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ONE

A lbert took care of most of the arrangements this morning. He contacted the funeral home, signed the paperwork, sent messages to begin the spread of news. He greeted the undertakers, helped them collect what they needed to collect, chose an outfit (a sequined beret and a green-and-black dressing gown with gold stitching). He’d done this before, of course, with Lyle, with so many others. And when it was finished, when her bed was empty, he said goodbye to Eddie and went home to rest.

And now Eddie is here alone, if you can be alone among the thousand faces on Cookie’s walls, the trinkets and knickknacks and books and records, the artifacts of Cookie’s exuberant life. He walks slowly through the apartment, touching everything in it, from the bits and pieces on the coffee table to the knickknacks on the bookshelves. He smiles to think that maybe he met her before she had some of these things. Would she have remembered him, if she had? He opens cupboards, opens drawers. The contents just expand, multiply—the more he finds, the more there is. It’s endless, an accordion world, unreal in its realness.

What will happen to it all, he wonders? Will anyone want it? Will it even matter? Will it all just turn to vapor in a flash of light, the way everything seems to do these days?

Eddie is still so tired. He should call Donna, and he will, but first he lies down on the fainting couch and stares up at the disco ball for a little while.

Its light—borrowed light, not its own—jitterbugs across the walls, bringing to life the faces that hang there. Greta Garbo, Billy Haines, Sal Mineo. And especially the bright-eyed boy, the one called Francis. Eddie watches the glinting of light, the sparkling miracle of it, in wonder. Is it real? he asks himself. Is it true?

Who can know? You’ve been trying to understand, Eddie, to put reason to the visions, to understand the folding of time, to make sense of yourself. Call it all fantasy if you want to. Call it dreaming, call it magic, call it real. These are only words, invented by people to fool you into thinking you can understand. But we know better, Eddie. We know.

And then, for reasons no one will ever understand, least of all himself, Eddie begins to laugh. A quiet giggle at first, but it grows, bigger and bigger, expanding in his lungs until it is loud and joyful and open, filling the room, releasing his anxieties, his puzzlements, his fears. They lift up and away in a kaleidoscope swirl, beautiful under the disco ball. He laughs until his belly hurts, until his eyes fill with tears, until all he can do is breathe.

And it’s enough to breathe. One breath, then the next, and again, a steady rhythm, still sleeping.