Bruce Wagner - I Met Someone

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Her therapist agreed with the detective. (When Dusty wasn’t talking to the one, she was talking to the other.) “Look,” said Ginevra. “The idea that Allegra knew , that Claudia told her — and I agree with Mr. Raskin, because who else could have told her — if Allegra did know, you have to ask yourself when, when would she have known? Claudia would have waited till she was older, to tell her. Hypothetically. Because why tell a six-year-old? Or an eight-year-old? That just complicates Claudia’s life. Telling Allegra — Aurora — at all would have complicated her life! And that woman’s life was already complicated enough . So let’s just say for the sake of argument that she waited until they were in Europe and told her then. Which she didn’t — but for argument’s sake, okay? Let’s just say that when Allegra ran away from England or wherever when she was fifteen and came back to the States, to New York — let’s say that by then she knew . She already knew. Let’s even say that’s why she came back, why she ran away. Because now she knew who her real mother was and she wanted to ‘come home.’ Okay? The idea , Dusty, that she’s back in America , that she’s a teenager , probably desperate and flat broke, scared — the kind of life she’s been living, so chaotic , like a gypsy — and now she’s back in the States, in New York, knowing that her mother’s a rich, famous movie star ! Which gave her even more motivation to come back to the country… she’s here but she doesn’t get in touch with her mom? With you ? Dusty, it doesn’t make any sense . Because a fifteen-year-old doesn’t operate that way! Twenty -year-olds and thirty -year-olds don’t operate that way either. No one says, ‘I’m going to get back at her for what she did by making her falling in love and marry me!’ No —as her mother , at the very least , you’d be her brass ring, her ticket out. She’d say, Help, Mom! Give me money! Give me love! I want to move to Hollywood! I want to be rich and famous too! That’s what a fifteen-year-old would do, but she didn’t . She didn’t, Dusty, because she did not know . This ‘possibility’”—the shrink wouldn’t give it more weight by calling it otherwise—“this possibility that you’ve been obsessing over… well, it isn’t . It’s a possibility that simply isn’t. That’s what I’m trying to say. Do you see?”

Dusty thought, Everyone’s insane, and had to laugh. They’re all just having a splash and a wallow before leading me to slaughter. Just doing their jobs, being professional — grabbing the bullshit by the horns, trying to be aggressively cool and proactive in the macabre funhouse of my looming insanity and death. Before they ditch me… Her head took little time-outs but at the end of each benumbed smoke break she’d get crushed again by the nuclear reality of her predicament, berating herself anew for the futile, addictive impulse to keep wishing it was all a dream.

“Ginevra,” she said softly. “What do I do? What do I do? What do I do with this?”

After a solemn beat, the shrink said, “You have to tell her.”

The blows kept coming.

“But how ?”

“We can talk about that. And I’ll be there — right by your side. If you need that, if you want me to be. You can’t do this alone, Dusty. Allegra’s going to need some help as well—”

“‘Some’!”

“—because she can’t do it alone either.”

“Oh God! Oh god oh god oh god, it’s a nightmare … what did I do , Ginevra? What did I do! Why has this happened , why has this happened to me? Is it karma?”

“You have to tell her the truth,” she said, staying focused. “Because anything else would be cruel . You’ve seen what secrets do — let this be the last. It’s not one you would have wanted or imagined but it’s one you cannot keep.”

“It’s more complicated than that.”

“How so?”

“Ginevra, you’re being naïve!”

“Tell me how.”

“Have you even thought about it, Ginevra? I have! Do you understand what will happen when this becomes public knowledge ? What the Internet’s going to do with it? I’m not even talking about the fucking tabloids and the talk-show jokes — have you thought about what the world is going to say? The ridicule and the hatred? The death threats ? I will get death threats! I still do! I went through that once and I’m not going to go through it again … she will get death threats, Ginevra, she will be a target —for some lunatic to just… take a gun and pick her off . This country is so fucking sick. Her life— our lives will be over ! Destroyed! Destroyed! Destroyed! Destroyed!”

“Then you’re worried about a leak?”

“Am I worried ?” she said, her features contorted in contempt.

“Putting the question of talking to Allegra aside — are you concerned that Livia might share the information?”

“No! Not Livia … but I don’t know who Captain What-the-Fuck — I don’t know who Snoop Raskin’s already told, shit, I don’t know who he has working for him… probably a whole fucking army —”

“Then that’s a conversation you need to have. And soon.”

“—he said he did it alone, all that old-school confidential ‘trust no one’ bullshit, but how is that even possible ? I don’t believe in one-man bands, no one does it by themself, Ginevra, no one can . And everything gets found out anyway ! Every text , every email , every everything . We so fucking know that! Ask Laura Poitras! It’s all just sitting there on the shelf in some… Amazon warehouse, waiting to be found! I can’t even fart in a restaurant without someone recording it on their little fucking Apple watch —the haters … so either everyone already knows — I mean, right now while we’re sitting here talking about it ! — or they’re about to in a nanosecond …”

The rant stopped, supplanted by the home invasion of a new fear.

“Ginevra, am I going to be arrested? Could I be arrested?”

“But how? You had no knowledge—”

She stared into the distance like an impotent philosopher. “Is this really happening?” Her laugh was pathetic and unconvincing.

“We’ll get through this, Dusty.”

“ You’ll get through it. I won’t.”

“Yes you will .”

“No I won’t,” she said hauntedly, thinking aloud.

“You don’t have to decide. About telling her. Not now, not today . But you need to ask yourself , what is the alternative? Not telling her… could you live with that, Dusty? Could you take that away from her? Could you take that away from Allegra?” The actress struggled to understand. How could she take anything away from Allegra, when she’d already stolen all the girl had? “Could you take that away from you both ?” She let Dusty breathe before going on. “What has happened… is impossible to comprehend. But there is — something extraordinary … there is — a beauty in it—”