How Perfect is That

by Sarah Bird

  Ick, did I just think that? All that “Kumbaya” Christianity of Millie’s, it’s getting to me.

  That thought flickers away and is replaced by the memory of a creepy old engraving of Adam and Eve being cast out into a dark storm. The dark part sticks with me. I close my eyes, and it’s dark. I open them and it’s still dark. This is new. And not pleasant. During the Bubble Years, then the Society Years, Millie was always there in the darkness like a night-light. Or a low-fuel light. Some really irritating reminder that I was running on empty. But that maybe, if I just ignored the light, pretended it didn’t exist, I could keep going for a few more miles.

  That’s what’s missing now. That annoying blinking light. All those years of believing I was a free-range buccaneer, proud of making it on my own with no help from anyone, with no one caring, were a mental disorder. Millie cared. Millie always cared.

  I miss her. It is not like missing anyone else I have ever known. It is like missing a country, a way of life. And, I remind myself repeatedly, not even a country or a way of life that had much to recommend it.

  “Your foot is in my face.”

  “Oh, sorry.” I remove my foot.

  “No worries.” Kat wriggles into a sitting position. “I have to get up anyway. Millie needs me to help her get the house ready for the emergency meeting today. Haul in chairs, make coffee, stuff like that.”

  “What emergency meeting? It’s Saturday morning.” Since I have been forced to maintain a subterranean profile after Millie kicked me out, and since conversations now stop dead on my rare trips into the house, I am a little out of the loop.

  “The board of directors of the Old Girls called it. They’re all coming. All the old residents, everyone who’s been contributing to help Millie. They’re totally freaked about the lawsuits and shit. They could really all get sued. So, okay, all the residents, everyone here at the house who got a subpoena, they’re all like ‘Oh, we’re poor, poverty-stricken students. We don’t have any money. Stupid to sue us.’ And the RI-whatever, the record company fuckheads, are all ‘Yeah, okay, so we’ll sue these rich lawyers and doctors and shit on this board of directors deal.’”

  “Oh, Jesus.”

  “What? It’s not like they’re gonna sue you.”

  “They’ll get the house. Millie won’t be able to continue her work.”

  “Is that what she’s buggin’ about? I thought you guys had a thing and you broke up and that’s why Millie is all whacked out.”

  “There was never a thing. What’s wrong with Millie?”

  “All sorts of weird shit. She doesn’t hear when you ask her something. She’s got that brain-fry look in her eyes like Jaguar. I caught her crying the other day.” Kat’s teen bravado disappears. “I’ve never seen Millie cry before. Never even really ever seen her sad. God, why are you crying now? I didn’t think you were a crier.”

  “I’m not. But I’ve done something really, really bad to someone who really, really doesn’t deserve it and I don’t know how to make it better.”

  “What’d you do? Steal her stash? No, Millie doesn’t even drink. Talk smack behind her back? You snaked her boyfriend! That’s it. You totally two-elevened her man-ho. Is it that Sandy guy she’s all crushed out on?”

  “You know about Sanjeev?”

  “Well, duh, she gets like she’s on crank around him. All super, super peppy and happy. Or she used to. So you tapped that, huh?”

  “Sanjeev? Sanjeev thinks I’m scum.”

  “So why is Millie mad at you?”

  “I don’t really want to talk about it.”

  “Oh, okay, but you want to make up?”

  “It might not be possible.”

  “It’s totally possible. Remember that one time when Zebra Dog run away and Nikki was all sad? Well, I used my natural talents and beading skills and made her this really cool necklace and that cheered her up majorly. So what are your natural talents and skills?”

  “I don’t have any natural talents or skills that Millie has any use for.”

  “Maybe I can teach you how to bead. It’s mostly just knowing what colors look good next to each other.”

  “Maybe.”

  Kat stretches and her pink top rides up, exposing the cute puppy tummy beneath. She pats my hand and says, “Don’t cry, okay?”

  Her sweetness reminds me of Millie and makes me sadder.

  “Kat, I’m down. Really down. I wish I could be a role model for you, but if there were drugs here right now, I’d take every one of them. I don’t know how much longer I can stand this.”

  “I feel you, believe me I do.”

  We sit in the van for a minute and listen to traffic rumble past. Kat finally says, “You could come in and help me move chairs into the living room. Maybe that’d get Millie to stop being mad at you.”

  “It’s going to take more than that.”

  “Well, then just move chairs to not be a lazy bitch, bitch.”

  These seem to be words to live by, so I follow her into the house.

  The Salty, Wet Ones

  I AM IN THE KITCHEN making muffins and not being a lazy bitch when the Old Girls start trickling in. I can hear them talking in the living room—their greetings, whoops of delight when they spot old friends—but I can’t see them and, far better, they can’t see me. Which means that I am the major topic of discussion. I can’t identify the first speaker who blurts out, “I hear that not even Millie is speaking to her anymore.”

  Someone mumbles a response. I fantasize that one of my old housemates is springing to my defense. No need to imagine Robin’s response, however; it rings out loud and clear. “Well, she couldn’t have fucked up any more if she’d systematically set out to utterly destroy the house and everything Millie has been trying to accomplish.”

  Another female voice chimes in, “At this point, I don’t see what good an emergency session is going to do. I mean, why the hell didn’t anyone ever mention that all the board members are liable?”

  There are more aggrieved murmurs; then Robin bursts out again, “Hell yes, I’m pissed off. I’m furious. It’s like my grandfather always told me, ‘No good deed goes unpunished.’”

  “You are so focked.” Olga’s lugubrious tones echo for a second until they are absorbed by a cacophony of shrieking imprecations, most of which feature colorful modifiers attached to my name.

  The next question catches me off guard. “Hey, anyone seen Millie?”

  Millie is not out there?

  I’d assumed she was already at the meeting. Horror movie scenes unspool in my head: Millie hanging from a rafter, Millie blue from an overdose.

  Juniper answers. “I haven’t seen her. Anyone seen Millie?”

  I hold my breath. When no one replies, I drop the muffin tin and race out of the kitchen.

  The scene in the living room resembles the end-of-the-year sale at CP Shades, a jumble of natural fibers and barely restrained female aggression. The enraged and legally exposed Old Girls are blistering whichever current residents are closest to hand. Alpha females Robin and Juniper are in each other’s faces. Ariadne is squaring off with Yay Bombah and Nazarite. Byung Chao Soo and Olga are going at it. Dozens of other females I don’t recognize cluster about. The instant they catch sight of me darting past, hostilities cease. I am the invading Martian who brings all the earthlings together. I race on.

  Upstairs, I halt outside Millie’s partially open door, heart thudding, and steel myself for the worst, then nearly collapse with relief when I hear Millie saying, “Surely it’s not that disastrous.”

  Between sobs, Alli answers, “It’s worse, Millie. From day one, those Plat Longs have been looking for a reason to fire me. I didn’t exactly hide my orientation from them at the interview; they were just so clueless they didn’t pick up on it until after I started work. But, Millie, I can’t lose this job. I haven’t told anyone this yet, but…” More sobs. Millie murmurs words of comfort until Alli pulls herself together and goes on. “Millie, my whole life I’ve drea
med of being a mother and I’m finally in the process of doing it. I’m going to adopt a little girl. Her name is Ming Mei. Here, I have her picture already and everything.”

  “Oh, Alli, she’s beautiful.”

  “They sent that after I was approved. But they do a last-minute check to make sure nothing has changed, and they won’t let me have her if I don’t have a job. And I won’t have a job if this event falls through. Millie, I love my baby already. I’ve never loved anyone the way I love this child.”

  “Alli, Al, sweetie, don’t cry. It’s going to be okay. They can’t stop you from getting Ming Mei. It’s going to be okay.”

  Alli blows her nose. “It’s her, it’s that damn Kippie Lee Teeter who got the board to sign off on this trip without ever checking with me. Me! The person who’s supposed to implement the whole impossible thing. And now it’s completely subscribed. Every single wife of every single one of our largest donors signed up.”

  “I’m not sure I understand exactly what this trip is.”

  “It’s not actually a trip. For the first time ever, the Platinum Longhorns are going to stay in Austin. Kippie Lee even came up with a name: Think Thin: A Week of Learning and Leaning. The idea is that we are going to have gourmet food for every insane diet these women are on, plus, plus, a series of quote, unquote, ‘stimulating lectures by UT’s finest.’ I rented the Pi Phi house right around the corner, had everything set up. That one program would have kept my job safe for another whole year. Long enough for me to bring Ming Mei home. But then…” Alli breaks into sobs.

  “Then what, Al?”

  “Mold remediation! I just found out this morning that the Pi Phi house is oozing with Stachybotrys mold and they have to close it for six months for mold remediation. I have been on the phone all day trying to locate another site. But there’s nothing available at this late date. God, I wish I had passed organic chemistry. I’d be a vet right now. If this falls apart it will totally, totally crash the budget. I told you they’ve been looking for a reason to fire me. This is it!”

  “Millie! Millie!” Robin’s voice booms up the stairway. “You up there? The natives are getting restless!”

  Millie, holding Alli’s hand, steps out. I wouldn’t have believed that in only five days a person could become gaunt, but Millie has. Always before she’d had a bursting-with-home-baked-goodness fullness about her. Now she is all hollows and shadows. Millie’s eyes meet mine and register nothing. She dips her head and steps around me without a word. I feel like crumpling to the floor and crying. But why bother? Millie is the single, solitary person on earth who ever truly cared about me leaking the salty, wet ones.

  I take a seat at the top of the stairwell and listen to Robin pound her gavel, calling the meeting to order. Then she outlines the catastrophe. I am referred to repeatedly as “the individual in question.”

  The instant she is finished, the meeting disintegrates into squabbling chaos until Robin announces, “We’ll hear from Millie now.”

  The house falls so silent that I can easily hear Millie’s voice, hear how flat and emotionless it is. “Thank you, Robin. Thank you all for your help over the years. I think it is clear from Robin’s very thorough report that, even if we could find a firm willing to represent the house, the minimum cost for any sort of defense would bankrupt us. I have drawn up a statement claiming that I deliberately withheld information from board members about their personal liability.”

  “But you didn’t,” Robin protests.

  Millie ignores her. “Of course this means that my work is over.”

  A clamor follows this announcement. Several of the women protest that they will continue to support Millie whether the house survives or not. But it is clear from Millie’s monotone response that her heart is broken. Less obvious is that it is my fault. I can’t undo the damage I’ve done. I can’t give Millie back the relationship with Sanjeev that I have taken from her. But I might be able to help her hang on to the one other thing that makes her life worth living: There is an exceedingly remote possibility that I can save Millie’s work. I stand up, dust off my butt, and head downstairs.

  That Which Is Truly Right and Truly Proper

  A FRAT BROTHER selling baby seal steaks and NRA memberships would have gotten a warmer reception than the one I receive from the Old Girls. It doesn’t matter; I am on a mission for Millie and lose no time in wresting the podium from Robin so I can get on with it: “I can save the house.”

  The residents, past and present, greet this announcement with an exchange of rolled eyes and arched brows signaling that the complete mental collapse they had long expected to follow my total moral decay has occurred.

  Again, I don’t care. The only person I care about is Millie. But her expression doesn’t change except when she glances at Sanjeev on the front porch. Then it goes from despairing to agonized. As inert and unstrung as Millie is, Sanjeev is energized to the same degree. Electrified, actually. He paces, puffs openly on a cigarette, gnaws at his nails, fidgets, and twitches. The veins at his temples throb, and he is sweating profusely. Sanjeev doesn’t appear so much heartbroken as on the verge of a massive coronary.

  I lay out my plan using the ultrasane manner and tone I once employed to convince clients that pitching a big top on the front lawn and hiring Cirque du Soleil would be an entirely reasonable way to celebrate Junior’s eighth birthday. The rancor and spleen which greeted my appearance turn into gape-jawed bafflement as I explain my idea. When I finish, Alli jumps out of her chair, eyes glistening. She rushes up to clutch my hand and proclaim, “Do you really think you could pull it off? Do you really think we could hold the Platinum Longhorns event here?”

  My answer, a stirring “I do,” is undercut somewhat by Juniper’s hearty guffaws. Her buddies, Olga, Doug, and Sergio, join in. “You really had us going there for a minute,” Juniper says, wiping tears from her eyes. “Have the Platinum Longhorns stay here for a week? That’s a good one.” She glances around at her buddies and asks, “Can’t you just see Kippie Lee Teeter chowing down on a big plate of soy-chorizo migas while perusing a flyer about a Transgendered Vegans for Peace rally?”

  Even Olga thinks this is hilarious. “Or thet other silly bitch, Boomsie Bivver, sharink shithole bathroom with boys what are peeink everywhere.”

  That vision causes Alli’s enthusiasm to dim, and she sits down. Millie barely glances up, but when she does her expression is dead. Sanjeev comes in from the porch and joins the meeting. His symptoms have accelerated so alarmingly that he now seems on the verge of a full-blown case of Tourette’s.

  I address the group. “I’m serious. I really think we can pull this off. With this one event, we can make enough to deal with the RIAA long enough to hang on to the house, and Millie can continue her work.”

  Juniper peers skeptically at me. “Did you get the Code Warrior refilled?”

  I ignore the question. “Look, there’s not much I can do to improve this situation. I can’t go back in time and not bring a record executive into the house, I can’t bead necklaces, I can’t, apparently, lead a decent life, but I can do this.”

  Juniper shakes her head as if trying to shed a bad dream. “God, she’s serious. Wow, there are so many levels on which this is demented that I don’t know where to start. But just, okay, just for the psychedelically deranged fun of it, let’s imagine that we do let those women have their thing here. To begin with, you are aware, aren’t you, that you are talking about the most pathologically particular humans on earth? Humans who have enshrined their tastes, their needs, their quirks, their every minuscule desire, into a religion? Into the central focus of their lives? These are humans who call Amnesty International when thread counts dip below four hundred. Who won’t put a molecule of food into their mouths unless it is carb-free, organic, and blessed by the pope. Who believe that hardwood floors coated in polyurethane instead of waxed to a natural gloss by minimum-wage hands are a violation of the Geneva Conventions. How do you propose that we transform this flophouse
into a place where the cream of Tee Town will spend one minute, much less one week?”

  The silence that follows Juniper’s question is filled with the sounds of a house on life support: deep groans from the plumbing of its ruined alimentary canals, clanks and wheezes from the window units of its diseased pulmonary system, incessant dripping from the incompetent renal circuitry. And the smells. Don’t mention the smells.

  “Okay, admittedly, there might be a few wrinkles. But, Juniper, you’ve worked with me before. You’ve witnessed the transformations I’ve wrought. That Dangerous Liaisons event where we turned a Cape Cod saltbox into a neoclassical French country château? And remember the Deb Ball in Tuscany when we treated all the walls to make them look like they were crumbling. Look!” I gesture expansively toward our own cracked and peeling interiors. “We’ve got crumbling!”

  “It’s not the right kind of crumbling. It’s not the crumble of old money. This is plain old squalor.”

  Seneca House’s turn-of-the-century plumbing continues to groan and rumble in the background as I recall other transformations. “The West Lake adobe we did over as Studio 54? Disco balls, smoke machines, platform heels. The Pemberton Heights Tudor we mutated into an Ottoman Empire harem? Veils, scarves, eunuchs with scimitars. But those were nothing. You should have seen the extravaganzas I staged back in the dot-com days. A Japanese pachinko parlor, a Borneo longhouse, the catacombs.”

  “Blythe, those transformations were all smoke and mirrors. Changing the icing on a basically sound cake. They were completely different from what you would be trying to do here.”

  “How so?”

  “Oh, let’s see.” Juniper taps her chin as if she were seriously thinking. “Gosh, I guess, if I had to single out just one subtly nuanced difference, just one teensy, tiny distinction, it might be…hmmm? What might it be? Oh, yes, now I remember…money! Buckets and buckets of money. Whereas we have buckets and buckets of what? Groats?”