“I may have had the best time of my life.”
He looked at me then, his face awash in blue screen glow. “Are you drunk?”
“I am.” I closed my eyes.
He tapped his goodbye onto the screen. “Wait a minute.” He got up and went into the kitchen, then he came back with an unreasonably large glass of water and three aspirin.
I sat up and thanked him.
“Aspirin is old-school,” he said. “It’s the most amazing drug and nobody takes it anymore because it’s always been around.”
“And because it burns a hole through your stomach lining.”
“This isBufferin, as inbuffered. Do you think I’m not looking out for you? Never take Tylenol when you’re drunk. You’ll blow out your liver.”
“You are my North Star,” I said.
“Did it make it any better to know?” He kept his voice quiet in deference to his sleeping parents. He was such a good boy.
“It did. When Eddie told me he was gay, I didn’t say anything about David Hockney. It was out of my system.”
“Good,” he said. “That’s good. Are you going to bed?”
“I am,” I said, but did not move.
“Should I get Mom to come and help you?”
I took a deep inhale and pushed myself up, first to sitting and then to standing. I wobbled slightly, and wondered how we had walked all the way from the Plaza. “I’ve got this. I love you.Good night.”
“I love you, good night,” he said, and went back to his game.
My two nieces, Wynn and Clare, were not yet home, and so I was sleeping in Wynn’s room. I struggled to reach the zipper on my dress, but the fabric was stiff and restrictive. The length of the sleeve did not allow my arms to properly bend. Leda had zipped me up. The only other time I’d worn the dress, at Jonathan’s retirement party, Jonathan had been there to both get me into it and get me out. I didn’t have the life force to walk back to the living room and ask for more help from Henry, and I didn’t want to ask him to unzip my dress anyway. I kicked off my shoes and crawled into Wynn’s bed. The pattern of her quilt was called Ohio Star. She told me that once.
All that night, I dreamed of my father, the two of us out on the boat. The engine was loud and spit out greasy black clouds of diesel exhaust, but in this dream the wind was coming straight from the east and the day was clear and fresh and Buddy was so happy, and I was so happy to be there with him as we chugged out towards the open sea.
In the morning, Leda came in quietly with a beverage tray:black coffee, orange juice, more water, and two pieces of dry wheat toast to sop it all up. She must have been talking to Henry. The clear bottle of aspirin balanced like a sentinel between the orange juice and coffee. “Scoot over,” she said, then saw that I had slept in my dress.
“Okay,” she said. “What a night.” She opened her daughter’s dresser and found a pair of scrub pants and a field hockey T-shirt, then she liberated me from my cocktail dress, which allowedme to fully inhale for the first time since yesterday in the early evening.
“Oh, this is so much better,” I said.
“Wait, sit next to me, you’ve still got pins in your hair. Does Jonathan usually get you ready for bed?”
“I don’t usually go to bed drunk.” I scratched fiercely at my scalp, a wonderful feeling.
She handed me the mug. “Start with this.” We crawled into bed together and pulled the covers up. “Tell me everything, and I mean everything. Don’t leave out a word.”
I leaned against her. “Okay, first, Eddie came to your apartment to pick me up.”
“Yes,” she said, nodding. “That’s good. Start there.”
(FRIDAY,JANUARY 18, 1980. WINCHESTER, MASSACHUSETTS.)
This was Daphne Zabriskie’s first car accident, and it was a big one. They had sailed off a cliff and crashed down through the dark winter trees. Two minutes in and she could already imagine herself telling the story.
“Take an inventory,” Eddie told her. “Wiggle your fingers and toes.” It seemed prudent to whisper. He had a fear of setting things back into motion.
“Okay,” she said. Wiggle, wiggle.
