The Blueprint
The hurricane had been building since I was eleven and by sixteen, my every thought was of girls. Fortunately I had a friend, well, my five-year older cousin, Skip, who guided me on the particulars. I say ‘fortunately’, because Skip was the neighborhood prince - good looking, dark wavy hair, big blue eyes. And, he was a clever guy. Smart enough not to use his real name. He lived next door and he educated me on, as I have said, the particulars. One of Skip’s axioms, that’s what he called them, was: “Nothing can happen unless you meet the girl.” There were quite a few others but none were useful unless this axiom was adhered to.
The first time I held my breath and applied myself, I was sixteen. It was a windy March day, at the Steinway Mall off Pine Street in front of Gotskind’s Shoes and the record store, an atrium of sorts. About twenty-feet away, sitting with her legs crossed and foot bouncing, and smoking like a movie star, was a beautiful girl with soft waves of red hair that fell down her back. She looked older to me, maybe twenty. Determined, after several previous false starts that week, I window shopped my way toward her, drifted closer, tripped over my feet and sheepishly said, “Hi. I’ve seen you at the mall a few times.”
She winced, and I quickly asked, “Maybe in the last three or four months?” That speedy question was to throw her off balance, part of Skip’s technique, and I was rewarded with a mouth dropping, eyes crossing, ‘how bothersome’ look, followed by, “Could be. I work here.”
My stomach knotted. “So, could I ask you something? I need a girl’s point of view. Do you mind?”
She rolled her eyes, just enough so she knew I caught it, gazing over my shoulder as if the wall was more interesting. I felt like a shmuck. She stuck her teacup chin out with a blow of smoke out the side of her mouth and said, “Yeah. So?”
That conversation did not last long, but it liberated my libido. And, as they say, practice, practice, practice. Over the next few years I pestered Skip to reveal more axioms which he reluctantly did after securing certain promises. This insured, he told me, that I would not get ahead of myself. Like, I would promise not to lie about my age in order to follow the ‘honesty at all times, if possible’, axiom.
Years later I met Ricki-Mae, who would, on a New Year’s Eve, break my heart. She worked in the county library. Tall, with chiseled lips and stick out ears, she was a scary-pretty. I’d seen her often at Bunny’s, a lunch counter near my school, the one with Mediterranean food, humus, falafel. I’m kitty-corner from her table, she refuses eye contact, eating her wrap, blue fingernails slowly turning the pages of a fashion mag. I went into Skip process:
I said, ““Hi. I’ve seen you here a few times now. May be in the last three or four months?”
“Hi.”
“So, could I ask you something? I need a girl’s point of view. Do you mind?”
I brace myself for the eye-roll, but she grins, nods and says, “Sure.”
That’s how easy Ricki-Mae went through the day. She could put you at ease with a smile that would tranquillize a cobra.
So, about her. She’s from Kentucky, that’s important. I say that’s important because that’s what she says about a lot of things. I once said to her that her idea to plant peonies in the winter was inappropriate, and she answered, “That’s because I’m from Kentucky.”
One Wednesday, a day we normally met after work at the Four Farthings, a glass of wine for her, a Heineken for me, Ricki-Mae got a call from her friend, Madge. I knew Madge as some mystical graduate-school buddy of Ricki-Mae, a biology research lab partner. Now, Madge had a radio program out of Milwaukee. Somehow she received a ‘delicious perk’, her words, four days at the Lorofeather Spa in the Mojave Desert. Ricki-Mae screamed and then she appeared to float in the air, her face uplift in a pastoral glow, as if she was in a Chagall painting.
Ricki-Mae and Madge made plans to check out schedules, list necessities, and divide certain labors. Because I’m there for the call, I became a sounding board, and Ricki-Mae turns and says, “Don’t go anywhere. I might need you.”, and then she starts asking herself things like, ‘Did I put my boots in storage?’ and, ‘Where’s that orange kimono with the red dragon?’
Now you might think that Ricki-Mae would be thinking about things like aroma therapy, Swedish massage, healthy food, and the mysterious desert. And that the days would be quiet, serene. No phone. But instead her thoughts are on ‘presentation.’ Now, this is a little out of character for Ricki-Mae. I always thought she just threw her outfits together with what was handy, but this was as serious as trousseau building. Her friend Madge, an improvisation junkie, had lived in Hollywood and worked in television in small parts mainly and some commercials. Ricki-Mae knew this trip’s theme would be, ‘Madge the movie star’.
Their plan was uncomplicated. Madge was in Los Angeles and would fly from LAX into Phoenix, Ricki-Mae would do likewise from Chicago and they’d meet at the Lorofeather. Ricki Mae said, “It’s going to be perfect” Her eyes sparkled drifting past me in a faraway look.
I said, “You know it might be your basic Scottsdale resort, tee-shirts, turquoise jewelry, and tacky people with golf-course tans.”
“Oh, you’re always so midwestern.”
That was a thing Ricki Mae did, talk in the extreme. It was ‘always’, or you would ‘never’, or ‘perfect’, or ‘everything’, or ‘only’. Whatever the issue, its explanation was certain to be the full catastrophe. That ‘live in the extreme’ point of view showed through everything she did.
I asked Skip about that and he told me to completely disregard what she said and concentrate on what she did. Like the unusual skill, almost mystic, of Ricki Mae’s knack for meeting quirky people. She would recognize obscure people because of a relation of theirs or an event they were briefly at. People who were hardly known, if at all, beyond their backyard. This would happen not every-so-often, more like between often and always.
It wasn’t that she had an efficient memory for faces or names, that wasn’t it. It was the obscurity of the person or the minutia of their story that seduced Ricki-Mae. She would sashay up to a person she ‘had a feeling about’ and at first they might be suspicious, then perhaps even flattered. But it didn’t matter if Ricki Mae was right or mistaken, it was likely I would end up being embarrassed. Like in Chicago, at the International Art Fair, the Biennale, she stalked a very short Asian woman in leopard-skin tight pants who Ricki Mae was certain to once have been the wife of Henry Miller. Well the lady didn’t want to be known as the fifth wife of Henry Miller. It was a contentious confrontation, and ended with me needing a dry shirt after absorbing a tossed Cosmo.
So as you can imagine my thoughts of Ricki-Mae, who I love dearly, and Madge Duffy, one of the most beautiful women in the universe, being together at the Lorofeather. A word about the Lorofeather. Its history before taken over by Lenny, The Plumber, Ashkanitti, revolves around a story of, well, a massacre. Since then it was a gangster hideout and a ‘girls dormitory’ until about fifteen years ago when it was upgraded as the Lorofeather, a two-hundred acre ‘luxury human farm’, by an East Coast conglomerate. Now, the skinny is that it only accepts wealthy A-list celebrities that don’t mind being naked.
Ricki-Mae arrived early to the Lorofeather, on Sunday morning. Madge would not get there until evening. The limo took her straight to their bungalow, ‘The Montserrat’. She unpacked her Ramy Brook breakfast clothes, her Jenni Kayne sun skirt, her exercise Lululemons, her Veronica Beard shorts, her Hunza G swimsuit, her St John little black dress, and her Olivia von Halle pajamas. She read the Lorofeather welcome note which stated at the very bottom that ‘guests in wet environments are encouraged not to pollute the water with clothing.’
On a central table next to the welcome menu and a purple orchid was, not Moet Champaign, but a small bottle of Harlen D Wheatley CLIX vodka and two glasses. Ricki-Mae considered waiting for Madge and thought, why wait. Too early for lunch, she slipped out of her Burberry travel onesie and in to her La Perla swimsuit while slurping a plumb from the welcome fruit basket. Wrapping herself in the Lorofeather’s plush, monogramed bathrobe, Ricki-Mae stepped out the bungalow wearing Birkenstock sandals and Vuarnet sunglasses heading for the ‘sensitivity pool’ highlighted on the Lorofeather’s website and feeling like a countess.
Ricki-Mae was light-headed from the vodka while walking along the winding path. The effect of liquor on a female’s behavior being something Skip had warned me, ‘could be good, could be bad’. She followed the signs pointing toward the ‘sensitivity pool’. Along the way she passed several couples she recognized as Hollywood legends. It was all she could do to control herself and not approach one man in particular she was certain was the third person involved in the Johnny Depp – Amber Heard hotel battle, Mickey Tauer.
When the path forked she stayed left and entered a Buckminster Fuller dome. Sunlight poured between slivers of a lush array of elephant-eared plants, hanging lineas, and Canary Palms. Ricki-Mae thought it had the feel of the Lincoln Park Conservatory with rainbow patches of hydrangeas, giant strelitzia, and orchids dotting the jungle-like environment. The free-form pool meandered in the shadows of the vegetation with subdued lighting and floating lotus-pads illuminated underwater. Ricki-Mae was impressed.
At the lip of the water, she hesitated, tilted her head and changed her mind three times, thought what Madge might think, said to herself, ‘When in Rome’, and then dropped the robe and stripped out the swimsuit. Dipping her Dior polished toenails, Ricki-Mae slinked into the shallow water. She waded out keeping her glorious breasts submerged, her sweeping arms pushing her like a silk scarf under the leafy canopy. Without looking up, as shadows passed, she heard whispered conversations and muted laughter. She assessed her situation, sighed deeply, and experienced a wonderful feeling of fulfillment.
The stress Ricki-Mae felt from the travel, attire selection, Madge, and her diet, dissolved into nothingness. She forgot about meeting Mickey Tauer. She let her shoulders dip and leaned back, thought about her pinned-up hair, and then with a deep sigh dropped her head back and brought her lanky legs to the surface. Floating, her expertise learned as a child at the YWCA on Halsted Street, she closed her eyes and drifted among the lotus pads.
Telling the story, Ricki-Mae swore she was thinking of me as she floated along. She was annoyed by the increasing chatter and bursts of laughter. She thought how poorly alcohol and nakedness mixed. She looked at her nude self. Strange to see this view from her nose down her body. She had to arch her back for a view over her breasts and past her groomed mound to see her toes. Doing that perfected and prolonged her float. Her arms drifted out, her legs spread slightly, her nipples stiffened pointing up above her exposed tits, her head rested as if on a feather pillow.
The whispering and laughter intensified and Ricki-Mae let her legs drop and pushed herself to the tiled edge where she had entered the water. As she gathered herself to lift out she saw a shiny pair of Bruno Magli shoes arrive. They fit a tall, regal, mustached man wearing a Lorofeather polo and carrying a tray of drinks.
Looking up the linen covered legs to the waiter, Ricki-Mae said, “You should limit the amount of alcohol you serve. Liquor driven hilarity is not appreciated at the pool when someone is here to relax.”
The waiter, in a gravelly voice, said, “Madam. You are in the lobby.”
Ricki-Mae shot out the water and robed-up. She couldn’t help herself from thinking that it was Mia Farrow’s Aunt Edith she had just heard laughing and squealing, “I thought they were frogs!”
When Ricki-Mae told me that story I couldn’t stop laughing, but she really did not think it funny. She said, ”Being humiliated is not my idea of a good time.” That’s when I remembered Skip’s axiom number seven: ‘It’s never smart to expect a female to laugh at herself.’ You might even say that exact moment set up the worst fight we ever had.
It started when we were on the east coast in a rental, a vacation for Ricki-Mae, a work meeting for me in Concord, New Hampshire. Never having travelled with Ricki-Mae, I was ecstatic. In fact, I was planning to ‘pop the question’ that very afternoon. The ring was in my pocket. We stopped to ‘antique’ in a small town, Derry. Suddenly Ricki-Mae bolts from holding my hand, rushes out the door and engages a small man in the street. I’m in shock thinking, ‘What in the world?’.
Wearing a Skatie body stocking stretched over her skinny, almost six-feet, and with her strawberry hair pinned high on the sides, Ricki-Mae towered over him like giraffe. I wait. Five minutes later I’m fuming. I go out and am introduced to Lancelot Haye, a skinny sculptor that had just delivered a commissioned work of the town hero, the astronaut, Alan Sheppard. Ricki-Mae recognized Haye on the street, through a glass window, as he’s walking, wearing a hat. How could it be anything other than as bizarre as that. Lancelot Haye was so enamored of Ricki-Mae he invited us to be his guests at dinner with the mayor.
So I miss the opportunity to declare myself and am not in a good mood. Later, walking through the park I mention how crazy it is that she does that. I never should have used that word. Skip’s axiom number four, ‘Never call a woman, or what she does, crazy.’ Ricki-Mae explodes. She calls me lots of names and suggests I do many things, and that basically I’m always, horribly, insulting, demeaning and critical of everything she does.
Always. Everything. Insulting. Demeaning. I’m the full catastrophe.
When we get home to Evanston, the incident is forgotten. It’s the holiday season, better known as shopping time at the Watertower on Michigan Boulevard. Family wise it’s been a bit tense. We’ve argued a few times, sometimes followed by a walk out the door. Lucky for us that it never rises to a level that generates Skip’s axiom number twelve; “It’s not over unless she slams the door.” But we’ve enjoyed the parties and even made dinner at her place for Madge, in town to be with her family. By the way, Ricki-Mae’s family does not like me.
On New Year’s Eve our plans were to start out from my near north apartment on Cleveland Avenue. Ricki-Mae arrived looking like a goddess, fully clothed but almost naked, wearing a tourmaline necklace and four inch heels. We do shots of Herradura Tequila and before long we’re in a heated argument. Unfortunately, I refer to that excruciating moment in the Lorofeather lobby. That was a mistake, and she pretty much repeated all my distasteful behavior. Me commenting on her failure to laugh at herself was also a mistake. Skip’s rule number seven. She threw my hand-carved rooster and a toy soldier at me. Throwing things had happened before. Regrettably I mentioned the Lancelot Haye moment and what I then had in my pocket. Hearing that, Ricki-Mae seemed to grow and be coiled up at the same time. Her hands clenched. I braced myself against the coming onslaught.
Instead, Ricki-Mae’s eyes narrowed, she brushed past me, grabbed her coat off the couch, and holding the door-handle, turned in the threshold and said, “Well, Lancelot Haye is from Kentucky, you ass-hole.” Then she left and slammed the door.