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Jared looked up at her and smiled, his face clearing into its usual charm. “Emily, great,” he said. Then he looked a little self-conscious and asked, “Have you seen Zaza?”

“No.” She felt conscience-stricken. It hadn’t even occurred to her to look for Zaza. “She’ll be here. You know there’s no chance she wouldn’t come.”

“But something might have gone wrong. She might have missed the flight, and then she’d have to buy a ticket last-minute, and I don’t think she has the money. I should have given her money.”

“Jared, calm down,” she said, sitting beside him. “Even if that happened, you could wire her some money, couldn’t you?”

“But she’s not answering her phone!” He held up his cell phone, which she now realized was what he’d been hunched over when she entered the plane.

“And?”

“She never doesn’t answer her phone.” His face had reverted to a mask of despondency.

“But she never doesn’t answer her phone because she’s crazy about you, right?”

He looked cheered for an instant, but then his jaw set stubbornly again. “People change their minds.”

Emily laughed. “You’re nuts.”

“I don’t need you to tell me that. I was thinking I should get off the plane and go look for her.”

“So you’re saying you know that’s insane?”

“Well, exactly. But I still keep wanting to do it.” He shook his head. “I should have slept with her. I don’t know what I was thinking. Well, I know what I was thinking, but I always assumed I’d see her again.”

“And you will.”

He carried on as if he hadn’t heard. “I just didn’t realize how hard it was on her; I was too fucking focused on how hard it was on me. I’m such an idiot.”

“That’s the most sensible thing you’ve said so far.”

He looked at her with a sheepish smile. “I’m not doing very well, am I?”

“Oh, I think you’re doing a great job of being a lovesick fool.”

“Pot, kettle.”

“Granted.” They smiled at each other. She added, “Just incidentally, me, too. Dying.”

“No word?”

She shook her head and felt again that ache behind her eyes of suppressed tears.

“I guess it won’t do any good if I promise to beat him up,” said Jared.

“No good whatsoever.”

“See, I know these things.”

Emily sat back in her chair, just in time to avoid being hit by a paper airplane. She looked up and saw Jorge—or was it Javier?—standing naked with a disappointed look on his face. “You
ducked
,” he accused her. “I aimed at you especially.”

“I’m not playing!” Emily called out, giving him what she hoped was a pleasant smile. “Not in the mood!”

He cocked his head and said, “Moods are to be overcome, my love.”

Jared said, “Stop bothering the lady.”

At that moment, a paper airplane hit Javier/Jorge in the head. Following after it came a buxom brunette in a skating dress, who threw her arms around him and said, “You’re it!” He immediately inserted his hand under her skirt and purred, “No underwear. Sabine, my love, we’re twins.” They tangled and subsided to the ground, until Sabine was straddling Jorge/Javier on the floor, riding him with her generous breasts bobbing.

“Maybe Zaza shouldn’t be here to see this,” Jared said, watching.

“Oh, he’s not that good-looking,” Emily said, without conviction. Then, to distract him: “Hey, Friselle Belesci was just comforting me.”

He laughed. “Friselle Belesci is an alien from outer space.”

“Oh, come on.”

“She’s forty-two. Have you ever seen a wrinkle on that woman?” Jared was studying the open door to the plane again. Two jaded flight attendants were standing by the door now, one of them surveying the melee while the other peered out at the airport. “I think they’re going to close the door. Should I make a run for it?”

“No.”

At that moment, the flight attendant began to pull the door shut. Jared slumped back in his seat, defeated. “God. I hate myself.”

“Listen, I just told Michael I’m leaving.”

For a moment, Jared didn’t react. He was still staring as the door fell into place and the flight attendant turned the lock. Then he blinked and looked at Emily. “What? You told him you were quitting XTV?”

“I don’t know if he took me seriously.”

“Should he have?”

She nodded slowly. “I can’t do it anymore. I mean, even if Ralph isn’t . . . you know. I want to go back to real life.”

“Wow. You’re really brave. I would just go into hiding.”

“Well, I had to tell them sooner or later.”

“From your hiding place at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, yes. I can see that. But . . . this won’t change our . . .”

“Oh, I think I’ll still have room for a few porn stars in my life.”

He smiled at her. “Good. I’m still getting used to the idea of not fucking you anymore. It was always . . . cozy somehow.”

She laughed. “Gee, thanks.”

An announcement over the intercom warned everyone to take their seats and fasten their seat belts in preparation for takeoff. Emily and Jared fastened their seat belts in unison as all around them, half-naked porn stars began to detach from each other and slink into their seats.

“Where’s Zaza?” Jared said under his voice.

“Where’s Ralph?” said Emily.

The engines engaged and they both sat back, giving each other a wry smile. Jared said, “Well. Last hurrah.”

“Last hurrah,” she echoed, as Javier/Jorge tumbled naked into the seat beside her.

“Hi,” she said to him.

“Hi, love,” he said. “Where’s my underpants?”

“Please don’t get up,” Babylona told Zaza, perching on one of the seats and regarding her with an affectionate smile. “We don’t need to stand on ceremony.”

Zaza pulled herself up to sit cross-legged on the bed, balancing carefully. “I didn’t know it was you,” she said. “I mean . . . I thought . . .”

“I understand,” Babylona said mischievously. “You thought you had a secret admirer?”

“Um.”

“I
am
sorry. I don’t like to arrive in the character of disappointment. But perhaps I can make it up to you.” Babylona was wearing a complicated, skintight outfit made of leather and ribbons that laced up in several unconventional places—horizontally over her nipples, vertically over her crotch. Her arms were bare, apart from a bewildering number of silver bracelets that jingled whenever she moved.

Zaza made herself look away from Babylona’s generous cleavage, which hinted at breasts so much larger than her own that it was hard to believe they were the same species. She said breathlessly, “Well, but you’re offering me such a good job, so you already made it up to me. More than made it up to me. Oh, God. I’m not sounding very coherent, am I? I’ll be so different when I’m reading the news, I promise, if I do it. Sorry. I’m kind of an imbecile sometimes.”

“I have every confidence in you,” Babylona said with an airy wave of her hand. “In fact, that’s not what I’m here for.”

“Oh, no,” Zaza said. “Is it about Jared?”

Babylona knit her brow. “Jared?”

“Oh, I shouldn’t have said anything, but I thought you were going to be angry at me. I don’t know why. I know he’s not even your boyfriend and . . .”

Babylona cocked her head. “This is all very fascinating, but I’ll have to decide whether to be angry at you later on. I’m happy to say this isn’t work related or Jared related.”

“Oh.” Zaza blinked. A memory was stirring in her mind, but it refused to come into focus. It was more of an uncomfortable feeling, as if she had told someone a secret when she was drunk but couldn’t remember what the secret was. At the same time, she was miserably remembering that Jared had fucked Babylona. Jared had probably fucked everyone on the plane but her.

Babylona was looking at her sympathetically, her blue eyes half-lidded. “Why don’t you scoot over and let me lie beside you? It’s the best place to be for takeoff.”

Zaza wanted to say something about seat belts, but at that moment the announcement came over the intercom warning everyone to fasten their seat belts for takeoff—causing no reaction in Babylona at all. In fact, Babylona was busily climbing into the bed and lying on her side. Zaza shoved over and, after a brief hesitation, lay down beside her.

Babylona settled slightly propped up on one elbow. She said, “You might have wondered how Michael knows Lucy.”

“My
aunt
,” said Zaza, her eyes widening. “He said that. I totally wondered—it’s so crazy.”

At this point, the plane began to move. The water bed immediately began to undulate gently. Babylona said, “Oh, lovely. Lie back, Zaza. Takeoff is really exquisite on this bed.”

“But . . .”

“Yes, lie down and I’ll tell you the story.”

Zaza lay back a little reluctantly. Surely it was somehow unsafe to fly in a plane without a seat belt? Maybe it was even illegal. But it seemed so pathetic to worry about seat belts while traveling in a private jet on a water bed with a sex tycooness who was about to reveal your maiden aunt’s connection to her porn empire—so she decided, and lay back flat, feeling the fine vibration of the engines through the water. “Oh—it is nice.”

“There, you see? Now the story. It’s a story about my youth. When I was only fifteen, I met the love of my life. He was a wonderful man in those days, not as beautiful, perhaps, as your Jared—we can’t all have that sort of
obvious
appeal—but absolutely immoral. That was the essence of his charm. He came to our town to visit a girlfriend, I believe, although he would never admit that to me. I met him at the lake. I was wearing a bikini, you know, so it was love at first sight on his side. You may find it hard to believe now, but I was really rather beautiful in those days.”

Zaza began to object, but Babylona cut her off. “No, you don’t have to flatter me. Really, there is no greater pleasure to an older woman than recalling
past
glories. Present glories are present, you see? They have no spice, like all things that are easily available. Except, perhaps, for a beautiful fifteen-year-old girl in a powder blue bikini, who retains her charm through any amount of availability, I think you’ll find.”

“I guess,” Zaza interjected.

“Don’t guess. Trust me. James was absolutely in love with me. I ran off with him to San Francisco, you know. And my parents never spoke to me again. My sister wouldn’t have spoken to me again, if it hadn’t been for you. Oh—here we are. The plane’s taking off.”

In fact, the plane had begun to gather momentum, and Zaza felt the acceleration softened in the embrace of the water bed. Then there was the vertiginous moment when the plane actually lifted off the ground, and slightly, terrifyingly, dipped and wobbled, sending waves of reaction through the water beneath her. Meanwhile, her mind was frozen, balking at a deliriously too-good possibility. Was Babylona trying to say that
she
was Zaza’s mother?

“Yes, it would have been a shame to miss this,” Babylona said, turning to lie on her side facing Zaza. “You have to admit.”

Zaza didn’t dare turn to face her. “But . . . so . . . I was the reason your sister talked to you? I mean . . .”

Babylona sighed deeply. “Oh, well. Lucy was always the dull sister, though I don’t want to speak ill of her to you. It took quite a lot for her to come to San Francisco to see me. I think it may have been the only really rebellious thing she did in her life. Although, of course, sleeping with James might be considered rebellious. But no girl could resist sleeping with James. So I hardly count that.”

“So she—wow. She slept with your boyfriend?”

“He wasn’t my boyfriend then. We’d hardly met.”

“Still. It’s really not like her, ’cause she’s such an ethical person. She gets on my nerves, but she is a really ethical person. I mean, if she came to visit you and then she sleeps with the guy you ran away with, that’s sort of . . .”

“Oh, no. She slept with him back in Oklahoma. I’m sorry. I must have gotten the story mixed up.”

“So my aunt—”

Babylona broke in, “Lucy isn’t your
aunt.
Actually, Lucy is a shocking liar, for such an unimaginative person. But I’m sorry; I really don’t want to speak ill of her to you.”

“She’s not my aunt?” Zaza frowned.

“I’m sorry to be the bearer of distressing news. Lucy isn’t your aunt at all.” Babylona made a slight grimace of contrition. “I’m afraid that
I’m
your aunt.”

“Then Lucy is . . .”

“Your mother,” Babylona said with a hint of asperity.

Zaza stared at her, overwhelmed by warring emotions. Aunt Lucy—her mother? It went against all reason. Lucy was her aunt. She had always been her aunt. Lucy couldn’t be her mother! Mothers were glamorous ne’er-do-wells who misbehaved so dreadfully they could never come home. Zaza took after her mother—Lucy had always said so.

And another, gloomier voice inside her reported,
Jared fucked my aunt.