There was so much Dusty had to actively repress, taboos within taboos: the home movies of their mouths from only a dozen days ago, infernal circus of fingers, tongues, cunts, and anuses — no! Whenever the sights, sounds, and smells rocketed up they were instantly neutralized by the Iron Dome defense of self-preservation, and instincts of motherliness as well. But how long could she keep that up? How long before all her cities were laid to waste? Gentler impressions rose to the surface… for example, the press had always commented on the physical traits they shared (complexion, timbre of voice, willowiness, the way they laughed) — the world seemed charmed by such proof of soulmatedness. And that time they were antiquing in Vermont when an older shop owner mistook them for mother and daughter. That used to happen in the early years of their romance, before they became known as a couple.
She thought of the names — the names! Aurora/Allegra… the babysitter’s alteration was just enough to echo and obliterate, to memorialize the dead twin.
She kept circling back to the outlandish notion (though in context, “outlandish” had lost all meaning) of Allegra having targeted her own mother for seduction. Talk about revenge porn… The sophistic theory didn’t really hold water, though, as the girl just didn’t seem to have the right stuff to carry out such a diabolical scheme; Allegra had always worn her unconniving heart on her sleeve. And yet, in the very breath that followed such a repudiation, Dusty would think it was possible, that Allegra would be capable of anything, of course she would, especially that which appeared bizarre, violent, or implausible — because in the end, wasn’t she Reina Whitmore’s granddaughter? As long as one had membership in that accursed, calamitous bloodline, one would never be exempt from all manner of devilry. There was no escape.
She tried to recall everything Allegra had ever shared of her vagabond childhood. There wasn’t much. Not a single toddler or family photo — only the thin, dinner-party-ready repertoire of exotic, darkly sardonic anecdotes hinting at cartoonish scrapes with death and the law in far-flung, Wild Wild Eastern corners of the world. It perplexed Dusty that she had never been more curious—or curious at all, really. She’d never really questioned Allegra’s upbringing. When she said that her parents were dead, Dusty just accepted it, no problem, she swallowed everything whole, closing that door. Was that even normal? To be so weirdly uninquisitive about the one whom one loved, whom one chose to make a life with? It seemed a little extreme, even for a narcissist. What could she have been thinking, to have apparently so not given a shit? With devastating logic, the lacuna became one more example of crimes against motherhood, of the high treason she’d committed against all children. Snoop had dredged up Children of God, a cult she was familiar with through her work with Hyacinth. One of the shittier, more sinister groups when it came to child sex abuse… of course, Allegra had written that script where she’d changed the name to “Ellipsis.” She couldn’t remember ever asking where she got the idea to write about C.O.G. in the first place; she was so skittishly sensitive about her writing abilities that Dusty thought best to leave it alone. But now it all made sense — even more sense why Allegra had been so hesitant to show her the pages. She was certain that “Ellipsis” was completely autobiographical and wondered what terrible secret things were revealed… she probably didn’t want her to read it because it was the True Story (names changed to protect the guilty) of an angelic little girl abandoned by her bitch movie-star mother—
A pocket of turbulence dislodged her thoughts, making room for a strobe-stink of incestuous images that gutted rather than aroused. She fought them off with recollections of how they’d first met.
Allegra was studying at Lee Strasberg, waitressing part-time at the Hotel Bel-Air. She was a server at the patio party Dusty was having for Lauren Bacall. When they saw each other, it was, like, Oh. There. There she is. Dusty was with her Gen Y galfriend, a New York fashionista. She whispered her number to Allegra, saying, “Memorize it.” Throughout the lunch, Dusty whispered it four times; a sly, erotic joke. Allegra told her girlfriend at the time that she’d just met Dusty Wilding (but not that she memorized her number). The girlfriend was a superfan but Allegra had only seen maybe two of her films. She waited a week before getting the nerve to call. When she drove to Point Dume, they communed like old souls. Old friends and old souls and old
OH
There.
There she is—
And now.
The horror …
The hallucinatory karmic godlessness of it!
More turbulence. The plane shook shook shook. She threw up then dosed herself with another round of Ativan and Percocet. Closed her eyes and floated back to Mimosa Lane circa 1978 to nurse her baby but Reina was there, skulking in shadow, like an avenging Bunraku puppet-ghost… so Dusty recalled a different sanctuary, before there was even a child to be taken — her prenatal idyll with the cabal of witchy midwives and phabulous phreaks in Wickenburg, AZ. The smell of Sonoran campfires and the woof of javelinas suffused, and a watery, topsy-turvy diorama too, for the legendary Hassayampa—“upside-down river”—flowed through there, disappearing underground.
Its sandy legend sang
Those who drink its waters bright,
red man, white man, boor or knight,
girls or women, boys or men,
Never tell the truth again.
They woke her twenty minutes before landing in Van Nuys.
Texts awaited, from Allegra and Ronny Swerdlow.
Ronny’s said, The girls miss you & so does Sam. (me too) Come for dinner + troutfishing in America soon
Leggy’s said, oh where oh where has my little bun gone oh where oh were can she be? 
—
She didn’t go home. How could she?
The car took her to the Presidential Suite at the Ritz-Carlton in Rancho Mirage. She needed the proximity of people, the infrastructure of service and care. Elise had been trying to reach her, leaving worried messages. Dusty finally emailed that she was on a secret spa holiday and would be offline. Jeremy was texting and emailing too and she wrote him the same. Livia offered to come to the desert (she was the only one other than Ginevra who knew where she was) but Dusty declined, though they did talk for hours on the phone. Livia was an advocate and a good sounding board. When Dusty told her about the shrink advising her to tell Allegra everything, Livia respectfully disagreed. She said, “You should just end it,” that Allegra would survive a breakup “beautifully, you’ll see.” That it would be the ultimate kindness to spare her the truth—“a mother’s sacrifice, if you will.” Dusty’s first impulse had been the same, and because she trusted her old friend’s instincts, the argument gained authority. Livia judiciously granted that she could see the merit in either telling or not telling but leaned toward nondisclosure, which “favored healing, on both sides.” A large part of Dusty agreed, though she had trouble determining if her bias was inspired by stone-cold pragmatism or stone-cold fear. There was a quality of priggishness inherent in her colleague and confessor; playing devil’s advocate, she asked herself if Livia’s convictions were informed more by old-fashioned rectitude than common sense. (Probably a goulash of the above.) Whatever. As deeply crazy as the current situation was, it just felt good to be talking. If hell, among other things, was a vacuum, Dusty was grateful to at least be having the debate.