Close to Hugh

by Marina Endicott

  my mother invades my skin my bones

  my mouth my neck my heart braced

  for something bad to happen

  Mighton sees the transformation makes a face still spooky

  Now every time I stand waiting, impatient and tired, I realize

  that I’ve been trying to peel off that raincoat and that damn wig

  ever since. But I was her on a bad day. I could have worn

  her paint smock, happy at work. Her peacock feather dress,

  when she was beautiful.

  Mighton’s dark inquiring eye a nut of old kindness buried in bile

  You don’t see angels out on Hallowe’en. You’re not your mother

  We choose to look at the hardest parts of ourselves.

  wine moves in my chest in my legs

  I’ll look at the worst of myself

  I’ll go wild

  (ORION)

  Candy duty—fuck it, fuck everything. Eight o’clock, the little kids are finished. Orion leaves the bowl of chocolate bars on the step. Jason needs him. Everybody has indoor parties these days anyway, to get away from child molesters. Like those guys only come out once a year, wearing Freddy Krueger masks so you can spot them.

  His bike flies through black alleys, skims the river path, skids on gravel round to the back of Jason’s. The kitchen door is unlocked. Nobody there. But hark! Voices, up.

  Orion slinks up the back stairs, stopping behind the closed door at the top to listen: Jason, somebody else. The Maria, Mikayla? She just came this year, nobody knew she could act. But that was good, today.

  “The strap goes through—yes, and—” Jason is dressing her up.

  Orion pops the door and slips along the hallway, judges his moment and does a grand-jeté into the room. Stealth-bombs Jason’s Despair/Chastity. Mikayla, half-dressed in Nevaeh’s moulted Hope feathers, gives a satisfying shriek, upped by the pin Jason shoves into her rump as she jumps.

  Jason apologizes, dumbass, and Mikayla sobs for a second but smiles through the rain, saying “I’m so happy to be here” like an idiot. Too bad, it seemed like she might be smart. She hiccups and burps. What’s she drinking, Bailey’s? Ah. And underage, too, so Orion cops her glass and takes it to Jason’s bathroom, pours it down the toilet, and comes back.

  He takes Mikayla by the shoulders. “Shhh.” She shudders and shuts up.

  “You have a chance, here. Don’t blow it. Nobody knows you, now suddenly everybody knows you, you get to work with Ivy and Newell, and me—don’t drink anymore.”

  Mikayla nods.

  “Don’t throw up in the kitchen sink or take off your clothes or laugh like a hyena. For fuck’s sake don’t burp any more. I’m telling you this for your own good. Ivy can do it because she’s a trained genius.”

  Jason laughs his quiet, happy laugh, and Orion feels that the night is already made.

  (L)

  L goes up the back stairs to find Jason. He’s in his bedroom primping the new girl, Mikayla. Weird that he’s put her in Nevaeh’s dress. Is that okay, actually? Looks entirely different now, of course, especially since Mikayla’s like a foot shorter. L leans in the doorway, tilting on her vine-painted shoes. “Better get down there. Savaya put on Facebook that people should bring food and drink and come for nine, and it’s nine now.”

  Orion jumps up, neoprene suit snapping back into perfect form. God, he looks good—Jason’s a genius. The cut lingers over Orion’s wide shoulders and tapers with his shape, down to where L has to actually look away or her eyes will get stuck. “Savaya’s dad is bringing two folding tables, she’s waiting for him in the driveway. Hey, Mikayla, I hear you were great this afternoon. Savaya said.”

  The new girl gasps. Jason flicks her arm and says she’s done.

  But he takes L’s hand at the doorway and pulls her back—what for? Oh, to fix her dress. The tunic has fallen to one side. He straightens it, adjusting the folds, fingers cool on her skin. His breath on her shoulder.

  Orion takes the front stairs, so they follow. “Holy shit,” he says.

  The living room has furniture in it. Chairs, a glass table. And along the wall, a parade of dummies dressed in psychedelic clothes.

  “Those are Mimi’s pink gloves,” L says. She has tried them on many times, on many dull Sundays.

  Jason sinks to sit on the stairs. “I don’t know about this.”

  Orion shrugs, neoprene shoulders moving deliciously, his don’t-care grin that always means trouble. “Too late to stop the party, we’ll just have to work with it.” He runs down the rest of the stairs, pulling a black paper mask out of his pocket, which he puts on the wigstand foam-head on the glass table. It looks freaky over the strawberry-blonde afro.

  “Okay,” Jason says, going down. “But some of this stuff is valuable, I don’t want it wrecked or stolen. That Afghani dress, it’s like, a relic. L, help me take this one upstairs.”

  They cart the body up, L holding the foot and Jason at the waist, tending the dress carefully as they go. “Where to?” she asks.

  He stops a moment, and turns left. “Ivy’s room. It’s got a lock.”

  Savaya’s at the back door, shouting for help with the tables. Orion leaves them to it.

  He tells Mikayla as they go, “Also, keep your mouth shut. Don’t say anything bad about anyone for at least a year—you don’t know who’s dating who.”

  Jason and L take the dummies upstairs, one at a time: the backless, black-skirted, paisley-sequined cocktail dress; the Mondrian colour-block; the hot-pink mini that goes with the pink gloves. L puts the gloves in her pocket, rolled together the way Mimi always did. It’s kind of a nightmare, because the clock is ticking—they’re still on the stairs with a long black satin Audrey Hepburn–type gown when the first bunch of people comes banging at the door. Faster! Ivy’s room looks kind of crowded by the time they’re done.

  “Do you have the key?”

  “Nope.” Jason pushes the button in and pulls the door of Ivy’s room shut. “You can open it from the outside with a skewer in the little hole. Not much of a lock. Used to be the master bedroom, I guess it’s for keeping the kids out when the parents are banging.” Ghastly thought. “Enough to deter people tonight, though.”

  L nods. “Want to keep them out of your room too?”

  “Doesn’t matter—my mom cleaned it out. She had that magazine shoot today, that’s why she’s been doing the quotes so fast. I didn’t know she was going to use Mimi’s clothes.”

  Jason’s mom: a continuing enigma. “You ready?”

  But at the top of the stairs, he hangs back. Lots of people milling in down there. “Let’s go down the back.”

  Happy to. L loves the back stairs, doors at the top and the bottom. Momentary darkness as you go down, a chamber in a spaceship, or a time machine. All might be different by the time you reach the bottom. That door sticks. Jason jiggles it.

  L stands on the step behind him, looking at the barely visible back of his neck, the two cords standing out. He’s so concentrated, so exact. She reaches out to touch—

  “Got it,” he says, and the door opens into a flood of light, the kitchen full of people, bottles, bowls of chips, everyone from the master class and the art people and the tech guys, hubbub. A good party already.

  11. HUGH SAY PARTY, I SAY DIE

  Pink’s place is green. Bile-green skull lights along the veranda roof, spooky music. Hugh takes Ivy’s arm and mounts the wooden steps again. The bevelled glass of the door frames Burton, scarlet-coated over yellow plaid trousers, hair fluffed, red cheeks chomping.

  Ivy whispers, “What is he, Toad of Toad Hall?”

  Not even a week since Hugh punched him, in this very house. Phew, because you could have—what if you’d killed him, head on a fireplace fender, some old mystery-novel thing? Burton’s bruise has vanished, or been varnished by concealer.

  Newell pulls the door wide, grinning above the thick noose around his neck.

  “Ah, Godot,” Ivy says. “Lucky and Pozzo, very g
ood.”

  Looking remarkably fit, Newell wears a wife-beater over tattered trousers, and carries a heavy bag, a folding stool, a picnic basket and a greatcoat. “No idea why you came,” he says into their ears. “But very, very glad.” He shifts his burdens to dot a kiss on Ivy’s cheek.

  She kisses him back. “I made Hugh come. I realized after I left your place, I need to know what’s happening tomorrow or I won’t sleep tonight.”

  The rope from Newell’s neck stretches taut to Burton’s hand, who shouts, flicking his red leather whip: “Is everybody ready? Is everybody looking at me?”

  “What were you, eighteen, when you did Lucky?” Ivy asks Newell. “No, you must have been older. I saw you in the Fringe version, before it got picked up.”

  “Twenty?” Newell looks at Burton, who has stuck his bowler hat back on.

  “Nineteen and one-half, I believe.… ‘Given the existence as uttered forth in the public works of Puncher and Wattmann of a personal God quaquaquaqua.…’ ”

  Newell rolls his eyes for Hugh. “He knew the lines better than I did.”

  Hugh passes a hand over his forehead. Is there punch? Not that you ought to drink any. Takes Hugh a minute to recognize Mighton, by the drinks table, wearing some kind of tin can on his head. A helmet. He’s carrying a shield and sword, standing with Della. That old twining portrait, Hugh can’t stop thinking about it. Della looks up, sees Hugh. Blinks and turns her head away. Still mad at him? That’s ridiculous. Irritated, Hugh makes his way over there. He’s saying hi to the back of Della’s head when Ann appears, with some guy in tow.

  She grabs his arm, crying, “Hugh! This is my photographer, Stewart, he’s doing the shoot for my exhibit, for the minimalist—Stewart, Hugh’s my ex. My ex ex.”

  As Ivy comes up, Ann adds, “And his current! Oh, you met her this morning.”

  Hugh nods at the photographer guy, who’s wearing a too-tight jacket, too-tight too-short pants, giant boots. Everything coal black. “What are you?” Hugh asks, to be civil.

  “A photographer,” the guy says loudly, as if he thinks Hugh’s deaf.

  “I mean, what are you dressed as? More Beckett? Chimneysweep?” The guy just stares at him. Oh, those are his own clothes. Hugh gives up.

  “We didn’t dress up either,” Ivy says, saving his bacon. “Only as old lovers.” Her warm voice makes the guy smile, even though baffled.

  Ann pulls him away. She’s wearing Mimi’s purple Halston jumpsuit, the one Hugh always thought of as Virginia Slim. He stares after her. Ghosts.

  Mighton tilts the helmet back on his head, a plate of hors d’oeuvres on one arm, Della on the other. He says, “Let’s find some place to hide.” They process along into the hall, scene of the famous Burton-punch. Hugh rubs his head. A lie-down might help.

  Conrad, not costumed, is at the front door. Hugh shies, and tacks left with Ivy, heading up the grand staircase to a clear space above the swarm. They move together like an old couple, like Ruth dancing with Jasper at the Ace. Ruth is at Mimi’s. The thought of that quiet room cuts Hugh’s breath, makes him stumble on the stairs.

  But Ivy is with him; they reach the broad half-landing, a vantage from which to watch the crowd. There’s Orion’s mother—Hugh points her out to Ivy—wearing a sheer curtain. He feels some kinship with Orion.

  Della and Mighton lean into the banisters to let Pink pass behind them, coming down. Pink is Dracula, fake widow’s peak vivid against his chalky skin, the freckles a surprise. From below, Burton bounces up the stairs, Newell roped behind him.

  Burton seizes the hem of Pink’s passing cape. “Everyone seems very pleased with the master class,” he boasts. “I’m happy. Not an easy week, by any means.” Sparkling titter.

  Hugh bends away, not wanting to witness Ivy and Newell Pinkpandering too. “Della,” he calls, waving to snag her attention from Mighton. “Della—dinner tomorrow. Six or seven?”

  She looks at him, finally. “I don’t know if Ken’s going to be able to make it.”

  Hugh is shocked. The groceries—the planning. Della’s eyes are black and blank. He hates her like this. “Never mind, come anyway,” he says, not knowing how else to take the misery out of her eyes. “It’ll be a good dinner, no matter what.”

  “Oh, absolutely.” Della turns away again. When things are very bad, you can’t bear to be looked at by the ones you love. Hugh knows that feeling.

  Ivy wishes Pink/Dracula wouldn’t argue. “Don’t know why you’re not doing some one-act Canadian plays,” he protests. Of course they ought to be, it’s the only thing that makes sense.

  Burton, exploding: “Dear God, they’ll be doing Canadian plays the rest of their lives, can we not introduce them to the canon here, to the real plays?”

  Ivy disagrees with this so profoundly she cannot even speak.

  “I’m all for gay rights!” Pink’s fake fangs chomp. “We’re an LGBTQIA-friendly school. But cross-dressing is …”

  Burton waves his hand, the one with the red whip in it. “Hogwash, it’s entirely classically grounded—played by a boy in 1602, investigate Original Practices! But you’ve won already. Viola and Sebastian can’t be doubled. Too much of the plot is lost. Film, yes. Onstage, sadly, it simply doesn’t work. Not without pulling the play completely out of true.”

  Burton’s finicky, fustian phrases make Ivy want to wash her own mouth out of anything but plain Americanese. Now he’s going on about Mytyl and Tyltyl, technical obstacles-slash-challenges—what’s this?

  Newell turns, hiding his mouth from Burton. “He was in a production of The Blue Bird in Texas as a child.”

  Ivy asks: “He came from Texas?”

  Hugh: “He was a child?”

  Behind them, Burton lathers on. “I considered Our Town—in drag. And I thought, yes, maybe, but not for this venue.”

  Ivy nudges Mighton’s hors d’oeuvres plate closer to the edge of the banister, and coughs, so that it falls to the floor below with a violent crash. Oh dear!

  The throng of board members looks up, and Pink, furious, fusses down the stairs to deal with the mess, cape billowing behind him.

  (L)

  A text bings on L’s phone. Her tuned ear catches it through the noise of the party. No pocket in her chiton, she has it wedged under the side strap of her bra.

  Her mom.

  > when do you need me to pick you up?

  < I’m staying at Savaya’s

  Not that she’s going to. Savaya’s parents always get wasted on Hallowe’en, the night they first got high or something. Like tomorrow, for L’s parents. Not that they—ha ha ha, the very thought of her parents getting high! They just go to Hugh’s for dinner every year, since he introduced them, however long ago. L’s stomach squeezes at the thought of this year’s dinner.

  Everybody is so interested in everybody else’s business.

  Behind her, L can hear a circle of performance-program girls talking about Nevaeh in shocked carrying whispers: “Raped, she was raped.” L turns away as another one, that short fat girl who does improv, gives a giggling gasp. “I heard she was molested by Terry. She-Terry, not He-Terry.” A burst of laughter from the circle. A third one says, “I heard she’s been cutting all year.”

  L ought to interfere. Say something to shut these girls down. The cutting is none of their business. But is it being none of their business any of her business?

  “The anorexia got really bad, she fainted in the master class.”

  “She’s a mess. I hear she’s in for a thirty-day assessment.”

  Fuckheads. L turns finally, finally going to say something like they are all fuckheads.

  But Savaya’s already there, in her gold sheath, lips red like they’re bleeding: “Why don’t you dickwads go down to the hospital and ask her about all this to her face?”

  Jason tugs L’s hand to pull her away, but she can’t abandon Savaya. Another one, a guy, not even from school but some loser from Trent drawn by the excitement, laughs loudly. “What’s this I hear? The s
keez-ball got all rapey with that black chick Navy?”

  Savaya turns to tear into this guy. He sneer-laughs, and Savaya puts out a blood-nailed hand and shoves him to make him shut the fuck up, so he stumbles back toward the fireplace and trips and—slow motion—just lies back, lies down onto the big glass coffee table where the pink gloves used to be.

  As he goes down, as the glass is cracking, through that slow-spooling time L is praying that he will not cut an artery.

  All the noise of the party stops—the glass makes such a lightning crack! Not deep thunder, but bright and flashing. The boy wallows on his back in the shards like a turtle.

  Jason steps carefully over the glass to take his reaching hand. Orion surges through the crowd and takes the other hand, and Jason says, “Put your feet on the metal.”

  With him braced like that, Orion and Jason pull the guy up and out of all the glass, now crumbled into a rubble of sparkling, dangerous cubes.

  Sheridan Tooley bustles in with the broom, his unexpected boyfriend with the long slinky gloves holding the dustpan up like a fan. The circle widens out to make room for the cleanup, and Orion and Jason turn the guy around to see if he’s got glass on him.

  “Not much—you’re lucky, asshole,” Orion says. He brushes a couple of square shards off the guy’s leather jacket, which saved him from most of it. “Too bad, Jase. But it’s a rule: if there’s a glass table in act one, it has to get broken by act three. Where’s the vacuum?”

  The guy is sputtering about Savaya: “She— You pushed me! I was just asking …”

  Savaya barrels in on him, not sorry at all. “Quit saying stuff about Nevaeh, you racist shitpig. She broke her fucking ankle, and that’s all there is to it.”

  L is trembling. Why did she not shut those girls down herself? Where is her loyalty, or her love?

  12. I REALLY MEAN IT

  Walking away from Pink’s party down dark spook-ridden streets, Ivy asks Hugh, “Do we see light and dark differently when we’re little? Or is it just that memory darkens it? Scenes from my childhood are so often poorly lit.”