The Elizas: A Novel(34)

ELIZA


ON WEDNESDAY, I make a list of people who might hate me. Friends from childhood, old neighbors, my parents, Steadman, people from the writing group Kiki and I belong to whose fiction I critiqued the teensiest bit too harshly, customers from Steadman’s curiosities shop I snubbed, that man I rear-ended earlier this year and, instead of giving him my insurance details, I fled the scene. Any of them could be the right answer, but they all feel wrong. I have done worse things. I know it. I just don’t know what they are.

So how can I get more information on what happened? I try the Shipstead several more times to no avail. I listen to my self-hypnosis tapes in hopes that I’ll put myself into a trance that will conjure back the memory. I look up Amygdala tumors to see if they regularly recur. They can. I look at pictures of some amygdala tumors for a while. They are ugly, white splotches against a dark, spongy mass.

Then I type in Eliza Fontaine-comma-amygdala-tumor, in hopes of . . . well, I’m not sure what. It’s not like the hospital would list my medical records on a public forum. It would be nice, though, to see a scan of my tumor; it would make it easier to picture it in my head again now. But the only stories about me are about my pool plunge and links to the book, which I peruse quickly, then click out of because they all suggest that I’m either suicidal or extremely attention seeking.

I stalk old friends online to see if any of them were in Palm Springs the night I fell into the pool. None of them were. I look up Desmond Wells, too. His picture is front-and-center on the official site of the Ludi Circensus festival in San Fernando. There is Desmond with an ivy wreath in his hair and wearing a toga with a rope for a belt. His legs, I note, are oddly hairless. I wonder why the hell I’m looking at his legs.

I also need to prove to Kiki that I’ve got my shit together and don’t require her concern. It all dovetails nicely into an invitation to her to the Greater Los Angeles Kitty Splendor Cat Show this afternoon. When Kiki was young, so the story goes, she and her family paraded a chubby Maine Coon named Buster around the country in hopes that they’d make the national finals. She still has pictures of Buster all over her bedroom, and rumor has it her parents keep him, stuffed, on their mantel. We don’t have a cat now—her brother hated the experience as much as she loved it, and clearly he makes all the rules—but Kiki says just being in the presence of feline excellence helps fill the void.

The show is in the ballroom of a Westin hotel one block away from the Chinese Theatre and the Hollywood Walk of Fame. All the tables in the space are against the walls, and the room is full of meowing. Most of the cats are in cages, and it’s hard to know who the judges are because everyone’s kind of a clone, male and female alike—dumpy, frizzy-haired, bespectacled, talky. I see about a hundred puffy-paint cat sweatshirts. Men with beer guts wear message tees that say Meow Power. We pass a group of cat dorks telling a joke; the punch line has something to do with a Siamese. “Mister Mistoffelees” from Cats blares over the PA. Admittedly, the cats are gorgeous—most of them look like completely different species than the mangy messes I’m used to dealing with. A Persian looks at me with such intelligence I’m pretty sure he’s reading my mind. I shake a feather I plucked from a drawer at home at a Sphinx, and I swear he rolls his eyes, like I’ve got to be fucking kidding.

I nudge Kiki’s side. “You really used to love this as a kid?”

“Oh, it was wonderful. I had my first kiss during a kitten judging.” Kiki gives me a smirk. “I guess you’re too good for me now that you’re going to be on Dr. Roxanne?”

I couldn’t resist telling Kiki about Dr. Roxanne; she watches a lot of daytime TV, so I figured she’d know who Dr. Roxanne was. Sure enough, when I broke the news, she screamed. “That woman is amaze-balls! Your book is going to be everywhere because of her.” She took my hands and jumped up and down. “We should have a party when it airs!”

Still, I dread Roxanne’s questions. I’m positive one of them will have to do with my illness. I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want it to define me. I should have never told Posey about it, but I’d felt like I needed to set the record straight. Only, what if she’s already told everyone? What if that’s what the marketing team is concentrating on now?

I don’t want to be known as the phenom who had her skull cracked open by some sort of new brain-surgery technology and then two weeks later starts—and finishes!—a novel. People will see me as a Rain Man. A spooky savant, possibly with robot parts. Sufferers are more than the sum of their suffering, but the rest of the world doesn’t see that. If Dr. Roxanne prods me to talk about my illness, I’ll never know if my audience buys my book because I am the girl who overcame the brain tumor or because my book actually sounds interesting. Maybe I shouldn’t care. Maybe I should just be happy they buy it, period. But I want them to like it. I want them to like me.

Kiki’s eyes are dreamy as she walks toward a crate of Russian Blues. “Are these descendants of Mr. Azure Enchantress?” she asks the owner, a pale, balding man who is most definitely a serial killer. He nods, and Kiki is off and chatting.

I wander away from the booth. The cages to my right and left are exactly the same. Next are booths of cat toys, organic food, feline vitamins. The ribbons and trophies, not yet awarded, are displayed on a table covered with a blue velvet cloth. I’ve been in here for five minutes, and I’ve had enough of cats. I duck into the hallway that leads to the lobby and suck in cool, hypoallergenic air.