Afterlife

by Paul Monette

  In the kitchen she opened the freezer and the ovens to show how much they could accommodate, then introduced him to the cook, a stout and white-bunned Scottish woman who gave him a half-curtsy, clearly disapproving of the help and the guests being chummy. It was the help, in fact, who were clearly most appalled by Angela Ciotta.

  Then up a spiral stair to the second floor, where the hall was hung with a gallery of forbidding portraits, hard-bitten WASP ancestors of nobody who lived here. Angela pointed at one overly gowned and scowling gentlewoman and grimaced: “Has this one got a broom up her ass or what?” And she and Steven laughed like a couple of upstairs maids, reeling arm in arm into the master bedroom.

  The ducal bed was hung with oceans of brocade. The dressers and fat armoire were country French, burled and honey-colored. In contrast, one entire wall was stacked with video equipment high-tech enough to launch a Trident missile. Balcony doors flowed to an upper terrace that commanded the twilight view all the way to the ocean. Every surface in the master suite was filled with baroque-framed pictures of Lou and Angela in a thousand lovebird poses. Steven cooed admiringly, as he had throughout the tour, but Angela could have cared less about the bedroom. Even as he lingered to stroke the mane of a carousel horse, she tugged his hand and led him into her true domain.

  The bathroom. More green marble than a Biddle bank. A tub that would have happily bathed four at a time, in an alcove floor-to-ceiling with windows, blue with the gloaming sky beyond. Angela pulled him around excitedly, throwing open the mirrored doors to the sauna, the steam room, the massage table. Facing the tub were a sofa and chaise upholstered in white silk, perched on a white fur rug, the whole ensemble fit for a Hamburg brothel. Breathless in their sudden palship, the wives plopped down on the sofa. All they needed to make it perfect were peignoirs with maribou sleeves.

  “This is where I chill out,” declared Angela. “Nobody comes in here—not even Lou. The rest of this house, I’m like on all the time. I mean gimme a break. These servants are always grading me, like they worked for the fuckin’ Queen Mother or somethin’. Please—I’m a beauty-school dropout.”

  She laughed with conspiratorial delight, and Steven couldn’t help liking her, the bad girl thumbing her nose at all that arch propriety, Nero’s rotten empire ceded to his horse. She told Steven he had ancient eyes and demanded to know his birthdate down to the minute so she could have him cast by Salou, her channeler. Then explained this one particular life she was working on rebirthing: the mistress of a medieval king, probably Italian, who gave up her jeweled palace to enter a nunnery. There was even some aura suggesting she may have become a saint.

  “It all fits, ’cause like I was brought up Catholic and now I live in a castle.” As she sailed through the parallels, she reached and opened the drawer of an inlaid table beside her. Out came an eighth of Peruvian flake and a small mirror. She flashed a bright smile at Steven, who shook his head no. Carefully she tapped out a couple of lines.

  “You shouldn’t do that, you know.”

  She had her straw poised above the first line. She shrugged. “Lou don’t like to do it alone.”

  “That’s not a reason.”

  “Yeah, it’s stupid,” she said, capitulating right away, this girl who wanted so hard to please and nobody was pleased. She laid the straw on the mirror and put it aside on the table. “I’m gonna stop soon anyway. Fuck, I’m so polluted I can’t even have kids. Disgusting, right?”

  Steven nodded, the moment not requiring any further remarks from the headmistress. He felt sorry for her, even a bit protective. This was curious, for three months ago he would’ve been spitting with rage, to think these decadent hets could abuse themselves, squandering years, while men like Victor clung to their last days, sweet and clear and wasting no drop of time. These were the ones who deserved to die, he would’ve been thinking, seething like the very Baptists who crowed when the faggots died. For once he didn’t want to take out Victor’s death on someone. He didn’t even care that they hadn’t mentioned AIDS. On the contrary, he was relieved that Angela didn’t know, that she wasn’t hovering or flinching or covering her ass.

  “Hey, Steve, c’mere.” She winked at him and headed for a fourth mirrored door, clicking it open. As he followed her in, he was surrounded by a smell of cedar and sweet gum. She flipped on the overhead lights, a row of spots that tracked along the ceiling like in an art gallery. Except it was her closet, bigger than the master bedroom, with clothes racks wrapping the four walls. Angela spread her hands to show it all off, though there was something of an embarrassed shrug in the gesture as well. Blouses, skirts, little nothing silk dresses—dozens on dozens of everything. One corner was fitted with tiers for shoes, shining as if they’d never been worn, like a shoe museum.

  “I’ve died and gone to Bonwit’s,” said Steven.

  “I have a shopping problem,” Angela shared with a rueful sigh. “I can’t decide, so I buy stuff in every color. Besides, Lou don’t like me to wear the same thing twice. Like his mother had one nice dress or something. What do they call that?”

  “Overcompensating.”

  “But hey, I give it away like crazy. My sisters, my old girlfriends—they leave here with both arms full. I’m like Santa Claus.” She reached out and touched her white-polished fingernails to his sleeve. “You see somethin’ you like, don’t be bashful.” Steven swiveled his head and gaped at her. She laughed. “I don’t mean for you. But maybe you got a sister—or even your mom.”

  He laughed back, but with her, not at her. He wanted more than anything just then to let her know he liked her, improbable though it was and despite her appalling money. He was sisterless, he explained, and his mother wore only housedresses, but because she looked so crestfallen, he allowed as how maybe Margaret would like something from Angela’s closet. He didn’t know Margaret’s size, of course, but that only meant a challenge to accessorize. Hats, scarves, belts—they finally settled on a linen shawl, hand-painted with birds. Angela was triumphant as she folded it up.

  “Do you gift-wrap?” asked Steven dryly, and they were off again laughing.

  Then she went to the Cinderella corner, where all the ball gowns were hung, rank on rank of gossamer. She pulled out a crepe sheath, green ink with a white appliqué in front that looked curiously like the zap sign on Sonny Cevathas’s T-shirt. She demanded to know Steven’s honest opinion as she wriggled out of her sweatshirt. She wore no bra, and her tits were firm and girlish, the nipples dark and Sicilian. Steven stood his ground, casual as could be, but he realized he’d never been two feet from a naked lady before. He suddenly felt quite racy, and was disappointed when the pants came off to see she was wearing panties. She shimmied into the sheath and turned so Steven could zip her.

  “This is a very A event,” she explained. “Streisand. The Spellings. I don’t want to look like a hooker.”

  She swept the cascade of red hair off her shoulder and twisted it up on her head, spearing it with a bone comb. Steven knew exactly what she wanted, the sort of gay man with drop-dead taste who would know instinctively how she should look. Steven had never been this man, could scarcely remember to match his own shoes, and wore plaids that clashed. Victor was more what she was looking for, always running over to Margaret’s to help her dress for a date.

  “Is this too much?” She opened a drawer in an apothecary chest and drew out a velvet box from among a muffled clutter of jewel cases. She opened the lid and lifted out a tiara, glutted with emeralds and diamonds. She turned to the mirror so she could fit it into her hair. “This is not my Miss Arizona crown. It belonged to a Russian princess. We’re not talking rhinestones.” She studied the effect carefully, no longer dazzled herself by the jewels. She sighed. “Why does it look like rhinestones on me?”

  He reassured her about everything, about the tiara, the dress, the satin pumps, kept telling her over and over how pretty she was. But here in her own mirror she actually looked miserable, doomed to pick out every flaw, night after night as she
dressed for the A event. Steven didn’t have the heart to tell her that the only thing wrong was how skinny she was from all the drugs.

  She began to disrobe again, laying everything out on the chaise for later. A good Catholic girl, she turned the conversation back to Steven. “You’re so good for Mark,” she said with vivid good cheer. “I never seen him so relaxed.”

  “Really, it’s not what you think. We’re more like … brothers or something.”

  She faced him again, naked except for the black panties. “Don’t tell me about love,” she offered. “I’m Italian. It’s the national sport.”

  “Oh, I love him all right. Whatever that means.” Steven tried to sound breezy—tried too hard. “But gay men are very weird about sex. They can’t do it with people they like.”

  She folded her arms and tilted her hips, in a very hookerish pose. Her lips pursed in a little bow of perplexity, her brow furrowed. “You tryin’ to tell me you don’t like to fuck someone you love?”

  “Well, not me specifically. I sort of like to, actually, but—”

  It was very problematic now, her not knowing anything about Victor and the nightmare. Not that she was trying to put him on the spot. She seemed genuinely interested, as if this were her hobby, more than clothes or chateau life. She turned away to duck back into her sweats, and once more Steven felt an odd thrill of melancholy, to lose the field of her nakedness.

  “I’m not blaming Mark, you understand. He’s a sweetheart. Besides, I’m the one who’s dead from the waist down. It just isn’t the right, uh, karma for us.”

  She almost seemed to wince at the California bullshit of the last remark, she who was the paradigm of the New Age consumer. Perhaps she understood that Steven was grasping at straws, not speaking out of any real faith in the wheels of the spirit. She pulled the comb from her hair and let it tumble down again. “Sounds to me like you’re tryin’ to talk yourself out of it.”

  “There’s no it,” Steven replied precisely.

  She sidled up to him and took his arm. It was time to leave the inner sanctum. Whatever private truths were stated here stayed here. “All you gotta do,” she said, “is go slow and don’t be jealous. Mark, he’s like Lou, he’s gotta fuck everything that moves. Oh, I know. Mark thinks his love life’s such a big secret, but hey, people talk. He likes those humpy West Hollywood boys. But that’s not a man. He’s not gonna settle down with one of them.”

  Thus having given her final word, she led him back to the real world, keeping hold of his arm as they retraced their way through the upper hall and down the spiral stair. Steven didn’t protest any further that he and Mark weren’t an item. But he was feeling rather flush at Angela’s inference that he was such a man. He hadn’t thought of himself as a man, pure and simple, since before Victor got sick. An old man sometimes, a used-up one, but not the genuine article. Did he only believe it if a straight person said it?

  Lou and Mark were framed in the front door waiting for them. Steven knew right away that Mark had told the boss about his antibody status. Lou looked strained and uncomfortable, not nearly so blasé anymore about who was fucking whom. He could hardly hide the fear and pity as Steven disengaged himself from Angela and stood by Mark, feeling ridiculous with the shawl over his arm.

  But Angela was sunny and ebullient enough for all of them, eagerly praising Steven’s eye for fashion. She invited them back for whenever they liked—dinner, the pool, a weekend out in Zuma Beach—pathetically eager, as if nobody ever visited either of them. She didn’t seem to pick up that Lou Ciotta wasn’t seconding what she said, that he didn’t exactly shake hands with his guests, though here Mark made it easier for him by clasping Steven’s hand.

  “And if he don’t come, you come,” declared Angela to Steven, staking the ground of their special kinship.

  The Ciottas came out to the terrace and stood at the balustrade, duke and duchess, as Mark and Steven crossed the cobblestones to the Jeep, hand in hand. “Don’t worry about nothin’. I’ll take care of it,” Lou called out to Mark, a brief resurgence of his best Mafia don self-assurance.

  “Don’t be a stranger,” Angela trilled beside him, one hand fluttering the air in a showgirl’s wave to Steven.

  Who found himself waving back in virtual pantomime, a gesture he wouldn’t have been caught dead in before today. He and Mark broke the handhold and jumped in the car. They swept away down the drive, the wolfhounds gamboling after, saying nothing until they turned into the cypress alley. Then Mark reached over and fingered the fringe on the shawl in Steven’s lap.

  “This is darling,” he said. “You can wear it over the harness and go as Laura Ashley.”

  Steven fixed him with a dead-bolt stare. “You think I could have a little warning next time?”

  “You did great, babe.”

  Steven tried to remain in a wounded huff, but he couldn’t sustain it. There was too much to dish. By the time they reached Sunset, they were talking on top of each other, roaring about the overdetermined tea and Cary Grant and the lugubrious retinue of servants. They swung down Melrose shrieking with glee, Steven spilling the details of the boudoir. Why does it look like rhinestones on me? would be their anthem from now on.

  Boisterous and bumping shoulders, they rolled into Johnny Rocket’s diner and took a booth, the oldest adolescents in the place. They ordered the burgers and fries they’d never quite got their fill of in high school. Steven fed quarters into the table juke so they could debrief each other to a rockabilly beat.

  It had all been very calculated on Mark’s part. He’d been out of work six weeks, and they were closing fast on the sixty-day AWOL clause that would let them break his contract. He didn’t care about the job anymore, or if he ever worked again, but he was too much of a businessman not to hedge his bets. Because what if he didn’t die so soon? He had enough put away for a couple of years, maybe three if he sold his house, but then what? He decided to come clean to Lou and try to trigger a disability settlement, an area so gray you could hardly read the print in the contract.

  “I got him feeling so sorry for me, I figure he’ll break his butt with the studio. Fuck, if I get disability, we can retire to Hawaii.” He rolled his eyes at Steven and hitched up the sleeves of his leather jacket, cocky as if he’d just robbed a bank.

  “But what did he say?”

  “When I told him? Well, he pushed his chair back a couple of feet, and he stared at my teacup. You could tell he was trying to figure out what I’d touched in the house. Then he said, ‘Did Steve give it to you?’”

  “Thanks, Lou. Patient Zero over here.”

  “Then he asked me how long I had. I said two years.” At Steven’s sudden frown, he flashed defensive. “It sounds better. If I don’t look like Camille, he won’t get in there and fight.”

  “So what was I doing there?” asked Steven, waving his last french fry in the air.

  “Ours is a tragic love, dear. We cling together in the whirlwind. It’s practically a movie of the week. He loved that part.”

  Steven’s beeper went off, and he washed his pills down with a chocolate malted, screw the popcorn and melon. Mark was stunned at his affectionate defense of Angela Ciotta, killer shopper and chatelaine of Coldwater Canyon. He accused Steven of being simply perverse, Steven who was usually such a misanthrope, especially about the overfed and unplagued straights of the Westside. Steven stood his ground and kept insisting that, despite being a moron, she was sweet and had a certain intuition.

  They ogled the buns of the counterman. They rollicked across the street to the punk newsstand and scooped up an armload each of tawdry magazines. They headed back to the Jeep, pumped still with adrenaline from the adventure and wired on a fast-food high. They slapped each other five as they got in, and Steven leaned over and flicked Mark’s ear.

  “Very hot,” he said with a certain smutty undertone. “I can’t wait to see the rhinestone.”

  It was barely nine o’clock when Mark pulled up in front of Steven’s, but both of them
could feel the nimbus of exhaustion waiting on the down side of the day’s excitement. They were so attuned to each other now that they didn’t have to push it, didn’t have to prove they could dance all night. Tomorrow was soon enough. They said good night without touching, being as they had no audience. Steven trotted up the steps as Mark gunned away, then turned as the Jeep roared back in reverse. Mark jumped out with the shawl, swept it around his shoulders, and strutted up the steps like Carmen.

  “You forgot your wrap, Miss Thing.”

  “So butch,” said Steven dryly, tugging it gently off his friend.

  “Genderfuck.” Mark winked. “The last taboo.”

  Then the phone began to ring in the house, and Steven had to fumble fast to get the door open, letting Mark go a second time without a kiss good-bye. Steven ran through to the kitchen, not even turning on any lights, and grabbed it up on the third ring, an instant before the machine.

  “Steven, it’s Margaret.”

  “Please—I was just going to call you. I spent the day with a Russian princess, and I’ve got a major acquisition for you.” He batted the wall switch with an elbow and flung open the shawl on the white-tiled counter. It looked even more costly and exotic outside the Aladdin’s cave of Angela’s closet.

  “Steven, there’s something I haven’t told you—”

  “The background’s coral, it’ll go just great with your china-doll skin. She’s a redhead too.”

  “I just got home from the hospital. It’s Ray.”

  A synapse seemed to malfunction in Steven’s brain. His first thought was to protest: No, no, that’s over with. Meaning Victor. He couldn’t imagine who Ray was; the only Ray he knew was Ray Lee at the office. Which was exactly who it was, though Steven kept resisting, even as the details tumbled out.