With or Without You Read online

  The fat lady grunts.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, pay no attention to the pig-bitch in heat. We have a special guest coming by later. I can’t tell you her last name because she’s in the ‘program’ and we’re not supposed to say, but her first name is … no, let’s just call her Anonymous Woman. She’s been very busy lately with TV appearances, benefits, parties—you don’t know the strings I had to pull to get her on the Lily S. Show.”

  “Spread ’em, lover!” the interloper screams. It’s getting harder to ignore her. I pump up the radio.

  “First the weather. It’s cold today with patchy clouds, a lowpressure system moving over the Atlantic will make it feel like twenty degrees below zero. For all of you nonweatherites out there, that’s colder than a witch’s tit. Like being caught in the frozen food aisle in shorts and a tank top.”

  “Oh yeah, yeah! That’s it, baby!”

  “Hey, fuck off!” I throw off the covers, anger steaming from my nostrils. The pig-bitch groans. This means war.

  I stand up, fists tightened at my sides, and there she is. A blob with eyeballs huge and fiery. This demon masturbator. Her arms unfurl like a great ape, the folds of skin jiggling above her pubes. Fascinating, like ridges on a volcano. As much as I want to turn away I’m amazed she can do this in front of me without an ounce of shame. She’s a freak of nature; the audience will love it, they’re big into freaks. But her screams, her moany stroke-talk and sleepy sort of whimpering, remind me of crybaby Blair. I’m going back in time, an interplanetary leap courtesy of stereophonic sound. “Ladies and gentlemen, we are floating in the arms of unconsciousness …”

  I fall backwards, my arms curled around my body, traveling Blairward. We’re in her house. A head cold makes her cheeks glow and she’s got her hair wrapped in a clean white towel. She carries her medicine in a sifter because it’s brandy. The only cure for the common cold, she says. I take the glass from her and set it on the side table, turn out the big light so we can see the tiny green Statue of Liberty glowing across the room. Like an ancient queen, Blair leans against the headboard, the two Persians, Grace and Marilyn, at her feet. She pats the bed with her palm and smiles. I dive inside and we’re giggling; the sheets so soft, her body so warm. She turns me on my stomach, tickling me, blowing raspberries into the hollow above my cheeks. I’m laughing so hard I can’t breathe. I call out for her to stop, which she does, eventually, flipping me over and staring. She takes my right hand in between the two of hers and massages my palm and fingers. You have such lovely little hands, Lillian.

  The demon screams, “Yeah, fuck, fuck … fuck!”

  I stay with Blair, feeling the quickness of her heart as she presses my hands above her breasts. She says she needs me. A knot of fear slips down my throat. To be needed is a big responsibility. I move my lovely little hands down to her nipples and squeeze, licking the tips.

  “Yesssss, oh yes!”

  Someday we’ll leave it all behind, she says, just as soon as she quits her job. She’s had it with flying. The soul wasn’t meant to move so quickly. She says she needs me, says she loves me, says she’ll take care of me. Overwhelmed by the warmth, the softness, I nestle my head into her breasts. She says ahhhhh! I shut my eyes and suck, suck, suck, feeling her press against me, warm all over, giggling and calling for … díos? I look up from her spit-soaked nips and she’s Mimi.

  “Motherfucker, cocksucker … oh, yes, yes, yes!!!”

  Amplified, the pig-bitch snares my attention. I feel her collapse on my top bunk, a sonic boom that shakes the entire bed. Her leg hangs over the side. I imagine twisting until it unscrews from the rest of her body, then wrapping it around the back of my neck, the flesh of a rare animal. It tugs so tightly I can’t breathe. She’s strangling me. My obit will read, “Snuffed by the lumpy limb of a pig-woman.”

  I stand up to get a closer look. She is phenomenal. A mountain of skin upon skin upon skin. I can’t stop staring. She flips over on her side, eyebrows fluttering as if she knows the sex sounds get me every time. “Ladies and gentlemen,” the mountain laughs, and I shrink so small I can see my entire figure in her eyes like muddy ponds. “Get your spaceships ready,” she says, “we’re going for a ride in the sky.”

  Then, abruptly, in a move more cacophonous than swift, this odd woman jumps down from the top bunk and stands in front of me, stalwart on her hefty legs, topped by her barrel of a stomach and too-small head. I want to scream, Get the fuck out of here! It’s my room! But when I open my mouth it’s as if someone’s sliced out my tongue. This woman in front of me with her papier-mâché face and greasy hair is so stereotypical of women in prison I’m sure I’ve called her to me the way I’ve gotten used to bringing you and Blair and everyone else inside. My mind has become a transporter. I am the radio.

  Loosening up a bit, I let the rage shift to a different part of my body, the part I can’t control. The woman kneels in front of me with her hands flat against my stomach. Her touch is gentle though hardly tentative. Before I know what’s happening she’s unbuttoning my pants, and I’m throwing all of my weight against her shoulders—but I don’t usually do it like this. I struggle a bit. She is the biggest fucking woman I’ve ever seen, and now that we’re both standing she’s got me pinned against the wall. “What have you got to say for yourself?” she shoves her fist into my face as if she’s got a microphone. I turn the other cheek. With her free hand she grabs between my legs, lightly brushing her thumb against me. This is not supposed to happen. Nobody but Mimi touches me there. And not too often. “Your audience is waiting …” she whispers, and I am paralyzed. “Not such a big-shot after all, huh?”

  She goes down and I bite my cheek, fearing the whole of it: her tongue, my cunt, the electric clash of lips. A complete waste of time. It never works for me, the lovey-dovey cunt worship most girls get off on. Mimi says I need it rough, the way girl cats need to be ambushed and attacked. That was how she took my virgin pussy.

  So I stand there pretending because it’s easier than explaining. I think of Mimi and the way she holds me with her thumb and first two fingers … hers; Blair and what I’d like to go back and show her now that I know what is supposed to happen in a double bed, and, of course, you’re watching—it’s what you do—as I float off in my silver suit and glass helmet.

  I am the best disc jockey in outer space. An audience of zillions tunes in for my interview with Anonymous Woman, who’s just buzzed into the studio. Images accost me like shooting stars, my cohost announcing them as if we were playing The $25,000 Pyramid (in space): screwdrivers, arugula, shiny black cars, men with beards, electrolysis, split-level houses, orange pill vials, French manicures on toenails, big yellow teeth, Bombay martinis, power suits, sunglasses, red onions, dusty pocket mirrors, thick calves, sashimi deluxe, Chanel No 5, bronze eye shadow, loud belly laughs, tennis skirts, peppermint chewing gum, hair cream, and cigarettes, thousands of cigarettes … ultralights.

  Ding, ding, ding … things that remind me of my mother!

  We have a winner.

  “Yes!” I shout, and it fools the fat lady, who falls back on the concrete. I pull up my pants and dive into bed, drowning under the sheets, more depressed than before. She’s ruined the Lily S. Show. But who cares? Tomorrow is another day. Only I’m stuck in a world of todays. You wrap your arms around me, whispering, It’s okay, Lillian, I’m still here.

  YOU’D BEEN CALLING ME TO THE SILVER SHORES of the Pacific for months before Jack finally contacted a writer friend of his in Los Angeles who’d arranged for Edie and me to visit the set of World Without End. Apparently, that was no easy feat. The show had been getting tons of press since your Jaymie Jo Rheinhart started moving things. It began with common objects: pens, notebooks, plates, dishwashing liquid, skateboards, bikes, backpacks. A little concentrated headspace and the right theme music was all it took to lift them, spin them, make them dance, or hurl them against the wall, depending on her mood. Alex Rheinhart thought it was cute until she started levitating people, namely
him. Of course, he blamed her boyfriend, calling it some sort of voodoo magic.

  Edie said the whole show was racist for making Alex Rheinhart say that on television, but it gave Jaymie Jo the opportunity to reaffirm her love for Max, even though everyone in Foxboro disapproved more than ever, and their anger seemed so real, the way it might happen in any town in America, and I said so. “Of course their racism is real,” Edie’d lectured during one of our World marathons. We’d watch the whole week in one sitting. She always seemed as into it as I was, but that day she stopped the tape. “Let me tell you something, Lil,” she said, “you wouldn’t believe the stares I get even when I’m with the Ayatollah. And he’s just light brown. People are so racist they don’t even know it.”

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying,” I argued, quoting a story I’d read in Soap Opera Digest. “Maybe if there were more interracial couples on television, people would accept it more. Jaymie Jo’s being courageous. She’s a role model.”

  “Jaymie Jo? You say that with a straight face. Jaymie Jo. See, this is why everything is so fucked up. Jaymie Jo is not real ! Her boyfriend’s not real. The whole town of Foxboro doesn’t even exist, but for some reason this fake person in this fake town is more important than me and the Ayatollah walking into the diner even though everyone’s staring like they want to rip our faces off? Like they’ve got some god-given right. Why is that? Huh … why?”

  “’Cause this town sucks. At least on World people talk about it.”

  “Voodoo? You call that talking. It’s a reference and a stereotype. Please … that shit pisses me off.”

  “So write a letter.”

  “A letter?” She sprung off my bed. “Hey, that’s a friggin’ Anumber-one idea, Lil. Get out your book. We’ll draft a letter.”

  Of course, we weren’t the only ones, although our letter was really cool and had references to Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, and the lyrics of Bob Marley (my idea, thank you very much). We knew somebody must have read it when Alex Rheinhart apologized to Max for the voodoo thing, and they joined forces to help find a priest to cure Jaymie Jo from the demons that were making her vomit and speak in tongues, and Edie said, see, you were nothing but a pawn for the producers, and you hated her for it. You were shocked when she wanted to come with me to L.A. You never trusted her, but what could I do after she’d begged and pleaded. “My brother’s out there, we’ll have a blast,” she said. “I hear California guys are really progressive. They don’t eat meat and they grow their own dope and shit.”

  Okay, maybe we had different ideas about the trip, but I had to admit I was happy she wanted to come. It would be fun having someone to hang out with and might make the flight easier. Ever since the space shuttle exploded, I’d been more afraid of flying than ever. You could never be sure they’d checked all the equipment, or what if the pilot hadn’t slept for days? And then there were hijackers … The more I thought about it, Blair’s fear of flying really made sense. I swiped a handful of Valium from Nancy and swallowed one before she dropped us at the airport. Walking through the metal detectors was easier than ever, slower and more dreamy. I kept thinking I saw Blair and kept working up the nerve to say hello, say look, I’m using your book, say why’d you leave, but up close it was just another blonde with wings.

  By the time we touched ground in Los Angeles, I could barely remember strapping in and taking off. I think they let us drink screwdrivers. We stumbled out of the gate at LAX and were met by a man in a chauffeur’s hat and faded jean jacket who held up a piece of cardboard with our names scratched in magic marker. He was Chuck, he said. Gustave Monde’s right hand. We all smiled as he carried our bags out of the airport and into his car, a Lincoln Continental. It was classic—Edie and me sitting like movie stars on the velvety backseat watching Los Angeles saddle up through the smoky windows. I’d been there once before with Jack and Nancy when I was a kid but couldn’t remember anything beyond the Chinese theatre and Disneyland. Tourist stuff. This time I had a purpose and Edie was lucky I’d brought her along for the ride. Of course she was too cool to show it, shuffling her cat-eye sunglasses and sighing in her this-is-so-blasé fashion as we traversed the green hills headed for a place called Los Feliz where Gustave’s aunt owned a place on a block of palm trees and stucco houses that made me think time had stopped in the early sixties. Just before the hippies descended. Even the cars looked tired and clunky.

  I half expected to find Lucy and Ethel sipping coffee in the kitchen after Chuck fit the key into the front door and we dropped our bags on the couch with the plastic covers, careful not to bump into the piano in the center of the room. Chuck walked over to it and flicked a switch. The theme from The Sting came out on its own. “That’s my favorite thing about this place,” Chuck smiled, so goofy, his blond moustache twitching. Edie raised her upper lip, like, You dork. I watched the keys drop up and down, touched by invisible fingers. I’d never seen a player piano in real life. It was like watching colors miraculously appear on a canvas.

  Chuck said to make ourselves at home. He had to get back to work, but Gustave would be by soon. Left to ourselves, Edie and I set about inspecting the army of cartoonlike statuettes and odd knickknacks—the marionette in red, white, and blue knickers hanging from the ceiling, an old street lamp next to the original poster from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, walls lined with African masks and oil paintings with three-dimensional gold frames, shelves crammed with hundreds of tiny colored bottles, small ceramic plates, crystalline animals, frayed black-and-white photos, silver figurines. Gustave’s aunt, the legendary French gossip columnist, Filomina Leroux, was keeper of the most bizarre stuff I’d ever seen. The kitchen was awash in sand art sculptures, tiny Civil War soldiers, old appliances, plastic cups from McDonald’s, gardening tools, and a supply of packaged seeds to last a lifetime. Edie lifted a white helmet with the nuclear power symbol from the coat rack. “I’ve never seen so much junk in my life,” she said.

  “Jack said it was like a museum.”

  “The museum of junk.” She put on the helmet and pointed out the kitchen window. “Hey, look! Frenchie really hooked us up.”

  In the backyard was a swimming pool the same pale green as the Buick with its top down that I’d spotted in the garage. Edie had seen it, too. She said wouldn’t it be great if we found the keys and went cruising, and I faked enthusiasm, but over my dead body was that going to happen. She was trouble in cars.

  Outside, Edie kicked off her boots and dipped her feet into the water. I sat back on a rusty lounge chair, its plastic strips so stretched and frayed they must have held more than a few bodies in their day. Maybe even celebrities. Jack said Filomina Leroux had run with the movie star crowd back in the fifties, back when the president himself was a leading man and a liberal. He’d even headed up the actors’ union. I imagined him, a handsome guy sipping piña coladas by the pool with the stunning foreign journalist, unaware his journey would one day land him in the Oval Office. Life suddenly seemed long and full of hope.

  When Gustave showed up a couple of hours later, Edie and I had barely moved. “You are enjoying Aunt Fifi’s house,” he said, as if his simply stating the fact made it so. Gustave had a heavyduty God complex. Jack said this was a good thing for a director, and Gustave did look a little like Jesus before his long brown hair started receding in front. A few months ago, he’d cut it short and started wearing a lot of baseball caps. Now he looked like he played for the Mets.

  Gustave rushed us out the door for an early dinner at an Italian restaurant in Hollywood. “I have less than two hours to spare,” he’d said. “I rearranged all things today just to see my favorite girl.” He pinched my cheek, and I blushed. For some reason, Gustave liked me.

  As soon as we sat down at the restaurant, Gustave ordered for all of us in Italian, then told us about the PSA he was shooting—a national campaign against product tampering starring a famous drug cop from TV. Nice to direct a spot with a mission, Gustave said. For it was as evil as planting a bomb
in an airport, this poisoning of random bottles of aspirin. Worse than Russian roulette. Gustave put his forefinger against his head. “If you are putting a gun to your head, you want to know it, eh?”

  “What’s he like? That TV guy,” Edie said.

  “Oh, he is a dynamite shithead.”

  “I hear he’s going bald.”

  “Bald, sure, who isn’t? But he has holes in his skin in addition. This is a problem because we are all working for free. The makeup is very bad.”

  “He has holes in his skin?” Edie practically spit up her water, and Gustave told a story about another famous actress who’d had her lips injected with Vaseline so she could become the spokesperson for a cosmetics company. The executives wanted her lips big and shiny, as if their only purpose was to be kissed. Edie kept shrieking and nudging me, but I couldn’t fake interest. All through the meal, I kept thinking of our meeting, you shaking my hand, a knowing twinkle in your baby blues, saying we had so much to talk about now that I’d finally come to the Coast. You tell me about the stress of speaking in tongues on television, problems with your boyfriend, the controversial interview in People where you said you were actively looking for the right movie role, the next step. I divulge my latest philosophy of negative space. You say I am wise.

  Edie smacked my shoulder and said something about dessert. I ordered tiramisu. She laughed at Gustave’s joke: What kind of wood floats? Natalie Wood.

  You invite me back to your apartment for lunch so we can listen to CDs. The new girl in music-video land sings about love. You tell me you are tired but must read through next week’s scripts. I offer you one of the Valium I swiped from Nancy.

  “Earth to Lillian, dee, dee, dee … Earth to Lillian, come in please,” Edie said, her eyes dipping toward my tiramisu with a lone fork print in the custard. “I’ve never seen you leave dessert. Are you on a diet or something?”

  “Hah-hah,” I glared. I hated when she interrupted my thinking. Her fork swung toward my plate, and I grabbed her hand.