LITMIR.BIZ

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pretty good shape but it seems to me that after climbing three flights of stairs two times over she should be sweating, not glowing. I took the Examiner from her and read the headline, “Michael Tolsky Commits Suicide, Death Imitates Art.” I placed the paper against the unfinished wood of the dining table and sat down to read.

      “Right out of a movie…literally.” Dena ruffled her own short dark hair and relaxed back into the cushions. “I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but what a frigging drama queen.”

      I reread the description of his death. Tolsky had slit his wrists in a bathtub. The scene was right out of his film Silent Killer. He had even taken care to put vanilla-scented candles around the room, just as his character had done before his premature end. I tried to picture Tolsky lying naked in a pool of his own blood, his round rosy face devoid of animation. At our lunch meeting his presence had been so large that I had worried there wouldn’t be enough room in the restaurant for the other patrons. How could things have changed that quickly?

      “Of all his films, why recreate that scene?” I used my finger to trace a circle around the paragraph describing the incident. “I don’t get it. In Silent Killer, it wasn’t even a real suicide. It was a murder made to look like a suicide. Have the police considered that this might not be what it seems?”

      “Read the whole article,” Dena said. “There was a note.”

      Mary Ann nodded vigorously. “Mmm-hmm, a suicide note.”

      “Oh, good thing you clarified that one—I’m sure Sophie thought I was talking about a piece of music.”

      Mary Ann ignored Dena and continued to recite the information she had gathered. “He gave all the servants the day off—the maid, the chauffeur, everybody. I guess he was really upset over his wife leaving him. His blood alcohol level was like double the legal limit. I just feel so sad for him.”

      I focused on the headshot of Tolsky on the front page. So maybe he had planned it. Just woke up one morning and decided to check out. I probably should have felt sad for him too. Maybe I’d have felt more sympathetic if I had liked him more, or if I hadn’t always considered suicide a cruel copout, or if I wasn’t such a coldhearted capitalist bitch. What about my screenplay!

      “You know, if he was so depressed about his marriage, why the hell didn’t he try to win her back? She only left him a week ago. I mean, did he try flowers? Diamonds? Marriage counseling? Anything?”

      “Would that have worked for Scott after you filed?” Mary Ann asked.

      “No, but Scott was a freeloading, adulterous loser, that’s why our marriage lasted less than two years. The Tolskys were married for twenty-five years, so obviously he had something going for him. You don’t invest that kind of time and energy into a relationship, and then just roll over and play dead the minute things start to go sour.” I winced at my own choice of words. “What I meant was…or what I didn’t mean…you know what? This really sucks.” I dropped my head onto the table and tried to suppress the frustrated scream burning my throat.

      “Face it.” Dena stretched her short muscular legs out in front of her. “He was a man of extremes, and when he got depressed, he did it in a big way. The whole way he recreated his movie scene was a pathetic but successful attempt to get everybody to sit up and take notice.” She used her foot to gently steer my feline, Mr. Katz, away from her black pants. “This screws you up big-time, huh?”

      “Damn right it does!” The chair screeched against the hardwood floor as I pushed myself back from the table. “He was just Mr. Enthusiastic about that project. Why did he even approach me about adapting my manuscript for him if he didn’t plan on hanging around long enough to see a first draft?”

      “And you know that people are lining up at the video stores to rent his films,” Dena added. “If he could have just held off for a little longer, your little movie could have benefited from this postmortem media blitz.”

      “Gee, thanks for making me feel better about this.” I squeezed my eyes closed and took a steadying breath. Let it go…there’d be other chances. They may not materialize for another ten years but that only brought me to forty. I might still be able to wear a size-six gown while collecting my Academy Award at that age. Sarah Jessica Parker was forty and she looked pretty good. I opened my eyes again and stared up at the halogen lighting above me. “Maybe I should put a rumor out that I’m terminally ill. Do you think I’d get another offer to turn my books into screenplays if I were facing imminent death?”

      “Terminally ill doesn’t count,” Dena said. “Either you stop breathing or you’ll just have to trudge along with the rest of us.”

      “Maybe I could do a Van Gogh thing and cut off my ear or something. That might get people’s attention.”

      “Didn’t do a lot for Van Gogh.” Dena brought her hands to the back of her head in order to administer a self-indulgent massage. “From what I understand, it didn’t even get him laid. Didn’t his girlfriend break up with him after he gave it to her as a gift? She probably sent him a note in reply reading, ‘I said earring, you idiot!’”

      I couldn’t help but laugh at that.

      Mary Ann went to the kitchen and pulled a bag of microwave popcorn out of the cupboard. “Well, if all he wanted was to keep his name in the papers a little longer, wouldn’t it have been easier to just make another movie?” she asked. Her eyes widened and she dropped the popcorn bag on the counter that divided the kitchen from the living room. “Oh my God, maybe it was an accident. Maybe he was shaving and he cut himself by mistake!”

      If anyone else had said it I would have immediately assumed they were joking, but I knew Mary Ann well enough to be sure that the poor thing was totally serious. I bit down hard on my lip and tried to think about starving people in Africa, or the destruction of the rain forest, or anything to keep me from laughing.

      Dena was not so kind. “I cannot believe we share the same gene pool. If anyone asks, please point out that you’re my second cousin, and if you can fit in the ‘once removed’ part, I’d appreciate it.”

      “It could have happened.” Mary Ann crossed her arms and glared at Dena. “He was drunk, right?”

      “So he got into the bathtub and tried to shave his arms?”

      “Well, maybe he had hairy arms.”

      “And he accidentally slit both his wrists? At which point, what…he thought to himself, ‘Well shit, this sucks. I guess I’ll wait for all my blood to slowly leave my body and if it still hurts after that point, I’ll call 911.’”

      “I don’t know,” Mary Ann said. “Maybe he passed out. Maybe he was embarrassed….”

      “Right, that must be where they got the expression ‘embarrassed to death.’”

      “Okay, whatever. I still say it could have happened. If you’ll excuse me, I have to use the little girls’ room.”

      “Be careful you don’t accidentally slit your wrists while wiping yourself.”

      “You are so crude,” Mary Ann said as she made her way down the narrow hallway.

      I finally allowed myself to give up the battle for self-control and broke into a fit of giggles. When I caught my breath, I unsuccessfully tried to give Dena my most stern look. “You were kind of harsh, weren’t you?”

      “I’m sorry, but there are times when her immense ignorance tries my patience. And what does she mean ‘the little girls’ room’? She’s so fucking delicate she can’t even call it a bathroom for Christ’s sake.”

      I shook my head. I knew Dena loved Mary Ann in a big-sister kind of way. My mind wandered back to the time when a boyfriend of Mary Ann’s had slapped her across the face. Dena had repaid him by breaking his nose.

      Mary Ann emerged from the bathroom, an experience she seemed to have managed to get through without incident, and began to search my refrigerator for a more fattening

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