by Bruce Wagner
It was more than a new life—it was home, and always had been.
Apart from the generous staff required to manage the farm and its environs, the mistresses employed a Badminton-born cook and Pucklechurch pastry chef, nannies from Axminster and Temple Cloud, a Dean hamlet swim trainer, an equine therapist from the Vale of Evesham (Aurora was never more her old self when being led along on a horse), and all manner of visiting tradespeople, from masons and apiarists to artisans of stained glass. Yogis were entrusted to soothe Aurora’s finickiness, while other practitioners, schooled in massage, Pilates, and the Alexander Technique, did their best to fill the potholes of recovery, pouring in enough holistic gravel to keep the fair semblance of a navigable road. Dusty’s bimonthly Saturday night musicales—Aurora gleefully dubbed them hootenannies—were a major hit with the villagers (who couldn’t have given two shits about her celebrity nor anyone else’s) and already felt like ancient rural tradition. On Sundays, mums rallied the broods for arts and crafts. Dusty built a small amphitheater where mimes, jugglers, and marionettistes held court; fanciful theater productions tapped a rich local vein of natural (and unnatural) talent, booking thespians of all ages, from squalling newborns to village wallflowers who’d managed to locate, and passionately liberate, their inner Judi Dench.
Dusty stayed away from America and had no yearning to go back. The gossipy national Sturm und Drang recycled into a new mythology: the iconic star breaking ground yet again in her latest role as the selfless caregiver who, in defiance of the prevailing rules of throwaway culture, refused to abandon her spouse, her mate, her ladylove. The macabre fairy tale had all the elements of a pop passion play and served as a kind of there-but-for-the-grace-of-God telenovela for the masses, a confessional and general bloodletting with built-in dispensation; the actress, crucified and in exile (in the name of love!), became a dashboard saint touched for luck while navigating one’s own dark night of the unrequited, lovelorn soul. It gave sacrificial solace. Dusty didn’t feel like a martyr, not remotely, but the world’s ghoulish, sentimental spin on her tragedy, uncomplicated by the even more tragic truth, allowed her to hide in plain sight. For the most part the press respectfully let her be. She hadn’t acted since Bloodthrone 2 (they did rent that place in the Cotswolds, and her daughter did just fine; Elise was right, as usual), a heroic absence that garnered more praise than controversy. She’d been talking with her manager about the idea of producing, maybe even directing. When Angelina visited a few months earlier, her enthusiasm about the experience of Unbroken was inspiring.
Helen Mirren visited as well. It was nice to return the favor, as Dusty and Allegra had had such wonderful times at Helen and Taylor’s house in New Orleans. (They’d never worked together and had a running joke about the fates being against it.) “Popper” was a hoot—she claimed to have zero maternal instincts, and said the thought of childbirth “disgusted” her—the mordant stories she told about her bitch mother always reminded Dusty of Reina. But she was so tender with Aurora when she came to Bruton, like the most perfect fairy godmother, putting Dusty in mind of that mushroom story Marilyn told about the “battalion of women who’d never had children,” and how it really was impossible for a woman to be childless.
—
Everything was abuzz with plans for Aurora’s fortieth.
In her head, Dusty had been planning a “Renaissance Faire” extravaganza, replete with jousting knights, jugglers, falconers, and commedia dell’arte, but when she let Helen in on her brilliance, the dame replied (with acutely English sangfroid), “I’m afraid that will not do.” She suggested A Midsummer Night’s Dream motif, which felt instantly right, and Dusty set about making preparations.
She invited Jeremy, who was in London working on a film. He was traveling with his son and it would be the first time she met the boy. They’d kept in touch but seen each other only once since she left L.A.—in Rome a few years ago when she took her daughter there to see a specialist. Still, they managed to Skype every few weeks or so and Aurora thoroughly enjoyed raucous screen time with “Uncle Jar Jar,” who refreshingly remained his usual, uncensored self. Each time after they spoke, the household was forced to endure days of Aurora parroting every inappropriate thing that came out of his mouth—and even more sampled horrors from the hip-hop mixes he emailed, that she maddeningly rapped along to. Dusty discouraged him, with a wink, because she really did feel it important for Aurora to have that outlet. Someone who wasn’t so careful with her and acted more like a peer, who could be silly and disrespectful and let it all hang out.
But Dusty was still nervous about his coming.
With the care of a scientist, she’d created a hermetic world, and the experiment had been a resounding success; and so it would remain, as long as the pleasure dome was intact. Yet as the visit drew nearer, her life as a recluse and de facto “fugitive” struck hard. This citizen and former ambassador of the world, now living in Shangri-la under country house arrest, suddenly worried the intrusion of a key player from the past might introduce a virus that would be the death of the organism. Some of those concerns had to do with the fear that such a homecoming could blur the line she’d so firmly drawn (for Aurora) between mother and daughter/lover and wife, bringing with it certain associations that would sow confusion and trigger a host of anxieties whose abeyance had been hard-fought and half-won. The irksome daydream of their old friend (and donor) strolling the hallowed grounds of “Mind Your Manor” (his name for the cottage; he called the village Et Tu, Bruton) like Rochester to Dusty’s Jane, with the locked-away madwoman Aurora planning fire and mass murder, filled her with shame—and the sleaze of that old, familiar feeling too, the one so familiar when Reina was alive: the recognition of an ever-present low-frequency hum signaling something was amiss. That she was living a lie.
And she’d been doing so well! Swimmingly so, considering the hand she’d been dealt. There was more candor, honesty, and joy in her life than ever. Still, the nagging sensation descended like a flu.
—
It was wonderful to see him again. He looked lean; he’d never been more present. Wyatt was almost two and a half, one of those towheads who look alarmingly like their dads. He’d brought the au pair along.
Aurora hugged him and wouldn’t let go. (Allegra’s new name had been easily explained when they ran into him that time on the Spanish Steps: the actress said that from the minute they arrived in Somerset, she’d insisted on being called Aurora, like the princess in Sleeping Beauty. To which Jeremy said, “Does that make you Maleficent?”) He was startled by her physical transformation. Her nose was pierced, a recent concession of Dusty’s that restored peace to the house after months of pleading and occasional outright horror movie screams that ended in safe-room quiet time. (So far, so good—Aurora took great pride and care, and it hadn’t got infected. Yet.) Her hair was dyed in streaks of magenta and silvery blue. Acne brazenly snowcapped her cheeks, ill-concealed by a clownish frosting of foundation and Clearasil. She was forty pounds heavier; Jeremy had of course noticed the gain when they Skyped, but in person it was jarring and too real. Everything was too real. She had on an “I’m a Belieber” T-shirt, and Dusty jokingly apologized. “I tried to get her to wear the Kanye you sent. What can I say?” When Aurora heard the reference, she sang-shouted, “How long you niggas ball? All day, nigga! How much time you spent at the mall? All day, nigga!”
Wyatt thought she was hilarious.
(The au pair didn’t know what to think.)
After dinner, Aurora begged to watch Frozen, which she’d only seen about seven thousand times. Halfway through, she wanted to play games, so they did for a while, some kind of gonzo variation of charades (the look on Wyatt’s face vacillating between utter fear and utter delight). Then she wanted to go to the karaoke club that her mother built on the far end of the paddock. (Whenever she called Dusty “Mama,” no explanations were needed; neurological damage conveniently covered all bases and re
gressions.) At first Dusty said no, because Jeremy and Wyatt were tired from their trip, but Jeremy said it was fine and off they went. Dusty sang a Taylor Swift and Jeremy the Sinatra freak did a more than serviceable “One for My Baby,” then Dusty said all righty that’s enough, time for bed, and Aurora started yelling and Jeremy told the au pair to take Wyatt back to the guesthouse and Dusty wouldn’t back down on bedtime so Aurora gave her a shove and that’s when Dusty got in her face, barking That is not okay! Not okay! Aurora backed down a little and started to cry. Jeremy knew to stay out of it, Dusty poor thing had full control of the situation, probably happened all the time Jesus! and Aurora calmed down totally when Dusty threatened, “Should I call Edwina? Do you want me to call Edwina?”—Edwina being the one charged with enforcing safe-room quiet time. Dusty sniffed Aurora’s mouth and said she smelled chocolate. She told her to open wide and the girl shamefacedly submitted while Dusty did some deep sniffing. She insisted Aurora tell her where the Kit Kats were hidden—turning to Jeremy to let him know it was a house rule that sweets were a no-no after four p.m., which was why Aurora was so hyper (plus excited of course to see him and Wyatt)—and Aurora cried some more, but in drib-drabs, and Dusty intercom’d one of the night nurses (not Edwina) to come take her to bed. When the woman arrived, Dusty informed her of the Kit Kats caper and also to make sure Aurora took double the melatonin on top of her usual bedtime pharmacopoeia. She said Now say goodnight to Jeremy and Aurora sulkily hugged him again, and was embarrassed too, and wouldn’t look at him when he kissed her cheeks. In the quiet that descended after her leave-taking, Jeremy said, “Wow,” and Dusty said, “I know. I need a drink.”
They sat by the fire in the living room of the main house and caught up. She asked about his London film; he asked when she planned on working again. “I don’t really have anything on the slate.” She said she’d actually been thinking about producing. He loved that and said they should be partners. They got excited about it for a little before he circled back to Aurora and said (with love), “I don’t know how you do it.” “Well, it has to be done!” Her smile came out brittle, not at all how she’d meant it to. Jeremy didn’t want her to get the wrong idea, i.e., that he thought it a thankless task, so he backpedaled, complimenting her on the new and nurturing life she’d built for them and how happy Allegra seemed. She turned the focus to Wyatt and asked what fatherhood was like. “Amazing. If I talk about it, I’ll just sound corny.” “Better corny than horny. You have changed.” (She was drunk.) She asked him to describe a typical day with the boy and he started with Wyatt clambering into bed in the morning, making him pancakes and bacon, bla, and how much fun it was to take the boy to Trader Joe’s or wherever because “he’s a total twink magnet.” Dusty laughed and he was glad because she didn’t seem to be doing enough of that. There was a moment, there were a few, really, during his stay, when she’d flirted with telling him the truth about her daughter-wife, just unloading, for the fuck of it. She wondered how that would make her feel—if there’d be any kind of relief. But an invisible hand took her by the scruff of the neck and told her not to, because Shangri-la, and Thornfield Hall, would burn.
“We never really talked about Wyatt’s mom. Is she still in the picture?”
“Nope.”
“But he—Wyatt’s her biological son, right?”
“Righto.”
“What happened?”
“She just . . . couldn’t stay,” he said.
Because of the bittersweet vibe, Dusty didn’t want to press. At least not till she had another glass of vino. “Did you—was it IVF?”
“Nope. Did it old-school.”
“Are you serious?”
She was shocked and oddly delighted. She knew he was bisexual but for some reason had always scoffed at his being anything other than a full-time queer.
“Yup.”
“Whoa! What’s up with that?”
“Shit happens.”
“Babies too, I guess.”
“Babyshit definitely happens.”
“How would you know?” she said dismissively. “Your au pair takes care of that. So where’d you meet Wyatt’s mom? On Tinder?”
“In a park.”
“Bull-shit.”
He told her what he told everyone—that they’d met when she came to his office to pitch an idea. The bare-bones anecdote ended in Devi returning home to her husband, somewhere north of Juneau. Dusty commiserated, saying all she cared about was his happiness.
“And you are, aren’t you, Jeremy? Happy?”
“Bunny, it’s beyond. Beyond my wildest dreams.”
They snuggled up, in weariness, kinship, and a love that abided. He wrapped his arms around her and she said it felt good to be held. It’d been a while.
“So—gettin’ any?” he said.
“Ha! I wish.”
“Oh come on, you can’t be celibate. What about Edwina? Kinda hot, right?”
“Goiters don’t really do it for me. I mean, not so much.”
“Was that a goiter? I thought she was just happy to see you.”
“Guess I kinda haven’t been feeling . . . in my body,” she said, with sardonic Californiaspeak emphasis.
“I know that you’re having it on with your mucker or your valette. I’m sure it’s all very Miss Julie.”
“That’s Mister Julie to you, Uncle Jar Jar.”
“And that’s another reason you should start working, Bunny: location hookup.”
“Yeah, well. Not really feelin’ it.”
Her mood toggled from jokey to irritated.
“Use it or lose it, baby girl—I am serious. I mean, isn’t it kind of, like, time? Look. Everything you’re doing is totally amazing and totally beautiful. It’s not like one of those things where I’m saying ‘Move on!’—because I would never. Obviously. And you can’t—you wouldn’t, you wouldn’t want to. We know that. Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.” She hated the whole topic but it was just easier to let him talk.
“Are you guys still . . . active?”
“No.”
He could see that she was annoyed and dispirited. “Okay. I just needed—wanted to ask. Don’t hate me, Dusterella.”
“I don’t hate you, Jar Jar. I don’t like you, but I don’t hate you.”
She smiled at him and he gave her little kisses. “You know, if the shoe were on the other foot, what would you want . . . for Allegra?”
“Aurora.”
“Would you want her to stop being human? To stop doing the things that would ultimately make her a stronger, happier person? Who could love you more, take care of you more?”
“I may have to call Edwina. You might be in need of some quiet time yourself.”
“But you have to have some fun in your life, right?”
“I do—I do have fun. And I’m going to have fun tomorrow. We’re going to have fabulous fun on Aurora’s birthday.”
“You know what I mean, Dusty.”
She grew serious. “To introduce someone . . . to bring someone into my life—my life is so crazy, Jeremy. I mean, this is what I do. This is who I am. This is my life. And it’s not very sexy.”
“But you are.”
“Aw, you’re sweet.”
“You know that I’m not. Okay—just tell me this. What’s the harm in testing the waters? You don’t know who you’ll meet until you’re out there. And you might just find that incredibly brilliant, incredibly hot lady who’s okay with your ‘crazy’ life. Which, by the way, isn’t crazy, it’s actually amazing and spiritual and beyond. And filled with love and devotion. You might just find that certain someone who’s completely blown away by that, blown away by you, and who wants to be with you not just for your amazing jacked and rock-hard body but because she loves you and does not give a shit because she loves all of you. Someone who’s great with Allegra—
”
“Aurora.”
“—great with Aurora. And the whole nine fucking yards.”
“Tell me more about how sexy my body is, you . . . silver-tongued faggot. You child-bearing, woman-fucking queen.”
He’d forgotten how funny she was when she was high. She’d say anything.
“You can’t just . . . cut that part of your life out. I mean, you’re totally in your prime—”
“What about you? Have you found this perfect person? This perfect man, boy, woman, whatever?”
“I’m looking. But at least I’m out there.”
“Oh you’re out there, all right.”
“You’re out there—outta your frickin’ mind. Well, I gave you my two cents—”
“And I gave you mine.”
“—go join the world again. Renew your membership. If all else fails, get the village idiot to go down on you.”
“My life ain’t sexy and it ain’t gonna change. So put that in your cock and smoke it. Or wank it. Or stick it in some broad you met in a park. Or whatever other nasty things you do with it.”
—
He lay in bed, enshrouded in the ghostliness of that old, shared L.A. life. Its recentness astonished. How long had it been since he and Allegra rapturously visited the midwife? Four years? Not even. And Tristen, dead and buried! And Wyatt . . . The march of time passed through cities of rubble, cities of gold, cities on fire. Cities gone mad from the light of the heavens.
Dusty’s innocent query led him back to Devi. His mood grew elegiac. Jeremy missed the mother of his child and wondered if she might have come to a bad end. (At least her guru wouldn’t be able to murder her, though it really did seem like he already had.) It was a shock when he learned that MacKlatchie died not two days after his coffee-shop confessions—but inestimably more so when, shortly after their son’s birth, Devi announced she’d be leaving him and Wyatt for good. They had been living together in Nichols Canyon, and while Jeremy hadn’t given much thought to future scenarios, he had been wrong to presume the baby to be an unconditional hedge against her going—a guarantee that she’d always somehow be in their lives.