Always (14 page)

“See how having her hands trapped in her pockets means she’s lost one whole set of body weapons,” I said to the class.

“But even with her hands free she couldn’t do much with them from there,” Pauletta said.

I let go of Christie. “You grab me this time.” She did, gripping her own wrists and getting a solid base. “Okay, my arms are still trapped by my side but this time my hands are out of my pockets. My attacker’s expecting me to try to pull them free.” I made as if to do that and Christie tightened her grip obligingly. “But think about what I can reach if I move the other way.” I moved both hands easily to her inner thighs. “The groin’s very vulnerable from here, but he won’t be expecting me to go for it because he thinks I’ll be struggling to escape. Okay, what else can I reach? Think about the different body weapons.”

“Kick him,” Katherine, sounding excited. Kicking seemed to be her thing.

“Yes, right foot or left: a stamp straight down onto the top of his foot would hurt, especially if I was wearing heels. There are also lots of nerve endings in the shin. You could scrape”—I lifted my left foot and ran the bare heel gently down Christie’s shin—“or I could kick back, like a donkey. ” I demonstrated in slow motion. “What else?”

“Nails,” Kim said, with a
ha!
look. “ ’Specially in summer.”

“Yes, if his legs are bare you could get his thighs, maybe even behind his knees if he’s really tall. Lots of blood vessels behind the knees, and the hamstring. The femoral artery in the groin. Perhaps you could reach forward to get the back of his hands. Very sensitive there.” And a lot of tendons. “What else? What about his face?” Blank looks. “Think. Use your head, literally.” I did a slow-motion head butt. “It would depend on his height, but you could get his nose or chin or collarbone.” Break the collarbone just right and bone splinters would tear up the big blood vessels that lead up to the neck.

“Wouldn’t that hurt?” Jennifer said.

“The skull’s very thick at the back, near the top, and there aren’t many nerve endings. What else? What would he be expecting? Think about different dimensions.”

Silence, then “Downwards,” Nina said. “You could go down, to the floor. Wriggle out like a kid would. He wouldn’t expect that. Unless he had three-year -olds at home.”

“Good. Or if he’s trying to drag you off, you can go limp, like a child, make it really hard for him to carry you. Okay, thank you, Christie.”

She let go and I flexed my arms a couple of times.

“There are endless ways to deal with any situation. What I want you to do is find ways to use an attacker’s expectations against them. If they expect you to go forward, go back. If they think you’ll pull, push. You could do worse than remember Nina’s words: like a kid would. A very badly behaved kid. Be loud, be definite, be badly behaved, kick up a fuss: refuse to do as you’re told. Don’t be afraid to call attention to yourselves. Think in three dimensions. Be stubborn, be contrary, be totally self-absorbed. It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks, especially your attacker. You don’t owe anyone an apology, or explanation, or information, or help, or even understanding. Be selfish. If you wouldn’t let it happen to your child or your parent, don’t let it happen to you.”

That would help only so much. Their training was bone deep. I wanted them to leave today with one thing, just one, that would make it permissible for them to hurt someone to protect themselves, a way for them to impersonalize the choice.

“Imagine it’s summer. You get a new grill that burns so clean you can’t see the flame, all you can see is the heat shimmering over it. You invite your neighbors, all adults, around for a barbecue, but you warn them, each and every one, about the grill—that it’s hot, they’re not to go near it—yet the woman next door sticks her hand in it and gets burnt. Whose fault is that?”

“Wouldn’t be mine,” said Pauletta. I looked at Katherine, who nodded, then Jennifer, who said, “The neighbor’s. Absolutely.”

“So, what?” Suze said. “We should set ourselves on fire?”

“Yes. In a way.” They gawped at me. “Split into two groups, one this side of the room, one that. Each group subdivides into a two and a three. The two face the three. I want the twos in the center facing out.” The room would be just about big enough. Nina and Tonya faced Pauletta, Katherine, and Kim. Suze and Christie faced Sandra, Jennifer, and Therese. Nina grinned and started to click her fingers: the Sharks versus the Jets. “So, Nina and Tonya, and Suze and Christie, you’re two friends out somewhere— where?”

“The parking lot outside Kroger,” said Nina.

“The soccer fields in Piedmont Park,” said Suze.

“So you’re walking along, minding your own business, when these three shady characters”—I couldn’t imagine a less shady trio than Therese and Sandra and Jennifer—“step across your path. It’s already clear—maybe from what they’ve said, maybe something they’ve already done, but there’s absolutely no ambiguity—it’s clear that they intend to hurt you. You either have to hurt them back, or get badly injured.”

Each immediately edged closer to her partner.

“Now what?” Nina said. “Is this where we get six feet tall?”

“This is where you set yourselves on fire. Start to swing your arms in a circle perpendicular to the floor. Big, easy circles. No muscle tension.” I demonstrated. “Start slowly. Backwards or forwards, doesn’t matter. Try it. Good. Feel the blood rush to your hands. A little faster. Clench your fists. Remember the first lesson:
blam, pow, zap!
Feel the blood bulging in your fists, making them heavy. Ever seen a kid windmilling on the playground? Charging at a group of other kids? That’s what you’re going to do. Faster. You’re on fire. When you charge, if they don’t get out of the way, it’s not your fault.
Blam, pow, zap.
Faster, as fast as you can! Charge.”

Suze bellowed like a bee-stung bullock and charged, with Christie a split second behind; Tonya leapt forward with a screech and Nina followed, laughing. Their opponents, sensibly, ran away. Tonya, still screeching, galloped after them, chasing Pauletta and Katherine, then Jennifer, who had run all the way around the wall to get away from Suze.

“Okay, quick, Therese and Sandra, Kim and Katherine, in the center. Pump your arms, charge!”

Therese did not make a sound, but I didn’t worry about that. Sandra’s silence was more troubling. Katherine squealed and Kim hooted, and the other women were shouting or laughing so much that it didn’t matter.

“And Jennifer and Pauletta, and Suze and Christie again. Mill those arms. Go!” This time I definitely heard Christie, and Pauletta made a sound a bit like a police siren. “Yell,” I said, “anything, any sound you like. All of you, attacker and defender. Make it loud. Anything. Your lungs are bellows pumping the fire.” The noise was deafening. Through it I heard Jennifer making a thin
Eeeeee!
like an otherworldly kettle about to boil over. Pauletta’s ululating siren began to climb in pitch, then soared into a scream that sliced across the room and brought the action stuttering to a halt like a video glitch.

“Enough. Good.” They were all grinning. Pauletta was high-fiving Nina. “If you charge like that at a bad guy and he doesn’t get out of your way, it’s not your fault he gets hurt. Clarity of communication is the key.”

“But what if one of them had a knife?” Jennifer asked.

“In that case you’d break for one of the unarmed assailants.”

“What if they all had knives?”

“I can show you variations on the hand technique to protect blood vessels and tendons, but in all likelihood you’d get some kind of cut.”

“What if one of them had a gun?”

“Handguns are notoriously inaccurate, even when the shooter is well trained. And it’s very hard to be accurate when someone is charging at you, screaming.”

“What if they all had guns?”

Or a flamethrower, a tank battalion, a tactical nuke . . . We could play this game forever. “You would use all that you know to stay alive. You know more today than you did yesterday. In every class you’ll understand more. But let’s be clear, there is no magic bullet, no funny handshake, no secret decoder ring. Nothing and no one can keep you perfectly safe. There are only probabilities. We prepare, we practice, we do the work, and then we try to forget about it, because no matter how big and fast and strong you are, how heavily armed or well trained, there’s always going to be someone out there who is bigger, faster, or stronger. Always.”

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.