Would you have done the same thing to me if I’d come over to your place? Fucked-up psychos like you can actually get people to believe shit like that, especially someone as sensitive as James was. And what you did that night really fucked him up. The day after you left, he showed up for class wearing only a brown sack with a piece of rope as a belt. He looked like one of those monks you see in the desert. The next day the principal came by and took him out of class. What sick shit did you pull to turn him into a crazy reckless paranoid? Oh, and all that trash you’re talking about Phil and Serena Van der Ebb. This tape you say Phil made of James making out with another boy? Wake up, psycho, no one at school knows what you’re talking about.
Rot in hell, you fucked-up saint.
Studio Balks, Francis Fumes
In God We Trust, but all others pay cash—at least that’s what the producers have informed renegade director Francis MacDonald after he requested a new line of credit for his wildly over-budget biopic featuring a new face, the saint-in-training, Cease de Menich. It turns out the division of NorthStar that backed his daring Two Clicks From Abu Ghraib has got a new bopper, and he wants to see results.
Lew Ericson has denied any new funding for the risky “reality-drama” until he’s had a chance to review its progress. This request may spell doom for the new messiah as Francis is notorious for not sharing his vision. RHI asked how far he’d go to protect his final cut. Francis responded, “I’ve got a great story here and I think they’ll be willing to wait.”
Lew’s response?
“He’s got until February 28th to turn in his completed project.”
Wake up, Francis. It’s time to stop playing a little boy.
And then I check my email and see the note Nina has left. I’m to come home immediately. A detective has contacted her—“about a family matter.”
Wake up, Cease. It’s time to stop behaving like a lost, little girl.
The sun has left the cloistered courtyards of Tudor City and the house lights make confusing shadows on the dining room table as I lay out the napkins. In the weeks after my brother’s funeral, I used to accidentally set an extra place at our table, and then over dinner there’d be a silence as we looked at where he used to sit; as if we didn’t yet accept my brother was dead, just late for dinner—and then Nina would talk in her soothing tones about another aspect of Jeanne’s real life that might inspire me. I’d play with my food and talk about my latest conquest on the battlefield, trying not to let her faith-filled questions drive me nuts.
I watch my Nina cross herself on the prie-dieu, lift her old legs up from that ancient wood. I go to my window overlooking First Avenue. I wish it would snow again. I look out to the silver monolith engulfed in the solemn light of the solstice. I remember the dream and the sound of Jeanne’s voice, how real it felt. I wish the clouds would part and I could hear her again. Jeanne d’ Arc would say that my brother is at peace and that everything had happened just the way she’d designed it from the beginning.
But this just isn’t that kind of story. Maybe Nina’s the only one who understands where this story is really coming from. She lights the candles and takes her place at the head of the table, says the Lord’s Prayer in French and then looks to me, sans apprehension. Her mouth drops open after I devour the casserole and Brussels sprouts and go for seconds.
“There was a segment on the news about that boy from Mexico that Francis just hired. He’s quite a good-looking lunk, don’t you think?” she asks.
“He’s a hunk, Nina. Good-looking boys are hunks.”
A beam from the halogen over the roll top desk alights upon Nina’s Meissen teacup, a whiteness so vibrant it appears to be expanding before my eyes. I look down and see I’ve devoured my second helping.
I don’t have to be miserable anymore. I can fall in love. I deserve to fall in love. What if all the darkness and guilt I see when I look at my brother’s place at this table could be replaced by someone like…
“What was I saying? Oh yeah, Craig’s not just some star actor. He needs me…we’re going to make a great couple.”
“He’s an actor, who wants to sleep with you while the whole world watches”.
“He’s an adult, and yeah they do like to fuck kids sometimes.” Nina bows her head, defensively. I feel for the scapular beneath my purple sweater. I don’t need another fight right now. I take a deep breath and gaze at the shaft of light on the Meissen.
“Thank you for helping me today, Nina. The code worked. I didn’t get as many votes as Susan, so she’ll have first crack with Craig in a one-on-one scene, but I’m still in the running. I shrug.
“I feel stronger every day, Nina and it’s all because of you, and this girl who’s writing me online…” After a long beat, “We don’t have to live in Thebes anymore, Nina. That’s what I’m learning from her emails, from the messages I’m getting—this girl, Jeanne.” I jump up and press my cheek into her temple and say, “I’m going to win. I’m going to stand on the podium with Craig. And then I’m taking you on that long overdue trip to Paris. No more Greek tragedy for the House of de Menich. It’ll be New York, New York it’s a wonderful town. The Bronx is up and the Battery’s down…”
But then Nina clears her throat and says, “Esme called today. I’m meeting with her tomorrow.”
“Yes. Francis is hiring people to shame me. I got a message from some sick person who says she knew James and that I was abusive to him.” I put my fork down. “I saw Esme on the set talking to Francis. She was with some guy in a trench coat who looked like a PI. Wrong drama, I felt like telling him. He didn’t scare me. Francis is predictable, that’s what Craig thinks, too. Craig told me Francis is planning some big scene that’s supposed to shame—”
“Tell me, child. This tape you said that Phil made with your brother making out with another boy—”
“I said? Nina. I came home he was crying on the bed. He had a knife by his side. Didn’t I show it to you?”
“No. You said Phil sent it to the whole school.”
“Well. Yeah. The principal called his parents. You remember?”
“I didn’t see any tape,” Nina says, flatly. She’s talking with about as much emotion as my tablet when it tells me to wake up in the morning. “This will be the last acting job you have if you want to remain in this house.”
“You really think this is just some acting job?” I say, honestly amazed. “—after all the weird shit that’s happened?” I look over to the prie-dieu, take a deep breath and decide it’s now or never.
“Has a saint ever talked to you?” Nina bows her head and when she looks up it feels as if she’s drawn all the curtains, turned off all the lights, and there’s only the soft flicker of candlelight between us.
“What does she say?”
“She tells me I wasn’t just chosen to play some role, and get a bunch of votes. That I’m on a mission.” I take another deep breath. “And if I fail, the world will never be the same.” I usually get that omniscient frown whenever talk turned to the deeper purpose of my character, but now, she looks at me like I’m crazy.
“And this girl. She tells you to do things?”
“No. She talks about love, about why I’ve been cast…I mean chosen—those larger things that are at stake.”
“Talks—like a voice in your head.”
“Well. No. I mean, yes. When the lights went green the night I got beaten, I thought I heard—Nina, what’s wrong? You said saints are there to help us.”
“You’re under a lot of pressure, Cease. This show’s bringing up a lot of unresolved issues.” Now she sounds like the social worker, Esme—all that talk about not being able to handle these emotions on my own. I follow her gaze to the chandelier.
She pushes her chair back touches rubs her eyes and it feels like she’s just pushed down her visor on the hood of a metal coat of armor when she says, “We’ve got to get our story straight.” Nina glares at me through the dim light. “I know how much you loved him. I know how much
James meant to you. But there are questions that need to be answered.”
“You just can’t let it go, can you? You think I’m to blame for everything. You wanted a leading man, instead you got an abused boy…thank your sister for that.” I push my chair back so hard it tips over. “All the sick-fucks like Francis will be putting it all out for the whole world to see. You wanna know what really happened between James and I on the last night? Stick around cause Francis and all his sick-fuck minions are gonna put it out there. It won’t be real. Just like all those lies about some missing girl. But it sure will give all the sick adults watching, and then they’ll all vote to see more. And then I’m gonna fuck Craig for the entire world to see.” My shouts ring off the crystal Nina keeps on the sideboard.
Her head in her hands, my cue to apologize. I step back and say “I’m sorry.”
She raises a hand and says, “No. Cease. I believe you. There are larger things at stake. This is your character. You’re standing up for yourself. So did Jeanne.”
“I’m not crazy.”
“I know you’re not,” she says. “I don’t believe in conspiracies, child. Francis wants to shame you. But there are other forces at work. We just have to have answers for…” Her voice trails off, as if she’s stranded on a threadbare real-life stage, and I see the great fatigue she’s been trying to hide from me slowly peek through her stoic mask. I feel ashamed. “Help me over to the couch. I need to rest my head.”
“I’ll make you some tea,” I offer. “We still have some brownies left over.”
I take her over to the couch, get a pillow for her head, pull the lowboy over for her feet, but when I try to take off her shoes she shakes her head. “I have to say something, child. The night I got the call from California that your mother had been in a car crash…the doctors told me you’d probably be dead by the time I got out to the hospital. But when I heard James was OK, that he hadn’t been in the car, I knew you were going to recover.” She shakes her head, lets out a mirth-filled laugh. “I remember how you both behaved when I arrived; him standing over your bed at the hospital, just a boy but with the heart of a worried-sick parent…yes. You two were forced to grow up, and the magic you created made you irresistible. You two were connected at the hip…I don’t think there was a sentence James started that you couldn’t finish. I used to untangle your limbs from the same bed and think, ‘This is the kind of love God bestows on all those wounded children whose parents have wronged them.’ I knew you two had been chosen for a mission.”
“What mission?” I plead. “That’s what Jeanne keeps hinting at, but I’ve no idea what she means. We were just a family—a couple of kids and a sick mom—not crusaders.” Her exhausted eyes still have that glow that tells me she’s never going to give up on me until I see the light. I sit beside her, put my head on her shoulder. I look out the window to the first long flakes of snow as they glide toward the giant, silver monolith across First Avenue. “When I first saw those portals Francis created for us to time-travel, I wanted to go back to a night when James was alive and tell him how much I loved him.”
“Yes,” Nina says. “I thought this gift you’d inherited would save you. I studied our history, found what my sister had found—a long line of strong girls. When I came to our generation and studied the line connecting you two, I knew it was real. That night I watched you perform…” She trails off, looks to the open kitchen door as if she’s left the soup on the stove. Her serene look turns accusing.
“What you’ve inherited is a gift to some but a curse to others. If you don’t face what you did on the last night of James’ life, you’ll become just like her.”
I close my eyes and remember Jeanne saying how hard it was to help me. I see the look on my mother’s face as she turned the wheel; that hard gem-like flame—not merely anger, not merely rage; it was more focused. It was scorn. It was the same look that Stephanie gave the men in the alleyway.
“When is your next scene?” she asks, her eyes growing heavy.
I check my tablet. “All it says is that there’s going to be a showdown between Great Cate and me.” I look at my watch. “They’re coming in an hour.”
“You’ll give her hell, my humble maid,” Nina says. She looks like a deposed queen, nodding off.
“I love you, Nina.”
She smiles, serenely. I take off her old leather shoes, pull the afghan over her legs, and tell her I’ll be back with some hot chocolate in an hour. I run down to my room and see the genealogy open on my bed. Didn’t I put it beneath my sweaters at the bottom of the armoire? But now the page is open. I examine it. The name Avril is circled, with a line leading to the margin, where notes are scribbled in my brother’s hand: They were real. They were normal. Can’t you see what you’re missing?
I couldn’t then and I can’t now.
I don’t wake Nina when Yousef arrives an hour later. He takes me back to a sports stadium parking lot in the Meadowlands.
Catherine emerges from Claude’s trailer wearing a gorgeous navy-blue sweater that I saw in the Mark Cross catalogue, and a pair of white satin pants. She’s dressed to kill, and I’ll be her first course unless I get my act together. The men have completed the trolleys. Francis sits atop his highchair as the lights on the electronic billboard flicker to yellow.
Claude’s hands shake as he pulls from his rack an auburn-colored, L.L. Bean crew-neck sweater with snowflakes emblazoned across the chest and a pair of black spandex pants with no pockets. I enter his trailer, cautiously holding a tray with a glass of water and a bowl of soup, the same kind he ordered for me the first time we met. His skin’s pale, his hands cold. I set the tray at the foot of the bed, place a cloth napkin across his waist, and before he can protest, say, “You will eat this, old man, or I won’t be wearing a stitch of your creations.”
Claude laughs, feebly. He takes a seat on the edge of his cot, and then lies down. He slowly rises and props his toothpick arms on the sides of the bed.
“I can take care of myself, young lady. You should be strategizing. This is a take-no-prisoners business.”
“I know. That’s why I’m here. I need some answers.” He follows my gaze to the famous faces on the trailer walls.
“You’ve got the gift that they had.” He raises a trembling hand to the frieze. “And you’re afraid what it’s doing to you?”
I nod. “Yes. Should I go all the way with Brad or Craig? Should I? If my gut tells me not to go there, does that mean I’m weak? Does that make me a loser?” Claude tilts his head back, coughs up phlegm. Before he can stop me, I wipe his mouth with my napkin. He pushes my hand away, then holds it gently in his trembling fingers.
“I can walk into any room of hopefuls and immediately find the ones who’ve been abused,” he says, and beneath his usual inscrutable stare I catch a flash of fierce compassion. “You’re not a girl who shares her hard luck with the world, and that’s why I like you.” He sighs. “But you’re keeping a lot of hurt inside. Not good, young lady. Maybe self-pity isn’t in the de Menich DNA, but you’ve got to find someone you trust. Someone you can talk to. Things are going to get worse between you and Susan and Catherine the Great. You’re going to have to make a choice.”
He slowly raises his arm from beneath the afghan and points at the clothes rack like some accusing ghost of Christmas past. “Take your outfit. Study it. What do you see?” I look down at a navy-blue L.L. Bean sweater with preppie snowflakes, a pair of chinos fit for a young boy, and a pair of penny loafers like Nina bought for James after he got into Dayton.
“Jeez, Claude.” I hold up the outfit and feel like throwing it at the vanity. “I’d look like some girl trying to join the Junior League in this thing. I’m tired of playing a stupid, lovesick girl,” I shout. “Why can’t you get that, mister genius?”
“No one asked you to play a girl, Cease.”
“But what about Cate? She looks so…sexy.”
“I don’t play favorites,” he says. “I would’ve been destroyed in this bu
siness a long time ago if I had.” He wipes the sweat from his graying temples and absently feels for the measuring tape. “But I’ve given you an advantage and I’m beginning to wonder why.”
“An advantage?” I search Claude’s tired face. “I don’t understand. Cate looks like she’s going to sidle up to Craig at some red-carpet after-party. This ensemble looks like I’m going to some country club where I don’t really belong.” I press my head into my hands and begin to cry. I feel his small hands gently rubbing my shoulders, and he laughs a real guffaw.
“Where you don’t belong,” Claude repeats slowly in a raspy voice that tells me I’m missing something. “What do you need to do, Cease?”
“I need to become a woman.”
“Yes. And this outfit I gave you makes you look like a girl. Why do you think I made that choice?”
“So my fans can watch me grow.”
Claude nods.
“I can have sex with Craig,” I offer meekly. “I’ll punch out Susan. I’ll tell Brad to grow up. And I’ll make love to Craig,” I say, more confident.
“No. Those are choices Eve and Stephanie would make. Your character died a virgin, yet she was one of the strongest young women history has ever seen. How’d Jeanne d’Arc do it? How will you do it?” My head spins with scenarios, all of them wrong. Claude slowly pulls himself up in the cot.
“When I was your age my mother wanted me to be a writer, and I wanted to please her the way every boy who likes boys wants to please his mother. I tried and tried, but my stories had no climaxes—no form at all. And one day I stopped before a beautiful Pierre Cardin in the window of Saks Fifth Avenue and I thought that’s it, all the form I’ll ever need. The collar was an introduction—the texture, a character—and the waistline a climax.” He turns and fishes through the pocket of his pearl-gray cardigan. “I knew then who’d I’d become. But many young men have the same dream. It wasn’t until I started to study people that I got really good—I learned early never to design a dress for a body; design it to fit a character.” He picks up his call sheet from the vanity and throws it at my feet.
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