Always

FOURTEEN

WHILE THE EARLY-MORNING GYM PATRONS EBBED AND FLOWED AROUND ME, I focused on the blue punch bag. Feet first: snap kick and roundhouse, back kick and crescent kick; heel, instep, side and ball of the foot. Then knees, both with the bag hanging free and pulling it to me as I thrust. Elbows next. Ram the nose into the brain, crush the top of the spine where it joins the skull, burst the kidneys, crush the larynx, break the ribs. Forwards, backwards, uppercut and side strike. Left and right. With elbows you have to be close, close enough to kiss.

I stripped off my outer shirt and wiped my face and hands.

Hands gave you a little more distance. Fists first. The whipping, snake strike of the back fist, the driving gyaku zuki, the snapping oy zuki. The palm strike. Sword-hand and knife-hand. Fingertips like sharpened pistons.

Then mixing it up. Heel, move in, elbow, knee, move out, back fist, in again for punch. Combinations and repetitions, whirling and standing, changing up and changing down, until I ran with sweat and the late-rising patrons exchanged sidelong looks.

I finished with a right back-fist, left punch, right elbow combination, and stepped back. Now I could eat breakfast.

I had been in the gym for an hour and twenty minutes. When I got back to my room, I had five messages. I put them on speakerphone and stripped my sweats as I listened.

The first was Bette. “I talked to the newspaper people yesterday. They agreed: no mention of you or your mother, no mention of Brian Finkel, Jr.” Then Rusen, “Boy, this is great! The energy sure is back. You wouldn’t think it would make such a difference. Finkel is beaming and rubbing his hands. Oh, and if you should see Kick, if she isn’t wearing shades and being famous, could you tell her, please, that we need to hear from her about that job?” Gary: “…reminder of our lunch appointment at twelve-fifteen.” Edward Thomas Hardy: “I see you smoked the snake out of the weeds. Do I want to know how you got her to talk? Thanks for keeping my name low profile. I owe you. I’ll see if I can’t help out with your future real estate and zoning needs, as far as the law allows, of course.” My mother: “I hope your friend is feeling better. I hope she’s pleased with the article.”

Leptke had promised me a heads-up.

I called down to the front desk and asked them to put a copy of today’s Seattle Times outside the door. The shower was hot and hard.

Don’t meddle. Don’t push me. I mean it. Maybe they didn’t get the Times in Anacortes. Maybe she wouldn’t see it as pushing.

I toweled off, dressed, and took the still-folded paper down to the terrace restaurant, where I ordered breakfast. Tea, pan-fried trout, grapefruit.

It was the front page of the B section: a long, crisp publicity still of Kick, from Drop, in a fire-opal formfitting suit, falling through nothing, arms wide and eyes closed, smile beatific, hair streaming behind her like a war banner, skin peach with dawn.

The server who brought me tea looked at the picture as she poured more ice water.

“Oh,” she said. “Excuse me.” Then, unable to help herself, “It’s just such a beautiful picture. She looks like she’s worshipping. Your food will be right out.”

I read the opening paragraph, a breathless repeat of “the terrible night of May 14, when the unsuspecting crew on Seattle’s latest hope for indie glory, Feral (see page 4), found their worst nightmares coming true, and brave Victoria ‘Kick’ Kuiper, already pluckily reimagining her life after personal tragedy—cont’d p. 3…”

Worship. Yes.

I turned to page three.

Despite the first paragraph and heavy reliance on journalistic cliché, it did the job. It cataloged clearly Corning’s “ill-fated scheme” to bankrupt the production by finger-pointing to regulatory agencies, detailing how “pranks” had escalated to poisoning and the admission of seventeen people to Harborview with “life-threatening symptoms.” The consequences for the innocent caterer, trying so hard to drag herself back onto the film map, this time with food instead of falling. Then the real meat of the matter, as far as Leptke was concerned: the ease with which the zoning process could be manipulated if you had enough money. There were brief definitions of OSHA and EPA, and sidebars on the Seattle independent film industry, the committee structure of the City Council, and a B-article on the human face of ruthless business manipulation—complete with a black-and -white head shot of Steve Jursen, the carpenter. I was mentioned only in passing as “the concerned out-of-town landlord” and Corning and Bri Jr. not at all. Mackie was there, though, under his legal name, Jim Eddard, labeled a “person of interest.” Which meant the police did not yet have him. Johnson Bingley was named, too (“though unavailable for comment, due to being out of the country”), and there were quotes from Edward Thomas Hardy (“respected Seattle council member running for reelection”) and the local prosecutor who promised, as they always do, “a swift and thorough investigation.”

Bri’s family had money. Hardy had clout. Corning had struck a deal. Mackie, aka Jim Eddard, had been left holding the bag. Money isn’t justice.

I traced Kick’s smile. It was the exact size of my little fingertip.

THE DRIVE to the set was as smooth as caramel; the sky was hidden by polished, nacreous cloud, and as I took the curve on the viaduct alongside Elliott Bay, I felt as though I were moving into the heart of a chambered nautilus.

The set hummed the way it had on Sîan Branwell’s last day of filming. Carpenters and painters swarmed around the scaffolding. The air rang with hammering and stank of paint. I heard the hiss and froth of the espresso machine as soon as I walked in, and my heart beat with dread and joy, but it was Dornan behind the counter. He saw me, and nodded, and focused his entire concentration on a quad grande latte and then a mocha spin for John and Andrea, the props people I had overheard that first day. They gave me sidelong glances (“the concerned, out-of-town landlord”) but said nothing until Dornan handed them their coffee with a flourish and they beetled off.

“Busy,” I said. I wonder what their—my—burn rate was now.

“Extra money means extra crew. And not only can we afford decent food, people know it’s safe to eat. Kick’s rehired her assistant, but she can’t make it in until the afternoon, she said. So for now it’s coffee and premade sandwiches, and I’m it.”

“Where’s Anacortes?”

“Ah,” he said. “That’s where she’s hiding?”

“She’s not hiding.”

“No? Well, if you say so. Now, I know you’re not drinking milk, but have you tried soy?”

“No.”

“Let’s try it now, then. A nice soy latte.”

I watched him fuss with spigots. “Why do you think she’s hiding?”

“I imagine many things frighten her at the moment. No doubt she’ll get over it. And in answer to your question, I believe Anacortes is somewhere north, on the sound. Lovely views. Her parents, by all accounts, are not poor.”

“They’re not?”

“Not even remotely.”

“She said her father was ‘in trucking.’ ”

“And so he is. He’s the COO of a giant truck-making corporation. Here you go.” He handed me a paper cup. “Sorry it’s paper. There’s been a run on coffee this morning, and no time to wash cups.”

Drawn in the foam on top was a lopsided flower. Imperfect. Vulnerable. Ephemeral. “What’s she hiding from?”

He poured himself coffee from the urn and added two shots of espresso. “How long have you known her?”

“You know exactly how long.”

“That’s right. You barely know her, and she barely knows you. And she’s just been diagnosed with an incurable disease. If I were her, I’d be thinking you might cut and run. Most people would.”

Over by the scaffolding, one of the carpenters dropped a hammer and began to swear. Someone else was laughing.

“You never met my wife,” he said.

Deirdre, who had died at twenty-two of leukemia. He never liked to use the names of the dead.

“Illness isn’t like the movies. It’s not like Love Story. It’s not all off-screen treatments, or pale faces filmed through a Vaselined lens. It’s not crisp white sheets and brave smiles and poignant, self-sacrificing farewells. It’s messy and hard. Physically and emotionally.” He paused. “We’d known each other eighteen months, been married for six. I don’t know if, I don’t know if I would have, if she’d found out when I first met her, if—It might have been too hard.”

His eyes were hazed with memory, the way I imagined the blue glass of a doll’s eyes might look if had been left too long on the floor of an abandoned nursery, light streaming pitilessly through bare windows until the cheap glass clouded and cracked. Had he seen Kick’s illness right from the beginning and decided it was too hard?

“Are you going to drink that?” he said at last.

I put the coffee down. “I have to go.”

“Of course you do.”

“I have an investment to protect. There are lot of things to sort out. That article, for example, will make things worse, if anything, with OSHA and EPA.” With the violations a matter of very public record, the case-workers’ superiors would start asking public questions. I should have been able to give them a heads-up before it appeared. I should have been able to give Kick a heads-up. Don’t push me. I’m a cook.

"Invite them.”

I looked at him.

“The regulatory bigwigs. Everyone loves the movies. They’ll be putty in your hands.”

“That’s…”

“An excellent idea. I do have them sometimes. Yes. Now go.”

Outside, I was surprised to find it was raining.

ED THOMAS HARDY’S office looked just the same, though this time the window was sheathed in fine silver droplets.

His shirtsleeves were rolled up and his tie loose, a pen in his hand. The epitome of a man of the people.

“As of half an hour ago, I have contracts for both of the private land parcels adjacent to mine,” I said. “The third, the federal land, might take a little longer.”

He nodded. “What do you know about federal, regional, and local tax incentives?”

“Nothing.”

“Well, I know a lot. And as well as owing you for your, ah, discretion, I know of several ways you could make a lot of people rich.”

“Profit isn’t my motive.”

“You’ve said that before. What do you want the land for, then?”

I imagined my land along the Duwamish, the river dimpled with rain. I saw a woman, sitting on a bench.

“What does the city need?”

“The city?” He gestured at the window. “Which city? The business city, the working people’s city, the city of coyotes and eagles and sword ferns?”

The woman had a fading black eye.

“Profit might not be your motive, but let’s pretend it is. Otherwise the people who can help or hinder you in this won’t trust you. So, what do you want to do with this land?”

The woman with the black eyes sat on the bench, watching a heron, and seeing the bird pluck its shining dinner from the river and take off into the grey sky hardened the amorphous hope under her breastbone to a burning point.

In Atlanta, I had taught ten women. Only one had been Sandra. I could do better next time.

“A foundation,” I said. “Classes. A park, a library.”

“Maybe some low-cost housing?”

“Explain.”

“Form a corporation—”

“I am a corporation.”

“Make a new one. Call it something attractive and well meaning, something stolid and impressive, that sounds semiofficial, like CharterMae Trust or Foundry House or—”

“You’ve thought about this before.”

He nodded. “I’ve thought about this a lot. There’s an ocean of money out there, washing from pocket to pocket. I’d like to see some of it get used. But to get it, you have to give something. Tax credits.” He looked pleased with himself.

“I’m none the wiser.”

“Private developers build affordable rental housing if they get tax breaks. The federal government alone hands out more than five billion dollars a year in credits to anyone who will keep rents low for fifteen to forty years, and rent to tenants who earn no more than sixty percent of the city’s median income. The state administers those credits. I know all the people down in Olympia.”

I waited.

“So what you do is build the housing, then sell the tax credits to syndicators, who bundle them and sell them to investors looking to offset their own taxes. Then you take that money from the sale, and use it to maintain your building. You mix luxury and affordable on an eighty-twenty ratio and you can sell tax-exempt bonds. You’ll make lots of money.”

“I don’t need to make lots of money.”

“The more you make, the more you’ll have to spread around to other people. And the ones you’ll be making the money off of are the rich people.”

“It sounds too good to be true. Why haven’t you already done this?”

“You need a lot of money to start with.”

“And you’d be willing to help shepherd this through the local regulatory process?”

“For a say in some of the community benefit.”

“It sounds… tangled.”

“That’s the price, sometimes.”

It would be Bette and Laurence who would work out the details. ETH would handle the work. I thought of those herons.

I need to do this myself, Kick had said. Not all women could. “My lawyer will call you.” I would also have to donate to his campaign. He couldn’t help me if he was no longer in office.

KICK CALLED just as I stepped into the rain.

“I’m back,” she said. “What’s left of my tree fell down.”

“Ah.” I stood very still while pedestrians parted grumpily around me and rain ran down the back of my neck.

“I’m wet, I hate my mother, and the tree… The goddamn tree. Probably the rain. It’s tipped right over and lying all over my yard. And El Jefe… Stupid cat.”

“Are you all right?”

“Of course I’m all right. I wasn’t here.”

“Is the cat all right?”

“He’s hurt.”

“Is it bad?”

“He can’t sit down. And he’s complaining. But he’s eating and he lets me stroke him. It’s probably not even broken.”

“So it’s… his leg?” I didn’t know why we were talking about a cat that wasn’t even hers. I started walking along the sidewalk.

“His tail. It’s sort of bent. Hold on.” A strange ripping sound rasped in my ear. “That was him purring into the phone.”

“Oh.”

“So, anyway, I thought that I’d take him to the vet, and while I was gone you could finish what you started with the tree.”

“You want me to… Kick, have you seen the paper?”

“Yeah. So are you coming, or what?”

“Yes.”

“Great. Gotta get to the vet.” Click.

I folded my phone and waited in bemusement for a light. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see the traffic pole flash magenta and turquoise, or burst into a chorus of “Louie, Louie.” The rain began to ease. By the time I’d crossed the road, it had stopped.

SHE OPENED the cardboard carrier and the old black cat stalked off, looking rumpled and annoyed, but fit. She straightened, closed the door of her van.

“Subluxation of the tail,” she said. “Good as new in two days. Whose is the truck?”

“A rental. Like the chainsaw. I bought the gloves.” I shut up before I said anything else foolish.

She looked at the sawn chunks of trunk stacked by the gate and then at the growing patch of blue sky above the dining room extension. “If it had come down a week ago it would have crushed half the house.” She stepped closer. Damp earth, sawn wood, the rich, sharp scent of Kick. I took off the gloves, dropped them on a stump, and held out my arms.

Later, in her bed, she eased herself into the curve of my arm. I stroked her hair and her back, and wondered under which knob of vertebra, exactly, the lesion lay. The skin and muscle felt the same.

“How did it go with your parents?”

“I hate my mother.” Perhaps she was aiming for a light tone, but the attempt was ruined by a deep undertow of hurt and puzzlement. “I told them. My mother… my mother’s a drama queen who thinks she’s Lady Pragmatism. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘Well, the family will have to organize twenty-four-hour care.’ I said, ‘What are you talking about?’ She looked at me kindly, like I was a three-year-old, and said, very slowly, ‘For when you’re paralyzed, honey. Who else is going to help you?’ ”

I thought of my mother’s reaction, and she’d never even met Kick.

“It was like she wanted me to be helpless so she could feel important. It was all about her. I know it was probably a shock but, Christ, paralyzed. So I looked at Pop, hoping for a bit of reason, and you know what he said?”

I shook my head.

“He said that, hell, he was sure it was all some big mistake. His little girl couldn’t have a disease like that. I should just see. I should just wait. Everything would be A-okay. I didn’t know whether to puke, scream, or bury an axe in his head.”

“So what did you do?”

“I laughed, and said I wanted a glass of water, and Mom jumped up and said she’d get it, and I had to practically arm-wrestle her to the sofa. I’m not a fucking cripple yet, I said. Except I didn’t say ‘fucking.’ And then I went into the kitchen and cried. And then I came back and told them I was just fine, and that for their information I’d just accepted a job as stunt coordinator on a series pilot, and thanks very much for their pity and denial, but I didn’t need an ounce of help from them. And now I have to find a way to tell Maureen and my brothers.”

My brain jumped to three different places at once. She’d accepted the job.

“I don’t think I can face telling them right now. Ted’s in the Seychelles, anyhow.”

“The stunt rigger?”

“No. That’s John. He’s in Arizona. Ted’s an accountant. But Maureen’s right here.”

“Yes.” Maureen, who would look blank, then say something kind and caring, such as, “I really need to get my nails done soon.” I took Kick’s hand—the nail beds were pink, the nail white—and kissed her fingers, one by one.

“So, like I said, I hate my family.” Rain pattered on the skylight. “This weather,” she said.

She had taken the job. I thought of her jumping, face peach with dawn. “So. You saw the paper.”

"Yep.”

“What did you think?”

“Always hated that picture.”

“Seriously, what—”

“Shush. I’m trying to tell you. Seriously. The way my parents treated me, more Crip than Kick, I saw I’ve been doing that to myself. Cutting myself down to size before anyone else could do it.”

“Protecting yourself.”

“Making myself small.”

“So you told Rusen you’d accept his offer.”

“Yep. I knocked on his door and went in and announced importantly that, ‘Hey, I’ll coordinate your stunt,’ and he nodded and said, ‘Boy howdy, that’s great, can you deal with the fire department permit situation today?’ I felt crushed—drums should have rolled or lightning cracked or something equally portentous: Kick steps up to herself.” She sighed, and the long, soughing breath had a crack in it, and the crack widened and wobbled and grew and became, to my surprise, soft laughter, which, in its turn, grew sturdy and bright.

She laughed until she was as red in the face as a newborn, and as helpless, and kicked her feet. I held her tight enough to snap someone whose muscles weren’t as dense and resilient as rubber bands, and she squeezed back and swung me onto my back and pinned my hands to the mattress, and I laughed and flipped her over in turn, and she tried to turn me back the other way, and then we were on our sides, matched muscle to muscle and bone to bone, strong and fine and taut, mouth to mouth, belly to belly, eye to eye. We breathed each other’s breath, sucking the warm expelled air deep into alveoli and bronchiole; oxygen that had been in her blood dissolved in mine, fed my cells, moved the hand that curved over her bottom and between her legs, pulled her against me, gentle, inevitable, as slow as the turning of the world.

Later, she lay with her head on my thigh and her back against my ribs. I laid a hand on her rib cage and felt it rise and fall, rise and fall.

“Is it really this simple?” Her cage of bone and cartilage buzzed slightly under my palm as she talked. “Believe in yourself?”

“It’s like self-defense. You have to refuse to be trespassed against. You have to refuse to believe what people want you to believe. It helps if someone shows you a few simple things, but mainly you have to be willing to simply do it.”

“But what if some giant grabs some little old lady—”

“It doesn’t matter how small you are or how big they are. I can teach any reasonably able woman to render an attacker unconscious inside twelve seconds, if she’s willing. If she’s not willing, nothing will make a difference. ”

“Twelve seconds. How long would it take you to teach someone like me how to do that?”

“You’re more than reasonably able. And you’re smart. Five or six hours, total.”

She rolled onto her back. “Kick Kuiper, killing machine.” She smiled. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“You can teach me. But you have to let me teach you something in return. ”

“What did you have in mind?”

“Whatever you like. How to fall.”

“I know how to fall.”

“When someone throws you, maybe, when there’s no choice. But what about willingly, deliberately letting go?” She reached for her clothes. “Your truck has a tow bar, right? You want to go for a drive?”

I DROVE. She directed me north, along wet surface streets. Traffic was light and the air as sweet as the steam that comes off a cake just pulled from the oven. I kept to a sedate pace.

She approved. “I get so tired of people trying to impress me by weaving in and out of traffic as though they were riding a motorcycle.”

There was a motorcycle at the triple-sized storage unit. There were two. “This one,” she said, slapping a Suzuki’s metallic green tank, “is my off-road machine. Custom shocks. This one here is for high-speed freeway chases. But what we’ve come for today is my Model Seventy air bag, some crash pads, couple mini-tramps, and the air ram. The trailer’s in the next unit.”

THE LOT was quiet. Lights showed in the editing trailer, but the second one was dark. The warehouse door was closed. A young, alert-looking man in a rust-colored jacket nodded at us pleasantly, bid us a fine evening, and asked to see ID. A small name badge on his left lapel said he was Janski, of Turtledove Security. We obliged. He clearly recognized both our names, but nonetheless checked his list before smiling and stepping aside.

“How have things been?” I asked him while Kick held her card against the lock.

“Quiet.”

The door thunked and clicked open. It was cold. My skin tightened and my stomach tensed, but there was nothing obviously wrong. I considered, then made a mental note to talk to Turtledove about changing the locks, or the access code, whichever was best. We went in.

The standby lighting, pale and cool, made the set alien and vast. The islands of light had a greenish cast and seemed to ripple. The unseen roof loomed. Kick and I stood there, listening to the quiet.

“Cue creepy music,” she said.

Air moved on my cheek when it shouldn’t have; the tips of my fingers prickled.

“Hello, Earth to Aud.”

I listened hard. Nothing. My mind playing tricks again. “Yes. Sorry. I’ll find the lights.”

I pushed the levers up, and light blazed from every corner. “Oh,” I said. A five-story office building stood at the north end of the set in front of an enormous green screen—which still rippled lazily from the swing of air we’d let into the building.

“Yeah. I thought you’d think it was pretty cool.”

We unloaded the air bag and mats and other equipment, and Kick settled down to begin her methodical check for wear or damage.

The new building was the scaffolding, now clothed in a painted facade, which completely obscured the front and reached four feet around the sides. How had they done it so fast? I touched a window. Plywood. A ledge. Carved polystyrene. I walked around the back, shook an exposed metal cross-brace. Very sturdy. There were scaffolding steps bolted neatly up the inside.

“So, what do you think?”

“Impressive. How high did you say it was?”

“Forty-two feet, four inches.”

“Looks bigger.”

“Well, it’s supposed to. Want to go up and take a look?”

The steps were narrow and steep, but they didn’t move an inch as I climbed. The platform was painted wood, and there was none of that uneven surface or slight shifting I was used to in temporary construction.

“It all feels extremely solid.”

“It has to be,” she said. “Look down.” It was like looking over the edge of a four- or five-story house. “That floor is concrete. My bag is only twelve feet square, about the size of two of those judo mats end to end.”

The mats looked like fingerprints. Tiny.

“And if you don’t hit the center, you’ll go flying off into the wall or a camera. The most important thing for a safe diving stunt is a safe takeoff. When you’re thinking about how far out you have to jump, exactly, and you’re doing it on cue, you don’t need to be worrying about an uneven or unstable takeoff point. Come down, I want to show you the bag. If you’re going to learn, you should know your equipment.

“Now,” she said, at the bottom, “this is a Model Seventy, which means that it’s rated for falls up to seventy feet. Fifteen feet wide, twenty feet long, six and half feet high when inflated—which takes fifteen minutes or more, and every time someone lands on it, you have to inflate it again. See these flaps on the side? They act as valves. When you land, air squeezes out of them. Otherwise you’d just bounce off and get flung into the wall.”

I looked up at the tower, down at the air bag.

“You’re going to teach me to jump off that thing?”

“We’ll start with something smaller. Remember that fifteen-footer from the beginning of the shoot?”

I nodded. That wouldn’t be a problem. “Those valves. I imagine that means you can’t have two people jumping at the same time.”

“Right. Even if there was room for both in the sweet spot, which there isn’t, whoever landed a split second behind the first would have no air cushion and, boom.” She slapped her hands together, and the side door slammed open.

It was Rusen, grinning, glasses and teeth glinting. He waved a piece of paper. “She’s coming back!”

“Great,” said Kick. “Who?”

"Well, jeezy petes. Sîan Branwell, who else? I just got an e-mail confirming it. I saw that truck in the lot and thought, Well, who would be here at this time of night? Janski said it was you, and, boy, am I glad you showed up. We need to get to work on this right away.”

“Good evening, Stan,” I said, stepping into his line of sight. “How are you?” He looked confused. “Never mind. Branwell’s coming back, how long for?”

“Just a day. But that’ll—”

“When?”

“Day after Memorial Day.” He turned to Kick, head bobbing this way and that in an agony of anxiousness. “That’s just four days.”

“No problem,” she said.

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Oh.” He peered doubtfully at his e-mail. Then he smiled again. “This is going to make all the difference. It’s a knockout stunt, but not having to shoot around Sîan’s absence will… Boy howdy.” He looked at me. “Has she shown you the new storyboards?”

“Not yet.”

“They’re exciting.” To Kick: “You should show her.”

“I was working my way up to—”

“We could look at them now,” he said, and if she had been wearing something with sleeves, he would have plucked at them like a seven-year-old begging his mother to please, please come and see his spaceship made of cardboard boxes.

WE TALKED about it on the drive back. The stunt Kick and Rusen had dreamt up was to be a climactic battle between the fox woman and her corporate nemesis on top of a burning five-story building, with the winner throwing the loser to a slow-motion fiery death. Kick had talked knowledgeably about green screens, footage of a modest flame shot in the parking lot, fire department regulations, safety rigging, forced perspective, digital overlay, backlights, fill lights, key lights, and setups. The technical jargon lost me occasionally, but she seemed convinced they could make it look realistic. The scene hinged on getting a good, long shot of the falling body in front of the tower, and convincing close-ups of Branwell struggling with her opponent at the top of the same tower.

“I just hope she’s a quick study. She’s only going to have a couple of hours to rehearse.”

“And you’re not worried about the fall?”

“Not with Buddy on board. He’s a real pro.”

“Buddy,” I said.

“We go way back. He coordinated on Tantalus.”

“Buddy is going to do the jump,” I said. She nodded slowly, the way people do when they don’t take their eyes off you because they expect a fight. “Can we afford him?”

“He’s doing it as a favor to me. Scale. He’ll come in and do that jump on the first take, and then I won’t have anything to do until Branwell gets here on Tuesday. This way I get time. Lots of lovely time. I could even take two or three days’ break. Get back Monday to oversee last-minute details. It would be cheap at five times the price. Besides, there just isn’t anyone else available at short notice to do this.”

“There’s you.”

“I have MS.”

“But you’re fit right now.”

“Am I?” She gave me a measuring look. “Besides, no one would insure me.”

“I could.”

She laughed. “You don’t know what you’re saying.” She peered at me. “You really don’t, do you? You’d have to underwrite the whole production.”

“Yes.”

“Do you have any idea how much you’d have to guarantee?”

“I’ve looked at the books. Given two or three days to liquidate some securities, I could cover the whole thing.”

“This production is costing six million,” she said gently, trying not to burst my bubble.

“More than seven, with my current investment.”

“And you could raise that in three days.”

“It’s less than ten percent of my net worth.”

The words hung between us.

We drove in silence. Halfway across the ship canal bridge she said, “You’re ten miles over the speed limit.”

I slowed down. Cool night air flowed between us instead of words. I slowed down further.

“Now you’re fifteen miles under the speed limit.”

“Stay the night in my suite,” I said.

“It’s not warm tonight.”

“It’s not about that.”

“What is it about, then?”

“It’s a hotel, but tonight it’s the closest thing I have to a home to share.”

She thought about it for a while. “Okay.”

I drove east along North 34th. “Do you need anything?”

“If I can borrow some of your underwear tomorrow, no.”

I turned north up Stone Way, west on 38th, and headed south again and back across the bridge. I drove at the speed limit, paid attention to my rearview mirror, changed down in orderly procession through the truck’s gears at traffic lights.

We were silent as I pulled into the hotel courtyard. We got out. I handed the keys to the valet, who seemed momentarily nonplussed to be given charge of a pickup full of sawn-up cherry tree.

Kick was standing with her arms wrapped around her ribs. I had an idea.

“Would you like a new table?”

“A table?”

I patted the wood in the truck. “I want to make something for you. Something to remember your tree by. Your dining table is cherry.”

“Is it?”

“Come with me.”

Two doormen, one for each handle of the double entry, swung the doors open with a flourish. Kick’s chin went down.

Bernard was behind his desk in the upstairs lobby. “Ms. Torvingen.”

“Bernard.” Kick was staring at me, and then him, and then me again.

“Do you know of any woodworkers in town? I have some cherrywood that I’d like stored until my next visit.”

“As a matter of fact, I do.” He smiled, as though this were a request he dealt with every day, and gave me the name of a cooperative, “With a charming sales outlet,” in Pioneer Square. He wrote it all down. I folded the paper, put it in my pocket, thanked him, and said good night.

“Next visit?” Kick said as we waited for the elevator.

I was scheduled to leave a couple of days after my mother. I didn’t say anything.

“So. You said you’d make it. The table or whatever. Or did you mean you’d get some minion to cause it to happen?”

"I would make it,”, said. "With these hands.” I held them out to her. The elevator dinged.

We rode in silence up to my floor.

The suite was quiet and still. The thermostat read seventy-two degrees. It felt colder. Kick looked around without a word.

“I’ll order us coffee,” I said. “Unless you’d prefer something else.”

“Coffee’s fine.”

“Make yourself at home.”

From the bedroom phone I ordered a pot of French roast, good and strong, with cream and sugar in case she liked it.

Back in the sitting room, Kick was prowling about. She had taken her shoes off. “Your bathroom doesn’t have a tub.”

“The guest bathroom doesn’t.”

“A guest bathroom,” she said, and ignored the sofa to sit on the striped-silk chair. She pulled her knees under her chin and wrapped her arms around her shins. “How much does this place cost a night?”

I sat on the sofa and wished she was next to me. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know.”

Silence. “Would you like some music?”

“Sure.”

I took Barber out of the player and slotted the jewel case neatly back next to Brahms. From farther down the row, I slid out Sweet Honey in the Rock. Their a capella voices filled the suite with bravery.

A man tapped on the door and announced he was room service.

For once, I wished they hadn’t done such a good job. The whole presentation shrieked of money: silver tray draped in creamy linen, gleaming coffeepot and creamer and sugar bowl. The cups were white Wedgwood. A yellow rose so fresh it still had dew on the leaves graced the corner, next to a plate of fresh brownies dusted with powdered sugar and a beaded carafe of ice water.

Kick’s expression got more and more distant as the server laid everything on the table, one piece at a time, without a chink or rattle. I signed the chit and hung the Do Not Disturb sign on the door.

I sat down again on my too-big sofa.

“So. This is how you live.”

“I don’t normally live in a hotel.”

“That’s right,” she said. “You live in Atlanta.”

In a pause between tracks, the ice cubes in the water carafe shifted audibly. I put my hand on the coffeepot. “Black or with cream?”

“Black.”

I poured, sniffed the aromatic steam that curled up from the transparent bone china: smells of Africa and licorice and sun on teak.

She wrapped her arms even more tightly around her shins.

“What is it?”

“You terrify me.”

“What?”

“You terrify me,” she said distinctly.

It was like being harpooned.

“I didn’t mind that article. I told myself it was okay. It was okay. It is. But it frightens me that you can do that kind of thing anytime you want. You could buy half this city. You can take care of me. You can give me everything I ever wanted, everything I need, everything I might ever have dreamed of but might otherwise be unable to have, now. Because of…” She let go with one arm long enough to gesture at her body, the spine with its bright white lesions. “You offer me a way to have everything, to give up fighting. To just… give it up, give in, go gracefully into that good night. And the frightening thing is, I want to go. I want to never have to lift another finger, never have to worry about money again in my life, but then who would I be?”

“You’d be Kick.”

“No. Because who is Kick? I am what I do. And if it’s all done for me, what’s left?”

“I don’t understand.”

“I know. And it’s tempting to let you do it, anyway. But I can’t, because I don’t know what the hell I’m doing anymore, who I am.”

“You are Kick.”

“I was Kick. Before.”

I put the cup down, stood, and lifted the coffee table up and set it to one side out of the way. She watched me. I knelt at her feet. “You are Kick.” I bent and kissed her bare instep. “I know your skin.” I leaned forward, so that my cheek rested on her feet and each of my palms were flat on her hips. “I know the shape of your muscle, the heft of your bone.” I lifted my head. Her eyes met mine. I came to my knees and leaned in and kissed the corner of her mouth. “I know your mouth.” I ran my hand over her hair, down the side of her neck. Her pulse beat hard. “I know your pulse.” I kissed the other corner. Her lips opened. “I know your breath.” A light, almost-not-there kiss, like kissing a butterfly’s wings. “I know your scent. I know you. I always will.”

OUTSIDE CRYSTA LGAZE, I UNLOADED THE LAST OF THE HEAVY PADDING. DORNAN watched and tugged at his hair.

“And you swear you won’t be hitting me?”

“Won’t touch you.”

“It’s just for your ladies?”

“Yes. Now take this to the main-floor bathroom and”—a pale green Beetle convertible swept into the parking lot. Therese—“get changed. Go now, Dornan. Come into the room at exactly six-ten.”

“Ten past, yes, yes, now, you’re sure—”

Therese got out, she was waving something at me. She was clearly agitated.

I picked up the pile of padding, dumped it in Dornan’s arms. “Go.” I turned to Therese.

“I am so glad I can get a word with you,” she said. “I need you to listen to this.” She waved her phone again.

“What is it?”

“A message. From Sandra. Listen.” She hit a key, listened, then another, handed me the phone.

A woman’s voice, a whisper, as though she were hiding in a cupboard. “ ‘Moreover the Lord saith, Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with stretched-forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they do, and making a tinkling with their feet: Therefore the Lord… ’ ” She paused and spat softly, as people do when clearing their mouth of blood. “ ‘Therefore the Lord will smite with a scab the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion and the Lord will discover their secret parts.’ ” Another pause. Musing. “ ‘Discover their secret parts.’ ”

I turned off the phone, handed it back to Therese.

“When did you get the message?”

“Last night.”

“What did you do?”

“I wasn’t sure what to do. She didn’t ask for my help, I didn’t know…”

I waited.

“I called nine-one-one.”

“And what did you say?”

“I gave Sandra’s address.”

“She gave it to you?”

Therese nodded, kept nodding as she realized what a coincidence of timing that was. “I gave her address and said they should get an ambulance there.”

“And then what happened?”

“I don’t know. I was up all night thinking and thinking about it. This morning there was nothing on the news. Nothing anywhere.”

There never was, unless someone died.

“Did I do the right thing?”

“It never does any harm to call nine-one-one. They would have sent police as well as an ambulance. If Sandra was hurt, she would have got help. If she was in danger, she would have been protected.”

Another car pulled into the lot, a battered Civic. Tonya: tense, ready.

“You didn’t call Sandra?”

“She didn’t give me her phone number. I don’t even know her last name.”

“I see.” I didn’t. But another car was arriving. Time to go in.

SEVEN MINUTES later, the basement air smelled singed, like an iron skillet heated too long on the stove: partly someone’s overuse of hair spray—odd, the way some people prepared—and partly adrenaline sweat. Sandra was the last to arrive. Her left arm was strapped close in a black sling. When she dropped her purse on the bench and turned, the new bruise along her collarbone was momentarily visible. Her face was expertly made up. No one said anything, but the taste in the air intensified to gunmetal and cordite.

Therese dithered, unsure whether to talk to Sandra, whether she should acknowledge the phone call, admit she had called 911.

I didn’t wait for her to make up her mind.

“In”—I glanced at the clock—“nine minutes, my friend Dornan will come in. He will be wearing body armor and padding. He will attack you impartially, without malice, one by one. We will decide on the order before he arrives. You will hit him with everything you’ve got. You can’t hurt him. Even his joints will be specially braced. He will keep attacking you until he signals that he’s sustained what would be a knockout or structurally disabling blow if he weren’t padded. He will signal this by patting his head with his hand—or slapping the mat with his foot or hand if his head is unreachable. ” If, for example, it’s rolled off into the corner of the room and is being smashed like a piñata. “I’ll repeat all this before we begin.”

Jennifer’s face was glaucous and glistening. Good. That fear would translate nicely to the kind of adrenaline I—they—would need.

“This is the order in which he’ll attack: Tonya, Suze, Sandra, Nina, Pauletta, Jennifer, Therese, Katherine, Kim, Christie. You know everything you need to know about knocking a man down. Dornan is in his early thirties and reasonably fit, average height, and a little below average weight—until you add in the sixty pounds of padding. Sandra, tell me about your injury. Will you be all right for this exercise?”

“It’s just bruises.”

"Were you X-rayed?”

“No. But it’s an injury I’m familiar with. Soft-tissue injury. Muscles, not ligaments. And it’s been documented.”

Documented. Was that a reference to the ambulance? She seemed almost supernaturally calm. Because the daughters of Zion are haughty… She had reached the place some people find before they die. I doubted she could do much to harm anyone in this class with me watching, but she could hurt herself, which would distract everyone. I considered. If it were only bruises, being attacked would be painful but probably wouldn’t pose a danger of serious damage. I’d tell Dornan to grab her around the waist. I nodded, and continued with the task at hand.

“Dornan will attack you as you walk. He will attack you from the side or the front or the back. For the purposes of this scenario, you should assume he wants to drag you somewhere such as his car or yours, that he wants to hurt you. This is not a situation in which to talk. You fight. Questions?”

“What’s he dragging us off for?”

“Whatever is the worst thing you can imagine, but you will not stop in order to elicit this information. Ideally you will render him unconscious or otherwise incapable of pursuing you. Think of your best moves, the ones you’ve rehearsed this last week: your kicks or your throws or your punches. There is no reason, given your training, that you couldn’t half kill an attacker in under twelve seconds.”

Now they were all pale. Lots of glances at the clock. Six minutes.

“Remember everything we’ve learnt about fear. The most important thing is to breathe. What is the most important thing?”

“To breathe,” Christie said.

“Good. Please stand. Sandra, take off your sling. Line up along the mat, in the order in which you will be attacked.”

Some reluctant shuffling. Some stress clumsiness and bumping. One startling high-pitched giggle from Katherine.

“Raise your arms. Take a deep breath. Stretch up, stretch that spine.” Spinal muscles were always the ones that got wrenched, and Sandra, at least, hadn’t had time to warm up. I watched her carefully. Her left arm went up as smoothly as the right. Pain is just a message. “Breathe out as you lower your arms. Raise and breathe in. And now we’ll squat and breathe out, hard. And up and in. And down.” Therese and Tonya both went backwards. “Good. Yes. Why not. We’ll do some rolling. And up and in, and down and out and over. And up. Good. Yes.” Much less pale now.

Though still some glances at the clock. Five minutes. “Breathe. Down and out, loudly please, loudly, and over, and up.” Down and out and over and up, and down and out and over and up. I could see good steady carotid pulses. Too steady in some cases. I needed them pumped. “Down.” Down they went. I thought of the Haka, a traditional Maori war chant designed to provoke and intimidate the enemy while pumping up the chanters. It is death, it is death, it is life, it is life…. “This time, when you go down, use your voice. Shout whatever you’ve been imagining all week in your anger scenario. And up, and fill those lungs, and down!”

“Die!” bellowed Suze, and I caught two or three halfhearted no’s and a weak blam from Nina.

I laughed. Suddenly it was all quite ridiculous. “Apart from Suze, you may as well be asking them in for tea. We have four minutes to get you ready. So once more, with feeling. Up. Breathe. Long and slow, long and slow, and this time when you go down, I want to hear you. And down.”

I went down with them and bellowed. “Hoo! And up. And again. Hoo!” More noise now. Suze was enjoying herself. Christie began to cut loose.

Three minutes.

“Stand tall. You are about to be attacked. You’re about to defend yourself as though your life depends upon it. I want you awake. I want you ready. Yes, you’ve just come from work or picking up your children. Yes, this is a basement room with bad carpet. Yes, essentially you’re safe. But if you can do this now, you can do it anywhere. Anywhere. So this is a real test. Feel your pulse beat. Feel your breath. Feel how solid, how strong you are. Remember that no one has the right to hurt you, no one. Who has the right to hurt you?”

“No one,” Suze said.

“I can’t hear you.”

“No one!” barked Tonya.

“That’s right. On the count of three, everybody: Who can hurt you? One, two—”

“No one!”

“Who?”

“No one!”

One minute. “With me, now.” I lifted my hands. Clap-clap, stamp; clap-clap, stamp: the opening beat of Queen’s anthem, "We Will Rock You.” "With me.” Clap-clap, stamp. Clap-clap, stamp. Clap-clap, stamp. They all picked it up. You’d have to be dead to be impervious to that rhythm. Clap-clap, stamp. Clap-clap, stamp. Now they were lifting their arms with the stamping.

The air-conditioning began to grind. It added another layer to the rhythm.

Thirty seconds.

Clap-clap, stamp. Clap-clap, stamp. The concrete floor trembled. “Face front!” Clap-clap, stamp. The line was straight, facing the door, an army focused on a weak and contemptible foe. Clap-clap, stamp.

The door opened.

Dornan lumbered in. He moved slowly, deliberately—the only way he could—and the rhythmic breathing along the line matched his steps exactly: harsh breathing, protect-the-homeworld breathing.

His helmet was huge, padded inside and out, with protective plates welded on the front, back, and sides, and themselves padded; triangular eye holes covered with Perspex, a mouth grille, ear grilles—a big metal pumpkin head. He wore a quilted suit covered with body armor and then more padding. Special braces at wrist, elbow, and knee made him move awkwardly. I’d sprayed parts of it silver to look even more otherworldly and menacing.

He stopped at the far edge of the mat, as I’d asked him to, and swiveled his head this way and that. No doubt he was simply trying to see through the triangular eye holes, but it was a particularly machinelike and alien movement.

I felt—or at least imagined I could—the women on either side of me draw together like a muscle: organic, flexible, strong.

I stepped out of line, surveyed them, nodded, and said, “Tonya. You will walk along the center of the mat. When he attacks you, fight back. Do not stop until he touches his head or until I tell you otherwise.” I gestured her forward.

Her legs shook. The air-conditioning shut off abruptly. She walked with very small steps to the left-hand edge of the mat. Dornan had strict instructions not to attack anyone until she began to walk across the mat. As she passed me I realized she was whispering something to herself that might have been “No one, no one.” At the edge of the mat she stopped, and turned, and hesitated.

I looked her full in the eye. “No one,” I said, and gave her an encouraging nod, and she took that first step. Dornan simply stood there. She took another. Tiny steps. “No one,” I said, and raised my eyebrows at her.

“No one,” she said tremulously. “No—”

Dornan moved.

“—one.” It was a shriek.

She flailed at him, he lowered his head slightly and stood while her first three blows—they couldn’t really be described as punches—bounced harmlessly from his chest and shoulder.

The class tightened, groaned and gasped.

I tuned my voice to cut through the noise. “Put him down: throat, knee, eye.”

She was so far down the tunnel of the Adrenaline Now that I wasn’t sure she would hear me or even see anything. Dornan lifted his arms and stepped forward again to engulf her but with a shriek she threw herself at him: double-fist slam to the chest and then, astonishingly, a head butt right over his nose, wham, and over he went.

“Finish him,” Suze yelled.

Tonya dropped to one knee and drew her hand back. I saw the supported finger a second before she launched a knuckle strike at his throat that would have put an unpadded attacker in the hospital, if not the morgue.

Dornan patted his helmet but no one noticed. Tonya threw back her head and ululated, tears streaming down her face. The room exploded with hoots and screams and cheers. “Next!” I said, and while Suze gradually realized that was her, I helped Dornan to his feet. He managed a wink before resuming his place at the edge of the mat.

“You are going to die, you fuck,” Suze said. Her face was pale and she had both fists up. Everyone cheered. “Totally die. Come and get it!”

“Suze, you have to walk on the mat.”

“What?”

“On the mat. He won’t attack you until you walk.”

“Right. Okay.” She didn’t move.

“Just take a step.”

She looked unsure.

“Kill him, Suze.” “Yeah!” “You can do it.”

“No one,” Nina said. “No one!”

Suze took one step. Another. Her shoulders tightened. Dornan just stood there.

“Walk,” I said, implacable.

She ran, and Dornan ran, and they both went down, and Suze went berserk: her knees, her elbows, her feet, her fists pumping like wild things. Somewhere in that blind rain of blows, something must have hit something vital because Dornan patted his helmet decisively and rolled away.

Suze stood up and blinked. I went to her and said, “Good, that’s good.”

“Yes,” she said.

“You can stand with the others now. You did well. Stand with the others. ” Dornan was already up and in position, the class was clapping. I stood by him a moment. “Avoid the next one’s shoulder if you can.” He nodded. I returned to my place. “Next,” I said. “Sandra.”

The class started to call out encouragement but she smiled and strolled to her edge of the mat as smooth and cool as a cup of cream and the yells clotted and died. In the silence she looked at Dornan, nodded, and stepped onto the mat. He didn’t make her wait.

She jumped to one side and with eerie precision kicked his left knee out from under him. He went down like a stunt horse in a cavalry charge. I could have sworn I saw a hint of a smile on her face in her split-second pause, but then she fell to her knees, raised both hands as though to God, and slammed two elbows down on his spine. Axe kicks are a more efficient use of power, but without body armor, even those blows might have paralyzed Dornan.

He patted his helmet. She stood, looked down, then deliberately balanced and gathered herself.

“Sandra!” I shouted, just in time to spoil her aim slightly, and the axe kick she’d aimed for exactly the same spinal target missed and hit his ribs instead. “Dornan, move away. Move away.” He didn’t move. “Sandra.” She turned. She was definitely smiling. “Sandra, it’s done. Over.”

“Over,” she repeated.

Dornan stirred. She turned back.

“Sandra, it’s done. You did it.”

“Done.” She watched Dornan pull himself into a ball, and then uncurl and haul himself to his feet.

Light glinted off the Perspex eye protection. I couldn’t see past it. I moved to one side, stepped closer. His eyes were a little wider than usual but didn’t seem panicky. I raised my eyebrows. He nodded, I nodded back. I had no idea what I would have done if his courage had failed him, or the padding.

“Next. Nina.”

Dornan was getting wilier, or perhaps Nina had been shaken by Sandra’s performance, but he managed to get his arms around her waist and lift her from the mat for a moment, “No,” she shouted. “No, no, no, no,” and struggled, futilely, until Pauletta yelled, “Three-year-old, three-year-old, ” and “No!” Nina said, with ragged gravitas, and made herself a dead weight until he sagged and she could get her feet on the ground and shove backwards with all her strength. They both went down, after which the usual panic blows followed in a hail of no, no, no’s and at some point he slapped out.

The rite of passage continued. One by one they stepped up, lashed out, and were led off the mat in a triumphant daze: Pauletta, who laughed maniacally through the whole thing; Jennifer, who cried before she’d even begun; Therese, who dispatched the lumbering Dornan with a neatly executed elbow to the side of the head, followed by a foot sweep, followed by a stamp on his knee: disabling, but not lethal. Katherine, of course, began and ended with kicks, and Kim was the only one who used a palm strike—which clearly took Dornan off guard. Christie, though, was the best of all. She let herself be grabbed by the shoulders, then simply fell backwards and hurled him over her head. He was patting his helmet before she even stood up. She stood up grinning. She knew she’d done well. She knew they all had.

Brief silence, then pandemonium: shrieking, laughing, more tears, hugs. On the other side of the room, Dornan lumbered to the bench, started to sit down, and changed his mind. He tugged at his helmet. I wandered over.

“All right?” I said.

He got the helmet off and held it under his arm, like a fencer. He breathed for a moment. “You owe me, but you know that.” Then he grinned. “Though it is nice to make so many women happy. If I’d known that all it took to worm my way into a woman’s heart was to let her beat the shit out of me, my early life would have been very different. Help me with all this nonsense.” As soon as his gloves were unstrapped, he yanked them off and tucked his hair behind his ears.

“That kick to your ribs didn’t hurt?”

“It’s nothing,” he said, then straightened suddenly, got a twinkle in his eye, and his brogue thickened, “nothing in service of helping these lovely ladies.”

They had regained their awareness of the room beyond their own triumph and had noticed that the evil space alien was a not-unattractive male.

“Oh, my goodness,” said Jennifer. “Are you all right?”

“Perfectly fine. In the peak of health.”

“Bet we scared you, hey?” Nina said.

"Absolutely. Terrifying.”

“Did we hurt you?” Therese wanted to know.

“My pride, possibly. I had no idea ladies could be so fearsome.” Brilliant smiles all around. “You astonished me.”

“We had a good teacher,” Christie said.

“Indeed?” Dornan gave me a wink, as if to say he saw I was glowing under a bit of flattery as much as anyone else in the room. “Oh, indeed. Yes.”

“And we really didn’t hurt you?” Kim seemed a little disappointed.

“I’d have to get out of all this padding to find out.”

“Did you like that palm strike I gave you?” she said.

“Blinded and surprised me,” Dornan said, though if I’d had to bet it would be to the effect that he couldn’t remember one blow from another. “Took me completely off guard.”

“And my knuckle strike?” Tonya said.

“Ah, now that I remember very clearly. Like a bolt from heaven. My life quite passed before my eyes.”

He was troweling it on. Any minute they’d realize that. “No doubt Dornan would really appreciate the opportunity to get out of that extremely uncomfortable suit.”

“Oh, my, yes indeed.” “Oh, you poor thing.” “We mustn’t keep you.” Good southern women, they said all the right things while still managing to look crushed: they had not yet had the chance to refight their battles.

“But no doubt he’d be willing to rejoin us for a debriefing?”

“No doubt, ladies, no doubt.”

It would give me the chance to debrief them properly, after which Dornan could twinkle at them and make them feel mighty. They’d done well. They deserved every ounce of their triumph. Meanwhile, though, it wouldn’t do any harm to lead them through another round at the punch bag, refining what they’d learnt in the heat of their personal battle.