Performance Anxiety. Betsy Burke
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LYME NON SCOPA PROPRIO” said Il Corriere della Sera.
“NO ACTUAL FUCKING FOR MIRANDA LYME” roared the New York Times.
Chapter 5
Kurt stayed the night. I forced him to. This technical glitch in my sex life was already depressing me. There was no saying what I might have done if he had left me alone. I might have tried death by mascarpone, or the lemon vodka home-embalming kit.
I was restless all night, slipping in and out of half sleep then jolting awake to stare at Kurt’s motionless form and try to take in this new development. When I finally fell into real sleep, I dreamed that my bed had slid out the window and into the center of a snowy field. I was alone in it. Over the crest of a snowbank, I could hear the frantic sawing of violins, violas and cellos in a galloping rhythm, harmonies that were almost baroque but modern too. A figure appeared on the crest. It was a man. The first thing I noticed about him was his startling long black curly period wig, and as the rest of him appeared over the crest I could see he was dressed in full regalia, with a sumptuous, glittering, gold-and-black-brocade knee-length coat, huge lace cuffs, silk britches and shoes with a dainty heel. At first his face was blank but as he came closer it morphed between Kurt’s face and my father’s. The music seemed to be emanating from his fabulous coat.
The sounds then became visible, forming around the man into gold droplets that hung suspended on the air then floated downward like sparkling rain. I crawled off the bed and through the snow toward him and began to gather up the droplets. But I had no pockets, nowhere to put the droplets. I was wearing a nightgown, a simple white muslin nightgown of the type opera heroines wear during the mad scenes, for dementia arias. The man started to laugh. He roared and guffawed and slapped his thigh and I realized it was me he was laughing at. He wouldn’t stop and I began to whimper.
“Miranda. Miranda. Wake up. You’re dreaming.” Kurt shook me furiously.
I opened my eyes and rubbed them. I had a moment of disorientation then said, “God, Kurt, I think I just dreamed Lully.”
“You mean Lully the composer?”
I nodded. “Jean-Baptiste Lully. The Sun King’s court composer.”
“How very peculiar.”
“He was dressed in Louis XIV period costume, but it was more than a costume, they were his clothes. Beautiful strange music was coming out of his coat.”
“Too much cheese and crackers before bed, Miranda.”
I ignored him. “I think I wanted to yank the coat off him, too. I wanted to wear it myself. It was gorgeous. I’ve got to try to remember the music…” I faced Kurt. “He looked like you, you know. And my father. Alternately.”
“Good Lord. I certainly hope I’m not going to meet the same end as Lully.”
“What end?”
“Well, my love, the foolish chap punctured his foot while banging time with a conducting staff, during a performance of a piece celebrating Louis’ recovery from an illness. Lully wouldn’t have the injured toe cut off and so died of gangrene poisoning. Silly sod.”
“I think we better not analyze this one too deeply,” I said.
“No, let’s analyze something pleasant. Like your body.” Kurt wrapped himself around me and started all over again, hands and tongue working me over until I was reduced to an orgasmic mush. After he’d finished with me and I lay there unable to move, he said, “It’s all going to be just fine. Wait and see. And remember, it’s not going to be forever. Find a nice little gay friend to entertain you when we’re not together. That’s what Olivia always did.”
But from one last untouched cell of me, a shady all-knowing brain cell, a bubble of anger floated up. “I don’t know, Kurt. It’s all wrong,” I admitted.
“It will be fine. You really must learn to be patient, my love,” he soothed, and began to touch me again.
This time it was a competition to see who could make the other experience the most sensations. I did my very best but I think Kurt won. Again, I was paralyzed.
“Okay, okay, I surrender,” I whispered.
My entire body felt like sluggish liquid as I poured myself out of bed and fumbled with my dressing gown. In my head, the words it won’t be forever repeated themselves over and over. I looked back at Kurt. He was propped up on one elbow, admiring me, his face filled with happiness. How could I not believe somebody as gorgeous and talented and famous as that, somebody who adored me with all but one appendage?
At 9:05 the next morning, I was dressed and staring at myself in my full-length bedroom mirror. Pointy blue reptile cowgirl boots, La Perla tights with blue roses printed on a gray background, short jeans skirt and jacket, hair in a ponytail. Behind me, the bed, the IKEA bed I’d rushed out and bought because I couldn’t entertain Kurt on my old student-style foam-rubber floor mattress, was empty. The only trace of Kurt was the snowy battlefield of rumpled sheets.
It was important not to obsess about this new tic of his. Concentrate, I told myself, concentrate on Matilde.
I switched on the electric keyboard and sang a few soft scales, then moved on to some louder ones. When my voice was warmed up, I let loose with the kind of high notes that remind the neighbors in the surrounding square mile that there’s an opera singer in the zone. Just so they didn’t forget.
Sounds of ransacking from the kitchen made me stop singing. I hurried from the bedroom, increased speed down the hallway, skidding to a halt just in time to see it. Caroline had her head in the fridge. Her friend, Dan the Sasquatch, was sitting at the kitchen table. He was the hairiest individual I’d ever seen. He also had the habit of mooching around without a shirt. It was enough to put you off your food.
At my 1950s aluminum-sided raspberry Formica kitchen table, Dan the Sasquatch was smoking his strange little rollies. Caroline knew this was a nonsmoking apartment. I’d been adamant. But for some reason I couldn’t fathom, the Sasquatch was The One, right down to his dreadlocks. He was the man she’d break all the rules for.
He forever rolled those little cigarettes too loose. Tiny curls of tobacco sparked and leaped out of the lit end and landed on his furry chest. I had this fear that one morning, when Caroline wasn’t there, he’d catch fire and I’d have to put him out, throw water on him, stamp on him, or roll him in my favorite rug, ruining my one threadbare but lovely kilim. Or worse, that he’d burn my place down.
Not that it would have been a huge loss. Despite my craving for more luxurious conditions, all my furnishings were misfits given to me by friends on the move, or other singers off to other gigs on the other side of the country. I dreamed of a gorgeous home put together bit by bit with a sense of style and real money. But it was futile. If one of those big-city jobs came through—if I got the call from Toronto, or San Francisco or New York or London, or, the dream of all singers, La Scala in Milan—I could hardly say, “Sorry, I can’t come and do your season. I have antiques now.”
So most of my furnishings were classic. Classic inflatable plastic armchair. Classic stacked cardboard-box bookshelves brightened up with MACtac and ready to be closed and moved across the country at a moment’s notice.
From deep in the fridge came Caroline’s voice, intellectual and teasing. “Strawberries…mangoes…peppered chèvre…Brie…Camembert…stuffed artichokes…smoked salmon…caviar…well, aren’t we quite the little aristocrat.”
“I don’t think that my food choices are quite enough to qualify me for a noble title,” I laughed.
“Miranda. You’re not going to eat all that yourself? Or are you on a campaign to become one of those really fat sopranos? Don’t they say it improves the voice?”
“Nice if it were that easy,” I said. “I could eat my way to success.”
She continued, “Better hurry up and eat it or it’ll go bad.” She and the