Nancy says, “I know you think it’s stupid or even cliché, but sometimes clichés are clichés for a reason. We had everything we wanted … cars, jewelry, a table at 21. I mean, really, we had more money than a small country, and I was the perfect advertising wife, quick-witted, sexy, up for anything … Then I got out there every morning and hustled my ass off. Jack loved that. ‘My wife’s the big earner around here,’ he told anyone who’d listen. And let me tell you, they listened. Jack used to say money talks and bullshit walks. Remember that? And he was so good at all of it.
We both were, and you never want to be too good at anything. I don’t know why, but it gets really lonely. The cruelest joke is you can have everything you want and still be miserable. Money cannot buy happiness.”
I roll my eyes.
“I’m serious, Lily, I’m not going back. I’m learning how to take care of myself—I never knew how to take care of myself, it’s that simple.”
“You already told me. In the letters.”
“Yes, but my apology must be complete and continual.”
“You’re apologizing to me?”
“Yes, and you must believe me. I am so sorry.”
She removes her glasses and dabs her eyes with a tissue. Make no mistake, she’s not crying, but the gesture seems to comfort her. Clouds from her unsmoked cigarette rise above us and I want out of this confessional. A million miles away on Planet Recovery, Nancy can’t see I’m still lying on the ground after falling off a roof. Still waiting for a mother who won’t touch me or talk to me. A mother who can’t see me without seeing herself. Why can’t she ask me something for once?
I shift in my seat for another jab of carrot stub. The pain lets me know I am still here. No way will my mother’s rehabilitation nullify my own. Nancy says we can learn from our mistakes and move on. Every day we must be grateful for the simple gift of life. Is she out of it or what? I am in jail awaiting trial for murder. But like the rest of them she believes if she doesn’t remember it, then it couldn’t have happened. I am worse off than an abandoned freedom fighter.
Piper and the boys start rounding up the troops. Handcuffs on one end, civilians on the other. A few people weep, the volume in the room shoots up a thousand notches. Guards will use force to pry people apart if necessary. There are no real goodbyes in jail.
Before I leave, Nancy grabs my arm. “Lily, there’s one more thing … about Jack.” She takes a deep breath, and my lungs cave in. “The thing is, I’m not sure we’re going to make it.” Her words burst into quivering lips, and I am paralyzed. As if I’ve been punched in the stomach. It’s the first time today I understand her sentences.
For one second I wonder what it would feel like to really hold my mother, to stretch my arms out and suck her into me, not letting go until the guards with their iron claws tear into us. There is too much commotion, however; faceless people being herded into elevators and hosed down for the long walk to nowhere. This is the worst part of being locked up, the moment when the world splits off into us and them. Nancy kisses my cheek. I touch her shoulders and her body feels like Styrofoam. I can’t figure out what’s made her so brittle.
We barely say goodbye before I am shoved into the elevator, its whistles and clinks reminding me I used to be one of them. On the outside. A jolt of longing for the life I’ll never have shoots through me. Then I remember my mother’s face and understand what few people ever acknowledge: It’s not so great out there, either.
AT THE TV STUDIO THEY PASSED US from one person to the next, each saddled with scripts and hooked up to some sort of electronic device. I felt as if we’d infiltrated a giant pod where everyone spoke my father’s language and looked as if they hadn’t slept in weeks. Only their clothes were impeccable and bright. Edie and I stood out among all the rich pastels.
Away from Aunt Fifi’s mirror I looked as if I’d stepped out of a World War II poster, while Edie was a walking corpse in all that transparent black and gothic makeup. At the last minute she’d hung a big silver ankh around her neck making her seem frighteningly spiritual. A messenger from the devil’s workshop. No surprise the pastel people stumbled over their words determined not to offend us. At the wrong phrase or gesture we might have gone nuclear on them. Who knew?
One pod led us to a place they called the Green Room. It had beige walls, a blue couch and carpet, blown-up articles from soap magazines on the walls. Nothing green in sight. Steam rose from a Mr. Coffee machine carrying the scent of my kitchen. As far back as I can remember there was always coffee brewing in the morning and I had developed a major craving for it. So much so I couldn’t remember a time I didn’t drink coffee. It was practically mainlined into my baby bottle.
Coffee stunts your growth, someone had said. I never listened, drinking four or five cups a day, and only at night when I touched my breasts wishing they would expand beneath my fingers did I think maybe it was the coffee keeping them down. Maybe if I’d learned to drink milk I would have grown enormous Playboy tits, and guys might have noticed me.
In the Green Room, I poured the steaming liquid into a Styrofoam cup and loaded a plate with miniature muffins and pastries. It was fun being a VIP. Free breakfast. People escorting us around the set. I imagined this was what your days were like, your every whim and desire served up at no cost. I stuffed whole muffins in my mouth as Edie paced back and forth. She said she wasn’t hungry and mumbled words to herself. Song lyrics, I think. It was nice to remember songs had words after hearing that damn piano all night long. Chuck had finally shut it off when he showed up. I think he might have broken the switch. “Would you sit down?” I said finally.
“We have to get out of here.”
“Relax, okay.”
“I can’t stay in this room, it’s wigging me out. The whole place smells like formaldehyde and the ceilings are too low.”
She continued pacing and mumbling. She must have taken some of those red pills to counteract the dope; meanwhile, I’d eaten a couple of Nancy’s Valium right before we left the house and had just started feeling dreamy. I grabbed a slice of sugary pastry, picked out the peach filling in the middle and licked it off my fingers. Edie raised her upper lip and grunted at me. “That’s all part of the government’s conspiracy,” she said.
“Conspiracy, I like that word.” I smashed the dough into a ball and popped it in my mouth. “It sounds like pirates and hidden treasures.”
“Seriously, you don’t even notice the sugar they put in everything. There’s this book my mom has that talks all about how we’re being totally controlled by sugar. Do you know how stupid it makes you? It’s, like, the worst drug out there, well, next to cigarettes, but that’s a whole ’nother story. Don’t get me going … Anyway, it’s why nobody gives a shit about anything anymore, they’re all high on sugar. And people, you know, like these television people, they’re nothing but pushers. Pushing sugar and stupidity.”
“They’re sugar-pod people.”
Edie turned abruptly from the window. She came toward me looking like she’d just seen a ghost. Maybe her own reflection, maybe yours. “Lil, I’m serious, we have to get out of here. We have to go now!”
The door opened and a pod woman dressed in pink busted inside. She said she was the show’s publicist and told us her name. It sounded like a gum disease. “So,” she said, “which one of you is Gus’s daughter?”
I opened my mouth to speak, but Edie answered. “I am. I’ve been dying to come out here for weeks. But don’t ask me to speak French, for some reason Daddy never taught me.”
“Liar,” I said.
“Wonderful.” Pink Pod shook Edie’s hand and smiled. “I just love your father’s work. He’s a real innovator.”
“Yeah, isn’t he? And I’ll tell you what, he’s completely given up sugar and caffeine.”
“Wonderful. How truly wonderful.”
“Oh, by the way, this is my friend Lily,” Edie said, talking so fast her lips trembled. “She’s Jack’s kid, you know Jack, he works for
Daddy. He’s a sales guy, and let me tell you, he’s the best. Number one. The guy could sell rocks to the Flintstones, he’s such a babe.” Pink Pod turned my way gulping at the sight of me. Although the Green Room was freezing, I was sweating in that stupid wool suit. I should have worn my black jeans and T-shirt and was angry Edie had talked me into dressing up. At least she looked sexy; I looked like a Communist. I felt moronic and Pink Pod knew it. When she shook my hand I pressed so hard I cracked the bones in her fingers. She quickly yanked it away, forcing a smile. “Don’t mind her,” Edie said. “Lily’s the quiet type, apparently she’s got other worlds going on in her head.”
“Look who’s talking,” I grimaced at Edie, but she just laughed.
Pink Pod clapped her hands. “Oh, this is so exciting, are we ready to tour the studio?”
We walked and walked through the spanking-clean hallways and vast rows of closed doors with actors’ names written in big cursive letters. As we passed your name my head felt trippy and my body flashed hot and cold like the beginnings of the flu. I was glad we didn’t stop, I wasn’t ready to see you yet, though I wondered what you were doing behind that door. If you knew I was there. My skin itched in its heavy sheath. I wanted to remove the jacket but had only a tank top underneath; this clothing was holding me captive. Or I wasn’t wearing it right. There was no fitting the mold sometimes.
Pink Pod knocked on a few doors, and if they were in, the actors welcomed us with Cokes and questions: what’s your name, where are you from, what do you want to be when you grow up, how long have you been watching the show? Edie told them all she only started watching the show when she met me. Where she came from there were no television sets. Poor, deprived girl, their eyes said, although they kept up the chatter. Happily they autographed their faces for us. The chief nurse of Foxboro County Hospital wrote, “Keep on watching,” designing the A in the shape of a human eye, while the evil bartender at Flannery’s wrote, “We are the World.” The guy who played Alex Rheinhart had run out of photos and ended up giving us each a World Without End hand towel from his bathroom. He was also the only actor who’d commented indirectly on our clothing, asking if we were extras in one of the scenes that day.
“No,” Edie said. “But we’re from New York, you know, all the world’s a stage.”
“Excellent!” he said. “There’s plenty of room out here for a highly developed sense of the theatrical.”
If we were in New York I would have assumed his words were sarcastic, but out here they all spoke in sugar-pod tape loops, and it was getting on my nerves. I did not risk my life flying across the country for canned comments from soap zombies, those who would pass the rest of their television days in Foxboro. You had other plans: movies, plays, maybe a sitcom. The right role, you told TV Guide, was just around the corner.
By then too eager to see you, I asked Pink Pod why we hadn’t knocked on your door and was told you were already on the set. “You mean we don’t get to see Brooke!” I said.
“Not privately, no.”
A knife shot through my gut and I was speechless. Edie stared at me as if I were nuts and I knew it was her fault. She and her connections on Andromeda had disrupted the cosmos. Or maybe the two of you were in on it together. You could have been talking to Edie as well. That had never occurred to me before … and she was more interesting than I was. Hot and cold sirens ran through me again.
No, I refused to believe you were talking to Edie. That wasn’t logical. Fists planted at my side, I spoke as firmly as I could.
“Gustave said we could see Brooke.”
“You know how Daddy talks,” Edie said.
“Shut the fuck up, he’s not even your father.”
Edie pulled my hair from behind. “Don’t start,” she whispered.
“Excuse me, young ladies, do you see this door?” Pink Pod directed us toward the door next to her. “Behind this door, Brooke—or Jaymie Jo as we call her inside—is recovering from her exorcism—”
“Her exorcism?” we both said.
“Yes, yes, you’ll see it in a couple of weeks, but that’s nothing. Jaymie Jo is on the verge of something even bigger, I won’t tell you what just now, but I will say that you are two very lucky girls. Do you know how many fans would kill to see a scene like this? Anyway, if you’d like I can take you into Jaymie Jo’s bedroom, I’ve already received permission, but you must, and I cannot stress this enough, you must promise not to make a sound.” The whole time she was talking I couldn’t stop looking at her nose. So long and thin it reminded me of a witch’s nose. “Do you promise?” she said again.
“Sure,” Edie said.
They stared at me, waiting on my response. Funny, now that I’d come this close to seeing you, I was terrified. A thousand images flashed through my mind. Scenes of our various meetings. Restaurants. Beaches. Airport bars. Maybe you wouldn’t recognize me in a skirt. Or I’d say the wrong thing and you’d ditch me forever. Then Edie could take my place. No, that’s crazy, you hated Edie, but it wasn’t too late for me to walk right out of this studio and preserve what we had. Some doors were never meant to be opened. Simply believing in what existed behind them was enough.
“Come on, Lil,” Edie said, a hint of disgust in her voice. “This is your deal.”
I remembered what she’d said the night before: Whenever a person leaves a conversation the mood changes. Walking into a scene had to have the same effect: The bond between us might grow stronger or it could snap like a twig. But you would hate me if I chickened out after coming this far. You had no respect for cowards.
So I gave my word not to make a sound, and we slipped through the double doors into the freezing-cold soundstage, my heart pumping as if it were the track to a horror film. Picture it, Brooke. See through my eyes what it was like walking into your world of fake sets and tight costumes. How it pained me to hear the nightie you’d been wearing for weeks had given you hives while I battled my own itchy clothing. I had visions of rubbing down your skin with pink calamine lotion as we traded life philosophies. But there were rumors in the air. Things I would only understand a few months later when your name began to surface in the tabloids, the cameramen whispering that you’d been forgetting your lines and freaking out on the set. That you’d brought in your own makeup lady, a cry for detox if ever there was one. Even that day, when you entered the soundstage, your face looked so thin it was almost skeletal, your eyes incapable of focus. You slipped beneath the sheets, and I swear you pushed your palms together in prayer for a few seconds before the cameras rolled.
Watch now through my eyes. See what I saw when the director called action and you cued into Jaymie Jo as if roused by an electronic current. A surge so radiant its waves ignited the outskirts of the set where I’d been banished behind the cameras. A swell so forceful you clearly dipped deep into your reservoirs to become the corpselike vision we would see for days. Around you the men circulated. Your father, Max, the priest who’d performed the exorcism. It was the perfect setup for flashbacks, but those would be filled in later. Just as we’d see you coughing up green slime and begging Jesus to reunite you with your dead mother. A virtuoso performance that would earn you your second Emmy (the third, of course, would be given posthumously, making soap opera history). But what we saw in the studio that day came after the exorcism, as your father and Max discussed whether to contact the hospital against the priest’s wishes and you bolted up in bed. Alex and Max burst into tears. Max tried to hold your hand, but you brushed him off and called to the priest. “Father,” you cried. “Oh holy father!” And then something about how you’d been to the other side and returned. And then something about how you’d seen your true destiny: You were going to become a nun!
The director shouted cut! Your body slackened and head slumped over. As if the scene had drained every ounce of energy from your spine. Then you bounced from the bed and walked to the front of the set, making a visor of your right hand against your forehead. I moved out of the shadows. Your eyes found mine a
nd for the brief seconds we connected I felt a series of convulsions charge up my legs as if your spirit had invaded my flesh, and I knew immediately what people meant when they talked about the heart skipping a beat. It was the most peaceful feeling I’d ever experienced. A kind of perfection most people don’t get close to in their lives. But like anything perfect, it couldn’t last. You winked at me and threw your head back in laughter. My entire body felt exhausted but energized. As if I’d just skied a long, treacherous slope. I closed my eyes and sighed.
It took a few seconds to realize Edie was punching my thigh. “Cut it out!” I said.
“Look.” She pointed to the set where you wrapped your arms around a man in a black trench coat. “That’s John Strong. He was standing behind us the whole time.”
Can you imagine my isolation then, Brooke? The pain I felt upon watching you fall into your boyfriend’s arms after what had just transpired between us? It was as if you’d ripped open my chest and poured hydrochloric acid over my heart. I couldn’t move, not even when Pink Pod said we had to clear the set. “Really, we must be going,” she said. “I promised I’d have you out of here by noon.”
“Oh, fuck off, we heard you,” Edie snapped, and I burst out laughing. Pink Pod turned to a young woman with headphones wrapped around her neck. “Would you deal with them, please?” she said. “I’ve been trying, but they are really too much. And Gus is such a wonderful man …”
The pod girl nodded, promising to escort us out of the building. Pink Pod stormed off without saying goodbye. Edie shouted, “Goodbye!” then turned to me. “What was her name again?”
“Halitosis, I think.”
“Bye, Miss Halitosis!”
The pod girl laughed. She was younger and looked almost normal, like she was passing through TV-land on her way to a rock concert. Maybe she was a friend of yours.
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