Bruce Wagner - I Met Someone

It was “sudden,” she said, and was Dusty coming up? Sometime tomorrow, the actress told her.

By morning, a bare-bones obit appeared on the Time and Us websites, and just a few others. Not exactly news of the century. Dusty got the expected emails and phone messages. The only one she answered was Elise’s. She doubted if Ginevra had yet heard.

Allegra drove. Dusty spoke to her lawyer, who said that one of the kitchen staff texted her sister about the death minutes after it occurred, the sister put it on Facebook, and bla. Dusty waved away the notion of legal action. Jesus, Jonathan, like I fucking care. She called her shrink a half hour before they arrived; the conversation was brief. Dusty told Ginevra she didn’t feel anything, but didn’t feel numb either. As usual, when it came to Reina, she didn’t know how she felt.

She went into the viewing room alone.

Her mother lay beneath a white quilt, on a table draped in white sheets, bookended by what looked like delicate miniatures of streetlamps from another time. They seemed borrowed from a prop house; the presentation was theatrical and unexpectedly lovely.

Reina’s visage was unlined, bare of makeup. The hair had been brushed so that it hurried behind her, giving an effect of breezy repose. A fine white tendril of scar grew scalpward from each ear, soft-spoken evidence of face-lifts gone by. After those surgeries, no hair could grow on the high temples and the baldness there made for strange, denuded fields, like the tonsure of an anchoress. Her ears were enormous, as if drawn by a caricaturist. (Reina called them “rabbit ears”—that’s why the actress bristled when Allegra first called her Bunny.) The lids of the sunken eyes were Rembrandt-dark and beautiful.

Death had fallen for her.

She reached out to touch the cheek she had slapped before stepping back to circle the body. Then sat, stood, and circled again, an antsy ritual of shock, relief, and acclimatization. She wanted her money’s worth. She’d had the persistent fantasy that when this time did come, revelation would appear in a softening guise, forgiving and merciful. But there was none of that. Accustomed to editorializing when it came to this woman, she was already “writing” her impressions, crafting the raw, pithy commentary of what she would soon convey to Ginevra in session. Her mother could still wound her, no doubt, though no longer by the spoken word. Seeing the body was like the taking of an important beachhead or the demolition of strategic tunnels or the murder of a prolific sniper; many strongholds still needed to be captured before it could be proven the enemy had truly been neutralized. But it was a good start, and with that realization, Dusty came the closest she could to grace — an apprehension of peace that echoed the cadaver’s stillness and signaled the potential end to a lifetime of predation.

Perhaps in such hopeful quietude love resided.

It wasn’t lost on her either that the moment she resolved to find her daughter, Reina had died. That seemed like grace, real and cosmic. It was a time of inauguration and more: might it be that Dusty slew the dragon by her bold (albeit belated) resolve? It did feel like mythology — something she was anxious to talk to her therapist about. A bulletin from the Universe: Your mother’s power will die when your own mother-power manifests in the search for your child . And when she pulled the sword from that stone, Reina drew her last breath…

She left the room to bring in her wife.

Allegra had always wanted to meet her, at least lay an eye on her, out of curiosity if nothing else, but Dusty would only laugh, saying, “That will never happen.” She was sheepish until the actress took her by the arm and walked her close. She could see her wife in the dead woman’s face and suddenly felt like a child, so inferior to these warrior gods, one fallen, the other at the forceful peak of her artistic and retaliatory powers. She felt weak and insignificant, but lucky too. Worthy somehow.

Dusty addressed the corpse with defiance. “You’re finally meeting her, Mom .” She turned to Allegra and said, “I should pry her eyes open and let her have a good look at you.”

“Dusty!”

“Well, there she is, Leggy. And for once, she has nothing to say . Not an unkind word for anyone .”

Allegra sat respectfully in a chair not far from the body.

Dusty pulled up a stool and spoke to her mother with fierce intimacy. “You’ll never meet your granddaughter, Reina.” It was like the beginning of an actor’s soliloquy, which of course technically, it was. Allegra knew that she meant her grown child, Aurora, but it comforted her to imagine that Dusty was speaking of their own daughter as well — not the one they’d lost, but the one they might still have. “I was never going to let that happen when I found her.” Adding, for good luck, “ When I find her. If I find her.” Then: “I wouldn’t bring her to your grave . Though maybe I will —for a little dance. We can have a little dance and a pee —”

“Baby…” said Allegra, trying uselessly to settle her.

“Reina — meet Allegra . Allegra — meet Reina . Meet the young woman — my wife in marriage —who’s given me so much pleasure, so much joy! A beautiful person who knows how to love . She gave me the joy you took . But that’s done. It’s over. I’m free .”

On the way out, Dusty told an employee that the directive for cremation was obviously a mistake because her mother was terrified of fire. (A lie.) Obediently cowed by celebrity, the gentleman apologized and changed it on the spot. She said she’d call soon to make arrangements for Reina’s ground burial, reconfirming there were to be no services or witnesses, at the deceased’s request. (A lie.)

Then she upgraded the coffin to the most expensive, the one made of steel, because she wanted the lifelong claustrophobe sealed in tight for as much of eternity as could be guaranteed. Maybe you could still scream in the afterlife. Who knew? God was full of surprises.

—

Tristen used to walk, hitch, bus, and Lyft himself around town. He biked and skateboarded for a while too but that got old. Then, for his birthday, Jeremy bought him driving lessons and a new car. (Tristen didn’t want to be anyone’s sugar baby but accepted the gift as a goof.) He thought it’d be funny to show up at Mom’s or Dad’s in some doofussy electronic ride.

They drove to the DMV in a brand-new fire-engine-red Honda CR-Z. He passed all the tests. The whole deal made him think of Nikki Catsouras; he had fantasies of himself on a toll road, beheaded. The lulzy image cracked him up.

On the way home, they listened to Sirius. (The car came with it.) A man was talking about how he treated his sex addiction by perfecting the technique of “masturbating without thought.” That way, he avoided the trap of “cheating” on his girlfriend. “I let thoughts of other women come,” he said, “but don’t stay with them, don’t ‘own’ them. They’re just clouds.”

Tristen laughed behind the wheel until he choked.

—

He didn’t have a clue how or why he’d bonded with the runic couple from Plummer Park. Bonded with the hippie girl, anyway. She was actually thirty-five.

They’d really only just begun a conversation when the friend that Jeremy was meeting about the surrogate came along and he had to run. Devi asked for his email and he thought that would be the end of it, so it was a surprise when he heard from her. He invited them to an old haunt on Chautauqua, a quiet place for an early supper, and was delighted when she agreed. He found himself thinking it would be nice if she came without her cohort, and wondered what that was about.