Bruce Wagner - I’m Losing You

On Saturday, it was Suzan Hughes’s birthday at Greyhall mansion. The former Miss Petite USA had married the perennially handsome founder of Herbalife. Jersey was active in the Herbalife Family Foundation for at-risk children, as she was in Haven House, Path, Thalians, Childhelp, D.A.R.E., Share, the Children’s Action Network, the H.E.L.P. Group, the League for Children, Operation Children and the Carousel of Hope. All the “ladies who lunch” loved Jersey Stabile Howe’s energy — and thought Perry was gorgeous, like a young Mike Silverman. Something of the Cary Grant about him. The tragedy of their son’s death was well known and bestowed another, popular facet: they had the dignified weight of a handsome couple who had journeyed to “another country” and come back with slides for future tourists. The ladies spoke of Montgomery as one would an infantine lama, snatched from their midst to fulfill a greater prophecy — cosmic honors to which aggrieved parents must perforce acquiesce.

Jersey wondered what would happen when they found out about Perry; he’d be wasting away by then. The ladies might even revile her misfortune, secretly dubbing it over-kill. (That was a sick thought.) There was nothing to do but master the art of crying in public restrooms. She’d tough it out, had to for Rosetta’s sake, her beautiful little girl. Jersey knew how to cope: she drank Kombucha mushroom tea by the gallon, washing down Zoloft and Ativan. To outlive one’s husband and son! She perversely looked forward to the ladies’ memorial attentions. For now, all she could do was natter about environmental carcinogens — leukemia in the suburbs, toxic seepage, government lies. And across the world, the doomsday cover-up of the corroding containment husk around Chernobyl’s reactor number four.

Stage four … Reactor number —

The Bistro gardenias weren’t completely sold, worried their young friend might be truffle-hunting too far afield. They were more at ease with orphanages and battered women, AIDSand oddball diseases. What chance did plain-wrap adenocarcinoma stand against pediatric exotica? Standing there between Vanna White and a bloated Charlene Tilton, Jersey watched her beautiful blue — blazered husband and blinked back the image of him stone cold dead. Guiltily, she watched the Tadao Ando — designed monolith rise before her: THE PERRY(AND JERSEY?) NEEDHAM HOWE CENTER FOR EARLY DETECTION.The betrayal was more than she could bear — how could she? There was Jay Leno and Steve Allen, LeVar Burton and Charo, Pia Zadora and someone from Laugh-In whose name she couldn’t remember. Perry hooked his arm in hers and charmed the lot of them, all the while turning over the one thing that had possessed him since Club Bayonet: II Destriero Scafusia.

Rachel contacted its makers, and the International Watch Company FedExed a cassette along with a small hardback catalogue. Within the latter was an inventory of prices — a “moon phase skeleton model” pocket watch available in yellow gold, at sixty thousand; a Da Vinci wristwatch, for over a hundred. There were Portofinos, Novecentos and Ingenieurs — and, of course, the rather modest looking eighteen-carat rose-gold Destriero, a grande complication that stood, trěs grande, at a cool quarter of a million.

The watch itself was crafted in the village of Schaffhausen on the banks of the Rhine. Destriero was the name given to a jouster’s steed; one easily imagined such knightly trials unfolding hard by the medieval castle — built from plans designed by Albrecht Dürer — that overlooked the town. Just what was a “super complicated” watch? The voice on the tape explained a mechanism could only be classified as such if three elements came together in its movement: chronograph, perpetual calendar and minute repeater. Among collectors, “minute repeaters” were the most coveted. They were the watches that chimed the hour, quarter-hour and minute, an action originally devised for the blind.

Perry lingered over a bit of text: “Firmly secured inside the movement is a replacement century display slide, which can be installed at the end of the twenty-second century and will continue showing the correct year until the end of twenty-four ninety-nine A.D.” Heady stuff, though he wasn’t exactly sure what it meant. There were other details hard to fathom, such as the Destriero’s unique ball-bearing-mounted “flying” tourbillon (eight vibrations per second) that was described as a kind of cage made of anti-magnetic, ultra-light titanium. The tourbillon was invented right after the French Revolution, its function being to improve accuracy by counteracting the earth’s gravitational pull on the balance.

The catalogue ended with a flourish. “Fin de Siěcle: The Grand Finale — This Is What Will Happen at Midnight on 31 December 1999. At precisely this moment, the most complicated wristwatch the world has ever seen will come into its own, as a multitude of functions start taking place simultaneously.” The final paragraphs walked one through the horological ballet, ending with the changing of the millennium guard. “A figure ‘twenty’ replaces the ‘nineteen’ in the date display of the II Destriero…and the twenty-first century since the birth of Christ has begun.”

Tovah called, wanting drinks at the Bel Air. He opted for breakfast at the Four Seasons instead — that felt safer. He wasn’t going to cry himself a river and he wasn’t going to fuck his brains out behind the cancer blues. Not his style.

What she proposed was a “special project,” a television movie about the remarkable life and death of his son, Montgomery. Perry felt trivialized, ready to be offended. Tovah stiffened. Then he laughed and the agent smiled.

“I hope it’s all right, my—”

“It’s fine. It’s fine,” Perry said, suddenly emotional.

“Rachel told me the story. I just thought it was so amazing .”

“A lot of people did.”

“And I wondered why no one ever — did anyone ask if you and Jersey—”

“I think Aaron and I talked about it. And Jim Brooks — we played a lot of basketball together. But I don’t think Jersey and I were up for it. It really took the wind out of us. The idea of revisiting…”

“I’m sorry—”

“No no no. Maybe it’s time,” he said, tapping his glass with a fingernail. “Maybe it’s been long enough.”

Ursula Sedgwick

“She’s not coming,” said Sara.

“Shit,” said Ursula, disappointed. “Why not?”

“Because,” said Phylliss, “I’m a crabby cunt.” She padded to the kitchen and retrieved a carton of Merits from the old Amana.

Sara Radisson was a casting agent who had worked on a movie of Phylliss’s that never happened. There was money from a divorce. After the split, Sara took the baby and lived awhile with her mom in Minnesota. It was a hard time; Phylliss was going through changes of her own. When the producer discovered Eckankar, she ordered Sara to visit the Temple of ECK, in Chanhassen — right near her mom’s place. Phylliss said that was no coincidence. There had to be a reason she wound up so close to the source.

Sara was a seeker. She found plenty of chelas , students of the Mahanta. She chanted Hu and was initiated on the Inner. One night, the ECK Master Rebazar Tarzs came to her in a dream and said it was time to stop running. The ECK Master (a pure blue light) said she should return to Los Angeles and complete unfinished business with two women she knew from a past life. When Sara awoke, Phylliss Wolfe and Holly Hunter hung before her like illuminated cameos. She got on the phone to Venice and the tears poured out in a stinging, soulful rush. Within a week, Sight Unseen had been sold to Lifetime, with Holly and Phylliss committing to star and produce.