Page 68 of Dirty Diana
When I look up, his eyes are full of sympathy. There’s not a hint of panic at the sight of a sad woman crying in his car. He leans over me to the glove box and hands me a tissue.
“It’s okay to not be fine, Diana. What happened?”
“Ugh. Just a bad day. I don’t even know why I’m crying.”
“Yeah, you said that.”
“Things with Oliver suck.” I wipe my nose. “He’s been lying to me about playing poker when he’s really going to a strip club.”
“Shit. That does suck. Which one?”
“Yellow Rose. I think that’s what it’s called.”
Liam hands me another tissue. “That one’s better than most. Not like it’s gonna make you feel better, but at least he has decent taste.”
I blow my nose again. “I don’t know what I’m doing with my life, Liam, you know?” I can’t really believe I’m confessing all this to a twentysomething, to my friend’s stepson. But now that I’ve started talking it’s like I can’t stop. “I keep ‘making a plan’ but what does that even mean? Most of the day, I feel numb. Like I’m watching my life unravel from the sidelines and there is nothing I can do about it. And the only pleasure I get is from interviewing other women talking about their sex lives.” I laugh-cry. “Meanwhile my own sex life is a fucking disaster.”
Liam looks out the front windshield and exhales. I am stunned with what I’ve just told him—and he seems stunned to have heard it. But I also feel better, lighter somehow. Liam turns toward me, “Uh, let’s pause on this interview thing. What’s all that about?” I chuckle, letting my ragged breathing kill the quiet.
“No? Okay. Wanna hit?” Liam offers up a joint from the pocket of his T-shirt.
Just as I’m shaking my head no, I say, “Sure.”
He lights it, and I take a long drag. A warm sensation washes through me, familiar and nostalgic. I sink back into the passenger seat.
“Does L’Wren have another way home?” I ask.
“Kevin’s here with his car, so yeah.”
“Good. Do you mind getting us out of here?”
“I’d love to.”
It feels incredible to speed away. I roll down my window and hold my arm out into the breeze. I lean into the warmth of my buzz. I have no idea where we’re going.
“So. Interviews?”
I can’t help giggling, like I’ve blown Liam’s world right open.
“Can it stay between us? For now?”
“Naturally.”
I tell him about the site I’m figuring out how to build. “I thought the interviews would be more like they’d been before, like backgrounds for more paintings,” I explain. “But what I’m realizing is how they stand completely on their own, full of longing.”
“Like auditory erotica.”
I like the sound of that. I had never put it that way before. “I guess the thing is, I’m realizing that I don’t feel whole unless I’m making something. It doesn’t really matter what it is.”
“Yeah. I get it.” Liam is quiet for a while, his eyes on the road, before turning down the music and asking, “Can I take you somewhere?”
—
We pull up to L’Wren’s empty house and Liam walks me inside. I’ve been to L’Wren’s house hundreds of times over the years—for baby music classes and playdates, book clubs and so many holiday dinners, but in all those times I’ve never once seen the basement where Liam lives. The door to his stairs is always closed and there’s no reason for me to go down. And as he walks me down the steep staircase, the first thought that crosses my stoned brain isa serial killer must live here.
The room is dimly lit, and L’Wren’s foster cats are sleeping on every available surface. More alarming, two of the cats are playing tug-of-war with what looks like a bloody wound on discarded skin. On the desk, beside Liam’s computer, there’s a bust of something like a bashed-in head and three spare limbs in a pile.
“Welcome to my sanctuary.” Liam holds out his arms and does a slow spin. Despite all the cats, all I smell is acrylic paint.
