The Stud Book

by Monica Drake

  His ex-lover was more hidden than he was. That girl was gone. He said, “You have lipstick on your teeth.”

  Hannah’s unnaturally white state senator smile faltered then, and she scrubbed her front tooth with a finger. He saw the old Hannah for a fleeting second: a hard worker, an enthusiast.

  And she was gone, turned into a politician again as she shook a stranger’s hand. She transformed her beautiful, unbridled self into a tame, packaged production.

  Dulcet tripped in, in high heels and a long leather coat. She swung her purse and stumbled, but didn’t fall, and made her way to her crew, with the cardboard portfolio tucked under her arm.

  “This is it?” She looked at the nets.

  Arena lifted the remote and turned the projector on. A nearly naked man appeared dancing on the scrim made by a piece of mesh. The fabric was just dense enough to hold the image. The man wore snug white cotton briefs. He looked hopeful and vulnerable, naked and bruised.

  Arena turned on the second projector and there he was again. “Reproduction,” she said.

  On the first screen the man bent, pulled off his underwear, and danced. His cock hung free. As soon as the spectators all saw it, he bent and picked up his underwear again and put it back on. He was bold, then shy. He moved with intention, then something like regret. His regrets set in just as his twin on the other screen peeled his underwear off and did the same dance. They were in front of a mattress on the floor.

  One undressed as the other dressed, in a loop.

  Dulcet moved behind the scrim.

  “You’re in the room with him,” Georgie said. Dulcet did a shimmy with the man on the screen, waved her portfolio, flashed her latex suit—her beyond-naked body—and gave her boobs a good shake. Then she laughed, wrapped herself back in her coat, and said, “You’re with him, too. All of you.”

  Everybody on the other side of the screen was in the room with the naked man. He faced the crowd from both sides; it was the same image. Ben looked through the screens and saw Sarah in the man’s bedroom, and felt the fleeting heat of possessiveness; he was ready to take his wife home. Dulcet saw Georgie and the baby with the naked man, a diorama of family. Sarah saw everyone, the gymnasium full of people, with the naked man front and center stage. She was used to watching animal hordes in cages. The gym was an exercise in overpopulation.

  Nyla pushed her way through the gym doors, limped across the basketball court into the masses, and scanned for her daughter, cradling a wad of pink lilies wrapped in neon-green tissue. Her hip screamed. She pushed against that pain with one palm. Her vision was narrow, her mind focused.

  The gym buzzed with families cooing over children’s art. “Look what our babies have done!” Every child was a genius.

  Nyla was queasy, in a cold sweat with her pain, as she scanned that sea of humanity. Dulcet emerged out of the crowd, in front of Nyla. She leaned in. “More speed dating?”

  Nyla looked confused. What was she getting at?

  “Looks like you’ve pulled something,” Dulcet yelled, over the noise. This was almost as loud as the bar the night before. The sweet-bitter skunk of Dulcet’s pot breath was startlingly close.

  Dulcet laughed. When did she get so many teeth? She said, “You’re limping like you’ve had major action.” Dulcet’s coat flashed open as she moved ever closer. Underneath, she was all organs: lungs, kidneys, and ovaries as visible as if her skin had been peeled off.

  Georgie moved in, with her baby, and asked, “Yoga strain?”

  Nyla had only one person in mind. She stepped around them, said, “Darling!” and held out her arms to her daughter. Arena recoiled. Nyla came at her with the flowers. Arena didn’t take them, but instead ducked behind a screen, behind her rippled fabric. Then Nyla saw the dancing man, too. Before then, her eyes had been solely on her girl.

  “Look familiar?”

  The naked man stepped out of his underwear. He flashed an awkward glance. Nyla recognized him and gasped. She dropped the lilies. “Him!”

  “Yes. Him.” Arena spit the words. She broke them off, crumpled them like paper, made them sound recycled and weathered. She hadn’t spoken to her mom since she saw the photo in the news. She hadn’t even been home.

  Nyla felt like she was losing her mind. Was that really him? She wasn’t sure. She’d never seen her attacker naked. “Who is he?”

  “He’s a good guy, Mom.” The girl’s voice choked. “I love him.”

  The man disappeared from one screen, then the second screen. “We can’t show this here.” Mrs. Cherryholmes, with her frosted hair and frosted makeup, had turned the projectors off.

  She’d expelled the image on the screen from the school. They were big on expulsion here.

  “Can’t show art at an art show?” Dulcet giggled with a stoner’s glee, always up for an altercation.

  Nyla picked up her fallen lilies. Arena had the remote in her hand and, in quiet defiance, turned one projector back on. AKA came back, dancing and naked. The principal bent and clicked it off. Arena turned on the other. There he was again.

  Nyla whispered, “Alvin Kelvin Aldrich.” She stepped forward and back, then forward again, in constant nervous motion. Sarah recognized the movement. Where had she seen that dance before?

  “So you admit you know him,” Arena said.

  Mrs. Cherryholmes said, “This is inappropriate.” AKA disappeared.

  “It’s a celebration of the human form,” Dulcet barked, accustomed to the argument in light of her own work. Now she felt lifted into the place of a role model. Despite all the missed birthdays and weak social skills, maybe Dulcet had an influence on the girl after all! Maybe this was her legacy, not a child but an artist. “Turn it on, Arena, honey.”

  Arena did. There he was again.

  The principal took the remote away. “It’s sexually explicit content.”

  Arena turned to her mom. Nyla offered, “It’s … not?” Then again, with more conviction, “It’s not explicitly sexual.” The whole time, Nyla never quit walking. It was like she couldn’t turn off part of her workout routine.

  Georgie bounced her baby and murmured, “Well, it is kind of explicit.…”

  “What’s wrong with explicit?” Dulcet’s voice was loud and clear even under the high ceiling of the gym, against the wail of children.

  Arena sucked in her breath, that anxious response. She twisted her hair, still the girl-child she’d always been. She said, “Stand up for me, Mom!”

  Nyla held no sway in this school or any school; she had nothing but struggles. She pressed a hand to the ache in her side, stepping from one foot to the other. She said, “This is about freedom of expression.”

  In Portland, even the full-nude strip joints were deemed an exercise in free speech.

  Mrs. Cherryholmes held on to the remote. “That doesn’t pertain to a public high school, when minors are present.”

  Then Sarah recognized Nyla’s dance: It was the pacing of the one-eyed elephant at the zoo who had lost her baby. It was the nervous dance of a mother in pain.

  Sarah could hardly stand to watch. She laced an arm over Nyla’s shoulders, but Nyla shook her off, waved at the screens, and said, “This is work my daughter did in school. Here.”

  “Direct action!” Dulcet said. She bent to turn one screen back on, in her stumbling way, and her makeshift cardboard portfolio slipped from her arms, scattering an arc of black-and-white photos.

  At a glance the pictures held the inviting curves of ripe fruit in sun and shadow. Upside down, sideways, and on top of each other, one materialized as a landscape of low hills. A white crescent was a shell, or an ear, until it became an arm wrapped alongside two legs, hands laced together under a knee. Ben was the first to come forward, crouch, and start picking the photos up, always eager to make himself useful.

  And if one looked at the photos a moment longer, the curves settled into the planes of Georgie’s face and the fullness of her breasts and the dark circles of her nipples, and there was the baby,
and it was a mother and an infant, and what was that sheer scarf of a drape? The black-and-white shadows and lights reached across the gray scale.

  There was the triangle tattoo. Any questions?

  Georgie, her arms full of her child, couldn’t pick up the photos fast enough.

  A woman in a sweat suit bent to retrieve a print that had slid far across the gym floor. Dulcet called out, “Hey, you’re still here?”

  “So far.” The woman held a photo in front of Georgie, to compare the image. “This must be Georgie.”

  “She saw the shots in my studio.” Dulcet was crouched down, too, now, in her high heels. She caught herself before falling sideways. “Remember my friend, the gym teacher?”

  Georgie countered, “I saw yours.”

  “This is not supportive. None of it,” Arena said, loudly—loud enough for any child services representative who might unexpectedly be in the area, as though she were talking to the world, not only her mother and her mother’s friends.

  Nyla half-whispered, “Dulcet, it isn’t your show.”

  “I’m not trying to take over,” Dulcet said, surprised.

  “Well, you’re not trying to smooth things over, either,” Nyla added.

  Barry Gibb moved through the crowd, shaking his mullet and meeting parents. This was the teacher who’d encouraged Arena, who’d let her do this work in his class. He looked like somebody’s way-too-old prom date, in jeans and a sport coat.

  Sophomore year, Dulcet had crashed somebody else’s senior prom with a guy exactly like that.

  The principal unplugged a projector and started winding up the cord. She said, “I’m going to ask you to leave now.”

  “Ask them, you mean?” Nyla was ready to cut her friends loose, if that’s what it took to support her daughter.

  “All of you.” The principal stood firm, mini-projector in hand.

  Arena said, “Good riddance.” She walked out first.

  “You can’t keep throwing us out!” Nyla said. “We just got her back in.” The AV guy brought a cart around. The principal slid the projector onto the cart. Arena had already walked off. Nyla called her name and tried to run, but only managed to limp after her daughter.

  They found Arena on a post in a gravel stretch across from the school, under a slow children sign. Dulcet teetered in high heels as she crossed the gravel lot, pushing a palm to the childproof lid of an amber vial, reaching for ever-present pain meds.

  Georgie, striding along with Bella in her arms, in her Keds, said, “Why do stoner chicks ever wear high heels? Seems harder than it has to be.”

  Dulcet gave a grin and put a pill on her tongue. “I don’t feel a thing.”

  “Anybody want to go out for ice cream?” Nyla held a hand to her hip. Her top lip was beaded with sweat. Her eyes were ringed with dark circles, and her hair was all flyaways. She chirped, “My treat.”

  Sarah looked like she hadn’t heard. Georgie was busy with the baby.

  Dulcet offered, “Vicodin? My treat.” Her latex suit gave a happy squeak against her leather coat.

  Nyla winced at Dulcet, then looked to her daughter. “No, really. Dessert, honey?”

  Arena kicked the gravel. Dulcet held Georgie’s photos jammed under one arm, out of their cardboard binder now. Arena reached over and slid one from the stack. They looked at Georgie’s naked body.

  “Humble’s gonna whimper,” Dulcet said.

  Humble.

  If only he’d whimper, Georgie thought. If he’d weep. If he’d make amends. If only. Bella fussed, and Georgie pulled down the neckline of her dress to let the baby nurse. She and Bella were good at stealth nursing, it turned out. Until her daughter was born, Georgie didn’t know she had such a talent.

  Nyla said, “Where is Hum, anyway?” She reached one pale hand for a pole to steady herself.

  Sarah said, “Are you okay?”

  Nyla said, “He said he’d be here.”

  Georgie flinched, like she’d been hit, and said, “You talked to Humble?”

  “We had drinks, last night.”

  That was why Nyla looked so trashed: drinks. Too many drinks.

  Humble was out drinking with Nyla? He wasn’t laid up with remorse or getting into rehab. He was hitting the bars.

  He was supposed to whimper, weep, and wail.

  Georgie said, “Drinks? Aren’t you pregnant?”

  Dulcet cut in, tipsy and loud, “Nyla, honey, we’ll do your maternity photos when you’re ready.”

  “Maternity?” Arena turned to her mom. “Oh, God. Mom, no way.”

  Nyla said, “I was going to tell you—I didn’t have a chance. There was the crystal meth thing—”

  “Crystal Light,” Arena cut in.

  “The timing didn’t seem right, then you took off—”

  “So it’s my fault?”

  Nyla said, “I’m only eight weeks along. It’s still the first trimester.”

  “When were you planning to tell me, Mom?”

  “Further along. Not all pregnancies work out. Look at Sarah.” And they all did—they all looked at Sarah, who seemed to visibly shrink under their gaze.

  Sarah said, quietly, “Leave me out of this, Nyla.”

  “I’m sorry,” Nyla said. “I’m trying to explain—”

  “You’re all guppies,” Arena said. She handed Georgie’s picture off to the air, to the first hand that’d take it. “I’m going to throw up.”

  Drinks?” Dulcet purred with the contented voice of the medicated.

  Nyla had gone to chip paint or arrange dried flowers or place orders for carbon-neutral products that had yet to be invented.

  Arena swore she’d vomit if she had to ride with her pregnant mother. She rode with Ben instead, who said he’d take her home. Sarah, Georgie, and Dulcet stood outside the high school.

  Sarah said, “I thought you had somewhere to be.”

  “I’ve got a gap.” Dulcet wrapped her coat tighter. She had an hour before her date with Mr. Latex. She’d expected to stay at the art show longer. Latex wanted her to arrive dressed. That was part of the deal. Bitchy Bitch danced at her feet, wildly happy about being let out of Dulcet’s old Fairlane, the dog always in motion. Dulcet only said, “God, Nyla is a wreck.”

  “She needs sleep,” Georgie said. Georgie herself looked exhausted.

  Dulcet said, “She’s a walking corpse.”

  “Too much yoga,” Georgie said, then looked around cautiously. Yes, she was postpartum fat and hadn’t touched Nyla’s Blast the Flab cardio DVD offer. She hadn’t lifted one finger, done one roundhouse, or even lowered into a single downward dog in a weak warm-up. Who was she to talk?

  Georgie said, “If she makes another fat comment, I’ll scream.”

  Dulcet murmured, “She doesn’t hear herself. Nyla doesn’t mean any harm. But she’s the whore with the store. I don’t judge her, but I could offer her a sex ed class.” She found a pre-rolled joint in a baggie in her jacket pocket, and a pack of matches. “Medicinal,” she said, justifying her habit out of habit as she lit up.

  Georgie said, “And, Sarah, that comment of hers was out of line.”

  Sarah waved away the sympathy. “No, she’s right. I’m a living reality check on pregnancies. They don’t all last. Let me be your goddamn cautionary tale!” Sarah half-yelled it.

  Dulcet cut in, “Where’s a brewpub? They let babies in.” She fanned smoke away from her face.

  Georgie made a note for her hypochondriac’s guide to motherhood: Don’t worry about not being able to party after you have a baby. There are brewpubs and backyards for drinking with kids.

  That was for the alcoholic’s guide to parenting, which she could totally write, too.

  So they’d drink and use plastic stir sticks and wad up napkins and forget about the rain forest and the petroleum industry and all the other global destruction, without Nyla there to remind them.

  Dear Nyla. They loved her. They did. But this was a welcome break.

  Mrs. Cherryholmes came out
of the school and crossed the gravel to where they stood, smokers in the smokers’ corner, stoners in the cone zone, Slow Children of all ages. Dulcet palmed the joint. The principal held out a canvas bag.

  “This came with one of you?” She practically held her nose.

  It was Nyla’s bag. the new rules, it said. Dulcet held out a hand, and the principal handed the sad, sagging bag over.

  They piled in Georgie’s car because the baby seat was secured there and Georgie wasn’t high. She tucked Bella in. “Who wants to ride in back with the baby?”

  Ride with the baby? Sarah twisted her hands, then knocked on her own head for luck. It was body language for a conflicted no thanks.

  Dulcet wedged her long, thin self in beside the baby seat. The seat sat in the middle of the backseat, turned around backward, with the baby left to gaze out the rear window. Somehow that infant carrier dominated the whole backseat, with its hard plastic contours. Dulcet snapped her fingers. Bitchy Bitch jumped in the car.

  Sarah reached back to pet the dog. They’d all been sorry to hear about Shadow.

  Bella was warm, quiet, and sleeping. They sailed down Portland’s winter weeknight streets. For once, it wasn’t raining. It wasn’t even cold. Georgie said, “Nyla gave me that mother bread starter. I’m fat—like I need bread? Endless bread that keeps doubling itself. She’s the enabler.” They cut onto Burnside and drove toward Sandy. The car smelled like dog breath and baby spit. The dog was a white ball of wild fluff barking at the windows. Georgie said, “Endless carbs that keep on multiplying. Amish friendship bread that needs tending every day.” Sarah rolled down her window.

  Dulcet asked, “What bread?”

  “It’s like having another baby,” Georgie said. “I put it in the freezer.”

  “You’ll kill the yeast,” Sarah said. Wind through the open window battered her words.

  Dulcet said, “Oh, shit. I might have stepped on mine. There was something in the hallway outside my apartment.”

  “I killed it?” Georgie asked.

  “I killed mine, too.” Sarah spit her gum out the window even though she knew better. A wad of gum on the ground could choke a bird who mistook it for food. But Sarah was being reckless, and regretted it immediately. The dog whipped her head around, as though to snap at the gum, as though the gum were food.