Don't I Know You? (22 page)

“You sound Canadian, Rose,” said Meryl. “The way you say ‘about.'”

“I'm from Toronto, actually.”

Meryl clapped. “Toronto! I was up there for the film festival last year. I
loved
it. Don and I have fantasies of moving up there sometime.”

“But the weather's not great. Even the summers.”

“Oh, the weather's crap everywhere now,” said Meryl, waving her hand like someone talking to a smoker.

A door opened and a pretty Asian woman with silver eyelids emerged.

“Rose? Hi, I'm Kumiko. Come on in.”

As she went by Meryl, the actress gave her arm a pat.

“See you at dinner, Rose. Or maybe we could sneak into town, get some fish tacos. I'd love a cold beer.”

“Sure. Me too. I'm in Room 344.”

“Have a good session.” She stuck out one leg with a delicate purple starburst on the calf. “I'm getting my spider veins done too. Zip-zap!”

Rose stepped into a small dark chamber and climbed onto the padded table.

“She's sooo nice.” Kumiko sighed. “I wish everyone was like her.”

“She does seem nice,” Rose said, trying to be warmer and more vivacious than usual.

“We get lots of celebrities here, and some of them…” Kumiko bundled warm sheets around Rose, leaving her feet bare. She began pressing a point on the arch of her left foot and Rose felt a deep, gratifying ache.

“It's a bit tender there.”

“That's your transverse colon. Don't overdo the brown rice here. People think you can't go wrong with brown rice, but it's extremely acidic.”

She gave herself over to Kumiko's skillful prodding, and her spa-oppressed spirits began to lift. Soon she would be eating fish tacos with Meryl Streep.

*   *   *

Rose pulled her roller bag out of the taxi. It was March but freakishly warm. The front yard was pooled with meltwater, and the flotsam hidden under the snow all winter long had surfaced: ash-white dog shit, a stiff mitten, broken branches from the January ice storm.

She could hear her landline ringing as she unlocked the door. A dash-dot-dot long-distance ring. She put on her cold telemarketer answering voice and picked it up.

“You made it!” It was Meryl, already laughing.

“Hi! Yeah, I'm just back now. Sorry about the voice, I thought you were someone calling from India.”

“Give me your address, I want to send you something I found in O'Hare when I was making my connection.”

“Oh, wow. That's so nice.” Rose spelled out her street and postal code.

“It's nothing, a set of place mats made of sweet grass, but I thought of you when I saw them. The thing you said over dinner, about Eric never wiping the place mats.”

“Right.”

Meryl lowered her voice. “Any more emails? About Chips and Vinegar?”

Rose winced. After two beers in town with Meryl she had overshared about the baby names Eric and Judy had already picked for the twins—Charity and Viggo.

“No. Just that one.” Rose could hear a yappy dog barking in the background.

“Luther!” Meryl spoke sharply. The barking stopped.

“Listen, do you mind if I give Don your novel? He's a big snorkeler, he knows everything about reefs.”

As Meryl talked, Rose tried to shrug out of her down coat, and got her scarf tangled in the phone cord. It was really time to ditch the landline.

“What's it like in New York now?”

“A
mass
of blossoms in the park. So gorgeous. It's good to be back home. But I miss our conversations.”

“Yeah, me too.” Rose doodled a crooked tree on the phone pad.

“And I've been rethinking what I said, you know, about the decapitation passage? It's not too much, not when you read it in context.”

“I did do some research,” Rose said. “Very few women have ever decapitated anyone. It's an anomaly. But it has happened.”

“And for Renata, it does kind of make sense. After what she's been through. Such an interesting character.”

“You think?”

“Absolutely. My only thought was, maybe the ending could be a shade tighter. Decapitation, news item, underwater shot of Renata swimming through a school of fish, then zip-zap, end credits. Unless I've been reading too many screenplays.…”

“No, no, that could work.” Rose was still in her coat, overheating. “Well, I just got in the door, so—”

“Rose, listen, there's a benefit I've been invited to speak at, in Toronto, for ovarian cancer. Why don't I fly up for a quick visit?”

“Really? That sounds, that sounds great. When were you thinking?”

“Friday.” Two days away.

“Which hotel?”

“Oh no, I'll just bunk in with you, if that's okay. I get tired of hotels.”

A sheen of sweat broke out on Rose's brow.

“My place is tiny, but there's a spare bedroom you're welcome to. No white robes, though.”

Meryl gave a laugh that went up and down the scale. “Thank
God
we're out of there. And please don't go to any trouble. Just take me somewhere where they make a good martini.”

“That I can do.”

“I got you a little pedometer too, so we can see how many steps we take in a day. We'll walk everywhere. I can't wait.”

They hung up and Rose felt a wave of anxiety. Why was Meryl Streep so interested in her? It didn't seem sexual. She obviously adored her husband. Her kids were all grown up, successful. Her other girlfriends were people like Oprah. What did Rose have to offer that Oprah didn't?

She moved through her house, looking at it with movie star eyes. The bedspread in the spare room needed cleaning, and those cheap vinyl shower curtains would have to go. She'd buy some memory-foam pillows, a vial of lavender, and a nice sleep mask. The actress was a light sleeper, she knew. Then there was the question of where to take Meryl Streep in Toronto. The spice stalls in Kensington Market? The new aquarium? She studied a copy of
NOW
magazine that ranked the city's restaurants, and settled on foie gras poutine at Yours Truly on Ossington. There was a documentary playing at the Bloor, about backup singers, called
Twenty Feet from Stardom
. Which could be amusing for someone who lived at stardom's ground zero.

So, dinner and a movie it would be. Like a couple on a date.

*   *   *

The airport limo door opened and Meryl stepped out bundled in a mango-orange shawl and gray leather gloves. The sun was shining, but the March wind had turned gusty, bitter. The actress went through Rose's small pretty house, exclaiming, sighing, plucking at mohair throws, touching the paintings. She went into the spare bedroom.

“My favorite pillows!” she said sprawling across the bed. “How did you know? Plus all the books I could ever want. This is
perfecto
.” She plucked Rose's novel off the bookshelf.

“I'll read this in bed,” she said, putting
The Bludgeoning
beside the vial of lavender.

Later the poutine was a hit too, although they both longed to have naps afterward. The movie didn't start for a while, so they walked up Ossington, heads bent into the wind.

“What are cheese curds, anyway?” said Meryl. “Are they the beginning or the end of the whole cheese process?”

“Yesterday Eric sent me a photo of himself, with pregnant Judy,” Rose blurted out.

“That's a bit weird. Don't you think? Did you ask for one?”

“No, of course not. I think it is weird.”

“So what does she look like?”

“Dark bangs, big glasses, all covered up. Not his usual type. But she was his therapist before they got involved. All very taboo.”

Meryl tucked her arm through Rose's. “We never really know who we're living with. Sometimes I look over at Donald when he's sleeping, and think … Who is this dear, unfathomable human being beside me?”

“At least he's beside you,” murmured Rose. They'd had martinis before wine with dinner.

On the way to the cinema, they passed a dark shop front with a pink neon sign.

PSYCHIC READINGS BY SYBIL. HANDS, TAROT, TEA LEAVES—
$20
.

Meryl peered through the window into a space that resembled all fortune-telling vestibules: dim, cluttered, with leggy plants in the corner and several cats slinking about.

“We've got some time to kill,” said Meryl, opening the door. “Come on.”

Rose followed Meryl into a room that smelled of aromatherapy oils, with a sign beside a metal ring on a cord that read
PLEASE PULL FOR SERVICE
. Meryl tugged on it. The cord spooled out and whipped back into place with a whir, like an old-fashioned outboard motor.

“What's wrong with a simple bell?” Rose muttered.

This made Meryl giggle. The color was high in the actress's face. She was the most excitable, responsive person Rose had ever met. Her laugh had an extensive vocabulary of beginnings, middles, and ends, in different tempos, and everything seemed to capture her interest. This caused Rose to feel more self-conscious about her own aloofness, her circumspection and Canadian monotone. But these qualities only seemed to make Rose more appealing to Meryl.

They whirred the cord again. One of the cats ran into the back room, where they could hear pot lids rattling, followed by the scuff of slippers. A hand parted the beaded curtain in the doorway and a striking older woman emerged. She had a cloud of white-and-ash curls, up-slanted greenish eyes, and remarkable cheekbones, porcelain and shiny. A fuchsia scarf was looped around her throat, warming her pale skin.

“Welcome,” said Sybil. “You must be freezing. But this is what we get for driving SUVs.”

Meryl pulled the shawl off her head and unbuttoned her coat.

“Yes, I'd like a reading,” said Meryl with a creamy smile. “If this is a good time for you.”

Sybil shrugged. “I'm always here working in the back, so any time is good. Tea leaves, palms, Tarot cards? Or I can do a combo for forty dollars.”

“Whatever you feel like,” said Meryl. “Whatever you think is appropriate.”

“Let's start with the hands then.” Sybil took Meryl's left hand and turned it palm-up.

“Huh,” she said. “Interesting.”

“What?” said Meryl, craning forward. Sybil gave Rose a sideways, diagnostic glance.

“Does your friend want a reading too?”

“Oh, we don't have time for two,” said Rose. “Just pretend I'm not here.”

“It's okay, we're together,” said Meryl.

Sybil smiled a cool, broad smile.

“Then come with me,” she said, slipping through the curtain.

Rose and Meryl followed her into a room lit by drooping strings of white Christmas lights. There were books on a sideboard by authors of a certain vintage, names Rose recognized—Primo Levi, Jane Gardam, Fay Weldon. A long-haired cat was curled asleep in an armchair.

“Minky has claimed the best one, as usual,” said Sybil.

Rose perched on the arm and Meryl sat across from the fortune-teller at a gray Formica table.

“I like your coat,” Sybil said to Meryl. “Max Mara?”

“No, Tom Ford,” said Meryl, blushing. She was not the least bit vain but, as she told Rose, she had come to appreciate well-made clothes. And designers kept giving her things.

“It's a good length,” said Sybil. “What's the point of a winter coat that doesn't cover your rear end?”

“That's so true,” said Meryl, laughing a little nervously and laying both hands on the table. She wore almost no makeup, as usual, and had the same womanly hips as she did in
The Bridges of Madison County
. It gave Rose a certain satisfaction to see those squarish hip corners, just like hers. But inside, the actress was all youth and appetite—a fun gal, generous with her radiance. Rose felt more girlish and alive around the actress. Also, Meryl seemed to find everything Rose said hilarious.

“I don't know why Nutella hasn't caught on in a big way,” Rose had said one night while they were lined up at the spa buffet. “Who could argue with chocolate and hazelnuts?” This caused Meryl to hoot with laughter.

“Nutella! You're right, it should be
huge
, like peanut butter.”

Using a barbecue lighter, Sybil lit some tea lights under saucers of oil. A sharp scent filled the room.

“Bergamot and eucalyptus. Good for the nasal passages, commerce, and memory. But before we get down to work…” She cocked her head in a birdlike way and smiled at Meryl. Her mouth curved up at the corners, like a child's drawing of a smile.

“Oh, of course,” said Meryl, rummaging in her eggplant-colored Kate Spade bag. She took some bills out of a pocketbook.

“I only have American.”

“American's okay,” said Sybil with a faint knitting of the brows.

“And no small bills, I'm afraid.”

“Well, I'll do your feet too.”

She tucked the money into a book and poured tea from a black iron pot into three thumb-sized cups.

“Assam and astragalus. Good for the immune system.”

Rose sipped: liquid smoke. Delicious. She drank it down.

“Do you ever do the future, as a whole?” she asked Sybil. “Like, what's in store for all of us?”

“Oh sure. For a hundred and twenty dollars I do a comprehensive global forecast, but I can tell you right now, it won't be good. Carbon emissions over 445 ppm. Hundreds of species disappearing every day. Thousands. And of course the oceans are dying. But nobody cares because the ocean doesn't have a face, and big brown eyes.”

“I know, I've done some research on coral reefs,” Rose piped up.

“What's happening to the reefs is just a
trailer
for the devastation to come,” said Sybil without losing her Delphic smile. “And don't get me going on human sexual reproduction! Count yourself lucky to have all that behind you.”