I waved and she smiled painfully. Enormous green eyes, contours that suggested genetic beauty long eroded. The dress looked flimsy, with glass beads studding a scoop neckline.
“Alex Delaware.”
“Mai-la.” The fingers she offered were flash-frozen shoestring potatoes. As I sat, she said, “Coffee? They do it great, here.”
“Sure.” I looked over at Lucy. She remained behind the counter and shouted, “What can I get you?”
“Coffee, any kind.”
“Be careful, that includes Jamaican Blue Mountain. Twenty bucks.”
“Thanks for the warning. What can I get for ten?”
Crimson-framed grin. “The world.”
“You have African?”
“Do we,” she said. “Kenyan’s always great.” To Maillot Bernard: “A smart one.”
Bernard said, “He’s a doctor.”
“Whoa,” said Lucy. To me: “I feel great, maybe I shouldn’t.” Grinning and giving her hips a rhumba shake.
One of the old men looked up. “Someone’s son the doktuh? You take Medi-keah?” He laughed moistly. His female companion kept eating oatmeal.
Lucy brought the coffee, winked, and left.
I said, “Mai-la, I really appreciate your taking the time.”
“Yes,” she said. “Lanny said the cops were investigating Trevor. I suppose that makes sense.”
“How so?”
She shook her head, toyed with her salad. “Confession, first: I used to like him. More than like. We were together for half a year.”
She poked some more. Up close, mowed grass was alfalfa sprouts and some sort of stunted-looking lettuce. What I’d taken for onions were desiccated threads of a bacon-like substance, maybe from an animal.
“Trevor used to be a handsome man,” she said. “Might still be.”
“How long ago was this?”
“Ages. Eons, light-years... twenty real years. I was living in San Francisco, dancing ballet, jazz, and modern interpretive.”
Her fork lowered. “That didn’t pay the bills so I also danced in North Beach clubs.”
The mecca of topless. I said, “Branching out.”
“That’s a nice way to put it,” she said. “The money was good but the decision wasn’t.”
She placed a hand on a flat chest. “They convinced me to enhance. Not only did it ruin ballet, it messed me up physically. It was just loose silicone those days, not even bags. I leaked, got infected, spent four months in the hospital, and ended up like this.”
“What an ordeal.”
“It was a long time ago.” She reached over and touched my hand. “Life’s an ordeal, no?”
“It sure can be.”
“Maybe not for you? You seem like a happy man.”
“I work at it.”
“Yes, it is work,” said Maillot Bernard. “I gave up on happiness a long time ago, am aiming for content. I think that’s a more mature emotion, no?”
“There’s an adage,” I said. “Who’s rich? Someone content with what they have.”
“That’s brilliant, Doctor — I’m enjoying talking to you, wasn’t sure how I felt about facing a therapist again. But I’m glad I agreed. So what’s the story with Trevor?”
“That’s not clear, yet. And even if it was, I’m sorry, I couldn’t give details.”
“One-way street, huh? No problem, I don’t really care about him. Just making conversation.”
She picked at her salad. I drank coffee. The hipster left with his cellphone. The old wag watched and said, “All that ink on him, a wawking hi-ro-glyphic.” Lucy laughed. The old woman got oatmeal on her face and wiped it away.
I said, “So you and Trevor were—”
“An item, yes we were,” said Maillot Bernard. “When I first met him, he ticked off some serious boxes. Handsome, super-talented. Rich, too, that never hurts. But it was mostly his acceptance. Of me. After I got out of the hospital I was feeling maimed and deformed and he didn’t care, he really didn’t.”
Another pat of her chest.
“I was upfront with Trevor, after I got maimed, that was my approach, put it on the line right away, expect them to bail. Most men did. Trevor didn’t. He said he liked me the way I was. I think he meant it, but who knows?”
“How’d you meet?”
“Where else? A party, don’t ask where, who threw it, whatever, because I have no idea. I was in serious pain and taking serious painkillers, a lot back then is a blur. All I can tell you is one of those parties that seem to crop up, you get invited but can’t figure out why. I do remember it being in some incredible house — maybe Pacific Heights?”
Shrugging. “Amazing mansion, amazing drugs for anyone who wanted them: coke, pills, heroin, of course weed, weed was like cocktails, they served doobies on silver trays. I arrived already grokked out, only did weed. It was good stuff and it totally downed me and I shrank off to a corner and just sat there. I must’ve fallen asleep because I woke up and found this tall good-looking guy in a blazer and of all things an ascot, standing over me, smiling. Like he cared.”
She lifted another bacon filament with her fingers. Murmured, “Bison, low fat, calories like halibut,” nibbled half a thread, put the rest back atop the salad. “An ascot, when’s the last time you saw one of those except in a British movie? I thought I was dreaming, some duke had appeared, was going to say something with an accent and take me off in his Rolls-Royce. He sat down next to me, asked if I was okay without an accent, and we started talking and I didn’t wake up. So I realized I was already awake. Am I making sense?”
“Total sense.”
“I hope you’re right.” She glanced over at Lucy. “Can you pack this up, Angela?”
“You bet.” The waitress came over, picked up the bowl, shot me a conspiratorial glance. This is what she always does.
When she left, Maillot Bernard said, “Where was I?”
“You realized you were awake.”
“Yes. He was very nice. Soft-spoken, offered to drive me home and I said sure. He didn’t have a Rolls but he did have a nice Jaguar and he walked me to my door, didn’t try anything. So of course I said yes when he asked for my number. I’m a yes-girl, in general, always had trouble with no. It’s made life hard but I’d still rather be that way.”
“Keeping it positive.”
“Keeping it obedient, Doctor.” She sighed. “Okay, full disclosure: I’m a submissive. I hope you don’t find that psychiatric or anything.”
“Different strokes,” I said. “Long as you stay safe.”
“I didn’t always pay enough attention to safety but I do now. If you’re thinking Trevor was a dominant and that’s why we hooked up, he wasn’t. He was a normal. In that regard, anyway. No control issues but I still liked him. Maybe it was because of the gold piano.”
I sat there.
“Of course you’d have no idea,” she said. “Okay, one of the clubs, there was this gold piano hooked up to pulleys. A girl would sit on it and they’d lower her to the stage while she stripped.” Smiling. “We were the showpieces. Served up like a meal. Anyway, one of the bouncers used to have a thing for me and one time I stayed late with him and he wanted to... use the piano for you-know-what. I said sure but while we were doing it, Billy — that was his name — must’ve triggered a switch and the piano started climbing toward the ceiling. By the time we realized what was happening, it was pushing up close to the ceiling. Billy was a big guy, like a football player, and he got crushed between the piano and ceiling until I finally figured out where the switch was. He didn’t die but he broke a lot of things inside and got crippled. Only reason I was okay is I was a lot skinnier than him so all the crushing was happening to him.”