Ladies and gentlemen, over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been telling fortunes
at a couple of parties. It’s fun, easy money and gives me a chance to meet some
new people.
This past Friday, I worked a party that I had been laughingly
referring to as ‘the cougar party’ all week. The lady who hired me was
definitely the cougar type. A real man-eater although I didn’t realize how big a
man-eater until later.
I left early to make sure I could find the
address. I’m glad I did as the house did not meet my expectations; it exceeded
them. It was a rambling, two-story brick set in a very chichi neighborhood. A
country club, thoroughbred-horse-raising sort of neighborhood.
I wasn’t
certain I had the right address until I rang the front door and there was my
employer, La Cougar. You would probably recognize the type if you saw her.
Older, tan, moisturized, oozing confidence and surrounded by a cloud of
expensive, floral perfume. Every strand of her platinum hair was in place and
she wore a strand of pearls around her neck that she would toy with all
evening.
She led me into the living room, an open space with pale walls
and pastel-colored, soft furniture. La Cougar’s guests were obviously cut from
the same cloth as herself. They sat around the glass coffee table, sipping
cocktails and quietly congratulating the guest-of-honor on her recent
divorce.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I was working a ‘divorce
party.’
The fortune telling went over well. The ladies were relaxed and
amused. They wanted to know about their love lives, their sex lives. Would they
get married again? Would the trip to Spain work out?
As the night passed,
the wine flowed and the ladies became more relaxed. More salacious. The
conversation drifted to talk of husbands, ex-husbands, boyfriends and even the
occasional liaison. It was informative, if not always flattering.
After I
had finished the last reading, La Cougar took me by the arm and led me into the
dining room to pay me. She was very relaxed at this point, leaning into me. Her
words were a little slurred, her fingers toying with her pearls. She sent her
housekeeper to fetch her checkbook and patted my arm, told me how pleased she
was with my performance and that she would recommend me to all of her friends.
Even if she was genteelly tipsy, I think she was sincere.
The doorbell
rang just as the housekeeper returned, but one of the guests announced she would
get the door. La Cougar started to write me a check when her guest returned,
followed by a young man wearing a Domino’s delivery jacket.
The young
man, said the guest, was lost.
"I have a special delivery with extra
sausage," explained the delivery boy. "But I don’t know where it
goes."
He walked up to the guest of honor, a plump, pink older lady.
"Could you tell me where it goes?" He asked her.
At which point
somebody turned on the stereo and the guy began to strip.
La Cougar had
been writing my check, but the minute the stripper began to dance, she lost all
interest in paying me. She was too busy staring at this young, lanky, blonde boy
peeling his clothes off.
The housekeeper shook her head and led me into
the kitchen. We sat at the kitchen table, where she proceeded to have a glass of
wine, while looking through the shutters at the action in the living
room.
"Scandalous," she said, shaking her head. But she had a little
smile on her face when she said it.
From the noise in the living room, it
looked like it’d be a while before La Cougar returned, so I asked the
housekeeper if she wanted her cards read for free. She declined, saying she
didn’t hold with fortune telling. However, I couldn’t help but notice she had no
problem ogling the stripper. Or opening another bottle of wine.
The wine
loosened her up some and she told me about La Cougar. How she had been married
and widowed three times, each of her husbands richer and older than the last. No
wonder she could afford such a nice house.
After a while, the music and
noise from the living room ended. La Cougar returned, face flushed, eyes bright,
patting her hair into place. She apologized for keeping me waiting, but she
hadn’t known her friend had hired the stripper. Then wrote me a check and showed
me to the front door where the stripper reappeared, mostly dressed, clenching a
handful of cash. We walked out the front door together.
"Do you work for
that lady?" the stripper asked me, looking at me, trying to figure out what
someone like me could possibly be doing for La Cougar.
"She hired me to
work the party," I explained.
He gave me a funny look. "What do you
do?"
"I tell fortunes."
"Oh. I thought you were another
stripper."
I just looked at him. "You’re kidding. Right? Is there a
demand for fat, white strippers?"
He thought about it for a minute then
said, "Probably."
So, gentle readers, if the writing thing doesn’t work
out, I may have something to fall back on.
