To die for, p.25
To Die For, page 25
And for his part—we’re speaking of the boy now—you might just as well give a sixteen-year-old boy crack cocaine as give him a nice-looking twenty-five-year-old woman to fuck. He’s going to be a slave, you understand? A fucking slave. He’ll do anything just to get in her pants again. Fix your car? Mow your lawn? Kill your husband? Sure. He’s got to have it, you understand? Got to.
Nobody likes to say this, but we all know it’s true. Sex is just so bizarre. Here we all are, walking around going to the supermarket, making bank deposits, shooting the breeze with someone over at the barber shop about our car. Acting like we’re all normal. Everybody keeps up the act. How’s it going? Just great. How about you?
And the whole time we’re doing this, we’ve got this other life going on—the life you live beyond closed doors, alone, or not alone, in the dark, when you’re just a naked body, burning up with animal desires. Am I the only person in the world who thinks this is strange? Tell me, am I the only one who notices?
I go register my car. Woman at the Division of Motor Vehicles hands me a form, sticks her pen behind her ear, types up the form. “Another hot one,” she says to me. “Think it’ll ever rain?” You can tell she’s just come from the beauty parlor. She has these little pearl earrings on. Wedding ring. Photos of the kids on her desk.
But what I’m thinking is, What does she look like when she’s got her girdle off and some guy on top of her? Does she go home at night, put on cutout panties and a pair of handcuffs, and wait for her best friend’s husband to come over? Or lie there alone listening to old Frank Sinatra records and touching herself? Let’s face it, once you throw sex into the equation, anyone out there can become crazy. We’re all capable of bizarre behavior. Who follows the rules? What are the rules anyway?
VALERIE MERTZ
WE’RE GOING TO MEET Oprah, can you believe it? They called us last week, after USA Today picked up the story about Suzanne jumping off the bridge. We were on “Good Morning America,” “Evening Magazine.” That’s not even counting the local shows. I tried taping them, but we were on all three channels at the same time, so we could only get one. It’s OK though, because this is just the beginning. Sally Jessy Raphael wants us to come on her show too. We’re also talking to Geraldo. Suzanne Maretto would die if she knew. Turn over in her grave, I mean.
First thing we did after the people called from Oprah was run out and get a big can of Ultra Slim Fast for Lydia. Like Suzanne used to tell her, the TV camera puts ten pounds on a person. But we have eight days to work on taking some weight off, if she sticks to the Slim Fast and maybe a few rice cakes. We’re going to the mall for something to wear on the show. Not stripes they told us. But Lydia already knew that too. From Suzanne.
But that’s not the most incredible part. Yesterday this woman comes to see us. From Hollywood. She’s a producer. Did you ever see that made-for-television movie about the girl with the deformed face that had to go around with a bag on her head all the time, until this fashion model with terminal cancer gave her money for an operation? She was in charge of that one. Also the boy that turned out to be allergic to his own family. I never saw that one, but it starred that kid from “It’s All in a Day.” The cute one.
She wants to buy the rights to Lydia’s story. We already signed a contract. They’re paying Lydia $10,000 right away, and a lot more if the network goes ahead and puts the movie on TV. Which Ellen—that’s the producer—says is basically a sure thing, on account of how our story has, like she says, all the elements they go for in Hollywood. She loved it when Lydia told her the part about walking in on Suzanne and Jimmy that time. And her doing her cheering routine in just her garter belt.
At first, after all this happened, I guess Lydia’s head got pretty messed up. Thinking about how Suzanne never really liked her at all, and Jimmy going to jail, and having to face all the kids at school that talk about her all the time now, and nobody wanting to sit with her at lunchtime, like she’s an alien.
But now it looks like things are really working out. This producer, Ellen, says they’ll even fly us to LA when they start filming. To be consultants. Meet the stars and everything. Those kids at school that won’t be friends with my kid—do they get to be in People magazine? Do they get to meet Oprah? I ask you.
Which gives Lydia motivation for her diet, naturally. Like Suzanne always said, evidently, you never get a second chance to make a first impression.
FAYE STONE
BELIEVE IT OR NOT I used to be skinny. Back when I was in preschool, before Suzanne was born, people used to say I looked like one of those Walter Keane paintings—you know the ones I mean, of some little girl with big eyes and toothpick legs that look like she just got out of Biafra or a concentration camp?
My parents were always trying to get me to fatten up in those days, if you can believe it. Mealtimes, the two of them would sit with me through the whole entire Huntley-Brinkley news, plus “Newlywed Game,” one at each end of the table, and me in the middle. “Now the airplane’s flying into the hangar. Here’s one for your Aunt Pamela. One for Uncle Roger. We’ll buy you a Skipper doll if you finish your vegetables.…” Nothing worked.
Then they brought Suzanne home from the hospital, and everything changed. Suzanne this, Suzanne that. “Have you ever seen a more beautiful baby?” “Listen, I bet she could be in commercials. Gerber or Beach-Nut. Pampers, maybe. That’s how Brooke Shields started out, you know. And look at her now.” I remember this one time, when we took her out to the supermarket, this woman stopped my mother and asked her if she’d thought of sending Suzanne’s picture to Ivory Snow. For the box. She said she’d never seen anything so cute in her life as Susie in that little bunny dress of hers. Then she must have noticed me, because she said I was cute too. “But for goodness sake, get a little meat on her bones,” she said.
I started making myself eat my vegetables. I joined the clean plate club. I even asked for seconds. Thirds. Dessert. Snacks. Yes, I will have a potato. Butter or sour cream? Give me both. Please.
I thought then they’d be happy, but you know, they never noticed. When I went to the doctor, and he said I was in the ninety-eighth percentile for weight, I thought they’d be proud. But by then they were just worried about Susie being underweight. Now all they did was keep making that plane fly into her mouth. One for Aunt Pammie. One for Uncle Roger. They told Susie they’d buy her a ballerina doll, if she’d stay in the clean plate club for a whole week. “What about me?” I wanted to yell. But I didn’t say anything. I kept figuring any day now they’d notice what a good job I was doing, how big I was growing.
I started eating more and more. It got to where I knew I was too big. The only clothes I fit were chubbettes, and even then, I could always feel the elastic on my panties cutting in around my thighs and my stomach. My undershirt left little red marks in my armpits, from rubbing. But I couldn’t stop.
Evenings, when my dad came home from the lot, he’d stand in the doorway and put his briefcase down. “Who’s my big girl?” he’d call out. We’d both come running. But the one he picked up was Susie.
“I’m the big girl!” I wanted to yell. “I’m the biggest one of all.” Only I didn’t.
Saturday mornings, he took her with him on his golf game. She rode on the back of his cart at the club. I stayed home and watched cartoons, with a big plate of pancakes and lots of syrup. As long as I had food in my mouth, things felt OK.
When you’ve got two sisters like that, it gets to where people always look at you like you were half of a set. She was the blonde, I was the brunette. She was the baby, I was the big sister. She was the skinny one. I was fat. She was the star, center stage. I was her hairdresser. She was popular. Me—take a wild guess.
When the whole business started, after Larry was killed, at first it looked like here we go again. Suzanne on TV every night, getting interviewed, having her picture in the paper. Everybody feeling so sorry for her. My mother went out and bought her a whole new wardrobe, for goodness sake. On account of how her old clothes would probably remind her too much of how happy they’d been, and so forth.
Wherever we went after that, it was always “How’s Suzanne doing?” “Poor Suzanne.” “Is there anything we can do?” “She’s been so brave.”
After the boys were arrested, my parents still kept it up. Talking about how unfair it was, the hatchet job the media was doing and so forth. And of course, if anyone had thought to stick a microphone under my nose I would’ve come out with the same lines. Only nobody did.
But since you’ve asked, I’ll tell you what. She was my baby sister, and it’s true, I worshiped her. You know what they say— when in Rome …
She was irresistible. Look at me, when I was four years old she moved in and wrecked my life, and still I adored her. She had this ability to manipulate a person. Like one of those commercials you see, where you know they’re handing you a line, you know they’re working on you, and still you can’t help it. When the commercial’s over, you’ve just got to get up and pour yourself a Coke, or put Dove with Moisturizer on your shopping list. Listen, I’m a beautician. I know hair-care products. And still, when I’m finished watching Cybill Shepherd tell me why she uses L’Oreal, I’m ready to run right out and buy myself a bottle. Suzanne had that kind of power over a person. My dad couldn’t resist it. Larry Maretto couldn’t. You think a sixteen-year-old boy could say no to a person like that?
I’ll tell you a story. When I was ten—Suzanne was six—my grandmother sent me this locket that used to be her mother’s. Me being the oldest girl and all. That was one thing Suzanne could never take away.
This was a wonderful locket. It opened up so you could put a picture inside. And on the outside, etched into the gold, it had the word Daughter in very flowery script, with a little circle of diamond chips around the edges. First thing I did when I got the locket was get a really little picture of my mother to put inside. And I never took that locket off.
It drove Suzanne crazy. I mean, just about every special treat we’d get, there’d always be two of them. A brunette Madame Alexander Cissy doll for me, a blonde for Suzanne. A blue organdy dress for me, pink for Suzanne. We had matching Easter hats, matching Schwinn Traveller bikes with streamers, matching Princess phones for our rooms, not that I had much use for mine.
But with this locket, there was just no way to even things up. Not that my father didn’t try. Even though it was my birthday present, he told her, when he saw how upset she was, that he’d buy her a new locket, and have the word Daughter engraved on that one too. When she said that wouldn’t be the same he bought her a charm bracelet with all these sterling silver charms of all her favorite things: a ballet slipper, a miniature telephone, a sportscar, even a miniature TV set with dials that actually turned. She still wasn’t happy.
She said why didn’t I trade her the charm bracelet for the locket. And it was a neat charm bracelet. But it was also something you could go out and buy at a store, which was different from a locket your grandmother gave you, handed down to the oldest daughter in the family for three generations. And anyway, the charms fit with her life, not mine. So I said no.
Two, three months after I got the locket, we took a trip to Cape Cod, and I left it home in case it got lost in the waves. When we got home, I searched everywhere, but I couldn’t find it. I turned my room upside down looking for that locket, and for years after, I kept hoping it would show up, but it never did. Finally I just gave up. I even forgot about it.
You know something? After Suzanne died, my mother asked me to clean out the condo. It would just be too painful for her, you know? So I was cleaning out her drawers. And what do I find, tucked under a whole stack of Victoria’s Secret bras and panties, but my grandmother’s locket. I opened it up. But instead of the picture of my mother that I’d put inside, it was a picture of Suzanne.
Funny how things work out, isn’t it? Me being the only child again. Sunday nights now I always try to have dinner with my parents, who have been nearly destroyed by all of this business. So there it is, just the three of us again. I’m not the big sister anymore. Just the daughter. And incidentally, I’ve lost eighteen pounds. Stress, you could say. The funny thing is, I’m not even dieting, and still the weight keeps falling off. What do you know?
JIMMY EMMET
THAT’S IT. YOU WANT to know what I got to look forward to? A hundred years looking at these four walls, if I live that long.
I never thought I was going to get elected President or nothing. But I didn’t figure I’d end up like this neither. My dick might as well get petrified and drop off, for all I need it now.
The other night, I can’t say which on account of they start to blend together, I’m laying there and I decide to count the times we done it. Starting with that time at the beach. Ending with a night at her condo. That was the last time.
You know what? It added up to fourteen. Fourteen times, total. Maybe two hours of fucking, max. And the part that kills me is, I can’t hardly remember anymore what was so great about it. I know it must’ve been. I used to say I’d die for it. But I can’t even remember what it felt like anymore.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
THE OUTLINE OF THE story told here was suggested to me by a recent, highly publicized murder. I used, in a novelistic way, those facts made known to me through television and newspaper reports. But when those facts contradicted my imaginative and fictional necessities, I chose to pursue my own imagination.
The story I really wanted to tell is not about a specific set of characters and circumstances. I wanted in some way to explore questions of fidelity, love, sexual obsession, ambition, violence, and how our thoughts about these things are created and manipulated by television, movies, popular music and magazines. The question that interested me most was: Where do our motivations come from for self-fulfillment, for sexual attraction, for compassion and, finally, for love? I imagine all writers share these kinds of concerns.
So this is not a book about a specific murder case, or any individuals connected with such a case. It would be unfair to align the characters in this novel with those beings who gave me some inspiration. A frequently quoted line from Flaubert comes to mind: “Madame Bovary, c’est moi.” Madame Bovary, that’s me. To some terrible extent, all the characters in this and every other novel I’m ever likely to write represent elements of my own self. Names, places, characteristics, personal histories, ultimate guilt, ultimate responsibility, are all my own invention.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
IN THAT LONELY PERIOD when a person is consumed with the writing of a book, no individual is more valuable than one who can read what the writer has produced and offer guidance. A handful of such good and trusted friends read or listened to portions of this manuscript and offered thoughts and criticism that helped immeasurably. I particularly want to thank Ernest Hebert, Bill Barton, Vicky Schippers, Audrey LaFehr, Graf Mouen, Susan Herman, Lynn Pleshette, Bob Carvin, and Bill Oster.
A Biography of Joyce Maynard
Joyce Maynard is the bestselling author of eleven books of fiction and nonfiction. She is best known for her memoir At Home in the World and her novel Labor Day, both bestsellers. Since launching her writing career as a teenager, Maynard has been a commentator on CBS radio, a contributor to National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered,” and a reporter for the New York Times, as well as a speaker on parenthood, family, and writing. She has published hundreds of essays and columns for publications such as Vogue; More; O, The Oprah Magazine; and the New York Times; in addition to many essay collections.
Born in Durham, New Hampshire, in 1953, Maynard began publishing her stories, essays, and poems when she was fourteen years old. She won numerous awards for her work before entering college at Yale University in 1971. During her freshman year, Maynard sent examples of her work to the New York Times, prompting an assignment: She was to write an article for them about growing up in the sixties. In April 1972 that article, “An Eighteen-Year-Old Looks Back on Life,” graced the cover of the magazine, earning her widespread acclaim and instant fame.
Maynard’s story also caught the eye of reclusive author J. D. Salinger, then fifty-three years old, who wrote her a letter praising her work—launching a correspondence that ultimately led Maynard to drop out of college and move to New Hampshire to live with the author. Their relationship lasted ten months.
Maynard never returned to college. In 1973 she published her first memoir, Looking Back, a follow-up to her New York Times Magazine article published the year before. Having lived alone in New Hampshire in her early twenties, in 1976 she was offered a job as a reporter for the New York Times and moved to New York City. She left the newspaper in 1977 when she married Steve Bethel and returned to New Hampshire. The couple went on to have three children: Audrey, Charlie, and Wilson.
Maynard’s first novel, Baby Love, published in 1981, earned the praise of several renowned fiction writers including Anne Tyler, Joseph Heller, and Raymond Carver. Her next book, Domestic Affairs (1987)—a collection of her syndicated columns, which had run in newspapers across the country—reflected on her experiences as a wife and mother and further cemented Maynard’s status as one of the best-loved modern American memoirists.
In 1986, an area in Maynard’s home state of New Hampshire was selected by the US Department of Energy as a finalist to become the first-in-the-nation high-level nuclear waste dump. Maynard was one of the organizers of the resistance to that project, and she wrote a cover story about it that was published in April of that year and was widely believed to have contributed to the government’s decision to suspend the nuclear waste dump plan.
Maynard’s marriage ended in 1989—an experience she wrote about in her “Domestic Affairs” columns. Many major newspapers discontinued the column abruptly at this point, citing Maynard’s impending divorce as indication that she was no longer equipped to write about family life. Maynard continued writing—though for a much smaller audience—in the Domestic Affairs Newsletter.
