This Body

by Laurel Doud

  “Yeah, well, easy for you. Dad always liked you best,” Quince said quietly.

  If that's true, God knows why. “But, Quince, it doesn't matter who liked who better. It doesn't matter whether I liked you or not. It doesn't even matter if I like you now, though I do. You're good at this acting thing. I can't believe Mom or Dad would mind if you pursued it.”

  “You really think I'm good?” Quince asked plaintively.

  Katharine grabbed her around the throat and throttled her gently. “Would you stop with the February face. Why do you think I've been dancing around for five minutes? Yes, I think you're good. Truly, madly, deeply. You're radiant.”

  Quince blushed and smiled and radiated until she was transparent around the edges.

  . . .

  Katharine visibly wiggled in her chair in the outdoor Elizabethan theater. The seats were incredible — fifth row, front center. “I don't like them,” Quince had said as they sat down. “Remember in the old theater how we could get so close they'd spit on us?”

  Funny how different the stage looked from her seat; on the tour the day before, she had only looked out into the empty house from the backstage curtains. Now Katharine realized the facade of the theater looked a great deal like the Bennet home, chocolate brown half-timbers on the walls and diamond-paned casement windows in the gables. The pools of light seemed to wait expectantly for someone to appear in them.

  The Bennets and Katharine had gone to dinner before the play at a restaurant built beside the Lithia Creek. The elder Bennets seemed tense and wary. When Robert ordered a pitcher of margaritas, the waitress asked, “How many glasses?” Robert answered quickly, “Just two,” and then looked almost apologetically at Katharine, “That right, Thiz?”

  Katharine had been distracted, not really taking in the nuances of the exchange. She had been waiting for the whispering to begin, but there wasn't a sound. Not even one murmur of temptation. She laughed. God, she felt good. She laughed again.

  “Not for me,” Katharine told the waitress gaily, “but can you bring me a virgin margarita with lots of salt?”

  The waitress could.

  Anne looked at Katharine again with that puzzled expression, but Katharine felt invincible, immortal, aglow. And what was Anne's problem anyway? She's got her daughter back and I'm not drinking, am I?

  It was child's play. She could do this. No sweat.

  From there they had gone to the Bricks to watch the Green Show. Katharine had never seen or heard anything like it. The young musicians, singers, and dancers were having so much fun, she couldn't help but clap and laugh and grin idiotically with the rest of the audience. The troupe was dressed in period costumes — warm, cinnamon-colored pantaloons and skirts with soft-soled shoes. Sometimes the musicians played instruments so curled and twisted with teeny, tiny reeds that Katharine wondered how any sound came out of them at all. Quince took pictures and seemed removed, even bored, as did Anne and Robert, until they turned their gaze on Katharine, and then their gaze became scrutiny. Their faces swam with concern, fear, and worry and then anger and suspicion. Katharine tried to appear more aloof, the way Thisby would have been, but then she didn't care what they thought.

  This is my holiday.

  Nor did she want to maintain any aloofness in her seat, craning her neck this way and that to look around her. There was a roar, and Katharine noticed everyone looking up. At the uppermost part of the theater, someone was hanging out of a paned window and hoisting a flag on a pole mounted there. He waved and closed the casement.

  The play began.

  It was as if they were performing the play only for her. It made so much more sense now. Of course Anne had been Helena, one of the women lovers, and not Thisby. That part had to be played by a young man, preferably a goofy one. She didn't like the Duke — she hadn't expected to — but she felt differently toward Oberon. She decided that Quince was right. He was not to be judged against human morality. It was true he wasn't especially nice, and when he told Puck to streak Titania's eyes with the juice that would make her fall in love with the first thing she saw — in her case, the ass-headed Nick Bottom — Katharine wanted to slap his smug face. She wouldn't have dared, though. She knew she would have been in the middle of something she didn't understand. This was between loftier beings. Puck was mischievous just for the fun — or the nastiness — of it, but, like with Oberon, the normal rules didn't apply.

  When the play was over, she stood up and clapped madly with the rest of the audience, ignoring the waves of anxiety lapping at her body from Thisby's parents and Quince's hiss. “Shit, it's not as if you haven't seen this a gazillion times.”

  . . .

  For the next couple of days Katharine felt as if she had indeed gone through the wardrobe and come out into the magical kingdom of Narnia. Sometimes Quince and she hung out like friends, Katharine acting as silly as any teenager. Other times she just took off, not caring whether she was supposed to be somewhere, coming back to shrug off the Bennets' equal mix of anger and confusion. She forgot that she was miles from home, that she was Katharine, the good wife, the good mother. She forgot that she was Thisby, the bad seed, the problem child. And she loved it. It was a self-centeredness, a selfishness she had never allowed herself to indulge in. She deserved this.

  One of the plays she saw with the Bennets was Ibsen's Wild Duck. It struck Katharine as an odd coincidence that the main character visits a family and thinks the truth — as he knows it — is going to help them. He believes that revealing the truth will set them free. But the truth only ends up destroying them. All of them. Katharine tried to have a deep, philosophical conversation with Anne and Robert about it, but, God, they were so uptight. They kept looking at her as if they didn't recognize her, and it drove her crazy. It was useless to try and talk to them.

  It was easier to talk to Quince, who didn't look at her so weirdly. Sometimes Katharine wanted to spill everything to her — reveal everything — but then everything didn't matter anymore. She didn't care who she had been. And the truth wouldn't necessarily set anyone free.

  In some ways she felt more solidly herself than she ever had, but not solidly her old self. It was a self she could have been if events had been different in her life.

  Friday evening some older guys tried to pick up Quince and Katharine by inviting them to participate in an old Ashland tradition: consuming mulled wine while enjoying some outdoor hot-tubbing. When they finally ditched the guys, Katharine laughed so hard, she thought she was going to pee in her pants. Quince stopped her by putting both hands on Katharine's shoulders.

  “Thiz, you better be careful.”

  “What do you mean?” Her laughter died out quickly; she didn't like the tone of Quince's voice.

  “Whatever you're on, can you be more careful about it? I don't mind, but Mom and Dad are worried. Now they think you're some sort of manic depressive.”

  “I'm not on anything. I haven't been on anything. I'm just having a good time.” She shook off Quince's hands and stalked forward. “Goddamn it. This really pisses me off. I'm just having fun. What do they want from me? A drug test?”

  Thisby's mother was waiting for them on the porch when they got back. Since Anne could drive back with the girls the next morning, Robert had taken the opportunity to fly home early.

  Quince went inside, and Katharine sat down at the umbrella table.

  Katharine found it ironic to be under suspicion for the wrong crime. She decided it would be best to take the offensive. “Quince says you think I might be taking drugs. Well, I'm not. I don't know how to make you believe it unless I take a drug test. And I will, if you want me to.”

  “I might ask you to. But for the moment, I'll take your word for it.”

  Katharine tightened. So this is the way it's going to be, is it? Guilty by suspicion.

  “You have been acting very strangely this week.”

  That's your evidence? “I've just been having fun,” Katharine said with some desperation. She could feel this
body weighing down into the chair.

  Anne looked at her, right through the pupils.

  What do you see?

  “I have not seen you have ‘fun’ since you were a teenager. ‘Fun’ has not been a part of your repertoire for years. It's not something I recognize easily.”

  “Me either.” Katharine leaned forward on the table and struggled against the air that was pressing down on her. “But I feel like a teenager. It feels wonderful. Is there anything wrong with that?” There was almost a whine of panic in her voice.

  “No, of course not. It's just not like you.”

  Guilty as charged.

  “I'm not like — her — me … anymore.” Even to Katharine it sounded feeble.

  “I realize that. And that's why I think you need help.”

  The air was oppressive.

  Here it comes.

  “I know your father and I haven't been a part of your life for a long time now. You haven't asked for anything from us for years either. Now you have. And now I ask for something in return. The exhibit in exchange for going back to Dr. Mantle. Your father and I are worried that this exhibit might be more than you can handle right now. We think going back to Dr. Mantle will help you level out the ups and downs. We love this new expressiveness you have, but it's as if you're trying too hard. We're afraid … We want …” Anne wavered as she must have seen the animal panic in Katharine's eyes, but she pushed forward in cold blood. “As Puck would say, this offer is nonnegotiable and final. Should you not keep up your end of the bargain, you lose the exhibit. High stakes, I know.”

  The lightness of being that Katharine had felt all week deadened and the weight clamped down over her.

  Anne stretched her hand toward Katharine but didn't touch her. Her voice lost its steely resolve. “I love you. I want you to be well. You're an adult. But that doesn't change anything. You need help, and I'm still your mother.”

  Denial flared up in Katharine, then sputtered and died. She knew she owed Thisby the exhibit; she had promised Thisby the exhibit. The gods were just going to make the feat harder, that's all. Katharine knew she needed the exhibit. It was the one thing, the one concrete thing, the future held for her.

  Anne pulled back her hand and hid both of them under the table. “Sometimes I can't sleep. It's almost like I'm waiting. I'm waiting for the doorbell to ring. And there'll be a policeman standing on the step. ‘Mrs. Bennet? There's been a terrible —’”

  Katharine's brain, from long rehearsal, joined in, — accident. I'm sorry, Mrs. Ashley, your son —

  “— your daughter —”

  — is dead.

  “— is dead.”

  Now she was coming back into LA — a fugitive from her old life, and a defeated participant in her new one. On the dashboard of the Range Rover was a picture that Quince had taken and gotten developed of Katharine standing enraptured, watching the Green Show. Katharine hadn't seen a picture of herself in Thisby, and she had scrutinized it minutely to see if she could see any of herself, superimposed on Thisby like an aura. As she took the Santa Monica exit, Katharine looked at it now and didn't know either of them.

  There was no way out.

  Yeah, I'm a real lioness. Unless you make that cowardly. None of it got me anywhere. She was back where she had started from. She didn't deserve anything.

  There may be no place like home, but what happens when you don't have one?

  Act 3, Scene 3

  What we've got here is a failure to communicate.

  — STROTHER MARTIN, Cool Hand Luke (1967)

  It was full dark by the time Katharine pulled into Thisby's parking garage. She had declined the offer of dinner at the Bennets' and dropped an anxious Quince off at Gert's house to see Oberon.

  Her body felt as though it weighed a thousand pounds; there didn't seem to be enough left of her northern self to keep her afloat, her thoughts sinking into an abyss.

  She was heading for the elevator, pulling her suitcase by its strap, when a body stepped out from behind a pillar and blocked her way. She raised an arm in reactive defense, and Hooker grabbed her wrist and held it above her head. He didn't say anything, but stared at her; she felt pinned down in the headlights of his eyes. He smelled of warm yeast, cologne, and cigarette smoke.

  Things began to separate. Katharine could feel the ribbons of her mind, body, and soul unraveling. Parts is parts. She tried to wrap herself back up, keep herself together, but it was too hard, and she was too tired. The resolution of her surroundings blew up into a grainy blur. Sound distorted to a roar. She could see the body heat between them. It glowed with effervescence. Her skin bubbled like champagne.

  . . .

  She kissed him, her whole body in her mouth. Her free hand scrabbled at the buttons of his shirt; she wanted to scratch her name in bloody letters on his chest. He let go of her wrist, and she slid her hand between his legs, feeling through the cotton and silk. She burrowed her head down and started to bite at his clavicle. He moaned and exposed his neck.

  I made a guy moan? was Katharine's last coherent thought.

  She would have taken him right there in the elevator, but he held her off while he pushed the third-floor button. She got the door of the apartment open, and it slammed solidly behind them as he pressed her up against it. She toed off her leggings, and he held her up to him with his arms under her butt and her legs wrapped around his waist, the core of her centered over and around him. He swore as he tripped on the puddle of clothes around his ankles and lost his grip on her. She slid off, and howled in frustration. “Hold on, hold on,” he yelled as he skipped out of the quicksand at his feet and kicked off his shoes. In his stocking feet, he dropped down on the floor and pulled her on top of him as he lay back. He pushed her denim shirt down her arms and yanked her tank top over her breasts and suckled her. “God, I love it when you eat,” he muttered and bit at her nipple, setting off a series of squibs that shook them both.

  She loved his pectorals and his rib cage and stomach, and she kneaded them into submission, fighting his hands at her buttocks as he tried to direct her thrusts. No. He let go and cupped her breasts. She slid farther up his stomach and ground against him. Ah, there's the rub. She laughed. He moaned.

  They fucked again on her bed. This time he pinned her down while he went at her, the compressed air popping like flatulence between their bodies. She bit at his hands, his wrists, drawing blood in numerous places. She sucked at the swelling wounds, feeding on him.

  He flipped her over and entered her from behind. He had her in a half nelson with his right arm, pinning her head down sideways on the bed. She struggled and butted back at him, coming twice this way before he did, his other hand cupped over her pubic bone as if to stifle a scream.

  Katharine awoke groggily when a silhouette leaned over her and stroked her down the length of her side. “I left you a job. I'll call you.” The silhouette straightened and moved away. From a distance, Katharine thought she heard it say, “I love you,” though it was barely audible, as if the speaker were unsure whether he wanted it heard or not.

  The front door closed. A moan of protest escaped from her body, and with a sudden fear that she had OD'd again, she took inventory and realized that although this body was sore — incredibly sore — the stomach, the innards were clean. She felt as if she had been Rolfed, massaged so deeply that every muscle felt separated and reamed. And then she remembered. Sort of. It was filtered through a smog-colored gel, but it was clear enough to inspire a gasp of horror, which when expelled, hung above her like a cartoon bubble. The rising sun illuminated the bed, and the covers were twisted and clumped. Last night … was it only last night? She played it back in her mind, the tracking on the screen jerky. She winced. I couldn't have done that. It must have been someone else. A body double. I'm incapable of doing something like that. I couldn't have liked it. It was so … so … It hurts too much afterward.

  She swung her legs over the side of the bed, stood up — how can the soles of my feet hurt?
— and hobbled into the bathroom. A smell clung to her, the pheromones burred into her skin like Velcro. My offence is so rank, it smells to heaven. She stepped into the shower, and urine ran hot and stinging down a leg into the drain. She turned the water on as hard and as hot as she could possibly stand it. She expected some sort of chemical reaction, purpled bruises like images developing from an emulsion bath spreading across her skin.

  I lost it. I goddamned lost it. No control.

  She tried to patch herself back up and soaped and scrubbed with the washcloth until her skin felt raw.

  I'm acting like I've been raped and trying to scrub it away.

  And exactly whose act of rape are you trying to obliterate?

  Feeling scourged, Katharine walked gingerly into the kitchen. She had a cup of coffee in her hand before she noticed the brown wrapped package the size of a loaf pan on the counter. She frowned and poked a finger at it. She lifted it — it felt like a bag of flour — then dropped it as if it had bitten her. A napkin that had been under the package drifted lazily to the floor. She picked it up and made herself concentrate on the leaden lines that someone had written on it. There was an address — a number and street name in Bel Air — and underneath was scribbled, “After the delivery, meet me at Potters at 9.” She scrunched the napkin in her hand. Messages on napkins. I get more like Thisby every day. She took a knife, flipped the package over cautiously, again as if it might attack her, and slit the tape on the underbelly. Inside was a plastic bag of white powder.

  “I've got a job for you.” Isn't that what he said? Isn't it? Now I've got the big picture. This is how Thisby made her money. She was a goddamned drug runner.

  She stabbed the package with the knife, and it stuck there like a quivering arrow shaft.

  Oh, great. Get mad and stab the damn drugs. Now what are you going to do?

  I'll tape up the goddamn bag. Like I give a shit.