Always

TWO

I WOKE EARLY, STILL ON ATLANTA TIME, SHOWERED, REREAD BETTE’S FAX, SAW her note at the end, and called. I was shunted straight to her voice mail, which surprised me. Bette was almost always at work. It’s how I imagine her: behind her big teak desk, lizard brown and stick thin, chin wattles hidden by pearls, her Prada and Chanel suits always two years out of date. Seven years ago she had looked sixty-five; she still did. I dialed her home number and she picked up on the first ring.

“Aud? Well, hell, somebody call Ripley’s. You did as I asked for a change.” Her incongruously lush, Lauren Bacall voice was always startling. “You signed those papers I gave you last week?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I haven’t decided.”

“I spent a hell of a lot of your money making those adoption papers watertight. Sign or not, you’re getting a bill.”

I ignored that. Laurence had probably paid her already.

“Well, you talked to OSHA yet?”

“I haven’t even had breakfast yet.”

Silence, one of her go-for-broke silences. I knew what was coming.

“So. When you going to get around to telling me about that envelope from Norway?”

“Bette…”

“Now don’t ‘Bette’ me, not this time. I didn’t trouble you with it last year because your friend just died. I didn’t trouble you with it when you came in for your year-end taxes because you still looked thin and peaky. I didn’t even trouble you with it last month, when you were here to talk about your will and power-of-this and power-of-that, because of that mess with your student. But, look, sweetie, it’s been a year—”

“Not quite.” Not until the seventeenth.

“—you’re looking good again, and I need to know just what it is I’m holding in my safe. It smells bad, for one thing.”

The day I had written that letter, had bled all over the envelope, Julia had still been alive. Twelve hours earlier she had sat on my lap in her blue dress… Or had it been grey? And I couldn’t remember how she’d worn her hair.

I heard the faint tick-tick that meant Bette was fiddling with her big clasp earrings, which also meant she was frowning.

“It was a kind of insurance. I don’t need it anymore.” Most of the people named in the letter were now dead.

DORNAN AND I ate breakfast in the hotel’s huge dining room cantilevered out over Elliott Bay. There wasn’t much to see; the bay was draped in low cloud and fine rain like mist. I ate bacon and eggs and sausage. Dornan, tourist book on one side and maps on the other, crunched happily on toast. His fireplace, he said, had a remote control, and someone had thoughtfully provided a teddy bear. “Of course, I didn’t find it until I crawled under the covers, when I got the fright of my life.” I added a little salt to my eggs. “Do you have a bear?”

“I have little rubber ducks in my shower.”

“I went for a walk this morning. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a proper morning. Bless the time difference. Did you know there’s a nice park near here? And dozens upon dozens of little espresso carts selling latte and Frappuccino—Frappuccino in this weather.”

It would be in the high sixties today, about twenty degrees cooler than in Atlanta. I ate some more sausage.

“What do you want to do? It’s not the sort of day to play tourist in the outdoors,” he said.

He had lived most of his life in summers like this, in Dublin, and I had grown up in Norway and England. But I’d been in Atlanta since I was eighteen, and Dornan only a few years less. Sometimes the body acclimatizes so thoroughly that we forget things have ever been different.

“I have some business. We could meet for dinner. You?”

“I consulted the very nice concierge, who tells me that once you’re downtown you can ride the buses for free.” Free was a magic word for Dornan. “I thought that if I might persuade you to drop me somewhere I’d spend the day doing my research: eating and drinking and absorbing whatever it is that makes Seattle… well, whatever it is.”

The name of the very nice concierge turned out to be Pascalle, and after breakfast she told me that, yes, the Audi A8L Quattro I had ordered had arrived twenty minutes earlier, and here were the keys.

THE AUDI felt like a banker’s car: beautifully machined, competent but not compassionate, giving the driver a sense of admiration but not involvement. The six-speed transmission had very sensitive shift-mapping, matching revs on the downshifts, moving for an instant to neutral and selecting the lowest gear. It was almost as seamless as a manual transmission. I switched briefly to the hybrid manu-matic, then switched back. Too fussy. So was the MMI, the multimedia interface. I turned off the navigation and turned on the radio. Rain spattered the windshield and was automatically wiped away. I rolled up all the windows except the one on the driver’s side.

THE OCCUPATIONAL Safety and Health Administration deals mainly with employers, the leaseholders rather than owners of any particular piece of real estate. The offices of Region Ten, OSHA, were on Third Avenue. The lobby was the kind one would expect of an office building in any big city, hard floors, steel-doored elevators, people carrying briefcases. But every other person walking across the echoing space carried a go cup, and business attire was casual, Eddie Bauer slacks speckled with rain. Many, I guessed, had used public transport and then walked. In my Armani suit I cut through the crowd like a hammerhead among trout.

The OSHA suite was on the seventh floor. I lied to a perfectly nice man called Michael Zhao, expressing extreme concern for my cross-shipping facility on Diagonal Avenue South, in the Duwamish district, professing an overwhelming affinity for statistics, and asked for CFR citation and OMB control numbers regarding intermodal containers, confined and enclosed spaces, conveyors, docks and loading docks. I smiled winsomely and asked if he’d be willing to let me take a peek at the records for my place, and had he any experience himself of walk-through inspections? He talked happily for two hours.

The EPA, on Sixth, was another matter. It was a much bigger operation, for one thing. The woman I eventually found my way to was about fifty with faded red hair and shoulders that slumped more from weariness than habitual bad posture. Her nameplate read Antonia Merrill. I nodded sympathetically at the empty cubicles around her and said, “It looks as though this year’s budget cuts are hitting you hard. I’m hoping I can help you with at least part of your workload.”

KARENNA BEAUCHAMPS CORNING, my local property manager, had an office suite on the twenty-third floor of Two Union Square. The door to Corning’s suite was frosted glass, the handle substantial. The young man at the front desk looked up when I walked in.

“Good morning?” he said, not sounding too sure. Perhaps it was because I wasn’t carrying a briefcase. He glanced at his appointment book.

“Which is Ms. Corning’s office?”

“It’s the first on the l—That is, is she expecting you?”

“No, but I doubt I’ll take more than an hour of her time. If she has any other appointments, it would be best to cancel them. I take my coffee with cream, no sugar.” He paled before he flushed.

The door to Corning’s office was solid-framed oak. She looked up from her keyboard, and then past me. “Where’s Gary?”

“At the front desk.” I shut the door and took a seat opposite. She frowned.

“Is he all right?”

“My name is Aud Torvingen. Of Total Enterprises.”

Her frown flickered, then deliberately eased into a smile that was just a touch quizzical. It was nicely done. “Ms. Torvingen. I’m surprised, of course, but…”

She waited for me to apologize for the inconvenience. “Diagonal Avenue South,” I said. “Revenue from my property there is sixty percent below that of comparable properties.”

She smiled. “It does sound bad, doesn’t it? But Seattle has been hit harder than many cities by the recent slowdowns. The last two years have been hard on the import and export of goods in particular, which will of course have a great impact on cross-shipping facilities.” My silence seemed to encourage her. “In addition, I’m afraid your property has suffered by comparison with the recent upgrades undertaken by most of your competitors. You may recall that I recommended we follow suit some time ago. As it is, we had to let it on a short-term lease to a movie production company. ”

She held her up her hand, as though I were about to interrupt her.

“But, you’re probably thinking, there’s been no shortage of tenants. And that’s true. But while it was certainly the case ten years ago that a company that signed a lease would have been a sure thing, times change. Productivity is the key in this business, as in many others, of course, and companies will spend a great deal to abandon a seemingly profitable position if they can increase their long-term productivity by breaking a lease and moving to new premises. Particularly if there’s been trouble with regulatory agencies.” She smiled and picked up the phone. “Would you like some coffee?”

“Does that usually work?”

She stopped, finger an inch above the intercom button. “Excuse me?”

“The smile and the patter, does it usually work?” There was a tap at the door and Gary came in. The spoon on the saucer rattled a little as he put the coffee on the desk. He left without saying a word and I realized I hadn’t thanked him.

“I’m sorry?” Corning said, staring at the gently steaming cup.

“I’m not particularly interested in an apology. You’re fired. I have already instructed my attorney to that effect.” I stirred and sipped. Just the right amount of cream. “However, I would like to know why you have let one of your valued clients lose money hand over fist for more than eighteen months. Or perhaps I’m not the only one?”

Her eyelids swelled slightly. “It is not within my power to control calls to OSHA and the EPA.”

“You’ve been in this business for a long time and know everyone in the relevant local bureaucracies—city, county, state, and federal. It is within your power to mediate with those agencies. It is within your power to apprise me of developments. It is within your power to negotiate with the leaseholders towards a satisfactory outcome.”

“The regulations—”

“Don’t matter much, as you know. If they did, the relevant agencies would have prevented you from leasing the facility anew each time and taking your percentage.”

“If you’re suggesting—”

“What I want from you is a full and frank explanation of the situation and I’d like it by Monday. Do you think that’s possible?”

“The situation is extremely—”

“Do you think that’s possible?”

“I don’t know.”

“I can of course find out for myself, though in trying to duplicate what you already know I might inadvertently dig up all kinds of information you would rather keep private, and which I would have no compunction in turning over to the authorities. Take a minute to think it over while I finish this excellent coffee.” I sipped while she wrestled with whatever conscience she had left.

"It’s possible.”

“I’m delighted to hear it.” I stood. “Monday. Nine o’clock sharp.”

Walking down Third Avenue to the car, I passed a chocolate boutique. I stopped and ordered a dozen truffles which I sent, along with an apology for my rudeness and thanks for the coffee, to Gary.

NEXT ON my list was the Fairmont Olympic Hotel, where my mother and her new husband would be staying. The hotel was set back a good twenty yards from the street behind a U-shaped driveway. Even on a sunny day the huge building would keep the doorway in shade.

The events manager was in his early twenties and a zealot. He declared he would show me around personally, and proceeded to do so, leaving no function room unturned, beginning with the ballroom, “which, should you choose to celebrate your special day with us, is as you see more than adequate to accommodate a wedding party of up to three hundred.” From there we admired the “sweeping staircase, perfect for those unforgettable moments.” He actually clasped his hands to his chest. He regurgitated the publicity brochures while I noted guest and staff exits, elevator and stair distance, and window placement. He did pause in his flow when I insisted on sitting at four different tables in the formal Georgian Room, “just to get the feel of the place.” I found two tables that gave a view of all entrances and exits. The tiny private dining area, “The Petite, for more intimate dining, ” gave me a few concerns, but Shuckers, the pub-like oyster bar, was easy enough to parse. Then it was on to the lounges, the Terrace, and the Garden, “winner for three years in a row of the Seattle Best Martini Award, a light and airy atrium featuring innovative finger foods, an assortment of cocktails, and jazz from nine till one a.m.” Perhaps in the evening, with the right lighting and a band to disguise the echo, it would feel less like a grandiose greenhouse.

When he had finished his tour he gave me a dazzling smile and asked if I wanted to step into his office to look over rates and sample menus. I nodded vaguely and said I’d think about it and, oh, was that the time?

I had no idea why my mother had chosen such a place to stay. The rooms themselves were gracefully proportioned, with high ceilings and huge windows, but the fussy chandeliers and potted plants, the ornate balustrades and striped-silk upholstery would have led to lifted eyebrows and a comment about elegance and simplicity from the Else Torvingen I had grown up with. The idea of her playing Yum-Yum began to seem not so far-fetched.

BY MIDAFTERNOON, as I drove south on the curving Alaskan Way viaduct towards my warehouse, the low grey overcast and misty rain had been replaced by blue sky and puffy white clouds. The city was laid out on my left: the post-pomo industrial skeleton of Safeco Field, glittering office towers, stepped condominiums with rooftop gardens, and a massive neon goddess sign that turned out to be the Starbucks logo, serene under the light, luscious air. On my right, Puget Sound glittered in the sunshine, making even the container ships and huge orange cranes along the wharves look mischievous and elfin, a good-humored joke that lay lightly on the earth. The traffic was heavy but astonishingly well behaved; vehicles stayed in their lanes and signaled when they turned, and the drivers kept their free hands on their oversize go cups rather than their horns. I listened to KUOW, the local NPR station, with half my attention, and looked for the right exit.

Two miles south of the city center Highway 99 returned to ground level and the view was of oil-streaked concrete aprons and rusting shipping containers. My exit led through a series of yards and warehouses and rail spurs, the clanging heart of a working port. The streets were named after states and Native American peoples: Colorado Avenue, Duwamish, South Nevada, Snoqualmie.

I parked outside a corrugated steel warehouse. At some point it had been painted pale blue, but now it was mostly grey and rusty orange. The docking gates down the side were shuttered. Instead of semis in the parking lot, there were two trailers with Hippoworks Productions blazoned on the sides, a couple of vans, and an assortment of SUVs, all sparkling with sunlit raindrops. This was all mine, even the puddles on the worn asphalt, gleaming with oil rainbows, but it didn’t feel like mine, and I didn’t really want it. I’d never wanted it. Once I’d sorted out the problems, I’d sell.

NOONE checked my ID, no one even noticed as I stepped through the open rolling doors of my warehouse. I stood for a moment in the shadows by the right-hand wall.

I had thought that stepping onto a film set would be like being dropped inside a manic depressive’s head: periods of frantic activity punctuated by stressful, motionless silence as cameras rolled, followed by people rushing around setting up the next scene, with perhaps the occasional diva- or director-style tantrum to relieve the tedium. Here, the atmosphere reminded me of watching a road crew set up in an arena on the sixtieth stop in a world tour, or riggers raising the traveling circus’s big top: purposeful and brisk, with just the hint of a swagger, experts saying with their bodies and their competence, This is our world.

Forty or so people did not come close to filling the space, which was bigger than I’d expected, and more than fifty feet high in the center. In the far left corner, carpenters sawed and hammered; in another, two middle-aged men with paint-spattered clothes said something to a woman in a white coat at a makeshift counter, who was brushing back her mid-blond hair with her wrist. I hung a tag on the woman. A man and woman were walking with loaded plates over to a woman who presided over what looked like piles of Goodwill clothes. One man jumped off a platform about fifteen feet high onto an inflated bag that made a gassy whoosh, and then rolled off and started climbing back up to the platform while air compressors thumped. At the far end, in a blaze of lights, about two dozen people crouched behind cameras and cranes and dollies—they seemed to have adapted some of the decades-old rail tracks inset in the floor—or paced out marks, while a worried-looking man with glasses checked and rechecked snaking cables and a control board. Two men were lifting something from a box and onto the pile of old clothes. I hung a tag on them, too. There were monitor screens everywhere, even by the entrance and food counter; people glanced at them reflexively every so often. Something squawked over my head: a speaker on a makeshift shelf nailed to a joist. No one yelled Lights! or Camera! or Action!

I went back to the two men. One of them, slim and cocky as a flamenco dancer, had turned to say something to a woman dismantling an arc light, but the other was looking in my direction, and it was immediately clear why my subconscious had told me he didn’t fit. He had dark hair and a bony face—the kind of face teenage boys develop during their first major growth spurt. I doubted he was even sixteen, far too young to be on a film set. An anomaly, but not a danger.

The woman in the white coat was the caterer. She said something to the two men with the paint-spattered clothes that made them laugh, then pointed with a big knife to a platter of sandwiches, and went back to chopping. Perhaps it was the big knife that had flagged my attention. It shouldn’t have. My subconscious should have put the knife and the coat and the food together and given me the green light. I watched a little longer, but she just kept chopping, and she chopped like a caterer. No threat there.

Now people began to glance at me: quick flicking looks. Perhaps it was the suit. But they were obviously used to strangers. No one came over to find out who I was.

After a while, a pattern emerged: the woman with the heap of clothes was sorting through them, hanging some on the racks behind her, laying some on the table, dropping others in a series of cardboard boxes. The costumer. The worried man with the glasses was some kind of technical coordinator. I couldn’t tell who was the director or the producer or cinematographer, but every now and again someone would walk over to a man who sat to one side of the soundstage with a clipboard and pen that glinted gold. He also wore glasses, and the self-conscious frown I’d seen people adopt when they feel uncertain but want to look authoritative. In half a dozen places there were easels with placards that declared: FERAL: A FINKEL AND RUSEN PRODUCTION. Underneath, in hand lettering: LADYHAWKE MEETS DARK ANGEL! Everyone wore jeans or khakis or cutoffs. Several were very young, too young to drink, but only the one I’d tagged earlier was still obviously school age. No one looked remotely like a star.

Judging by the body language on the soundstage—moments of stillness, tightened jaws, short nods—it looked as though there were two sets of opinion about something. Before it could be resolved, a large truck pulled up outside, followed by another. There was a slamming of cab doors and the rattle of a tailgate, then the beep-beep-beep of a large vehicle backing up slowly.

A handful of people detached themselves from their tasks and headed my way, just as three people came in, two men and a woman with short, glossy hair, each pushing and pulling two loaded wardrobe rails, and laughing. Someone on the soundstage started shouting names, and half a dozen more people left what they were doing and made for the exit. Three or four more took the opportunity to head for the food counter and get some coffee. I wandered a little closer.

A few more of those flicking glances but they didn’t interrupt their conversation. There was a massive coffee urn and a commercial espresso maker. Most people seemed to prefer the urn.

The caterer was handing a plate to one of the carpenters. “…to Rusen. Tell him I know he’s busy. Tell him I said to eat.” He ambled off, plate in one hand, coffee in the other, towards the soundstage.

I examined the food: roast chicken breasts in rosemary, bread, rice salad, pasta salad, potato salad, skewers, two piles of roast beef sandwiches and tuna salad sandwiches, ready-cut pizza, and fruit on shaved ice. While I watched, the caterer lifted out the half-empty fruit platter and replaced it with halved strawberries and melons still oozing from the knife. Her hands were gloved, small for her height—she was five six or seven—and her movements as clean as a poem. I was surprised and not sure why. She felt my gaze and looked up. Grey-blue eyes, soft as dove feathers.

A crew member trundled a cart of shrubbery between us. Two others waddled by with potted palms. Most of them were heading towards the soundstage, where a woman halfway up a ladder was pointing and ordering this here and that there in a seemingly endless series of commands. Midstream she yelled, “Joel. Joel!” The man at the control panel pushed up his glasses and frowned. “Cut the stage lights.” Joel pointed at his watch and shook his head. “There won’t be any shoot at all if you keep those… Ah, hell with it—” She jumped down from her perch and strode over. She waved her arms. A moment later the arc lights went down with a thunk. The activity onstage seemed to increase. The man with the pen sat by himself, but now there was a plate of chicken on the floor by his foot. Rusen. I walked over. Up close the fineness of his sandy hair and his smooth skin told me he was in his late twenties or very early thirties, much younger than his clothing style or attitude. He looked rather forlorn, like an eight-year -old in a suit who has just lost his first chess championship.

“Busy time?” I said.

He looked up, mouth pursed, then leapt to his feet. “I’m so very glad you could—” He realized his hands were full, and turned and dropped the clipboard on his chair. He held out his hand again. I shook it and smiled gravely, wondering who he thought I was. “They’ll be at this for a while longer, but, please, come this way. We”—he remembered the food, and picked it up—“I have to—Bri?” The boy at the props table, the one with the bony face, looked up. “Bring me a coffee, would you, and—no, no, never mind, Ms. Felter and I will get our own.”

Ms. Felter? The boy, Bri, at least, didn’t seem surprised by Rusen’s mental U-turns. The man I’d seen Bri with earlier—also young, but not a teenager—joined him. Rusen and I walked to the counter, where the carpenters were taking advantage of the temporary chaos to get another cup of coffee. The caterer was chatting, standing wide-legged and easy, knife moving idly this way and that as she talked, taking up her space a little too aggressively, the way women who have been raised with a lot of brothers tend to do in a group of men. It was clear she had never considered using the knife for anything but food preparation; there was no awareness of its edge and balance as it related to the soft skin of the men around her.

She saw Rusen. “Hold it,” she said, to her audience and to Rusen, who stopped guiltily and waited while she filled a cup from the urn, added a pretty swirl of cream and a sprinkle of sugar, and handed it over. He looked apologetically at me before he took it, which made her frown. She studied me, and after a moment she picked up her knife and hefted it. Perhaps the body language was unconscious, but the message was clear: if you hurt him, I’ll hurt you. I smiled. After a measuring moment, she nodded. Something about the way her head moved made me realize she was very tired. She turned back to Rusen, looked at the plate, raised her eyebrows. “Yes,” he said. “I will.”

Rusen led me outside to one of the trailers, which was crammed with a heavy-duty digital editing suite at one end and a miniature office set up at the other. I sat on an office chair, a brand that costs almost a thousand dollars. He put his coffee and his plate down carefully.

“Now I appreciate that we’re several days behind schedule, Ms. Felter, but I hope the fact that CAA has sent you all the way up to our humble set bodes well, despite the, ah, the various delays.”

Felter. CAA. An accounting firm? It didn’t matter. I wouldn’t correct him. I would learn more and, if it seemed desirable, would take advantage of his confusion. “Go on.”

“The cancellation from Fox was very disappointing but I have high hopes, very high hopes, that our unique brand of televisual entertainment will find its niche.”

“Niche?”

“Niche, did I say niche?” He chuckled, but it didn’t sit well on his boyish face and he kept glancing over my right shoulder. “What I meant to say was demographic. I am still convinced that we have an untapped market in the fifteen- to twenty-four-year-old male and female urban viewership.”

“Still?”

“Yes, yes, it’s true we’ve been trying for eighteen months now to secure a network deal, but they seem to lack vision, they’re not willing to get behind a new concept, to take a glorious risk!”

“Risk?”

His blink rate rose and he started to tap his pen on his thigh. “Not that this project’s risky. No, not at all. Not in the sense of perhaps failing. No, no, it’s sure to succeed, practically guaranteed.”

I said nothing, having no idea what he was talking about.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and sighed, and smoothed his face with his left hand. “Using that word was foolish. I know there are no guarantees in show business. Let me begin again. I believe in this project; I believe we have a good product. The delays are not our fault. We have a good crew who are willing to work, and we can be back on schedule by the beginning of next week. I’d be willing to give your agency a very substantial part of the back end in exchange for…” He stopped. Sighed again. “I’m doing this all wrong, aren’t I? Oh, jeezy petes, I wish Finkel was here. He’s good at this.”

Finkel and Rusen. Producers. “Mr. Rusen, I’m not from CAA. I own this property.”

“You’re the landlord?”

“Yes.”

“You got my letter? I was beginning to think Ms. Corning hadn’t forwarded it. I was getting desperate.”

“You sent me a letter?”

“Yes. About the EPA stuff? They wouldn’t talk to me, and Corning said it would all have to go through you. She said—Ah, jeepers. You didn’t get it, did you. You’re going to kick us out.”

“No.”

“You’re not going to break the lease?”

“It’s in both our interests for you to be able to stay and do your work.” The place may as well be earning until I decided what to do with it. “Let me be sure I understand you. You tried to talk to the EPA?”

He nodded. “But they said I wasn’t the owner and it would have to go through whoever had the legal authority to make decisions. I looked at the lease, and I thought that would be Corning, but she said, no, it was you. She suggested I write a letter explaining things. She said she’d forward it. That was seven weeks ago.”

“And OSHA?”

“They’re talking to me. At least they were. I thought I was getting somewhere, but then the guy I was dealing with got transferred or something, and the new guy, Zhao, said we’d have to start over. And I was beginning to despair, because with Finkel away, there’s just too much stuff to do. And he’s better at this kind of negotiation than me.”

“Where is he?”

“He had a family emergency.” He made a vague gesture with his pen.

“When will he be back?”

“I don’t know.”

“When will you know?”

“Not sure about that, either.”

I breathed slowly and evenly. “If you had to guess, when do you think it might be?”

“A week? His boy’s sick. Real sick.”

“It might be better not to wait.” He looked nervous, more like that child chess player than ever. “I’ve already talked to Zhao at OSHA, and to EPA. Informally. Most of the write-ups are minor infractions: they only investigated because they had to, it’s the law, but if you make suitable apologies and promises, they’ll let you off with a stern letter and a proposed inspection schedule.”

“Yeah, that’s what the first guy said.”

“We can persuade Zhao to agree, but you’ll have to make the approach, as a representative of the employer, and it’ll have to be cap in hand.” I frowned. I had no idea why I was offering to help. Perhaps it was because he so clearly needed it. “Do you have any of their correspondence here?”

He blinked, then nodded, then scooted his chair to a keyboard and tapped a few keys. “What do you need?”

I remembered one of the OSHA sheets. “They have complaints about severely limited natural ventilation, potential to accumulate or contain a hazardous atmosphere, and other things relating to a definition of a confined space. Which this warehouse clearly isn’t. That would be a place to begin.”

“Confined space,” he said, and touched four keys. The printer began spitting.

“That was fast.”

“New software,” he said. “My design. It works like a spreadsheet, so you can organize by category, but virtually—you don’t have to designate the category beforehand. The tricky part was the search engine. I came up with a sweet algorithm…” He leaned forward and stopped tapping, and as he talked about each problem he had solved he started to look less like a precocious child than a confident MBA. When it was time to lead the conversation back to OSHA all his vagueness was gone.

“Two more things. Are there any minors on the set?”

“Minors? Children?”

“The laws are slightly different for anyone under sixteen. You’d have to be careful. Also, you might want to consider getting security at the door. You have a lot of valuable equipment here.”

“We have access cards. And when we’re shooting we have a person on the door, but there’s always someone around—” His pocket tweedled. “Excuse me.” He answered the phone. “Rusen. Boy, already?” He looked at his watch. “You’re right. Okay. One minute.” He folded the phone away. “Sorry about that, hadn’t realized how late it’s getting. They’re ready to run tape on a stunt shot we’ve been trying to set up for hours. Want to watch?”

IN THE warehouse everyone—props and catering and wardrobe and grips— was standing close to a monitor and checking obsessively. Rusen walked to his place by the soundstage, which now looked like a messy jungle with a vinyl floor. The heavy scent of lilies was overpowering. My throat itched.

Two of the people who had brought the extra costumes earlier now stood with the caterer, juice cartons in hand. She had wide shoulders, a tight waist flaring into rounded hips, and muscles on her fingers and forearms and neck. I guessed her back was also finely muscled, and her legs. It was muscle that comes with intensive training from an early age, the kind a trapeze artist or free climber or high diver develops. Not something acquired behind a food counter.

She was drinking water from a bottle labeled Rain City while the wardrobe assistant woman talked.

“…so I said, No shit? And he said, ‘Do I look like I’m kidding, ma’am?’ So John and me”—the assistant nodded at the man next to her—“got out of the car and they opened up the van and made us show receipts for, like, half the shit we bought this afternoon until they decided to believe we hadn’t stolen it. I thought Kathy was gonna punch my lights out for being so late. But if—”

A klaxon hooted, lights flashed red. Everyone instantly shut up and turned to the monitor, and then it was so quiet I could hear John breathing through his mouth. When I looked at the monitor I saw that through the eye of the camera the soundstage now looked like a huge florist’s wholesalers. I looked up at the stage and the image disappeared, back at the monitor and it reappeared. All about perspective.

“Roll sound,” a man with a self-important goatee and one heavy gold earring said loudly. “Roll camera. And… action!”

The diver, now dressed in the kind of tight black gear Hollywood thinks elite law-enforcement units wear, ran along his platform, looked behind him, and took a dive onto his air bag.

“Cut!”

Some thin applause from the direction of the soundstage. The caterer said to no one in particular, “Waste of film.”

“C’mon, John,” the wardrobe woman said. “Kathy’ll be having shit fits.” They left. I stayed. The caterer tipped her head back and finished her water. Her throat moved strongly as she swallowed, but she moved just a fraction more slowly than I expected. She watched me as she crushed her bottle— she wasn’t wearing gloves now; her fingers were short and powerful—then picked up the large triangular knife and turned back to her chopping board. I couldn’t tell what she was cutting. Sometime in the last half an hour she had retied her hair.

“What did you mean, that it was a waste of film?” I said.

Her chopping didn’t miss a beat. “They’ll have to reshoot.”

“Why?”

Chop, chop, chop. “You could see his face.”

“It looked good to me.”

Now she turned around. “It wasn’t good. I should know. I did that job for six years.”

“But not anymore?”

She gestured at her counter and chopping board with her knife. “What does it look like?”

It looked like tomatoes. I smiled. “I’m Aud Torvingen.”

“Well, good for you.”

I kept smiling. She was busy. I was a stranger. Perhaps she thought I was here to hurt Rusen in some way. “I don’t know your name.”

She pointed the knife at a Plexiglas sign that said Film Food and held a small tray of business cards. I picked one up. “Victoria K. Kuiper.”

“But no one calls me that,” she said, with a certain satisfaction, and started to turn away, but the klaxon hooted again, and the red light flashed, and we turned obediently to the monitor.

The director shouted, the camera whirred, the stunt actor dived onto the bag.

“Better,” the caterer said to herself, nodding.

“It looked exactly the same to me.”

“Nope. He tucked his chin more: not so much face.” She was studying me again, and now that she was still I could see the vast fatigue moving below the surface. “So, Aud Torvingen. You didn’t say why you were here, but I can guess. And my answers are the same as they were last week: I have no clue about and no interest in finding out just how fast this company will crash and burn. My business is food, not reporting bad management.”

“Bad management?”

“Gone deaf?”

I shrugged. It didn’t work on everyone. “Tell me why you think the set’s badly managed.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to know.”

“Now that I believe: you want something so you expect you’ll get it. You people are all the same. I don’t know what song and dance you sold Rusen in his trailer but I’ve been around film half my life”—she must have started barely in her teens—“and I’m not in the market for bullshit. Oh, and anything you take from this table, you pay for.”

“I’m not selling anything.”

“Walking in here in Armani like a CAA toad, and Rusen going all gooey-faced, like you’ve just offered him prime time for his useless pilot?” She pointed the knife at me. “Sure you are.”

Her grey eyes were red-rimmed, and the shadow under them almost matched her irises. She had been up a very long time. She clearly wasn’t happy. Let her keep her knife, then. “I’d really like to talk to you about your thoughts on the management of this set.”

She picked up a cloth and wiped the blade. “I don’t need people like you getting in my way. Stunt work wraps after this and the crew’ll want coffee before hair and makeup arrive to do the actors and we have to start all over again.”

“What about tomorrow?”

“With any luck at all I’ll be sleeping all day tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow night?”

She turned her back to me and started chopping. She swayed very slightly. I wondered how many hours she’d been up. There was a smear of tomato between her pocket and her lower ribs where she might have leaned against a counter. It would stain if she didn’t put it to soak soon, but that would be the last thing she would want to do when she got home, exhausted. Maybe she had someone to do that for her.

IT WAS six-thirty by the time I got back to the hotel. Pascalle gave me several suggestions for places to eat in typical Seattle neighborhoods. I scanned the list. One had the same prefix—547—as Kuiper’s business number. The Jitterbug, in Wallingford. It seemed as good a place as any. I got directions, then collected Dornan from his room.

We drove north on I-5 and exited on North 45th. After a mile or so I took a random left and drove slowly down a quiet, tree-lined street. Crafts-man bungalows mainly, with gardens tending towards the English country cottage perennial, but the well-lit front rooms were affluent and urban: paintings and sculpture, books, exposed brickwork and oiled wainscoting, brushed-steel audio-visual equipment, good lighting, sophisticated interior color.

“These people have got to be Scandinavian,” Dornan said. “Look at the cars.”

Most houses had two cars to a driveway, one an old favorite such as a dull red Saab from the late eighties, or a mustard yellow Volvo of the same era, the other something new and imported: a Lexus RX, a Subaru, an Audi. Maybe I should have rented a Ford. “They’re good cars.”

“And so very practical.”

Dornan mused aloud on the Norwegian nature of the city: a hotel on the edge of the water called Edgewater, a wine bar in a bungalow called the Bungalow, a bakery called the Bakery. “The Boulangerie doesn’t count,” I said. “It’s in French.”

I got back onto 45th and in the Jitterbug we were seated in a booth in the cozy back bar.

Dornan, after a lengthy conference with the server about the pros and cons of triple sec (sweet) and Cointreau (less so), ordered another kamikaze, and I chose a pilsner. The calamari we shared as an appetizer was fresh and tender.

I told Dornan about my visit to OSHA and EPA, and Corning.

“So you think she’ll actually tell you what’s going on on Monday?”

I shrugged. “She’ll tell me or I’ll find out on my own. It’s not rocket science. Like any other investigation, you just follow the money. But why do the work if I can get her to admit her part?” This way I wouldn’t have to bother bringing charges or being a witness.

“I thought you were just going to sell and walk away.”

“I am.” Probably.

“Then this is about you wanting to win first?”

“Something like that.”

“You could just kick her round the block a few times.”

“This is less effort.”

He gave me the look that said he knew there was more to it, something to do with what had happened with my self-defense class, but said only, “What do you suppose rockfish is?”

We asked, and were told that Europeans called it mullet, which set me thinking about red mullet and how the Romans had prized them. I ordered the Thai steamed rockfish, he took the oven-roasted chicken.

“The drive to the warehouse was nice,” I said as we ate, and told him about it. “But the site had no security. I just walked right onto the set. I tried to talk to the producer but he—What?”

“Set? A film set?”

“A company called Hippoworks is filming a TV pilot.”

“What kind of pilot?”

I thought about it. “It’s called Feral.”

“Who’s starring?”

I shrugged.

“Christ, Torvingen, it could have been someone famous. You could have had lunch.”

“Do you want to go?”

“It’s a film set.”

I took that as a yes. “I’m going back tomorrow. You can come if you want. I have to talk to one of the producers. And maybe this most annoying woman, who seems to have some opinions.” I dug out her card. “She runs a catering company, oh, excuse me, craft services. Film Food.”

He looked at the card, gave it back, grinned. “Is she Norwegian?”

“You can’t say things like that when you meet my mother.”

“I don’t intend to say anything to your mother except ‘please’ and ‘thank you.’ Are you picking her up from the airport?”

“The consulate will see to that.” She would be taken off the plane and ushered through the VIP courtesies and probably be at the Fairmont before the economy passengers were clearing the gate—if she was flying. For all I knew, she could be arriving by train or car. However she traveled, at some point she would be standing in her suite at the Fairmont, and then she would phone me.

“When was the last time you saw her?”

“Let’s talk about something else.”

“Fine. How’s your fish?”

“Delicious. But it’s not mullet.” I made a note to look up “rockfish” later.

IN THE car, I said, “Do you know what CAA is?”

“In what context?”

“The Film Food woman said I looked like a quote CAA toad unquote in my Armani suit.”

“Ah. That would be Creative Artists, a big Hollywood agency. I believe they do all wear Armani. Apparently they also move together in groups, like killer whales.”

“How do you know all this stuff?”

“I read Entertainment Weekly.”

Which just reminded me of Loedessoel.

Dornan was grinning again. “Did she really call you a toad?”

IN THE hotel, I had a phone message from my lawyer, Bette: “I faxed those papers, but let’s talk before you sign ’em.” It was one o’clock in Atlanta; it could wait until tomorrow. I checked the fax: twenty-two pages of poor-resolution printing. I wished Bette would join the twenty-first century and use e-mail like everyone else.

I booted my laptop. An e-mail from Laurence, my banker, with estimates of the worth of my property should I choose to sell. Let me emphasize once again, though, the importance of local expertise. I’ll send you a list of eminent local real estate agents tomorrow. I sent him a quick acknowledgment, then opened a search box.

Rockfish turned out to be a kind of bass, not mullet at all. Rusen, it seemed, had graduated from UCLA film school just a few months ago. Before that he had been some kind of software wunderkind. His small company had been bought out by a local behemoth. He was probably bankrolling his own production.

My eyes felt dry and gritty. I closed the laptop.

I emptied my pockets onto the dresser, pondered the Film Food card. Victoria K. Kuiper. Sounded Dutch. But no one calls me that.

Someone had turned the covers back. I found the teddy bear and dropped it on the floor. Found the remote for the fire and turned it off.

Vicky? Definitely not. Vic wasn’t right, either, nor Tory. Those muscles on her arms. Kory? Kuiper? Per? Stupid woman, waving that knife around. Film Food. Very Norwegian. My mother…

THE HEATING DUCT HISSED AND FILLED THE BASEMENT WITH THE SMELL OF burnt dust but not much warmth. I made a mental note to talk to the Crystal Gaze advisory board about that. At some point in the last week someone had left a whiteboard balanced on the stacked chairs by the bench, and a grey pegboard against the far wall. Suze was there on time. They all were, which surprised me. I’d expected two or three dropouts. Today no rings glinted, no earrings dangled, no chains apart from the crucifix around Pauletta’s neck. But there were two pairs of wicked heels under the bench. Everyone wore pants and a tank top or a short-sleeved T-shirt, except Sandra. It wouldn’t surprise me to find she had a lot of long-sleeved shirts in her wardrobe. Kim’s fingernails were maroon today, and still long.

“Did everyone do their lists?” General nodding, a few movements towards bags or coats. “No. I don’t want to see them. I want you to remember, during this class, what you wrote down.”

Suze stirred slightly. I gestured for her to speak.

“You ever write one of those lists?”

“No.”

“So how do you know what you’re willing to do, when it comes right down to it?”

I could point to the bullet scar on my arm and the thin white seam under my ribs, I could tell her about the man I had put in a coma at the end of last year, or the gunman I had killed with a flashlight when I was eighteen. But she wasn’t really asking about me. “We can never know. Not really. Every situation is different.”

She frowned.

They know nothing, I reminded myself. “Are you willing to be a guinea pig?” I said.

“Sure,” said Suze.

I stepped to the center of the room, beckoned for her to join me, and the instant she began to move I lunged at her, fist raised. She flinched and stepped back and turned away, hands going up to protect her head. Most of the others—but not Sandra—shot backwards like iron filings suddenly attracted to the wall. After a moment Suze looked up to find me standing two feet away, arms at my sides.

She started to uncurl. “What the fuck was—”

I lunged again, and again she flinched and stepped back, but this time she didn’t turn aside, her eyes stayed on me, and her hands went only halfway up. Everyone else was pressed flat against the wall.

“One more time,” I said, and lunged, and once again she flinched, but her step back was small, her hands were in fists, and her chin pointed up. Therese looked as though she was about to protest.

I raised both palms and stepped back two paces. "Thank you. I won’t do it again—to you or anyone else—without warning.” It took Suze a moment to decide to believe me, then she lowered her fists, but not her chin, and rejoined the others who were stepping cautiously away from the wall.

“So,” I said, “what did we learn from that?”

“Never volunteer.” Pauletta, and she sounded put out.

“Besides that.” No one said anything. “All right. What did Suze’s first response look like to you?”

“Like you scared the shit out of her for no good reason,” Nina said.

“And what about her second response?”

“The same, but less.”

“I was not scared.” Several of them nodded sympathetically, even though every single one of them knew this wasn’t true. Christie patted her on the arm.

“And the third time?”

“Like she was about to run but changed her mind.”

“She was going to fight,” Christie said. More nods.

“She did flinch,” Pauletta said, sounding as though she were trying very hard to be fair, even though I didn’t deserve it.

“Yes. Almost everyone will flinch. Suze did very well.” Christie smiled. Therese looked slightly mollified. I wondered whether to file flattery under useful teaching technique or craven behavior. “So, the same apparent situation, three different responses. They were different responses because Suze interpreted each of my attacks differently. She gained experience. She extrapolated. By the third time she knew I wasn’t going to hit her. She’d also had practice at responding. In other words, each situation was different. Even though what I did was exactly the same, Suze’s experience level had changed, so it was a different situation.”

Which is why Sandra had moved only after she saw that everyone else had and might notice if she didn’t.

“One way to get some experience without being in real danger is to do a little role play. Has any of you ever done any acting?”

They all studied the carpet very carefully.

“Not since fourth grade,” Nina said eventually. “The nativity play.”

“Yeah?” said Pauletta. “Who did you play, the donkey?”

“Pauletta, Nina, you’re our first volunteers. Pauletta, stand over here. It’s night. You’re waiting at a MARTA station. You’re the only one on the platform, and the train’s late. Imagine that. Pretend you’re doing it.”

Most women learned very young how to play the roles expected of them. Girls’ games were built on the notion: play Mom, play nurse, play teacher. They played and played and played until they learnt to inhabit the roles.

Pauletta started looking up and down the imaginary train line, rising onto her toes, then rocking back onto her heels. She put her hands on her hips, sighed in exasperation. The picture of a tired, irritated commuter.

“Nina, over there. You’re male, about thirty, you’ve had a couple of shots of Jack Daniel’s, you feel like a big man. Imagine how that feels. You walk onto the platform and see this sweet young thing waiting at the other end. You realize that if you wanted to, you could have some fun.”

Women observed male behavior closely, learnt to parse every nuance. Like antelope with lions, their safety sometimes depended on it.

Nina leered and sauntered forward, head relaxed, gaze moving here and there, taking in the fact that they were the only people, slowing as she approached the woman on the platform. Pauletta turned her shoulders slightly away from the man and put her hands in her pockets.

“You can speak, if you like.”

“Um-um,” said Nina, appraisal vibrating in every syllable. “Hello, darlin’.”

Pauletta looked away. Perfect.

“Okay. Freeze frame.” I turned to the rest of the class. “What do you see?”

“She’s frightened,” Jennifer said.

Nods.

“She’s hoping he’ll just go away,” Tonya said. More nods.

“Do you think he will?”

“Fuck no,” said Suze.

“How do you know that?”

“Look at him. He’s gonna play with her. He knows she’s not gonna stop him.”

“So what do you think will happen next? Therese?”

“I’m not sure,” she said. The delicate muscles at the top of her shoulders flexed as she folded her arms. “It depends on what she does.”

Sandra was watching the imaginary platform intently. I said, “Does anyone think Pauletta could stop him at this point? Sandra?”

When she heard her name her belly tightened—the waistband of her sweatpants moved a good inch—and she didn’t look at me, but nodded.

“Why do you think that?”

She looked at me sideways. “Because he doesn’t really want to hurt her.”

Pauletta broke her pose and turned round. “What—”

“Nina, stay exactly as you are. Everyone, look at Nina. Look carefully. Remember what you see. Nina, tell us what you were imagining your character to be thinking. You can move now if you want.”

She turned round. “I was thinking, Hey, I feel good, she looks good, wonder if she wants to chat. When she turned away, I thought, Uptight bitch, and got ticked off. She messed with my mood, you know?” I could almost hear a voice from her teenage years: Smile, foxy lady, I’m feeling so mellow….

“Who are you calling an uptight bitch?” Pauletta said.

The two of them clearly trusted each other reasonably well. I wouldn’t do what came next with Sandra or Jennifer or Katherine. “Pauletta, if you’d go back to how you were before you saw the man come onto the platform, that’s right, turned this way, hands out of pockets to begin with. Nina, I want you to imagine that this time you mean business. You were out drinking because you just got fired. You don’t feel good, and you want this woman to not feel good, either. You want to hurt her. Think about it, get a clear picture in your head of how you’re going to hurt her. No, start back here again. Good. Go.”

The difference was obvious. This time there was no swagger. Her head did not turn, because she already knew they were on their own. Her gaze was focused on Pauletta, chin slightly down. One hand came forward, the other stayed in her pocket, but tense. Unease rippled through the women behind me.

“Okay. Stop. Thank you. Take a moment to stretch.” More to shed the role than anything. I turned to the rest of the group. “Did you see the difference? ”

Everyone nodded. “It was creepy,” said Christie. “He—she—had a gun in his pocket.”

“Nina?”

“A knife,” she said. “Short and wicked.”

“Man, you had me convinced,” Pauletta said. “You are scary for a little round white person.”

“So,” I said. “We all knew before he even opened his mouth that it was different, that this time he was starting out serious and the first time he wasn’t. It could have become serious, but it didn’t start that way, and right at the beginning Pauletta could have stopped him without laying a finger on him.”

“No touching?” Pauletta said.

“The force is with you, Luke,” Nina said.

Everyone smiled very hard.

“You can think about it that way if you like. I see it more as taking up space. Imagine I’m the woman on the platform. I’m looking for the train. The man, the first man, enters. Now, instead of turning away, putting my hands in my pockets—which is basically taking up less space, pretending to be invisible and hoping he’ll just go away—I turn towards him, look him in the eye, and nod calmly. I’m saying, I see you, we’re alike, you and I: two people waiting for a train. Equals going about our business.”

“Yeah, but you’re six feet tall,” Kim said. Lots of nods.

“It’s not about how tall you are.”

“Right.”

“I was Atlanta PD. I’ve met carjackers and muggers and psychopaths. They all go for someone who looks like a victim: who doesn’t take up space, who apologizes, who doesn’t want to appear rude, who tries to pretend nothing’s happening. All of them go for the low-hanging fruit.”

“Fruit?” Pauletta said.

“Wait, wait.” Therese. “Clarify your statement for me, please. Are you saying we have to act the way you do, marching about like some, some…” She searched for the right word, couldn’t find it. “That we have to deny our femininity?”

“No.”

“Then what are you saying?”

“Yeah,” Kim said. “Why should we have to cut our fingernails, then cut our hair even shorter?”

“No shoulds from me. Only information to help you make choices. For example, Kim, do you cut your nails and have a wider arsenal of possible responses to attack or do you choose to keep them long and either spend a bit more time learning palm strikes or accept the fact that one day something could happen where having shorter nails might have made the difference?”

“They’re my nails!”

“Yes.”

“I don’t see why I should cut them.”

“Then don’t.” I wasn’t seeing the problem.

“What about short hair, and always wearing pants?” Therese said.

“Not everyone could wear it like that,” Jennifer said, with an ingratiating smile in my direction, “but it does look super nice on you. And there’s nothing wrong with pants as a personal choice.”

They all shifted, reminded that it wasn’t nice for southern women to insult another’s appearance.

“And, hey,” Nina said, “maybe she doesn’t wear pants when she’s not in class.” She looked at Kim. “You sure stopped wearing skirts quick enough.”

“No point flashing booty just for sisters.”

“Only makes sense,” Pauletta said.

She and Kim and Nina eyed each other, then nodded, allies.

“Besides, short hair is very attractive in its own way,” Nina said, stroking her own carefully shaped grey cut.

“Totally,” Christie said. “I think about cutting mine all the time.”

“Oh, don’t do that,” Tonya said. “It’s lovely. So long and straight.”

“No one has to cut their hair, no one has to wear pants, no one has to trim her nails. It is in your best interests to know what all your choices mean. Looking as if you’re afraid means you’re more likely to be attacked. Statistically.”

“Cite your sources,” Therese said.

“My own personal experience as a police officer. The Women Against Rape survey published in London in 1985. Ongoing U.S. Department of Justice statistics.” The WAR survey had held up remarkably despite the intervening twenty years and four thousand miles.

“She was a cop,” Pauletta said.

“She’s our teacher,” Jennifer said, nodding.

“Trust or don’t trust, just don’t question?” Therese put her hands on her hips.

“What is your problem?” Suze said.

“I’m curious about what she’s trying to teach us here, exactly.”

“Why don’t you ask her?”

“I think that’s what she’s trying to do,” I said, and gestured for Therese to go ahead.

She struggled for a moment. I could guess what her essential problem was, but it took her a while to get there. “It’s not fair.”

“No,” I said.

“We shouldn’t have to act differently, just to not be attacked in the street. It’s not fair.”

“No. But that doesn’t matter.”

She looked puzzled.

“What matters is what happens. The strong attack the weak.” I wasn’t sure how I could make it more plain. “Big countries invade little countries, the alpha hippo savages the beta hippo, the jock beats the nerd. Why? Because they can. Because they believe they don’t have a lot to lose but a great deal to gain. In economist-speak, they have strong incentives.”

Tonya looked interested. “So what we’re doing is learning to disincentivize them?”

“Yes.”

“But we shouldn’t have to,” Therese said.

“No. But shoulds and shouldn’ts don’t matter.”

The corners of Therese’s eyes and mouth pulled away from the center and her head moved back half an inch, as though someone had shoved a bucket of raw tripe in front of her and suggested she eat it. It was the way of the world. There was nothing I could do to change it. The only way to help her was to continue with the lesson.

“Now, where were we with the role play?”

“Not looking like a victim,” Tonya said. “Disincentivizing.”

“Pretending we’re six feet tall,” Pauletta said.

“Yeah, you do it with mirrors,” Nina said. Everyone except Katherine smiled, relieved that we were all on the same side again. I raised my eyebrows at her.

“It’s okay for everyone to make jokes,” she said. “But what if you’re really not six feet tall? What do you do if a man at the MARTA station starts talking to you?”

“Would you want him to talk to you?”

“No!”

“Then say so.”

“Say so?”

“Clearly and simply: I won’t talk to you.”

“Isn’t that kind of rude?”

Rude. To a man who had invaded her personal space, made her afraid, and was testing to see what kind of victim she’d make.

“It’s neutral. A statement of fact.”

“Wouldn’t it provoke him?” Jennifer.

“Nina, would it have provoked you?”

“No-o,” she said. “No, I don’t think so. It would’ve made me shrug, maybe, and think, Bitch. Maybe I would’ve said that to her face.” Jennifer flinched.

“Something to add to your list: would you rather be called a bitch or put up with an hour’s harassment by a drunk at a MARTA station who may or may not be working himself up to jump you? Bear in mind that if you do tell him to go away, you need to also make sure your body is saying the same thing as your words: everything in line, no ambiguity.”

“But if he’s drunk he won’t listen,” Jennifer said.

“He certainly won’t if you don’t say anything. No one is a mind reader.”

Blank looks. There were times when I felt that although we had arrived in the same room, we had traveled through different dimensions.

“You have to say the words out loud. Again, fair play doesn’t matter. What you want, or what you think he should already know, doesn’t matter. What matters is what you actually say—with your body and your words. No one can read your mind. If you say, ‘I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want you anywhere near me. If you so much as touch me with the tip of your finger, I’ll call the police and have you charged with assault,’ he’ll understand.” He wouldn’t necessarily listen, but he would understand.

“That seems a little excessive,” Therese said.

“If that’s the first thing you do, maybe. If you’ve already made it plain with body language, and already told him verbally you don’t want to talk, then no.”

Enough chitchat.

“Let’s practice. Pair up. No, Tonya, you go with Nina, Katherine with Pauletta.” Time to do a little mix-and-match. “Therese, I want you over here with Sandra.” Therese was physically and emotionally contained and wouldn’t intimidate Sandra. “Suze with Kim.” Perhaps the nail issue would get sorted there. “Christie, you’re with Jennifer. Nina, Pauletta, Therese, Suze, and Christie, come and get two chairs each, put them wherever you like, just make sure they’re next to each other, like a bench. Sit down. You’re on a bench in Piedmont Park, on your lunch break. It’s a lovely day. You’re by the lake. All the other benches are empty but there are people playing Frisbee in the distance. Then someone—that’s your partner, ” I said to the women still standing, “some stranger comes along and sits on your bench.”

“Man or woman?” said Pauletta.

“That’s up to you.”

“Is he—or she—a creep?” Christie.

“Anyone who sits next to you when all the other benches are empty is a fucking creep,” said Suze.

“Point,” said Nina.

“He could be blind,” said Katherine.

Or an alien or a secret agent. “He’d have a white cane,” I said. “There again, perhaps it’s simply a woman who admires your shoes and wants to know where you got them. You decide. Get as loud as you want, but nothing physical, not at this stage. You have two minutes, then swap places. Begin.”

I stood by Nina and Tonya but focused my attention on Therese and Sandra. Role play could bring up powerful emotions, and if I was right about Sandra, she was a walking time bomb.

I could tell by her open shoulders and legs that Sandra had chosen to play a man, which didn’t surprise me: it was a way to feel powerful. When s/he sat, he gave Therese a quick, uncertain smile and opened his hands and widened his eyes. I didn’t hear what he said but Therese leaned forward.

By this time Nina had already laughed in Tonya’s face, and they had switched roles. Christie and Jennifer seemed to be in a stilted conversation about hairstylists.

Sandra/the young man edged closer to Therese, who backed up a little, and it was clear from the expression on the young man’s face and the way he almost reached out to touch Therese’s sleeve, then dropped his hand suddenly and put it in his lap that he was saying something like, No, wait, please, I’m sorry, I know this must seem weird, but you’re the only one who can help me. And Therese looked around, the way we do when we wish help would arrive in the form of a loud-voiced acquaintance with whom we can leave without appearing discourteous, and the young man chose that moment to put his face in his hands. Therese hesitated.

On the other side of the room, Katherine was backing off as Pauletta said, “This is my bench, asshole. Go find your own.” Kim was sitting fairly close to Suze, smiling into her face, touching her hand, and Suze was blushing.

Sandra’s young man hitched himself just a little closer—very natural-looking, and with a pleading expression—and Therese still hesitated, and then it was too late: he had fixed her gaze with his and she was deep in the well-bred woman’s trap.

I stepped in. “Are you two all right?”

Sandra, still as a young man, said, “Fine, Officer, just fine. It’s… well, my dog, Earl, died, and this was the place he liked best. We used to come out here—but you don’t want to know that. I was out walking just one more time, only—it was just that I imagined I saw him, leaping up for that Frisbee, and I got this lump, and I just had to sit, and this kind lady… well, it’s embarrassing, but we’re just fine now, thank you.”

We. He’d taken the reins and made it impossible for polite, appropriate Therese to say anything without looking rude or stupid.

“You do that very well,” I said. No doubt because she’d been living with an expert. Sandra—because, just like that, she was Sandra again— laughed, and her laughter was low and self-mocking and shot through with bitterness. To the class in general I said, “Switch roles if you haven’t already,” and sank to my heels by Therese, who was sitting very upright.

“I fell for it,” she said. “I can’t believe I fell for it.”

“A lot of people do. That’s how Bundy worked: put his arm in a sling and got his victims to feel sorry for him. Women are trained to take care of people. It’s a habit, a dangerous one. Take a moment, then let’s see you swap roles.”

Elsewhere in the room, the pairs were becoming partners, Christie saying to Jennifer, That was awesome. I mean, I totally didn’t want to sit on your bench. But what if I tried… and Kim to Suze, who was still blushing, So, what, you’d let any female who told you you had pretty hands get up close and personal? You don’t think a girl might be more interested in that wallet in your back pocket than your flustered ass?

Sandra settled herself on the imaginary bench and looked off into an imaginary distance. Therese took two deep breaths; her face smoothed and her shoulders dropped. She sat down on the bench. Sandra looked up at her/him—Therese’s body language was so neutral it was hard to tell—and said, “I am so very, very tired and I want to be alone. Please leave my bench.” Therese started to get up—as any reasonable person would—but then, mindful of her recent embarrassment, sat down again. Sandra said indifferently, “I’m going to stand and walk over to another bench. I can’t stop you following me, but if you’re hoping I’ll run or scream or faint in terror, you’ll be disappointed. I just don’t care.”

An intuitive leap, an apparently inexplicable impulse, can save your life or someone else’s, but it’s rare to find a person who can trust their instincts to that degree. You have to be able to get out of your own way. It’s always fascinating to watch. Therese looked up at Sandra, momentarily blank, then understanding swarmed over her face and she said in an ordinary voice, “I don’t believe that’s true. You do care. That’s why you’re here.”

They faced each other, perfectly still.

I stepped back. “Time’s up, people.” I waited until I had their attention. “Okay. Things we’ve learnt. That an assailant will use your sense of polite-ness and good behavior against you. He or she may flatter and flirt. Flattery is an enormously useful tool.” Kim nodded significantly at Suze, who scowled. Christie looked from one to the other, puzzled. “He or she will try to affiliate, to persuade you that you are in some way a team. She may ask to come in and use your phone; he may say he has had an accident. Remember, you owe strangers nothing: no explanation, no apology, no thanks, no smile, no assistance.”

“But…” Katherine. She shut her mouth, frowning.

“Go on.”

“It’s…” She shook her head in frustration.

“It’s hard,” Therese said. Everyone turned. “We’re supposed to be nice. It’s at the heart of everything we do. I hadn’t realized that. But then I was playing at sitting on the bench, and this young man comes and sits next to me. He starts talking to me, and I’m thinking, Why’s he doing this? because, as Suze says, you know anyone who sits on your bench without even asking is weird or wants something, no matter what they say, but he talks and I don’t do or say a thing. Even when a police officer comes along, I say nothing. He had me. I’m smart, I’m educated, and he had me. It was as though he’d tied me up and stuffed my mouth with a rag. All he did was hint I was stupid to think he was any threat—just hint, not even say it out loud. I didn’t want him to think I was foolish. So I did nothing. I knew he wasn’t right but I still did nothing. And I don’t understand.”

“Embarrassment,” I said. “Self-consciousness.”

“Yes,” she said, “but why?” She practically vibrated.

“Define for me the words feminine and ladylike and womanly.”

Silence. Then, “Pretty,” Nina said.

“Soft,” said Suze.

“Kind,” said Jennifer.

“Sexy.”

“Nice. Well behaved.”

“Weak—” said Therese.

“Nurturing,” and “Motherly!” Pauletta and Tonya said together.

“—emotional, hysterical, and irrational.” Therese was breathing hard.

“Vulnerable,” said Christie, and looked it.