“Lady Beatrice?” Amalita asked. “Yes. Wonderful. All the titled Europeans.”
“Durn,” Ray said. She had a slight southern accent, which was probably put on, since she was from Iowa. “I shoulda gone. But then I got involved with Snake,” she said, naming an actor well known for action films—he was in his late sixties but still making them—“and, you know, I couldn’t get away.”
“I see,” Amalita said, giving her the crinkly-eye treatment.
Ray didn’t seem to notice. “I’m supposed to meet this girlfriend a’mine, but I told Snake I’d meet him back at the hotel at three, he’s here doin’ publicity, and now it’s nearly two-fifteen. You know, Snake freaks out if you’re late, and I’m always en retard.”
“It’s just a question of handling men properly,” Amalita said. “But I do remember that Snake hates to be kept waiting. You must tell him hello for me, darling. But if you forget, don’t worry about it. I’ll be seeing him in a month, anyway. He invited me to go skiing. Just as friends, of course.”
“Of course,” Ray said. There was an awkward pause. Ray looked directly at Carrie, who wanted to throw her napkin over her head. Please, she thought, please don’t ask my name.
“Well, maybe I’ll give her a call,” Ray said.
“Why don’t you do that?” Amalita asked. “The phone’s right over there.”
Ray departed, momentarily anyway. “She’s fucked everybody,” Carrie said. “Including Mr. Big.”
“Oh please, sweetpea. I don’t care about that,” Amalita said. “If a woman wants to sleep with a man, makes the choice, it’s her business. But she’s not a good person. I heard that she wanted to be one of Madame Alex’s girls, but even Alex thought she was too crazy.”
“So how does she survive?”
Amalita raised her right eyebrow. She was silent for a moment—in the end, she was a lady through and through, having been raised on Fifth Avenue with a coming-out ball, the whole works. But Carrie really wanted to know. “She takes gifts. A Bulgari watch. A Harry Winston necklace. Clothing, cars, a bungalow on someone’s property, someone who wants to help her. And cash. She has a child. There are lots of rich men out there who take pity. These actors with their millions. They’ll write a check for fifty thousand dollars. Sometimes just to go away.
“Oh, please,” she said, looking at Carrie. “Don’t be so shocked. You always were such an innocent, sweetpea. But then, you’ve always had a career. Even if you were starving, you’ve had a career. Women like Ray and I, we don’t want to work. I’ve always just wanted to live.
“But that doesn’t mean it’s easy.” Amalita had quit smoking, but she picked up one of Carrie’s cigarettes and waited for the waiter to light it. “How many times have I called you, crying, no money, wondering what I was going to do, where I was going to go next. Men promise things and don’t deliver. If I could have been a call girl, it would have been so much easier. It’s not the sex that’s the problem—if I like a man, I’m going to do it anyway—but the fact that you’ll never be on their level. You’re an employee. But at least you might walk away with some cash.”
She raised her eyebrows and shrugged. “My way, well, is there any future? And you’ve got to keep up. With the clothes and the body. The exercise classes. The massages, facials. Plastic surgery. It’s expensive. Look at Ray. She’s had her breasts done, lips, buttocks; she’s not young, darling, over forty. What you see is all she’s got.”
She mashed her cigarette in the ashtray. “Why am I smoking? It’s so bad for the skin. I wish you’d stop, sweetpea. But you remember? When I was pregnant with my daughter? I was sick. Flat broke. Sharing a bedroom with a student, for Christ’s sake, in a lousy flat because that was all I could afford. $150 a month. I had to go on welfare so I could get medical care to have the baby. I had to take the bus to the county hospital. And when I really needed help, sweetpea, there were no men around. I was alone. Except for a few of my good girlfriends.”
At that moment, Ray reappeared at the table, biting her lower lip. “D’y’all mind?” she said. “This girl’s gonna show up momentarily, but in the meantime, I need a cocktail. Waiter, bring me a vodka martini. Straight up.” She sat down. She didn’t look at Carrie.
“Hey, I want to talk to you about Snake,” Ray said to Amalita. “He told me he was with you.”
“Did he?” Amalita asked. “Well, you know, Snake and I, we have an intellectual relationship.”
“Do you now? And I just thought he was a pretty good fuck who was good with my kid,” Ray said. “I ain’t worried about that. I just don’t think I can trust the guy.”
“I thought he was engaged to somebody,” Amalita said. “Some dark-haired woman who’s having his baby.”
“Oh shit. Carmelita or something like that. She’s like an auto mechanic from nowhere’sville. Yew-tah. Snake was going skiing and his car broke down and he took it to a garage, and there she was with her wrench. And her needy slit. Naw. He’s trying to get rid of her.”
“It’s very simple then,” Amalita said. “You just get some spies. I have my masseuse and my maid. Send him your masseuse or chauffeur and then have them report back to you.”
“Goddammit!” Ray screamed. She opened her large, red-lipsticked mouth and leaned back precariously in her chair, laughing hysterically. Her blond hair was nearly white, perfectly straight; she was a freak all right but amazingly sexy.
“I knew I liked you,” she said. The chair thumped to the floor and Ray nearly crashed into the table. Everyone in the restaurant was looking. Amalita was laughing, almost hiccupping. “How come we’re not better friends?” Ray asked. “That’s what I want to know.”
“Gee, Ray, I have no idea,” Amalita said. She was just smiling now. “Maybe it has something to do with Brewster.”
“That goddamned little shit actor,” Ray said. “You mean, those lies that I told him about you because I wanted to get him for myself? Well, shit, honey, can you blame me? He had the biggest willy in L.A. When I saw the thing—we were out to dinner at a restaurant and he puts my hand on it under the table, and I got so excited I took it out of his pants and started rubbing it, and one of the waitresses saw it and started screaming ’cause it was so big and then we got thrown out—I said, that thing is mine. I ain’t sharing it with anyone.”
“He was pretty big,” Amalita said.
“Pretty big? Honey, he was like a horse,” Ray said. “You know, I’m an expert in bed, I’m the best any man ever had. But when you get to be my level, something happens. The average-sized cock just doesn’t do anything for you anymore. Oh yeah, I’ll sleep with those guys, but I tell ’em all, I’ve got to be able to go out and get my little bit of fun. My satisfaction.”
Ray had only had three-quarters of her martini, but something seemed to be happening to her. It was like the high beams were on, but no one was driving. “Oh yeah,” she said. “I just love that filled-up feeling. Give it to me baby. Do me.” She started rocking her pelvis against the chair. She half raised her right arm, closed her eyes. “Oh yeah, baby, oh yeah baby. Oh!” She ended with a squeal and opened her eyes. She was staring straight at Carrie as if she’d suddenly noticed her for the first time. “What’s your name, honey?” she asked. And Carrie suddenly recalled a story about how Capote Duncan had had sex with Ray on a couch in the middle of a party in front of everyone.