“Hey, you guys,” he yells, “keep it down.”
“No, let them,” she says. “Just let them.”
“You should take a nap soon.”
“I will, later.” She spoons yogurt into her mouth. “We’re talking about stuff.”
“I’ll clean up before I leave,” I tell him.
“No, that’s okay, thanks, I’ll get it,” he tells my general direction over his shoulder. “And you need some rest,” he says to her. He leans over, brushes the fake bangs back, kisses her on the forehead just below the start of fake scalp. Right in front of me. As if I’m not even there. He isn’t avoiding me, I realize. I’m just not quite anything. I don’t quite count.
“Yeah, I’m taking off soon,” I say to his retreating back. “Don’t worry.”
“Here.” She offers me a spoonful of yogurt with a wavering hand. “I really can’t eat this. He’s trying so hard, I don’t want him to know.”
I take the spoon, hesitant to put my mouth where hers has been. “What is this, vanilla?” I say. “Ugh. Just eat what you can, I’ll flush the rest.”
“He’s a prince,” she says. “He really is.”
“Yes,” I say.
“So we made love last night,” she tells me.
“Oh?” I say.
“I thought at first it was just guilt, or pity, you know?”
“Yeah, maybe.”
“But I really think it just hit him that there needed to be a last time. Where you know it’s the last time. So you’ll always have that.”
“You think that was the last time?”
“Yeah.” She takes a bite of a slice of nectarine; her fingers are shaky and she puts the rest down. “It wasn’t good the way it used to be good,” she says. “I mean, it used to be great, you know?”
“Yes,” I say. “I’ve heard.”
“But it was good for all the other reasons it stays good. I mean, it was awkward and uncomfortable, you know, it’s been a long time, but then it had all the things you always hope will be there between you. Like it’s just the two of you in this moment, this space, but in a way that will last. Something you’ll always have. I hope he’ll always have. I hope he’ll remember that part of it forever and forget everything else. I think he’s hoping for that, too. I think that’s why he did it.” She laughs, sheepish. “Or maybe it was just a pity fuck.”
“Yeah, maybe,” I say. I don’t know how he could stand the smell of her, the chemical sweet trying so hard to cover up the waste and rot.
“Or maybe it was just the wig.” She strokes her beautiful long black hair. “You think?” she asks.
I see his mouth still pressed to her waxy, wasted face. I try for patience, for pity. For sparing her.
Do it, I think. It’s what she wants. What she deserves.
“You really want me to be honest?” I say. “Really honest?”
“Yeah, of course. Thank you. What?”
I have her full attention.
“We slept together. A couple of times.”
She looks at me, her face blank.
“Months ago. Before all this.”
There’s a raw twist and crumple to her features, and I feel a joyful rush, a jolt, the lunge for the ball you just know you’re going to smash back hard and win the game with, the thing that’ll let you win the prize, be victorious and serene.
“You were off at your mom’s with the boys, and he thought we’d just watch a movie, get pizza. Like the three of us used to do.”
“I know,” she says.
“except you weren’t there, you were gone—”
“I know, stop,”
“and he invited me over, and—”
“I know,” she repeats. “Just stop it. Stop.”
I stop.
“I don’t want details,” she says. “That’s between the two of you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“He told me.”
“He told you.”
“Last night.” There’s the crumple of her again, beneath the glossy bangs, then she takes a breath and her face settles back to smooth. “I knew something’s been wrong. I knew there was something. What you said before, about him going through stuff, too, remember? So I told him whatever it was, he better be looking at the clock, you know?”
“And he told you.”
“It wasn’t easy. It wasn’t pretty. I wasn’t pretty. Believe me, you would not have wanted to be here for what was going on last night.”
“No.”
“But finally, finally, I was all right. It was horrible, but afterward, it was all right. It was good. The two of us. I think it’s even why it was good.” She actually laughs. “Well, that and the wig.”
“What about me?”
“Oh, honey.” She takes my hand. “I was hoping you’d say something. That you’d be honest with me. I’m glad you told me. I’ve always been able to trust you that way, how you don’t leave things unsaid. That’s what I need now. You get to this place where, if it isn’t real, forget it.” Her face is fully content and peaceful now. Her face is a plastic, placid mask. “And hey,” she says. “Don’t think this is weird, but I even had the thought that maybe you two would get together. Afterward.”
“What?” I say. “Excuse me?”
“I know, weird, fucked up. But in a way, it makes sense.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“He’ll need taking care of. And the boys. And it would be all right with me. If that happened. Because it doesn’t change anything. I want you to know that.”
Like some queen granting favors, tossing coins to her servant girl, bread to the peasants, giving her lesser jewels away to charity.
I see his sensitive, devoted hand ceaselessly on her leached-out skin, her toneless body.
Caressing her glorious, extravagant, interminable hair. Stroking her, undyingly.
It really should have been me.
“. . yeah, maybe this really did the trick,” I hear her say.
There’s a chuckle. She’s fussing with her wig, she’s been talking this whole time.
“All the others were a lie. Trying to be someone else. This is really what I wanted.”
“This one is perfect,” I tell her. “It’s you. The perfect you.”
“I want to be wearing it, you know. In the box. Promise me?”
“I promise you.”
“And you have to check my eyebrows are all right.”
“I promise. The eyebrows, and I’ll be sure you have it on.”
She examines a lock. “I got yogurt in it. I want it to be all pretty and clean. You’ll make sure, okay? Even when it gets crazy?”
“Give it to me now. I’ll wash it now. We have that special shampoo.” The clock is ticking, I think.
“You don’t mind?”
“Please,” I say. “It’s what friends are for.”
“Would you close the door? The boys. .” She fusses with her Comfy Grips and gently slips the wig off with practiced care. “Going out in style,” she says.
She hands it over to me, carefully, and I picture the remote, yielding nuns surrendering their precious and painstaking sacrifice. She’s all stripped down to scalp and skull now, illusionless, fetal and wizened. She’s no empress, no Cadillac, no queen, just a drained sack of festering skin and I’m the only one able to see it, spot the patches of sweat on the burgundy satin dress, really know the ugly, bald truth about her. She’s hideous, but everyone else will eternally see only the beautiful fake. I imagine her lying serene in her casket, flushed clean and perfectly groomed, an abiding Nefertiti or Cleopatra.