Mysterical-E

He Said, She Says

TRINITY
by Susan Chalfin

I knew my Dark Angel must be seriously screwing around, because she’d started giving interviews saying she wasn’t. She’d done the same back when she and I made that fateful first film together. She wouldn’t fool around with a married man, she’d told the media. We were chums. Technically, that part was true. Making mad, passionate love four or five times a day is a splendid basis for friendship.   Most of the globe--with the possible exception of folk living in yurts in the Gobi desert--knows how it finally went down. I became an unmarried man so Dark Angel could mess around with me openly. Then Dark Angel and I threw a big Hollywood wedding, to the everlasting fury of my first wife, Blonde Angel.

People thought the feud between my two Angels distressed me, but they were wrong. My Angels’ enmity meant there was always a new reason for the three of us to grace the covers of the gossip rags. Like Dark Angel’s Vanity Fair confession that we were “involved” before my divorce--but it was okay, because Blonde Angel and I were no longer “married in spirit.” Or Blonde Angel’s snark on Charlie Rose that Dark Angel couldn’t nurse our kids because of all that silicone. Dark Angel’s tweet that Blondie’s anorexia was a ploy to get me back. You can’t buy publicity like that. I cherished both Angels--my sultry brunette Angel and my glowing blonde one.    Interestingly, Blonde Angel, like many platinum Hollywood beauties, was born brunette, while Dark Angel emerged from the womb flaxen.   My Angels were complicated women. At times I fantasized about wedding my two seraphs simultaneously--and extending the shelf life of our story another decade.

Anyway, I’m off topic. My point was that I knew Dark Angel was seriously messing around. Messing around I could deal with. I’m a California boy, and way mellow. I’ve had my share of women--one-nighters, flings, short and long-term affairs and a few live-ins--besides my two marriages. I don’t stress over sex. What bothered me was the “seriously.” There’s more to our marriage than our personal relationship, including eight houses and ten children.   In the first flush of our romance, I’d agreed--in writing--that Dark Angel could take custody of the kids if we split. That arrangement no longer pleased me. If Dark Angel felt serious enough to leave me, I needed to assess my legal options.

So I hired a private dick. Only that turned out to be a misnomer, because my private dick was a girl. She too was an Angel, with hair as scarlet as the Golden Gate Bridge, eyes the deep blue-green of the Bay waters beneath it, and a chassis with more curves than U.S. 1. The perfect California girl. I was immediately worried. In Hollywood, pretty girls take all sorts of gigs in order to jam their polished pink toenails into the proverbial industry door. I didn’t need an aspiring actress. I wanted a woman who took pride in being a dick.

“You should be in pictures yourself,” I tested her.

“I can’t act,” she said.

“Neither can I,” I pointed out, “and I make fifty million a film.”

“You underestimate yourself, Mr. Morgan,” she said.

“Call me Blake, angel,” I said.

“Call me Maureen,” she replied, her voice a tad astringent.

“Irish?” I hazarded.

“Jewish.”

Just then the triplets, Alyosha, Anastasia and Alexandria, came into the room. They’re eight years old, and the only ones in our brood who are biological--not that that matters. They all have big grey-violet eyes, courtesy of Dark Angel. Brigitte, a nine-year-old Maori girl we adopted a few years ago, traipsed in after them.

“Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy” they said simultaneously.

“Brigitte says we’re insulting English people by talking British,” Anastasia complained, in an exaggerated Oxbridge accent.

“Their accents hurt my ears,” Brigitte grumbled, covering said organs for emphasis.

“She’s right,” Alyosha said. “The girls don’t know how to do Brits. They sound like Aussies.”

The four kids are in acting class together, and sometimes there are displays of temperament. “Cool down,” I said. “Brigitte, Alyosha, don’t insult your sisters. Girls, I’ll come by and work on your accents with you after I’m done with this young lady.” The kids rolled their eyes, bored by my admonishments, and exited.

I turned back to Maureen.   Her aqua eyes were sparkling like freshly chlorinated swimming pools. I could see she appreciated how winsome my children were--and what a sterling job I did as paterfamilias.   It couldn’t have gone better if I’d paid the kids to interrupt.   I wanted her to put her heart into this job, not just her bank account.

“Is there someone in particular you think your wife is involved with?” Maureen asked.

“There are three possibilities. They’re all working on her current picture--House of Lies. Candidate one is Christopher West--her leading man.” Maureen nodded. A year ago, nobody had heard of Chris West, but he’d catapulted to the A-list playing a hyper-macho space gladiator.   “Then there’s Ray Zabriskie, her director. She had a fling with him when he directed her in Enemies and Lovers; back before we were married. Maybe they’re having a nostalgia moment.”

Maureen wrinkled her chiseled nose. “One of Ray’s exes hired me. That man gives lowlife scum a bad name.”

“Which ex?” I asked.

“Number six.”

I was bothered by this indiscretion. My question had been another test.

Maureen’s watermelon-lipsticked mouth quirked upwards. “I’m not spilling confidences. She dishes about hiring me in her memoir, Ray of No Sunshine. Who’s your third suspect?”

“Kurt Kane, the stunt supervisor.” Kurt was an expert swordsman in every sense of the word. He’d done both the Racette sisters, their mother, and (under a misapprehension, he claimed) their cross-dressing younger brother.

Maureen smiled. “I’ve met Kurt.” She paused for a moment. “Are you sure you want to do this? Sometimes it’s better not to know the truth.”

“Positive,” I said. And just then, I was positive.

“Okay.   I’ll tail your wife and let you know what I find.”

I re-examined Maureen. “You’re too gorgeous to be an effective tail. Don’t you get spotted?”

“This is Beverly Hills. Once I put on a blonde wig, I blend right in.”

“Take care,” I told her. “Dark Angel is clever.”

“Dark Angel?”

“Branwen."

***

The next evening Dark Angel came home late, bitterly complaining about sadistic Ray Zabriskie, who’d forced the cast to shoot till 10:00 p.m. Maureen reported back the following morning.

“I got myself hired as an extra on Lies. Ray wrapped up shooting at five-thirty,” Maureen said. “At six, I spotted him and Branwen getting into a black BMW Roadster. Ray drove. They wound up at a large beach house in Santa Monica. Ray had the key. They stayed inside for two hours, and then they returned to the studio. There she met up with her own car and driver, and came back to your place.”

She handed me a photograph. Ray and Dark Angel had just emerged from the BMW. Ray’s square, seamy face was cracked into a big smile, and Branwen had broken out her little girl’s grin--the one she has when she’s slipped from her strict seven hundred calorie a day diet and scarfed a gallon of Ben & Jerry’s Imagine Whirled Peace.   It was her favorite ice cream, because it was named after a good cause. Branwen claimed that if we shipped a crate of the stuff to Iran they’d disarm unilaterally. Ray and Branwen looked like they were sharing a hilarious secret joke. Like I said, I’m from the Golden State, and I believe in live and let live. The sudden ache in the pit of my stomach probably came from a recent lapse with a pint of my own favorite B&J flavor--Chubby Hubby--not the photo.

“Interesting,” I said. “Can you put cameras in the beach house?”

“Yes,” Maureen said. “The pool boy and I are BFF. But why don’t I watch her for a couple of weeks before we make any decisions?”

I nodded.   “How did a nice girl like you get into this ugly business?”

“I majored in Nineteenth Century English literature, so I was unemployable. After a year of job-hunting, I answered a very cryptic Help Wanted ad and it turned out to be a heavy-weight security outfit. They hired me, and I found I had a flair for the work.   So I cut out the middleman and went solo.”

“No shit,” I said. “I majored in Nineteenth Century Lit myself. So--do you think Mr. Darcy was a virgin before he married Elizabeth?”

“Totally,” Maureen said.

Another two days passed. “Same pattern,” Maureen reported. “Thursday night she went back to the beach house with Ray.”

Friday night Dark Angel came home right after shooting, and we spent Saturday together at a pool party. On Sunday, Dark Angel told me she needed to go back to the set to run lines.

“She went back to the beach house,” Maureen reported.

“Surprise me,” I said. “With Ray.”

Maureen surprised me. “No,” she said. “This time she went with Chris West. They stopped for dinner first.”

She showed me a picture. Dark Angel and Chris were dining at an elegant kaiseki joint in Malibu. They’d reserved the intimate tatami room. Chris was gazing warmly into Branwen’s eyes, and thrusting a chopstick-full of eight hundred dollar sea urchin sashimi into her mouth. Branwen’s lids were closed--savoring the sea urchin, I assumed. Chris was a good-looking guy. He looked rather like me, only fifteen years younger.

I shook my head. What was Dark Angel up to? She’d always been monogamous, in a serial sort of way. The word reminded me of Dark Angel’s serial killer film. “What’s a cereal killer, daddy?” one of the triplets had asked.

I’d told myself I was too mellow to care about a little foolery, but secretly I’d prided myself on being the last of Dark Angel’s series of men.   Before me, she’d switched guys every couple of years. It’s an occupational hazard--for method actors, celluloid emotions often evolve into the real thing. Yet, since Dark Angel and I had been together, we’d avoided that trap.   I didn’t crave the party boy promiscuity thing or the Hollywood adultery thing.   Been there, done that, boring. I enjoyed our deep marital friendship, the partnership we’d forged around our children and our causes. And I still found Branwen sizzling hot. I’d thought she felt the same.

I saw Maureen watching my face. I sensed she could read my emotions. I needed to deflect her.

“There’s a Margaret Drabble novel, The Waterfall, where the narrator says Emma should have ditched Mr. Knightley and tried to steal Frank Churchill,” I said. “She says ‘What can it have been like, in bed with Mr. Knightley? Sorrow awaited that woman.’ Discuss.”

“Actually, Knightley was a dirty old man. One of my profs used to complain that ‘Knightley grew his wife from seed.’”

I looked at Maureen, who seemed incandescently young to me. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-eight.”

“I’m forty-four. There’s the same age difference between us as Emma and Knightley. Would I be a child molester if I married you?”

Maureen gave me her watermelon-lipped smile. “You’d be a bigamist,” she said. “Ask me after your divorce.”

We stared at each other.   I’d been flirting with Maureen to salve my hurt pride, but I realized I could get out of my depth in the blue-green grottoes of her eyes. Just then three of the kids burst in. Paolo, our six-year-old from Rio, Chai, our seven-year-old from Bangkok and Marguerite, our five-year-old from Madagascar. “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy.”

“Daddy, Marguerite was playing with my Pokémons.”

“Daddy, Paolo is selfish. He’s going to grow up Republican.”

“Don’t insult my brother!” Chai waved his tiny tan fist.

“Chai, inside voice--and we don’t hit girls,” I said. “Why don’t we all play Pokémon together? Just give me a minute to finish up with this young lady.”

“Should I continue my surveillance?” Maureen asked.

“Sure.”

***

Monday night Dark Angel went back to the beach house with Ray; Tuesday night it was Chris’ turn, Maureen reported over the phone.   “I looked up the title records on the house,” Maureen added. “It’s owned by a company called Messalina’s Playground.”

“The name sounds familiar,” I said. But I couldn’t think why.

On Friday morning, while Dark Angel was on the set, Maureen appeared in person.

“Wednesday she went back to the beach house with Ray again.”

“And Thursday was Chris’ turn?”

“No, she didn’t go with Chris.”

“Ray again?”

“No,” Maureen said. For the first time since I’d met her she failed to return my gaze. “She went with Kurt.” I waited for her to pull out the inevitable photo. She did. It showed the iron-armed stunt man throwing Dark Angel into the huge ocean side pool behind the beach house. Dark Angel was laughing hysterically.

“Remember the name of the company that owned the house? Messalina’s Playground?” Maureen asked. “I know why you found it familiar. Your ex-wife always names her production companies after ancient Romans.”

Maureen was right. Despite her dyed blonde hair and carefully preppie self-presentation, Blonde Angel was fiercely proud of her Italian heritage. Her production companies all had names like Cornelia’s Jewels and Diana’s Dartboard. Had Blonde Angel somehow masterminded Dark Angel’s escapades? Had she colluded with Ray, Chris and Kurt to entrap her? Blonde Angel appears fragile and vulnerable, but she can be very manipulative. And Dark Angel, who acts like she’s hard as nails, can be very gullible. Perhaps this was another skirmish in my Angels’ publicity war.

“Let’s talk about Mansfield Park,” I said. “Fanny Price--prig or role model?”

“I think it’s time for me to put the cameras inside the house,” Maureen said.

“The hell with cameras. I want to go there in person.”

Friday night, Dark Angel came home early again. She tried to seduce me. I demurred, citing parenting fatigue. Saturday night we went to a party. Dark Angel wore a deep grey silk gown with overtones of violet. She’d never looked more beautiful. Sunday afternoon she drove off, again pleading rehearsals.

#

Monday evening, with the help of Maureen’s pool boy pal, she and I were ensconced in the walk-in closet in the bungalow’s master bedroom.

“I still think this is a bad idea,” Maureen protested.

“So, let’s get back to Mansfield Park. Maria Bertram, whore or pioneer?” I asked.

Maureen looked confused for a moment, then got it. “Fanny’s cousin? The one who leaves her husband to run off with Henry Crawford? Whore.”

“I wonder who she’s doing,” I said. “Ray, Chris or Kurt? All three of them?”

Maureen put her eye to the tiny aperture she’d carved into the door of the closet. “Someone’s coming into the room.” She motioned me towards the spy hole.

Dark Angel strode into the room, incandescently beautiful in jeans and a plain white shirt, a scarf thrown around her neck. She was followed by another person, also very good-looking. Short blond hair, dark eyes, muscular body displayed in a T-shirt and shorts. My first wife, Francesca Russo--my Blonde Angel.

Blonde Angel walked up to Dark Angel, grabbed one end of her scarf, and roughly tore it from her neck. Dark Angel’s eyes blazed. What was going on? Were my two Angels finally duking it out? Flattering. Suitable tabloid headlines flashed through my brain. They were followed by a less happy thought. Perhaps Blonde Angel was involved with Ray, Chris or Kurt, and raged over yet another impingement on her territory.

Dark Angel grabbed Blonde Angel’s shoulders. The two women exchanged stares, like gunslingers in an old time Western. An epic duel was clearly about to erupt.

Dark Angel leaned in towards Blonde Angel, and kissed the skin at the V of her T-shirt.

I stumbled and tripped on a pair of two thousand dollar Jimmy Choo stilettos. Cursing to myself, I sat down heavily on the cedar scented closet floor.

“Oh my God,” I whispered. “She’s doing Francesca.”

Maureen jumped up to take a turn at the spy hole. I saw her mouth drop open. After a minute or so I elbowed her aside. If I hadn’t been personally involved, I would have found the view pleasantly pornographic. My two wives were now on the bed. They must have been feeling warm, because they’d removed much of their clothing.

I burst out of my hiding place. My Angels were too engrossed in their activities to notice. I coughed. Their lovely startled faces turned in my direction.

“Oh my God, it’s Blake!” Blonde Angel squealed.

“Blake,” Dark Angel breathed with husky sorrow.

“Ladies,” I said. “I think you owe me an explanation.”

The two Angels looked at each other. “Give us a moment.” They went into the bathroom. A few minutes later they re-emerged wearing identical terry cloth robes.

“We’ve always loved each other,” Blonde Angel said.

“From the first time we met,” Dark Angel agreed.

“Uh, and when was that exactly?” I asked.

“When you and Branwen made your first picture together,” Blonde Angel said. “I started hearing rumors. I flew down to the set, determined to confront her.”

“She came to my trailer and started screaming I was a husband-stealing slut,” Dark Angel said. “I couldn’t take my eyes off her.”

“Then she kissed me,” Blonde Angel said. “I’d never been with a woman before, but it was electric. I knew she was the love of my life.”

“So did I,” Dark Angel said.

“What about me?” I asked.

“I was furious with you for cheating on me,” Blonde Angel said. “I thought it was fitting punishment to turn you into our beard.”

A montage of scenes emerged from my memory, to the accompaniment of a sickeningly syrupy mental film track. The chemistry Dark Angel and I had when we were first together; so strong the entire crew got turned on when they watched the rushes of the film we’d been making. Dark Angel gazing into my eyes over the heads of our newborn, tow-headed triplets. Dark Angel and I spending weeks together writing the script for our T.V. special on Rwanda, seamlessly interweaving our thoughts. Could all that be a sham? Maybe. Branwen was by far the best actor of the three of us.

I must have looked as stricken as I felt, because Dark Angel’s face softened. “That’s not what it was about for me,” she said. “I didn’t mean to use you. You and I were best buddies. And we both wanted lots of children. I thought we could have a great partnership. Francesca didn’t want kids.”

“Whoa,” I said, looking over at Blonde Angel. “You’re always giving interviews about how you’re dying to have a baby, and I callously deprived you of the opportunity.”

“Yes,” Dark Angel said, laughing. “Poor pitiful Francesca, desperate to reproduce.”

“But I can never find the right MAN,” Blonde Angel said. Her huge black eyes shone with savage amusement.

“Francesca hates children,” Dark Angel said.

Of course, I realized. Back when we were married, Francesca had always changed the subject when I’d discussed children. Why had I believed her P.R. barrage? Maybe it was because after years of ambivalence, I’d fallen so hard for my own kids. I’d assumed Blonde Angel had gone through a similar metamorphosis.

Maureen was listening, her blue-green orbs gleaming. “It’s kind of like the plot of Emma. Remember when Frank Churchill flirts with Emma to conceal his engagement to Jane Fairfax?”

My two Angels stared at her. Neither of them was a big reader.

“Who’s she?” Blonde Angel asked.

“My private dick,” I said. Dark Angel snickered.

“Ladies,” I said. “This is the twenty-first century. I’m flattered you chose me as Super Daddy, Branwen. But I don’t see why either of you needed to conceal anything.”

“Bad for our careers,” Blonde Angel said. “Even today.” She listed several names--actors we knew whose roles had suddenly dried up after coming out.

“You’ve been fooling me for ten years. Why? Why didn’t you ever tell me? If you wanted revenge, Francesca, why didn’t you rub my face in it?”

“We figured you’d catch on,” Blonde Angel said. “But you never did. It was all working smoothly. After a while we thought, why disrupt things?”

Dark Angel nodded in agreement.

“Why all the activity with Ray, Chris and Kurt?” Maureen asked.

“We heard a reporter was on our trail. We decided to put up some smoke and mirrors.”

“I didn’t think you’d stoop to spying on me,” Dark Angel said reproachfully.

I thought about that journalist. I’d known it was time our story had a new twist. You couldn’t buy publicity like that.   Maybe it was my turn for revenge.

“Why shouldn’t I tell the press everything I know?”

“Not good for your career either,” Dark Angel said.

“You’d look stupid,” Blonde Angel said, a little cattily. “Like I did when you started coming on to Branwen.”

Another montage started playing on my mental screen--this one pornographic. Branwen, breathless after we first made love in her trailer. That time in Bali, in the ocean, waves crashing around us.   That time in our tent as we were travelling through the Sahara...

“Our sex life?” I asked. “Was that just a mockery?”

Branwen looked over at Francesca, her eyes a little clouded. “Very enjoyable,” Branwen said. Francesca threw her a glare. “But there’s nothing like making love with the love of your life,” Branwen added. She gave Francesca a moist, yearning look, so intimate I had to turn my head away.   Francesca’s furious black eyes softened.

“What about me? Don’t I get any love?” I thought about how ridiculous that sounded. Me, Blake Morgan, the man every woman in America wanted to sleep with, whining that nobody loved him.

My two Angels exchanged a long look. Then they both glanced at Maureen.

“You don’t deserve for us to tell you…” Blonde Angel said.

“I guess we owe it to you,” Dark Angel said.

“There’s one woman in this room who doesn’t seem jaded by your attractions…” Blonde Angel continued.   The seraphs looked over at Maureen again.

Maureen blushed scarlet.

***

I wasn’t ready for a new relationship. Even cool California boys have feelings occasionally, and mine had been hurt. I spent several months ranting and raving, threatening Dark Angel I’d spill my guts to the Enquirer and take the kids away forever, warning Blonde Angel that she’d never work again after I published my memoir. Maureen quietly bought me a copy of The Jane Austen Book Club. The moral of the story, she pointed out, was that a girl who reads Austen with her man doesn’t cheat on him. I thought it over, and found I was persuaded by her logic. My pair of Angels turned into a trinity, bringing us all a new equilibrium. Branwen and Francesca remained secret lovers. Branwen and I stayed married and continued to be happy co-parents and, outside the boudoir, partners. We filled in the oldest of our brood on our unorthodox ménage--they’re mellow California kids and thought it was kind of cool. The younger ones will learn when they’re of age.

Maureen too was copacetic with these arrangements. She enjoyed spending time with the kids, but, like Francesca, didn’t want her own--certainly not ten of them. And unlike Francesca, she was a quiet girl who would have hated the publicity of being my official consort. My Red-Headed Angel and I spend a lot of time together making love after savoring our favorite mood-enhancer: The Annotated Pride and Prejudice.

-----

BIO

Susan Chalfin’s short story Remember You Will Die was published in Murder New York Style: Fresh Slices (L&L Dreamspell 2011). She has also published articles on mystery gaming for The Daily News and essays on the darker side of parenting for Big Apple Parent. She lives with her husband and two teenage daughters. Susan is working on selling her first novel, a mystery that satirizes Manhattan preschools. For her day job, Susan is a securitization and derivatives attorney. She promises to stop wrecking the economy as soon as she gets a nice book deal.