“They never appreciated her fashion sense,” Jay said. “My God, they should give her a medal!”
“I’m calling Rhoda right this minute,” Chloe said, punching numbers into her iPhone. “Three years ago, I got them tickets for the Dancing with the Stars finale for their spring auction—they’ll listen to me—”
“Three years ago, you had money,” Aimee said.
“Remember the parties?” Jay said, looking wistful. “Who doesn’t love a repressed banker?”
“Guys,” I said, “focus. Ellie was kicked out because she’s talking to her dad.”
“Dad John? Dead John?” Jay asked. “What is going on in this house?!”
“It’s not real. She’s stressed out,” Chloe said. “I saw this coming from a mile away. You know, this would make a really good topic for my blog.”
“Now you’re just fucking with me, right?” Aimee said to Chloe.
“She’s scaring the perfect children who have two living parents,” I said.
“Little intact-family punks,” Jay said.
“Let’s be practical,” Chloe said. “Ellie needs help. She’s endured a huge loss. Her dad was her anchor. Their worlds revolved around each other.”
“And Hannah figures into this situation … how?” Aimee said.
“I’m not saying Hannah isn’t a great mom,” Chloe said, as Lorraine barked. “Down, girl, that’s a good girl.” Lorraine crept from the room.
“I was a good-enough mom married to Super Dad,” I said. “And that was good enough then. But not anymore.”
“What do they talk about?” Jay asked. “Has she ever mentioned Uncle Jay?”
“John reads to her at night. And they sing together,” I said. “Like before, like always.”
“Usher?” Aimee asked.
“Oh, wait. Oh my God, R. Kelly again?” Jay asked. “Not that I’m glad John’s dead—I’m not, I adored him, but that I don’t miss.”
“Bullshit people with their bullshit power trips …,” Aimee said, then, “If I adopt a kid and get him in Bunny Hill, do you think I might find a new agent?”
“Where’s the cranberry part?” Jay asked, nodding at Aimee’s drink.
“Shut it, Mother,” Aimee said.
“What should I do?” I asked. “How do I talk to Ellie … do I talk to her?”
“Spy on her,” Jay said.
Chloe squeezed my hand. “I have three child psychologists on speed dial. I can’t use them anymore since the collection calls started—”
“I appreciate it, Chloe,” I said, “I really do, but I don’t think Ellie needs therapy. She seems … happy.”
Chloe wasn’t giving up. “I’m not saying this is a substitute, but when children lose a loved one, they need something to fill that void. I know you have Spice, but maybe she needs something small and cuddly—”
“Puppy-pusher,” Jay said.
“Mommy?” Ellie said from the other room. “Lorraine keeps barking at me.”
“She’s herding,” Chloe said. “It’s totally normal. Kids cope with stress in their own ways. It has to do with Billy’s unemployment and evolving social conscience.”
“And nothing to do with your obsession with strays,” Jay said, peering into the living room. “I think Lorraine is shedding.”
Aimee laughed, then grimaced, touching her face. “Ow, ow, ow! Don’t make me laugh—it burns, it burns!”
I looked at Aimee. It’s bad, I thought, when the people who make the most sense in your life are dead.
* * *
“What are you doing, Mommy?” Ellie asked, as I looked through her book basket for something to read aloud. I picked up Love You Forever, then put it down.
Not tonight. That book was too sad, and I didn’t want to hurtle into suicidal depression until Ellie was eighteen and out of the house. Spice scratched at the door. He’d been sleeping on the scatter rug in front of Ellie’s bed. I would let him out around eleven at night. We behaved like an older couple who have nothing in common after the children leave.
“I want to read a book to you, tonight, El,” I said. “I’ve been such a … (neglectful, horrible mother) … Mommy’s been tired … tired and busy …”
Busy? Busy doing what? Grieving is a time-suck.
“No, Mommy,” Ellie said, her eyes wide. “I’m going to bed, see? I’m soooo sleepy!”
Spice on his belly, his head between his paws. Watching me. Waiting for me to leave. Even to a dog, I was the third wheel. Ellie was ensconced in her cocoon, her blanket up to her chin. I bent over her and tucked her in. She was so small.
“Can I read to you tomorrow night?” I asked.
“I’m going to sleep now, Mommy. Go to sleep,” Ellie said.
“Okay. I love you.” I kissed her cheek, her forehead, her other cheek. I sat down on her bed. “I love you so much, Ellie. You know that, right?”
“Yes, Mommy.”
“Is there anything you want to tell me?”
She looked at me with her big, round eyes. “No?”
“I’m here, if you want to talk,” I said. “I mean, about anything. You can always tell Mommy anything, you know.”
“Good night, Mommy,” she said, then rolled over, her back toward me.
“Good night, baby,” I said. Knuffle Bunny was tucked in under the sheets. “God bless you.” Do you hear me, God? You kind of owe me, here.
I patted Spice on the head, then went to the kitchen, poured my second glass of pinot noir (why are we counting?), sat on the floor outside Ellie’s bedroom door, and waited. And as I waited, it occurred to me that John might be as consistently late in spirit form as he was in human form. Even in death, he could be insensitive.
I was startled awake by Ellie talking. At first, it sounded like she was having a conversation with her bear. Then I heard questions. “What does it look like there, again?” “Do you have friends?” “Who’s your best friend?” “Is Jesus there?” “When are you coming back?” And “Why, Daddy?”
I felt cold fingers dancing down my arm.
I cracked open the door. Ellie’s Tinkerbell lamp was on. (Okay, so I’m no Westside faux-decorator mom. Sue me.) She was sitting up, Knuffle Bunny on her lap. She turned the pages, slowly, as though reading them to herself. Spice was up on his hind legs, his paws in the air, dancing. Making happy, grunting sounds.
It was the first time I’d seen Spice smile since John died. (Yes, dogs smile—you may only know this for sure after seeing them miserable for an extended period of time.)
I started to shake, gripped by fear. Chloe was right. Ellie needed help. I would call the top child psychiatrist Chloe recommended in the morning—the doctor with the silky voice who was on Oprah.
When John died, Ellie’s innocence died. He crawled down the rabbit hole and dragged us with him. I gulped down the rest of my wine. John and I needed to have a serious talk.
What’s the first thing to do when you want to talk to a dead person? For me, I sat outside for an hour, in the cold, and called John’s name.
“John?” I waited.
“John, are you there?” I waited.
“John! I know you’re out there! You come down here and talk to me right now!”
Lights went on next door, so I scooted back inside.
I grabbed my laptop and typed in “how to talk to dead” and was promptly confronted with a thousand websites, blogs, and YouTube videos. After scouring through the obvious scams, I found a blog written by a New Orleans medium. She suggested something called “mirror gazing,” which sounded cheap and easy.
Perfect.
In our bathroom, I found a smudged hand mirror that John used for shaving. I started to wipe it with my sleeve, then stopped. John’s fingerprints. There he was. Maybe I could reconstruct his DNA from his prints, build a human Jurassic Park in my backyard. My breath caught in my throat, and I succumbed to the familiar burning sensation, an integral part of my emotional repertoire. Like the second cousin who won’t leave after Thanksgiving din
ner (and yet, you invite him again next year—holiday amnesia).
I went into the living room, holding the mirror with two hands—God forbid, I drop it and get seven years bad luck. Really? Add it to the pile. The blog had said I should take off excess jewelry (much like a Vogue editor, the dead frown on over-accessorizing), wear loose clothing, and evoke the departed with personal objects.
I took off my wedding ring, and set it next to a picture of John holding Spice. Light a candle. I’m not a candle girl. Chloe has candles, for ambience. And to cut down on the electric bill (though she’d never admit it). Aimee has boffing candles; the lighting and music has to be just right. It’s like Aimee’s doing Spider-Man the Musical instead of her trainer. I did have a flashlight. After all, I live in earthquake country. After twenty minutes, I found a penlight running low on battery. Had there been an actual earthquake, my child and I would have perished as I searched for it.
Relax your mind as you gaze through the mirror. My face lit by the flickering penlight, I gazed into the mirror. Okay, get past the circles under my eyes. Hi. The worry wrinkles on my forehead. How are you? Is my upper lip disappearing? (Under the mustache?)
Wait for mirror to cloud over. Calmly embrace what you find there. My hand reached out to calmly embrace my wineglass. My beloved had died. I was raising a child with emotional problems. I was not paying attention to my work, hair, nails, or eyebrows. I was drinking too much, or as we call it in L.A.: “self-medicating.” No one “medicates” here—they “self-medicate.”
Like Alice, I tried to find John through the looking glass. I stared for what felt like hours. Then, the strangest thing happened. My stomach growled. Suddenly, I was starving. I hadn’t been hungry since that fateful September morning. In the mirror, I hallucinated Bay Cities Italian loaves, dolmas, Jon’s Pizza, See’s candy, langoustines, steak with melted butter and sea salt … John’s homemade tamales. I found myself sniffing the air, lingering in imaginary aromas. I found myself salivating. What I didn’t see was anyone dead. If you really care, John, you’d appear in your silly apron, and you’d feed me. Just one more time.
Trish had told me I couldn’t rush the dead. She didn’t say anything about guilting them.
Jay, Ralph, Spice, and I met for coffee the next morning at the Pirates, a coffee shop that went by an Italian name I never remember. John and I had dubbed it the Pirates after Salvador and Freddy, the baristas, acted like pirates to make Ellie laugh.
We sat outside with our lattes and bran muffins and soaked in the late fall sunshine. “Sixty-seven degrees and clear,” I said. “It almost makes me feel like living.”
“The meeting’s been pushed to Monday, praise Baby Jesus,” he said, as he checked his BlackBerry. “Listen, I’ve been thinking about your situation. If Hidalgo died, I know I would insist on hearing from that bitch. So. Hidalgo has a cousin. Santino. He put the ‘eye’ in island.”
“When did you start talking to Hidalgo again? Isn’t he having a baby?”
“His wife is having a baby. I’m helping them out, here and there,” Jay said. “And, no, I don’t want to hear it. Anyway, Santino … he’s into Santeria.”
“The fruity wine drink or the voodoo?” I asked.
“Please don’t call it that,” Jay said. “Santino is some sort of high priest. He does these séances … they’re performance art with animal sacrifice.”
“And he gets paid for this?” I asked.
“Beaucoup. Tom Cruise flew him out to the set in Germany for that cute Nazi movie he did. Santino has a glass house on Doheny. He works the Girl’s Club on Friday nights. He’s a ‘Lady Impersonator.’ ”
“He’s a drag queen. Why wasn’t I born a man who’s all woman?” I lamented.
“I’m thinking of making him a reality show,” Jay said. “Logo would die. But I’m afraid to get too close.”
“Animal sacrifice,” I said. “That’s the kind of thing the City Council frowns on.”
“Pigeons, goats, chickens …,” Jay said. “I can tell you Ralph is staying dog years away.”
I looked at Spice, who gave me a look that said, “You are evil, get me ham.”
“Get me his number,” I said to Jay.
Halloween is NoMo’s Super Bowl. From 25th to Lincoln and San Vicente to Montana, the streets are filled with costumed revelers spanning all ages and bank accounts. We’re not just talking Flash or Shrek or Sleeping Beauty; teenagers show off new cleavage, mothers don Afro wigs and micro-miniskirts, and dads dress up like Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean. Stephen Spielberg and family make an appearance, as do the Schwarzen-Shrivers and the Afflecks. Police cars block off whole streets, and homeowners give away stuffed animals, cash, and giant-sized Snickers. For one night, and one night only, you can feel normal if you’re famous, rich if you’re poor. It was our first NoMo Halloween without John. Ellie was dressed as Dora the Explorer. Jay’s dream of a pint-sized Lady Gaga in a meat dress would have to wait.
Ellie and I met up with Chloe and her charges at the corner of 16th and Georgina, Ground Zero of NoMo Halloween. It was barely dusk, and already there was a 45-minute line at the haunted house on the corner. Jen Garner and her dimpled children were at the front of the line, talking to a comedy director I recognized but couldn’t place. The redhead Desperate Housewife was holding the hands of two small children in the middle. We decided to push on.
I was looking for something beyond the earthbound ghosts and goblins. I hadn’t heard from Trish, and John had yet to make an appearance except in his Ellie’s room. Maybe it was the dark, the shrieks of children, the fog machines, and the flashing lights, but I was overwhelmed. I couldn’t tell what was real, what was fake.
We walked crowded blocks to 10th and Georgina, the corner where John was hit. I grabbed Chloe to get my bearings. Somewhere, fireworks started going off.
“Hannah? Are you okay?” Chloe asked.
“I just need to go home. I think Ellie’s done, too.” Ellie ran off with Lorraine to another house. She was nowhere near done.
“I’ll take her,” Chloe said. Simon Baker and his brood passed us on the sidewalk. NoMo was a place where even movie stars seemed well-adjusted; it just wasn’t fair.
Chloe hugged me, smothering me with her blond wig. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that no one knew who Stevie Nicks was anymore.
“We’ll be there soon,” she said. I watched as she tripped off toward the girls. I turned to head home, but something prevented me from moving. I held my hand out. “Stop,” I said. “Stop.” I held my hand out to prevent the sudden horrifying image of John’s accident before me. In my mind’s eye, there was a car, looming large and dark …
“Please stop,” I said. Strobe lights skipped across my tearstained face. In the celebration, no one noticed.
That morning, at three o’clock, I was a little disturbed to find Marilyn Monroe on my front doorstep. The last of the trick-or-treaters, the kids wearing the cheaper costumes with moms and dads who worked late, had ended hours ago. I had finally just nodded off to sleep. I was in the middle of a drowning dream. I’d jumped off a cruise ship to save Ellie, who’d been swept overboard by a wave. Instead, we were both drowning. Good times.
Marilyn was wearing a blond wig, light-up stripper platforms, and a leather bustier. She looked about seven feet tall. I wasn’t altogether sure I was not still dreaming.
“So, you’ve met Santino,” Jay said from behind Marilyn. He was dressed as Katy Perry, and was maybe even prettier than her. Next to him, Hidalgo smiled nervously. He looked like he’d just wandered out of an Abercrombie & Fitch ad.
“Where’s your outfit?” I asked him.
“I am a male model,” Hidalgo said.
“Strike a pose,” Jay said. Hidalgo jutted out a hip and his lower lip. “You met Santino, high priest of Santeria, son of Shango,” Jay said.
“I’m a fire god.” Santino shrugged, tossing it off. I realized, with some alarm, he was carrying two pigeons clasped under his arm. “It’s jus
t something I do. I don’t ask questions. My card.” He fished it from deep inside his bustier. I held it to the light.
SANTINO JAVIER DE LA CRUZ, FIRE GOD,
WWW.SANTINOFIREGOD.COM
AVAILABLE FOR PARTIES AND HAIR/MAKEUP
“This will be tough to explain to the Santa Monica fire department.”
“You have a sharp knife?” Santino asked. “I forgot my double-ax. I am such the idiot.”
“I hate when I do that,” I said. I walked them into the kitchen. Sharpening knives. Add it to the list, thus far, of things I haven’t kept up since John’s death: Walking the dog. Washing hair. Keeping child sane. Santino started checking out the hardware.
“Nice,” he said, admiring the knife John used to cut up whole chickens. “Vámonos.”
Jay had brought a bag of votive candles. “I’ve been meaning to give these to you as a housewarming gift. Four years ago.”
The pigeons were still cooing.
“Light the candles,” Santino said, as he spread rocks, forming a circle on the ground in the backyard. The air was sweet and moist. Santino started murmuring in Spanish, but a Spanish I didn’t fully recognize. It was lilting, melodic, singsong. And scary as fuck. He slowly swirled the pigeons over his head. I felt the pigeons getting worried. Did they think he was taking them out for a cocktail?
“Jay,” I whispered, tugging at his sequined dress, “I don’t feel right about this—”
Santino suddenly thrust the pigeons to the rock circle and brought down the knife. I shut my eyes and screamed, hiding behind Jay.
Then I heard the pigeons cooing. I opened my eyes. The knife had been plunged into the ground. Santino plucked feathers from the birds, then released them. As they flew to the tree (presumably to view the proceedings), he placed the feathers in the shape of a cross inside the circle, sneaked a flask from his bosom, and started drizzling a dark liquid over the rocks and feathers.
“Oh my God, I thought he was going to kill them,” I whispered to Jay, as we watched Santino continue to chant and gyrate.
“Not since the goat incident at Paris Hilton’s place,” Jay said. “He just outsources, now.”
The After Wife Page 9
