Page 20 of The Dirty Version
Tash’s brother Rohan called to video-chat as she readied herself for the film festival’s Vaudeville Striptease event.
She balanced her phone on the bathroom marble as she assessed her makeup, Rohan’s easy smile wedged between a flickering dark-rum candle and a half-drunk glass of red wine.
The setup stirred Tash’s memories of high school weekends—that hour before she’d go out on a Saturday night, when Rohan would sit on the ledge of the bathtub and shoot silly jabs as Tash flat-ironed her hair.
The sight of his tired eyes and West Hollywood man-bun, now slightly askew from a long nursing shift, panged in the hollow carved by their distance—Rohan’s affectionate insults so close, and still so far away.
After several wardrobe conferences with Janelle, Tash had selected skimming tuxedo pants and a filmy, sheer black shirt for the evening—the top’s fabric a contradiction, both covering and exposed.
Her silhouette apparent, but only in relief—against the right light, in her chosen arrangement.
Janelle assured Tash it read “courageous and carefree.”
She left her hair loose and wavy, thin gold bangles on both wrists. She fashion-showed Rohan her earrings—a birthday gift to her from his boyfriend, Wesley. The tourmaline and gold spangles caught the glint of candle as she spoke.
“They’re a talisman.” Tash patted a subtle highlighter beneath her brow bone. “I’m bringing you two with me.”
“Where—to your ‘work event’ at a ‘burlesque club’?” Rohan gave her taunting air quotes as he swapped his scrubs top for a T-shirt. “Just admit you’re on the pole, Trash”—invoking his favorite, most horrid teenage nickname for her. “I get it—the TV money’s running out.”
The soft tip of her eyeliner pen stuttered.
Tash narrowed at her brother on the screen.
“It’s research, idiot. Caleb thought it would be good scene prep—we’re working on something where the physical choreography needs to be more than just plain humping.
” She gave him a rude look. “Which I’m sure is something you don’t understand. ”
Rohan’s thick eyebrows furrowed. He pretended to squint into the camera. “Oh. This must be the wrong number—I’m looking for my sister? She drives a hatchback and wore headgear? She doesn’t say pretentious screenwriting shit?”
Tash laughed. “Tonight is work. That’s all I mean.”
Rohan’s tall frame lumbered through his sun-drenched 1920s bungalow, his phone camera catching wisps of bright, basil-hued cabinetry and a collection of hanging copper pots.
Tash watched him assemble a post-work vodka tonic in his spotless kitchen, then rustle around for snacks.
Wesley must have been out; Rohan put his legs up in a leather armchair in their library alcove.
“You’re not allowed to eat there!” Tash loved taking Wes’s side.
Rohan’s middle finger filled the phone screen as he gulped half his drink. “Now back to tonight’s orgy—is the studio guy still being a douchebag? How many orgasms have you had to fake so far?”
It took Tash a moment to decrypt Rohan’s teasing and realize he meant Caleb—the last time she’d spoken to her brother, she’d painted Caleb as a foe.
She dredged a powder brush through iridescent shadow, tapping away the excess, considering her near-complete reversal: The few days they’d already spent on new Episode Five development had been nothing short of great.
“Actually.” She figured she could be completely honest with Rohan, maybe even more so than Janelle. He was less invested in the book’s themes. Tash could unguardedly unpack. “Working with him has been kind of amazing.”
From an armchair in West Hollywood, Rohan coughed. “You’re kidding.”
“I’m not.” Tash finished her mascara. “I know. I thought it would be sleazy, but Caleb’s approach to intimacy is really thoughtful.
It’s getting me to consider character dynamics in a totally different way.
It might change the way I write.” Her eyes flicked to watch her brother, who visibly did not buy it.
“I know I said a ton of horrible things about him when we started—but he’s gotten me to keep an open mind. ”
Rohan repeated it, disbelievingly: “He’s gotten you to keep an open mind?” He set down his glass, extremely suspicious. “Hold on. What does he look like? Is he cute?”
Tash tossed her brother a close-lipped, lash-fluttering shrug. She left it to his imagination. To her imagination.
She wouldn’t even know where to begin the rundown.
She ducked coquettishly away from the camera, hunting in her wardrobe for a clutch.
“Ho! Loose woman!” Rohan shouted from the screen at her back. “I don’t even believe you! There are no thoughtful, cute guys in LA! I had to import Wesley from Nevada!”
Tash returned after a moment, slim black calfskin clutch in hand. “It doesn’t matter what he looks like.” Even though her face gave it away. “Not only does Caleb not date people he works with—but how dumb would I have to be to mess around with someone who reports in to the studio?”
All true. And even as Tash said it, she didn’t believe her own words. Or at least she couldn’t believe Caleb would be that complicit.
“I’m already compromising on the parameters of the adaptation—legally, I have to.” Sparing Rohan the rest of the details. “But come on, I’m not going to get involved with him, Rohan. I’m not stupid.”
“Um.” Rohan’s little brother’s ragging begged to differ.
“Go fuck yourself.” She smiled, smoothing her hair one last time.
“I don’t know what to say. I’m speechless.” Rohan kept talking as Tash retrieved her shoes. “Does this mean you decided not to do that podcast? Now that you’re in bed with Hollywood, New York can kiss your ass?”
“I’m not ‘in bed’ with Hollywood.” Tash sat down to slip her heels on. “I’m still doing the podcast.”
He grimaced. “Trash! We hate that fucking guy!” Rohan had hated Leo Rousseau firsthand—he’d driven to New York with his fraternity brothers, after the breakup, to help bundle Tash back home. “Have you actually spoken to him?”
“No.” She shook her head. “Just to his guest outreach.” Her admittedly self-justifying reasoning met her brother’s frown: “Look—it’s an opportunity to align myself with a broadcast that’s more in keeping with my sensibilities.
I can remind the fans the book is predicated on feminist tenets that I haven’t forgotten. ”
“You’re joking.”
“I’m serious! And they definitely only invited me on because Leo’s on a tour. If they weren’t in Florida and looking for local writers, I’d never make their short list.”
“That’s bullshit.” Rohan maintained his legs-up chagrin. “They asked you because that super-nerd wants to see if he can get back in your pants. Your fans won’t be paying attention. No one listens to that podcast or reads that loser’s zine.”
“It’s a journal.”
Her brother persisted. “It’s academic splooge. All you’re doing is giving that jackass another chance to hurt you.”
Tash checked the clock, realizing she had to leave or she’d be late to meet Caleb. She knelt on her carpet, trying to locate her keys. Letters from her mother still sat in a pile at the foot of her bed.
“Speaking of hurt feelings.” Glad to shift the conversation. “Mom hung up on me last week.”
“Yeah. I heard you asked about plucking chicken.” Rohan, the baby, was definitely Mary Grover’s favorite. His voice muffled against the headboard as Tash groped under her nightstand. “I don’t know why you poke that bear.”
She palmed blindly at assorted dust balls, quoting an essay from one of Janelle’s reading lists: “Because mothers are the wall against which daughters bash themselves, Rohan.” Not adding that she still grappled with the bruises; ever since her called-off wedding, when her mom empathized a bit too much with Zach, Tash had been picking at the scabs of their angry exchanges.
“And because sometimes I don’t understand how Mom and I could be related. ”
She remembered: The keys were on her balcony.
“She thinks I’m selfish, and I think she makes herself a patriarchal sacrifice.” Tash checked her reflection in the hallway full-length mirror. “I was looking through those letters for something to explain it. I just don’t get her.”
Rohan might have always received special treatment from their mother, but to his credit, he could also be generous with the sibling sympathy.
“I don’t have an answer for you. But if you come to WeHo, I’ll make you her Ohio chicken special.
” Rohan smiled out from the screen. “No plucking—I promise! I’ll even serve it without the side of judgment. ”
Tash deadpanned into the camera. “Are you suggesting that opening a can of cream of mushroom and dumping it into a slow cooker will help heal my deep philosophical divide with Mom?”
Her little brother laughed. “Yes! And if that doesn’t fix you, we’ll go clubbing. You know, we have burlesque in LA, too.”
Tash did know—she’d spent her bath time with a profile of a certain burlesque nightclub, dug up from the LA Magazine online archive, circa 1998—featuring Vivienne Palmer in pin curls, straddling a backwards cane chair in the middle of Calypso’s main stage, wearing the hot pants version of a navy-sequined sailor suit, her amused gaze smoldering directly into the lens.
Draped at the foot of her fishnets was a squadron of Calypso’s leather-and-feather, rhinestone-retro girls.
But Viv clearly commanded the photographer’s attention.
The profile’s boldface dubbed her “a pioneer of the neo-burlesque renaissance,” “responsible for corseting the zeitgeist.” It claimed “Calypso’s chorus-line seduction set a new standard for modern-dance striptease. ”