Texas is speeding past the bedroom window outside. In the twilight, a sign goes by the window saying, Oklahoma City 250 Miles. The whole room shakes. The walls are papered with tiny yellow flowers vibrating so fast they make me travel-sick. Anywhere I go in this bedroom, I can still see myself in the mirror.
My skin is going regular white without the ultraviolet light I need. Maybe it's just my imagination, but one of my caps feels loose. I try not to panic.
I tear off my shirt and study myself for damage. I stand sideways and suck in my stomach. I could really use a preloaded syringe of Durateston right about now. Or Anavar. Or Deca-Durabolin. My new hair color makes me look washed-out. My last eyelid surgery didn't take, and already my eye bags show. My hair plugs feel loose. I turn to study myself in the mirror for any hair growing on my back.
A sign goes by the window saying, Soft Shoulders.
The last of my bronzer is caked in the corners of my eyes and the wrinkles around my mouth and across my forehead.
I try and nap. I pick apart the mattress ticking with my fingernails.
A sign goes by the window saying, Slower Traffic Keep Right.
There's a knock at the door.
"I have a cheeseburger if you want it," Fertility says through the door and all the piled-up furniture.
I don't want a greasy damn fatty damn cheeseburger, I yell back.
"You need to eat sugar and fat and salt until you get back to normal," Fertility says. "This is for your own good."
I need a full body wax, I yell. I need hair mousse.
I'm pounding on the door.
I need two hours in a good weight room. I need to go three hundred stories on a stair climbing machine.
Fertility says, "You just need an intervention. You're going to be fine."
She's killing me.
"We're saving your life."
I'm retaining water. I'm losing definition in my shoulders. My eye bags need concealer. My teeth are shifting. I need my wires tightened. I need my dietitian. Call my orthodontist. My calves are wasting away. I'll give you anything you want. I'll give you money.
Fertility says, "You don't have money."
I'm famous.
'You're wanted for mass murder."
Her and Adam have to get me some diuretics.
"Next time we stop," Fertility says, "I'll get you a skinny double americano."
That's not enough.
"It's more than you'd get in prison."
Let's rethink this, I say. In prison, I'd have weight equipment. I'd have time in the sun. They must have sit-up boards in prison. I could maybe get black-market Winstrol. I say, Just let me out. Just unblock this door.
"Not until you're making sense."
I WANT TO GO TO PRISON!
"In prison, they have the electric chair."
I'll take that risk.
"But they might kill you."
Good enough. I just need to be the center of a lot of attention. Just one more time.
"Oh, you go to prison, and you'll be the center of attention."
I need moisturizer. I need to be photographed. I'm not like regular people, to survive I need to be constantly interviewed. I need to be in my natural habitat, on television. I need to run free, signing books.
"I'm leaving you alone for a while," Fertility says through the door. "You need a time out."
I hate being mortal.
"Think of this as My Fair Ladyor Pygmalion,only backward."
The next time I wake up, I'm delirious and Fertility is sitting on the edge of my bed, massaging cheap petroleum-based moisturizer into my chest and arms.
"Welcome back," she says. "We almost thought you weren't going to make it."
Where am I?
Fertility looks around. "You're in a Maplewood Chateau with the midrange interior package," she says. "Seamless linoleum in the kitchen, no-wax vinyl floor covering in the two bathrooms. It's got easy-clean patterned vinyl wallboard instead of Sheetrock, and this one is decorated in the blue-and- green Seaside theme."
No, I whisper, where in the world?
Fertility says, "I knew that's what you meant."
A sign goes by the window saying, Detour Ahead.
The room around us is different than I remember. A wallpaper border of dancing elephants goes around next to the ceiling. The bed I'm in has a canopy and white machine-made lace curtains hanging around it and tied back with pink satin ribbons. White louvered shutters flank the windows. The reflection of Fertility and me is framed in a heart-shaped mirror on the wall.
I ask, What happened to the Maison?
"That was two houses ago," Fertility says. "We're in Kansas now. In half a four-bedroom Maplewood Chateau. It's the top of the line in manufactured houses."
So it's really nice?
"Adam says it's the best," she says, smoothing the covers over me. "It comes with color-coordinated bed linens, and there are dishes in the dining-room cabinets that match the mauve of the velvet sofa and love seat in the living room. There's even color-coordinated mauve towels in the bathroom. There's no kitchen though, at least not in this half. But I'm sure wherever it's at, the kitchen is mauve."
I ask, Where's Adam?
"Sleeping."
He wasn't worried about me?
"I told him how this was all going to work out," Fertility says. "Actually, he's very happy."
The bed curtains dance and swing with the movement of the house.
A sign goes by the window saying, Caution.
I hate that Fertility knows everything.
Fertility says, "I know that you hate that I know everything."
I ask if she knows I killed her brother.
As easy as that, the truth comes out. My whole deathbed confession.
"I know you talked to him the night he died," she says, "but Trevor killed himself."
And I wasn't his homosexual lover.
"I knew that, too."
And I was the voice on the crisis hotline she talked dirty to.
"I know."
She rubs a handful of moisturizer between her palms and then smooths it into my shoulders. "Trevor called your fake crisis hotline because he was looking for a surprise. I've been after you for the same thing."
With my eyes closed, I ask if she knows how this will all turn out.
"Long-term or short-term?" she asks.
Both.
"Long-term," she says, "we're all going to die. Then our bodies will rot. No surprise there. Short-term, we're going to live happily ever after."
Really?
"Really," she says. "So don't sweat it."
I look at myself getting older in the heart-shaped mirror.
A sign goes by the window saying, Drive to Stay Alive.
A sign goes by the window saying, Speed Checked by Radar.
A sign goes by the window saying, Lights On for Safety.
Fertility says, "Can you just relax and let things happen?"
I ask, does she mean, like disasters, like pain, like misery? Can I just let all that happen?
"And Joy," she says, "and Serenity, and Happiness, and Contentment." She says all the wings of the Columbia Memorial Mausoleum. "You don't have to control everything," she says. "You can't control everything."
But you can be ready for disaster.
A sign goes by saying, Buckle Up.
"If you worry about disaster all the time, that's what you're going to get," Fertility says.
A sign goes by saying, Watch Out for Falling Rocks.
A sign goes by saying, Dangerous Curves Ahead.
A sign goes by saying, Slippery When Wet.
Outside the window, Nebraska is getting closer by the minute.
The whole world is a disaster waiting to happen.
"I want you to know I won't always be here," Fertility says, "but I'll always find you."
A sign goes by the window saying, Oklahoma 25Miles.