Always

FOUR

I LAY IN A BED, ON MY BACK. I COULDN’T OPEN MY EYES. BREATHING FELT LIKE an effort. Silk clung to my calves and forearms—clothes, no, pajamas— and I could move my arms and legs a little. Firm mattress, good-quality cotton sheets tucked in neatly, warmth but no weight—a down comforter. Very quiet. I listened to my breath: no echo, which meant soft surfaces. Not a hospital. I focused on the air moving through my nose and mouth and caught a hint of… perhaps cologne, perhaps high-end toiletries. A hotel. I couldn’t move my head. I listened harder, and felt someone outside my line of sight, watching, assessing, waiting.

MY MOUTH tasted vile. I could make out dim, reddish shadows on the ceiling that moved a little then stilled. I turned my head slowly—the signals from brain to muscle seemed to be routed through another dimension—and saw glowing numbers. A clock. A bedside table. The numbers changed again, from 5:03 to 5:04.

Someone had drugged me. They’d put it in the wine, or the kamikazes, or the coffee; sprinkled it on the food, or sprayed it on the flowers.

When I tried to sit up the world tilted violently and I had to lie down again. I panted for a while, but couldn’t seem to get my breath. When the world steadied, I raised myself cautiously onto my right elbow. I reached out and up with my left hand, which swung back and forth like a weather vane before I managed to put it on the cold lamp base and find the knoblike switch. I pushed at it three times before it clicked on. The light was cozy and yellow, but bright enough to see the phone, some clothes folded neatly on a chair, and heavy drapes. Definitely a hotel, a good one.

The dizziness hit again before I could pick up the phone.

THE LIGHT was still on. There was a woman standing by the bed. Phone, I thought, but I couldn’t stop staring at her head.

“Are you awake?” she said.

“Your head is pink.”

“Yes,” she said, then realized what I was worried about, and touched her hair. “It really is pink. Fuchsia.”

“Um,” I said, so I didn’t have to nod.

“Dizzy?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll be right back.” She came back, too quickly for me to sit up or reach for the phone, carrying a blood-pressure cuff, stethoscope, and clipboard. “My name’s Suzanne. Left arm, please.”

It was more of an effort than it should have been to lift my arm. As I straightened it, I felt a twinge inside the elbow. She pushed up the pajama sleeve—whose? I don’t wear pajamas, but they weren’t new—and I saw the neat hole in the vein. “Let’s use the other arm.”

She wrapped the right biceps in the pressure cuff, and pumped. The back of my right hand started to ache. There was a hole in a vein there, too.

“Please keep still.” She let out the air, listened, made a note on her clipboard. Unwrapped the cuff and took my wrist in her hand.

“What—”

“Hold on.” She finished counting, made another note. “Sorry. What were you saying?”

“What day is it?”

“Saturday. Five-thirty Saturday morning. Can you sit up?”

I did, very slowly. She rubbed her stethoscope warm, then listened to my lungs and heart. I studied the clothes folded on the striped chair. They were mine, but not what I’d been wearing last night. The door to the left of the chair was double, and louvred. I was in a suite. Then I recognized the coffee and cream stripes on the upholstery: the Fairmont.

I’d been in a hospital. Police.

“You okay?”

Pioneer Square. Those things I’d said to Kuiper. Someone had done that to me.

“If you’re too warm I could strip off some of these bed covers.”

“I’m fine.” Snuffle my truffle. That’s my vehicle. Tongue palace.

She took a penlight out of her pocket, turned it on. “Look at the light, please. Sorry,” she said when I flinched. “Touch your nose with your index finger.” I had to move slowly. “Good. Other hand.” I was panting again. Someone had done this to me. “You can rest now. I’ll get you some water.”

I’d been in a hospital, and now I was in a hotel suite. Someone had moved me and I didn’t remember a thing. She came back with a pitcher and a glass on a tray. She poured for me, only half-full.

“Can you manage?”

I took it from her grimly, managed to drink most of it before the glass began to slip. She eased it from my hand. “Lean forward, please.” She cradled my forehead on her shoulder and efficiently rearranged my pillow. “There. Lean back. Comfy? Good. I have to make a call. I’ll be right back.”

My muscles felt hot and hollow and soft, like just-blown glass. A red light on the phone winked as Suzanne talked on another extension. I heard snatches of her side of the conversation. “…sit up… pressure low but not dangerous… talk to her?”

The chair holding my clothes stood about six feet from the end of the bed. I could do it if I had to.

“Aud.”

I didn’t realize I’d shut my eyes until I had to drag them open. My mother stood several feet away. Not in the wine, then. She wore black yoga pants and a charcoal fleece zip-up. Her face was clear and clean and her hair caught in a clip at the base of her neck.

"How are you?”

In the kamikazes at the hotel bar? Just as I remembered Dornan slugging back the rest of my cocktail, it struck me that I had gone to all that trouble to wear the right clothes last night and here I was at half past five in the morning, half-naked in a strange bed, and my mother perfectly poised and coiffed, as usual.

“Aud?”

I forgot what I’d been trying to remember. “Tired.”

“That’s only to be expected.” She came a little closer. “I am very glad you are all right.”

“Reta—relative term,” I said. I still couldn’t get my breath.

“Indeed.” She cleared her throat and gestured at the edge of the bed. “May I?”

I nodded. She sat gently, careful to not rock the bed.

“Is Suzanne treating you well?”

“Pink hair.”

“Yes. But her references are excellent.” In the silence my breath sounded light and gasping, like a frightened girl’s. “They wanted you to stay in hospital but I believed you’d prefer a less… structured environment. The nurse was Eric’s idea. She says you’re doing well. Your blood pressure is a little low, but your pulse is strong and steady.” Her eyes moved in a search pattern: my eyes, my mouth, my chin, my chest, and back again. “She says you have good hand-eye coordination, your pupil dilation is improving rapidly, and your eyes should be back to normal in a few hours.” Her eyes never kept still. “The breathlessness might take a little longer. A day or two.”

“I’m fine.”

“Yes.”

“Fine.”

“Yes, and very lucky. After what you took—”

“Given.”

“Of course. Were given, yes.” Her gaze settled on a spot between my eyebrows. “I’m told that so far they have identified MDMA, barbiturates, amphetamines, opiates, psilocybin, and PCP, and some other substances that haven’t yet been classified. Quite a cocktail.”

Ecstasy, magic mushrooms, oxycodone or something similar, angel dust, speed.

“The medical team wanted to give you a stomach pump, but as Eric pointed out, it would have been a needless procedure given the fact that you’d ingested the drugs in liquid form. In the coffee, they think. Most of the damage would already have been done. Plus it was clear that you had been vomiting.”

I frowned.

“Your clothes,” she said gently. “Apparently you can thank the wine you drank for that. Those who hadn’t had any alcohol weren’t so lucky.”

Lucky. Dancing around in Pioneer Square with vomit on my clothes.

I lifted my right hand, needle hole towards her. “This?”

“Saline IV. Dehydration apparently is one of the main side effects of MDMA, or ecstasy. Suzanne will be insisting that you drink plenty of water.”

“And this?” I nodded at my left elbow.

“Blood draw.”

I remembered none of it. Someone had done this to me.

“Your clothes are being cleaned, but I thought you’d want to have something to hand immediately.”

“Yes.” Thank you, I wanted to add, but didn’t have the breath.

“Aud.” She started to reach for my hand.

“You said. Others.”

“I’m sorry, yes. A score of people from a film set were admitted to Harborview Medical Center before you arrived. I thought I had told you.” She smoothed her eyebrows with her fingertips—for my mother, a shocking expression of fatigue, which reminded me of my surprise when she had repeated herself yesterday, and why.

“Dornan?”

“Your friend is unaffected.”

“Information?” I was too tired to say more, but she understood.

"Perhaps when next I speak to the police liaison he will be able to tell us something.”

The coffee urn. Had to be. Kuiper? No, she had been surprised when I’d said, when I said those things. Somebody had made me say and do things that… Somebody had rendered me helpless, somebody… "Uh,” I said as my heart skipped a beat and then slammed against my rib cage in the wrong place.

“Aud?” She was leaning over me. “Aud?” I didn’t have the breath to speak.

Suzanne ran in from the other room, brushed my mother aside, thrust her stethoscope through a gap in the pajama top.

“Fine,” I said. “I’m fine.”

“Shssh,” she said, and frowned—the skin between her eyes rolled in a plump sausage—and moved the stethoscope slightly.

Whatever it was seemed to be over. My heart pulsed neatly, in the right place.

Suzanne straightened and slung the stethoscope around her neck. “Mild arrhythmia,” she said. “Not too worrying, but a doctor might be a good idea.”

“I’ll see to it,” my mother said.

Suzanne hesitated, then nodded, and went back into the sitting room. No one had asked my opinion. I struggled to sit up.

“Please, Aud, try to rest. I don’t think you realize just how serious this could have been.” She smoothed her eyebrows again. “I consulted with your friend about your accommodations and we agreed to install you in a two-roomed suite so that Suzanne can remain here as long as you feel she can be helpful. Your friend also has been very helpful.” Oh, yes, very. “The police have promised an extensive inquiry, and I’ll keep you updated with any developments. All your belongings have been brought over from your hotel. If there is anything else you need, ask Suzanne or call me. Now I will speak to your friend, and to Eric. He should be here within the hour.”

Her back was very straight as she walked away, despite the fact that, on top of jet lag, she must have been up all night taking charge of my life.

It took a long time and a lot of effort but I eventually dragged the room service menu from the bedside table to the bed, and dialed the right numbers. I knew exactly what I wanted, but found I kept ordering random words from the menu (“delicious,” or “sales tax”). After a few tries I found that if I kept my sentences to two words or less—scrambled eggs, two please, tea, English breakfast—I could manage. I concentrated on the fact that I could manage, not the fact that I had to.

Breakfast arrived ten minutes before Dornan. The food tasted like something forced from a crack in the earth.

“Well,” he said, looking at the tray on the bed, “it doesn’t look as though that was a success.”

“Taste those eggs.”

“Thank you, but I’ve already—”

“Taste them, Dornan, or at least get the tray out of my sight. They taste vile, and they smell even worse.” Or at least that’s what I tried to say, but it came out as a river of muddled syllables. I stopped. Tried again. Stopped. His eyes glistened. “Bad,” I said. “Bad food.”

“The eggs are bad?”

“And the butter is rancid and the milk for the tea curdled.” Cremble degg. Runny kid. I took a deep breath. “Butter. Milk. Ranky—rancid.”

“I see.”

“Do you? My taste. They’ve done something. The drugs. Everything tastes of sulfur.” I stopped, this time in surprise, because I had made sense, and was shocked to see Dornan half close his eyes in relief. Brain damage. My mother hadn’t mentioned that possibility. He hopped up, lifted the tray, carried it to the dressing table, grinned as he popped a strawberry in his mouth. “Shame,” he said, sitting down again. “They’re delicious.”

“The fruit was all rall—right,” I said.

“You want me to bring that back, then?”

“No. Yes. I don’t know. Forget the food. Why did you let my mother take over?” Mumbly ho-taker. But most of it had come out all right.

“All her suggestions seemed like sensible ones.”

I said carefully, “Why her hotel?”

“Better than being in hospital under restraint.”

“Wasn’t that bad.” I should have signed those papers, made sure he had power-of-attorney for health care.

“You weren’t making any sense whatsoever. And you were seriously alarming the natives. One of the police officers who was brought in had to be treated for a bruised shoulder and seemed pretty cross about something. They had to Taser you, Torvingen. Twice. I’m guessing that if it weren’t for your mother you’d have a few bruises of your own and be facing charges.”

“You were at the hospital?”

“I was. I have to say you seemed to be happier when you were stoned. You might have been talking gibberish, but your smile was radiant.”

Poison had made the world so beautiful. But I wouldn’t be able to say that. “Strawberries,” I said. “Bring me them.”

He brought me a napkin, a fork, and the dish of fruit and put them by me on the bed.

I ate one. “Still at the Edgewater?”

He nodded. “I’ve kept your room there, too, just in case. But I thought you might like to stay here, perhaps, for some privacy.” He said that with a slight question, but I had no idea what he meant by it. When I didn’t respond, he said, “Your mother wanted me to stay with you. She isn’t easy to refuse.”

“No.” We sat in silence for a moment. “So. You met her. Tell me.”

DORNAN FORGOT to take the tray with him when he left and I was too tired to call out to Suzanne.

When Eric Loedessoel arrived five minutes later, his eyes strayed to its contents while he explained why he was there.

“I have an M.D. but am not a practicing physician. I can’t treat you or formally advise you in a medical capacity, but I have consulted with colleagues at Harborview Medical Center, and believe I can help you with any questions you might have, on a stopgap basis. But I want to make it clear that in my opinion tomorrow you should consult a fully qualified and licensed physician.”

“Thank you,” I said. “For your help so far.”

He looked at the tray again. “I see you didn’t eat much,” he said. “Was it the taste? But you can still smell?”

I nodded.

“Many of the other victims are displaying similar symptoms.”

Victims.

“Those that are conscious, that is. One of the as yet unidentified compounds has a tendency to depress the autonomic nervous system. Two of the victims are being assisted with their breathing. There was a third, but he is already managing to breathe nicely on his own again. The reasonable conclusion is that the effects are probably temporary.”

I had never been a victim before.

“…worry about, as long as you avoid over-exertion. I’d like to look at your notes, if I may?”

I nodded.

He left and came back with the clipboard. This time I noticed his faint scent of cologne, and knew whose pajamas I was wearing.

“…few days, probably an unnecessary precaution.” He was looking at me.

“I’m sorry?”

“Suzanne noted an arrhythmia. It’s probably nothing to worry about, a result of toxic stress, but I’d suggest avoiding taxing your heart in the next few…”

I lost track again of what he was saying. All these favors mounting up. Reduced to relying on the kindness of strangers. I had to get back to my own hotel.

“…emotional lability…”

It was all that caterer’s fault. Kuiper. She should watch her coffee more carefully. Dancing in Pioneer Square.

“…hallucination flashbacks…”

I woke midafternoon. My breathing was a lot better. When I sat up, the walls shimmered but didn’t dance.

My clothes on the chair were carefully chosen: Eileen Fisher trousers in black linen, with pockets; a layering T-shirt, white; a V-necked silk sweater; underwear; cashmere socks; low-heeled boots. They would do for any occasion and temperature. I knew as surely as though I’d seen my mother do it that she had chosen them. I looked around the rest of the room: my laptop on the dressing table, not where it belonged, but where I would see it when I was well enough to sit up for any length of time; my jacket laid casually over the back of an armchair; my luggage stowed beneath the window, again, not where it belonged, but where I would see it and infer that the rest of my belongings were in the closet. My wallet, I knew, would be in the pocket of the jacket; my toiletries would be in the bathroom.

After five minutes of sitting and turning my head this way and that without dizziness, I felt confident enough to drag myself to the bathroom.

I sat on the toilet, and thought about beauty and poison, and the fact that my mother knew me so well she could use my own belongings to send the kind of message that would get through the drug fog: I was able to leave anytime I needed to. I stared at the silk pajama bottoms pooled at my feet and kicked them off, then unbuttoned the top and dropped it on the floor. My skin still smelled of cologne, but faintly.

I came to with a start, cold, and hauled myself to my feet, and flushed the toilet. Suzanne came into the room just as I got to the bed. The left side of her hair was flat; she must have been taking a nap, too.

“Need some help?” She reached out, but hesitantly, unwilling to touch naked skin without permission. Or maybe she had just never seen healed knife and bullet wounds.

“No. Thank you.” I climbed onto the bed, trying to look as though it cost less effort than it did, wondering, even as I did so, why I bothered. Suzanne wasn’t a predator waiting to pounce at the first sign of weakness; she was a nurse.

“Actually, yes. You could help. My laptop. It’s on the dresser.” Four-word sentences were now easy.

She brought me the laptop, set it up—it didn’t take long; the signal here must have been better than at the Edgewater—and refilled my water glass. “Make sure you drink it,” she said, and left.

I had two e-mails. One was from Luz, one from Rusen: the information I’d requested. While it was downloading, I fell asleep.

When I woke up, it was dark again. After midnight. I was viciously hungry, but couldn’t face the idea of fruit. Rusen’s document blinked at me. I scrolled through it. The text bulged and shrank on the screen like a squeezed accordion. I found I was stabbing the keys so hard the casing creaked. I drank the water. The fact that I had to annoyed me. The nasty nylon laptop case, the fact that my laptop was there—that I was in bed in this room—that my clothes were laid out neatly on the chair, that some strange woman was sleeping in the room next door and that I had had no say in any of it made me want to hurl the glass at the wall. I wasn’t even sure if I could. I didn’t even know if the room was registered in my name. Was I being treated like a dependent, like a child? I was wearing Loedessoel’s pajamas. Even my skin smelled of him, the man who had married my mother. My mother, who had crooked her finger and said, Come, and I’d climbed obediently onto a plane.

I put the glass down. My heart squeezed and released, squeezed and released as my adrenal gland pumped hormones into my bloodstream and arteries widened and surface capillaries shut down. The muscles in my jaw pulled my teeth together, my thighs twitched, I was too hot. And somebody had done this to me. They had dumped a cup of powder in a coffee urn and turned my life inside out, like a sock.

They wouldn’t have been able to if that bloody woman, Kuiper, had been paying attention. And why did she think I was out to hurt her precious Rusen, anyway? No doubt she was laughing, laughing right now, telling a friend all the stupid things I’d said.

And then I was hunting for her information, and found it: Film Food, Kuiper, Victoria K. prop., 4222 Myrtle Avenue, in Wallingford, just four blocks from the Jitterbug, according to MapQuest. And it made perfect sense to get out of bed and put on those carefully selected clothes, collect the draped-just-so jacket, complete with wallet and car keys, and leave.

MURPHY’S, THE pub on the corner, was shut. Restaurants, bars, and movie theaters were dark. Lights changed at an empty intersection. It was so quiet I could hear the new leaves of the maple tree under which I’d parked hiss and shiver. The moon was small and bright. Wallingford slept. Well, Kuiper wasn’t going to.

Number 4222 was a small, wooden bungalow, original pre-World War I cedar shakes painted sage green, woodwork bright white. No light on the porch. No light on most of the porches; obviously a low-crime area. Sodium streetlights pooled like pale brass on sidewalks, whose concrete had been wrenched out of true decades ago by the growth of tree roots. Here and there it gleamed more palely, where the concrete had been replaced. Still silent, no tree frogs, no crickets—just the river of interstate traffic about a mile away. The scent of spring flowers, delicate as lace, there and gone again. Utterly unlike Atlanta.

From the path, three concrete steps—dark, with moss growing on the uprights—led to eight wooden steps, painted a darker green than the cedar shingles, to a wooden porch. The door had glass insets, and a brass lock plate that hadn’t been replaced for forty years.

Both sets of steps had rails, but added recently, sometime in the last five years, though not very competently; the right-hand rail wobbled. Cheap, gimcrack thing; aluminum painted black to look like cast iron. Out of place.

There was no knocker on the door, no doorbell. I banged on the white gloss-painted panel between the glass. The house boomed. The sound rolled up and down the silent street. I banged again, thumping the door panel with the meaty part of my fist, five times, putting some weight behind it.

“I know you’re here,” I shouted cheerily. Her van was in the driveway. Bang. Bang, bang. Not a single neighbor’s light flicked on. Polite, circumspect, incurious. Very Scandinavian.

“It’s me”—bang—“a victim”—bang—“of your coffee.” Bang, bang. “I don’t”—bang—“even like”—bang—“coffee.” Bang, bang. “Kuiper.” Or whatever she called herself. “Kuiper.” Bang. “Come out.” Bang, bang.

Between one bang and the next, the hot, tight clarity of adrenaline drained away and I found myself panting. Something in my peripheral vision fluttered. My palm squeaked as it slid down the glossy woodwork. I locked my knees.

“No,” I said. "You won’t. You will not.” And I hung there, between standing and collapse, smelling the mysterious flowers again, wondering what they were.

The porch vibrated briefly, and with an effort that made the scar near my jugular tighten, I pushed against my hands and swayed back onto my heels before a deadbolt rattled and the door opened.

Bare feet on a lovely, ribbon-work inlaid oak floor. They must be cold. White toweling robe to her knees, and hair trapped under the collar where she’d pulled it on in a hurry. Phone in her left hand. Didn’t she know that the time to call the police was before opening the door? I opened my mouth, but the graphite sheen under her eyes, her drawn face, shocked me silent.

“What—” she began, but the flutter in the corner of my eye turned to flapping, and I lost the lock on my knees. “Fuck,” she said, and grabbed me under the arms before I went down. The phone dug into my armpit. For a moment my face hung near the opening in her robe, and I breathed the soft, buttered-toast scent of sleepy, naked woman. Then she shifted her grip, stepped in close enough to lean my forehead on her collarbone, and stuffed the phone in her pocket. “Fuck,” she said again, and half dragged me across the living room to a three-seater sofa. She dropped me awkwardly, but the old leather was soft. Luz would have liked it.

She rearranged her robe, then leaned across me and switched on a table lamp. She looked down. The exertion had given her a bit of color. “Tell me why I shouldn’t call the police”—she bent and peered at me more closely— “or maybe an ambulance.”

“I’ll be all right,” I said, sitting like an abandoned rag doll. I was so very tired of feeling helpless.

“What are you doing here? No, never mind. Just keep still. I’ll call you a cab.” She straightened and turned this way and that, as though looking for something.

“No need. I have a car.”

“You’re not fit to drive.”

“I drove here.”

“Right. And that worked out so well for you.” She wasn’t really paying attention, still scanning the room for whatever it was.

“I’m fine.”

“Of course you are.”

The color was fading in her cheeks, and she looked ill again. “Did you take some, too?”

“What?”

“Drugs. Did you take any?”

She looked at me this time. “No.”

“So why do you look so terrible?”

She folded her arms. It took me a minute to understand that her strange expression was hurt.

“No, that’s not… I didn’t mean it to sound…” I wanted to shrink to the size of an ant and creep into the cracks of the sofa.

“You do seem to have the gift of tongues. Speaking of which, you’ll have to explain the ‘tongue palace’ reference to me sometime.” She went back to scanning the room. Stilled. Sighed. Fished the phone from her pocket. “Now, a cab.”

“No cab. I’ll call my friend, Dornan.”

“Oh,” she said. “Him.”

I couldn’t interpret her tone and she didn’t offer any hints. “His number’s—”

“I have his number.” She crossed to an enormous chair, in the same battered-looking leather, at the other end of the living room, consulted a notebook, and dialed. While it rang she pulled her feet up under her, tucked her hair behind her ears, brushed an imaginary fleck from her robe. “Hey,” she said, “it’s Kick.”

Kick?

“Oh, don’t worry, I know. Three-thirty. Yep.”

Her name was Kick?

“That’s right,” she said, staring up and to the right at nothing, as people did on the phone. “Because I have a friend of yours prostrate in my living room. Uh-huh, the very same. Yes. Well, fairly lucid. Soon? Okay.”

She put the phone down and wiped her face with her hand. “He might not be able to get here for half an hour. Depends how long it will take him to get a cab.” She stood wearily. “I don’t imagine you want coffee.”

I shook my head. Three-thirty in the morning. What had I been thinking, banging on her door at this time?

She walked into the kitchen, carefully, as though she were not sure of her step. An injury? Might explain why she didn’t do stunts anymore. Water ran in the sink, then a kettle. A cupboard opened and shut. Half an hour. How many more stupid things could I say in half an hour?

I woke to find her draping me with a blanket. I struggled upright. She stepped back and pulled her robe tighter, and I got another waft of that soft, naked smell.

“I woke you,” I said. “Before. Earlier.” The smell had unmoored me. “It’s late. I’m sorry.”

She sat at the other end of the sofa, and tucked her legs up again. Her toes poked out beneath the robe. Small, like her hands. I imagined them soft between my palms.

“I’m sorry,” I said again.

She nodded tiredly. “I don’t need this. The police already kept me for hours. Did I have a grudge? Why? And when they got past that, it was, Did I know who did have a grudge? Did I know against whom? Did I know why? Had I seen any strangers on the set?”

“What did you say?”

“That you were the most suspicious character I’d seen all day.” She glanced at her wrist, realized it was naked. She got up again and tucked my blanket in around my shoulder. “Sorry. But it’s true. Besides, you know the police won’t come after you. Lift your hand.” She tucked my arm in. “Whoever you are, you’re off limits. To the reporters, too. My face was splashed all over the papers—and Sîan Branwell’s, of course. You? Nowhere to be found. But me, all anyone will think of now when they see the name Film Food is poison.” Her voice sounded distant, almost dispassionate. “The mad poisoner of Seattle. I worked so hard.”

I didn’t say, Don’t blame me. I didn’t say, It’s not my fault. It didn’t matter. It wasn’t her fault, either, but people were still blaming her. She had still lost her reputation. “Did you? See any strangers on the set?”

It seemed an effort for her to come back from her bleak internal landscape. “No.”

“Then I’ll get it all back. Your reputation.”

“Why would you care?” she said wearily.

Because your feet are turning blotchy red with the cold and I don’t want to think about why I want to warm them with my hands, why I want to make you tea, bring it to you, right here, and stroke that heavy hair— which gleams like soft metal that’s been cut with a knife—back from your cheek and tell you not to worry about the stain on your white coat, not to worry about anything.

“I’ll find them.”

She nodded, but she wasn’t really listening. She was too tired to care.

I carefully folded back the blanket and levered myself to my feet. The least I could do was let her get back to bed. “I’ll wait outside.”

She also stood, but this time with a slight smile. “No, you won’t.”

“I won’t?” I said, stupid in the face of my own horrible, insidious tenderness.

“No. Because I hear your ride.”

All I could hear was the uneven lumping of my heart. I concentrated. Outside, a car door thunked and a diesel engine rattled as the cab pulled away. She opened the door before he could knock.

He looked at me, then her. No one spoke. Then she stood to one side. “Can you walk?” Dornan said to me, and I nodded. “Keys?” I touched my jacket pocket, nodded again, and stepped forward. My knees held. “Tomorrow?” he said to Kick, who also nodded. She looked ill and tired and walking once again in her bleak world.

“I’ll find them,” I said.

Dornan walked by me down wooden steps, then concrete. I didn’t hear her shut the door behind us, but I couldn’t afford to split my concentration to turn and see if she was watching. I leaned both hands on the car roof while he opened the passenger door. He stood close while I eased myself into the seat, made sure my fingers were out of the way before he slammed the door. Then I looked. Kick’s door was closed.

Dornan fussed with the seat and seat belt and then the mirrors, the way people who rarely drive do.

“Do you know the way?”

“Mostly. I think.” He started the engine, released the brake, and we rolled down the street. There was absolutely nothing on the road, but at the traffic circle he checked his mirror twice, indicated, and drove counterclockwise all the way around to the left before turning.

We reached the interstate without incident.

“What happened?” he said.

I shrugged tiredly. I didn’t really know. He nodded as though I’d answered, and drove some more.

"Sîan Branwell,” I said.

He spared me a quick sideways glance.

“The name of the star of Feral: Sîan Branwell.”

“Yes. I found out yesterday.”

That wasn’t the only name he’d found out. “Why did she tell you her name and not me?”

“Maybe because I asked her nicely.”

And then the freeway was passing beneath what looked like the hanging gardens of Babylon. I blinked and tried to refocus, but the vision remained, and it was real: a park built over the interstate. It wasn’t hard to imagine the city overtaken by forest, fifty years after the apocalypse. For a moment I thought I smelled the rank breath of an unseen predator, big and lithe, pacing the car, hidden by trees.

THIS WEEK THERE WAS STILL LIGHT IN THE SKY WHEN I PARKED, AND UNDER THE greasy hydrocarbon fumes of drive-time traffic, a hint of life scented. Twigs were swollen at their tips.

The white board was gone, but magazines were stacked under the pegboard. I tried to imagine how this space was used when I wasn’t here. Some kind of low-rent group-counseling space? A beggars-can’t-be-choosers law clinic? Sandra was absent. I wondered if she would come back. No matter. My guess was she already knew the most important things I would be teaching today.

We would begin, though, with action. Make them all feel big and strong. “The larynx,” I said. “To fracture it, you use the edge of your hand, like this.” I showed them how to make a knife-hand. “The tension is in the fingers, the thumb is bent. It’s easier and faster to strike outwards, palm down. Practice with both hands. If your attacker is on his back, you can come straight down, like a hatchet. If he’s on his stomach, you’d be better off with an axe kick to the spine.”

They spent a minute or two slashing the air, then I ran them through a few attacks on the prone bag. After that I hung the bag back on its frame, and we did some side strikes.

“The knife-hand will work very well, though obviously you’d have more reach with a pipe, even a length of hose. No,” I said, as Nina opened her mouth, “not panty hose. Garden hose.” Suze punched Nina on the upper arm and grinned. “Any other household objects that might work?”

“Wrench,” Suze said.

“Hammer,” said Katherine, after a moment’s thought.

Objects from Man World. “What about the kitchen?” They looked blank. “Anything fairly flat to get under the chin.” Silence. “A cake slicer,” I suggested. “A spatula. Even a dinner plate, if you hold it in both hands and jab forwards.”

“A dustpan?” Kim said.

“A skillet. Swing it.”

“Good, Tonya. What else?” Another pause. “Anything can be a weapon if you think about it that way.”

Therese folded her arms. “The Joy of Cooking?”

“A little unwieldy if you’re going for the larynx, but it would work well against the back of the neck or side of the head, or even slammed down on a hand. One of those thin hardcovers would work, though, just like a plate.”

“Man,” Pauletta said. “You sit around all day thinking up this shit?”

“More than fifty percent of attacks on women happen in the home. It makes sense to have weapons close by. Imagine your house not only as a refuge but as a garden of weaponry.” I might as well have been talking Farsi. “So think. What else? What’s in the kitchen, apart from recipe books and cooking utensils?”

They just couldn’t seem to make the connection between the kitchen and violence. The one who would have understood that bad things happen more often in sunny breakfast nooks than in midnight alleys wasn’t here.

“Food,” I said. More blank looks. “Anyone here cook with linguiça or andouille or chorizo?”

“Sausages?” Suze said. “You’re saying if some wacko breaks into my condo I should hit him with a fucking sausage?”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s food.”

“So,” Nina said after a moment, “an andouille sausage. Should it be fresh or frozen?”

“That, of course, depends. Fresh might be a little slippery for a proper grip, but you’d get that whiplash effect for extra power. Plus you could dispose of the evidence more quickly because it’s faster to cook and eat the weapon if you don’t have to defrost it first.” I smiled to show them I was being witty. They seemed to find that disturbing.

“Pasta!” Jennifer said. “You know, that dried spaghetti in the packet. Well,” she said to herself, “it’s flat.”

“Cooking with weapons,” Nina announced brightly. “A book of recipes for the modern woman!”

Their hilarity lasted almost a minute; they would remember it, and the lesson.

“Just because we’re talking about the larynx and blunt-edged weapons doesn’t mean you can’t use something sharp. In the kitchen, the perfect tool for this kind of job would be a cleaver. Now,” I said, while they looked at me uncertainly—was this another joke?—“let’s move on to the second target, which is here, in the hollow of the throat.” After a moment they changed gears and started touching their throats. “Careful. Don’t press too hard. The trachea there is close to the surface, very fragile, vulnerable to swelling. It’s a small target, so if you’ve no other weapon but your hands, your best bet is your fingers. Like this.” I made a slow, upward stabbing motion. “It’s the same basic form as the knife-hand, but this time you strike forwards, like a spear tip. The thumb is curled again, but this time keep your fingers slightly bent.” I went along the line and bent and pointed and curled. “Hit the bag a few times. Start gently on this one, you’ll see why. Kim, you do this instead.” I showed her an extended knuckle strike. “I don’t want you to rip the bag.” Or split her nail bed to the cuticle.

Suze, of course, went a little too hard to begin with and jammed her knuckles. “Shake it out,” I advised. “Use the other hand for now.”

I watched for a minute to make sure no one was going to break her fingers.

“Okay, good. Now we’ll start putting some of this together. Stand closer than you think you need to. Strike through the target. Good, next. Strike more than once. And again. Strike harder now, harder. Next. Good. Next. Strike fast. Remember: that’s what gives you power. And, good, speed it up. Fist strike, knife-hand, fingertip. Next.” They were trotting to the bag now. “Good. And a little faster.” Now they were running. “Lungs, I want to hear your lungs working. Fist, finger, knife. Right hand, left hand, right hand. Fist, and finger, and knife.” Now they were moving to a beat, fist and finger and knife, fist and finger and knife, hearts filling and clenching, pumping shocking red blood to muscles greedy for oxygen. Heat bloomed under their skin, their lips opened, and the room filled with the susurrus of breath. My nostrils flared at the sharp tang of adrenaline-charged sweat, my own breathing deepened, and they were like a vast horse I rode bare-back, skin to skin, gripping that muscle and bone between my thighs, moving with its rhythm, urging it on—more, faster, harder—as it stretched out and its hooves cut into the turf and it thundered over the plain, running without effort, without fatigue, without end. And then Jennifer stumbled and Katherine ran into her and the rhythm broke and it was just women hitting a bag.

“Good. Stop a minute. Get your breath.”

They did, bending over, some with hands on each other’s backs, chests heaving, skin pink and damp, faces smooth.

"Sit,” I said. They sat differently, more loosely, more present. I could still smell them. “So, you’re back in your house. What weapons would work on the hollow of the throat?”

“Knife,” Tonya said promptly.

“Fork,” said Jennifer.

“Broom handle.”

“Beer bottle.” That was Suze.

“Good. Now think of something that doesn’t fit in the hand like a spear, or something that’s not hard.”

“Like what?”

I rose, crossed to the pile of bags and shoes, picked out a blue pump with a three-inch spike heel. Kim’s. “Hold it with the sole in your palm, strike sideways. Or”—I went to the pegboard and the magazines—“how about this?” I picked up an Atlanta magazine.

“It’s just paper.”

I rolled it into a tube, slid it through my right hand until I held it like a stumpy ski pole, took a step sideways, and slammed the end into the pegboard. It punched right through. I examined the edges of the round hole: painted particle board, not metal. Cheap. I put aside my irritation.

“Magazines make good weapons. They can be two different kinds of tools—deadly”—I pointed to the hole—“or not.” Now I held the magazine like a flyswatter and slapped it against the edge of the board. “They’re particularly useful in a situation where your actions are legally dubious, or could be made to seem so. Very few prosecutors would be prepared to charge you with assault with a deadly weapon if you were armed only with a magazine.” I hadn’t meant to mention prosecutors at this early stage.

“Can I have a go?” Suze said.

I handed her the magazine.

She rolled it up, hefted it a couple of times, then whipped it viciously into the board. A neat circle of plywood popped out the other side. “Awesome! ”

“Anyone else?” I’d have to buy the center a new pegboard anyway, and nothing brings home a blow’s power better than the satisfaction of destroying something. It would also distract them from my mention of the law.

Six people stood at once. Therese and Jennifer were only seconds behind.

Five minutes later, after a combination of backwards, sideways, up, down, single- and two-handed blows, the board was reduced to a metal frame and a pile of splinters.

“So, what else in the room would work as a weapon? Set aside a moment the idea of throat strikes.”

“Man, I was just getting used to that.”

“So what should we be thinking of?” Jennifer said.

“Remember the first lesson, when I asked you to list the reasons you came here in the first place. And a couple of reasons why your friends and family would encourage you to come. Pick one of those friends and family situations. Doesn’t matter how trivial you think it is. It’s not your reason. It’s theirs.” I let them take thirty seconds to pick something. “So. The room as weapon. Someone, anyone, give me a situation, then give me what you could use.”

“If some guy is, like, making kissy noises and all his friends are laughing, you could hit him with a purse,” Christie said.

“It would certainly send a strong signal, which is useful in a social situation. If you wanted to do some damage, though, it would depend on the purse. But think about the room itself.”

“You mean the bar?”

“All right, the bar.”

“Well, there’s bar stools…”

“Beer bottles.”

“Glasses.”

“Tables.”

“You can’t just pick up one of those tables,” Pauletta said. “It’s not like on TV. Those mofos are heavy.”

And the bottles wouldn’t break if you used the closed end, and the chairs wouldn’t conveniently splinter. The fighters wouldn’t grin afterwards, either, then belly up to the saloon bar and order each other rotgut whiskey.

“You don’t have to lift the table, you could use it another way, particularly if it’s low. If you push someone a little and the table’s behind them it will upset their balance and they’ll go down. But supposing this drunken guy has pushed you up against the wall and is still making kissy noises at you. What then?”

“Kick him,” Katherine said.

“Head butt right in the fucking face,” Suze said. “Wham.”

“Both would work.”

“Yes, but what did you mean about using the room?” Therese said.

“Think about what we did last week, using expectations against your attacker. Christie, stand against the wall.” I faced her, leaning against the wall, a hand on each side of her head, face nine inches from hers. “What would he expect you to do?”

Everyone’s face went blank.

I sighed to myself. “What would a TV character playing a young woman in a college bar do?”

“Depends on the show,” Tonya said. “She’d either cry and hide her face until her boyfriend showed, when she’d watch the creep get stomped, or she’d tough it out, give him a big smooch so that he went red and his friends laughed, then she’d sort of strut away.”

Everyone nodded. I had no idea what kind of shows they watched.

“Let’s swap roles,” I said to Christie. I bent my knees considerably so that we were the same height. “Now lean in, as though you’re going to kiss me.” She hesitated. “Don’t worry, I won’t let you.” She leaned forward. I put my right palm on her sternum and pushed back, just a little, just enough to make her feel her own strength. She leaned harder. I heaved an exaggerated sigh, tilted my face up as though about to give in, and slipped my left hand to the back of her neck: just like a starlet about to kiss the hero. In one move I slid down the wall, jerked Christie’s face down and forwards, and twisted, and shot my right hand up fast enough to catch her forehead just before it smashed into the painted cinder block.

“In real life, of course, you wouldn’t catch his head. Thank you,” I said to Christie, who was still blinking. She touched her forehead a couple of times to make sure it was still there.

“What I did was use the wall as both a weapon against my attacker and an aid to balance. I could bring my entire weight to bear on his neck because I was using the wall to keep me from falling backwards. If you practice this at home with unsuspecting spouses, I’d recommend you put a mattress against the wall first.”

Therese folded her arms. I gestured for her to speak.

“You’re in a bar. He’s drunk. You shouldn’t have hurt him like that.”

“The fucker deserved it,” Suze said, chin out.

I looked around. “Anyone else?”

Pauletta stirred. “Now I think about it, then maybe yeah, it could be a bit harsh. Dude only wanted a kiss.”

“Yeah, but he should’ve stopped when she said stop,” Suze said.

“I didn’t hear her say stop,” Therese said.

“So what should she do?”

They all turned to me.

“It depends.”

“Man, how did I know she was going to say that?”

“It always depends,” I said. “Always. Every situation is different. What do you do if your car breaks down on I-75? You don’t call a tow truck and say, ‘It’s Tuesday, bring a wrench,’ or ‘It’s Thursday, bring gas.’ You look at the context. This is a college bar. This man is drunk. He has friends. We don’t know if Christie has friends—Christie, do you have friends?”

“Well, yeah.”

“In the bar. And how old are the man and his friends?”

“Twenty-one?”

“In that context, yes, you shouldn’t have needed to get to the face-smashing stage. Therese, come over here and play Christie. I’ll be the drunk.”

Therese stood straight. I leered and staggered. “Give us a kiss, then.”

“No. Go away.”

“Oh, don’t be like that. Smile, go on.” I moved closer.

“No.” She backed up half a step but didn’t turn away, didn’t smile. “Go away.”

“Just one kiss…” I started to reach out.

“Don’t touch me,” she said loudly.

“Jeez, lady, I just wanted a—”

“Don’t you dare touch me. Lay one finger on me and I call the police.” Her pupils were small and tight, her whole face pointed at mine. “If you touch me I’ll have you sued for assault. You’ll never get your degree, you’ll never get a job. Don’t touch me!”

I turned to the others, raised my eyebrows. They applauded. Therese grinned, fiercely.

“It all goes back to what we were saying last week: communication and body language. Don’t let them use embarrassment against you. You won’t die of embarrassment. But let’s suppose he’s pushed you against the wall and he’s leaning in for the kiss. At that point are you warranted in using the maneuver I showed you earlier?”

“Yep,” said Suze.

“Not in that kind of bar,” Christie said.

“Just what kind of bar is it?” Suze.

“Suze, come and play the drunk who’s got me against the wall. Okay. Suggestions?”

“Just say no, like before. Real loud,” Kim said.

“Let’s say I’m so scared my mouth’s gone dry and I can’t shout,” I said. I would teach them another time how to deal with fear and its effects. “Let me show you one or two other tools you could use. Remember the knife-hand. ” They all made knife-hands. “Watch.” I laid the edge of my hand against Suze’s larynx. “If she tries to press towards me, that’s going to get very uncomfortable. You’re not deliberately hurting him, but you’ve drawn an unmistakable line. You’ve set yourself on fire. If he pushes harder, any damage is his fault. Try it. Gently.”

I let Suze try it on me, but kept the muscles in my throat expanded protectively.

“Good. One other thing. Kim, remember that knuckle extension I showed you?” She held out her arm obligingly. Everyone copied her. “Good. Now support your middle knuckle with your thumb and tuck the other fingers in, as though making a fist. Face your partner.” I moved Suze into position. “There’s a spot right in the middle of the breastbone where the nerve lies very close to the surface. Feel for it. Now put your knuckle on your partner’s breastbone and push.”

“Ow!”

“Shit!”

Everyone sprang apart rubbing their sternums.

“This is a very useful little tool. Appropriate for delicate situations, particularly those times when you have no wish to draw attention to yourself.” Appropriate. My mother would approve. I knew Therese would go home and practice that until it hurt to breathe. “Remember, the right tool for the right job. Even naked in an empty room you have plenty of tools. But the first tool you should practice is communication: Know what you want and don’t want, be prepared to communicate that clearly. Make sure your body and your words send the same message. Don’t apologize, don’t explain, don’t threaten. It’s all information they don’t need, and information is currency. It’s power. It’s a tool.”

They frowned. I thought for a minute.

“Jennifer.” Her jaw twitched. “When was the last time you got a wrong-number call?”

“A wrong number?”

“Yes. When?”

“About six months ago.”

“Remember how it went?” I picked up an imaginary phone and held it to my ear. “They called, and you picked up the phone and said… what?”

She picked up a phone, too. “Hello?”

“Hey, is this Annie?”

“Er, no.”

“Well, who is this?”

“Jennifer.”

“Is Annie there?”

“No, no one called Annie lives here.”

“Annie Contin. Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure, it’s just me and my husband.”

“And it’s not Contin?”

“No, I’m sorry.”

“Well what number is this?”

“555-2658.”

“Well, that’s Annie Contin’s number and I’m supposed to deliver a load of dog chow this afternoon. What’s your address?”

“We don’t have a dog. We have a cat. And… and you don’t need my address! ” and she slammed the imaginary phone down. Everyone was giving her sympathetic looks, the kind that in the South mean Dear Lord, what a moron. In the space of half a minute she had given a total stranger her name, her phone number, the fact that only two of them lived there, that she had a cat and no dog, and that she could be browbeaten without too much effort.

“Anyone think they can do better?”

“Yep.” Suze picked up the imaginary handset. “Hello.”

“Hey, is this Annie?”

“Nope, fuck off, asshole.” Slam.

“That’s always an option,” I said. “But similar to using a pile driver on a picture nail. Anyone else?”

Therese raised a phone to her ear. She smiled. I nodded. “Hello.” “Hey, is this Annie?”

“No. What number are you trying to reach?”

“Is this Annie? Annie Contin?”

“No. I believe you have the wrong number. Good-bye.”

“Excellent,” I said. “The less people know about you, the less they can hurt you. Think about it: who in your lives has the power to hurt you most, to wound you cruelly with a word?”

“My mother.”

“My husband.”

I nodded. “The people who know us best can hurt us the most because they know us, know how we think and what our vulnerabilities are. Any information you give a stranger can be used against you. Anything. Information is valuable. Don’t give it away.”