I sit in the harsh ultrablack of the Quasi, drinking red wine, staring out the window. On the other side of the glass, Cordelia drifts past; then melts and reassembles, changing into someone else. Another mistaken identity.
Why did they name her that? Hang that weight around her neck. Heart of the moon, jewel of the sea, depending on which foreign language you’re using. The third sister, the only honest one. The stubborn one, the rejected one, the one who was not heard. If she’d been called Jane, would things have been different?
My own mother named me after her best friend, as women did in those days. Elaine, which I once found too plaintive. I wanted something more definite, a monosyllable: Dot or Pat, like a foot set down. Nothing you could make a mistake about; nothing watery. But my name has solidified around me, with time. I think of it as tough but pliable now, like a well-worn glove.
There’s a lot of neo-black in here, some of it leather, some shiny vinyl. I’ve come prepared this time, I have my black cotton turtleneck and my black trenchcoat with the button-on hood, but I’m not the right texture. Also not the right age: everyone in here is twelve. This place was Jon’s suggestion. Trust him to cling to the surfboard as it upends in the froth of the latest wave.
He always made a fetish of lateness, to indicate that his life was crammed with many things, all of them more important than I was, and today is no exception. Thirty minutes later than agreed he breezes in. This time however he apologizes. Has he learned something, or does his new wife run a tighter ship? Funny I still think of her as new.
“That’s all right, I programmed for it,” I say. “I’m glad you could come out to play.” A small preliminary kick at the wife.
“Having lunch with you hardly qualifies as play,” he says, grinning.
He’s still up to it. We look each other over. In four years he’s achieved more wrinkles, and the sideburns and mustache are graying further. “Don’t mention the bald spot,” he says.
“What bald spot?” I say, meaning I’ll overlook his physical degeneration if he’ll overlook mine. He’s up to that one, too.
“You’re looking better than ever,” he says. “Selling out must agree with you.”
“Oh, it does,” I say. “It’s so much better than licking bums and hacking up women’s bodies in screw-and-spew movies.” Once this would have drawn blood, but he must have accepted his lot in life by now. He shrugs, making the best of it; but he looks tired.
“Live long enough and the licker becomes the lickee,” he says. “Ever since the exploding eyeball I can do no wrong. Right now I’m head-to-toe saliva.”
The possibility for crude sexual innuendo is there, but I duck it. Instead I think, he’s right: we are the establishment now, such as it is. Or that’s what we must look like. Once the people I knew died of suicide and motorcycle crashes and other forms of violence. Now it’s diseases: heart attacks, cancer, the betrayals of the body. The world is being run by people my age, men my age, with falling-out hair and health worries, and it frightens me. When the leaders were older than me I could believe in their wisdom, I could believe they had transcended rage and malice and the need to be loved. Now I know better. I look at the faces in newspapers, in magazines, and wonder: what greeds, what furies-drive them on?
“How’s your real work going?” I say, relenting, letting him know I still take him seriously. This bothers him. “All right,” he says. “I haven’t been able to get to it much lately.”
We are silent, considering shortfalls. There’s not much time left, for us to become what we once intended. Jon had potential, but it’s not a word that can be used comfortably any more. Potential has a shelf life.
We talk about Sarah, easily and without competing, as if we are her aunt and uncle. We talk about my show.
“I guess you saw that hatchet job in the paper,” I say.
“Was that a hatchet job?” he says.
“It’s my fault. I was rude to the interviewer,” I say, with what I try to pass off as penitence. “I’m well on my way to becoming a cantankerous old witch.”