Love Always (23 page)

“Are you carrying on with Hildon while she’s there?”

“I don’t carry on with Hildon. He’s my oldest friend. We went out on the Fourth of July with a bunch of people, including Hildon and Maureen.”

“God!” her mother said.

“I know that you like Maureen sight unseen because she’s a wife,” Lucy said.

“To feel sorry for her is not to say that I like her. If she stays married to Hildon, I don’t have much respect for her.”

“How is it this has turned into a conversation criticizing me?” Lucy said.

“I’m glad you realize that it’s criticism, instead of just thinking that I’m commenting,” her mother said. “Unless you or your sister are hit over the head, you act like I’m Dan Rather with the news.”

“You know I’m not going to give up a fifteen-year friendship
just to please you,” Lucy said. “Try to be nice to me. I don’t find it easy to break news like this to you.”

“Yes,” her mother said, softening her voice a little. “I can’t understand why your sister pretends to be afraid of me. She does anything she wants, and she knows I have no control over her.”

“How are you feeling? Is your hay fever better?”

“I have new antihistamines, but they make me too sleepy.”

“It
is
her own life,” Lucy said.

“I feel like she’s just thrown it to the wind,” her mother said. “She was that way when she was a baby, of course. She liked to be bought a balloon so she could let go of the string. She never even cried.”

“Well, she’s married him, and that’s that.”

“I’m going to go lie down,” her mother said. “If the pictures are going to upset me, don’t send them. If you talk to Piggy, tell him that he’d better have something good to say for himself when he calls me.”

“Goodbye,” Lucy said. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” her mother said. “Goodbye.”

Lucy felt sadder than she thought she would when she put down the receiver. She could see it from her mother’s perspective—that almost everything they did was strange and upsetting.

She thought about that as she left the house and drove to meet Hildon at the Hadley-Cooper’s. It wasn’t at all what her mother claimed—that she had conveniently found a sort of all-purpose person, a lover-husband-father in one: it wasn’t that, because Hildon wasn’t dependable. She could depend on him to be there, but she couldn’t guess about his mood, couldn’t change it, whatever it was—Hildon was still an enigma, after all these years. His recent good fortune seemed to have made him crazier instead of more stable.

She had asked Nicole if she wanted to go, knowing that it was safe to ask because, as usual, Nicole was sure to say no. She was going back to the house where she had gone to the party not long ago with Hildon. She was glad to have somewhere
to go, because she did not want to think about Jane. Hildon wanted her to see the pond, with the carp swimming in it, and a statue of Richard Nixon in the center, pissing.

At the last intersection before the house, she looked carefully at the map Hildon had drawn, that she had kept crumpled in her glove compartment. She found the unmarked driveway without any trouble, and got out of the car and went to one of the stone pillars. The pinkish stone below the lantern on the left was wired so it could be pushed, triggering a device that would make the iron gate rise so she could drive through. She felt like she was in a James Bond movie as she touched the stone and it moved. The gate rose slowly.

Hildon’s car was in front of the house, in the big circular driveway. The driveway looked enormous, almost empty of cars. He was throwing a yellow tennis ball for a Dalmatian in the field beside the house. The dog ran barking to the car.

“He won’t hurt you. Here, Kissinger!” Hildon called.

The dog raced back to where Hildon stood, and looked up at the tennis ball, eagerly. Lucy got out of the car. It was quite a mansion. The other night, she had not noticed the large holly bushes across the front, or the urns on the front steps with Norfolk Island pines in them. It was an enormous pale gray house—almost silver—with a catwalk across the top.

“They went to North Carolina for the week,” he said. “I have the key. Here’s the key.”

It was an ordinary key; she had expected some more dramatic way to enter the house.

“They went away and left the dog?”

“There’s a caretaker.”

“Who are these people?” she said.

“Just rich people. I changed a flat for Antoinette, and she asked me to come for a drink. She was very attractive, so I thought I would. They’re real Cindi Coeur fans. You’re going to have to come back sometime when they’re here.”

She noticed the inside of the house more this time. The house was traditional enough: a long Oriental runner in the hallway, a winding staircase, cherry furniture, primitive paintings of lumpy children and animals with bows around their
necks. She looked at the staircase, and thought of Myra DeVane. Les.

“I’ve got a great afternoon planned,” Hildon said. “There’s some Cakebread Cellars in a cooler in the other room. You’re really going to like the entertainment.”

Hildon gestured to a room at the end of the hallway. Inside, black velvet modular furniture made an L-shape in front of a screen. Hildon gestured for her to sit down. He touched a button and the screen widened. He touched another button and an image came on the screen and seemed to shake itself into focus. Hildon sat beside her and put his arm around her shoulder. She could see his wide smile in her peripheral vision.

And there they were: Lucy and Hildon, standing and talking to Matt Smith. She had expected pornography, and instead she was watching Maureen, in her sarong, pouring a glass of wine. At this point, Hildon removed his arm from around Lucy, sat forward, and poured from their bottle of wine. Maureen was turning to talk to Cameron Petrus. Suddenly there was a quick cut to Lucy, dancing with whoever that silly girl had been. Hildon picked up the remote control switch from the floor. He pushed a button and the videotape stopped. Maureen filled the screen, frowning, her hand almost in front of her face. Hildon released the button. In slow motion, Maureen’s frown deepened and her hand stopped in front of her eyes. That image was there as Hildon opened one button and slid his hand under Lucy’s blouse, cupping his hand around her smooth breast, then moving his fingertips. Between his thumb and first finger, he felt her nipple stiffen.

I
T
was one of the few times in his life Piggy Proctor had a typical response to anything. He stood with his hands at his sides, glanced down quickly as the sheet was pulled back, looked away, and fainted.

He must have talked himself back to consciousness, because the first voice he heard was his own, saying “Oh no” over and over. He was sitting on the floor. The floor felt like a slab of ice. The doctor was keeping him from falling over by supporting his shoulders. He was standing behind him. Piggy was leaning on the man’s legs, his own legs spread in front of him like somebody lounging in a chair at the seashore.

Tomorrow, if Jane hadn’t been dead, she would have been on the beach in Martinique, honeymooning with her new husband, who had just killed her.

“Mr. Proctor,” the doctor said, stepping back a few inches. “Do you feel able to stand?”

Even the suggestion made Piggy breathless. His heart was racing. “Sure,” he said. “Let’s get this show on the road, right?” He clapped his hands together. They were freezing.

The doctor was standing in front of him, helping him up. It felt like one side of his head had been crushed.

“I thought you were going to be wrong,” Piggy said. “I didn’t come in expecting this.”

“I’m very sorry,” the doctor said. “Will you come into the office and sign some forms? Is there anything I can do?”

He was holding Piggy’s hand like a schoolchild. He was maneuvering him out of the room.

“Who should I call?” Piggy said. “What am I going to do?”

They were in a corridor. Piggy didn’t remember the day outside being anywhere near this bright. He had been at his office, in the middle of getting his weekly Shiatsu massage, when his secretary came in and said that there was an extreme emergency. She was always interrupting him, and although it was for a good reason, Piggy continued to think that the best way to keep her in line was to communicate to her that if she couldn’t think of adjectives, the situation wasn’t desperate. He liked to see her worked up. If he had to be worked up all the time, he liked to have company. He suspected that his secretary had gone back to her Valium addiction; she had a longer and longer string of adjectives every time, but she spoke about the emergencies very dispassionately: “A most urgent, terrible, extremely upsetting problem has arisen,” she had said, then turned and wandered from the room.

Two days ago his wife had hit another car on Rodeo Drive. One of the roofers had lost his footing and had broken his hand as he fell off a ladder. Bobby Blue wanted to hang from a rope over the beach at Malibu with Tatum O’Neal instead of Nicole. His other secretary, Zeva, had misprogrammed the computer; not only had the man who was going to write the novelization of
Passionate Intensity
not written a book on Venus de Milo, but he was apparently some unheard of chump, whose name wouldn’t dignify the project.

“I can’t believe it. How did this happen? What am I ever going to say to Nicole?”

“Is that the next of kin?” the doctor said.

Of course! Of
course
the doctor didn’t realize the magnitude of what had happened. He sat in the chair the doctor pointed to.

“That was Nicole Nelson’s mother,” Piggy said.

“Did she have a young daughter?” the doctor said.

“Nicole Nelson. You know, she’s fourteen.” The doctor’s face registered nothing. “Stephanie Sykes.”

“She has two daughters?” the doctor said.

“
Passionate Intensity
!” Piggy hollered.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Proctor. I’m not following you.”

“You never heard of
Passionate Intensity
?”

“It’s from Yeats,” the doctor said.

“It’s a big hit on television,” Piggy said. “
Passionate Intensity
is gonna scoop
General Hospital
.”

“I’ve heard of
General Hospital
,” the doctor said. “I don’t watch much TV.”

“You’ve
heard
of it!” Piggy said.

“Mr. Proctor, how are you feeling? Is there anyone I could call for you?”

“You know the guy who used to be the midget on
Fantasy Island
?” Piggy said.

“Yes,” the doctor said.

“Ha!’ Piggy said. “You know his name, right?”

“Herve Villechaize,” the doctor said.

“See?” Piggy said. “He’s not still on the tube, and you know that name, right? You may not watch much television, but the unusual gets your attention. Everybody knows who the midget was on
Fantasy Island
.”

“He sat next to me on a flight to Hawaii,” the doctor said.

“You mean you never saw him on
Fantasy Island
?”

“No,” the doctor said.

“Then how did you know who he was?”

“He told me,” the doctor said.

“You’d know Stephanie Sykes if you saw her,” Piggy said. He shifted onto one buttock and pulled his wallet out of his back pocket. He flipped it open and handed it to the doctor.

The doctor looked, smiled, and handed it back. It was a picture of Piggy in a tuxedo and Nicole in a satin dress with rhinestones around the neck. The flashbulb seemed to be exploding on Piggy’s forehead. Piggy looked at the picture. He hated it that he was half bald.

“You’ve at least
heard
of
Passionate Intensity
,” Piggy said.

“I’ve only heard the line from Yeats,” the doctor said. “Are you feeling anxious? Is there anything I can do for you?”

“Yeats?” Piggy said.

“Yeats,” the doctor said. “The poet.”

“What are you talking about?” Piggy said, moving to the edge of his chair.

“ ‘The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity,’ ” the doctor said.

“You’re putting me on!” Piggy said. “Jack Dormett titled the show!”

“Mr. Proctor, if you’re able to concentrate now, I have a couple of brief forms that I’d like you to sign, and then if you wish to use the telephone, or—”

“How could it be a poem?” Piggy said. “I don’t know anything about that.”

The doctor stared at Piggy.

“Give me the line one more time,” Piggy said.

The doctor sighed. “It’s a line from
The Second Coming
,” the doctor said. “ ‘The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.’ ”

“The worst?” Piggy said. “Dormett wouldn’t dare put one over on me.”

“Mr. Proctor,” the doctor said. “Do you understand why I cannot continue this conversation?”

“Because I don’t converse,” Piggy said. That was what Jane always said; that he issued policy statements, talked to himself, cracked jokes, threatened violence, and used non sequiturs the way other people shook salt on their food. That he was so frustrating he was fascinating. Jane’s face was scratched and scarred from all the rocks and trees and bushes she had tumbled through when the motorcycle went off the road and plunged down the canyon. Jane was dead. Piggy put his face in his hands. He pressed his palms against his eyes until he saw yellow. As he pressed, the headache became worse. If Dormett had put one over on him, he would personally kill him. He looked up. The doctor was sitting behind his desk, his own chin cupped in his hand. He lowered his hand and looked as if he was about to speak, but he didn’t. The forms Piggy had to fill out were on his desk. Piggy reached for them. The doctor picked them up, stood, and brought them to Piggy. “Feel free to move your chair forward, or whatever is comfortable,” the doctor said. “I think I’m going to get a cup of coffee. Would you like a cup?”