“Well, she did marry him. But he’s left her. The universe works in mysterious ways, Houndy, and I know what I’m doing. You just have to trust me.” I hug myself and laugh.
He starts waving his hands in the air around his head, like there are gnats bothering him. He can only go so far with this kind of talk. And sure enough, he’s pulled his clothes on by now, and he goes to the bedroom door to leave, grousing again about how he has to go get the lobsters, and I remind him that Harry said he’d get the lobsters, and then I say, “Okay, you. I think you need to come back to bed for some special attention.”
“Blix. I don’t wanna.”
“Oh, Houuuuuuuundy . . .”
“No.”
“Ohhhhhhh, Houuuuuuuundy . . .”
“No, no, no.” But he is standing at the bedroom door again, trying to hide his smile.
I waggle my fingers, like I’m sending over some fairy dust. I crook my finger at him. “Houndy, Houndy, Houndy!”
“Damn it, Blix. What are you doing to me?”
“Youuuu knooooow.”
He comes over to the bedside, and I reach over and lift up his shirt, and unbutton the cargo pants he’s just buttoned up.
“Blix, it—it’s not going to . . . ohhhhh!” And then he comes down onto the bed, tumbling really, and he’s laughing in surprise, so I roll him over and put my nose right up to his, and then—and this is an effort, let me tell you—I hoist myself up on top of him, and sit there, straddling him. And slowly, slowly the light comes back into Houndy, and he gives himself over to me. It’s almost like that moment when you’re sautéing mushrooms, and they give up, yield themselves to you, and the alchemy is complete.
That’s Houndy and me, making love. Mushrooms in a pan.
Like we’ve done for so long, thick and thin, sickness and health, all that. You never know which time is going to be the last time.
He wasn’t my first love, or second, third, fourth, or maybe even thirty-fourth. But Houndy, as I’ve come to see—simple, uncomplicated, straightforward Houndy—is the love of my life.
And when I tell him so, he squeezes his eyes shut tight, and when he opens them again, the light of his love nearly blinds me.
Lola comes over to help me get ready for the wake. I’m washing bowls and trays while she unpacks the streamers and tiaras and confetti left over from our last bash early in the summer.
“I don’t know,” she says. “Somehow I don’t think streamers are quite appropriate for a wake, now are they?”
“Everything should be appropriate. I’m changing the rules of wakes, remember? I’m going out with a bang. Streamers and whatever else. I personally will be wearing a tiara and I hope you will, too. I’d like to die in a tiara, as a matter of fact.”
She turns and smiles at me sadly. “Ah, Blix, you’re not dying. I’ve seen people who are about to die, and they’re nothing like you. They’re not washing bowls for a dinner party, for one thing. And they’re not thinking about sex.”
“Oh dear, did you hear us?”
“Did I hear you? Are you kidding me? Damn straight, I heard you. I was walking outside on the sidewalk, and I thought, that Houndy sounds like—wait, is that why he’s called Houndy? It is, isn’t it? He baaaaays like . . . Oh!” She bursts out laughing.
“That’s it. He’s an old hound dog.”
“God, I miss that.”
“Sex? Do you, really?”
“Yeah.”
“No. Really really?”
“I said yes. But it’s been so long, it would probably kill me. It’d be like sandpaper down there.”
“Oh, that’s no excuse. They have stuff for that now. At the drugstore. And you could be having sex, you know. You know you could.” I can’t resist saying it. “And speaking of which, how come you’re not telling me about that guy who comes and picks you up? He would sleep with you in an instant.”
“Oh, him.” Her face goes cloudy. “You sent him, didn’t you?”
“Of course I did. Not him, per se. I don’t even know who he is. I just put out in the universe that you needed somebody to love again. So tell me why you’re so secretive about him.”
“You want to know the truth?”
“Yes, damn it. You tell me everything, except now suddenly you’re keeping this man all to yourself. Don’t think I haven’t noticed how mean you’re being.”
“Well, I haven’t told you this because I don’t want you making a big deal out of it. Putting all your magic dust all over it. He’s a friend, okay? From the past. Nothing more than that.”
“Uh-huh,” I say. The truth is, I did concentrate real hard on having her find someone who could win her trust, someone she’d perhaps known from before, because Lola is a little bit cowardly when it comes to meeting new men. I wrote journal entries; I did chanting; I threw the I Ching coins. I did a couple of spells just for good measure. And I sent prayers out into the universe. It’s all a mix.
“See? There you go, doing it again. Matchmaking when there’s nothing there. Sorry. Just wishful thinking this time, Blix.”
I simply smile.
Just before the wake starts, Patrick sends word that he can’t come. He’s feeling pugly, he says.
Pugly. This is code for Patrick thinking he’s too ugly to be in polite company. It’s the word we use between ourselves. Patrick isn’t just shy, it’s that he has a disfigurement, you see—a scarred face and a jaw displacement. He was once in a fire when his kitchen exploded due to a gas leak, and in one instant he went from being relatively handsome and well-adjusted, he said, to being a hideous beast. His word for himself, not mine, because the light that shines out from Patrick’s eyes transforms his face. You see that light, and you don’t even know about his jaw and his skin, which is stretched so tight in places that it’s almost translucent. His light makes you forget all that.
But that’s how he describes himself, as a hideous beast because he is the only one who can’t see that light, and periodically I have to go down to Patrick’s apartment, which he keeps dark and musty smelling, and also it’s filled with old computers and one grouchy cat, and I sit down there with him and try to tell him about the light that other people see in him and also that he has a soul that anyone would love.
He breaks my heart, Patrick does. He promised he would come to the Blix Out.
“I’m going down to see him,” I tell Houndy and Lola, and they exchange a look, but nobody tries to stop me. I put on my long spangled skirt, and Lola helps me zip it up over Cassandra, and then I put on the purple tunic and the shawl that has the lace and the mirrors sewn everywhere, even on the fringe. Lola fluffs up my hair, which is sticking up everywhere—and off I go, trundling down the stairs, down to Patrick’s lair.
“I can’t do it today, Blix,” he calls from the other side of the door when I knock.
“Sweetie, I need you to come to my wake,” I say. “Just open the door a little crack. I have something I need to tell you.”
After a while, I hear about five locks being unlatched, and then he lets me into the apartment, and I go tromping around, and I open all the shades and turn on lights. He’s standing there in the darkness, wearing what he always tells me is his work uniform: baggy sweatpants and sweatshirt, way too big. He’s a thin, waifish guy now, somebody who would barely leave a shadow, and that’s what he intends, I think, to waste away until he’s just a smear in the world, as small as a piece of gum you’d see on the sidewalk. He can’t be loved anymore, he told me once, so now he doesn’t want to bother anybody. He has some horrible job, writing about diseases and symptoms, and so he’s steeped in troubles and doesn’t want to bother the people of the world with his yawning, gaping need. I get this, I do.
“Patrick,” I say. “Honey.”
“I can’t do it. Listen, I love you and I think it’s fantastic that you’re doing this amazing party—”
“It’s not just an amazing party, as you call it. It’s a wake. An Irish wake.”