“Carter broke up with Ashleigh right before the execution of the prank Ashleigh herself planned. It adds an extra incentive. Ashleigh thought she was in the in — crowd and found she was not,” Al noted, “Her motive, like ours in making the film, would be revenge.” Al replied. “Lean forward some more like you did to Hunch your shoulders a bit the researchers love the emphasis on the hollow.”
Leaving the exquisitely cooled fertility clinic where Al ran his activities after hours into the swampy feel of the Capital land streets, I hit a wall of heat. I couldn’t wait to get in the apartment to get my clothes off. It would feel good to peel sweat drenched clothes off my body and sit in front of a fan blowing cooling air across a bowl of ice. I might even risk letting Zaftig catch me nuding about the rooms.
I’d paused for a moment of self — mocking pretended self — importance to pause to appraise my body in the old-fashioned full-length hall mirror. Other than a hallow chest, I wasn’t bad looking. Indeed, before Zaftig and I took roles in Al’s productions, I’d embarrass Zaftig with my suggestion: “Dolly, with your set of double DD boobs on my delightful 5′ 7,” 125 — pound, long legged frame, I’d make 2xs as much an hour as I do in a week, working topless or stripping in a bar or starring in porn. Think on it. The two of us combined could make one hot porn star.”
•••
“The mirror draws out a certain Narcissism in us all,” Al noted when he had me pose before a mirror for the final naked photos.
“Will the researcher pay extra for glamor photos?” I asked.
“If I get paid extra, so will you. I put you in front of the mirror so that you might reali-s-e,” Al emphasized the unvoiced “S” sound, “that you’re neither a freak, nor ugly. While I can’t make you a porn star, you could pick up some money as a medical model in University Hospital. I can’t say there are an infinite number of researchers interested in pectoral excavatus. One day my researcher will compl-” Al managed to vocalize stressing the English spelling, “-eat his paper and I will ask you to pose no more.”
“And,” mocking Al in a phony protest, I retorted, “I thought you invited me here to enjoy the pleasure of my company. I–eh prefer not to allow Zaftig in on my secret.”
“Dress in the scrubs on the edge of the podium,” Al ordered, “Ashleigh ought to be here in a few minutes.”
“Why did you settle on Ashleigh?” I called after Al.
“Ashleigh was the one who agreed to meet with us.” Al nodded.
•••
At home glued to a kitchen chair by perspiration, I might have preferred to whip my top off and wring it out. But I couldn’t tell what time Zaftig might show up if at all. Just recently graduated from medical school, my roommate Dr Rebecca Barton MD, whom I called Zaftig, was tied up in her internship.
In the mid-1970s, newly graduated med students were paid a pittance to work slave hours in the hospitals. “Cheap labo-u-r,” our friend Al Mandy commented when I spoke of Zaftig’s plight during the medical photo session which preceded the meeting with the prospect Ashleigh Keytone. Al took a breath, “Medicine has some of the highest paid people and the worst paid. Till she passes out of this phase and joins the elite, she’ll have to console herself with the dream that one day she may have revenge upon all the African princesses who are bullying her around.”
To my question, “How do you make your own rules to avoid the same ritual initiation?” Al disdainfully shook his head slightly and laughed.
•••
Returning from my meeting with Al and his prospect, I found the apartment still and quiet. When Zaftig poured over her textbooks as she studied at the kitchen table, despite occasionally uttering complaints about professors and students, she was lost in another world. Without her, the rooms gave off a feeling of desolation. Oh, Zaftig never was one to make much noise as she passed through the rooms, but this flat were her holy sanctuary. She vowed to keep her preserve, even I chuckled stand up to her old man — that imperious `Father’ figure that had loomed so large in her life — to an extent.
To keep the rooms when `Father’ cut her off in her final year, Zaftig not only endured me as a roommate, she performed in nude shower scenes and starred as Dr Zoptic in a series of nudie cuties filmed by her classmate Al.
Through most of June and July and going into August, Zaftig hadn’t been much around to enjoy her sacred space.
Just as my discomfort from the humidity was about to overcome my fear that Zaftig might suddenly appear, I heard the squeal of the No 10 Capital land bus’ brakes as it stopped on State Street in front of our building. Seconds later her keys turned the lock. In popped a haggard Zaftig in fire engine orange scrubs with her stethoscope still dangling from around her neck. She tossed her stethoscope on a table.
“I needed to get away for a few hours, to shower without having some rotund colored nurse pull me out, throw me some scrubs and tell me I was needed. Pure harassment!” Zaftig declared. “I’d dry off as the round bottomed black bitch watching screaming for me to hurry. Then, the bitch threw me these bright orange scrubs so she could more easily keep an eye on me. And then dragged out of the shower, I’d find …”
I exclaimed, “I haven’t heard from you much through June, July into the first week of August and you pop up talking most uncharitably about downtrodden racial minorities.” I spoke in inflated tones, “Imagine what you might say about religious minorities. I never heard you talk like that before.” I needled her, “Were you with the good sisters in the convent school too long?”
“One good thing about being so busy,” Zaftig started but didn’t complete the thought.
“You haven’t even opened the package Al Mandy sent from `Newman — Baker’s Shops,'” I prodded Zaftig, “Al replaced the cute outfit you lost at the graduation party.”
“Graduation is a commencement, a new beginning, a rebirth,” Zaftig smirked wistfully shaking her head, “To bring on the new beginning, the trappings of the old life must be stripped away. I left for the party in an overpriced separates wearing chic eyeglasses with steel frames. I came home stoned, blinded and wrapped in a sheet. I guess I embraced the concept more enthusiastically than I would have wanted.”
“Back to the world,” I reminded Zaftig, “the rent is coming due.”
“Erica,” Zaftig complained, “I’ve been so busy. I haven’t had time to cash my checks, as pitiable as they are. Could you cover the rent this month?”
“I’ve already covered three months rent. Where am I to get the whole rent payment for a fourth month out of a minimum wage, 2-10 an hour job, with reduced hours and few tips?” I protested.
“Doesn’t Al Mandy make extra money available for you?” Zaftig asked. “it’s not like I won’t pay you back.”
“Al tells me that producing a film, even one designed to indulge in a borderline appeal to a prurient interest requires time to script, recruit a cast and scout locations. When he’s ready to shoot, we get paid.” I took a breath and promised, “Give me the checks. I’ll cash them, pay your share of the rent and deposit the balance in your account for you. There’s a branch of Capital land State Bank right near the restaurant I work in. Let me take care of it for you.”