Woman No. 17

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Woman No. 17 Page 17

by Edan Lepucki

I snorted a laugh and drool slipped from my mouth, torpedoing to the page. I imagined Seth walking in on me and I squirmed off of the book and shut it with one hand, not pausing with the other.

  In my sophomore year art class, a girl named Audrey videotaped herself masturbating and we’d all sat in uncomfortable silence as we watched the film. It seemed, at almost twelve minutes, unfairly long. To Audrey, I mean—she needed a more efficient technique. During crit, the professor said that her students submitted these sorts of intimate films every other year or so.

  “It’s derivative,” she said.

  “But isn’t all sex?” Audrey asked.

  I pushed the edge of my palm into myself and tensed everything against it. Even my teeth were gritted. I bet my face looked like the pit of a peach. I let go.

  I sat up, gasping, and Peter Rabbit scrambled into his pen. The security light just beyond the door brightened the yard outside.

  “Hello?” I said.

  I tried to calm my breathing but it shuddered in my chest as I stood up.

  I went to the door. “Lady?”

  Seth was sitting on the steps of the deck. I waved and he made an H and then an I with his hand. He signed slowly enough for me to understand.

  “I hope you aren’t spying on me.” I tried to sound casual, like my mom in most situations, but my voice came out breathier than Marilyn Monroe’s and I felt my ears go hot.

  He shook his head and held up a cigarette. Unlit.

  “You smoke?”

  He nodded.

  “Your mom lets you? Out here?”

  He shook his head, put a finger to his lips.

  I gestured to the Cottage and he stood. I could feel him following me toward the lighted room and I wondered what exactly I was leading him to.

  Thank God masturbation doesn’t smell as strong as sex does. Nothing looked amiss except that Kit’s book was on the floor. No indentation of my body next to it.

  He threw himself across the bed and lit his cigarette by the open window. He wasn’t wearing socks or shoes and his feet, narrow and hairy, dangled off the edge of the mattress. I was shocked by his brazenness until I remembered he’d lived in the Cottage before me. My bed had probably been his for a time.

  “Is Lady going to fire me for this?”

  He eyed the door and I closed it. The mini-fridge hummed and for a second I wished we could just chatter idiotically to distract from the fact that it was only the two of us here. I thought I could hear the sound of Seth inhaling the smoke.

  “Don’t ash into my sheets,” I said. He smiled when I pretended to toss an empty cereal bowl like a Frisbee, one of my mom’s favorite gags. I passed him the bowl, the courage rising in me, Katherine Mary waking suddenly like a dog from a nap.

  With one hand Seth pulled his iPhone out of his pocket and began thumb typing. I had to sit next to him to read and the mattress tipped and settled to accommodate both of our bodies. My ears burned once more.

  So whats with Kits book?

  “I wondered—”

  He shook his head and handed me the phone. He took another drag of his cigarette and while I typed he blew the smoke out the side of his mouth like a ventriloquist.

  It was a relief not to have to say my question out loud.

  Did you ever look at your mom’s pic in the bk?

  I pulled the book onto my lap. I opened to Woman No. 17 and he balanced his cigarette on the lip of the bowl, leaning over the photograph. This close I could smell his Whole Foods–type shampoo, tea tree oil or eucalyptus something-or-other, which barely covered the pencil-shaving musk of his scalp. The smoke from his cigarette curled toward the ceiling. Our thighs touched. I took the phone from him.

  Look close. Maybe gross for u but the nipple.

  He leaned away from the book, squinting, and then shrugged.

  “It’s different from the one upstairs,” I said. “Here it’s covered. In the one upstairs, it isn’t.”

  So what

  Don’t you want to know why?

  Nope

  He looked up and I thought he was going to kiss me but he didn’t. Instead he rubbed my cheek with his index finger. I flinched but held myself back from talking.

  He tapped his own cheek and grabbed the phone from me.

  Theres a red mark on your cheek

  It must have been from the book. “Pillow mark,” I said.

  My phone beeped across the room and I jumped up from the bed.

  “Yes!” I couldn’t help but say it. I was excited. Someone had replied to my Craigslist post.

  Seth had already closed the book and was watching me. Apparently, he’d forgotten about his cigarette and its acrid smoke was filling the room like dry ice at an elementary school science fair.

  “I’m doing this thing,” I explained. “I want photos.”

  I opened the email and waited for the JPG to load. When it did, the pink mole of a cock made me yelp. I dropped the phone.

  Seth picked it up and laughed when he saw what was on the screen.

  “It’s not funny,” I said. “I want photos of people’s mothers, not some sick fuck’s dick pic.”

  I showed him the Craigslist ad on my laptop. He read it, but he was still laughing and I didn’t like it. It reminded me of my mom and her drunken cackle.

  “How come you can laugh but you can’t talk?”

  That stopped him.

  “Do girls think they can cure you? Is that how you get them to fuck you?”

  It was like his face was a flame that flared once and then extinguished, emitting no light.

  He picked up a pencil from the counter and wrote on the back of a receipt: Lets find out if that works

  “If what works?”

  Take off yr clothes

  “I’m no healer.”

  He reached for my laptop, reading the screen closely before retrieving his phone from my bed. He was typing something, his eyes darting back to the laptop once or twice as he did so.

  “What are you doing?”

  After a moment, he showed me the screen. It was a tweet.

  Scan a pic of your mom b4 she was a mom. Email it to my pal [email protected]. It’s for art!

  “Thanks,” I said.

  He grabbed the hem of my T-shirt.

  “Seth.”

  He opened his mouth, as if to speak, and something inside of me twisted.

  “Seth,” I said again, and his phone disappeared under my shirt. He dragged its corner across my midriff and opened his mouth wider. I held my breath and the phone hit my belly button and kept tracing an invisible line. His mouth was still open, and I felt my own lips part, as if to mirror him. I could hear him breathing. What was he going to say?

  Seth saw the hope in my eyes and crossed his own. He let his tongue flap out of his mouth like a dog’s.

  I pushed him and his phone away. He was messing with me and I was stupid enough to fall for it. “You ass,” I said.

  Someone outside was yelling something and we turned toward the door. It was Lady, calling for Seth, probably from an upstairs window.

  “You better go,” I said.

  27.

  The next morning my mind was going SETH SETH SETH like a strip club goes GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS and I needed something to distract me. I was cradling my phone in bed, picking the sleep muck from my tear ducts, when I decided to check the new email account, just in case. Art rescues the brain from stupidity.

  There was a new email waiting. I didn’t recognize the address, but my heart beat fast as I read the subject: “My mother, Molly Elizabeth Murtagh, 1985.” There was nothing written in the body of the email, just a photo attachment, which loaded slowly: first, a white popcorn ceiling and one of those three-tiered baskets for onions and vegetables; then, a tangle of dark brown curls against a dark window. Big brown eyes that seemed to say either I’m a bad girl or This is my Halloween party face.

  The complete photo showed a woman in a blue Spandex leotard and a belt made of wide magenta-colored elastic.
She held a dumbbell in her hand like a microphone. Her breasts, buoyed by the Spandex, were as big as grapefruits, and perky. Behind her on the windowsill was a framed needlepoint that read BLESS THIS MESS. It would make a good title for the shot, I thought. Unless I wanted to call her Mother No. 2. Happy Kathy would be the first.

  I’d need to get my hands on an identical needlepoint. A curly haired wig that didn’t look clownish. The wardrobe was easy, but I’d have to place upside-down bowls on my chest if I really wanted to complete the look. I’d photograph myself. I’d been into photography in high school and taken one course at Cal. Not my best medium, but the project demanded it.

  And would I then paint a self-portrait, based on my photo? My heart did a little skip, imagining painting a face, my own face, but also not. (Is this the Cindy Sherman thing, my mom had said. The answer was yes.) I wanted to brainstorm all the possibilities, just sprawl across the floor and start taking notes in my notebook, but I had to report to the Manse in fifteen minutes for Devin duty.

  Out of bed, I dressed without looking, my mind spinning away like a flicked marble. Was this how my mom had ended up wearing the talking marshmallow T-shirt, her thoughts a zillion miles away? I was more like her than I thought.

  The email had come from someone named Steve Perkins. He was either one of Seth’s followers or a lonely Craigslist lurker who switched from Missed Connections to free couches to the random Community section where my post lay waiting. Whoever he was, his mother was cute and silly and I wanted to depict her so bad.

  I laughed out of surprise. It was something my mom said. I want French fries so bad. I want Hillary Clinton to come over for dinner so bad.

  “Mom,” I said aloud. I hoped she’d gotten home safe.

  I want Seth so bad, I thought, and then I shook my head like he was water in my ears. My dad taught me to do that when I was crying over Everett. It was such a ridiculous thing to do, and yet it was effective because it always made me smile.

  Through the Manse’s sliding glass doors I could see Lady and Devin eating breakfast at the kitchen island. She was checking something on her phone but the steam from her coffee must have fogged the screen because she cursed soundlessly and wiped it with the crumpled paper towel next to her. Devin, in rocket-ship pajamas, was balancing milk-bloated Cheerios on the handle of his spoon, babbling to whoever was listening: that is, no one. I thought about how it might look as a photograph, and I shook the image out of my mind. Enough of Esther, I thought. My mom was always chipper in the morning, no matter how little sleep she’d gotten the night before, and harnessing the cheer was the easiest way for me to lock in to Katherine Mary.

  I slid the door open. “Good morning!” I sang out.

  At the sound of my voice, Lady set down her phone. Devin was sitting in his booster, but Lady was standing, bouncing slightly on the balls of her bare feet like a speed walker at a red light.

  “S for Sandbox!” Devin yelled. I gave him a kiss on the top of his head.

  “That’s right,” I said. “Sandbox does start with the letter S. You’re a genius!”

  “Morning,” Lady said. I could tell she was trying not to look at her phone.

  “Don’t mind me,” I said. “You can be on the Internet if you want.”

  “I should try to be screen-free around minors,” she said.

  “Minors? What exactly are you looking at on that phone?”

  I thought she’d laugh at this perfect Katherine Mary joke, but instead she moved silently to her designer coffee carafe, which looked like an oversize hourglass, and began cleaning it out.

  Devin started singing: “The slippery fish, the slippery fish…”

  “Did you know yesterday was Labor Day?” Lady asked. Pouring coffee, her voice all business, she was doing a pretty decent impression of a homicide detective. Paging Olivia Benson.

  “I did. But it’s cool. I didn’t have plans.” It was true; I didn’t want to see my mom and I didn’t want to have to drive up to my dad’s for the long weekend.

  “I guess I should pay you time and a half,” she said. To Devin she said, “Stop playing with your food and eat, kid.”

  “No worries,” I said, though I was already calculating the money I might have earned. Photo gear wasn’t going to be cheap.

  She sipped her coffee and frowned.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  I thought she’d go on a tirade about the coffee, she seemed to be revving up for a rant, something harmless about the roast of the beans or the curve of her mug handle, but when I looked back at her, she looked serious. Had she seen Seth coming out of the Cottage last night?

  “You’re a big drinker,” she said.

  Devin threw a Cheerio across the kitchen. Neither of us said anything.

  “What can I say? Taking care of kids makes a girl thirsty.”

  “I’m not kidding, S. I found multiple vodka bottles in the trash outside.”

  “Are you firing me?”

  Lady looked stunned. “Firing you? Jesus no, should I?”

  “I don’t drink on duty.”

  “It hadn’t occurred to me that you would. Should that occur to me too? Oh my God.”

  But she wasn’t talking to or about me. Devin had overturned his bowl and milk was spreading across the countertop. It looked striking: pure white across the white-gray marble, like a still from a high-production music video. Bless this mess, I thought.

  “Goddammit, Devin!” Lady yelled, pulling three feet of paper towels from the roll.

  Devin began to weep.

  “No use crying over spilk milk,” I said, which was a Katherine Mary phrase. “I’ll get a washcloth.”

  Devin sniffled as we cleaned up. Then Lady lifted him from his seat and said she’d put on the TV for him. “I just can’t deal with you right now,” she said. Devin called out for me from the living room, but I thought it best to ignore his pleas.

  When Lady returned to the kitchen, she said, “I met up with Karl yesterday.”

  “Is that what’s bothering you?”

  She put on the kettle and placed a crisp brown coffee filter into the mouth of the carafe. She pulled down a second mug for me and I watched as she scooped fresh coffee grounds into the filter.

  “The thing about rich people,” Lady said suddenly, “is that they pay you for your services. But they also pay you to make them feel better. To be their friend.”

  She was right. The actresses my mom dressed were always hiring assistants to do more than run errands; these rich women needed besties to join them at the spa, drive them to the abortion clinic, and diagnose their bacne. Lady wasn’t as rich as they were, but still.

  “I know you have your own life, S, a private life. I’m not a part of it.”

  “That doesn’t mean we can’t talk. What happened with Karl yesterday?”

  “Are you feeling stressed out? Am I giving you too many hours?”

  “I’m fine, Lady, really. I could use the money.”

  “Time and a half it is then.”

  The kettle began to screech but she didn’t immediately turn off the burner. She kept her eyes on me and let the panicked whistle fill the room.

  As she poured the water, she said, “Did Seth give you directions to Beverly Hills City Hall?”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Did he write them on a parking ticket?”

  So she had found the ticket in her closet. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. When she didn’t answer, I asked, “Did you know he smokes?”

  I had no idea why I’d said it, probably from some manic need to change the subject. It was one hell of a diversion.

  Or not. Lady only nodded and handed me a cup of coffee.

  “I do know that, actually,” she said. “How do you?”

  “I saw him outside,” I said. And then, “Look, I’ll cut down on the vodka. I have a thing for gimlets, it’s true, especially in the summer. Now, tell me what’s bugging you because clearly it’s got nothing to
do with me.”

  She grinned. “You’re perceptive, S for Sandbox. It’s true, I really don’t give a shit about the drinking. I should though, right? I should.”

  “Just don’t tell Karl and it’ll be okay.”

  Her face told me he already knew.

  “Fuck,” I said. “Am I in trouble with him?”

  “Never,” she said. “He considers it his duty to defend everyone except me. As long as your name isn’t Lady, he’ll come to your rescue: you, Seth, Devin, Kit, little autistic girls, random men he’s never met…”

  “I’m not following,” I said.

  She sighed and looked at the clock. “I need to shower and get writing.”

  Devin called my name from the living room again.

  “When it’s me he’s yelling for, I simultaneously swoon and cringe,” she said.

  “Must be a mother thing.”

  “Seth could never do that—call for me. If he wanted my help, he had to come and yank on my shirt.”

  “Is it hard, to have it be so different? I bet writing has brought up a lot of memories.”

  “I rarely left him alone because of that. But we lived in an apartment the size of this kitchen, so, you know. Anyway, thanks for noticing that I’m…frayed.” She glanced at her phone. I could tell that she was itching to check it. The imagined Internet is so much better than the real one.

  “Come here right now!” Devin yelled.

  “Do you feel it?” she asked.

  “Feel what?”

  “What I described. Like you’re swooning and cringing at the same time.”

  “No, but I’m not his mother.”

  She shoveled some sugar—big brown crystals, turbinado, probably—into her coffee and took a sip. “Yesterday Karl accused me of not loving Devin.”

  “I’m sure you just heard it that way.”

  “Maybe. He definitely said that I love Seth more.”

  “That’s bullshit.”

  “It is, right? It’s total bullshit! Fuck Karl!”

  “That’s the spirit. Fuck Karl! If it makes you feel better, my mom called me a bitch last night.”

  “It does, sort of, which probably makes me the bitch. My own mother would have just said I had sandbag hips.”

  “Ouch. Was she into comedy roasts or something?” Lady didn’t reply, not even with a laugh. “You really don’t know where she is?” I asked. “You never talk? Ever?”

 

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