Page 57 of Dirty Diana
A few tequila and sodas later, Raleigh is wearing three of her cowboy hats stacked one on top of the other. “This is my favorite.” She holds up a gray felt cowboy hat with a long pink feather in the brim. “I added the feather.” She knocks the other hats off and replaces the stack with this one. She wears a baggy T-shirt with black underwear. After another sip, she drunkenly sorts through the painted canvases and old art supplies in the closet. “Okay. So, what are these?” She’s found the pile of my old drawings. “Please don’t tell me they’re pictures of all the women you and Oliver murdered in your guest room?” We’re both three drinks in and feeling very punchy. Maybe it’s just the booze, but I’m impressed and maybe a little relieved that she’s able to be so light.
“I wanted sex all the time,” she tells me over our next round of drinks. “I know, hard to believe because Dustin is such a troll. Let’s be honest. But he was my troll, and I could go every day! Twice a day, even. Whereas he was fine sleeping in separate beds. Do you know what it feels like to be rejected by your own husband? Over and over again?”
“I’m so sorry.”
“We were great roommates. But who wants that? I’m not dead yet. And now that it’s over he suddenly has all thispassion! Passion for taking me down.”
“What does he want?”
“Everything. The kids. The house. Everything I care about. I’m not lying—Dustin could have given two shits about taking care of thekids when we were together, and now he’s making their lunches and braiding Izzy’s hair and posting about it on Instagram like he’s father of the fucking year. And hehatesthat house. He was always moaning about how much work a lawn is and how we should just move to one of those condo communities. And now he’s planting lemon trees and putting in a new fucking pool. He wants it because he knows I want it. It’s too fucked up.”
Raleigh refills her glass for the fourth time and licks the tequila from her lips. “You didn’t answer my question from before, Diana.” She picks up the drawings in front of us. “What are these drawings?”
A warmth spreads through my chest when I think of Santa Fe.Potential,I want to tell her. They’re the moments before you kiss on a first date. They’re happy confusion.
I can see Raleigh squint to read my signature in the corner. She raises her brows as she reads, “Dirty Diana?”
“That’s me.” I laugh. “I used to draw a lot. At one point I had a project where I interviewed women about love and sex and then made paintings—it was a long time ago. A hundred years ago.”
“Fascinating.”
“I think so. I tried it again recently. Or some kind of version of it. But it didn’t go well.”
“You interviewed people?”
“One woman, really, in the end. The Sexagenarian.”
“What the fuck, Diana? Who is the Sexagenarian? I need every single detail right now.”
I’ve already said too much, but so has Raleigh. Emmy is fast asleep and Oliver is working downstairs so I pull out my phone.
“Is this just a woman off the street?”
“Sort of?”
“Who am I with right now? I’m sorry, Diana, but I always thought you had a stick up your ass.” Raleigh grabs the phone and hits play. I hear my own voice, so clearly trying to sound authoritative as the Goddess launches into her rambling monologue. Less than a minuteinto the recording Raleigh laughs so hard she rolls off the bed. “Ouch!” she calls from the floor. “My parfem!”
This only makes us both laugh harder.
“Who the heck is the Angel of Touch?” Raleigh asks.
“I think you have to attend a high-class meeting to find out?”
“Oh Jesus.” Neither one of us can sit up, we’re laughing too hard. “Ohmigod, Diana.” Raleigh catches her breath. “You need to erase that. Or keep it forever. I’m not sure.”
There’s a knock on the door and we both jump. Oliver peeks his head in. “Is everything okay? I heard a crash.”
Raleigh sits up straighter and adjusts the cowboy hat on her head. “I’m so sorry, Oliver. We are not talking about an enchanted sexual forest, I promise.”
“Sorry,” I say. “We’re just catching up.”
Raleigh giggles and I smile at Oliver, shooting him anI’m in over my headlook as soon as she turns away—it’s unfair, I know. But for some reason I feel the need to pretend to be miserable with Raleigh for Oliver’s sake.
“I’m off to poker. Have fun.”
He shuts the door and Raleigh grins. “All the moms have crushes on Oliver. You know that, right?”
“Really?” I’m not surprised. Oliver is good-looking, and he knows how to make people feel special. And he genuinely likes other people’s children, not just his own. Some of the dads at our school look panicked when a kid other than their own tries to talk to them, but Oliver can listen to someone else’s daughter describe the entire plot of theWizard of Ozin painful detail. He sees the good in people, no matter how big or small.
