Page 69 of Dirty Diana
“Liam? What is all this?” I pick up a silicon wound, one of five lined up on the cookie sheet on top of his neatly made bed. It’s the size of my thumb and an orangey kind of flesh color with a blood-red gash down the middle.
“Yeah. I made all this.”
“You made these?”
“I sell them for Halloween costumes, murder-mystery parties, and to a few people in the industry.” His chest puffs a little when he saysindustry,just a little. “I have my own website. And a pretty cool Etsy shop. And not to brag or anything, but I just sold three bullet holes to the NCIS makeup team.”
“Liam! That’s great! Does L’Wren know all this? That you make these?” I hold up an impressively deep and real-looking wound the size of a small plate.
“Yeah, that one’s a throat slit. It took me almost three hours to get it right. It still needs some work.”
He holds up the bashed-in head. “Thank you, Wonderland murders. Barbara Richardson’s head was so messed up the top of her skull was flat. It’s on YouTube if you want to see it.”
“Oh. Maybe later,” I deflect. “L’Wren told me you’ve been painting. Does she know you’re making all this great stuff? Or your dad?”
“Painting? Is that really what she says? Or is it more like, ‘he stays in that dungeon all day doing lord knows what!’ ” His impression is so spot-on we both laugh. “She and Dad know a bit. I asked if I could practice on them, but they turned me down. I need more guinea pigs.”
“I like this one,” I say, touching a thin, deep wound.
“Yeah, me too. It’s a kitchen-knife gash. Three inches deep. Serrated knife. I have more tentative wounds, but I like the confidence of this one.”
Liam talking about his work with such love and affection is the best thing I’ve heard all day. “Wanna try it on?”
“Sure.”
Liam nudges a sleeping cat off his La-Z-Boy recliner and places apillow over the seat, which the cats have clawed to shreds. I sit and he explains that he designed this wound to fall across the abdomen. His ears go pink as he realizes I’ll have to at least partially lift my shirt. I roll up my T-shirt to just below my bra then lean back into the massive chair. I close my eyes.
I flinch when the first stroke of some kind of cold gel touches my skin. “Sorry,” he apologizes under his breath. He is deep in concentration, his brushstrokes slow and delicate. I’m reminded of the seaweed wraps my mother-in-law takes us for at the spa. I’m almost drifting off to sleep when Liam asks, “So are you going to divorce Oliver?”
“No. We’re in a weird place, for sure, but we wouldn’t get divorced.” I suddenly wish Liam were my therapist and not Miriam. He’s so much easier to talk to. Or maybe it’s the weed. Maybe edibles before couples therapy is the answer.
“Diana.” I open my eyes and his face is inches from mine, a small makeup brush in his hands. His eyes are red and glassy and earnest. “I’m about to drop some real knowledge on you.”
I laugh, but he doesn’t break his gaze. “Okay.”
“Love the thing that loves you back.”
I smile. “Deep.”
“Thanks. I heard it on a podcast L’Wren and I listen to while we bathe the cats.”
“There isso muchto unpack in that sentence.”
“I know. Right?” He stands to stretch his legs and study his work. “But I kind of agree. People are paying me to make this stuff—it’s loving me back and I’m loving it, you know? So can I give you some advice?”
“More?”
“I’ve seen a lot of Rockgate divorces. And it never goes well for the women.”
Again I think of Raleigh and feel a heaviness in my chest. “Yeah, so I’ve heard.”
“A few years later, the men are already remarried and living ineven bigger houses and the women are left holding a big shit-bag of resentment. And they’re pissed because they put all that energy into something that wasn’t working.”
“But what if it’s their fault it wasn’t working?”
“Is that what you think? That it’s one person’s fault? It never works that way.”
“Jesus, Liam. You need your own podcast,” I say, then worry it came out too sarcastic. “I mean it. You’re really smart.”
