Chapter 45 Lee
Lee
In Athens, Lee and Charlotte shared Regan’s room. Charlotte snored softly, her fragrance—a mixture of Jean Naté bath oil and a musky scent that was Charlotte’s alone—rousing a jumble of emotions in Lee: security, anxiety, sadness. Charlotte stirred, rolling away from her daughter.
Lee remembered the sweet shock of waking next to a man.
Back when she had been carefree and wild, there had been naked Captain Luigi on the Splendido Marveloso cruise ship.
At the time, all she had wanted was fame, some sort of validation from the universe that she was meant to be a star.
Jason had just dumped her, and she felt emancipated.
Those were the days when her mental problems lent her a sort of sparkle.
Ah, Captain Luigi. Too bad he was old, bad in the sack, and married.
Then Lee had met Kiko, a tour guide and chef on the island of Malta.
She had allowed herself to dream of a life with him, even considering moving to Valletta, of all places!
What if she’d gone and done it? But the universe had intervened, or God, or just biology: She’d tried to jump off her cruise ship balcony; some Peeping Tom had filmed it; and the rest was history.
She was now, officially, famous for being insane.
For wanting someone to love her.
Lee allowed herself a moment to acknowledge that she really did want to act again, but in a real film, with a prestige director.
She wasn’t going to have a family of her own.
She was never going to bear children. Why not aim to live on through beautiful, important work?
Lee vowed to get her prescriptions organized and reach out to Francine.
Her brain seemed to have recovered from the last episode, but anything could happen… worst of all, a deep depression.
Why did Lee have a sick brain? She tried not to ask this question, but it plagued her. It was scary not to know who you were, not to be able to trust your own thoughts. She was very tired from hanging on, keeping the door closed, staying.
Charlotte turned over, her hands clasped together. She opened her eyes, and Lee noticed that the blue of her irises had paled—was this a thing that happened with age?
“Hi, sweetheart,” said Charlotte.
“Hi, Mom.”
“I wrote to Paros,” said Charlotte. “I made a mistake when I told him I couldn’t leave Palmetto Shores.”
“Oh! Did he respond?”
“It was an actual letter,” said Charlotte, snootily. “He’s probably just getting it, or the letter might still be airborne. Above the Med.”
Lee smiled. Charlotte loved glamour. “What if he says he still loves you?” she asked.
Charlotte considered. “He’s probably dead,” she said. She sat up. “And furthermore,” she said, her method of ending the discussion. Charlotte changed the subject. “Lee Lee, I am really starting to worry about Regan. What on earth has she gotten herself into?”
“Some sort of money scam, I think,” said Lee.
“Do you think she ran off with her new French boyfriend? But that just isn’t like her, is it?”
“Francois isn’t real,” said Lee. “It’s some thief who pretends to be a French boyfriend.”
“Trafficked with Mariana van Zeller did an episode on this,” said Charlotte soberly. “Remember? A woman in Kansas thought she was engaged to a helicopter pilot, but it was a young man in Jordan. Or Jamaica? Maybe Jamaica, Queens…”
“I didn’t see that episode,” said Lee.
“You did, too,” said Charlotte. “Who else would I have watched it with?”
There was a quiet moment, as mother and daughter both acknowledged that they only had each other.
Charlotte broke the silence. “And then there was that ugly fat man? Who thought a Brazilian model was in love with him?” Charlotte laughed meanly. “But it was a high school teenager in Texas, using photos from a supermodel’s Facebook page! People are stupid.”
Lee did not point out that her mother had flown “across the Med” to rekindle a relationship with a man she’d last spoken with ten years before. But was it stupid to dream of being loved? Where was the line between stupidity and hope?