The Shimmering State

by Meredith Westgate

  Halloween is playing on a large flat-screen just inside the open-air living room, Jamie Lee Curtis screaming in terror at Jason and his bad hair. The outdoor walls have been set up with projectors, too, so Psycho, The Hills Have Eyes, and Scream are playing on every surface, the actors’ faces twisting in pain and terror while people at the party cluster. Laughing, hugging, catching up. Occasionally the silhouette of a partygoer crosses a projector’s path, unknowingly catching the Scream mask stretched across their torso, or knives covered in blood against their back.

  Lucien follows Liv through the living room toward the kitchen. Every piece of furniture is something reclaimed—driftwood for the dining room table, old industrial gym lockers at the bar area, an antique secretary in the hallway. The party itself appears to have already entered postproduction, with any awkward guests, spilled drinks, or costume flops retouched out of the scene. Even the costumes strike Lucien as well-curated. He tries not to think about his own, which would have been a hit at the casual party he imagined he was on his way to tonight. The kind of party where trying too hard would have been embarrassing, not the other way around. Here, he gets the impression there were entire costume departments at their disposal.

  Dead ringers for Cleopatra and Charlie Chaplin mingle in the crowd. There’s a young Tom Cruise, an old Tom Cruise, a very committed 2005 Tom Cruise standing on a couch and laughing hysterically. Hot cheerleaders, dead cheerleaders, and even the token Frida Kahlo or two. No, make that five.

  “So, this is the Boy Next Door?” says a doe in a brown unitard and tights. On her nose is a black dot, surrounded by white face paint down to her mouth and more around her eyes. She touches her antlers as though twirling hair.

  “This is Rachel,” Liv says apologetically. “One of my oldest and least mature friends.”

  “Lucien.”

  “So, what are you?” Rachel asks.

  “I’m a photographer.”

  “Sorry?” Rachel says. “Oh, no. I mean, what are you?”

  He looks down at his white T-shirt, BUZZFEED spelled in glossy red tape.

  “Oh, I’m a meme.” He reaches for the cat ears tucked in his back pocket, then slips them on. The plastic headband is sharp behind his ears. “A cat meme.”

  Liv bursts out laughing, then makes a face that looks remarkably similar to one’s actual reaction to a cat meme. Adorable laughter, with just a touch of pity.

  “So what are you doing here, then?” says Rachel, speaking close and directly into Lucien’s face. He smells the vodka on her breath. “Liv thinks you’re a convict on the run.”

  “I do not,” she says, barely laughing. “I don’t.”

  “Oh, no that’s okay,” says Lucien. “Flattering really.”

  “I was just joking. I told Rachel that you—”

  “She said, there’s a mysterious new tenant above my shop,” Rachel interrupts, as though doing Liv a favor. “What did you call him? A handsome loner? No, that wasn’t it. Lonely? I can’t remember.”

  “Christ, Rachel. We haven’t even gotten drinks yet.”

  Liv’s face is bright red, and not just from the beet pulp. Rachel closes her eyes to take a sip of her drink, and Liv pulls him away before she sees. As they walk, she greets everyone they pass with a sort of cheerful indifference. She is different here than Lucien’s initial impression of her, and he realizes now that he got her wrong. He wonders if they had met here tonight, would Liv have spoken to him at all? Would he have wanted her to?

  Finally, they find a quiet pocket beside the marble island in the kitchen, where shiny brass pots dangle overhead.

  “Sorry about that,” Liv says. “Some of these people! We all grew up together. Lots of us left LA, then came back. Casey, whose house this is, he just moved back.”

  “I can tell,” Lucien says, deadpan. “I wasn’t going to say anything, but it feels very… unfinished.”

  “Casual, right?” She laughs. “He’ll move again in a year. I think he’s trying to get married.”

  “To who?”

  Liv shrugs.

  Behind her head, a magician in a tuxedo makes a card disappear in plain sight and then finds it in Grace Kelly’s clutch. The small audience cheers. Rachel walks by, though not before kissing Liv on the cheek and shouting something unintelligible. The kiss is so wet it smudges the beet pulp. Liv looks so embarrassed that now he feels sorry for her.

  “Hey, I’d hate to be judged based on my friends from high school.”

  He thinks of George and Reggie sneaking forties onto the rides at Coney Island. Though he’d be there in a second.

  “They’re not all as bad as they seem. Rachel especially, she’s just trying to impress you.”

  “Well damn, I’d hate to see her when she’s not.”

  There are worse things than misplaced loyalty, he thinks. Some worse things, at least. Look at him. The only place his mind goes lately is to the past, to childhood. What kind of man does that make him now?

  “Most everyone here knows each other—so you throw fresh blood into the mix and people start peacocking, you know? To show where they stand.”

  “What about dates?” Lucien hears the word before realizing he said it. “I mean, there must be lots of new people, all the time.”

  “Honestly, everybody just dates each other.”

  Lucien looks around the party, wondering which of them Liv has been with. Maybe one of the guys outside. Lebowski.

  “Actually, I guess the guys are always bringing new girls,” she continues. “But no one expects anyone to talk to those girls.”

  “And you like that? Only the same people all the time?”

  Liv reaches for a carrot stick from the island. The carrots have been sliced to resemble stubby fingers, with slivers of almonds pushed into the ends like fingernails.

  “I invited you, didn’t I?”

  She dips the end with the fingernail into something green and crunches off a bite.

  “But no, nobody really likes it,” she adds. “You just get used to it.”

  Get used to something long enough, Lucien thinks, and you’ll forget whether or not you liked it to begin with. Just then, one of the Spice Girls trips over her shiny platform heel and spills sangria all over Liv’s dress. Some even splashes up her neck.

  “Oh my god,” says Posh, sleek bob and pinched lips. “You daft twat!” Their British accents are painfully bad, but Lucien admires the dedication.

  He whispers as Liv wipes off her soaked dress. “A bit on the nose, don’t you think?”

  She wipes her nose.

  “No, I mean—the Carrie thing.”

  They both laugh and she leans into Lucien. He catches the smell of her hair again, and lets himself relax into the absence of anything else in his head for the first time in weeks.

  The Spice Girls return with napkins, and Sporty bends over to mop up the floor. She is the one wearing sneakers and track pants, after all.

  “Get her more towels, for fuck’s sake,” says Ginger, her lips outlined in brown pencil and filled in with glossy pink that makes her red wig appear orange. Baby Spice stands to the side, guilty. Her baby tee is splashed with red, too, but no one is helping her. She pouts, true to form.

  “That’s really enough,” Liv says as Ginger dabs her tulle skirt. “Now you’re just mopping off my costume.”

  The Spice Girls step back and laugh. “Oh my god, right on. Carrie, that is so spot-on.”

  Lucien walks around the kitchen, looking for supplies. One of his best party tricks is that he actually makes a great cocktail. Years of tending his mother’s parties at home, learning the preferences of her very particular guests and friends. One sculptor only took his martini with a “breath” of lemon, whatever that meant. Another liked his Negroni with a slice of orange and an olive, but only if it was Castelvetrano—not to worry, he brought his own. Another poet always asked for a gimlet, but she specified vodka instead of gin and tonic instead of lime juice. Oh, to be so respected that you go on thinking your
vodka tonic is a gimlet without ever being corrected.

  This fridge has it all. The fancy, deep-burgundy cocktail cherries; glass small-batch-soda bottles and fresh juice mixers; an array of artisanal bitters on the countertop.

  “What’s your specialty?” asks Liv.

  “How about a martini?”

  “Oh, that’s the kind of night this is going to be?”

  “I can make you anything.”

  “Martini, please.”

  He finds a jar of fancy imported olives that look promising. Then he scans the liquor lineup and laughs when he sees a bottle of Nolet Reserve next to an empty bottle of Tanqueray. He once photographed a party at the Rainbow Room that went through five bottles of this special Nolet, retailing for $700 each. He never got to try it, and he can’t imagine it’s right for a martini, but fuck, if this guy puts out a bottle like that—

  “Lucien! You have to meet a dear, dear friend of mine,” Liv says. “Sophie, this is Lucien. Sophie is my loveliest and most talented friend!”

  Long, colorful peacock feathers are stuck into the back of Sophie’s leotard. Her makeup is drawn well outside her eyes, sparkling and merging where her nose begins, creating the effect of a shimmering beak below. Some of the sparkles have fallen to her cheeks, dewy from the crowd. And her hair is pulled up high into a tight bun.

  “Oh my gosh, stop it,” Sophie says, blushing.

  She holds out a hand, gracefully, as if moving through water. Lucien notices a tattoo across her knuckles.

  “Lucien is making us martinis,” Liv says. “Do you want one?”

  His mind starts to do the math. Sixteen shots in a bottle. Three shots in a drink. That’s $131 a martini. He laughs, turning it into a friendly nod.

  “I would love nothing more,” says Sophie. “But I think I’m done. Early rehearsal tomorrow.” She holds up an empty cup, and her long, lean muscles show every movement through the leotard. “You know they have a cocktail bar set up outside, right? With, like, three bartenders. There’s an entire spritz station.”

  Lucien feels a cold sweat on his neck, shot glass full of Nolet, two more in the shaker. Was this not for the party? Jesus Christ, could he pour this back in without anyone knowing?

  “Then we’d have to go back outside,” Liv says. “Besides, Casey told me—help yourself to the drinks in the kitchen. And I want to taste yours, Lucien.”

  Then she turns back to Sophie, genuinely horrified. “Wait so, you have rehearsals the day after Halloween?”

  “Super early, too,” she says. “Auguste is really on my back lately. I think that means he likes me now? But it also means he won’t let up until my pinky toe falls off.”

  Lucien looks at the Martini & Rossi extra-dry vermouth, hesitating. He pours the slightest dash, adds a handful of ice cubes, and shakes. Then he slips an olive each onto two wooden toothpicks from a sterling dish and places them in two wide glasses.

  “Sophie is the most brilliant dancer in LA,” Liv is still saying, over Sophie’s protests. “She is the lead in LABC’s next show, La… Sulphide?”

  “Sylphide,” Sophie laughs. “La Sylphide. I am, the sylph.”

  “And we’ll be in the front row,” Liv says. She glances at Lucien, suddenly shy. “I mean, I can’t wait.”

  “Congratulations,” Lucien says as he pours. “That’s amazing. What’s a sylph?”

  “It’s like a woodland fairy, a sprite of sorts.”

  “No big deal,” says Liv.

  “No pressure either, I imagine,” offers Lucien.

  “Exactly.”

  Liv looks between them. She reaches out a hand to Sophie’s arm and strokes it to get her attention. “God, I miss you so much! I never see you,” she says. “You look gorgeous, but what else is new.”

  “I’ve been swamped lately, with Chateau and rehearsals. I don’t even remember how to socialize for real, off the clock. I should’ve dressed as a zombie tonight.”

  Watching Sophie among this crowd of false confidence and lubricated bravado is like watching a crane walk through stormwater. She makes tucking a strand of hair behind her ear look as profound as anything.

  “Oh, the life of a beautiful and talented ballerina,” Liv coos, catching his attention again.

  He hands her a finished drink. Seven-hundred-dollar gin, chilled, with an olive.

  “To new friends and old,” Liv says before taking a sip. “Damn, that’s good.”

  Just then another magician or James Bond rushes into the kitchen and grabs a spoon.

  “What’s with all the magicians?” Lucien asks.

  “Casey’s dad owns the Magic Castle,” Liv says. “Literally every party is like this. His last birthday dinner at Gjelina, a magician pulled a card from the cake.”

  Sophie nods, confirming. “Ace of spades.”

  Toward the bottom of Lucien’s glass, he really starts relaxing. He remembers what it’s like to feel comfortable enough to own a room. Sophie brushes a stray wisp of hair from her face with ease as though watching herself in a mirror and then fans herself with the same hand as she shifts in place from foot to foot, which Lucien now notices are neatly turned out. Even standing flat, they look full of intention.

  Lucien catches the delicate letters tattooed across her knuckles again, but attempting to read them upside down makes him feel even drunker. Has he eaten anything since breakfast?

  “So what do you do, Lucien?”

  “He’s a photographer,” Liv says, proud of what she learned only moments earlier.

  “Haven’t really been doing it much lately,” he says.

  “Lucien is from New York.”

  Sophie laughs. “Are you his West Coast rep?”

  “Believe me, you don’t want that job.” Lucien finishes his last sip and sets down the glass. “I was a professional photographer in New York, parties and things. But my own stuff, too. I do sort of collage-meets-photography for my own work. I stretch and I skew.”

  Lucien listens to the words coming freely and haphazardly out of him. He hates describing what he did working parties during those years to people who weren’t there; nothing could explain it. He either sounds like he’s glorifying something sad, or like he had a pathetic job, bottom of the totem pole, when in fact, he’d made the rankings. Although anything is better than talking about his own art.

  “Professional photographer,” Liv says. “Like, weddings?”

  “Not really. Have you heard of Max Yorn?”

  “Of course,” Sophie says, then to Liv, “He comes into the Chateau all the time. Nice guy. Cocky as hell, but not a total creep.”

  “I know,” Liv corrects her in a way that adds a competitive edge to their conversation. “We used to see him out all the time in LA. Back when we went out, you and I.”

  Lucien notices a subtle tension he hadn’t before.

  “So wait, Lucien, you did the party circuit?” Liv says. “Did you know I lived in New York for a year? Or six months I guess, after I left Trinity. Maybe we crossed paths! Wouldn’t that be sweet? Us babies at the same party?”

  “Sure. Parties, galas, openings, shows, street style, all that shit,” Lucien says. Then, noticing her disappointment in his answer, he adds, “We couldn’t have crossed paths though.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “I’d remember you.”

  Liv and Sophie exchange looks, and he cringes inside at how easy it is sometimes to give people exactly what they want.

  “What brings you to LA, then?” Sophie says. “Besides this lovely gal.”

  “Oh, no,” Liv says. “He and I just met.”

  “Family,” says Lucien. “My grandmother is sick—or at least, she isn’t doing well. Alzheimer’s. I don’t recommend it. But as of recently, I’m her executioner. Wait, god no that’s not right. Executor? Exec-utor. God, what is that word? I’m next of kin.” Lucien suddenly feels extremely drunk.

  “I’m so sorry,” says Liv. “That’s terrible.”

  “It must be hard to see her that way,
” says Sophie. “My grandfather had dementia. I was just a kid, but it was so hard.”

  Lucien feels suddenly defensive of his own lack of grief. He weighs the need to qualify it.

  “I don’t really know her that well anyway, to be honest.” Does that make him sound worse? “Not since I was a kid, at least.”

  “What about your parents?” says Liv.

  “My dad isn’t around. This is my mom’s mom—and she passed away recently.”

  He feels their faces shift, and his whole body or the floor or the earth itself trembles. He wonders for a moment if there was a way around this, another path for this conversation that doesn’t end up here, but that thinking doesn’t work in real time. Not when the alcohol is slowing down the pace of everything so you’re already two steps behind. Has he been silent for too long now? Have they?

  “Lucien, I’m so sorry,” says Liv. “How recently?”

  “Uhh.” He hears his voice wavering and fights it. “About a month.”

  He tries to get the words out as quickly and flatly as he can, thinking about other things. His growling stomach. The spinning floor. The plastic cat headband indenting behind his ears. The spinning floor. His car. How will he get it home? He would give anything for someone to speak.

  Liv reaches a hand to his forearm. Her body beside him feels different than moments earlier, when the space between them was charged with attraction, not sympathy. Lucien has hardly been touched, not really, since his mother’s service, when he was so squeezed and patted by everyone that his body stopped feeling like his own. A rag doll for their grief more than anything. Liv’s fingers are light and cool, but whatever quickened in him beside her is now still.

  Suddenly the living room empties, the kitchen momentarily full of passing bodies.

  “What the hell,” says Sophie. “Where are they all going?”

  A guy dressed in what Lucien figures could be the original Cowardly Lion costume, tattered and outdated, stops briefly. “Hud has Mem, some Olympic ski jumper from Nagano, 1998. Fuck me up, dude!”