by Bruce Wagner
She felt crushingly alone.
She was so angry with Ginevra. In a Skype session last week, the therapist asked if she was still planning on filing for divorce—that maybe it was time. Really, Ginevra? Dusty was mad at herself for rolling over and saying nothing. What she wanted to say was, Are you fucking serious? Do you know what kind of field day the media would have when people found that out? I mean, what is your fucking problem, Ginevra, do you have fucking Asperger’s? Honestly, sometimes it’s so shocking to me, and disappointing, how far your head is up your fucking ass. She would have to schedule an appointment soon because she didn’t want to sit on those toxic feelings for too long.
She turned on the TV then shut it off; thought about going to the kitchen to forage; grabbed her iPad and watched videos of the party—Aurora onstage, Aurora dancing. Jeremy and Aurora doing karaoke.
Smiling, she scrolled through the archives and selected another, without thought.
The wedding in Big Sur . . .
. . . high on a cliff whose ancient redwoods made it impervious to paparazzi helicopters. (Private photographs of ceremony and celebrations sold to People and Hello! for $8 million, benefiting Hyacinth House.) There was Sting, serenading them with Allegra’s favorite:
I’ll send an SOS to the world
I hope that someone gets my
I hope that someone gets my
I hope that someone gets my
Message in a bottle
They were smashing wedding cake into each other’s mouths in slow-motion when Aurora burst into the room crying. The iPad tumbled from Dusty’s hands to the floor.
“Sweetheart! What’s the matter?”
“Bad dream, bad dream, bad dream!”
She climbed in beside her mother and held her tight.
“Aw! Tell me about it? Tell Mama about the bad dream.”
“I don’t want to! It was a lion!”
“A lion?”
“It was going to fucking eat me!”
“Watch the language. Was it the lion from the play? Because he was a cowardly lion. Like the one in The Wizard of Oz.”
“It wasn’t a lion.”
“You said it was!” She laughed, and Aurora squeezed her harder. “Ouch.”
“It wasn’t a lion, it was a wall.”
“A wall?”
“It was the wall, the wall, the wall! The wall was going to eat me!”
“The wall from the play?” Aurora nodded furiously, cheeks glazed with tears. “Now, that’s just silly, billy goat. Walls can’t eat anyone.”
“They can, they can!” she said, unconvinced. “It was a big wall—”
“Was it Edwina?”
“No! I said it was a big wall, not Edwina, and I don’t want to talk about it anymore!”
“Okay, we won’t talk about it.” She combed Aurora’s hair with her fingers. “Wasn’t it an amazing party?”
“There was a storm.”
“There was a storm, but not till the end. You ready to go back to bed?”
“No! Staying here. With you.”
“Oh no you’re not! But you’re safe now, billy goat.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Well, aren’t you in a mood. Come on, buttercup, you’re safe—”
“I am not a buttercup.”
“—you’re in the castle now, and there’s sharks in the moat to protect you.”
“Sharks?” she said, a little gleeful.
“Yup, sharks. And sharks are even worse than lions or walls; sharks eat walls.”
That touched her funny bone and Aurora began to laugh. Dusty laughed too and soon they were in paroxysms.
“Think you can go to sleep?” She nodded. “In your own bed? Because we need to get up early so we can say good-bye to Wyatt and Jeremy.”
“Where are they going?”
“Back to London.”
“I don’t want them to go.”
“I know, honey, but they have to.”
“Why?”
“’Cause Jeremy’s working on a film. They’ll come visit again.”
“On my birthday?”
“Well, I don’t think we’ll have to wait a whole year! Now, go to sleep. You can stay a bit with Mommy. ’Kay?”
“’Kay.”
Dusty held her close. After a minute or so, the girl said, “Nightie-night.”
“Nightie-night. And what else? Isn’t there something else?”
“Don’t let the hot dogs bite!”
Dusty tickled and Aurora squealed.
“I know someone who had lots of hot dogs today.” Aurora cracked up, scrunching her face and burrowing it into her mother’s bosom. “Do you know who that person is? The person who ate all the hot dogs? Who is dat. Who is dat, d’ya know?” More tickling as she said, “Do ya do ya do ya?”
“I don’t, I don’t, I don’t!” she chortled.
“Well, if y’find out, you better tell me. You better! ’Cause they are in big, big trouble.”
She almost said Might have to send a wall after ’em but thought better of it—when, just like that, Aurora was out like a light. Dusty watched her fluttering eyes a while before both were dead to the world.
CHANGE
“This year she has changed greatly”– meaning you –
My sanguine friends agree,
And hope thereby to reassure me.
No, child, you never change; neither do I.
Indeed all our lives long
We are still fated to do wrong,
Too fast caught by care of humankind,
Easily vexed and grieved,
Foolishly flattered and deceived;
And yet each knows that the changeless other
Must love and pardon still,
Be the new error what it will:
Assured by that same glint of deathlessness
Which neither can surprise
In any other pair of eyes.
—Robert Graves
The author wishes to express his devotion to Deborah Drooz and James Truman, for their courage, their loyalty, their unflagging great care. I give you my heart.
BRUCE WAGNER was born in Madison, Wisconsin. He dropped out of Beverly Hills High School and worked as an ambulance driver and chauffeur before making his living as a screenwriter. In 1988, he privately published Force Majeure: The Bud Wiggins Stories, which he expanded into his first novel, Force Majeure. In 1993, he wrote a graphic novel, Wild Palms (illustrated by Julian Allen), that became a television miniseries. His second novel, I’m Losing You, appeared in 1996. He went on to publish I’ll Let You Go, Still Holding, The Chrysanthemum Palace (a PEN/Faulkner fiction award finalist), Memorial, Dead Stars, and The Empty Chair: Questions and Answers. He wrote Maps to the Stars, a film directed by David Cronenberg, for which Julianne Moore won Best Actress at Cannes in 2014.
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