Deja Who (14 page)

“Y
ou have no. Good. Stories.” Archer was practically fetal on the couch. “I think I have to get up and go kill myself now.”

W
hy do I keep telling him these things?
To test him? To test herself? To show him the things she sees and knows, an Insighter reaching for the life-blind? She didn't know. But she leaned forward and smoothed his hair away from his face. “It's not so bad.”

“It's your
life
, Leah. And it's very bad. They're all very very very very very very very very—”

“Archer.”

“—very very very very very very very—”

“For God's sake.”

“—very very very bad.”

“But it isn't.” When he blinked up at her she elaborated. “Yes, those things happened, but it's like watching a movie. I can tell
you what Fred Barker's favorite color was but not how he felt when he bit into a slice of watermelon. I don't feel him. Them. I just know things about them.”

“And at least one of them was screwed over by her mother. Your mother, I mean.” Anger, now, but not heated. She could almost feel the chill coming off him.

“It's her nature,” she said softly. “Nothing to be done about it.”

“Oh, bullshit.” Abruptly he sat up and wriggled his shoulders in what she assumed was an attempt to physically shake off the anger. “This is my big problem with the whole Insight industry.”

This should be interesting.
She raised her eyebrows, wordlessly encouraging him to continue.

“It's like when someone finds out the reason they're a raging bitch in this life is because they were a raging bitch in the last one, and suddenly that's it. Case closed. ‘Nothing to be done about it.' Nobody tries to improve. Nobody asks themselves
why
they feel compelled to be a jackass. It's more about embracing your
old
inner bitch. You know what would be even better? Family therapy.”

“Sorry, what?” There was never a need for such a thing. Insighters covered . . . well . . . everything. They were available for children, adults, and the elderly. They worked in hospitals and schools, and were everywhere in the legal system: they advised lawyers, they were in the courtroom when clients got sentenced, in the prisons where clients paid their debt. They were in schools and nursing homes and, sometimes, funeral homes. (Although by then, it was often too late for the Insighter to do much besides, “Yes, well, he died. Again, I mean.”)

“You know, a setup where the whole family could go talk to
somebody, a professional, not about their past life garbage but where and why they're making wrong turns in this life. They could, mmmm, talk about their feelings and how they felt when they did whatever it is that's wrecking their life and how they plan to
not
keep doing it. They can make their own lives better.”

She tried to swallow the laugh, but it escaped anyway. “I'm sorry, I'm so sorry,” she gasped, “it just sounds absurd. Sitting around talking without going back at all. Or, rather, talking but only going back to your life
at that time
. It would never work. Frankly, only someone who . . . uh . . .” Too late, she realized the rest of the sentence: “
was life-blind could come up with such a spectacularly ignorant idea
.” “. . . uh . . .”

“And,” he sighed, sounding equal parts annoyed and enthralled, “you also look gorgeous when you blush as you've just realized you're sounding like an entitled jerk who is quick to dismiss any therapy outside of her own profession.”

“I'm sorry,” she said again. “Sorry to laugh and sorry to immediately discount your idea. I just don't see the need for that service when people like me are here.”

“That,” he said, quirking an eyebrow at her, “might be part of the problem.”

“Maybe family therapy would be a good idea for the life-blind, though.” Now that she was giving it some thought, it seemed almost . . . logical? There were next to no resources for the life-blind; if they had a problem, there wasn't much set up in the system to help them. And if they were true
rasa
, the theory went that they didn't
need
anything in the system to help them. But the therapy thing sounded interesting. “Although now that I think about it . . .” Then she heard it, and forgot everything.

“Oh my God, is that your ringtone?”

She had frozen at the sound. Her phone, across the room on top of her desk, was shrieking in Faye Dunaway's voice, “I told you! No wire hangers, ever!”

“Is that
Mommie Dearest
?”

“Big fan of cult camp classics, hmm?”

“Not me. My dad. Interesting choice for your ringtone.”

Leah shrugged, uncomfortable but unable to squash the small smile, then crossed the room to pick up her phone. “I know, it's childish and petty.”

“Yeah, well, so's your mom. Why would she call you? Is that a thing?” Archer's eyes went wide as he considered the possibilities. “Does she call you? Especially after you've sworn you're done with her forever? She blows off your murder and you march out and then a day later she calls and doesn't apologize?”

“No.” Leah stared down at her phone, which was still trembling and shrilling, “No wire hangers, ever!” “That is not a thing. She does not do that.”

She debated another few seconds, which Archer misread, and he turned toward the door. “Oh. Sorry. I'll let you take—”

She shook her head. “That's not why I'm hesitating.” Adorable. He'd been in her house for the Scene. The Final Blowoff Scene. Why would Leah care if he overheard a phone call? She picked up the phone, viper-quick, as if she was afraid she would lose her nerve if she
didn't
pick it up in a hurry. “What.”

Nellie's charming contralto murmured in her ear. “Darling, thank you for picking up. You so rarely do. Rude, but then, you were never afraid of showing off your, ah, less appealing qualities.”

“What. Is. It.”

“Darling, you sound so chilly, even for you.” She had the
nerve, the colossal fucking nerve, to sound chiding. Disappointed, even. Leah wondered if she was in danger of biting through her lower lip.
When my teeth meet I will know I chomped too far.
“I wanted to let you know that it looks like
Mother Daughter Hookers Heroes
is going to be picked up! Tom is on his way to Hollywood right now to work out the details; I insisted he get in on this from the very beginning. I simply refuse to get reamed on the gross again.”

Leah bit back a hysterical giggle.
So . . . many things . . . to mock . . .
She wondered if it was possible to have a sarcasm stroke. “This has nothing to do with me.”

“Darling, of course it does. I cannot star in
Mother Daughter Hookers Heroes
without a daughter.”

“So hire one.”

“That's part of the hook,” she explained patiently, as if Leah didn't know all the steps in the Hollywood dance. As if she hadn't known since first grade, if Nellie would have allowed her to attend first grade instead of hiring tutors to cram her full of multiplication tables and “see spot run” between shoots. “It's
our
comeback, not my comeback and some silly little nobody absolutely no one wants to see.”

“You have always overestimated my stardom, because of course it allowed you to overestimate yours. No one knows who I am—or was.”

“Is that any way for Little Miss Huggies to talk?”

“Former Little Miss Huggies. No.”

“That's just the stage fright talking.”

“No.”

“So I'm going to messenger the script to you and—”

“No.”

“—you'll have to be ready to take a studio meeting first thing Monday.”

“No.”

“Remember, jewel tones make your skin seem less sallow. And stripes make you seem . . . thick. Absolutely no stripes, darling. And your hair is . . .” A pause while It searched for the right word. “. . . fine. Literally fine; maybe you should try a thickening serum? Something to give you a little body?”

“No! For fuck's sake, no! A thousand times
no
, how are you not getting this? Even for you? No!”

“All right, but at least use some hot rollers to give yourself a little bounce.”

Leah pinched the skin above her nose and told herself to stop chewing her lower lip. “No to everything. No to the comeback. No to body. No to stripes. No.”

“At last you're speaking sense. You could be pretty, but not with the distraction of horizontal stripes. Remember that dreadful two piece you wore for the Fourth of July special? You looked so very thick.”

“I was two.”

“Yes, well, you're not getting any younger.”

“Pay attention: no to everything. Comebacks, stripes, my matricidal urges, your utter inability to care for anyone but yourself, no.”

“Don't be difficult, dear.”

“No to the
Mommy and Me Fuck Fest
television show.”

“I don't understand.” Her contralto, even when she sounded flat and disbelieving, was still lovely. Leah actually shivered at the power of her voice, and was furious all over again that even she, who knew all of her tricks, wasn't immune to her oldest, and best.

The second-to-worst thing: she could make you think she cared.

The worst thing: not only did she not care, she really
didn't
understand.

Leah took a breath, held it for the count of five, then forced it out through her nose. “What? What was it? Exactly what was it about our meeting the other day that left you any doubt as to my feelings about being in your life at all, never mind going back to Hollywood with you? I will not do this, do you understand? I will never, never do this. Not again, not once, not for an HBO special and not for a toilet paper commercial.”

Archer, leaning against her desk, was trying to give the impression of a man who isn't hearing every single awful word. If his eyes got any bigger, they would fall right out of his skull and hit the carpet: plop! In her current grim mood, that might make her laugh. Her mother's legacy was clear: Leah was a terrible person.

“I used to love you, but you managed to stomp that flat by the time I had to take you to court. Now I don't even like you, do you hear me? I don't roll my eyes and tell myself that you'll never change but that it doesn't matter. I don't joke about you with my boyfriend—”

“Darling, you don't
have
boyfriends. Which reminds me, the producer is a lovely woman in her thirties who also happens to be gay, so if you could see your way to being extra
extra
friendly to her during the meeting and also after the meeting, we could get a head start on—”

“—or my colleagues or the mayor of Boston!” She had to raise her voice to be heard over her machinations. “I never speak of you. Ever. I never panic when Mother's Day approaches
because I don't know what to get you and I never fret about the holidays because I know I won't have to see you. I never feel any of those things daughters feel about difficult mothers. Absent contempt is the kindest emotion I can summon for you. The very kindest.”

“But—”

“Lose this number, or I will lose this phone. Do not call me again, ever, under any circumstances. If you want to give me a kidney, I don't want you to call. If you want to apologize for the abortion of my childhood, I don't want you to call. If you're bleeding out, I don't want you to call. Fuck your fashion advice. Fuck your career. Fuck your comeback. Fuck my comeback. Fuck you. Good-bye.”

Leah hung up, waiting to feel devastated and bereft. She supposed she'd burst into undignified tears again, as she had in the driveway. Archer seemed to think so, too; he was already moving to her, his arms out in a pre-hug. He had a “there, there” expression on his face; he was fully ready to kick into Comfort Mode.

She held up her hands like a traffic cop and he stopped. “No, I'm fine.” She managed a smile. “I'm fine.”

“Okay?”

“Yes. Okay. That's . . .” She paused and considered. “That's been stuck in my head for a while. It feels good to get it out.”

“The way you'd feel good after a family therapy session!” he insisted.

“Ah . . . no. Not at all like that.” Her smile felt a little more real this time. “You charming idiot.”

L
eah drove him home and to his astonished delight, she wouldn't let him out of the car until they were both panting and his erection hurt. A good hurt, though, the best hurt. The
if you don't let me out of these jeans I'm gonna throw up in your underwear
hurt.

He hadn't been expecting snuggling of any sort. Not after the final-final blow-off with her mother. He'd been a little surprised, and impressed, at how Leah held it together that time. Now he realized that she wasn't so much holding it together as she was celebrating her freedom.

Her hands were everywhere and her mouth was full of kisses, and best of all, most wonderful of all, she wasn't at all stingy with them. Where her fingers went her lips followed, and he felt like he was being marked in the loveliest possible way. Her breath kept hitching and would occasionally suspend entirely which made him feel like he was having a heart attack, if heart
attacks were intensely erotic. And ah, God,
her mouth
. Lips and tongue busy against his and he was again reminded his earlobe had a nerve connection straight to his cock.

Oh, sure, he'd read things and done some late-night one-handed Internet research, but nowhere in any of that did someone ever come out and say, “In case you missed that day in anatomy, your earlobe connects to your cock when a lovely dark-eyed brunette has her tongue on it.”

Even better, she was letting him put his hands in places his hands had only dreamed of

(hands dream?)

as he skimmed his fingers beneath her shirt and over the curve of her bra, mindful, always fucking mindful, of the balisong knives. If she had flinched back or even stilled, he would have immediately withdrawn

(my hands and I are terribly sorry, ma'am; it would be terrific if you didn't stab me again also please don't cut them off thank you and good night)

but she pressed forward into his fingers and he groaned into her mouth. “Feel like . . . teenager . . .” was all he was able to mumble against her lips, which curved into a smile.

“I wouldn't know.” Her fingers had gone to the button on his jeans.
Ohhhh little fly button, how I envy thee.
“I spent most of my teen years in auditions, or studios, or on various hunger strikes to punish Nellie. Once she even noticed.”

“Here's a plan: let's not talk about your mom right this minute.”

“Agreed.” Her fingers had undone the button, he was enchanted to note. “I didn't have a boyfriend until I was twenty.” Her fingers had moved to his zipper and he couldn't stand it any
longer, he brought his hand up to the nape of her neck and pressed his mouth back to hers, caught her deft fingers with his bigger, clumsier ones

(“what are you DOING?” his libido shrieked, betrayed, “have you gone MAD?”)

and pressed them to his heart.

“Shy,” she purred into his mouth.

“Yes, that's exactly what it is. Shush now. More kissing. This is the stuff you missed.”

So he showed her and she delighted him with her questions and low giggles, and yeah, it was a little like high school but also a little not, because the girls in school didn't whisper wonderful filthy things in his ear, didn't press and rub through his jeans and ask things like, “There? More? And how about there? Yes?” The girls in school never made the earlobe-to-cock connection. They never made his brain melt.

And incredibly, he could hear “No wire hangers, ever!” somewhere in his head, which was a bit of a mood dampener, but not entirely, since his need for Leah was a great scary throbbing thing. Maybe she heard it, too, because they finally fell apart,
broke
apart, and then he was stumbling out of her car and up the walk to his house, and she was waving at him from the driver's seat. The dome light shone on her dark hair, which was lovely, but the rest of her face was in shadow, and that bothered him, though he was too dazed with lust to put his finger on why.