Despite the prior evening’s many social interactions, I step with relief into the Bizarre and immediately begin telling Randi about the cribs. She fixes my drink and chatters about her evening spent scouring the Internet in search of someone to fix her espresso machine’s wand. To no avail, of course.
I get comfortable at the counter.
While checking my phone, the sugar/caffeine high begins to take hold, and I’m just now realizing how lucky I am that dress still fit last night. I’ve stayed the same size, okay, but the quality has gone from high-end department store to outlet strip mall. Then again, maybe it’s better just to be scrawny than to meet with a really boring trainer three days a week. Because the exciting trainers were even more annoying.
I hated exercising then, and I hate exercising now. But with that interview coming up in a little while, I might want to start getting my arms in better shape.
What am I doing? What if this big interview ends up being something absolutely no one cares about? Bouncing back from that sort of humiliation would be near impossible.
My cell phone rings.
“It’s Jessica,” I tell Randi.
“Oh, be my guest! This might be good!” She pushes her pencil into her beehive and crosses her arms.
I nod and push the button. “This is early for you, Mother.”
“And even earlier out here, Fiona. But I’m sure you remember that.”
Of course.
She continues, “Things are really heating up in the tabloids this time. Whoever’s writing these things knows what they’re doing. And the photos. They are going to some lengths, which makes me feel good about the promotion for the film. Oh, what they can do with a computer now! I look better than ever. Who says these new girls have anything on us?”
Who indeed?
“They even flew your father over to George Clooney’s place and snapped pictures of him with that new singer everyone’s talking about. Cute girl, but such a little girl. What? Twenty-two? And people are lapping it up. He’s still on the cutting edge of things, like always, thank God. Have you seen?”
“I don’t read the tabloids anymore.”
She actually gasps. Not a beefy, “I can’t believe you didn’t know Aunt Susan used to be Uncle Bob” gasp, but more than an “I think I might have forgotten to turn off the curling iron” intake. “Are you really that disinterested in your father and me?”
All because I don’t read the National Enquirer.
“Mother—”
“You surprise me, Fiona,” she says. I picture her in her “martyr’s chamber,” an eight-by-eight bedroom that’s only packing a single bed and a nightstand, testifying to her vow of never sleeping with any man again in an attempt to make Brandon feel guilty.
Okay. If it worked. But it doesn’t.
“But whatever you might think, I almost can’t wait to see what happens next!” she says. “And of course people are commenting all over the Internet in my favor. Or so my publicist told me when she called. It’s glorious! They think he’s such a scoundrel.”
I don’t tell her this sounds like it all might actually be true and maybe her soon-releasing film is a coincidence. Even if I wanted to say it, she’s on a roll.
“They say he’s soon to sue me for divorce and half my personal fortune! Ha! Even Brandon wouldn’t be that stupid. But the public will lap it up!”
“They always do.”
“Don’t you just love the way the same plot twists work over and over? Brandon is brilliant in some regards. And a complete numbskull in others, granted. But if it keeps us in the news . . . So, Fiona. I’m coming to Baltimore in a few weeks, just to see you.”
I’ve been waiting for this call for over ten years, all of my life, actually. Jessica, finally making me a priority. And now that it’s here, I can hardly think of anything I’d like less.
“When?”
“In a few weeks, like I just said. But maybe sooner. Should I assume you’ll be able to put me up?”
“Hardly. I’m finally renovating around here. You’ll have to get a hotel room.”
“Well, if that suits you best.” She seems relieved, though. “I’ll leave it to you to find something suitable. And while I’m in Baltimore, I want to visit the offices of Jasper Venn and his studio as well. I’ve always wanted to guest star in a gritty police drama, and my agent thinks that now’s the time.”
“Actually, that sounds like fun.” Big Mike could drive us. There most likely would be no pictures taken. Add to the fact that gritty police dramas have dwindled under the hot stream of meth and motorcycle clubs, zombies, and three-martini lunches, and there’s no reason why I shouldn’t take a stroll around Jasper’s corpse of a set. Shoot, maybe Jessica’s presence would make the show itself a zombie of sorts, resurrected but still saying things like, “I am a gritty cop with a sad past and addiction or religion issues. Uuuuuhn.”
She pauses. “I wouldn’t want to bother you with it.”
“The show is a little old-fashioned,” I say, wincing at my own childish reaction to her. Once again, rejection.
“Well, kinda. The show is on its last legs, if you want the truth.”
She says nothing, then, “What about other shows? What are the biggies, then?”
“None that film in Baltimore.”
“Hmm.” I hear her tap the phone with her fingernail. Will she come see me anyway?
“Are you sure you want to come now? I mean, with the renovations and all?” I ask above the noise of the woodpecker inside my phone.
She stops tapping. “Nonsense. I’ve never seen your home. It’s about time for that, Fiona. You’ve done the hermit thing just a little too long now.”
No. I haven’t.
“Well, let me at least think about it.”
“Think all you want, I’ll still be booking that flight. I wish you didn’t live across the country. You know I’d much rather take the train.”
After we ring off, I watch Randi and sip on my latte. That woman right there with her sweet little shop and her nice customers? She has the life.
The golden evening arrives accompanied by a pink that’s more ballet slipper than cotton candy. I don’t feel like going on a date, and I don’t usually work in my studio at night because the basement transforms into a mad murderer’s workshop, the foul old lair of one who employs odd devices to ply his trade and sneaks into my basement to do it. And that’s enough said about that! I always refused to do horror flicks for a reason.
I should try to at least think about what I’m going to do for the Bizarre. But all the supplies down there don’t help in this regard, okay. The dog-eared vision of a box of doll parts has not gone unrealized. But the accompanying idea was to make a work decidedly un-creepy with them. It’s a tall order, and no idea, shimmery and bright with promise, has entered my mind yet. One doll in particular continues to fascinate me, though, a little boy doll dressed in a velvet short-pants suit and a white shirt with a lace collar designed to swallow his head if the situation warrants it. He should look like he’ll end up in heels and a wig someday, but there’s something defiant in his eyes, as if he’s saying, “Oh, don’t you worry about me, lady. I’ve planned quite the revenge for having to wear this outfit. Just wait until I turn fifteen.” Maybe I should just pull him out and pitch the rest.
It’s just the impetus I need.
I trek down to that dark basement, yank the gray string hanging like a weary subway commuter from the light fixture, and go right for the box. I tuck Edwin, for that is what he looks like, under my arm, then haul the box up the inside steps and out to the back porch to join the other boxes.
According to Big Mike, there’s hope in the present moment, and presently I actually feel like going through the boxes I stacked out here just before Josia moved in. If I don’t make the most of it, I’m an idiot. And I take a minute to talk myself out of talking myself out of it like I always seem to do.
I really am my own worst enemy.
The large moon shines in sympathy tonight, providing enough clear light to complete the task. By the time eleven rolls around, I’ve separated the items into a keep stack and a discard stack. Edwin sits on the iron chaise wondering what I’m going to do with him now, and truthfully, I just don’t know. But I simply will not leave him here on the porch. He’ll have to come inside with me. This horrid doll outfit that smells exactly like the basement has to go, and right now.
Here’s to nothing being better than something.
So I strip Edwin bare immediately and pitch his ridiculous velvet suit with the giant lace collar onto the discard pile. Passing through the hallway, no light beams from under Josia’s door. I don’t think he’s come home yet and now it’s almost eleven fifteen. I hope he’s okay. But the crib ends had gone missing again when I woke up earlier in the day, so I know he’s continuing his work. I picture a forge fire escaping its confines and burning down the whole operation.
That would be so sad. Maybe I’ll get to see the forge someday. I don’t know. Extending me an invitation at this point would be way out of line, and Josia knows that.
I pour a glass of chocolate milk, then grab my phone on my way upstairs. I bathe poor naked Edwin in my bathroom sink, scrubbing years of grime off the porcelain. In my bedroom I dress him in one of my old white T-shirts, the smallest one I can find. He looks like a little ghost.