Chore Whore Read online

  I drive toward a well-known porn shop. To lessen the chances of having to go to more than one place, I pick up the cell phone and whisper, “The Pleasure Chest,” into the microphone. When the salesman answers, I try to speak in code.

  “Uh, hello, do you carry prophylactics . . .”

  The salesman yells into the phone, “Speak up! You’re whispering. I can’t hear you.”

  “Mister, I’m at work, I can’t yell.”

  The kids quiet considerably, all ears.

  “I want to know if you carry some prophylactics that, uh, offer an ‘enhancing pouch.’ ”

  I hold the line while the salesman checks his supply.

  “We have them in micro-thin and plus sizes only. Which ones do you need?”

  Faltering, I dig the specimen out of my pocket as I negotiate a turn back onto Fairfax Avenue.

  “I’m not sure.”

  “You don’t know the size of condoms you wear, sir?”

  “I’m a ma’am, not a sir, and I don’t wear them, but I think I need a plus size.” I look at the single condom as the kids try to crane their necks to see what I’m doing. I shove it under my leg. “I have an unwrapped one. I’ll bring it in.”

  “Well, we don’t usually let people bring in unwrapped ones . . . because of health codes, you understand.”

  “For Pete’s sake! I mean I have one out of the box . . . unused, sealed, but not in the box.”

  “Yes, ma’am, you do that . . . just bring in the sealed one you have. I’m sure we have what you’re looking for.”

  I pound the “end” button and toss the phone onto the passenger seat.

  Blaise leans forward. “Couldn’t you have left us at school rather than subject us to this?”

  “Blaise, mum’s the word. Cooperate so life as you know it will continue. Comprends?”

  “Oui, oui, Mom-mee!”

  “Where are we going?” asks Star.

  I slide the condom out from under my leg and shove it in my front pocket.

  “ ‘We’ aren’t going anywhere, but I have an errand to run,” I say as I make a right turn onto Santa Monica Boulevard and cruise slowly into the seedier section of West Hollywood. A sudden proliferation of gay bars and Russian pharmacies crowd the streets. I see the gay porno theater, The Tomkat, across the way.

  “Okay, kids, I know a fun game we can play.”

  “Yeah!” the girls scream out in excitement. Blaise rolls his eyes.

  “Listen up! When I count to three, I want you to take off your seatbelts and jump into the back of the 4Runner. When you get there, you guys need to hide your eyes and cover yourselves with the flannel blanket I have back there.”

  “What’s in it for me?” Blaise asks.

  “A one-way ticket to Juvenile Hall if you don’t comply!”

  “The green blanket?” Eden asks.

  “Yes. You guys will all win and I’ll give you ice cream when we get home if you hold perfectly still. I should be able to walk by the truck and not be able to tell that there are three kids in the back. Can you do that?”

  “Yeah!” the girls say in unison, laughing.

  “Now, I’m going to have to leave you guys under the blanket, but I’ll only be a minute or two. I’m going to alarm Betty, so you can’t move around or you’ll set off the alarm. Can you handle that?”

  “Of course we can!” Blaise says.

  The kids sit in anticipation as I ease into the left lane in front of the Pleasure Chest, the only porn store I know that has an entire wall devoted to condoms. I pull into their parking lot.

  “One, two, three!”

  The kids jump into the back of the SUV and nestle down under the comfort of the warm flannel cover. They laugh and I warn them again about moving around. I alarm Betty and walk as fast as I can into the shop.

  I open the glass door and rush past the wall of greeting cards with pictures of men confidently holding their schlongs and women licking their own nipples in mock spasms of pleasure. Darting around the penis enhancement counter and arriving at the wall of condoms, I see rubbers for admittedly underblessed men, rubbers for the Cro-Magnon man, studded condoms, thin rubbers and ones formulated to stimulate the G-spot. The first fifteen times I shopped here for my clients I was embarrassed and flushed in the face. Now I consider myself a “frequent flyer” at the Pleasure Chest—I know the entire sales team by name. I call out to the bald man behind the counter.

  “Hey Hairy, where can I find the ones with a ‘pleasure enhancing pouch’?”

  “Corki, you were the lady on the phone?”

  “Yes, and I’m really in a rush.”

  Hairy pulls out two boxes from behind the counter of the proper condoms, each containing a count of three.

  “This is all I could find. One is the plus size and the other is the micro-thin.”

  I fish the condom out of my pocket and slap it down on the glass counter. Hairy looks at me with disdain.

  “Careful, these can break, you know.”

  I look at him incredulously.

  “The countertop,” he says, “it’s glass.”

  Oh.

  “Sorry. All you have is this one box of plus size?”

  “Yep! Make good use of each one, they’re like gold. Anything else for you today?”

  “No, that’s it.”

  As Hairy gives me my change and the receipt, he throws in, “Enjoy!”

  “Uh, I’ll be sure to do that. Thank you . . . Hairy.”

  I hustle out past the blow-up sheep and spike-laden black leather masks, through the glass doors to fresh air.

  I peer through Betty’s blackened window and see that the kids are absolutely still. I disarm the car and warn them that the game isn’t over until I say so.

  As I pull into the alley leading away from the store, I announce that the game’s done. The kids pile into the backseat and laugh hysterically at how good they were. As I pull up in front of Jock’s house, I let them hide one more time while I deliver the goods.

  Thankfully, he has moved Miss Icy into his inner sanctum. His bedroom door is closed; I have no intention of bugging him to see if, perhaps, he needs my most recent purchase. I leave the condoms in his office out basket and notice a huge manila envelope that has been messengered to his house from his talent management firm, Film Industry Entertainment. I snatch it and rush down to the truck.

  Tumbling from the back of the SUV, Blaise inquires, “Mom, what’s in the envelope?”

  “Just fan mail.”

  “Like the kind you send to a movie star?” Eden asks.

  “Yeah!” Blaise says. “This is Jock Straupman’s house. The star of Insectoids.”

  “When did you see Insectoids?” Eden asks.

  “Well, maybe I haven’t seen it, but I’ve seen the fan mail pictures that people send for him to sign. One has Jock buck-naked!”

  The girls let out high-pitched screams at the sheer naughtiness. As they talk about Insectoids, I thumb through the fan mail.

  Whoever separates the fan mail at Film Industry Entertainment does a sucky job. Mixed in with Jock’s mail is fan mail for Mia Farrow, Whoopi Goldberg, Leonardo DiCaprio and Cameron Diaz.

  Starting the engine, I look up to see the exact place where Daisy and I stood an hour ago. The panicked thought of living with less money returns and lodges in my gullet. I know I’m going to need every tidbit of work that can possibly be thrown my way.

  “All right, kids, there’s one more place I’ve got to go. I have to return some mail Jock got accidentally.”

  We drive straight down Crescent Heights Boulevard, past Wilshire Boulevard and onto a tiny section of the street that changes names for two blocks, then goes back to being called Crescent Heights. Film Industry Entertainment sits on a corner that I suspect was an urban-planning snafu.

  We all ride the monitored elevator up to the third floor and I let the kids sit on the floor of the outdoor breezeway next to Suite 350.

  “Kids, wait right here. I’ll be back in a mi
nute.”

  The busty young woman sitting at the reception desk consistently provides Film Industry Entertainment. Young and perky, she always wears low-cut blouses with copious amounts of cleavage pouring forth. She sits with perfect, erect posture, as do the men in the waiting room. She’s a shining reminder as to what good posture can do for you. I stand up straighter as she looks up from her computer.

  “Hi! Can I help you?”

  “Uh, yeah, I just want to return some mail that was sent to Jock Straupman by mistake.”

  She reaches out for the small bundle of envelopes in my hand. She takes Mia’s, Cameron’s and Whoopi’s mail and sets Leo’s aside.

  “Your name is Cookie, right?”

  “Corki.”

  “Sorry. Corki, I can get Cameron and Mia’s mail to them, and forward Whoopi’s, but we don’t represent Leonardo anymore and I don’t have a forwarding address.”

  I look at the handwriting on the letters—all prepubescent girls—covered in stickers and glitter glue and, God bless ’em, perfume. I remember my eleven-year-old crushes on Donny Osmond and Michael Jackson.

  “But while you’re here,” she continues, “let me get Squid on the line and see if he needs you for anything.”

  While the receptionist calls Squid, Jock’s business manager’s assistant, I peek outside and see the kids lined up along the wall like peas in a pod, giggling.

  “Corki, if you’ll wait just a second, Squid wants to see you.”

  I wait by the front door so I can watch the children. I entertain the fantasy of having eyes that move independently of one another—the perfect tool for mothers who need to have one eye on the kids and the other on work. I wander over to the receptionist’s desk.

  “What will your office do with Leo’s letters? Toss them?”

  The receptionist gives a short I-don’t-know-but-it-probably-won’t-be-good shrug.

  “You know what,” I say, “I’m gonna send these letters back. I’ll just put ‘no longer at this address,’ then they can hunt Leo down through Tiger Beat or whatever magazine it is these days.”

  I sense that the receptionist has had a few heartthrob crushes in her day. We smile, shake our heads in mutual silent agreement, and I take Leo’s fan mail. I’ll consider my time forwarding the mail as a charitable contribution.

  “Corki, good to see you!”

  Squid. He looks nothing like a sea creature or a Greek food staple and I exercise great restraint in not asking for further details on how he obtained such a name. Squid is standard assistant-on-the-way-up-the-food-chain fare. His mousy brown hair is conservatively cut short with skimpy, weak sideburns. His freshly shaved face has a slight nick where his razor got a bit close, and his pale green eyes blink rapidly behind almost nonexistent eyelashes. All in all, he is absolutely unremarkable. He approaches and grabs my hand, shaking it exuberantly.

  “Would you like something to drink? Coffee, soda, Evian?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “I’ll be quick, then, so you can get on with your day. I’m sure you know that Jock is leaving for Paris in a couple of weeks. Since he’ll be gone six months, he said to contact you to determine a way to get his mail to him on a consistent basis.”

  “Paris? Are you serious?”

  “He didn’t tell you?”

  “No, he never tells me until the last moment. I can’t believe it. Six months?”

  “Is there a problem?” he asks.

  “Well, yeah, I’m not on salary. I only get paid for the work I do. If he’s gone . . .” I say, helplessly.

  Squid squirms. His discomfort trumps mine.

  “Not your concern,” I say, perking up. “I can pick up the mail weekly and FedEx it to him.”

  When I turn to go, Blaise has his face pressed against the glass door, sticking his bubble gum to the glass. I open it, snatch his arm and pull him down the walkway.

  “Where’d you get that gum?” I ask.

  “Under that ledge. It was still soft.”

  “Blaise, you’re ten! We’ve been having the ‘germs talk’ since you were two and trying to eat Mr. Fu’s dog food.”

  The kids and I leave the building discussing the leper who left the gum there.

  As I wait for Shelly to pick up the kids, I put the teakettle on the stove then plop down in my 1950s Herman Miller desk chair I got at a garage sale. The kids get washed and settle down to eat their ice cream and I jot a note to myself to pick up Jock’s thongs tomorrow.

  I press my blinking answering machine.

  Call number one is from über–film producer Liam Schwartz’s wife. She sounds hostile and annoyed. It’s nothing new; her voice always drips with stinging sarcasm. “Corki, it’s Esther. Somehow, one of the construction workers who was working at the house walked off with the master bedroom French doors that up until today were firmly attached to the walls. And to top that, he took an antique porcelain toilet lid from my office bathroom. Asshole prick. I need you to get hold of Dwayne immediately and get him up here to board up the gaping wound in the bedroom wall. And I need you to find me a new toilet lid! I don’t want to have to replace the whole fucking commode over this. You know, when shit like this happens, Zoloft just isn’t enough. . . .

  “Oh, and I’m sure you’ll hear from Shelly, I’m hosting a sit-down dinner for fifty for the Environmental Media Association on Saturday, and I sure as hell don’t want to have to explain to Al Gore why the back of my toilet has no lid.” Esther’s tone softens a bit. “Whoever walked off with the doors must have thought we weren’t using them, for some reason. Otherwise why would they bother?”

  She hangs up.

  Nineteen-hundred-dollar doors installed not two days before by the same crew working there every day, and one of the guys walks off with them. I’d fire the whole crew. Not Esther, though. She makes up excuses for them. I’m stumped. I suspect this is part of her guru’s training exercises where she must try to forgive all and accept that people can’t truly be bad to the bone.

  Call number two is from Shelly: my friend, Star’s mom and Esther’s housekeeper. “Corki, I’m not sure if you heard, but Esther’s having another one of her dinner parties at the house. Only fifty people this time, but Al Gore’s supposed to come as well as some dude who wrote a controversial book on the Amazon rainforest. Also, guess what? Some brother, and I use that word loosely, was caught selling crack, of all things, a half block from the kids’ school. I told Esther and she’s really pissed off that the kids can’t even go to school without being pursued like future customers. Anyway, we’ll discuss it when I get there to pick up the kids. I’ll be there about four-thirty. Peace.”

  Crack? Some knucklehead was selling crack near the kids’ playground? In an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood surrounded by million-dollar homes and a few nice apartment complexes, someone’s doing that? I remember the bucolic farm town nestled in the heart of California’s San Joaquin Valley where I was raised. I wonder if it’s true that you can’t go home again.

  Call number three is from Daisy Colette. “Corki, I just wanted to thank you for all the work you’ve done and I’m sorry about having to let you go. Call Gary. He should have a severance check waiting for you. It’s not much but I hope it’ll help. Bye.”

  Call number four.

  “Hi, it’s Veronique.”

  Veronique LeMay was the sex symbol of the 1990s. Besides being blessed with an I.Q. of 161, she is tall and perfectly proportioned, with an illustrious shock of chestnut brown hair. From certain angles she resembles Judy Garland, with huge and seductive brown eyes so dark they seem to house a well of inaccessible pain. Born on the same day, decades later, Veronique seems at times to be Judy’s identical twin.

  Whether in corduroys, cashmere or Calvin Klein, Veronique attracts unwanted male attention. Men find themselves behaving poorly upon setting eyes on her. She has been followed home, flashed and sworn at for pretending not to notice. She has perfected the art of being a female movie star.

  “Corki, I wa
nt to talk with you. I’ve just returned from Italy, doing the film role of a lifetime. I really think it’s going to take my career to new heights. In fact, my agents are predicting I just might become the flavor of the week once again. God, that would be nice! Besides wanting to catch up with you, I’m going to need your help on a little project. Love you. Call me so we can arrange a get-together.”

  The last call is from Lucy Bennett. Lucy giggles with giddiness. “Hey, it’s Lucy. Sweetheart, I know I’m going to see you tonight, but I also want to see you tomorrow, in private. How about four o’clock—no, five—no! Four would be better. Shit, you know I struggle with decisions. Meet me at the Four Seasons on Doheny. We’ll have tea . . . or maybe at Paddington’s, oh shit, there I go again. Four Seasons. Four o’clock. Just call me and confirm. Bye, honey!”

  I listen to Lucy’s message again. I’ve never heard this particular affectation before. Usually Lucy’s clothes or her musical tastes or the type of car she drives changes. This time, however, Lucy’s speech has taken on a small, almost imperceptible Southern cadence. I wonder who he is . . . her new man.

  I sit back and breathe deeply for the first time today. As the messages conclude, the news of the day converges in my mind. First Daisy, then Jock. I think about homeless shelters, bus benches and drained bank accounts.

  I go to the bathroom and throw up.

  Chapter Two

  Shelly comes up the front walkway to my apartment in her military camouflage pants and olive green cashmere sweater. Her waist-length dreadlocks are swept into an elegant chignon, pinned up with a set of knitting needles.

  When Shelly’s career as a recording-studio mixer started to interfere with her ability to be there to tuck in her daughter at night, she quit and took on a less fulfilling job—cleaning houses. At first, her ego was so bruised she couldn’t even talk about her change of employment. But after a few months of watching her daughter, Star, develop a new sense of security and assurance, Shelly was at peace with her decision. On the rare days she has to work late, I pick up Star and her cousin, Eden.