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I looked at Deborah in astonishment, trying to remember whether I had said anything at all that might have tipped her off; there was nothing, but clearly she knew. Maybe there really is something to the whole Women’s Intuition business we’re always hearing about. Because Deborah knew, and she was obviously very upset about it.
“Deborah,” I said, flailing about desperately for something to say that would explain everything, calm her down, maybe even change the subject. But nothing came to me; I stood there with my mouth hanging silently open and my sister glaring at me hard enough to dent a Buick’s fender.
“You stupid piece of shit,” she said. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” It was not a well-thought-out question: I had a very good idea what I had done. I had done it more than once, and had an idea that I’d like to do it again—but that did not seem to be the same idea Debs had.
“A wife and three kids,” she snarled, “and you have to do this. Fucking leap into bed with Jackie Fucking Forrest.”
“Yes, but, Deborah,” I said, and it didn’t matter that I had nothing else to say, since she went right on without waiting for my contribution.
“I swear to fucking God,” she said. “I know all men think with their dicks, but I thought you were different.” She poked me in the chest with a very hard finger. “And then Jackie comes along and you’re just as fucking stupid as any other ball-brained asshole and you have to go and fuck her.”
“She helped,” I said, and it sounded horrible even to me.
“Jesus Fucking Christ, Dexter!” she said, and she was getting loud enough that a few technicians began to look up from their work and glance our way.
“Deborah, we’re supposed to be quiet in here,” I said. “Can we talk about this later?”
“There’s not going to be a later,” she said. “I don’t think I ever want to talk to you again.” And she slapped both hands into my chest, hard enough to make me take a step back, and then she turned and walked away to the far side of the set, pushing past the scurrying crew people and nearly knocking over two different lights.
I watched her go, wondering if she meant it. Never talk to me again? Me, her only sibling? Was it possible? I had never even thought of the possibility—had never for even a half moment considered that anything I did with Jackie could possibly affect my relationship with Debs. She was my sister—wasn’t that supposed to be a forever kind of thing? She had stayed my sister even when she discovered my wicked true self. As I understood things, what I did on my Special Nights was considered to be far more socially unacceptable than what I had done with Jackie.
And yet Deborah had instantly flown into high, possibly permanent dudgeon, just because I had dented a few trifling marriage vows, mere ritual words, mumbled in a meaningless rite in front of a hypothetical deity—and now she would never speak to me again?
I have said many times that I do not understand human behavior—but I had always paid Deborah the compliment of excluding her from mere humanity. She was above the routine idiocy of the rat pack, with one foot on the Olympian heights I occupied. And yet here she was, acting just as foolish and fallible as any reality-show-watching couch potato. Never again speak to me, just because I had done something human for once? It couldn’t be.
I looked across the set to where she stood, back turned to me. Even from this distance I could see the angry tightness in her shoulders, and she did not loosen up nor look toward me. She looked like she might really be angry enough to carry out her threat—but why? Why would such a small indiscretion spark her to such a massive reaction? How did my tryst with Jackie touch Deborah?
And why did the thought of Life Without Debs make me feel so hollow?
TWENTY-NINE
SADLY ENOUGH, DEBORAH DID NOT RELENT. SHE AVOIDED ME for the next two days, which took a certain amount of work on her part, since both of us spent twelve hours each of those days on the same soundstage. It was a relatively small space, and the areas where we were allowed to loiter were even smaller, but somehow she managed to find a way to make sure that my offensive shadow never fell across her righteous one. I had thought that a few hours of actual thought would calm her down and remind her that I was her only living family, but it didn’t happen. And when I tried to speak to her, she stalked away without even a glance in my direction. If I even leaned toward her from across the room, she would stomp off, as far away from me as she could get without leaving the building.
And after a while, my ex-sister’s behavior began to make me mad. Who was she to judge me, and why should I care if she did? She wanted to fling me from her life? Fine, consider me flung. It was no loss to me—we weren’t really related anyway, not by blood, which is really all that matters. We had grown up in the same house, but I knew of no law stating that shared real estate was a tie that binds. What did it matter if we never spoke again? Speaking is overrated, a waste of time and energy when there were more important things to do—like sampling the pastelitas on the food table.
In any case, I had already left Deborah’s tiny, morally constricted, hard-knocks world, and entered a new and better one. I was now flying in Jackie’s lightly scented orbit, with fresh flowers and chocolates on the pillows, and I liked it a lot more than I had ever liked serving as Deborah’s punching bag.
Debs wanted no more to do with me? So be it. One less messy and annoying tie to a life I was eager to leave behind.
Besides, I had work to do. I was in three scenes as Ben Webster, Forensics Whiz, and in two of them I had actual words to say. Not many of them, of course, but they were important enough to include in the script, and I felt I should give them my all. So I flung myself into the brutally hard work of remembering the twenty-two words I had to say in front of the camera—and to be fair, just remembering them was not enough. They had to come at the right time, and in the right order, and they had to be said in a way that was convincing and interesting. Acting really is much harder than most people imagine, and I spent many long hours searching for just the right way to say, “The lab results are back.” I found eleven different inflections before settling on the best one.
Two long days on the set, and two more nights with Jackie, nights that seemed far too short. Our idle hours of sipping mojitos and watching the sun set were a distant memory now; after twelve hours on the set, Jackie was so tired that when we got back to the hotel, it was no more than a quick meal, a brief but intense period of studying the next day’s script, and then a shower. Of course, the shower was a mutual one, and lasted a little longer than usual. But then it was straight off to bed for a few hours of precious slumber, only occasionally interrupted by nonsleep activities.
No life is without its puzzles, and my new one was no exception. For starters, Robert seemed to be avoiding me. Maybe I had broken his sweet little heart, and maybe he caught it from Deborah, but there was no doubt about it. Like my sister, he fled from my very shadow. There were no more invitations to lunch, no more vapid questions about fingerprints. He made himself unavailable and unapproachable, spending his time either in his dressing room, “studying lines,” or off the set altogether, gone away to no one knew where.
Even Renny talked to me now and then, skillfully pulling a few compliments out of me about his Saturday-night performance. But Robert was elusive; if I passed him in the hall he would nod and hurry past before I could speak, and if I saw him grabbing a cup
of coffee, he would give me a quick and cheery hello, and then rush away still stirring his cup. I did not actually mind not speaking to him, but it was a little bit unsettling to have it be his decision, and it made me wonder whether I should change my mouthwash. But Jackie hadn’t complained, and she would certainly know better than Robert if I was suffering from Fetid Breath Syndrome.
It occurred to me that maybe Robert was avoiding me because of his animosity toward Jackie, and because I was so obviously with her now—and in fact, the last time he had really spoken to me was at the wardrobe room in the hotel, when he saw me arrive with Jackie. And then my kids had shown up, and we had all gone our separate ways, and of course he couldn’t confront me, point an angry finger at me, and accuse me of being straight. Whatever; I did not regret the way I had gone, even if Robert probably did.
Whatever his reasons, Robert stayed away, and that made it very difficult to give him technical advice. But I managed to contain my dismay somehow and still gather my share of pastelitas.
And for some other reason, those two days also went by without any progress in catching Kathy’s killer. It seemed impossible, at least to Anderson, but somehow he was no closer to finding his perp than he had been the day he was born. He was still convinced Kathy’s murder had been the work of the same killer, and so it was naturally hard to find any leads. I would have been very glad to lead him to Patrick, especially if I could leave them together underwater, but of course that would be against the rules: Being an Odious Dumbfuck did not make Anderson eligible for my Special Attention. Besides, Patrick did not kill Kathy. And since I really had no interest in finding out who did, I let Anderson flail around in his dull and ignorant fog. I hadn’t really liked Kathy, and it wasn’t my job to bring her killer to justice. And in any case, I was much too busy practicing my lines, and shooting my first two scenes.
My acting seemed to be reasonably well received. At any rate, nobody actually complained, and when I finished the first scene, the one where I told Jackie, “The lab results are back,” she gave me a hug.
“Can you say Emmy?” she said to me, smiling.
