Charleston Rowena Mudd

Well, good God Almighty!” I squealed, dry martini in hand, when a giant white rabbit—I mean a human being dressed like a rabbit—hopped into the blizzard otherwise known as Edith’s White Party.

I was working on my second cocktail of the evening—I admit that I was downing them a tad fast—when the little hopper showed up and started throwing marshmallows everywhere. Lucinda caught two of them in midair and stuffed her cheeks with them.

“Whaddya think?” she mumbled. “Do I look like an albino chipmunk?”

“Please don’t do that,” I said. “It freaks me out.” I nodded toward the rabbit. “Who is that?”

“Who the fuck do you think it is? Fucking Dr. Z.” She spit the marshmallows into a napkin. “Gross. Why did I do that?” She wadded up the spit-slick deflated things and tossed them on a side table.

“That’s disgusting,” I said, and walked away.

I bumped into Croley. If I had been a normal woman—you know, had married, birthed babies, that sort of thing—I would have tapped Croley to be my daughter’s husband. “Did you flunk your chemistry test, or what?” I asked.

He grabbed his heart as if wounded. “Where is your confidence in me? I got a B!”

“That’s fabulous. Congratulations. You’re not drinking. Why?”

“I have a date tonight.” He looked at his watch. It always surprised me that he wore a watch. It seemed such an adult thing to do, and he struck me as such a blond sun-streaked surfer child. “In fact”—he searched the crowd as if scoping out his path—“I gotta go soon.”

“Ah,” I said, and saluted him with my drink as he drifted away. But I wasn’t alone for long, because right as I was about to lose sight of Croley, my elbow was grabbed by a certain rabbit, who no longer sported a furry little head. Dr. Z pecked me on the cheek.

“Charlee, my God, it’s good so see you,” he said. Then, in a hyperfit, he Gatling-gunned about twenty questions, and for some reason—perhaps my sheer brilliance—I found myself foundering in the sudden recognition of his loss. Two women—one a lover, the other a friend—ripped from his orbit by what? God? Chance?

I hugged him tightly, the white fur tickling my mouth. “We have so much to talk about, Zachary. It’s been way too long. That brief visit in January simply won’t do.”

Seemingly at ease in his ridiculous costume, he said, “I agree.”

I pulled back and diverted my eyes because I felt that telltale electrical current zip between us—you know, the split-second sexual-awakening jolt that gets us in deep, swamp-muck trouble? I was in no mood to get stuck in the quagmire of animal lust. Sex for the sake of sex was out of the question. Fuck Ahmed, I thought. Fuck him for jilting me and leaving me in such a mess. I would not, on any day a sane person could name, on any planet, in any universe, be attracted to Zachary Klein. It was not going to happen. No way. I silently lectured myself on that point at I stood there biting my lip, thinking, I never realized how darkly handsome Zachary is.

So I don’t know why in heaven’s name I said, “That sounds delightful” when he asked, “How about I freshen up these martinis and we go on the porch and get caught up under the stars?”

All I know is that I pulled on my blue overcoat—didn’t I stick out like an indigo dot in all the white—and we wandered outside and gazed up at the night, and I said that the wind was blowing so hard, it seemed to me that it might rearrange the constellations. And then I managed to make out the Big Dipper, which pleased me no end (my ability to identify constellations ranks right up there with my ability to have a successful relationship), and I told Zachary how sorry I had been to hear about Katrina’s death and that I hadn’t been a good friend (that is so true—I never even sent a card; I was so wrapped up in my new life at Cambridge, I lost all threads of active compassion for the people at home). He rubbed my shoulder with that rabbit-fur hand of his, which aroused a faint tingling in my nether regions, I’m sorry to say, and then he gazed out at the black sea and offered absolution in the way of some prattle about how he always knew I was thinking only the best for him and Katrina.

And then, in the same breath, he whispered, “I don’t think it was an accident.”

I didn’t get it at first. I thought we were talking about Katrina. How could cancer be an accident? Or, of course it was an accident. No one intentionally gets cancer. “Z, what are you talking about?”

“Tsk, tsk, tsk!” Edith floated onto the porch, bearing exactly what we did not need: more martinis. “Shame on you both for being so serious. For leaving the party. Here. Have another, you lushes, you!” She set the glasses on the rail, adjusted her wig with a firm tug, and then took our empties. She shot us a knowing look, the kind of glance that says, You don’t fool me. I get the sexual drift. As she spun in her white satin shoes—ever the lady—she said over her shoulder, “Don’t be too long, darlings. You’re starting to bore me.”

Z pulled at the neck of his rabbit suit. “This thing is hot.”

“It’s really, um, fetching,” I said.

“Hey, this is a great costume. And this shop I found on-line, it’s . . .”

He started to detail the many different types of costumes one could order off the Internet. I put my hand on his. “Wait, wait, wait. Back up. I want to know what wasn’t an accident.”

“Oh. We’re back to that.” His hypermode swung into a low glower. He took a very healthy swig.

“That bad, eh?”

He nodded and wiped his mouth on the back of his rabbit arm. He put both hands on the rail and pressed down. “Murmur Lee. It was no accident.”

I stared at him really hard. He kept his dark-eyed gaze aimed at the ocean. I sipped my martini. Then I gulped it. The vodka tasted like ice and fire and poison.

“I know,” I said.

“How did you know?”

“It’s an ovary thing—like a gut feeling. Sometimes things just don’t set right.”

“Why didn’t you say something?”

“Whoa!” The vodka helped spark my instant anger. “You’re the physician. You were the one who first ruled it an accident. And the autopsy bore you out. And now suddenly you’re saying it wasn’t an accident and asking why I didn’t say something. Well, this pisses me off six ways from Sunday!”

“Oh, calm down, Charlee. You’ve always been too easy to make mad. You’ve got to understand: Determining foul play or suicide in cases of drowning is close to impossible through an autopsy alone. She didn’t have any bruising consistent with a struggle.”

Oh Christ, that was too much information. I didn’t want to hear this after all. Why had I said anything? I wanted to go back inside and get very, very drunk. I turned away, but the big rabbit reached for me, spun me back around, and held me by my shoulders.

“Listen, Charlee. The cops said it wasn’t a crime scene. And you and I both know Murmur Lee would never kill herself. Fuck! Accident. I had to say it was an accident!” Zachary let go of me and slammed the rail with his rabbit hand.

I emptied my glass, one long shot right down my throat. I was raging angry and didn’t know why, so I yelled, “Fuck you, Z. This totally sucks. I mean it just sucks.” I started crying.

“Don’t start with the tears. You think I don’t know it sucks?” He downed the rest of his drink, and as he did, a Volvo pulled up to the house.

“Who the hell is that?”

Z tossed his glass into the sand. “It’s the motherfucker. That’s who it is.” He marched off the porch, his rabbit tail bouncing, mumbling that he was glad he was drunk.

Billy Speare got out of the car and headed toward us. “Don’t, Z! You ain’t big enough!” Vodka, fear, and anger had allowed my redneck soul to emerge.

But Z either didn’t hear me or didn’t care to oblige. Billy Speare paused. He stood in the walkway, his face a mask of confusion as he watched a man in a rabbit suit barrel toward him.

“I’ve wanted to do this for a long time,” announced the good doctor, slurring his words.

Billy looked at the rabbit, then up at me, blinking, totally ignorant as to what was about to happen.

“You no-good son of a bitch,” Z growled. He circled his rabbit arm and then—bam!—hauled off and sucker punched Speare. Yes, bam! I heard it. I heard the cartilage snap. I heard the nose break. I watched Speare go ass-down into the dunes.

“Don’t get up on my account, motherfucker!” Z screamed over the sprawled body of Speare, who was groaning and holding his nose and moaning something akin to “You stupid asshole, you broke my fucking nose!”

There I was, suddenly sober, the wind tangling my hair and stinging my eyes as I watched a man in a rabbit suit rub his hand as he waddled off into the night.

“Z, get your ass back up here,” I screamed. He waved me off, rounded the corner of Edith’s drive, and was out of sight.

For some sick reason, I began to laugh. Insanely. Why was I delighted by this violent and odd turn the evening had taken? “Are you okay?” I hollered, and then laughed some more.

He didn’t respond. Nor did he get up. Shit, maybe he’s dead, I thought. So I staggered inside, vodka rumbling through my veins, even though I felt sober as ice.

“Hey, everybody, listen up!” I clanked a spoon on the side of the martini pitcher. Faces turned toward me. Fuzzy. All of them.

“Don’t make us play no fucking game,” Silas yelled.

“This is serious, Silas. We’ve got one down. Let’s go!”

In a gangly rush, we emptied into the yard, led by Edith, whose long strides and haunted, drawn face betrayed her other life, the masculine one, which haunted her soft edges. As I rushed toward Billy Speare, who was still on the ground, holding his nose and cursing, I realized we were lost, all of us, the whole damn bunch of us.