Darkness Falls

by Cate Tiernan

  “No, not a razor cut,” I said. “Too much maintenance. Can you just tidy up the edges, give it some shape, but keep it long?”

  “Sure,” said the stylist, while Incy frowned.

  “How about something angular, sculptural?” he suggested. “To show off your heart-shaped face, your beautiful eyes?”

  I tried to think back, about whether Incy had controlled the way I looked. Had my hair and clothes reflected him, and not me? How would I know? There had barely been a me to reflect. Just the same, I wondered how he would take being crossed.

  “Nah,” I said lightly. “Something easy that I can wash and go. I don’t want to have to blow-dry it and mousse it and futz with it.”

  The stylist met my gaze in the mirror, a frozen expression on her face as if I’d just suggested we give me a frizzy perm from the eighties. I raised my eyebrows and smiled.

  Incy sighed, grinned at me, and held out his hands. “Whatever you want, babe,” he said. “It’s your hair.” Then he turned sideways, put his feet on the chair next to him, and started reading a dog-eared celebrity magazine.

  Calm down, I told myself. So you had a few dreams, a few visions. Look at him: He’s not trying to control your every move. Just relax.

  I looked back into the mirror and met the stylist’s eyes. “Not magenta,” I said. “But I would do some kind of red.”

  Like maybe a magenta-ish red, for effing example?

  “I said some kind of red,” I said, turning my head to see my new haircut swish. Despite looking like I’d been dipped headfirst in Kool-Aid, the cut was great and did the whole whoosh thing. I was enjoying it while I could, because this effect required blow-drying and moussing and a shine spray and who knew what else? Many hair products had died in the making of this whoosh, and any one of them was too much for me to deal with. Plus, you know, the whole freaking magenta thing. “I said not magenta quite clearly.”

  “It’s still fan-tastic,” said Cicely, standing next to me. I was back in my hotel room, and we were getting ready to go to Den, advertised to me as a “superhot new club.”

  “It’s magenta.” I tried to recall the undo spell River had done, and of course remembered it as a bunch of magicky-sounding gibberish. “I don’t even recognize myself.”

  “Because you don’t look like Hilda the goatherd anymore?” Katy leaned in next to me and made the OMG face to put on mascara. She caught my gaze and raised her eyebrows. “Honey, you looked like Hilda the goatherd. Now you look fabulous. Like yourself.”

  I had bright magenta hair cut in a crisp bob right at my shoulders, with a few spiky bangs on my forehead. The stylist had layered in the still-too-short pieces, and it all looked on purpose and chic. Around my neck I wore a wide choker made of many thin strands of green and purple Swarovski crystals. I was still paranoid about my neck and had layered a thin silk scarf underneath to be doubly covered up.

  I tugged up on my poison green satin boned bustier that emphasized a couple places I had gained weight. I guessed it was supposed to be cut like this, but mainly I was afraid of leaning over to pick something up. I wondered what River—or Reyn—would think of my completely impractical black satin cigarette pants and completely impractical and amazingly uncomfortable needle-heeled Louboutin pumps. Fortunately, neither Reyn nor River was here, and also fortunately, I couldn’t care less what they thought. I looked amazing. Really pretty, I decided with surprise. All my bony, hollow places had been filled in with, like, quinoa, at River’s, and I couldn’t remember my skin looking so clear and glowy. I looked hot and totally fashionable. Huh. I hadn’t looked this good in I didn’t know how long. The sixties? Late seventies?

  “Ladies?” Boz poked his handsome head around the bathroom door. When I’d first met him, I could have only described him as “incredibly handsome and blond.” As the decades have rolled past, I could now accurately say, “If Robert Redford and Brad Pitt had a love child, that’s Boz.” And every time I saw Boz not in big chunks minus all his blood, I was relieved. Those had been some weird, weird dreams. Probably brought on by too much healthy food. Good thing I was cleaning all that out of my system.

  “Ready,” said Katy, giving herself a last look in the mirror. Over the years my looks have changed as much as I could change them, with every color and length of hair, a big weight range, wide variety of whiteness or tannedness. Katy was one of the few immortals I knew who didn’t vary too much out of her comfort zone. She had naturally sun-streaked medium brown hair, ivory skin, and brown eyes. She put her hair up or left it down; sometimes she went curly. But that was it. And where my fashion sense (you can put air quotes around that, if you want) had also gone through extremes, from peasant burlap and rough linen to beautiful hand-loomed silk jacquard to torn jeans and kind of trashy to boring and now to slightly cutting-edge high style—Katy had always dressed with very expensive good taste. Not too far out, not frumpy. Just very expensive clothes, beautifully cut and fitted, decade after decade.

  Cicely expressed yet another style for immortals: the perpetual teen. Yes, of course most of us look really young; our aging process seems to slow way down when we’re about fifteen or sixteen. But then you get the exceptions, like Jess, who literally looked to be in his late fifties. Even River, who was 1,300, looked like she was maybe only in her late thirties, but with silver hair. I get away with a range of about seventeen to barely twenty-one. But Cicely really looked young. With skillful makeup, she still got carded everywhere. With no makeup, she couldn’t get into an R-rated movie by herself.

  She was smaller than me, more finely boned, with tiny wrists and ankles as befitting a well-born English lady in the late 1800s, which was when she’d been born. Her natural hair was fine, curly, and sunshine blond. It was her clothes that were an issue sometimes. She loved the latest trends, no matter what they were, and shopped in stores meant for teenagers. So she was pretty, really pretty, but almost never elegant, never sophisticated. I mean, not that I was. I could get dressed up, but I was still by my very nature kind of a schlump. I just didn’t care enough to really work at it. Cicely worked at it but like a teenager would.

  The three of us were so different. I hadn’t really seen that before. Still, they were my best girlfriends, and we’d been literally around the world together more than once.

  I smiled. “Lay-dees, we look stunning.” I took them both by the arm and smiled at us in the mirror. Cicely laughed and kissed my cheek.

  “Yes, we do,” she agreed.

  We took a limo to Den so Incy wouldn’t have to drive if he got plastered. Very responsible of us. My stomach was knotted up all the way there, praying the driver wouldn’t do anything to upset Incy.

  The line to get into Den started at the end of the block and was maybe five people thick. Everyone looked dressed to kill, very un–West Lowing, and I wondered for a second what Meriwether would think of this crowd. Or Dray, for that matter.

  The limo dropped us off without incident right at the red carpet that stretched from the club’s door to the curb. We got out, and I was pleased by my feet’s ability to adjust from sneakers to incredibly high-heeled shoes without making me pitch forward onto my face. Right back on the bicycle, that was me.

  Loud, pounding music seeped through the club’s closed door. I felt a twinge of excitement, the way I used to, and Incy smiled at me and took my hand. Two large, thick-necked bouncers were there to keep out the serfs and general riffraff. I wondered how they could see, wearing sunglasses at night. They had those coiled-wire ear things that made them look like the CIA. I mean, for what? So they could rush inside if someone heard that a huge sale on drinks was happening at the bar?

  One of them nodded stoically at Incy and Boz and stepped aside, undoing the guard barrier. The crowd of people waiting started shouting in protest—who knew how long they’d been on hold, and it was fuh-reezing out here. The bouncer yelled at them to shut up, and then the six of us swept inside. I won’t lie: I felt like royalty, or some famous person, getting waved past a
ll those poor line-waiters. It felt fantastic. After two months of being the low wastrel on the totem pole, I loved feeling like I was near the top again.

  Inside it took my eyes a minute to adjust to the darkness. The one lit space was the stage, where a gorgeous girl in a red plastic miniskirt was fronting a retro band. The air was full of smoke and scent, loud voices and louder music. The huge bass notes pulsed through my chest like waves. The energy in here was practically crackling, like electricity. Almost like magick.

  “I didn’t realize how much I missed this!” I yelled into Stratton’s ear, going on tiptoe to reach it. He grinned and nodded at me, and I grabbed his jacket tail so I wouldn’t lose him, glad that he was tall and as broad as a linebacker as we threaded a path to the way-too-crowded bar.

  Half an hour later we had our own table with a curved purple couch around it. I was drinking a whiskey sour, and Katy had demonstrated her ability to tie a cherry stem into a knot using only her tongue.

  Good times were here again.

  CHAPTER 19

  And the learning curve was quite flat here at Hacienda Liberty. I’d forgotten just how steep the price of good times could be. I woke the next afternoon cotton-mouthed with a splitting, and I do mean splitting, headache. When I raised my head, I half expected to leave large chunks of it on my pillow, like a broken melon.

  Sorry. It was a really bad headache.

  I looked down at myself: I’d slept in my clothes. I tried not to think about how much they had cost. They would probably dry-clean just fine. At least I’d made it back to the hotel. Wryly I berated myself: Gosh, maybe there’s some connection between drinking too much at night and feeling like complete crap the next day! I don’t know—what do you think?

  I crawled out of bed and made it to the bathroom, where I wanted to throw up and couldn’t. I wrestled myself out of my clothes, looking at big raw blisters on my feet from those adorable, adorable shoes that I’d managed to dance in for hours. I put on the hotel robe and walked out to the suite’s living room.

  Stratton, sound asleep, had crammed his large body onto the too-small settee, and I knew it was only a matter of time before he rolled over and crashed onto the floor. Which would be amusing. Cicely was curled up in an armchair, one shoe kicked off, all her makeup gone. She looked like a kid who’d fallen asleep at her parents’ party. Their suite was right across the hall, but judging from the bottles littering the floor, we’d continued partying after we’d gotten home, and it had been too far to walk.

  I peeked into Incy’s room, hoping I wouldn’t find anything awful. I didn’t. He was asleep in his own bed, one arm thrown over his face. Katy was next to him, but she’d probably just collapsed there—we’d all somehow avoided having romantic relationships with one another over the years, which was amazing and so much smarter than any of us actually was.

  I stood quietly, watching Incy sleep. Once in the Metropolitan Museum of Art I had seen an ancient Roman funeral portrait of a young man who had died two thousand years ago. He’d had olive skin and large dark eyes, a straight nose and full mouth. I didn’t know whether he had died at the full bloom of his youth or if it was an idealized portrait of an older man who’d wanted to be remembered at the height of his charm. Either way, he had been beautiful in a masculine, classic way, his features so proportionate that not even two thousand years could change a viewer’s notion of what beauty was.

  Incy looked exactly like him. In fact, when I’d first seen the Fayum mummy painting, I’d gasped and started, as if Incy had played a trick on me by having his own portrait inserted into the museum collection.

  I was reminded of that now as I watched him sleep, his face smooth and relaxed.

  Incy. He and I knew each other very, very well. We’d seen each other sick, furious, barfing, deliriously happy, bored, drunk, stunned. We’d seen each other at our bests and our worsts, and always stood by each other. Even during his Lala Burkhardt episode. Even during my Evan Piccolo fling, and that one still made me wince. God, poor Evan.

  Actually, now that I thought about it, I couldn’t place when our “bests” had been. When had either one of us been at our best? Hmm. There might be a message here somewhere. I’ll let you know if I find it.

  I realized anew how incredibly awful I felt and sank into the armchair by his window. I needed Alka-Seltzer, which I believe is one of civilization’s greatest gifts. Possibly chelation therapy. I closed my eyes.

  I was wondering vaguely how much effort it would take to get hold of some Tylenol when I realized that Incy was propped up in bed on one elbow, watching me the way I had been watching him.

  “Hi,” I said unenthusiastically.

  “What you need is a spa day,” he said, sliding out of bed. He stood and stretched, his custom shirt horribly wrinkled. Then he let out a deep breath and smiled, ready to start his day.

  “How do you do that?” I asked, keeping my voice down so my head wouldn’t implode.

  “Do what?” Incy headed for his bathroom.

  “You look fabulous.” I gestured at his entire being. “You look rested, springing out of bed full of pep and vim. Why don’t you look like crap? Why aren’t you hungover? You were completely smashed last night. I remember that much, at least.”

  “Oh, I don’t drink as much as it looks,” he said airily. He tugged off his shirt and flicked me with it. “Come on, get dressed. We’ll take you to get fluffed and primped. You can steam all the toxins out of your delicate little system.”

  That actually sounded really good, and six hours later I felt like a new woman. I’d been steamed, pummeled, massaged, had hot rocks put on my spine. All with my thin cotton scarf wound around my neck: the eccentric scarf girl. I’d drunk a gallon of coconut water and green tea and eaten a bowl of brown rice with a little vinegar sprinkled on it. It was better than it sounds. My face hadn’t been this deeply clean since a very, very bad sunburn in the late seventies that had essentially resulted in my entire face sloughing off.

  I’d been mani-ed, pedi-ed, made up, and blow-dried. My hair was whoosh-tastic once again. After Katy zipped me into a black sleeveless turtleneck dress from Armani and I put my Band-Aid-covered feet into hot-pink stiletto pumps, I looked like a short fashion model. With bright, bright freaking magenta hair. God.

  That night Incy and Katy and I went to dinner at B&G Oysters, in the South End. There were a dozen fresh entries at the raw bar, and Katy reported that the wine selection was excellent. I felt people looking at me and at first assumed it was my hair, but Incy assured me it was because I was a knockout and they were wondering who I was.

  I loved this, I did. I loved going to really good restaurants, instead of, say, Auntie Lou’s Diner. I loved wearing beautiful clothes instead of flannel and jeans. I hadn’t realized how much I loved it. Over a dessert that made my knees weak, I decided that I truly hadn’t appreciated all this before. I’d taken it for granted and gotten, I admitted, to an unhealthy place in my life. But now I knew more about balance. This time around, everything was going to be terrific.

  Except for your darkness. God, I hate my subconscious so, so much.

  After dinner we were supposed to meet Boz at an art gallery in the trendy SoWa district. Incy hailed a cab, and I tried to quash the instant recoil of fear and dread I felt about Incy + cab.

  As Katy climbed in, Incy took my hand and kissed it.

  “I was wrong,” he said quietly, looking intently into my eyes. “I was wrong, and you showed me that. You have nothing to fear.”

  There was never a point in pretending not to understand something with Incy. He knew I knew what he was talking about. We always got each other, with words or without.

  I nodded and got into the cab, feeling relieved and touched.

  The art gallery was less than ten minutes away, and we arrived safely without my darkness overpowering anyone and forcing them to commit heinous acts. You may draw a smiley face here: [ ].

  We got out and saw huge, floor-to-ceiling windows showcasing a lar
ge gallery full of light, people, and a bunch of art, including some by Lucian Freud, whose work I had always adored. A few people turned around when we came in, but none openly pointed at my hair and laughed behind their hands. The evening was going well so far.

  “Ooh, there’s Boz!” Katy snagged a glass of red wine off a waiter’s tray and made her way through the crowd to where Boz was charming a small crowd of admirers.

  “Who’s that girl he’s talking to?” I asked Incy, when he’d brought me some champagne. “She looks familiar.”

  Incy glanced over. “There was a picture of her upchucking off a balcony on the front page of Boston for You yesterday.”

  “Oh. Her. The heiress.”

  “Why else would Boz be talking to her?” Innocencio grinned, and I nodded. No duh.

  “He’s got to learn to invest his money so it sticks around longer,” I said. “There’s only so many other people’s fortunes you can run through.”

  “He hasn’t seemed to find a limit yet,” said Incy. “Shall we mingle?”

  “We shall.”

  Reporters from society magazines were snapping pictures. There were an unbelievable number of beautiful people in this room. I was sure many of them were famous and notable, but I wasn’t up on the latest society in Boston, and I didn’t recognize anyone except the barfer.

  I thought I’d feel like an idiot with my Popsicle hair, but there were so many extreme styles here that I actually blended. A tall, stunning, brick-house-shaped black girl had a short, snow-white afro. She should have been a model with those looks, and I thought very briefly about Brynne. Another Amazon had a mathematically precise haircut that was a deep navy blue on top, black underneath. Someone even told me that they loved my hair. That hadn’t happened in… decades, I think.