Things You Should Know(72)

“Not possible,” she writes back. “I am not able to leave my husband. He is older and failing.”

—I thought U were divorced?

She doesn’t respond.

—U still there?

—Yes.

—I don’t care what you are—Divorced, Married, Widowed. You could be married to the President of the United States and it wouldn’t change anything—I’d still like to take you to dinner.

It changes everything. She looks at herself in the mirrored closet doors, a seventy-seven-year-old woman flirting while riding an exercise bike.

A hollow body, an elected body, a public body. The way to best shield yourself in a public life is simply to empty the inside, to have no secrets, to have nothing that requires attention, to be a vessel, a kind of figurehead, a figurine like a Staffordshire dog.

She goes to the entertainment channel and gets the latest on Brad and Jennifer. They are all in her town, down the road, around the corner. She could summon any of them and they would come quickly, out of curiosity, but she can’t, she won’t. Like a strange Siamese twin, the more removed he becomes the more removed she becomes.

She changes screen names again—STARPOWER—and checks in with her psychic friends, her astrological soul mates. You have to believe in something and she has always loved the stars—she is a classic Cancer, he is a prototypical Aquarius. Mercury is in retrograde, the planets are slipping out of alignment, hold on, Cancer, hold on. The planets are transiting, ascending—she works hard at keeping her houses in order.

She is pushing, always pushing. She rides for three hours, fifty miles a day. Her legs are skinny steel rods. When she’s done, she showers, puts on a new outfit, and emerges refreshed.

Philip has taken him out for an hour. He still gets great pleasure from shaking hands, pressing the flesh. So, occasionally Philip dresses him up like a clown, brings him to random parking lots around town, and lets him work the crowd. In his costume, he looks like a cross between Ronald McDonald and Howdy Doody. It makes the agents very nervous.

“Mommy,” he calls when he’s back.

“Yes?”

“Come here.” He is alone in the bedroom.

“Give me a minute,” she says. “I’m powdering my nose.”

She goes into the room. He beckons to her, whispering, “There’s a strange man over there who keeps talking to me.” He points at the television.

“That’s not a strange man, that’s Dan Rather—you know him from a long time ago.”

“He’s staring at me.”

“He’s not watching you, you’re watching him. It’s television.” She goes to the TV and blows a raspberry at the screen. Dan Rather doesn’t react. He keeps reporting the news.

“See,” she says. “He can’t see you.”

“Did I like him? I don’t think I liked him.”

She changes the channel. “You always liked Tom Brokaw.”



At twilight, he travels through time, lost in space. Terrified of the darkness, of the coming night, he follows her from room to room, at her heels, shadowing.

“It’s cocktail time,” she says. “Would you like a drink?”

He looks at her blankly. “Are you plotting something? Is there something I’m supposed to know? Something I’m supposed to be doing? I’m always thinking there’s a paper that needs to be signed. What am I trying to remember?”

“You tell me,” she says, making herself a gin and tonic.

He wanders off, in search. She stands in the living room sipping, enjoying the feel of the heavy crystal glass in her hand, running her finger over the facets, taking a moment to herself before going after him.

He is in her dressing room. He has opened every drawer and rummaged through, leaving the floor littered with clothing. Her neatly folded cashmere sweaters are scattered around the room. He’s got a pair of panty hose tied around his neck like an ascot.

He has taken out a suitcase and started packing. “I’ve been called away,” he says, hurriedly going to and from the closet. He pulls out everything on a hanger, filling the suitcase with her dresses.

“No,” she screams, seeing her beloved gowns rolled into a ball and stuffed into the bag. She rushes towards him, swatting him, pulling a Galanos out of his hands.

“It’s all right,” he says, going into the closet for more. “I’ll be back.”

Soledad, having heard the scream, charges through the door.

The place is a mess, ransacked.

“Sundowning,” Philip says, arriving after the fact. “It’s a common phenomena.”

“Where the heck are all my clean shirts?” he asks. At the moment he is wearing four or five, like a fashion statement, piled one atop the other, buttoned so that part of each one is clearly visible. “I’m out of time.”