I’m Losing You by Bruce Wagner

mind.
    â€œI’m the pain guy. Nice to meet you.” The doctor smiled, sailing out.
    The nurse swooped on Simon officiously. “You’ll have to go—Mrs. Ribkin isn’t feeling well.”
    â€œSorry to hear it.”
    â€œI don’t think she really needed you.”
    â€œI’ll just take a quick look under the house and be on my way.”
    â€œThis
nonsense
—if I had known she called—”
    â€œJuana? Is that the young man?” Simon muttered “Baby Jane” under his breath as the nurse turned back to the living room, steeling herself. He followed her in. “Why didn’t you tell me he was here?”
    â€œYou should be going to bed now. You’ll be passing out from what Doctor gave you.”
    â€œI want to sit on the terrace.”
    â€œYou should be lying down.”
    â€œI want to sit on the terrace, goddammit!”
    Outside, they propped her on a chaise, and Simon tucked a Ralph Lauren throw around. His knees acted as a hedge to keep her from falling.
    â€œCan you smell it?”
    â€œI smell skunk, but it’s far away.”
    â€œPoor raccoons—it’s their mama, I
know
it. How awful!”
    â€œHow long have you been sick?”
    â€œAwhile. But I’m just about done.”
    Something stirred on the hill.
    â€œI could take another look. I mean, under the house.”
    Serena coughed, and he asked if she needed water. She waved him away. “I heard a marvelous joke. Farfina told me, she’s the night nurse. Stupendous gal.” She pointed toward the house with a hitch-hiker’s thumb and coughed some more. “
This
one—Juana—is a Nazi.”
    â€œI’m not excessively fond of the ladies in white myself. They’re all Nurse Ratcheds.”
    The old woman was fading. He morfed her face into younger versions of itself, to pass the time. Serena coughed, bad one this time, eyes opening wide in an alarm of pain. She fidgeted and the blanket fell. Simon helped her cover up.
    â€œThere’s a man, he’s dying. His wife and him don’t get along too well, physically—haven’t done anything for years. He knows he’s not going to make it through the night. He tells her that, and asks for sex. She turns him down. He says, ‘How can you do this to me?’ The wife says, ‘I’m tired, I’m exhausted, I worked all day.’ He’s shocked, of course—like they all are. And he says, ‘But I’m dying! How could you be so tired that you couldn’t give me sex on my last night on earth?’ She looks at him and says, ‘That’s easy for you to say. You don’t have to get up in the morning’!”
    She laughed and coughed and Juana gathered her away.

    He was in his office at ICM, thinking about Katherine and her lover. Phylliss Wolfe had told him about as much as he could stomach. Well, his ex could have done far worse than Stocker Vidra, tribadic film critic, book editor and part-time novella-ist: Katherine might just as easily have wound up in the arms of some agent-turned-successful-producer. This way, there was less exposure. Less embarrassment for him. Better a récherchée
clitterateur
than some art-house director in the thralldom of a freak crossover hit. Better some dyke ofAcademe than a lawyer-turned-screenwriter. Lawyers-turned-writers were the worst.
    He sat there, Dirk Bikkembergs pants at mid-thigh, hand around dick, wondering what they were up to. Probably in Joshua Tree, fisting each other between hits of ecstasy, laughing over his stubby, herpes-ridden shlong.
    Taj let him know Phylliss Wolfe was on the phone.
    â€œHi, Donny. It’s Eric.”
    â€œHi, Eric.”
    â€œI met you at Sweets. I brought Phylliss the script.”
    â€œI know that, Eric. You’re very memorable.”
    â€œShe’s just getting off this other call. I thought I had her but—”
    â€œOld gal’s