Dead Stars Read online

  “K.”

  [Reeyonna EXITS. A beat, then, Jacquie calls after]

  “Jeri? Have you seen my Klonopins, do you know what happened to my Klonopins?”

  “No but I’ll look!”

  [sotto, to Self]

  “I cannot find my Klonopins. & I really fucking need them.”

  CLEAN

  [Reeyonna & Rikki]

  Pregnant

  “My

  mom’s going to call. Did she call them yet?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

  “She said she was going to call.”

  “For what.”

  “I guess it’s a Meet the Parents moment.”

  “Yeah. Okay . . .”

  “So have they said anything to you?”

  “About what?”

  “About the baby. How are they dealing?”

  “My mom won’t come out of her room.”

  “Wow, really?”

  “Yeah, she cries.”

  “Bummer.”

  “Yeah . . .”

  “You sound fucked up. Are you like, totally fucked up?”

  “No. Just some weed. Why.”

  “You just sound fucked up.”

  “I’m good. Are you?”

  “Not really.”

  “Yeah . . .”

  “Are you watching porn?”

  “No.”

  “You don’t have to lie.”

  “I’m not lying.”

  “I don’t care if you watch porn.”

  “Then why do you ask? If you don’t care why do you ask me if I’m watching it?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe I’m horny.”

  “Maybe you just like being in my business.”

  Pause.

  “I just think . . . the sooner we move out the better. But I’m going to wait a week. Before. A week before.”

  “Wait for what.”

  “To ask.”

  CLEAN

  [Telma]

  We Don’t Need Another Hero

  Of

  all the stars with cancer that Telma reached out to in her campaign to join the cast of Glee, Michael Douglas was the biggest, and the first responder. Another one she heard back from right away was Grant Achatz, the famous chef; he had tongue cancer too. The doctors wanted to cut out the jaw and the tongue but Grant said no because he didn’t want to lose his tastebuds. Grant got chemo and radiation instead. He said the lining of his esophagus shed like a snake & part of the getting-well ritual was peeling the lining out of his throat like smelly clingy cellophane while he choked & vomited. Now, that’s a hero. She liked Grant, & she liked Christina Applegate, & she liked Will Reiser, & she liked the guy from Dexter, & any one of them could have gotten her on the Glee set. But Michael was the only one she had shared her aspirations with.

  At night, she read his letter over and over (he handwrote it the same as Telma had, & her mom thought that was such a wonderful way of showing solidarity), wondering when he was going to call to ask her to tea. She already knew what she was going to wear. Her mom said, be patient.

  It was Saturday, and she was doing her usual weekend tour at St Ambrose (pediatric oncology, or, as Telma liked to call it, ped-OINK! OINK! OINK!), going from bed to bed with Sir Vivor, her three-legged English terrier that she got at the shelter, & Bunny, the real-life floppy-eared cocker spaniel that was the official ward mascot, putting kids (& parents) at ease. Telma knew how to make the frightened children laugh, settle their moms’ & dads’ nerves, instill hope. Showing everyone how to pull the courage trigger. She loved her weekend warriorship.

  The Bertram & Bonnie Brainard Family Center for Pediatrics was hers: she owned it. But Telma didn’t define or limit herself by ped-oink alone—she had toured/ombudsgirl’d through them all: The Rick & Tina Caruso Family Research & Critical Care, AEG Extended Care (clinical outpatient), The Stewart and Lynda Resnick Pavilion (neuropsychiatric), the Verizon Towers (imaging center), & Twitter House (extended residence for families with kancerkidz undergoing treatment)—& most weekends could be found crisscrossing & cross-pollinating the sprawling campus, faithfully fulfilling her duties exercising authority, not only as the Wizard of Brainard, but the mayor of St Ambrose & all its environs. The cafeteria staff plied her with frozen yogurt; elderly volunteers thrust flowers into her tiny hands; there was even a special place where she could nap, covered by a quilt stitched together with the names of kancerheroes embroidered on every square. The RNs called themselves Telma’s Troopers—most of them were on the 20/20 that featured Telma five years back. Elizabeth Vargas and a camera crew followed the (then) 4 foot titan thru the rooms & corridors of Brainard as she cajoled and consoled, struggling to keep up.

  But that was . . .

  . . . a while ago.

  Too long, thought Telma.

  Time for a comeback.

  Anyway—what was good for Telma, was good for kancer.

  . . .

  A nurse told her that Biggie Brainard (pushing 13, real name, Colt Brainard III) (5'3"/165 lbs) happened to be “at hospital” today, and would she like to meet him? (Well, duh.) Biggie’s dad, Bertram Brainard, was an inventor who disappeared from public view after fully endowing construction of the oink-oink building 10 years back.

  Now this was going to be really something! Telma had never given much thought to the Brainards, & with this development, was, well, nearly ashamed at having neglected to ever have inquired after her benefactors. Until now, they had no flesh at all, flat and bloodless as the walls of the edifice on which their name was engraved. Telma immediately asked where she might find Mr. Biggie Brainard, & the nurse replied that he happened to be in the basement getting an MRI, or trying to anyway. She explained that he was mortally terrified of the hellaciously noisy apparatus that, to his mind (his mind being the very thing the machine was attempting to observe, record, interpret, & diagnose), swallowed a person prematurely, like an overeager coffin.

  Biggie lived with his older brother Brando on a vast estate in Bel-Air. The brother, his de facto guardian, lately noticed that Biggie was having subtle cognitive difficulties, the most pronounced being in the realm of short-term memory. He hadn’t struck his head on anything (as far as anyone knew) & the doctors had already ruled out diabetes. Now, they wanted to take a look at the brain.

  All this was transmitted to the Mayor, who of course enjoyed a privileged standing when it came to hospital staff sharing certain confidentialities. Once she got the brainard tumor joke out of her system, she was on her merry way.

  She was introduced to Camino (nanny/caregiver) & then Biggie (overweight but not yet morbidly obese, though heading for it) in a doctor’s lounge. The nurses’ s broke in unison when they saw how sweet the two looked together—Telma’s fearless, charismatic, firecracker Laurel to his poignantly fearful, socially awkward, shrinking-violet Hardy. Having been briefed on Biggie’s MRI jitters, she lost no time suggesting they go for yogurt in the “café.”

  The nurses shook their heads in respect.

  The Mayor was alarmingly proactive.

  That’s our girl.

  . . .

  –So did they say if you can have kids?

  –Probably. I had surgery but I didn’t have any chemo.

  –Radiation?

  –Nuh-uh. Christina Applegate had what I had & she had a baby. I met her when we were in Washington. The doctors said one day I might have to have my ovaries taken out but I can still carry. Christina might have to have hers out too.

  –What kind of surgery. Did you have.

  –A mastectomy.

  –Oh. (Pause) I saw this little girl on the Ellen show. She’s like four years–old & got it too. Breast cancer.

  –She was on Ellen?

  –I didn’t see it but my brother sent me a link. He thought it would make a good telemovie.

  –She’s from Canada. But she’s not really a survivor.

  –I didn’t even think four year old girls had breasts.

  –I mea
n, you have to be kancerfree for at least three years before you can be called a survivor.

  –But I mean if you’re still alive after your surgery or your chemo & whatever, doesn’t that make you a survivor?

  –Technically. In layman’s terms. But if someone has something cut out & then it never spreads anywhere else—like me, so far—it takes three years before you’re allowed to say you’re kancerfree. The rule is, you have to be kancerfree for three years before you’re allowed to call yourself a survivor, & five years before you’re allowed to say you’re cured.

  –Allowed?

  –Those are the cancer organization rules, & they’re very strict. You can’t just go and change them. It’s like the Olympics. And that girl won’t know for three years. I mean, I hope she is—a survivor. That would be so rad. She’s already a hero. She’s got swag.

  –Swag? What is that?

  –That she’s cool. But right now she’s just a kid with kancer.

  –Yeah I guess.

  –So where do you go to school?

  –At home.

  –At home?

  –I have a tutor.

  –That is hella tight.

  –It’s OK.

  –I want your life! So what else?

  –What else?

  –Like, about your parents. Doesn’t your mom come to the hospital when you have tests?

  –She doesn’t really live with us.

  –Now I know I want your life! Where does she live?

  –London. Near London, I think. And Paris. Her business takes her away a lot.

  –What’s her business?

  –I don’t know.

  –What about your dad?

  –He lives at home. We live with him. My brother and me.

  –Your father paid for this whole building?

  –Yeah.

  –He must be a billionaire.

  –I guess.

  –What does he do?

  –Invents ideas.

  –Coolio. So what do you do?

  –What do I do?

  –For fun?

  –Well I help my brother.

  –How.

  –With ideas.

  –For what?

  –Movies and television.

  –You invent ideas?

  –I guess.

  –Rad! What kind.

  –My brother has a production company? And I come up with ideas? For projects.

  –That’s so awesome! What kind of ideas?

  –Did you see Turndown Service?

  –The movie?

  –With Zach Galifianakis and Tosh? And Kristen Wiig?

  –I almost saw it. Is it on Netflix?

  –Only Apple TV.

  –What’s it about again?

  –These people own a fancy hotel? That’s Tosh & his wife, Kristen Wiig. His wife in the movie. But they’re going bankrupt? And they have this son who’s a loser, who they never respected? That’s Zach Galifianakis. And when he tells them he’s going to save the hotel for them they just laugh. So he starts this service where people pay him to break up with their girlfriends. Instead of breaking up by texting. I mean, he has to find the girls then break up with them face-to-face. But I mean, the girls who are getting dumped are face-to-face with him, not with the guys who are dumping them.

  –Like, how much does he charge?

  –A lot, because most of the people who hire him are rich.

  –But how could you make enough money to save a hotel, just by breaking up with people?

  –They do in the movie. There’s blackmail and stuff I left out.

  –Coolio.

  –It’s not really so great. I mean parts of it are funny. It made $430 million in the world but only 160 in the States, & I think the studio thought it’d do better. In North America. It was sort of a disappointment. They weren’t really disappointed, they just thought it would do better.

  –Does it say it’s written by you? In the credits?

  –I didn’t write it, it was just my idea. But it does say, From an Idea by Biggie Brainard. My brother said I could have a From a Story by but I liked From an Idea by.

  –So where do you get your ideas?

  –I don’t know. It depends. Usually from the internet. I mean not literally. The internet makes me think of ideas.

  –Coolio.

  –My brother’s pitching You Rule! today, I think to NBC.

  –What’s You Rule?

  –That’s why Brando couldn’t come, because he’s pitching You Rule!

  –Is it from your idea?

  –Uh huh. It’s about a high school student who I guess is kind of a loser who finds out that he’s actually king of an island in the South Pacific.

  –That’s awesome.

  –We’re doing a big movie with Michael Douglas & Larry Fishburne. It’s in preproduction. Robert Pattinson might do a cameo.

  –What’s a cameo?

  –When a big star is only, like, in one or two scenes. Sometimes they don’t even want a credit. They usually get a percentage.

  –What’s it called?

  –A cameo.

  –I mean the movie.

  –The Treasure of Sierra Leone. It’s in preproduction. The guy from Twilight might be doing a cameo. Robert Pattinson.

  They talked some more & had their yogurt. Telma scrutinized him, attributing his occasional redundancies to nervousness. She had the feeling he was maybe more nervous because of her than he was about the MRI, at the moment anyway, sweetly so. But it was time, & she gently nudged Biggie over to the dreaded topic of magnetic resonance imaging. I’ve had a hundred of em, she said. She said she knew he was supposed to have one today, and do you want me to go with?

  A little in love with her (or maybe a lot), he said he did.

  And that was that.

  . . .

  There wasn’t any phone service until she went back to the ward to get her purse & jacket.

  The text was from her mom.

  MICHEAL DOUGLAS

  CALKED!!!!! u did it :D i

  HAVE DETAILS!!!!!

  Then

  I MEANT CALLED!!!!!!!

  Telma let out a whoop and ran down the corridor shouting “I’m gleeful, I’m so gleeful! I’m gleeful gleeful gleeful!”

  The RNs nodded their heads, smiling at their favorite kook.

  Snubbing the elevator, the littlest breast kancer hervivor who could flew down all five flights, bursting out of the lobby into the wild freedom/explosive normalcy of the deep blue day.

  CLEAN

  [Rikki]

  Zen and the Art of Go Fuck Yourself

  Dawn,

  Rikki’s foster, the woman he started calling Mom just 2 wee into his placement—Dawn, soon to become his legal mother, her husband Jim his legal dad, both having agreed to the sacred, irrevocable process of adoption—hadn’t left her room in almost 5 days. Rikki practically wanted to die. He had heartache-headaches & even stopped watching porn. He never thought she would take the news of ReeRee’s pregnancy so hard.

  Jim, sitting in the darkened living room, TV on low. Shows about houses: redoing houses, buying houses, flipping houses, razing houses. Dance show and singing show competitions. All America was singing and dancing and competing. All America was famous and winning, and if they weren’t, they were famously failing, all America was looking for someplace to compete and to win and be famous, or famously fail. There were only two groups left in AmericaWorld: the billionaires and the singing show contestants. Jim, laughing at Geico commercials in spite of himself. Jim, laughing at his favorite show, Family Guy. Jim even hauling out the old DVDs of his 2nd favorite show, Sealab 2021, but not laughing, busy now listening through walls—you could be anywhere in the house and hear it—listening morosely to his wife/fits and starts/cries and moans. Rikki knew where it was heading: soon, he’d be disadopted. (First maladapted then disadopted.) All he wanted was to make it easier on these people, these beautiful people Dawn & Jim, who only happened to fucking be the only ones who eve
r treated him like a motherfucking human being, the only ones who ever loved him, ever risked loving him.

  The only ones he ever loved back.

  “Dad.”

  “Come in, Rikki. Come sit.”

  “How’s Dawn.”

  “Been better.” (Soft fatherly smile of understanding)

  “Dad. I’m sorry . . . about—things.”

  (As if he hadn’t heard) “Rikki, I’ve been wanting to talk to you. You’re going through a lot & I feel somewhat guilty that I haven’t been able to devote much energy to what’s going on in your life. Because I know there’s a lot going on, big, big stuff. But I want you to know that’s not for a lack of concern. Dawn’s having a rough patch (as you well by now know) & I’ve got to see her thru.”

  “If you guys don’t want to adopt me, that’s cool. I don’t want you to stress.”

  “You’re saying this because of Reeyonna? The pregnancy?”

  “I didn’t mean to hurt Mom. It really hurts me to give her pain.”

  “O. I see. You think she’s having trouble because of that.”

  (Sweet suite of fatherly smiles)

  “What can I do to make her stop crying? Should I go talk to her? Will she talk to me? Dad—should I move away? I’ll move away, with Reeyonna. Would it be better if I moved away?”

  Jim sighs. Then: “Dawn’s in some trouble, but it’s nothing to do with the pregnancy.” (Rikki subtly reacts, unprepared for the remark) “What happened was, she applied for a job up in San Francisco. Not a job, really—a ‘position.’ In the field that was—is—her calling. The position requires training, & you can take a course up there in the Bay Area. It’s a Buddhist orientation, which is perfect for Dawn because she’s been a meditator for years, as you are probably aware of. (Of course he was. That was just Jim’s conversational way.) And she’s just, well, your mother’s very much up to speed on proper breathing—‘yogic’ breathing—she’s done the ‘Art of Living’ workshops over at the big church. She’s an inveterate fan of the Dalai Lama, & Thich Nhat Hanh, & Pema Chödrön, all those people. The Levines—they’re that couple, Buddhist couple, who are both—who both happen to be dying. They live in New Mexico I believe. And the fellow who had a stroke, in Hawaii . . . the Leary fellow, he was with Leary—Ram Dass. Be Here Now. Terrific book.