“Are you aware,” D.W. says, “that your marriage sucks and your husband is constantly considering filing for divorce?”
“My husband is madly in love with me. He won’t let me out of his sight.”
“And where is he tonight?”
“You know my philosophy, D.W. I always bite the hand that feeds me.”
“Is that so? Well, take a good look at yourself, dear. You’re a mess,” D.W. says. “You can hardly afford to have your name raked through the mud. Think about it. The photographers camped outside your door again, people going through your garbage, your face on the cover of the tabloids. You barely escaped last time. Just think of the . . . schadenfreude.”
“I think . . . I need . . . a Xanax,” I whisper.
“Oh, you’ll need much more than a Xanax by the time they’re through with you. I should think you’ll be on Librium by then. Which, incidentally, is what they give to schizophrenics. Just in case you’re not up on your pharmaceuticals.”
I slump in my chair.
“It’s not that bad,” D.W. says. “All I’m asking is for you to attend a few parties and a tea every now and then. Chair a couple of committees. Wear some designer dresses. Maybe a fur. You’re not against fur, are you? And then maybe host a trip to India, but by the time we arrange it, India might be passé, so maybe someplace like Ethiopia. We’ll do some photo shoots, get you signed on as a contributing editor at Vogue. It’s only the sort of life that every woman in America dreams of.”
“D.W.,” I say. “Society is . . . dead.”
“Nonsense, my dear,” he says. “You and I are going to revive it. We’ll both have our place in the annals of history.”
I wish I were in Massachusetts, riding around in the back of someone’s car.
Smoking a joint.
Listening to Tom Petty.
“Come, come,” D.W. says. “It’s not like I’m asking you to be a homeless person. No one’s asking you to urinate in subway stations. You’ve had a nice long rest, and now it’s time to go back to work. Because that’s what women in your position do. They work. Or did someone forget to tell you that?” He picks up his knife and smiles into the distorted reflection of his mouth. “People are relying on you, Cecelia. They’re relying on you not to fuck up.”
“Why?” I ask.
“Here’s what I want you to do,” he says. “Number one. Start putting on a happy face. Happy, happy, happy. Weren’t you voted Most Popular in your high school class?”
“No.”
“But you were voted something,” he says.
“No,” I say definitely. “I wasn’t.”
“You showed me your yearbook, Cecelia. Years ago. I remember the evening. It was right after Tanner dumped you.”
“Tanner never dumped me. I dumped him. Remember? For my husband.”
“Rewrite history with other people, my dear. I was there. Now what was it?”
“Most Likely to Succeed,” I whisper.
But there were only forty people in my high school class. And ten of them barely graduated.
“And you have,” he says.
“You can’t use it.”
“You have to stop being so afraid of everything. Really. It’s embarrassing.”
“I’m just so . . . tired.”
“So go to bed. Number Two. We have to find you a charity. Something with children, I think; maybe encephalitic babies. And then maybe some lessons—cooking or Italian, because everyone’s going to be summering in Tuscany next year, and we should hook you up with some new spiritual trend thing . . . like druids. Druids could be very, very big, and you look like someone who could worship trees and get away with it.”