The Life and Adventures of Lyle Clemens

  Reassured by the terse, unflinching answer to her question, Tarah opened the drawer where the vicious astrological chart lay, and she began to tear it. Wait! Would that upset the planets? She put the chart back in the drawer and swore never again to consult it. Why should she?—when the radiant Riva had just assured her that—yes!—her plan that involved the Mystery Cowboy would bring her attention throughout the world.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  1

  A new kind of love comes to Sylvia.

  Sylvia could write him! There were ways of finding Lyle the First. Clarita had changed her mind entirely because of the growing desolation in Sylvia Love’s life. She cherished the memory of her laughter at the wedding, but she wondered whether it had been only pained laughter, even before it had turned into sobs. Would that be the last time she would hear her beloved Sylvia laugh? As she tried to recreate the fateful day when Lyle the First returned to beg Sylvia to take him back—he had begged, hadn’t he?—Clarita heard sincerity in his voice, probably missed earlier because of the startling events.

  If Sylvia relented—wrote him—took him back, there would be happiness. Lyle would return. He and she and Sylvia and Lyle the First would live together. Lyle would marry an honest-to-God Mexican-American girl whom she, Clarita, would shelter from the raids of Villa and—There she went again, slipping into somebody else’s past. … Lyle and his wife would live with them, of course, she continued her reverie; they’d get a larger house when Lyle had children. Lyle the Third! Clarita was so deep into her thoughts of happiness that she was jarred by Sylvia’s presence, a presence who moved soundlessly through the house.

  “What are you jabbering about?”

  She’d been talking aloud, not just thinking? Let her hear it. “I was thinking that perhaps our lives would be happier if you wrote the cowboy that you would take him back.”

  “I am happy without him.”

  She said that without emotion, without hesitation. She meant it. The saddest development had occurred. Sylvia was in love with her loss.

  As Sylvia missed whole days at work, hardly sober any more, reading Lyle the Second’s letters over and over—and never writing back—she drifted about the house as if she were preparing to join the prowling ghost of her mother. Passing Sylvia in the hallway once—she was a gaunt, pale form now—Clarita felt a chill that the windy, dark Texas night had not brought. For the first time in her life, she prayed that her terrible premonition of that moment would be incorrect.

  2

  A comeback.

  “Lyle!”

  “Maria!” Here she was again, looking even more beautiful. He wanted to put his hands about her waist and whirl her around as he’d done the first time she’d sought him out in Los Angeles and had found him here in this apartment.

  She poised her lips for a kiss, closed her eyes, and stood on tiptoes to receive it. When he did not kiss her, her eyes shot open. “Lyle, don’t you understand? I ran away again, from my father and my husband—yes, I’m married and very, very unhappy, and, Lyle, the worst thing was that when I laughed aloud after I declared—in church, Lyle, I declared it aloud in church!—after I declared that I’d always love you—and your mother laughed, too, Lyle, your wonderful, doomed mother who knows the depths of despair—and I don’t even care now that I never made you sing me her song—your poor, doomed mother laughed with me, approving!—and so did that dear humble soul, Clarita—and, when that all happened, Lyle, my husband joined in the laughter. Do you understand, my beloved? Isn’t that tragically strange?”

  “I guess—” Lyle was trying to catch up, figure out what part was tragic, what part funny, sort out what he felt—and what the hell she was really saying. He took it one by one in order of greatest importance. “First of all, you never could have made me sing that song, and, second, my mother is not doomed.”

  “Let’s not waste time. Kiss me!”

  He yearned to. “No.”

  “Don’t you understand the horrible danger I’ve put myself into? I’ll have my marriage annulled, because I’m a devout Catholic, and with my settlement money we can pay the Pope to do it. Will you kiss me and fight for me when he comes after me?”

  “No.”

  “Really?” She seemed honestly startled.

  “Really.”

  “You really, really mean it?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right, then, I’ll kill myself.”

  “You won’t.”

  “What if I did, you’d be sorry.”

  “Of course, but you won’t.”

  “Yes! I shall. I shall throw myself in the river, the Rio Escondido.”

  “It’s dry, Maria.”

  “Then I’m going to become a nun.”

  “You won’t.”

  She sighed in exasperation. “Lyle, I don’t understand you, you’re so strange.”

  “Maria, I don’t understand you,” Lyle said, “and I don’t blame Mr. Fielding for laughing, because you’re very funny; that’s not to say you’re not beautiful—and you’re really strange, because you’re not strange and want to be.”

  “Lyle!” She whipped her head to one side as if she had been physically struck. When he did not move to assuage her, she said, “Then it’s really, really good-bye?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can’t we have wonderful sex?”

  “No.”

  “All right then.” Copious tears flowed. “Good bye. Forever!”

  “Good-bye,” Lyle said, as Maria left again, carrying her overnight bag and sobbing loudly.

  3

  Anxiety about Liz Smith’s absence.

  Without even glancing around to see whether anyone in the neighborhood—she would soon move to Beverly Hills—would see her without makeup, Tarah reached for the paper that had been flung halfway down her walkway by the insolent Guatemalan paper-man. Sometimes he’d throw it at the very edge of the pool, as if in warning—all because she hadn’t given him a Christmas present.

  Inside her house, she opened the paper to the entertainment section. There it was again, like a terrible curse:

  “Liz Smith is on vacation.”

  4

  The monumental Hollywood event nears.

  The day of the Academy Awards was approaching! Even palm trees seemed mesmerized in awe of the sacred Hollywood event. Preparations were made for fabulous parties at Spago! At Morton’s! Everywhere! Huge replicas of “Oscar,” the statue of a golden, impassive, naked man, already flanked the prepared entrance, the sweep of stairs up to the grand site. A white Los Angeles sun glinted on the gold men, and their bodies sprinkled the air with gold dust, star dust. A red velvet carpet was ready to be spread for the stars to make their entrances—as panting fans mounted on backless bleachers set up in advance but not occupied until the magical day—some fans camped overnight—screamed in ecstasy when they glimpsed their favorites.

  Sad because Maria was gone—but good riddance. Sad because the world could turn so ugly in a moment. Sad, always sad because Sylvia, a deepening mystery, would not write him—sad, just plain sad, Lyle sat on one of the oval concrete benches at his favorite thinking place, the foyer of the Egyptian Theater, with its dejected palm trees, as dejected as he was.

  Too dejected!—so he walked on along the Boulevard to refresh his spirit.

  He was even sadder now!

  The picture of Babette, reclining in her black bikini, was no longer on the side of the new building. Was she real? Was it possible that she existed only on posters?

  All that sadness piling up on him, more and more and more, made him horny, very horny. Horny as hell!

  5

  The crucial step in Tarah’s plot is taken.

  “At last I’ve found you, Mystery Cowboy! I’ve been looking for you since that afternoon—at that motel, by the pool.”

  Lyle had been talking to Mrs. Allworthy in the courtyard of the Fountain Apartments, hearing “the latest celebrity news” she had learned “firsthand” (“Elton’s having
an affair with that M&M fellow!”) gleaned from her favorite tabloids—when the glamorous woman who had emerged from a taxi had gasped her pleasure at “finding” Lyle.

  “It’s Tarah Worth!” Mrs. Allworthy recognized the actress. Jeezuschrist! It’s the woman I talked to at that motel in Anaheim, Lyle recognized. Both the memory of her sprawled body that day and the spectacle of her here was enough to add to the chafing itch in his pants, because—remember—he was lonely, shaken by the events of the past few days, and all of that had funneled into a yearning for—

  This woman!

  “Please join us, Miss Worth, we’ll all have a cup of tea,” Mrs. Allworthy was beside herself to have such a living celebrity on her premises. She spoke loudly, to assure that others in the Fountain Court would hear her, see who had come calling.

  “How kind of you,” Tarah Worth said. Damn this intrusive woman. She hadn’t counted on her. “I would love to—”

  “Fine, then, let’s go.” Mrs. Allworthy linked arms with Lyle and Tarah Worth, leading them toward her apartment.

  Tarah eased her arm away carefully. “I’d love to, but I have some very urgent business to discuss with this gentleman, and”—she consulted her watch—“I have a rehearsal in—oh—very shortly.”

  Mrs. Allworthy was displeased. In order to linger, she pretended to be fishing pigeon feathers out of the fountain, which had stopped working, a stream of water bubbling at the top and cascading around only for a moment, and then becoming a trickle down the sides.

  “Do please, please forgive me for depriving myself of the pleasure of having tea with you,” Tarah smiled, putting a reassuring hand on Mrs. Allworthy’s bony arm. She must make a hurried adjustment to incorporate her into her plan. How? She had it! When the time came, this nosey woman would assert her, Tarah’s, version of events, if planted carefully.

  Mrs. Allworthy was still miffed. “You’re not the only movie star—uh, celebrity—uh, well known person—who’s come here. Garbo was a regular visitor, and Vampira was frequently here.”

  She had taken a wrong step, alienating the woman, Tarah knew. She had to win her back.

  “Mrs. Allworthy, I know why Miss Worth is here”—he had no idea—“and it is private, but I’m sure she’ll come back to have tea with you, won’t you?” Lyle placated Mrs. Allworthy, eager to be alone with this woman. Whatever business she had with him, this is what he was certain of: When Maria had invited more lovemaking and he had had to turn her down, he had been ready, and it seemed that his hard-on was surviving. Yes, and he wanted to hear Rose’s voice again.

  Mrs. Allworthy smiled. “I understand, Mr. Clemens!” she acquiesced. “We’ll do it another time, and I’ll prepare some scones.”

  He certainly had a way with her, Tarah saw. Better still, he was charming, and caring. Her distress at having to deal with Mrs. Allworthy—when subsequent events were set into motion—disappeared. She would definitely be able to use this woman. She knew her kind, a pushover, the kind who would eagerly go on television—her hair stiff as a plastic helmet—to say how surprised she was at the actions of a criminal she had unknowingly harbored. It would make it all even more delicious in Liz Smith’s column, which she imagined just then:

  Hollywood.—The handsome Mystery Cowboy who became so infatuated with great beauty Tarah Worth is remembered by his apartment manager as a quiet sort who—

  Please, God, let the great columnist end her vacation soon! … To assure what her revised plans now welcomed—Mrs. Allworthy as an ally—Tarah Worth reached out to her, as if the parting, though necessary, was painful. “Mrs. Allgood—”

  “Allworthy,” Lyle supplied.

  Fuck! “Dear Mrs. Allworthy, what an honor to touch the hand that touched Garbo’s and—”

  “Vampira’s,” Mrs. Allworthy reminded, proudly offering her hand as if for kissing.

  Tarah did this—inspired!—she leaned over to Mrs. Allworthy and whispered—so what if Lyle heard?—“I will confide in you because I see honesty in your dear face. I’m in terror because a stalker—”

  Mrs. Allworthy’s face lit up.

  “—is threatening me. I am, at this very moment taking extreme, dangerous measures, gambling that they work.”

  Mrs. Allworthy was beside herself. “And Lyle—?”

  “Shhhh,” Tarah cautioned. “Please!” She looked about her in abject fear. She turned to Lyle, surrendering her hands.

  He took them and led her to his apartment.

  They left Mrs. Allworthy in a state of excitation by the fountain, which suddenly started working, spattering water all over her.

  6

  The scheme is hatched.

  “I need your help, Lyle. Ever since I saw you that day in the motel in—I forget the name of the town—I’ve thought that only you can help me. When I saw your picture in the paper, when you saved that Miss Whatever from that vicious attacker—”

  “A peacock,” Lyle said, sitting on his bed, ready to have her join him.

  “Yes, and they’re deadly,” Tarah wanted to move on. “Ever since then, I knew you were the only one I could turn to for my special needs, for protection!”

  “Oh, sure,” Lyle welcomed. “Sure.”

  She sat on his one chair, locating it exactly before him. Then she began crossing and uncrossing her long legs. My God! She wasn’t wearing any—Lyle wasn’t sure. She had snapped her legs shut too quickly, but he was on alert. Again! She shifted her legs. Too quickly. He relocated himself on the edge of the bed so that he could look more closely. Damn! She wasn’t wearing underpants. Whoosh, and she closed her legs again, shutting off the magnificent spectacle.

  “What?” He had been so entranced that he hadn’t realized she had continued to talk.

  “—a stalker, I said, a dangerous man who’s been following me around, a crazed fan, who writes me letters, who terrifies me and who threatens to make himself known to me in the most horrifying way. At the Academy Awards! And why? So that the whole world will know of his obsessive love.”

  Lyle tried to catch up, but he couldn’t without asking her to repeat what she’d said, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear it again, because once again, in a flash, she had uncrossed her legs, and there it was, in all its glory, winking at him—and then, whoosh, it was hiding again.

  “Help me, please, Lyle. Escort me to the Awards. Please protect me!”

  “Well, I—I’m not sure—” If what she was saying was all she’d come for and he said Yes, maybe she’d just get up and leave. Better to barter some more. “Not sure.” That increased his anticipation, too. He heard Rose’s voice remind: When a woman’s no longer a virgin—and you’ll be able to tell—that’s another kind of challenge, cowboy, because you’ll have to overcome all the others she’s been with, and, often, there’ll have been plenty before you.

  “You don’t happen to be a virgin, do you?” he asked the woman, sounding entirely casual; he wanted to verify that before he determined which of Rose’s strategies would be more apt if she stayed, and please, Holy Virgin Guadalupe, let her.

  “What?” It was her turn to be baffled. Never mind. Just as she had intended, she had enticed him, of that she was sure—just look at him! She’d hypnotized him, and if he hadn’t yet promised to protect her from the stalker, he would, even if she’d have to sacrifice herself to him, to assure his promise, and it was obvious that’s what he wanted—and, really, it wasn’t that much of a sacrifice, she admitted. In fact, she could hardly wait. What a stud! So fresh!

  “Maybe I’m a little bit of a virgin,” she said coyly. Her whisper became a growl: “Are you?”

  “Uh—” What could he say and not lie? “Well, I’m embarrassed to admit that I—” He didn’t lie; he just didn’t finish.

  “You are!” She growled again. Just right—for both of her needs, her immediate one—she hadn’t had sex in Lord knows how long because all that occupied her was the role in the sequel—and he would also fulfill her longer-term need when he’d promise to escort her. S
he would tend to her immediate need.

  “Lyle, Lyle, I’ve wanted you since that afternoon. Let’s do it. Now!”

  They did. She was great—even Rose remained quiet, impressed—and he matched her, checking himself now and then to assert his violated virginity—and finally abandoning the pretense when it became intrusive, then resuming it when it became tempting. It would be difficult to know who was doing what, because their flesh shifted, melded, fused.

  “Oh, God,” she said, “oh, God.”

  “Oh, Lord,” he said, “oh, Lord!”

  She had insisted he keep on his boots, and she kept her stockings, and wow—naked flesh, stockings and boots, sighs and moans, and, yes, yes, yes, yes!—and, oh, yeah! and shove it in again, and give it to me, babe, yes, yes, yes, yeah, yeah—in, out, in, out, in, in, in, in, in!

  “Oh, God!”

  “Oh, Jesus Lord!”

  “What was that?” Lyle asked. The room itself was shaking. The bed tilted, everything in it rattled noisily.

  “An earthquake, forget it, let’s go on.” They did. She thrust her hips, up, up, to meet his, pushing down, down, down. They tumbled over each other as the room quaked. He fell off the bed, she fell over him, and they let the vibrating of the room take over, until the trembling rolled them apart, and they adjusted quickly back on the bouncing bed. Up, up, tilt, tilt, down, down, in, tilt, up, down, up, in, in, out, in, tilt, tilt, out, out—god damn!—in—yes, yes!—in, in, in. In!

  “Ah!”

  “Ahhhhh!”

  When had the room’s shaking stopped?

  Tarah jumped up from the bed, adjusting her clothes carefully. Would he be so terribly upset with her (after what she had to do) that they wouldn’t get together again (after he came out of jail)? She could not explain the matter to him now, of course. It all had to occur spontaneously, like the saving of Ms. Universal from the peacock at Huey’s Mansion.