Seventy
Eva is always particularly well received wherever people work the night shift. Even with the advent of the DVR, that’s the soap opera demographic: nurses, flight attendants, strippers, stay-at-home moms. And celebrity isn’t additive, it’s exponential. Two celebrities are four times as thrilling as one, so Eva and JJ together make the whole room hold its breath.
Eva throws her arms around me. “Ohmygod! I came as soon as I got your call.”
She’s wearing a little nothing of a James Perse T-shirt dress and a pair of Prada flats, effortless yet chic, like a stylist had a “rush to the hospital” outfit waiting in a garment bag for just this occasion. Her face is a perfect portrait of anguished concern, but she’s still playing a role. The selfless star, here to comfort an underling.
Fuck her. Fuck her for her manipulation, fuck her for fucking JJ, and fuck her for blowing me off about Trent in New York. Go ahead, use me all you want. Send me on humiliating errands, treat me like a friend one day and a staff member the next, scapegoat me to your string of boyfriends, whatever. Pretending you forgot a painful secret I told you to manipulate me? Even betraying a confidence isn’t as bad as blowing one off like that. I want to matter to her, that’s the problem. It’s my fucking Donna legacy to be drawn to every beautiful, glittery woman who pulls me in close and then pushes me away.
An angry fuse ignites in my chest, but then I hear the sound of an iPhone camera shutter nearby, and it just as quickly sputters out. Because Eva did come as soon as she got my call, when there’s nothing in this for her except uncomfortable exposure. Because, and it pains me to admit it, she’s just as damaged as I am, just as needy and just as brittle.
I look around to get a bead on who might be Instagramming my anguish, but, although there are a dozen people in armchairs, fondling one kind of electronic communication device or another, nobody stands out as a prime suspect.
“Hey, Jess,” JJ says. “I’m sorry about your mom.” He ducks his head. “Hi, Megan.”
Ugh, even his abashed-cheater face is compelling. It should be illegal.
Megan keeps her shit utterly together, like this is all about me, not about her and Eva and JJ. “Hey, guys. Let’s go over there, where it’s a little more private.”
She herds us toward a bench in the corner and tells them what I gleaned from Dr. Ruffalo. Eva seethes at the story of the worn apartment steps, magnanimously threatening to sic her lawyers on the landlords.
“I don’t think that’s where we want to focus our energy right now,” Megan tells her.
“Of course, you’re right,” Eva says, crossing her legs and resting her hand on JJ’s thigh without breaking eye contact.
JJ remains quiet, eyes on his phone, and a surge of protective anger for Megan floods me, but Megan grabs my hand and squeezes it like You don’t need to go there right now. She buys me a bottle of water, checks in with the nurses, and finally leads Dr. Ruffalo over.
“Miss Dunne?” He focuses only on me, which is either excellent bedside manner or an impressive un-stare. “I think now is a good time to say your good-byes.”
When I stand up, I feel ungainly and disjointed. I don’t know what to do with the water bottle in my hand.
“Yeah.” I look to Megan and Eva and JJ. “Will you come?”
“Of course,” Eva says, while Megan and JJ just nod.
“Wait a second.” Dr. Ruffalo raises his iPad like a crossing guard stopping traffic. “One person. Not a whole crowd.”
“It’s not a crowd,” I say.
“Hospital regulations,” he says. “You and one other person.”
I look at Eva. Her beautiful face is an attentive mask, but I know her too well, now, to not see what’s beneath it. She’s eager to come, and she’ll say all the right things. She’ll lean in close and squeeze my mother’s dying hand. She’s so spoiled and selfish and luminescent. And she’ll offer exactly what my mother wants: a performance.
I’m so tired of performances.
“Can’t you make a tiny exception this once?” Eva asks, looking up at Dr. Ruffalo pleadingly.
He shifts his weight almost imperceptibly toward her. “Well . . .” he says, wavering.
“We’re good,” I tell him. “Come on, Boof,” and Megan takes my hand as we walk down the swimmy blue hallway without looking back.
Seventy-one
Donna turns her head toward us when we step into her curtained cubicle. Her eyes blink open for an instant, vague and cloudy, then flutter closed, her thin eyelid skin quivering lilac. I’m expecting blood-spattered gauze and betadine-stained skin, but she looks like she’s ready for her deathbed close-up, all pale skin and just a thick swath of flesh-colored compression bandage wrapped around her hair like a turban. She has an IV snaking out of the back of her left hand, and a few white circles with wires sticking out of them glued to her chest, but other than that, she looks like she’s taking a nap.
“Hi,” I say, stepping to her bedside and putting my hand over hers, which is limp on the coarse, white cotton sheet.
I wait for Donna to open her eyes, ask for a cigarette, tell me that my shirt makes my boobs look flat, something. But we all stay exactly where we are, motionless except for breath and beeping.
Eventually, a nurse sidles in beside us to check a digital readout, and we go out the side door to Megan’s car, where we blast old Nine Inch Nails until a potbellied security guard tells us, not unkindly, that we need to turn it down.
Megan doesn’t ask if I’m okay or if I need anything. She just handles it. Water, cigarettes, a phone charger, her proximity. It’s all just there.
Despite what everyone expects, Donna doesn’t die right away, and sometime in the still-dark hours of the morning, they move her into a private room. Megan and I smell like old French fries and burnt coffee from sitting in the fluorescent cafeteria waiting for visiting hours. When they finally let us in, we drag the fold-out futon chair to her bedside and curl together on it like puppies. We take turns reading Donna page after page of unsubstantiated gossip from crazydaysandnights.com, which is her absolute favorite. She just lies there doing her Madame Tussauds impression.
“It doesn’t matter,” Megan says, after a while. “The point is, you showed up.”
“Yeah,” I say. “I guess I did.”
The day after that, we don’t read so much. Eva sends an arrangement of calla lilies that look like a funeral and probably cost five hundred bucks. I give them to the nurse to take to the children’s floor.
We mostly sit and wait, shuffling between the parking lot, the cafeteria, and the tiny, sterile bathroom, where we wipe our armpits with paper towels and antibacterial soap.
In the afternoon, Donna suddenly snaps into lucidity.
“Jess?” she says, eyes still closed, her voice a raspy whisper.
She gropes blindly for my hand, and I touch her fingertips with mine. Here it is. Here is our big, emotional come-to-Jesus moment.
“I’m right here,” I say.
“I need something.” Her voice fades. “I need . . .”
“You can tell me,” I say.
“I need a better room,” she says. “They’ve got me in fucking steerage.”
I squeeze her hand. “I’ll see what I can do.”
I mean, really, what else is there to say?
Seventy-two
In a Hollywood ending, this would be the part where a lilting voiceover reveals my newfound appreciation for the precious gift of life, enumerating the lessons I learned by making peace with Donna for the traumas and transgressions that pocked our lives like so many shotgun blasts.
Yeah, that’s not how it went. That was the last thing she said to me
before she died.
Megan and I are in the cafeteria getting coffee when it happens. I’m standing in the checkout line holding a giant cup of coffee so weak I can see through to the bottom. Megan is behind me, slumping her entire upper body against my back. We are seriously sleep deprived at this point.
I hallucinate that Kirk is walking toward us from across the room, wearing his white Fleur et Diables T-shirt and holding a tray of Peet’s coffee and a white paper sack that is transparent at the edge from a slick of butter.
I jostle Megan. “Holy fuck, Boof. Kirk is here.”
She gives me a sleepy, self-satisfied smile. “I texted him from your phone.”
Then he’s upon us and I’m profoundly aware of my ratty, unwashed hair and my questionable level of general hygiene.
“Hey,” he says, setting the tray on the counter and pulling me into a hug. “Are you okay?”
I’m glad that my face is hidden in his shoulder, because my eyes immediately start to leak. “Yeah,” I say, my voice muffled. “It’s complicated, but yeah.”
I extricate myself as he and Megan introduce themselves.
“You brought real coffee,” I say.
“And you’re starting to wonder if that’s my answer to everything,” he says.
He hands each of us a white paper cup. I peel off the plastic top of mine and bury my nose in the sharp, fragrant tang of dark Italian roast.
“I . . . um, thanks for the coffee,” Megan says. “I’ll be in the ladies’ room.”
“Oh, no you don’t,” I say, as if Kirk isn’t standing beside me. “You’re staying right here.”
“Okay,” she says, and scampers off toward the restrooms.
“Bitch,” I hiss at her retreating form.
Kirk smiles at me. “She’s very subtle.”
“I’m not good with subtle.”
“I’ve noticed that.”
He smooths a stray clump of hair away from my face. Which is extremely tender, until he rubs his fingers together like they’re slicked in motor oil and raises an eyebrow into a Jack Nicholson smirk.
“Don’t you dare say anything about my hair,” I say. “We’ve been here for a year and the shower facilities are decidedly lacking.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he says, his face softening into earnestness. “Do you want me to bring you food or clothes or something after my appointments?”
“We’re good,” I say, willing myself not to cry at his kindness. “But I really appreciate it.”
“Well, if there is anything you need—”
“If you keep being nice, I’ll lose my shit. You need to hug me and go.”
I hold out my arms and he hugs me. It’s not a kiss, it’s not a promise. It’s nothing at all, but he feels solid and warm, and for a moment I hang on tight.
“Okay, get out,” I finally say. “I have to find Megan before she texts all my suitors and has them lining up.”
He shoots me a look like he wants to say something, then he changes his mind and starts backing away, miming that I should call him with an imaginary phone to his ear.
I find Megan perched on the counter in the women’s bathroom, playing Minecraft on her phone. “You are incorrigible, Boof, and I’m pretty much in love with you right now.”
She hops down. “This is the moment where I get to say ‘I told you so,’ right?”
“If you were that kind of person, then yes, this would be that time.”
We get into the elevator, which is filled with a couple doctors in lab coats and a handful of fruit-scrubbed nurses. We ride two floors in silence and then Megan blurts, not softly, “I TOLD YOU SO,” and we stifle our hysterical giggles while the elevator slowly empties.
Seventy-three
We’re still kind of floaty and giggling when we walk into Donna’s room. We immediately stop short and Megan grabs my hand. Two nurses are standing at Donna’s bedside, making awkward eye contact with each other over Donna’s lifeless body. It’s like they’re mentally playing rock-paper-scissors to see who has to tell me the news that is completely evident.
“Holy shit, Boof, she died during intermission,” Megan whispers.
Megan is the only person on the planet who could say that to me—in the room where my mother’s body isn’t even cold yet—and get a laugh.
“She would have hated dying offstage,” I say, and the nurses side-eye each other awkwardly. One murmurs that they’ll give us a few minutes as they shuffle out of the room.
Dr. Mark Ruffalo comes skidding in like Kramer on Seinfeld. “I tried to have someone find you in the cafeteria. I’m so sorry you weren’t here.”
“It’s fine,” I say. “I already said my good-byes.”
He frowns and I realize that I sound flip, but I don’t have the energy or the inclination to explain.
“Well, take all the time you need,” he says. “Then there are forms to sign and a couple of people you need to talk to.”
“Sure,” I say, and walk to the edge of the bed.
Donna looks like she’s sleeping. I’ve watched enough hospital deathbed scenes to know I should say something, but I meant it when I said that I’d already said my good-byes. I’ve been saying them for years.
I sign a half dozen documents and field condolences from an equal number of hospital staff, then stumble with Megan into the halogen-lit parking lot, blinking and disoriented.
“Wow,” I say. “I’m having a Groundhog Day moment.”
“Huh?”
“Here I am, again, square zero. Jobless, clueless, and now Momless.”
Megan glances at me. “Jobless?”
“I’m done with Eva,” I say, suddenly certain.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I’m done with all that. But what am I doing now?”
“What are we doing now, you mean?” Megan says. “We’re going home.”
“You mean home home?” I ask. “We don’t technically live there anymore. Also? The walls are sandalwood.”
Megan opens the car door. “We’ll repaint.”
Seventy-four
There’s a picture on hollywoodhookups.com of Eva and JJ sitting on the hospital bench on that first day, their denim-covered legs barely touching. JJ is smiling at someone out of frame while Eva taps on her phone, chestnut hair falling across her face like a theater curtain. The picture must have been taken from behind the reception desk, either by the nurse in the vegetable scrubs or the one who looked like Thor on Nurse Jackie. One of them got paid the equivalent of a couple long shifts changing IV bags and reassuring relatives.
There’s a close-up inset in the corner of the photo, one of those rectangles the tabloids overlay to show the grainy detail of a starlet’s engagement ring or cellulite ripple. But this close-up shows Eva’s sleek Prada-clad foot twined behind JJ’s ankle in the sea of blue linoleum.
My big toe, with its chipped blue-black nail polish, hovers just inside the frame, marring the perfect symmetry of the shot.
Acknowledgments
I’m a late bloomer. If late blooming was a booth at a carnival, I would totally win one of those giant stuffed pandas they keep all the way at the top. I don’t have an MFA; I didn’t study writing in college. In fact, I didn’t go to college at all. Or high school, for that matter, at least not past the first half of the tenth grade. But books, books! Books have been a constant—often the only constant—in my life from the moment I learned to read, some (mumble) forty years ago. Books saved my life and gave me a soft place to fall in a childhood with some really hard edges.
When I was a kid, I read everything on my mother’s bookshelf, from Thomas Wolfe, Mark Twain, and Charles Dickens to Harold Robbins, Sidney Sheldon, and the I Ching. Also Dianetics, which was seriously confusing, and the Reader’s Digest Condensed Books series, for which I still blame my incomprehension of Pearl S. Buc
k books. But by the time my teen peers were writing papers on To Kill a Mockingbird and Catcher in the Rye, I was busy selling Quaaludes to Nikki Sixx in the parking lot of the Starwood and reading books by Jackie Collins. Don’t judge.
I guess my long-winded and convoluted point is that my journey to publication has been unconventional, and there certainly wasn’t a clear path from there to here. People often ask me how I did it. They don’t necessarily mean it the way I usually hear it, which is, “How did a girl like you figure out how to write a book?” At least I don’t think they do. Whatever. Haters to the left. Anyway, here’s how: I read and read and read, and then I wrote and wrote and wrote, and then a lot of amazing people and venerable institutions rose up to meet me and shepherd me along the way. Herewith, my undying gratitude and thanks to:
Patti Carmalt, for showing me, again and again (and again) until I finally got it, that I could grow beyond my dark and twisty upbringing. Yep, I’m the girl who just thanked her therapist. I would be facedown in a ditch somewhere with bugs in my eye sockets without her.
Samantha Dunn, my first mentor and friend for life, for putting the machete in my hand and telling me to start hacking out my own path, because sure as shit no one else was going to do it for me.
The amazing fellowships and residencies who extended their hospitality despite my brash and often inappropriate applications: the MacDowell Colony, the Norman Mailer Writers Colony, the Prague Summer Program for Writers, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, and Writers @ Work, among others, and, last but certainly not least, the PEN Center USA Emerging Voices program. An important part of my education happened in those cabins and dorm rooms and living rooms and barrooms, around dinner tables and Ping Pong tables and on walks in the woods and on van rides into town to get whiskey. Thank you, Andrew Solomon, Nam Le, and William Finnegan, for making me feel as though I already had a place at the table. George Singleton, for so much beer and even more laughter. William Giraldi, you delicate flower, for being kind to me when the discussion of Baudelaire went completely over my head. Abigail Thomas, for just being so fabulous.