{"id":22895,"date":"2017-06-09T11:00:22","date_gmt":"2017-06-09T15:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.michiganquarterlyreview.com\/?p=22895"},"modified":"2021-06-22T11:03:49","modified_gmt":"2021-06-22T15:03:49","slug":"bling-bling-by-marian-berges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.lsa.umich.edu\/mqr\/2017\/06\/bling-bling-by-marian-berges\/","title":{"rendered":"“Bling Bling,” by Marian Berges"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fiction by Marian Berges excerpted from our Winter 2017<\/a> issue.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

Scott was a rock star. Not one of those rockers, touched by the gods, whose success is a just reward for essential fire. Scott wasn\u2019t that, but he was close to it, second tier maybe, sliding maybe down the other side of that hill, but still reeking of sex, still pulling a good crowd, still living large, viable. Melissa had been seeing him for a couple of years and knew he wasn\u2019t faithful, or at least suspected that he wasn\u2019t. She suspected that he was screwing young girls. Melissa was no longer young, pushing forty, and, although she\u2019d been pretty once, she looked haggard these days. Right now she was sitting in Jay\u2019s loft in lower Manhattan, bitching about Scott as she usually did after the second glass of wine, the sun going down, finally, on one of the hottest days they\u2019d known, Jay a little bored and strumming on his guitar while Jay\u2019s wife (Melissa\u2019s best friend in the world) was in the next room getting William to sleep. In the pauses between cantos, they could hear Susanna\u2019s voice, a crooning lullaby.<\/p>\n

Melissa pointed her finger in a westerly direction, out the windows at the deep sky. \u201cHe\u2019s probably fucking somebody right now,\u201d she said, \u201cYou know,\u201d Melissa went on, and Jay wished she\u2019d be quiet. \u201cScott said I could fuck anybody I wanted.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell. Go ahead . . . fuck anybody.\u201d Jay answered, weakly. He was tired of Melissa. He wished Susanna would come out. And when she finally did appear, in bare feet and white cotton nightgown, standing for a moment in the doorway of William\u2019s room, waiting to make sure he was indeed asleep, the room seemed to lighten. It was lovely to think of William asleep.<\/p>\n

They were all going to Long Island for the long weekend; Melissa had invited Scott. Later, Jay, grumpy with wine and the long hot day, pulled back the covers on the bed: \u201cHow do we know what he\u2019ll do? It\u2019s unpredictable. We don\u2019t really know him.\u201d But, as it turned out, Scott the Rock Star was a very good guest. He had social talent. He liked to cook but didn\u2019t talk about food. He brought two very expensive bottles of wine that were so right for the meals they had planned that Jay had a momentary and strange suspicion, or intimation, that this handsome, louche, bewildering man was psychic. Scott also played tennis and was always up for a game, even in the terrible heat. Everybody played tennis that summer\u2014everybody except Baby William, who spent most of his time on the beach moving pebbles from one place to the other, the color of his eyes changing with the water from opalescent blue to silted green. He talked nonsense, his voice high and pretty, and smiled at everybody; from him came the smell of the world when it was new.<\/p>\n

On Saturday evening, Scott announced that his sister was coming. That is, he asked if she could come, but did it in such a way that no one could raise an objection. \u201cI\u2019m close to my sister,\u201d he said. \u201cShe took care of me. She\u2019s the talented one. I\u2019ve told her about this place, about you all, and she said she just had to come down here and see.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe has a sister?\u201d Jay asked Susanna, when they were alone in their room. \u201cHe wants to invite his sister, too?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOnly for two days,\u201d Susanna answered.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want any sisters,\u201d Jay said.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe might be OK,\u201d Susanna said, vague; she was vague these days, wrapped up in the ineffable gauze of baby love. She seemed to be swaddled herself, and most of the time she and William would look at Jay with identical expressions. They were doing it now (William resting in the crook of his arm, head turned to regard his father). Susanna said, \u201cMelissa told me that she\u2019s thinking of putting holes in his condoms. I mean, is that safe? She really wants to get pregnant. She cries about it. You know she does.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know anything about it.\u201d The conversation was making Jay feel ill. And the next time he caught sight of Melissa he could see that hole, no bigger than a pinprick, and the light that shone through the rubbery shield. But she still smiled and chatted, wound up in her usual fine thread of anxiety.<\/p>\n

\n

To continue reading \u201cBling Bling,\u201d\u00a0purchase MQR 56:1 for $7<\/a>, or consider a one-year subscription<\/a> for $25.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Image: van Gogh, Vincent. “Madame Roulin and Her Baby.” 1888. Oil on canvas. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scott was a rock star. Not one of those rockers, touched by the gods, whose success is a just reward for essential fire. Scott wasn\u2019t that, but he was close to it, second tier maybe, sliding maybe down the other side of that hill, but still reeking of sex, still pulling a good crowd, still living large, viable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2118,"featured_media":22904,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"\"The conversation was making Jay feel ill. And the next time he caught sight of Melissa he could see that hole, no bigger than a pinprick, and the light that shone through the rubbery shield. But she still smiled and chatted, wound up in her usual fine thread of anxiety.\"\n\nShort fiction by Marian Berges from MQR 56:1 (Winter 2017).","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1258,2281,2594,3414,3416,4188],"coauthors":[4445],"class_list":["post-22895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction-2","tag-fiction","tag-marian-berges","tag-mqr-561","tag-short-fiction","tag-short-story","tag-winter-2017"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sites.lsa.umich.edu\/mqr\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/617\/2017\/06\/madame-roulin-and-her-baby.jpg","uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/sites.lsa.umich.edu\/mqr\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/617\/2017\/06\/madame-roulin-and-her-baby.jpg",2987,3721,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/sites.lsa.umich.edu\/mqr\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/617\/2017\/06\/madame-roulin-and-her-baby-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/sites.lsa.umich.edu\/mqr\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/617\/2017\/06\/madame-roulin-and-her-baby-241x300.jpg",241,300,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/sites.lsa.umich.edu\/mqr\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/617\/2017\/06\/madame-roulin-and-her-baby-768x957.jpg",768,957,true],"large":["https:\/\/sites.lsa.umich.edu\/mqr\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/617\/2017\/06\/madame-roulin-and-her-baby-822x1024.jpg",822,1024,true],"ctl_avatar":["https:\/\/sites.lsa.umich.edu\/mqr\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/617\/2017\/06\/madame-roulin-and-her-baby.jpg",201,250,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/sites.lsa.umich.edu\/mqr\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/617\/2017\/06\/madame-roulin-and-her-baby.jpg",1233,1536,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/sites.lsa.umich.edu\/mqr\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/617\/2017\/06\/madame-roulin-and-her-baby.jpg",1644,2048,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Rachel Farrell","author_link":"https:\/\/sites.lsa.umich.edu\/mqr\/author\/rachel-farrell\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Scott was a rock star. Not one of those rockers, touched by the gods, whose success is a just reward for essential fire. Scott wasn\u2019t that, but he was close to it, second tier maybe, sliding maybe down the other side of that hill, but still reeking of sex, still pulling a good crowd, still…","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa46Z3-5Xh","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.lsa.umich.edu\/mqr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.lsa.umich.edu\/mqr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.lsa.umich.edu\/mqr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.lsa.umich.edu\/mqr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2118"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.lsa.umich.edu\/mqr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22895"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.lsa.umich.edu\/mqr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22895\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26600,"href":"https:\/\/sites.lsa.umich.edu\/mqr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22895\/revisions\/26600"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.lsa.umich.edu\/mqr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.lsa.umich.edu\/mqr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.lsa.umich.edu\/mqr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.lsa.umich.edu\/mqr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22895"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.lsa.umich.edu\/mqr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=22895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}