Icarus. (21 page)

She wasn't crazy about her skin, either. It was dry, no matter how much expensive moisturizer she kept on it, and it wasn't smooth. There were imperfections, little bumps and hairs; when she stared at it under the bright lights of her makeup mirror it sometimes made her sick. Really and truly ill. She would stare at the magnified flaws in her skin for five minutes, ten minutes, sometimes as long as half an hour, and then her stomach would hurt and she'd have to lie down. And when she'd lie down, she'd think about her hips, how they were too wide, they really and truly were. Oh, no one could tell now, but she knew what was going to happen in another ten years. That might seem like an eternity, but it had already been three years since she'd come to New York and that had gone by in a flash. It seemed like yesterday. So she knew that any minute her hips would widen and her triceps would sag and she'd have her mother's body and once that happened, men wouldn't love her, they'd leave her, just like they left her mother…

No. She couldn't go there. Once that happened, everything would change. But for now, it was her secret. No one else knew what would happen as she got older. The same way no one knew what she was like before. All they knew was what she was now. Muy muy bonita with a perfect body and small chi chis that were still her own.

Then she found out that one other person knew. Just one. She had told him about her past, about her father and the way he crept into her room at night. About her parents' divorce and her stepfather and her mother's religious conversion, and her sister's suicide and her other sister's drinking. Yeah, she was the one who revealed to him what she'd been. But he'd figured out on his own what she was going to become. Somehow, he'd seen it for himself. Watched her as she stared at her own face in the mirror. And when she turned to him, realizing that he was there, in the bathroom doorway, he'd said, "Scared." Said it very plain and simple. Not really a question, much more definite than that. More of an answer.

"Why should I be scared?" she asked, and flipped her streaked blonde hair. Men melted when she flipped her hair. Especially since it had been streaked.

He didn't melt, though. Just stared at her for another few seconds. And then said, "Because you're smart enough to know what's going to happen to you."

She wanted to ask: What do you mean? What's going to happen to me? But she didn't, because he was right. She already knew.

Just as he knew that she wasn't pretty enough.

That was the first time it occurred to her that she was in love with Kid.

It was also the first time she realized what she was capable of.

It was the first time she thought she could kill him.

Es verdad.

Really and truly kill him.

– "-"-"THE MURDERESS She couldn't believe her life was turning out so well.

So far, it had been a dream of a day. She woke up, alone and liking it. Went for a run, did the entire Central Park reservoir twice around. She ran easily, with her mind clear, able to concentrate on exactly what she was doing: putting one foot in front of the other, breathing deeply, in and out. She kept her own pace, competed against no one. Ran out of the park until she was half a block from her apartment building – she adored living on the Upper West Side; what could be better? – then walked briskly the rest of the way, smiled at her doorman, rode up in the quiet elevator, stepped back into the apartment she loved so much. She spent a minute stepping through the apartment, touching the art on the walls, the piece of fabric from India that had been mounted and framed and hung in the living room over the elegant Shabby Chic couch. Touching them made them real to her. The way her life was now real to her.

She had ground the dark, French Roast coffee beans the night before and put the powder in the top of the gleaming black Cuisinart coffee maker, along with a dash of cinnamon and a touch of vanilla, so all she had to do was pour in four cups' worth of water and flick the switch. The aroma of brewing coffee immediately filled the kitchen while she yanked her sweaty clothes off, dropped them on the living room floor and left them there, ran in and took a hot shower, let the steaming water, pleasant little stings of heat, rain down on her body while she scrubbed herself clean and shampooed her hair vigorously, twice.

Her clothes had been laid out the night before – organized was better, she had long ago concluded – and she stepped into the suit she'd decided to wear that day to work. She wouldn't get home before the party she was hosting that night, so this outfit would have to suffice for both. The black pinstriped skirt was short enough to be revealing and sexy but loose enough to be tasteful. The matching jacket was conservative but beautifully tapered. She buttoned it to within two buttons of the top, revealing only her long, graceful neck and the very top of her angular chest. To counter the conservatism of the cut and fabric, she wore no shirt underneath. Let everyone wonder. She had concluded something else long ago: mystery was also better.

She wore two-inch heels. She'd be on her feet all day, but she decided against flats, went with the Manolo Blahnik slingbacks that had been such an extravagance when she'd bought them. The extra inches boosted her up to five foot five and that, she decided, was a respectable height.

Her reddish hair – once a mousy brown, now lightly hennaed so it had a coppery glow – was layered and cut short. She'd had it touched up the day before. She wanted everything to be in place for tonight. Tonight was meant to be special.

She nudged the toe of her right shoe under her running shirt and sweatpants and kicked them up in the air. Cupping her hands and catching them expertly, she dropped them in the hamper in the hallway closet, went back into the kitchen and had two cups of black coffee – why, she wondered, does four cups of water always make only two and a half cups of coffee – while she read the Times, which had been delivered to her front door.

Even the long subway ride down to work had been particularly nice. A very handsome guy eyed her appreciatively the whole way down. He was around her age, wore expensive jeans and a pressed and firmly starched white shirt, and there was nothing leering about his stare. He got off the train before she did and he smiled at her, an appreciative smile, acknowledging the fact that she looked good and that it was nice to see someone who looked good.

Work, too, had been easy so far. She'd made the sale she'd been hoping all week to make. The clients had been indecisive but ultimately had trusted both her taste and her assessment that the piece they were buying was going to appreciate substantially in value. She was thrilled when they'd finally said okay; she didn't even bother to try hiding her pleasure. She had a bottle of Perrier Jouet sent to their apartment with a note that read, "You made the right choice. Drink this while enjoying your new purchase," and she received a dozen roses from them – sent before they could have received her gift – with a note that said, "Thanks for making our lives easier and more pleasurable."

She had a delicious little lunch right around the corner – turkey on black bread with Brie and honey mustard – and then a cappuccino with skim milk at the Italian coffee place a block farther away, one of the last neighborhoody places, sad to say, left in that part of SoHo. Gianni, the usually grouchy seventy-ish counterman, even threw in a chocolate biscotti, saying, "On you it looks good."

It was only toward the end that the dream of a day took a rocky turn. She was on the phone, doing a favor for another customer, giving some advice to a young artist who was looking for a place to display, when she heard the front door open and he walked in. Flustered, she didn't get off the phone, talked to the artist for perhaps five more minutes. Knowing she was being rude but not really caring, not knowing what else to do exactly. Then the conversation was exhausted and she hung up, had to deal with the situation.

"I wanted to see you," he said.

He looked good. Of course, he always looked good. This was him at his best, though. Tight jeans worn over a pair of brown cowboy boots, a yellow T-shirt. A light beige suede jacket. Hair mussed. Why couldn't he ever keep his hair combed?

"You know I'm happy to see you. But we've been through all this," she told him.

"This is different," Kid said. "It's not what you think. I just need to talk."

She smiled, not exactly believing that all he wanted to do was talk.

He saw her smile and said, without smiling in return, "I need help."

"What kind of help?" she asked and now she believed him because she'd never seen him quite so serious.

"Can you meet me later? Tonight?"

"I can't," she said, and felt as if she were lying but she wasn't. Tonight was too important and she couldn't leave. When he kept staring at her, she repeated it, stressing the word so he'd at least try to understand, "I cant."

He still said nothing, and in the silence she thought, He knows so much about me. More than almost anyone. Then she thought, What he could do with what he knows. What he could do…

"Please," he said. The word was so faint that she wasn't sure she had heard it at all. Then he said it again, firmer. "Please."

"I'm sorry," she told him, and she couldn't believe the words were coming out of her mouth. She was being so strong. Or was she being cruel? Or worse, self-destructive?

She watched him turn, disappointed and hurt, and go out the door, saunter away down the cobblestone street. He did tend to saunter.

The phone rang again. It was the artist-in-waiting, with a couple more questions. She gave him answers but she didn't really hear the questions. She was too busy thinking about the end of her perfect day, and what it meant, him being hurt like this. She realized that she would have to go see him one day. Soon. And she realized what she was going to have to do.

And why.

In mid-March, Kid said it was time to begin the final push. "You are now strong enough to begin phase four," Kid announced. "What I think is that if you stopped now, stopped progressing, I mean, you could live like this. Your body is basically back to normal, your injuries are pretty much healed. There's pain, I know, but it's manageable pain."

Jack thought this over and nodded. "Most of the time it is."

"You can live like this but I don't want you to. You shouldn't have to," Kid went on. "The problem, at this level, isn't so much the pain itself as the fear that goes with it. It's no longer a question of healing, it's a question of strengthening. It's a question of how strong can we make you and the answer is you have to be strong enough to eradicate the fear."

"What's that on your arm?"

Kid glanced down. Peeking out from the bottom of his T-shirt sleeve was a hint of a white bandage. "It's nothing," he said.

"What happened?"

Kid hesitated. "A cut."

"How?"

Now Kid fidgeted. He bit his lower lip, chewed it until it turned white, swiveled his head uncomfortably and finally said, "The Mortician."

"She cut you?"

"I… I talked about the idea of breaking up. She got upset and-"

"Kid, did she do that with a knife?"

Kid nodded. "It was mostly an accident."

"I think this is getting out of hand."

"Look, can we not talk about this? I don't want to talk about the Team anymore."

"Why not?"

Kid now pulled out a small chart. "There are six hundred muscle groups in the body, comprising forty percent of your body weight-"

"What's happening that you don't want to talk about?"

Ignoring him, Kid went on, looking only at his chart. "We're gonna go to town on those muscles now."

"Kid-"

"No!"

Jack was startled by the vehemence behind Kid's shout. He said nothing until Kid looked up and their eyes met. Then Jack nodded. While he nodded, the thought that was in his head was: He ran before. I don't want him to run again. Something's going on and I don't understand it – but I don't want to push him away. I don't want him running. So he didn't go beyond the nod, which let Kid know that he was willing to drop the subject.

"Here's a schedule." Kid tapped his chart again. But before he could go any further, Mattie came running into the room.

She looked around frantically, expecting to find something wrong, and was surprised that the room was calm. "What was that screaming?" she said, and though her voice was even, her eyes were fierce. Her anger was directed at Kid, and when he didn't answer she said, "Don't you start screaming and upsetting things," she said.

"It's all right, Mattie," Jack told her.

"I don't want him screaming at you. And I don't want him hurting you more than you already been hurt." She faced Kid again. "You understand what I'm telling you?"

"Yes," Kid said, all force gone from his voice.

"You hurt him once. And you are not going to do it again."

"You're right. I'm sorry."

She stood in the doorway, scowling, until Jack said, "It's really okay. I swear."

Mattie nodded, satisfied that she'd done her job, turned, and headed back to the kitchen. There was an awkward silence in the room until Kid said, "She protects you."

"Yes."

"Well, she's right to."

"Right or not, I'm glad she does."

Kid cleared his throat, tapped his chart again, and said, "Okay, for now, we're gonna follow this four times a week."

Jack frowned and looked over the chart in Kid's hand. There were all sorts of columns, neatly printed out on a computer. The exercises were impossible. Kid wanted him to do things he could not do.

"You are joking, right?" he asked Kid. "You want me to run?

"We're not gonna get there tomorrow, Jack. But a year from now, yeah, I think you'll be able to do all this. And you don't have to run a ten-minute mile. We can start at fifteen. Or twenty. I just want you to get on the treadmill and-"