This Body (9 page)

“You gott deathwish or something, Lady Ophelia?” Puck dunked Quince, and she came up sputtering. “I'm finished, you little
squirt,” he said. “I've got some things to do.” He executed a jacknife under the water and swam to the other side of the pool.

Quince stroked to the other end, reciting as she went, “She chanted snatches of old tunes till that her garments, heavy with
their drink, pulled the poor wretch from her melodious lay to muddy death.”

Katharine watched them enviously; she really had loved to swim. But she somehow knew that Puck and Quince were right — although
this body was thin, it was dead weight in water.
It would sink like a navy
. Katharine could remember, though, when she was young, cold mornings at the pool, steam hovering over the water like fog,
the soft slap of flip turns and muffled voices, the lane lines bobbing against the wake. Swimming was the only time she ever
felt light.

Fuck 'em
— and she turned around.

With sudden clarity, she realized that swear words were appearing like teleprompted lines in her mind. She used to swear before
she had kids — not a lot, but enough to decide to stop swearing, to even think in swear words, when Ben was born. She always
hated to hear children swear, and she felt she should be a good role model. In the last couple of years, she had heard Ben
swear like a longshoreman, and she had even heard Marion use expletives, but Katharine had practiced abstinence so long, she
hadn't regained her fluency. Now it seemed so easy to swear.
Too easy
.

She moved to a lounge chair on the other side of Anne Bennet and lay down.

“So tell me,” Thisby's mother said lightly. “Who's the current beau?”

Katharine always asked questions. Philip had cautioned her never to ask questions she was unprepared to hear the answers to,
and she tried to be circumspect, but she often felt in desperate need to ask questions. Even when it felt as though she couldn't
stop herself and, therefore, should stop herself, she asked, “Where are you going? Where have you been? Who are you going
with? Is your homework done? How are you paying for that? What happened to the last five dollars I gave you? Who's driving?
Do I know her? When will you be home?”

Katharine could tell that Anne Bennet really didn't want to know but couldn't help herself either.
I remember that perverse desire to know the worst
. “No one,” and Katharine hoped to God that this was true. She didn't know exactly what would happen if or when the current
beau — maybe it was the guy who had left all those messages — showed up, but she knew he wouldn't be current for long. Not
that she had had any experience at dumping guys. She was dumped once, right before she met her husband.
Ex-husband, I guess I have to say. I am an unmarried woman. We were never legally divorced, but I guess death is the ultimate
form of divorce
.

“Thisby. Are you all right?”

Katharine focused back and saw that Anne was leaning across the space between them. “Sure. I'm fine.” Anne sat back in her
chair.

If only that were true. If only Anne could truly believe it
. Katharine knew exactly how glad Anne would be if it were true. She knew how she'd feel if it was true with Ben.

Katharine looked over and saw that Anne Bennet was crying, silently and discreetly, tears slipping off her high cheekbones
and sliding down to the corners of her mouth.

Katharine sucked in her cheeks and held the spongy flesh with clenched teeth.
What we parents go through. And our children are clueless. To be fair, we were clueless when we were kids too. And I don't
think kids ever really know what parents go through until they have children themselves. Only if you can live long enough
as a parent — as a grandparent, really — to see it. Hal Holbrook said in the movie about Mark Twain, “When I was a boy of
fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was
astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.” But I didn't get to live long enough for Ben and Marion to find out
how much I had learned
.

I think I'd be better off dead. Really dead.

Katharine was dreaming. It was one of her recurring nightmares. She's back in high school, a new class schedule in hand. The
backs of her fellow students are disappearing behind slowly closing doors. They know where they belong. She is frantically
searching for T-2. She reaches a room numbered “2,” but to her horror, it's S-2. Running through the fat air to get to the
“T” wing, she sees that the numbers on the class-room doors are up in the hundreds. Time ticking by, and the tardy bell soon
to ring. She can feel the second hand clicking over to the next minute. She will be late. She will be reprimanded. She will
get detention. She will be noticed.

The tardy bell was ringing in her ears when she jolted herself awake, shaking. Her heart slammed offbeat. She could still
hear the bell and realized it was the sound of a Piccolo Pete firework, screaming and then dying in the warm air. The pool
deck was empty, the sun low on the horizon. She had been asleep for some time.

She tried to shake the shards of the dream loose but then realized why her heart pounded so and why she was trembling. It
had been the same old scenario — new schedule, wrong room, tardy bell. But the dreamscape had been different. The classroom
she had been searching for had not been at James Marshall High School with its sprawling, barrack-style wings. She had been
lost in a two-story building of white stucco and Spanish tile. She had been lost in Thisby's high school.

The dream still clung to Katharine like a sticky cobweb as she started up the steps to the back door. Through the window she
could see Anne Bennet working at the center cutting board, the light in the kitchen rosy from the setting sun. Katharine wanted
to stand there on the outside and watch forever, but Thisby's mother seemed to sense something and looked out to where Katharine
stood. Katharine sighed, opened the door, and stepped into the kitchen.

“Did you have a nice rest?” Anne Bennet paused in midchop.

“Yes, thank you.” Katharine felt awkward and formal again, like a first-time houseguest.
Well, aren't I
?

“We decided to just let you sleep. I'm sure you needed it.”

“Yes, I'm sure I did. Thank you.” Not wanting to stand there and do nothing, Katharine offered to prepare the vegetables.
Anne moved to the stove.

As Katharine cut up the carrots, she picked at them. They were quite good, not store-bought but garden-fresh.

“Trying to change your eating habits as well?”

Katharine jumped. She had forgotten she wasn't alone.

“You used to love vegetables when you were a baby,” Anne said, reminiscence in her voice. “I could never figure out just what
happened. I guess it was trying to get you to work in the garden with me. But you preferred photography with your father.
And you were so good at it.”

Katharine turned; Anne had stopped stirring and held the spoon poised and dripping over the pot. She looked at Katharine.
“I'm sorry.”

Katharine was seeing with her own split-screen memory. In one corner was Ben coming home with his hair dyed a shocking chartreuse.
She had made such a fuss about it.
Oh great
, she had thought,
now I'll be known as the mother of the boy with green hair
. She had dragged him like a baby to her hairstylist and stayed until the color was stripped and the hair was dyed back to
near its natural shade. She had played every trump card she had over him. She didn't think he ever forgave her for that. He
turned quiet and sneaky then.
I think he vowed he would get back at me. Well, getting bad grades and taking drugs was certainly a good way
. What was so awful about the hair? It would have grown out. It would have faded out.
Hair is such a transitory thing
. Maybe there would have been another battleground, and the outcome would have been the same. But maybe not.

Philip had tried to tell her that she had overreacted, but by the time he had come home from work, Ben was back in his room,
hair back to normal, their relationship badly bruised. She had turned on Philip then. He had been in the catbird seat for
so long. The kids had been preferring him. He had even gone to a rock concert with Ben.
Mothers don't go to things like that
. When Philip came back practically deaf, with soft-drink stains all over his shirt and reeking of cigarette and marijuana
smoke, she wondered why she resented not being allowed to go, but she did. When Marion's school had called and asked her to
chaperone a dance, Marion had almost cried with frustration. Katharine had wanted only to meet her friends, see them dance,
see how they interacted. It was decided that Philip would go in her place, and Marion quickly recovered.
What did my children imagine I was capable of doing
?

“I'm sorry too,” Katharine said contritely.

Anne paused and then said rather tersely, “Well, if you ever have children yourself, you'll do or say some things you'll be
sorry for later too.”

Katharine winced. “I didn't mean it that way. I …” She wanted to explain but knew it would be impossible. She reached out
and lay a hand on Anne's arm.

Anne looked into Katharine's face, and Katharine made herself still — the split screen continuing to run in the corner of
her mind — Thisby dead on one side, and on the other, Ben failing school and hiding marijuana in his fish-food containers.

What a pair we make
.

Robert Bennet stood up at the head of the table, the dinner dishes having been removed by his wife with help from Puck and
hindrance from Quince. Katharine hadn't been hungry and had forced herself to eat, Anne and Robert watching her take every
bite. But dinner had been a more pleasant experience than she had expected. Puck had seemed to call a truce. Katharine figured
it had something to do with the fact that he had come into the kitchen and had seen his sister's hand on his mother's arm,
and the look of tethered hope in his mother's face.

Now the coffee had been poured. Katharine took hers black and strong. No one made the tiniest fuss.
Thank God, at least one thing TB and I have in common
. Robert Bennet seemed to be preparing to make a toast, but there was nothing besides the coffee to toast with. In face, there
had been no wine with dinner. Katharine had wanted some wine badly.
It would have helped. I could have used it.

Katharine hadn't had to talk a lot through dinner, much to her relief. Robert did most of the talking, and she had been fascinated
the whole time. He was a wonderful conversationalist, so articulate, so charming, so funny. She gathered from his talk that
he was no longer an actor but one of the elite television producers in Hollywood. He was working on a miniseries project involving
a remake of Hitchcock's
Notorious
. Katharine had seen the original not too long ago —
at least, not long before I died
— and they had a lively discussion about the famous crane shot from the staircase to the close-up of the key in Ingrid Bergman's
hand and how that was to be duplicated without being mimicked. She could see that Robert Bennet was thoroughtly enjoying himself.
And so was she.

Katharine could feel that the rest of the family had been bored, and Anne more alarmed than bored. Perhaps Robert was telling
stories that he had told time after time, and Katharine was being indiscreet in encouraging him. She realized the more animated
she was getting, the quieter and more watchful Anne became — her scrutiny was intense. But Katharine was obtaining incredibly
vital information about the family, and she stored it away like a squirrel hoarding nuts.

There was a definite sharpness in his voice when Thisby's father had asked her how the photography was going. Katharine had
told him the truth — that nothing was going on and hadn't been for some time. She figured Anne couldn't object to that. It
was the truth, or as much of the truth as Katharine could decipher. Robert pressed her, though. He had such great expectations,
such high hopes. And now that she was better —
How he assumes the worst is over
— talent should not be squandered so; it would be so disappointing.
He would be so disappointed
. He would, of course, pay for the exhibit, as he had always said he would. This had the sound of an old discussion between
them. Robert had to say it, though he didn't really believe she would hear it.

Katharine knew she did not have Thisby's eye, let alone her technical facility. It was the flicks she knew. She and the kids
saw a lot of them — Saturday matinees, the early-evening shows, videos when Philip stayed late at the office. Before Ben straight-armed
her, the two of them had fright-night video-fests when they were alone together; Marion and Philip didn't like horror films.
Some of the movies did scare Katharine so badly that she couldn't sleep, but she felt it was a small price to pay to be able
to sit in a room with Ben and share even a movie.

But the love, the pride, was so evident on Robert Bennet's face that Katharine didn't quite have the heart to burst his bubble
completely.
Maybe photography's something I can learn
. …

Now Robert Bennet was addressing the family, but he had eyes only for his wife. He spoke simply, lyrically, lines that obviously
had been memorized but were now a part of him. “It is said” — he looked around, mockingly resigned — “in a play we all know
and love so well, that the course of true love never did run smooth.”

Quince mock-gagged again.

He spoke now to his wife directly. “But, we are spirits of another sort. On this anniversary of the sealing-day betwixt my
love and me, I'll put a girdle around the earth in forty minutes to bring my love her gifts.

I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,

Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,

Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,

With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine;