This Body

by Laurel Doud

  “His couches?” It was out of her mouth before she could flick it back with her tongue.

  Puck looked at her askance. “Jesus, Thiz. Don't you remember how he lectured us about proper furniture behavior?”

  Robert's the interior decorator? She had assumed it was Anne. But when she thought of Anne's kitchen, she realized that it was workable and livable, whereas the other rooms were too beautiful to be comfortable. They were Robert Bennet's creations.

  She had to get Puck onto a different subject. When he had invited her over, she had already visited the Ziegfeld-Zelig Gallerie, but she didn't tell him of her intentions. “Goodfellow, I wanted to tell you in person, so I saved the news. I'm going to have an exhibit. In late fall, if we can get it set up that fast.”

  A voice came from behind them. “Set what up, RB?”

  Katharine turned to see a rather petite woman with long, wavy dark hair, still damp, in high heels and silk stockings.

  “It's Thisby. She's going to exhibit her photographs.” Puck bobbed his head in contemplation. “And it's about goddamned bloody time.”

  The woman smiled but seemed a little unsure.

  Puck stepped forward between the two women. “Thisby, this is Vivian. Vivian, my sister, Thisby.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Katharine said, holding out her hand. “Goodfellow has told me great things about you.” She had a vision of Quince standing behind Vivian, sticking her finger down her throat.

  “I've heard a lot about you too.” She had a soft handshake that would have made Marion cringe. Katharine had expected something completely different from a female lawyer who was “a hard-ass in the courtroom.” Vivian stepped back and added, “I'm a great admirer of Ansel Adams.”

  Puck laughed. “Thisby's photographs are a bit different from Adams. Maybe Adams on LSD.” Immediately he looked liked he wanted to take that back.

  Vivian turned sideways and nodded toward the bedroom. “I've got to finish drying my hair, but I'll be right out to help finish up.”

  Puck turned back to Katharine. “So, who's setting it up?”

  “Max von Mayerling at the Ziegfeld-Zelig Gallerie. We worked on it yesterday.”

  “I hear he's good. The Zweimal's got a great reputation. I'm really glad you've decided to do this, Thiz. It's like real recovery now. I always felt that would be the sign. I don't know why, but I always did. It turns out I'm right or close to it. If you need my help, just ask. Though you'd do better asking Quince. She's much better …” He stopped and looked at her closely. “Was that what you two were doing last weekend?”

  Katharine nodded.

  He grinned. “This is great. This is really great.” He seemed to go off into his head for a few moments, the grin still on his face.

  Katharine stared at him and felt good.

  He focused back on Katharine and noisily blew air out of his nostrils. “Quince worships you, you know.”

  “She worships you,” Katharine retorted.

  “Yeah, but in a different way.”

  The good way.

  There was a halloo from the front door, and others began to arrive. Vivian reappeared with her hair piled up on her head and with small, square diamonds in her earlobes. She and Katharine finished the dips and put them out on the dining-room table while Puck offered drinks from outside. After a while Katharine had to admit that Vivian, though extremely overdressed, wasn't as bad as she first appeared. She spoke well of Puck or RB, as she called him, though she thought he could do better than studio law work. Katharine realized that Vivian was just very reserved and, well, a bit cold. Funny, when I first met Goodfellow, I would have thought they would be perfect together. But he isn't cold at all. They're a bit of an odd couple now. Nothing in common.

  Puck introduced her to most of his guests — the women appearing magically at his side, their real intentions only thinly veiled. Vivian doesn't even see it, or maybe she doesn't care.

  … All the girls love Puck. They show up at my house supposedly to say hi to me but I know better. They come to see him. They say, “Oh, is your brother home? I'm supposed to give him a message from my brother. Is he in his room?”

  And then I never see them until they have to leave. Ta-ta. Puck says he doesn't want them hanging around either, but I know better.

  He's so good-looking and nice. I can see why they all love him. I just wish he'd stop playing father knows best …

  Puck seemed to take less care in introducing Katharine to the male guests. One was so handsome, Katharine could hardly stop herself from staring, since such good looks had always simultaneously repulsed and captivated her. His opening line, after Puck grudgingly introduced him as Benjamin Caine, was “First off, we shoot all the lawyers.” He seemed to wait for the punchline, but Puck barely laughed. It must have been a very old exchange between them. Katharine wanted to correct this Benjamin Caine, as she had just read that quote from Henry VI, Part II, “The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers,” but she could sense from Goodfellow that it would be too much trouble.

  “RB says you've taken some time off from UCLA but will probably be going back in the fall,” Benjamin said, as if they were old friends, after Puck had left them to greet some new guests. “RB and I were in SAE together, though he was older. Now I'm in law school too. Soon to be another one of the legal eagles. But, shit, we were the original animal house. Pledge night was killer. Did you ever go to our Paddy Murphies? Now there was a lost weekend.”

  … Puck is graduating. Or RB, as he wants to be called now. Yeah, right. He'll be off to UCLA next fall. He's even talking about rushing the SAE frat. I hope he doesn't mind me coming to the Paddy Murphy party. A whole weekend of partying. I'm sure as hell not gonna miss that …

  “What a killer party. Not that all of them weren't. We used to have these luge run parties. Remember them?”

  Katharine shook her head.

  “You know the luge. Like the bobsled but without the sides. Well, we'd get this big block of ice, put it on a table at a slant and chisel out a twisty, turny course. Then one person would pour a shot of whiskey or whatever at the top of the run and another person would be waiting at the end on his back with his mouth open. You'd get this awesome iced shot. We sure'd get pissed on that easy. Cocktail?” he pointed to her empty glass.

  She wanted him to go away. “Thanks. Orange juice.”

  “Just orange juice? No tequila?”

  “No.”

  “I'll be back,” he said without much conviction, and took her glass.

  I sure as hell hope not. Katharine was about to disappear into the bathroom when a voice paralyzed her. “I was named after one of the most famous pitchers in baseball. My dad's a real baseball nut. He even gave himself his own nickname. Hank, after Hank Aaron … Me? No, I hate baseball. Can't stand the sport. But it's a great name for a lawyer, don't you think?”

  Katharine turned around to visually confirm what her ears already knew. It was him, all right — True Young Denton, son of Henry Denton and wife Emily, née Emily Ashley, sister to Philip Burton Ashley of northern California. This was her nephew.

  Puck appeared at her side with some orange juice. “Benjamin asked me to bring this to you. I never did like him, but he's here with a good friend of mine. Benjamin's the kind of guy who thinks that with a flawless profile, a perfect body, the right clothes, and a great car, he'll get to the top. And in this city, who's to say he's wrong?”

  Katharine took the glass from him absently, hardly taking her eyes off her nephew. She had forgotten how much he looked like Philip, the compact body, the thick, coarse, techni-colored hair, the smile that transformed the quiet-looking face into something bordering on luminous.

  Puck followed her gaze. “Haven't you ever met True?”

  Katharine shook herself. “No,” she croaked, and took a sip of orange juice.

  “Come on. I'll introduce you. You'll like him. We were in the house together and then law school. He talks a lot, but he's a good guy.” He turned, and
Katharine was too stunned to do anything but follow.

  “Hey, Puckman,” True called when he noticed them approaching. “Nice party. Thanks for inviting me.”

  “I didn't. But I knew you'd come anyway. How's it goin'?”

  “Same old, same old.”

  They shook hands.

  “True, this is my sister, Thisby.”

  “We know each other already,” he said, eyeing her critically from over the rim of his raised glass.

  I should say we do, True Young Denton. Remember, I'm the one who sent you the Darth Vader light saber. You burned out boxes of flashlight batteries because you were afraid of the dark, all huddled under the covers, the light saber clutched between your knees. I'm the one who told your parents to leave you alone about it too. If it helped you with your nightwars, it was worth it. He continued to watch her, and Katharine grew suddenly uncomfortable. What did he say? “We know each other already.” He doesn't mean in the biblical sense, does he? Carnal knowledge?

  “We met at one of the Paddy Murphies. You might not remember. You were pretty wasted.”

  Katharine could feel Puck growing uncomfortable beside her. “No, I'm sorry. I don't remember you, but — hello, again.”

  “You look a whole lot better now than you did the last time I saw you.”

  She wanted to grab him by the collar and shake him. Watch it, mister. I know your mother. Katharine had always liked her nephew's directness, but at this moment she wasn't so sure. She hadn't seen him too much in the past couple of years. His parents lived in Long Beach, and although she usually saw them at Christmastime up north, True was always coming from somewhere and going off to someplace else. Some years they were lucky if he stayed through Christmas dinner. And if he did, he would get the whole family to play charades, even getting his mother, Emily, to stand up and mime movie titles, Philip laughing at her like any other younger brother would. When Katharine and True were paired, nobody could beat them.

  “Did you ever finish up at UCLA?” he asked.

  Katharine blinked, and her eyes felt tight. “Not yet.” It felt odd defending her life. Thisby's life, you mean.

  “Still optimistic.” It was somewhere between a question and a statement.

  True looked up at Puck and grinned. “I was just making conversation, RB. So whatcha been doing these days, Thisby?”

  Puck answered for her. “She's finally going to have an exhibit. Remember when I used to brag about her photographs?”

  “God, how could I forget? No, really, congratulations. When is it?”

  “Late fall, I think,” Katharine said.

  “I'll be sure to make it. RB always said you were good.”

  “Our father is paying for it,” she couldn't stop herself from adding.

  “Paid for or not,” Puck said, “the Zweimal has a reputation to uphold. Even paid for, they're not going to let some shit show in their gallery.”

  A thin and dramatic young woman with alligator eyes and a striking widow's peak came over and dragged True off to meet someone she had been talking to.

  “He's really okay,” Puck said, rather apologetically.

  He was called away, and the circle collapsed in on itself to leave only her. She wanted a glass of wine badly. She found herself outside near the washtub with the alcohol, people around her busily laughing and talking. Her body moved closer to the table, as if something were gently prodding her from behind. Her skull clamped down on her brain. It was going to squeeze her cortex like an orange.

  She sensed a presence. “How ya doin'?” Puck asked. “You okay? You're not mingling. Where is our usual manager of mirth?” He then looked embarrassed, as if the latent image of Thisby as the usual manager of mirth was not what he really meant.

  But at the sound of his voice, Katharine found that she could think again, and the white knuckles around her brain relaxed. “I'm okay. How you doin'? I haven't seen you slow down once.” She also noticed that he never had a drink in his hand.

  “I'm the host,” he said matter-of-factly.

  When she left, one of the last to do so, Puck walked her out to her car. “I'm glad you came,” he said. “Thanks for all your help.”

  “Thanks for asking me.”

  “I'm really glad about the exhibit. I think it's great.”

  She unlocked the car door. He held the door open for her, and she slid past him into her seat. He smelled of cologne, laundry soap, and warm body.

  Act 2, Scene 9

  What's gone and what's past help should be past grief.

  — PAULINA, The Winter's Tale, 3.2.222

  She started to feel uncomfortable in Thisby's apartment, uneasy, as if she were being watched. There was always something just beyond the corner of her eye, a presence, a smudge that slipped beyond her vision but never quite left. It wasn't necessarily friendly, but she thought she knew it. At least, it was not completely unfamiliar. It made her think of home when the kids were younger, of evenings before dinner, when she and Philip would sit down — he with a beer and she with a glass of wine — and talk. They might discuss work or the kids or what they had read in the newspaper that morning. Katharine wanted to wallow in the memory, but when Quince returned for her second stint at the clinic, the smudge disappeared so completely that Katharine convinced herself she had imagined it altogether.

  One late afternoon in the middle of the week, after she had been diligently working on the exhibit brochure all day — bearing the weight of her labors, thinking how this must be, had to be, enough to appease the gods — she felt desperate to get out, to get her blood moving.

  From the moment she stepped out on the street, she had the feeling of being watched again. She kept glancing behind her, but she couldn't see anything. She was walking home with her groceries past Willie Bill's Bar & Grill, the laughter and raised voices spilling out from the opened windows. A low, rather pleasant voice whispered to her, Slush margaritas with lots of salt.

  Katharine whirled around, but nobody was there.

  The voice continued whispering, very reasonable, not dark or sinister at all, and with an accent of familiarity, Fresh chips in baskets. Chips and margaritas. Like old times. Just go inside and look around. No harm in that.

  She stopped spinning. She listened, but there was only silence. She must have been imagining things. But it wasn't a bad suggestion.

  It was a noisy place with three suspended TVs tuned to a sports channel. In the center of the room was a square wooden bar with a brass footrail that wrapped around the base like a heating duct. Tables and booths filled in the remaining area to the walls. A waitress passed her, balancing a large tray of beers and margaritas in frosted mugs, wide red straws sticking out of the margaritas like candy canes. She placed them one by one in front of a booth of chatting professionals, their ties barely loosened, their suit jackets neatly draped across the vinyl padded back. When she put the last drink down, she added, “This is the nonalcoholic one.”

  Katharine felt her head jerk sideways as if she had been slapped. She clutched her bags and hurried out. Back on the street, she blinked.

  What had she been thinking?

  She called Goodfellow. Just to hear his voice made her fears seem silly.

  “So are you going up to Ashland with the folks?” he asked, his opinion on the matter evident in his hopeful voice.

  Anne had surprised Katharine the night before. “I'm calling you because your father and I are wondering if you'd like to come up to Ashland with us this year.”

  … Ashland. Shakespeare's Theater of the West. “I like this place and could spend time in it.”…

  “Just think about it for a day or two,” Anne continued, not waiting for Katharine to answer. “We're flying up Monday and staying through Saturday. Quince will be coming too, of course. Puck can't get away, but we'd love it if you'd come. It's been so long since you've come up.”

  … Every fucking summer it's the same. Ashland with the old farts. The plays aren't so bad but, shit, having to go out with
the parental units every night sucks. I'd rather stay with Uncle Roy. He says I can …

  “I don't know.” A week with Thisby's parents? I don't know. “I'll need to think about it.”

  While they're away, I could be stealing home. I could be home in a couple of days. I could sit down and have that glass of wine with Philip.

  But then I can't drink anymore, and he's got a new wife.

  “Of course. I understand. Just let us know in a day or two, so we can include you in the flight.”

  It could be a good way to get a crash course in Shakespeare. “What's being performed?”

  Anne hesitated. “Well, Midsummer, for one. I don't know if that interests you or not. Then there's Hamlet and Much Ado. But there are also a couple of good contemporary plays this year I'm looking forward to, Ibsen's Wild Duck, a new Fugard …”

  Maybe I could make a play for Philip as Thisby. Then he'd have a really young wife. And I'd have an old husband. “Well, I don't know.”

  And Katharine still didn't know. “I hear you can't go,” she said to Goodfellow, trying to keep the disappointment out of her voice.

  He scoffed. “I've had enough of that. Hey, did True call you?”

  “No. Was he supposed to?” What does he want?

  “Well, he asked for your number. I hope you don't mind that I gave it to him. I figured if you didn't want to see him, you'd tell him. You were never very shy about that. But I hope you do see him. He's a fun guy. Light-years beyond that guy I heard you've been seeing lately. That Johnny Hooker guy.”