by Marta Acosta
The corners of her mouth twitched upward, but she was already focusing on solutions to my problem. “If you got a roommate, you could use her rent to pay for the assessment, or maybe you should expand your gardening business full-time.”
“Your suggestions are shockingly soulless for the daughter of musicians.” I reached into my handbag to pull out a bottle of red-black nail polish.
“Real musicians have day jobs, which is why my parents still teach.”
“What I need is corporate funding. Ian’s neighbor’s father is a sci-fi geek who has multiple graduate degrees in science, and all he does is hang out in a lab,” I said, dabbing polish over the chips on my nails.
“No one just ‘hangs out’ in a lab.”
“He won’t clone his wife’s dead cat, Señor Pickles, or build her a robot maid, which seems like a very churlish attitude. If I was a scientific genius, cloning pets and building robot maids would be on the top of my to-do list.”
Mercedes knew I still missed my old dog, so she was silent for a few seconds and then she said, “If you got a Daisy clone, you could give me Rosemary. He’s a great dog and I’ve been thinking I could use a pet. I could also use a few robot bartenders.”
“If I ever meet the scientific genius, I’ll get him right on that,” I said. “Gabriel and I went shopping and had dinner this week.”
Mercedes and Gabriel had bonded over their enthusiasm for computer hacking. “How’s he doing?”
“He’s going to a Vampire Council confab about someone who wants them all to come out. I think Ian is perfectly happy living in a crypt. Thus cryptic. Cryptology. Cryptography. Those are all excellent words.”
“So is crap,” she said. “Milagro, I know you want to talk about what’s going on with you and Ian, but I can’t get involved, because he’s my business partner. Please don’t ask me to play sides, because I like you both.”
“But you like me better, right?”
Now she laughed and said, “Don’t try me when you know Ian paid for the club’s renovation. If you go to the corner store and pick up two jumbo bags of M&Ms for the Green Room, I’ll give you a T-shirt.”
“Fine,” I said, swinging my legs over and standing up. “Peanut or regular?”
The show was great and afterward I went home and took Rosemary out for his last walk of the day. He was a good dog, but I still didn’t love him the way I’d loved my first dog. Even now I noticed that Rosemary didn’t perk his ears the way Daisy used to perk hers.
I felt so guilty about my ambivalence that I gave Rosemary a splash of my chicken blood nightcap before bed.
During the next few days, I caught up with my Stitching & Bitching group at the Baltic, a German bar with a delightful Mexican owner named Carlos. He let us use the stage to have an impromptu poetry slam on knitting and politics, and then my friends tried to help me with my latest project. I was trying to knit a scarf with a bluish gray alpaca-wool-silk blend that matched Oswald’s eyes. I didn’t know if I’d ever give it to him.
Early one morning I drove north to the posh wine country town where Oswald had his plastic surgery office, offering succor and sutures to the wealthy and imperfect.
As I went past the hillside winery with a funicular, I thought ruefully of a disastrous lunch there with Oswald’s parents.
I parked my truck a few blocks away from Oswald’s office and snuck into a café that had a good view of his parking lot.
I nursed a double latte for an hour and had started on my second when I saw Oswald’s dark blue Lexus drive into the lot. I slunk low in my seat, the latte halfway to my mouth, as I watched him get out of his car.
Oswald’s chestnut hair was longer and brushed back. His expression was solemn and he wore a gray suit and pale blue shirt. There was the broad brow that I’d kissed. There was the lovely mouth that tugged up in a crooked smile. There were the marvelous long-fingered hands that had cared for me when I was ill and delighted me when I was well.
I stared at the building’s back entrance long after Oswald had gone inside. I was fumbling in my handbag for a tip when I heard someone say, “Hi, Milagro.”
I looked up to see Vidalia, the doctor who’d joined Oswald’s practice. She was a petite woman with tiny hands that did precise work. Seeing her in her prim suit, most people would never believe that she’d been the bat-shit-crazy scorned woman who’d tried to kill me.
“Hi, Vidalia,” I said cautiously.
She sat down. “I’ll wait here while they’re making my protein shake. We’ve got a long day ahead, and I’ll need some energy.”
“You’re acting very nonchalant for someone who cut the wires in my car, buried my engagement ring, dragged my wedding dress through the mud, and attacked me in wolf form.”
She shook her head and smiled regretfully. “I was out of my mind with jealousy and I really believed that you were having an affair with my ex. Of course, the drugs I took to shapeshift messed me up, as did the transformations. I wanted to be a she-wolf, but just became a megabitch.”
“I never even kissed your ex. Oswald thought I was losing my mind because of your sabotage.”
“I’m really sorry about that, Milagro.” She glanced through the window and across the street to the parking lot.
We watched as a van turned into the lot and parked in the shade. The side door slid open and two young men and a woman got out. One was leaning on a cane. Another’s empty sleeve was pinned to his shoulder. The woman’s face was a rough, red mass of scar tissue. The driver and passenger got out and helped them to the building’s entrance.
“Your patients?” I asked.
She nodded. “We’re doing their evaluations this morning for surgery on the weekend. Oswald and I are spending most of our free time with wounded vets. Most of them need psychiatric counseling, too, though, because they’ve got post-traumatic stress. But we do what we can.”
My feelings softened a little. “I’m glad you’re helping.”
She smiled and said, “It’s funny how things turn out. If I hadn’t been stalking my ex, I wouldn’t have come here and learned that Oswald was looking for an associate. If I hadn’t attacked you, I wouldn’t have been forced to do this pro bono work. It’s been the most rewarding thing in my life.”
“A happy chain of incidents,” I said, half sarcastic and half serious.
“I don’t think so,” she said. “So many things happen around you.”
“I didn’t ask you to be a crazed stalker. You made those decisions all on your own.”
“True, but I think you’re a catalyst for things happening. I think that there is individual choice in our lives, but we operate in a larger framework. Within that framework, there are certain pivotal people, and you’re one of them.”
“Vidalia, if it makes you feel better about your behavior, go ahead and think that,” I said. “But I’m not going to accept that it was okay for you to do what you did because of bigger forces. You were one of the reasons my relationship with Oswald ended.”
The waitress brought over Vidalia’s protein shake. The doctor popped a straw in the top and took a sip. She stood up and said, “Milagro, it tears Oz apart every time he sees you. Sometimes you have to let someone go.”
“Our feelings for each other were real,” I said. “I’m not like you, Vidalia.”
“Then why are you stalking Oswald?” she said. “’Bye.”
She’d been wrong about me before. She was wrong about me now.
The next day, my amiga Nancy Carrington and I went to an Yves Saint Laurent exhibit at the museum and then for a lunch of salads and rosé. Nancy looked like a privileged, chic girl about town, which she was, but all you had to do was peer into her twinkly blue eyes to see her essential wackiness.
She tossed back her golden blond hair and said, “I went to a blow job class. Isn’t my hair fabulous?”
“A blow what class?”
“I learned all the tricks of professional stylists. You must take one. As Sun Tzu says in The Art
of War, know thyself, know thy hair type, and you will have naught to fear in a thousand fab ’dos.”
“I love that you can draw fashion tips from ancient military strategy.”
“It’s one of my talents. I spent my entire senior seminar on Adam Smith thinking of ways to apply his economic theories to skirt trends. If you start seeing wool dirndls, invest in new technology,” she said. “Do you ever think about your old beau, Oscar, the plasma sturgeon?”
“Oswald, and, of course, I still think of him, and I prefer to experiment with my hairstyle.” I tossed my head to swing back my hair. “Our relationship feels unfinished. It didn’t die a natural death, beaten lifeless by a million arguments, or mutual animosity, or boredom. It was that damn wedding.”
“How tragic, because that flip is trés Farrah, may she rest in peace, without the crucial new millennium update. You know, you’ve never quite explained how you met him.”
“Didn’t I?” I said. “My hair is post-new-millennium, and I met Oswald at that party for Sebastian Beckett-Witherspoon.”
“Your first love,” she said. “Go on.”
“Sebastian was awful when he saw me, and Oswald was so fabulous, but he was engaged.” Oswald had neglected to tell me about his fiancée or his vampirism when we’d lip-locked and I’d accidentally been infected.
“You home-wrecking bitch,” she said as she waved to the waiter for refills of our water.
“Oswald’s first engagement was not a love match. They were marrying to please their families, like you and Todd.”
“Honey-bunny, I loved Todd, as implausible as you think that is,” she said. “Orville is kind of a wiener for getting engaged if he wasn’t in love.”
“That’s why Oswald ended it. But while he was engaged I met Ian and had a brief, torrid tryst.” I’d walked out on Ian when he tried to give me a willing thrall as an after-dinner mint.
“Lord Lustalicious,” she said. “When he looked at me, I swear I could feel my panties magically evaporating. I have a theory that he can make a girl orgasm by uttering some seemingly banal phrase, like ‘What a lovely basket of bananas.’”
I started laughing. “Ian thinks that you are one of the finest thinkers of our time.”
“He’s a perceptive man,” Nancy said. “But why did you bring Ian as your date to my wedding if you were living with Orwin?”
“Ian wasn’t my date. He was my escort. I told you that Oswald was away on his annual vacation repairing cleft palates for children, but you didn’t believe me.” That night was as indelible to me as the scar on my arm where I’d been slashed. Afterward, no matter how hard I tried, I’d been unable to let Oswald taste my blood.
“Milagro, you with a plastic surgeon is unbelievable, since you have Major Issues with your mother, Regina’s, makeovers,” Nancy said. “Will you ask Ogden if he’d rent his ranch to me for one of my parties?”
“Not a chance. Oswald needs time to get over me.”
“That’s why I adore you. You’re as mature as an excellent wheel of Parmigiano-Reggiano,” Nancy said. “How are things going with Sir Sexalot? Is his new house party-worthy?”
“It would be excellent if you were throwing a Scarface party,” I said. “It has a mirror ball and a pool. Ian is …”
“Sexeriffic?”
“Yes, but also too much the continental roué, I think. All mysterious and imperturbable and debauched and pleased with being Ian Ducharme.”
“I’ve never heard you be so critical about anyone in possession of a penis.”
“Oswald raised my standards. Now I have higher expectations of those in possession of a penis.”
“Osgood was nice, but are you really a nice girl, Milicious?” Nancy narrowed her blue eyes.
“I think we should marry someone we admire, someone who brings out our best qualities,” I said. “Do you ever miss Todd as a friend?”
She considered before speaking. “Actually, I do. I spent so long with him and we really grew up together. It’s almost as though the memories of your life are less real because you can’t share them with someone who was there. I miss Todd’s family, too.”
“I’m still friends with most of Oswald’s family, but they’re careful not to mention certain things.”
“C’est la vie,” she said. “I wish you’d marry Ian because I bet his mother has a tiara she could give you as a wedding present, and I think a tiara would be wonderfully sparkly against your hair.”
“You are quite inspirational, you know, Nancy.”
“Yes, I know.”
Although Ian must have returned, he hadn’t called. When I thought about him being close by, I felt like a junkie trying to ignore a poster for free heroin on a liquor store window. And, like a junkie, I gave in to my desire.
Since Ian often saw me in my gardening clothes, I decided to wear something special. I changed into a black silk bra and thong, a garter belt and stockings, a lace-trimmed black slip, a clingy wrap-around plum-colored dress, and black heels.
I put my hair up to expose my neck and wore dangling Victorian garnet and gold earrings that Ian had given me. I stroked on dark eye shadow, layers of mascara, and glossy plum-red lipstick. As I got ready, I became aroused as I imagined how Ian would undress me and the many interesting ways I’d let him violate me.
I didn’t call him first in case I came to my senses at the last minute. It was likely that I’d stay the night, so I took Rosemary with me so I wouldn’t have to return to my loft early in the morning.
When I arrived at the California Crapsman after sunset, cars were in the drive. I rang the doorbell and a moment later Mr. K answered the door.
“Good evening, Miss Milagro.”
“Hi, Mr. K.” Rosemary scampered by me into the house, but Mr. K didn’t open the door farther. I could hear music and voices from inside. “Ian’s back, isn’t he?”
“Yes, miss. If you would wait a moment, I’ll announce you.”
“No need for us to be so formal,” I said, and stepped by him.
“Miss,” Mr. K said, but I was already through the foyer and then I turned toward the sunken living room.
It took me a moment to register the scene. A three-piece jazz band played while people chatted. A few had the too-smooth color of spray-on tans as they quaffed dark red drinks. Among the others, I saw bruises and scabs, the marks of blood tastings.
Ian wasn’t in the room. Someone whispered, “That’s Milagro,” and someone else said, “Mmm, mouthwatering.”
I ignored the comments and walked out of the room.
Mr. K said, “Please, Miss Milagro, allow me—” He tried to block my way and I moved around him, heading to the master suite.
The door was ajar and I pushed it open, saying, “Ian …”
He stood by the stone fireplace, facing out to the room, and Cricket was in front of him, her back to him, in a filmy pale yellow spring dress. His mouth was on her shoulder, his hands gripping her arms.
Cricket’s head was thrown back and her eyes were closed like a martyr in spiritual ecstasy, the thin straps of her dress falling off and exposing most of her breasts. Her hips were pushed back against him, moving in a slow grind.
Ford sat in an armchair, clutching a tall cut crystal tumbler, transfixed.
I felt as if I’d stepped off a cliff.
I wanted to kill Ian and I wanted to cry, but I was paralyzed, telling myself, This isn’t happening.
Ian lifted his mouth from Cricket’s tan shoulder, showing a red gash on her golden skin. He licked a spot of blood off his lip.
“Hello, darling,” he said, and gently urged a dazed Cricket toward her husband.
She fell into Ford’s lap and took his drink from him.
Ian came to me and I stayed stiff in his embrace, just as he remained stiff from Cricket’s friction. His warm lips nuzzled my cheek, my neck, and I could smell the blood on his breath, his subtle spicy cologne, and the scent of his flesh.
I knew he drank from people, from women, but I h
adn’t witnessed him doing it since we’d been together. Although we never discussed it, I’d hoped he’d stopped. I thought I would be enough for him.
A stray blond hair was on Ian’s dark shirt, and I felt queasy. “You’re busy,” I said. “I should have called.”
“You’re always welcome. Let me introduce you.”
“No thanks. I’ll leave you to your friends.” I turned to leave and Ian grabbed my wrist, sending unwanted sensations through me. I stared at his hand, and he let go.
“Milagro, tell me why you’re angry.”
“I’m not angry.” I heard the words as if at a distance, spoken by someone calmly, yet all I felt was rage and hurt. “How you convinced them to do this …” His mouth on her, his hands on her, her ass rubbing him, her body open to him.
“Come now, Milagro, you’ve had sufficient time to accept my nature, our nature. You can see that we’re all enjoying this.” He glanced back at Ford kissing his wife as she snuggled against him.
Yes, that was the problem: they were all enjoying it too much.
Ford smiled goofily at me and said, “I like to watch.” He ran his hand down his wife’s arm, and I saw the bruises and scabs there. Ian must have been drinking from her for days. What else had he done to her, with her?
Cricket’s eyes flicked to mine and she gave me a confident, bold gaze, a “wouldn’t you like to know?” look.
I walked out of the room as fast as I could, needing to get outside and away.
Ian caught me in the foyer. “Milagro!”
“What?” I snapped.
“Don’t run away, querida,” he said quietly. “Cricket means nothing, but can’t you see that Ford is special? He’s very fond of you. He would be thankful to be your thrall.”
“Why do you keep pushing me toward him? Maybe it’s you who wants to watch. I don’t want a thrall.” I was mesmerized by the gold hair on Ian’s charcoal shirt.
