I hate this place. I hate this knowledge. I want to go home. Where is Bloom? I want my daughter.
The wind slams me high into this eternal night. Up, up, up—I am encased in light and moving fast. My life scatters all about, splintering like shattered glass.
Edith Piaf
Two days after they pulled Mur from the Iris Haven River, she visited me in a dream.
I was on the beach, naked, gazing down at the celadon water that rushed over my bare feet. Ten feet away, a dolphin lay sleeping on the shore.
“Edith! Edith!”
I spun around. There she was, dressed in Prada. In real life, she never wore designer labels.
“Ma chère! I thought you were dead.”
“We are both dead, Edith. You and I, we are dead.” She touched the back of her hand to my face. She smiled so sweetly, and I thought, This rest has done you a world of good.
She patted her head. “I lost my hat. I need my hat.”
“We’ll go up to my house and find you a new one,” I said, and as I turned to go, my legs twisted at the hip and then all the way down, like a licorice stick, snapping completely off. A wave swept in and carried them out to sea. There I was: a torso stuck in the sand. I began to weep.
“Don’t worry. You won’t need them.” She removed her hair as if it were a wig.
“But Mur, I don’t want to be dead.”
She threw up her hands as if to say, Hey, what can you do? and walked away. And I was left on the shore, unable to move, the sleeping dolphin my only companion.
Lucinda Smith
I don’t fucking know how long it had been—three, maybe four days—since Murmur’s suicide, and I just fucking couldn’t take it anymore. I went out to my studio and looked at those paintings—stacked, in some cases, six deep—of fucking seagulls and I held my hands to my ears and screamed.
Then I fucking went out to the toolshed, found a shovel, and started digging in the middle of my backyard. I dug and dug. The sand was full of crap—broken glass, petrified shells, pop tops, plastic toy cowboys.
“Motherfucker,” I kept saying. “You goddamned motherfucker!”
I brought out my paintings, every single last one of them, and tossed them in the pit. They looked insane down there, all stacked up, hither-zither, and I thought, This is the best work of art I’ve ever created. I started singing—and I mean loudly; I was yelling more than I was singing—“One monkey don’t stop the show! One monkey don’t stop the show!” I retrieved from the shed the gas can I usually used for the lawn mower, emptied it in the pit, soaked those fucking seagulls, and then tossed a match. Poof! Just like that, those embarrass-me-even-in-my-sleep paintings were ablaze.
And for some reason, I said right out loud, “So, what do you think of that, Murmur?”
Charleston Rowena Mudd
I had to do it.
The day after I went to Salty’s, I woke up in Murmur Lee’s bed and knew I couldn’t take it anymore. So I got up, peed, washed my face, brushed my teeth, fixed some coffee, put her beloved Allman Brothers on the stereo, went down to the garage, and found five empty boxes and a stack of newspapers. It was a start.
I marched myself back upstairs, stood in the middle of the room, and said, “I’m sorry, sweetie, but I’ve got to do this.”
I swiped at my tears as I began purging the house of Murmur. I began with the photos of Blossom. I removed all but one—it was of her and her mother; they were all dressed up and obviously going somewhere. I packed up all but one of the cobalt vases. I hadn’t yet sent the books off to the church or the Zora Neale Hurston collection to Lincolnville—they would have to wait. But I boxed Murmur Lee’s clothes. And I did it quickly, refusing to allow myself to linger there in the denim and cotton and linen and silk memories.
When I was done, I sat on the couch and stared at the ocean and wondered how much longer I could go on missing her this much.
Dr. Zachary Klein
I accompanied Murmur Lee’s body to the morgue. Silly, I know. But I just couldn’t let her take that ride alone. Then I went home, poured myself a tall bourbon, and stood on my back porch, unable to go down to the dock, not wanting to get that close to the place Murmur Lee took up the ghost.
The bourbon went down hot and smooth, but it did nothing for the grief. I wished there was a pill I could take. Pharmacology hasn’t come very far, I thought, when it doesn’t offer one damn thing that cures grief.
I hadn’t been with a woman since Katrina died. My hand, as they say, had become my best friend. So I went inside, walked to my study, logged on, and Googled adult chat rooms. Up came something called AdultFriendFinder.com. That’s what I needed. An adult friend. I went to the site, and while my blood pressure rose a hair because my old, expired moral compass was spinning out of control, I filled out all the proper fields. Gave myself the screen name Stallion—now, that made me laugh—and started exploring. I entered a chat room whose description indicated it was a no-holds-barred party place. They weren’t kidding.
BIG DICK 1: I’m looking for some ass to fuck.
PUSSY LICKER: Anybody up for a three-way? Let me shove deep in some bitch’s mouth, way down her cunt throat.
FUCKSOGOOD: Hey, do me. I got wet, wet pussy and the titest asshole Big Dick1 ever seen. I’ll make you cum till u scream.
BIG DICK 1: Bring it on, Fucksogood. Show me that tight asshole.
FUCKSOGOOD: Ok, Big Dick. Here it is. Way up in yur face. Lik it while yur there. Oops! Sorri, I go. My baby is cryin.
Oh my God. I zipped the cursor across the screen, trying to find the button that would log me out. What had I done? I looked at the message on the screen: Come back soon, Stallion. I turned off my computer, pissed that I was getting hard, and headed for the kitchen, where I poured another bourbon. I had to cancel my membership. I could never log on again except to cancel. No. I had to log on and find Fucksogood and tell her that she shouldn’t let men talk to her that way, that she shouldn’t put herself out there as if she was nothing but meat, that her baby needed a mother who respected herself. Out of habit and mental weakness, I stupidly thought that I would tell Murmur Lee what I’d done and that she’d get a big laugh out of it. No, you stupid fuck, she’s dead.
And then I sank to the floor, bottle in hand. I stayed like that, on the floor, drinking, memories of both Katrina and Murmur Lee keeping me there. I held the bottle to the light. The bourbon looked as though it were lit from within. Liquid amber. “You are terminal, my man,” I said to the air, and then I took another swig.
Edith Piaf
A party. Oui! We must have a party.
I hadn’t yet opened my eyes to the leaden dawn, and already I was preparing to declaw February’s nor’easter winds by throwing a soiree.
Eyes still closed, I reached for my moisturizing cream on the nightstand. At two hundred dollars a bottle, this stuff was not to be smeared on as if it were dime-store Oil of Olay. According to the package, the emollient base contained pulverized oyster shells, pearls, kelp, sea urchin, seaweed. I felt like a walking sushi bar each time I slathered it on. But the truth is, la crème works. And given my aging skin (oh, how I hated to admit that) and the harsh winds, I’d have plastered on cow manure if I’d had to.
I uncapped the jar, dipped two fingers in, patted the cream on my face, began massaging it in, and thought things over. Darling Charlee was back. We’d survived an entire month frozen in grief over Mur. And now it was time to drink. Together. There had been no gathering in the aftermath of Mur’s death. Our grief was private. Unseen, unspoken. No hugs. No shared memories. No witnessing of one another’s tears. Only absence. And silence. Except for the wind. That was unrelenting. New Year’s Day is when it began: a raging gale straight off the Atlantic. Its howling—incessant and consuming—filled the silence, bloated it, ate it, regurgitated it. One day, I drove to Hastings just to get away from the sound. Oui, it is safe to say that all of us on Iris Haven were beginning to feel battered by an invisible but fully engaged force. I
won’t say the wind was the enemy. Non! But surely it was weakening our collective resolve to plunge forward in the face of tragedy.
I lay there in my four-poster, feeling the cream seep into my thirsty skin, gently rubbing the crow’s-feet that framed my eyes, and I thought, Oui, oui, oui: A party is the only cure, the only possible remedy for our malaise.
With a surprising amount of vigor, given that I’d been awake but a few brief moments, I popped out of bed, reached for my journal, and penned an invitation.
Let us try to lift the cold and fog.
Let us use what power we have
to toss the wind back to sea.
Let us gather at my house
for a White Party.
La Soirée Blanche.
Oui!
White in the middle
of winter.
Our own Florida
snowstorm.
We will
laugh and cry,
eat and drink,
and celebrate Murmur Lee.
Even our undies
will be pure and virginal.
For a few hours,
winter won’t have a
chance.
That’s right, I composed my invitation in the form of a mediocre poem. Voltaire I’m not, but I doubt he could sing. And what fun this party would be! Everyone in white and all white food: deviled eggs filled not with spicy yolks but a horseradish whipped-cream sauce (ah, the gas that would produce!), white cheeses, white asparagus, white chocolate, white grits, white bread, white fish fillets of some sort, white radishes, silken white vichyssoise, and, of course, martinis. What a hoot! With everyone spun in a monochromatic white palette, surely our pain would begin to lift.
The house resembled a snow palace. I strung white icicle Christmas lights from all the eaves and across the length of my porch. Beach sand anchored white candles in mason jars that I staggered all along my outdoor stairs. I sprayed snow-in-a-can on my windows. I banished anything of color from my living and dining rooms. If I couldn’t live without it for the evening (such as the dining table), I covered it in white. I wrapped my turntable in white marabou. White roses, white lilies, white mums, white plastic cutlery (no choice, I had to), white plates, white linens. I placed bottles of Wite-Out here and yonder and stuffed them with single white carnations. If this had been a formal dinner, I would have used the Wite-Out for place cards. Each name would have been written in white fluid on white paper, so everyone would have had to guess where to sit. But this couldn’t be a formal affair. Mur wouldn’t want it that way.
As for my own decor, I went to the wig shop in Lincolnville and bought a towering white wig for the grand price of only twenty-five dollars. An hour before my guests were to arrive, I donned the tower of nylon hair. I slipped into a gorgeous set of white silk brocade pajamas with matching slippers. I painted my nails a glossy, pearly white. Likewise my lips. Pale powder and ivory foundation upon my face. White eyeliner on lids and brows. Miles of white marabou about my neck and shoulders.
Yes, it’s true, I looked like a snowy owl in drag.
But I was beautiful.
Dr. Zachary Klein
I went to Edith’s all-white party dressed in a rabbit costume. Ordered it off of the Net. A company out of Chicago, the Costume Shop. They had everything—turkeys, monsters, Ronald Reagan, even gorillas. The gorilla was my favorite, but they didn’t have it in white. Anyway, the rabbit suit cost me $125. The round puffball tail bouncing on my ass really set it off. I decided I should rent it for a week longer so I could wear it to work. Me in the potato fields, dressed like a giant rabbit. That should cure something.
It was nearly nine o’clock by the time I made it over to Edith’s. I walked down the path, sad as hell, my rabbit ears being blown sideways by the ever-present nor’easter gale. Here I was, going to a party that was supposed to celebrate Murmur Lee. But most of the women I loved were dead. What, tell me, what was there to celebrate?
But I don’t like for people to know my business. So I hopped inside the house—as usual, I was the last to arrive—and wiggled my ass, and everyone had a hearty laugh at my expense. Then there were my props—a person needs props; a person can hide behind a decent set of props: a giant bag of marshmallows—it was the only white food I could think of—and a white plastic lawn chair I’d purloined from a trash pile outside a double-wide on my way home from Elkton. In lieu of carrots—all rabbits have to arrive with carrots—I carried a bouquet of parsnips. I ceremoniously settled myself into the chair, pretended to chew on a parsnip, and then—I had to say it—asked, “What’s up, Doc?”
Everyone groaned, so I jumped up and tore open the marshmallow bag and ran about the room, tossing the sugary white pillows into the air.
“Stop, Zachary, you absolutely must stop!” Edith said, hugging me and pinching my ass.
“You’re stunning,” I told her, and patted her three-story-high white wig with my rabbit paw. “You look sort of like Audrey Hepburn with white hair.”
She leaned into me, her fake boobs pressing into my fur. “You are insane, my friend.” Her eyes sparkled with what I believe was the threat of tears. “Thank you for being here.”
“Of course I’m here. I wouldn’t have missed it,” I said, scanning the room. “Where’s the booze?”
“Right here, darling.” Edith floated over to the table and poured a clear fluid into a stemmed glass. “Every little rabbit needs a good stiff bolt of vodka now and again. All that fucking they do! Vodka is their secret!” Edith crinkled her nose with all the charm of a coed in love and smiled her grand-hostess smile. She touched my furry arm. “I have to go mingle now, darling.” She and her giant hair and her silk jammies and her thirty-foot-long boa floated away. And there I stood. Alone. My true self, existentially and otherwise. Alone.
I surveyed the room. In the corner, sulking, stood the mean little Lucinda in a torn white T-shirt and bleached-out jeans. Her hair was cropped as short as I’ve ever seen it and was the color of vanilla pudding. She’d powdered herself in white. Where does one find stone white powder? I don’t know, but she’d done it. Even her pudding hair was dusted with white grains. She was surrounded by people from Salty’s, but she wasn’t joining them in their raucous discussion. She just stood there glowering.
Hazel had her back turned to Lucinda and she was putting her finger on Silas’s chest, as if to bring home a point. I thought that was not a good idea, poking the forever-angry and muscle-bound Silas. It’s not something I would have done. My professional services might be needed tonight, I thought. Absolutely. There she was, giving him shit about something, her double-D breasts squeezed into a shell three sizes too small, a mammarian tidal wave.
And then, my, my, my, there was Charlee. Charlee in a white mohair sweater and white slacks and a simple strand of white pearls. Charlee, with her strawberry blond curls and fair skin. Charlee, whom I hadn’t seen in a coon’s age, except for one brief visit shortly after she got back into town, when I advised her on the cremation procedures for Murmur Lee. Charlee, who’d run off to Harvard and had returned in the despairing light of her friend’s death. Charlee was a lot prettier than my memory had allowed. I stood there sipping my martini, and a foreign urge to kick myself for being dressed like a 180-pound rabbit flashed through what I hoped would soon be my sodden brain.
Me and women: a deadly combination. Me and Katrina. Look who’s gone. Me and Murmur Lee—although pursuit and consummation were never in the cards—but anyway, look who’s gone. Testosterone, though, is a mighty drug. And sometimes a man really does need to experience a level of intimacy that his own hand or a sad foray into AdultFriendFinder.com can’t provide. And Charlee sure was pretty, standing there by a pot of soup, playing with those pearls, speaking to the kid who mops the floors at Salty’s.
I hopped on over. In my most gallant fashion, I pulled off my rabbit head.
She laughed, pressed her palm against her lips, and then said in her honey-soaked drawl, “Dr. Z, you are amazing!�
�
I kissed her cheek. She seemed not to object. I told myself I was a motherfucker. To be interested was to betray Katrina. No, my dead wife did not care. But I did. I bear guilt like citrus trees bear fruit.
“It’s good to see you, Charlee. You look gorgeous.”
“And you!” She tossed out her arms as if to embrace the whole package. “You look,” she paused—“well, like a giant white rabbit.”
“You are so smart.” I touched the tip of her nose with my paw. Edith floated by and said, “Bottoms up!”
“Goodness, Edith, you’re going to have us all rip-roaring drunk,” Charlee said, but she dutifully downed the rest of her martini, as did I, and we accepted the fresh ones Edith placed in our fists.
“Pour vous.”
“Merci,” I said, responding like a gentlemanly rabbit. “Edith, tell me, something is different about your house. What’s going on?”
“You don’t know?” Charlee asked, her green eyes widening.
“La musique!” Edith said. “I’ve retired Ms. Piaf for the evening. In keeping with our theme, we are listening to the White Album.”
“Ha! Good. You think of everything, Edith.” I spied a slight burn under her pale pancake makeup. I felt the vodka ripple down my brain stem. “Did you invite Speare?”
Edith tossed back her head. Her wig dangerously shifted to the right. She looked like George Washington with a bouffant. “I did. I felt I had to.”
“What’s wrong with inviting Speare?” Charlee asked. “Everyone treats the poor man as if he’s a pariah.”
I felt my jaw clench, and the bad boy in me suddenly wanted to drink all the vodka in the house. Even worse, I wanted to fuck. Why was my anger attached to sex? I needed counseling.
The Problem with Murmur Lee Page 16
