Cut Away

5. Alexandra

125 Alexandra I spend a whole week finishing up at Eleanor’s house. I want to make this right, please myself at least. The furniture arrives, one piece at a time. Men with white gloves pull up in trucks and unload the club chairs, an Italian marble pedestal with the deco Egyptian urn, a modernist floor lamp with a black base and arrow-shaped paper shade, the mahogany and burl room divider table that folds out to a bar, a French vitrine bookcase with the original glass in the doors, the Decoux bronze Chardon. All of it gets placed carefully where I say. I stack the bills on the kitchen counter. Eleanor looks them over, but I don’t let her in the room. I am just one more thing that confuses her. It will do her good to have her house back to herself. One morning, there is a knock on the door and I hurry out, wondering what’s arrived. I haven’t checked the schedule. It’s Bunny. Still the same short, wiry Bunny, but different around the eyes. More haunted looking than I remember. More like Olivia. “It’s not a good time right now.” I don’t really want to ask her in. The last visit was so awkward. 126 / Cut Away She hands me my order in a glossy white paper bag with pink plastic handles. “Next week?” She looks hopeful. She is wearing Eleanor’s blue jacket. Crazy. In all of L.A., it couldn’t be. She looks nothing like Olivia in any other way, in height or build. The resemblance is so slight I think I must be imagining it, but I keep seeing Olivia looking out at me from this strange little woman. I step inside the shadow of the door. “I’m going back home next week. I’m sorry.” “Oh.” Bunny stands there, looking down, not turning to leave. She looks up from the ground again, it takes a long time for her eyes to track up my body to my face. When she meets my gaze, it’s like she’s far away and too close, like she’s looking at me through a window. “You’ll remember what we talked about? I mean you must have thought about it. You must know how things can be wrong, but put back together right.” She is doing that weird thing she did before. I feel pulled toward her while I resist. She starts to sway a little from side to side, and her face fills with the strangest smile. She looks at me with bright pity. “You’ll tell her, won’t you? For both of us?” I ease the door closed. Through the narrowing gap, I see her still standing there, just watching me. When Eleanor comes home that night, she does not know the room is finished or that I plan to head out the next morning. The sound of her calling through the house, “God! What reeks?!” Emptied the trash. Cleaned the fridge. Can’t get rid of that smell, though. I’m sitting in the new room, the smell thickest there. I worry that it’s worse because of something in the rug, but I can’t seem to pin it down to that. Catherine Kirkwood / 127 She flings open the door, “It’s like something’s rotting.” She stops, takes the room in. “Oh, god, Alexandra. It’s amazing!” She has a drink in her hand and the ice picks up glimmers of pink from her linen blouse. She stands motionless and looks around, her face softening. A smile plumps her pale lips. “It really is very lovely. I had not expected. . . . I just didn’t see how it was going to come together. But it does. It really makes the room seem right.” “I’m sorry about the smell. I looked everywhere. I can’t figure it out.” Aside from this damper on the moment, I feel flushed and a little shy about my own success. It is more than I expected, this bending of hers toward pleasure, completion, and gratitude. She smiles, and waves her hand, “Whatever it is, it’s got to wear off eventually.” “Good day at work?” She laughs, eyes glowing, “Okay, maybe that’s part of it. I’ve had some very happy clients. Plus, I got a call from my attorney. Clarissa finally signed...