Imperfect Delight

by Andrea de Carlo

  “Yeah, and so disinterestedly!” Rodney immediately turns on him, with the pent-up rage of thousands of travel hours toward destinations whose names you don’t even remember, press conferences where there’s nothing to say, extenuating meetings with record label functionaries that don’t know the slightest thing about rock, arrangements made and unmade to please the market, arguments in front of the mixer until dawn. “At least try not to be a pain in the ass until the day you retire, Baz!”

  “I really wish I could afford to, Rod!” Baz is speaking only a little louder than normal, but in his voice there’s a current of several thousand volts. “But I’m afraid that in the space of a few months I’d have to come and put flowers on the tomb of the Bebonkers!”

  “Hah, hah, hah, very funny, really!” Rodney spins around, raising his hands in the air, as if to incite a nonexistent audience.

  “I don’t think you’d be very amused, dear Rod.” Baz’s habitual sarcasm now has a more sinister tone than usual. “Having to sell your pretty sailboat to pay for your house in Santa Monica, and then having to sell the house in Santa Monica to pay for the one in the Highlands, and so on and so forth, until you find yourself out on the street!”

  “You do know that without us you wouldn’t be in too good shape either, Baz!” Rodney attacks him with even more rage, seeing his material possessions suddenly called into question.

  “Without us today you’d be managing a few groups of dance hall losers!” Wally attacks him abruptly, even though Kimberly is holding him back. “You’d be going around collecting coins in a hat without us!”

  “You should be calling me on the phone every goddamn day to say thank you, Wally dear!” Baz raises his volume a little more, though he keeps himself far below the level of the others.

  “Is that right, and why the fuck should I?!” Wally tries to free himself from Kimberly’s hold, but she doesn’t let go.

  “I don’t know, for managing to keep you out of jail, among other things?” Yes: the voltage in Baz’s voice is lethal.

  “What the fuck are you saying?! What the fuck are you talking about?!” Wally barks, roars, spits.

  “Let it go, all right?!” Baz’s tone is decidedly blackmail-like, which falls fully within his habitual methods.

  “I’m certainly not going to fucking let it go!” By now Wally seems in the throes of a convulsive fit. “What the fuck are you referring to? Say it!”

  “I prefer not to in front of your lady, all right?!” Baz positions his index finger in front of his nose and mouth, pure Mafia style.

  “The story about the underage girl in Rio?” As incredible as it might seem, in the general mayhem even Todd abandons his proverbial discretion, along with his proverbial calm.

  “What underage girl in Rio?!” Kimberly looks at Wally like she wants to rip him to shreds with her nails and teeth. She looks at Todd. “What underage girl in Riooo?!”

  “You’re not actually going to listen to him, babe?! That asshole just wants to ruin me!” Wally doesn’t even try to keep his towel on anymore. He grabs a Lucien Lunot ballerina off a stand, throws it at Todd.

  Todd sidesteps, but the ballerina still hits him on the side of the neck. It must really hurt, because he gives an awful cry.

  “That is a one-of-a-kind Lunot! It’s worth three hundred thousand pounds!” Aileen emits a scream that’s almost as terrible: she rushes to collect the ballerina, turning it over in her hands to verify any damage.

  “I’m suing you!” Todd is bent over, one hand pressed against his neck. “Lunatic, psychopath!”

  “And I’m going to kill you, you goddamn Judas!” Wally makes as if to charge at him, newly naked, pink and hairy.

  “No, I’m going to kill you first, you gigantic fucking pig!” Kimberly grabs his hair, scratches his face, jumps on his back in a sort of crazy rodeo. Terrible sounds are unleashed by the two of them; they spin around, end up crashing into the Le Corbusier couch.

  “Assez!” Madame Jeanne arrives in the middle of the melee, more enraged than Nick has ever seen her. “Vous agissez comme des enfants! Comme des barbares! Celle-ci est la maison d’un poète! Ayez un peu de respect! Si vous ne savez pas vous tenir, je vous mets tous à la porte!”

  Everyone shuts up instantaneously, like a group of children or savages hushed by someone with moral superiority. In the sudden silence the only sounds are the panting of Wally and Kimberly and the clicking of the camera; then that stops too.

  Nick Cruickshank goes toward Madame Jeanne, a bit uneasily since he too feels like part of the gang. He puts his hand on her arm. “Merci, Madame Jeanne.”

  She looks at him: severe, protective, ironic. “Tu devrais mieux choisir tes amis, Nick. Et tes femmes.”

  “C’est vrai.” Nick Cruickshank nods; he exits the living room, slips down the hallway, goes to the door, opens it. At the back of the house the air is cold and damp, a mist is rising just like last night. Milena’s orange van is nowhere to be seen. Ten whole minutes must have passed since she left this circus, together with her partner and future co-mother.

  SATURDAY

  THIRTY-THREE

  MILENA MIGLIARI TOSSES and turns again and again under the covers, after hours of talking and crying with Viviane, in the ground-floor kitchen and in the tiny first-floor living room and in the little study at the top of the stairs and then in the bedroom on the floor below and then back in the kitchen, back in the bedroom. It’s now six in the morning, Viviane has fallen asleep from exhaustion and after taking a Xanax, snoring in that regular way of hers, head under the covers. She, on the other hand, continues to toss and turn, without peace: first on her side, then on her back, on her stomach, on her side again. She pulls up her knees, extends an arm, bends a hand uncomfortably, kicks out, presses her face against the pillow—useless, sleep simply won’t come. Her eyes burn from all the tears, her throat hurts from the sobbing, her vocal cords are worn out from all the useless attempts to reconstruct and explain, all the going back and jumping forward. She’s exhausted from the sound of her own words, the intentions they contained, the sensations they tried to translate, the reactions they provoked.

  What’s most absurd is that she feels like she absolutely agrees with Viviane: with her amazement and indignation and anger at a betrayal that’s worse than the normal types of betrayal, because their relationship is not a normal relationship, because of how they’ve had to fight for it and defend it at every step, one day at a time. She agrees to the extent that she did not even for a moment try to deny what happened, nor try in any way to play down its seriousness or the scope of its consequences. She was not able either to explain it or justify it; she was not able to say that it was a mistake due to a moment of confusion, a slipup in a stupid game, a temporary loss of clarity. Nor was she able to say that if she could go back in time that she wouldn’t do it all over again, that from this moment on she would do everything possible not to think about what happened ever again. Ultimately, Viviane wasn’t asking for anything more, despite all that yelling and despairing. Even now she’d be satisfied with a confirmation of their present, a declaration of intents for their future. Beneath her hard shell, she’s never been a spiteful woman, and over the years she’s provided more than enough proof of her generosity and comprehension, in addition to her solidity of character and practical reliability; she’d certainly do anything in her power to close this chapter and look ahead, if only she were able to reassure her. What’s making her despair is that she was completely unable to do so, capable only of repeating that Viviane was absolutely right, that she’s terribly sorry for making her suffer.

  Viviane replied that she doesn’t give a damn about being right, that her sorrow is of no consolation, nor is it of any use at all to their relationship. She told her that at the very least she should help her understand why she was so overwhelmed by an encounter with someone she hadn’t even recognized when she saw him for the first time; why she decided to throw away their pact of solidarity, their struggle to affirm th
eir right to be together, despite the prejudices of their families and the inhabitants of Seillans and the rest of the world.

  But she wasn’t able to help her understand anything at all; all she could say was “I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know” a thousand times between tears and sobs, feeling like the most awful and disloyal personal on earth.

  In the absence of her own explanations, Viviane even suggested some: the stress of being about to embark on the endeavor of having a child, the worsening of their sex life due to exhaustion and everyday worries, the fascination of celebrity, the skill of the professional skirt-chaser, the desire to verify one last time what it’s like to make love to a man.

  She was unable to confirm a single one of these hypotheses proposed with such effort and displeasure, continuing to flounder helplessly in the painful frustration of the not-explainable and the not-explained.

  “You do know that I’m not your master,” Viviane said to her at a certain point, when by now they’d reached an extreme point of attrition. “I’m not your limiter of dreams. I’m not your imposer of roles. You do realize that I’m not a fucking man.”

  Milena Migliari repeated to her four or five times, through more tears and sobs, that she’d never thought she was. And yet on this point she wasn’t completely sincere, because it simply seemed too unfair to say it at this point in time, after having years to do so: in truth Viviane has become something of a prevaricator. She has to a certain extent limited her, has to an extent forced her into a role. Perhaps to protect her, perhaps to help her, perhaps to reassure her, perhaps out of a need for control deriving from insecurity. But on her part she has let her do it; she didn’t protest, didn’t draw any personal line in the sand and defend it. Out of laziness, out of cowardice, because she didn’t want to deal with the issue, because she hoped things would get better by themselves. What would Viviane be like after this betrayal if they managed to stay together? Lighter, freer, more trusting, more respectful of her autonomy? Of course not: trust is long gone now, suspicion has spread to every corner of her thoughts, and it’s there to stay. They will go on as damaged couples do, every smile tinged with pain, a shadow of resentment ready to reemerge at the slightest occasion.

  And how the heck will she be able to justify it to herself? Will she tell herself it was a blip caused by her worrying about the short-, medium-, and long-term commitment she’s about to take on with Viviane? Will she be able to write it off as an accident, the moral equivalent of slipping in the bathtub and breaking a couple of ribs? Will it be possible for her not to feel permanently guilty after this kind of episode? Not to see it as the sabotage of an entire life’s journey? Will she ever be able to file it away like a secret event, perhaps to be revisited every now and then, with a mix of wonder and nostalgia? Is this how traitors live with their betrayal?

  On the other hand, purely hypothetically: What follow-up could there ever be to what happened with Nick Cruickshank? She’s embarrassed even to think about it; she feels ridiculous, pathetic. Yes, in that cottage in the woods the attraction between them was so deep and unstoppable that it slammed into her without giving her time to think. Its echoes continue to course through her: the extreme amplification of signals, the exaltation of impulses, the overpowering activation of currents. Nothing like that ever happened to her with a man even when she still thought she liked men. Who could’ve imagined it happening now? It’s never even happened to her with Viviane, not even during their passionate beginnings. She never would have thought she’d be able to communicate with such disarming ease with someone who’s supposed to belong in the enemy camp; to feel so gratified in her unconfessed desires, so motivated in undeclared requests, so satisfied in unrecognized needs. And she certainly isn’t referring only to the physical dimension of their encounter, no matter how intense and surprising it was: the mental dimension shook her just as much, maybe more. The spiritual dimension, even? The sense of reciprocal recognition, of recovery, of long-forgotten familiarity that suddenly reemerges and cancels out all separation; the instantaneous complicity, the automatic intuition, the laughing with exactly the same spirit. But how real were these feelings? To what extent were they the result of a blend of confusion and suggestion, as Viviane tried at least ten times to suggest?

  And anyway for someone like Nick Cruickshank yesterday was almost certainly just one of many similar trysts, at most a little unusual given the circumstances. Maybe he’s already forgotten about it this morning, caught up in the last preparations for his wedding celebration; or he’ll file it away along with a thousand other similar episodes, sources of curiosity or amusement. Or perhaps he’ll remember it because of its unpleasant consequences, for that whole mess that occurred after they were discovered coming back from the woods. But it’s hard to imagine him turning his life upside down for her even for an instant, despite the marvelous and surprising things he said to her when they were in the cottage in the woods; despite the incredible transfusion of energy from the universe that took place between them. Does he not make his living coming up with marvelous and surprising things, to sing to an unlimited number of female listeners? Is he not a professional enchanter, and one of the best around? Yes, he clearly has an uncommon ability to resonate with the mind (and body) of a woman, to pick up on and translate her sensations and sentiments; but this is likely independent of the specific woman he’s involved with. Or maybe the specific woman has a specific value, but only while he’s making love to her, or while she’s inspiring a song; then it’s over, he’s off to search for new sources to tap into. What sort of continuity could be expected from someone like that? How reliable could he ever be?

  But now she gets truly furious with herself: When has she ever been one to sit on her little throne calmly evaluating gifts and the promise of gifts before deciding whether it’s worth it to offer her body, heart, and soul in exchange? And if we’re talking about reliability, Viviane is the most reliable person she’s ever met. And not only reliable: she’s someone you can talk to about anything, about plans and even about dreams. All right, lately not with the same intensity as when they were just starting out together; but if they succeeded then, they could do so again. If reliability is what she’s after, why desire it if only briefly from someone who’s clearly incapable of it? She should stop thinking about it, give up trying to defend herself with Viviane, admit that what happened was an incredibly stupid error in judgment. No different than if she’d had an accident in her little van with one of the many reckless maniacs who rush full throttle along these hairpin curves between the mountains and the valley, oblivious to the fact that there might be a woman coming in the other direction who’s deep in thought, absorbed in the music that’s playing in her head.

  Enough, it’s completely useless to stay in bed tossing and turning like this any longer: Milena Migliari slips out from under the covers, gathers her clothes up off the chair, puts them on in the bathroom, goes down to the kitchen. She makes herself a hibiscus-and-ginger-flavored tea, adds a tablespoon of thistle honey, mixes, mixes, mixes. She tries to calm herself but it doesn’t work: her heart beats faster and more erratically than it should, her thoughts keep jumbling together, her sensations keep expanding and shrinking and expanding.

  There’s an English author she now detests after reading three or four of his books, for the way he manages to be culturally alternative and commercial at the same time, moderately radical, politically correct, lovable. In every novel he presents flawed but captivating characters and guides them through plots in which at the end, after a series of vicissitudes that seem to lead toward ruin, everything miraculously works out: each character somehow compensated, no irreparable wrong done, no permanent damage. What annoys her most is the strategy of not arousing displeasure in the readers, not leaving them with any sad thoughts. And yet in real life it doesn’t work like that, not at all: wrongs are irreparable, damage permanent, sad thoughts might vanish for a while but they return. What’s happening to her now is a perfect demons
tration; in fact, an awful demonstration. However she tries to examine the situation, she can’t see a way out that doesn’t include a definitive betrayal or a definitive renunciation. What should she do, then? Resign herself to persevering with Viviane, despite knowing that she’ll be unhappy? Throw herself body and soul into a romance that for Nick Cruickshank has almost certainly not even begun?

  However, every time that even for a second she imagines herself not going forward with the in vitro fertilization idea and being totally free to do what she wants, her mind is flooded with all the marvelous gelato flavors she has yet to try. Flower gelato, for example. Sure, she made a rose-flavored one last spring and it came out well, but there are dozens of others to experiment with: jasmine, forget-me-not, violet, lavender, wisteria, chamomile, bluebottle . . . truthfully, she could make as many flavors as there are flowers: hundreds, thousands. All she has to do is close her eyes and she can already see their colors, smell their fragrances, taste their flavors.

  And what if this was a bit like the false alternative between cone and cup, in which no one usually contemplates the existence of a third possibility? What if the solution was to choose her own life before choosing with whom to share it?

  THIRTY-FOUR

  NICK CRUICKSHANK HAS a problem with his cervical vertebrae, a result of his famous fall from the stage of the Hollywood Bowl in 2006: if he doesn’t put his pillow in the proper position under the back of his neck, his fingers start to tingle, guaranteed. But the tingle is just an added annoyance, on this night of ceaseless agitation, in which there seems to be no way of getting to sleep. Images from the afternoon and evening continue returning to him, mixed with the feelings in his body, and the dozens of questions overlapping sloppily one on top of another: about what happened, what’s about to happen, about Aileen, about Milena the Italian gelato girl, about himself. His heart is double-timing it, his ears are buzzing, he’s drenched in sweat. He really doesn’t want to lay there anymore thrashing around like a fool on this five-layer mattress that should be the most comfortable in the world and instead is terrible; he might as well get up.