Beautiful Bodies

by Laura Shaine Cunningham

Genres: General Fiction; Literary Fiction

Synopsis

Manhattan, the coldest night of the year -- six best friends rush to attend a celebration. Blown by wind and snow, the women arrive flushed, each caught in midadventure.... Tonight's the night of nights -- to rejoice in a new lover, leave an unfaithful husband, or decide to have a baby on one's own. These "six in the city" profes-sional women fight for their female choices. Sparks and zingers fly across the table....Love lives, secrets, and friendships go up in candle flame. Who will win -- the romantics or the realists? How can working women triumph in such trying times? While the cell phones chime and the biological clocks rewind, the friends enact a timeless ceremony. Here is our urban "friends-as-family" generation -- Beautiful Bodies is a dazzling comedy of manners in the grand tradition of Dorothy Parker and Mary McCarthy.

Release date: May 8, 2010

Publisher: Atria Books

Print pages: 368

Sample

Chapter One

In which Jessie Girard ponders the possibility of love, buys food for a party, and suffers "hostess regret."

Raw Space

She was out, at night, in New York, laughing on the near-empty street, laughing like a crazy person, which perhaps she was. She didn't feel the record-breaking cold; she was wearing an extra mantle. She was afraid to name the feeling, but she recognized it. Only love could warm you like this, lying soft and unseen, like a cape across your shoulders. She felt wrapped in cashmere and wondered for an instant if all the conspicuous consumption of good woolens and fur that she'd just walked past in the brighter lit shopping district of SoHo was an attempt to substitute for this sensation, when it was missing.

The five-below-zero temperature created an optical illusion as Jessie walked toward her loft. Her vision altered -- she looked out at her street as if through too-strong prescription glasses. The buildings appeared sharp and overly outlined, so distinct that they seemed to move toward her, doubling in dimension, like a 3-D effect in novelty films she'd seen as a child. She felt keen, sharpened herself: everything had just changed for the better. Oh wasn't it wonderful? She laughed again, almost "hearing" his voice as she conducted both sides of a conversation that played on in her mind.

How could she have forgotten love? What had she been doing, thinking, that this could have been lost to her for so long? She felt as if she had been shaken from a dreamless sleep that had lasted nearly a decade.

It had been at least that long since Jessie had nourished delusions of domestic nirvana. She'd been divorced from her childhood sweetheart for years, divorced also from the goal of a marriage. She had edited out a wedding as the hoped-for ending (although from time to time, the image did pop up, like one of those gimmick greeting cards: bride and groom, atop the cake). For years now, she had mentally cried "No" at the unbidden nuptial apparition. She knew better, she thought. When she wanted male companionship, Jessie imagined the comfort of a standing body hug, the clinch at the sink, a warm belly at her back in bed, for better sleeps. Someone to say "I have a cold" to, split an entrée, walk her home from a distant party. Maybe down the road, a friend. A traveling companion to see the world with, when her work was done, if it ever was...Yes, she sometimes thought she might like to share her life, but she'd considered herself content to go it alone.

And now, a man had taken her by literal surprise and left her in, of all things, a state of grace. She had forgotten even the possibility of falling in love. The "falling" part was apt -- she had in fact tumbled backward onto a bed.

As she walked up her block, the memories of the past few days insulated her from the bitter temperature (the date later proved to be the coldest night of the year). How on earth could she have forgotten sex? It had been three years, her longest intermission...but still...

She was still laughing at the jokes they had shared -- "I can feel my bones creak." And the way her body had remembered for her, and she'd found herself rotating her hips in the time-honored way, hopping into unaccustomed positions. Oh yes, she'd remembered thinking, I used to do this -- as she'd kissed his chest, nursing on his vestigial nipples...

Oh, dear, Jessie ordered herself, stop thinking of the vestigial nipples...She had to descend to earth...She reached into her pocket to hold the glove that he had lost, and she had found. What is love without a talisman? The old sheepskin glove kept the shape of his fingers, even the lines of his palm. She held it as, only last night, she had held his hand. She must remember to tell him that she had his glove; she had found it in her pocket, after she boarded the plane.

On this particular night, Butane Street appeared as desolate as a moonscape, lunar in its loneliness. The last people she had seen were two blocks past. Later, she would recall them also, as signs of the specific quality of this night. There had been three lone individuals -- a drug dealer, incongruous for Christmas, peddling his pharmaceutical presents; a man exposing himself in a doorway; and a woman in a motorized wheelchair, buzzing past, a beatific smile on her face.

On another night, Jessie might have wondered how that woman could be happy, paralyzed, making her way alone, but tonight she thought she knew. On another night, she might have resented the drug peddler more, now she thought, It's terrible, but it must be anesthesia for people in pain. On another night, she might have been disgusted by the flasher; tonight, she felt sorry for him, waving his penis in the cold, tugging at himself for carnal consolation.

A great benevolence had descended upon Jessie; she was warmed and buoyed by her past weekend, the newness of being touched again. She had thought that might never happen. Especially now, since the past few years, and the series of harsh events, one of which had left its imprint on her body. Could it be so simple? That all she had needed was that touch? Could one other person make the entire difference? Between going forward, with an inner tremble, or rushing ahead, uplifted and glad, ready for whatever might happen next?

Tonight, she was facing a social challenge, but it didn't truly daunt her. If she looked at the logistics -- that she had to prepare a party in less than an hour -- she would have to admit defeat in advance. She was too happy to concentrate on details; her euphoria separated her even from herself. In her mind, she was back in Colorado. She was thinking not of what she had to do, but what she had just done. The kissing, the holding...she saw, in her mind's eye, his face, his chest -- to which she had said a playful good-bye, ducking her head under his sweater as they sat in his parked car at the airport. She could still feel his skin, pick up the scent, and taste him on her tongue. She finally understood everything she'd ever read of magic spells and cloud nine.

Should she tell her friends about the weekend? Or, better to keep the secret, sweet and private, to herself? If she spoke the words aloud, would the spell disintegrate into the atmosphere, like the vapor rising from the gutter grate?

Stop thinking about this, she told herself. Get the apartment in order, cook the food, uncork the wine, light the candles. Her pace quickened, in step with her thoughts: get upstairs, turn on the oven, clear the worst of the debris. She recalled the mess upstairs -- her laundry on the bed, all her research materials on the table and started to laugh.

I am doomed, she told herself, with an inner giggle. It was as if the gods had conspired. Not only had the weather not "cooperated" -- it was now deteriorating. The ice storm that had delayed her return flight to New York by a day had now rejoined her here. The wind picked up as she walked; the forecast was that snow would follow.

Jessie fought the river wind as she made her way on the long, final block west. The wind was so powerful it blew her one step back, for every two she took forward. A few times, she had to stop, to rebalance her shopping bags. Her hands gripped the sacks, heavy with Australian red wine, Pellegrino water, the five Cornish hens, and ten pounds of Yukon gold potatoes.

Oh why had she bought such heavy food? Why potatoes? Most of the women were dieting; they might get angry at the sight of the potatoes. They might identify with the potatoes. At the moment, Jessie herself felt not unlike a potato, bundled in her beige down coat, bulky and lumpy, her head sticking up like a knobby growth.

She had walked a good twelve blocks from Dean & DeLuca. Her boots had failed to be waterproof and now her feet felt like the potatoes too, only frozen. As she paused, one shopping bag slipped, and the bottom hit the slush on the sidewalk. The sodden paper gave way, and the hens slipped out, five goose-pimpled poultry corpses, falling into the gutter of Hudson Street. Jessie cursed as she tried to retrieve the hens. More groceries spilled into the street. The three so-called blood oranges that she had intended to serve macerated in cassis rolled toward a sewer opening. Oh, what had she been thinking to have a dinner party at her apartment? Why hadn't they all just chosen a restaurant? But that had seemed much too impersonal for this evening's occasion.

An hour earlier, she had hit the ground running. She'd dropped her suitcase off at the loft, then taken the airport cab straight to Dean & DeLuca to buy as many prepared foods as possible. Oh why had she gotten ambitious at the food counter? Why hadn't she just gone ahead and bought the meal, precooked?

As she crawled on the pavement, trying to retrieve all the food that had spilled, Jessie recalled her rationale. She wanted tonight to be different, so special...beyond catering, past takeout. She would cook every item herself, to ensure its perfection. That had seemed more festive somehow, more personal. It was just as easy to roast the hens as buy them already cooked and costing ten times as much. Those itsy-bitsy hens -- it seemed as if the smaller they were, the more they cost.

I can do an apricot glaze, she had told herself, but she hadn't answered the unasked question: when? When would she have time? Then, of course, she didn't dare wait for delivery; she'd better get to roasting right away. She'd counted on getting a taxicab, forget the cost -- it was a bad and also important night. Time was all that mattered. She'd stood at the curb, flailing for a cab, and of course, there had been none. So here she was at 5:30 P.M., with uncooked little chickens, going up to a semiclean apartment, with her five best friends expected in an hour.

It was impossible. They would understand of course -- they were her friends. They had known one another for so long, seen one another's unretouched moments. This was the old Theresa House gang, her first friends in the city. They all "went back"; they'd seen each other naked, sick, crying, vomiting. But that didn't mean she should strive for such cinema verité tonight. This was supposed to be a festive occasion -- it would be unpleasant to sit there, in the disorder.

As she bent over the pavement, picking up the cold little Cornish hens, Jessie mentally projected and could see the two weeks' worth of laundry piled on her bed. How could she clean up in time? All her research was strewn across the living room, the cat box was unchanged in the bathroom...Her mind was reeling -- what to do first? Set the table, roast the Cornish hens? If only she had time, how she'd love a hot shower. Jessie knew she'd be lucky if she got to pee, which she also had to do.

As she retrieved the fallen blood oranges, the phone rang in her purse. Jessie wasn't yet accustomed to the cell phone. She had ambivalent feelings about having one. Only a few weeks ago, she'd looked askance at the people walking, talking, down the street. She'd thought they looked like idiots, and now she was one of them. The beeps emitted, with electronic insistence, from deep within her handbag. For a moment, Jessie imagined her purse was talking to her, the voice of materialism, speaking up for itself. She struggled into a doorway and tried to answer, but she could hear only a high cackle, unintelligible against the howl of the wind.

Even though she knew it wasn't him -- the man she had just begun to love -- her heart had quickened, and she controlled her breathing as she spoke into the receiver. He had said he would phone her tonight, but later. She was sure he would keep his word -- this man was so wonderful; he was creditable. It was still too early. "Eight o'clock" he had said. So this call had to be from someone else. It rang again, but now there was only a mechanized moan emitting from the receiver, as if the tiny cell phone had intersected some galactic disturbance high above her.

Jessie imagined the call was from one of her guests who had decided not to brave the elements tonight. Who would want to go out in this weather?

This was a stay-home night if ever there was one. Even Jessie thought of an evening alone in her big old easy chair, cuddled in a comforter, sipping hot soup, reading, patting the cat, reliving the private pleasures of her trip to Colorado. Maybe she should have called everyone from the airport, while there was still time.

But Jessie had gone to so much effort already. First, there had been the difficulty of choosing a date, on which they could all attend. Jessie had sorted through the details of all their calendars: six women, six schedules. Then, it had been almost impossible to convince Claire to accept a party in her honor. She had refused, saying, "It's too much bother." Jessie had to talk her into it, swearing not to call the party a "baby shower."

The truth was, they were all wondering about Claire; she had not seen any of them in three months. It was mysterious, not like Claire. She had dropped out of ballet class, their reading group, the subscription to the Manhattan Theatre Club. They had all invited her for dinner, a movie, anything, and she had avoided them all. This was odd, and Jessie wanted to see for herself. The party, the "it's-not-a-baby-shower-but-is" had to be tonight: they would never be able to agree on a new date, in time.

For a minute, she wished she'd never moved from Midtown; she wished she hadn't volunteered to be the hostess tonight. She fumbled in her purse, clawing through receipts, lipsticks, pencils, finally finding her keys at the bottom of her bag. The keys were industrial, hard and utilitarian, like the building, a former factory.

The name FRANKENHEIMER'S was still engraved above the door. The final irony, learned after she bought her loft, was that Jessie's own grandmother had labored in this very building in l917, when it was still a millinery sweatshop. Almost a century ago, her grandmother had stood, possibly in Jessie's own loft, gluing feathers onto felt hats, for a dollar a week. Now, Jessie Girard, her granddaughter, had mortgaged herself for half a million dollars, to occupy the same space. How many feathers glued to how many brims? How many feathers to support oneself?

Jessie juggled the packages, dropped the cell phone in the slush, and suddenly became aware that a pile of what she had believed was rags had risen and was beckoning to her from the next doorway. He was a vagrant; she had seen him before -- he wore a fur-lined flyer's cap, a peacoat, and open galoshes. He was begging, she guessed, although often he just muttered obscenities or screamed "It all sucks." Sometimes, though, he was oddly specific and muttered "They all wear the same perfume now."

Tonight he moved closer to her, and Jessie was startled to see that he was carrying a tote bag that was marked with a Ralph Lauren insignia: the miniature polo player, riding for the strike. Could this bum be a refugee from a Ralph Lauren lifestyle? That chilled Jessie more than the freezing temperature. No, surely not; he'd somehow come by the bag through illicit means. The Ralph Lauren bag appeared in rather good condition, two-toned, canvas and tan leather. The bum reached into the bag and leaned toward her. She could smell whiskey and his body odor, which was ripe and somehow fruity, like a spoiled banana. He breathed something in her ear, which she tried not to hear. She forced her door inward, and slid inside, before processing what he had said:

"Ecstasy."

"No thanks," she whispered.

Ecstasy. Shivering, glad to be indoors, Jessie rode the former freight elevator to the top floor, twelve, and stepped directly into her loft.

The loft was beautiful, what her friend Martha called "drop-dead beautiful" with its big views looking downtown to the south and out across the sequined stripe of the Hudson to the west. Jessie always wondered what Martha meant by "drop-dead beautiful" -- that the place was so stunning, you could collapse in cardiac arrest? Or that the layout was so in-your-face gorgeous, that the less real estate-endowed would expire in envy? Martha touted fatal foyers and killer kitchens. Certainly, Jessie could agree, the stakes had risen in the city and a spire could cut through your heart.

Tonight, having left the mountainscape of the Rockies, craggy but somehow gentled by their snowcaps, Jessie returned to her urban vista with a shock. The high-rise offices loomed, hard-cut, sparkling giants of commerce -- the edifices seemed to personify the business world. Were they always so glary? When Jessie was overworked or behind on the minimum payments on her credit cards, she suffered another sort of optical illusion -- the city turned Cubist, its corners cut like daggers.

There was one office tower she could see downtown; her friend Lisbeth joked and called it the "Darth Vader" -- the building was obsidian, and it did glare at her, challenging her to meet its aggression. Jessie had had day-mares of herself, sliding down its shear surface, fingernails clutching at glass, all the way down. The gutslide down glass. Jessie had not been born in the city; much as she had longed for it; within her was that stomach clutch of fear. New York was home, but she felt as if the welcome mat could be yanked at any moment.

Now, coming back after only a few days, Jessie was stunned by the way, in her absence, the loft seemed to have reverted to its former identity. It was as if the loft knew it was not a loft but a sweatshop: all that greeted her inside were the shadows, animate with a century of memory; the ghosts of cheap labor crouched in its corners.

She tripped over her soft-sided suitcase, jackknifed like a body. Jessie pitched forward into her 1,800 square feet of "raw space." A year ago, when she bought this "raw space," she'd relished the expression. "Raw" -- it had seemed appetizing, a challenge, an architectural "raw" bar to sink her talented teeth into. She'd been happy to buy it "raw" -- the only way she could afford it. "Rawness" had beckoned, an empty palette. She had not reckoned with how "raw" it would feel to live in an unfinished space, to try to work and survive in what had essentially been a construction site for the past eight months.

Tonight, returning after such a short trip, she felt, at first glance, that she'd lost what interior ground she had gained. This did not look, feel, or smell homey.

Jessie inhaled the scent of plaster, spackling. The instant she was behind her own door, the need to pee, which had been urgent before, became uncontrollable. The urge won out over her desire to check the phone answering machine, and the stack of unopened mail, shoved under her door. She crossed her legs and hopped in a near dance step toward the toilet that she herself had installed. As Jessie performed her odd jig she passed the cat, who lurched from the shadows.

At first Jessie thought the animal, desperate in its loneliness, was greeting her. The cat was one of those white cats, with blue eyes, that are born deaf. She had not heard Jessie enter; she must have responded to the vibration of her step and the cue of the light switch. As the animal weaved toward her, Jessie recognized that the cat was retching. The cat began to heave, a fur ball caught in its throat; her eyes rolled, staring up at Jessie as if to say "Help."

Oh, not now, Jessie thought. Et tu, Colette?

Jessie hopped into the bathroom she had built, without bothering to shut the substandard door that she had also installed. Inside the little gray bathroom, where the slate tiles had been set somewhat askew by her own hand, Jessie struggled to get her panties down in time, and crashed onto the half unhinged toilet seat. As she peed in this precarious position, she tilted forward on the askew seat and was brought into direct eye contact with a leaflet entitled "Buyer's Remorse" that rested on the floor, amongst other papers she had intended to stack for recycling.

I have buyer's remorse, all right, she admitted to herself. And she had something else that she'd read about in a woman's magazine on the plane -- "hostess regret." "Hostess regret" was defined as a syndrome that strikes women an hour before guests arrive -- the hostess regrets she ever planned a party. As Jessie sat there on a crooked little toilet seat, both feelings merged; "the buyer's remorse" and the "hostess regret." These twin emotions melded into the greater worry over her own fiery urgency, this burning she felt...

Maybe she had more than a need to pee? Maybe she had contracted some exotic venereal disease from the man she'd gone to bed with back in Colorado? Venereal disease or just cystitis? Because she had known pleasure, did she now have to suffer?

No, she refused to suffer. So much sex. Cystitis, for sure. She recalled her honeymoon, twenty years before, when as a teenage girl, she'd returned home from the Caribbean with her innards on fire. So much sex then, too, but it had been the youthful, gymnastic intercourse she'd engaged in, with her husband, Hank.

Although she had no time to reminisce -- she should clean and at least preheat the oven -- Jessie could not help recalling the sensation of an overused vulva. Yes, so much sex then too...but repetitive, almost grueling intercourse. At nineteen, she had not been able to properly evaluate her honeymoon; Hank had been her "first." Now, many men and years later, Jessie did not want to regard that sex as "bad" or wasted effort, but she was even more puzzled in retrospect by the quality of those marital relations. While she had known they loved each other, that love had not been well expressed physically. Her ex-husband, Hank, could be tender in talk and intimate by mail, but when he entered her body, his spirit had seemed to depart. He had been entirely physical, avoided eye contact when engaged.

Her husband had been handsome, relentlessly virile, Jessie conceded as she sat, in slight discomfort, on her self-installed "throne," but she preferred what she had just experienced with a stranger to the emotionless exchange that had passed between her husband and herself for the twelve years of their marriage.

Intimacy, she supposed, wasn't acquired or learned -- it was either absent or magically intrinsic: oh, in Colorado...the kindling in that man's eyes, desire and liking, a humor that had not impeded their passion (he had entered her while still trying to kick off one cowboy boot). Laughing, lusting...everything at once -- alien and familiar.

Sex was mystery, Jessie admitted to herself. It didn't make sense. She and Hank had loved each other, stayed together...yet they had been less intimate than she had just been with a near-stranger.

She finished in the bathroom, tossed the "Buyer's Remorse" pamphlet in the wicker wastebasket. No time for regrets of any kind tonight. She'd better get on with it...Clean or cook first?

Jessie had a method, the same one she applied to her work as a journalist. She evaluated the situation, tackled what was in front of her. Systematically, she solved the worst problems first...like triage at a battlefield. A dinner party was no different. She decided: a good hostess deals first with what would be most disgusting to guests.

The mess. Outside the bathroom door, she confronted the cat, Colette, who was now puking in great, back-arching spasms, spewing spirals of congealed regurgitated cat food and fur. This was a priority. Jessie grabbed a paper towel, and mopped up the cat's mess. Then she hauled out the vacuum cleaner and dragged it, roaring, around the 1,800 square feet. For the first time she rued her vast square footage. The vacuum began to backfire tubes of compacted grime that were a match for Colette's upchuckings.

And I wanted this to be elegant, Jessie thought. Now she'd be lucky if no one called the Health Department. She ran for her emergency weapons -- the broom, dustpan, and a mammoth trash bag. Kneeling, she clawed at the vacuum bag by hand, stuffed the trash bag, picked up the worst of the lint, and dumped the kitty litter. She marveled at the calcified consistency of the cat turds. A stray cat turd rolled across the bathroom floor, and Jessie picked it up; she could feel a deep chill emanating from that cat turd, as if cat turds had a mysterious negative ability to retain frigid temperature. Oh, how was tonight going to be beautiful, festive with all this to handle...?

She offered Colette a plate with pats of expensive unsalted creamery butter, said to be a remedy for fur balls and calcified cat turds. The cat licked, appeared cured, and collapsed in a heap before the unlit fireplace, on a throw rug. She began to purr, a near-snore of joy.

The scene could be salvaged. Jessie put the oven on high, to preheat, then looked around the room. Solve the most drastic problem first: clear the kitchen table, set the silverware. That would give an appearance of readiness, even if inaccurate...

Jessie started to pick up the unsorted papers on the table and came eye to eye with a news picture, grainy black and white on thermal fax paper. Her hand stopped, and she stared down at his face. Him. The One. He was shown, his professional expression set -- "Jesse Dark, civil liberties attorney, Native American rights activist, representing his tribe, descendents of the Anasazi in a defamation suit."

Had she inklings, all the weeks she had researched and studied these clips, that she would end up in a motel bed with him? That she would find herself, heels locked behind his neck, head thrown back, her throat emitting unrecognizable sounds of what she dimly called joy?

She tried to remember when she first felt the stirrings. Those preliminary days, across from him in court, she had noted his starched shirt, the string tie, the impossible fit of his jeans, the beaten heels of his cowboy boots. Yes, she'd secretly acknowledged he was one of the more attractive men she'd seen...but never would she have predicted that in another night, she would look up to the ceiling of a motel room and regard its stuccoed surface as...her glimpse of heaven.

No, she had had no idea. She had been taken unawares, thank God. Jessie had prided herself on her seriousness as a journalist. "He" had been a subject, not a potential object of affection. "He" glared back at her from her thermal fax image: "He" looked handsome, even in the grainy, poor reproduction, sulky and swarthy as his name suggested: Jesse Dark. Jessie giggled, transfixed: he looked so severe, who would have believed he was playful?

Somewhere in this pile of clutter, Jessie had a videotape that showed her male namesake (and possible soul mate) addressing a crowd of protesters outside a cave. Within that cave his ancestors, of the Anasazi tribe, were accused of killing their ancient enemies, cooking and devouring their flesh and then -- this was the worst accusation -- defecating their digested remains on the campfire.

It was this detail -- that the ashes had perfectly preserved the human feces -- that had allowed for DNA testing now, so many centuries later -- that had caught Jessie Girard's trained eye and triggered something in her too, something she could not understand. What a defining moment, how astounding that scientists could re-create the specific incident: a moment of ultimate rage, that had taken place over a thousand years ago. In a sense that ancient fire had been relit, and the sworn enemies, reengaged. It was the sort of story Jessie loved. She had known she had to cover the demonstration, she had to interview the man who led it...There was a book in it. And now, she felt, God help her, that she had to hear from that man again, that she had to touch him...

Jessie paused in her preparations. She knew she had to put away all these papers, tapes, files, but the subject drew her and now, of course, she knew the man in the photograph...Knew him? His DNA floated within her. Her thighs still ached from being held down by his hands, in those unaccustomed positions. She could, if she concentrated, recall the exact pressure of his tongue and teeth on her nub of flesh.

We went a little crazy, she recalled, happy. They had in fact, crossed some boundary in each other and come out howling on the other side. Although she would never have dared tell him -- he was a cannibal, all right, she had thought, but only in the best sense.

No sexual reverie, she forbid herself. Jessie forced herself to resume tidying: she threw the extra items -- her work, the newspapers, assorted junk of all description -- on a bedsheet, bagged the whole mess, and threw it in the closet. Not a tip from Martha Stewart or a Hint from Heloise, but this hid a multitude of sins. She reserved the snapshots of Jesse Dark, of course. She couldn't throw him in the closet. She tucked the pictures in the utility drawer near the stove. Maybe she would show her friends, later, if it seemed appropriate.

No time now for recalled orgasmic joy...she had to roast the hens...glaze them...what had she been thinking?

Jessie could cook; she knew what to do. Zing, zing, zing, she washed and rubbed down the goose-pimpled little hens. Zing, zing, zing, she forced softened butter under their skins...Zing, zing, zing, she rubbed them down with more butter, apricot jam, and ginger. Then she splayed out their legs; set them, in this mass un