Aftermath of Dreaming (11 page)

“Oh, thanks.” Steve always appears vaguely surprised when complimented about his work, as if it were a particularly handsome dog that just happened to be following him. “I'm really trying to explore the nature of monotone in my work.”

Michael looks momentarily nervous—did Steve overhear his remark?—then slightly abashed that his critique was so dead-on. I look around at the paintings and notice for the first time how acutely alone each one looks despite sharing space on the walls, then a woman steps in front of me, blocking further inspection.

“You,” she says to Michael, planted before him like she is more art to view. “Are revolutionizing the FM experience.”

“Thank you, I'm—”

“I know who you are. I saw the article in the
LA Times
.”

I am surprised that Michael's fame has extended past the airwaves into the visual realm. I have always considered him famous, but in a concealed sort of way, a secret celebrity for the people at his station and the radioheads who were in on it, too. But here this woman is, great looking in a Kundalini-cum-collagen kind of way, gushing all over him like some love-crazy teenage fan.

“Since you took over,” she continues. “The difference—you can't even measure it.”

Steve smiles a goodbye at me as someone pulls him away. I wish they had pulled fan-woman away instead.

“That station is your voice, just lots of different conversations you're having all throughout the day, and let me tell you—”

“Wow,” Michael says, his eyes enrapt on hers. “That's really wild you say that because that's exactly how I think of it.”

She puts one hand on his arm, the other on her left breast. “You are reaching me on a very deep level.”

Even through the silicone?
I think.

“That's just great. I'm sorry, what did you say your name was?” Michael slips an arm around me, as he holds his other hand out to her.

 

The only thing preventing me from falling off my couch is Michael's arm encircling my waist. My head is turned at an odd angle, forcing me to look uncomfortably down to see his head resting on my chest. He appears to be asleep. At least it sounds that way. One minute, his personal noises were connected to ecstasy; the next, exhaustion, with no transition in between.

It started at my front door when he brought me home from the art gallery, as my key was finding the lock. Michael pressed against me from behind, making my legs weak, then the door opened and our clothes flew off, as if it were an indignity for them to be on, and my mouth found him, and the familiar and the now and the memories of all-other-times as he made me come again and again before he did as well, pulling us down into that lovely afterward drowsy spell.

Michael stretches awake on top of me, causing me to slip toward the floor, but he catches me in time. “God, are you all right?”

“I'm fine.”

I reach out for the soft woven tapestry I keep draped on the couch and wrap it over us as I nestle against him. My parents got the tapestry in Paris on their honeymoon, its deep blues and sad yellows a prophecy of their marriage to come.

“That's downright scary,” Michael says.

For a moment, I think he has somehow heard my thought, then I realize he is staring at my sister's wedding veil, which is perched on a tall iron dressmaker's stand in front of the large living room windows. The outside light is filling in the netting's empty spaces with a soft, pearly glow, making it look like a bodyless bride ready to proceed through the semidark.

“Yeah, I guess it is. Actually, it reminds me of a dream I had when I was really little, like in second grade.” I turn to face him, wanting to gauge the interest level in his eyes before I continue, but he is just watching, waiting for me to begin. “I was in my house, in the dream, though it didn't look like the one I grew up in, and it was filled with tombstones, but wonderfully ornate ones like the mausoleums in New Orleans.”

“Easy Rider.”

“Exactly. And it wasn't sad or scary, just beautiful and homier because all my ancestors were there. Suzanne was standing next to me when suddenly this angel gravestone—the most beautiful one, very Gothic, one hand carrying a torch, long hair streaming back—came flying through the house—well, rolling, really, she was on wheels—and the house was a shotgun design, so all the doorways lined up in a row, and she tore straight through with sirens whirring and bells clanging. I looked at Suzanne as if to say, ‘What's the deal with her?' and Suzanne very matter-of-factly said, ‘She thinks she's a fire engine,' as if that explained everything, and in the dream, it did, like we weren't supposed to ruin her fantasy.”

I look at Michael—who is now looking at the veil as if it sprang fully formed from my dream like Athena from Zeus's head—and wonder what he'll say. He's been known to just change the subject if he decides a topic has reached its end, unencumbered by conversational rules, yet communication is his life. But maybe that's why.

“An emergency rescue vehicle,” Michael says. “That's a trip.”

In all the years of remembering that dream, I had never thought of it that way. Maybe so I wouldn't have to wonder what I needed rescuing from. When I told Suzanne about it after it happened, she was just annoyed that I had her saying something that she thought was so dumb.

“Do you have any food?”

I know I do not, at least the kind he'd be interested in, but I go to the kitchen anyway, duly checking the oatmeal in case some miraculous conception had occurred and it had divinely delivered cookies. I am taking out two apples, plus the jar of peanut butter, when Michael walks in and peers over my shoulder into the fridge's brightly shelved almost-emptiness.

“Let's get in your bed,” he says, then turns and leaves the kitchen.

I put away the apples and peanut butter, fill two glasses with water, and follow him into my bedroom. It occurs to me that the scream dream might be scared off by his presence tonight. I hope so, otherwise it would be kind of weird for him to wake up at three
A.M.
as I scream hysterically into his ear. Michael is already in bed, appears, in fact, already asleep when I walk into the room. I put the glasses down on the stack of antique suitcases I use as a nightstand, pull back the spread, and get in. With one sleepy reach, Michael pulls me close to him, his body like a pillow. His arm lies over me protectively, and I fall asleep more easily than I have in months, somehow knowing that there won't be any screams tonight.

The early morning air
in my apartment is still tingly even though Michael is over two hours gone. My living room is ebullient with last night's mess strewn about. Clothes are on the floor, the couch's slipcover has been pulled off to throw in the wash, and the room is charged with the experience of us.

I'm spinning and twirling, even though I'm sitting still. I want to tell Reggie everything, leave out no detail, but I know that I can't, so I force myself to dial his number slowly, trying to keep my excitement held back.

“That's great, honey.” Reggie sounds uninterested and annoyed. “I'm glad you and Michael had such a good time.”

I have told him the most G-rated, no-threat-to-our-friendship version of last night's date that I could, but clearly that made no difference.

“Oh, Reggie, are you really that upset with me?” I can hear him
vigorously cutting what I know is sausage on his end of the line. “It was a date, with someone who knows me and l—l—”

“And what? Someone who what?”

“Okay, all right, so Michael hasn't said the L-word to me—yet, but…” At least there's a chance of my having a future with him because, for one thing, he's straight, I want to say, but don't, because honestly I don't think Reggie is. At least I don't think of him that way. More neutral kind of. If not deep inside really gay. He told me a story once a couple of years ago about how he and this male friend of his used to kiss so much whenever they saw each other that they practically had their tongues down each other's throats. I had thought when I first met Reggie that he wasn't really into women, so I was relieved that he finally felt safe enough to talk about it with me, and I told him the truth. I love you whoever you're attracted to, I said, what matters is that you follow your heart. He was quiet for a moment then changed the subject. And ever since then, all he talks about is women. As if that conversation never took place. And he's had a few girlfriends, so I don't know what to think.

Not that Reggie wants to date me. Which is one reason I find his possessiveness or whatever it is so easy to brush off, though annoying because sometimes I think he thinks he should want to date me. Similar to the way I feel about beets. The idea sounds good, they'd be unusual on my plate, but once tasted, they're rejected and forgotten, as if forces other than myself had conspired to put them in front of me. So I understand, and besides, I've never even heard of a vegetable that Reggie will eat.

“Are we not going to be able to talk anymore because I'm seeing Michael again? You didn't hate him so much when I was with him before.”

“I was building up steam.”

“Reggie.” I pick up my clothes to put in the hamper, returning my living room to its natural state. There is emptiness on the line, then a sigh that is so connected to how I feel that I wonder for a moment if it was mine.

“I just don't want to see you go through the same thing you did last summer, but you know what? It's your life and it's none of my business.”

“Ow. Hello? You're my best friend—I want it to be your business. I just don't want you against it—or me.”

“I'm not, honey. Really. I just want you to be happy.”

“That's funny; so do I.”

I stare out my living room window at the tree in the courtyard, wishing it could transport me away from all this Reggie-mess. It is a type of eucalyptus, silvery green and light brown, a habitat just out of reach but on display for me, along with the birds that nest there, the wind in the leaves. Sometimes I just sit and look at it, watching it through my living room window because even though it's not a kind of tree that I grew up seeing, it reminds me of home—the big branches shading everything, an intermediary between earth and sky. It makes me feel safe and happy having it there right outside.

“I'll try not to be so grumpy about Michael.” Reggie's tone is musically sweet, wrapping its apology around me.

“Thanks, Reggie.”

“How's Chinese for tonight before I read you the new part of the script?”

Even though it feels weird to have had such a short conversation with Reggie, at least it ended okay. He's my best friend, stayed practically glued to me when Momma died, his voice a constant in my life; I have to be able to tell him about Michael. Especially since I'm not telling him about Andrew. Not that there is anything to tell. Or ever will be anyway. And after being with Michael last night, I don't even care anymore that I saw Andrew the other night. Had almost completely forgotten about him and in fact only thought about Andrew because I still haven't told Reggie—which I don't need to because who cares? I don't. I'm not even thinking about him.

But I wonder if Andrew has thought about me. Since the other night. And in the four and a half years since we were together. And I wonder if he wonders if we'll ever see each other again, or if the other night was it.

 

The headpiece for Suzanne's veil is a nuptial nightmare come to life. It should be done, finished, executed exactly as she dreamed, for her to see at my dress fitting this Saturday. But it's not. From the sketch she has given me, what I have done so far fulfills all of her specifications, but not only isn't it finished, it looks half-baked somehow. She wants a jeweled effect without sparkles and not all pearls. I don't even know what that means. I realize I could have asked her, but I thought having her draw it would make her demands more concrete. The sketch she gave me is the most expressionistic rendering of a veil I have ever seen. Schiele would have been proud. Maybe my sister should have been the artist in the family.

I have moved the veil and the dressmaker's stand into my studio so I can spread out and work with my tools, but all that does is remind me that I need to get downtown in an hour to meet Dipen to see how the casting for Rox's order is coming so I can get that in gear. And then I need to drive clear across town to Brentwood to deliver a commission. I consider calling Suzanne and telling her that she just won't be able to see her veil this Saturday, but I don't feel like hearing bridal wrath, especially after this morning when Reggie was so cranky on the phone about my Michael-date.

I attach a few tiny glazed beads onto the headpiece to fill in some gaps. They look nice. And completely uninspired. Okay, my only option for salvaging this project is to employ the method I use when making jewelry: I have to put the goddamn thing on. This is not something I want to do. At all. Lifting the veil off the stand and holding it carefully in both hands, I realize that I have no idea how to get it on. I wish I had the attendants that brides have—getting into the costume looks more complicated than getting to “I do.” After a few tangled attempts, it is resting on my head. The image in the mirror isn't so much me with veil, as veil with me. I might as well be an eight-year-old girl with a feminine pad—this accessory is that unnecessary on the body it is on.

As I glance around the room to ensure myself—illogically—that I'm alone, I half expect a matrimonial constable to appear with a citation for “endangering the welfare of a veil.” I look into the mirror again. I have
heard that some women upon seeing themselves for the first time in bridal gear burst spontaneously in joyful tears. Sobs of despair are more what I feel. I suddenly wonder what people who spontaneously combust have just seen.

The veil is floating down around me to the floor, billowing out in a soft silhouette. I look small inside all this white, contoured, like a negative version of the outlined-with-black-crayon pictures my cousin Renée and I used to draw. For the first time, I understand why the virginal color was picked; everything else recedes when the encapsulation is so pale. The bride's previous life is blotted out, ready to be renewed and transformed into a new woman for the groom.

The phone rings. It is probably Suzanne, conjured up by my wearing her veil, calling to reclaim her sole ownership of object and role, and to hasten my work along.

“Hello?” It is difficult to get the receiver near my ear through all this netting. I can barely hear the person at the other end, the veil is crinkling and rustling so. I push it back, like gloriously long straight hair, behind my ear. “I'm sorry, hello?”

“Yvette?” The female voice is vaguely familiar.

“Yes?” Maybe it's Roxanne about the order for her store.

“Hi, it's Sydney.”

“Oh, hey.” Seeing Andrew at Sydney's show two nights ago completely eclipsed my memory of her. “Your performance was amazing. I was sorry I couldn't stay for the party; I hope you got my message.”

“Yeah, I did. And thanks again—the guys are working out great.”

“I'm so glad.” Why has she called? We're not call 'n' chat friends. I met Sydney years ago through a pop singer I used to be close friends with, but other than occasionally helping her find musicians for her shows, we rarely talk.

“I thought I should let you know.” She stops for a pause I could drive my truck through. Holy Christ, what? Ever since I was fourteen and my mother called me at my cousin Renée's house where I was spending the night to tell me in two short sentences that Daddy had left, I have had mixed feelings about telephonically transmitted news.

“Andrew Madden asked about you.”

“What?” I cannot have heard her right. For someone in my life today to not only know about but bring up this precious buried part of my memories and dreams is the colliding of the worlds I shuttle between.

“He asked about you. At the party, after the show. I was all over the place, talking to everyone—did you see my preshow crowd on the ten o'clock news?”

It takes me a split second to realize she is waiting for my response. Just tell me what he said, I want to scream. Inject it in me all at once, so this tedious trickling can end, then when his words are safely circulating inside, part of me and him-of-then, I can listen at a normal pace, decipher and decode what only I can know he meant.

“No, I missed it, but I saw the news crew outside.” Whoever thinks manners are only important in the South has never tried to survive in Hollywood.

“It's getting great reviews.”

“That's wonderful, Sydney, I'm so happy for you.”

“Thanks. It's been a lot of work, and it just never ends, but you know how it is.”

Actually, honestly, I don't. My work is small, viewed up close, almost in private. Standing in person before the hordes isn't something I do.

“Well, you do it great.”

“He wanted to know if we are friends.”

“What'd you say?” I jump right back in with her to Andrew-land.

“Yeah, you know. He asked about your art, if you were still doing it. I told him not that I know of, but your jewelry designs are going great.”

“You said that?” As I move toward the chair to sit down, the veil and the phone cord encircle each other, binding me tighter to this call, so I perch on the edge with the receiver held in both hands.

“He was really happy to hear it; said something about that making sense with how personal and delicate your art was. He asked if you were seeing someone, but I didn't know, then he said, ‘I care a lot about Yvette, and have for a very long time.' He wanted me to please tell you hello.”

Hello, Andrew,
I silently answer back with the wild hope that he can hear.

“Then a bunch of people came over to us. Christ, that man is never left alone, crowds kept forming and unforming around him all night like amoebas.” I wonder if I'll hear that used about something else in Sydney's next show. “And his wife, Holly, is so beautiful. And such a great mom to their two kids. She's so nice; no one can hate her.”

Oh, right, his wife. Well, hello, Andrew. And goodbye.

I crab-dance around Sydney's questions about how I met him and were we involved by saying—which is true—that I have to run downtown.

 

Driving on Beverly Boulevard in the late morning traffic to meet Dipen downtown, the word “care” reverberates in my brain. The way Andrew would say it. In his voice, in my mind. So maybe he has thought about me all these years. Like I've thought about him. God, I miss him.