sharin’ this bathroom with a woman who used to be one of the most famous models in the world, as well as a promising new actress. A woman who disappeared off the face of God’s earth after some interesting rumors about her association with one of our great country’s truly outstanding hunks. I’m not obtuse.”
“I didn’t think you were.” Fleur picked at the edge of the bathmat with her fingernail.
“Well? Are we friends or not? I’ve told you some of the very best parts of my life story, and you haven’t told me one thing about yours.”
“We’ve just met.” As soon as she said it, Fleur knew that it was wrong and hurtful, even though she wasn’t exactly sure why.
Kissy’s eyes filled with tears, which made them look melty and soft, like blue gumdrops left too long in the sun. “Do you think that makes a difference? This is a lifelong friendship being formed right now. There’s got to be trust.” She brushed her tears away, picked up the champagne, and took a swig directly from the bottle. Then she looked Fleur straight in the eye and held the bottle out to her.
Fleur thought about all the secrets locked inside her for so long. She saw her loneliness, her fear, and the self-respect she’d lost along the way. All she had to show for the past three years-nearly three and a half-was an eclectic university education. Kissy was offering her a way out. But honesty was dangerous, and Fleur hadn’t let herself take a risk for a very long time.
Slowly she reached for the bottle and took a long swallow. “It’s sort of a complicated story,” she said finally. “I guess it started before I was born…”
It took Fleur nearly two hours to tell it all. Sometime between her trip to Greece with Belinda and her first modeling assignment, she and Kissy escaped the pounding on the bathroom door by moving to Fleur’s hotel room. Kissy curled up on one of the double beds while Fleur propped herself against the headboard of the other. She kept the champagne bottle that was helping her through the story balanced on her chest. Kissy occasionally interrupted with pithy, one-word character assassinations of the people involved, but Fleur remained almost detached. Champagne definitely helped, she decided, when you were spilling your sordid secrets.
“That’s heartbreaking!” Kissy exclaimed, when Fleur finally finished. “I don’t know how you can tell that story without falling apart.”
“I’m cried out, Kissy. If you live with it long enough, even high tragedy gets to be mundane.”
“Like Oedipus Rex.” Kissy dabbed at her eyes. “I was in the chorus when I was in college. We must have performed that play for every high school in the state.” She flipped onto her back. “There’s a master’s thesis in here somewhere.”
“How do you figure?”
“Do you remember the characteristics of a tragic hero? He’s a person of high stature brought down by a tragic flaw, like hubris, the sin of pride. He loses everything. Then he achieves a catharsis, a cleansing through his suffering. Or her suffering,” she said pointedly.
“Me?”
“Why not? You had high stature, and you sure have been brought down.”
“What’s my tragic flaw?” Fleur asked.
Kissy thought for a moment. “Shitty parents.”
Late the next morning, after showers, aspirin, and room-service coffee, they heard a knock at the door. Kissy opened it and emitted a loud squeal. Fleur looked up just in time to see the Belle of the Confederacy hurl herself into Simon Kale’s forbidding arms.
The three of them had breakfast in the revolving dining room on top of Munich’s Olympia Tower, where they could gaze out over the Alps, sixty-five miles away. As they ate, Fleur heard the story of Kissy and Simon’s long-standing friendship. They’d been introduced not long after Kissy’s arrival in New York by one of Simon’s classmates at Juilliard. Simon Kale, Fleur discovered, was a classically trained musician and as menacing as Santa Claus.
He laughed as he wiped one corner of his mouth with his napkin. “You should have seen Fleur taming King Barry with her story about having a venereal disease. She was magnificent.”
“And you didn’t try to help her out, did you?” Kissy gave him a none-too-gentle punch in the arm. “Instead you gave her that I-eat-white-girls-for-breakfast look, just to amuse yourself.”
Simon acted wounded. “I haven’t eaten a white girl in years, Kissy, and I’m hurt that you would suggest such a perversion.”
“Simon’s discreetly gay,” Kissy informed Fleur. And then, in a loud whisper, “I don’t know about you, Fleurinda, but I regard homosexuality as a personal insult.”
By the time breakfast was over, Fleur decided she liked Simon Kale. Beneath his threatening facade lay a kind and gentle man. As she watched his delicate gestures and finicky mannerisms, she’d have bet every penny of her meager income that he would have been more comfortable in the body of a ninety-pound weakling. Maybe that was why she liked him. They both lived in bodies that didn’t feel like home.
When they got back to the hotel, Simon excused himself, and Kissy and Fleur set out for Barry’s suite. It had been cleaned up since last night’s party, and Barry was once again in residence, nervously pacing the carpet as they entered. He was so glad to see Kissy that he barely listened to her breathlessly convoluted lie about why she was late, and several minutes elapsed before he even noticed Fleur. He made it obvious with a less than subtle glance toward the door that her presence was no longer required. Fleur pretended not to notice.
Kissy leaned forward and whispered something in his ear. As Barry listened, his expression grew increasingly horrified. When Kissy finished, she gazed down at the floor like a naughty child.
Barry looked at Fleur. He looked at Kissy. Then he looked at Fleur again. “What is this?” he cried. “A friggin’ epidemic?”