Chapter Thirty-Two
Thirty-Two
ELEVEN MONTHS LATER
YOU ARE PERSONALLY INVITED
BY MAZELLE WASHINGTON (OF “LAZY MAZY” FAME)
TO ATTEND A PRIVATE TOUR OF HER REMODELED RESORT
ON BEAUTIFUL MOUNT SHASTA, CALIFORNIA—
BEAR CREEK LODGE!
MAZELLE WROTE THE INVITATION, EVERY word chosen with care, and kept it in her bedside table for two weeks before she had it professionally printed and asked Grady to hand-deliver it.
She did not trust this delivery to the postal service, and she did not want any receptionist or secretary to lay eyes upon it.
Instead, she made sure Grady wore his uniform and waited in the studio parking lot as if he belonged there with the other drivers.
Grady’s instructions were clear: He would personally put the invitation in Lorenzo’s hand and caution him not to reveal his plans to anyone.
He was to say these precise words: “Mazelle is looking forward to spending time with you alone, and she would like the meeting to be discreet.” On the back of the invitation, Mazelle had written her telephone number and her initials: MW.
(She almost signed it “Lazy Mazy” to appeal to his ego, but she couldn’t make herself do it.)
For a long week after the successful delivery, her phone did not ring. So she waited.
She’d noticed the hungry spark in Lorenzo’s eyes when she ran into him at a Hollywood screening of The Defiant Ones as one of the guests of Sidney Poitier, who wanted to be sure there were at least a handful of Negroes in attendance, especially given that his film, which costarred Tony Curtis, promoted racial solidarity.
The film had been a sensation at its premiere in Berlin, so Mazelle had decided to invest in a full makeover in case she might catch a producer’s or director’s eye.
She had slimmed her hips down by a few inches by increasing her exercise and rented a gorgeous ivory-colored gown that made her look bronzed.
She was almost forty, a precarious age for any actress, but she knew she looked ten years younger.
The film was wonderful, worthy of Academy Awards—Poitier alone was breathtaking—and Mazelle marveled at how far roles had come for Negroes since her start in the business.
Her optimism reminded her of the night she saw Ellington’s Jump for Joy, so she wasn’t surprised when she noticed Lorenzo in the lobby after the screening. Déjà vu.
She had expected to try to duck out of his sight, but instead she’d found herself walking up to him with a huge smile because he was talking to director Stanley Kramer—and naturally, she wanted an introduction.
Half of the skill of working in Hollywood was smiling at the people who had betrayed you.
Lorenzo’s eyes nearly popped out of his head when he saw her.
Time had not been as kind to him, who had lost more of his curly locks with a balding pattern closer to Sharpe’s by now, and his boyish gait had grown sluggish under extra weight and heavier breathing.
But he looked at her as if she had stepped out of a time machine.
He’d babbled and introduced her to Kramer as his “greatest creation.”
The introduction came so quickly that Mazelle doubted she’d made any impression on Kramer, but she couldn’t stop thinking about the impression she’d made on Lorenzo.
Or the way his hand had slid to its old familiar spot at the small of her back, pressing a bit too hard, his fingers widely splayed too close to her ass.
Even his shampoo smelled the same. In all, their meeting hadn’t lasted two minutes—but it had been long enough to make Mazelle remember her old vow that if he ever touched her again, she would kill him.
He had touched her. She had moved slightly away, giving him the benefit of the doubt, but his hand moved again to her lower back, pressing with more insistence and a circular massaging motion, since he’d known she would not rebuff him in the presence of Kramer.
I warned him, she told herself later between gritted teeth.
But he had never listened. As badly as the party had gone at the Ambassador Hotel, she’d been stuck working with Lorenzo under contract for two more years, and he had made it a game to fan his hands against her as if by accident.
Her arm. Her shoulder. Her back. Her chest. Oops, you’ve got crumbs there.
Let me straighten this up for you. Oh yeah, I love this color on you.
Her old rage about his advances was rekindled, mixed with her new rage after Sam’s revelation about how he had deliberately plotted to trick her into signing a contract with him—and then bragged about it.
Why had she approached Lorenzo at all? Her introduction to Kramer had only won her an acid stomach and months of fractured sleep because she had allowed Lorenzo to touch her again.
Instead of kicking him in the balls, she had only kept smiling.
All through autumn, Mazelle had cycled between self-loathing and her ever-deepening hatred of Jerry Lorenzo. As the days cooled, her mind revealed its plan.
Why not invite him for a tryst at Bear Creek Lodge?
His face and eyes at the movie’s screening had made it clear that he still wanted to sleep with her, maybe badly enough to travel for the one conquest he had never fully consummated.
If she could get him there in secrecy—if he told no one where he was going—he could vanish without a trace.
At first, Mazelle had satisfied herself with only daydreams. She could leave Los Angeles for her holiday visit to Scout and Mount Shasta early, the children staying behind for a couple of days with Dottie, who had never married, but lived with her woman friend, Lorraine, at the house with Mother to help take care of her.
All she and Scout needed was a few hours alone with Lorenzo. Her plan was close enough to touch.
So she had sent the invitation.
But Lorenzo hadn’t gone for the bait, and she was in the maddening position of waiting.
To keep from thinking about him, Mazelle busied herself with her children.
She took a sudden interest in Sadie’s school holiday program, using her new electric sewing machine to craft her daughter a woodland fairy costume out of red and green chiffon.
Mazelle saw Sadie with new eyes: The girl was tall, with slender legs, and she displayed a natural talent for dancing.
Unlike Mazelle as a girl, Sadie did not need to be forced to practice her dance or piano lessons, and Mazelle tried to refrain from ever spanking her.
Ricky’s insolence was growing as he got older, so he needed firm discipline with a paddle, but in truth Sadie was a little angel.
Mazelle wondered why she so rarely noticed it before.
Sadie squealed with delight when she tried on her costume, taking lovely leaps she had already perfected from her youth ballet class. “Thank you, Mother! It’s perfect!”
Ricky was drawn to his sister’s doorway to see what the fuss was about.
He often had a frown fixed on his face, always finding new ways to disapprove of his mother.
Mazelle knew that Ricky hovered close when she was alone with his sister because he was guarding Sadie from her. This time, he slowly unfolded his arms.
“Mother…?” Ricky began uncertainly. “Mr. Grady said I could ask if you’ll let him teach me how to hunt when we go to the lodge for Christmas.” His eyes were cast down, bracing.
She had refused Grady’s previous offers to teach Ricky to hunt because she didn’t want either of them confused about Grady’s role in their lives, but what was the point of denying that Grady was the only father figure her son had?
Instead of accepting supervised visits, Richard only sent birthday and Christmas gifts.
“Yes, I think it’s about time,” Mazelle said. “Your grandfather used to hunt wild pigs in Florida, and he would have wanted to teach you if he was still here.”
Ricky’s eyes mooned with shock at a happy encounter with her. Mazelle winced, twinging with guilt. Was she too hard on her children? Had she absorbed the worst violent traits of Aunt Ruby and Richard? Did she still have time to win back her son’s trust?
She held out her arms, encouraging Ricky to come closer for a rare hug. She wrapped one arm around her son and the other around her daughter, vowing to be a better mother.
As they hugged like a family portrait, her telephone rang.
It was Jerry Lorenzo.
Mazelle stood in the lodge’s living room window as fixed as a store dress dummy.
Her bones would not move despite the squirming inside her body, from twitching joints to a churning stomach to a warlike throbbing at her temple that might be a migraine.
Her insides were rioting. Three cars had passed her lodge in the past hour, visible in gaps in the tree line, and each one made her stomach clench as if she would vomit.
The sun was shining brightly, so her shoulders hunched when melting clumps of snow thumped across the rooftop, or when the wind chimes near her bedroom tinkled faintly, even when it wasn’t Scout’s more intentional ring.
Time had stopped. Each time she glanced at the grandfather clock near her, the hands were either stubbornly fixed in place or, impossibly, seemed to have moved backward. The grim reality of the clock deepened her nausea—because time, however slowly, was passing.
And at any moment, Grady would drive the red Caddy into her driveway with Lorenzo.
She could not do this. Her body’s rebellion made her feel physically incapable of movement or speech. Although she had sprayed herself with Chanel and was wearing her favorite fur-lined robe, which was semi-sheer, she doubted she could fake a seductive smile.
Lorenzo would know as soon as he saw her. He would see it in her face.