Heather pours a water glass full of champagne and goes back to running me down.
“I had a good thing going until you showed up,” Heather says. “You know what? You’re an asshole, Lynne. I’ve always fucking thought that.”
I keep eating. I need my calories in case I have to run.
“You’re so quiet and everyone thinks you’re all sad and fucked in the head,” Heather says. “But I bet you know a lot more about what the fuck is going on than you’re telling.”
Heather and I used to be close, but when I realized how unstable she was I started keeping my distance. The things that happened to all of us are bad enough, but she’s the only one who feels a need to embellish. Ever since I pulled away she’s made me her target. It’s not her fault, it’s the drugs. Still, it makes me nervous that she thinks I know more about what’s going on than I’m saying. Because I do.
As unpleasant as she is, I stay with Heather. Someone once told me that all you have to do to keep from being eaten by a bear is run faster than your friend. Same principle.
A lot of insults and two bottles of champagne later, the door breaks its seal and Marilyn storms through with a glass of ice water in one hand, wearing an enormous terry-cloth robe, wrapped and tucked and belted around her in big, loose, fluffy loops. Behind her is a maid carrying Fine in his pot.
“Does this belong to either of you?” Marilyn snaps. “Security found it outside.”
I almost cheer, but instead I keep my mouth shut and take the pot in both hands.
“Thanks,” I mumble.
“Did you get your fucking lion money?” Heather slurs, waving her glass at Marilyn.
Marilyn smacks it out of Heather’s hand and it goes spinning into the wall. Champagne mists my face.
“What the hell?” Heather asks. She tries to stand, but she’s too drunk and her ass pulls her right back down again.
“It’s one a.m.,” Marilyn spits. “And my house is empty. Do you know what kind of fund-raiser ends at one? A failed one. I spent an ungodly amount of money but my fund-raiser failed because about an hour after this one”—here she turns on me—“climbed over my wall with a gun and her stupid houseplant, the paparazzi showed up in my drive.”
“I told you she’s trouble,” Heather slurs, pointing one wavering finger at me.
“They want to know why two final girls are hiding in my guest house,” Marilyn snaps. “They know both your names, so I’m holding you both responsible.”
“How’d they know we were here?” I ask.
“They followed you,” she says. “Because you are sloppy and inconsiderate.”
I didn’t see anyone behind Skye and me, but maybe I missed them? Maybe one of those news vans picked us up at my house and followed us here? I’ve been missing too much lately. I feel old and slow and stupid.
“This is bad,” I say. “That reporter, Russell Thorn, got shot in my apartment. Then they tried to shoot me. Then they shot Julia and burned down Heather’s halfway house. Now they know we’re here.”
“They, they, they,” Marilyn says. “Are you off your meds again?”
“I don’t take meds,” I say, jaw tight.
“Well, now we know your problem,” Marilyn says.
“Someone’s trying to kill us,” I say. “That’s what I came here to say. You can handle that however you want. I just need a safe place for one night.”
A snore splits the room. Heather has passed out on the sofa. The two of us look at her for a minute, and then Marilyn takes a long pull on her glass. It’s not ice water, I realize. It’s vodka.
“Of course you can stay here tonight,” Marilyn says, and for the first time she sounds tired. “I just really wanted to help those lions.”
There’s silence for a minute, except for Heather’s snoring.
“Have you heard anything about Michelle?” she asks.
I know that Marilyn and Dani are close. The two of them were in touch by phone for years before group started. Dani has a place in her heart and that means Michelle does, too.
“She’s in hospice,” I say.
And then my arms and chest fill up with ice water because that means everyone’s someplace safe except Michelle.
Marilyn massages the bridge of her nose with two fingers.
“I need to process this,” she says. “I’ll make some calls in the morning. We will talk then. The house is alarmed, and security patrols all night, so please do not leave the guest house.”
I feel bad leaving Heather in a room with so many windows, but she’s too heavy for me to move. I turn out the lights and check the doors, then go upstairs. I hide the hard drive inside the box springs of the guest bedroom bed, and then I sleep in the bathtub with the door locked and the lights on.
I lie in the bathtub and decide to get out of here in the morning before anyone else is awake. I’ll leave before the sun is up. I tell myself there’s nothing I can do for Michelle. I can’t be responsible for other people. I can barely be responsible for myself.
Fine sits on the counter in his pot, but he’s so quiet I worry he’s in shock. Too much change for one day. It’s not healthy.
* * *
—
I wake up with Heather banging on the bathroom door.
“I gotta go, asshole,” she yells as I scrabble awake, adrenaline pumping.
“Use the other one,” I yell back, disoriented, voice shaking. The sun’s already high on the tiles. I overslept.
“I want to use this one,” she screams.
She won’t stop pounding on the door until I drag myself out.
“Freak,” she says, seeing my blankets and pillow in the tub.
I look out the window. It’s quiet outside, just a few birds. The sunlight is liquid gold, steam rising off the surface of the heated pool. It’s way too late to run.
I go downstairs and walk through the cool morning air to the house. Inside the sandstone kitchen the black marble island is loaded with a fruit platter, bagels, cream cheese. No matter what, Marilyn can’t help it, she has to be a host.
“I do not have the capacity for rudeness,” she says from the stairs. I didn’t see her there. “Get a plate. There’s tea outside by the coffee.”
We sit outside at a wooden table under a rough-beamed pavilion attached to the side of her house. Plastic bubbles containing cameras hang from the corners of her roof; every window is alarmed. Two giants in sweat suits stand on the edge of the yard.
“Now,” she says. “I’ve had my second cup of coffee. Tell me why you think everyone is trying to kill us.”
“I have to get going, Marilyn,” I say. “Is there a back way out of here?”
“Do you think I’m James Bond?” she asks. “Talk to me and I’ll get you out the front way later.”
I explain what’s been going on, leaving out my book. In the middle, Heather drifts up, then floats away to the kitchen, then reappears smoking a cigarette. Marilyn makes her sit far away until she finishes, and winces when Heather flicks her butt in the pool.
“I need to go,” I say. “You guys are safe, Dani’s in custody, Julia’s protected, but I need to go.”
I pray she doesn’t remember Michelle.
“Good riddance,” Heather says. “Finders keepers.”
“I made some calls this morning and spoke to my attorney,” Marilyn says. “He’s spoken with someone at the sheriff’s office who says Dani is safe, and while she won’t be arraigned for a few days, she and Michelle can go home as soon as the judge hears her plea. Julia is in the hospital and they have security posted on her room. You two are probably both getting warrants issued later this morning, so after breakfast you’ll both need to pack up and I can call you cars. Do you have enough cash?”
“I knew you’d fuck up my deal!” Heather bawls at me.
Then I can’t help myself. I fee
l the obligations pulling on me like chains.
“Make sure they post a cop on Michelle’s room,” I say.
Marilyn immediately knows what I’m getting at.
“She’s dying,” Marilyn says. “There’s no point in someone killing her.”
“There are better and worse ways to die,” I say because, again, I can’t help myself.
“Cancer is the worse way,” Marilyn says. “I’m not trying to be callous, Lynne, but I cannot afford to be pulled into whatever episode you’re having. Adrienne was murdered by someone with a grudge, Dani fired a weapon at a police officer, Heather was smoking crack in her basement and set her building on fire—”
“I was passed out in the woods behind my house!” Heather protests.
“Bless your heart, you were too high to remember,” Marilyn says, then turns back to me. “You and Julia, well, I only have your word for what happened. For all I know you shot her by accident. You do have a tendency to wave guns around and you’ve always had a flair for melodrama.”
“We have to check on Michelle first,” I say, trying to buy time, but also it’s true. “You know I’m right. We owe it to Dani to make sure she’s safe.”
I mean it. I really do. But also if I can get Marilyn to take us to hospice in one of her big armored SUVs, then I can slip away. It gives me a chance to get out of L.A. before the cops bring me in and ask questions about Garrett P. Cannon’s explosive new information.
Marilyn looks out over Los Angeles. The guys in sweat suits are joking around with each other, pretending to push each other into the pool. Marilyn feels safe here. Jerry’s money has allowed her to build a fantasy land where she can enjoy the luxury of pretending that my problems aren’t her problems. But she wouldn’t have lived this long if she couldn’t tell fantasy from reality sometimes.
“I will go and see Michelle,” she finally says. “I owe Dani that much. You two can come if you’d like. But after that, we go our separate ways. We have nothing in common, Lynnette. We can’t keep clinging to the past.”
“How do we get out of here with paparazzi all over your driveway?” I ask. “We can’t lead whoever it is to Michelle.”
Marilyn smiles.
“Did you really think I only had one way out of my house?”
—Gnomecoming, VHS box copy, 1989
TFGSG X
No one goes home from a hospice, but even so St. Claire’s Hospice feels like a funeral home. There’s no sunlight, no clocks, no direct lighting, no sound above a solemn whisper. Everything is beige or gray. Crosses hang in every room, faded hotel-quality paintings of meadows hang in every hall, and an abundance of nurses scurry around silently on crepe-soled shoes. Plastic holders stuffed with pamphlets about dealing with grief are affixed to every vertical surface.
“This is extremely depressing,” Marilyn says when we step off the elevator.
“I’m going to watch TV,” Heather says like a teenager, and slouches off to find the lounge.
We let her go and head down the neutral corridor full of open doors, following the numbers to Michelle’s. Each door reveals its own tiny drama. Family members glance up at me from their deathbed vigils, nurses brush past us as they glide from deathwatch to deathwatch, strained respiration rattles from rooms.
I don’t like it here. I can’t see the exits, I don’t know what’s around the corners, and we keep going deeper. I wish I hadn’t had this idea.
Finally, we get to 1211. I expected a cop to be sitting at the door, or a notice posted, or something letting people know that Michelle is in danger because of Dani, but her door’s not even closed. We push it open and step inside.
A husk lies in the middle of the bed, swaddled in sheets. There are no IVs, no catheters, no heart monitors or machines. She’s beyond that now. Even Marilyn wilts a little. This is the room where Michelle will die.
“Do you think that’s bothering her?” a nurse whispers.
Marilyn and I give a start. We didn’t even notice her follow us inside. She’s giving the cross on the wall at the foot of Michelle’s bed a meaningful look.
“I’m sure she doesn’t mind,” Marilyn whispers, and then the nurse is gone, leaving us with the love of Dani’s life. We approach the bed.
“. . . Dani?” Michelle whispers.
She’s yellow, her lips are chapped, her eyes burn with an intensity that stands out against her waxy skin. Marilyn puts one hand on Michelle’s forehead and smooths back her gray hair.
“Dani wants to be here,” Marilyn tells her. “I know she’d give anything for that to be possible right this minute.”
Michelle’s lips try to form words.
“Lynnette,” Marilyn says. “Go ask the nurse for a little sponge and a cup of water. Do you want some ice chips to suck on, honey?”
Michelle nods.
“And get us some ice chips, too.”
I go out in the hall, unsure where to get all this stuff. I head to the nurses’ station and they jump to it like they were just waiting for me to ask. I feel sweaty. There are no windows but too many doors, too many halls. Michelle’s room has no alternate exits. I don’t know my escape route.
When I get back to the room with my foam cup of ice chips, my yellow sponge in a crackling plastic wrapper, and my bottle of off-brand water, the nurse is coming out with the cross tucked beneath her arm.
“Do you think she wants to see a rabbi?” she whispers.
“Why?” I ask, genuinely confused.
“We’ll be fine,” Marilyn says from inside the room. “Thank you.”
The nurse gives a brisk nod, and she’s gone again. I go inside and hand off everything to Marilyn, then hang around the foot of the bed, as far away from Michelle as I can get while Marilyn raises the head of the bed and holds the cup of ice chips to Michelle’s lips, and then, while Michelle sucks on the ice, Marilyn pats the damp sponge across her cracked lips. I marvel. Where did Marilyn learn to do all of this? Michelle rolls her eyes to her and looks grateful.
“You just rest,” Marilyn says, stroking her hair. “I know you’re tired.”
“Thank you . . .” Michelle croaks. “. . . I know . . . I’m not pretty.”
Marilyn smiles.
“Well, neither is Dani, so you two are a perfect pair.”
Michelle grimaces and pants a little and I realize that she’s laughing. One of her hands comes out from underneath the blanket and scrabbles desperately, clutching at the air. Marilyn takes her hand.
“I . . . love you . . .” Michelle says.
“We love you, too,” Marilyn says. “And I know Dani loves you very much. You’re the best thing that ever happened to her.”
“She . . . promised . . . I could . . . be home,” Michelle says. “When this . . . happens . . .”
“I know,” Marilyn says.
“I wanted . . . to see . . .” Michelle says. “. . . she planted . . . new . . . we never got . . . enough . . .”
She yawns, a big jaw-cracker.
“I know,” Marilyn says. “None of us get enough time.”
“Be right back,” I mumble.
All the deaths I’ve ever seen were fast and messy. Tommy. Gillian. Mom. Dad. I’ve never been around this slow fade before. Can’t Michelle avoid it? Can’t she yank a cord and have it over with? I’m angry at her for forcing me to watch her die. I’m scared. I know what I have to do.
I find Heather at the end of the hall in an alcove, sprawled over two chairs. CNN plays on a donated television set, turned down low.
“Your boyfriend just gave a press conference,” Heather says.
“We’re getting Michelle out of here,” I say.
“Fuck yeah,” Heather says. “This place is the pits.”
She pushes herself to her feet, glad to have a goal, satisfied to screw the system. I give the TV one more glance as we go and see a ph
oto of me at sixteen, all acne and bad perm. I feel a trap closing around me. I want to be outside.
“Marilyn’s cool with this?” Heather asks as we walk.
“She’s totally cool,” I lie.
We go back into the death trap. Marilyn has pulled the only chair up to the head of the bed and she’s holding one of Michelle’s hands in both of hers, resting her elbows on the mattress. She looks up. Heather and I stand there, awkwardly.
“So, we took a vote,” I say. “And we’re taking Michelle home.”
“We’re what?” Marilyn says.
“Is Dani . . . coming?” Michelle pants.
“No,” I say.
“Yes,” Marilyn says to Michelle, then turns on me. “We’re not going anywhere. We’re going to sit with Michelle until Dani gets here. We are not going to move this lady.”
“Michelle,” I say, bending over her, surprised she doesn’t smell bad. “Dani isn’t coming. Not for another day or two. But we can take you back to the ranch right now, if you want us to.”
“I don’t . . . think . . . they’ll let . . .” she gasps, her eyes reading my face from left to right.
“That’s not something you need to worry about,” I say. “Dani is in jail. They are not letting her out today.”
“You don’t know that,” Marilyn says. “She might already be on her way.”
“Really, Marilyn? You really think they already let her out?”
“Well . . .” She pauses, drops her eyes back to Michelle’s hand.
“Exactly,” I say. “Michelle, Dani won’t be here. But we can take you to the ranch. Right now. You can be home. All you have to do is say the word.”
Michelle stares at me the way only a dying person can, totally focused on my eyes, no bullshit, all attention.
She nods.
“Dani’s flowers . . .” she says.
“You want to see Dani’s flowers?” I ask.
She nods. Her lips quiver around the word for a moment before she can say it.
“. . . yes . . .”
“This is fucked up,” Heather says.
The Final Girl Support Group Page 11