I’m Losing You by Bruce Wagner Page A

civilians used a language Les could understand. Television actors spoke pidgin English unless they were cultural icons, which rendered them practically incomprehensible. Big Stars spoke “Catalan,” or its dream version—beyond translation. It was actually with relief that Les would find himself erased from that scene and propped in the middle of Sunset near the pink hotel, its refurbished, too-perfect grandeur and Disney World pastels suitable dressing for all manner of night terrors. As usual, the body lay ahead and relief turned to apprehension. Teeth shattered against curb and the demon seized upon him like always, fastening the cadaver to his back. Again, the instructions he’d heard time and again: burial before dawn in the yard of a house which of course, turned out to be his own. Les broke ground with the shovel, but this time was allowed to complete his chores before awakening. The body slid off him like a bangle into the grave.
    It was Obie.
    He floated up through inky waters, startled by his own sobs, his bed a set of dice, and then a lily pad. He was ravenous. He wolfed steak and eggs and began planning a cruise through the Suez to Safaga, on to Bombay and Colombo, Phuket and Penang, Kuala Lumpur. The Seychelles—the lagoons and atolls of the Indian Ocean, trade winds of an equatorial sky: Aldabra, Cosmoledo, Astove, Assumption. He’d invite a young man he met at the clinic. Thirty thousand apiece for Cunard’s “Owner’s Suite,” but Les could afford it. Calliope would think it a smashing idea.
    Friday, the doctor was over-booked. He shot a lot of collagen and pimples, soothed a lot of Big Star egos. He worked late and went to a premiere. He came home around eleven, showered and threw himselfinto bed. It was only minutes before sleep that Les realized he hadn’t thought of her the entire day—not once. The feeling of the nightmare came back, but instead of fear he was suffused by a corny, esoteric nostalgia. He knew he’d never have that dream again.
    All at once, it came to him. He would buy something for Obie before he left, something expensive, a brooch or diamond anklet. She’d love that. He smiled excitedly at the prospect. How fortunate he was, he thought, to be able to make such a kindness. He hugged a downy king-sized pillow and thought about where to shop. He was supposed to be in Santa Barbara tomorrow for a party at the Zemeckises’; the gift could wait till next week. He didn’t want to be compulsive about it—that was the old Les, the Les that needed to be loved, right now, right away, at any cost. Something silky, maybe, or something soft, like those eight-thousand-dollar shahtoosh scarves in vogue with Big Stars these days. Well, he’d think about it; had to be right. Besides, he could always get something on the cruise—
that’s
what he’d do. She’d miss him so while he was away. Les would have to break it gently, tell her the day before he put to sea. He’d give Edith-Esther exotic postcards with funny little messages from whimsical, imaginary ports of call, to read to her out loud. He’d buy Obie pearls—strands of duty-free black pearls. Docking in Long Beach at trip’s end, he’d limo straight to the hospital. He’d kiss her cheek and say he had a surprise, putting the necklace in her hand, wrapping it around the wrist like a rosary. Edith-Esther would tell everyone “Dr. Les got her those” and no one would doubt his love.

B OOK 2

WOMEN IN FILM

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    You’ll Never Eat Me During Lunch in This Town Again
by Phylliss Wolfe
    Strange-ass developments at hand! Wound up on the red eye to New York with Katherine Grosseck’s inamorata. (You haven’t met her yet, have you Eric?
Very
talented writer along the Kathy Acker line. It’s a dirty job but someone has to do it—Obie Mall used to say that about
everything
. Poor Obie.) The plane was totally, scarily