“How am I at school?” she asked.
“Honestly? You’re kinda scary.”
She laughed. “Kinda scary?”
“No. I didn’t mean ‘kinda.’ Completely scary. Utterly intimidating.”
“I’m intimidating?”
“Yeah, I mean . . . look at you. You have seen yourself in a mirror, right?”
She was saved from the rest of this conversation by the coming attractions. Afterward, she leaned forward with anticipation, feeling the buzz she always felt when one of HIS films started. This one started with a mash of fire and locusts and devils, and when he finally came on, she felt both exhilaration and sadness: his face was grayer, ruddier, and his eyes, a version of those eyes she saw every day at home, but now like burned-out bulbs, the spark almost gone.
The movie swung from stupid to silly to incomprehensible, and she wondered if it would make more sense to someone who’d seen the first Exorcist. (Pat had snuck into a theater to see it and pronounced it “hilarious.”) The plot employed some kind of hypnosis machine made of Frankenstein wires and suction cups, which appeared to allow two or three people to have the same dream. When he wasn’t on-screen, she tried to concentrate on the other actors, to catch bits of business, interesting decisions. Sometimes, when she watched his films, she’d think about how she would’ve played a particular scene across from him—as she instructed her students: to notice the choices the actors made. Louise Fletcher was in this movie, and Debra marveled at her easy proficiency. Now there was an interesting career, Louise Fletcher’s. Dee could have had that kind of career—maybe.
“We can leave if you want,” P.E. Steve whispered.
“What? No. Why?”
“You keep scoffing.”
“Do I? I’m sorry.”
The rest of the movie she sat quietly, with her hands in her lap, watching as he struggled through ridiculous scenes, trying to find something to do with this drek. A few times, she did see bits of his old power crack through, the slight trill in that smooth voice overcoming his boozy diction.
They were quiet walking to the car. (Steve: That was . . . interesting. Debra: Mmm.) On the way home she stared out her window, lost in thought. She replayed her conversation with Pat earlier, wondering if she hadn’t missed some important opening. What if she’d just come out and told him: Oh, by the way, I’m on my way to see a movie starring your real father—but could she imagine a scenario in which that information helped Pat? What was he going to do? Go play catch with Richard Burton?
“I hope you didn’t pick that movie on purpose,” said P.E. Steve.
“What?” She squirmed in the seat. “I’m sorry?”
“Well, just that it’s hard to ask someone out for a second date after a movie like that. Like asking someone to go on another cruise after the Titanic.”
She laughed, but it was hollow. She pretended, to herself, that she went to all of his movies and kept an eye on his career because of Pat—in case it made sense to tell him one day. But she could never tell him; she knew that.
So, if it wasn’t for Pat, why did she still go to the movies—and sit there like a spy watching him destroy himself, daydreaming herself into supporting roles, never the Liz parts, always Louise Fletcher? Although it was never her, of course, not Debra Moore the high school drama and Italian teacher, but the woman she’d tried to create all those years ago, Dee Moray—as if she’d cleaved herself in two, Debra coming back to Seattle, Dee waking up in that tiny hotel on the Italian coast and getting sweet, shy Pasquale to take her to Switzerland, where she would do what they’d wanted, trade a baby for a career, and it was that career she still fantasized about—after twenty-six movies and countless plays, the veteran finally gets a supporting actress nomination—
In the bucket seat of P.E. Steve’s Duster, Debra sighed. God, she was pathetic—a schoolgirl forever singing into hairbrushes.
“You okay?” P.E. Steve said. “It’s like you’re fifty miles away.”
“I’m sorry.” She looked over and squeezed his arm. “I had this weird conversation with Pat before I left. I guess I’m still upset about it.”
“You want to talk about it?”
She almost laughed at the idea—confessing the whole thing to Pat’s P.E. teacher. “Thanks,” she said. “But no.” Steve went back to driving and Debra wondered if such a man’s matter-of-fact ease could still have some effect on the fifteen-year-old Pat, or if it was too late for all of that.
They pulled up to her house and Steve turned off the car. She wouldn’t mind going out with him again, but she hated this part of dates—the turn in the driver’s seat, the awkward seeking out of eyes, the fitful kiss and request to see her again.
She glanced over at the house to make sure Pat wasn’t watching—no way she could stand him teasing her about a good-bye kiss—and that’s when she saw something was missing. She got out of the car as if in a trance, started walking toward the house.
“So that’s it?”
She glanced over to see that P.E. Steve had gotten out of the car.
“What?” she said.
“Look,” he said, “this might not be my place, but I’m just gonna say it. I like you.” He leaned on the car, his arm propped on his open door. “You asked me what you were like at school . . . and, honestly, you’re like you’ve been the last hour. I said you were intimidating because of the way you look, and you are. But sometimes it’s like you’re not even in the room with other people. Like no one else even exists.”
“Steve—”
But he wasn’t done. “I know I’m not your type. That’s fine. But I think you might be a happier person if you let people in sometimes.”
She opened her mouth to tell him why she’d gotten out of the car, but you might be a happier person pissed her off. She might be a happier person? She might be a— Jesus. She stood there silently—broken, seething.
“Well, good night.” Steve got in his Duster, closed the door, and drove away. She watched his car turn at the end of the street, taillights blinking once.
Then she looked back at her house, and the empty driveway, where her car should have been parked.
Inside, she opened the drawer where she kept the spare car keys (gone, of course), peeked in Pat’s bedroom (empty, of course), looked for a note (none, of course), poured herself a glass of wine, and sat by the window, waiting for him to come home on his own. It was two forty-five in the morning when the phone finally rang. It was the police. Was she . . . Was her son . . . Did she own . . . tan Audi . . . license plate . . . She answered: Yes, yes, yes, until she stopped hearing the questions, just kept saying Yes. Then she hung up and called Mona, who came over and picked her up, drove her quietly to the police station.
They stopped and Mona put her hand on Debra’s. Good Mona—ten years younger and square-shouldered, bob-haired, with sharp green eyes. She’d tried to kiss Debra once after too many glasses of wine. You can always spot the real thing, that affection; why does it always come from the wrong person? “Debra,” Mona said, “I know you love that little fucker, but you can’t put up with his shit anymore. You hear me? Let him go to jail this time.”
“He was doing better,” Debra said weakly. “He wrote this song—” But she didn’t finish. She thanked Mona, got out of the car, and went into the police station.
A thick, uniformed officer in teardrop glasses came out with a clipboard. He said not to worry, her son was fine, but her car was totaled—it had gone over an abutment in Fremont, “a spectacular crash, amazing no one was hurt.”
“No one?”
“There was a girl in the car with him. She’s fine, too. Scared, but fine. Her parents already came down.”
Of course there was a girl. “Can I see him?”
In a minute, the officer said. But first she needed to know that her son had been intoxicated, that they’d found a vodka bottle and cocaine residue on a hand mirror in the car, that he was being cited for negligent driving, driving without a license, failu
re to use proper care and caution, driving under the influence, minor in possession. (Cocaine? She wasn’t sure she’d heard right but she nodded at each charge, what else could she do?) Given the severity of the charges, this matter would be turned over to the juvenile prosecutor, who would make a determination—
Wait. Cocaine? Where would he get cocaine? And what did P.E. Steve mean that she didn’t let people in? She’d love to let someone in. No, you know what she’d do? Let herself out! And Mona? Don’t put up with his shit? Jesus, did they think she chose to be this way? Did they think she had a choice in the way Pat behaved? God, that would be something, just stop putting up with Pat’s shit, go back in time and live some other life—
(Dee Moray reclines on a beach chair on the Riviera with her quiet, handsome Italian companion, Pasquale, reading the trades until Pasquale kisses her and goes off to play tennis on this court jutting out of the cliffs—)
“Any questions?”
“Hmm. I’m sorry?”
“Any questions about what I’ve just told you?”
“No.” She followed the fat cop down a hallway.
“This might not be the best time,” he said, and glanced back at her over his shoulder as they walked. “But I noticed that you’re not wearing a wedding ring. I wondered if maybe sometime you might want to have dinner . . . the legal system can be really confusing and it can help to have someone who—”
(The hotel concierge brings a phone to the beach. Dee Moray removes her sun hat and puts the phone to her ear. It’s Dick! Hello, love, he says, I trust you’re as beautiful as ever—)
The cop turned and handed her a card with his phone number on it. “I understand this is a tough time, but in case you feel like going out sometime.”
She stared at the card.
(Dee Moray sighs: I saw The Exorcist, Dick. Oh Jesus, he says, that shite? You know how to hurt a fellow. No, she tells him gently, it’s not exactly the Bard. Dick laughs. Listen, darling, I’ve got this play I thought we might do together—)
The cop reached for the door. Debra took a deep, ragged breath and followed him inside.
Pat was sitting on a folding chair in an empty room, head in his hands, fingers lost in those currents of wavy brown hair. He pushed his hair aside and looked up at her; those eyes. No one understood how much they were in this together, Pat and her. We’re lost in this thing, Dee thought. There was a small abrasion on his forehead, almost like a carpet burn. Otherwise, he looked fine. Irresistible—his father’s son.
He leaned back and crossed his arms. “Hey,” he said, mouth rising up in that sly what-are-you-doing-here smile. “So how was your date?”
14
The Witches of Porto Vergogna
April 1962
Porto Vergogna, Italy
Pasquale slept through the next morning. When he finally woke, the sun had already crested the cliffs behind the town. He climbed the stairs to the third floor and the dark room where Dee Moray had stayed. Had she really just been here? Had he really been in Rome just yesterday, driving with the maniac Richard Burton? It felt as if time had shifted, warped. He looked around the small stone-walled room. It was all hers now. Other guests would stay here, but this would always be Dee Moray’s room. Pasquale threw open the shutters and light poured in. He took a deep breath, but smelled only sea air. Then he picked up Alvis Bender’s unfinished book from the nightstand and thumbed through the pages. Any day now, Alvis would show up to resume writing in that room. But the room would never belong to him again.
Pasquale returned to his room on the second floor and got dressed. On his desk he saw the photograph of Dee Moray and the other laughing woman. He picked it up. The photo didn’t begin to capture Dee’s sheer presence, not the way he remembered it: her graceful height and the long rise of her neck and deep pools of those eyes, and the quality of movement that seemed so different from other people, lithe and energetic, no wasted action. He held the photo close to his face. He liked the way Dee was laughing in the picture, her hand on the other woman’s arm, both of them just beginning to double over. The photographer had caught them at a real moment, breaking up in laughter over something no one else would ever know. Pasquale carried the photo downstairs and slid it into the corner of a framed painting of olives in the tiny hallway between the hotel and the trattoria. He imagined showing his American guests the photo and then feigning nonchalance: sure, he would say, film stars occasionally stayed at the Adequate View. They liked the quiet. And the cliff tennis.
He stared into the photo and thought about Richard Burton again. The man had so many women. Was he even interested in Dee? He would take her to Switzerland for the abortion, and then what? He would never marry her.
And suddenly he had a vision of himself going to Portovenere, knocking on her hotel room door. Dee, marry me. I will raise your child as my own. It was ridiculous—thinking that she would marry someone she’d just met, that she would ever marry him. And then he thought of Amedea and was filled with shame. Who was he to think badly of Richard Burton? This is what happens when you live in dreams, he thought: you dream this and you dream that and you sleep right through your life.
He needed coffee. Pasquale went into the small dining room, which was full of late-morning light, the shutters thrown open. It was unusual for this time of day; his Aunt Valeria waited for the late afternoon to open the shutters. She was sitting at one of the tables, drinking a glass of wine. That was odd for eleven in the morning, too. She looked up. Her eyes were red. “Pasquale,” she said, her voice cracking. “Last night . . . your mother—” She looked at the floor.
He rushed past her to the hall and pushed open Antonia’s door. The shutters and windows were open in here, too, sea air and sunlight filling the room. She lay on her back, a bouquet of gray hair on the pillow behind her, mouth twisted slightly open, a bird’s hooked beak. The pillows were fluffed behind her head, the blanket pulled neatly to her shoulders and folded once, as if already prepared for the funeral. Her skin was waxy, as if it had been scrubbed.
The room smelled like soap.
Valeria was standing behind him. Had she discovered her sister dead . . . and then cleaned the room? It made no sense. Pasquale turned to his aunt. “Why didn’t you tell me this last night, when I got back?”
“It was time, Pasquale,” Valeria said. Tears slid through the scablands of her old face. “Now you can go marry the American.” Valeria’s chin fell to her chest, like an exhausted courier who has delivered some vital message. “It was what she wanted,” the old woman rasped.
Pasquale looked at the pillows behind his mother and at the empty cup on her bedside table. “Oh, Zia,” he said, “what have you done?”
He lifted her chin and in her eyes he could see the whole thing: The two women listening at the window while he talked to Dee Moray, understanding none of it; his mother insisting—as she had for months—that it was her time to die, that Pasquale needed to leave Porto Vergogna to find a wife; his Aunt Valeria making one last desperate attempt, when she’d tried to get the sick American woman to stay, with her witch’s story about how no one ever died young here; his mother asking Valeria over and over (“Help me, Sister”), begging her, hectoring—
“No, you didn’t—”
Before he could finish, Valeria slumped to the ground. And Pasquale turned with disbelief toward his dead mother. “Oh, Mamma,” Pasquale said simply. It was all so pointless, so ignorant; how could they misconstrue so completely what was happening around them? He turned to his sobbing aunt, reached down, and took her face between his hands. He could barely see her dark, wrinkled skin through the blur of his own tears.
“What . . . did you do?”
Then Valeria told him everything: how Pasquale’s mother had been asking for release ever since Carlo died and had even tried to suffocate herself with a pillow. Valeria had talked her out of it, but Antonia persisted until Valeria promised her that, when her older sister could stand the pain no more, she would help. This week, she h
ad called in this solemn promise. Again, Valeria said no, but Antonia said that she could never understand because she wasn’t a mother, that she wanted to die rather than burden Pasquale anymore, that he would never leave Porto Vergogna so long as she was alive. So Valeria did as she’d asked, baked some lye into a loaf of bread. Then Antonia had Valeria leave the hotel for an hour, so that she would have no part in her sin. Valeria tried once more to talk her out of it, but Antonia said she was at peace, knowing that if she went now, Pasquale could go off with the beautiful American—
“Listen to me,” Pasquale said. “The American girl? She loves the other man who was here, the British actor. She doesn’t care about me. This was for nothing!” Valeria sobbed again and fell against his leg, and Pasquale stared down at her bucking, thrashing shoulders, until pity overwhelmed him. Pity, and love for his mother, who would have wanted him to do what he did next: he patted Valeria’s wiry nest of hair and said, “I’m sorry, Zia.” He looked back at his mother, lying against the fluffed pillows, as if in solemn approval.
Valeria spent the day in her room, weeping, while Pasquale sat on the patio smoking and drinking wine. At dusk he went with Valeria and wrapped his mother tight in a sheet and a blanket, Pasquale giving one last gentle kiss to her cold forehead before covering her face. What man ever really knows his mother? She’d had an entire life before him, including two other sons, the brothers he’d never known. She’d survived losing them in the war, and losing her husband. Who was he to decide that she wasn’t ready, that she should linger here a bit longer? She was done. Perhaps it was even good that his mother believed he would run off with some beautiful American when she was gone.
The next morning, Tomasso the Communist helped Pasquale carry Antonia’s body to his boat. Pasquale hadn’t noticed how frail his mother had gotten until he had to carry her this way, his hands beneath her bony, birdlike shoulders. Valeria peeked out from her doorway and said a quiet good-bye to her sister. The other fishermen and their wives lined the piazza and gave Pasquale their condolences—“She’s with Carlo now,” and “Sweet Antonia,” and “God rest”—and Pasquale gave them a small nod from the boat as Tomasso once again pulled the boat motor to life and chugged them out of the cove.