The Body Double

by Emily Beyda

  Rosanna’s clothes begin to dry, tightening around my form like a boa constrictor gently squeezing her prey. I think for the first time of the damage water can do, the bleaching effects of chlorine on my carefully balayaged hair. I should really go home and mitigate the impact of my night swim, my wandering. Wash the dirt from my jeans, set the white sneakers out on the windowsill to dry in the rising sun. The sky is beginning to go fuzzy at the edges, the first sign that it will soon grow pearly gray. I should go, I think, I should go. But I need to show Rosanna I was here. I need to leave some sign to let her know that I have been here, small enough that nobody passing by will notice but that she will understand. I kneel down in the gravel, careful to move slow, to not make a sound. I press the heel of my hand hard into a sharp protuberance of iron until the blood comes. It does not hurt to bleed. I reach through a gap in the gate, pressing myself as far in as I can. I carve a mark into the gravel, a swoop of red, the way, in stories my mother told me, the chosen people marked their doorways, a line Rosanna will have to cross. She will see it. And then she will know that I have found her, that I am coming. She will be waiting for me next time, I am sure.

  I walk back down the hill to the apartment. I have no trouble finding my way. The hum is steady again, certain. It’s close, less than a mile. I don’t know how it is I haven’t found the house before. Maybe it was because Rosanna didn’t want me to. Maybe she was making me wait until I was ready. Well, I am ready now. The wound on my palm has stopped bleeding. In the bathroom I rub it with an organic salve from Rosanna’s natural beauty line—shea butter, lavender, sage, faint ghosts of the sharp-smelling herbs that grow in the gardens in the hills. Rosanna must have a garden, too. Outside, the sun starts to rise, and I stand on the edge of my bathtub, hunched over, so I can lean out the small window, over the courtyard, straining my neck, searching for Rosanna’s roof in the rows of tiered houses turning gray, then pink, a vibrant paint-box flare of houses standing silent in the growing light. As hard as I look, I can’t manage to see a thing. She is lost to me again. But not for long.

  The apartment has shrunk. I hadn’t noticed it the night before, preoccupied as I had been with sneaking silently up the stairs, carefully washing the dirt and grass stains from Rosanna’s clothes, using a mixture of coconut oil and raw egg to try to make my hair pre-chlorine soft so I would be pristine by the time Max arrived. But it’s daylight, and I notice it now. The light is high and uncompromising, and the room is filthy and small. Smaller than before. My exhaustion gives the day a shimmer of surreality, something shiny and opaque clouding the surface of my vision. I tell myself it’s a trick of my mind, the light. I ignore the evidence my senses present me with, that the room is smaller. That somehow it has shrunk.

  Max sits close beside me on the futon, his knees pointing toward mine.

  “I’m so tired,” I say. “I think I might lie down for a nap. I’ll try it on after, I promise.”

  “You’ve been tired a lot lately,” he says.

  Careful, I think. But there is no sign of anger. His voice is calm.

  “You’re right,” I say. “You’re so observant, Maxie. I think I might have low iron.”

  “It’s settled, then,” he says, smiling. “You’ll have your nap, then put on that nice dress you bought this afternoon and I’ll take you to Musso’s for a martini and a steak.”

  I think of all the wasted time of dinner, how much less time I’ll have to explore the hills.

  “Perfect!” I say. “Or two martinis? You know I love those things, that cute little carafe, the fussy waiters. Makes me feel like Hedy Lamarr.”

  Really, I don’t drink much at all anymore. It makes it too hard to stay awake, nights when I should be walking. I will pretend to sip, and when Max goes to the bathroom I will down my water, pour the martini into the empty glass.

  “All right,” says Max, “but only if you eat some creamed spinach as well. We really can’t have you being so exhausted. It isn’t good for you. I worry. Besides, you’ll need all your energy. Our hard work is paying off. We have a busy month coming up!”

  Despite myself, I feel a bright little flash of pride. It lights up the back of my brain stem, waking me up. My hard work is paying off.

  “Wonderful,” I say. “Rosanna must be pleased.”

  Max is still looking away from me. “Yes,” he says, “it’s very good for her brand. Actually, we’ll be booking her another appearance soon. A fashion segment. Critiquing red-carpet looks. They’re sold on the novelty of you coming out of retirement swinging.”

  “No more interviews, though,” I say, “for now?”

  I thought my first sit-down would be the first of many. It got good ratings, lots of press. I am firmly back in the public eye. But Rosanna is hesitating. Max has made it clear that she wasn’t happy with me. And if she isn’t happy, he isn’t, either.

  “Not for now,” says Max.

  “We have to keep me in demand,” I say, trying to think of a way in which this is a good thing, a sign that I am closer to success. “Overexposure was the problem last time, wasn’t it?”

  “Exactly,” says Max. “That’s exactly right.”

  “I remember,” I say, and then quickly, when he gives me a strange look: “From the tapes. The quality of the coverage at the end was—”

  “Lacking,” says Max quickly, cutting me off.

  “Yes,” I say.

  I don’t think that’s exactly the word for it. Entirely absent is more like it. A few erratic daytime interviews where it seems that Rosanna can’t concentrate on the stories she’s supposed to tell, her nervous eyes skittering toward the camera. And then nothing. Radio silence. But this time won’t be like the last time. This must be why the apartment is starting to shrink. As I get better, it will get smaller, shrinking as I expand, a hermit crab’s shell, a womb.

  “Take your nap,” says Max, standing, gathering his things. “Sweet dreams. I’ll be back for you in a few hours.”

  “You sure you don’t want to stay here?” I say, knowing there’s no quicker way to get rid of Max than to make it seem like I want him around. “Maybe you could use a nap, too.”

  “That’s sweet,” says Max, “but I have errands to run. I should go see Rosanna, tell her what we have planned for tonight.”

  “No rest for the wicked,” I say.

  I wait until I can’t hear his footsteps in the hallway anymore. A few hours, he said. It’s a five-minute drive to Rosanna’s house. How long will he really be gone? I pace back and forth, counting my steps, trying to measure the length of the room, keeping my feet as quiet as I can, in case there is someone listening. Every night, as I go farther, Max must make the room just a little bit smaller, a hairsbreadth, a microscopic fraction of an inch. The farther I walk, the smaller it gets. And now that I’ve gone as far as I can go, all the way to the house? What happens now? I sit down on the futon to think, closing my eyes, trying to calm the mad flutter in my chest. When I open my eyes, the room is beginning to go dark. I have slept for a few hours, I think. It is impossible to tell. I have no phone. There are no clocks. I get out of bed and begin to dress. I don’t turn the lights on, not yet. I don’t want to be reminded of the increasing smallness of my room. I do my makeup, minimal, natural, in the bathroom mirror. Max knocks on the door and I open it, smiling.

  “You look beautiful,” he says.

  He means I look like her.

  “Thank you,” I say. “I try.”

  * * *

  —

  At the restaurant we sit across from each other in a slim two-seater booth. It is a Tuesday night, quiet, and the low-ceilinged room is deserted. Above us, topping a shiny span of dark wood paneling, hunting dogs cavort, a deer barely visible through the olive trees of a distant grove.

  “I wanted to talk to you about something,” says Max.

  I take a deep breath. Of course he does.
I picture him and Rosanna sitting together at the window last night, looking down at me, and I am filled with a terrible, overwhelming shame. But he’s smiling. He’s not angry. He takes my phone, Rosanna’s phone, from his pocket.

  “I’m returning your phone privileges to you,” he says. There is no one seated at the tables around us, but still, he keeps his voice whisper soft. “You’ve been working really hard. You’ve earned my trust. Our trust.”

  He slides it across the dark glossy wood of our small table. “Here,” he says. “Take a look. There’s something I think you ought to see.”

  I turn the phone over, careful to keep my hands steady. There is a single notification on the screen, a text from Marie. “Farm dinner next week!” it says. “Not Ojai, all those fires, ugh, just our place in the hills. Sorry for the last-minute invite, I know your schedule fills up fast, but I wasn’t sure if you’d want in. Say you’ll be there?”

  Yes, I think. Oh please yes.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “What does Rosanna want me to do?”

  I take a sip, a real sip, of my martini, the gin bracing on my tongue. I need it to cushion the blow I suspect is coming. But Max doesn’t say no. He doesn’t smile up at me or look me in the eye, but he gives a quick nod, cutting his steak with a sharp knife, scraping the plate with a sound that makes my jaw clench.

  “You should go,” he says. “You’ve been spending so much time with her anyway, this is the next logical step. It would look odd if you didn’t. And it’ll be an opportunity for you to meet the rest of Rosanna’s circle all at once.”

  He slides a bloody lump of steak between his teeth. I feel my heartbeat quicken, a strange mixture of joy and disgust.

  “I thought those people didn’t eat,” I say, down-to-earth, an outsider, the girl he expects. “Are we going to sit across the table from one another sipping one of Marie’s juices out of our wineglasses?”

  A vivid image of Rosanna flashes through my mind. She sits on a couch, legs carefully crossed. She throws her head back and laughs.

  “Be serious,” says Max, but he smiles. “This is a big deal. I need you to do your best, Rosanna.”

  I hide the joy climbing up into my throat. I’m going to see Marie again, and not only that, I will be her guest in her home, her best friend, sitting beside her at the table. Everyone will see us, everyone will know we belong together. And Max can’t stay close at a party like that, with so many drivers, so many cars. For a few hours, at least, it will be as though Marie and I are alone, really alone. Like it was before. I smile at Max, a real smile this time.

  “Of course I will,” I say, “I always do.”

  “I know you do,” he says. “We’ll be picking you up that evening. You should go shopping in the morning, I’ll send the driver. Buy yourself something nice. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? I know you love to shop.”

  We, I think, and I know he probably means the driver, but what if this we is the real we, the ultimate we? What if Rosanna is waiting for me in the back seat of that car? It’s all too much. I steady myself, pouring the rest of my martini from the carafe into my glass.

  “Will you come shopping with me?” I say. “Maybe give me some suggestions on what I should wear? I don’t like the idea of getting ready without you.”

  But I do. I love being out there alone. Having everyone look at me. Before I came here, I was a ghost. If you searched my old name, all that came up were articles about my father’s trial. No images. You got the impression of a life half lived, someone slipping through the cracks on her way to disappearing entirely. It is different now. Now people look at me. Now I am seen.

  “Of course,” he says. “I’ll make sure you look your best.”

  “Thank you, Max,” I say. “I couldn’t do it without you.”

  But I can. And I am. Rosanna always talks about living her best life. Well, my best life belongs to her. And here I am living it.

  We spend the next week watching videos of Rosanna at dinner. Max sets up a place setting on the coffee table so I can practice how she holds a wineglass, a spoon, how she gestures with her fork when she wants to make a point. He serves food he imagines I might encounter at Marie’s and watches me eat as Rosanna eats the same thing on the screen, both of us stacking empty oyster shells on the edge of our plate, twirling our spaghetti. We watch her talk to an endless variety of strangers and acquaintances, cycling through every possible mood.

  We see her politely bored.

  “So I,” says the neighbor, an older man in a blue suit, as sleek and self-assured as a bull seal, “absolutely refused to pay higher taxes on the Palm Beach property.”

  “Oh, well done,” says Rosanna. “That was very brave of you, wasn’t it?”

  She picks up a little clump of lettuce leaves and pops them into her mouth with practiced insouciance.

  The neighbor sits up straighter, pleased. “I should think so,” he says.

  We see her enthralled.

  “Oh nooo,” she says, turning her entire body toward this other neighbor, a stylist with a long cascade of fluffy red hair and a perfectly painted-on peach lipstick pout. “Honestly, they’re getting divorced? They literally just reconciled.”

  “Reconciled is a strong word,” says Sabine, “considering she’s been sleeping with that DJ she met in Mykonos the whole time!”

  Rosanna laughs into the palm of her hand.

  * * *

  —

  I see how she reacts when her neighbor, an older, celebrated actor, elbows soup into her lap.

  “Yes, it’s silk,” she says, standing up, her head disappearing from the frame. “But honestly it’s no problem—this old thing, my god, it’s nothing. I’ll buy a new one. No, I couldn’t possibly send you the bill.”

  In some shots, you can see a green blur at the edges. Leaves, I imagine, or the petals of flowers. Rosanna looks up and over the camera, unconscious of its presence, or pretending to be. A natural.

  * * *

  —

  The day of the dinner, I go shopping for a dress. After a long period of indecision, trying on what feels like every possible permutation of fabric and cut and length, I settle on an elegant sheath. It looks like a cross between something the old and new Rosannas would wear—classically pretty, composed, restrained, but with a high slit, a bit of a daring edge. Max comes by to pull a stack of flash cards from the complete set, which he carefully divides into subgroups according to the likelihood of each person’s being at the dinner party. And then he leaves. I know he is going to Rosanna’s house, to spend the afternoon with her, talk about the party, make plans for what will happen in the future, my future, my next day, and my next. I picture how her face might look tonight as she pulls up in the car with him. Will she be more beautiful than I am? I try not to think about what she might say. I spend the day alone. I review the cards.

  Flipping through the stack quickly, I don’t recognize a few people. I pick a card randomly from the stack, a man I remember from the tapes, Leo, it says, producer, acquaintance, married to a woman named Eleanor, good friend of Edward’s, ask about his kids Olive and June. Another, a woman named Jennifer with whom she attended preschool, friendly, it says, but not close. Some of the cards have notes about the last time we had seen each other (Astrid was last spotted at Art Basel, where she and Rosanna fought over a Ruscha painting, expect mild tension, don’t bring it up), or memories I can reference, places where we had good times, restaurants we ate at: the Spotted Duck, Red Medicine, El Conquistador. Most of them are just a picture, a brief bio, a name. I make quick work of memorizing the few I don’t already know by heart. Of course none of these people really matter. Marie is the only person Rosanna wants to see. Everyone else is window dressing. I am sure Marie feels the same way. What else is a party but an excuse to be reminded of your own importance by surrounding yourself with extraneous people, soaking up their admiration
while you stay close to the ones you actually care for?

  I dress. I apply and reapply my lipstick—nude, at first; then mauve; and finally a slick, glossy red, the color of a cherry lollipop crushed on the sidewalk, violent in its brightness. This is my party. I want to look nice. So I make sure I look nice, I know how to do that now. I search for my old face beneath the new skin. But there is nothing looking back.

  The car arrives. I go down the stairs slowly, walking with Rosanna’s practiced grace, sure she will be waiting to wish me good luck. Max is driving the car. He gestures me into the front seat, and I smell a faint smell of cigarettes, something expensive and floral. Rosanna. Has she been here? Is she hiding in the back seat, silent, somewhere I can’t see her? I swear that I can almost feel the pressure of her gaze. Just in case, I keep my eyes focused on the road. I have a feeling that if I turn around and look at her she will disappear, insubstantial, an emissary from the underworld.

  * * *

  —

  They drop me off at the formal front entrance to the house. I came through the family entrance before, the back door, but Max and I have practiced, taping off the living room so I could rehearse navigating Marie’s garden, my eyes blindfolded by one of Rosanna’s silk scarves. I know before I see it how the driveway passes through a narrow causeway between two guesthouses, their blank white facades turned away from the street, how there are so many layers of protection before you get to the house itself, the iron fence, the high walls, a dark passage lit by solar-powered garden lamps. Reassured by this familiar newness, I hop out of the car without a goodbye, feeling their eyes on my back as I walk down the path to the front door.

  I’m ready to get away from Max for a while. I’ll be nice to him when I see him at the end of the night. I’ll tell him everything that happened, make him feel included, complain a little so he knows I wasn’t too happy without him. Poor Max. I really shouldn’t be so hard on him. I am, Rosanna is, all he has. But as the car pulls away from the gate I feel a tremendous weight lift from my shoulders. For one night, at least, I am free.