The Last Guest

by Tess Little

  “I don’t care whether everyone else does or doesn’t go to college,” I said, “I care whether my daughter—my bright, academic daughter—squanders her opportunity to—”

  “Oh, here we go again.” Her voice began to rise. “I’m wasting my education; I’m wasting all the chances you never got. Is that it? You can’t hold that over me forever, Mom. I’m not some…I’m not some vessel you can live vicariously—”

  “No, you’re my daughter, who is too young to make such an important decision—”

  “Alone? Well, I can,” Lillie snapped. “Because it’s my life.” She threw herself on the couch, folded her arms.

  “So hastily, I was going to say. You’re smart.”

  “And I’ve had such a good education, yada, yada, yada. Come on, get to the point where you call me ungrateful or naïve.”

  I sighed. Rubbed my eyes.

  “That’s not what I was trying to say,” I told her. “But since you brought it up: Yes, I think it’s a waste of opportunities and a waste of a good education.”

  “An education you didn’t pay for,” Lillie muttered.

  “Excuse me?”

  She did not answer. I did not take the bait.

  “I just think,” I said, measured, “that you shouldn’t dismiss college so quickly. I always regretted that I missed out on it. It’s a life experience.”

  Lillie did not speak.

  “Maybe you can start working on applications,” I went on, “and then you’ll have the option of whether to submit them or not. And even if you do submit them, it doesn’t mean you have to go. I think you need to keep the possibility open.”

  “You don’t understand,” she said. “It’s not just a form. It’s a lot of work. And I know I don’t want to go.”

  “How? How can you know? You haven’t even visited—”

  “I want to be an actress.”

  I sat down next to her. “I know you do, and you’re very good at it,” I said gently. “You were wonderful tonight.”

  “But?”

  “But you can learn more about it at college, while trying other subjects. Or what about acting school? That could be a good compromise.”

  “I don’t need to,” she said, meeting my eye, challenging. “Dad offered me a role.”

  Of course. I took a slow breath.

  Before I could give my thoughts, she pleaded quickly, “Just listen, Mom. I’ll learn more working with him than I ever would in a lecture hall. And I know it might look nepotistic, but it’s a small role; it’ll be good experience.”

  I could feel my mouth set in a tight, thin line.

  “I’ve thought about it a lot,” she continued. So this was not a recent development. “I even talked to my teachers and they agree.”

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea, Lillie,” I said.

  “Why?”

  “Because.”

  “Because it didn’t work for you?” She pulled away from me. “Is that it?”

  What could I say?

  She laughed. “It is, isn’t it? Oh my god, you do this all the time.”

  It had always been hard to shake Lillie’s suspicion that my motives were selfish. For the first two years of the separation, before Richard was allowed to see her, that had been the conviction.

  “But why can’t I see Daddy?” she would ask, through tears.

  And it was exactly the same when she was fourteen and I told her she couldn’t spend a month with him. Her schoolwork would suffer.

  “Just admit it’s the truth,” she had yelled. “You want to keep me away from Dad!”

  It was. I did. But I could never tell her why.

  I said, “It’s not about that, Lillie. It’s your education.”

  “I’m not having this argument again.” She walked toward the door. Turned back to me and said, “You know, just because you became some washed-up actress doing fuck all with her life doesn’t mean that I will.”

  We had both regretted that line.

  I watched Lillie converse with a guest. That angry teenager in a hoodie, with her waxy Elizabethan makeup, was long gone. She was greeting colleagues and family, politely chatting with strangers. All of her father’s charm, none of his calculated cruelty.

  We had been awkward with each other the day after the argument, but she was the first to apologize. I knew she had never meant to hurt me—she had been tired from her performance, frustrated with my lack of justification. I also knew there would be little I could say to change her mind. My criticism would push her away. Richard would turn her against me. So I let her go.

  And there she was in the crowd below—my self-possessed adult daughter in her floor-length mourning gown. Nodding solemnly, smiling warmly. Standing inches from where I had found her father’s body.

  * * *

  —

  Judy was stunned by my sudden departure, barely had time to call out my name before I turned the corner. I was away.

  I clung to the banister, clambered over couples on the stairs, piles of birthday cake mashed into my carpet, and bottles lying on their sides. I paused to breathe, to rub my forehead, when nausea overwhelmed. The sun and martinis were drowning my brain. Was it possible to foster a hangover while drunk?

  And Richard…Richard had disappeared. But that was good. If he was busy with his guests, he wouldn’t notice. This was his night. And I was invisible.

  I needed sleep; I needed quiet.

  But upstairs the revelers were no less hellish. Two women in flamingo-pink miniskirts emerged from a bathroom, wiping their noses—a man pushed past to scream vomit into the toilet. I hopped over abandoned shoes, items of clothing.

  Another person I did not recognize was curled up against the hallway wall, being comforted by a friend.

  “Why?” he cried out, mucus smeared across his face. “How could she?”

  The friend held him tight but said nothing.

  “Why?” the man said again. “It’s too many, too many, not enough, I…”

  His incomprehensible wails echoed behind me as I turned the corner.

  I paused for a moment, nausea catching up with me. Music pulsed through the floor; conversations muffled. I reached my bedroom door. I opened it.

  And there was Richard, sitting on the bed, unbuckling his belt.

  * * *

  —

  I had no idea what to do with myself once I abandoned the mezzanine, joined the black-clad guests below. I couldn’t stomach conversation with Richard’s colleagues and relatives, didn’t feel ready to seek out any of the other murder suspects. But appearing occupied was near impossible. I longed for something to hold—a glass or cigarette—something to consume, to keep me company. I had neither. And so, cast adrift among the sea of mourners, I found myself gravitating toward the floral shrine. A rainbow beacon amid the charcoal, onyx, jet.

  Delicate petals spilled out of the boxes so invitingly, I had to stroke them—the freesias, the hibiscus and irises. I read the messages on tags and cards, took note of various names. A box of chunky unfolding peonies was tied with a blue ribbon and a small tag. There was no message, but I recognized it well: Richard’s name on one side in spidery inky-blue letters; the universe on the other, a black and sparkling-silver sky. Space, it declared at its center. When I let it fall from my hand, I found another card looped to the ribbon: Honey, it said; Earth, vined and leafy.

  The tag on the box beside it also intrigued me. Attached to otherworldly blood-red orchids, it had no name. Only a phrase, cryptically repeated in dark-green cursive ink:

  Willow trees, willow trees.

  “They are beautiful, no?”

  Sabine was beside me, pinching the petal of a rose between forefinger and thumb. She plucked it off and, with eyes closed, pressed it against her nose to inhale.

  “A glorious tr
ibute,” I said. “The messages are very touching.”

  She nodded, tears in her eyes.

  We were turned away from the crowd—no onlookers to wonder how we knew each other, whether we had been guests and murderers. No flouting of the pacts we had made with our lawyers.

  Sabine whispered, quite earnestly, “It is death that persuades us to live.”

  She allowed herself to look up at me for one second; her eyes were lifeless. Then she picked up a branch of orange blossom, breathed its scent, placed it back. “Are these flowers already dying? Or not yet. Presque. I dream about his body every night. I hear the cries that we did not listen. And I go to his side. I hold his hand.”

  “I see him too,” I said.

  (The fingers, the eyes, the sharp stench of vomit.)

  “Yes, I think we will always see him,” she murmured. “And this is our judgment. There must be a suffering.”

  We looked again to the flowers.

  (The wounds; the bruises; a long, blunt object.)

  “Sabine,” I said, “do you have your cigarettes with you?”

  Our silent agreement could be damned.

  * * *

  —

  Richard stood to grab my wrist. I was already out of the doorway.

  “It’s not what it looks like,” he said, following me to the hallway.

  “No, Richard.” I tugged my arm away, stepped backward onto a piece of cake. “No, I can’t do this.”

  “I wasn’t going to—”

  “Why were you taking off your belt, then? Why are you up here, in our bedroom, hiding from your guests?”

  I had never seen him speechless before. The dance music downstairs was picking up tempo. His silence made me strong.

  “Give me any excuse,” I said. “Tell me, Richard. Someone spilled a drink on your pants and you had to change? You wanted to put on your swim shorts to—”

  “Elspeth, please, you’re drunk. You’re embarrassing yourself.”

  “No.” The anger had taken hold. “Don’t, don’t do that. Don’t—I can be—I’m allowed to be angry, Richard. One promise. I asked for one promise from you and—who was that in the room with you? Your dealer?”

  A woman tottered up to us.

  “Bathroom’s that way,” I hissed at her, then turned back to my husband. “It’s ridiculous. It’s laughable. You know, even after everything we’ve been through, I thought you could do this one thing for me. For our family. I thought you were strong enough to—”

  “I was.” He raised his voice, then looked around and lowered it. “I was,” he whispered, gripping my wrist again, “and I’ve kept sober for nearly a decade, Elspeth, but…”

  “What?” I said. “Is it my fault, Richard? Tell me how it’s my fault. Tell me how it’s my fault you can’t control yourself. Tell me how it’s my fault you’re weak. Tell me how it’s my fault that your daughter—”

  Richard gritted his teeth, tightened his hold. “Shut up. Shut up. My guests—there are journalists here. Control yourself.”

  “Let go,” I said.

  He leaned in closer. His face twitched. “I’m an adult.”

  “I asked you to let go, Richard.”

  “And I can make my own decisions. I don’t have to answer to you. Look at you. You’re a fucking embarrassment.”

  “I said, let go.”

  “Trying to cause a scene at my birthday, my wrap party. What, are you jealous? Because it’s not all about you for once?”

  “You’re hurting me.” I raised my voice. Surely someone would hear. “Let me go!”

  “So you have a few martinis, is that right? Let your hair down. Now look at you. Sunburned. Purple puke down your slutty dress and face like an old hag. Is it any wonder that I try to escape you, when you’re such an embarrassment? You look just like your mother when you’re drunk. It all comes out. Sweaty, common…”

  I was shouting now: “Let me go, let me go, Richard, let me—”

  He threw my wrist down. It smacked against the banister. Pain shot up my arm.

  Neither of us spoke.

  I waited for someone to come up the stairs, emerge from one of the rooms, but there was no one. Just Richard and me, staring at each other, catching our breath over the beat of the music.

  My voice lowered, trembling, as I said, “I will not raise my daughter with an addict.”

  “Our daughter, Elspeth.” He thinned his eyes. Face full of disgust. “Don’t give me that. You knew what you were getting yourself into.”

  “If you go back into the bedroom,” I said, “there are no more chances. You made a promise.”

  The music thudded below. Conversation; shrieks of laughter.

  “Don’t give me ultimatums,” Richard said. “You chose this life. Look around you, Elspeth. Who pays for this house? Who pays for your clothes and your car? Who feeds Lillie? Who gives her everything she wants?”

  I did not answer.

  “You’ll do well to remember that next time you feel like telling me what to do. You’ll do well to remind yourself where you’d be without me.”

  He was smiling strangely.

  “Our daughter, Elspeth,” Richard said. “Our daughter.”

  I turned away from him, so he would not see the tears. And then I heard the bedroom door open again. I heard it close. I heard the click of the latch. And I was alone.

  * * *

  —

  Sabine and I made our way to the far corner of the lawn, far from the other memorial guests. Stood at the precipice, looking across the cityscape, as we had that fateful night. The first draw on the cigarette rushed to my head. I steadied my feet. Giddy with the nicotine, dizzy with the height.

  “Where are you from?” said Sabine, after a while.

  I was studying the gradient of the sky, how pollution faded the buildings away in layers, like stage scenery.

  “My parents always said we lived in Floral Park or Hempstead, Long Island. But really we lived the other side of Jamaica Ave, in Queens.”

  “You should be proud of your home,” Sabine said. “I could say that I am from Paris, but every time I do an interview I tell them Clichy-sous-Bois. Clichy-sous-Bois: I want them to know.”

  She extended her arm to tap ashes over the drop.

  “This area, this is a suburbs,” she explained. “But the banlieue is not the same as American suburb, it’s not so good. People are very poor, there are no jobs, and too many police, watching, questioning, violent. Clichy-sous-Bois, we are mostly known for the émeutes, which is…I can’t remember the word. Like rebellion, but police, smashing, cars on fire…”

  “Riots?”

  “A riot, yes. I was only a child and I remember, it scared me. But still, you understand why. Growing up, there is not so much there. So now I like to say Clichy-sous-Bois in the magazines. I like everyone to know how it makes me.”

  “And now you live in L.A.”

  “Mostly,” she said. “But I go home often and I see my mother.”

  “She must be proud of you,” I said.

  My parents had been proud of me too, in the beginning, even though they had no right to be. They had laughed when I told them I was moving to L.A. to become an actress, because, sure, I had the face, but I’d always kept to myself and I did know that actresses were required to speak, didn’t I? After I left, they didn’t call, not once, not even on my birthday—not until they heard about my part in Anatomy. By that time it had already been showing for weeks; an old classmate’s mother had informed them I was in it. My parents did not believe her. Not till they saw it for themselves. They recounted this gleefully over the phone. Like it was a hilarious tale.

  They were coming to visit. I told them the timing wasn’t great, but they had already booked the tickets and hotel. And they were so expensive, my mother repeated, until I of
fered to cover it. That was how I found myself with blisters on my feet, walking up and down Hollywood Boulevard in mid-July, taking photos of my parents pointing at every star, listening to them bicker over who had appeared in which movies. Richard insisted on treating us all to lunch, and my parents jumped at the chance to meet my fancy new boyfriend—a real live celebrity—and did I think that he had ever met Farrah Fawcett? I told my mother to ask him herself and immediately regretted it.

  Of course, the meal went terribly. My father complained about the food: The plates were not big enough, not at these prices. Was Richard really going to pay the check? At these prices? My mother ignored all of Richard’s polite questions, only remarking on his accent.

  As soon as we had dropped my parents back at their hotel, Richard was scoffing. He couldn’t believe it—I was so different from them. And it was true, I was, but he had no idea that the girl sitting beside him had been carefully constructed. All those weekends copying gloved ladies at Bergdorf’s. All those nights watching women at Hollywood parties. How they smiled and laughed and tossed their hair. How the most magnetic were also the quietest. How easy it is to pretend you understand the conversation when you say absolutely nothing at all. I didn’t defend my parents. I couldn’t. Not when I had tried so hard to distance myself from them. Not when it was true, Richard was right—they were ignorant, they were rude, they had been ungrateful and selfish.

  I felt awful the next day, when I took a taxi with them to the airport. They were waiting for me on the curb, carrying their own luggage. Sweaty and sunburned, wearing studio-tour T-shirts. My mother told me how much they had liked Richard, how proud they were of me.

  As she said that, I felt an intense disappointment.

  I could not put my finger on it until I had waved goodbye to them at security. It was Richard. I hadn’t wanted them to like him. I had wanted my mother to tell me it was wrong—to be seeing a man almost a decade older than me. I had wanted my father to call him a snob—to see through the expensive meal and the flashy car. I never thought they would be impressed. I thought they would see it: how lonely I was. I wanted them to tell me to come home.