This Body

by Laurel Doud

  Philip had tried to tell her that she had overreacted, but by the time he had come home from work, Ben was back in his room, hair back to normal, their relationship badly bruised. She had turned on Philip then. He had been in the catbird seat for so long. The kids had been preferring him. He had even gone to a rock concert with Ben. Mothers don't go to things like that. When Philip came back practically deaf, with soft-drink stains all over his shirt and reeking of cigarette and marijuana smoke, she wondered why she resented not being allowed to go, but she did. When Marion's school had called and asked her to chaperone a dance, Marion had almost cried with frustration. Katharine had wanted only to meet her friends, see them dance, see how they interacted. It was decided that Philip would go in her place, and Marion quickly recovered. What did my children imagine I was capable of doing?

  “I'm sorry too,” Katharine said contritely.

  Anne paused and then said rather tersely, “Well, if you ever have children yourself, you'll do or say some things you'll be sorry for later too.”

  Katharine winced. “I didn't mean it that way. I …” She wanted to explain but knew it would be impossible. She reached out and lay a hand on Anne's arm.

  Anne looked into Katharine's face, and Katharine made herself still — the split screen continuing to run in the corner of her mind — Thisby dead on one side, and on the other, Ben failing school and hiding marijuana in his fish-food containers.

  What a pair we make.

  Robert Bennet stood up at the head of the table, the dinner dishes having been removed by his wife with help from Puck and hindrance from Quince. Katharine hadn't been hungry and had forced herself to eat, Anne and Robert watching her take every bite. But dinner had been a more pleasant experience than she had expected. Puck had seemed to call a truce. Katharine figured it had something to do with the fact that he had come into the kitchen and had seen his sister's hand on his mother's arm, and the look of tethered hope in his mother's face.

  Now the coffee had been poured. Katharine took hers black and strong. No one made the tiniest fuss. Thank God, at least one thing TB and I have in common. Robert Bennet seemed to be preparing to make a toast, but there was nothing besides the coffee to toast with. In face, there had been no wine with dinner. Katharine had wanted some wine badly. It would have helped. I could have used it.

  Katharine hadn't had to talk a lot through dinner, much to her relief. Robert did most of the talking, and she had been fascinated the whole time. He was a wonderful conversationalist, so articulate, so charming, so funny. She gathered from his talk that he was no longer an actor but one of the elite television producers in Hollywood. He was working on a miniseries project involving a remake of Hitchcock's Notorious. Katharine had seen the original not too long ago — at least, not long before I died — and they had a lively discussion about the famous crane shot from the staircase to the close-up of the key in Ingrid Bergman's hand and how that was to be duplicated without being mimicked. She could see that Robert Bennet was thoroughtly enjoying himself. And so was she.

  Katharine could feel that the rest of the family had been bored, and Anne more alarmed than bored. Perhaps Robert was telling stories that he had told time after time, and Katharine was being indiscreet in encouraging him. She realized the more animated she was getting, the quieter and more watchful Anne became — her scrutiny was intense. But Katharine was obtaining incredibly vital information about the family, and she stored it away like a squirrel hoarding nuts.

  There was a definite sharpness in his voice when Thisby's father had asked her how the photography was going. Katharine had told him the truth — that nothing was going on and hadn't been for some time. She figured Anne couldn't object to that. It was the truth, or as much of the truth as Katharine could decipher. Robert pressed her, though. He had such great expectations, such high hopes. And now that she was better — How he assumes the worst is over — talent should not be squandered so; it would be so disappointing. He would be so disappointed. He would, of course, pay for the exhibit, as he had always said he would. This had the sound of an old discussion between them. Robert had to say it, though he didn't really believe she would hear it.

  Katharine knew she did not have Thisby's eye, let alone her technical facility. It was the flicks she knew. She and the kids saw a lot of them — Saturday matinees, the early-evening shows, videos when Philip stayed late at the office. Before Ben straight-armed her, the two of them had fright-night video-fests when they were alone together; Marion and Philip didn't like horror films. Some of the movies did scare Katharine so badly that she couldn't sleep, but she felt it was a small price to pay to be able to sit in a room with Ben and share even a movie.

  But the love, the pride, was so evident on Robert Bennet's face that Katharine didn't quite have the heart to burst his bubble completely. Maybe photography's something I can learn. …

  Now Robert Bennet was addressing the family, but he had eyes only for his wife. He spoke simply, lyrically, lines that obviously had been memorized but were now a part of him. “It is said” — he looked around, mockingly resigned — “in a play we all know and love so well, that the course of true love never did run smooth.”

  Quince mock-gagged again.

  He spoke now to his wife directly. “But, we are spirits of another sort. On this anniversary of the sealing-day betwixt my love and me, I'll put a girdle around the earth in forty minutes to bring my love her gifts.

  I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,

  Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,

  Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,

  With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine;

  There sleeps Anne sometime of the night,

  Lull'd in these flowers with dances and delight.”

  He leaned forward over the table, and the candle flames danced up within his pupils. He whispered, “Am I thy lord?”

  Anne remained seated, but she sat on the edge of her chair, her forearms stretched out on the table toward him. She was smiling, her eyes joining in on the dance. “Then I must be thy lady.”

  “Thou art as wise as thou art beautiful.”

  There was silence. They could have been the only ones in the room.

  Quince quipped loudly to Katharine, “She's not well married that lives married long, but she's best married that dies married young.”

  The screen fragmented to a thousand pieces but, like a jigsaw puzzle, projected only one image.

  All is pain. All is repulsion.

  I am attacted to Robert Bennet as a man. I am thinking of him as a man. I am taking his love and his pride of his daughter and turning it into something perverse. She stared between them at the vase of red roses. I am the unloved. No one loved me like that. No one ever loved me like that. No one will ever love me like that. My own husband couldn't even wait a year before he married someone else. I am twice dead.

  Katharine bolted upright, knocking the chair over behind her. She felt as if she were going to be sick, her dinner detaching itself from the lining of her stomach. She ran upstairs, leaving the babble of voices behind her. She made it as far as Thisby's bed and collapsed on it, holding down her threatening stomach. The sounds of sobbing that seemed to belong to someone else filled her ears. Over and over, again and again.

  The door to the room was suddenly flung open. Katharine lifted herself up on her arms, and Puck seemed to explode into the room, slamming the door behind him. He was yelling as he came in, “You goddamned, self-centered bitch. I'm almost tempted to —” He focused on his sister's blotched face. “Jesus.” He stopped a pace or two from her.

  Katharine couldn't stop to say anything. The sobs wracked her body with a godlike hand.

  “You weren't playacting.” He sat down on the edge of the bed but didn't touch her. “Jesus, Thiz. I haven't seen you cry since you were fifteen.”

  He waited until Katharine could control some of the sobs. “Remember what you told me?” He didn't wait for her to answer. She couldn't h
ave, anyway. “'I have good reason for crying, but this heart shall break before I'll cry again.' You misquoted it, of course. Butchered it, actually. God, that drove Dad nuts. You were his little chip off the old block, but you couldn't get a quote right for your life.” He shifted his weight on the mattress, and Katharine's sobs softened. “Maybe you have changed. You're crying, at least.”

  Katharine could feel herself fading, like disappearing ink on paper.

  “Sleep. Let sleep, that sometimes shuts up sorrow's eye, steal you a while from thine own company,” he commanded softly.

  In her receding mind, Katharine thought she heard him add, “Bless thee, Thisby. Bless thee. Thou art translated.”

  Act 1, Scene 6

  Was I part of this curious dream?

  — FRANK PETTINGELL, Gaslight (1940)

  The moon hung framed in the window seat of Thisby's bedroom like a huge klieg light suspended from the sky. Katharine felt reamed. Again. She wondered how many times she would have to go through this process. It was like trying to stay nourished during a vicious bout of the flu, hoping to keep something down — anything — crackers, 7-Up, clear soup.

  It's just a matter of finding out what you can stomach.

  For a long, melodramatic moment, she mentally swallowed all the pills in the plastic vials back in Thisby's apartment. I can always finish what Thisby started, but then she remembered Puck's last line before she fell asleep, “Thisby, thou art translated.” The way he had said it made her wonder if, as opposed to having been translated into a more understandable form, he meant that she was somehow different — as in changed. He would have meant Thisby has changed, of course, but so have I. I am no longer just Katharine.

  So what's the Plan now? What do I want? I know what I don't want. I don't want a Plan. I want to just be for a while. I want to find the right pabulum to stomach.

  And if I die again, then how will I find out how this megillah ends?

  Despite her aching head, she got up and leaned against the pillows in the window seat. She looked down on the side yard off the kitchen to the tennis court beyond. The moon struck wicked shadows; it seemed otherworldly. She noticed a hedge that separated the house from the pool area. It had a shape to it. It was a beast. It reared up on hind legs, and its head roared as it cast a giant shadow, long and eager on the grass. Had it been shaped, this hedge, with just this purpose in mind — to be best seen when the moon was full and bright? I wouldn't put anything past this family.

  There was a small reading light on the wall above her head, and Katharine reached up and turned it on. Its narrow beam highlighted the knees of her accordioned legs — just where a book should be — but didn't dispel the secret garden enchantment outside her window.

  She leaned over and rummaged through the bag that she had packed, pulling out the Complete Works. She ignored the introduction and the background notes and turned to A Midsummer Night's Dream.

  At once she was transported to the city of Athens and the surrounding forest, where lovers flee and are separated, mismatched, tested, and then put to rights at the end.

  Katharine found the ending curiously interesting. Oberon instructs his fairy troops to bless the bridal beds so their children will be born without the despised blots such as moles, harelips, and prodigious marks. She wondered why Quince embraced this play, or Shakespeare at all, for that matter. Wasn't she despised then? The one line continued to chant through Katharine's head like a mantra. “Never mole, harelip … nor mark prodigious … shall upon their children be.”

  Katharine tried to imagine the Bennets in the various roles. Robert seemed more suited as the suave but rather domineering, self-righteous Duke than the Merry Prankster, Robin Goodfellow, aka Puck. The Duke smirked witty asides to the group of lovers, now newlyweds, as they watched the play The Most Lamentable Comedy and Cruel Death of Pyramus and Thisby performed by the workmen. Katharine laughed at one such remark, “Or in the night, imagining some fear, how easy is a bush supposed a bear.” She looked down on the hedge again. The moon continued to illuminate the area.

  Not a beast, but a bear. How easy is a bush supposed a bear. I'll be damned.

  Like father, like son, Puck wasn't right for Robin Goodfellow. It was Quince she thought of when the Merry Prankster dashed about, streaking the eyes of Queen Titania and one of the lovers with the cupid juice. It was Quince she saw with elfin ears, crowing with delight as he gave the pompous workman, Nick Bottom, an ass's head.

  She saw Anne not as Thisby, but as Hermia, one of the lovers — the one who was tenacious and resolute.

  This whole family is miscast.

  As she continued to watch the shadow play below her, she absorbed the tragic love story of Pyramus and Thisby, separated from each other by their families' hate and the wall that was erected between them. Their planned rendezvous is upset by Cruel Fate, and they meet — only to die in each other's arms.

  Is it my fate, like Thisby's, to be separated from my love, to be reunited only in death? Only in death? In death?

  There was a knock on the door, and a voice commanded through it, “Awake. Awake. The morning has chased away the night.”

  It took a moment for Katharine to orient herself; she was reclining stiff and sore on the window seat, the morning sun flooding in on her face. Then she called without hesitation through the closed door to Quince, “I'll be there anon.”

  Downstairs Thisby's mother was quiet and awkward, and Katharine had to remember why. She felt giddy and light. She was filled with lions, fairies, and bears. Oh, my.

  Thisby's father was aloof, as if he wanted to let her know that he was not pleased.

  Jesus, lighten up, you guys. “About last night … I'm sorry,” she said to both of them. “I seem to have chronic PMS these days. The mood swings are incredible. Schizophrenic, even.”

  Anne stopped short with a knife in her hand. “You're not pregnant, are you?”

  That stopped Katharine short too. The giddiness seemed to drain away like sand in a wide-waisted hourglass. “No, of course not.”

  Of course not? How would you know? You haven't been in this body long enough to know that.

  Well, the way TB looked and lived, she probably didn't even have periods anymore. She can't be pregnant.

  Breakfast proceeded. Her denial was taken at face value. As if I knew for sure.

  The food smelled only okay to her stomach, but she knew it wasn't the disruption of pregnancy that made it that way. She can't be pregnant. I can't be pregnant. This is not morning sickness. During the entire first trimester of her two pregnancies, it had been a continual chore to balance the food going into her body and the food being unceremoniously purged from it. She remembered intimately the symptoms of morning sickness, and this wasn't it. Or at least I don't think so.

  She didn't know anything for sure anymore. When she thought she had gotten a handle on things, it seemed only to mean she was kidding herself. The play was going on around her regardless of whether she knew her lines or not, and the outcome, though obscure, was already scripted.

  Play out the play.

  Puck came in and offered a general good morning. He looked tense. He sat down across from Katharine and awkwardly caught her eye. She smiled and tried to make it appear natural. That seemed to surprise him, but he relaxed noticeably.

  Her smile had been sincere. She had gone to sleep the night before liking him. He isn't such a bad guy.

  “So when are you two heading back?” Robert Bennet asked them.

  Soon they were all outside, jumbled under the honeysuckle canopy. The sweet smell of the flowers pressed down upon Katharine. She hugged Thisby's father with much more ease than yesterday. That was a short infatuation, I dare say. She felt close to him, though. A good old family friend.

  “Come back soon, Honeybee,” he said as he released her. “I've missed you.”

  “I will. I promise.” And it felt like truth. “Thanks, Anne.” Katharine turned to Thisby's mother.

  “God's mercy,
maiden,” Robert scolded from behind her, “Does it curd thy blood to say that she is thy mother?”

  Katharine felt herself redden, and she fishmouthed. “I —”

  “Oh, don't worry about it.” Anne waved it aside. “I don't care what you call me. Just call me.” She hugged Katharine and, as she was releasing her, added softly, “Think about the treatment center, won't you? Or, at least, seeing Dr. Mantle again. I'm worried about you.”

  Katharine looked around for an escape. “Where's Quince?”

  She was nowhere to be seen, so Katharine excused herself quickly and went back into the kitchen. Quince was sitting on a high stool, her elbows on the counter, her head cradled in cupped palms. She looked up but said nothing.

  “I wanted to say good-bye,” Katharine said, lamely.

  “Good-bye.”

  “So what's on tap?”

  “What's on tap?” The left side of her upper lip rose in an exaggerated sneer. “Well, like the pelican, I'm all tapped out.”

  “Don't you have a job for the summer?”

  “What would I want with a stupid job? Baby-sitting a bunch of spoiled brats? Being a lifeguard aide? I can't be a lifeguard cuz I'm not sixteen. Mowing lawns? Nobody wants someone who looks like me hanging around outside their house. Maybe if I was a Jap or a Spic or something, they wouldn't mind.”

  “Come on, Quince,” Katharine said gently, as she realized that Quince was trying to impress her — impress Thisby — with her talk.