“I knew right away that she wasn’t gay,” Archangel continued, demolishing her multiple entrées as I watched, almost too captivated by her appetite to pay attention to what she was saying. “I am gay, that is, I’m bisexual, and my gaydar is impeccable. She was different. She never faked any kind of social shenanigans. She liked you or she didn’t like you, and when she didn’t like you, she wasn’t impolite, she simply didn’t bother. If some of her fans at the club thought she was gay, that wouldn’t necessarily have been offensive to them. Kind of the opposite. Some straight men are very turned on by gay women. Maybe because they’ve watched women together in pornography or maybe because they think, wow, they could change them... you know, if a real man finally got his hands on them?”
She paused, and we both ordered more coffee. I got a latte and more toast because I wasn’t really eating my breakfast. At the best of times, I have an uneasy mental relationship witheggs, since I learned in high school that they were only one cell, which seemed obscene. That day, my relationship with eggs took a big left-hand swerve. I thought that if I took one more bite of my Mère Poulard omelet, I would throw up my whole life. The thought crossed my mind then: Could I be pregnant? I’d had an ominous dream the previous night. I was sitting in the passenger seat of a car and in my cupped hands were three tiny naked babies, fully developed but each the size of a shrimp. I had to keep them warm. I had to keep them alive, and I had nothing to cover them, so I held my hands close to my face and tried to blow on them with my warm breath. A man was driving, and although I couldn’t see his face, I kept asking him for advice, but he didn’t answer. I woke up crying.
Archangel was saying, “Or maybe it’s because what women do together is pretty much like what men do with women, whereas what men do with men is foreign, or even scary to them.”
What if I were pregnant? Wouldn’t that be the coldest drench on the hottest newborn love affair? Sam wanted children, he said. He wanted me. Did he want a whole package deal, instantly? Would I be the only woman in the middle of the twenty-first century who “had” to get married? What was I thinking? I knew I wasn’t pregnant, that this was just an idle speculation. On one hand, it was sort of an inverted relief to even be in the position of having to wonder about unplanned pregnancy; on the other hand, it would be a nightmare come true.
As if the outside of my head was echoing the inside of my head, Archangel said that she and her husband wanted to have a baby soon, at least one, probably more than one.
“I thought you were gay,” I said. “Didn’t you say that?”
“Not entirely. I said I was bisexual. A little of this, a little of that. I think that’s true of many people who wouldn’t admit to it in so many words. I’m married to my best friend, and he likesboys too, I mean, not boys, but men. That’s in the past now. We like each other best of all.”
“Does he mind that you’re a stripper?”
“No,” said Archangel. “He works at the club. You know him. Kelly, the bouncer. Kelly Green.”
“His name is Kelly Green?” Of course it was. The sociology of that place!
“He’s the gentlest guy on earth when he’s not... bouncing.”
Indeed, Ophelia was a microcosmic universe of alternative love... not to mention dining. How many ways did people find to how many kinds of love in how many kinds of places? Who’d have imagined all this drama—sex, scandal, infidelity, murder—in a Pepto-pink place the size of a dental office? There was probably plenty of intrigue at a dental office too, given what Sam had told me about veterinarians livingla vida loca.
Sated, apparently, with only a single triangle of wheat toast remaining from that entire smorgasbord of proteins and pastries, Archangel leaned toward me. Lowering her voice to a growl, like a fingernail scraped across satin, she said, “One thing I know is true. The last time I saw Felicity, this was a few weeks after she had left the club, it was late fall, and something was wrong.” It had been months since the two were together. Every time Archangel called, Felicity begged off: she was late for an appointment; her car was in the shop; she was consumed with a list of pressing chores that she told her had to do with getting back to college. “It just didn’t sound right. I could have gone to her. She didn’t need a car to meet with me. I would have picked her up. And you can fill out a form anytime.”
The last part of the story was this: One late afternoon, Archangel ran into Felicity. Even though she was swathed in a voluminous coat and several scarves, Archangel could see that Felicity was not just slender, she was sunken. She was also rattled,distracted, and that wasn’t Felicity. “She started to leave, but I stopped her. I insisted we get a quick cup of coffee. When we sat down, she kept looking out at the street, looking at her phone. I finally said, ‘Felicity, what the fuck is wrong?’” That was when Felicity told Archangel that she had to get away, far away. And for good. “It was like... I know how this sounds... it was like she was being hunted.”
As they left the coffee shop, headed in different directions, Felicity suddenly took hold of Archangel’s arm, pulling her close, into a tight hug. “And that wasn’t Felicity either. She was the person who let you hug her but she didn’t initiate it. I had the strangest feeling. It was as if she might never see me again.” Archangel pressed her forefingers, perfectly manicured silver talons, to her closed eyes. “That’s my theory. That was why she was working at a strip club. That was why she was working as a hustler. She needed all that untaxed, untraceable money. She was going to disappear.” She added, “I don’t think Felicity killed anybody. But she was scared.”
But what Archangel said was only a theory. On the night Emil Gardener died, if Felicity truly thought the old man had a heart attack in her apartment, if she really didn’t know he had ingested cyanide, and she had nothing to do with it, why did she call Finn Vogel on Christmas Eve?
Why didn’t she call the police instead?
It wasn’t because she was an escort. The police couldn’t prove that. Mr. Gardener could have been visiting for any number of innocent reasons. She might have been considering the study of dairy science. He might have been her spiritual adviser. In any case, I knew enough to know that women who got arrested for engaging in sex for a fee these days most often paid a fine and went home. The story crossed over to obsession.
Archangel repeated, “You know Felicity didn’t kill anybody. I will never believe that.”
“You don’t want to believe it.”
“That’s different. I don’t believe it. It wouldn’t have appealed to her sense of order. She knew how to get what she wanted. Even if it didn’t go against her beliefs, she wouldn’t take that kind of chance. Not even once, not to say twice.”
As we left the restaurant, I asked, “Why is the club called Ophelia?”
“It’s the name of Jack’s godmother. He has a niece of that name too. He adores her. He wishes she was his instead of his sister’s.” Archangel told me that she would give Dovey and Lolo the word that it was okay to speak to me. (“Lolo” was short for “Lolita”—you couldn’t make this stuff up. They both liked attention, and probably wouldn’t mind their real names being used if I wrote a story, although Archangel said that might not be in their best interests.)
I asked why.
“The boss might not be a fan of the publicity.”
“The boss... Lily?”
“The owner, Jack. You met him. On the other hand, he might not care. It’s well-known that she worked there.”
That evening, Lily buttonholed me, motioning me into the dressing room. “I know what you’re doing,” she said. I said nothing. “I have eyes, don’t I? You work at a magazine. You come from the same town as a former employee who’s now been charged with murder. I didn’t really think you just wanted to try out strip club life for research when you could have worked any number of places. But the real reason is, she mentioned you once.”
“She did?”
“I have dreams of writing a novel someday,” Lily said and laughed, shaking her head ruefully. “Doesn’t everybody? Doesn’teverybody think,Wow, I’ve lived such a fascinating life, it could be a novel!And how many times is that actually true? And if it is true, how many times do people have the guts and the talent to try it? Anyhow, I told Felicity this once, and she said, ‘You should talk to my best friend. She’s a writer, she’s a wonderful writer.’” Lily paused. “I thought she called you Ronnie. But when I saw your name, I put it together.”
