Page 50 of Dirty Diana
“I’m really glad you came.” Alicia squeezes my knee.
“Me too. I should have come sooner.”
“It all happened so fast. Barry didn’t really tell anyone how sick he was, except his sister. And me, because I made him.”
I shake my head. “He loved you so much. He used to let you get away with murder.”
Alicia laughs and sighs all in one breath. “We have an hour before the service. You must be hungry?”
“Starving.”
Alicia turns toward the house and calls, “Nico! Waffles!” Then to me, “Don’t worry, he orders me around too. We’re into it.”
—
As soon as I got settled in Dallas all those years ago, I sent Barry a check for the money he lent me, and he never cashed it. So a few months later,I sent him a goofy card with a hand-drawn picture of bananas yelling “Thanks a bunch!” and cash inside. He emailed me back a photo of himself in front of the catering van with all new shiny, metallic purple rims and a note that said, “Money put to good use.”
A year later, when my book came out, the publisher offered to send me to an art book fair in New York. Alicia was still in grad school at NYU so I had a free place to stay and Barry flew out to join us. While Alicia was in class, Barry came with me to the book fair. The organizers sat me at a tiny table near the back with a pile of Sharpies. Barry and I had planned that I’d be signing books for an hour or so while he browsed the convention floor and found us some good books to take home. But when it grew clear to us that no one was coming by my table to get my book signed, Barry pretended his feet hurt and asked if he could sit with me. He kept us distracted by asking me to read from the book. Twice he interrupted me to say, “You made this, Diana,” and he held up the book, admiring the cover. “Can you believe where we are?” We sat back in our folding chairs and looked around the fair. Barry shook his head and made it feel like it didn’t matter that no one had come by because we were already in the most exciting place on the planet. To repay his kindness, I researched the city’s hottest culinary spots. With Alicia, we waited in long, snaking lines for dim sum and knocked on unmarked doors for cheeseburgers, then sang karaoke until all three of us were hoarse. We stayed up for what felt like forty-eight hours straight.
Soon after I got back to Dallas, I met Oliver, and Barry got busier than ever with work. Over the next few years, his catering business doubled and then tripled in size. He had a new kitchen space built and hired a team of chefs and more reliable cater waiters. Our correspondence became less frequent and more focused on the big occasions—phone calls on birthdays and holidays, then a lot of missed calls and voicemails and text messages. Occasionally, one of us would write the other a long meandering email but usually our check-ins were brief. He wrote asking about Oliver and apologized for not making it to ourwedding, and I apologized right back for scheduling it the same weekend as his sister’s, and we both promised to visit as soon as things were “less hectic.” He always asked for more pictures of Emmy and reminded me to share what I was working on. And the less time I spent writing and drawing, the less I wrote to him, as if him knowing how little I was working would make it all suddenly true.
Then Alicia called to tell me Barry had stage four pancreatic cancer. I called him and told him I was way overdue for a visit and to clear his dance card. He made me promise to wait until he was done with chemo because he wanted to feel “electric” for karaoke. I laughed and told him he had a deal. I sent him playlists with all his favorite songs and gave them titles likeSlow Jamzzz for Fast People.
Now I rest my head on Alicia’s shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
“Honestly, Diana, it all went so fast. Mostly he just held my hand and made me promise to not let his sister serve any food at the funeral except for the stuff he’d already put in the deep freezer.”
Nico sets the table and we eat breakfast in the sunshine of Alicia’s yard.
“How’s Oliver?”
“Really good.” I hope I sound convincing. “He wanted to come, but we’d have had to pull Emmy out of school…. It’s a whole thing.”
“Are you painting much?”
“Here and there.”
“I wish you could stay longer,” Alicia says, cutting into the small talk.
“Me too.” I mean it. It’s so calming in her backyard, with stalks of purple and pink flowers and a bright yellow slide. Nico brings us coffee and sits beside us.
I want to tell them all about the cassette tapes I found in my closet and my overly strong reaction to losing them. And about what Oliver said to me before I left, and how disconnected we’ve become. About how little I desire him, how sometimes it seems like there’s not much about my life in Texas I desire at all. But I don’t know how or where to begin.
—
The service is packed. Barry’s sister, Nancy, sits in the front row with Barry’s mom, who is tiny and frail, and his three aunts. It’s as if anyone Barry ever catered a party for is here—at least every gallerist, events coordinator, and party planner in Santa Fe. I see a few of the clients from our regular jobs, but most of the faces are new. Halfway through the service, a tall, lanky guy with a close-cut beard slips into the pew opposite mine. I recognize his face, but I can’t place him. I try to catch his eye, but he only looks straight ahead.
After the service, we go back to Barry’s house and Nancy pulls Alicia and me into a double embrace in the kitchen. “Oh, you girls. You’re so good to come. Barry would be so happy.”
“We wouldn’t miss it,” Alicia says and takes another tray of baby quiches out of the oven.
Nancy busies herself counting flatware so she won’t cry. “I want you girls to each pick out something from Barry’s room. A keepsake.” She can’t be more than five years older than us but she calls us “girls” in the most maternal way. She squeezes my hand. “He’d want you to have something.” Her lip trembles, and she wipes her eye with the back of her other hand. “It’s upstairs. Last door on the left. Don’t leave without taking something.”
Barry’s room is exceptionally tidy. There’s a bookcase full of cookbooks organized by rainbow color, and beside it, an impressive shrine to Julia Child. Alicia scans the space. “I’m not sure what to take.”
“Me neither.” Just beside the window is a set of floating shelves lined with tiny clay figurines. There must be nearly fifty of them, each one three or four inches tall and a bit misshapen, with crudely painted faces and ornate hats, mostly shaped like giant flowers. “Did Barry make these?”
“Oh.” Alicia stands next to me. “I remember these…”
