Allegra thought it was a goofy question but whatever.
“The Hollywood Hills,” said Tuesday. “With my mother. We had a split-level and I told her I needed my privacy. I was starting to bully her — you know, threaten that I wasn’t going to act anymore. Her ultimate nightmare because I was the woman’s only source of income. I told her I’d leave if she didn’t build this floor over the stairs that led to the lower part of the house, where I had my room. To wall it off. So she did — and I had a separate entrance for my friends! Lenny Bruce lived really close. We used to do peyote together. I saw Elvis at night and Lenny during the day.”
It was almost too much for Jeremy to take — like one of those wack plays from the sixties where Jean Harlow meets Billy the Kid. (Allegra noticed Dusty’s and the stand-in’s arms “randomly” touching; Larissa had tangles of red hair there). He tried getting Tuesday to talk about Lenny but she wouldn’t. She suddenly shut down; she was funny that way. An element of paranoia could drive her to abruptly curtail reminiscence, as if an invisible lawyer had told her to say no more.
The peyote mention got Marilyn riffing on mushrooms. She said that on the last winter solstice, she went “journeying” in New Mexico.
“That’s amazing!” said Dusty, drunker than Allegra had seen her in a while. “I’ve always wanted to go to Burning Man,” she added, apropos of not very much. “But I think I’m too old for that shit.”
“My daughter wants to go,” said Larissa. “She’s been on a campaign. I said, When you’re eighteen!”
“How old is she?” said Tuesday.
“Thirteen.”
“Almost old enough for Elvis,” said Jeremy. He was really high. Tuesday winced. “Burning Man is insanely great,” he said authoritatively, as if to clear the air of flip sacrilege.
“I would totally go if you want to,” said Allegra to Dusty, and she meant it. Going to Burning Man together sounded like the bestest, onliest idea in the history of the world.
“You would love it,” said Jeremy. “We had a trailer and a driver — the whole thing was, like, four grand including tickets. For three of us. Or you can do the Snapchat-camp-Sherpa-helicopter thing.”
“What is burning man?” said Tuesday.
Jeremy sweetly broke it down for her à la the Idiot’s Guide, as a kind of amends for being naughty about Elvis.
“I think it’d be amazing,” said Marilyn. “We should all go; wouldn’t that be so crazy? All my friends say it’s totally life-changing. If you’re over fifty, there’s kind of a shame factor though, right? The Madonna Syndrome? I mean, no one wants to be pathetic. But apparently I still need to do my counterculture, rich-hippie thing.”
“Love me a rich hippie,” said Dusty. “So you did ayahuasca?”
“Not ayahuasca, mushrooms. I’m fucking terrified of ayahuasca! I do mushrooms with this amazing herbalist and bruja, in Taos. I try to do it every three years. You know, for a tune-up with the Goddess.”
“On the solstice?” said Larissa, throwing in.
“Uh huh. It was amazing.”
“What happened?” said Dusty, eyes aglow and leaning in, leg pressed against Larissa’s.
“Well, it’s always — whenever I take mushrooms, there’s always this palace, I kind of go to this palace, like, where the Goddess lives. I go into this palace, with all these rooms and courtyards, and—festivals. There’s all these festivals going on… like Burning Man probably! Ha! But oh my God, these festivals, with this music and drumming. There was one—I remember there was one that had a procession, made up of this… triumphant battalion of women who never had children—”
Dusty didn’t flinch but Allegra did. She figured Marilyn was too blazed to register her borderline faux pas, before quickly hypothesizing that the gal actually might not know about the miscarriage. Yet how would that even be possible? Dusty and Marilyn were obviously close — plus all those shooting days that needed to be rearranged when Allegra got “sick.” Of course she would have known, or at least found out, whether Dusty told her or not… it suddenly felt sucky and appalling to Allegra that she’d been too self-involved to have bothered asking her wife about whatever cover story she’d decided to use — or if in fact she’d simply told everyone the truth.
“—which was, like, incredibly healing for me because I never had kids… some of the strongest, most beautiful women I know haven’t. The Goddess was trying to tell me it’s impossible to be ‘childless’—you know, the moment a woman is born we already have countless children, like, even before we’re born… countless children and mothers are contained within, you know, we’re multitudes. But the world says we’re less-than, if for whatever reason we don’t have kids, which is so deeply fucked! ‘Have’! And they have to be biological! If you don’t have a biological child, it’s just not real! Too bad for you, you’re not a real mother! And I just, on the mushrooms, I just sort of dip into these courtyards, in and out of these rooms… these mush-rooms—they’re like kingdoms or battlefields. And I remember there was this province—this ‘protectorate’—that’s a word I totally never used before this last journey; the Goddess must have given it to me — this protectorate of villages and townships or whatever, filled with those who cannot protect or fend for themselves.”
“Oh my God!” said Dusty. “That is so beautiful.”
“It’s one of the most sacred places! I mean, it was to me. And it’s — I was just so honored to be there. In that presence.”
“I can’t believe that you go and do this,” said Dusty, in awe. “You are so courageous, Marilyn!”
“I’d never be able to,” said Larissa.
“I didn’t think I could either. But if you met my guide, you would totally change your mind.”
“We should all do it!” said Dusty, with can-do cannabis-vaping energy. “Like, a women’s workshop! Leggy, should we do it?”
“I love it,” said Allegra. “We should go tomorrow!”
“I think it would make me sad,” said Larissa.
“And after a meditation about Mom,” said Marilyn, “I said to my guide—”
“How do you even remember all this?” said Dusty, still awed.
“I took notes! I had someone taking notes in case I said something good!”
“Amazing!”
“You’re incredible.”
“I said to the bruja—about my mother—‘What a terrible bind she was in. What a terrible bind we’re all in.’”