CHAPTER
THIRTY
The doorway actually splintered . . . Sinclair had been in
a hurry. He didn’t pause for a dramatic kick, he didn’t sock
his shoulder against it like they sometimes do in movies, he just
crashed through it. You know those cartoons where the character
runs through the door, and the door splinters into the shape of his
silhouette? Like that.
He and Marc found me
lying in the closet with Jessica rubbing my wrists like Doc Olson
in an episode of Little House on the
Prairie. “Ma Has a Heart Attack,” maybe. Or “Laura Has
PMS.”
“I can’t take it, I
can’t, I absolutely can’t take anything else, it’s too much,” I
gasped. “Tilt! Overload.”
“You better take a
breath,” Jessica warned.
“Why? What possible
good would that do except make me dizzier?”
“Point,” she
admitted. “Sorry. I forgot for a second.”
“Sinclair loves me
here.” I was staring at the (water-stained) ceiling. “Sinclair
loves me in this timeline and in the old one, and he loves me here
and we’re still in love here because he loves me here, so
everything else can get worked out because he loves me, so it’s
okay, it’s okay, don’t be scared, it’s all fine.”
“Thaaaat whole
thing?” Jessica worried. “That was all out loud,
Bets.”
“Who is it? Is it the
Antichrist?” My husband was looking everywhere, all white around
the eyes like a horse about to bolt, or stomp. “If she dared touch
you again, I will—”
“What the hell!” Nick
shouted, looking all 1970’s cop, with his gun drawn and standing in
the (battered) doorway. “Jess, get away from her! Are you okay? Why
are you both in the closet?”
“Get away from her?”
Freshly outraged, I sat up. “That’s a nice way to talk to your
landlady. Or the woman having sex with your landlord. Which is it
in this timeline? Ooooh, I hate this timeline.” I laid down again,
moaning.
“It’s, um, she’s
okay.” Jessica coughed. “Relatively speaking.”
“What
happened?”
“What’s
wrong?”
“Bets, I’m not going
to try to take your vitals this time,” Marc said, pushing past Nick
and kneeling beside me. I was instantly comforted by his
cool-yet-warm bedside-y manner. “You can see me all right, yes,
honeybunch? You don’t feel sick? Or light-headed? Or deader than
usual?”
“No, but don’t call
me honeybunch.”
Feeling my neck, he
laughed. I reached up and snatched his hand; we both pretended he
didn’t flinch back. Guess I’d moved quicker than I’d meant to. It
always startled the hell out of people.
I had no choice, I
had to confide in him. Call it a cliché, but only a gay man could
understand my pain and, possibly, Beverly Feldman. “Marc, there’s
no Christian Louboutin here. He doesn’t exist here!”
Marc winced and tried
to loosen my grip. “Ow, ow, ow! Um, I think—yeah, you might have
broken at least two of my—who’s Christian Loobuhtohn?”
“Loo-boo-TAHN.
Sorry.” I loosened my grip but couldn’t bear to let go. “He’s just
the . . . just the most brilliant shoe designer . . . he’s a
genius. Was a genius. Is he dead? Did he never get born? Poor
Monsieur Louboutin!”
“You’re carrying on,”
Nick observed, still watching the corners of the room in case a
boogeyman leaped at us, “like he was a family member.”
“I wish. I would have
loved it if he were my older brother—he’s in his forties now, so
he’d be my much older brother. And he was born in France, right?
And he’d sneak out of school—starting in seventh grade!—to watch
the Paris showgirls, and he loved their high heels. Okay, that
makes him sound like a little perv, but he’s an artist, dammit. So
he dropped out of school to be a shoe designer and he thought up
the red sole.”
“What’s a red soul?”
Dickie-Nickie asked.
“Sole. He does—did?—a
signature red shoe bottom, which was a great idea, and when I left
my timeline he had paperwork into the US Trademark Office so he
could trademark the red soles. Killer, right?”
The tapered heel,
slick colors, and splashy-yet-subtle red sole were fabbo enough,
but last month I’d been able to buy his new ones . . . zipper
heels! Black stiletto pump, red sole, zippers bisecting the heel,
complete with tiny silver pull tab. God, why hast thou forsaken
me?
“If this was anybody
else,” Marc was saying, “I’d recommend a transfusion and iron
tablets. You don’t fool me, blondie, I know you’re
light-headed.”
Of course I was. “You
guys! He almost singlehandedly brought stilettos back into fashion
in the 1990s. He designed the shoes I wore on my honeymoon when I
almost got killed. And he doesn’t exist here.” I started to cry.
This alarmed everyone. Which, lamely, I found
comforting.
“They were red flats
and they were so beautiful because they looked great but also I
could run in them and they meant a lot because I got them on my
honeymoon, which I didn’t think I’d have but I did finally after
stupid Sinclair finally agreed to really get married.” I wept
harder.
“You can’t remember
to swing by the store and get milk,” Marc said, “but you know some
shoe guy’s entire biography?”
“Okay, saving you
just dropped off my to-do list.” I sniffled and sat up. “Dammit.
Crying’s not going to bring him back. It’s not gonna fill my closet
up with shoes that don’t blow. Garrett’s alive but there are no
Christian Louboutins? It’s like Sophie’s
Choice.”
Marc patted my hand.
“That’s the spirit.”