The big excitement this week was meeting billionaire Ray Calhoun. Texas is littered with millionaires, multimillionaires and even megamillionaires but being told that a billionaire wants to meet you can still get a girl’s attention.
My money manager, Ted Drapas, called and told me that he’d been on a pheasant hunt with a bunch of guys at someone’s ranch. He said if he was a woman he’d join a gun club. There was one woman on the hunt with a bunch of wealthy men.
“You should seriously think of joining a gun club and coming with us on some hunts.”
I told him, “Oh yeah, that’s real attractive to a man. Men go into the woods not to hunt, but to be men, to drink and spit and curse and scratch themselves without some woman there to make them feel uncomfortable. Bringing a woman along ruins the whole purpose of the trip.”
“Oh no. This woman was drinking and cursing right along with the rest of us.”
“Exactly my point. Women are supposed to be all soft and pink and sweet smelling to come home to when you men are ready to hear someone’s voice with a higher pitch than your own. Cursing and spitting? Real attractive.”
“Well, I don’t think she actually spit, but I get your point. Anyway, the reason that I’m calling is that Lynn and I would like to invite you to attend the ‘after the hunt’ dinner party. It’s going to be held in the home of one of the hunters. He’s got a furniture company and years ago needed a warehouse to store furniture, and now he’s converted the building into residential loft space. It is really cool. He’s left it warehouse looking with exposed beams and the original oak wood plank floors, very New York.” Ted’s voice became quite animated. As he spoke, his voice rose and fell like a roller coaster. He sounded like an eight-year old child describing his secret clubhouse. “He just drives his motorcycle into the freight elevator and parks his bike right there in his living room. The building used to be a wagon wheel factory, so the freight elevator can handle the weight.”
“Where is this located?”
“Down near the baseball stadium.”
“I think you and Lynn had better drive me then. I don’t want to leave an eighty thousand dollar sports car exposed in that area of town. If the car was still there at all, I’d at least be missing all the wheels or something.”
“Good point. The parking area is gated off. I’ll have to ask him how to get in to park.” Ted paused for a moment aware that I was still debating whether or not I’d go, “So, we’ll pick you up?”
“What is Lynn wearing?”
“I’ll tell her to call you.”
My sort of live in, French-Algerian boyfriend was going to be out of town. The children were with my ex that weekend.
Wednesday, two days before the Friday party, I went out to Hank’s restaurant with my friend from the Vermillion Art Gallery, Taylor, and his new friend, Corey. Corey was an assistant director he’d met through his makeup artist cousin on the movie set of Antonio Banderas’s movie, Pancho Villa, in San Miguel, Mexico.
Taylor called me as I was dropping the kids off with Richard, my ex-husband, after our Wednesday visit together. Taylor advised me that his friend was traveling and was used to dressing very laid back grunge like the other workers in the film industry. He suggested that I might not want to dress as elaborately as he knew I sometimes do, since his friend might be uncomfortable and feel underdressed. I told Taylor that if someone felt uncomfortable around me it was a deeply rooted problem within themselves best dealt with on a psychiatrist’s couch and not at dinner with me. I reminded him that it was very difficult for someone to feel uncomfortable around me; they had to really try.
“We are going to Hank’s restaurant and Hank is a biker, a Harley guy, and all of his Harley friends come in dressed in their leathers and sit right next to the hoity toity, ooh laa laa people. He’ll fit right in.”
“You are right, sweetie. You never make anyone feel uncomfortable. What was I thinking?”
“Tonight I am wearing suede pants, Donald Pliner ponyskin boots and Yves Saint Laurent bag - the one you like with the bone handle. The pants match the brown stretch velvet top I found in Crested Butte when I was there on my last ski trip. You know the one, Taylor. Remember? It has a fake mink collar and a gold zipper that unzips to a modest point. That is very dressed down. I am not in full Penelope costume, so don’t worry. I’m sure it won’t make him feel uncomfortable.”
The day of the ‘after the hunt’ dinner party arrived. I took a nap, so I didn’t look tired and stressed. Lynn called me. She was drinking with her friends at a sushi bar after a day of shopping at Neiman Marcus. She said she had dressed really cute for lunch in a whip-stitched leather jacket and miniskirt and had decided to just wear that and not change for the party. She told me Ted was going to pick me up. She was going to go home, get the baby from the sitter and bring her to the party and would meet us there.
I was relieved she no longer thought of me as a potential threat to her marriage and was comfortable enough to have Ted pick me up. When she was pregnant, Ted told me she asked if he was having an affair with me.
I had said, “Oh, no! Poor Lynn! She must really think that it is true or she wouldn’t have actually come out and said it. She would have just worried awhile and let it go. Poor Lynn! Does she really think I would have an affair with a married man? Do I seem like that kind of woman? Do I give off that impression to people?”
“Oh no, no. It is nothing like that, definitely not. It is my fault. I have not been paying her enough attention. It has nothing to do with you, Penelope. I assure you. It is near the end of her pregnancy, and it has more to do with hormones than anything else.”
“What gave her the idea that you were having an affair with me?”
“Well, you see what happened is that the other day when I stopped by on my way to the office to get you to sign some papers, Mr. Guillory came to give you a massage. Then, the next time he massaged Lynn, he said to her, ‘Oh, I saw your husband the other day leaving Penelope’s house at eight in the morning.’”
“Oh, no! Poor Lynn! You are lucky you didn’t drive home to a lump of burning cinders! I would have burned the house down! I would have been so upset!”
“She’s over it now. I’m sorry I even mentioned it to you.”
“Should I talk to her? Do you want me to reassure her?”
“No, no. Everything is okay now. Like I said, it was me. I wasn’t paying her enough attention.”
After Ted picked me up, we drove to pick up another party guest. She was from Dallas and staying at a friend’s home just down the street from me on Chevy Chase. Ted was drinking a Coors with a squeezed lime slipped down the bottleneck. We have open container laws in Texas, not allowed. When he went to the door to get her, I told him I wanted to stay in the car and finish off his beer if he didn’t mind.
“Oh, no, go right ahead. I’ve got plenty more in the trunk. We’re bringing beer, ice, charcoal and other stuff to the party.”
I drank the beer and hid the bottle away. I don’t need any incident to ever cause me problems in a child custody battle. I was in the process of putting the bottle under the front passenger seat when Ted opened the car door on his side to introduce me to the Dallasite, Ellen. She was wearing a fingertip length conservatively cut brown mink coat of near best, but not top grade quality fur. I hoped she hadn’t paid too much for it. Ellen had on chandelier style gold earrings that dangled like two miniature grape clusters on either side of her face.
Women in Texas are very much not afraid to wear big, big jewelry. I was, in fact, wearing what I lovingly refer to as my ‘doorknob ring.’ It is so named because when I stopped by my divorce attorney’s office immediately after purchasing the ring to apologize to him for saying the f-word, his secretary, a beautiful blonde from Beaumont, Texas, noted that my ring was as big as the doorknob on her office door. With the secretary’s encouragement, I held the ring up to the doorknob for comparison and indeed it was nearly as big. Of course, it was a rather smallish brass knob, but it is a rather largish ring. The center stone is a massive purple amethyst surrounded by pink citrine daisies with yellow citrine centers set in white gold.
Fariq, my favorite jeweler, had just returned from a jewelry show in New York and had purchased the ring on the chance that I would love it. He never purchases on speculation. He just goes to the shows for inspiration and designs custom things for his clients, but this time was an exception. Fariq said he couldn’t control himself. He had to get this for me and another very modern ring for a different client. I asked him who the client was and it turned out to be Andrea, the princess from Romania who was married to Prince Raim from Saudi Arabia. I knew her. She was a friend of my realtor, Becky Bugle. We had been to lunch together with Becky and I had been Andrea’s guest at her Opera gala table. The jeweler thought it was great that we knew each other. He said we were his two best customers.
Anyway, back to meeting the billionaire.
The first words out of this Dallas woman’s mouth were, “Oh, you’ve got beer in those beer condom things! Give me one.”
Ted must have thought that she’d already had enough to drink because he suddenly forgot that the trunk was full of beer. To slow her down he announced that there was beer at the party.
“Okay, let’s get the show on the road then,” she said as she climbed into the backseat of Ted’s car.
Ellen spoke in a raspy-edged voice that can only be earned by a lifetime of hard liquor and smoking. Her hair was dark brown and fell to her waist, not unusual on a Texas woman, even a widow in her fifties.
Once settled in the back seat, she told me she loved my coat and asked me what kind it was. I told her it was lynx. I didn’t tell her that it was the finest lynx that my furrier had ever seen in his entire career, and he had started out as a furcutter at the age of sixteen working for his uncle. It was full length, the purest white and the spotting? Perfect, in different shades of brown. The coat had been cut very dramatically to take advantage of the lines of spotting across the back of the garment. My furrier loves to use the word ‘garment.’
I had dressed up my outfit worn to Hank’s restaurant earlier in the week by adding the coat, twenty carat diamond earrings (twenty total-I haven’t lost my mind, a simple pair of five carat round stones with five carat pear shaped drops), and of course, the doorknob ring.
Ted had forgotten to call ahead to find out how to get in the security gate so we parked across the street in a nearly empty parking lot. That part of downtown is deserted at night. The two Rays came out to the car to meet us. They must have been watching for us from the upstairs window. When I say ‘the two Rays,’ I am referring to the Ray who owned the building and his close friend, the third generation billionaire, Ray Calhoun. Calhoun had the previous week had too much to drink out in the woods with the guys and cried about how lonely he was. He asked Ted Drapas if he knew a nice woman with her own money who would not be a gold digger.
Of course, some debate followed if a woman like that even existed. Ted mentioned he knew someone with her own money who had broken off an engagement with an oilman because he didn’t call her for a week, so she definitely had not been in it for the money. The men arranged that I would come to the party for a look see.
The first thing I said to Calhoun was, “You look strong. Here. Carry this.” I handed him a case of beer to carry and crossed the street ahead of the group turning my back on him, so he could admire my coat.
The first thing I said to Calhoun was, “You look strong. Here. Carry this.” I handed him a case of beer to carry and crossed the street ahead of the group turning my back on him, so he could admire my coat.
“Thank you, Ted. I love fur.” I looked back at Calhoun over my shoulder and smiled flirtatiously. I knew my blonde ponytail flipped in a cute way when I did that.
Once inside, I admired the beautiful wood floors and told the owner he had a fortune just in the antique wood. To get wood like that for my kitchen floor, salvaged from torndown buildings in the Northeast, my contractor had to give the supplier at least six months lead time and pay a mint.
Ray Malloy, our host, gave me a tour. I hung up my coat on a coat rack in the long closet that ran the length of his entire condo. Now, this was closet space! I noted there were no women’s clothes. Hmmm. No women in this man’s life, at least not the kind allowed to leave behind a few things.
Inspecting this bachelor’s closet made me think of the early days of my relationship with my Greek boyfriend. Ulysses told me he loved me, which shocked his friends. He never said this sort of thing to his lovers. He had only said, “I love you,” to his ex-wife, Monica, to whom he had been married for eight years, and from whom he had been divorced almost as many.
After the first night with Ulysses, he immediately cleared space for my clothes in a closet, gave me two drawers for my personal things and offered to take my dry cleaning with his to the cleaners. He was so sweet. He kept my photo next to his bed in a pink crystal and antique brass frame along with another framed picture of my three children. Our photos were placed on the dresser next to a picture of his nieces, a prayer candle and a vase of purple orchids.
Every time I see purple orchids I think of him rushing to the store because I had asked him if I could stay the night with him. He said he had nothing in the refrigerator, nothing at all, so he went out and bought eight bottles of German water and orchids.
It was a sweet confession. He said at the time of the call he knew I wasn’t calling to spend the night as in ‘going to bed with him’ but in the sense of ‘help me I have nowhere else to turn.’ But he was in love with me. He was in love with me, I was running away from home and he had nothing in the refrigerator.
Orchids and German water and a heart full of hope.
Everything makes me think of him.
Back to the party. So, the entire back wall of the closet was used to hang art. Ray said he didn’t want to clutter the clean lines of the space in the front rooms, so he kept all of his art on this one wall.
We returned to the main room where I was introduced around to the other party guests. I got a beer and became involved in conversation with another of Calhoun’s friends. I told him my legs were shaking from walking too many miles around Memorial Park that day, and that my knees were about to go out from under me if I didn’t sit down immediately.
“Would you mind if we sat on that couch over there?”
About a mile away, there were two separate living areas, conversation spaces created by chairs and couches arranged to form rooms without walls. ‘Pods of space’ is the official decorating term. We sat together far away from everyone else on a big comfortable down couch covered in off white cotton duck cloth. There was a modern square chrome and glass coffee table that had Fisher-Price toys on it for the kiddos at the party. If Ray Calhoun wanted to meet me he would have to cross the large expanse of antique wood floor. In cattlemen talk this is called ‘cutting a cow from the herd.’ Sitting so far away also gave Calhoun a chance to observe me from a safe distance.
Ray Calhoun’s friend, a dreamy blue eyed hunk named Gunnison, and I talked about forty-five minutes. I could see Calhoun in the kitchen watching me, sipping a beer and talking to Ted Drapas. Ted was not so discreet in his body language. He kept tossing his head in my direction encouraging Calhoun to ‘go on over there and meet her.’
Calhoun was dressed in billionaire disguise. All the billionaires I know all dress the same, in baggy, shabby, worn out high quality cotton. It feels good to be caressed by old, good cotton, and you derive a secondary benefit from interacting with people who respond to you and not to your wealth because, until they hear your name, they don’t know who you are. Sometimes, you even luck out and people don’t know that your name means money. Billionaire camouflage.
Ray could clearly witness from the safety of the kitchen that Gunnison was having a grand old time with me. We were laughing and talking and laughing, having the kind of fun you are supposed to have at a party. I observed one woman after another throw themselves at Calhoun, even the married ones. As the night wore on and the women were emboldened by booze, they became more and more blatantly sexually aggressive. Believe it or not, men get tired of that.
My Greek boyfriend grew up in the nightclub business. His family started the first stripclubs in Houston. They had twenty-four clubs. When he was eight, he was captain of the busboys at his uncle’s nightclub. He collected all of the tips and doled the money out at the end of the week according to how hard he thought the workers had worked. He gave this one elderly man double tips and fewer tables to work because he thought that was fair. He didn’t give out the tips nightly because he said the Cuban immigrant workers had wives and children to feed and if he gave them the money on a nightly basis the men would buy beer and gamble it all away and not have grocery and rent money at the end of the week. That is a lot to know about life at age eight.
He’d been in his uncle’s care in the evening since age six. That is when my confidant and closest friend, Mr. Guillory, first met Ulysses, age six, running back and forth across the dance floor zip, zip, zip cutting through all the couples.
Mr. Guillory loves my Greek boyfriend. Ulysses is like a son to him. I once asked Mr. G. to tell me something about Ulysses that I didn’t already know.
He asked, “Which Ulysses? I’ve known so many. He has been through so many changes. There was the Ulysses when he was six years old, then Ulysses as a teenager working in his father’s restaurant, the nightclub owner, then Ulysses in the dark years that he pulled out of and now the new Ulysses. I call him the ‘after Penelope Ulysses.’ He is a changed man. Now, he has purpose. Someone to live for. Something real to work for.”
Ulysses was there for me at a turning point in my life. I never spoke badly about my husband to anyone. I guess that would have made it too real for me to deal with. I expended much energy trying to pretend to others that everything was okay. I told Ulysses the truth about my life the night I spent with him. I told him I was afraid. I remember Mr. Guillory hugged me that night trying to give me his good energy like he knows how to do, telling me to breathe in deeply and saying, “There, there Cherie.”
But, that evening he could not give me his good energy. He pulled back away from me. I was such a black hole of fear, doubt and confusion.
Mr. Guillory said, “You are afraid. What are you afraid of?”
I told him, “My husband is going to kill me. I know it, but I don’t know why.”
Anyway, as part and parcel of his position as a nightclub manager, Ulysses had many, many women throw themselves at him every night. He’d come over to my house in River Oaks, an exclusive section of Houston, after he had closed the club, and my body guard would let him in. We’d have decaf coffee in the kitchen and just sit together. We just liked to be near one another, drawing strength from one another. He said it made him feel normal again after dealing with the club people to just sit with me. Sometimes, I would wake up and he would be at my bedside watching me sleep, sitting in an old fashioned needlepointed desk chair from the master bedroom desk. I’d wake up and he’d say, “Hello, Princess.” We jokingly had a body count of how many women had basically demanded sex from him each evening. Tuesday night was always the worst - tequila night, salsa dancing night. The fewest women ever to throw themselves at him on a Tuesday was f! ourteen, including my own sister!
Rejecting a woman who has thrown herself at you sexually is a very tricky business for a man, especially on tequila night. Once rejected, the woman is embarrassed, horny, angry, drunk and set on revenge. She may, for example, once rejected, sidle up to the biggest, stupidest drunken man at the bar and play the role of innocent woman inappropriately approached by ‘that man over there’ and ask the big guy to rescue her and bat her eyelashes promising a reward to the defender. Then, sit back and wait for the show to begin, as the big ox goes to take out the one who just rejected her amorous advances. It went on like that all night, every night.
I could just imagine how difficult it must have been for the billionaire. I hate to refer to him that way, but beyond a certain point of wealth it is difficult to have an identity that looms larger than the money. What a burden to be born into that. I truly believe that God does not give you more than you can handle. What kind of life lessons was Ray Calhoun sent here to learn? What struggles to endure? I once joked in my big Jacuzzi bathtub with my French-Algerian beau, after telling him about a horrific incident, that God knew I could only handle so much, and he knew I couldn’t handle my most recent tragedy without Jacuzzi bathtubs and seven hundred thread count Egyptian cotton sheets.
I thought about all this as I sat with Gunnison and watched Calhoun from afar. He would briefly interact with people and then recoil in horror at something inappropriate they would say. Then, he would extract himself from the situation. Calhoun kept looking over at his friend on the couch with me. We were throwing our heads back and laughing our guts out. Calhoun began to look downright miserable. He wanted to be having that great time with that blonde over there.
Gunnison and I went into the kitchen at some point to get a cigar. I had brought some Monte Cristos and Romeo and Juliets for everyone to enjoy as my gift instead of the usual bottle of wine. After all, this was an ‘after the hunt’ party. As I was holding out the cigars for Gunnison to make his selection, Ray Calhoun appeared. He looked directly at his friend and not at me.
“You two look like you’ve been having a good time. What have you been talking about?” There was more than just a hint of an accusatory tone in Ray’s voice.
Gunnision stepped back in an expansive gesture throwing his arms open wide, a Monte Cristo firmly between the fingers of his right hand. His body language said, ‘Hey, Brother. I’m not doing anything wrong here.’
Gunnison laughed and spoke joyously, “This woman has an amazing memory for the history of deregulation of the trucking industry. She wanted to know how that had impacted the propane business, so I was just telling her.”
Ray had a somewhat shocked look on his face. The topic of deregulation does not normally elicit guffaws from people.
So, I was able to say the second thing I ever said to Mr. Calhoun. I turned to him and said, “And, of course, how that parallels the deregulation of the airline industry.” To lighten the mood since Ray was in stunned silence I added, “Oh, I’m all for free enterprise, free markets and capitalism. Don’t get me wrong. I’m just not for it when it impacts my industry. Then, I want a total worldwide monopoly, baby.” I was speaking loudly, but then moved close to Ray and whispered in a conspiratorial hushed tone, “Which we achieved by acquiring nineteen companies in a single year.” I turned at that point and gave a big high five to Gunnison who raised his hand high over our heads. My voice louder again, I said, “Yeah, baby! World-Wide. Monopoly. After all, that is what is best for MY consumer. Wouldn’t want to muddy the waters with a lot of unnecessary decisions for t! he consumers to wade through, now would we?” I grinned at Calhoun, a twinkle in my eye.
We were all giggling now. Calhoun had caught our infectious laughter. “And what industry is that may I ask?” Eew, I thought. He’s terribly polite. I would learn with several opportunities to observe him that Ray had impeccable manners and graciousness at all times.
“The computer software business. My husband, I mean my EX-husband, negotiated an ironclad contract with Microsoft. Then, we bought up all the competition. We’d lure these owners of small companies and their wives to Texas and show them the lifestyle they could have here compared to California or wherever they were from and tempt them into coming to work for us.
It was an easy sell. All I had to do was show them how much I admired and respected my husband and thought he hung both the moon and the stars and talk up the wonderful life they could have in Texas. I helped him recruit many of his top employees. I am actually a very good salesman.”
Ray locked eyes with me and said in a sort of isolated dead calm that made everyone else’s conversation fall away from my ears, “I know you are.”
I wasn’t embarrassed for rambling on a bit, after all, I was full of enthusiasm for my topic. I knew he was referring to the fact that I was there selling myself to him and not in the manner of the other women. I had more to offer than my sexuality. I represented the total package. I was indeed a potential life partner, an entirely different category of woman.
Gunnison and I invited him out on the terrace to smoke a cigar, and he declined. I don’t think he is used to women ending the conversation and walking away.
The whole evening I kept watching people circling Calhoun like vultures, each with their own agenda. Each lunging out with their sharpened birds of prey beaks and ripping the flesh. This must have been going on his whole life. Even at the age of three, social climbing mothers must have vied for their children’s positions at his sandbox throwing their frilly skirted daughters in black patent Mary Janes at him. How exhausting. What kind of life view would one develop? How hideous to see the entire human population at its worst through the prism of money. This made me think of Ulysses again.
The first time I made love with Ulysses he cried. He said, “That is the way it is supposed to be.”
I asked him what he was talking about. He said it was one of the only times in his life he had ever felt loved in a woman’s arms. He said there was no other agenda, nothing I was trying to get out of him. It was just love and laughing together.
He asked me why I had laughed and I told him because I was so happy.
He said, “Because you’ve got to know for future reference that it throws a man off more than just a little bit when the woman starts laughing during sex.”
Ulysses told me again that he loved me, and he wanted to share whatever small sliver of my life I was willing to give to him.
He asked me, “What do you want from me?”
I told him he should be ashamed of himself for being willing to settle for a small sliver of my life. He used that word, ‘sliver.’ I told him that I, on the other hand, wanted the whole enchilada. I wanted more from him than any other woman had ever asked. I wanted it all. I wanted for him to love me and to show my children what it looks like for a man to love, really love, a woman. I wanted him to show them what it was to be a man.
The next time I spoke to Calhoun at the party, I was alongside others at one of the stainless steel cooking islands in the kitchen area. The pheasant had been barbequed and served up with potato salad on paper plates with plasticware. I had a second beer and worked my way along the island from one plate to the next using my toothpick to spear and sample all the different venison sausages. Each hunter had his own venison recipe to offer. One was so awful I discreetly spit it into my napkin. At the end of the table was one plate with the absolute best sausage I’d ever had in my life. A huge portion of spicy mustard had been put off to one side of the plate. Ray Malloy encouraged everyone to dip the sausages in mustard.
I made groaning sounds and quickly put three bites into my mouth. I announced to everyone that this one was the absolute best. I told the people on the other side of the counter from me that I didn’t care if they never invited me back. This venison was all mine, and I wasn’t sharing. For emphasis, I drew the plate closer to me and began stabbing the sausages as quickly as I could and shoved them into my mouth, chewing. I wrinkled up my nose and made pig grunting noises and everyone laughed.
Someone then reached over my shoulder and squirted more mustard onto the plate just as I was nearly running out – very observant. I turned and looked over my shoulder to see who was taking care of me. It was Calhoun.
“This is the best venison sausage I ever had in my life,” I said as I stuffed even more into my mouth. Then, I grinned and said, “If you can’t eat with meat falling out of your mouth in front of someone, then you don’t need that person in your life anyway.”
He laughed. Each interaction he had with me was positive and made him laugh. I got the impression he had not laughed often recently. I asked Ted Drapas, my money manager, for another beer and walked to the other side of the kitchen to follow him to the ice chest.
When I turned, Ray was near me again, and I had the chance to make a little small talk.
“Your friend races motorcycles. Do you race also?”
Of course, I already knew the answer was ‘yes.’ That is the reason I had asked him the question. Before I continue, let me explain to you, reader, a little theory I have about sex and men. If a man is capable of risking his life for the thrill of speed and possesses the skill and control to survive the experience, he has the correct attitude towards life to be a really great lover. My word of advice is avoid the timid.
I asked Calhoun a very important question, “What is the fastest you’ve ever gone?”
“On wheels, one hundred and forty miles per hour. But, that is not the fastest I’ve ever gone. I’ve gone one hundred and seventy miles per hour.”
Now, this man really had my attention.
“Oh! So, you’ve got a little cigarette boat then. How fun! ”
I think I stole from him the explanation he anticipated giving me as the next obvious tack for the conversation to follow.
He blinked a few times, “How did you guess?”
I shrugged, took a swig of beer and asked him when the last time was that he had fun.
“To tell you the truth, I don’t remember the last time I had fun it has been so long.”
“So, you are captain of a boat and you are not having any fun. What you need is a cruise director,” I announced this with a bit of girlish laughter in my voice. Then, I stepped towards him and stood very near looking directly up at him. I thought, ‘God, he’s tall.’
With my voice lower in a stage whisper I added, “There is no shame in delegating. Put someone in charge of fun.”
He looked down into my face. He was nervous, I suddenly realized.
“Oh, come on,” I pressed, “Tell me. What was the last, best, most fun you’ve had?”
He looked up and to his right at an imaginary point about two feet above his head. “I guess it would have to be a couple of Saturdays ago when I took my five year old son to pick out his birthday gift. I was in luck because this year his birthday fell on my weekend. Last year, it fell on his mother’s weekend, and I didn’t get to see him at all.”
Before I got to ask what toy his son had picked out, the Dallasite came into the kitchen and took him by the arm and pulled on him.
“Excuse me, for just a moment, honey. I’m going to borrow him.”
Helpless, he was led away from me to the dining table. I spoke to someone in the kitchen awhile and followed, sitting next to Calhoun but turning my back so that I faced another guest. I introduced myself and shook hands. I don’t know what the Dallasite said, but suddenly Ray jumped up from the table and fled. Recoiled.
“OH, Huuuuneee! Come baaack,” she drawled, patting his chair and swinging her long dark brown hair in a flirtatious gesture over her shoulder. Her hair additions on one-inch wide black combs were beginning to come loose. They sagged in three or four different spots around her head. Ray had retreated to the safety of the kitchen again. Ted Drapas was icing down more beer and handed Calhoun a cold one. Ted called me over and asked if I wanted a beer. He and Calhoun were talking about hedge funds, so I went, fresh beer in hand, in search of more food.
In the dining room, I became involved in a horrible conversation with a family law attorney who insinuated, after she asked the name of my lawyer, that I had been charged too much. I told her I had gotten exactly what I had paid for, as the list of lawyers willing to take your case becomes extremely short when there is almost a one hundred per cent certainty that both the client and the lawyer will be shot during the course of the suit. She, for example, would not have made that list.
These people were vulgar. How dare she demand to know something as private as my divorce attorney’s name. I fell into that one. These people had no idea how to make conversation.
I excused myself and returned to the kitchen to get away from her and was standing opposite Calhoun and Ted on the other side of the stainless steel kitchen island when the Dallasite joined us. She positioned herself between the two men and threw her arms around Calhoun’s neck. Her fingers were interlaced making escape impossible. Her hair combs had now slid even farther and chunks of hair dangled here, there, and yon.
“Excuse me, Ted,” she at least acknowledged the fact that she had interrupted their conversation, “Excuse me, but I’ve just got to say something to Calhoun here.”
Now, she turned her gaze full on Calhoun. She was clearly inebriated, and I knew he was experiencing a spray of drunken spit on his face.
“Calhoun, all of my friends have been after me, telling me the two of us should get together. I just want to tell you straight out that I want to be first in line to marry you when your divorce is final.” She turned to face me but did not let go of her death grip around his neck. The word ‘albatross’ popped into my head. “I’ve got dibs on him. All my friends say we’d be a great couple. He says he’s separated now, but not ready to date yet.”
She shared this confidence with me at full volume but lowered her voice an octave.
I spoke to her, but I looked at him.
“Oh, but he’s married.”
I sang out the word ‘married.’
She released him and stepped back almost losing her balance on her Manalo spike heels. She’d clearly been shocked. She gaped at him open mouthed. He had endured her hanging onto him fairly good naturedly, I thought. Sadly, he appeared to be used to such behavior from women. Now, he looked panicked. He realized he’d been caught in his lie. Earlier, he clearly claimed he was divorced.
“No. I really am separated.” He spoke directly to me.
There was a tinge of desperation in his voice. Now, he faced the English teacher on the day the term paper was due and the dog really did eat it, but he knows it will never be believed.
“I’m separated. I really am.”
The Dallasite faced me, desiring the truth.
I explained, “Oh, no. He’s married.” I told her, “You see in Texas we don’t have papers of separation like they do in New Jersey and other states. In order to be legally separated in the state of Texas, you must file for divorce.” I looked him dead in the eye now. “Which he has not.”
She drew a deep breath of indignation at having been led on so. “Well, we just don’t act like that in Dallas!”
Calhoun’s eyes fixed on mine, “But, I am separated. We haven’t lived under the same roof in years.”
I had him locked in my sights, my eyes never shifting away from his nor his from mine. His eyes seemed to be pleading now, mine accusing, “Words have meaning.”
Completely exasperated, he looked up and to the right just as he did when he searched his memory earlier.
“Estranged,” he strangled the word as he spit it out, “We’re estranged then.”
His eyes searched mine for forgiveness, as if saying, ‘I am not a liar. I am not a liar.’
I answered simply and with emotion, “How sad.”
The Dallasite seemed to have been visiting her friend in Houston for too long because after a moment of consideration she decided to relax her morals to local standards. Recovered now from the shock to her decency, she threw her arms around his neck again and brought hers lips precariously near his.
“Well, that is different then. Let me just make myself clear. I want to marry you, and I am first in line when you file for divorce.”
I spoke to her but looked directly at him. I said each word slowly and with conviction.
“Oh. This. Is. A. Very. Attractive. Man.”
His face softened. He was forgiven.
“I’m quite sure the line for him already wraps around the block three times by now.”
Anxiety crashed down like a hurricane swell in Galveston impacting every molecule of his body. He stepped forward, forgetting the albatross, and caused her to tilt backwards from his sudden movement. He raised his hand as if swearing an oath.
“NO. Trust me. There is no line.”
At that I smiled. The wave of anxiety retreated, and he stood there, smiling back.
Ellen, the Dallasite, released Calhoun and retreated to her table of buddies but not without taking me by the arm. “There is someone I want to introduce you to,” she said by way of explanation. “Be right back,” she mouthed silently to Calhoun.
Soon Ellen announced that a friend had invited us all over to the St. Regis Hotel jazz bar. Ted was talking to Calhoun in the kitchen, and I approached them both.
“Okay, Ted. We’re going to the St. Regis Hotel.”
Ted laughed and turned to Calhoun, “What did I tell you about her? She’s direct.”
They laughed.
“You know what I mean. We are Ellen’s ride, and she wants to join her friends at the St. Regis. You are welcome to come with us if you wish,” I added for Calhoun.
“No, I think I’ll stay here. Thank you, though.”
Ted offered to get my coat, winked at Calhoun, and disappeared into the back of the condo. He returned and asked if he could try on my coat. Robert Newhouse, the recently divorced divorce attorney, put on Ellen’s coat and they both mugged it up for pictures using Ted’s digital camera. They posed with cigars and looked liked 1920’s style mobsters.
I got out of camera range to give them both room to pose and found Calhoun standing right next to me doing the same. The entire length of his body was against mine. The sides of our arms touched. It was possible to speak in a low voice and be heard by him easily.
“I know that it is unsolicited advice, but I’ve just been through a separation and divorce and it is not easy. You don’t have to do things according to anyone else’s timetable but your own. I didn’t even leave my house for a year, for goodness sakes. I didn’t even begin to think about dating for two years. You are ready when you are ready and not a moment sooner.”
His voice cracked a bit when he replied, “You are the only one who seems to understand.”
I reached up and in a very nonsexual way scratched his back just above the shoulder blades. “Remember that you are a human being and humans require touch and lots of it each day. You can not ignore your basic needs. It helped me to get a massage every day. A massage therapist would come to my home. Now, I have a great massage gal. Her name is Madeline. I go to her. She works at Avalon Nails on Shepherd. I’m sure she would probably come to your house each day. I’ll tell her you are going to call her. If she doesn’t have a portable massage table, I’ll buy her one.”
His voice was shaking when he whispered, “I do need touch.”
Just then, Ted appeared with his camera, “Anyone else want a picture taken before I go?”
Ray pressed his cheek next to mine, “Over here.”
We smiled. I’d never taken a cheek to cheek photo with anyone before. It felt nice to have his cheek pressed next to mine. I decided to ask my French-Algerian lover to break up. I needed to be available in case someone came along who was a good match for me. Being in a relationship that I knew was going nowhere was just preventing me from really looking. I was missing opportunities and using up valuable time. Besides, I liked being alone.
Ted called a couple of days later and said the photo turned out great, and he was going to send a copy of it to Calhoun. I asked if I looked good in it.
“No, no. Not to worry. It looks great of both of you. You both look really happy. It doesn’t look like the two of you just met. It looks like you’ve been together a thousand years.”
After we posed for the photo, Calhoun said he thought he had met me before. I thought to myself, ‘Certainly, you have a better line than that. I’m sure you are used to the girls all falling over themselves at that suggestion.’
I said, “Nope. Not possible.”
Ted held my coat for me, and I eased my arms down into the sleeves and shrugged it on. Calhoun only had a few seconds to make small talk.
I said the word ‘nope’ in such a way that it made a sound similar to pulling your thumb out of a pop bottle. “Nope, not possible. I never leave my house. There is really no reason to. It is so wonderful there. I’m sort of a recluse. Whenever I feel like being around people I throw a party and invite them over.”
Ted’s wife overheard and stopped.
“She throws awesome parties. The best parties I’ve ever been to. She celebrated the anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic with a four course meal that was exactly like the historic records of the ship.”
“We had six wines, including champagne with chocolate éclairs, and port with cigars on the smoking deck. The smoking deck was my outside patio,” I explained.
“One thing that impresses me, Penelope,” Ted added, “ is how you never drink at your parties. Usually, when I go to a party the host is smashed by the end of the evening. I didn’t even see you drink at your wine tasting.”
“I have a responsibility to my guests to make the evening run smoothly. I do drink at the very end, usually two glasses of wine as the guests are beginning to leave.”
“The band is always so wonderful,” Lynn smiled broadly, hanging onto the word ‘sooo’ like only a true Southerner can. She swayed back and forth with her daughter on her hip. Clearly, we were on our way out the door. The host, Ray Malloy, was at Lynn’s side. She continued, “She had jazz musicians for the Titanic party. I think they were the same ones for her wine tasting.”
“I’ve been to your house before, to your party,” fibbed Ray, the host.
“Oh, I’m so sorry. I apologize that I didn’t recognize you from before. Sometimes, I’m not in charge of the guest list. I just have a party idea and ask people to invite other people. I try to meet everyone. I’m so sorry. Which party did you go to?”
“The wine tasting.”
“Oh, really? Which one? I had more than one this year. Was it the one with the poets and the interpretive dancers out on the back patio? Or was it the one with the man who only had one wine, but he also imported coffee and his grandfather invented the elevator?”
Ray blinked a few times. Fibber.
“Maybe, it wasn’t a wine tasting. It was a party in December.”
“Oh, the toga party!” Ted cried out. “We really wanted to go to that, but the baby got sick. We had cancelled our vacation and everything to go.”
“I only give one or two days notice for a party,” I explained to Calhoun who once again stood very close to me as I spoke to Ray Malloy. “I found out on Wednesday night I could get the Gallant Knights, and we had the party Friday.”
“The Gallant Knights?” asked Calhoun.
“You know them? They play at this dive bar that has been around for years that caters to college kids. It’s a band just like the one in the movie Animal House. They play songs like ‘She’s a Brick da da da daaaa House.’” I sang a line for everyone raising my arms above my head and snapping my fingers. “A six piece funk band. I’m lucky my neighbors are old and deaf.”
“Yeah. I had my toga all ironed and ready to go and ended up with a crying baby on my hands all night driving around trying to get her to go to sleep. I even drove all the way to Penelope’s house and drove around the circle. I could hear the band and she had a lot of cars there, but I couldn’t go inside.” Ted sounded truly forlorn recounting his memory.
“I wish I had known. We could have paid one of the valet parking guys to drive her around.”
I turned to Ray again and asked him what I was wearing at the party because that would help me identify what party it was.
He said he didn’t pay much attention to women’s clothes, normally. He couldn’t possibly be asked to remember something like that.
“Oh, you would remember Penelope’s clothes.” Ted said, “They are memorable.”
“They aren’t really clothes. They are more like costumes designed for each party, very elaborate,” I explained. I hoped that Ted would have the sense to not describe the outfits to Calhoun and his friend. After all I had worn nothing but body paint, a bikini, and a gold net dress for the conservative judge’s fundraiser in my home. It was a fish fry and people spending five hundred dollars each deserve a show.
I held my breath as Ted continued talking, “She dressed everyone at her toga party. She got all different colored sheets and grape leaves and stuff like that. Everyone had a custom made toga. God, I wish I could have gone.”
“Next year, I promise. I’ll do it again.”
“I would like to get to know you better,” said Ray, the fibber, who had apparently never been to one of my parties.
“I’d like to get to know you better, too, Ray. Thank you for inviting me to your ‘after the hunt’ party. I’ve had a wonderful time.”
“May I call you?”
“Sure, and I’ll make sure to put you on my party list. But I must warn you that I’m cutting back this year on the elaborate parties. I’m going to keep it simpler like the last party I had. I just got a bunch of theatre tickets and we all went to see ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolfe?’ and then out to Katz’s deli for sandwiches. Easy and simpler and a cheap way to entertain. Afterwards, we just went back to my house and had caviar and wine and cheese.”
So, Calhoun got to see me get invited out by his friend. He also witnessed his best bud get rejected, but nicely.
