The Actor stood up, felt Dee’s presence nearby, told himself this was the time for fortitude and not desperation. He coughed once, twice, felt a now-familiar liquid rumble in his stomach and the heave of the snap-pea-and-blood-orange salad he had eaten on the plane rising high into his esophagus, and nearly made it to the bathroom before he threw up.
* * *
—
Negotiations were afoot throughout the main house and the bungalows. Emergency councils were being held on the porch and in “breakout rooms.” Voices that had been placid for weeks were suddenly being raised. Colonists wept. Or held back their tears. Only Nat was happy about his return, the fulfillment of her prophecy, the proximity to greatness. She had asked her mother to let him stay. She and Karen would sew a stylish new mask for him and then isolate him for weeks. She thought he was a wounded bird.
* * *
—
“I don’t love him and I don’t want him,” Dee said to Ed. “Stop talking about him like he’s some kind of rival. Like I don’t get to choose.”
“There must be some ember here or there,” Ed said. They were in her cabin, surrounded by typewriters, the presence of which inadvertently heightened their vocabulary.
“What ember?”
“Ember of desire. On your part. For him.”
“Don’t go all English as a second language on me now.”
“Fuck you,” Ed said, surprised he could still be hurt by her remark. “I’m just thinking about your career.”
“How can you say that? I’m supposed to choose between two men for my career? Between a man I want and one I don’t.” Ed realized his blunder and was ashamed. She stormed out and he followed her into the warm lunar night.
“I love that you’re a striver!” he shouted after her. “I love that about you!”
She ran down the driveway and into the beams of a truck idling at its terminus. She thought she saw what looked like a barely legal country boy in the driver’s seat, seat belt off, his speckled chin still a work in progress, his eyes fixed fearfully onto the woman emerging from the mist, running toward him as if she were ready to throw herself on his hood in some overblown Mediterranean gesture. The driver quickly killed his dome light falling into villainous shadow, reversed his truck, swerved out of the driveway, and stepped on the gas with a youthful lack of compromise. She ran after it without concern or care. She could stand up to anyone. A lovesick thespian, her coward boyfriend, a fellow hick with a pump-action rifle.
* * *
—
“He’s just toying with you,” Masha was saying to her husband in the main house. They were in the bedroom, both of them naked, as they had recently stopped wearing clothes after Nat was tucked away with her photo of Jin and Llama Llama towel, their simple bedroom re-eroticized.
“But what if? What if!” the landowner shouted.
“Shhhh!” Masha said. From down the hallway they heard a loud Nat moan. （She was being dream-chased by a murderous hornet, and her father’s voice sounded like the nearness of its buzz.）
“He’s where I want him,” Senderovsky continued.
“He’s never where you want him. He’s a wreck. He’s dangerous. To himself and to others. He needs help.”
“You can help him.”
“I’m not sure I can.”
“I could say something right now. I could talk about what you did.”
“When things were different between us,” Masha said, “when our marriage was in name only, I washed him in the shower and he came in my hand maybe two dozen times.” Senderovsky was jealous at the extent of her honesty. How did one tell the truth with such ease? This is why they said, “Never marry a shrink.”
“You don’t have to live like this,” she said, “all the lying and manipulating. We both know where it comes from. You were lied to since the day you were born. We’ll make it work, I swear. I’ll go back to private practice.”
“Only if you want to,” Senderovsky said, unable to acknowledge how much his wife would do for him. “Though it won’t save the bungalow colony. We need a show on the air for that.”
“I know how much you love this place,” Masha said, “but it’s only a placeholder for your memories. For a time when this was the only spot on earth where you had friends and were welcome and loved, and everyone spoke your language. Well, you have friends now, and you speak the language, and you don’t have to pine for me anymore, you can have me every day and every night.”