Author: Larry McMurtry
Category: Literature
Go to read content：https://onlinereadfreenovel.com/larry-mcmurtry/page,19,33816-the_desert_rose.html
“Actually, she’s not great-looking, she just dresses well,” Mel said. “Just because she’s good-looking doesn’t mean I’m attracted to her. Are you attracted to every single good-looking man you see, or are there some who are pretty good-looking but leave you cold.”
“Fritz, but he’s gay,” she said. Anyway, it wasn’t the looks, it was the way the two of them had talked, Meg and Mel—as if they had been talking over all the designers for years. It bugged her, who cared about the stupid designers?
“Well, I care about them,” Mel said, when she mentioned that factor.
“I don’t, I’d rather just buy junk than listen to that voice of hers,” she said.
Mel shrugged. “Be as jealous as you want,” he said. “I get turned on by photographing people who photograph well. Meg didn’t, or I suppose we would have got involved. When we get home I’ll show you what I mean.”
In a room behind his office he had a lot of big flat file drawers full of the photographs he had taken when he was doing fashion photography. There were thousands of photographs, many of them blowups. The clothes were not exactly the latest fashions—he hadn’t done it in several years. But the pictures were all organized. It only took him a minute to find the photographs he had taken of Meg and Pepper had to agree that she looked terrible in the pictures.
“So where’s the pictures of the good ones?” she asked. “I want to see the ones you were involved with.”
Mel just grinned and showed her some of the still shots he had done of her the day before, he had already printed a few of them.
“These are the pictures of the one I’m involved with. Don’t you think she photographs beautifully?” he said. There was no doubt she looked about ten times better than Meg. She was beginning to be not so mad.
“We didn’t eat,” she said. “I’m hungry.”
“I was going to take you to the Riviera,” Mel said, “but you were so mad I was afraid you might destroy the restaurant. I like the restaurant and I wasn’t taking any chances.”
“Get someone else the next time we go shopping,” Pepper said. “I hate her voice.”
“There’s nothing wrong with her voice, she just happens to be from the East,” he said.
She decided she wanted to go to lunch anyway, and Mel was agreeable so the Jap took them to the Riviera. The waiters treated Mel like he was President or something, it was a little disgusting.
The thing that was bothering her was that she couldn’t keep calm about him whereas he could keep very calm about her. One minute she would be thinking he was great and good-looking and not tight with his money and the next minute she would be hating him because of someone like Meg or because he was just sort of amused that she was so angry. She would decide she was ready to split, forget the marriage, he was just a weirdo, and then the next she’d think how nice it was just to buy three hundred dollars’ worth of shampoos and stuff in about ten seconds, plus the outfits were great and she could be wrong about the girls, maybe he wasn’t interested in anyone but her.
It was just that she couldn’t be sure, he was too far ahead of her in terms of knowing stuff, he wasn’t like Buddy or Woods who would always back down if she got really mad. Mel just waited for her to cool off. She didn’t know if she could live with that or not, she enjoyed blowing Buddy out of the water whenever she felt like it, it might be something she was going to miss.
The waiters made a big production number out of the lunch. All she ate was a trout, but Mel had something that had to be flamed at the table, plus a bottle of wine, and while that was going on who should spot them but Woods’s mother. She was just leaving, with a guy Pepper had never seen.
Woods’s mother was named Gail. She came over looking cheerful and said “Hi, Pepper.” Mel got up and gave her a kiss. Gail seemed to think it was perfectly natural that she and Mel would be having lunch at the Riviera. She didn’t bat an eyelash. The guy she was with was tall and gray-headed. Pepper caught him giving her a look or two, but she didn’t say anything. She could hardly wait to drop this piece of news on Woods, no doubt Gail was fucking the grayheaded guy.
“So did you tell her about us?” Pepper asked, when they were gone.
“No, we haven’t talked lately,” Mel said. “Gail has perfect legs, you know. She could probably still model if she wanted to.”
“So were you involved?” she asked. She was curious about how many times he had been involved.
“Yep, for about a week,” Mel said. “We couldn’t put up with one another. Gail needs more attention than I can supply.”
“I guess she gets it from that guy,” Pepper said.
“No, he’s just a lawyer for an environmental group she’s active in,” Mel said. “You seem to think all life is romance, Pepper.”
“I gotta go to my lesson,” Pepper said. It was the one thing that hadn’t changed completely in the last few days.
She had worn one of her new outfits to lunch—Madonna was quite surprised when she came in wearing it, it was definitely not the kind of outfit most people wore to dance lessons.
Then Madonna got on her case, she was dancing okay but everything she did Madonna made her do over about twenty times. She stood there looking critical and making her repeat things until Madonna finally got enough.
“Why do I have to do it over?” she asked. “I did it perfectly.”
“Do it over!” Madonna said, she got angry if you questioned her. “You are going to be a lead dancer, you have to work much harder. Bonventre will fire you if you dance like this for him.”
After the lesson she got Woods on the phone and told him about his mother not batting an eye. Woods wasn’t surprised. He said his mother never allowed anyone to be more sophisticated than she was, she was actually super-sophisticated. He also said he had just bought a record by the most revolting punk group of all, The Bed-Pans, he said they were a total gross-out. Pepper wanted to hear it. Of course the Jap was waiting. She was feeling a little rebellious, Mel was a little too cool, so she told Woods to come and get her and sent the Jap on home.
She laid around Woods’s bedroom for a while, smoking dope and listening to The Bed-Pans. They were the worst group in history all right, none of them could even play their instruments. Woods had every punk and New Wave record ever made, his room was totally full of records and stereo equipment, though his big campaign at the moment was to get his parents to buy him a couple of video games so he could practice at home and break his own world record.
Meanwhile the fact that she was lying around his room getting high was causing Woods to fall more and more in love with her, although he was well aware it was hopeless, he brought it up about every five minutes. Pepper felt almost rebellious enough to let him, the fact that Meg and Mel and Gail had all been so cool was definitely annoying. The thing about Woods that was kind of sweet was that there was no way he could be cool when she was around, he was too much in love. But he wasn’t a maniac like Buddy and he had more interesting taste, Buddy just had records by the Beach Boys and groups like that, Buddy was way behind when it came to music.
The good thing about Woods was that she could always drive him out of his mind. She didn’t even have to fuck him to accomplish it, he was totally in her power. Mel was crazy about the way she looked but he still wasn’t totally in her power.
Before she could make up her mind to fuck Woods and drive him even more out of his mind Gail showed up. She knocked on the door and looked in.
“Well, Pepper, you play the field, don’t you?” she said. Woods got very nervous at that point and lost his chance of getting balled any time soon, he was too afraid of his mother.
She made him take her home—Mel had said she could spend the night at his house and she wanted to get a few things. Woods was depressed, he decided he had blown his big chance. Pepper said, “Hey, don’t commit suicide or anything just because Gail showed up,” but Woods went off deeply depressed, he had very low moods.
She got Mel on the phone, she was curious to see if he was
mad but he wasn’t, he had just been making his business calls. She said maybe he should send the Jap in about an hour and he said fine.
The place was deserted. Myrtle’s TV was on but there was no sign of her or the Buick. It didn’t last, though, the last person she wanted to see showed up, namely Buddy. He had figured out from the fact that the phone was busy that she was home and had rushed out to tell her he was leaving town.
“Come on,” she said. “Why would you leave town?”
It turned out he had taken PCP and freaked out all night, and when he came off it a little discovered he had done the most horrible thing imaginable, which was to smash Victor’s Mercedes. All he could remember was sitting in it, he couldn’t even remember driving it, but the rear fender was smashed, he must have backed into something during the night.
Victor happened to be in New York and Buddy’s mother was in San Francisco, so nobody knew about the accident yet. But Victor was due home any day. Buddy had been to every Mercedes dealer in town and offered them any price if they would somehow fix the car immediately, like in a few hours. He definitely didn’t want Victor to come home and see that his beloved car had a smashed fender. But of course the Mercedes dealers had other problems, they couldn’t just fix it in a few hours. So Buddy was going around feeling that he was definitely doomed, Victor was a maniac about the condition of his Mercedes.
“Why’d you sit in it, you asshole?” Pepper said. If he was going to freak out he could have just done it in the Cadillac as far as she was concerned. Buddy said he meant to get in the Cadillac, he was just so high he couldn’t tell one from another, he didn’t remember a thing. When he found out her line was busy he rushed right out, she had such a good brain she might be able to think of some way out of the predicament. He had the notion maybe he could pretend it was stolen, that some criminal had smashed the fender, he thought Victor might believe that.
Pepper blew that theory, she reminded him that Victor was totally paranoid about thefts anyway and had such a good security system that no criminal could possibly steal his Mercedes. You could barely even get orange juice out of the refrigerator at Buddy’s house without setting off the security system, Victor would never believe a criminal had stolen that car.
Then of course Buddy wanted to fuck. He said the only reason he had taken the PCP was because he was going crazy because they had broken up, he decided he might as well be totally crazed if he couldn’t have her anymore. But finding her alone had given him hope. He was convinced she thought he was fabulously sexy, which she sort of had at one time, but the spell was broken, she wasn’t interested. He kept trying to hold hands or put his arm around her, then he sort of made a big pass, he grabbed her and she had to fight to shake loose.
“Listen, I’m engaged, you asshole!” she said. “I’m getting married, you can forget it.”
That was news, it freaked him even more, he stomped around the house saying shit and fuck and acting like he was ready to kill himself or something. He couldn’t believe she was leaving him for an older guy like Mel, he said Mel was gay anyway.
“Up yours, he is not!” Pepper said. Then she said she hoped Victor had him sent to prison for smashing the fender, he deserved to live among criminals.
Then Buddy started taking PCP again, he said he saw no reason to be in his right mind any longer, he said he was going to run away from home, anything was better than facing the maniac.
Pepper was a little scared, she didn’t want to be around Buddy when he was really freaking out. Usually she could handle him but not if he was totally out of his head, he might decide to kidnap her or something. While he was in the bathroom she got on the phone and told Mel to send the Jap right out.
Mel figured out that she was scared, he asked if anything was wrong but she said no, just send the Jap, Buddy probably wouldn’t have time to kidnap her. Buddy heard the last part of the call and became insanely jealous, he couldn’t stand having her prefer anyone to him. He called her a cunt and said he would get even when she was least expecting it. Then he got a bottle of vodka out of the cabinet and began to drink it straight, between the drugs and the liquor he was quickly getting messed up, he could barely walk he was so bombed. He went out in the yard and sat under the umbrella, crying and drinking the vodka. He was still doing it when the Jap arrived. Pepper didn’t try to pack anything, she could always come back when Buddy was gone.
Just being in the Mercedes was a relief, she was back in Mel’s world and it was very soothing, it had been a little scary there for a few minutes with Buddy.
She immediately told Mel about the freak-out. Since Mel knew Victor he could appreciate the situation with the car. He was of the opinion it would be good for Buddy to get out of town anyway, he was too old to be living at home.
Then he sprang a surprise, he took her to her room and it had all the stuff in it she had picked out that day at Neiman’s. Mel had just persuaded them to let him have the floor models, he didn’t think she’d want to wait several weeks for the stuff to come. That was great, the three hundred dollars’ worth of shampoo was already in her personal bathroom, all she had to do was stick the poster of The Ten Skunks on the wall over her bed. Mel didn’t bat an eye, he said it was her room, she could do what she wanted with it.
They weren’t too hungry thanks to the late lunch at the Riviera so Mel sat on her bed and watched her try on the clothes she had bought. He loved to watch her dress and undress. He said Gail had called, she was sort of curious about the situation, first she was at lunch with you, then she’s in Woods’s bedroom smoking dope Gail had said. Pepper decided Gail was a fink, what made it any of her business?
“Woods is in love with me,” she said, she thought she’d mention it to see if it mattered.
“I’m sure he is,” Mel said.
“So would you push him off a cliff?” she asked, she was curious.
“Of course not, he’s a very bright boy,” Mel said. “Why would I push my godchild off a cliff just because of something natural like that?”
“You said you’d push Buddy,” she reminded him.
Mel laughed. Buddy would be a modest loss to humanity, he said.
She sort of wished she’d fucked Woods just to see—maybe it would have disturbed Mel or something, there had to be something that disturbed him.
When she got through trying on the new clothes he brought out a few old nightgowns, then set up the lights and took some pictures of her taking off the nightgowns. He loved to get her just as she was pulling the gowns over her head—she would be naked but the gowns would be hiding her face, weird, she thought, but the minute she got tired he clicked off the lights and they lay in her new bed. She felt very comfortable with him and soon went to sleep.
When she awoke it was deep in the night and he wasn’t with her, probably he had gone back to his own room. The sky outside was white with moonlight. Pepper felt a little frightened, the bed was so huge and so was the room. It was definitely strange to be living in a new place—almost every night of her life had been spent in the duplex. Except for slumber parties and camping trips she had always slept in her own room, but probably she never would again, she wouldn’t have to listen to Myrtle’s TV going all night, or the peacocks screeching in the morning. Plus Mel was definitely kind, it was just confusing about him not wanting too much intimacy. She felt lonely in the big bed.
Once or twice she thought it’s too weird, what if he stops liking the way I photograph? It was a bad thought. Also she remembered Madonna said she was dancing sloppy, what if Bonventre fired her? She began to feel not confident, didn’t like being alone in the big bed, she thought about going into Mel’s room to see what was going on but she lost confidence, she wasn’t sure what the rules were about going in his room. She sort of wished she’d brought a few stuffed animals, chewed or not at least they were familiar. She was beginning to feel bad, leaving home wasn’t working out, she didn’t like feeling so lonely. Then just when she thought it totally wasn’t going to work she saw
Mel in the door. It was as if he had figured out she needed him. As he got in the bed he said, “What’s the matter, Pepper?” She didn’t answer, she was just glad he had come. He said he had been talking to England, it was the middle of the day there and the best time to talk. He said, “It’s nearly morning,” but Pepper didn’t care, she held him and went back to sleep.
VII
1.
ALL DURING the day that was her last day at the Stardust Harmony tried to keep her mind off the fact, but it was hard to do because everyone kept reminding her, mainly by trying to be kind about it, they all seemed to think she’d commit suicide the minute the last show was over and she got her makeup off. Since it was her birthday, too, Gary and Jessie were giving her a big birthday party afterwards, at Debbie’s and Marty’s—they were taking no chances.
Jessie was out of the hospital and living in Pepper’s room. She could hobble around on crutches a little but not enough to be much help with the arrangements for a birthday party. Gary did most of the arrangements. He was determined to make a big deal out of it in hopes it would keep Harmony cheered up for at least a few days.
Then the day got off to the worst possible start. Jessie was trying to take a sponge bath and got her cast wet. Jessie had been very high-strung since the accident and getting the cast a little wet upset her a lot, it was strictly against her doctor’s orders and she was afraid that her leg would rot off or something. She was so upset she woke Harmony before she got her sleep out.
Harmony got up and drank some coffee but Jessie had made the coffee and she made terrible coffee, Harmony just poured it all out and made some of her own. It was so good by comparison that she drank four or five cups, although she knew that was too much caffeine to be taking into her system, but at least it got her awake.
“Jessie, your leg’s not going to rot just because you got the cast a little wet,” she said. It seemed to her Jessie was becoming a worse hypochondriac every day.