Page 56 of Dark Ugly Places

“Don’t we need help?”

“I told you,” I say, eyeing her. “That’s what Martha is here for. Don’t you worry, little sister. Everything is going to be all right.”

Emmy lies back on the sofa and turns on the TV. “If you say so.”

My gut hums, all the while Nicola is scratching at me from the inside. From inside Nicola’s purse, I take out the little black-and-white photo of the white Rolls-Royce that Steve gave her. “You found him,” I remind her quietly. “Now let me do the rest.”

Emmy looks over at me. “Who are you talking to?”

“No one, Emmy. No one.”

I stretch back and relax for a moment, contemplating what it will be like to work for someone else. I know Nicola isn’t happy about it, but she doesn’t know me as well as she thinks she does. I can be a good Martha, a nice Martha, a home-and-garden Martha. For a little while.

23

Bambi

Bambi wakes on the cold, guest bathroom tiles. To her left, there’s broken glass and a pinkish stain on the white cabinet. The smell of perfumed bathwater, rose oil, and blood in her nostrils sends a chill up her spine. A handprint on the wall—hers. From where she lies on the floor, she can just about reach her robe crumpled up beneath the washbasin. Her knees ache, and a dull pulsing starts in her bottom lip.

And oh, the effort it takes to pull herself up to the sink! She runs the tap and lifts her head, her reflection staring back at her in the mirror. Pale. Eyes puffy, dark. A small patch of dried blood at her temple, her lip badly bruised. Something reddish-purple on her wrist and arm—bruising?

If she were someone else, she would cry at the face looking back at her, at the naked upper torso too sore to move, at the gaunt and wiry frame before her. Her body is like a shell that has been dragged across the rocks so many times that it’s lost its true form, worn down in places. Hollow, scratched, and broken in others.

Slow, careful steps to turn on the shower. There’s a small cut on the side of her right hand and two broken fingernails splitting off at the nail bed. Her stomach pangs. How did they break? She doesn’t want to recall. Her body seems foreign to her, like a strange, exotic city where you cannot be alone at night, where the lights are neon, and you’ll get your purse stolen—or worse—if you’re not careful.

In the shower, Bambi reaches for the bottle of lavender soap. The scent buoys her, ushering in a memory. The pool. Jason’s voice. Agnes, with her smoker’s cough and constant kowtowing. Behind her deference, a quiet air of disdain, as if she were growing tired of him. Bad boy reputation, unpredictable during interviews, never able to handle himself well on set. A people person, just as long as he is getting his way.

Bambi remembers she’d gone into the guest room to escape. Or that’s what she had thought. But Jason followed her, his fist heavy on the door, demanding to be let in, his hands on her body, forceful, determined. Her lack of obedience had angered him even more. And what had been different this time?

The soap bubbles on her skin as she remembers: this time, she had tried to resist.

Outside, the doves had stopped cooing, and Bambi took refuge in the bathroom. Jason’s patience wore thin. He’d smashed his glass of whiskey on the edge of the tub, the shards colliding with her skin. He’d pulled her onto the white bath mat they’d picked out together that time in Europe. The mat had collected her bright red blood in its long, plush fibers. She’d turned her head, watching it seep in, soaking the cotton like it was a garden that needed to grow.

Could anything really grow in their house? Their house, where this happened?

While Jason was on top of her, a piece of glass had dug into her thigh, cutting, cutting. But she couldn’t stop him, couldn’t get him off her to pluck it out. How could she ever raise a child with him? The thought kept circling, circling. Her body grew tired from resisting, her voice hoarse from telling him to stop. She turned her head so as not to look at him. After it was done, Jason left and slammed the bathroom door, and it echoed across their cold and empty house.

Now in the shower, the remnants of last night drain away. She pulls the shard of glass from her leg at last, feeling the sting of it scraping against her bruised flesh. A fresh wave of bright red blood pours from her leg and pools around her toes. The basin of the granite shower reddens, filling with her blood, and her hand jets out to the wall to stop her from fainting.

When she gets out, she lays down a fresh towel to step on and mops up the rest of the blood. On her hands and knees, she gathers the bath mat into a ball and shakes the glass into the small wastebasket beside the double sink. She stashes the soiled linens under the sinks, where Lucita won’t find them, and plans to throw them out later, after she goes home. Bambi sweeps up the rest of the glass and scours the floor for any remnants. She slides on her robe and turns to the mirror to mop down the condensation with a hand towel to reveal her face.

A thought nods to her from the recesses of her mind, drifting to and fro, like a child riding a seesaw.

If you don’t stop him, he’ll stop you.

If you don’t stop him, he’ll stop you.

If you don’t stop him, he’ll stop you.

It’s the strangest thing, this passing thought. Bambi lets it surface as if it’s something new, and yet she knows this thought has always been there somehow.

How did all of this start, anyway? How does anything like this start? The first time it happened, they had just moved in together. Of her own volition, Bambi had declined a few modeling jobs and stayed home to spend time with Jason before his next film, something she could never do now without fearing the consequences from her agency. They’d stayed up late watching movies, slept in, and stayed in bed until the afternoon, and Bambi asked Lucita to leave them alone for a week. Some mornings, she’d even cook his breakfast and bring it to him on a tray.

But one night after they came home from dinner, the paparazzi following them to the front of the house, Jason announced, “I’m going out.”

Bambi looked up, surprised by the sudden shift. “Going out where?”

“Just out,” he told her. “I need a little space.”