I Met Someone

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heart sutra

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“Today, we have an amazing guest — amazing guests—with an extraordinary story. Four months ago, Derek and Larissa Dunnick lost their twenty-three-year-old son Tristen in an automobile accident. Just three weeks before his son’s tragic death, Derek was put on a waiting list… to receive a heart transplant for a condition doctors said might end his life at any moment, without warning. Now, it wasn’t until an emergency-room nurse checked their son’s driver’s license that Derek and his wife Larissa learned their son had chosen to be an organ donor — even going so far as to leave behind a note instructing that should anything happen to him, if it were in any way possible, he wanted his dad to receive his heart. Within hours of Tristen’s death, that wish came true. And because of his sacrifice, his father is able to be with us here today. Please welcome… Derek and Larissa Dunnick.”

The audience, who’d salted the host’s pithy introduction with sighs and murmurs, broke into applause. Dad smiled as Mom’s hand fell upon his. Rail-thin, Derek still looked healthier than he had in years. Larissa’s blown-out hair was a vibrant, recolored red, with maroon-gold highlights. She was overdressed for the occasion in the Givenchy gown she bought at a high-end vintage store on Melrose with some of the additional $25,000 that Jeremy had given the couple in support of Derek’s recovery.

Dr. Wrigley walked them through a gripping play-by-play of the events leading to his surgery, and Derek didn’t disappoint.

“I understand,” said the host, “that it was something… completely unexpected. I’m not talking about the accident, which of course was a terrible, terrible shock. But that your son had decided to be a donor—that took you both completely by surprise. Can you talk about that?”

“We’d had a conversation about it,” said Derek. “When I first got diagnosed, and it became clear that I would need to go on the list, the transplant list. But the conversation was brief. To be honest, it was something I’d totally forgotten. I think at the time I thought it was a beautiful thing for him to express, for a son to express. Then that was the end of it. Because you know… I don’t think there’s a mom or dad out there who even wants to consider the idea of their child… passing away… while that parent or parents are still living. And especially in my case, if that even makes any sense, because I was so close to dying. I really — I really did have a death sentence — and I don’t think — well, there just wasn’t a possibility something like that would happen with one of my kids before it happened to me. It wasn’t something I was even remotely capable of imagining.”

“Tristen mentioned it just that once,” said Larissa. She almost believed what she was saying. “Then dropped it. Which was a lot like him! Our son was, in many ways, a very private person. If he did a good turn — you know, a ‘pay it forward,’ which we now have an understanding that he did quite often — well, Tristen wasn’t one to advertise it. He was very humble that way.”

“That’s very true,” echoed Dad, in somber agreement.

“Were you surprised to find the note? That described his wishes?”

“Yes and no,” said Derek. “No, because there was no indication. As I said, it never entered our minds. Mine and Larissa’s. And yes, because that kind of gesture was… very much in keeping with who he was.”

“Always thinking of others,” said Mom, emotionally. With a leavening smile, she added, “Something he definitely didn’t get from his father!” The audience laughed warmly, politely, tragically.

“Do you think he had a premonition?” asked Dr. Wrigley.

Mom and Dad grew introspective.

“Boy,” said Larissa. “That’s a tough one.” She looked toward Derek to pick up the thread.

“That thought has kept me up at night,” he admitted.

“Were you close? Were you close to your son? What was your relationship like?”

Derek took a deep breath and mused. “We had our rough patches… like fathers and sons do. We’re both pretty headstrong, and the road wasn’t always smooth. But I’d have to say yes, we were close.” He turned to Larissa and smiled; she smiled back, squeezing his hand. “And now”—a catch in his voice briefly interrupted him as Derek patted his heart with his free hand—“now we’re closer than ever.”

The audience melted.

Dr. Wrigley stared into the camera and said, “We’ll be right back, with the amazing story of Derek and Larissa Dunnick — and their son Tristen — on this special edition of ‘What They Did for Love.’”

—

He moved back to the house in Mar Vista.

Larissa had her trepidations but it made sense financially. Anyhow, the whole deal was especially good for Rafaela, whose life had been upended by divorce, and now by the trauma of her brother’s death; what was good for her daughter was good for Larissa. Even with the smoking hole left by Tristen’s amputation, it was starting to feel like old, better times.

She’d been worried that Tessa would take a shit on her for letting him come home, but nope, she was down. She’d been totally amazing — Larissa’s hardcore cheerleader. Her BFF gushed for three weeks about how amazing she looked on The Dr. Wrigley Show.

After Jeremy cashed them out, he disappeared from their lives but it was all good. Larissa got busy turning up all kinds of funding — it was crazy what was available out there in the public and private sectors. Chasing health-care hardship monies was pretty much her new, full-time gig and she thought she could totally make a career out of it. To top things off, they even started getting random IATSE checks sans EOB (explanation of benefits), which she assumed had been generated by Tristen’s hacking exploits.

Things were looking up for Derek as well. The response to his appearance on the “What They Did for Love” segment was overwhelming. He got cards, calls, and emails from people he worked with a hundred years ago and a lot from folks he’d never met. He took a bunch of meetings for potential jobs — one over at the C.W. for iZombie, one for Mountain Men, and one with an FX producer whose sister died three years after getting a heart-lung transplant, not from complications but from being run over in a crosswalk (the bus driver was texting). Equinox gave him a free two-year membership and he was working out with a trainer, an Iraq War vet with a prosthetic leg who was donating his services in exchange for Derek mentioning him in magazine profiles.

He even heard from Pastor Wayne. It was at least ten years since they’d spoken. Derek’s new heart really got a workout when he took that call (apparently, everyone at the nursing home where the pastor lived was deep into The Dr. Wrigley Show) because for the first few minutes, while the nonagenarian offered his respective condolences and congratulations over Tristen and the “new ticker,” Jeremy waited for the shoe to drop, the one that would prove his ex’s random theory about Tristen and the pastor having been in touch. He kept steeling himself for and by the way, son, part of the reason I’m calling is to let you know that I reached out to Tristen right before his accident and informed him of the Lie. For God told me that was what I must do because the end of my life is nigh; perhaps I should have told you and Larissa of His glorious plan, but which wouldn’t have bothered Derek, not at all, because he really didn’t give a shit, no, the real reason he got spooked by the call — apart from bringing him back to that incredibly shitty time when Larissa’s betrayal was fresh and he’d beaten her up and wanted to die — was on his former wife’s behalf (of all people), lately he’d been feeling her pain, the whole encrusted theme was always such a sore spot for her, Derek’s horrible behavior hadn’t helped, had made everything so much worse, but right now he really needed her, needed Larissa in his corner, thought he might even be falling in love with her again whoa thus having little tolerance for whatever might carry them backward from the (very good) place they were currently in, anything smelling of old shit could do it, could carry them away, especially anything that picked at the Tristen scab (a phone call from the pastor to Larissa would do it, something Derek wasn’t able to control), he just didn’t want to see Larissa hurt anymore, that was an authentic feeling, yes, no, he couldn’t afford to have her walking around hurt—now that the old once-marrieds were sort of getting married again, or at least engaged, they had to keep looking forward not backward, forward was where the money and the future were, and lately the money and the future looked fucking bright. Still, as the pastor mumbled on, Derek half resolved, for Larissa’s (and OCD/closure’s) sake, to put it to him point-blank—“Hey pastor, didja ever happen to talk to Tristen? I mean, did he reach out to you or did you reach out to him? In the months or days or even hours before he passed?” Which suddenly struck him as insane because how would Tristen have even known of the preacher’s existence? Larissa never met the man, though of course knew of him through Derek’s encomiums about the importance he’d played in “saving” their family… but right while they were on the phone it came to him with manifest clarity/incontrovertible authority that the whole Pastor Wayne/Tristen confab conspiracy theory was nothing but a bogus, guilt-trippy jerkoff fantasy, so he wound up skipping the due diligence. What surprised him most was that Larissa hadn’t brought it up since she first mentioned the crackpot theory. Derek thought she’d have been seriously on it, you know, in a hurry to track down the old man and give him the third degree, but to his surprise, she let it ride. Another funny thing he noticed was that ever since the fatal phone call wherein Tristen apprised him that he had proof of the secret that had been kept from him all those years, Derek felt lighter, like a load had been lifted off his shoulders. The more he thought about it the more he regretted not having told Tristen the truth years ago (ironically, it was the pastor who urged him not to, who nearly commanded that he refrain)… though maybe in actuality he felt lighter because that piece of shit fag was finally, permanently out of the picture. Derek also noticed that he still didn’t think of Tristen as “dead”—he’d been dead to him for so long as it was — he just thought of him as being out there floating somewhere, but floating with the knowledge that Derek wasn’t his father, nor ever had been. No, if he was going to feel shitty or paranoid about anything, it wouldn’t be that, not anything to do with the kid having found out whatever before offing himself: no. The major thing fucking with Derek at this time was an ever-present fear that with Tristen’s demise the encrypted walls had come down and he was now more vulnerable than ever to an exposé of the IATSE fraud that had been perpetrated to maintain their health insurance. If that was uncovered, it would be a nightmare… though maybe not. In his head, he spun the revelation and subsequent criminal charges into gold — the Dunnicks would get a shitload of press, some bad, but most eventually good, probably great, maybe he’d wind up becoming the face of some kind of half-assed cultural flashpoint Obamacare kerfuffley bullshit, to wit, the desperate measures ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances must resort to in an era when one-percenters buy $125 million apartments they never even move into and rent yachts for $600,000 a week while regular folks are forced to commit felonies in order to get catastrophic care and literally keep their lives and families together, bla… That’s right, he might become an Everyman hero, representing the Hell yeah! mentality. Gotta do what ya gotta do, specially when it comes to your kids and your health. Fuckin’ Derek Dunnick’s a rock star! His son’s the one who did it anyway, right? Hacked into the system? Hell yeah! That’s how much he loved his dad. That heart should have come with a fucking gold medal. Still, it’d be a huge hassle if it ever came to light, so even though they thought about it, Derek and Larissa made the decision not to poke around in whatever ginormous, larcenous, impenetrably cancerous folderol was hidden in Tristen’s computer. Not that they’d have known how or where to even start or what the fucking point would have been viz whatever panicky, unformulated goal… so they just decided out of sight, out of mind, and when Jeremy returned Tristen’s Mac they locked it up in a cabinet in the basement. Derek laughed about that to himself. It was a total sign of how old and useless you were when you thought you could keep a laptop’s secrets by tucking it away somewhere like an old toolbox.

When he was growing up, the pastor led his parents’ church in Sioux City and the family got very close. It was Pastor Wayne whom he turned to when Larissa told him that his “son” was a sham, a whore’s con. The news made Derek suicidal; for a few weeks he was in the serious planning stage of a triple murder-suicide — he was going to take himself out and bring the bitch and her bastard runt with him. And it totally blew him out when the pastor dropped everything and showed up in L.A. to spend a long weekend, that was how righteous he was, how much the man cared, a man of God for real. He ministered to Derek about love knowing no birthright, that all God’s creatures resided not beneath earthly roofs but in the humble tents of our Lord, and that to betray His will would be blasphemous. As a result of his compassionate hymns and panegyrics, his generosity of spirit and relentless sermonizing (it went on for months, by phone and letter), Derek slowly healed and became half human again. He found his way back to the marriage and his new daughter. Living in the same house with Larissa and the boy was a challenge, and Derek freely admitted to his confessor that his attempts at reunifying the family weren’t perfect by a long shot, that he continued to be rough on the boy, but the pastor said he’d done the right thing and that his love for “this special son” would come in time, and both he and Tristen would reap not the whirlwind but the reward of kings. Pastor Wayne said he was so proud of him, which meant a great deal. But Derek never made peace with himself about taking up again with his wife and her demon seed. Looking back, he saw that his heart really did break, so it made sense that all these years later he needed a new one. It was like the pastor had given him an artificial one yet it too had failed.

He was never sure why he returned. It wasn’t from the guilt he carried from breaking her arms, nor could it have been solely from a Christian sense of duty instilled by the pastor. Some of the reason would of course have been Rafaela — he loved her more than life — and some, a kind of crawling back to his mom. Larissa had always reminded him of Mom.

—

Queen Jeremy’s annus horribilis:

The Miscarriage.

The Death of the Boy…

— and now sweet Allegra, broken and brain-ravaged.

Yet in seven months — on July Fourth no less! — he would be a father.

How had any of it happened?

It astonished…

He was one of the chosen few allowed to visit her in the hospital, not just because he already had membership in their private club of sorrows, but because Dusty had always welcomed the comic danciness of his wounded heart and in these darkest of days needed the solace of it more than anything. She’d even thought of telling him — about Aurora—but something stopped her. Those doors would soon be closed to everyone, forever.

Tristen’s death struck Jeremy with unexpected severity; a second blow, landed by Allegra’s botched suicide, caused much suffering, but had the paradoxical effect of freeing him (like an antivenin creates immunity) — though from what he wasn’t sure. Perhaps it had to do with their last conversation and the stickiness of Jeremy striking out on his own to have a child; now, all fell neatly under the Darwinian euphemism “It just wasn’t meant to be,” affording some relief. Them that’s got shall have, them that’s not shall lose … but the joy of locomotion was there too — the kinetic pleasure of moving on, a skill set he’d long been in possession of yet never fully implemented until the death of his mother and sister. (It was royal habit now.) The familiar elation evoked by the morning prayer of “Onward!”—and the attendant day’s march through fields where friends, acquaintances, loved ones, and strangers lay dead and wounded — often presented as schadenfreude, and it was important for Jeremy to take note of that distinction; for it pained him to even briefly confuse the relentless rush of forward movement that was the nature of life itself with a reveling in others’ misfortunes, an emotion which he wasn’t remotely capable of.

He had truly absorbed the Wildings’ horrific travails as his own.

Only days before Tristen and Allegra met their defeat on that foregoing field (now months ago), he received an unexpected call.

“It’s Frank. I’d like to buy you lunch — just us boys.”

Jeremy’s brain glitched at the demotic, seductive proposal — his mind frantically searched for Franks in his ample database of old hookups — before confirming the mumbleboomy voice as none other than Franklin T. MacKlatchie’s (Esq.). He wondered why he would use that name. To Jeremy’s ear it sounded like, “When I con that one, I call misself ‘Sir.’ When I con you, I use ‘Frank’!”

They met at a coffee shop in the shopping center by the Colony. The Minnesotan magus was in fine spirits. He kibitzed with a waiter about a football game and did a hail-fellow-well-met with all who crossed his path. After a while he sobered up, so to speak, and sunk deep within himself as he drew the invitee into his confidence game.

“I’m going to tell you some things that I’ve kept from the girl — which I have decided to share because I’m leaving soon. Devi doesn’t know that yet, nor do I wish her to. So we agree this shall be strictly entre nous?” He clasped his hands together like a devout and humble man about to embark on a great voyage. “From everything the girl has told me, and all I’ve observed misself, I believe you to be a most sensitive, trustworthy soul. Am I correct?”

“Well, I have been called sensitive. ‘Trustworthy’? That’s something I aspire to. But I think it may be prudent to leave my soul out of the discussion.”

MacKlatchie roared — the reply had the effect of a magical password, and he tucked into his monologue with the same gusto as those drumsticks on that Sub-Zero beach house night.

“Devi and I did meet in the manner — the exact manner she described. It is true that for many weeks I made my home on the walkway outside Mandry’s, dependent on the goodwill of its employees and the civility of passersby — when at last we crossed paths, she was in the midst of one of those constitutionals wherein she strove so valiantly to distract herself from the cruel eventualities of that dear, tragic little angel’s fate — her wilting flower, her Bella. You see, we were two dislocated creatures, destined to meet! And we’ve had an extraordinary time, oh just marvelous. We’ve had adventures. I could never repay her for the kindness she’s shown, the companionship and trust. Well, I could, I have, in my own humble way. And I hope I’ve done no harm.

“Jeremy, at this juncture, there are two things imperative for you to know — though she likes to call you Jerome, doesn’t she? — very well then, Jerome, here is the first (he leaned in to deliver what followed): Everything she told you about my gastropub ‘sojourn’—the bouncer’s harassment, the lawsuit, the buying of the place, the role-playing — was a lie. Nothing but legend and folk myth! All lies… well, not everything. I did have a wife and son. And was — still am—a man of vast, inherited wealth. (I was born into it but under my supervision it went forth and multiplied.) But the rest is pure fiction! And lest you rush to judgment, allow me to inform that Devi believes all of it to be true. All of it, and then some! In other words, she knows nothing of my subterfuge. She is faultless and pure, an angel just like her Bella.”

Jeremy practically choked on his frittata. “But… why?”

“Because the truth would have been too much for her.”

He thought he might die if he couldn’t hear more; he thought he might die if he heard one more word. He fought the urge to bolt.

“The truth, dear friend, was that I had a wife and son. An autistic son, as our faithful Devi so delicately described.” The giant hands clasped together again. “And I murdered them both.”

Jeremy’s heart screeched and fluttered like a defenseless thing set upon by a cat. He made lightning escape plan calculations and rejected them with the same speed; to outrun this cunning figment was a foolish, impossible enterprise. The man would hunt him down for sport.

“And after that deplorable act, I felt a rush of freedom! Some of that sense of release, no doubt, I attribute to complete shock—the shock of excitation that I was able to go through with such a thing at all, after having thought about it for so many years… you see, the thrill wasn’t in the getting away with it, but in the doing. There’s no point in speaking to the details that drove me to commit the act. Suffice to say that little Jim—‘Jimbo,’ my son — had become savagely, incurably violent, and my Margot — well, he’d effectively destroyed her, enlisted her, and now both were actively conspiring to destroy me.”

For a long moment, his gaze turned inward. The heavy, hooded lids blinked and flirted with his eyes, promising the opiated sanctuary of sleep — but were spurned.

He resurfaced and became present once more. “And when it was finished, I wondered — not What have I done? but rather What else am I capable of? Oh, that query possessed me! What else was I capable of that was beyond my power to imagine? Not in the sense of the monster-hunter becoming the monster, or the abyss staring back into me… You see, I had always favored the ‘mystical,’ Jerome — in my teenage years I was of the type who haunted the metaphysical section of booksellers, those traders who were moribund even in pre-Internet days… Well, an answer to that came (in the form of another question): Am I capable of enlightenment? And am I a “candidate”? It was a thought that was actually in the back of my mind a long, long while. Could murder—might murder — for me—might it be the avenue of that first step of the journey to moksha, kaivalya, nirvana? I’d read certain parables that seemed to assert an ‘enlightened murderer’ was no oxymoron, and the so-called liberated state may soon be attained through the homicidal act itself. If that were true, imagine how one’s odds at being liberated would be increased by the killing of those whom one loves and protects, one’s very own blood! Isn’t that what Krishna counsels Arjuna? That not to kill those kings and fathers — in my case, mothers and sons! — was to be impotent by sheer weakness of heart? That not to kill would incur sin? Is it not written in the Gita? The ingenious hypothesis was simple, and only in want of a ‘test phase’ to prove or disprove its worth. And I’m no sociopath, lad, far from it! Though I know the declaration encourages the rejoinder, Thou doth protest too much.

“There’s an old saying that if one is going to tell a lie — a significant lie — one must plan it as carefully as a murder. In my case, I planned the murder first and then the lie that I eventually told my Devi… what’s the lovely thing Twain said? He said so many funny, lovely things. Oh, here—‘The truth is a fragile thing but a well-told lie can live forever.’ Haha. You see, my plan was to make a getaway from far more than merely the jejune scene of the crime — it was to flee from all that I knew, and all I was known by. I chose the invisibility of homelessness because I imagine it appealed to a romantic fantasy I’d carried throughout the years of cutting anchor, divesting myself of reputation, relationships, possessions. [“I suppose the double murder accomplished that!” he said, in a chilling, theatrical aside. “Though ‘triple’ would be more accurate, as it wouldn’t be fair to leave myself out. I killed misself off as well.”] This desire to self-excommunicate, you see, was an impulse I’d had since, well, adolescence. And if it weren’t exactly spiritual enlightenment I was seeking at that time, it certainly would have been an illumination of Self — though I suppose in many quarters it’s hard to draw a distinction between the two.

“Let me interject a little something about solvency, because I have the feeling you’ve been puzzling over it. I know Devi mentioned some business about my having made arrangements vis-à-vis access to funds — which is true. Before the murders, I’d spent months stashing money away in safe-deposit boxes around the country… which the prosecution would of course use against me as evidence of premeditation, will use against me. And I shan’t argue. In fact, I shall rush to their defense! Isn’t that what Lord Krishna urged? In defense of war? To urge that one enlist in the war against Self, through the supreme act of violent surrender?”

While unable to shake a queer, out-of-body feeling, Jeremy was pleased to have found himself comfortably settling in (or nearly so) to the sonorous rhythm of his companion’s speech. In other words, he no longer feared ambush. While listening to MacKlatchie’s words, he took in their surroundings with a preternatural attentiveness — the reactive expressions of fellow luncheoners engrossed in private conversations; the telltale gait of servers and their wry, conspiratorial whispers; the very temperature of the large, sunlit room, and its minute fluctuations therein. What’s all this? Jeremy mused, then understood: “all this”—impressions, perceptions, and feelings—were nothing more (or less) than a heightened, holy, inordinate sense of being alive. And now he saw firsthand the very thing that Devi had: a man before him who belonged to energetic royalty, exemplar of a gang whose controversial greatness could be defined by the possession of two qualities, diametrically opposed — a convivial command of the commonplace and a proficiency in the untranslatables of the dark Unknown. It was the effortless personification of those extremes that made the guru.

He spoke of the months immediately after the crime when he lived as a fugitive in Mexico. For a while he kept abreast of the frenzied stateside search for the wealthy heir who’d slain his wife and troubled son, but interest soon ebbed; the public, in its haste to make room for fresh kills and faddish reality shows, moved on. He kept a small room for a while off the Zócalo, where he took flight in profound meditation, channeling the “assemblage points” and “lucid-dreaming bodies” of his Margot and little Jim — before and after death. During one of these zazen, he came to understand (“By a truth revealed through the act of ‘reading’ energy”) that “they hadn’t died at all, because they were never born. None of us were, don’t you see, Jerome? It’s true, my friend! I always thought it was balderdash, but it’s true!” The fallacy of man, he said, was in believing anything else. “This puerile ‘doctrine of Death’—so primitive! — is man’s undoing. For I am telling you that it isn’t the thing of Death, it’s the wrongheaded idea of it that lays waste to man’s joy, his Love, his Freedom.” His work in Mexico City done, he decided to return to Minnesota, where he’d broadcast his revelations in a court of law. “Because they have to transcribe it — isn’t that marvelous? Anything I said would be permanently enshrined: transcribed by law.”

Sidelined along the way by a brutal beating in Monterrey; another one shortly after crossing the border at Laredo (with the same flawless counterfeit passport used in his original flight); and a small heart attack in Oklahoma City — he rode a Trailways bus through that wilderness of megachurches and porn emporiums on the banks of the I-35 (“‘The Highway of Holiness,’ they call it! Locals say the I-35 refers to Isaiah 35:8: ‘A highway shall be there, and a road, and it shall be called the Highway of Holiness’”) before finally arriving in Chicago, where, “a tad bit worse for wear,” he at once felt himself again, himself being a hundred pounds heavier (his body’s counterintuitive response to all manner of travails) than two years before, with a beard like a forest growth after a deluge.

“Well, I didn’t feel on the lam. I had planned on returning for my ‘just deserts’… but for the moment, was absolutely glorying in American cuisine — one could say I was eating just desserts! — and after the grandes avenidas of D.F. and the horrors of that most consecrated of Interstate highways, found the gem¨utlich chaos of Chicago streets to be thoroughly refined and amenable. And as I said, I had been crafting my return all along and was meaning to get on the road again — to Duluth and its courthouse — yet there I was, happy as a soft-shelled mollusk, making camp outside that venerable institution of Mandry’s, and there I seemed, by fate and inertia, to remain. Until she came along. One day there she was, and I fell in love. I heard the sirens, Jerome, not the bells! It was a passionately romantic and carnal love — from my side — though the dear soul never knew it because I never let on. I was startled by her interest in me — at first anyway, till I understood—it seemed so unlikely, as I was an obese and very peculiar sort, of unidentifiable genius and genus of foul-smelling changeling (my normally fastidious toilet had suffered greatly by then), a transcendental ogre, and I wondered — as perhaps you have! — why she would have paid such attention. But you see another part of me was watching and knew. That I was not my former self. That I had become someone, some-thing else — a thing to be reckoned with. That new thing, you see, was a five-star general, who could lead men to freedom or lead them to death. From the moment of that realization, I never looked back, and let myself be taken… by Energy.

“And I love her to this day, Jerome, but no longer in that fashion. Oh, it’s been years since I loved her that way. The transformation of my love was a by-product of my so-called enlightenment; I say ‘so-called’ because it’s treacherous to crow about such a thing. Though perhaps I am a guru after all, have become one, or some sort of one! No, I never took advantage of her innocence and trust — though I know that may be arguable, from your point of vantage… Friend Jerome, that girl taught me as much as she claims I’ve taught her. She tutored me how to go beyond love, into that ‘Silence’ she speaks of unendingly: the realm of her precious, confounded bells. (The bells that confound because they live in the space between belief and nonbelief.) By concocting that story about Mandry’s, born of those meditations wherein I got under the skin of my wife and son, inhabiting them (where did such a narrative come from, where did it, really? From that damned ‘Source’ of hers, from that ‘Silence,’ where else? How else?), by telling the story of Mandry’s I was set free. It was theater — the theater of Infinity! And Devi became the witness of my moksha, my liberation. I told her a story of becoming, of embodying the personae of the workers and denizens of that bar — that burlesque magic lantern show that represents the world — told it so many times, I actually believed it did occur! And each anecdote, each incarnation was a step that led to Freedom…

“The MacKlatchie murders — of Margot and little Jimbo — you’ll note that I always say killed or murdered, I never shirk from that declaration because I know the power of the mind, if I don’t state the naked truth aloud, one day I’ll come to believe I had nothing to do with it! — in recent weeks, the unsolved double homicide has gotten some attention in the media. Perhaps you’re aware of it? [Jeremy shook his head.] I do manage to keep up a bit on what’s happening in the world. It was featured on one of those cold-case shows… what’s funny is that before I learned of this latest piece of information, I had resolved — once again! — to return to Minnesota, to confess and face charges. The timing is strange, no? Cosmic fairy dust is in the air. And of course it’s nothing anymore for me to go from one dream into another… the other morning I was mulling the whole thing over when I awakened to Devi’s damn bells. She’d washed the strop and hung them outside like a wind chime; the Santa Anas made them sing. ‘The world is like the impression left by the telling of a story.’ Have you heard that marvelous Hindu saying? Isn’t that the most gorgeous thing? And so true! What it means to say is the world is a dream, that’s all. And I am going back to a dream called ‘Duluth,’ a dream of justice and retribution—society’s dream of settling accounts for crimes committed against the state, against its people. A dream called penitence… penitence is a lovely dream, isn’t it, Jerome? I will go back to their dream in order to tell them of another, the dream of deathless death, the dream of liberation, the dream that is a dream, and the stenographer will memorialize my words, my dreaming words, for the public record. (There shall even be courtroom artists to sketch me, in mid-dream oratory.) And when I awakened to the ringing of Devi’s bells I knew, as surely as I did that day on the sidewalk in front of Mandry’s, that it was time to move on from this dream. I heard the sound of the bells and knew it was time to leave the dream of wandering this precious land with that beloved being I call Devi — she who’d become my teacher, my guru, my Ma’m! Perhaps she is right, after all. Perhaps the bells speak to us all the time, if only we would listen.”

Just then, Jeremy heard the hard clank of a bell, and thought he was dreaming himself. MacKlatchie smiled, outstretching his leg to show off Devi’s bells — a déjà vu of when she’d done the same that night at the restaurant on Chautauqua. They looked much smaller on their new owner’s edematous ankle.

“When I made the decision that it was time to leave, I snatched ’em from her. Took ’em back, ’cause they’re mine. You see, I had ’em on when Devi and I first met (she was ‘Cathy’ then) and gave ’em to her as a gift. This morning I said, ‘You’ve worn ’em long enough — time to be free!’ She was upset at first, then understood. She understands all. She pretends she doesn’t, ’cause she’s so decorous.”

He paused to devour an entire club sandwich. It was like watching a feeding at the zoo; the action took a minute or so but seemed to proceed at a most leisurely pace. He washed it all down with a vanilla shake then with great finesse, used a handkerchief to wipe his mouth before resuming.

“There’s a wonderful Sufi tale of a young man who went to Calcutta to earn his fortune and make his parents proud. Is it Rumi? He was a stranger in a strange land and had a hard time of it. They stole his money and he found neither work nor shelter. After just a month of begging, he’d had enough and resolved to go home. On the eve of departing, he was so beaten down, so broken, that he thought he might lose his mind before morning — and with it, his will to return to the place he was born. Truly, he feared being trapped in that foul and terrible city forever! So he came up with a strategy. He found a little patch of sidewalk to make his lodging, just as I did outside Mandry’s, I suppose! On that last night, when he knew he’d be most vulnerable to ‘the demons,’ a fellow traveler occupied the space next to him. (A gentleman who, while down on his luck, was more seasoned than our hapless friend.) The young man shared his hard-luck story, and that he was leaving Calcutta in a matter of hours. ‘But why are you wearing those bells?’ asked the more seasoned fellow. The young man said, ‘The city is too vast. In my final hours here, I fear falling asleep! The demons might cast a spell and entice me to stay. So I’ve tied these bells around my ankle so I’ll awaken to their sound. And if they make no sound, I’ll at least see them and remember their reason—to ward off the demons who might interfere with my homecoming. When I see the bells, I won’t be confused. I’ll know exactly where and who I am.’ His new acquaintance pretended to enthusiastically agree with the logic of such nonsense. When our friend fell asleep, the mischievous vagabond carefully untied the bells and fastened them to his own ankle, partly as a little joke and partly because he coveted them. Soon after, they plunged side by side into that special sleep only poverty, hunger, and hopelessness confer. At the break of dawn, the young man awakened — and panicked, just as he knew he would. But at that very moment, he heard the ringing of bells (his impish neighbor had rolled over in his sleep) and reflexively looked down; his own ankle was bare! Was it a dream he recalled about affixing them there? He rubbed his eyes and looked around — that was when he saw them attached to his fellow traveler’s foot. He grabbed the man by the shoulders and shook him. ‘Are you me?’ he cried, thinking he might still be dreaming. ‘Answer me! Answer! Are you me?’ The vagabond startled and grew fearful, and rightly so, for our friend was in a state! While he didn’t confess to stealing the bells, he was compelled to be as truthful as he could. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I am not you.’ When the young man heard that, his worst (and best) fears were realized. He stood up and stared blindly at the rising sun. ‘If you are not me… then who am I? And where am I?’”

A chill raised the hair on Jeremy’s arms. MacKlatchie smiled at him with warmth and sorrow. Like the perplexed man in the story, Jeremy found no comfort in the bells, real or metaphorical, and fretted, not knowing what to believe — whether his lunch companion had actually killed his wife and son; whether Devi had a daughter who died, or even had a daughter at all… he hardly believed the stories he told himself about his own life anymore.

“‘Now I am alone — all alone,’” said the guru. (Like the bells inhabiting that “space between belief and nonbelief,” it seemed to Jeremy that the man across from him now lived in the space between guru and murderer.) “‘In all India there is no one so alone as I! If I die today, who shall bring the news — and to whom?’ That’s Kipling,” he said. “Isn’t it marvelous? Isn’t it glorious? Here’s a little more: ‘Few white people, but many Asiatics, can throw themselves into amazement by repeating their own names over and over to themselves, letting the mind go free upon speculation as to what is called personal identity. When one grows older, the power usually departs, but while it lasts, it may descend upon a man any moment.’”

His face became grave, before a smile flitted across, as if softening a stone.

“The second piece of information I wanted to tell you — well, this second piece has far more significance, at least, for you. I should add that I’ve already discussed it with Devi and believe you must go ahead, without delay.”

“‘Go ahead’? With what?”

“Why, having the child! No need to use Cathy’s egg though, if it’s genetics you’re concerned with — I mean, because of the disease that beset her child. Though it’s my studied opinion that as a breeder, our Devi’s top-notch, irregardless of poor little Bell’s fate; the little one’s cancer was a rare and anomalous event, I can assure. But if you still have your doubts, why not use one of the eggs you’ve already paid for? Devi’ll carry it. She told me your surrogate reneged, true?”

She had. The gal was a military wife with three children of her own. When one became deathly ill, she told Jeremy that the strain of care was too much and remorsefully bowed out.

“Don’t hesitate — it’s what the girl wants, with all her heart. D’ya think you two met for any other reason? That baby will save you both.”

—

She blamed Ginevra for pushing her to tell—

She blamed herself—

She blamed God…

The irony was that she no longer blamed her mother.

For a while, there just wasn’t time for guilt. In those first weeks, Aurora was touch and go. So many broken bones, so much trauma… They had a little birthday celebration in her room — Dusty took a cuddling selfie with her still-sleeping princess, who wore a rhinestone “37” tiara — and the very next day the doctors discovered something called compartment syndrome in a shattered leg. For an entire month there were whispers of amputation but the actress said no fucking way, I don’t want to even hear that again.

A miniature palm broke the fall but she struck her head on a giant terra-cotta pot. Her brain swelled and she didn’t emerge from the induced coma until the end of Month Two. Even then, it was impossible to assess the degree of neurological damage. An eye — that beautiful blue eye! — went fetus-milky. Thank God for Elise. She took on the “new challenge” like some Mafia shot-caller.

The usual website suspects insinuated that it was a suicide attempt over a “looming breakup”—they said Allegra was “living” at the Four Seasons, and claimed “she had returned to the Trousdale residence to pick up a few personal items” when she fell—and the usual wingnuts claimed divine retribution for sins committed against our Lord. Thanks to the stewardship of Elise and a handpicked P.R. team, perceptions began to slowly shift from self-harm to misadventure. Yes, the Wildings were checked into the hotel because of recent home renovations. Yes, Allegra had been drinking (a small, pre-birthday celebration) and was innocently dancing/carousing when the freak accident occurred. The doomed cover girls launched a thousand magazines, each newsflashy, retrospective-style feature adorned by photomontages of inner-circle A-list BFFs, wedding festivities, and sundry happier-days domestic horseplay — all the articles predictably ending with twenty-four-hour bedside vigils and the implied certainty of brain damage. (A chart of available B-list bis and dykes were on Perez Hilton’s site, with the caption Who will she be with next?) But the haters were swept away by the floodwaters of public sympathy; until now, Dusty had been unscathed by tragedy, and the horrible event had all the aspects of a tribal initiation. Elise kept assuring her it would “blow over.” One of the publicity gals tried to be supportive by telling the star it was a tempest in a teapot, coolly comparing the eventual outcome to the Shatner case in ’99. The actor came home late one night to find his estranged wife at the bottom of the pool “but now, no one even remembers!” Dusty wasn’t thrilled with the analogy.

Mostly, she was oblivious. A mother’s instinct kicked in — the only thing that mattered was seeing Aurora through and getting to the other side, whatever that would look like. In eight months, she was supposed to be in England for the Bloodthrone sequel. Every time she said there was no way that was going to happen, Elise told her not to think about it, that no decisions needed to be made “just now.” One time, breezy and can-do, Elise said, “Bring Allegra with! By then, a change of scenery might be just what the doctor orders — for both of you.” As if Aurora was detoxing in some fancy rehab… It was crazy-surreal but Dusty understood what her manager was doing. She was keeping hope alive.

When she emerged from the coma, Dusty was up on Carla Ridge, gathering clothes for her daughter. By the time she got to the hospital, Aurora was in the middle of a sponge bath, a big goofy smile on her face. Dusty tearfully kissed her forehead but Aurora pulled away, shouting “No! No! No!” “Awwww,” said Dusty. “Are you cold? Are you cold, little one? Baby girl? Are ya cold?” Aurora kept saying No! while an R.N. dried her legs with a towel. Aurora squirmed and cried NONONONONO and Dusty asked them if maybe she was itching or hurting underneath her leg cast. “She’s just fussy,” said the nurse. “She’s been asleep for a while.” Then she turned to her patient. “Haven’t you. Oh yes, you’ve had a very long nap. Did you know that, Allegra? Did you know you’ve been napping? But we’re so happy you woke up! Look who’s here! Your wife’s here, Dusty’s here, and she’s so, so happy to see you!” Aurora was crying and her mother enfolded her, kissing the pasty white, sweat-laden brow. “It’s okay, baby!” she told her. “It’s okay, I’m here. I’m here and you’re going to come home soon. Bet you want to go home, huh. Don’t you? Poor thing! I’ve got your room ready, and all your favorite stuffies…”

“Mama! Mama! Mama!” she cried, to no one in particular.

Dusty swallowed her tears, and the nurses did too. It was always super-emotional when patients woke up from comas.

—

While Aurora was in the hospital, Dusty knocked out a wall between the upstairs guest rooms, creating an “open plan” suite. She wanted caregivers to be able to sleep in the same space as her daughter, without barriers. She outfitted the gym with special equipment recommended by the physical therapy team; they said the pool would play a key role in Allegra’s recovery as well. The medical team thought it too soon for her to return home, and that transitioning to a rehab center might be better. They were overruled. Dusty said she could create the exact same environment on Carla Ridge. When Aurora was discharged, the actress invited the doctors and some of the staff to the house for a thank-you dinner. Everyone was genuinely impressed by the renovations.

She’d been gone almost five months. Having her back—this version — was unbearable on so many levels. The kink and the anguish, the madness of it, were mitigated by the whirlwind of professionals who came and went, prosecuting Aurora’s hurlyburly schedule with military precision. Half of the activities focused on repetitive movement and relearning the basics — grasping and holding silverware, drinking from cups, brushing teeth, toilet training — while the other half was taken up by the honing of cognitive skills: word recognition and pronunciation and the expression of wants and needs. She was prone to random outbursts of laughter and tears (the doctors called it PBA, for Pseudobulbar Affect). She took medication for seizures but had them anyway, frightening Dusty, who made certain her daughter would never be alone. Progress was impossible to gauge, though once or twice a week there was a much ballyhooed “miracle,” e.g., she’d appear to get the obscure humor in a subtle remark of Jeremy’s or be caught on a nanny cam, dancing to Michael Jackson with a carefree elegance reminiscent of her old self. Yet such moments were always countered by discouraging setbacks. The caregivers said it was a marathon, not a sprint, and their clichés comforted. They insisted that Aurora was doing incredibly well but Dusty didn’t know what to believe. “It’s a process,” they told her. “You’re in recovery too, you know.”

Elise hadn’t brought up Bloodthrone 2 again but Dusty started thinking it might be good to go back to work. She was conflicted, though, about the selfishness of that impulse, torn between the notion of what she did and didn’t deserve. (Ginevra, whom she’d resumed Skyping, encouraged her to “dip your toe.”) But how could she? How could she indulge in something as frivolous as acting, that gave her so much pleasure? What right did she have to experience those movie-set feelings of camaraderie, jubilance, fulfillment? Those erotic feelings… how could she, while Aurora convulsed or cried out in physical, psychic, and spiritual pain? Dusty fantasized about leasing that cottage in the Cotswolds… why not? Maybe Aurora would be well enough to make the journey. And if she weren’t, she’d bring her anyway, because what the fuck difference would it make? What difference did it make what part of the world they were in, as long as her baby was doing all the things she needed, to heal? It’s not like there aren’t doctors, speech therapists, and P.T. folks in the U.K. They’re probably even better at it in Europe… what if Aurora thrived over there, if she straight-up bloomed?

As the house settled into a routine, the actress felt a tenuous balance return. Jeremy half joked, “I think your sense of humor might be coming back — in a minimal way.” The trick was never to have a chink in the support system. If a practitioner wasn’t pulling their weight, they were immediately fired and replaced. It was like running a small corporation; she’d always excelled at overseeing the practical minutiae that governed the ease and necessities of everyday life. They spent weekends at the Carpinteria love shack because the beach there was private (though security still kept a watchful eye for drones and seaworthy paparazzi) and she believed it essential that Aurora experience the ocean. When she nervously waded in for the first time, squealing and running from the waves with primal delight, Dusty bawled. They built sandcastles and threw mud pies at each other and barbecued on the sand.

Fireworks and tiki torches…

The couple was swamped by well-wishers. Dusty hired a service to sort the thousands of letters that arrived through agency, law firm, and management — vowing to answer them all. She got the most amazing orchids “from your Bartok Family,” with a heartfelt note signed by the chairman, Dominic, the Gertrude, and the Missoni. George and Amal sent boxes of the chocolate truffles Leggy fell in love with when they spent part of their honeymoon in Lake Como. Tom Ford and his husband, Richard, had a huge assortment of Legos delivered from London (the therapists said they were an excellent tool for hand-eye coordination)—so thoughtful… she got the most touching call from Liam. She had dinner with Natasha a week before her death, and while he didn’t speak of her directly, Liam’s former wife wove through his words of consolation like a golden thread.

Dusty made the decision not to look at emails or listen to phone messages for a while. (If anything was urgent, her assistant would let her know.) Friends wanted to visit Allegra but she wouldn’t allow it. Not even Patrice the hairdresser, whom her daughter adored. Dusty wondered if she was doing the right thing; there were so many people that loved Allegra, and who she loved back. It might have been beneficial for her to interact, but in the end, Dusty went with her gut. Only Jeremy, Elise, and Livia had backstage passes — though she did enjoy inviting the kids and grandkids of caregivers over for picnics and beach days. Aurora was great around children but somewhere along the line had grown fearful of dogs. (Allegra was a total dog person.) Angie Dickinson was one of the few exceptions to the visitor rule. She’d known Angie for years. Her daughter had been challenged from birth in ways now reminding Dusty of her own; watching them, back in the nineties, was something she’d never forgotten. She had been honored to bear witness to the fierce grace of Angie’s patience and devotion, her unconditional mother love.

Aurora called everyone “Mama.” One of the aides said, “But she knows you’re the only ‘Mama.’ When you’re not here, she likes to call us that.” Other helpers said the same, and while Dusty knew they meant well, the little campaign being waged on behalf of her primacy embarrassed her. Though in time, when her daughter cried out in fear, it was Dusty who soothed her and no one else. That was an observable fact.

They watched movies in the plush home theater. When they saw one of Dusty’s, Aurora laughed in delight, pointing to the image on the screen and then to her mother. They saw Frozen and Aurora knew the song perfectly, singing along like they used to—

Let it go, let it go

I am one with the wind and sky!

Let it go, let it go

You’ll never see me cry!

Sometimes, overcome by medication and mangled circuitry, Aurora fell asleep without warning, say, smack in the middle of the noisiest, most outrageous scene of her favorite, Mad Max: Fury Road. She’d lean her head on Dusty’s shoulder, and begin to snore; her mother would lower the volume and stare at her baby while the projector threw images onto Aurora’s features, to create a living metaphor of the actress’s colliding worlds — a pietà of film, fame, and blood, of fractured family regained.

—

It was a good day. More IATSE checks arrived and someone who saw a late-night rerun of Dr. Wrigley offered to anonymously pay the debt on one of their credit cards—$27,000.

Derek had been staying in Tristen’s room but crawled into Larissa’s bed around midnight and fell right to sleep. She woke up.

It’d been a few weeks since she thought of her — her son had been dead only a few days when she heard that Allegra tried to kill herself. Larissa was already out of her mind with grief and her imagination ran wild; she became convinced she was responsible for the botched suicide. She knew Allegra had “broken up” with her out of guilt, and assumed she must have finally told her wife of their dalliance. Dusty was probably so pissed that she threatened divorce, or even insisted on it, which was why Allegra did what she did.

Still, she was thankful her obsession had run its course. She was no longer “in love” with either Mrs. Wilding. She turned on her side, away from Derek, and drifted off…

In the dream, Tristen was in the passenger seat. They were driving to Whole Foods on a sweetly boring day. Everything was uneventful, sunlit and divine. It felt good to have him with her again, even though she had an awareness in the dream that he was dead. He spoke boyishly; she couldn’t make out his words. He wore jeans and was shirtless. It didn’t bother her that his chest was gutted — the inside-outs were slick and clean, painted a deep maroon, hard-rubbery, like the anatomical model in science class when she was a girl. Larissa began getting uncomfortable in her body as she strained to understand what he was saying. She couldn’t breathe. She felt pressure now, and winced in pain behind the wheel — when she awakened, Derek was heavy on top of her. She startled, then let him keep fucking her.

She felt her son’s heart pound against her own.

—

She bathed her little girl, something that calmed them both. Aurora loved a bath more than she loved the pool, and Dusty thought that was because the tub was fun but the pool was work—all that resistance-training the therapists demanded (with peace and love). She thrilled when Mama drew the giant sea sponge over her skin, squeezing out the warm, soapy water.

She examined Aurora’s body closely, noting its small and larger transformations. The leg was healing well; the white scar from the incision over once-infected bone looked like the bleached, toothy nose of a sawfish. Coarse black hairs had begun to sprout topside between ankle and knee, like blades of grass after a fire. The other breaks were healing remarkably well. The shoulders were lopsided from the awful dislocation (it would never be totally right) and a foot arched cartoonishly, causing a slight limp. Her midsection had thickened as an effect of the meds, and also because she’d been eating like a draft horse since she was home. The weight gain hadn’t distributed evenly — her legs remained spindly from the weeks spent in coma and her rear end suffered accordingly, grown wasted and slabby — steroids had provided a classic moonface. The staph-infected bedsore that threatened her life when in hospital had completely closed and all that was left was the pinkish crater of a dead volcano. Dusty washed her privates like a mother would her babe’s, making Aurora giggle and squirm, and Dusty laughingly chide. Sometimes when they lay in bed and she sang the girl a lullaby, Aurora reverted to the self-calming frottage she once practiced as a girl, and Dusty would stop her, gentle yet firm, flashing for a moment on the pride and care Allegra used to lavish on the waxing and manicuring of those nether parts, now overgrown and homogeneous. And the face: that gorgeous face! So different now, always changing yet somehow still the same, still her love, her lunar child — still her wife, in a way, forever and always — avid in its familiarity and otherness, the disorganized, perfect features like a valentine from Eternity. They’d capped the teeth that broke against the pot; thank God Aurora had been unconscious when so much knitting and rebuilding had to be done. There’d been sieges of cystic acne in the last few months, worsened by Allegra’s compulsive, scratchy explorations — her nails had to be clipped way back. But the cosmetician who came each week doted over and nourished the lovely skin, and just now, as she bathed her, it had sloughed pristine. The hair on the head had grown out. It was vibrant and gorgeously cut, and grew wilder than ever, as if willfully asserting its independence of all that was ravaged.

And how Dusty adored that milky eye!

Like the rarest of marbly gems, rolling from the recesses of an Egyptian tomb to land eerily at the foot of a humbled explorer.

The cottage — Dusty referred to it by that architectural misnomer — was in Somerset, just outside Bruton, which is to say not a far soak from Bath, nor farther still from Glastonbury, as the starling flies; though the birds did tend toward a more vertical migration, ascending in helices so dense and perfect one could easily imagine the hand of God tugging them home.

“The humble abode,” as she called it in dry-wit emails to Jeremy, was actually a seventeenth-century Grade II — listed manor along with outbuildings for staff and guests, though in the nearly three years they’d lived there, guests had been few and far between. Shetland sheep, Old Spots, and Gloucester cattle were more common, having run of the property, which gave Aurora (who had no memory of ever being called anything else) and the other mistress of the house great, giddy pleasure. The carriage entrance of the two-story, slate-roofed stable block of paneled stalls and mangers was grazed by an unexpectedly elegant frieze and cornice; adjacent was a heaven-sent paddock; venturing beyond, one found oneself in the dream of a Grade II — listed garden with a weather-worn Grade II — listed gazebo, graffitied by Aurora herself with fancied words and phrases of the hour. The whole affair — all twenty-five acres of it — was enclosed by a crinkle-crankle wall, whose bricks often wore a necklace of soft, hanging fruit, and wove a charming cuff of talismanic protection around the property’s borders.

With its stone abbey, stone bridges, and stone streets, its medieval chapels and graveyards older and stonier still, its endless succession of weddings between rolling hill and sky (officiated by that which pulls the starlings) — marriages that weathered all manner of domestic ecstasies and abuse — with the glittering river that stood in for the cathedral train of all those bridal gowns, and its towering dovecote famously presiding over all, the Paleolithic county’s genius loci resounded like the celestial pieces of a lost, cherished reverie the actress had finally gotten to match.

It was more than a new life — it was home, and always had been.

Apart from the generous staff required to manage the farm and its environs, the mistresses employed a Badminton-born cook and Pucklechurch pastry chef, nannies from Axminster and Temple Cloud, a Dean hamlet swim trainer, an equine therapist from the Vale of Evesham (Aurora was never more her old self when being led along on a horse), and all manner of visiting tradespeople, from masons and apiarists to artisans of stained glass. Yogis were entrusted to soothe Aurora’s finickiness, while other practitioners, schooled in massage, Pilates, and the Alexander Technique, did their best to fill the potholes of recovery, pouring in enough holistic gravel to keep the fair semblance of a navigable road. Dusty’s bimonthly Saturday night musicales — Aurora gleefully dubbed them hootenannies—were a major hit with the villagers (who couldn’t have given two shits about her celebrity nor anyone else’s) and already felt like ancient rural tradition. On Sundays, mums rallied the broods for arts and crafts. Dusty built a small amphitheater where mimes, jugglers, and marionettistes held court; fanciful theater productions tapped a rich local vein of natural (and unnatural) talent, booking thespians of all ages, from squalling newborns to village wallflowers who’d managed to locate, and passionately liberate, their inner Judi Dench.

Dusty stayed away from America and had no yearning to go back. The gossipy national Sturm und Drang recycled into a new mythology: the iconic star breaking ground yet again in her latest role as the selfless caregiver who, in defiance of the prevailing rules of throwaway culture, refused to abandon her spouse, her mate, her ladylove. The macabre fairy tale had all the elements of a pop passion play and served as a kind of there-but-for-the-grace-of-God telenovela for the masses, a confessional and general bloodletting with built-in dispensation; the actress, crucified and in exile (in the name of love!), became a dashboard saint touched for luck while navigating one’s own dark night of the unrequited, lovelorn soul. It gave sacrificial solace. Dusty didn’t feel like a martyr, not remotely, but the world’s ghoulish, sentimental spin on her tragedy, uncomplicated by the even more tragic truth, allowed her to hide in plain sight. For the most part the press respectfully let her be. She hadn’t acted since Bloodthrone 2 (they did rent that place in the Cotswolds, and her daughter did just fine; Elise was right, as usual), a heroic absence that garnered more praise than controversy. She’d been talking with her manager about the idea of producing, maybe even directing. When Angelina visited a few months earlier, her enthusiasm about the experience of Unbroken was inspiring.

Helen Mirren visited as well. It was nice to return the favor, as Dusty and Allegra had had such wonderful times at Helen and Taylor’s house in New Orleans. (They’d never worked together and had a running joke about the fates being against it.) “Popper” was a hoot — she claimed to have zero maternal instincts, and said the thought of childbirth “disgusted” her — the mordant stories she told about her bitch mother always reminded Dusty of Reina. But she was so tender with Aurora when she came to Bruton, like the most perfect fairy godmother, putting Dusty in mind of that mushroom story Marilyn told about the “battalion of women who’d never had children,” and how it really was impossible for a woman to be childless.

—

Everything was abuzz with plans for Aurora’s fortieth.

In her head, Dusty had been planning a “Renaissance Faire” extravaganza, replete with jousting knights, jugglers, falconers, and commedia dell’arte, but when she let Helen in on her brilliance, the dame replied (with acutely English sangfroid), “I’m afraid that will not do.” She suggested A Midsummer Night’s Dream motif, which felt instantly right, and Dusty set about making preparations.

She invited Jeremy, who was in London working on a film. He was traveling with his son and it would be the first time she met the boy. They’d kept in touch but seen each other only once since she left L.A. — in Rome a few years ago when she took her daughter there to see a specialist. Still, they managed to Skype every few weeks or so and Aurora thoroughly enjoyed raucous screen time with “Uncle Jar Jar,” who refreshingly remained his usual, uncensored self. Each time after they spoke, the household was forced to endure days of Aurora parroting every inappropriate thing that came out of his mouth — and even more sampled horrors from the hip-hop mixes he emailed, that she maddeningly rapped along to. Dusty discouraged him, with a wink, because she really did feel it important for Aurora to have that outlet. Someone who wasn’t so careful with her and acted more like a peer, who could be silly and disrespectful and let it all hang out.

But Dusty was still nervous about his coming.

With the care of a scientist, she’d created a hermetic world, and the experiment had been a resounding success; and so it would remain, as long as the pleasure dome was intact. Yet as the visit drew nearer, her life as a recluse and de facto “fugitive” struck hard. This citizen and former ambassador of the world, now living in Shangri-la under country house arrest, suddenly worried the intrusion of a key player from the past might introduce a virus that would be the death of the organism. Some of those concerns had to do with the fear that such a homecoming could blur the line she’d so firmly drawn (for Aurora) between mother and daughter/lover and wife, bringing with it certain associations that would sow confusion and trigger a host of anxieties whose abeyance had been hard-fought and half-won. The irksome daydream of their old friend (and donor) strolling the hallowed grounds of “Mind Your Manor” (his name for the cottage; he called the village Et Tu, Bruton) like Rochester to Dusty’s Jane, with the locked-away madwoman Aurora planning fire and mass murder, filled her with shame — and the sleaze of that old, familiar feeling too, the one so familiar when Reina was alive: the recognition of an ever-present low-frequency hum signaling something was amiss. That she was living a lie.

And she’d been doing so well! Swimmingly so, considering the hand she’d been dealt. There was more candor, honesty, and joy in her life than ever. Still, the nagging sensation descended like a flu.

—

It was wonderful to see him again. He looked lean; he’d never been more present. Wyatt was almost two and a half, one of those towheads who look alarmingly like their dads. He’d brought the au pair along.

Aurora hugged him and wouldn’t let go. (Allegra’s new name had been easily explained when they ran into him that time on the Spanish Steps: the actress said that from the minute they arrived in Somerset, she’d insisted on being called Aurora, like the princess in Sleeping Beauty. To which Jeremy said, “Does that make you Maleficent?”) He was startled by her physical transformation. Her nose was pierced, a recent concession of Dusty’s that restored peace to the house after months of pleading and occasional outright horror movie screams that ended in safe-room quiet time. (So far, so good — Aurora took great pride and care, and it hadn’t got infected. Yet.) Her hair was dyed in streaks of magenta and silvery blue. Acne brazenly snowcapped her cheeks, ill-concealed by a clownish frosting of foundation and Clearasil. She was forty pounds heavier; Jeremy had of course noticed the gain when they Skyped, but in person it was jarring and too real. Everything was too real. She had on an “I’m a Belieber” T-shirt, and Dusty jokingly apologized. “I tried to get her to wear the Kanye you sent. What can I say?” When Aurora heard the reference, she sang-shouted, “How long you niggas ball? All day, nigga! How much time you spent at the mall? All day, nigga!”

Wyatt thought she was hilarious.

(The au pair didn’t know what to think.)

After dinner, Aurora begged to watch Frozen, which she’d only seen about seven thousand times. Halfway through, she wanted to play games, so they did for a while, some kind of gonzo variation of charades (the look on Wyatt’s face vacillating between utter fear and utter delight). Then she wanted to go to the karaoke club that her mother built on the far end of the paddock. (Whenever she called Dusty “Mama,” no explanations were needed; neurological damage conveniently covered all bases and regressions.) At first Dusty said no, because Jeremy and Wyatt were tired from their trip, but Jeremy said it was fine and off they went. Dusty sang a Taylor Swift and Jeremy the Sinatra freak did a more than serviceable “One for My Baby,” then Dusty said all righty that’s enough, time for bed, and Aurora started yelling and Jeremy told the au pair to take Wyatt back to the guesthouse and Dusty wouldn’t back down on bedtime so Aurora gave her a shove and that’s when Dusty got in her face, barking That is not okay! Not okay! Aurora backed down a little and started to cry. Jeremy knew to stay out of it, Dusty poor thing had full control of the situation, probably happened all the time Jesus! and Aurora calmed down totally when Dusty threatened, “Should I call Edwina? Do you want me to call Edwina?”—Edwina being the one charged with enforcing safe-room quiet time. Dusty sniffed Aurora’s mouth and said she smelled chocolate. She told her to open wide and the girl shamefacedly submitted while Dusty did some deep sniffing. She insisted Aurora tell her where the Kit Kats were hidden — turning to Jeremy to let him know it was a house rule that sweets were a no-no after four p.m., which was why Aurora was so hyper (plus excited of course to see him and Wyatt) — and Aurora cried some more, but in drib-drabs, and Dusty intercom’d one of the night nurses (not Edwina) to come take her to bed. When the woman arrived, Dusty informed her of the Kit Kats caper and also to make sure Aurora took double the melatonin on top of her usual bedtime pharmacopoeia. She said Now say goodnight to Jeremy and Aurora sulkily hugged him again, and was embarrassed too, and wouldn’t look at him when he kissed her cheeks. In the quiet that descended after her leave-taking, Jeremy said, “Wow,” and Dusty said, “I know. I need a drink.”

They sat by the fire in the living room of the main house and caught up. She asked about his London film; he asked when she planned on working again. “I don’t really have anything on the slate.” She said she’d actually been thinking about producing. He loved that and said they should be partners. They got excited about it for a little before he circled back to Aurora and said (with love), “I don’t know how you do it.” “Well, it has to be done!” Her smile came out brittle, not at all how she’d meant it to. Jeremy didn’t want her to get the wrong idea, i.e., that he thought it a thankless task, so he backpedaled, complimenting her on the new and nurturing life she’d built for them and how happy Allegra seemed. She turned the focus to Wyatt and asked what fatherhood was like. “Amazing. If I talk about it, I’ll just sound corny.” “Better corny than horny. You have changed.” (She was drunk.) She asked him to describe a typical day with the boy and he started with Wyatt clambering into bed in the morning, making him pancakes and bacon, bla, and how much fun it was to take the boy to Trader Joe’s or wherever because “he’s a total twink magnet.” Dusty laughed and he was glad because she didn’t seem to be doing enough of that. There was a moment, there were a few, really, during his stay, when she’d flirted with telling him the truth about her daughter-wife, just unloading, for the fuck of it. She wondered how that would make her feel — if there’d be any kind of relief. But an invisible hand took her by the scruff of the neck and told her not to, because Shangri-la, and Thornfield Hall, would burn.

“We never really talked about Wyatt’s mom. Is she still in the picture?”

“Nope.”

“But he — Wyatt’s her biological son, right?”

“Righto.”

“What happened?”

“She just… couldn’t stay,” he said.

Because of the bittersweet vibe, Dusty didn’t want to press. At least not till she had another glass of vino. “Did you — was it IVF?”

“Nope. Did it old-school.”

“Are you serious?”

She was shocked and oddly delighted. She knew he was bisexual but for some reason had always scoffed at his being anything other than a full-time queer.

“Yup.”

“Whoa! What’s up with that?”

“Shit happens.”

“Babies too, I guess.”

“Babyshit definitely happens.”

“How would you know?” she said dismissively. “Your au pair takes care of that. So where’d you meet Wyatt’s mom? On Tinder?”

“In a park.”

“Bull-shit.”

He told her what he told everyone — that they’d met when she came to his office to pitch an idea. The bare-bones anecdote ended in Devi returning home to her husband, somewhere north of Juneau. Dusty commiserated, saying all she cared about was his happiness.

“And you are, aren’t you, Jeremy? Happy?”

“Bunny, it’s beyond. Beyond my wildest dreams.”

They snuggled up, in weariness, kinship, and a love that abided. He wrapped his arms around her and she said it felt good to be held. It’d been a while.

“So — gettin’ any?” he said.

“Ha! I wish.”

“Oh come on, you can’t be celibate. What about Edwina? Kinda hot, right?”

“Goiters don’t really do it for me. I mean, not so much.”

“Was that a goiter? I thought she was just happy to see you.”

“Guess I kinda haven’t been feeling… in my body,” she said, with sardonic Californiaspeak emphasis.

“I know that you’re having it on with your mucker or your valette. I’m sure it’s all very Miss Julie.”

“That’s Mister Julie to you, Uncle Jar Jar.”

“And that’s another reason you should start working, Bunny: location hookup.”

“Yeah, well. Not really feelin’ it.”

Her mood toggled from jokey to irritated.

“Use it or lose it, baby girl — I am serious. I mean, isn’t it kind of, like, time? Look. Everything you’re doing is totally amazing and totally beautiful. It’s not like one of those things where I’m saying ‘Move on!’—because I would never. Obviously. And you can’t—you wouldn’t, you wouldn’t want to. We know that. Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.” She hated the whole topic but it was just easier to let him talk.

“Are you guys still… active?”

“No.”

He could see that she was annoyed and dispirited. “Okay. I just needed—wanted to ask. Don’t hate me, Dusterella.”

“I don’t hate you, Jar Jar. I don’t like you, but I don’t hate you.”

She smiled at him and he gave her little kisses. “You know, if the shoe were on the other foot, what would you want… for Allegra?”

“Aurora.”

“Would you want her to stop being human? To stop doing the things that would ultimately make her a stronger, happier person? Who could love you more, take care of you more?”

“I may have to call Edwina. You might be in need of some quiet time yourself.”

“But you have to have some fun in your life, right?”

“I do—I do have fun. And I’m going to have fun tomorrow. We’re going to have fabulous fun on Aurora’s birthday.”

“You know what I mean, Dusty.”

She grew serious. “To introduce someone… to bring someone into my life—my life is so crazy, Jeremy. I mean, this is what I do. This is who I am. This is my life. And it’s not very sexy.”

“But you are.”

“Aw, you’re sweet.”

“You know that I’m not. Okay — just tell me this. What’s the harm in testing the waters? You don’t know who you’ll meet until you’re out there. And you might just find that incredibly brilliant, incredibly hot lady who’s okay with your ‘crazy’ life. Which, by the way, isn’t crazy, it’s actually amazing and spiritual and beyond. And filled with love and devotion. You might just find that certain someone who’s completely blown away by that, blown away by you, and who wants to be with you not just for your amazing jacked and rock-hard body but because she loves you and does not give a shit because she loves all of you. Someone who’s great with Allegra—”

“Aurora.”

“—great with Aurora. And the whole nine fucking yards.”

“Tell me more about how sexy my body is, you… silver-tongued faggot. You child-bearing, woman-fucking queen.”

He’d forgotten how funny she was when she was high. She’d say anything.

“You can’t just… cut that part of your life out. I mean, you’re totally in your prime—”

“What about you? Have you found this perfect person? This perfect man, boy, woman, whatever?”

“I’m looking. But at least I’m out there.”

“Oh you’re out there, all right.”

“You’re out there — outta your frickin’ mind. Well, I gave you my two cents—”

“And I gave you mine.”

“—go join the world again. Renew your membership. If all else fails, get the village idiot to go down on you.”

“My lifeain’t sexy and it ain’t gonna change. So put that in your cock and smoke it. Or wank it. Or stick it in some broad you met in a park. Or whatever other nasty things you do with it.”

—

He lay in bed, enshrouded in the ghostliness of that old, shared L.A. life. Its recentness astonished. How long had it been since he and Allegra rapturously visited the midwife? Four years? Not even. And Tristen, dead and buried! And Wyatt… The march of time passed through cities of rubble, cities of gold, cities on fire. Cities gone mad from the light of the heavens.

Dusty’s innocent query led him back to Devi. His mood grew elegiac. Jeremy missed the mother of his child and wondered if she might have come to a bad end. (At least her guru wouldn’t be able to murder her, though it really did seem like he already had.) It was a shock when he learned that MacKlatchie died not two days after his coffee-shop confessions — but inestimably more so when, shortly after their son’s birth, Devi announced she’d be leaving him and Wyatt for good. They had been living together in Nichols Canyon, and while Jeremy hadn’t given much thought to future scenarios, he had been wrong to presume the baby to be an unconditional hedge against her going — a guarantee that she’d always somehow be in their lives.

He asked himself if he was in love with her but the question bewildered, which alone made Jeremy feel it was true. She was the wiliest, weirdest, most willful, barbarously charming, dangerously sane and erotic creature he had ever met, and proved herself much looser, warmer, and goofier than she came across in those historic, soliloquizing first encounters. More important was the added, irresistible detail of their fatedness, the sense that a supreme destiny, random and divine, was mysteriously at play in their having found one another — a rare and fragile thing, a privilege he’d never remotely experienced with another human being. (Except maybe for Tristen, but they were never going to have a baby together, they could never have created life.) A further complication was that he had grown to love her body. Throughout his life, Jeremy had had more encounters with women than he let on — turbulent, sexual, deeply emotional attachments. They were atypical but no less intense than male-to-male combat.

He understood that by advising Dusty it was time to explore, he was being hypocritical… because just like she, Jeremy wasn’t feelin’ it. He took the arrival of his son as an evolutionary marker — emblem of the commutation of a life sentence of perversion and promiscuity, a symbol of escape from the prison of bodies and enslavement of flesh. The age-old question watered his musings like a soft rain: What does it all mean? The cock goes here, the mouth there, the proprietary heart and obsessive thoughts follow with the predictability of blind donkeys descending into the recesses of a spectacular, spectacularly meaningless canyon. In his twenties, he was in love with a hermaphrodite (they called them “intersex” now) who had a vagina with a swarthy nub of cock dangling above it like a boutonniere. How perfect that shemale was for him, how he loved that being! What a cruel, lusciously asinine farce was the game of love, desire, and need! With no escape other than the false exit of celibacy… and what was celibacy but a smug entr’acte in a dead-end, compulsory burlesque?

Summoning Devi again, he could smell that meadow of spring flowers that seemed to live on her nape (inexplicably on one side only). Their time of domesticity, measured in months, was surreal. He never said a word about her to friends or colleagues, which only served to heighten the phantasmal aspect. When he came home at the end of a workday there she was, sometimes barefoot, always pregnant, in the kitchen, cooking, like the beatific, soon-to-be-slain wife in a film noir. She’d been curiously dispassionate in telling him she had found her guru dead on the bathroom floor of the beach house, as if all was prefigured. After that last lunch with MacKlatchie, Jeremy Googled Killer, Longtime Fugitive, Dead in Malibu, but there was nothing… though he had found a rather obscure article which may or may not have been the spur that goaded Frank to return to Minnesota for his second-attempt helping of “just desserts.” The homicides occurred in the winter of ’83… Yet even after Devi told him Sir had died—“gone ahead” was how she put it — Jeremy never brought it up. He doubted if she knew her teacher had murdered his family but decided it unlikely, as Franklin would have shielded the woman he had loved from the beginning against a thing so unsavory; Jeremy didn’t feel it was his place to disabuse her. Another caveat of MacKlatchie’s might have been that such knowledge on Devi’s part may not only have challenged the “energetically incontestable” beliefs he had so carefully imposed and inspired but made her criminally complicit in harboring him. In the same vein, there had been a few moments, before and after MacKlatchie’s passing, when Jeremy pondered reaching out to the police to report what he knew.

But he let that go.

As sleep overtook, he drifted back to the Buddhist dinner party, recalling Michael Imperioli’s story. The actor said that after the retreat in Ukiah, he never saw his friend again, yet got postcards, in which the man wrote that he was on his way to a place called Summerland to meet his dead wife. The strange thing was, Devi had more or less said the same thing — she and her beloved teacher were on their way to that very place, when destiny had interrupted, in the form of “Jerome” himself. The article in the small-town Minnesota paper that Jeremy found online, The Summerland Sentinel, recounted the notorious unsolved murders of Margot and “Little Jim” MacKlatchie more than three decades before, in the hamlet of the same name.

What did it all mean?

The soft rain fell…

When Devi summarily announced — again, with odd dispassion — that it was her turn to “go on ahead,” she said it was by dint of finding “my Sir, who waits for me.” By then the lightness had gone out of her, and the light from her eyes too, replaced by something indescribably different. She was no longer his, nor was she Wyatt’s.

On the morning that she left, she told one last story in the “old” style.

“After my Bella died, my guru said we must go. That he had heard the bells and they beckoned us to take to the road — to the ‘Highway of Holiness,’ he said, that would deliver us to freedom. To Silence. I gathered what few possession I had (I threw everything away when Bella went ahead) and spent my last hours in Chicago with pounding heart, blushing like a bride. My Sir bought me a beautiful suit at Marshall Field and told me to have my hair and nails done because ‘one must begin such a great adventure with understated elegance and easy formality.’ So I did. And as I was rushing to meet him at the train station, I bumped into a boy I knew from middle school. We’d gone to college together too, and while we didn’t see each other much because of our schedule of classes, I knew he had always been in love with me. He was shy and held back, but I knew. When he saw me he was shocked at how I looked because I was usually so plain! I never cared about makeup or how I did my hair or what I wore. When he saw it was me, it made him crazy. I’ll never forget the look on his face. ‘Cathy!’ he said — I wasn’t Devi yet, I was still Cathy to the world, and to that world I suppose shall always be—‘Cathy, my God, I didn’t recognize you!’ We chatted, though he could see I was anxious, and in a hurry. And finally — finally! — he asked me out. I was polite, but said that I was on my way to the station and was going away on a long journey. His face got sad and he said, ‘Did you meet someone?’ I just looked down at my shoes. How could I tell him the truth of who — of what—I had met? How does one say one ‘met’ Silence? I could scarcely say it to myself. And how paltry the question was, how human, yet how poignant, how beautiful! So I stammered yes, kissed his cheek, and ran off.”

Jeremy remembered her final kiss to him, and the one she bestowed on their son.

Then, those last words:

“I’ll see Bella soon — and my precious Sir… his wife and son—and my… why, I’ll see Mother and Father—and Tristen too! Then you, Jerome, and then Wyatt—

“And all whom I ever loved.”

—

The flirty, dark-clouded skies snubbed the storm, and the birthday party was a marvel. Nature was in an uproar — as if thrilled to have been invited, she changed costumes like a teenager who couldn’t make up its mind. (Her room was a glorious mess.) Thankfully, she had decided not to bother the event with any petulant, hormonal displays, at least none that a light umbrella couldn’t handle.

Cell phones were confiscated on entry, the unpopular chore carried out with panache by an affable stable mucker, size Extra Large, who’d dopily squeezed himself (and been well squozen by others) into the chrysalis of a grungy old Quiksilver wetsuit, festively adorned in leaves, twigs, Post-its, and glitter. The donkey ears that his smaller, even more puckish counterpart would soon attach to a snoring Bottom were taped to his battered cycling helmet like a HELLO sticker at a jackass convention. In regard to the banning of electronic devices, the invitees already knew it to be a policy of the manor. When she first took up residency, Dusty threw a housewarming whereby she welcomed the new neighbors with a heartfelt speech expressing her hopes that one day she might be deemed a worthy addition to their community. She also spoke of her partner’s “accident” and its effect on their lives, before congenially segueing to enlighten her guests as to the obscene bounty placed upon post-trauma images/videos of Aurora (there had been none as yet) “should they become available.” Such an eventuality, she said, was doubtless an intrusion she wished to postpone for as long as she could. The actress took great care not to tar the villagers with that brush, making sure they understood that even friendly group shots, taken by the innocents now gathered, and photobombed, as they say, by the sometimes scampish Aurora (the guests tittered but warmly understood where Dusty was going with this), had the potential to be hacked by professionals with all the stealth, speed, and brutality of wolves slaughtering sheep. Their embarrassed but resolute hostess couldn’t apologize enough, as she felt the whole business to be unneighborly, but really had no need, because the good and honorable Brutonnières, won over by her sensitivity, humility, and earnestness, not to mention the touching heroism of her predicament, heartfully assured those wishes would be respected. And besides, their sons’ and daughters’ smartphone umbilicuses were ones they looked forward to cutting, be it only for a few hours. The prospect made them right jolly.

The amphitheater was graced with revolving sets of forest and castle hall, but the former, with its breeze-twitched bramble, carpet of leaves, and overhang of painted stars, was what captivated Aurora most. The excitable girl, more of a girl at forty than ever, sat in the audience beside her mother, thrilled to teeth and bone by the tin-rattled tempest — courtesy of the forearms of Sir Extra Large — that accompanied the drama. (The scudding drafts of the real storm kicked up their heels in delight at the tin-eared impersonation.) Her manic gaiety was such that Aurora temporarily forgot she had a part to play in the night’s ensemble; Dusty feared she’d spent a greater part of the week preoccupied more by habiliments than the learning of lines. But the resultant outfit, a sensational catchpenny mash-up of punk-royale fairydom, had well been worth it: a tiara of safety pins, waggles of black and bloodred tulle and chiffon, a vintage Belstaff biker jacket, tatty ermine stole, and enormous rhinestone-spangled butterfly wings. She spent hours scuffing her new Capezios, meticulously spattering them with paint, and carried a skull-knobbed scepter with a rocker’s hauteur — half Siouxsie Sioux, half Queen Cersei. Dusty had already emailed pictures to Vivienne Westwood, due in July as a houseguest.

So as not to try the patience of its audience nor the elements, Shakespeare’s romp had been condensed enough to be rendered more conceit than dream. As in the play, actors took on multiple roles, though more multiple in this show than likely meant by the author. The cast comprised manor employees, among them a shepherd (who made all the daughters swoon, as shepherds tend), a gardener’s apprentice (a close swoony second), and the son of a caretaker (not even in the running). A flock of Aurora’s carebirds — minders, P.T.s, and the like — rounded out the company, with hawk-like Edwina divebombing the coveted role of Titania. She proved herself far freer in expression and lighter on her feet than one would have guessed from her strict day-shift demeanor and fighting weight.

A crowd of around forty gathered to watch. When he wasn’t making sly asides to Dusty about how he should liked to have been cast — being a “natural Bottom” and all — Jeremy fought to keep hold of the lap-dancing Wyatt, while the au pair remained ever vigilant of a hand-off. About halfway through, a minder pulled Aurora backstage. When it came time, the shepherd (as Quince, whose beauty prompted Jeremy to remark on all kinds of jellies), addressed the Duke of Athens — though he made his speech directly to the movie star — begging permission to put on the storied playlet of the star-crossed lovers. The wall and the lion soon made their entrance to much applause, then the birthday girl made hers, to an acclamation so raucous it gave pause, even to the trees, who respectfully stopped their thrashing. Aurora blushed and curtsied, and the child’s play, with subtle accompaniment of strings, began. She acquitted herself of cherry-lipped lines whispered to Pyramus through the chink in the wall traditionally represented by scissored fingers — in this case, those of the apprentice gardener who got lost enough in his role to be paralyzed (pruned?) by an unexpected fit of stage fright, made infinitely worse by the traitorous sniggering of those fickle girls who not long before had hung on his every word (and eyelash), so much so that one of Aurora’s posse was forced to stand behind the lad and go unto the breach, dear friends, more than once more, by speaking his lines directly from the text held in the prompter’s hands. In summary, Pyramus saw Aurora-Thisbe’s voice, heard her face, and so forth; the catatonic hole in the wall was kissed by both parties, to an eruption of squeals from the iPhoneless lassies; the lion appeared (assuring the spectators he wasn’t a real lion — not to be alarmed); and at last, a pony Moon clomped dutifully forward, an LED lantern strung from its neck by a lanyard. The king of the forest, no longer defensive about his so-called lionhood and mindful of furthering the narrative, lurched at Aurora, who, in fleeing haste, dropped her scepter, which was promptly retrieved and handed back by the timorous wall itself. Jeremy perspicaciously shouted to Aurora not to forget to let the big cat have her scarf (one of the carebirds was about to address that very issue). The leonine poseur set to bloodying it with a mouthful of tomatoes — causing a hemorrhage of ewwwws! from the younger set — then both lion and girl ran off. The man on the moon, or in its saddle anyway, was left to pronounce his only words: “The lantern is the moon; I, the man in the moon; and this pony, my pony.” (There was, oddly, a shortage of wags, not of ponies.) Much hilarity was thrown at the players, which the banjo, violin, and zither caught, fluffed, and threw jauntily back. An ebullient Pyramus arrived on the scene but upon seeing the bloody scarf buffoonishly took his own life — though not without a gasp from a confused child toward the rear, which set off the car alarms of other baffled toddlers, which triggered a few five-alarm sirens in the form of bawling infants, etcetera, etcetera. When Aurora returned from the wings with a wing of her own inexplicably intact — she was no monarch after all — she saw her hapless love and said, “Asleep my love? What, dead my dove?” and proceeded to unpack the death speech in an effing, ineffably moving way, with a tragicomic flair that no one saw coming. She covered the dead man’s eyes, lips, nose, and cheeks in regret, and then, with that bloodied shroud; by the time she farewell’d her friends and bid the fabled three adieus, Dusty and Jeremy felt stabbed along with her.

A not too distant crack of thunder pretty much said it all.

Any prudish notion of shelter was abandoned as the audience jumped to its feet, roaring and stomping in approval. Onstage, everyone began to dance; the spectators ran up to join them. Through a path between the litter of tumbled folding chairs, Dusty, in pell-mell procession, was ushered to Aurora, and as her daughter led them in a rocky, rocked-out Dionysian jig, the mother’s heart nearly burst at the berserk and joyful travesty of this life. The au pair danced with the Wall, and Edwina with the carebirds; the oldest of the old, with the youngest of the young, and the XXXL, with the Extra Small; the pony moon tangoed amidst a tangle of squealing piglets; and Wyatt bounced on his daddy’s neck with pure, fierce pleasure as the skies emptied themselves, and Nature set about blasting all of Sussex in exaltation, determined to make more than some corner of a foreign field forever England.

—

Nine o’clock—

Aurora’s fast asleep, spent from the day. Her mother can’t remember the house ever being so peaceful at that hour…

Jeremy is off to London in the morning and Dusty needs to be up early to see him off. She loved that he came; it meant so much to Aurora as well. And having him here wasn’t like old times — they were making new times. New old times. Nostalgia could go fuck itself.

She felt hopeful, expansive, resilient.

Every few weeks, her assistant sent a pouch from the States with fan notes and whatnot. She had slacked off on writing people back — burned out. Jeremy said she should just post a video on her website (“Like Ringo did”) saying she was busy living her life and would no longer be responding to letters. “Fans need tough love too. But be sure you add ‘with peace and love’!” In the pouch this time was a folder with a faded Whitmore written on it, in Dusty’s hand. Her assistant found it tucked in a box in the Trousdale garage right before the house was sold. Inside were the letters her father had written from his final place of residence, a flophouse on South San Pedro in downtown L.A. She pulled them out but didn’t really have the energy for a comprehensive look. She plucked one at random.

I hope

ONE

DAY

you will

FORGIVE

, if not

FORGET

I could not

STAND

UP

to your mother because I was a

DISHONEST

MAN

about

SO

MANY

THINGS

— things

YOU

have been so

HONEST

about in

YOUR

life for which I am

SO

PROUD

, Janine! If only I had your

COURAGE

and

STRENGTHS

I would have

LEFT

YOUR

MOTHER

LONG

AGO

but more importantly I would have

STOOD

UP

FOR

YOU

AND

THE

LITTLE

ONE

and

NEVER

LET

HER

GO

Never let go

EITHER

of you. Please please please

FORGIVE

,

your loving Dad

Poor, poor man…

She meditated on Arnold Whitmore as she fell asleep.

That’s what she was born of: cowardly blood and tender bones. She thought she might dream of him tonight, but her sleep was haunted by Aurora instead — Allegra really, because the ambience was from that time. There they were on a lazy Sunday, downwind from Santa Barbara (not far from where Reina died), chillin’ at the Love Shack. Nothing bizarre ever happened in this recurring fantasia, it was always prosaic. They just hung out together, without secrets, without history. Without drama.

Then she woke up.

Only 12:40—ugh. It was going to be one of those nights.

She felt crushingly alone.

She was so angry with Ginevra. In a Skype session last week, the therapist asked if she was still planning on filing for divorce — that maybe it was time. Really, Ginevra? Dusty was mad at herself for rolling over and saying nothing. What she wanted to say was, Are you fucking serious? Do you know what kind of field day the media would have when people found that out? I mean, what is your fucking problem, Ginevra, do you have fucking Asperger’s? Honestly, sometimes it’s so shocking to me, and disappointing, how far your head is up your fucking ass. She would have to schedule an appointment soon because she didn’t want to sit on those toxic feelings for too long.

She turned on the TV then shut it off; thought about going to the kitchen to forage; grabbed her iPad and watched videos of the party — Aurora onstage, Aurora dancing. Jeremy and Aurora doing karaoke.

Smiling, she scrolled through the archives and selected another, without thought.

The wedding in Big Sur…

… high on a cliff whose ancient redwoods made it impervious to paparazzi helicopters. (Private photographs of ceremony and celebrations sold to People and Hello! for $8 million, benefiting Hyacinth House.) There was Sting, serenading them with Allegra’s favorite:

I’ll send an SOS to the world

I hope that someone gets my

I hope that someone gets my

I hope that someone gets my

Message in a bottle

They were smashing wedding cake into each other’s mouths in slow-motion when Aurora burst into the room crying. The iPad tumbled from Dusty’s hands to the floor.

“Sweetheart! What’s the matter?”

“Bad dream, bad dream, bad dream!”

She climbed in beside her mother and held her tight.

“Aw! Tell me about it? Tell Mama about the bad dream.”

“I don’t want to! It was a lion!”

“A lion?”

“It was going to fucking eat me!”

“Watch the language. Was it the lion from the play? Because he was a cowardly lion. Like the one in The Wizard of Oz.”

“It wasn’t a lion.”

“You said it was!” She laughed, and Aurora squeezed her harder. “Ouch.”

“It wasn’t a lion, it was a wall.”

“A wall?”

“It was the wall, the wall, the wall! The wall was going to eat me!”

“The wall from the play?” Aurora nodded furiously, cheeks glazed with tears. “Now, that’s just silly, billy goat. Walls can’t eat anyone.”

“They can, they can!” she said, unconvinced. “It was a big wall—”

“Was it Edwina?”

“No! I said it was a big wall, not Edwina, and I don’t want to talk about it anymore!”

“Okay, we won’t talk about it.” She combed Aurora’s hair with her fingers. “Wasn’t it an amazing party?”

“There was a storm.”

“There was a storm, but not till the end. You ready to go back to bed?”

“No! Staying here. With you.”

“Oh no you’re not! But you’re safe now, billy goat.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Well, aren’t you in a mood. Come on, buttercup, you’re safe—”

“I am not a buttercup.”

“—you’re in the castle now, and there’s sharks in the moat to protect you.”

“Sharks?” she said, a little gleeful.

“Yup, sharks. And sharks are even worse than lions or walls; sharks eat walls.”

That touched her funny bone and Aurora began to laugh. Dusty laughed too and soon they were in paroxysms.

“Think you can go to sleep?” She nodded. “In your own bed? Because we need to get up early so we can say good-bye to Wyatt and Jeremy.”

“Where are they going?”

“Back to London.”

“I don’t want them to go.”

“I know, honey, but they have to.”

“Why?”

“’Cause Jeremy’s working on a film. They’ll come visit again.”

“On my birthday?”

“Well, I don’t think we’ll have to wait a whole year! Now, go to sleep. You can stay a bit with Mommy. ’Kay?”

“’Kay.”

Dusty held her close. After a minute or so, the girl said, “Nightie-night.”

“Nightie-night. And what else? Isn’t there something else?”

“Don’t let the hot dogs bite!”

Dusty tickled and Aurora squealed.

“I know someone who had lots of hot dogs today.” Aurora cracked up, scrunching her face and burrowing it into her mother’s bosom. “Do you know who that person is? The person who ate all the hot dogs? Who is dat. Who is dat, d’ya know?” More tickling as she said, “Do ya do ya do ya?”

“I don’t, I don’t, I don’t!” she chortled.

“Well, if y’find out, you better tell me. You better! ’Cause they are in big, big trouble.”

She almost said Might have to send a wall after ’em but thought better of it — when, just like that, Aurora was out like a light. Dusty watched her fluttering eyes a while before both were dead to the world.