“What photos?”
“From…Villa Mercedes? You, in a nightgown, looking absolutely—”
Lee sat up, head pounding. Fragments of the night before came back to her—the cemetery, the fence, the club. The glorious feeling that everything made sense, and was snapping effortlessly into place. Lee put Francine on speaker and opened Instagram. There she was inside Villa Mercedes in a ripped nightgown, eyes bright with mania. The comments ranged from concern to mockery to artistic appreciation.
Raw and beautiful
This is what real pain looks like
Lee Perkins serving GLAM even in crisis
Mental health awareness queen
She was viral again. Not for her talent, not for her work, but for her public disintegration, packaged and consumed as entertainment.
“Lee?” said Francine. “Are you there? Are you there, Lee?”
44
Cord
Cord celebrated three days ofsobriety with a glass of gin at Snug Tavern in Tannersville, New York, followed by two more glasses of gin. After striding out of the journal-writing session, Cord had packed his bags. Giovanni, ever the teacher’s pet, had finished the “Make a Plan to Stay Screen-Free” workshop, then jogged back to Kiss Me Kottage #12 in time to inform Cord that if he left the “Return to Love Retreat,” he could keep on driving and never come back.
Cord called him a terrorist and took the car.
There had been a proverbial gun on the mantel of their relationship for some time. Both had wanted to ignore it, to keep an explosion at bay. Their relationship had become (to add yet another metaphor…or was it a simile?) a poisonous plant that entrapped them both. But as the world changed—first the Covid lockdown and then the confusing aftermath—both Cord and Giovanni found a very real comfort tangled in the vines of their toxic relationship. Now Cord had picked up Chekhov’s metaphorical gun, taken aim, and shot. At the metaphorical plant. He had shot his way free, leaving ruin in his wake and his cellphone in a lockbox, in a safe.
Now what?
The bartender at Snug Tavern poured a fourth gin to go, and Cord nestled the plastic cup between his thighs as he drove. Fuck Giovanni and fuck the tyrannical “Return to Love Retreat” and fuck NYC Ventures. None of it had worked—he’d tried it drunk, and he’d tried it sober. For lack of a better idea, Cord punched his mother’s address into the rental car GPS: 37 Wiley Bottom Road, Savannah, Georgia.
In thirteen hours and forty-four minutes, he’d be back in his mom’s house, the closest thing he had to a home. Charlotte wouldn’t judge him for drinking gin and scrolling his phone—once he got a new phone. She would love him joining her in front of theCBS Evening News. Maybe at the very site of the childhood that had maimed him, he could find a way to stumble forward. In any case, he could rest. Cord smiled. He could taste the Triscuits and cheddar already.
45
Lee
In Athens, Lee and Charlotteshared Regan’s room. Charlotte snored softly, her fragrance—a mixture of Jean Naté bath oil and a musky scent that was Charlotte’s alone—rousing a jumble of emotions in Lee: security, anxiety, sadness. Charlotte stirred, rolling away from her daughter.
Lee remembered the sweet shock of waking next to a man. Back when she had been carefree and wild, there had been naked Captain Luigi on theSplendido Marvelosocruise ship. At the time, all she had wanted was fame, some sort of validation from the universe that she was meant to be a star. Jason had just dumped her, and she felt emancipated. Those were the days when her mental problems lent her a sort of sparkle.
Ah, Captain Luigi. Too bad he was old, bad in the sack, and married.
Then Lee had met Kiko, a tour guide and chef on the island of Malta. She had allowed herself to dream of a life with him, even considering moving to Valletta, of all places! What if she’d gone and done it? But the universe had intervened, or God, or just biology: She’d tried to jump off her cruise ship balcony; some Peeping Tom had filmed it; and the rest was history. She was now, officially, famous for being insane.
For wanting someone to love her.
Lee allowed herself a moment to acknowledge that she reallydidwant to act again, but in arealfilm, with a prestige director. She wasn’t going to have a family of her own. She was never going to bear children. Why not aim to live on through beautiful, important work? Lee vowed to get her prescriptions organized and reach out to Francine. Her brain seemed to have recovered from the last episode, but anything could happen…worst of all, a deep depression.
Why did Lee have a sick brain? She tried not to ask this question, but it plagued her. It was scary not to know who you were, not to be able to trust your own thoughts. She was very tired from hanging on, keeping the door closed, staying.
Charlotte turned over, her hands clasped together. She opened her eyes, and Lee noticed that the blue of her irises had paled—was this a thing that happened with age?
“Hi, sweetheart,” said Charlotte.
“Hi, Mom.”
“I wrote to Paros,” said Charlotte. “I made a mistake when I told him I couldn’t leave Palmetto Shores.”
