This Body (20 page)

“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.

— P
AULINA
,
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.”

She almost burst out laughing.
That's his real name? Or is that his occupation
?

Saturday night found her awaiting her date —
my nephew
— in a small Thai restaurant in Santa Monica at Zabriskie Point. She almost got up and left, but she told herself that she
was being stupid. What was it going to hurt? What was she afraid of? True might think that it was a real date, but it was
doubtful he was going to make an indecent proposal right there in the middle of the King and Thai Restaurant. And he could
take a rebuff if she gave him one.

True arrived fifteen minutes late, still in his suit, tie knotted and squared perfectly over his top shirt button. “Sorry.
I had to take a last-minute phone call.”

They sat down. True seemed distracted and wasn't the brash, almost smirking young man from Goodfellow's party. He looked at
the menu but couldn't seem to focus on it.

“Is something wrong?” she asked, a little hurt that he was so preoccupied. True did so look like Philip, though Philip would
have never been caught dead in a suit and tie at the same age. That compromise would come later.

He looked up and was shaking his head as he answered. “No. No. Everything's fine. I just … I'm just thinking over this conversation
I had before I left. That's all.” He shrugged.

“Work?”

“What? Oh, no. It was something else. It was Holly. You know Holly? The girl at your brother's party. It was her.”

He was silent, and Katharine waited. She remembered True couldn't stay silent for very long. If he changed the subject, then
he really didn't want to talk about it.

“I don't understand her,” he said, after only a moment or two. “She was the one who wanted to go lightly. Just friends, she
kept saying. I thought we had something, but she wouldn't admit it. I thought we should admit it and see where it went. But
no. She wouldn't do that. Now, all of a sudden, she gets jealous. Like I'm the one stepping out. I told her you and I were
old friends. But … I think she's heard something about you. Probably about your rages. They're still legendary, you know.”

Katharine bristled but kept her temper under control. “I'm not the competition. We're just old friends. All of that and nothing
more.”

True looked closely at her and visibly relaxed. “You don't mind, then?”

“I could use a friend.” It was true.
I just didn't know how true it was until I said it
.

“Good, good. Friends are good.”

Katharine felt the hinges in her jaw creak as she tried to loosen them up.

“You know, though, you always did intrigue the hell out of me.” True grinned his devil smile. “Shit, you were something wild.”

Yeah. That's me. Wild thing
.

The image of seventeen-year-old Thisby swam into view. She's with True. It's the Paddy Murphy weekend. The moist smell of
beer with a hint of vomit permeates the fraternity house. Thisby and True have staggered up the two flights of stairs to True's
room at the top. He makes a vain attempt to kick the clothes on the floor underneath the bed, but they just pile up against
the mattress. Five beers, still attached to the six-pack plastic ring, hang from his index finger.

Thisby laughs as the bed trips her up, and she falls back on it heavily.