The Body Double

by Emily Beyda

  “It’s so nice to see Edward,” I say. “I’m sure he’s proud to have all his hard work at the farm end up on such a beautiful table.”

  “You’re lucky you caught him!” Marie says. “He spends most of his time down in Ojai, don’t you, darling?”

  Edward breaks off his conversation for a moment. “I love it,” he says, “All that good clean country air.”

  He winks broadly. Marie smiles again, and turns back to the man between us.

  “Rosanna,” Leo says.

  I notice he has not touched his food, the egg sitting in front of him intact. He is drinking, though, and pours himself another glass of wine, a few drops falling and staining the white weave of the tablecloth. I have to force myself not to reach forward and wipe it away: not my problem, I think, not my fault. I give him a polite little smile and turn back to Marie.

  “I really must come visit,” I say.

  “Yes!” says Marie. She turns to the blond man. “You know,” she says, “you should come visit sometime, too. It really is lovely out there, and it’s always good to get out of L.A.”

  It is as if I haven’t spoken at all. The blond man is talking again, expounding on the areas of his expertise, audience expectations and casting, the respective tax situations in Atlanta, Toronto, Oregon. This was a notable feature of conversations I’d had with people Rosanna knew, especially the men. They didn’t expect me to contribute anything. As long as I keep nodding occasionally and remember my vague, receptive smile, I can let myself relax, slide out of my body. Normally it’s kind of nice, almost meditative. An abnegation of the self. But here it rankles. To have to fall silent and nod obligingly at this nobody, this stranger, who should have been my ally but is instead so sure of his perfect right to take up space, command the attention that should be going to me, is infuriating.

  “Don’t talk to me about Toronto!” I say. “Marie, remember when I flew up to visit you on a shoot and just totally forgot to bring my passport? Thank god they’re so lax about checking documents on private planes!”

  Marie laughs and turns back to the blond man. “But things must have changed a great deal in the past few years, haven’t they? I’m sure it’s much harder to get around customs.”

  He nods and continues his monologue. I don’t know what I had expected. Marie certainly wouldn’t be able to replicate the intimacy of our conversation on the mountaintop here, or even the less intense closeness of our coffee dates. But I thought she would give me some minimal acknowledgment. It hurts to be totally ignored, to have to listen to some stranger bore us with the minutiae of his career, which I am sure will stall out as soon as he loses his good looks and stops being interesting to women like Marie. I watch her listen. I watch us both, the artificial movements of my face as I laugh Rosanna’s laugh, cocking my head slightly to the right, the way she does to show she’s fascinated and paying close attention, nodding her empathetic nods. My body is full of her. My mind is blank.

  Leo leans toward me. I’m certain now that he has been drinking too much. His gaze floats to one side of my face, an unfocused drift. Under the table, his leg presses against mine, whether on purpose or through the accidental intimacy created by bench seating, I cannot tell. Eleanor, sitting close beside him, looks at me with equally avid curiosity. At least someone here is interested in me, I think. Fine. These people want to talk to me. So I’ll talk to them.

  “So,” says Leo, “when are you going to tell us where you’ve been hiding?” He is speaking loudly enough that the couple across the table perk up and pretend they aren’t listening.

  “Come on,” says Eleanor, “Leo, be polite. Now is not the time.”

  He shifts tactics, his tone becoming appeasing. “It’s no big deal,” he says to his wife, “I’m just asking,” and to me, “I know I’m not supposed to bring it up, but, Rosanna, come on, you know how fond of you I—well, both of us—are. We were friends, good friends once. And you must feel you owe me some sort of an explanation.”

  As far as I know they are marginal acquaintances at best, people from my old, bad days of wildness I don’t see very often. So either they’re confused about Rosanna’s feelings or there is something bigger here I’m not supposed to know about. Maybe talking to them will be worthwhile, after all. I knew that everything that had been part of Rosanna’s life would eventually come to me. All I had to do was wait. And here it is now, arriving.

  “Leo,” says Eleanor, “please. You’re making Rosanna uncomfortable. And frankly, you’re making me uncomfortable as well.”

  I turn my focus on her, my sympathetic expression. “Thank you, Eleanor,” I say. “It’s all right. But, Leo, you know I can’t talk about it.” I load my voice with regret. “Not here. Not in front of everyone. Maybe not ever, frankly. Honestly, I have a hard time even remembering anything that didn’t happen a few months ago. It’s been a difficult time. Everything still feels so close to the surface. All that pain.”

  Under the table, Leo puts his hand on my thigh. I look back at him, right in the eyes, unflinching. It feels like an intrusion. A violence. He shouldn’t be touching me without asking. Only Max can do that. Something inside me thrums. I focus on Eleanor, making my voice low and sweet.

  “I can’t tell you how often I’ve thought of you,” I say.

  I look right into her eyes, my own eyes wide, so sincere I can see her flinch. She has to force herself to not look away. With his other hand, Eleanor’s husband pours me another glass of wine. It tastes expensive. I know what expensive wine tastes like now, the fullness of it, something strange and broken and rough, the opposite of the sweet pink wine my mother drank in the summertime, bottle frosty from the fridge on those hot afternoons when we sat close, sweaty, on the plastic-covered couch in my grandmother’s house, waiting for the phone to ring. But this is a dangerous game. I will not allow myself to think about my mother. The hand on my thigh moves up slowly, troubling the smooth sheen of the silk. I stay still. I will not let myself mind. If he’s doing this, it’s because Rosanna lets him. I need to discover why, what power he thinks he has over us.

  “Anyway,” I say, “I’m back now. I’m here. Isn’t that the only thing that matters?”

  “We’ve thought of you, too,” says Leo, his voice hoarse.

  There is a pause. He seems to be gathering himself. Marie’s laughter presses up against my ear, a distant train pulling away into darkness. The waiters approach with the second course, flank steak on a bed of arugula and heirloom tomatoes, brushed with a balsamic quince paste glaze, everything, of course, allegedly from the Ojai garden. I use the interruption as an excuse to turn back toward the blond man and Marie. Marie sitting close to him. Marie laughing. Marie liking him best. Leo fills my glass again. I drain it in one long gulp.

  “Thanks,” I say, without looking at him.

  The blond man looks like the men Rosanna texts late at night. I picture his image on her phone, shiftlessly brooding. He is the kind of man who leases an expensive car and rents a house in the hills he cannot afford, who dates women like Marie until their husbands find out. We are not unalike. Both of us are valuable for our bodies, what those bodies can provide to women older than us, more powerful. I feel a strange kinship with him. He stares at Marie with wide eyes, as flat and blank as the eyes of a shark.

  “Marie,” I say again, and this time the look she gives me is distinctly annoyed. I feel a bright little pop of anger burst inside me. Why did she even invite me? Why am I here? She is leaning the full weight of her body toward the blond man. But he isn’t looking back at her. His body is turned toward mine. I’m a better target, I realize. Single, getting a lot of press, more likely to be willing to publicize our relationship. She wants his attention, and he wants mine. I’ll get to her through him.

  “So,” I say, “I thought I was going to get a chance to hear about your work.”

  I twist my body toward his, my kn
ee wresting itself from Leo’s grasp. Another problem that can wait, will have to wait until I am ready for it.

  “I’m sure,” I say, “that as an artist you find inspiration in your own life.”

  “Oh yes,” he says, and I can see him brightening, “I do, but you know, you must remember, Miss Feld—”

  “Rosanna,” I say, “please. My friends call me by my first name. And we are friends now, aren’t we?”

  He practically blushes. “It’s hard,” he says. “I was just telling Marie, it’s hard being under so much pressure, especially at first, and my agent and everyone…they just want me to make choices that are so commercial. That’s not who I am.”

  “You’re an artist.”

  “I’m an artist, and they need to understand that, but maybe I should start doing more commercials, because my parents keep telling me I need to come back to Gold River and my ex-girlfriend has practically moved in with them—”

  “And they don’t understand you.”

  “Not me or the business. These things take time, don’t they?”

  “Of course,” I say, and I nod and look concerned and I drink and keep drinking, and soon it doesn’t matter what he’s saying, only the low thrum of his voice, the way he looks at me like I know all the secrets there are to know. Marie keeps making small, kind interjections, but we both know I hold the power now. I am prettier than her, unmarried, more famous. If I like him enough, I can give him anything he wants. And I do like him, sort of. I like the way he restores the balance between us, gets Marie to look brightly at me as I speak. And then Leo’s hand comes down again on my knee. It is all I can do not to stab it with my steak knife.

  “Rosanna,” he says to the back of my head, “really, we need to talk.”

  I turn reluctantly. Eleanor is looking at me with a strange intensity. My annoyance is drowning out my curiosity. I find them so overbearing that even though I know they hold, or think they hold, some secret knowledge of Rosanna’s life, I am reluctant to give them the attention they are clearly so desperate for.

  “Some other time,” I say, smiling.

  My face is starting to feel a little loose.

  “I’m having so much fun, aren’t you? And all I do is talk. Talk and talk. I’m sick of talking. Sick to death. I think talking’s incredibly overrated.”

  I put my arm around the blond man’s shoulders, letting Leo see me do it, staring him right in the eyes. It is my body. I am the only one who gets to decide what I do with it.

  “Darling,” I say to the blond man, “I hope you’ll take my advice. Talking’s on its way out. Silent films are coming back any day now. No subtitles, either. All image. Image first, that’s my motto. What else matters?”

  He laughs uncertainly. He has no idea what I’m talking about. Neither do I, to be fair, but he has to pretend it makes sense. He has so much to prove. And I can help him prove it. My fingertips crackle with the static in the air, with power, my power, surging through my body, heady like the rush of love, Rosanna inside me, all the way through. Eleanor leans forward, taking her husband’s other hand in her own, subtly trying to pull him away. But it doesn’t work. He keeps staring at me. His hand stays on my knee.

  “Come to Malibu,” he says, quieter now—this is between us. “I know you’ve got a lot going on right now. But come with us after dinner. It’ll be fun, I promise, and we can talk there.”

  “I’ve already told you how I feel about talking,” I say.

  But inside me, a little spark. Here’s an idea. Here’s something. I don’t particularly feel like having it out with these strangers here, in front of everyone. But Malibu—Malibu sounds promising. A chance for me to finally see the ocean, after all this time living so close I can practically hear it in the whisper of the freeway. A chance for me to discover their secrets, to evade them as they try to dig for mine. Leo leans even closer.

  “Seriously,” he says, “come to Malibu. You’re right, we can’t talk here. It was absurd of me to suggest it. But we do need to talk. We have that wonderful little place down by the ocean, and we can sit up late, the three of us. It’ll be fun. Like old times. After dinner we’ll slip off. Marie won’t mind.”

  His eyes seem to drift over the surface of my face, never quite settling down, his pupils black and vast. I wonder if he’s been drinking as much as I have. Everything inside me feels slurred and easy. I am still in control, I tell myself, still in command of everything going on around me. Eleanor leans closer to her husband, a concerned look on her face. She smells good. Like Marie.

  “I still have our old coke dealer’s number,” says Leo. “Come on, let’s indulge, let’s stay up together. We can go surfing in the sunrise. It’ll be beautiful. Like old times.”

  Curiosity prickles the back of my spine. I want this part of her, too, the wild part, the old Rosanna, the Rosanna who made spontaneous choices, went places she wasn’t supposed to go, did things that got her in trouble. I want to wear her freedom the way I wear her gestures, her habits, her expensive clothes. And isn’t this the best way to do it? Discreetly, with people who at least feel that they are trustworthy, her friends? I can sense Max’s presence somewhere down the hill, the engine of my expensive car idling, the way he sits silent in the front seat, his phone bathing his face in dead blue light. But I can convince him. Rosanna did. I can convince him, and I can go. I feel her blood in my veins, a prickle of energy. Yes, I think. Yes, this is right. Max will be as curious as I am. He will want to know Rosanna’s secrets as much as I do, maybe more. And I can help him. I can make him say yes.

  “Okay,” I say, “I’ll think about it. Be right back.”

  * * *

  —

  In the bathroom (white subway tile, gold fixtures, black glass candle filling the air with a heavy rose scent), I turn the tap on high and call Max. He answers on the first ring. I imagine him holding the phone tight in his hands, waiting, nervous. As the candle flickers, I watch my face shift in and out of being in the dark mirror.

  “What is it?” Max asks. “What happened? Did something happen?”

  “Hey,” I say, “it’s okay. I’m okay. Nothing happened. It’s just some things have come up that we didn’t cover. Was Rosanna sleeping with anyone here? A man called Leo?”

  There is a long silence. “No,” he says finally. But he sounds uncertain. “That’s impossible. She would have told me. I…we…She would have said.”

  “Maybe so, Max,” I say. “I’m sure she wanted to. But what if she couldn’t? I think there’s something going on here. Something beyond either of us. Something only Rosanna knows. Can you ask her? I know it’s unorthodox, but just text her, ask her about Leo. For me?”

  But he won’t text her, I know. He’s too curious, and she will almost certainly lie if he asks her directly, tell him to tell me to leave it alone. All I need to do is push just the right amount, delicate, careful, making sure Max thinks it’s his idea. Again, there is silence on the other end of the line.

  “This wasn’t on the cards, Max,” I say.

  I keep my voice as gentle as I can. We’re in this together, his leg as firmly clamped in Leo’s sweaty palm as mine.

  “Leo has a card, but there was nothing about their relationship. Just his name, the fact that he’s married to Eleanor. His only appearance on the tape is that one lunch where they’re drinking martinis together, and I thought she was acting sort of familiar, but I never expected anything like this. She’s lying to you, Max. She’s lying to us both.”

  “I remember that lunch,” says Max. “From the footage. It was one time. Business. Nothing like…nothing like what you’re saying.”

  “Max,” I say, “I know you don’t want to hear this from me, but you have to. She’s keeping secrets from you, from us both. And now they want me to go with them to Malibu. I think you’re right, we shouldn’t tell Rosanna. I don’t want to worry her. But
I need to find out what it is he thinks he knows. So we can protect her from him.”

  “No,” Max says again, “you’re wrong.”

  It’s as though he’s talking to himself, as though I haven’t said anything at all.

  “She would have told me,” he says. “There wasn’t anyone else. There wasn’t anyone.”

  His voice sounds fragile, strange. I imagine his stricken face in the faint glow of the streetlights shining through tinted glass.

  “Well, there must be some reason he keeps putting his hand on my thigh,” I say.

  I pause so he can picture it. The body he sculpted with his elaborate diets, his exercise regime, the slinky dress he bought me with her money, another man’s hand on her thigh.

  “She wouldn’t,” he says even softer.

  “She would,” I say, “and she did. I need to go, Max. I need to understand what’s happening.”

  “It’s you,” he says. “It isn’t her. It’s you. Flirting with him. I don’t know what, encouraging him. That’s you. If you need me to remove you from the situation, if you are unable to act responsibly, I will.”

  But I can hear the way his voice shakes. He isn’t certain of the truth of what he says. He doesn’t know any more about this than I do.

  “It’s not me,” I say. “I promise. I wish it was. But we both know it’s not me he wants. He wants Rosanna. And he wouldn’t dare touch her if he didn’t think she’d like it. They were sleeping together before she had that breakdown. They must have been. In fact, maybe it’s his fault. Maybe it was his breaking up with her that pushed her over the edge. I need to find out what he knows. I need to protect you. And Rosanna, too. Who else is looking out for her but us? Who else does she have?”

  Silence, still. I can hear the heavy intake of his breath. I picture him, his eyes closed, so scared, darkness all around him. Who else does Max have? Not Rosanna. No one but me.

  “I’m going, Max,” I say. “I have to. I’ll take the phone with me. I’ll let you know what happens. I’ll make sure you’re close. But I’m going. I need to find out what he knows.”