Move over, Michelangelo: Edward Grant Bartlett III, born L.A., California, September 1, 1950; B.A. Cal State L.A.; M.F.A. Parsons School of Design; favorite hobby, dirt bike racing; last book read, Foot Reflexology; most admired American, Phil Spector; was (in the service of a major toy manufacturer) about to capture, for all time, on the sketch pad propped on his easel, the likeness of Nicole Nelson. Less than three months from this very day, the foot-high Nicole would be plastic perfect, dressed, boxed, and shipped — suitable toy or objet for any desirous child or dream-struck man who wasn’t into inflatables and who didn’t already have a paper dolly all his own.
As he sketched, Edward listened, through the earphones of his Sony Walkman, to a tape of conversational Swahili. As she stood in the yard, shielded by a striped beach umbrella, Nicole listened to Duran Duran through her earphones, keeping the beat by tapping the toe of her pink jellies.
Nicole had been in Vermont for two days, and already Lucy’s life was in a state of chaos. Jane said that only important people had been given the number, and they had been told to call only if it was essential. So far, this morning’s essential calls had come from Nicole’s broker, who wanted to say goodbye before he left for a Club Med vacation on Paradise Island, and Nicole’s agent, P. G. “Piggy” Proctor, who wanted to finalize plans for Nicole’s dangling from the rope of a helicopter with Bobby Blue over the beach at Malibu on behalf of a campaign to raise money for children afflicted with sleep apnea. The last call was a total fluke: a woman selling the World Book encyclopedia.
Lucy was writing her column. She had pulled a stool up to the kitchen counter. Out the window she could see Nicole under the umbrella. The sun was stronger now; Edward had put on a coonskin cap and rubbed zinc oxide over his nose. He wore sunglasses with rectangular black lenses. He looked clinically insane.
Dear Cindi Coeur,
I want to be a nurse, but my boyfriend says that this will embarrass him, because nurses all have a reputation for being loose. He thinks I should be a computer programmer instead. My reason for wanting to be a nurse is that I have juvenile onset diabetes, and becoming a nurse would be a way of thanking the people who helped me all my life and of helping others. I just think my boyfriend has a dirty mind. I told him that if he had a heart attack and went to the hospital, he would be a lot happier to see a nurse than a computer programmer. Our relationship has been horrible since I said this because he thought that I wouldn’t have said it if I hadn’t been thinking about him being dead. Cindi, I never think about anybody or anything being dead. When I was thirteen I got in trouble with my father because I couldn’t face the fact that my goldfish was dead and flush it down the toilet. I know better than to say this to him, though. I need your advice about what I should do with my life.
Diabetic Debbi
Dear Debbi,
Sometimes when you are in doubt about what you should do, it is best, before you act, to imagine the worst possible scenario that could happen. Let’s say that you did become a nurse, and that you were on duty when your boyfriend was brought in with a heart attack. Let’s say that he died, but before he did, he looked up and saw you, and his last words were that you should have become a computer programmer. Can you imagine keeping it together, and just going on to the next bedpan? If you can, proceed with your choice of occupation.
St. Francis had hollowed out a gully for himself in the patch of rhododendrons. Earlier, Edward had helped her put a stake in the ground so that they could chain him. He saw Lucy outside, sensed the potential for fun, and beat his tail like an otter. She went over and let him loose. He pawed the ground and ran in circles, then ran to Edward, who was still busily sketching Nicole. St. Francis did a double take when he saw the coonskin cap, obviously hoping to raise the tally on the daily death toll (so far it was at one; another frog). St. Francis sniffed the air in front of Edward, sat down, and looked up admiringly.
“So what’s the story with that guy Bobby Blue?” Edward said to Nicole, stepping back from his easel.
“His real name’s Bobby Bluestein. He had his nose done and his cheek bones pushed up. He’s a real mama’s boy. His nickname’s Bobby Blueballs, because he’s never with a girl.”
Edward smiled. “I like that,” he said.
“I think Derek McAndrew is cute,” Nicole said.
“He your fave rave?” Edward said.
“What’s ‘fave rave’?” Nicole said.
“They used to say that in the fifties,” Edward said. “It means the guy you’re really crazy about.”
“Nobody wants to care about a guy that much,” Nicole said. “Nobody’s into that anymore.”
“Come on,” Edward said. “You think a lot about McAndrew, I bet.”
“He’s good-looking, but he’s kind of dumb,” Nicole said. “He’s always saying how he’s going to quit the business and become a doctor. Sure he is.”
Edward went back to his sketching. “So who else besides McAndrew do you like?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Nicole said. She leaned over, running her hands down her shins to her ankles, then straightened up again. “Don’t say any of this to a reporter,” she said.
“I wouldn’t,” Edward said. “I’m just curious.”
“McAndrew gets it on all the time,” Nicole said. She looked at Lucy, who was sitting on the grass, patting the dog, looking at her. “Not with me,” she said. “With Kate. She just got canceled from the show. They never ate lunch with anybody. They were always off getting it on.”
“Come on — she must be forty.”
“Why do you think she got canned?” Nicole said.
“What? They didn’t know how old she was when they hired her?”
“She won’t do anything to make herself attractive,” Nicole said. “I think she’s on some self-destruction kick. The studio sent her to that place in Sweden to get her face done, and she flew all the way over there and freaked out. She came back looking just the same, but she was walking around the set in clogs. Clogs are so gross.”
“Maybe she thinks she’s found true love if McAndrew wants to get it on with her all the time even though she’s old.”
“They’re making it because they’re on the show together. A lot of people get hung up on that for a while. I’ll bet now that she’s off the show, he’ll never see her again. I heard he was pretty weirded-out that she didn’t get her face fixed.”
“You go out with McAndrew?” Edward said.
“I don’t know. He calls me, and stuff. We’ve gone to a couple of premieres. We don’t really hang out or anything.”
“Too young for him?”
“Oh, gag me,” Nicole said. “You know, he’s in a lot of trouble with his agent for hanging around with Kate. I don’t know why they care if it gets out. It’s usually the parents who care if that stuff gets around, but he doesn’t even have any parents. He lives with his brother. His brother’s a real thug. I think he’s dropped too much acid. He got in trouble with the cops for smashing some woman’s face in — just some woman who hit his car from behind out at the beach. Everybody was teasing Derek, saying he wasn’t enough of a star for his brother’s name to make the papers.”
“You do acid?” Edward said.
“Acid’s gross,” she said. “Sometimes I like poppers.”
“Maybe we ought to suggest to the toy manufacturer that they stuff the Nicole Nelson doll’s purse with them,” Edward said.
Nicole laughed.