Lulu didn’t protest. “But Dolly?”
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“Can your hair be blond again?”
They waited for Kitty Jackson in a lounge by a private runway at Kennedy Airport. When the actress finally arrived, dressed in jeans and a faded yellow sweatshirt, Dolly was smitten with regrets—she should have met Kitty first! The girl looked too far gone; people might not even recognize her! Her hair was still blond (defiantly uncombed and also, it appeared, unwashed), her eyes still wide and blue. But a sardonic expression had taken up residence in her face, as if those blue eyes were rolling heavenward even as they gazed right at you. That look, more than the first spidery lines under Kitty’s eyes and alongside her mouth, made her seem no longer young, or even close. She wasn’t Kitty Jackson anymore.
While Lulu used the bathroom, Dolly hastily laid things out for the actress: look as glamorous as possible (Dolly cast a worried glance at Kitty’s small suitcase); cozy up to the general with some serious PDA while Dolly took pictures with a hidden camera. She had a real camera, too, but that was a prop. Kitty nodded, the shadow of a smirk tweaking the corners of her mouth.
“You brought your daughter?” was her sole response. “To meet the general?”
“She’s not going to meet the general,” Dolly hissed, checking to make sure Lulu hadn’t emerged from the bathroom. “She doesn’t know anything
about
the general! Please don’t mention his name in front of her.”
Kitty regarded Dolly skeptically. “Lucky girl,” she said.
They boarded the general’s plane at dusk. After takeoff, Kitty ordered a martini from the general’s airline hostess, sucked it down, reclined her seat to a horizontal position, pulled a sleep mask (the only thing on her that looked new) over her eyes, and commenced to snore. Lulu leaned over her, studying the actress’s face, which looked young, untouched in repose.
“Is she sick?”
“No.” Dolly sighed. “Maybe. I don’t know.”
“I think she needs a vacation,” Lulu said.
Twenty checkpoints presaged their arrival at the general’s compound. At each, two soldiers with submachine guns peered into the black Mercedes, where Dolly and Lulu and Kitty sat in the backseat. Four times, they were forced outside into the scouring sunshine and patted down at gunpoint. Each time, Dolly scrutinized her daughter’s studied calm for signs of trauma. In the car Lulu sat very straight, pink Kate Spade bookbag nestled in her lap. She met the eyes of the machine-gun holders with the same even look she must have used to stare down the many girls who had tried in vain, over the years, to unseat her.
High white walls enclosed the road. They were lined with hundreds of plump shiny black birds whose long purple beaks curved like scythes. Dolly had never seen birds like these. They looked like birds that would screech, but each time a car window slid down to accommodate another squinting gunslinger, Dolly was unsettled by the silence.
Eventually a section of wall swung open and the car veered off the road and pulled to a stop in front of a massive compound: lush green gardens, a sparkle of water, a white mansion whose end was nowhere in sight. The birds squatted along its roof, looking down.
Their driver opened the car doors, and Dolly and Lulu and Kitty stepped out into the sun. Dolly felt it on her neck, newly exposed by a discount version of her trademark blond chin-length cut. The heat forced Kitty out of her sweatshirt; mercifully, she wore a clean white T-shirt underneath. Her arms had a lovely tan, although a scatter of raw pink patches marred the skin above one wrist. Scars. Dolly stared at them. “Kitty, are those…” she faltered. “On your arms, are they…?”
“Burns,” Kitty said. And she gave Dolly a look that made her stomach twist until she remembered very dimly, like something that had happened in a fog or when she was a small child, someone asking her—begging her—to put Kitty Jackson on the list, and telling them no. Absolutely not, it was out of the question—Kitty’s stock was too low.
“I made them myself,” Kitty said.
Dolly stared at her, uncomprehending. Kitty grinned, and for a second she looked sweetly mischievous, like the star of
Oh, Baby, Oh
. “Lots of people have,” she said. “You didn’t know?”
Dolly wondered if this might be a joke. She didn’t want to fall for it in front of Lulu.
“You can’t find a person who wasn’t at that party,” Kitty said. “And they’ve got proof. We’ve all got proof—who’s going to say we’re lying?”
“I know who was there,” Dolly said. “I’ve still got the list in my head.”
“But…who are you?” Kitty said, still smiling.
Dolly was quiet. She felt Lulu’s gray eyes on her.
Then Kitty did something unexpected: she reached through the sunlight and took Dolly’s hand. Her grip was warm and firm, and Dolly felt a prickling in her eyes.
“To hell with them, right?” Kitty said tenderly.
A trim, compact man in a beautifully cut suit emerged from the compound to greet them. Arc.
“Miss Peale. We meet at last,” he said with a smile. “And Miss Jackson”—he turned to Kitty—“it is a great honor as well as a pleasure.” He kissed Kitty’s hand with a slightly teasing look, Dolly thought. “I have seen your movies. The general and I watched them together.”
Dolly steeled herself for what Kitty might say, but her answer arrived in a ringing voice like a child’s, except for the slight curve of flirtation. “Oh, I’m sure you’ve seen better movies.”
“The general was impressed.”
“Well, I’m honored. I’m honored that the general found them worth watching.”
With trepidation, Dolly glanced at the actress, wishing only that the mockery she took for granted not be too scaldingly manifest. To her amazement, it wasn’t there at all—not a trace. Kitty looked humble, absolutely sincere, as if ten years had dropped away and she were a grateful, eager starlet once more.
“Alas, I have unfortunate news,” Arc said. “The general has had to make a sudden trip.” They stared at him. “It is very regrettable,” he went on. “The general sends his sincere apologies.”
“But we…can we go to where he is?” Dolly asked.
“Perhaps,” Arc said. “You will not mind some additional travels?”
“Well,” Dolly said, glancing at Lulu. “It depends how—”
“Absolutely not,” Kitty interrupted. “We’ll go wherever the general wants us to go. We’ll do what it takes. Right, kiddo?”
Lulu was slow to connect the diminutive “kiddo” to herself. It was the first time Kitty had spoken to her directly. Lulu glanced at the actress, then smiled. “Right,” she said.
They would leave for a new location the following morning. That evening, Arc offered to drive them into the city, but Kitty demurred. “I’ll pass on the grand tour,” she said as they settled into their two-bedroom suite, which opened onto a private swimming pool. “I’d rather enjoy these digs. They used to put me up in places like this.” She gave a bitter laugh.
“Don’t overdo it,” Dolly said, noticing Kitty headed for the wet bar.
Kitty turned, narrowing her eyes. “Hey. How was I out there? Any complaints so far?”
“You were perfect,” Dolly said. Then, lowering her voice so Lulu wouldn’t hear, she added, “Just don’t forget who we’re dealing with.”
“But I want to forget,” Kitty said, pouring herself a gin and tonic. “I’m actively trying to forget. I want to be like Lulu—innocent.” She raised her glass to Dolly and took a sip.
Dolly and Lulu rode with Arc in his charcoal gray Jaguar, a driver peeling downhill along tiny streets, sending pedestrians lunging against walls and darting into doorways to avoid being crushed. The city shimmered below: millions of white slanted buildings steeping in a smoky haze. Soon they were surrounded by it. The city’s chief source of color seemed to be the laundry flapping on every balcony.
The driver pulled over beside an outdoor market: heaps of sweating fruit and fragrant nuts and fake-leather purses. Dolly eyed the produce critically as she and Lulu followed Arc among the stalls. The oranges and bananas were the largest she’d seen, but the meat looked dangerous. Dolly could see from the careful nonchalance of vendors and customers alike that they knew who Arc was.
“Is there anything you would like?” Arc asked Lulu.
“Yes, please,” Lulu said, “one of those.” It was a star fruit; Dolly had seen them at Dean & DeLuca. Here they lay in obscene heaps, studded with flies. Arc took one, nodding curtly at the vendor, an older man with a skeletal chest and a kind, anxious face. The man smiled, nodding eagerly at Dolly and Lulu, but his eyes looked frightened.
Lulu took the dusty, unwashed fruit, wiped it carefully on her short-sleeved polo shirt, and sank her teeth into its bright green rind. Juice sprayed her collar. She laughed and wiped her mouth on her hand. “Mom, you have to try this,” she said, and Dolly took a bite. She and Lulu shared the star fruit, licking their fingers under Arc’s watchful eyes. Dolly felt oddly buoyant. Then she realized why:
Mom
. It was the first time Lulu had spoken the word in nearly a year.
Arc led the way inside a crowded tea shop. A group of men scattered from a corner table to give them a place to sit, and a forced approximation of the shop’s former happy bustle resumed. A waiter poured sweet mint tea into their cups with a shaking hand. Dolly tried to give him a reassuring look, but his eyes fled hers.
“Do you do this often?” she asked Arc. “Walk around the city?”
“The general makes a habit of moving among the people,” Arc said. “He wants them to feel his humanity, to witness it. Of course, he must do this very carefully.”
“Because of his enemies.”
Arc nodded. “The general unfortunately has many enemies. Today, for example, there were threats to his home, and it was necessary to relocate. He does this often, as you know.”
Dolly nodded.
Threats to his home?
Arc smiled. “His enemies believe he is here, but he is far away.”
Dolly glanced at Lulu. The star fruit had left a shiny ring around her mouth. “But
…we’re
here,” she said.
“Yes,” Arc said. “Only us.”
Dolly lay awake most of that night, listening to coos and rustles and squawks that mimicked sounds of assassins prowling the grounds in search of the general and his cohort: herself, in other words. She had become the helpmate and fellow target of General B., a source of terror and anxiety to those he ruled.
How had it come to this? As usual, Dolly found herself revisiting the moment when the plastic trays first buckled and the life she had relished for so many years poured away. But tonight, unlike countless other nights when Dolly tipped down that memory chute, Lulu lay across from her in the king-sized bed, asleep in a frilly nightie, her doe’s knees tucked under her. Dolly felt the warmth of her daughter’s body, this child of her middle age, of an accidental pregnancy resulting from a fling with a movie-star client. Lulu believed her father was dead; Dolly had shown her pictures of an old boyfriend.
She slid across the bed and kissed Lulu’s warm cheek. It had made no sense at all to have a child—Dolly was pro-choice, riveted to her career. Her decision had been clear, yet she’d hesitated to make the appointment—hesitated through morning sickness, mood swings, exhaustion. Hesitated until she knew, with a shock of relief and petrified joy, that it was too late.
Lulu stirred and Dolly moved closer, gathering her daughter in her arms. Unlike when she was awake, Lulu relaxed into her mother’s touch. Dolly felt a swell of irrational gratitude toward the general for providing this one bed—it was such a rare luxury to hold her daughter, to feel the faint patter of her heartbeat.
“I’ll always protect you, sweetheart,” Dolly whispered into Lulu’s ear. “Nothing bad will ever happen to us—you know that, right?”
Lulu slept on.
The next day they piled into two black armored cars that resembled jeeps, only heavier. Arc and some soldiers went in the first car, Dolly and Lulu and Kitty in the second. Sitting in the backseat, Dolly thought she could feel the weight of the car shoving them into the earth. She was exhausted, full of dread.
Kitty had undergone a staggering metamorphosis. She’d washed her hair, applied makeup, and slipped into a sleeveless sage-colored dress made of crushed velvet. It brought out flecks of green in her blue eyes and made them look turquoise. Kitty’s shoulders were athletically golden, her lips pinkly glossed, her nose lightly freckled. The effect was beyond anything Dolly could have hoped for. She found Kitty almost painful to look at, and tried to avoid it.
They breezed through the checkpoints and soon were on the open road, circling the pale city from above. Dolly noticed vendors by the road. Often they were children, who held up handfuls of fruit or cardboard signs as the jeeps approached. When the vehicles flew past, the children fell back against the embankment, perhaps from the speed. Dolly let out a cry the first time she saw this and leaned forward, wanting to say something to the driver. But what exactly? She hesitated, then sat back and tried not to look at the windows. Lulu watched the children, her math book open in her lap.
It was a relief when they left the city behind and began driving through empty land that looked like desert, antelopes and cows nibbling the stingy plant life. Without asking permission, Kitty began to smoke, exhaling through a slice of open window. Dolly fought the impulse to scold her for affronting Lulu’s lungs with secondhand smoke.
“So,” Kitty said, turning to Lulu. “What big plans are you hatching?”
Lulu seemed to turn the question over. “You mean…for my life?”
“Why not.”
“I haven’t decided yet,” Lulu said, thoughtful. “I’m only nine.”
“Well, that’s sensible.”
“Lulu is very sensible,” Dolly said.
“I mean what do you
imagine,”
Kitty said. She was restless, fidgeting her dry, manicured fingers as if she wanted another cigarette but was making herself wait. “Or do kids not do that anymore.”
Lulu, in her wisdom, seemed to divine that what Kitty really wanted was to talk. “What did you imagine,” she asked, “when you were nine?”
Kitty considered this, then laughed and lit up. “I wanted to be a jockey,” she said. “Or a movie star.”