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?”