Sweet Cream Ladies, Ltd. Page 2

  Chapter 2

  “Aww, crap, Boots. I’m so sorry. Babs told you, right?”

  “She did.”

  “I truly didn’t know what to do all those times Todd was besmirching your character. I mean, I’d see you at shows or in restaurants with him and you seemed sane and wonderful and perky and cheery. And I’d have an audition for something great like the National Tour of Chicago and I’d call Todd because he’d asked me to always run thing by him first to see if something would be too ‘stressful’ for you and he’d say, ‘Thanks so much but there’s no way Bootsie could handle losing a role like Roxie Hart.’ I’d tell him you seemed fine to me and he’d explain that you were fine—as long as you stayed away from rejections in the theatre. Shit, Boots, I’m amazed Todd isn’t a major star what with his acting skills. I guess management at the Met is smarter than I—they can spot a pathological, lying asshole in a heartbeat. Could be why he never made it beyond chorus.”

  Chuck and I chatted for a moment or two about the upcoming auditions he was definitely sending me out on, then he got a call from the producer at some dinner theatre in Florida who was about to do Oliver! No roles in that other than chorus for Bootsie Kittredge and that wouldn’t pay the rent so we said, ‘bye.’

  I sat and pondered the utter disaster of my life.

  Todd Kittredge. Ex-husband and a cataclysmically belly-flop-worthy, shudderingly ghastly relationship. (And yes, that is hyperbole, but it’s still true.) After twelve years of what I thought was wedded—well, okay—not bliss, but fair contentment outside of Todd’s diva fits, Todd had announced “over,” asked if I intended to keep his name, then casually mentioned he’d like to offer said name to Karalynn, who was young enough to be my daughter. Karalynn, whom I’d met once, seemed kind of Northeastern horsey to me but she was the offspring and heiress of a father who happened to be CEO of a very large, very successful company that coincidentally had offered Todd a job. Todd, who had been telling me for years how he was on his way to becoming a star if only the Metropolitan Opera would put him in one of those roles that would release him from the bondage and anonymity of the chorus. Now he was working behind a desk doing something he swore he’d never do—leave the arts for a corporation that sucked his soul. Of course, now that I was sure he had no soul, I could understand that even that had been a lie. He’d just waited for the right offer before turning his back on the Met and on me.

  I’d spent a month after the Great Declaration glaring at my drivers license, noting how muddy my eyes looked, how bad my short hair looked and how big my nose looked. Babs had tried to console me by assuring me that my eyes were really green, that my hair just needed some styling and that the camera wielded by a bored DMV worker had caught the wrong side of my face— hence the disproportionate honker— and why didn’t I look at the great headshots Stephen Theodopolus had taken instead of a photo no one would ever see since I didn’t drive in the city or own a car anyway? I wasn’t buying it. I’d tried to console me with mounds of non-nutritional substances that primarily consisted of starchy carbohydrates and sugared fruit. Mainly apple turnovers. I admit it. I began a love affair with apple turnovers that turned the thirty-two extra pounds into forty. The kids at the counter of the bakery that made the best in Manhattan (over on West 51st Street) didn’t even bother to ask for my order when I stepped inside. They just packaged two apple turnovers, took my cash and wished me a nice day.

  The fact that Todd had been an abusive s.o.b.—no, not physically, but emotionally— hadn’t kept me from crying and blaming myself and wondering what was wrong with me for A) marrying someone who made scenes in public that were mortifying to everyone around and forced me to play peacemaker and B) marrying someone who should have had “Master Manipulator” after his name the same way a lawyer has “Juris Doctor.”

  I’d spent months angsting about my initial involvement with a man who put eventually me through all that awfulness (Note: if you’ve forgotten what awfulness, see A and B.) Someone who had literally said, “Vows are inconsequential” which I guess I could call C). My shocked, plebian response to that comment had been, “Well, while you may be able discard vows the way some people toss a bag of dog poop, I can’t do that. I bloody well believe in what I spoke twelve years ago. And pardon me but when did a promise not become a promise? When did ‘til death do us part' become ‘until your boredom level or your middle-aged libido allows you to tell yourself it’s okay to go boff the neighbor’s wife— or the CEO’s daughter.’ When did ‘forever’ mean ‘oops’ just kidding?”

  I’d angsted and ate and cried and asked questions. Was I dumb? Was I a wimp? The only response that came close to me saying, “I get it. I don’t like it but I get it,” had issued forth from Babs’ pastor in the non-denominational church based in Washington Heights. He’d explained that Todd’s original affection had been a compliment to me since brilliant, albeit egocentric, men will not be interested in mates who are not attractive, bright, talented etcera, etcera. Sounded reasonable and somewhat ego building to me, but of course, still didn’t erase the hurt. The pastor had followed up that wise assessment with “Of course, Todd is basically a narcissistic, commitment-phobic mother-effer which is why the marriage didn’t work.”

  The phone was buzzing at me. I put it back onto the receiver, then opened the desk drawer to find a pen and write down the pertinent info for the hardware store commercial Chuck was sending me on next Thursday. Which had ostensibly been the reason he’d called, although I’d known that once Babs spilled the dirt about Todd’s ‘miscommunications’ concerning my career, Chuck would be on the phone in a heartbeat, worried that I’d be weeping, wailing and gnashing my teeth. For someone who's supposed to be a hardened agent, the man is a marshmallow.

  Naturally, all pens were dry. Instead of doing the smart thing and heading to the calendar I keep on my cell phone I rooted through the drawer for another pen. Didn’t find one. My hands came out with an oversized Valentine card I really thought I’d shredded months ago.

  “To Bootsie, My adorable, irreplaceable wife. I’ll love you ‘til the end of time and beyond. You are my life and will be forever. Always, Todd.”

  For a second I pondered the mystery of why the bloody card had ended up in a desk belonging to the man whose apartment I was housesitting. Then I said, “Forget that,” and got pissed again seeing the card Todd had given me less than a month before he made his big pronouncement that our marriage was over. Over. As in The End. Kaput. Finit. Done. No pardon. No parole. Just a sentence of execution for my felony of loving the man and trusting him without question.

  “Oh crap. That’s even more over-the-top than my rant to Babs about Peter Pan kicking the bucket. Hell, it’s even over-the-top for the Bootsie Kittredge who won Best Actress in an Off-Off Broadway original production of the Perils of Pauline sixteen years ago. Pooh. Enough of this. Todd Kittredge needs to die. A nasty, lingering death. Preferably right after he’s been humiliated in some fashion yet to be determined but witnessed by all of Manhattan before going viral on sites across the globe. Perhaps an exposé on how truly lousy he was in bed. A picture of him in his underwear?”

  The phone rang. “Mmm.”

  “Yo, Bootsie!”

  “Hey, Babs.”

  “You sound kind of blue. Any new problems aside from no money, no job and no chance of getting laid?”

  “Just memory bombs that keep exploding. I’ve been reliving our conversation at brunch and I do believe it’s time to come up with a really brilliant scenario of death. Which could be tricky. Neither of us owns a gun. The sharpest knife I have won’t even cut butter. I’m wondering if one can order arsenic online. Do you know anyone in your building who deals in illicit drugs that would ultimately cause Todd to wake up dead and naked next to four underage guys in drag?”

  “Sadly, no. I could try to make friends with a couple of gang-bangers who hang out at the edge of the park but I don’t speak whatever language they speak because it sounds like a mixture of Albanian,
Celtic and possibly Polish and I’m not sure if I’d end up with a dozen roofies or a dozen roofers.” She chuckled. “Actually the latter sounds like a plan. There’s three construction type hotties working across the street from my apartment and I have had lust in my heart for them all this last month. We’re talkin’ bare tanned shoulders and pecs and tight jeans that have been truly awesome to the eye since we’ve had rain for the last six days.”

  “Good Lord. I’ve seen those guys. Jailbait city, girl!”

  “Well, I don't care. I swear they're all legal. Everyone of those guys is over twenty-one.” She snickered. “What does one call a cougar who’s fifty-eight when the cubs she’s after are in their twenties?”

  “A demented old broad who’s in desperate need of a really good lay? Or—pervert?”

  Babs laughed. “Hey, I only called to let you know I can’t do drinks at five. Chuck got me a reading for that new play Jerry Garfinkel is doing but it’s at four. Called The List. Want to try for a burger later?”

  “Nah. Probably need to stay home and clean Leo’s apartment since he’s been nice enough to let me stay here.”

  “Oh, shoot. You’re doing him a favor. Housesitting and taking care of that demonic cat while he has a lovely time playing the wizard in Wicked in Seattle. How are you two getting along anyway? You and the cat, that is.”

  I glanced across the room and weakly waved at Selina, Leo’s beloved feline companion and queen of the apartment. “She hasn’t shredded any of my clothes in the last three days. I think I’m winning her over— one can of caviar at a time. Anyway, I’m fine. Go audition and be wonderful and get the job.”

  “Wish you were reading with me.”

  “Me too. Sadly, I understand there is only one role for a non-age specific strawberry-blonde who sings like an angel. Mistress of the mob boss. I heard Monica Travers got cast in that role three weeks ago. Amazing. She can’t sing, dance or act but she is skinny.”

  Babs sighed. “She’s also banging one of the producers— which is how she got the part. I can’t stand her. Rumor has it the casting director and the ‘director director’ can’t stand her either. You’re perfect for that role. Let’s add her to our hit list and sneak you into the show—assuming I get the part of the Swedish grandmother who needs to speak with a Brooklynish Swedish dialect. Which is all I know about the character. I’m dying to read this sucker even if I don’t get cast.”

  “You will be. Now, go away and be marvelous. I shall spend the evening dreaming up ways to kill without getting caught. This list is growing though. We now have Madam Minerva, Todd and Clayton and the lovely Monica Travers. I assume if you don’t get the part of Granny whoever you’ll want to add the casting director to the roster?”

  “Hell, yeah! Oh crap. Gotta go. I’ll give you a call when I get back. Don’t do anything terribly illegal for a few hours. Wait for me to join you.”

  Chapter 3

  I spent the next hour cleaning Leo’s apartment. It was quite therapeutic. Especially doing the toilet. Scrubbing it until it shone made me feel like I was scrubbing Todd and his girlfriend down into the sewers of Manhattan where they belonged. Mopping the kitchen floor and wringing the mop as if it were Todd’s neck was so much fun I even mopped the foyer, the bathroom and the hardwoods in the bedroom. Vacuuming all the annoying, tiny throw rugs before doing the mopping started giving me ideas for a novel form of murder—knocking someone into a giant vacuum and letting them get sucked into space. Lining the cat’s box with fresh litter and dumping the rest into the eco-friendly bag wasn’t a thrill but both the cat and I were happier when it was done. I wondered if this stuff was poisonous if inhaled too deeply. All this cleansing and purging was joyfully being done while playing every version of “I Will Survive” from Gloria Gaynor to Broadway’s Priscilla Queen of the Dessert and singing them all at full volume.

  Once the apartment was a damned fair version of spotless, I headed for the computer to check email and do a search on Death by Kitty Litter. Selina the cat was draped over the keyboard and I had to try to convince her that the plastic mouse wasn’t a real one and would not provide satisfaction even if she managed to wrestle it to the ground.

  I logged on and stared for a few moments at the photo I’d turned into a screen saver that showed Babs and me standing at the top of the trail leading to the Cloisters Museum in Upper Manhattan. The Hudson River served as a serene and quite beautiful backdrop but we two ladies outshone even the blue water and autumn-colored trees lining the river. Arms wrapped around waists, we smiled into that camera (held by an obliging tourist from Uzbekistan) with a ‘ready to take on the world’ attitude and no foreshadowing that within the year our lives would change for the worse. That picture was over twenty years old.

  Babs and I met at my first audition in New York, the fall after I’d graduated from a tiny college just outside Memphis, Tennessee. I’d spent the summer doing summer stock with a company in upstate New York and, at age twenty-one, felt ready to tackle Manhattan and doubtless be a Broadway star by Thanksgiving.

  I’d been sitting quietly, going over my audition monologue in my head when a pixie appeared in front of me, extended her right hand, then announced in a very broad Scottish dialect, “ ‘tis verra glad I am to meet ya. I’m Babs Harrison and we’re gonna be verra, verra guid friends, lassie.”

  My eyebrows rose into my widow’s peak. Why was a tiny Scot declaring eternal friendship to a person she’d never met? Why was that tiny Scot auditioning for You Can’t Take it With You, which has roles for a Russian Duchess but no one from any portion of the isle of Great Britain? The pixie plopped down next to me and dropped the dialect from Scots to one more mildly American Deep South. “So, y’all goin’ for the role of Essie or Alice? I could see you doing either. Where you from?”

  Her voice and her warmth were both mesmerizing. Before I even realized I was responding to the maniac, I’d told her I was Bootsie Donovan from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, an only child, a triple threat (acting, dancing, singing) currently living down in the Village with three gay guys and four dogs and this was my first audition in the city and I was looking for a great acting class and a better vocal coach and would be happy to grab Essie, Alice or even Gay Wellington, the character who passes out shortly after entering the house of the eccentric Sycamore family.

  “Where the heck did Bootsie come from? The name, that is.”

  “Well, the real name is Mary Katherine Donovan.”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “Nothing other than over-exposure. Which is what I told my toddler catechism class at St. Mary’s, which had six other Mary Katherine’s signed up, plus the nun teaching us who was honestly and truly Sister Mary Katherine. Family legend says I marched into the little room where Sister was passing out coloring books to all the M. Kate’s there so our parents could enjoy Christmas morning Mass without the wails of little people interrupting. I held up my brand new stuffed horsey and rider, pointed to the boots the rider was wearing and declared, ‘Call me Bootsie or die,’ then plunked down on the floor and promptly began to color the stable where Jesus had been born red, white and blue. I don’t remember. I didn’t care. I only know I’ve been Bootsie from that day forward. You?”

  “Oh. Boring. Me, that is. Barbara Leigh Cummings Harrison—the latter by way of my spouse, Clayton. Two sisters who called me Babs from the time I was born. I’m twenty-four, hail from Atlanta, Georgia, have a five-year old girl named Breanna—Bree for short— whom I adore and I commute from Hoboken. You should try Leslie Burrel for acting because she’s divine and we could be in class together and I have no idea for vocal since I don’t sing and yes, I’m going for Grand Duchess Olga Katrina which means I need to get my Russian on in a hurry.”

  Neither Babs nor I were cast that day. We commiserated by heading to the nearest bar. After a pitcher of margaritas and two plates of nachos we had bonded enough to be considered best friends forever long before the term came into popular usage.

  We stayed
inseparable for the next ten years. We went to auditions. We got jobs, although they were seldom in the same show since was I mainly cast in musicals and Babs didn’t sing. We brunched when we could and I babysat for Bree whenever asked. We even committed a spot of breaking and entering one afternoon when we wanted to check out a house in Hoboken next door to Babs and Clay’s rental that was going on the market. It was a nice spring day and the realtor had left a window open. I hoisted four-foot-eleven-inches of Mrs. Harrison on top of my five-foot eight inched shoulders. (No, my shoulders weren’t that tall—just the normal me was.) Anyway, she crawled through the window, then ran to the back of the house to open the door for me and we spent the next forty minutes touring and planning on what rooms we could use as rehearsal spaces for the two-women show we were planning. It was a great house but Clay didn’t want to buy. A wise decision since Clay was already set on his course of leaving Babs for some eighteen-year old named Muffin and at least was smart enough to know he didn’t need to add debt to the fights in court over child support and alimony—both of which she lost since Clay, a damned good attorney, had gotten himself another damned good attorney.

  I was there to lend a shoulder and tissues during the divorce proceedings. Babs decided soon after that she didn’t want to be in the same tri-state area as Clay so she took Bree and moved to Atlanta where, after a year of food stamps and help from relatives, she finally got a job teaching kindergarten, which gave her the chance to perform at some of the city’s very nifty theatres.