Beautiful Ruins (71)

“He was doing better,” Debra said weakly. “He wrote this song—” But she didn’t finish. She thanked Mona, got out of the car, and went into the police station.

A thick, uniformed officer in teardrop glasses came out with a clipboard. He said not to worry, her son was fine, but her car was totaled—it had gone over an abutment in Fremont, “a spectacular crash, amazing no one was hurt.”

“No one?”

“There was a girl in the car with him. She’s fine, too. Scared, but fine. Her parents already came down.”

Of course there was a girl. “Can I see him?”

In a minute, the officer said. But first she needed to know that her son had been intoxicated, that they’d found a vodka bottle and cocaine residue on a hand mirror in the car, that he was being cited for negligent driving, driving without a license, failure to use proper care and caution, driving under the influence, minor in possession. (Cocaine? She wasn’t sure she’d heard right but she nodded at each charge, what else could she do?) Given the severity of the charges, this matter would be turned over to the juvenile prosecutor, who would make a determination— Wait. Cocaine? Where would he get cocaine? And what did P.E. Steve mean that she didn’t let people in? She’d love to let someone in. No, you know what she’d do? Let herself out! And Mona? Don’t put up with his shit? Jesus, did they think she chose to be this way? Did they think she had a choice in the way Pat behaved? God, that would be something, just stop putting up with Pat’s shit, go back in time and live some other life— (Dee Moray reclines on a beach chair on the Riviera with her quiet, handsome Italian companion, Pasquale, reading the trades until Pasquale kisses her and goes off to play tennis on this court jutting out of the cliffs—) “Any questions?”

“Hmm. I’m sorry?”

“Any questions about what I’ve just told you?”

“No.” She followed the fat cop down a hallway.

“This might not be the best time,” he said, and glanced back at her over his shoulder as they walked. “But I noticed that you’re not wearing a wedding ring. I wondered if maybe sometime you might want to have dinner . . . the legal system can be really confusing and it can help to have someone who—”

(The hotel concierge brings a phone to the beach. Dee Moray removes her sun hat and puts the phone to her ear. It’s Dick! Hello, love, he says, I trust you’re as beautiful as ever—) The cop turned and handed her a card with his phone number on it. “I understand this is a tough time, but in case you feel like going out sometime.”

She stared at the card.

(Dee Moray sighs: I saw The Exorcist, Dick. Oh Jesus, he says, that shite? You know how to hurt a fellow. No, she tells him gently, it’s not exactly the Bard. Dick laughs. Listen, darling, I’ve got this play I thought we might do together—) The cop reached for the door. Debra took a deep, ragged breath and followed him inside.

Pat was sitting on a folding chair in an empty room, head in his hands, fingers lost in those currents of wavy brown hair. He pushed his hair aside and looked up at her; those eyes. No one understood how much they were in this together, Pat and her. We’re lost in this thing, Dee thought. There was a small abrasion on his forehead, almost like a carpet burn. Otherwise, he looked fine. Irresistible—his father’s son.

He leaned back and crossed his arms. “Hey,” he said, mouth rising up in that sly what-are-you-doing-here smile. “So how was your date?”





14

The Witches of Porto Vergogna



April 1962



Porto Vergogna, Italy





Pasquale slept through the next morning. When he finally woke, the sun had already crested the cliffs behind the town. He climbed the stairs to the third floor and the dark room where Dee Moray had stayed. Had she really just been here? Had he really been in Rome just yesterday, driving with the maniac Richard Burton? It felt as if time had shifted, warped. He looked around the small stone-walled room. It was all hers now. Other guests would stay here, but this would always be Dee Moray’s room. Pasquale threw open the shutters and light poured in. He took a deep breath, but smelled only sea air. Then he picked up Alvis Bender’s unfinished book from the nightstand and thumbed through the pages. Any day now, Alvis would show up to resume writing in that room. But the room would never belong to him again.

Pasquale returned to his room on the second floor and got dressed. On his desk he saw the photograph of Dee Moray and the other laughing woman. He picked it up. The photo didn’t begin to capture Dee’s sheer presence, not the way he remembered it: her graceful height and the long rise of her neck and deep pools of those eyes, and the quality of movement that seemed so different from other people, lithe and energetic, no wasted action. He held the photo close to his face. He liked the way Dee was laughing in the picture, her hand on the other woman’s arm, both of them just beginning to double over. The photographer had caught them at a real moment, breaking up in laughter over something no one else would ever know. Pasquale carried the photo downstairs and slid it into the corner of a framed painting of olives in the tiny hallway between the hotel and the trattoria. He imagined showing his American guests the photo and then feigning nonchalance: sure, he would say, film stars occasionally stayed at the Adequate View. They liked the quiet. And the cliff tennis.