Fiona Maazel - Woke Up Lonely

“Looks like a nice party,” Bruce said, and he drained the last of his brandy. “I should probably get a move on. A move seems like a good idea.”

His tongue felt swollen. Unwieldy too. Enunciation would fail him in about three minutes.

“I get sound, too,” she said. “Want to hear?”

Bruce thinking: This Howard Hughes thing is weird, and I want to find Rita. Bruce saying: “Okay, and just another pinch before I go.”

He returned his glass to a side table.

“Volume two,” she said in a voice reserved for the commanding of equipment. “Volume two,” she said in a voice reserved for when your equipment does not work. “Martin!” she yelled.

The butler appeared with tray in hand. It occurred to Bruce that he had never seen a butler in person. “Fix the sound, would you?”

He nodded. Disappeared behind the console. Smacked the thing, which released Crystal’s voice in stereo. Crystal haranguing a woman with a gold bone through her nose and spikes implanted in her skull. A metal headband.

Crystal was saying, “The helix goes on the small of your back, not your hip. The sacrum is a place of power. Whatever you put there is a guiding principle. If you tattoo it on your hip, it just means you want to get laid. Makes us look frivolous.”

“Mute two,” Lynne said, and the TV went quiet.

Bruce stood. “Mrs. Anderson, I really should be joining my wife. Thank you for your hospitality. If you’ll just show me the way.” He was listing, one arm braced on a chair back.

Lynne said, “She doesn’t look too concerned,” and she gestured at monitor one, in which Rita and her new Cro-Magnon hero were sharing a laugh. “Please, stay a bit longer. Some pastry, perhaps?”

He retook his seat. Accepted another brandy. He was drunk and glad for it. Now he could say what he wanted, which was this: “You know, Lynne, I figure since I had to leave my driver’s license with security, that’s how you know my name. But how do you know who my wife is? And what’s with all the cameras? I’m a filmmaker myself, so I get wanting to look at people and their lives. But in this case, in this place, I don’t approve of it so much. Not at all. Forgive me if this seems rude, but are you looking to take a lover? Is this Sunset Boulevard? ”

Lynne laughed with her whole body, pitching back and forth and finally just forth, doubled at the waist, trying to breathe. When she regained herself, her eyes were bright and cold and the tears seemed to freeze on her cheeks.

“My, my,” she said. “Aren’t you to the point. But really now, what do you mean? Your wife is Crystal’s employer. She told me.”

He frowned. Waved his hand, waving it off, and said, “Right, of course. I am, you know, a jackass.”

“What’s more,” Lynne said, “I know you like film because of Crystal, too. That’s why I thought you’d like my setup here.”

“A jackass! That’s me. Bruce J. Bollinger. Lynne, you are a fascinating creature. You are the stuff of documentaries. You’ve seen a thing or two, literally and otherwise, so how is it you think they’re having a party down there? No, I don’t buy it. I got your number, Mrs. A. I do.”

“Well,” she said, and she smoothed down her skirt. “It’s not my place to think too rigorously about what I hear. Now, tell me about yourself. Are you enjoying your new job?”

“No.”

“No? That’s too bad.”

He pushed at the floor with his feet. His feet lost purchase — this rug was no place for purchase — so he nudged them under the crust and pushed again. Backing away from Lynne had become supremely important. He was not feeling well. The pastries and sissy drink had found kin in the malfunctioning of his intestines and were colluding to make him sick. He thought Agamemnon was dancing on the vase for the way he and the other figures moved about. He considered a lamp on the desk and decided four lightbulbs for one socket was a bit much. He thought, also, that Lynne’s face was coming loose.

She moved her chair forward to reestablish proximity. “Maybe you just need to nurture your creative side.”

He looked at her and smiled. So her face was melting before his eyes — so what? It was a spiritual condition. She was lonely. He was lost. Maybe they could help each other. “To tell you the truth,” he said, “that’s my whole problem right there. I don’t even know what my job at the Department is, but I’m terrified it marks the end of a period in my life when I tried to do something that mattered. I don’t know who I am anymore. I am estranged from myself. Isn’t that ridiculous?”

She poured him more brandy. He’d gone through half the bottle and wanted something else. She offered him some Scotch. “Martin!” And then, to the console: “Volume one.”

RITA: Oh, that’s hilarious. The saddest part of any day is when you hear the vice president is still alive.

CRO-MAGNON: Want to take a tour of the house? It’s pretty amazing, as you can see.

RITA: I’m sort of couchbound. And I’m waiting for my husband.

CM: Where is he?

RITA: Beats me. Probably trying to bleed money from the walls.

BRUCE: Oh no. No no nooooo, you did not just say that.

RITA: He makes (miming quote marks with fingers delicate and lovely) documentaries.

CM: An arty type, right. Those types are always looking for money. He’s come to the right place. I hear Mrs. Anderson is a patron of the arts.

BRUCE (swiveling in his chair to gawk at Mrs. Anderson, to gawk and leer): Well!

RITA (puffing up, happy): No, we’re done with all that. Bruce works for the Department of the Interior now.

BRUCE: I work for the Department of the Interior, and my wife is proud of me. How pathetic. You know, Lynne, this is some very nice Scotch you have here, but I am drunk. And no one is fun when they’re drunk. My son is due in four months, and I work for the Department of the Interior. I am a man he will come to admire, not for what I did, but for what I wanted to do. I have to use the john.

LYNNE (standing): There’s one down the hall.

BRUCE (sniveling): A documentarian cries. Okay? He cries. This is me crying.

“Mute one.” And the room was silent but for the snuffles of the documentarian, who rallied and said, “How did you get so rich? How does it happen? Did you inherit? What do you do? What does your husband do? Is there something for me to learn here?”

She appeared to depress a button under the coffee table. The parted wall reunited. Not one of the paintings was askew for it.

She called for Martin and said, “Make Mr. Bollinger some tea and bring it to the green room, where he will be resting.”

“I don’t want to rest.”

“Don’t worry. And don’t despair. Life sometimes offers up solutions when you least expect them.”

Bruce could not control the slack of his lips, but some part of him smiled, and later, ensconced in a guest room that was all green, he crawled into a bed, thinking: A grant! This incredibly odd, rich woman is going to give me a grant. The hours passed; he slept through them all.

ESME SAID, “Martin, just look at this.”

He looked. And what he saw sacked his self-esteem for the year. It had taken him months to perfect the anchoring system of her face. So much trial and error, but in the end, it held. She’d worn it nine times. It had even survived exposure to wafts of sweat and BO in a gym carnival. So why today? Her left cheekbone had mutinied. It was actually falling away from her face. And her nose — my God. It was released from the bridge and tilting floorward.

“I can’t believe it,” he said. “I don’t know what to say.”