The rest of our food arrives. We eat it. All of it.
Love continues her story. She says she dug deep. Her inspirational performances were Rosalind Russell in Auntie Mame and Goldie Hawn in The First Wives Club. “I knew one thing,” she said. “These people, who hate gay people and who essentially hated their own family member for being gay, they don’t want to think about her grinding on me. They don’t want to think about any of it. I mean, maybe they go to a benefit once a year and tolerate it, but they don’t want this fucking preppy lesbo in their house crying over Peach’s beautiful body.”
She drinks her water and continues. She told them to let it go, all of it, because you can’t prosecute the dead. She said that Peach was incontrovertibly in love with Guinevere Beck and that Beck for sure killed her.
“See,” she says. “The magic of this is that they won’t even breathe a word to anyone, because they don’t want Peach to be gay, let alone be murdered by a gay chick, you know?”
“That’s kind of brilliant,” I say.
She nods.
Our baklava arrives. I dig in and give her the first bite. “Mm,” she says. And she is happy. “You should have seen their faces, Joe. I was like, ‘I just need to go upstairs and be in our bed for a moment.’”
“Our bed.”
She nods. She opens her mouth. I stuff flaky Greek pastry inside of her and I can’t wait to fuck her. “That’s also pretty brilliant.”
“And then, obviously, I knew there was no way any one of them was coming upstairs to see what the preppy lesbo was doing up there, so I went room to room and I found the mug and tucked it into my Kate Spade purse and then I went downstairs and offered to make a statement to the police about my relationship with Peach.”
I choke. “Holy shit,” I say. “That’s hysterical.”
“Yes,” she says. “They almost lost it, then helped me leave out the back door and asked if I wouldn’t mind going back to my car from the public parking lot. You know, so it can feel like none of this ever happened.”
“Brilliant,” I say. “But there’s one problem.”
She wipes her cheeks with her napkin. “What’s that?”
“When Boots and Puppies comes out . . .”
She rolls her eyes. “You mean when it’s dumped on Netflix.”
“Either way,” I say. “They’re going to recognize you.”
“Who the fuck cares? I never said who I was or how I knew Peach, and I can say I am bi or something. I don’t care. The girl is dead and we were secret lovers. What can you ever do about that?”
There is no more baklava left and I get a Google alert and the Salingers are preparing to ask the Little Compton Police Department to stop the investigation for personal family reasons that have come to light. There is light, fluttering Greek guitar on the stereo and the goblets on all the tables are New England blue. My belly is full. My love is real.
“We should talk baby stuff,” I say. “I don’t know the first thing.”
“You seem to know how to make ’em pretty good.”
I know what she wants and I want it too and we pay the check and sneak into the bathroom and it’s the strongest sex we’ve ever had.
Outside, we pass the Brown Bookstore and college kids walk and we are so lucky to be older. They are all either drunk or nervous and I can’t imagine having homework. I put my arm around Love and she pulls me tighter.
“Should we get one of those What to Expect books?” I ask.
Love says yes but holds up a finger. Her dad is calling. “Hi, Daddy,” she says, and it hits me. Someday my child will call me and say that, hi, Daddy.
The crosswalk turns white. It’s our turn to go. But we don’t go. Love trembles. “Daddy, Daddy, wait,” she says. “One second.” She puts her hand over the phone. She looks like she’s had a stroke and her face is a battlefield. Her muscles spasm.
“Are you okay?”
“Joe,” she says. “They found him. They found Forty! He’s alive!”
I hear her dad faintly coming through the phone, Love! Love!
And now I feel like I’m having a stroke, but I have to fake it or else I’ll seem like a psycho and I grin and pull her into a hug. “Yes!”
We run back to the car, no books for us, no time. Forty’s alive. Alive! I may as well be back in that bathroom hurling my body at the door. He’s alive. How? I picture a couple of shrooming college kids imitating Boyhood and roaming the desert, finding the hot springs. He’s alive. I picture one spotting the body, unsure if it was a hallucination or if the body was real.
She tells me it’s a miracle. “Some girl found him and he’s in a hospital in Reno and he’s fine.” She smacks her lips. “He’s fine. This is so Forty, just like the time he disappeared in Russia.”
“Reno?” I say.
Love nods. “Apparently this girl found him in the desert, I don’t know where. She picked him up, he was passed out, dehydrated, and she brought him to the hospital and they put him on an IV and he’s gonna be fine.”
It’s the worst diagnosis in the world. And I am not gonna be fine. I am fucked. I think of my acting manuals. I must not ask questions. Love unlocks the car. “The guy has nine lives,” she says. “And I mean phew.”
“I can’t wait to talk to him,” I say.
“Well, you will,” she says. “My dad says he’s talking up a storm.”
“That’s crazy,” I observe, in my peppiest voice.
“Right?” she asks. “I mean, of course he doesn’t remember a damn thing about how he got there and his last memory is at the Bellagio but, you know, that’s my brother.”
We drive to the airport. We don’t talk about our baby. We just gush over Forty. And this is my fault. I did not check for a pulse. I did not finish my job. In spite of everything I’ve learned from the mug of piss, I didn’t put that knowledge into action. I’m like an asshole in a sitcom who learns the same fucking lesson every week and this is my life.
My phone buzzes. It’s Forty:
See you soon, Professor.
51
IT’S a long flight to Reno. I pretend to read Mr. Mercedes and we talk intermittently about the baby but mostly it’s all about Forty. Love shares the good news on Facebook and writes back to various worried friends. Love e-mails with her mom about whether or not he needs rehab. The answer is no. Ha.
I don’t mention Roosevelt; it’s like our conversation never happened. It is unbearable, the way she smiles about him surviving, the way he sits in a room in Reno, conscious, aware that I am the one who put him there, who left him in the hot water to die.
We arrive in Reno and there is a car waiting for us at the airport and the driver says it won’t be long until we get to the hospital and I pray for a crash or an earthquake on the inside and I deserve an Oscar because I’m so good.
Love says we shouldn’t tell anyone about the baby just yet and I say okay and my prayers are unanswered when we reach the fourth floor. The building doesn’t crumble or shake and I can already hear him in the room, loud, cognizant, on the phone. “Reese is interested? That’s bananas!”