A Nondescript Woman A Nondescript Woman Jane was nondescript, and she knew it. Actually, in a way that she didn’t fully understand, she preferred being nondescript. Plus, she liked the way that the word nondescript sounded. Her job as a paralegal earned enough money for her to keep the little apartment that she loved, the constant supply of books that she required, and the yearly fabulous vacation that she demanded for herself. Her annual two weeks away was always an extravagant affair, and in those two weeks, it is fair to say that she was an entirely different person. She even had a different name. No one would have described her as nondescript during the first two weeks of August. No one who met Desiree would have suspected that she was actually Jane. Her Psychiatrist would have been as surprised as anyone. Jane liked her Psychiatrist. He was kind, and gentle. Dr. Westphal had long ago encouraged Jane to end the weekly therapy sessions and just “go out and find a bit of adventure.” Jane, who once feared that she was depressed, and perhaps a bit schizoid, had sought out Dr. Westphal. He listened to her acutely, and had diagnosed her as healthy. Jane knew that she was paying for his company, and she knew that she didn’t want to discontinue her 5:30 weekly visit because, well, because she didn’t want to disrupt her schedule. When she came to Philadelphia to live, it was because she had received the promise of a free education from Temple University, which she accepted. Temple University was a long way from her home, near Evansville, Indiana. She went through the education process easily, but the change in her life was far more difficult. Not that she left behind friends and lovers, she did not. Her relationship with her single mother was quiet, and somewhat detached. When she returned home for Christmas in her freshman year she found the fact that her Mother had moved to a tiny apartment to be excruciatingly difficult, and so she just didn’t bother to go home after that. Home, after all, was gone. It was in a different apartment. The apartment where she had lived everyday, before leaving for Philadelphia, was her home. When Jane came to Temple, she was assigned a dorm room with a roommate named Debbie. Jane did her best to replicate her share of the dorm room into the bedroom that she had left behind. The same pictures hung on different walls, but in the identical places. After fours year of college, she had to choose between leaving there, and accepting their kind offer to completely finance her time at the law school where she had become accepted. Jane, not knowing exactly where she would sleep, or how she could fit into the apartment where her mother now lived, chose law school. The dorms there were quite suitable to her. Although the fact that she had to move three blocks away was arduous, she accepted it as the best choice. The move only took four trips, each with her arms around a large box. At the end of the first year of law school, when Jane’s mother died, she found herself with a check for $25,000.00, and so she got her own apartment. Jane wanted her own space, and she was tired of having to avoid conversations with roommates. For the first few weeks, the apartment included Jane, and her four boxes of stuff. When she tired of sleeping on the floor, she decided to go furniture shopping. She walked the streets looking for a suitable furniture store. She settled on the one that had a sign that said “Free Delivery,” in the window. Jane knew that she required delivery, and she preferred free. The actual furniture shopping was so unusual, in the mind and experience of the furniture salesman, that it was the story that he chose to tell at his dinner table that night. He always would have preferred to tell more stories about his customer’s around the dinner table, but his family had limited him to one customer story per day. In his many years of selling furniture, Joe had never encountered anyone like Jane. Since Jane had never actually bought any furniture before, she just did what seemed right to her. When Joe greeted her with his very best “Good Morning,” she responded by asking “Free Delivery, right?” to which Joe replied “And 90 days the same as cash.” Jane, who couldn’t really see the connection between her question and his answer, asked again “Do you deliver for free?” Joe replied, “Yep, with a wide selection, and full financing.” Jane could see that she could quickly tire of being in a conversation with Joe, and since she didn’t know how far it was to the next free delivery furniture store, she made a quick decision to endure him by ignoring him. It was because of sales people like Joe, that she had long ago decided to buy as many of her clothes as possible in thrift stores, and second hand shops. They didn’t have the sales pressure that she abhorred. She said, “I need a bed and a dresser. Also, I need a small kitchen table with two chairs. In addition, I need one comfortable chair for reading, and a coffee table. One lamp, floor standing.” Joe wasn’t exactly sure how to proceed, so he said “Anything else?” Jane, who thought that she had been clear in stating her needs in a comprehensive manner, replied by saying, “I’ll look around.” As she was selecting her comfortable chair, the one that she would use for reading, Joe made mention of a wide selection of fabulous sectionals. When she ignored him, Joe thought it best to just follow her around, and say things like “That one’s a beauty”, to every item that held her gaze for more than four seconds. They had no further discussion until Jane said “I’ll take those”, and Joe understood that she meant the items that she had placed a blue post-it note onto, as she walked around. Joe visited each of the items, calculating a total as he went. When he had finished, he saw Jane standing near the cash register, with a white envelope in her hand. He inquired about bedding and Jane replied with only a quizzical look. “Do you need bedding?” he asked again. She walked back to the single bed that she had selected, which had bedding on it, and said “I want this one” to which Joe replied that the bedding on display was low-end and that she might find it uncomfortable. Sensing a sales pitch, she said firmly “I’m sure it will be fine.” It was. When Joe asked her if she wanted to hear about her financing choices, she said, “What is the total?” When she heard $1142.00, she counted the money out from the envelope wordlessly. Arrangements were made for delivery the next day, and on her way back to the apartment, Jane bought new sheets, and an inexpensive comforter. She already had a pillow of her own. Later that day she made a list of everything else that she thought she would need, and one trip to the Goodwill store provided her with 2 plates, a minimum of silverware, and the barest of essentials regarding cookware. On the way home, she considered a coffee pot, which she put off buying for a few months. She began to cook simple meals at home. She would cook for herself about as often as she would order take- out. Jane ate little, and without much variety. She was happy in her little apartment, which had a strong resemblance to her dorm rooms, and a bedroom in a small apartment near Evansville, Indiana. The building next door to Jane’s apartment had a law office on the first and second floors. A tasteful sign in the window advertised for a paralegal. Jane applied for this job, and was hired easily, as she had the credentials, and their need was immediate. On the day that she first began working there, she knew that she had chosen this job as a replacement for her classes at Temple Law. She simply stopped going to one when she began the other. This seemed like the simplest solution to her. She thought about getting a cat, but dismissed the idea because of its potential messiness. Also, she had read far too many stories about people who lived alone and spoke to their cats, which seemed ludicrous to her. Jane knew about vacations. Her father, whom she had adored up until the time that he had silently died in his bed when she was fifteen, and he was fifty-five, loved “getting away”. He had been a military man from the time that he was eighteen until he was thirty-eight. He had married Jane’s Mother in his thirty-ninth year and her twentieth. It is fair to say that he doted on Jane, and often told her about his adventures, and travels, as a sailor. He now worked at the Post Office and it was a well-known fact that every week, money would be put away for the family two-week vacation, during the first two weeks of August. The austere life that they lived all year long supported trips to places like Paris, and, London, and Tahiti, and Hawaii, and Mexico, and Venice, and Hong Kong. Everything was first-class on these trips, which was in clear opposition to the other fifty weeks of the year, which could only be described as “plain.” Jane loved the way that her parent’s behaved during those two weeks. They were alive, lively, and dreamily romantic. At home, they only had routines. Since Jane’s mother, who would only describe her youth to Jane by saying, “I always wanted to be an artist,” disdained the very premise of television, they listened to music constantly, and everyone read. They always had the most recent technology for listening to music, and the music was wonderfully varied. Anyone could put on whatever music they craved “next,” which might be the Beatles, or Reggae, or swing music, or the Mothers of Invention, or Celtic harps. Sometimes Jane’s mother painted. Usually, they all sat in the same room, listening to music, and reading. When Jane became thirteen, if she thought that her current reading selection would not meet the approval of her parents, would read in her room. Jane would disappear into what are often called trashy romance novels, but she also read the classics, and books that she would find in the used book store that she knew to be dirty. With her allowance each week, she was encouraged to buy books and music, which she usually did. Occasionally though, she would buy deep, rich, dark chocolates, the very expensive kind. These she savored, having only one piece per day. The family two-week vacation got its own photograph album each year, and it would be marked in simple way, for instance “1982-Istanbul.” It was Jane’s point of view that the transformation that her family made each year was so complete, and so wild, and so delectable that she described it in her own thoughts as if they had, for those two weeks, exploded. Jane was, by choice, devoid of suitors. She had learned that indifference will keep men of any age away, and so she had perfected her skills at ignoring men. Some of the men were more persistent than others, which amused her somewhat, but it made no difference. Once, while in college, she had accepted, after much deliberation, an invitation to dinner with a young man who sat next to her in one of her classes. He took her to the Striped Bass, which is certainly one of the more prestigious Philadelphia restaurants. She food the found to be excellent. The rooms, and accoutrement clearly impressed her. She described them to her date as being similar to a particular restaurant in London, named Hillary’s. He said “Oh,” with such a deflated smile that she knew that he had misunderstood her approval. After that, she dropped any other comparisons. When he began to engage in small talk that included frat parties that “he knew she would love,” and opportunities to get “really wasted”, she clicked off the part of her brain that did the listening, and she pretended to herself that she was in Hillary’s restaurant in London, immersed in conversation with a man that strongly resembled Johnny Depp. They taxied back to her place, with a few comments about how good the food was. She was aware that he was having a deeper reaction to the wine than she was, and his tiny lisp amused her, so she listened to him. Not the words as much as the sounds. She was surprised that he dismissed the cab when they got to her apartment, but then assumed that he must live nearby. In point of fact, he didn’t. He had simply made the wrong assumptions about the depth to which she had enjoyed the meal, and his company. When they got to the door, she said, “Thank you for dinner.” He correctly translated this to mean “goodnight,” so he left, deciding to walk the twelve blocks home. When next they saw each other in class, he reacted to her presence in a way that was more familiar than she was comfortable with, or expected. Her chilling way soon gave him to know that there would be no future dates, or conversation for that matter. That was her one and only date, outside of the first two weeks of August. Jane worked hard at her new job, and was rewarded for it. She had gotten the attention of the youngest of the partners, a handsome and articulate, hard working man, that she guessed to be his late thirties. Everyone in the office knew that he was “divorcing,” and the process seemed to be going on for some time. She could often overhear the legal secretaries describe, in great detail, what they would do with him if they had the chance. Jane suspected that this was a chance that they would not get, but was amused by it nonetheless. His name was Kerry, which can be pronounced in a variety of ways, but he pronounced it as if it were Indian food. His last name was Riley. Together, Jane thought that they sounded melodic. Kerry, as he often did, asked Jane to join him, in his office. She did a great deal of research for him, and he always found her work to be superior to that of most of the young lawyers. She came prepared to take notes on whatever topic that she assumed that he would be assigning her. He noticed this, and re-directed, by saying that this conversation would not require notes. Knowing that she was a taciturn person, he spoke to her economically. “Jane, we were hoping that you could upgrade your attire to something a bit more, well, professional.” She responded “All right.” He was a bit taken back by the quick and emotionless agreement, and was not quite sure what to say next. She helped him with her question. “What did you have in mind?” “I’m not really sure, something, I guess Lawyery” “You want me to dress like a Lawyer?” “Yea, like that, I guess.” “All right.” Not having any clue about what to say next, he asked her, “Do you like it here?” “Very much.” Kerry was surprised at her seeming lack of interest in conversation. When he reflected on this, he couldn’t say that he had ever noticed it in the past, but then again, he had never had a conversation with her that hadn’t regarded a case. As silence overpowered the room, Jane rose, saying, as she walked from the room “All right.” The next night, at the most upscale thrift shop that she knew of, she bought two suits, one black, and one blue. They were nearly identical. These she rotated as her dress attire, every day in which she went to work. Each night, as she went to her apartment, one door away, she would begin unbuttoning the suit immediately upon opening her door. She would quickly change into what she thought of as “her” clothes. Jane knew how to endure things. At lunchtime, Jane always ate at her desk. A sandwich that she had prepared, a piece of fruit, and coffee. The other girls had already stopped inviting her to lunch, which she appreciated. When her food was consumed, she would either read, or search the Internet for inspiration regarding her next vacation. She had kept up the tradition to have her two weeks of adventure. In those years, it was never abroad, which she would have preferred. Her finances restricted this. Still, she always got away, having seen New York City, San Francisco, and Seattle, which were O.K., Las Vegas, which she abhorred, and New Orleans, which she adored. This August, she would have the ability to leave the country and go first-class. After much thought, she decided on Monte Carlo. As she perused the travel sights, it appeared to Jane that she could make all of the travel arrangements on her own, thereby avoiding the travel agent altogether, with their disingenuous interest in her vacations, and offers of fabulous package deals. She learned that she needed a credit card to make online travel arrangement, so she procured one. That was its only purpose. To prepare for her trip, she began shopping in June. She bought expensive leather luggage, the best that she could find. She bought outfits, never items. She fussed over an exact look that she wanted until she found it as an ensemble. She purchased just the right amount of clothes to suit the activities that she planned to, and hoped to, engage in. She bought bathing suits and shoes. She was extravagant, and she paid in cash. She spent two weeks wages inside of Victoria’s Secret. These clothes, and the luggage, and the toiletries that she purchased, were sacrosanct. They were carefully put away, to be used only for vacation. She had things monogrammed, tastefully. The initials were D.I.S. Jane had created for herself a perfect haven, inside of her apartment. She bought used books. They were everywhere, and not one was on a shelf. She had indulged in the finest music system that she could find. Now, Jane could play records, or tapes, or CD’s. Her CD collection was a mixture of new and used, and wildly enigmatic. The CD player held 400 CD’s and it was full. In total, there were thousands. Stacked, without shelves, in alphabetical order by artist. All of the components of the new music system sat on the floor in a neat soldier row. Jane had begun to enjoy wine, and learned about her preferences by purchasing some of everything. She went to the liquor store twice a week, usually on a night when she went out for take-out food. She consumed, as she read and listened to music, a bottle of wine every two days. There was no television, nor any need for one. She had researched cameras, believing that she would take an album of photos in Monte Carlo, but decided, in an unusual break from her past, no camera. When vacation time came, she was certain that all of her work was in order. As she stepped out of the office door at precisely 5 P.M., Jane was in vacation mode. Her vacation clothes were laid out on the bed, where she had placed them at 5:30 that morning. They consisted of a cashmere top, which hugged her body in the same fashion that the black silk skirt did, and a pair of smart Italian open- toed sandals. As she changed, she placed the suit and blouse that she had worn to work on a hanger. She placed her bra and panties, white cotton, in the hamper. She did not replace them. She applied the make-up from her traveling bag, which was the only make-up that she owned. She was liberal with the application of Red perfume. After placing the contents neatly into the cosmetic bag, and the bag into the suitcase, she placed the suitcase, and the slightly larger leather valise, by the door. She removed a nicotine transfer patch from the pack of twelve that she had purchased a few days before, and placed it into the fashionable and small handbag. Jane did not smoke. She put on trendy sunglasses, and a beautifully colored silk scarf, loosely around her head. She double-checked to be sure that she had the novel of her choosing in the bag, which she did. Having done all of this, she stood by the door. At 5:35, the cab appeared, five minutes later than she had requested it. A woman of mysterious beauty stood by the open door, and waited for the cabbie to retrieve the bags, which he did, mouth agape. At the curb by the airport, the cabbie and the curbside attendant fussed over who would help her more. Soon she was third, in the line reserved for those who travel first-class. She engaged the man in front of her in conversation by saying, in a somewhat squeaky voice that her work mates would not have recognized, “Don’t you just adore Monte Carlo?” When the man said, “First time,” Jane responded, “You will just adore it,” and went on to describe Monte Carlo in great detail. The man was enraptured; not knowing that although Jane had traveled extensively, the closest that she had ever been to Monte Carlo was on the Internet. When a pause came, she trilled, “Forgive me, my name is Desiree Inez Simone, what’s yours?” The man could hardly recall his own name, but as the ticket agent hollered “Next” for the fourth time, he was able to say “Lucas DeCarlo” as he left her. Lucas waited for Desiree to finish checking-in, at the bottom of the escalator. He did his best to impress her, as they went through security. When he saw that she had noticed the wedding ring, which he had removed to place in the tray for X-ray along with his watch, he looked at her in a boyish and sheepish way. She smiled in a way that was beyond demure and said, “Don’t you worry about that.” Lucas’ heart was racing. Moments later, they sat in an airport bar, where Desiree drank the first of what would be many glasses of vacation champagne, none of which she would pay for herself. As it turned out, there were six rows in first class, two seats on either side of the aisle. Lucas was in seat 6A, which was by the window. Desiree was in 6D, by the opposite window. Seated next to Desiree was a tall man, who clearly was planning to sleep through this long and overnight flight. His hat was down over his eyes before take-off. Also, before take-off, Lucas had begun sending inviting smiles toward Desiree, regarding the empty seat next to him. She moved there silently soon after the fasten-seat-belt sign permitted it. Lucas began some small talk, which Desiree engaged in, but deflected most of his questions. They had drinks, as many as could be brought to them. Food came, which they ate quickly. Several times, as they talked, Lucas put his hand on Desiree’s arm, and she began to do the same. When his hand rested on her thigh, she was careful to demonstrate permission, and pleasure. As the movie started, the first class cabin became quiet and dark. The crew was off to themselves, and most of the other passengers had begun to sleep. Desiree mentioned to Lucas that she would never be able to endure such a long flight without a cigarette. Lucas only smiled in response. He found smoking to be repulsive but decided to keep his thoughts to himself. Desiree said that she had a nicotine patch, just for such occasions. When she fumbled to open it and handed it to Lucas for assistance, he laughed as he said, “I didn’t know that Trojan made nicotine patches.” Lucas had a look of embarrassment on his face as Desiree said, “Dear me”, and snatched it back, replacing it with the nicotine patch, which he opened quickly. Desiree was pleased that she had orchestrated this little piece of drama just as flawlessly as it had occurred in the novel “Wild at Heart” that Jane had once read. “Could you be a sweetie and put it on me?” she asked, which Lucas agreed to readily, now that he had fully transformed into a puppy dog. “Where?” Desiree half stood, sliding her skirt up, fully exposing a cheek of her behind, toward Lucas. “Here.” As his breathing became noticeably heavier, he placed the patch on her and smoothed it with his hands far more times than was necessary for good adhesion. As he did this, they smiled at each other. She slid back down into the seat, anticipating that Lucas would spend the rest of the flight with his hands stroking her skin, under her clothes, to her low, and well-placed moans of approval. She was not disappointed. Desiree was happy that vacation was off to such a good start. When they arrived at Monte Carlo, there was a uniformed man holding a sign that read: “Ms. Desiree Inez Simone.” As he ushered her to the limo, she was pleased that her instructions had been carried out so clearly. Lucas stood at the curb; quite surprised that their whatever it was, was over. As she nestled herself in, and he stood at the curb, Lucas said, in a voice that was too loud, and too pleading, “Desiree, what about us?” She replied in a voice that was at once caustic and flirty, “Oh you silly man, go home to your wife.” And off she sped. She was expected at the Meridien Beach Plaza Hotel and she did not disappoint them. Later that evening though, she did disappoint two French businessmen by deserting at them at the bar, after many glasses of “Champagne, the best in the house.” They had called her “coquette,” and she had allowed one of them to kiss her neck. When this caught the attention of an incredibly handsome man across the room, she smiled, caught his return smile, and left the two Frenchmen, and her bar bill. She knew that by saying, “I’ll see you two tomorrow, right?” that they would forgive her, and they did. Forgive her, that is. They never saw Desiree again. The new man’s name was Jean, or so he claimed. Within an hour, they were in her room, and there they remained, largely sleepless, until morning. When she had asked to see his suite, he obliged, and it was from there that she ordered an elaborate, and expensive breakfast. She drank tea on the balcony until the food arrived, at which time she flirted relentlessly with the room service boy. She paused in the middle of breakfast to make love, resumed breakfast, and then resumed the lovemaking. She left an exhausted Jean at 10 A.M., repaired to her room, and slept until 6 P.M. Monte Carlo, of course, is a principality devoted to the garish life style, and gambling. The wealthiest people in the world feel at home there, and with wealth, go beauty. Monte Carlo has an abundance of beautiful women. Nevertheless, it was as if she were the only female in the Hotel Mirabeau Casino, when Desiree entered. Most described her beauty as somehow encapsulated into her walk. She sat at a table alone, in the elegant bar room, adjacent to a baccarat table. Philippe joined her soon enough, and was only too happy to meet her request her for “Champagne, the best in the house”. Philippe offered to teach her baccarat. She agreed to learn, losing piles of Euros in the process, to Philippe’s seeming delight. He was a bit distracted by her hand on his thigh. When she yearned to try a new game, they tried roulette, which she “learned” slowly but became bored. They found a card game with an odd name that she had trouble saying, probably due to the Champagne. It was there she caught the attention of Esteban, a Spanish hotelier, who won her love by sliding thousands of Euros her way, so that she could play on her own. She played, until 1 A.M. at which time she took her considerable winnings with her to Esteban’s room, where she delighted him until dawn. She ordered breakfast, flirted with the room service boy, and ate her breakfast on the balcony, to the considerable accompaniment of her snoring lover. On her way out, she did her best to arouse him, but he was clearly incapable of amore’, and so she left. Returning to her hotel, she changed quickly into a bathing suit that concealed considerably less than the accepted standard. She was careful to carry her bag, and her towel away from her body, and she was getting the feeling that the walk that she had worked so hard to perfect in long nights in an apartment in Philadelphia, was worth the effort. She got little resistance as she asked for someone to, “Smooth a little oil on Desiree.” She spent the day lounging, sleeping, and attracting stares from European men in too-small bathing suits, all of whom received her room number when it was requested. All of the numbers were bogus, save for the one that she gave to Robert, who later bought her dinner along the Mediterranean, and who was mightily disappointed when she never returned from the ladies room, following coffee. The weeks sped along like this for Desiree. She was gambling with the money of others, and winning. She slept with whom she desired, including two men on a secluded beach, and a Norwegian woman and her paramour. It was her idea to alternate between them, in opposite ends of their suite. She drank Champagne. She acted out those things that she had committed to memory from her trash novels, scene by scene, once even calling her lover by the characters name in the book, to his surprise. He was, however, far too busy to dwell on it. On her last night, she kept her promise to a bellboy at midnight, and a handsome Maitre’ D at 2 A.M. For her last morning in Monte Carlo, she rose at dawn, swam nude in the pool, ordered breakfast poolside, and charged the breakfast to a man whom she thought was named Alec. She paid the hotel bill in Euros from her gambling winnings, and changed the rest into dollars. About $3300.00. The flight home was different than the flight over, but in keeping with her plan. She flew to New York first class. On the flight, she agreed to meet Gilbert later that night for dinner in lower Manhattan, being careful to write down the time and place. She trashed the piece of paper with a small giggle, when she changed into jeans and a labeled sweatshirt, in the ladies room at J.F.K Airport. She had begun decompression. The flight to Philadelphia was in coach, where she sat next to a balding machine tool salesman with lousy jokes for all forty-five minutes. When she reclined her seat and closed her eyes, she was aware that he was still talking to her, and so she feigned a light snore, which finally encouraged him to shut up. She needed this time. She needed to think of this vacation. She needed to think of vacations when she was a young girl, with her parents. She recalled how her parents were in love while they were on vacation, a randy, rampant love, and for the rest of the year they hibernated. She recalled the words of her father, on the year that they returned from partaking of all of the opulence that was available in Southern Greece, including a small island. As they made the drive from the airport to their apartment, he had said. “You know dear heart, you need vacations like this. They define who you are the rest of the year.” It was Friday night into Saturday morning when the bus dropped her off a block from her apartment. She sank into the bed, fully exhausted. On the way from the bathroom to the bedroom, clad in a shabby, too large, ancient Eagles sweatshirt with the name Bergey across the back, she said “Perhaps Australia,” out loud. On Saturday she slept in, shopped, and did the laundry. She went through the mail. On Sunday, she read Camus while she listened to Scottish folk music for most of the day. She considered getting a goldfish, dismissing it because she wasn’t really up to the responsibility of a pet. When Monday morning came, she was back to normal. When they asked her how her vacation went, she said “About as I expected,” with a sly smile that seemed new to those around her.
Copyright © 2003 Dennis Coleman |