Revenant Rising

by M. M. Mayle

  “What color is your dress?” he says for no reason she can readily imagine because her tailored gabardine dress is unmistakably beige.

  “Beige?” she says.

  “Yeh, I can see that, but by what fancy name for beige did the designer call it?”

  “It’s not a designer dress, it’s off the rack from Macy’s, and taupe is the only other word for beige I can think of at the moment.”

  “Then taupe it is, and ever after shall be when I remember this occasion for the rest of my life.” Before she can even begin to ask why, he goes to the piano where he shuffles through several sheets of staff paper resting on the music stand. He selects one, looks it over, wads it up and stuffs it in the same trouser pocket that holds the other mystery item. “No,” he shakes his head, “not yet . . . time’s not quite right.” He resumes his seat across from her, takes no notice of her perplexed state. “Where were we?” he asks.

  “I was about to make a proposal.”

  “Well then, weren’t we all.”

  Now it’s his laughter she’s unable to comprehend.

  “Sorry,” he says when it’s depleted. “Don’t mind me. No sleep . . . too much on my mind . . . You were saying?”

  Not that much time has passed since the older celebrity peppered her with unexplained laughter, and this second volley is no easier to take.

  “Just so you know, I’m not here to add to your problems. If you’d rather discuss this another time, perhaps when you’re better rested and better able to focus, that will be fine.” She starts to leave her chair and he reaches across the table, catches her wrist, then her hand.

  “Laurel . . . I wasn’t laughing at you, I was laughing at me. One day soon you’ll understand what was funny and you’ll laugh too.” He employs the Rayce Vaughn defense, and she doesn’t like it any better now than the first time she heard it.

  “Very well.” She pulls her hand away and resettles in her chair. “In the meantime, I strongly recommend that a stand be taken against the media’s figurative exhumation of your late wife.”

  “Are you sayin’ you still want to defend her reputation? Now? Now that certain facts are known to you?”

  “No, not at all. I’m telling you that your reputation needs defending, and if I’m tilting at windmills—as your friend Rayce strongly suggested—then so be it. But I have to try.”

  “Dona Quixote,” he half-whispers and beams at her.

  She sees indulgence in his broad smile and hears David in his remark, hears gentle reprimand and reminder to abandon all causes predestined to fail.

  “Who shall I be, the sidekick or the horse?” he says.

  “I’m sorry, I’m afraid I don’t—”

  “I’m not going to fight you on this, Laurel. I’ll even contribute. To the extent I can. And I’ll be ready to hear this proposal of yours the minute I’ve had something to eat. You’ll have to forgive the interruption, but I’ve had nothing since last night’s beans and I learnt long ago I can’t do without both sleep and food. Shall I get something for you?”

  “Yes, please. Whatever you have is fine. Thank you.” She hasn’t eaten anything since last night’s aborted supper, either. No damn wonder she’s so jittery. Three cups of Rayce Vaughn’s coffee on an empty stomach.

  With no case to argue and most of the jitters explained away, Laurel feels free to return to the piano while Colin places an order with room service. The Icon statuette again attracts her interest, perhaps because it embodies a question she’s wanted to ask for several days, one that only now seems permissible.

  “Was the song ‘Revenant’ written with your wife in mind, or should the theme of resurrection and renewal be considered autobiographical?” she says when he finishes with the call, her courage stopped short of referring to Aurora Elliot by name.

  “You’re familiar with the lyrics, then?”

  “Only the portion you performed at the awards show.”

  He joins her at the piano, touches the keys without depressing any and recites in a monotone:

  “I heard your heart call out to me . . . in the sepulcher of night. It spoke the breathless whisper . . . of a phoenix taking flight. From the ashes of remembrance, moving towards the light, of renewal and redemption before soaring out of sight . . . My heart made not the slightest sound . . . whilst spilling of despair, and filling with forgiveness and a kind of peace so rare as to drown out doubt and worry and to troubles bring repair. Although you could not hear me . . . be sure that I was there.

  “Yeh,” he continues after a long pause. “It was about her. At the start, it was. Fuckwitted blind faith in action, it was. I finished writing it just days before she was killed, and at the time, Nate warned me off using the term ‘revenant’ because it had sinister connotations. I didn’t listen then, and I didn’t listen when the song was resurrected—forgive the play on words—as part of my healing process. If the public wants to think it’s some sort of obscure allegory about my return to the land of the living, that’s fine. If they want to think it’s about not giving up and remaining faithful to the faithless, that’s fine too because are we not about to reveal Aurora—there, I’ve said her name, we’ve got that bit out of the way—as she actually was?”

  “We rise above our sorrows and never think to ask what’s keeping us aloft.” Laurel says the first thing that comes to her stunned mind, and it must sound appropriate because he beams at her again.

  “Now there’s a subject for discussion,” he says, “staying aloft. But it’ll have to wait because I’ve got my own sticky question to ask. Why are you taking on this extra? Is it at David’s behest because he knows I’m in between publicists? And I could also wonder why your assistant is suddenly functioning as volunteer media-minder. Is Amanda working for David or for you?”

  “I think that was four questions, but that’s okay, you’re entitled. For starters, I don’t feel I’ve taken on anything extra by wishing to respond to the press on your behalf. As your official biographer, if that’s not too lofty a term, I consider it part of my job to decry inaccuracies said about you. Both old and new. I am not working for David, and I cannot emphasize that strongly enough. As for Amanda, I have similar questions. Although she’s a huge fan of yours and would do almost anything for you as a gesture of admiration, I do seriously wonder if she’s been enlisted by David in his campaign to wrest you away from Nate Isaacs.”

  “And there’s another massive relief—hearing you come right out and say it. I’ve more than suspected that was the case. You’d only have to see David and Nate together in the same room to know their little pissing war is set to escalate any minute. I wouldn’t put it past either to use whatever—or whoever—it takes to be victor. Can’t say I’m too keen about bein’ the spoils, though. I’d rather things remain as they are, unless Nate reverts to playin’ nursemaid again.”

  The arrival of room service ends that thread of conversation. Like Rayce, Colin dismisses the room service attendant and serves the food himself. She has to laugh when he ladles cream of tomato soup from a tureen and lifts domed lids of silvered serving pieces to reveal grilled cheese sandwiches. “Did you order from the children’s menu?”

  “Yeh, that a problem?”

  “Not at all. I can’t think of anything that would taste better right now.” Following his lead, she dunks her sandwich in the soup and for a while, the only sounds are of eating.

  “You being here,” Colin waves his spoon at her, “is this to be considered our regular session? Am I gonna get the full four hours or do I have to deduct time you spent with Rayce? And I forgot to ask—what did you think of him? I’ll say he was probably cooperative in the extreme and your little notebook’s full to overflowing.”

  “Rayce was both generous with his time and with his willingness to give me a thorough overview of the . . . subject.”

  “Yeh, but what did you think of him? Did you like him?”

  “He was considerate in every way and made it easier for me by providing a voice recorde
r he said was mine to keep.”

  “One . . . more . . . time . . . Did you like him?”

  “As a matter of fact, I did . . . Yes. Yes, I did.”

  “And you’re havin’ trouble with that because?”

  “Because I was expecting someone different. And I wasn’t expecting him to be one of my mother’s favorite recording artists. I recognized him right away from an old album cover of hers.”

  “Bleedin’ hell, I love it.” He erupts in laughter, releasing a fine spray of soup and toast crumbs. “Did you tell him that?”

  “No, and I wish you wouldn’t either.”

  “I’ll try honor your wish, but I’m makin’ no promises.” Colin chuckles intermittently as he finishes the rest of the soup and scavenges the sandwich crusts left on her plate. “There, that’s better. Now I can get on with feeling happier than I have any right to be. I suggest we move to more comfortable seats and hear this proposal of yours.”

  She moves to an easy chair and he picks a spot on one of the pair of sofas evidently standard to this level accommodation. Assured that he’ll be receiving the full four hours—or however long it takes to distill the information provided by Rayce and formulate an appropriate statement for the press—he’s no more than settled in when he jumps up and heads to the desk holding the phone.

  “Sorry, one final thing and I’m all yours. It’s gettin’ on towards two o’clock and I don’t wanna miss Simon’s bedtime. Already had a word with Anthony—caught him before he was off to school this morning. Told him straightaway about the arrest before one of his schoolmates could.”

  Consistent with the other times Colin spoke to his children in her presence, he’s not at all concerned about being overheard. By now, his routine is familiar to her. His terms of endearment are unvaried, his questions are similar in nature, and unless a scolding is in order, his tone is soothing—as it is now. She could as easily be lulled into a drowse, as his youngest presumably is at the moment, so she’s a little off guard when he slips into a cartoon voice and rattles off a nonsense verse:

  “From far way her ruby nose . . . Most resembled a fire hose . . . From closer by that bright-red nose . . . Looked just like a long-stemmed rose . . . And nose-to-nose I’m sad to say . . . One had to worry about the spray.”

  He spins out two more stanzas, each more ridiculous than the last, and she feels no less affected than she was by the words to “Revenant.” Following this delightful dose of nonsense she would rather do almost anything than review with him what Rayce had to say about Aurora. As it turns out, she doesn’t have to. Colin signs off on Rayce’s testimony unheard.

  “I trust him to have said what needed saying. God knows he’s rehearsed it often enough,” Colin says.

  “Rehearsed?”

  “Yeh. Didn’t he let on there was a time when he told me the story three days a week and twice on Sundays? This was when he was tryin’ to lure me out of the shadows.”

  “He didn’t mention it.”

  “Well, he did. Grind reality into me, he did. Not unlike Chris Thorne’s relentless reminders of what all I had to live for.”

  As promised, Colin contributes to the statement she intends to make to the press and accepts all of her suggestions. They still have to work out exact wording and when and where the statement will be released, but it’s just past three—plenty of time for that.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  Afternoon, April 6, 1987

  Shame wants to stick to him when Hoop pays for writing supplies at a variety store in North Bergen. The need to set things down on paper makes him feel like he’s lacking—like he’s no better than a girl who has to store her thoughts in a diary—even though keeping a record of each day’s events somewhere besides his head isn’t that different from renting space for the extras picked up along the way. Same as with the new belongings, daily events have piled up at a rate he can’t carry around without taking the chance some will slip through memory cracks like file folders slipping through rips in a garbage bag.

  This fair comparison restores enough pride that he treats himself to a Blimpie at the sandwich shop in the same strip mall as the variety store. He orders it to go because, according to his watch, he can make it back to the motel in time for the next newsbreak on the music television station—the station he first watched in the West Village smut store and now the station of choice since figuring out that it spews more than just racket and nonsense.

  Even though he’s still wired from the full pot of coffee downed in the room this morning, he stops in the motel lobby for a Coke from the machine. Then it’s straight to the elevator because the coffee’s still with him.

  Relieving himself is the main concern when he enters his room. He sets down the purchases and flicks on the TV on the way to the john. Over the sound of pee hitting toilet water, he can just make out mention of Colin Elliot’s name and something about an early-morning arrest. There’s no possibility of stopping the pee stream and nothing to say the story wouldn’t already be over with if he made a run for the next room with his fly undone and his dripping business hanging out. He finishes the job and resigns himself to waiting for the next newsbreak an hour from now.

  Stirred up by what was half-heard, the coming hour won’t be the quickest one he ever passed. Impatience already has him too jumpy to eat the cheese, pickle, and lunchmeat sandwich treat. He does, however, drain the can of Coke in a few swigs and that gets him pointed in another direction. He turns to his other purchase—the bag holding the writing supplies—and takes out a composition book with a black-and-white speckled pasteboard cover and a three-pack of high-quality ballpoint pens that write with black ink.

  These he sets out on the narrow table that serves as a desk, settles in a wobbly chair, and opens the notebook several pages in from the front in case he ever wants to write down something that happened before yesterday.

  Of yesterday’s happenings, the only place to begin is at the beginning—when Colin Elliot drove by him at a crawl while he was parked near the only way in or out of Old Quarry Court. That was at eight-fourteen in the morning, either very early or very late for a rock star to be awake and, by itself, not important enough to write down. But everything else is.

  He makes a list of what he saw after he shadowed Elliot on foot and watched from the same bushes the old woman jumped out of the other day.

  Foreign car – Black Jaguar sedan

  No hired driver

  No bodyguards

  Rock star taller than thought

  Appears to be in better shape than thought

  Lawyerwoman ten times better looking than newspaper pictures

  He had to move a ways out of the bushes and chance showing himself to get a good look at her when she came out of the house to greet the rock star. Then he was left to shrink back into hiding and puzzle why—if she’s his new girlfriend—she didn’t kiss the rock star or even shake his hand when she greeted him in the driveway.

  What that behavior proved, Hoop still can’t guess, but her coming out of the house situated at 13 Old Quarry Court proved that luck and know-how did bring him to the right address. He writes that down and underlines it.

  The next part he has to think through before putting pen to paper. He won’t have any trouble remembering what it was like to follow the black Jaguar when Elliot drove out of the court approximately an hour later with the Chandler woman in the passenger seat. And he needn’t write down how much that reminded him of the Northern Michigan chase back in ’84. He does, however, need to write down that the rock star didn’t seem to know he was being followed, and if he did, he didn’t seem to care.

  After that, he starts in with everything he can remember about the place the rock star led him—a place that didn’t make sense at first, like maybe Elliot was only using the driveway to turn around.

  Sawyer Manor Nursing Home

  Alpine Road off Route 23 town of Wolcott New Jersey

  Unlocked emergency exit at back of building

  Lawyer
woman carried something that could have been food

  She and Elliot stayed inside for three-quarters of an hour

  To find that much out he had to count on the rock star remaining a blind jackassed-fool and hope the lawyerwoman didn’t have eyes in the back of her head. He had to be as bold as he was in Los Angeles when he got into the hotel room by acting like he belonged there; he had to act like he had right and reason to be where he was when he parked at the rear of the nursing home and sat in the El Camino like maybe he was waiting for somebody.

  Writing any of that down would be boastful and overproud of the way he handled himself, so he begins a fresh page with observations made after Elliot and the Chandler woman came out the “do-not-enter” door they used earlier and drove away. When he’s done, these notes fill two pages and go on about how easy it was to find out that there was a patient with the same name as the lawyerwoman, that this more-dead-than-alive patient was salted away in a room near the faulty emergency exit and, going by the lineup of family photos on the windowsill of the patient’s room, that the empty old man was Laurel Chandler’s father.

  He pauses to shoo away the remembered smells and images of the aged crazies that tried to claim him as their Sunday visitor when he freely investigated the place. Then, for what it’s worth, he draws a little diagram of the nursing home, pinpointing Benjamin Chandler’s room and the emergency door shortcut in and out of that end of the building. To this he tacks on his low opinion of loose security, careless workers, and nursing homes in general before realizing he’s carrying on like one of those soreheads that write letters to newspapers about wrongs that will never be righted.

  A quick run-through of what he’s written so far satisfies him that it’s more operations manual than schoolgirl diary, and a quick look at his watch says he better start paying attention to the TV. He turns up the volume, readies a fresh page in the notebook, and hopes the bad behavior of some other rock star hasn’t made old news of the Colin Elliot story. His hope is met.