Strad looks too shocked to respond.
“And that,” says Lily, “was when I started wearing the mask.”
Strad puts his arms around her and seems very distraught.
She, too, is upset, though over the fact that this crazy story was what she had to resort to. And it’s not even over.
She pulls away from Strad. “He left a suicide note confessing to my mother that he’d been molesting me and that he was killing himself mostly for this reason. I couldn’t believe he would do that to me — that on top of traumatizing me with his abuse and traumatizing me with his death, he was exposing our disgusting secret. He himself was conveniently escaping the shame of it through death, leaving me to bear it. I wanted to die, too.”
Strad is staring at her, looking quite upset.
Lily continues. “I refused to take off the mask. I wasn’t only wearing it to stop attracting sexual abuse, I was also wearing it out of shame. When my parents tried taking it off by force, I had a fit. I told them that if they didn’t let me wear it, I’d find another mask and glue it to my face with Superglue, or I’d cut up my face. They were horrified. They sent me to therapy, which was useless. Finally, there was one shrink who did help, though only a little. Now I’m going to explain to you those inconsistencies that offended you.”
“Okay. Thank you,” Strad says.
“After three months, the psychiatrist found an alternate way to make me feel safe. I was only eight years old, keep that in mind. He made me listen to a piece of music and said that whenever that piece was playing, I’d be protected. He claimed the music had properties that would make people around me inoffensive and relatively normal-acting in the face of my looks.”
Strad strokes Lily’s hair.
She continues. “My parents were thrilled, at first, that the therapist was able to add the musical piece to my derangement. They thought I was on the road to recovery. What they didn’t realize was that my progress toward mental health would stop right there. They had to learn to live with their daughter either masked or accompanied by music, and they got so tired of both that sometimes it was hard for them to decide which they could bear. To this day, things haven’t changed. I can live either behind the mask or behind the music. I can choose between my two prisons.”
“But now, as an adult, I assume you know the music doesn’t protect you.”
“On some level I know that. But on an emotional level I still believe in it. I need it.”
“What a sad story.” He pauses. “I don’t mean to sound nitpicky, but I still don’t understand the bookstore. You took off your mask, yet I assume your special music wasn’t playing.”
“Yes, it was, actually.”
“How did you manage that?”
“Connections.”
Strad nods.
“Now you know. I’m very screwed up,” she says. “It’s hard for me to have a normal life. That’s why Barb thought we might be a good match. Most men wouldn’t stand for my lunacies, but she thought that you — because you value physical beauty so much — might be willing to… or be able to… overlook these huge psychological aberrances.”
He hugs her. “Thank you for being open with me about your past. It all makes so much sense now.”
Georgia never fails, Lily marvels to herself.
OVER THE HOLIDAYS, I spend a few days with my mom in her house in Connecticut, just the two of us. We have a nice time. She hasn’t mentioned my fake fat since I went to the Excess Weight Disorders Support Group, that one time. I can tell it takes some effort on her part, but I appreciate it. Instead, we talk a lot about her upcoming trip to Australia in March, which is a topic I much prefer.
I devote a large portion of each day to working on some designs for the dream sequence of a new movie. And I dedicate the rest of the time to fantasizing about Peter. I’m feeling optimistic. He said he would not neglect his sense of touch at our next meeting. Who would say that if they weren’t interested? Only a sadist. I think he’s interested.
In the end, my mom can’t help herself. Right before I’m about to go back to the city, as we’re standing at the living room window staring out in silence at the countryside, she says, “Barb, you’ll never find a worthwhile guy if you keep wearing that disguise.”
I’m sure my mom would find Peter Marrick worthwhile. In the window, my own reflection is staring back at me with a tiny, hopeful smile.
Chapter Fifteen
Strad tells Lily it’s been three years since he’s been with a woman who made him want to take a vacation with her. He suggests they go on a trip for two weeks to the Puerto Rican island of Vieques. Then he says, “Why not leave tomorrow?”
Excited by his spontaneity and enthusiasm for her, Lily agrees to go on vacation with him the next day. Worried that the airline might not let her wear a mask, she insists they take separate flights. She says she always travels alone.
MY FRIENDS SANS Lily come over for a Night of Creation. I’ve been daydreaming about Peter a lot since he gave me that frustratingly incomplete demonstration a few days ago, so it stirs me even more than usual when he walks through the door and kisses me on the cheek.
While we work, the room is quiet without Lily here playing her piano. Half an hour into our session, I go to the kitchen to get some juice. Peter joins me.
Softly, so the others can’t hear, he says, “Can I see you tomorrow evening?”
I don’t answer right away, wondering how I’ll survive twenty-four hours until then.
“Please say you can see me tomorrow,” he whispers, leaning against the island, his back to our friends. His smile is so seductive I nearly drop the knife I picked up to cut a lemon. He adds, “We need to finish that demonstration I started. One of the five senses was missing, remember?”
“Yes, I remember.” I clear my throat. “Okay, tomorrow.”
“Thank God,” he says. “Otherwise we’d have to wait a week because I’m leaving after tomorrow to visit my dad in California for five days.”
“Oh.”
“And that would be too long to wait, don’t you think?”
That he’s showing this much interest in me moves me deeply. My gray curls shield my face as I lean over my lemon and answer “Yes,” casually.
“We can hear you!” Georgia hollers, and then mutters to herself, “Where is Lily when we need her to mask the noises of love?”
She resumes her typing, but louder.
I LOOK FORWARD to Peter’s visit with utmost anticipation. But he calls me in the morning to let me know that sadly he will not be able to come over tonight because of unforeseen work obligations. He says he’s very disappointed and can’t wait to see me when he returns from his trip, in six days.
After we hang up, I wander from room to room, stunned, like a human being dying of thirst having just been told the water will not arrive today as promised, but possibly after I’m already dead.
I get back to my work in a daze. It takes me a while to regain my focus.
AS LILY REPORTS to me later, the first few days in Vieques are heavenly for her and Strad. She wears her mask by the hotel pool and on the beach. She even swims with it a few times, trying not to wet it too much.