80.

It had seemed like such a good simple idea, an exercise almost, to write a short story about a girl Jaime had known only slightly, but whose tragedy had terribly upset her. In real life the girl’s name had been Mary Bergendaal. Jaime kept the Mary for the overtone of the virginal, and made her last name Rosendaal. Rose, doll, and Scandinavian. The real Mary had been a French horn player with the Portland Symphony, who’d killed herself at the age of twenty-four. Charlie, coming home one night, had told her about the suicide, because she and Charlie had met the girl one afternoon downtown, with Marty Greenberg. Jaime recalled a soft little blonde girl, hanging onto Marty’s arm and not saying anything, her eyes unfocused.

“Is that Marty’s girlfriend?” she asked Charlie afterward. He just laughed. A month later she killed herself, blowing her brains out with a shotgun. Charlie had felt terrible, especially about laughing. “Oh, God, the things we all said about her.”

Jaime had begun her story at second remove, with the main characters reacting to her suicide, then threw away what she’d written and started over with Mary at the center. If she could write about Mary from the inside, maybe Jaime could animate the enormous sympathy she felt for her, and find out by the end of the story why she’d killed herself. Of course the obvious was the obvious. She’d killed herself because she was angry. It was a revenge killing. She was the blow queen, she gave everybody head, now she would show them what it really meant.

The story had grown as she’d submerged herself in Portland memories. She had enough material, really, for a good short novel. A story about Portland, centering on Mary but not restricted to her. Fifty-six pages in, she could imagine it would run to almost two hundred. Her instinct for the stories’ proportion was good by now. Today her head hurt and her stomach fluttered, but this wouldn’t stop her. Writing with a hangover, pecking out the words one painful letter at a time, pausing and staring without comprehension at the words, often produced her best material. She didn’t know why. Kira’s mysterious absence made her sweat with anxiety, but there was nothing to do but blot out everything and write. If you ever gave in, stayed in bed, let your anxiety win, you’d end up hugging your knees in terminal terror. “I can’t work! I’m going to die!” Instead she plugged away blindly, letting the words come without thought.

At some point she sat, panting, wondering what the next sentence would be, then realized she was done for the day. A light sweat covered her body. She picked up the pages she’d written. Four of them, just enough. She stood, wobbling slightly, and went into the bathroom, and there stripped off her tee shirt and underpants and got into the hot shower. Her mind was almost empty. She was shampooing her hair when she thought of Kira. Oh, shit. All the good feeling from work ran down the drain. She stood helpless under the spray, the worst mother in America. No wonder her daughter ran off, no wonder she couldn’t attract a decent man. She was just an old whore without a brain.

She was dressed in her favorite blue tee shirt and jeans, sitting at her desk correcting and editing the morning pages, when Kira came in through the back door. “Hi Mom,” she said, and opened the refrigerator door. Jaime’s face flushed. She sat with her arms at her sides, relief and anger flooding her. Kira had obviously only been upstairs. She hadn’t run away. She’d been visiting the neighbors, a couple of craftspeople, nice people, friends. If Jaime had been home, not drunk out in North Beach, she’d have known. As if to emphasize the point, her headache returned in full force. “Oh,” she groaned, as Kira came into her office wearing clothes Jaime had never seen before.

“Where the hell have you been?” Jaime asked, in a gnawing, whiny voice.

“Where the hell have you been?” Kira asked in an unkind imitation.

“Where did you get those clothes?”

Kira posed, her arms out like a model. “You like?” She wore pale pink crushed velvet bellbottoms and an emerald green silk blouse with long puffed sleeves. “Borrowed,” she said.

“You weren’t here when I got home,” Jaime said, and immediately regretted it.

Kira grinned at her. “When did you get home, Mom?” she asked.

Jaime smiled, and the episode was over. She’d failed to bawl Kira out for cutting school. Kira changed clothes and headed out the back door.

“Where are you going?” Jaime asked, though she knew.

“Back upstairs.”

“You aren’t bothering them, are you?” Jaime asked, as a formality. The couple upstairs liked having Kira visit.

“I’m learning how to carve,” she said. Jaime listened as Kira went up the wooden staircase. What a fucking relief. Now if only the hangover would go away, her life would be back in the groove. The telephone rang. Charlie.

“What’s going on?” he asked, sounding tired. Charlie was making a movie, at least he hoped he was. He’d started so many, but none had actually gotten made. “Where’s Kira?”

Jaime had forgotten calling the hotel. “Oh, it’s nothing,” she said.

There was a pause, some crackling on the line, then Charlie said, “The desk clerk told me you asked if she was here.”

“I thought she’d run off.” It was hard to force words out of her mouth. Talking to Charlie put her on the defensive. She explained what she could, but Charlie hardly sounded satisfied.

“There must be something going on, if you thought she’d come down here,” he said.

“Why don’t you just take her?” Jaime said dryly. “How’s the movie coming?”

“Fine,” Charlie said with some sarcasm in his voice. “How’s the book coming?”

“Fine,” she said in imitation.

Charlie chuckled. “Lemme talk to Kira.”

“She upstairs learning to be a craftsperson.” Charlie knew and liked the second-floor neighbors.

“How are you?” Charlie said after some silence.

“Fine. Hung over.”

“Did you write this morning?”

“Yeah. Did you?”

“Yeah. Well, Stan’s coming over, we’re gonna go out by the pool and pick up starlets.”

“Give him my best.”

“Tell Kira I love her.”

“I will.”

“G’bye.”

“Bye, Charlie.” She hung up. Another shower would be necessary. She held her forehead. It seemed hot. She should have known, the leather jacket was a dead giveaway. Kira wouldn’t run away without taking it. Jaime decided she was losing her mind. Not dramatically, just dribbling it away.

“Brain drain,” she said to no one.