Bruce Wagner - I Met Someone

“Did she tell you?”

Larissa smiled, all squinty-eyed naïve. “About—?”

Allegra decided that even if Dusty hadn’t told her, no harm could come. Anyway, it was her body.

“The miscarriage.”

In a flash, Larissa got it. “Yes.”

“What did she say?”

“Just… that she’s — sad,” said Larissa, wading into perilous waters of improv.

“God!” said Allegra, pissy. “She never talks about it with me . She just packs me off to fucking grief groups .” A deep sigh, then: “Everything’s just so fucked .” The young wife was beyond tears. When Larissa touched her arm then began to massage, Allegra felt a sleazy jolt.

“Wanna feel better?”

“No—”

“Oh come on, Leggy. Come on…”

There was fussiness and cajoling before Allegra allowed herself to be ushered to the bedroom. Larissa kissed her neck, her cheek, her lips.

“I can’t, I can’t,” said Allegra. “Too much guilt.” She was lost.

“ She wouldn’t feel guilty.”

“Then you have —you fucked her, you were lying!”

“No! I told you, we haven’t . But I didn’t say we wouldn’t —it’s possible . Anything’s possible . I think she’s definitely attracted …”

“Ugh ugh ugh —”

“You know, sometimes you need to step outside the relationship,” said Larissa, in (sex surrogate) wisdom mode, “for it to heal. Then you come back to it. Maybe that’s what she’s doing — I mean, not with me but maybe with someone else . Those are your instincts, right? Or maybe you’re not thinking that…”

“You are fucking her! You are both so totally fucking!”

“Allegra, stop ,” she commanded. “ Whatever she’s doing, if she even is doing anything, it’s not with me . I promise .” Her aggressiveness shut the poor girl down. Then Larissa grew pensively co-conspiratorial, nearly rubbing her chin. “I kind of had that same feeling too… that maybe she’s — maybe exploring. I guess you got me thinking — power of suggestion! I’m so totally suggestible . But you know,” she opined, “a lot of time that’s not the end —of a marriage — or a relationship —it’s the beginning . For both parties. A chance to start over. Can be. I know from whence I speak. Been there, done that, with Derek. Firsthand experience. I didn’t do it with a woman , but I did it with a man. And it kinda worked.”

She kissed her neck again.

“Ooooh,” squirmed Allegra, playing the gamine, as her composure slipped away. “I just don’t like to lie…”

“Sometimes you have to. As long as you’re not lying to yourself .” Her quarry needed more tenderizing. Radically inspired, Larissa shot the moon. “Why don’t you just tell her? That we’re seeing each other? Not ‘seeing,’ but that we’ve gotten together . Tell her you called —or we ran into each other at Soho or wherever —and that you just really needed someone to talk to. Which is true! Because she wasn’t available . And you don’t need to go into any details —because it’s kind of none of her business . You’re a human being , Allegra. She isn’t your whole world . Or shouldn’t be. Maybe she needs help seeing that. And you know what? You just might be surprised . Maybe she’ll think it’s a good thing that we’re hanging out, maybe she even wants that. Wants you to have a friend, a ‘mutual’ friend. Or more…” She stroked her cheek as she kissed her on the mouth. “Maybe all of us together again would be her healing.”

“I don’t know—” said Allegra, still needing a bit more of a finesse.

“Okay,” said Larissa, backing off. “Scratch that.” Rising to the challenge, she masterfully chose a new vector. “You know, having kids ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. It’s a fuckin’ heartache . I know it doesn’t feel like it right now, Allegra, but I think at this time in your life, with all the shit that’s going down, some of which you don’t even know about, but most of which you do —I think you dodged a serious bullet, for real . But you can still have one, you’ll still have one, you’re young , I know you will. ’Cause I’m totally psychic about baby stuff. And it’ll be even better when it happens because you’ll be ready . You’ll be so ready , Allegra! Because you’ll have really fought for it and it will have been meant to be . I totally wasn’t ready when I had my son. The girl was easy —everything about her has been easy. But I’m much more like my son. I don’t think either one of us was ready for this world!”

Her finger traced Allegra’s hipbone then drew tight circles around the belly button before moving downward, like the logy legs of a sea spider. Allegra relaxed into it, even as her pulse quickened.

“What are their names?” she asked, trancelike.

“Rafaela and Tristen.”

“Tristen?”

“Uh huh.”

“Tristen? He didn’t just get a new car, did he?”

“How did you know that?”

“Is he gay?”

Larissa stammered, “What the fuck —”

“Oh my God,” she said. “Your son is dating Jeremy!”

“Jeremy—?”

“My, like, closest friend —from the party, the Tuesday Weld party! From Soho House!”

“Are you shitting me?”

“Totally not!”

“ Jeremy’s the international man of mystery? Jeremy? That is fucking hilarious ! Allegra, that is so crazy ! Because I wondered about the car and I asked him who he’s been seeing, and it was, like, radio silence … he’s not a creep, is he?”

“Oh my God, totally not! Jeremy is amazing . You’ve seen him, you’ve met !”

Though there didn’t seem much point in keeping it from her — she’d already given away so much — Allegra decided not to share that he was her dead little girl’s donor-dad.

“It’s beyond small world,” said Larissa. “How old is he?”

“I wanna say, like, fifty? Fifty-two?”

“Oy vey! Well, as long he’s ‘amazing.’” They shook their heads in wonderment like a couple of stoners. “I think that probably… you shouldn’t tell him,” said Larissa, “that you know his boyfriend’s mom —oh my God, that sounds so weird —‘his boyfriend’s mom.’ I guess what I mean is, everything’s kind of messy enough, right?” The stand-in had reasons of her own, beyond those of discretion. “What’s that great line from No Country for Old Men ? ‘If it ain’t the mess, it’ll do ’til the real mess gets here’—”

“ Love that motion picture,” said Allegra.

“I don’t know,” said Larissa, moving another chess piece. “I guess it doesn’t really matter. Fuck it , I guess you could tell him, if you wanted to—”

“Of course I’m not going to tell him! I don’t want anyone knowing about us.”

About us —Larissa took that as her cue.

It was three hours before they were done.

—

Tristen’s father had been home only a few days. His girlfriend said she had to go to Portland to see her parents but Derek knew she’d burned out on the caregiving, minimal as it was. What did he expect? She was twenty-three and he was a sixty-two-year-old loser who had to be put in a coma when his 0 2dipped into the 80s. They replaced him on the craphouse reality show he and Beth were cutting and fired her too. Good riddance to all.