This Body Read Online Free Page B

second time we've ever played in front of people, man. We're scared shitless.” Katharine had watched paisley-clad young
people cavort on the ground and in the ponds, making love, drinking, smoking, dancing. She had watched Sly Stone admonish
the crowd for waiting for the approval of their neighbors to let it all hang down and then work them into a sea of arms raised
in salute, ironically reminiscent of World War II footage Katharine had seen of Hitler's political rallies. She had watched
in sexual excitement as bare-chested Roger Daltrey of The Who pleaded with the audience to see him, feel him, touch him, heal
him. She saw
Woodstock
five times the summer of 1970.
    She put the clothes in a closet to be given away to the Goodwill.
    Small pieces of paper — matchbooks, torn corners of menus, crispy napkins with the outline of once-wet bar glasses in their
centers — were laid out like a solitaire hand on the kitchen table. Written on them were phone numbers. Katharine had found
them in the drawer of one of Thisby's night tables. She had also found a set of keys and a checkbook. There was no ending
balance listed in the account ledger, and the checks were so haphazardly recorded and out of sequence that nothing could be
inferred. The keys had no identifying marks — no automobile insignia, no company logos. It was as if Thisby had lost every
original key and had to replace them with generic ones.
    The address book she had found at the bottom of a night table drawer was obviously old but well used, the cardboard showing
through the cracked and broken pink vinyl. It was a time line of Thisby's life, the handwriting illustrating the evolution
from child to young adult.
    The first entry, under
B
, was written in block printing:

    ANNE & ROBERT BENNET
    1125 HILLCREST HEIGHTS
    BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA 90210
    555-1230

    Then, in progressively maturing styles, were phone numbers for “Mom's work,” “Dad's work.”
    Underneath all of that was “Rob,” first with a dorm address at UCLA, then one for the SAE fraternity house, then listings
for a couple of apartments. The last entry was just a phone number, written with a heavily pressed hand.
    There were other Bennets listed, including a “Kewpie” with a local number and an Uncle Roy with an address in Central America,
but no one with a name beginning with
Q
.
    Or is “Q” also Kewpie?
    In the desk, Katharine had found white lined paper and was now writing out names and their possible relationships to Thisby.
At least I know the names of Thisby's parents, and I assume there is an older brother named Rob who graduated from UCLA some
years back.
    It was early evening, and she was stiff and sore. She had forgotten the pain in her head for a while, but now became acutely
aware of it again. The list she had made wasn't as long as she thought it would be. There were almost more names of bars she
compiled from the cocktail napkins and matchbooks — Goodbars, The Rapture, TechNoir, Potters, and F/X — than of friends who
weren't crossed off and out of Thisby's life. Katharine vowed never to set foot in any of the bars.
And the friends? Well, I certainly can do without them too
. She folded the list and put it in her back pocket.
This is your life, Thisby Flute, reduced to names on wide-ruled school paper. Pretty pathetic, isn't it
?
    That's when the phone rang.

    It rang virtually in her left ear, and she was discombobulated until she realized that the drapes flanking the sliding glass
door obscured a telephone.
    She waited four rings —
I'm not ready
— but the answering machine didn't pick up. She began to shake, and as the ringing went on, each sound jolted her as if she
were being given electroshock treatment.
    She grabbed the receiver even as her brain screamed,
I'm not ready
! “Hello?” she demanded.
    There was a silence, then a voice, sounding disgusted and hostile. “So you are there. What happened? Police run you out?”
    “No” was all she could think of to