“He said he’d sign these for you later . . .”
Asia didn’t move her head.
“So how was it working on XXX?” Laura asked.
Asia jutted out her lip.
“It was . . . Well, what do you think?”
“I don’t know. I mean, it’s such a big-budget film, it seems like it would be fun in certain respects.” I could feel Laura searching for something, anything she could say to connect with Asia.
“No, it was very flat. As flat as the movie was, that’s how it was working on it. It was just to pay the bills.”
I watched the view pass by in a blur, unsure of what to say to hold Asia’s attention, content to let Laura struggle to figure it out. I was certain that she would.
“You have a child, right?” That was a winning topic of conversation for most parents.
“Yes.” Asia growled. “Ana Lou. She is one-and-a-half years old.”
“Astor and I’ve got a son together. He’ll be five.”
“Yeah, JT told me.”
“It’s been really strange to have to be so responsible all the time. You know, to have to get up at a certain time and make food at a certain time. We had been floating for so long . . . JT really cleaned up when Thor came around, though. He’s even stopped swearing so much, which is one of my big issues. He’s got a mouth like a sailor.”
We arrived at a tall gated door of oxidized metal, which opened to a dark hallway.
“Have you been here?” I whispered to Asia.
“Never.”
I noticed that Asia had a great walk, as if she were putting out cigarette butts with each step. She was elusive and hot. Loretta brought us out to a courtyard full of wooden folding chairs. Under the canopy I heard the clatter of sophisticated small talk. The courtyard was laid with old bricks overgrown with weeds. At the front there was a podium with a microphone. That was where I would hide. Reporters immediately started to snap photos of us.
Loretta dragged me to the podium. I could hear everyone getting into their seats. There were red glowing blind spots burned into my retinas. I could barely see Asia and Laura settled into two seats in the front row. Loretta tapped at the microphone and started to introduce me in Italian. I was shaking, and every so often I would jerk my head, like I was trying to pull a crick out of my neck. Someone gently placed a cup of sparkling water on the podium. I grabbed it, my hand shaking, and downed it. My head jerked again. I listened to Loretta’s round vowels reverberating off the microphone. There was a quiet clicking.
She said something and everyone laughed wryly. I could tell she was wrapping it up now. “I present JT.” They clapped. Laura gestured to me to say something. She looked pleased. I felt jealous that she and Asia were sitting together while I was up there awaiting my demise. I mustered a low, “Hi.” Someone coughed. What were they waiting for? Were they second-guessing me? People began to raise their hands.
Loretta pointed at them. She had hands like a bird. She seemed to know all of them.
“Yes, Antonia.”
Antonia shot off a question.
Loretta nodded her head.
She said, “Ah, they want to know, what are the wig and glasses for?”
I was relieved that we had started with something easy.
“Um,” I breathed heavily into the microphone, “I put so much into the books. I wear the wig so that people won’t recognize me, so that I can keep something for me that’s personal. Same thing with my eyes.” I pushed a last breath into the microphone. The sun spots were receding.
In practically all the interviews, this question came up in one form or another. The most direct had been in another city, when an interviewer said, “You could be anybody. How do we know you are who you say you are? I mean, you sound like a woman to me.” The rest of the reporters muttered and shook their head at him, indignant that he had asked such a question. They considered him a nut. I would be saved each time by remembering Laura’s “Chinese Finger Puzzle” rule: always go in further to get out.
“Um, you don’t know. And you won’t know. And I don’t want you to know. JT could be back in Spokane, a 500-pound black man, like that guy, the voice of Elmo, right? Some people say I am Dennis Cooper. Some people say I am really Gus Van Sant. I like that. I mean, yer absolutely right. I could be anybody. As fer sounding like a woman, thank you.” I curtsied.
“These stories are so personal, why did you write them?”
I explained how JT frequently called Dr. Terrence Owens, the head of the children’s ward, and how he encouraged JT to write. “The stories were written as therapy.” That seemed to cap it.
In my head I thought, this is what I had always tried to create as a kid: an interactive imaginary world. I was reminded of all of the games I played as a child, pretending to be blind, asking for money to use the payphone with a bad French accent, having fake fights with my best friends to get people to slow down in their cars.
“I’ve read interviews in which you have defended your mother and say that you love her. Most people reading The Heart would wonder, how could you have any positive feelings for her?”
Back at the hotel I had just read an interview with JT in which someone asked a question like this one. Someone coughed.
“I think Sarah tried to be a good mother. She was just too young and, um, fucked up, overwhelmed. She is just too scarred.” A flop answer. Laura had said it so well. JT usually seemed so smart and clever, but today he was a bumbling idiot.
“You wrote on your website that writing is your lifesaver. Is it still true? Is it your raison d’être?
My raison d’être, I thought bitterly, is to put on a wig and speak in a lousy Southern accent.
“Uh, yeah. I think it is the same today . . .” It felt like they were waiting for something else. “Um, but I really hate writing . . . I mean, it takes me all day to sit down and write. I avoid it at all costs. It’s a masochistic process.” They snickered at the word.
“In your novel, Sarah says, ‘We all need someone to know who we really are.’ Today, do you know who you are?”
“Um, no. No, I don’t think I do.”
After it was over, the reporters took a flurry of pictures, and I realized that the sunspots were actually from flashbulbs. Loretta led me off the podium. I stubbed my sneakers on the bricks and stumbled off. Laura and Asia began to clap and whoop loudly. It seemed like they were bonding. The reporters looked over at them, mildly amused, Asia skipping and pushing me from behind, and Laura kissing my head, and spitting over the wig, “Fucking brilliant!” Simone came up and said, “JT, you did great!” He introduced me to Elidor Fazi, who thumped me on the back as if I had cherry pits stuck in my throat. He was a giant man with grey hair. “You did great, JT. I thought you were going to drop your glass of water or cry, but you didn’t.” Loretta held me by the shoulders for a second, “Now it is the best part of the day in Italy, lunch time. You must be hungry, JT. You worked very hard.” This lucky boy, I thought to myself. Everyone gives him so much encouragement. JT had earned his lunch. Good JT.
Still on tour a month later, I heard through the door, as if through a tunnel, Laura speaking on the phone. She was doing an interview. I sat in the bathtub pulling the curved handle of a long spigot and letting the hot water run pure. All through the book tour my solace had been the bathtub. This would be my last bath because we were about to go back home. We had stayed in Italy for three weeks. Asia had driven us to Milan for a reading and a press conference. The way the bookstore was set up, everyone was practically in JT’s face. I whispered, “They’re too close.” Laura suggested doing the reading under the table, and the idea appealed to me, so I did it. It pissed off the reporters and they asked me all kinds of nasty questions afterwards. Asia and Laura became livid, screaming together, “You know what? Fuck you!”
The next day we picked up Asia’s daughter who was staying with the family of her ex. Ana Lou had big blue eyes and curly hair, and barely spoke more than a few words. Asia decide
d that we should stop for the night at her grandparents’ house in Tuscany. Before we began driving up the hill we stopped in a cobble stone village. We bought simple supplies for the night from a little old lady. For dinner we got fresh pasta, a hard cheese, paté, basil, tomatoes, and yellow watermelon and cherries for dessert. We gathered milk, eggs, and fresh bread for the morning.
As we began to drive up the hill we could see the valley, half of it bathed in afternoon light, half of it already in darkness. The hills were covered in golden grass. The valley below was a grid of farmland and grape vines. We rolled up a dirt driveway. The house was empty. It was a beautiful old wood and earthen tile villa from the time of the Medici, Asia told us. We hurriedly put our bags down to enjoy the last of the sun. Ana Lou began to trot around in her dress, excited to run through the tall grass. We got a throw from inside and sat down on it. Asia and I made daisy chains, joining the two halves of a crown to put on Ana Lou’s head. Laura cooed to Ana Lou, who took off her daisy chain and put it on Laura’s head.
Despite the warmth of the sunlight a chill from the shadows of the hill began to creep into our bones. We went inside. Rifling through the cupboards, Asia found and gave to me a pair of leather britches, a snakeskin Gucci belt, and a black gaucho hat that would become JT’s signature. She also gave me her grandmother’s psychedelic butterfly bikini, modest-cut drawers and a thick bra, which, when I lifted them up, leaked sand from the crotch like an hourglass.
After this time in Italy, Laura and I went to Sweden for three days, Amsterdam for two days, and then France, where we caught the Chunnel to England.
My limbs floated ghost-like along the incline of the porcelain tub. I felt the hot water mingling with the tepid bath. I could tell by the transition in Laura’s voice that she had gotten to a certain point with the reporter. Throughout the trip, I had taken notes on important aspects of the interviews—phrasings, and certain intonations.
I heard the reporter ask something over the speaker. Laura paused, then began to answer, which she punctuated with many “ums.” He had asked JT about his obsession with his mother. I could hear her say through the door that every writer is a chef with his own signature flavor. “My writing is filtered through me, so my issues are constantly there, like my shadow.” Laura often spoke in metaphors. And as metaphors, what she said about JT rang true for her life as well. Sometimes I felt she went overboard in public, like she was showing off, like she was really saying, “I’m the writer. I’m the genius.” She couldn’t stop herself, even when we were in public and she was meant to be Speedie. I would think to myself, why is she constantly threatening to blow our cover? Who is she trying to impress? I began keeping a journal to feel more like a writer.
In Italy we had become so adroit we could tag-team the press. I would be downstairs doing interviews in person, while she would be upstairs doing interviews for press in Britain, France and Switzerland. When I would begin speaking in JT’s voice, my nose filled up with snot and my jaw worked back and forth like a guppy. The answers came out crumpled and jagged, full of stammering, “just just just” and “it it it.” I would get myself into such a state of anxiety that I puked a few times, just as JT was supposed to, and if I had to get up in front of people, I would often to cry. When I would enter the room while Laura was doing an interview, I would see her pacing with the phone hooked up to her ear, or sitting on the edge of the bed rolling chocolate on her tongue, a pot of green tea next to the bedside, soymilk at the ready.
The Italian press had called JT a glutton because he spoke so obsessively about chocolate. The chocolate Laura collected from fans in Italy lasted her at least until we got to France. As I entered the room she would beckon me with her long fingers, sometimes telling the reporter, “Hold on, Speedie just walked in. Hi, Speedie!” After a few minutes I would yammer out, “Helloo!” All high and wispy the way I had heard her do. Or she would do it, holding the phone at a distance.
I looked down at my breasts in the bathtub. I had begun to regard them as if they were a protruding extension, not a part of me, like fungi clinging to a tree. I had already been in the bath for over half an hour, and I would make a point of staying another half an hour. We had gotten into a fight, so I was not anxious to open the door.
At this point in the tour I felt like a sailor in the hull on his twentieth week at sea, with nothing but crackers to eat and no contact with the outside world. I squinted in the steam. I had a horrible hangover. We had gone out with Juergen Teller, the photographer, whom we had met in Italy with Asia. He had taken photos of Asia draped over her black convertible with a rose in her hand. I think they were vaguely in love with one another but I wasn’t jealous. I think I didn’t feel threatened by him because he was older. He was a man, not a silly boy. And though he had sort of Germanic good looks—high cheek bones, blue eyes, and blond hair—his hair flopped in his face, and he had a little bit of a belly. He wasn’t searching for that perfect, sleek veneer. He seemed to thrive on social dynamics. I enjoyed sitting next to him at a bar or rooftop garden, usually smoking, and watching people interact. That’s what seemed to interest him most. He was a voyeur, much like Laura and me.
Juergen came out to do a photo-shoot of Asia and me, and we kept putting it off. Finally he decided we should do a shoot on the beach, so we drove there in a two-car caravan. Laura told me to have a good time; she said she didn’t need to go out with us. I think she had had enough of our smoking and drinking.
The beach had a few rusted edifices painted in fading pastels. The parking lot was empty. First we had shrimp and calamari and beer in an open-air restaurant. Asia complained to the waiter that there was sand on the plates. We smoked cigarettes and put our feet up on the rickety chairs surrounding us. She had lent me her red Brazilian bathing suit, which she had gotten on the set of a movie. It had a built in wonder bra. I wondered if they would know when they saw my body that I’m a girl. I couldn’t hide my hips. She squealed when I came out with the bikini on. What did that mean? She had another red bikini for herself. We lay around on lawn chairs. There I was, just one of the guys, in my red bikini. A woman came by with a basket, offering massages. Asia got one, grimacing at the pain as the woman chopped at her shoulders. It was the first time that I noticed her feet. They had tall arches, and an eyeball was tattooed on one ankle. We all went swimming, then I quickly put my clothes back on.
In London we went to Juergen’s house, where we met his family, and Alice Fisher, a reporter who had been very close to JT over the years through email. I don’t remember where or what we ate, which means I was already drunk. We went out after dinner without his wife to a bar in a lonely corner of town. As we walked in I noticed we were the only ones there. The bar had once been Jimi Hendrix’s recording studio. Juergen announced that they had absinthe, which I had never had before. Laura put her arm around a bench, bored by the idea of more drinking. She and Alice spoke quietly. I could tell Laura wished we weren’t here. The absinthe came in little shots, glowing like Kryptonite. The bartender brought them over with wet sugar cubes balanced on silver spoons. She lit a match and inflamed each cube. They glowed dull blue and yellow, which reflected onto our faces. Then she put them out with a glass pitcher of water. She brought Laura a Shirley Temple. I imagined myself as Rose Sélavy, sitting with Man Ray. We clanged our thimbles together and drank. The owner brought out a dress that someone famous had worn; he wanted to impress us. It was pink tulle, like a Cinderella dress. I jumped up. “Let me try it on!” I had lost weight on the trip, and it looked like it would fit me. The owner brought me into the basement. There was graffiti on the walls, and he pointed out Jimi’s handwriting. He said, “I’ll wait outside.” I felt very special. The zipper was tinny and fragile, and I couldn’t get it up all the way. I bumped the door open not caring if he saw my ace bandages; they matched the color of the dress. I ran up the stairs and he came up slowly after me. There was a reggae song on that I liked, and I hummed along. Everyone exclaimed when they saw me. I started dancing
around. Juergen said, “I wish I had my camera.” I said, “Let’s do another shot!”
They all looked at each other for a second. “Alright,” Juergen said hesitantly, without the fervor that I had hoped for from my drinking partner. Laura looked at him, appalled.
“No,” she said. “We have to leave tomorrow. And you have had enough.”
I turned on her. “Every step I make is not directed by you, harpy! Let’s do another shot!” Beginning to dance around again I spat, for emphasis, “Fuck you!” I was invincible. She wasn’t going to tell me what to do.
Laura had fire coming out of her eyes. “I guess JT’s a grown man. We’ll do one more round,” Juergen said. Laura looked at everyone at the table. “No, he’s not. Look at him!” I stopped dancing. Laura’s eyes landed on Alice, like she was waiting for her to say something. Alice sat there quietly, staring at me. I looked back at them; they all looked so uptight and unhappy. I went up to the bar. Laura demanded, “Do not give him that shot!” The bartender prepared me one more. I downed it quickly as she said this, simultaneously realizing my buzz was gone. Now it was more a matter of principle.
Laura stood up and left.
Everyone else stood up sheepishly. I guess it was time to go. I had forgotten that I wasn’t wearing my own clothes.
I stormed off, down to the basement where I had left my clothes in a heap, settling deep into the second shot of absinthe. I hated her, I thought to myself hazily. She was a pushy, bossy, self-serving bully. I pulled my pants back on and zipped my blazer up to the neck. A crazy fucking bitch.
Earlier in the day Laura had called Asia. I was jealous of her ability to pick up the phone and talk to her. But I also felt like I had nothing to say except “I miss you,” and “I can’t wait to make out again.” The conversation was supposed to be full of plans and insight about making great art together. Only Laura could do that. They were going to make a movie together.
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