Before any of them respond, the Tin Man—or woman—rushes alongside him, naked but for underwear, her entire body painted silver. She grabs his hand and then they’re gone. Sophie and Liv look suddenly uncomfortable or displeased or both.
“What was that about?” Lucien asks. His first thought is a video, though that seems oddly specific, and would anyone be so enthusiastic for, what, Olympic memorabilia?
“Mem,” says Sophie. “Are they not doing that yet in New York?”
“Not that I know of,” he says, considering everything that could be another name for; meth, Molly, oxy…
“Bane of my existence,” says Sophie. “It’s all over the Chateau.”
“And it’s what, oxy?” says Lucien.
“Bless him,” Sophie says to Liv.
“It’s a new drug that delivers memories, consciousness and all,” says Liv. “Apparently it’s the ultimate escape. But what it looks like is someone cracked out and twitching on the floor, totally gone. Pathetic, really.”
Liv throws back the rest of her martini as Lucien feels the floor shift again under his feet. He puts his hand on the marble island.
“I wouldn’t touch it,” she adds. “Hud can hardly keep his shit together. He’s like a totally different person. It messes with your head.”
“I’m sorry, are you talking about Memoroxin?” Lucien’s palm is clammy against the cool marble. “My grandmother takes that for her Alzheimer’s.”
“No way,” Liv says. “I mean, it’s totally different for—”
“Well look,” offers Sophie. “I’m sure it helps some people. Medically.”
“Right, of course,” Liv says.
Lucien pulls off the plastic headband and turns toward the sink. He runs his hand under cold water, then through his hair, over his face. If the Cowardly Lion, all six feet of out-of-shape, is on his way to experience the Olympic height of a ski jumper midair, who’s to say someone upstairs or across the sparkling expanse beyond those living room doors isn’t coasting through Lucien’s grandmother’s memories right now? Reveling in the things she held so private. Moreover, what would he feel, then, if he took one of her pills? Who might he see?
“Okay, I’m going to find what promises to be an extremely chic bathroom,” says Liv. “And then let’s get out of here. I don’t even like being in the same house as that stuff.”
“I’ll walk out with you guys,” says Sophie. “I meant to leave an hour ago.”
Sophie and Lucien stand next to each other in silence. His mind is all over the place, trying to make sense of what this means for his grandmother, her treatment. Or selfishly, for him.
“Liv is the best,” Sophie says finally. “How’d you guys meet?”
“I just rented the apartment above the juice place where she works.”
Sophie laughs abruptly. She has a certain detachment Lucien thinks creative people possess, some better at hiding it than others. He is immediately drawn to and intimidated by it all the same; such people usually make him feel like everything he says is slightly misunderstood, unreachable by their sheer originality. It’s a quality his mother possessed and did little to contain.
“Sorry, but the thought of her working in some juice store is so great,” she says. “She owns that place, opened it last year.”
“Oh yeah? I didn’t realize. Wait, why is it funny?”
“No, sorry,” Sophie says. “It’s not funny, I’m a waitress, clearly I don’t think that’s funny. It’s just… because of her dad, you know.”
“Her dad?”
“Bob Kohn… of Paramour Pictures. The LACMA Kohn Wing.”
Lucien rethinks their conversations, his reaction to the excess at this party. He remembers the free juice she brought him when they first met. His sad, empty apartment she had seen inside. Does she own his building? Suddenly it all feels embarrassing. Though of all people, Lucien understands hiding from a parent’s success, wanting to define yourself outside of it. At least occasionally. But was he supposed to know?
“I just assumed, because everyone… Shit, I hate this stuff, please forget I said that. Or whatever, what does it matter! Liv is really the best. I don’t even know what I’m saying, see what I mean? Zombie. I should not be allowed out.”
Lucien laughs because she seems nervous. But even her anxiety is enchanting. Then he hears a cheer from upstairs. Liv reappears beside Sophie.
As they walk toward the front door they’d entered hours earlier, the entire downstairs is noticeably quieter. Lucien glances up the open staircase. He sees the fingertips of a hand curl, then relax, from around the corner on the floor.
* * *
Lucien wakes later to Liv tiptoeing across his bedroom, navigating the mess of cardboard boxes with one arm over her bare chest, the other out for balance. He is relieved that every canvas scattering the apartment is turned to face the wall, their wood frames catching the moonlight rather than his failed attempts at progress.
He watches her naked silhouette until the light disappears behind the bathroom door. He looks at the clock, 4:00 a.m. However crazy that party had gotten, they were at his place by eleven. He has not slept so deeply in weeks.
He lets his eyes close as he waits for the light to reappear. When he opens them, her shape in the shadows is now etched in jagged tulle. Lucien would like her to stay. To sleep here beside him. There’s a cold pocket now where her body had just been warm. And he is ashamed if she feels the need to flee. Had he made her?
“Hey,” he says, and Liv jumps at the sound of his voice.
“Oh god, I thought you were sleeping.”
“You’re welcome to stay.”
“Thanks?”
“Sorry, it looked like you were…”
“Oh, I just can’t sleep naked,” she whispers, tiptoeing back to the bed. “I get all sweaty, it’s a whole thing. Scoot over.”
She lifts the covers and pushes her tulle skirt underneath as she lies back down.
“You’re going to sleep in that?”
“I am,” she says, and kisses him on the cheek.
Lucien realizes now that he probably should’ve offered her something earlier, and he wonders at all the other things he hasn’t done. But asking at this point feels effortful, and the tulle prickling against his leg doesn’t feel as bad as he expected, nor does the starched, beet-crusted fabric against his chest that smells vaguely like vinegar.
Liv’s body relaxes into his, and the stomach muscles she must have been holding in beneath his arm loosen, until her whole body becomes heavier on top of his. This is the part he dreads; not the closeness of it. But what happens next, now, when her body drifts deeper into sleep, twitching as she falls, reminding him of how human and simultaneously mechanical we all are. That there are places we must go, alone.
* * *
In the morning, there is a note beside Lucien in bed. Even Liv’s handwriting is happy, each letter rounded and perfectly uniform, slightly italicized so even her scribble has an air of sophistication.
Had to run down to the shop, didn’t want to wake you. Signed with a heart.
Lucien takes his time in bed, noticing the difference even alone—how it feels immediately better to have your day share the context of another person’s. A new face with endless unimaginable thoughts behind it. Someone who, for a moment, makes him forget himself. He thinks back to what her friend said last night, what he had so little time to consider within the pace of party conversation. Later on, when he asked Liv where her place is, she said in the Canyon, which he took to mean Beachwood, though now he supposes there could be other canyons. When he suggested they could have gone to hers then, apologetically, her response was But it’s fun to stay here. Or had she said funny?
He doesn’t care if she judges him in some way. If anything, Lucien was feeling self-conscious about renting this place by himself with money from his mother’s estate—with no job, not even working on his own art with all this free time. The idea of Liv finding this lifestyle less-than is
a relief to the alternative.
Downstairs the sun is already lighting up the interior landing. The birds sing in overlapping loops all at once, and frenzied. Lucien slips outside, past the entrance to Liv’s shop. He wants fresh air and to feel a bit more space between her note and his showing up. What if she had just written it, and then there he is already? Outside the grass and palms and blue sky look overexposed in the sun’s bleaching light. He squints, but it hardly helps. It’s a brightness that feels like noise.
Lucien walks over to the jacaranda tree in the yard, its shade mirrored by indigo-blue flowers dusting the grass. He lights a cigarette, savoring the first breath. From there he sees into Astral Bodies through the large bay window. Liv is behind the marble counter talking to another girl. She looks elated, comfortable. He enjoys the bump of adrenaline at seeing her again. Whatever happens, it’s worth sleeping with someone new just for the distraction.
The other girl turns to look at one of the shelves. Liv’s friend from last night. The peacock. Liv appears to be preparing a smoothie of some sort, pulling down an assortment of glass jars one after another and scooping powders using a fancy gold spoon, while her friend rises to her toes then slides back and forth between each foot. She tilts her head, dark hair cascading down her back, as if Liv is coaxing her into something, then she tucks her face into her open palms.
Liv pushes the concoction toward her on the countertop—an offering—and her friend steps back, fanning her hands. Her ribs expand in her thin T-shirt and she lifts both arms into two arcs overhead, then turns her head to look over her shoulder. Lucien steps sideways, away from the window. When he looks again, she is on her toes, heels rising up and down as her body remains unmoved. She seems to float. Liv smiles, hands clasped at her heart.
The friend raises both heels and freezes, suspended in the air. Then one leg taps and lifts, and she spins so fast he can hardly make out her face. Her hair rises, all around her. He wonders for a moment if she sees him, caught in a glance as she turns.
Lucien finishes his cigarette and tosses it in the empty soup can he’s left outside the door. He wonders if his landlord has noticed. Liv’s face lights up when he walks into the shop.
“Good morning,” he says, “and hello again.”
He leans in to kiss Liv’s cheek and catches her friend’s eye. He wonders again if she might have seen him outside. Even in the daylight, away from the stress of a party, she makes him nervous, though not in a bad way.
“Long time,” she says. “Sophie.”
She smiles coyly at Liv just before her mouth and nose disappear into the glass jar full of her frothy blue drink. Clearly Liv told her about last night, after the party. Liv rolls her eyes, loving the attention. Enjoying the quiet awkwardness.
“I was just on my way out,” he says. “But I wanted to say hey.”
Liv leans into him now, her own Hey back, and stretches her arm around his neck. Her hair smells like coconut and sandalwood, and Lucien has a flash to last night, on top of her upstairs; her cheek, impossibly smooth against his neck, her breath in his ear. His own, quickening.
He catches his face in the mirror across the room, his cheeks ruddy like they get when he’s excited, or embarrassed, and his hair is dangling into his eyes and in every direction.
“What’re you up to today?” Liv says, swirling the metal straw in her drink.
“Just a bunch of different things,” Lucien says. “I’ll catch you later.”
He palms down a few rogue curls, waving as he heads out like he has somewhere to go.
Chapter 8 TODAY
Lucien can’t sleep. He slips through dreams like falling through floorboards, landing with a rattle on that same metal table in the blinding brightness. He wakes sitting up, over and over, then throws his body into the mattress to interrupt the loops. Alone in the dark, his mind twists itself back to places he wishes not to go.
He hears the faint scratch of paintbrush on canvas. First like a rhythm in the background, one sweep then another, a smaller tap, another sweep, and then it takes a rhythm of its own. When he opens his eyes, he’s six, asleep underneath his mother’s easel.
He lies there watching her eyes from below the wooden frame. They narrow and soften, staring at the canvas. Her head tilts. It’s such an intense focus that he savors the moment, the feeling of having all her gaze. Seeing what she looks like to her work. She sighs and pushes her hands through her hair, fluffing it at the crown. Then she fans a hand, disregarding her last strokes. Lucien scoots back until he sees only her feet and her shins, and he stares up at the back of the canvas, sheer where light hits the places she hasn’t yet touched.
Lucien was sick, vomiting all night, but now in daylight being home with his mother is enchanting. As if he, invisible, gets to witness her everyday routines without him. It feels like a superpower.
Suddenly her face appears beneath the easel, a wave of her hair sweeping the floor.
Come on, Luce, she says, are you hungry?
* * *
The thin sheet tangled at his legs makes him feel claustrophobic, and when he wakes up, Lucien suddenly feels like he needs to get out of that bed, that room, the Center. When he gets to the closed door, he is surprised to find it unlocked. He must not have checked before. He walks into the dim hallway, lit by moonlight from the atrium in the distance. As he approaches the common space, he finds a blood moon overhead. The fireplace burning from the top down. He walks toward the glass wall where he stood with the man in the wheelchair. He stares out at the now-dark sea. How different it looks at night. How much deeper, how endless.
In the daytime there are enough other people—even if blank, forever strangers—to distract him. But the pain sits back, rests, and waits for its time alone. His pain is nocturnal. He understands now why all their activities end at sunset; everything feels less threatening in the day. With his memory replacement, there is a freshness to Lucien’s past. His mother’s death is no longer buried where he imagines it was; now he has to dig it up and swallow it, jagged, all over again. In the daylight Lucien knows that pain is just the pills, the therapy working, and that his body will soon learn how to hide it, where to put her again. But what if he had not been able to before, and that is why he ended up here? Will he continue, over and over, to bury the thing that swallows him whole?
Lucien sits in one of the Wassily chairs facing the sea. The flat leather draped over the metal frame is not particularly comfortable, but familiar at least; they had one in their living room in Prospect Heights, where his mother benefitted from high-end discards from artist friends whose tastes predated the popularity. He lets his body relax into the suspension, his head falling back until his neck rests on cold metal, and blood fills his head.
Over the pulsing pressure—or inside it, he can’t tell—Lucien hears a voice. Then another. He pulls himself upright, and a hush follows the waves as the throbbing subsides. Dizzy, he waits. He hears the first voice again. He presses his hands to his ears, but the whispers are not from inside. His first thought is of getting caught outside his room; going back on that cold bright table. He slips into the closest hallway off the common area, in the direction away from his room. A door is cracked open, and a plane of light stretches toward him. He’s gone closer, not farther; then the murmurs turn to words and he cannot help but listen.
“I’m fully aware of the history, of the source of her disturbance.”
The voice is Dr. Sloane’s. He approaches the sliver of light, careful not to let his foot cross it. His back and hands slide against the wall.
“Don’t you think it poses a risk to other patients,” says another, “to have someone in her state roaming with the same freedoms—”
Lucien tries to recall all the female patients he has seen, but he only remembers the one. There could be others in private, locked rooms reserved for those who are a threat to themselves. Perhaps the girl’s beauty is a Trojan horse, bearing a dangerous interior. He remembers the scars along the inside of her
forearm.
“I don’t think she’s a risk to anyone but herself,” Dr. Sloane says. “She’s been cleared twice. She’s clean.”
“Then why are the fits—”
“Look, I don’t know, we don’t know. But she’s clean. She just needs more time.”
Lucien notices the tension in their conversation. The unspoken fear. He holds his breath, afraid to leave now in case moving makes a sound. He scans the upper corners for a camera. His heartbeat throbs in his ears.
“…it’s becoming a liability, the level of sedatives… we can’t keep—”
“What would you have me do? Send her out? You’re worried about other people. Well, we have control here; we have containment. She would be a press nightmare.”
He hears an alert, or a buzzer, and then footsteps approaching the doorway until the sliver of light widens, and then he is leaping long and low around the corner into the common area and back to his own hallway. He slides into his bedroom and closes the door behind him. His heart beats so fast his ribs ache. Two sets of footsteps pass his door. Lucien opens it and watches as they hurry down the hallway and turn the corner.
He knows he should get back into bed, take another supplement and let that calm him into some lonely sleep. He tiptoes down the hallway anyway, telling himself he can always turn back. He can’t close his eyes again, not yet. Not when his insides feel so blurry.
He turns the corner. From behind another door comes a shriek and Lucien hears a struggle. The rustling of bodies. He steps back to hide himself, then leans forward to see two men in white lifting someone parallel to the floor. Her. The girl is being held in the air, her legs writhing to get free, as a nurse and Dr. Sloane stand beside her.
His first thought is desperate. They’re hurting her.
Dr. Sloane places her hand on the girl’s restrained arm and says something to her, but the girl twists—a flash of ugly urgency in her face—and she manages to bite the male nurse’s arm. In the chaos, Dr. Sloane looks up, right at Lucien at the end of the hallway. He jumps back behind the corner, and when he looks again, one of the men pulls a needle out of the girl’s arm and her legs dangle limp.
The Shimmering State Page 8