“I don’t hear you denying it.”
“I would, if I thought it would help.”
“It would, if I thought you were being honest.”
He turned the engine on so the air conditioner would work. “She’s working on a script and she likes to pick my brain.”
“Well, that makes more sense than her being physically attracted to you.”
Stein felt that she was mollified and that the siege had lightened. “I’m just speaking hypothetically,” he said, “but some young women do like older men.”
“Older rich men, Stein.”
“You think money is the only attraction?”
“No, I’m sure that flaccid skin, diminished sex drive, and increased risk of prostate cancer are all major turn-ons.”
Stein extended his arms to her and she allowed her head to be coaxed onto his shoulder.
“Just explain what our relationship is,” she lamented. “We’re not lovers anymore. We’re not colleagues. We’re not business associates. We’re not related. We’re not clients. What the hell are we?”
“What about flovers?” Stein offered.
“Flovers?”
“Friends-Who-Used-To-Be-Lovers.”
“Are we not the two most pathetic beings on the planet?”
“We’re up there.”
“T HERE IT IS.” He looked down and sighed. Palm Springs lay before them, wedged into the mountain pass like a tracheal tumor. It represented to Stein everything that was wrong with America. Conspicuous consumption. Privilege and entitlement. Start with the name. Palm Springs. You had to say it in Italics. Like everything else liquid and verdant sounding around Los Angeles, it was a lie. The Palms were imported from Florida. And the Springs? Without the trillions of gallons of water it plundered from the Colorado River it would rank among the six most inhospitable climates on the planet. The theoretical temperature/misery index stayed consistently above one-seventy for eight months out of the year, and with an annual rainfall of less than an inch, its natural ecology supported but two indigenous creatures: the red-rimmed scorpion and a leafless, rootless, anaerobic cousin of sagebrush. Yet the median value of a home was upwards of three million dollars and it boasted more banks, more large American cars, and more golf courses per capita than any other metropolis in the world save that other bastion of democratic ideals, Kuwait City.
Lila’s mood had vastly improved. “I like it,” she smiled. They drove slowly through the commercial main strip of town, passing a succession of restaurants, pottery shops and real estate offices. “Don’t take this as a criticism,” she said, “but you never actually told me why we’re here.”
“It’s a surprise. I’m going to make up for all the times I’ve ever disappointed you.”
“We’re staying all month?”
He slowed down as they approached a beauty shop where a crowd was waiting to get in. But it wasn’t the name he remembered. “I’m looking for a beauty shop called Pavanne,” he said. “Have you heard of it?”
“Have I heard of it? Is that some kind of joke? Stein, I have told you about it a hundred times. It’s where all of my pampered, trust fund girlfriends go.”
“Good, then you’re really going to like this. Using all of my influence, and cashing in a shitload of important favors, I have arranged for you to have your hair cut and styled by Mister Paul Vane himself.” Stein waited for the round of applause. Instead, her eyebrows caved down in the center.
“Stein, this hits an all-time low.”
Truly he did not understand her reaction at all.
“Did I not tell you that I just this afternoon had my hair done?”
“Yes? So?”
“So? I cannot have my hair done twice on the same day!”
“Why not?
“Just tell me you’re not being serious and I’ll play along with you.”
“I really don’t get it.”
“You don’t get it? You don’t get why you cannot have hair- I’m not even going to talk to you about this. Just drive.” She folded her arms across her Givenchy blouse.
“I think you think I’m doing something bad to you on purpose… Suppose I said Wolfgang Puck was going to cook for you, would you tell him you’d already eaten?”
“I’d puke if I had to, and if you knew in advance we were going to Puck’s and let me eat anyway, I’d puke on you.”
“So I should have told you.”
“YES. So I could have cancelled my appointment with Rene.”
“Ok. All I’m just saying is, since Paul Vane has never seen you, what difference does it make if his starting point is your hair the way it is now, or the way it was this morning?”
Lila blanched. “Is there something wrong with it?”
“No! That’s not at all what I was saying!”
She flipped the vanity mirror open and obsessively scrutinized her coif. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“I’m not not telling you anything.”
“I get frightened when you use double negatives.”
“Fine. I admit I have ulterior motives for bringing you here.”
“Thank God. At last!”
Every time she made Stein laugh it reminded him how much he loved that she could surprise him.
“This is the actual truth of why I’m here: The people who hired me think Paul Vane stole some of their shampoo bottles. I have to ask him about it and I thought he’d be more easily diverted if he were working.”
“So you brought me along as a decoy?”
“That and your air conditioning. And of course your scintillating company.”
“Nice afterthought.”
He mistook her irony for compliance.
“So you’ll do it?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Really?”
“I’ll change my life for you, but not my hair.”
The green art deco awning had been a landmark on the corner of Indian Wells and Sirkont for twenty-six years. Some people thought its name, Pavanne, derived from the courtly French dance. Those in the know understood it was a contraction of its proprietor’s name, Paul Vane. At its peak of popularity in the Reagan-Bush decade, Pavanne employed eight full-time cutters, two colorists, a facial practitioner, an herbal nutritionist, a receptionist, a bookkeeper and two custodian-stockperson-intern-trainees. One of whom, Michael Esposito, had become Paul Vane’s inamorata.
Stein and Lila were greeted at the door by the proprietor himself. Stein guessed that Vane was close to sixty, though he was very elfin. His skin was pulled taut across his delicate facial bone structure. His eyes were without guile and looked reverent when he looked up, which was almost always, since Vane was barely five foot four. He wore a maroon shirt that clung to his meticulously trim body. Even at rest he seemed to be constantly in motion, like a hummingbird whose wings flap at 4,000 beats per second just to hover. When Stein introduced Lila to him he threw his arms around her and squeezed hard. “It’s so good to finally meet you,” he exulted. “You are all that Charlotte and Rita ever talk about.”
Vane released Lila and alighted in front of Stein. “I’ve heard nothing at all about you,” he swooned, “but it’s all been fabulous. Come in!”
The decor of the salon had the decadent feeling of faded French elegance. Pictures of Southern California’s blue-blooded ladies graced prominent spots on the walls. Vane enthralled Lila with tidbits of gossip about the Presidential First Ladies he had done: Nancy Reagan (“Ronnie’s mom”), Barbara Bush (“A political breeding machine”), Roslyn Carter (“The only woman who ever came out of here looking exactly the way she looked coming in”). He ran his finger lightly along the perimeter of Lila’s hair. “I see you’ve been to Rene Douglas.”
“Really? Can you tell?”
“It fits your face perfectly. The man should be knighted.”
“Maybe you can give her a little trim,” Stein suggested. “Like an autograph signature.”
“We’re not here to have my hair done,” Lila abruptly announced. “We’ve come under false pretenses.”
“False pretenses. My favorite kind,” Vane exulted. Then he shrunk in mock horror and grabbed Stein’s forearm as if to forestall a faint. “Am I being audited?”