The Girl in the Flaming Dress

An excerpt from the novel
The Girl in the Flaming Dress
by Michael J. Vaughn

An Explanation

While writing this novel, I had a date to the opera (Die Fliegende Hollander, Opera San Jose). Arriving early, I took a walk around my date's neighborhood, the Palm Haven section of San Jose. The '40s style architecture, along with a spooky evening wind, reminded me of a Raymond Chandler novel, and I began to narrate to myself in that lovely, rhythmic noir style. (He slid from the curb like a shadow, his troubles weighing him down like a backpack filled with rocks.) When I finally picked up my date, she was wearing the most astounding dress, and there was my central theme. I decided, just for fun, to write a Chandleresque short story, then, much to my surprise, found that it fit rather nicely into my novel. Then I decided to use the title for the whole book. (I worried about the word Girl, which has gotten into far too many titles lately, but my secret advisor, La Diva, said, "What do you care? It's not like they're gonna be disappointed at the contents." Bless her.) As for my date, I never saw her again, but I'm eternally grateful. Here's looking at you, kid.

The Girl in the Flaming Dress

I’m due to beat the skins at FDR’s, but I’m running early. I’m always early. Manny hands me a flight of brews, but it just puts me to sleep. I wake at the glass, one eye on my Toyota. I lost a window to a smash-and-grabber and right now it’s as open as a library.

            The gig is special – rowdy crowd, good drinkers, chair dancers – but afterward my singer is putting me in a flummox. She up-and-downs me, leaving eyeprints all over my clothing. The thing is, she’s comparing me to my former self, Fat Johnny, and she’s dazzled by the results. No miracles, really, just joining a gym and not being a pig. Granted, I don’t pump iron to be ignored, but it’s still me inside and her ex-boyfriend is my lead guitarist, ten feet away. And, she’s still out of my league. My former flabby self can’t handle the attention.

            Of course, I’m an idiot. But Pamela is disrupting the natural balance of evolution. I bullet out of San Francisco in my Toyota, the plastic blowing over my window like the tarps at Candlestick Park. I try not to think about the way Pamela kept taking off her leather jacket during the gig, revealing her backless top. And then I open the other window.

            My antidote arrives at Frankie’s Lounge in the form of Cha-Cha Flores, my favorite drink of mocha and unofficial alcoholic niece. She’s got her hair all curled up around her teddy bear eyes and I swear I want to take her home and add her to my plush toy collection. She’s nervous about getting married (who wouldn’t be?) but I know her Jimmy and you can’t find better. I sing the Tender Trap regardless and I’m gone.

            I’m up the next morning far too early on accounta some blind date at my golf course. The actuality is a testimony to photographic weight-reduction techniques, but I’m willing to take one for the team. I deliver a bouquet of drugstore flowers and chew on a meatloaf as she talks about life in the big cubicle. But my mind is already on the range, where I will use my new driver to inscribe 300-yard parabolas against the green-blonde hills. The clouds chug by like trolleys and all is good.

            But yeah, something’s bugging me so here’s what it is. Stevie. Stevie who walks into Frankie’s on a Saturday night, strikes a pose and takes over the joint. And freezes my heart. She sent a response to my latest begnote that bamboozles me. You are so funny! Perhaps in another life…

            A simple no would have been so much better.

            This, this is from the Sphinx. What exactly is keeping us apart? Am I a Montague, she a Capulet? Am I under an ancient curse? Have I lost an extremity? Amongst a hundred women with their eyes on me, the one that bugs me the most is the one who’s not interested.

            So I report home to wash the regret from my skin, and I put on my best funeral clothes for a night at the opera.

            Yeah, I know. I surprise myself sometimes. But this one is a professorial type, mousy, brainy, irresistible, and you do what you gotta. She tells me not to arrive early, so naturally I arrive early, and I run out of stalls at her curbside so I take a hike around the block.

            Palm Haven looks like forties Los Angeles with the Craftsmans, bungalows and art decos shadowed by high palms. It’s the kind of neighborhood that’s so pretty it kinda scares you. I’m hoofing it around this triangular park, the shadows making me feel like Sam Spade on a junket. A cloud of blackbirds traces me, wearing little copper badges, peppering me with questions. Do you have business in this neighborhood, sir? Is there an address you were looking for? Have you been drinking this evening?

            I finish the loop, expecting cholos and junkies, but all I get are techies and Pekingese. I’m still five minutes early, but I’ve had it, so I step into the chamber of Donna’s porch and hit the knocker. It’s an adobe wth fine lines, mission-style. I think St. Francis lives here. I see polygons of sheetrock on the floor, a safe path for the mugs who just tiled her kitchen.

            She appears at the corner of the door, straight dark hair, vanilla skin, green eyes. Donna is no beauty queen, but her body has a personality all its own, a 50-year-old personal trainee from heaven.

            She opens the door and smiles. I’m not actually certain what I’m looking at. I wait for her to talk so she’ll walk away, so I’ll stop hallucinating.

            “You are early. But not too. Let me get you some tequila.” She walks away. And yeah.

            Her dress rises in terraces. It starts out a smoky black, just over the knee, then graduates to red, to orange, and then to tangerine at the bust. She is a human flame. I’m finding it hard to breathe. She hands me a shot of Patrón, a slice of lemon. I shoot and suck, and when I resurface I have words.

            “This dress is amazing.”

            “Thanks! I wore it to a party this summer and it was so bright today I…” and keeps on talking like she has no idea that she has gone and turned herself into a goddess.

            I’m a wreck. I drive her away in my pathetic car. I follow her up the stairs of the parking garage, my eyes directly at her hips (I can’t say “ass” when referring to a goddess).

            In the outside world, I am my fake charming smile. We enter an opera house whose furnishings have been adjusted to complement her dress. A flaming golden sun rises over the proscenium. The show is about a mariner who’s been condemned to sail the seas for all eternity, unless he finds a true woman and I got news for him this might take a while. But there I am in the seventh row, reduced to puberty, afraid to take those white fingers in mine on accounta what it might imply. On the way to intermission, I place a hand on the back of her dress, her muscles firm underneath, and I want to touch her everywhere but she is on fire and I shouldn’t. It takes a post-opera martini to force the truth out of me.

            “I am walking around with this elegant creature on my arm, and I am feeling completely flummoxed.”

            Donna gives me a blank look, but I think she is giving me the polygraph. Apparently I pass the test, because later she tells me, “It was nice to be complimented on my dress. And more than once!”

            I hug her at the door and I leave. The stars are too bright, and I am afraid that when she takes off that dress she will return to mortal form. It reminds me of this other opera, where a warrior princess saves the whole operation by burning herself alive. She could fly, this one.

            In the mariner opera, the woman is untruthful, so the captain goes back to his cursed ship. But then the woman hurls herself into the bay, comes out an angel, and she and the captain fly away together.

            But there’s your fix. You can’t worship a woman that much. She might catch fire, and she might have to jump into the ocean to put herself out.

            Tonight, I’m calling Pamela. What the hell.

The Girl in the Flaming Dress: An Excerpt

An Excerpt from the novel
The Girl in the Flaming Dress
a novel by Michael J. Vaughn

When Gerry Meets Karen

Twelve

 

They’ve got him to the side of the main floor,  so the traffic is pretty mellow. Phil hit up some of his vendors for props. The favorite is a six-foot trout that barely fits in the frame. Throw in some accessories from previous gigs – oversize sunglasses, feather boas, goofy hats – and the booth makes a nice little diversion. The automatic camera spits out triple-photo strips like the ones at amusement parks, and a few of the customers even take the time to drop a bill in his tip jar.

            Still, from an artistic point of view, Gerry is deadly bored. When ten o’clock arrives, he’s more than happy to hang the Back in 15 sign and head out to take some candids. He’s also excited to try out his new toy, a candy red Nikon that cuts an interesting mid-line between his old-style portrait cameras and the new digitals. The first adjustment is shooting using a screen. It feels weird, holding the camera away from his face, but in the long run this might be better for his eyes. The auto-focus is another thing. It creates a delay between the release of the shutter and the actual shot. It’s almost like he has to fire a little bit ahead of the action he’s looking for.

            By mid-morning, the convention is pretty active (fishermen being early risers), and there’s no shortage of subjects. The stage holds a shallow pool for fly fishing demos. The floor offers dozens of booths for gear and clothing, plus a trio of sleek-looking boats. The back of the theater is lined with food stands. Even this early, the favorite is a combination bratwurst/beer stand hosted by Von Scheidt, a Twin Falls brewery. Of course, the real draw might be the Bavarian dirndls worn by the servers, which offer plenty of cleavage. Gerry spots an old-timer with a hundred lures attached to his fishing hat and takes a shot. Sadly, it’s time to get back to his booth.

 

Thirteen

 

After too many days of thinking about how much she’s spending on her hotel room, Karen is delighted to be back at work. She and Brenda have only three ales to choose from – an oatmeal stout, a red ale and a brown porter – and Manuel and Rhaz do a good job of supplying them with bratwurst. Looking at her dirndl in the reflection from the taps, she realizes the lucky peach blouse was an excellent choice for her job interview.

            Her next customer is quite a character, an old dude whose fishing hat resembles a porcupine. As she hands him a porter he says, “Sorry I’m late, I had to get through the metal detector.” Which completely cracks her up.

 

Fourteen

 

Karen is somewhat surprised to find a body on her sofa, but then the previous night trickles into her brain. Faced with a sudden snowstorm, she offered her Twin Fallsian coworker refuge in her room (her room that she has got to give up). Karen sets up the coffeemaker, hits the switch and peers through the curtains. It’s no longer snowing, but the town is a complete whitewash. Past the trailer park, toward the desert, she sees a black dot moving at a rapid pace. It stops very suddenly, and then she sees a man walking after, with a pack on his back.

            “Whatcha lookin’ at?”

            Karen jumps. Brenda laughs.

            “Sorry. I’m kinda stealthy.”

            “There is a black critter running around in the snow, with some guy following it.”

            “You got some scintillating shit happening in this town. Well. May as well find out for sure.” She digs into her purse and pulls out a small pair of binoculars. “Hey, don’t judge. I am an avid birdwatcher.”

            “And what else?”

            “And what else. Here.”

            Karen manages to focus just as the man slides a stick from his bag. He places a tiny pink dot on the snow, sets his feet and swings. The pink dot disappears. The black circle, an extremely fluffy dog, stays in his spot. His owner says something, and the dog takes off like a shot.

            “How freaking adorable! He’s golfing with his dog.”

            “Adorable or insane,” says Brenda. “I’m gonna grab some coffee. My head is a circus.”

            “That’s what you get for drinking from the stock.”

            “Well someone had to.”

 

Fifteen

 

The encounters with Kerry are getting more and more awkward, but he simply can’t leave without slipping a twenty into her mailbox. And there she is at the door, made up and as fetching as ever. Her eyes have this little touch of green, and it bothers him that he notices such things. She invites him in for a hot chocolate, but he begs off, citing some made-up portrait session. Halfway home, he receives a solid thwack on his shoulder.

            “Asshole!”

            Angela wears a lemon-yellow raincoat. Her hair is blood red.

            “Yeah?” he says. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

            “That girl is sending more signals than AT&T! For the sake of women everywhere, go ravish her.”

            “Yeah, well maybe you should get a life.”

            “Ha ha. Very funny. Hi Sophie.”

            She reaches down to give the golf dog a head scratch. Sophie’s constant expression is joy, so it doesn’t really change much.

            “Can I make it up to you?” asks Gerry. “I’m doing a treasure hunt.”

            “Oh goody!”

            The treasure hunt is the first step in the editing process, when Gerry deletes unusable photos and save the good ones for later. The failure rate for candids is extremely high, since all kinds of random nonsense can venture in to muck things up. A blurred face on a fly caster. Bad shadows on a girl looking at landing nets. A man trying on a vest.

            “Why that one?” asks Angela. “Looks pretty clear.”

            “Yeah, but look at that expression. I’m selling a convention, not laxatives.”

            Angela liggles. It almost makes him cry when she does that. He hits the next image. It’s the old dude with the prickly hat. He’s smiling like crazy, showing off those gorgeous crow’s feet. The unexpected part is the server. She’s laughing, open-mouthed, an expression of sheer release. A tendril of brown hair dangles across her forehead. The lighting radiates her face, a button nose, sharp eyebrows, kittenish eyes, just enough cleavage for sexy, not so much to keep her out of a family brochure.

            “Angela, old girl, I hate to make the obvious comment, but – Jackpot.”

            “Oh… hoh,” she robots. “You… so… funny. But you’re right. It’s perfect.”

 

Sixteen

 

Karen takes Brenda to breakfast at Barton’s 93 and then sees her off. She spends the rest of the day watching free movies in her room (her room that she must get rid of). She fully intends to cross the street and see if the General Store is, in fact, a general store, but curiosity steers her in the direction of Cactus Pete’s Buffet. She’s beginning to see how addictive the casino lifestyle can be. With its plate glass walls and colorful artworks, the buffet is a little irresistible.

            What’s worse is that the food is really good. Attendants offer freshly sliced cuts of turkey and roast beef. There are a dozen varieties of seafood, tasty vegetable sides, and an endless selection of pastries, pies and custards. Karen vows to stop at two platefuls, but then she sees a tray of white cheddar macaroni and has to give it a try. She sits at her table taking nibbles, feeling plump. She hopes that no one sees her, but then, of course, who would?

            “Hi!”

            It’s Dr. Al, looming over her table in a caramel-colored leather jacket. He holds out a beer as if he’s toasting her.

            “Karen, right?”

            “Yes. Have a seat. I’m making a pig of myself.”

            Al sits down and rubs his hands together. “Another victim of the buffet.”

            “It’s amazing!” she says. “You just don’t expect the food to be this good.”

            “Before Cactus Pete’s, I was the business manager at a culinary academy. When I arrived here, I decided that a casino could pull in extra business if the buffet food had the same quality as a fine restaurant. We built this one from scratch, and, I am happy to report, we have won quite a few awards.”

            “Fantastic! I’m a little concerned about my budget, however.”

            “Sure. Well, the general store is a legit grocery store, so you could save a little money there.”

            “I was wondering about that.”

            Dr. Al smiles as if he’s harboring a secret. Karen takes another bite of the mac and cheese. It’s impossibly good.

            “I hope I’m not being presumptuous, Dr. Al, but I feel like you’ve got something on your mind.”

            “Yes, I do. Sorry.” He fiddles with his phone and shows her the screen. It’s a picture of an elderly fisherman receiving a beer from a radiant young woman. It slowly occurs to Karen that the radiant young woman is her. And that she looks happy. Naturally, she begins to cry. Dr. Al watches her with a growing look of concern.

            “This is not really the… reaction I anticipated.”

            Karen wipes her eyes with a napkin and smiles. “I can’t believe… how beautiful… Who took this?”

            “Gerry Vincent. My regular photog. I asked him to shoot some candids at the convention. He’s got a tremendous eye. We’d like to use it for the brochure next year. If you come by my office tomorrow and sign a release, I’ll cut you a check for a hundred. A modeling fee.”

            Karen’s eyes go out of focus. “A modeling fee? Me? A modeling fee?”

            Al snickers. “Do I really have to tell you that you’re an attractive woman?”

            “Yes!”

            “Karen, you’re an attractive woman. Something more than that, too. You have this… girl-next-door quality.”

            Karen plants her chin on her palm. “Wow. Could I meet this photographer? I want to thank him.”

            Dr. Al thinks about it. Gerry is a creature of habit, and not fond of interruptions. But perhaps Gerry’s routine needs to be messed with.

            “You can meet him right now. Follow me.”

 

Seventeen

 

Gerry and Sophie are deep into a fetchathon when Sophie detours from her well-worn path to bark at the door. Gerry opens it to find Al ambling up the steps with a fetching brunette. There is no evading Al, he’s too much of a presence. Gerry puts on his best fake smile.

            “Dr. Al! What brings you here?”

            Al shakes his hand. “I wanted you to meet the young lady from your prize photo. Gerry, this is Karen.”

            Karen takes Gerry’s hand and he quickly puts the pieces together, the button nose, the perfect eyebrows, the smile that grows and grows until she’s hugging him. Gerry feels like a ripe fruit at the grocery store, having all the seeds squished out of him. Karen eventually lets him go and laughs, embarrassed. Gerry can see Al behind her, wearing a grin.

            “I’m sorry,” says Karen. “But you don’t know how much that photo means to me. You made me look so… happy.”

            “When I first showed it to her,” says Al, “she started crying. I never knew you had this effect on females.”

            “Neither did I.”

            The three of them stand there in silence. Sophie takes the opportunity to run at Karen’s feet and give her a thorough sniffing.

            “What an adorable dog!” she says.

            “Thanks.”

            “You know,” says Al. “I just got a great idea. Gerry, I’d like you to take Karen out sometime this week and take some photos of her. Around the casino and around town. Just charge me for your time. And Karen, too. How’s thirty an hour?”

            “Sure!”

            “Well, I gotta get back to the casino. Karen, you want a ride?”

            “No. I’ll walk.”

            Al drives away in his golf cart. Karen and Gerry stand out front to exchange numbers and set up their shoot. Karen fidgets, not certain what will happen if she goes for another handshake.

            “Thanks again for… making me a star.”

            “Hey, you made the shot. I was just in the right place.”

            Karen smiles, and yes, there’s something about that smile. A little embarrassed, in a most fetching way.

            “I’ll see you Thursday.”

            “Good night.”

            She walks toward the casino, which looms like a friendly monster over the low-lying neighborhood. She smokes her breath like a cigarette, feeling playful. Feeling young.