Read the first four vignettes here.
Believe me, if all those endearing young charms,
Which I gaze on so fondly to-day,
Were to change by to-morrow, and fleet in my arms,
Like fairy-gifts fading away,—
Thou wouldst still be ador'd as this moment thou art,
Let thy loveliness fade as it will;
And, around the dear ruin each wish of my heart
Would entwine itself verdantly still!
- John Andrew Stevenson and Thomas Moore, A Selection of Irish Melodies, 1808
I.
"But I'm not a psychoanalyst," Dr. Oliver Sacks objects. "I'm a neurologist."
Reclining on the leather couch that Tit Elingtin and I found, for free, given away at a storage facility, I add, "And a ghost."
"I'm not a ghost," he insists. "And this isn't a dream. I'm a figment of your imagination. I'm you talking to yourself again."
"Can you explain all the kissing, though?" I ask him.
"I certainly can," he says in his polished English accent. Dr. Sacks is gay, and my interest in him is in his fascinating work as an articulate neurologist specializing in stories of quirky outliers, but god, I love a crisp English accent. My mind flashes on Murray Head (the Somerset Maugham suite. Oh god, the Somerset Maugham Suite!). Then Ralph Fiennes.
 |
| Adapted from the short story by Roald Dahl. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt28912858/ |
A rat creeps out from under Dr. Sacks's arm chair. The cats, Seven and Jerry, race after it, following it down the hallway into my office.
"Clue me in, Doc."
"You spend too much time on Tumblr. You've forgotten how to write a plot that doesn't descend into slashy self-insert fan fiction."
I sit up, one ear listening to the crashes and bangs coming from my office. I hope the cats haven't broken my Shakespeare candle.
"Harsh," I say.
"One day you'll get back in the habit of practicing your craft," Dr. Sacks says consolingly. "Other than in these short, self-referential pieces."
I nod. "Tell me what you meant when you said Charles Dickens had a haunted mind. Were you referring to that last year of his life, after the railway accident?"
He tells me everything, the footnote of the explanation, the digression that his editor made him remove from the book Hallucinations. I smile. At last I know.
Jerry trots back into the room and drops the dead rat at my feet.
II.
Author's note: Vignette II is vintage! This is from a just-for-me fic I wrote in 1998. I cleaned it up, tore out an unfun subplot, and added a cameo by The Pale Blue Eye!Edgar Allan Poe and Augustus Landor.
Finally they arrived at Jack Rabbit Slim’s. They were seated in a car–fortunately, they got a Stingray. Their server looked just like James Dean.
“Last time I was here, Buddy Holly was my server,” Uma told him.
“Who’s Buddy Holly?” he responded.
“I guess he was after your time,” she said.
Erin noticed that despite the nostalgic ‘50s decor, the music being played over the speakers was from the ‘90s. She heard the Spice Girls’ “Too Much.”
Tim ordered a vanilla Coke, but Erin and Uma had the famous five-dollar milkshakes. “The more pregnant you are, the more people try to get you to drink milkshakes,” said Uma. Uma was pregnant with her first child and she was in love.
They ordered burgers and sat talking about the party and about tv until the food came. They’d just started eating when the start of the nightly twist contest was announced. Uma set her burger down and volunteered herself as a contestant. Tim got up to dance with her. They danced to “Are You Jimmy Ray?”
As they danced, the server came and sat across the table from Erin. “You really look like him,” she said.
“I do?”
“Yeah, no foolin.’ I know it’s your job to look like him, but wow! You even have the same nice ass.” He gave her a little smile and seemed to blush slightly. She stared for what seemed like a long time, then said, “Oh my god.”
“I know what you’re thinkin’,” he said, wagging a finger playfully. “And you’re right.”
“You are him, for real.”
“For real, no foolin.’ Do you believe me?”
“I’ve talked to dead people before; it’s not so unusual. Why are you here?”
“I wanted to see her.”
“Uma Thurman.”
He nodded. “She’s the best actress I’ve seen since Natalie Wood. She’s not much of a dancer, though.”
“Give her a break; she’s pregnant.”
“But still hot.”
“That she is. What do you think of the boy?”
“He’s pretty hot, too.”
“I thought you’d like him. He’s a cop, but a nice one. He has to be a nice one to go out with me.”
He raised his eyebrows. Erin asked, “What, do you think I’m a bad girl?”
“Obviously,” he said, “but in the best possible sense. Sometimes no good can come from being good. Besides, you seem like an honest girl to me. I like people who are honest. That’s how I can tell you’re a Midwest girl.”
“I’m from Indiana,” she volunteered.
“Well there then now, that’s something else we have in common. I have to go wait on a Chrysler now, but when I come back I’ll bring you an ice cream. I hope you don’t mind sharing.”
She imagined sharing an ice cream with James Dean and felt the heat rising in her face. The tips of her ears felt suddenly hot.
Uma and Tim sat back down in the booth. “We’ve got the contest in the bag,” said Tim. “Did you see us up there?”
“No,” Erin admitted. “I was busy talking to James Dean.”
They returned to their burgers. Erin wasn’t more than halfway through hers when she noticed another familiar face sitting in the Chrysler booth across from them. He wasn’t one of the servers, yet the man seemed to be in costume. He looked exactly like the famous photograph of Edgar Allan Poe, although rather than a stiff and ill-fitting black suit suitable for a funeral, he wore a finely-tailored brown suit that nicely complemented his gently-curling dark hair. Across from the spitting image of a young Poe sat an older man, perhaps in his late forties, with graying dark hair and a solid build. If Erin’s eyes didn’t deceive her, Poe and the handsome older man appeared to be sharing a chocolate malt with two straws. They seemed to be on a date; she caught them furtively exchanging smiles.
Jimmy came around with the ice cream. He’d had the class to bring one for Tim and, as Uma predicted, an extra-large ice cream for Uma with extra whipped cream on top. People were always trying to get pregnant people to eat more ice cream, even James Dean, who famously thought children should be drowned like puppies. After delivering the chilly treat, Jimmy sat beside Erin. He leaned across the table and said in a stage whisper, “If you really want to see something, meet me on top of that bluff outside the city at seven tomorrow.”
“What happens then?”
“A chickie run. Have you ever been to one before?”
“Sure,” Erin said. “That’s all I ever do.” He took the spoon from her (he’d only brought one spoon for their shared ice cream), ate a large spoonful of ice cream, and left. Erin turned to Uma. “What’s a chickie run?”
The emcee took the floor again and announced that the winners of the twist contest had been decided. He called Uma and Tim back up to the dance floor and gave them the trophy. Everyone felt pretty good.
***
At seven o’clock the following evening, James, Uma, and Tim waited impatiently for Erin to arrive at the bluff outside the city. Finally she came along driving her mom’s 1995 Chevy Cavalier.
“What am I doing?” she asked, getting out of her car and walking over to the others.
“You and I are driving toward the edge, and the first one to jump out of the car is a chicken,” James Dean explained.
“And this is supposed to be a good idea?!”
“Just don’t forget to jump out.” He got into his car, a silver Porsche Spyder. Then Tim went over to the Spyder and rubbed some dirt on James’s hands.
“Tim, I would also like some dirt, please,” said Erin. Tim did the same for her. Uma stood safely off to one side as Tim prepared to give the signal for the run to begin. James and Erin turned on their headlights and waited. Then the signal came.
I’m not going to keep you in suspense over this: James jumped out first, followed seconds later by Erin. Their cars were gone, and although the were dusty, Erin and James were unharmed.
When she hit the ground, Erin was a little stunned. She shook it off, sat up and said, “Where’s James?”
“I’m right here behind you,” he said.
Tim began to cry. “Why are you crying? Erin asked him. “We both jumped. We’re fine.”
“But the cars!” Tim said.
“The Porsche, he means,” said Uma. “No one would cry over a green 1995 Chevy Cavalier.” Tim nodded in agreement.
James said, “Now let’s go hang out in that old abandoned mansion.” Erin went to hang out with her new friends at that old abandoned mansion.
III.
The light in the room seems wrong somehow. Too warm, too golden, even for this Southern California day. I feel like I'm in an Instagram filter designed to make me look vintage. I sense I'm being viewed by the male gaze and that the male gaze is squinting into a pair of tinted designer sunglasses.
I'm in another Tarantino movie, I think. How very Gen X of me. The word "recursion" pops into my head. I hear it in Dan Stevens's accent. Back into the past again. Boats against the current, beating back ceaselessly and all of that.
"Could I refresh your drink, dear?" asks my gracious and beautiful host, Niele Adams.
"Please," I say, sipping the last lime-infused dregs from my iced martini glass. She takes the glass and I turn to talk to the women beside me in the sitting room, all so impossibly beautiful and interesting. To my tremendous relief, each of them is clad in footwear which entirely covers the sides, backs, and toes of her feet. I shan't be forced to stare at any women's soles today.
Niele returns with my refreshed drink. I take a sip and it slakes thirsts I didn't even know I had in me, cool and heavenly, tasting of ascent and aspiration. I think of the 1890s Parisian tourist clubs Jess Cale describes on her history podcast: L'Enfer and Le Ciel, Hell and Heaven. This must be what it tasted like to drink in Le Ciel.
Nature calls and I excuse myself to use the guest bath. As I am on my second gin gimlet and a bit tipsy, it seems to me a bit of a trek. Nielle sends me through a den and down a hall. I know the ladies' is on my right, but which door? I turn a doorknob and hope for the best.
I slam the door shut, immediately aware that I've chosen unwisely. I've walked in on the man of the house and he's in the tub.
I shut my eyes. I face the door. Oh shit, I'm still inside the bathroom. Behind my back, Steve McQueen clears his throat.
"I'm so sorry," I say, almost spilling my drink as I fumble for the doorknob. Is it hot in here? Of course it's hot in here; this bathroom is filled with steam. The King of Cool likes his bathwater hot.
"See anything you like?" he asks, laughing. Hey, we have the same accent! We're from Indiana. His is less Kentuckiana than James Dean's.
"I didn't see anything," I say. I'm not entirely lying. All I saw was his stylishly-cut, wet dirty-blond hair.
I hear the water splash as he gets up.
"I'm your wife's guest," I say. "I'm just looking for the guest bathroom."
"You found it," he says, laughing as I feel like dying from embarrassment. "You can turn around now."
I assume this means he's put on a towel. I assume wrong. Now we're standing face to face and he's soaking wet and naked. He takes my drink from my hand, takes a long sip, and asks, "Is it hot in here?"
I nod. I repeat, "I'm your wife's guest." I barely get the words out of my mouth before he's kissing me, hard. He tastes like gin, lime, and tobacco and I have to be forgiven for the moan that escapes my throat.
"My wife's guest is my guest," he breathes into my ear. "How about I show you a little hospitality?"
L'Enfer. This is L'Enfer and I am burning alive. The fabric of my designer dress is soaked now and I don't care.
His feet are bare, but I'm not complaining about that either.
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