Leave It to Me - Bharati Mukherjee [48]
A trip?
“You had to have been there, Devi! There’s no describing that erotic moment.”
My beginning, I thought. I’ve just heard my beginning.
I heard her say, “Just no describing how erotic it was! I was a poetry-mad kid, I thought I was going to be the Emily of Fresno, can you imagine that? Poetry was my god, before that man …”
I saw what Jess’d felt. My father—her god, my devil—rocked her in his arms. I concentrated on those non-human arms. On their litheness. On their strength and meanness. On the starlight luster of his killer hands. Prince of Darkness. Prince Materializing out of Darkness. He didn’t have to touch her. I was wantonness waiting to happen.
“Meaning, he made you happy?”
Jess tuned in to my wavelength. “He made me wanton.”
That was her exact phrase. Happiness is the consolation prize. Suddenly I understood, without wanting to, why I had run away from Frankie Fong. One day soon, my god would touch down. My breathing would tighten. I would thrill to the shudder of Zero in my spine.
It turned out that I had to cut more than my teeth on Stark Swann.
Starkie Boy was first off the plane. First class; aisle seat; probably bulkhead to show off those long, smug legs in blue denim. (“Your writers will always be first off,” Jess’d confided. “Even if the publisher stuck them with economy, they’ll push their way to the front.”) From the way the Asian flight attendant was creaming as she smiled her “Have a happy rest of vacation, Mr. Swann,” I figured at least one of Jess’s tips would come in handy.
People at the gate—the limo drivers with Velcro signboards, escorts from hotels, businesses and universities—all took a second glance. You’re sure you’re not mine? He was good-looking, but it wasn’t that. It wasn’t his clothes either: denim shirt, bone-and-turquoise beads, turquoise belt buckle, blue antelope-skin boots. No, it had to do with his bearing. He stood, he strode, he scanned, did all the things we do except for the autographing, but with the solipsism, there’s just no other word for it, of people out of People magazine. A celebrity is. The infamous have to strut to get noticed, and the evil slink away so they won’t be noticed. Swann didn’t care one way or another. He didn’t have to. He was the center of his universe.
I held up my promo copy of The Palest Poison high above the heads of his groupies. “Hi,” I shouted, “I’m Devi Dee. How was the flight?”
He pen-wielded his way to me. The pen was a top-of-the-line Mont Blanc. “You want me to write in your name, Miss Gorgeous Smile? I’m in a fab mood, take advantage of me.”
“Devi from Leave It to Me.” I pulled his three-page itinerary from inside my promo copy.
“Where’s Jess? She always meets me. What’s this, I don’t rate her anymore?”
When I angled for the agency job, it was just so I could bloodhound Bio-Mom. Expanding my knowledge of human psychology was a bonus. “You’ll have to take that up with her,” I said. “Meanwhile, I thought we could first drive to your hotel, then have a bite if you’re hungry, stop by some bookstores if you’re not too tired or do whatever else you’d rather do before your print interviews this afternoon—all the TV stuff’s tomorrow, as you know from the itinerary—and then leave around six for the bookstore in Marin. Only if all this sounds okay to you, of course.” I held my hand out for his laptop in its Targus case. The laptop was lighter than the other two carry-ons. “I should have thought of having a cart handy. Sorry.”
Swann thrust his garment bag at me instead. “Nobody but moi touches my moody machine.” Then he turned silky on me. “I’ll need a little sewing and pressing done right away. When’s the first interview? I don’t think there’s enough time for housekeeping to take care of it. Would you mind? And did you book Hideo-san for my shiatsu?”
I left Stark Swann meditating in the lotus position on the floor of his suite at the Stanford Court. The lotus position was his fail-safe cure for jet lag. To me, he looked just like another cowboy with hemorrhoids. While he meditated, I ordered flowers to be