A Lady Under Siege

by B. G. Preston

  “I saw him once, when I helped you move in—”

  “I know, you told me. You think he’s cute.”

  “Shaggy-cute. A woolly bohemian. And Thomas looks like him?”

  Meghan nodded. “Thomas is in better shape. He’s more serious. He carries himself better,” she said.

  “Always the way.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The dream man is always better than reality.”

  “Jan. It’s not a joke.”

  “Of course not,” Jan replied. “I need to get a second look at your neighbour, see what we’re dealing with here.”

  “You’ve already seen him.”

  “I glimpsed him in his back yard, from your deck. He waved. Had a nice smile. Since then I’ve only heard about him from you. Is he still acting like a complete jerk?”

  “Not always. Betsy and he are like best buddies now. He gets along with her better than I do.”

  “She’s missing her dad,” Jan said.

  “Who’s utterly preoccupied with his prize student, and the baby she’s so kindly growing for him.”

  “Men are such idiots.”

  “Most of them,” Meghan agreed.

  “And what about Thomas, is he an idiot too?”

  “No, actually.” For a moment she pictured him in Daphne’s room, tending to his sickly daughter by dim candlelight. “In my dreams he’s kind of…” she paused, searching for just the right word to describe him. “Admirable.”

  “I thought you were going to say hot,” Jan teased.

  “Jan, I beg you, take it seriously,” Meghan scolded her. She was surprised to hear Sylvanne in the tone of her own voice, and in the odd phrasing. I beg you.

  “I’ve been very supportive up until now,” Jan protested. “But if you’re going to tell me that after all this, the man of your dreams looks just like your neighbour, well I’m telling you sister, now is the time to rejoice and give thanks that he’s been gift wrapped and delivered almost to your front door.”

  “More the back door, actually,” Meghan replied. She began to tell Jan the story of the shattered pane of glass, and had reached the part where she first noticed the sloppy clump of bandages wrapped around Betsy’s finger, when Debra suddenly arrived, sailing into the boardroom without so much as a nod of greeting and setting herself straight to the task of assessing the designs Meghan had laid out on the table top. They were cover designs for a novel called Enemies with Benefits, all variations on an image of two teary women commiserating. In one they were in a swank cafe while handsome men circled like predators, in another they sat cross-legged facing each other on a comfy couch, with a box of tissues between them half-buried in a pile of scrunched-up used ones. Debra wasted no time in giving her opinion.

  “This work is not to your usual standard, Meghan.”

  “I think it’s true to the book,” Meghan defended herself. “The book is all about women processing, and here we see women processing.” In truth she had barely flipped through her galley copy, she’d relied on the blurb prepared for the catalogue.

  “But there’s more to it than that,” Debra said sternly. “We talked about this, I’m certain. I’m sure I told you what I’ve been telling everyone—Bridget Jones was about one woman, Sex and the City was about four, well, this one splits the difference and is about two. Two best friends comparing sex lives—bright, gorgeous young women in their twenties who expect the men they meet to measure up to their high standards, to be their intellectual and emotional equals, and yet they wind up navigating an urban wasteland of eternal adolescents, Game Boy addicts and porn freaks eager to subject them to every bizarre sex act known to man.”

  “Like that show Girls?” Jan said.

  Debra winced. “Yes. But we can’t say that, we have to differentiate it. We’re expecting this book to be huge, the film rights have already brought six figures. It’s for a new generation of women who think Sarah Jessica Parker is a wrinkled old hag. It’s edgier, more explicit—there are passages of severely kinky sex, enough that men might be tempted to read the thing too. But, Meghan, I see nothing in your designs, nothing here at all, to alert people to that.”

  “Maybe she could be stirring a cup of tea with a riding crop,” Meghan suggested, with just a hint of sarcasm.

  “You don’t get it,” Debra rebuked her. “These girls don’t drink tea, they chug Red Bull.”

  “Do you really think men will wade through pages of women’s chatter for a few bits of kinky sex?” Meghan asked.

  “It’s more than a few pages. And we have to let them know. Give them the option.”

  “We should change the title, to something that really zeros in on the no-strings-attached sex they’re having,” Jan interjected. “Saying friends with benefits to describe a relationship is something women do. It’s a cute pun, to make the point that they keep ending up having sex with men they don’t even like, but we need a stronger word than benefits. Something funny yet depraved, so men will sit up and pay attention. They love depravity. Any hint of it and men rent the DVD.”

  “Then they fast forward through it,” Meghan asserted. “Novels don’t have fast forward.”

  “It’s like that website that tells you to the second where the naked bits are in every movie ever made,” Jan added. “Men search that. They memorize it like sports statistics.”

  Debra directed their attention back to the design. “Think of it as a movie, because it’s going to be one soon enough,” she intoned. “You’re designing a movie poster to lure men as well as women to the local Cineplex.”

  “Think kink,” Meghan said.

  “Exactly. A Helmut Newton kind of thing, only more contemporary, realistic but influenced by computer animation. And I need it by Thursday.”

  She turned on her heels and left the room, taking all the tension with her. Jan and Meghan exchanged looks of relief. Then Meghan sighed deeply. “She told me I’m slipping,” she worried. “First time for that.”

  “She’s stressed. Everyone is. She has no more clue than we do what they’re plotting upstairs. The whole imprint could be shut down tomorrow, and she’d be on the street with the rest of us. We’re still young and adaptable enough to land on our feet, but she’s fifty-six, divorced, and higher up in the food chain, where chances of a lateral move are slim to none right now.”

  Meghan gathered up her papers into her portfolio and suddenly felt a wave of self-pity wash over her. “At least her kids are grown,” she sighed. “I’ve got a child to worry about, I’m getting divorced, too. I’m thirty-one, but I feel fifty-six.”

  Jan gave her a gentle hug. “There there,” she said soothingly. She looked into Meghan’s face. “Your eyes do look awfully tired. I’d say try to get some sleep, good old-fashioned restful sleep, if that’s possible. Can’t you take a break from those dreams of yours?”

  Meghan shook her head. “I wouldn’t even want to. It’s hard to explain, but now that I’ve met Thomas, I feel I have a purpose. I promised I’d help him cure his daughter. I used to dread going to sleep, now all of a sudden I can’t wait. I can’t stand the suspense.”

  “What do you mean, you promised him?”

  “I did promise. I told him I’d help him, through Derek. Don’t look at me as if I’m nuts, please—you’d understand totally if you could see how desperately, pitiably ill Daphne looks, lying on her bed. Her skin is grey in colour, and translucent, I swear. My biggest worry is that I’ve reached her too late, that I’ll sleep tonight and discover she’s passed away.” The thought of it made her eyes moisten. “I couldn’t bear it,” she said, fighting back tears.

  “Girl, get a grip,” Jan said. “Whatever happens in that world, this is the one you live in. Concentrate on making this one work.”

  “You do think I’m nuts.”

  “Let’s just say I’m worried about you. How was your session with Anne? Was it any help? Did she have any insight?”

  “No, not really. I’m seeing her again in a few days. She want
s me to be her guinea pig.” She forced herself to smile. “I’ll be fine. I know what needs doing. I’ll go home and do it.”

  21

  In her upstairs studio Meghan arranged a scattering of new drawings, all of them variations on the same image: a woman in black lingerie pumps gas into a Mercedes, while her lover sits watching her from the driver’s seat, one black glove visible on the steering wheel. It was a scene straight out of the book, which she had forced herself to read, but had ended up skimming, mostly. Young urban women taking risks with strangers, that was pretty much the theme of it, and this scene, Meghan felt, captured both ends of the spectrum of possibilities—a girl could make herself vulnerable like that and be incredibly turned on, or just as easily the anticipated erotic jolt could fizzle into self-consciousness and public humiliation. Meghan looked at her sketch and knew she would need to fix it—the model would have to be leggier, more gamine-like, to bring out the vulnerability. She knew Debra would be expecting a minimum of three ideas, and this was only the first, but instead of setting herself to the task, she put the sketches aside, sat down at the computer, and Googled medieval medicine. While she scrolled down the choices, Betsy stuck her head in the door and said, “Are you finished?”

  Meghan shook her head. “Uh-uh.”

  “Then why are you on the computer?”

  “I need to check something.”

  “When can I use it?”

  “When I’m finished.”

  “Can I come in now?”

  “Not yet.”

  Meghan had banned Betsy from the studio for the afternoon—she didn’t think it appropriate for a ten-year-old to watch her sketch images of kinky women in erotically-charged situations. “I’m just taking a break for a minute, and then I’ll be back to work.”

  “Why’s that woman putting gas in her car in her underwear?”

  “This is exactly why I don’t want you in here—too much explaining.” Meghan got up to shut the door.

  “What am I supposed to do?” Betsy whined.

  “Watch TV. Read a book. Draw something.”

  “I need my own computer.”

  “I gave you an iPad , you lost it, remember?”

  “I didn’t lose it, it was stolen.”

  “You took it to school, you came home without it, that is all I know.”

  “I left it in the cafeteria for like, not even five minutes.”

  “Betsy. I’m closing this door.”

  “I need another one. I’ll help pay for it, out of my allowance.”

  Meghan shut the door.

  BETSY WANDERED DOWNSTAIRS TO the kitchen, swung open the fridge door, and randomly scanned its contents, in hopes of finding something good, like chocolate pudding or cake. But there was nothing like that. In fact it scared her a little how empty the fridge was, another sign that her mother was losing it. From next door she heard a sound that she guessed must be Derek whacking a golf ball again, and went out to investigate.

  The elaborate frame of plumbing pipes and netting he had so recently constructed was gone. From the deck she could see that he’d come up with a simpler strategy: his ball was now tethered to a six-foot-long elastic band attached to a spike in the ground. He set the ball between his feet and reared back for a swing, when Betsy called out in a singsong voice, “I can see yooouuu…”

  The disruption made him carve a huge divot out of his scraggly lawn. He spotted Betsy on the deck and said, “There you are. How’s the finger coming along?”

  “Better. Is that a real ball?”

  “No, it’s hollow, and plastic. But for some reason, even though I’ve set it up so it can’t hit me, and I know it won’t hurt even if it does hit me, my body doesn’t believe my mind—every frigging time it comes flying back at me, I bail. It’s turning my smooth swing all spastic. What happened to your trampoline?”

  “My mom locked it in the shed. It’s part of my punishment for the broken window. Plus she said it’s too dangerous.”

  “Ridiculous,” Derek spat. “You’re overprotected. You’ll never learn to deal with dangerous things unless you’re given dangerous things to deal with.”

  “What happened to your netting?” she asked.

  “I took it down. When I wasn’t using it, it loomed too high above me, like a prison fence. Gave me the creeps, especially at night. This is better. Simpler is usually better.”

  “What other games do you have?” Betsy asked.

  “None. Golf is infuriating enough.”

  “I have badminton, do you like it?”

  “Like it? I love it,” he exclaimed. “In my day I was fourteen-and-under regional champion, or I would have been if I’d bothered to enter. Wicked drop shot, I had. But that was mostly indoors, and I love it even more outdoors—it’s the only game besides golf where you really have to watch what the wind is up to—a capricious little gust can ruin what you expected was a perfectly placed shot.”

  “Shall we play?” Betsy asked excitedly.

  “Oh let’s,” he answered, gently mocking her. “But we’ll have to play blind badminton.”

  “What’s that?”

  “We’ll make the fence the net, which means you can’t see the birdie until it comes fluttering back at you.”

  “Brilliant!” Betsy cried. She was thrilled. She ran inside to retrieve her racquets and shuttlecock, and before long a spirited game of blind badminton was underway.

  UP IN HER STUDIO Meghan was lost in the world of medieval medicine, educating herself as to the properties of the four humours. The familiar musical peals of Betsy’s distinctive laugh reached her faintly from the back yard. She got up and went to the back bedroom window to have a look. Below her Derek and Betsy, in high spirits, were whacking the birdie back and forth over the fence.

  “You know if you win, you get to declare yourself blind badminton champion of the universe, because we’re the only two players known to exist,” Derek was shouting, his voice ragged from exertion.

  “Even if I lose, I’ll still be second in the universe,” Betsy yelled back. “I’ll get the silver medal!”

  “No, you’ll be the worst, worst in the world. Shit!” His return shot hit the fence and fell back in his yard. “Pardon my French. Okay. I’m serving. Ready?”

  “It’s ten eight,” Betsy called out.

  “For me,” said Derek.

  “No, for me!”

  “It was nine eight for me.”

  “No it wasn’t!”

  “Don’t mess with me, girl,” Derek scolded.

  “You’re the one messing.”

  “Whatever. Finish this game, then I need a cigarette.”

  “But ten eight for me, right?”

  “Fine. Still plenty of time to whip your ass. I mean butt.”

  “Ass is a donkey,” Betsy laughed.

  “True. And people do whip donkeys, right on their ass.”

  “Asses have asses!” Betsy giggled. “Damn it!” She muffed a shot. “Ten nine.”

  “Watch your language,” Derek teased her.

  “Which one, asses or damn it?”

  “Both.”

  “You say them all the time!”

  “I’m allowed. When you stop living with your mother, you’re allowed.”

  “She didn’t hear me.”

  “I think she did. Check the window.”

  Betsy looked up to see Meghan looking down at them.

  “Mom! Come out and play.”

  She shook her head.

  “Come and play! It’s called blind badminton, because of the fence!”

  Meghan opened the window wide enough to speak through. “Sorry honey, I’ve got so much work to do.”

  “You always say that.”

  “I’ll be down in a bit.”

  “Your bits take hours.”

  “Smoke break,” Derek announced.

  “It won’t be hours,” Meghan said.

  “Come now or forget it,” Betsy warned her.

  “I’m closing the window,”
Meghan answered. She did, and disappeared inside.

  Derek sat on top of his picnic table and lit a cigarette. On her side of the fence Betsy entertained herself by batting the birdie straight up into the air, again and again, counting each successful swat out loud, to see how long she could keep it aloft. At eleven she stopped—“I think a bat flew by!” she shrieked excitedly.

  “Too early for that,” Derek said. “Unless he’s messed up. How’s your mother doing, by the way?”

  “She’s getting better, I’d say.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Derek replied. “Had quite a lot to say to me at seven thirty this morning, and none of it made the slightest bit of sense. Which is fine, I suppose.” He sang a few lines from a pop song: “Wish I knew what she was thinking, Wish I knew if she was sane, Wish I knew if it was only a game. Do you know it?”

  “Never heard of it,” Betsy said.

  “What do they teach you kids in school? Are the seminal bands of the 1980s so easily forgotten? The Jones of Ark?” He sang another tune: “A human being, is only really being, when he is being, loved.”

  “But why does everyone need to be loved?” Betsy asked. “It’s very unfair if it’s not their fault no one loves them. Why do the people in songs always go all crazy when they can’t have love?”

  “Generally speaking, if pop songs are to be believed, love and the lack of it are the primary cause of madness, suicide, and crying all night,” Derek replied.

  “Someone’s at your door,” Betsy said.

  “What?”

  “Your doorbell rang. The front one.”

  “You heard it from here? I’m getting old.” Derek got up and headed inside through his open back door. “Should have kept my head out of the speakers at those long-ago rock shows.”

  “Shouldn’t smoke,” Betsy yelled after him.

  “I don’t smoke with my ears.”

  A FEW MINUTES LATER Betsy was playing with a stray golf ball she’d found, rolling it around on her badminton racquet, when Derek reappeared with a friend in tow, exclaiming, “Come meet my new friend Betsy! You’ll like her, she’s ten.”

  Betsy climbed up to her deck to get a look at them. Derek spotted her there. “Betsy, look who’s here. A sight for sore taste buds, my old buddy Ken.” Ken nodded to her. He had his long hair tied back in a ponytail, wore a black tee shirt that said Stay Heavy, and was doing arm curls like a weight lifter with a twelve-pack of beer in each hand. “Gimme one of those, I’ll lighten the load,” Derek demanded. “Two dozen beers here—if I’m quick enough, I’ll get eighteen to your six.”