Shane and Carmen: The Novelization Ch. 28

Chapter 28 Cat's Cradle

Although it was only forty miles as the crow flies, it took Shane more than an hour and a half to drive out Los Feliz Boulevard south of Griffith Park to Glendale to pick up the 5 to get to the 134 and then east all the way out to San Dimas on the 210, also known as the Foothill Freeway, nestled at the base of Glendora Mountain. It might have been easier to just go out Santa Monica to the 101 to get to the 10, but she would have had to drive past the place on the 101 where Harvey had been killed, and Shane always did everything she could to avoid that stretch. Harvey was on her mind very much lately, anyway, and she would have driven to Mexico if necessary to bypass the strip of road where the only man she had ever loved had died.

When she got off the 210 she turned north, climbing into the foothills near the old and famous Route 66. She pulled into a small, modest community of senior and assisted-living homes, found the street address she was looking for, and parked her pickup at the curb under a big shade tree. She admired the neat, orderly, colorful flowerbeds surrounding the house as she walked up to its front door. She was looking for the doorbell when the door opened, and Carol Beringer stood there, beaming. Carol pushed open the screen door and said, "Shane, Shane, Shane."

Shane entered and immediately let Carol enfold her in an embrace. Carol wore her glasses on top of her head as she always did, but now the steel gray Brillo hair had gone white. She was still a trim, compact woman, and although she seemed to be aging well, Shane could see the care lines in her face. Shane understood at her deeply intuitive level that Carol's life had not been easy.

Carol ended the hug and stepped back to look at Shane, still holding her at arm's length. "Oh, look at you, all grown up!" Carol said.

Shane laughed, delighted, and nodded. "Yep, that's me. One hundred percent fully functioning adult, at last, and against all the odds. All thanks to you."

"Oh, no! Not thanks to me. You did most of it yourself. Harvey and Barbara and Bernie and I, we just helped out, here and there. Come in, come in! It's so good to see you!"

"I hope I'm not intruding or interrupting anything, any plans you had—"

"Plans? Oh, my goodness, Shane. A couple of ancient retirees like Paul and me, we don't have many plans these days. When you called this morning, I told Paul, 'Shane's coming to visit! It's been ten years!' I told him all about you."

"Well, you look great for an ancient retiree," Shane said laughing. "How are you feeling? How's Paul?"

"I'm fine, for an old bird," Carol said, "and you know about Paul. He's still hanging in there, God knows how. Come on, can I get you some iced tea? Lemonade?"

"Iced tea would be great," Shane said. "That's a long, dry, drive out here."

Shane knew Carol was seventy, now, and that her husband Paul, who was a decade older, had had Alzheimers for some years. Shane knew from Christmas and birthday cards and the occasional letter that Paul was confined to a wheelchair, and had ceased speaking several years ago. His body was in fairly good shape, but his mind was completely gone. He had no idea who anyone was, including Carol. When Carol had said she'd told Paul that Shane was coming and she'd told Paul all about her, Shane knew that Carol had been speaking to a human scarecrow, an empty shell, and that Shane's most intimate secrets were safe with him.

She followed Carol to the kitchen, where they got two iced teas, and Carol led her out to a screened porch that faced north with a grand view of the Los Angeles Mountains -- mountains that were just low, scrubby foothills. Off to their side sat a tall, emaciated old man in a wheelchair. He was clean and combed, and wore a nice flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled down in spite of the warmth of the day. A lap robe covered his legs, and when Carol and Shane entered he never moved so much as a muscle. Shane knew he may not even have known they were there.

"Look, Paul," Carol said. "Shane's here! And look how grown up she is!"

"Hi, Paul, it's great meeting you at last," Shane said comfortably, knowing there would be no response.

"Here, sit down and make yourself at home," Carol said. They sat in two large, comfortable wicker chairs with big cushions. There was a small table between them with coasters, where they could put their drinks. "So tell me, what brings you all the way out here on a Saturday afternoon? Everything still good with Carmen?"

Carol knew all about Carmen from Shane and Carmen's most recent joint Christmas card just a few months earlier that featured a photo of the two of them dressed up as elves at The Planet's annual Christmas party, each sitting on one of Santa's knees. Santa was played by Kit, with her jolly white beard and mustache not hiding her black face. Shane and Carmen were waving at the camera, and Kit used the photo as a promotion for the party. Carmen was always game for any kind of promotion Kit wanted, but she had had to let Shane smoke two joints to get into the holiday spirit and the costume. In addition to the card with the photo, Shane had sent Carol a note telling her about Shane for Wax and adding that she and Carmen were in a committed relationship. Shane had crossed out the words "committed relationship" so Carol could still read it, and written in, "shacking up."

"Carmen's great," Shane said. "She's got a gig this afternoon DJing this huge wedding reception up in Woodland Hills at the country club. The groom is some record producer she's done work for over the years. Going to be something like 400 record industry people there. It'll be great for her business. But speaking of Carmen, and speaking of weddings--" She stopped, smiling shyly.

"What? Shane? Are you saying what I think you're saying?"

Shane just grinned as Carol jumped up from her chair and made her stand up for another hug. "Oh, Shane, I'm so happy for you! Now, tell me everything!"

"Well, it's pretty simple, I guess. I asked her to marry me, and she said yes."

"Nothing's ever really that simple, you should know that, Shane. So you asked her, and not the other way around?"

"Yes, I asked her. And she didn't say yes right away, she needed to think about it. And I've been thinking about asking her for a while, so it's not like we just jumped into it or anything."

"Yes, I see. But you asked her. Wow. That's a pretty big step for the Shane McCutcheon I know, wouldn't you say?"

"I know. And I guess it's kind of bittersweet."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I better start at the beginning. Do you follow tennis? Do you remember a month or two ago a woman tennis player named Dana Fairbanks died of breast cancer?"

"Fairbanks? Yes, that rings a bell. And she came out as a lesbian, right? The media made a big fuss after some tennis match she won. Was she close to you?"

"Yes, she was. I mean, we never, you know ... we didn't—"

"I understand. Go on."

"We've been friends for years and years. There's this group of lesbian women I hang out with, me and Carmen, and my old roommate Jenny, and her friend Moira, and Tina and Bette and Bette's sister Kit, she was the one dressed up as Santa Claus in that photo, and, let's see, there's Helena ... oh, and Alice, remember Alice Pieszecki, the magazine writer? You met her one night when we were planning Harvey's funeral—"

"Sure, I remember her. She came to the beach when we scattered Harvey's ashes."

"Right, that's her. She's been my best friend ever since then. Well, she and Jenny. But anyway, there's this group of us, and Dana was in the group, and when she got sick, you know, we all went through that with her, visiting in the hospital and taking care of her when she came home, and so on."

"Sounds like a pretty impressive group, Shane. You all care for each other. That's good."

"Yeah, I guess. There's been a lot of shit, though, a lot of drama over the years. Feuds and people splitting up and getting back together, you know? What's a bunch of lesbians without a ton of drama, right? But anyway, yes, we've all stuck together, thick and thin. But my point is, on the afternoon of Dana's funeral, that's when I asked Carmen to marry me. I know, the timing seems awful, right?"

"That's not the right word, but I understand what you're trying to say. But the timing, it's completely understandable. When Dana got sick, seriously sick, all of you in the group began thinking about death and your own mortality. That's normal, we all do that. And then when someone close to us dies, especially somebody so young, it all becomes a lot closer. Like when Harvey died. You had just turned twenty. You probably never gave a thought to your own mortality until that afternoon, right?"

"No, you're right. And then this past year we had another death. Bette and Kit's father died. He came to live with them his last few weeks, and their house is right next door, so Carmen and I spent a lot of time helping out Bette and Kit with Melvin, that was his name. So yeah, we thought a lot of mortality then, too."

"Did you know Dana was going to die? Was that expected or unexpected?"

"It was a shock. And what made it worse was she lied about it, I guess to protect us. At first she wouldn't even say it was breast cancer. She kept hiding it and minimizing it, and didn't tell us when it had metastasized. She was on chemo and radiation, and we thought it was working. And you know how everybody wants to be positive and optimistic and all. Nobody wants to be a downer. And then, bang, one day her immune system collapsed, she was rushed to the hospital, and next thing we know a few days later she was dead."

Shane had to stop and collect herself. Carol sipped her iced tea and looked out at Glendora Mountain in the haze.

"So anyway, we came home from the funeral, and Carmen changed into her yardwork clothes and was weeding the flowerbed, and I just asked her. And she, like, freezes and doesn't say anything, and I thought, you know, fuck, I must have really screwed it. But she gets up and comes and sits next to me and puts her arm around me and rocks me. Oh, I was crying, see, because I'd been thinking about Dana and I was really hurting, grieving, I guess."

"I see. And your marriage proposal was all mixed up with your grieving for Dana."

"Yes. Fucked up, huh?"

"No, not at all. Did Carmen understand?"

"Oh, my God, you have no idea about her. She's phenomenal. She has, like, this supernatural power, this ability to see into people, what they're thinking and feeling, and to, like, separate out all the things I'm thinking into their own, I don't know, pathways or something."

"But you have that ability, too, Shane. Remember our conversations?"

"Yes, but what you explained is my intuition, and that I pick up on people's vibes and stuff. And I do. But Carmen is way different from me, from how my mind works. Like you said, I take in lots of information and then I process it, and it takes me a long time, but I eventually get it done. Carmen, she's the opposite – she's fast, fast as all hell. And I seem to sense what people are feeling, but Carmen can tell what they're thinking. It's like she can see all the wheels turning inside someone's head, while I see what's in their hearts. Or something like that. I know that sounds stupid, but that's how she is."

"So what did she say?"

"She starts by saying that she knew how big a thing this was for me to ask, you know, considering my history and all, and that I was grieving for Dana, too. And then she says, 'I know everything's tumbling around inside you, but I take this very seriously. And because I do take it so seriously, I'm going to think about it, I'm not going to answer right away.' She says something this big, it deserves serious consideration."

"And then what?"

"And then she takes my hand and makes me go in the house, and, uh ... ."

"You made love," Carol said, grinning broadly.

"Yeah," Shane said, actually blushing. "How'd you know?"

"Because that's what people often do after a funeral. There's lots of reasons for it. One, it's life-affirming. Two, after a funeral, your emotions are in a pretty raw, open state, and people need solace, they need to be comforted. You certainly did at that moment, right?"

Shane nodded.

"So what better time, what better partner, what better means of helping each other to feel better? And I'll bet you five dollars something else."

"What?"

"It was really good sex. Really, really good. No matter how good your regular sex life is, this was even better. Yes? No?"

Shane laughed and blushed again. "Yeah. It was, uh ... ."

Now it was Carol's turn to laugh. "Paul, close your ears," she said over her shoulder to her husband, who never heard a word. "You don't have to answer, but yes, you just admitted it was really good. You have nothing to be ashamed of or embarrassed about. It's all perfectly normal, and maybe one of the best parts about what it means to be human. There's even been studies that show a person's dopamine level in the brain increases after a funeral, and that triggers an increase in testosterone, which is what makes people horny. So even Mother Nature conspires to make people want to have sex after a funeral. It's in our chemistry."

"Wow. I had no idea."

"Let's skip ahead. What happened the next day, or whenever."

"Well, I have to back up a little bit again. Dana's family wasn't comfortable with Dana being a lesbian, and they weren't comfortable with all of us lezzies being at the funeral, and Alice even made a scene and walked out of it when the minister made this dumb-ass remark about Dana never finding love and not having had time to find a husband--"

"Oh, no. The minister didn't know, did he?"

"Clueless, just clueless," Shane said.

"I've been to many, many more funerals than you have, Shane, but you'd be shocked at how many times the clergyman gets up to deliver the eulogy, and you realize he has no idea whatsoever who the deceased person was in life."

"Dana's brother told us the last time Dana had been in that church was when she was, like, fifteen years old. So anyway, we all got dis-invited to the reception at the Fairbanks' house afterward, so we're all kind of pissed off and all, and Alice gets this bright idea to steal some of Dana's ashes and that we should have our own ceremony and memorial for her. So that's what happened, Alice got a paper coffee cup and went into the church after everybody left and scooped out some of the ashes from Dana's urn."

"This is like déjà vu, isn't it, with you and the group of us switching Harvey's body at his funeral. And Alice knew about it because she went to the beach with us. You told her about the switch, I assume."

"Exactly! We were standing in the lobby of the church and she looked at me and I looked at her, and it was, like, Bingo! I knew what she was thinking instantly, I could read her mind and she could read my mind, so she went and got the ashes. I was so proud of her! So anyway, we have some of Dana's ashes, and a week later we all drive up to this tennis camp in the mountains that was Dana's favorite place on earth, where she used to go when she was a teenager, and there's this waterfall Dana loved, so we go and we take turns scattering her ashes into the river by the waterfall."

"Well, I was pretty upset, again, since this was, like, Dana's real funeral, you know? I was grieving, and after we did the ashes I was off by myself, crying, and Carmen comes and finds me. And she's just standing there, not saying anything, and then she just says, 'Yes.' Just like that, 'Yes,' and I don't even have to ask what the question is, because I know, she's saying yes, she'll marry me. So that's how it happened."

"Interesting."

"Uh-oh. That's shrink talk," Shane said. "What does 'interesting' mean?"

Carol laughed. "Okay, you got me. And I think you already know what I mean. Don't you?"

Shane sighed. "Yeah, I do. It's what I've been thinking about for a couple weeks now. Twenty minutes after Dana's funeral, I ask Carmen to marry me. Twenty minutes after we scatter her ashes at her second funeral, Carmen says yes."

"Bingo," Carol said. "You want some more iced tea? Come on, follow me out to the kitchen. Paul, you want anything?"

They went and refreshed their iced teas, and after Carol grabbed a bag of oatmeal cookies they returned to the verandah. "Here," Carol said, offering the cookies to Shane. "Great source of fiber. That's what us old folks tell ourselves." She went over to Paul and gave him some ice water through a straw from a cup. He drank, and raised his hand slightly, signaling "enough," but it was the only human gesture he made.

"So you think me asking Carmen to marry me, and her saying yes, it's all connected to Dana dying?" Shane said after Carol sat back down.

"I'll tell you what I think in a minute, but first I'll tell you what you think, because you already made the connection between the funeral and the marriage proposal all by yourself, without any help from me, long before you came out here to ask me about it. No?"

"Yes," Shane said quietly.

"And here's how it goes. You're worried that maybe you asked her because you were grieving, you were emotionally very upset, fragile and vulnerable. It's a variation on the sex-after-a-funeral idea, that you – and Carmen, too, let's not leave her out – needed comforting and consoling. You both needed emotional closeness. Just like sex after a funeral takes your mind off the dead person and the mourning, asking someone to marry you also changes the subject, and takes your mind off the grief process. You follow?"

"I—I don't know. Maybe."

"It raises the question in your mind, suppose Dana hadn't died. Suppose she didn't have breast cancer. If your lives had proceeded normally, with Dana still alive and healthy, or at least not terminally ill, anyway, would you still have come to the point of asking Carmen to marry you? And would Carmen have accepted? Is that what you've been asking yourself?"

"Yes. I can't believe you figured this out."

"Piece of cake. Next time ask me something difficult."

Shane smiled. "You said you'd tell me what you think."

"I will, but first, let me ask you some basic questions. Do you love Carmen?"

"Yes. Sure."

"Good. Quick answer, no hesitation, no qualifying, no hedging. Next, does she love you?"

"Oh, yes, absolutely. She even says it was love at first sight, for her, anyway. Maybe for me, too, but I was probably too fucked up to pay attention, and anyway, love scares the crap out of me. But yes, she loves me. There's just no question about that part of it."

"Okay then. What does she think about marriage?"

"She's all in favor of it. She's real big on monogamy and commitment, and being faithful and all that. And she's got that wedding thing most little girls seem to have, even a lot of lesbians. She says even when she was a little girl she wanted to get married, even before she knew she was gay. She had that fantasy thing about the white wedding dress and walking down the aisle, and all that. The whole enchilada, as she likes to say. As far as she's concerned, being a lesbian is practically an insignificant detail, it's not even a bump in the road. You know, you just stick two women dolls on top of the wedding cake, and move on, like everything was that easy. And for her, it is that easy."

"And what are your feelings about marriage?"

Shane sipped her iced tea and looked out at the mountain. She set her drink down in its coaster and brought her hands together, fingers interlocked. Then she brought them apart quickly, like a bomb exploding, and made a movie explosion sound deep in her throat. "Booooom!"

Carol laughed. "Yeah, I figured something like that. Ka-boom. So what does ka-boom actually mean? Are you against it?"