Cheapskate in Love (21 page)

When Sandra became aware that they were leaving everything
they looked at in the closet, she went and snatched the hangers from them,
which they were about to replace inside. Helen had just nixed an evening dress
that had a neckline plunging to the waist. And Joan was sending back a
coordinating ensemble of a halter-top, which closely resembled a bikini top,
and very short shorts, which were barely bigger than some panties.

“Let me have those,” Sandra told them brusquely, taking the
clothing from them. “I can see what kind of help you two are.” She went to the
bed to lay down the dress.

“But Helen can’t wear these clothes,” Joan exclaimed. “She’s
our age. She’s not twenty-five.”

“She
can
wear
these clothes,” replied Sandra, sharpening her voice, as she walked to Helen
with the halter-top and shorts. “We’re all in fine shape.”

“Sandy, it was a good idea,” Helen said, trying to appease
her. “These clothes are beautiful. But they’re not for me.”

“Yes, they are,” returned Sandra. “Go try these on.” She
handed Helen the halter-top and shorts.

After a pause in which Helen looked hard at Sandra, as if
she was a cop issuing her a ticket for jaywalking, Helen took the clothes. She
raised them high to verify they were as dinky as they seemed. They were
certainly made without much fabric. She looked at Sandra again to see if she
was serious. She was, so Helen perused the outfit once more in case she had
missed something. It was still the same small size, so Helen decided to become
serious, too. She turned toward Sandra, shook her head slowly but firmly and
attempted to hand back the clothes.

Instead of accepting the clothes, Sandra grabbed Helen by
the arm, pulled her out of her daughter’s bedroom and pushed her toward her own
bedroom, which was at the end of the hallway.

“There’s a big mirror in my room,” Sandra directed. “Last
door on the right. Come back here when you have the clothes on. We’ll be
waiting.”

Unwillingly, Helen went to do as she was told, without a
smile or a kind thought for Sandra, but that didn’t bother Sandra. She watched
Helen go into her bedroom and shut the door. Striding back into her daughter’s
bedroom like a four-star general, Sandra sternly informed Joan with her hands
on her hips, “No more dillydallying. We have to help her. Bill may be a bozo, a
big zero. I think like you do about him. But she thinks differently. Maybe
she’s right about him. She knows him better than we do. I doubt it, but that
doesn’t matter. We’re here to support her, whatever the outcome.”

The long and close friendship between the two women made
this partly scolding speech palatable to Joan. She wasn’t upset at all. “You’re
right, Sandy. You’re right. I can’t imagine her with Bill, but that doesn’t
mean anything. There are other couples I know that don’t make relationship
sense to me either. People are so unpredictable. I thought I knew Helen well.
Maybe opposites do attract.”

“In this case, it would be polar opposites,” said Sandra.
“Though, now that I think of it, Helen can keep a tight grip on her
pocketbook.”

“She’s nothing like him,” responded Joan. “She just likes
being economical.”

“That’s one word for it.”

“Oh, not everyone can spend like you do,” said Joan, “or
like your daughter. I can’t believe these clothes. She must have spent
millions.”

“I don’t want to know the exact figure. It’ll make me feel
more guilty than I am about this stuff.”

“It’s too bad the clothes are for a young person,” commented
Joan. “They are Helen’s size.”

“Helen will wear them,” said Sandra, firm as ever in her
conviction. “You’ll see. Both of you will be amazed at the difference clothes
can make. Now let’s get some more ready for her to try on.”

“OK,” said Joan. “I’ll try to keep an open mind, a mind as
large and carefree as your daughter’s spending habits. The variety of stuff
here is amazing.”

“I wish her mind was a little more closed,” remarked Sandra.
“And if she ever started to spend like cheapskate Bill, I wouldn’t complain.
It’d be a strange change for her, but I wouldn’t complain.”

In unison, both women began to pull more clothes out of the
closet and assemble outfits on the bed in order of their revealing, sexy
qualities. While they were busy laying out clothes for Helen to try on, Helen
returned to the room barefoot, wearing
a plush
, white,
terry-cloth bathrobe, which she had found in Sandra’s bedroom. She held it
closed all the way up to her neck with both hands. Doing her best imitation of
Marilyn Monroe, she walked playfully with quick mincing steps to the central
viewing point in the room. The entire time, she smirked and batted her eyelids
at Sandra and Joan, who were watching her critically, waiting. When Helen
reached the right spot, she posed like the Hollywood star with her lips in a
pucker, as if a dozen cameras were photographing her. With a shimmy, she opened
her arms and let the robe fall to the ground. Sandra and Joan could now see
what she looked like in the halter-top and shorts. Helen dipped a little at the
knees, with her hands on her buttocks and her elbows flared. Her mouth formed
big, lippy kisses, like a fish eating food from the surface of a pond.

“
Oo
-la-la,” said Joan in surprise
and admiration. “Boys, watch out. There’s a new gal loose on Long Island.”

“Bill would be foaming at the mouth, if he saw you,” said
Sandra, who wasn’t surprised by Helen’s new look. “He wouldn’t be running from
you. He’d be running you down.”

Helen dropped her sexpot pose in an instant, replacing it
with a frown. “I feel like a Playboy Bunny. I can’t wear this. Even when I was
a teenager, I never wore so little clothing. Unless I was at the beach during
the hottest day of summer.”

“But that’s what Bill wants to see,” argued Sandra. “He has
no imagination. He wants to see your body.”

“He’s not that bad,” Helen answered. “He’s not some sort of
animal.”

“He’s a man, and men are that way,” Sandra insisted.
“They’re animals. The part of their brain which controls stimulation and desire
is hardwired to their eyes.”

“That’s a simplification,” replied Helen. “Maybe at the very
beginning in a relationship that’s true.”

“Aren’t we at the beginning here with Bill?” asked Sandra.
“Or is there some past history that we should know about?”

“There’s no past history,” protested Helen. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I’m not being ridiculous,” responded Sandra in a manner
that implied she thought someone else was.

An awkward, tense pause was about to ensue, but Joan
hurriedly cleared the air. “Really, Helen, you look good. You look great. I
didn’t think you could wear these clothes before. I’ve never seen you in
something like this. But seeing you now, I don’t see anything wrong. I’m really
surprised by how good you look.”

Although Joan’s amazement at Helen’s appearance was sincere,
her profession of how good she thought Helen looked in the halter-top and
shorts was a bit exaggerated. Helen could wear those clothes in public and
maybe even receive compliments because of how well she kept in shape. But the
revealing cut of the clothes was unflattering for a woman of her age, and Helen
knew it.

“I want a little more coverage, please,” said Helen,
addressing Sandra.

From the bed, Sandra lifted a strapless dress and
coordinating, iridescent jacket. Handing them to Helen, she said, “The jacket
should be carried, not worn.”

Without any reply and the faintest of smiles, Helen took the
clothes and went back to Sandra’s bedroom to change.

Sandra picked the bathrobe Helen had discarded off the floor
and remarked to Joan, “I think we’re finally making progress here. But it’s as
hard as taking a cat for a walk.”

Chapter 23

While Helen went to slip into the second outfit, Sandra
began to think about what jewelry, if any, would be appropriate.

“She shouldn’t wear much jewelry,” said Sandra, thinking
aloud. “He wants to see flesh, bare flesh.
Lots of it.
There shouldn’t be much concealing that.”

“Sparkling stuff would make him break out in a sweat,” added
Joan. “That cheapo would think about insurance and how much it costs. He’d
tremble with fear at the thought of having to buy more expensive jewelry to
please her.”

“You’re right. But I think a necklace might pull his eyes to
her chest. Something with a little glimmer would, let us say, advertise her
assets better.”

“He’d look there anyway, necklace or no necklace,” Joan
said. “He’s not exactly the discreet type. He probably dates like he’s
searching for fresh fruit, looking for the biggest melons.”

“True, but if she had a necklace, he could pretend he was
admiring it and look there more often,” said Sandra, thoughtfully. “I’m going
to look for necklaces. And I think she should wear pearl earrings, too. Simple,
small ones would add some youthful glow to her face. Big pearl earrings would
make her look like my mother-in-law, a dowager if there ever was one.”

“Does your daughter have simple jewelry?”

“Simple’s not her style, but she was prepared for any
occasion, even a picnic with Amish people. I just have to find where she put
things.”

While Sandra began to pull out shallow drawers that had been
built into the closet expressly for the purpose of storing jewelry, Joan
wandered to the section where approximately fifty wigs were displayed. They
were a variety of colors, including unnatural ones like blue and yellow, and
many different styles—luxuriant curls, Egyptian cut, beehive, a huge
braid à la Rapunzel, and many more.

“Did you daughter ever wear these wigs?” Joan asked.

“Yes.
All the time.
She thought an
actress always had to surprise people, so she would use them to disguise
herself. She would even talk in strange accents. A few times I didn’t recognize
her. Once, at a fundraising gala, where we had gone separately, an Irish woman
came up to me, or so I thought she was. This woman talked merrily in a brogue
that was barely understandable. She was dressed in a screaming plaid with a
pile of orange hair on her head. I was sure she was Irish. After gabbing for a
good ten minutes about everything and nothing, she asked for money to buy some
more drinks. I told her to get away and go back to Ireland where she belonged.
That’s when she dropped the disguise, and I realized it was my daughter.”

“Did you give her any money?”

“Absolutely not. I told her she was not going to have
multiple drinks in my presence with my help. But it made no difference. She
immediately got what she wanted from her father. That’s not the kind of father
I had.”

Joan’s attention had drifted from Sandra’s tale to the wigs.
She lifted one with long, wavy, blonde hair from its display stand and tried it
on in front of the dressing table in the bedroom. “This doesn’t look bad,” she
said. The abundance of blonde hair did something to her appearance that she
liked. Naturally, she was a medium-dark brunette and only used dye to conceal
grey hairs. Her straight hair was never allowed to touch her shoulder. With the
wig, she looked like a different person, a very different person.

Still busy searching through the jewelry, Sandra turned to
look at her. “It’ll certainly get Bill’s attention,” she said. “That’s the
hairstyle centerfolds mostly have. I’m sure he knows how they look.”

“That’s what I was thinking,” replied Joan. Actually, she
had been thinking something else. “It’ll give Bill a whole new opinion of
Helen, since she’s so set on having him.” Joan took off the wig and threw it on
the bed. “Let’s see if there’s some more that would help her.” Ostensibly she
was looking for Helen, but secretly she was eager to see how different wigs
became her. The way that the blonde wig had changed her appearance was a small
revelation. The change went beyond her looks. She felt it affect her
personality, her thoughts, even her desires.

While they were ransacking the jewelry and wigs, Helen
re-entered the bedroom in her bare feet, wearing the strapless dress and
jacket, looking rather pleased. The others stopped what they were doing.
Without any theatrical introduction, she gave them a full view of the outfit,
turning around so they could see all sides. “I think this’ll do,” she said.
Although she expressed herself with restraint, she was deeply happy with how
elegant the clothes were and how well they fit. She had never worn such finely
made, beautiful clothing. She thought that if these were the types of clothes
she had to wear to impress Bill, the adventure would be a pleasure.

Sandra and Joan took a long, hard look at her.

“This could work, but you need to put on heels,” said
Sandra.

“And a wig,” said Joan.

“And some simple jewelry, like a necklace and earrings,”
said Sandra.

“And makeup,” added Joan.

“And you need to lift your chest,” continued Sandra.

“And you need to swing your hips when you walk,” declared
Joan.

“I have to do all of that?” exclaimed Helen. Her happiness
became clouded at the thought of all the extra fuss.