Still Lives



Something is wrong tonight. I know it with a certainty so strong that it makes my skin prick, like the sting of that cold spring afternoon in Vermont. The light down here has darkened to orange-black. Stained napkins, empty cups, crackers smashed to circles of crumbs—everything that was laid out to delight us two hours ago has been violated by human touch. The caterers have hauled back the tables to create a dance floor, but hardly anyone is here to dance. They’re still upstairs, or possibly they’ve already left, discomfited by a party that is still without its guest of honor. The DJ slowly turns up the beats. The music sounds thin and anxious.

Jayme and J. Ro are talking intensely by the stage, glancing over at the enormous fluffy white cake and a stack of plates that someone has rolled out to the center of the tent. The cake bears the name of the artist and the exhibition in bold red and black:

KIM LORD

STILL LIVES



Nodding at Jayme, Janis signals to a petite brunette caterer, who struggles to roll the cake away and bumps it over a curb, making the frosting slump and a plate fall from the top of the stack. The plate smashes on the tarmac beside our beleaguered museum director, Bas, who has just emerged from the loading dock. The caterer flies into apologetic motion, gathering the pieces with her bare fingers, and after a slight pause Bas reaches down an arm to stop her. She scurries off, presumably for a broom. Bas doesn’t move. He stuffs his hands in his pants pockets, crumpling the front of his pale jacket. He seems to be staring exactly nowhere, not at the broken plate, not at the cake, not at the party, and not toward Jayme and J. Ro striding his way. He looks crushed and exhausted, but not surprised.

It hits me. He hasn’t looked surprised all day.





FRIDAY





7

My neighbor’s cough wakes me. Every morning, he goes out to the wet grass of his garden, turns on his fountain, coughs, and contemplates his mortality. At least this is how I imagine it. Maybe he’s contemplating poetry or his property taxes. I’ve never spoken to my neighbor. I’ve never seen him or his fountain. The wet grass is a guess. His wall is too high. White and peeling, it runs all the way down the alley behind our courtyard apartments. It’s a large lot for Hollywood.

My neighbor’s cough has three sounds: the hack, the seizing breath, and then the rumble. The cough comes and goes, always in that order, though this morning his hack is harsh and deep, and the rumble lasts a long time. The noise of his discomfort disfigures the objects around me: my dresser bare of photographs; Jayme’s scarf and dress, twisted on the floor; her boots flopping against each other like drunks. The single butterfly earring on my nightstand. I lost one last night. I’ve had the pair since the day my grandmother died. They went to Thailand in my ears, pricked my jawbone when Greg cupped my face to kiss me for the first time.

I hold the remaining butterfly for a moment, pressing the sharp stub into the pad of my thumb until the pain wakens me. Then I go downstairs to make my morning tea, filling the pot with water, twisting the knob to the burner.

I click the computer I left on last night: there are a couple of local news articles on Kim Lord’s disappearance. No updates, except that Bas is quoted in one, saying that the museum is cooperating with the LAPD and that the exhibition will open to the public today as planned. By the gentle light of a Hollywood morning and the sound of squirrels chittering in my avocado tree outside, it seems possible that everything will be resolved. Kim Lord will reappear soon with some provocative message for us all, and an extra wave of press will drive more viewers to the Rocque.

Yet I wonder how much sleep Bas got last night, contemplating his missing Gala honoree and his potential firing all at once. Why did I see a weary acceptance in his face last night, while everyone else looked shocked? Maybe he’s thinking of resigning. Maybe he’s ready to give up on saving the museum. Come to think of it, he and I had a bizarre conversation on Monday, in the elevator to the fourth floor.

It was a busy day, a major exhibition looming, the museum like a hive with people hurrying in and out carrying folders and parcels and tools. I was happy to slip into the elevator alone.

“Hang on,” said a voice as the doors closed, and Bas stepped in, giving me an overly friendly grin that suggested he’d once again forgotten my name.

As we stood in the rising box, he kept rubbing his arms and shifting from foot to foot. He looked awful, like his whole body itched. I felt awkward riding silently beside him, so I asked how many people were coming to the Gala.

“Don’t know the exact figure, but it’s sold out. First time in years.” He gave me a pained smile. “Everything Kim Lord touches turns to gold.”

The elevator door opened then, and Bas practically ran to his assistant Juanita’s cube and asked her to get Nelson de Wilde on the phone.

“Isn’t that good news?” I remember wanting to say. But it hadn’t seemed like good news at all.

My teakettle shrieks. I pour the boiling water over a sachet of green and pink herbs that I bought at a fancy kitchen supply store, then head for my computer again. But I never get to read more news, because my mother calls me: the story of Kim Lord’s vanishing has aired on National Public Radio.

“How’s Greg?”

“I don’t know,” I tell her. My tea tastes like a marigold garden. I pour some maple syrup in it. Now it has the exact flavor of allergy medicine.

“How are you?” she asks.

“Fine. Thanks for asking,” I say.

“I could fly out there if you need it.”

“Why?” I say. “It’s not like I was dating her.”

“It’s just …”

In my mother’s pause, I hear her sadness that I am not married to Greg, not living on the East Coast, and not about to pop out a grandchild. It relieved her when I moved home after the Bolio case, but then I got my teaching job overseas and started “tramping all over the world.” My serious relationship with Greg marked a new page, and she’d hoped that I might settle down in a nearby state, might even choose a long-term teaching career like she and my father had done.

Instead, Greg and I had moved to L.A., pulled by the siren song of California, its warmth and ease, the limitless possibilities.

As a consequence, my mother allocates the city a loathing she usually reserves for Karl Rove and tomato hornworms. She always pronounces the second letter in L.A. with vindictive force, as in You’re moving to el-AY? What could you possibly want to do in el-AY? The one time she and my father visited us, she surveyed the palm trees and sun-bleached streets with hurt distaste and declared our movie-star-laden Hollywood neighborhood “a bit seedy.” For Christmas and birthdays, she mails me a steady stream of Green Mountain mugs, T-shirts, and notepads, as if to remind me of my rightful surroundings.

“It’s just … it sounds dangerous for you,” she says.

“Nobody even notices me here,” I say with a little laugh. I tell her how kind she is. How I need to get off the phone soon. “I’ve got to beat rush hour.”


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