Finally, she settled on her love seat, curled her legs under her, and took stock of her life.
How much could possibly change in twenty-four hours?
She’d once known the answer to that: everything. But this time was different. This time wasn’t immediately tangible. This was more like a seed had been planted; the change was in the offing.
She picked up her phone in an effort to change the channel in her brain and noticed she had a WhatsApp message from her mother. She clicked on it.
Santorini today. Beautiful. Lots of young, drunk people stumbling around. Reminded me of UCLA on the weekends. Here for a week. Let’s video call soon. Love you. Hope Vegas was fun. Did I see it snowed there?
P.S. Stu is making me send this photo.
Attached was a picture of Marilyn mid-bite of a gigantic gyro. It wasn’t flattering, but it was spirited and joyful and Sewanee had such a rush of missing her mom she felt for a moment she had been transported, was sitting at the table, enjoying the fragrance of her mother’s cherry blossom perfume.
She checked the time; there was nothing she wanted more than to talk everything through with her mom. Like any mother and daughter, they’d had a long, circuitous, often conflicted journey, but their roads had reconverged just in time for Marilyn to leave on an actual journey. She was happy for her mom, but it was tough in moments like this: it was the middle of the night in Greece and Sewanee was forced to rely on herself.
The job, she thought. Let’s start there.
She knew how ridiculous her deliberation was, she’d seen it on Mark’s face. She knew any other narrator would open a vein to make this kind of money. Opportunities like this never came along.
So what if she didn’t believe in the way Romance novels portrayed life? She wasn’t the gatekeeper of reality. She could believe whatever she wanted and get paid a ton of money to let other people believe whatever they wanted. This project didn’t represent her personal point of view any more than the Sci-Fi or Fantasy or Speculative Fiction she recorded did.
A text came in from Adaku:
You make it home??
SEWANEE:
yes. Your luggage is in my car. Wanna come by tomorrow night?
ADAKU:
not good. Tuesday night?
SEWANEE:
yup.
ADAKU:
and I want to hear EVERYTHING
Sewanee chuckled. She’d texted Adaku around 2 A.M. telling her she’d met someone. Actually, her exact words had been: sorry I ruined your makeover and she’d attached a picture of herself sitting on the end of the bed, clutching a sheet to her chest, eye patch off, smudged makeup, smeared lipstick, rats’ nest hair. A napping naked Nick in the background. He’d woken up five minutes later and the night had continued.
Sewanee texted:
Promise.
And set her phone down.
Tomorrow she’d go to Seasons, check on Blah, talk to Amanda, talk to her father.
She finished her tea and let the cup rest in her lap, looking out into the night at nothing in particular. The residual warmth of the cup seeped through her skirt and she opened her legs to the heat, soothing the pleasurable tenderness there. She began drifting. She was in a bed, a man’s head pressed into her neck. He turned his face and brought his mouth to her ear and whispered, “Beautiful. Everything beautiful.”
AFTER A LUNCH of iced tea and chicken salad, Sewanee and BlahBlah headed back to her room.
Blah made her way in, Sewanee right behind her in case she lost her balance. But once they were inside, Blah closed the door as Sewanee headed over to a small couch opposite her grandmother’s favorite rocking chair.
“Pssst!” Blah hissed, and Sewanee turned around to see her pointing at the door. “Can you believe Mitzi? What a job they did on her!” she stage-whispered, though they were alone. “You call that a face-lift? I call it a felony!” Blah cackled her way to the small kitchenette that contained a minifridge, a coffeepot, and a microwave. “Jesus H. Christ, what a botch.” Blah grabbed a package of Mallomars off the counter. “She used to look half-decent, now she looks indecent.” Blah’s humor was a remarkable holdout of her dwindling acuity and Sewanee had a feeling when the jokes no longer existed, neither would Blah.
She chuckled. “It’s not that bad, Blah.”
“She should have left bad enough alone. You hungry? You want something, Doll? A Mallomar?”
“No, thanks, I’m stuffed.”
“Me too, me too.” Blah put the Mallomar she’d taken out back into its plastic cradle.
BlahBlah never ate. Not really. While a cookie was always close by, she didn’t eat full meals. When pressed, Blah would claim it was because she’d been born during the Depression, but Sewanee knew the studios had drilled it into her. Now, she still didn’t eat, as if tomorrow she might be asked to strip down to a bikini for a screen test.