Once the furniture was loaded onto the sets today, Cate could see that Vita’s living room—the biggest set, using both sliding platforms at once—could benefit from a few more details underlining who she was. A substantial stack of manuscripts, books by writer friends. Souvenirs from globetrotting. Definitely Persian cushions on the sofa. A hookah. A cheesy painting of the Grand Canyon, where she set one of her novels. An ashtray and cigarette caddy on the coffee table. She texts these to the prop master to see what he has, what they have to order. She is so grateful for something preoccupying to work on just now. Her thoughts these days are not her friends. Which doesn’t keep them from stopping by, particularly at night when she is too tired to fight them off.

A text coin drops in. Maureen.

start spreading the news…

(followed by an emoji of can-can dancers). Today Maureen has been firing off lyrics. It’s a sort of thing she does.

you’re leaving today…

Cate types, hoping a single reply will end this small dialog. She’s too tired to get perky and creative just now, which isn’t to say she doesn’t appreciate the contact. Early on, their calls developed a hollow ring. Texting goes better. With texts they can steer around what Maureen clearly finds an unpleasant subject. She is beginning to tire of Cate’s PTSD. (“I hate that you suffer from something that already has an acronym.”)

And Cate can’t really blame her. Enough repetition can flatten even a harrowing narrative. Maureen wasn’t in the kitchen. She’s sorry it all happened, of course, but mightn’t it be time to move on, particularly with their relationship, which Maureen probably still hopes is spreading strong, sturdy roots beneath it? On this matter, she has moved a step or two beyond Cate. Sometimes Cate likes this. Other times she wishes she could stop Maureen until she’s had time to catch up.

The texting does offer a jaunty flavor to the bad place in which Cate still too often finds herself. Sometimes, like tonight, she wakes up at two-thirty barely hanging on to a slippery rung above a space narrow and bottomless, where she finds, usually, an already-worn memory, but sometimes a whole, fresh, stinking scene being served up to her consciousness for the first time.