Imperfect Delight

by Andrea de Carlo

  “I know.” Nick Cruickshank smiles, but not arrogantly, not thoughtlessly; despite everything he seems aware of the fact that there are different points of view in the matter.

  Aileen turns back to Milena Migliari, comes up to within a couple inches of her. “Could I speak to you for a minute? Inside?” She makes a small, nervous gesture: eyes nervous, arms nervous, legs nervous.

  Milena Migliari feels terribly uncomfortable but doesn’t know how to refuse; she moves with her toward one of the sliding doors.

  “Hey, hold on a moment.” Nick Cruickshank touches his future wife on the shoulder. “If you have something to say, say it to me, too.”

  Aileen turns around, barely in control. “I’d like to speak with her for a minute alone, all right?”

  “No, it’s not all right at all.” Nick Cruickshank shakes his head.

  “The same goes for you.” Aileen gestures at her two friends or assistants, who get the message right away and freeze where they are, though unwillingly. She motions at Milena Migliari to come on, almost pushes her toward the sliding door.

  Nick Cruickshank starts to follow them, but an Indian man with a beard and gray hair in a very elegant dark-blue kurta-pajama takes him by the arm. “Nick! I’ve been looking for you for such a long time! We absolutely must talk about tomorrow!”

  “We’ll talk about it later, Nishanath. Okay?” Nick Cruickshank tries to free himself, but the Indian man has no intention of letting him go, grabs both of his wrists, holds him there as if he has something of vital importance to communicate to him.

  Milena Migliari goes in, Aileen one step behind her: it’s a large living room with a high ceiling with great white beams, full of couches and armchairs and carpets and drapes and paintings and sculptures and lamps, a space a hundred times larger and more open than the cottage in the woods where she was with him until a few minutes ago. The cooler she has in her hand seems to accentuate the unsustainability of her position; she sets it on the floor.

  Aileen looks over at a couch, as if she wants to invite her to sit down, but fortunately doesn’t: she studies her from head to toe, rocking slightly at the ankles. “Milena, right?”

  “Yes.” Milena Migliari is a little unsure even of her own name at this point. She studies Aileen as well: the straight line of her nose, her slightly sunken blue eyes beneath a protruding forehead, her almost colorless lips, her slender neck, her thin arms, her long legs. She has this elegant and nervous figure, spring-loaded.

  Aileen turns toward the sliding doors, through which the activity on the lawn is intermittently visible, amid the lights; she looks back at her. “Listen, whatever happened between you and Nick out in the cottage in the woods—”

  “Whatever?” Milena Migliari isn’t trying to deny anything: she would like to know exactly what happened, out in the cottage in the woods, if there’s a specific name for it.

  Aileen shifts her weight on her legs, tilts her head. “Listen, it’s not like I don’t know what type of man I’m marrying.”

  “And what type of man is he?” Milena Migliari thinks that it would be interesting to hear it from her; it might help in her own useless attempts to figure it out. She wonders if the wake of sensations and states of mind that still envelop her is clearly noticeable from the outside, if there’s something in her eyes, her features, her way of breathing.

  Aileen stops trying to maintain that nonsmile of hers, looks her right in the eye. “What matters is that you know it too. And that you don’t get any ideas.”

  Milena Migliari shakes her head slightly. “What ideas?” Again, it’s not an empty question: What ideas does she have about him? About herself? About their disturbing, inexplicable encounter?

  “I think you understand perfectly what I mean.” There’s an underlying ferocity beneath Aileen’s ultracivilized surface, though it’s veined with fragility.

  “No, I actually don’t.” Milena Migliari realizes how stupid she might seem, or how devious, but she truly doesn’t understand. She doesn’t understand what happened, doesn’t understand what she’s doing in this living room, doesn’t understand what keeps racing through her heart and head.

  “All right, then I’ll explain it to you!” Aileen’s voice goes up, in a sudden burst of volume. “If you think you’ve achieved any sort of position with Nick because you screwed him out there in the cottage, you’ve got it all wrong!”

  “Any sort of position?” In the general incomprehensibility of the situation, it seems to Milena Migliari that even individual words have become incomprehensible, completely disconnected from what she’s feeling.

  “Sorry to interrupt, but would you mind telling me who screwed who?” Another woman’s voice reaches the living room, from the hallway side.

  Aileen whips around, Milena Migliari does likewise. A couple of yards from them, wearing the white shirt and pants she dons to do postural massages, her sleeves rolled up, a hand on her hip, face twisted with tension, is Viviane.

  To Milena Migliari it seems like such an absurd apparition that she thinks she’s just imagining it, a side effect of the extreme sensorial uncertainty she finds herself in; but her heart stops just the same, her blood freezes.

  “And who is she?” Aileen’s tone becomes haughty, the lady of the manor surprised to find some crazy vagrant wandering around her home.

  “Who are you?” Viviane certainly isn’t one to be intimidated by anyone’s tone of voice.

  “I’m Aileen McCullough, and this is my house,” Aileen shoots back even more harshly. “How did you get in here?”

  “You called me here urgently, on account of that pig who fell off his horse!” Now Viviane is losing her temper; she bangs into a couch in the form of a water slide.

  “Viviane, calm down.” Milena Migliari says it only because she doesn’t like seeing her so agitated, certainly not because she cares about keeping up appearances.

  “I will certainly not calm down!” Viviane is getting more and more furious. “And what the hell are you doing here, you want to tell me?! What was she talking about?!”

  Milena is so disconcerted that she has absolutely no idea what to respond; the only reaction that comes to her is to shrug.

  Viviane turns to Aileen with a very aggressive tone. “Well? What were you talking about, you want to tell me? Who fucked who in the woods?!”

  Hearing herself berated like this, Aileen attempts to regain some control, to recover from her utter lapse in style just now.

  “Whatever I was saying, it was between me and this young lady. I don’t understand what business it is of yours!”

  “It’s my business because she is my woman, all right?!” Viviane shakes a furious finger at her; out of anger and excitement a little white foam appears at one corner of her mouth.

  “What the devil is she saying?” Aileen turns to Milena Migliari as if for an explanation, a bewildered look on her face.

  “I am nobody’s woman.” Milena Migliari doesn’t like Viviane’s tone one bit, let alone her proprietorial attitude.

  “Ah, no?!” Viviane immediately interprets her words as a distancing, becomes even more furious. “It’s good to know, really!”

  “I am me, all right?” Milena Migliari tries for a tone of conviction but realizes she’s not even sure who she really is anymore; realizes how perplexed her voice sounds.

  Aileen gives that stereotypical look of incredulity again, accompanying it with that sideways movement of her head. She seems on the point of saying something but turns around again, because just entering the living room is a stocky guy with long grizzled-blond hair, grayish fuzz on his chest, a beer belly, and naked, except for a small white towel around his waist.

  “Hey, you!” the guy barks in Viviane’s direction, with a guttural voice of notable strength. “Who’re you calling a pig who fell off his horse?!”

  “You’re the pig, you fat tub of lard!” Already infuriated, Viviane’s venomous reply is instantaneous.

  “Giant fucking dyke!” the guy
yells at her even louder; the veins in his neck pop out, he turns red in the face. “Instead of fixing my shoulder, you’ve half destroyed it with those hard fucking hands of yours!”

  “You never should have dared to touch my ass, cockroach!” Viviane heads straight for him, shoves him in the chest, hard. He staggers, flails, possibly tries to punch her but misses, loses his balance, trips on the carpet, grabs on to her, drags her down; they fall on top of each other in a tangle of arms and legs.

  “Ahiaaa! Cunt!” the grizzled-blond guy screams in pain, but this doesn’t prevent him from punching Viviane in the back with his left hand.

  “Keep still, idiot!” More than anything Viviane tries to immobilize him, maybe for fear that he might do even more damage to his shoulder.

  Milena Migliari goes toward the scrum but doesn’t know where to begin to try to separate them, especially since they continue grasping at each other like in a game of rugby.

  “Stop this immediately!” Aileen yells with a shrill register, at a volume that can almost compete with the grizzled-blond guy’s. “I will not allow you to behave this way in my house!”

  “And here’s the bitch!” From the ground, the grizzled-blond guy screams at her as well. “Fucking manipulator!”

  “There is no end to your squalor, Wally!” Aileen tries to raise her voice even more, but it’s clear from how worn out she sounds that unlike him she’s not used to these volume levels.

  “Gold digger! Fake!” the grizzled-blond guy named Wally screams hideously, like a barbarian warrior in agony.

  “You’re an embarrassing failure of a human being!” Aileen is almost as red in the face as he is. “Nick should have kicked you out of the band at least twenty years ago!”

  “The band is mine as much as his, bitch! I’m one of the founding members, got that?!” Wally pulls himself up to a sitting position, even if Viviane tries to restrain him. “You dyke cunt, get off me!”

  “Lousy prick, hold still!” Viviane grabs him by his healthy arm, twists it to block him.

  “Aaargh!” Wally yells inarticulately and kicks wildly, fortunately without connecting.

  “What is this circus?” Nick Cruickshank has entered the living room, followed by the very elegant Indian man still trying to get his attention, and by Aileen’s two friends or assistants. He shifts his gaze from his future wife to Milena Migliari to Viviane and Wally on the floor, with the curiosity of an anthropologist.

  Milena Migliari feels that sense of absurd relief again at seeing him, even less justified than before; once more she feels like laughing.

  THIRTY-TWO

  NICK CRUICKSHANK AGAIN wriggles free, and not tenderly, of Nishanath Kapoor, who continues trying to talk to him with mystical urgency about his role as celebrant in tomorrow’s ceremony. “I said we’ll discuss it later, all right?!” The situation in the living room is distracting, with Wally half naked on the floor, where the massage therapist is holding him down, Aileen assailing Milena, Tricia and Fiona the holistic consultant shoving each other to be the first to offer practical assistance and moral support to their boss.

  “Ahiaaa, you ugly fucking whore, get off me!” Wally is part complaining and part insulting, part trying to land some kicks.

  The massage therapist manages to pin him down without much difficulty: she has his left arm in a hold and meanwhile jabs two fingers into his right shoulder, it isn’t clear whether as the continuation of her professional treatment or as a way to inflict pain.

  “Ahia! Cunt!” Wally writhes, alternates more whining with renewed attempts to land a surprise punch.

  “Would you quit it, prick?! You want to hold still or not?!” The massage therapist strengthens her grip on his left arm, like a skilled wrestler.

  “Ahiaiaah! That huuuurts, fuuuuck!” Wally immediately reverts to victim mode, moaning and kicking, the big pathetic crybaby.

  “Nick, tell these two to stop it immediately!” Aileen comes so close to him that her forehead is almost touching his; she’s literally trembling with anger and indignation. “It’s completely unacceptable. Do you realize that?!”

  Nick Cruickshank starts to answer, but again he can’t help but laugh. It might depend on the general regression taking place in the living room, but truthfully it seems like ever since he set foot in the cottage in the woods he has undone any progress he might have made toward so-called maturity.

  “Cut it ouuut! Noooow!” Aileen yells with a register he didn’t know she was capable of, stomps her heels like a psychotic flamenco dancer.

  Milena looks like the only reflective person in this living room: she watches Aileen and Wally and the massage therapist in that unfamiliarity of hers, as if she’s from another dimension, making her overwhelmingly attractive in his eyes.

  “What the fuck is going on here?” Kimberly comes into the living room, panting; Sadie and Rodney are right behind her.

  “This bitch threw me on the ground!” Wally really does seem like a child now, even if hideously ugly and bearded, half naked and flushed pink there on the floor.

  “He called me a giant fucking dyke!” The massage therapist continues holding him down, for whatever reason.

  “Well, are you or aren’t you?” Kimberly peers at her, her features contracted in suspicion.

  “That’s my business!” the massage therapist shoots back just as aggressively. “And this pig tried to make a move on me!”

  “That’s not true, babe! Ahiaaa!” Wally shrieks as if he’s being tortured.

  Kimberly immediately turns on him. “What fucking move did you try to make?! Tell me!”

  “None, I swear!” Wally is so shaken he could even seem sincere if you didn’t know him.

  “Answer the fucking question! What move?!” Alas, Kimberly knows him all too well.

  “That other manipulative bitch called me a failure of a human being!” In an attempted diversion Wally points a trembling finger at Aileen; all that’s missing now is for him to start whimpering.

  “You were the one who said some absolutely atrocious things to me!” Aileen is completely outside her habitual register, which is visibly worrying to Tricia and Fiona. “And you continue to do it! A guest should have at least a shred of decency!”

  Kimberly looks at Aileen, looks at her husband on the floor, as if unable to decide who to tear into. She goes for Wally, probably in light of any number of episodes of marital infidelity and general sexual squalor. “You want to tell me why the fuck you’re naked?!”

  “She was giving me a massage!” Wally is yelling, completely red in the face. “I swear! I mean, look at her, babe!”

  “Look at yourself, you disgusting little worm!” The massage therapist is disgusted; she lets go of Wally’s arm, leaps to her feet.

  Kimberly throws herself on her husband: with that mass of bleached-blond hair, the short-sleeve blouse with the puffed sleeves, the white hot pants above black two-tone stockings and knee-high boots, she’s a triumph of outraged vulgarity. “If you wanted a fucking massage, you should’ve told me, and I’d have given you a fucking massage!”

  “But I fell off that fucking pony, I told you on the phone!” Wally latches on to her to pull himself up, stumbles: the towel falls down, he pulls it up, but he’s too agitated and the towel too small, his knob and his rear end take turns playing peekaboo.

  Kimberly turns her attention to Nick Cruickshank, her face now twisted by her protective instinct for her vile husband. “You told us those fucking donkeys were calm! You even convinced me to get on, for fuck’s sake!”

  “Yes, it was a tragic error in judgment.” Once again Nick Cruickshank starts laughing—he can’t help it.

  “What the fuck are you laughing about, asshole?!” Wally yells, like a man possessed. “I nearly wrecked my shoulder!”

  “Exactly, you nearly wrecked it.” Nick Cruickshank says it with the tone of a statement of fact; the fact is that the overwhelming majority of his thoughts and sensations couldn’t be further away from Wally and his tumble.r />
  “What the fuck does that mean?!” Wally shouts, looking to Kimberly for support. “He’s the fucking head of the house, is he not?! He’s the one responsible, is he not?!” He turns toward Rodney and Sadie, hoping for their solidarity as well.

  “Of course he’s responsible!” Kimberly joins in her husband’s shouting, though she continues to glare extremely suspiciously at the massage therapist and look hatefully at Aileen. “We’ve come all the way here just for your fucking wedding, and look how you’re treating us, you and that bitch!”

  “We invited you out of pure obligation, my dear little whore!” Aileen fires back equally virulently, though at a lower volume. “We would have happily done without you and your abominable slobbery!”

  “You’re the whore!” Kimberly screams and gesticulates like she’s at the fish market, swaying back and forth on her high heels. “You think you’re hot stuff because you’re the daughter of the fucking ambassador, but if you hadn’t reeled in that asshole Nick, like fuck you would’ve been able to set up that whole fake-leather business.”

  “You are aware that being the daughter of an alcoholic thief doesn’t give you any type of moral prerogative, right?!” Aileen raises her sound level so it’s almost on par with Kimberly’s, but not quite.

  “My father is not a thief, you biiitch!” Kimberly shrieks even louder, to drown her out. “It certainly wasn’t his fault he ended up in prison!”

  “But of course!” Aileen tries to smile, but in these conditions the only result is a grimace. “He was the victim of a political conspiracy, I’m sure!”

  “Biiitch! Biiitch! Biiitch!” Kimberly launches into a loop of undoubted vocal effectiveness: not by chance did she meet Wally when she was a backup singer.

  “For your information, I had a very successful business long before meeting Nick!” Aileen tries to reestablish some semblance of stylistic distance, though she must be aware of how difficult it is. “But when you got your hooks into this incredibly vulgar imbecile you were nothing but a two-bit groupie! And you have the courage to call me an opportunist!”