by Denise Dietz
Once upon a time I had craved publicity. Once upon a time I had chained myself to recruitment center gates and asked my short-lived rock group to belt out “Clowns,” because I had promised never to sing until Stewie came marching home again, hurrah, hurrah. Once upon a time I had created a top-ten song through hostile hype. But once upon a time ended when government officials insisted that marijuana killed brain cells and the FBI swore that antiwar demonstrators smoked dope.
Therefore, rebellious Rose Stewart had defied Darwin and evolved backwards, finally regressing into Ingrid Beaumont, who scored buddy-cop movies and horror flicks.
I glanced toward the media crowd, milling about like wasps without a hive. Was I flattering myself? After all, the years had swiftly flown, I had aged, and I didn’t spend lots of money on Wylie’s face creams or plastic surgeons. Well, maybe the face creams, not to mention Ellie Bernstein’s diet club.
Hell! Why all the internal fuss? I could probably stroll through that alphabet convention, flash a few brainless smiles, and never be recognized.
On the other hand, why take foolhardy chances?
Skirting the next door neighbor’s front lawn, I climbed their back fence, cut across their yard, and heard the sound of thundering bass—a deep growl that momentarily left me standing stock still. Then I saw it, and my sneaker-clad feet, on their own accord, began to skim grass, decorative rocks and cultivated flower beds. I hurdled an ornate doghouse that boasted the letters T-O-N-T-O. I heard the Lone Ranger’s theme and recalled Wylie’s wrinkled-toothless comment.
Although Tonto was wrinkled, he definitely wasn’t toothless. A combination Shar-pei and Loch Ness monster, he very nearly bayoneted the seat of my jeans.
Desperate, I turned and shouted, “Tonto, sit! Tonto, stay! Tonto, friend! Tonto, kemosabe!”
It worked. The monster flopped to the dirt, drooled saliva, and glared at me from above his corrugated snout.
After climbing the fence, I swung my shaky legs over the top, loosened my hold, and landed in Patty’s backyard. My ankles protested but no bones snapped. Then I listened for the sound of Tonto’s body whooshing over the fence, or his paws digging, but all I heard was a disappointed growl-whimper and the muted music of the buzzing media.
How would I return to my car?
I could try the Tonto stay, Tonto friend bit again, but I had a feeling the dog’s cerebral hemisphere was already regretting his capitulation. Next time he’d savor the fleshy cheeks inside my jeans.
Patty’s backyard was serene, almost pastoral. A manicured lawn—with birdhouse rather than doghouse—was protected by a periphery of blue-barked willows, gray poplars, white birch trees and dark green firs. No wonder the cat, Sinead, had chosen this safe haven over Tonto’s intimidating turf.
And yet a dark pall of despair curtained the sorbet sun, not to mention the birds who chirped their do-waps above the feeder.
Or was I imagining things?
One can’t see the forest for the trees, I thought, as I walked toward Patty’s back door.
She was standing there, watching me, an enigmatic smile on her face. As she ushered me into the kitchen, I had a momentary memory flash: Jacqueline Kennedy. Patty reminded me of Jackie, after the assassination. Brave. Self-possessed. Even Patty’s tapered pants and cowl neck blouse had assumed a pleated, royal blue dignity. In high school she had worn her hair loose, a charcoal cloud. Now she tended to pull it away from her oval face. Today she’d clasped the shiny strands inside a jeweled barrette, emphasizing the two diamond teardrops that pierced her perfect earlobes. However, not one salty teardrop betrayed Patty’s cool-as-a-cucumber demeanor.
“Your sweater smells moldy,” she said by way of greeting, crinkling her cute nose.
“Hey, kiddo,” I said softly. “This is me, Ingrid. You don’t have to keep your true feelings hidden.”
Her velvet-brown eyes revealed—what? Exhaustion? No, annoyance.
Strolling over to a window, she straightened the frilly curtains, pulled a dead leaf from a window plant, turned toward me again.
“What do you mean by hidden?” she asked.
“Cry, Patty. Boohoo, keen, wail…”
I paused as I recalled her reaction upon learning about Stewie. Everybody else had gotten rip-roaring drunk. We had listened to Jimi’s fire-breathing anarchy, especially his controversial “Star Spangled Banner.” Then, while Marianne Faithful crooned “Sister Morphine,” Ben swiftly propelled me into the bathroom and held my head. Afterwards, gargling mouthwash, I vowed never to drink again. Naturally, I broke that vow. Because booze dulled the anguish. Because booze brought a nebulous state that allowed my body to experience guilt-free orgasm, to explode internally, even though I couldn’t erase the image of Stewie’s body exploding externally.
Ben and I had already parted. In fact, he had flown back from Ithaca and attended our improvised wake with a brassy-haired, sloe-eyed creature, who sprawled naked and comatose across Wylie’s beanbag chair. However, through impotent rage, not to mention wretched heartache, Ben and I had come together, as if our imperative screwing would have to last us a lifetime, which it almost did.
When we emerged from the bedroom, I heard a very drunk Wylie chanting, “This is your lucky day, this is your lucky day, this is your lucky day.”
“Make him shut up!” I screamed. Then I wept against Ben’s chest until he guided me back into the bedroom, lowered me to the mattress, and calmed my hysteria with more sex.
Sometime during the night, Alice Shaw consumed an hallucinogen and threatened to jump from Wylie’s first story window. We let her jump.
Later Alice denied the drug, the bad trip, and her “suicide leap.” We let her deny.
Patty accepted the tragic news stoically. She attended Stewie’s wake, but she didn’t indulge, even though Wylie urged her to drink, snort, smoke, swallow the ample supply of amphetamine candy. Instead, she drifted through the room like a wraith, changing records, covering Ben’s drugged-out date with a blanket, emptying ashtrays. And nobody—not even I—tried to turn Patty inside out to expose the hurt and allow it to heal.
“Earth to Ingrid.”
I rubbed my eyes like a swimmer who had just emerged from a chlorinated pool. “Sorry, Patty, daydreaming. I do that a lot. Old age.”
“We’re the same age,” she replied indignantly, “and I don’t consider myself old.”
“Neither would anyone else,” I soothed.
It was true. Patty and I had been born three months apart, yet she looked ten years younger. An almost invisible web of fine lines, radiating from the corners of her sad eyes were the only evidence that she had tiptoed past the big four-oh and was gracefully heading toward decade five. Maybe there was a senescent portrait inside the Jamestone attic.
As if she had read my mind, Patty said, “Do you want to see Wylie’s painting? It’s considered part of his estate, but he wanted you to have it and I shall honor his request.”
“I’d rather talk about Wylie.”
“I don’t want to talk about Wylie.”
“Hey, Patty, we’ve been best friends since kindergarten. We’ve shared everything from our first period to our first set of high heels. We cried together over Bambi and that part in Lassie where the little dog dies, and we practically destroyed our friendship when we both chose the same Beatle to marry.”
“Paul.”
“No. We wanted to marry George.”
“You’re wrong, Ing. It was Paul. We wanted to sleep with George and marry Paul.”
“We wanted to sleep with John.”
“Alice wanted to sleep with Wylie.”
“What?”
“It’s true, Ingrid. Alice once told me that if she couldn’t F-word Wylie, she’d die a virgin.”
“Alice doesn’t use the F-word, Patty. Do you think that’s why she married Dwight? So she’d stay a virgin?”
“I don’t know. Probably.”
Subtle me changed the subject, hoping to elicit tears. “Are you planning to
bury Wylie in New York?”
“I don’t plan to bury him at all.”
Aha, I thought. That’s why she won’t talk about Wylie. Because she can’t admit he’s really gone. Maybe that’s the reason she acted so dispassionate following Stewie’s death.
“My husband had some very definite ideas about his funeral,” Patty continued. “He insisted that we wait for a windy day, stand on that rise above Cripple Creek, and scatter his cremated ashes.”
“We?”
“The Clovers. He wanted us to sing that old song Ray Charles recorded with Betty Carter.”
“Baby, It’s Cold Outside?”
“Correct.”
“God, that’s so Wylie. Why Cripple Creek?”
“The gambling. He said life was one humongous gamble. At first he suggested we toss his ashes over Monaco and sing ‘True Love,’ you know, that Bing Crosby-Grace Kelly ditty? He said the first person he wanted to greet on the other side was Princess Grace. But I said Monaco was a tad far away, not to mention expens—”
“Wait a sec! Did Wylie know he was going to die? Did he have some fatal disease, Patty?”
“Yes. It’s called screwing around. Although he carried condoms like other men might carry handkerchiefs, Wylie was scared of catching a fatal sex disease.”
Well, that explained Patty’s sad eyes, and opened Pandora’s box. How many rejected women waited patiently for the chance to bash Wylie’s head in? Was Alice one of them? Did Dwight know about Alice’s secret desire? And let’s not forget the masochistic cheerleader, the one who spurned Dwight and was spurred on by rowdy Clint. Could Wylie have rejected her?
“I’d really love to sit here and chat,” said Patty, “but I have a million things to do. Wylie’s parents are deceased, but his sister lives in Houston. Remember Diane?”
“Of course. We called her Woody.”
Patty opened a floral box, pulled out a single rose, and extended it toward me. “I’ve received flowers and telegrams from a bunch of celebs who collect Wylie Jamestone portraits,” she bragged. “Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins, Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell…”
While she name-dropped, I stroked velvety rose petals. When she finally paused for breath, I said, “Are you planning to hold a memorial service, Patty-Cake?”
“Yes.”
“Would you like me to sing?”
“Dylan’s already volunteered.”
“Bob Dylan?”
“No, Dylan Thomas. Of course, Bob Dylan. Remember the portrait Wylie did of him?”
“How could I forget? It was one of my favorites.”
The bubble above Dylan’s head had stated: NO ONE’S FREE, EVEN THE BIRDS ARE CHAINED TO THE SKY.
“Speaking of portraits,” said Patty.
“Okay. Yes.” Suddenly I was anxious. Let the treasure hunt begin.
Patty led me through an archway into a studio roughly the size of a large utility room. Sunlight slashed the glass of several small square windows, set just below the ceiling. The furnishings were sparse—a stool, an easel, a nondescript table, an army cot. Sinead was trespassing again. Asleep on the cot, she looked like a calico wreath. I smelled lingering traces of linseed oil and turpentine. Stacked against one wall were a few canvasses, covered by a white sheet.
Patty sneezed, glared at the cat, and gestured toward the window wall.
I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t Doris Day.
Wylie’s painting was approximately four feet by three. Doris Day’s freckled face grinned impishly. Her head reclined against colorful pillows and her bubble stated: THE REALLY FRIGHTENING THING ABOUT MIDDLE AGE IS THE KNOWLEDGE THAT YOU’LL OUTGROW IT.
My eyebrow instinctively assumed a curvature. “What does that mean? Could Wylie,” I said, thinking out loud, “have decided he didn’t want to grow old and killed himself?”
“Hardly. He was hit on the back of the head. How could he kill himself? It would be like trying to clean the wax from your ears with your toes.”
My eyebrow continued rising until it merged with my bangs. “Jeeze, Patty, how can you make jokes?”
“If I died, Wylie would crack wise.”
“That’s different. Goofy shticks were Wylie’s defense mechanisms. Remember Dwight? And Stewie?” I took a deep breath. “Did you love Wylie, Patty?”
“Define love.”
I looked down at my rose. “Duke Ellington said that love is supreme and unconditional.”
“Yeah, but Jimi Hendrix said that the story of love is hello and goodbye.”
“Were you planning to say goodbye?”
“If you mean divorce, no.”
“Was Wylie planning to say goodbye to you?”
Her lips curled. “That’s a stupid question.”
“Here’s another stupid question. Don’t you wonder who really killed your husband?”
“They caught his killer.”
“Right.” My gaze touched upon the painting and I wondered why Lieutenant Miller hadn’t asked my opinion. Hell, if I knew cops, and I did, Miller was scouring Colorado Springs, searching for a silver-blonde, statue-hefting Doris Day. I looked back at Patty. “Did Wylie have an affair with a woman named Doris?”
“I don’t know. Probably. I’m surprised at you, Ing. Wylie never made his treasure hunts that easy.”
“True. I remember when we all invaded the Chief Theatre. Wylie’s clue was buried inside a box of popcorn.”
“No. Crackerjacks. The Chief’s feature film was Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Damn! I think I’m going to cry.”
“Good. Tears hurt, but they also heal. It’s like pouring peroxide over an open wound. At first it stings something awful, but—”
“Such a beautiful moo-moovie,” she said in between sobs. “Remember how it was raining and Audrey Hepburn hugged her wet pussy?”
I had a fleeting image of Wylie cleaning wax from his ears with his toes before it dissolved into the image of Audrey Hepburn trying to hug her wet pussy.
“Then George Peppard kissed Audrey,” Patty continued, “while the puss played peek-a-boo from the lapels of her trench coat. It was so romantic. That scene always makes me cry.”
“Gosh, I remember your supreme, unconditional feelings for ‘Moon River,’ ” I said sarcastically.
“Moon, oh God, River. After Dylan does his thing, would you sing ‘Moon River’ at Wylie’s memorial service? Please, Ingrid, please?”
“I’d rather sing Janis Joplin’s ‘Piece of my Heart.’”
Unexpectedly, I felt the nape of my neck prickle. Because I heard a distant echo. The words could have come from Doris Day’s painted lips.
Are you dying, Wylie?
And the reply might have come from Joplin, chained to the sky.
We all die by bits and pieces.
But the third refrain sounded just like Wylie. Maybe he was chained to Janis.
How do you make a statue of an elephant?
Chapter Six
“She was hugging her wet pussy?”
Ben’s voice sounded amused, and even though I had conjured up the same mental image, I said, “Wet cat, honey.”
Hitchcock growled. His knowledge of human speak wasn’t very extensive, maybe eight words—sit, stay, friend, dogbiscuit, baddog, gooddog, getdownoffthecouchyousonofabitch, and cat. When I wanted him to leave the family room, I’d verbally bribe him with: “Look, Hitchcock, there’s a cat, chase the cat.” It worked every time.
“In retrospect,” I said, “this afternoon’s Breakfast-at-T’s crying jag was Patty’s way of expressing genuine sorrow. When JFK was assassinated, everybody else wept buckets. But Patty was dry-eyed until we watched The Miracle Worker shortly thereafter. Patty Duke said wah-wah for water and our Patty burst into tears. ‘Oh God,’ she wailed, ‘why can’t miracles happen in Dallas, too? Why couldn’t he be crippled or blinded? Why did he have to die?’ She said virtually the same thing when Stewie died, but only after Warren Beatty, as Clyde Barrow, was riddled by bullets.”
“Enough,
Ingrid.” Ben knelt on the family room’s carpet and tousled Hitchcock’s shaggy, maple-leaf ears. “We don’t have to obsess over Wylie’s demise or Patty’s grief.”
“You sound so unemotional. I thought you and Wylie made up during Sunday morning’s phone call. Before I left for the game, you even said something about kidnapping Wylie and buying him dinner. Did you do it?”
“Did I do what? Kill Wylie?”
“No, dopey, buy him dinner.”
“Ingrid, he died.”
“Dinner doesn’t necessarily mean night fare, especially on a Sunday. Dinner means the principal meal of the day.”
“Are you asking if I saw Wylie before he was killed?”
“Yes.”
I recalled Cee-Cee’s wheedle with sex remark—roast beef, booze, and a lack of panties. But I hadn’t worn undies, even provocative undies, in years. Also, I couldn’t cook worth a damn and it was supper time, so I sat on the edge of my lime couch, scrutinizing several Chinese take-out containers. The food was real Chinese, seasoned to perfection, ordered from a hole-in-the-wall restaurant that Wylie had recommended. Nana Ana would have eaten there because the place looked and smelled, even sounded authentic. In fact, when the man at the counter handed me our to-go package, the only word I could decipher was “cookie.” I thought he appeared disgruntled, as if fortune cookies were too American.
Ben bit into a fried wonton, chewed, swallowed, said, “I went to Wylie’s house around eleven but I never saw him.”
“He wasn’t there?”
“He was busy painting. Patty offered me a Bloody Mary.”
“Before noon?”
“Alcohol doesn’t necessarily mean night fare,” Ben mimicked, “especially on a Sunday. Anyway, Patty had already downed a few.”
“What? Patty never drinks, not since our senior prom.”
“She was upset.”
I finally made my selection; hot and spicy bean curds. I felt hot and spicy, so I unbuttoned my blouse down to where my bra would have been, had I been wearing a bra. “Why was she upset, Ben? The reunion dance?”
“Of course. Wylie ruined it for her.”
